Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Mr. Deputy Speaker, prior to entering upon Orders of the Day, I would like to ensure that certain of the arrangements made last week concerning deferral of votes in the House and in committees, the waiving of the quorum requirement in the House and in committees and the altering of the rule regarding the number of members who may request a recorded vote are in place for this week as well. We have honourable members in all parties who have very important responsibilities, not only here but outside of the Legislature as well. I think these arrangements, while we have not resolved all matters, we certainly, I think, all see eye to eye on the point that members do need to be absent from this House for obvious reasons these days, and I think it is an appropriate matter that we continue this agreement that we had last week.

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): On a matter of House business, the agreement last week included a number of components--one, the votes; two, the private members' hour and, three, the Estimates. What we were doing is, obviously, not trying to shortchange the government's timetable on Estimates by cancelling private members' hour and incorporating that time that would normally take place on a Monday evening, cancelling Monday evening so all of us can go out and sandbag. If there are two people sitting here in the House, even in Estimates, they should be sandbagging in our communities and our constituencies. So what the minister described as the agreement last week and what he proposed today is different.

We want to be sandbagging. We can do our Estimates, we can do our sandbagging and we can come to an agreement on the votes. So the agreement last week was, one, that we would not call votes; two, that we would cancel private members' hour; three, we would have Estimates in their place; and, four, we would not sit on Monday evening. We would be where we should be, and that is out in our communities.

So if the minister wants to come back with that agreement, we are certainly willing to incorporate that in our plans this week and we even think if things are cresting all the way along the Red River, we should look at Friday--I mean, all of us love being in the House including all of us who like asking questions, but the priorities should be in our constituencies right now. Thank you very much.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I heard what the Leader of the Opposition said, and I think what I heard come through is that there is a need to do a number of things and certainly it is the flood efforts engaged in by honourable members in all of the parties. I think I heard the honourable member say there is no difficulty from his standpoint with respect to votes in the House and in its committees, including Committee of Supply. I also heard him say there was not a problem with issues related to quorums and altering the rule regarding the number of members who may request a recorded vote.

I do not see it as being appropriate that the honourable Leader of the Opposition and I, on our feet in the Chamber, negotiate issues around private members' hour. I did not think I heard the honourable member suggest that, for example, we could reduce the number of hours required to complete the Estimates, a long contentious item amongst honourable members on all sides. I did not hear the honourable member say that.

I rose simply, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to place on the record what I felt was agreed upon. I did not talk about private members' hour because that was not something that was the subject of agreement at this point, and it may well be later today or some such thing. I was only rising to address those matters upon which I felt there was agreement, those being matters related to votes and quorums.

Mr. Doer: On a matter of House business, I think with the greatest of respect, the government House leader did talk about, as we agreed to last week and then only talked about the one part of the agreement of last week. So if he will check the record, he will see that is what his words were.

If there is no agreement on private members' hour and this evening's session, if it is the government's intent to have a sitting in the evening tonight rather than having sandbagging, then we certainly will deal with this day by day and agree on the votes today, only today, and we obviously have to have another discussion. We thought what we did last week made common sense, and we are not proposing to reduce the hours in Estimates pursuant to the rules right now and all these other--I do not think we should add up, put all these items on the table. I think we should go back to where we should be with our constituents.

What we did last week, we are willing to do this week, and if the government is not, then we are willing to go day by day on the votes.

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Mr. McCrae: For clarification, did I hear the Leader of the Opposition say that what I have put on the record might refer only to today and not to other days this week, i.e., issues related to votes and quorums relate only to today and that should the government be wanting to proceed with the day's sitting as it is set out in the standing rules of this House that all the other parts of the arrangement are off? I ask this simply for clarification. Is he talking only about today, or is he saying that there may be a vote tomorrow or that this arrangement, this understanding, would no longer apply?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. We have gone far enough with this matter. At this time, I would ask the honourable government House leader to arrange this meeting with the government House leader or the Leader of the official opposition, and we can deal with this matter at a later time when you do have an agreement. I do not think this is an opportunity for debate.

I understand from what I have heard that at this time, for today, votes in the House and committees will be deferred. Is that agreed? [agreed]

I also understand that today, for today only, waiving of the quorum requirements in the House and the committees is also in agreement. Agreed? [agreed] Thank you.

Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs. Vodrey), that Mr. Deputy Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty. Agreed?

Some Honourable Members: No.

(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)

I wanted to take this opportunity to express some concerns that I had that really came out of an article in Friday's Winnipeg Free Press, which causes me a great deal of concern as a representative of Manitobans, like all of us are inside the Chamber. There was an article written by Alice Krueger, a Free Press staff reporter, in which inside that article she is interviewing what appears to be the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews). The Minister of Justice is talking about the gun control law that was passed in Ottawa. In it, the Justice minister indicates that the provincial government is not going to be enforcing this particular law. It is a very controversial issue. There is absolutely no doubt about that. I think that if we go into the background of the politics of this particular issue, it causes a great deal of concern with respect to what this government has done.

We have a federal election that is going on. It has been rumoured that it was going to be starting, that it was going to be kicked off, that it would, in fact, be June 2. It has been that rumour now for well over two weeks. I expected and, quite frankly, to a certain degree there would be a lot of disappointment, in fact, if there was not some political rhetoric that was being espoused by all sides of the House. I anticipate that members of all three political parties inside this Chamber will get involved in the federal election itself. I expect that to occur. I also respect the fact that there is an administration that passed a law, and that law has to be followed, that this provincial government has a responsibility, and it is not living up to that responsibility.

I was greatly offended when I read this particular article, and had I had the opportunity to grieve on Friday, I would have grieved on Friday on this particular point, because I believe that the government has crossed the line here. Political partisanship is expected when we enter inside this Chamber, and I, for one, participate no doubt just as much as most members inside the Chamber. What I do not care for is when the government itself decides that it wants to cherry pick in terms of what laws it wants to enforce and what laws it does not want to enforce. I do not believe the government has the right to do that.

I believe that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews) is wrong in the statements that he has made, and an apology is owed to Manitobans, to Canadians. What sort of a precedent is this government trying to set? This current Premier (Mr. Filmon) has more seniority than every other premier across Canada. We have a government that appears to be saying, even though the federal government has passed a law, we are not going to respect that law. We are not going to enforce it. We are giving specific direction to our administration to ignore and to show a complete lack of respect for that piece of legislation.

Mr. Acting Speaker, I find that disrespectful as a Canadian, not as a Liberal, not as a politician but as a Canadian, that this government has a responsibility and if it disagrees with a policy, with something that is being done in Ottawa, it has the right to appeal it in the court as it has done with the government of Alberta. There are many other mechanisms. If it wants to spend $5 million on a billboard campaign, if it wants to mobilize the forces, to oppose, to lobby, to do whatever necessary, it has the right to be able to do that.

Mr. Acting Speaker, that is in fact what the government has the right to do and that is in fact what the government should have done, but to ignore the law and to say that it is not going to respect this aspect of the law, I find is a complete insult to all Manitobans, in fact to all Canadians because this government is saying: We have the right to cherry pick in terms of support the laws which we believe are good, and those laws that we do not believe are good, we have also the right to say: We are not going to respect them and not accept it.

Mr. Acting Speaker, does that then mean that, through our federation, all other provinces across Canada can follow the lead that this government is trying to demonstrate and can opt to follow a federal law that passes in the Legislature in Ottawa, that if it feels this is a bad law--maybe this antigang legislation that is brought forward, maybe there are some provinces that do not necessarily respect some of the aspects that it is talking about, they too can opt out.

Mr. Acting Speaker, one has to question in terms of the division that this administration has in terms of a federation. Is the government suggesting that the only way we can actually have federal co-operation is through a unitary system, where you have one government system and you dissolve the others or you break it up? You cannot, as a federation, decide here is a piece of law that we are going to support that is passed in Ottawa, because we believe it is good, but this one we do not believe in, so we are not going to support it.

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Mr. Acting Speaker, the sad part of this is the reason why that government has taken the position that it has taken on this piece of legislation or this law, is strictly politics. I would have absolutely no objection if the Premier (Mr. Filmon) is in a photo op and he is hammering in a stake that says: Vote for the Tories because of the gun registration. I have no problems with that at all. Some might argue that it might be poor judgment, but it is entirely up to the Premier and the government of the day.

That sort of action, Mr. Acting Speaker, would be in fact acceptable, but what is not acceptable is when this government headed by this Premier decides that a law that passes in the House of Commons does not deserve the respect and is not going to be accepted by a provincial administration.

Mr. Acting Speaker, I believe this government owes an apology, and then we are not talking an apology to the Liberal Party of Canada, we are talking about an apology to Canadians because this is in fact precedent setting. I hope that at some point in time we will get an explanation from this government in terms of further expanding what its actual intent was as I in particular read the article. I hope that I in fact misread it and that some sort of explanation is being given.

As many members of this Chamber, I went through the Meech Lake crisis and the Charlottetown Accord. I am very familiar with the pros and the cons of those two pieces that were before this Chamber and Manitobans and in fact Canadians as a whole. I know that Canadians, Manitobans, the constituents that I represent want governments to co-operate. They want to see that co-operation.

In fact, a while back, back in '95, I asked a question in essence that dealt with some co-operation, dealt with things such as labour training, immigration, forestry, housing, education, health care, environment, culture and heritage, where I tried to gauge in terms of what they felt which level of government should be playing a leading role. With issues like immigration, health care and environment, for example, it was felt that the federal government should be playing a leading role, and, Mr. Acting Speaker, other areas that I just listed off, the other ones, those were the areas in which it was indicated that a majority felt that the province should be playing a leading role.

But let there be no doubt, Mr. Acting Speaker, that Manitobans who elected this government want this government to co-operate. They want them to be able to respect the laws of this land because both governments were given a mandate, both governments, and the national government which sets down aspects of the criminal law, those are expected to be followed.

Imagine this, Mr. Acting Speaker. The government has said, look, we are not going to enforce gun registration, so if there is a criminal act that occurs in which an unregistered firearm is involved, and there are a number of charges that are being laid by a provincial Crown attorney, the Crown attorney has now been instructed, even though the law is there saying that you had to have it registered, is now being instructed not to use that charge.

So if the federal government wanted that charge done, then what? Are we talking about two courts, two court cases? Are we talking about two Crowns getting involved? Mr. Acting Speaker, you will have to excuse me for not necessarily knowing the inner depths of our legal system and having the understanding that no doubt other members of this Chamber will have, but it seems to me that there is something seriously wrong with the statement that has been made by this government, and there needs to be clarification on this issue.

I was pleased to read the remarks from the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers), and I look right at it in the article where the member stated that although the NDP federally and provincially does not like gun registration much either, when it is the law of the land the province is obliged to enforce it. The member for Dauphin is right.

Mr. Chairperson, the member for Dauphin is not a big supporter of gun registration. He opposed it. So does the federal New Democratic Party, from what I understand, and so does the provincial New Democratic Party, from what I understand. Does that mean that the member for Dauphin is not going to go out to a gun rally and speak against gun registration? No. Chances are when he knocks on the door, he will even cite that the gun registration from his perspective or from their party's perspective was a bad idea.

Mr. Acting Speaker, to a certain degree, I would expect that that would, in fact, be happening, and I would expect that to be happening with the Conservative Party--the Conservative Party, underline party, not the Conservative government. This government has a much higher responsibility than to the party membership or the organization that got it elected. It has a responsibility to all Manitobans, to each and every one of them. It has a responsibility to our Constitution.

This is dangerous, it is precedent setting, and the government needs to respond to what has been said. When I raised the issue, Mr. Acting Speaker, with some of my own colleagues because it is a highly political issue, it was suggested, well, maybe I should just leave it, because it is the gun registration issue.

Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, I cannot do that for the simple reason that I have gone through Charlottetown and Meech Lake. I am a very strong nationalist. I believe in a strong federal government because I ultimately believe that a federal government that has a vision can guarantee things so that no matter where you live in this wonderful country, you are going to be able to live in the same sort of a lifestyle whether it is in the province of Manitoba or P.E.I. or whatever other jurisdiction it might be.

But, Mr. Acting Speaker, it is absolutely critical that we respect what it is that a national government sets in terms of laws even though we might disagree with them. What are we saying to other levels of government within Manitoba? If we pass a law, like we did with the school divisions in terms of limiting their ability to tax the property tax ratepayers, if they do not like it, they could just completely disregard it? Is that what we are saying, because they are a junior level of government? We did that. I wonder what the government would have said if, in fact, a school division would have decided, no, I am going to exceed that cap. I have the right to do it, and I do not like what you are doing. Can you imagine the roars and the legislation, if necessary, that would be brought down by this particular government?

Mr. Acting Speaker, the purpose was not to consume 40 minutes. The purpose of this particular grievance was to express a concern which I believe is very important to me, that this government has crossed the line and that, in fact, I look forward to having some sort of response, whether it is in writing or whether it is through the Chamber, whether it is through the Estimates or whatever other vehicle of communication the government might decide to take at responding to the issue that is not only important to me but to all Manitobans.

The issue of gun registration is secondary to the issue which I have raised, I believe, and, as I indicate, as we get more and more into the election, I look forward to the different sorts of political debates that will occur as individuals of all political parties, no doubt, will try to put their spin on whatever sort of a message that they are getting out, and I am anticipating that all members of this Chamber from all political parties to a certain degree will, in fact, participate in that.

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I would trust and hope that as legislators, first and foremost, as opposed to party people, that we will recognize that a line has been crossed, and those actions do have to be addressed. Whether it is now or after the election, whatever the actual timing, I know it is something which I am not going to forget about and, in fact, will pursue in terms of just to what degree the government believes that it has the right to cherry pick as to what laws in the House of Commons it is going to respect and what laws in the House of Commons it is not going to respect.

To that end, Mr. Acting Speaker, if the government really believes it has that ability, I would suggest that the government table the legislation or table a legal opinion that indicates that they do have the ability to do just that. Then I would also be interested in receiving a tabled document to show us exactly what laws that Manitobans do not have to follow. I say that particular one tongue in cheek, hoping that, in fact, the government recognizes the importance of the issue that I have just raised. Thank you.

On my grievance, I rise today to draw attention to a situation that I have brought to this House a number of times, and it is important, now that all of us have our attention turned to this spring's flooding that is facing such a large number of Manitobans, that I have an opportunity to raise a priority in my consistency, and that is the south Transcona area and the flooding that it continues to face not only every spring but in the summer if we have a large downpour of rain. Also, they do not have an adequate drainage system to handle the large amount of water that flows into that small community from the outlying areas, the number of fields both in the city of Winnipeg and outlying into the Rural Municipality of Springfield.

As I said, I have raised this a number of times in the House. Not only am I raising it now because the situation in south Transcona seems to be getting worse each year in terms of the amount of water, but it also seems each year that this issue is stalled and is not handled adequately between the city and the provincial government. I feel that I should use the opportunity to draw attention to what is occurring at this time.

The situation in south Transcona at this time last week was very urgent. Last week, or a week ago the past weekend, I and a number of other residents spent the entire weekend sandbagging homes in an effort to protect as many homes as possible from having the water that was overflowing the ditches flow right up to their house and, indeed, into their basements or around their homes and through their foundation. Now, in south Transcona, the water is receding, even though we know in other parts of the province that is not the case. The sandbagging is over for another year, but now we must turn our attention to having a long-term solution to this problem.

It is interesting when we look at the attention that is being paid now to sandbagging in many parts of Winnipeg along the river and other areas of the province to realize that many homes in south Transcona which are located along the ditches around Dugald Road on an annual basis, oftentimes more than once a year, face this threat of water coming into their homes and are surrounded by, at times, ditches which have more than six feet of water in them. The city, in the past, merely brings sandbags to the Esso station on Dugald Road, and it is up to the residents of south Transcona to fend for themselves. I was very concerned this year when the same thing was going to happen. After some phone calling and lobbying or pressure, I was happy to see that the city did agree to dispatch volunteers and sandbags directly to the homes, particularly to senior citizens in south Transcona.

But it is somewhat an indication of the attitude, I think, that somehow the water affecting south Transcona is different than in other parts of the province. I would think that if this was occurring in a constituency of one of the members opposite, that the solution would not be stalled and stalled as we are seeing now between the province and city. It has indeed become very much of a political tennis match or a political football game where the province simply tries to do something to make it appear that they are now putting the ball back into the city's court, and then the city councillors and City Hall will try to do something to make it look that it is now up to the province to make a decision that is going to see this go forward.

This year was no different. We know that if they both really had set a priority for this flooding problem to have a solution, that it would indeed. We have seen millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, expended in this province under a number of infrastructure programs, and every time, it seems that somehow for some technicality or some problem that occurs, south Transcona is not on the priority list and does not get allocated the funds.

If we put all of the money that had over the years gone into the sandbagging in south Transcona, all the money that had gone to pay for staff--this year the city had to pay a staffperson more than 12 hours a day to sit, watch that the residents who were leaving town and going down Dugald Road did not take the sandbags that had been left for south Transcona--if all that money and all the insurance claims had gone into a long-term solution to this problem, it would have been paid for long ago. I think that says something about the way that this is being dealt with.

This year, we have yet another proposal from City Hall, where they are now proposing a retention pond, instead of inside the hamlet or the housed area, that it is going to be outside at the southeast corner of the city's land. It will catch the water before it flows into the area that has the majority of the housing. This seems logical. It seems to make sense.

There are a number of concerns being expressed by a lot of the long-time residents, particularly in that area, some of them who have lived there for more than 75 years and have seen a lot of water pass in front of their house. They claim that this proposal may not work because the point where they plan on putting this retention pond is the highest point in the south Transcona area.

A lot of those people are recommending that the provincial government and the city would fund to take the water, reversing it, rather than having all of that water from the R.M. of Springfield flow through the city of Winnipeg sewer system and contribute to the threat of sewer backup which, again, it did this year. Rather than having that situation which does not make any sense, to flow water from the R.M. of Springfield through the Winnipeg sewer system, have that reversed and send this water to the floodway. That also makes sense. The city engineers having been saying for a number of years that does not work. It is going against the grade of the land, even though we know that is the very thing that happens with the city sewer system, which is just north of there under Kildare Avenue.

But the city engineers say it is not feasible. They were also up until this year claiming that it was going to be far more expensive than previous proposals to deal with this problem. Now we find, though, the current proposal is more than $3 million which is what last year and the year before the engineers were telling us it would cost to funnel this water into the floodway.

So this proposal this year, it is not going to supposedly cost the local residents there an addition in their local levy in their property taxes, which makes sense to me. Those people pay the same amount of taxes as any other resident in south Transcona. They have no roads. They have no surface water drainage sewer system. It is all ditches. They have very poor services in terms of transit, in terms of even their mailboxes now are removed from their homes, and they have to travel to pick up their mail. The amount of taxes that are returned to that community is very minimal as compared to the amount that they are paying.

But there was a problem this year. When the city passed a resolution on February 12, '97, when they agreed on this proposal for a retention pond in the southeast corner of the area and proposed that the provincial government cost share it by 50 percent, they put a requirement on there that the province would make this new money over and above the amount that is already budgeted to the Department of Urban Affairs. This is where the back and forth between the province and the city is caught up now and is continuing.

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Some have suggested that many of the city councillors or members of the administration over at City Hall would have known full well that the province would say no to that request, that that resolution was bound to fail, that the requirement for the province to budget over and above the Urban Capital Project Allocation, which was specified in that resolution, would not be acceptable to the Minister of Urban Affairs (Mr. Reimer) and to the cabinet. That is indeed what has happened. The province has now used this as an opportunity to bat the ball back to City Hall, and City Hall is saying, well, we will have to go back now and figure out perhaps if we can get the Department of Rural Development to fund this flood abatement project.

I have raised this in the House. The Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach) was shaking his head, and the Premier (Mr. Filmon), whom I asked if he would have this considered, basically said, no, that they had already told the city that they would have to apply for the Urban Capital Project Allocation.

The Minister of Urban Affairs has said that this is the appropriate type of project for that capital fund and, indeed, if the city wants to make it a priority on their list of priorities, that is fine, but he has also said that he would make it a provincial priority.

I would suggest that if this is truly going to be a priority, then the province and the city would not be going through this back-and-forth game on this issue, and they would show some leadership and ensure that the residents of south Transcona do not have to face this problem time and time again.

Even since 1990, since I have been elected, I have seen a number of proposals for this problem of flooding in south Transcona. One of them even included a golf course for night golfing with condominiums. The retention pond, of course, would be in the golf course, and it would be fed by all the run-off water. It would be allowed for night golfing, with time- and motion-sensitive lights that would only go on when you were there to golf and then, of course, would not be on to illuminate the area and bother the residents in the surrounding area when the golf course was not in use. That is the extent that some owners of property in and around that area have gone to, to make proposals. I do not think that one is being considered any longer.

There was also a proposal, I guess, a couple of years ago. It is interesting when we see what happened with that proposal. That one was to begin the first of a series of three retention ponds, which the first one would have been right in the backyards of many of the residents. There was going to be the need to expropriate land from residents, and some felt that they were going to turn the small community of south Transcona into a bathtub. What happened in this situation, though, is very interesting. Again, there was all this game playing back and forth with infrastructure money. That is one time when because of the way this project was handled south Transcona did not qualify for any infrastructure money. I am concerned that is what is happening again here as we see more infrastructure money being spent in Manitoba, and once again south Transcona is left off.

Here is what happened in the case of this other proposal. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) had said it was up to the city to set the priorities under the infrastructure allocation. The city on the other hand said, well, we are not going to make south Transcona a priority for infrastructure money, because they had already allocated approximately $1.5 million out of their capital fund, so south Transcona was not on the list.

Because it was going to be a local improvement for that particular project, a retention pond, back in 1994, the residents of south Transcona had to vote on it. Again, it was almost like a situation where they were making a proposal that was bound to fail. Under that proposal, some of the residents in that part of the city who own five-acre lots would have had to pay $40,000 on their tax bill. In some cases that would have gone to a flood protection project that would not even affect their land. It would not have protected them from flooding at all.

So, needless to say, that proposal ended up being very divisive in the community, and it was indeed voted down, which meant that it did not qualify for the city money. Then, as it turned out, the project was not prioritized for infrastructure money, so it simply died. The residents of south Transcona since then have had two more springs and summers of flooding.

But that goes to illustrate the type of back and forth between the different governmental jurisdictions that this flood abatement project has had to face, and it is completely unacceptable. We are wanting to see some more leadership from both this government and from City Hall to truly prioritize this project to make sure that it is done.

The members opposite have said it is a priority but, indeed, I would suggest that if it really is a priority, it would happen. Things are only a true priority when they actually occur.

One of the other things that I wanted to talk a little bit about in my grievance related to this whole area in terms of the flood problem for south Transcona is the comment by some people that, why do people live there is what you will often say. On this again, I would also come back and turn both to the provincial government and the city government, because it is the city that zones land for housing development and it is the province that approves that zoning. So there is actually the responsibility for the City of Winnipeg, once they have zoned areas for housing and once they have allowed homes to be constructed there, to ensure that those areas are safe for habitation, for people to live there.

One of the ongoing problems with this area that is making things worse is related, I believe, to the way that both the province and the city have allowed urban development and the zoning of land to proceed in our city, which has basically been to encourage urban sprawl, to have no real vision or foresight as to how we should develop our city in order to look at the existing areas where there is urbanization.

I know that as the city tries to leverage more money out of the province to cover this particular project, in some ways I can sympathize, because I agree that this provincial government has starved the city in a number of areas. There have been a number of cuts, not just through Urban Affairs, but in a number of other departments and programs that have had drastic costs for the city, increased costs, everything from social allowance and lotteries to cuts in education, health care. Across the board, the City of Winnipeg has been damaged and has suffered under this provincial government.

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The way that the urban area of Winnipeg has been allowed to deteriorate under this provincial government is going to be a stone around their necks and indeed until all of us are suffering. This government has passed huge costs on to the City of Winnipeg because of the way they have allowed the city to sprawl out and grow and have both exurban sprawl and urban sprawl without any real plan for the Capital Region. So there have been huge costs that have been brought to bear on the population of Winnipeg, which is not growing to meet this larger land mass and area that is having to be serviced with both hard services and soft services.

So, in saying that, in some ways I can understand why the City of Winnipeg is coming to the province and trying to leverage additional funds, but at the same time, I cannot accept them trying to claim that the south Transcona flood abatement project is a priority if indeed they are not going to be willing to access the Urban Capital Projects Allocation and ensure that this project goes ahead.

The city has also had a number of problems, and this is where it could be interesting for ministers such as Rural Development and Urban Affairs to take some special consideration, especially as we are seeing the problems in other areas of Winnipeg where we have actually also had some deaths occur by young people falling into ditches and into culverts and that has led to their deaths.

These are very serious situations that continue to face south Transcona every year. Two weeks ago, when I was sandbagging in south Transcona, a small boy, a toddler, he could not have been more than three years old, also fell into one of the ditches, and there must have been easily four or five feet of water. He definitely would have perished. He was already being sucked under the wood sidewalk, and he definitely would have perished if all the adults who were standing around did not scoop him out of the water immediately.

The seriousness of the situation then for this provincial government and the city to ensure that the appropriate funds are in place to protect the safety of Manitobans in our urbanized areas is utmost. I believe that the situation in south Transcona and many other areas in the province and the city of Winnipeg that have ditches and culverts that are in excess, as I have said, of six feet would not pass the building development codes as they stand right now.

What ends up happening is these culverts and ditches are not maintained. This in turn is leading to a lot more problems and is more expensive in the long run when the city has to spend a lot more money in terms of trying to prevent sewer backup, trying to do sandbagging, trying to run emergency operations, than if they would just expend the funds from the provincial government to the city to properly maintain those ditches and culverts in the first place, if they would ensure that the ditches are cleared in the fall of any grass growth, cattails and other garbage that gets collected there, so that in the spring the water could flow more freely, if they would ensure that the requirements for installation of culverts are met.

What is happening in many areas of the city as the urban development expands is areas that previously had one or two culverts in a ditch, now have all the whole way along declining size of smaller and smaller culverts, so it is no surprise when spring comes and the snow starts to melt, that the water cannot pass through. What ends up happening is, in a haphazard way, when the city does go in to clean the ditches, what ends up happening is, some of those culverts are crushed. There is never any attention paid to replacing them or repairing it, and we end up having water backups and the kind of flooding that we have seen.

So I am suggesting that the provincial government does have a role to play here in ensuring that they are adequately funding--and perhaps there should be, after this spring, some special fund that is created to do some serious upgrading of the culverts and ditches in and around not only Winnipeg but other parts of the province, to ensure that they are going to be properly maintained so we can avoid the kind of sewer backups, water backups, and very unsafe situations that have faced so many of our communities this spring, and I realize that though south Transcona is unique, south Transcona is not the only area of the city that faces this situation. It just does not make sense, Mr. Acting Speaker, to continue the kind of situation that we have.

I was driving to work this morning through St. Boniface, and it was like an obstacle course, coming down Goulet and Marion, to go around the piles of sandbags that are over all of the manholes covering in the access to the main sewer line. I would suggest that the problem of sewer backup that so many of us are now worried about could be reduced if the province and the city would deal with this issue of having tons and tons of water from the R.M. of Springfield flow through the Winnipeg sewer system, down the Dugald ditch and into the Seine River and ultimately through our sewer system.

We were having to deal with the same situation in south Transcona where they had to put sandbags over the manhole covers, so you had the double problem or the dilemma of, on the one hand, trying to prevent water from overflowing the ditches into people's homes, so it was pooling into the middle of the road, often more than a foot deep in the middle of the road, and then swirling down through the manhole covers into the main sewer line.

The main sewer line could have assisted in reducing the amount of water that was threatening people's homes over ground. Too much water going into the main sewer line in that way could then back up into their basements through the drains in their basement floor. It just does not make sense then to continue to have such a large amount of water flowing from outside the city of Winnipeg into our Winnipeg sewer system, which, as I said, is more and more overtaxed. As we allow the city to continue to sprawl out and try to deal with more and more housing, we still have, in the centre areas of Winnipeg, the same size of sewer system. I do not think we have taken that into consideration. I do not think we have taken into consideration the more and more area in the city of Winnipeg that we pave with concrete, the less that water can soak into the ground, and the more and more we are putting stress on the existing sewer lines and sewer system.

All of this requires attention by the provincial government. They cannot simply say, as they do so often, it is a city responsibility. Even when we have asked them questions, even when we have asked this government and cabinet ministers questions about the operations of the City of Winnipeg during this emergency, they continue to try and take the attitude, well, that is their responsibility; it is not ours. So it seems like they do not have any interest in bringing information forward and having some responsibility.

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The City of Winnipeg Act retains in the hands of this provincial government very large powers and authority over the City of Winnipeg. With particularly the situation in Manitoba where such a large percentage of the population of our province lives in the city of Winnipeg, we can no longer have this government ignore as they have the problems facing urban Winnipeg, the problems of urban decay, the problems of urban sprawl, the problems that are all related to the flooding that has gone on in so many areas that we are experiencing right now.

With that in mind, I think they have some serious issues to consider now that we see the disaster that is before us. There are all sorts of questions about the adequacy of the preparations that they have made in terms of the floodway, in terms of the scrambling that is going on for them to prepare the dikes on the southwest end of what is urban Winnipeg, around the St. Norbert area. I was visiting friends there the other night, trying desperately to remove--they were deciding at that point if they should bring the furniture and belongings from the basement upstairs, and that night they said, no, let us wait. Within less than 12 hours, they were given a notice that they may have to evacuate. It just boggles my mind to think that this government, through the Ministry of Natural Resources and their Emergency Measures could not have foreseen these problems of the drainage from outlying areas ending up coming into the city of Winnipeg from the Morris, and then the La Salle River.

One of the main messages of my grievance is not only to draw the attention of this government to the place of priority in south Transcona, but to look generally at this problem of land drainage around the city of Winnipeg into the Red and Assiniboine River Basin, and how it is affecting many Manitobans, and how I think that they have to take seriously now the ongoing questions that we have been asking, the serious questions about urban sprawl, and the way that this government seems to refuse to acknowledge and recognize this.

It is like there is this massive state of denial across the way when it comes to this whole issue of urban sprawl. I asked many questions in Estimates, in Urban Affairs as well as in Housing with respect to this issue, and it is like they do not want to put two and two together. They do not want to put the problems of urban sprawl in relation and connected with the problems of the decline in the urban core of Winnipeg and realize that we just cannot continue to go on this way and that they do have a responsibility. Since they approve where housing is built in this city, they have a responsibility to ensure that those areas are safe, those areas are going to be habitable, that they are going to be indeed able to have people live there without fear and constant flooding and the health problems, the financial cost, the stress and the losses, even the loss of life that goes along with that.

I would then just want to urge the government to work co-operatively with the city to end this political tennis match that has been going on with so many of these issues related to infrastructure, and to ensure that the priority is placed on making our city safe for all Manitobans, and deal with the ongoing problem in south Transcona and not simply wait for the city to respond but indeed to continue meeting. The Premier (Mr. Filmon) had said he had broken one of his rules, which is to generally not meet with city councillors, and he had met with them. I would encourage that to continue.

We cannot have this problem on an ongoing basis. At least, if there is not an agreement this year, as I hope that there will be, to fund the solution to this flood problem in south Transcona, then at least there have to be additional funds to ensure that this year the ditches and culverts are going to be maintained and replaced and cared for properly so that we do not have the problem of sewer backup. Because a lot of the people that have lived there for many, many years believe that that is all it would take, that if the ditches were brought up to standard and they were properly maintained and if culverts were put in of the proper size, that there would be no problem there, and that may very well be a much less expensive solution than what is being proposed.

If there is not the more intensive solution in terms of constructing this retention pond, then at least they must ensure that those ditches and culverts are upgraded and the sewer system there or the drainage system there is going to be upgraded for this summer and next spring. Because I want to remind you, Mr. Acting Speaker, that this is a problem not only in the spring, but also in the summer, and we are heading into summer. I, for one, believe that we are experiencing a fairly dramatic climate change across the planet, not just here in Canada, and we may see again this summer the heavy rains that we have had last summer, and we may again experience more flooding this summer. So there is going to be lots of work to be done to ensure that the water that we have now accumulating in and around Winnipeg can flow expeditiously because we may have saturated ground and a very limited ability to handle heavy rainfall this summer.

You know, this government just does not seem to really want to look ahead, and so many of the governments, it just does not seem that there is a lot of creativity and planning into dealing with these situations. I know the member for Selkirk (Mr. Dewar) had been asking a number of questions about efforts to clear ice earlier from the Red River and into Lake Winnipeg, and it just does not make sense to me why we do not take those kinds of precautions and that kind of preventative measure. It just always seems that this government does not act until there is a crisis upon us, and we are seeing that now. So where there have perhaps been a few cost savings the last couple of budget years, whether it is cuts in the Department of Natural Resources or other departments, now we are paying the price for that big-time.

We are seeing that if money was invested at the outset into infrastructure to properly maintain the system that has been constructed here in Manitoba or that needs to be constructed, then we probably would not have the kind of situation that particularly residents of south Transcona face every year.

So I am urging, as it is my right through a grievance, that the government would indeed give its attention to the situation for south Transcona, and I would be happy and I am willing to work with them in whatever way that I can. I know that the residents down there are once again anxious and motivated again to organize themselves, and this government will be hearing from them. They have some very legitimate grievances as well as do I, Mr. Acting Speaker. Thank you.

Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): I also rise on a matter of grievance. I would like to follow the honourable member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) on the theme that he had started. I was also thinking about this, that if the Attorney General (Mr. Toews) of this province's solemn duty is to enforce the law, how can it be that he can refuse to enforce the law?

I know for a fact that the President of the United States has an oath of office which says, to uphold and enforce the law of the United States. I have no specific knowledge as to what the oath of office of the cabinet minister, particularly the Attorney General, has sworn himself into, but I suppose implicit, whatever the terminology of the oath of office may be, is the fact that he is there to be the chief enforcer of the law of the land. By law we mean statutes in whatever form and whatever level of government there is. A by-law of the City Council is just as law as any other. A statute passed by this Legislature is also law and mostly also all the laws passed by the federal Parliament in Ottawa.

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If it is a solemn duty of the Attorney General as the chief enforcer of the law to uphold and enforce the law and he blatantly refused it, is that not a denial of his own oath of office and negation of his basic responsibility? I know that in the United States under the Constitution, if the President of the United States refuses to enforce any law passed by Congress, regardless of whether he likes the law or not, I know that he is subject to impeachment because one of the grounds for impeaching a President of the United States is his refusal to uphold and enforce the law of the land.

How can this be done even in our own system here called parliamentary system if the Attorney General's main and basic duty is to be the chief enforcer, the first law enforcer in this province, how can he publicly and openly say that he is not willing to enforce the law that he disagrees with? I submit that it is a ground for him to either resign because he cannot enforce the law that he is duty-bound to uphold and enforce or he will be subject to the pressure of this Legislature to enforce the law.

It is not always a reason to say that I do not agree with the law and therefore I will not enforce it, because if that were the system, there would be anarchy in our society. There would be no order whatsoever. Any citizen who disagrees with any kind of tax will say, I will not pay the tax because I disagree with it. Where will order be in our society?

As Lincoln stated, whoever resists the final decision of the highest tribunal deals a deadly blow on our system of government, and that is the highest tribunal of the land, that is the Supreme Court. We are higher than the Supreme Court, I submit. We represent the people of this society, of this country. The Supreme Court is not accountable to any but themselves and the Constitution.

We are accountable to the people, and if the people so selected the members of Parliament and the members of Parliament, by due process of legislation, had passed a law and it becomes the law of the land then everybody is subject to the law of the land and every Attorney General of every province is under a solemn duty to enforce that law. Any Attorney General who refuses to enforce the law, in my own way of thinking, should resign his position because he cannot prove himself equal to the duty that is incumbent upon the office that he has assumed.

We are a government of law, not of man. That is a general principle that everybody knows. We are governed not by people's bias or decisions, we are governed by duly passed legislation and any idea, any system that had gone through the process of three readings of bills and then the signing by the Lieutenant Governor of the province, had duly passed that law. In this process of legislation, all opinions are heard. It is a process of reconciling all interest and usually it is the majority of the legislators in the proper forum that decide what shall be law.

That majority is, of course, the majority that had been elected by the people themselves and although some segments of the population, like many in western Canada, they do not believe in gun legislation. It is the will of Parliament, it is the will of this country that there be some form of gun control.

You cannot selectively enforce which law you like and which law you dislike. Your duty as Attorney General is to enforce every law and all laws and any refusal to do it, in my own mind, is grounds for removal of the Attorney General if he refuses to enforce the law or if he does not want to be removed from office, to have the honour to resign.

This is a bad example being set before us, before the eyes of our young people, before the eyes of every other voter of this province. If you are the chief legislator and a chief enforcer of the law and you, by example, refuse to uphold and enforce the very law that you are sworn to enforce, what kind of example would that leave in the minds of our children, of our people, of our constituents? That is an example that we do not want to be established in any province, not even in Manitoba.

Of course, there is a division of jurisdiction in a federal system of government. There are certain areas of activities of this society that are primarily allotted to be the dominant area of the federal government. For example, banks, monetary systems and foreign relations, they are entrusted upon the federal government. There are other areas of activities which are entrusted primarily within the jurisdiction of the province such as civil rights, such as property rights. These are entrusted in the provincial jurisdiction. There are areas where there is overlapping jurisdiction, such as in the matter of criminal law and administration of criminal law. While the substantive law will be made by Parliament, the administration of the law, in terms of criminal justice, is entrusted to the provinces.

There are overlapping jurisdictions in other areas like agriculture, like commerce and trade but, in every case, if the law has evolved in the process of lawmaking, that law reigns supreme and the law has to be enforced. Whether you are in agreement with the law or opposed to the law or had been fighting the law, you are duty-bound to obey, otherwise there will be no order in a society. If there is no order in a society, there will be anarchy. If there is anarchy in our society, how can we maintain and advance our civilization, our orderly way of life? Then everybody will do according to what he desires. If everybody has a right to do what he desires and there is no order in society, there will be a breakdown in our system. If there is a breakdown in our system, that is the end of all civilization.

Every law of course is subject to other higher law. Even Edmund Burke had said that all legislation is subject to the law of the Creator, to the law of nature, to the law of humanity, to the law of justice and equity. There are some certain schemes and certain procedures that are instituted by the lawmaker as if they were passed by statute, but some people will agree that those are immoral laws. They have no basis in justice and no basis in equity at all.

There are instances of statutes that are oppressive, but as long as they stay in the books then it is the obligation of the law enforcer, like policemen and courts, to uphold that law and then the duty of legislators like us is to amend and repeal the unjust law or the oppressive law, but as soon as it is passed, as long as it is in the statute book, it is a statute and it should be enforced. Of course, there will be deeper discretion that enters into the enforcement of the law. There are people who, if they disagree with the law that they are solemnly bound to enforce, will use their discretion and will not push it to the limit, because in the ultimate analysis it is the system of justice that should prevail, the system of fairness and not oppressiveness, because when the law becomes too oppressive then the people themselves will rise against those who are in charge of society. There will be rebellion. There will be sedition. There will be revolution. So it is to the interests of the lawmaker that the law be reasonable, be fair and be just.

* (1600)

In matters where it is very controversial like matters of abortion, matters of death penalty, matters of gun control, where they say freedom will be restricted, there are, of course, differences of opinion, but all these differences of opinion are already taken into account when the law is debated in Parliament, when the law is debated in public forum, when the law is being debated during an election campaign. Those are already in process. All these opinions are then consolidated, and there will in the process emerge a system of governance in the form of a statute. If that statute had duly been done according to the procedure, what we call the legal processes of lawmaking, the procedural aspect of lawmaking, then it becomes legitimate. It becomes legitimate, it has authority and if it has authority it has to be enforced.

The lawmakers should not be the lawbreakers. If we are the very lawmaker in this province and we are the first ones to break our own law, how can we expect the citizens to be obedient to the law? It is inconceivable to me that the highest officer who is duty-bound to enforce the law will say: I am not going to enforce the law. That is not only a bad example, he is being a lawbreaker himself. He should be put in prison because we are not, as I said, a government of men but a government of law.

When a law has been proclaimed and duly passed and has been promulgated and published in the official gazettes, then it is part of the legal system, and it is not the option of any government in power to enforce or not to enforce the law. It is their duty-bound obligation. They are bound to duty and obligation to enforce it. It includes not only the law that they themselves have passed because there are other laws broader than the provincial laws. Indeed, there are certain procedures in the court system when there is a conflict of legislation to settle all those but, if we resort to the court process, then the nonelected judges become the rule makers, and they will declare what the law is, and when the nonelected nonaccountable people become the lawmakers, that is the beginning of tyranny. Tyranny by definition is the rule of man, not the rule of law. The rule of law says that whatever is in the statute book, if it is duly promulgated according to the procedures of Parliament, that is the will of the people, and the will of the people has to be observed.

What if the law that is passed is not acceptable to the majority of the people? This is not an unusual thing that happens in democratic and parliamentary governments. I remember when there was debate in the past about capital punishment. If you surveyed and held a nationwide opinion all across the country, the people say, yes, we want capital punishment. But then the Parliament itself, in its wisdom, has passed no capital punishment, and so that is the law that is being enforced. No matter how grievous the crime that has been committed, no matter how many victims, the criminal will not be put to death as he would be across the border in the United States where there is capital punishment. So we see that the law is being obeyed, whether it is reflective or not of the population which is supposed to be represented by the people in Parliament.

That is not an ideal situation, of course. The ideal situation is when the majority of people want it, then the majority of Parliament should want it, and when the majority of Parliament should want it, that should be the system that should be in place. It happens occasionally because there are two kinds of theories about lawmakers, about representative democracy.

One theory which apparently is in operation in this country is that they are the stewards of the people. A steward is one who is given discretion. After they are given the authority, then it is up to them to look after the welfare of those who are in his stewardship. Apparently, the people are under the stewardship of Parliament, because once you elect those people in Parliament, then they are given all kinds of authority that they can, in the name of the people, do even if it is in actual fact against the wishes of the majority of the people.

I do not know why the election is being called when it is not yet time for the election. But, as you see, there are other considerations when you call the election, whether it is provincial, federal or local, and in a parliamentary system, usually the call comes from those who are in government. It is not set by constitution or by legislation as in the United States. In the United States it should be every four years no matter what, and that is what the Reform Party said we should be doing. But we are not a republican system of government. We are a parliamentary system of government. In a parliamentary system the executive is the majority party in government. The majority party is running the government. They are the ones who will call the shots. They are the ones who call the election.

Peterson, when he was Premier of Ontario, called an election earlier than the four years, and you know what happened. There was a sudden change of government--a message here for our present Prime Minister. I know that he came here into this province to look at the flood. But at the same time, if he is really sensitive enough to it, why should he call the election? How can the people who are flooded go to the polls and express themselves? On the other hand, I think if I were the Prime Minister--there are only 14 M.P.s in Manitoba, but there are so many M.P.s in Ontario and so many M.P.s in Quebec. Which one would I take into account? As a pragmatist I of course will do what the expectations of the greater majority of the members of Parliament are.

Justice has been defined as the constant and perpetual will to give to every person his due. No matter what our situation in life is, whether we are high, in the middle or low on the totem pole of social hierarchy and social ranking, whether we are rich, or whether we belong to the middle class or whether we are poor, we are all governed by the same legislation, the same set of legislation. Only those laws that are duly passed according to the procedures of the law-making bodies--and if they are passed we live under those systems, and the law administrators and the law enforcers have no discretion to select the law that they will enforce, because if they will and if they do enjoy that kind of choice then they can select only those that are favourable to themselves to enforce and those laws that are against themselves they will ignore. If they can ignore it, how can the ordinary citizen be said to be duty-bound to obey all the laws?

The right of one is the right of everyone. The right of some is the right of all, and if some of us, even lawmakers and legislators would not obey the law then we cannot blame the citizens if they themselves do not obey the law, but if we expect everybody to obey the law then we should be the primary example in obedience to the law. I submit, Mr. Acting Speaker, it is wrong, it is illegal, it is perhaps unconventional, it is unconstitutional for the chief law enforcement of any province to say publicly: I am not going to enforce the law. He either should be removed from office or he should resign. Thank you.

* (1610)

We had some warning. We had some premonition of what was going to happen in our part of the world by watching what is happening to our neighbours further south of us. The communities of Fargo and Grand Forks, and others that live along the Red River Valley south of the Canadian-U.S. border have suffered through some devastating effects over the period of the last few weeks. In some ways their conditions are slightly different than us; their circumstances are somewhat different than ours. Fortunate for us, I think we do have a little bit more warning than what has occurred in those American communities. We have the benefit of their bad experience in dealing with the flooding conditions that those communities so valiantly fought over the course of the last number of weeks.

We in this province need to learn about the flooding conditions through the experience of those people in those communities. We need to analyze what went on in the communities south of us, and I would submit that we need to continue to learn and gather the information and analyze the information that is available to us, not just in the area of projecting floods but, in this case, in the real live happenings of what went on south of the American border.

As I said a minute ago, the situations are not exactly the same. The time frame that we are dealing with is certainly different. The American communities that were devastated by the flood conditions clearly did not have the warning that many Manitoba communities are receiving. They did not, for certain, have the kind of warning that the city of Winnipeg has had to prepare itself, to prepare its citizens, to build dikes, to have those mechanisms in place that offer us some kind of a fighting chance against a very powerful Mother Nature. Mr. Acting Speaker, my contention has always been that Mother Nature is a lot smarter than humans, that humans fool with Mother Nature at their peril. That does not preclude the human ability to ease the situation, ease the situations that Mother Nature puts us in. It does not exclude humanity's ability and humanity's willingness to from time to time put into place those mechanisms that save us grief, that save us from devastation and in the final result save property and save lives and save Manitobans and Canadian taxpayers a whole lot of money.

One of the examples of this, clearly, is the foresight used by previous legislators in Manitoba to construct the Red River Floodway. Much of the focus of this whole episode in Manitoba's history has come to centre on this example of technology, if you will, this example of a human attempt to try to alleviate what for decades, perhaps centuries, has been a thorn in the side of people who settle at the forks of the Red River and the Assiniboine River. For many years, people living in this part of the world have devised many ways in which to try to survive the floods that have occurred over the years. Far and above any other thing, any other decision, far and above any other piece of technology that we have implemented in this area, far and above any other, stands the Red River Floodway that we have constructed for the purpose of protecting those who live in the city of Winnipeg.

Mr. Acting Speaker, earlier, when I first rose to speak, I pointed out that we need to learn the lessons that we have seen happening, hopefully that we have been taught by the experience of our neighbours to the south, south of the American border. I think the same thing applies when you talk about the operation, the usefulness of the Red River Floodway. It is my contention that we have learned much about the operation of the floodway over the period of several floods, over a time span of several floods, and we have also learned a lot before the floodway was ever constructed and opened, I believe, in 1968.

We have learned a lot during the flood of 1950 about the way the water flows on the topography of the land around Winnipeg. We have learned how it operates before it hits the Red River Floodway. We know how things react; we know how water responds when the floodway was not there offering us its protection. Those lessons are valuable to us as decision makers. Those lessons, I would submit, are crucial to us as decision makers in making the correct choices to offer the maximum amount of protection for the citizens of not just Winnipeg but the entire Red River Valley from the American border right up through to Selkirk.

I want to also point out that when the crest of this Red River does flow through the city of Winnipeg, our problems are not over. None of us look forward to the day when the water hits its crest, but I would submit to you that the sooner it hits, the smaller the crest will be and the sooner we get through this, the sooner we can move onto the horrendous task that we are all going to face of cleaning up in the wake of the 1997 flood. That is going to be, I would submit to the House, a gargantuan task.

Given the preparation that we have done, given the forethought that has been put into the fight against the Red River this spring, given the work that has gone in by citizens across the province, given the work and time and effort of all the volunteers, all the people who have taken in evacuees, given all that I would think that the cleanup we will have after the Red River has crested will be minimized. But let us not be fooled. There is still going to be a lot of work to be done once this Red River begins to subside.

My hope, and I am sure the hope of every member of this Legislature is that Manitobans will continue in the same spirit of co-operation that we have seen to this point. I fully expect, knowing Manitobans as I do, that once we move on from fighting the Red River, from all the sandbagging that we will do, all the planning that goes into fighting a flood, that once we get to the point of cleanup that once again Manitobans will rally, Manitobans will step forward and begin the massive work of cleaning up the mess of the flood.

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How many sandbags do you figure are going to have to be packed away back from the river now? We are not there yet. We are a week or so away from the crest of this flood There is a lot of sandbagging that has to be done between now and next Monday just in order to get ready for this massive amount of water that is going to hit this part of the province here in Winnipeg. That is not to forget the people all along the Red River who are having to deal with this crest well before it ever hits the city, well before it ever hits Winnipeg, those people in communities such as Morris, Letellier. As a matter of fact, Letellier within a couple of days will be the next community that is going to be facing the crest of the 1997 Red River.

Once the Red River has made its impact on that community, Letellier, it will continue to move up the Red River, continue to bring anxiety to people whose houses have been left behind. The Red River crest will continue northward on the Red River to places such as St. Adolphe, where, again, it will continue to produce anxiety and nervousness and fear to the people in that community who have worked so hard to protect their homes, protect their livelihoods, the way of life that they have come to live.

Along that way, Mr. Acting Speaker, the Red River will be added to by tributaries, tributaries that will pose very many challenges to us as legislators, to the Department of Natural Resources, to the people who are working in Water Resources, because it is our responsibility to know how much water is in those tributaries, how much it is contributing to the Red River and how much of an impact that is going to have on the diking that has been done by Manitobans all throughout the Red River Valley and into the city of Winnipeg and beyond up to Selkirk.

If we do not have a good idea--as a matter of fact, it has to be better than a good idea. We have to be as precise as we can in predicting the amount of water that is coming into the Red River, so that we can inform the people living in the city of Winnipeg and towns that are north of the crest right now, so we can tell those people with some degree of confidence, some degree of accuracy that they have, in fact, built their dikes high enough to withstand the forces of the river. We have to take every step that we can to make sure that those people living along the rivers have a fighting chance to put together some type of wall of protection between themselves and the Red River.

If we as legislators cannot do that, then we are not doing our jobs. If we as legislators cannot give some kind of warning to the people living along the rivers, not just the Red River but other rivers as well, if we cannot give them that kind of assurance, then we are falling in our responsibility as elected representatives of the people of this province.

In the Question Period time of this House, every day now for several days, we have been hearing ministerial statements and updates and reports on the flood given by both the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Cummings) and the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pitura), and in our responses to the those ministers, I believe we have been very forthright in stating our willingness to co-operate. We have certainly thanked the ministers for keeping us up to date on the latest in the flood reports and the forecasts, the latest in the levels of the Red River or the Morris River or the La Salle River.

I believe we have been very honest and very co-operative in our approach, and I must admit from both sides of the House when these reports are made that there is a sense of co-operation. It is my believe that that sense of co-operation that we experience during that time of Question Period is but a mere reflection of the spirit of co-operativeness that is so evident in the communities that we represent. I believe that at that time of the day we actually reflect what our constituents are doing out there on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour, indeed minute-by-minute basis during such projects as the Z-dike that is being built near Brunkild, Manitoba. In a very short period of time, very rapidly that dike is being built.

The resources that belong to all the people of Manitoba are being mobilized very quickly in as rapid a fashion as we can to get that dike built so that we can prevent the Morris River from spilling into the La Salle River, which would give Mother Nature--if we want to see this in terms of the war or the battle zone that has been depicted in the media from time to time, in that war zone picture, if the Morris River spilled into the La Salle River and swelled its banks, the La Salle River could do an end run around the floodway, attacking, if you like, the southwest flank of the city of Winnipeg. Then the next thing we would know, Mr. Acting Speaker, is that that would mean a lot more water would flow into the city of Winnipeg and a lot more activity urgently would be required on the dikes, perhaps with not enough time to have that accomplished.

There are many challenges that we face during this Red River flood, the flood of 1997, many challenges. What I hope we have done over the last little while is alert the government to some of these challenges, pledge to them our co-operativeness in working together to help the people of Manitoba through this situation, but we must be vigilant, we must have our eyes open, we must know what we are fighting against, and we must continue to work together to have the information flow back and forth from one side of the House to the next. We must deal with the facts that are out there for us to be dealt with and in that way we can offer to our citizens the maximum amount of protection and the maximum amount of comfort during this time of crisis.

So, with those words, Mr. Acting Speaker, I wrap up what I have said and will be happy with the comments that I have made so far. Thank you.

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