LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA
Thursday, October 20, 2011
At 1:30 p.m. the Sergeant-at-Arms, carrying the mace and followed by the Speaker, the Clerk, the Deputy Clerk and the Clerk Assistants of the Legislative Assembly, entered the Chamber.
The Sergeant-at-Arms returned to the north doors and met His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor with the mace.
The Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms (Mr. Ray Gislason): His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.
His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, accompanied by the honorary aides-de-camp, officer escort and the Premier, entered the Chamber and took his seat on the throne.
The Sergeant-at-Arms made obeisance with the mace and retired to the side of the Chamber.
Hon. Philip S. Lee (Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Manitoba): Mr. Speaker and members of the Manitoba Legislature:
I welcome you to the First Session of the Fortieth Legislative Assembly of the Province of Manitoba.
Monsieur le président, mesdames et messieurs les membres de l’Assemblée législative du Manitoba:
Je vous souhaite la bienvenue à la première session de la quarantième Législature de la Province du Manitoba.
The October 4th general election resulted in the largest number of newly elected members this Assembly has seen in over a decade. Each of you–new members, returning members and indeed all candidates for election–are to be commended for putting your names forward to serve the people of Manitoba.
The election entrusted our government with a new mandate. We are aware of the privilege that has been granted by the citizens of our province and the important responsibilities that come with that privilege.
This is a great time to be a Manitoban. We are rebuilding our province. More people are working here than ever before. People are coming home. People are training for the jobs of tomorrow. Manitobans are building their futures in this province for themselves, for their children and for their grandchildren. Our government will work with them to ensure the great potential of our province continues to unfold.
To help the province keep moving forward, the next four years will be focused on the key priorities that were presented to Manitobans during the election: making health care even better; expanding job, education and training opportunities; entrenching Manitoba’s affordability advantage; making our communities safer and healthier; protecting our environment; and building Manitoba Hydro as a public asset and a benefit to all of our citizens. Over the next four years, this House will be presented with measures to address each of these priorities.
Health care is the No. 1 priority of Manitobans, and our government will never lose sight of this fact. More doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals have been hired to help reduce wait time and provide better health care. Hospitals, clinics and personal care homes have been renewed or rebuilt, and we have found ways to make the provincial health system more efficient while improving patient care.
To advance our goal of providing better health care closer to home, our government will take action on a number of fronts.
We will implement all three priorities identified by the Canadian Cancer Society, including making cancer treatment and support drugs free, with no patient deductibility.
Our government committed to give Manitobans the fastest access in Canada to world‑class cancer screening, testing and treatment. To that end, we have begun the most comprehensive and aggressive cancer wait-time strategy in Canada. As part of this plan, more specialists will be added to speed up testing and diagnosis, and we will begin transforming rural chemotherapy sites into full CancerCare hubs to better support patients during their cancer journey.
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Our world-class home care system will be further enhanced with more in-home services and specialist visits. Doctors, nurse practitioners and other health professionals will work to maintain the health of seniors so they can remain in their own homes longer. Our personal care home construction program will make more spaces available for those families that need them.
Our health-care professionals are fundamental to further improvements in patient care. In the coming year, the first steps will be taken in our four-year plan to: hire 2,000 new nurses and nurse practitioners and take the necessary steps to educate new nurses; hire 200 more doctors and 50 more physician assistants; this will also require the creation of 22 medical residencies, and hire more technologists and other front-line health-care staff to keep our system among the best in the world.
Our goal in the coming years is to ensure that every Manitoban that wants one will have access to a family doctor. In addition to educating and hiring more doctors and nurse practitioners, our government will open primary care clinics, Access centres and quick-care clinics throughout Manitoba. More nurse practitioners will be recruited specifically to work in the rural and northern communities.
Towns and cities throughout Manitoba will see more improvements in health care, from ambulance stations in Ile des Chênes and St. Laurent, to telehealth sites in Camperville and Waterhen, to clinics in Ste. Rose, Swan River and Lundar. MRIs will be added in Dauphin, Selkirk and west Winnipeg. The Brandon hospital, the Flin Flon emergency room and other health facilities will be expanded and renewed.
These changes will not only improve health care for Manitobans; they will also make the system more efficient and effective. Investments in Dauphin health services will save close to 1,000 patient trips to and from Winnipeg every year.
Manitobans know that the prosperity and security of our families and our province stems from our commitment to education and training. As a centrepiece of this commitment, our government has committed to reduce class size for kindergarten to grade 3 to a maximum of 20 students. The plan will be developed this coming year with the–with an implementation committee composed of parents, teachers and administrators. Implementation will begin in 2012.
Our government will ensure that Manitoba families have access to safe, convenient child care, which is essential to improving education and employment opportunities for parents. Over the next four years new child-care centres will be built, new spaces will be added to existing centres and the salaries of child-care workers will be increased to help attract workers to this vital area.
Our work to modernize education facilities with new schools, new science labs and new gyms will continue. Additionally, we will upgrade shop equipment in our schools to provide greater training opportunities and work with rural divisions to increase access to broadband Internet.
Programs aimed at helping students stay in school until they are 18 will be strengthened by new initiatives to help the private sector employ more apprentices. Skilled trades training will be expanded in rural Manitoba, and a Journey Person Business Start Program will provide support for rural and northern Manitobans to start their own businesses.
A new skilled trade and technology centre will be built at Red River College for high demand trades like carpentry, electrical and plumbing.
New opportunities for education and training will help keep our communities healthier and safer. We will also enhance crime prevention in our province by developing programs with community partners for after-school programming. Apprenticeships and mentoring opportunities provide positive alternatives for at-risk youth.
We also know we need to meet the challenges of safer communities head on with new resources for policing and with clearer consequences for lawbreakers. Over the coming years, our government will add 50 more police to the streets of Winnipeg and 25 cadets specifically for the downtown. There will also be 50 more police and 25 cadets stationed in rural and northern Manitoba. We will work with municipalities and First Nations to improve firefighting capacity in this province.
Offenders will be moved through the system quicker as more prosecutors are hired and the weekend court gets under way. We will work with the federal government to strengthen the Criminal Code and we will propose specific changes, including making gang recruitment an explicit crime and cracking down on knife crimes, arson, home invasions and carjackings.
We will work with police agencies to expand the electronic monitoring bracelet program.
Manitoba is one of the most affordable places to live, study, work and raise a family. People come from around the world to enjoy these advantages. All families will benefit from our guarantee that Manitobans will continue to pay the lowest combined bills for electricity, home heating and auto insurance in Canada.
In addition, our government will continue to take more businesses off the tax rolls and ensure regular and sustainable increases in the minimum wage. The successful ALL Aboard poverty reduction plan will continue to take innovative steps to reduce poverty in our province. Seniors and farm owners will benefit from the elimination of the school tax on seniors and farmland, and all Manitobans will benefit from more incentives to support energy efficiency home improvements.
We will continue to provide stable funding for universities and low tuition fees for university students. Legislation will be enacted to freeze tuition increases to the rate of inflation, interest rates on student loans will be reduced to prime, and student aid rules will be amended to ensure our youth can graduate with a reduced debt burden. This will further encourage young people to stay in Manitoba to start their careers and families.
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Our government will work with the private sector to increase the number of rental units in downtown Winnipeg and throughout the province. Surface parking lots in downtown Winnipeg will be redeveloped. A major expansion of the Convention Centre will help to continue the renaissance that is occurring in our downtown.
Recreational opportunities are essential to a high quality of life and healthy communities. Our government’s five-year plan to renew and improve our parks and campgrounds will continue.
Other initiatives will ensure that Manitobans have the opportunity to benefit from sports and active living, from world-class soccer facilities to splash pads and playgrounds, to the University of Winnipeg and Dakota Community Centre field houses, to a variety of projects in rural and northern Manitoba.
Our natural heritage is also essential to the quality of life in this province. Our government will follow through on the unanimous vote of this House to protect our water, including expanding the moratorium on unsustainable hog industry practices. Manitobans have assessed competing plans of how to protect our lakes and rivers, and have endorsed a plan that requires all people in all sectors of the province to do their part to prevent pollution from entering our waterways. We will work with Manitoba towns, cities, and municipalities to continue progress on water protection. We will work with agribusiness to find ways to protect our water and the sector’s future prosperity. We would develop a service-water management strategy to help deal with flooding and reduce the pollution that is killing our lakes.
Our government will keep Manitoba Hydro strong and public and moving forward with expansion plans that will keep Hydro growing. We will ensure that Bipole III is built on the west side of Lake Winnipeg to preserve our boreal forest, ensure our long-term security and enable Manitoba Hydro to continue to sell its power at the premier–as a premium to the United States.
We will also build new hydro generation capacity, including the Keeyask and Conawapa dams, in partnership with First Nations. These major building projects, the largest in our province’s history, will create 25,000 person-years of employment, allow us to expand profitable energy exports and keep rates low for Manitoba families and businesses.
In order to capitalize on the significant opportunities created by hydro expansion, our government will establish a Manitoba energy jobs fund to help Manitoba companies expand and to attract international companies to create jobs in our province. The fund will provide and promote the development of hydro and other clean energy options in Manitoba.
Our government was elected to secure a stronger future for Manitoba, building on the many strengths we share, facing up squarely to our challenges. We have some serious challenges in front of us. The flood of 2011, the most widespread flood event in memory, is far from over. Many Manitobans remain out of their homes and many others are working to restore their properties. Continuing high water levels raise the risk of further storm damage this fall and more flooding next spring.
To reduce this risk, work is under way to dig an emergency channel that will lower the levels of Lake St. Martin and Lake Manitoba. Work is also ongoing to help citizens repair the damage caused by the flood and to install new flood protection.
Plans to remove the single-desk role of the Canadian Wheat Board have long-term consequences for Manitoba, for Winnipeg as a major hub of the grain industry, for farmers and farming communities, for the future of the Port of Churchill and for Manitoba’s role as a centre of grain research. In the coming weeks, a community coalition will travel to Ottawa to highlight these issues and seek solutions.
The uncertain state of the global economy may present new challenges to our province in the months and years to come. The Manitoba economy has proved resilient through the global downturn, demonstrating that the best response to economic turbulence is a long-term commitment to growth, innovation and an expanding labour force.
Following the global financial crisis of 2008, the government joined in the national stimulus program and adopted a new five-year financial management strategy. The strategy was designed to provide a measure of economic support to communities during a period of recession and preserve the gains made in public finances and capital investment over the previous decade. The goals of the stimulus package were achieved and Manitoba’s five-year budget strategy remains on track.
As new storm clouds gather in some of the world’s leading economies, our government will work closely with Manitobans to monitor the implications for the provincial economy and, with the federal government, to formulate appropriate policy responses. Our continuing goal is to sustain economic growth and program efficiencies, meet our fiscal targets and meet our commitments to Manitobans.
For all members of this Assembly, the decisions we make today will shape the future of this province. Our decisions will ensure that Manitoba continues moving forward and fulfills this great potential.
Au moment où vous vous apprêtez à assumer les responsabilités que la population du Manitoba vous a confiées, j’ai bon espoir que la divine Providence guidera vos délibérations pour le plus grand bien de tous les Manitobains et Manitobaines.
As you proceed to carry out the responsibility the people of Manitoba have entrusted to you, I trust that Divine Providence will guide your deliberations in the best interests of all our citizens.
Merci beaucoup.
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His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor rose from the throne and retired from the Chamber escorted by the Sergeant-at-Arms carrying the mace and followed by the honorary aides-de-camp, the officer escort, the Premier and the Provincial Court Judges.
Prior to their exiting the Chamber, the lyrics of "God Save the Queen" and "O Canada" were sung.
The Speaker proceeded to the throne.
The Sergeant-at-Arms approached the Speaker, made obeisance with the mace, then placed the mace on the table.
Mr. Speaker: O Eternal and Almighty God, from Whom all power and wisdom come, we are assembled here before Thee to frame such laws as may tend to the welfare and prosperity of our province. Grant, O merciful God, we pray Thee, that we may desire only that which is in accordance with Thy will, that we may seek it with wisdom, know it with certainty and accomplish it perfectly for the glory and honour of Thy name and for the welfare of all our people. Amen.
Please be seated.
Bill 1–An Act Respecting the Administration of Oaths of Office
Hon. Greg Selinger (Premier): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On behalf of the whole House, congratulations again on your new responsibilities. [applause]
I move, seconded by the Minister of Labour and Immigration (Ms. Howard), that Bill 1, An Act Respecting the Administration of Oaths of Office; Loi sur la prestation des serments d’entrée en function, be now read a first time.
Motion agreed to.
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Mr. Selinger: I move, also seconded by the Minister of Labour and Immigration, that Tom Nevakshonoff, member for the electoral division of Interlake, be chairperson of the committees of whole–of the Whole House and Deputy Speaker.
Motion agreed to.
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Mr. Selinger: I move, seconded by the Minister of Labour and Immigration, that Rob Altemeyer, member for the electoral division of Wolseley, be Deputy Chairperson of the committees of the Whole House.
Motion agreed to.
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Mr. Selinger: I move, seconded by the Minister of Labour and Immigration, that Mohinder Saran, member for the electoral division of The Maples, be Deputy Chairperson of the committees of the Whole House.
Motion agreed to.
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Hon. Jennifer Howard (Government House Leader): I would ask if you would canvass the House to see if there’s leave to bring forward a sessional order that’s been agreed to by House leaders regarding the fall sitting of the First Session of the Fortieth Legislature.
Mr. Speaker: As Speaker, canvassing the House to see if there is leave to bring forward a sessional order regarding the fall sitting of the First Session of the Fortieth Legislature. Is it agreed? [Agreed]
Ms. Howard: I move, seconded by the Minister of Health (Ms. Oswald)
THAT the following sessional order apply to this session despite any other rule, practice, or sessional order of this House. Throne Speech debate to be concluded November 1st, 2011. If the motion for the address and reply to the Speech from the Throne for the First Session of the Fortieth Legislature has not proceeded to a vote before Tuesday, November 1st, 2011, then that day is to be considered the eighth and final day of debate.
At 4:30 p.m. on that day, the Speaker must interrupt the proceedings and without seeing the clock, put every question necessary to dispose of (a) any outstanding amendment or subamendment to the main motion for the address and reply to the Speech from the Throne and (b) the main motion for the address and reply to the Speech from the Throne. The interruption is to take place and the required action is to be taken whether or not the orders of the day have been called. At the conclusion of the required action, the Speaker must adjourn the House without a motion for adjournment.
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Priority of actions to be taken: (2) If at the specified time a point of order or a matter of privilege has been raised and is under consideration by the House, the point of order or matter of privilege is to be set aside and no other point of order or matter of privilege may be raised until the required action has been taken and all matters relating to the required action have been resolved.
House adjournment: (3) When the House adjourns on November 1st, it stands adjourned until the call of the Speaker.
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker: I have a very pleasant duty as Speaker. My first duty, of course, is to introduce the new pages who will be serving the Chamber for this legislative session, and I would like to start with the introductions.
I’m pleased to introduce to the House the 10 students who have been selected to serve as pages at this session and they are, beginning at my extreme right, Mr. Andrew Chudley, Ms. Katie Cook, Ms. Jacqueline Donner, Mr. Sam Dueck, Ms. Jaclyn Flom, Mr. Kyle Friesen, Ms. Rebecca Kunzman, Ms. Victoria Ploszay, Ms. Stacey Schott and Ms. Korie Werner. These are our pages for this Legislative Assembly. [applause]
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Mr. Selinger: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Labour and Immigration (Ms. Howard), that a special committee consisting of Ms. Braun, Honourable Mr. Chomiak, Messrs. Eichler and Goertzen, Honourable Ms. Howard, Honourable Mr. Mackintosh and Mrs. Taillieu, be appointed to prepare the proportional membership representation to compose the standing committees provided under subrule 83(1).
Motion agreed to.
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Mr. Selinger: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by, not surprisingly, the Minister of Labour and Immigration (Ms. Howard), that the speech of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor be taken into consideration tomorrow.
Mr. Speaker: It has been moved by the honourable First Minister, seconded by the Minister of Labour and Immigration, that the speech of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor be taken into consideration tomorrow.
Is that agreed? [Agreed]
Before putting the House–question–Honourable First Minister.
Mr. Selinger: I again move, seconded by the Minister of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs (Mr. Robinson), that the House do now adjourn.
Mr. Speaker: It has been moved by the honourable First Minister, seconded by the Minister of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs, that this House do now adjourn.
Is that agreed?
Oh, before putting the question–sorry, I forgot one part. Please bear with me; I’m new at this. Thank you. I appreciate that.
I wish to–before putting the question to the House, may I inform all members present that refreshments will be served in room 254 at the south end of the Legislative Building after the House has adjourned. And I invite all members that are here with us today to please join us in that room.
Is the House ready for the question?
Some Honourable Members: Question?
Mr. Speaker: Shall the House adjourn? [Agreed]
The House is adjourned until tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.