LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF
Wednesday, December 2,
1992
The House met at 1:30 p.m.
PRAYERS
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTING PETITIONS
Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Mr. Speaker, I beg to presentthe petition of
Barbara Sellman, Jodi Cranswick, Richard Vawhoueand others, requesting the
government of
Mr. Gulzar Cheema (The Maples): Mr. Speaker, I beg to presentthe petition of
George Tessier, Deborah Carr, Angela Borysowichand others, urging the
government of
Mr. Speaker: I have
reviewed the petition of the honourablemember for
To the Legislature of the
WHEREAS each year smoke from stubble burning descends
uponthe
WHEREAS the Parents Support Group of Children with Asthma
haslong criticized the harmful effects of stubble burning; and
WHEREAS the smoke caused from stubble burning is not
healthyfor the general public and tends to aggravate the problems ofasthma
sufferers and people with chronic lung problems; and
WHEREAS alternative practices to stubble burning
arenecessitated by the fact that the smoke can place some people inlife‑threatening
situations; and
WHEREAS the 1987 Clean Environment Commission Report
onPublic Hearings, "Investigation of Smoke Problems fromAgriculture Crop
Residue and Peatland Burning," contained therecommendation that a review
of the crop residue burningsituation be conducted in five years' time,
including are‑examination of the necessity for legislated regulatory
control.
THEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray that the
LegislativeAssembly will urge the Government of Manitoba to pass thenecessary
legislation/regulations which will restrict stubbleburning in the
As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.
* * *
I have reviewed the petition of the honourable member
forPoint Douglas (Mr. Hickes). It
complies with the privileges andthe practices of the House and complies with
the rules. Is itthe will of the House to
have the petition read?
The petition of the undersigned citizens of the province
of
THAT the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry was launched in April
of1988 to conduct an examination of the relationship between thejustice system
and aboriginal people; and
The AJI delivered its report in August of 1991 and
concludedthat the justice system has been a massive failure for
aboriginalpeople; and
The AJI report endorsed the inherent right of
aboriginalself‑government and the right of aboriginal communities
toestablish an aboriginal justice system; and
The Canadian Bar Association, The Law Reform Commission
of
On January 28, 1992, five months after releasing the
report,the provincial government announced it was not prepared toproceed with
the majority of the recommendations; and
Despite the All‑Party Task Force Report which
endorsedaboriginal self‑government, the provincial government now
rejectsa separate and parallel justice system, an Aboriginal JusticeCommission
and many other key recommendations which are solelywithin provincial
jurisdiction.
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray that the Legislatureof
the
* * *
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I have reviewed the petition of the honourable member for
TheMaples (Mr. Cheema). It complies with
the rules of the House.Is it the will of the House to have the petition read?
WHEREAS each year smoke from stubble burning descends
uponthe
WHEREAS the Parents Support Group of Children with Asthma
haslong criticized the harmful effects of stubble burning; and
WHEREAS the smoke caused from stubble burning is not
healthyfor the general public and tends to aggravate the problems ofasthma
sufferers and people with chronic lung problems; and
WHEREAS alternative practices to stubble burning
arenecessitated by the fact that the smoke can place some people inlife‑threatening
situations; and
WHEREAS the 1987 Clean Environment Commission Report
onPublic Hearings, "Investigation of Smoke Problems fromAgriculture Crop
Residue and Peatland Burning," contained therecommendation that a review
of the crop residue burningsituation be conducted in five years' time,
including are‑examination of the necessity for legislated regulatory
control.
THEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray that the
LegislativeAssembly will urge the government of
* * *
I have reviewed the petition of the honourable member
forThompson (Mr. Ashton), and it complies with the rules of theHouse. Is it the will of the House to have the
petition read?
The petition of the undersigned citizens of the province
of
WHEREAS the state of Highway 391 is becoming increasinglyunsafe;
and
WHEREAS due to the poor condition of the road there have
beennumerous accidents; and
WHEREAS the condition of the road between Thompson and
NelsonHouse is not only making travel dangerous but costly due tofrequent
damage to vehicles; and
WHEREAS this road is of vital importance to residents
whomust use the road.
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray that the
Legislatureof the
INTRODUCTION OF BILLS
Bill 2‑The
Endangered Species Amendment Act
Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Speaker, Ihave the privilege to move,
seconded by none other than theMinister of Health (Mr. Orchard), that Bill 2,
The EndangeredSpecies Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les especes
envoie de disparition), be now received and read a first time.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 3‑The Oil and
Gas and Consequential Amendments Act
Hon. James Downey (Minister of Energy and Mines): Mr. Speaker, Imove, seconded by the Minister
of Finance (Mr. Manness), thatBill 3, The Oil and Gas and Consequential
Amendments Act (Loiconcernant le petrole et le gaz naturel et apportant
desmodifications correlatives a d'autres lois), be introduced andthat the same
be now received and read a first time.
His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, having been advised
ofthe contents of this bill, recommends it to this House.
Mr. Speaker: It has
been moved by the honourable Minister ofEnergy and Mines (Mr. Downey), seconded
by the honourableMinister of Finance (Mr. Manness), that Bill 3, The Oil and
Gasand Consequential Amendments Act; Loi concernant le petrole et legaz naturel
et apportant des modifications correlatives ad'autres lois, be introduced and
the same now be received andread a first time.
His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, having been advised
ofthe contents of this bill, recommends it the House.
The honourable minister has also tabled a message. Agreed?
Some Honourable Members:
Agreed.
Mr. Speaker: Agreed
and so ordered.
Bill 4‑The Retail
Businesses Sunday Shopping (Temporary
Amendments) Act
Hon. Eric Stefanson (Minister of Industry, Trade and
Tourism):Mr.
Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of GovernmentServices (Mr. Ducharme),
that Bill 4, The Retail BusinessesSunday Shopping (Temporary Amendments) Act
(Loi sur l'ouverturedes commerces de detail les jours feries‑modificationstemporaires),
be introduced and that the same be now received andread a first time.
Motion agreed to.
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Bill 203‑The
Health Care Records Act
Ms. Judy Wasylycia‑Leis (
Motion presented.
Ms. Wasylycia‑Leis:
Mr. Speaker, Bill 203, to enshrine the rightof access to one's own
medical records in law is beingintroduced, or should I say reintroduced this
session, because itis a matter of growing public concern, the subject of a
recentSupreme Court decision and a key element in any serious healthcare reform
plan.
Mr. Speaker, this legislation is based on a number
ofprinciples. The first principle is
that of human dignity, andthis bill acknowledges that the health care consumer
has aninherent right to his or her own health care records and
personalinformation. This bill is based
on the principle of fairness andputs Manitobans on a better and fairer footing
for dealing withour health care system.
It recognizes that a relationship oftrust and openness between the
consumer and health care providerwould flow from the right of access. It acknowledges that abetter understanding of
treatment and more active and informedparticipation in that treatment is
facilitated by access to themedical record.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, it encourages participation in
andresponsibility for one's own health, which can only lead to abetter, more
efficient, more effective health care system.
Assuch, this bill is an integral part of any health care plan
anddeserves the serious and timely consideration of this House.
Motion agreed to.
Bill 205‑The
Ombudsman Amendment Act
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded bythe member
for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie), that Bill 205, TheOmbudsman Amendment Act; Loi
modifiant la Loi sur l'ombudsman, beintroduced and that the same be now
received and read a firsttime.
Motion presented.
Mr. Chomiak: Mr.
Speaker, most people would probably besurprised to learn that the provincial
Ombudsman does not havejurisdiction to investigate school boards. School boards areresponsible for hundreds of
millions of dollars of expendituresand for 200,000 students of the
The extension to school boards will allow parents
andstudents to have a recourse in cases where there is no appeal. Ithink members of this House would also be
surprised in the lastOmbudsman report to note that of over 700 complaints, only
threerelated to the Department of Education and Training. That doesnot jive, Mr. Speaker, with many
concerns and comments that areheard out of the community concerning education.
We have the throne speech which talks about education reformand
other education reform items. This is a
tangible way toeffectively and very cost‑effectively, with very little
cost, toeffect some tangible reform in the education system and allowparents
and students to have a recourse in cases where decisionsand actions of school
boards do not meet with the parents' andstudents' approval. It is timely, and I am sure that all
membersof this House will assist us in speedy passage of this bill,insofar as
in the last month we had a situation where a studentin school is suing a school
board. We know of many others; Iknow of
at least half a dozen others who are considering it, andthis would provide some
recourse to these individuals and someright of appeal to those decisions.
Motion agreed to.
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Introduction of Guests
Mr. Speaker: Prior to
Oral Questions, may I direct the attentionof honourable members to the
Speaker's Gallery, where we havewith us three gentlemen from the
On behalf of all honourable members, I would like to
welcomeyou here this afternoon.
Also with us this afternoon in the public gallery, from
On behalf of all honourable members, I would like to
welcomeyou here this afternoon.
ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
Manitoba Public
Insurance Corporation
No-Fault Insurance
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, myquestion is to the First
Minister (Mr. Filmon).
Mr. Speaker, in 1988, after a major increase in the rates
ofthe Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation, a reform committee wasestablished
chaired by Judge Robert Kopstein. Mr.
Kopstein hadpublic hearings across the province and made a number
ofrecommendations to the government, to the now Premier, about howto improve
the Public Insurance Corporation and how indeed tosave the ratepayer, consumer,
money in the future years.
One of those recommendations, Mr. Speaker, was for a no-fault
system, and the government was asked a number of times, on anumber of occasions
in this Legislature, to deal with theno-fault recommendation before them. Judge Kopstein predictedthat that could save
some $40 million dollars to the consumers ofthis province, because a lot of the
fees, up to 30 percent or 40percent of bodily injury fees, were going to
lawyers and not toclaimants.
Mr. Speaker, the Tilling Gas Report that was brought
forwardto the Public Utilities Board predicted some $60‑million savingin
the no‑fault provisions if it was implemented.
My question to the government is: They have been saying forfive years, they
have been studying it and studying it andstudying it; why has the government
not brought in real reform tothe Public Insurance Corporation so the consumers
could see thebenefit of those recommendations that were made to this Premier?
Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the administration
ofThe Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): Mr. Speaker, theKopstein Report was indeed an
important report regarding publicinsurance in this province, but I do not think
the Leader of theOpposition (Mr. Doer) should be quite so anxious to attribute
themassive savings that he is talking about.
The fact is we haveincorporated over 100 of Kopstein's report's
recommendationswithin the corporation, but the more important one and the
onethat bothers the public the most, as a matter of fact, is: Whatis the real cost of insuring a vehicle to
put it on the road inthis province, and what coverages and what benefits am I
entitledto if I should have an accident or if I am injured?
Those are the kinds of questions that we will need to
keepout in front of us in the next few months as we examine what isthe real
basic need to put an automobile on the road in thisprovince as part of compulsory
insurance and the benefits thatare available to the injured under those
circumstances, becausethat is exactly what no‑fault speaks to, is whether
or notcertain abilities to recover beyond a certain level for injuriesis being
considered.
Renewal Process
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I thinkmembers on this side can
read back the comments of outrage fromthe members opposite all day long, but
that will not do theconsumer any good at all in terms of the increases we are
facingin the next couple of months.
Mr. Speaker, a further recommendation made under the
KopsteinReport and further contained to the government was to change thecycle
of payments. It identified the fact from
the privatesector and the public sector that to have so many people renewingon
the same date at the end of February was indeed a negativefact for the consumer
and a very, very negative reality forretail business in
The government had a recommendation to change, from
JudgeKopstein, this renewal date. On
questions we have raised in theHouse to the government, it promised to do
that. In fact, theminister promised to
do this exact same measure on January 29,1990, to go to cyclical renewals to
help the economy of
I would ask the Premier why they have not implemented
theKopstein Report for cyclical renewals to help our economy, tohelp consumers
and to help the Manitoba Public InsuranceCorporation.
Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the administration
ofThe Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): Mr. Speaker, theLeader of the Opposition is
correct that we have said, thecorporation has said, that they will move to
cyclical renewals.Part of that moving forward is the redesigning and
enhancement ofthe computer capacity within the corporation, which is a largeand
expensive undertaking, one that needs to be extended over aperiod of time so as
to avoid a severe impact on the overhead ofthe corporation. The corporation is moving forward on that
modeland, with the implementation of Autopac 2000‑‑which is
presentlybeing negotiated; it was referenced yesterday being negotiated
acompensation package for agents‑‑we will be changing the way
inwhich we do business in this province.
There will be cyclicalrenewals.
There will be an opportunity for the kind of servicethat Judge Kopstein
envisioned at the time of his report.
I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, if there is one item
thatthe corporation has been focusing on more than anything else, itis bringing
the corporation into the '90s and on into the year2000 to provide the kind of
service that the Autopac 2000 willbring.
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Agents' Fees
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, the onlything that is going to
change the business of the Manitoba PublicInsurance Corporation is a party and
a government that believesin public insurance and believes in the
recommendations of JudgeKopstein.
Instead of waiting five years like this Premier (Mr.Filmon) has done,
drifting from issue to issue, doing nothing interms of the recommendations he
had before him‑‑he likes toheckle in the House, but when it comes
to doing anything, Mr.Speaker, he does nothing on anything before him.
Mr. Speaker, a further promise made by the Premier in
1988 isthey would not interfere with the business plans of any
Crowncorporation. One of the
recommendations Judge Kopstein made wasto deal with agents' fees in 1988, some
five years ago. In thebusiness plan
forwarded to the government of the day, headed bythe Premier (Mr. Filmon), the
business plan of the ManitobaPublic Insurance Corporation proposed to
government was thatagents' fees would be capped so that they would not get
anautomatic increase based on this massive increase required by theManitoba
Public Insurance Corporation. The
government overrodethe business plan of the Manitoba Public Insurance
Corporation;the government refused to follow the business plan of the
publicauto insurance and indeed followed the lobbying they got from thebrokers
of
I would ask why the Premier overrode the business plan of
theManitoba Public Insurance Corporation and why the lobbyists fromthe brokers
were able to get the attention of the cabinet and notgo to the Public Utilities
Board, where the rest of the publichad to go to the Public Utilities Board.
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I reject categoricallythat the
agents got into the cabinet of the Government of
I secondly suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that
thisis a government that has not interfered with the operationsof‑‑[interjection]
We have plenty of evidence of the fact that the
NDPgovernment, of which he was a part, set the rates, the 25 percent increase
that went in, rolled back recommendations of theboard routinely, shredded the
files when it was to theirconvenience to eliminate evidence of their meddling,
directmeddling and interference with a corporation, and ran thecorporation out
of the minister's office and the governmentcabinet room. This administration will not do that.
Manitoba Public
Insurance Corporation
Political Interference
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Mr. Speaker, we are not going totake it, no
big Autopac increases; we are not going to take it,no political interference in
Autopac‑‑what a bunch of hypocrites. Where are the same Tories of four years ago?
I have a very simple question to the Premier, Mr.
Speaker, onpolitical interference. How
does the First Minister justifybuckling in to a lobby led by insurance agents,
spearheaded byhis own Minister of Government Services (Mr. Ducharme), on
anissue that would have saved a million dollars for the motoristsof
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): The member for Thompson has made avery
serious allegation. He made a very
serious allegation, andunless he has evidence to support that the minister was
even aparticipant in any discussions with respect to Autopac agents, Idemand
that he remove that or put the evidence on the table, Mr.Speaker. That is a matter of privilege that ought to
be dealtwith by this House if he does not have any evidence to putforward on
that.
Mr. Ashton: Mr.
Speaker, perhaps the Premier should talk to theminister. He has been taking credit himself. When will theminister take action to
investigate the clear evidence ofpolitical interference on a matter that would
have saved amillion dollars for the motorists of
Mr. Filmon: He is
making a serious allegation. I demand
that heput up what evidence he has that the Minister of GovernmentServices even
participated in any discussions or debate leadingup to this issue. Put the evidence on the table, or withdraw
andapologize.
You are turning white, Steve. Put up.
Mr. Ashton: Will the
Premier investigate this matter and startby talking to his own minister who has
been telling people thathe has spearheaded a lobby which was successful? Why does he notstart by talking to his own
caucus members?
Mr. Filmon: Mr.
Speaker, I ask the member, in the interests ofintegrity of this House, to put
the evidence on the table.
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Temro Automotive
Agreement
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr.Speaker, if our Autopac system is to have
integrity, and I thinkit is important that it does, then we must make it
asdepoliticized a Crown corporation as possible, and I congratulatethe
government for having moved the rate setting to the PUB.That is where they
belong. That is where they should have
beenunder the previous administration.
But there was a seriousincident that was raised last night on
television. The publicneeds answers, and
I hope that we can get those answers today.
The report indicated that the public corporation, MPIC,
and amanufacturer of a product with a history of trouble entered intoa secret
agreement with one another.
Can the minister responsible please tell the House today
whenthat agreement was entered into and why it was entered into? Wasthe Department of Consumer Affairs
informed of this difficulty sothat it could keep the consumers of this province
adequatelyinformed about the dangers?
Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the administration
ofThe Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): The Leader ofthe Second Opposition has
correctly identified a concern that Ishare on this side of the House, regarding
certainly theappearance and the implication of MPIC having entered into
thisunderstanding with Temro. The one
thing that was not included,however, in the report last night was that MPIC did
contact theCSA indicating to them that they had a number of concerns. Atthat point, they felt they were unable to
produce enough evidenceto take the matter to court.
My position is that they should have taken these matters
tocourt one at a time until they were able to prove beyond anydoubt‑‑and
through that process they would have been able toproduce the public
information, and then make statements publiclythat they could have
supported. It was an error in judgment,
Mr.Speaker, and one which I expect the corporation will not repeat.
Mrs. Carstairs: Mr.
Speaker, to some degree, that begs thequestion as to when the minister himself
found out about thisagreement. After
all, if one looks back, it would appear thatthe current Minister of Family
Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) was onthis board from 1988 to 1990, and the now
Minister of Industry,Trade and Tourism (Mr. Stefanson) was on this board from
1990,'91.
When was the minister informed of this particular
secretagreement?
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Mr. Cummings: Mr.
Speaker, the same question arose in my mind asto whether or not there had been
any communication or anyimplication in my presence that this type of agreement
had beenstruck. It is only within the
last 10 days or so that I becameaware of the issue as it was described by the I‑Team
last night.I would doubt if this is the type of question that would havebeen
brought to the board table as a matter of fact.
I certainlycan research the agendas to make sure that was the case,
butfrankly, this was an executive decision, one which they tell methey felt was
supportable at the time. Obviously, I
disagree.
Mrs. Carstairs: If the
minister has known about this for 10days, has he in the last 10 days informed
the Minister ofConsumer Affairs so that she can issue an order protecting
theconsumers of this province?
Mr. Cummings: Mr.
Speaker, all of the departments of governmentneed to be concerned about the
perception as well as the realityof what occurred in this matter, but the
simple fact is that theCSA certification and the CSA organization, they
continue tostand behind their position.
I have been in consultation withthe minister, but there has to be a
process that she could enterinto.
Entering into a decision without reason would have causedthat department
every bit as much grief as it would have causedmy office if I had made an
abrupt decision without correct legaladvice behind it.
Ozone Depleting
Substances ActExemptions
Mr. Paul Edwards (St. James): Mr. Speaker, my question is forthe minister
responsible for MPIC and for the Environment.
Mr. Speaker, as the member for
Can the minister explain why MPIC has recently advised
theworking group on the implementation of The Ozone DepletingSubstances Act
that it requires a special exemption from this actso that it will not have to
safely dispose of the CFCs in airconditioning units of vehicles that it is
attempting to resell tothe public?
Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the administration
ofThe Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): Mr. Speaker, Ipresume that either someone from
the working group or the memberhimself has summarized or in some way drawn a
conclusion fromcorrespondence or comments made by the corporation, because
whathe has just stated is different from my understanding, which isthat the
corporation is moving towards a project that will allowthem to withdraw the
CFCs from the vehicles within theirresponsibility.
The issue, of course, that no one wants to address is
thatthe corporation has to attribute this cost to someone, and itwill either be
to the person who recently had his car writtenoff, and is he now additionally
going to be deducted to have theCFC removed, or is it going to be the person
who purchases thatcar at auction who will pay additionally to make sure that it
hasa green sticker or that it has had the CFCs removed from it?
The corporation is moving towards a project so that they
candefine what would be proper cost.
This will more than likely bea project that will be undertaken by
contract or by tender, andthe corporation will be moving towards that, bearing
in mind thatone of the problems they have at a number of their compounds isthat
in order to remove the CFCs during the winter, they have tohave a heated
building and the equipment has to be at 70 degreesbefore they can properly
remove that. That requires
someinvestment or contractual work, and the CFC removal is moving inthat direction.
Mr. Edwards: Mr.
Speaker, for the minister's information, I wantto table correspondence dated
November 17 from Ms. Anne Lindsayof the
Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Canadian Council of
Ministersof Environment which is supposed to be co‑ordinating efforts
torecover and recycle CFCs, how can this minister sit at one tableand discuss
phasing out CFCs but when he is wearing another hatpresiding over a Crown
corporation seek to get a specialexemption for this Crown corporation which
every other owner ofvehicles attempting to resell them will have to comply
with? Whyis MPIC special?
Mr. Cummings: Mr.
Speaker,
The corporation is not breaking any laws or legislation
inthis province. They are selling a
vehicle. Those vehicles, someof them may
go towards reclamation, some of them may go todestruction, and it is a juncture
when we have some 2,000vehicles within the possession of the corporation at
which pointthey could remove the CFCs.
In setting up that system, theybetter make sure that in fact they are
going one step furtherthan is required by law.
For him to imply that they are somehowbeing exempt is absolutely wrong.
Mr. Edwards: Mr.
Speaker, MPIC is seeking exemption from a lawwhich will apply to everyone else
in this province.
What kind of leadership and what kind of example does
thegovernment expect to offer when it imposes cost andresponsibilities on the
public for phasing out CFCs but seeks toexempt Crown corporations from the very
same law?
Mr. Cummings: Mr.
Speaker, something that the member, I am sure,is very conversant with, given
his training, is some of theprinciples of responsibility. Environmental responsibility veryoften says
that he who has the benefit of the environment and theuse in the environment
should pay for that cost.
Mr. Speaker, that speaks to my answer previously, which
wasthat the corporation has to balance the question and has to makea decision
that will be compatible with its organization as towhether, if the person who
has just had his car wrecked, who isgoing to be billed additionally for the
removal of the CFCsbecause he in fact had the benefit of that air conditioning,
oris it the wrecker who is going to take that car and perhaps moveon with it to
claim parts off of it? Will he in fact
be payingfor the removal of the CFCs in advance of taking it off of MPIC'slot?
MPIC in fact is not much different in this situation than
anautomobile dealer would be under similar circumstances. They donot have these vehicles for their own
use. They are in theirpossession as a result
of a full claim write‑off.
Mr. Speaker, he knows full well that perception is
everythingin the business of politics, and he is trying to create theperception
that somehow MPIC is exempt. He is
wrong.
* * *
Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood):
Mr. Speaker, my question is to theMinister responsible for the Manitoba
Public InsuranceCorporation as well. The
minister has just noted that he wasaware‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please.
* * *
MATTER OF PRIVILEGE
Hon. Gerald Ducharme (Minister of Government Services): Mr.Speaker, I would like to rise on a matter
of privilege that tookme a little while to‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please. A matter of privilege is a
veryserious matter.
Mr. Ducharme: Mr.
Speaker, first of all, it will take me a fewminutes, and I will have a motion
that I will give forward.
It is very upsetting when you are accused in this
House,especially in the example that I have led‑‑when I was
inopposition I did not participate in any of the functions or anyof the
committees dealing with MPIC and also, as a minister ofthe Crown, did not
participate, at any time did I participatewhen I was at cabinet or participate
any time at committeehearings. I have
made it a purpose to stay away when your familyis involved in a particular
business. I have also put all of
mybusiness interests in trust. I do not
participate in thepractice of Autopac, and my family participates while I have
itin trust.
Mr. Speaker, I deny all allegations that the member
forThompson (Mr. Ashton) has produced, and I move that the memberfor Thompson
produce any of the evidence supporting hisallegations that I, as Minister of
Government Services, acted ina fashion that could be construed as a conflict of
interest inany possible way, and failing his ability to do so, that
heimmediately apologize to me and my family and the government,immediately
apologize to the Premier (Mr. Filmon), to mycolleagues in the Legislature, to
everyone in this House,apologize immediately for his false allegations.
Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Mr. Speaker, Iindicated very clearly in the
question my concern, the concern ofour caucus about the minister's involvement
in this, and I basedvery much of that not only on what brokers have been told
butwhat members of our caucus have been told, including by theminister himself.
We are very concerned when we see evidence as clear as we
doof political interference of a savings of $1 million that couldhave been had
for the motorists of
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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Second Opposition House Leader): Mr.Speaker, this is indeed a very serious
matter. It is the onus ofresponsibility
for each and every one of us inside this Chamberto bring forward what we feel
are legitimate concerns on behalfof Manitobans and to represent what is in
their best interests.At times, and I believe that this is one of those times
when theallegations have been so strong, there is some sort of a need tohave
some sort of verification of the allegations.
The Premierin his answer did request for some solid‑‑something
tangible,that would demonstrate in fact that the Minister of GovernmentServices
was in fact in a conflict of interest.
I have not heard anything to substantiate that, and given
theserious nature of the allegations that have been brought forward,I would
suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that in fact the Minister ofGovernment Services is
in fact owed an apology or, at the veryleast, given the information to
substantiate the allegations thathave been levelled against him.
Hon. Clayton Manness (Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, Ido not certainly have to tell
you this, but certainly I think Ihave to tell again other members who maybe
have not read rulebooks recently that when one reads the rule book, there is
onesection that strikes out. That is the
area dealing with personalprivilege. All
of us, when we come here into this type of asetting, when we are so much on
public view and we are so muchvulnerable to attacks which have no evidence or
have nosubstance, that is why we can stop in the middle of the QuestionPeriod
to rise at this point in time. That is
how serious anyallegation is under a point of privilege.
Mr. Speaker, we in public life bring a lot of
difficulties onourselves, and I think all of us want to begin to clear that
upto the extent that we can, but when unsubstantiated allegationsare made, we
do not only a disservice to the person who is beingattacked, but indeed to each
and every member of this House. Sowe all
have a vital role, not only in this issue, but in any areawhere there is a
claim being made against another member.
Today we had a situation where the member for
Thompson,without evidence, without anything, I am led to believe, otherthan a
comment that he may have heard or may not have heard, gotup on the guise and
raised the question and made a very strongallegation. The allegation was that a member of the
TreasuryBench, through his capacity as a member of Executive Council,influenced
a government decision. What he did not
say was: tohis ultimate benefit. That is what he did not say in hisquestion,
but each and every one of us in this House knowsexactly what he meant. So, Mr. Speaker, that is why the memberhas to
defend his character and indeed all the characters of theHouse that are from
time to time charged with an unfoundedallegation, and therefore he has to rise.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot share the minutes of the
cabinetmeeting of that day when this issue was discussed. I cannot dothat, but I can tell the members
of this House that the member ofthe Executive Council was not there. He was not in attendance,so he influenced not
any decision that was made within cabinet onthis particular issue.
So, Mr. Speaker, I rest my case. This is a very, veryimportant issue, but more
important than that is the allegationspuriously, falsely made against a member
of this House. I wouldsay that if the
member wants to do anything honourable at all inhis long‑standing tenure
in this House, he will withdraw thatallegation.
He will apologize to the member.
He will apologizeto the Premier, to the government and, more
importantly, to allmembers of this House.
Mr. Speaker: I am
going to take this matter under advisement,and I am going to consult the
authorities. I will return to theHouse
with the ruling on this matter.
Manitoba Public
Insurance Corporation
Temro Automotive
Agreement
Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Mr. Speaker, my question is to theminister in
charge of the Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation.
A few minutes ago, he made the statement that he had
learnedof the Temro situation regarding the defective car heaters only10 days
ago. What we are interested in finding
out on this sideof the House is: What
action did he take upon learning 10 daysago that this situation had occurred in
Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister charged with the administration
ofThe Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Act): First of all,Mr. Speaker, I do not think I
could repeat in this Chamber whatmy immediate reaction was, but let us leave it
at that in termsof what I actually said.
I should remind the member oppositethat I have been known to spend some
time working in thefarmyard, so he can draw his own conclusions.
Mr. Speaker, the fact is that I immediately expressed
myconcern about the position that the corporation found themselvesin. I asked if there were other situations
similar to this. Iwas assured that there
were not. I inquired if there were
infact situations that may have arisen as a result of this, wheresomeone was
injured or imperilled. I was told there
was not.Nevertheless, as I said before, when the corporation took thisdecision,
they did it based on the facts as they saw them. Itwas an executive decision, and certainly
they have said to me, inlooking at hindsight, that they would have chosen a
differentdirection.
Mr. Maloway: Mr.
Speaker, my supplementary to the same ministeris: Given that the corporation is responsible for
safety in thisprovince, could he endeavour to discover why the corporation
didnot issue a warning in all this time, neither in their annualreports or
referral to the Consumer minister or any other way?
Mr. Cummings: Mr.
Speaker, the corporation, as they indicated tome, sent a number of these
heaters to an independent lab forexamination.
They notified the Canadian Standards.
At the sametime, the results that came back from the labs
wereinconclusive. They had to make a
decision whether they weregoing to go to court at that point, and they were
moving towardscourt but did not feel in their own minds that they could make
acase that they could substantiate. In
the course of pursuingTemro on these matters, an offer was made, and they
considered itto be the course that they would take.
Nevertheless, as I said before, I am sure that they
wouldhave done differently looking back over a period of time.
Mr. Maloway: Mr.
Speaker, I have a final supplementary.
Will he now request the Minister of Consumer Affairs
(Mrs.McIntosh) to issue a warning to the public and try to determinehow many of
these defective heaters are still out there in thepublic, because I think there
are a lot of people who are notaware of this problem at this point?
Mr. Cummings: Mr.
Speaker, because I am cognizant of the amountof time I have in answering a
question, I did not refer to thefact that we have also been in contact with
Temro obviously tosee what their position has continued to be.
They have been actively removing all of these heaters
fromthe market for the last two and a half years or so, I believe.In fact, they
will be issuing a press release later today, whichwill provide some further
clarity to what their position is. Iwant
to assure the member and the public that we were activelypursuing the corporation
to make sure that there was no stoneleft unturned and making sure the public
was properly cared for.
(1420)
Antisniff LegislationProclamation
Mr. George Hickes (Point Douglas): Mr. Speaker, today we aresaddened to hear
another tragic story of a young person who hasdied as the result of chronic
solvent abuse. In spite of thenear
epidemic proportions of this problem in some areas of thecity and in the
province, the government has refused to takestrong action on the problems of
sniff.
The Minister of Health said that legislation would
beproclaimed in January of 1991.
Instead, all we have heard arethe excuses of why this government will
not proclaim theantisniff legislation introduced by our caucus.
I have a very simple question to the Premier (Mr.
Filmon).When will his government fulfill the commitment to proclaim
theantisniff legislation to prevent another tragic death?
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I, too,read the newspapers this
morning and have empathy for the deathof the individual and understand that one
of his difficulties wassniffing substance abuse.
We have not proclaimed the legislation that was passed
inthis House, Sir, because we have not the assurance that thelegislation, as
written, would be enforceable. That has
been thereason for the delay since 1990.
Legal Opinion Request
Mr. George Hickes (Point Douglas): Mr. Speaker, will theMinister of Health table
the legal opinions he has received whichindicate why the legislation, which
received support from thepolice and community activists, cannot be proclaimed?
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, it hasbeen an ongoing discussion
with the ministry of Justice in termsof the parameters of that legislation,
whether in fact it has thekind of authority and the kind of outcome that my
honourablefriend alleged would be part of that legislation.
Sir, we do not have that kind of opinion that, as
written,the legislation would do what my honourable friend wanted it todo, and
indeed I think it is fair to say what this House expectedthe legislation might
be able to do when it passed it.
Mr. Speaker, that is the subject of ongoing discussion
withinmy ministry and the ministry of Justice with hopefully aresolution that
will attempt to uphold what I think all of uswished to accomplish in this House
when that legislation waspassed.
Liquor Control Act
Lysol Inclusion
Mr. George Hickes (Point Douglas): Mr. Speaker, will theminister and his cabinet
colleagues take immediate action toinclude Lysol as an intoxicating substance
under The LiquorControl Act so that it can be designated and treated as
acontrolled substance?
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, that iscertainly an issue of one
of the substances, and in fact, as Iunderstand it, was one of the difficulties
with the legislationbecause of inhalable versus consumable, in terms of Lysol,
thespray versus the nonaerosol aspect, and that is where thelegislation had
difficulties in terms of its enforcement, Sir.
Mr. Speaker, that issue has not been resolvable on
thelegislation, with the legislation that this House passed, andthat of course,
Sir, is why we have been back and forth over atwo‑year period of time
with the Justice department, attemptingto bring further clarity to enforcement
of the intent of thatlegislation.
Medicare
Eye Examinations
Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): Mr. Speaker, when Delilah betrayedSamson and
she cut Samson's hair, Samson succumbed and he wentblind. If the Health minister proceeds in cutting medicare
inaccessing eye care, poor Manitobans in a financial bind mayultimately go
blind.
Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister of Health, will
thehonourable Minister of Health reconsider, postpone or countermandthe
impending change in the regulation to extend the waiting timeperiod for basic
eye examination from one year to a two‑year timeperiod come January 1,
1993?
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, we havebeen reviewing issues
within the responsibility and purview ofthe ministry of Health and the service
provision that our planprovides in an attempt to assure that we are meeting
medicalneeds. One of the recommendations
that we accepted and are inthe process of expediting, and it was in the news
some six,eight, 10, 12 weeks ago, was the extension of a two‑year
insuredoptometric examination for Manitobans, because that is theprovision of
service that is in eight other provinces, theexception being
Mr. Santos: Mr.
Speaker, if the honourable minster chooses toproceed with this change in
regulation, what conditionsconstituting exceptions will he allow so as to
preventdiagnosable eye problems from becoming serious and translatedinto more
risky and more expensive eye surgery?
Mr. Orchard: Well, Mr.
Speaker, that, of course, is the subjectof discussion right now with
professionals in eye examination sothat we can, for instance, assure that our
regulation will notcompromise medical condition, because that is the
responsibilityof this ministry in calling upon taxpayer dollars to
provideservices which have medical necessity.
Mr. Speaker, I would suspect we will probably have at
leastas effective an assurance that we meet medical needs as, forinstance,
Mr. Santos: Mr.
Speaker, would the honourable minister publiclydisclose his basic reason, his
basic rationale, for allowing thischange, in allowing people to go blind just
to have a few savingsin dollars?
Mr. Orchard: Mr.
Speaker, from time to time, I have listenedwith a great deal of interest to
speeches made by my honourablefriend, such as the creation of woman from Adam's
rib, but myhonourable friend has exceeded the bounds of integrity and thekind
of ability to deliver a clear and concise message on moralsand principles in
this House when he accuses this government ofwanting people to go blind with a
regulation change that isconsistent with seven other provinces in Canada. My honourablefriend does himself a disservice
as a professional and aneducator.
Public Schools Act
Review Tabling Request
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, my question is for theMinister
of Education and Training. The Minister
of Educationand Training had a year‑long study to examine the proposed
newpublic schools act, and we have been looking for legislationand/or for that
report in this House for some time.
Can the minister outline when the report of her
advisorycommittee will be tabled and when we can expect a new publicschools act
in the
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Education and Training): Mr.Speaker, the hearings for the revision of
The Public Schools Actdid not end until February of '92 because there was great
publicinterest in responding to the issues relating to The PublicSchools
Act. The panel then reviewing the
submissions that werereceived‑‑and I am happy to tell the member
there were over 1,000petitions representing over 6,000 Manitobans‑‑had
a great deal ofwork to do, and I have only very recently received a draft
copyand then a final copy approximately a week ago.
Mr. Chomiak: Mr.
Speaker, will the minister therefore table thatreport in the House, since she
has the final copy and she hasmade all kinds of recommendations in the throne
speech concerningeducation?
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr.
Speaker, first of all, in relation to thethrone speech, I am very pleased with
what this government hasput forward in relation to education in the throne
speech, andeducational reform relates both to our K‑12 system and also
ourpost‑secondary system. Perhaps,
the member has forgotten that.
However, the report which I have very recently received,
I amin the process of reviewing. Mr.
Speaker, I have also made itclear to Manitobans that they will have an
opportunity to respondto the recommendations made by that panel before
legislation isbrought forward to this House.
*
(1430)
Mr. Chomiak: My final
supplementary to the minister who hasfailed to answer both of my first
questions: When will thereport be made
public? When will we see legislation? Why is thegovernment hiding the report?
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr.
Speaker, as I explained to the member, I haveonly just received the report,
because it is a report whichcontains the opinions representing over 6,000
Manitobans. Ithink that is a very
significant amount of work that has beendone in that report.
Government is now looking at the best mechanism to
releasethe recommendations to Manitobans, the report to Manitobans, andmake
sure that Manitobans can then be sure that they areaccurately represented in
that report before government goesahead and drafts legislation to amend The
Public Schools Act.
Pharmacare
Smoking-Cessation
Products
Ms. Judy
Wasylycia‑Leis (St. Johns): Mr.
Speaker, we areincreasingly concerned about this Minister of Health
(Mr.Orchard) and his government's attention to prevention and costsavings as a
result of preventative measures in our health caresystem. Today, we have heard about this government's
inactionwith respect to preventing serious eye problems. Yesterday, theMinister of Health indicated‑‑[interjection]
Yes, I think theLiberal Health critic might want to consult with the‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please.
Ms. Wasylycia‑Leis: Mr. Speaker, I will try to get to thequestion
if the other Tory Health minister in this House wouldjust be quiet.
As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, yesterday the
ministerindicated that labelling on liquor bottles pertaining to fetalalcohol
syndrome was unnecessary and only appeasing our ownconscience.
I want to ask the Minister of Health, on a very serious
issuepertaining to smoking in our society, why this government hasdeinsured
pharmaceutical products that help people stop smoking,that being Nicorette gum,
and why this government refuses toprovide any kind of Pharmacare coverage for
the nicotine patch.
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, all of usknow that smoking
compromises one's health condition. One
alsoknows that cigarettes cost $5 a pack or better. [interjection]Pardon me,
$7. Obviously, I am a nonsmoker. Often people smokeone pack per day, which
means in a month you would spend $200.The patches to stop cost about $100 a
month, and my honourablefriend wants taxpayers to pay for it?
Mr. Speaker: The
honourable member for
Ms. Wasylycia‑Leis:
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask theMinister of Health how he can
justify a decision that will costthis government and taxpayers thousands upon
thousands ofdollars, by not taking preventative measures now and avoidingcostly
medical interventions and surgery pertaining to cancercaused by smoking down
the road.
Mr. Orchard: Mr.
Speaker, with all the respect I can muster formy honourable friend and her
would‑be indignation over measurestaken by this government to preserve
and protect medicare whichare not dissimilar to provinces right across the
length andbreadth of Canada, including provinces governed by Liberals,governed
by Conservatives, governed, Sir, by New Democrats, nowmy honourable friend, in
the comfort of opposition, cries that weshould do many things that, of reality
in the honesty ofgovernment, her confreres in governing provinces do not do.
Mr. Speaker, all we need to preserve medicare in
thisprovince and in this country is a little bit of informed debateand
discussion around the issues, not the shrill of rhetoric thatwe hear from her
all the time.
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please. The time for Oral Questions
hasexpired.
Speaker's Ruling
Mr. Speaker: Prior to
moving on to Orders of the Day, duringQuestion Period, the honourable member
for St. James (Mr.Edwards) tabled a document which was unsigned.
On November 14, 1988, I did take a matter under
advisement.I reported back to the House.
At that time, I noted that SpeakerHanuschak in 1970 ruled, and he stated
that all letters when readmust be signed and then they become part of the
documents of theHouse.
In 1981, Speaker Graham ruled that an unsigned
andunidentified document is an incomplete document and cannot beconsidered the
property of the House.
As I did in 1988 on November 14, if the honourable member
wasprepared to make a declaration on the document similar in[interjection]
Order, please‑‑the document would then be in theform acceptable to
the House. If this was done, I would
beprepared to accept the document of the honourable member for St.James.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
THRONE SPEECH DEBATE
(Fourth Day of Debate)
Mr. Speaker: On the
proposed motion of the honourable member forSeine River (Mrs. Dacquay) for an
Address to the honourable theAdministrator in answer to his speech at the
opening of thesession, and the proposed motion of the honourable Leader of
theOpposition (Mr. Doer) in amendment thereto, and the proposedmotion of the
honourable Leader of the Second Opposition (Mrs.Carstairs) in further amendment
thereto, standing in the name ofthe honourable member for Gimli, who has 26
minutes remaining.
Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli):
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, when Iconcluded at six o'clock, I was talking
about the benefits ofrural gasification.
Providing a favourable economic climate in order to
improveour Manitoba farm economy is certainly a priority for thisgovernment‑‑as
an example, the multimillion dollar expansion bythe Brandon‑based Ayerst
Organics Ltd., which processes a widelyused estrogen replacement product for
women. This project willnot only result
in the expansion of the Ayerst plant and providejobs in
This is a real welcomed announcement and will have a
verypositive impact on every local rural economy in the province, butbecause of
the larger payments these producers will be able toinject more money back into their
respective communities also,which means a stronger
As well, the government has revised the Manitoba
AgriculturalCredit Corporation financial assistance, so this will alsoencourage
more farmers to enter this PMU business.
This is avery positive announcement for all rural areas of
I also support this government's pledge to intensify effortsto
strengthen
*
(1440)
An Honourable Member: You
forgot to mention
Mr. Helwer: That is
right.
I welcome, as well, this government's intention to press
ourcounterparts in
I am really pleased that the Speech from the Throne
statedthat this government will be bringing together the major playersin the
agricultural industry in order to identify futuredirections in diversification,
value‑added processing andexports.
We should work with farmers to produce special cropsfor export areas.
Just in Sunday's paper, one of the headlines "Bumper
harvest'amazing'" also outlines the fact that
This will also make value-added industries such as
Canolacrushing and add to the jobs that are created in theseindustries. So I think it is just great that in
agriculture inManitoba, farmers were able to harvest a good crop.Unfortunately,
in some areas the quality was not as good as wewould have liked to see, but on
the whole I think the cropgenerally was pretty fair.
Guaranteeing safe and reliable roads and highways is
anothervery important priority for this government. In the Gimli[interjection] Yes, it is very
important. [interjection] It isvery important there. In the Gimli constituency as an example,for
'92-93 the Highways department is going to spend about $3.5million in upgrading
work. For example, work continues
onHighway No. 8 between Gimli and
This is a very important project. [interjection] No, just
twolanes, but this is an important project so that members from St.Boniface and
other areas can go golfing and also make use of ourtourist areas such as our
campgrounds and things like that in thepopular tourist areas in my
constituency. So I am pleased thatthis
government is making it safer for Manitobans and visitors toour province.
I am pleased that protecting
Along with our commercial fishermen in my constituency, I
amanxious to see the introduction of an amendment to the provincialFisheries
Act which will expand the market for commercial fish inManitoba and provide
greater opportunities for small businessesin the province. As the throne speech outlined, this
amendmentwill allow
(Mr.
Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
I am really pleased that this government will establish
afund to support projects that will enhance the quality also ofour sports
fishery, a recreational activity that is becoming moreimportant in many areas
of the province.
Just on fishing, in Tuesday's Winnipeg Free Press an
articleon the [interjection] Well, I will read part of it‑‑again
howwell fishermen in Manitoba are accepting the amendment to TheFisheries Act.
It says: fishermen
applaud direct‑sale promise. One
of myconstituents, Kris Olson, a Gimli fisherman, is very pleased. Hesaid it is very good news. Also, the Grand Rapids First NationChief
Harold Turner said that this is a very positive thing forManitoba and for
In spite of what the member for
I also welcome the introduction of a new Park Lands
Act,which is designed to better meet the needs of today's parkusers. So I support this government's continuing
efforts toimplement the necessary measures to control and properly disposeof
hazardous waste. I also welcome new
regulations that will beintroduced which will impose tougher standards for
theinstallation of the new underground storage tanks which willrequire testing
and testing of existing facilities and cleanup ofproblem areas.
Just last week I attended a meeting of the Western
Fertilizerand Chemical Dealers' Association in
I am pleased that energy efficiency also will continue
toplay an integral role in all government owned and fundedoperations. The introduction of new policies to encourage
theuse of renewable and alternate energy sources is also verywelcome. I am also encouraged with plans by our
government tointroduce a comprehensive new oil and gas act to encourage
andpromote and facilitate the exploration [interjection] anddevelopment of
Another key service that is a priority with this
governmentis with the telecommunication services. Earlier this month, 600rural residents living
near Teulon were switched from party‑linetelephone service to private
lines. These Manitoba Telephoneservice
customers are now enjoying the many pleasures of having aprivate line, like
increased privacy, improved access, callwaiting, computer and fax machine
capabilities. For many of usprivate
lines have been taken for granted, but for those who arejust getting the phone
service this is certainly a majordevelopment and a great thing. So I am pleased that the ManitobaTelephone
System has been able to switch the 600 Teulon‑arearesidents to individual
telephone lines and I know that otherrural residents can expect to have this
same service in the nearfuture.
Last year towns such as Stonewall, Balmoral, Gimli
customersreceived the service.
Also, I am glad to see that the Community Calling areas
havebeen expanded in my constituency and many areas of Manitoba.This is also a
great benefit to the businesses located in thesmall communities.
*
(1450)
Modern communication links have also been introduced in
In fact, education and training are two very important
areasthat are being addressed by this government. Improving standardsand increasing province‑wide
testing and evaluation will alsobetter prepare young Manitobans for the real
world. I welcomethe refocusing of the
education system towards producing somesound reading, mathematics and learning
skills.
This government has also taken steps to help our young
peoplefind employment. Through
initiatives like the Green Team,Partners with Youth, a number of young people
in my constituencyhave been able to find work.
So I hope that these‑‑and I am surethey will‑‑programs
will continue. Also the CareerStart
Programis another excellent program that our communities have been ableto take
advantage of.
Several young people from my constituency are also
getting afirst‑hand taste of what it is like to be an RCMP
officer.Through a provincially funded RCMP pilot program, 11 Interlakeresidents
are currently in RCMP uniform as volunteer officers.These auxiliary constables
are getting the unique opportunity ofexperiencing police work close up.
I support the continuing efforts of this government
toimprove the quality of health care in this province. We areattempting to achieve something that is
practically impossibleunder other administrations. We are trying to keep costs down,while
maintaining a high level of care. I feel
this government'splan to preserve our medicare system by shifting services
awayfrom some of our higher-cost institutions to the more personalmethods‑‑[interjection]
Oh, it is an excellent move.[interjection] That's right. All Manitobans will benefit.
This government has also played an important, key role
inimproving the quality of life for Manitobans.
In July, weannounced the $1.2 million well and water pipeline project
forthe Stony Mountain area, which will result in cleaner water forresidents
there.
This project involves the cleanup of previous ground
watercontamination and the development of a deep well and piped watersupply to
residents who were affected by the contamination. Sothe cost of this project is being shared by
the provincialgovernment, the federal government and the local
ruralmunicipality. There is no doubt,
this is a very importantproject, and I am pleased to have taken an active role
inresolving this serious problem.
In closing, Mr. Acting Speaker, I know this government
willprovide the leadership that Manitobans can rely on to make thisprovince
stronger. Through my government's plan
for economicrenewal, all Manitobans will be able to work together for abrighter
future. Thank you.
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Thank you to my honourablecolleagues.
I would also like to start off with some thanks to
otherpeople. I just finished writing my
Christmas message to myconstituency, which is going to go in my newsletter
atChristmastime. I was reminded of the
number of people in myconstituency whom I should thank, including my
constituencyexecutive, for their ongoing support and the number of
othervolunteers and community agencies that I have the good fortune towork with
on a variety of issues to ensure that the EastKildonan‑Transcona
community is a better place to live.
I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the numberof
people in my critic areas for their ongoing support andco‑operation. I truly believe that being an MLA is a
tremendousopportunity, and I would like to express some gratitude for
theopportunity to learn from working with so many people who are socommitted to
social justice and equality in our community.
Itruly believe that I have learned more in my last two years as anMLA
than I learned in all my years at university, five years atuniversity. I truly believe that I am the kind of person
wholearns best from doing, and I appreciate the opportunity as anMLA to have
the freedom to‑‑[interjection] The Minister ofNorthern Affairs (Mr.
Downey) said that I will get a tuition feeat the end of the year. That is cute.
I want to spend the majority of my time dealing with
thethrone speech and the economy, and I appreciate the chance to dothat. I also wanted to take a moment to thank and
put on recordmy appreciation for having a new woman in the Legislature in
AvisGray, the member for Crescentwood, as well as the new member forPortage la
Prairie (Mr. Pallister). What I notice
about both ofthese people is, they are closer to my generation and
thegeneration shared by the two honourable members here listening tome now and
perhaps even the Deputy Speaker.
I hate to say it, but when I look across at the
benchesopposite, I see a bunch of old white guys. That is the majorityof the impression that I
am faced with on a daily basis. I
knowthat there are members on the opposite side who are arepresentative of the
female gender, but the percentage of womenon that side of the House continues‑‑[interjection]
I am tryingto explain to the members opposite that I mean no personaloffence to
this. I think I have struck a chord with
one of themembers opposite.
An Honourable Member: Is she
scolding you?
Ms. Cerilli: I think
she is scolding me, but I will continue toexplain that I do not believe that
their caucus truly representsthe diversity in our society. I do believe that I do not haveany problem
standing here and saying that this side of the Housedoes more accurately
represent the diversity, and I include myLiberal colleagues on this side of the
House, because we do, Ithink, more accurately represent the diversity in our
society.
An Honourable Member: You are
so arrogant.
Ms. Cerilli: I am not
being arrogant. I think it is a fact.
Well, now that I have the attention of members opposite‑‑
Some Honourable Members:
Oh, oh.
*
(1500)
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please.
Thehonourable member for Radisson has the floor.
Ms. Cerilli: Mr.
Acting Speaker, I was going to say that onThursday, November 26, when we began
this session, we heard aSpeech from the Throne, and it did not give me much
hope that theConservative government has learned from the mistakes of
thepast. I do not think that they have
learned from the mistakes ofprevious governments‑‑perhaps even
previous NDP governments,because I am certainly not going to stand here and say
there wereno mistakes made‑‑but it does not seem that they have
learnedfrom the mistakes made of previous Conservative governmentseither
nationally in other provinces in the country orinternationally.
I also want to say that it does not seem like Mr.
Filmonlearned from his trip to Brazil‑‑
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please. I wouldlike to remind the member that it is
the honourable members inthe House.
Ms. Cerilli: Thank
you. I am working from notes here to
someextent, so I will refer to him as Premier.
I do not think that the Premier (Mr. Filmon) has learned
thelessons that he could have from his trip to
I really thought when Premier Filmon returned from
Brazilthat he had been affected by his experience in a developingcountry. I have not had the good fortune to visit a
developingcountry. I have learned what I
know about international affairsfrom talking to people from other countries,
from watchingmovies, reading books and those kinds of second‑hand
learningmethods. I would love one day to
travel. [interjection]
The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs
(Mrs.McIntosh) insists that I honour my elders.
Well, I honour peoplewho deserve to be honoured. I do not respect authority that isnot
deserving of respect.
As I was trying to say, I was going to talk a little
bitabout the projects in
The criteria for deciding if a project is going to go
aheadto be legitimate as a community development and economicdevelopment
project‑‑it has to meet the following criteria. Theyquestion these things: Who initiates the project? Who benefitsfrom the project? Who controls the project? What is thelong‑term impact on the
needs of women, the needs of the disabledand the needs of the environment? I sit back and I think, wow.If we could only
apply those same principles in our province, inour industrialized society in
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please.
I wouldlike the honourable member to pay special note to her notes,
thatmembers are to be referred to as the honourable member or theminister of a
department.
Ms. Cerilli: Sorry, I
apologize. I would hope that the
Premierwould have learned from the idea that they are doing communityand
economic development by not only investing into the corporateand private
sector, that they are investing into community healthcare, social services and
education.
One of the projects that they did in
The other project that they did in
I think we could apply those same kinds of ideas
andprinciples in
Now I want to talk a little bit about an example of this
inmy own constituency. Right now, in the
constituency of Radisson,we are struggling to keep open a local Safeway
store. ThisSafeway store has been there
for about 32 years. It is in thepart of
Transcona that has probably some of the most long‑livedTranscona
residents. It is the west end of
Transcona in an areathat has a very high number of senior citizens.
The member for
They are going to try and maintain the lease in that
store sothat no other competition can move in.
Now I do not call thatfree enterprise.
I do not call that fair.
Corporate feudalismis what you could call that. Not only that, in the research Ihave found
out from investigating the background on this case,Canada Safeway is no longer
even Canadian. Canada Safeway,through
the mergers that are going on on our planet due toglobalization, the buzzword
of the century, and due toConservative policies that allow these huge corporate
mergers, wenow have Canada Safeway entirely owned by an Americanmultinational.
Canada Safeway has a debt probably bigger than
thisgovernment's debt, but because it is a private debt and all theshares are
not even in the stock market, we cannot even find outwhat the debt is of Canada
Safeway. So now the people in
mycommunity of Radisson‑‑[interjection] We do have to pay
it,because as you remind us every once in awhile, there is only
onetaxpayer. So we are losing millions
and billions of dollars inour grocery money out of the economy, and it is
going, I do noteven know where, to the U.S?
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There is one shareholder for Canada Safeway now‑‑this
is whatI have found out or what I have been told‑‑that resides in
NewYork. Now to me, we have a real
problem in this country, andthis is a symptom of it when we cannot even have
our grocerydollars spinning around and coming directly back into
oureconomy. I ask myself when I go and
buy a loaf of bread atSafeway and I pay $1.09 for that loaf of bread, where is
thatmoney going? How much of it is going
to the farmer? We know notvery
much. How much of it is going to the
manufacturer thatmills the wheat and produces the flour? How much of it is goingto the corporation to
do the marketing and the packaging, and howmuch is going to the workers? Well, we know that at Safeway theyget paid
pretty good, thanks that they have a decent union.
An Honourable Member: And that
is not affecting our grocery bill?
Ms. Cerilli: I would
say to the member for Rossmere (Mr.Neufeld) that the salaries of those union
workers at Safeway arethe least of our worries when it‑‑
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please.
I wouldlike to remind the honourable member one more time that it is
thehonourable member for Rossmere. All
members are honourable inthe House.
Ms. Cerilli: Thank
you, Mr. Acting Speaker.
This is what I am talking about. I have had quite aneducation from being an
MLA. I thought that I had some
politicalanalysis when I came into this position, but I like to think thatit
has been strengthened by my experience of working on behalf ofthe people in my
constituency and trying to raise issues and dosomething about the devastation
of our environment as well as myother critic areas.
I want to talk a little bit about that. I want to talk aboutwhat was missing from the
throne speech. What was missing fromthe
throne speech were some pretty key things in my mind.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please.
Could Ihave the honourable members trying to carry on a conversation onmy
left go into the loge and carry it on, so that I can hear thehonourable member
for Radisson put forward her speech.
Ms. Cerilli: Thank
you, Mr. Acting Speaker, I appreciate yourrapt attention. I appreciate it.
Not once in the government's throne speech, its plan
ofaction for the upcoming session, did we hear the words equality,justice,
culture, job creation, recession, multiculturalism,immigration, environmental
restoration or poverty. Not once didwe
hear any of those words. Talk about
denial. It seems likethis government
wants us to forget about all of these things, andthey expect us to do the same
on many other areas.
I guess we cannot expect, after all, for a
Conservativegovernment to have any notion of social, economic orenvironmental justice. Conservative economic policies thatsupport
multinational corporate mergers, that centralize capitaland wealth, that tax
the poor and eliminate or stranglegovernment public services have caused this
recession. No onetalks very much about
the causes of the recession, and I woulddisagree with members opposite when
they try and put the blame ondebt. I
would disagree with that.
When you look at what is going on outside the public
sector,the shrinking economy brings with it other social problems. Wehave seen the rise in racism; we have seen
the rise in violentcrime and theft. We
have seen more family stress which in turncauses more health problems and more
ignoring. They use the debtas an excuse
to ignore the very deep changes that are necessaryto deal with those social
problems that I just mentioned.
I would like to impress upon the members that are
oppositeand listening that we are really in a crunch here. I am notsuggesting that the solutions are
easy. People, though, arefeeling very desperate. People are feeling horribly betrayed.People
did put their trust in this government.
A number ofpeople voted for this government [interjection] A largest
number,you are right.
I would stress to this government that democracy does
notmean that you get elected every four years and between then youcan ignore
the people who elected you, and you can ignore themajority of people who are
impoverished in this province. Weshould
start talking about making our democracy work, abouthaving some accountability.
Let us talk once more about participatory democracy. We haveseen what this government thinks of
that when they havedismantled Child and Family Services which was community
based,when they have dismantled housing services which were communitybased. That is what they think about democracy: Let us controleverything; let us obsess with
control and let us use the ideathat father knows best. I am saying that people in our countryno
longer will stand for that, and I am very proud of that.
An Honourable Member: That is
very sexist. I resent that. I amsurprised at you.
Ms. Cerilli: I will
talk a little bit, as the members oppositeget more upset about my terms. I wonder if they have ever heardof the term
"patriarchy" and if they will accept that oursociety‑‑[interjection]
Unfortunately, we do not have amatriarchy.
Unfortunately, we have a patriarchy.
I am not saying that women are superior and I am not
sayingthat men are superior. I do
believe that we both have knowledgeand things to contribute and skills and
understandings. I wouldimplore the
members opposite to listen to the women in theirparty. I would implore them to go then beyond their
party, ifthe women in that party are not expressing the deep concerns ofwomen
throughout our country, because women are not equal, and wecannot treat this
society as if it were so.
An Honourable Member: Give us
some examples.
Ms. Cerilli: Oh, give
us some examples, says the honourablemember for Rossmere.
An Honourable Member: I think
he is trying to trap you.
Ms. Cerilli: I do not
think I could get trapped on this one.
I will get to some examples later on, because I do want
toget to talking about NAFTA. Oh dear, I
could talk about theeffects of NAFTA on women, but that is another speech.
I think the main point that we have to make here when we
aretalking about the betrayal of Conservative governments to thepeople in this
country is the honourable Premier's (Mr. Filmon)hypocrisy, on the one hand of
complaining about federaloffloading, and then on the other hand of doing
exactly the samething to municipalities in Manitoba. We have to remember thatthe Premier of
Manitoba is from the same party, has the samepolicies and the same politics as
the Prime Minister of thiscountry, who has gone down in history as being one of
the mostunpopular politicians of all time, and now is taking it apart,says my
honourable friend from Swan River.
I want to talk a little bit about both the Tory and
theLiberal approach to dealing with our crisis.
We are in a globalcrisis here. No
one is disputing that, because on the one handwe want to restore and protect
the environment and on the otherhand we want social justice. Environmentalism without socialjustice is
nothing, as far as I am concerned.
Social justicemeans jobs. It
means jobs for everyone. It means jobs
for allof those people who want to work and are not able to because
ofConservative economic policy.
Now the Tory and Liberal approach is just to sort of
hunkerdown and try to do more with less.
We hear a lot of doing morewith less.
They try to hide it out, wait it out like it is astorm that is going to
blow over.
Yet we heard the Premier himself say that this is an
economicrestructuring, not a recession.
Conservatives across the countryseem content to let the corporations and
the monetaryinstitutions restructure our society, and we are supposed to
sitback and watch. The governments of
the people that they aresupposed to represent are going to sit back and
watch. Well, wehave fewer and fewer
people on the planet control more and moreresources and control more and more
of the wealth, and we have agreater number of people who are living in poverty
or on theborderline of living in poverty.
It is obvious now to me and to many of us just how firm
ahold corporate interests have on our country.
It is ourbeautiful yet gasping country.
Globalization is the Conservativeword for corporate, multinational
control of our global,monetary, and industrial trade and capital.
*
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I have a newsletter that was put out by our M.P., the
memberfor Winnipeg‑Transcona, and it talks about globalization. AManitoba result, an example of
globalization, has to do with PineFalls and Abitibi‑Price. After years of unsustainable forestryand pulp
and paper industry and logging and growth‑‑we will callthis growth‑‑Abitibi‑Price
can pack up and leave, open a new milldown in the
An Honourable Member:
Ms. Cerilli: I know that, and I would
wish all the people ofPine Falls well in doing everything that they are
able. I wouldsupport them 100 percent in
taking over that mill so that itcontinues to support the economy of their
community.
What I do not want to see continue is
unsustainableforestry. While we have
this corporation going and opening up anew mill in the United States, we have
the Free Trade Agreement,which is going to assure that the United States not
only has ourmill, a new, up‑to‑date, high‑tech, nonpolluting
mill, but italso has assurance that it is going to have Canadian trees.Because
of the Free Trade Agreement, they are going to be assuredthat their new mill
will have our trees‑‑our new mill, our newtrees, our jobs, down in
the United States. That makes me
prettyangry.
An Honourable Member: Explain
how they are going to get thetrees down there?
Ms. Cerilli: Read
NAFTA and the Free Trade Agreement and youwill understand how they are going to
get the trees down there.I would suggest to you, the train tracks are already
set up to godown to the United States to take those logs and, if we haveNAFTA,
we are not going to have any control over themanufacturing or the processing of
those logs. We can have fulllogs going
down to the
I want to move now to a little bit more of a positive
note.The NDP approach would be a lot different, the social democraticapproach,
because we believe that government must stand up tocorporate interests for the
jobs and for the people that theyrepresent.
Our approach to development is more holistic. We do not seethe economy as a funnel. We do not see it as a funnel to trickledown
wealth to those people who have the misfortune of being atthe bottom of the
ladder in our society. We see the
economy as acircle or a wheel, and that wheel must revolve. We believe thatgovernments, industry,
workers, community services and consumersare all equal and important partners
in the economy, and when thepartners work together the cycle turns. When the wheel turns itgrows, involving more
and more people in the economic activitythat sustains our culture and our
society.
What I am saying here is that with the rampant
competition wehave become brainwashed into trying to accept does not work. Thekind of competition that was used as the
principle at the end ofthe throne speech isolates the partners in the
economy. Itcreates turf wars and it
makes our economy unsustainable.Co-operation works.
Health care, education, social services, recreation‑‑theseare
all sectors of the economy. They are not
a drain on taxdollars, nor a drain on resources. They are an investment intothe community and
into the people and future of our culture andsociety. Money invested into these areas creates jobs,
developscommunities and makes them strong, makes them more co‑operative,makes
them more self‑sufficient and creative, and it makes themhealthy.
You cannot invest only money into private industry and
ignoresocial services, health care and education and think you aregoing to get
anywhere near close to having a healthy community ora healthy economy, says the
member for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie),and I agree.
A greater percentage of money under the NDP wouldbe invested into people
and into families and not into privatecorporations that are allowed to take the
money and run.
Real education and health reform cannot be put on the
backburner until the economy is fixed or better. Real education andsocial service reform is
part of the solution. If the $90million
or so that was paid extra to welfare over the last twoyears was put into work
and training programs for things likecare and cleanup of the environment,
support for the elderly andthe sick, education and retraining of laid‑off
workers, we wouldbe better off both in the short term and in the long
term. Thisis the NDP approach
provincially and federally.
As I have said before, we must make our democracy
work. Thismeans the democratization of
our institutions so people have asay in their education, so people have a say
in their health careand in their government services and in their
communitydevelopment so that the public are not treated like sheep and
areexpected to vote every four years and ignore it in between.Those things are
the old way. Those things are passe, and
Ireally believe that we are developing a generation of people whoare not going
to stand for it.
Before I wish you a Merry Christmas, I am going to talk
aboutNAFTA a little bit. How much time
do I have left, Mr. ActingSpeaker? Eight
minutes. I only have eight minutes to
talk aboutNAFTA.
I guess one of the main things about these trade
agreementsis, we can no longer continue to struggle for jobs, to be heldhostage
by the private sector and use our standard of living andquality of life as the
currency to try and keep people and jobsin the province. We cannot do it anymore. We simply cannotafford NAFTA. We cannot afford to lose sovereignty over
ournatural resources and our country.
Some of the issues I would talk about if I had more
timewould deal with the pharmaceutical industry in respect to NAFTA,natural
resources, aboriginal rights. I really
believe that ifthe federal election comes and we get another
Conservativegovernment elected in this country and we have NAFTA, we are
notgoing to have a country left. I often
joke with my colleagues onthis side of the House that some days I think I would
be betteroff and maybe the members opposite would be better off too if Ijust
went and lived in the bush, because some days I really thinkthat this is the
biggest fight that this country has ever seen.
We can no longer talk about economic development and
ignoreaboriginal rights. To me, NAFTA is
about aboriginalrights‑‑aboriginal rights to have their land claims
settled,aboriginal rights to have the Northern Flood Agreement settled,because
we cannot be negotiating away land and resources andparts of the economy which
are not the dominant white society'sbusiness to be negotiating away.
I think that we cannot talk about natural
resources,particularly in Manitoba, without talking about aboriginal
rightseither‑‑very big concerns related to water, hydro,
forestry.Something this government does not seem to have clued into yet isthe
potential for growth in the ecotourism area‑‑real ecotourism.
*
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Maybe if I left this job and I went to live in the bush,
thisis the industry that I would get involved in, because I trulythink that
what most people in our industrialized culture andsociety need is to spend some
time out of the city in a canoe orin a park before they are logged.
[interjection] In a wildernessarea, I would say to the Minister of Natural
Resources (Mr. Enns).
I know the Minister of Natural Resources did a canoe trip
upnorth. I think is was on the Seal
River, and I would hope thatonce again the Minister of Natural Resources was
reminded howinsignificant we really all are, how insignificant in the bigscheme
of things the human race is. We are just
part of nature.We are just part of the ecosystem. We are just part of ecology,and we do not
have the right to destroy it.
Something that Senator Al Gore, just elected to thevice‑presidency
in the
We talk about sustainable development, how we do not have
theright to use more than is our fair share so that there is goingto be nothing
left for the next generation, and I would challengethe members opposite to
start applying that to the economy.
The other thing I want to mention in closing is that
anotherthing that was not mentioned in this throne speech was thebuzzword
"we are keeping taxes down."
That is what thisgovernment has held their hat on for the last five
years. So Iwas just going to give out a
warning to people that I think thebudget that is going to go along with this
throne speech is goingto make Sterling Lyon look like Santa Claus. I think that someof the articles coming out
with headlines like "Civil Servicebraces for big cuts" are a telltale
sign.
I could talk more about the problems with the media in
ourculture and society, but I will leave that for another day.
So with all due respect, I thank you for the time. I feellike I have had an awful lot more
attention than often othertimes; people have been rapt in attention.
I will say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all
themembers in the House. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson):
Mr. Acting Speaker, it is certainlygives me great pleasure to be able to
rise today to voice a fewcomments and maybe at times even concerns about what
wascontained in the throne speech.
However, the concerns I haveprobably largely will be directed towards
some of the rhetoricand the criticism that has been extended by the
oppositiontowards the throne speech. I
simply have no amazement atwondering where they are coming from at times.
However, before I get into that I want to, of course,
welcomemy new colleague on this side the member for Portage la Prairie(Mr.
Pallister), who I have known for quite a number of years andwho I have,
throughout the years, grown to admire and respect forhis, at times, audacity
and his intelligent way of dealing withissues.
I believe that will come forward as he contributesduring this session to
the issues as we deal with them and thematters of piece of legislation that are
brought forward anddebated on a regular basis.
I also want to extend my sincere welcome to the return of
themember for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) to this Legislature. I hadalways thought that she added to the
debates and the discussions,and we certainly welcome her back to the
Legislature here at thistime.
It was sad to see that when the Speech from the Throne
wasmade our Lieutenant‑Governor could not be with us. We all wantto, at this time, share our
sympathies and wish Mr. Johnson wellin his recovery from his illness and hope
that he will be able tobe with us fairly soon.
I also want to indicate that it is always a pleasure to
seeour Speaker of this House back in the Chair.
It is his strongleadership that this House needs and that he has
demonstratedover the years that we admire and appreciate. I want tosincerely say that it is his jocular
attitude at times and hisapproach to authority that we respect most of all in
this House.We welcome his sincere presence sitting there looking at us
andcondoning our antics at times.
Certainly he is an asset as hewill guide us again through this session.
One of the key elements I suppose that our Speech from
theThrone indicated in setting out the agenda for economic renewalin this
province was that we are indeed at a crossroad, acrossroad in economic development,
and I think that was clearlydemonstrated.
It was clearly demonstrated during the Americanelection that that
crossroad does not only, ladies and gentlemen,pertain to
There are significant developments occurring as we stand
hereand speak, whether it is through the negotiations of the GATT,whether it is
through negotiations that are currently occurringin Croatia to stop the
confrontation over there, whether it is inTokyo in the financial community, or
whether it is in thisprovince, that we deal with on a daily basis about our
concerns,about our ability to provide employment and indeed food for
ourchildren on our table on a daily basis.
(Mr.
Speaker in the Chair)
We all share the concern, opposition members as well
asgovernment‑side members, for those who are less fortunate than
weare. It is for that reason that our
government has taken thestrong stand on ensuring that we will control the
unethicalspending that went on during the past decade prior to ourselvestaking
office, because would we today have the additional $500million a year to spend
that we are now spending on interestrates.
*
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I would say to the opposition that they were at that
timegovernment and had they chosen a tougher road at that time, hadthey made
some tougher decisions, we would today not be givingthe banks and the financial
institutions $500 million a year.
Wewould today have that $500 million a year to provide better jobsand
better facilities to those who are less fortunate, whether itbe in health, whether
it be in education or whether it be, infact, providing social services to those
who cannot fend forthemselves.
We have tried and we will keep on trying to keep our
taxesdown. Our record today in this
province stands taller than anyrecord anywhere else in any other nation or
province that I knowof. Now we are the
only province in this country that has forfive years straight not increased
income taxes, not increasedservice taxes.
As a matter of fact, we have decreased them.
Our strengths are maintaining our health care
system. Ourstrengths are ensuring that
our children will be educated, andour strengths are providing real jobs in this
province. How dowe ensure that real jobs
are provided by sitting on our hands andgrasping our knees and shaking every
time somebody suggestssomething new and different, or are we going to be
aggressive inencouraging others from outside of this province, outside of
thiscountry, yes, outside of even this continent, to considerManitoba as the
place to make their home and to invest?
How doyou do it? By increasing
taxes? By decreasing welfare paymentsas
Mr. Doer said that he would in his address to their annualmeeting just a few
short months ago? He said, we will spend
$250million to create jobs, and we will do it by reducing thepayments to
welfare recipients, to those that are dependent ongovernment support. We will decrease their assistance, and wewill
spend $250 million to generate infrastructure.
Well, I want to remind members opposite that this
governmentis not spending $250 million on infrastructure. We are spending$300 million and better on
infrastructure and infrastructurerenewal, so what Mr. Doer has in fact said to
his delegates athis annual meeting is that he will decrease the spending by
$50million, and he will decrease spending on welfare and do what?
Well, there were also some criticisms of our Premier
(Mr.Filmon) for making trips outside of this country to attractindustries and
businesses. Let me remind you, let me
read from aWinnipeg Free Press article, I believe in 1987, November 16, whenthe
question was asked where the then premier of the province hadbeen, and the
answer can be found by looking at whom the premiertook with him to promote
business in Manitoba. I believe thiswas
in reference to a trip that the then Premier Pawley made tosomewhere outside of
this country. He took with him the
Financeminister, Eugene Kostyra. He took
with him the Industry, Tradeand Technology minister, Mr. Vic Schroeder. He took with him theEnergy and Mines
minister, Mr. Jerry Storie. He took with
himMr. Marc Eliesen. Who was Mr. Marc
Eliesen? Was he the chairmanof the then
so famous Manitoba Hydro Board? I
believe he was.Our premier, it says, when looking for business
takespoliticians. Other western
provincial premiers arrangingprovincial ties to the
Well, I want to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, that
whenyou are going out into the world to attract business to establishin this
province or any other province, you better take yourbusiness community with you
because business attracts business.
Our strengths, I say to you again, are health care. Ourstrengths are education for our future
generations, and ourstrengths are the development of those industries that will
useour most basic elements for production and cause job creation andemployment
to happen.
Agriculture in this province has traditionally been
viewed byopposition members as just another business. Agriculture is notjust another business. The member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli)just
stood before us a few minutes ago and indicated that $1.09that she spent on
bread was not something that she objected to,but she wondered where the money
went. Well, let me tell youthat we also
wonder where the money went when the previous NDPgovernment spent the $500
million a year ruthlessly, withoutconsideration for rural development. They did not even know theword‑‑know
the meaning of the word "rural development." They didnot know what agriculture meant.
They built, Mr. Speaker, bridges to nowhere, and I say to
youthat if I look at the comments that were made in the press at theannual
meeting of the NDP convention by their Leader, they areagain on a path of
building bridges to nowhere, because theirLeader referred to spending money on
retooling provincialinfrastructure to create jobs. Specifically what are theytalking about? We raised our budget from roughly about a$70‑million
capital budget in highways that the NDP left to lastyear's $100 million or
better than $100 million, a $30 millionincrease in highway spending. The people in southern Manitobaare certainly
noticing the aggressive way we are proceeding withthe four‑laning of
Highway 75.
An Honourable Member: Oh, that
is very aggressive.
Mr. Penner: Well, the
honourable member for Flin Flon (Mr.Storie) sits there and says, yes, very
aggressive. It isnoticeable. Well, certainly it is noticeable. Everybody in thisprovince driving to Altona
or Letellier or
We are embarked upon a path of economic development to
ensurethat not only rural Manitobans‑‑oh, and I should indicate to
youthat the NDP indicated that they were going to look after thehealth care
needs of this province, and in doing so they wouldconsult with Manitobans. You know where? You know where theyare going to consult with
Manitobans? They are going to
consultwith Manitobans in
I will read to you, Manitobans do not trust the
Conservativehealth reform. This is, of
course, from a news release that theNDP released. It says, NDP priorities for the next
session.They do not trust Conservative health reform. Many peoplebelieve it is just an excuse for
cutbacks and services, and Doersays, for these reasons New Democrats are
holding public forumsthroughout
*
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Of course, that has always been the opposition's forte,
todiscuss with Manitobans in
We know that Manitobans all over this province, whether
it isManitoba, whether it is
Twinning of Highway 75, schools, airports‑‑and
I talked aboutthe commitment that we made to a new airport in
The amount of money that we have designated is better
than$300 million a year, and yet the NDP were going to, in their newbudget,
designate $250 million, a decrease of $50 million, andthat was going to be
their job creation initiative. So much
forinnovative thinking.
It certainly is, in my view, Mr. Speaker, shades of the
oldPawley administration. They call
that, new‑think? Well, let mesay
to you that we believe that in order to strengthen the ruraleconomy in this
province you needed new programs, programs thatthe NDP had not even thought
about before. We initiated therural bond
program, the Grow Bond program, which will allow ruralManitobans to invest in
themselves. It will give ruralManitobans
an opportunity to invest in their own businesses. Weas a government will guarantee that those
investments will infact be secured.
How many times have I heard questions from across the
Housesaying, what have you done? Well,
let us look at what we havedone. Let us
look at the expansion of Arris in
An Honourable Member: Nothing.
Mr. Penner: That is
right, they did nothing. They
didabsolutely nothing. [interjection] We are going to very quicklyuse the
infrastructure agreement that we have with the federalgovernment to create an
economic climate, an environmentalclimate so that when industry is looking at
the establishment of,whether it be in Gimli or maybe even Grunthal or many
othercommunities such as Waskada, when industries come in and look forhomes,
they can be assured that there will be water, that therewill be sewer, that
there will be good roads for transportationof the goods that they are going to
produce in those communities.
(Mr. Harold Neufeld, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
Now in the Emerson constituency alone‑‑[interjection]
Thehonourable member for Flin Flon sits there and jabbers aboutthings of the
past. It is simply an indication of what
theiraggressive thinking is doing, reverting continually to the Pawleyera, and
every policy decision that they make and everyconsideration that you read and
every indication leads me tobelieve that they are totally bereft of new ideas.
D. W. Friesen in Altona, one of the largest
printingcompanies in this country today, has increased its market sharein the
Ladies and gentlemen, they just opened a brand new office
inNew
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Let us look at the trade agreements that have
beencontinually condemned by the opposition members. I say to youthat our grain farmers in this
country have been the object of atrade dispute between two great nations, the
Europeans and theAmericans. They have
used tax dollars to support exports out ofeach of their various areas in the
world to compete against youand I. What
has it done? It has driven grain prices
through thefloor in this country. It has
made it virtually impossible forthose grain producers to survive in this
country.
Yet, what do the socialists say? Do not strike tradeagreements with anybody
because we should keep on building morewalls around ourselves to protect
ourselves, to keep our peoplewithin and not let our products flow freely to
other nations. Isay to those who promote
that kind of thinking, that ain't gonnaget us nowhere.
I am looking forward, Mr. Acting Speaker, to a settlement
ofthe GATT agreement. I am looking
forward to the end of the graintrade subsidy war. I am looking forward to the
When that agricultural community takes off, so will
oureconomy as a whole in this country follow that agriculturalcommunity, for it
is the agricultural community that, in my view,has been the driving force in
western
Mr. Acting Speaker, there are a number of other issues
that Ithink have an extremely important aspect and an impact to oureconomic
viability over the future. One of them
is tourism. Iam convinced that we can do
much more in tourism than we have.It will need such projects as we did in
Emerson last fall. Weopened a new
tourism centre, because in order to provide goodtourism you need
visibility. The only way you are going
to getvisibility is by directing traffic and encouraging traffic intothis
province.
We are going to have to provide people from outside of
thiscountry and even people inside of this country with the kind ofinformation
they need to know where things are at in thisprovince, and I do not think we
have done a very good job ofthat. That
is something, whether it is the Mennonite HeritageVillage in Steinbach, whether
it is the lakes, and the Turtle andDuck Mountains and the Riding Mountains in
western Manitoba,whether it is our great fresh‑water sports fishing
industry innorthern Manitoba or whether it is just simply viewing and
takingpictures of nature in the eastern part of our province, we aregoing to
have to tell our story. We are going to
have to tell itbetter than we have done up till now.
The only way we are going to be able to tell it better is
bytaking the initiative ourselves and using our media properly inother countries
to ensure that other people know what we have inthis province that is
worthwhile seeing, whether it is the Museumof Man and Nature which is situated
not too far from thisbuilding, whether it is the many ethnic cultural
activities,whether it is The Forks which is fast becoming one of the
touristattractions in this province, or whether it is the BoundaryCommission
Trail that has just been marked by Highways insouthern Manitoba. But those are some of the areas that we
needto build on, and we need to build on those communities and usethose
communities, and encourage communities to take actionthemselves and to believe
in themselves, and to cause things tohappen.
The previous administration's ability to condemn
initiativesof the private individual simply must be turned around, and Ithink
we have come a long way in doing that during the last fouryears of our tenure
in government. I am a strong believer
thatin order to approach the 21st Century that our young people aregoing to
have to provide themselves with an education that issecond to none in this
world, and therefore we have identifiedclearly in our Speech from the Throne
that we have within our ownborders probably the greatest resource anywhere else
in theworld, and that is in the youth of our province. I believe thatManitoba's greatest resource is
its youth. It is essential thatwe foster
a positive learning environment for our youth as theyform the group of people
who will take our province and ourcountry into the 21st Century.
In the throne speech the Government of Manitoba outlined
itsplans very clearly to take a back‑to‑basics approach
toeducation. They will achieve this by a
greater emphasis onpolicies and programs directed towards producing sound
reading,mathematics and learning skills, and I believe truly that we havelost
in a large part over the last decade or two that approach toeducation. It is with sadness that I see many of our
youngpeople when they do resumes or when they do job interviews thatthey have a
difficult time reading and a very difficult timewriting and a very difficult
time using their mathematic skills.We are at fault. Our generation is at fault for having
negatedour responsibility in that area.
Therefore, I give our Ministerof Education (Mrs. Vodrey) a great deal of
credit, ourgovernment, our cabinet a great deal of credit for re‑emphasizingour
will to go back to basics in education.
I believe that the Roblin commission currently
travellingthroughout the province will have a great impact, and the peopleof
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We also must not forget our responsibility to
theenvironment. In the past we have
neglected that. Whether it isthe former
NDP administration, whether it is federal governmentor whether it is our
government, we have neglected to correct, toemphasize well enough, though
whether it be through legislationor whether it be through programming or simply
through education,the importance to ensure clean water supplies for
futuregenerations, to ensure our ability of our land to keep onproducing the
way it has produced or to ensure that our air willin fact be breathable and our
climate maintained. For thatreason, we
must ensure that this legislative body drives ourability to ensure that our
environment will be contained in sucha way that our future generations can
survive.
So what have we said in this Speech from the Throne? We havesaid that we must build, and we must
build foundations wellenough that our institutions will survive, that the
programs thatwe create must be of such a nature that they will strengthen
theability of our future generations' survival.
We are all children of this earth and we all depend on
thisearth for future survival. Let us
all jointly, in this House,work together.
I call on all of them, both opposition andmembers of government, to work
together, to ensure that ourfuture generations will see this government as
having been thekind of government that is required to provide the
economicclimate that will allow them to survive.
Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.
Mr. Reg Alcock (Osborne): I
thank the members of the Chamber fortheir enthusiastic greeting of my
remarks. I think before I getinto the
throne speech, though, I would like to just say a fewlittle things by way of
welcome as is the tradition of this House.
I would like to start by noting that Miss Judy White is
nowsitting at the table. I think she is
a very good addition to thetable. I know
Miss White, and I think that she will enhance andadd to the already very
capable work that is done by the table onbehalf of all members.
(Mr.
Speaker in the Chair)
I also want to welcome the new Pages that are here. Thankyou very much, new Page, and the new
interns. I have met almostall of them,
but there are a couple yet that I have yet to beintroduced to but, certainly,
the quality of work that is comingout of our caucus I am sure is being matched
in the other twocaucuses. I want to
welcome the two new members, the member forPortage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister)
and the member forCrescentwood (Ms. Gray).
It is also a time for saying goodbye to the former member
forPortage, who was a strong representative of his area, and it willbe
interesting to see whether the new member for Portage (Mr.Pallister) is willing
to be as strong in representing theinterests of his riding as the former member
was.
I also want to say goodbye to the member for Rupertsland
(Mr.Harper). I think he has played an
important role in this Houseover the last few years, and he will be missed in
this Chamber.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, I want to say goodbye to my
Leader.I was elected in the '88 election, when
Mr. Speaker, I should also make mention of one thing that
haschanged in my life. I have a little
daughter, who is now two andone‑half months old. Yes, I feel like applauding that. Iactually feel pretty good about that, I must
tell you.
I am reminded of something that happened when I got
married,in this Chamber. What I am
reminded of is something thathappened to me repeatedly in this Chamber, as
members from bothsides took me aside to wish me well, and repeatedly they said
tome, this is the most important decision you will make in yourlife, and this
is one of the best. You will always
remember thiswith great, good feeling, great positiveness, and it is true, Ido.
Sarah has added to my life in immeasurable ways, and she
hascaused me to change my lifestyle. I
make a point of being homeevery day. I
do not stay overnight in the office. I
actuallywant to get home and spend some time and see how she has changedeach
day.
Unfortunately, but in my only 40 minutes, I do not have
thetime to allow myself to go off and answer some of the questionsfrom members,
but I would be quite willing to answer thosequestions after I have finished. I do have quite a bit that Iwant to say about
what is happening in this province right now,and I think it is an important
opportunity.
I look forward to the throne speech to talk a little
bitabout the planning and the way the government has laid out itsvision of this
province and what is happening here.
I think if Sarah does anything for me, she forces me to
thinka little more completely about the responsibilities that weassume as we
look at making plans for the future of this province.
I also wonder, I know members here who have older
childrenmust put up with the impact on their children of the way
thatpoliticians are held in such low esteem in the community. I alsowonder how I am going to feel should
she come home from schoolsome day the way other members' children have come
home fromschool complaining about being called names because their parentis a
politician. I worry about that. I worry about that a lot.
*
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When we talk about the debate that goes on in this House,
andin my last speech I talked somewhat about the way in whichpoliticians tend
to bring down the whole profession by the way inwhich they play games with the
language and the way in which theyrun pretty fast and loose with facts and
information. I want toreflect on that a
little bit as I get into what I want to talkabout with the planning for this
economy.
The Prime Minister in the last debate spent a lot of
timedoing the very thing that he did in the
I was reminded of that a bit on Monday as I listened to
themember for Concordia (Mr. Doer) give his response to the Speechfrom the
Throne, and he said something that troubled me becauseit is similar to that
kind of rhetoric. He said in his
speechwhen he was trying to talk about the NDP years versus theConservative
years, he said the deficit has gone from a$58‑million surplus to the
deficit that we have today, and wewill argue in a few minutes about that
deficit. [interjection]Well, I have it at 658.
I have the NDP budget for that same year, and it predicts
adeficit in the order of $364 million, not a $58‑million surplus.I think
it is important that we not play fast and loose withthose kinds of facts. The fact is, we have been in economictrouble
in this province for a long time. We
have been behind inour ability to meet our obligations for a long time, and I
thinkthat‑‑[interjection] Well, I am going to talk in some detailabout
the windfall in just a minute.
The other thing I want to do to try and lay the
groundworkfor the discussion that I want to have on the throne speech isjust to
reflect a little bit on some feelings that I had when Iheard a couple of
announcements last week. The
announcementsthat I heard were the firing of a gentleman named Ed Buller inthe
Finance department and the firing of a woman named MarleneNeustaedter.
I do not know either of these two individuals very
well. Ican put a face to a name. I know Ms. Neustaedter from the ArtsCouncil
days when I was at the Prairie Theatre Exchange, and Ihave met Mr. Buller in
the halls here, so I do not want to talkspecifically about them, other than the
fact that they are to mea symbol. They
are a symbol of a government that chooses tosolve its problems by making
victims of people, rather thantrying to produce positive change. It is a symbol of agovernment that sees the
solution to its problems by simplybeheading somebody or removing somebody,
instead of looking atthe organizational or systemic reform that will produce
long‑termpositive change.
I was quite set back when I just thought of, in
today'seconomy, what it is like to be let go after you have worked20‑some‑odd
years at a job and given your life to it the way MissNeustaedter has at the
council.
I just thought what a cruel and inhuman and violent thing
fora government to do, and I am saddened by it.
I am saddened tosee my government take those kinds of actions. I am saddened tosee my government act in a
way that treats labour as some sort ofcheap commodity that you throw away,
rather than something thatyou work to preserve and strengthen and enhance.
In a sense, that may be what we want to talk about as I
lookat this throne speech, and I have tried to begin each thronespeech and each
budget by looking at the things within that Ilike. There are a couple of things in here that I
agree with,and there are a couple of things in here that I think are worthsupporting.
The government makes the statement here about the
changesinternationally, and I think that is something that we must keepin mind
as we look at the kind of structural changes that have totake place in this
province. It proposes to do two things
that Ithink are achievable and I think are important for the long‑termhealth
of this province.
It proposes to undertake some serious regulatory reform,
andI think that this is a worthwhile goal for the government, and Ithink,
although I am not certain, but on page 4, it talks aboutregional capital market
development. Now, if that is a hint at
amovement toward the development of a prairie regional stockexchange, such as
has been proposed by Lloyd Axworthy and othersas they have worked with the
Alberta Stock Exchange and with theMinister of Industry and Trade here and in
Saskatchewan, then Ithink we are on a track to doing something that will
provide someneeded investment in this province.
If that is simply more ofthe rhetoric that we have seen out of this
government, it will bean opportunity lost and one that will be missed for many
years.
That brings me to the substance, or perhaps the lack
ofsubstance, in this particular speech.
I went back over all theother throne speeches and budgets.
Since this government has come to office, it has
announced aManitoba stock option program in 1988 and 1989. It announced theInternational Centre for
Sustainable Development, which wassupposed to be a world‑class, very
large, very powerfulorganization headquartered in this province. It announced theVision Capital Fund in '89,
'90 and '92. It announced theManitoba
Centres of Excellence Fund in 1989; Business Start loanguarantee fund in 1989;
HydroBonds 1990; The EnvironmentalInnovations Fund 1990; Grow Bond 1991;
Manitoba MineralExploration initiative 1991; Crocus Fund 1991. It announced anindustrial opportunities
program, research and develop initiativeand created the Economic Development
Board of Cabinet.
So last year I said, well that is fine. Some of these thingshave been around for
awhile. If they have been around
forawhile, let us find out what they are doing.
I asked somequestions and I could not elicit any answers from
thedepartments, so I put an Order for Return in. I said, tell mewhat has gone on, just tell
me.
Take the Vision Capital Fund. Tell me what it has done overthe last few
years that is has been operating. Just
put yourgood story on the table, and the Minister of Finance (Mr.Manness) stood
up and he accepted the Order for Return.
Wecertainly will; we will show you; we have a good story to tellyou.
To this day, I have not seen a single piece of
information.The government has never responded to that Order for Returndespite
the order of the House, and they have not produced asingle piece of evidence
that this fund has produced a single jobin this province, and that is
consistent with the actions thatthis government has taken over time‑‑lots
of talk, lots ofrhetoric, lots of words; no action, no production, no results.
Now, every time that we have gotten into a discussion in
thisHouse about what is happening in this province over the last fiveyears, the
Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) or the Premier (Mr.Filmon) or occasionally
the Minister of Industry, Trade andTourism (Mr. Stefanson), although he tends to
be a little moreconsistent in his approach to information, but the Minister
ofFinance and the Premier will stand up and say, well, yes, we willjust ignore
that fact that you are putting on the record here,because I have a projection
here that says, we are just going toget, we will be okay, just around the
corner, which is going toget a little better.
Occasionally, late at night, and perhaps ina moment of absolute clarity,
the minister might say, well, yes,that was not so good, this was not so good or
dare we say it, wehave been in a recession.
It took us a long time before they would even admit to
therebeing a problem. Today, after
almost five years‑‑in threemonths, it will be five years‑‑that
this government has been incharge of the financial affairs of this province,
five yearssince this government has come to office. Yes, there has been arecession. Yes, the global economy is undergoing a
massiverestructuring, that is a fact but this province has fared verypoorly,
this province has done extremely poorly relative to therest of the country.
It is very simple.
I mean, I have asked the Minister ofFinance (Mr. Manness)‑‑[interjection]
He says from his seat, youknow that is not so.
The fact is we lay fact after fact on thetable, and he has yet to respond
to them in any kind ofanalytical way. He
has yet to give a single response thatdisproves a single one of the allegations
that have been made.
What he does is he goes back into his shirt pocket and
hesays, I have a projection; I have a fact that tells me that nextyear it is
going to be better. It has yet to come
true. He hasyet to be accurate.
Mr. Speaker, let us look at what has happened. In 1988, wehad a particular share of wealth
in this country. The wealth inthe whole
country has shrunk somewhat during the recession, butin
The Finance minister has talked about
Another example or another statement this government has
madeis that full‑time jobs will be the kind of jobs that they create,that
they will not create the short‑term, make‑work, Mcjobs ofthe former
Jobs Fund, and they make great fun of the formergovernment for creating those
kind of jobs. So you say, okay,let us
test that, let us have a look at that.
When you look at the labour force statistics that come
outand you look at the percentage of full‑time jobs within ourlabour
force, the labour force has gotten smaller overall. Lookat the number of full‑time jobs
within the labour force with apercentage, and you find that we have lost‑‑[interjection]
theLeader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) says 20,000 full‑time jobs.My
figures as of October say, 13,600. The
difference issignificant but the trend is exactly the same.
Take the smaller number.
Let us say it is only 13,000 fewerfull‑time jobs in this province. Over five years, instead ofproducing the
growth in full‑time, high‑quality jobs, they haveproduced a net
shrinkage of over 13,000. It is another
one oftheir policies that is not working.
They said, if we just changethe tax structure, if we just reduce the
relationship betweengovernment and business, if we free the private sector,
that theywould begin to invest in this province, that we would see allsorts of
vigor and energy on their part.
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Now, it is true that there has been a recession, so
thatoverall private sector capital investment is down. That is afact, but
Could it be that they have just failed to understand
whatpeople are talking about when they are talking about therestructuring? They use the language. You know, the Premierinvited us‑‑I
presume every member was invited‑‑to go to thisforum on innovation,
and I went. I have to tell you that I
wasdisappointed. I was very disappointed
by the tenor of themeeting because it seemed to me‑‑I listened to
somebody from NewZealand tell me that if you changed the tax structure, thingswould
get wonderful.
I listened to somebody else tell me that
You know, we talk, we use the language of knowledge‑basedindustries,
we use the language of technology change.
But thereal question is, what does all that mean when it comes to
payinga dollar. What does all that mean
when it comes to putting aprogram into operation? What does that mean when it comes tomaking a
policy decision in a cabinet to strengthen the Manitobaeconomy? What does that economic restructuring look
like when itcomes to decisions which affect this province's place, becausethe
decisions that this government has made are obviously wrong.They are failing.
You know, I was interested. I left the Chamber briefly todayto go and
listen to the Finance minister, Mazankowski, who hasthe same problem, only he
has been around a lot longer. He hasbeen
around since '84, and after eight, coming on nine years incharge of the
financial affairs of this country, he startstalking about an increase of the
deficit from $28 billion to $34billion as being a decrease. He starts taking a page out of
thisgovernment's book in attacking the most vulnerable people in
theprovince. He actually decreased the
support for people onunemployment insurance.
That is absolutely unbelievable.
Hefroze his own salary. He gave
himself a zero increase, and hewent to the guy who is making $600 a month and
reduced his salaryby 3 percent.
It is absolutely unconscionable, and he talked again the
samelanguage they have been talking since 1984, the same languagethat this
government has been talking since 1988.
There is aneconomic restructuring going on. There is a global marketplace.What he did not
do is recognize that their approach to the globalmarketplace is the wrong one,
and I want to talk a little bitabout why it is the wrong one.
There is a problem that we face in this country. It is aproblem we face in
There is an interesting comment from Roger Porter, who
wrotea lengthy book on competitiveness in the world. I think it isrecognized as a major piece of
work around the world, and it isoften quoted from. But he makes the comment here that
eventuallydependence on natural resources will leave a nation vulnerable
todepletion, new foreign sources or technological changes thatreduce or
eliminate resource needs. Countries with
high levelsof resource wealth may bypass the evolution of innovation‑basedeconomies
and move from a resource economy to wealth‑driveneconomy that spends its
time in mergers, acquisitions andinvestments in financial assets, activities
that eventually leadto economic decline, because an economy driven by past
wealth isnot able to maintain its wealth.
I think it is an interesting observation. I think it is aninteresting statement about
If Canada is to take advantage of its place in the world,
ifit is going to take advantage of the kind of wealth-generation capability
that it has, because we still live close to that bigmarket, we still have great
stability and a relativelysophisticated labour force, then there have to be
somefundamental policy changes that revitalize the manufacturingsector, the
high-tech manufacturing sector in this country.
Thatis a simple fact of life.
When we look at what is happening around the world
withincreased access to markets and increased access to labourforces, stable
labour forces in other countries, the thought, asthis government seems to
propose that we can simply negotiate ourinfrastructure costs here down to a
point where we will becompetitive once again in textiles or in low‑tech
manufacturingindustries with Mexico or China or Thailand, is simply wrong. Wewill not.
We would give up far too much in our lifestyle. Whatwe have to do is begin to move in the
area that produces greatestchange. Over
the last two decades the high‑tech area has grownfrom 10 percent of total
world trade to nearly 30 percent oftotal world trade. Now what does that mean for us? There hasalways been high‑tech.
High‑tech used to be called sewing machines and
steam enginesand those sorts of things, and they occupied a certain niche inthe
economy during industrialization. What
is interesting is inthe last few decades they have grown rapidly, and where
thatgrowth has taken place‑‑it is 30 percent of world trade‑‑butwhere
that growth, the people who are dealing in that trade, whoare creating those
products are the G7 countries.
There is an interesting anomaly, and it is one that I
thinkreinforces the concerns that many Canadians feel about the FreeTrade
Agreement. When you look at industrial
production in thiscountry and in the other six G7 countries, the fact is that
in1980, '81, '82, '83, '84, '85, '86, '87, when you looked at therelationship
between the seven countries in industrialproduction, we all did fairly well.
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The same was true in 1988. We ended 1988 actually slightlyahead of the
composite of the other six G7 countries.
Between1988 and today, we have fallen to last place. We are the onlycountry of the G7 countries to
suffer the size of the declinethat we have.
The fact is that this country is deindustrialized.
I know that that is seen by the members on the other side
asbeing rhetoric, and I heard the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner)earlier wax
eloquent about what a wonderful thing the Free TradeAgreement was for
It is hard for me, because I fundamentally believe in
freetrade. I think open global markets‑‑the
movement of capital is afact of life that we are not going to change, the
movement ofpeople and the movement of freer, open markets. The movement ofgoods and people, I think, is
a good thing in the long run.
I do not think this deal gives us that. I do not think thisdeal gives us the kind of
structural access to the southernmarket that we might like. I think it penalizes us veryheavily. I can move back and forth quite freely
between the twocountries, but someone who has a lesser education finds it
verydifficult to move. His job may move
south, her job may movesouth, but they are not necessarily able to follow it.
I think, though, that there is a more invidious concern
aboutwhat is happening with free trade, and I think there is somelight at the
end of this tunnel. If I read what is
happening inthe U.S. right, Robert Reich, who is one of the major advisers
ontrade and on economic development to President‑elect Clinton,
haswritten about the negative impacts of the Free Trade Agreement
onCanada. In fact, Robert Reich was on
An Honourable Member: He
did not know what he was talking about.
Mr. Alcock: No, in
fact, Reich does. That is the
problem. Themember for Emerson (Mr.
Penner) says that Reich does not knowwhat he is talking about, but Reich has
taken the time to lookvery carefully.
Reich is a free‑trader.
Reich believes in opentrade. He
thinks that it is going to lead to a betterdistribution of goods, a more
economically just world in the longrun.
He believes in this, but he also believes that the dealthat was struck
between Mulroney and President Reagan is bad forCanada. He can demonstrate that.
The thing that is so frustrating for me is, I do not know
howmuch evidence needs to be piled up in front of these membersbefore they
begin to understand. I do not know how
many of theirconstituents have to lose their jobs. I do not know how manypeople have to move out
before they finally realize that we doindeed have a problem.
Is it a solvable problem?
Frankly, the one piece of strengthin the argument about the marketplace
adjustment that needs totake place is that we have to, if we want to take
advantage ofwhat we have down there, the market that we have down
there,undertake some fundamental changes in this country. They have todo with better training of the
labour force. They have to dowith much,
much greater investment in research and development.They have to do with
helping companies become more competitivewith changing productivity levels. They have to do withproviding incentives to
get people ready, but they are the kindof incentives that should have taken
place in the early '80s, thekind of incentives that we should have been
building into thiseconomy prior to opening that floodgate, because opening
thatfloodgate has produced nothing but destruction for this countryand it is
going to be very hard to recover.
We have dug ourselves deeper and I would ask the member
forEmerson or other members on that side of the House to answer onesimple
question: If their vision works, if
their vision is sosuccessful, why, in the case of the federal government
aftereight years, the first six of which were of very high growth,after all
that time of their vision, have they been unable todeal with the deficit? If that is their Holy Grail, why havethey not
solved that problem?
They say the same things in every throne speech. In factthere are great sections of the
speeches from the last six thatyou could simply photocopy and bring
forward. With a goodthesaurus, you could
just bring forward exactly the same content.
(Mr.
Ben Svienson, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
I wonder if they do.
I suspect that some of the members do.I suspect when they get outside of
the heat of this Chamber theymust wonder, why is it, after being in power,
after doing all ofthese things, that it has produced none of the results that
theyhoped for. [interjection] I am talking both. I was asked whetherI was talking federally or
provincially. I am talking both.
The federal Tories have had eight years of this. Theprovincial government has had five years
of this and yet whathave they produced?
Now, when the member for Emerson (Mr.Penner) talks about an increase in
some resource extraction‑‑youknow, the reality is that is the very
problem that has put usinto the situation that we are in. Yes, we can maintain somelevel of wealth for
some period of time to come by simply sellingoff our resources, but in fact we
are becoming less able tomaintain the wealth in this country with that
approach. We havelost the ability to
become competitive. [interjection] The memberfor Emerson keeps‑‑I
think what happened today, we are all giventheir rhetoric sheet and the member
for Emerson is afraid to letgo of it, but the fact is from a report tabled by
their owntechnology council, it talks about things like this.
This would suggest that
The question is then, what do you do? So now, how are yougoing to get around
that? How are going to begin to build
somestrength back into this? I think one
of the things that we needto start thinking about in this country, when we talk
aboutinfrastructure and I have heard again and actually I am sorry tobe
referencing the member for Pembina (Mr. Orchard), but he wasthe latest one who
read the one speech that members on the otherside of the House seemed to be
willing to read, but he talkedabout the glories of infrastructure. We are going to build roadsand that is indeed
a policy that has been in place. It
firstcame forward in the Depression. It
was the way to put peopleback to work.
It was the way to build jobs but the world haschanged since then. If we do not have anybody to drive on
thoseroads, if we do not have anybody to use those sewers, theinvestment will
give us some short‑term jobs, it will bring insome people who will work
to build them, but it will leave usnothing that will make us stronger five
years from now, 10 yearsfrom now, 20 years from now.
That is something that we need to think about very,
veryhard, and we need to start thinking about the, for want of abetter term,
skills infrastructure. We need to start
thinkingabout investing in the part of our economy that produces agreater skill
level among people because that is the one thingthat is going to allow us to be
more competitiveinternationally. That is
the one thing that is going to fuel therestructuring.
I actually heard the suggestion from the other side of
theHouse that they feel that they are doing that, and I expect forthose who do
believe the rhetoric that they put out that theybelieve that they are doing it,
but there has yet to be asubstantive demonstration of that. They are making it moredifficult for people
to get trained, not less difficult.
Theyare making it more difficult to go to university, not
lessdifficult. They are shifting the
burden, the cost of university,off of the backs of the taxpayer who benefits
from the increasedintellectual and skill capability in the community, onto the
debtload of individual students. I think
that is simply unacceptable.
I think that if there is one factor that there seems to
besome commitment to‑‑I even noticed today Finance
MinisterMazankowski as he was talking about what he was going to do, andI would
point out a couple of things to Conservative membershere. In his economic and fiscal statement, I would
note that inthis great infrastructure program that they are so proud of,other
than the possibility of some paving in
They are going to renew federal bridges in
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There are some things in this announcement that I think
areokay. There is a substantive
recognition of the need to investin research and development. There is a substantive recognitionof the need
to invest in training, but it is eight years toolate‑‑ah, I should
not say that. That is not fair. It is nevertoo late, but it is eight years
slow in coming. Had we startedthis some
time ago, we might be in better shape today.
We mighthave been better poised to take advantage of the Free
TradeAgreement rather than to be beaten by it the way we have been.
When the free trade debate was on here in 1988, we
heardmembers do what they do everyday.
They talked about the littleprojection they had in their vest pocket
that was going to saythat things would get better, but the fact is they have
not.They have gotten worse in this province.
They have gotten worseacross a whole range of services.
I am saddened by the direction in this document that
hascaused them to cut $100 million from regional developmentinitiatives. I am saddened by the direction in this
documentthat has caused them to reduce support for the most vulnerablepeople in
this community.
If you want to spur economic turn, if you want to get
peoplespending, the people who spend every nickel of every dollar theyget are
the people that have the least. It is
the people who areon unemployment insurance.
It is the people who are on welfare.It is the people who have no other
alternatives, and to takemoney out of their pockets at a time when things are
sodesperately tough in this country and yet not do the same toyourself I just
think is unconscionable.
But I think it is very consistent with the policies that
areexpressed by the federal government and by this government. Ithink it is very consistent with the actions
of the Minister ofFamily Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) when he decided to act
againstthe people on income security in this province. I think it isvery consistent with
Conservative policy that they victimizethose people who are least able to
defend themselves.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I see my time has come to an
end. I willpick this up and try to go a
little further when the budget isbefore us.
If I have one plea to make to the government, it isthat they begin to
think about the intellectual, the skillsinfrastructure as being every bit and I
believe more importantthan the physical infrastructure in this province, and
that theybegin to treat it with the same kind of reverence and make thesame
kind of investments in it that they boast so proudly aboutwhen they look at
investing in roads and sewers that may not havepeople around to use them.
Thank you.
Mr. Harold Neufeld (Rossmere): Mr. Acting Speaker, I would justlike to add a
few words to the debate going on in this Chamber.
I would like to start first by congratulating the Speaker
forhis return to the Chair, and I wish he were here, but he might belistening
to the speech in his chamber. I would
like tocongratulate him for being returned.
I enjoyed hisfairmindedness, his congenial attitude, his co‑operativeness,
thelikes of which I have not seen in the Chair.
I would also like to welcome back the member for
Crescentwood(Ms. Gray). She was here for
two and a half years before, and Iwelcome her back. I would like to welcome also the member
forPortage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister). I
think he has already shownthat he can fill the big shoes of the former member
for Portagela Prairie.
I would also like to wish the Leader of the Liberal
Partywell in her next endeavor. I know
she will make a contributionthere as she has in this Chamber. As well, I would like to wishthe member for
Rupertsland (Mr. Harper) well in whatever his nextendeavor shall be.
I will be supporting this throne speech, Mr. Acting
Speaker,and that is not because I agree with everything that is inthere. It is because I think it is the best thing
availabletoday. I do not think that
there is a premier or a governmentthat can run this province better and more
efficiently than theone we have, which is not to say, however, Mr. Acting
Speaker,that it is the best way. I do
believe that there are ways toimprove it, and I think I will dwell more on how
it might beimproved than how I might support it.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I came into this job four years,
sevenmonths and seven days ago. I
remember the time well. I spentsome four
years of that time in cabinet and on Treasury Board,and one cannot help but
learn something in those four years, andsome of those recollections and some of
the things I have learntI would like to speak of today.
Before I do, just let me give you a little bit about
thebackground of my constituency. My
constituency is a total urbanconstituency.
It has had some very distinguished representativesin the past, amongst
them our former Speaker, Peter Fox, formerPremier, Edward Schreyer, former
Finance minister, Vic Schroeder,but having said that, the people in my
constituency came to theirsenses in 1988 and elected a Conservative member to
the Houseand, I might say, it is the first time that this constituency
haselected a Conservative member.
I have lived, Mr. Acting Speaker, in my constituency for
37years, and 1988 was the first time I voted for a winner. To showyou how my luck runs, the Boundaries
Commission saw fit to movethe boundaries somewhat north, and I am now in the
constituencyof the member for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway). So again, I can lookback in my life and say
that once, once only, have I voted for awinner.
Mr. Acting Speaker, a little bit about my background, and
itmay show this Chamber how I come about my convictions, how I comeabout my
views, which are at times thought to be somewhatright‑wing. I think not.
I have been accused in the past ofbeing somewhat pinkish in tinge. It is not the member forOsborne (Mr. Alcock)
who did say that.
My parents came to this country in 1926 from the
My grandparents, who came to
I think it is called pride. Pride is what built thiscountry. Pride is what we must have if we want to
continue tobuild this country. Pride is
something we have lost. The workethic is
something we have lost. If we want to
build, do nottalk about creating jobs by government. Do not talk about moreeducation. Talk about pride. Talk about work ethic. That iswhat is going to build this country. That is what built thiscountry, and it is the
only thing that will help us.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr.
Doer)talks about going to coffee houses.
Now, I frequent the coffeehouses in my constituency, and I frequent the
same one that hehas often come to. The
Salisbury House on
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I have a problem with the credibility or the lack
ofcredibility for politicians. I think
we all know that we havelost an awful lot of credibility, and I think there is
a goodreason for that. Politicians think
they can direct thepopulace. They think
they can tell the people how they mustvote.
They think they can tell the people what is good forthem. Well, I think, we cannot see a more glaring
example ofpolitical arrogance than in the national referendum of October26, I
believe it was.
I was called by a newspaper reporter early in the
referendumdiscussions and asked what I thought of it. I said, well, it islike chicken soup, it
cannot hurt you. I would probably vote
forit, so we can get on with more important things that we need inthis
country. Having said that, the
politicians came out ofCharlottetown and told us what a good deal they had
forCanadians. Then they proceed to spend
hundreds of millions ofdollars to try to convince us to vote in a certain way. Thatchanged my mind. I said, if it is such a good deal, why do
Ihave to be told how to vote? Give me
the facts. I am
reasonablyintelligent. I can make a
decision, but they did not and theygot their due.
I want to show you an article that I clipped and it
istopical because today is the day that Mazankowski brought downhis minibudget
and Mazankowski says, when it comes to increasingtaxes, blame the deficit. Now, good Lord, and here is what itsays, the
deficit made us do it. Justifying eight
years of Torytax increases. Now, I do
not support tax increases for the sakeof paying off deficits. If we are going to have tax increases,we have
tax increases to‑‑I do not believe in deficits to startwith, but if
we have tax increases, we should use them to promotethe country.
(Mr.
Speaker in the Chair)
The deficit‑‑[interjection] I will come to
that. I am goingto talk about the
deficit. I am going to talk about what I
thinkof the deficit. I am going to talk
about what I think might bedone about the deficit. I would like to read something that
WillRogers said many years ago, and this may be of interest to themember for
Osborne (Mr. Alcock). I can remember
back when aLiberal was one who was generous with his own money, and that isas
true today as it was then. He also said,
it is a good thingwe do not get all the government we pay for.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard [interjection] well, if we
want totalk about socialism I can talk at ends on socialism, because myparents
had to live through it. Some of them
died through it,some of my relatives.
So, if you want to talk about socialism,we can talk all we want.
What are the answers?
What are the answers to our economy?We have heard an awful lot
here. We have heard
"spend."Everything is spend.
It is spend, spend, spend.
Let us deal with the member for Osborne's (Mr. Alcock)
ideathat training and education is the only answer. Certainly, weneed training and
education. Certainly, if there is a need
forthe type of expertise we have to train our people, but trainingfor the sake
of training is not an answer.
I talked to a native elder in Gillam the first year we
werein office, and he told me what we do not need in this country ismore
educated unemployed. Unless we have a
purpose, unless wehave a reason to train people, what are we doing? We aretraining more unemployed. We are getting more educatedunemployed and
that is not what we want. We want
employment[interjection] We want fewer unemployed, you are right. Themember for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie) says we
need fewer unemployed.Of course we do, but we cannot do that in
We have to learn to compete with all the countries in
thisworld. The Free Trade Agreement may
be flawed, I do not denythat. I will
tell you the worst thing about the Free TradeAgreement was that the federal
government and Mulroney cameacross the country saying we won every point. Nobody in theworld wins every point when they
are dealing with a country thesize of the
We are, whether we like it or not, living in a
globaleconomy. That is not a buzzword,
that is a fact. We will haveto compete
with the
We have to become productive. That is the only way. How doyou get back to that? We develop a work ethic and we developpride. A good example of our lack of pride is the
number ofpeople on that side who refuse to sing God Save the Queen. Thatis to me a lack of pride in country. That is to me[interjection] No, I am not a
monarchist. I am not a monarchistbut
that is the culture we have. That is our
heritage, we haveto go with that.
Unless you have some heritage, you are not going to
goanywhere. I get upset when I go to a
hockey game and I see theplayers moving around during the playing of our
national anthem.I quit my season tickets for the Jets. One of the reasons wasthey kept moving around
while the national anthem was sung.
Irefused to go in until it was over.
That is pride. TheAmericans have
it. When you see a World Series game you
see theAmerican players with their hands over their hearts while thenational
anthem is being played and they stand at attention. Welaugh about it. The member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli)
laughs.[interjection] We are not selling out to the
Let us not forget that other countries want to expand
theirtrade, as well. Let us not forget
that when you live next to thebiggest trading partner in the world, they are
going to want toexpand their trade. They
are not going to continue indefinitelywith, for one thing, our Autopact
agreement. They are not goingto continue
indefinitely accepting a trade deficit with Canada.[interjection] No, it will
not be in their interest to do that.It simply is not. We have to consider trade to be global. Wecannot build a fence around our own‑‑[interjection]
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(1710)
I do believe, as I have said earlier, that the Free
TradeAgreement has some flaws. I do
think that the federal governmentdid not prepare us sufficiently well to enter
into that FreeTrade Agreement. I do
think that some of us did not accept thatthere would be some flaws, and some of
us should have done moreto prepare ourselves.
When I say us, I mean industry.
Industryis there to look forward into the future, and they have
toprepare their own plan into the future.
Getting back to training, if we are going to train, we
haveto know what we are training for. I
agree with the member forOsborne (Mr. Alcock), we have to be ready when that
time comes,but to speak of that as the only answer to our unemploymentsituation
is dreaming in technicolor.
The other thing is the Jobs Fund. We have tried that. Ithas been found wanting. I do think that if you are going tocreate
temporary jobs in order, and this has been said manytimes, if you are going to
create temporary jobs in order tostimulate the economy in order to get more
people working, dothings that would have to be done anyway sometime in the
future,but then be prepared, when that future comes and the better timescome,
to back off. You have to then back off.
The Bible tells us that we must prepare for the bad yearsduring
the good years. We have not done
that. So it is verydifficult today to
say we will spend the money that we do nothave in order to create temporary
jobs. It is very difficult fora Finance
minister to make that decision.
Where are our resources, and what can we do with
them? Ithink we have to zero in on
that. I think we have our bestresources
for long‑term jobs. We have ample
hydroelectric powerwhich we cannot sell to others so they can create industries
butto create industries ourselves. We
have to recognize that we area long ways from deep water. We are a long ways from markets, sowe have to
recognize that. We have to go in for
development thatwill not be hindered by long distances of transport.
We have lots of good water that a lot of good people
woulddie for. We have copper. We have zinc.
We have nickel. Wehave silica
sand. We have vegetables. We have all grains. Wehave cattle. We have tourism. All these resources. These areall resources, and a lot of them are
renewable resources. We arenot using
them.
We have to develop secondary industries. We have to developat value‑added. We have lost our value‑added. We have lost ourvalue‑added in the
grain industry, in the flour industry.
Wehave lost our value‑added in the cattle industry. Where did welose it? Not to foreign countries. We lost them to our ownprovinces.
The Prime Minister talked at length about decreasing
theamount of interprovincial trade barriers.
What is the greatesttrade barrier we have? It is the money spent by other provincesfar
richer than us in order to track our own industries. Albertahas captured our value‑added
cattle industry through monies fromtheir Heritage Fund.
I spoke with a minister of the Alberta Legislature at
onetime. I said to him that it was
somewhat wrong to use moniesfrom their Heritage Fund in order to attract our
business, thatan accident of geography should not give them a leg up over
therest of us. He said, my goodness,
that is free enterprise. Hesaid, I hope
the rest of your cabinet does not think that way. Ihad to remind him that on a political
spectrum I was probably thefurthest right of any of our cabinet ministers. He could notbelieve that, because he already
felt that I was a little pinkish.
We have to develop value-added industries with the
naturalresources we already have. One
thing bothered me a great dealand I spoke at length about this with the
management of ManitobaHydro. We mine
copper in Flin Flon. We ship the copper
toeastern
They have the copper in Flin Flon. They have, withinreasonable distances, ample
labour forces, several reserves.They have the ability to attract the investment
and they have acaptive market. Now why
can we not develop a copper wireindustry in The Pas or in Cranberry Portage
where we have amplelabour? We need the
entrepreneurs. We need them. They are theones who can develop an industry
without government help.
I, personally, am very much opposed to government grants
toanybody. You have already heard my
views on government grants tocultural bodies.
I am equally opposed to government grants toindustry. There is no industry in the world or in
We are moving around too much. The member for Flin Flonwants to know about R
& D. There is probably a place
forgovernment in R & D, but that is another subject and that issomething we‑‑[interjection]
Let me remind the member for FlinFlon (Mr. Storie) that expansion is not
dependent on R & D, nottotally. Most
companies know when they need the R & D forexpansion.
The member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) mentioned D. W.
Friesen,Altona. I lived in Altona when
it was started. I lived inAltona when
they were a small‑‑[interjection] They do not mindfree trade. There was a small stationery store. They startedthe printing plant in the height
of the Depression withoutgovernment aid in rural
The opposition members think that the only way to do
thingsis with government economic aid‑‑give them something. The onlyjobs you get are government jobs if
you expect government tocreate them. I
would love to be 30 years old today and go inbusiness in competition with those
gentlemen. How did D. W.Friesen or Dave
Friesen start his business? D. W.
Friesen wentinto business because he had a vision, and he spent hours workingat
it.
I can give you other examples, and I will. Al DeFehr inWinnipeg, I remember when he
started in
I will give you another example. John Klassen startedMonarch Industries, and
the member for
* (1720)
Those were people with a vision. Those were people who wereprepared to
work. Those were people who knew that
work was theonly way out of their condition, and that is the kind of peoplewe
need back in
A father cannot help his children if they are not
prepared tohelp themselves. He has to
help them help themselves. I am
afather. We have children and grandchildren. That is one of thereasons I became involved,
because I thought I could make adifference.
We think we have problems today, and I have already
mentionedthe eastern countries. When
those eastern countries aremobilized, when their labour force is mobilized we
better beready to compete against them because they will drive us out ofthe
marketplace totally. So we better be
ready. It will take ageneration or two.
I found, Mr. Speaker, my cousins who were lost in
When I graduated as a chartered accountant, Mr. Speaker,
Iwent to the
We are only prepared to complain. We complain thatgovernment does not do
enough, and we have to stop. We have
tothink about tomorrow and we have to think about our children andwe have to
think about our grandchildren, and what they going tobe doing.
Mr. Speaker, our economic policy has not
causedunemployment. Unemployment is a
global problem today. Yes, wecould
create jobs artificially by building more roads, bybuilding parks, but where
are we going to get the money? Whereare
we going to borrow the money?
The billions of dollars that are being borrowed by the
UnitedStates, and they will get first call on the money. The billionsof dollars that have to be
borrowed by the Canadian government,and they will get a call before
So we have a problem, and we cannot simply write off
theproblem by saying government is looking after it. Governmentshould have a strategy. What strategy can we possibly have whenwe are
broke and we have to borrow money.
An Honourable Member: How about borrow from the Bank of Canada?
Mr. Neufeld: If you
want to borrow from the Bank of Canada, youwill invite inflation because that
is printing money, and I amnot sure that any of us want to print money.
Let me talk a little bit about government
employment. Do wehave the kind of work
force in the government that we can beproud of?
Are we overstaffed? Most
industries when they come toa crisis realize they are overstaffed and they lay
people off.General Motors is going to lay off 30,000 people.
Let me suggest to you that we are overstaffed by a
third.With two‑thirds of the staff, we could provide the same programsthat
we are now providing without anybody noticing anydifference. People would have to work. You do not have to havesomebody there to talk
to another person when they have nothingto do.
That is what is happening.
When the federal civil servants went on strike, did
younotice any reduction in your service for 16 days? I noticed adifference. The streets were not as congested, and I
could getto work in 12 minutes. That was
the difference, so I will invitePeter Olfert to take his people out on strike
and we will see howmuch they are needed.
I will invite him. [interjection] Theyshould be pretty happy.
There was a time, Mr. Speaker, when the Civil Service
jobswere secure. There was a time when
they had a good pensionplan. There was a
time when they made a little less money thanthe average wage in the city and in
Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is any of us who have
notbeen frustrated with government employees when you are trying toget
something done. I will tell you a little
story. Thishappened to me. I sold a car some years ago‑‑this
was before wewere in office‑‑and I wanted to get back my PST on the
car. Theysent me from one office to the
next office and I would wait,somebody would be talking, they would not come to
look after me.They would send me to another office and I would go there. Theywould have me fill out some more papers,
and I am sure that everyone of you has had this frustration. I would go to anotheroffice, and finally I
would come to the last office. Here
iswhere I am supposed to get the final filter.
I see threeemployees standing there talking. I am standing there waiting.They talk. I bang on the desk very lightly. They do not come.Then one of the employees
comes over, and I look behind her andthere is a sign behind her. It says, if you do not like theservice you
are getting here, maybe you should walk down the hallwhere perchance somebody
might give a shit. Mr. Speaker, I
amsorry, but I am only giving you what I read.
I made up my mindright there that we were overstaffed.
Mr. Speaker, much has been said about native self‑government,and
I will not say any more about it. My
uncle taught at IslandLake more than 50 years ago, taught school. He came back andtold me then what we are
doing wrong is that we are trying totake those young children, teach them our
ways and then send themback into the woods without their being trained in their
ownways. They cannot live with us and
they cannot live with them.That is a problem, and I remember that. I was a young lad and hetold me that. I look back now and he was absolutely
right. Thethings that we have done with
our native population areinexcusable.
There are many things that we could do but we haveto work together with
them. There is no point kidding
ourselvesthat
*
(1730)
What kind of industry can we put in there that is going
tosustain those communities? We have
lots of communities in thesouth that have had to move. Towns have died because there wasnot enough
work to sustain the people, and they had to move. Thesame thing applies to the northern
communities, Mr. Speaker.Some of them may have to move. Gambling is not the answer either.
An Honourable Member: We are
all hanging on the edge of ourchairs for the answers here.
Mr. Neufeld: The answer
might well be that we bring inindustries that are labour intensive. I have mentioned thisbefore. I have mentioned this with copper wire
turning, alabour‑intensive industry which we could, if we wished, or
wemight be able to supply the wire for Manitoba Hydro and theManitoba Telephone
System. We have a captive market. We now buyit elsewhere. Why can we not make it here? Those are things.
I will tell you something else. I saw a newscast in Montrealwhen I was there
recently, and they interviewed a native elder,and he was opposed to gambling on
reserves. The CBC reporter,and this
gives you an indication of the intelligence of the CBCreporter, said, why? He said, you do not gamble with
welfaremoney. The CBC reporter looked at
him stunned. He said, I guessit could
happen. The elder simply said, it does.
Think about it‑‑[interjection] even at the
Crystal Casino.Do not look at me. I am
not a gambler, but I think that if weuse welfare monies to gamble, we are
simply increasing a problemthat we have already had.
I have some problems with our health care system. I havesome problems with our educational
system, but that will have towait for another speech.
Let me just say that those of you who are opposed to aid
toprivate schools, let us not forget that if all those studentsmoved into the
public school system it would cost you that muchmore. It would, because there is a per student
grant.
I will leave you with this thought, that we have spent
and dospend millions of dollars on transporting kids to school andspend
millions more to build them a gym so they can get someexercise. Somebody might explain the rationale of that
to me.
I have one more clip‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Does the
honourable member have leave to extend?[Agreed]
Mr. Neufeld: I have
one more clip from a newspaper and I amtaking issue with newspaper
reporting. It says: Unmarried withtaxes. Unmarried couples will pay millions more.
Now these are couples who live in a common‑law
relationship,and these are couples who, over the years, have wanted,
demandedand received benefits through the health care system as
married,benefits through the pension system as married, and now objectbecause
they are expected to pay taxes as married.
These are thekinds of headlines that you get out of the newspaper
reportingtoday. It does not give you the
answer, it does not give you theright answer.
I would like if some of our reporters mightsometime report a little more
accurately.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to risetoday to add
my comments to those of others in this Chamberregarding the throne speech, but
first, I would like to extend awelcome to the new Pages and to the new table
officer in theChamber here today and to welcome you back, too. We enjoy yourguidance through our sessions
over the past couple of years, andonce again, we look forward to your guidance
through this currentsession that we are in.
I would also like to welcome, too, Mr. Speaker, the new
MLAsin our Chamber, the member for
One of the things that I noticed in the throne speech,
Mr.Speaker, and it has been pointed out by many others in theChamber here
today, was the lack of new ideas or new conceptsthat we could have put in place
to get our province movingforward. Many
others have mentioned that, and of course, that tome, leaves me with the
thought that what we have here before usis a government that is old, tired and
worn out, and they have noideas and no new concepts that they can bring forward
to help thepeople of Manitoba move forward into new job creation programs,to
get the unemployed back into the work force and to create asense of hope or promise
for the future.
Also in the throne speech, Mr. Speaker, we did not see
anypromise to freeze taxes for this coming budget speech which Ibelieve we will
be seeing at the end of the winter, the beginningof the spring. The members opposite quite often like to
talkabout the position we are in financially in this province here,and they
fail to recognize or fail to respond to the statementsthat have been made many
times by members in this Chamber aboutthe financial position they were left in
when they took office,when they took government, that they were left with a
positive,black ink in the bank account.
They had $58 million in the bankto work with, and they took that money,
and they created theirrainy day fund which they have continued to manipulate and
use asa shell game throughout the five budgets and probably once againcoming up
into the sixth budget coming up in the spring.
It will be interesting to see, Mr. Speaker, whether they
areable to hold the line on taxes as they like to say they aredoing, even
though we know they are offloading onto themunicipalities in the province and
to the school boards in theprovince, or whether or not they are going to have
to drasticallycut back on services to the people in the province of Manitoba,or
are they going to once again offload the responsibility forsome of the costs?
[interjection] That is right. The member
forDauphin (Mr. Plohman) mentions the $700‑million turnaround, andthat is
accurate considering that the current deficit that thegovernment is now projecting
is $643 million. We had left them$58
million in the bank to work with, so it is a $700‑millionturnaround.
It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, from the condition that we
are infinancially in this province that this government is obviouslyvery poor
business managers.
Yet the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) wants to talk
aboutspace cadets and space projects, and we will get to that in aminute when
we talk about his failure in the Churchill RocketRange project. I am sure he will be interested to hear
aboutthat.
It is obvious that the Minister of Health does not think
veryhighly of the Churchill project. He
thinks that it is a futileeffort. I take
it by his comments that he has made here todaythat his government is not making
any serious efforts towardsgetting that project off the ground. He indeed may be lobbyingagainst that
project.
*
(1740)
One of the things that I have seen in my own community,
Mr.Speaker, is layoff after layoff after layoff. We have hadlayoffs in the rail industry within
my community. We had layoffsin the bus
manufacturing industry within my community.
We havehad layoffs within the airline industry, and we had layoffs
andbusiness failures in general, as I am sure there is around theprovince.
(Mrs.
Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)
My community has been seriously impacted by the layoffs,
andonce again this past week we saw another further announcement offuture
impacts of layoffs upon the employees of the railoperation, and I will move
into discussion on that in a fewminutes.
The only industry that I see growing in my community at
thiscurrent time is the food bank, and I say that in all seriousnessbecause I
go and take part and help out in the food bank wheneverI can to lend assistance
to the people of the community to allowthem to have a sense of pride and to
also hear their concerns.
I listened to the member for Rossmere (Mr. Neufeld)
talkabout people should get out and get a job.
Well, maybe themember for Rossmere should take the opportunity to go to
one ofthe food banks and talk to the people who are there. They do notwant to be there. They do not want to have to use the food
banks.
It is interesting to note that the member for Steinbach
(Mr.Driedger) is also going to have to face this problem in his
owncommunity. I see in the media this
week that there is apossibility of a food bank starting up in Steinbach. Now I wouldhave thought that Steinbach would
have been an affluent area ofour province and there would not have been a need
there for that,but obviously it is impacting upon them as well.
One of the things that I had difficulty with just
recently, Ihad a young woman come to my office.
She is a licensed practicalnurse.
She is a single parent of a teenage son who has justrecently been able
to move away from the support of familymembers and move out on her own. She is able to pay her ownbills now, and she
is able to pay the mortgage payment on herhouse that she is living in, but she
is now finding herself in aposition where she has to face the real prospect of
losingemployment through the reduction of the LPN program at thehospital at
which she works.
Now this individual wants very much to be
independent. Shewants to remain in the
work force, but what she is finding isthat if she loses her job she will be
forced to accept one ofseveral choices.
She can opt to move back with her family. Shecan look at retraining or she can go onto
the UnemploymentInsurance system.
She does not want to go on the Unemployment Insurance
system,Madam Deputy Speaker. She wants
very much to be independent, butshe is going to be forced to make that decision
if she loses herjob. She cannot afford
to go back to retraining because she hasto continue to pay the bills. Yet we see the policies of thisgovernment and
of this Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard).
An Honourable Member: Have you
not heard the Liberals talk abouthim?
Mr. Reid: I have
heard the Liberals talk about him, and theLiberals have obviously bought into
the process that you set outfor them. We
do not set ourselves up for that future fall.
Welike to think about what the future ramifications are going tobe. If the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard)‑‑maybe
he shouldtake the time to go out and talk to some of the LPNs and listento the
impact that his policies of his department and hisgovernment are going to have
on people like this. [interjection]I am telling the Minister of Health that he
should take the timeto get out and talk to these people and to see what impact
hispolicies are having on these people.
They want to remain in thework force.
They do not want to have to rely on handouts. Theydo not want to have to go to food
banks. They do not want to goon
unemployment insurance.
The government and this minister are forcing her, because
sheexpects very soon to be laid off from her job, to face the verydifficult
prospect of having to look at unemployment insurance,which means she may have
to give up and most likely will have togive up her home. It will create further hardships for herselfand
her young son.
What does this mean for the future of her son? Will she beable to provide him with future
educational opportunties like themember for Rossmere (Mr. Neufeld) likes to
talk about. Get outand get a job; get
out and get an education. Work for
yourself.If those opportunities are eroded and removed, taken away fromthese
people, that option taken away from them, their futures areput in jeopardy.
So I asked the Minister of Health and the government
ingeneral to consider the impact of their policies on people suchas this. I listened to the Minister of Health in his
discussionsat the Estimates process last session, and we have a
communityhospital, Concordia Hospital, and Concordia Hospital has throughits
foundation and through support from the various supportgroups and agencies
within the surrounding community raised fundsto purchase a CAT scan machine, so
that this hospital can performthe necessary diagnostic testing on patients
within that hospital.
I asked questions of the Minister of Health during
theEstimates last session and asked him why he was not giving thehospital the
opportunity to start up the use of this particularpiece of technology. The minister said to me at that time, well,they
do not have a protocol in place to determine how and who isgoing to get the
testing done and who is going to do thetesting.
So I went back to the administration of the hospital,and I asked them,
do you have a protocol in place? They
said,yes, they have had a protocol and they have supplied it to thedepartment,
and yet the minister said that they did not have aprotocol.
When I asked the administration of the hospital if they
hadpermission in the first place from the Department of Health tomove forward
with purchasing this piece of equipment for thecommunity hospital, they said,
yes. They went to the
minister'sdepartment, and they received that approval to go out andpurchase
that equipment through the foundation monies.
Now wefind that the Minister of Health is refusing to allow a communityhospital
that affects my community, not giving them the authorityto put that equipment
into operation. That is
unfortunate,because now the patients that are in this hospital are going tohave
to continue to be transported from the Concordia Hospital tothe other hospitals
to have that particular type of testing done.
Now I see that further correspondence indicates, after
theMinister of Health said that he was going to penalize thishospital if they
put that CAT scan machine into operation, he wasgoing to penalize their budgets
by a comparable amount, and nowwe see that the hospitals have capitulated to
the minister'sdemand, to the minister's position, and that they are going
tofollow the minister's wishes and they are not going to put thatmachine into place.
After the foundation raised three‑quarters of a
milliondollars and the service groups in the community raised at least50
percent of the operating funds for this particular piece ofmachinery, the
minister was going to penalize them and has forcedthe hospital now into a
position where they will not be able toput this machine into use, forcing the
patients to be transportedto another facility.
I would be interested to hear from the Minister of
Health,when he makes his comments, why his department has made thatdecision,
because I cannot think of any logical reason why theDepartment of Health or the
minister would have pushed thehospital into this position by threatening to
penalize themfinancially if they decided to use this machine.
I listened to the Minister of Highways and
Transportation(Mr. Driedger) make some comments yesterday during his debate
onthe throne speech, and it was interesting to note; he coveredseveral
areas. He has been the minister forseveral‑‑[interjection]
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
Mr. Reid: Thank
you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I had a little bit ofdifficulty trying to get my
point across here amongst theconversation that was taking place around me.
The Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr.
Driedger)has made many comments yesterday and, of course, during theEstimates
debate that was taking place through the past severalsessions, and it was
interesting to note that the minister saidyesterday that we cannot make the
decision for CN as to whom theyshould lay off or not lay off.
The minister went on to say that CN does not have
toanswer‑‑neither do any of the other transportation industrieshave
to answer‑‑to us in terms of how they rationalize whom theylay
off. Well, if that is the case, then the
minister is tellingus by those statements and the statements that he made in
histhrone speech comments yesterday that his department does notplay any role
in the transportation process within our province.
Now, I like to believe that there are many good people in
theminister's department, and that they are trying to do the job tothe best of
their ability, but I have to wonder after theminister made statements like this
if there is nothing that theycan do to affect the transportation industry in
our province.
*
(1750)
Why then do we have these people employed in these
jobs? Whyis the minister not taking the
options that they would obviouslybe presenting to the minister and bringing
them forward, and isthe minister not consulting with the transportation sectors
on aregular basis? If he is not having
any impact or any effect,then maybe what we need to do is just talk to the
individualpayroll departments of these various transportation sectors andget
the employment levels once a week, instead of having adepartment sit there and
not have their good ideas broughtforward.
It is interesting to note, Madam Deputy Speaker, in
1984,there was a discussion that was taking place in the House ofCommons, and I
would like to read for the benefit of the membershere, and we are talking about
deregulation and its impact andwho was the author of that, or as I would like
to say, who wasthe godfather of deregulation in this country. I think thatthese comments I am about to read
for the record will make itvery clear to members opposite who were the
godfathers‑‑plural,Madam Deputy Speaker. It says, this is the Honourable
Mr.Mazankowski speaking. Just to set the
record straight, I wouldlike to talk about the nine months that we were in
office. TheConservative government took
at that time the terms of scalingdown the regulatory burden and opening up the
opportunity forincreased competition and innovation through cheaper air fares.
For example, we took steps to relax the restrictions on
thelicensing of routes with respect to entry and exit. We tookaction to provide greater flexibility
to allow more competition,the key word, the "c" word. We took steps to increase theutilization and
the efficiency of the total system. We
took avery important step when we relaxed very dramatically thedomestic air
charters because the regulations have been veryrestrictive. The country's major air charter company
Wardair wasreally impotent in terms of penetrating the domestic air
charterservice. We took steps to relax
those regulations verydramatically. Then
it goes on in the debate, where thehonourable member, I believe it is for
Winnipeg South Centre, Mr.Axworthy, when he talks about what he did when he was
theminister.
He said at the time that the members of the public, who
wereraising the concerns about what impact deregulation was going tohave on us
in this country and Mr. Axworthy says, there weretimes I had to take issue with
those who predicted mass chaos inthe industry if we attempted reform, airline
crashes, labourdisputes, airline bankruptcies, loss of small
communityservices. All these were blamed
on change, in other words,blamed on deregulation.
What do we see today?
We see airline crashes. We
seeairlines in dispute, employees against employees. We seeairlines into bankruptcy. We see small communities put at risk.The very
things that were being raised as concerns in the countryand in this province
were being raised to the government, and yetwe see members of the Liberal Party
and of the Conservative Partysaying what a good thing deregulation is. It is going to have apositive impact for us
in this province, and yet there werepredictions that were on record as far back
as 1984 saying whatthe pitfalls were going to be.
What we are seeing now, as a result of deregulation, and
Irefer to a document that was brought forward by the member forWinnipeg
Transcona, and it was a document dated June 16, 1992,just before the end of the
last session. I will quote from
thedocument, whose author is Ron Lawless, and it states, CN is beingimpacted by
free trade and deregulation. The
emergence of acommon perception of these problems and what had to be done
aboutthem is essential if we are to succeed.
So it is very obvious bythose words that deregulation and free trade are
having a veryserious impact upon CN. It
goes on to say that the deficit wasgoing to climb for that particular company
and that even themodest growth in volumes of traffic that revenues were going
tobe flat.
Now these are statements. [interjection] The Deputy
Premier(Mr. Downey) says that nobody is buying this. Then I guess whathe is telling us then is
that Mr. Lawless, who was the head ofthis Crown corporation at that time, does
not know what he istalking about. Now
this individual was appointed by his federalcousins in
He goes on to say further, Madam Deputy Speaker, that
thereis going to be a reduction of 2,000 employees a year over a five-year
period, and we found out that this was furtherexplained by the railway when
they announced that this was goingto be proceeded with at a much more quicker
pace when we heardthat they are looking at reducing the work force by
3,500employees per year over the next three years.
Well, one of the things that I see happening in the
countryright now is that railways are put into aposition‑‑[interjection]
If you listen very carefully, I willexplain to you what is happening, and I
know it is impacting uponyour government because your Minister of Finance (Mr.
Manness)has been having to deal with this, and I am sure your cabinetcolleagues
and you have had discussions about this for a numberof months now.
The railways have been put into a position where they
arehaving to compete globally, as you like to talk about, and inNorth America
in general with other Class 1 railways on the NorthAmerican continent. What they are seeing and what we are
seeingnow is that the railways are having to harmonize their taxationstructure and
their operating costs with the American railways tothe point where the railways
are now coming to us, and I am surethey are coming to you as well, and they are
telling us that theywant to see an elimination of property taxes, and they want
tosee an elimination of the fuel tax.
I am sure that each and everyone of us in this room
heretoday and everyone of us in the province of Manitoba would liketo see the
elimination of both, but in reality that cannot happenbecause otherwise there
would be a very serious or drastic cut inthe services and opportunities for us
in our province. Oureducation and our
health programs would probably be the first tosuffer. So the railways have been forced into this
position ofharmonization with the American railways, and now by the policiesof
the federal Tories and the federal Liberals, supported by thisgovernment here
today.
Now this problem is coming home to roost with this
Ministerof Finance (Mr. Manness). He is
now, and the cabinet, going tohave to decide whether or not they are going to
reduce the taxesfor the railways to allow them to harmonize their
programs. Heis going to have to decide,
as well as the other communities andthe municipalities in the province, as to
whether or not they aregoing to allow the railways to harmonize their property
taxstructure and what type of taxes they pay for their propertiesand their
holdings.
So it is going to have a very serious impact, and it is
goingto be interesting to see how this Minister of Finance and thisgovernment are
going to handle that problem. Are they
going togive the railways what they want to allow them to compete withthe
American railways, or are they going to let them justflounder on their own
after they went and created this problem inthe first place?
I was very disappointed to see the lack of a
programinitiative or any mention of any transportation initiatives inthe throne
speech. We saw no mention of
transportation in thelast budget, and now the only thing that this government
can talkabout in this throne speech is roads and highways.
(Mr.
Speaker in the Chair)
Transportation is not comprised just of roads and
highways inthis province. There is a
much greater infrastructure that is inplace that they seem to be ignoring, and
I do not know why theyare ignoring it.
It seems like they are abandoning it, and thereare many thousands of
employees who are employed in theseindustries, as we all know, and they are
being left, left out ontheir own with no government intervention.
The minister does not even make a statement expressing
hisstrong concerns or his strong reservations about the directionthat the
federal government is taking or the Crown corporationsor the businesses are
taking when they lay off these employees.There is no statement, just silence,
the stand‑aside philosophy.
I have not heard the Minister of Transportation
(Mr.Driedger) speak in his debate on the throne speech about what ishappening
with the
The North is dying while you sit there twiddling
yourthumbs. You have to give them the
opportunity. You made acommitment to
them that you would match the funding that theyraised. They have raised the funding and now you sit
there. SoI hope that the Minister of
Transportation (Mr. Driedger) islistening, and the Minister of Industry, Trade
and Technology(Mr. Stefanson) is listening, because the community is waitingfor
a decision to be made by your government.
The longer youwait, the greater the risk is that we are going to lose
thatopportunity for
We all know that there are 200‑plus jobs at stake,
probably1,000 spin‑off support jobs at stake, as well.
*
(1800)
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please. I am interrupting the
memberaccording to the rules. When this
matter is again before theHouse, the honourable member will have 13 minutes
remaining.
The hour being 6 p.m., this House is now adjourned and
standsadjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday).