LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF
Monday, March 1, 1993
The House met at 8 p.m.
MATTER OF URGENT PUBLIC
IMPORTANCE (Cont'd)
(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Speaker, in the
Chair)
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Consumer and
Corporate Affairs): Mr. Acting Speaker, I am pleased to rise and
add my comments to the debate that has been going on in the House today.
I would like to just begin by trying
to put into context the rationale for some of the moves that are being
made. It is like we have been on a
wonderful party that has been going on for many years, over a decade, a decade
and a half, and the party is over and it is the morning after the night before,
and somebody has to come in and deal with the mess that has been left and pay
the bills that have been accumulated because of the arrangements made for the
party.
I liken as well the situation in
which we find ourselves to that of a household.
For those on the opposite side who may have trouble trying to figure out
the kind of circumstances in which we find ourselves, perhaps they could try to
identify with a household in which for the better part of 20 years the family
has been living off the credit cards and using Mastercard to pay Visa and
running all the credit cards up to their very limit and finding that during a
period of growth in the economy that their income into the household was
steadily climbing and therefore held no hesitation in continuing to build up
those debts and those credit cards, but finding to their great alarm a period in
history coming when their income was no longer climbing at a steady rate year
after year, but of course their payments and their interest on their payments
was not finding itself dropping the way that the income is dropping. When such a scenario happens and the money
coming into the household every month is needed to go to meet the minimum
payment on all the credit cards, sometimes there is not enough money left over
for the groceries and the family then finds itself in a very difficult
situation.
That is not unlike what has happened
here in
We see our neighbours to the east in
I also find it no longer amusing but
rather sad to see certain members opposite stand and make statements in this
House, not realizing that some of us on this side actually have memories. I can remember the former Minister of
Education in the NDP government, the Minister of Education from Flin Flon‑‑I
can remember being president of the Manitoba Association of School Trustees and
chairman of my local board and dealing with that minister who was, at one point
in his career, pushing for a freeze on teachers' salaries. I remember that because I sat down and had
discussions with him on that issue as he was saying, the only thing is we have
to get a freeze on teachers' salaries. That was clear and loud and known by all
trustees.
When I hear members opposite stand
and say some of the things they are saying, particularly in light of education,
I think, they are new, the member for
The member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton)
chirps in his chair‑‑chirp, chirp, chirp. He was part of the government. He remembers what their Ministers of
Education said. He remembers they lived
in double‑digit inflation. While
they were in double‑digit inflation, I can tell the member for Thompson
that the division of which I was chair took a 1 percent increase in funding in
a year when you had double‑digit inflation‑‑totally
disgraceful, absolutely taking into consideration none of our needs. The hypocrisy of that side astounds me,
absolutely astounds me.
You take a look at some of the
articles that were in the papers when they were in government. You take a look at the headlines: School funding falls far short of NDP
promises‑‑this is NDP; Wrong way property tax‑‑this is
NDP; Kostyra admits school funding unable to meet board needs‑‑this
is NDP; Board blames province for tax hike‑‑this is NDP, Minister
flays NDP position on school aid‑‑this is NDP; Education funding
fudged‑‑this is NDP; The decay of a province‑‑this is
NDP; Pawley ducks funding pledge for education‑‑this is NDP; and
you go on and on and on for year after endless year. I was in the system. I was a teacher. I was a school trustee. I was a parent. I know what you people did to education, and
you have the gall to sit there. You have
the gall and the sheer hypocrisy like I have never seen in my life to sit on
that side of the House and try and pretend that you did something good for
education and you did not. You did not.
* (2005)
You also have the gall to sit there
and try to pretend that you left us with a surplus when your method of
describing how you spend your money and account for your money is so creative
that you should be putting on plays in the theatre. You spend money like you throw confetti at a
wedding, but you are not there the next day to pick up the empty champagne
glasses and sweep the floors to get the confetti off the wet sidewalks. We are there to do that, and we will clean up
the mess you left and we will do it responsibly.
We know the taxpayer cannot pay any
more. You maybe do not know that. We know that.
We hear it all the time. I hear
you getting up and quoting all these people that you say talked to you. They do not talk to us. The Liberals who brought this motion in
because it was an emergency debate that was so hard to debate‑‑I
guess I cannot make comment about who is here in the House and who is absent in
the House so I will not. I will say it
is good to see the member from The Maples (Mr. Cheema) here, making no comment
on any other Liberals who brought the motion in and felt it was really
important. I can see by the throngs of
people on the NDP side how important this is to them as well.
We cannot ignore the fact that there
is no more money. There is no more
money. Now you can wish for the money
till the cows come home, but it is not there.
You can talk to Bill Clinton, you can talk to Premier Bob, you can talk
to Mike Harcourt, you can talk to‑‑
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please. The honourable member's time has expired.
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (
Mr. Acting Speaker, I am pleased to
be able to rise today to participate in this emergency debate on education for
indeed we are in an emergency and we do have a crisis in education. We have this crisis because of the policies
and the work that this government has been doing, or I should say, the lack of
what they have been doing. Because of
the lack of what they have been doing we have less tax revenue in this
province. Every effort that they have
made to create jobs has failed. They
have done nothing to stimulate our economy, and we have had no growth in this
province. For that reason, that is why
we have no money in this province and that is why we have the deficit that we
do.
There are ways that you could raise
money in this province and this government should look seriously at them. There should be job creation. There should be things done that will get
people working. People want to work. There are also ways of restructuring. The Premier (Mr. Filmon) on the news this
evening said that there was nowhere else to get money. Perhaps it is time to reconsider
restructuring the tax system. It is not
only the poor who should be paying the costs of this government's mistakes, but
perhaps there are also those who are in upper incomes and who can afford to pay
a larger share of the taxes to carry the burden of this province to offer our
children the opportunity for an education.
* (2010)
Mr. Acting Speaker, for weeks people
were speculating and parents and teachers were very worried about what this
government was going to do as far as the money that the school boards were
going to get for education, but they were shocked when they heard the
announcement that there was going to be a reduction.
I recently attended one of the
hearings at the Northern Economic Development workshops. At that group meeting, some of the people
talked about the value. They talked
about economic development, and what is economic development. In fact, they said if you reduce the number
of people that drop out of school, if you get more graduates, then you have
economic development. If you can get people to stay in and finish their high
school, if the people in this particular community have not finished their high
school up to this point, that is economic development.
If you deal with children who have
drug problems and need supports in those families who are in family crisis and
get them through the educational system, that is economic development.
Children, young people need an education in order to cope with the jobs that we
hopefully will have out there, the new kind of jobs that are coming, but that
is not what we are going to get from this government. Instead, we are going to have cutbacks. We
are going to have larger classroom sizes and probably less people graduating,
Mr. Acting Speaker.
At a time when we are faced with
high stress‑‑particularly I look at rural communities, the high
stress that families are under, and I guess those same stresses are here in the
city as well for when people are not working‑‑it is the teachers many
times who identify the first crisis that children are in. It is the teachers that deal with those
crises and help students through them, but they are not going to be able to do
that, particularly as we get into larger classroom sizes, more responsibilities. These are the children that are going to fall
through the cracks. We are going to see
many more serious problems.
I am very disappointed that this
government, instead of choosing to prepare our children for the future, they
have chosen rather to just slash dollars and reduce the opportunity for
children to get an education.
I believe it was the Minister of
Rural Development (Mr. Derkach) who said that there are‑‑in fact,
he referred to my constituency across the floor indicating that the
There are going to be, if not in the
This government has to look really
seriously at what their priorities are in this.
It is not just a matter of cutting and slashing. We have to be able to look forward, as I say,
and prepare our young people for the future.
One of the things that I find very
difficult to understand is how the government can be so restrictive on school
boards and cutting into their responsibility.
After all, school boards are elected by the people of the district to
make decisions‑‑on the budgeting and spending decisions. What they have done is dealt with school
boards in a very dictatorial manner and restricted their ability to provide
education in their various communities.
It seems hypocritical for a
government, who on one hand will offload costs onto municipalities and tell
them they have to pick them up, and then tell school boards, well, we are going
to offload onto you, but you do not have the ability to collect this
money. It is being very restrictive on
what school boards can do.
* (2015)
I guess I am also very concerned
about what has happened with university funding and to see that the government
is clawing back money that has actually been spent and expecting the
universities to also provide education at a reasonable rate. In the high school‑university funding,
I am quite concerned. I am wondering
what their impacts are going to be on first‑year Distance Education.
The Minister of Rural Development
(Mr. Derkach), this afternoon, talked about how fortunate they were in their
area to have the opportunities for first‑year Distance Education, but
there are other areas that have applied for it as well. We want to see equal opportunity in those
areas, but with these cuts and these decisions that this government is making
it will be highly unlikely, although I hope that I am wrong, that we will see
such things.
I think in all of this that what we
really, really have to look at is, as I said earlier, who is going to suffer
the most in this? It is going to be
children who live in divisions who do not have a large tax base. Again, in my constituency, we have the
I think that rather than just
thinking about cutting funds, we also have to look at how we can use modern
technology to improve the education in those communities. There are groups throughout the
Mr. Jack Reimer (Niakwa): Mr. Acting Speaker, I welcome the opportunity
to stand here this evening and talk and put some views on record regarding the
emergency debate or the matter of urgent public importance regarding the
education, because education is, and there is no doubt about it, one of the
most important and one of the most valuable assets we have as a society and as
we have here in
As we look at the world today, and
as we look at our country, and as we look at our city, and we look at our own
municipality and our own community, the one thing that is very, very prevalent
and the one thing that becomes very paramount is the fact that we are subjected
to change. It becomes such a cliche in a
sense, that we hear this word change, that we are becoming so quickly exposed
that what was in vogue yesterday is no longer applicable for today, and
tomorrow it is obsolete. So one of the
things that we have to look at is having an education that does give us the
opportunity to recognize this.
* (2020)
Here in
As we look at education, I guess we
could say that if we measure education by the amount of money we spend, we
spend an awful lot of money on education.
In fact, I believe this year with the proposed announcement that the
Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey) came out‑‑when we talk about
$770 million of funding for the
So money is being spent on
education, but money is not the answer, because if it was we would continue to
just throw money at it, and we would think that we are having the best educated
and the best qualified students and the best qualified capabilities of
universities and of all our student faculties in all of
So there seems to be a quandary or a
direction that a lot of us have to look at as to where and what is happening in
education. This government has always
been committed and will continue to be committed to providing a quality
education to
There are enhanced academic
standards that are being looked at.
There are the improving programs and opportunities for special needs
students. There are expanded
opportunities for students at risk.
There is the implementing of a school financing formula which is
targeting the classroom as a basic unit in education.
I would like to just talk about the
funding formula that has been alluded to by some of the members of the
opposition in regards to the inequities and the differences that they have
pointed out. I would like to point out
too that the funding formula when it was implemented was not a funding formula
that was just implemented because of the fact that it had to be implemented. There was extensive consultation and an
advocacy committee that looked at various alternatives in the methods of
funding to the schools. This was done in
co‑operation with the Manitoba Association of School Trustees; it was in
done in collaboration with the Manitoba Teachers' Society; also, I believe,
superintendents were represented on the board.
* (2025)
There was a lot of talk, there was a
lot of input, and there were a lot of people of very high quality and high
consciousness coming together to come up with a formula that they feel was
equitable and was indeed manageable within all the school divisions. So the formula that was implemented was
something that was done with an awful lot of input by an awful lot of qualified
people, so the inequities and the disparities that the opposition are referring
to are incidents, as has been pointed out, that are not brought down because of
the government's firm direction but through a genuine concern for all school
divisions so there is a recognition that this is about.
In talking to school divisions‑‑as
I believe one of the members on the opposition mentioned, to talk to your
individual school divisions and to get a sense of feeling on it is naturally I
think one of the things that all members did.
I have to admit that I too have been out talking to my school trustees,
I have talked to my superintendent, trying to get an indication as to their
feelings and their concerns. They are
naturally concerned because my school division is one of the ones that is going
to have a shortfall in its funding.
They recognize that there is a
shortfall, but they have also said that they want to work within that
shortfall. They want to try to resolve
the difficulties within it, and one of the things that they are looking at is
some of the surplus that they have to use.
They are looking at innovative other ways to try to come to this
agreement, and they also feel that if they can work together and try to resolve
some of this, they can work through these difficult times.
The recognition of difficult times
has to be addressed because there is just no doubt about it that the funding is
just not there. We have to look at our
funding and look at critical ways, as in all other areas of
So, Mr. Acting Speaker, I would like
to thank you for taking the time to come forth with some of my views on this
important topic. Thank you very much.
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Mr. Acting Speaker, I am very pleased to be able
to speak on this resolution. I must
comment that I hope that this will be a trend in the future in this House. I think it is important that this, the first
day after the resumption of the sitting in this House, we are here today
talking about a real issue, the situation in terms of education; a real issue,
the absence of adequate funding for education; a real issue, the future of
education in this province. My concern
and the concern of many in my constituency that that future of education is
going to be threatened by the actions of this government.
It is better than some of the
debates we have had in this House. Some
may recall the coat of arms debate.
Unfortunately sometimes when governments are slow getting their
legislation in, we often end up debating bills that might not otherwise get the
same amount of attention, and I would say that this House should be doing more
of this, debating the real issues whether it be health, whether it be
education, or whether it be in terms of economic development.
I want to say that this issue does
concern me greatly, Mr. Acting Speaker, and I focus it to begin with in terms
of my own constituency, my own community of Thompson, the impact the situation
of funding has already had in schools in my community. I say that as someone
who went through the Thompson school system.
I graduated from R.D. Parker Collegiate, have been in Thompson since
junior high actually, and I have two children in the Thompson school
system. I can tell the government
opposite and particularly the members such as the Minister of Consumer and
Corporate Affairs (Mrs. McIntosh) I thought gave one of the most incredible‑‑and
that is not a compliment‑‑one of the most incredible speeches I
have heard her give, and she has given some other incredible speeches, and that
is not a compliment either.
I mean, when the minister starts
talking about weddings and cleaning up champagne bottles, Mr. Acting Speaker, I
must admit, weddings that I have been to, most people are not exactly
celebrating with champagne nowadays in the current economic circumstances, but
then again that is maybe the tale of two parties. But the members can talk about the NDP this,
the NDP that, the NDP the other. This
government has been in power for five years, and this government has brought in
a budget that in my constituency in Thompson did what? Did they limit the increase this year? No.
Did they freeze the increase? Did
they have a frozen budget? No. This government for the first time in
* (2030)
Mr. Acting Speaker, I have had a lot
of chance to talk to people in my constituency the last little while, and
people remember quite a bit in the North.
They remember Sterling Lyon.
An Honourable Member: The good old days.
Mr. Ashton:
The member for
I want to say to members, such as
the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. McIntosh), it is
unprecedented and it is going to have an unprecedented impact. We are not talking about incremental shifts
in programs and policies. We are looking
at school divisions that are going to be making major decisions affecting whole
series of programs that are offered in the school system, Mr. Acting
Speaker. That is because it is a twofold
policy decision by the government. It
restricts the amount of local revenue that can be raised in terms of property
tax at 2 percent. So it is a mandated‑‑and
to the Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey) who obviously does not understand, it is a
mandated decision by the government that determines that the school boards have
to cut. They have to cut, and it is
going to be a very difficult exercise.
In my constituency, as I said, the
school board has already had to make cuts.
They eliminated 10 positions at the high school, and it is already
affecting the quality of education at R.D. Parker Collegiate. They have already had to cut out teaching assistants
dealing with special needs students, Mr. Acting Speaker. They have cut out a number of other valuable
programs, but that was before this year.
What are they going to do with 2.7 percent less than last year? What are they going to do? What is this government suggesting that they
cut in order to make up a shortfall that in real terms when one looks at 2
percent inflation is close to 5 percent in one year? What are they suggesting be cut? Are they suggesting that we cut whole
programs, that is the French Immersion program?
Is that what they want?
Mr. Acting Speaker, do they want the
school district to cut back further in terms of numbers of teachers in R.D.
Parker Collegiate and other schools in Thompson? Do they want programs for special needs kids
cut? Do they want those type of programs
cut? Do they want the enrichment program‑‑do
they want that cut‑‑the one program that has been brought in in a
public school that attempts to deal with the kind of criticism that the private
schools have preyed on in the need for quality education?
I ask the government, and the
minister says they have given suggestions.
I mean, suggestions‑‑if you look at what is being proposed,
as draconian as it is, one is clearly left with the conclusion that what is going
to happen in school districts such as the school district in
What do they want, Mr. Acting
Speaker? You know, they are going to
shut down the government on Fridays during the summer. What are they suggesting
we do in the schools? Shut down the
schools for extra numbers of days per year?
In
What bothers me, Mr. Acting Speaker,
about the way this government is dealing with the situation that they are in is
that they are already looking for scapegoats, and they are already turning
their backs on people that they should be working in partnership with. You know, sure, there are difficult times in
this province. We have been through a
recession. It is not the first time we
have been through a recession and it will not be the last. There are a lot of people that understand
that situation.
I think a lot of people question the
role of this government and its failed economic policies, but even beyond that,
people are willing to put aside differences, Mr. Acting Speaker, and sit down
and resolve problems. What did this
government do? What did it do with its
civil servants? It had its Minister of
Labour (Mr. Praznik) phone the head of the MGEU on a Thursday night at midnight
to say‑‑[interjection] If the Minister of Labour had checked, the
MGEU president was in The Pas. Maybe the
minister was not aware that sometimes people travel up to the northern part of
the province. But he was told that there
was going to be an announcement about something the next day that he might be
interested to watch. That is how they
dealt with the MGEU.
Let us see what kind of partnership this
government has developed with MAST, with MTS and with parents and students in
this province. What do they do, even in
terms of this fiscal year, with the clawbacks we have seen in terms of
university funding? What are they doing
now with MAST, with MTS? Are they
sitting down, saying we have a problem, let us resolve it? No.
The Minister of Education (Mrs.
Vodrey) brings in the most vicious cuts in history in
This kind of politics will not work,
because what they do, instead of partnership, they substitute the process of
finding scapegoats, and yes, they are looking for scapegoats now. They are looking for school board
administration; they are looking for teachers; they are looking for anybody
else to blame other than themselves.
Mr. Acting Speaker, they have gotten
themselves into this mess, and no matter how much they protest, they will not
be able to hide from that fact. If they
want to get out of it, the route is not through these kind of cutbacks and it
is not through this kind of confrontation with people in the education system. It is through finding solutions to the common
problems we share, something this government has absolutely no idea of how to
deal with.
Hon. Glen
I want to talk a little bit about
how do we afford to pay the bills that we run up. We have had some comments from this side on
that all day. I have listened to many
people from that side and I never heard anybody be worried about how do you pay
the bills. How do you pay the
bills? If you are going to spend money
on a social program, albeit a very important‑‑[interjection] The
member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), maybe he is a shining light over on the other
side.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we have
developed a society in
We cannot go on forever spending,
spending, spending, and thinking that this magic is going to continue. If you look back in the '70s, we had high
inflation, we could spend, spend, spend, and we could not do anything wrong
because there was always more money coming in.
Our wealth was growing; our disposable income was growing by about 13
percent per year per capita. That is
phenomenal growth. The old‑timers
said it would not last forever. They
said to the young people, do not borrow money, but they went out and borrowed
and spent more and raised the prices of everything and then we got into the
'80s and it got down to 8 percent per year, and now we are in the '90s‑‑and
we were still spending in the '80s beyond our capacity to pay, and here we are
in the '90s and that growth is 3 percent per capita per year.
Now, from 3 percent to 13 percent is
a tremendous change in ability in disposable income per capita in this
country. Have we stopped our spending
habits, controlled our spending habits as this has happened? I do not think so. If the members opposite will not talk to
people, the real people, the people who are paying those taxes, the income tax
and the sales tax, they also have to earn salaries to do that, and this is
everybody. If you ask them what is
happening in their households, they will tell you: it is getting tougher, tighter, we have less
disposable income‑‑consistent with the figures I just gave you‑‑and
we cannot pay any more taxes. You have
taxed us to the limit. Live within those
means.
It is critical we do that. The City of
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
* (2040)
Mr. Findlay:
Mr. Acting Speaker, you see, rather than solve the problem, if I do not
live in
If anybody was watching television
last night on W5 and I would like to know if any members over there saw W5 at
ten o'clock last night.
An Honourable Member: No, we did not.
Mr. Findlay:
No, they did not, OK. The story
last night was very similar to what I think would play out in
An Honourable Member: They went bankrupt, I saw it.
Mr. Findlay: Yes, they put the country into bankruptcy,
they put the country into bankruptcy. In
1985 the Labour government was in government in
Last fall, at the economic forum
here at the Fort Garry Hotel put on by this government, a member or two from
that side was there, and Roger Bacon who was the Minister of Finance in that
government told us how it happened. [interjection] I am sorry, Roger Douglas.
An Honourable Member: Roger Bacon was the former Minister of
Agriculture in
Mr. Findlay:
That
is why I said that. But Mr. Douglas,
really‑‑[interjection] You can blame anybody you want. You can blame anybody you want, but the fact
of the matter is that we are still spending more than what we are bringing in,
as governments, as
We worry about being minus 2.7
percent in education in
The people who are working out there
are producing real wealth, that is our farmers, our miners, our manufacturers,
our foresters. They are in trouble
trying to sell in the world because our commodities are priced too high. It is the buyers who say they are too
high. Some commodities are up and some
are down, but basically we are not selling enough‑‑to the member
for Thompson (Mr. Ashton)‑‑to bring in enough revenue to pay our
bills. We are running a deficit every
year, and last year this country alone of 27 million people added an additional
amount to that debt, a bill of $60 billion.
One year‑‑$60 billion.
Now, if I was the lender I would bring you in and say, this has got to
stop. This has got to get under
control. Minus 2 percent is such a small
adjustment in this whole overall picture‑‑
An Honourable Member: And it will not be Legislatures like this
that will decide what the cuts will be.
Mr. Findlay: Exactly.
It will be somebody outside the country who will pull that rope on us
and health care will go down the tube.
Education will go down the tube.
Our standard of living will go down the tube. We have a chance to do something in this
province, in this Legislature, in this country starting right now. I can say to the member for Thompson (Mr.
Ashton) if he went to talk to his colleagues in
All I have heard today is arguments
about how everything is going to go to pot because of minus 2 percent. It is just ridiculous. If you want to look back, to the member for
Thompson (Mr. Ashton), I go back to 1983 and the government you were in at the
time increased the funding by 2.7 percent in education. Meanwhile the consumer
price index was going up 6.7 percent. So
they were minus 4. This year with CPI at
1.5 percent it is minus 2. The difference
is 3.5.
An Honourable Member: What was it the year before?
Mr. Findlay: See, we do not want to talk about the issue
that is in front of us. We always want
to skirt around and try to hide. I tell you, when the banker pulls the rope you
cannot hide, and I do not know how we are going to get this through to you
people that the days of free and easy spending and throw money at it is
over. It is over, and
Our credit rating I would think is
in some kind of jeopardy. We cannot go on doing this. We all know what it is like to deal with the
banker as a household or as a business.
Business people know that things do not always go up. Things can go down sometimes. Some businesses have had to freeze salaries
for years. Some of them have had salaries
go down. You see 100 jobs laid off here
and 10,000 jobs laid off over there. It
is not because they wanted to. They were
forced to simply because they could not pay the bills.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I guess my time
is up.
It is as simple as that. We have got to be able to pay our bills, and
I wish that the members opposite would start to speak in that direction because
those are the facts of life.
Ms. Becky Barrett (
I would like, however, to begin by
giving the members opposite a small history lesson in the political realities
throughout
Mr. Acting Speaker, the government
has talked all today and they have talked in the past five years about the need
to put the house in order, you cannot spend more than you take in, it is time
to be fiscally responsible, and how New Democrats are spend, spend, spend. I would like to put on the record, again, to
remind the members opposite exactly which political parties of which political
and ideological bent have been in power throughout North America and much of
Europe since 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of
No, Mr. Acting Speaker, the party,
no matter what its specific name, that has been in power throughout the decade
of the '80s where we have seen enormous‑‑the "Me" decade
as the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) has so aptly reminded me that it should
be called‑‑where the debts have gone sky high, where the credit
cards on the personal and the governmental and the provincial and federal and
corporate spending has been absolutely unbelievable, those devastating economic
and social and political events took place under conservative governments.
So let this government, this
Conservative government who has the same ideological, right‑wing agenda
as Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in Great Britain, as Ronald
Reagan's and George Bush's Republican government in the United States and as
Brian Mulroney's federal Conservative government since 1984 in this country
have, the government of Manitoba today has exactly the same spending
priorities, exactly the same total lack of any economic policies, any job
creation strategies, any concept of a social justice system. This is the problem that we are facing today.
It is not New Democrat policies that
have put us in this dreadful situation that we are in today, and I want to go
on and make sure the government of the day realizes that we on this side of the
House, and the people in the province of Manitoba know exactly who is
responsible for the dreadful situation we find ourselves in today from the
province of Manitoba, from the city of Winnipeg, from the rural and the
northern areas in this province, through the country, through North America, through
the entire western world. It is not
social democratic principles, it is conservative ideology that has brought us
to where we are today.
(2050)
Mr. Acting Speaker, I would like to
speak about the crisis in education that is facing us today. I find it very interesting that the
government again has used the word choices and difficult choices in its
comments on the education system. It is
even more interesting that the Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey) has talked
about difficult choices that are facing school boards and school divisions in
this province when she herself has taken one of the main elements of choice
away from those very school divisions.
The whole concept that our public school system is based on is local
autonomy. One of the main bulwarks and
fundamentals of our public school system is that locally elected, locally
accountable, locally responsible school board members make the decisions as to
how to spend the money that is allocated not only from the provincial
government but also, Mr. Acting Speaker, through their own taxing ability. A very clear decision has been made on the
part of provincial governments for a very long period of time that local
autonomy must have attached to it the local ability to raise funds.
Now, this Minister of Education
(Mrs. Vodrey) has unilaterally‑‑and I may be open to correction,
but I believe for the first time, certainly in the history of this province and
maybe in the history of public education systems across the country‑‑taken
away the ability of local school divisions to make those decisions. She has taken away the ability of local
residents through their discussions with their locally elected school boards to
make the decisions as to what kind of funding level they are prepared to pay to
support their public school system.
This is unconscionable, Mr. Acting
Speaker, that a Minister of Education who talks about choices, who talks about
local autonomy, whose government talks about how local agencies and local
organizations are the ones who know best how to deliver services to their
residents, has taken one of the major elements away from those very school
divisions that are designed specifically to be able to provide those local
services. Those school divisions are
accountable to the taxpaying members of their communities. Those school board members know that if they
do not follow the wishes of their constituents they will not be returned to
office. They are on the local level;
they have a much better handle on what is going on in their local school
divisions. For this provincial minister
to unilaterally make that cut and unilaterally take that major component of
local control and local autonomy away from school divisions is something that
must not be allowed to take place in this province in our education system.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the ministers
and the members of the government across the way today have talked about
working with us, a co‑operative way of thinking, the fact that we are
going to consult and work together.
Well, it is clear from what the Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey) has
done and it has been clear from actions on the part of other ministers in this
government, most particularly the Minister of Family Services (Mr.
Gilleshammer) that this government does not consult or if they do consult,
their definition of consulting is to use a focus group to implement government
policy not based on what is best for all of the people of the province but on
the basis of what is going to be politically efficacious for their own
constituents. It is reprehensible. The
people of
This government has had five
years. They will have had six
budgets. The people of
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr. Acting Speaker, I have been in the House
and I have attempted to listen fairly carefully to a lot of the debate here
this afternoon, and I have to indicate to you, Sir, that I have been intrigued
by the lack of understanding of the situation, the lack of positive suggestion
around solution that I have heard this afternoon coming from members, particularly
the official opposition.
I am intrigued that there is one
small exception to that and that is the last speaker for the New Democrats,
where my honourable friend the member for
I have to say that I am confounded
as to how she can sit in that caucus where every single speaker, speaker after
speaker, has said the solution is to spend more money, yet she recognizes the
problem of a dreadful deficit situation.
That is the kind of schizophrenia that allows New Democrats to talk
about Reaganomics, Thatcher economics, Mulroney economics, et cetera, and try
to hold up some vision of social democracy which can solve all the world's
problems, and yet fail to acknowledge that 75 years of experiment in the
peoples' government of the Soviet Union is the most colossal failure that the
history of mankind in the world has ever known.
(Mr. Jack Reimer, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
Nothing has failed more dismally
than that system of economic structure in governance and government than the
Now, I am intrigued because I have
been asking a lot of people, as I visit different parts of the province, as to
whether there is an understanding of how serious the situation, the challenge
facing
I thought what a perfect and simplistic
analogy of really what the problem is.
We have run our credit cards in this country up and now the bills are
coming in and the folks are rather disappointed. Now, it is interesting. I thought that today my honourable friends
the New Democrats would at least make reference to the front page article in
the Winnipeg Free Press wherein it talks about tax breaks to fatten
wallets.
Ms. Barrett:
If you have a job.
Mr. Orchard: Well, my honourable friend, the mouth from
* (2100)
Point of Order
Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Mr. Acting Speaker, I do believe that the
comments made by the member, particularly the comment that the member just made
about the mouth, this member in particular should not throw criticism of that
type. Also, the reference to the wrong end of a sewer pipe, I do not know,
perhaps the minister is an expert on sewer pipes, but it is certainly not an
appropriate thing to bring into debate in this House. I would ask you to ask him to be more careful
in choosing his remarks.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Reimer): I thank the honourable member. The honourable
member does not have a point of order, but I should point out to all members
that all members are honourable in this Chamber. I would ask for caution in speaking. Thank you very much.
* * *
Mr. Orchard:
Mr. Acting Speaker, I will naturally apologize to the member for
On one hand, they want to blame
everything on the Mulroney government, on Reagan, on Thatcher, whomever, but
yet, do you know where my honourable friends are missing the point? I sit on a council of ministers of health as
my colleague sits with ministers of education, and you know what, it does not
matter what your political affiliation is, whether you are Liberal, New
Democrat or Conservative. In
It does not matter whether you are
Bob Rae's government in
Well, we have put in more money for
20 years in this country. Ask yourself
the simple question, are we getting a better quality student out of the
education system? I do not think anyone
would say we are. So you have to ask
yourself, if more money is the solution, why has it not worked?
The same question is posed in
health; the same question has to be posed in social services; the same question
has to be posed in every aspect of the North American and Canadian and
Manitoban economy. This is not the time
to reflect on the past. What worked in
the past will not work in the future.
Until you understand that, you cannot possibly develop a vision for what
will work.
This government came to office in
1988 with a vision that we were going to make judicial attempts not to raise
taxes, not to increase the deficit, to take the inappropriate spending out of
government, and what are the results?
Today, Manitobans will take more money home because of four budgets‑‑it
is wrong from that standpoint, it is five budgets‑‑without an
increase of personal income taxes, and that is what is driving a greater share
of wealth and take‑home pay in Manitoba.
Was that vision for the future an appropriate one, and is it
working? I submit to you, yes.
I look forward to the member for
Broadway (Mr. Santos), because from his seat when the question was posed about
university funding, which would you rather have, the professors and the
employees at our universities take less as every other employee in
My honourable friend the member for
Broadway spouts from his seat, raise taxes.
That is always the solution of the New Democrat. Mind you, he did not get the opportunity to
put that on the record because his confreres stifled him. So much for academic freedom at the
university. So much for academic freedom
and freedom to speak. He could not stand
up and say that he believed increased taxations were the option that a New
Democratic Party would exercise.
Point of Order
Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): I did not say that. All I said was yes.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Reimer): The member did not have a point of order.
* * *
Mr. Orchard:
Mr. Acting Speaker, I want to thank my honourable friend. He stood up and said: All I said was, yes, taxes are the
answer. Increase taxes, that is what he
said.
Point of Order
Mr. Ashton:
You know, we have one very basic rule in Beauchesne, and that is when a
member makes a statement about himself that that is to be accepted by the
House.
If the minister had listened to what
the member just said from his feet was that he never said any of the remarks
attributed to him by the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard). So he should accept that and instead of creating
these phantom boogey people for him to debate, perhaps try and debate the issue
for a change and not waste the time of this Chamber.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Reimer): The honourable Minister of Labour, on the
same point of order.
Hon. Darren Praznik (Deputy Government House
Leader): As acting government House leader on the point
of order, I would just point out that the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) is
asking the Speaker to make a ruling based on a practice that he regularly
indulges on in this House as attributing comments to various members and of
creating so‑called boogeymen in which to fight his debate.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Reimer): I would thank the members. There was no point
of order. The honourable Minister of
Health (Mr. Orchard) to continue.
* * *
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Acting Speaker, I agree with one thing
that my honourable friend the House leader for the New Democrats has said, let
us debate the issue. The issue is
debating funding in education. Our
proposal for funding in education reduces the level of support to the public
school systems and disallows a pass through to the property tax base, so that
school divisions have to come to grips with some management decisions. That is a very simple analogy that everybody
in the funded agencies, in the rest of government, in the private sector, in
the free world is coming to grips with.
(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Speaker, in the
Chair)
We are asking the education system
to respond to the criticisms that are there, not from myself or anybody else in
government but from analysis after analysis that says, we have to do a
fundamental rethink of education in
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please.
The honourable member's time has expired.
Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): It is a pleasure to speak on this emergency
debate on education. I think there is
one thing that all members can agree on and that is the importance of
education. I have found some very
interesting quotations on education that I would like to share with the House.
Education makes a people easy to
lead but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave. This is attributed to Henry Peter, who was
Lord Brougham.
Aristotle said, all who have
meditated on the art of governing humankind have been convinced that the fate
of empires depends on the education of youth.
If we could paraphrase that and apply it to the modern context of
We also have a rather conservative
educational philosophy summed up by former President Ronald Reagan who said,
why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?
I think that kind of sums up the attitude of this provincial government
who want to cut community college courses and who want to, at the same time,
increase funding for private schools and decrease funding for the public
education system.
The other thing that there has been
considerable discussion about this afternoon and this evening in debate is, how
are we going to pay for the increasingly high cost of education? Well, I think that what we are into is a
philosophical discussion about who is responsible as well as who pays.
* (2110)
I think that what the government
opposite is doing by capping educational tax levies is basically
undemocratic. The reason is that we have
trustees who are elected and who are accountable and who are responsible to their
electors for setting an educational tax levy.
When the government caps the educational tax levy, then they are taking
accountability and responsibility away from trustees. I think this is undemocratic. In fact, there are people who are on boards
who are not accountable at all, people that are on boards of separate and
private schools. There is no
accountability to the public by those individuals. They just get the money, but they do not have
to stand for public elections.
When you compare school divisions, you
see that some have higher property tax levies than others, and sometimes that
is for a good reason. I was told, for
example, that in Seven Oaks they have a higher educational levy than other
school divisions. I was told‑‑it
was one person's opinion‑‑but I was told the reason is that the
electors in Seven Oaks School Division voluntarily want to spend more money on
education and agree to pay higher education levies to do that.
I believe that is their prerogative
and that is their right and that is why we have elected trustees. I think that if they go out and raise the
taxes unfairly or too high, they are politically accountable and they will be
defeated at the next election if the electorate feels that they raised taxes
too high. But they are not being given that opportunity. There is an undemocratic and unfairness to
this legislation that is going to be introduced shortly to cap the ability of
trustees to raise property taxes.
Secondly, the provincial government
provides financial assistance for education.
That is the other major source of funding for school boards. Now the dollars come from a different
place. They come primarily from income
tax revenue. I believe that income tax
is a more equitable and more fair system of taxation because it is based on the
ability to pay. It is much more fair
than the source of revenue which school boards have for their tax base, which
is primarily based on property.
This has a great effect on my
constituents in Burrows, because in Burrows we have a large number of people
who are poor. The majority though would
consider themselves middle class, people who are working. These people are worse off now than they were
four years ago. Their federal taxes are
up since 1984. If you were to read
Frances Russell in the Free Press, you would know that their federal income
taxes are up. My guess is that because
provincial taxes are tied to federal taxes, probably their provincial taxes are
up as well, and so they are worse off now in terms of taxation. Their incomes are flat or have declined. For many families their income has declined
substantially as people have become unemployed.
I know this from going door to door in the constituency of Burrows and
frequently finding people at home during the daytime who have been in the
workforce and who want to be in the workforce and now find themselves
unemployed.
We also have many constituents in
Burrows who are senior citizens. They
have paid property taxes all their lives.
They continue to do so, but since they retired their income went down
substantially, but their school board levy is based on their property tax
assessment. Many of them are on Canada
pension, old age security, but many of them do not have company pensions or
Canada pension, and they are on old age security and their guaranteed income
supplement‑‑[interjection] Yes, they get a property tax rebate but
it has not gone up for many years.
So these people cannot afford to pay
increasing property taxes of any kind. I
think the school divisions, therefore, rightfully rely on provincial tax
revenue, because it is a fairer system of taxation. It is based more on the ability to pay.
Property tax levies are not based on the ability to pay; they are based on the
assessed value of your house.
Today's editorial in the Free Press
I believe was rather critical of the Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey) for
capping education increases, and points out that there will be legislation that
we will shortly be debating. I think
that what this government has done is said you cannot increase the levy. So
what would school trustees normally do?
Normally they would say, well, we got less money from the province so we
are going to increase your tax levies and they would be able to blame it on the
province. But what this government is
doing is they want their cake and they want to eat it too, so they have said,
you cannot raise taxes and you cannot blame it on us because we capped the
education increases.
So we will be debating the
legislation when it comes in and I will have longer than my current 15 minutes.
An Honourable Member: Ten minutes.
Mr. Martindale: Ten minutes, pardon me.
There was also a letter to the
editor today in the Free Press by Maryann Mihychuk, the chairperson of Winnipeg
School Division No. l, and I am not going to read the entire letter, but I
would like to quote from it. She
says: "The division will be
receiving less money, but is still required to provide more services in such
areas as counselling, health, social services and nutrition in order to assist
children to be able to learn."
In Winnipeg No. 1, approximately 43
percent of the students who have special needs in the
I spoke to a teacher at a social
event on Saturday night. She said at her school and School Division No. 1 at
least half of the students in her class have either parents who are on social
assistance or the children are clients at the Child Guidance Clinic or they are
clients of Winnipeg Child and Family Services.
These are just examples of some of the special needs of students, many,
many students in Winnipeg School Division No. 1. Winnipeg No. 1 has greater needs because of
this, and therefore I believe they need greater resources. I think that the Minister of Education (Mrs.
Vodrey) and her government should consider this an investment in the future of
this generation.
I do not have the federal Senate
report on children in poverty, but I remember reading there that this committee
calculated the cost of children living in poverty now in terms of future
dollars that are going to be spent‑‑millions of dollars that are
going to be spent in literacy programs, in prison costs, in social assistance
costs, in unemployment costs. This all‑party
report of the Senate committee, which included the three major parties
represented here, all agreed that the government should invest more money in
children and getting children out of poverty because the money you spend today
you will save in future costs.
To conclude, since my time is
probably running out, I would like to talk about two issues of concern to me. The first one is destreaming. Parents in Winnipeg School Division No. 1 and
many other school divisions are very concerned about the plans of this
government to destream education in Grade 10, and the Minister of Education
(Mrs. Vodrey) is a proponent of this proposal.
We would like to see the evidence so that we could make up our
minds. Apparently there are studies for
and studies against. I would like to ask
the Minister of Education to show us those studies‑‑
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please.
Mr. Ben Sveinson (La Verendrye): Mr. Acting Speaker, I have sat here this
afternoon and this evening and I have listened to many members speak on this
topic that is so vitally important to our public at large and our children. I would just like to say that during that
time when the majority of the government benches were full, I saw the
opposition numbers drop to three. This
was an emergency debate. Now, what I am
saying here‑‑
Point of Order
Mr. Martindale: Referring to only three opposition members in
the House, that has never been true this afternoon, never true this evening and
I would like him to correct the record.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Laurendeau): Order, please.
The honourable member does not have a point of order, but I would
caution the honourable member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson) that we do not
refer to the numbers or on the absence of any members in the House.
* * *
* (2120)
Mr. Sveinson: Mr. Acting Speaker, let us just say that the
numbers were not so strong in the Assembly, in the opposition benches.
I have heard many things said about
this government and indeed the Education minister (Mrs. Vodrey) this afternoon
and the policy put forward. They have said
things like, for example, this government is not supportive of education, they
are not preparing our children for the future.
Let us take a look at that. When they say not supportive of education and
not preparing our children, the changes that have gone on in the last couple of
years, for example, our community colleges and the direction in which they are
moving, now in fact dealing with jobs, or education to help our young people in
jobs which are actually out there‑‑not jobs that are somewhat of a
myth and we just continue to educate.
We can look at our university
courses which are also moving in the direction where our young people can in
fact get jobs. These are very positive things for young people in our future.
Also the fact that education funding has increased approximately 23 percent
since 1988 to '93, again very supportive of our education system and of our
young people and their education.
I have heard charges from across the
way that this government or our Premier is not showing leadership. What is leadership? Let us take a look at the
NDP when they were in power. Let us take
a look back and just see what they gave us in leadership. Their policy
obviously is to spend as long as we can borrow. That is what it seems to
be. I am not being somewhat smart here,
I am just saying it the way it is. Facts
are there.
It is shown in the time the NDP were
in from approximately '80 to '88‑‑in that neighbourhood‑‑they
ran up approximately a $4 billion deficit.
Then because of‑‑I do not know what you would call it, an
overpayment and a bit of a jump in I believe it was nickel or something. There was a surplus, a blip on the screen for
a short period of time and it seems to have disappeared now. Just in the last
little while, all of a sudden that little surplus thing was gone. The surplus was never there. A $4 billion deficit and a little blip that
they were talking about as far as a surplus.
Let us not kid about it. A $4
billion deficit is not a surplus.
Then let us think about today. That $4 billion deficit that they helped us
along with and, like
The opposition say, actually, spend
until you cannot borrow any more and then slash programs, because this is what
would happen under the pretence that we have done all we can.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
Is that not somewhat sad? Manitobans, I say to you, beware of the NDP
bearing gifts, because that is just what they have done. It does not have to be that way. Let us stop for just a minute and think. It does not have to be that way. A little bit of hurt now, a little bit of
squeezing, a little bit of innovation, a little bit of understanding, a little
bit of talking to one another‑‑[interjection] Oh, my. Now the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton)
wants to take my speech. He is agreeing
with me. My goodness. We have taken one giant step forward. But I give him credit. If he is with me now, I say that we have got
it made.
We have to think now because each
year‑‑and we do not have to take the whole deficit and talk about
it. OK, the NDP put it there, I am
finished with it. Let us take the yearly
deficit and throw out a figure of $300 million.
The next year, what are you looking at?
Approximately anywhere from $20 million to $30 million in interest out
of your operating capital for that year. Now how do you cover that? Where do you get it from? Every time you go to look for it in any one
of the different departments, you hear a scream. You are bad.
For goodness sake, somehow we have to bring it to a stop.
I served a number of years on school
board, in fact as chairman of finance. I
know that during that time‑‑and I will not go back to who was in
government at that time‑‑but each year that we were given an
increase or just the yearly amount per student to the division, we heard a cry
from the teachers' society and from all the other different unions within the
division. If it was 2 percent, we want 2
percent. If it was 3 percent, we want 3
percent. It was gone, but do you know
that I as a school board trustee was considered a nice guy, because I did not
have to raise taxes‑‑I did not have to raise taxes. But the government of the day was considered
somewhat‑‑well, they were not doing such a great job on the deficit
side, if you will.
I am considered a nice guy, but the
government is not. Now, that does not
really make sense. Are we saying that
school boards, municipalities and hospitals are not part of government? Is that
what we are saying? That is somewhat
ridiculous, is it not? If we are funding
them, they are not part of government?
I think it is time that right from
the federal government, right through the whole system, we have to say, look,
we are all government, it all comes down to one spot. That is the taxpayer.
It is just about time we realized
that. It is just about time everybody,
every level realized that. Indeed, if we
stopped and realized that, we can in fact say, OK, all right, we have gone the
limit, we cannot spend any more, the deficit is there, it is choking us. It is like putting a noose around your neck
and every day pulling it a little bit more and being stupid enough not to let
go. Please, please.
I cannot believe sitting here and
listening to comments from honourable members saying the opposite. I would ask all of you to consider and to in
fact stand behind the Minister of Education, help out the Minister of Education
and the school boards and the municipal government and hospitals in their attempt
and our attempt, all of our attempts, to come to a halt with the deficit
spending.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
The honourable member's time has expired.
Mr. Santos:
Mr. Speaker, because of the economic imperative of making a living, we
often see things from a materialistic looking glass and we fail to recognize
that the things in life that count the most are the intangible things that
cannot be counted and cannot be measured, including honour, virtue, education.
* (2130)
I would like to talk, Mr. Speaker,
about the purpose of education, why it is the duty of the government to provide
for this function in our society. How do
we get the education that we need? Why
should we educate ourselves and our youth and our people?
It seems to me that education's
purpose is to train people, to train us to think clearly, to decide correctly,
to solve problems and in general to live life the way it should be lived, not
merely to earn a living, but to develop a style of life that is worthy of a
human being.
We do not acquire education without
any effort or investment in time as well as in money. On an individual level, an individual person
who wants to improve himself in life has to invest his time, his youth, the
best years of his life studying, working, all individual effort.
On the societal level, it is the
duty and function of government to help the individual to achieve the highest
potentialities he is capable of, that is to say, to develop all his faculties,
his skills, his energies to such a level that he will be an asset to the
community to which he belongs, rather than a liability. So we will say education is expensive. Of course it is because it is a form of
investment, and any form of investment will require an initial outlay of
expenditure.
On the part of the individual, he
has to invest the best years of his life.
It entails also opportunity cost in the sense that he cannot devote the
same time to making money. He has to
devote that time seeking knowledge, truth and honour, and in that sense, it is
expensive on the part of both the individual and society. But if it is expensive, we cannot simply say
it is expensive, therefore we should cut the educational function. What will be
the consequence if we do so? If
education is expensive, ignorance is more expensive.
Have you ever encountered an
individual who does not know what to do in life, who does not know how to deal
with a problem, who does not know how to solve?
It will be more expensive on the part of that individual to live his
life, and if you cut the opportunity of the individual to develop his fine
faculties as a human being, the money that you will save in cutting education
is the same amount of money that you will later need to spend for jails, for
prosecution, for all kinds of law enforcement order needed by society in order
to maintain its integrity as a society.
So whatever we save in the education of our youth, we will have to spend
in the form of a more expensive reformatory system, prison system, health system
because they do not know how to take care of their health. That is the point.
Where should the money come
from? The money comes from the creation
of wealth by society through the economic machinery. To create that wealth, what do we need? Good managers. Who are the good managers reputed to be? The Progressive Conservatives? But how shall we judge management? We have to judge management by its result. If we look objectively at the result, have we
achieved the expectation of a good manager?
No, we have lots of unemployment in this province. We have lots of bankruptcies around us, and
therefore I say that the theory that was the economic theory of Reagan,
Thatcher, Mulroney and of this Conservative Party is no longer relevant in our
modern economy and in our society.
Let me point out what Robert Reich,
in a book called The Work of Nations, has stated: There is a change in economic
globalization. Money‑‑listen,
Mr. Premier‑‑money, technology, ideas flow easily now from one
country to another country. The only
claim of any country, of any territory is its own people as its own resource
and that people, to be a good asset for economic productivity, must be an
educated, trained, well‑qualified people.
If we cut on education, what kind of
work force shall we have, what kind of managers shall we have, what kind of
directors of industry shall we have?
People who do not know what they are doing or what they are going to do‑‑that
is exactly what will be the consequences if we cut the educational function in
our society.
I honestly believe that the quality
of our economic performance depends very much on the quality of our human
resources, on the quality of our people.
The quality of our people in turn is determined by the kind of education
that we institute and implement in our society.
We can no longer afford to have a two-tier kind of education, one for
the rich and one for the poor, because this is divisive in our society.
If you want a good, fresh idea, why
do you not integrate the private and public educational system and make it a
good system that is accessible and open to all.
Then you develop a working force that has all the skills, that knows all
the technology, that knows all the essential requirements in order to run the
economy and therefore achieve economic prosperity.
We cannot say that we are good
managers and yet fail in our economic program.
We cannot say and claim that we are good in running the government
because we did not raise taxes. Look at
the present mayor of
An Honourable Member: Conrad, what about the Crow benefit to
farmers?
Mr. Santos: The farmers, too, have to be educated. They have to know that stubble burning is not
good for the health of the people. The
farmers want to provide the food, and when the food is taken in by the
population and they have their health deteriorated because of this insensitive
attitude towards the environment, we need sustainable economic development
consistent with the preservation of our resources, consistent with the
elevation of our people as the most important resource that we ever had or will
have in our society.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
* (2140)
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting, the
comments that have been made by members opposite. I wish the member for
I do say that this is really an
unusual circumstance when we have an emergency debate put forward by the
Liberal Party, in fact by their Education critic I do believe, and this was set
up to be the most important thing, and presumably she was prepared for an
emergency debate. This is so urgent that
she does not have the time to be able to fully participate in this debate, I
say, Mr. Speaker. She must have had
other plans that have prevented her from her full participation.
This is so important that she cannot
even be a total participant in this debate, and in fact the Liberal Party, were
it not for the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema), would be in total
embarrassment that they have put forward this motion and are not even able to
give it their full attention and participation.
Mr. Speaker, they ought to be
ashamed of themselves, and I think they ought not to bring forward another
motion for emergency debate for the remainder of this session, because we will
remind them about how they treat so casually and with such lack of respect the
things that they say are the most urgent matters in
I want to just talk about what I
have listened to from members opposite, and I have been paying attention by
virtue of the monitor to the speeches that have been going on throughout the
course of the day. Not once have I had
any alternative offered by the members opposite, not once, other than just
simply spend more money. We know that is
the consistent position of the New Democratic Party: spend more money and raise it by way of
taxes.
It does not matter whether or not
those taxes will impact upon the most vulnerable in society, the working poor,
as did the 2 percent tax on net income that the Pawley administration brought
in and it started to apply to those with incomes of $12,000 and up. That was their concern for the working poor.
Everybody got caught in the net of increased taxes.
During the period in which those New
Democrats were in office, that six‑and‑one‑half‑year
period, they say that we ought to put more money on the corporations. They increased in that six‑and‑one‑half
years the income taxes on corporations by 48 percent and on individual
Manitobans by 139 percent.
They raised taxes 16 times during
the course of that six‑and‑one‑half years, and they created
five new taxes including the payroll tax, the high income surtax, the 2 percent
tax on net income, the land transfer tax and the corporation capital tax
surcharge‑‑all of those new taxes.
An Honourable Member: How many of those did you get rid of?
Mr. Filmon: Well, we have reduced personal taxes. Personal income tax has been reduced by 2
percent, and we have taken 70 percent of those businesses that were paying the
payroll tax off paying the payroll tax.
That is what we have done, Mr. Speaker, so we have indeed worked on it.
But more so than that, the front
page of today's newspaper, the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) referred to it,
tells the whole story: Tax breaks to
fatten wallets. It tells about how
Now do you know what that is equivalent
to? That is equivalent to a $107 million
injection in the economy of
Mr. Speaker, when I heard earlier
today the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) talking about the fact that
Conservative policies were not working, is she trying to tell us that the policies
of the Howard Pawley administration that drove the taxes in this province up to
the highest level right across the country, that ripped out of the pockets of
individual Manitobans, including the working poor, thousands of dollars in
increased taxes, that this is the way to run government, that this is the way
to help the poor and the lame and the people in this province who have
difficulty? No, it is not.
I will just say, because I only have
a few minutes, that with respect to education, I keep hearing over and over and
over again from members like the member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), the Leader
of the Liberal Party (Mrs. Carstairs) equate the quality of education to the
amount spent on education, nothing else.
They do not suggest that if every
teacher in this province were to take perhaps a 2 percent reduction in their
pay packet and help everybody in this province to go along that all of the
teachers could still be employed and all of the classroom ratios would be
maintained and all of the services would be maintained. No, they will not
countenance that, Mr. Speaker. Why? Why is that?
When everybody in the rest of society has had to have freezes and
reductions, why would they not suggest that the teachers of this province
should participate in this whole process and do the same? Why not give up the in‑service days?
Why not? Why could that not be
done? They could still come and do their
professional development so that they could also make a commitment to the
students, to the quality of education.
We as a nation spend more per capita
on education than any other nation in the world. We as a nation spend more as a percentage of
our GDP on education than any other nation in the world. I would hope that members opposite would not argue
that we are getting the best education of any country in the world, because
everywhere we look at international tests, at international evaluations, we are
not getting it, and that has all gone up in the last two decades.
Those numbers have gone up. We were not always the highest spending
nation in the world on education. We are
today, and we still do not have the best quality education in the world today.
On no international test is that ever demonstrated, Mr. Speaker. So let us stop
talking about quality of education as being dependent upon the amount of money
that is being spent.
Let us talk about a commitment by
everybody in education, by the teachers, by the staff, by everybody, the
administration, everybody, to saying, let us try and do a better job and live
within our means at the same time like everyone else in society is doing. That is the only solution that we should be
realistically looking at. We have had a
recession and everybody has had to share a bit of pain. The last thing we need to do is raise taxes.
I will say just one final thing, Mr.
Speaker. I have heard them complaining
over there that we are restricting the flexibility of school boards. The member for
So how are they going to vote? Which way do the New Democrats want it? Do they want them to be able to raise the
taxes? Is that their desire or do they
not? Let us say it, you cannot have it
both ways.
Unfortunately, members opposite are
only speaking from a personal standpoint.
The member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), when he got up, said, the economic
imperatives of making a living prevent us from taking a rational view of this.
Well, the fact of the matter is,
that is the economic imperative, that we want everybody to be able to make a
living and to be able to share in the difficult times and the good times in
this province, to be able to create an economic base in which we are
competitive and in which people throughout this province are able to have some
after‑tax income just as they now have, according to the Conference
Board, more after‑tax income available to them for disposal than any
other province in the country, thanks to this particular government.
I want New Democrats to stand up and
say that they want taxes raised, that they want to take more out of the pockets
of the working poor in
* (2150)
Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): It is a pleasure to join in on this debate
this evening, and to follow the Premier (Mr. Filmon) is a special honour. I just want to begin my remarks with a story.
Just about a week ago, I had the
opportunity to attend a banquet in the town of
All of us were given the opportunity
to address the crowd of young men and women, to basically talk about the junior
parliament program and about some of the gains that these young individuals
have made by their participation in the program.
The Minister of Labour got up and
gave a very good speech, as he often does, about the benefits of junior
parliament because, in fact, the Minister of Labour was the first prime
minister in the youth parliament in Selkirk.
He gave a very good discussion about all the valuable skills that he has
learned, the ability to stand up and public speak, how it has given him self‑esteem
and self‑confidence, did a very good job as usual.
The final speaker at the banquet was
a teacher, and he was the co‑ordinator of the event. He spoke again about how meaningful this was
to all the participants and to himself.
In his very last remark, he stated that he felt that this program, Youth
Parliament, may be in jeopardy because of the government's current policy
towards education in this province. Here
we have the Minister of Labour (Mr. Praznik) going on and on and on expressing
his concerns about what a great program this is, yet the ones who are
delivering this program fear that it is going to stop. He did not mention that in his speech, but
the teachers mentioned that to me later after the banquet was over, which is of
course the essence of the problem, that good programs throughout the province
now will be cut.
A 2 percent cut to the public
schools will be devastating for school divisions in this province. The Filmon government has claimed in the past
that education is a priority. This is an
incredible way, Mr. Speaker, to demonstrate that commitment to Manitobans.
Last year alone there were 200
teachers laid off. It is unpredictable
what is going to happen this year.
Obviously, it is going to deepen current inequities that are in the system
now, especially for small school divisions and rural
In the last three years they have
offloaded tax increases to local property taxpayers. They have always operated under the illusion
that they do not raise any taxes, but no one out there except for the
government can honestly admit that or actually believe it.
There was an historic announcement,
there was an historic event. This is the
first time in history that school divisions and students will receive less
money in this province. This is coming
before the next historical announcement, which will be the largest deficit in
the history of this province, again brought in by the members opposite.
We attend a lot of different
functions around this province. Whenever there is a photo op, government
ministers will be there with a plaque awarding it. I was wondering who is going to be giving
this Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) a plaque for coming in with the highest
deficit in the history of this province, Mr. Speaker. It is a shameful event.
Again, the effects on local school
divisions by the 2 percent cut is still unknown, but there are predictions
currently of larger classrooms, less teachers and a real threat to the quality
of education in this province. The
predicted cuts will force an exodus of teachers from this province at a time
when the province is already losing Manitobans, when this government's policies
are already driving Manitobans out.
In fact, in Liberal Quebec, where
the funding was reduced over the past decade to $6 billion from $7 billion, the
schools are cleaned every second day, the school division has cut the
maintenance budget and laid off staff, and of course they were forced to cut
programs.
Mr. Speaker, with those few
comments, I would like to conclude my remarks this evening. I hope Manitobans will never forgive this
government and they will never forgive this Premier (Mr. Filmon). Thank you.
Mr. Speaker: Will the House call it ten o'clock? [agreed]
The hour being 10 p.m., this House
now adjourns and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. (Tuesday).
Also, the hour being 10 p.m., this
does conclude this matter of urgent public importance.