THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

(Third Day of Debate)

Mr. Speaker: On the adjourned debate, the third day of debate, on the proposed motion of the honourable member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) for an address to His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, in answer to his speech at the opening of the session, and the proposed amendment by the honourable Leader of the official opposition (Mr. Doer), and the proposed subamendment as proposed by the honourable Leader of the Second Opposition (Mr. Edwards) in further amendment thereto, standing in the name of the honourable Minister of Agriculture, who has six minutes remaining.

Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): I would like to make a nonpolitical statement.

Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable minister have leave?

Mr. Enns: No, no, Mr. Speaker. All my statements are nonpolitical. They are indeed for the benefit of all Manitobans, and I take it that they are so accepted by honourable members opposite.

Mr. Speaker: We are into Orders of the Day. Does the honourable minister want to revert back? We can revert. Work it into your speech, Harry.

Mr. Enns: No, no, Mr. Speaker. I wish to resume the debate on the Speech from the Throne simply by acknowledging what I neglected to do last night as I attempted to point out to my friend the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards) the difference between small potatoes and big potatoes. I was able to bring one of the largest potatoes grown in the province of Manitoba in this fine crop year of '94 from the excellent farm of the Ponsin brothers at St. Eustache.

I would like to acknowledge that that potato that I exhibited, that you threatened to punish me with, I might remind you, and you also agreed to undertake why the potato is being singled out as being the offending vegetable as compared to all the other vegetables that are grown in this province.

But if I dare bring in a potato in this House--it is actually written in Beauchesne--I cannot believe it that a member could be punished, but I accept that admonition from the Clerk's research team and do promise you that I shall bring no more potatoes into this Chamber. But that fine specimen was grown by one of my constituent farmers, the Ponsins of St. Eustache, and I simply wanted to put that on the record.

Mr. Speaker, the only other concluding comment that I would want to put on the record, and I do this most seriously because, as I speak, as we sit today in our Legislative Assembly, Canada's newest Premier, representing fully 25 percent of all Canadians, is of course in another Legislative Assembly providing the details of the coming referendum in Quebec.

So that there is no misunderstanding where I stand on the matter, it is of course not simply a question of the future of Quebec, it is the future of Canada. Indeed should that initiative succeed, it would be the destruction of Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I am utterly confident, as confident as I can be, that Manitobans will, in the new year, want to place their trust, their confidence, in my Leader, the Premier of this province, to handle those very difficult and important negotiations that all leaders of Canada will be called upon to bring sooner rather than later, not according to my time schedule, but according to the one that is being laid down today in the province of Quebec, in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec, by Premier Parizeau, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, with those few comments, I again enjoyed my opportunity to make these contributions to the throne speech, most of which I made last night, and I look forward to the debates and the contributions of other honourable members, as I always do, and wish them well in their ongoing dialogue here in this Chamber.

Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Mr. Speaker, I am very, very pleased to be in a position to make some comments on the throne speech that has been presented by the government.

Mr. Speaker, this is developing into probably the longest election campaign in the history of the province. We have been campaigning now for several months, and obviously, if conditions had been right for the governing party, we would have found ourselves with the election probably over by now. I see a Premier over there who looks a little nervous these days and does not look entirely happy.

Mr. Speaker, before I get into some further comments on the throne speech, I did want to wish the members of this House well who had announced they were not running in the election or who contemplate leaving and have not announced yet or people who do not make it back here after the election. I am reminded that perhaps a third of the 57 members here change over after each election, and I believe the average political life of an elected official in this province is about six years. That is not particularly encouraging to us in this House.

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I do observe that after seven years it is time for a political change. I am seeing that; it is becoming unmistakable. We are now at the point where the current Premier has now exceeded the previous Premier in terms of longevity in this House. We are now past the point where the government can successfully argue with the public that they have not had two complete terms, that they have had a little short blip of a term and then a long term and they in fact need to be renewed. They are at the point where the public now know that they have had two terms, that they have had seven years, and their job right now is to try to convince the public that they can renew themselves, that they can present new directions and a fresh face to the public.

Mr. Speaker, that is very hard to do in a government that has been around for two terms. Unless the members opposite are going to voluntarily you know, half of them are going to resign, and new people are going to come in and present a new face. That is not likely to happen. The liability that this two-term government has is going into an election with a lot of the same people that it has had now for seven years. The enthusiasm is not there.

(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

Seven years ago they came in as a fresh government. They were very upbeat. You look at them now and there are tired faces, long in the tooth, especially long in the tooth. To me, they are a government that is just waiting to be tipped. When the electorate senses that the time has come--and they will--the winds of change will blow. As the former Minister of Finance has pointed out many times before, it is impossible to change this. It is very rare for a government in today's environment to last three terms. I think we all agree that is the case. If it happens in Manitoba, that will defy a lot of conventional thought.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I wanted to deal with some of the issues that this government is trying to grapple with. The major issue is the issue of the deficits and the hypocrisy of this particular government in dealing with the deficits. This government has consistently promised the public that it would be fiscally prudent, it would be fiscally responsible and it would deal with deficits. What we see after its seven years in office is an unparalleled record of an increase in deficits. We see of the $14 billion total debt of this province, this group opposite has added $4 billion of the total since it came to office. That is an atrocious record.

The cynical attitude of this government is exemplified by the fact that they are attempting now to introduce what they call balanced budget legislation in an attempt to fool the public into believing that somehow they have been fiscally responsible when they have been the most fiscally irresponsible government in the history of the province.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we will have to take a look at a few of the figures, because the former Minister of Finance seems to want to forget some of the figures that are there for him to see. In 1992-93 the Conservative government registered the highest annual actual deficit in memory at $748 million. In fact, the largest deficit of the NDP years was in 1987 at $559 million.

Now, clearly, if you subtract one from the other you see that the worst deficit of the Conservatives is $189 million worse than the worst NDP year. This is a government that preaches fiscal responsibility. Its record is absolutely, diametrically opposed to what it Let me tell you that I would have some sympathy for them if they had not been so self-righteous about this position.

If they had been realistic and a little less self-righteous about it one could have sympathy for them and say that it would be understandable, perhaps, given the times, that they could be out a little bit. But when they preach to the public that they are going to do something about the deficit, in fact that they are doing something about the deficit and then they wrack up the highest deficits on record, one has to wonder about how gullible they feel the public will be.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we intend to expose the fact, when the government brings down its so-called balanced budget legislation, to point out the fact that this government has been anything but responsible. We intend to point out that the balanced budget legislation is nothing more than window dressing for an election, and the members opposite know that no matter what kind of balanced budget legislation they bring in, they certainly have not followed it themselves, no pretext of doing it in the past. They are not really in a position to be able to hamstring a future government to follow the legislation in the first place.

It may sell well. Their polling company may tell them that this is a popular thing, and it may sell well as far as the optics are concerned, but we feel that we can point out what the real story is here, and it is not a particular attractive story.

Now, one other point before I get on to promises that this government has failed to keep, I do want to point out that the financial wizards over there who go to the business community and tell the business community how sharp they are in finances, let us take a look at the year 1992 and '93 and see how close these wizards came to forecasting their actual deficit.

Their budget deficit was $330 million. Now, would anybody here want to take a guess as to what the actual deficit was that year? Would it be reasonable to assume that the wizards of finance would be out maybe $100 million? Would that be reasonable? Maybe $200 million? But the wizards of finance were out. It was $748 million, and they projected $330 million. It is an unbelievable difference, yet it is all in there.

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Madam Deputy Speaker, the public is very tired of hearing empty promises from this government, and the government has its share of empty promises that we can point to at this time. The big one, of course, is the elimination of the debt. No one believes that this government is serious about eliminating the debt.

Number two, this government promised that it has not raised taxes. We have seen advertising that this government puts out purporting to have not increased taxes now for the last six or seven years. That is absolutely totally false. In fact, the Free Press ran an article a couple of years back after the budget, and the government themselves did a critique. Federal-Provincial Relations Research Division on April 7, 1993, did an examination of what the Free Press had to say. What the analysis was, was that this budget increased the annual taxes on individuals by a total of $114 million.

How can this government say that it has not raised taxes when in one year alone it raised an extra $53 million through the tax credit changes? It raised another $48 million through expansion of the sales tax base. It raised another $13 million through gasoline and gasohol, for a total of $114 million. If the government, Madam Deputy Speaker, were to have raised this revenue through raising the sales tax, it would have had to raise the sales tax from 7 percent to 8.25 percent, and it would have had to raise the personal income tax from 52 percent to 57 percent, a 5 percent increase.

So this government has been very clever in its suggestions, sleight-of-hand suggestions, that somehow it has provided financial prudence and has not increased taxes. Their own documents, their own briefing notes say that is not true. As a matter of fact, what they did in that budget was that they took out the exemptions of the sales tax for things like baby bottles, nipples, soothers, teethers, baby cups and cutlery for children. They expanded the tax base so that 7 percent taxes were now charged on those items, thanks to this government. So much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the promise of no tax increases.

They also in that same budget brought in the tax on binders, foolscap, tampons, toothpaste. Every typical family of four got a $160 tax increase that year.

Now, these are the briefing notes from the government. If we were to use the figures in the Free Press article of the day, those figures would be much, much higher, but we are going to give this government the benefit of the doubt on this one and we are going to use the issues.

Now, my Liberal friend from Inkster is trying to bait me and, you know, I was planning to leave the Liberals out of this at this time, but I am sorely tempted to be drawn into making comments about my friends the Liberals. I do notice, Madam Deputy Speaker, a nervousness on the part of the Liberals now as they see the federal government move along on its agenda and, you know, things are not exactly as rosy looking for the Liberals as they were a few months ago. I detect some nervousness over there on the part of the Liberals. I think that as the temperature drops and as the winter progresses, we are going to see that the Liberals may be lucky to have a percent for each of their existing members by the time the election is called.

I am on a strict time limit today, and I cannot digress too far to accommodate the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), but perhaps at the end.

Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, so we are in a position where we have to deal with what the government is saying they are doing in their fancy ads and what they are doing in reality. I think the people in this election are going to have to come to grips with that, that this government is not being totally up front with them. We have to look at the advertising that this government has spent. They have spent an atrocious amount of public money over the last few months massaging their image in advance of an election campaign.

Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, they have spent over a million dollars taxpayers' money to run feel-good ads to try to improve what was at that time a very dismal showing in the opinion polls. I guess it has had some results, but I think it has sort of peaked out for them now and they are not getting results. I guess there is a point where money does not help, but they have certainly gone full-bore trying to curry the public's favour with its own money on the Grow Bond ads and other feel-good ads that the government is running. While the Provincial Auditor has asked them to produce guidelines on advertising, they have yet to produce them, and I do not think you will see any guidelines on government advertising. They have yet to produce them, and I do not think you will see any guidelines on government advertising before an election campaign.

Gambling is now becoming the biggest industry of this province thanks to this government. This government brought in a moratorium last year on gambling but only after they had pretty much saturated the market with VLT machines and gambling palaces. Madam Deputy Speaker, the Lotteries minister is basically--the way gambling has overtaken the province, this government is running itself as a sort of as a modern day version of Al Capone. We have gambling casinos sprouting up all over the place. We could not possibly build any more of the minister's speakeasies or whatever the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) called them. The gambling palaces, the market cannot handle any more of these things. So much for the moratorium.

Now the government is dealing with the backlash that is developing because of the excess of gambling that is going on. It is creating problems with people who are becoming problem gamblers, and I predict that this great amount of revenue that we are seeing is going to see a down side. We are going to see a down side in the increase in social problems over the next few years.

Now the government is playing around with the revenues from the gambling. It has been holding back on these revenues, and they are planning to come in with a somewhat balanced budget this year, which is going to be politically smart for them to do, and they will be using these lottery revenues to achieve this goal. Madam Deputy Speaker, we have to take a serious look and have a serious debate about the type of gambling that is allowed in this province and where we are going to end up at the end of the day with gambling. I can tell you that while it might be nice for the government to have a cash cow here to have revenue coming in, it is not healthy to the citizens of the province if we have social problems that are plaguing us constantly because of it.

Madam Deputy Speaker, this government--and it is not peculiar only to this government, a lot of governments have this problem. We have a situation where what we see in throne speech after throne speech is never acted upon. The question really is why would a government bring in items in a throne speech that it has no intention of bringing in. StatsCan last year showed Manitoba with a decline in the GDP. It showed Manitoba 10 out of 10 of all Canadian provinces. This is after the government, throne speech after throne speech, promises a new and better Manitoba next year. Just stick with us, believe us, and we will lead you to the Promised Land. They do this every year. Every year they do this. The results are just not there. Their approach to government is not working, and that is why in the election to come people are going to be given a choice, be given a choice between the old ways of the seven-year-old, tired Conservative government or a new approach. I think that the new approach will be taken.

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Now, I had mentioned that there were many, many issues that I wanted to deal with today on the throne speech debate, but in order for all of the members to have a chance to speak on the throne speech, 40-minute speeches are not appropriate. So it is with some regret, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I cede the floor to the next speaker. Thank you very much.

Mr. Jack Reimer (Niakwa): Madam Deputy Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to stand up here and speak on the Speech from the Throne for the Sixth Session of the Thirty-fifth Legislature.

Before I begin, I would like to congratulate Mr. Speaker again for his wisdom and his overseeing of this House in his wisdom and his decision making and his availability of decision making from time to time when there are opinions that come out between the various programs and discussions that are brought forth.

I would also like to at this time welcome the Pages who will be joining us for this session. In particular, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would just like to put their names back into Hansard because, as with everything, there is a certain amount of anonymity that they are being recognized with their work here and their brief sojourn in this place of law making and decision making for the province of Manitoba.

The Pages, as was mentioned before, are Karen Remus, Ivan Holloway, Corinne Maes, Jeff Browaty, Jaime Henkel and Davyd Hooper. These are students, not only from here in Winnipeg, but also from some of the outlying areas like Morris-MacDonald School Division, River East, St. James and Boundary. So, again, I would like to welcome the Pages who are going to be spending some time with us here in this great hallowed institute of learning.

Before I talk too long into the throne speech, I would like to again just mention a few things that have happened in the great constituency of Niakwa, which I have the pleasure of representing. It has been a very active summertime since we left this House to get involved with the activities. Many of the things that happen in the communities, not only in the constituency of Niakwa but, I believe, in all constituencies, is during the summertime, there is a time for community events. There are the carnivals that happen in the various areas. I had the opportunity to be involved with the carnival at the Southdale Community Centre, which is in my constituency, and also the Winakwa Community Centre.

At these community centres, there is always the fun for the families and the fund-raising events that go on. The one thing that is very prevalent in both community centres and one thing that I have noticed and I am very proud of is the fact of the strong commitment to volunteerism in my community. I am very fortunate that the community centres are a very strong part of the community. One of the biggest factors is the people who are involved with that, and they are the community people and the volunteers that get involved.

They are both very, very strong community centres. They have strong leadership. They have strong guidance by the people on their executive and the people who volunteer. The sports programs are, bar none, some of the best in Manitoba and indeed in Winnipeg. There is the opportunity for ball tournaments during that time.

There was brief mention before, just at the end of Question Period during nonpolitical statements, of some of the sports that were happening in Manitoba. I, too, would like to congratulate an event that happened just two weeks ago in my constituency. Actually it was the Provincial AA Volleyball Championships that were played here in Manitoba. There were two collegiates in the constituency of Niakwa that were in competition for the championship, for the Provincial AA Volleyball girls Championship. In fact, it was the team from College Beliveau versus Windsor Park Collegiate for the championship. The game was the best of three. The tournament for the championship went to two points in each game for the winners.

The teams were competing not only against teams here in Winnipeg but teams from all across Manitoba, so it was indeed a pleasure that both teams that were vying for the championship, as mentioned the College Beliveau team and Windsor Park Collegiate team, were both from the constituency of Niakwa.

The most valuable player that was recognized for the whole tournament was a young lady from College Beliveau, Christine Binnie, who happened to be very prolific in her scoring of points for the College Beliveau team. So it was indeed quite an honour not only to have the two teams competing but also the MVP for the whole tournament coming from College Beliveau.

Also I would like to just mention a few things that happened in Niakwa during the summer. This was the time for some block parties. One of the things that some of the areas in my constituency do is, they form block parties from time to time. These are parties not only for the adults but also for the children and the younger people when they bring forth games and events for them to participate in. One of them had a fire truck there for the children to play around in. It was quite an event for the young people.

McHappy Days was quite an event in our constituency. We had one of our McDonald's, which donated the money to charity on September 27. It was quite an interesting experience, because I had the opportunity to work in one of the McDonald's in the constituency. Those young people that work there, they certainly do know how to work, and they certainly do know how to make things happen. I congratulate all the young people that were involved with those programs.

There were a number of students that won awards in my constituency at graduation from high school, and these are students who won entrance scholarships at various universities, and I would just like to mention their names and the scholarship that they happened to win.

There was Carolyn Doris Wilton, who won a University of Manitoba Entrance Scholarship; Heather Lynn Hinam--excuse me, Carolyn Doris Wilton was from College Beliveau. She won a University of Manitoba Entrance Scholarship. Heather Lynn Hinam, also from College Beliveau, she won the Chown Centennial Scholarship; Koren Elan Bailes from College Beliveau, a Canada Scholarship and University of Manitoba Scholarship; Jason Ryan Taylor from Glenlawn Collegiate, he won the University of Manitoba Entrance Scholarship; Melanie Jean Gregg from J.H. Bruns Collegiate, a University of Manitoba Entrance Scholarship; Heather Ann Barclay from J.H. Bruns Collegiate, the Chown Centennial Scholarship; Joanne Esther Devos from the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate won the University of Manitoba Entrance Scholarship; Heather-Anne Mattson from the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate, University of Manitoba Entrance scholarship; Melony Dawn Young from Murdoch MacKay, a University of Manitoba Entrance Scholarship and a Canada Scholarship; Nadia Nicole Tomy--she is enrolled at St. John's Ravenscourt, the Leader of Tomorrow Scholarship; Geetika Singh Verma from St. John's Ravenscourt, the Leader of Tomorrow Scholarship and a Canada Scholarship; and Charmaine Dawn Yee, from Windsor Park Collegiate, won a Chown Centennial Scholarship.

I will give these names to Hansard, so that they do have the proper spelling for it at the end of my speaking notes.

So those are just a few of the students in my constituency of Niakwa that had an outstanding year at school and availed themselves of scholarships.

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Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to now talk a little bit on the throne speech that was delivered just the other day here in Manitoba. It is appropriate that at this time of year when we think of the end of the year and we look forward to the new year that there is a certain amount of anticipation and a certain amount of excitement as we come through into the new year.

One of the things is that we look forward to the new year with a sense of optimism and a sense of satisfaction as to what we have planned during 1994 and how we look forward to 1995.

The throne speech being delivered at this time gives us that type of projection. It gives us the outline of what is in line and in the planning stage for the new year, not only for Manitoba but for this government and where this government has taken the people of Manitoba.

I would just like to outline a few of the things that have been put forth in the throne speech. We talk about the economic growth here in Manitoba. One thing that is of note is that Manitoba's economic growth has outperformed the Canadian average for three of the last four years. The Conference Board has forecast 3.7 percent growth for Manitoba for 1994.

Any type of growth like this is an optimistic look at what people believe and what business believe in Manitoba and how these things can come about, not only for the betterment of the economy, but the betterment for all people living in Manitoba.

There are new initiatives to encourage the growth of small business, including a pooled investment fund. There is an act upon a number of recommendations of the Manitoba Task Force on Capital Markets to provide a source of capital for small business and the creation of jobs. There is a major event in the spring of '95 to connect entrepreneurs and small business with investors.

There are other initiatives which would harness the information highway to increase the competitiveness of Manitoba firms, to assist Manitoba exports, especially in the agrifood industries, in capturing opportunities from emerging markets. We see that in the recent emphasis brought forth with the Premiers and the entourage that was over on the so-called Team Canada with the Prime Minister touring China and the optimism in the outlook for possible continuation of growth in exports of Manitoba commodities and Manitoba goods to that part of the world. The opportunities for growth in a large economy like Japan is unlimited in the sense of the vast amount of consumability, if you want to call it, of goods that is available because of the markets there in China.

The area of education has been something that this government has brought forth by the Minister of Education (Mr. Manness) in the Renewing Education: New Directions blueprint for renewal of the education system. There is the emphasis to organize a second parents forum to give parents a greater voice in the operation of schools, work with western provinces and the territories to develop a common core curriculum. There is the emphasis to establish a Western Institute of Reading Recovery in Winnipeg to support the development of literacy skills, the continuance of work to respond to the Roblin commission, which is to ensure that youth benefit from linking programs at community colleges to the labour market.

In the area of education, one of the things that has been highlighted is the fact that there is not only an involvement with all the stakeholders but the bringing together of the parents to be part of the input and the direction as to what they feel is available and what they should be involved in, not only in the teaching of their children, but the administration to a degree of the schooling and the aspect of how education fits into today's society and how they can contribute to it.

So the fact of bringing the various factors together, not only the students, the teachers and the parents, but the school boards and the trustees and, naturally, the department itself in trying to get a better outlook and direction as to what education may be headed for in the new year and indeed into the 21st Century, Madam Deputy Speaker.

It has been mentioned before in regard to the security of Manitobans. Manitobans have indeed said that they do place a high priority on the security of the individual and personal property here in Manitoba. Our government, through the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey), has brought forth some tough legislation and the intent as to how we should be tackling and the direction that this government should be taking. The fact that we will press the federal government for the strengthening of the Youth Offenders Act is something that has brought forth one of the strongest positions in fact I believe it is the strongest position of any province in Canada as to the direction that the Youth Offenders Act should be revamped is indeed a credit to not only the province of Manitoba, but the Minister of Justice in her pursuit of trying to bring forth these initiatives.

We have also brought forth initiatives to ensure that victims of stalkers are notified of the event that the stalker is released or put out on bail. We have developed initiatives to prevent public notification of dangerous sexual offenders who are in their community, particularly those who prey on children and letting the people in the community know who has come out of jail and their offences regarding the stalking and sexual offenders.

There is also the reviewing mechanism for placing names of convicted pedophiles on the Child Abuse Registry. There is the pursuit of development of initiatives to permit expanded services for crime victims. All these initiatives are brought forth by the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) in the hope and the idea that the safety and security of Manitobans comes first in any type of legislative initiatives that we look at in the sense of trying to make Manitoba a better place to live and a better place to raise a family.

In regard to Health and Family Services, health will continue to dominate a large portion of the budget here in Manitoba. In fact if you look at the budget, I believe 33 percent or 34 percent of the budget is dedicated to health care. Here in Manitoba it is one of highest, if not the highest percentage of any government in Canada, in regard to our dedication to health care here in the province.

The budget has raised from $1.3 billion I believe when we took government in 1990 to a budget now of almost $1.8 billion or over $1.8 billion dollars per year. This represents on average over $1,800 per man, woman and child or per resident of Manitoba regarding health care and the availability of the health care profession.

In a recent article in the paper I imagine about a week ago there was an article in which an independent survey was done regarding the conditions of health care in Manitoba and the Manitoba government. If I recall, the heading in the paper said that health service in Manitoba is A-OK. The redirected priorities that the government initiated regarding the allocation of funding had no ill effect on the quality and the quantity of health care that was brought forth here in Manitoba through the various hospitals and the implementation of these priorities and the direction that they were taking.

So, Madam Deputy Speaker, as much as we hear from the other side about the naysayers and the doomseekers of how health care and how health care cuts are affecting Manitobans, when you look at an increase of over a half a billion dollars or $500 million from 1988 to 1994, budget of $1.8 billion, that money going into health care is being well spent. It has been put into priorities where it should be spent, with the emphasis on duplication and overlap, with a majority of the people that are involved with health care realizing that there is a better way to do things. It does not mean that there is a jeopardy in any way of health care that is brought forth to Manitobans.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I would just like to talk a little bit on other aspects that were brought forth by the Leaders of the opposition parties in their address to the throne speech. One of the things that was mentioned I believe by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), the member for Concordia, is the fact that when there was mention in the paper and the notification of approximately $100 million that was coming to Manitoba because of the transfer funds that this was some sort of windfall of money that the Manitoba government had come upon. But there has to be a realization also, and I would just like to quote, that the transfer payments to our province are driven by population and a mathematical formula.

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There is no politics on the part of deciding these funding levels. The transfer of funds between provinces is all based on the population and a mathematical formula. So just as we have had an increase in the transfer payments in the last while we also have to take into account that the same formula cut transfers by $168 million in 1993 and $323 million in 1992. So just as there has been an increase in funding over the last fiscal year, during the year 1993 there was a cut of $168.5 million in the transfer payment and in 1992 there was a cut of $323 million.

So if you add that up you are looking at almost $500 million of monies that have been cut from the Manitoba government coffers in the sense of transfer payments from the federal government. Yet this government still has been able to absorb those losses through its internal mechanisms of reprioritization of funding and the availability of funding that was left to the province to raise. The fact is that in the three areas of health care, family services and education, those were the three areas of government that took a high priority of funding and those are the areas that did not suffer because of the cutting in the transfer payments. In fact, those three areas now take up almost, I believe it is, 67 per cent of the budget in funding for our government. Madam Deputy Speaker, let it not be said by the opposition that this government cuts funding to the vital areas of services for our government. Our priorities have always been and will continue to be in health, in the social services and the education of our young people here in Manitoba in all levels of education.

I would like to just talk a minute about our colleagues on the other side of the House and the Leader of the Second Opposition (Mr. Edwards). I found it quite interesting when the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), the member for Concordia, and the Leader of the party brought forth their speech from the throne, if you want to call it. I am not quite sure what day it was. They had quite a release. The Leader spoke for almost 40 minutes when he put forth his release. It covered approximately 13 or 14 pages of suggestions and input as to what they felt was the way that the government should be run and the ideas that they brought forth. They brought forth page after page of ideas of where they felt that their government would go, I mean where they would take the government if they were elected to office.

The Liberals then came out with their own paper, I think it was about two days later. That was two pages of the Liberal agenda where they wanted to go. I found it very passing strange that when the Leader of the Second Opposition (Mr. Edwards) got up to talk and he kept hammering, where is it in the throne speech about agriculture, where is it in there about jobs, where is it in there about education? When you look at their two-page document--I should mention that half of the header takes up page one--there is nothing, absolutely nothing in there about rural initiatives. There is nothing in there. There is a two-page document that says nothing, and this is what they are going to take to the people, a two-page document as to what they think they should feel is initiatives that the people of Manitoba should be looking for.

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is phenomenal how the Leader of the Liberal Party can stand up and criticize a government, be on all sides of all issues, and when anything is brought forth in the House as to what this government, the initiatives it is doing, the first thing that comes out, well, we talked about that. We were on this side of it. They could be on all sides at all times and not know where they are going. So it is interesting and, like I say, passing strange that this is the Leader of the Second Opposition when he comes forward with his great two-page document here.

At least I will give credit to the Leader of the official opposition, the member for Concordia. They did do a lot of rhetoric, more rhetoric I should say, in their throne speech.

One of the things that the Leader of the Second Opposition (Mr. Edwards) has been talking about from time to time is lotteries and the fact that lotteries is such a growth industry here in Manitoba. I will agree with the member to that extent that it is a growth industry here in Manitoba because there are approximately 6,000 jobs that are directly dependent on lottery revenue. There are 5,563 jobs that are generated through the Manitoba Lotteries corporation. There are also about 400 jobs through the capital project which represents almost 6,000 jobs that come from the Manitoba Lotteries commission.

If we were to go even a little bit further and follow the advice of the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) in which he has advocated the adding of almost two more, I believe it is, casinos outside of Winnipeg, we could see that this would be an additional growth area of more jobs and more opportunities for people here in Manitoba to have a job and something to go to. In essence, I believe what the Leader of the Liberal Party keeps advocating is that the growth area is not good for Manitoba. They are continually advocating some sort of forum, some sort of input by the people. There is nothing at all wrong with the member for St. James holding a public forum and inviting as many people as he wants, to listen to their concerns. Nobody is holding him back from having the public forums. He can send out what was it? 47,000 letters, something like that, for a survey, and yet to have a public forum is too hard for them to do but to talk about it and to make the bravado statements here in the House that this is the way to do it.

I would also like to point out the fact that the Leader of the second opposition has also said that gambling is a choice. There is a choice involved with gambling, and if people choose to gamble, that is their choice. For us to legislate and have the big-brother approach as to who and what should be done and what cannot be done is going against the natural abilities of people to make a choice. If people choose to gamble, they are going to choose to do it, and the availability is either here or in the United States.

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There are many oddities when you look at the agenda of the Manitoba Liberals. I recall, and I want to mention, when one of the former members for Crescentwood was in the House, there was a debate on lotteries and with the fact that the casino money in particular, the debate was on the casino, which is one of the three gambling areas here in Winnipeg, and he is quoted as saying that actually the casino revenue goes to promote health care, another policy with which we disagree. So here we have the former member for Crescentwood, at that time I believe he was deputy leader of the Liberal Party here in Manitoba, going on policy saying that they disagree with the money going to health care. I mean, there is a juxtaposition of positioning here that is incredible, because when you look at the tremendous benefits that the casino has brought forth because of the almost $10 million a year that has gone into capital improvements and the health care for Manitoba, this is all revenue that comes from gambling. It comes from a casino. We have the former deputy leader of the Liberals saying that they disagree that it should be going to health care. Where should the money be going?

There is also the reference by, I believe it was, the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), saying that lottery money should be tourist oriented and directed toward tourist ventures. So we have money going all over the place within the levels, and yet they are talking about having money available and to have the money available. An interesting fact is if we talk about the availability about the money from lotteries and saying that we did not have it, what it would relate to is if the $214 million--I believe it was $214 million that has come as a source of revenue into the provincial coffers--was not taken into account, that would represent a sales tax increase of almost 13 percent to make up that shortfall in the provincial economy. The tax revenue that we are getting from lotteries, and indeed doing a benefit to all of Manitoba, is not only in health care but in the advocation of areas of concern for the government.

Lotteries--it should be pointed out in other areas of Canada, the six Liberal governments in Canada, including the federal government, there are only four of them that have conducted studies into problem gambling. Here in Manitoba that was one of the first things we did was to form an inquiry into problem gambling and to address the problem with it. Other Liberal governments in Canada have talked about it but they have not done anything about it.

The responsibilities of initiating a study by the Lotteries minister was conducted. Other areas in Canada they will talk about it and do nothing about it.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I can see that [interjection] Yes, we are getting close to the time, but I would just like to take a moment because from time to time some of my colleagues here on this side of the House have mentioned a certain admonition, if you want to call it, of the Leader of the Second Opposition (Mr. Edwards) of where he is referring to the fact that the rural development and the avenues of growth into Manitoba through the REDI program and through the Grow Bonds resulted in a small potatoes type of attitude.

This is not the first time the Leader of the Second Opposition has sort of put himself into a position of disrespect and disrepute of his colleagues and some of the people here in this House. I can recall that at the time when the North American Commission for the Environment Corporation was switched to Montreal, we all recall that Manitoba and Winnipeg was the natural site. It had all the amenities, all the availabilities of the circuit, but because of political posturing by the federal Liberals, they decided to put it in Montreal. Well, you know that this side of the House and I believe the colleagues from the NDP, from the official opposition, were aghast at what was happening and how we lost this thing. But where did the Leader of the Second Opposition (Mr. Edwards) stand? His comments were: There are better fish to fry. There are better fish to fry, and there are small potatoes.

So now we have fish and chips here. We have fish and chips as the leader of the second potato. We have the Leader of the Second Opposition (Mr. Edwards) saying that he has bigger fish to fry and at the same time that the initiatives we bring out are small potatoes.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to continue on with some of my comments regarding the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), but there is one area that I would like to mention regarding the Leader of the Second Opposition and that is in the fact that the Leader of the Opposition was talking about the budget and the fact that the monies that were available and the accounting practice that he was inferring that we were bringing into being in the presentation of the books.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to refer back to 1984. At that time the Manitoba Auditor, Mr. Bill Ziprick, when he was presented with the books at that time he would not sign the books because he said that the books were misleading and unfair.

An Honourable Member: Or in layman's terms, cooked.

Mr. Reimer: Well, there is creative accounting. I am saying that there was a creative accounting procedure that was implemented by the government at that time, and the Auditor, Mr. Ziprick, would not sign them. In fact, he said and I quote: No way I can verify $165 million is the net deficit, because if I do that Manitobans will be misled to believe that our deficit is only $165 million where at that time it was closer to $429 million.

The Minister of Finance at that time, who was a Mr. Vic Schroeder was asked to comment on the Auditor's reluctance to sign the books. The Finance minister, and I am quoting at that time, the Finance minister Vic Schroeder's airy way of dismissing as "just an accountant's opinion" the concerns of Provincial Auditor William Ziprick about his budgetary practices is unlikely to impress those foreign lending institutes which Mr. Schroeder visits regularly in search of money. Those institutions employ accountants too, and they can add and subtract just like Mr. Ziprick.

There we have one of the first times and I do not know whether that is the first time. I would have to refer maybe to one of my colleagues in the House as to whether this was the first time an Auditor refused to sign the report that was put forth by the Finance minister. I looked for some

An Honourable Member: It was at least the first time in 28 years.

Mr. Reimer: Then I can say that, Madam Deputy Speaker. To my knowledge, in the last 28 years no Auditor has ever refused to sign the books other than when the NDP government, back in 1984, presented its budget. That is something of note that should be recorded at this particular time. It should be also noted that during the period from April 1, 1986, to March 31, 1988, under the NDP administration five major Crown corporations lost $317 million. I will just mention MPIC lost $125 million, Hydro lost $60 million, MTS lost $48 million, MDC lost $42 million and Manfor lost $42 million. This was under the NDP in the period between 1986 to March 31, 1988.

So when the NDP stand up here and say that they had a surplus in 1988, I have to ask where was the member that I believe sat in the seat next to me in the House? Why did he sit in his seat when they called for the vote? He sat in his seat because he voted against the deficit of $380 million. He was not sitting in his seat to vote against a surplus. He was sitting in his seat right here to vote against a deficit. Madam Deputy Speaker, let it not be said that the former government passed on a surplus. [interjection] I was just talking about the Auditor, the Auditor that did not sign. There are many, many more things that I could speak about. However, my time is running short at this particular time.

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is indeed a great pleasure to stand up in this House and speak at this time, and just in case I do not get up to speak again before Christmas time I would like to extend my congratulations and warmest greetings to all members in this House for a very, very merry Christmas and a new year of peace and prosperity as we go into the year 1995.

Thank you very much.

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Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): Madam Deputy Speaker, a gentleman excited and puffing went home hurriedly because he just came from a doctor who diagnosed him as having a terminal illness. He said you only have five hours to live. So he said to his wife, what are we going to do? The wife suggested, well, let us think about the most pleasurable activities that we can do together in five hours. Let us order an exciting and exotic meal, a sumptuous meal, and they did. They ate together with wine and candlelight, and two hours were spent. So what do we do next, asked the wife. The husband said, I do not know. The wife said, let us make love, and so they spent the next two hours.

An Honourable Member: Three hours?

Mr. Santos: Next two hours. Well, there is lots of foreplay there, you know. So they spent the next two hours. The last hour the wife asked, this is your last hour, what are we going to do? The husband said, let us do it again. The wife said no. He said, why not? You know, I will have to get up and you will be stiff above me. I cannot do it. She will have to get up, but the husband is to die on top of her and so she will not do it. Now, what is the lesson of the story? There is a moral lesson here. The moral lesson is, every individual, regardless of situation, whether in politics or in economics or in family life, everyone acts according to self-interest. On that basis, we seek things that will give us satisfaction, that will promote our self-interest. There we enter the field of economics. So in society we produce goods and services to satisfy our basic needs, our wants and our desires, and that is what we exchange in our material life on this planet Earth.

There is a classical view that the production requires the basic factors of land, labour and capital, but there is a Nobel Prize winner who wrote another theory of the productive process. His name is Frederick Soddy. His book is Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt. He instead used the three factors of discovery, natural energy and human diligence as the three basic factors in the production process of goods and services. So we produce, whatever the factors are, we produce goods and services. We exchange it among ourselves as members of society.

Initially we had to do it by barter. I had to bring a sack of big potatoes to the barber before the barber can give me the service of cutting my hair. The only trouble with barter is, it is not always fair, because there is no unit of value that is uniform. If I am a farmer or a cow breeder and I have a haircut I need to bring a cow to the barber, and I cannot always do it. If it is too expensive I cannot cut the cow into half and just bring him the head. It cannot be done that way, and so we invented the use of money.

Money in itself has no utility. It has no value in itself. The value lies in the fact that it can serve the three functions. It is a medium of exchange, which means you can use it for paying your obligations, your debt. It is a store of value and as well a unit of accounting of the value of things. It is simply like number. It has no physical existence. Although you can see the paper bill, that is not the money, it is just a representation of money. Although you can see the coins, it is not the real money; it is the conception, the idea that is important as a medium of exchange. It is just like a number. You cannot touch it. It is intangible. Number 1, No. 2, No. 3, where are they? These are just creations of the mind. The same thing with money--it has no utility in itself.

Who can create money in our society? The British North America Act, when this country was founded, Section 91, various subsections there gave the power to create money to the federal government. By giving the power of currency, coinage, banking, interest, legal tender, promissory notes and all those authorities there, the federal government had the power to create money.

Authority to create money therefore is correlated with the responsibility of the federal government, the responsibility being that it cannot just create money, it must have a one-to-one correspondence with real goods and services in the society. You can only create money when there is a counterpart of goods and services for which it can be attached. Then it has the responsibility to create that kind of money.

In fact, the federal government, since the start of confederation, had created money for the first 46 years without incurring debts in exercise of its constitutional right under the British North America Act, Section 91.

What happened after 46 years? In 1913, the Parliament of Canada passed the Bank Act, which created and established the banking system in Canada in which the federal government delegated and gave an exclusive monopoly to the chartered banks, the system of banking in Canada to create money under the supervision of the Central Bank of Canada, with the statutory right to charge interest for any client, including the government itself.

As consumers and as producers we therefore exchange things that are useful to us through the medium of money, but as producers we specialize, and in specialization we produce a quantity, a number of particular products of which we have very little use after we have satisfied our personal needs.

So as producers we have to sell and dispose of the rest of what we produce in exchange for a diversity of other products that other people are capable of producing, which we need as consumers. We use money in the process of exchange.

Now when a builder of a house creates a house through raw material and through his intelligence and knowledge of house building and therefore he contributed value himself to the house, the house itself is a physical asset. It has material existence. It has tangibility, mass, dimension. It is real, what we call real wealth, real physical wealth, the house.

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When he sells this house to a buyer who needs the money, he goes to a bank and the banker lends him the symbolic medium of exchange, this number, this mental creation, this value in the form of a loan, say $100,000. So the buyer pays the cheque to the seller, but the banker, who had nothing in there, had to charge him interest according to the rate of interest that he had to pay. According to the law of simple and compounding laws of money matters, that interest will multiply and, in the ultimate analysis, he will find himself paying the banker maybe twice the value of the house.

That excess has no valid basis in actual real wealth. That is pure interest, the operation of mathematics. So the banker had created income when there is no real value. When the buyer defaults, he will foreclose the mortgage and then take the house itself as owner when he has no capital interest in it in the sense of physical, material wealth, except the symbolic value of money.

The honourable member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns) says, time is money--only because it is translated into the material of physical wealth by the process of foreclosure that money symbolic becomes the house itself, and the bank becomes the owner. That is, therefore, a kind of legal mystery by which a symbolic, nonexistent medium of exchange was converted into physical wealth. So, with the complicity of the legal system, the lender of the money, who had no real value, giving to the asset itself that was exchanged, becomes the owner, and it is covetousness in the extreme sense.

(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)

By such foreclosure, we can see that the false monetary value, called money, which has no intrinsic value in itself, is converted into physical asset, the house itself.

Let me illustrate. Money by itself, you cannot eat it; it is not useful as food, but you can buy food to eat. You cannot sleep on it; it is not even large enough to contain your back, but you can buy a bed. You cannot live in money, but you can buy a house. So in itself it has no use, except as a medium of exchange, and that is what it should be. Without creating therefore and without producing corresponding physical wealth, the banking system, through the legal system, had converted by magical machination an empty, nominal asset called money into a real physical asset called real thing, real house, real car, real things that are useful to human existence.

This correspondence, this phenomenon of dealing and wheeling and exchanging with false wealth, without the corresponding physical asset, is the fulfilment of what was written in Jeremiah: From the least of them, even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.

The money creation by the charter banks, can you imagine the federal government as principal appointing and delegating to the agent the system of private banks the power to create money and then the agent itself turning around and charging the principal, from whom it gets the authority to create the money, with interest? That is what is happening.

So we ask: How did it happen then that the federal government and its deceptively independent and autonomous agent, the central Bank of Canada, supposedly the regulator of the private banking system, suddenly finds itself in debt to its own agent? In the fiscal year 1993-1994, there is $508 billion accumulated indebtedness of the federal Government of Canada to the private charter bank. At the top of this, in the fiscal year 1994-1995, there is a $42-billion annual deficit charged against the federal government and which, by the law of compounding, will be merged with the accumulated debt so that the debt will multiply faster than any revenue of the federal government.

How did it happen that way? The brief answer to this is that when the senior officials in the Department of Finance and in the Central Bank of Canada in 1975 got converted to the ideology of monetarism, they adopted a high-interest policy so that the system of private banks can collect the fastest ever producing income from interest than any other form of income in the Canadian economy. It is to favour the private banking system. But the private banking system is so greedy and so covetous it even exacted the same interest from the federal government itself, which originally had the constitutional authority to exercise the right that the private banking system had been exercising. So it is like you brought up an adopted son and then he turned around and collected all your estate and your assets for himself.

What is this monetarism that we are talking about? It is called the Chicago school of economics, spearheaded by a professor named Milton Friedman. According to this school of thought, it is the changes in the money supply that are the main determinants of prices, income and employment. It views the economy as a self-regulating, self-correcting system, so called, under the theory of the free market and that the government had no legitimacy in meddling with its operation except to control a regulated rate of growth in the money supply to avoid and prevent inflation. Just like any other ideology, this is an ideology. Ideology is like economic bigotry.

You see, interest rates in this country soared high in 1981, up to 19.3 percent, when the annual federal deficit the interest charges that the bank is charging on the national debt was then only $10 billion approximately. So, while the federal government sank deeper and deeper into debt, the private charter banks who are collecting all these interest charges, interest even against the federal government itself, are amassing greater and greater profits for which they hardly pay any income tax.

So what is happening here? This is the fulfilment of Ezekiel: Thou hast taken usury and increased it by yourself and hast greedily gained from thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord. It is an extortion in the legal sense. This is not only extortion, and where will the money be obtained otherwise? Well, the federal government has been cutting social programs. They are putting it on the back of the workers, tightening the screws on unemployment insurance, clawing back even the pensions of the senior citizen under the pretext that it is intolerable to allow this deficit to go on and grow. That is the very scheme by which the federal government itself had entered into by the arrangement that it started with the private system of chartered banks. Now, we cannot only just criticize and say that this is this, this is bad, this is that. Let us do some constructive criticism, some constructive suggestion.

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First, let the central bank itself exercise its constitutional authority, acting as the agent of the federal government, and issue the money itself with very little interest, as it had done in 1940. They issued then interest of about 1 percent only, from Treasury bills and 2.5 percent from longer term bonds. Then they were able to raise the money without getting into debt.

Second, better still, equalize the contribution of the corporate income with the individual income. Individuals are complaining about high rates of taxation. Then they should equalize it by reducing the individual portion, by tax cuts and increasing the corporate portion. The objection is that you will be taxing corporate income double way, first as corporation income and then as dividend income. The answer is already given by the Carter Tax Commission in 1966, when he suggested we should all abolish the corporate tax and whatever income comes from corporations should simply be counted as part of individual income and taxed at the same rate as any other income of the individual. In that way we avoid all these tax loopholes about a lower form of taxes because the income comes from dividends, because the income comes from private corporations, because the income comes from capital gain, because the income comes from this and from that. We abolish all those loopholes. There will be no more justification because there is not such thing as corporate income tax. Every money that comes, every profit that comes will be taxed at the same rate as individual income.

Then we should also tax huge inheritance transfer, tax the trusts that are shielded from the federal tax. We tax the winnings in gambling and lotteries and we tax on luxuries. In that way the deficit, the so-called deficit, will be paid up. The government will not incur any more debts, and it will be increasing its revenue by taxing and closing all these loopholes.

In other words, most economic issues that we quarrel about are in fact political issues. They are issues of ideology. Morality is the essence. Morality as principle is the essence of politics. Nothing really is politically correct unless it is based on ethics. Most political issues are really issues of right and wrong. Do you think it is right, for example, for the provincial government to pay back the salaries of the judges for the Filmon Fridays? Do you think it is moral when all the others have to go on without reimbursement. Why did it happen? Because they were the ones who decide things in the judiciary. They were the judges and they were deciding their own interests in their own self-interest. Shame on them.

It was written a long time ago: And then I came and I saw in the place of judgment, the court, there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness l'église there was iniquity.

In our institutions there are so many false and empty idols that we worship, that we follow to the detriment of human beings. Therefore we should not trust in material riches. That has been warned long ago. Let us not be covetous of the material things that do not last. Rather place your faith and trust in the treasures in heaven. For where you heart is, where your treasure is, there your heart shall be.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker

Ms. Norma McCormick (Osborne): Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to speak on behalf of my party in response to the Speech from the Throne. It is an interesting time when this government claims over seven budgets to have frozen major taxes and to have introduced tax cuts and incentives for individuals and small businesses to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Indeed this claim bears close scrutiny for both validity and accuracy.

First the claim that it has frozen major taxes. It appears the net effect of this approach has been the downloading of a number of formerly tax supported programs and services on to the people they were intended to assist.

It now appears that there has been a shift in priorities from public spending. The things that our taxes are now paying for are the things that benefit the government more than benefit the taxpayer. Conversely, the things that government once paid for to the benefit of individuals and families have now been passed on as direct cost to them.

There are several examples which provide a clear illustration in this shift in priorities. Even more surprisingly, they say that they are spending taxpayers' dollars smarter as a guiding principle. Well, try this for smart. When the province and the city made a commitment of over $10 million to cover the operating losses of the Winnipeg Jets, there was an immediate consequence to the hockey playing children in Winnipeg. The cost of ice rentals for games and practices in the city of Winnipeg rinks and arenas went up by 35 percent, from $69.55 to $96.30 an hour.

As a parent I am paying $3 a game for game time or practice ice. The costs have escalated to the extent that it now takes a commitment well in excess of $250 for a 12-year-old to play hockey on a minor hockey league team when you factor in the costs of registration and ice time.

While overall registrations are up, it is the younger children who are sustaining the numbers. Older children are dropping out, most likely associated with the cost. There is an $87,000 socioeconomic fund which has been established to offset the costs for families in need. The anticipated number of requests for assistance is staggering, and it is still not certain whether the requests will exceed the money available.

At a time when we are concerned with rising youth crime and vandalism, was it smart to preclude children from attending sports and recreational activities in their community? I do not think that is smart.

The requirements for parents using licensed child care in Manitoba to pay the first $2.40 of the fee has created a financial barrier to children who require care in order that their parents can go to work or to school. This combined with the capping and then the reduction of the number of child care spaces at a time when Manitoba's economy is in decline, along with fixing the number of space allocations available to subsidized and nonsubsidized families, has wreaked havoc in the child caring community. The results have been centres with empty spaces all around the province because they have lost their flexibility to meet the child care needs of families who came requesting care.

The economic circumstances of the family now becomes a priority in the selection of families. Centres have fallen on hard times, and many have been forced to cut back on staff and hours of service. I do not think this was smart, especially coming from a government who in the same speech is calling on small businesses to create new jobs necessary to the growth of our economy. What is a child care centre if it is not a small business?

I received a call yesterday from Lakeview Children's Centre who have been turned down for the operational funding for their centre, which is a celebrated model for the provision of child care in a rural community. The rejected request was for $18,000 and that amount of money stands between this centre continuing to provide a necessary service to the community of Langruth and closing its doors next year. That amount of money is less than the amount paid to the Saskatchewan sculptor for the Pooh statue for the London Zoo. Is this smart spending? I do not think so.

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By the same token the speech would have us believe that this government is concerned about children growing up in poverty. They say that the best way to support these children is if their parents have jobs. So what is wrong with this picture? Children are most often in poverty because they are attached to mothers who live in poverty. It begs an understanding of the role of women in the marketplace. To say that we can help families to become self-sufficient without addressing the issues of adequate child care and pay equity is to reinforce the male breadwinner model which has been irrelevant since the 1960s. To presume that it is the man who earns and contributes and that his wife and children will benefit by extension is not very smart. Women are most often relegated to low paying, low security, no benefit jobs. These jobs are often part time and transient. If you want to seek out innovative ways in which families with children can become self-sufficient, it necessarily means that women must be supported as mothers and as workers.

Mr. Speaker, when I spoke on the throne speech debate last session I provided what I believe is a compelling reason for a substantial increase to the minimum wage. While the Minimum Wage Board has been called, I see no evidence that this government understands that the slide into poverty for many children is directly connected with the slide in our minimum wage, from mid range to second last in the country. The wording in the minimum wage act is lost on the government. It says that the purpose of establishing a minimum wage is to provide sufficient income for the necessities of life. Why is it then that much of the rhetoric to which we have been subjected from this government blames people for being poor and looks to the business community to provide the solutions.

According to Manitoba Agriculture, it cost $9,470 a year to maintain a five-year-old child when including basic essentials only. A full-time minimum wage job nets only $9,029, less than half of the poverty line. A single mother with one child at minimum wage must work 73 hours to bring her family to the poverty line. We are now in a era of what is called family time famine. A United States demographic study has recently reported that parents are now spending less time with their children than at any time since records have begun to be kept, 60 years ago.

Is this what we want for Manitoba families? We know that the consequence of child poverty is wide-spread developmental failure. Let us start with school dropout rates. The overall school dropout rate is 18 percent, but it is more than double that for poor children.

Our caucus hosted a poverty forum in early November. One of the presenters, Sister Margaret Hughes, spoke of the impact of poverty on the educational prospects and outcomes for poor children. She related some experiences shared with her by children for whom poverty is a living reality. She talked about the transience and uncertainty that characterize the lives of young children who move from school to school and from one substandard housing situation to another. She also spoke on how the failure to meet children's basic needs for food, adequate clothing and health care interferes with regular school attendance. She talked about the terrible consequence of powerlessness and lack of control which influence the outlook of many poor children. She reminded us that what we hear depends on whom we choose to listen to.

Whom does this government choose to listen to? We know that poor children are more likely to experience chronic health problems, that they have more mental health problems, including psychiatric disorders and suicides. They more commonly develop conduct disorders which give rise to higher rates for poor children of youth crime and violence.

The rate for psychiatric disorders among children and adolescents is 18.1 according to studies done in Ontario and Quebec. The rate for adolescent suicide in male adolescents is four times the rate of that 30 years ago. The rates for suicide in young boys aged 10 to 14 has more than doubled.

The incidence of serious aggression by three-year-olds, estimated at 22 percent, is three times more than that reported in a comparable study done 20 years ago. How much higher are these numbers in Manitoba, given that Manitoba has 33 percent of its children below the age of seven living in poverty, and 60 percent or more of single-mother-led families also live in poverty?

The Canadian poverty rate is now 18.9, up from 15.2 percent in 1981. To put this into perspective, Manitoba has the highest child poverty rate in Canada, an actual rate of 27 percent for all children. Canada has the second highest poverty rate for all western capitalist nations.

In presenting to the Standing Committee on Income Security Reform, Dr. Paul Steinhauer presented on behalf of the Coalition on Children and Families, and he stated that widespread developmental failure is blighting the future of between 20 and 40 percent of Canadian children.

So why are Manitoba's children so poor? The government would have us believe that it is because their parents are not working. Well, only 30 percent of poverty-stricken families have no parent working. In 40 percent of these families, a parent has worked full time for the past 30 weeks or more.

So how is it that this government is compelled to use the argument of international competition as an argument to keep wages low when this policy hurts families the most?

I find it interesting that a recurring theme in the throne speech is the goal of jobs and greater economic security, but no mention is given of the need to identify and address the barriers faced by unemployed and underemployed women and young people who are the victims of this government's shortsightedness and ineptitude.

The throne speech lauds a scholarship award program to enable women to attend nontraditional programs geared toward disciplines in math and sciences. What is the allure of nontraditional employment for women? Obviously, it is nothing more than the money.

We still cling tenaciously to a belief that if a man does a job, it must be worth more than if a woman does it. Why should we encourage a woman to become a welder, a machinist or a carpenter if not for the possibility of earning a living wage? Each of these jobs pays in excess of $40,000. In doing so, we must therefore discourage women from training to become early childhood educators because they cannot earn a decent living by doing so. The average salary paid to child care workers is less than half of a trades job. Is that smart?

The throne speech makes reference to the expansion of second-stage housing initiatives to support women as they seek to flee abusive relationships. In April of 1994, the Manitoba Association of Women's Shelters cited a marked increase in the number of women seeking refuge at women's shelters as a direct result of gambling addiction. The Manitoba Addictions Foundation's own statistics at the time showed that 75.3 percent of callers to the addiction hotline reported problems with family and spouse. The Addictions Foundation has declined to give our caucus an update on those statistics. In April the Lotteries minister stated that there had not been adequate research done on the subject. We need to know why no research has been done into the relationship between the number of women seeking refuge in women's shelters as a result of spousal gambling addiction.

We are extremely shortsighted if we only look at the revenue side of lottery and gaming and do not look at the social cost. But this government seems capable only of savouring the bonanza and looks forward to the day when they can balance their budget on the revenues from hopelessness and human misery.

So now after seven years of deficit budgets, this government announced that it will introduce balanced budget legislation. We need to examine how this is to be achieved and who will pay the price. We know that the lotteries revenues annually contribute roughly $200 million to provincial coffers. Balanced budget legislation is worthy of support only if there is a balance in how it is achieved. The throne speech is talking about controlling government spending by eliminating duplication and overlap, but there is no mention of waste or folly.

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Since being elected, I have identified many illustrations of waste and folly in government spending. The most blatant example is the obscene squandering of public resources in a blind commitment to the Manitoba Hazardous Waste Management Corporation. I note with interest that the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) announced to his constituency on the occasion of the opening of the soils remediation facility at the Manitoba Environmental Centre that the next phase, namely the construction of the physical chemical treatment plant, was scheduled to begin soon and that the facility would be operational in 1995. Given that over $18 million has been spent to date on the siting of the Manitoba environmental facility and the creation of a hazardous waste management system, with emphasis on managing and reducing waste at source that it has become clear that this mandate has been abandoned as the senior technical resources were released from the employ of the corporation. The corporation abandonment occurred without consultation with the public or the Legislature who have authorized considerable expenditure of public money. As well, these and other activities call into question the competence and commitment of those who were put in place to manage the facility.

The appointment of the chair of the board to also serve as the chief executive officer was supposed to be a temporary measure by the corporation transition to an operating company partially owned by the private sector. This activity went on for a very long time with no results. The futile search for a private-sector investor to construct the waste treatment plant in the municipality of Montcalm reportedly continues, I presume, to protect the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) from political embarrassment despite the decision by the Ontario Waste Management Association not to build. They cited reasons for their decision in that there is an excess of capability in treatment plants all over North America. The Alberta government has opened its borders to the importation of hazardous waste from other jurisdictions in an attempt to get the Swan Hills Waste treatment plant into a viable position.

Why then does this government insist on sinking more than the $18.3 million already advanced through the Loan Act appropriation to keep this Crown corporation going? How does this fit with the stated intention to spend smarter? Who benefits from perpetuating this boondoggle? Well, it is clear that the public has not benefited. The big winners are the chairman of the board and the former general manager who together have cost the taxpayers of Manitoba over $200,000 a year for management services which previously cost the corporation about $107,000.

For the services of Don Vernon the cost to the corporation from January, 1993, to July 29, 1994, was $143,276.77. He received $29,176 as chairperson and $114,000 as chief executive officer. This is exclusive of his expenses. His expenses include a lot of wining and dining at public expense, including one dinner which cost the taxpayers of Manitoba $726. A person who works on minimum wage would have to work a month to pay for this dinner.

The general manager was hired on a contract basis effective July 27, 1993, at an annual salary of $115,000. This employment contract was withdrawn when the Crown Corporation Council determined that it had provided for a level of compensation that was higher than the Crown corporation's guidelines for which a salary of $85,000 was approved. This man was then paid on a consultant basis $50 an hour to a numbered company. From November 27, 1993, until July 31, 1994, a total of 31 weeks, he was paid $76,025 at the rate of $50 an hour. Based on an annual salary of $115 for 31 weeks, he would have been paid $70,769. This means that in response to the Crown corporation's concern the problem was not solved but only exacerbated. Annualizing the 31-week cost to a 52-week year makes for an annual salary of $127,525. His expenses for the 31-week period were an additional $7,041. Is this what they call spending smarter?

It appears from the reference in the throne speech that in Manitoba we have finally got the Manitoba government's attention on the broad general failure of the maintenance enforcement system to meet its mission. The consequence of this failure includes widespread child and family poverty in Manitoba, and the public bears the cost of this failure through its social programs.

As the government promotes its principle of spending smarter a necessary part of these efforts must be to reinforce the responsibility of parents following marriage breakdown to ensure that these relationships are adequately and consistently provided for so families are not forced into using other social assistance and income support programs.

Custodial parents do not want to be made to rely on food banks, clothing exchanges or shelter allowances to provide for our children. We are asking for a system which will ensure that court ordered child support payments are guaranteed so that families can raise their children free of the burden of poverty and the obligation to use scarce resources of time, money and energy to receive what the courts have ordered should be paid to children.

Our experience tells us that the maintenance enforcement system is not working as intended for a variety of reasons. Staff are overloaded and too much time and resources are spent by the Maintenance Enforcement Program defending the inadequacies of the system and not enough time pursuing delinquent parents.

The problems are extensive and varied. We have provided this government with a listing of the problem areas and suggest solutions as a way to assist the Department of Justice to improve this program. The problem-solving process cannot begin until there is a complete and public discussion of the problems we have encountered.

We have met with officials of the Family Law department and the Maintenance Enforcement Program in September, but we were told there is to be no public report produced or any vetting of the recommendations for reform to be made to the minister. We called for a public inquiry into the operation of the Maintenance Enforcement Program, but to this date this request has been ignored.

Wilful default is a common situation which the Manitoba Maintenance Enforcement Program appears to be powerless to address. It is estimated that 63 percent of women receive the full amount of their child support payments, 14 percent receive part of them and 23 percent receive nothing.

In Manitoba, we estimate the default rate at 75 percent when we include no payments, late payments and partial payments. It is a widely held belief that unemployment is a significant contributor on default of child support. It is interesting to note that a recent study found that of those payers who defaulted on their payments 83 percent were employed.

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I find it amazing that custodial parents always seem to be able to find work, often at more than one job to support their children while defaulting payers get away with quitting jobs and going on social assistance as a way of avoiding paying child support.

We have identified countless situations in which noncustodial parents have done this. To curb this practice, I recommend that at least some portion of social assistance benefit be garnished for child support. We believe that payers will be more likely to seek gainful employment if they were garnished anyway.

Either the Maintenance Enforcement Program is not effectively using the power at its disposal or more powers need to be given to it. The Maintenance Enforcement system is not providing the cost-free advocacy alternative for parents that it was once intended to be. If a custodial parent wants any meaningful action, it is still necessary to hire a lawyer and go to the courts. This is both expensive and time consuming. Many custodial parents cannot afford to go to a court to ensure that orders are enforced or to argue against variance applications.

If any good comes of it, it is likely that the lawyers and not the family sees the benefit. On Thursday I will be introducing Bill 200, an act to amend The Family Maintenance Act. This bill contains some amendments which, if implemented, will improve the government's programs administration and the collection rate to the benefit of custodial parents and their children.

I have also prepared for this session a bill to amend section 19 of The Child and Family Services Act, which deals with the Child Abuse Registry. The government's proposal to broaden the definition in the act to include third party assaults on children is unlikely to be of any benefit to the cause of offering greater protection to children unless additional steps are taken.

In order for this expanded listing to protect children, it will be necessary to amend Section 19(3) to broaden the list of people who can have access to the names on the registry. At this time, parents cannot determine if those people to whom they entrust their children for leisure and sports activities are on the list or not.

There was a person in Manitoba who was convicted of molesting children as he was the director of a children's performing arts organization. He was released from jail. He changed his name. He set up as an owner/operator of a similar organization, also with children as its focus. Because he is not an employer but rather is self-employed, it is certain that no one would have access to the registry to determine the presence of his name. Under the old definition, as he was not defined as being in care custody or control of the children in the performing arts program, he was not registered on the registry. Even with a new regime, two problems still exist: One is that he can change his name to avoid identification; and two, the parents who sign their kids up for his programs cannot access the registry.

There are serious gaps which must be closed. To do so, it will also be necessary to require Vital Statistics to inform the registry when a change of name is requested and approved. During my tenure as Chair of the Child Abuse Registry review committee, we learned of a situation in which a teacher convicted of assaults on children simply changed his name and again secured employment, under his new name, working with children.

To my knowledge, nothing has yet been put in place to require Vital Statistics to report approved change-of-name applications to the registry or to require registry staff to check with the Gazette for applications on behalf of people who are currently on the registry.

Before closing, I would like to turn to the last section of the throne speech to raise my concerns about environmental protection. It seems that each time this government talks about protecting the environment, it adds the qualifier that we are doing so to protect their ability to contribute to the well-being of Manitobans. What scares many environmentally concerned people is what this government means by contributing to the well-being of Manitobans. We are aware that while there is a stated commitment to co-operating with the federal government on the creation of new national parks, we cannot get any assurance that the scientific criteria will be applied to ensure that those areas worthy of protection from a resource extraction and development are in fact protected.

As well, I note that the government trumpets the publication of the 1995 State of the Environment Report. Those who have seen preliminary drafts are warning that the real environmental issues facing this province are not being identified and addressed. There is, again, no comparative data by which we can track our progress toward environmental protection, and this report is doomed like the last one to be just another public relations whitewash. The great tragedy is that this meets neither the spirit nor the intent of the provisions of The Environment Act.

In closing, it must be stated that it must be an intention to spend differently, not just to spend smarter. I am sure that we can find many, many excesses in government operations. To accomplish this it will be necessary to establish different priorities and to restructure spending to take the resources and assign them to meet people's needs in more appropriate ways. There is a compulsion to get expenditures down. While I do not disagree with this objective, I will stand by the belief that it cannot be at the expense of women and children who historically have borne the brunt of fiscal restraint.

Thank you.

Mr. Gerry McAlpine (Sturgeon Creek): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House to comment on the government's throne speech. I know that all honourable members are pleased to have your guidance and wisdom once again in the Speaker's Chair, and I would like to welcome the honourable members back to the Legislature at this time. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to the new Pages. I know that you will learn a great deal during your time in this Chamber, and I hope it is also enjoyable.

Mr. Speaker, this throne speech is straightforward and clear, and it is not a departure from the plan of action that this government put forward in 1990. We want to provide jobs and economic security for all Manitobans. The question is, how do we achieve that goal? Well, the answer is contained in the throne speech, a clear blueprint for the future of Manitoba.

This government has an excellent record in dealing with the economic challenges that it faced not only in our province but our country and every other country. Not only have we faced that challenge, we have been able to accomplish a great deal in Manitoba. We have weathered the recession. We have had to struggle with the legacy of debt left behind by the NDP mismanagement. We have worked diligently to bring spending in line while preserving and enhancing our key social programs. It has not been an easy task, but we have been able to prevent Manitoba from suffering the major cuts that other provinces have delivered.

We also recognize the role of government, that government is changing and there cannot and should not be a special department for every conceivable aspect of society. Our government has recognized that governments must spend smarter, not just spend more money. I know that spending smarter does not meet with the approval of the many special interest groups who really do not mind if governments run deficits, just as long as they get their money. Mr. Speaker, those days are gone.

Government efficiencies and spending are not partisan issues. If you talk to a Liberal and NDP governments across this country, you will find that even they are realizing that they must finally be accountable to the people.

I am pleased that our throne speech has outlined this government's plan to introduce balanced budget legislation. Perhaps if the Pawley administration had similar legislation in place we would not have faced such horrendous interest charges for the past several years. We have had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in interest charges because of the lavish spending of the NDP. They spent like they had someone else's gold card, and I am glad it was not mine, not caring who would have had to pay the bills when they came in.

Mr. Speaker, we have had to take responsibility for their inept and irresponsible spending and management blunders. We have to look after their mistakes for the sake of our children. Balanced budget legislation is like putting a spending limit on the NDP's credit card to protect us in future from those who do not know how to manage their money. We can no longer afford to issue blank cheques on our future.

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There are many other plans in the throne speech that form a comprehensive plan for the building on our strong economic foundation. The introduction of new initiatives to encourage growth of all forms of small business, including a new pooled investment fund, will open up tremendous new opportunities. Manitoba has an incredible entrepreneurial spirit and a wealth of business knowledge. These initiatives will help bring investors together with those people who offer a solid business plan. Together they will be able to create jobs, wealth and opportunities. Funds to help existing small business with their expansion plans will help meet growing demands for Manitoba products. At the same time, it will allow those small- and medium-sized businesses to hire new people to expand their workforces to meet their future needs.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see the vision of my colleagues in this government has been reflected in other plans. By continuing to target strategic sectors in the partnership with the private sector we will seek out new markets and opportunities for Manitoba.

Another sustainable growth industry is in our tourism sector. I know that the honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) feels strongly about this issue. The minister recently took a proactive stand and visited Japan for a trade mission that has the potential to open new doors for Manitoba tourism. The Japanese are excited about some of the wonderful things Manitoba has to offer. By seeking out new tourists and developing strong links we already have with the United States and some European countries, we are confident that the tourism industry will double its revenues to approximately $2 billion by the year 2000.

Mr. Speaker, we are also prepared to usher in a new era in communications and business with the information highway. It will help increase the competitiveness of Manitoba firms and make Manitoba even more attractive for businesses looking for a new home.

The reason is clear. The information highway means that markets are just a telephone call, fax or a computer hook-up away. With Manitoba's central location, high quality of life and low cost of living, that makes our province even more attractive to companies who want a central location for their operations. Those qualities coupled with the introduction of initiatives to enhance Winnipeg as a world-class transportation and distribution hub, will create even more opportunities and jobs.

When we discuss those opportunities for jobs we must also look at this government's plan to work with the professionals in the education system to make it more relevant for the future. Our goal, again, is clear. We want to ensure that our children will be able to read, write, compute, problem solve and have the necessary skills to successfully compete in the future. We can accomplish this by following the comprehensive plan and goals outlined in the education blueprint. One of the new initiatives is to amend legislation to give teachers more power to preserve order in the classroom and give schools increased authority to address school violence. We must work together to make sure that students have an excellent environment in which to learn and that teachers have the proper environment to teach our children.

In the new year this government will hold a second parents forum on education to give parents a greater voice in the operations of schools. The first forum was an excellent beginning, and this government feels that another forum will enhance the consultation process that parents have asked us to continue. I know that many schools now have a parents' council. Our government has announced clear new guidelines for parents and schools to make the role of these councils even more meaningful than it has been in the past. In addition, I am pleased that the throne speech announced that teachers will be invited to participate in the forum designed to get feedback from those who are on the front line in our education system.

Part of the overall plan to renew our education system for the 21st Century will include work with the other western provinces and territories to develop a common core curriculum. We must ensure that the fundamental skills are taught and that there is some standardization in education throughout the region. We will continue with measures to accurately measure student performance. Each student must know how he or she is doing and must have a realistic benchmark to measure those skills.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the area of justice and what this government is doing to ensure that Manitobans can feel safe and secure on the streets and in their homes. This government, along with the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey), has continued to press the federal government to strengthen the Young Offenders Act and to deal with those young people who commit crimes. We have taken action here in Manitoba by removing the driving privileges for those convicted of stealing vehicles.

We have also developed a made-in-Manitoba approach of dealing with incarceration for serious and repeat young offenders. No longer will they be going to summer camp for vacation. They will find their way to one of the young offenders institutions such as the wilderness camps for vigorous training and rehabilitation. Unlike some members opposite who feel that all that everybody needs is a hug, we believe that criminals must be held accountable for their actions. This is what my constituents have been telling me and continue to tell me, that we are on the right track on this issue. A robbery or an assault is just as traumatic for the victim whether the criminal is middle-aged or just a teenager. The bottom line is that those who commit serious offences must be held accountable.

I fully support this government's plan to take steps to ensure that victims of stalkers are notified in the event the accused escapes custody or is released on bail. We will take the appropriate steps to ensure the system is more responsive to the needs of the victims.

I am also pleased with the plan to develop initiatives to permit the public to be notified if there are dangerous sexual offenders in the community. The development of initiatives to permit expanded services for crime victims is also welcome news to the people of Manitoba who have been victims of crime. We will work to protect Manitobans who suffer through no fault of their own.

Another issue, I am also pleased to see that legislation will be introduced to ensure Manitobans who assume a mortgage when they buy a home accept full financial responsibility for that mortgage. That way the bank or financial institution cannot go back to the previous homeowner to collect if the new homeowner defaults.

The institution should be responsible to determine if the person who assumes the mortgage can afford to do so. Once the institution agrees they should then live with that decision.

Mr. Speaker, the area of health care is one that causes a great deal of concern for Manitobans. This government has been consistent in its goal to not only preserve a vital social program but to enhance it by meeting the challenging needs of society. It takes a great deal of foresight to face that challenge and to slowly shift the system to one based on community care rather than the institutionalized health care system.

Our goal is to ensure that Manitoba's health care system continues to be the highest quality and accessible to all Manitobans.

We will achieve that through a better balance between community-based health care and institutional services. That means focusing on the most critical areas of health care needs and enhancing services aimed at the most vulnerable Manitobans.

I am pleased that the Home Care program will be strengthened to better meet the needs of seniors, the disabled and those who are discharged from hospitals.

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We must also reinvest resources from institutions into community health services such as health and wellness centres and the introduction of community nurse resource centres.

We will also work with health care professionals to reduce overlap and duplication and abuse of medical services.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn my attention to the constituency that I represent, Sturgeon Creek. Last week I was pleased that the Health minister announced support for the low-cost housing for residents of the Kiwanis Courts. As you may know, there has been a great deal of uncertainty there in recent months, but I believe it is this government's actions that will help solve an ongoing communication problem at the facility. I must say, it has been extremely difficult for residents to get information about the future plans for the facility.

That is why this government appointed a facilitator to look at the issue from the perspective of Kiwanis and from that of the residents in the community. I want to commend Ron MacIntosh for his hard work and his efforts to work with both sides on this issue. Mr. MacIntosh was appointed as the facilitator because this government wanted to ensure that the wishes of the residents are considered in any development plans. I also know that the minister has committed to be a significant partner in the cost of suitable renovations for the affordable housing units. The minister has also pledged the assistance of experts in the capital planning department to help develop for this facility.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all the people of Sturgeon Creek, I want to thank this minister and my government for this concern and their support. This is a sign of a government that is responsive and caring about the needs of Manitobans. We could not sit idly by while decisions were being made that will affect this community. The Premier, the Minister of Health and many of my colleagues in the government visited the facility this past summer. We met with residents there and saw how important that facility is to them and to the community which is something that I have known all along.

This government has made the task of being the MLA for Sturgeon Creek much easier because this is a government that is concerned about communities. Being in government is not just sitting in the Chamber at the Legislature. It is about being a part of the community and understanding the issues that are affecting Manitobans. Our government clearly demonstrates that understanding and commitment.

Mr. Speaker, there is currently an issue facing my community that affects the rest of the city of Winnipeg and the entire province. It is an issue that I ask all members of this House to come together to fight. The federal government has released a white paper on defence which could result in major cuts at CFB Winnipeg and the Air Command headquarters. I wrote last month to federal Defence minister David Collenette asking for an assurance that military operations here will be maintained. To date I have not received a response.

I ask all members of this House to take an active role with me in fighting the possible job losses and economic problems this plan would create. As a matter of fact, I have a resolution on the Order Paper, No. 70, dealing with this issue. I will ask leave of the House at the appropriate time, Mr. Speaker, to bring this matter forward for debate. This government will stand up to the federal government in areas where we disagree. This is obviously one of those issues. We cannot afford the loss of the thousands of jobs and the $122 million CFB Winnipeg and Air Command headquarters inject into our economy each year through spending and salaries. We must also work together to ensure that the federal government considers extensive and effective infrastructure that is already in place in Manitoba and in Portage la Prairie where my colleague the honourable member for Portage (Mr. Pallister) has equal concerns.

The Air Command headquarters has its state of the art complex here. Its facilities are in a prime location in central Canada. Operations in the Gulf War and overseas have been directed from these headquarters. We have already seen the federal government move to centralize other services in Winnipeg because of the low low cost factor and this excellent location. Any decision to move these facilities or part of the operations to the East would be a serious error. It would also fail to accomplish any improvement in efficiency or any perceived savings.

We need only to look at the federal Auditor General's report about the closure of CFB Portage. That move failed to even come close to the savings that the former government had predicted.

I want to thank the Premier (Mr. Filmon) and the Leader of the official opposition for their remarks to CKND TV on the six o'clock news last Friday evening.

The Leader of the official opposition's comments were: We are very concerned about the Air Command here in Manitoba.

Our Premier, a sentence from his remarks: We are obviously a key strategic location in central Canada. That made it a good place to set up Air Command to begin with and centralizing it in Ottawa would make no sense.

I said, as the MLA for Sturgeon Creek: Cuts there would take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the economy and make no strategic sense.

The Leader of the Liberal Party said: Restructuring our defense system, that is what they are doing; restructuring the federal government is what is going on, and frankly the Canadian people are supporting it. I cannot believe it.

Mr. Speaker, in the time remaining I want to examine what the two opposition parties have put forward in their alternative throne speeches. I applaud the Leaders of both parties for finally saying what they stand for instead of what they are against. I believe their policy statements are flawed.

The Liberal Leader says he will focus on families. That is certainly an admirable idea. When you take a look at how he would fund those programs you see a lack of leadership and understanding of fiscal management. The Liberals propose to pay for the items from possible one-time savings from other areas, and there is no planning for the cost of maintaining ongoing programs.

This appears to be voodoo economics, but I believe it really shows that the Liberals are inexperienced and have no real idea about how to run a government. They seem to take their orders from one Lloyd Axworthy and their federal cousins. They have no plans of their own. I must say that this is not surprising, considering that the Liberals have also failed to show any backbone when it comes to dealing with their federal cousins.

Time and time again they have remained silent while their federal counterparts have made decisions that affect Manitobans. The Leader is conspicuous by his silence. Whenever we have heard the provincial Liberals recently all we hear is what Lloyd Axworthy wants them to say. Manitobans will not accept that from their elected members. They expect them to do what is right for Manitoba and to stand up for Manitobans. Instead, we have seen a party that is more interested in pleasing their federal cousins than serving their neighbours.

Just yesterday in this Chamber, for other honourable members to hear, Mr. Speaker, I was shocked. The member for Inkster said to me that if it were not for them, that I would not have been as successful in getting the Kiwanis Courts project resolved, something that I have been working on for a long time.

The member knows very well that his party did nothing. We saw none of their input into this solution. All they did was lurk around the community looking for political opportunities to happen. This has been typical of the member for Inkster's party. They do nothing, and when someone does something good, they lurk around and then try to take credit for it. The people of Sturgeon Creek are on to this.

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Just like his Liberal Leader, when I participated in the opening of the postal outlet at the Courts of St. James, which I worked on for over two and a half years. The Liberal Leader showed up for the official opening, but the funny part of it was, he was about 20 minutes late. They made no contribution, but came to try to claim some credit for the opening of the postal outlet. The people know, and they saw for themselves. They saw this lurking and the stalking in the mall, looking for any credit they could get by just showing up.

The funny part of this was, when they could not make a showing at the official opening, they had John Harvard stage another one the following week in typical Liberal fashion.

I want to give all my Liberal friends advance notice, as you will no doubt find out anyway, the Salvation Army has asked me to participate and lead their carol sing this coming Saturday. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, should I expect the Liberal Leader and his friend John Harvard to try to ride on other people's efforts again? Well, let us wait and see. So stay tuned. This is all people can expect from the provincial Liberals.

The New Democrats, on the other hand, have had some experience in running the government, but most of their experience is in running the province into huge debt loads and increased taxes. The New Democrats want to return to the days of big governments. They want to be all things to all people, and it is that very philosophy that failed during the mid-1980s.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that this government has worked hard to ensure Manitobans are well represented. We have worked in their best interest by creating an environment that attracts businesses, jobs and economic benefits for everyone.

The people of Sturgeon Creek have recognized that I have made an effort to reach out to them through consultation and at public events such as barbecues, information nights and coffee parties. That way I am apprised of issues that are of concern to my community, and I will continue to do that. That is my pledge to the people of Sturgeon Creek as their elected representative in this government.

In speaking to the constituents of Sturgeon Creek, though, I would remind them that what makes good government is good leadership. When we have a government in a different legislation talking about separation of this great country of ours, and when we talk about leadership which we are going to need desperately--I believe in this Chamber we have only one Leader--[interjection] My Leader, as referenced so eloquently by the honourable member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns).

Manitobans and Canadians need leadership like Premier Filmon, not the alternatives that we see with the other two parties across the way. These are serious and challenging times. Sturgeon Creek and all Manitobans deserve continued and committed leadership our Premier has and will continue to provide for another five years.

I urge all residents of Sturgeon Creek, all Manitobans, all Canadians to support here what we are advocating. We cannot afford the alternatives across the way. I, again, want to thank the people of Sturgeon Creek for allowing me the privilege to be their representative and to look forward to another four more years. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. John Plohman (Dauphin): Mr. Speaker, my voice has given way over the last 13-14 years. It is not quite as strong as it used to be 13 or 14 years ago, so now I am not going to try to overpower these frightened Tories as they face the next election. I think instead I will be more persuasive in a rather quiet way, changing now. It is never too late. I am sure the Conservatives opposite are thinking about the changes that are going to occur in their lives in the next little while as well.

This is my 14th throne speech contribution. Over those years, I think if I look back I have given a lot of very good advice to this government over the last six and a half years. I also did a tremendous job of defending very solid throne speeches during the time that the Pawley government was in government in this province.

However, over the last 14 years I have learned a great deal I think about the political system. It is not a perfect system that we have in this province and in this country. [interjection] No, it is not. The member for Pembina says it is perfect. It is not. I guess he feels like it is perfect when he is in government, but certainly it is flawed. There is a lot of power in the hands of a government, but there is some balance with opposition. I guess the system is the best that we can offer.

I think the best government we had out of these Conservatives of course was the minority government that we had from 1988-1990. Since that time they have gone steadily downhill.

I want to first, Mr. Speaker, take this opportunity to congratulate the Pages who have been named to serve in this Chamber for this session, however short it may be. Over the time that I have been here for 13 years I have seen a lot of Pages, and I am sure they have benefited a great deal from this experience. Although I am not sure that they have always come away from the system, from having served in this Chamber, more respectful of the political process than when they first arrived.

I also had the privilege to meet one of the Pages who sits here today, Jeff Browaty, who is a student at River East Collegiate. When I was substituting there last month, we had a good discussion on some issues at that time. I was very impressed with Jeff. I remembered him very well. Actually, as a substitute teacher in various schools throughout the city of Winnipeg over those periods of months, it is somewhat unusual that one student would stand out. Jeff was leading discussion on political issues that day.

I also want to congratulate all of my colleagues who have served so well in opposition over the last number of years. I have been fortunate over the past 13 years to serve the people of the Dauphin constituency with very able colleagues, both in government and in opposition, for the last six and one-half years. The experience has been a privilege that is reserved for very few people in our province.

I understand and realize that I have had a unique privilege to serve in that capacity over the last 13 years. I would be the first to say that I will miss the Chamber and the involvement that I have had over the last 13 years in this Chamber sparring with the members of the Conservatives in government and in opposition, and I have enjoyed that experience a great deal. However, I also think that it is the right time for me to make a major move in my career out of politics at this particular time.

In my mid-forties, I feel if I was to wait another term into 51, 52, I do not believe that I could successfully make a transition into another career at that time as well as I could at this particular time in my life.

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Once you get into your fifties--and all those old guys across the way, and I do not mean that in a negative way, when they reflect that once they hit their fifties they realize it does make it difficult. Now I know that some of them are still in their forties. That is great. I have a lot of kinship with them. I think that perhaps they inadvertently will be making a career change. They just do not know it right now. I fortunately have the benefit of knowing that I am making a career change. Mine is by choice. Theirs will undoubtedly befall them in the next number of months.

Now where was I? Mr. Speaker, 14 years ago--I never said this was going to be a high road speech. Now this is the Minister of Education (Mr. Manness) talking about a high road speech. I never said that. That would be totally out of character. I said I was not going to talk as loudly. Oh, pardon me.

Now 14 years ago, Mr. Speaker, we were in the middle of a recession. When I received the nomination in April of 1981, I felt that the government of the Sterling Lyon government of the day--and we had one member here, the member for Pembina (Mr. Orchard), who was part of that government led by Premier Lyon at that time, and the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns) was also part of that government, he said proudly. I do not know why the member would want to own up to that, because at that time the Conservative government was leading this province into recession ahead of the rest of Canada.

I saw the hardships. I really did see the hardships that were occurring on people at that time. I thought that government could do better instead of sitting back and contributing to the recession, waiting for it to be over. In fact, the government could take an activist role and make things better for a lot of people who needed help at that time. We did a lot of good things in this province during the Pawley government years from 1981 to 1987.

Now the members opposite even remember the Jobs Fund. They know what a significant impact it had on employment in this province. We had the lowest unemployment rate in the country during those years, something they do not like to talk about, Mr. Speaker. We had the highest private investment, not public investment from government. Although we had a high public investment, we also had the highest private investment of any province in the country. We had record housing starts during that time. All the economic indicators pointed to a booming economy, and that happened and got us out of the recession because of the actions of the Pawley government. So we did a great deal for this province, a lot that I was very proud of during that time.

Now we have come full circle. I guess people looking at the system now would see a government making even deeper cuts, a more punitive approach to government. That will prompt a lot of potential candidates to come forward in opposition to replace this government. That will happen, Mr. Speaker, within the next number of months. We are seeing a replay of what was happening in the late '70s and early '80s under the Sterling Lyon government.

I remember the "do not stop us now" ads. I think they are going to recycle those, and we are sitting on a gold mine. Now it is a diamond mine. The member for Pembina (Mr. Orchard) has his own diamond mine, except things have not really borne out too well on those diamonds. I do not know now. Do you think there is a chance that we are going to get some of those diamonds in Manitoba? I know the member for Pembina has been telling people that. I do not know. Do you think we can believe him on this one? He did pretty well on health care, did he not? Connie Curran--I wonder if he has hired an American consultant to do a little exploration work for diamonds in this province.

Mr. Speaker, in my first speech 13 years ago in this House, I talked about how I got into politics and I just go from memory. I did not go back into the library and research it. I was going to do that. I recall that I mentioned, there were two people mainly responsible for my wanting to get into politics. Sterling Lyon was one of them, for obvious reasons, and Ed Schreyer was another one for other reasons quite different. Now, the member for Pembina picks up very quickly on this. Those were two people who had a great impact on my wanting to get into politics.

Well, I think we accomplished, as I said, as a minister I remember some of the highlights as Minister of Highways and Transportation, the work that we did on Churchill at that time. It was actually very unfortunate that this government did not build on the progress that was made during the time that we were in government when we had exports of grain that were much higher than we have had during the Tory years.

I remember the member for Pembina, as a matter of fact, his only comment that he could make when we were travelling to Frobisher Bay with the Lloyds of London people to show them there was absolutely no ice anywhere in sight over the Hudson Strait during the month of September, the member for Pembina said that we were on a junket, a junket to Frobisher Bay. I would like to talk about some of his junkets since that time, Mr. Speaker. We chose our junkets wisely I guess in those days.

Point of Order

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Minister of Energy and Mines, are you up on a point of order, sir?

Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Energy and Mines): On a point of order, I wonder if my honourable friend could indicate the name of the photographer on that junket.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable minister indeed does not have a point of order.

* * *

Mr. Plohman: Mr. Speaker, another profound interjection by the member for Pembina.

What we did have, Mr. Speaker, were the underwriters from Lloyds of London, and it was a really memorable experience for them, because in fact when they saw, and they were looking with their binoculars and cameras and movie cameras as well, as the member for Pembina has noted, they were looking for ice wherever they could look. There was no ice anywhere in sight. It was the hot spot in Canada, Churchill was, when we landed there that day. It had a major impact on them. As a matter of fact, the Churchill clause was changed and the insurance rates were dropped considerably as a result of that effort.

I thought that was a major accomplishment and I felt extremely happy about what happened. However, the Tory government that came after us did not capitalize on the work that was done during that period of time. We also had a Churchill agreement which was unprecedented up to that point in time, which made a lot of improvements in the area at the port and for the town of Churchill.

I think the other area that we made major progress on was the national highway concept, which I have to say this government has followed along with, although money was not forthcoming by the Mulroney government for some time even though they collect so much in federal taxation from gasoline and do not contribute to the highway system in a uniform way across this province, across the country. It goes to Quebec. It goes to perhaps Atlantic provinces, but it never seems to come to Manitoba.

The National Safety Code was something that was put in place with funding from the federal government which was a major accomplishment at that time. Helmet and seat belt legislation were brought in during that time as well. The member for Morris (Mr. Manness) tried to bring his reports in and refute the statistical information that we had. But clearly that has been a success and has saved countless lives in this province over the last 10 or 12 years; funding for municipal bridges that was put in place in a deteriorating bridge system in rural Manitoba and rural economic stimulation and job creation. There certainly was a lot accomplished during that period of time.

The members opposite want me to take a good 10 minutes of my speech dealing with another issue that they know is very solidly based, but I will not get into that at this time because of the time restraints that I have. Suffice to say that municipal councils from the area around Selkirk, including the town of Selkirk, have always supported the very important infrastructure that was put in place north of Selkirk called the North of Selkirk bridge. It was a very successful project for that area, and they are very, very pleased about it.

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the people of my constituency. Over the last 13 years, I have met many people in all of the communities that I have served in the Dauphin constituency. For the first 10 years or so, that constituency included the town of Ethelbert, Fork River, Winnipegosis, that have now become part of the Swan River constituency. My colleague the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) has had the privilege of working with the people in that area.

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I have always enjoyed all of the people in those communities, as well Garland, as well as Ethelbert, Winnipegosis and Fork River, and it was a great loss to the Dauphin constituency when they became part of the Swan River constituency. We had a very successful working relationship, and I think one of the most important things that assisted me was that I worked with the councils, met with them on a regular basis, held regular public accountability sessions, public meetings. I think these are very important initiatives for any rural MLA to in fact undertake because by doing that I was able to keep in touch with those communities, and it served me well throughout the time that I was elected there.

Also after the 1990 election, the communities of Grandview, Gilbert Plains, Pleasant Valley, Ashville, joined the Dauphin constituency. I would like to thank the people in those communities as well as the Valley River Reserve for their support and, Mr. Speaker, the people of Dauphin itself and Ochre River and Sifton which have remained part of the Dauphin constituency even with realignment. In both cases, those communities were part of the Dauphin constituency. I have to mention Waterhen, Meadow Portage, Mallard, the Waterhen Reserve, all part of the Dauphin constituency for the past 13 years.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all those people for their support during that time. I had the privilege of representing very solid, hard-working people who are endeavouring to do their best for their communities and for the children. They counted on their MLA a great deal and we worked together in harmony. I think that was a real privilege. I really have enjoyed and feel blessed that I have had that opportunity to work with the people of the Dauphin constituency.

Now I think the Conservatives and Liberals have recognized that the Dauphin constituency is no longer a swing seat. The Dauphin constituency is an NDP seat. I feel proud that has happened since 1981 when it was viewed as a swing seat. I know that it will continue to be held by a New Democrat after the next election with our new candidate Stan Struthers having been nominated. Stan Struthers was, as many will know, the federal candidate for the New Democratic Party in the last election, and he will be representing the Dauphin constituency as the MLA for Dauphin after the next election.

I know the Conservatives across the way regret the fact that they were so punitive in their treatment of the people of Dauphin after the 1990 election. In 1990, the Conservative government threw everything they had at Dauphin in an attempt to win it. I know and I can rest comfortably and secure knowing that we turned back the very best they could throw at us.

The people of Dauphin working together as a team. I know the members opposite do not like to hear this, but it is the teamwork that we developed there that in fact enabled us to turn back every effort that they had put forward to try and overthrow the seat. They were unsuccessful.

They brought about 10 of their cabinet there to canvass. Every house I would go to, the member for Brandon West (Mr. McCrae), had just been there, or the member for Pembina (Mr. Orchard) or whoever else. They came in droves to try to get their candidate elected. It did not work, and I know I can say with certainty that they are not going to be able to do anything about it now because they wrote it off in 1990. After 1990 they gave up and said let us forget about this. They made cuts in jobs. They cut back in any support. Now they want to try and reverse that in the last few months that they have of their government. It is too little too late. They may as well forget it. The people have long memories. They remember what they did over the last four years. There is no way they are going to forgive them in the few months that they have now to try and make it better.

They will not be able to be successful, even though the Premier comes up to Dauphin and says, well, you know our decentralization would have been successful in Dauphin of course, but because we had an MLA working against it every step of the way, fighting it all the way, we could not do it. Can you believe this, this triad revisionist history that he is trying to put forward there? I did not even bother to write a letter to the editor to correct it because it is so transparent. Everyone that read it in Dauphin realizes that the Premier is trying to rewrite history. Actually it is a pretty sad joke. He should give the people more credit and have more respect for them in Dauphin. He still has not learned.

I will tell you one thing the Premier said. He is not going to come up to Dauphin as often the next election so his candidate maybe has a chance to win. He does recognize that by not coming up to Dauphin maybe he is going to have a better chance in the next election.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, the NDP is going to represent Dauphin for many, many years to come after this election and be part of the next government, just like we were in 1981 to 1987.

Mr. Speaker, as Dauphin moves to a new era in politics, I move to a new era in my life as a member, to move out of politics. I am going to be obviously moving forward to get back into education.

My wife has been teaching in Seven Oaks School Division for the past five years. I am very proud of what she accomplished, actually went to university after she was in her mid-30s, after the children were all in school, graduated in three and a half years and was able to pick up a position as a teacher and has been an excellent teacher. I can tell you she is implementing the new maths curriculum in early years at the present time, and she could probably tell this Minister of Education a lot of things about what needs to be done in that area. She certainly enjoyed her teaching and has done a tremendous job there, and we are very pleased with that.

Our oldest daughter Rychelle is now 20 years old. She was six when I first got elected and a little girl at that time. She has graduated from high school. She is not sure what she is going to be doing but is working. We are very proud of what she is doing.

Jodi, our middle daughter, is in Grade 12. She is an excellent straight A-plus student, and she wants to go into medicine. She will be going to university next year and is also very athletic, involved with the Assiniboine Optimist Track Club, running four times a week at the Max Bell Centre. Robert is also our youngest, in Grade 9. He is very much involved in track after playing hockey for seven years and deciding that was not where he wanted to go with his sports.

(Mr. Bob Rose, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)

The member for Morris (Mr. Manness) knows that we did have a couple of games there. He had some very good times in hockey, but he also had some rather unfortunate experiences in hockey. He is very pleased to be into another sport having spent a lot of time in district soccer as well. [interjection] That is right. The member for Morris did play football when we were with the Aggies years ago.

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At that time we were on the same team. I was playing linebacker at that time. I remember yet when I was a quarterback in high school. I was throwing some balls, trying out for a quarterback position, and Clayton Manness came up to me at that time--not the member for Morris at that time, he was Clayton Manness the student. He said, what did you do in high school, just throw? Because we used the shotgun formation. [interjection] And we scored a lot of touchdowns, let me tell you. We won all of our games in those days, Mr. Acting Speaker. And the same technique has obviously worked in politics.

I can say that our family is a very important part of our life. I enjoy watching our children involved in their sports a great deal. Track meets have taken place over the last couple of days as well. Last summer my son had an opportunity to go to the national Legion Track Camp in Ottawa in the 1,500 metres and 3,000, and he wants to specialize in middle distance and go on to the Pan Am Games. That is the kind of a view that he is putting forward and goals that he is setting. I am hopeful that can happen, and with my support and involvement, I am hopeful that will take place. I know that he will accomplish whatever he sets his mind to.

I also want to take a moment to reflect on the next number of years. I know that when I get back into education I will not have to fight on the other side of this minister's war on teachers because I do not believe that he will have an opportunity to be in that position to in fact carry out the remainder of that battle.

Unfortunately, Mr. Acting Speaker, I regret that this minister and this government have taken on that role. I think it is unfortunate, because I believe that if real educational reform and change is going to take place it has to be taking place in a co-operative way, and the professionals that have to implement the change must be a part of any decision making and changes that are made. Unfortunately, the minister has found that he cannot work in harmony with the teachers and so he has chosen by way of ads, public ads, to take them on in public.

I regret that. I think it is unfortunate this minister has shown that type of disdain for teachers.

You know, when I look at even the parent councils that he announced, he wants to keep teachers out of it. I mean, they are the ones that have to implement any policies that are put in place, any decisions that are made, any recommendations. He wants to leave it with the principal, but the rank-and-file teachers cannot be a part of those councils. Why? Why is that? I would say that that reflects this minister's fear of teachers' power perhaps or involvement. I do not understand it, but I think it is--or else it is just straight disrespect or disdain for teachers. I do not understand it.

Quite frankly, I can only speculate on why he would do it, and I think the minister has a responsibility to at some point before the next election come clean on what his position is with regard to teachers and why he has chosen to attack and take on teachers the way that he has over the last number of years.

It is not just in the parent council. It is the kind of attitude that is reflected in the public ads that we are seeing being placed. Although the minister likes to leave the impression that he is doing a great deal of consultation with them and so on, he does not in fact reflect that in his actions and his words and mannerisms toward teachers, and I think it is unfortunate. I leave that message with him. I think it is a big mistake. I think it is his major mistake up to this point in time.

I believe that I will not, Mr. Acting Speaker, as a member of the profession in this province have to continue to fight this minister because, fortunately, I think there is a reasonably good chance that this minister will not be in that position after the next election and that we will have a government that will want to work in harmony in a co-operative way with all of those people involved in the profession. I think that is what is going to happen after the next election.

I feel secure that the New Democratic Party will form the next election in this province, will offer good solid government in health care, in education after the next election and providing jobs, working in harmony and co-operation with the people of Manitoba. I can rest assured that that has a reasonably good chance of happening.

One of the reasons why I felt that I could leave political life at this point in time is that I felt that the Dauphin constituency was in good hands, the New Democratic Party was poised to form government, and I felt that from a personal point of view it was time for me to move on to another chapter in my life. I leave it with a great deal of memories and satisfaction that I have been a part of this process and contributed, accomplished a great deal over that time that I am proud of. I hope that I will have an opportunity to work again with government in the years ahead, Mr. Acting Speaker, in a different capacity perhaps over the years ahead.

So thank you very much. Mr. Acting Speaker, I will end it right there.

Mr. Orchard: Mr. Acting Speaker, it is indeed an honour for me to contribute to this throne speech, particularly following the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) in what may well be the member's last opportunity to address the House. I have to tell him that I have always enjoyed the opportunities for exchange with the member for Dauphin in the House and elsewhere. He is one of the members that we have always enjoyed.

Mr. Acting Speaker, I want to congratulate the new Pages in their new roles in this House. I am sure they will find this a very different place and an interesting environment. I certainly want to take this opportunity to offer to each in this Chamber and all the staff that support this Legislative Assembly the very best of the season.

Now, I cannot help but reflect on why we are here in this session now because I have attempted to follow some of the commentary in the Winnipeg Free Press, and coming to mind very quickly, of course, are some of the articles written by Jim Carr. I think many of us know Jim Carr. Now, you know, Jim is a fine fellow. We always enjoyed Jim when he was here in the House as deputy leader of the Liberal Party, and I have to sort of reflect back on the period leading up to the last session we had where Mr. Carr in his position at the Free Press was leading this charge about having government held accountable and getting the session going so that members of the opposition and hopefully, in particular, members of Her Majesty's loyal second opposition, his former colleagues in the Legislature, will have an opportunity to get right at government and hold them accountable.

Now one might recall the last session. Last session, we came into the last session in a minority position in committee. I mean, we were tight, we were vulnerable. Mr. Acting Speaker, you remember those times very well. Let us review how that session went, which was deeply called upon by Jim Carr saying, we need to have this government held accountable. What happened in July, the early part of July? Here it was, this session ended in a whimper, led by the Liberals under this dynamic new group that were going to hold this government accountable for all of their horrible policies, et cetera. We ended the session without a vote, without a confidence vote. Where was this lack of faith by the people of Manitoba in the government when the Liberal Party in this Legislature never even called for a confidence vote, Sir? Does that mean, does one conclude that the Liberals had confidence in this government and only Mr. Carr did not? I cannot answer that.

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Mr. Acting Speaker, the same calls preceded the call of this session. Mr. Carr again was saying we need to hold this government accountable. We need to give the Liberal Party of Manitoba a platform that we can editorialize for them and advance their causes, and I am waiting for Mr. Carr to write the story about Winnie-the-Pooh. Lead-off question, second Question Period, new session, last one before an election possibly and Winnie-the-Pooh is the big issue.

Well, I am sorry, Mr. Acting Speaker, I cannot have sympathy with Mr. Carr in his newfound approach, the government being held accountable, when he is not going to write an article about Winnie-the-Pooh. I just wish Mr. Carr was here, because Mr. Carr wishes that members in the opposition hold this government accountable. We know one cannot leave this Chamber as a deputy leader of the Liberal Party without carrying a little bit of that political affiliation to your new job. I mean, I am not accusing Mr. Carr of being partisan, no. I would never do that, but I think one could safely conclude that one might be a little more aggressive in your presentation of the Liberal positions if you were Mr. Carr with his former service with the Liberal Party of Manitoba in this Chamber.

An Honourable Member: Deputy leader, was he not?

Mr. Orchard: Deputy leader. [interjection] No, no. I am not saying--the question is asked, Mr. Acting Speaker, by the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), am I saying Mr. Carr is biased. Absolutely not. But I simply observe that if this government is to be held accountable in the debates and if this government is to be questioned and probed and pushed to give answers to the people of Manitoba in this Legislature, if Mr. Carr was sitting in that gallery, he would also have to answer and write an article from his vantage point in that gallery observing where is the Liberal Leader. Because Mr. Carr, if he were sitting in that gallery, would have to say to the readers of his column in his paper that the Liberal Leader is never in his seat except for Question Period when the television camera is on.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rose): Order, please.

(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)

Point of Order

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Second Opposition House Leader): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. The member knows full well you cannot make reference to the absence of a member inside this Chamber. I am sure you would find that the member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) is here more often than the member for Tuxedo (Mr. Filmon).

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. It is not a time for clarification. On the same point of order.

Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, our rules are very clear that we do not make reference to the absence of members. I am very concerned when the Liberal House leader on a point of order, which would have been correct if it had focused in on the fact that the member for Pembina (Mr. Orchard) cannot say whether the Liberal Leader was in the House or not, also made reference to the Premier being in the House or not. I would suggest that we follow our rules which indicate you cannot make reference to any member of the House being absent.

Mr. Speaker: This is quite correct. On the point of order raised by the honourable member for Inkster, he does not have a point of order. I distinctly heard the honourable minister stipulate that the member from the Free Press could not say that somebody was not here. The honourable member does not have a point of order.

There is no more point of order. That has been dealt with. On a new point of order.

Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I wish to provide you with a little advice related to the point of order raised by the member for Inkster--

Mr. Speaker: There was no point of order.

Mr. Ernst: --and spoke to by the member for Thompson, and I agree with both of them.

Mr. Speaker: There is no point of order.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, I would seek clarification from you. You indicated that the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Orchard) had indicated that had the reporter from the Free Press been there and because it was the member from the Free Press who would have made the assumption that someone is not present inside the Chamber, is it then okay for a member to be able to stand up and make reference that so-and-so was in the public gallery and if so-and-so was there all day today, he would realize that so-and-so member is not sitting that day? I would hazard a guess that it should be ruled out of order in terms of if someone makes reference to the person being absent here. I would seek further clarification on that point.

Mr. Speaker: On the point raised by the honourable second opposition House leader, our rules are very clear that a member here may not make reference to whether or not another member is present. I clearly and distinctly heard the remarks of the honourable Minister of Energy and Mines and he himself did not attribute the comments to himself.

On the rest of the scenario that the honourable member points out, I will not deal with a hypothetical situation, but I clearly heard the honourable Minister of Energy and Mines say that if it was a particular reporter, not himself, making reference to the fact whether or not the member was present.

* * *

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important--

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member, I am sure, is aware of the fact that we are not going to enter into debate here. If the honourable member would like to see me after, we will talk about this after, but we are not going to get into a debate here in the Chamber.

Point of Order

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately because of the heckling on both sides, I was unable to hear exactly what it was that you had indicated, but I think it is important to note, if I say, if the Free Press reporter inside the press gallery says that so-in-so is not here today, is that in fact in order to do that?

I think that is a question that does need to be clarified.

Mr. Speaker: On the point of order raised by the honourable member for Inkster, I cannot quite, nor can the Table Officer help me at this point in time, specifically put our finger on the rule. So what I am going to do, I am going to take this matter under advisement and I will come back after I have a chance to research Beauchesne's.

Now, the honourable Minister of Energy and Mines to carry on.

* * *

Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the time wasted is deducted. Yes, I appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, carrying on about the Liberal Leader, the Liberal Leader, and it has been very, very adequately referenced by my colleague the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner). When Leaders seek the confidence of the people of Manitoba to become Premier, which every Leader wishes to do--I mean, that is why you come into the leadership of a party--you have to understand that issues are important in all regions of the province, and the issues are different.

When the Leader of the Liberal Party described Grow Bonds and our other support activities to rural development as small, small potatoes, he did not understand, and it shows sort of the naivete and actually the immaturity of the Liberal Leader in terms of understanding this province of Manitoba, because, for instance, and I just want to give one example, and I know my honourable friend the House leader for the Liberal Party will pass this on to his Leader, the Tire Recycling Corporation is one of the Grow Bond recipients in that great community of Winkler. Aside from the fact that that is one of the most environmentally friendly projects that we have ever seen in the province of Manitoba, the complete removal of all the used passenger car tires produced per year is possible into a value-added industry with exports primarily to the United States.

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There are 20 jobs attached to that Grow Bond issue. Now, in the community of Winkler, with 6,000 people, that is the equivalent to an industry in the city of Winnipeg employing 2000 people. That is the kind of initiative that the Liberal Leader, the member for St. James (Mr. Edwards), calls small, small potatoes.

Now you see the kind of offence that rural Manitobans take to this. My honourable friend the Liberal Leader, aided and abetted by Mr. Carr, is going to try and assume the Premier's chair in this province, but with that lack of understanding of what drives constituencies, what constitutes jobs, what constitutes growth, opportunity and enterprise in rural Manitoba, he does not, with all due respect, Mr. Speaker, deserve consideration as the next Premier of the province of Manitoba.

I disagree on many issues with the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Doer), but at least I know that he has the maturity and the understanding that there is more to Manitoba than the city of Winnipeg, that there is northern Manitoba, there is the Interlake, there is rural Manitoba.

You would never see the Leader of the New Democrats making such an ignorant statement about enterprise in rural Manitoba. You would see him make a lot of other statements which could qualify, but not that one.

In my very limited time, I want to try and help my honourable friend the Liberal Leader. I want to help him to grow into his job, because it is important that Liberals in Manitoba have something to vote for, and that is why I agree with Jim Carr about the importance of this session.

I would like to use this session to enunciate where this government is going, where this party is taking Manitoba into the future. I want a similar enunciation of where the Liberals believe they can take the province of Manitoba.

I want to hear the Liberal Leader say that he is going to support balanced budget legislation so that the budget of the province of Manitoba will be balanced. I want him to state unequivocally, without weaseling around, that he supports that concept.

That would take away a significant quandary and doubt in the people of Manitoba, because the people of Manitoba are fully aware that for seven budgets, which have frozen taxes, lowered taxes, lowered the deficit, and increased spending on our major areas, the Liberal Leader has voted against every single one of them.

I conclude from that that a Liberal Leader as Premier would raise taxes, raise the deficit, and decrease spending on social programs. What else could one conclude? I would like him to clarify for the people of Manitoba.

On issues of importance, like the grain transportation debate, brought to this House last year by members of the New Democrats, I watched, and I have a very interesting vantage point here, Sir. I sit in this little chair, and I watch that little chair. The moment that the emergency debate on the Crow benefit and its dispensation was agreed to by this House--because we wanted the debate on this side of the House--I saw the greatest panic. The eyes were as big as saucers. The whites were showing. They were beady. There was a quick dash back to his back-bench strength. There was this immediate scrum, and they were to put a position on the table without putting a position on the paper. Regrettably, we never heard a position enunciated by the Liberal Leader on that very important issue.

Now can we assume that on the issue of the Crow benefit and its stripping away by the new Liberal government, Mr. Martin et al and Mr. Chretien, that we are going to have the Liberal Party of Manitoba's support, that stripping away of those benefits historically conferred upon western Canadian farmers by a Liberal government because of their new-found fiscal conservatism in Ottawa? Are we going to hear a position from the Liberal Party on that? Not on your life, Sir. I agree with Jim Carr. We should and it should be presented in this session. That is what this session is all about. Are we going to hear it?

An Honourable Member: Never.

Mr. Orchard: Never, my colleagues say, reinforced by shouts of never from the New Democrats.

Mr. Speaker, I want to help my honourable friend the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), because secretly I supported the member for Inkster when he ran for the Liberal Party leadership. He would have done a better job. Of course they had to even gerrymander the leadership, put it off a week because he was going to win. That is another issue.

Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate to my honourable friend the member for Inkster so that he can pass this on to his Leader, that when you govern you have to have a vision of what you wish to achieve. You have to have some goals that you believe are attainable for your province and for the people of Manitoba.

We started out first in the 1986 election and then again in the 1988 election and of course reinforced in the 1990 election with a very simple platform, not too complex. We committed--the Premier (Mr. Filmon), the Leader of our party committed no tax increases and working towards making government more efficient and better so that the beleaguered taxpayers would begin to have confidence that their tax dollars were being spent effectively and efficiently and delivering services that were not wasteful and overlapping and duplicating. We also said that inherent in that is an objective to establish a taxation regime and a policy regime that would lead Manitobans and those looking at Manitoba here to make investments, to make investments that would be profitable for them, and thereby they would employ Manitobans and start to grow our economy.

We have done that in seven budgets. I do not need to restate the voting record of the Liberal Party of Manitoba in all seven of those budgets. Our vision was fairly simple. We started out and we said you have to build on your strengths if you are going to build Manitoba. If you are going to return Manitoba to a place of security for its citizens, you have to build on your strengths. First of all, you have to know what your strengths are, and some of the strengths that we have in Manitoba, for instance are our people, for instance is our geology. Our whole land mass is a significant strength to the people of Manitoba, whether it be the Precambrian Shield with the Greenstone belts that are so successfully exploited by mining companies, whether it is our very rich agricultural lands. Those are our very significant strengths, and we have as an energy source the lowest priced electricity in North America. Those are strengths.

Knowing those strengths, how do you build development? How do you return capital investment by the private sector to build on those strengths? I want to deal with an example because my honourable friends in the Liberal Party have to understand how this happens. We took a look at the mining industry. I want to deal with the mining industry because I think it is a very important industry. It is one of the best kept secrets we have in Manitoba.

When we came to government in 1988, Mr. Speaker, a very quick analysis told us that our mining industry, despite buoyant prices in the mid-'80s, was not going to be sustained under the policy and taxation regimes as of 1988. Why? Because our taxation regime in Manitoba given to us by successive New Democratic governments was the highest taxed mining regime in Canada.

Mr. Speaker, let us consider just from a raw political analysis how that could happen. Here you had the New Democrats representing those major mining communities of Flin Flon, Snow Lake, Lynn Lake and Thompson for all but four of the last 25 years that we got our taxes completely out of whack. Where were the voices for the mining industry coming out of the New Democrats who represented those constituencies through two successive NDP governments of Schreyer and Pawley? It took this government in 1988 to recognize the problem.

First of all, with the mining industry you do not instantly turn that industry around because your lead times for development are incredibly long. There is significant advance work in terms of exploration, geology, analysis, before you can even begin to identify a discovery. Once you have a discovery of a new mine, the process of putting it into production is another several years. So you are looking at anywhere from three to nine years before you bring a new deposit on line, minimum three to nine years, and more often at the latter end of that time frame.

Mr. Speaker, to our dismay, when we came into government in 1988, not only were we the highest taxed, but exploration was on the dead decline in Manitoba. The exploration budgets of our major companies were not being spent in Manitoba because the corporate opportunity said other jurisdictions--Canada and North America and the world--were better places to put those exploration dollars. That cannot sustain a mining industry if you do not have exploration. We changed that. In changing that, we now have the greatest boom in diamond drilling exploration in the history of the province of Manitoba.

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My honourable friend the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) is chuckling. He thinks it is funny. Well, from his vantage point of spending money I think he would find anything that creates wealth funny. But, Mr. Speaker, right now my honourable friend does not understand that hardrock exploration involves diamond drilling. It is a process. [interjection] Hah, today you have heard it.

Right now as we speak we have had two announcements of new mine discoveries, one at Inco, one at Hudson Bay. The Hudson Bay Photo Lake mine will be in production next summer. Inco will be in production some several years down the road because it is a deeper deposit. That is good news for northerners, for all of Manitoba, because it means the sustainability of both of those very significant northern communities. What caused it was the taxation policies put in place by this government to encourage that very industry to explore and find those deposits. The employment of technology in the mining industry in terms of exploration today is very, very significant.

This is no longer a hewer of wood and drawer of water industry. This is a very high-tech industry, and it is successfully probing our mineral potential and finding new mineral potential as we speak. That is at Hudson Bay. That is at Inco. Falconbridge is in this province with a very major exploration play. They have spent $2.5 million in 1994 and they intend to spend $4 million in 1995 to develop hopefully a Williams Lake nickel deposit--I should not say this, but I will--that may well rival the size of the Thompson original discovery. Would that not be good news for Manitoba and jobs and investment? And guess whose riding it is in? The ridings are in traditional NDP ridings. And who developed the policies to bring that exploration to Manitoba? Not a New Democratic Party but rather a Conservative Party under the leadership of my colleague the Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey) when he was Energy and Mines minister.

All of us had those measures voted on and the Liberal Party voted against them, as did the New Democrats.

Let us talk about northern Manitoba in another area. We now have a titanium\vanadium deposit being explored very substantially with the hopes that leads to the first titanium production in Manitoba. For those in the Chamber who may not be aware, titanium oxide is the base pigment for all paints. So that is its use today. It is not into rather exotic uses. It is a very simple product used for base pigment of all paints.

Our deposit appears to be one which has a great capability for environmentally friendly production as compared to other deposits. That is why it is so very, very attractive. If it is proven to be a world-class deposit and if the development process, in conjunction with the Cross Lake Band, can take place, there is a very, very significant new industry about to emerge with that titanium deposit should it prove up to be world class in size.

Mr. Speaker, again, going back to the strengths of this province, what are they? One of the strengths is a low electricity rate and a consistent supply of electricity, and that is a very important input to value-add value to the titanium deposit in Manitoba and will be one of our significant strengths in seeing that deposit should it be proved world class speeding the development along, speeding the investment along, speeding the jobs along.

Let me deal with gold, Mr. Speaker, because my honourable friend the member for Dauphin made reference to sitting on a gold mine in 1981. We were. We still are. The difference is that under the New Democrats and Howard Pawley all the gold mines closed. Lynn Lake as a community shut down in northern Manitoba. It shut down because there was no exploration going on in the Lynn Lake area because of the policies of Howard Pawley and the New Democrats. They cared not a wit, or a tittle or a jot for sustaining those jobs in their communities in northern Manitoba because they took the taxation policies of this province and made them the highest in Canada, so who would invest? No one.

We changed that. We brought in the new mine tax holiday act. We now have in Lynn Lake gold production ongoing for over a year, a significant accomplishment. There are 80 people employed now in Lynn Lake, and the town is starting to get back on its feet. In addition to that, there is significant exploration going on, because once you recommence gold production, milling, mining and production, you then open the opportunity for our small prospectors to develop and search and, hopefully, develop small deposits that are not economic for the larger players, the bigger companies in mining, because with that production facility small tonnages can be delivered and contract-milled. There is exploration going on in Lynn Lake because of our policies and our initiatives. That is good for Lynn Lake.

In Snow Lake, regrettably, a year ago the base metal mine closed because the resource was depleted. Fortunately, for Snow Lake, that same policy of the new mine tax holiday has been agreed to, and High River Gold some several months ago did a joint venture with TVX Gold and at the mining convention--I know my honourable friends will applaud this good news, because when TVX came in some year ago they said they expected to be in production on January 1, 1996. At the mines convention they announced that their progress was so good to date that they are expecting to be commissioning the mill in July and in production in August of next year, some five months ahead of their schedule. There are 200 jobs in Snow Lake attached to that. As we speak, 35 families have moved back to Snow Lake because of our policies revitalizing that town. Add to that, Mr. Speaker, the Photo Lake deposit discovered by Hudson Bay which they are now in the process of developing. That is another 50 or 60 jobs for Snow Lake back to that community.

We are not in this government with our policies going to see a repeat of Lynn Lake in Snow Lake, because our policies are kicking in and that town has a life, that town has a future and that town will prosper under a Progressive Conservative government. It was on the verge of dying under NDP policy but will flourish under Conservative policy that has been put in place by this government, my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, is it any wonder why there is a new found interest in mining in the New Democrats? They see the seat of Flin Flon, they see the seat of Thompson being at risk, because all of a sudden those communities are recognizing that years of neglect by the New Democrats, years of pillaging their industries by the New Democrats and plundering them through the highest tax regime in Canada are now being reversed and they have a future.

Mr. Speaker, time will tell. Time will tell whether the people in Flin Flon, Snow Lake, Lynn Lake, Thompson recognize what this government has done for their respective communities. I visited them and they are very, very happy with this government, Sir.

I know that you are about to gather up your gloves and close down the session for the day, and I know that I wish to not leave a few other areas untouched in terms of this opportunity to present information to my honourable friends, particularly the Liberal Party and particularly I hope to Mr. Carr, because I think--

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable Minister of Energy and Mines will have 14 minutes remaining.

The hour being 6 p.m., this House now adjourns and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday).