Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I think there might be leave to waive private members' hour today.

Madam Speaker: Is there leave to waive private members' hour? [agreed]

Mr. McCrae: Would you be so kind as to call the bills listed on page 6 in the following order: Bills 60, 61 and 56 and, should there be time this afternoon, those bills could be followed with the private members' Private Bills 300 and 301. Just to do those again, Madam Speaker, Bills 60, 61 and 56. [interjection]

Can we go back to the beginning, Madam Speaker, and I would ask you to call the bills in the following order, the ones listed on page 6, Bill 56--[interjection]

Madam Speaker, while we are figuring out what this order will be, after those private bills that I mentioned, we could then go to the report stages, if there is time remaining today, as listed beginning at the top of page 3. But now, I believe, final consultations have been undertaken, and we will deal with the bills on page 6 in the following order: Bills 56, 60, and 61. Have we got that now? I will say it one more time just to be clear. Bills 56, 60, and 61. Thank you.

Madam Speaker: To resume second reading debate on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews), Bill 56, The Family Maintenance Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'obligation alimentaire), standing in the name of the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale).

Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?

An Honourable Member: No.

Madam Speaker: No? No, leave has been denied.

Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, this bill is a very significant piece of legislation in that it will significantly change how court awards will look like not only in Manitoba but across Canada, and not only provincially but federally. Since my election, I do not think an area of policy has disturbed me as much as maintenance enforcement, and it is not just because maintenance enforcement in Manitoba sorely lacks needed teeth and effectiveness, and not only because the amount of awards has often been erratic and arbitrary, but because so many Manitobans are not receiving child support at all. It has been estimated that only 65 percent of custodial parents in Canada receive child support. So it is one thing, of course, to talk about the amount the court awards, but it is quite another to face the real challenge and look to see how we can make sure that all children in Manitoba entitled to maintenance can receive it.

* (1600)

I have also been very disturbed since my election because I have heard so many stories, horror stories, revolving around the lack of payment of maintenance, and I have seen the effects on families, Madam Speaker, and children. I do not need statistics to show me how far we have to go to ensure effective maintenance in this country and in this province in particular. The statistics, of course say over and over again, with very little change over the years, that disproportionately those suffering from poverty are women and children, and, of course, when it comes to women it is those who are the single parents. We are breeding in this province, again disproportionately, child poverty, the effects of which we will not suffer in their entirety for years to come. I suspect that it is not just a tragedy of one generation but the tragedy of the huge and permanent underclass that this government seems to be content to live with will have effects beyond a single generation in this province. Despair goes a long way. It is a cancer in our society.

So this bill, Madam Speaker, at least puts in place a framework so that we can better address the issues of poverty, albeit in a relatively limited way. The most important aspect of the bill is that it requires the child support orders be made in accordance with the child support guidelines which will comprise regulations. So the actual amounts of child support orders are not set out in the legislation. The legislation is merely enabling. We certainly are aware of studies done even in Manitoba, and I look at the study done by the Manitoba Association of Women and the Law in 1995 which showed that the child support payments are very inconsistent and have biases attached to them that are not in the best interests of those who are entitled to maintenance. The study of the Manitoba Association of Women and the Law found in its review, over a course of five years, that child and spousal payments are often considered add-on expenses for the noncustodial parents rather than a primary responsibility.

I know, from reviewing cases that come to my office, how the courts have looked to see first of all what the payments of the noncustodial parent, almost always the male, are. They first look at the car payments, they look at the house payments, they look at the boat payments, and then they say, now, let us get to the child and decide what your child should get. Madam Speaker, these parents did not divorce their children, and it is important that in any legislation we instill the basic principle that the needs of the child must come first.

We will be analyzing this bill in committee with that view. We will be considering with the committee amendments to ensure that that is the case. We tried to move an amendment to ensure that the needs of the child were considered first and foremost, when the maintenance enforcement bill came up for discussion last session, but the government said no. The government said no to moving to ensure that the courts consider the child's needs first and foremost.

Now, the legislation also fails to deal with some other concerns that we have expressed both in the past with our family justice package and subsequent. We think it is important that maintenance payments be indexed automatically to the cost of living. I have heard so many of these cases. These moms come forward and say, you know, every year the costs are going up particularly for recreational opportunities, user fees are being increased particularly by this government, and inflation continues to erode the spending capacity of the parent. So we think it is important that indexing be provided for.

Madam Speaker, the bill also introduces a $5,000 fine for those who fail to fully disclose financial information necessary to calculate the amount of child support, but we also think it is important that there be a penalty for providing false information. Providing false information is just as serious and in one sense is just like not providing the information at all.

One interesting aspect of the bill is the establishment of what is called a child support service. Now, I do not know what the government envisions for the child support service. We certainly have had something to say in the past about the need to establish an advocate, particularly for custodial parents, particularly for those who are receiving social assistance to secure maintenance orders which then, of course, we can see the costs of that service offset by savings from social allowance dollars. So we have urged the establishment of a family maintenance advocate's office to help persons with the legal system.

The mandate of this new child support service, though, seems to be too narrow. It is one thing to allow for such a service to be established to assist parents who are before the court, but the study by the Manitoba Association of Women and the Law found that 96 percent of spousal and child support cases are settled out of court, and it is there they found where the women receive even less than they would before a judge. So it is important that the service be available to all. It is also important that there be no user fee for such a service.

Now, one other aspect of the bill that we will be discussing change around is the fact that these guidelines, Madam Speaker, must comprise no more than a floor. They cannot comprise a ceiling, because the word "guidelines" are used here. It is important that the law clearly tell the judges, assist them, so they know that no award should be less than the amount set out in the guidelines. It is important that Manitoba improve where it can on the guidelines even though they were promulgated at the federal level.

Madam Speaker, certainly with regard to the principle of the bill, we support this. I have seen over the years just how arbitrary court orders appear to be from one family to another, and I think the study by the Manitoba Association of Women and the Law has confirmed what was my observation. In their report, they speak to the establishment of federal guidelines, and they say as follows: As recently as 1986, textbook writers wagered that the prospect that a formula admitting of clarity, of direction, uniformity, and application will materialize for ordering support is unlikely. In the past legislative and judicial efforts to harness and steer support laws, twin dilemmas of defining qualification and determining quantum have eluded satisfactory resolution. That was quoted from a 1985 study by Alistair Bissett Johnson and David Day.

* (1610)

So, in 1990, when it was announced that there would be a federal-provincial-territorial study to determine whether there can be more consistent court payments, we saw there a very positive move, and in the subsequent publication of the research report in 1992 and the feedback by the end of that year, we saw what I think is a very positive development in general terms.

So, Madam Speaker, we are in a position now to see this bill go forward, and I hope that we will hear at the committee, as we heard when this Legislature considered changes to the maintenance enforcement legislation, from those who are directly affected by the maintenance enforcement regime and the maintenance awards regime in this province, because I think it is important that this government hear the despair and the pain that people are suffering because of the ineffectiveness of our maintenance enforcement scheme.

It is difficult enough, Madam Speaker--and I know this from my own family, how difficult it is for a single parent to raise a family. There are stresses that one cannot dream of unless they have gone through it. So many of them, so many single parents have said to me, you do not know what it is like until you have been there. Well, I was raised in a single-parent family, and I know how difficult it is, particularly as we were in a family with very little means. It is incumbent on this Legislature, then, to fully understand the impact of being a single parent living in poverty because that, hopefully, will spur more effective action by policymakers to ensure not only good maintenance orders but good maintenance enforcement, and as I said at the outset, move toward an effective system whereby those not receiving maintenance and not aware of their right to maintenance can be brought into the system.

With those remarks, we are prepared to see the bill forward.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, I, too, would like to put a few words on the record with respect to Bill 56 before it passes to committee.

In fact, we are quite glad that the government has recognized the importance and has taken the approach of working closer, to a certain degree, with the federal government in adapting the provincial statutes to be more in sync with the federal ones. This is indeed a step in the right direction.

The Divorce Act amendment will ensure that a fairer amount of support is paid and that the amount is tax free to the recipient. This bill will also ensure equal treatment for all parents, both married and unmarried. This bill will keep the courts from having almost exclusive discretion over the amount of child support. In that regard, I have personally no problem with this bill moving on to committee stage.

There is a need for us to look at some of the broader issues which the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh) has made reference to. I can recall a number of conversations in the last number of months, Madam Speaker, with constituents dealing with maintenance enforcement, and one of the strongest statements that I received was from a relatively young lady who expressed a great deal of concern with respect to the way in which loopholes are created that allow for abuse of maintenance and maintenance payments. The reason why I say that is because I believe that there is a need to do a lot more.

Hopefully, what we will see is more ideas coming up through the committee stage. I know from within our party that there will be ongoing discussion in ways in which we can improve the current system that we have. I know in the past we have had very strong advocates like Norma McCormick and others who have tried very hard to be the conscience of our own political party and ensuring that we are addressing issues of this nature. So when we do see legislation that we have currently before us that does make a positive step in principle, it is something which I am glad to see go to a committee. Thank you.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading of Bill 56, The Family Maintenance Amendment Act. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion? Agreed?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed and so ordered.

Madam Speaker: To resume second reading debate, on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Urban Affairs and Housing (Mr. Reimer), Bill 60, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur le logement des infirmes et des personnes âgées), standing in the name of the honourable member for Transcona.

Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to add my comments to Bill 60, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Amendment Act, introduced some time ago to this Chamber.

An Honourable Member: A week and a half.

Mr. Reid: Madam Speaker, as my colleague the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) points out, it was not that long ago that it was introduced. It was only a week and a half, she points out, so we understand that the minister might be in some kind of a rush. Otherwise he might have brought this legislation forward to give us the opportunity to have a more in-depth look at it.

I had the opportunity some time ago to look into the elderly and infirm persons' housing legislation that we had in the province; in fact, I had done some extensive research in this area a number of years ago. It is interesting to note going back to some of the Hansard that was available back as far as 1964 when this legislation first came forward with respect to elderly and infirm persons' housing. I think it was Bill 105 that was brought in by then Minister of Welfare, which is a different term than what we have in this House here today for ministers responsible for this particular act, but to give an explanation of what the intent was, it was to provide nonprofitable, charitable or religious organizations to be involved with personal care housing units within the province of Manitoba and would allow these organizations to have the opportunity to be exempt from the school taxation that many of the others, most of the other people in our province have to pay.

Well, it is also interesting to note some of the comments by other members of the Chamber of that day, including one that some time later turned out to be the Premier of the Province of Manitoba, and some of the comments with respect to the legislation that day and the concerns because, at that time, the legislation set out that 65 was going to be the age criteria. Mr. Pawley, who was soon to be Premier of the province of Manitoba, pointed out that even in those days people were retiring at the age of 60, and there was a requirement and that the government should look seriously at reducing the age requirement in their proposed legislation 105 at that time to age 60, recognizing that society was indeed changing and that 60 was becoming the more predominant retirement age.

In our research we found that there are several areas that cause me some concern with respect to the way this legislation is brought forward. We know that there are quite a number of housing units in the province of Manitoba that fall under this particular piece of legislation. This legislation was set up--I believe there was an exemption provided under The Municipal Assessment Act, Part 6, Liability to Taxation under the Real Property section, where there was an exemption from the school tax that was provided under 23(1) of that particular act, where real property is used for or used by a nonprofitable organization, charitable organization or municipality as an elderly persons housing unit or a hostel as defined under the act to a maximum exemption of .81 hectares as is shown in the act itself.

Looking at the list that the minister has released to my colleague the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) here a few days back, he listed a number of properties that fall under The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act with respect to the licences that are issued by the department. In fact I think there are a total of 1,155 units that fall under that particular exemption.

* (1620)

The time we were doing some research in this a number of years back we found that there was a problem with respect to the way the legislation did not protect against abuses within the system itself. I am not going to single out any particular property, although the property in question does appear on the minister's list. It is one of the housing units on the list that currently has a taxation exemption under The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act. At that time, we found that the particular property was a leasehold property, which is somewhat different than the life-lease concept from my understanding in the way it was explained to me at the time.

What it does allow for, because these particular leasehold units when they were signed for this complex were only signed to a little after the year 2009, I think was the date on it. At that time, the persons living in those particular complexes can switch ownership. In other words, they would switch hands to another owner and that there was no guarantee, first off, that the people that were living in those units had the age requirement and that there was nothing in the legislation that we could see at the time that would ensure that the people living in that particular housing unit would meet the age requirement which was 55.

The minister does have some discretion. He also can approve the reduction in the age for the people living in that particular unit. There is some discretion in that. I know that the former Minister of Housing did use that discretion to include a particular property in his own constituency. In fact, he even backdated their taxation break back to the year 1989. So there is some discretion that the minister does have in allowing that.

Now I hope that when other units or complexes come forward, should there be any, and I do not know if there is, that come forward with those similar exemptions, the minister would give the same consideration that he gave to that particular property at that time or the former minister gave to that particular property at that time, backdating the taxes by quite a number of years. I am talking from the year, I believe it was, 1994 back to 1989. So there was quite a tax break that went back to the owners and the property owners and people living in that particular complex, because those monies then accrued to those people living in that leasehold arrangement.

Questions that came to our mind at that time, because the minister does have under his powers, as did the former Minister of Housing, the ability to drop the age requirement for those housing units from 65 down to the age of 55, but as I said under the leasehold arrangements, there is no provision in there to safeguard that people living in there would meet the age requirement which would create an imbalance I would think with respect to people that are continuing to pay their taxes.

One of the concerns that I have is that we have in each of our communities around the province, no doubt, a very, very large number of seniors still living in their own homes and struggling under very meagre pensions to try and meet the payments of those homes, which would include include taxation to the municipality in which they are residing and which would also include school taxation. Those residents continue to pay the school taxation to those municipalities, through them to their appropriate school boards.

What we are seeing under this, under the legislation itself, is that people can opt out of paying school taxes by moving into one of these particular housing units. So we have an imbalance in the system here that, yes, you can still be capable of paying your school taxes and have the financial wherewithal to do that and opt to move into one of these life-lease projects or into these leasehold projects and escape having to pay your school taxes, so you escape responsibility to your community and to the school board and, ultimately, to the students and the families living in that community.

So there is an imbalance in the system here that allows those who make the decision to move into the properties under the elderly and infirm persons' housing to escape paying school taxes while those continuing to remain living in their own homes have the responsibility and the legal obligation to continue to pay school taxes. So there appears to be, on the surface at least, an injustice here for those seniors who are being treated differently under the legislation.

The other concern that I wanted to draw--and when we look back at what actions this government has taken with respect to changes in taxation, I believe it was just a number of years ago when the government chose to reduce the rebate that was given from $325 rebate on taxation and reduced it to $250, a $75 cut in the rebate that people were allowed under the taxation which was obviously a harder hit on the seniors who were living on a fixed income or those who were living on a fixed income and were living within their own homes. So here we have, again, that people who are living in their own homes got a double hit out of this. They continue to have to pay their school taxes, and the government at the same time reduced their rebates under the property tax section from $325 down to $250, so those people living in their own homes as seniors or infirm persons living within the home continue to have to pay their taxes while people living under the life-lease or the leasehold projects got away with only having to have their rebates reduced to the $250. So they got quite a substantial break as a result of the change.

One of the problems that I see in the current legislation that I do not see addressed in this bill here today is any guarantee that the government has that they actually go in with their inspectors into these leasehold or life-lease projects to ensure that the people who are living in these facilities are actually meeting the criteria of the legislation. I do not know if the minister can confirm, and perhaps he will do so when we move into committee with this bill, that he has inspectors who will actually go into the facilities to do some spot-checking to make sure that the conditions of the legislation are met.

When I referred earlier to the leasehold project, it is my understanding that at that time when we did the investigation of this particular property, that there were people residing in those complexes who owned more than one unit and therefore were receiving the exemption under the school tax portion of The Municipal Act for both of those properties which seemed to me to be unfair.

So I draw that to the minister's attention, that there needs to be some spot-checking that takes place within these particular facilities to make sure, first, that they meet the age requirement under the legislation, and, secondly, that they do not own more than one unit, allowing them to take further or double advantage or quadruple advantage of the taxation break and that people who are actually living in these units are actually, indeed, entitled to live there.

The third point is that it seems essentially unfair that people living in the complexes are receiving the taxation break when at the same time seniors living in their own homes are not entitled to similar treatment under the elderly and infirm persons' housing, and they are not entitled to the same tax break under The Municipal Act. So I draw these points to the minister's attention.

I know my colleagues want to add other comments with respect to this legislation, and I hope to have the opportunity to have the minister respond to the concerns that we have raised. I do not think it is appropriate that we treat one segment of our society in the same age category any differently than we do other persons who are of the same category and that should have the same entitlements, but this legislation, obviously, has been in some ways taken advantage of, and I hope that the minister or the department will take the appropriate steps to ensure that elderly and infirm persons are treated the same no matter where they reside in the province, whether it be in life leasehold projects or within their own home.

So I draw those points to the minister's attention and give my colleagues the opportunity to add their comments on this Bill 60 as well.

Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) has made some very useful observations about the history of this issue. I too want to refer the minister back to some of the origins of this Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act and the purposes for which the exemptions for school taxes have been given over the years.

Madam Speaker, in 1959, when The EIPH Act was put in place, Canada and the provinces were in an era of expanding social services and social service concern. One of the very pressing issues of that time was the abysmal condition of seniors housing. Those of us who remember those years, and I was still in university at that time, but I was in the downtown area of Toronto and I remember very well the appalling conditions of rooming housing in which seniors on the Old Age Security, which was all there was in those days, there was no guaranteed income supplement, were living in essentially hovels. They might have a hotplate in a single room and were eking out an existence that quite frankly was more reminiscent of Third World conditions than of a country as wealthy as Canada.

* (1630)

I think it was the joint will of the provinces and the federal government to begin to address the terrible housing conditions of seniors through a groundbreaking piece of legislation, namely, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act. Most provinces also enacted similar legislation to Manitoba, and the federal government made available to the provinces certain subsidies primarily through the mechanism of interest rate reductions. So in this early push there were very stringent guidelines about income that applied to anybody who occupied a unit in an Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act project.

Madam Speaker, the federal government provided substantial subsidies by way of very major interest rate reductions. Often the effective interest rate might be as low as 2 percent or 3 percent, and that allowed these units to be built and to be operated at substantially below market cost. So if the access to these units was the main concern, then it did not make sense to force those who were already impoverished in terms of their income to have to pay school taxes because, essentially, what that did was simply drive up the cost of all the units and drive up the cost to government of making this program available. That was the key issue here, and it is the same issue that flowed through in a second piece of legislation to which I will refer in a moment.

So the idea was to keep the operating costs of the units as low as possible so that people on fixed and low incomes could have access to these units at a reasonable cost, and that is the origin of the original exemption.

In the 1970s, when public housing, the various EPH, for example, Elderly Persons' Housing Act, not the Elderly and Infirm Persons' Act, but The EPH Act and subsequent federal legislation came into effect, the whole principle of access there was extended in terms of these exemptions and guarantees. In this case, it was even clearer because, when you are in an Elderly Persons' Housing project or in public housing for families, the rents are deliberately geared to income and the subsidies to the buildings, the operating subsidies, come in the form of making up the difference between the actual operating cost of the building in total, including costs for repairs and maintenance, et cetera, and for municipal property taxes. The subsidy comes in the form of the difference between the actual operating cost of the building and the rents derived from the rent-to-income scale. So governments looked at this situation and said, mathematically it makes no sense for us to pay school taxes on these projects, because we are simply paying taxes to ourselves. If we increase the cost, for example, of operating 425 Elgin, which is St. Andrew's Place elderly persons building, and the minister may have been there and may know the building I am speaking of, all that would happen would be that the public subsidy to make the building achieve a break-even would have to rise. So the government would simply wind up paying for the school taxes essentially to itself. So that was the rationale in the second case for continuing the extension of the school tax exemption for that form of Elderly Persons'.

Madam Speaker, we had a situation then where it was a relatively clear and relatively logically founded exemption. The first act, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act, was in a situation where the housing conditions of poor seniors were absolutely desperate. The whole issue was to increase access. It made no sense to increase the cost of housing by adding school taxes, so an exemption was granted. In the second case, where the subsidy came in the form of providing the shortfall between the actual operating costs of the building and the rents derived from income, it also made sense to continue the exemption, because not to do so would have meant that governments were simply paying taxes to themselves.

Madam Speaker, what has happened here is that events and circumstances have changed as we have moved into a different era. So we now have a situation where seniors have somewhat more capacity to pay for housing, not an unlimited capacity obviously, and governments have decided that they would like to limit their liability in terms of the overall housing programs, and so governments have cut back very sharply on the provision of seniors housing programs. Inventive entrepreneurs in the mid 1980s decided that one way that they could make a profit and provide a service to mid-income seniors was to offer the concept of life-lease. Life-lease is indeed a useful concept for seniors who have modest means, are not at the low end of the income spectrum, but they are certainly not at the upper income either. They have modest incomes.

So what we have got here then is a situation where developers came along with a concept and came to a Minister of Housing in this province, under this current government, and said, we are going to provide modest market housing to seniors. We are going to do it in the form of a life-lease, and in some cases we want you to provide an additional supplement to some units, a rent supplement. They are called rent supplement units and they are available--Manitoba Housing has a pool of these units. They can assign them to various projects, whether they are co-ops or whether they are buildings such as the condos that we are speaking of here, the life-lease condos. So Manitoba Housing did assign some rent-geared-to-income rental income supplement units to some of these projects. At any given time they all may be occupied or only some of them may be occupied. The numbers that the minister has given here under RGI units, on the table that he gave to our member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli), might go up and down depending on the circumstances at any given time of the housing project.

Here, Madam Speaker, we had, unfortunately, the blurring of principle. The principle that was long established by the Schreyer government and by governments even before that time was that everybody pays property taxes. In the Schreyer government we recognized that for modest-income seniors, particularly school taxes could be a real burden. So we separated out two important ideas, and that is what is becoming blurred in the exemptions that were granted by Ministers of Housing of this government.

The two separate ideas were, first of all, that everyone ought to contribute to the maintenance of education in our community, because whether you are a senior or whether you are a middle-aged person or whether you are a younger person, we all benefit from having a strong public education system. We benefit in terms of our quality of life. We benefit in terms of the quality of the workforce that is produced. There are all kinds of benefits from having a strong public education system, and, to date, at least, we have not exempted groups from paying for education.

Some may feel they should be exempted, but, in general, Madam Speaker, we have resisted any kind of exemptions, I think, in part, because the principle is recognized but also because when you start making exemptions, it becomes a wedge, and the wedge can get driven in deeper and deeper, and pretty soon you find yourself in the situation where your tax base is impaired and the ability of school boards to meet their needs has been impaired by the gradual granting of exemptions.

So the first principle was everybody pays school taxes, but the second principle, Madam Speaker, which is an equally important principle, is that people of low income ought not to be unable to live in decent, humane surroundings by virtue of their low income. So how do you combine these two ideas, and the mechanism that the Schreyer government pioneered and developed as the most effective of its kind in Canada was the mechanism of property tax credits.

When the Schreyer government brought in the initial property tax credit system, Madam Speaker, it was aimed specifically at education taxes because the Schreyer government recognized that property taxation is essentially a regressive form of taxation, because we all need housing, and there is a component of all of our property taxes that is regressive because we all need sewers, we all need water, we all need streets, we all need street cleaning and garbage collection, et cetera, et cetera, whether we are rich or whether we are poor.

* (1640)

So property taxes have long been recognized by taxation experts as well as by ordinary folk as a regressive form of taxation, so the Schreyer government brought in a very progressive form of property tax relief aimed first at school boards and school taxes. What this program achieved was really very remarkable because it held in place the principle, the very important principle, that we all contribute to our school system and to the needs of our communities through property taxes, but it held that important principle in tension with the ability-to-pay principle, and it achieved it by a progressive remitting of school taxes on the basis of income.

So now we have three pieces of this puzzle, the principle of ability to pay, the principle of access to housing, the principle of supporting our public school system. Unfortunately, in the mid-1980s developers who were looking for an advantage broke this principle in a very serious way by saying that people who could afford market housing should nevertheless have an exemption from their school taxes if they lived in a nonprofit life-lease condo.

What happened was that developers reversed the traditional approach. The traditional approach was that a nonprofit organization, a Lions Club, a church, a lodge, a union, would go to a developer and to the government and say help us make possible good housing for our members or for our community, and the government would respond. What began to happen in the mid-80s was developers went to service clubs and said, have we got a deal for you. If you will lend us your name and your status as a nonprofit organization, we will put in place housing that will have a property tax exemption and can provide really nice quality housing for your members cheaper than we might otherwise be able to do.

Madam Speaker, it is important to recognize that the value of the property tax exemption we are talking about here is an average of $720 per suite per year, not an insubstantial amount of money, and in some cases it is well over $1,000 per suite, in the case of the Lindenholm project, for example.

So we have now a situation where some very important principles have been bent out of shape by a government providing an exemption to what may have at the time seemed like a very small group of properties, but, unfortunately, once you have provided one exemption, it is very hard to turn off the tap That is the dilemma this government finds itself in, because it forgot the basic principles of access and everybody contributing to our school system and the relief that was possible through a progressive form of property tax credits. It forgot those key principles and instead gave an easy exemption and access to an act, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act, which was never intended for market housing. It was a very unfortunate precedent that was set by the government in doing this.

So now they are faced with a situation of having to try and close a barn door or at least limit the amount what escapes through the barn door, and so they have come up with a mechanism. I would say with all due respect to the minister, it is a bad mechanism that you have chosen, because it is akin to the idea in taxation that at $1,000 you pay no taxes and at $1,001 you pay 25 percent taxes on all your income.

Whenever you set in place a guideline that says, under this threshold you are home free and one square foot over this threshold you pay taxes, you know what is going to happen. I think the minister probably knows, I have been in the business of trying to build elderly persons housing and I have been involved in the administration of elderly persons housing, and I know how inventive developers are. What is going to happen is that as soon as these regulations are published, competent, creative architects are going to show developers how they can meet the guidelines and stay under the square footage in buildings that remarkably have just wonderful amenity spaces. They have expanded public spaces. They have, instead of having an in-suite washer and dryer, they have an out-of-suite washer and dryer that is in the public space, but it is a beautiful washer and dryer room. We are going to find lounges in places that would never have had lounges before, and exercise rooms. We are going to find, in other words, compact units with storage, for example, not in the unit anymore but in the hallway adjacent to the unit. It will still be accessible, but it will not be part of the unit, so it will meet the criteria.

Madam Speaker, I think that it is important that we understand the principles that have been bent out of shape by the actions of the government and that we understand that one of the things that they did which made it really hard to respond to the problem they have created was, they cut the property tax credit program. Had they left it in place, had they been willing to make it more flexible, had they even begun to keep it up to inflation, then it would have been much easier to deal with the problem they have created here, because that would still have been accessible to them.

Finally, Madam Speaker, I hope the minister is able to tell me that we are wrong on this one, but I have a fairly strong feeling that the residents of this building are still taking advantage of the property tax credit because, under the regulations, the property tax credit does not just go to school taxes, it goes to all property taxes. So since they are still paying other property taxes, I believe that these buildings are likely also receiving on a suite-per-suite basis the property tax exemption of $250 per suite based on the rental that the suite is actually paying, so it will be a slightly varying amount depending on what the rental levels are, but my guess is that the rental levels are such that the units would fully qualify for the $250 deduction.

So I would ask the minister to ascertain from his staff whether, because of the way the regulations on the current property tax program are worded, these buildings are also enjoying not only a school tax exemption but they are also enjoying the property tax credit program as well. So I think that the minister has seen a problem correctly. It is a problem that his government created, but his remedy is hastily and ill thought out and does not restore the principles that are so important in the whole area of our public school system in ability-to-pay taxation, in affordable and accessible housing, all three of which are legitimate needs and all have to be held in some kind of balance.

I do not believe this legislation achieves that balance, and I believe the minister should reconsider. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Madam Speaker, I have benefited, enjoyed listening to the comments put on the record by my two colleagues regarding Bill 60, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Amendment Act, and I also want to add to those comments. I am pleased to see that the minister is listening and is taking some notes, because I think he can also benefit from particularly the experience of some of the members on this side of the House in dealing with social housing, particularly for seniors.

We have only had a very short time to consider this bill, and we have a number of concerns about it. I want to begin, though, by talking about how this session we are seeing a number of bills coming forward in the area related to housing that are trying to catch up with some of the changes in the area of seniors' housing and generally with the variety, the new variety of housing that is being created in our province.

One of the new models for housing is this life-lease approach, and I must put on the record that there was to be another bill this session that would deal with more amendments that are required in legislation to deal with the way that life-lease buildings are not being serviced adequately by the existing regime of legislation that we have. The government has been forced to slow down and take another look at that legislation that would have come under the ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. There may be some cause for concern for the minister to do the same with this legislation once he has finished hearing some of the concerns that we have, and, indeed, I would suggest consulting more fully with the community, particularly those who deal with seniors in this area of social housing.

* (1650)

So this legislation is trying to keep up with what developers have found to be a loophole, and in some ways it has identified accurately a problem with the principle of ensuring that all those who should be paying for their school property taxes are indeed doing that. This problem was identified both by the Manitoba Association of School Trustees as well as some other rural areas that brought it forward to the government saying here is a problem where there are these new life-lease apartments being constructed, and a number of the residents, then, are getting around paying--or the building is being exempted from school tax when, indeed, the properties are of a size and value where we have not heard the total amount of the school tax that is being lost.

I have asked the minister to provide me with a list of those properties that are currently qualifying under the legislation that would not qualify under the new standards, so we would get a sense of the amount of school tax that is exempt, but the minister has said that there is under all of the 184 seniors' apartments that are exempt under the legislation--and some of those, indeed, would continue to qualify, but in all of those apartments there is $2.5 million of property school tax that is not being collected, that is exempt under The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Act.

The minister has provided me with a list of 17 apartments or developments that are going to be, so to speak, grandfathered under this legislation, and I asked in the House today to confirm how many of these are above and beyond the guideline that is being proposed in this new legislation that will be in regulation, and I think it is important that I put that guideline on the record. I was concerned initially that the guideline is in regulation.

I wanted, before we even discussed this matter in the House, to be given what the guideline is, and the minister has informed me that the square footage guideline will be as follows: For a bachelor unit, it will be 435 square feet; for a one-bedroom unit, it will be 585 square feet; and, for a two-bedroom unit, it will be 840 square feet. Anything beyond this will no longer qualify for the exemption for school tax under this legislation. The other point that is to be made, though, about this is that this is taken from the CMHC guideline for constructing social housing for seniors under the Elderly Persons Housing program.

I want to get into a little bit more later on about the trend that we are seeing that we are no longer having social housing constructed at the more modest low-end program, because the federal government and the provincial government have eliminated the funding for new social housing in the country. So it is kind of ironic and disturbing that while they have eliminated the program to conduct social housing that would indeed qualify under this Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act for this school tax exemption, they are taking those very standards and saying this is what the developers are supposed to live up to. They are trying to plug this loophole, if you would, by creating this new standard that is going to be based on square footage. We had some concern that this is completely based on square footage and is not based on the income of the residents that are going to live there.

Now, the problem with this is as we have seen the way that developers have found a way of getting around the existing legislation, they may find a way of getting around this current proposal. They may, in fact, find that there will still be private accommodation that is going to be exempt from paying property school tax. We have already heard it from the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) give some examples of how we could have new kinds of seniors' accommodations that will have large swimming pools or common rooms, recreation areas, and other amenities that will not be part of the square footage but will certainly drive up the, as to use the minister's words, the luxuriousness of these apartments, and they will still qualify for the exemption. They will also then enable the property to have a higher rent charge and rent fee. So one of the concerns that we have about this is that there is the possibility to still find your way around this new guideline.

There are a number of other problems related to this because, as the minister has given me this list, we notice that some of these properties have a mixture of life-lease units as well as rent-geared-to-income units, and one of the other questions and concerns that I have is that there may be quite a difference in the size of the units that are in a particular building. I do not know if that is occurring now, but that may be another thing that could occur in the future where certain units in a building may be small enough that they would qualify under the guidelines. What is going to happen to those when there are some larger units that would not qualify under the guideline especially when some of these are rent-geared-to-income?

The rent-geared-to-income program, as we are seeing it operated now under the current conditions, has all sorts of problems. It is plagued with problems, and it seems that this government is trying to deal with these problems in a very piecemeal fashion. I think we really have to have some serious consideration to look at what is happening with these rent-geared-to-income units.

In the minister's comments on the bill, he made reference to the fact that currently under the legislation there is a consideration for income. I have read the legislation, I have looked at the regulations, and I want to find out and hopefully will get some confirmation on this at the committee stage where that exists right now. The regulation, as it stands currently, has only the requirement for the development of elderly housing and infirm housing under this legislation to have a nonprofit as a sponsor, and there is nothing there about income guidelines. That is one of the concerns that we have that this should not be just based on square footage. There could be a situation, for example, where an elderly person has paid off their mortgage on their house, they have sold it, and they put their money into a property, and that has not increased their annual income. They may still be living on a very meagre pension and rather than living in their home, where they certainly would be paying the property school taxes, they would be moving into this type of unit. We want to ensure that seniors on low income are indeed going to be protected.

I have also inquired of the minister if this is going to drive the market in such a way as that we are now going to have developers working with nonprofits and service clubs to develop buildings that have smaller apartments. I am interested in looking at what the revenue generation is going to be, at what the per-unit costs are going to be in creating something that is 1,200 or 1,500 square feet as opposed to smaller units that would perhaps qualify under this guideline, how that is going to affect developers' costs and revenue, and how this is actually going to affect the market.

* (1700)

One of the other things that I have been concerned about, as well, is in discussion with the minister comments that he has made about the review process. Now, in the legislation, there is a mention that there will be a review process, and the minister has mentioned this when we were having a discussion. I know that these units, or these blocks, have to be reviewed periodically to ensure that they are qualifying. I am concerned that this review process would include consultation and would include input from the community.

The minister has given me a bit more of assurance by his answers in Question Period today, where he has put on the record that the blocks that are going to be protected under this amendment, or from this time forward, are not going to be subject to review. When we had a discussion, he had used the phrase that they were trying to weed out some of the blocks, and I was not convinced that there was not going to be some changes for some of these existing blocks. Because some of them have a mix of rent-geared-to-income, there could be financial hardship on some of the people that are currently living there. There may be some issue in the public with this because they are now going to be two different standards. That is always a problem when you have some type of grandfather clause, and we will look to see if that is going to create any type of conflict. There is, as I mentioned already, a problem with mixed-unit blocks.

One of the other concerns that I have is it has been difficult to discuss this with some of these buildings that are currently life-leased that are going to be grandfathered under this legislation, because the minister did not let them know about the legislation. There did not seem to be any consulting with some of the buildings that are going to now be judged by a different standard than those in the future. The minister has met fairly recently with the social housing managers association, and I find it odd that this was not discussed.

When I called up people involved in that organization just a few days ago, they did not know about the legislation, and the minister again in Question Period today suggested that, well, they are going to have any changes, but there are going to be changes because now they are going to be in a different category. There will be two standards in terms of these types of properties.

So I think the minister should have discussed this more with the community, with the kinds of groups that we have, with the boards for some of these properties that are going to be affected. The minister has said that, currently, there are no applications for licence under The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Act, and that makes this a good time to bring this bill in because it is not going to affect any applications currently, but I still think that there has to be a chance to really look at what the implications are going to be from this legislation.

One of the other things that the minister had mentioned, and I am not quite sure what he meant, is he was talking about there being a sliding scale at some point, and as was already expressed by my colleagues, one of the other concerns that we have about this is that it is an "either/or," that if your apartment, a two-bedroom, is 841 square feet, you are not going to qualify, but if it is one square foot lower than that, then you will, and how that is a problem. As I said earlier, we are going to have to see how this is going to affect the marketing and affect construction.

One of the other issues that this has raised, particularly when we are dealing with rent-geared-to-income or rent supplement blocks, is how this is being affected by and raises issues about the property tax rebate. We know that this government has also made some changes with respect to rent-geared-to-income, and now the tenants who receive a property tax credit and are in rent-geared-to-income units have that property tax credit added to their income. This is having a cyclical effect. It is not a lot of money, granted, but it is creating a situation where you are paying in on your property tax, and then you are getting money back that is going to add on to your income, which is then going to turn around and drive up the cost or the taxes.

On the other hand, one of the other things that is happening is even though some of these buildings are not paying the school property tax, they are getting a property tax rebate. One of the questions I have is, is that calculated on the entire property tax, including the school tax, or has that already been eliminated from those calculations? As was already mentioned earlier, part of the problem here in the past when this legislation was serving the purpose that was intended, and it was ensuring that there was a construction of decent housing for seniors on low and modest income, it was determined that there would be an exemption, so that the government was not basically paying school tax to itself and driving up the cost of operating and managing these buildings. What I think the government has to look at here then is its other policies with respect to its cuts in the property tax credits and other changes that it is making, as I said earlier, in the rent-geared-to-income program.

One of the other issues that has been raised is, in these life-lease units, particularly the ones that are currently going to continue to be exempt, if there are individuals who are owning more than one unit and then, in turn, even renting it out, what is happening to the taxes paid in those instances?

I also wanted to talk a little bit more about the problems that are occurring with this legislation in terms of the market for housing for seniors generally. It is responding to one of the problems that the government itself has created. The developers are now going and finding service clubs, building these rather expensive seniors housing accommodation, and there is no government money going into building social housing and low-end accommodation. The federal government has cut $270 million over the last three years from social housing, and this government has also eliminated its portion that would have gone into construction of new housing for seniors. It has not talked about that. It has talked about the big bad federal government for reducing their portion, but this government usually would pay 25 percent of the cost of new construction and it has not spent that money. I do not know what has happened to it. I do not know if it has gone into--I do not think it has--the maintenance or they have not kept it into the social housing portfolio, so they have, in turn, also been reducing their support for ensuring that seniors have good quality housing.

But a larger concern is the government also has plans in the next fiscal year, the one coming up, that they are going to reduce another $152 million, and all of this is going to continue to drive the problem of maintaining the portfolio that we do have of housing that is regulated under this legislation. I think it goes to show that we cannot leave up to the market the responsibility for providing quality housing for seniors.

* (1710)

One of the other things that I wanted to do prior to ending my comments on this bill is to read into the record the properties that are provided to us as protected under this legislation from the changes in Bill 60. These are as follows: St. Mary The Protectress Villa at 800 Burrows Avenue, 72 units; Prairie Rose Apartments, 219 1st Street West, in Landmark, has 12 units and all of those are life-lease; Marshall Memorial Centre, 247 Main Street in Carberry, Manitoba, has 27 units and 25 of those are life-lease; Stonewall and District Lions Manor at 700 Centre Avenue in Stonewall has 52 units and 52 of those are life-lease; Westman Lion's Manor in Brandon at 35 Victoria Avenue East has 128 units and 128 of those are life-lease; 110 Legion Place on Regent Avenue and Dennis in Gladstone, Manitoba, has 16 units, 16 are life-lease; St. George's Place at 100 Cruise Crescent in Dauphin, 61 units, 61 of those are life-lease; Fred Douglas Place at 333 Vaughan Street in Winnipeg, 133 units and 133 are life-lease; St. Michael's Villa at 114 Yale Avenue East, in Winnipeg, 57 units and 57 are life-lease; Kiwanis Chateau at 430 Webb Place in Winnipeg, 122 units and 122 of those are life-lease, Kirchhoff Gardens, 1295 Dakota Street in Winnipeg, 96 units, 96 are life-lease; Lions Court and Lions Manor at 346 6th Street in Winkler, 71 units and 23 are life-lease; Lindenholm Place at 885 Wilkes Avenue in Winnipeg, 92 units and 92 are life-lease; Transcona Place at 110 Victoria Avenue West, in Winnipeg, 39 units, and 20 are life-lease; Villa Tache, 400 Rue Des Meurons in Winnipeg, 87 units and 87 are life-lease; Beauchemin Park Place at 5995 Roblin Boulevard in Winnipeg, 60 units and 30 are life-lease; and St. Peter and Paul Manor at 375 Goulet in Winnipeg, 33 units and 33 are life-lease--and I would think that that one was probably the last one that qualified under this program.

I notice by the chart here that the minister has provided that it does not indicate how big any of those units are, and I am interested to find out how many of these properties have units that would not qualify under the new guidelines that are going to be brought in under regulation under Bill 60, the provisions in Bill 60.

With that, Madam Speaker, I just want to summarize that our concerns are that we are now going to have these dual standards under The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Act, that the minister does not seem to have given full consideration to the implications of the legislation, the fact that there still may be ways around it and we are going to see private or market level rents that are going to be qualifying under the legislation and the developers are going to find ways around it so that we are still going to see unfairness, where seniors that are living in their own homes are going to be paying their property taxes and others are going to find a way that they will be able to be exempt.

Other concerns that we have, if they are not looking at what is being created by their changes to the property tax credit, they are not looking at other problems in the rent-geared-to-income program and that this legislation is going to indeed not deal with the issues that are out there.

With that, Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale), that the bill, Bill 60, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Amendment Act be now not read but read a third time this day six months hence.

Madam Speaker: It has been moved by the honourable member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli), seconded by the honourable member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale), that the bill, Bill 60, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Amendment Act be not now read but be read a third time this day six months hence. Agreed?

Some Honourable Members: No.

Madam Speaker: All those in favour of the motion, please say yea.

Some Honourable Members: Yea.

Madam Speaker: All those opposed, please say nay.

Some Honourable Members: Nay.

Madam Speaker: In my opinion, the Nays have it.

Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): On division, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: On division.

Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Just to review, I wonder if you might have a look at the motion we just defeated on division. I believe the wording was that it "be not now read but read a third time six months hence." I believe we are at second reading stage, and it might be technical, but the Journals people might want to be clear on that.

Madam Speaker: I thank the honourable--no, it is on the motion. I read the motion as written. [interjection] Pardon me?

An Honourable Member: It said "third." Right?

Mr. McCrae: Yes, I think we should agree to change that. Let us get the record right.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. Is there leave to change the wording of the motion? [agreed] I thank the government House leader. Is it the wish of the House to repeat and review the--

An Honourable Member: No.

Madam Speaker: Just change the wording. Okay.

Mr. George Hickes (Point Douglas): Madam Speaker, could you rescind the Law Amendments announcement that I made for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway) for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) for June 24 to read, I move, seconded by the member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Law Amendments be amended as follows: Elmwood (Mr. Maloway) for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) for Tuesday, June 24, for 10 a.m.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): I move, seconded by the member for Pembina (Mr. Dyck), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Economic Development for Tuesday, June 24, at 10 a.m. be amended as follows: member for Gladstone (Mr. Rocan) for the member for LaVerendrye (Mr. Sveinson).

Motion agreed to.

Mr. McCrae: Have we moved for the question on Bill 60, your honour?

Madam Speaker: No. Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading Bill 60, The Elderly and Infirm Persons' Housing Amendment Act.

Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Some Honourable Members: No.

Madam Speaker: No? All those in favour of the motion, please say yea.

Some Honourable Members: Yea.

Madam Speaker: All those opposed, please say nay.

Some Honourable Members: Nay.

Madam Speaker: In my opinion, the Yeas have it.

Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): On division, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: On division.

Madam Speaker: To resume second reading debate, on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings), Bill 61, The Sustainable Development and Consequential Amendments Act; (Loi sur le développement durable et modifications corrélatives), standing in the name of the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) who has 37 minutes remaining.

* (1720)

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to rise once again on Bill 61, The Sustainable Development Act. I am pleased to be able to put some comments on the record on such an important bill, such an important concept that I think our province and the government governing our province these days needs to do a lot of discussion on, a lot of debate. and, indeed, a lot more consultation with all of the citizens of our province.

Madam Speaker, the other day in just the few minutes that I had, I began by speaking of a generation that is going to follow us in our province, a generation that will some day occupy the seats that we occupy now and make decisions on behalf of the people that they represent, the citizens of Manitoba. I would be the first to admit that the younger generation has a lot better understanding of sustainability than what those of us in the older generations have. My experience in the teaching world taught me that students these days are very aware that our decisions have enormous effect on our environment, on our surroundings. My experience also taught me that students in our schools in this province have really taken to heart the kind of concepts and the kind of decisions that need to be made in terms of sustainability, in terms of protecting our environment and protecting the resources that we have in our province now in order that those resources and our environment can be passed on to that younger generation in pretty much the same state as we inherited those resources in the first place.

Madam Speaker, on the one hand that gives me a lot of confidence in our future, because I do have confidence in the younger generation to make very good, very positive, very balanced decisions when they get to our stage, when they get to represent Manitobans in years to come.

On the other hand though, Madam Speaker, we are making decisions today and in the next number of years that will have an effect on the world in which we pass on to that younger generation. I think that there are two ways in which you can see and view these decisions that we will be making. First of all, there are the actual decisions that need to be made, whether a licence is granted to a certain company or not, whether water is used for one purpose or another, whether we use land for one reason or another. Those are short-term, immediate kind of decisions that we need to make as government. The longer-term decisions, the other view that we can take a look at when you talk about sustainability and sustainable development are those that are more process oriented. How committed are we to allowing Manitobans to have their rightful say in the process by which we come to make all these short-term decisions?

Now, there is no point in arguing whether the long term or the short term is more important, one or the other. They are equally as important because they depend on each other. We cannot have a whole lot of confidence in the short-term decision making of a provincial government, if we do not have a good process by which to involve our citizens in the first place. Flip the coin over, and you can make the argument that there is not much sense having a process just written down someplace that is not going to be followed, then have your short-term decisions on licensing, land use, forest development, water development, if you are not going to have a process, the bigger picture, to guide your smaller decisions, each of the individual decisions along the way.

The other thing I would suggest that is absolutely essential in this whole process is the confidence by which the citizens of the province have in their government to not only make good decisions but to include these citizens in the debate and in the process that takes place before the decisions are made. I am going to suggest to you, Madam Speaker, that the government that we are presently dealing with has not done a good job in looking at the broad picture, looking at the process that needs to be taken in order to include citizens in the environmental decision making that any provincial government will embark upon.

I do not just say these things off the top of my head. I use actual cases to make up my mind, actual cases that this government has done in the area of environmental sustainable development, sustainability decisions that they have made while their term of office has been going along.

The Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Cummings) throws over the name Louisiana-Pacific. I think that is one example that we can use to point out to some of the problems a government faces when it embarks upon licensing a company to take a natural resource, a public natural resource, that belongs to the citizens of this province. I think what we want to get away from is having a process that is stacked in favour of one side or the other. I do not think we need a process that excludes citizens or puts citizens at a disadvantage. I do not think we need a process that puts the government solidly on one side of the equation and marginalizing people who want to have input into that process in the first place. Not only did that happen in the case of the public hearings that took place with Louisiana-Pacific, but other instances over the years that this government has been the government, in other instances where the people of the province of Manitoba were excluded by this government.

The government released back in August of 1996 what appears to be their real agenda, their vision of how they see sustainable development unfolding in our province in the years to come. It was released in the white paper on The Sustainable Development Act. It was released by this government and, Madam Speaker, quite roundly it was defeated. Quite firmly, one group after the next came out and said this white paper on sustainability, sustainable development, is not good enough. So what the government did was it went back to the drawing boards, looked at all the groups that had approached it with concerns, looked at the concerns that the group had and started erasing from the draft act all those contentious issues, particularly in Section 7, from this act in order to make it--

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I hate to interrupt the honourable member mid-word, let alone mid-sentence, the House will be resuming a little later. If there is leave for 30 seconds, I have an announcement to make.

Madam Speaker: Does the honourable government House leader have leave to make an announcement? [agreed]

Mr. McCrae: I wish to announce that in addition to the bills already scheduled for consideration by the Law Amendments committee on Tuesday, June 24 at 10 a.m. which are Bills 21, 33, 38, 42, 43, 45, 46, 52 and 58, the committee will also consider the following bills: 56 and 60.

Madam Speaker: The Standing Committee on Law Amendments scheduled for Tuesday, June 24 at 10 a.m. which was to consider Bills 21, 33, 38, 42, 43, 45, 46, 52 and 58 will also consider Bills 56 and 60.

As previously agreed, when this matter is before the House, the honourable member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) will have 29 minutes remaining.

As previously agreed, I am leaving the Chair with the understanding that this House will reconvene at 7 p.m. this evening.