Mr. Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon, this section of Committee of Supply meeting in Room 255 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Sport. When the committee last sat it had been considering item 28.1. Sport (a) Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits on page 125 of the Estimates book.
Does the honourable member for Osborne have any questions on this particular set of Estimates? Not at the moment?
Ms. Diane McGifford (Osborne): Not at the moment.
Mr. Chairperson: I guess we will have to wait. The honourable Minister of Urban Affairs, is that okay?
An Honourable Member: Housing and Urban Affairs.
Mr. Chairperson: Housing and Urban Affairs.
Hon. Jack Reimer (Minister of Urban Affairs): Mr. Chair, while we are waiting, I wonder whether the minister might entertain a question about the volunteers that are coming forth for the Pan Am Games. I know that there has been shown tremendous interest in it. I wonder if maybe he could just comment as to his impression as to the amount of volunteers.
I know that a lot of people are involved with the enthusiasm of the Pan Am Games. I can recall back to 1967, when I first had exposure to the Pan Am Games and the amount of people that were involved with the operations and with the volunteerism, the amount of people that had shown interest in getting involved. It would appear that the enthusiasm that is out there right now, in talking to a lot of the general public, that there is a willingness to participate. This is something that I think here in Manitoba that we are very, very fortunate that we have this type of tremendous asset in our community, not only in Winnipeg, but Manitoba.
We saw this very recently with the Canada Games in Brandon, where we had a lot of people coming forth to volunteer of their time, their effort. I had the opportunity to go out there to see some of the events out there at Brandon. I was impressed with not only the facilities and the amount of involvement that was put on on the local level, but I think that there were a lot of people that came up from various other areas that wanted to volunteer.
In fact, it was the oddest thing, I was in the airport in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, and I happened to be talking to a gentleman. He was mentioning about the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg. He said he was in Brandon. He said he and a group of people just decided to come up to Brandon to be volunteers, and they had nothing, no other motive other than to be part of the volunteer program in Brandon and get involved with the summer games. They really enjoyed it, and he just wanted to let me know of the friendliness and the openness of the people in Brandon and how much he enjoyed it. This was a totally unsolicited type of comment that he wanted me to take back to Manitoba. So I felt quite privileged, not only as a member of this government, but as a resident of Manitoba, that this particular gentleman was of the same opinion that Manitoba was a great place to spend some of the volunteer time with. It was with that that I know that there is this type of volunteerism that the Pan Am Games are starting to generate.
So with that, I just wanted to put something on the record regarding the tremendous volunteerism that I think that we are all going to benefit from with the Pan Am Games next year. So thank you very much for the time, Mr. Chairperson.
* (1450)
Mr. Chairperson: We would like to thank the Minister of Urban Affairs and Housing for those few comments.
28.1. Sport (a) Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $15,000--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $25,600--pass.
28.1.(b) Sport Manitoba $10,205,000--pass.
28.1.(c) Major Sport Initiatives (1) Team Canada Volleyball Centre $75,000--pass; (2) 1999 Pan American Games $5,000,000--pass; (3) 1997 Canada Games - zero--pass.
28.1.(d) Manitoba Boxing Commission $29,100--pass.
Resolution 28.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $15,349,700 for Sport for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
This ends the Estimates of the Department of Sport.