LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF
Monday, November 30,
1992
The House met at 1:30 p.m
PRAYERS
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
Speaker's Statement
Mr. Speaker: I have a
statement for the House.
As members know, the Manitoba Legislative Internship Program
has been in operation since 1985. Each
year a total of six interns are chosen for the program. Again this year, two interns have been
assigned to each of the three caucuses.
Their term of employment is for 12 months. During their term, interns perform a variety
of research and other tasks for private members as distinct from members.
My purpose today is to announce the names of the six
young people who have been selected to serve as
Working with the government caucus are Mr. Cameron MacKay
of Queen's University and Ms. Reagan Whicklow of the
PRESENTING PETITIONS
Mr. Paul Edwards (St. James): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of
Lillian Tijal, Karl Schloffer, Elsa Von Kampen and others requesting the
government of
Mr. Speaker: I have
reviewed the petition of the honourable member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema), and
it complies with the practices and the rules of the House. Is it the will of the House to have the
petition read? [agreed]
Mr. Clerk (William Remnant): The petition of the undersigned residents of
the
WHEREAS the principles of health care, namely the
universality and comprehensiveness, should apply to the Pharmacare program; and
WHEREAS the Pharmacare program's effectiveness is being
eroded; and
WHEREAS in the most recent round of delisting of
pharmaceuticals, approximately 200 have been delisted by the government of
WHEREAS the strict submission deadline for Pharmacare
receipts does not take into consideration extenuating circumstances which may
have affected some people; and
WHEREAS pharmaceutical refunds often take six weeks to
reach people; and
WHEREAS a health "smart card" would provide
information to reduce the risk of ordering drugs which interact or are
ineffective, could eliminate "double prescribing," and could also be
used to purchase pharmaceuticals on the Pharmacare program, thereby easing the
cash burden on purchasers.
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray that the
Legislative Assembly urge the government of
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
AND
TABLING OF REPORTS
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I have a statement to the House
with an attachment and copies for all members.
Mr. Speaker, the federal government is proceeding with
committee hearings concerning Bill C‑91.
I am making this statement to the House today because the process
precluded my own presentation to the committee.
I requested an opportunity to address the committee, but we were
informed on Friday last that only six presenters will be heard today and
tomorrow.
Speaking for Health ministers across the country, with
the exception of
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I would like to table the October 29, 1992, letter sent
by Ms. Cull to the federal Minister of Health, The Honourable Benoit Bouchard,
which states the position of the provincial/territorial Ministers of Health
concerning Bill C‑91. Her letter
indicates the amendments agreed to by the ministers during their meeting in
I believe the current compulsory legislative framework
has served Canadians and Manitobans well.
We have seen significant investment from generic firms in
The existing compulsory licensing does work. Since the passage of Bill C‑22, the
province has enjoyed significant industrial commitments in the health care
sector over the past four years by firms such as Trimel Life Sciences, Apotex
Biotechnologies Inc., Novapharm, Medix and Medical Technology Inc. They have contributed to an estimated sum of
private and public sector funds exceeding $500 million.
These companies are here because
We find the retroactive date of December 20, 1991, to be
wrong, and we are not prepared to endorse a precedent‑setting bill which
may impact future intergovernmental initiatives. Changing the rules of the game
may jeopardize both present and future opportunity for generic companies to
become world leaders in the industry.
This raises the question of fairness and propriety in
advancing C‑91. There will be cost
to the government of
We cannot undertake additional costs at a time when the
federal commitment to health care is regrettably not keeping pace with our
budgetary pressures. These costs cannot
be accurately estimated at this time, but I would predict they would range in
the millions, not in thousands of dollars.
Since the passage of Bill C‑22,
It is my belief that under the existing provisions some
of our generic companies will become innovators in their own right, and as a
result,
This theme fits with the recent federal government's
prosperity initiative whereby efforts were focused upon centres of
excellence. Likewise, national medical
granting agencies have historically committed significant proportions of their
resources to the
In closing, I would like to emphasize my concern
regarding the fairness in distribution of an investment by innovative
companies. We know that central
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Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, responding to the minister's
statement today, I am quite disappointed by the minister's real void in dealing
with the drug patent law issue in terms of dealing with the total policy issues
contained within the drug policy objectives of the federal Conservative government. This minister has left out the fact that the
free trade agreement with
He knows that NAFTA, as it is presently proposed, will
entrench this in the trade agreement, yet ministers opposite in the Speech from
the Throne and members of the front bench do not want to talk about NAFTA. They do not want to criticize their federal
Conservative government and their corporate trade agenda and what it will mean
for Canadians. I am quite disappointed
in this minister for thinking he could cherry‑pick this issue into a
narrow piece of federal legislation and not know that all of us are following
this issue very carefully, Mr. Speaker, and very, very carefully on behalf of
the people of
I would refer the minister and the government to The New
York Times of two weeks ago, where they state very clearly that the federal
Conservative government, a government that many over there campaigned for, has
signed off in
The New York Times goes on to say: How could
Oh, yes, the government will say it is different, but it
was the first piece of legislation, according to every health economist, that
started to prohibit
I would go on to say, Mr. Speaker, that extending the
patent life of drugs is likely to cost consumers immediately and add to the
burden of government costs for health care.
You know, this government talks about health care reform, but when it
comes to the NAFTA agreement that will entrench this, they say nothing. Of
course, Democrats in the Congress and in the Senate are saying we are slitting
our own throats by limiting our options to contain drug costs in this NAFTA
agreement.
Where is the intellectual honesty of members opposite and
this Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard)?
It is nowhere, and until they start condemning the NAFTA agreement and
the clause dealing with drug patent law, we will just think that this is public
relations statements, not statements of substance on behalf of Manitobans.
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs (Leader of the Second Opposition): Well, Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am pleased
that the minister has finally woken up to what is a critical issue with regard
to generic drugs and their production in
You know, one of the very sad things about the federal
government is that they appear to believe that our logical relationship with
the
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That is why we proposed a Pharmacare card in 1986, so
that they would be in a position where they would only have to put up 20
percent of the cost once they had reached their full limit. Then they would
have that 80 percent that they could then spend on the necessity of food, which
is also an important component of their health care.
That is why we were opposed to Bill C‑22, because C‑22
began the process that put us on the slippery slope of this present piece of
legislation. That is what started it,
and unfortunately this government supported Bill C‑22. We could not get them to support even a
resolution in this House which indicated their dismay at the type of
legislation which was going to harm the generic drug industry but, more
importantly, was going to put up the cost of prescription drugs.
Bill C‑91 goes further, but I am also deeply
disturbed at the process here. I am
appalled that our Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) has not been able to make a
presentation. I cannot understand quite
frankly that this federal government has learned nothing from the process of
October 26. It has decided yet once
again to not listen to the public, as duly represented by their Health minister
from this province. It represents a
government that is determined to keep their corporate alliance with American
companies alive and well in terms of the federal Conservative government and to
not work in the best interests of the people of this province and this country.
I hope that the minister goes further than his
ministerial statement here today, but that the Premier (Mr. Filmon) writes an
extremely strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister of this nation
indicating that provincial politicians, in terms of health care, have a very
important role to play and that legislation by the federal government impacts
severely upon our ability to deliver good quality health care. I would like to see a letter from the Premier
tomorrow tabled in this House indicating that he has gone this one step further
and has informed the Prime Minister of the total unacceptability, not only of
this legislation, but of the process put in place by the federal
government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the Annual
Report for the Surface Rights Board and also the Annual Report for the Manitoba
Municipal Employees Benefits Board.
Speaker's Statement
Mr. Speaker: Prior to
Oral Questions, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the presence
at the table of Judy White, who has been appointed Clerk of Committees to
replace Patricia Chaychuk‑Fitzpatrick, who is on a one‑year leave
of absence. I am sure that all
honourable members would wish to welcome her to the staff of the Assembly.
Introduction of Guests
Mr. Speaker: Also, I
would like to draw the attention of honourable members to the gallery, where we
have nine student council members from the
On behalf of all honourable members, I would like to
welcome you here this afternoon.
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ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
North American Free
Trade Agreement
Government Position
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, in 1990, during the provincial
election, the Premier said he was opposed to free trade with
In August, when the legal text was released, we were told
by his minister that within three weeks we would know what the position of the
provincial government is. We understand
that they have been holding private meetings with a number of groups across
We would like to know from the Premier: What is his bottom line? He has told us in his six conditions that he
would give us his bottom line on NAFTA.
What today is his bottom line on NAFTA for the people of
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition
knows full well that trade is a very important issue to the economy and the people
of
We in
Mr. Doer: Mr.
Speaker, today we have the example of a vacuous government in terms of
policy. We have one minister complaining
about one piece of legislation which is entrenched in the North American Free
Trade Agreement; we have one minister for political purposes talking about how
this is going to help central Canada and hurt
I would ask the Premier:
In light of the increased drug costs for Manitobans and his Health care
department, in light of the fact that we are going to lose jobs and investment
according to his own Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), can he give us finally
his bottom line which he promised to Manitobans a year ago about those six
conditions? Is this good for
Mr. Filmon: Mr.
Speaker, I have indicated to the Leader of the Opposition that the Minister of
Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Stefanson) is in the midst of his
consultations with all sectors of the
Mr. Doer: Mr.
Speaker, I would remind the Premier that it was his promise in 1990, during the
period of time he was seeking a mandate, that Manitobans have to go by, that he
was absolutely opposed to it. Then he
equivocated with those six conditions, flip‑flop, if you will. He would not tell us about the draft
agreements. He would not tell us about
his conditions based on public consultations.
They would not table the results of the public consultations.
Now surely the Premier who makes the promise is
responsible for telling the people of
Will this Premier tell us where he stands on the free trade
agreement with
Mr. Filmon: Mr.
Speaker, rather than having a philosophical or a knee‑jerk response, we
want our government's position to be based on what the agreement will do for
the
I have already indicated to the Leader of the Opposition
that
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Child and Family Support
Division
Reporting Process
Ms. Becky Barrett (
I would like to ask the Minister of Family Services today
why the mandate of the Child and Family Support Division has been expanded now
and changed to manage issues that might be embarrassing for the minister and
his government rather than spending their time, energy and resources on
planning, developing and delivering services for the children of
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer (Minister of Family Services): Mr. Speaker, the Department of Family
Services has a wide variety of activities.
Certainly one of the most important that we are involved in is looking
after the Child and Family Services Agencies.
In saying that, we have a lot of reforms that are going
on at this time within Child and Family Services. We have recently received the Suche report
and have a number of working groups that are putting that into practice. As well, we have recently adopted the high
risk indicators which the agencies are working now at in‑servicing their
staff on.
The member supported the bill on the Child Advocate in
the last session, and this is in process.
We hope to have that office up and running in the near future. As well, we are working on the service
information system which now is nearly ready to be put in use in the central
Ms. Barrett: Mr.
Speaker, I would like to table for the House today a letter written at the end
of last week to the executive directors, Child and Family Services Agencies,
regional directors and regional offices from the executive director of Child
and Family Support stating that since the House was coming in November 26, the
Child and Family Support Division was asking each executive director of Child
and Family Services and regional offices to provide the minister's office with
issues every morning by ten o'clock.
I would like to ask the minister if this is an
appropriate use of the very small, totally overworked resources of not only the
Child and Family Support Division, but more importantly even, the executive
directors and the staff of the Child and Family Service Agencies are supposed
to be protecting children.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Mr.
Speaker, the member well knows that government has mandated those agencies to
perform those tasks for government, for the Department of Family Services. At the same time, the member brings case‑specific
issues to the House from time to time. I
recall one such time last session when the member was demanding that the
minister know what happened to a child that was left abandoned on a street in
the city. The agency had reacted within
25 minutes, and the member was condemning government and the minister for not
knowing that.
The need to provide information to the department and to
the minister is vital in terms of the minister knowing the activities of all of
the agencies that we fund. I would point
out to the member that our department relates to 180,000 Manitobans across our
various divisions, and in order to be able to work with those agencies and work
with those Manitobans, the ministry and the department needs that flow of
information so that we are able to work with them and comment on those issues.
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Ms. Barrett: Mr.
Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Family Services why it so‑called
"happens." Is it just
coincidence that it is the day before the House sits that this letter goes out,
that we have to have immediate response‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please. The honourable member has put
her question.
Mr. Gilleshammer: As you
are well aware, we have a hierarchy of officials within government, a deputy
minister and assistant deputy ministers.
The assistant deputy ministers, on a regular basis, are in contact with
the agencies that are mandated and do have a process of two‑way
communication going between government and those agencies.
Child and Family Support
Division
Reporting Process
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, this is really quite
unprecedented. Either the minister does
not have a normal reporting procedure, which I hope for the sake of the
children of this province he must have in place, or he has decided that the
only time the agencies need report to him is when the Legislature is in
session, so that the needs of the children are only important the four months
that we sit in this Chamber.
Would the minister please explain to me just which one of
those two it is? Does he not have a
regular reporting procedure, or is he only really interested in children four
months a year?
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer (Minister of Family Services): The Leader of the third party is well aware
that there is a regular reporting procedure within this department and within
all departments.
Mrs. Carstairs: Mr.
Speaker, can the minister explain why the executive directors, Child and Family
Services Agencies, the regional directors in the regional offices received this
fax on November 25 at approximately five o'clock, 5:01 according to one agency,
the night before the session was to open?
How does he explain that this is not a blatant political act by his
department?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I have
indicated in the past that opposition members and politicians in general, I
think, have made too much politics out of child welfare in the past. The officials within my department are in
regular communication with all of the agencies that we work with, and if some
officials are trying to enhance and clarify that reporting structure within the
department, that is something that they will do on an ongoing basis.
Mrs. Carstairs: Mr.
Speaker, perhaps the reason the minister thinks that too much politics is
involved is because it is only when we ask questions in this House do we even
get an answer. When we write him letters, we get answers which say, we will
bring this to the minister's attention.
I have at least ten of those letters without any follow-ups, and when I
asked his staff last week for a reply to one of these letters, I was informed,
oh, we do not have to reply; that is not necessary. So can the minister‑‑
An Honourable Member: Are we into Orders of the Day already and this
is a speech, or what?
Mrs. Carstairs: Mr.
Speaker, it has generally been the rules that the Leaders of the two opposition
parties get a preamble to all three questions.
Perhaps the Premier (Mr. Filmon) would like to change that, and he will
shorten his own answers.
Mr. Speaker, my question to the minister is: Will he rescind this letter and not try to
make an extension of political staff all of the people who work in these
agencies?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The
member has indicated that my department does not give responses to requests and
information that come from the public or other members. We turn our correspondence around in two or
three weeks. We have found that there
are times when we have responded to correspondence in the Liberal Leader's
office, and maybe it has not been drawn to her attention.
In reference to the question, I have not seen the correspondence
the member is referencing, but I will have a look at it.
Transportation Industry
Employment Security
Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): Mr. Speaker, in 1984 Transport minister
Axworthy and former Transport minister Mazankowski argued as to who was the
real godfather of deregulation. On
November 12 of this year, the light finally came on for the
My question is for the Minister of Highways and
Transportation. Will this Minister of
Transportation explain to Manitobans what success he and his government have
had in preserving and protecting transportation jobs in
Hon. Albert Driedger (Minister of Highways and
Transportation): Mr.
Speaker, I think the public is aware of the fact that there are changing issues
out there in the transportation industry, whether it is the airlines, whether
it is the railways. They are affected in
Mr. Speaker, we have continually put forward the position
that we would like to have the least minimum impact in terms of employment
within the province, and we will always continue to take that position forward.
Mr. Reid: My
supplementary question is to the same minister, Mr. Speaker.
In light of the announcement last week that CN was
slashing its work force, along with Air
Mr. Driedger: Mr.
Speaker, I think everybody is aware of the fact that CN is challenged with
trying to cut down overhead costs and operating costs in order to be
competitive and to remain in business. I
think members are aware that there are discussions taking place between CN
officials and the union officials at the present time.
The position that both myself and the Premier (Mr.
Filmon) have put forward with CN is, if there are going to be layoffs, and I
hope there will not be any, but if there are layoffs, that we will be treated
as fair as the other provinces are treated. You have to consider the fact that
we are the second highest employer in the country in terms of jobs with the
railways, next to
Mr. Reid: My final supplementary is
to the same minister, Mr. Speaker.
Since the minister has stated that
Mr. Driedger: Mr. Speaker, I am not
quite sure exactly what the member wants with a question of that nature. If the member has read the comments that have
been made by both myself and our government in terms of the airline industry, I
think he would have an idea of the position that we put forward‑‑the
least economic impact and least impact on jobs for
Video Lottery Terminals
Revenues
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (
I want to ask the Minister of Rural Development why this
government is not keeping its promise.
Where are the millions of dollars that have been taken from rural
Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise in
response to this question, because over the past few months, we have indeed
seen some very positive activity in rural
Mr. Speaker, additionally, I can report to the member
that we have well over 100 applications which are being considered under the
REDI program. Many of these come from
very small businesses in rural
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Ms. Wowchuk: Mr.
Speaker, that is $1 million out of much more that has been raised.
Can the Minister of Rural Development tell us how much
money has been raised from video lottery terminals? How much money does he have in the REDI fund,
and is all this money that is raised from video lottery terminals going into
the REDI fund, or is it going into general revenue for this government?
Mr. Derkach: Mr.
Speaker, first of all, let me say that there were other programs that have been
announced under the REDI program which the member should be well aware of.
We sponsored the Green Team project in conjunction with
Natural Resources. We were able to
provide 200 jobs for students in this province in rural
Mr. Speaker, I cannot give the exact number or exact
details with regard to the amount of revenues raised through REDI, but indeed
that will be made known as soon as the report is tabled.
Job Creation Strategy
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (
Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): Mr. Speaker, I am happy to see that the critic
for Rural Development has now changed her position with regard to Grow Bonds
and with regard to REDI.
I look forward to her voting for the throne speech which talks
about economic development not only in the city of
Economic Growth
Government Strategy
Mr. Reg Alcock (Osborne): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the
Premier.
We have now had six Speeches from the Throne, six
speeches which have promised us a firm foundation for economic growth in this
province. They promised us high‑quality,
full‑time jobs, and they have promised us a revitalized private sector
that would spur investment.
Mr. Speaker, almost since the day that this government
came into office, this province has lost position in this country, this
province has lost wealth in this country.
I would just like to ask the Premier, after sticking to his plan for
five years now, how does he explain this failure?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I am delighted at the question
from the member for Osborne. I see that
he is polishing his skills for Parliament.
I certainly want to help him in that, and I thank him for asking me that
question.
I want the member to know that this year, 1992, the
Conference Board is forecasting a growth rate in Manitoba‑‑[interjection]
No, it was 10 months at the end of October that they said the
The unemployment rate in
All of those would indicate, Mr. Speaker, that the things
that are happening in
Full-time Employment
Decline
Mr. Reg Alcock (Osborne):
It is true we have had six years of expectations. The problem is we have had no delivery,
absolutely none. Today we have fewer
full‑time jobs in this economy than we had when this Premier came to
office‑‑fewer, not more. Mr.
Speaker, had we just held even to '88, we would have had 13,000 more full-time
jobs.
I want to ask the Premier right now: How does he account for the loss of these
jobs? Why? How did it happen?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, if the member is preparing for
Mr. Speaker, the reality is that this year we are not
talking expectations. We are talking
reality.
The Conference Board said at the end of October for 1992,
the growth rate for
This year, as according to Statistics Canada, the most
recently available information that our unemployment rate is the second best in
the country.
This year, Mr. Speaker, total capital investment in
This year, Mr. Speaker, private capital investment is
expected to be the best in the country.
This year, manufacturing capital investment is expected
to be the best in the country, and in addition to that, manufacturing shipments
for the first‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please.
Point of Order
Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Mr. Speaker, our rules are very clear that
answers to questions should be brief. I noted earlier that the Premier (Mr.
Filmon) lectured members of the opposition that they should save their speeches
for debate on the throne speech. I am
wondering if you might give the same advice to the Premier and ask him to come
to order.
Mr. Speaker: I would
just like to remind the honourable First Minister, I believe he is dealing with
the matter raised, I do not believe he is provoking debate, but to keep the
answer as short as possible.
Mr. Filmon: Mr.
Speaker, I would suggest to the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) that he
lecture his own people about preambles, for a second, of his questions.
* * *
Mr. Filmon: Mr.
Speaker, this year manufacturing shipments in
Mr. Alcock: Mr.
Speaker, I would point out to the Premier that while the country has been in
recession‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please. This is not a time for
debate. The honourable member for
Osborne, kindly put your question now, please.
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Capital Investment
Mr. Reg Alcock (Osborne):
My
question to the Premier is: How does he
explain the fact that over the last five years, private sector capital
investment in this province has fallen more sharply here than it has in
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): The reality is that we had to put in place
policies that would attract private capital investment. As a result of that, this year
Review Release
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Mr. Speaker, in the Speech from the Throne
last week, not once did we hear the words equality, social or economic justice,
culture, immigration or multiculturalism, to name but a few of the omissions. This government's narrow view of development
is also negligent in terms of accountability.
If this weekend's Manitoba Intercultural Council bi‑annual
is any indication, the people of this province are not going to stand for being
ignored and not having their governments accountable to them.
My question is for the Premier: When did the government receive the copy of
Don Blair's report on the review of the
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I will take that question as
notice on behalf of the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs.
Mitchelson).
Ms. Cerilli: Mr.
Speaker, I have a few more questions for the Premier.
How does this Premier expect the Manitoba Intercultural
Council to respond to the review of its operations and role if it does not
receive this report? Will the minister
commit, because of these things that I have just said, to releasing in full the
review, the report in its entirety, including who was consulted by this review?
Mr. Filmon: I will
take that question, as well, as notice on behalf of the Minister of Culture,
Heritage and Citizenship.
Accountability
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Mr. Speaker, my final supplementary, also for
the Premier, is: Why is there no
accountability of the public money that is spent by the Manitoba Grants
Advisory Council? What does it take to
get very clear information from the Manitoba Grants Advisory Council on what
money is spent and on what that money is spent?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I will take that question as
notice as well on behalf of the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship
(Mrs. Mitchelson).
Health Care System
Budget Reduction Targets
Ms. Judy Wasylycia‑Leis (
Will the minister today, once and for all, reveal his
hidden agenda and tell us his real budget reduction targets and what impact
this will have on patient care in the
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, my hidden agenda for the health
care system is the most open book of reform in
I have no hesitation in further explaining to my
honourable friend the implication of that very open public discussion started
on May 14, preceded by three and a half years of consultation with many groups,
providers and citizens of the
If that is a hidden agenda, Mr. Speaker, I simply am at a
loss to provide my honourable friend with more clarity.
Ms. Wasylycia‑Leis: Mr. Speaker, again, since the minister will
not answer the question and be straightforward with the people of
I would ask the Minister of Health, if closing 264 beds
is intended to save $6 million to $9 million‑‑and even that is in
question‑‑how many more beds will be closed, how many more staff
laid off, how many more‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please. The honourable member has put
her question.
Mr. Orchard: Mr.
Speaker, the information that my honourable friend tabled Friday last was
information about two and a half month's old, presented in an open forum to
members of the staff at Health Sciences Centre, widely known by all. It seems to be quite a revelation to my
honourable friend when we are openly discussing budget plans, service shift
plans at the hospitals with staff. My
deputy has been there. My associate
deputy has been there. I have availed
myself of many opportunities with
Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend attempts to provide‑‑and
I realize this is politically opportune on her behalf‑‑that there
are only bed closures. My honourable
friend does not mention the bed openings, the service sharing within the
system, the not‑for‑admission surgery opportunities, the increased
community services that will be in place.
My honourable friend seems to only base her perception of health care on
beds in hospitals. That is old‑think.
Ms. Wasylycia‑Leis:
Mr. Speaker, is it the minister's policy to take this secretive and
heavy‑handed approach into rural
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, I am troubled with my honourable
friend's very strange conclusions that a process two and a half months ago of
overhead presentations, some of which she tabled this Friday past as new news,
were shared openly with staff at the Health Sciences Centre, St. Boniface and
other organizations. Now what is secret
about sharing that kind of information around the changes that all provinces‑‑this
province no exception‑‑are trying to go through to preserve and
protect medicare to provide needed health care to the people of
Mr. Speaker: Order,
please. The honourable minister has
answered the question.
Sunday Shopping
Public Hearing Process
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Mr. Speaker, the autocratic nature of this
government could not be more obvious in what they are doing in terms of Sunday
openings. They have ignored members of
their own caucus and cabinet. They have
ignored the Legislature by bringing it in retroactively. They have a bill on the Order Paper that will
not even be debated until Wednesday. It
is pretty clear as well they are going to ignore members of the public since,
at the rate this government is going, the bill authorizing this may not be
passed until after the five‑month trial period is over.
I have one question to the First Minister. If he is going to ignore everybody else, will
he at least not ignore the people of
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, as is the practice of this
Legislature, which has the most open process for consideration of legislation
of any Legislature or government in this country, there will be a public
hearing process after second reading, in accordance with our rules of the
House, just as we deal with all legislation.
Mr. Speaker: The time
for Oral Questions has expired.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
THRONE SPEECH DEBATE
(Second Day of Debate)
Mr. Speaker: On the
proposed motion of the honorable member for
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to respond to
the Speech from the Throne, the sixth one, I guess, of this provincial
government. They probably have one more
left before the next election, unless a member has the good conscience to
defeat the government and put them out of their tired misery.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to reply, on November 30,
today. This is the 50th anniversary of
the election of Stanley Knowles, first to the House of Commons in the
Stanley Knowles, of course, is a person who has left
lasting contributions for all Manitobans, the old age pension plan, the fight
for universal health care, the fight for universal social programs, the
integrity and honesty he brought to his vocation on a daily basis. I think that he is an excellent model for us
to start this debate, for all members of this Chamber, a person of honesty and
integrity, a person where public dedication and public contributions did make a
difference.
We on this side will take from that anniversary today the
fact that we all can make a difference; we all are striving for the public
good. Indeed, elected office, no matter
which political party one is in, is in the public good. We should respect each other for the
dedication that we are all making on behalf of our constituents in the
Mr. Speaker, I also want to take this opportunity to
comment on the fact that His Honour was not able to be with us last week to
present the Speech from the Throne. We
wish him and his family all the best and we wish certainly His Honour a speedy
recovery. When we are talking about
dedication of elected people, the contributions of His Honour in his elected
capacity over the years and his tremendous work on behalf of Manitobans, albeit
with a different political party, I think again are worthy of our
acknowledgement and praise in this Chamber, and we wish him all the best.
Mr. Speaker, we also welcome you back to the Chamber
again, a fair and firm Speaker indeed.
We believe that you have the credibility of the public, Sir. Therefore, when we comment on your rulings we
always remember that you have the credibility of the public, and our challenges
to you, Sir, are only based on the autocratic nature of this government, not on
the basis of the judicious nature of your rulings, Mr. Speaker.
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): You are such a hypocrite.
Mr. Doer: I am
sorry, Mr. Speaker, the Premier is in a particularly animated mood today. I guess he heard Air Farce yesterday, and I
guess he is very upset, but we hope he keeps himself in check today in his
comments.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to pay tribute to the new
members of the Legislature, the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) and the
member for
We want to also pay tribute to the member for Rupertsland
(Mr. Harper), who made his public announcement last week. I know that he has worked very hard on behalf
of his constituents. He has been elected
to this Chamber 11 years, which would have him in longer seniority than a lot
of people in this Chamber and have him in shorter seniority than some members
of this Chamber.
I always felt in my discussions with him that he had a
number of challenges, so to speak. He
was almost having to burn the candle at three ends since the
I had the opportunity to travel with the member for
Rupertsland on a number of occasions, and I was always quite moved by the
discussion he would have with the elders in the community, with the chief, with
the council, with the members of the communities. I learned quite a bit, Mr. Speaker, from him
in my travels, and I want to pay him personal tribute.
He is indeed a person who will go down in history. His decision in
We always had Elijah's vote here for critical votes. I know the government opposite liked to make
comments about his pressures of travelling internationally and nationally, and
he did have those. He was in very high
demand, but we always thought that as a person who represented aboriginal
communities to speak about aboriginal issues that it was not inconsistent with his
role of the MLA. We always had him here
for his Estimates, for his votes, and we will miss him, Mr. Speaker.
He did raise the historic issues of aboriginal people
here in this House. I would ask all
members of this House to ponder. In the
1990 June and July period we had two contrasts of how to deal with these
historic injustices. We had the way in
which the member for Rupertsland dealt with the constitutional position and the
feelings that he had, and a month later, Mr. Speaker, we had armed confrontation
at
I have always believed that it is better to have members
in the Chamber debating these issues out in a democratic way than having armed
confrontation that we saw during that period of time. We were absolutely delighted to encourage
other members to run for the Legislature from the aboriginal community, the
member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin), the member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes),
the member for Selkirk (Mr. Dewar) to run, to win seats and to participate in
this Legislature.
I think this is a better way to go, to debate out the
issues in this Chamber. I know the
member for Rupertsland always believed that, that it was better to have the
debate in the Chamber and better to have a democratic process to resolve in
partnership our difficulties and our differences, rather than have violence and
armed confrontation.
I also want to pay tribute, Mr. Speaker, to the member
for
I think those of us who share a similar job know the
tremendous amount of time and effort that is necessary outside of the Question
Period and outside of even the speeches in this Legislature, all the
requirements, whether it is the Premier or any leader of a party, all the
requirements that you are asked to fulfill on behalf of Manitobans across the
province. Nine years, I am sure, has
been a long period of time.
I think the Leader of the Liberal Party has made
tremendous public contributions. I have
not always agreed with the Leader of the Liberal Party, of course, the member
for
We just want to wish her and John well as she moves on in
her careers, and we will watch her very carefully in the so‑called
position of an "elder statesperson" that I hear she is decreeing upon
herself. We heard that report from the
UMM convention. I do not expect the
Leader of the Liberal Party to stop being a Liberal, which she has been I think
from the day she was born, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I want to go on to the substance of the
speech. I, quite frankly, was quite shocked at the Premier, the member for
Tuxedo and a lot of his front bench about how out of touch they are really
becoming. In every coffee shop, at every
farm gate, at every meeting we have, whether they are Progressive
Conservatives, whether they are Liberals, whether they are New Democrats at
that meeting, whether they are nonaffiliated people, the only thing they ask us
is about the recession, the brutality of the recession and about the economy
and jobs.
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Even this last weekend, I had the opportunity to act as a
volunteer for the Variety Club at a local restaurant and people were talking
again on Friday night about jobs and the economy. There was an LPN in the
restaurant just having been laid off last week.
There were other people who were worried about their jobs and their
livelihoods. We cannot go anywhere as
individuals outside of party politics.
We cannot go anywhere on a social basis and talk to friends, relatives,
without hearing and listening to somebody who has been laid off or fears they
will be laid off in the next couple of months.
They believe the recession is here, Mr. Speaker, and they believe that
the government must recognize the recession and deal with the recession and
just not shut its eyes and let us pretend the recession is not here.
Mr. Speaker, I talked to a steelworker on the weekend who
was worried about being laid off and has got a short‑term layoff in the
winter period. I talked to a CN worker
who is worried about his seniority just this last weekend. I talked to an Air Canada worker who has been
laid off, one of the 165 who have been laid off over the weekend. I had the opportunity to talk to a farmer in
I was able to listen to a community college instructor
over the weekend from
Mr. Speaker, it reminded me–the Speech from the Throne a
year ago, we heard from George Bush on the Thanksgiving weekend, and it was
rather ironic that the government came in with a Speech from the Throne on the
American Thanksgiving Day. A year ago,
on the same Thanksgiving weekend, George Bush said there was no recession. George Bush said, with a 7.5 percent
unemployment rate, there were no problems with the economy of the
Who did he remind me of when I listened to the Speech
from the Throne about 12 months later?
The member for Tuxedo (Mr. Filmon) who says there are no problems, there
is no recession; nothing about jobs and the economy in terms of the recession,
just the same old rhetoric that sounded like George Bush and some of the same
rhetoric we heard in 1988 from Brian Mulroney about new, new, new. We will deal with new, new, new in a few
minutes, Mr. Speaker.
I guess we should not be surprised, Mr. Speaker. The Premier (Mr. Filmon) has the same
corporate philosophy and ideology of George Bush and Brian Mulroney, and we get
the same kind of plan of action–no plan of action and the same rhetoric.
Mr. Speaker, there is precedence in this House from past
years dealing with the recession. In
1982, the recession was in two Speeches from the Throne as a reality of the
economy. There was no Speech from the
Throne in 1983, but again in 1984, this recession was recognized as a challenge
for the
Let me give you an example. The Premier (Mr. Filmon), during his speech
to his own convention delegates, stated that all Manitobans were better off,
Mr. Speaker, since the Progressive Conservatives were elected in 1988 in this
government‑‑all Manitobans are better off. I do not know how this Premier can come to
this conclusion, and I know he is a little sensitive about our advice about who
he should be listening to and who he should be travelling with.
I want to make some concrete recommendations to the
Premier in terms of getting in touch with Manitobans. Walk across the street from your own office,
sir, to All Saints Church. Three years
ago when this government came into office, 75 families required food to be
distributed daily. I was over there two
weeks ago. Five hundred and fifty
families a day, two hundred yards from your own office, require food from All
Saints Church on a daily basis from the volunteers. Those people are not better off after
Conservatives have been elected to office.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask the government to go across the
tracks. Go across to Stella Mission and
listen to those people who are trying to get clothes and food and other basic
necessities for this very, very cold winter coming up, with no jobs and child
poverty increasing in the inner city at overwhelming numbers. They are not better off. How could you say that? How could you say that to even your own
delegates? How out of touch are you, sir, in terms of what is going on in the
I would ask the member across the way, the Premier, the
member for Tuxedo (Mr. Filmon) to go across the river to Harvest. Talk to the volunteers there. Nobody has a lockup on volunteer activity in these
places. There are members from all
political parties there working, distributing food. Ask them whether everybody is better off
today than they were when the Progressive Conservatives came into office. You will come to the same conclusion we have,
sir, that you are out of touch.
You know why? I
went back. I went back to look at the
Speech from the Throne in 1979 from Sterling Lyon, and it is the same
Conservative ideology, the same Conservative slogans–we are new, we are
innovative, we are going to get this new approach to everything‑‑and
all it is, Mr. Speaker, is a public relations strategy, because I am going to
go through every new idea you have. It
is the only environmental initiative you have, sir. It is the only thing you do that is recycled,
the old ideas from the past, and then you call them new. We will go through them item by item.
But you have to get out of that office. You have to get out of that cabinet
room. You have to get out of that bunker
mentality that you are developing. You
have to start visiting some people that are feeling the full impact of
Conservative ideology and the full impact of your economic policies, the full
impact of your policies to just step aside and do nothing on the economy, just
sit in the bleachers. The Minister of
Finance (Mr. Manness) looks up with a puzzled look. You look back in Hansard, when we asked this
government what they would do, they would say we are going to just step aside,
Mr. Speaker. We are going to do
nothing. We are going to just step
aside, and we are now seeing the devastating results.
Mr. Speaker, the government has again chosen to use
statistics, and the Minister of Finance knows this, saying Conference Board is
predicting blah, blah, blah for
Now, you would think that a province that had that kind
of bad economic performance in 1991 would have a great deal of difficulty
saying we are going to stay the course, because the course has resulted in the
worst economic performance of Manitoba since Walter Weir was defeated by Ed
Schreyer in 1969.
(Mr. Marcel
Laurendeau, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
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Mr. Acting Speaker, that is why I say this government is
getting very, very much out of touch. Now
they are using the same rhetoric of Brian Mulroney too‑‑we are new,
we can manage challenges, we can have change.
I looked back and Sterling Lyon used the same speech, 1980, and did not
fool the public then because he had already had three years in government. I mean, how can this government say they are
new when they have had six Speeches from the Throne, and if there is not the
good conscience of members of the government benches to vote against the dismal
economic reality of this government, we are going to have one more Speech from
the Throne. That is it. So to try to recreate yourself as this
incarnation of new after six Speeches from the Throne is not going to fool anybody
in
Now, let me look, Mr. Acting Speaker, at the things that
they say are new. The economic forum
they had was called in the Speech from the Throne‑‑but
unprecedented initiative, unprecedented innovation. I attended an economic summit in 1982. I was not elected to government. I attended another one in 1985. I mean what was unprecedented about the
government's efforts? Unprecedented,
they say. This is our new idea, a new
idea of partnership, something the former government did twice, but they did do
it differently, Mr. Acting Speaker, because the former government‑‑and
I was not elected MLA and I remember sitting in a meeting room with Kevin
Kavanagh and the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Otto Lang and Howard
Pawley and ministers of government, and in over two days, they were not
lectured to. They were not lectured
to. They sat around a meeting room for 16
hours for two days in a row and started to develop a consensus about
An Honourable Member: That is
where they came up with the "payroll."
Mr. Doer: The
Premier promised to get rid of it in four years. Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, they
created full‑time jobs then. This
Premier has tried to create the image that only part‑time jobs have been
created. There were 30,000 full‑time
jobs created between 1982 and 1988. Oh,
the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) laughs.
He does not like full‑time jobs, because we have lost 20,000 full‑time
jobs since this Premier became the Premier of the
You know you may be able to fool some people some of the
time at these little press releases from your Premier, but you know, your
bottom line is the worst performance of any Premier, even worse than Sterling
Lyon since the history of this province‑‑20,000 lost full‑time
jobs. If anybody over there can vote for
that, they sure are not representing their own constituents. You are getting more out of touch than what I
thought. You certainly are not lowering
the deficit.
I have heard the member for Rossmere (Mr. Neufeld) talk
about the deficit. The deficit has gone
from a $58 million surplus, sir, when you were first elected to I do not know
what amount now, but it is running well into the $600‑million range. When this Premier was elected to office in
1988, there was a $150,000 a day in revenue coming in over expenses. And now, Mr. Acting Speaker, it is running
$1.5 million to $2 million a day more in expenses than in revenue. Do not lecture us about spending and the
deficit ever again.
Mr. Acting Speaker, so there is another old idea that the
government says is new. I remember Mr.
Henderson who was president of the Chamber of Commerce in 1985 saying that this
was the best economic summit he had ever attended. The difference was we did not have the
Premier come in and lecture an economist back again from the Brian Mulroney
days who lectured in 1985‑‑the Tory economy summit in 1985‑‑there
was not a kind of lecturing exercise going on.
It was kind of let us get together and develop ideas to develop the
economy. One of the great ideas they
came up with was a health initiative package.
Something again the government says is one of their new ideas, but the
whole health initiative package was developed by business, labour and
government in a consensus way, between the '82–84 period and '85 period. That is why we did sign the health care
initiative package subsequent to that.
That is why in November of 1987 the disease lab, Mr. Acting Speaker,
again an idea that the government claims is new, I mean how many of these ideas
from the former government do you think you can put in your Speech from the
Throne without somebody realizing almost every one of them, 90 percent of them
were done by the former Pawley government that you criticize every day?
Mr. Acting Speaker, the disease lab and the health care
initiatives were again good ideas, old ideas and ideas that were developed by
partnership. The government talks about
these as new ideas.
There are lots of other proposals. The government likes to talk about what this
finally meant, these economic partnerships and summits, to the
I have an editorial from The Globe and Mail. In 1987, the province with the lowest
unemployment rate and the highest projected economic growth through the 1990s
lies in central
I will give this editorial to the members opposite so
they will know the truth of real economic performance. The Globe and Mail is not a New Democratic
publication, but it did outline the bottom-line numbers and, when you compare
that with the performance of this Premier, the member for Tuxedo, it is an
absolute disgrace what the members of this front bench have done to the fabric
and the quality and the aspirations and the opportunities for a great province
and a great number of people in the
Another new idea was the Crocus Fund. Well, 1988, it was in the Kostyra budget, one
that they voted against‑‑the Crocus Fund‑‑and it took
them five years to get it off the ground.
Then they put it back in the Speech from the Throne as one of the new
and innovative ideas, Mr. Acting Speaker.
It will not even get going till sometime in 1993, five years after the
NDP brought in the idea, and the government has the gall to introduce this
again as another so‑called new idea five years out of date–five years it
took them to get going.
Another idea was this whole economic development
committee of cabinet, an economic co‑ordination of all government
efforts. Remember the Premier 15 months ago talking about their economic
efforts? Well, I remember again an
economic committee of cabinet that actually did not have cabinet ministers only
in it but had business, labour and government on an ongoing basis, six, six and
six, dealing with the economic challenges that were going on. That was really
economic innovation with equal members from all segments of our economic
community.
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What kind of economic co‑ordination do we
have? The Premier has already lost about
a thousand jobs a month since he has become chair of this committee. Remember when the Premier said he was going
to put his own political reputation on the line? Remember when the Premier said
he would put his political future on the line over the next 18 months? That was 15 months ago, sir. I wonder what you are going to do over the
next three months, because you are losing a thousand jobs a month since you
have said that and made that statement.
Now if that is performance, that is not our idea of performance on this
side.
Where is the economic co‑ordination of this
government? Two weeks ago Friday, the
Minister of Transportation said to the media, because he could not tell them
what our strategy was on the airline industry, stood up and told the media and
got a front‑page story out of it, that deregulation has been a disaster
for the
Is this the co‑ordination we see from the
Premier? Is this the economic strategy
for
That is real economic performance. That is real economic co‑ordination. It is unbelievable. If it was not so serious, it would be funny,
but it is very, very serious because people in those airline industries are
worried about their jobs. This
government has flipped and flopped on deregulation of the transportation
industry more times than we can count, and now it has flipped and flopped on
telecommunications.
Remember the Premier in the minority period of time; in
1989, we asked him a question in the House.
Oh, we are not going to just allow big business to get advantage on
telecommunications; we are going to take the federal government to court. We are not going to let the little individual
consumer lose, because that is what will happen with telecommunication competition
on long distance. Whoa, we are going to
stand up for the little person. That is what he said here in this House; that
is where he got his front‑page story the next day. Read it in Hansard. Read your own words. That is why the Premier did not want to be in
town when the government was flipping and flopping between airline deregulation
and telecommunication, because he would have been hoisted on his own flip‑flop
words, Mr. Speaker, as he should have been, rather than being not held
accountable because of his lack of attendance in the
These are costing us jobs. These are costing us opportunities. I found it rather ironic where in
An Honourable Member: On
anything.
Mr. Doer: On
anything‑‑maybe the jobs should have come here. How come the jobs
went to
And so these flip‑flops may be politically
expedient for the Premier, but we are getting sick and tired of the flip‑flops
on this side of the House. Oh, no on
free trade to
Look at the policy on deregulation in the airline
industry. Where is the coherent policy on the airline industry? We asked them a question on open skies about
a year ago. Well, they were going to
look at it, and then they were not going to present a brief to the federal
government. Then they were going to be
sort of against it. Then the Chamber of
Commerce said, do not be against it, and then they were sort of going for
it. We still do not have a policy on
airlines, you know that. The member for
Pembina (Mr. Orchard) knows that, because he cannot get a consensus from the
ideological right over there that believe in an unfettered free market, and
just let those jobs go from
What is their policy on Canadian Airlines? What is their policy on remote communities? What is their policy on Air
Mr. Acting Speaker, there is no coherent policy on
airlines. They have no strategy. They
are like a turtle. Any time there is
going to be a crisis, get out of town.
Stick your head under the shell.
Get away from the heat. Damage
control the Premier‑‑get him away from the heat. Do not let him answer questions. Flip‑flop, flip‑flop, flip‑flop‑‑you
know, the title that he had in 1988 was the actual proper title‑‑flop‑flop,
the flip‑flop member for Tuxedo; it does not sound as good as what we can
use outside of the Chamber.
Let us look at the real flip‑flop of this
government and this Premier. The best
flip‑flop of this Premier is on NAFTA‑‑free trade with
I am glad he did not say read my lips, because as soon as
he got a bare majority after the election, he changed his position. He became a
real Tory again, not this new mutant Tory party, the Manitoba Conservative
Party, a mutant Tory party in
So in 1991 they said they had six conditions, and then
they said that will be the bottom line, we will evaluate the trade agreement,
that will be our "bottom line."
Well, some bottom line. It is
like their bottom line on Repap. It
keeps changing. They have no bottom
lines on anything. It just blows in the
wind.
Then the Premier (Mr. Filmon) said in spring of 1992‑‑another
good headline for the Premier‑‑Brian Mulroney would not dare go
over the head of Premiers like
Then when the media asked the Premier, when he decided to
open the session, what position does he have on North American free trade, it
was not that Brian Mulroney is going to worried about our six conditions, it
was not what our six conditions were for the merit of this agreement, for jobs
and opportunities in
That is leadership.
He says no in the 1990 election, and he does not tell us where he is at
after three and a half months of evaluation, contradicting totally the
statement made by the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) today, because he knows,
the Premier knows that the trade agreement, NAFTA, overrides an act of
Parliament. For this Minister of Health
to feign indignation about the federal Conservatives, to feign indignation
about how it means
You cannot have it both ways, Mr. Acting Speaker. You cannot say you are opposed to the
policies of the federal government to implement the North American Free Trade
Agreement for generic drugs in the morning and not tell us where you are at in
the afternoon.
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If this government wants to take a position on NAFTA,
they can do so this Thursday when the parliamentary committee is actually in
the city of
There are jobs at stake in this North American Free Trade
Agreement. The apparel industry
officials tell us that 35 percent of the apparel industry in
Mr. Acting Speaker, you have to take a position on this
issue. The Premier has to take a
position. Every Premier in western
Another new idea, Mr. Acting Speaker, in the Speech from
the Throne, moving off of trade, the trade agreement itself, is the
The real question is, as the Premier (Mr. Filmon) answers
questions on trade, you notice he forgot to mention what the trade deficit
was. He is telling us what the trade
increase was. You know, does he think
that people are stupid, that they do not understand there are two parts of
trade‑‑exports and imports?
Mr. Acting Speaker, can he not give us the analysis that in the
Did you tell your back bench about that? Did you tell your members about that? How do you think you are going to get this
through an accountant who understands there are two sides to trade‑‑debits
and credits? You think we are just a
load of pumpkins. You have a figure like
13 percent, because the only group that has come up the
Mr. Acting Speaker, when we move to tourism, we see a lot
of other old ideas and packages. I
actually felt personally very happy about your statements about tourism,
because you mentioned a project that I had the opportunity of negotiating, the
Forks project. I had the opportunity
when I was the former Minister of Urban Affairs to negotiate with the
honourable federal minister, the Conservative members and the City of
Do you know, Mr. Acting Speaker, that the Premier (Mr.
Filmon) voted against the waterfront initiatives of the ARC programs in 1987
when his Urban Affairs critic, the member for Charleswood, proposed an
amendment to delete money out of the Urban Affairs budget? The member for
They have a lot of nerve, but they do not have any new
ideas. I was personally very pleased
when you mentioned The Forks program. I
was pleased to know that other members of our caucus had worked in previous
incarnations on the planning of The Forks and the waterfront program.
You know the art program, the one that got the award on
the waterfront walkway, Mr. Acting Speaker, was developed by the NDP in 1983
and '84. That even predated Jake Epp
getting elected as a federal minister.
It was done unilaterally by the provincial NDP government, but if you
want to take credit for it, fine, but do not tell your back bench and the
people of
Another example, Mr. Acting Speaker, is the Children's
Museum. Remember the way the members
opposite used to feign away at cultural activities and cultural initiatives and
cultural programs? They used to talk
about the folk festival. I remember the
member for Morris (Mr. Manness) criticizing the folk festival. I guess they thought folk music was a
communist plot. I remember them tilting at all these cultural agencies, and the
Children's Museum. Where would the money
come from? Did the money come from some
of those places that you criticized and voted against? Have you done your homework as you take
credit for a new program? No, no, they
do not do their homework. Just another
old idea that is repackaged as new by a tired, corrupt government, intellectually
corrupt.
Mr. Acting Speaker, moving on to the rural economy, again
we see the old rather than the new. I
did not see any good ideas for rural infrastructure. Remember their
The video display terminals, based on their Union of
Manitoba Municipalities convention, is an absolute disaster, and think back to
the former member of
I would ask all the rural members to open up the section
dealing with agriculture. There is a
mention about sugar beets, Mr. Acting Speaker, but there is no mention at all
about the crisis going on in terms of payments, the crisis going on in the
federal programs. There is no mention at
all about the bankruptcy rate or the land prices, about the grain prices. You know, the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) had his chance to put that into the Speech from the Throne. He did not do it, and he is letting the
Premier's Office out of the city of
Mr. Acting Speaker, when we look at northern
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The government promised a northern commission in
1990. The government took about two
years to get it off the ground. It
announced it last year. It is now having
hearings across the province, which we have participated in, but I suspect this
will be another cynical exercise by this government. I hope I am wrong, where the results of those
hearings will come out in 1993. They
will have a number of recommendations which the government will embrace, and
they will not do a darned thing for northern
No mention of the aboriginal justice system, no position
on that very major initiative. This is a
tired old government with old ideas and recycled old ideas.
The other theme in the speech, if you have one, is the
whole priority of the Tory government.
The only mention of assistance is that they are going to improve
business assistance. Now there is
nothing wrong with improving the state of business.
We certainly know, with the economic performance of this
government losing 20,000 full-time jobs in four short years after a creation of
30,000 full‑time jobs in the first six years of the 1980s up to 1988,
that they need to do something.
I find it rather interesting that the only reference is
assistance to business. Where is the
assistance to people? Where are their priorities, again, of a group of people
responsible for all Manitobans? As I
mentioned, this government is out of touch when they say that all Manitobans
are better off today than they were four years ago, because there is no
recognition of assistance for people in
If they are going to improve the assistance for business,
let the record show that they have decreased the assistance for people
radically in the
Mr. Acting Speaker, no policy, social assistance
being–[interjection] Well, they think it is funny. That is why I say you should spend some time
out of this building, 200 yards away from the Legislative Buildings, to see
what the impact of that cut in social assistance will be to the poor.
You have cut back the seniors assistance and have come up
with rigid guidelines for Pharmacare for seniors who need help and assistance,
not a rigid autocratic Minister of Health that we have in the member for
Pembina (Mr. Orchard). You have cut back
youth assistance with jobs. You have cut
back assistance to the Child and Family Services agencies in the communities
and have cut back the assistance for volunteers, and you have cut back the
assistance to families with the cutback you have had in the child care area in
the
You are a government that only has assistance for one
narrow group and that is the business community of
When we go on to areas of human priorities and people
priorities, I want to talk about two other areas and that is the health care
system and the education system. You
will excuse us if we are somewhat skeptical when we see the word
"reform" coming from Tories because the word "reform," when
it comes from Conservatives, usually means cutbacks.
Last year, last May, the Minister of Health (Mr Orchard)
announced a so-called reform package, but it had not one specific plan of
action for reform, and now we see what the reform package is. It is a set of cutbacks and reductions to the
people of
But the public is getting on to this government on health
care. More and more we hear from people
when we go door to door. More and more
we hear from people when we go to the coffee shops about the impact on health
care in the
Just let us look at one example of health care reform and
that is in psychiatric beds. You have 20
beds being cut at St.
Where is the plan?
Where are the so‑called community alternatives from the Minister
of Health (Mr. Orchard)? I suggest to
you that the community alternatives that this minister really has in mind is to
increase the homeless, to increase the kind of people who are mentally ill and
need resources, not cutbacks. If you
give me a specific program for those 80 beds that I can see, then we will talk
about whether you have an alternative plan that is appropriate of worthy
comment. But we do not trust you and the
people of
You should talk to some nurses across the health care
system, those who have gotten pink slips and those who have not gotten pink
slips. It is a very, very serious
problem and we are going to have public hearings to hear from the patients and
the consumers of
We believe the waiting lists will increase. We believe they have no strategy to deal with
the gatekeepers called doctors in the system.
We have an oversupply in some areas, we have an undersupply in rural and
northern communities.
We see no strategy to deal with the lack of
specialists–though the Premier can get a front-page story phoning the health
care specialists at the Health Sciences Centre, but I was told three weeks ago
that the person had already decided to leave before the Premier even made the
call. The decision was already made with all that investment in the
Mr. Acting Speaker, we see a decrease in home care,
decreased services, and so you will excuse us when we see the word
"reform" being used for the education program of
We see that the Conservative government has replaced the
three Rs in education with the three Ps–privileged, private and pay more. This is not a way to run an education system
for the people of
We see cutbacks to our community colleges, cutbacks to
our universities, and yes, we see massive tax increases to the people of
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People out there are not happy, because they are starting
to see through the rhetoric and the rhetoric of reform of this government.
The only other thing we see in terms of reform is in the
whole area of the so‑called governance issue. We know there is lots of activity going on in
governance across the way. The
government has announced its policy, but we know that it does not know where it
is going on this issue and neither do Manitobans know where they are going on
this issue.
The government has promised in the Speech from the Throne
a definitive policy on this issue. We
await the definitive policy of the government and the Premier on this issue in
the
Mr. Acting Speaker, we welcome the strategy on biomedical
wastes in the environmental area, and we welcome the strategy to see some co‑ordinated
approach to municipal landfill sites, but watching the strategy to the
Hazardous Waste Corporation and
We also know that the government may put up for sale the
Hazardous Waste Corporation, a public corporation. So we will wait to see what they will do
after five years of promising a strategy on hazardous waste and biomedical
waste. We will wait to see what the
government does.
The government promised, in 1990, to implement the
Brundtland Commission report‑‑we have seen nothing. We see, from the strategy of the provincial
government on the Assiniboine diversion program, that they are going to follow
the old ways of the Rafferty‑Alameda dam, the old ways of the Old Man
River by the Conservative Party in
Mr. Acting Speaker, this government is out of date and
out of touch. After six Speeches from
the Throne, with maybe one left before they go before the people, unless the
members across the way have the good conscience to vote against the government,
we will see the same old ideas trying to be recycled with the rhetoric.
What we needed in this Chamber was an action plan for
Manitobans starting with jobs and the economy and the recession. We needed an
action plan that talked to the real concerns of Manitobans, not an outdated
document.
Mr. Acting Speaker, in this legislative session, we will
be putting forward some alternatives. We
recognize that in the legal requirements of this Chamber we are not able to put
in the full alternatives that we have as a party. You will recognize that we are somewhat
jaundiced by the government's reaction to some of the ideas we have had in the
past. When we were dealing with
alternative policies on nonsmoking, we passed the nonsmoking bill, and the
government in minority proceeded to say that they would pass this bill and
shortly thereafter we, having worked a long period of time, passed that bill in
the province of
But what about the antisniffing bill? You say to us, where are your alternatives,
but when we come in with alternatives, when we pass alternatives, when we get
them through this Chamber, when the government gets a majority, they fail to
bring them in. [interjection] Mr. Acting Speaker, the Minister of Justice (Mr.
McCrae) was in the committee. He wants
to heckle from his place.
I have the Minister of Justice's comments when he makes a
couple of amendments to the original bill in 1989 and says now, on behalf of
the police officers of this province, that this makes good sense for the
province. Why does the Minister of
Justice not table his legal opinion? He
fails to table his legal opinion. Why
does he not stop heckling and follow through on his own words in Hansard in
1989? What has this Minister of Health
got on the rest of the members that he does not allow them to pass the
antisniff laws?
Police officers right across this province say we want
this bill–the RCMP, the Winnipeg City Police, the youth squad, street workers
in the inner city. Again, get out of
your bunker. Get out of those
chairs. Get out of this building. Get out to the real world. [interjection]
Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, you have been out for five months and where have you
been?–Paris, and I will not get into it.
I will leave it to Air Farce to make those comments. If you do not have the tape yet, I will give
it to you. [interjection]
Look at the Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey). Why do you not deal with the Antler River
School Division instead of heckling in this Chamber? Your Foghorn Leghorn comments are not getting
around a 40 percent tax increase in your own constituency.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we believe an action plan was
necessary, and the first policy you must have is a balanced approach to the
economy. You cannot just treat the
problems of unemployment by creating more unemployment. You cannot just expect people to have
consumer confidence when you are threatening to lay off 50,000 potential people
in terms of the jobs that they have in the province. You have this reign of fear going right
throughout the province in the public service–nurses, teachers, public sector
workers all across the province in Crown corporations. Do you think they are going to buy a lot more
goods when they are threatened with a layoff?
Do you think they are going to go out and buy goods around Christmas
season? You people do not understand
anything about the economy, with the threat that is going on.
Mr. Acting Speaker, so the first thing you need to do is
have a balanced approach to the economy.
You do not solve unemployment with more unemployment. That is called balance. We believe this government has an economic
alternative. [interjection] The member for Pembina, I got a few phone calls from
his own constituents about his lack of backbone on Sunday shopping. I hope you vote with your constituents and
not with the Premier, the member for Tuxedo, on this issue. I hope you vote with the people in your own
community.
I would remind the member for Pembina, he voted a
different way than the member for Tuxedo on the issue of seat belts and the
issue of child restraints. I hope he has
the backbone to vote against the government and vote with his constituents on
his own issue. I doubt whether he
will. He does not want to lose that
cushy little office there. He does not
want to lose his plush velvet seat, Mr. Acting Speaker, and the plush velvet
policies of this provincial government.
Mr. Acting Speaker, as an alternative to the vacillating
policies of this government on NAFTA, we want them as an alternative to say no
to NAFTA and say yes to jobs for
Mr. Acting Speaker, we believe in a policy of world
trade, not North American trade under this corporate trade agreement. Look at
the world, not just the North American continent. Look at a people's agenda for trade, not a
corporate agenda for trade, but get a backbone and take a position.
Mr. Acting Speaker, in the area of health care, we
believe in changes to Pharmacare so that seniors will have flexibility
again. That is one of our alternatives,
as opposed to this autocratic Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard).
We believe in getting a regulation and a policy on
stubble burning that was left aside in 1987 by the Clean Environment Commission
to be dealt with in 1992, and this provincial government will not touch it with
a 10 foot pole.
We believe in access to records, and we have been putting
recommendations forward in this Chamber on health care. We will be dealing with professionals and the
deployment of professional people in the area of health care. We need a strategy dealing with all
professionals. This Minister of Health
has no reform dealing with doctors and specialists and deployment of doctors.
He has no reform in place dealing with the changing role of professionals. He has no reform in place that starts with
the people as opposed to starting with his own little bureaucratic office and
his little select advisory groups.
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In the area of education, we will be bringing in a policy
of the three Rs to education where Manitobans recommit themselves to building
the best public education system and the best public school system in the
country as we had before. We will not
dismantle the public education system.
We will reconstruct the infrastructure of our school program, a second R
of our program. We will reform the education system, not cut it back, and deal
with the needs of students and parents.
We will have parents councils in schools, and we will open up the doors
to have real partnership between parents, teachers, students and communities in
our public education system. We will
stop the education policy of privilege and go back to the basics of a public
education system. We are absolutely
committed to that.
In the area of post-secondary education, Mr. Acting
Speaker, we will have a separate department dealing with labour market
training, post‑secondary education, community colleges, universities,
Access, Winnipeg Education Centre, and the training programs that are necessary
under a renegotiated Core Area III program.
We have an action plan for post-secondary education. We believe that
human investment and human training is equal to capital investment and capital
spending. We have a policy to treat
human investment with equal status as financial investment, and we will put
that into place.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we will be bringing in policies
dealing with the environment. We will be
bringing in an alternative bill of rights for the people of
We will deal with a Child Advocate, which will be
strengthened and independent from this minister. We will be dealing with social assistance and
not leaving the poverty of this government's economic policies to be placed
upon the children and the most vulnerable in our society, Mr. Acting
Speaker. We will stop the offloading in
education, and we will enhance the role of the Ombudsman dealing with
education.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we could go on and on and on, but
this tired old government is not listening; this tired old government is not
acting; this tired old government does not care; this tired old government has
no new ideas itself.
I would move, seconded by the member for
But this House regrets:
1. That this
government has lost touch with the concerns of
the people of
2. That this
government's step‑aside economic approach has resulted in
3. That this
government has not been forthright with the
people of
4. That this
government criticizes the federal government
for offloading health, post‑secondary education and agriculture payments, while at the same time
offloading its responsibilities to
municipalities and school divisions,
forcing them to increase taxes, reduce
services and cut jobs;
5. That this
government has failed to make public the
results of its studies and consultations on the North American Free Trade Agreement or its own
final position on the proposed trade
agreement and its impact on
this government has thereby lost the trust and confidence
of this House and the people of
(Mr.
Speaker in the Chair)
Motion presented.
Mr. Speaker: The
honourable member's amendment is in order.
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise on this
debate, which will probably be my last Speech from the Throne, at least last
speech as the Leader of the Liberal Party in
Mr. Speaker, there are a number of comments that I would
like to make that are not entirely based on the Speech from the Throne. I will begin with those because there are
some new additions to this Chamber that I think need to be welcomed. Obviously,
first and foremost, the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) who is a member of
our caucus. We are delighted to see her
back in the Legislature once again. We
were also very pleased to see the new member for
We also, Sir, would like to welcome you back as the
Speaker, knowing as we do of your fairness and balance and, on occasion, needed
sense of humour.
We also have a few people missing. One, of course, the former member for
Mr. Speaker, we are also going to be sad to not have the
presence of the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Harper) in this Chamber, because he
made a contribution to his community. I
think that all of us recognize that he accepted as his very personal
responsibility the aboriginal people, and from the moment of his election he
was indeed the only one to represent the aboriginal community in this Chamber.
Now that aboriginal community is represented by a number
of other additional individuals, but it is fair to say that the Rupertsland
community is primarily and principally aboriginal. That is not true for the
constituencies that are represented by other aboriginal members of the NDP
caucus who have a broader group of people that they have to represent and so
perhaps are not as narrowly focused on that one agenda as the member for
Rupertsland had been, and I do not mean narrow in a negative way. I mean it in a very positive way, because he
had a group of constituents with very specific needs and those needs did indeed
vary from the needs of others within our dynamic here in
I would also like to thank those who over the last few
weeks have approached me on a personal basis to wish me well in whatever I
pursue into the future, knowing that I am going to remain as an MLA, but
knowing that I am going to step down as soon as possible as the Leader of the
party. I must say that I was a little
surprised that not more did. I certainly
welcomed the arrival in my office the following morning of the member for
Charleswood, the Minister of Urban Affairs (Mr. Ernst), and I know that the
member for Lac du Bonnet (Mr. Praznik) also made an attempt to make contact
with me.
There were others who met me in halls and made comments,
but a number of others walked by as if I did not even exist, which I found was,
to some degree, a comment on the spirit of this Chamber. I want to talk about that for a few minutes,
because I think there could be a level of friendship in this Chamber that I do
not think exists.
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As I remember my childhood, I remember frequently having
the then Leader of the Opposition, Robert Stanfield, in my house on a very
frequent basis and, obviously, my parents' house because I was a child. He was not a great singer. In that, he reminded me of Howard Pawley who
in fact did phone me the day of my resignation; but in
That was the kind of relationships that I thought would
exist in this Chamber when I was first elected in 1986, and I have to say it
has not been that way. I think that
there is an antagonism that goes beyond the parry and thrust of this particular
debating Chamber, and I think that is unfortunate. I believe that we could take a different
approach to it if we tried, and that is why on occasion I have done things
which were perhaps not considered terribly political.
I have certainly written to members of the government
benches, cabinet ministers, when I thought they looked ill, offering to pair
with them. I have offered pairs to
individuals who I thought had been through a tough situation. I have tried to make contact with them when
they have had a loss in their family. I
think that that is incumbent upon each and every one of us. If I have not done it for some of you, then
perhaps I was not aware of that particular moment in your life, but we must
reach out to one another in a warmer sense than, quite frankly, I have
experienced in my six years in this Chamber.
I would hope that we can all take a new attitude towards that.
We also tend to attack each other on a personal basis that
I think is unnecessary. I think we all
are subject to attack on the basis of our political point of view. That is fair and valid. If we introduce an idea or a concept which is
to your mind invalid, incorrect, unnecessary or whatever vocabulary you want to
use, then so be it, but I have also watched very personal attacks made on
individuals, made on me personally, that I think are well outside of the scope
of this particular Chamber.
What it does is, it creates the distrust that does not
allow us to be compassionate and, quite frankly, human in our relationships
with one another. Perhaps we can all
work a little harder than that, and I too will work harder at that, because I
believe that we are here for a number of years yet together–at least two, perhaps
three–and that we should not leave at the end of any day with a bad taste in
our mouths. Yet, I think often we do
because of the sense of personal combativeness that is taken to a very personal
level.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to move off of that,
having said what I believe needs to be said and move on to what I find a
disturbing Speech from the Throne, disturbing because I think it was a
reflection of how very tired this government is. It has held office for more than four years,
but it obviously did not come to power with four years worth of ideas, because
there were no ideas in this particular Speech from the Throne.
As I pointed out on Friday, they used the word
"innovation" or "innovative" nine times that I could find‑‑maybe
there are a few more, but there were at least nine‑‑but it is not
good enough to use the word. In order
for innovation to happen, there has to be a new direction, a concrete, positive
idea which will make that innovation a reality.
I did not see any of that in this Speech from the Throne.
I did not see any spirit, any hope to find a better way,
and I felt that this was glaringly evident, because our difficult
circumstances, which cannot be laid entirely at the blame of this
government–let us be honest about that.
There is an international recession out there.
There is little to debate in the speech because there is
nothing new in the speech, so I do not propose to waste a lot of valuable time
in this Chamber debating recycled catch phrases and warmed‑over
rhetoric. There is no point even
debating old initiatives which have not, quite frankly, resulted in any
satisfactory progress.
Rather than debate the fairy tale world where problems
could actually be solved by the pap and the fluff of the throne speech, I
propose to talk about what I see as the real world in Manitoba with what I hope
are some real solutions to some of those real problems. We do not claim to have all the answers. What we are hoping to do today is to lay out
some positive solutions and hope that the government has the courage, which
they speak about sometimes, of being prepared to accept ideas from the opposition.
One of our fundamental goals is to try to make reforms
which will bring government closer to individual Manitobans. We believe that direction is necessary from
all governments of all political stripes to make individual Manitobans and
Canadians feel a greater part of the process.
That is really what October 26, in my opinion, was all about. Canadians were really saying they were not
going to take orders from anyone; they were going to make up their own minds
about how they were going to cast their vote.
All of us in this Chamber have to recognize that no
matter what skills, ideas or talents we bring to life and bring to this
political life, that it is also necessary for us to keep in contact with the
public and to keep informed about what it is that the public wants in terms of
a reform agenda. We want reforms that
will make government work better and work with the citizens of this province,
and we will be pressing our ideas for reform in education, in health care, in
economic management, in child advocacy, in the justice system and elsewhere.
Let me begin with education. Mr. Speaker, nowhere is the need for reform
more necessary than in the field of education.
I must admit that I was somewhat distressed at the Leader of the
Opposition (Mr. Doer) referring to the three Rs. I really thought the whole concept of three
Rs in education had disappeared some time ago, that words like communication
and computation‑‑and if one wants to talk about the three Cs, they
are probably more important today than the three Rs. Perhaps a little upgrading of vocabulary is
necessary, and perhaps some who have had some recent experience in the
education field can provide that from the back bench of his political party.
Education is a crying problem, not only for all Manitobans,
but for all Canadians. It is an issue
for those concerned about the economy and for those concerned about social
justice. Education policy is–and I hope the Finance minister is listening to
this–economic policy.
Our province faces some profound changes over the long
term with respect to global economic competition. The only way we are going to meet those
challenges is if we have an effective responsiveness in our education system.
To be more competitive we must be better educated, of
that there is no question. In addition,
the other challenge facing our educators is the mandate to become more
responsive to parents and better able to involve them in the education of their
children. One can read all of the
educational data, papers and research one wants to read but every one of them
will come down to the final analysis which is, the most important people to a
child in the education system are the child's parents. The focus and emphasis which the child
receives from the parents will in fact ensure academic success or hinder
academic success.
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(1600)
One recent study that I read, which compared the Korean
system of education with the Canadian system of education, defined very clearly
that the most important difference they could identify between Korean education
and Canadian education was that when a child came home with homework in
So parents have to be brought into the participation of
education. If the Minister of Education
(Mrs. Vodrey) continues to claim as she did last week that her government has
done all that we proposed in our press conference prior to the opening of the
session on education, then I would suggest to her that she better get some
answers from some of her bureaucrats, because it is not happening. You may hope it is, you may be planning for
it to, but it is not happening out there at the present time.
You have not, I do not believe, Mr. Speaker and the
Education minister, even begun facing the questions in our educational
system. The Liberal Education critic,
the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) has proposed a parents' bill of rights.
That certainly was not found in the Speech from the Throne. It would guarantee parents the right to
access all information about their child's performance in school. I am getting a little angry at individual
principals who will tell me that, well, we do that in our school. It is true some schools do, but because it is
not mandated by the Department of Education many schools still do not. You cannot access that information if you are
a parent, about testing which has been performed on your child.
Even to get them to explain to you in detail what that
report card means is a major challenge to many parents. They do not know what the report cards
mean. Quite frankly, as an educator I
frequently did not either, because they were so general in nature that they
could have meant anything, anything I, as a teacher, wanted it to mean at any
given time about any individual child. I tended not to use those general
catchall phrases and to use grades as an indication simply because I felt the
parents had a right to know, but it was not included in the report card form.
We have to encourage the government to look at ways to
make the public more community based, by incorporating educational, health and
recreational needs of a community in a single facility. This fortunately goes on far more in rural
In the area of training, we have proposed new tax
incentives for businesses who invest in training, but there has to be a very
clear quid pro quo. There has to be
proof positive that they are indeed putting that money in training. If they are not, then they must be prepared
to put it in external agencies, and we have to involve the Department of
Education in establishing the criteria for those courses. No, Mr. Finance Minister, it is not
happening.
There has to be a responsibility shared by the private
sector, who are frequently the principal beneficiary of job retraining and good
quality students. We must look to the
promotion and expansion of vocational and apprenticeship programs.
I would recommend to all of you in this room that you
read last week's edition of The Economist, in which there is a comparison on
education, because it shows I believe the weaknesses to some degree of our
system. It for example talks about the
apprenticeship training initiatives in
So I did as best I could, because not all the figures
were available, a comparison between the number of apprenticeships offered in
If we compare ourselves with
For many months, we have been calling for changes to
student aid so that funding levels accurately reflect need and so that
eligibility requirements are more fair.
In addition, the member for Osborne (Mr. Alcock) will be introducing a
resolution calling for an income-contingent student loan repayment plan. Such an arrangement would lead to fewer
defaults and provide a possible replacement for lending criteria.
From Day One we were dismayed at the government's model
that was employed by the previous Minister of Education, and we would ask this
present Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey) to look at it again.
We have always supported the concept of governance for
our community colleges, but we believed that one board makes far more sense
than three. We are already watching our
universities in competition with one another for a variety of programs, and
that is exactly what three independent boards of governance are going to do to
our community colleges instead of forcing them to work co‑operatively
together by sharing a joint board.
The Liberal Party has also proposed a higher level of
integration among the province's four universities so that we can achieve
excellence in more areas. I was told
this weekend for example that students in the dental college at the
In 1962, I went to university in the
We do not have that same kind of integration in our
universities here in
Rarely, Mr. Speaker, does a political party come up with
an idea all from itself. It researches
the data. It reaches out to other
communities. It reads the research, and
it takes on an idea that probably somebody else originally thought of first,
and that is not unusual. So if the
minister wants to accept on any of these, she does not have to give us any
credit. I will give her the background
of where I got the ideas from and she can give the originators the credit if
that will make her feel any better.
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Mr. Speaker, when Manitobans say they want their
politicians to get on with solving this province's pressing problems, health
care is certainly one of the areas they are talking about. One-third of the
provincial budget will be spent on health care this year. One conclusion is clear to anyone acquainted
with reality. We must reform medicare or
we are going to lose it. We can make
changes or we can make excuses, excuses to our children and our grandchildren
for failing to sustain one of
Change often provides the harshest test for leaders, for
workers, for professionals. How do we
manage? How do we cope? Change also
offers great temptations for opportunities and opportunists. There are always worries. There are always insecurities. There are always individuals who suffer as a
result of change, and sadly, there are those who will focus only on the short‑term
by‑products of change, rather than seeing the bigger picture and the long‑term
good.
Mr. Speaker, we in the Liberal Party are determined to
see health care reform succeed. Costs
have spiralled beyond the control of governments and that must be changed. When the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard)
initiated his action plan for reform last May, we said it was better late than
never and we supported it. We also
offered our own suggestions for improving the plan. The reason is simple. We saw it as a rational and reasonable
program for change. We saw it as a way
forward and a way to bring rising costs back within the grasp of policymakers.
Now, I said change is never easy, and let me tell you it
is not easy being on the same side of an issue as the Minister of Health. For one thing, it invites the partisan barbs
from our colleagues in the other opposition party. But we have decided to put up with that
because we have decided that achieving real reform is more important. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we call on all of our
colleagues in this Chamber to put their partisan interests in a blind trust in
the issue of health care. If partisan
interests are in a blind trust, then the public interest will be the only
factor.
Now, we know that politics will never be removed
altogether. To be quite blunt, we too hope that voters will look at our
approach and policy on health care and reward us at the polls. That is in part
what happened in the Crescentwood by-election.
Our fundamental goal is to build a better health care
system. It is not to persuade voters
simply that the sky is falling and it is all the fault of our opponents. The real world is not that simple. You only have to look at other provinces
across
Mr. Speaker, we tell the Minister of Health we want him
to succeed. We want health care reform
to succeed, and therefore we want the minister to succeed. However, we also tell the minister we are
disappointed. We still support his plan,
but his progress in implementing that plan is disappointing so far.
We think the situation is serious. We are now more than one‑quarter of the
way through the two-year life of his plan, but where are the new programs and
where are the details. In six months
there has been one news conference in which bed cuts at the teaching hospitals
were announced. The plans for
replacement services in the community are sketchy at best and nonexistent at
worst. We have seen almost no detail and
very little progress.
There are a couple of possible explanations for
this. One obviously is that little or
nothing has been done. The other is that
the minister is running a closed process and information about health reform
cannot find its way to public debate. We
are concerned that the problem is a little of both, so the Liberal Party is
recommending two more things. First,
that the Minister of Health get the reform process moving. We all know that he is part of a tired
government, that was clearly reflected in the throne speech, but we still hope
that in this one vital area something will be done.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, we want to see a much more open
process. No government should embark on
changes as sweeping as those proposed for the health care system without an
equally substantive process for informing the public and involving the
public. Without effective and open
public information we see confusion, anxiety and uncertainty, and that, I know
the minister knows, can undermine the entire process of change.
Last week, Mr. Speaker, we released the Liberal Party's
health reform monitor. We hope that the
minister has taken a close look at it.
That report is our honest attempt at a road map to show specifically and
precisely where further progress and detail must be forthcoming in order to
ensure Manitobans that the health reform process is still on track.
The purpose of our reform monitor was not to embarrass
the minister or to trip him up. We
reiterated that we still supported his plan and we wanted him to succeed in
implementing it, but we told him point by point where he must do better and we
told him up front that those points would be the focus of our agenda in health
care for the coming months. No
surprises, he has been told where we are coming from.
In the Liberal reform monitor, Mr. Speaker, we enumerated
the missing puzzle pieces. We pointed
out a number of deadlines that have already been missed. We asked for the necessary detail in new
community‑based services that will replace those hospital beds to be
closed as early as March. We asked what
new anesthesiology and neonatal capabilities will be provided in the community
hospitals which must now handle an increased number of births with maximum
safety.
In our monitor, Mr. Speaker, we asked when waiting‑list
management studies promised for this month‑‑and we are on the last
day of this month‑‑will be completed and released. We asked when standards and protocols for
technology acquisition, also promised in his action plan, will be in
place. We asked about new ways of
facilitating the participation of Manitobans and their families, providing them
information so they can make better choices.
We asked about broadening partnerships with community health centres.
These fine-sounding concepts were all promised in the
reform action plan. These are not our
ideas; they are the minister's ideas. We
believe it is vital that the public see some movement and some new initiatives
to make these promises a reality.
Our monitor report drew particular attention to the
increasingly stressful situation many health care professionals find themselves
in. The action plan made a vague promise
about relocation assistance for professionals displaced by changes in the
system.
Mr. Speaker, the government has an undeniable obligation
to act now on retraining and relocation programs. It is not good enough to simply leave it to
individual hospitals. They do not have
the capacity to do it. It is time for
this government to take some responsibility for our valuable human resources
and the impact of reforms on many of the dedicated individuals who have been
replaced by the reform in the health care system.
Mr. Speaker, last May, when the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) released his action plan for reform, we proposed a more effective
monitoring mechanism. We proposed a body
that would report to the public regularly on the progress and impact of
reform. It would be independent of the
minister's office, and it would integrate and co‑ordinate several more
limited monitoring functions envisaged in the action plan.
At that time, the minister promised to take the proposal
seriously, under advisement. However, we
have seen no action from him since that time.
We hoped that perhaps some addition to the government's health reform
plan might be included in the throne speech, something that would correct this
flaw and bring the public to the reform process.
Obviously, that was too much to expect of this government
and its throne speech, but we hope the minister has not yet ruled it out,
because the longer the public is kept in the dark, the less chance we believe
the entire reform process has of succeeding. We realize it is risky to be open
and forthcoming, but it is even more risky to remain closed. There is no choice but to have an open
process and an open debate.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health knows where we
stand. We stand firmly on the side of
reform, reform that will benefit all Manitobans. I say to the Minister of Health, as I said to
his NDP predecessor, just get on with it.
Mr. Speaker, the step‑aside approach of the current
government is having a particularly harsh impact on the welfare of
children. During the recession we are
experiencing a terrible waste of our young people. There were more than 15,500 welfare
recipients in
I have to say that I was dismayed, Mr. Speaker, about the
decision of the Minister of Child and Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) to
offload onto the City of
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The tragedy is not merely a matter of economic
management. The Department of Child and Family Services is constantly in the
headlines with example after example of its failure to protect vulnerable
children. The government introduced in
the last session of the Legislature the Child Advocate office, and the minister
tells us he hopes to have it up and running this year. At that time, we urged
that the Child Advocate office report to this Legislature. We did not get that through. We got a review after three years.
Since that time, yet one more piece of evidence has come
to light of the need for this advocate's office to report to this Chamber and
not to the minister.
If one reads Judge Giesbrecht's recommendation on the
Lester Desjarlais case, we see statement after statement after statement of the
need for the Child Advocate to report to the Manitoba Legislature.
Let me read from that, Mr. Speaker: This case, and specifically the way that
Marion Glover's complaints were dealt with by the director in this case,
demonstrates in a crystal‑clear way why it is absolutely necessary the
Child Advocate must report to the Legislature.
In another part of his recommendations: The Child Advocate must be granted the same
type of independence as that granted to the Ombudsman, otherwise upcoming elections
and a hundred of other extraneous considerations will get in the way of what
the Child Advocate is expected to do.
Giesbrecht recommends that the Child Advocate's first
assignment is to monitor the director's response to the recommendations, and
yet it is going to be the director who is going to presumably have the Child
Advocate office reporting to him.
It is a tragedy, Mr. Speaker, that this government will
put the needs of their political agenda before the needs of this Child Advocate
office. Yet, today, the member for
So when and where do the children of this province reach
out to get genuine protection? If they
cannot trust their own agencies to not be political then they have only one
other hope and then that is the Child Advocate office, but they have no hope
because it also reports to the same body.
Mr. Speaker, we are witness now to a government that has
turned its back, one only can believe, on the economy and on the people of
The government will tell us, Mr. Speaker, that we are not
that badly off. It will point to
I am even less convinced by unemployment figures when I
look at how the other
When we look for alternatives, we might consider briefly
the economic policy of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer). The member speaks loudly about the need for
the public engine to support a sputtering private economy. He and his national leader talk about
constructing trade barriers and tariff barriers around our country and opposing
fairer and freer trade. The member
claims that he will protect jobs in this province, but we have seen, unfortunately,
that New Democratic economic policy does not work.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford a government that can
only criticize when they are in opposition.
It is necessary for all of us to put forward our best ideas. So you can see why
Let us not doubt that the difficulty lies ahead for all
of us. We are faced with many tough
choices. We must decide which government
programs we can afford to keep and which ones we must retire. Every government must do that, but we must be
forthright with Manitobans, and we should not be willing to sacrifice the
interests of one group against the interests of another.
We believe our approach is different. We realize the importance of fiscal
responsibility, and we understand the need to hold the line on expenditure
growth. However, we also realize the
need to invest in order to provide long‑term growth and development. Investment holds the key to our future, and we
believe it is the key that unlocks the potential of every Manitoban. Until this government recovers from its
fatigue and realizes that it needs to invest, it will continue to watch over an
economy in decline.
The government will tell you that it has invested in the
province, Mr. Speaker. The First
Minister (Mr. Filmon) will rise in this Chamber and proudly state that he has
never cut the budget of the Department of Highways and Transportation. That is his idea of investment, but clearly
he does not understand investment in the 21st Century.
When Liberals promise investment, they talk of investment
in people. We talk of investment in job
training and retraining. We talk of the need to reform the educational system
so that it provides Manitobans with the knowledge and skills to compete in the
days ahead.
As Liberals, we speak of the need to build up within the
labour force the best trained and brightest people in the world. We believe
that the business community needs our most valuable resource, and we must work
with them to achieve it.
This is a different approach to investment, Mr.
Speaker. It is true that investment in
physical infrastructure creates jobs and sometimes within the health system it
is necessary, but what kinds of jobs are created? What jobs are left after the road has been
completed, the bridge been built?
We must turn our back on temporary fixes, focus our
attention on the permanent restructuring of our economy. We must renew our investment in human capital
and on the technological and academic infrastructure needed to support this
capital. This is necessary to ensure
that we are left with an individual who is committed to the labour force and
who is committed to long‑term employment.
What about those Manitobans who need help now? The answer to that, Mr. Speaker, is tied to
our investment strategy. Increased
spending on human capital will create jobs in the near term as well as for the
future. There is a difference between
this kind of spending and just spending on physical infrastructure. We will begin to see the dividends of our
investment two to three years from now while the dividends of physical
infrastructure are a long time away.
Mr. Speaker, the Premier (Mr. Filmon), perhaps the
Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness), will say we are already doing that. They
will point to the economic development board of cabinet and the Economic
Innovation and Technology Council of examples of how they have acted to invest
in Manitobans. Well, the mission
statement of the council, let me quote from it, "is to promote and enhance
a climate of innovation, entrepreneurship and technological development that
spurs responsible economic development for the benefit of all
Manitobans." It sounds wonderful.
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'
These are admirable goals and ones that we can support
wholeheartedly, but talk is cheap, Mr. Speaker.
The important questions are what are these organizations doing and what
have they done, not what they claim to have done. The innovations council has been operating
for nearly three months now, although it has been announced at least once
annually for each of the last three or four years, and it has yet to suggest,
to our knowledge, any initiatives to government. It has been allocated $10 million, which to
our best knowledge not one penny has yet been spent. In fact, the council has still not decided if
it is within its mandate to spend any of these funds.
This is not action, Mr. Speaker. It is only a reflection of the stagnating
mind of the members opposite. The
council has been operating for a short time, surely too short a time period to
expect results, the Premier (Mr. Filmon) might say. I might be willing to accept that judgment if
the council was established to address a new concern. This however is not the case. We have been calling on the government to
invest in people since 1988. In his maiden speech before this Assembly in 1988,
the member for Osborne (Mr. Alcock) called on the government to develop a
strategy to deal with the emerging economic reality. That was four and a half years ago. That message was repeated in 1989 and every
year since then, and the government has only now responded with token measures.
It is clear to us, Mr. Speaker, that the Finance minister
and the Premier do not understand the new economics and that they are
unprepared to lead us into the 21st Century.
We Liberals recommend investment in training for long‑term
benefits. In the short term, strategies
such as the 3 percent PST holiday for three months commencing immediately after
the holidays would provide stimulus.
Also, temporary elimination or deferral of sales tax on manufacturing
equipment would provide effective relief to this ailing sector of the
economy. These are the kinds of bold
initiatives we need to see and we hope to see in the budget.
We cannot fail to make mention of the reforms necessary
in the Department of Justice. Follow‑up
on the recommendations of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry and the Pedlar report
are essential to ensure the safety of Manitobans and to ensure the fairness of
the system. The quick court proposed by
the Liberal caucus would provide speedy and inexpensive legal relief and would
encourage faster settlements. Effective
levels of policing and new methods to deal with violent crime must be
supported.
Mr. Speaker, we are in the era of new politics. The decision of the people of this country
told us that on October 26. It is time
to empower Canadians and Manitobans with jobs and real and effective
participation in government. We have to
look at the reform of government institutions.
More free votes are required. We
must look at the election of senators from the
We cannot go back to the old style of politics. It is time for some new thinking and for some
new politics. The people of
I do not think realistically that we should be looking to
political careers of 20 and 30 and 40 years duration any longer. Politics is
changing far too rapidly for that, and I think that we should be thinking in
terms of bringing new people in. I think
we will see positive contributions from the new member for Portage la Prairie
(Mr. Pallister) and the new member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) and soon the new
member for Rupertsland, because I think we need that constant energy that comes
from people who come from outside of the political process and bring that
energy with them to the political process.
My party constantly needs those new ideas. Other parties need those new ideas, too.
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for Osborne
(Mr. Alcock), that the amendment be amended by adding thereto the following
words:
And this House further regrets that:
1. this
government's state of intellectual exhaustion has prevented it from taking the
actions required to improve
2. this government
has failed to respond to the needs of the people of Manitoba during the
recession in that it has not provided any job training and retraining strategy;
3. while
criticizing the federal government for offloading education costs, this
government has itself transferred education costs from the provincial tax base
to the property tax payer, and failed to articulate specific reforms to the
education system except substantial cuts to the funding of the education
system;
4. this government
has not made sufficient efforts to consult and involve the public in its reform
proposals for the health care system;
5. this government
has not implemented a comprehensive, co‑ordinated, independent health
reform monitor, to monitor and report publicly on the progress and impacts of
reforms in the health care system.
Motion presented.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable
member's subamendment is in order.
Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, it is, as always, an honour to
rise during the course of the Throne Speech Debate to make a contribution to
this particular debate.
At the outset of my remarks, I would like to take this
opportunity to add to the congratulations of the two new members of this
Assembly: my colleague Mr. Brian
Pallister, who was returned in the constituency of
I would also like to extend my personal best wishes to
three members, two former members of the Assembly and one current member. I would like to offer my personal best wishes
to a former colleague, the former member for
I would also like to take the opportunity to wish all the
best to the Leader of the Second Opposition, Mrs. Carstairs, on the
announcement of her retirement as Leader of her party. Mrs. Carstairs has been a member of this
House for two years longer than I have, but she has always on a personal basis
extended many courtesies to myself and other members of this Assembly, particularly
as new members, and I had the honour of serving with her on the All‑Party
Constitutional Task Force, which obviously played a major role in developing
the position of this province on those constitutional issues. Although the Leader of the Second Opposition
and I do not always share the same views on the constitution or the future of
the country, the future direction of the country, I think we came to respect
one another in our positions and I will always look back very fondly upon those
hundreds of hours we spent together at public hearings and working towards an
all‑party consensus.
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I wish her all the best in her future endeavours, and I
know that she will go down in the history of this province no doubt as having
played a very instrumental role in the rebirth of the Liberal Party in this
Chamber. I think all members would agree
that this Chamber has become a much more interesting place and perhaps a more
productive place having three parties in it than in days when things were much
more divided, so I wish all the best to her in her retirement and future
endeavours.
I would also like to extend best wishes to the former
member for Rupertsland (Mr. Harper). He
and I share a community that was once in the Lac du Bonnet constituency and
with the last redistribution was moved to Rupertsland. We have been neighbours in northeastern
Manitoba for some years, and I know that he certainly has many matters which he
wishes to pursue, whether it be in private life or in seeking a seat for
Parliament, and I think all honourable members of this House certainly also
wish to extend best wishes to him.
Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Second Opposition spoke
today at the beginning of her remarks about the politics of personality and how
from time to time members of this House get into slamming one another on the
basis of one's personality and avoid to some degree dealing with the
issues. I think if there is one lesson
that comes out of the events on the national scene over the last number of
months, it is the public's dislike for what, during the late seventies and
early eighties really became the politics of personality across our country,
maybe indeed across the world. We tend to focus on the imperfections of our
political leaders. We tend to focus on their personalities, their personal
abilities, or lack of abilities in certain cases, and tend to blame as a
society all of our ills on those who come forward for public office.
I have yet to meet many members of this House who do not
come to this place very legitimately to pursue the best interests of the people
of our province and the people of their constituencies, indeed come with
honourable motives, certainly with differing points of view, certainly with
different understandings of the issues, but certainly with the best intentions
of the people of our province at heart.
I would hope that would not be forgotten.
Mr. Speaker, an editorial in Saturday's Free Press
entitled "A stable House" which spoke about the changing numbers in
this Assembly with the resignation of the former member for Rupertsland (Mr.
Harper), ended with a challenge to the opposition parties. It ended with a challenge and I quote, that
the tight squeeze on the various issues provides both opposition parties with a
good opportunity to prove to Manitobans that they have a better idea.
Mr. Speaker, that is a very, very great challenge to an
opposition, because it is always so easy in the parliamentary system for an
opposition to be friends of all who have a beef with the government, to be
friends of all who feel that somehow they are not getting their fair share of
government attention or the public's treasury, and to take side with them and
to encourage them that if only an election were held and they were on this side
of the House, all of those ills would go away.
Mr. Speaker, it takes more depth of understanding of the
issues to offer alternatives to government policy. It also takes a great deal of depth of
understanding to first come to grips with the problems, the very severe problems
facing not only our province, but all provinces in Canada today, indeed, our
whole nation, United States, Europe, in fact, virtually all the world, who is
suffering from the same ills to one degree or another.
The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) in his address to
this House talked a little bit about what his party saw as the options for this
province. He spoke at great length about
the problems facing this province, but I am not quite sure, Mr. Speaker,
whether the Leader of the Opposition demonstrated any depth of understanding of
what is behind those problems, any depth of understanding over what is driving
the current economic difficulties that all of us face.
Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition spoke about
people being worried about layoffs, about potential layoffs. He talked about people suffering who have
been laid off or do not have an opportunity to find a new job. He said that his party listens to people and
that they hear, while members of this side of the House have no understanding
of those issues that are there today among our constituents, indeed, the people
of our province.
(Mr. Ben Sveinson, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
Let me tell the honourable members opposite, and let me
tell the Leader of the Opposition, that members of this side of the House are
keenly aware of the great suffering and pressures facing the people of our
province today. We are very keenly aware
of the frustrations that are there, and we are very keenly aware of the fears
and anxieties of the people of our province.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition said
that this government had no plan of action, and he made reference to past
throne speeches about the New Democratic government of the early '80s, of the
recession being referred to in the throne speech of 1982. He did acknowledge that there was no throne
speech in 1983 when the government more or less went underground for the
longest period in this province's history when this Legislature did not sit. He did not get into detail about that, but he
spoke with pride that they had referred to the recession.
Yes, Mr. Acting Speaker, we had a recession in those days
and we certainly have, whatever you want to call it, a recession now or what
have you. We are suffering from one now,
but did the actions and the policies of the administration of which he was so
proud from that period, did they bring on a change that was long lasting and
fundamental? They did not. In fact, I would remind‑‑and the
members have heard this before‑‑but I would remind honourable members
across the way that one of their main pieces of policy, one of the main stones
on their foundation of policy was the Jobs Fund.
Our colleague the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) just
last year had to renegotiate the loan for the Jobs Fund. Indeed, the hard‑pressed taxpayers of
1992 are still paying for the financing of that Jobs Fund. In the words of the Leader of the Opposition
(Mr. Doer), who was then president of the Manitoba Government Employees'
Association, at the time, he said all it did was create phony jobs, create jobs
for printers of the signs. That was the
answer. It was an answer that was tried
in fairness to members opposite. It was
an answer that was tried in other jurisdictions too with the same result, added
debt, so much so that by 1985‑86, that fiscal year, the Province of
Manitoba was borrowing more money than‑‑or I should say, all the
money they were borrowing since '85‑86 gone to pay interest on previous
borrowings. Since that year, this
province has not borrowed a penny to provide services. It has borrowed only and solely to service
the accumulated debt of 20 years. Mr.
Acting Speaker, I am going to talk about that a little bit later.
I would like to remind members opposite that myself and
some of the members of this House come to this debate about the debt‑‑being
only in our early '30s‑‑that 20 years of borrowing, provincially
and nationally, by governments of virtually all stripes across this country has
left Canada mortgaged to the hilt and virtually bankrupt. Mr. Acting Speaker, I take no responsibility
for that. I was not even of voting age
throughout most of that period.
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The fact is my generation, as it comes to its own in our
society, has inherited a mortgage bill, Mr. Acting Speaker, that is crushing, and
those people who borrowed most of that money are long gone. In fact, as I have indicated, since '85‑86
all of this province's borrowing has simply been to pay interest on the
borrowings of past governments and across
So, Mr. Acting Speaker, to talk about how wonderful
things were in '82‑83 with great answers of what other governments had, I
think everywhere across Canada it proved by 1992 to have only added to the
problem and not come to grips with some of the fundamental issues facing us as
a society and certainly our economy that are now having to be addressed, not by
choice, but because pure economic pressure is forcing us to come to grips with
them.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr.
Doer), if I may get back to that point, spoke about this government being
completely out of touch. Well, I think
the opposite is quite true. In fact I
would even charge that members of the New Democratic Party are completely out
of touch, at least from their rhetoric in this House, with the realities facing
all governments today.
You know, Mr. Acting Speaker, the Leader of the
Opposition can talk about what was not in our throne speech, but what was not
in the Leader of the Opposition's remarks to this House today was any reference
to what is happening to other provincial governments, particularly the three
governments that are held by the New Democratic Party. I say that not to be partisan, but if one
wants to deal with
Mr. Acting Speaker, there was an article in I believe it
was Saturday's Globe and Mail about
I would like to quote from this article by Richard Mackie
of the Queen's Park Bureau of that paper.
I quote: "After announcing
$600 million in spending cuts on Thursday, Treasurer Floyd Laughren has gone on
to say that the
The article goes on, and I further quote: "The Treasurer said that if unions don't
keep to low wage demands, he will be forced to consider wage freezes and wage
rollbacks in the areas which rely on the provincial government for financing
such as social services, hospitals, universities, school boards and municipalities."
The article goes on, Mr. Acting Speaker, and I further
quote: "In addition to higher
taxes, Mr. Laughren said the government intends to go ahead with selling the
SkyDome stadium and to sell other 'nonstrategic assets' such as the GO Transit
trains, which it would then lease back."
I quote Mr. Laughren: "'If we don't do these things,' he said, 'we
will get to the point where the federal government is, where a third of all
their dollars...instead of providing programs, is going to service the
debt'."
"Mr. Laughren acknowledged that predictions of
higher taxes would not be welcomed. 'I
recognize there's tax fatigue out there.
I think there's also deficit fatigue, and I think there's also
expenditure‑cut fatigue, if I can put it that way, by the legitimate
social agencies out there who deserve to be funded'."
He further goes on to say: "'Deciding where to make cuts is
emotionally very difficult. How do you
not fund education that looks after developmentally handicapped children or how
do you not provide proper funding for a social agency that looks after
disadvantaged youth in the community?'"
"'This compassion will not prevent more cuts,
however'." This is a direct quote from Mr. Laughren. "'Everybody out there has something to
worry about in terms of what services we are going to be able to
deliver'."
"'All these programs result from the decline in
revenues', he said, 'after decades when revenues rose'. Mr. Laughren goes on to say: "'So we kid ourselves if we think that
we can continue to fund everybody out there at the same level that they have
been funded in the past. That's simply
not possible'."
Mr. Acting Speaker, I would even suggest that if this
story were written about the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) in
Mr. Acting Speaker, there is another article from the
Regina Leader‑Post dated November 20, 1992, entitled The Saskatchewan
Federation of Labour Criticizes the NDP's Financial Report, and I quote: The financial report released Wednesday
reveals that the projected annual deficit is larger than was originally
forecast in the budget speech last spring and corrective measures are
required. The Saskatchewan Federation of
Labour is concerned that means further cuts will be made to programs and
services, more Civil Service jobs will be eliminated and public sector workers
will have their wages frozen, federation President Barb Byers said. Cuts in provincial grants have already
reduced services and staff in important areas like health care, educational funding
and municipal government, she said.
Mr. Acting Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party
may not want to hear these things, but they are part of the reality. We have to
ask ourselves on this side of the House what circumstances would lead the New
Democrats in two other provinces‑‑in fact, the same thing is
happening in British Columbia‑‑in three provinces, to be following
these courses of actions. These are
parties that have for decades stood up and said, these things should never
happen; parties whose colleagues in legislatures where they are in opposition
such as this get up and say, these things should never happen. Mr. Acting Speaker, the luxury of opposition
perhaps, because the realities of government everywhere are dictating that we
have to come to grips with these fundamental problems.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I just want to add to other bits of
information that will be of interest to members of the New Democratic
Party. These come off recent reports off
the wire services that, and I quote: The
Ontario government is delaying introduction of pay equity for another 420,000
women in an attempt to save money, Labour Minister Bob MacKenzie announced
Thursday.
Mr. Acting Speaker, this is one I am somewhat miffed at,
given the arguments of my critic, the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), and I
quote from the wire service of last week:
Premier Roy Romanow's cabinet ordered its negotiators last week to end
all discussions on wage increases which it says it cannot afford. The union is seeking a 5 percent wage hike in
the first year of a new contract and a cost of living increase for subsequent
years.
That sounds a little like the end of collective
bargaining in
I will tell you that we on this side of the House have a
great deal in common with Mr. Romanow's government, as we do with every other
government of all political stripes in this country, because those realities
cannot go away; they have to be dealt with.
As someone who is, as I have pointed out before, in my
early 30s, I look at the legacy that has been left my generation in this
province over the last 20 years. I am
not just going to point my finger at members across the way, because by and
large over 20 years, right across Canada, politicians of all political stripes
to one degree or another, nationally and provincially, have followed the same
policy to one degree or another of borrowing beyond the means of their
taxpayers. It was always done, if I
remember the dates and the speeches of people like Ed Schreyer in the 70s,
because inflation would pay for it eventually, but inflation has run out. In fact, inflation has probably become a
detriment.
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Mr. Acting Speaker, I remember in 1981, as the young
Premier of the Youth Parliament of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario‑‑shortly
after the election, it was the first session of our Parliament in which Howard
Pawley was Premier of Manitoba‑‑and I remember sitting in that loge
welcoming him to our session and sitting between him and the new member for
Morris, Clayton Manness, and listening to a discussion of these issues. I remember talking about the need because we
were in a recession, as Mr. Pawley indicated at the time, we should be spending
to stimulate. Clayton Manness put the
question to him, when do we make it back, Howard? His response was, well, I am not sure.
There was not an intention to make it back. In fact, when times were good, in the mid‑to‑late
'80s, when we had the windfalls of revenue, when there was an attempt by this
government to take away the excess revenues that we had from federal transfers
and from mining revenue and put it into a savings account to draw on in tougher
times, it was opposed by members opposite‑‑not all, some members
opposition; by the official opposition of the day, it was opposed.
We have used that surplus to good advantage now to
cushion some of the blows that are being forced upon us, but the point I still
make is during some pretty good times, when members opposite were in
government, the bank account was never replenished, which is one of the
principal points of Keynesian economics.
I do not just blame them, because virtually every government in
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
So I stand here today, Mr. Speaker, as someone who is in
his early thirties, early age in public life.
I look at the legacy that has been handed to my generation and it is a terrible
one. That debt is there and the bills are coming home, and there is no avoiding
it. [interjection] The members opposite from Dauphin and Flin Flon said, yes,
we are borrowing, and I am not proud of that.
I am not proud of that at all. As
they well know from being in cabinet since '85‑86, every penny that the
The member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) says, do we have all
the answers? No, we do not have all the
answers. In fact, Mr. Speaker, as these
economic times go on right across the world we are learning things about our
economy and the way it has been structured that we did not realize a year or
two or three years ago. These are very
serious times. There is no denying it,
but they will not be dealt with by simple slogans. They will not be dealt with by a view that if
we tinker here or there that they are going to be solved.
There are fundamental problems in our economy today. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), although
one may disagree from time to time on specifics, has referred to some of the
problems in education, Mr. Speaker, that have to be addressed, but they are
deeper. That fundamental debt load
underlines much of our problem. That
debt load is not just something that is there in government. We see it in the corporate world. Look at the investment in the corporate world
in speculative real estate.
My constituents in Pine Falls who have run a profitable
paper mill saw their profits not reinvested in new machinery and equipment and
updating the mill, they saw it go from Abitibi‑Price to Abitibi‑Price's
parent Olympia & York and gone to finance the acquisition of department
stores in New York and Canary Wharf in London.
Mr. Speaker, not right, and now the price is being paid.
Mr. Speaker, what we have seen over 20 years right across
the board has been this accumulation of debt, lack of investment generally on
our basic wealth producing infrastructure everywhere. I am being very practical and I am raising
points that are very legitimate, but just on points of the members opposite
about encouraging investment in Manitoba, let us not forget during that period
when the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) was in government and the member for
Flin Flon (Mr. Storie) was in government that Abitibi did not invest hardly
anything in Pine Falls.
Would you invest in Pine Falls if you found you had a new
park cut out of your cutting areas without so much even as a bit of
negotiations? Would you invest? Would you invest in a province if one day you
found you had a payroll tax levied on creating jobs? Would you invest if you had a government of
the day who, quite frankly, could care less whether you were in the province or
not? No, I am not against parks, but
when you expropriate a right to someone that you have already given them, you
should at least have the courtesy of negotiating with them, Mr. Speaker, before
you go ahead and do it. If memory serves
me right, I remember Howard Pawley talking about how he had talked to somebody
on an airplane and thought Atikaki was a great idea and decided to go ahead and
do it, but nobody spoke to them. The
negotiations were after the fact. So why
would you invest in
But, Mr. Speaker, the upgrade in equipment and machinery
that would have kept that plant profitable were made long before we were in
government and they were made on the basis of policies that were brought in at
the time, because there is a basic lesson here.
You cannot take wealth generation for granted. You cannot view those people who produce wealth
including the employees who work there as just a source of revenue that you can
go to over and over and over again with taxation and policies that make it very
hard for them to operate.
Mr. Speaker, I have heard comments from the member for
Thompson (Mr. Ashton) who wants stiffer plant closure legislation, exactly that
type of thinking, that "let us keep people out of the province." A lot of that investment is footloose, and
one has to accommodate it within reason, and quite frankly, that is not going
to do it. They wish to build a wall, as
my colleague from Pembina indicates, while walls all across the world are going
down.
Mr. Speaker, if there is one thing that is evident as one
scans the world, and just as an aside for a moment, if one looks at countries
in western Europe for example, Italy with a socialist prime minister, he is in
the process of deinsuring their medical coverage to any family whose gross
family income is over the equivalent of about $40,000 Canadian a year. The government of
We have the Newfoundland example, where Newfoundland just
a couple of years ago were told by their bankers that they could not loan any
more money unless they reduce their public service by 2,100 positions
approximately and 1,200 people in the health care system. It was not their decision, Mr. Speaker, a
Liberal government. It was what their
bankers demanded of them to get one more penny in credit.
Mr. Speaker, all Canadian provinces and certainly our
federal government are on that road to one degree or another. I do not think any of us on this side of the
House are happy that we have any deficit at all, because that is just
mortgaging the future of our province and of our young people, but we are
trying to make the changes needed with some compassion, which members opposite
have not recognized at all because they would just keep borrowing until we
could borrow no more and have the whole house crash down around us with great
pain and suffering, as is now the case in some other provinces, Ontario and
Saskatchewan being two.
*
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Mr. Speaker, we have to deal with that deficit
problem. Not that I am of the belief
that we are going to be able to solve it quickly, but it will be a millstone
around our collective necks year after year in a heavier and heavier fashion.
If members opposite or any members of the public think we
have the ability to go into the marketplace and borrow a huge amount of money
to stimulate growth, only look at
Mr. John Plohman (Dauphin): It is working.
Mr. Praznik: Oh, the
member for Dauphin said it is working, Mr. Speaker. It is not working in
His colleagues, if he were to have a discussion with his
colleagues in
Mr. Speaker, not only do we have to come to grips with
the deficit, but it is imperative of all of us‑‑and the Leader of
the second opposition party alluded it somewhat in various parts of her speech‑‑we
have to rethink everything that government does. The Leader of the Second
Opposition (Mrs. Carstairs), I believe, made reference to making the tough
choices between what programs government can continue to deliver and what
programs they cannot. That has to be
done‑‑and not only what we can continue and cannot continue to
deliver, but also, Mr. Speaker, can we deliver those things better?
Probably the most innovative and thoughtful document
anywhere in Canada on reform that has really become the beginning of reform of
government across Canada has been this health action plan, Mr. Speaker, in
terms of understanding the problems health care is facing.
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin Flon): No, no, no.
Mr. Praznik: The
member for Flin Flon said no, no, no, but I would remind him of the comments of
the Minister of Health in the
Now, they may do a few things differently. I think they have closed 3,000 beds in the
We also have to recognize, as our economy has gone
through very tough times, that our public service generally cannot be entirely
supported, Mr. Speaker, as if revenues were endless. We managed to negotiate a three-year agreement
with our public servants in this area, but we see other governments,
We have to look at how much we can afford and that is
what we have to be able to provide, and to look at how we do it to see if we
can find it better. Do we really need to
provide it, and where do we need to be targeting our resources?
Mr. Speaker, there is also a larger issue that has to be
addressed, and that is our own people.
We as a society have to recognize that government cannot, never has and
will not be able to solve all of our problems as a society. I am a product of the Schreyer school system,
to some degree. I am a product, having
grown up in Howard Pawley's constituency, of a way of thinking that developed
during the late '60s and early '70s that government could answer everything. I came to realize very quickly that it
cannot, and it was a dream that was not going to work. It cost a huge amount of money to find a
whole bunch of areas to fill needs that government could not ultimately
fulfill.
That is one of the reasons I am on this
side–[interjection] Well, the member refers to home care. They talked about home care. It is our government that has put more money
into home care as part of health care reform.
The New Democrats got into health care without making the savings in the
institutions because they did not, quite frankly, understand where the system
had to be going–in theory maybe, but would not do it.
We are in a very difficult time. There is no doubt about that, but we have to
deal with this. You have to deal with
the realities in a way that is going to take us through it. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), in
his address to this House, demonstrated that he may feel the same frustrations
and fears that we feel that are there in the people of
Mr. Storie: Mr.
Speaker, it is a privilege to join this debate this early. [interjection] My
colleague from Pembina behind me talks about dishonesty you can trust. I just ask the question: Where is the member
for Pembina, where is the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) with respect to drug
patent legislation today? We know that
he is with his federal colleagues one day.
The next day he is with the Minister of Health from
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to begin, however, by first
acknowledging and congratulating the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) and the
member for
Mr. Speaker, the member for
I want to sort of launch into some of that partisan
rhetoric immediately, Mr. Speaker. I
want to begin by saying that the throne speech is always a nebulous kind of
document. We are, I think, accustomed in
this Legislature to trying to pick up a generic sense of where the government
is going in throne speeches and there have been some, let us say, less than
stellar throne speeches in the past. The
last couple come to mind but this throne speech was a star in many respects.
This throne speech had all of the rhetoric and had, I
think, sort of tapped into a couple of new euphemisms that are making the
rounds today, talking about change and innovation. Those words were used many times in the
throne speech, but what was interesting was that although the word "change"
was used many times, when it came down to the government's core values, nothing
had changed. In fact, we still sawed the
same old saws‑‑that it is better to stand aside, it is better to do
nothing. That is basically the approach
of the government and, of course, the continuing rhetoric about managing the
economy and managing the finances of the Province of Manitoba, this at a time
when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) has just tabled the second quarter
financial report which said that we have the highest deficit in the province's
history. That is management.
Mr. Speaker, I also wanted to commend the member for Lac
du Bonnet (Mr. Praznik) on a fine speech and for reminding me incidentally of a
couple of things that I think we all should remind ourselves of from time to
time, and that was that we should do some comparison. I thought it was quite interesting when the
member for Lac du Bonnet, the Minister of Labour, talked about comparing what
was going on in
*
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I want to take issue with the suggestion that there is
some sort of parallel between the position this government was left in, the new
Conservative government of 1988 and 1990, with the situation that the current
Premier of Saskatchewan inherited from the Devine government, because there is
no comparison. The Romanow NDP
government in
The member for Springfield (Mr. Findlay) should go back
and review the Provincial Auditor's comments in the 1990 Provincial Auditor's
Report about the financial affairs of the Province of Manitoba, and he will
find that never mind the $200 million which was taken from excess revenue from
equalization from the federal government and mining tax revenue transferred to
the provincial government as this new stabilization fund that in fact created
an artificial deficit in that year.
There was an operating surplus in the
Mr. Speaker, having said that, I share with the member
for Lac du Bonnet (Mr. Praznik) the concern over the deficit. We all share a concern over the deficit. The fact of the matter is, and I give the
member for Lac du Bonnet credit, he acknowledged that every government of every
stripe, through the 1980s in particular, experienced significant growth in
their accumulative debt. There can be no
doubt about it.
If the member for Lac du Bonnet wants to be honest, then
he should compare the growth accumulative debt with other provinces compared to
the
We also are concerned about annual deficits, particularly
annual deficits that are talked about and reported by the Minister of Finance
(Mr. Manness).
Mr. Speaker, what we do believe fundamentally is that we
need a new approach. I am not just
talking about a new New Democratic approach, but we certainly need a new
Conservative approach, because the agenda that this government has set for
itself has failed in the United States, it has failed in Britain, it has failed
federally in Canada and is going to fail in the Province of Manitoba. It is the same agenda that Brian Mulroney
outlined in 1984, and it is a failed agenda.
It is an agenda that does not recognize the fundamental characteristics
of our country. It does not address the
problem that we face as a unique country with a unique economy and a unique set
of social institutions. So we need to set our own course, and unfortunately the
Conservative government in this throne speech in particular have set no course,
no course whatsoever. We continue the
drift that we saw since 1988 from this government.
Mr. Speaker, we need an alternative, we do need an
alternative. Let us look at the throne
speech's new initiatives, so to speak, and my Leader I think addressed the fact
that virtually every new item which was mentioned in the throne speech was in
fact not new, was in fact in some cases initiatives that had been started as
much as 20 years ago by the NDP. I
wanted to talk about, for example, the new thrust of the provincial
government. Well, the InfoTech Centre,
the recognition that information technology is going to be the base for most of
the jobs in the next economy did not come from the Premier of this province,
the member for Tuxedo (Mr. Filmon), or any of his front bench. That idea was generated at the first economic
summit in 1982 by the co-operative efforts of labour and business and
government. The InfoTech Centre was a
direct result of those consultative meetings.
Mr. Speaker, HIDI, the Health Industry Development
Initiative was also a result of a later set of economic summit meetings, an
idea that was germinated in the co‑operative atmosphere of those economic
summits which brought Manitoba Leaders together. The kinds of initiative that my Leader was
commenting on in terms of The Forks, in terms of tourism, were also created by
the co‑operative effort in some cases between the trilevels of
governments and outside parties. They
were created by the ability of the previous government to arrange and sign ERDA
agreements, Economical Regional Development Agreements in tourism, in mining
and forestry, et cetera.
Mr. Speaker, it was very much a co-operative effort, but
what is surprising is that there is so little new in this throne speech. The only significant legislative item which
was identified in the throne speech is Sunday shopping. What was more interesting was that hidden in
amongst the verbiage dealing with tourism, which was supposed to give us some
sense that the provincial government finally had an agenda with respect to
tourism, was reference to Sunday shopping.
If this government believes, if the Minister responsible
for Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Stefanson) believes, or the Premier (Mr.
Filmon) believes that opening Sunday shopping from noon to six o'clock is
somehow going to create a tourism boom in the
I thought it more than a little ironic that the member
for Emerson (Mr. Penner) would say, when asked by a reporter, what is your
position on Sunday shopping? Well, that
is an unfair question. Mr. Speaker, that
is not an unfair question. It is a
question that every single member on that side should be asking themselves. What is the impact of Sunday shopping and
this legislation going to be on my community?
I had the good fortune only a few weeks ago of touring
some of those communities, and I can tell you that there is a great deal of
fear about the impact of Sunday shopping on small businesses in the city of
Winnipeg and small communities outside the city of Winnipeg who know that this
is in no way going to create additional jobs.
Whatever additional jobs are created in the city of
*
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Mr. Speaker, the government's other initiatives in the
throne speech are equally as questionable.
The government wants to talk about education reform. The only major reform that this government
has introduced in the last four years has been offloading. That is the sum and total of their education
reform, continuing to offload on the municipalities, on the school divisions
across the province.
In my community the offloading is going to mean as much
as 35 and 40 percent increases in special levy education paths at the municipal
level. The Minister of Northern Affairs
(Mr. Downey), the member for Arthur, has finally had that fact raised to him by
his own constituents who have told him without any hesitation that the increase
in local property taxes stands to be in the range of 40 percent unless this
government does some rethinking.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)
There is nothing new in the throne speech. The throne speech, as my Leader had said earlier,
ignores reality. It ignores the pain
that Manitobans are suffering. It
ignores the unemployment; it ignores the increase in the use of food banks; it
ignores the increase in social assistance that is being given.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the throne speech‑‑and
I mentioned tourism because I had just received a copy of the Tourism Industry
Association of Winnipeg's November publication, and this was published November
4, 1992. I want to read into the record
what the Tourism Industry Association of Winnipeg has to say about the
government's tourism effort and the economic prospects for the
Madam Deputy Speaker, the tourism industry has nothing
positive to say about this government's agenda in tourism. It has nothing positive to say about this
government's economic agenda, and reflects the fact that the government is
severely out of touch.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I mentioned in my first question in
this session that while the throne speech was being read, the week in which the
throne speech was read saw some 615 jobs disappear in the mining industry in
Manitoba–615 jobs disappear. There was
no mention of the pain and suffering that was being felt by those miners or
their families or their communities.
There was no mention of the R word, recession. There was no mention of
the thousands and thousands of people that are using food banks–ignored
reality. There is no agenda in the
throne speech that should lead any Manitoban to conclude that good times are
around the corner or that this government really understands what those problems
are.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the member for Lac du Bonnet (Mr.
Praznik) talked about the need for dealing with the new reality. What is the
new reality we must deal with? What is
the new reality? Well, the new reality
that is facing Manitobans and facing our country is not very much of a new
reality at all. It is actually an agenda
that was established in 1984 by the federal Conservative government and is
being followed quite faithfully, I might say, by the Conservative government of
I want to outline at least four areas where the results
of their tinkering are becoming obvious to Canadians. The first one is the Free Trade Agreement. Madam Deputy Speaker, the Minister of
Agriculture (Mr. Findlay) throws up his hands.
Well, unfortunately, there are a lot of businesses throwing up their
hands in
Madam Deputy Speaker, there was a new document just
released as a result of the federal Access to Information Act which showed that
in fact the federal government had consulted with senior executives in major
companies across Canada, and what did they find? Well, what they found was that, yes, in fact,
corporations and the heads of huge corporations in
That is what has happened. I want to use
Hon. Glen Findlay (Minister of Agriculture): The exports are going up.
Mr. Storie: Madam
Deputy Speaker, the member for
Madam Deputy Speaker, the Free Trade Agreement is a
fundamental policy failure. No country
in the world, none, has ever signed a comprehensive free trade agreement with
another nation of the nature in which this agreement does, which for example
gives away our right to regulate and control our energy resources as an
example. It is a failure. Until this government starts to recognize it,
we have no hope.
Madam Deputy Speaker, of course, then we come to the
North American Free Trade Agreement. Now
this becomes a little more interesting and I am more intrigued by the Conservative
position on this issue than perhaps on free trade because they did no thinking
on the free trade issue. They did no
analysis. They simply supported their
federal colleagues and continue to claim this is a federal responsibility, we
do not know anything. We do not want to
know anything. Of course, they still do
not know anything. Other people in
What about NAFTA?
What impact is NAFTA going to have on
Madam Deputy Speaker, after the election we see a rather
more devious approach to the question of the North American Free Trade
Agreement. We find that the government
now has six conditions. I asked the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism
(Mr. Stefanson) and the First Minister (Mr. Filmon) to outline what they would
do, what the government would do if some or all of those conditions were left
unmet.
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Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, we had no answer. Well, we have set out our conditions. Are you just posturing for public
consumption? Is that all you are
doing? The answer of course turns out to
be yes, because today the First Minister was asked the same question and of
course he now has access to the agreement, the written agreement, the legal
agreement. Does he take a position? Does he say our conditions are not quite met
in here, and we are going to oppose this and then outline for Manitobans what
he is going to do in opposition? Is he
going to squeak from his chair, we oppose this, or is he going to lead some
sort of a charge to say this is wrong for
Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, I predict now without any
fear of being contradicted at any time by actions of the government that they
are going to do nothing. They are going
to do nothing. Never mind what the impact is on
Madam Deputy Speaker, if the North American Free Trade
Agreement is signed, the Minister of Health will have lost. Now then, I have to ask the question. Was the Minister of Health ever really
concerned? Was he concerned about the
taxpayers? Was he concerned about those who require those medicines? Was he concerned about the cost to
individuals? Was he concerned about the
industrial cost to our country, or was this more political posturing? Was this more of the same, like the six
conditions that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Stefanson) put
out?
Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is the problem. The government has refused to take a position
on the North American Free Trade Agreement that should be quite simple. The North American Free Trade Agreement is
not good for
Madam Deputy Speaker, deregulation. I know that others have commented on the fact
that the godfather of deregulation was in fact the previous Liberal government,
the deregulation of the airline industry, I should say. Of course, the deregulation of the airline
industry was wholeheartedly embraced by the Conservative government in 1984,
and only recently after years, literally years, of seeing the erosion of our
national railway system and our national airline system, what we have is the Minister
of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Driedger) finally, in one of the most
candid moments surely of this government's life, acknowledging that, yes, in
fact, the deregulation of the airline industry had been a mistake, and perhaps
it was time, I believe it was the federal minister responsible who mused that
perhaps it was time to reregulate the industry.
So deregulation has also been a failure.
Madam Deputy Speaker, what has also been a failure has
been the Conservative economic agenda which is stand aside and the firm belief
that the corporate agenda was the agenda for Canada, the same fundamental
belief that George Bush had for the United States.
Perhaps the best example of why that belief is ill‑founded,
is damaging and hurtful to our economy is the example of Nike, a corporation
that has a less than stellar reputation, even amongst the multinational
corporations.
Madam Deputy Speaker, there was an article in the Free
Press, and I do not know how many members had a chance to read it, that talked
about the corporate strategy of Nike, which is one of these faceless, nameless,
stateless corporate entities who are only concerned about the bottom line. No nationality, no community, no worker
concern–the bottom line.
This corporation started off producing running shoes in
the
So we went from North American jobs to South Korean jobs
to Indonesian jobs. All producing the
same goods. Madam Deputy Speaker, are we
going to compete on this level playing field we keep talking about? Are we going to compete on the level playing
field of wages?
Anyone who wants to follow the simple corporate agenda is
in a race to the bottom. That is
all. A race to the bottom. That is what we are doing‑‑[interjection]
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay) is yelling from his seat, those
corporations can go wherever they want to today. What the Minister of Agriculture is saying
then, not only can they but they should.
That is the problem. That is the
moral message that you are sending to corporate
Well, I want you to tell Canadians, I want you to tell
Manitobans that is what you are saying, that there is no responsibility to
community or to country. I do not
believe that fundamental.
Madam Deputy Speaker, so the economic circumstances that
face this government, the $642‑million deficit, their economic agenda is
failing and until they dissociate themselves with that kind of agenda, we are going
to continue to be in trouble. How much
time do I have left?
Madam Deputy Speaker: Ten
minutes, Jerry.
Mr. Storie: I have
to say that I have not begun to finish the agenda that I wanted to discuss, but
I wanted to move to another area which causes me some concern, and that is
reflected more in the Premier's (Mr. Filmon) attitude and in the attitude of a
number of the front benchers than anything else.
The First Minister, in his remarks to the convention, I
believe it was last Saturday, referred to the success of the Economic
Innovations and Technology Council forum‑‑referred to its
success. He went on to refer to the fact
that the Leader of the New Democratic Party had been invited, and he elected
not to go but to send, and I quote the Premier, a tired critic from the Pawley
government.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I was the tired critic from the NDP
government who was in attendance. What I
want to point out for the new members in particular, because some of the old
members, the members in Executive Council, now will be used to the dishonesty
of the Premier and used to the dishonesty of the front bench.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to categorically say that
the line in the throne speech which talks about the Economic Innovations and
Technology Council forum as being the first of a kind in
I attended early.
I listened to the speakers who were on the agenda, and I want to say
that there was really no participation for the audience for the morning
session. We simply listened to speaker
after speaker. We had a two‑hour
lunch period during which 11 or 12 people were at a table and were given a
questionnaire to address, and we did address it. In fact, the facilitator at my table was Dale
Botting who represents the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the
Manitoba branch, and we did participate, but Mr. Speaker, there was a consensus
at our table that the government was simply patting itself on the back and
creating its own agenda, that because of the structured nature of that debate,
nothing innovative could have come out of it.
It was a total, dismal failure.
It was a PR exercise like the Minister of Health's (Mr. Orchard)
announcement this morning, a PR exercise, but I did want to confirm for members
here that, in fact, I am a tired critic.
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I am tired of seeing people in my communities lose their
jobs. I am tired of seeing communities
disappear in northern
We have lost our probation officer. The Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) imposed
a $50 user fee on the Northern Patient Transportation Program. We are having cutbacks in education. The
communities of Leaf Rapids and
I listened to the Premier (Mr. Filmon) today, and I have
heard the Premier's remarks at the convention and other forums where he talked
about the record of other governments when it comes to scandals. Well, the only reason this government has no
record of scandals is because they have no standards. Anything goes over there. If they had any standards, the Premier would
have fired Barb Biggar and Ron Arnst.
Lying to the public is okay. Oh,
you may have to be docked two days pay, but that is okay.
When ministers in this Chamber mislead the public, when
they do not tell the truth, when they interfere in a political way in processes
that they should not interfere in, there are no consequences. When the First Minister gets up and makes
personal attacks on a regular basis, there is no integrity in this government, and
he has no right to chastise, to criticize, to belittle any other political
party or any other political representatives when he has no standards, and the
only two people that we have seen with any kind of integrity have already
resigned from cabinet posts because they had some integrity, Madam Deputy
Speaker.
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Health): Give us some of that good old response that
we can trust, Jerry.
Mr. Storie: The
member for Pembina, the Minister of Health, is probably the most aggressive,
telling the members on this side to tell the truth. He has his own problems as is evidenced by
this morning's statement, because either he does not believe what he is saying
or his Premier (Mr. Filmon) is not telling the truth. Which is it, Madam Deputy
Speaker?
So if we are going to raise the level of debate in this
Chamber, then perhaps we could start with the Premier, perhaps we could start
by having him redraft the throne speech to reflect the truth. Perhaps we could have the research staff who wrote
the throne speech address the real issues that are facing us and not try to
bury them in rhetoric and not try to sugar‑coat them with euphemisms.
[interjection]
Madam Deputy Speaker, I am tired, but the good news is I
am not the only one who is tired, Manitobans are tired. They are tired of the deceit of this
government. They are tired of the
incompetence of this government. They
are tired of this government. As soon as
the First Minister (Mr. Filmon) has the courage to call an election, the people
of
Mr. Jack Reimer (Niakwa):
Is there a willingness to call it six o'clock?
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is it
the will of the House to call it six o'clock? [agreed]
The hour being 6 p.m., in accordance with the rules, I am
leaving the Chair and will return at 8 p.m., at which time the honourable
member for Niakwa will have 40 minutes remaining.