LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY OF
Friday,
April 30, 1993
The House met at 10 a.m.
PRAYERS
ROUTINE
PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTING
PETITIONS
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (
Mr. Gregory Dewar
(Selkirk): Mr. Speaker, I beg to
present the petition of Cheryl Sinclair, Stacey Berry, Donna Krut and others,
requesting the Family Services minister (Mr. Gilleshammer) consider restoring
funding for friendship centres in
* * *
Ms. Jean Friesen
(Wolseley): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of
Glenn Hosea, Phyllis Tolsma, Grace McConkey and others, requesting the Minister
of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) to consider restoring funding of the
Student Social Allowances Program.
Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the
honourable member (Ms. Friesen). It
complies with the privileges and practices of the House and complies with the
rules. Is it the will of the House to
have the petition read? [agreed]
Mr. Clerk (William
Remnant): The petition of the undersigned citizens of
the
WHEREAS
WHEREAS over 1,000 young adults are
currently attempting to get off welfare and upgrade their education through the
Student Social Allowances Program; and
WHEREAS
WHEREAS the provincial government has
already changed social assistance rules resulting in increased welfare costs
for the City of
WHEREAS the provincial government is now
proposing to eliminate the Student Social Allowances Program; and
WHEREAS eliminating the Student Social
Allowances Program will result in more than a thousand young people being
forced onto city welfare with no means of getting further full‑time
education, resulting in more long‑term costs for city taxpayers.
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray
that the Legislative Assembly of
* * *
Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the
honourable member (Mr. Santos). It complies
with the privileges and the practices of the House and complies with the
rules. Is it the will of the House to
have the petition read? [agreed]
Mr. Clerk: The petition of the undersigned citizens of
the
WHEREAS the United Nations has declared
1993 the International Year of the World's Indigenous People with the theme,
"Indigenous People: a new
partnership"; and
WHEREAS the provincial government has
totally discontinued funding to all friendship centres; and
WHEREAS the provincial government has
stated that these cuts mirror the federal cuts; and
WHEREAS the elimination of all funding to
friendship centres will result in the loss of many jobs as well as the services
and programs provided, such as: assistance
to the elderly, the homeless, youth programming, the socially disadvantaged,
families in crisis, education, recreation and cultural programming, housing
relocation, fine options, counselling, court assistance, advocacy;
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray
that the Legislative Assembly of
Introduction
of Guests
Mr. Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, may I direct the
attention of honourable members to the gallery, where we have with us this
morning from the Van Walleghem Elementary School seventy Grade 5 students under
the direction of Kim Peppler. This
school is located in the constituency of the honourable First Minister (Mr.
Filmon).
On behalf of all honourable members, I
would like to welcome you here this morning.
ORAL
QUESTION PERIOD
Unitel
Hookup Costs
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, in the Wall Street Journal,
there is an ad for AT&T which is now buying into
I would like to ask the Premier, in light
of his government's policies and the federal Conservative policies on
Americanizing the telephone system in
* (1005)
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Mr. Speaker,
We had, for instance, an issue that was
raised in this Legislature and in the media about I believe it was the Liver
Foundation which was doing fundraising out of
So if we do not ensure that we are competitive,
if we do not ensure that we are involved with the transition that is taking
place in terms of telecommunications competition throughout North
So it is not as simple as the member
opposite in his empty sloganeering would like to portray. It is a real matter of understanding what it
is going to take to build this economy and what it is going to take to ensure
that the telecommunications costs are competitive here because
telecommunications is one of the prime fields in which we can add jobs if we
continue to be competitive, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Doer: Mr. Speaker, excuse us for being a little concerned
about the discrepancy between the Premier's answer in this Chamber and the
Minister of Education's (Mrs. Vodrey) decisions at our community colleges to
cut sections dealing with telecommunications, but we have always known that the
Tory economic strategy does not include education and training. There is no co‑ordination between the
right hand and the other right hand of government.
Mr. Speaker, we had been involved in
establishing competition at the Cellular telephone line. We had set up a system where the two
retailers competed together, but they came onto the Manitoba Telephone System
line, and therefore the public that had paid for those lines got the benefit of
the competition and the revenue because the public had paid for those lines.
My question to the Premier is: How can he support a policy where Manitobans
are going to pay 70 percent of the hookup costs for Unitel which is now 20
percent American‑owned? How can he
support a policy which is not even just competition‑‑it is us
paying a private company to come in and take away business from our consumers?
* (1010)
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Speaker, the track record of the New
Democrats in entering into business arrangements with the Telephone System
leaves a lot to be desired‑‑$27 million lost in the sands of
He speaks of the arrangements that they
had made to get into the cellular communications field without telling us that
Manitobans have lost money in their efforts in cellular phones since the time
that his government got into it, that Manitoba Telephone System's Cellular has
not only not made a nickel but has lost millions of dollars by virtue of their
entry into that field.
Mr. Speaker, what he does not tell is that
Unitel has to pay 50 cents out of every dollar of revenue that they get from
their operations to the Manitoba Telephone System for the privilege of using
the Manitoba Telephone System infrastructure that he talks about. No other arrangement ever was given to any
supplier in this country on any basis where the first 50 cents out of every
dollar of revenue has to go to the Manitoba Telephone System to pay for that
infrastructure.
Those are all things that were taken into
account by the CRTC when they made these arrangements, when they analyzed them,
when they understood the ramifications, not like the kind of empty sloganeering
we are getting from the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Doer: Mr. Speaker, the Premier did not answer the
question about what will be the impact on the bottom line of us paying 70
percent of the hookup cost.
Telecommunications
Industry
Employment
Creation Strategy
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): I would like to ask the Premier a final
question. His own trend strategy dealing
with Education and Training includes a reduction of people in
telecommunications.
We see a reduction in the number of people
working at the northern Telecom plant.
Every month or so, unfortunately, we see a couple more layoffs, 20, 19,
45, Mr. Speaker. We see Unitel creating
400 jobs in
Mr. Speaker, what numbers should we
believe in terms of job creation are correct, the numbers coming out of the
Department of Education which show a reduction in employees and opportunities
in telecommunications in
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Mr. Speaker, the member is confusing a whole
series of things that are happening.
The Manitoba Telephone System, in order to
keep its own operations efficient and because of changing technologies that
allow things to be done with fewer people, Manitoba Telephone System was going
to have to move with the times. It was
happening in the '80s.
In fact, I have a paper that says that the
reason why the NDP government went into the Saudi Arabian operation was to avoid
the layoffs of several hundred people in the Manitoba Telephone System, and the
then‑chairman, Saul Miller, wrote to the minister responsible, the member
for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans), and said, we can avoid these layoffs by
creating opportunities in a business in
The fact is, Manitoba Telephone System
will move with the times, but in addition to that, because we are competitive,
because we are doing the things that are necessary in order to be in the modern
world in telecommunications, we are having a setup here by Unitel with over 400
jobs. We are having a telephone service
centre here from Canada Post with over 100 jobs. We are having Canadian Pacific with over 200
jobs in telecommunications.
All of those things are coming in here and
more will follow, Mr. Speaker. None of
those firms are concerned with an availability of trained staff. They know that our colleges and universities
will produce the trained staff they need.
They have every confidence in it, and we have every confidence in it.
Poverty
Rate
Government
Reduction Strategy
Ms. Judy Wasylycia‑Leis
(
I would like to ask the Premier (Mr.
Filmon) if he is now finally prepared to recognize the serious nature of this
problem and tell us what plan of action he has for attacking poverty in this
province.
* (1015)
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr. Speaker,
we have had a discussion of this during the Estimates process with the other
critics from the New Democratic Party where we have looked at the rates, and
We have looked at the manner in which
Statistics Canada gathers their statistics and bases that particular poverty
line on the cost of living in cities like
Ms. Wasylycia‑Leis: Mr. Speaker, all statistics show that there has
been a marked increase in poverty in
I want to ask this government if it is now
prepared to take steps to reduce poverty in this province, or is it prepared to
play the game of the federal government by trying to make the problem go away
by redefining the definition of‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put her question.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Mr. Speaker, one of the most important things
we do is review those rates on an annual basis, and we have had the opportunity
to raise those rates according to the cost of living, but at the same time have
brought in a number of other reforms that we have had the opportunity in the
last few days to talk about with the critic from the New Democratic Party,
about the number of enhancements we have made to the system.
Again, we have also had a good discussion
of how those statistics are generated and that those statistics reflect the
cost of living in cities like
Student
Social Allowances
Program
Reinstatement
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I remind the honourable member this is not a
time for debate.
The honourable member for
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Will this government, at least as a very
minimum, Mr. Speaker, reconsider some of its devastating budgetary decisions
like the elimination of the Student Social Allowances Program which will only
add to poverty in this province and perpetuate the cycle of poverty? Will it at least reinstate‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put her question.
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr.
Speaker, I would invite the member to come to the Estimates process where we
have had a chance to talk about raising the liquid asset rates, creating new
programs for the disabled, to letting certain people who are accessing social
allowance keep their health card as they move to employment.
All of these enhancements are over and
above the increase in the rates that we have annually increased to reflect the
cost of living in
Mandate
Mr. Paul Edwards (St.
James): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Premier.
The Premier talks about MTS having to
compete in a global economy and having to move with the times. The problem is that the companies that the
Premier is asking MTS to compete with have a fundamentally different
mandate. The mandate of AT&T and
Unitel is to make a profit. The mandate
of MTS is not only to be fiscally responsible, but to serve remote areas in
this province and rural Manitobans with affordable telephone services,
something that AT&T and Unitel do not have as part of their mandate.
My question for the Premier: How does he expect MTS with its mandate,
which is a social mandate for this province and in particular for rural and
northern Manitobans, to compete with international companies whose only mandate
is profit?
* (1020)
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether or not the
member opposite is being consistent in the position that he is taking on
issues. As a candidate for the
leadership of the Liberal Party, he is quoted in an article recently that says‑‑I
think you will be interested in this.
You may be able to use this on the stump, as well.
He was being questioned at a public
meeting that he held recently with respect to his leadership by a former member
of this House, Lem Shuttleworth, who said and I quote: Shuttleworth suggested that if elected
leader, Edwards could possibly win a provincial election if he leaned more to
the left, to which Edwards replied, quote, I do not intend to sell my soul even
to win an election.
Now, having reconsidered that position,
the member asks the question that implies that because it is publicly owned,
the Manitoba Telephone System should be inefficient and uncompetitive in order
to serve the people of
If we allowed that to happen, of course,
all of us would pay higher rates. All of
us would simply do what the New Democrats did and that is create jobs in
Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Premier for
reading some of my better quotes in the House.
As he has once said, I do not have time to read my quotes, but I am glad
he does.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the Premier says it is
publicly owned and that is correct. That
means it has a public mandate. It is not
privately owned. Its only mandate is not
to shareholders in
My question for the Premier: What effect is having Unitel and AT&T in
this economy forcing MTS to compete in a global marketplace‑‑what
effect is that going to have on their public mandate to offer affordable
telephone services, in particular, to people in remote, northern and rural
areas of this province, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Speaker, interestingly enough, by being
competitive and offering competitive rates, what will happen to the Manitoba
Telephone System is that all of these other organizations, such as Unitel, such
as others who are coming in here as potential resellers of long‑distance
capacity, trunk capacity, will bring in businesses which will use greater
volumes of long‑distance service in
In fact, when you bring in a telephone
service centre such as Unitel has, such as Canadian Pacific, such as Canada
Post, such as others are going to set up here, you will have tremendous volumes
of long distance being utilized in this province which are not presently here,
which will add to the total volume of usage of the Manitoba Telephone System,
which will help to keep the overall rates down.
So the additional volume not only produces
jobs in
Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, this is this pie in the sky, it
is all coming up roses tomorrow, do not worry, we will be okay. The fact is, MTS relies on those long‑distance
rates to pay for affordable telephones around this province.
Mr. Speaker, my question for the
Premier: How many years or decades down
the road does he expect his prediction to come true, that we are actually going
to be able to pay for all the telephone services to people outside the city of
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Mr. Filmon: Mr. Speaker, we continue to be able to pay
for all of the northern and remote users of the Telephone System at low rates.
If you listen to the people from the
Manitoba Telephone System, they expect that they will continue to make profits
while keeping the rates low and reasonable for Manitobans, and, if you look at
the doom and gloom that was predicted by New Democrats and Liberals when, as a
result of a CRTC decision our long‑distance rates were reduced, I
believe, it was 40 percent overnight, what happened was that the total long‑distance
revenue of the Telephone System went up 20 percent because of that. Overall it
went up 20 percent, despite a 40 percent reduction in rates.
That, Mr. Speaker, is what happens when
there is greater volume, greater usage and more competitive rates. It happens and it happens regularly, and I
hope that the member opposite will do a little bit of studying on these issues
before he comes to the Legislature with these questions in the future.
* (1025)
Poverty
Rate
Government
Reduction Strategy
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Family Services
would like to redefine the poverty line in order to make himself and his
government look better in the eyes of the public.
In the meantime, the standards are defined
by the National Council of Welfare in their most recent Winter 1993 Report of
Poverty Profile Updates from 1991. So we
know that 17.1 percent of all families in
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member, with your question,
please.
Mr. Martindale: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister of
Family Services is: What decisions has
he made and what decisions has his government made in their most recent budget
that puts more money into the pockets of poor Manitobans?
We do not want to hear about the benefits
in terms of liquid asset exemptions, which we have already heard about, but
what is giving people more money in order‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member has put his question.
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr.
Speaker, as I have indicated to his colleague in an earlier question, we
annually look at the rates and increase them at the level of the cost of
living.
We do that at a point in time when
government revenue is very low relative to what it was in the '70s and '80s,
back when that member's fellow travellers were in government, when government
revenue was increasing in double‑digit numbers. They simply did not increase the rates at
that time. At the present time now, they
are asking us to increase the rates above the level of the cost of living.
Social
Assistance
Rate
Adjustments
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): The minister talks about the rate increases on
January 1.
I would like to ask the Minister of Family
Services if he will acknowledge that provincial social assistance recipients in
their cheques this week are receiving less money and if the minister could
explain why they are getting less money in their cheques this week.
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr.
Speaker, I have indicated that we have annually increased the rates on January
1. The
There are some adjustments in the cheques
this week because of the decisions made regarding the tax credits.
Poverty
Rate
Government
Reduction Strategy
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): The minister is unwilling to admit that they
have reduced the supplementary benefit and that is why people are getting less
money.
I would like to ask the minister what‑‑
Point of
Order
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, the
minister in his response clearly said it was a result of the budgetary moves
dealing with an equivalent to the property tax credit, which everybody would
know is direct reference to the supplementary credit.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable government House leader does
not have a point of order. There is no
point of order.
The honourable member for Burrows, with
your question, please.
* * *
Mr. Martindale: I would like to ask the Minister of Family
Services what he or his government is going to do to ensure that poor people in
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr. Speaker, I would
reiterate, because obviously the member did not hear it. I said clearly, those differences in the
cheques were a result of the changes made to the tax credits, which in effect
is the supplementary benefit which he congratulated the government on last year
when we took that step. We will continue
to address the rates on an annual basis.
Again, I point out to the member that we
have the third lowest incidence of citizens on social allowance, and our rates
are comparable to those of other provinces.
Emergency
Room Physicians
Contingency
Plans
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, we are going into the weekend
with a good deal of uncertainty respecting the emergency ward situation at the
community hospitals. I would like the
minister to have the opportunity to clarify the situation going into the
weekend.
I would like to ask the minister, can he
assure the House that if the strike is not settled today‑‑and I
understand there is a meeting this afternoon‑‑that both St.
Boniface Hospital and Health Sciences Centre can handle the obvious increased
level of activity at the emergency wards this weekend?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, let me
indicate to my honourable friend that the meeting this afternoon at two o'clock
is with the ministry and the respective facilities, urban hospitals and the two
teaching hospitals which are trying to manage emergency care during this strike
period.
Mr. Speaker, reports overnight have
indicated, yes, an increase in activity, but that the system is still able to
manage. This afternoon at two o'clock,
we hope to be able to further assure that the system, should the strike
continue over the weekend, would be able to cope with emergency services.
If I have any further communication as a
result of that meeting this afternoon at two o'clock, I will make same
available to the public at large.
* (1030)
Mr. Chomiak: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary to that: Can the minister advise this House that
contingency beds will be available at Health Sciences and St. Boniface?‑‑because
we know that at Health Sciences, for example, in the last three weeks the
emergency ward was shut down due to lack of beds at least on one occasion. Can the minister assure the House that
contingencies will be available for beds to be made available in that instance?
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend might have
missed or not remembered the answer I gave, I believe it was on Tuesday or
possibly Wednesday.
The process that is in place and the
arrangement between the two teaching hospitals which are operating 24 hours,
seven‑days‑a‑week emergency services‑‑the
arrangement is this with the community hospitals, that should an individual
present at either St. Boniface or Health Sciences Centre in an emergency
circumstance and be stabilized, the arrangements are made for admission of that
individual to the appropriate community hospital which would be the normal
geographic area‑‑if that is the way to put it‑‑that
this individual would come from.
So the necessity of admission will be
accomplished already with an arrangement that has been in place since Tuesday
of this week with the urban hospitals and the two teaching hospitals.
Negotiations
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, this is my final supplementary
to the minister.
Mr. Speaker, I can take it from the
minister's response that negotiations are not ongoing with the doctors. Can the minister please advise this House as
to what the status is of negotiations with respect to the doctors in an effort
to resolve this dispute?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, the two
sides will meet to recommence negotiations Monday. We are hopeful that there will be an
opportunity to resolve the issue very expeditiously after that, providing we
can agree to a settlement, Sir.
Health
Prevention
Children's
Dental Health Program
Mr. Paul Edwards (St.
James): Mr. Speaker, one of the keystones of this minister's
and this government's health reform package was to prevent illness and not have
the expense of dealing with illness prematurely. This minister and this government cut the
Children's Dental Health Program in rural
My question for the Minister of Health
is: What could be more in the interest
of prevention, Mr. Speaker, than a program which sought to prevent dental
problems in children around this province?
What could have been more in the interest of prevention?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I
certainly welcome my honourable friend's question, because possibly he might
listen very attentively so that he can better understand the role of education
and prevention.
My honourable friend, if I detected from
his preamble, said that a cornerstone of health reform is prevention and
education to prevent disease. Mr.
Speaker, that is exactly what we have maintained in the Children's Dental
Health Program, the education of children and the prevention of dental disease.
Mr. Speaker, the treatment portion, yes,
has been removed from the program as of June 30. I want my honourable friend to understand
that the part he so desires will remain intact as a prevention‑education
component of children's health in
Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, the distinction between
prevention and treatment is a false one.
The minister seeks to derive that distinction.
Mr. Speaker, my question for the minister
is: Those principles, prevention and
education, were the principles before the cuts.
How does he intend to do the job when there are only five out of 49 staff
people left doing the same work for 60,000 children in rural
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend might well
be aware that part of prevention in the school system is fluoride rinse. That is a very significant component and that
will be maintained.
My honourable friend might also know‑‑and
he might visit communities in his newfound interest outside of the city of
Winnipeg‑‑that while this government has been elected, a number of
those communities outside of
Children's
Dental Health Program
Meeting
Request
Mr. Paul Edwards (St.
James): My final question is for the Minister of
Health, and I am hoping that he will have a newfound interest in rural
Mr. Speaker: Question, please.
Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, my question for the
minister: I assume, and I would like him
to confirm, that he will be attending the meeting which is organized for the
evening of May 11 in Minnedosa to discuss this very issue, to discuss the child
dental health care program. Will the
minister be attending‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for St. James has put
his question.
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I am not
aware of an invitation to that meeting, but I know my honourable friend will
want to be in Minnedosa so he can tell the folks of Minnedosa that under his
leadership, the Liberal Party would not close the hospital in Minnedosa and not
build hospitals in rural
Central
Child and Family Services
Statistics
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): Mr. Speaker, we have had confirmed that even
though there is an increase in child poverty, even though there is an increase
in violence among young people and numbers of children living on the streets,
that the Streets Kids and Youth program will be closing. This program received most of its funding
through the Core Area Initiative, but now the more than 6,000 kids who were
serviced through that organization will have to look elsewhere for food, shelter
and some safety.
My question is for the Minister of Family
Services. Of the approximately 1,700
young people under the care of the Central Child and Family Services as wards
of the state, how many of those children are not accounted for in group homes
or foster homes?
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr.
Speaker, the member is asking for some statistical information that I do not
have with me today, but I would invite her to attend the Estimates process
along with her colleagues. A number of
them have been there. We are just about
to launch into that area of the department.
I would say that I met with a group of
people from the Downtown BIZ organization yesterday to discuss the SKY program.
The representatives of the business community that are involved in the SKY
program presented information on their funding and the problems they are having
with their funding for the coming year, and those matters will continue to be
discussed.
Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Speaker, my concern is that this
government does not want to know the serious statistics of children in need in
this province.
Education
System
Enrollment
Statistics
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): My second question is for the Minister of
Education.
Can the minister tell us what was the
number of young people enrolled in school in
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): Mr.
Speaker, again, some of the details around school enrollment I will be happy to
discuss during the Estimates process.
As the member may know, the time in which
enrollments are taken is in the fall, and I am happy to give her that
information. She may also know that
there has also been some discussion around when enrollments should be taken in
schools so that we have the most accurate count of young people who are
attending school.
* (1040)
Student
Completion Statistics
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): Mr. Speaker, I would also appreciate that the
minister would bring me the number of students or young people who completed
school in
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): I believe
the member asked if I would provide that information during the Estimates
process, and, yes, I will see that this information is available, because in
Reserves
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): Mr. Speaker, a couple of days ago, I asked the
Minister of Energy and Mines whether in fact he had done any consultation with
the mining industry or the mining partners of Manitoba Mineral Resources before
he raided the kitty of some $16 million to make the Minister of Finance (Mr.
Manness) look good by reducing his deficit.
The minister in his response said that he had consulted with the chair
of the board.
My question to the Minister of Energy and
Mines is: Can he share with this House
or with myself any objective analysis of the potential impact of withdrawing
that $16 million on the obligations of MMR to share in capital improvement
projects should that be required within the next six to 12 months?
Hon. James Downey
(Minister of Energy and Mines): Mr.
Speaker, that indicates the priority which that opposition party and that
member places on the mineral sector in this province. I think it was almost a week ago that he asked
his first question and did not get an opportunity to ask two supplementaries
until today. So it is not a very high priority on the agenda of the members
opposite. [interjection]
I answered the question, Mr. Speaker, for
the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman), and the answer is that the monies were
taken from MMR after consultation was carried out with the chairman of
MMR. To my knowledge at this particular
time, it will not impair the operations of MMR.
Trout
Capital
Funding
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): Mr. Speaker, the people of Flin Flon and the
people who rely on HBM&S, which was a joint‑venture partner with MMR,
are not going to be satisfied with the minister's consultations with his
political appointee.
My question is: Can the minister assure the people of Flin
Flon and HBM&S that should additional investment be required in Trout
Hon. James Downey
(Minister of Energy and Mines): Mr.
Speaker, I can assure the people of Flin Flon and that area of the province
that this government had a commitment of $55 million to upgrade a smelter that
he could not get his colleagues to support, which created employment, which
improved the environmental emissions that were coming out of that plant.
It was this government that did the $55‑million
input, not his operation.
Reserves
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): The Minister of Energy and Mines keeps
referring to a deal that they bungled.
It took three years too long‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Question, please.
Mr. Storie: Mr. Speaker, my question is a serious
question. Will the minister please indicate now whether Manitoba Mineral
Resources will have the capital available to them to complete necessary joint‑venture
projects in Flin Flon, Leaf Rapids and
Hon. James Downey
(Minister of Energy and Mines): Mr.
Speaker, my answer is a very serious one to the member for Flin Flon.
This government's commitment to the mining
industry in
As far as the operations of MMR, Mr.
Speaker, at this time, it is my understanding that the changes that have taken
place with the capital fund that was in MMR have not impaired or changed the
operations of MMR for this year.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable member for Dauphin has time
for one very short question.
National
Mathematics Assessment Test
Mr. John Plohman
(Dauphin): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the
Minister of Education. There is a
national mathematics assessment test that is being administered across this
country, and this province is participating for 13‑ and 16‑year‑olds.
I want to ask the minister what the
objectives and goals are of
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): Mr.
Speaker, as the member knows and most Manitobans know, a number of
Each province had the opportunity to
review the exam. We are now looking to
see how Manitobans in general will deal with, and will achieve on, this
test. We will be able to look at
Mr. Speaker: The time for Oral Questions has expired.
House
Business
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I would
like to obtain unanimous consent of the House to withdraw Bill 9, The Winter Roads
(Miscellaneous Amendments) Act, currently listed on the Order Paper for second
reading, as the government is not proceeding with it.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable government House leader has
asked leave to remove Bill 9, The Winter Roads (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act
(Loi sur les routes d'hiver‑‑modifications de diverses dispositions
legislatives). Is there leave? [agreed]
I would like to thank all honourable
members for that.
ORDERS OF
THE DAY
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, will
you call adjourned debate, second reading, Bills 8, 16 and 23 in that order.
DEBATE ON
SECOND
Bill 8‑The
Insurance Amendment Act
Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable Minister
of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. McIntosh), Bill 8, The Insurance
Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les assurances, standing in the name of
the honourable member for Elmwood.
Mr. Jim Maloway
(Elmwood): Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today
to speak on Bill 8. I know that Bill 8
has been before the House now for some time, but it has taken us some time to
review the bill and come to the conclusion that, in fact, this is not a major
bill we are dealing with here. There are
some minor changes. Having said that, I
do want to review some of those and make some comments on the contents of the
bill.
Mr. Speaker, this particular bill is
intended to do several things, one of which is to reduce time delays in the
binding of crop insurance. I understand
from the minister that under the current system it is possible for a number of‑‑up
to a four‑day, I believe, delay in the binding of crop insurance
policies. This particular bill, because
of the advent I must say of fax machines, will allow the crop insurance to be
bound with only one‑day delay.
This is a significant improvement for service to the farm community.
Mr. Speaker, there are several other
points that this bill addresses. A
second point is that a procedure known as countersigning will now be
eliminated, so the requirement that agents countersign all the policies will no
longer be there. This comes about because, increasingly, insurers are sending
the policies direct to the insured, and it seems reasonable that they should be
allowed to sign them directly within the company.
Another area that the bill deals with is
harmonization with the federal scene. We
have seen changes, certainly with the advent of the Canada‑U.S. Free
Trade Agreement, but just worldwide there has been a move towards
harmonization, particularly with global companies and so on.
They desire and work towards having
uniformity. It is understandable that
they would want that because it lowers, to a certain extent, their
administration costs. They would want a
harmonization from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and particularly in a country
like
In fact, we do not even have free trade in
our own country. We have barriers between the provinces which many people have
shaken their heads about over the years.
I know the provinces have tried to come to grips with it at various
times and with only certain degrees of success up to this point.
In this regard, in the insurance industry,
there has been a move for some sort of harmonization at the federal level and
consistency of the application of the laws and the laws themselves. In fact, the federal insurance companies are
now no longer required to file deposits directly with the federal government,
and the changes in this act would allow for consistency there.
* (1050)
The reference is also made to industry‑funded
compensation plans, and those in fact were set up during our previous term, the
NDP one, in government when Al Mackling was the minister.
In fact, the provinces, the provincial
ministers across the country got together, and they set up a compensation fund
for both the property and casualty insurance companies but also the life
insurance companies if there was to be a bankruptcy. By the way, there had not been in the life
insurance business in 100 years‑‑I think it is only recently that
there has been one‑‑and in the property casualty field there had not
been problems with bankruptcies until perhaps the last 10 years.
Nevertheless, this compensation plan was
put into place around 1987 thereabouts, and just in time, I might add, because
it is in fact being used now in a couple of property casualty failures, and it
has been used I believe just recently in the Sovereign Life failure in
Essentially what those compensation funds
do is that they allow the policyholders not to lose out in the event of the bankruptcy
of their company. In the case of
Sovereign, anybody who has a Sovereign Life policy and dies, their
beneficiaries, without the compensation plans, would be just plain out of luck.
The compensation plan does allow that the beneficiaries will get a certain
amount of the payout of the policy.
Also, with the property and casualty
compensation plan, there are certainly limitations on what the payouts will be,
but certainly they are generous enough that a person would not be out should
their property insurer go bankrupt and not be able to pay the claims. They would at least be able to get minimums
in coverage and not be left out in the cold.
Mr. Speaker, there is some reference here
to plain language being introduced into this act, and it is about time. I recall a former member of the House here,
the former member for Kildonan, Marty Dolin, speaking quite a bit back in 1986‑87
about the need for plain language policies.
In fact, Marty used to enjoy making speeches in this House and say that,
in addition to translating the bills and the laws into French, we should
translate them into English, because he never felt that the common person could
understand the legislation in this House.
He felt that laws should be put into English and the people could more
clearly understand them.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in
the Chair)
Well, more moves have been made in that
direction over the years, Madam Deputy Speaker, and we still have a long way to
go. Now I know lawyers will tell you that, in fact, plain language policies can
present problems, some sort of legal problems, because legal language has been
developed in a certain way for reasons over the years‑‑and good
reasons. Lawyers will argue that the
laws as drafted, the acts as drafted, are drafted the way they should be, and
by turning them around into plain language, you can perhaps understand it a
little better, but perhaps lose out in terms of your legal rights.
Now, having said that, I note that Royal
Insurance of Canada was, I believe, the first insurance company‑‑at
least they claim to be the first insurance company‑‑to develop a
plain language policy, and that has been followed over the last half a dozen
years or so by several others.
Initially, it was viewed with a lot of interest, and people thought it
was the way to go, and I think it is, too.
But I will say that, having had some
experience in this field over the years, whether it is in plain English or not
so plain English or French or Greek, it makes no difference. The fact of the matter is that if people have
a problem, they rely on the experts to interpret the wording for them
anyway. So no one really sits down and
reads all these contracts and attempts to figure them out; at least not very many
people do it. Maybe the odd person does
it, but not too many people do.
Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wanted to
make further comments on this bill because the bill also deals with the
question of the co‑insurance clause which is a requirement, always has
been a requirement, actually a disclosure requirement of insurance
policies. It essentially says that the
co‑insurance clause has to be in red ink up one side of the policy or at
the bottom, and the red ink is there because they want it to be a different
colour than the body and text of the policy, and that is to draw the person's
attention to this clause, supposedly, so that they will be able to explain it
properly to the consumer.
I think that it is questionable. I believe that a lot of the insurance
personnel do not understand the co‑insurance clause to start with, so how
they are supposed to explain it to the public is beyond me. Nevertheless, it is a necessary flag, and
because of the changes in technology over the last few years and with the advent
of laser printers and the like, I understand the industry is interested in
changing this requirement so that rather than spending a lot of money in
printing paper through a printer and then taking the paper and printing it on
typewriters in the insurance companies, they will now be able just simply with
a laser printer to print the policy and the policy‑specific information
right on the paper without having to pay for the costs of printing two‑colour
productions. The proviso in this bill
allows for 12‑point bold type as the alternative to red ink. So this is another housekeeping requirement
of the bill and more than likely something whose time has come as far as the
industry is concerned.
The minister in her speech refers to going
forth boldly, I believe, in this area.
She makes this point, but the point is that it is there for a full
disclosure, even though no one that I know has ever read it.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I certainly did not
want to let this opportunity pass at this point on this bill, without dealing
with a topical area right now, and that is the area of the no‑fault
insurance, because I have watched with some interest over the last months and,
in fact, few years as this issue has been dealt with in other jurisdictions.
I might say at the outset that this should
not really be viewed as a partisan, political argument. I can show you examples of jurisdictions
where in
In
So, in reading information about the
But essentially it has been viewed as a
very positive program and a way to go.
The principle behind it is that, if one has an accident or one has a
sickness, one should be able to collect from the corporation without having to
go to court to prove fault. Actually who
cares whose fault it is? You are sick or
you have an accident; you should be able to collect.
* (1100)
The premiums that pay for this system are
premiums that are levied on, I believe, the employers. I believe general revenue pays a portion of
it. Nevertheless, it is funded in such a
way as to eliminate the question of tort, eliminate the litigation and the
legal community from involvement in this area.
Jurisdictions have found over the years
throughout the world that the legal system, when you are involved in the tort
system, tends to prolong the payout of the settlements. It also tends to vastly increase the cost of
the system. At some point society finds
itself overburdened and unable to continue with a tort system, and a collective
decision is made to change to a no‑fault system.
I think that we are quickly approaching,
Madam Deputy Speaker, that point in
Twenty years ago we found in
Today, people get into a minor accident, a
minor fender bender, and the next thing you know they are onto a lawyer and
they have a fight on with the corporation for compensation. The corporation knows, Madam Deputy Speaker,
that many of these claims are not that serious.
They also know that they need a release from the individual. So they come forward and the lawyers send a
couple of letters back and forth, and typically a claim gets settled and
Autopac pays out $5,000 or $8,000 or $10,000, and the person really is not hurt
at all other than perhaps got shaken up a little bit.
So it takes an awful lot of little
premiums to pay for claims like that.
For the first time, I believe, this past year, the bodily injury portion
is now bigger than the collision part of the insurance premium. Over the years, one could always argue that perhaps
it was not the greatest portion of money being paid out, but today it is the
largest portion and it is increasing every year, and within about 10 years or
so, it is going to be unsustainable in its current form.
It is not a question of if the province
will be developing a no‑fault system.
The question really is when the no‑fault system will be brought
in. I remember seeing a show, I believe
it was on 60 Minutes a few months ago where they were doing a show on lawyers
and the tort system in
Now I know that we are going to have a
problem with the lawyers in this regard, and to be fair to the lawyers, I do
not blame them for defending their turf.
I mean, we as politicians spend an enormous amount of time talking to
interest groups in our daily existence, and we know there is an interest group
for almost anything. If there is a group
that wants A, there is another group that wants B, and so it does not matter
what you do as a politician, there will be somebody somewhere, some group
somewhere, that will come forward and make an argument that you should not do what
you are going to do.
If you follow that philosophy, and
governments tend to follow that philosophy, nothing gets done, because one
group comes in and makes a representation that a certain thing be done, then
another group comes in and says, no, if you do that, we are going to go out and
oppose you and fight you on this issue; the government decides, well, there is
too much opposition here, and it is better just to leave the status quo be and
not argue the point.
Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, that may be
what will happen here, but I am aware that the lawyers' lobby‑‑once
again, I do not blame them; they want to protect their turf‑‑has
been making representations to members of the government, and no doubt that
lobby will increase. They have some
legitimate arguments on the other side of the coin for being careful about a no‑fault
system, and I think we are going to have to weigh those arguments, and we are
going to have to collectively in
Having said that they have some valid
arguments, I would say that the arguments for the no‑fault system are
equally as valid. In my opinion, they are more valid, and I look forward to a
debate in the province on this issue. I think
that in the final analysis the sustainability of the current system is just not
there, and when the public listens to the debate, when they involve themselves
in the debate and they understand what their options are, I do not have any
doubts in my own mind that on balance people will opt for a no‑fault
system in the hopes that their premiums at least will be held to their existing
level.
I might point out that in
The other side of the coin is, how are the
victims of the accidents treated in
* (1110)
So what does it tell you? What it tells me there is that the major
outflow of money, leakage of money in the system then is the leakage of money
to the legal profession and, obviously, they have accommodated in
Every time the Legislature and the federal
Parliament passes a law, the City Council passes a law, the laws are drafted by
lawyers and the laws are contested by lawyers, and we actually create work for
the legal profession here every time we introduce and pass a bill in this
House. So I know that lawyers will try
to protect their turf. I know they will
argue that the tort should remain the way it is but, in actual fact, I think
that the legal society will survive a no‑fault system.
I want to explain a little bit more about
the no‑fault system and how it should develop or could develop over the
next few years in relation to it being a central accident corporation.
What we have in
If you are on the job and you happen to
have workers compensation, you are going to know you are covered under
workmen's compensation. If you are on
the job and you do not have workers compensation, then you better hope that
there is some sort of a group plan in place.
If there is no workers compensation and no group plan, well, then you
are really in trouble.
I will tell you that there are two major
groups in society that are just uncoverable, that cannot be covered, and those
are homemakers and students. If you are
a student at the university or if you are a homemaker, there is really no way
for you to cover yourself for an accident or a sickness‑‑well, I
was going to say on the job, but it is not possible to buy coverage.
So we can see that we have a lot of people
slipping through the cracks here. We
have the students that cannot be covered by anybody, we have the homemakers
that cannot be covered by anybody, we have people that are lucky or unlucky
enough to be involved in an auto accident, they have sure coverage with
Autopac. If they have workers
compensation, they will have coverage there, but a certain form, if they have a
group plan, it will be another form. It
is a piecemeal operation and it is not good.
We have private insurance companies
selling accident‑sickness policies.
There are 120 of those companies selling them and there are another 120
versions of the policies. If you are
lucky enough to be able to qualify to buy one, given your occupation, and you
have an accident, you may be lucky to collect from them too. I am sure there are examples. There are a lot of examples where people are
happy with them, but I can tell you there are a lot of other examples too where
people find, because the fine print is different in each one of them, that
perhaps there may not be coverage for people.
So the argument, Madam Deputy Speaker, for
a
That is taking the whole argument another
step further. The no‑fault
question of this government is going to come to deal with, I predict‑‑and
I predict this government will be introducing a bill on no‑fault within
the next few weeks. That would be my
guess, if they can get by the legal lobby.
I would suspect that within a month the no‑fault bill will come
before the House, and this government will‑‑that is as far as it
will look at. It will look at, how do we
get by the next election? How do we arrest the costs of auto insurance? Well, no‑fault is the answer. Bring it in‑‑wham‑‑get
it through. People will be happy with
us, and we will get on with life. That
will be the end of their thinking on the subject.
All I am saying is that perhaps they
should be looking at a little more than just no‑fault auto insurance,
that there should be a no‑fault accident corporation, and that that would
involve collapsing a whole lot more than the current system. It would involve collapsing all of those
areas that I have talked about into one central system.
Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, the government
has had a lot of time to deal with this matter.
I have been on several radio shows over the last couple years, and I
have been involved with this now for a couple of years, trying to prod and push
the government in this direction. We
have used quite consistently Judge Kopstein's report of 1988, where Mr. Judge
Kopstein came up with a whole plethora of recommendations, and the cornerstone
recommendation, the one that Judge Kopstein said would change the system to
allow Manitobans to save, I believe it was, $40 million on car insurance was
the one recommendation that this government has avoided.
They have acted on a few minor
housekeeping‑‑sort of what this bill is all about. That has been sort of the way this government
has operated. They have picked out a few
things, little things here and there, and they brought them in‑‑window
dressing. They brought them in to
suggest that somehow they are making some movement, they are taking some
initiative. So when the minister gets on
the radio and talks about the Kopstein report, he says, well, you know, there
were 140 recommendations, and blah, blah, we brought in 80 of them or whatever
it is that he has brought in. But the
ones he has brought in are the minor ones.
They are not major ones at all.
The cornerstone, the key recommendation,
is the no‑fault, and what have they done?
They simply sat back and allowed increases in the premiums over the last
five or six years, done nothing to come to grips with the premium increase, and
now they find themselves behind the eight ball having just gone through the
biggest increase now in history‑‑
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
I am having great difficulty following the relevance of the remarks of
the honourable member for Elmwood to Bill 8, The Insurance Amendment Act. This bill deals with crop insurance and
reinsurance, and I do not believe it relates in any way to no‑fault auto
or liability insurance. I would ask the
honourable member to please keep his remarks relevant.
Mr. Maloway: Madam Deputy Speaker, could you tell me how
much time I have left, first of all?
Madam Deputy
Speaker: The honourable member
has eight minutes remaining.
Mr. Maloway: I note that future Senator Foghorn over here
is making some disparaging comments, but I might tell him that I listened with
interest to his last speech, and he makes some good ones in the House, and the
last one was not particularly exciting but I did suffer through it.
With regard to Bill 8, I must, with all due
respect, say that the bill has much more to do with just the previous comments
that I have made here. I mean, sure it
has to do with the time delays in binding crop insurance and that, but there is
far more to it than that.
At this point in the reading, I am here to
make comments on the bill and on the insurance, and it seems to me that my
comments are relevant. I look at the
speeches of the previous members, the member for Brandon East (Mr. Evans), and
I see a speech here that lasted 40 minutes long and it was totally on the topic
of no‑fault auto insurance.
So, with respect, I did look at those and
I came to the conclusion that if the member for Brandon East should have the
latitude to spend 40 minutes on no‑fault auto insurance, that I would be
granted the same courtesy given that light.
But I respect your admonition on this topic, and I do plan to spend my
next eight minutes directly on the bill here, if I could just find a copy of
it.
* (1120)
Madam Deputy Speaker, there was reference
made to harmonization with the federal government. I dealt with that a little bit earlier, but I
do want to get back on that area again because it is a major area. I had indicated that with the advent of the
free trade deal that there is a major move now because the federal government
and the provinces are somewhat embarrassed that they find themselves locked
into a continental free trade deal here with the
We find that to be the thorniest issue of
all because in fact people can sit back and make a decision based on a big
picture, trade with the
So we have these fantastic turf wars going
on between local jurisdictions protecting what we have right now, not wanting
to lose what we have got, and meanwhile we have signed away our national autonomy
to the federal free trade deal. It just
does not make a lot of sense, although on the other hand, perhaps it does.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the industry
compensation plans that I had referred to earlier, and I believe the minister
made reference to in her speech, although I could be wrong, but I think she may
have made some reference to the compensation funds as examples of how
harmonization was working. We have
suggested on this side that the minister look at compensation funds for other
industries, too.
We have a patchwork quilt once again in
the travel industry in
So if you happen to live in Kenora and you
bought your tour and the company goes bankrupt and leaves you stranded in the
But if you happen to live in
I do applaud the previous ministers for
having been successful in getting all the provinces together with the federal
government to have the compensation plans we have right now in the insurance
industry. Because, as I said, while
there was no bankruptcies in the life insurance business for the last 100
years, just a few months ago one did go bankrupt.
People are very happy today that those
compensation funds were set up by the previous NDP government here, and other
governments across the country, in co‑operation with those other
governments. In fact, today people are
very happy that the compensation fund was set up in the property and casualty
field, because there have been recent bankruptcies in the property and casualty
field, and people are benefiting because they now know that they will be
covered by those areas.
So that is an area where a problem was not
only dealt with, but a problem was anticipated.
Too often governments do not anticipate problems. They wait till the cows are out of the barn
before they act. But in the case of the
life companies, what happened was that the government decided to bring in a
parallel compensation fund with the property and casualty companies. It took five or six years, but it did happen
that a life company went out of business.
That is why we not only have to anticipate
problems, we cannot wait until there is a major mess in our back yard before we
clean it up, we have to look ahead. We
have to say that it is probable. The
likelihood and the probability is that if such and such happened in a
neighbouring jurisdiction, it is only reasonable that that particular problem
may in fact happen in our jurisdiction at some point, and for us to ignore that
is to ignore the obvious. So that when
we find ourselves in a mess, we say‑‑
Madam Deputy
Speaker: Order please. The honourable member for Elmwood's time has
expired.
Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second
reading of Bill 8 (The Insurance Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les
assurances). Agreed?
Some Honourable Members: Agreed.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Agreed and so ordered.
Bill 16‑The
Public Schools Amendment Act
Madam Deputy Speaker: To resume debate on second reading of Bill 16
(The Public Schools Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les ecoles
publiques), on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Education
(Mrs. Vodrey), standing in the name of the honourable member for
Is there leave to permit the bill to remain
standing in the name of the honourable member for Thompson? [agreed]
The honourable member for Swan River‑‑seven
minutes remaining.
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (
Madam Deputy Speaker, the decisions made
by this government with regard to the powers of school trustees are very
serious. It seriously undermines the work of school trustees, of
superintendents, schools and teachers across the province. By undermining these responsibilities there
is only one group of people that is going to suffer and that is the
children. It is a shame that this
government lacks the foresight and commitment to education and to our young people
that they get the proper education, that they would make such a decision that
would attack the local decision‑making powers of elected officials, and,
indeed, put the public education system in jeopardy.
Madam Deputy Speaker, this government has
chosen to make unprecedented cuts in provincial support and to the public
education, and, as a result, has just changed the quality of education. School boards do not have the ability to
raise the extra money that they might need to bring in additional courses. They
are restricted in their fundraising, and that will have a negative effect on
our people.
Madam Deputy Speaker, this government is
entrenching the inequities from one division to another. Government has to take into consideration
that every division does not have the same tax base, but all children should
have the opportunity to get a fair education, a high quality of education. School boards should not be restricted in
their ability to raise taxes if that is what they so choose. If they believe in their children and the
ratepayers are willing to pay the extra taxes, then that ability should be left
there for school boards. After all,
school boards are elected bodies, and if they make the wrong decisions, the
ratepayers will let them know when the next election comes around, just as
ratepayers will let provincial governments know that they have made the wrong
decision.
What is being undermined here is the
ability for school boards to provide adequate education. It is a concern that this government does not
recognize the inequities across the province, and they instead choose to
further entrench those inequities.
Madam Deputy Speaker, other decisions and
cuts by this government to education that are going to affect our children are
the changes they have made to clinicians, cuts to clinicians. Although they say
that they have put money in place to cover these clinicians, in actual fact
when you talk to divisions there are extra costs divisions are being asked to
pick up. All the money did not transfer
with the clinicians that the government had in place prior to this and, again,
the reducing of these services, particularly in the rural areas, is going to
cause serious problems.
I guess the other area of concern is the
shift in priority from public schools to private schools under this government.
Really, when you look at the changes that are being made, we are moving toward
a two‑tier education system. The
government has chosen to shift more funding toward private schools, private
schools that have the ability to collect money, to charge fees to those people
who choose to go to school there.
Government is putting more money into those schools.
Now, by putting more money into those schools,
there is less money going to the public school system, Madam Deputy Speaker,
and I feel this is very unfair. The
public school system is there to provide an education for all people. The public school cannot say that because
certain people have disabilities or are not at a certain level that they will
not accept them in their schools. The
public school has to accept everybody, a very broad range.
* (1130)
The private schools do not have to do
that. As a result, those with money, the
wealthy, who can afford to pay to have children attend a private school, will
have more opportunities, and this is unfair.
We have to, as a province, be sure that all children have the
opportunity to get an education. By
setting up this two‑tier education system, the poor will continue to fall
further and further behind, and we will not begin to close the gap. Instead, we will see the gap broadening even
further.
So I am disappointed that the government
has taken the steps that they have under this bill, and I am disappointed that
they are not taking into consideration the merits of the public school
system. I feel very strongly that they
should be supporting that system much stronger than they are instead of
shifting their preference over to the private school system where fewer
children can access it.
In reality, Madam Deputy Speaker, much of
this legislation, I believe, will hit harder on rural schools, where there is a
much lower tax base and more difficulty in raising the funds. By restricting the percentage of taxes that
can be raised, we will see disparities.
I certainly would hope that the government would see the errors of their
ways and very soon make attempts to correct this and not infringe in the powers
of the school boards or the superintendents and the teachers to make decisions
on behalf of their children.
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): Madam Deputy Speaker, I am pleased to stand
and speak to this bill dealing with our public education system and this
government's insistence on cutting back and privatizing that system.
I have a number of concerns with respect
to the treatment of students and youth by this government generally, and
nowhere is it more clear in the way that they do not seem to understand the
importance of a public education system.
In our democracy, education traditionally
has been considered to be a right, that education is the great equalizer, that
we have public education so that no matter your family background, no matter
the situation that you were born into, that you can have access to good quality
education and that you will then be able to improve your status and become
independent and be able to participate fully in our community and society.
Madam Deputy Speaker, that is not able to
happen when we have governments such as the current one which does not seem to
value a public and equally accessible education system. The government tries to say that the cuts to
education are not going to affect the quality of education and life in the
classroom, but that is completely ridiculous and untrue because there is no way
that you can have the kinds of cuts which are affecting staffing, which are
affecting programs, and not affect the life of the student and their education.
It is unprecedented that this government
would have the kind of cutbacks that this government is having, is putting
forward, and a number of students and other concerned people have been calling
our office. It is interesting to note
where some of the cutbacks are affecting schools in the community that I represent.
I have had concerns expressed about the
busing that is going to be affected.
Now, in River East School Division, they are forced to eliminate busing
service for Grades 11 and 12 students.
We are going to have people in a situation, in an area of the community
that I represent, which is not close to public transit, where students are now
going to have to find their own way to school because those students are not
going to have either a school bus or accessibility to public transit. They are going to have to walk a long
distance or rely on their parents or other ways of getting to school.
I guess the logical conclusion is this is
going to continue, so we are going to have younger and younger and younger
students facing this kind of situation.
A number of students have called with concern that they are going to
lose their music programs, that they are going to lose some of the vocational
and industrial arts programs, that they are going to continue to have language
programs cut back, that counsellors are going to be eliminated.
An Honourable Member: And are they?
Ms. Cerilli: These are all the services, yes, that are
being eliminated in our public school system as we speak because of the box
that this government is putting school boards in. They have shown that they have no respect for
the democratically elected school trustees, and I think that the way they have
capped the revenue‑generating capability of elected school boards shows
that clearly.
They have done this because they knew that
people were no longer buying the line that they had not increased taxes, so not
only are they cutting back on the school financing that they are responsible
for, but they are limiting the ability for school boards to raise revenue in
their own area, in their own jurisdiction, just so it will not reflect back
badly onto their government. That has
got to be the most crass politics that you can play with people's lives and
people's education.
The other thing that we have talked
extensively about here is the inequity with which these cutbacks are going to
affect the different school divisions.
Having just come from talking to students in Transcona School Division
and teachers there, I know that it seems that there is no concern for parts of
the city that have housing and real estate that is more modest, that cannot
generate the kind of revenue that other parts of the city might, the way that
this cutback and change is going to affect those school divisions like
Transcona.
Then they will try and say that it is
fair. The definition of fair of this
government is something that is incomprehensible, is illogical. You can easily understand that it is not fair
to make across‑the‑board, regressive taxes in the way that they
have and in the way that they are dealing with school division property
taxes. It does not take a university
education to understand basic fairness, but yet this government seems to not
understand that.
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The other thing that is a big concern is
the way that they are attacking public sector workers and teachers with these
cutbacks. It is teachers and the
students that they work with that are expected to bear the brunt of this
government's inability to understand fair taxation and fairness. We have all of the excuses of the deficit
that are used for this government to carry out their agenda, their agenda that
they would carry out, no matter what was happening.
We know that they have a philosophical or
ideological bias with respect to education and with respect to the economy, and
that they would be doing these kinds of things no matter what the situation
was. But when they do things like the
cuts in education, particularly in the area of Student Social Allowances, it
just shows how little they understand the realities‑‑or maybe they
do understand it and they just do not care‑‑the realities that many
people in this province live with.
We have heard over and over again the
statistics of child poverty. We have
heard over and over again the rise in violence, the increase in demands being
placed on teachers, and yet this government chooses to turn their backs on
young people in this province and to attack the public system in the way that
they are.
There has to be some explanation to this
government about the connection between the economy, education and the dire
social consequences‑‑the consequences of their approach. When there is an increase in poverty and a
downturn in the economy, invariably it is young people that are going to
suffer.
All those people that are unemployed, all
those people forced onto social allowance that have never been in that
situation before, many of them have young children in the school system. It is
amazing to me that this government cannot understand that in a time of economic
crisis which they have created, economic problems and hard times, you should be
investing more.
Yet this government has contributed with
their policies of increasing the disparity and unfairness in taxation. They have created hard times that require
more emphasis on education, and this is why I cannot understand that they would
rather have people simply unemployed and collecting welfare than to have them
on Student Social Allowance.
I would just like the members opposite to
consider that in their lifetime, over the last number of years, 40, 50 years,
the shift in taxation from having about 50 percent of the revenue generated go
to pay for government services that used to come from industry and business, 50
percent, and 50 percent approximately came from individual workers and
taxpayers, and how that 50 percent from individuals still, was calibrated on a
scale of ability to pay and how now under Conservative and Liberal governments
we have seen that shift to where the individual is paying for 80 percent or
more of revenue to government. That is
the kind of policy that is creating our society to be a much more violent and
uncaring society. Also, it reinforces
the line that this government uses about personal income taxes.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
They fail to talk about the side of the equation
where that money used to come from, how much of revenue used to come from
industry. Oh, we could say, that is just
the way it is, and we do not have money to fund education. The argument that industry will just leave if
we have them pay their fair share of costs for things like education, educated
people that they are going to benefit from in their workplaces, well, they will
say that those industries will leave, and then they will bring in policies like
the trade agreements which make that even easier.
We see how the Conservative governments
through a variety of policies, economic policies, education policies, create a
society that is unequal, create a society where there is poverty and create a
society‑‑we are waiting. We
have been waiting how many years in this country for the great trickle down,
but all that is happening under Conservative governments with these policies
is, we have more poor people, they are less educated, they are, in some sense
under this government, now even less able to speak on their own behalf.
The disparity between the wealthy and the
poor is even greater. By entrenching
that in the education system they are making matters even worse.
It is interesting, Mr. Speaker. I was just talking to some students the other
day. I asked them how many of those
students worked. There were a number of
students. I would say more than half of
the 100 or so students I was talking to were working more than 10 hours a week
part time while they were in school full time.
Now, by this time of year the students
that are in school tend to be the ones that are going to finish. They tend to be the students that are doing
all right. They are not the students
that need a lot of support and assistance, and what we are creating is a system
where the gap between the students that are going to make it and the ones that
are not is widening even further, and this is entrenched with all of these
students. Some of them are go‑getters. They were high‑achieving, capable young
people, and they were going to school full time and working, some of them 20,
25, even more hours per week. All of
those students are also then generating an income.
I told them about the increase in tuition
fees and told them how much it is going to cost for them to go to university
and college, and if they planned to do that, they had better start saving their
money, because what is happening is, the students that are not in school
anymore are also the students that are not employed, more often than not. So this is the disparity that I am talking
about that is occurring. The students
that have it are having it all.
It is interesting to look at the amount of
disposable income that those students have.
Some of them might not understand that there are problems in the economy
right now, because they are in school, they live at home, and they have a part‑time
job. Some of them were making beyond
minimum wage. I think they are in for a
big surprise once they are finished school and if they choose to live out on
their own, because they will find that that minimum wage does not go very far
when they have to start paying for their food and rent. The students that are finding that out
already are the young people that are not in school, as I said, more often, I
think, are the ones that do not have a job.
Those are the ones that need a broader
range of programs available through the schools. We often hear people say that students are
not all the same. We have to be
providing a broad range of education, opportunities of different teaching
methods and different programs. Some of
the students that I was talking with the other day felt, well, it was up to
everyone individually. They thought, you
know, if you wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, whatever you wanted to do with
your life, that you could do that. In
some cases, that is true. In some ways,
that is true, but when you start to look at the cutbacks that are occurring in
other areas and the fact that there are not the jobs there, I think that some
students in this group I was talking with are in for a surprise when they
realize there are only a limited number of job opportunities available.
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I think that the members opposite should
realize that the kind of world that young people are graduating into requires
them to have a lot of optimism, requires them to keep up their creativity and
hope and all those kind of things. It
also requires that they understand what reality is and understand what the
reality is for their peers and understand that reality is more than just dollars
and cents, and that government and education, through our education system, has
a responsibility to teach young people about more than what it is just to get a
job, what they need to get a job, that in our society now, education has, and I
think it always has had, there has been a need for young people to learn more
about their own health, how to have healthy relationships, how to be a full
participating citizen in our society.
They need to understand things about the economy, about world
affairs. It should not be a narrow
education geared just to a specific job.
We want people to be educated to be
citizens. The basic skills that we are
trying to teach in our education system are expanding. We must realize that we cannot continue to
approach our education system with an attitude that is no longer relevant.
There are problems facing us that were
never contemplated within the last even 50 years ago that young people are now
forced to face. We have a responsibility
and an obligation to have them be prepared, through our public education
system, to face those and for all of them to be able to deal with those things.
I will talk briefly about programs such as
peer support programs and conflict mediation programs, which teach the kinds of
skills that are transferable to many areas.
I feel strongly that we have a responsibility to have programs that are
going to deal with those areas as well.
It is unfortunate, and it shows the bias
in the entrenched education program, when those are the kinds of programs that
are often cut first. Those are the kinds
of programs that often are going to give young people the skills that they need
to be able to stay in school and to be able to make their way in the world.
One of the other things that I want to
talk about is the need in our youth services and education programming to have
a more comprehensive and student‑oriented approach. I often hear people who have been through the
system talk about how it seems like the system is there just to perpetuate
itself and it is no longer there to actually meet the needs of the young people
in the system. When we look at the 30
percent dropout rate, we look at the number of young people that are not making
it, that are living on the streets, it shows that this is true.
You know, you have to wonder why we have
an economy in the first place and why we have governments if it is not to
provide the services for those people who need that support. This government does not seem to understand. They will say that I am just negative or that
I am not in touch with reality or whatever else that they will say over there,
but they seem to deny, Mr. Speaker, that there are a huge number of young
people who, of no fault of their own, are in a situation where they are forced
out of school or forced out of their homes.
These are the young people that we have the responsibility to pay
attention to and to ensure there are services for, because the small percentage
that are in school and go on to university, those are that are going to make it. They do not need us to interfere.
It seems like everyone wants to work with
those young people, and it is the ones who are more challenging, the
individuals who often get in trouble with the law or are not as academically
successful, that people do not want to have to deal with. Those are the individuals who are ultimately
going to cost us the most. Those are the
ones that are going to be on welfare.
Those are going to be the young people that will have more health
problems, and those are the ones that often have more trouble with the
law. At least that is the way our legal
system works now.
I think, though, I would be remiss if I
did not talk about the fact that in conversations with youth workers, there are
a lot of young people who come from what we would consider more affluent
backgrounds who are also in trouble with the law. A lot of the increase in violence and gangs
are not from young people who are of a lower socioeconomic status, but these
are young people who have working parents, professional parents. Some of the youth workers feel that these
young people are also in crisis because they have been neglected and they have
not had the opportunity to have a lot of positive contacts with human
relationships either in their family.
(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Speaker,
in the Chair)
A lot of those young people are also
victims of child abuse and neglect, and it is important to realize that the
increase in youth gangs and violence is related to the kind of violence that
young people see modelled before them, either through the media or at home and
in their community.
One of the reasons that I was so concerned
about the increase in organized racism was these are the kinds of young people
that are easy victims for those kinds of organizations. It is young people that have a high need for
some sense of personal power that have been victimized, that feel that they do
not belong, that become the easy victims for these kinds of organizations,
organizations that are often led also by older youth.
It is important for us to realize these
connections, and it is important for us to realize that we have to intervene in
a way that is going to provide skills so that the young people themselves are
going to be stronger to resist the kind of peer pressure and influence that is
in the schools and is part of their life.
I think that it takes a very strong young person to be able to find
their own way in a positive direction amongst all the negative influence that
is out there.
I would be remiss, I think too, if I did
not mention in this vein the need for increased training of teachers and staff
in education and youth services to understand the influences on youth and to be
better able to be interested in the student rather than treating the student as
a person there that they are just supposed to deliver the information to, that
it takes a certain kind of training to train teachers who are going to be able
to deal with the vast number of problems that students bring to the school.
*
(1200)
I am concerned that our education and
training of teachers is not keeping pace with the changing demands on teachers
and staff in the schools and working in new services. This is something that takes some serious
consideration, that we have to start dealing with the reality of students'
lives, the number of them that are dealing with a variety of pressures.
I was interested in, when I was talking
with another group of students, the number of those students that were from
families where someone in their home was unemployed and how that was affecting
their life while they were in high school.
You will find, too, the number of students
that have someone in their family who is critically ill and how that affects
their ability to perform in school and affects their life. Often we hear of students who are working,
and there will be those students who are pocketing that money for
themselves. They are able to go out and
have a very considerable amount of disposable income so that they can buy
stereos and records and clothes and all that kind of stuff.
There is also a large number of young
people in schools who work oftentimes 30 hours a week, and that money is going
to supplement the income of the family.
That is something that I think is redeveloping. It was probably something that was common
back in prior generations, and it is something that is being necessitated
again.
We like to think that when young people
are in school, their education is going to be their first priority and that
they are going to be able to dedicate themselves to their studies and to
getting the most out of their time and their years in school. I think it is a real concern, when we look at
the number of young people that are working, as I said, more than 20 hours a
week often, and then are expected to go and have the energy and the wherewithal
to dedicate to their education.
I think that part of this is tied up in
the kind of society values that we have, where we have a society that
continually encourages people through media and advertising and the way that
news is portrayed where they are supposed to aspire to a job that will afford
them the money so that they will be able to buy all these things which are
supposed to make them happier and supposed to give them a certain satisfaction.
I think there are a number of people that
are realizing a couple of things, that not only is this false, but it has also
created an economy that is damaging in a number of ways.
It is damaging because it creates a class
system, and it creates a large gap between the haves and have‑nots. Also, these young people are realizing how
damaging this consumerism and materialistic societal values are on our
environment and how we cannot continue on for very many more generations.
So the more that we continue to have
advertising which bombards young people on the one hand to go out and have a
job so that they can buy all these things, and then on the other hand, we are
telling these same young people that they should be committed and focused on
their education so that they can get a better job, a lot of young people are
looking at this and they are saying, well‑‑they just do not buy it.
The members opposite can make light of
this. They can try and take attention
away from this. When we ask questions in
the House about the number of students who are not completing their education,
we do not get answers from the Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey). When we ask questions about the number of
young people who are falling through the cracks of our social welfare system,
the Minister of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) does not have those kinds of
statistics.
Over and over again, it is evident that
this government chooses to look at the reality faced by only those people who
are the more affluent and the privileged.
They fail to recognize that often this is not from the hard work of
those individuals. It is simply because they have the good fortune to be born a
certain person in a certain family.
Often, they have been able to be born a certain race or a certain gender
with the privilege that automatically goes along with that.
They will continue, it seems, to resist
looking at the reality that is faced by an ever‑increasing proportion of
young people who do not share those privileges.
When you look at the percentage of aboriginal youth, the percentage who
are unemployed, who are out of school, and how that percentage is growing and
how those demographics are shaping our society, you realize the problems that
we are headed for.
We cannot continue to have a society with
the opportunity and the wealth enjoyed by a smaller and smaller group of people
and have more and more people who are underprivileged, undereducated and barred
from participating in our society and our economy because of those things.
There are a couple of things that
government can do to deal with this.
Governments can ensure that everyone has an opportunity for the kind of
education that is going to help them better themselves and is going to help
them deal with their problems. They can
also ensure that we have a health care system that is going to ensure that
people know how to take care of themselves and be healthy and focus on their
ability to do that.
But this government chooses to cut back in
both those areas, and you can only come to one conclusion, because I think the
government does understand this and that they are choosing to ignore it and
that they are choosing to not only disregard poverty and the effects, but they
are choosing to keep those people as uneducated as possible, and even to
silence them.
The members opposite were talking earlier
about literacy. I mean, that is a very
important point. The government has made
a big fuss about their commitment to literacy but that has not translated into
dollars. I share an office with an
organization focusing on developing literacy.
They are in the same office as my constituency office, and it is amazing
to see the program that that organization delivers in literacy on a shoestring,
less than $30,000 a year. That grant is
being cut back, and it is certainly not being expanded even though that
organization is successful and is managing to involve more and more people as
volunteers and more and more people as participants who want to learn to read.
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Mr. Acting Speaker, could I ask you how
much time I have left?
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Three minutes.
Ms. Cerilli: Three minutes. There are a number of other issues related to
education. Maybe I will just end off
with focusing on human rights a little bit and how important it is for our
education system to teach people about their human rights, because I think that
we should understand that people only have human rights if they know what they
are.
So if we do not have schools that are
going to educate young people about what their rights are as employees, what
their rights are as citizens, then we might as well not have all the Charter of
Rights and all the legislation that we have because people will either not know
what they are or people will not know what they can do to ensure that their
rights are enforced and not violated.
Again, Mr. Acting Speaker, I would just
say that that is the kind of education that is not just focused on this idea
that the only reason you go to school is to get a job. School is there to prepare you for life
generally, and to have people develop their natural capabilities for learning
and their natural talents, and figuring out what those natural talents and
interests are.
In the cutbacks that this government are
enforcing on education through this legislation, that is not going to be likely
happen because schools will continually be in a state of crisis and emergency
and forced to just deal with the very bare minimum. That is a shame in a society as affluent and
as wealthy as ours, that that opportunity is not more equitably distributed.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
This legislation does not go anywhere in
having our education system keep up the pace of the changes in the world, the
changes in technology. It is going to
make it more difficult for schools and educators to do that, and with that, Mr.
Speaker, I thank you very much.
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to put
a few comments on record on Bill 16, The Public Schools Amendment Act, because
I do not think this government has really thought out the negative impact it is
going to have on our children who have the opportunity to try and get a better
education, to hopefully get better employment opportunities, and the real
negative impact it is going to have on the constituents of Point Douglas who
live in School Division No. 1 and the negative impact it is going to have on
northern Manitoba. When we talk about
increased funding to private schools of $16 million and the cut of $16 million
to our public school system, that means that programs will have to be cut
somewhere along the line.
When you have a two‑tiered education
system, and if you end up having a much better education system in the private
schools that only certain individuals have the money to access and if you look
at the location of private schools, I do not see too many in northern
Manitoba. So what is going to happen to
those children? Are they going to be
forced to take education courses that are less‑‑I think that is
wrong.
If you look at the cuts to our public
school system, and when you look at the negative impact it is going to have on
School Division No. l‑‑if you look at the make‑up of the
population of School No. 1, you have a lot of single parents, you have people
with low education themselves, you have people who are highly unemployed, you
have a lot of students who have to access special education programs.
When you look at the new results of
Child poverty‑‑we have always
been the highest in
It is not working. I hope this government will be wise enough to
look at their hands‑off policy and try and do something to stimulate the
economy to get people working. The more
people you have working, the more people you have paying taxes, the more
dollars you have to spend on our education for our children.
Our children need a good education. It has been proven over and over. The lower education, the lower opportunities
for jobs, the lower income. The higher
education, the better prospects for jobs, the higher income. It is just plain sense. People will tell you over and over.
When we see the lineups at the food banks
and soup kitchens increasing, and it says here, soup kitchens are stark
testimony to the fact that the government's management of the economy is not
working. That is from the Winnipeg
Harvest report of April 5, 1993.
The other thing is, the number of people
served monthly at the Winnipeg Harvest has increased by more than 90 percent in
the last year‑‑90 percent.
The number of rural food banks have increased from six to 24 indicating
growing need across the province. [interjection] Some are in Steinbach,
yes. Beausejour is another one. Those are thriving farming communities. What is happening, Mr. Speaker?
There is something drastic happening to
the citizens of
If you look at what happens to our poor
children, we know that children that come from poor families have a much higher
dropout rate. The dropout rate is 45
percent. We know that children cannot
learn when they are sitting at school hungry. Their only thought is to get some
food into their empty stomachs and, you know, 40 percent of the people that use
the food banks are children‑‑40 percent.
The reason I raise this, Mr. Speaker, is
because in School Division No. 1 there are special programs in place for a lot
of the children that come from poor families and do not have the opportunity of
a decent breakfast or a lunch. They have
preschool and prelunch programs. With
these cuts, 2 percent right across the board, without even taking into
consideration the special needs, the preschool, the lunch programs, the
children in School Division No. 1 need to try and keep their attention span to
get a good education.
That was not even taken into
consideration. It was 2 percent. I am sure that the impact of a 2 percent cut
in the constituency of Point Douglas is felt much, much harsher than in the
constituency of Tuxedo. I am sure of
that.
When you have an empty stomach you cannot
learn, because you do not have the attention span. So how this government came to say that cuts
are fair right across the board, it has not been well thought out.
When you look at the impacts that some of
the cuts we see in Family Services‑‑for instance, we see the cut to
daycare programs for students that have finally got their education, graduated,
and now they are going to go out and look for a job. How many people can find a job in two weeks? It is difficult. There are a lot of people unemployed. The competition is very tough.
Well, it would take at least eight weeks,
and that is what this government chose to cut, the assistance program for these
graduates from colleges, universities, high school to try and look for a job to
become taxpaying citizens of
* (1220)
An Honourable Member: Driving people to welfare.
Mr. Hickes: That is exactly what it is doing. It is driving people to welfare. Because if you cannot place your children in
child care facilities, if you have to sit at home to look after your children,
how can you go out there to look for a job?
It is impossible. It does not
work.
An Honourable Member: Do they care?
Mr. Hickes: Well, I do not know. I hope some of them care.
But the thing I talked about is in
northern
Most of the people that send their
children to the public school system do not have that choice. They just do not, because they do not have
the $7,000 per year to pay those fees.
An Honourable Member: Do they selectively accept students?
Mr. Hickes: I do not know if they selectively‑‑well,
I guess they would because, if you have the money, then you can go. If you do not have the money, you cannot
go. It is as simple as that.
If you have students that are attending
the public school system, you can go into any school, any of the schools in
Point Douglas and even in a lot of the communities in northern Manitoba, and
you will see the aboriginal people, the nonaboriginal people mixing together,
playing together, learning, respecting one another. If you go into the constituency of Point
Douglas, you see Filipino, Chinese, Ukrainians, Polish, Russians. They all go to the same public school system.
[interjection] There are quite a few.
Well, there are a few whale hunters up in Churchill.
So when you have a public school system
that is accessed by every walk of life, then you have a better understanding of
one another's values and cultures. Out
of that, what happens is, you end up with respect for other people's values and
cultures‑‑not only respect, but a fair understanding. What happens is, in a lot of your private
schools, they do not have that. A lot of
your schools, you have to be Catholic or you have to be a certain religion, and
that takes away from the multicultural aspect of our public school system.
When you look at the School Division No.
1, that is where the make‑up of all Point Douglas is. It is in School Division No. 1. When you look at the make‑up of those
children in there, you will see that they have the highest percentage of
special needs students, the highest percentage in all of
So what does that tell you? That tells you that you need special school
assistance, special aides in the classrooms to deal with the special needs
children to help them to get the best education that is possible for them. That is 43 percent of all the students in
When you need those teachers' aides in
those classrooms, and when you start looking at‑‑when you tell a
school division, you have to cut two percent, where are they going to find that
two percent? They do not have what some
school divisions have, a contingency fund or a rainy day fund or what have
you. They are operating, a lot of them,
just on budget levels.
So what is going to happen to those
students, those special needs students?
Are they going to be left aside, which some of them have been for years
and years and years? No, that cannot
happen. How are they going to do
that? They are going to have to cut
either the teachers' aides, or they are going to have to cut preschool or lunch
programs. What other choices do they
have? They cannot cut back on schools,
on schoolbooks.
So when I saw this 2 percent cutback
straight across the board and realized it was right across, I knew then that it
was not a very well‑thought‑out plan and that this government had
not consulted with the people of
I heard, and I do not know how true this
is, that one of the private schools had so much funds that they gave away one
of their Zambonis because they had enough money that they were going to buy
another one. There was nothing wrong
with that Zamboni. They just had too much money. They did not know what to do with it, so they
donated that Zamboni somewhere else. I
think it was
I know in northern
An Honourable Member: Stop picking on farmers.
Mr. Hickes: Well, how am I picking on farmers? I never said anything about farms. I would never pick on farmers. If it were not for the farmers, the food
banks would not have any food to give to our hungry children, who are going to
school, because of these hilarious cutbacks of this government. A 2 percent cutback across the board. The food bank, Winnipeg Harvest, gets a lot
of bread and doughnuts and stuff that come from farmers. That is where they come from, the farmers.
So, Mr. Speaker, when we look at the 2
percent cutbacks right across the board, I hope this government will reconsider
the reasons why it happened and give it some more thought and look at the government's
own role in politics.
How would the government feel if big
brother Mr. Mulroney in
How do you think the school trustees feel
when they were told that you have to cap at 2 percent? Told.
It was the people of
I would like to see the same thing happen
to this government by the federal government.
I would just love to see that. Because I know what their reaction would
be. The Finance minister (Mr. Manness)
would be the first one to stand in his chair and he would direct the Premier
(Mr. Filmon) to phone
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House,
the honourable member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes) will have 23 minutes
remaining and, as previously agreed, this matter will remain standing in the
name of honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton).
The hour being 12:30 p.m., this House is
now adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. Monday.