LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY OF
Tuesday,
June 29, 1993
The House
met at 1:30 p.m.
PRAYERS
ROUTINE
PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTING
PETITIONS
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of
Benny Wood, Burt Wood, Oliver Harper and others requesting the Premier (Mr.
Filmon) to consider making as a major priority the establishment of a solvent
abuse treatment facility in northern
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Thompson): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of
Sherry Wood, Dominic Wood, Bella Wood and others requesting the Premier (Mr.
Filmon) to consider making as a major priority the establishment of a solvent
abuse treatment facility in northern
Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the
honourable member (Mr. Hickes). 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 (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. Martindale). 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
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
PRESENTING
REPORTS BY STANDING AND SPECIAL COMMITTEES
Mr. Ben Sveinson
(Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the Second
Report of the Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs.
Mr. Clerk (William
Remnant): Your Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs
presents the following as its Second Report.
Your committee met on Friday, June 25,
1993, at 12:30 p.m. in Room 254 of the
Your committee heard representation on
Bill 38, The City of
Mr. David Vincent ‑ Private
CitizenMr. John Angus ‑ City of
Your committee has considered:
and
has agreed to report the same with the following amendments:
MOTION:
THAT Clause 402(a), as set out in section 22
of the Bill, be amended by striking out ",gymnasiums and libraries,"
and by substituting "and gymnasiums".
MOTION:
THAT section 22 of the Bill be struck out and
the following substituted:
22
Section 402 is amended
(a) by renumbering it as subsection (1);
(b) by striking out the section heading
and substituting"Public facilities and services";
(c) by striking out clause (a) and
substituting the following:
(a) establish and regulate public
facilities andservices, including, without limiting the generality ofthe
foregoing, swimming pools, arenas, leisure centresand gymnasiums, and may
prescribe the fee or charge forthe use of any public facility or the provision
of anyservice to the public and may authorize the use of anyfacility or
provision of any service on any day of theweek;
(d) by adding the following as subsection
(2):
Free use of library by residents and electors
402(2) Notwithstanding any other
provision of this Act, the city shall permit the residents of the city to have
free use of the circulating and reference books of every public library and
branch it maintains.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
Mr. Sveinson: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the
honourable member for Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine), that the report of the
committee be received.
Motion agreed to.
* * *
Mrs. Louise Dacquay
(Chairperson of Committees): Mr.
Speaker, the Committee of Supply has adopted certain resolutions, directs me to
report the same and asks leave to sit again.
I move, seconded by the honourable member
for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson), that the report of the committee be received.
Motion agreed to.
* (1335)
TABLING OF
REPORTS
Hon. Eric Stefanson
(Minister responsible for Sport): Mr.
Speaker, I am pleased to table the 1993‑94 Departmental Expenditure
Estimates for Fitness and Sport.
Hon. Glen Findlay
(Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Speaker, I would
like to table the 1991‑92 Annual Report of the Manitoba Crop Insurance
Corporation.
Hon. Linda McIntosh
(Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table the Supplementary
Estimates for the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, 1993‑94.
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, I, too,
would like to table a couple of reports, the Supplementary Information for
Legislative Review '93‑94 Departmental Expenditure Estimates, Department
of Finance, and also the Supplementary Information dealing with '93‑94
Revenue Estimates.
INTRODUCTION
OF BILLS
Hon. Leonard Derkach
(Minister of Rural Development): Mr.
Speaker, may I have leave of the House to introduce a bill at this time?
Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable minister have leave to
introduce Bill 54? (agreed)
Bill 54‑The
Municipal Assessment Amendment Act (2)
Mr. Derkach: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister
of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay), that Bill 54, The Municipal Assessment Amendment
Act (2) (Loi no 2 modifiant la Loi sur l'evaluation municipale), be introduced
and that the same be received and read for the first time.
His Honour the Lieutenant‑Governor,
having been advised of the contents of this bill, recommends it to the
House. I would like to table his
message.
Motion agreed to.
TABLING OF
REPORTS (continued)
Hon. James Downey
(Minister of Energy and Mines): Mr.
Speaker, I wonder if I may have leave to revert to the Tabling of Reports.
Mr. Speaker: Does the honourable minister have leave to
revert to Tabling of Reports? (agreed)
Mr. Downey: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table the Annual
Report of the Northern Affairs department for 1991‑92 and the Annual
Report '92‑93 for Energy and Mines department.
* (1340)
ORAL
QUESTION PERIOD
APM
Management Consultants
St.
Boniface Hospital
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier
(Mr. Filmon).
Manitobans are very confused and a lot of people
are in a lot of fear about what is going on with the multimillion‑dollar
American consultants hired by the provincial government dealing with health
care.
Mr. Speaker, in this House last week, the
Minister of Health indicated very clearly that the Connie Curran consulting
contract was not tied to the layoffs at St. Boniface Hospital. He went on to say in Hansard on June 15: You "will find that it is not attached
to the Connie Curran process as he would . . . allege and mislead Manitobans
about," in answer to a question the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak)
asked.
Mr. Speaker, in the media, the same
minister went on to say: Do not make the mistake of linking Curran's
initiative, because appreciate that Curran's initiative was begun formally
eight weeks ago, and this process of discussion is in terms of reaching
deliverables. This is not a provision
which was attached to the APM contract.
We now find out in Article 3(1) of the
contracts tabled yesterday, all changes to the cost structure of the St.
Boniface
I would like to ask the Premier (Mr.
Filmon), Mr. Speaker, because I think it is up to the person who is in charge
of this government to clear up the confusion, will the '92‑93 base year
be used for purposes of calculating the Curran formula for reaching her target?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, that is precisely why at 2:30
yesterday afternoon, I tabled for my honourable friend the critic for the New
Democrats the current agreement.
One might refer to page 4789 wherein I said,
I am tabling it at this time so that my honourable friends in the New Democrats
could have their analysts go through the contract, and we could resume the
debate of Estimates at eight o'clock last night and deal with all of the issues
and concerns that might come out of their study of the contract, and I might
add, Mr. Speaker, in the most open fashion that contracts with consultants have
ever been presented to the people of Manitoba.
At 10 minutes to five, not one single
question about the APM contract and St. Boniface and Health Sciences Centre or
any other initiative, was posed, precisely for the reason that my honourable
friend can now continue to try and paint incorrect information.
If I can indicate to my honourable friend,
the article that he is quoting from, I would advise my honourable friend to be
extremely cautious in assuming that the principals of St.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the contract does
provide a base line of funding, 1992‑93, from which the achievable
targets of savings will be calculated in order to determine the effectiveness
of the APM Consultants and their work within the St. Boniface Hospital and
Health Sciences Centre. I say with all
the integrity I can muster to my honourable friend, the statements I made in
questions previous were correct.
Benefits
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, what we wanted to know was
whether the Curran contract was for cuts that were made after the '93‑94
year when the person's contract was hired, or whether, in fact, it was used in
the '92‑93 base year.
Obviously, the minister, in his convoluted
way, answered the same way as the administrator from St. Boniface. Clearly, the base year under 3(1)(c) of the
contract is clearly '92‑93, in which case the $8 million could be
calculated in terms of the Curran contract.
Here we are seeing $3.9 million
I would like to ask the Premier (Mr.
Filmon): The government of
* (1345)
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, despite my answers this
afternoon and previous, my honourable friend persists in putting incorrect
information on the record. I cannot stop
my honourable friends from doing that.
That is precisely why I tabled the contracts at 2:30 yesterday
afternoon. It might be appropriate for
me to indicate what I said to the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak) and the NDP
when I tabled those contracts yesterday.
I tabled the contracts for my honourable
friends, meaning the members of the New Democratic Party, " . . . knowing
that they may want to have this information at their disposal, so they can have
their analysts go over it in the next couple of hours, and then we can spend
the balance of this evening and tomorrow and the next day and any amount of
time my honourable friends want, to discuss the issues."
Mr. Speaker, after that very generous
offer, New Democrats chose not to pose a question. They posed zero questions, Sir, because they
do not want to have information. They
want to continue to put their version out which is laced with inaccuracies.
Home Care
Program
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of
the Opposition): Will the Premier (Mr. Filmon) start getting
control of his Health minister? The
Premier fired this person when he was his deputy leader because he had no
control of him five years ago, and now he is wreaking havoc on our health care
system, Mr. Speaker. It is time the
Premier took some leadership on this issue.
On June 15, Mr. Speaker, the minister told
us that the Curran contract would not include the cutbacks at St. Boniface.
Clearly, the contract states the '92‑93 year will be eligible.
I would like to ask the Premier: In light of his Conservative government
cutbacks now in Home Care, Mr. Speaker, which will allegedly save $3 million,
which is less than what they are paying for the
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, one could talk about leadership
and ability to provide a vision for the future, and one could talk about the
lack thereof in the NDP ranks, because I consistently tried to get my
honourable friends the New Democrats to give us some alternatives, if they did
not like what we are doing.
We know what New Democrats are
against. We do not know what they are
for. We do not know whether they are for
closing 52 hospitals, like they are in
But, Mr. Speaker, what we do know is in
the record, because I shared the increases in Home Care in Estimates with my
honourable friends, and I refer my honourable friend the New Democratic Leader
to page 4500 and on in the Estimates.
Furthermore, I want to tell my honourable
friend what Home Care has done. My
honourable friend indicated cutbacks in Home Care; 1992 over 1991‑‑let
me talk to my honourable friend. Home
care attendant services were up by 7.2 percent, registered nursing services up
by 15.5 percent, licensed practical nursing service up by 20.7 percent‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Home Care
Program
Premier's
Intervention
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, last week, when we asked the
minister about the cancellation of the Home Care Program and the result that
other services have to be made up to try to make up for some of that
cancellation, the Minister of Health blamed us.
He blamed the previous government.
He blamed the media. He blamed
the world for the cancellation of his program, taking $3 million out of the
pockets of senior citizens and making them pay for a service that was always
offered.
My question to the Premier (Mr. Filmon)
is: Will the Premier step in and get
some control on this Minister of Health?
Will he stand up for the senior citizens of the
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I find
it really, really interesting to watch New Democrats in opposition reject the
policy put in place in 1985 by Howard Pawley, Premier, by Larry Desjardins,
Minister of Health, called Support Services to Seniors, wherein those services,
when established in the community, would provide home cleaning, meal
preparation and laundry services with the senior citizen required to pay for
them.
Now, my honourable friends, in 1985, the
New Democrats in government, introduced that program as very progressive, as a
better utilization of resource, and, quite frankly, Sir, we agreed. We have continued with that program, and we
have furthered the completion of that program in this year's budget estimate.
Now, my honourable friend says we are
taking money from the pockets of seniors today, but, Mr. Speaker, it was all
right to do it when you were a New Democrat in 1985 as part of progressive
reform of health care that was going on even then. What is the change, other than the fact they
are in opposition today?
* (1350)
Layoff
Statistics
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is again to the
Premier (Mr. Filmon) because the minister seems to be‑‑impossible
for him to answer the question.
How does the Premier justify the layoff of
1,500 workers, unprecedented in health care in this province, 1,500 Home Care
homemakers who provide these services?
How does the Premier justify these 1,500 people possibly being out of
work as a result of the layoff and the cancellation of this program?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, that is the
problem we have with the theatre from the NDP, the theatre of fearmongering,
the theatre of the television camera, the theatre; not accuracy, not truth, but
fearmongering and theatre.
I refer my honourable friend Mr. Chomiak,
because it was a question by Mr. Chomiak carried on page 4499 of Hansard,
wherein we went into the explanation of Home Care services and the increases
that we expect to provide: The year '92
over '91, an increase in VON, 4.7 percent, an increase in licensed practical
nursing services of 20.7 percent, an increase in registered nursing services of
15.5 percent, an increase in the home care attendant services, 7.2 percent, but
a reduction in home support workers by 6.2 percent because more services were
provided by Support Services to Seniors Programs. That trend continues, Sir.
That is why on pages 4499 and 4500, the
increased hours of VON nursing, of registered nursing, of home support worker
or home care attendants is showing up in this year's Estimates, adding to the
increases from 1992 with increases in 1993‑‑increased services, not
cutbacks, as my honourable friend wants to mislead the public into believing.
Funding
Reinstatement
Mr. Dave Chomiak
(Kildonan): And the minister might add, a cancellation of
$3‑million worth of services for laundry, homekeeping and for meal
service to seniors that they are now going to have to pay out of their own
pockets.
My final supplementary to the Premier (Mr.
Filmon), who should understand, who said yesterday on TV he needs help for
someone to carry his bags: Will the
Premier understand that these people need this help in their homes, they
deserve help in their homes, and will he rein in his Minister of Health and
reinstitute the program?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, with all
the sincerity I can offer to my honourable friend, I would like to help my
honourable friend communicate truthfully facts and figures presented to him in
Estimates, facts and figures presented to him over the last five years. New Democrats have said there have been
cutbacks in the Home Care Program when the budget has gone from $34 million,
when they were last in government, to $68 million this year.
How can you call a doubling of a program a
cutback? Only a New Democrat in
opposition could be that dishonest with the people of
Now, Mr. Speaker, let my honourable friend‑‑
Point of
Order
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Opposition House Leader): Mr. Speaker, on a
point of order, we have sat rather patiently waiting for answers from the
minister, but if the minister is not going to answer questions, he should at
least not violate our rules in terms of unparliamentary language.
The minister made a reference that was not
only unparliamentary but was totally uncalled for. I would like to ask you to call him to order,
and I would like you to ask him to answer this very serious question, the
questions raised by our Health critic about the cutback of $3 million in terms
of the home care attendants.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. On the point of order raised, I would like to
remind all honourable members that the word‑‑and I am sure the word
the honourable member is referring to is "dishonest."
It does show up under unparliamentary, and
it does show up under parliamentary, but I would ask the honourable minister to
pick your words very, very carefully.
* * *
Mr. Speaker: The honourable Minister of Health, to finish
with his response.
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, I certainly will abide by your
advice.
My honourable friend the New Democrat does
not acknowledge that in Estimates, I provided him the information that, on
average, last year, there would be 202,975 hours of home care attendant service
provided to Manitobans, and this year, it will increase to 225,756. That is what New Democrats call a cutback.
My honourable friend will not acknowledge
that in terms of registered nursing service, last year on average per month, we
provided 7,812 hours. This year, we
expect to provide 8,565, an increase, not a decrease, over and above the
increases of 15.5 percent last year, 7.2 percent last year, 20.7 percent in
terms of LPN services last year over the year before‑‑increases,
not decreases. Surely‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
* (1355)
Gambling
Social
Costs
Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader
of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, today,
the Minister responsible for the Manitoba Lotteries Foundation and the Minister
of Health (Mr. Orchard) jointly released the long‑awaited study,
coincidentally written June 8, but released after the opening of their two
bingo palaces in the city.
That report concludes that, currently, 1.3
percent of Manitobans over the age of 18 are pathological gamblers, not to
consider the many thousands more who will become pathological gamblers as the
government spends millions of dollars promoting gambling.
My question for the minister of Lotteries,
Mr. Speaker, is: When are she and her government going to answer the tough question
which is, why is the government spending millions and millions of dollars
promoting gambling in our community when we know and we now have proof it
creates and adds to pathological gambling in our society? Why is the government spending millions of
dollars to create a problem and then to come up with some Band‑Aid
approach to deal with it?
Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson
(Minister charged with the administration of The
I indicated in the House just the other
day that, yes, 60 percent of gambling opportunities in the province of Manitoba
are controlled by the Manitoba Lotteries Foundation, and 40 percent of the
legal gambling that is done in the province of Manitoba is done through
nonprofit, charitable groups and organizations throughout the width and breadth
of our province.
Besides those gambling initiatives that
are controlled by government, there is the racetrack which has legalized
gambling, and there are forms of illegal gambling that are going on throughout
the
Mr. Speaker, before government ever became
involved, and as Dr. Rachel Volberg did indicate this morning at the news
conference‑‑the expert who did this study‑‑in the state
of Texas, before there was any legalized gambling at all, there was a very high
incidence of compulsive addictive behaviour.
So it is not only activities that are
ongoing as a result of government‑controlled and regulated gambling that
have caused a problem. There are people
throughout the width and breadth of
Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, the government is spending
millions of dollars promoting gambling in slick ads to people around this
province. That is the question that the
minister should answer.
On what basis is she and her government,
on what authority have they any public consensus and support for spending
millions of dollars of the public's money to sponsor and support and promote
something which we know will add to the addiction to gambling for thousands of
Manitobans?
That is the tough question. Let the minister answer that for the public
of this province.
Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Speaker, I do not accept the preamble of the
Leader of the Second Opposition.
Mr. Speaker, indeed, we have, in our announcement
today, announced a treatment, a prevention, an intervention and an education
program that is going to deal with all of those who have any addictive,
compulsive behaviour in the province of Manitoba, whether they gamble at the
racetrack, whether they gamble illegally in illegal forms of gaming, whether
they participate in video lottery terminals, whether they travel south of the
border to gamble, like many have in the past, and before there was any legal
gambling in the province of Manitoba, we did have those with compulsive
behaviour. They travelled outside of the
province to participate in that activity.
We do know that there is an incidence of
compulsive, addictive behaviour in
* (1400)
Growth
Rate
Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader
of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, this
minister has come forward with a plan which will deal with a total number of
2,000 people over five years. There are
currently many thousands more than that who are currently pathological
gamblers, and who can tell what they will be after five years of promotion of
more gambling by this government?
Mr. Speaker, my question for the
minister: What is going to be the growth
rate the government hopes for in the number of Manitobans who gamble, who go to
bingo palaces and the
Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson
(Minister charged with the administration of The
Mr. Speaker, compulsive gambling is not
unlike any other form of compulsive behaviour.
We have people who drink to excess and who have a problem. We have people in the
Mr. Speaker, we have accepted the responsibility
in the
Personal
Care Homes
Means Test
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
Mr. Speaker, we have been trying to find out
for some time from the Minister of Health whether seniors will be forced to
submit their income tax forms and statements of income to nursing home
administrators so the government can determine the fees based on income.
Yesterday, the Minister of Health finally
answered and stated that only the notice of assessment would be required to be
submitted. So our question today to the
minister is if they can tell us the difference between a notice of assessment
and an income tax return since both, according to Revenue Canada, are
confidential documents, and how they can justify having confidential
information about a person's income revealed to nursing home administrators.
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, even though my honourable friend
is no longer the critic for Health, I want to correct my honourable friend
where she again used the typical NDP description of cutback in Home Care.
Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated, we came
into office in 1988. The budget was $34
million. It is now $68 million‑‑$34
million more, not less; double the budget, not half the budget; an increase,
not a decrease. I know my honourable
friend has difficulty acknowledging that, but I would simply like to correct
that inaccurate preamble.
Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend was
concerned about having to present one's income tax form. That issue has been resolved. The notice of
assessment will be the only piece of information that we need for an individual
to indicate that they do not have income sufficient to justify the $46 per diem
in the personal care home and that, in fact, they should remain at the current
$26.95 or somewhere in between.
Mr. Speaker, we feel that is the most
unobtrusive and less private request and piece of information we could come to,
to assure ourselves that no one was going to be charged additional per diems in
personal care homes unless they had the ability to pay for those.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not acknowledge
the fact that a notice of assessment is a very detailed piece of information
about personal income, so our question and concerns remain.
I would like to ask the Minister of Health
if he can tell this House and seniors today whether a nursing home
administrator has the legal authority to review a person's income tax return
and determine what they should be paying.
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, we would expect any resident or
their family to indicate to the administrator of the personal care home that
their loved one in the personal care home did not have sufficient income to pay
the $46 per diem.
That is a process that I do not believe is
intrusive. It will be produced by the
individual to show that they should pay exactly as they pay now, $26.95, or the
maximum if they have the ability to pay as demonstrated in last year's
assessment of income tax form.
Mr. Speaker, that is, in all likelihood,
the least intrusive way to determine whether residents have an ability to pay
increased charges, which are not dissimilar from Ontario and other provinces to
the east. The rates are increasing in
every province, including
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Speaker, that rhetoric and this
convoluted, means‑tested formula give no assurances to seniors who feel
their privacy is being invaded.
I would like to finally ask the Minister
of Health if he will tell the House whether seniors will be required to, in
fact, sign over to nursing home administrators the authority to probe into
their financial and personal affairs.
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, I guess I am somewhat troubled
that my honourable friend would be posing these questions when, for instance,
again, I will refer my honourable friends to page 4802 in Hansard where I spent
time from 4802 to 4803 to 4804 explaining in detail all the parameters of the
new policy.
Were there any questions on the
detail? Mr. Speaker, the answer is a
given. There were none. The NDP did not ask a single question in terms
of detail yesterday when they did not have television cameras there to try to
create the alarmist fear they are doing here today.
I offered to my honourable friends the New
Democrats to spend all last evening going into details of this, but, no‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Pharmacare
Filing
Deadline
Mr. Conrad Santos
(Broadway): Mr. Speaker, the proposed objective of the
Seniors Directorate is to promote the interests of seniors, to ensure programs
and policies are sensitive to the needs and concerns of seniors and to
implement new initiatives to benefit seniors in Manitoba, both objectives
supposedly to be undertaken by a Seniors Directorate consisting of three people
who have to serve 147,000 seniors in the province of Manitoba, constituting 13
percent of the population.
The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said, the
human capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but human inclination to
injustice makes democracy necessary.
Did this government show the necessary
inclination to justice or injustice when it started confiscating 100 percent of
Pharmacare refunds regardless of the reason for delay?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I believe this particular issue
was dealt with for the last year and a half.
Now, lest my honourable friend leave the impression that seniors were
the ones who failed to meet the April 30 deadline, let him not paint seniors in
that circumstance.
Seniors were far and wide the most regular
claimants of the program adhering to the deadline. The allegations my honourable friend makes,
as critic for Seniors, does a disservice to the many seniors who filed
regularly and on time and received their Pharmacare refunds.
* (1410)
Personal
Care Homes
Fee
Increase
Mr. Conrad Santos
(Broadway): Mr. Speaker, does this
progressive government‑‑(interjection) that is in quotation marks‑‑promote
justice or injustice by proposing to increase the fees to personal care homes
from $26.50 to $46 per day, which is a 74 percent increase? Is that justice or injustice?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): You know, Mr.
Speaker, at the risk of really compromising my future philosophical integrity,
I will quote the honourable member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli), who, in her
maiden speech to this House, said, from each according to their ability, to
each according to their needs.
From each according to their ability is
what this policy does bring in. It says,
if you have the ability to pay, if you have the pension income, if you have the
net income to support an additional charge in personal care homes, where all of
the taxpayers of Manitoba, some of whom my honourable friends have advocated on
behalf of as having no disposable income because of taxes and other programs of
government‑‑when we are trying to protect those other individuals
by asking Manitobans in personal care homes with ability to pay to pay slightly
more, my honourable friend finds it objectionable. Yet they do it in
Mr. Speaker, to my honourable friend, I
find this confounding in logic.
Home Care
Program
Housekeeping
Services
Mr. Conrad Santos
(Broadway): When this Tory government slashes the Home
Care Program by eliminating all services for housecleaning, laundry and meal
preparation, is this government promoting justice or injustice to the disabled
citizens of this country who have served this country and built up its economy
in the past?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I might pose that question to my
honourable friend, the member who just posed the question, because in 1985, my
honourable friend was part of the Howard Pawley government when they introduced
Support Services to Seniors and asked those seniors, whom he now is trying to
defend, to pay for light housekeeping, to pay for meal preparation, to pay for
laundry through the Support Services to Seniors Program.
When my honourable friend sat in a
government that made that policy decision, did he raise these questions? Did he call Howard Pawley and the New
Democrats he was in government with unjust people, or did he say, no, that is
good progressive policy?‑‑because, Sir, I happen to have agreed
with that policy.
Taxpayers ought not to be asked to pay for
housekeeping, for meal preparation and laundry.
They should, however, pay for more intensive care services, which we
have through the increase of 22 percent in LPNs, 7 percent in nursing, and on
and on.
Home Care
Program
Alternative
Services
Ms. Avis Gray
(Crescentwood): Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health loves to
wax eloquent about the Support Services to Seniors Program. He has done it for five years. He has done it in this House today.
Now, he is cutting homemaker services for
seniors, and he is suggesting that they now avail themselves of the Support
Services to Seniors alternatives for homemaking services. Yet the other day in Estimates, when we asked
him what services were available, particularly in the city of
Can the minister today table a list of the
nonprofit services for seniors that are available within the city of
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, as my honourable friend well
knows in terms of dealing with this issue in the Estimates‑‑and I
could go to the page and my honourable friend could read the answer that I gave
to her in this House‑‑I indicated that there is a constant referral
to not‑for‑profit services where Support Services to Seniors
exist. Now, in the policy this year,
they will be referred to private providers of the service. That answer was given to my honourable
friend, and my honourable friend herself even mentioned some of those private
providers as an example.
Mr. Speaker, the range in cost is $6 to $9
per hour for housekeeping, the same as it is in terms of the Support Services
to Seniors provided programs. It removes
an inequity that existed where some Manitobans were receiving free of charge
those services and others, by policy established by the NDP in 1985, were
paying for them. We removed that
inequity.
I am sure my honourable friend would agree
with the reinvestment of those dollars into more intensive and complex care
provision to maintain independent living for more Manitobans in their homes,
Sir.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Speaker, the truth of the matter is,
there is only one nonprofit service in the city of
Can the Minister of Health tell us why he
has chosen to cut homemaking services for seniors in this city of
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, for the very simple reason that
for a number of years, residents, seniors, outside of
In some areas of the city of
Mr. Speaker, there is an array of service
providers readily available, and as individuals are referred to them, they will
be provided with a list of alternate service providers, including Support
Services to Seniors providers.
Ms. Gray: Mr. Speaker, in contacting the Department of
Health today, in fact, there were no alternatives that were given to people who
called, and there is no such list.
My question to the minister is: Is he prepared to put some accurate
information on the record and tell us why he has decided to cut homemaking
services when his Support Services to Seniors Program has not had an increase
in budget and, in fact, they have not ensured that those alternative services are
in place?
Mr. Orchard: Well, Mr. Speaker, when my honourable friend
exhorts me to put accurate information on the record, surely my honourable
friend might comply as well.
If my honourable friend would review the
answer in Hansard, she will find that with Support Services to Seniors, there
are something like 27 new organizations funded in this year's budget‑‑new,
new, increased services. Now, my
honourable friend, of course, would never, never say there was an increase in
the number of Support Services to Seniors Programs.
Mr. Speaker, we made this decision
precisely so that we can reinvest those dollars into providing more nursing
care from registered nurses, Victorian Order of Nurses, licensed practical
nurses and home care attendants to provide ever greater levels of‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Substance
Abuse
Treatment
Programs
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): Mr. Speaker, this morning the government
acknowledged that there is a major problem in this province with pathological
and problem gamblers, a problem that is growing due to the rapid expansion of
gambling in this province by this government.
Since the government now has agreed to put
forward a very modest program to assist some 400 out of 20,000 problem
gamblers, will the Premier (Mr. Filmon) now also put in place greater
assistance for solvent abusers?
Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson
(Minister charged with the administration of The
When we look at the research in the study
that was done, it says that the favourite gaming activities in
Mr. Speaker, we also do know that 9
percent of Manitobans consider‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Point of
Order
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Opposition House Leader): On a point of order,
Mr. Speaker, Beauchesne Citation 417 states very clearly that answers to
questions should be as brief as possible, deal with the matter raised and
should not provoke debate.
The member asked why this government will
not introduce a program of treatment for solvent abuse. We would appreciate an answer to that
question.
Mr. Speaker: On the point of order raised, the honourable
Madam Minister, I believe, has finished with her answer.
* (1420)
Substance
Abuse
Northern
Treatment Programs
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): Mr. Speaker, it is a shame that the Premier does
not find solvent abuse a serious enough problem to answer a serious question.
Mr. Speaker: Question, please. Order, please.
Points of
Order
Hon. Gary Filmon
(Premier): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would
appreciate if the member opposite would be a little honest with the public and
not suggest that I do not find solvent abuse an important issue. I do indeed.
I do not find it an issue on which
somebody should make cheap politics as the member opposite is attempting to do.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable First Minister did not have a
point of order there. It was a dispute
over the facts.
* * *
Mr. Ashton: On another point of order, Mr. Speaker, the
Premier in raising a so‑called point of order, which you ruled not to be
a point of order, also made allegations in terms of honesty.
Once again, the Premier should set an
example in this House and withdraw that comment and answer the very important
question put forward by the member for Point Douglas.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable opposition House leader did not
have a point of order.
* * *
Mr. Speaker: The honourable member for Point Douglas, with
your question now, please.
Mr. Hickes: Mr. Speaker, Bill 29 will no doubt be passed
in the near future because the government has a majority. What northerners want is a facility to treat
the victims.
Why does this Premier not acknowledge the
fact that the facility will house aboriginal and nonaboriginal abusers in
northern
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend does not
always share full information. My
honourable friend does not recognize that this Premier (Mr. Filmon), this
government, established supportive funding for Lemay House at the St. Norbert
adolescent treatment centre for adolescent women in the
My honourable friend likes to make the
case that we do not care and we do nothing.
The only time nothing happened for sniffers in
Now, Mr. Speaker, let me tell my
honourable friend that Bill 29 could be law today if my honourable friend had
passed it on to committee so this House could have dealt with it on Friday last
and proclaimed it as law, but he ducked his responsibility on that day and
would not debate the bill.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable member for Point Douglas has
time for one very short question.
Mr. Hickes: Mr. Speaker, two people have died in Nelson
House in the last two weeks. Since the Volberg
report acknowledges the need for more substance abuse treatment professionals
as a result of the growing gambling problems, I wonder if the Premier (Mr.
Filmon) would be prepared to save tax dollars by increasing such preventative
programs for solvent abusers, as well, in northern
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Speaker, we will undertake efforts within
our jurisdiction to help with that problem as we did at St. Norbert Foundation,
as we are attempting to do with legislation that will work, that will work to
help stop abuse of solvents by all Manitobans, including northern Manitobans.
We cannot do that if members in the
opposition, particularly the questioner, refuse to speak to the bill, to pass
it on to committee so it can become law and help those very people whom he
stands up for and tries to defend. Get
on with passing the bill is my urging to the NDP.
Mr. Speaker: The time for Oral Questions has expired.
Committee
Changes
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the member
for
I move, seconded by the member for
Motions agreed to.
Mr. Edward Helwer
(Gimli): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the member
for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister), that the composition of the Standing
Committee on Law Amendments be amended as follows: the member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson)
for the member for Seine River (Mrs. Dacquay); the member for Brandon West (Mr.
McCrae) for the member for Arthur‑Virden (Mr. Downey); the member for
Portage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister) for the member for Assiniboia (Mrs.
McIntosh); the member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer) for the member for Kirkfield Park
(Mr. Stefanson).
I move, seconded by the member for
Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine), that the composition of the Standing Committee
on Economic Development be amended as follows:
the member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) for the member for
Motions agreed to.
ORDERS OF
THE DAY
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I will
be making announcements a little later with respect to sitting hours and the
workload plan for tomorrow.
I would announce at this time, though,
that the House will not sit on Friday, July 2, and after tomorrow will reconvene
on Monday, July 5. Also, later on today
I will be making an announcement with respect to standing committees.
Mr. Speaker, would you call Bills 29, 30
and 32 in that order.
Mr. Speaker: As the honourable government House leader has
indicated, the House will not be sitting on July 2. Our rules state very clearly that we have
sitting hours on a Friday. Is there
unanimous consent of the House that we do not sit on July 2? (agreed)
We will sit again, Monday, July 5. I would like to thank the honourable
government House leader for that information.
DEBATE ON
SECOND
Bill 29‑The
Minors Intoxicating Substances Control Act
Mr. Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable Minister
of Justice (Mr. McCrae), Bill 29, The Minors Intoxicating Substances Control
Act; Loi sur le controle des substances intoxicantes et les mineurs, standing
in the name of the honourable member for Point Douglas, who has 24 minutes
remaining.
Mr. George Hickes (Point
Douglas): Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be able to continue
speaking on Bill 29 because it has been sitting since the last day that we were
dealing with bills.
I find it incredible how the Minister of
Health (Mr. Orchard) responds to Bill 29, as if that will answer all the
problems that we have pertaining to solvent abuse in northern
Bill 29 will not be the only answer for
the people of northern
What the government is saying, it is a
federal responsibility, and so the message I get from the government and other
people from the North is that only people in northern
Yes, this government does have a
responsibility to represent all Manitobans, and that is where I find it very
ironic when I hear the government stating it is a federal responsibility, it is
under the jurisdiction of the federal government, we do not have a responsibility. I think that is totally wrong. If it is going to be built on a reserve or in
a community, that should not make a difference.
This government could lead the way by
organizing a meeting with the federal representatives and with northern leaders
and in co‑operation with all parties and individuals, leaders from the
North, to try and come up with a solution that is workable to meet the serious
problem we have before we lose more young valuable lives in northern
Manitoba. That is what the people in
northern
It is not a problem only pertaining to
treaty people. It is pertaining to all
northern Manitobans. It is a problem
pertaining to all Manitobans. We have
two facilities here in
Mr. Speaker, when we had an information
session that was put on here at the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, in this
building, in Room 254, and the chiefs were there and other interested people
from all across
They showed a video tape of this young
adult from Oxford House who had a very serious solvent abuse problem. It showed, with proper treatment and proper
supports, the recovery; this individual was able to overcome. It was just like night and day. This individual who started off in the video
tape had poor motor skills, poor functioning; could not even take his finger
and touch his own nose. The doctor asked
him to touch his index finger with the doctor's, and he could not even
accomplish that. It was waving all over the place. After treatment, through treatment programs,
this individual was able to regain a lot of his motor skills.
That is the kind of program that our
leaders and the people in
We just heard within the last couple of
weeks that another young individual in Nelson House, 15 years old, has lost his
life over solvent abuse. Just prior to
that, a 17‑year‑old from Nelson House lost his life over solvent
abuse. When are we going to be
responsible representatives of
* (1430)
We were in Estimates of Native Affairs
Secretariat last night, and I asked the minister to please take a lead role,
organize meetings. Nobody has to take
any credit for accomplishing something.
It should be a co‑operative effort by all concerned citizens of
Bill 29 is trying to address that, but
Bill 29 has some flaws in it. We have
been seeking advice from experts. I have
met with people who are very involved in working with solvent abuse and very
concerned about the problems, and one glaring error in this, and I just very
briefly touched on it prior to today, was the whole idea of looking at
incarcerating our youth in the youth centre.
I read a letter from the Justice
department that said the reason to do that is because through the
interrogations of the police officers they will be able to find out where the
abusers got their solvents from. Mr.
Speaker, we all know what that would accomplish. If the individuals told the authority where
they got their solvents and the suppliers found out who these individuals who
were telling on them were, all we have to do is look at all of our youth, when
we were all going to school.
You are always very wary of the schoolyard
bully. How do schoolyard bullies
operate? They operate on fear. You know, Mr. Speaker, that if you ever told
the teacher on the schoolyard bully, what happened to you if that bully ever
caught you walking down the street on your own.
We are putting these children in jeopardy by saying, well, it is going
to help us solve the problem because they will tell us who their suppliers are
and in turn we can charge the suppliers.
How are they going to prove unless the child tells who their suppliers
are?
Two things: Children without proper treatment who still
are addicted to solvent abuse will not give up their source of solvents because
they want it for their own further use.
The other thing is we put them in jeopardy of being abused and
threatened. You know, we have to be
very, very careful here because the suppliers are not our most honest citizens
in
An Honourable
Member: Just let them keep on
sniffing?
Mr. Hickes: No, you do not let them keep on
sniffing. You develop treatment centres
and the proper support systems to help them.
What you do is you try to enforce easier possibility of laying charges
to the sellers of solvent abuse. What
you want to do is you want to try and get after the suppliers of solvent abuse
and hit them hard and make them learn that selling solvent abuse not only to
minors but to anyone is not right, and that you will be dealt in a harsh, harsh
manner. That is the way to look at it,
and then look at trying to have proper support systems in place to help our
abusers to overcome that problem. It is
a dollar that would be well spent.
Mr. Speaker, when we talk about Bill 29,
any bill if it is open to proper support and proper co‑operation from all
parties and outside expertise, and with the willingness to amend the good
recommendations that should be coming forward from all parties, from interested
individuals and the front‑line people who deal with this on a daily
basis, if the government is open to positive amendment and changes, maybe we
will have something that is workable and that we could finally start doing
something for the solvent abusers. Sloughing
off the responsibility or saying you are playing politics with this‑‑I
do not think any individual in this Chamber should ever try to play politics
with a human life. This is an abusive problem that is killing our youth. It is not the time to play politics with
something that serious.
Mr. Speaker, the other thing that we have
to look at is that, when we have the open window and the opportunity to look at
addressing the seriousness of solvent abuse that we have in Manitoba, we also
have to look at not only the restrictions.
The problem of solvent abuse ends when you are 18 years old? It does not.
When you are 12 to 18, you might be abusing solvents, but when you are
18, if you have not done anything with that problem, you will continue to have
that solvent abuse problem. We need to
expand this bill to help treat solvent abusers of all ages.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is only referring
to individuals from 12 to 18. We need to
look at the problem of adults, too, because I know individuals, have talked to
individuals personally who had been abusing and are still abusing. Some are 24, 25 years old and in such sad
state. It kills the brain, the brain
cells, and they have a hard time; and, when they try to walk they cannot even
walk right. I do not know, it is a very,
very serious problem, and it is a very emotional problem because it does so
much damage to a lot of the people that we see.
One of the sad situations that we see in
northern
Mr. Speaker, one of the most positive
things that this government has done pertaining to solvent abuse in northern
I am not here to debate and say that Bill
29 is totally wrong, and we have to oppose it because it is a government idea.
Mr. Speaker, I really do not care whose idea it is. Let us make it workable for the children and
the adults that have this very serious problem, and help them overcome
this. When a person has an addiction to
whatever it is, and when you are able to overcome it and straighten out your
life, and then be in a position to give some of it back, it means so much to a
lot of people.
* (1440)
Mr. Speaker, I hope the government is open
to listen to the public, listen to the people, and work co‑operatively. A good example was the Minister of Consumer
and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. McIntosh) and the way she handled the cooking wine
problem that we had in the city of
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving me the
opportunity to speak on this, and I hope that positive things can come about
for the positive development and positive actions for the people that have this
very, very serious problem, and that someday we will help these individuals
overcome their problems and continue on with a rewarding life that everyone
deserves and everyone should have the opportunity to look forward to. Thank you.
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs (
When this government was in a minority
position, all three parties agreed that there should indeed be a piece of
legislation known as an antisniff bill.
It was introduced by the member for
The Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard)
argued for a period of two years that, although the legislation had been passed
unanimously in the House, his staff was informing him that the bill was not
enforceable. So we waited through 1990
and through 1991 and into 1992 for a presentation of a new bill which would be
enforceable and which would have an effect in controlling access to products,
such as sniff, which devastates not only northern communities in the province
of Manitoba, children in particular, but also many children, aboriginal and
nonaboriginal, living within the city of Winnipeg. So we waited for the bill.
When the piece of legislation arrived, one
of the first comments was made by a representative of the City of Winnipeg
Police Department, who informed us that this bill, too, was unenforceable and
that it would not, in fact, prevent the abuse of purchase of product that the
whole intention of the original bill was supposed to do.
Mr. Speaker, it went further than that,
and this is the tragedy, I think, of this particular piece of legislation. In the original piece of legislation, the onus
was on the seller of the product. He or
she had to prove, or at least have reasonable means, by which this product
would not be used for sniffing purposes.
Now the onus is on the purchaser to affirm to the seller that he or she
is not going to use this product for sniffing purposes. Now that is a rather fundamental shift in the
manner in which this legislation is being introduced.
Let me give you an example. A 13‑year‑old boy walks in, and
he buys 16 tubes of airplane glue. He
says to the shop owner, well, I am not just buying this for myself. I am in a Cub pack, and there are 16 of us
all building model airplanes, so I need 16 tubes of this glue in order to have
one for each one of my fellow cubs. The
owner of the store says, oh, well, that is reasonable. Obviously, any young man could be a member of
a Cub Scout organization. I will sell
him 16 tubes of airplane glue.
But let us be realistic, Mr. Speaker, if
indeed the young man were buying 16 tubes of airplane glue, then he was
probably a very generous young man. In
all likelihood, there was only one purpose for him buying 16 tubes, and that
was to go behind the store and to begin sniffing along with his fellow
friends. That is the tragedy.
If that owner of that store was hauled
into court, all he has to prove under the present legislation is that it was
reasonable for him to presume that this glue was going to be used for a project
other than sniffing.
I think that burden of proof is a
ludicrous one. When we visit inner city
stores, and I have certainly done that, and you see shelves of Lysol, you know
for a fact that people who are purchasing that Lysol are not purchasing it in
order to have spick‑and‑span, disinfected homes. It certainly is a presumption, but the
reality is that, if you go into a 7‑Eleven in my district, you might see
five or six cans of Lysol disinfectant on a shelf, but when you go into an
inner city store and you see 36 tins on a shelf or even more, then you can also
make a presumption as well. The
presumption is that perhaps either they are extraordinarily clean in the inner
city, far cleaner than they are in my constituency of
I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that
in many of those communities they are selling Lysol for an alternate purpose
other than as a disinfectant. They are
selling it because, for some strange reason, it creates a high. I would not know, I have to tell you, I have
not tried, but the reality is that that is what I am told by the experts it
does.
Again, you have a strange presumption
here. When an individual goes in and
buys one can of Lysol, perhaps the argument can be made that they are, in fact,
using it for disinfectant purposes‑‑sounds reasonable. Now, if they are buying a can every single
day, seven days a week, 30 days a month, then perhaps you could have another
motivation. But, when they go in and buy
two or three or four or five cans of Lysol, then unless they are running a
boarding home, unless they are in business for disinfecting other people's
homes, the chances are they cannot go through that much disinfectant in spray
form unless they are using it for a purpose other than what the product was
entitled to be.
So it is the burden of proof that has changed
dramatically in this piece of legislation from the original piece of
legislation. The difficulty that I think
is confronting all of us in this House is:
do we pass this piece of legislation because it is better than having no
legislation at all, or do we reject this piece of legislation because it is
woefully inadequate?
I think there is only one thing for us to
do at this particular point in time, and that is, to pass this piece of
legislation into committee to hear from experts with regard to substance abuse,
to introduce amendments which I intend to do when we get to the committee stage
on this particular piece of legislation in order to change the burden of proof
back onto the seller and away from the purchaser.
Mr. Speaker, that is what I think we have
to do at this stage in the legislative session.
So I will be the only speaker from the Liberal Party on this particular
piece of legislation, and we will be prepared to send it on to committee as
soon as the other opposition party is prepared to do so.
But I want to just make a few remarks
about something else; that is, what this legislation appears to do is to
victimize the victim. You are now
putting the burden of proof on the purchaser who, coincidentally, also happens
to be the victim. That person, for
reasons unknown to most of us sitting in this room, has a view of life which is
that they require a high, a high which is provided by a substance such as Lysol
or airplane glue. They do not get their
highs, as many of us do, by working in a Chamber like this or by having a
fulfilling life or by having warm and positive relationships. They have tended to opt out of that kind of
existence, and they live in another world, a world in which they surround themselves
with intoxicating substances.
There is only one hope for those
individuals, and that is that they will get treatment for their abuse, not that
they will be penalized for abusing, but they will be provided with a treatment
program that will enable them to no longer be dependent upon such abuse.
* (1450)
That is not what this legislation
does. This legislation penalizes them
for their use of intoxicating substances, but it does not provide any
wherewithal for them to obtain the treatment so necessary for them to find. We have had three young people who have died
of substance abuse in the last three months, all in northern
We have a situation in which we know that
the primary responsibility, because many of these young people are living on
reserve communities, is with the federal government, but what we have not seen
from the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) or from the Minister of Northern
Affairs (Mr. Downey) is the kind of positive promotion of this centre which is
so desperately required.
When the federal government decided to
establish an aboriginal treatment centre for female inmates and the choice was
between
Well, now we have a situation in which the
federal government is examining the possibility of treatment beds in one of the
three
So I look forward to this bill going to
committee. I look forward to those who
work with street kids and those working on northern and remote communities to
make presentations to us. I look forward
to amendments which will move the onus and the burden of proof away from the
purchaser and on the seller, who is the one who is making money on the backs of
these people who have become, unfortunately, driven by their intoxication to a
substance such as sniff, and I look forward to a better bill passing out of
that committee and back into this Chamber.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Is the House ready for the question?
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a few words
on the record with respect to Bill 29, partly because this bill has a long
history in this Chamber.
My colleague the member for
(Mr. Bob Rose, Acting Speaker, in the
Chair)
Mr. Acting Speaker, I have said on other
occasions, that it concerns me a great deal, having spent so much time
collectively in passing Bill 91, that we would then turn around and delay and
delay the putting into force of that legislation when we realized, all of us,
what a cost there has been for many, many young people, many families and many
communities in the intervening months and now years.
I said I had two reasons for joining the
debate. One is the fact that this bill
does have a history, that we have now been debating this question for
approximately five years, but I rise to speak on this bill as well, because
this issue, substance abuse, is one of great concern to many of the communities
in my constituency.
Mr. Acting Speaker, substance abuse is not
a matter which is the preserve of the inner city of
Mr. Acting Speaker, that stems in part
from the high unemployment, from the lack of recreational opportunity, from the
lack of information, from the isolation of services to support individuals who
need that support. We have argued with
the government on many occasions that many of the things that they are doing,
the cutbacks to our Friendship Centres in northern Manitoba, the cutbacks in
resources to Northern Affairs communities, the cutbacks in resources to and
cutbacks of service in many, many northern communities, the withdrawal of
social service and Family Services officers simply increases the degree of
alarm and concern that I have as an individual MLA about substance abuse.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I know that my
colleague the member for
I know that was one of the major concerns
that the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) expressed on each occasion when this
matter was raised in the Legislature.
The Minister of Health kept expressing concerns over the enforceability
of the act and kept attempting to suggest that the government was not moving
because of a difficulty that was apparent, perhaps only to the Minister of
Health, with respect to the implementation.
Mr. Acting Speaker, there can be no doubt
that we all agreed at that time that something had to be done. In fact, the current Minister of Justice (Mr.
McCrae) was quoted back in 1990 as saying, we have to have legislation like
this. In a matter like this, there is
all kinds of room for agreement amongst right‑thinking and caring
Manitobans, which I trust that all members of this House are. That was the Minister of Justice back in
March of 1990.
An Honourable Member: The same Minister of Justice?
* (1500)
Mr. Storie: The same, the current, the former and the
present Minister of Justice. The fact of
the matter is that we all agreed.
I think most Manitobans would have a great
deal of difficulty analyzing this particular legislation. What caused the delay?
One of the concerns that had been raised,
of course, is the concern that is more obvious in this legislation of making
victims of victims. This is a serious
problem. There is no simple, single reason
why teenagers and others abuse substances. There is no single reason why this
playing really on our young people has been increasing. There are all kinds of explanations.
We could talk about the economic
circumstances of most of the victims of substance abuse. The fact of the matter is that they tend to
be younger. They tend to be
unemployed. They tend to lack the skills
that would make them employable. They
tend to have little or limited education, and those in themselves are serious
problems that we hope the government will address at some point.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we recognize that,
apart from the socioeconomic reasons for people moving to substance abuse,
stemming that tide is equally difficult.
We believe, of course, that if the government was serious it would begin
by enhancing the educational opportunities and the employment opportunities for
people who are subject to substance abuse.
We certainly believe that the government, as was requested by one of my
colleagues today, should begin to establish a substance abuse treatment centre,
certainly in northern
So we believe there are things that the
government can do, apart from this legislation, which the government currently
is not doing and which the government should do.
Mr. Acting Speaker, Bill 29 is limited in
terms of, I guess, placing the blame.
What Bill 91 attempted to do was place the onus on the supplier of these
substances. As my colleague from Point
Douglas (Mr. Hickes) indicated, although it is certainly possible that
suppliers, the corner store merchants in the inner city and remote communities,
the small businesses in our province that supply these kinds of products,
whether it is shoe polish or nail polish or anything else, they clearly cannot
in every instance guarantee how a particular product is going to be used or
abused. I think that there is a clear
and present signal for any retailer, any supplier providing these kinds of
products which should require them to behave responsibly. The principle of Bill 91 was that no one
should be selling these products unless they were certain that this product was
going to be used responsibly.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I do not believe that
most people would think that an individual attending at a small corner store, a
small, what we call, mom‑and‑pop grocery store, would believe that
buying a half a dozen cans of Lysol at eleven o'clock at night was normal, nor
would selling a tube of glue to a young person who was obviously already
intoxicated, who was obviously already in a state of neglect. I guess the fear is and the fear was that
somehow innocent people, innocent suppliers would be wrongly accused because of
this legislation, because the onus was on the supplier to ensure that the sale
was legitimate.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the previous bill
would have required that many of these products be taken from the shelf and
only dispensed in a thoughtful way by the individual retailer. Again, not wanting to limit the right of
trade, not wanting to limit the retailer's right to sell legal products to
consumers, but wanting to make certain, as we do, for example, with some
pornographic material, that it is not readily available, easily available to
parts of our population, particularly our young people. Those are what are called reasonable limits.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I sometimes think that
we as legislators fear to impose reasonable limits. We are sometimes overly concerned about the
Charter of Rights and the Charter implications in the legislation we pass.
If I was going to give credit in this
Legislature to something that we collectively have done, it would be for
example Bill 3, that was passed a number of years ago dealing with drinking and
driving. There were some, some in this
Chamber, who said that the implications of Bill 3 were rather severe, drinking
and driving legislation would be an imposition on individual rights and
freedom.
Mr. Acting Speaker, that is part of the
responsibility, the collective responsibility of this Legislature. For a hundred and how many years is it?‑‑126
years, government after government, administration after administration,
regardless of political stripe, have imposed limitations on individual and
collective rights in the province of Manitoba.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I do not think we
should fear the Charter of Rights. I am
one person who believes that the provisions within the Charter that grant
legislators and parliamentarians the right to impose what are called reasonable
limits should be taken up more often, that we should not be afraid that a
challenge will rule something is unconstitutional because it violates the
Charter of Rights. We should do what we
believe is right. We should do what we
believe is fair as legislators.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I go back to Bill 91,
when one of the concerns was the onus that was being placed on the retailers of
these products. I do not think that that
was an unreasonable limitation. The
limitation did not prohibit the sale of legal products, but simply said there
was an obligation, a social, a communal obligation to ensure that product was
not being sold in a way which was likely to damage individuals and families in
terms of their health and their long‑term ability to contribute to our
communities.
The fact of the matter is that this new
legislation was certainly as strong in terms of its implication, in terms of
its ability to protect solvent abusers, it was certainly as strong as Bill
29. We certainly believe that the new
legislation is better than nothing. It
certainly is going to be an improvement over the rather weak and limited
controls that currently can be placed on retailers.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
* (1510)
But, Mr. Speaker, it is not strong
enough. It emphasizes too much the onus
being on the individual who is purchasing these products. I recognize that most members will know that
when these particular products are purchased, quite often, the individuals
involved are already under the influence of intoxicating substances, that they
are already of a mind‑set to continue to abuse these products, that they
already have, in many circumstances, in many instances, been long‑term
abusers themselves, and may no longer either realize the consequences of what
they are doing, or frankly, if they do realize the consequences, they may not
care.
Mr. Speaker, that is another point that I
want to spend some time discussing. I
want to tell the people in this Chamber about the degree of despair that
exists, particularly in some of our northern communities, where, as I mentioned
earlier, there is such significant unemployment, such lack of opportunity, and
at every turn further opportunities and further training and educational
opportunities are being withdrawn by the government.
Mr. Speaker, this bill, Bill 91‑‑and
Bill 29‑‑really attempts to deal with the symptoms of a social
problem. The symptom is the willingness,
the desire on the part of individuals to abuse substances that are known to be
harmful. That has always been a feature,
I suppose, of societies, whether it is the abuse of alcohol or abuse of other
legal substances, but the fact of the matter is the abuse of these substances
is endemic in some communities.
Mr. Speaker, why are they using these
substances? Well, they are using these
substances, No. 1, because they are available, and this bill and the previous
bill attempted to limit availability, but they are using these substances
because of the despair they feel in their own personal lives and in their
communities.
Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many people
in this Chamber have had an opportunity to visit the community of
Shamattawa. I do not know how many of
the people in this Chamber have had the chance to visit a number of other
small, small, remote communities.
I will give you an example of what is
happening right now. Because of changes to the post‑secondary education
support guidelines of the federal government, the E‑12 guidelines, Status
Indians, Indians from First Nations across this province, who at one time saw
some light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that if they worked hard in school
and if they graduated, would be going on to post‑secondary education,
have now been put on‑‑well, actually, were put on waiting lists
approximately three years ago.
What happens is someone from Easterville
or someone from Pukatawagan or someone from Garden Hill who has struggled with
their parents and their community to come to the point of graduation now is
told that there is no opportunity for university this year. That is what happened in 1990. They said, well, we are going to start
creating these waiting lists. So
students who graduated were told, just put your life on hold, remain in the
community where there are dozens of other young people who have already given
up on life, who are already into substance abuse, who are already in trouble
with the law, and they said, no, you students remain in the community. Mr. Speaker, that became two years and then
three years and then four years.
Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is
anyone in this Chamber who believes that someone who has graduated from high
school is going to have the will, let alone the academic skills, after four
years of unemployment and despair, living in a community where there is little
hope for employment, where there is little to do that is constructive.
So, Mr. Speaker, the problems these young
people face in their own communities have been exacerbated by actions of the
government in Ottawa, the Conservative government there, and because of actions
of the government here, as well, because the same cycle of despondency and
despair, the same cycle of delay in terms of available opportunities goes on in
non‑Status communities like Sherridon and Wabowden and Brochet and South
Indian Lake.
The number of spaces that are available in
our ACCESS programs and BUNTEP programs, the student bursaries, the Student
Social Allowances Program that have been eliminated have simply meant that
these people, the young people in those communities, even those who have
struggled to achieve academically, who have aspired to post‑secondary
education, who have aspired to training beyond what was available even to their
parents or to their brothers and sisters in many cases, are going to be left
wanting.
They are going to start to be infested with
the despondency, the despair, the depression, which has infested, Mr. Speaker,
many northern communities. It is not
just northern communities. I think that many rural communities generally have
the same sense of despondency when it comes to opportunities for their young
people.
So, Mr. Speaker, we need a broader
approach. Yes, Bill 29 may be better
than nothing. I do not believe that it
is as good as the compromise we worked out in 1990. I do not think it is as good as Bill 91, but
it has some merit at least, and we on this side are going to be listening in
committee, listening to the Minister of Justice's (Mr. McCrae) explanation for
some of the changes and for the approach that this bill takes before finally
deciding whether this bill is ultimately supportable.
I want to emphasize that this is not the
answer to the problem. This deals with
the symptoms that young people from across the province are displaying because
of the economic circumstances, the lack of educational opportunities, the
concern that they have about their futures.
The end result is that they often follow their peers who have already
given up on life, and turn to substance abuse and turn to a lifestyle which is
ultimately destructive to them, ultimately destructive to their communities,
and ultimately destructive to our society.
Mr. Speaker, those are my remarks. I want to end by urging the government not
only to proceed, as I believe they intend to do with Bill 29, but to proceed on
that other agenda which, in my opinion, will reduce the need for this kind of
legislation and ultimately be more beneficial than trying to solve the problem
that we are creating as we go.
Mr. Steve Ashton
(Thompson): Mr. Speaker, I want to put some comments on
the record on this bill, and I want to indicate I hope the Minister of Health
(Mr. Orchard) will listen to my comments.
After some of the regrettable statements
the Minister of Health put on the record earlier today about the disposition of
this bill, I think it would be only fitting if the Minister of Health would
listen to comments made by members of the Legislature; in fact, if the Minister
of Health would follow the debate, because I, quite frankly, found that the
minister obviously is not aware of the degree to which this issue has been an ongoing
issue in this House, going back over the last three years. In fact, this bill follows a bill that was
passed unanimously three years ago by all members of this House, and, quite
frankly, I think, showed a regrettable delay in dealing with a very serious
problem.
I do not want to deal with the
technicalities of the bill. I want to
see this bill go into committee. I think
there are some problems with the bill. I
feel that the government has chosen the easy route in this case, criminalizing
those who are substance abusers. I
believe that treatment and prevention are far more effective, and dealing with
the source of supply, as did the original bill three years ago, is far more
effective. But I am prepared to see this
go to committee and hear members of the public, social agencies, the many
people who are concerned about this problem, and have it dealt with there, Mr.
Speaker.
I will be interested to see the comments,
because I think many people share the comments made by the member for Point
Douglas (Mr. Hickes) earlier when he pointed out the inconsistency of a
government that now brings in a treatment program for problem gambling that is
being contributed to by the actions of this government itself, and brings in a
treatment program that is using revenues developed out of the gambling itself,
when the same government has consistently refused to look at the very serious
proposal by the MKO for a treatment facility in northern Manitoba for all
northerners, for all Manitobans, regardless of whether they are treaty,
aboriginal people with treaty‑Status, or whether they are non‑Status,
or whether they are Metis or nonaboriginal.
That, I think, is a very realistic and
very important statement that has been made by the MKO, and I commend them.
They have been working on this for the last five or six years. They have not
received a commitment from the federal government. They have not received a
commitment from the provincial government.
I certainly feel the federal government
should be involved, but when we are talking about human lives to the degree to
which we are, I believe jurisdiction is not as important as action. I want to stress that because in the last two
months there have been four deaths from solvent abuse in my own
constituency: two adults in Thompson,
from the community of Shamattawa; and two residents, two young people in the
community of Nelson House.
* (1520)
I cannot help, Mr. Speaker, but be struck
by the real pain the communities are going through, particularly in terms of
Shamattawa and Nelson House. I was in
Nelson House for graduation just a few weeks ago, and there were 19 graduates
of
Mr. Speaker, you should have seen the
pride, the hope in that school auditorium when people received their graduation
certificates. You know, ironically,
within a week a young person died from sniff, and within another two weeks
another person died. A community with so
much hope on the one hand and yet so much pain on the other.
Nelson House has had a difficult time over
the years. There have been a significant
number of problems going back to Hydro flooding, and, unfortunately, in many
ways even the road access to Thompson that brings the good aspects of
connection with the outside world, so to speak, also brings some of the more
negative aspects. It is a community that
still through its elders has a very strong spirit, but if there is any concern
that people have in the community it is with the young people, young people who
are separated from traditional ways in the history of the community which has
seen trapping and hunting and fishing, separated partly because of flooding,
partly because the impact that has had, but also because of the changing
impacts from outside society.
Mr. Speaker, there can be no doubt that
the economic circumstances also have to play a factor, and I want to say I am
concerned that many of the graduates of the high school class this year are
going to have difficulty finding employment within the community. There are not the jobs there were even a
number of years ago. While the Nelson
House Band because of the Flood Agreement is hoping to develop some economic
development activities‑‑and they are very aggressive on that front,
have a number of projects ongoing‑‑I am concerned about the
employment in the community.
Mr. Speaker, I see it in many other
communities as well with young people having increasingly difficult time in
finding employment, would it be during the summer at their many smaller communities
in northern Manitoba where there are no summer jobs, none, none whatsoever, and
in larger communities such as Nelson House where there are far fewer jobs than
there were before.
Mr. Speaker, if we are going to deal with
the roots of substance abuse, we have to deal with the root social problems. If
we are going to deal with the root social problems, we have to deal with the
root economic problems. Young people
turn to substance abuse in northern
If members opposite wonder why I am so
committed to dealing with such issues as the ACCESS education programs or New
Careers or any of the northern training programs, it is because I have seen the
difference. I will give you an example,
at the Nelson House graduation this year, of the importance of role models.
There was a guest speaker who is the actress that plays on North of 60, who
actually is a resident of Norway House, who came in and spoke to the students,
a role model to those students in the community of Nelson House.
There were people in attendance or
graduates of many educational programs in the North, Mr. Speaker. In fact, ironically, there were many
graduates in the community from my own high school, R.D. Parker Collegiate,
because prior to the introduction just recently of a high school in the
community offering until Grade 12, most of the students from Nelson House for a
period of time went to Thompson, went to Cranberry Portage, went to Dauphin. There were different areas that people went
to. There are many people whom I went to
school with in the community.
Mr. Speaker, it is that role model that is
important, and that has to be included.
Education is very much a part of providing that, but education without
job opportunities is a rather hollow way of dealing with the problem. I am seeing people graduating today who are
being very much impacted by the kind of cuts we are seeing in terms of social
services, social service agencies, government budgets. I am seeing people going through the social
work program, who, while their classmates one or two or three years ago had
automatic employment, are now finding difficulties because there just are not
positions because there is not the funding, because the positions have been
eliminated. That does not send a good
signal to people in northern communities.
Mr. Speaker, as much as we can talk about
social and economic causes and root causes, and as much as we can try to change
those social and economic underlying roots, it is obvious there will continue
to be a problem in northern
I know I had a call only a few months ago
from a mother concerned about her adult child who was unable to get any
treatment whatsoever. She said the
traditional agencies do not deal with it, in terms of the AFM, et cetera,
because it is a different type of treatment.
It is more long term. It is more
difficult to break because of the chemical dependencies. Also, substance abuse, Mr. Speaker, leads to
far more long‑term and medium‑term psychological and physical
damage.
There are 2,200 people suffering from
substance abuse in northern
Mr. Speaker, I was watching last night a
news report from Davis Inlet, and I use this as a parallel, because when there
was national attention of what was happening in Davis Inlet, when a number of
children in that community, because of substance abuse, because they were high
on sniff, attempted to kill themselves, finally the government acted and those
kids were provided with a treatment program that the government had refused to
do before.
Mr. Speaker, fortunately, no one in Davis
Inlet died from substance abuse. Two
people have died in Nelson House. Two
people have died in Thompson in the last three months alone. It was not recorded on national television,
but it is still as much of a tragedy. I
mean, how much more tragedy does a community like Shamattawa have to face? I have indeed visited Shamattawa. How much
more tragedy does a community like Nelson House have to face? That is what is happening to that community
now as it grieves yet another death. How
much more tragedy does a community such as Thompson have to face, where sniff
in an urban community goes on on a continuous basis?
I have seen personally six‑ and
seven‑ and eight‑year‑olds who are suffering from substance
abuse, who were high on sniff. I can show people in my own community in
Thompson where the substance abuse takes place, where it is taking place
currently, and I can say that no one who sees the impact it has on people can
fail to be moved but, you know, the deaths in Nelson House took place. They will be reported in the news media. The deaths in Thompson took place. It was reported in the newspaper, but there
was not the national attention that it requires.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, as I said to
the Premier (Mr. Filmon) in the House only a few months ago, as I urged the
Premier, let us not talk about jurisdiction here, let us talk about a
significant problem.
I challenge anyone in this House to think
of any other situation where you have four deaths in the space of three months
where you would not have an outcry. Why
is there not the outcry on this? Why is
there not the commitment to dealing with it? Why is there not the recognition
it is a major problem? Why is the
government not following up on the suggestion I made to the Premier that he
raise it to the national level, that he raise it the same way that we raised
Davis Inlet, through the media? Why did
not the Premier on Friday raise it? Will
he raise it when he has the opportunity to meet with the new Prime Minister‑designate? Will he not raise it then?
* (1530)
I understand questions of
jurisdiction. I understand that there is
some very legitimate argument that there should be an involvement by the
federal government, but it is not a treaty problem. It is not even strictly an aboriginal or a
northern problem. There are children,
there are adults that are suffering from substance abuse from all walks of
life.
I say, Mr. Speaker, to this House, and I
particularly say to the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), to the Minister of
Justice (Mr. McCrae) and to the Premier (Mr. Filmon), four deaths in three
months. How many more people have to die
before we recognize the severity of the problem?
I am not blaming anyone for the
problem. I am not pointing fingers at
the government here or the federal government.
I do not want to get into that question, but how many more deaths does
it take? How many more young people have
to die from substance abuse before we do something to put in place the kind of
treatment programs that are required? (interjection) Well, the Minister of
Highways says, what does this bill do? I
appreciate that question, as it is a legitimate question.
This bill criminalizes the acquisition of
the materials for substance abuse. It
does not put into place the treatment that is needed, and there are those who
argue this is a good move. There are those who argue this is not a good move,
but virtually everyone who is familiar with the problem of substance abuse has
said this is not enough. We need
treatment. We need prevention, and that
is where I plead with members of this House to recognize the severity of the
problem. Four people have died. Two people have died in Nelson House in the
last two weeks. What more does it take
for us to recognize that this is a serious problem?
I thought the comments made earlier by the
member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes) were well intentioned, when he said that
there was a similar problem in terms of the cooking wines, Mr. Speaker. If one remembers what happened then, that
despite some of the debate that took place over what was being done and what
was not being done initially, in the end, there was an attempt‑‑and
the minister with whom I often disagree on many issues I think did a
commendable job in terms of this particular issue and working it through the
system. Why can we not do the same with
this problem? Four people have died.
Why can we not have a meeting called by
the Premier (Mr. Filmon), the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), the Minister of
Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey), whoever, I do not care under whose
auspices. I would prefer it be under the
Premier because of the fact it involves the federal government.
Mr. Speaker, why could it not be raised at
the national level? Why could the
government not look within its own House to see if there is some commitment
that could be made toward such a treatment facility, recognizing that many people
will be involved, many people who are not under "federal
jurisdiction"? Would that not be a more productive way to deal with this?
I mean, that is the problem with this
bill. Whether it is good or bad, it is
not good enough, Mr. Speaker. It does
not deal with the root problem, and whether we criminalize this or not, there
are still going to be 2,200 people who suffer from substance abuse in northern
But more important than going through a
formalized process, Mr. Speaker, let us recognize the reality that many of the
people we are talking about will not come to a legislative committee. People in
northern
I believe very strongly, Mr. Speaker, that
four deaths is enough to send the message that this is a tragedy. This is a tragedy of the same magnitude as
Davis Inlet; in fact, probably even greater, and I am convinced that that, in
and of itself, is enough for us to understand in this House that we are not
dealing with the problem, for the federal government to understand, and to put
aside questions of blame for right now and work at partnership with the MKO, with
many other people who are working on this.
The bottom line is, four deaths are enough. Let us work together to eliminate as much of
this problem as we can, and let us start by using some of the creativity that
we used on the cooking wine industry.
Let us get into that committee, and let us
recognize that there are ways in which we can work around this problem, Mr.
Speaker, that, I think, if we can do one thing in this session, and we talk
about a lot of major issues, if we can do one thing in this session that would
be of real significance for people in the real world, in the province of
Manitoba, particularly in northern Manitoba, it would be to take the problem of
substance abuse and do something to get prevention and treatment in place.
Anything, even one small step, and we will be saving lives. I am convinced of that.
So, when we vote on this bill, let us
recognize this is not the end. There is
a lot more that can be done, and please, I urge the people in this House to
take the time. If you cannot come to
Nelson House or to Shamattawa or to Thompson, just go around this city. In the city of
Ms. Marianne Cerilli
(Radisson): Mr. Speaker, I have been looking through a
file of information here related to this bill, and there is newspaper article
after newspaper article after newspaper article citing incidents where young
people have died. One of the articles talks about 20 years of studies and 20
years of death due to solvent abuse and sniff.
It is inexcusable that we have not had any
commitment and any kind of clear way of dealing with this problem over the
years, but especially now, especially after there was an agreement prior to
this session when the government was in a minority, on a bill that would have
addressed the problem of selling sniff to minors.
I look through the material here and look
at how games are being played with this issue.
It is quite sad to see the way that we are playing politics and games‑‑this
government is playing politics and games with the lives of mostly young
teenagers.
* (1540)
It is reprehensible that the Minister of
Justice (Mr. McCrae) would try and accuse us on this side of the House of not quickly
passing this legislation, when it is clear from the evidence that is before me
right now that this bill, as it is presented to us now, is not the best
approach to deal with a situation where children are the victims.
To develop the kind of legislation that is
before us now that further victimizes those young people by then making them
criminals, and to make them the ones that are going to be arrested, and to not
have provisions that are going to deal with the real crime, which is for so
often adults to knowingly provide young people with solvents that they, I would
think, often knowingly are going to abuse and sniff.
It is interesting. I have a pamphlet here put out by the
Alcoholism Foundation. It is surprising
when it talks about the tolerance that develops. It is often incomprehensible to think that
there is actually a tolerance that is developed with the individuals that are
sniffing, so that they do have to acquire and use more and more nail polish or gasoline
or solvent, and to think of what that is doing to their bodies.
It is also interesting to note that there
is more of a psychological dependency than a physical dependency, and that
tells us something about this. That
tells us I think that this, as so many other members have said, is a social
problem that results from the hopelessness that so many young people are facing
particularly in the North, particularly when we see the suicide rates in many
of the remote communities in our country and our province and we start to look
for some solutions to this. We must see
that sniff and solvent abuse are just part of the problem, and it is amazing to
me that the government would so easily dismiss calls for having some kind of
treatment centre in the North.
This bill is not going to be a solution as
it stands right now. The solution is
going to be in putting in place not only treatment facilities but the kind of
programs in education and in employment and in recreation that are going to
deal with the social problems that young people face that have them in the
situation where they turn to sniff.
We have many models for that. We know that there are many models that would
be very easy, and at such a lesser cost, to provide those kinds of recreation
education programs that would teach these young people positive coping skills,
rather than having to pay the long‑term costs that we are going to end up
paying for the health care of these individuals, young people who involve
themselves in solvent abuse.
So I would say it is much more cost
effective to deal with these problems and to deal with these young people at
the outset and when they are young. In
the long run, there are going to be greater costs of dealing with problems,
that will again depend upon the public purse down the road.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in
the Chair)
I had a chance this winter to attend a
national conference that was directed‑‑it was a youth conference
where the young people there were developing strategies for solvent abuse
prevention. Again, there was a positive
step, it was a nationally funded conference.
There were a number of young people there from across the country.
I was somewhat disappointed that even
though the conference was in
I was really impressed at that conference
of the skill that the young people there had in facilitating and in leading
discussions and doing program planning and organizing. These are the young people who are going to
go back to their communities and try to implement some kinds of programs to
prevent other young people from turning down the path of solvent abuse.
I would think that the kind of treatment
centre we are calling for in the North should incorporate that kind of
initiative, that it is not enough in the treatment of solvent abuse to just
deal with the physical addiction and to think that once the young person is no
longer abusing solvents that that is where the rehab should end. I think that we have to make a commitment to
going farther than that and ensuring that the program would see that they are
involved in some meaningful employment or education program or are working with
other young people, especially in the area of recreation.
It is just not acceptable that when we
call for these kinds of treatment programs that the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) can simply say, well, we will do something when the federal government
does something. These are people that
live in
The change in the bill that we are dealing
with right now and the move away from putting the criminalization onto the
young person or the solvent abuser and taking it off the seller, to protect the
seller in this way is not understandable.
I do not understand how this government can think that they have any
commitment to young people because this bill, again, is just another one of the
betrayals of this government to young people.
We have seen so many other cuts that they
have made to student programs, everything from Student Social Allowance to the
Children's Dental Program, and this is just another one of the ways that they
are betraying young people.
It is interesting when you compare the
focus of this legislation, where they say to a solvent abuser, a young person
that you are going to be criminalized, that you cannot rely on anyone else, on
the one hand, with this legislation.
Then when they made the cutbacks to the Student Social Allowances
Program, they were in effect telling young people that you still are dependent,
that you can go home and live with your parents even if in that family there is
abuse.
So on the one hand, we have the government
saying to victims and to young people who are solvent abusers, somewhat you are
on your own, and on the other hand, where we have young people who are trying
to be independent, trying to make a way for themselves, we are encouraging them
to stop that behaviour and to go back and live with their parents. This does not make sense, turning our backs
on the young people who need the support and need some extra kind of caring
and, on the other hand, pulling the independence away from young people who are
seeking it.
One of the things also about solvent abuse
that becomes clear in dealing with it as a social problem is that it is clearly
so often the result of negative peer pressure and how young people who
undertake this sad activity are often influenced by peers and are trying to fit
in, are trying to do something that is going to help them escape and is going
to help them make them feel like they belong.
We have seen there are a number of
programs that can take that and turn the influence of a peer group around. That is part of the direction I think we
should be going with this bill. I think
that when you look at what other members of the community have been saying
about the legislation, the police do not want to crack down and be arresting
young people who are victims and who are using sniff. I think it is clear, from what the police
have been saying, the police want to deal with the individuals who are selling.
* (1550)
The approach we should be taking with the
young people is to provide them with treatment and not to be providing them
simply with charges. I do not know if
there is any provision in the bill. I
certainly hope there would be some provision that if there is a charge laid
against a young person, then they would somehow come into contact with
professionals who were going to give them some support. That would be, I think, the logical and truly
proactive way and positive way of dealing with this program, or with this
problem, that when there are some charges laid against young people, there is
incumbency upon the enforcement officers to make sure that young person is
going to be transferred into some kind of treatment program.
I also wanted to just mention that in
I would think that a number of the kids I was
talking with there did have trouble with drugs or alcohol, possibly sniff, and
oftentimes these young people were living with other adults who were also
living on the street. These are the
kinds of situations that young people are getting themselves in, and then they
would choose to begin some kind of solvent abuse or abusing sniff to try and
escape.
I think we have to look at our priorities
seriously if we are going to spend money on some of the kinds of, what this
government would call, economic development and not spend any government money
on the young people that are living on the street or abusing alcohol and drugs
and are at such a young age essentially giving up.
So, with that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I
look forward to this bill going to committee, when we can hear from the
community. I am sure that there will be
a number of presenters there who work with solvent abusers, and I think that
there will be a strong message for this government at that committee. Thank you very much.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second
reading of Bill 29. Is it the pleasure
of the House to adopt the motion?
Some Honourable Members:
Agreed.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Agreed and so ordered.
House
Business
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): On House Business,
Madam Deputy Speaker. Given the desire
by all parties to debate a number of bills, I wonder whether or not there is a
willingness to waive private members' hour today.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is there leave of the House to waive private
members' hour?
Mr. Storie: Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not know whether
we should deal with this matter right now.
It may be possible to review most of the matters that are on the agenda today
without waiving it at this point, but if it is required at perhaps closer to
five o'clock, we would be willing to entertain it to finish the legislative
agenda or the bill agenda.
Madam Deputy Speaker: That will be revisited at that time.
Mr. Manness: Madam Deputy Speaker, as I indicated earlier,
I would give more definition to sitting hours tomorrow. After discussion with opposition House
leaders, we will sit tomorrow at 10 a.m.; and then, once we move into Orders of
the Day, we will consider bills to roughly 12:30 and then revert to Estimates
review until 4 p.m. tomorrow.
Furthermore, I would like to announce,
Madam Deputy Speaker‑‑
Madam Deputy Speaker: Just one moment, please. Is there leave of the House to sit tomorrow
commencing at 10 a.m., and the first part of the day after Orders of the Day to
deal with bills and then followed by Estimates, with the House terminating at 4
p.m.? (agreed)
Mr. Manness: Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to announce
the Standing Committee on Economic Development will further consider Bill 22 at
7 p.m. in Room 255. (interjection) Yes, and I would then move Law Amendments,
which had been scheduled for Room 255. now to go to 254.
Furthermore, I would like to announce‑‑
An Honourable Member: That is tonight?
Mr. Manness: Yes. I
would like to announce that the Standing Committee on Law Amendments will also
sit on Monday, July 5, at 9 a.m. to begin to consider Bill 16. That was the education bill dealing with the
2 percent cap, I believe. Thank you.
Bill 30‑The
Vulnerable Persons Living with a Mental Disability and Consequential Amendments
Act
Madam Deputy
Speaker: To resume debate on
second reading of Bill 30 (The Vulnerable Persons Living with a Mental
Disability and Consequential Amendments Act; Loi concernant les personnes
vulnerables ayant une deficience mentale et apportant des modifications
correlatives a d'autres lois), standing in the name of the honourable member
for Burrows (Mr. Martindale).
Is there leave to permit the bill to
remain standing? No? Is there leave to
permit the bill to remain standing in the name of the honourable member for
Burrows? Leave. Leave has been granted.
The Chair has been advised that the
honourable member for
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs (
I have also asked the caucus that I be the
only person to speak to this bill from our party, and indeed I will be, so that
we can get it into the committee stage because, quite frankly, Madam Deputy
Speaker, I do not think there is anyone in this room, with perhaps the possible
exception of the minister‑‑and even he may be willing to indicate
that he does not have a deep knowledge and expertise of the kinds of things
that are going to be taking place in this particular piece of legislation.
I think it is very important that we hear
from those in the community, psychologists, those who work with those who have
mental handicaps, representatives of the Association for Community Living,
representatives of families, representatives of institutions who do, in fact,
have the expertise that I am not sure, quite frankly, is present in any of us
gathered in this particular Assembly.
So I will put my concerns about this
particular piece of legislation before this House today and then hope to get
some of those addressed, either by staff with the minister in committee or
indeed by those who make representations.
But I would like to do a little bit of
background with respect to Bill 30, and certainly much of what is contained
within the bill comes out of a report of the review committee examining legislation
affecting adult Manitobans living with a mental disability as vulnerable
persons, which was presented to the minister on November 29, 1991.
* (1600)
Up to this point, those people suffering
from a mental disability in the
In addition, The Mental Health Act, Part
II, which dealt with definitions of the so‑called mental retardates, a
vocabulary which we no longer accept I think as appropriate vocabulary for such
individuals suffering from a mental disability, were based on a British act
which goes back to 1913. One of the
people that I spoke with, he drew the comparison that having an act based on a
piece of legislation in 1913 would be like having an act in the Department of
Health dealing with leeches, because in 1913 the use of leeches as a form of
health prevention and health treatment was acceptable. It was an appropriate procedure, but a great
number of things have happened since 1913 in the medical profession, and the
use of leeches today would be considered a form of quackery.
Well, to some degree, that is also true
with regard to Part II of The Mental Health Act. It was based on an outdated vocabulary, it
was based on long overdue changes to the treatment of those living with a
mental disability, and so the entire piece of legislation was, in the minds of
many, even unconstitutional.
One of the bases upon which they
considered it to be unconstitutional was on the basis of the Charter
itself. The Charter very clearly says
that one cannot discriminate against any individual living within Canadian society
on the basis of a physical or mental disability, yet much of the process and
procedure that was allowed in the act allowed such things to happen to those
people suffering from a mental disability that seriously jeopardized their
protection under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
That was one of the recommendations on
which the review committee spent a considerable amount of time. They said that there was no question in their
minds that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was in jeopardy by this particular
act and, therefore, a new act was needed that required the presentation of
rights and recognized the rights of those suffering from mental disabilities.
I want to read Recommendation No. 5 from
the Recognition and Enhancement of Rights of Vulnerable Persons which was the
name of the study which the group that was put into place by the government
stated. They said the following: That the following statement of principles be
stated in its entirety in the body of all legislation which may be enacted in
respect to vulnerable persons and that such legislation provide that its
provisions are to be interpreted in accordance with these principles.
Principle No. 1: All adults have the right to self‑determination
as reflected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Rights, freedoms and dignity shall be
respected and protected under the laws of
Principle No. 2: All adults are presumed to have the capacity
to make all decisions affecting themselves unless clearly demonstrated
otherwise.
Principle No. 3: All adults have the right to fundamental
justice in all matters affecting their rights, including access to all
information, the right to a mode of communication appropriate to the adult, the
right to be heard, the right to appear with advocates and counsel, the right to
receive reasons for all decisions made and the right to an unbiased decision
maker.
Principle No. 4: All adults should be enabled to make
decisions. Where an adult requires
personal support in making a decision, every reasonable effort shall be made to
provide such support. The form of that
support can be the advice, advocacy, support and affection of family and
friends chosen by the adult. All adults shall be given the opportunity to
express themselves in an individual way and to the fullest extent possible.
Principle No. 5: Every effort should be made to determine the
adult's decisions and to enhance individual choice with the support of family
and friends chosen by the adult.
Principle No. 6: Any intervention by the law in the decision‑making
process of an adult shall be the least restrictive and intrusive form of
support, assistance or protection and shall relate directly to the needs of the
adult at that time.
Principle No. 7: Where support is necessary in making
decisions, interdependent or supported decision making through the advice,
support and affection of family and friends chosen by the adult shall be
recognized and validated.
Principle No. 8: In order to respect and preserve the legal
rights of adults, any legislative or legal response that establishes a
substitute decision‑making process shall be invoked only as a last resort
and must be based on evidence that the current practice is no longer empowering
the adult. The determination by a
hearing panel of a person's needs for a substitute decision‑making
process shall be personalized, comprehensive and involve those who are
important to that adult's life.
Principle No. 9: A high priority of government shall be to
provide adults in need with supports and services which allow for independence,
realization of capabilities and self‑determination. Supports and services provided by government
shall be arranged in a manner which minimizes legal intervention and upholds an
adult's rights to self‑determination and participation.
Finally, Right No. 10: All adults have the right to privacy and the
consideration of matters relating to their lives and lifestyles, except and
only to the extent that disclosure to others is reasonably necessary for the
operation of the lawful procedures provided for in legislation.
This was the statement of principles which
the committee, chosen by the government, presented to this government and
signed the report unanimously. It is my
understanding that although there were government representatives on the
committee who did not sign the report‑‑only the outside
participants on the committee, meaning outside of the bureaucracy, signed it‑‑it
was indeed an unanimous report. Everyone
agreed to the principles that were outlined in this particular recommendation.
It is therefore with some consternation
that I do not find that statement of principles in the act itself. I understood that that was to be the
framework by which all decisions and all authorities would be decided within
Bill 30. Why the statement of principles
is not framed within the legislation in this particular matter, I do not
know. Perhaps at the committee stage the
minister can provide us with that particular explanation as to why the
recognition by the part of the government, the Charter of Rights needed to be
protected, did not find themselves in the legislation in the manner in which it
was outlined by his own committee.
The bill in fact deals with three major
principles: the first is support
services; the second is protection and/or intervention; and the third is
decision making.
The area that is not dealt with in the act
itself is the recognition that services are indeed a right. That would have been recognized if the
statement of principles requested by the committee had been put in its entirety
into the act. It is certainly one of the
amendments that I would propose to make in the committee stage of this bill,
which would be to list these 10 principles at the beginning of this piece of
legislation so it was clear as to the intent of the government with respect to
vulnerable persons in the
* (1610)
One of the other issues that does not
appear to be dealt with adequately is that there does not appear to be any
genuine appeal process to decision making that is made by the department or by
the commissioner. Bill 30 does say that
there is a right of appeal. That is
clear, but it says further that there is no right of appeal if the result of
that appeal, in other words the decision of the appeal committee, would result
in either a change of policy for the government or an additional expenditure of
money.
Well, the argument, I think, Madam Deputy
Speaker, has to be made: Why have an
appeal procedure? What else would you be
appealing? If you were not appealing the
fact that there were inadequate amounts of money available for this individual
to live in the kind lifestyle that was deemed appropriate in that individual
plan for that individual or that there would have to be a change of policy in
order to meet the needs of that particular individual. Then I find it difficult to rationalize or to
understand why else one would appeal.
So the appeal process appears, at least at
first glance, to be a bit of a paper tiger.
It is there, but it cannot be accessed because the department would be
able to argue in almost every single case before the appeal panel that either
this would require a change of policy and/or this is going to require
additional money, and an appeal cannot be granted in either one of those two
conditions.
So again I would want to hear from the
minister as to exactly‑‑whoops‑‑
An Honourable Member: Sorry,
Mrs. Carstairs: ‑‑what would be the process of
the appeal in this case‑‑
An Honourable Member: Just offering a little help,
Mrs. Carstairs: Well, actually she spilled on the book. I hope it was not a part about her.
So the appeal procedure, in my opinion, is
weak, and I would look forward again to explanations from the minister as to
why the appeal process was structured in this particular way, and if he and his
staff believe that it is the paper tiger that it appears to me on reading that
in fact it appears to be.
I am very careful, Madam Deputy Speaker,
not to make any definitive statements about this because I have more questions
than I have quite frankly any absolute answers at this particular point in
time.
The other issue, I think, that causes me
some concerns is with respect to decision making. We have had a strange concept in
And we have always kind of used a generic
kind of‑‑if their I.Q. was below 80 they were somehow mentally
retarded. If they were above 80, they
were not mentally retarded, which is a bit ludicrous because if somebody is 79
and one is 81, it is pretty hard to differentiate between those two
individuals, but that was the terminology that was used.
What this act purports to do, and I think
certainly makes an excellent first step, is to look at vulnerability and to
define mental retardation not in absolute terms of whether the I.Q. is 79 or
whether the I.Q. is 81, but says, all right, let us look at the vulnerability
of a particular individual within society and let us decide, having looked at
the vulnerability and identified the vulnerability, let us define what the need
is for that particular individual.
That is why I am still concerned, as I was
concerned when I had the meetings with the minister last year in the draft of
this particular bill, that we should have in the province of Manitoba a generic
vulnerability person's bill, not one that simply applies to those who by the
age of 18 are considered to be mentally handicapped in some way but those who
may be mentally handicapped either at age to 18 or over age 18 for such things
as brain damage.
When I saw the first draft of the bill and
met with the staff of the minister, I was under the impression, and I think
correctly, that those who had suffered brain damage as a result of major
vehicle accidents or boating accidents or sports accidents of any kind would be
considered to be brain damaged and therefore covered by this act. But in my reading of Bill 30, it seems that
those individuals have now been removed, and in addition there have not been
any others added.
For example, I think that it would be
reasonable for those people who suffer from Alzheimer's to also be considered
as persons under The Vulnerable Persons Act, those suffering from other forms
of senility would come under The Vulnerable Persons Act. But that has not been done.
Now again I think that what the government
is attempting to do here, or I hope it is what they are attempting to do here,
is to see how it works with respect to this particular group of individuals,
and if it works, or if it needs some moderate changes to make it work better,
then at that particular point other individuals or other groups of individuals
might well be added to the piece of legislation as well.
I want to go on record as saying I think
that is a positive thing, that if we keep ourselves with an open mind so that
others can be added to the act at a future time, particularly if we discover
that the act works, then this would be a positive way to go in the future.
My other difficulty with Bill 30 is that
in the recommendations of the task force there was a great deal of effort put
into the need for support groups, for the recognition of advocates. Many of course would be family members, but
some would be friends, some would be associates of the particular individual,
and there seems to be very little reference to support networks in the bill
other than in passing.
There simply does not appear to be the kind
of support or recognition of the support network and the influence and
importance of the support network that was certainly part and parcel of the
recommendations of the task force‑‑advocates, for example. The word is not mentioned at all within the bill,
not even once.
The commissioner responsible for The
Vulnerable Persons Act literally has to allow advocates and support networks
in. In other words, they have to get
permission to participate in the process, whereas it was the recommendation of
the task force to the minister that they be an integral part of the process
from the very beginning. This appears to
again pit the bureaucrats against the support workers and against the advocates
instead of this being a partnership, which was the purpose, I thought, of the
recommendations and what I had hoped to see in the particular bill.
In the past, in order for the department
to deal with those who suffered from a mental handicap of some kind, they had
to get an order of supervision. I think
it is generally considered that an order of supervision or an order of
committee was pretty Draconian. It
certainly was not user friendly, and it was both expensive, because it required
the participation of lawyers, and was insensitive.
It was thought that could be replaced with
hearing panels of laypeople, and I am pleased to see that is in fact in the
bill. There were to be two basic requirements:
one, that this hearing panel were to be made up of a group of three
people that were to be regionally based within the community, so that there
would be some recognition of what the community had to offer and the services
that were available in the community, and that there would be an individual who
was a lawyer who would be knowledgeable about the law. There would be a parent of a mentally
handicapped person, although not obviously of the individual coming before
them. There would be one other selected
at large by the commissioner. That seems
to be a very reasonable method of procedure and I am glad to see it is in the
bill.
* (1620)
Then that recommendation is taken to the
commissioner, but the report had a different vision for the commissioner than
again I seem to see in Bill 30. In Bill
30, the commissioner is to be 100 percent bureaucrat, is not to report to the
Legislature, but that was not to be the situation with the report as presented
to the minister. The commissioner, in
terms of the report to the minister, was to be essentially half advocate and
half bureaucrat. What we now have is an
individual who will be 100 percent bureaucrat.
We saw under the report that that individual was to report to the
Legislature, although appointed by government.
There is no reporting procedure now available and so the process whereby
families in particular feel that they will be adequately protected and
adequately involved seems to be in some jeopardy as a result of this particular
piece of legislation.
One of the difficulties that appears to be
in this particular bill, quite frankly, is that it simply does not go far enough.
Bill 30 in its draft form appeared, although I must make reference here to the
fact that I never saw the draft, all I had was a briefing from the minister's
staff about what was included in that draft, but I understood from that
briefing and my briefing notes from that meeting that this would be a much more
leading‑edge piece of legislation and I do not see that in this
particular piece of legislation.
I hesitate to use the word because it is
not in reference at this particular point in time to a political party, but the
bill seems to be more conservative than I thought the original draft
legislation was going to be. That is
regrettable, because I think that
Another part of the bill which I think,
however, is very positive is the initiative in the bill that requires for each
person in the
I see the overall weaknesses of the
particular piece of legislation as being three.
First and foremost, there is not the statement of principles that I
thought were to be the guiding principle of every other aspect of the
bill. That is why I took the time to
read the statement of principles because, without that statement of principles,
the bill tends to be a very conservative bill when in fact it could have been a
far more ranging and far more proactive bill in dealing with those suffering
from vulnerabilities. Secondly, the
appeal process is not, certainly in my reading, provided for except in name
only. It is simply a paper tiger.
Finally, mandatory reporting is not
provided, and this perhaps gives me the greatest concern of all. I do not know whether it is simply an
oversight‑‑and again I want to question the minister about this‑‑but
in my reading of the bill, it appears that if a community social worker comes
across a situation in which a vulnerable person, as defined by this act, has
been either physically abused or mentally abused or sexually abused, there is
no mandatory reporting to police authorities. This is something beyond my
understanding.
I hope it is simply an oversight, because
I cannot imagine that we could live in a society in which it is rightfully done
that any abuse, when a teacher is notified, must be immediately reported, that
abuse observed by any police authority must be immediately prosecuted, but an
abuse which a community social worker or service worker comes up against with
regard to a vulnerable person need not be reported, and I have to say that I am
befuddled and, quite frankly, in a total lack of understanding as to why this
simply would not exist.
Those are my principal comments on this
particular bill. As I said earlier, I
look forward to this going to committee.
I certainly do not have a full understanding of this particular piece of
legislation, despite the fact that I have read it, despite the fact that I have
met with people in the field. I am not
an expert on vulnerable persons. I look
forward to those who are expert coming to our committee and offering their
advice. I will have some amendments that
I want to present to the minister in committee, and I look forward to a lively
debate in committee, lively in the sense of a positive debate in hopes that we
can make what is a start in the right direction, an even better piece of
legislation. Thank you, Madam Deputy
Speaker.
Bill 32‑The
Social Allowances Amendment Act
Madam Deputy Speaker: To resume debate on second reading of Bill 32
(The Social Allowances Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'aide sociale),
standing in the name of the honourable member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry).
An Honourable Member: Stand.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is there leave to permit the bill to remain
standing? (interjection) There is no leave to permit the bill to remain
standing. Leave has been denied.
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs
(River Heights): Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill
32, which is one of those little bills which is deceptively simple, looks,
appears to in fact do very little of anything and yet is going to have a
devastating impact, I think, on the future of many young people in the province
of Manitoba.
This is a bill that simply says The Social
Allowances Act is amended by this act.
Clause 5(1)(h) is repealed.
Subsection 5(2) was repealed.
Clause 19.l(k) is repealed. This
act comes into force on July 1, 1993.
What could be simpler than that?
If anybody outside this House picked up this bill, they would say, well,
that does not mean very much, but, in fact, it means a great deal.
This little piece of legislation, a one‑page
bill, half a paragraph if you will, does.
It ends student social allowances in the
This bill and these sections made it
possible for single‑parent mothers, for those who because they failed to
see the value of their education when they were 15 or 16 and who found
themselves at dead ends, unable to find employment, and invariably unable to
find employment because they lacked education, could in fact go to the province
and say, look, I know I am unemployable, I know I do not have the skills. I need to go back to work at school. I need to complete my education, because I
have tried knocking on those doors. I
have tried finding employment, and I cannot find it. I cannot find employment because I do not
have skills of a sufficient level to find that employment. So they picked themselves up and they said, I
have to change my way of life, and I have to go back to school.
The province just did not give them the
money. The province stated very clearly that
there had to be restrictions. Nobody
could continue to take Student Social Allowance if they were not performing
satisfactorily at school. In other
words, they had to pass their courses.
They could not just dither away at going to school. They had to have academic achievement.
They also had to be taking a sufficiently
large course load to make it realistic for them to be given Student Social
Allowance. So we had 1,200 people, many
of them single‑parent moms, all of them dropouts at some point in their
career, going back to school, 1,200 young people who were, as a result of this
particular program and initiative, going to be given an opportunity to climb up
the ladder of success.
* (1630)
The minister, in announcing the changes to
this, as they have announced changes to a number of other programs, will give
the argument, we simply did not have the money, we were running out of money,
the province was in debt. Madam Deputy
Speaker, that may have made sense if the people who were on this particular
program would leave this program and become gainfully employed. The reality is,
they went into this program because they could not become gainfully employed,
and they were not able to be gainfully employed because they lacked the
educational skills. So we have taken them out of this program, and where have
the majority of these people gone? They
have gone simply into the social welfare system. So we have not saved a penny.
Indeed, I think it can be argued, and very
strongly, that in the long run we are going to pay the cost over and over and
over again, because while we may have needed to give these people a helping
hand for two or three years while they gained their education, they were then
going to become gainfully employed. They, in turn, were going to be taxpayers,
and they were going to raise children whose value system meant that you stayed
in school, you got your education, and you in turn became a taxpayer.
What happens now? Most of these people who had a dream of being
able to get back into life in the mainstream have now watched that dream turn
into a nightmare. They are going to be
on social assistance. Many of them are
single‑parent moms. Their children are going to be raised in a home in
which their parent is living on social assistance. We know statistically that if children live in
a family environment in which the parent has lived on social assistance, then
there is a tendency for them too to live on social assistance.
So what might have been a two‑ or
three‑ or even four‑year plan for this particular individual may
now become a 20‑ or a 25‑year plan for this same individual where
they live on social assistance for decades instead of giving them the
opportunity to get off the system.
If one does any analysis of the statistics
of people who have been in this program, the results have been very
positive. Those who have been in the
program have frequently been able to get back into the workforce. Many have continued on to even higher levels
of education which, if statistics are of any value, means that they earn even
more money and they are able to pay this government even more in taxes. So I find it difficult to comprehend the mind‑set
of a government that made this particular decision, because it does not save
money.
The government also used the argument when
it introduced it that
So this very deceptively tiny little bill
has, in my mind, thwarted and gone against most of the things which the Premier
(Mr. Filmon) of this province and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) have
been saying in every Speech from the Throne since 1988. They have talked about the need to invest in
the future, they have talked about the need to invest in young people, they
have talked about the need to invest in skills training, they have talked about
the need to enhance education and, yet, in one signing of a pen, they have
eliminated all of those abilities from 1,200 people. Yet they seem unwilling or unable to change
their mind.
Madam Deputy Speaker, this is indeed a
very bad reflection of a policy initiative which was supposed to enhance opportunities
for young people in the
We want our young people to stay here, but
we also know they cannot stay here if we do not have job opportunities. We will not have job opportunities if we do not
have a skilled workforce, and we will not have a skilled workforce if we do not
keep our young people in school, giving them their opportunity to achieve that
skill level.
(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Acting Speaker, in the
Chair)
So we will vote against this bill. We will vote against it because it it wrong‑headed,
we will vote against it because it defies what they, the government, have been
saying consistently for five years is a necessary direction for them to
take. We will vote against it because it
has turned the dreams of 1,200 young people this year and 1,200 young people
for years to come, as long as this government is the government of this
province, into what can only be described as a first‑class nightmare.
Thank you, Mr. Acting Speaker.
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): Mr. Acting Speaker, I move, seconded by the
member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), that debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
Committee
Change
Mr. Neil Gaudry (St.
Boniface): I move, seconded by the member for
Motion agreed to.
* * *
Hon. Clayton Manness (Government
House Leader): Mr. Acting Speaker, would you call Bills 20,
10 and 2, please.
Bill 20‑The
Social Allowances Regulation Validation Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae), Bill 20 (The Social Allowances Regulation
Validation Act; Loi validant un reglement d'application de la Loi sur l'aide
sociale), standing in the name of the honourable member for Wellington (Ms.
Barrett).
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave that this bill remain standing?
(agreed)
Bill 10‑The
Farm Lands Ownership Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay), Bill 10 (The Farm Lands Ownership
Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur la
propriete agricole et apportant des modifications correlatives a d'autres
lois), standing in the name of the honourable member for Point Douglas (Mr.
Hickes).
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave that this matter remain
standing? (agreed)
Bill 2‑The
Endangered Species Amendment Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion
of the honourable Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Enns), Bill 2 (The
Endangered Species Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les especes en voie
de disparition) standing in the name of the honourable member for Brandon East
(Mr. Leonard Evans).
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave that this bill remain standing?
(agreed)
* * *
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Acting Speaker,
would you call Bills 34, 37 and 45.
Bill 34‑The
Public Schools Amendment (Francophone Schools Governance) Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
Minister of Education (Mrs. Vodrey), Bill 34 (The Public Schools Amendment
(Francophone Schools Governance) Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les ecoles
publiques (gestion des ecoles francaises)), standing in the name of the
honourable member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen).
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave that this matter remain
standing? (agreed)
Bill 37‑The
Manitoba Public Insurance Corporation Amendment
And
Consequential Amendments Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion
of the honourable Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings), Bill 37 (The Manitoba
Public Insurance Corporation Amendment and consequential Amendments Act; Loi
modifiant la Loi sur la Societe d'assurance publique du
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave that this matter remain
standing? (agreed)
* (1640)
Bill 45‑The
Coat of Arms, Emblems and the
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs. Mitchelson), Bill 45 (The
Coat of Arms, Emblems and the Manitoba Tartan Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la
Loi sur les armoiries, les emblemes et le tartan du Manitoba), standing in the
name of the honourable member for Concordia (Mr. Doer).
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave that this matter remain
standing? (agreed)
Mr. Jerry Storie (Flin
Flon): Mr. Acting Speaker, every session there are
what we call sleepers in the legislative package. This is one of those sleepers. It is quite obvious that the government in
introducing a spate of legislation in the dying weeks of the session, some
would say, and what is obvious is one of those bills that the government has
chosen to attempt to bury in amongst the legislation package of the government
is Bill 45.
Bill 45, on the surface, appears to be an
innocuous piece of legislation. Bill 45 is
entitled The Coat of Arms, Emblems and the Manitoba Tartan Amendment Act. It is hardly the kind of grist that would
stir the hearts of most legislators. In
fact, I suspect that a good number of colleagues on both sides of the House
when they looked at the title of the bill and glanced through it said, right,
this is another piece of fluff from a tired government. (interjection) The
Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs. Mitchelson) says wait until
Manitobans hear about this. That is what
I want to do in my few minutes was to make Manitobans aware of what this
government is attempting to foist onto the unsuspecting public in
Mr. Acting Speaker, I have to commend this
bill to the public of Manitoba to read, not only to read the bill which is
essentially unintelligible because it is in neither of the official languages
but is indeed in the heraldic language which is a language unto itself, quite
obviously. What I would like Manitobans
to do is to read the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship's remarks
June 18, 1993, in this Legislature, dealing with this piece of legislation.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we can only believe
one of two things with respect to this legislation. Either the Premier (Mr. Filmon) of this
province and the Minister of Culture have been duped in historic proportions by
the Governor‑General of this country or there is a much more sinister
plot afoot in the actions of the government to introduce a new coat of arms to
the
Mr. Acting Speaker, I am not going to make
any disparaging comments about the artistic licence of someone who wants to
design a new
I want to just point out, Mr. Acting
Speaker, when the minister introduced this legislation, she quite supportively
held up this piece of legislation and said, I would like to show members this
new augmented coat of arms.
I want to point out to members of the
Legislature the most obvious characteristic of this new augmented coat of
arms. It is a beaver with a crown on his
back. It is a beaver with a crown on his
back! I am not sure what that
symbolizes. I have never seen a beaver
with a crown on his back. I represent
probably one‑third of the province's trappers, and I have asked a lot of
trappers. I have said, when was the last
time you saw a beaver with a crown on his back?
When did you last catch a beaver with a crown on its back?
Mr. Acting Speaker, that is not the
worst. I think the most insensitive,
particularly for the poor beaver, an industrious, hard‑working animal
that symbolized our economic roots, the most insulting aspect of this new
augmented coat of arms is this beaver‑‑and I will read it: " . . . a beaver sejeant upholding with
its back a representation of the Royal Crown proper its dexter forepaw raised
holding a prairie crocus . . . ."
Mr. Acting Speaker, this is such an abuse
of artistic licence. No one is going to
accept a beaver with a crown on its back holding a crocus. A beaver, I can assure you, does not have an
apposable thumb. Why a beaver would be
carrying a crocus‑‑of course, a crocus is not particularly a part
of its natural habitat. It may have
strayed off into the prairie somewhere. Certainly in northern
Mr. Acting Speaker, this is too juvenile
for us to take seriously as an augmented coat of arms.
An Honourable Member: All beavers are Tories because they are hard
working, industrious . . . .
Mr. Storie: Mr. Acting Speaker, this particular beaver is
neither hard working nor industrious.
This beaver is obviously a king of some sort or a queen of some sort,
because it is wearing a crown and carrying a crocus. That is hardly emblematic of a hard‑working
Manitoban, let alone a hard‑working beaver.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Order, please.
I am really having a hard time hearing the honourable member for Flin Flon.
I am caught on every word, and I would appreciate it if everyone would listen.
Mr. Storie: If the beaver is wearing a crown, it should be
carrying a silver spoon. It should not
be carrying a crocus.
This does not represent anything
particularly germane to
I would refer members to the previous page
which reflects the coat of arms that we have had in this province since 1905, a
representation of
There are so many sort of anachronistic
kinds of representations in this coat of arms that one would have to go through
them one at a time. Where does the
unicorn come in in the history of
What is more interesting when you read the
minister's words is how we came to a position where this Legislature is being
asked to consider the introduction of a new coat of arms for Manitoba. Where did it come from?
* (1650)
Mr. Acting Speaker, I am not sure whether
the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs. Mitchelson) recognized
that the chronology she put forward in her remarks are a little skewed somehow.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the history is thus,
it appears, from the minister's remarks anyway, that in 1988, the federal
government decided that we needed to spend more money designing these kinds of
emblems and coats of arms. The federal
government decided that we needed to spend more money on this. Of course, it could not find money for health
care, it could not find money for education, post‑secondary education,
but it decided that we needed an augmented coat of arms.
So what happened then? It is apparent that someone went to a great
deal of effort designing this new augmented coat of arms and then proposed that
Manitoba adopt the coat of arms, because the minister again says that the
minister was proud to attend with the honourable Governor‑General, The
Right Honourable Ray Hnatyshyn, on October 23, 1992, for the unveiling of this
new augmented coat of arms.
Mr. Acting Speaker, then she goes on to say‑‑obviously,
the Premier (Mr. Filmon) was at this unveiling.
Then she goes on to say, in May of this year‑‑well, wait a
minute. If we unveiled the actual
augmented coat of arms last October, why would the Premier and the Minister of
Culture and Heritage have said in May of this year, I am assuming May of 1993,
our Premier, on behalf of the government and people of Manitoba advised his
honour that we wanted this new augmented coat of arms to represent Manitoba,
and we wanted it to help us celebrate the 125th anniversary of our country.
Mr. Acting Speaker, I can assure the
Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship and the Premier that on no
occasion did anyone say, yes, what we need in Manitoba to symbolize our
progress is a beaver carrying a crocus. That
did not happen, nor did it say, well, let us put this crazy beaver on top of a
knight's hat along with a unicorn. This
is wrong.
Although I think this may be the dirty
licence plate debate of 1993‑‑the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness)
may remember that debate‑‑there is a serious side to this. Not only is there a legitimate question about
the appropriateness of this coat of arms‑‑I would hazard to guess
that if members opposite would take the two coats of arms, the one that has
been in place since 1905 that has come to symbolize what Manitoba is, a plain
and simple and hard‑working province, and show them what is being
proposed, some artist's rendition of nirvana in Manitoba‑‑I do not
know what it is‑‑I think Manitobans would reject it, categorically
reject it.
Mr. Acting Speaker, what is more important
is that they have a legitimate right to ask:
What did this cost? When the
federal government in 1988 created this new‑‑I will get the right
term for it‑‑Canadian heraldic authority, what are Canadian
taxpayers paying for this kind of loose interpretation of
The fact of the matter is that the
Does that mean that we are now going to
have to commission someone to redo the Speaker's chair to reflect the new coat
of arms? Does it mean that all of the
letterheads in the
Mr. Acting Speaker, the fact of the matter
is, whether the Minister of Culture and Heritage (Mrs. Mitchelson) wants to
admit it, that this has and will cost the taxpayers of
As I said at the beginning, there was no
one clamouring for a change in the coat of arms. There was certainly no one clamouring for
this particular coat of arms. I suggest
that the government, with all due respect to the Governor‑General and to
the Lieutenant‑Governor, without any necessary insult to the artists who
rendered this particular version, that we turn it back. I suggest we turn this back. It simply is not good enough for the
We have a coat of arms that everyone
recognizes, that prominently displays the buffalo, which is you know the
economic base of our province, which reflects the cultures that came before us,
an important symbol in their life‑‑not only a symbol, but an
important element in their existence, in their economies. We simply do not need
any kindergarten version of all of the elements put in a pile, and that is what
has happened.
Mr. Acting Speaker, someone made a list of
all the representations you could possibly put on a coat of arms and simply
piled them in some sort of holus‑bolus fashion so they would be included‑‑a
beaver standing on a gold helmet, carrying a crocus, with a horse and a unicorn
with other symbols of Manitoba around their neck.
I do not pretend to rise to speak on
behalf of all of my colleagues. I can
tell members opposite that this weighty issue has not taken up, at this point,
any caucus time, but I think Manitobans have a right to ask two questions: Do we need this, and can we afford this?
I think quite obviously the government has
wasted considerable time in preparing this and proposing this, and the
government should get on with the business that is really important to Manitoba‑‑the
55,000 that are unemployed, the 74,000 that are on welfare. I do not think this new, improved, augmented
coat of arms represents anything that we need to have changed in terms of our
own coat of arms.
Mr. Acting Speaker, as I said, our caucus
has not formally considered this, but I can tell members opposite that I will
not be supporting this new coat of arms.
I will not be supporting it. I
have spoken to a number of members on either side of the House, and I know
there is a genuine concern that we may be turning our back on a symbol that has
served
We may be introducing to our province
something that will be mocked by future generations, by other Canadians, who
look at the symbol and look at the way it is constructed and raise serious
concerns about whether in fact it should be taken seriously.
So I do not know what others have to say
on this. I looked at it and considered
it, and I want to say that I do not think it is a particularly useful, a particularly
positive amendment to our present coat of arms.
I do not think it is worth whatever cost that the
Perhaps if the government wishes at some
future time after the education system is properly funded and the health care
system is properly funded, after we reinstate the home care system, the
homemaking to seniors in the province of Manitoba, after we reinstate the
student bursary program, Mr. Speaker, perhaps then we can worry about the
augmented coat of arms which in my estimation mocks us more than it symbolizes
us, and I think that is unfortunate.
So, Mr. Acting Speaker, I will be opposing
this piece of legislation on moral grounds, on economic grounds, and I am
anxious to see whether the government in fact can stand up and support this
piece of legislation beyond what the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship
(Ms. Mitchelson) has already done, which is simply parrot some words that were
put before her by members in her department, most likely.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): As previously agreed, this matter will remain
standing in the name of the honourable member for Concordia (Mr. Doer).
Hon. Clayton Manness
(Government House Leader): Mr. Acting Speaker,
is there a willingness to waive private members' hour and stay on bills?
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave to waive private members' hour?
Some Honourable Members:
No.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): No.
The hour being 5 p.m., time for private
members' hour.
* (1700)
PRIVATE
MEMBERS' BUSINESS
DEBATE ON
SECOND READINGS‑PUBLIC BILLS
Bill 200‑The
Child and Family Services Amendment Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
member for
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Stand.
Also standing in the name of the honourable Minister of Family Services. Stand? Stand.
Bill 202‑The
Residential Tenancies Amendment Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale), (Bill 202, The Residential Tenancies
Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur la location a usage d'habitation),
standing in the name of the honourable member for
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Agreed.
Bill 203‑The
Health Care Records Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
member for
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave this matter remain standing?
(agreed)
Bill 205‑The
Ombudsman Amendment Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak), (Bill 205, The Ombudsman Amendment Act; Loi
modifiant la Loi sur l'ombudsman), standing in the name of the honourable
member for Niakwa (Mr. Reimer). Stand?
(agreed)
Bill 208‑The
Workers Compensation Amendment Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
member for Transcona (Mr. Reid), (Bill 208, The Workers Compensation Amendment
Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les accidents du travail), standing in the name
of the honourable member for Niakwa (Mr. Reimer). Stand? (agreed)
Bill 209‑The
Public Health Amendment Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable
member for
Bill 212‑The
Dauphin Memorial Community Centre Board Repeal Act
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): On the proposed motion of the honourable member
for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman), (Bill 212, The Dauphin Memorial Community Centre
Board Repeal Act; Loi abrogeant la Loi sur le Conseil du Centre commemoratif de
Dauphin), standing in the name of the honourable member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer). Stand?
An Honourable Member: Stand.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Is there leave this matter remain standing?
(agreed)
SECOND
READINGS‑PUBLIC BILLS
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Bill 214 (The Beverage Container Act; Loi sur
les contenants de boisson). No?
Bill 216‑An
Act to amend An Act to Protect the Health of Non‑Smokers
Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader
of the Second Opposition): Mr. Acting Speaker,
I move, seconded by the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), that Bill 216, An
Act to amend An Act to Protect the Health of Non‑Smokers; Loi modifiant
la Loi sur la protection de la sante des non‑fumeurs, be now read a
second time and be referred to a committee of this House.
Motion presented.
Mr. Edwards: Mr. Acting Speaker, it gives me great
pleasure to rise today to speak at second reading to this bill which is a
relatively short and simple bill but does address a very serious issue. I would like to bring to honourable members'
attention that this bill is recommended to all honourable members by the Canadian
Cancer Society,
This bill essentially makes a change to
the standard of proof required in order to successfully prosecute one who sells
tobacco products to minors, that is, persons under the age of 18 years. This
bill was originally brought forward‑‑that is, The Act to Protect
the Health of Non‑Smokers, Chapter S125, Manitoba consolidated statutes‑‑and
passed in this House in early 1990 brought forward by a member of the New
Democratic Party. At that time, we all
joined in this House in supporting that legislation and putting it into place
because we wanted to give protection to those who did not smoke themselves in
public places, and we also wanted to get serious in our dealing with those who
regularly sold tobacco products to minors.
It is, of course, a very important social
goal that we do everything we can to stop minors from engaging in smoking,
because we know that they become adults who smoke and that the fastest growing
group of people in terms of starting smoking are youth, and in particular,
female youth. That is the target group
of the cigarette companies. We know
this.
We know that these people go on to smoke
for many years, although increasingly we are seeing people quit smoking, which
of course is laudable. We are seeing
still large numbers of young people, in particular young women, take up this
habit which of course is very, very unfortunate, as it poses a serious health
risk to them and indeed to those around them.
Mr. Acting Speaker, very briefly, Section
7 of the bill, The Act to Protect the Health of Non‑Smokers, restricts
cigarette sales to minors, in fact, it is broader than cigarettes. It is cigarettes, cigars or tobacco or any
cigarette or tobacco products, restricts those where the retailer knowingly
sells or gives those products to the minor.
The key there is knowingly, because the
fact is that is an unduly onerous burden of proof on the Crown to actually
bring a charge and successfully prosecute the vendor. We have seen this in this House on other
legislation, most currently in the solvent abuse area where we have seen the
same standard not work.
That is, it is too difficult to have the
Crown prosecute and prove that a person did not know that the person was under
the age of 18 years. We are not there, of
course, at the time that the products are actually given or sold, and the truth
is that standard of proof results in, you know, a very difficult prosecution,
and the result of that is that the charges simply are not laid because it is
only in the most blatant cases that a conviction is going to be achieved.
So the practice in these regulatory quasi‑criminal
statutes has been around the country, and Manitoba is no exception, to lower
the burden of proof on the Crown and in effect to shift the onus to the accused
to show that there was due diligence exerted to find out whether or not this
person was in fact a minor. It is called
a strict liability offence, and it is well known in legal circles. While it is not strictly in keeping with the
presumption of innocence and the fact that the Crown has to prove anything, in
these regulatory offences the strict liability wording is often used.
Now, Mr. Acting Speaker, it is also
important to realize that the actual sale itself to the minor does not in and
of itself result in a finding of guilt and a conviction. There is still a defence, and the defence has
been set out in strict liability offences by the Supreme Court of Canada, and
that defence is the defence of due diligence.
It is a defence set out in the case of R. versus Sault Ste. Marie, a
well‑known case in the legal community.
What that says is even though it says just by virtue of the act of sale
or giving the product, that in and of itself will not result in a conviction.
It shifts the onus to the accused. The accused must then respond and show due
diligence in attempting to determine whether or not the person was under the
age of 18 years. Is that an unfair
burden in this type of offence? I think
not. What it says is that silence on the
part of the accused will not be enough when it has been shown that cigarette,
tobacco products, have been sold or given to a minor. The accused then has to answer and say
something that would show that due diligence was used to determine the age of
that person.
So that is an important concept. It does not take away the rights of the
accused. What it does is it sets a
higher standard for the accused and a lower standard for the Crown. In this type of offence the reality is that
there will not be charges. There will
not be convictions unless we require something of the accused to show that
there was some investigation, some question even‑‑are you 18, show
me some identification, something like that to put the burden on the
vendor. That is where it should be, Mr.
Acting Speaker.
The reality is that we have talked about
the solvent abuse legislation, The Liquor Control Act, many other acts in these
regulatory areas. This is the test. The Crown does not have to show as part of its
case that the person actually knew that they were under the age of 18. They have to prove the sale and then the
burden shifts. So it is not unduly
onerous to the accused, and it is important to control the large‑scale
sale of cigarette products to minors. I
venture to say that the little grocery stores that open up right next to the
junior high school, or even the elementary school or the high school, they know
full well who they are selling cigarettes to.
They are selling cigarettes and tobacco products to underage
people. They know that.
Those are the people that we want to bring
before the courts and have them explain and answer what investigation they
undertook to determine whether or not this person was under the age of 18. That is not an unfair test to put those
people through, Mr. Acting Speaker.
I believe that this will be in the
interests of the general health of the community, in particular to those people
who are under the age of 18 and are being exposed to very slick advertising to
sell tobacco products and get them started in smoking at a very young age. That is the new market and that is the way
that advertising is being directed by the tobacco companies, so I do not think
this is an unduly onerous test.
* (1710)
I think it will result in some
prosecutions. There will still be
defences available. I believe it will
result in prosecutions which will result in convictions and send a message. I do not think it is going to take many
convictions to send a message. Those in
the business of selling cigarette products to minors will learn very quickly,
with a few successful prosecutions, that this is not tolerable, that they will
not be allowed to sell to underage people without some investigation of the age
of those people and that making their business selling to underage smokers will
not result in being allowed to do that with impunity.
So again, Mr. Acting Speaker, I recommend
this bill to members. I do not want to
take up too much time, because I want to leave members the opportunity to
comment on it. I believe this should be
passed to the committee governing private members' bills. I believe it is a nonpartisan bill. It has been recommended by the Canadian
Cancer Society. I believe it will have a
very beneficial impact on the community at large.
With those comments, I again recommend
this bill for speedy passage to all members of this House.
Mr. Edward Helwer
(Gimli): I move, seconded by the member for Sturgeon
Creek (Mr. McAlpine), that debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr.
Laurendeau): Six o'clock?
Is it the will of the House to call it six o'clock? (agreed)
The hour now being six o'clock, the House
now stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday).