Just passed to me a moment ago, before I began my comments, was a press clipping from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan‑‑I believe it is a Canadian Press wire service story‑‑dated yesterday. It is from Saskatoon. It says: Staff cuts will increase elective surgery waiting lists at Saskatoon hospitals, says the president of the provincial health board. We would anticipate some increases, John Malcolm said Monday. About 200 union and nonunion workers at the three hospitals lost their jobs in layoffs announced Friday.

This is in a small city compared to Winnipeg, the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The article goes on, Mr. Acting Speaker: Malcolm stressed the board will closely monitor waiting lists and make changes where necessary. Starting in May, one hospital in the city will function every third Friday, as if it were a statutory holiday, with fewer workers.

An Honourable Member: Where is that?

Mr. McCrae: This is in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, our neighbours to the west.

An Honourable Member: That is an NDP government.

Mr. McCrae: Yes, that is right. That is an NDP government, in Saskatchewan, is it not? They have an NDP government in British Columbia as well.

Mr. Acting Speaker, I remember these things because I, from time to time, am asked by honourable members opposite to be mindful that changes and reductions at St. Boniface Hospital, for example, have an impact. I know they have an impact. They have an impact on jobs, and they have a potential impact on care. Although the research and the studies and the evaluation of the situation since those closures and changes has resulted in a report that patient care, and patients returning to hospital as a result of poor care, there is no difference before or after the changes at St. Boniface Hospital. That is happening here in my province. I look at British Columbia, and I am reminded that their way of dealing with the crisis that we face in health care in this country is to close a major urban hospital called Shaughnessy Hospital in Vancouver. That was the response there.

The response in Ontario has been‑‑I do not know if my running count is up to date. The last figures I had were that they had closed 3,500 beds in Ontario and thrown 14,000 hospital staff out of work.

Mr. Acting Speaker, I do not say those things to be critical of those provinces. I say those things to be critical of the kind of hypocrisy of honourable members opposite when they suggest that they somehow are critical of what we are doing here in Manitoba with a planned approach as laid out in the Quality Health for Manitobans: The Action Plan, which was put out by my predecessor in the spring of 1992. The things we are doing are consistent with that plan, and that plan enjoys the unanimous support of everyone who was consulted. That is, over 13,000 Manitobans have been involved in that consultation and implementation process. Honourable members opposite would leave the impression that somehow that consultation is not happening when indeed it is.

Health reform and change in recent months have also meant the announcement of a province‑wide breast screening program, the announcement of our support for future midwifery programs, changes and improvements to our home care system, which, at Seven Oaks Hospital, includes a private company, We Care Home Health Services, which honourable members opposite were quick to attack before checking with the patients who are benefiting from that pilot project. The patients who are served by the We Care Home Health Services in conjunction with Seven Oaks Hospital like the program and like the services that are being delivered. Our friends opposite hate it, and that tells me a little bit about how tuned in honourable members opposite are.

Mr. Acting Speaker, we are into a lung transplant program. We are into enhanced psychiatric training for general practitioners in Manitoba. After many years of need, we have decided that we will have to do without the support of the federal government with respect to forensic facilities. Very recently I was able to announce in Selkirk the future long life of the Selkirk Mental Health Centre with the advent of a new forensic service delivery system operating out of that centre.

We have announced mental health service improvements in Thompson, in Flin Flon, in The Pas, in Eastman, in south and north Eastman, in the Interlake area. We have opened a self‑help office in conjunction with three or four self‑help groups in Brandon, Manitoba as well.

Mr. Acting Speaker, just in case some people do not know where Brandon, Manitoba, is, Brandon, Manitoba, is about two and a half hours to the west of us and is Manitoba's second city. In reference to the We Care Home Health Services, honourable members opposite refer to the Americanization of our health care system because we use the services of a firm that began in the city of Brandon.

Because of support in the community for such services and need for those services, that company has grown into many, many franchises, and it has only done that by serving people well. That is why they have grown, and they have been used by the Seven Oaks Hospital contracted with on a pilot basis to improve service for people on an early discharge program.

Mr. Acting Speaker, health care reform is moving forward and is moving forward with the support of all kinds of health care providers and health care consumers. As honourable members opposite might be interested in knowing, they are helping us in many, many health care improvement committees and task forces that we have at work and assisting their fellow citizens and the government of Manitoba in the development of a quality health system for many, many years to come.

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Before I‑‑I cannot see that. What does that say? [interjection] I am sorry, Mr. Acting Speaker. I was distracted just momentarily by a member of the Liberal caucus who is flogging lottery tickets.

I do represent, and very proudly so, the people of Brandon West in this Legislature, and I have done so since 1986. It is not very often I have taken the honourable member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) to task, because for the most part I feel he is trying to do his job and I am trying to do my job. But once in a while something happens to the honourable member for Brandon East, and he needs to have a few things brought to his attention.

If Chatelaine magazine believes that Brandon is one of the 10 best cities in Canada, why can the honourable member for Brandon East not give the city of Brandon credit for something? Why does he always downgrade our community? What kind of advertisement does he want to put out for Brandon, Manitoba? Oh, do not come here anybody. Any seed houses should not come to Brandon because we do not know how to sell seeds, even though Brandon's own McKenzie Seeds controls 70 percent of the seed market in this country. But if you ever entered into any kind of a partnership agreement for growth for McKenzie Seeds, the first thing they would do would be leave Brandon. Well, they never have yet, Mr. Speaker, and they control 70 percent of the market.

I really think the honourable member for Brandon East should re‑examine his approach. He should ask his constituents if they think it is the right thing to do for him to take one of the most respected citizens of Brandon, in the person of Ray West, President and CEO of McKenzie Seeds, obviously a well‑respected individual in the seed business and certainly in the business community in Brandon‑‑a very highly respected person.

To take personal shots at the president and CEO of a company which he and his colleagues at McKenzie Seeds have brought out of the doldrums, started making handsome profits, even paying back the government of Manitoba the money that McKenzie Seeds owes because of past misadventures in other times, all of these things have been happening with the help of the likes of Ray West, and that is the person that the honourable member for Brandon East decides to single out for abuse.

He clearly owes Ray West a very, very sincere apology. He owes everybody at McKenzie Seeds an apology, the whole community. He owes the people of the city of Brandon and the people of Manitoba one great big apology for downgrading the city of Brandon in the way that he has.

On the other hand, Brandon is too good a place for the jobs that GWE might bring to Brandon. They are going to bring a large number. The last count I heard it was growing. I do not know what it is going to grow to, but it is going to employ many Manitobans and Brandonites. The honourable member for Brandon East says, oh, the jobs are not good enough.

Well, excuse me. We have raised five children in Brandon, and any one of my children would have been very happy, had the opportunity arisen, to have been able to be employed with a company like that. There are many, many other Brandon people, young and old, who appreciate the opportunity to be employed. It is not good enough, Mr. Acting Speaker, to talk jobs, jobs, jobs and then be against them every time jobs are created.

Ayerst Organics is another example. I am a Manitoban, a western Manitoban and a Brandonite, and I am very pleased to see Ayerst Organics expanding its operations in Brandon, not only for the employment, the high quality employment that it can generate in my community, but also the generation of economic activity, employment, jobs all throughout Manitoba and beyond in the production of PMU to bring to Ayerst to make into pharmaceutical products for women around the world. I am proud of that development.

But where is the honourable member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) when his colleague the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) and her friends do everything they can to destroy that company? Where is the honourable member for Brandon East? Well, they used to call him bunker Len for short. Maybe there is something to that. We wonder where he is when those issues come up. We have not heard him say anything except, oh, I support Ayerst Organics. Does he say that to the face of the honourable member for Radisson? Does he say that in the caucus room of the New Democrats? What does he say there? What does he say publicly in terms of repudiating the kind of behaviour of the honourable member for Radisson in her attempt to destroy industry in Manitoba? Deadly silent, Mr. Acting Speaker, and it is very, very disturbing.

Then I referred in my earlier comments to We Care Home Services. This is a company that has been contracted by Seven Oaks Hospital to provide early discharge care for people being discharged from Seven Oaks Hospital. The honourable members opposite in their opposition to all of this do a disservice to their fellow citizens. They call into question the ability and even the wish of Seven Oaks Hospital to provide quality care to the people within their care. I mean, what kind of statements have honourable members opposite been making about Seven Oaks when they have been making those statements about We Care and the Americanization of health care, so‑called, by this Brandon firm in cahoots with Seven Oaks Hospital drumming up this plan to destroy health care in Manitoba.

I do not accept any of that. The reason I do not accept it is because it is not founded in any facts. Another reason I do not accept it is that patient care is improving, not as honourable members opposite would have you believe, but then again, Mr. Acting Speaker, where is the honourable member for Brandon East when it comes to defending and promoting the growth of a firm that had its beginning in Brandon and is working in a good economic climate created by this government and has been able to build itself into a larger company?

How did it become a larger company? It became a larger company because the people value the services delivered by that company. Before we get all carried away with our socialist mindset, with our socialist blinkered dogma, let us look at what is right for the people before we get so carried away in our opposition to quality improvements in care. All of this from an opposition that opposes each of our budgets, opposes each of our throne speeches every year. You can count on it, Mr. Acting Speaker. Why? Because those budgets and throne speeches stand for taxes that stay down and not grow as they did in the years of the New Democrats, a government that stands for and works for growth and a government that works for the creation of jobs at places like McKenzie Seeds, places like GWE, places like Ayerst Organics and all of the spinoff from that, places like We Care, places like Louisiana Pacific.

Mr. Acting Speaker, the Liberals ought not to be let off the hook on this point because my colleagues in the Liberal Party, through their Health critic, the other day, jumped right into that little trap that somebody laid for the NDP, which the NDP were all ready to jump into anyway, but the Liberals jumped into it with them. That is that issue again of private versus public.

You cannot for years on end criticize the public system, as honourable members opposite do, and then be critical also when the private sector is brought in as a partner in the delivery of health care.

Now, the private sector is brought in as a partner in this one particular pilot project. As I said earlier, I await with anticipation the evaluation. What are the Liberals going to say if that evaluation comes out very positive? What are they going to say then, oh, it is still wrong because it is run by the private sector?

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Well, how much do you want to be associated with the philosophy of the New Democrats, I ask my honourable Liberal friends opposite, because I am telling you, look at the direction the NDP philosophy is going, totally rejected most of the eastern world, the socialist dogma that we hear espoused from the benches opposite. I caution my friends in the Liberal Party, be careful about that.

An Honourable Member: Just do not call me a socialist.

Mr. McCrae: Well, you know what happens when you dance with the devil. Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, I did not mean that. I am sorry. I did not mean to say that. I withdraw that last comment.

An Honourable Member: I would think so.

Mr. McCrae: Yes, I did not mean that. I am sorry. Do not flirt with the socialists is my advice. I say that because the people will soundly reject the approaches of the New Democrats as they have done in the past. If you get too close to them, you will be soundly trounced as well.

I thank honourable members for their attention. I welcome all new members to this House and look forward to a positive working relationship. Thank you.

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): Mr. Acting Speaker, it is truly an honour and privilege to rise to speak in the Chamber today. I must first acknowledge the Speaker for the way he has treated all newly elected MLAs. He has treated us with fairness, kindness and respect, and for this I thank him.

I also wish to acknowledge the Clerk and his staff for their assistance in our first few months. I, along with my new colleagues from the class of '93, had the opportunity to attend a series of what were called orientation sessions shortly after being elected. These sessions should have been called survival courses for newly elected MLAs. They are very useful, and I thank the Clerk, the staff and all the other people who were a participant in those sessions.

An acknowledgement of the Pages is in order. I have already been impressed by these young individuals. When there is so much publicity when a young person is involved in youth crime or violence, it is a shame that the media have not taken notice of our Pages and done a story on them as examples of some of the best and brightest young people in our province.

In this adversarial environment of partisan party politics, I must comment on my colleagues in this Assembly. Members from all three parties have given me useful advice and encouragement since I entered this building.

Since being elected I have worked with a member from the NDP caucus, the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak), on establishing youth drop‑in centres in our constituency. I should note that the member for Kildonan and I first met when we took catechism classes together at Holy Eucharist Church in East Kildonan. There we went on to high school together at Miles Mac collegiate. We shared many of the same acquaintances and experiences growing up together. He went to become a lawyer, and I went to become a cop. I do not know where he went wrong.

The Justice minister has encouraged me to come to her office to obtain information that will be helpful to my constituents and fellow Manitobans. Without trying to score points by making a hit on the government to warrant the 20 seconds of fame on the six o'clock news, unless the latter is my true purpose, I am willing to try to work co‑operatively with the minister if it achieves what is best for my constituents and better serves all Manitobans.

Mr. Acting Speaker, although all MLAs whom I have dealt with have treated me well, the Liberal MLAs who make up our caucus have helped and supported me to an extent far beyond what I could have expected. After working the field of law enforcement for 20 years enforcing laws it is very strange for me to leave that environment and join the caucus to learn a new role as a politician making laws. The caucus has been very patient while I learn more about the process and how this place functions. I will reward their assistance, support and patience by becoming a contributing member to this process with the unique perspective that my background can bring to this Assembly.

I would be remiss if I did not pay tribute to the value, leadership and inspiration provided by my Leader. His achievements have, and will continue to have, a profound impact on the political future of Manitoba and this country. As Manitobans get to know our Leader better they will find, as I have, that to know him is to like and respect him. The more Manitobans get to know our Leader, the surer they will be that he is the person to lead this province after the next election.

The member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) has a difficult task. Many of the sergeants who have supervised me in the past can attest to that. I am opinionated, strong‑willed, assertive, and I have a tendency to contribute more than my share to any discussion. As the rest of the caucus has done, he has been patient, supportive and helpful. What I have appreciated the most from my Leader is the concern that he has shown for me personally and for the welfare of my family.

As MLAs we should not forget our caucus staff and our constituency assistants. In all three political parties the staff has shown their political bosses a great deal of loyalty and effort above and beyond the call of duty. They often do this with the realization that there is little job security working for an elected official.

(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)

I would like to take this opportunity as well to thank my family for their support and energy helping me to take on this important task. For 20 years my family had to put up with shift work, midnight shifts, overtime and other dubious benefits of having a police officer in the family. Now they have to put up with the never‑ending seven‑day‑a‑week schedule of an MLA, listening to public criticism of their husband and father and dealing with people who think our family is rich, when in fact they have to suffer the effects of reduced family income as a result of me assuming the position of MLA. I know all my colleagues in this House can appreciate what I am saying and know there are no words that can truly express the appreciation we have for our families.

A special mention is warranted for all those who participated in the past election, starting from those who went on to vote, the hundreds of volunteers who took a more active role in the political process by working for the candidate of their choice, to the candidates who put their names on the ballot. This is the type of participation that is needed in order for democracy to work effectively. I would also like to thank all those volunteers who put their time and effort in the past election to help me. It was and is a humbling experience to have so many people work so hard on my behalf.

At this time I would like to express my sincere thanks to the people of The Maples for putting their trust in me to serve their interests in this Assembly. For the duration of this government I will be working hard to earn the trust and confidence of all Maples residents, for in the election I was knocking on a lot of doors, in fact, every door in The Maples at least once, and I have the worn shoes to prove it.

Many constituents mentioned to me that it was important that the MLAs are not only around during elections but they are also around between elections. I have opened a constituency office in a central and accessible location in the centre of The Maples. Not only does this constituency office serve the important function of providing my constituents with easy access to me, their elected representative, but last night when a fire wiped out an apartment block nearby, it also served as emergency shelter for those left homeless. It was gratifying to me to be able to help these people who had suffered such a tragedy. I have been and will continue to be there to help all the residents of The Maples.

It is with great pleasure that I am here, elected by my constituents of The Maples to represent them in the daily deliberations of this Assembly. To each and every resident of The Maples as their elected representative I vow to serve them with fairness, with honour and with integrity.

The Maples is a wonderful constituency. It is an example of the multicultural mosaic that makes Manitoba such a great place to live. Many of my constituents are newcomers to Canada and to Manitoba and have not yet obtained their Canadian citizenship. The present community of The Maples reminds me of the way the area of the city known as the north end used to be. The old north end had a strong ethnic work ethic supplied from the influx of immigrants. The nationality of those immigrants depended upon what period of Manitoba history we are talking about for The north end has been the landing point of immigrants of different national origins for decades.

The strong work ethic and emphasis on family and the importance of a good education has resulted in some of Winnipeg's most successful people coming from the north end. Included in the list is our First Minister (Mr. Filmon), our federal cabinet minister, Lloyd Axworthy, and international recording artist, Burton Cummings. At one time, 12 of the 18 provincial court judges in the city could claim the honour of growing up in the north end. Our Speaker is indicating he was also from the north end.

What is interesting, out of those 12 provincial court judges, only two of them still remain living in the north end. Just as the old north end had a strong work ethic and other positive values that were reinforced by the culture of many of the immigrants who came to live there, so does The Maples. Just as the north end has supplied many of Manitoba's judges, politicians, entertainers, athletes and other successful people, so will The Maples.

The Maples is a suburban neighbourhood of hard‑working people. The area is represented by City Councillor Mike O'Shaughnessy at the municipal level, myself at the provincial level and Dr. Rey Pagtakhan at the federal level. These representatives are not only political colleagues, but I also consider them friends. We are working together to give the residents of The Maples the representation they deserve at all levels of government.

There are five elementary schools in The Maples: Arthur E Wright, Constable Finney, Elwick, James Nisbit and O.V. Jewitt School. There is one middle school, Ecole Leila North, and one junior high, Ken Seaford. The Maples Collegiate is the high school that services the area.

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The Maples has a thriving business community. I am actively encouraging the residents of The Maples to do business with the merchants located in The Maples for their mutual benefit.

(Mr. Jack Penner, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)

Recreational facilities in The Maples include many parks and green spaces, a major City of Winnipeg swimming pool, and thanks to a core of long‑time volunteers, The Maples has a wonderful community centre and multiplex.

With the St. Joseph's nursing home, the Maples Personal Care Home and Seven Oaks Hospital all being in The Maples, health care is always an important issue in my constituency.

Shortly after my election, I was able to facilitate the creation of a combined Citizens for Crime Awareness and community police office in our neighbourhood. During this week, which has been designated as a volunteer week, it is important to note that the community police CFCA office could not have been opened without recruiting the support of over 80 volunteers. Within two weeks of recruiting, this office had to start a waiting list of people willing to volunteer. There is also a waiting list of The Maples residents who would like to be members of the youth justice committee I started two years ago.

An example of the community spirit and the spirit of volunteerism that exists in my community is the fire that occurred last night where 18 people lost their homes. I would like to express my deepest sympathy for those people who suffered from the fire, but we are grateful that nobody was hurt. Shortly after the community heard of the fire, the volunteers from the community police office rushed down to the office to keep it open and to help the police and the victims. Community members offered their homes, food and supplies and moral support for the victims. The manager of the neighbourhood IGA provided diapers, food and other emergency supplies to the victims. The Maples is a caring community where the volunteer spirit is strong and where people help each other. I say again, I am honoured to represent such a fine community.

Mr. Acting Speaker, I would now like to share with the House some of my personal background. I was born and raised in Winnipeg. I am the second generation to be born in Canada, my grandparents coming from Poland and the Ukraine. My parents, Tony and Olga Kowalski, instilled in me the values of a strong work ethic and a sense of duty to help others.

I am currently on leave of absence from my job as a police officer. The member for Rossmere (Mr. Schellenberg) in his inaugural speech talked about the members of this House who he had dealt with professionally as a teacher. As a police officer, I think I will avoid talking about any members that I may have dealt with in my former occupation.

Prior to my career in law enforcement, I had a number of jobs. Some of the more interesting jobs I worked at was as an underground miner, a taxi driver, a private security consultant. I have tried flying and skydiving. I only had one close call during the 20 years I worked as a police officer when a bullet went between my legs and hit a burglary suspect I was wrestling with.

My volunteer activities followed my daughter's development. When Tanya attended Maples Day Care, I started volunteering there and became a member of the board of directors. When she started O.V. Jewitt School, I joined the parent committee there and served in a number of positions. I later became involved in the school division's parent education committee. I also started volunteering on the north Winnipeg youth justice committee when I was appointed as an honorary probation officer by the Attorney General at the time, the honourable member for Brandon West (Mr. McCrae). I later started The Maples youth justice committee. These volunteer activities led to people in the community to encourage me to run for school trustee in the Seven Oaks School Division in the 1992 election.

I now view my present position as an MLA as a continuation of my volunteer activity, but now I am able to devote all my time to service to the community.

Before I make comment on the throne speech, I would like to make a few comments about a subject that the member for Osborne (Ms. McCormick) mentioned in her inaugural speech, that is decorum and heckling that is a practice in this House.

In preparation for this address today, I obtained copies of some inaugural speeches made by my colleagues. In one of those speeches are some comments made by a new member of this House that apply just as well today as it did then. Please allow me to read the comment: Democracy has travelled many miles from the early tribal caucus, but the essence of their meeting is with us today. One person speaks, and the others listen. It is my wish that during this session, we maintain a decorum that would befit the great orators of history. Certainly, good repartee and sophisticated wit are admiral, but pettiness, character malignment is a lesser man's form of rhetoric.

It is my wish that we pledge our heads to clearer thinking, our hearts to greater loyalty, our hands to larger service and our health to better living as we serve as legislators. It is my wish that the government accepts our cause when given and also accepts constructive criticism. Those are the words of the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray) during her inaugural speech, the member for Broadway on August 2, 1988.

I do not heckle, and I do not plan to heckle. Members should not interpret this as a sign of weakness but a strength. As I said earlier, I have jumped out of airplanes, chased armed suspects, gone 1,500 feet underground in mines where men had died the day before, but because I am strong enough to reject a parliamentary tradition that does not serve the public interest, I will endeavour not to heckle another member in this House. This point was driven home when I noticed a group of school children sitting in the gallery watching the proceedings, watching the yelling and the interrupting, the lack of respect shown other people, and I thought that they were not very good role models to these young people. I believe that it is incumbent upon us to be leaders in every sense of the word, to show respect and tolerance and maintain the decorum of the House.

Mr. Acting Speaker, I now want to speak briefly about my reaction to those areas in the Speech from the Throne which are of particular interest to me in the context of my personal professional experience and of the critic areas for which I have assumed responsibility for the Liberal caucus.

The throne speech states: "Manitobans place a high value on the safety and security of their homes and families." As a person who has dedicated his working life to the protection of life and property in the city, I could not agree more. What I disagree with is the methods the government has chosen to achieve this and the tone of the government's message. My experience with youth crime and violence comes from being on the street where crime and violence occur, witnessing the failures of laws and government policies and knowing that the police is the central component of what maintains law and order and prevents anarchy.

For years I have shared the frustration of enforcing laws and policies that did not work. For four years I worked as a community police officer in the area with the highest crime rate in this city. I often worked alone, going into homes, schools, hotels, the likes of which members of this Assembly could not even imagine. I have lived and worked with persons who make up the statistics that are causing the concern. The most important point I want to make is that youth crime and violence is not the problem. It is a symptom of the problem, just as increased youth suicide rate, increased youth unemployment rate and increased child poverty rate are symptoms of the problem. The problem is a troubled society that is losing its ability and, some would argue, its will to look after its youth.

The youth summit held by the government on December 10, 1993 was a very positive first step in dealing with the problem of youth crime and violence. The government should be applauded for this consultation. The problem with the consultation was that the message received was filtered through a right‑wing philosophy that did not reflect what I heard as one of the participants at the summit. There were 700 recommendations that came from that summit. Depending on what message you want to convey, you could pick any nine points to make up an action plan that fits your philosophy. So I wish the government would stop saying, we have listened to Manitobans. They have listened to Manitobans they agree with and have turned a deaf ear to those they do not. No wonder the public is losing its respect for the government's brand of public consultation.

The Liberal caucus was dissatisfied with an aspect of the summit on youth crime and violence held by the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) in December last year. Although useful information was imparted at this forum, we felt there was an inadequate representation of young people. My experience as an honorary probation officer working with youth has taught me that the contribution and conversation that young people have about this issue is different when adults dominate in numbers or influence in the discussion. The Liberal caucus believes that it is incumbent upon politicians to consult with those who are most affected by political decisions, particularly when those persons typically are excluded from the political process.

This was the reason we held a workshop at the Legislature on Saturday, April 9, 1994, called Listening to Youth. We felt it important to provide a forum exclusively for youth so that young people would get a genuine opportunity to speak and be heard. The only participation from the organizer of the forum was to divide participants into groups of six or seven individuals and identify three major topics for discussion. From there it was up to the participants to undertake discussions about their own experiences, opinions and ideas.

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Nearly 70 young people from Winnipeg and around the province participated in the event. Individuals attending were from a wide variety of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, ensuring that a broad cross section of opinion was represented. In attendance were people from a variety of Winnipeg neighbourhoods and rural communities, as well as representatives from Manitoba reserves. We were fortunate also to have young offenders and members of youth gangs present.

The result of this mix was the expression of a variety of opinions on a number of issues relating to youth crime and violence. Not only were the young people able to express their opinions to a member of the Legislative Assembly, they were also able to learn from the experience of peers from communities and backgrounds other than their own.

The first topic of discussion was the cause of youth crime and violence. The predominant theme that emerged in the discussion, the cause of youth crime and violence, was the environment and the circumstances in which young people exist.

The first point that these young people brought forward was a lack of connection and relationship with the adults in their lives. Many of the young people talked about being raised in families where either both parents worked or their single parent worked. As a result, many youths talked about coming home after school to a television set. When their parents were home with them, they were tired and stressed out. As a result, there was not a strong influence from the parents.

The other thing that came out from many of the young people was a lack of hope. A lack of optimism and a lack of opportunity were also mentioned as possible causes of youth crime and violence. The poor economy and the expectation of future joblessness gave many of the young people an attitude that there was no benefit to be good and to work hard. The impediment of a criminal record in obtaining a job does not matter if there is no expectation of ever having a job. Some of them talked about older brothers and sisters who had completed their education and had been looking for work for two or three years. They talked about parents who could not find jobs, so how can we expect these young people to look to the future when everyone around them has no future.

They also mentioned a sense of lack of belonging. Some of the most poignant thoughts raised during the discussions at this forum relate to the place of youth in today's society. In discussing causes of youth crime and violence, the ominous impression emerged that many participants simply felt that young people were not valued in our society. A lack of understanding of the youth of today on the part of those in positions of authority was mentioned as a possible cause of youth crime and violence. The problem is reinforced when there are difficulties in the family setting leaving young people without necessary supports and guidance. These ideas suggested that young people feel that their concerns are not being listened to by those in positions of power.

Poverty is perhaps the most frequently mentioned cause of youth crime and violence. Participants from less affluent communities were particularly likely to cite this as a source of criminal violence and behaviour. It was interesting that we had a mix of kids from different areas of town, and over the four‑hour session the understanding of each others' reality of where they lived changed. Many young people who came there with the impression that nothing happened to young offenders when they get arrested were challenged by kids from the core area, by kids who were in gangs or had been involved with the youth justice system. They asked if they know what really happens when you get arrested, and it quickly became evident that they did not.

Over the years, I have driven a number of young people to the Youth Centre and it did not matter if it was their first time or it was their fifth time, believe me, they were not happy to be going there. I saw many tears from some pretty tough people, but those same people who were crying on their way to the Youth Centre, when I saw them out in the community a couple of days later, they were bragging to their friends that nothing happened to them when they got arrested. It was a macho thing. So the perception is there that nothing happens to young offenders.

A young offender who has to do every Saturday morning community service work, he complains, he hates it, he does not want to do it again, but when he talks to his friends, he says, nothing happened to me when I got arrested. All I had to do was some community service work. The perception that nothing happens to young offenders I think is inaccurate at best.

The recession was noted as a cause by a number of participants. The brutal economic recession of recent years has resulted in an increase in unemployment and poverty rates. These factors serve to increase the sense of despair in young people. The recession resulted in parents working longer hours at lower‑paying jobs and having less to give to their children in terms of material things and more importantly in terms of time and attention.

This point was very strongly emphasized by these young people at the workshop‑‑media portrayal of youth crime and violence. They said that it contributes to the impression about the involvement of young people and crime. Many of the participants in discussions stated that they felt that the portrayal of young people in the media was damaging and did not give a balanced impression of young people.

I referred earlier to our Pages as examples of some of the best and brightest of the young Manitobans we have in this province, and the figures bandied about, either 5 percent, 8 percent or 10 percent of our youth are involved in the youth justice system. That means at least 90 percent of our youth are not involved in the youth justice system, yet the media is giving the perception that we have our youth out of control, and this was mentioned by the young people.

Another possible cause related to the media was a proliferation of violence in all forms of popular culture. The extreme levels of violence present in America and to a lesser extent Canadian‑produced films, television and music contribute to criminal behaviour by creating role models based on violence and criminality.

The cycle of violence was cited as a factor leading to violence and criminal behaviour. There is little doubt that this is closely related to poverty. Growing up in an environment of deprivation and violence with a lack of guidance and support from parents and peers often will result in criminal and violent behaviour.

Children who have suffered abuse are more likely to partake in violence and crime. Observations of young people who had suffered abuse and/or had been raised in poverty confirm what we should by now know to be common knowledge, that there is an undeniable link between the circumstances in which children are raised and their involvement in criminal behaviour.

They also talked about group associations. They also talked about cuts to educational funding as a cause to problems of youth crime and violence. Participants noted that with opportunities for people entering into the workforce seeming to be more limited now than ever before, it was particularly unfair that funding for education be cut now. This serves only to fuel the sense of hopelessness among young people.

Some participants noted that there was an increase in the sizes of classes resulting in teachers being less able to devote attention to individuals. It relates back to what I said earlier about youth having a lack of adult relationships in their lives. This is yet another example of needed supports being taken away from young people.

It was also noted that the budget constraints had resulted in curtailment of extracurricular activities. This is part of a larger problem cited by young people, that there simply is not enough for young people to do. Problems such as this, like many others, are more acute in poorer communities where families have less resources to compensate when public funding of activities for young people fall short.

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The young people then talked about prevention of youth crime and violence. Many of the ideas for prevention of youth crime and violence are, as might be expected, corollaries of the causes. This common‑sense approach may seem obvious but often is not employed when addressing the problems of youth crime and violence.

The first one they mention is involvement of young people in preventative strategies. They mention everything from peer mentors to consultation with the courts, with the police and other aspects of the criminal justice system, that they have more input into what happens to young people, because to use our experiences from when we were young does not apply today in this rapidly changing society.

It talked about better support services being available through schools and communities. It talked about media awareness classes for young people so that the young people know that Teenage Ninja Turtle is not real life and so they know that Rambo is not a real person.

Another thing they mentioned was encouraging youth involvement in communities. They stated it might go a long way to address a problem of lack of sense of belonging for young people as they become more connected to adults and their community in general.

The third task they talked about was the consequences of youth crime and violence. A number of useful suggestions were posed in this portion of the discussion. Again, a wide range of opinions were expressed. However, consensus did emerge on the direction of consequences for young offenders. Harsh punitive measures were not viewed as a solution to the problem of youth crime and violence.

Because of the dynamics of the family relationship and other circumstances identified as possible causes for youth crime and violence, a harsh disciplinary approach was thought to possibly reinforce a problem rather than contribute to the solution. One of the consequences was shortening the time required to deal with young offenders in the justice system. One of the young participants said, I do not think five years into the future, I do not think five months into the future, I do not think five weeks into the future. He said, if I am going to have a consequence it has to be immediate if it is going to have any impact.

We have to re‑evaluate our resources and see if there is a way we could give a more speedy response to young people who do get involved in youth crime and violence.

Again, the young people as a possible consequence‑‑with sponsors or mentors for young people who have been involved in crime. Again, they said because they are lacking adult relationships, whether it is from their parents, from their teachers, they need it. They said whether that is from a volunteer, whether it is from an organization, they are looking for adults to show concern and have a relationship with in their lives.

They also talked about peer justice committees comprising young people, including former young offenders, might be an effective way to reach young offenders and young people at risk of becoming involved in violence and crime. The insight of young people into the motivation and behaviour of their peers should be tapped.

Healing circles were also proposed as an option for aboriginal youth. Healing circles help to address feelings of alienation among aboriginal youth by bringing them into contact with their culture and feeling a sense of pride and belonging. We should note that 70 percent of the youth involved in the youth justice system are aboriginal, so we have to look at some traditional aboriginal solutions for the problem.

They mention counselling for entire families, recommend as an effective way of dealing with young offenders. Remember, these recommendations, these thoughts are coming from youth as young as 13 and as old as 18. I think you have to compliment how insightful they were. When they talked about counselling for entire families, once again participants in their discussion groups confirmed the effects of dysfunctional families, circumstances that are so well documented by experts.

We were told by young people that there was a need to offer treatment to the entire family unit since it was the way in which this family unit functioned that was at the root of the behaviour of young offenders. This gives credence to the notion that a system of harsh discipline is not the answer to the problem of youth crime and violence. Such reactionary measures clearly do not address the fundamental causes of this type of behaviour. This becomes all the more apparent when young people tell us that treating the family as a whole is necessary to prevent repeat young offenders.

Mr. Acting Speaker, community service was also suggested as a consequence for young offenders. Such a system might instill a sense of belonging and pride in the community of young people. Of course, there is a system right now of community service but these were the suggestions of the young people, not mine.

It is because I care about all of society and because I care about law and order, I know we must do what will be effective to solve this problem instead of what is popular, or more of us will fall victim to crime and violence committed by young people, the young people we have not helped.

(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)

Mr. Speaker, I have listened at the youth summit and I have listened to a public dialogue on this subject. What I am hearing is that the citizens of Manitoba want to be safe and want their property to be safe. If this government takes a number of harsh punitive measures to solve the problem and the rate of violence and crime continues, they will not have delivered what the public truly want.

When a lynch mob is angry and wants to hang the thief without benefit of due process, it would be easy to step to the front of them all and cheer them on and call it leadership. True leadership is the individual who calls for a reasoned response that will offer effective, long‑term resolutions to the problem.

Mr. Speaker, this is the first throne speech that I have had an opportunity to comment on. Although there were other statements in the throne speech that I wish to comment on, including judicial accountability, the recommendations of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, Education and Training, and issues relating to the handling of the court Ojibway tribal council policing issue, but I am running out of time. I know I will have the opportunity to debate these issues and questions with the government in the near future.

In summary, my comments in general about the throne speech are tainted with the cynicism that the public has about government in general and politicians in general.

I have reviewed the throne speeches of this government in the past, and their promises and predictions for the future, and use them as an indicator of how accurate the promises and predictions of the throne speech are. For example, on October 11, 1990, the throne speech stated: it remains committed to the vision it set forth when it first took office, a strong economic economy and better jobs for our young people.

Do young people feel the economy is strong now and they have more opportunities now? No.

The government said, they will protect vital health, education and family services in an era of limited resources. If we ask Manitobans, do they feel vital health, education and family services have been protected?

We will invest in our education system to make it more responsive to challenges of our children. Since 1990, have they invested or have we seen cutbacks in education?

Regional and sectorial strategy, the key component of that strategy must be a strength of work relationship with Manitoba's native people. Do Manitoba's native people feel that this government has worked with them?

You know, often a battle of statistics develops when issues of the economy, jobs and reductions of budgets and services in government are talked about. The public are not influenced by the statistics. Manitobans are witness to friends, family and neighbours, unable to find a job, who have less money in their pocket when all the taxes are taken into account. Manitobans have sons and daughters that are unable to find work in this province, who are being forced to move away. People receiving government services, such as social assistance or home care or Handi‑Transit, tell them that the quality of life has not improved.

Government announcements, statistics, percentages, increases in total budget do not change Manitoba's understandings that they are worse off now than six years ago when this government took power. They know it. They can see it in their daily lives.

One of the life experiences that I bring to this House is buying a used car. If I bought a used car from a salesperson who made promises about the future performance of the car once and did not deliver, it would be difficult for him or her to convince me to believe any promise about the next car sold to me. In an American election years ago, the question was asked, would you buy a used car from this man when referring to one of the candidates?

The first five throne speeches of this government have been lemons and failed to live up to their promises, so I believe the promises and predictions of this throne speech will once more fail to be realized, and we have another lemon on our hands. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise today to speak on the government's proposals in the Speech from the Throne. But it is traditional courtesy first to welcome the new Pages, the interns, the translators and the staff of Hansard and to thank them for the work they do to ensure the smooth operations of this Legislature.

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It is also traditional to welcome you, Mr. Speaker, in your continuing role as the Speaker of this House, and on this occasion I do so with more than a mere genuflection to tradition or to legislative rhetoric.

This government now is a caretaker government, and it has no majority. We have already seen the stark reality of this in emergency debates and in the voting on the amendment offered by the Liberals on the throne speech.

You are in the difficult position of maintaining the neutrality that has won you the respect of the members of this House, of discerning a responsible role of the Speaker in this position, and not least following the dictates of your own conscience in the proceedings of this House. Moreover, as we approach the time of an election, the temper of the House will become more heated, and your sense of humour and your sense of fair play may be more sorely tested than before.

May I take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to offer you my best wishes for this session. I would also like to welcome the new members to the House: the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski), the member for Osborne (Ms. McCormick), and particularly the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh), and the new member for Rossmere (Mr. Schellenberg), both of whom I have taught and both of whom I am delighted and honoured now to have as colleagues.

This government has chosen not to meet this House for eight months‑‑surely the longest gap in recent memory. It is an indication of the discomfort it experiences with any form of criticism or any indication that there are other diagnoses of the problems facing Manitoba or other solutions than those proposed by the chambers of commerce or the confederation of independent businesses.

Although the member for Tuxedo (Mr. Filmon), the Premier of this province, occasionally claims that he welcomes advice, that he looks for constructive criticism, his actions belie this. A Premier who welcomed debate, who was convinced that his policies were leading us in the right direction, would have called together the political forum of this province before eight months had passed. Those eight months, in fact, tell us that this is a Premier who is reluctant to face opposition and who is unwilling to face the people in Question Period.

Now that we have heard the throne speech and watched with amusement the prepared petty little tirades that come with it, it is clear that his reluctance to face the Legislature was based more fundamentally on the fact that this is a government at the end of its tenure. There are no new policy ideas, no new approaches, and no indication of a recognition the overwhelming difficulties that Manitobans are facing.

This was a government which came to power six years ago with one big idea, to expand the role of the private sector and to diminish the place of government in our province. When historians look back on this period, they will reflect upon that as the hallmark of the Filmon Tories, a government which took public community resources and investment and transferred them into private hands.

As opposition we have had many opportunities to evaluate these government policies in health care, education, natural resources, housing, telecommunications, transportation. Their policy has been to cut the budgets and staff of the public institutions and to fund, in increasing amounts, the for‑profit private institutions.

Nowhere is this more clear than in education. The government has continued its path of increasing the funding to private schools. Let us call them private schools, although the government and the schools themselves prefer to call themselves independent. They are clearly not independent so long as they are taking public money. They answer to their own boards, not to the public of Manitoba, in spite of the fact that the largest part of their funding is provided by the public taxpayer. They can be selective in the pupils they admit, screening‑‑in many but not all cases‑‑the high‑risk and high‑cost students. Their curriculum and the trained teachers they use are also provided by the taxpayer of Manitoba. Finally there is no restriction on the amount of money they can raise to add to public funds for the education of their selected student body.

Mr. Speaker, this is not to argue against the existence of private schools. Some are excellent. There is the same ratio of dedicated teachers and lively children as in the public schools, one must assume, but the first responsibility of any community is to the public schools which provide for all. It is the clear, unequal treatment and the use of government power and public money to diminish the public and enhance the private that is not the Manitoba way.

Mr. Speaker, let us compare this with the experience of the public schools under this government. The public school is the crucible of our society. It is where all are equal, no matter which home a student comes from. Within the school district the children of the doctor, the teacher, the manual worker, the new immigrant or the First Nations children find themselves equal. All are admitted, no matter what their income, their economic prospects or their physical capabilities.

If their poverty has meant poor nutrition and delayed growth, the public school will help them to close that gap. If they have suffered at the hands of neglectful parents, the public school will try to find them the help they need. If their physical needs are special, the public school will train teachers to help them. It will develop curriculum that is suitable for them. It will provide the medical and social assistance that they need. It will do its utmost to ensure there is a place in the classroom for every child. When parents are concerned about their children's progress, the public school is accountable through the principal, the superintendent and an elected public body, the school trustees

It is not a perfect system, Mr. Speaker. No educational system achieves such a nirvana and especially not one which has so many needs to meet and so many expectations to fulfill, but it has in our province thousands of dedicated teachers who devote their energies to the children in their care.

It will be unfair to single out people by name, but anyone who has anything to do with high school athletics programs knows of the extra hours logged by teachers in practices, tournaments, training on weekends and in the early morning or into the evening. It is these same teachers who will spend their evenings and summers in university courses to enhance their professional development or, like my own son's math teacher, make themselves available every single morning at eight o'clock and every lunch hour for the extra assistance students need.

There are similar stories to be told in all our schools, in music programs, in theatre, in art, in languages and, increasingly, in computer‑based studies. But how has this hard‑pressed system been treated by this government of the one simple idea? School boards have been bypassed, elective officials discounted. Without negotiation teachers' salaries have been cut. School boards were advised by this government, which trumpets loudly its devotion to training, to eliminate professional development days of teachers in Manitoba.

The government has systematically cut the funding to public schools and this year there has been a further cut of 2.5 percent. School boards have been advised to use their reserve funds, referred to as surpluses by this minister. Thus the fiscally prudent school boards who have put money aside for building and renewal for emergencies or other long‑term plans will be penalized for their prudence. It hardly encourages boards to indulge in long‑range planning in the future. Manitoba education will run on the short‑term plan from here.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, the government prohibited local school boards from increasing their taxes beyond a certain limit to make up any prospective shortfall. This unprecedented use of the central power of the provincial government is deeply resented by local boards. Those boards have been prevented in essence from exercising their ability to represent their voters. They do not even have the option of asking their voters how they choose to deal with the financial strictures placed upon them by the provincial government. The government has in effect limited one of the most important elements of our public school system, its accountability to its local electors.

On the one hand, we have private schools receiving more and public schools receiving less. The private school, narrow in base and exclusionary, is yet able to tax its supporters in an unlimited way. The public school, open and diverse, has been limited in its ability to be accountable to its citizens.

The inequality and the treatment of the two systems has been systematic over the last six years. It is no accident. This is a government of ideology. Their goal has been to reduce the areas of society which remain in the public domain. Their goal has been to limit the scope of government and increase the number of public decisions which are made privately. This does not necessarily make Manitoba a better place for all our citizens. It has certainly increased the power of some, those who are in an economic position to make the many private decisions, but it has diminished the power of many. The greatest irony, if irony is the right word, is that it has accomplished all of this with public money. Mr. Speaker, the transition from a public Manitoba to a private society will be the hallmark of the Filmon government, but its legacy to Manitobans will be one of an increasingly fragmented society.

There are other examples that would be familiar to Manitobans by now, in community colleges, for example. Two years ago the government created governing boards and set the colleges at arm's length from government policy, but in appointing those boards it created not the partnership between private and public sectors that one might have expected, but in insisting upon market‑driven training it handed the dominant power of our public institutions to the private sector.

Mr. Speaker, the minister says from time to time that we oppose market‑driven training, and this is not the case; I have discussed this with the last minister in Estimates. But, if by market training we mean training which is demanded immediately and currently by local companies, then we must argue that it is not the only form of education. There is a place for market‑driven training, but it is not the only pathway on the educational road ahead. Market‑driven training does not take account, for example, of the generic skills required in basic education by all the community, nor is it easy for market‑driven training in fact to respond to the changing needs or to even innovation in the economy and educational needs of Manitoba.

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Mr. Speaker, under this government, colleges were also directed to find their monies in the private sector. They were directed to create courses demanded by industry, not to direct their energies to the education and training needs of the young or unemployed Manitobans.

Even before the colleges became part of the private Manitoba, many of their basic introductory levels were eliminated to open up opportunities for the newly emerging private colleges in the province. The consequences for Manitobans have been that the waiting lists at Red River College, for example, have grown, and it is not unusual now to wait one or two years to enter a training program. Small wonder then that the private colleges are growing. Thus, what the government has done is to use the public purse and public authority to decrease opportunities for many at community colleges. In the process they have created a steady supply of students to private colleges and through student loans, often administered by the private colleges, have given private educators a secure financial base.

Private markets in education, of course, have long been in existence in North America, but what we have seen in Manitoba under the Filmon Tories is a deliberate and systematic use of state power to move the balance of that market in favour of the private entrepreneurial approach to education. Public institutions have been narrowed and limited by government policy. Private institutions whose major allegiance is to their profit line‑‑it is not their role to consider the long‑term needs of the Manitoba population, nor under this government is it the role of the market‑driven community college, nor, according to the last Education minister when I raised this with her in the examination for Estimates, is it any longer the role of the government. Stand aside, and let the market decide. This was the one lonely big idea of this government when it came to power six years ago, and they have doggedly applied it to post‑secondary education.

Mr. Speaker, since 1990, they have cut $10 million from the community colleges. They eliminated student bursaries. They cut ACCESS programs. They cut or eliminated the New Careers and other community‑based education programs for adults. In addition, they transferred the cost of further education to the individual from the community through student loans, and they created a market for the private colleges at the entry level. From the perspective of the private colleges, these are the cheapest and easiest courses to put on. Few labs are needed, little expensive equipment is required and there are very few regulations or inspections.

Again, Mr. Speaker, this is not to say that there are not good teachers in the private college system or that sound learning is not occurring, but it is to say that in vocational areas where there is no external certificate or examining body, we simply do not know what kind of education is taking place and whether enrolled students are being appropriately served. It is a case of the buyer beware, as the minister said in essence when I raised the question with her last year, and is that how Manitobans want their post‑secondary education to be expanded?

The impact on students, Mr. Speaker, is that with a Grade 8 or Grade 9 education these students find no place at the community college. They have none of the opportunities of the late lamented Core Area Agreement which provided education, and with the virtual elimination of community‑based education by this government, they find that they have nowhere else to go but a private training school.

Here they find themselves in a commercial atmosphere, sometimes with no student advocate or adviser, none of the systems of internal appeals. They are tied to a legal contract and with the obligation of a student loan to be repaid whether they succeed or not and whether they ever find a job or not. For many young Manitobans, because of the ideology and policies of this government, this is the only option that many students have left.

Again, Mr. Speaker, the privatizing of Manitoba has benefited a few at the expense of the many, and it has accomplished it through the use of public policy and public money. There has, however, been one new educational policy initiative other than cuts to public institutions and that has been in the Workforce 2000 program announced in the 1991 throne speech. I would like to talk a little bit about this program because there seems to be some confusion in the minds of honourable members about its purpose and content.

In essence, Mr. Speaker, this is a program of grants to private industry, small businesses or financial organizations to encourage work‑based training. At its announcement there were to have been four components. First of all, an annual $3 million program of small business direct grants of up to a maximum of $10,000 for projects initiated by a company in areas of, as the press release says, high demand occupations and skills shortage areas.

Secondly, it was a program which offered rebates on the payroll tax for larger companies which indicated that they had training plans in place. This appears to have been restricted to the private sector as few public institutions such as hospitals or universities which pay the payroll tax and have training programs have received rebates, and the purpose of this is to encourage further investment in employee training.

There were two other sections of Workforce 2000 which seem to have been little touched. One of these was a sector‑wide provision for industries to get together and to create training initiatives that would benefit a particular sector of the Manitoba economy or to study industry‑wide initiatives. It seems to have been the least active of the sections, but in my view, Mr. Speaker, was the one which bore the most promise.

Fourthly, there was a special project section which remains a mystery and seems not even to have begun, although initially it was devoted to programs, at least on paper, of training the trainer. Much of that, I would guess, has been subsumed under the first program, since it seems that many trainers received grants under the small business category.

This program was the jewel in the Tory approach to education, yet we have heard little about it in detail. It features in their speeches to business but not in their speeches to the House, with the notable exception of the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner).

Some of their members seem to think it is a job‑creation project, and while some jobs, perhaps as many as 80 over three years, may have been created, that is not its prime purpose. It was patterned, I believe, on an Ontario program developed under the Peterson Liberals and implemented under them and the New Democrats. One of the hallmarks of this Ontario program and the Ontario Training & Adjustment Board is that they are joint labour business programs with a greater co‑operation and broader programs than exist here in Manitoba.

Here we have a system of loosely distributed cash grants or rebates to companies with little or no labour involvement. I have had many concerns with Workforce 2000, and I have raised them in this House and in Estimates for the past two years. In raising them, I have always prefaced my remarks by saying that there may be training merit in these programs. There may be some value to the individual, and I would like to think there was. It is costing us approximately $9 million a year of our education funds, education dollars which the minister assures us are very limited.

But the same principles exist here as with other education shifts to the private sector. We simply do not know what is taught, by whom and what the outcomes are. Private education, lavishly supported in this case at the rate of up to $9 million annually, perhaps cumulatively now more than $30 million, does not disclose its curriculum, its teachers, their qualifications, their pass and fail rates, their selection criteria, the number of appeals or grievances. All the elements which are present in every form of public education are missing in Workforce 2000, and accountability is the issue here.

These are public dollars, or at least 50 percent of it is in most of the programs. Surely there is some accountability for the $30 million, and so indeed I have thought. I tried to raise this with two successive ministers of Education, but both seem to have difficulty understanding the questions of accountability and priorities. Certainly neither of them had any desire, either in the House or in committee, to provide any evidence that education had taken place at all.

For a moment or two, there was a glimmer of hope when in March of this year the new Minister of Education (Mr. Manness) indicated that there had been abuses of this program; I use his word. There had even been cases where training had not even occurred, and again I use his words. This was a revelation. In my wildest dreams, I had never once made the assumption that the government might have allowed abuses to occur or known of and done nothing about nonexistent training.

Early in the new session, anxious to put at rest the prospect that the whole program might be a sham, I asked the minister to name the recalcitrants in order that those who did partake in this program in good faith and did train and educate their workers might be vindicated. The minister backtracked. The kangaroos were loose in the paddock. Suddenly, we were into the all‑too‑familiar sporting jargon. No abuses, mate, simply a few companies are offside. The minister, all smiles and chuckles, throws up his hand in mock alarm when asked a specific question about a bankrupt company which his own departmental documents listed as having completed the training.

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Mr. Speaker, when do abuses and misuse of public money, to use the minister's words, become merely offside, to use the minister's word? What indeed is onside and offside? Well, I have played a few sports in my time. My experience was that there was onside and offside, and there was that gray area when the referee was not looking. That is what has happened here. It is not a question of onside or offside. The referee, the Minister of Education (Mr. Manness), who, in fact, wrote the rule book, turned his back, allowed companies or trainers, in his own words, to abuse public money, or in the words of the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner), when he said that in fact there was not just one abuse but pockets of abuse.

When confronted with this in Question Period, the minister refused us further comment or action. It does not give one much confidence in any system of accountability he may or may not institute in the future. That loss of public confidence is a great pity, Mr. Speaker, because there may be some merit in some of the work‑based training programs here. In particular, there may have been merit in the proposal for industry‑wide human resource, by which I expect the government means labour planning, because there certainly is not any labour force planning going on anywhere else in the government. Such an approach which brought together both labour and business might have been extremely useful and would have benefited all the citizens of Manitoba.

Mr. Speaker, work‑based training programs have a place. They should be, however, first of all, publicly and clearly accountable. The refusal of the minister in the House to table the curriculum or the evaluation of courses paid for by the taxpayer is unacceptable. Secondly, such training should be oriented toward the economic strategies of the province, and I believe the minister also believes in this. If that is the case, it is very difficult to understand why this minister would support, as he did in supporting the previous Minister of Education, the grant to Glendale Golf & Country Club to train their cashiers.

Now, I have no doubt that those cashiers benefited from that training, but was the provision of funding for a private golf club one of the strategic priorities of this province? It is a golf club which has no connection to the tourism industry. It does not, in fact, invite tourists into its facilities. It is clearly a private golf club. What that grant did was make life more comfortable for the already well‑seated.

Thirdly, Mr. Speaker, all members of the workforce should be eligible for training, and when education is in the hands of private employers, there must be guarantees that the employers will not simply pick and choose at will‑‑without accountability, we do not know if this is the case‑‑nor should the employer make government money simply a fund for management seminars, as one particular company did last year under Workforce 2000, when it took its managers up to Clear Lake for a weekend away from phones, discussing the implications of free trade.

Fourthly, Mr. Speaker, training should be measurable. It should be laddered, and it should lead to lifelong learning. There should be some indication that companies who receive Workforce 2000 money have longer‑term plans for the education and creation of a culture of learning in their workplace.

Fifthly, wherever possible, recognized certificates should be issued, and those qualifications should be portable. Training should benefit the individual, not simply fit the worker for one workplace. Thus, the inspirational and motivational speakers who have been paid under Workforce 2000 are simply not an appropriate use of training dollars.

Sixthly, it is not a priority use of public money, in my understanding, to train people where there already exists a solid corporate training culture. If the purpose of this program is to create a training culture in Manitoba, the grant of $50,000 to IBM for human relations or perhaps salesmanship training, to a company which already has over 400 training courses a year, is not the best use of what the minister believes to be scarce education dollars.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the minister must table an annual public accounting and evaluation of Workforce 2000, as the Auditor recommended in December 1993.

It is possible to design a work‑based program in conjunction with labour. It is possible to have work‑based training that benefits the worker and the company. It is possible to have training that is publicly accountable and that has some connection to the economic priorities of the province. It is equally possible to do this in conjunction with a vital apprenticeship program and open community colleges, but it is not likely to happen under this government.

The agenda here is different. The Filmon government is the Saskatchewan of Grant Devine and the British Columbia of Bill Vander Zalm. The increased debt accumulated by these governments is mirrored here in Manitoba. As right‑wing governments do, they use that debt, created in large part by Tory interest rates, to claim that they have no alternative but to cut. So they cut welfare; they cut friendship centres. They eliminate assistance to advocacy groups, and they reduce access to education and other programs which offered hope to the most disadvantaged Manitobans.

In truth, like Devine and Vander Zalm, this is only part of their agenda. Their one big idea was to reduce the role of government, to reduce the role of community, to diminish collective institutions and to create a competitive, cut‑throat, individualist society that would delight the discredited Thatchers and Reagans of this world, whose one big idea was that there was no such thing as society, only individuals.

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party under Grant Devine tore through the heart of Saskatchewan. In the end, the people of that province saw through the boasting and the empty prophecies and the disbursement of public money to private hands. The Tory party of Manitoba bears a striking resemblance to that ill‑fated government of Grant Devine. It is not just the refusal to call the Legislature for eight months. Grant Devine, you remember, tried to govern without a budget for some months. It is not just the legislative behaviour, the reliance on personal attacks and the refusal to answer questions. It goes far deeper than that.

We could compare Grant Devine's hot tub grants to the Manitoba Tory version of urban reforestation, which gave away free trees to the south end of Winnipeg for homeowners but, more significantly, we should look at the ruthless destruction of public services in Grant Devine's Saskatchewan.

The Saskatchewan children's dental plan was eliminated; Pharmacare introduced user costs; the Queen's Printer and the government's sign shop was privatized; an attempt was made to privatize the liquor stores; nursing home fees were raised dramatically; youth workers were cut; park services, those that might make a profit and could help pay for children's swimming lessons, were privatized; welfare rates were cut and cut and cut; private vocational schools expanded and public institutions were underfunded. Highways became a department of contracting out, the savings coming at the expense of individual workers and their families, whose wages dropped by as much as a third.

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It is all beginning to sound too familiar, Mr. Speaker. The same pattern is clearly there when we look at the major Crown corporations of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The public insurance system was gutted to provide advantage for a few at the expense of the many.

SaskTel was divided up and the profitable part sold off just as Manitoba Telephone has suffered, and this at a time when we need more than ever the public electronic highway under local democratic control.

As one reviews the destructive path of Devine, his role as a trailblazer for the Filmon Tories becomes clear. How did Grant Devine leave Saskatchewan? Was it a better place for most of its people? Was it a fairer society? Had public resources been harvested well? Were those Tories sound stewards of the community interest?

The huge public debt and the empty promises of economic development spoke for themselves, and the people of the province, in that last election, spoke to their government. Their message was the traditional one of Saskatchewan and of other social democrats, and I quote, that we are all better off individually and collectively if we work together and that we are entitled to look to the public service as one of the instruments by which we do that.

No one of us, however talented, lucky or privileged, could hope to enjoy as individuals a fraction of life's chances if it were not for the benefits conferred by society as a whole.

Successful and good societies are those which organize themselves in this way, to encourage and empower individuals, not the privileged few.

The community then, acting as government, can and must do what individuals alone can never accomplish. It is a clear distinction‑‑on the one hand, a party which says that public service and public institutions benefit us all, and on the other, a government which has subjugated itself and us to free market ideology, a government which either does not know or does not care that in its sink‑or‑swim ideology many Manitoban families are sinking fast, a government which knows that its policy leads in the end, as it did for Reagan's America and Thatcher's Britain, to private affluence and public squalor.

The only response to the last throne speech of this caretaker government is to call for an election now.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr. Speaker, this provides me the opportunity just to put on the record what I would have hoped to have put on earlier in the week with respect to my critic portfolio with Education.

We have seen the government, the Minister of Education (Mr. Manness), through the throne speech, who has made a commitment to have a parent forum on education, and that is going to be at the end of the month, in which there are a lot of expectations that are out there that the minister is, in fact, going to be listening and responding in a positive way to whatever might come out of that particular forum.

I have a lot of concerns with respect to the manner in which this forum was called, and I want to talk about some of those concerns.

I could start it off by saying in terms of the actual timing, but I give the minister, at least at this stage, a bit of the benefit of the doubt and accept the timing of this particular parent forum.

There are some other concerns that I have with it. I raised it in Question Period. In Question Period, I made reference to what was going on in one of the school divisions up north, where we had seen one school division that did not necessarily pass down the applications to be able to attend the public conference through the schools. This particular individual who had made application was told to go down to the school division, and they went to the school division.

The point is, Mr. Speaker, you have a school division that is now offering a subsidy in order to be able to come down to Winnipeg and names of individuals who might want to represent that particular community now have to at least vet through the school division, if in fact they want to be able to go down. I have a bit of a problem with that, if they were wanting the additional funding.

So that poses the question in terms of is the government doing enough to try to make it equitable or available for individuals living in rural Manitoba to be able to participate in this public forum. Another concern that I have is with respect to what is actually going on in terms of why is it that we only have‑‑limiting it to 400.

Mr. Speaker, the interest in education is phenomenal. I know in my own area I have had no problem in terms of getting committees established on education. I have attended parent councils. The interest to be able to have input on education is there, and the government is limiting that input. I do not see why‑‑[interjection] The Minister of Education and Training (Mr. Manness) says now he will take representation from anyone, and I would expect that of any Minister of Education.

I would ask the Minister of Education why he would limit it to just one public forum if the demand is there to have two forums of 400, or whatever the demand that is there, to allow that to occur. This, I believe, would be a fairer way of approaching this particular issue of educational reform, that if the government were to make a commitment‑‑and it is still not too late, Mr. Speaker‑‑to have one in Sturgeon Creek, to go ahead and have another public forum in another school in south Winnipeg if in fact the numbers warrant, that there is not a limitation in terms of who can attend and who cannot attend.

My fear is that there are a lot of individuals who would like to be able to have the ear of this particular government, and the government has provided a vehicle for that but is not allowing everyone to be able to get aboard. If, in fact, the government made the simple gesture of saying, look, if there are additional people who want to have input into educational reform, we are willing to provide that vehicle in which anyone who wants to sit down and tell us what their concerns are, that we are going to be listening to what they have to say. I believe that is absolutely essential.

I also would not mind to comment very briefly with respect to the curriculum. The government and the Minister of Education have been talking a lot about curriculum development. He has been talking a lot about the core subjects. He talks a lot about math tests and how Manitoba is not doing all that well. This is very, very popular to a certain extent, to go and say, look, here are our problems, but what is the minister actually doing to rectify it? He has alluded to, in answer to a question that I gave him, I believe it was last week and today, that we might be surprised with what happens in that particular budget that comes down tomorrow. I hope we will see the reinstatement of resources to the Curriculum Branch, because that is, in fact, what the government has done in the real world, is they have actually been cutting back on that resource, while at the same time they have been talking about doing things with the curriculum.

Mr. Speaker, as I had indicated, I would just take this brief opportunity before the Premier gives his final words on the throne speech. Thank you very much.

Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure for me to rise and speak in this House. As I have said many, many times, this is an opportunity that I cherish, an opportunity to exercise my rights in the democratic process and to be able to represent the people of Manitoba, the people who elected me and people throughout this province.

The throne speech and the Budget Debates are particularly important debates in our Legislature, ones in which we have the opportunity to discuss and give our views on a wide range of issues, and this always, I believe, is a debate that should separate the various views of the various parties and give an opportunity for the democratic process to work and work well. I always look forward to it, and today is no different.

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Mr. Speaker, I begin by thanking the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) for his courtesy in allowing me to have sufficient time to address the throne speech. It is an important document and a document that I believe requires a significant length of time. The Leaders of both opposition parties did give very thorough responses and did take a significant portion of time, and so I am delighted to be able to respond in a like fashion with a speech that has not only content but perhaps some length to it.

I would like to begin by welcoming back all the members of the Legislature, the opportunity to once again see their smiling, sometimes smiling, faces, and to be able to debate issues that have occurred since the last time we were together is always a welcome opportunity.

I welcome you back, Sir, to your august post in this Chamber, and I compliment you on the manner in which you conduct yourself throughout the course of each and every session. I always marvel at your evenhandedness, at your ability to remain calm in the face of some trying circumstances from time to time. I know that all of us from time to time give you cause for a little anxiety as tempers flare and as emotions run high. You have always been able to rise above that and maintain an equilibrium in this House without being too heavy‑handed, and I compliment you for that.

I welcome back the table officers and thank them for the continuing contributions that they make, and I certainly welcome our new group of Pages. I hope they will enjoy their experience here, that it will be not only enlightening and rewarding, but it will be an experience that they look back upon with great fondness after their length of service in the Legislature. As I say, I welcome them and congratulate them on their selection for this important and honoured post.

Mr. Speaker, I said earlier that the throne speech is a debate in which we have an opportunity for a wide‑ranging exchange of views. It is an opportunity for people to make statements about their views on the workings of this Legislature.

From time to time, I think it is important for us to correct the record when people make inaccurate statements. Just that very statement I make about returning to the Legislature recalls the comment made by the honourable member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) who said that it was the longest break in history between sessions in the Legislature. I know she does not have the benefit of a great deal of experience and perhaps not even the experience of having followed the political process in Manitoba for some time before she was elected. She would, of course, have known that that is an easily refutable statement, that it is totally inaccurate, that there were early days in this Legislature in which the Legislature sat six, eight weeks at a time, so there were long periods in which the Legislature did not sit.

If she even had taken the opportunity to look back at this past decade, she would have seen two occasions in which New Democrats were in office in which the length of time was as long as 10 months between sessions and two occasions in which it was a longer break than the one we have just come through. I take that as an honest mistake, one of inexperience. I recommend to her that she look at the information available to her before she makes statements of that nature.

The throne speech this occasion is an important one. It may be the last one before the next provincial election. I think it is important for us to define what we stand for as part of putting forth our plans for the future. As a government, we not only should define what we stand for, I think we ought to remind people of what we have accomplished in six years in government and define our vision for the future for the people of Manitoba. In all counts, I think the throne speech addresses very well those issues.

Our government's priorities are jobs and economic security, personal and community security, particularly securing our future. These are fundamental goals that I believe unite all Manitobans. Thousands of Manitobans have told my colleagues and I as we have travelled throughout the province‑‑and we have used those just over eight months since we last met productively, I believe, to travel the length and breadth of this province to meet with Manitobans of all walks of life in their communities and to talk with them about their goals, their aspirations, their own desires for the future of this province.

Those thousands of Manitobans have told us that these issues of security, jobs and economic security, personal and community security, security of their future, are the most important goals they have, the most important priorities they would put before government for its efforts. We have listened, listened whether we have been in the North in places like Thompson, in places like Minnedosa, in places in the south, in Altona, and in the west in Brandon or Melita or wherever we have been, in Carberry. In so many of these communities we have listened.

It is interesting that these themes repeat themselves regardless of where you are, that people share common goals, common values in our province. That should not surprise us because I think that is part of Manitoba's history, that we come from a wide variety of backgrounds, that we come to this province and this country from so many different areas of the world and yet we unite because of common goals and common values. We unite to create a strong, viable and energetic province that I believe has a very, very strong and bright future.

(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

Madam Deputy Speaker, the people of Manitoba feel just as strong about these things as we do, and the throne speech reflects their views. They also say that they are interested in ensuring that taxes do not increase. They say that is important, along with the areas of security, and they are probably tied together. They also say that they do not want governments to spend money wastefully, that governments ought to respect the people whom they serve and they ought to respect them in the way in which they deal with the money that has been entrusted to them on their behalf.

I believe that all of this is reflected in the throne speech that launched the Fifth Session of the Thirty‑fifth Legislature. It is our government's blueprint for Manitoba's future, but it has been drawn by the hands of hardworking Manitobans in every community of this province.

Madam Deputy Speaker, before I go further, I see that some of the members to whom I will be referring are here. I apologize for not immediately welcoming the new members who have been elected since we last sat, the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson), the member for Rossmere (Mr. Schellenberg), the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski), the member for Osborne (Ms. McCormick) and the member for St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh). I certainly welcome them to the Legislature and I say to them very sincerely that I still believe that this is the greatest honour that we can experience, being able to represent people as elected representatives in this Legislature.

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I say that we may disagree fundamentally in our views, in our priorities, in our philosophies about what government should do for its people, but we will disagree here with passion. We will disagree here very vigorously, sometimes too vigorously, but we all share a tremendous, tremendous honour that has been given us by the people who elected us and the people who we have the privilege of representing. I hope that they will, throughout their period of time in this Legislature, always look upon it as an honour and a privilege to be here. I certainly do and I hope that will always continue.

Madam Deputy Speaker, returning to the throne speech, I say to you, if I had one word to describe it, I would say it is realistic. It is not filled with the would‑have‑beens and should‑have‑beens and could‑have‑beens rhetoric that I have heard from members opposite in the last 10 days.

You know, they say, well, we would have spent more money on this and that and the other thing, or you should have done more of this and less of that and other things. That is, of course, said from the luxury of opposition. I want members opposite to understand that, because they do not seem to understand that opposition has the luxury of being able to be everywhere at all times and not accountable or responsible for anything in the course of what they do, and to bring them to reality because, as I say, I think the throne speech is realistic. I do not think some of their responses to it have been fairly realistic.

But to bring them back to reality I am going to let them know how different it is for members of the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party who are in government in this country, and the different attitude that they take towards government and towards fulfilling the responsibilities and meeting the challenges, because it is very, very different. The kinds of speeches that I have heard, the would‑have‑beens and could‑have‑beens, you know, from the luxury of opposition where you can advocate spending money without saying which taxes you would increase or what other services you would cut, Madam Deputy Speaker, is not there when you are in government or where they can criticize without offering alternatives, a very typical response of the Liberals in this House.

We will talk about that and we will talk about some of the specifics in due course.

Our first priority, above all else, is the commitment to jobs and building a strong economy. The foundation of our province's economic strategy is, of course, the principle of fiscal responsibility. Jobs and investment depend upon a competitive economic climate, and I cannot stress that strongly enough, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I have had the great good fortune and experience of being able to go to the World Economic Forum for the second time, where I was in the company of many Canadians, not only business leaders, not only experts in many, many different fields, scientists, economists, people who are as well, of course, academics and also public leaders, people such as the leaders of a number of our provinces, Premier Rae, Premier Harcourt, Premier Johnson. These people participated and heard just the very things that I heard, and it is quite an interesting dose of reality to be able to listen to people from all over the world who are dealing with similar problems and challenges to those that we are, who have perhaps through their past experience built up a situation in which they have in the past created circumstances that they now have to deal with.

I will talk, for instance, about the experiences of listening to people from Europe. I remember many, many times in this House listening to the speeches of the members opposite, particularly in the New Democratic Party, of telling us about social democracy and how well it worked in Europe, pointing to the great example of Sweden as one and the great example of Germany, where people could have it all. They could have a tremendous social safety net. They could have wonderful working conditions, and they could have all of those things and a wonderful standard of living and be competitive worldwide and everything else, strong economy, a very, very vibrant social safety net. The example of a sort of social democracy was held up to us over and over again.

Madam Deputy Speaker, this is what the social democrats‑‑I am not talking about the right‑wingers. I am not talking about the ultraconservatives. I am not talking about the Zhirinovskys of this world. I am talking about the social democrats. This is what they are saying today at world economic forums. They are saying the welfare state is dead, that‑‑

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Except in Manitoba‑‑200 million more.

Mr. Filmon: Madam Deputy Speaker, we will get to the contributions of the member for Concordia in a moment.

They are saying the welfare state is dead. They are saying that they are terrified of the competition from Asia in general‑‑Asia minus Japan I might say, because Japan is having its serious economic difficulties and challenges‑‑and North America. They are saying, you people in North America have dealt with many of your problems and challenges. You have gone through the restructuring that your economy must have, and you now have the opportunity to once again have vibrant and strong growth.

They look at us and they see 3 and 4 percent growth in our immediate future and they say, that is the result of you having made some difficult decisions, of having bit the bullet and undertaken some restructuring of your economy. You people are on track, provided you deal with your deficit and debt problem. You people are at least well along the way to dealing with the challenges that you have to face in competition, worldwide competition, from Asia and all of these emerging markets.

The Prime Minister of Sweden, Karl Bildt, who is a social democrat I might say, said that the welfare state is dead. The information from Sweden is that they‑‑okay, this is what is happening in Sweden. Sweden will have lost one‑sixth of its entire workforce, one‑sixth of all of its jobs in a period of three years‑‑this is the private sector‑‑because they are not competitive.

This is what a minister from France said. He said, today in France the average worker has 17 days of paid statutory holidays, six weeks of paid vacation, works a 35‑hour week, supports a social safety net that includes a guaranteed annual income and rich pension plans and all of the social safety net that we cannot sustain, and as a result we cannot any longer support that kind of social safety net because we are uncompetitive. The charges that are added to the costs of operation, the costs of manufacture are so great that we cannot compete with the products and goods and services that are coming from Asia or North America, and that is what is happening throughout Europe.

The job loss is absolutely traumatic, traumatic losses of jobs, traumatic reductions in their economy. Looking at growth rates in the future, whether it be Germany, whether it be Sweden, whether it be any of those countries, they are looking at no growth in the foreseeable future, and Madam Deputy Speaker, this is the prospect as a result of years and years and years of social democracy.

The academics who were there in Davos said that the wiping out of communism in the world was only the first stage. The next group that is going to be extinct is the social democrats because nothing they say makes economic sense in today's world.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that it is tough medicine for the members opposite, and I know they do not like to listen to these things, but that is reality. The answers they are preaching make absolutely no economic sense and are not sufficient to address any of the challenges that the world faces. Social democracy is going the way of communism which is extinction in every part of the world.

Yet members opposite, with their pseudo‑intellectual approach to the problems here‑‑[interjection] Well, in the past six years our government has concentrated and has succeeded in making Manitoba significantly more competitive than it was when we took office. We have done this by keeping government spending in line and by freezing or reducing all major taxes in Manitoba. It is a record that is unmatched anywhere in this country.

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The provincial budget for 1994 I believe‑‑and I am looking forward to it because it will continue the path of responsibility, and we have done this in a period of time when our revenues have been under attack. For instance, we have had significant downsizing of our transfers from Ottawa. In the last two years alone, the last two budgets alone, our transfers from Ottawa, mid‑year, mid‑budget‑year, have been reduced by over $300 million. As a matter of fact, on a continuum between 1981 and the present, the proportion of our revenues from Ottawa used to be 42.5 percent in 1981. Today it is just over 35 percent.

Madam Deputy Speaker, we have had our revenue transfers under constant attack from all areas. [interjection] Well, the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) says, what about Saskatchewan? Well, here is the interesting thing. The members opposite do not understand this or do not recognize it, and that is that during the period of time when Saskatchewan has had these transfers reduced mid‑year because of previous year's adjustment to equalization, they have never shown up on their bottom line deficit. Their auditor has simply allowed them to write it off against the previous debt and to not show it on their books. That has been the practice in the Province of Saskatchewan. If they had treated it exactly the same way as we did, their deficit this year would be up $110 million, but they did not treat it the same way as ours.

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): They started with a million‑dollar deficit from Devine, and they now have it down to three‑quarters of that. You started with a surplus and now have‑‑

Mr. Filmon: Madam Deputy Speaker, the member for Wellington continues to talk about a surplus. The budget that Jim Walding voted against had a deficit of $334 million. That is what the deficit was from the New Democrats.

Madam Deputy Speaker, our successes, of course, have been because Manitobans rolled up their sleeves and that we have done what has been necessary in Manitoba. We needed to create fiscal responsibility and at the same time invest our tax dollars in the service areas that people look to us for. We have, of course, the New Democrats opposite who are back to preaching the failed old policies of Howard Pawley. I never thought I would see the day when the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) would embrace the Jobs Fund, that short‑term, make‑work approach to job creation, as being the answer for government creating more jobs in our economy, the tired old, failed policies that not only put Howard Pawley under but are now putting the government of Ontario, put the government of British Columbia under. [interjection]

Well, you do not have anything else to offer. So that is the answer that we hear from New Democrats. The same old tired, failed policies. I remember, the member opposite was far more‑‑

An Honourable Member: . . . the government of B.C. under, you say.

Mr. Filmon: Have you taken a look at their polls? Have you taken a look at where they stand in popularity? Have you taken a look? People know what they are doing. They are taking a billion dollars of‑‑[interjection]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Filmon: They are taking a billion dollars in British Columbia, they are taking a billion dollars of current deficit and taking it off the balance sheet and hiding it in Crown corporations that they set up to construct bridges and roads and all sorts of things.

Madam Deputy Speaker, this is the answer from New Democratic British Columbia. This is the answer: B.C. debt pushed into dark corner. This article, March 24, 1994, from The Globe and Mail, talks about how the NDP government of British Columbia is slaying the dragon debt by taking all of its spending off the books and putting it away from the balance sheet.

I will quote: It is all the result of an accounting practice that has some calling the NDP "the new debt party" and others accusing the government of playing a shell game to hide its debt. To meet its zero deficit target by 1995‑96, the government is continuing a practice of moving its debt and deficit into Crown agencies and corporations. It works like this. The budget meant to show the day‑to‑day operating costs of government will run a deficit of $898 million for 1994‑95. The deficit is simply how much more the government will be adding to its accumulated debt, but another $1.128 billion in additional spending is being picked up by other arms of the government not listed in the budget. This is a debt that the government is ultimately responsible for, even if it is included in the last page of the budget papers and does not show up on the bottom line, Madam Deputy Speaker.

That is exactly what they are doing. So their real deficit is over $2 billion, annual deficit. It is shocking; it is shameful. It is what the New Democrats have to do. It is how deep they have to dig in order to try and justify that they can manage their books. [interjection]

Here, call them "the new debt party." That is what they call them in British Columbia. [interjection]

The members opposite have just mentioned advertising. I want to show them what the government of British Columbia does in the way of advertising government policies‑‑full‑page ads. This one says: Ottawa wants to shortchange British Columbia once again. This is a full‑page ad paid for by the taxpayer. This one is a report to the province to try and overcome the truth that is in the news coverage that tells British Columbians that they really do have a $2‑billion deficit. This is a quarter‑page ad that says: Deficit down. This is incredible!

This is New Democrats. This is the holier‑than‑thou hypocritical New Democrats who talk about the fact that government should not spend money on advertising, taxpayers' money, and they are spending hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars, just as Howard Pawley did when they were in government, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is shameful.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Filmon: Madam Deputy Speaker, I welcome the contribution of the members opposite. It is obvious that the truth gets to them. I will carry on providing them with more truthful information that may well get under their skins, but I think that this is exactly what is necessary, because we need to create a sense of responsibility here in this Legislature. We cannot have New Democrats and Liberals just simply saying anything they want without being called to attention, to the mark, on the dishonesty of some of the comments that they are making.

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Madam Deputy Speaker, I was trying to speak about the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) and his new‑found love of the Jobs Fund approach to creating employment, where you use government money to create short‑term, make‑work jobs and leave the province with a legacy of debt that chokes it forever in future. We have that. We have that information.

Before the member for Flin Flon (Mr. Storie) leaves, I just want him to read what was in the Dominion Bond Rating Service analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Manitoba as part of their analysis of all of the provinces in Canada. Here is the biggest weakness that they stated: High cumulative deficits in the 1981 to '88 period are the main reason interest costs are so high today. Now, who was in government in 1981 to '88? Who was in government?

The great debt providers of this province are the New Democrats, no question about it. They hold the record for creating debt in this province, $3.8 billion of general purpose debt in just six budgets‑‑$3.8 billion. No question about it, they hold the record, the dubious record, for creating the debt that today denies Manitobans the services that they piously demand of us.

The money that went into the Jobs Fund to create that short‑term stimulus that they had hoped would allow them to get re‑elected was roundly criticized by the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) when he was the president of the MGEU.

I remember him saying that all that the money did on those projects was to enable them to plant flowers on the roadsides throughout Manitoba. That was one of his famous lines. The other one was when he regaled people about how they spent the money on the Jobs Fund and how he told that they sent two people up to Cross Lake, I believe, to install‑‑it was one of the northern communities on the Nelson River‑‑signs on a project that was built with Jobs Fund money. It was the silliest thing in the world; it took three days for two people to go up there‑‑[interjection] You told me that they spent overnight in a hotel on their way up there, and they put the signs. That was how they spent the money in the Jobs Fund and kept people busy: putting up those green and white signs‑‑can we ever forget them?‑‑to advertise the Jobs Fund money that went up. I see that some of the members who were up north at that time and perhaps even employed under Jobs Fund projects are sitting there with some chagrin on their face, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Filmon: On the other side of the coin, we have the New Democrats today, in a desperate attempt to influence positively the own electoral fortunes, fighting‑‑[interjection]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I am having great difficulty hearing the First Minister.

Mr. Filmon: We have New Democrats today, in a desperate attempt to influence positively their own electoral fortunes in this province, fighting against all sorts of proposals for investment in job creation in Manitoba. It is absolutely incredible, Madam Deputy Speaker, that they would stoop to this level, that they would work with and encourage all of their friends in the special interest groups, groups that include many of their supporters, former candidates, active workers in an underground force to fight against these projects.

I am talking about, for instance, the Ayerst proposal in Brandon. Last year in the session we talked about the efforts of the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli), and we produced, of course, this petition that was circulated by one Elizabeth Carlisle that asked people to sign up in their opposition to having the Ayerst PMU plant in Brandon constructed. It gives the phone number at the Legislature and in her constituency office of the member for Radisson. Now, she denied that she had anything to do with that. She said this person‑‑

An Honourable Member: Come on. You did not have anything to do with Michael Gobuty.

Mr. Filmon: No, I did not deny that whatsoever. I said‑‑[interjection] I tabled the letter so that you would not misrepresent it. Here, this is what this person does.

Madam Deputy Speaker, that is fine. They can deny that she lent her name to this petition. What they cannot deny is this letter, because it is sent on the letterhead of the MLA for Radisson; it has the picture of the MLA for Radisson in the corner. It is very readily identifiable; it is a letter that was sent to The University of Minnesota Hospital Clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dr. Lavalleur, and it is signed by Marianne Cerilli‑‑Marianne, it says. Her writing, we will get a handwriting expert to prove it if she tries to deny it.

This letter on her very own letterhead says: Thank you for the interest that you have expressed in the issue of the expanding use of hormone replacement therapy for women as well as the PMU plant expansion in Brandon, Manitoba, the environment and health. Enclosed is a paper for your consideration. Please call if you are interested in working to do education and organizing work on these issues.

It is not organizing to try and make this project happen, it is organizing to try and stop this project. The entire paper that is attached to this letter is filled with inaccurate statements that condemn the process of producing this Premarin drug, that condemn the use of this Premarin drug, that condemn the plant from a health care standpoint, from an environmental standpoint and everything else. She is playing with the lives of a thousand Manitoba families who depend upon the Ayerst plant for their livelihood.

The worst part is, Madam Deputy Speaker, of course, that she is allowed to do this by her Leader, who lets her remain as their chief critic and their chief spokesperson on issues of this nature.

She is now involved with a group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and they are putting out these folders, I might tell you, throughout the United States in an effort to destroy the market for Premarin by Ayerst. She is now quoted in this brochure with her name on the back. It asks people on the back page, people who want to oppose and shut down that PMU operation in Brandon, it says: What you can do: Write to the Manitoba government, the Honourable Marianne Cerilli, Room 234, Legislative Building, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3C 0B8, Canada, protesting their funding of Ayerst's expansion and telling them that you will not visit the province as long as it continues to fund cruelty to horses.

Madam Deputy Speaker, not only is she trying to destroy that plant, she is even trying to destroy tourism into Manitoba. What length will they go to?

Point of Order

Mr. Doer: Madam Deputy Speaker, impugning motives of a member is clearly out of order, and the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) has written a letter, as the Premier has to Mr. Gobuty, asking the animal rights groups in the United States that are trying to hurt our local industry to cease and to desist in using her name and our party's name and any politician's name in Manitoba, and I would ask the Premier to show the same courtesy with these people in the United States that are misusing the industry in Manitoba and names in Manitoba, as we have shown, as a courtesy to the Premier when Mr. Gobuty misused his name. Thank you.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Leader of the official opposition does not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts.

* * *

Mr. Filmon: Madam Deputy Speaker, the only letter that we have on her letterhead is the letter that she sent to the University of Minnesota Hospital on her letterhead, asking for people to work with her to organize and educate on this particular issue, and her point of view is thoroughly contained in the document that she shares with this doctor, a document that condemns and tries to destroy the PMU plant in Brandon, and I might say that if she did not say these things, if they were not on the record, they could not use her statement.

* (1640)

The statement that is quoted in this document by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is her words, and again: In addition, according to Marianne Cerilli, member of the Legislative Assembly and Environment critic for the Canadian New Democratic Party, the expansion has, quote, serious consequences for the Assiniboine River, a river that many Manitobans use as a drinking‑water source.

She says that, Madam Deputy Speaker, knowing that the Clean Environment Commission has examined thoroughly that issue, has had the expertise of scientists, of biologists, of engineers, of people who are trained to make these judgments about the safety of drinking water, and those people have given the authority to the Ayerst plant to put their discharge after treatment into the Assiniboine River. They have given it an environmental bill of health, and she persists in condemning the environmental consequences of that plant.

It is wrong and it is indeed a very dangerous and dishonest way of dealing with jobs and opportunities and investments in Manitoba.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I might tell you that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) is himself not clean on these issues. When GWE systems moved into Brandon, both he and his member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans) criticized that operation with 104 new jobs coming into Brandon. He said that the jobs were too low paying.

Well, when did New Democrats stop appreciating the dignity of work, the dignity of a job? Is that not important to New Democrats any longer? Are they saying that only certain types of jobs are good jobs? This is a tragedy, when the Leader of the New Democrats himself will condemn jobs and opportunities for Manitobans to work, to be productive members of society.

This is the party that says that it is in favour of jobs, Madam Deputy Speaker, but condemns and actively works against every real job creation measure that takes place in this province, every single one. He is the one who talks about McJobs. He is the one who condemns people who take jobs.

Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, there is no help coming from the New Democrats on the issue of job creation. We will ensure that the people of Manitoba will know what New Democrats say and what New Democrats do when it comes to creating jobs in this province. We will talk about Louisiana Pacific and we will talk about the position being taken by New Democrats.

The members from the Liberal Party need not smile, Madam Deputy Speaker. Their new member for Osborne (Ms. McCormick), of course, without any knowledge and information, blithely runs forward and says, oh, this government does not appreciate and does not really support sustainable development.

There is a fundamental ignorance on the side of the Liberal Party about what sustainable development really means. Sustainable development has two parts to it‑‑sustainable and development. It does not mean no development, which New Democrats believe and which Liberals believe.

This is the fascinating part. I have read and I have shared. This government is getting compliments from people throughout North America because of the real work and the real commitment that it has given.

The Global Tomorrow Coalition in Washington, D.C., who are the people who helped President Clinton put together his round table, his sustainable development round table, have said many complimentary things. Abby Rockefeller, who is a noted environmentalist in the United States, called Manitoba a green beacon for all of North America, because these are people who understand what sustainable development is all about. Sustainable development means development in harmony with the environment. We have people such as the Leader of the Liberal Party and his new member for Osborne who take the same position as the member for Radisson, which is, off with their heads before they even begin an analysis.

The Louisiana Pacific firm has not even presented its proposal to the Clean Environment Commission, and they have judged it to be inadequate. They are saying, stop it now, cut it off, close it down, because they have made up their minds that it is not good for the environment before they have even seen the proposal.

That is not environmentalism, that is sheer ignorance. That is not sustainable development, that is sheer lack of understanding. That is not sustainable development, that is straight antidevelopment. That is all that is.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I want the member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) to know that he is the one who has no integrity on this issue. He is playing fast and loose with the truth. He is trying to convince people based on a record somewhere else, not based on any actual proposal that these people do not have.

We have the members opposite who fought against, I might tell you, the proposal to bring a new interpretive centre, Ducks Unlimited, to Manitoba, a centre that draws tens of thousands of people, compliments from everywhere in North America, from all the people who have seen this, went through the most thorough environmental assessment and review process in the history of this‑‑[interjection]

An Honourable Member: And they failed, so they changed the law.

Mr. Filmon: Not at all, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The process was done by the Clean Environment Commission with the most thorough scrutiny in the history of this province. The licence was issued by the Clean Environment Commission, based on the most thorough review.

Everybody who has been to see this facility has said that it is a jewel for all of North America, that it is the most attractive interpretive centre of its type in North America, and these people continue to spread lies and misinformation about it. It is absolutely false.

Point of Order

Mr. Doer: I deal with the words that are unparliamentary, and I would ask the Madam Deputy Speaker to look at the words of the First Minister if the words he has used are not parliamentary. Certainly at minimum it is showing very poor taste in leadership in this House but at maximum may be contrary to the rules, and I would ask you to rule on that, please.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I would just caution all honourable members to ensure that they use parliamentary language. I am not sure in which context the word was used.

Mr. Filmon: I accept your caution, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will withdraw any words that may have been unparliamentary in anything that I have said.

Madam Deputy Speaker‑‑[interjection]

An Honourable Member: Get on with the throne speech.

Mr. Filmon: I am speaking about the throne speech. It has to do with the future of this province. It has to do with the commitment to attracting investment and jobs in this province, something that New Democrats know nothing about. That is why the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) is having difficulty understanding this.

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We of course have an interesting situation in this House in which the Liberals are trying to ride the coattails of their federal cousins into office.

Mr. Neil Gaudry (St. Boniface): You could not do it with Brian, is that it?

Mr. Filmon: Madam Deputy Speaker, I hesitate to disagree with my friend the honourable member for St. Boniface, but I think that is the first time that anybody has accused me of trying to ride Brian Mulroney's coattails.

An Honourable Member: You said all you had to do was pick up the phone.

Mr. Filmon: Well, I did pick up the phone, but there was no answer on the other end from time to time, or not the answer I was looking for.

It is a little bit like New Democrats, you know, open door but closed mind. That was the New Democratic policy.

I cannot for the life of me understand why the Liberals would not at least try and keep their credibility by criticizing their federal colleagues for the measures that they are taking in reducing taxes on cigarettes.

(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)

The fact of the matter is that this country, throughout its recent history, has established the best record of all the developed world in reducing smoking in its population. This country is down to between 25 and 30 percent of its adult population who are smoking. In Europe, it is more than double that. It is 60 percent and over in Europe and Japan and throughout the developed world.

It has been a very conscious policy decision of all governments in Canada to, as much as possible, restrict smoking, to discourage smoking, and taxation policy has been one of the fundamental building blocks.

The Liberal Party in Ottawa is wrong in this respect. They are going to harm future generations of Canadians throughout this country, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the Liberal Party in Manitoba would not be more vocal in criticizing their colleagues on it.

Why would they side with the smugglers and the criminals in trying to make it easier for them to bring cigarettes into this province instead of standing up for policies that have been accepted by people of all political stripes, that are good and valid and solid policies, Mr. Speaker?

When the North American Commission on the Environment office was awarded to Montreal, despite a better proposal by Winnipeg, did we hear the Liberals criticize? No, the member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) says, the federal government has to look after more than Winnipeg.

Well, Mr. Speaker, if Manitobans will not stand up for Manitoba, who do they expect to stand up for Manitoba? The Liberals are on a very, very slippery slope on this and many other issues.

Did they say anything about the cancellation of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jobs in the aerospace industry? Not a bit. Look at the cancellation of, for instance, the F‑5 overhauls. F‑5 overhauls will reduce 400 jobs at Bristol Aerospace by the end of this year. They reduced some 500 jobs in Manitoba through the cancellation of the EH‑101 contract.

I remember time after time after time in this House, members of the Liberal Party, particularly their former Leader, talking about the lack of opportunity for engineers and scientists in this province, talking about the fact that there were not enough high‑tech jobs in Manitoba.

They, with the stroke of the pen, destroyed 500 high‑tech jobs, half of them at least for engineering graduates‑‑gone with the stroke of a pen.

That is their kind of commitment to diversification of our economy, to higher technology, value‑added industry‑‑a shocking situation, and they sit there with a smirk on their faces and offer absolutely no encouragement to the young people of this province.

Mr. Speaker, when we took office in 1988, we said that we would not leave our problems to future generations. We said that we would deal with every problem that faced us as a government. We said that we would take our problems head‑on and that we would deal with them and not leave them to future generations and we have done that. We have faced our problems head‑on.

In fact, in our efforts to control taxes, to control the deficit, to plan with wisdom and responsibility and innovation, we have acquired a reputation as a government that is creating an attractive environment for Manitoba. You can read about it in many different magazines. You can read about it in many different publications. The Globe and Mail Report on Business, Mr. Speaker, in its August edition, front page coverage on Winnipeg's attractiveness for investment and job creation. Trade and Commerce magazine in November gave major, major coverage to Manitoba, cover page. Diane Francis said we have turned an NDP antibusiness regime into a probusiness climate in Manitoba, and she said that we have created a climate that is attractive to investment and attractive to job creation.

We are listening to Manitobans throughout this province. We had last week a turnout of some 600 people at a rural development forum in Brandon, and I congratulate the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach)‑‑a very positive climate, a very upbeat, energetic environment, people who know that they have an opportunity now to create jobs, to make a return on their investment and who have an excellent opportunity to succeed and grow here in Manitoba. The fruits of our labours are taking root and growing in communities throughout our province of Manitoba.

In 1992, Mr. Speaker, we had the second highest GDP growth rate of all the provinces of Canada. In 1993, we had the third best job creation rate of all the provinces of Canada. In 1994, we are expected to have a growth rate in excess of 3 percent, which is well above what occurs in Europe and many of the countries throughout the world, many of the industrialized countries throughout the world. We have done it because we have kept taxes down. We have created a climate that attracts investment and jobs, and we have done it in a way at the same time that has made this a more attractive place for people to live, a far better place for people to live.

As a matter of fact, Stats Canada has recently put out some figures on the growth of disposable income, and Manitoba is the‑‑is it the highest or the second highest in Canada‑‑it is 7.4 percent growth in disposable income for the average Manitoba family compared to 3 percent as the national average, is what is expected in 1994. That was the highest in Canada, Mr. Speaker, and that is because while all the other provinces are increasing taxes, we are keeping them down.

Mr. Speaker, I want to deal with some of the hypocrisy that comes forward from members opposite. I dealt with their hypocrisy on advertising. I want to deal with their hypocrisy on health care because particularly the New Democrats have been saying certain things about health care that I think cannot go unchallenged.

* (1700)

As a for instance, they continue to talk about the APM contract, the Connie Curran contract. Well, I think that they ought not to be feeling so smug about that, because, guess what is happening. The former senior New Democratic appointment in Manitoba, the Clerk of the Executive Council, Howard Pawley's senior deputy minister, Mr. Michael Decter, who also became the Deputy Minister of Health in the Province of Ontario, has now been hired as the chief executive officer of APM's Canadian division.

Now, that Michael Decter is the brother‑in‑law of the current president of the New Democratic Party of Manitoba. So these people hypocritically are talking about Connie Curran and the APM report, and New Democrats are the principal supporters of APM in Canada and principal beneficiaries. The CEO of APM's Canadian division is one Michael Decter, the former deputy minister for Howard Pawley, the former Deputy Minister of Health for the New Democrats in Ontario and the brother‑in‑law of the president of the Manitoba New Democratic Party.

Point of Order

Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I say this because I know the Premier seems to delight in doing this, having done it with my own spouse in Question Period when I was not present, but the Premier should understand this is the 1990s, and it is very unfair in this particular case to make comments regarding individuals such as the president of our party. It does not matter who she is married to, who she is related to, she is a person in her own right and deserves far better treatment from the Premier than this kind of comment.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member does not have a point of order.

* * *

Mr. Filmon: The hypocrisy of people who have been cheap shotting. The cabinet secretary for communications all day long has been cheap shotted by the members in the New Democratic benches, and they think that mentioning this relationship is dirty pool. Ah, Mr. Speaker‑‑[interjection] But you can say anything you want about a civil servant who is not here to defend herself. Right? You can say that, can you? You really are a piece of work.

Mr. Speaker, the member for Concordia, the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Doer), likes to go on talk shows like Richard Cloutier, and in the Selkirk Journal and say that he prefers the approach in Saskatchewan and in British Columbia to health care reform, and he will debate Ontario's any old day, he says.

Well, I will tell you what New Democrats are doing. Here, for instance, is what New Democrats are doing in British Columbia. Not only did they close a major downtown hospital, Shaughnessy Hospital in Vancouver, but even right now, from Sunday's April 17 newspaper, The Vancouver Province, here we have a story in which 172 additional beds are being closed by the New Democratic government there. The hospital, St. Paul's, and the combined Vancouver and University of B.C. hospitals say beds must be closed because Victoria‑‑that is the government‑‑is giving them no increase in funding in their 1994‑95 budgets. That is what is happening in New Democratic British Columbia.

Let us take a look at what is happening in New Democratic Ontario. The headline is: Rae warns of more cuts. Now this story talks about more cuts in addition to the 3,500 beds that have been closed already in the province of Ontario by the New Democratic government‑‑3,500 beds. Job losses are in excess of 4,500 nurses and support staff in the province of Ontario thanks to New Democrats with their hand at the wheel of health care reform, Mr. Speaker. That is what the member for Concordia says that he supports, that kind of health care reform.

The same thing is true in the province of Saskatchewan, which he also says that he supports‑‑52 rural hospitals closed. That is their idea of improving health care, and their idea of how health care reform ought to take place.

But, Mr. Speaker, the Liberals do not have a better leg on which to stand, because the Liberals, of course, are doing exactly the same thing. In New Brunswick, the cuts have been extensive, and the cuts have been deep in their health care system.

I will not go into major detail on that because I already did that in previous sessions, but since the last session, we have had the election of a new Liberal government. It was the government, of course, in the province of Nova Scotia.

Since that session, there has been some experience, because you will recall that that Liberal Party, in running for office, condemned its predecessor government for cuts in health care, cuts in social services, cuts in education. They said that they would not raise taxes, and they said that they would not continue to cut in health care. Well, of course, we know that they have raised taxes already in less than a year in office, substantial increases in taxes. We also know, Mr. Speaker, that here we have: Halifax hospital lays off 157; fewer patients will receive care; 56 beds eliminated in one hospital only in Halifax. That is what the Liberals do.

Here is an even greater indication of what the Liberals will be doing in future in this country, because it is the Liberals in Ottawa who are dealing with transfer payments to the provinces for the support of health care in Canada. Here we have the Honourable Marcel Masse, the Intergovernmental Affairs minister, who is looking at how he is going to save money in Ottawa in terms of eliminating some of their costs and getting their deficit down. The headline in the Toronto Star, which is a Liberal paper, says: 20 percent cut seen in spending for health. The quote is: Canada is in a state of financial crisis‑‑now this is only five months after they have been elected‑‑and must cut billions of dollars in spending from health care and other programs, a top federal minister says; Intergovernmental Affairs minister, Marcel Masse, said last night, health spending alone could be cut perhaps by 20 percent, and international experience suggests services should not suffer.

That is what he is saying. Services will not suffer. We are going to cut your spending by 20 percent‑‑[interjection]

Mr. Speaker, that is an absolutely fascinating response from the member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) who says, of course, that they would spend smart with 20 percent less money in health care. When we look at reductions of less than a tenth of that, they think that it is an absolute crisis in health care. It is unbelievable. The hypocrisy of the member for St. James is unbelievable.

Here is more from Ontario: Hospital cuts marrow transplant program. There are other stories about them closing down emergency wards in hospitals and all of these services. The same thing as well again from the Toronto Star this time is: NDP to cut $34 million in schools. That is the New Democrats.

An Honourable Member: Where is that?

Mr. Filmon: In Ontario.

An Honourable Member: I thought it was Sweden there for a minute.

Mr. Filmon: Well, Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the members opposite find it humorous when we remind them of the truth of the actions of their counterparts and their colleagues in other parts of Canada.

* (1710)

Mr. Speaker, I just want to talk to a very limited extent on trade and the importance of trade to Manitoba's economy. I believe that two recent developments‑‑and I compliment the federal Liberal Party on seeing the light, and I assume that means their colleagues here in the Manitoba Legislature, their fellow Liberals, also agree with the tremendous change, the 180 degree change that was done by the federal Liberals of approving NAFTA without changing one iota, one element, one sentence of that agreement. It was an unbelievable conversion on the road to Damascus.

There is a great deal to be said for the advantages and the opportunities of trade. I have said many, many times in our rural communities that two things that happened just before Christmas of 1993 will probably result in the brightest prospects for economic security that our farm community has seen in decades, and those two things are the resolution of GATT and NAFTA. In those two items alone, I believe that you will see the economic health of rural Manitoba take a tremendous step forward.

Mr. Speaker, even just in anticipation of NAFTA, because Manitoba businesses were going down, were looking at opportunities, were seeking out markets and checking out what they could do in Mexico, our trade with Mexico increased by 30 percent in 1993. Just the fact that some Manitoba producers, some Manitoba manufacturers and suppliers went down to Mexico to start looking at opportunities.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, I want to just remind those New Democrats who were adamant opponents of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States that in the last three years alone our exports to the United States have increased 40 percent‑‑40 percent in the last three years.

An Honourable Member: What is the deficit for trade . . . ?

Mr. Filmon: It is almost eliminated, absolutely. It has been eliminated, and these are the results of trade agreements that open up opportunities for Manitobans. Manitobans on the world stage‑‑and we have got to remember that Manitoba is a trading province. If we are going to maintain our quality of life, our standard of living, we have to be able to sell; half of all the goods we produce we sell outside this province. We must keep the borders open.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to look for the support of members opposite, as we continue to try and ensure that we remove the interprovincial trade barriers in this country. We want to ensure that. Liberals, I believe, will support that; New Democrats, I am not sure, will support that. New Democrats in at least two of our provinces in Canada today are fighting against a resolution of that interprovincial free trade agreement, and we are going to want them to go out and lobby their colleagues in other provinces to ensure that we have free trade throughout.

I have not even talked about the Mineral Exploration Incentive Program and the tremendous explosion of mining opportunities in this province of Manitoba. [interjection]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) is very exercised to hear the good news of all the opportunities that are happening in our economy. He does not want me to be able to carry on, but despite his interventions, I will persist because I think it is important for people to know that in 1993, we had the largest exploration, the largest dollar spent in exploration in both mining and oil in the history of Manitoba.

Of course, New Democratic policies throughout the '70s and '80s absolutely killed mining exploration and development in Manitoba, absolutely killed mining exploration. Now we have the opportunities for growth that are taking place in the mining industry because of our Mineral Exploration Incentive Program, because of our policies to encourage mining.

The largest single claim staked in the history of Manitoba: 2.7 million acres by Rhonda Mining Corporation to look for diamonds, gold and precious metals. We have a nickel mine that is currently in the final stages of exploration, a nickel deposit that could result in a nickel mine that is at least as large as Thompson, thanks to the policies of this government.

We have vanadium; we have titanium. We have all these metals being produced. By the end of 1995, we will have three producing gold mines, thanks to the policies of this administration‑‑hundreds of jobs, massive opportunities for the people of northern Manitoba.

What do they have in British Columbia, who are now pursuing the policies of the New Democrats that they imposed on this province that brought exploration to a grinding halt in this province? They have, it says here: B.C. tries to calm mining industry. It says: 50 percent drop in exploration investment called crisis.

They have a crisis in the mining industry, and all of those people are coming to Manitoba. In fact, Falconbridge moved their exploration offices out of Vancouver to Winnipeg because of the climate in British Columbia that is absolutely anti‑mineral‑exploration, and they moved it to Manitoba.

Mr. Speaker, the one thing that I want to say to the members opposite, because they do not seem to have any sense of what answers they would bring here other than raising taxes, the one thing I say to them is in our consultations with people throughout this province, they do not want their taxes increased. They know how much the taxes increased under New Democrats when they were last in office. They know how much the taxes are increasing under New Democratic governments all over this province, all over this country.

Here is another one from the Toronto Star: Tax bite up $3 billion under NDP. Now that is in one year in Ontario under the New Democrats‑‑$3 billion in tax increases. That is what they know would happen if the New Democrats were ever allowed to get their hands on government in this province.

Mr. Speaker, the other thing I say to them is that they have to have a realistic approach to ensure that they attempt to live within their means, because revenue increases in future for all the governments in Canada are not going to go up as they did in the past. Revenue increases in Canada, the best forecasts that we and other governments have in Canada are that revenues will increase at half the rate that they did in the '80s and a quarter of the rate that they did in the 1970s. So the New Democrats and the Liberals had better come up with better answers, because the ones that they have given in the past simply do not cut it, and that will not help them to meet the needs of Manitobans.

Mr. John Plohman (Dauphin): Sounds like a gimmick coming.

Mr. Filmon: I just want to close with a little information, and I would just ask the member for Dauphin, I did not heckle him when‑‑[interjection] Mr. Speaker, I just want members opposite to know exactly what has happened to spending in this province and the priorities that we have chosen since we have been in office for the past six years.

In the area of Family Services, spending has increased from 10 percent to over 12 percent of our budget. In the area of Education, spending has increased from 17.2 percent to 18.7 percent of our budget. In the area of health care, it has increased from 31.6 percent to 33.9 percent of our budget.

* (1720)

Mr. Speaker, the social safety net, in three departments only, Health, Education and Family Services, comprises 65 percent of all of our spending. In addition to that, in our areas of taxation, the changes that we have been making, I just heard a tax expert on the radio the other day talking with Richard Cloutier about taxes in Manitoba. That tax expert responded to a caller who said that they were concerned about the complexity of the income tax form in Manitoba.

The response that was given by that tax expert was that, of course, the income tax system and the form basically have to follow the principles and the rules of the federal government who do collect income taxes for all of the governments of Canada with the exception of Quebec. They said that in order to bring in changes to try and apply your own mark to the tax collection system, the forms unfortunately do become complex, but he said, the good side to it is that the complexity in the Manitoba system is because of the tax credits that were brought in by this government by the former Minister of Education to try and increase the credits for families and indeed for dependants in Manitoba and give much greater fairness to the tax system for our low‑income people and our people with dependants. That was done by this Conservative administration in Manitoba and, as a result of that, Mr. Speaker, with the changes that we brought in, that brought Manitoba from the second highest overall taxed province in Canada when we took office in 1988 to the third lowest taxed province in Canada today.

People opposite say, oh, yes, but you are not doing anything for the low‑income people, you are only worried about your rich friends. Well, the government of Saskatchewan in its budget in February, and I recommend it as good reading to the members opposite, put forth a table that gives the comparison of costs that are imposed by the provincial governments across this country in the form of taxes and regulated costs, regulated by the PUB. We are talking about the regulated costs such as heating, electricity, telephones and car insurance, and you add to that the costs that are imposed by the provincial government, and guess what.

For a family income of $25,000, Manitoba has the lowest costs in Canada. For a family of $50,000, Manitoba has the second lowest costs in Canada, and for a family of $75,000 income, Manitoba is the third lowest costs in Canada, for all of these costs that are either directly imposed or regulated by provincial governments.

So not only have we been keeping taxes down and lowering taxes, Mr. Speaker, we have continued to do so in a way that has been fair to the taxpayers of Manitoba and fairest to the lowest‑income people in our economy.

I remember when the New Democrats were in office and they brought in that 2 percent tax on net income and it started to click in to families earning $12,000. That 2 percent tax on net income whacked families earning $12,000 with a new tax. That was their contribution to fairness and to keeping the cost of living down for the low‑income people of this province.

The other part of the equation, of course, is what we have done with respect to deficits, Mr. Speaker, and what proportion deficits have played as a part of our decisions and our priorities in government.

Well, the members opposite in the NDP party who are constantly criticizing everything that we do fiscally in government, while they were in office, six straight budgets had deficits that exceeded 3 percent of the gross provincial product. We, since we have been in office, Mr. Speaker, have a deficit that has averaged under one and a half percent of the gross provincial product. Those deficits have continued to go down without increases in taxes and without impacting the cost of living of the people of this province. We have not only kept their taxes down, but we have kept their deficits down so that we did not defer the costs of government today to future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to‑‑when we talk about hypocrisy, we, of course, had the recent event of the Liberal Party and its lottery. But I just want New Democrats to know what is going on in other provinces. Here, of course, is British Columbia, which it says, B.C. could be Vegas of the North, talking about the casino being planned for B.C. Here, of course, is a story from the Regina Leader Post, which says: Gambling income a windfall for government. It says, quote: Virtually all of the increase in revenues for the province of Saskatchewan will come from 3,000 video lottery terminals that will be operating in licensed establishments across the province in the coming year‑‑3,000 VLTs being put in by New Democrats in Saskatchewan.

New Democrats in Ontario, of course, are practising their commitment to building the Canadian economy by hiring a U.S. firm to run their casino in Windsor, Ontario, Mr. Speaker. Michael Decter not only believes in Connie Curran and the Connie Curran approach to health care, but he believes in it in an approach to lotteries and gaming.

There has been a little bit of information put forward by the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett), whom I welcome to the House, and it is information about New Democrat spending to try and maintain jobs in Ontario. This article from the Globe and Mail is entitled Where Money Talks So Jobs Won't Walk. It talks about $163 million of taxpayers' money being put into firms in Ontario for training and maintaining people on employment.

Mr. Speaker, now these are not little companies. These are not fledgling, floundering companies. These are the list of companies who received $163 million for training and other purposes in jobs in Ontario‑‑this is for the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen): Inglis Limited, $5 million; Du Pont Canada, $20 million; Toyota Canada, $1 million; Bombardier, $11 million; General Motors, $5 million; Provincial Papers, $18 million; Chrysler Canada, $30 million; Ford of Canada, $43 million; Mitel Corporation, $20 million; Fleet Aerospace, $10 million‑‑$163 million from New Democrats to training and maintaining jobs in Ontario. That is the hypocrisy of the New Democrats opposite, Mr. Speaker.

* (1730)

I also want to thank the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) for the calendar that he sent around, Mr. Speaker. It is a beautiful picture of his wife, Jenny, and his lovely daughter, Emily, and he does not look bad in it either. I just want to ask him, where is March 2? It must have been a black day.

Well, Mr. Speaker, it has been a great pleasure as always to address the throne speech, and I just say that the throne speech makes its commitment to jobs, to a stronger economy, to the security of Manitobans and to a brighter future for all Manitobans. I believe that the throne speech is worthy of the support of every single member of the Legislature, and I invite all members to support it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Pursuant to Rule 35(4), I am interrupting the proceedings in order to put the question on the motion of the honourable member for Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine), that is, a motion for an address in reply to the Speech from the Throne, which is that an humble address be presented to His Honour the Lieutenant‑Governor as follows:

We, Her Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, in session assembled, humbly thank Your Honour for the gracious speech which Your Honour has been pleased to address us at the opening of the present session.

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

Some Honourable Members: No.

Voice Vote

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

Some Honourable Members: Yea.

Mr. Speaker: All those opposed, please say nay.

Some Honourable Members: Nay.

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

Formal Vote

Mr. Ashton: Yeas and Nays, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A recorded vote having been requested, call in the members.

The question before the House is the motion of the honourable member for Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine), that is, the motion for an address in reply to the Speech from the Throne, which was just read.

Division

A RECORDED VOTE was taken, the result being as follows:

Yeas

Cummings, Dacquay, Derkach, Downey, Driedger, Ducharme, Enns, Ernst, Filmon, Findlay, Gilleshammer, Helwer, Laurendeau, Manness, McAlpine, McCrae, McIntosh, Mitchelson, Orchard, Pallister, Penner, Praznik, Reimer, Render, Rose, Stefanson, Sveinson, Vodrey.

Nays

Ashton, Barrett, Carstairs, Cerilli, Chomiak, Dewar, Doer, Edwards, Evans (Brandon East), Evans (Interlake), Friesen, Gaudry, Gray, Hickes, Kowalski, Lamoureux, Lathlin, Mackintosh, Maloway, Martindale, McCormick, Plohman, Reid, Robinson, Santos, Schellenberg, Storie, Wowchuk.

Mr. Clerk (William Remnant): Yeas 28, Nays 28.

Mr. Speaker: When required to exercise a casting vote, a Speaker must consider several principles. Among these is a concept that where no other options are available, the Chair should vote for the retention of the status quo. The identification of relevant precedence was not easy; however, I did determine that in 1897 Speaker Juta (phonetic) of the Union of South Africa, then a self‑governing dominion within the Commonwealth, voted in support of the government on a motion of no confidence to keep the matter open in accordance with the established convention. Therefore, to retain the status quo, and so that a final and conclusive judgment would not be made solely by the presiding officer of this House, I am voting for the motion. The motion is accordingly carried.

Is it the will of the House to call it six o'clock? [agreed] The hour being 6 p.m., this House is now adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday).