THRONE SPEECH DEBATE
(Second Day of Debate)
Mr. Speaker: On the adjourned debate, the second day of debate, on the proposed motion of the honourable member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) for an Address to His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor in answer to his speech at the opening of the session, standing in the name of the honourable member for Thompson.
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): I defer this on behalf of our Leader.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Just for the record, the honourable member for Thompson, you are aware of the fact that you have actually spoken now in the Throne Speech Debate.
Mr. Ashton: Mr. Speaker, I will speak on the budget.
Mr. Speaker: On the budget. Okay, that is fine.
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Thompson for taking this adjournment for me.
Mr. Speaker, 1995 is the fifth year of the government. This is the sixth Speech from the Throne, which is the most numbers of Speeches from the Throne by any government that we can see in 125 years of history of any government holding on to their mandate to the last possible moment. No other government in Manitoba has gone to this much length to hold on in terms of their own mandate. We would have preferred to have an election in 1994 than in the rehashed ideas, repackaged ideas of the Conservative Party of Manitoba.
I would point out, Mr. Speaker, the parties that go to the end of their mandate--Grant Devine, Brian Mulroney, Bill Vander Zalm and Rita Johnston, Richard Hatfield--have not done that well. Not only have they lost government when they have held on for this long a period of time, but they have lost their whole party by holding on because the people over a period of time know when a government is just holding on for their own good and have lost the whole motivation of working for Manitobans' good. People know that.
Mr. Speaker, 1995 is our 125th anniversary. It marks a date that we can all commemorate with pride, with honour. Of course, Manitoba was established as a province close to 125 years ago. Of course, contributions from people like Louis Riel and the Metis people joining in with First Nations and people from all across the world made Manitoba their home. They built a great and wonderful province in this wonderful country of Canada, and we in the New Democratic Party salute our forefathers and foremothers who established Manitoba as a province and all the people who have made Manitoba a great place to live and to raise a family.
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Mr. Speaker, we want to salute the pioneering spirit of our homesteaders that established Manitoba as one of the parts of Canada that is the bread basket of our nation, and we want to salute the efforts of people that have gone before us to build up a telephone system, to build up a hydro system and also to build up a quality of services in this province, a health care service that is free of premiums, unlike other provinces and an education system that over the years has been second to none in terms of world-class opportunities for people.
Manitoba has been a province that has required all of us to work together to build a place to live and raise a family, a place where we co-operate, a place where we believe strongly in the values of hard work and fair play, and we salute the contribution in this 125th year of our people that have gone before us, and we pledge to bring about again that spirit of hard work and co-operation to work to rebuild this province, because the government's Speech from the Throne indicates very clearly to us that they are both tired and I dare to say cynical.
They are tired and cynical, Mr. Speaker, and you can see it in every line of this very last, sixth Speech from the Throne of their second term. You can see the cynicism, you can see the fatigue, you can see the lack of energy, you can see the yawns of boredom across the way, and, of course, people want energy and fairness here in Manitoba.
If ever there was evidence of a government that was tired, it is their Speech from the Throne in their fifth year of their second mandate and their Speech from the Throne in their sixth year of their second mandate. I mean, what kind of intellectual fatigue and laziness do we have when a government can take close to 20 percent of their speech and xerox it from the year before? Maybe people are too busy galavanting on the Great Wall of China and cannot spend enough time writing another Speech from the Throne, or maybe, just maybe they are too tired and too out of energy to write a unique speech to deal with the unique year we face here in Manitoba.
Let me give you another example of how tired and how lacking in energy and commitment the members opposite have for the province moving into this next year. Agriculture--agriculture gets two or three lines in a Speech from the Throne from members opposite. Who wrote this speech? The bureaucrats and the government or people that are MLAs in their constituencies, because if you listen to members opposite, they would talk about the great industry of agriculture in the province of Manitoba and how that is so important to the people of Manitoba. A couple of lines in the Speech from the Throne. Do you people really care about agriculture any more? Do you like these speeches? Do you have a vision for the future? Do you have a position for today, or are you more interested in expanding gambling than you are in expanding agriculture opportunities here in Manitoba?
Mr. Speaker, in agriculture we see nothing from members opposite about the Wheat Board. Do you have no position? Have you become like Liberals, having no position at all on this, or do you have a position on orderly marketing?
I used to remember the Conservative Party in Manitoba with a little energy and a party that had a vision and took a position. They have no position any more. They are sitting on the picket fence on this one, Mr. Speaker. They have no position; they have no energy. They just want to play it safe. They do not want to offend anybody. They do not want to take any leadership on agriculture. They just want to sit in the weeds and take no position on the Wheat Board. We, in the New Democratic Party, are proud to take a position on orderly marketing, and we are proud to put it out to the people of Manitoba.
Mr. Speaker, do we see any position on the transportation provisions? Do we see any position on the transportation payment? Again, no position at all. Some of the producers want the money to go to the railway so that we can keep our system in place. Some of the producers want the money to go to the producer. What do the Tories do? Do they provide leadership? Do they provide energy? Do they have a policy? Do they have a vision? They have nothing. They have no position whatsoever. This is a government that is clearly running on empty. They know it, we know it and everybody in Manitoba knows it.
Oh, they can take a little minivan out every three weeks with little Filmon signs on it. Every three weeks they would haul that little minivan out and sort of titillate the media about having a potential election. When they take it out every three weeks and then they put it in the garage in November of 1994, they have no energy, they have no get-up-and-go, they have no courage of their conviction. They are just hanging on, and the only sounds we hear from members opposite are the sounds of fingernails going down the cliff as they hold on.
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Mr. Speaker, the second concern we have about the Speech from the Throne is how cynical members opposite are. If you look at past Speeches from the Throne they used to use the word "reform." Then they have gone to "renewal." Really when you read a Speech from the Throne after Speech from the Throne and you finally get up to the eight that they have produced, the only thing we really see is repackaging, repackaging not for the people of Manitoba for a future vision for this province, a repackaging not for what is best for the people of Manitoba in terms of a long-term plan for the people in this province, we only see repackaging for the short-term renewal of the Progressive Conservative Party. The people of Manitoba will not give you a third term, because you have run out of ideas and all you are doing is repackaging your material.
An Honourable Member: The fourth R is rejection.
An Honourable Member: They will reject it, that is right.
Mr. Doer: That was my last sentence.
Mr. Speaker, cynical, cynical, cynical. Let us look at a couple of examples. In the Speech from the Throne--let us take a simple example, and then we will go into more complicated examples. Starting with a simple example, this is a government that says we are going to have a billion dollars in tourism business in the province of Manitoba in the 1994 year and we are going to double it in six years to the year 2000. What they do not tell you--and this is why they are cynical beyond belief--is when they came to office in 1988 it was already a billion-dollar industry.
Do we need a government that is committed to keeping the status quo, a treadmill future for the people of Manitoba under the Conservative government? I mean, how do they have the nerve to repackage status quo for six years as an achievement? I guess the reason why they can repackage the status quo as an achievement for over six years is because almost everything else, we go backwards under the Conservative government. I suppose the government opposite just hopes that nobody studies the facts from the past and can show that all they have done is go to zero in terms of growth in tourism, and this is when the dollar is down to 73 cents, but of course this government has no flexible strategy.
They put in a marketing strategy a couple of years ago out of South Dakota, I think. You know, not a bad set of ads, Mr. Speaker, but did they change their strategy in mid-term this year when the dollar was plummeting down below 80 cents, down to 74 or 73 cents? Did they change the advertising campaign to the United States and say, come to Canada and take advantage of the low dollar? No, they could not do it. They had no flexibility, and that is why we have status quo from this government.
I guess they used tourism because we are almost to the same point as what they inherited in 1988, because if they were to take jobs and compare where we are from 1990 when they received a majority to today, we have less people working today than we did when they got a majority in 1990.
We have the unemployment rate going down, which is good for Manitoba, and we have some modest improvement over the last couple of months in terms of unemployment rate, but the question is: Why are we ninth out of 10 in provinces in terms of growth rate for jobs in Canada? Why are we creating jobs and economic opportunity below the national average again and again? That is why people are leaving this province in out-migration numbers of some 43,000 people.
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We have said before that the only thing that is growing in this province is moving vans going to the west coast and lottery revenues. Unfortunately, we are right and unfortunately the government is wrong in terms of their economic strategy--cynical, cynical, cynical.
Look at the whole issue in the Speech From the Throne about growth rate in Manitoba. Manitoba's growth rate, Mr. Speaker, has been last two out of the four years. Now, I know that members opposite have a new solution for the fact that we are 10th place. When Stats Canada and the Financial Post and The Globe and Mail and Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank and everybody else came out with stats to show that Manitoba was the only provincial government in 1993 to go down in economic performance, by .9 percent, the government came out and said, Stats Canada is wrong. You cannot go by Stats Canada, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, the Conference Board, every other financial predictor. You cannot go by them any more because we do not like what comes out.
Now, the Economist magazine, which has more credibility than members opposite in terms of financial analysis, has now called Stats Canada the finest statistical body in the world, but that is not good enough for the Conservatives. They are too cynical to accept the financial numbers of Stats Canada, and they have created their own set of numbers to show that Manitoba's economy is growing higher than the national average.
Well, Mr. Speaker, that is a shame, that they cannot accept the reality the people in Manitoba are facing in terms of job performance, growth rates and economic activity in this province. The reason why they cannot accept it is that they are again cynically hoisted on their own petard.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)
In 1990, they said after the election, Manitoba will have the strongest employment growth of any province and investment will grow at almost double the national average. So what happened in 1991? We declined in our growth, Madam Deputy Speaker. We declined by 4.6 percent, according to Stats Canada. We declined even according to Manitoba Bureau of Statistics. Now how can the government say they are doing so well when, in 1991, both the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics and Stats Canada had us declining by more than any other province in Canada?
In 1992, again, the government, in its Speech from the Throne, said that we are expected to have increased household purchase in durable goods, and we will see increased investment by business within the next few months. We will increase our investments again, and we will be out of the recession by the summer of 1992.
Well, were we out of the recession by 1992?
Some Honourable Members: No.
Mr. Doer: No. Were we out of the recession in 1993?
Some Honourable Members: No.
Mr. Doer: Were we out of the recession in 1994?
Some Honourable Members: No.
Mr. Doer: Oh, but now we are on the road to recovery out of the recession. Follow the yellow brick road, the members opposite say. Every year we have to follow the same road in the Conservative Party.
An Honourable Member: I think I see the wizard.
Mr. Doer: Madam Deputy Speaker, we do not see the wizard at the end of the yellow brick road; we just see the wicked witch of the west over there in terms of policies here in this province. Like that great fairy tale, the economic policies of this government are melting. We will still see the cynicism after cynicism after cynicism because every year we hear how great Manitoba is going to do, and every year we are doing last place, seventh place, last place. Only once, in 1992, did we go above the national average in growth. So we had one good year and four bad years under the Conservatives. Of course, people in Manitoba deserve much, much better.
If they do not want to listen to Stats Canada, perhaps they should listen to their own Manitoba Bureau of Statistics. I wonder what the minister responsible for that bureau thinks when their own ministers can say, oh, we are really not in tenth place, Stats Canada is wrong, when their own Manitoba Bureau of Statistics in both '91 and in '93 have also had you in tenth, last place. It is not a very, very happy occasion.
If you read the Stats Canada report, no wonder they have put out a bulletin against Stats Canada. One wonders why a certain reporter reported on it, because when you look at the 10-year history, you will find, from 1983 to 1988, Manitoba exceeded the national growth rate every year and continued to do so in 1989. We had enough good things still left over for the government to take credit for between '88 and '89. Then, every year thereafter, except 1992, we were below the national average in growth. Of course, the GDP is the measure of everything you do, every economic indicator, private sector, public sector, voluntary sector. It affects the commodity prices.
Yes, some of it has not been good luck. I think that we would acknowledge, in 1993, the crop failure did have something to do with the downturn. We are certainly willing to acknowledge that and other factors with this government, but how can we have an intelligent debate with people opposite when all they do is say that Stats Canada is wrong, the Bank of Montreal is wrong, the Royal Bank is wrong, the Conference Board is wrong, their own Bureau of Statistics is wrong? You cannot even have an intelligent debate with people because they are not willing to face reality. They are cynical. They are repackaging. They do not care about hope for Manitobans and opportunities for Manitobans. They only care about repackaging themselves with rhetoric, not deeds, for their own attempt to get another five years from the people of Manitoba.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the other issue of cynicism, of course, is the whole issue of deficits. Now some governments that are dealing with deficits have taken deficits that have been very high, like in Saskatchewan, and are trying to deal as fairly as they can to lower them. I dare say that other governments in Canada are doing the same thing. But this is the only government in Canada that has taken a surplus, wrestled it up to be a deficit of $762 million, and now wants to take credit and repackage itself as deficit fighters to reduce it down to zero. We wrestled it from zero up to 762, and you can pat us on the back for wrestling it down allegedly to zero in 1995.
Now, of course, we will never know what their deficit is because we know that what they say in their budget and what actually happens in their Public Accounts is sometimes off $100 million, sometimes off $190 million dollars, and, unfortunately, has been off over $350 million by members opposite. How can you be so cynical and have not one, not two, but three sets of books? A cartoon in the Free Press yesterday had the Premier (Mr. Filmon) with two faces, but they were charitable to the Premier because the Premier is not two-faced, he is three-faced when it comes to the finances here in Manitoba. Is it not a shame, is it not a shame!
Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not know how members can live with themselves with these numbers. They know that the Auditor said that there was not a deficit in 1988 and '89. The Premier tabled the budget in '88-89. The Auditor's report said in 1988-89 there was a surplus. There was a surplus of $58 million.
An Honourable Member: You supported the Fiscal Stabilization Fund.
Mr. Doer: We supported the reduction in property tax, credits for families; that is something that the member opposite did not do. If you want to vote against family tax credits, be my guest. We have only voted for one Conservative budget in eight. Unlike the Liberals, we are not Pavlov's dog; we kind of look at things on its merit; and, if there is reduction of property tax credits--well, the member for St. James (Mr. Edwards) voted against it. We voted for it, and we think we made the right decision based on the merit of things.
Now it is interesting, Madam Deputy Speaker, that even the Liberal Leader (Mr. Edwards), and I should mention this now. He is talking from his seat. I should mention this now that in his own press conference a week ago when he was announcing that elaborate platform of theirs, that substantial tome of documents that they had out before us, even the Liberal Leader said, on the one hand, in the press conference that the government was left a surplus, and on the other hand there had been budget deficits for X number of years. So both things are right because, quite frankly, the budget and the actual Public Accounts are different. So the bottom line is, did we have an actual surplus of real money in 1988-89, and we did, and as the member for St. James said, you are right, we did have a surplus in 1988 and in '89.
Well, the bottom line is that the Conservatives have cynically raised the deficit to $762 million and are now cynically going to take credit for dropping the deficit. Now how are they going to drop the deficit? First of all, well, we know, why should we believe a government that has been off by over $500 million in two budget years? Is this a government we can trust in 1995, or can we only believe that it is repackaging itself for purposes of its own re-election?
They are going to bring in balanced budget legislation. Will they do it retroactively to fire the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) and the former Minister of Finance?
Will they turn to stone as a consequence of this action, Madam Deputy Speaker? We think not, because they have no intention of doing anything else but trying to repackage themselves cynically before an election. And the people are going to see through this, because oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. You are going to get caught on it. You are better off to be honest. You are better off to be straight up. You are better off to tell people the truth rather than to create this illusion.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the Provincial Auditor reported a $58-million surplus in '88-89. In the budget of 1990, the government predicted 283--the actual budget was 3828 and so they were off 15 percent. In '91-92, they were on target. In '92-93, they were off by 126 percent.
If the member for Portage (Mr. Pallister) wants to put in balance budget legislation, why is he not asking his own ministers to resign in Question Period instead of asking questions that are written by Barb Biggar and somebody else in the Premier's Office? Why does he not ask his own Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) about his own credibility?
Madam Deputy Speaker, the budget deficit was $330 million in '92-93. The reported deficit was $566 million and the actual deficit was $748 million.
In '93-94, they had a new Finance minister, a Finance minister that predicted a $367-million deficit. He reported $431 million. The actual was $458 million for a 24 percent variation and this was after you were getting gazillions of dollars from your lotteries. This was after the tax increases that came in 1992.
They think they can repackage themselves as deficit fighters, but they created the deficit. I hope they lower the deficit. I hope they lower it through growth and economic activity and job performance, not just through lotteries, property tax increases, slush funds that they have available for them in Public Accounts and other gimmicks that they will use in the 1995 budget to again give themselves a repackaging.
The Premier gave the member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render) a copy of the 1988 budget and tabled it in this House. I will send to the member for St. Vital a copy of the Auditor's Report showing a surplus in 1988-89.
You know, it has to be pretty serious for members opposite when you have the Auditor's Report, Volume I--I would ask the member for Portage (Mr. Pallister) to read Volume I of the Auditor's Report. You know what? The Auditor's Report in 1994 said, do not believe the statements from the provincial government in terms of its statements of accounts. You can only go by the Auditor's Report to get the truth in financial matters. What a horrible condemnation, Madam Deputy Speaker, of the members opposite.
The other area of cynicism is the whole issue of taxation. Ziprick had some good advice for all of us when he raised the issue in 1979 of the former Lyon government that two-thirds of the spending of the provincial government was outside of the direct control of the provincial Legislature. Two-thirds of the spending of the Lyon government, and under other governments, I might add, of Health and Education did not receive the same scrutiny of investigation that some of the line departments received in other areas of government service, and I have always read the deceased member Mr. Ziprick's reports. The member for Portage (Mr. Pallister) wants to talk about them. I am certainly willing to discuss them.
But I think that when one says the financial statements cannot be relied upon for the provincial government, I think that is a shame, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would think the member for Portage who is talking about the deficit budget legislation would be quite ashamed with the record they had of $762 million and the fact that we have three sets of books in Manitoba with the existing Conservative government.
I want to talk a little bit about taxation. The government in the Speech from the Throne talked about taxation. Madam Deputy Speaker, the government says, we did not raise any taxes. Well, I am a parent. I was a parent in 1990, and I am a parent again in 1994. It is a great privilege for some of us who are starting the back nine of our lives to be starting some of our experiences with children, and I am very honoured, our family is very honoured, to have that privilege of having children, but I can tell you that my purchasing experience--and I would ask members here that are either parents or grandparents to think about this, what was the taxation level on children and babies in 1990 and what is the taxation level on those same goods for children today? Is it the same?
I would ask the member for Emerson (Mr. Penner), is it the same? He is an honest man. Steinbach (Mr. Driedger)--both of them are honest. Is it the same? No. Have you bought anything for your grandchildren or your children, baby's clothing, baby's goods?
An Honourable Member: Gary, you have knowledge about baby's clothing.
Mr. Doer: I have some knowledge about this. Sleep deprivation and baby materials, that is what you get knowledge of, and I can compare 1990 with 1994, and do not try to tell me there has been no tax increase. Do not try to tell me when you tax the nipples on babies bottles that there is no tax increase in terms of the province of Manitoba. There is, Madam Deputy Speaker, and again, you should not deceive--[interjection] The member opposite said GST. The provincial sales tax has been expanded, and when you expand a tax, it is an increase in a tax. It is not a decrease in a tax. It is not freezing a tax. It is not a freeze, you know. Remember George Bush. It is not a freeze. It is a tax increase. It is not that difficult to say it if it is true. It is an increase in taxes. If it gets more revenue, it is a tax increase. It is not a tax decrease or a tax freeze.
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Now the other issue is, of course, the whole issue of property taxes. This government calls a reduction of the property tax credit a spending savings for the people of Manitoba. They do not call that a tax increase. Your taxes go up $75 per family in your household, but it is not a tax increase. Read my lips. It is a spending decrease again, Madam Deputy Speaker. That is a tax increase. The biggest concern that people have outside of this building is their property taxes in terms of the provincial government. Let no Tory go to their constituents and tell them that they did not raise taxes after they expanded the sales tax and after they raised the property tax in the province of Manitoba. Just tell the truth.
Do not try to cynically repackage yourselves, because if it does not bear the truth, then it is not worth repeating. There is no sense saying something to people that is not true. That, of course, does not deal with the three and a half cents per litre that this Conservative government has raised with gasoline tax increases since they were elected in 1988, three and a half cents a litre. Members opposite who worked in the automotive industry know that full well and so do we.
So, Madam Deputy Speaker, those are a couple of examples on the financial side of increases in taxation, of deficit facts instead of fiction in terms of the history of this issue here in the province of Manitoba. We do not need three sets of numbers. I think all of us would be better served by not having a cynical pre-election campaign. I know you do not have any issues to run on. I know in the fall of 1994 you looked around and you did not find an issue, and now you are going ahead and trying to find something else, but let it be a factual issue.
You have some beliefs. You have some facts. Run on those. Do not create fiction and then try to run on fiction, because I suggest to you that when you do that, you are going to go the same way as Bill Vander Zalm and Rita Johnston. You are going to go the same way as Brian Mulroney. You are going to go the same way as Grant Devine. You are hanging on, hanging on. Run on issues you can run on. Do not run on issues that are fictional, Madam Deputy Speaker--cynical, cynical government.
Look at the whole issue of education. In 1988, you promised changes in boundaries. In 1990, you promised boundary changes. In the Speech from the Throne in 1991, we are going to review the boundaries. In 1992, oh--
An Honourable Member: Let me guess. Boundaries?
Mr. Doer: Boundaries, 1993? Boundaries, 1994? Will we see it? Now we know it is December 15. The government is talking about December 15. Now is that coincidence, or is this cynical that it is going to go past the alleged sitting of this Chamber. I want to believe that the motives of members opposite are clean as the pure driven snow, but anybody who sat on this thing for six or seven years should be ashamed of themselves. If you are not going to do it, do not promise it, and do not promise it five times. Do not promise it five times when you are not going to do it. It is not that funny. It is pretty serious in terms of your own credibility. If you cannot do it the first time you promise it and you cannot do it the second time, do not tell us a third time, the fourth time, the fifth time.
Do not have one little proposal for Winnipeg so members opposite can go out in Winnipeg and St. Vital and say, oh, look at all these divisions. We are going to do something about it in Norwood, St. Vital, Seine River. Do not have one position for Seine River and Niakwa and have another position in Portage la Prairie. That is not the old-fashioned Conservative way. That is not what John Diefenbaker would have done. That is not what Duff Roblin would have done. That is not what Sterling Lyon would have done.
An Honourable Member: The three faces of Gary Filmon.
Mr. Doer: That is the three faces of Gary Filmon that we want to deal with, Madam Deputy Speaker, three sets of books, three different positions on boundaries--cynical, cynical, cynical repackaging.
I have the Speech from the Throne quotes. Do you people get a chance to read your past promises? If you go through them every year, you will find that most of the things you promise you do not do. There is the odd thing you have done. You got a new emblem. I guess you have got a statue in London, I am finding out today, for Winnie the Pooh. We actually believe that we should have a statue in Winnipeg of Winnie the Pooh. I guess we have one. I guess we need the man from the boot when it comes to dealing with real statutes in terms of the province.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we believe that this is a province built on hard work and a tradition of co-operation. We believe that you have lost that with your lack of energy and your cynical approach to just repackaging every day the promises that you have made and made and made again.
We believe that Manitoba is like a family. We believe that a family are people who work hard together. They share each other's joys. They share each other's successes, but they also give somebody a hand up in terms of giving people in their family an opportunity to succeed. And when somebody in their family needs help, they give them a helping hand.
When we look at the Conservative agenda in terms of operating like a family, we see a body that operates more like a corporation in terms of its value system. If something is not pulling its own weight in the short term they throw it out, cut it off, instead of giving somebody a helping hand. That is the different crossroads we are at in terms of value system. I do not agree with the Conservative philosophy and value system of cutting off student social allowance, New Careers, ACCESS programs. That kind of Darwinian approach is not the family values that people have in this province. They want to help members of their family get a helping hand. They believe in helping each other.
A government and a people is not like a company. It does not cut off and amputate parts of our communities and parts of opportunities because it is so-called not meeting the bottom line in the short term. Can you imagine if somebody in your family was not putting enough money in to pay off in terms of their family contributions, in terms of family bottom lines, the family books? Do you throw them out of the home? Do you just toss them away, or do you give them a helping hand so they can become productive?
We are quite concerned in this country to see that same kind of value system developing. Let me give you a couple of examples where we see more of a corporate value system by the new federal government rather than a family value system of helping each other out: the whole issue of post-secondary education. We have had a tradition in this country and in this nation of having intergenerational support of each other. The young people who are seeking education are supported by people who already have a job and opportunity in terms of their tax revenues supporting people to get an education and training.
We do not see young people having a user-pay system and having to go into debt by $50,000. Have you listened to high school students lately in terms of what that means? We believe that those young people then in turn should become taxpayers and support other young people to get an education and also support our seniors in terms of health care and other services. Intergenerational support of each other. A sharing model where young people are supported by people that have jobs, by people that have jobs support our seniors and our health care system.
Can you imagine young people today that are being forced to pay $50,000, how they are going to feel about our health care system after we have cut them off from their educational opportunities in five or ten years? This kind of Darwinian mentality in our province and in our country, that is not the way Canada was built. We have been built on a country of intergenerational support, and we see the changes being made by the federal Liberal government which are not commented on in the government's Speech from the Throne as being a total abdication of our generational support for each other and of a country that supports our young people and our seniors as active taxpayers in our average and most effective earning periods of time in our life.
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Look at the whole policy of transportation. Again, we believe in a vision of Canada that builds our country to share in our transportation resources. We do not want to go to a slot-machine policy of transportation, where you put a quarter in and you get a quarter back, because that will mean that Toronto and Montreal and Ottawa will continue to thrive and places like Lynn Lake and Thompson and Flin Flon and Snow Lake and Dauphin and Swan River and Brandon and all the other communities will suffer. We do not need to go from three terminals in Toronto to four terminals in Toronto and close down seven terminals and privatize those in Manitoba.
Again, Madam Deputy Speaker, we believe in a national vision where we take the income from higher-populated areas and redistribute that income to have economic opportunity and economic future for people in Manitoba.
We have many challenges ahead of us. Nowhere is this government more cynical than in the area of health care. This is a government that has created a hundred committees, that has brought in a U.S. consultant to privatize and Americanize our system, and, while at the same time it talks about community-based health care and preventative health care, this government cuts back on home care, cuts back on children's health care and cuts back on essential long-term health care programs.
Look at how cynical this government is. In 1991, this government promised a children's health strategy, and what did they do in 1992 and 1993? You cut back on services to children in our educational system, you cut back on diagnostic care, you cut back on children's health services. You have gone in the opposite direction and you still do not know the impact on children's health of your lottery expansion policy. You still do not know what is going on in terms of the children of this province.
One of the highest child-poverty rates anywhere in Canada and the government says, oh, everything is okay in terms of children in our province.
I say to members opposite, look at the document we tabled in the House last week, last Friday. One of the government's own committees said last Friday that children in rural Manitoba are being left with less money to purchase nutritional food and are getting less time from their parents in their opinion because of VLTs and recommends that the government deal with this. I would ask the government to look at its own committees about children's health and the VLTs in this province and not just give us words but give us deeds and give us commitment to deal with this.
We do not need a hundred committees here in Manitoba. We need to involve the public of Manitoba and we need a long-term plan to move our health care system from higher-cost institutional care to preventative care, Madam Deputy Speaker. We need hope in our health care. We do not need short-term amnesties before elections. We need long-term commitments to a medicare system here in Manitoba and we believe only the NDP can provide that.
We have proposed a health accountability act to involve the public. We have proposed a strategy to deal with predictable funding for our health care system. We have proposed community-based health care as opposed to always having institutional care, but having those programs in place before those massive cutbacks we see that have taken place in Manitoba facilities.
We have proposed a change and a transformation and an innovation of our Home Care program, Madam Deputy Speaker. We believe that after 20 years there have to be changes in home care, and we are committed to having a program that is much more flexible in keeping elderly and disabled people in a home care setting because it is cost effective, it is fair, and it provides people with a health care system with dignity in their community, and we have a plan to do that.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we have proposed a 10-point program to deal with the children's health strategy, many positive ideas to have a children's health program. We are not going backward on children's health like the government opposite is. We are going forward to have a program to have mothers and children having better access to their school health; children's safety programs expanded, not declining; audiologist programs and hearing assessment programs; a northern and rural healthy child strategy, including restoring the Children's Dental Health Program, which is also cost effective, here in Manitoba.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the government still has not figured it out that it costs more money to move 300 children from a remote community to a dental nurse in a community. Rather than moving 300 children to the nurse, we should be moving the nurse to the 300 people. They still have not been able to figure that out.
We have proposed a program dealing with child poverty. We have proposed a sensitive, preventative program to deal with child poverty dealing with nutrition and nutritional programs in schools. We have proposed a program to deal with underweight babies and investing in prevention again for mothers most at risk rather than again just dealing at the other end.
We also believe, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we have to deal with our aboriginal children and have a program. The federal government is moving with the First Nations here in Manitoba, and it is important that Manitoba government be at the table dealing with these issues and having an aboriginal healthy child strategy. It is essential in the long run that we do that.
Pharmacare deductibles have increased dramatically over the last number of years, placing seniors and low-income families at risk in terms of increased cost of medication. Compounding this problem has been the whole issue of change in Pharmacare policies and pharmaceutical generic drug policies by Ottawa and the federal government. We are extremely disappointed that this provision was contained in NAFTA that was ratified about a year ago. Generic drug prices will go up. There will be fewer jobs here in Manitoba and more jobs in Quebec in the drug industry, and we will be seeking support from all members of this Legislature for a made-in-Manitoba solution to the generic drug challenge we have and to deal with the high cost of prescription drugs. We want the Manitoba Liberals, who in the last election promised to change this here in Manitoba, to live up to their word. We want all members to join in on that resolution.
All of us in this Chamber last week had ribbons dealing with AIDS, this tragic disease that has taken the lives of too many young people across our world, including Manitoba. This government has remained silent, in our opinion, about the challenges dealing with this terrible disease and its spread here in our province. We will introduce a resolution in this House defining the elements of a provincial AIDS strategy and calling on all members of the Legislature to support an effort to meet this threat head on.
Madam Deputy Speaker, 600 health care workers have lost their jobs in the last three years, particularly in the last two years or two budget years. There are also plans in place to let go another 1,000 health care workers in Manitoba without any plan about how they will be redeployed, how they will be retrained and what community services will be provided. Now I think we will see some public relations announcements for people in Manitoba, but we will not see any real programs that you promised in 1991 and 1992. We will not see any real programs on the ground. We are going to see press releases in the air, pre-election press releases in the air and pre-election amnesty programs on the reductions in the next 12 weeks to try to get the government by what they consider to be inadequate response to health care programs.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we will have a totally different plan for health care. We will have community-based health care in place before we reduce the hundreds of beds that the government has reduced. We will put on hold all the plans to lay off people and close beds and make sure there is a long-term plan in the community that also includes retraining, workers redeploying people into our health care system and making sure that the public interest, the patient interest is No. 1 in terms of health care here in Manitoba. People want a health care system that they can count on, and we are the only ones who can provide that here in the province of Manitoba.
Many people in our health care system, public and other people working in it, want to be involved and they want to be involved in real action. Madam Deputy Speaker, this committee after committee after committee approach, the 100 committees has to end. We have to have an action plan, a community program that will come on stream, and we have proposed many, many specific ideas of how to do that.
We also have to have a strategy dealing with profit labs, particularly dealing with the numbers of reports that the government has. Three or four reports have come to the government's attention calling on action to deal with rural diagnostic care, calling on action to deal with rural labs, pointing out that there has been skimming going on in terms of profit labs versus nonprofit labs.
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What has the government done about it? Every time it gets a report, it strikes another committee. It gets another report recognizing this $30-million problem, it strikes another committee. Then when it has a problem in terms of people from private labs and public labs, they create a committee that has members that are from the private lab section here in the province of Manitoba.
Five years you have had this problem. Five years you have had committee reports. Five years of neglect and no action has seen no strategy dealing with the $30-million item in health care.
Madam Deputy Speaker, instead of spending $4 million U.S. on Connie Curran, we believe you should have strategies in place to have a made-in-Manitoba action plan. We do not need Connie Curran and a hundred health care committees, we need a government with a vision and with a strategy.
The former Minister of Finance, who ran up a $760-million deficit, wants to play it again. We say to the people of Manitoba, they do not want to play it again, they do not want another five years of this group from across the way, Madam Deputy Speaker.
We will work with the government in other preventative health care measures, particularly dealing with the Shoal Lake water supply and other water supplies across Manitoba. We thank the government for moving in on the Pukatawagan situation. We are pleased that they moved the public health inspector in after we were able to get no response from Ottawa from November to May of 1994. We think there are other communities like that that need a long-term strategy, an action plan to deal with safe drinking water in our remote communities and in many of our other communities. It is good health care, and it is good care for people that reside in Manitoba that need safe drinking water.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to move on for a moment dealing with public education. I have already mentioned the six or seven broken promises dealing with boundaries and school boundary review.
The real question is: Why would anybody believe this government opposite about any election promise they make on education. They have made a promise on school boundaries. Where is it? They made a promise in 1988--[interjection] Madam Deputy Speaker, Bill Norrie may be late two weeks. This government is late over five and a half years, and they want to blame the chair of the committee. That is why you are so cynical, Madam Deputy Speaker. Every time they open their mouths all you get is cynicism and cynicism and cynicism from members opposite.
Five and a half years of doing nothing, a government report that may be two weeks late, and what do we hear from the members opposite? Blame somebody else. Where does the buck stop? It should stop at the Premier's (Mr. Filmon) desk. He is the one that made the promise, and he is the one that has broken the promise for six straight years. Why would anybody believe the members opposite in terms of the whole area of public education?
What other promises has this government made? Well, in 1988 they promised to amend The Public Schools Act. Did we see any amendments to The Public Schools Act in '89, in 1990, in 1991, in 1992, 1993, 1994? Will we see anything in 1995? No.
Madam Deputy Speaker, this sort of revisionist, retroactive concern for our public education system rings hollow for members opposite. They can hand out white papers and blue papers and pink papers and purple papers, but they have done nothing in terms of real students and real schools across real Manitoba communities.
There have not been any changes made by members opposite in our public education system except papers and press releases, cutbacks and press releases and enhancement of money for the private education system, the evolution of a two-tier education system in this province. That is all we have seen, nothing else-- nothing else but press releases, hot air, broken promises and white papers.
Any government that issues a white paper in its fourth year of its second term should be ashamed of itself. I mean, this is a government that is really not committed to changing and revising the education system. It is not concerned about real renewal of the education system. It is only concerned about its own renewal, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is only cynically concerned about its own renewal, because I say to the Minister of Education (Mr. Manness), who is the third Minister of Education under this Premier (Mr. Filmon), that there are no changes in the classroom except funding cutbacks and chaos.
We believe in a public education system and a goal of the education system that is quite different than the government opposite. We believe that the future economy and being competitive in the future economy is a goal of our public education system, but it is only one goal of an education system.
We believe also that the goal of having people prepared for citizenship in our great country is also a legitimate and proper goal for our education system. We also believe that an education system must prepare children to have lifelong learning. They must learn how to learn. They must learn how to be flexible in their learning in a very, very changing world.
We think that the education system that has been introduced by members opposite is like an Arthur Murray dance lesson. You know, where you put little footprints on the floor, and you go to this one, you go to this one and you go to the next one. When they change the dance in the world, our children will not be prepared to learn how to learn. They will only be prepared for that dance step. Dancing is fine. I wish I could dance a lot better. But there is more to education than just following footsteps.
How can this government eliminate, as a mandatory program, Canadian history in the 125th anniversary of Manitoba as a province? How can this government, with all the challenges that Canada has, with all the challenges that we have in Manitoba, with all the concerns that people have about our great country, Canada, that it is going through every ten years, issues and challenges, including constitutional proposals that have been before this Chamber, constitutional proposals that have been defeated in this Chamber or delayed in this Chamber, how can we be getting rid of Canadian history in Grade 11? How can we have a situation where the last time you may get a mandatory course in Canadian history is Grade 6?
Madam Deputy Speaker, the government says on the one hand they are going to allow the school divisions to decide, and on the other hand, certain programs are going to be mandatory for the provincial government. These people study the value system of the United States so dramatically, I am surprised that citizenship and history and Canadian history and Canada's history and Manitoba history is going to be dropped by Conservatives. Shame, shame.
We are committed--
An Honourable Member: Even Sterling Lyon would not do that.
Mr. Doer: Well, the Minister of Education (Mr. Manness) is--well, you know some people think that term, that adjective would better describe the Minister of Education in dropping the Canadian history course.
In the next election, we will have choices. Members opposite will drop Canadian history in Grade 11. [interjection] The Premier thinks it is funny we are dropping Grade 11 history in the 125th anniversary. Madam Deputy Speaker, this Premier should be ashamed of himself for not reining in--
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
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Point of Order
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Deputy Speaker, I do not think it is funny what the member said. What I think is funny is the member's attitude towards things. When he says that we are going to have choices in the next election, I was laughing because it occurred to me that really the group Choices is who fronts for him all the time, and if they are the ones who are going to be the choice--
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable First Minister does not have a point of order.
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Mr. Doer: Madam Deputy Speaker, as usual, the Premier can only go to the low road in a debate, only can go to the low road in terms of issues. I would have thought the Premier would have stood up and given us his real reasons for dropping Canadian history from core subjects and mandatory subjects here in Manitoba in Grade 11. He cannot do it so he sits and takes a cheap shot.
Point of Order
Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Education and Training): Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition misspeaks the truth. Canadian history will not be dropped from the core subject; it will be the core essence of the social studies curriculum. The member is wrong.
Madam Deputy Speaker: The honourable Minister of Education does not have a point of order.
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Mr. Doer: Madam Deputy Speaker, just so the member opposite can be straight up with everybody and the government opposite, we will be putting in a resolution and asking members of this Chamber to endorse Canadian history as a core course in senior curriculums here in Manitoba. We will look forward to the wiggling of members opposite on this issue for Canada's 125th anniversary.
We are going to wait with bated breath, whether the former Minister of Finance turns to stone with the retroactive amendment we make on deficit budgets. [interjection] That is what Brian Mulroney said.
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. We will continue with our comments.
We will be asking all members of the Legislature to recognize also the importance of physical education in the health and well-being of our children.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we believe that physical education programs should be mandatory, again, to the age of Grade 11. We believe that all health experts support us in that recommendation. We are very disappointed that when the government has a chance to deal with preventative health through keeping physical education into Grade 11, it has chosen a different path.
I would ask members opposite to study some of the evidence that is coming out of the health care area in terms of the physical fitness of our young people. We have a real challenge, and nobody has any solutions to some of the real challenges we have in terms of the amount of hours that kids and teenage kids are watching television. The latest Nielsen rating, excluding Nintendo and excluding video machines, indicates that teenagers are averaging close to 25 hours of television a week, and that is a serious problem for all of us.
I am not going to say to the Minister of Education (Mr. Manness) that it is his responsibility, but we have a real challenge in our communities--25 hours of television a week. We could talk about violence on television. We could talk about a lot of other issues, but one thing we know is that we have a teenage population that is getting more and more sedentary and that has long-term implications for our health care.
I would ask the Premier to overrule his Minister of Education dealing with physical education, and if he is unable to do so, we will also be putting in a resolution dealing with physical education programs and their continuance to Grade 11.
Madam Deputy Speaker, this government has cut back dramatically over the last number of years and in terms of our public education system. We believe in a long-term investment of our public education system. We believe in committing to the public education system rather than the questionable priorities that members opposite have like supporting the operating deficit and losses of the Winnipeg Jets hockey team.
Madam Deputy Speaker, $43.5 million was approved by these members opposite to support the operating losses of the hockey team. That more than makes up for the cutbacks in the public education system. We think it is wrong to have socialism for the Jets and reductions for public education. We will walk to every constituency with the Premier's signature on the operating loss agreement for the Winnipeg Jets. We will do more than that; we will have private members' legislation to cancel that rotten deal. It was never debated in this Chamber.
We have proposed a number of alternatives in terms of healthy education, Madam Deputy Speaker. Our children's health proposal will also give people in Manitoba, the people in our schools, a much greater flexibility in terms of teaching. Nurses in schools will help us allow teachers to teach and will give us greater family life education and give us much better protection in terms of our education system.
We are very disappointed that the government has funding reductions of clinicians, and we will restore funding for clinicians in rural and northern Manitoba. We believe, again, that good health care and good prevention programs rather than being penny-wise and pound foolish as the Conservatives are opposite.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we will be introducing a safe schools program. We have raised the issue of school violence in the past. The government seems to not acknowledge that it exists, and now again just in its cynical pre-election period it is now talking about violence in schools. Where have you been for the last three or four years? Where have you been when we have been calling on a very, very active program to deal with violence in our schools over the last number of months and years? You have done nothing.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we have a number of proposals dealing with Distance Education, and we believe we need a co-ordinated approach to Distance Education not, again, just press releases and ad hoc policies. We have a total program dealing with Distance Education.
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I have already mentioned the school boundaries issue, and finally, in terms of education itself, in terms of the public education system itself, we believe it is time for the confrontation and the fighting to end. We believe that having teachers and school trustees fighting with the government and advertising against each other has got to end, Madam Deputy Speaker. We need a government that can work with everybody. This government would rather fight than solve problems, and it is about time we have a government that can work in a co-operative way with everybody instead of fighting everybody.
Hon. Donald Orchard (Minister of Energy and Mines): In many provinces teachers have gone on strike, waiting . . . .
Mr. Doer: How about those nurses, Donnie? [interjection]
As long as the member for Pembina (Mr. Orchard) runs again we will be very happy.
I would just like the member for Pembina to know, he is doing a real good job, Madam Deputy Speaker. We just want him to run again so that we can have his name in front of every constituent in every constituency in Manitoba. His popularity will do the government well, and he is such a warm, lovable, kind human being. We just cannot wait for him to declare for the next election. We would invite him to come to every constituency here in Manitoba. I think he is a real asset to his party.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we have said before that we will cancel the corporate training grants that have been made by this government and put the money back into ACCESS, New Careers, Student Social Allowance and community funds. This government has backward priorities: money to Kentucky Fried Chicken and reductions of money to our community training colleges. We also believe that we have to have a co-ordinated approach to training and investment in this province, and we will, in terms of the job side of this, work very hard to create a healthy economy here in Manitoba.
We will have an economic summit of business, labour and government. We will have an all-party committee of the Legislature, Madam Deputy Speaker, so that we can work together. We will have a number of proposals to get people working again rather than going--[interjection] This is a Premier that has 100 committees on health care, and he can talk about committees. He is the king of committees.
We have proposed a seasonal employment strategy, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a community renewal and youth works program. We have proposed a building bridges program that will get people off welfare and on to work, something this government of course has not been committed to do.
We have called on an intensified infrastructure program, Madam Deputy Speaker, and one which is fair and has merit, not one which has patronage. We have called on the cancellation of the Kenaston underpass. We think it is immoral that people have flooding basements and that many communities cannot get infrastructure development and investment.
Priorities are all wrong. We believe that the government cannot justify an enhancement of infrastructure at the same time as they are privatizing our airports. What better infrastructure proposal. Why the Liberals would be cutting back on airport investment while they are putting money into the Kenaston underpass is beyond us, and we will ask the Liberals to cancel that underpass. We will ask the Premier to cancel the underpass in his Tuxedo riding and put that money back into future jobs here in Manitoba.
We also believe, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the economic priorities of this government again are backwards. We have a situation where people in Manitoba have seen that less than 5 percent of the money is going to roads in northern Manitoba. We believe in fair treatment for our roads in northern communities. We do not think it is right that all the money is going into very, very short-term objectives, and we will restore the funding priority and fairness, with proper funding out of the existing Highways budget, to northern Manitoba.
The Port of Churchill is also an asset for our whole province. We wish the committee well as it is dealing with the Port of Churchill, and the government has referred to it in its report, but you cannot have it both ways on the Port of Churchill. You cannot support putting the money for grain transportation to the producer and off of the railways without affecting the Port of Churchill. You really just cannot have it both ways. Doug Young has already said that if we move the money from the railways to the producers, you will have to ship your grain on highways to the various ports.
Madam Deputy Speaker, there is no highway to the Port of Churchill. I want members opposite to know that. So unlike--
An Honourable Member: Did you just find that out over the weekend?
Mr. Doer: Madam Deputy Speaker, I would remind the Premier, who had taken no position on the grain transportation policy, has taken no position on the Wheat Board, to stand up and have a backbone on these issues instead of still sitting on the picket fence as he so appropriately does all the time.
We will propose a resolution for the Port of Churchill to enhance its role, but Manitobans--[interjection]. When we were in office, the Port of Churchill had restored box--[interjection]. The members opposite have no position on the grain transportation act changes. They have taken no position in their Speech from the Throne, and they were proposed in our alternative speech to the throne. We have a position on the Wheat Board. We have a position on the Port of Churchill. We have a position on the grain transportation policy here in Canada.
We are also proposing a Parklands development initiative, and we would welcome the government to finally get on with the City of Winnipeg Development Agreement, which they have promised year after year and we have not seen fulfilled.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
Mr. Speaker, Winnipeg's airport is an asset, and we welcome the reference in the Speech from the Throne on the transportation industry here in this province, but we would ask the government to have a more definitive policy on the airport here in Manitoba.
We would like the position from the former Minister of Highways in protecting the airport and stopping projects like The Pines rather than the position of the Premier and the former Minister of Urban Affairs and the former Minister of Housing. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have a permissive policy on airport protection and say you are going to have the transportation policy for the airport in the future.
Training--we have already talked about the training proposals, where we will reallocate our money to the necessary programs. This government is devoid of any programs dealing with apprenticeship, no apprenticeship programs whatsoever, and they can shake their heads, but all we have is a do-nothing government, a tired, cynical bunch of people.
There are a number of challenges we have. We must deal with part-time employees and have a strategy. This government has no strategy. We must raise the minimum wage, Mr. Speaker. This government has not raised the minimum wage in four years, and we have a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $5.75 an hour and six months thereafter to $6 an hour to get us in line with the rest of the country. We believe this will help the issue of poverty, and this will help working families have more disposable income to help their families and make purchases that will help our economy.
Mr. Speaker, I have talked today about mining deaths in Manitoba. We believe and we would institute much more enforcement here in Manitoba and a mining safety program that deals with the tragedy of four miners being tragically killed in the last 18 months in Manitoba.
We believe we must have a strategy to deal with the transportation of hazardous waste. We also believe in terms of the rhetoric in the Speech from the Throne dealing with the whole issue of endangered spaces. One only needs to refer to the press release last Friday on the condemnation of the government in terms of its serious lack of any schedule and being seriously behind in terms of meeting their own election commitments that they made.
In the area of community safety, Mr. Speaker, we are very disappointed that this government, this province, has not acknowledged that Manitoba was one of the only provinces in Canada that had an increasing crime rate last year. When all the rhetoric was going on, when all the hot air was coming out, when all the press releases were going on, what did we see? We saw an increase in the crime rate here in Manitoba, and this is serious. People are worried. People are worried in their classrooms. They are worried in their own communities, and they want a government that is going to do something about it, not just have press releases and press conferences and have an increased rate in crime.
We have proposed a government crime prevention program. We have proposed a victim's assistance program which we had in the past and which the government is cutting back. We have proposed justice committees to work in communities with young offenders. We have proposed a safety component be part of any infrastructure program. We have proposed more community-based police officers, and, Mr. Speaker, we do not want a Minister of Justice that is fighting with the RCMP. We do not want a Minister of Justice whose own credibility has been called into question by the RCMP. I have never seen in the history of this province where the RCMP has called into question the honesty of the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey), and one has to ask the question of the Premier (Mr. Filmon), why did he not fire the Minister of Justice when she lost credibility with the major police office in this province? We believe that the RCMP should be supported, and we should work with those officers, not fight with them.
We have proposed an option for our youth, dealing with drop-in centres in communities where no drop-in centres exist. We have always believed in a program, a place where a child could drop in or a youth could drop in is much better than having to drop into a gang, Mr. Speaker--preventative programs to deal with crime in our province.
We will work with the government on the recommendations that they are going to put before us dealing with pedophiles. We think it is long overdue. We will work with this government to deal with it and we will also ask the government to look at the voids in our justice and health and education systems that arise from the inquest dealing with the tragic murder of Sarah Kelly in The Pas just recently, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, that is a concern for all of us, to find out what went wrong and what we can do to prevent that in the future.
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Mr. Speaker, we also believe that justice delayed is justice denied--delay after delay after delay in our courts. We have raised that issue and the government said, oh, there is no problem, there is no problem, and now they are coming in with a pre-election proposal to have a night court. If the goal of night court is to have parents with the youth, we support that, but we want to see real action on the part of the government to deal with the backlog. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance pay to get rid of judges when the backlog is getting bigger and bigger is not a strategy to deal with the backlog. It may be a good strategy for a few judges, but the public interest was made subservient to the interest of the government to appoint new judges sometime in 1995, and we think that is cynical and wrong and very wrong for the justice system here in Manitoba.
Mr. Speaker, we will work with everybody in this House to ensure that the framework agreement for self-government for aboriginal people is a success, and we would urge the government to get off the sidelines and work with this proposal. The government mentions the offloading that took place, the $60 million. I think it is important that the government work in co-operation with First Nations aboriginal people and the federal government on this important and positive initiative here in Manitoba.
I would also ask the government to work with the federal government on immigration. It is wrong for the immigration policies that have been downloaded in terms of Manitoba by the national government. It has been described by Tom Denton as the equivalent of a Chinese head tax, in his words. It is a policy of immigration that is developed for Toronto. It has not been developed for Manitoba; it has not been developed for our province. We have had a program of tolerance; we have not had a policy of a fee for certain immigrants.
(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
We have had a history and a tradition of reunifying families, and our province needs immigration to have economic growth. Mr. Acting Speaker, let us all join together and vote for the two NDP resolutions that call on the federal Liberal government to rescind their immigration policies.
Mr. Acting Speaker, we also believe that foreign credentials, the provisions for new immigrants, must be changed and people that have qualifications and have skills must be given equivalent standing in our Manitoba communities. I would call on the government to support our resolution for this before the Chamber in this session.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
Mr. Speaker, the whole issue of social policy review is before us. We do not know what will happen, but we believe strongly that a strong national government must have strong supports in health, education and social spending in our country. We believe in national programs, and the more and more the government offloads those programs to the provinces, the more and more it offloads to intergenerational challenges for people and the more and more it will make Canada into have-not provinces in some areas and greater-have provinces in other areas.
We also will be calling on the government to work with the federal government to keep their commitment on dealing with the whole area of the GST. We recall that the federal government in opposition said that they would scrap the GST. I recall that the federal government said that they would scrap the GST in a community meeting in Brandon in 1993, and I think it is time that we propose an alternative, to scrap the GST rather than have a system to just tinker with it where we move certain tax points to the federal government and other tax points to the provincial governments.
The people in Canada and Manitoba want rid of this GST. They want to get at the deferred taxes for corporations, and we have an alternative proposal to rid ourselves of the GST through fair taxation dealing with family trusts and deferred taxes for business. We have always said it is wrong when a bank teller pays more tax than a bank, and when we look at the profits coming out from all these banks, it is about time we had fair taxation in this country, not just retinkering with the GST in this country. We will be putting that forward in terms of a resolution, and we would ask all members to support it.
We believe other changes must be made in terms of government advertising with a code of conduct which we call on the government to implement, and we will be placing this before the Legislature in this session. We have also proposed that we have a recommendation to the Chief Electoral Officer implemented in this Chamber in this session. We have also suggested, Mr. Speaker, that the operating loss agreement for the Winnipeg Jets be cancelled, and we will be bringing forth legislation to do that.
Mr. Speaker, in six Speeches from the Throne, the government has not even mentioned the word "lotteries." It does not mention the word "lotteries." It does not exist, and we have a situation in Manitoba where there is no credibility of the people with this government not to use the lotteries as a slush fund for their own re-election. It was very, very unfortunate but illustrative of where this government is going in lotteries when a week and a half ago, Tuesday, we saw the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) produce a document saying that the lottery revenue would be $180 million and 48 hours later the ministry of Lotteries coming out with a document saying the lottery revenue is estimated to be $210 million.
When you look at their annual report, you know why we are rather suspect of the government, because nowhere in that annual report is there a budget about how much you expect to make and how we can measure the estimates of revenue against the budgeted amount. How can you have a corporation, which is the largest corporation here in Manitoba--it is bigger than Great-West Life in terms of profits. It is bigger than Investors Syndicate. It is bigger than both of them put together. The largest corporation in Manitoba is the government-run corporation established by the Conservatives, a state-run monopoly, Mr. Speaker, with greater profits than any other corporation. How ironic with members opposite.
I guess that is why members opposite got in government, to expand and expand and expand lotteries so that we have a situation today where we do not know--I know the member for Pembina (Mr. Orchard) is sensitive on this issue, and I do not blame him, because we get lots of calls from his constituents saying, what the heck, what are you doing? What is my member doing about lotteries? You know what we say about the member for Pembina? He is doing nothing. Well, there are a lot less Conservatives in the Pembina constituency, and I would be a little worried if I were the member for Pembina. I guess we will see--[interjection] Well, go ahead. You would get along quite well in Thompson. They love you up there.
Mr. Speaker, we have proposed a lottery accountability act that has a mandatory inquiry. We have proposed that there be mandatory disclosure of information, and we would ask members if they are really committed to information for the public to support this act.
We have also proposed measures to deal with the whole area of spouses who are delinquent. We welcome the announcement from the government in this Speech from the Throne. But last year, again, and the year before when we raised this issue, there was no problem, there was no concern, there was no action. We will be asking the government for real action, not just words, again, in a very cynical way before the election.
Mr. Speaker, we have proposed the whole area of donations of food act, and we are pleased to see that the government also got that in the Speech from the Throne, and the Liberals have had it in as well.
An Honourable Member: We had it last year.
Mr. Doer: Good. It is a good proposal, and wherever it came from, if it was the Liberals or whoever, I applaud them for it. It is a good proposal to put in this session of the Legislature.
We also believe that The Public Utilities Board Act should have a greater say on the gasoline prices here in Manitoba. People are very concerned about what they perceive to be the cartel. They are very disappointed that the federal government and the Competition bureau did not look at this whole area, and I think it is time, now that the ball has been dropped by the federal government, that we do something on gas prices here in Manitoba. I think at minimum we should call forward to the Public Utilities Board all the executives from the major gas companies and ask them why all the gas prices coincidentally go up just before the May long weekend every year, and they all go up the same amount, Mr. Speaker. Let us just ask these people some basic questions. The people of Manitoba want to have a say, and I am surprised that the members opposite would not support such a proposal.
Mr. Speaker, we will reinstate the funding for our Friendship Centres. We think the government has, again, gone in the wrong way. We have a number of resolutions dealing with land-use policy. We believe the government is proceeding in the wrong way with the handicap transit, again. We are very disappointed with the federal and provincial government's policy on low-income housing, and we will be calling on members opposite to support our resolution to restore funding fairness in Manitoba for seniors and people living on low income.
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Mr. Speaker, we will be asking members to endorse a plan to assist low- and moderate-income earners in repairing their homes, and we think a targeted home policy with Health and Seniors, and particularly the inner city, makes a lot more social sense than just the willy-nilly program of the provincial government.
Those are just the 40 or 50 solutions or suggestions that we have made to make Manitoba a better place to live. We believe we are at a crossroad. We believe we are at a crossroad in terms of proceeding here in this province. We can go the old ways of fighting everybody in our communities and cutting back on the health and social services and education programs in Manitoba or we can have a party and a policy to rebuild our province that believes in people, that believes in families, a party that believes that you work hard, you share each other's joys and you contribute and help those members of the family that need the greatest help.
We believe that good government can make a difference to this province. We believe that fair government can make a difference to this province, and we believe that when the government goes from reform to repackaging to renewal, the next year they will reject the Darwinian ways of the Conservative government and go for a common-sense, fair way to rebuild this province.
I therefore move, seconded by the member for Kildonan (Mr. Chomiak), that the motion be amended by adding to it the following words:
THAT this House regrets:
1. that there are fewer people working today than in September of 1990 when this government received its majority; and
2. that this government has continued to enhance corporate grants and tax breaks while training programs have been cut back, in particular ACCESS and New Careers programs; and
3. that this government, while awaiting the reports from over 100 committees studying health care is reducing its investment in health care by following American consultant Connie Curran's prescription for fewer services to Manitoba patients; and
4. that this government, despite promising initiatives to address the overall health of children in Manitoba since 1991, has yet to bring forward any specific proposals, but has instead cut important programs aimed at children's health at the Children's Dental Program; and
5. that this government has failed to work in partnership with parents, students and educators in rebuilding the public education system and instead has sought to foster confrontation; and
6. that this government has expanded gaming revenues in the province without public consultation and review, at an unprecedented pace, resulting in an accumulated surplus in the Lotteries account of $140 million at the same time as health and education programs throughout Manitoba have been cut back; and
THAT this government has thereby lost the trust and confidence of this House and the people of Manitoba.
Motion presented.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable member's amendment is in order.
Mr. Paul Edwards (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I want to start my comments by welcoming you back in your position as Speaker of this Chamber. You have served that role very, I think, well in the last years you have been here. I think as I came to the House you were appointed Speaker and have been there ever since and have done an admirable job as I am sure you will do this session. I welcome you back and thank you for your service which has been a great source of guidance within this House and will be in this coming session.
Let me also, Mr. Speaker, officially on behalf of our members and our party, welcome the new Pages to the House, to the Chamber. We welcome them and we appreciate their efforts on behalf, I think, of all members. We have had an outstanding record of Pages come to this House and I have had the opportunity in engagements outside of this House to meet with many of them over the years. They have always spoken highly of your guidance, that of the staff here in the Legislative Assembly, and they have enjoyed their year. We very much appreciate their service, and we welcome them to this session and to this Chamber.
Let me also at the outset of my comments, Mr. Speaker, pay special congratulations to the honourable Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) and his wife who some short time ago received gladly the birth of a second child, a daughter Kathleen, and we wish them well. We know it is a great source of joy and pride to them. It is also, of course, a great source of strain on any family. I know that from personal experience having been through it a number of times myself. We wish them well in this time of joy for their family.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to pay special tribute to the Premier (Mr. Filmon) and his wife Janice and their daughter and her husband who have also been blessed by receiving another daughter, I believe it is, a granddaughter. I have had the opportunity on a couple of occasions to raise this with the First Minister's wife and we know how joyful they are at the receipt of their first grandchild. It is often said by some that you become a parent so ultimately you can become a grandparent because of the joys that that relationship brings. I wish the Premier and his wife all of the joys of that relationship and their daughter and her husband.
Mr. Speaker, let me start my comments on this Speech from the Throne by indicating that I received this obviously as the last Speech from the Throne of this government in its current term and indeed one of the--well, maybe we will be going into a further session before the next election, who knows? Only the First Minister knows that. I assume we will not be. In any event, I only regret that we are not likely to have more time to discuss the proposals and debate the proposals and the bills that are coming out of this Speech from the Throne. I do again start by raising the very technical but I think important point that we in the Liberal caucus would very much like to return after the Christmas break as soon as possible so that we can deal with the substance of this speech in the coming months.
Mr. Speaker, I have had it from the Premier that in fact we will not be coming back until after the federal budget. That is a matter of regret for us. I certainly understand that the provincial budget--[interjection] Well, the First Minister says he is prepared to debate, but what he wants to do is debate essentially through the media rather than in this Chamber the issues that he has brought up here. Otherwise, we would have been sitting this fall, and we would have been coming back early on in the new year. Instead of taking the odd van ride around the province every two or three weeks, we would have been in the Legislative Assembly dealing with these issues.
Mr. Speaker, I propose to spend some time going through this speech because I found it very interesting indeed. Let me say that at the outset, there is a certain tone and belief which comes through this speech, as well as all of the speeches that have come forth from this government, that in fact the government is committed to creating economic growth and therefore jobs. That forms the basis of the economic plan, and that is the right basis for that plan. Jobs are at the root of our ability to pay for the things that we all want and that all parties are going to sit here and spend two hours--[interjection] Well, I said it last session; I say it this session. In this same speech last session, I said exactly this if the members want to check the record.
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The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that we need those jobs as the best social program for any family. We need those jobs to create wealth. The fact is that despite Speeches from the Throne every year, every session, they have not occurred, and this government has not produced on what was its essential test of itself. What I suspect is that the true approach, the true belief of the government, as best reflected by the Premier just this March in his interview to Manitoba Business Magazine--maybe he thinks that members of other parties do not read the Manitoba Business Magazine, but we do. In March of this year, he said in an interview with Mr. Gage of that magazine, and I quote: Those who suggest that Canada, through its own fiscal and financial policies, can change job creation or economic growth in any dramatic way are speaking nonsense.
That is, Mr. Speaker, an unacceptable attitude on the part of this Premier. That is a direct contradiction of everything which is outlined in all of the Speeches from the Throne that have consistently come from this government when they talk about the creative things that they want to do to create jobs. Then, at the end of the tenure, after six years in power, we have it from the Premier that to suggest that we can change job creation, that we can change the slide to mediocrity in this province, which this Premier has presided over, is nonsense. That is what he says. That is unacceptable. That in fact represents what the record shows over these last years, not what is set out in these Speeches from the Throne. We are increasingly engaged with this government in the cynical exercise of putting forward, as the minister does, as the government does in Speeches from the Throne, promises, platitudes, projections that just do not come to pass.
So it is not so much what is in these speeches that is objectionable; it is that they do not come true. It is what is not in here is more important than what is. The Premier talks about jobs and that it has happened, but let us look at these so-called good news labour statistics of just last week.
There are in the last 13 months in this province 8,000 new jobs--8,000, Mr. Speaker. There are in the nation in that same period of time 414,000 new jobs. Our share of those, based on our percentage of the population, should have given us 16,000 new jobs. We are at eight. Our employment growth rate is 1.6 percent. The national average in the same period of time is 3.3.
Our primary competitor in this province, by the words of this Premier (Mr. Filmon), by the words of Mr. Swain over the weekend at the economic conference that you happened to attend, and I attended and the Premier attended--in his words, our primary competitor is the province of New Brunswick in many of the isolated initiatives in the areas that we are seeking to attract to this province.
New Brunswick's rate of employment growth in the last 13 months is 4.2 percent, almost a full percentage higher than the national average, and we are less than half in this same period of time, Mr. Speaker. That is the bottom line, and I am aware, and we all are in this Chamber, that you can quote statistics on a sectoral analysis, the manufacturing sector this year, trade to Mexico--bottom line--bottom line, how many Manitobans are working today, and we are gaining less than half of what our percentage should bring us as the country recovers from this terrible recession. That is not good enough.
That represents a slide in this province of 25 years. We are going to be going into our 125th anniversary in this province, Mr. Speaker, with a legacy of decades of becoming less of a player on the national stage, less of a player in the world economy, and it shows every sign of continuing under this current government. Why? Because the Premier (Mr. Filmon) believes that the government's ability to do anything to affect job creation is speaking nonsense.
Well, he is wrong. Others are proving him wrong around this world, and I believe that we do need a change in this province. We need a change in attitude. We need a change in fundamental belief about what the government can and cannot do to help people. There are no miracles. The people know that. Despite what Mr. Doer and the New Democratic Party say about being able to solve all problems, we do not say that in the Liberal Party. They do and they have never delivered on it, but that is what they say.
The people know, Mr. Speaker, that there are no miracles, and the NDP are learning that every single day in this country. They are learning that they need to be pragmatic. They need to put forward policies which work for people, and that is the lesson they are learning the hard way. The reality is that to that extent I think the government has the right question. I really do. The question is, how do we give people jobs? How do we give people economic growth in the future of this province so that our children can stay?
That is the right question. The NDP are not asking that question, Mr. Speaker. They do not have the right question, and they do not have any answers. The government does have the right question. What it does not have is any answers to deal with that, absolutely none.
It was an interesting announcement this morning. I happened to hear the national leader of the New Democratic Party, soon to be replaced. She had an interesting comment about the current leadership of that party--13 people going in 13 different directions. I know that they are involved in a serious debate within their party. I wish them well to come out with something new, something relevant to say in this province, Mr. Speaker, because the reality is they have continued to slip, and they are paying the price. You have to be pragmatic and sensible, and you have to provide real solutions for people. The NDP have not said anything interesting for the last 20 years in this province.
Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the jobs and economy section of this speech which goes on to say: "There is no question that my government's commitment to fiscal responsibility and economic development is why we are so well positioned to take advantage of the recovery."
Mr. Speaker, what decade is the Premier (Mr. Filmon) saying that might happen, that we might take advantage of the recovery? Every single Speech from the Throne has high prospects for the future, and it has not happened. It has not happened in this province.
Probably the most damning statistic for me personally, as we look at the demographic projections for this province for the coming years, comes from Statistics Canada, who project that in this province between now and the year 2001, every single year this province will lose a further 1,685 people between the ages of 25 and 29, every year between now and the year 2001. That is the projection.
Our goal in this Chamber has to be to prove them wrong. Think about what that means for this province and for communities all over Springfield constituency and all over Roblin-Russell constituency, who are losing young people to an even higher degree than the city of Winnipeg. Think about what that means.
Mr. Speaker, when you lose a 25-year-old from your province with a future, what do you lose? You lose your greatest asset, which is someone who is likely to be paying more into the system than taking out for 35 years and who is at a stage in their life where they are making the first serious career choice, looking for a career opportunity in that period of time and probably has post-secondary training already, probably has that done.
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What this government is doing is nothing to address the desire of those people, the vast majority of them, to stay in this province, because I believe they want to stay. I believe they will stay, but they will not if they do not see economic opportunity.
We must stop the hemorrhaging of our young people from this province, and no one should know that better than a representative of rural Manitoba. They are the people who are losing young people from the farming industry, from the rural communities. Mr. Speaker, they talk about being in favour and knowing about rural issues.
Of all the acts of cynicism, there is not a greater one in this speech than four lines about agriculture. Count them. Let us just look. This is the government of rural Manitoba. On page 6 they have four lines of platitudes for rural Manitobans. That is it, absolutely nothing else.
I had an interesting experience about a year ago. I was up in Neepawa for the big rural economic initiative conference. It was an interesting conference, because I was there early and I was chatting with a lot of the people there. Russ Hood organized it. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I was there all morning. The Premier (Mr. Filmon) flew in on a plane, said, hope you have a great day, and took off--took off that day. I walked up and the Neepawa Banner reporter had a very good line, a very telling line. He said to me: You know, the biggest economic initiative that this government has come up with is these conferences.
Mr. Speaker, that is the level of cynicism about this government's commitment. What are they really doing? They are sucking money out of rural Manitoba like crazy with 2,000 VLTs. Do not think that rural Manitobans do not know it. They do. You bet they know it. They know it and the government knows it. They know it so well that--we ask questions about lotteries. We try to get information from them, whether it is the Ombudsman, whether it is Freedom of Information, whether it is the Auditor, whether it is this Chamber--rejected. It is like Fort Knox over there trying to get information. But a problem at the UMM--wow--over the noon hour. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) speaks before noon. I speak afternoon. Over the noon hour every single chair had a nice little pamphlet. Have you ever seen a little pamphlet from the Lotteries corporation on our chairs? No, no, they know what is going on. They know they had a problem, and they made this effort to deal with it.
Mr. Speaker, I had an interesting example today, a symbolic example of what is happening at the Lotteries corporation. They are buying a Winnie the Pooh statue for the people of London, England, with our lotteries money. Now listen, the minister of Lotteries says, oh well, it is lotteries money. Listen, a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. These dollars are all set out in this document and it says that spending tax dollars smarter has been our guiding principle. As a result, more of every tax dollar is directed to the highest priority services. A Pooh bear for the people of London, England, is the highest priority for $20,000? Give me a break. What are these people thinking? They did not even get somebody here to do it. We do not even keep the $20,000 in Manitoba. They give it to somebody in Saskatchewan to make that Pooh bear.
Don Leitch, the Clerk of the Executive Council gets personally involved to make sure they get the Pooh bear. That is how our Clerk of Executive Council--boy, he deserves all that money, Mr. Speaker, making those types of decisions. Boy, those are big ones. Those are important for his personal attention. What a joke. They are spending our tax dollars in frivolous ways, and it is an example of the level of ludicrousness that the Lotteries corporation is currently functioning under. They are so busy counting all that money, they do not have time to keep track of what is happening, and they let Mr. Leitch do it for them.
By the way, it is my understanding that we cannot even put on that statue Winnie the Pooh. It has to be Winnie the bear because they would get sued by Walt Disney if they used Winnie the Pooh. So it is Winnie the bear in the London England zoo and that is this government's choice, highest priority, for $20,000 of taxpayers' money, money from the people of this province. [interjection] At least I spend it here. I do not spend it in Saskatchewan. I spend it here.
Mr. Speaker, speaking of potatoes, I know that the members have really enjoyed and feel that they have made a big score because the use of the terminology, the slogan "small potatoes." Well, you know what, I remember the spud heads over there, the reality is--[interjection] Well, I say that congratulating them, Mr. Speaker, because I remember the big speech from the Minister of Agriculture, the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns). I remember the grand vision.
Do you remember when he stood up in this Chamber and we were talking about the Pembina Valley water and he made the big pitch for potatoes in Manitoba. He had the grand vision of thousands of potato farms and serving the McDonald's franchise with potatoes. He was talking about potatoes as economic growth and as a good thing for this province, and now they do not feel that way. Now they mock when somebody talks about potatoes. What is wrong with potatoes? They make a lot of money in this province. I remember the grand vision. [interjection] Well, I guess it is not there any more. I can see I hit a sore spot, and I do want to be cautious with my time. I can see I have hit a sore spot. I remember the context of that comment which was that the current money which has been allocated under the Grow Bond program is $5.9 million. I support that Grow Bond program. I have said it was a good idea. I have said that publicly many, many times.
Mr. Speaker, $70 million in guarantees and in contracts was given to Faneuil corporation. They got a seven-year, $50 million contract plus a further $17.5 million in training grants and in assistance to set up.
If you give somebody a $50 million guaranteed profit contract, you know what, this is not some miracle of marketing. You can get General Motors to come to this province with that kind of deal. You would think this was some wonderful economic plan to buy economic growth in this province. It does not work. It has not worked. When is this government going to stop being obsessed and at what cost? The fact is that those jobs will be here whether that company was here or not.
The reality is, here is the October 1994 accounting of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business about this government and the City of Winnipeg. I think they hit the nail on the head. Here is what they said. Manitoba Highlights was under the CFIB. The CFIB is supposed to be this government's friend. They generally try to support anything that they say. But they obviously felt so moved that in the Manitoba Highlights section they had to point out in many ways the attention of government would be better spent--this is under the Manitoba section--in setting a positive economic climate for small business development and growth at home.
They were complaining about the obsession that this government has with giving money to anybody who shows a passing interest in Manitoba. That has failed in this province to a greater or lesser degree over the last 25 years.
I remember the 1990 election. I remember all members in that 1990 election, and in every pamphlet that came out in my riding it was said, we are going to create 1,000 new jobs at Repap, Phase 2. That was the big push in the 1990 election, Phase 2 of Repap. Well, Mr. Speaker, it did not happen.
(Mr. Jack Penner, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)
If you hitch your horse, as the government has, constantly to those from outside this province, in the hopes that they will save us, and that is the obsession of this government and has been, if you do that, firstly you denigrate and insult the local business community, and CFIB is pointing that out. Secondly, Mr. Acting Speaker, you do not do any favours to the local business community. Our focus should be them. They are our future. There is no saviour outside this province.
There is nothing wrong with aggressively promoting it for the right reasons, but if you go with an empty chequebook, an empty wallet, and you just write whatever cheque is necessary, the reality is we have got years and years of history to prove it does not work, and it will not work. It is in direct contradiction, by the way, to the First Minister's (Mr. Filmon's) statement that you cannot create jobs and economic growth. The only way he has seen fit to do that is to be absolutely obsessed with recruiting anybody from outside the province to do anything.
The reality is, they come, they take, and they leave most often, and that is the legacy. The truth is our future is within our provincial borders now or it is never going to be. The people who are here, when they grow, when their markets expand, we know there is a far greater chance that they will stay.
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That has been the history of our success. It is not big business that drives the Manitoba economy, it is small business. Everybody likes to have big head offices. That is great, and we certainly want to do everything possible to recruit those and to keep the ones that are here.
Mr. Acting Speaker, the engine of this economy and the prospect that the information age offers is that small business is going to be the engine of the world economy, and that is good because we can win. We have primarily small and medium-sized business in our economy. There should be every indication that as the world markets change, as the information age comes upon us, it is our business community that is going to win if we do it right, if we back the people who are here and who have made a commitment to this community and this province and are raising their children here and desire to stay and provide opportunities for those children.
Mr. Acting Speaker, also in the Speech from the Throne, moving to page 3, the government indicates that they will introduce balanced budget legislation to ensure "our financial house remains in order because balanced budgets increase the ability to generate jobs and provide services." Nice recognition six and a half years into office with nothing but deficit budgets in the last six and a half years. Nice time to decide you want balanced budget legislation. This represents really the height of hypocrisy for this government. They have racked up billions and billions of dollars in debt. [interjection]
The member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister) takes a very self-righteous attitude, and he always does. I happened to see a nice little headline in the Portage paper: Local MLA defends perks. That is the member for Portage la Prairie, the holier than thou, butter would not melt in his mouth, Mr. Self-Righteous. Oh, I do not take my pension. I do not do anything wrong. MLA defends perks. That is the member for Portage la Prairie. The member for Portage la Prairie should be a little more cautious in his desire to always speak up and interrupt and be so self-righteous. The reality is, Mr. Acting Speaker, he should spend more of his time focusing on policies that can help the people of this province and stop being quite so self-righteous. Local MLA defends perks.
Well, the reality is balanced budget legislation can be a very useful thing. It can set a standard, and many people express concern and complaint about the--what is the penalty, that is what they say, and that does pose a problem. What happens if a government breaks its own legislation? The reality is that the major benefit of that in the provinces--and I have spoken to the two provinces that have it currently. I have spoken to two of them. What they say, and I think it is of some interest, is that it sets a standard and that there is a political cost, therefore, if you set the standard and you do not abide by it. So it is not without cost, and so I do not think it is therefore useless legislation. I think it can be a real benefit.
We in fact spoke about this a little over a year ago, and I look forward to seeing the details because what I am most interested in knowing is, will we get a chance to debate and pass this before the next deficit budget in this province? If in fact there is integrity, and this is more than a gimmick on the part of this government after bringing in successive deficit budgets, Mr. Acting Speaker, and one including the highest deficit in the history of the province--if this is more than a gimmick, then the Premier (Mr. Filmon) and the government should put it before this House now to deal with it before their next budget and let us come back in January and let us come back in February and let us talk about it. I want to do that and we want to have a chance to look at it in a favourable light and pass it.
What I am really interested in knowing is, what will it say about a government that does nothing but pass deficit budgets in six and a half years? What will it say about that, because I think that is going to be an interesting question, as this government seeks to impress the people of this province about its fiscal responsibility, having done nothing but rack up debt. Why? Because they never made the link between unemployment and the deficit. They never made that link.
Conservatives do not make that link. Mr. Mulroney never made that link. The reality is, until you deal with jobs, until you deal effectively with unemployment, you will not deal with the deficit in a final way. Now, they have gotten around that, because they have not created any jobs, so what they have done is, they have created the single largest industry in the province, gambling.
Gambling is what is going to get them a balanced budget--gambling, Mr. Acting Speaker. That is the saviour, according to this government. The replacement for real economic growth is going to be gambling.
Well, there is one other small note, just a small note, which is that the government happened to wake up one morning and find 180 million bucks in its pocket, thanks to a changing of the formula, a reassessment of the formula for the equalization payments. That was a small plus, but the reality is, not a bad pre-Christmas gift. They got that and they have more money coming in through the Lotteries corporation than I think they could have dreamed of. I think they are embarrassed about how much money is coming into that Lotteries corporation.
They do not know what to do with it all. They are so busy finding ways to get rid of it, like buying Pooh bear statues for London, England. They do not know what to do with it. They are redesigning their internal offices out there I think for the fourth time in the last five--they do not know what to do with all the money they got.
We had an interesting discussion. I was on a radio show a few months ago and had an interesting discussion with Ms. Olynik [phonetic] who is the public relations person from the Lotteries corporation, a very nice woman, doing her job, and the reality is, Mr. Speaker, she said when asked about the level of tourism and who was gambling, her statement was, there is almost 10 percent of people who are gambling who are not from Manitoba. That is like the glass is half empty, the glass is half full. That means in excess of 90 percent are Manitobans. In excess of 90 percent of the people using those VLTs, going to those casinos, are Manitobans, spending Manitoba dollars that were here before and would have been spent in this economy but for the fact that they are spent at the gambling casino, thanks to millions of dollars in advertising and promotion and a glitzy corporation.
This is the government that talks about, oh, the horrors of nationalizing business. Oh, the horrors of taking over things. Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, they have single-handedly created the single largest, fastest-growing corporation in this province, the Manitoba Lotteries corporation, solely under this government. This is the government that talks about the terrors of government ownership and nationalization, and they are running the biggest, the most exploitive business in this province, and the reality is, they are going to spend millions more on advertising than they are dealing with the social and economic ramifications of that.
Over the weekend, I saw the nice new ads, you know, the loonie, and they split it up and they show you all these things. Well, you know what? Those are $200,000 ads--four ads, 200,000 bucks. They are buying a million bucks worth of TV time for those ads. That is $1.2 million. That is half, just for this set of four ads, of the total Addictions budget for five years, more than double on these four ads than what they are going to spend all year on dealing with addictions.
The Addictions Foundation says, oh well, we only have 200 or so who are coming in for treatment. Do you know how you come for treatment at the Addictions Foundation? There is no responsibility on those running gambling operations to watch and monitor for problem gamblers and stop them, as there is with liquor. There is a responsibility on vendors of alcohol to not overserve, but there is no such similar responsibility amongst the people running VLTs.
Mr. Acting Speaker, they have the view that those who gamble and are problematic will just voluntarily come to the Addictions Foundation. They do not come until they are at rock bottom, everything is gone. That is how they count up the 200--those who have lost it all and have reached the absolute rock bottom and decide fortuitously, better late than never, that they are going to go to the Addictions Foundation. Many do not.
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I will tell you, Mr. Acting Speaker, you can sit and watch somebody at one of those machines and you wonder pretty quickly which one is the machine. The truth is that these are a new high in addictive gambling. They represent the latest in technology from Europe.
I know that there were many missions over there to find out all about them and to bring them over here. One of the pioneers in North America has been this government in bringing in VLTs. These represent a new high for the gambling industry in the world in terms of addictive capability to patrons. This government has never, ever, ever come to grips in any real way with what the cost of that is.
The fact is that it is our money, it is not about tourism. It never has been. The fact that it is increasingly attracting those who cannot afford to gamble to the extent they are, and it is preying--and their own five-year plan, '91-96 five-year plan, which projected the McPhillips and Regent casinos, that plan spoke of targeting who? The poor, the lonely, the middle- and lower-income people, seniors. That is why they are located on McPhillips and Regent. Read the marketing plan. It targets the most susceptible people in our society. That is what this government has made as one of its chief economic pillars, growth by the promotion of gambling amongst those who can least afford to pay. It has in fact become a form of taxation as this government spends millions of dollars promoting this amongst its own citizens.
Mr. Acting Speaker, if you think it has stopped cross-border gambling, think again. The reality is, if you talk to those who run the cross-border operations in North Dakota and Minnesota, they will tell you, if you talk to the border guards, they will tell you, talk to Mr. Canada's Touring Network, those who do it, business is up, business is booming.
What we know, and the marketing advice from the Manitoba Lotteries corporation will tell it, if they would ever open the doors of that building, is that once someone starts gambling, whether it be here or anywhere else, they want to try something new, and they are going to the Shooting Star Casino and they are going to Las Vegas and they are going to other places pretty quickly after being introduced to gambling in Manitoba. Those are Manitobans going. This is not stopping cross-border gambling, in my opinion, and it is also not attracting tourists. It is a problem which the Manitoba public is crying out to have a good hard look at.
I ask this government to go the second step. They put in a moratorium because they sensed the public unease. They know that they were having difficulties in endlessly promoting and having this grow in the communities. Take the second step. Have a full public review. Let the public debate happen about where we are, what the true ramifications are, not through millions of dollars of advertising campaigns, slick ads, but in a full, open public review.
What is wrong? If the Premier (Mr. Filmon) says the public is asking questions, let us let them be answered in other than propaganda and public relations exercises, Mr. Acting Speaker. Take the second step. Go to a full public debate and review as they have said they want to do in so many other areas.
Why not this? There is no single operation of government that has gone through more radical change in these six years than Lotteries. Absolutely none. There is probably no corporation that has had more of a substantial impact in this economy in our province in the last six years than Lotteries. This thing has gone 180 degrees. Let us have the public debate.
The statement on page 3 of the Speech from the Throne--economic growth is not an end in itself but is essential to creating jobs and to sustaining our health care, education and social services and our high quality of life--represents, I think, a very accurate statement, one that I agree with. I wish that other pages in this document would prove that statement true, but that is the basis of what I think we collectively should be trying to do in this session and in this Legislature.
There is a further articulation of the problem of the availability of capital in this province. That is a very real problem, and I do not think there is any disagreement amongst members of this House about it. I have talked about the hemorrhaging of youth and of the vitality and creativity and energy that we are losing continually in this province, but there is also the hemorrhaging of capital, hemorrhaging of money.
The RSP contributions have grown dramatically in this province and in this country in the last years. We know that Manitobans are some of the best savers in the world. It is an interesting distinction. You can go almost anywhere on this continent, and you do not find a per capita savings ability higher than Manitobans very often. Well, the reality is that the majority of that RSP funding is going into mutual funds these days. Where are mutual funds purchased and where are they handled? Mostly out of the Toronto Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, Tokyo Stock Exchange. That is where mutual funds are in fact purchased, other than the currency funds. How much of that investment money gets back to this province?
Well, Mr. Acting Speaker, you can speak to various of the experts who do this for a living, who run investment houses and who manage those mutual funds, and they have a hard time pinning it, but nobody goes above 10 percent. Nobody will tell you that they can in any way, directly or indirectly, trace back to the province a higher degree than that.
(Mr. Speaker in the Chair)
So we do have a problem with retaining our own capital. I do not think we need to be obsessing ourselves with recruiting capital from outside at a high cost which we have continually done.
The reality is, if we could harness, if we could provide carrots, the opportunity for our own people to leave their money here in any substantial way, we would solve the problem. The Grow Bond program was an attempt to do that, and it was a good idea, the attempt to do that through the labour-sponsored initiatives. The Crocus Fund was a good idea. We need more of those, and we mean more innovative--and Vision Capital represents another attempt. But we are still dealing, Mr. Speaker, with a relatively small amount of the overall capital that is leaving this province every year.
In response to the ongoing desire--the Premier (Mr. Filmon) and the government did request a report last spring which I think was useful. In response to that, new plans are under way for a major event in the spring of 1995 to connect entrepreneurs and small business owners with investors. That will be, I am sure, a useful event.
Mr. Speaker, that is it? A one-time opportunity for people to get together? Where is the systematic, organized way to put investors together with those seeking to have financing, not debt contribution, but equity contribution, venture capital. We need a venture capital plan in this province, and a spring 1995 event, a one-shot, if I happen to meet somebody we can make a deal--it is a drop in the bucket.
It is important we should do it in an organized, systematic way. This problem is bigger than any one event. We need to find ways to have our own people leave their money in this province and in these communities, and one event is not going to do it. Where has the plan been to attract any significant degree of the capital which has left this province in the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars over these last six and one-half years?
Page four: experience has proven that targeting strategic sectors in partnership with the private sector can produce results. There has been one strategic partnership which comes to mind in dealing with the public sector. That was the ill-advised, disastrous relationship with Connie Curran and her organization which represented probably the most significant blunder in the whole health care initiative that this government undertook over the last years. What it did was it sent a signal--as the minister is intent, I think, on sending the signals to the teachers in education reform--that while you talk about partnership, while you talk about consensus, while you talk about wanting to listen, the reality is the plan is done. It is a done deal.
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These committees--and they figure that out pretty quick, Mr. Speaker. Those who come to those committees actually come with a fair amount of good faith. They come, I think, desiring to participate and enhance the process. The reality is that if you really want to know how to make a job more efficient, you ask the person who does it. That is a simple principle. That was the initial idea.
The reality is that it almost immediately became derailed because the people involved realized that this had nothing to do with their input, that in reality they were being asked to do things to put themselves out of a job, and secondly, that no matter what they came up with the die was cast. They had made up their mind. So the partnership broke down, and as a result, health reform is absolutely stalled.
Everyone in the health care sector is saying that. What is going on? Are we moving, Mr. Speaker, toward--that is what they are saying. They are saying: Are we moving toward the goals of that health reform package? What are we doing? Mr. Warm and Friendly, the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae), talks in soothing tones, but the reality is--[interjection] No, that is not you. That is the member for Brandon West (Mr. McCrae).
There has been a significant change in style in the Minister of Health, but the reality is, he is dithering. We need an action plan, and the basis of that must be the necessity of a partnership with the 30,000 people in this province directly involved in the health care sector.
You know, there is a letter in the initial health reform document. The former Minister of Health's picture is above it, and he signed it. I am not sure he read it, but he did sign it, and his picture is there. He talks about the necessity of a partnership. That is what it says. You know what, Mr. Speaker? That letter was well written and represents the truth about how to manage change, but the reality is, they never had any intention of doing that. This is a government that believes you can sit in your office and sign something off, and it just happens. It will just happen--you know, thousands of teachers, thousands of nurses out there. They will just do it because they think they have ultimate power. It is a macho approach to government that says: We know best. We know how to do it. We have the power.
Well, the reality is, it may make for good news conferences, it may make for good public relations, but it does not reform the process. It does not get us anywhere, Mr. Speaker. There is no more telling example of that than the disaster of health care reform in this province.
Mr. Speaker, page 5 is interesting in this document. It goes through, in the jobs and economy section, some of the key tenets of the economic plan. It is an interesting page because it talks about here: Well, because of the enhanced trade missions and, in particular, the China mission with Team Canada, well, things are great.
Then it goes on to the next paragraph, and it says: We are looking forward to the federal-provincial-city governments continuing to make progress on a new Winnipeg development agreement, another federal initiative. Then it goes on to say, the two-year, $205-million Canada-Manitoba Infrastructure Works Program is a very successful initiative, another federal initiative. But for the federal government's initiatives in the last year, there is no economic plan. In fact, the best thing that happened to this province in the last year has been that there has been a new federal government that has done something in this province. This government has every single day stood up and said, oh, they are terrible, for political partisan reasons. The reality is, in their own document, they list as the single biggest economic benefit the federal programs--the hypocrisy. These are the people who woke up and found 180 million bucks in their pocket, and they are complaining about the federal government.
The reality is, it is sometimes this day, sometimes this day, we do not know how we feel. But the reality is it is politics, pure and simple, that is being played in this House. The truth is that they have never had it so good with the federal government. They have had partnerships on all kinds of initiatives. They are being pushed. Whether it is the single parents initiative, whether it is the infrastructure program, whether it is all of these other things that puts money in their pockets, they are thrilled to participate, more than happy. Why? Because they had nothing going on in this province before that happened.
Mr. Speaker, the truth is as you read through this speech, but for the federal government, but for a low Canadian dollar which has helped tourism, but for a good season for the agricultural community, all of which this government had absolutely nothing to do with, but for those three things there would be no economic growth in this province. We would have been at zero. This document proves that. They talk about the good agricultural crop. They had nothing to do with that. They talk about the federal programs. They had nothing to do in initiating those.
They talk about the boost in tourism. I think the boost in tourism had a little bit to do with the 30 percent reduced Canadian dollar, just a little bit. Come on. There is nothing going on in this province that this government can take credit for. Why? Because as the Premier said in March 1994, anybody who suggests that Canada through its own fiscal policies can change job creation or economic growth is speaking nonsense. That is what the Premier said. He continues to believe that despite all of the pap that he puts in these Speeches from the Throne every single year.
Mr. Speaker, going down the page, big talk about the information highway. It goes on to say that we are utilizing the information highway in such ways as a Drug Program Information Network. They probably had two or three staff assigned for a few months to find a way not to use the word Pharmacard. You would not want to use that. Well, we had that resolution on the books for just a few sessions. They had to spend a lot of time and effort. Somebody had to be paid a lot of money to come up with the name Drug Program Information Network. I like Pharmacard better. Anyway, they did it, but the reality is that had been on the books for a lot of years in this session and they know that.
Now, Mr. Speaker, page 6, top of the page, four sentences, nice, slick, that is it for agriculture. Gone, done. Here is what farmers can hang their hat on from this government. They say, "Manitoba farmers have always demonstrated an ability to adapt to a changing agricultural environment by growing nontraditional crops and diversifying." It goes on to say we need industry to adapt, and it goes on to say that Manitoba farmers need to take advantage of new diversification and value-added opportunities including food exports to emerging markets. That is true. All of that is true. Success is the problem. They ask the right question. That is it. At the end of that assessment, there is nothing.
They talk about the need to adapt, the need to be flexible, the need to do something for the agricultural community. Great, they got the question right. Where is the beef? Where is anything that anybody in the agricultural community could say this province has an agricultural strategy? There is none and this speech is a pathetic illustration of how this government has absolutely no desire to do anything to enhance the agricultural community. They are going to sit and pray for good weather because that is it. There is nothing else.
It goes on to say, "In the evolving global economy Manitobans will be required to continue to train and upgrade skills to ensure success as entrepreneurs and business managers." True.
Then it goes on to say, the big plan--do you know what the big plan for training is? Workforce 2000. Maybe by the year 2000, Mr. Speaker, we will actually have the opportunity to get a curriculum out of one of the companies that gets money out of Workforce 2000. Maybe we will actually have the opportunity by the year 2000 to see how those dollars have been spent and what they have produced, because the truth is, Workforce 2000, again, for the best intentions, is an attempt at market-driven training, which is certainly a way to go.
For all of the best intentions, the government has been totally unable to make those dollars pay for what we are trying to achieve, which is new employment.
Mr. Speaker, the speech at page 6 indicates that to support the development of literacy skills, a Western Institute of Reading Recovery will be established with programs to equip teachers on strategies to teach literacy. This government is going to put into place an institute to teach teachers how to teach literacy. They know how to teach literacy. What they need is support in the classroom to teach.
How many times is this government going to have to be told? The best way to enhance education is to put the child first and to focus on the classroom. If you allow teachers to teach rather than delivering health programs and social programs and everything else which has been loaded onto the schools, if you allow them to do that, if you free them up to do that, you are going to do more for education than anything else.
That is why we need an integrated approach to services offered on a community-by-community basis around this province. That is why other jurisdictions have done that successfully. It makes sense because, if you can effectively co-ordinate the existing resources on a community-by-community basis, the truth is, you can free up teachers to teach.
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Where is the literacy program for adults around this province who are in the workforce, who are seeking to get into the workforce and who are illiterate? For years the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) has been raising the need to have a province-wide literacy strategy.
It was interesting to me to look back to July 1988, the first Speech from the Throne that this government put forward. In it, Mr. Speaker, at page 11, the government says: "My Government will take action on the pressing problem of illiteracy."--July 21, 1988.
Mr. Speaker, December 1, 1994, they are saying, in response to that commitment of six and a half years: We have a Western Institute of Reading Recovery that is going to teach teachers to teach literacy. That is it. We have the people who can teach literacy. What we need is a commitment by the government to put the people who teach it together with the people who need it and doing that on a province-wide basis.
Whether it is children or adults, illiteracy needs to be attacked, Mr. Speaker. That is what the July 21, 1988, Speech From the Throne promised. This is it, after six and a half years. It is pathetic.
There is a need to deal substantively with education in this province, and what we see increasingly is a public relations exercise. There is no more telling proof of that than the Minister of Education's (Mr. Manness) decision that now that he has got the blueprint in place, now that he has essentially decided what is going to happen, he is going to have a teachers' forum. Now he has decided the teachers actually might have something to say and should be listened to, after, Mr. Speaker, he has come up with his own blueprint.
That is why education reform is going to go the way of health reform, because the consultation, the building of partnerships is a public relations exercise in word only. The reality is, it does not really matter what the teachers say there. This minister has made up his mind. He has made up his mind; he knows what he is going to do. You are not going to persuade this minister. He knows this is a public relations exercise, and the teachers that are being called in, after the die has been cast, I think, will know that they are being part of a public relations exercise more than anything else.
The speech goes on to indicate that the schools should be safe, productive environments, and that is a big problem, dealing with violence in schools, dealing with unlawful behaviour in schools. The truth is that it is something we need to address. We want safe schools, and people who are going to bring weapons to school and involve in illegal activities, criminal activities in the schools cannot stay in the schools and should not be allowed to, but it is no answer to take them out of the education stream. It is no answer to put them back onto the street, Mr. Speaker, because where do they go? They go down to the nearest 7-Eleven to hang around to figure out ways to commit new crimes.
If you take kids out of the education stream, all you do is make the problem worse. We need alternative placement for kids in our school system that are involved in gangs, that bring knives to school, that are involved in criminal activity. You cannot just expel them and pretend that the problem has gone away.
There was an interesting statement under the public security section of the bill, and the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) says that she has taken a firm position on the Young Offenders Act.
Well, Mr. Speaker, you know, I had an interesting experience. I happened to catch an interview of the Minister of Justice with a reporter from the CBC, and she was talking about her position on--
An Honourable Member: The RCMP?
Mr. Edwards: No, she was talking about her position on gun control. It was quite a fascinating interview. Here is the statement. This is the same minister who today, actually, just handed out a government press release saying how great the firearms drop-off had been. They got 500 firearms out of circulation, and is it not great. She goes on to say that firearms, weapons, such as pellet guns or martial arts weapons, explosive military devices and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition were collected. Good move.
That same minister, here was what she said about gun control. She says she does not really favour gun control and Allan Rock's proposals because they should not just focus on firearms. She says, firearms is too narrow. Here is a quote: It targets only 7 percent of those who commit violent crimes using firearms. We know that in spousal abuse, things like ashtrays, telephones, baseball bats and knives have all been used in the commission of violent crimes. Manitoba's position is change the word to weapons.
Her opposition to gun control is because we are not going to register ashtrays, Mr. Speaker. That is what she said in this document. I am not making this up. The newscaster said the same thing, said, what? You are what? You are not going to register firearms because we are not registering knives and that. No question, ashtrays and telephones can be very dangerous things, but her own handing in of firearms brought in no ashtrays and no telephones. You do not say, just because anything can be used as a weapon, we are not going to register firearms. What a ridiculous, silly thing for this Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) to say.
Then she goes on to say that it is weapons, it is not guns alone. She goes on to indicate, and I think this is probably closer to the real position, that we have had registration for handguns for 20 years and it has not worked. So what is she saying? Is she saying that she does not want any registration for handguns? First, earlier in the interview she is saying, we do not want to register handguns because we are not registering ashtrays and telephones. Then two minutes later she says, well, registration really does not work anyway.
Where is this minister on the proposals for registration for all firearms, Mr. Speaker? We have said, continue to say, that the proposals should be supported by this minister. She has done nothing but waver on this issue and say, well, I do not know. I am glad we have got a bunch handed in, but I really do not want to take any action to make sure that the ones that are still out there are under any registration system, are controllable. Despite the fact that teachers' societies, despite the fact that the chiefs of police all support this, the Minister of Justice is not sure what she is doing.
She is going from silliness to bizarre statements that we should not register handguns because--[interjection] Well, if the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister) would listen, he would know that I just said our position. We support the federal proposals. Does he? Will he be forthright and say? Does he support Mr. Rock's initiatives or not? We have been clear. I said we do. I have always said that. I have said that to all of the people who have called in on the talk shows. I have said that, Mr. Speaker.
You know, it is interesting that the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) is also the Minister responsible for the Status of Women. You know what the Status of Women director thinks about this? They like the proposals, Mr. Speaker. They want registrations. They want to deal with that. She is talking about registering ash trays and telephones. The very organization which knows most about the problems of spousal abuse is saying, support these recommendations. She should do it. She flew down to Ottawa and takes all kinds of issues, and writes letters, and oh, I am tough and I am taking the toughest position on all of these other things. Take a position on gun control, to the Minister of Justice. [interjection]
Well, Mr. Speaker, wait a minute. Is the minister saying that we should not even try. No, does he agree with the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) and say, we should not even try to register firearms because we cannot register ash trays and telephones? Is that the position? Because that is what the Minister of Justice said. Why do they not come up with some kind of conceivable, rational policy on this. [interjection] I am. Well, I am prepared to table the transcript because the member says it is not right. I have quoted--I could not believe it either. I had to get a copy of it because the reality is--[interjection] Table your ashtray. [interjection] Well, this Minister of Justice wants to register it.
The Speech from the Throne indicates enhancement to the Maintenance Enforcement Program. That is a very good thing. Mr. Speaker, that is long overdue, and there is $27 million in outstanding maintenance enforcement payments which have not been paid in this province, and it is high time that we took this issue seriously. I agree, and I want to applaud the government. Better late than never. They are dealing with this. I also want to recognize that the member of this Legislative Assembly who has been pushing this issue since the day she was elected and has been articulating the need to deal with this is the member for Osborne (Ms. McCormick), and she, I think, deserves more credit than anyone else in this Chamber for bringing this issue to the public. It is good to see that actually something is going to be done in this province to deal with this.
Page 10 of the Speech from the Throne is very interesting. It says that to ensure appropriate community services, such as health care, my government will reinvest funds to enhance the role of community health centres.
Well, I happened again to be reading through the 1988 Speech from the Throne. Very interestingly, Mr. Speaker, it makes the same commitment. How about that. Six and a half years later--we are going to take health care services in the community.
What decade were they actually going to implement any of this? How many times do we have to go through reading these things which keep sounding more and more and more alike and nothing happens? The bottom line is they keep saying, hang with us and things will get great. Well, the truth is most Manitobans know that things under this government are not going to get great, Mr. Speaker. They know that they keep hearing these speeches from the throne and there is little gimmicks thrown in, but the reality is nothing changes.
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They are talking in 1988 about taking health care services in the community; they are talking in 1994 about still doing it, and they have not done it yet. What they have done is deinstitutionalized. That they have done. They decided that we got to get people out of these high-cost institutions, but what they never did was realize that you got to put the community-based services' employees first. It is not only silly and not cost-effective, it is inhumane to put people out of institutions, in particular, mental health patients without adequate community supports in the community.
Mr. Speaker, if you go to Brandon and you listen to the people in that community, that is their concern. Everyone in that community fears the move into the community not because it is not a good thing, but because it will not be done right by this government, and they will put the people into the community without the supports in place.
Mr. Speaker, the Speech from the Throne talks about the need to support children, for their parents to have a job is the best way to achieve that, and that is a good idea. It goes on to again cite as the major initiative to deal with that, the new Winnipeg Development Agreement initiative, and we very much hope that this government is co-operating to achieve that.
Mr. Speaker, there is a final statement which I found interesting in here under the Resources and Environment section. It talks about a biennial State of the Environment Report coming out in the Spring in '95. I remember when that legislation first came in and I supported this State of the Environment Report. I think it is a good idea, an inventory, but the last one, and I am sure the minister has learned from the experience, was almost universally mocked throughout this province. Because what it represented again was pretty much a public relations document. It did not represent an accurate inventory of what is there and the problems that we face.
So I can only say that I hope that the minister this time has learned from the prior experience and will be putting together a credible impact statement, or an inventory, of the state of the environment in this province. That would be a useful document. My fear is that as we get closer to that election, there will be all of this pressure to duplicate what was last time and make this pretty much a public relations document and that will be a lot of money wasted if that is in fact what is done.
Mr. Speaker, as we have gone through these speeches and we have gone through this term of government, I want to go back to what I believe is the essence and the most memorable lesson from this government's tenure which is that they have often had the questions right. They just have not had any answers. The truth is that there are not miracle answers. I think we know that, but there are different directions, there are better ways, there are new ways to go. You do not have to take the attitude, as the Premier (Mr. Filmon) does, that it is nonsense to suggest a government can change job creation, it can change economic growth. This is not nonsense. Governments can have an impact and should have an impact, whether it is the harnessing of our energies through an education and training strategy that includes everyone, whether it is finding ways to retain even a portion of the capital that flees this province every year, whether it is building partnerships to reform and restructure government, because that is not a bad thing.
We must restructure government, not just tinkering at the periphery. We have to restructure government. We want this thing to last, Mr. Speaker, for another 125 years. We have to restructure government, and this will not be the last time we have to do it. The truth is that there are enormous challenges, and this document represents a statement that all is good, all is well. Just stay with us and you will get a job and things will be good and your children will be happy and be able to stay in this province, and none of that is true.
Everything suggests that this government has pulled this province down by its policies and has never understood the human waste of capital that is perpetrated by more and more families living in poverty. This province has 53 percent by the latest count of families living under the poverty line, already working. We have 53 percent of our families living in poverty who have jobs. These are the working poor.
This is not about masses of people not wanting to work, that they have to set up a welfare snitch line that is going to solve the problem, Mr. Speaker. What a ridiculous attempt to blame those who are poor, who do not have work. They want to work. They do not want to be on social assistance. They want jobs, they want training, and this government has cut the opportunities of those people to contribute and reach their potential within our society. It is wrong because they have never made the link that if you really want to be fiscally responsible you have to be socially responsible first. You have to give people the tools and the opportunities and the training to reach their potential.
You have to harness the energies of this province internally, not always be obsessed with outsiders, trying to get them to come and save this province. It does not work; it will not work. Our future is here, it is now, it is living in this province, Mr. Speaker, and that is what we need to focus on, and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business was right. There should be more attention paid to home, to Manitoba, to the people who are here, and an investment in them will pay dividends every day of their lives in every community in this province.
There has been an attack on education; there has been an attack on the basic social structures that have been put in place to enable people to reach their potential, to seek opportunities. We do not offer cradle-to-grave coverage. Nobody suggests that. Maybe the NDP do, but we do not. The truth is we do not, Mr. Speaker. Government is about opportunities, providing opportunities for people, and that is what our business is, and there is no more significant opportunity for people than education. That is the most valuable tool someone can have. You cannot attack education for six years and then say we are going to fix it in the next six. You cannot do everything to erode education and access to education and then try to reinvent yourself for the next six years to try and create a decent education system by the year 2000.
An Honourable Member: I am wondering how Lloyd Axworthy's proposal is going to help.
Mr. Edwards: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Minister mentions it. He mentions some of the social safety net reforms. Well, let me point out to the minister that Manitoba has the worst record in this country in contribution to post-secondary education. The truth is that if you go through the statistics, the provincial government of Manitoba is spending less money on post-secondary education between 1988 and 1993--I am sorry, the second worst record of any province, except for B.C. which finished first, of contribution to post-secondary education in this country.
For every dollar that the province spends on post-secondary education the federal government adds four. They are the worst in the country, and even B.C. is improving its record. The statistics speak for themselves. Their contribution is at the bottom end of this nation in contribution to post-secondary education. They are not in a position, Mr. Speaker, to suggest that others are to blame for problems in the university sector. They are in control of post-secondary education. They are contributing the least. It is their responsibility, and in '91-92, in particular an all-time low, the Conservative government here spent less money on post-secondary education even than B.C. did and any other province in Canada. So this provincial government is indulging in more than a little hypocritical thought as they attempt to attack others for the woes of the post-secondary education system. [interjection] Per capita in this province in '91-92 was $53. That was the worst in the country in post-secondary education.
There needs to be, I think, a recognition by this government that all is not well, that we can do better and that there are new directions to go. The gimmicks have all come out, and the truth is there is no opportunity for this province to keep up with even the national average of job growth. We are at less than half in the last 13 months in this province of the national average. New Brunswick is two and a half times higher. [interjection] The Minister of Education (Mr. Manness) talks about other governments. He happens to say a Liberal government. We will talk about New Brunswick. New Brunswick in the last 13 months, employment growth 4.2 percent; Manitoba's 1.6. It is two and a half times higher than ours. They are almost a full point higher than the national average. We are less than half of the national average.
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It is time, I think, that we had a change in this province, a change for the better. We have to prepare this province for the 21st Century. The truth is, there is no credibility to the continual Speeches from the Throne which say almost the same things every year. The bottom line every year is: Just wait, it is going get better, hang on.
Well, Mr. Speaker, Manitobans have been hanging on, those who are still left here, and the truth is, they have decided and they are going to increasingly see that there needs to be a change, a fundamental change in approach if we are ever going to progress as a province and provide those jobs which are at the base of what we as government should be doing.
THEREFORE, I move, seconded by the member for Crescentwood (Ms. Gray), that the amendment be amended by adding thereto the following words:
And further regrets:
1. that with an employment growth rate of less than half the national average over the last year and the lowest GDP rate in the country in 1993 this government has failed to accurately represent Manitoba's economic situation; and
2. that this government has consistently underestimated the need to provide educational opportunities to Manitoba families living in poverty, and family supports to allow access to those opportunities and in fact has consistently eroded those opportunities and supports; and
3. that this government has failed to put forward any fiscal plan to provide economic growth, choosing instead to place increasing reliance on gambling revenue for government revenues; and
4. that with a child poverty rate that continues to be one of the highest in the nation this government has failed to address the needs of children and their families and has instead raised Pharmacare deductibles, reduced daycare subsidies and cut welfare benefits to families; and
5. that this government has failed to provide leadership in managing change in our health care system, but has instead shortchanged Manitoba citizens on the health care services they require; and
6. that as Manitoba heads into its 125 birthday this government has failed to recognize that a slide into mediocrity is no longer acceptable for Manitobans.
Motion presented.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable member's subamendment is in order.
Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): Colleagues and members of the Manitoba Legislature, it is indeed a pleasure for me to stand here today and to offer my comments regarding this government's throne speech, which I consider an honour and a privilege to do.
First of all, may I begin by again wishing you the very best as you undertake your duties in the Chamber. I also would like to welcome the new Pages to our Chamber and wish them well through this session.
Mr. Speaker, like the first act in any stage production, this Speech from the Throne sets the tone for the rest of the session, and the tone that it sets is one of optimism, one of opportunity and one of potential for all Manitobans. I am sure that by the time we are finished debating the themes in this throne speech we will have all concerned applauding as at the conclusion of the session.
I consider the theme for this throne speech to be potential and opportunity. The speech, along with its predecessors that this government has delivered, offers real opportunity to Manitobans so that they can realize their full potential. It is about realizing the potential of every person who lives in this province from all walks of life, of all ages and from all stages of our economic cycle.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, it is this government's job to help Manitoban's reach their full potential. If we want to build a better product, we should be there as a government to help them if we can. Manitobans want to do a better job. Then we should be there willing to help them train. If they want to study longer or further their education, then we should be there willing to help them with their education. But we should not do it for them. There is no satisfaction in having someone live your life for you. It was the French essayist, Michel de Montaigne, who said, and I quote: The value of life lies not in the length of days but in the use we make of them. A man may live long yet live very little. Satisfaction in life depends not on the number of your years but on your will. End of quote.
I do not have to explain the will of Manitobans to members of this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, for you know the people of this province have an enviable reputation for realizing their potential by seizing opportunity by the scruff of the neck and turning their dreams into reality. The Speech from the Throne helps Manitobans to reach their potential, as I have said, and our government is helping by playing the role of prompter. If Manitobans are doing it on their own, we have no business in interfering, but if they falter or if they need some help, we are there to help them along, to give them enough help to get them to the next step so they can realize their full potential.
In turn, our government has made fiscal responsibility and economic development the hallmarks of our mandate. For almost seven years Manitobans are benefiting from a freeze in major taxes and tax cuts and incentives for individuals and small businesses. These measures are helping to stimulate our economic growth and job creation, and as Minister of Rural Development I see how these opportunities are helping rural Manitobans to reach their potential.
For almost three years now, Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity and the privilege to work with rural Manitobans to find solutions to challenges and to help create real successes from ideas so they too can reach their potential. The men, the women, the children living in our smaller cities and our towns, our hamlets, our villages and on our farms, best understand and realize that rural Manitoba is not just a place, but, indeed, it is an attitude. It is an attitude that is bolstered when Manitobans in rural Manitoba live and work together and preserve the unique quality of life that they enjoy.
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In Rural Development, Mr. Speaker, we are taking an aggressive role in helping Manitobans to preserve their way of life. Rural entrepreneurs across this province are creating jobs for themselves, for their neighbours and for the people in their communities so they can remain in their home towns where they were born and they want to raise their families. This renewal of business activity in rural Manitoba is creating a by-product in the province, and because of this entrepreneurial activity the Manitoba economy is growing from the inside out.
Today we see products that were unheard of 10 years ago reaching the marketplace. Today Manitobans are producing products that 10 years ago would have never been thought about. Why? Because they are looking at their strengths that they have within their own communities, within their own home towns, and they are putting these strengths to a good and useful purpose. They are building on those strengths. They are taking a look at the advantages that they have, and they are building on those advantages.
Today, products from communities like Minnedosa and Morden are finding their way across the country and overseas, but sometimes some of these businesses need a little help, and we in Rural Development are there to help them get started or to help them get expanded.
One of the programs that was implemented, which I think has had tremendous success across the province, is the Grow Bond program. Indeed, I was somewhat happy to hear that even the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards) is happy with the progress that we have made in the Grow Bond program.
Mr. Speaker, let me say this, that when the Grow Bond program was introduced we knew that it was a way in which people in rural Manitoba could help themselves. We knew that there was money out there in rural Manitoba that was sitting in bank accounts, and that money was helping other businesses outside of the province. We knew that money could help people in this province, and so the Grow Bond program was initiated.
To date, we have 16 Grow Bond issues which have been issued, worth more than $6.2 million. This figure is impressive, but it is not nearly as impressive as the more than $19 million the Grow Bond investments have helped leverage in those 16 businesses. It is because of local investors that people like Jim and Debbie Hickson were able to hire more than 20 people at Sterling Press in Selkirk, including a single parent.
Before she started working at Sterling Press, the single mother of one was living with her parents unable to find adequate daycare for her child, because the only job that she could find was shift work at night. Now this single parent is getting closer to reaching her potential and her dream. She is working full time, living in her own apartment and her child attends regular daycare. Because the people in Selkirk invested in a business in their own community, she now can realize her potential and her dreams.
Mr. Speaker, I know that some people, and specifically the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards), says that this sort of investment, this sort of activity, is small potatoes, but to this single mom and the life of her child this is no small potatoes. I think any clear-thinking person in Manitoba would not view this as small potatoes.
We have seen this kind of attitude by the Liberal Party to rural Manitobans. The one thing that is consistent about the Liberal Party is the disdain they have for rural Manitoba. It was the former Leader, the predecessor to the current Leader of the Liberal Party, who said we should not be promoting large businesses in rural Manitoba, we should not be moving a lot of our decentralization offices to rural Manitoba, because she said that rural Manitobans did not have the expertise and the ability to manage these kinds of businesses.
That attitude goes on, because today we have the new Leader of the Liberal Party calling initiatives and the dreams that people have in rural Manitoba as "small potatoes." I find that an insult to the rural people of this province. I think it is shameful and disgusting that a leader of a party who wants to be Premier of this province would refer to the hopes and dreams of people in our rural part of our province as "small potatoes." I do not think rural Manitobans view that very kindly. I know they do not.
Mr. Speaker, our government believes that the people of this province are capable of doing the things that will make this province strong, and they are doing that each and every single day. The people of this province believe in our province and they believe in themselves, and that is why they are investing in such initiatives as Murray and Vicki Palmer's firefly operation in Souris. Here we have a young couple who had a dream about what they could do to attract tourism to that community. They went out to the people in the community and they said, what do you think? Is it worth an investment? The people of Souris came around them and absolutely supported them. In less than three weeks, or less than a month I should say, they had their Grow Bond oversubscribed. This is the kind of belief rural Manitobans have about opportunities that exist in rural Manitoba.
We could go on, Mr. Speaker. I give you the example of the people of Winkler who believed in themselves and they invested $600,000 of their own money in a tire-recycling corporation. The company has put 25 people to work recycling used tires into custom rubber products. Is that "small potatoes"? I do not think so. Twenty-five people working in a community like Winkler is a very significant aspect. And today those old tires are now better suited for a new life in their reincarnation than they were before being left in landfill sites.
So as the throne speech noted, our government is committed to sustainable development. The tire recycling corporation is making practical use of the concept. The company is also creating sustainable jobs in Winkler.
So it is not only in Selkirk, Souris and Winkler where Manitobans are investing in themselves. They are investing throughout the province, including places like Arborg, where local residents raised $700,000 for Gilbert International so that the firm could hire 30 people in Arborg to make quiche that is finding its way into markets right across Canada, to the United States, into Mexico, as far away as Hawaii. So Manitobans are also investing in themselves in other places: places like Teulon, places like Morden, places like Angusville, Morris and Killarney. Grow Bonds are helping rural Manitoba communities diversify their local economy, by bringing together investors and entrepreneurs to develop viable, long-term businesses.
We as a government consider the Grow Bond program as a proactive investment vehicle that keeps local money working for Manitobans in their own communities. I guess the unstated premise of Grow Bonds is that rural Manitoba offers tremendous advantages for businesses just starting or expanding.
The Department of Rural Development has another common-sense program to encourage and help Manitobans create jobs. It is the Rural Economic Development Initiative. Here, we have eight programs under the REDI umbrella that help rural Manitobans reach their entrepreneurial potential.
The Feasibility Studies Program is one. It assists rural businesses in accessing research and planning information so they can best structure their new venture or expand their operations.
The Infrastructure Development Program helps communities improve their local infrastructure to service new and expanding businesses.
The Development Support Program assists in funding innovative business projects with potential for development and job opportunities.
You know, Mr. Speaker, when I hear the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards) talk about the fact that we are not creating jobs in this province, I wonder whether he lives in the same province I do, because I travel throughout rural Manitoba, and people are thrilled about the fact that today, with some help and with a little bit of assistance from our government, they can go out and create new jobs in their community and keep the youth at home, keep their most precious resource, the youth, with a reason to stay at home, to work at home and to raise their families at home.
That is why we have put together the REDI program. Another component of that REDI program is the Rural Entrepreneur Assistance Program, which provides loan guarantees to banks and credit unions so that new and existing businesses can access some capital.
Most of these businesses are home-based businesses, small businesses. Many of them are run by women. Women who could not get access to capital before now have an opportunity to access some capital so that can start a small business.
Yes, some businesses will hire one or two people, but one or two people in a small community are important.
We also have an M.B.A. Student Consulting Program, one which we partnered with the University of Manitoba and one where graduates of the M.B.A. program have an opportunity to become more familiar with the rural environment and the economy and the potential that it has for future career opportunities.
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We have M.B.A. students going out to small businesses and doing some market assessment for these businesses. We have found that the results have been very satisfying, not only to us but indeed to the businesses that they work with.
We also remember the youth, because the youth are our most precious resource in our province. In rural Manitoba, we want to make sure that our youth have every possible opportunity to work, to enjoy the rural setting, and to be able to return to that rural setting once they have finished their education.
We allow programs which will give the youth of our province an ability to perhaps take on some job opportunities in rural Manitoba. So we have put together the Partners with Youth Program, which encourages our rural businesses, our nonprofit and local organizations to initiate activities that will provide valuable work experience for our youth.
The Junior Achievement program, a program that was nonexistent in rural Manitoba until last year, was initiated by our government. Why? Because we wanted our rural students to have the same opportunities that students in the cities do. Last year we had some 90 programs running across the province in Junior Achievement; this year that has increased from 90 to 147. A tremendous success story, I believe. Last year when we had our forum, Mr. Speaker, we saw some 200 youth, students, gather at the forum to share with entrepreneurs, to share with business people, to share with people from government some of their experiences in the program, and to also tell us that they wanted to be a part of the development of their communities, that they had something to say about how communities were developing.
Mr. Speaker, this is what it is all about: involving the entire community to make sure that community sustains itself and grows.
We introduced another program called the Green Team. I will never forget the criticism that was launched against the Green Team program. Both parties felt that this was nothing but, again, a communications exercise, a publicity exercise, and that there was not any real substance to it. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that this has been one of the more successful programs in rural Manitoba, because some 2,100 jobs have been created for youth in rural Manitoba. Now, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) again would call this "small potatoes." Not to those 2,100 youth, not at all. [interjection]
Pardon me. I am sorry. I will make that correction.
Point of Order
Mr. Speaker: Honourable member for Wellington, up on a point of order.
Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): No, Mr. Speaker, thank you. I believe the minister is about to make the appropriate change.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable member does not have a point of order.
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Mr. Derkach: I sincerely apologize to the NDP party because they did not call this program "small potatoes." It was the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards) who referred to it as "small potatoes."
The REDI program has had an enormous impact in rural Manitoba. So far in rural Manitoba REDI has invested more than $14 million into the economy, which, in turn, is contributing something like $158 million of new capital into the province. Mr. Speaker, $158 million is not "small potatoes" by anyone's measure, except the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards). Again, REDI is contributing something like 745 new jobs in rural communities. These are not temporary jobs; they are permanent jobs that are having a lasting impact on communities in our province.
Mr. Speaker, so Manitobans throughout the province are continually investigating other opportunities. Today we have many projects that are on the table which are being considered for approval and for partnership with our communities, which will create more jobs in rural Manitoba.
Mr. Speaker, there are other programs that have had a positive impact in our communities as well, and I would like to refer to one called the Community Round Table Program. This program was started by our government a few years ago, about three or four years ago. Today we have some 62 Round Tables operating across the province involving about 122 communities. What this program does is that it allows various players from the community to come together from various sectors of that community, whether they are from the economic side or the social side. We have teachers, and we have people who work in business, we have entrepreneurs and municipal people who come together and do a very serious analysis of their community. They look at the strengths and advantages of their community. Then they prepare a vision statement for their community.
Today, Mr. Speaker, we have many communities that are now embarking on action plans based on the vision statements that they have put together. It is a positive way of doing business in rural Manitoba because it shows that people do have ideas about how they can strengthen their communities, how they can make their communities grow. Indeed, it is yielding some very, very positive and exciting aspects in rural Manitoba.
Again, Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that not all of our people see the advantages of this. I guess I would have to say that I would like to take the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Edwards) out to rural Manitoba, and I would like to have him talk to some of the people who have engaged themselves in these activities. Maybe then he will understand that this is not a small endeavour by anybody, that indeed there has been a lot of work put into these programs and into these initiatives. Those jobs are very important to all of those communities. Those people feel that this is home to them. Those communities are home to them. They want to raise their families there. They want to work there. They want to make their lives there.
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Mr. Speaker, where does that leave us? We are the partners in all of this. We simply want to provide the opportunities for communities to help themselves. We see ourselves as catalysts. When I talk to members of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities or the Manitoba Association of Urban Municipalities, they tell us that they are very happy with the program. They tell us that some very positive things have happened in their community. I can remember that about three years ago, when I came into the department and we talked about economic development, many of our municipal people did not want to hear about that because their emphasis was on the service side of it, and that is where they want it to be. But as time went on, our municipal people realized that if they were going to be sustaining their communities, they had to get on with economic development.
Just at the last convention of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities, I would have to say that most of the councillors who were there have a very good understanding of economic development and its importance in their communities. Mr. Speaker, they want to be involved. As a matter of fact, when we talked about our next forum, which will be coming up in the new year, our municipal councillors wanted to be involved. They wanted to have their executive director of their association involved in the planning of the conference. That was not there a few short years ago, but today they understand the value of economic development, and they are there with us as a full partner. That is what we are all about, building partnerships and making sure that communities can help themselves to a large extent.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to spend a few moments talking about the government services side of our department, because it is also a very important one. Probably the most important task that we have taken on in that whole area is the review of the municipal act. The reason that I say that it is probably one of the biggest challenges that we have taken on is that, for many years, municipalities have raised the issue and have asked governments to address the changes to The Municipal Act in an overall sense. Our former government, unfortunately, did not see fit to address the issue, but we have moved forward on this issue. Make no mistake that less than two weeks ago, The Municipal Act and Related Statutes Review Panel presented the draft report. All municipalities and municipal organizations will automatically receive a copy, and any interested person or party will receive a copy of that draft report.
There will be another round of consultation for municipalities where individuals will be able to come forward to the panel and make their views known on the draft proposal. They have until March to respond, at the end of which time the panel will come together and put together its final report. Our intention is to make sure that municipalities have all the tools that they need to work effectively in today's very rapidly changing world. Again, by working with Manitobans our government has been able to take action on this long-standing issue.
Another issue that the department has improved is the system of property taxation and assessment. Mr. Speaker, I have to say that when we finally completed our tax assessment this year, it was a very satisfying process indeed, because we went out to all the municipalities around the province and we shared with them the process that we undertook. I have to tell you that the information that is in the hands of taxpayers today is probably more accurate than it has been in a long, long time. Making assessment easier to understand and monitor is a crucial task and it affects each and every taxpayer in our province. With input from municipal organizations and community leaders from throughout rural Manitoba, we were able to move in the right direction, I believe, and to deal with their concerns effectively.
Our government has computerized the assessment process allowing staff to update assessments every three years as required by law. It has made the assessment notice and tax statements much more user friendly.
We are now focusing our attention on bringing the reinspection process in line with the three-year reassessment cycle. The adoption of this goal has come as a result of the continuous improvement program that our department began in June of this year. Above all else, this program stresses that the best yardstick by which to measure effective service is that of clients' perceptions, and the clients of course are our people in rural Manitoba. Rural Development's desire is to provide all of our users of assessment information better products, prompter service and new ways of saving taxpayer money.
Mr. Speaker, I stand here today not only as the Minister of Rural Development, but I am also standing here as an elected member to the Chamber of the people from my constituency, the constituency of Roblin-Russell. While discharging my duties as a minister of the Crown, I am first and always a servant and a representative of the people, the men and women and the children that I represent in the Manitoba Legislature.
When I listened to the Speech from the Throne I frequently thought of the people back home, of their desires and their aspirations. I considered their quality of life, Mr. Speaker, their access to services and opportunities that this throne speech offers and provides. I can say without hesitation that this Speech from the Throne is in their best interests. It is for them and all Manitobans alike that the government will introduce balanced budget legislation. This measure is necessary so that Manitoba's finances can continue on the road of sound fiscal management.
Mr. Speaker, as I went across Manitoba and we talked about balanced budgets, it was amazing that the interest level of people is to ensure that somebody takes control and balances the budget once and for all. Rural Manitobans and Manitobans right through this whole province like the fact that we have already committed to a balanced budget by a certain date. Although the Liberals would like us to do it in a retroactive sense, let us remember where we have come from. This province has come a long way in the last six years. We came from where there was a tax-and-spend policy to where we are today. In terms of our taxes we are probably the third best in all of Canada. That is a long way from where we were. We were the second worst and today we are the third best. Well, that is a long way. There is another aspect to this, and that is that balanced budgets will increase all Manitoban's abilities to generate jobs and to provide the services we value and cherish.
Our government is committed to building on the rural strengths so we can reap the opportunities by changing our economy. Many of us live far from the large urban places like Winnipeg. I travel four hours each way to get to the Legislature and back home and sometimes feel that the geography somehow is a little bit different from where we are to where we are here in the city and that there are differences and some tensions because of the distances.
But that is reality, Mr. Speaker, and we must ensure that people who are far away from the Legislature and far away from the urban centres have as equal an opportunity as they possibly can in all aspects of life so they can participate in our society whether it is in education or in other programs and services the government offers in the best possible way. That is what we are all about.
Mr. Speaker, our government will continue to work with Manitobans. We will continue to work so that people in my constituency and in other constituencies can develop the economic initiatives and expand their dreams and continue to live in their communities and still be a part of this province, and an important part of our province.
I look forward to working with my colleagues and fine tuning the existing programs that we have, that we have introduced, and developing new programs to assist Manitobans to reach their fullest potential. I am also eager to continue to assist in developing programs for our youth. We cannot let our younger generations fall into a void of indecision because of our inactivity. The price for this province would be far too great, and I am not willing to pay that price nor be a part of it.
While in a perfect world we can sleep in our beds at night and not worry about our society's vulgar side, this is really not reality today. So the initiative to improve community-based justice services will serve our province well. Expanded community magistrate programs and the employment of additional magistrates in communities without local justice services will allow criminals and offenders to be dealt with swiftly. The initiative is not only applauded by the people of my constituency, but I am sure it is applauded by all Manitobans living in small communities. The preservation and reform of vital services to better serve those in need is frequently on the minds of rural Manitobans. I am committed to these services, and I can assure the Chamber that the members on this side of the House are as well.
Manitobans want to become more involved in decision making, and I think we have heard that time and time again. Whether it is in health care or education, we want to ensure that we listen and we work with Manitobans, and they want to be involved in the decision making. The implementation of the Rural and Northern Health Association is going to help decision making to be made at the local level. Our government encourages Manitobans to get involved in the decision-making process regarding economic development and also on the social side.
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You know, slightly more than a third of our tax dollar is devoted to health care in this province, so we deserve, or Manitobans deserve, to be a part of the process of deciding on how that money is best spent.
Mr. Speaker, I want to spend a few minutes on education, because this is an important area in my constituency. As an MLA representing a rural area, there is frequently discussion on how our education in rural Manitoba can be equal to that in the urban centres. We have moved on several fronts in the whole area of education to bring those programs to rural Manitoba. I refer to the distance education program.
Mr. Speaker, about five years ago we introduced something called the FYDE program, a distance education program which brought first-year university education to remote and rural communities. This has been a very successful program, but it was only a single step on a road which I think needs to be expanded. We need to expand the information highway so that we can deliver more programs by distance education to our rural communities so that students, both young and old, can have opportunities to access education programs as they might if they were living in an urban centre.
I have three children. All of them are in public school at the present time. I want them, like any parent would, to have every possible advantage of taking an education program that might be offered either in an urban or a rural setting. If they are going to compete effectively with other students, not only in Manitoba but across Canada and around the world, then they have to be able to be given every opportunity to access the programs that we can best afford. That is why the information highway is such an important aspect for our government, because only through this means are we going to be able to deliver some of the programs that you cannot offer otherwise in a very small community.
Mr. Speaker, there is something else I want for my children, as does every parent, I think, in this Legislature. That is, we want them to be safe and secure and to have the opportunities as those of other generations have had. I want them to be able to reach their potential and utilize the advantages that this province can offer. As parents, we try to instill in them the ideals we were raised with, but we also want them to know that our communities and our provincial institutions are able to teach them the basic fundamentals, those new skills that they will need when they embark in their careers. We want them to be able to have every possible advantage that we can offer.
I have been in this Legislature now for more than six years, and we have seen throne speeches come and go. Our government has worked very hard with Manitobans to make sure that we not only listen to them but we act on the things that they want us to do. Whether it is in health care or in education or in social services or whether it is on the economic front or whether it is in agriculture, we have worked with Manitobans side by side to make sure we implement programs that best suit their needs.
Mr. Speaker, I looked at a document here that was put out by the Liberal Party. It was a communique, and it said: Focus on families, says Edwards. When I looked at this document, I saw nothing about rural Manitoba except one thing, and that was that Mr. Edwards and the Liberals were going to channel $150,000 from REDI to provide flexible rural child care--$150,000. I tell you, if the Liberal Leader thinks that is all the ills there are in rural Manitoba with child care, then we do not have a problem at all; $150,000, it says here, will be reallocated from REDI for a flexible rural child care program. Now, is that not incredible? This is the kind of small potatoes thinking that we have on that side of the House.
Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the Liberal Party does not have a clue as to what it is that has to be done in this province and in Manitoba.
Mr. Speaker, I see my beacon flashing. Does that mean I have one minute?
In concluding, I would like to say that this throne speech does set an active agenda for the Province of Manitoba. It does show Manitobans that we are there working with them. It does show that this government has a vision for Manitoba. It does show that we have a plan, and we ask Manitobans to walk, step by step, with us so that we can implement the initiatives that have been announced in the throne speech.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity given me to respond to the throne speech. Thank you.
Ms. Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I think, in this throne speech discussion that we are having today and for the rest of this week and into next week, it is important to put it into context. This is going to be the final throne speech before the provincial election, and what I would like to do in my time speaking here this evening is to put the throne speech in the current context in Manitoba and also compare this throne speech with the alternative throne speech that was presented last week by my Leader, the Leader of the official opposition, and the communique that was presented by the Leader of the second opposition party.
I think that we will find when we compare those three documents that they are very, very indicative of the three parties, their views on the world, and who, in effect, is ready to govern after the next provincial election.
While all Speeches from the Throne are very important, this one in particular has more importance perhaps than others because it is the final view. It is the view, along with the record of the government, that will be put forward before the people of Manitoba in the next provincial election. So I will be outlining those differences at that time.
The first thing I would like to begin with is the current situation we find ourselves in in Manitoba, and I think just a few statistics will clarify things for people. There are fewer people working today than there were in 1990 when this government was first elected with a majority. In two out of the last four years, this province, the province of Manitoba, has placed last in economic growth, and this is in a country where we have had terrible situations in Atlantic Canada, problems in other prairie provinces, and yet we are still last, two out of the last four years, and this year and last year ninth out of 10 in job creation. How can we have a growing vibrant province when we are ninth out of 10 in job creation?
We do not have a vital growing province, Mr. Speaker. Forty-three thousand Manitobans, many of them the best and the brightest and the youngest have left this province since this government came into power, an indictment that cannot be overlooked.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) will have 37 minutes remaining.
The hour being 6 p.m., I am leaving the Chair with the understanding that the House will reconvene at 8 p.m.