EDUCATION AND TRAINING

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Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 255 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training.

When the committee last met we were considering item 1.(c)(1) on page 37 of the Estimates book.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, just for the record, as a matter of procedure, at the end of last time, we were talking about the Council of Ministers of Education and their agenda, and I had asked the minister, although we did not have time to finish it, what she intended to bring to the Council of Ministers and what her agenda would be as a representative of Manitoba in those discussions over the next few years.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Chairman, just before I answer that question, the member had raised a question yesterday and we said we would get the information for her. I have got it back. Would it be appropriate to provide that now before we get into details on other issues?

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Agreed? [agreed]

Mrs. McIntosh: The question was raised on adjustments to voted amounts contained in the '93-94 Annual Report of the Department of Education and Training, the '94-95 Supplementary Information for Legislative Review and the current '95-96 Supplement.

I have got something I could table here if it would be appropriate. It was a copy of the changes for Executive Support subappropriation 16.l(b) and we have summarized them and have them ready for tabling.

Just as a brief overview, the major adjustments affecting the department's '93-94 printed vote were the inclusion of employee benefits in the departmental salary lines, and that was some $2,500,000; the transfer of the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Management Development Plan to the UGC from Industry, Trade and Tourism was $998,000; the allocation of the general salary increase for $554,000; and grants in lieu of taxes transferred from Rural Development to the UGC was $267,000.00.

Those supplements do contain a reconciliation between the printed main Estimates of expenditures and adjusted Estimates on page 8 and a definition of Estimates of expenditures adjusted on page 157, but the reconciliation does not reflect the internal transfers within the department, such as the shift of Paul Goyan from I, T and T from Training and Advanced Education into Executive Support. That position for Mr. Goyan was originally from I, T and T and it was a vacant position there which was classified as a regional co-ordinator at the salary level of $58,000. That line was increased by $38,000, I mentioned yesterday, to bring it in line to that of a deputy minister, plus employee benefits and workweek reduction.

You know we can provide explanations for the adjustments to the voted amounts for the '94-95 subappropriation throughout the review, but explanations for adjustments to prior years may take us a little longer to retrieve. We can obtain them, but we do not necessarily have all those previous years here.

That information that has just been passed around contains the detail on that brief overview I have just given you.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the minister bringing that and tabling the information which I am sure will be helpful. I think the question I had asked or that I was puzzling over was a little more limited than that. It was the difference between the annual report estimates and the Supplementary Information for Legislative Review Estimates on the 16.1 (b) line.

Mrs. McIntosh: The annual report reflects what the estimates were at the time of printing and the adjustments of course reflect subsequent changes. I believe the detailed paper that you have been handed contains the information you are seeking. If you take a look at the handout that was passed around you will see the '93-94 printed vote and the adjusted vote. Then you will see the '94-95 printed vote followed by the adjusted vote. I think the information you are seeking is contained in those particular figures.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, is there anywhere where the adjusted vote is normally recorded? For example, I assume there are two different dates of publication here. The annual report numbers would have been available--I just got the annual report last week. I assume it would have been printed and available probably about a month before that at the very minimum. It lists the estimate for '93-94 as 370.5. When was the Supplementary Information for Legislative Review available, and why does it offer a different number? You are saying there is a time lapse there where you had different numbers available. If that was so, why would they not be recorded?

Mrs. McIntosh: The annual report is an explanation of the expenditures for that fiscal year. That is why it was the printed budget. For '94-95 and '95-96 we are comparing the resource allocations, and therefore we adjust the prior year's figures to adjust to reflect program changes. So what I read out to you were the major changes for the '93-94 fiscal year, and if you look on page 8 in your book you will see the adjusted vote changes for the whole department, and you will note that there is a transfer there to Family Services, for example, for some staff year funding of some $47,000 at the bottom of page 8. So you will see some of that detail emerging. Just a further detail on that, that transfer was the Intervention Manitoba transfer to Family Services. So it was a program.

Ms. Friesen: Do I understand then that this is unavoidable and always happens?

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Mrs. McIntosh: This is a recurring type of situation. It has historically happened throughout government. It happens whenever things cross departments. It is not unusual. It is following guidelines that are set down to try to simplify the day-to-day workings of departments with each other and government running its departments. You try to make it so that you are comparing apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.

Ms. Friesen: I understand that from the perspective of the Supplementary Estimates. What does seem odd is that those connections are not to me made clear in the annual report which is where one can make those kinds of explanations clear, as the department does when it lists both the Estimates and actual which is very helpful.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the guidelines for this type of reporting are set by the Department of Finance, but I understand what the member is saying is she would like to see a more user-friendly approach to reporting. I could certainly pass on the desire to have them be more easily read and understood by people who are not versed in them or working with them on a daily or annual basis. I think the question is you are saying could it be more user friendly so that it is easier for you to decipher some of this information year to year to year.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, that is partly it. Partly, it is not so much the ease, it is ensuring that there is a reflection of changes made by the department after Estimates have been passed. We are presented with Supplementary Estimates. We pass those Estimates or vote against them, depending. It does not seem to me that is necessarily fully reflected in the annual report, and the annual report is where that kind of compilation can be made. It may be that there is simply a half page or a page that needs to be added-on process explaining that there may be discrepancies between x and y and here is why, and here is where the process takes place.

Mrs. McIntosh: I thank the member for that positive and constructive critique and perhaps a clarification of how the reporting occurs might be of assistance to members reading through the reports. I will certainly pass it on to the Finance department for their consideration. I did not mean to take us off topic, but I did want to answer that, and you had asked a question starting off this session which I will turn to now and your question regarding the Council of Ministers of Education.

We did start in on a discussion on this last night, and I do not have my agenda, my personal agenda, fully fleshed out for a meeting with them, but I did touch on a couple of items last night that are ones that are important to me that I understand are also important to other ministers that I would like to pursue and mobility, portability, mobility of labour as well as portability of credentials and transferability of credits between Canadian institutions of higher learning. We are talking now about articulation between various levels, and I would like to see that taking place wherever possible between provincial jurisdictions as well as within the province and within our own institutions.

Again, we have the education indicators project moving ahead in a Pan-Canadian perspective which is exciting, and I would like very much to hear what the other ministers of Education have to say on the topic and to explore with them in dialogue some of their views and ideas and thoughts on that particular topic. Teacher education is another issue that I think is one that is worth discussing. We have teachers who qualify in one province but not in another and different methods of training teachers from province to province so that portability there again is difficult for teachers moving from one jurisdiction to another.

I would like again with the nongovernment stakeholders some idea of their input, some form of consultation to gather ideas across the nation to see what nationally people are thinking and saying about education. We have a pretty good idea here provincially. In fact, we have a very good idea here provincially because we have conducted a number of forums and we have also just been through a provincial election where we discussed education in- depth with groups of people, with individuals at doors, in town halls and we got a very clear impression from the people here in Manitoba what they are thinking about education at this juncture in history.

I would be interested to know how the people of Canada feel. I think we are starting to see reports coming out of The Globe and Mail, Financial Post, any of the reputable newspapers across Canada that reflect letters to the editor, articles, initiatives by other government, statements, press releases by other ministries indicating certain desires for measurable standards, for example. I would like to know just how far those reported perceptions and impressions extend, because that will help us, I think, as we pursue the process and the agreement on joint Pan-Canadian curriculum development, again, thinking in terms of working with colleagues across the country in joint work on information-sharing on distance education, for example, because we talk about the things we can do here in our province with distance education, fostering partnerships, identifying barriers to the fostering of partnerships and distance education. Certainly those are items that could have national connotations and national benefits because technology does not know an arbitrary line drawn on a map.

Those are just a few of the types of issues. I am certain that the other ministers, as they identify items for the agenda, will add to that very brief list of ideas that I have just presented, items of their own, items they may have been working with in their own provinces that have particular interest to them that they feel could have national scope, that would be of benefit to other ministers to explore.

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I am also very receptive to see what other ministers are putting on the agenda for discussion and more than willing to discuss any topic they care to present, because only by talking and sharing can we move collectively for the benefit of this nation of Canada.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the SAIP project, the standards testing, could the minister give us a summary of where the department is on this, what programs have been in place, what the results have been, what the plan is for the next two or three years and where this fits with the government's own intentions for indicator testing?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member has probably recognized by now that we fully support the SAIP for a number of reasons. It avoids duplication. It fits in with our own thrust.

The results of the SAIP mathematics assessment were released in December '93, as she is probably aware. Language assessments administered last April were released in December '94.

The reading and writing language assessments were the second component of the program. One of the outcomes of the release of the language results was the collaboration of Francophone divisions. That was significant because there were Francophone divisions in Manitoba and Ontario. They were right across the country, New Brunswick, places where they have populations of Francophones engaged in their own education and on the strategies to respond to the differences between the achievement results for students assessed in French and the results of other students that are not being assessed in French but rather in English.

The third component, science, is currently under way. That is scheduled to be administered in April of '96, about a year from now. That will be the first phase of the SAIP, that particular one.

Work has begun on the second phase as well, but we take it one step at a time. The second phase will be mathematics assessment. That is scheduled to be administered the year after that which would be '97, in the spring in all likelihood.

Ms. Friesen: How does this fit with the government's own program and timetable for testing?

Mrs. McIntosh: I think fundamentally the one thing the member needs to know and understand where we are coming from and that is that the participation in the national SAIP is not in lieu of our own actions here in Manitoba. It is a parallel process. That is a national thing that is going on that we fully support and in which we are active participants. At the same time we are developing down our own path.

Now we will find of course that there will be times and moments when, just as departments interact and cross over so too will we have these two initiatives as the legal parallel to each other touching and maybe taking a pause in our own work while we check out what is going on nationally and so on. But one is not in lieu of the other. We are not doing SAIP instead of our own. We are proceeding on our own, bearing in mind that we have to be conscious that we are complimentary, not at odds with other initiatives that we are taking on with other jurisdictions. I do not know if that answers your question or not.

Ms. Friesen: Well, it is a start. I understand what the minister is saying with parallel process. What I am interested in is timetable. The minister suggests that there may be some crossing. How will the Manitoba timetable parallel the SAIP timetable? For example, the next two SAIP tests to be administered will be science in April '96 and a further math test in '97. Is that right?

Mrs. McIntosh: '96 and '97.

Ms. Friesen: Should I repeat the question? My question was, the timetable for the government's own testing, how it is going to parallel and where it will intersect with the SAIP program?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I was just wanting to check where they, as you say, intersect in terms of testing. We are on target with our own initial testing which will be Grade 3. That will be Grade 3 mathematics and that will be June '97. At that same time with SAIP there will be science testing for 13- and 16-year-olds. So you will see two sets of tests going on at about the same moment, one for Grade 3s in mathematics, the other for 13- and 16-year-olds in science; the first being provincial, the second being Pan-Canadian. Similarly, we will see initial pilot testing for science provincially for Grades 3, 6 and what I used to call 9 but which is now called Senior 1 in June of '97.

So you will see a SAIP test in mathematics occurring in June of '98, and again that will be for students in Grades 9 and 12. Those will be randomly selected; those national tests will be random in scope. It is a sample. So it will not be everybody in the same grade, not everybody in the same subject. While we will see testing going on about the same moment, you will not see it going on in the same grade or the same subject with the same age. So you are not going to see any group of students overburdened with excessive testing.

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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, that was part of my concern as to how much time was coming out of the school year for testing for any one year. I assume we can also work out from this schedule the subsequent years which will take us over the year 2000.

I wonder if the minister could give us a sense of what she anticipates the government will learn and parents will learn from the two types of testing. As I understand it, the SAIP testing--and I stand to be corrected on this--is more like SAT or LSAT, that is they are standard tests which are not related to a specific curriculum and that the information is conveyed to governments rather than to schools and parents; compared to the Manitoba testing which presumably will be related much more closely to curriculum and which will be conveyed to certainly parents in the reporting card, to principals, and then I want to follow up a little further with what the government intends to do with those results beyond that.

So am I looking at the right kind of distinctions? What does the government anticipate that it is going to learn from the two types of testing?

Mrs. McIntosh: The SAIP testing is systems information. It is done to provide a sense to various jurisdictions as to how well the students in their area are doing compared to other parts of the nation. It does not have marks attached to it. It is not a mark that goes to the student. It is not used for promotion purposes. It is used to access the degree of knowledge absorbed and understood and the ability to communicate that knowledge out to some observer. That then can help the provinces engaged in the testing assess where they stand vis-à-vis the other provinces and where they as a nation need to introduce different types of technologies, for example, if they are testing in those kinds of areas, et cetera.

Provincially, the tests have a different purpose altogether, because provincially we do want an ability to be able to alert parents as to how their students are doing, to help teachers do an assessment of their students progress, to permit diagnosing any areas that still need to be worked upon or some skill that the student has not been able to absorb or some piece of knowledge that has not been clearly understood, particularly getting at the early years, can do some early intervention using it almost like a diagnostic tool, in fact, using it as a diagnostic tool to be able to go back and if, for example, they were working on multiplication and the questions in the tests reveal that the student has not really understood the concept of multiplication, how to apply it, how to use it, how to make it work for them in problem solving and in any number of examples that might be put before them, then the teacher has an ability to go back and say, all right, clearly I need with particular student A to help them understand the whole concept behind multiplication.

Perhaps the tests will reveal that a student may have some indication of certain areas of a particular piece of knowledge but that they have not, for whatever reason, been able to absorb another portion of that same body of knowledge. So the parents will then have a better understanding of how their student is doing and whether or not that parent then needs to spend time themselves with the student and/or the teacher to learn what they can do to assist or to inspire greater opportunity for that knowledge to be acquired.

Teachers can use it as diagnostic tools, school divisions can use it to assess how well their schools are doing on a comparative basis with other schools in the province or around the nation. Do they need to put in extra things to bring the standards in a particular school up so that no one school is disadvantaged, so the students in one particular school are not disadvantaged. Is there some other thing that boards and teachers and parents need to do to assist a student? So they are used then to inform, to assess, to determine whether a student is ready to move on to to another level of learning. Have they acquired the prerequisite information necessary for the next step of learning so that no student is put in the very unfortunate situation which so often occurs in our modern society where students end up advancing to a secondary level of learning without ever having acquired the prerequisite knowledge upon which to build that second phase of learning.

That is something that no educator, no parent, no school trustee, no responsible MLA would ever want to see happen to students charged to our collective care.

So they can support student growth, student achievement. The test results at Grade 4 will be mainly summative in nature, but they will continue to support students as lifelong learners. They will be able to assess the performance of the system. They will also be able to indicate what a Manitoba Grade 12 certificate stands for ultimately when you get to that level.

All of us involved in education know that depending upon where the student has been educated, the Grade 12 certificate can mean one thing in some places and something else in another. Of course, we know we hear the universities telling us that all the time, and we know we hear certain university professors asking for entrance exams because they are not quite certain where some of the Grade 12 students have ended their learning and their acquisition of knowledge.

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So this will assist greatly in addressing some of those dilemmas that are repeatedly given to us by experts out in the field and by those who are familiar with and working in education.

Ms. Friesen: There are a number of issues that arise from that. I am curious if the minister indicated that the SAIP or the provincial tests rather would be of use to first of all teachers and then she looked at issues of parents and of school divisions. I am curious as to whether the minister really believes that in a class of even 30 that a teacher would not know that there are students who cannot do multiplication for example.

I can understand the discussion of being able to demonstrate to parents, but if the minister believes that there are teachers who are not aware of that level of inability or that teachers have not been diagnosing such elementary skills on a regular basis, I wonder perhaps if there are other remedies for that as well.

Mrs. McIntosh: We are talking here about comparability to a standard. We are talking about enhancements, enrichments to a system. The member has indicated to me that all teachers know what all their students know, and I think that is a rather wonderful thing to say. I unfortunately could put her in touch with any number of parents who do not feel that their classroom teacher knows exactly what their child knows, but then perhaps the parents are wrong because they are not in the same level of understanding that the honourable member is.

I feel that when the member asks the question and says, do I honestly believe, with her voice dripping with sarcasm, that a teacher would not know every problem every child in this class of 30 has, I can say to you categorically, talk to any teacher who cares deeply for her or his students, and they will tell you. They will tell you--because they are in the classroom, and they are experiencing the day-to-day working with 25 or 30 students--that they wish--and many did tell me at the doors in the recent election--they had some other vehicle so they could accurately know whether Mary who sits in the corner and nods yes, yes, yes to everything but really does not understand, has memorized the multiplication tables for example, since that is the example we are using, but does not really understand the concept behind them. That teacher would love to be able to get inside that child's brain or assess in some way the depth of understanding that really does occur with the concept. Caring teachers will tell you that, because they care, and they are honest in their assessment of the tools they have been given.

The member wants to make a general statement that all teachers know exactly what all of their students understand about the given concept of multiplication, and I say I wish that could be so, because I know teachers would like that to be the way it is.

What I found fascinating--I am sure the member found the same thing, because I am sure that during the election that recently occurred she also went door to door--was the number of educators who indicated to me that they felt it would be very, very helpful to them to be able to have measurable standards against which they could assess the understanding of their students against a measurable standard that would be very helpful for them as educators to know.

Having been a classroom teacher--and I understand the member teaches at the university level--and having sat in elementary school classrooms with other classroom teachers who were teaching children of 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and perhaps if you would--if you have a conversation there that you would like to share with me, please do.

Sitting around staff room tables as I have done I think I have some understanding of the needs of teachers as well as the needs of students. You asked me do I honestly believe that teachers would not know what 30 children in their class do not know. I say to you that I honestly believe that there would be some teachers who would like to know more than they know, and this could be a tool to help them. I am optimistic that the member will see the merit in that, having measurable standards to assist both teachers and students in developing maximum potential against immeasurable standard.

The questions on these tests are going to have an emphasis on thinking, on problem solving, so that teachers can analyze is Mary just writing down from memory the answers to the multiplication tables or does Mary understand what multiplication is all about.

You see problem solving, you see thinking, the use and the ability to interpret information and use information rather than just being able to recall previously learned facts which you can get in a classroom unless you test for depth of understanding. A student can get through without testing by just memorizing, but you get a probing test that asks to have information acquired, used and interpreted properly, you can get beyond just previously-learned facts.

That feedback on performance in relation to standards is something that educators right across this nation are discussing as a needed tool to help bring Canada back up to a good place in terms of a reputation for education in the western world. We cannot afford to have our children behind because the processes we have in place do not give teachers the tools they need or parents the information they require to help the student. I mean, the bottom line is the student.

Ms. Friesen: I resent the personal attacks and comments on my voice.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to go back and rehash things that were said last night, but when you talk about some of the things you talked about last night in your opening remarks about us using anxiety and doing all of these things and the colorful language that you used last night, then I ask that if you exact standards of behaviour from me that you apply them to yourself as well, and we will get along just fine.

You started off last night rudely, sarcastically to me. I will be polite to you so long as you are polite to me.

Ms. Friesen: I think the minister misunderstands political discussion for personal discussion. I do not think I have ever commented on anything personal about the minister. My remarks last night dealt with government policies and the kind of emotions that I felt government policies had dealt with and the emotions that parents felt. I think there is a considerable difference, and I wanted to draw that difference to the minister's attention.

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Mrs. McIntosh: With all due respect, the member is incorrect in her assessment of the tone that she took last night when she talked about us creating anxieties and then exploiting those anxieties to her own ends. I am sorry, that is not talking about policy. That is a personal attack on the integrity of the government. Let there be no mistake and let the records show that people understand what she says and what she says she says are two different things.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: I would remind the committee and all honourable members that we are discussing line 1.(c) and remarks should be centred around that area. We are proceeding line by line, and I would hope that we can stay to the order of the Estimates book. So I would recognize the honourable member for Wolseley.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, thank you for your direction. The question I was previously asking the minister was about classroom teaching and the value of tests. We were using the example of elementary and, I assume, Grade 3 multiplication tests. As I said in my introduction to my remarks, I can see the use of tests at that level--the Manitoba test is what we are talking about--for parents, for school divisions, for comparability. But I am concerned that there would be teachers, or the minister would anticipate that there will be some teachers who would learn things from those tests that they did not already know.

Is it not the case that teachers in Manitoba are constantly examining their students not just for memory but for understanding, that the kind of problems that the minister is suggesting would be placed in these tests would not be part of the daily life and daily work of a classroom teacher?

If that is not the case, and the minister seems to indicate that that greater level of understanding is not being sought in the classroom, then presumably there are additional and other methods of dealing with it. I believe that was how I phrased the question at the time.

Mrs. McIntosh: I just want to clarify for the member's understanding that by no means did I mean to imply nor did I state that certain student attributes were not being sought by the teacher. On the contrary. The good teachers who care about the students in Manitoba are constantly seeking out these pieces of information and doing these diagnostic tests. So I want to make it absolutely clear that I did not in any way imply by anything I said that good teachers are not currently seeking out that kind of information, because they are.

What I am saying is that I have had many conversations with teachers who tell me that with certain kinds of students they wish they could have some extra tools such as these to assist them in being able to draw out more information about the ability of their students to understand. Because some students are very shy, some students have all different kinds of communication abilities or expertise, a measurable standard testing can assist the teachers in their ongoing efforts to seek out that kind of information, in assessing behaviour, attitudes, human relationships, self-esteem, those types of things. Those are ongoing parts of teaching. Those are things that teachers do. They are also things that testing can assist you with.

We know that in the absence of testing, where students are not tested teachers can bring a student along because they are sort of doing their own internal measuring all the time. They have no ability to measure them against a set external standard, however, unless one is there for them, because they have no access to that information about other schools, other divisions, other jurisdictions and that opportunity is denied those teachers and those students. We see what happens to certain students who have never written a test if they do end up at university, and the panic that they experience when they first have to sit down and write a university exam, because they have never been through the written test procedure.

It is a disservice to a student in that situation, and we know many of them. I am sure you know many. I know many who got to university and were faced with that process of examination and with no experience to back them up had a terrible time trying to get through that process.

I guess in all of the things and all of the questions that I have been asked here today or on other occasions, I have never had anybody tell me that giving the education system--parents, teachers, students, trustees, Department of Education people--the opportunity to do these kinds of assessments is not a good thing. I guess I would have a question which would be--I guess I am not here to ask questions, I am here to answer them, but I have a question I would like to ask, because I have never been given an answer really from people who ask questions about testing. A good assessment properly done, is it bad?

Ms. Friesen: I think that is what we call a tautology, a good assessment done badly. It is an unusual question.

Could I ask the minister--what I am really trying to get at is what the exams will do, particularly at the Grade 3 level, that is not being accomplished at the moment. As I indicated, the information for parents and the information across school divisions could be helpful for some circumstances. The classroom I am less convinced of, particularly at the Grade 3 level. I wondered where in Manitoba such examinations are already going on. I know there have been some efforts to try and develop some proposals for testing at the Grade 3 level, but I wonder which school divisions are already doing this. Are there any? Have we had any experience with testing at that level in Manitoba?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, not with provincial testing. There has not been provincial testing. There is testing in school divisions at a divisional level. [interjection] Okay, well, this would be provincial we are talking about bringing in here.

Just for clarification. There are divisions that have tests. They are not the provincial tests set to the standards that we will be setting ours to, but they do have the experience of testing and the testing is used in much the same way I have said. I do not know all of the divisions. I know that St. James-Assiniboia School Division has testing, because I was on the board when testing came in over a decade ago.

The results of that testing, if you are interested in the knowing the results, that particular division, and I am not current, but five years ago that particular division had some 60 percent to 70 percent of its high school graduating component going on to post-secondary education compared to the then provincial norm of about 17 percent to 20 percent. Yet a high, high percentage of those students are doing extremely well in their chosen fields of endeavour.

You had large numbers of those students very comfortable with the processes they encountered at post-secondary levels in terms of testing and writing examinations. Their ability to recall and to apply the information that they recall and to apply information to have content acquisition which is necessary, those will be components of the test that we bring forward to assess recall, which is incredibly important.

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One only has to listen to the ad that was on the radio not long ago with this chap who was advertising his school. He said, for only $1,500 you can come to me and I will teach you really good recall. I will improve your memory skills. I will give you all of these skills. People pay to go because ask any person who has an Alzheimer victim in their family what the ability to recall is all about, a very important skill. Those are two extreme examples, of course, but let there be no mistake, the ability to recall is not something that should be scorned.

I have heard people say one of the things they do not like about testing is that students will be having to recall, and they will be taught information for the purposes of having to recall it. What do you do here? What do I do here? We attempt to recall information. You attempt to recall information right now that you can bring forward to see if you can present a fact that I would have to address on your behalf. I try to recall from my experience the answers so that I can give them to you. These are important skills and not to be mocked or scorned or made light of, and that is one component of testing.

The other thing that happens with divisional testing is that it is possible then to assess on a divisional basis if schools are able to respond to a division-wide standard. It is not a provincial standard, but it does give parents, educators, all those accountable to that child some ability to assess that child's performance on a comparative level and to ask the question if the comparative level is low, what can be done to assist that child in bringing him up or her up so that they on a comparative level will be on a relatively level playing field in terms of their opportunities to participate in a wide variety of life situations.

When children go out at the end of their schooling into the workforce, their employers are not going to say I am going to give you this job even though your standards are at a lower level because that is just what I am going to do for a variety of reasons. Normally the employer will ask for the person who can measure up to the employer's standards. The employer will not show the forgiveness that we would like to have people be able to get from life.

If children know how to measure up to a standard before they leave school, faced with employers who insist that their standards be measured up to, they will have a better ability to cope, adjust and succeed. We do want them to succeed. I think it is very important. So it is not inappropriate to seek solutions. Those divisions where they gather information on externally set standards--external, I mean outside the classroom--provide a local assessment, and those students seem to perform well when they finish their particular schooling.

I know the member may say, well, that is fine for St. James-Assiniboia because they are middle class, socioeconomic, basically Caucasian, Irish, Scottish, English, German descent, people of middle incomes, and therefore they probably are already at an advantage, but if you tried the same thing some place else it would not work. Well, the member is wrong.

For starters, not everybody in the St. James-Assiniboia School Division is in that income bracket. One only has to look at the statements that were made by the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) yesterday about--or not yesterday but a couple of days ago about her constituents who live in the Brooklands area and their needs and concerns about the school division Boundaries Review to know that they are not all in a certain socioeconomic, ethnocultural, economic, homogeneous arena.

Similarly I think the member might be very interested in some of the things that have happened in some of the big American cities like Chicago, for example, where you have schools where they have taken children, who would be called disadvantaged when they start off by anybody's standards, put into a rigorous academic setting by teachers who care and love them and devote hours and hours to them and have them very early and quickly in their career reading Shakespeare, writing exams, rigorous discipline, academic training and watch them blossom under that kind of tutelage, careful attention and deep, deep concern for the future of the child who has to go out into a world. That kind of dedicated teacher does not want to see any child enter that adult world and that world of work disadvantaged in any way.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, my question was, which divisions in Manitoba are employing testing? St. James was one that I had heard of. I am glad to hear the minister's additional comments, some of which I agree with and some of which I think have other circumstances surrounding them which might need to be elaborated on. But which other divisions in Manitoba have had experience of testing, which of them have been testing at the Grade 3 level, and what have been the results?

Mrs. McIntosh: We do not have an inventory of all of the divisions that do testing. We would have to do an inventory. We could get that information. We would have to do an inventory check to do that.

We do know that over half of the divisions in the province, however, have indicated that they would like very much to participate in testing at the high school level, at the division level, like division-wide testing. So over half of the divisions have said that they would like very much to participate in having some division-wide testing at the secondary level and have indicated their desire to work with us to do that. I do not have the names of all the school divisions here that do testing and we do not believe that there are too many that do it at the Grade 3 level division-wide.

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Nonetheless that interest is there for at least more than half of the divisions to work with the province to have standardized testing division-wide in their divisions. I guess the one thing that when you talk about measurable standards, without an external measurable standard the best that the classroom teacher can do in terms of trying to evaluate her students on a comparative level is to apply it against the classroom standard. That is the only standard that the classroom teacher has available to him or her.

In today's world of very mobile children and in later life in the labour force, we have to know whether a division or regional achievement standard would be preferable, would be appropriate to just measure against a classroom, if not to seek solutions to some of those issues I talked about earlier in terms of just what kind of in-depth program can we do to assess just how well Mary does understand the concept of multiplication which means you need to test with problem solving and all of those things.

But to complement local assessments, when you start talking about provincial standards and then you start hearing across the country, ministers of Education start talking about national standards, you ultimately then have a comparable standard that can be measured internationally at universities in other countries, much like the International Baccalaureate program which is a rigorous academic program. It is an isolated one, but it has an international standard. That international standard is known. It is the same. Whether you are in France, whether you are Germany, whether you are in Canada, you write the same exam. It is a measurable standard. So students graduating from that kind of program, going to university, the university entrance people know immediately against which standard they can assess that student's ability to succeed in any given course at university.

I do not know if that answers a little bit what you are trying to ask.

Ms. Friesen: My concerns are the testing at the Grade 3 level and what can be gained from that and what we already know about testing at Grade 3 level, either nationally, internationally or in Manitoba. So I began with Manitoba, and I wondered if the minister would undertake to provide a list of schools or divisions where standardized testing or comparable testing is undertaken in Manitoba, and what the Manitoba experience has been of those tests. What has been gained, what has been learned, what kind of evaluations have been done formally or informally?

Mrs. McIntosh: Perhaps I did not make myself clear enough or explain it properly in terms of indicating that the divisional tests that do exist, some teachers will have little tests inside the classroom--classroom standard. Other teachers will have access to divisional tests. Those are not the types of tests to which we are referring. We are talking about a provincial test based on Manitoba curriculum and outcomes. So we do not have any available information on that because we have not done it yet.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, the question I am asking is about Grade 3 standardized testing in Manitoba, not provincial testing. The minister said earlier that St. James-Assiniboia had used division-wide testing, that is a test which offers comparability across schools and classrooms. That is what I am asking for evidence of, experience of in Manitoba at the Grade 3 level. Would the minister undertake to provide a list of divisions which have undertaken that kind of comparable testing across schools and across classrooms, and if there are any indications of their evaluation of such programs, if she could make those available as well.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, what we are looking for is an early report to parents on how their children are doing. So we are looking at a curriculum that is Manitoba set, measured against Manitoba standards. We currently do not have such a thing in existence.

You can have local testing in local schools and you can have local testing in local school divisions, but if you are wanting to use that as a basis to compare against what we are doing, we are doing something different. I am trying to get through to you that local tests, including classroom tests, cannot provide a measurable standard against the provincial curricula, so the whole purpose of testing in terms of trying to assess where the province is cannot be done with just a few groups of schools. So if the member is asking us to write to every division and get samples of all of their tests to provide them for her so that she can make some statement on our provincial curricula testing, I am telling her that it is a different type of testing that we are talking about, and it is not a straight comparison.

What is the comparison, and no matter what the kinds of tests are, what is the comparison is the ability of the student to learn how to be tested and of the teacher to have another tool in the classroom to assist the teacher in furthering the development of the child.

I can send my staff on all kinds of errands that will take them away from their work if the member wishes me to do that, but it will not achieve what I think she is implying she can achieve by making that request.

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Ms. Friesen: My question was, I thought, relatively simple. Which schools in Manitoba, which divisions have done testing at the Grade 3 level across a division-wide basis? The minister believes that testing at the Grade 3 level, as she just said, adds to the ability of the student to learn how to be tested. Now, that is an interesting goal for Grade 3 testing. If that is one of the goals of the minister, what has been the experience at divisional levels in testing at Grade 3 in the students' ability to learn to be tested, for example? That is not the only skill or behaviour, I am sure, that the government would be looking for, and far from asking the minister's staff to be taken away from the duties which the minister would direct them to, what I was asking for, did the minister have that kind of information, and what kind of divisions do testing?

Now this is a government which is proposing to move into an area of quite large-scale testing. We are looking at a line which deals with policy and planning and co-ordination, and my questions are directed at what has been the Manitoba experience of testing at the Grade 3 level. If the minister does not have readily available information on divisions other than St. James--and I gather, although we are not sure of the up-to-date information, that St. James does not necessarily test at Grade 3--my next question would then be: What experience, what policy, what information, what research has gone on to anticipate the programs for the Grade 3 testing that the minister proposes to begin? I am also emphasizing these because these are the first ones to be undertaken.

Mrs. McIntosh: I indicated to the member when she first asked the question, and I have tried to answer it in a number of ways. I will go back to answering it the way I answered it the first time. Maybe I did not say it well enough, but the staff does not have here today the information that she asked for as to which schools in Manitoba do testing. They would have to do an inventory search to acquire that information which, if she wishes me to have them do, I will have them do. But I say to the member as well that that will not provide her with the comparable situation she is looking to do.

Other provinces have testing at Grades 3, 6, 9 and 12. Indeed, her own counterparts in Ontario are looking at, as we are, bringing in testing at 3, 6, 9, and 12. So it is not something that is unusual or something that is an idea that fell out the heavens. Some may say it is divine inspiration, but I do not think it fell out of the sky. It is time proven. The member is an historian; the member is a professor. The member surely must have some knowledge of how people learn and acquire knowledge. The member must also be aware, even though she has not been a public schoolteacher, must have some awareness of--oh, the member has been a public schoolteacher, pardon me. Well, she did not say it one way or the other.

It is irrelevant, I suppose, because the point that is relevant is that over the span of time of human learning, the past 20 years has seen western civilization children's learning change in terms of the way in which they are taught, the expectations that are given them, the skills with which they complete their schooling, and it has changed. I am not blaming any one person or any one group of people. I am just saying it has changed, and the result of that change is that you now have ministers of Education from coast to coast to coast looking at bringing in measurable standards. You see, for example, British Columbia offering to work on developing curricula with other provinces to try and achieve some sort of national Pan-Canadian objective.

Now, it is clear that the party to which the member belongs does not believe in standardized testing of any sort. It is clear. That was obvious. It was obvious in the election. It is obvious by the questioning that testing children for measurable standards across the province is not something that the opposition critics and their party believe in. That is their right and the right of their members and the right of their supporters to support that perspective. In terms of what testing goes on, you know there are reference tests like CTBS and those types of tests, but they are not based on Manitoba curricula.

We get to Assessment and Evaluation in our Estimates and we could maybe bring forward research which we have which is what I think you are really asking for, research and support for the position we are taking for the belief that students, especially when no mark is attached, are emotionally and physically and intellectually able to write tests and would benefit from them even at the Grade 3 level. We do have research. We do have support.

When we get to that line, Assessment and Evaluation, we will be more than pleased to bring forward our research which I think is what you are asking for on this line when you ask, which divisions test at Grade 3 and how do their results compare and all of the other questions you have asked about a generalized statement that I made which was that some divisions do test, in particular one with which I was associated and used as an example the student success rate, which is high.

I cannot do that for all 57 divisions in the province without going back and doing an inventory and asking the staff to survey the divisions and bringing you back the kind of detail that you would like. If that is how you would like to see them spending their time when it does not compare in an apples to apples versus comparison to curricula set by the province and tested by the province--I guess what I find interesting, and the member had very interesting body language and facial expression when I indicated that a good test properly done--I asked the question if a good test properly administered was bad, and the member, with body language and facial gestures and muttered something to her partner beside her, gave me the impression that she did not think there was any such thing as a good test properly administered and refused to answer the question.

I am sorry, we put up with this from you year after year. You are getting back what you give. [interjection] I am answering the question in the detail the member is looking for.

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Point of Order

Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Mr. Chairperson, I think it might help the process of the committee if we could deal with some of the questions raised rather than dealing with body language and what the minister assumes--

Mrs. McIntosh: You should have been here for the earlier conversations, Steve. You are feeding right into what she said.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The honourable member for Thompson, on a point of order.

Mr. Ashton: I am just wondering if the minister could perhaps deal with the issue raised. I think she is getting into other issues. I really believe it may be more helpful to--if the minister will provide the information that is requested, I think that will end the matter. The request has been made. I do not think it is going to be withdrawn. I really do not believe that it is appropriate to get into extensive discussions about body language and what the minister assumes that two members of the committee are saying in their private conversations. We are not going to assume what the minister says in her private conversations or comment on the minister's body language. While we may occasionally refer to that on the spur of the moment in the House, even then I do not think it is all that appropriate.

I would just ask that you ask the minister to come to order and at least deal with the matters raised.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: I want to thank the honourable member for Thompson for his comments. The honourable member does not have a point of order.

* * *

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: I would remind the honourable members of the committee that we are on line 1.(c), and I would hope that the committee would be able to stay on line with that. I would like to make the comment that we seem to be in a bit of a logjam over this 1.(c). Is the will of the committee to persist with the line of questioning on line (c), or would we like to move on to another area of questioning and maybe come back to this at a further time?

Is it the will of the committee to continue or to move on?

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I understand that there is a section dealing with assessment later on, and we will be asking some more questions under that. My impression of the questions I was asking were ones which dealt with Manitoba experience of testing at the Grade 3 level. What I did ask the minister to undertake to provide was a list of the divisions where Grade 3 testing had occurred, and if there were any evaluations of that testing, that that could be provided as well.

I understood from the minister's earlier comments that there were not many divisions in Manitoba who did division-wide testing, but there were some, and so I did not assume that it was an extensive task for the staff to do that. What I am looking for--I understand the point the minister is making between the kind of Manitoba testing which she is proposing, which the government is proposing and the kind of division-wide testing that may or may not have gone on at the Grade 3 level, but I am interested in what experience Manitoba teachers and parents and school divisions and superintendents have had with division-wide testing and comparability across classrooms and of the ability of Grade 3 children or the levels at which those children can accept and benefit from testing, and so that is where I was going.

I do want to add some comments on some of the comments the minister chose to make about the policy of the party I represent on testing, and I think she made a number of assumptions, which are probably not warranted, and it would be better, I think, if I stuck to our policy and the minister stuck to their policy, and then at least we would have the lines clear.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: The honourable member for Wolseley, if I just may for the benefit of the committee bring to the awareness of the committee, the minister is not required to answer the question as put forth by the honourable member, and I think we are in a bit of a logjam on this, and I would like the committee to consider whether or not they want to pursue with this line of questioning.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, my staff will phone all of the school divisions and indicate that in Estimates this question has come up. They will get detailed information for you on testing that goes on in Manitoba schools, and I trust that you will not object if any of the other things that we are doing are somewhat delayed while we conduct that survey. We will bring you back that information.

I stress, again, however, for your information that when we talk about in-school testing or in-division testing that we are not talking about the same kind of testing that we are when we start talking about provincial testing or Pan-Canadian testing; just so the member knows that difference.

I apologize to the member if I misinterpreted the position that I thought I heard members of her party stating recently, that they opposed testing in schools, and if what I am hearing then is that you do support this type of testing in schools, then it would be good that that impression the public has be corrected for their information. I also want to indicate in light of the line of questioning--because as the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) indicated, I am responding to the questions and to the implications that are obvious in the questions, and in that way then, you fully answer. You answer both the question and the implication in the question which I think is important for the record.

We are not talking about three-hour high pressure examinations, pass/fail, on your whole year's work here. I believe the member knows that, and I would like that to be made part of the record, as well, so that there can be no misinterpretation from the wording of the question that there is anything other than what we really are intent on doing here with other educators across the nation.

But we will get that information for you, even though it is not directly relevant in the way that I think you may feel it will be.

Ms. Friesen: I would like to ask the minister about some issues of social studies testing at the Grade 3 level, which the minister's plan does intend to proceed with, I think. Maybe, first of all, we should say, does the minister intend to proceed with social studies testing at the Grade 3 level?

Mrs. McIntosh: Yes.

Ms. Friesen: Could the minister indicate when that testing will begin, and will there be pilot testing beforehand?

Mrs. McIntosh: Pilot test in June of '97.

Ms. Friesen: I understand that this will be curriculum related. Now, will this be a new curriculum to be brought in through, as I think the former minister used to say, the Western Canadian Protocol, or will this be the existing curriculum that will be tested?

Mrs. McIntosh: We intend to have the curricula ready for that test. If our involvement with Western Canadian Protocol has developmental time lines change, then that might hold it up somewhat, but at this present time, we anticipate that with the new curricula, that will be our target date for the initial pilot.

Ms. Friesen: Could the minister just elaborate on the time lines for that. When will the curricula be available to teachers? Which fall will it be brought into the classroom, and when will the testing begin?

Mrs. McIntosh: Because we are increasingly dovetailing all our efforts with both the Council of Ministers of Education and the Western Canadian Protocol, you know, we may find that we need to adjust the time line slightly, but at the present time, we are anticipating that we will be ready for June '97, and, of course, we will have the curricula ready well in advance of doing any assessment on it.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, for the curriculum to be in schools for an examination in June '97, we would have to be looking at, presumably, the very latest, fall '96.

Mrs. McIntosh: That is correct.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, so essentially, a year from now, the curriculum will be available to be introduced into Manitoba schools.

Could the minister tell me, does the minister have any sense yet of whether there will be a marked difference between the new curriculum and the existing curriculum? Are we looking at dramatic changes, or is it simply modification?

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the one caveat I put on the statement the member made just before she asked this question, in terms of the exact date that we are going to begin, I have indicated what our expectation is, but I keep the caveat that depending on our work with the Western Protocol we may need to alter that time line somewhat.

In terms of the answer to the question she has just put forward, we will be meeting again in September. As you know, the Council of Ministers meet in September. The working group has been carrying on with its efforts. We will be working in collaboration with the Western Protocol, and inasmuch as we have not yet heard back from the working group, I cannot give her a definitive, exact answer on what the content of the curriculum will end up being. I do know, and I can tell you that we are looking at Canadian content, Canadian history, increased rigour, higher standards of excellence both in content and in terms of the understanding of Canada as a nation, its people, geography, that type of thing.

The specifics, if it ends up being a Western Protocol, of course, will be arrived at through consensus with the other western provinces. As you know, British Columbia has been one that is keenly interested in this social studies aspect, science, history, that type of thing. We have a variety of steps we will have to go through before curriculum is ready, and, of course, you have the curriculum development team which is at work right now and that is the working group. They are doing research and all of those things that need to be done, working with exemplary classroom teachers, master teachers, because we feel they are a great wealth of experience. The master teacher is a good ingredient in all of this preparation of curricula, scholars, historians, et cetera.

Then they will have review panels who will be selected representatives from educational partners who will be reviewing draft curricula and providing feedback on that. You will have field validation. You will have selected classroom teachers who field-test curricula in classrooms so that necessary improvements can be made based on their input.

You know that when we ask for input and people suggest constructive, positive change, we are most willing to accept and appreciative of constructive, positive feedback, much like you just saw when we adjusted some of the criteria for advisory councils with schools. People were good enough to give us feedback. Some of that feedback made good sense to us, and where it made good sense to us we were willing to accept it and act upon those good recommendations that came from people who were in the field.

We will continue to do that and that field validation will be an important component. We do not just say we listen and react to what people give us. We have proven it by being willing to make adjustments, for example, to advisory councils. We do not just give verbal commitments. We actually do listen, and then we will have authorized use to all teachers of that subject area in all schools where that curriculum will be taught.

Then, of course, we will continue to update because no curricula should be static or inflexible. It should be constantly--particularly in science and history, particularly in the social studies which are dynamic and living and breathing subject matters. They do not remain static, inflexible, unchanging. There is no status quo. Some might like to impose a status quo, in terms of curriculum development, on dynamic and ever-evolving subject areas such as history and science, but we certainly do not, nor do our other counterparts in education in the other provinces. So I do not know if that answers--we will be doing standards tests for technical committees and learning resource selection committees and those types of things as we go through. There is a wide variety of activity taking place in each of those different levels that have to be gone through to properly develop curricula. The member maybe has some knowledge of curricula development and could recognize those steps that I have just identified.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the minister talked about the new Grade 3 curriculum as dealing with Canada as a nation, and I wonder if that is not a rather dramatic change. The Grade 3 students generally are spoken of as dealing with the community, that the level of recognition that they have of social institutions is at that level of neighbourhood and community. So rather than perhaps me misunderstanding the minister, was she perhaps thinking of higher levels rather than the Grade 3 curriculum?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to clarify for the member my comments in that regard.

Of course, at the elementary or primary school level, there are various degrees in which you help children learn about the world around them, and when I say Canada and Canadian history I do not mean that at that level, you are going to sit down and write and have a heavy text on the way to discourse on Canada and its peoples and its geography and all of those things in that kind of detail.

But the member talks about community and the world around. The immediate world around the elementary school child, the primary school child in particular, takes place in the context of a setting. So you live in a community here and there are certain things happening in your community here which would be vastly different from things happening in a community say in Iran, and, you know, just the innate appreciation for the types of things that can happen in Canadian communities is what I was meaning. I realized when I started talking about history and I started thinking ahead to what I visualize a student be ultimately graduating with out of Canadian schools, I do not mean that would apply or that is all going to be taught in Grade 3. But looking ahead, you build a foundation for that learning to come.

Ms. Friesen: The direction of my concerns are about the changes that are going to be required of teachers and students in a new curriculum. So my original question dealt with, are there going to be dramatic changes in the curriculum or will it be similar to the kinds of ideas and concepts that have been taught in the past? I gather the minister does recognize the level of neighbourhood and community as the issues which are dealt with at that level. But I wonder, given that, what goals the government has. What is it actually testing when it looks to test understanding of community?

Mrs. McIntosh: I am sorry, could the member repeat that question, please?

Ms. Friesen: I am concerned about what it is the government anticipates it will learn and be able to communicate to parents and to trustees and superintendents about the level of understanding of community at the Grade 3 level?

It is true that other jurisdictions across the country are looking at diagnostic tests, for example as Ontario is and I believe as British Columbia may do in reading, but the idea of testing social studies at the Grade 3 level particularly in a province where as the minister in a way has indicated just now there are enormous differences in experience between, say Pukatawagan, Point Douglas and south St. Vital in this concept of neighbourhood and community, I am wondering what it is the government is seeking to learn and to communicate to parents and trustees with this kind of testing.

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Mrs. McIntosh: You know, I just want to start off by saying that the member and I will not be sitting here today writing the curricula for Grade 3 history and social studies, but in answer to her question, sort of almost an axiomatic answer, I think it is self-evident but I will go through it, anyhow.

Are you looking for outcomes? If a student is looking at neighbourhood, to use the example that the member has brought forward, clearly someone from Pukatawagan is going to have a different experience than someone from St. Vital--clearly, obviously. Both of those experiences will be vastly different from someone in Ethiopia, or Rawanda, or Iran, or something like that.

The member says maybe. Well, okay, so maybe the life experience in Pakatawagan is identical to a life experience of someone on the Ethiopian desert, I do not know. To me there will always be some variation. There will always be some slight difference between communities, and there would always be some slight difference between communities in Canada and communities in totalitarian countries of other dictatorships or other regimes.

However, let me say that maybe I am alone in that view, that maybe I do not think that communities in Canada would have some little element about them that would distinguish them from communities in other places in the world, and in that, I may be in grievous error. But a student talking about his or her community in terms of an outcome should be able to articulate the concept of community, should be able to indicate the meaning of a community, in terms of the interaction of peoples, the needs that are met, the give and take of trade, commerce, social interaction, law and order, and, hopefully, might be able even to distinguish the difference between his community or her community and a community that is a neighbouring community.

I mean, I could go on and on and on, but I do not think that you want me to because the member for Thompson made it very clear that I should keep my answers very, very devoid of that kind of detail.

So we will be looking for outcomes to show understanding, and then we will be looking to measure those outcomes against a standard. I know, regardless of what the member says, that she and the members of her party have great difficulty with the measuring of standards. It was said over and over; during the recent election, it has been implied over and over. In the questions that have come today, and, I am sorry, but we just do not have a problem with measurable standards. On that, maybe we will just have to agree to disagree.

We think that having measurable standards on a wide basis, where you examine a student's knowledge of outcomes, we would look at the outcomes, and we can make a comparison of those outcomes in any one particular area against another area. We do not think that that is a bad thing. We think that, ultimately, that has great benefit to students who have to go out into a world where they are told by employers, if you want to work for me, you had better measure up. If we send them out ill equipped to measure up, we do them no favours.

We come back, everything we do--we talk about our four foundation skill areas, and, at the risk of repeating myself and alienating forever the good will of the member for Thompson, I will say again--I am repeating myself--literacy and communication, problem solving, human relations, technology, the four foundations for the new millennium for our students to go out and compete with the world and not be seen where they are right now, on the international scale, in terms of standards.

Ms. Friesen: I would reiterate, as I did before, I think it would be more straightforward and more helpful for the record if the minister stuck with her government's policy, and I doubt, with approaches to testing rather than having, perhaps, misleading issues dealt with by the minister.

I wanted to ask the minister about the curriculum development team that she says is in place now. How does this connect to the Western Protocol? Is Manitoba the lead province in developing the social studies curriculum? I did read the Western Protocol, and I could not see any mention in the copy I had of social studies curriculum.

Mrs. McIntosh: With all respect to the member, we can carry on in this vein if she wishes, but she is really off target in terms of being on the correct line in the Estimates book. I know there is a habit of jumping back and forth all over, but it, I think, would be helpful if we could follow the sequence of order in the book. We would get to all of these in the proper line and deal with the lines we are supposed to be dealing with today.

Ms. Friesen: I can understand that the minister would want to have her staff with her at the right line.

Mrs. McIntosh: I have the staff here that I need. Carolyn Loeppky is here and she can answer these questions.

I am just saying that I also have staff here that I do not want to have to bring back another time because you are not going on their line. I do have staff sitting there, and this happens every Estimates and I think it is time it got put on the record, that staff are brought down, we go through the books supposedly in sequence but because the member consistently goes out of sequence, staff has to come down all the time.

We have work to do up there, and I do not appreciate having to have them sit there all afternoon in case we decide to go off topic like we normally do.

So I have the staff here that can answer your questions, but if we can deal with the lines that are appropriate for now, then maybe some staff would be able to be freed and able to carry on with their very important work servicing the students of Manitoba rather than sitting, X number of them, in a hot room in case they happen to get a question that is off topic.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: I would remind the committee that we are going line by line and that, as requested by the rules, I would hope that we would be able to stay in line with the Estimates book, line 1(c) Planning and Policy Co-ordination, unless there is some other will of the committee that would like to alter that line-by-line process. Is it the will of the committee to go line by line?

Ms. Friesen: It is my desire to go line by line. This is however, a Planning and Policy Co-ordination line and it does, unfortunately, of necessity, involve a wide range of activities.

I am glad to hear that the appropriate people are here to answer the questions. This is the time that we do have to discuss departmental issues. It is not an excessively long time for a department which is of great importance and I appreciate the staff being here. I think that this has been dealt with in every department on a number of occasions.

Could I ask on this particular line whether the curriculum development team, which is what I was just asking about, has contracts that come under this line?

Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, and I just want to clarify, because I do hate to have inaccuracies on the record, I would just like to clarify in response to the member's introductory statement here that she was off the line. It is one thing to talk about why, which is appropriate for this line; it is quite another to get into the details of the program, which is not appropriate for that line.

So I would just like to correct the record because it is not nice to have things incorrect on the record even though they are well intentioned and may be genuinely, honestly and sincerely misunderstood by the member.

I would indicate that the curriculum development is being done by the staff and teachers who have been gratefully freed by the divisions to join our team.

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Ms. Friesen: My questions over the last few times have been related to curriculum development, and the minister has put on the record the method by which the curriculum development teams are going about, over the next two years, putting into place the social studies curriculum. So I assume that it is appropriate to ask about the curriculum development teams on this line since those who are under contract are on this line. I am glad to have on the record the method of procedure. I wonder if we could just get the connection with the Western Canadian Protocol. I did ask, and again, in reference to this line, this is the section of the department which looks at interprovincial issues, and I assume this is the area where we should be asking about the Western Canadian Protocol.

So those two parts of my question, the curriculum development teams and the Western Canadian Protocol and the method of the development of curriculum, I genuinely believed were part of this particular line.

Mrs. McIntosh: Just once again, just to start off by correcting the little error, curriculum development, the asking of the details of programs, comes under school divisions program, and that is school divisions program questioning, not the area under the line that we are currently on. I do not mind. We will answer the question, but let us make it clear that you are off topic.

Nonetheless, here is the answer to your question. Under school division program, which is what you are asking, we can talk about, actually, School Program division, pardon me. You can talk about the curricula frameworks initiative being part of a broader six-year education renewal initiative, which has a purpose to develop a vision of kindergarten to Senior 4 curricula for use in Manitoba classrooms. That defines provincial expectations, provincial outcomes, standards, student evaluations, requirements for English, Français, the French Immersion programs, and the initial step is in the frameworks initiative, which is the development of common student learning outcomes. It is occurring in collaboration with other provincial education jurisdictions under the Western Canadian Protocol for collaboration in basic education in K to Senior 4.

We have the K to Senior 4 mathematics curricula frameworks, which has a Western Protocol status right now. Kindergarten to Senior 1, the general and specific outcomes and illustrative examples are drafted. Senior 2 to Senior 4, the general outcomes are drafted. The Manitoba status for those particular K to S4 mathematics curricula frameworks outcomes are under review here locally by Manitoba. The 3, 6, Senior 1 and Senior 4, the old 9 and 12, standards development are scheduled for soon. They are underway.

We have English arts curriculum frameworks. Manitoba is the lead province there for the western English language arts program, which was initiated in January of this year, '95.

The Teacher Curriculum Frameworks of Outcomes Development Team will begin writing outcomes right about now and should have a draft ready by the fall of '95.

The Manitoba ELA Curriculum Development has been aligned with the work of the western consortium, so there is dovetailing there.

The science, kindergarten to Senior 4 curriculum frameworks, science K-12 is the first curriculum area identified for the Pan-Canadian collaborators. That is one they have all agreed to and that has been agreed to already.

Social studies, K to Senior 4 curriculum frameworks, the Yukon Territory has agreed recently to lead a western social studies project.

It is interesting, I mentioned the Yukon Territory agreeing to play a lead role there, and I refer again to the fact that this is the first time in history we have all 10 provinces and both territories coming to consensus on major educational reform and renewal, something unparalleled in the history of this nation, a very exciting, thrilling enterprise that governments of all stripes, New Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives are all opting into, are all eager to be participants in. I am hoping that right across the nation, governments, which is every government, will get the support of the opposition parties in their provinces to carry on these major works on behalf of Canadian students.

I should indicate as well that our frameworks are developed collaboratively, and we do not out source them. These are true partnerships.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, my questioning was proceeding along the line of the government's new policy, and we are on the line of Planning and Policy Co-ordination. It was the new policy of testing at the Grade 3 level which some people have some concerns and some enquiries about. That is where I have been proceeding from. We talked about the math curriculum, and then I went on to look at when the social studies curriculum would be introduced and how it was being developed and what the timing was for the relationship between the curriculum and the testing upon which it would be based.

My last question dealt with the social studies curriculum and its relationship to the western Canada protocol. I am still not sure of the answer on that one. The Yukon, I gather, is developing the social studies curriculum. Will it be the Yukon, or will it be the Yukon and Manitoba, or will it be Manitoba alone which develops the curriculum which will be the basis for the first round of testing possibly in '97, give or take some adjustments?

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member has asked, will the Yukon write the curricula. I think maybe the answer is clear. When you talk about a collaboration--I do not have the definition here--but it usually means you do something together as opposed to alone. What you have when you have Yukon taking the lead is you have the Yukon calling the meetings, preparing the agenda, taking the minutes, compiling the reports. Collaborative means that you do something in collaboration with somebody, you do not do it alone.

We, in Manitoba, are developing our own outcomes, our own curricula and at the same time working in collaboration and co-operation with the Western Protocol, the other provinces and the territories. In the final analysis what it will all boil down to is this: We will end up with a curricula available that has been put together in a co-operative fashion by the people in the West. If Manitoba finds that it fits our own desires, our own curricula standards, then we will sign the agreement and we will use the joint curriculum. We certainly are not going to be having something that does not meet our needs, and we are confident that by working together, all of us sharing our expertise, that we will have something that is eminently and mutually agreeable.

It is like anything. You do not have change just for the sake of change. You do not agree to something before you see the final--until I see a final curriculum in front of me, I cannot tell you for certain that we will be having a Western Protocol. I believe we will.

I do not know if that answers your question or not. If not, I would be pleased to try to answer further on your next question.

Ms. Friesen: Earlier on this line of questioning, Mr. Chairman, the minister spoke of the process of curriculum development in Manitoba under the new policy with draft curriculums, review panels, field evaluation, et cetera. I am wondering at what point the parents, for example, will be able to have an opportunity of examining the curriculum.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, as indicated before, I think the member may recall me going down and outlining the various steps that will be taken in the development of new material for the classroom. You saw in there an indication of an opportunity for feedback. That is the point at which, in answer to your question, people will have opportunity to react.

There are a number of official groups around such as the Association of Parent Councils, which is the former home and schools. The member may know they have changed their name. They, incidentally, just wholeheartedly and absolutely endorse all of the steps and measures that we are taking here, and that is very encouraging to see parents so supportive of our thrusts, particularly of the official organizations. That type of organization composed of parents could be asked to participate in providing feedback to decision makers on the new material, as well.

The member knows this very well. Some teachers are parents and some of the teachers working on this curriculum are indeed parents, so they have a perspective that they can add. Of course, this we know because this was the point of the whole other subject that we talked about in terms of the advisory councils, where we said some teachers are parents and included them at that level, and here again, the double hat can be very useful and helpful.

So, in answer to your question, as I indicated when I answered the question originally, that is the point at which we would obtain feedback from those interested in seeing a curriculum that is to their liking.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I am glad to see that parents will have the opportunity to examine the curriculum and the materials and to offer some feedback, but I understand the minister made reference, for example, to the former Home and School Federation. I understand they do not represent the majority of schools, they represent some schools.

Does the minister have any plans in this policy and planning co-ordination group to involve parents on a broader basis or a more systematic basis, perhaps?

Mrs. McIntosh: We have parents represented on our interorganizational committee for the big ideas. We intend to bring parents in wherever we possibly can, recognizing the value of their input and recognizing as well our particular thrust.

I am pleased to hear the member asking the question because we believe in allowing parents to have input into their children's education. I mean that is fundamental to the type of process we envision, and the opposition in the past has been highly critical of that, saying that certain members of the opposition have indicated concern that perhaps plain parents may not have the depth of knowledge say that a trained educator would, for example. So I am very pleased with the question because we have great faith in parents and we trust their ability to offer opinion.

That comment, of course, has been made quite clearly and plainly during the election by--I am quoting from, I could probably get the quote if you are interested in it, which you may not be if I get it, but we would involve parents wherever we possibly can, particularly in subjects where we could be certain they would have some real clear ability to comment--social studies, history, geography, those types of things. If we are getting into doing calculus or something of that nature, we may find that our ability to include all parents could be somewhat limited because not all would be versed, say, in a higher mathematical function ability.

But wherever we can use them, we would like to use them. Their input is valued. We believe parents have a stake in their students' education. We believe that in a way that no government before us has ever done, that parents have a right to be involved in a meaningful way in the education of their children.

So to answer your question, we will be bringing them in in other ways than just through the Association of Parent Councils.

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Ms. Friesen: I would be interested in the minister providing the examples and quotations from opposition members who have said that parents are not qualified and should not be involved in their children's education. I find that very unusual, and I would like to hear the quote.

Mrs. McIntosh: For clarification, I am talking about candidates in the election, not those who got elected to opposition but those who were running for the party that is now in opposition. I will provide those to you.

Ms. Friesen: I look forward to that.

I want to ask about some of the professional fees in this appropriation. I notice that there is a change from 71.5 to 43.7. I wonder if the minister could give us an idea of what the professional fees were used for last time, why the decline this year and what is anticipated they will be used for this year.

Mrs. McIntosh: That is a result of the ending of the Boundaries Review--not quite over yet, but of that particular piece of work. It is winding down.

Ms. Friesen: Is the minister saying that that 71.5 was entirely for the Boundaries Review, and if that is so, how--no, we will stop there.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, all of the items under that particular section called Other Expenditures are connected with the Boundaries Review. We do have a breakdown, if you would like it, of the total budget for that. I will provide you with this particular document which has the variance on it which I think might be helpful for you.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: For the committee record, the Planning and Policy Co-ordination description of expenditure variances that the minister is tabling.

Ms. Friesen: While the Clerk is xeroxing that, I am not sure if the variance is what I was asking. I was asking, first of all, what was that 71.5 spent on in 1994?

Mrs. McIntosh: Those are the professional fees that were expended last year and we expect to spend less this year.

Ms. Friesen: What was the nature of those professional fees?

Mrs. McIntosh: That included the Glenn Nicholls report, commissioner's fees for the school boundaries, Dr. Tim Ball on the geographical make-up of the province, Dr. Richard Browns from Brandon University regarding the effects on rural school divisions, and that is it.

Ms. Friesen: So all of that $71.5 was related to reports commissioned by the Boundaries Commission and the professional fees.

Was there money in a previous year, '93-94, that was allocated to preparations or any allocation to the Boundaries Commission?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, in '93-94, there was approximately $250,000 spent and in '94-95, approximately $370,000 spent. This year we expect to spend $40,000, $43,000 to be exact.

Ms. Friesen: Just for clarification, Mr. Chairman, the minister said that in '94-95, $370,000 was spent, but in the estimated expenditure it is only estimated at $71.5.

Mrs. McIntosh: That is just the professional fees portion. The 300 that I gave you includes everything: the indemnities, parking, meetings, travel, printing, advertising, secretarial support, commission support, hearings, all of those items. There are others as well but those types of items. We can provide you with a breakdown of the budget if you would like. We do have one here, but it has got scribbling all over it. So we will get a clean copy and bring it in to tomorrow's Estimates and give it to you. I think that will give you the breakdown you are looking for.

Ms. Friesen: Yes, I would be interested in that, but I am also interested in where I would normally look to find that kind of material in Estimates. If it is not on this line, where would it be for approval?

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Mrs. McIntosh: Staff advises me that normally this type of thing would not be found under a category of its own because it is not an ongoing commission. So, because it is sort of a temporary thing that only occurs once--maybe once or twice, but it is not an ongoing thing, then it is budgeted for out of another allocation. So the line you see here in the book is the only line that you will see. It comes under a different heading because it is placed into a category. Limited life projects is the terminology.

There probably would not be a category under which you could find this normally, but we will give you the complete breakdown of that budget for your benefit. There is not a place. It would normally be identified though in the--just one other clarification. Staff advises that those types of items are--because they are limited life projects, it is indicated by type of expenditure rather than by project.

Ms. Friesen: These limited life projects, are they listed by department? I mean in what manner is a sum granted to Her Majesty for a limited life project?

Mrs. McIntosh: Normally, government will be determined through cabinet. If they have something like a boundaries commission, for example, they would determine which appropriation they were going to take those funds out of, because you know you will normally look within your department to the funds that you have, and then you place it where you feel you can fund it from. So then it will show up in that spot for that, because there are sort of like one-time-only expenses. That is normally the way it is done.

Ms. Friesen: In 1994-95, $370,000 was spent. Could the minister tell me, here under Education line 16.1(c) we have $71,000 of that, 71.5, where was the rest? Is it in one allocation or is it in several? Is there a direction, a chart anywhere in the beginnings of some Estimates processes which tells you how to find those other amounts?

Mrs. McIntosh: I hope I have understood what you are looking for properly here. Because there is no category that says Boundaries Commission, for example, they will take each of the things that pertained to the Boundaries Commission and itemize them, professional fees being one example that we talked about earlier. They will put down professional fees, and those are professional fees that were paid out to people whose services were used. I guess the simple answer is that, because it is not broken down under Boundaries Commission, you would have to ask where the Boundaries Commission stuff showed up, and then we would direct you to professional fees, equipment rental, computer, that type of thing.

It is definitely not in the user-friendly category, like we talked about at the beginning, and I can understand that would be a source of some frustration. If you did not know to ask about the Boundaries Review you would not see it showing. That is maybe--[interjection] Yes, the total expenses are reflected in the whole thing--right--printing, equipment rental, et cetera, but you do not know necessarily that that is Boundaries Review unless you ask. You have asked a good question there.

Ms. Friesen: Could the minister tell us what is anticipated to be expended on the Boundaries Commission this year?

Mrs. McIntosh: We anticipate it to be in the neighbourhood of $40,000, and that would be mostly for the people, like the services by the commissioners, et cetera.

Ms. Friesen: Does the minister anticipate a further report to the public, or will it be a report to the minister?

Mrs. McIntosh: The report, when it comes back from the Boundaries Commission, after they have put in all of their adjustments, will come to the minister.

Ms. Friesen: Does that budget of $40,000 for this year--the minister indicated it was generally directed at support for the individuals. Is it budgeted in that $40,000 for any reports, publication, communication?

Mrs. McIntosh: Sorry, I think you asked--because I was listening over here, I was not picking up completely what you said. You were asking if that report would go some place else besides to the minister?

Ms. Friesen: No, what I was asking for was just a clarification of that $40,000 that will be expended on the commission this year, whether that includes any appropriation or estimate of expenditure upon publication of a report?

Mrs. McIntosh: No.

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Ms. Friesen: I am still looking at 16.1(c) and looking at the increase under Equipment from $36,900 to $62,600. I wonder, could the minister explain the implications of that?

Mrs. McIntosh: This particular one is not directly related to the Boundaries Review, ergo, your earlier question was well put. With the move to 1181 Portage Avenue the office rental increased by $29,000 to a total of $57,000. That is the variance you can see there, the $25,700, but it is not Boundaries Review related.

Ms. Friesen: That expansion to 1181 Portage--this is across the street from the Fletcher Building--has this resulted in an expansion of office space, accommodation of additional personnel, or is this simply the exchange of one set of space for another set of space?

Mrs. McIntosh: When the lease at 1200 Portage, which is just right across the street--actually 1181 is the Robert Fletcher Building--the lease at 1200 Portage, when it was cancelled, resulted in staff being consolidated in the Robert Fletcher Building at 1181 and also at 1970 Ness Avenue in the old Deer Lodge School. That is what happened, there are two spaces, one for two.

Ms. Friesen: What was the reason for cancelling the 1200 Portage space?

Mrs. McIntosh: We have across government been rationalizing, consolidating space to make better use of space and to make more cost-effective use of space. In our department, the Department of Education, over the last two years we have been trying to centralize staff in overall space. We try to reduce or try to get a decrease in our overall space requirements, and we have done that.

In fact, we have saved to date $296,700 in our space accommodation. That is good because not only in some cases are we ending up with more appropriate use of space and better space in some instances, but we have also been able to redirect those savings toward information technology renewal initiatives throughout the department, and would be able to form the major portion of the Management Information Services budget of those increases in that subappropriation budget under 16-1F.

Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): Can the minister inform us, the Ness Avenue building is that a government property or are you leasing it from the St. James School Division, and what are the incurred costs?

Mrs. McIntosh: It is owned by the St. James-Assiniboia School Division and leased by the provincial government.

Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister share with us at what rate? How much is it to lease out that building?

Mrs. McIntosh: Staff is checking to see if we have that. That would really come under the Minister of Government Services' (Mr. Pallister) Estimates, but we may have it here and if we do we will provide it to you.

Ms. Mihychuk: Just to follow up on the facilities, the Robert Fletcher Building is a government property, I understand. I understand that there are other private organizations that have now moved into the Robert Fletcher. Was consideration given to amalgamating the Department of Education in that building to a greater degree to even defer greater costs? Leasing would not be required therefore in that building.

Mrs. McIntosh: The member asks a very good question and the staff did indeed take a look at that concept that you have identified, but found that, for a variety of reasons, they just did not have the amount of space that they would require.

They did, however, have some extra space and so it has been given for use to some organizations. They have given some of that space without rent being charged to the Manitoba Association of Parent Councils, to the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, to the Manitoba Physical Education Teachers Association liaison officer and to Child Find Manitoba. They thought that was a good use of the space because it was extraneous to their needs and it could not consolidate all their requirements in that area, so that is how they used up the empty space that is there.

We do have the information, while you are still at your mike there, on 1970 Ness. It is $200--$90 a square metre--this is for the rental--for a total cost of $231,000. That is per annum that it costs to rent that facility for the province.

Ms. Mihychuk: I am new to this, so I am going to ask the minister's indulgence and perhaps explain what the--under the Supplies and Services line, Equipment Rental and Maintenance--that has gone up substantially from $36,900 to $62,600. Is that related to this, or what is that increase related to?

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Mrs. McIntosh: This relates back to an earlier question when we talked about trying to consolidate staffing functions and you asked the question, could we all fit into 1181. No, but they could all fit into 1200. I think it was 1200, was it not? Oh, you moved to 1181, the other way around. Okay. That meant they could get in and have all the staff together. The other place they had to--they were sharing space for starters, but as you see, this cost more to move over here in this particular one.

I mentioned earlier that we had saved this couple of hundred thousand dollars on these exercises, and overall that is what we have saved, but within that overall saving we have little fluctuations because we had a double-goal as a department, and all government branches are trying to do this type of thing to try to find an improved quality of space more appropriate to the usage of the staff needs while effecting an overall savings.

So in this one the goal was improved space for staff requirements. It cost us a little more but with the other changes that went on, the overall cost was down.

The other part of this whole jigsaw puzzle of space is a kind of domino effect as groups of people moved out of, say, 1200, that meant there came a point when if the building was totally empty then the Government Services would no longer have to pick up the tab for it, so then you have another incentive for seeking new space which is to complete that overall empty building for Government Services expenditure reductions. So there are all kinds of pieces to the jigsaw puzzle, and once you start moving in and out you can create a domino effect.

Overall, these moves the staff have made

have been really advantageous to the working conditions and certainly have saved us money that we have been able to redirect to areas where we were needing some extra funding.

I hope that answers your question all right.

Ms. Friesen: In the process by which the department moved part of its staff to Ness, was there a tender process for that building?

(Mrs. Shirley Render, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mrs. McIntosh: Just as an aside, we have named, so to speak, the space rationalization we are doing across government, and we call it an accommodation cost recovery, ACR, and so what we are trying to do is--the name is probably self-evident, the accommodation cost recovery.

Regarding the facility at 1970 Ness, we do not know if there was a tender on it currently, because that facility is--okay. There were some renovations which were likely tendered, but the government of Manitoba has had possession of that school for 15, 16, 17 years, so it dates back a long time. The province has been renting it for close to 28 years, so anything that has been done, if there were renovations that needed doing inside, we are pretty certain that those would have been tendered out, but I do not have the information here.

On the building itself, it is a long time ago. I do not know in the beginning how the specific details of those negotiations went.

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Ms. Friesen: From 1994 to 1995, on the Communications line, there is a drop from 44 to 20. Could the minister explain, first of all, what the 44 was for in Communications? Was that for the production of booklets on the new policy?

(Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

Mrs. McIntosh: To make a long story short, it is basically a decrease associated with the Boundaries Review and Distance Education and all of those things that are linked up in terms of looking at divisions and their structure and on the delivery of service within them.

The variance there on the sheet that I have here shows $23,000. Advertising would be included in that, printing, that type of thing.

Ms. Friesen: The $20,000 that is anticipated for this year, what will that be spent on, since the minister said earlier, she was not anticipating any printing costs for the Boundaries Review.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, in that cost we would see telephones, and they are expecting that there would be a fair amount of long distance telephone calling taking place. Within that, fax--fax as in communication--and you will see some Boundary Review ads in the newspapers. If they are going to make any adjustments to their recommendations, they might need then to reprint their report to send it to government with adjustments or changes that they might make as a result of listening to the people. We are estimating that up to 20,000 could get expended in this way. It may not, but we do not want them to be feeling they cannot reach out and communicate if they need to.

Ms. Friesen: Where does one find in the Estimates of the department the communication costs for the parent booklets, for example, the one that the minister demonstrated yesterday, made reference to yesterday? Do those come under Planning and Policy Co-ordination or are those found elsewhere?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, 16.2 (b) School Programs, Program Development, education reform, that would be the area in which we would find those particular items. We can go through them then.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, is that the same location for the various blueprint documents?

Mrs. McIntosh: Yes.

Ms. Friesen: I wanted to ask the minister about the relationships from a policy perspective with Statistics Canada. There have been a number of dissatisfactions expressed across the country about the nature of Statistics Canada reporting and the way in which statistics have been collected.

I wonder if the minister could give us a sense of what the Manitoba input on that has been and what kind of relationship she anticipates with Statistics Canada in the future. Will there be any changes from a Manitoba perspective?

Mrs. McIntosh: I thank the staff for the interesting discussion we have just had and apologize for the pause here.

We are aware of fluctuations that cause dissatisfaction. As you know, I indicated and read into the record last night that deputy Carlyle is chair of the Statistics Council. They have been working very hard, CESC, to address and correct some of these fluctuations that are causing frustration.

I believe I have written, or I am in the process of writing, myself, on terms of the issue. If I have not signed it, it will be signed. But we hope that technology will help make data more timely, more accurate, more up to date, more reflective of the real situation out there. Provinces are developing standard data definitions, and that should enhance comparability efforts. So when they are comparing, they have some definitions that are accurate and make sense, and of course it would make work for the statistics people easier.

We need to I think have Stats Canada more streamlined, more focused. We are aware of the problem and are doing all that we can in every way to make sure that we all get to rely upon really up-to-date correct data that people have a comfort level with when they are discussing it because they know they are talking about something meaningful and significant without any doubt.

Ms. Friesen: What are the implications for Manitoba of the standardizing of data across provinces? How will Manitoba collect data differently? What kinds of different classifications is it likely to involve?

What I am getting at is, is this standardization going to mean changes for the way in which we have collected numbers and interpreted them?

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, it is a good question because people always look to statistics to try to monitor or make decisions based upon what is out there.

We tend to manage important issues, with labour force, I think, one area that would be of particular interest particularly talking about education. Under Training and Advanced Education, we will have post-secondary staff here who might be able to give us some good information on that under the section, labour market analysis.

I guess, in the meantime, I could just make a generic statement that, along with so many other areas of government, this is another area where we think it is really important to have a Pan-Canadian or a national effort to ensure that data that flows back and forth interprovincially and interjurisdictionally is relevant and accurate so that you are comparing apples to apples from province to province, et cetera.

New technologies enable us to trace these more accurately and more swiftly, instantaneously, in fact, across country on some of these. The communications and the technology are there, and with the groups working on ensuring that the accuracy and the relevancy is there, we are optimistic that we will see an enhanced and improved comfort level surrounding statistics and data that are made available.

We may wish, when we have the post-secondary people here, to delve into that a little more closely because I do not have the in-depth answers at the current time with respect to the labour market specifically--not everything. So we will not have that.

Ms. Friesen: The deputy minister, who sits on that council, is here, and whereas I am interested in the labour force statistics, I am also interested in some of the difficulties that provinces have had over the years in this comparability.

The question I was asking was, does the minister, through her representative on that council, see any difference in the way educational statistics will be collected in Manitoba? Are we going to be asking different questions that we have not asked before? Are we going to be collecting more data? Are we going to be collecting it at much deeper levels? What are the implications of change for the way Manitoba has done things in the past?

Mrs. McIntosh: I just want to clarify something in terms of the deputy who co-chairs, deputy Carlyle co-chairs the CESC protocol between CMEC and StatsCan, but his task is a very specific one. I do not want to mislead you to think that he speaks for the province on StatsCan matters. It is a specific educational statistical authority that he has to speak, and we call it the Pan-Canadian education indicators project.

But on those things in terms of your question, will we change the way in which we are asking questions to solicit data that becomes then part of a statistical base, I cannot give you a direct answer on that except to say we will be looking for these types of things. If that is not what we are doing right now, then those are the types of things I will be looking for us to do, that they be timely, that you do not get them five months later or something, that they have some relevance to a moment in time, that they be accurate and that they be consistently accurate, so that that comfort level I mentioned earlier is there, and you know you can count on a sure, accurate figure, and that they be relevant, that you have a piece of data that has meaning.

It does not do any good to know how many schools are painted mauve, for example. I mean, who cares? So we need relevant data, and capable of being used--and this, I think, is an important one--in an interconnected way, such as used to articulate across areas, like post-secondary and kindergarten to Senior 4, so that they can have that interconnection and that you do not have to go out and repeat the gathering of a whole series of data because you need to factor in one new component.

Those are the kinds of things, and very little new information will be requested of schools and divisions because StatsCan has the data. That is as a result of the CESC. What we do need is a frame to put it in to use, and there is, again, in the little magazine, Liaison, Council of Ministers of Education Canada, the little pamphlet, it talks about the Pan-Canadian education indicators program, which talks about this initiative of the CEMC and StatsCan.

So I do not know exactly how the gathering will change or if it will change, but those are the types of things that as minister, I would be hoping to see in any gathering of data.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: The hour being six o'clock, committee rise.