(Concurrent Sections)

GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Order, please. Will this section of Committee of Supply sitting in Room 255 please come to order. The committee will continue with the consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Government Services.

When the committee last met it had been considering item 8.4.(a) Accommodation Development (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,009,200, on page 68 of the Main Estimates book. Shall the item pass? Pass.

8.4.(a)(2) Other Expenditures $717,700--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($475,000)--pass.

8.4.(b) Workshop/Renovations (1) Salaries, Wages and Employee Benefits $1,965,600--pass; (2)) Other Expenditures $247,800--pass; (3) Workshop Projects $2,575,000--pass; (4) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($4,788,400)--pass.

Resolution 8.4: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $2,251,900 for Government Services, Accommodation Development, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.

Item 5. Land Value Appraisal Commission (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $79,600--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $64,600--pass; (c) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($57,400)--pass.

RESOLUTION 8.5: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $86,800 for Government Services, Land Value Appraisal Commission, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.

Item 6. Disaster Assistance (a) Emergency Measures Organization (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $591,700--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $253,200--pass.

6.(b) Disaster Assistance Board (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $118,800--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $37,200--pass.

RESOLUTION 8.6: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $1,000,900 for Government Services, Disaster Assistance, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.

Item 7. Expenditures Related to Capital (a) Capital Projects $13,562,300--pass; (b) Departmental Capital $249,900--pass.

RESOLUTION 8.7: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $13,812,200 for Government Services, Expenditures Related to Capital, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1997.

Item 8.1. (a) Minister's Salary.

We do not have any staff present, so we will just go right into it.

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Mr. Clif Evans (Interlake): I was under the impression that when we were coming back to Government Services to complete, that the minister would be present to answer a few questions under Minister's Salary.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: First of all, the honourable member for the Interlake can ask the questions. The honourable Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey) has come in.

Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): Mr. Chairman, maybe to be helpful, I think if the member is prepared to list his questions, we will assure him that the answers will be provided to him ASAP.

Mr. Clif Evans: Due to the circumstances of today in Estimates, I was hoping that the minister and I could have a tete-a-tete for a few minutes, so that I could go on my way and do my constituency work like I was supposed to.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: We do have the Minister of Government Services present now if the honourable member for the Interlake has some questions or comments.

Mr. Clif Evans: I want to thank the minister for the time to come back and discuss an issue with me that we have discussed. As the minister is aware, I had approached him, and a letter was sent out dated May 10 to fishermen, to all fishing associations denying funds for the loss of net losses and buoys for the 1995 claim. Has the minister received further information and considered this situation?

Hon. Brian Pallister (Minister of Government Services): We discussed this issue this morning. The member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) raised it and I will repeat what I said to him, that the information that was provided to me by the board--and in response to the member's requests, I was able to get that information actually just today--but the information was that the board had ruled those claims as not being eligible for cost-sharing because principally, I gather, there is no such coverage available for recurring damages or losses that are a normal risk of doing business.

I am sorry I do not have the detailed documents with me, but I believe the member's specific situation that he was referring to was in regard to Jackhead, Fisher River and Dauphin River. Each had had claims in previous years. My impression was that the board made their decision on the basis of a couple of things. Certainly, the key one, according to a representative the board I spoke with, was that it has never been the policy of the Disaster Assistance Board to provide ongoing compensation on an annual, semi-annual basis or on a regular basis for business people who incur losses on a recurring basis. It seemed to be the principal reason that this claim was turned down.

What I advised the member for Dauphin though to do was to alert the member for the Interlake to the appeal process to make sure that it was utilized in this case if it was felt justifiable to do that.

Mr. Clif Evans: I do not have '94 details here, but I do have '93, '92, '91. There are a few claims here in locations that have made claims to the board that are repetitious due to the reason being a storm. The three communities that have applied, I believe Jackhead did apply last year in '94, did receive. That was one of the first times that I understand they had and after a tremendous period of waiting for approval on it. This year they have again had to apply because of a storm, and the same storm that occurred did affect all those three communities being all within that Lake Winnipeg area that the storm had occurred. It affected, I believe, 20-plus to 30 fishermen. My understanding that the losses, even though it may not seem like a great amount to us, not being fishermen, but it is a great amount of loss to these fishermen. Now they will have to find some other assistance to be able to purchase nets to go out and perform their livelihoods, which is fishing.

I can appreciate the fact that if there was some sort of notice given prior to, in writing, that this may occur--what the May 10 letter indicates--then I can appreciate and understand that notice had been given. But in talking to the three communities, there was no notice given that a decision like this for 1995 would be brought forward. If the department, the board and the minister want to change the situation, change the resource that is available and has been available since 1986, then perhaps the better way to go would have been to of course let all the fishermen know that changes would be occurring and say to them that because of the changes, et cetera, we will honour the 1995 claims, and we will be making changes to the disaster relief board criteria.

I know that the Disaster Board has attempted to make it much easier for fishermen to apply for claims and has asked them for specifics to be able to get the financing and to get the support. But there really was not anything prior to the May 10 letter that indicated that such a change and such a decision would be made. So I am basically appealing to the minister to--if the board is going to change policy or change the way that the disaster assistance policy is going to be handled--that perhaps some further notification or prior notification would be provided, and I basically appeal to the department and the minister to allow for these claims for 1995 for the fishermen and make it known what the policy will be in the future to them.

Mr. Pallister: I guess a couple of points. First of all, it has never been, to my understanding, a policy of the Disaster Assistance Board to cover recurring claims that are a normal course of doing business. The member makes the point that notice should be given in advance of that. Well, the reality is that if a given fisherman makes a claim for the first time that does not necessarily qualify him for coverage, it does not guarantee that he gets compensation. This is not designed to be sort of a replenishment or a way to remove the risks of doing normal business.

The reality is also that if an individual or a reserve claims for the second time then that does not necessarily mean, because the circumstances have to be considered, that it would be disqualified. As the member knows, I think in a couple of the examples he raises, the reserves were given compensation on more than one occasion. The reality is when the situation occurs on a recurring basis, then it does become a consideration that the Disaster Assistance Board has to weigh in its consideration of the claim and the details around the claim. That, I gather, is the prime thrust of what the Disaster Assistance Board based their decision to not proceed with this claim on.

As the member and I have discussed, I think that we both share some concern that the fact that there is always a tendency--and I will speak not from the fisherman's perspective but I grew up on a farm, and the member made the point before that this may not seem like a big amount of money to us, it certainly does represent, I am sure, a considerable amount of money put at risk by these individuals. Having grown up on a small farm in rural Manitoba, I appreciate very much that capital is put at risk in the normal course of running a business.

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The reality is whether it be farmer, shoe store owners or fishermen, in the normal course of managing a business, decisions are made to put resources at risk. Those decisions are not always underwritten by fellow taxpayers, nor should they be. In this particular instance, I think that the concerns that I have expressed to the member openly in our discussions are also that by having a program in place, sometimes we discourage intelligent management practices. Sometimes we encourage people to put things at risk that they should not be putting at risk. When nets are lost and buoys are lost on a regular basis over a long period of time by a variety of bands and individuals, then that is pretty strong and compelling evidence that we are causing people to take risks that are not intelligent ones and that normally would not be taken in the course of day-to-day operations of a business where people were responsible for their own resources and responsible for replenishing them if they were lost.

I do not think we want to concern ourselves too much with the statement concerning notice, because the reality is recurring claims have never been covered. It was never the intention of this program to cover recurring claims. So ultimately we always knew, should have known, that once claims became recurring, they would not be covered. To suggest that because someone was covered in the past, the first or second occurrence of a claim, that they should always be covered for it is at odds with the guidelines themselves, which say that when a claim situation recurs over a period of time, it is not to be covered because it is in the normal course of the business risk that an individual exposes themselves to.

Mr. Clif Evans: I want to say, I certainly appreciate the fact that the fishermen do take the opportunity to go out whenever first ice is gone and it is available. I know that Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba are not exactly the most kind bodies of water when it comes to fishing and to the fishermen themselves. I can appreciate the fact that constantly recurring claims of the same nature over and over and over again have to be addressed and say, we can only go so far with this.

I look back from '93 and I go back one, two, three, four, five, six years. I see one community--one, two, three, four, five times; storm, storm, storm, ice breakup, storm, storm. My communities that have applied are not on this list to '93. If they are reoccurring, they are reoccurring only from last year and this year. I would again hope that perhaps--and if the appeal process is what the minister says these fishermen have to go through, I guess I will pass that on to them. But what I am saying to the minister is, I do not feel it is justified this time around for my communities to have to perhaps take it on the chin for not getting their claims subsidized if the policy of the department is saying well, for reoccurring claims, when in fact reoccurring claims have been paid in the past over and over again for the same reasons.

So I would hope the minister would look at that and perhaps come up with some sort of a solution for these fishermen. Fishing is around the corner. I certainly do not want to see 20, 30 or 40 fishermen in total in these communities not be able to go out and maintain their livelihoods without equipment. Perhaps the message has to be sent that way.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 8.1.(a) Minister's Salary $25,200--pass.

Resolution 8.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $2,449,100 for Government Services, Administration, for the fiscal year ending 31st day of March, 1997.

This completes the Estimates of Government Services.