ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

(Third Day of Debate)

Madam Speaker: To resume debate on the proposed motion of the honourable member for Turtle Mountain (Mr. Tweed) and the amendment moved by the honourable Leader of the official opposition (Mr. Doer), the honourable member for Pembina who has 16 minutes remaining.

Mr. Peter Dyck (Pembina): Continuing on the theme of education, parents benefit from working with school as well. They can gain another perspective on their children's growth and development and incites into how to support learning at home. Parents who have been involved in school tend to have a better sense of directing their child's learning at home. Parental involvement benefits the school in many ways. Parents form a natural link between communities and school. They bring a community perspective to planning and decision making. Parents can be involved in a number of ways, including participation and decision making. Parental involvement in this sense has been formalized through advisory councils for school leadership.

The regulatory support for advisory councils is now law. It is the first time in the province's history that parental and community involvement have been legally empowered. It is no longer discretionary and cannot be taken away. The regulation provides for interdependence that should characterize the relationship between school and the community in an increasingly interdependent world. Facilitating the creation of advisory councils for school leadership and working with parents and other members of the community to prepare school plans constitute a new era of responsibility and commitment for school principals.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I am experiencing great difficulty hearing the comments from the honourable member for Pembina. I wonder if I might ask for the co-operation of those members having small meetings, if they would do so either in the loge, on the chairs--pardon me--or outside the Chamber.

Mr. Dyck: I am pleased that 194 advisory councils have been formed since this initiative was announced. Our government continues to encourage the participation of parents and community members in the educational process. School planning follows closely on the heels of the establishment of advisory councils. With parental, community and staff input, principals are now being asked to prepare school plans that may include such elements as curriculum, cultural and extracurricular activities, student discipline, community use of facilities, grading and evaluation, reporting student achievement, student retention and promotion, staff development and areas requiring improvement.

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Our government advocates and requires a school-based planning because it allows individual schools to respond to the unique needs and strengths of the communities they serve. Effective planning zeroes in on the questions concerning education purpose. It allows school communities to create and develop or rethink and reconsider underlying philosophies of education.

School-based planning allows staff, students, parents and community members to examine the challenges and choices the school faces. The process allows them to identify strategies that benefit all students, identifying desirable results that are being met or need to be met along with ways of achieving them. It also allows participants to address how various programs and services support school-wide goals. There are benefits that go beyond these, since this collaborative approach contributes to an effective learning environment by creating a consensus among the partners on educational purpose and direction. It helps to create a greater acceptance of change.

School-based planning has been known to improve communication among staff, improve their morale and that of students and create more effective relationships among schools and parents. Greater teaching effectiveness, more effective ways of handling discipline, better co-ordination of programs across grades and disciplines, and better use of resources have also been identified as benefits. A school plan is the result of a continuous planning process and is not an end in itself but the beginning of a process of guiding change.

This government has earned the trust of the people of Pembina and Manitoba. This has been earned not on words that have been spoken but rather on actions that have been taken, actions that have seen Manitoba prosper and grow. I have trust in the destination of this government and the path it will take getting there, as do the residents of Pembina.

We trust our government to take the necessary actions to ensure that the young people of Pembina and Manitoba receive an education that will prepare them for the challenges they will face now and into the future. However, reductions in federal financial support have not only affected educational programs but have also caused the government to look closely at how health care services are provided. The constituents of Pembina value affordable, accessible, quality health care. Yet my constituents also realize that change to the health care system is necessary if those things are to be maintained. Their willingness to change was demonstrated by the establishment of one of the first regional health districts with the amalgamation of Morden and Winkler hospital boards.

Madam Speaker, there is a growing realization that institutionalized health care does not necessarily equal quality health care. While there is certainly a place in the health care system for this type of treatment, other community- and preventative-based alternatives need to be reviewed. Indeed, rural health boards are often better able to deal with the regionalized health needs and priorities of their communities.

Madam Speaker, our government recognizes that the best way to protect quality health care in light of federal cuts is not to remain stagnant but rather to explore alternatives that will be fiscally responsible while still protecting the well-being of Manitobans. The ultimate goal of all Manitobans is to maintain a quality health care system that is affordable and accessible to all. I am confident in our government's ability to achieve this goal. Our government's throne speech has given clear direction of achieving our common goals and is a continuation of the mandate that the people of Manitoba elected us upon.

Madam Speaker, I began my speech with the analogy of the road map. Together Manitobans are travelling on the road to prosperity. With our government firmly committed to the needs and aspirations of all Manitobans, we will get to our destination successfully and without incident. Thank you very much.

Point of Order

Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Madam Speaker, on a point of order. I would like to unequivocally withdraw the expression I used in my nonpolitical statement, namely, "predominantly white." I think it is inappropriate to use an expression like that. I think it would be better if I and all of us here were colour blind, and so I apologize and withdraw.

Madam Speaker: I thank the honourable member for Burrows.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, it is indeed once again and always has been a pleasure to be able to comment on throne speeches. Not ever wanting to take it for granted that I will get re-elected, I enjoy every opportunity I get to respond to a motion of substance, whether it might have a lot of fluff in it at times or not.

I also wanted to acknowledge at the beginning the efforts put in from the table officers and right down to individuals within your office, Hansard and a very special mention to a gentleman by the name of Andy Drummond, who is our researcher, receptionist. In essence, you name it, he is the individual that does it for the Liberal caucus, just puts in a yeoman's effort at ensuring that we are able to operate as much as possible as a caucus. Hopefully someday in the not too distant future we will be able to have someone working along with Andy because of the amount of workload that is put on us as three Liberal MLAs that operate, in essence, as a caucus.

Madam Speaker, whether it is through surveys, discussion groups, interest groups, one-on-one talks or informal meetings that I have at McDonald's, I believe that the common thread that ties most concerns together is that people want a sense of security. People want to know that the quality of health care will be there for their family and friends if and when they need it. They want to feel safe in their homes and neighbourhoods. They also want to know that jobs will be there in the future. In short, they want a government that has a long-term vision that provides hope for our communities.

Madam Speaker, there was at the beginning of the session a great deal of discussion about you, yourself, and the need to have an elected Speaker. I have given a great deal of thought to that over the last couple of days, and I think it goes far beyond that. I think that what we really need to do is to look in terms of the institutions in parliamentary progress, if you like, into the turn of the century.

I can recall we had Wally Fox-Decent and his committee that went and looked at the MLAs' pensions and benefits and came up with some recommendations which were ultimately supported by every member inside this Chamber. Madam Speaker, I would suggest to you that maybe it is time that we reconvene that particular committee and start looking at electoral changes in reforms that might be on the horizon or needed. A lot of that comes from some of the problems that we have incurred in being a caucus of three, whether it is an operating budget, whether it is a staffing complement, through the experience of mine in going through four provincial elections as a candidate in terms of the way in which campaigns are financed.

(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

If we talk about the way in which MLAs are in fact elected, I am not entirely convinced that the current status quo, 57 ridings, one MLA in every riding, is necessarily the best way to go, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think we are long overdue for a good, hard look at reform of our institutions to ensure that the will of the people will, in fact, be represented inside this Chamber and that out of that, I am sure, you would see recommendations such as what we had talked about, an elected Speaker. Things change, and what we should be trying to do is to try to manage some of those changes.

Having said that, what I wanted to do for the throne speech is just to comment somewhat briefly on some of the questions that I asked during the week, to start off with the question I posed today, and that is with respect to the economy. Shortly, a week from tomorrow, we are going to be receiving the next provincial budget, as I indicated in Question Period. What I am anticipating is there are going to be a lot of statistics that are going to be padded in the sense of trying to make the government look as good as it can. It will go out of its way to condemn the federal government, whether it is transfer payment cuts and other potential issues that are out there. It is almost completely predictable in terms of what we can anticipate in the next budget.

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I guess ultimately what I would like to be able to see is the government take more of a hard look in terms of what it has achieved over the years. I picked out today the manufacturing industry, because I think that one of the greatest strengths that the province of Manitoba has over many other provinces is the diversification of our economy. Our economy has really never had the great booms of Alberta in the '70s or Ontario in the early '80s or, some would ultimately argue, in what is happening in B.C. But, equally, we have not had the great bust, if you like, where the economy has completely fallen apart, and the reason for that is because we do have somewhat of a diversified economy.

When I was first elected, one of the industries that I had looked at--and it was primarily because of my concern with respect to the garment industry--was the manufacturing industry. So earlier today what I did was I pulled some numbers, and I found, as I illustrated, that in April '88 there were some 64,000 manufacturing jobs compared to January '97 where there is 61,500 manufacturing jobs. The Premier (Mr. Filmon), in response to the question, said, well, look, all in all if you look at the overall job picture that we have a net gain of jobs, and he says 10, 20, whatever thousand of jobs. Well, what I was wanting to focus on is the fact that stats can be used to be able to manipulate a case and put it in a favourable light on the side of the government or on the side of the opposition. If we all agree, and this is where it was a bit confusing, that the manufacturing industry is an important, vital industry not only for today but also for tomorrow, why then did the Premier (Mr. Filmon) virtually completely ignore the question of, why are we losing the manufacturing jobs? Instead he started to focus on the service sector where it has expanded, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

There is a big difference in the type of jobs that the Premier was talking about and the type of jobs that the Liberal caucus is talking about through Question Period. What we are talking about in essence is relatively decent jobs that are paying decent wages. What we have seen over the last couple of months is Molson, 91 jobs gone; Rogers Sugar, 82 jobs that are going to be leaving.

It is interesting. The other day I was on the computer, and I believe it was Encarta that I was on. I went into manufacturing, and it showed Manitoba manufacturing, and it had a brewery as using the example. Well, today we really do not have the major brewers. We lost Labatt, and now we are going to be losing Molson. What role did the government play, if any role at all, in trying to ensure that those jobs could stay in the province of Manitoba? [interjection]

The Minister of Justice asked if I did my share of partaking in beer consumption. Well, I do not drink, so, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on which way you want to look at it I guess, I did not partake in drinking Molson's. But that is in essence, from what I understand, the primary reason why they left the province, because I believe that they had 12 percent of the share, and they were hoping to increase that share, and that never occurred. At least I understand that that was one of the reasons.

You know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was in the Garden City hotel and other facilities, and one of the little sugar packets you see, they say Rogers Sugar products. Do not quote me on the exact word, but it is from Rogers. You know, whether it is that Molson beer or whether it is that sugar, these are all products that are being consumed in the province of Manitoba in good part, and we are losing these jobs.

What did the government do? Was it even aware of it? Was it prepared to even contact the CEO over at Molson to see if in fact there are some things that we can do? I did not hear any sort of news reports saying that the Premier (Mr. Filmon) was down visiting or picked up the phone and made the phone calls.

Our Premier has a very different approach at trying to lure jobs to the province of Manitoba, and I am not convinced that it has been all that successful with respect to the manufacturing industry at the very least, especially when we talk about retaining those valuable jobs. That is unfortunate.

You know, in the second sup I asked earlier today, I asked the Premier (Mr. Filmon), what is he doing with respect to Bristol? We know Bristol Aerospace is now up for sale by Rolls Royce. Has the government or has the Premier done anything to see what we can do to ensure those jobs or that we can increase the chances of retaining those jobs? Instead of answering the question, the Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey) answered the question. Am I then to read into it that the Premier of the province has not done anything? We are talking about the aerospace industry that employs hundreds of Manitobans, and one has to wonder in terms of what sort of action the government has done. We are not trying to imply that you can put up a brick wall at the Manitoba borders. But I will say one thing, the Premier of this province needs to get a lot more aggressive at keeping jobs in the province of Manitoba, that when we hear these budgets and when we hear these throne speeches and the government gives itself a big pat on the back is quite fictitious in the sense that the things he is talking about are extremely selective.

When we look at the bottom lines on many important issues, this government has been failing and failing miserably. It saddens me to see that we are losing these manufacturing jobs, because they are quality jobs, and those are the types of quality jobs that I believe the Premier has to be more aggressive. You know what is unfortunate is that when we hear an announcement, there is some attention that is generated, but we have come to a point in which, you know, one, two, maybe three days of some attention is given to those jobs being lost and then it kind of just dies off as an issue.

That is unfortunate and maybe in part what needs to happen is that we have to start holding the government more accountable on some of the actions or lack of actions that this government has taken in terms of trying to retain some of these very valuable jobs. Look at when we talk about diversification. We look at what is happening in the agriculture area and the controversy that is being created in some areas. Remember the hog industry, which I will acknowledge as wonderful, fantastic opportunities. Yes, it could potentially double over the next decade, and one has to start asking the question in terms of to what degree this government has been working with the industry.

I remember hearing presentations from reps from within the industry when they were making a movement towards the single-desk check-off system, where they are saying, look, this government is catering to the elite, the large, corporate hog producers. We want to ensure that the future of hog production in the province of Manitoba will be there for the small hog producers. [interjection] The minister says, talk to them today and see how it is working. Time will tell, but there was a genuine concern. How much consulting did the government do prior to invoking some of these changes? There was not any, because there was not any consulting done, because I will tell you something, we had strong Tory cardholders that were coming, making presentation which I heard, and they were going to give up on the Tories. They were talking that we have to get--you will have no problems in rural Manitoba, just in the hog industry in itself. That is how frustrated they were feeling.

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Look at the elk and what is happening with the elk farming. One of my constituents by the nickname of Tiny comes up and attends our local, and he is a relatively large man, but he comes down to a local restaurant in my area and he says, you know, this is a quote that the Minister of whatever, the former Minister of Natural Resources, and the Minister of Natural Resources said, trust me, Kevin. Exactly, as the ministers laughed, so did my constituent. Then he went and he explained how the minister in about 15 minutes, of what would appear 15 minutes, because he is actually reading Hansard, I would take it, that the minister was wrong in what he was saying. He was talking about where these elk were in fact being caught. He started to talk about some of the problems in terms of the elk disease and all it takes is just two elk to rub noses and the blue-tongue disease can be transferred over. He started to talk about elk that were being poached, and I do not even know if the government is aware of this, and if they are not aware of it, I will forewarn them. It is going to be an issue at least that I will bring up in the Estimates, and if I get the opportunity for Question Period I will bring it up for Question Period.

One of the issues that he raised was that there were elk being captured in the province of Manitoba and being brought over to Saskatchewan. Hopefully, we will get one of the ministers to respond to that particular statement. It is a very serious allegation. If, as a Liberal caucus, we had the resources, trust me, we would be doing a lot more research into that particular issue, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

So it is only a question of time, and we will get some sort of confirmation on it. Maybe the government should do some homework now and try and find out if in fact that is the case and then they can maybe make a ministerial statement or something of that nature, but at least they have been somewhat forewarned, and I will be sure to, at the very least, address that particular issue when we go into the Agriculture or Natural Resources Estimates.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, we could talk about education, and actually I could talk about education for 40 minutes quite easily, and what I did was I picked out three areas in which I thought I would focus some attention. First and foremost, the Liberal Party and I personally believe in public education as the No. 1 concern for the province of Manitoba; when it comes to education, this government has to give more attention to public education. The type of attention that I am talking about is that a public education should challenge the abilities of all students. That means that, if you are learning disabled or if you are a gifted child or if you classify as the average, if one can use the word "average," the purpose of the public education is that you have to challenge their abilities, because only by challenging their abilities are you going to be able to see them excel. If they excel, then they are going to be able to realize opportunities, and that is what government is here for, to try to provide opportunities--

An Honourable Member: You are a Tory.

Mr. Lamoureux: The Minister of Education says I am a Tory.

An Honourable Member: No, you have got a heart.

Mr. Lamoureux: No, I am not a Tory. As my colleague from The Maples says, I have a heart. To me that is what a public education is about. I brought up the question of special needs the other day. For years the government has been talking about special needs in reviews and studies. You know, I used to be the Education critic a couple of years back, and the then minister was Mr. Manness. Mr. Manness was talking about reviews of special needs, and now we finally see it in the throne speech. Not much more on the K-to-12 education, but they did say there was going to be a review on the special needs. Hopefully, we will see an actual study, and not only see the study but see action, and that is in fact what we want from the government when it comes to special needs. The crux of the question that I posed was, why did we have to go external, and I know the Minister of Education is going to be responding. When I say "external," it is external in the sense of going to outside people in order to have this review because I believe we should have the expertise within the department to be able to do a review of this nature, Mr. Deputy Speaker. But why did we have to do that? And it is long overdue, and hopefully we will see the government materialize on taking some very concrete, tangible action with respect to it.

The third issue is that of the financing of education. The financing of education in one sense has been a complete and absolute disaster from this government in terms of commitment to public education, and I could even say it even went on in the years of the New Democratic administration.

An Honourable Member: I do not think so.

Mr. Lamoureux: The member for Flin Flon (Mr. Jennissen), if you took a look at the budgets, the dollars that have been allocated, I can assure all members of this Chamber that the reliance on property tax to finance public education has grown every year virtually because the provincial government, this government and the government before it, well over the past decade has held back and cut back on public education.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I believe that that is being very shortsighted, that the role of the teacher at the same time has been greatly enhanced. Not only are they teaching, they are also counsellors. In some areas, they are babysitters, at least it would appear at some times that they are babysitters. They are doing far more today than was requested of them in the past.

The member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister) asks about the feds, and I can see this member's comments already on the budget or on the throne coming up, because we all know that he wants to make it to Ottawa, and we do not know if he will. You never assume. You never take it for granted. But, I know where his focus is going to be, and no doubt he is going to be focusing a great deal of his efforts on the federal scene. I do not blame him for that because now that is the line that he has taken to go in terms of his career.

Having said that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I wanted also then to touch upon health care. Some are asking the question about me. I am not running federally. I am quite content on being an MLA and hope to run in the next provincial election. We have a wonderful, dynamic lady, the name of soon to be announced, who will be running in Winnipeg North Centre as long as she is able to get the nomination, of course.

Having said that, I did want to comment on health care. Health care is again a critical issue. It is an issue which I address in every throne speech and budget that I get the opportunity to speak in. Virtually anytime I get the opportunity to speak on anything that comes before the House dealing with health, I like to believe I am expressing my thoughts. In fact, we have introduced the private member's bill on the five fundamental principles for consecutive years now, and we will likely be doing it again even for this session, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I know what the constituents that I represent want, and they do want to have those five fundamental principles of health care maintained, not only for today but for many, many future generations.

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The regional health care authorities was another issue which I had raised during Question Period. We within the Liberal Party opposed the creation because we were concerned with the amount of volunteers that this government is just throwing to the side who participate in so many ways throughout the province on volunteer boards. We were saddened to see that now the government, the current Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) is using a very heavy-handed tactic to try to get these volunteer-based boards to succumb to these regional health care authorities. They have indicated that they have the resources and they are going to be taking care of the debts but only if they are prepared to give up today, in essence, as opposed to allowing for more of a natural flow. I would suggest to the government that maybe they might want to reconsider that, because if they allow for more of that natural flow, what we will see happen, I believe, is that more people will at least remain interested in continuing on in some other capacity.

The greatest concern about the regional health boards and advisory boards today, I believe, is the way in which these boards are put together. What the communities want, whether you are in Thompson or Dauphin or Winnipeg, anywhere throughout the province, what you are seeing is that the people want to see some form of an election to these boards. They do not want the government to be appointing 100 percent of the board membership. And it would be tragic if in fact that does occur because I can recall speeches that I gave last session, when you have a politically appointed board they are just going to carry out what it is that the government wants.

For me at the time, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the real reason why the government was bringing in these boards was to try to confuse the public in terms of accountability so they can say that they are not the ones that have closed down this particular facility or they have shut down this particular service at a particular facility; that it was the regional health board, and those are the people that you go to. Then on the other hand they would condemn the federal government for the transfer payments for any other changes that might have to be brought through the system.

They do whatever they can to avoid responsibilities. That is one of the primary reasons why we opposed the regional health boards in the first place. And now that we are going to get the regional health boards, at least, Mr. Deputy Speaker--you know, the ministers I know in the past and I trust the current minister has implied that there will be some form of an elected positions on these boards, but there is no real time frame that is set up. This is something that has to be addressed.

My time is quickly running out. There was one other area--actually a couple of other areas. There is community clinics--I say this because the Minister of Health is here--is something in which I feel--and is always generally speaking, here. The community health clinics and the future role of the community health clinics is absolutely critical for a positive change or a positive health care reform. You know the minister nods his head in the affirmative, and that is something in which the former minister said that he himself would put emphasis on, and I trust and hope that the current minister will do that because that is in essence I believe one of the greatest opportunities for us to ensure that we are bringing health care services to the people and improving the quality of health care services. It does not mean that it is going to be in additional dollars.

Also, another thing that I would like to flag, like I flagged the elk going to Saskatchewan potentially, another issue that I would want to flag to the Minister of Health is the Health Links program. If that particular program was to disappear I think it would be an absolute disgrace. It is something which has to be there. In fact, I would encourage the Minister of Health to make a long-term commitment to the Health Links program; to promote it and to actively promote it.

We actively promote the number 911 as an emergency number. For those of you that do not know, the Health Links is a 24 hour, seven day a week health service where it is operated by registered nurses. They do a fantastic job. If you wake up at two o'clock in the morning and your child is feeling ill, instead of going to emergency services you can pick up that line. You make the phone call, and you can be helped out. They might end up telling you to take him to the hospital but I would appeal to the government to make that long-term commitment. It is an excellent idea, and they need to have that commitment because after you get that commitment then we can start advertising the number that much more broadly. That is what the government should do.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, if you can advise me when I have a minute left to go because I do have an amendment that I would like to move. How much time do I have?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Seven minutes.

Mr. Lamoureux: Seven minutes. Not enough, I am afraid. Not enough. I wanted very much so to talk also very briefly on the gambling issue. The gambling issue is something which this government created in its infancy back in 1989. We have a problem in the province of Manitoba today. It is a social problem. This government has failed to recognize that. Even in the province of Alberta--and it took the provincial election--they have finally acknowledged, and they are going to respect the will of different communities, and that is something which this government should be doing. They have to listen to what those rural communities are saying, what some of these social advocacy groups are saying. There is a very serious, negative social consequence because this government has adopted a gaming policy that is based on raising cash.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am not opposed to gambling per se. I would argue that a gambling policy should be based on tourism, a tourism-driven policy, and there is a big difference. You do not need VLT machines in every community. We were saying that for years, and then the Desjardins report came out and reinforced that. It talked about realigning some of these VLT machines. They had the VLT machines close by to The Maples Collegiate.

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An Honourable Member: Across the street.

Mr. Lamoureux: Across the street, says the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski). Is that what we want? At least we should have consulted with the people before we started putting them in every corner of the province. There is a role for gambling. I will concede that. In fact, a number of years ago I was very explicit in terms of what I thought we should be doing with the province with respect to gambling.

I know I have missed a number of very important issues. No one really has enough time to address all the issues that they would like to do. I will get another opportunity, no doubt during the budget as long--it depends what happens, of course, with the throne speech vote. There are a few possibly disgruntled members, which speaks a lot about personalities, but I will not talk about the individuals. Personalities, possibly of the Premier, and style, of course. It was interesting reading the article about the group of four, the four most influential people. The only one that made me feel somewhat comfortable is that Mrs. Filmon was, in fact, listed as one of those individuals, someone which I do have a great deal of respect for. Having said that, I look forward, if we do make it to the budget process, to add more words on the budget.

At this time, I will move, seconded by the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry),

THAT the amendment be amended by adding thereto the following words:

THAT this House further regrets:

THAT this government has failed to provide leadership in managing change in our health care, Education, Justice and other government departments; instead, they have shortchanged Manitobans by blaming the federal government for their own shortcomings and failing to provide services the citizens of Manitoba deserve.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The amendment is in order.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am delighted to be able to speak today on the throne speech at the beginning of this legislative session.

I have been fascinated by how in four short days we have come full circle back to, in many respects, the kind of questioning that I thought would be gone, the kind of attitude that I thought would be gone from the members opposite because they had made such a kafuffle about courtesy, decorum, manners, following the rules that I really thought I would see them reforming their own attitudes and behaviours in the Chamber this session.

I am not including the Liberals. I am saying the official opposition. Because while I disagree with a lot of things that the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) just said in his speech, they have remained courteous and, unfortunately, the official opposition, the NDP, have not made any attempt.

The first day we were back, again we saw the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) mouthing very rude comments to and about the Speaker, and we had not even been here 48 hours, so that is par for the course. I thought, given all of their pontificating, that they would come back wanting to set an example. Unfortunately, the example they are setting is not the one that I thought they would want to reflect to us, and that is regrettable. It is very regrettable, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because we have so many good initiatives in the throne speech and we have so many things outlined in the throne speech that I would think they would believe in and would want to support.

I would throw a little challenge out to them. I would invite them to be part of the solution. I would invite them to work with us rather than consistently against. I would invite them to look at the other side of the coin. I would invite them to see the other side of the picture. They come in prepared to be negative on principle just for the sake of being negative, sheerly and only and totally for the sake of being negative, because I have seen them speaking against things that they urged us to do in earlier times.

When I say I ask them to look at the other side of the coin, the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) just now, after we expressed horror on this side of the House, realized what he had said and had the good grace to completely withdraw a statement that, had he paused to consider the other side of the coin, would never have made. In making a statement as he did that he was glad to see--I will not go through the statement because--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I hate to interrupt the honourable minister but, at this time, I would ask the minister to be more towards the issue that is before us at this time, and that is the throne speech. I do believe if the minister continues on this track, we will be going on a bit of a fishing exhibition, and it will not help the decorum of the House at this time.

The honourable minister, to continue.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I realize that as we do decide to go through the throne speech and we seek to implement the many good initiatives in it that it would be helpful if the opposition could be supportive of those things that in the past they have said they were or alleged they were supportive of. I do accept the member for Burrows did withdraw his statement, because he heard us call out and say, think about what you have just said, and he did withdraw it. It is in Hansard so I do not need to repeat it. It is there for the reading.

But I say, if you take pause and look at the other side of the coin, to see the other side of the issue even if you have to wait until someone on our side draws it to your attention, you may find that the other side has some merit. I invite them to do just as the member for Burrows did and withdraw errors you have made in judgment when you look at what we are saying in the throne speech and not just be negative for the sake of being negative. I take a look in four days that we have been here, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and already just to give you some examples of how, instead of concentrating on the good things that are outlined, the plans we have, and seeing how together we can move forward on them, the opposition has already attempted to divert us away from those things onto a different venue.

Two examples pertaining to me in my department, just by way of providing an example, they are not necessarily issues that I take extreme umbrage with, but they are typical of the kinds of things we have been hearing in the last four days, things that will not help this government or help the people of Manitoba as they pursue a good agenda for the people of this province.

Working together, the Leader of the Opposition in his speech spent a great deal of time talking about the need to co-operate. So I think I am entitled to the same amount of time to answer his particular comments. When he says that we need to co-operate and then encourages his members to do the opposite, there is an inconsistency. It reads well in Hansard from his perspective, and it reads well in Hansard to his supporters, but it does not ring true in what they say and do.

The two examples I can mention, because we have only had two in these last four days, one was the establishment of the post-secondary council where we named the members of the council. We had been through the debate at the time of the committee hearings on whether these should be lay people devoid of conflict or the special interest groups on the council running the affairs of the university. We went and adopted the model of the Universities Grants Commission, which is a board of lay people. The council, of course, replaces the UGC, and it seems fitting to use lay people. There are a lot of other reasons it is good to use lay people.

However, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at first I thought it was amusing, and then I thought about it a bit more and I thought, it is not amusing, it is kind of sad. The Education critic for the NDP acted very surprised that this council was made up of lay people when we have been very clear that it would absolutely not have any of the special interest groups on it but that they would consult by law with the special interest groups.

The opposite critic from the NDP, Jean Friesen, said she would have preferred this to be a broadly based group, which would include someone from the aboriginal community. Mr. Deputy Speaker, no research, no homework, no knowledge of what she is speaking, because we absolutely do have an aboriginal person on that council. More than that, we have an aboriginal person in the person of Herman Green, whose whole background is in dealing with educational issues as they pertain to aboriginal people and self governance so, I mean, she did not do her homework. She did not know what she was talking about. She did not have a clue. But she spouted off to the Free Press as if she did, saying they should have an aboriginal person on there.

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Well, we do have an aboriginal person and a very good one with a background in just the area we need, but she did not know that, she did not research it, but she spouted it off just to be negative. If she had looked at the other side of the coin or done her homework, she would never have criticized us for not having an aboriginal person when, indeed, we do have a very capable aboriginal person there, so negative just for the sake of being negative.

She also indicated in there that we should have someone who had some ability to understand what is going on in the high schools. She said that we needed someone who understood the linkage between high school and university. She said, for example, one of the tasks will be to co-ordinate the connections with high schools to make the transition from high school to post-secondary education more smooth than it has been in the past. She accused us of not having a person there who is expert in that way and, indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we do. We have a person who is a director at the South Winnipeg Technical school, which very clearly works hard on linkages between high school, apprenticeship, colleges, is both a high school and a college and represents three different school divisions. So she said, where are the trustees, where are the people who are knowledgeable about the transition from high school to college?

Well, he is there, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would invite the opposition member for the NDP to go and do her homework. I will not name this person. I invite her maybe to go and research who these people are and find out for herself which one is the one that is connected with South Winnipeg Technical school. It might do her some good to have to research things before she opens her mouth and spouts off to the Winnipeg Free Press on things about which she has no knowledge and has done no homework.

So on the two things she criticized us for, three things--she criticized us, first of all, for not having anybody connected with the institutions. This she says when we have a former board of governor chairman. We have a former board of governor. We have a sessional lecturer from the University of Manitoba, when we have past student council presidents, when we have a whole host of people who have spent considerable time connected in leadership roles with post-secondary institutions.

That was her first criticism, and she was wrong. She was right in the sense that we do not have any people currently employed by any of those institutions on the council, and she knew that last year when we debated that issue and said we would not be putting on that council people currently employed with any of the institutions for obvious reasons of conflict. That debate was done. This was not a surprise to her.

So she refused to acknowledge the academic connections that are there with these people. She then accused us of not having an aboriginal when we have one. She then accused of not having people with connections to the transition from high school to college when we have one. She had not done her research. She was being negative solely and only for the sake of being negative.

The other issue that came up this week was an issue of how committed we are to early years intervention. This is a very important thing to us. It is something that we have been looking towards for at least two years now with the establishment that we made of the Children and Youth Secretariat. Not their government, our government recognized the need to co-ordinate those activities. We have now had in place for the better part of two years the Children and Youth Secretariat, which has been looking and working to plan how we are going to co-ordinate the whole child from birth on. We have a very deep commitment to early intervention, to early childhood development, to helping families with children in the preschool years, with children who are at risk.

I find this just so ironic. Again, the member did not do her homework, did not do her research. I was interviewed by the Winnipeg Free Press and asked about fundraising. I think this is maybe not a bad thing to put these details on the record because I understand the history revisionists from the other side are still running around trying to take us off our commitment to early years intervention by grossly distorting in a very negative way, again for the sake of being negative, the reality of words that have been said.

I got a phone call and was asked: Did I believe it was all right for the Winnipeg School Division to raise money for their school division by applying for a lottery licence? At that time, I said, well, if they wished to raise money by applying for a lottery licence, they are duly elected; they have the right to make that decision. They would need to go apply for the lottery licence, and I do not know what Lotteries would say to them, but they certainly have the authority under the law to make that decision.