Madam Speaker: Order, please. The hour being 5 p.m., time for private members' hour.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): I move, seconded by the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid), that

"WHEREAS the Provincial Government has not lived up to its promise to hold an independent public review of special needs education in Manitoba; and

"WHEREAS the present Special Needs Review Committee is composed primarily of civil servants; and

"WHEREAS Manitobans in general have concerns about the future of special needs children and special needs education in the province; and

"WHEREAS parents and teachers of special needs children need an opportunity to share their concerns about the ongoing cuts to special needs funding and the impact those cuts have had on their children's and student's education and future.

"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba urge the Provincial Government to consider holding public hearings and open public consultation on the future of special needs education in Manitoba."

Motion presented.

Ms. Friesen: I am glad to have the opportunity at this time to look at the special needs issue in Manitoba education because it is certainly one that I know concerns both this side and the government, as well as the Manitoba Association of School Trustees and many, many teachers and parents who are facing some very serious issues in the classroom.

I want to, first of all, acknowledge that the government has moved on the issue of special needs. In 1993, they did promise, indeed indicated in their annual report that a special needs review had begun. During the 1995 election, the government made as an election promise the promise to appoint an independent and public review of special needs education in Manitoba.

So it is in 1997, I think, very welcome, if much delayed, a very welcome situation that the minister has finally appointed the consultants who I anticipate will drive this process, who will be doing the research, who will be convening the meetings and will be producing the report. It is important to note, as well, that in the throne speech of this year the government did make a commitment to having that report in the minister's hands by the end of this year.

For a report that was promised and indeed reported on in the annual report as having begun in 1993, it would, I think, perhaps have been preferable to have made that a public report, publicly available by the end of this year, but at least I would recognize that the government and the minister has moved on this, and we welcome that, although we very much regret and lament the lost years, the lost opportunities that there have been in special needs education as people anticipated, waited for, delayed plans in anticipation of the special needs review committee.

Review and delay is a common approach of this government. I notice the same thing in education as a result of the Roblin commission. The Roblin commission was campaigned on as an election promise in 1990, but it was not until 1993 that we saw the report. It has been, again, much delayed, the implementation of it, the implementation committee, and then finally the appointment of the committee on post-secondary education. Again, I think, a familiar tactic, in areas of difficult policy direction, the government chooses to develop promises in some cases. In the case of special needs, it even indicated that work had begun on the open and public review that it promised. It was very difficult from a public perspective to see, indeed, where that had begun.

Similarly, in the post-secondary education area, a difficult policy area, but the recommendation that had the support of this side as well as the members of the government, a committee, a council to co-ordinate the college and universities' aspects of education was much, much delayed and is only now beginning to get together to establish its priorities and its plans.

It contrasts, I think, very markedly with the full steam ahead approach that the government has taken in New Directions, an area of much controversy where, in my view, the government does not have the overwhelming support of parents in all areas, yet that has been full steam ahead over public objections, over parental objections and over many other concerns that have been spoken of by teachers, superintendents and trustees, but full steam ahead with the ideology, and review and delay in areas where there are serious public concerns that have been frequently expressed.

There is a cost to this delay, Madam Speaker. The cost, I think, is in the planning that school divisions have been able to make for special needs children. There is a cost, I think, to parents in their ability to hope for the future, to hope that there will be extensions or expansions or specialized opportunities for particular children, and this has come at a time when many parents are losing hope, I think, in education. It comes at a time when parents of special needs children, in particular, lost respite care, when parents of special needs children were facing, as we see today in health, they are facing increasing costs for pharmaceuticals, as well as increasing costs for aids for some of their children. So at a time of increasing difficulty for parents of special needs children, we saw a government which continued to review and delay an area which had offered in 1993, 1994 and 1995 hope to parents and teachers.

In the classroom, we also see teachers who are having to cope with special needs children, often with fewer and fewer resources. At the same time that the government has delayed the review of special needs education, it has also, many teachers and trustees believe, tried to cap the amount that has been available to school divisions for certain types of special needs. In some cases, I was told that special needs students who were transferring into divisions after September were not eligible for funding which they obviously required as they entered the classrooms of that particular division. It is those kinds of issues of administrative concerns, as well as the concerns of the families involved that parents had hoped that the special needs review would have addressed. I believe that they anticipated in good faith that, in 1995 after the election, the government would have begun that process.

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But we are now in 1997. The minister is not going to have the report in her hands until the end of this year. Really, what I believe the government is trying to do is to simply slide this by the next election. There will be a report on the review. There will then be considerations, just as we have seen in the Children and Youth Secretariat. We have seen report after report, then another strategy and then another discussion of the strategy.

My guess is that is what we are going to see in special needs. I hope that I will be proved wrong. I hope that those parents who in 1995 anticipated a public and independent review, as the government promised in its election promises, that they will be able to see some of the fruits of that. The delay, I believe, is one that was deliberate. I think it is one that has had cost for families and for schools, and it may indeed have costs for the government when it comes to the next election.

But two other issues are of concern, Madam Speaker, and the resolution speaks to that. They are that it be open and public. I believe that was what the government spoke of in 1993. It is what they promised in '95. But as I understand the progress, the slow and stately progress of the special needs review, that it will not necessarily have open and public meetings. The minister has spoken of this in earlier times, because we have exchanged views on this before, and what she has said is that it is not appropriate or may not be appropriate for special needs reviews to be conducted in an open forum, that there may be things which parents require would prefer to say in private. That is a good point, but it does not exclude; one is not mutually exclusive of the other. It is quite possible for parents, as indeed in the Boundaries Commission when Mr. Norrie wanted to have some private meetings, those were accommodated. I think that an open and public discussion of where the community of Manitoba wants to see special needs education go, people who may not be parents of special needs students, people who may be grandparents of special needs students, may want to have a public discussion of the future for their children. I do not think it excludes the opportunities for private conversations that the commissioners, had there been commissioners, would have wanted to take place.

Open and public review would have enabled a commissioner or the committee to travel to different parts of the province and to ensure that the regional perspective, which is so important in Manitoba, would be well represented. Now, it is possible that the committee of civil servants and the representatives of teachers and a parent who is on that may indeed travel, and I look forward to hearing from the minister on that. But, indeed, if they do travel, would it not make more sense, would it not be a more democratic and a more open and accountable procedure if there were to be a public meeting? I look forward to the assurances from the minister that that is still possible and that is still in the intent, and that perhaps there is a schedule that is being drawn up now that will give people in--what are we now, beginning of June--that will give people at the beginning of June some sense of when they may--over the summer and early fall, which I assume is the window that is open to them--make public representations in an open forum where they can hear their neighbours, where they know what other people are saying, where there is a newspaper account of that so that there is a public record.

This is not the same as simply putting a notice in the newspaper and suggesting people make submissions. That is certainly one form, but one does not rule out the other. It is quite possible to have written submissions, but it is also important, I believe, for people to know what their neighbours are saying. It is very important for people to know in Dauphin what people are saying in Brandon, to have that sense of a public discussion across the province where we have a sense of how different communities approach this. The way in which I have heard the minister speak of it in the past is that written submissions will be invited. Again, I want to emphasize for the minister that I do not think the two processes are mutually exclusive, and I believe very strongly in Manitobans listening to each other within the Perimeter, outside the Perimeter, in the North, in southern Manitoba. It is important that the government foster that kind of public discussion in the kind of community which we have in Manitoba, and I look forward to hearing from the minister that that, indeed, is still possible.

Finally, the minister did promise independence of this commission or this review. It seems to me that that sense of independence has been lost. I know that parents have certainly spoken to me of this. Initially, they had expected that this would be independent of the department, that there might well be departmental people who, as they so often do, act as supports to committees of review like this. They might prepare agendas; they might prepare summaries of what is said. They might be part of the publication process. They might even take part in a discussion at the end, round table discussions on recommendations.

Unfortunately, what appears to have happened is that the review itself has become a review committee composed primarily of civil servants. I know that the minister believes that the addition of a teacher and of a trustee, I believe, as well as a representative of a parent group, gives this a broader representation, and yes, it does. But, primarily, this is a committee of civil servants as I have heard the minister discuss it in Estimates and in similar debates to this before.

There is no doubt that interdepartmental committees of civil servants would have a role to play in this, but they should not be, Madam Speaker, the commission themselves. They should not be the review committee themselves. That is not what parents were promised in 1995 or, indeed, in 1993. The independence from government, I think, was something that people had looked forward to as offering wide opportunity for debate, for a sense of a broad range of possibilities that could be proposed to the government. Those are not necessarily the kinds of recommendations that you are going to get from a group of civil servants, hardworking, well-meaning, very well-informed about the issues of special needs children, but responsible to a minister and not independent in the way that parents had hoped for. Their support would be welcomed, but their conclusions are not those that I believe parents, teachers, and trustees had anticipated when they looked at the promises of this government made in 1995.

I want to conclude by saying that I believe this is a very important review that will take place. I think it affects many areas of education, not just the special needs children themselves. It affects the way in which trustees and divisions go about their business. It certainly has an enormous impact upon the way in which teachers can carry out their work in the classroom. It is eagerly and long awaited. I commend the minister for finally having appointed the consultants and for getting the process more visibly underway. I would look forward also to seeing a work plan publicly tabled, which gives us an indication of when and if public meetings are going to be held, when and if public submissions will be taken, what the deadline for those is going to be, and some sense of the importance of the role of those people who are not civil servants on this committee. I hope the minister takes the opportunity in this debate to give us some sense of that process.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I thank the member from Pembina as well. I think it is important to put a few words on the record from the government's perspective on this resolution because the issue is extremely important. It is, in my personal opinion, one of the most important initiatives that we have undertaken in a long time in education. Amongst so many extremely important initiatives, this one happens to be a personal interest of mine. I can recall back in the early '80s when I first became elected to our local school board, coming down and asking the then NDP government if they could please take a look at this issue and try to put in place some policies.

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We were just beginning in the early '80s to see the emergence into the schools of children whose special needs were beyond what they traditionally had been in the schools. Community living was becoming a new thrust, a new approach to dealing with people who had unique and differing needs, and the schools were suddenly receiving these children with no guidance or direction at all from the provincial Pawley government.

School boards were faced with a lot of very difficult decisions in terms of programming and in terms of funding which the NDP provincial Pawley government did not give us or provide us. Neither did they give us any direction, professional development or assistance of any kind whatsoever.

I can remember us having a child come into our school, Madam Speaker, who had a series of multihandicaps, come in with a twin, twin sisters. The parents desired to keep the twins together and brought them to the local neighbourhood school because now we were beginning to see inclusiveness as something that had worth.

The one twin was like most children. The other twin was severely multihandicapped with visual and hearing impairment, noncommunicative, severe spastic cerebral palsy and a whole series of other problems. We were not certain to what level the intelligence quotient of this child could be measured, and we indicated to the parents that we did not know if we had the ability to cope with the proper instruction for this child.

It became obvious one of the things this child required was a communications system that would enable the child to use a chin movement to work a total communication device that would enable her to respond with a yes or no, so that we could try to figure out how much of the conversation going on around the child was being heard and understood and try to help the child learn to communicate. But to do that, there was physiotherapy needed to help strengthen the neck muscles. We did not have the expertise, the knowledge or the equipment. We appealed to the Minister of Education--at the time it was Maureen Hemphill--and got no help. We were very, very discouraged.

That started my keen interest in special needs, the appalling and dismal lack of assistance that we got from Maureen Hemphill, the NDP Minister of Education under the Pawley administration. That started my interest in this topic. We ended up in school divisions around the province having to do things such as hire physiotherapists using Education dollars. I felt that was a travesty that we had to do that.

I approached many NDP Ministers of Education, Roland Penner, Jerry Storie. They will probably remember me coming as president of MAST and as local school board chairman, asking them for help on this, and in each and every instance the answer we got from the NDP government was no, no, and no.

I am pleased, Madam Speaker, that under our government some of these issues are finally being dealt with. We now have money coming from Health, $450,000 this year to hire registered nurses so the school boards no longer have to used educational dollars to pay for medical functions, and I am really disappointed that the members opposite whose government would not help in any way with any of these things are now so critical that we are undertaking the reviews they should have done and completed and implemented change in before we ever came to office.

I am disappointed that they do not see the good that has come from the Children and Youth Secretariat that is doing things such as the transferring of Health money to Education, so that we can have inclusiveness in the schools without having to live the way we did under the Pawley NDP government. I am disappointed that they do not see the worth in the Children and Youth Secretariat and that they disdainfully refer to Dr. Neil Butchard, for example, as a, quote, civil servant. There is disdain in the way that is put, when he is a clinical psychologist who happens at the present time to be employed by the government, therefore also achieving civil servant status. There is nothing wrong with being a civil servant. There are many civil servants who have tremendous expertise in the areas that they were hired to perform in.

We have Dr. James Newton, head of the Manitoba Adolescent Treatment Centre, also an educator, being referred to as a civil servant when he is not an employee of government; he is a clinical psychologist as well, with an expertise and vast experience heading up the educational support services and divisions that deal exclusively, primarily, and only with special needs students. So their expertise is phenomenal.

When the member says, "WHEREAS the present Special Needs Review Committee is composed primarily of civil servants," of course, she is wrong. It is composed primarily of people who have background experience and expertise in the area of special needs.

Two clinical psychologists, one of whom has headed up, for decades, the teaching and working with special needs children in integrated and segregated settings, who heads up the Manitoba Adolescent Treatment Centre or who has had experience in that area, who is not employed by government. Another is a clinical psychologist whose experience and reputation in this area are renowned, not just provincially, but nationally, who happens to also be employed by government, a parent of special needs children and regular children so that she can make the comparison. A teacher, Agnes Collins, wife of a senior executive of the Manitoba Teachers' Society, chosen by the Manitoba Teachers' Society because of her 15 years' experience teaching in an integrated classroom session with special needs children.

Madam Speaker, these are the people who are on the review along with the deputy minister and assistant deputy minister of Education. The assistant deputy minister, who has extensive experience in special needs, is herself a parent with experience with special needs, as well as an experienced and well-respected educator who has knowledge of the learning experience and differentiated instruction in particular.

These are not people whose first classification I would call civil servants. The member implies by the use of the term that somehow, first of all, to be a civil servant is to not have expertise in any one particular area. The member said because the committee is composed primarily of civil servants, therefore we need to do something different. The implication, of course, is that, if they are primarily civil servants, they cannot do this job, because if they could do this job, we would not need to do the other things she is asking.

If the member has some other interpretation of that, perhaps she could have made that clear. In her talk, I thought I heard her say that people who are primarily civil servants cannot do this. That is why she has got it as one of the "WHEREASes" that we need to change the whole way of doing things here, because these people are primarily civil servants. What a slap in the face to civil servants to imply they cannot do the job for which they were hired, and in Education, in civil service, we hire people to do educational things. But, secondly, it is also not true.

So on two counts that "WHEREAS" is persona non grata. It has no relevance; it is incorrect; and it does not have anything to do with the real expertise of the people on the steering committee which, in turn, has hired the researcher-consultant after examining many proposals, and that researcher-consultant will be doing the research and the consulting that the member wants to have done in a public venue as opposed to in a setting that may or may not be a public venue.

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I am not hung up on whether it is public or private. I just want the work done, and, quite frankly, I think with some of the topics that they may have to go through and with some of the people they are consulting, they could probably do it better privately rather than risk putting a family through the ordeal of having to bare their souls in public over the circumstances of their child or their children or to embarrass or risk hurting the reputation of any particular educator by talking about problems they may have had in the past with a lack of understanding of their child's special needs. I would not expect parents to have to go through that publicly, nor would I expect them to have to go through the humiliation of asking for a private session, which sets them apart from everybody else. That Mr. and Mrs. Jones had to ask for a private session, my goodness, why do they have to go behind closed doors; what is their story all about?

The committee may well decide that they want to have some sort of public opportunity. I do not know that, neither does the member. What we are saying, as the government, is that we will not impose that on them arbitrarily; not everything that is done has to be done on a stage in an auditorium with the opposition having control over who the hearing people are. I do not want this review to degenerate into what some of the other public reviews have degenerated into where the opposition member gets choices, all of the children have choices, and the typical NDP rents a crowd and brings them out to repeat endlessly the same presentation over and over and over--all calculated to appeal to the cameras and the press and the people they can hopefully turn against the government or whatever they can do--as they always do, Madam Speaker, as we know, because it is quite a standing joke in Manitoba about the NDP rent-a-crowd. I mean, it is just a well-known standard joke, and I do not want to have that happen to this. This is too important to me personally, it is too important to the people involved, to play politics with it and to put it into the venue where it could become something that can be the subject for entertaining debate or political gamesmanship. It is just too, too important to be dealt with that way.

Also, Madam Speaker, the member says that, first of all, we cannot do this because the people are primarily civil servants, which, of course, they are not. Even if they were, I would presume they would be civil servants hired to deal with expertise in this area, and I read in that the implication that civil servants hired to do a special job are not capable of doing it, which, I think, as I said before, is an insult.

The second one says: WHEREAS Manitobans have concerns about the future of special needs and special needs children in the province. Of course, they do. We agree; that is why we are doing the study that they refused to do. When I asked them personally to do it in the mid-'80s, the NDP refused to do this kind of review. So who is showing more concern?

Of course, they have concern and they have concern about the way it is going to be done, and they do not want it to be done in a way that is designed to make it be a political football where accusations about process can interfere with the work of the committee, and I do not want to see that happen. So those two WHEREASes do not have any application to the reality of the work that is going to be done.

It says we have not lived up to our promise to hold an independent public review of special needs education in Manitoba. Madam Speaker, that is not true. We are currently having that review. We have chosen a steering committee of people that are independent; truly they are. If you do not think Agnes Collins is independent, perhaps you should phone her up and tell her you do not think she is. If you do not think Gail Eichler is independent, you should phone her up and tell her you do not think she is. These people have, in turn, on their own, chosen the third, the researcher-consultant, with no input from government. This is independent from government.

She talks about because of the ongoing cuts to special needs funding--is time up? Okay. In fact, funding has doubled, and I will stop there, Madam Speaker. I am sorry I am out of time. I wish I had more because it is a very important topic. Thank you for the time I have had.

Mr. Peter Dyck (Pembina): I, too, am pleased to be able to put a few comments on the record, and in response to the resolution from the member opposite on special education, I wish to add to the earlier comments from my colleague the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh).

Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to one of the comments that was made from the member opposite regarding everyone in education or many in education being upset and not appreciating the type of consideration that is being given to the consultation process that is taking place at the present time. I would like to respond to that and indicate that in my discussion with educators locally, be they superintendents, be they special needs co-ordinators, I have had a very positive response from them as to the process that we are using in having hearings regarding the special needs people within the area.

Madam Speaker, I agree with what the Minister of Education indicated regarding hearings and the process and the form that they can take. I have been a part of hearings, and some questions that are asked of the presenters can be of a personal nature, and I believe that, in many cases, those who are dealing with special needs children are already needing to deal with some very special cases and cases that are extremely sensitive. So I agree with the minister that the process that we are using is one that can encompass and can take into consideration hearings of a public nature but are not a requirement of that. So, certainly, the special needs people in Manitoba, in my constituency, are people who are special, and exactly that is the term. We need to deal with them in a special way, and they do have special needs, and that is what this process is all about.

Without question, Madam Speaker, this government has an excellent track record when it comes to open and public consultations. I take note of a number of public consultations that have been held during this government's term, and these consultations include the University Education Review, review of education legislation, the Boundaries Review, the Parents' Forum, the Young Leaders of Tomorrow Conference, and apprenticeship task force.

Madam Speaker, during many of these formal reviews and consultations, the topic of special education was discussed. This is important because special education was discussed in the larger context and not as a separate or isolated topic. Regardless of how and when these issues arose, the information was heard and considered by government.

Madam Speaker, I have been a part of many of these meetings in the years that I was privileged to be a part of the education system, be that as an educator or serving on the local school board, and I know that I was able to participate and to, in a small way, contribute to the discussions that were taking place.

The government has acted upon recommendations related to special education in the report of the panel on education legislation reform, and these actions include: Improved co-ordination of services to learners with special needs by the Departments of Education, Health and Family Services; Initiate the review of special education. Special education refers to a variety of programs and services designed to accommodate students whose characteristics, educational needs and strengths cannot be appropriately addressed through the use of the regular curriculum and services alone.

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Madam Speaker, I would like to indicate several organizations within the Pembina constituency that are dealing very specifically with adults who have special needs. The first organization that I would like to again put on the record is the Valley Rehab Centre. This is an organization that was founded years ago, and it was founded by one of the local doctors who, incidentally, is still alive today and is 103 years old. He is as alert today as he was 30 years ago. He is a man of great ability to respond to needs, and this is specifically what he did.

It is about 30 years ago that he was the initiator and the person who saw the needs of these special people. Madam Speaker, it is not anything that anyone would be proud of, but I think if you would look 40 and 50 years ago--and, of course, that would be before my time, but so I am told--these special needs people were put to the side. Parents, in fact, would be embarrassed to publicly show and to present these children. So this Dr. Wiebe, in his wisdom, determined that there was an opportunity for these people to be able to contribute to the local society, to the local economy, and, in fact, for them to be able to feel good about the things that they were doing in their contributions to the area.

Valley Rehab Centre right as of today has 108 of these special needs people. These special needs people--and some are older than others, of course; I think there is a wide spectrum of ages from 18 years and all the way up to retirement--but what they do is things such as make floor mats. They have ability to do the same activity and repeat this day after day after day. But, Madam Speaker, they feel good about what they do; they feel positive about the contribution that they can make.

In fact, I was there about three weeks ago. I spent several hours at the premises and observed what these people were doing. They are making boxes for some of the local factories. This organization, in fact, is fairly well able to recover all their costs by being able to sell the product that they produce.

They do the whole area of waste disposal. They are collecting paper. Again, here is an opportunity for those with special needs to sort the paper. The paper needs to be sorted into different packages and into different boxes because there is the coloured paper and then there is the newspaper and so on. So they are able to do a variety of things like this, the collection of pop cans and plastics. So these are areas that they are able to contribute and are able to live a meaningful life. At the end of the day, they have been able to occupy their time in a profitable way, but also, at the end of the day, they feel good about the contributions that they have made.

So, Madam Speaker, in response to the resolution that has come up, I believe that certainly, as a government, we have a responsibility, and a very tremendous responsibility, towards those in our society who are and who have special needs. But I would go a step further and say that, as communities, we have a responsibility as well to look after and to make sure that those people who have special needs are able to contribute and are able to function within their local communities. So I believe that, No. 1, we are taking this responsibility as a government very seriously. We are looking after our special needs people. We are doing a review now to see if there is something that we could add to, and I would suggest that, yes, at the end of the day we can improve it. Obviously, that is a function and a responsibility that we have as government.

Madam Speaker, I would like to draw your attention to another organization in our area. This is a facility in Winkler known as Trainex. This organization, again, is dealing with those who have special needs, those who are mentally challenged and find it difficult to be able to cope with the day-to-day responsibilities in society.

This organization is running a computer program, and this is, again, for those who find it difficult to act with the pressures that are on in everyday living, and they run a computer program. They are doing an excellent job, and this special needs program is working in conjunction with the Garden Valley School Division. Now, the high school in the division is helping them develop programs, but these are run through the Trainex organization.

So, Madam Speaker, I believe that ongoing we are being responsive and trying to be as responsive as possible to the needs of those in our society who have special needs, who are challenged, and, certainly, we need to continue to be responsive to that.

Students with special education needs can include those with cognitive disabilities, students with severe behaviour disorders and gifted students. Again, if I could refer back to the years that I spent and was able to serve on the local school board, it was my intention, ongoing, that we had a responsibility, as well, to those who were gifted.

Now, I know that in many school divisions this is taking place, that they are running programs which are geared specifically to those who are gifted, to those who have the ability and certainly have been blessed with the ability to work faster and more quickly than the other students in their classes. My daughter has been able to participate in a class such as that, and, certainly, I am very appreciative of what the school has been able to do for them. So here we have the wide spectrum of those who are, in a sense, disabled or severely handicapped to those who are gifted, so I am sure that when the committee does its review, they will also take this into consideration.

Madam Speaker, the purpose of this special education review is to examine the application, the appropriateness, the effectiveness and the use of policies, programs, services and resources to achieve desired student outcomes such as graduation and successful transition to employment, post-secondary education or community living. This review is aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of school-based education and services and strengthening learning opportunities and outcomes. A system-wide review of special education as provided by school divisions and districts throughout the province is consistent with the need for increased responsiveness, effectiveness and accountability in the education system for the benefit of Manitoba students.

Special education has also been an important thrust and consideration in educational renewal. The renewal of the education system is critical for all Manitoba students, including those with special learning needs. For example, the development of provincial curricula with clearly defined outcomes and standards is important for all students. Education renewal clarifies such concepts as differentiated instruction and the use of the modified and the individualized course designations.

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One of the most important features of education renewal in Manitoba has been the emphasis placed on parental involvement. While important for all students, this is certainly essential for students with special learning needs. Now, through the establishment of the Advisory Council for School Leadership, this government has supported parents and community members in being informed, active participants in education programming.

In conclusion, since our government has continued in its commitment to meet the needs of Manitoba students and has ensured that there is a significant consultative component as part of this review, it is not necessary to support this resolution.

Mrs. Shirley Render (St. Vital): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to put a few words on the record. I have to admit that I was not listening to the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) when she was speaking, and I regret that, because many things that the member does say, I think she adds some very valuable points, so I hope I am not taking something out of context but, picking up from something our Minister of Education mentioned, I wondered whether perhaps the member had made reference to the fact that they were not public hearings.

Just a point that I would like to make, having been on a number of committees since I have been elected which have held public hearings, there is always good and bad in any kind of a review process, but one of the things that I noticed, certainly the very first committee I was on, and that was the Constitutional Task Force and then latterly the teacher compensation committee, is that regretfully sometimes there is a tendency to gamesplay. If this particular review process is done mainly in private, it may be done that way for a very good reason and, as I said, if any review is going to be worth its salt it has to make sure that the information that is coming to it is there for the good of the reason that review committee has been struck, not for political gamesmanship, not for trying to just put forward one particular point of view with no recognition that there are other points of view that need to be seen or heard. As I say, to me, sitting on the committee, it was very evident, I had not realized just how evident the gamesman playing was to other people. I had numerous, numerous people phone me up and were absolutely appalled by some of the things that have happened on some of the public presentation reviews.

So as I say, regretfully, human nature being what it is, I think we always have to try to make sure we do give a balanced, have a good way of ensuring that the information that is coming to us is coming to us for the good of getting the information, not necessarily trying to promote a particular group or a particular point of view.

Like the member for Wolseley and certainly like our Minister of Education, a special education review is long overdue. I think all of us recognize that.

I can think back to my days in high school. There was no such terminology as special needs. The children, the students in our school who either had physical or mental disabilities, they were in our school. We did see them, we did know that they were there. They were in different classrooms. The word "gifted" was not a word that was used in the '50s, but there were applications of different kinds of programs to try to take into consideration those students that did need some kind of extra effort to ensure their continuing interest in such things as accelerated programs. I cannot remember the name of the program that was instituted at the high school that I attended but, again, it was an intent to make sure that the students in Grade 10 or Grade 11 or Grade 12 were not bored out of their minds and drifted away from school.

So throughout the years, I think teachers, parents, students, certainly school division, the trustees, I think everyone has recognized that there has to be an approach that is taken to our special needs students, whether special needs means mentally or physically in need of extra kinds of things or the special needs which apply to your gifted students.

I know talking to some of our teachers in my riding of St. Vital, Al Friesen is one teacher that comes to mind, a teacher at Windsor School. Mr. Friesen works very hard to provide programming for his gifted students. Certainly, Glenlawn Collegiate provides programming for their special needs programs, and I have met with those teachers.

So, Madam Speaker, this government is very, very concerned about education in general. Education continues to be a key priority for this government, as shown in the throne speech, as shown in the budget. It has the second largest expenditure. Despite the reductions from the federal government, our government continues to provide funding for education that is only second to health. So the special education review, just going through the resolution here now as it is laid out by the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen)--and, again, I do apologize that I was not listening properly.

Again, like the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), I am not too sure why it is a negative that the special needs review committee is composed primarily of civil servants. I know last year for the teacher compensation review, we were criticized because there were two politicians on the committee. So, as I say, my understanding is this is a committee that is composed of people with expertise, people who are not liable to the same kind of political pressure, perhaps, that other people are. Certainly, some of the names are familiar to me. Dr. Jim Newton, I think is a very well-known name in this city. I think his expertise in this area is most valuable, so I am very pleased that people like Dr. Newton and the others who are on this committee agreed to do this.

There are going to be a lot of people looking very hard at this committee to see what they come up with because I think all of us have been waiting a long time for this to happen. The committee, I think, is going to be under a lot of pressure, but the Minister of Education, regretfully, ran out of time to sort of go into some of the details, what the committee is going to do, so perhaps I might just mention it.

Actually, one of the things that I do not think she mentioned, and I am just looking at the resolution again. The resolution reads: Whereas parents and teachers of special needs children need an opportunity to share their concerns about the ongoing cuts to special needs funding and the impact those cuts have had on their children's and students' education and future.

Madam Speaker, I think this is incorrect. My understanding is funding for special needs has doubled since we have come into power. If I am wrong, I stand to be corrected, but, again, I want to correct the record because I think when we put things on the record, we have to make sure that we have done our homework and that we are not putting on incorrect things.

I grant you, Madam Speaker, that it probably does not matter how much money we put into special needs or any education program. There can always be a need for more, but I think we have to be careful about saying that there have been cuts to special needs because, as I say, my understanding is there have not been any cuts to special needs.

As the member for Pembina (Mr. Dyck) mentioned, the purpose of this review--well, they are multifold really--is to identify ways of enhancing the quality and the cost-effectiveness of special education policies and programs in this province.

The review also has to look at the effectiveness and the efficiency of current provincial funding formulas in meeting the intent of provincial policy directions. We all know that policy can be saying one thing, but if funding is not in line, then it really does not matter what policy is saying. So there are a number of things that this review committee is going to have to take into consideration. There are numerous, numerous questions that this committee is going to be asking the people whom it is going to.

I mean, a very basic question is special education programs and service delivery models, what has been developed by the school districts and the divisions, and how do these programs and service delivery models respond to the needs--

Madam Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render) will have six minutes remaining.

The hour being 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning (Thursday).