Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Madam Speaker, The Livestock and Livestock Products and Consequential Amendments Act is a bill that was introduced to allow for changes to The Livestock and Livestock Products Act which was amended last session and is a result of changes to The Animal Care Act dealing with the proper treatment of animals. The bill deals with changes to the current act regarding aspects of identification, transportation, registration, production and processing of livestock.

One of the main issues that the bill is addressing is the issue of quality control of livestock and livestock products, and we are a major exporter of livestock products. In a changing world that we are facing these days, the standards that people are wanting in other countries are very high, and I do not blame them for wanting high-quality meat. They are paying a good price for it, and they want good quality. We have had incidents where there have been contaminated products getting into other countries, and I believe that in Japan a few years ago there was an incident where there was a needle in some meat, and that hurts our reputation as a country when we go to export.

Certainly, at the level we are farming these days, farmers use supplements and antibiotics when they are feeding their livestock, and it is important that, when they use these products for the safety of their animals and the health of their animals, the product be residue-free before it goes to market. In most cases, farmers do want to ensure that their product is safe, but there are incidents when it does happen that there could be residues in the meat, and this hurts our reputation as a trader.

So we have to work to bring our standards in line with international standards, and governments are working very hard to do this. We have the hazardous-analysis critical control point where we are looking at ensuring that all products are safely handled, and governments, as I understand it, are spending large amounts of money to ensure that safety standards are lived up to.

So what this legislation does is--

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): I hesitate, Madam Speaker, to interrupt the honourable member for Swan River, but I believe earlier I asked you to call Bills 31 and others--but 31, 54, 27, 29. I would like to add No. 19 to that list.

Ms. Wowchuk: So part of this legislation deals with the application of identification to animals. There is new technology with respect to identifying animals, and this legislation will bring that in line so that we can take advantage, so producers can take advantage, and one of the things that--want to be done is the modern technology will allow for the placement of quality control products, and the animal can be traced back to its point of origin should there be problems with some of the quality in the product. This is something that is happening in other provinces, and this legislation will be similar to what other provinces are bringing in place so that we have standards across the province and equal treatment and a better ability to trace and keep track of animals that are being shipped to market.

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The other area of this bill that is being addressed is to deal with inspections. I understand that, in discussions with Manitoba cattle producers in previous years, they were very much insisting, wanting to see inspectors at auction mart sites to be able to track what was going on and be able to investigate where whose animals were being sold. That has not been in place in Manitoba. Other provinces do have these inspectors in place. In Saskatchewan, they are done by the Saskatchewan government.

From what I can tell from this legislation, there is the ability for these inspectors to be set up in Manitoba, but it will not be by the government. There will be the ability for the private sector to be doing the inspection. I have to say that in that sense I would hope that the government would play a role in these inspections and ensure that there is a role for government to play in these types of things. I am not quite sure why the government continues to pull back. There are things--[interjection]

Mr. McCrae: I know that my honourable colleague the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) will find my behaviour quite outrageous this afternoon. [interjection] See, that is what I mean. I know how he feels about this, so I will therefore be very brief out of respect for my colleague and the honourable member for Swan River.

Madam Speaker, will you add Bill 21 to the list of bills to be called this afternoon? Thank you.

Mr. George Hickes (Point Douglas): I move, seconded by the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Economic Development be amended as follows: St. Johns (Mr. Mackintosh) for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans); Elmwood (Mr. Maloway) for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk); Wellington (Ms. Barrett) for Transcona (Mr. Reid); Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson), for Friday, June 13, 1997, for 10 a.m.

Motion agreed to.

Madam Speaker: I just want to reassure the honourable member for Swan River that I will add the time that these interruptions are taking to her speaking time.

Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): I have one committee change. I move, seconded by the member for Turtle Mountain (Mr. Tweed), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Law Amendments for Thursday, 7 p.m., June 12, be amended as follows: the member for Brandon West (Mr. McCrae) for the member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render).

Motion agreed to.

Ms. Wowchuk: Madam Speaker, the legislation also allows for the ability to have inspectors at auction marts. That was, as I said, an issue that was raised by Manitoba cattle producers a few ago. That does not seem to be as big a concern for them right now, and they are looking to have standards brought in across the province. When I talked to them, they were not quite as concerned about this section.

There is also a section that deals with people who lose their licence, who will now have the ability to appeal; an appeal board will be put in place. But basically some of the highlights are an appeal board setting up licensing disputes, a new designation of inspectors which are deemed as analysts or auditors, but their duties are not clearly defined. There will also be an increase in penalties for infractions, and the minister can set up a registry for animals which are being monitored by outside interests, likely producer organizations rather than by government, which currently operates one.

The end result of this legislation, Madam Speaker, is that there will be more producer and industry responsibility to ensure proper practices and the treatment of livestock are carried out and less government involvement.

I have to say that these are moves that are being carried out across the country, looking for better standards and better tracing of healthy animals, and those are good recommendations. Animals can be traced now from farm gate to the processor on the line, and the quality of the animals and the presence of residues or antibiotics can be known from their place of origin and this can only enhance the quality and accountability.

So, Madam Speaker, we are prepared to send this bill to committee and hear what presenters have to say. The only concern we have is, again, in this bill, it appears that the government is pulling away from its responsibility just as the federal government has pulled away in many cases of inspection. They are turning it over to the private sector. I want to say to the minister that there is a role for government to play to ensure that we have standards, and we will look for further discussion at committee to ensure that all of this will enhance our quality, but there also still will be government controls to ensure that the standards that are very important to the livestock industry and to the export industry and to the health of Canadians as well will be met.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): I too would just like to say a few words with respect to Bill 31. There are 24,383 farms in Manitoba, encompassing 7.73 million acres of Manitoba farmland. The scope of this legislation involves much of what takes place on these Manitoba farms. I am particularly pleased to see that this bill gives inspectors more power to enter and inspect livestock operations that might be in violation of The Livestock Act. The move toward allowing greater diversity in livestock identification, considering that technology has made tremendous leaps in the area, will also be of increasing importance.

This bill also deals with the ownership of livestock. This might seem unimportant to those who live in the city, but Manitoba has 1.35 million cattle and calves, not to mention the 1.77 million hogs. Knowing who these cattle and pigs belong to is of tremendous importance. It should be noted that all of the western provinces and Ontario have already introduced similar legislation. Many of the amendments in this act simply harmonize regulations with similar legislation being passed across Canada.

Our discussions with farmers have indicated support for the amendments. They are generally pleased to see the new developments in technology advance quite quickly in their industry. They are the ones who are driving our gains in agriculture. When it comes to spending money on capital improvements like new identification systems, Manitoba farmers are among the leaders in Canada. They spend about $49,000 a year on improvements to their farming operations as an average, from what I understand.

This legislation is really just an attempt to keep up with them. I am pleased that these amendments have been brought forward. The Liberal caucus is happy to agree with the agriculture producers of Manitoba.

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I had come across an interesting article, Madam Speaker, that was in the Free Press. It illustrated some of the sizes of farms and how we have seen a decrease in the province of Manitoba. Just to quote from that Free Press article, I guess it would have been in May of this year, where it says that Manitoba's farm count alone dropped by more than 1,300 between '91 and '96 to just more than 24,000. You know, there are a lot of Manitobans that are out there that want to do what they can in terms of preserving a way of life, and that being the smaller farms in trying to allow for individuals to continue on the farm. I just thought it was somewhat of an interesting point that we should be aware of. Wherever we might be able to take actions that would facilitate, especially the small producers, I think that we should take steps towards it. Thank you.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading Bill 31, The Livestock and Livestock Products and Consequential Amendments Act. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

Madam Speaker: To resume second reading debate on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), Bill 54, The Animal Husbandry Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi modifiant le Loi sur l'élevage et modifications corrélatives), standing in the name of the--[interjection]

Order, please. I believe the honourable member for Point Douglas would like to have committee changes.

Mr. George Hickes (Point Douglas): I move, seconded by the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Agriculture be amended as follows: Flin Flon (Mr. Jennissen) for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) for Monday, June 16, 1997, for 7:30 p.m.

Motion agreed to.

Madam Speaker: To resume debate on second reading Bill 54, standing in the name of the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton). Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?

An Honourable Member: No.

Madam Speaker: No, leave has been denied.

Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Madam Speaker, The Animal Husbandry Act, Bill 54, is a very short bill and I am not going to take very much time to speak on it. The bill is repealing a few sections that are now being covered off under other bills. For example, the regulations of branding and identification of animals now falls under The Livestock and Livestock Products Act that we just talked about, and the transportation of livestock is carried under The Animal Care Act, and another section of the bill, Parts V to VII, are repealed because they are now redundant because the government has discontinued to provide those services.

At one time, the government played an important role in building up the livestock herds in this province. The government was involved in an artificial insemination program. The government was involved in the breeding program that provided breeding stock to enable farmers to build up their herds. It was a very good program, and it helped to diversify and build up the quality of animals that are throughout rural Manitoba right now, but the government has decided that this program was no longer necessary. Although we do not agree with them, we think that there still was a role for government to play in providing these services to both the beef and the dairy industry. The government chose not to provide them. So this legislation is now redundant, so it is being removed.

When we look back at what happened to the dairy industry and to the beef industry in Manitoba and the improvement of the genetic pool of livestock, because of these programs, we have to recognize the importance of them and what they have done to build up Manitoba's beef and dairy herds and build up Manitoba's reputation. We still have a long way to go. In particular, when we look at what is happening here in Manitoba, again, I will refer to the changes that we have seen to the Crow and the increased costs of shipping grain, we are going to have to diversify more and more. It is very expensive to get started in the cattle industry.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), a cattle producer himself, knows that this is an expensive venture to get started in. I think the program that we had in place to help producers improve their stocks and the genetic lines of their animals was very helpful and would be very helpful for the producers today. There could be a role for government to play with other livestock besides cattle to help to diversify, but as I say, the government has chosen to withdraw that service so the legislation is quite redundant.

My understanding is there will be further legislation that will be brought in, not this session but very soon, probably in the next session, that will eliminate even further--make this act even more redundant and will probably be completely removed from the books. So, as I say, this is a bill that is dealing with removing sections of The Animal Husbandry Act that are no longer valid. We recognize that this has to be done.

The other issue deals with animal injuries and transportation. Again, that section is being repealed because it is being covered under another act. With those two comments, we are prepared to let this bill go to committee.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading, Bill 54, The Animal Husbandry Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?

Some Honourable Members: Yes.

Madam Speaker: Agreed. Agreed and so ordered.

Ms. Wowchuk: Madam Speaker, a point of order or a point of a clarification, I just want to check back. This morning we were dealing also with Bill 30. We were also prepared to pass that bill to committee. I think we were stopped by the clock and never got to it and that would be under the--

Madam Speaker: Just for clarification for the member for Swan River, Bill 30, we had leave to sit about another five minutes this morning, so that the honourable member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) could put his comments on record. Bill 30 has indeed been passed to committee. Okay.

Madam Speaker: To resume second reading debate on Bill 27, on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Education and Training (Mrs. McIntosh), The Public Schools Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les écoles publiques), in the name of the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton). Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?

An Honourable Member: Yes.

Madam Speaker: Leave. Leave has been granted.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak for a few minutes on Bill 27, The Public Schools Amendment Act. This is a bill which has a number of unrelated changes that are being proposed in one act, one set of amendments rather. It does underline the necessity for the full redrafting and full reconsideration of The Public Schools Act.

It needs to be maintained in modern language. I think there is much of it that does need a plain language version, although many of the amendments certainly are being written in as clear a manner as possible. I do know at election time, certainly there has been discussion of the wholesale amendment of The Public Schools Act. I believe all parties have expressed themselves on this.

I also believe that there is a necessity for a guide to the act. I know that some jurisdictions, not in Canada, but some jurisdictions do compile these, and they are very useful in some parts of the world. A guide to the act, particularly for parents who are becoming increasingly interested and concerned about the actual legal basis of some of the provisions or in many cases, as it is today, the absence of provisions for public schools.

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I think, also, as we see Freedom of Information laws applied to school divisions and to private schools as well perhaps, that the requirement for a guide to the act, a public guide to the act that will enable people to understand the legal bases of the provisions of Manitoba's public schools, I think, would be very helpful. I offer this to the government as a constructive idea, one that might be a very useful endeavour, but it really should, of course, come accompanying, I think, the revising of The Public Schools Act generally.

So what we have here is a series of changes proposed for public schools in Manitoba, and they cover a wide range of areas. We are going to discuss them each in turn and to indicate some of our ideas and some of our reflections upon each of these, and I know that a number of my other colleagues also have concerns that they want to express.

The first part of Bill 27 aims to vary the term of public school trustees on application to the minister. It argues, and the minister argues, that this will give more flexibility to municipal governments, sorry, to local governments; that it will enable trustees' terms perhaps to be adjusted so that they are aligned with municipal elections and that may be useful in ensuring that there is a wider electorate interested and active in school affairs. I think, if that is the case, that is a useful purpose because certainly there have been some school divisions where the turnout has been very low for school division elections. I believe there are many positions on school divisions, certainly in one or two divisions that continue to be by acclamation rather than by election; and, while this may indicate satisfaction with the existing trustees, it may also indicate difficulties in local democracy, the fact that there is not the kind of active participation perhaps that we would want to see in local divisions.

So, if there is as a result of this, an increase in activity of the electorate in school divisions and local elections, increasing numbers of people willing to run for school divisions to take on the tremendous responsibilities, in fact, that are offered to them, I think that would be a good thing. I think it also gives the opportunity for the kind of flexibility that might be required if school divisions are to begin a process of voluntary amalgamation. Now it could have been in place several years ago. The government might have thought of doing this before it went into its fiasco of the Boundaries Commission, but it did not. Now it is offering this kind of flexibility. It seems to me perhaps backward, a government which had some concern about local democracy and which might have approached school divisions for ways in which voluntary amalgamation could have been considered, might have come up with this particular aspect.

There are some concerns that it might be too flexible. Some people have expressed to me the possibility that it might be used too loosely by school divisions or school trustees. My own sense is that this is not likely to be the case. It is to enable transition to take place, and it probably would be used quite infrequently. But I do think it would have been a useful piece to have had in place before the boundary commission went ahead and spent a million dollars and created the kinds of very, very difficult situations in many local areas where meetings were held of the boundary commission. It is one of the missing pieces, I think, that could have helped, and the government as usual, when it looked at the boundary commission, wanted to go in with its great centralizing mission, wanted to go in with a big stick, never thought of the carrot first, and essentially created a great upset, particularly in rural Manitoba. And it tried to brazen it out for a while. There is no doubt about that. It tried round two of hearings and round two of a report, a report which, I think, did not express the letters and the opinions that it had received from rural Manitoba.

I went to the trouble of reading all the material that was sent in from school divisions as their response to the first boundary commission report, and I read the report which combined those, and it seemed to me that the two did not match. There was a great deal that was left out of the second report, and so no wonder people responded badly to that. They responded in a sense that said no, you have not heard what we have said. At the end of it, a million dollars had been spent, no amalgamations had taken place, the resistance of people to amalgamation was more deeply entrenched than it need have been.

The government, of course, lost a piece of one of Mr. Manness's, the former Education minister, one of his major thrusts in education because, of course, as we look at education today, what we see is from the government's perspective, there is one piece of their overall policy which is missing, and that was the major upheaval of boundary amalgamation, of the changes in numerous contracts across the province as well as changes in elections, changes in jurisdictions. All of that was part of Manness's master plan, and it was a master plan. It was a long-term strategy, well, actually I should say a short-term strategy, really, a short-term strategy for the transformation of education in Manitoba.

Those people who now look at the changes, the rapid change in curriculum, the rapid changes in jurisdiction such as brought about by school choice, the intense difficulties that are being felt by school divisions as a result of the continuous reduction of funding to schools and, of course, the anxieties and the disputes that are being aroused by the standards assessment tests at all levels from Grades 3 to 12, when people look at those and say, look, there is too much change here, there is too much that is happening too quickly over which we have control, they should look back at that master plan of Manness and understand that the one piece that is missing here is, of course, the boundary change.

What Manness had intended was that all of that should happen together. What he was really doing was following the instructions of Roger Douglas, a man whom this government delights in bringing in and taking him to various meetings to give his speech. It is a speech which has been heard and understood by Klein and certainly by Harris, in Alberta and Ontario, and it was one which Manness took to heart as well. What he wanted to do in education in Manitoba was to destabilize, just as Roger Douglas did in the economic system in New Zealand: "Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast." But that is certainly the route that he wanted to take, so that bringing about rapid change, centrally directed over funding and over jurisdictions is certainly part of his important plan.

The minister herself wants to take some credit for slowing this down. She spoke at length in Estimates about this, that they had heard, they had listened to the field. The field had said, slow things down. That is certainly true; they were saying that. Teachers, parents, students, and trustees were having to cope with enormous change with continually reduced resources. It was change which they had not initiated, change which, for the most part, they had not consented to and yet, nevertheless, it is at the field level that they had to deal with it. They did say over and over again for a number of years, we repeated it in Question Period, we repeated it here in Estimates, and finally the minister acknowledged that indeed she had heard that the field wanted her to slow down.

The minister wants some credit for that slowing down--glad to give her that credit. She listened and after several years she did slow it down. She did in fact take the advice that we had offered so often on this side of the House, that you cannot expect the continued co-operation and enthusiasm of teachers, parents, and trustees in the classrooms of Manitoba if you are continually imposing upon them the kinds of rapid change that you have done for the past few years and at the same time reduce their resources and their ability to deal with it.

So the minister, I think, should have the credit that she wants and that she deserves, but she must also expect the debt that goes along with that. The debt, I think, that is owed in rural Manitoba, in particular, is a dismay at a government which chose that centralized route and the distrust of a centralized government's edicts in education. I think there is a long-term debt or long-term difficulties that the government is going to face outside of Winnipeg and perhaps in Winnipeg as well with the implications of the kind of rapid change that they tried to bring to education in Manitoba.

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Each, on their own, of the changes that they had decided to bring may well have merited consideration. They may well have merited discussion with trustees and with teachers across the province, but this government is an authoritarian government, I believe, at heart and in principle, and it is certainly in principle a government which centralizes while speaking in press releases and in bureaucratic language of decentralization. One of the principles, I think, one should always have in looking at both the actions and the words of this government is always look behind the lines and between the lines, because what the government says is not always, in fact, very infrequently what the government means to do.

Bill 27 then offers the option of some flexibility to trustees. I think trustees are pleased with this and will use it in probably very careful ways. Secondly, the bill creates an amendment to allow the South Winnipeg Technical Centre to have a superintendent or rather to designate as a principal. This makes it not unique amongst institutions, but it adds South Winnipeg Tech to a list of institutions which are specifically named in The Public Schools Act. It, I think, is something which has some difficulties attached to it. Certainly, there will be concerns expressed, I believe, by the Manitoba Teachers' Society because it is part of a context whereby the government is increasingly becoming much more directive, a much more centralized approach to the role of principal and here I think there are some difficulties from the perspective of the Teachers' Society on what is being added here to a very small list.

On the other hand, it is also possible, a mitigating factor, I think, that South Winnipeg Technical institution is named specifically. This is not an open-ended regulation allowing the minister--as happens in some other acts--to name specific schools where this anomaly could take place. Nor does it leave it to regulation, as is the common practice of this government and, indeed, it is one of the standard practices of governments which are authoritarian and which are centralizers is that they do continue to transform legislation into regulations; that is, they take the power out of the hands of the people in the Legislature and they put it into the hands of regulators, essentially of the cabinet, where every Wednesday morning the regulations could be changed and for a long time no one would be any the wiser. Yet substantial shifts have taken place. So I am glad to see that the minister has not done that. I think that is a mitigating factor. I am glad to see that this particular bill does not follow that unfortunate tendency.

The third element that this bill looks at is the removal of the special levy, and members who have been in this House some--removal, I should say, of the cap on the special levy that was introduced by Mr. Manness some years ago. If you will remember, this was a bill which was very heatedly debated in this House. Those members who were here at the time will, perhaps, remember it. It was, again, I believe part of the destabilizing purpose, intent, of Manness's various bills. It was an attempt to limit the power of local divisions to raise money for education. In itself, I think this poses difficulties for democracy.

I remember myself arguing very strongly against it at the time because if you have local bodies, if you have city councils, rural councils, if you have school divisions who are empowered, delegated the authority to raise certain taxes, it seems to me that that is their job, that is what they should do and they should be accountable for that. What Manness did was to limit the ability of school divisions to do that, to essentially say from the central government that we are going to put a limit upon the amount that you can raise. It seemed to me a conflict between two levels of government, one which did not bode well for a healthy local government, which I think we all want to see.

So now in removing it, one would think that there would be universal rejoicing. But what has happened in the meantime, I think, has a significant impact on how we should regard the removal of this cap. It is, as it is inserted into this bill, a double-edged sword because what has happened in the interim is that the government has gone a long way on its path to creating a free market in education. What it has done is, first of all, to establish choice in schools. Frankly, I do not think it is going to work in the same way that the government anticipates it, but this is their purpose, is to establish choice and consequently competition for a student population across school boundaries. When you then reinstate, under those conditions, the ability of school divisions now to tax as they can see fit or as their local taxation base enables them, you then have a growing inability to distribute education equally across Manitoba. When Manness introduced the cap, we did not have school choice; we did not have all of the other elements of marketization of education that the government has since introduced.

We have a second area that, I think, bears on this, and this is the enormous increases to private schools that have taken place since Manness introduced these caps. It is another aspect of creating a free market in education, and at the same time what the government has done is to consistently and deliberately reduce the monies available to public schools. So what they have done is to use the power of the central government to create what they would believe is a "level playing field" between public and private schools, and they have also used the power of the central government to create a competitive system between school divisions. Now what they are doing is removing the cap on the ability of divisions to tax, and, of course, those school divisions which have greater ability will, in the competitive situation which they were not in before, have a much greater ability to attract students, to have a wider range of facilities. Of course, this is on top of all those government grants that go into south Winnipeg schools and into rural Manitoba schools, all those $40,000 grants for technology, all the grants from Sustainable Development for renovations to curriculum, or from Community Places. There are many ways which the government has found, I think, to fund schools in a rather specialized way.

So we do have, I think, market principles beginning to apply, at least insofar as the government is able to make them, to education. We believe on this side of the House that that is fundamentally wrong. Just as the government is trying to create a market system in health care, it is trying to do the same thing in education. We believe that, whereas the market can distribute some consumer goods efficiently, it does not deliver the public goods of health and education in a fair and equitable manner. That is what the government is trying to do, and it is trying to do it rather quickly in Manitoba. It also seems unable to speak about it in abstract terms, but that is exactly what it is doing because the government essentially believes that the free market will distribute efficiently. But it will not distribute fairly, and that, to me, is the higher principle in terms of the distribution of public goods.

So we have seen, over the last number of years, cuts of minus 2, minus 2, zero, minus 2 again, zero to public schools. We have seen that at the same time as the cost of instructional materials has been rising, and so school divisions have been placed in a terrible vise, a vise grip of declining ability to meet the needs of students. You do not have to go very far outside this building to find teachers and parents, trustees and students who will give you example after example of that. Indeed, we had hearings last year in the Legislature, hearings on Bill 72 and on other education bills where the public came out in large numbers to speak to us about the impact of education cuts on their school divisions.

Madam Speaker, I thought that many of those hearings, and they often went late into the night, were very instructive. I very much value the way in which the public comes to speak on those bills, often comes at very short notice, comes with a great deal of expertise, waits in turn for many hours sometimes to speak, sometimes has to go home again and then come back again, sometimes after midnight.

So those public hearings told us time after time of the inability of schools, particularly in French immersion schools, to find textbooks. We heard of College Jean Beliveau where their--no, it is not Jean Beliveau, it is College Beliveau. Mixing my metaphors, Madam Speaker, College Beliveau--perhaps it was College Jeanne Sauve too. It was one of the French immersion high schools which had serious difficulties in geography text and in maps. I believe that it was using wall maps from the 1960s where of course the world looked very different, particularly in Africa and Asia, than it does today, and some very striking examples that were given of classes of over 50 I believe in one of the Interlake school divisions, of adult classes that were becoming increasingly difficult to maintain through the lack of funding, example after example of the difficulties being faced in the public school system, difficulties that were intensifying as a result of the increasing cuts to public schools and an enormous resentment of the way in which the government has, by decree, changed the allocation of funding to private schools.

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So what we find is public schools which are charging what might be called user fees, sometimes of $20, sometimes much more, $200 and $300. As we look at the shift in transportation policy over the last few years, we are also going to see user fees of even higher amounts being charged to families who have been long in immersion programs and whose children must not only take transport but must stay over lunch at school. Those families, some of whom I have talked to, are simply not going to be able to afford to continue their children in the educational programs that they have chosen. These same parents know very clearly that private schools have had their funds increased, sometimes by 10 percent, sometimes by 13 percent, sometimes by 12 percent, in ways in which the government would rather not talk about, ways in which they do not publicize, ways in which they choose to hide.

It is very odd that a government which wants to stand and live and die by the principles of the free market is simply afraid to talk to Manitobans about the changing allocation of public goods for education and the increasing transformation of Manitoba schools into a market system and one whereby those who have will be able to purchase, those who have not will simply fall by the wayside.

We heard that kind of discussion and that kind of I think very genuine and understandable resentment from many of the people who came to speak to the public hearings, many of whom might support the existence of public schools but who saw an intense unfairness and a deeply felt unfairness at the increases, the vast increases to private schools, at the very same time that the public schools were being decreased, and that is where the government I think has lost the confidence and lost the trust of many Manitobans. It is that intense sense of fair play which I think exists throughout all parts of Manitoba that led to those kinds of assumptions.

I was disappointed that the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) did not have the same sense of--I am looking for the word, Madam Speaker--concern about the kinds of discussion which can be brought forward in public meetings. The other day in discussion with the minister over the special needs review and my concern that there not be public meetings there, the minister said that she really did not want--and I am quoting from Hansard on June 4. The minister said, "I do not want this review" this special needs review "to degenerate into what some of the other public reviews have degenerated into where the opposition member gets choices . . . and the typical NDP rents a crowd and brings them out to repeat endlessly the same presentation 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 . . . " It "is too important to me . . . to play politics with it."

That is what the Minister of Education thinks about public meetings. That is what the Minister of Education thinks about hearings on bills. That is the Minister of Education's view of all of those hundreds of teachers and trustees and parents and in some cases students who came to speak to her last year or any other time about the impact of government policy upon their lives. It is simply what she says, it is a degeneration into something that the opposition has to say.

That is quite a damning comment, I would say, upon the role of democracy and the role of the public in public affairs and, particularly, the role of the public in education, because education is something on which all Manitobans have an opinion. Whether they have children in school, whether they are grandparents or whether they have no children at all, it is something which everyone wants to express themselves on. Well, I think they should be very careful in expressing their opinion to the Minister of Education. It does not appear to be from those comments something which is accepted in the way in which members of the public might intend. The minister regards anything that is critical as simply not part of a normal public discussion.

Madam Speaker, the proposal to remove the special levy then, I think, is a double-edged sword. It has some elements that are welcome and some, given the changed conditions of Manitoba education, I think it may indeed lead to increased inequalities in the funding of public schools across the province.

A further element of this bill enables school divisions to dispose of buses. Now, this is an innocuous sentence in itself. I read with a smile of the way in which the minister introduced this as introducing greater flexibility into school divisions' options about transport and buses, and indeed it does. This is why you always have to be careful with this government's press releases. The words belie the intent. Read between the lies. Never believe anything a government press release says. Always find the evidence. Always look behind it and, particularly, when the government gets off onto its little rants about progress and change, or as the Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) did the other day, we are moving forward, he said. It was sort of an appeal to a language of the future which belies the kind of regressive and really destructive aspects of government policy.

Buses, certainly, the school divisions, now that they are--as a result of other government policies--required to take on the purchase and the management of buses, are certainly going to look at this ability to dispose of buses in a different way than the minister does. They will look at it, as they certainly have at changed government policy, as another attempt to offload costs on to school divisions, to cut costs for the provincial government so that it can show what it believes to be a healthy balance sheet, while at the local level, whether it is municipal governments, school divisions or other elements of local government, the increasing difficulties of keeping together the kind of public infrastructure that generations of Manitobans had built, that becomes increasingly difficult. The government appears to want to turn a blind eye to that, certainly to turn its deaf ear and to continue with the kind of pompous and self-inflated language of change in the future that it continues with day after day in Question Period.

The issue of the offloading of buses, although it is not specifically in this bill, it is made reference to by the ability to dispose of buses as the school division sees fit. I do not want to get into the details of what has happened in recent days over the death of a child as a result of some considerations about the safety of school buses--certainly something the coroner will be dealing with. There will be a lengthy report, but I think the government has to rethink this. The government has to look very, very seriously about the kinds of regulations it has in place. It has to look very carefully at the inspections that are required. I think it should be a warning to the government in all of this offloading on to local authorities.

Local authorities are essentially taking the burden from this government of maintaining a public infrastructure which is vital to all Manitobans, and this should be a warning sign to them and one that they should take very, very seriously.

Madam Speaker, this bill also removes a number of definitions from The Public Schools Act. I look forward to discussing this with the minister in committee. It removes, for example, the definition of what is a full-time equivalent student. We have looked elsewhere in legislation in this and The Education Administration Act and looked for other definitions of that and have been unable to find anything which defines it so precisely as this particular section. That does give cause for some concern because, of course, it is one of the bases, not the only base, but one of the bases for the funding of education. It is something, I think, which needs to be explored with the minister so that at least we have some legislative reflection on what the implications of that will be.

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Finally, Madam Speaker, and most importantly for this bill, is that it aims, as the minister said, to clarify the language over the ages during which a child has the right to attend school. Yes, it is true, the bill actually is much clearer. It uses specific months and dates, and it makes something which has been applied in different manners in different school divisions much more systematic. But, again, always read between the lines, always ask the minister for evidence. Never believe a government press release. It certainly does clarify, but it also has the potential to diminish the rights of students to attend school in the manner in which they do now. This is, I think, where our most serious concern is.

The bill argues that students will have the right to attend school from the age of six to the age of 21, or a diploma is achieved, whichever comes sooner. That is the crucial phrase, "whichever comes sooner," because what has been possible in the past for school divisions is some flexibility, particularly at those ages between, say, 17 and 21, when students may well have achieved a version of a diploma but may want to come back. They may then take a few months in the job market and find that the qualifications that they had or the direction they had taken in high school was not the one that they wanted. It was not the one that was going to benefit them. They may find other skills which they then want to develop. So they have in places, for example, we could name R.B. Russell, we might name the high schools in Transcona--I would imagine the high school in Sturgeon Creek very much has a population like this of students who are going back to achieve different qualifications or additional qualifications often up to four or five or more credits. There has been a great deal of flexibility for school divisions in this.

The second group who may be affected--and, of course, the consequences of this bill are that that may not be able to continue. The minister now is going to define, as according to this bill, the regulations for a diploma. Given the context of this government where education is being reduced to a basic minimum, core subjects--this is their essential goal in education--the government may indeed--we cannot tell from this bill, and I do not trust this government--define a basic minimum of diploma beyond which students may not return to high school unless fees are paid. Again, coming back to the market system.

So, Madam Speaker, this act has the potential to diminish the possibility of continued learning, and that, I think, again, should remind honourable members, always start with a position of disbelief on government speeches. The throne speech, I think, not just this one but earlier ones, has talked endlessly about the importance of lifelong learning, and yet here we have a bill which opens the door to the reduction, to the diminution of lifelong learning.

I think this bill may also have some consequences for special needs students. Special needs students, particularly the older ones, have benefited, have been able to return to school or to be maintained in schools by the public school trustees certainly until the age of 21 or, as it used to be, the age of majority plus three years. It has been very flexibly interpreted by many school divisions. It is possible that now this option is going to be closed off, and, of course, this comes at a time when the government is also reducing the options for special needs students elsewhere. We know that there are continuing concerns about the St. Amant Centre and its future as an educational institution. We know that the government has a special needs review in place which may also be altering the conditions of education for special needs.

Anyone who talks to the family of a special needs student knows that one of the most serious problems that they face is when the child has to leave school, because there are so few options for young adults after that. So any diminution of those options for young adults with special needs should concern us and does concern us as a result of this bill.

This particular section also contradicts the advice that the minister received from her Advisory Committee on Education Finance. I have quoted from this document a number of times, because it really does not in many ways seem to have penetrated the government's policy-making secretariat or that in the Department of Education, because in many areas, for example, in the funding of private schools, the government goes in a diametrically opposed direction to the advice it receives from this committee. This committee is composed of all the significant, the major stakeholders as they are called, in public education.

The committee advised on adults in public schools that it supports the provision of funding and the payment of residual fees in support of K to Senior 4 education up to a maximum of a diploma plus four credits. The four credits could be any mix of vocational and academic courses. That is straightforward advise. I think it is also very sensible advice. It keeps the flexibility that school divisions have had. It keeps some element, the beginnings element, perhaps, of lifelong learning. I would not want to claim, by any means, that that is any definition of lifelong learning, but at least it is a start, but instead of which the government moves in exactly the opposite direction.

It is going to enable the minister to define the diploma. There is no guarantee in this act. The minister may want to clarify that at committee there is no guarantee in this act that advice is going to be followed. That is very, I would suppose for members of the committee, very disappointing, but it is also I think an indication of the priorities of this government that education is being directed by the bottom line. It is being directed by an ideology of the marketization, the free-market economy in education, and it is being directed to a policy which will lead to increasing inequality across Manitoba.

I have some very, very serious concerns about aspects of this bill. Some of it I think will be useful, but I know that many of my colleagues want to speak on this, and so we will take some more time to discuss this bill.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, I, too, was wanting to put some comments on the record with respect to Bill 27 this afternoon. It is an interesting bill, to say the very least. I am somewhat disappointed in it in the sense that I think what we could have seen, or what we should be seeing from this government, is a more serious approach of trying to deal with the whole issue of governance within our public educational system.

The first part of the bill talks about the schools trustees and how long they should be serving, one year, two years, three years, and so forth. I can recall, and this would be going back somewhere around 1988, when the government talked about the need to review the numbers of school divisions, the numbers of school trustees. In fact, it was even an election issue for us back then. It was not until, I believe, the 1990 election where the government indicated that, yes, they were committed, actually doing something with this particular issue.

Shortly after that election, I can recall questioning the government in terms of: When can we anticipate that the government was going to take this issue off of the back burner and put it onto the front burner? It took them a while until they finally realized that the status quo was not good enough, and what they did was they commissioned the former mayor, Bill Norrie, along with other individuals, to sit around a table, canvass Manitobans, and come up with some recommendations in terms of what it is that they should be doing with the school divisions.

A great deal of effort, resources, in particular, dollars, and add to that just the sheer number of people--and we are not just talking provincial dollars, because I attended some of those meetings that went to the public. The presentations were very extensive and, you could tell, well thought out in the sense that we had documents that had all sorts of statistical information. One that comes to mind right offhand was Winnipeg School Division No. 1, to some of the smaller school divisions in rural Manitoba that put a lot of effort into trying to put forward presentations. We saw not only from school divisions; we also had from teachers. We had from the Manitoba Teachers' Society. I can recall its presentation. A great deal of thought and effort went into that. We had average Manitobans come before--Manitobans that were just concerned about the way in which we were administering the public education through the school divisions.

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There was a phenomenal amount of effort that was put into a cause, and that cause being trying to better define the way in which we should be delivering public education. When they came out with the recommendations, they were fairly significant. We saw a sizable reduction in the number of school divisions; a number of the inequities that are there today were, in fact, taken out, at least in part--not in entirety, but at least in part--to try to have more equity throughout the province. And the government took absolutely no action. Nothing was done after that particular report. In fact, worse, the government says, well, we do not want to suffer any sort of a political wrath that might be out there. We are not prepared to lose any votes over this particular issue. They did not think about what was necessarily in the best interests of Manitobans in the governance of education. Instead, they took the cowardly act of not taking any sort of action, of trying to resolve a problem that has been there and has been there for years, Madam Speaker. I find that is unfortunate.

I have spoken to private members' resolutions dealing with this issue in the past. We have pointed out some of the inequities that are there. Even if you look at the city of Winnipeg, and I made presentation myself representing the party when the commission was going out seeking public input, I said, look at the city of Winnipeg. How do you justify a school division the size of Winnipeg No. 1 compared to a school division the size of Norwood? How do we allocate resources in terms of fairness for those with special needs? Compare a school division like Winnipeg No. 1 in its requirements compared to a school division such as St. James. Look at the tax base. Look at the disproportional amount of dollars that people who have to pay property tax in Winnipeg School Division No. 1 and compare it to other areas.

(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)

Mr. Acting Speaker, I would have liked to have seen, in fact, the commission even go further. There are other injustices that need to be resolved in education today, in the financing of education, and I have raised this particular issue in Question Period. The Minister of Education is too easy or passes the blame on to the federal cuts from transfer payments. She does not understand who has the responsibility here for K to S4, or K to Grade 12. What we have seen is that growing reliance of financing education on the property tax over general revenues, and this government, as the government prior, in fairness, has done absolutely nothing to address that issue. Quite frankly, I find that is one of the biggest mistakes that this government has accomplished. If the government wanted to do something for public education, it needs to look at how we govern it because the current status quo system, I believe, is not right, and the government should not just be sitting back accepting virtually nothing in terms of the change in the way in which the school divisions operate today. We have resistance from even within our own party in terms of the numbers of school divisions, the numbers of school trustees, and what it is that they should be doing. Yet, we are prepared to take a position on this, the issue of the funding of public education, the lack of appropriate funds going to public education from this government--a huge disappointment.

So when I look at the first part of this bill, you know, I say here is a minister who is tinkering around with one aspect and not dealing with the broader issue, and that broader issue needs to be addressed. I really believe, had this government not been successful in acquiring the majorities after the '88 election, that in fact this government would have been forced to take some sort of action. It would never have been able to get away with the mistreatment of our public educational system today--and the Minister of Education and Training (Mrs. McIntosh) gives a big sigh--

An Honourable Member: Yawn.

Mr. Lamoureux: Or yawn. The Minister of Education needs to wake up and see and hear what she is being told, and it is not good enough just to try to pass the blame. You cannot blame, if there is anyone to blame, Madam Minister, with respect, with all due respect, with respect to the financing of education, the abuse or the lack of action in dealing with the governance issue, it is this minister and this government over the last nine and a half, coming close to nine and a half years, on taking no action. No doubt I will get other opportunities, because it is an issue in which that no doubt I will get future opportunities.

It was unfortunate in the sense that I would have liked to have had more of a presence in one department, or a presence in one department, but because of other departments being debated in the Estimates, I was unable to actually pose any questions to the minister in this educational Estimates, series of educational Estimates, but I look forward to being able to not only next year but even in the interim to attempt to try to influence this Minister of Education to be more assertive in her cabinet as she attempts to be assertive inside the Estimates. I did get a chance to listen at least in part and watch this minister and the critic from the New Democrats. As I say, I did not participate, unfortunately, but I am sure I will get many other opportunities.

Having said that, I will say she is somewhat aggressive in her thoughts. What she needs to do, Mr. Acting Speaker, is to look at what public education needs today and to take those thoughts and be as persistent and as aggressive as she is in the Chamber in trying to defend what the Conservative cabinet has told her to defend and take those issues and be just as aggressive inside her caucus. Many would argue that she is somewhat frustrating sometimes inside the Chamber in the way in which she attempts to deal with issues or go around the issues, but what we want to see is a Minister of Education that is, in essence, going to be able to get its fair share in terms of finances. We want to see a Minister of Education that is going to have the will to seek change in some of the basic levels of governance, on the whole issue of the school divisions. You know, I made reference to Winnipeg 1 and St. James. I am sure the Minister of Education is well aware of St. James because she was a school trustee from St. James--[interjection] All school divisions in the province of Manitoba are very important and are very special in their own way, but the minister is not doing them a favour by completely ignoring the needs.

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Let me give you an example, and this is something that I said when I made a presentation to the Norrie commission, and that was that if you want to argue that school divisions should be based on communities, then I would advocate that what you should be doing is breaking up School Division No. 1. Why should you allow for some school divisions to be strictly community based and other school divisions not to be community based? Winnipeg 1 compared to Norwood is a great example of that. So there has do be some consistency in policy and there is none. [interjection]

Well, the Minister of Education says: It is coming. [interjection] I will hold my breath, and she suggests that it is coming voluntarily. I should not say I will hold my breath because I will end up passing out. I do not believe, unless the government is prepared to directly get involved, that we are not going to be able to see the types of results that are necessary today. The Minister of Education will say, oh, the member for Inkster wants the heavy hand of the provincial government to come down on the school divisions. Well, no doubt, in time, if you wait and are prepared to be apathetic or completely disregard the best interests of delivering public education, maybe in time it will happen as more school divisions themselves start to recognize the benefits and start working together. But is that going to be three years, five years, 10 years? We have already been here for nine years under this administration. The government has to be able to look at the broader picture, and that is why when I first read Bill 27, and there is not too much to reading Bill 27, I was disappointed because I would have expected more from a government that has been in office over nine years than a little bit of tinkering.

There are some aspects that are somewhat encouraging, you know, the right to attend school, that is better defined and I think that can be a positive thing. I do not know if I will get the opportunity per se to be in the committee, once it is in the committee stage, but I would look to the Minister of Education, in essence, maybe if she could take as some form of notice, if she could indicate to me why it is that you would not say age five by the time December 31 comes rolling around as being the age for your right to be able to attend public school. I would have thought because I know a lot of five-year-olds today start school at that age, and what the arguments would have been for six, let us say, over five. I would be interested in getting some detail from the Department of Education with respect to that or at least an explanation for that one.

The member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) pointed out the either/or in terms of once you hit 21, if you are 22, you can no longer attend the public schools, or once you have received that graduation diploma. Well, I guess the question mark that I would put would be that, as we see that there is change that is occurring, not necessarily from this government, but because that change has to occur, in the way in which in particular S1 to S4 is evolving where it is not just strictly academics, what is important is that we provide other opportunities with the idea of providing still those basic academic skills, but how that might fit into future graduation-type diplomas. So, for example, if someone is going through some sort of a work co-operative and they take some sort of a minimal course which in essence gives them their basics and they graduate and they are 19 years old, then all of a sudden they feel, well, geez, maybe I should have taken this or maybe I should have taken that, they can go back, even though they would have received some sort of a diploma.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): They can go back for an additional four credits over and above their graduation wherever they stand.

Mr. Lamoureux: The minister says that they can go for an additional up to four credits after they have had their diploma.

As I say, there are some things within the bill in which it is just a straightforward explanation and which the minister just provided. I think that sort of dialogue is important so that individuals are very much aware of what it is that the government is doing in areas in which it is looking for change. You know, I do not even know after talking about the finances and the school boards, there have been some areas in which the government has moved towards change. The standard exams are a great example of it. I do not have too much of a problem, depending on how those results are actually used for the latter years, the six, nine and 12. I have some concerns in terms of the weight that might be assigned them, in particular the Grade 12, but there have been some movements towards change in which the government has done a reasonably decent job, but then there is always that little extra in which maybe they go a little bit too far, such as the Grade 3, which I made reference to again in Question Period.

Having said those few words, Mr. Acting Speaker, we are prepared to see this bill go to committee.

Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): I take this opportunity to say a few words on Bill 27. We see The Public Schools Amendment Act before us which makes seven major changes. I will be speaking to only several components of this act that particularly concern me. We see that item (1), which changes the terms of office for trustees, is a matter that will ease and make things more efficient. I am supportive of that. Item (3) the age of entrance into school is clarified; however, I would challenge the minister that this was indeed an opportunity to perhaps look at more flexibility, actually look at what the trends in education are proposing, actually look to implementing their rhetoric when they talk about lifelong learning.

As we look at the educational process, we know it does not begin at the age of seven. For many children the time to enter a structured, learning environment may be earlier or it may be later, and I am challenging the minister to go beyond what has been a traditional school model, something that was established back in the '40s and '50s where we were looking at a factory model. All children started at a particular time, all children were going through the system in the same way, in the same schedule and were to sprout out exactly the same model at the end of the program. That is not the model that works. We know that, and we know that children, as adults, have different aptitudes and abilities, and this bill does not take the opportunity to look at that flexibility and actually provide the opportunity for children and families to experience learning and to be challenged in a learning environment. That is indeed unfortunate, and instead of greater flexibility, we look for great entrenchment of what is allowed and what is not allowed in our schools.

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The item that particularly concerns me is the clause which discusses the right to attend school from the age of six until the age of 21 or once a diploma is received. This indeed should be a flag to anyone who is concerned about learning. That includes all citizens of Manitoba. There are many times in our lives when we choose to go back to upgrade, and so-called this government preaches that that is what they want to encourage. This bill goes against that fundamental principle of lifelong learning. There should be no limit. Students should not be kicked out after they receive a diploma plus four credits.

If they choose to come back and receive--perhaps a student has gone through the system and taken a general degree program and then comes back and they wish to take, to supplement to a greater degree, a university entrance program, I would say there should be no limitations. This government has the opportunity right here to prove their commitment to young people, to adults, and open up the door of the public school system. Today's world is so radically different that many of the jobs that were available for students that had what was then called a nonuniversity entrance degree were still able to find employment. When I graduated back in the '70s, students that did not even graduate from high school were able to find work. That is not the case now. In fact most students, most young people are going on to community colleges or university entrance. Many will need to return to high school to receive the courses that they need to supplement. That is the reality of today. That is the situation we should be dealing with, and if this government had a commitment to young people, they would not limit their ability to come back for high school credits.

So I would say to the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), the rhetoric sounds wonderful. Flexibility, lifelong learning, but in reality when you look at the bill, it talks about age limits, it talks about "or when they receive a diploma," as defined by the Minister of Education. She likes to define a lot of things. I am suggesting to her, open up, be more flexible, allow young people to go back as her throne speech indicated. This bill, actually, I would say, limits what we are driving for which is an open secondary education system. We do not know--our family fosters an adult autistic individual who is attending our high school system until the age of 21. Let us say that in a theoretical situation a certain division or the minister decides that after 12 years in the system that person will receive a diploma. Is that the best thing for that young adult? No. The best thing for that adult is actually to stay in that learning environment where he is proceeding in learning independent skills, proceeding to become a productive member of our society. In fact, why should he not be able, on an individual case, to stay until he is 22? This system, he cannot. Twenty-one or a diploma, you are out. Your opportunity now, this government's opportunity is to lift that, and they chose not to. They chose not to. That is the facts.

Not only am I concerned about rhetoric and reality, but I am extremely concerned about the minister's so-called flexibility to school divisions in terms of school buses. This government has a deplorable record of reducing the safety standards, the policies that ensure the safety of our children over the years, and here we talk about a minister providing greater flexibility. Any member in this House who was a trustee knows that, in this case, greater flexibility means offloading more costs for the school division, less in terms of safety standards, and we have seen, unfortunately, the death of a young student in the Seine River School Division. Why? Why, Mr. Acting Speaker, because of this government's financial policies of underfunding public schools, this government's policies of extending the lifespan of school buses well beyond what is reasonable, well beyond what this minister herself said that would never happen. It should not go beyond 15 years, she said.

What has happened? In this year alone, she has now decided that school buses can remain on the road forever. There is no limit. There is no limit anymore and, in addition, why was that necessary? Because her funding level did not provide sufficient funds for the replacement of those buses that need to be replaced. Mr. Acting Speaker, let me go back to 1992. [interjection]

The Acting Speaker (Mr. McAlpine): Order, please. The honourable member for St. James has been recognized to speak on this, and I would ask the indulgence of the balance of the members in the Chamber to please owe the respect to the honourable member for St. James to put her remarks on the record.

Ms. Mihychuk: Thank you very much, Mr. Acting Speaker. In 1992, the southeastern region of MAST presented a resolution that said be it resolved that MAST request the Minister of Education and Training to reduce the maximum number of years to 13 years for determining the useful life of a school bus. It goes on to say that in 1992 the minister's own department, the Department of Education, released a report called The Steering Committee on Pupil Transportation Issues, Trends, Options and Costs: A Look at the Transportation of Pupils in Manitoba's School Divisions. In that report, the committee recommended that the regulated limit of 14 years for determining the useful life of a school bus, recently increased in 1992 from 13 years, be changed back and not be extended further. Already in 1992, the trustees were speaking out, calling out to the Minister of Education: do not do it. Do not make these changes. What did she do? She ignored the trustees, ignored parents, and went ahead by extending the age of the life expectancy of school buses not once, not twice, but three times to the point now where there are no limits in Manitoba. You can have the oldest bus on the road, and we are probably the only jurisdiction to have such an incredibly lax provision from this government.

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Not only that, Mr. Acting Speaker, but this report recommended that all school buses utilized in pupil transportation will have to meet full inspection standards. Imagine that. And what did this government do? They went from a policy of inspecting school buses annually for every single school bus to one that is at 10 percent of the fleet at random. What does that mean? That many of the transportation outfits that utilize those buses which are too old have high maintenance costs and school divisions which are looking at the lowest tender because they do not have the money for operating school buses are looking and saying they are going to roll the dice. Should I have to repair that mirror or do I wait until I get called in by inspection?

In fact we now learn that even when they are caught with infractions to the very rules that they are supposed to comply with, they are still allowed to drive those buses on the road, and this government has the audacity to say that they have not been lessening the requirements or the rules on pupil transportation. Hardly. Look at their record.

From 1992, we have resolutions and requests for this government to look back at their standards and tighten things up because the concern was raised then. They have not done anything then. They have actually made things a thousand times worse. In fact, here we have a very positive suggestion from MAST. It suggests that no vehicle more than 14 years old, or that has travelled more than 400,000 kilometres for diesel buses and 300,000 for gas buses, shall be used as a school bus, and the age of the vehicle shall be determined on the model year. Did the minister consider that? No. She did not consider that, in fact, went in the complete opposite direction.

Let us move up to 1997 from what MAST has in front of their convention: Be it resolved that the capital cost of purchasing school buses remain the responsibility of the provincial government in order to ensure safety, consistency and competitive pricing. What is happening? What she is doing is moving the responsibility of replacing those buses to school divisions, and you know what? [interjection]The Minister of Justice says that she has transferred the money. The Winnipeg School Division gets $100,000 a year, and they require $2 million. You figure out the mathematics. Does that seem equitable? Does that seem fair? Are those buses going to have to remain on the road? I think so. Is that justice? Is that ensuring safety standards? No. [interjection]

Mr. Acting Speaker, if the Minister of Justice wants it put on the record, I would be glad to put it on the record. I have been raising this issue since I got elected. Since I got elected, I have raised this issue, and this government has chosen to make little of the issue, not deal with the issue, in fact, do exactly the opposite. I raised in this House these concerns on December 13, 1995, May 16, 1996, March 10, 1997, and, again, April 14, 1997. The record speaks for itself. Not only am I raising concerns about the policy changes on student transportation, but MAST is raising them for many years.

Not only is MAST and this side of the House concerned but so is the judge presiding over the inquest of the unfortunate death of the young boy in Seine River School Division. What did he say? He said he is concerned about the policy direction of this government. He is concerned about the funding policies, the financial commitment of this government in terms of school buses. That is a sorry state of affairs, Mr. Acting Speaker, and, why? Because it is our children who are being sacrificed in this case, and it is our children who are in those school buses.

Not only that. In terms of logic, I am going to argue financially that an older vehicle has greater maintenance costs, and we have seen in school divisions across Manitoba maintenance costs soar from between 20 and 40 percent. Those maintenance costs were not supported by the government or the minister. It was transferred, downloaded, to the school divisions which had to cover those costs. What her change in policy has done was ensured even more of the cost will be carried by school divisions. More of the cost will have to be transferred to property taxes. So what her government's policies have done is ensured older buses, less safe buses and higher taxes for the people of Manitoba. That is unacceptable, Mr. Acting Speaker.

We are all concerned about the efficient use of our bus fleet. We are all concerned about where our tax dollar goes. In fact, what the minister's policy has done is force school divisions that have to replace a considerable number of buses in their fleet, because they are disproportionally aged--it is going to force those school divisions into taking a lease program which, if you talk to the school divisions, will actually mean that they will be paying almost twice as much, twice as much, for that school bus under a lease program than had they had the opportunity to purchase the bus outright.

Does that make sense for the taxpayers of Manitoba? I do not think so. If the government was going to be honest and was not playing this game of, who pays, the right pocket or the left pocket, they would say it does not make sense to lease school buses, because it is going to cost the taxpayer twice as much than if we would buy them outright. Why does the government not want to buy them outright? Because there is a large bump of aged buses in the Manitoba bus fleet, and they do not want to put out the capital expenditure to replace them. So what they do is justify this whole program under the guise of flexibility, more discretion for school divisions. What it really means is that they are downloading, not taking on the responsibility of replacement of buses.

Although this may seem unimportant to the government, I would suggest, to the parents of those children who ride the buses, it is critical, and I urge the government to listen to the recommendations of the inquest. I think it is extremely unfortunate that we had to go to these measures before this government was prepared to listen, and what we have seen is, in fact, the erosion of safety standards, which is totally, totally unacceptable.

The policy changes that the government has actually implemented are a long litany, a long litany of policy changes which have meant more trouble or more erosion to safety standards. Back in '95 the Department of Highways and Transportation, which does these checks, moved to the 10 percent random check from a comprehensive each-unit-inspection program. In 1995, the minister extended the expected road life of these buses all the way up to fifteen and a half years. In 1996, this government cut the operating supports by $5 per pupil. In 1996, this government cut 2 cents per loaded kilometre for transportation supports. In 1997, this government announced it is abandoning its provincial responsibility for bus replacement, Mr. Acting Speaker. In 1997, they announced a new financial formula, which basically we know does not provide sufficient funds for the replacement of those buses that is a reasonable tenure for their life expectancy.

So, Mr. Acting Speaker, the premise which the government chooses to put all of their policy changes under is more flexibility, and, unfortunately, we have seen the results of their program and their policies.

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The repeal on the special levy, on the cap on the special levy, legislated a limit on the ability of school divisions to tax, I believe was fundamentally unfair. They had no right to impose that type of legislation on a local autonomy that has duly elected and have the ability to tax. The reason for the concern, of course, was that school divisions were forced to look at property taxes to support the fundamental programs for children because this government refused to provide sufficient funding, and the history of those underfunding decisions are for the record. Indeed, it is timely that the special levy be removed; however, the pressures on school divisions have not. This government continues to underfund school divisions drastically.

Mr. Acting Speaker, just as an example of how drastically they have underfunded is the point that they invested approximately $23 million this year on capital expenditures on school buildings in Manitoba--in the whole province, $23 million. The NDP government, for example, spent over $40 million on buildings and enhancing buildings, and we have seen that cut to approximately half. In fact, this year we have seen an increase, and the minister boasts that it has gone up from $20 million to $23 million. Big deal, I say, big deal. That nowhere near covers the requirements of school divisions which have seen their buildings deteriorate as this government sits by and feels that it is okay for our children to be in buildings that require improvement and remodelling.

They have decided that it is okay to spend $77 million on casinos in four years. Is that not a staggering amount of money? How many carpet replacements can you do for $77 million? That is just incredible. Today in committee, in the Lotteries committee--the casinos were built in 1993 for $15 million each. Do you realize that since that time renovations have exceeded the original cost of the whole building? What is it? Are they painting the walls with gold?

(Madam Speaker in the Chair)

How is this possible to spend--and where is the priority of this government that it feels that it can justify spending $77 million on two casinos when they only spent $20 million on--how many schools, 800?--650 school buildings in the province, and they have decided $20 million is enough. But for two casinos, they can spend $77 million. Those are priorities, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) told me.

An Honourable Member: Tory priorities.

Ms. Mihychuk: Those are Tory priorities, and those are the priorities that the people of Manitoba will have an opportunity to discuss and debate in the next general election which cannot be called too soon for me. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: As previously agreed, this bill will remain standing in the name of the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton).

Madam Speaker: To resume second reading debate, on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), Bill 29, The Education Administration Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'administration scolaire), standing in the name of the honourable member for Osborne (Ms. McGifford).

Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing? No? Leave has been denied.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Madam Speaker, I am glad to put a few remarks on the record about Bill 29. It is a short bill, and I hope my remarks will be short as well.

The bill has two sections. Its first purpose is to, I believe, deal with issues arising from the new federal legislation dealing with copyright and provides ways in which the provincial government will, on behalf of educational institutions in Manitoba, negotiate a single contract for copyright and a single set of regulations, I assume, and enable people across Manitoba to have some security that they are not violating the Copyright Act when they purchase books in a particular manner, when they use a video, when they use music issues in the classroom, for example, or whether they tape programs from television for a classroom use, whether they xerox materials for instructional matter that these are in fact being done in accordance with a set of commonly understood principles paid for and acknowledged by everyone across Manitoba.

Manitoba, like other provinces, has done this in the past for the earlier federal legislation on copyright issues, and I think it has been generally satisfactory. At least the aspect of having a provincially negotiated contract is generally satisfactory. What is new, I believe, in this bill is the charge back to divisions which will be taken out of divisional grants. Whereas I believe in the past there has been charge back, I do not believe it has been taken out of divisional grants in this way. So both the method and intent is something we would like to discuss with the minister at committee.

I know that for the minister, as well as for us and for school divisions across Manitoba, the new federal legislation on copyright is really new territory. There is a great deal of ambiguity that has been left in the federal legislation. That is why I think that it certainly is a good idea to have one provincial set of regulations and accommodations to this federal legislation. The copyright legislation really pits two groups against each other. It should not, but I think the way in which the federal government mishandled the whole copyright issue in the last federal Parliament certainly led to that situation, where producers and consumers were set at loggerheads one with the other.

What happened, Madam Speaker, was that there was new federal legislation on copyright, which was introduced with many high-minded, well-intended principles that attempted to bridge the gap to join the interests of both producers and consumers in all forms of the arts and all forms of--well, not all forms of intellectual property, I guess, but certainly those which apply to written materials and to visual materials.

When the federal government introduced this, I think people were much pleased that they were introducing this Phase 2 of the Copyright Act and they did intend to balance the right of creators and users in user institutions, but subsequent to the introduction of that legislation, there was a very well-organized lobby which began the process of dismantling the federal principles on copyright. This resulted, Madam Speaker, over this last spring in a very hastily pulled together but very active coalition of a variety of educational institutions, in particular, but also some other "consumer" institutions--I guess consumer should be in quotes in this way, but libraries, archives, museums and also individuals, particularly the blind, who had special needs and were concerned about copyright issues.

They were very concerned about the effect of a very concerted lobby by the producers on the federal government. A number of amendments were in process and indeed passed the federal House, which negated the original federal intent of trying to bridge the gap between producers and users of this aspect of intellectual property. Particularly in video and music and some aspects of what is called the parallel purchasing of textbooks, there were some amendments made which really set back, I think, the whole cause of copyright legislation in Canada.

It then went very hastily through the Senate, became law, and I think many of the groups who were involved in trying to keep the Liberals on the straight and narrow on this one will be re-energizing their efforts to try and get a federal copyright legislation that satisfied both groups. It is not easy; I recognize that, but certainly what we are dealing with now is an area that is untested, which I do not believe has the full support of producers and consumers, and I know that the minister and the government, all governments across the country, will have difficulty in dealing with the impact of this legislation, and, of course, nowhere is it more important than in educational institutions. Really what we are pitting one against the other here, and it is not an issue that is going to go away, is the right of a producer to some fruits of his or her labour and the rights of the broader public to access to information and particularly for the purposes of learning.

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So I think that this is an area which is in flux. I am glad to see that the government, like other governments, is continuing the practice of collective negotiation of these rights and that there will be a set of principles which we can adhere to and agree to across Manitoba, because this is an issue which affects every teacher in the classroom. It affects every user of a public library. It affects anybody who uses a xerox machine and, more particularly, those who are responsible for the use of that xerox machine. So clear directions are very important, and the regulations stemming from this aspect of the bill will be very, very important.

Now, the other aspect of this I think that is important to school divisions--and, again, we would like to discuss this with the minister at committee--is the cost of this because the minister is proposing in this very act to charge the cost back to school divisions. The problem is, of course, I do not think anyone at this stage knows what the cost is going to be. Are we looking at a few hundred dollars transmitted back to school divisions? My sense is that the new federal legislation has gone much deeper and has laid many more traps for those on the educational side of the spectrum and that the costs are likely to be much higher, something which we may not know perhaps for a couple of years, but, certainly, I believe that this will have a considerable and continuing cost for school divisions.

So, Madam Speaker, I think this is a difficult one to deal with, and I do support the collective negotiation that this bill proposes. I know that the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) has dealt with copyright issues through the Council of Ministers of Education, and the Council of Ministers did make suggestions to the federal government in the spring of this year, laying out some principles that they were concerned about. They, too, and the minister, on behalf of the government of Manitoba, signed this, and she did table it during Estimates. Anyone who is interested in the copyright issue, I think, will find the very carefully worded letter of the Council of Ministers on this of significance.

I am particularly concerned, and I know that school divisions and school libraries will be concerned about this, and this is the parallel importation of books, or that is the way in which the issue is known. The federal legislation set out at one point, I believe, to prevent libraries, individuals, individual teachers, from purchasing materials from any source other than a Canadian source or at least to assume that the Canadian source be the first one used. This, of course, really poses difficulty for many people who must and should be using sources outside of Canada. This covers not only just the social sciences, but the sciences, mathematics, as well as languages, of course. Those people, for example, who would use Braille or audio tapes would also be affected by this. There are publishers in Canada, as elsewhere, but in Canada, in this case the significant one, that cannot always meet the deadlines that are required by an educational institution or indeed the numbers that are often required. So there are serious concerns that will arise from this, and I think it is not going to be an easy task for librarians, information technology specialists, to interpret the implications of that bill.

The Council of Ministers drew the attention of the federal government to another area of concern, and that, of course, is the use of videos in the classroom and the taping of material from television production, and much of that, I think, still remains a pretty murky area in the federal legislation. It may be that it will be clarified in federal regulation, and we will have to wait for that.

So the cost, Madam Speaker, is difficult to ascertain at this point, and I think that is what is causing concern for school divisions. I would anticipate it also causes concern to the minister and to the government, as well. We do not know what it will be. We do not know how it will escalate. We do not know how the federal regulations will have an impact at the actual level of the classroom.

Of course, in an education system, here as elsewhere, which is increasingly and desirably based upon materials beyond the text, I think this is very, very significant. Particularly in areas of the curriculum where the whole purpose of the curriculum is to encourage investigation by students, to encourage wide use of materials and libraries on the Internet as well as visual materials, we are going to see, and we should be seeing, a much greater use by students of a wide range of materials, not simply a textbook.

There are subjects for which the dedicated use of particular textbooks is important, but increasingly and more and more the goal of teachers should be to encourage the curiosity of students to enable them to know how to find out, to satisfy that curiosity and to bring together the wide body of opinion that they would find in a variety of sources. The ability to discern, the ability to be critical of a wide variety of sources is really what we want from our students.

People often talk about the Internet as sort of the saviour of areas without libraries, the ability to bring so much material into a person's home or into a particular school library, and that is really I think a very superficial view of the uses of the Internet. What the Internet really requires more than anything is a critical mind, somebody who can understand what is rubbish and what is not, who can understand bias and who can understand when an article or information is drawn from a variety of sources. The ability to evaluate sources, the ability to evaluate evidence, the ability to create an argument from a wide variety of sources is what we should be looking for.

I know that is what most Manitoba teachers are attempting to do, and it will depend increasingly upon the use of a wide range of resource material. They are, of course, as a result of this government's cuts, finding it increasingly difficult to pull together those wide ranges of sources, and that is why copyright, the use of a collective instrument for that I think will be widely used and will have implications for every school library and every schoolteacher in Manitoba.

The second part of this bill, Madam Speaker, deals with the liability of government, of minister and civil servants in the creation of classifications for teachers. It desires to protect from liability government servants, and it particularly makes reference to the drawing up of information which would lead to the classification of a particular teacher and preserves from liability from being sued, I expect, particular civil servants. This one is quite a puzzle to me, and I do look forward to talking to the minister about this in Estimates. I have talked to a number of people who are active as trustees or as teachers, who have been also lawyers, and there is a puzzlement, I guess, is really the basic word I would come up with. People are puzzled as to why this has been inserted in the bill.

I come at this from two angles. I could not find specific cases that had led to this in the recent past. There has not been a plethora, there has not been a flurry of cases of the suing of ministers or of civil servants. I do not believe that there has even been cases over which there has been widespread debate or even small-scale debate over particular cases where there might have been mistakes made for one reason or another. So from a Manitoba perspective, there is some concern as to why the government is doing this, what is behind it all. It does not seem to derive from the Manitoba experience.

Secondly, it seemed to me that when I was a federal civil servant, one of the basic principles we operated from was that the Crown could not be sued. I remember when I worked for the National Museum that it always seemed amazing to us that most of our material was not insured. I mean, how do you insure Sir John A. Macdonald's desk? How do you insure Lord Selkirk's desk material? How do you insure an enormous Haida canoe? How do you insure all the treasures of the Canadian National Museum? Well, it could not be done, and the argument was used that it should not be done because the Crown could not be sued unless the Crown gave permission to be sued. We know in a number of cases, for example, the Nisga'a case in British Columbia, although the Nisga'a won that case on a minority decision, in fact, they actually lost because of the technicality that they had not received the permission of the Crown to sue.

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So from a number of directions, I am puzzled by this one as to why the minister feels it important now to put this in. There may well be legitimate reasons. Someone has suggested to me that it may in fact derive from the minister's reading of American situations whereby civil servants and others have been sued for or have assumed liability, have been taken to task for liability, for making errors in certain aspects of their job. The minister's reference points are always American. I am quite interested by that. The education reform seems to take very little account of education in Europe, whether it is Denmark or the Netherlands or Australia, the places that seem to score very highly in the minister's much beloved assessment tests. The reference is always to the United States, and, as we look at the United States' results in assessment tests, they are not perhaps the ones one would like to emulate. So it is possible that the minister is taking on here something from American jurisprudence, that she is taking on something which has been an issue in the United States. There is no doubt about that. She may be taking precautionary measures.

I have made a phone call, Madam Speaker, to Legislative Counsel to ask for advice on this as to what the role is of the Crown in this as to whether in fact that liability can be made. It should be noted for the purposes of the record here that the liability or the protection being proposed in this bill extends not just to the Education Act but to The Public Schools Act as well. So it is a very wide net that it is casting, and from the Manitoba experience it seems somewhat of a puzzle.

So I look forward at committee, Madam Speaker, to discussing this with the minister, to looking at the cost to school divisions of the copyright provisions, as well as, to looking at the actual implementation of those Can Copy regulations and the schedule which the minister is proposing for that. With those words we are prepared to move this to committee.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, very briefly, we appreciate the fact that the legislation is in essence there to protect the employees that have not been negligent, general indemnity from the liability for officials who administer the classification to teachers with respect to professional certification. In addition, we recognize that the bill deals with the issues of copyright, as the member for Wolseley went over quite extensively--even though I do not necessarily agree with everything that she said, in particular, with respect to its obligations. But having said that, I understand it is in essence a move that will allow--I understand that this is currently needed in order to provide a sense of consistency with respect to the broader picture on a national scene, the Can Copy act. Thank you.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading, Bill 29, The Education Administration Amendment Act. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?

An Honourable Member: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

Madam Speaker: To resume second reading debate on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews), Bill 19, (The Human Rights Code Amendment Act; Loi modifiant le Code des droits de la personne), standing in the name of the honourable member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale), who has 31 minutes remaining.

Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?

An Honourable Member: No.

Madam Speaker: No? Leave has been denied.

Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, we on this side of the House are disappointed in the introduction of this bill, and we certainly do not support it. This bill seeks to eliminate three members of the Human Rights Commission and reduce the number of commissioners from 13 down to 10. Is that not interesting? Because after budget cuts to the Human Rights Commission, we asked the then Attorney General, the member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey), to explain why the government was cutting the resources available to the Human Rights Commission, and at that time the government had targeted the education function of the commission. In fact, it had gutted the dedicated staff positions for education. In defence of the government's obnoxious cuts, the minister at the time said that, and I quote: "The member I am sure will realize that what was preserved was the Human Rights commissioners, those people who actually deal with the issues of human rights complaints. We believe that was a very important area to preserve."

That was in April of last year. Why is it that in the course of one year the government would move from recognizing the importance of preserving Human Rights commissioners to now eliminating three of them? Well, the number of commissioners was, I understand, decided on in order to represent as many of the different diverse perspectives that Manitobans hold. This is a very diverse province. We are proud of that diversity, and it was recognized that we have to incorporate that diversity and decision making when it comes to the area of antidiscrimination legislation.

What makes this amendment so regrettable, in our view, is that it was done in order to cut costs to the government. The government thinks it is important to cut costs of fighting hatred and fighting discrimination in this province. We know that in the last three years the Manitoba Human Rights Commission has suffered in each year cuts to its resources. The commission has gone from resources of $1.461 million in 1994-95 down to $1.344 million in 1997-98, a reduction of 8 percent. By cutting the number of commissioners, the government will save, I understand, $30,000. I find it objectionable that the government would make that cut and not at least allow the Manitoba Human Rights Commission to use that amount to dedicate to where it sees fit. The government is, in fact, saying that the Human Rights Commission of Manitoba does not need these resources and does not need additional resources.

Well, Madam Speaker, the commission appears to have a great need for resources. I do not think anyone in this province can say that we have been successful to any measurable degree in combatting the evil of discrimination. The earlier government brought in an overhaul of the antidiscrimination law in this province, and it was an act that I think Manitobans could be proud of. The legislation was brought in because we recognized that we had to have greater tools, more effective legislation, that we had to have protection for more individuals in our community who were subject to the prejudices which result in discriminatory practices, whether in employment or housing or in social services.

Since that legislation has been brought in, Madam Speaker, we have seen consistently with this government a lack of commitment to the antidiscrimination cause. That bothers me deeply. I, for one, have spent a great deal of time, spent a lot of career time, volunteer time, to help ensure that the difficult challenge of hatred and discrimination be more effectively countered, and, yet, and I can say this as a former human rights officer with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and a former employee of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, that the human rights codes of this country and of this province and the administration of that code gives us great opportunity to counter the evils of discrimination and hatred.

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Last year, when we saw this government emasculate the education function of the commission, the government was overruling what the commission itself identified as a key component of the antidiscrimination movement in Manitoba. The commission itself noted with delight some of the educational endeavours that were being undertaken in this province to prevent discriminatory practices, particularly by businesses. Of course, Madam Speaker, it is much better or more effective to prevent the harm to dignity, the pain that follows from discrimination, than to try and deal with it after it has already inflicted its harm.

No, the Human Rights Commission, Madam Speaker, is not a body that can withstand the kinds of cuts that we are seeing from this government. We are aware, and I have raised this in Estimates, of one case, actually it is not one case but several cases of complaints of systemic discrimination filed against universities in this province that are now seven years old and still under investigation. I am aware of a case that is still under investigation that was filed in October of 1992. It is therefore roughly five years old. The commission, unfortunately, as a result of these kinds of instances has developed somewhat of a reputation as a black hole where complaints go in and no response is forthcoming for lengthy periods of time. That threatens the integrity and the usefulness of the commission.

I am heartened to see that the commission is looking at innovative ways and organizational change to deal with that challenge, but, Madam Speaker, those hardworking individuals at the Human Rights Commission need the help of this government. They need to know that this government stands behind the antidiscrimination policy that this province has promoted in the past, and they need to know that it is prepared to back up that policy with the necessary resources without cuts year after year after year.

So, Madam Speaker, with those remarks, we are prepared to put our position on the record.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, I just stand to express our disappointment in terms of what the government is doing in Bill 19.

In fact, Madam Speaker, over the years, I have had plenty of opportunities to rise and talk about the importance of human rights issues. The member makes reference to discrimination, and there is a great deal of discrimination that is out there today. A lot of it could, in fact, be addressed and needs to be addressed.

There are, for example, systemic barriers that are put into place. There are other forms of discrimination that are equally, if not in some cases even more disgusting in their nature, and when we see the government's priorities in trying to be able to resolve some of these issues, one has to question--you know, I can recall talking about the, I believe it was the Multiculturalism Act, and we were establishing this Multiculturalism Secretariat's office, and on paper it looked wonderful. It was a great concept, Madam Speaker, and I think there has been disappointment in the sense of ultimately what took place at that particular office.

One has to start questioning in terms of the government's priorities in dealing with human rights violations and if in fact they are misplacing money from within. Even that whole multicultural spectrum is an area in which one would like to believe the government would have had a higher priority. I even think it was the Manitoba Intercultural Council who had come up with a number of recommendations in the past, talking about the importance of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, and I do not believe--and again, I could have gone through some of the Estimates, no doubt, and try to find out exactly what sort of recommendations they might have acted on or what sort of supports they would have been putting in place.

But having said that, I do not believe that the government has dealt with this particular commission in a fair fashion. Because of that, we have very serious concerns with respect to this bill and find it very, very difficult to support because of the government's own track record dealing with human rights issues. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading of Bill 19, The Human Rights Code Amendment Act. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Some Honourable Members: No.

Madam Speaker: No?

Madam Speaker: All those in favour, please say yea.

Some Honourable Members: Yea.

Madam Speaker: All those opposed, please say nay.

Some Honourable Members: Nay.

Madam Speaker: In my opinion, the Yeas have it. The honourable member for St. Johns, on division.

Madam Speaker: To resume second reading debate, on the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Justice (Mr. Toews), Bill 21 (The Jury Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les jurés), standing in the name of the honourable member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale).

Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing? No? Leave has been denied.

Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, this is another bill that causes us great concern, and it is certainly not legislation that I think any Manitoban should either propose or support. I notice that my time is basically up right now, but I will continue on our reasons for our strong opposition to this bill next time it is called.

Madam Speaker: When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for St. Johns will have 39 minutes remaining.

Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would like to advise the House that Bill 18, The Emergency 911 Public Safety Answering Point Act; and Bill 57, The Highway Traffic Amendment, Summary Convictions Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act, previously referred to the Standing Committee on Economic Development, will be moved to the Standing Committee on Agriculture, which is meeting on Monday, June 16, at 7:30 p.m.

Madam Speaker: For the knowledge of the members, Bill 18 and Bill 57, previously referred to the Standing Committee on Economic Development, will be moved to the Standing Committee on Agriculture for Monday, June 16, 7:30 p.m.

Mr. McCrae: I further wish to advise the House of the list of bills which will be considered by the Standing Committee on Economic Development tomorrow, Friday, the 13th day of June, at 10 a.m., those being Bills 2, 19, 20, 25, 28, 29, 34, 35 and 40.

Madam Speaker, we are about to embark on private members' hour, and I think I should ask that we deal with the matters in the following order: First, Bill 206, then Bill 204, then Bill 205, and then Resolution 15, standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer).

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Madam Speaker: For the information of the House, first that the following bills will be considered at the Standing Committee on Economic Development, Friday, June 13, at 10 a.m., Bills 2, 19, 20, 25, 28, 29, 34, 35 and 40.