Madam Speaker: The hour being after 5 p.m., time for Private Members' Business.
Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I understand that Private Members' Business is normally conducted in the order in which you see it in the Order Paper. I think what I have said reflects the consensus of honourable members, and you might want to check that out.
Madam Speaker: Is there leave then to divert from the normal practice of dealing with the business in private members' hour as listed on the Order Paper? [agreed]
If I understand correctly, we are moving to second reading of public bills and the honourable member for St. Johns' Bill 206 first, The Minors Intoxicating Substances Control Amendment Act; second reading, Bill 206.
Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): On a point of order, Madam Speaker, I wonder if I could have the motion?
Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale), that Bill 206, The Minors Intoxicating Substances Control Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur le contrôle des substances intoxicantes et les mineurs), be now a read a second time and be referred to a committee of this House.
Motion presented.
Mr. Mackintosh: Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to move second reading of this legislation which I think will go some way to dealing with what is a very difficult challenge for Manitobans, and that is the tragedy of the abuse of inhalants, also known as sniff, and following, I suppose I could say, in the steps of the former member for St. Johns who worked very tirelessly in promoting legislation to deal with solvent abuse, and, as well, I have looked to other members of my caucus such as the member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes), the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson), the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale). Those are three individuals who come to mind who have brought the issue of solvent abuse to the public and to our caucus on a regular basis.
It hurts me, Madam Speaker, particularly, I think, as a resident of the inner city where there is a disproportionate use or abuse, I should say, of solvents, to see particularly young adults and youth sniffing on the streets of this city and knowing the despair that those individuals are suffering and knowing that that despair can only worsen as a result of their sniffing.
One of the North American experts on solvent abuse is Dr. Tenenbien at Children's Hospital. I went to the grand rounds a number of months ago where Dr. Tenenbien spoke about the dynamics of solvent abuse. Afterwards, he said to me, you know, Gord, we are dissolving the brains of our youth.
Solvent abuse has been called Manitoba's silent epidemic by the Manitoba Pharmaceutical Association, and a federal report has found Manitoba to be Canada's solvent abuse hot spot. Reserves in Manitoba, of all provinces, report the highest incidence of solvent abuse as a community-wide problem. We are told that young sniffers on 41 Manitoba reserves have reported, in a study, 44 percent, experimental use; 37 percent, social use; 19 percent, chronic use.
It is dismaying to see it estimated that 15 to 20 percent of Winnipeg and northern Manitoba youth in schools are sniffers. Manitoba is facing disproportionately this challenge of solvent abuse, and we say and we ask others to join with us, because it is time to rise to that challenge, no matter how great.
It is interesting and sad that, of all the addictions, it appears that solvent abuse is the most destructive, and yet it appears to be the most neglected, particularly by government.
Now, we know some of the difficulties in regulating the sniffable products. There are 1,400, roughly, abusable products out there that are available in the stores, that are readily available to individuals, but, with this legislation, which, we think, is the toughest and perhaps the most innovative legislation in the country, perhaps on the continent, that we can go some way toward dealing with this, recognizing, of course, that legislation is but a small, although important, part of the solution.
We know that prevention and treatment, hand in hand with enforcement, are required. So we have introduced, as a caucus, our strategy against sniffing, which includes the establishment of a school substance abuse prevention co-ordinator to expand the ability of schools to provide effective prevention through linking schools with community resources, developing class programs and materials, professional development for teachers, and partnership with aboriginal education agencies.
We want to see, and we are committed to establishing, a community outreach team pilot project for education and intervention in northern communities and Winnipeg's inner city as a partnership initiative with aboriginal governments, the national native alcohol and drug abuse program and Main Street Project.
For treatment we recognize that there are serious shortcomings and gaps, and we think it is important to establish in Manitoba a centre on solvent abuse. We are committed to spearheading the establishment of such a centre to co-ordinate existing treatment services, to fund treatment of existing facilities without funding sources, and to fund leading-edge research on effective treatments.
We have got to start now. We hope by introducing our strategy on sniff the government will pay attention to this issue in a more meaningful way. All solvents cause permanent brain damage. They dissolve the brain tissue. Solvent abuse can also cause what is now recognized as fetal solvent syndrome.
Sniffing kills. Deaths due to sniffing result from what is recognized as sudden sniffing death, or SSD, aspiration or suffocation and dangerous behaviour.
The government's record has been disappointing, to say the least. Salvation Army Captain Neil Lewis recently commented that no one is doing anything. This is a big problem, and nothing is happening. The existing legislation has been described by the police as basically unenforceable. It has been described to me as virtually useless. Going beyond the legislation, of course, and looking at prevention and treatment, there has been no development of a solvent abuse prevention program either through schools or through communities by the government. Addiction treatment programs are underfunded, so beds sit empty while people await treatment. We are told, for example, by the St. Norbert Foundation that their youth beds are full but they have 60 vacant adult beds and over 100 on the waiting list. Something is wrong with that picture.
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So this legislation, Madam Speaker, seeks to do two main things. First, it provides for a real crackdown on the merchants of misery, that is, those who knowingly sell sniffable products for abuse. In the second area this legislation allows for court-ordered assessments of known solvent abusers and voluntary treatment. With regard to the crackdown on the merchants of misery, the existing legislation is overhauled by this bill to prohibit knowingly selling sniff to adults. The main problem with the current legislation is it only prohibits the knowing sale of sniffable products to minors, but we are told over and over again that this is no longer simply a youth problem. Young adults now are sniffing in unprecedented numbers. People are growing up with a sniff addiction.
The bill also seeks to significantly increase penalties and add personal liability for corporate sellers. The fines are changed so that there are now minimum fines, and the amount of the fines is enhanced to provide what we hope will be a deterrent. The bill seeks to give the courts the ability to limit the sale of sniff products and, where there is not compliance with such an order, to close businesses for repeat offences. The bill provides clear search-and-seizure powers for police investigations--something that the police tell us they need. The legislation, furthermore, seeks to regulate and deal with instances where there might be the manufacturing of sniff products and its repackaging. With regard to repackaging, we will be proposing an amendment in that regard, and I will deal with where the additional ideas are coming from on this. As well, it seeks to deal with paraphernalia that may be used for sniffing.
In the second area, that is, allowing the court to deal with sniffers, we are responding to people like the Manitoba Pharmaceutical Association, which has been asking for the legislation to provide some exposure to rehabilitation treatment programs. This legislation is attempting to use the law in a positive way to provide help and support to those who are suffering from a sniff addiction. We also will look to adding a section to allow the court to order a sniffer to refrain from the use of an intoxicating substance under the act.
Madam Speaker, I have been assisted greatly in the development of this legislation by what is known as the nonpotable alcohol committee of the Manitoba Pharmaceutical Association, which is a coalition of organizations that are concerned and deal with the challenge of sniff, for example, the Point Douglas Residents Association, the Indian and Metis Friendship Centre, Main Street Project, the Winnipeg Police Service, the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission, the RCMP and the Pharmaceutical Association itself. This bill has been reviewed by that committee in detail, clause by clause, and the two areas of change that we will be seeking at committee, that is, regarding repackaging and refraining from use of inhalants, were proposed as a further improvement to this legislation in the last number of days.
We are asking the government, which we understand has full knowledge of the extent of this problem and the need to enhance the legislation, to support us and work with us to ensure that this legislation passes before the end of this session. We are asking for support from this government, with or without amendment. If the government has ideas on this bill, we certainly look forward to seeing what those ideas are. We hope that we can work co-operatively over the next days and weeks in order to come up with what can be at least one tool in the difficult struggle against the tragedy of solvent abuse.
Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): I move, seconded by the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), that debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): I move, seconded by the member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson), that the composition of the Standing Committee on Economic Development be amended as follows: the member for Assiniboia (Mrs. McIntosh) for the member for Springfield (Mr. Findlay).
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): I move, seconded by the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen), that Bill 204, The Rural Development Bonds Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les obligations de développement rural, now be read a second time and referred to a committee of this House.
Motion presented.
Mr. Sale: The purpose of this bill is extremely simple, and the amendments contained in it may seem more complex than the intent. Quite simply, Madam Speaker, the intent here is to support the Grow Bonds Program, a program which, I believe, all members of the House believe is a useful mechanism for encouraging citizens in rural Manitoba to become involved in the economic development of their communities, to support the integrity of this program and to support the ministry in which responsibility is vested for this program by ensuring that the mechanisms of approval of the technical aspects of any offering are done through the Manitoba Securities Commission, which has the expertise and the mandate to examine any financial instrument that is offered in Manitoba for sale, with the one exception at the present time of Grow Bonds.
In the initial stages of this program, Grow Bonds were quite small often and perhaps were relatively straightforward, but in recent years the bonds offered under the act have grown in size and complexity. It has become clear through two separate reports by the Provincial Auditor and through the unfortunate circumstances of one company in particular, Woodstone Technologies, that the ability of the Rural Development ministry to have the technical expertise to review thoroughly and ensure that prospectuses offered to Manitobans are frank and full in their disclosure and free of any errors, and that all material facts are disclosed, Madam Speaker. It has been clear from that particular unfortunate situation that this was not the case.
Further, Madam Speaker, it is a concern of ours that individuals under the current Grow Bond legislation have very limited responsibilities for full disclosure. The penalties for failing to disclose are relatively light, and yet they can have enormous consequences. In the case of Woodstone, for example, the losses to Manitobans, particularly the citizens of Portage la Prairie and the citizens of the province as a whole exceeded $6 million. But the losses were not limited simply to the dollars that were lost by many investors, large and small, and by many Manitoba companies. What was also lost in that situation was a lot of credibility for Manitoba's ability to develop innovative products and to market them worldwide.
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Madam Speaker, in that particular company's case, companies like the Weston corporation, a major Japanese company, Scottish companies, companies in Holland all had very, very sorry experiences with the Woodstone company. Those experiences, I believe, would have been completely avoided if the Securities Commission had been responsible for the prospectus, because the commission would simply have not allowed a prospectus to go forward with the kind of information and with the material facts missing. It was allowed to go forward perhaps through the inexperience--I presume it was through the inexperience of the Rural Development Bond corporation office.
So the purpose of the legislation is simple and clear: Replace the technical procedures now carried out by the civil service under the direction of the minister with the arm's-length function of the Manitoba Securities Commission. The final approval still is retained in the hands of the minister and the cabinet. The political right to initiate and to be supportive of activities in any given community is not changed by this act, but the competence of the Securities Commission is brought to bear on the technical issues of the prospectus. I hope all members will be supportive of this legislation which is intended to strengthen a valuable program that all members of the House support, Madam Speaker.
Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Natural Resources): I move that debate be adjourned.
Madam Speaker: It has been moved by the honourable Minister of Natural Resources, seconded by the honourable Minister of Labour (Mr. Gilleshammer), that debate be now adjourned. Agreed?
Some Honourable Members: Agreed.
Madam Speaker: Agreed and so ordered.
Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Madam Speaker, I have introduced this bill before, and I am very pleased to introduce it again. I commend it to all members of the House.
Madam Speaker, many of my colleagues think that I am here speaking on behalf of the Wolseley elm--
Madam Speaker: You have to move the motion first.
Ms. Friesen: Oh, sorry, move the motion, okay.
Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer), that (Bill 205), The Dutch Elm Disease Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur la thyllose parasitaire de l'orme, be now read a second time and be referred to a committee of this House.
Motion presented.
Ms. Friesen: Madam Speaker, I was introducing this bill by saying some of my colleagues think I speak only on behalf of the Wolseley elm, and that is not quite true. There are elms throughout Manitoba; there are elms in Concordia; elms in Wellington; elms across the city; elms in Elmwood; elms in Transcona; elms along the rivers of Manitoba, many of them outside the Perimeter, but the Wolseley elm is special, we are very proud of it. Turn off any main street in Winnipeg as you come along Portage Avenue, or you come along Maryland, and you turn off into the very old community of Wolseley and you find yourself under a great green canopy of leaves.
Madam Speaker, it is one of the nicest ways of returning home, and you feel it every time, I think, that you leave the city and come back to that very special inner city community. It is hard sometimes to believe that you are in the city. The great lungs of the city, such as the elms are, give us a cooling atmosphere. They give us a green canopy, and they are very much one of the defining features of our community.
It is, well, it is almost poetry, Madam Speaker. Home thoughts from abroad: Oh, to be in Wolseley now that spring is here and the great canopy of the elms, and we do indeed have many poets in Wolseley, and I am sure many of them have found inspiration in the elms. I, too, as you can see, and I can hear from the great enthusiasm around this Chamber that I do have a romantic passion, I think, for my community, as many people do.
We in Wolseley also, I think, have seen the elm as a symbol of community. If you go to the Robert A. Steen Community centre and you look outside the club, you will see a historic plaque. In the true Wolseley manner, Madam Speaker, that plaque is a plaque about resistance, and it is about the work of women, also perhaps a Wolseley characteristic, as well. In the 1960s, early 1960s, when Wolseley people found that the road was going to go right past one of the elms and in fact destroy a very significant elm in the middle of Wolseley street itself, those Wolseley women, those women did not weep, they organized, and that is a characteristic of that community, whether it is about a new school, whether it is about traffic patterns, whether it is about Dutch elm disease. This is a community which does not weep. It organizes.
My community organized a Coalition to Save the Elms. Christine Common-Singh, along with Judy Werier and others, put together that coalition which has had, I think, a tremendous impact on the way in which we walk, the way in which we look at our community, and it has mobilized many citizens.
That, too, I think is a very important characteristic of my community, the mobilization of citizens and the tremendous dedication to public infrastructure and that combination in the Coalition to Save the Elms of city employees, CUPE 500 members, who are there year by year with us instructing us on how to identify Dutch elm disease and the citizen elm guards who take a small portion of the riding every year and inspect and take upon themselves the responsibility for ensuring the health of those trees. It is a community, Madam Speaker, which values its environment and which works to protect it.
So, Madam Speaker, it is with some great concern that I introduce this bill again and urge the government to join us in passing it. What I propose is something which arises from the comments made by at least two judges in recent years, where they have said that the fines that they are able to impose under the existing Dutch elm disease law, which I would submit to you was also introduced by a New Democratic government, that the fines were now, as a result of the passing of time, far too low to be a deterrent, and so I propose to give the judges the ability to exercise judgment in increasing those fines up to a maximum and to enable the citizens of Wolseley, the citizens of Manitoba, to have greater confidence that there will be a deterrent in law to the breaking of The Dutch Elm Disease Act, particularly in the area of the transportation of possibly diseased elms.
Madam Speaker, I want to close by reminding members of the House that Dutch elm disease is a disease which spreads very quickly. It began in Manitoba in the 1970s, and it spread very, very quickly over the last 20 or 30 years, and it is often, I think, spread inadvertently. Education is an enormous part of the responsibility, I think, of government in preventing Dutch elm disease, but so is the deterrent of a fine.
So the purpose of this bill, Madam Speaker, is to enable our communities, to enable individuals, to enable the public service to have confidence that the spread of the disease, which I think is particularly of concern after the flood, can be maintained at the rate of less than the 2 percent per year that we have been able to maintain it at in the past. So this is to increase the fines, the possibility of the increase of fines, and to enable people to have the confidence that the spread of the disease can be limited. Thank you.
Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Natural Resources): I move, seconded by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Radcliffe), that debate be adjourned.
Motion agreed to.
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Madam Speaker: Debate on second readings, public bills, Bill 200 (The Legislative Assembly Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'Assemblée législative), standing in the name of the honourable member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk).
Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?
An Honourable Member: Stand.
Madam Speaker: And also standing in the name of the honourable Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Radcliffe), who has 14 minutes remaining.
Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?
An Honourable Member: Leave.
Madam Speaker: Leave has been granted.
Madam Speaker: To resume debate on second reading, Bill 202, The Child and Family Services Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les services à l'enfant et à la famille), standing in the name of the honourable member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer).
Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?
An Honourable Member: Leave.
Madam Speaker: Leave. Leave has been granted.
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Yes, I move, seconded by the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen),
"WHEREAS high quality public education is an essential investment in our children's future, and the future of our province; and
"WHEREAS recent evidence indicates that, as a result of systematic cutbacks to public education over the last number of years, teachers are being forced to pay out-of-pocket for materials to give children a quality education; and
"WHEREAS due to cuts in public education, school divisions have experienced the loss of programs such as industrial arts and home economics, Canadian history and health education to name a few; and
"WHEREAS there has been a substantial loss of teaching positions, creating larger classroom sizes, and making it more difficult for teachers to spend their time with every student; and
"WHEREAS there are a growing number of students requiring special attention who are not receiving that attention due to the loss of teacher aides and the constraints on teachers' time; and
"WHEREAS this situation cannot be allowed to continue if we are to create a hopeful and positive future for ourselves and our children.
"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba urge the Provincial Government to consider ensuring that public school funding will return to a stable and predictable level, by funding public education at a minimum level consistent with growth in the provincial economy."
Motion presented.
Mr. Doer: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this resolution here today. It is very unfortunate that a resolution of this nature is necessary in 1997 here in the province of Manitoba. It is very, very crucial, though, that members opposite listen to the people of this province, listen to the people on the front lines of education, listen to the questions we have been raising in this House and speak up and speak out for public education and stable funding for public education. Day in and day out, we raise questions that are the symptoms of a public education system that is heading in the wrong direction because of a lack of backbone on behalf of the government and resources on behalf of the people.
This is a government that has over $500 million in a so-called rainy day fund, and when the roofs of all of our schools are leaking because of the inadequate funding from the provincial government, do we see anybody over there building a roof and protecting our children? No, we do not. We see a Minister of Education that is out of her league in terms of dealing with these issues and, regrettably, it is the students and children of our province in our public education system who are going to suffer the greatest because of the absolute neglect of this government.
Today it was school buses, questions we have raised four or five times in the past. Yesterday it was the user fees and tollgates that this government is putting on our gyms, and again today we raised those issues. The week before it was Canadian history. The week before that it was home economics. The week before that it was the whole curriculum for industrial arts. There are questions every day about the impact of the cutbacks on public education, and we have a Minister of Education and a government that does not care about the future of our children and by definition does not care about the future of our province. It only cares about slippery little statistics that they think they can use to justify the unjustifiable in terms of public education here in Manitoba.
Five hundred million dollars in a rainy day fund and cutbacks of minus 2, minus 2, a pre-election zero, minus 2 and zero--that is mean, I say to the member for Ste. Rose and the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Cummings). That is truly mean, because it affects the people whose futures are being impacted by those decisions.
Now what justification is there for these cutbacks when there is money in a so-called rainy day fund? What weakness do we see on the ministries' benches, the cabinet benches where they cannot fight for children? How inadequate we have, in terms of a Minister of Education that cannot go to the minister responsible for the Treasury Board and the minister responsible for finances who has hacked and slashed public education and cannot fight. You know, we kind of enjoy the fact that she cannot fight in this Chamber, but it is really terrible when she cannot fight for children in the cabinet room, because it really does affect people in a very, very negative way. I think that is tragic, and I think it is very, very regrettable.
Madam Speaker, the resolution we put forward was consistent with our election promise. Two elections ago the government said, well, we are going to fund public education at the rate of inflation. Well, did they do that? Minus 2 percent. Another broken promise. The word of this government, when it comes to anything, is not worth the paper it is written on, but in public education, again, it is absolutely worth nothing.
Okay, so they broke that promise by minus 2 and minus 2. In the last election, they said they would treat public education in a very fair way. They would be very reasonable in public education funding. Then what they did six months later--minus 2 at the same time they were giving private education plus 13 or 14 percent. In fact, they did not even have the guts to announce the funding for private schools until a couple of weeks after the provincial election, and then they brought in the special new deal.
If you had the courage of your convictions, just go out and campaign on the truth. What are you afraid of? Why are you afraid to campaign on your real priorities? Why are you afraid to campaign on the truth?
Now in the election campaign, we campaigned on--[interjection] No, we understand that we should not have unreasonable expectations of public education funding, so we came up with a reasonable suggestion. We will reinvest in public education the same increase in the level of growth in the economy, and you know, we did not know at the time when we came up with this reasonable idea and this idea of investing in our children the same amount of money that is invested in our communities, how logical it was until we read the pathetic paper that was released by the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) in January of 1996, the so-called--and I do not even think the Minister of Education wrote it. I think it came out of the Treasury Board, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson), the minister responsible for the Treasury Board, and his henchman Jules Benson, Mr. Jules Benson who gives himself superannuated pensions, 12 percent pension funds and of course cut the kids' physical education programs.
We do not even believe the Minister of Education wrote this document. It came out of the golden two, the Premier (Mr. Filmon) and the Minister of Finance, who then dumped this stuff onto the Minister of Education, who has to defend this pathetic paper that says that Manitoba's economy--in one part of the paper--is doing so well, and then we are in ninth place when it comes to funding public education at another level.
You know, it is such an amateur job that no wonder every trustee and every teacher saw right through it, Madam Speaker. But you know, the Minister of Education stands up in the morning, goes to the Chamber of Commerce, the Premier goes to the Chamber of Commerce and does the hallelujah chorus and says we are the greatest province in Canada, we are doing so well, we are doing so wonderfully that he picks some minor little statistic and they say, look at how great we are doing. Then they come to public education, they say, oh, oh, our cupboards are bare, we have no more money. They do a kind of--[interjection] Well, Mother Hubbard is one example, or one recalls Oliver Twist in terms of kids in education, wanting just a decent amount of funding from that famous Dickens novel that we all recall so well and had given to us so well in our public education in the past. [interjection] And I had to work on the switchboard, too, I might add. I digress.
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The public education, the proposal we are making makes a lot of sense. Of course the government cannot support it because making sense in public education is not their strong suit. They are going in the opposite direction. The idea that if the economy grows by 3 percent or 2.5 percent, that obviously produces extra revenue for the province. Personal income tax is the largest growing revenue item outside of lotteries in the province. It produces corporate revenues; it produces sales tax revenues, including the spread in sales tax. It is not really a tax increase, right? And it produces all kinds of other revenues for the province. That in turn can be reinvested in our public education system at a reasonable rate. What a difference between a plus 2 versus a minus 2. What a difference it would make to the children in our school system who are being starved for funding by this particular Conservative government.
What a difference it would make even to the taxes if this government feigns interest for taxes. Look at the property tax increases that have taken place in all the school divisions, save a few, across Manitoba in the last sets of budgets that were produced by school divisions. Why should we have programs such as nutrition programs cut back?
What is the answer for the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) and the Premier (Mr. Doer) by his silence? Oh, we want our school divisions to go out and recruit immigrant high school students at $2,000 a person, an enrollee, $10,000 an enrollee, to deal with the funding shortages for nutrition programs in the Winnipeg School Division No. 1. Again, we have a government that does not know where they are going and does not know how to get there in terms of funding for public education.
An Honourable Member: Not true. We are supporting our children in Manitoba.
Mr. Doer: Well, if they are in Ravenscourt, you are, and if they are in the public education system, they are not. Madam Speaker, I know the government is pretty animated right now and has thin skin. I guess they are getting the thin skin from their Premier (Mr. Filmon), who is having a bad week. He is all panicking about the Reform Party and everything else, but you know, they should just relax and they should recognize that in the last five years the record is pretty clear. Minus 2, minus 2, a pre-election zero, a postelection minus 2, and now a zero for 1997-98. Where I come from, that is a massive cut in support for public education.
Now, I know the government will go back over the statistics and try to get some of the NDP years in to make it look better, and I know quite frankly some of the years were better in the minority years. There is no question in the minority-government years, because we had some accountability of these people opposite, the funding increases were much more acceptable in the NDP years and the minority years. The Minister of Education is going to wrap these numbers into her statistical story and try to subvert what really has happened here in Manitoba.
I was at a forum last year when a young woman stated that she had to take her physics courses backwards because of lack of support for curriculum support and lack of textbooks. I was at another forum where a person from a high school in Winnipeg stated that many courses had been stopped and closed down because of the public-funding cuts from this government. And the student said to me and said to the group assembled, every time the government cuts funding and my school closes courses, you shut another door to my future.
What this resolution is attempting to do is to have a reasonable way of funding public education. It is unreasonable to have tens of millions of dollars in a rainy day pre-election slush fund and have our children have massive user fees so they can participate in an equal way with their fellow students in our public education system. So I am very, very serious about this resolution, and we are very serious about this resolution.
The members opposite do not understand the basic facts. You cannot have an economic strategy without an education strategy. We say, stop your political manipulation of the public education system. Start investing in our future. Invest in our children and support a resolution forwarded by the NDP to put our children first instead of putting political maneuvering first. Let us vote for children. Let us vote for this resolution. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): I stand here as someone whose passion in life is education, whose whole life has been devoted to public school education. The member opposite talks a lot about education and makes reference to public school education in particular, which is a critical component of the education in Manitoba because it is the largest, available to all, part of education that is--
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Mrs. McIntosh: As a government, of course, we are responsible for all education in Manitoba. As a person whose background and career and volunteer work has been devoted exclusively to public school education, that does not mean that we do not believe in supporting choice for parents who seek alternative education, because we that do as well.
This resolution speaks specifically to public school funding. The member does a very great disservice by implying, in any way, shape or form, that members on this side of the House are not devoted to and committed to public school education. In terms of dollars, we have provided this year some $746.5 million specifically for public schools, compared to $745 million last year. Indeed, Madam Speaker, over this length of time that we have been in office, that is a $115-million increase to public school education since we took office, and that is not the only extra money. That is $115 million more according to the formula with which we fund schools, but we have put extra money in over and above that in a myriad of ways that have been well identified in this House.
The member made reference to the fact that in our early years of government we were able to fund education well above inflation and, Madam Speaker, that is true. In those days, we were not faced with the incredible impact of federal transfer cuts, the federal transfer cuts this year coming to $224 million or roughly the equivalent of the entire operating budget of the University of Manitoba.
We were not faced with those in our first few years of government, and we were able to disperse more to our liking rather than having to frantically try to backfill cuts of that magnitude, which are horrific and cannot be denied, were in fact the subject of much debate during the recent federal election. Anyone doubting the impact of those cuts or pretending they are irrelevant is either very uninformed or playing games of some sort, because the effect of those transfer cuts has been very, very real, very devastating.
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Having said that, we still have managed to achieve a $115-million overall increase to education, to public schools specifically, since we took office. We have also been able to indicate that next year, barring any further unforeseen cuts in federal funding, we will at least be able to match this year's level. We do not know how much we will be able to give. We know that it will not be less than this year, and we are able to guarantee that to school divisions, as I say, provided the federal government does not come through with some unexpected cuts they have not told us about, so I think our commitment has been very clear in that regard. We have also given increased flexibility for the way in which dollars are spent.
We have devoted a lot of time and energy to a plan for education. We have a plan, a very clearly laid-out plan, perhaps the first clearly laid-out plan for education in the history of this province. We have the blueprints put out by Mr. Manness when he was minister that clearly identified our goals, that clearly laid out a plan of action to achieve those goals. We have consulted extensively with parents, formal consultations with parents unprecedented in this province, something never tried with other governments before us to the extent to which we have done that. We have said that we want our students to have four key essential skills. We have identified those in our booklet, Foundation for Excellence, in our plan called New Directions, upon which we fought an election and for which we were elected. This was very much a part of our election platform, presented in detail to the public, accepted by the public and placed in office so that we could implement. I know the members opposite do not like this blueprint. They do not like this Foundation for Excellence, and so they then try to say it is not a plan. But indeed it is a very well-laid-out, well-researched plan.
We have identified in that four areas of essential skills and foundation skills: problem solving, literacy and communication, human relations, and technology. Those four foundation skills are required from kindergarten to Senior 4, and they are fundamental to both teaching and learning. These incidentally are not skills that pertain just to Manitoba. These are skills that other provinces are also implementing, so Canadians are moving in this direction, a direction for which my predecessor took the lead. One of the things we have discovered as we were implementing Mr. Manness's blueprint, as other provinces opt in, including two NDP provinces, we are slowing our timetable down to allow them a chance to catch up with us, and I think that that is a testament to some of the things we are doing. I am working in collaboration with Mr. Minister Mitchell next door to us in Saskatchewan, a very fine gentleman, whose ideas on post-secondary education are very similar to mine and we are working together for the good of our post-secondary students in both provinces. I look forward to continue work in that regard.
In the interests of protecting important learning like health and history we have focused on curriculum integration with a greater emphasis on these subjects at all grade levels. The new curriculum that will come out when it is ready will reflect more accurately some of the things that have not always been in. Our curricula in history, for example, will be talking about pre-European Canadian history, far more relevant than the current curriculum which has been in place for a long time and certainly was never changed when the New Democrats were in power, never given the kind of thorough, thorough examination that it is currently being given.
That commitment was part of our commitment to take that outdated curriculum that was under our previous government before us and to make it more relevant and updated. That takes a long time, especially when you work in collaboration with other provinces which we are delighted to be able to do because that will give a standard that is needed.
We also, Madam Speaker--I indicated that the $224-million federal transfer payment cut has been very hard to us, but we have cushioned the effects in total by committing over $1 billion this year towards education, one of our government's highest spending priorities, second only, in fact, to health. If you take a look at our priorities, funding for education in Manitoba was 18 percent of our total provincial budget, and it is now 19.2 percent. When we came to office, it was 17 percent of a $4-billion budget. Last year it was 18 percent of a $5-billion budget. It is now 19.2 percent, so we continue to put the majority of our emphasis of spending in percentage terms on education. In dollar terms, we start with the base $115-million increase and add in the other things that we have added on top of that $115 million, and it is therefore wrong to say that there has not been attention paid to education. Remember, at the same time, we have had an overall slight decline in the number of students.
Investing in our children, in our schools and the future of Manitoba to ensure that they have solid skills when they graduate and leave our public school system, Madam Speaker, requires a lot more than just money. We have put the money in, but we also indicate that we have done a lot to improve the system itself in ways that do not cost money. The member mentioned in his whereases that there are larger classroom sizes. I challenge that, because we know that Manitoba's class size is the third best in Canada, and we know, as well, that that class size, depending on whether or not you count the support teaching staff, is 14.5 percent if you include the support staff such as principals or resource teachers and is 19 students to one teacher if you count only classroom teachers without the support staff. That means the average class size is 19, and not all classes are 19. Some are 30 but some are also 10, and that is the third best in Canada.
It is not much different than it was last year or the year before. It is certainly far, far improved over the average class size of 34 that I experienced in the early '60s when I started teaching, and you may recall that yourself, Madam Speaker. I think I never had a class smaller than 34 and I never had prep time, and I never had some of the other things that are very important and good that we have now in the system that I always wished we had, and I am glad they are there now. Those came in, of course, with the schools boards, the school trustees that were in place at the time, and I appreciate some of the decisions they made. [interjection]
The member opposite has made some comments that are incorrect. If they are on the record, I would like to correct them. She has indicated--just to correct what she said, I think it is quite clear that school boards have not had to raise special levies nearly as much under this government as they did under the New Democrats. Under the New Democrats, they were having to raise special levies by very large amounts, and under our jurisdiction they have not had to raise special levies by very large amounts. So, clearly, the funding they are getting from the province is not having to pass on to the people in the same way they did, say, for example, when Mr. Pawley was Premier.
We have started the Children and Youth Secretariat, Madam Speaker. That has done a tremendous amount of good in terms of finally integrating the services that were needed.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable Minister of Education will have two minutes remaining.
The hour being 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 3:30 p.m. on Monday next.