Madam Speaker: To resume adjourned debate on second reading, Bill 6, The Animal Liability and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi sur la responsabilité des propriétaires d'animaux et modifications corrélatives), standing in the name of the honourable member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton). Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?
Some Honourable Members: No.
Madam Speaker: No? Leave has been denied.
Mr. Clif Evans (Interlake): Just a few short comments on the proposed amendment to Bill 6, The Animal Liability and Consequential Amendments Act, presented by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns).
Madam Speaker, going through this, we have seen that there has been a need for some amendments made and some legislation with respect to the liability of owners of domestic farm animals. Now of course with the addition of different species that are being brought into our province such as the wild boars--and I might add in some areas a very substantial uplifting of the industry itself, the wild boar industry. If there is anyone who has had the opportunity to taste the wild boar meat, you will find it absolutely excellent. I have a friend and a constituent just north of our community in Riverton who raises them.
As and according to some of the statements by the minister and with respect to the bill, there are problems that we see in that industry. The owners and the producers themselves will say that there are some problems when it comes to keeping these animals within their own confines of the property. We know that in my area and in some other areas of communities that farm the wild boar, these are very strong and very powerful animals. Once they can get out of their pens and their confined areas, it can be very, very damaging and can destroy literally anything that comes in their way. Short of using firearms to stop them, I think that short of that, we have to deal with the issue that if these wild boars do get out and into somebody else's property, with the damage that they can cause, yes, I do feel, and I think that producers themselves will understand and appreciate the fact that they should be held liable for, whether it be the wild boar, whether it be their own cows or horses or their own dog that goes onto someone else's property, creates a problem, destroys something, injures.
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I do notice that in some sections of the bill, and I was just checking through it, that it talks about the fact that the responsibility, if it is killing, injury, recovery of damages for the injury done to or killing of the livestock by dog, wild boar, or prescribed animal. There is also another aspect to this that we have to look at. Looking through the bill, we do not see anything here where the same prescribed animals as such, the damage perhaps or the injury that they can do upon our young people and upon a human being. The bill seems to totally concentrate on just the fact of what damage it may do to your crops, what damage it may do to other animals in your own yard, but we have to have that fear. That fear is there. When you do have some of these animals that come out of their own area, out of their own pens and into stranger areas, we have to be alert that our children are out in the farmyards, in the schoolyards. So I think that the responsibility should be more in place and the thought of that being also.
Another aspect of the bill, I just want to make a comment on the fact of whether the liability to the producer or to the farmer whose animals have gotten out. An incident occurred just not too long ago on Highway 68 between The Narrows and Mulvihill, where two horses were in the middle of the night on Highway 68 with a semitruck going east, hit both the horses, tremendous damage, of course killing the horses, tremendous damage to the truck. Up to now, even now--and this is over a year ago--the liability has not been ascertained, whether it is the farmer who owned the horses who was perhaps liable for the horses being on the road.
Hopefully, legislation like this will be able to make it easier for Autopac and for other damages that have been incurred to be satisfied, but, Madam Speaker, normally we do not support too often bills that are presented by this government. I do feel, and my colleagues feel, that the bill has quite a bit of merit to it, knowing that changes have to be put in place every so often when it comes to legislation that has been introduced before.
This is all part of The Animal Husbandry Act. I remember that my first speech in the House in 1990 was on The Animal Husbandry Act, Madam Speaker. At that time, I had no idea whatsoever what The Animal Husbandry Act was about, but I did make my issue and make my point to the fact that the one thing I did notice in the act was that everything was done by the minister's consent. The minister had the consent to do this; the minister had the consent to that.
I do not see the minister's consent here too often, just perhaps in one section, and it is amazing that this minister puts in a bill that does not make him the do-all of The Animal Liability and Consequential--
An Honourable Member: The king.
Mr. C. Evans: Yes, King Harry. I did not want to say it, Madam Speaker, but he made me do it.
So we support this bill, Madam Speaker, pass it on to committee, and, hopefully, we will be able to if there are any concerns be brought to committee. Thank you.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, we understand that the bill does deal with the liability in particular that an owner of an animal has with regard to an animal trespassing on property or contributing to the cause of an accident.
I think the crux of the bill has been addressed by the speaker before me in his comments, and anything that can be done to assist in the facilitation of liability or the downplaying of some of the hardships and the emotional tolls that individuals go through when incidents such as the member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans) refers to take place I think is a positive step, and this particular bill attempts in a very specific way to address the issue of that liability which in my opinion does it in a positive way.
So, therefore, we support it going to committee. Thank you.
Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading of Bill 6, The Animal Liability 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 adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 7, standing in the name of the honourable member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes). Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing? No? Leave has been denied.
Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Madam Speaker, I would like to put a few comments on the record today regarding this Bill 7, after which I would expect we will send the bill on to committee.
The purpose of this bill is to allow the Public Utilities Board to set fees for witnesses and advisors to the board on hearings and rate applications. The rates have not changed since 1985, which means the PUB may have trouble hiring quality advice.
Now, Madam Speaker, this piece of legislation could very well have been introduced last year when the government made some changes to the act, and as such it is an oversight in their operation, and it indicates to me the sparse content that we have to deal with here in this legislative session. There are very little bills here of any real substance.
I would also like to make a comment about the role of the PUB. In this province, the PUB has essentially become a rubber stamp for rate hikes, rate hike requests by Centra Gas and other people. In addition, I think we have certainly put on the record in the past that we were concerned about the government's use of the PUB to deflect responsibility for rate increases.
This government has pretended that Autopac rates and gas rates are decided by this independent PUB, but, in fact, they appoint the board of the PUB. In fact, the board of the PUB has had, as its membership, members such as the ex-Tory candidate in Crescentwood, and other Tory hacks that have been put out to pasture on the PUB and basically make decisions that are favourable to this government at the direction of this government. The government has hidden behind that fact over the last few years to avoid taking responsibility for its action.
Having made those comments, Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be sent to committee.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, I, too, just want to put a few words on the record before going to committee. I understand that it does allow the utility board the right to set its own rates for the compensation for special advisers that it uses from time to time. My concern with the Public Utilities Board, I think, can be summed up in the way in which Autopac in the past has--Autopac rate increases have been addressed by governments. I think that it is far too political, and there are things that can be done in order to give it more of an independence. I would have liked to have seen legislation that would ensure that that would be perceived as taking place, which is absolutely important to establish credibility that the perception has to be there. I think there is valid argument that can be made in terms of where we have seen, and the best one is dealing with Autopac, some very serious problems.
Madam Speaker, I do recognize that this particular bill, by allowing them to set their rates, does give it some more independence, and in that sense I think that is a positive step forward, but I think the broader picture still needs to be dealt with. I would have liked to have seen the government deal with that, and in that sense it is a bit of a disappointment. Thank you.
Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question?
Some Honourable Members: Question.
Madam Speaker: The question before the House is second reading of Bill 7, The Public Utilities Board Amendment 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 adjourned debate, second reading debate on Bill 5, The Agricultural Credit Corporation Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Société du crédit agricole), standing in the name of the honourable member for Swan River. Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?
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An Honourable Member: No.
Madam Speaker: No.
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Madam Speaker, I want to take a few minutes to put some comments on the record with respect to this bill. As I look at the minister's comments, he indicates that this is just a minor bill, a housekeeping bill, but I quite often, when the minister makes those kinds of comments about bills just being a housekeeping bill, you really have to wonder if it is really the intent of the bill. In this particular case, it is just some minor amendments but amendments that we have some concern with.
The Manitoba Crop Insurance Corporation is an important agricultural policy tool. For farmers across the province, it offers a wide variety of loans; and certainly the credit corporation is meant to fill a void between what is required in the form of capital for projects and what is available from many financial institutes. In many cases, farmers have not been able to borrow money from financial institutes and the credit corporation has been there to offer that support. Over the past few years, there have been changes in the loans that are being available. With the various diversification that we have seen in agriculture, as farmers move away from grain production into different diversified livestock, the credit corporation has been able to meet the needs of some of the farmers.
I have to say, Madam Speaker, that there are many challenges facing the agricultural community at the present time. We have just had the census figures come out, and we know that the farmers in Manitoba have some of the lowest incomes, but we also know that there is a great decrease in population in rural Manitoba, and to have a decrease in population, it means that farmers are leaving the land or selling their land off to other producers. Many farmers have just become tired of trying to make a living on the farm but not being able to get an adequate return for the product that they produce.
Certainly, Madam Speaker, there is a role for government to play in this, but there is a bigger role for the Department of Agriculture to play and one that the department has failed in, and that is in the area of research to help farmers, rural people, in their quest for diversification. As I say, the government talks an awful lot about rural diversification and about helping the rural community, and many times I feel that that is very much lip service and the real support is not there, especially when you compare to other provinces. When you look at what is happening in Saskatchewan as far as research and working along with producers in the value-added area, much more work is being done there.
So, Madam Speaker, with respect to the role of the Agricultural Credit Corporation, it is a very important institute. Over the last little while, we have seen the amounts of money raised that are available to various farmers as they expand their operation, and one of the concerns that I have heard is the fact that there is almost an unfair advantage for the larger operations versus the small operations. The money that they can leverage out is certainly a much higher proportion than what the smaller operations can leverage, and I think that this is something that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) has to think about very seriously, as do all members of the government have to think about what is happening in rural Manitoba; what is happening to our population; why are so many farmers having such difficulty; why are so many young people having such a hard time staying within their own communities?
At one point, I had the opportunity to visit with some people in southern Manitoba, one area where I met with people in the Virden area, and these were young people who said that they would very much like to stay in their own community, but they did not see any hope for them to come back to their communities to live because there just were not enough jobs there, and it all goes back to agriculture. If there is a healthy agriculture community, a viable community, then there are spin-off jobs in those areas and there are opportunities for young people.
I had the same message given to me from young people in my constituency who said that they are going out of province for an education and would very much like to come back to Manitoba. In fact, one of them would like to be involved in agriculture with her mom and dad, but, again, very worried about whether or not her parents will be able to stay on the land. As we see agriculture operations growing larger and people trying to make a living for their families off the land, we see the effects of this on our rural communities. It is a very difficult one.
The other challenge, of course, that we are facing that is right before us right now, Madam Speaker, is the role that the railways are playing with rail line abandonment. Again, with rail line abandonment farmers are picking up more of a debt load, and farmers are requiring more and more credit to help them with their operations, and that is one of the roles that the farm credit corporation can play.
I want to say that with respect to this bill, there are regulations governing the operations of the Agricultural Corporation, and these regulations govern, for example, the process by which it is decided who gets loans and how much. The government in this bill is proposing that the powers to change these regulations be taken away from cabinet, giving direct responsibility to the minister. The benefits of the regulations--you see, Madam Speaker, this is something very similar that we have seen. This is a pattern that we have seen in many of these bills that this government has brought out in the last little while. We see a government that wants to take more power to the minister and less power to decision making from cabinet. Of course, there is less, when cabinet makes a decision, there is an Order-in-Council that comes out, and we can follow what is going on. But the proposal that we have here that we have in other bills is taking away the power from the, giving the minister more power to make decisions.
In some cases, maybe that is necessary. Maybe you want a speeded up, streamlined process, as the minister says in his comments, but really it is something that we cannot support. We would not support having a less transparent government. What we have now is transparency that makes it obvious what government is doing, and as you move more and more to increase the powers of the minister and limit the ability of opposition members, limit the ability of the public to know what government is doing, it allows for a government to become less and less accountable to the people that have put them into the position of being government.
As I say, the minister says it is just a housekeeping bill, but one of the concerns with the whole issue of whether or not there should be an openness to government and the steps that are being taken under this bill do not lead for openness. I am sure that the minister says he will be very open. He may be very open, but who will be there to hold him accountable?
Madam Speaker, as we have with other pieces of legislation, we see that this is one of a government moving to one of less accountability to the public and one that we would not be supporting.
Before I close, I want to say that there is a very important role for the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation to play. There is a need for an alternate institute of lending, and there have been many farmers who would be in very great difficulty were it not for the role that Manitoba Credit Corporation plays in providing funds to farmers.
So, with those few comments, we are prepared to let the bill go to committee, and I am sure that there will be at some point, when we get to committee, there will be people who may have comments on this bill as well.
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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, this is one of those bills which I had asked to get some specific speaking notes on. It was indicated to me that the bill is essentially housekeeping. It enables the minister to approve administrative regulations without having to go to cabinet for an Order-in-Council. According to the minister, this is intended to speed up the streamlining of the administrative regulation, allowing the minister to deal with what are essentially administrative matters.
There is, however, a downside to this type of regulation. While we are reducing the amount of red tape, we are also reducing the Legislature's ability to oversee the functions of government and in particular cabinet ministers. Lessening our control to review administrative regulations in this manner is not clear in terms of the potential threat for opposition members in terms of holding government more accountable.
On the broader, more general note, when I think of the Agricultural Credit Corporation, what comes to mind is a number of fine Manitobans that have raised the issue of agriculture with me, whether it is the Lougheeds [phonetic] from Minnedosa, or we have the Ron Kellers [phonetic] or the Keith Ryans [phonetic] within our party who speak very passionately about the need for ensuring some form of financial security, ensuring that those finances are in fact going to be there. There is a lot of potential out in rural Manitoba. There is a need for financial assistance. We need to do what we can to ensure that that is in part there. A sense of accountability is important. I am not necessarily convinced that this is, in fact, the best way to address that whole issue, but would look forward to it going to committee.
Madam Speaker: The honourable Minister of Agriculture, to close the debate?
Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): I am closing debate on second reading on the bill. I simply wanted to express my appreciation to honourable members for their comments and certainly encourage them to take the advantage when I will have staff, senior staff of the corporation, before the committee to further determine to their content the operations of the affair.
In fact, I will make that invitation to my own members as well. This is an important organization; it currently is, for instance, in this current year, loaning out some 56 millions of dollars that, after all, come from the public purse. I think that, although the amendments before you I describe as, generally speaking, housekeeping, there are some important changes. The issues that the honourable member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) raises, there is for some a fundamental difference in transferring, taking out of cabinet responsibility to ministerial responsibility, which, in my opinion, in my understanding of the rules, allows for the honourable members to engage the government and engage the senior officials of MACC in a debate on this issue at committee stage.
But I certainly welcome the opportunity of a closer examination of an organization that is loaning out and handling very substantial amounts of taxpayers' money, that I think we can all agree with, those of us who have an interest in agriculture. It is extremely important for the agriculture community right now, particularly now as there are some very heart-wrenching changes going on, on the scene about size and about the input costs keep getting larger. Do we have to go in that direction, or can we find some value-added way of making that a more modest-sized, medium-sized farm operation still viable?
So I put these few comments on the record to encourage honourable members to take full advantage when this bill appears before the committee for this further examination. Thank you.
Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading of Bill 5, The Agriculture Credit Corporation Amendment Act.
Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?
Some Honourable Members: Agreed.
Madam Speaker: Agreed and so ordered.
Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing?
An Honourable Member: No.
Madam Speaker: No? Leave has been denied.
Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): Madam Speaker, I do wish to put a few comments on the record on this bill, and then we will be prepared to pass this on to committee.
This is a bill that deals with the quarry rehabilitation fund, a program that was created by the New Democratic government in the '80s, a program that is sensitive to the needs of the Manitobans. It recognizes that pits and quarries become depleted, are scars and eyesores in our communities and in our countryside.
It is progressive legislation that was developed in the '80s. It is unfortunate it took this government over five years to actually implement it; and, when they did, the bill was flawed. That is what we see now, a corrective measure to deal with the flaw that they did not have in the original bill. So here we have a situation where the funds, the interest incurred from that fund has been used in general revenue by the government, and this bill amends it and moves that interest, rightly so, back into the rehabilitation fund to be used to rehabilitate the landscape.
The other part of this program is that it is a significant program, and this government has not seen fit to put the resources into implementing a comprehensive program as it deserves to. One individual has been hired in addition to the other three inspectors that the department had originally, not sufficient to meet the needs of a comprehensive rehabilitation program. The fund does not expend the monies that it collects in any given one year, and it is a growing fund. This is an issue that has been raised numerous times by contractors and others who pay into the fund on a regular basis.
Madam Speaker, there is also the question that the other inspectors who are there to uphold and ensure that the regulations regarding pits and quarries are actually complied with. Unfortunately, those individuals are now busy doing the rehabilitation program and taken away from their responsibility, ensuring that the regulations and the law is actually complied with.
So I challenge the government to do the right thing, put more resources into the department so that the rehabilitation fund can operate as the NDP had imagined and that this government has, unfortunately, been unable to implement and actually implement a program, well-thought-out program, which will not only beautify and enhance our countryside but actually does, in this case, comply with the principles of sustainable development, something that this government wishes to trumpet but is very weak, very weak on actually doing anything in sustainable development.
Madam Speaker, this is a bill that is long overdue, is repairing what should have been in the original bill. Unfortunately they messed it up, and now they are trying to fix it. There are a few more areas in this program that require more attention, and I challenge the government to ensure that the program is implemented in a comprehensive way, and on those few notes I am prepared to pass this onto committee.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, from what I understand, when enacted this bill will in fact assist in the establishment of a rehabilitation reserve account from a levy paid by all Crown and privately owned aggregate quarries. This money will be used to rehabilitate lands in which a quarry has been situated. To date, the fund is, from what I understand, not yet in place. [interjection] Or it is in place, but they do not expend it, which is a valid concern in terms of what is happening with respect to interest being put into general revenues. That is not in fact what was targeted for it.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for Inkster--[interjection] Is there leave that the members will not see the clock? Leave? Leave has been granted.
Mr. Lamoureux: Very briefly, this bill is needed because the current legislation would allow interest from this fund to go into general revenue, in part. Under this act, the interest will remain in the account. This bill will not arouse much necessarily interest from the general public. Yet it does warrant significant attention, because it does serve a very valid purpose in ensuring that the right thing is in fact done with respect to quarries. Thank you.
Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading of Bill 9, The Mines and Minerals Amendment Act. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?
Some Honourable Members: Agreed.
Madam Speaker: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.