Mr. Gerry McAlpine (Sturgeon Creek): Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize the recent accomplishments of the Silver Heights Senior Jazz Ensemble and the Symphonic Band. Some 62 students attended the Mid-West Music Maestro Please Festival in Chicago, and the Silver Heights musicians competed against the bands from right across the United States. The fact that for the first time in the 17-year history of the festival one school received two gold awards bodes well for our young, aspiring musicians.
A noted musician is trumpet player John Pittman who received the outstanding musician award. John is also a member of the three-day band at Sturgeon Creek United. This band has recently released their first CD and is offered a tremendous future in music.
I want to thank and congratulate Mr. Jim Mackay at Silver Heights Collegiate who, again, was successful in achieving greatness with yet another great band at Silver Heights Collegiate.
I would like to encourage all of the talented musicians that we have in Manitoba to pursue their talents. Music is a great way to learn to work as a team. It is always an honour to share with my colleagues of the House the great achievements taking place in the constituency of Sturgeon Creek. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
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Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): If I may, Madam Speaker, paraphrase Alexander Pope, who said: fools may contest whatever government is best, but whatever is best administered is best.
No governments can be better than the people who run them. The basic guide is not legality. When our social institutions are governed by a basic framework of fundamental rules and those rules are tampered with and the political process is brought into disrepute, it is high time now that we awake.
Morality is higher than legality. Morality in principle is the core of true politics. Nothing is really viable unless it is based on ethics. Leaders who lie with their ears on the ground are harder to look up to than leaders who stand up high on the ground with visions where we should go. When the electoral process is brought into disrepute, it is high time for us to be awake. We are not only endangering the social institution, we are endangering the basic trust of the people on how they are governed, and only when there is an agreement that these fundamental rules must be preserved at all costs, preserving the integrity of the selection process in a democracy, that we are able to preserve our system.
People who are duly elected by their constituents, they are the political salt of the earth. They are supposed to be examples of integrity, but if they themselves have lost this flavour, where shall they be salted? Madam Speaker, all I am saying is this: who will investigate the investigator if we refuse to have an independent social inquiry?
Mr. David Faurschou (Portage la Prairie): Madam Speaker, on Monday evening I had the opportunity to represent the Province of Manitoba with my attendance at the International Agricultural Exchange Association's 32nd Annual Conference. Delegates and border governor members from around the world are congregated in picturesque Gimli, Manitoba, Canada, for their deliberations.
The IAEA exchange program is well known and well respected among those of us in the agricultural community. The program offers young people from around the world the opportunity to live with host families in a new country and to help expand their agricultural and horticultural expertise.
In addition to expanding their knowledge of agriculture, they gain exposure to other ways of life and other cultures and have a chance to learn a new language and gain the understanding of the peoples of those countries. Since it began, more than 25,000 young men and women have travelled the world thanks to this program. The province of Manitoba joined the IAEA program in 1974 to host young people from across the globe.
Madam Speaker, I personally have had the privilege of being a host family for the IAEA program, and I personally can attest to the value of the experience not only for the trainees but for those of the host family. Since 1988 through 1995, young people from Denmark, New Zealand, Australia and England have been billeted at our farm in Portage la Prairie. I must say that I have benefited significantly from their culture and their ways within agricultural practices.
Madam Speaker, I want to also bring attention to the hundreds of thousands of hours of volunteer time that have gone into the success of this program. So, on behalf of all honourable members, I would like to wish the delegates attending the five-day conference in Gimli the very best as they continue to foster the program in the young people's interest in the agricultural industry. Thank you.
Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Madam Speaker, for three days in the Chamber here in the Legislature of the province of Manitoba, the people of Manitoba have been experiencing what is known in the parlance as stonewalling on the part of the Premier (Mr. Filmon) of the province. Stonewalling has a long and ignoble history going back hundreds of years. Most recently I think we all remember a former President of the United States who for two years stonewalled behind obfuscation, misinformation and sheer unwillingness to address the issues of the day, and we all know what happened to the President of the United States in August of 1974.
The Premier in the province of Manitoba today is doing the same thing. Instead of agreeing to a public, independent inquiry that could happen under the criminal inquiries act tomorrow, the Premier is hiding behind the elections Manitoba act. He is saying they have all the powers they need to investigate, they have all the powers they need to investigate allegations that even today reach into the highest echelons of the Progressive Conservative Party and the highest echelons of the government of the Province of Manitoba. And this Premier, stonewalling as he is, refuses to acknowledge the fact that The Elections Act does not allow for Elections Manitoba to initiate the kind of public, independent, clear-the-air inquiry that is essential if the people of the province of Manitoba are to retain and regain their abilities, their support, their sense that the political parties are accountable in this province.
Shame on the Premier, shame on the government that does not hold him accountable. The people will hold him accountable if he will not hold himself accountable.
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): I do not think we can overstate the seriousness of the accusations that have been made, Madam Speaker, originally in the 1995 election with the new allegations and the new evidence we have seen in the last few days, accusations of political corruption that go to the very top of the Conservative Party.
I found it appalling earlier today to listen to the Premier dismiss more recent evidence we have of the fact that people like Cubby Barrett were directly involved with this. Cubby Barrett, by the way, was involved in setting up the $5,000 but also Carl Barrett, the son of Cubby Barrett went so far as to be putting up the signs for the aboriginal Native Voice candidate, Mr. Sutherland, in the Interlake. If the Premier does not understand, we are dealing here with a bogus campaign, we are dealing with political fraud of the highest level, we see why we have a serious problem.
We now have evidence in Question Period today that essentially when the Premier said he investigated this matter on Monday, he made no investigation of any kind whatsoever. It appears he talked to a few key people. Now, I would assume one of them was Taras Sokolyk, who by the way, has been one of the ones who has been accused of being directly involved in this, directly involved with hatching this. Perhaps he talked to Ms. Val Hueging, the party secretary; perhaps he talked to Kim Sigurdson, his own candidate; perhaps he talked to Allan Aitken, the campaign manager, but we do not know. In fact, we have evidence today that it sounds pretty well like the Premier spoke to virtually no one, and then he says, well it was being investigated by Elections Manitoba.
Madam Speaker, I am proud to be a part of a party where we put integrity at the top level of our party. I cannot believe that the Premier in this province waited three years to ask any questions about the political fraud being hatched by his right-hand person and key officials in the Conservative Party. It shows how little sense of political ethics and morality this Premier and this party has.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.