Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I believe His Honour the Lieutenant Governor will be entering the Chamber momentarily with respect to Royal Assent for a bill which, discussions with House leaders, we require in order to convene a committee, a meeting of the Legislative Assembly Management Commission, to complete some regulatory work. So I believe His Honour should be here momentarily.

Madam Speaker: The Lieutenant Governor is expected momentarily for Royal Assent on Bill 28.

* (1430)

Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms (Mr. Garry Clark): His Honour the Lieutenant Governor.

Madam Speaker: May it please Your Honour:

The Legislative Assembly, at its present session, passed a bill which, in the name of the Assembly, I present to Your Honour and to which bill I respectfully request Your Honour's assent:

Bill 28–The Legislative Assembly Amendment Act (2); Loi no 2 modifiant la Loi sur l'Assemblée législative.

Mr. Clerk (William Remnant): In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant Governor doth assent to this bill.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would like to announce that the Standing Committee on Law Amendments, to complete its work on Bill 40, will be called for this afternoon concurrently with the House for 2:45 p.m.

Madam Speaker: The Standing Committee on Law Amendments will be called concurrently with the House at 2:45 this afternoon. Is there leave? [agreed]

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, with respect to the passage of Bill 28, I would also like to announce that a Legislative Assembly Management Commission meeting will be called for this afternoon following the completion of the Law Amendments committee in the same committee room. So once that committee has concluded its work, a reasonable 10-15 minutes following the completion of its work, if LAMC could then convene in that same committee room.

Madam Speaker: For the benefit of information for all members, the Legislative Assembly Management Commission meeting will take place following completion of the standing committee in Room 255.

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the difficulty that that may cause yourself, but I am sure, with a variety of Acting Deputy Speakers, et cetera, that we will be able to accommodate your attendance there. As well, as I am sure members appreciate, as we are in the latter days of the session, the need, that there are some important regulations that require approval with respect to Revenue Canada, and in discussing this with the opposition House leader, and I do not think I have had the opportunity to speak to the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) on it yet, but there is a desire, I think, to at least complete that business while members are here in the capital, as opposed to calling a meeting following their disbursement across the province. So that is why we are attempting to accommodate that at this time.

Madam Speaker, there are a list of bills, and I would ask if you could, with leave, call the reports from the standing committees that completed work on a number of bills.

Madam Speaker: Is there leave to have the reports of the Standing Committee on Industrial Relations and the Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs? Leave? [agreed]

Third Report

Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): Madam Speaker, I beg to present the Third Report on the Committee on Industrial Relations.

An Honourable Member: Dispense.

Madam Speaker: Dispense.

Mr. Helwer: I move, seconded by the honourable member for Charleswood (Mrs. Driedger), that the report of the committee be received.

Mr. Denis Rocan (Gladstone): I beg to report the Third Report of the Committee on Municipal Affairs.

An Honourable Member: Dispense.

Madam Speaker: Dispense.

Mr. Rocan: I move, seconded by the honourable member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer), that the report of the committee be received.

* * *

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, I would ask if you could please, with leave where it is required, call for report stage all remaining bills that have been passed and been reported by committee, followed by, again with necessary leaves, any bills that have completed report stage, if you could then with leave call them for third reading, if leave is required.

Madam Speaker: Is there unanimous consent of the House to proceed now with report stage on Bills 25, 29, 34 and 47? Agreed? [agreed]

* (1440)

REPORT STAGE

Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Highways and Transportation (Mr. Praznik), that (Bill 25), The Municipal Assessment Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'évaluation municipale), as amended and reported from the Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs, be concurred in.

Hon. Vic Toews (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Bill 29, The Victims' Rights Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les droits des victimes), reported from the Standing Committee on Industrial Relations, be concurred in.

Hon. Vic Toews (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pitura), that Bill 34, The Court of Queen's Bench Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Cour du Banc de la Reine et modifications corrélatives), reported from the Standing Committee on Industrial Relations, be concurred in.

Hon. Leonard Derkach (Minister of Rural Development): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), that Bill 47, The Municipal Assessment Amendment Act (2) (Loi No. 2 modifiant la Loi sur l'évaluation municipale), reported from the Standing Committee on Municipal Affairs, be concurred in.

Madam Speaker: Is there unanimous consent of the House to now proceed to third reading on Bills 25, 29, 34 and 47? [agreed]

Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Bill 25, The Municipal Assessment Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'évaluation municipale, be now read a third time and passed.

Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): Madam Speaker, I want to indicate that I concur with the passage of this bill.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question?

Some Honourable Members: Question.

Madam Speaker: The question before the House is third reading, Bill 25, The Municipal Assessment Amendment Act. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pitura), that Bill 29, The Victims' Rights Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les droits des victimes, be now read a third time and passed.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, very briefly, unfortunately I did not have the opportunity in second reading to put just a few words on the record on Bill 29. It is a positive piece of legislation which we have no problem in terms of seeing through its passage. It deals in terms of compensation, and I think all of us would concur that the compensation for the victims should be the first priority.

So, from what I understand, if there is any sort of action taken against government by an inmate, that any sort of financial compensation that the government would be obligated to provide as a result of something that maybe would have occurred for a prisoner in incarceration, that first consideration for that money would go to the victims, I think something that is quite positive.

With those few words, we are prepared to see the bill go through third reading.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is third reading Bill 29, The Victims' Rights Amendment Act. Is it the will of the House to adopt to motion?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would move, seconded, I hope with his permission, by the honourable Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), that Bill 34, The Court of Queen's Bench Amendment and Consequential Amendments Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Cour du Banc de la Reine et modifications corrélatives, be now read a third time and passed.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, this particular bill does set out the framework, if you like, for the appointment and functioning of masters for the Court of Queen's Bench. Masters perform a variety of judicial functions, and in order to maintain the importance of judicial independence, we feel that the legislation that we have before us is, in fact, quite necessary. Thank you.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is third reading Bill 34, The Court of Queen's Bench Amendment 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.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would move, seconded by the most honourable Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), that Bill 47, The Municipal Assessment Amendment Act (2); Loi no 2 modifiant la Loi sur l'J valuation municipale, be now read a third time and passed.

Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Madam Speaker, I spoke on this bill at second reading, and I want to put on the record on third reading some of the concerns that we have in our caucus about the situation that the government finds itself in.

* (1450)

First of all, we did predict this would happen. We raised this issue during 1996 during the debate on the privatization of MTS. In fact, if one recalls, we raised this in committee at that time. By the way, the committee never did deal with all the amendments we had.

Madam Speaker, we said at the time that this was an issue that had to be dealt with. Traditionally Crown corporations have received an exemption from assessment at the local municipal level. We said this was going to be a problem. At that time the government ignored it. Right now we have at least two municipalities which have passed by-laws assessing such property, which is I think something the minister is aware of. Not only that, I think there is every indication we were to have one court challenge. We were looking at the potential for several others.

I want to put on the record that we certainly predicted in '96 the fact this could lead to an impact on rates and of course on municipalities themselves. What we are saying now by passing this bill is that by no means is this over. I say to the minister, and I think he realizes this, what has happened now is, because of the decision made in 1996, we are seeing a compounding effect. This bill does exempt not only MTS, which is a way of preventing rate shock in that area, but other utilities that previously had not been exempted. So it appears that what we may see happening is some municipalities actually losing revenues. This is because they are now in a position of having to try to deal with certain classes of property as being the same.

I want to say to the government that, even though we are prepared to pass this bill today to give some protection against rate shock, I think it is fairly clear from the presentations we have seen and our knowledge of this issue from day one that this issue is probably going to come back and haunt the provincial government down the line. There may very well be legal action taken on this. There may be, I think, some presentations we will be hearing from the municipalities. I know of at least two, Grand Rapids and Lac du Bonnet, which have already put assessment in on the hydro poles.

I do say to the minister, because I know that he is going to be hearing from ratepayers, from municipalities, this probably is nothing more than a temporary measure. We are not prepared, by the way, to allow Manitoba ratepayers to be subject to further rate shocks. The bottom line here is that there have been enough rate shocks already from the fact that you have a private company now that is seeking to get $100 million in profit from the ratepayers, which is far higher than was sought by the previous Crown corporation. It is higher because that private company is now subject to federal and provincial taxation. So they are now asking the ratepayers to pay for that taxation.

The difficulty we were in in this situation was that if we did not take some action currently we would see a situation where there would be a further rate shock. I know that is the only reason this government brought it in.

There are various levels of concern on this bill in terms of the whole issue. Obviously there is the question of what utilities should be subject to assessment or not. I put our concerns on the record.

I just want to finish off by saying that there are various issues, whether or not municipalities can assess taxation, the level of assessment, the apportionment, and I say on the record, we are supporting this bill to protect ratepayers, but this issue is going to come back in the future. I know our Leader will expand on our concerns. We want to put on the record, even though we are supporting this, that there are going to be further problems in the future. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): It is a regrettable responsibility to speak on this bill in this Chamber at this time, because many of us a few years ago raised the issue of taxation and taxation treatment dealing with the telephone system and its impact on consumers. In 1996, when the Tories broke their election promise of 1995 and proceeded to sell the phone system, we asked questions day after day about the tax ramifications of that decision and therefore its impact on consumers. We asked those questions based on (1) the issue of the treatment of Telus in Alberta, and its changed status from a public to a private company based on CRTC decisions. We had CRTC decisions that talked about both rate of return and taxation on a private company and its impact.

We further cited that Mike Harris, kind of the new spiritual leader of the Conservative Party opposite, had walked away from an Ontario privatization decision because of the consideration of income tax, that it could not sell Hydro because the income tax of a Crown corporation would mean a massive increase to the ratepayers of Ontario, on top of the debacles of the previous governments, Liberal and Conservative, in terms of nuclear power plants and their inefficiencies and their cost, which was ultimately put on hold by the NDP government of 1990.

Madam Speaker, we raised these questions and the government said, quJ ser< ser< , whatever will be will be. We know that taxes will be lower under a private company, and they went so far as to take false information and give it to the editorial board of the Free Press where there was editorial that said taxes will be lower. They also went on to say that taxes will be lower, because the grants in lieu of taxes are higher for the phone system than the assessed value of the company would be in various municipalities.

Two broken promises on taxes to deal with a broken promise on the telephone system. So what do we have now? What do we have before this Chamber today? We have before this Chamber today a bill to deal with a huge band-aid that will be challenged in court based on the pipeline decision, will be challenged in court by people working for municipalities and lawyers working for municipalities. They will argue that now that MTS is a private company, it should be treated like the Supreme Court has treated the Inner-City Gas or the TransCanada Pipelines. They will argue in the Superior Court that this legislation should be challenged because MTS now is private company, and poles and wires should be treated like pipelines, therefore should be treated as assessed assets, and therefore as assets that would be subject to the assessment roles of various municipalities.

Ergo, a $6-a-month rate increase to deal with part of the broken promise on the massive broken promise of the Manitoba Telephone System by the Tories and by the Premier (Mr. Filmon), in particular. We, first of all, pointed out that we did not think they could amend the previous Municipal Act, that it would be out of order, and how unwise of a government to put a band-aid that was on a bill that was already before the Legislature to deal with their utter incompetence, I would argue, to deal with their deceit by putting an amendment to The Municipal Act in the second reading committee stage that substantively changes the bill and substantively changes the regime of the property tax assessment, particularly, as it pertains to municipalities.

Madam Speaker, the government should have thought of this legislation when it dealt at committee and when it broke its promise to sell the phone system. It did not. On the taxation score, we have now a private corporation that is going to be subject to private corporate considerations by the federal government, which is going to raise the rates 40 percent. We also have on top of that an issue of taxation for property taxes that are also going to raise the rates considerably. Therefore, what is this Legislature supposed to do on this issue?

We are really faced with a Hobson's choice, because we could stand here and vote against it and say: we told you so. That would be inconsistent with us. We, in the NDP, are always on the side of the consumers and always voting with the consumers of telephone and telecommunication services by wanting and voting to keep the company owned by the public.

* (1500)

Madam Speaker, I think that therefore we have to vote and continue to vote with the consumers. The Tories have voted with the brokers. The Tories have voted with the brokers in the sale of the company. They have voted with the brokers in disallowing a vote by the people of Manitoba when we had proposed a referendum and plebiscite, then we were disallowed of even having that vote by the Speaker of the day, prohibited from having the vote in the Legislature to provide for a referendum for the people. The Tories opposite were dancing to the tune of the downtown business community from Toronto and we were listening to the people here in Manitoba.

We did not have the ideological position of the Liberal Party that said: we are not opposed to privatization, we are just opposed to the way they are doing it.

An Honourable Member: We changed Leaders since then.

Mr. Doer: Oh, you changed Leaders. I cannot keep track. There have been three Leaders since 1995. Who is the present Leader of the Liberal Party and what is their present position? Because I know that the present Leader of the Liberal Party voted, well, first of all, they promised not to sell CN. John Chretien, in 1993, standing in front of the gates of CN, standing in the gates at Transcona saying: we will not sell CN. Jon Gerrard I am sure was saying the same thing. We will not sell the Canadian National Railways.

You know, you can put that with their promise not to cut health care; you could put that with their promise not to abolish the GST. I mean, if this person has moral problems, and we are dealing with politicians, he should not even be running for the Liberal Party after the broken promise on health care, on education, on CN, on GST. You know, what kind of integrity is that? What kind of party is this member a part of? He rails away against the Seven Oaks School Division. My God, all of them have a superior moral standard, I would argue, than the rascals in Ottawa and some of the defeated rascals in Ottawa that are presently trying to play some part here in Manitoba.

Madam Speaker, the Liberals at the Seven Oaks School Division I find having greater integrity than the Liberals in Ottawa and the defeated Liberals that have been thrown out of Ottawa because of broken election promises, but I digress.

An Honourable Member: We just want him to come here and see the farms. That is all we want.

Mr. Doer: Yes, we would like to see John Chretien in the fields. We would even loan him rubber boots. I know he does not have any of his own rubber boots. I will even loan him work boots. He probably does not have any of those too. We will loan him anything to get him out in the fields of southwestern Manitoba and southeastern Manitoba so he can see for himself not only the flooding but the telephone poles that used to be owned by Manitobans and have been sold to private interests. Do you want to speak on this bill?

An Honourable Member: I do.

Mr. Doer: Okay. Because I would love to hear you speak on the bill, because I still recall with the greatest respect to Neil, to you in your legacy, I still remember the vote from the Liberal Party, the most profound vote I ever saw when three members voted three different ways. One voted for it, one voted against it, and one abstained. Today I know we have a unanimous position in the Liberal Party, this week at least, from the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux). I need a cup of hot water. Excuse me for a second.

Madam Speaker, I was trying to engage the member for Inkster, and I apologize. Having said that, I am sure he will agree with us that this is the biggest legislative band-aid I have ever seen on a broken political promise in all my years in this Legislature. This is a huge political band-aid to deal with an incompetent government that did not deal with this in 1996 and to deal, quite frankly, with a government that misled the people in the 1995 campaign. This will come back to haunt you. [interjection] I beg your pardon. Yes, and so did the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale). So did I and I got criticized.

You know, I got criticized in an editorial about this. I was told that we were wrong on taxation in a Free Press editorial, and they waved it around. In fact, they blew it up so big, I do not know how much the taxpayers paid. How much did the taxpayers pay for Tories to blow up an editorial with "Doer is wrong" to be almost the size of some of the murals on these walls to try to embarrass me? You know, the editorial said we were wrong on taxation, both income tax, and they were wrong on municipal taxation.

Now the editorial page is writing editorials: Where is the NDP on this issue? I mean, give me a break. Give me a break. It is a good thing I have a sense of humour, because the members opposite wave this around, you know, taxation is going to be lower under a private company. Well, when am I going to get the retraction from members opposite for waving around those editorials that were paid for by the taxpayers? Just do not bother me at all, by the way. I mean, if you cannot take a bad editorial, you better not be leader of the NDP. You are bound to get 10 a month at least. And if you vote one way, you will get it that way; if you get it the other way, you have it the other way. That is just part of the job and if it has some import and gravitus to it and some good facts. Yes, sometimes they may be right, because we cannot be right all the time. Sometimes the editorials can be right.

But when they are wrong and the government is wrong, why are they not standing up apologizing? Why are they not grovelling before this Legislature, as they should, for not telling the truth? Why are they not saying, oh, please, members of the opposition, do not hammer us for being wrong. Please pass this bill to deal with our sins and our omissions and our weaknesses and our faults and our deceits and our dishonesty and our incompetence and our lack of any foresight and lack of any planning? Please, come forward and pass this bill.

Well, the member heckles about the budget. I am proud of the fact that we voted against nine budgets. I am proud of the fact we voted against the budget that fired a thousand nurses, and when there is a budget that tries to rehire some of the nurses back, we are okay with that. The members opposite may operate like Pavlov's dog and operate like everything they do is right; everything we do is wrong. They got nine budgets wrong, and this legislation is wrong. This legislation–[interjection] I want to speak to the bill here not the heckle from members opposite. It does speak to the issue of incompetence and why this bill is before the legislature. It does speak to the fact that this government is utterly and totally incompetent. In fact, when you talk about incompetence, the members opposite could not run a first-aid kit. They could not run a first-aid kit for the people of Manitoba. That is why the people that are in the hallways of our hospitals are still going to be subject to a higher taxation potentially with a court ruling, because of their incompetent, deceitful decision to sell the phone system.

Madam Speaker, why is the government not admitting they made a mistake? Why are they not saying that we misled the people of this province when we said that the telephone system would be taxed in the same way privately as publicly? Why did the Premier stand up in this House day after day after day in October of 1996 and basically said that this will not have any impact on taxation? Why did that happen? Perhaps if the House was not shut down, we could have gone on a little bit further. Maybe we would have found this out.

Maybe the government would have listened to our points of privilege, if our microphones had not been silenced. Maybe we could have made some amendments to the bill that would have prevented us from dealing in a haphazard, I would argue, incompetent way some months later. What is going to happen some time after the election campaign when we are in office and we have to deal with this botched privatization? What is going to happen if the courts rule and use the gas pipeline decision to jack up telephone rates, because the members opposite only cared about the brokers in Winnipeg and Toronto and did not care about the consumers? What are they going to do then? They will probably stand up in Question Period and ask us to fix the problem. They will probably do that. Shameless. Utterly, totally, politically and principally shameless in terms of what they are going to do.

* (1510)

So I would argue strongly that this bill will be tested in the courts. This bill is not as good as our proposal to cancel the privatization. This bill is not as good as our proposal that we had put forward to have a plebiscite. This bill is not as good as the absolute security of Supreme Court decisions to protect many public assets from the assessment rolls of municipalities through the provision of grants in lieu of taxes.

This Legislative Building is treated differently than Great-West Life across the street. This Legislative Building pays grants in lieu of taxes to the City of Winnipeg. The Manitoba Telephone System was treated differently than TransCanada PipeLines. The wires on Manitoba Telephone System and the poles were treated differently than the pipeline in the ground through Manitoba. In fact, you can even see in rural Manitoba the pipeline areas adjacent to the telephone wires, adjacent to the hydro wires. The courts had made a decision that the pipelines were taxable, and because these are public enterprises, they were not taxable. It was grants in lieu of taxes.

So did anybody in that cabinet or that caucus raise that issue, or did you not care? Oh, do not worry about it; we will just pass a law, and, you know, if the courts overturn it, it will be after the next election. We do not care. We do not care about the people. We do not care about the public. We do not care about the consumer. We can dodge this and fudge this and amend this and cover it up and band-aid it up. We only care about the short term. We only work in a four-year term. We just do everything possible to get elected, we try to get elected, and then darn the consequences after that.

That is what this bill says. Regrettably, we are the ones that are going to have to deal with this bill because we feel strongly that when the members opposite screw up their courage to call an election, we are going to have to deal with municipalities challenging this legislation and pointing out the pipeline decision.

I do not know whether the government opposite has a legal opinion on this bill. If they do, they should table it in this House. The government House leader should table the legal opinion in this House, because this is, at best, a band-aid to deal with their broken promise, a band-aid to deal with a broken commitment to the people of this province. It is not the best guarantee that the consumer has to protect themselves from taxes. The best guarantee a consumer had was breached with the Tory sale of the phone system and regrettably breached with the passage of the privatization bill.

So we will vote for this massive band-aid because we have always been on the side of consumers, but we understand municipalities will be challenging this decision. Regrettably, the consumers will be the victims, as they have been all along, of the Tories' priorities to deal only with the privileged few, the financiers, the brokers, the banks that made the money on the phone system, the shareholders. The privileged few are the only ones the Tories care about, and we care about the hardworking, fair-minded Manitobans who are trying to make ends meet.

So we will be voting for this band-aid but with deep regret that we could not have prevented this by supporting the amendments of the NDP to keep the phone system publicly owned. We know that the Hydro will stand court challenges because it is a publicly owned corporation. We know that grants in lieu of taxes have been tested in courts for decades, and Hydro itself, the only peril to Hydro is the re-election of a Conservative government or a Conservative-Liberal minority that would sell off Hydro.

We will not let that happen. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is third reading Bill 47, The Municipal Assessment Amendment Act (2). Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would ask if we could then return to the concurrence process.

Madam Speaker, I would move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Urban Affairs and Housing (Mr. Reimer), that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair and that this House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.