LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF
Thursday, May 14, 1992
The House met at 1:30
p.m.
PRAYERS
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTING PETITIONS
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (
Mr. Leonard Evans
(Brandon East): Mr. Speaker, I beg to present the petition of Penny Wicht, Judy Bickerton,
Colleen Elliot and others requesting the
government consider reviewing the funding
of
Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the
honourable member for
The petition of the undersigned citizens
of the
THAT child abuse is a crime abhorred by
all good citizens of our society, but
nonetheless it exists in today's world; and
It is the responsibility of the government
to recognize and deal with this most
vicious of crimes; and
Programs like the Fight Back Against Child
Abuse campaign raise public awareness
and necessary funds to deal with crime; and
The decision to terminate the Fight Back
Against Child Abuse campaign will hamper
the efforts of all good citizens to help
abused children.
WHEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray
that the Legislature of the
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Mr. Speaker: I have reviewed the petition of the
honourable Leader of the Second
Opposition (Mrs. Carstairs). It complies with the privileges and practices of the
House and complies with the rules. Is it the will of the House to have the
petition read?
The petition of the undersigned residents
of the
WHEREAS the
WHEREAS the Kimelman Report (1983), the
Aboriginal Justice Inquiry (1991) and
the Suche Report (1992) recommended that the
province establish such an office reporting directly to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, in a manner
similar to that of the Office of the
Ombudsman; and
WHEREAS pursuant to the Child and Family
Services Act Standards, the agency
worker is to be the advocate for a child in
care; and
WHEREAS there is a major concern that
child welfare workers, due to their
vested interest as employees within the service
system, cannot perform an independent advocacy role; and
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WHEREAS pure advocacy will only be
obtained through an independent and
external agency; and
WHEREAS the Minister of Family Services
(Mr. Gilleshammer) has unsatisfactorily
dealt with complaints lodged against child
welfare agencies; and now
THEREFORE your petitioners humbly pray
that the Legislative Assembly of
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT
Hon. James McCrae
(Minister responsible for Constitutional
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I have a statement for the House.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report again
to the House on the continuing series of
meetings of ministers and aboriginal leaders
on constitutional renewal. As
honourable members know, we met in
While I cannot report specific texts have
been finally adopted, I can report that
the issues have been refined, and in
most cases, rolling drafts are now being presented to heads of delegations.
In
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, while the
federal government and some larger
provinces are prepared to speak eloquently of their devotion to the principle of reducing
regional disparities, they showed no
willingness to back their words with action.
An agency has been proposed to
monitor progress on reducing regional
disparities, but to this point, the federal government has rejected giving the equalization provisions
real teeth. The last thing
Discussion of the Senate, both in
Some of these so‑called equitable
models allot less than 6 percent of the
seats in the Senate to
It is my hope that the
It seems to be the consensus that
constitutional provisions be kept to a
minimum and that the parameters and processes of the negotiations be placed in a political
accord. The accord offers the advantage of being flexible and subject
to periodic review to take into account
our experience with the negotiation process.
The last major issue that ministers have
grappled with is the division of
powers. Frankly, progress in this field
can only be measured by a micrometer,
Mr. Speaker. There seems to be no central theme underlying their discussions of
powers as unrelated as the regulation of
telecommunications and the appointment of
judges. Each issue has to be
dealt with essentially in isolation, and
settling one does not always help with the next. Nevertheless, we have now examined just about
all the trees so we can, I expect, step
back in
With so much of the groundwork now
completed and the options clearly before
us, ministers and aboriginal leaders realize we
must accelerate our pace and build on the agreements already achieved.
Accordingly, we have agreed to meet in
As
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Ms. Jean Friesen
(Wolseley): Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be able to rise to respond to the ministerial
statement today on the Constitution. It is always interesting to hear the Minister
of Justice's continuing reports on these
particular conferences.
We note that the government continues its
unilateral discussion of these
conferences and that the all‑party approach that we had maintained for so many months‑‑and
in the
It is always welcome, of course, to hear
these presentations of the minister to
the Legislature. We remain committed to
the all‑party process and I think
the minister is aware of that. It is puzzling as to why that is being
continually rejected.
The second thing that the minister appears
to be discussing here is the issue of
these powers of the Senate, and again I
would remind the minister that there is a very clear task force report on this which rejected the Triple‑E
position that this particular government
has continued to press in some of the
negotiations and at some of the conferences.
The
I notice the minister's rejection of a
further institution to monitor progress
on reducing regional disparity, something which
was proposed some months ago and last September in the federal government's proposals for our
Constitution. I think it has been rejected by many Canadians, and we are
pleased to see that this provincial
government has also had some difficulties with this. It is surprising, of course, when you
recognize that this provincial
government is also a Tory government, one that
presumably sends its subscriptions to the same Tory party which has reduced equalization across this country,
which has had an enormous and terrible
effect upon
I think we, like the minister, are also
very glad to see the continuing
aboriginal representation at these conferences.
It marks a real departure in the
negotiations in
It might perhaps interest the government
to know that Ovide Mercredi was one of
the first ACCESS students in
The continuing difficulties that the
minister faces over division of powers,
I think, are at the heart of the
constitutional position, and we certainly support the position of the
Those are the issues which we feel concern
the people of
Mrs.
Sharon Carstairs (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr.
Speaker, I thank the Minister of Justice (Mr. McCrae) once again for reporting to this House on the
deliberations taking place. Like all
Canadians, and I am sure the minister himself, I would like to see some text that we could then make
an evaluation with respect to whether
that meets our needs as Canadians, not only
now, but well into the future. I
urge him to get on with his job, along
with the other ministers, in preparing such a text for all of us.
I want to raise, however, a number of
serious concerns which I have. First and foremost, I have to say that I
disagree with the member for Wolseley
(Ms. Friesen). I think it was very
clear in the task force report as to
what was to be negotiated on behalf of a
newly reformed Senate for the people of
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As to, however, the public discourse that
was not mentioned by the minister, I
must say to him that I have very grave
concerns, and I hope that at some time he can elicit us with more information with regard to it. There were several news reports which indicated that there was to be an
acceptance that aboriginal rights would
be subject to the Charter but that they
would be given the notwithstanding clause.
Well, there is no doubt in the task force
report where the Liberal Party stands on
the use of the notwithstanding clause.
We do not believe that the notwithstanding clause should be allowed by anyone. That not only includes the federal government, it also includes provincial
governments and would include any
additional government level, including aboriginal peoples.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in
Section 1, clearly provides for the
actions of government, should it meet the acid
test that it is reasonable in a democratic society, if it is reasonable in a democratic society.
Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I have never
understood why any government needs to
use the notwithstanding clause. I did
not agree to it when
I also have some problems with the
minister's last statement. I hope it is a semantic problem, and he can
clarify that. He says:
All Manitobans and all Canadians can embrace as an honourable solution to the constitutional
problems that have threatened to destroy
the unity of this great country.
It seems to imply to me, and perhaps I am
incorrect, that we are once again going
to be given a package and we are going to be
asked to accept it without any t's uncrossed or i's undotted. I
would suggest to the minister that the First Ministers, through their representatives, may come up with a package. If they deny
the input of Canadians in amending and changing that package, then we will see reiterated a
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Introduction of Guests
Mr. Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, may I direct the
attention of all members to the gallery,
where we have with us this afternoon,
from the
Also this afternoon, from the Silver
Heights Collegiate, we have the
provincial championship winners of Reach for the Top. They are under the direction of Wally Linton. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable
member for Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine).
On behalf of all honourable members, I
welcome you here this afternoon.
ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
Health Care System Reform
Implementation
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
Mr. Speaker, we do not disagree with the
concerns expressed in this
document. They are generic
concerns. They have been expressed by every royal commission and every
task force in every province in this
country for the last five years. They
have been expressed by all political
parties, including the NDP that has long‑touted
a community‑based preventive wellness model for our health care system.
The trouble with this document is that not
only do we get generic concerns, but we
get generic policy prescriptions. It
is a multiple‑choice
document. We do not know where this
government stands on most issues, with
the exception of beds. This document, as you know, Mr. Speaker, is very
specific on beds and has confirmed the
rumours that the minister says have been a part
of fearmongering up until now.
So I want to ask the Minister of
Health: Simply, when do we get the details about how this government
plans to implement these broad‑sweeping,
philosophical statements? When do we
hear exactly what this government plans
to do for the future of health care here
in
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I simply ask my honourable friend to give due and diligent
consideration to the document that I
tabled today on behalf of this
government. As I indicated in my
press conference this morning, this is
not merely a document of this government.
This is a document that has
focused the best minds in
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The central theme and focus of this
discussion paper is what I have said
consistently in questioning throughout this House, that this is a document of balance that puts
services to people first and foremost
and protecting those services so that
individual Manitobans can know that when they need care, the health care system in a reformed method can
assure those kinds of care delivery
services are there and are available.
That means, Sir, some significant
shifts, significant shifts that other
provinces are undertaking because they do not have the choice and the opportunity that we have in
Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there is any
ambiguity whatsoever to this document,
to the direction this government is
taking and to the intellectual underpinning that it represents as the best blueprint to preserve medicare in
Patient Protection
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
I would like to ask the Minister of
Health: What guarantees can the minister give, other than his
rhetoric, that he is safeguarding patient
care throughout the entire implementation
process of this document?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, let me deal with the issue of the beds at St.
Boniface Hospital and Health Sciences
Centre. My honourable friend presented
one side of the case, that those beds
would be retired from service. What my honourable friend did not provide was the
balance under which it would happen, and
that some 150 beds in three other
institutions would replace those services provided in the 240 beds at the two teaching hospitals, and that
budget reallocation from the two
teaching hospitals would further reinforce home care and other community‑support services to
care for the individuals. Not where they are cared for, but how they
are cared for is the important equation.
In isolation, Sir, my honourable friend
could have created fears, but without
having the whole process for decision of the
people of
If my honourable friend wants to know how
we feel confident in being able to
protect the integrity of service delivery and
the care to Manitobans, I refer my honourable friend to page 31 of this document wherein it indicates in the
margin briefly: science, research and
evaluation per patient protection. We
have been able to bring some of the best
experts in North America, along with the
Consultations
Ms. Judy Wasylycia‑Leis
(
I would like to know from the
minister: Will he ensure that all of the studies and objective analysis
that he plans to do, and all of the
consultation with health care providers that he
will now do, after the fact, that their advice and that evidence will be included in the decision‑making
process and that this government is
prepared to change, adjust and vary its direction according to the findings of people and
studies?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): On Tuesday of this week, my colleagues and I made a deliberate
decision that we would not pass the
Estimates of the Department of Health so that
would allow my honourable friend the New Democratic Health critic to come to Estimates and even have the media
in attendance so that we can discuss
this reform document in its fullest.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to that
discussion this afternoon, because I
refer my honourable friend to page 7 of my
introductory speaking remarks, which my honourable friend has. It will tell my honourable friend that the
evaluation process is key, essential and
critical to the reform of the health care
system as it applies to our community hospitals.
Mr. Speaker, the issue of the beds at the
teaching hospitals has been resolved in
that it is not a simple closure of 240
beds. It is a replacement of
services by 150 beds in other locations
and an enhanced community service delivery mechanism. We know that process can take place without
compromising patient care.
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Mr. Speaker, the second step in community
hospitals is exactly subject to the kind
of critical evaluation before any final
decisions are made by government, Sir.
Community-Based Services
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(St. Johns): Throughout the Estimates process, again today with this document and
the promise of the minister to carry on
in Estimates is very worrisome for us,
because we have not been getting answers. In fact, all we are getting is rhetoric.
Now, today, we are getting really a pizza
approach to health care. We are being told that we have a multiple
choice. We can choose from all these toppings for this
generic concern that we all share. So we are trying to get very specific and
some details from this minister, as we
have been doing over the last several
months and even beyond that.
We want to ask the minister: How do we rationalize the statement he has just made about community‑based
care in the context of cutbacks to Home
Care and in the context of cuts to
grants to organizations involved in prevention and community outreach work? Will this minister guarantee the
increased funding that this study
recommends, the hump in funding that is
necessary in order to have community‑based services before
beds are cut? Will he guarantee that that will be the case
and tell us how much‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The question has been put.
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I
share with you the frustration of that
kind of questioning which I have endured
for 59.5 hours, Sir. My honourable
friend has said there is a cutback in
the Home Care program. There is $7
million more money in the Home Care
budget this year to just do exactly what
is talked about in this document.
My honourable friend persists in
hoping that she can have someone in the media carry the cutback philosophy of the New Democratic
Party. Sir, you cannot call $7 million of increased funding to the
Continuing Care Program a cutback. That means more service across the length
and breadth of
When we approach this issue of health care
reform, I want my honourable friend to
carefully consider some of the accusations
she will continue to make, because my honourable friend is doing a disservice to her party when she calls a $7‑million
increase from $55 million last year in
Home Care to $62 million of spending
this year a cutback. No one in
Impact on Employment
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
I want to ask the minister, since this
document also says that the government
does not plan on cutting health care funds
but on maintaining and reprioritizing dollars, which means that 250 beds cut at two teaching hospitals should
not mean a loss of 500 jobs, can the
minister make a guarantee that 500 jobs will
not be lost or that any jobs will be lost as a result of these changes‑‑
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The question has been put.
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, what we have tried to present to the people of
Mr. Speaker, no government in
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Speaker, I know I will not get any
help from my colleagues in the Liberal
Party on this issue.
Mr. Speaker: Question, please.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: I want to repeat some questions, Mr. Speaker, and tell you that we have been
trying to get some answers.
Mr. Speaker: And the question is? Order, please. The
honourable member for
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Implementation
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend wants to know what
guarantees, what processes, what is in
place today. My honourable friend, by
that very question, is wanting to leave
the impression that all of these changes
are going to happen at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
Sir, that is not the case. This is a two‑year plan of action, and
during that two‑year plan of
action, experts will come around those very
issues.
Mr. Speaker, I simply beg my honourable
friend to consider this one simple
statement that I made in my introductory
remarks: We have concluded that
health services do not exist for the
convenience of institutions or service providers, they exist to meet the health needs of Manitobans.
That is what this document is designed to
protect, enhance and preserve, Sir.
Health Care System Reform
Monitoring Process
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs
(Leader of the Second Opposition): My questions are to the Minister of Health. I would like to begin with a quote:
to keep people healthy, to go to prevention more than curing; to get people in the community
to give care in the community; and to
close beds. If you are going to spend
money for improving the diagnostics in
this province, then there is no point in
doing that if you do not close beds.
Does it sound like the Minister of Health
(Mr. Orchard) today in his remarks? Well, Mr. Speaker, it is a Minister of
Health, but it happens to be Larry
Desjardins of the NDP in July of 1987.
Mr. Speaker, what the minister has
announced today is not fundamentally
new. What the minister has announced today
has been in the realm of ideas among
health experts for some time, and we
thank the minister today for finally putting into it a plan.
But we have some, what we think are, quite
legitimate concerns that we would like
the minister to address. One of our concerns is that this whole process of
debating reform has become far too
political. The minister himself
recognized that on The Journal some
weeks ago, when he said it must take on an
apolitical tone.
In light of that, will the minister put
into place today what we call a health
reform monitoring process that will report to
the public every three months in a public venue as to how these changes are taking place and as bed closures
occur, what exactly identified services
are replacing those closures?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I
wished I had used that quotation myself,
because, Sir, that points out that in
today's environment, in the 1990s, if all of us are as serious as we say we are about preserving and
protecting medicare to provide services
to Manitobans and Canadians, then we have to
put a little bit of our partisan rhetoric aside. I appreciate
the open approach that the second opposition party has brought to the issue.
I just want to deal first with the issue
of nonpartisan. As we all know, the western Premiers are meeting
in
Mr. Speaker, I take my honourable friend's
suggestion seriously, and I refer my
honourable friend to page 31 in terms of
establishment of the evaluation system.
We intend to have that evaluation
system in place six months prior to any of the
bed closures at the community hospital level to establish a basis of health status for the citizens of
The mandate of that group is to report, as
we understand it now, in six‑month
intervals. We think that is as quickly
as we can gather valid data. It would be my intention right now to share that data as received, because I think
it helps us all to understand how well
the process is working or not working and
make adjustments in process so that we are sure we can preserve and protect health services as needed.
Mrs. Carstairs: Mr. Speaker, we read with care the section
on the evaluation system. But just as the Urban Hospital Council reported through their chairperson directly
to the Minister of Health, so too will
this evaluation system report to the Minister
of Health. We would like a
monitoring system that reports to the
people.
We are talking of potentially‑‑I
underline that because they will not
take place according to the minister unless there is proper evaluation‑‑some 715 beds
in total. That is a major restructuring of the health care system. There is going to be a sense of unease no matter what we do about
that.
If there is a means by which those
involved in this process can report
directly to the public, not through this Chamber, not through Estimates because we know the
political overtones that takes on, but
directly to the people, does the minister not
believe that would go a long way to assuage some of the natural fear that is going to be created as a result
of this announcement?
Mr. Orchard: That is exactly why we have given very
serious consideration to the evaluation
process. Again, I do not want to get into the number of 715 because that is
one side of the equation.
In terms of the announcement of the
teaching hospitals, there are 150 beds
in three other hospital locations available to be utilized for service delivery. In addition to that, by fall of 1993, we expect to have some 280 additional
new personal care home beds to take
further pressure off the system. Those
are part of the capital planning and
development that has been undergone for
the last three to four years and not specifically mentioned in here, because this is a document
which challenges us to change the way we
approach our acute care service delivery.
So, Mr. Speaker, conceptually, I do not
have a disagreement in sharing that
information because the more open the process can be, the more likely we are for it to succeed
and the more likely we are to be able to
understand what other choices can be made in
the system to correct inadequacies in the reform process and to reinforce the winning processes that we know
are available as opportunities for us in
preserving medicare in
Bridge Funding
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs
(Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the
minister this morning in response to
bridge funding, and he could not ascribe a certain amount of money. My concern is that as you move from one facility to another facility or to community
care, the money does not get transferred
overnight, just as the patients do not get
transferred overnight. There is
going to have to be some time in which
that new facility in the community is brought up to speed, either through training of personnel or
through actual building and construction
of the facilities.
Can the minister now give us some idea of
what money he has initially put aside
specifically for that bridge funding for the
first transfers, until the savings then can be used for additional transfers?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, part
of the increased budget requirements for
the staffing of the 150 beds at
Concordia, Municipals and Deer Lodge are part of the existing hospital funding line. So that in part is there.
Secondly, the replacement of community
services is enhanced by $7 million more
in the Continuing Care Program. That is
the largest increase that we have had in
several years. In addition to that, we have instituted the $3‑million
Health Services Improvement Fund, for
which changed programs to make better use
of our acute‑care hospitals can be accessed.
In addition to that, Sir, we have provided
some extra $5 million in the Health
Services Development Fund this year, in
order to provide the bridge funding which would then be repaid out of the budget of the hospital that has
lost its capacity and has not the demand
on budget that originally it started before it
shifted services and level of care and capacity.
Youth Unemployment Rate
Government Initiatives
Mr. Leonard Evans
(Brandon East): I only wish this so‑called rational process was in effect in
Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the
acting Premier of this province.
Youth unemployment in
My question to the acting Premier is: Why does this
government refuse to take meaningful action and initiatives to deal with the problem of youth unemployment
in
Hon. James Downey
(Deputy Premier): Mr. Speaker, I only wish that the member for Brandon East and the
government which he sat with was as
concerned about the young people, when he was putting on the backs of those people, annual deficits
of $500 million a year and over $500
million in interest charges, denying those
young people the opportunity today with government funding in meaningful programs.
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Let me say, we have responded, Mr.
Speaker, in Partners with Youth. We have continued on the funding of programs
of last year of CareerStart. We equally are as concerned about
employment opportunities for the short
term but as well for the long term,
something that he was not interested in when he was in government.
Mr. Leonard Evans: We have had five Conservative budgets
and five deficits‑‑thanks
very much‑‑one‑third through 1992 and the employment situation has worsened, it has not
improved, Mr. Speaker.
My question to the Deputy Premier (Mr.
Downey) is: Exactly how does this government expect its economic
policies to translate into jobs for our
young people? I ask this because even though agencies such as the Royal Bank
have forecast some modest overall growth
for 1992, the same agencies are predicting
unemployment rates in 1992 to be virtually at the same high levels they were in 1991.
Mr. Downey: Mr. Speaker, again what we are not doing
is increasing the taxes on the people of
What we believe in, when we see the
increased projections for manufacturing
in this province, the projections by the different financial organizations of improvements in
our economy, we believe, Mr. Speaker,
there will be jobs for the people of this
province and not continuing to put taxes on the backs of the people who are creating the jobs.
Mr. Leonard Evans: Mr. Speaker, it is time to forget about envelope No. 1. We have had five years of this government
and they have to take responsibility for
the massive unemployment. The projection
by the Royal Bank is for no improvement in
unemployment in
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Mr. Downey: I would invite the member to get involved
with his party and with the other
members of the opposition to support
projects that we are embarking upon after they go through the Clean Environment Commission like the
Conawapa project that will create some
22,000 to 23,000 person‑years of jobs for those young people whom he is so concerned about.
Poverty Rate
Prevention
Program Co-ordination
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) wants to control the
health care costs in
Since the Minister of Health is taking a
supposedly new approach in the delivery
of health care, will he now agree to co‑operate
with his colleagues, the Minister of Family Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) and the Minister of
Finance, in order to eliminate poverty
which would save millions of dollars, increase
life expectancy and improve the lives of thousands of Manitobans?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): First of all, I regret that a man of the cloth would put those kinds
of words improperly, out of context, as
his preamble to a question. Sir, that is shameful, that is shameful.
Point of Order
Mr. Martindale: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. The Minister
of Finance (Mr. Manness) yesterday said:
" . . . household incomes in
the
Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts.
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Mr. Orchard: That exactly, Sir, confirms what I said. The
Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) did not say he enjoyed Manitobans living below the poverty
line. A complete fabrication from a man of the cloth.
Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend has come
to a very important realization. The realization is that probably the
best thing we can do to improve the
health status of Manitobans is to have
an environment economically where new jobs are created, investment is made, so that people have
meaningful jobs, productive jobs.
The challenge, Sir, is in developing
policies which will underpin those
investments by the private sector in the
You cannot do that, Sir, if you raise
taxes, if you borrow away the future of
Mr. Martindale: Mr. Speaker, the real problem is that there
is not one mention of poverty or
prevention in this entire document.
Mr. Speaker: Your question is?
Wage Settlements
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Will the Acting Minister of Finance admit that it is his government's
policy to deliberately keep industrial
wages down and thereby increase the level of
poverty in Manitoba, or will he denounce the policy of his Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) on behalf
of thousands of Manitobans who are
working but at wages which are below the
poverty line?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): You know, Mr.
Speaker, now I see a complete flip‑flop
of the NDP. Now, they want us to interfere in collective bargaining.
I thought the NDP believed in the union
rights to go to the bargaining table and
negotiate an agreement. Whatever
happened to the former principles and
underpinnings of New Democrats? They are
here today; they are gone tomorrow.
Social Assistance
Employment Creation Programs
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Will the Acting Minister of Finance tell the people of Manitoba what is
his government's plan to counter the
appalling increase in unemployment of people who are employable but on social assistance,
which in the city of Winnipeg increased
53 percent between November '90 and November
'91, or do they have no plan other than the Minister of Finance's plan to hold down wages and restructure the economy
and increase unemployment, which he said
yesterday was good?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I want
to tell my honourable friend what we are
doing. We are supporting a $56‑million investment in Apotex to
create hundreds of jobs in the city of
We have a $10‑million investment
ongoing in
What we are doing is not raising taxes,
keeping the deficit under control, and
creating economic policies that make sense to
investors in the private sector as evidenced by recent investments in the aerospace industry, in the
health care industry, in agriculture in
the
The one thing we will not do is create a
Jobs Fund, spend future dollars, create
future deficits without one lasting job in
place today. The folly of Howard
Pawley will not be repeated.
Mr. Speaker: Order, please.
Health Care System Reform
Bed Closures
Mr. Gulzar Cheema (The
Maples): Mr. Speaker, finally after four years of this government and many years of
the previous NDP government, there is a
plan to reform the health care system.
This plan, if followed properly, will give a new look to the delivery of health care in our province.
Mr. Speaker, many critics are worried
about the failure of this plan, and some
are worried about the success of this plan.
Each and every Manitoban must know how this action plan will impact their lives. We must have a balanced approach for our health care system.
Mr. Speaker, can the minister tell this
House what the impact will be of closing
these 240 beds out of St. Boniface and Health
Sciences Centre? Can he give us
the specific time frame, as well as the
areas of specific interest in those hospitals?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, it is
my understanding that the Urban Hospital
Council will be meeting, I believe,
tomorrow to finalize those kinds of specific details within those two institutions.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate to my
honourable friend that this issue has
been discussed at the board level at the
Urban Hospital Council level for about six months now. It is
believed that there will be, I do not want to be so bold as to say, no impact on the individual patients,
but we believe this shift can happen
with minimal impact and probably some positive
impact on patient care, because we are going to utilize appropriately 150 beds on long‑term
care capacity, which will provide a
higher level of service at Deer Lodge, at municipals, at Concordia than currently is available in
the complexities of a teaching hospital
acute‑care environment.
* (1420)
So, Mr. Speaker, that coupled with the
increased support in the Continuing Care
Program, we are exceptionally optimistic that
there will be very minimal impact in a negative way from this shift, Sir.
Home Care Program
Mr. Gulzar Cheema (The
Maples): Mr. Speaker, can the minister tell this House his model for the new
community‑based care, and also can
he reassure this House now they will review the policy of Home Care to meet the changing needs under
this new health action plan?
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I cannot take my honourable friend to the specific
page, but one of the initiatives that
has been identified and one of the weaknesses of the Continuing Care Program is that, for
instance, individuals may well appear at
emergencies of hospitals when they do not need
acute‑care hospital bed placement.
They need support in their home.
Because our Continuing Care Program, by
the nature of its staffing patterns, if
this is in the evening, we do not have
co‑ordinators and service providers available. We are commencing this reform process by putting in place a
system whereby, instead of eight‑hour
access to Continuing Care Program, there will be 16‑hour access. We hope that will forestall many
improper admissions, of seniors in particular,
to acute‑care hospitals by the
much more rapid provision of home care services by extended hours of operation from eight to 16 hours.
Bridge Funding
Mr. Gulzar Cheema (The
Maples): Mr. Speaker, can the minister tell this House about the bridge funding?
Mr. Speaker, the minister has said health
services improvement fund is $3 million,
but that fund is for only hospital
innovative programs, $6 million under the Health Services Development Fund, but out of that,
$3 million for the mental health
services. Can the minister tell us now,
with $3 million, how can we reform the
system?
Mr. Speaker, something has to be
done. We need money up front, so that any money saved from the
reallocation of the beds must be used to
fund bridge money.
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I
agree, and the difference‑‑pardon
me if it takes an extra moment to
explain. The difference between
bridge funding in terms of mental health
reform and acute‑care system reform is the length of time at which you have to invest in the
community to achieve real mental health
reform, because you have to put in many more
support systems in the community.
In the case of acute care, we are not
talking about individuals who are
homeless. We are talking about
individuals who live, in the vast
majority, independently. The length
of time in which we need to have bridge
funding to provide those additional
supports, be it through increased home care provision of service or respite care, for instance, in
some of our long‑term care
institutions, the period of time for which we need those services is much shorter, so that a
million dollars of bridge funding to
help make the change in the acute care system
is probably worth $3 million to $4 million in the mental health system because we can turn that dollar
faster, because we can more quickly
provide services that are needed to underpin and forestall hospital placement in the
community.
Pharmaceutical Costs
Impact on Seniors
Mr. Conrad Santos
(Broadway): Mr. Speaker, a decision based on facts and good ideas, when implemented by
responsible action, is one of the
greatest forces for social change in the world.
Let us go to the facts. A study by the Greenshields organization showed that from 1987 to 1991, the cost of
prescription drugs had averaged an
increase of 11.4 percent per year.
Fact No. 2, a review of the changes to the
Drug Patent Act also showed that drug
prices have escalated dramatically to about
three or four times the rate of inflation. My question is to the honourable minister responsible for senior
citizens. What action will this honourable minister take in order
to protect the interests of senior
citizens of this province from this ever
escalating increases of drug prices?
Hon. Gerald Ducharme
(Minister responsible for Seniors): Mr. Speaker, first of all, drug prices in
variance throughout the world and
Mr. Speaker: The time for Oral Questions has expired.
Introduction of Guest
Mr. Speaker: I would like to draw the attention of all
members to the loge to my right where we
have with us this afternoon, Mr. Bob
Banman, the former member for La Verendrye.
On behalf of all members, I welcome you
here this afternoon.
Nonpolitical Statements
Ms. Becky Barrett (
Mr. Speaker, this Sunday, May 17, 1992,
will mark the 9th International AIDS
Candlelight Memorial and Mobilization in
I know that all members of the House will
join with myself and members of our
caucus in marking this important and tragic
event. I hope that many of us
will be able to march in solidarity with
the people of
*
* *
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to show
recognition to the board, staff and
volunteers of The Swan River Metis Friendship Centre, who last weekend held their First Annual
Square Dance Competition. For a first event, it was a very
successful. It attracted 21 groups from across
I would like to mention the winners; they
had three groups competing. The seniors group was the Duck Bay Metis
Seniors, and the Peguis Riverside
Dancers took second place. In the intermediate group, we had the Lake Manitoba
Hawks from
Mr. Speaker, it was a tremendous
event. We all know how important it is that we take pride in our
culture; for example, the Ukrainians this
week are having a celebration. I think
that it is important that the Metis
people have events to go to and show off
their cultures.
I want to pay real tribute to the
staff. Their event was so successful that they had to move to a larger
building. They started out in The Friendship Centre and
ended up moving to the museum, where
there was standing room only. So again,
I would like to extend my
congratulations to the staff, the board and all
the volunteers and the competitors.
I hope that, when they have the
event next year, it will be just as successful.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
*
* *
Mr. Clif Evans
(Interlake): May I have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [Agreed]
Mr. Speaker, in the past few months, in
the province of Manitoba, we have had
activities that have brought in people from
across Canada and sporting activities that have become customary throughout Canada: yearly, the Grey Cup, for one, with the support, the hard work that the people of
Manitoba and the city of Winnipeg put
forth, their efforts to make the event a success; the recent playoffs with the Winnipeg Jets,
the support that was shown by our fans
there; the Centennial Cup that was held here in
Winnipeg this last week and the show of tremendous support from the people of Winnipeg and the people of
Manitoba at the Centennial Cup, and
represented by two of our finest teams from
this province, Winkler Flyers and St. James Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, this week we had the
opportunity to focus on another event,
another sporting activity, professional sport,
that was brought to the
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of this side of the
House, we would like to just say to the
people of Manitoba, say to the people of
Winnipeg and members from across the way that we here would like to see this continued support for the
sporting activities and professional
activities that we do have here in this province and that we wish the management and staff,
supporters, volunteer people and the
players who come from all across North America the very, very best in their future and continued
success. Let us go on and cheer them on.
*
* *
Ms. Jean Friesen
(Wolseley): Could I have leave to make a nonpolitical statement? [Agreed]
Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the
congregation of
* (1430)
It is a church, Mr. Speaker, which has a
great deal to reflect upon. It is a magnificent Gothic building which
was built in 1912 and really represents
the rising ambitions of
The
In 1925, the church joined the United
Church of Canada, one of the many
federal institutions of this country, one which I think has played an enormous role in the
development of social policy and in the
religious life of the entire country.
Westminster United Church has had a series
of dedicated ministers and, in
particular, although it is awkward to single
out some, I think there are three perhaps that should be mentioned as having been very long served in
the service of the community‑‑the
Reverend Dr. Pitblado from 1893 to 1904, the
Reverend David Christie from 1909 to 1929, and more recently, the reverend Reid Vipond from 1963 to 1980. It is a history of long service and one which is well remembered by
the community.
From an esthetic perspective the church
has, I think, an important role to play
in the history of western Canada,
particularly its magnificent stained‑glass windows and the
rose window which is well known to art
historians and architectural historians
across the country.
Mr. Speaker, at times such as the
rededication of a church or the building
of a church and the recognition of solemn moments, there are often many speeches which are
given. I want to conclude by quoting the sermon of the
Reverend Dr. Pitblado, the first
minister of
He said that this building, in all its
material grandeur, in all its artistic
attractions, in all its luxurious appointments,
is only the sign and symbol of great spiritual realities with which we have to do as immortal creatures. This building will, in real purpose, be not what material art has
accomplished, but what living souls will
make it.
I would like to, on behalf of the
community and as the representative of
the community in this House, congratulate them
on their 100 years of service to Wolseley and to western
* (1440)
ORDERS OF THE DAY
Hon. Darren Praznik
(Deputy Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I would like to make two
announcements, or I would like you to
please canvass the House. I believe that
you will find agreement to have next
Tuesday treated as a Monday, and I think
you will also find agreement of this House for the Assembly not to sit tomorrow, Friday, the 15th of May.
Mr. Speaker: Is it the will of the House not to sit
tomorrow?
Some Honourable Members: Agreed.
Mr. Speaker: That is agreed. Also, is there agreement by the House to have Tuesday and sit Monday
hours? Is it the will of the House?
That is agreed?
Some Honourable Members: Agreed.
Mr. Speaker: Therefore, Tuesday will be a Monday.
Hon. Darren Praznik
(Deputy Government House Leader): Mr. Speaker, I would move, seconded by the Deputy
Premier (Mr.
Motion presented.
MATTER OF GRIEVANCE
Mr. Leonard Evans
(Brandon East): Mr. Speaker, I use this occasion to exercise my privilege as a member
of this House to speak on a grievance
that I have with regard to‑‑[interjection] with several grievances, I would add, that I
have as a member of this Legislature in
connection with health care and in connection
with the economy, both, and particularly as they affect specific groups in this province including my own
constituency of Brandon East, where they
have been treated shamefully by this Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), where they have been
deprived of adequate resources so that
there was a $1.3‑million shortfall last year causing a layoff of approximately 30 staff,
mainly licensed practical nurses,
eliminating what was a wonderful palliative
care unit and downsizing it, and in addition eliminating the gynecological ward.
(Mrs. Louise Dacquay,
Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)
Where were the plans then? Where was this overall plan for rationalization of health care when the
Minister of Health gave the chop, gave
the axe to the
I know the minister keeps saying, well, we
have added millions, but, Madam Deputy
Speaker, there is such a thing as
inflation in costs in the health care system. This government is not keeping pace with the increased costs in
the health care system, and as such the
health care institutions of this province
are not able to manage and are forced to lay off staff, forced to cut beds, forced to reduce other
services. So I say, this is not an action plan for the
Looking at this document very quickly,
Madam Deputy Speaker, and I have not had
a chance to study it, but frankly there is
nothing new in this particular document. This document is long on problems, long on analysis of the
questions that we face in maintaining
health care in
We have a document here that really has
nothing new in it in terms of an
analysis of the problems of health care.
This is nothing new. We have known long ago that there is a
question of how many beds we actually
need in
The fact is, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are
now facing a massive reduction in some
of our major health care institutions,
primarily the general hospitals, but also in the case of the Brandon Mental Hospital Centre a complete
elimination of that particular
institution which has served the mental health cause well for many a year with the loyal and
dedicated staff.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we know that home
care is inadequate in this
province. The Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) can shout and scream all he
likes about increasing the monies for home
care, but we know from our own constituents who tell us that the service is inadequate, that they are being
denied one type of service or another,
not all over, and indeed it varies.
In some parts of this province you cannot
get home service to help clean. No matter how old or how frail you are, the
home care will not provide for cleaning
service. I know of a couple in my own riding, I believe the lady is 96
years of age and the gentleman is 93
years of age. Obviously they are not
wealthy people, they have been scraping
by on pensions. They have been blessed with longevity, but they need a
little help.
They need a little help from home care to
clean the home because the lady at 96
and the gentleman at 93 just do not have
strength to do what they would.
But there is no help for them
under home care, Madam Deputy Speaker, no help whatsoever. It
used to be under the home care system in
* (1450)
Furthermore, Madam Deputy Speaker, we can
identify other cases around this
province and around the city of
The support system has been totally
inadequate. The lady, because of the therapy that she is taking,
the chemotherapy, she has become deaf in
the process and as a result she does need some
assistance in being able to know when a phone rings. She has to
have a special phone, she has to have some kind of a light on her door to indicate someone is at the door, but
there is no help for her. She cannot go out to get groceries. There is no help for her to do that. She is supposed to get physiotherapy. How can
she get to the hospital for physiotherapy when there is no money for her to do that? She does not know how to live on her own
and yet she wants to. Where are those community supports to enable that poor woman who is in her late '30s
suffering from cancer, who does not want
to be in the hospital, wants to live at home
but cannot because there are insufficient support services from this Minister of Health?
So he can blow all he wants in Question
Period. The fact is there are not the services available to
enable people to live in the community
in dignity and independence that they wish to
live. Madam Deputy Speaker, we
could go on with many examples, not only
in my constituency but in other parts of this province and we say that the home care which was, when
it was introduced by the Schreyer
administration of which I had an honour to be a
member of, was one of the finest home care systems to be found anywhere in North America. I do not think we can say that today.
Today the home care system has been eroded. The home
care system, in spite of a few more dollars, the home care system is simply not adequate to do the job it
should be doing to help people live in
their own homes with independence and with dignity.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I say the only thing
that we know from the Minister of Health
(Mr. Orchard) and his policy so far is
that, yes, there are specific beds closing, yes, we have a home care system that is inadequate, and yes,
there are layoffs already
occurring. I use my own general hospital
as an example, where we had 30 people approximately
laid off, and the minister talks about
retraining them. Well, there is a
possibility that maybe three or four
will be retrained, but tough luck for the
rest of them, tough luck, because they are out of a job. There
is simply nothing for them.
I shudder to think of what is going to
happen this coming year, because 80
percent of the budget is made up of salaries for health care personnel. Most of those are nurses, and I say that it will be nurses again who will be getting
it in the neck. It will be nurses who will be laid off at the
You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish
this Minister of Health‑‑I
know he was away‑‑had been in
You know, we had like a prairie grass
fire. Someone decided to put out a petition regarding this,
regarding the closure of the gynecology
ward and the reduction in the palliative care
ward, and they got over 5,000 signatures in a matter of a couple of weeks.
I wish I had that petition with me because I could read off names from every single MLA in the
Westman area. I could read off names of people who reside in
every single constituency in Westman
area, which is the area that the
Madam Deputy Speaker, those people are
upset. They have not been given a response, and when we bring it
into this House, we have got nothing but
scoffs and catcalls by the Minister of
Health, totally disrespective of the views of over 5,300 people in Westman who have expressed their very
serious concerns about what the minister
was doing to the
You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, we had
this disaster occur, and yet we had no
plan. We had no great action plan for
the quality of health care in
We know that there are some major problems
that we are facing in this country.
There is discussion of the doctor in here
all right, but it does not get to the
question of the essence of paying the
doctors, of the method of paying doctors. We all have our own personal physicians. We all think highly of them. We have some
very fine medical doctors in the
It is a system that is driven by doctors
who are given the incentive to see
patients, perhaps in some instances more often
than they should, and possibly to operate in instances which perhaps may not be required. There is that incentive. There is
that monetary incentive for doctors to drive the system and, of course, the doctors put people in health care
institutions. This is where the costs are. This is where you get the bed utilization.
There was a study done some years back in
the city of
So very simply then, a capitation system
is a system whereby doctors are paid in
relation to the number of patients that they
are responsible for, not the number of times they see those patients, but simply the number that they
have on the register that are formally
linked to the doctor, and that doctor is
required to provide service to them as the need arises.
That capitation experiment in the city of
* (1500)
I suggest that is a method that has to be
looked at very seriously by this
government. I do not see anything‑‑and
I must add, however, that I have only
looked at this report very cursorily. I did not have much time to read it, because
it was only issued a short time before
we came into the House for Question
Period. I have not had much chance to
study it, but there is nothing
here. Although there is reference to the
number of physicians in
Now if this report is part of what the
action plan suggested then I would say,
well, okay. Now you are talking action
not talking platitudes of general things
that we should do, such as you know
evaluating a restructured system, developing a health information strategy, implementing technology
assessment, some of these more general
things which have little meaning to a lot of
people and which tend to be rather fluff and feathers, to tell you the truth, Madam Deputy Speaker.
If we directed our attention to what
actually is driving the costs in the
health care system and try to come up with a
solution, then I say we are now talking about action. So a
capitation is one‑‑it is nothing new‑‑system
that we could explore and perhaps follow
to keep costs down.
The other, of course, is to have doctors
on a straight salary. You know, that is not as revolutionary
sounding as it once was, because what is
happening in the province of Manitoba
with the walk‑in clinics, Madam Deputy Speaker, you have a lot
of young doctors who are being hired by
older doctors, by established doctors,
who pool together, invest in a walk‑in
clinic and set up this medical facility.
They set up this walk‑in
medical facility, and the doctors‑‑lo and behold‑‑in
the facilities are on salaries. So you have a situation where doctors in
Of course, if doctors work in
institutions, in hospitals, for
instance, of course, then they are usually on a salary anyway. Certainly, the doctors at Brandon Mental
Health Centre are on a salary‑‑or
as the Selkirk Centre. So the fact is
that this is something concrete. This is something very important. This to
me is the nub of the problem, yet I do not see that being addressed in this particular report.
Madam Deputy Speaker, another important
area for reform would be to indeed come
forward with an action plan for prevention.
Yet, again, we have some generalities here, but nothing very concrete, nothing specific, nothing you can
get your teeth into to understand as to
how this government is going to enhance
prevention among our society, among our citizens. Who can
question? I mean, this is to say
we should enhance prevention to improve
our health care system, to reform our health care system.
Who can debate that? Who can
argue against that?
Everyone agrees with that. We have talked about that for decades.
Fortunately, people are becoming more health conscious, not only in cutting out smoking‑‑the
number of people smoking has been
reduced drastically, and I would suggest that is one major area of prevention. Secondly, people are becoming more
conscious of getting adequate exercise
and more and more do you see people
walking, running, jogging, more and more people joining fitness centres, more and more seniors going to malls
where they walk and so on, and more and
more information in our magazines, in our
papers and in journals and so on, and people are becoming more health conscious.
Certainly, if you cut out smoking, if you
begin to get adequate exercise and,
thirdly, if you eat right, that is, if you
cut out fats, you cut out excess consumption of sugar, these items, very simple. It may be difficult to bring about, that
is to cut the amount of fat that you
consume or to cut out the amount of
sugar you consume, but those are simple but basic and fundamental to improving health care. So we are, as a society, engaged I hope in prevention and governments
can do more by disseminating information
and giving particular incentives to
people and to groups and so on. A
lot can be done, but again, there is no
specific action plan to enhance prevention in this province, to enhance prevention of disease in
this province.
Another area is community health
clinics. There is some reference to co‑operating with health
clinics, but there is nothing in here
with regard to bringing about more community
health clinics. Let us get in for
an expansion of community health
clinics, co‑operative types, nonprofit types, whatever kind that you like, or some associated with
hospitals.
There is a great deal that can be done in
this respect, yet all we have in here is
developing a new role for community health
centres broadening the partnership, but where do we see the specifics of putting more money into
community health clinics, which can be
leaders in programs of prevention, which can perhaps hire doctors on a capitation system or on a
straight salary system? There is something that can be done and
should be done. Reference is made in the
plan of the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard), but there are no specifics, and there is no commitment to putting dollars into this.
Further, Madam Deputy Speaker, there is
nothing in here about the standards of
health care that we should be achieving.
What are our objectives in terms
of health care standards? What do
we insist upon getting from the acute‑care
hospitals, and what do we expect from
community clinics? What do we expect
from our nursing homes?
I can say, as a member of the former
government, I am very proud, and I can
only speak of my own constituency because I do
not have the knowledge of personal care home development around the province, but I know, in my own
constituency of Brandon East, we spent
in the Pawley government approximately $18 million in improving and upgrading personal care beds in
that city. We built a $10‑million expansion to
Yes, we eliminated some old, inadequate
firetraps, as a matter of fact, in the
process, but I would not even call those
personal care homes, at least in terms of their physical structure.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we did these, and I would say, on account of that,
Again, if we want to take the pressure off
of the acute‑care hospitals, then
we need more personal home care beds and personal home care.
We have talked about this for a long, long time, and I say again, reference to that in here is
nothing new and nothing by way of action
unless there is a commitment from the government to say, (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), this is what
we are going to do in expanding and
improving personal care home service.
So, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are
disappointed in this particular document
of the Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), very
disappointed indeed. In fact,
some of it is a repetition of a report
he put out not long ago; namely, the report he put out with regard to mental health care. There is specific reference in this document to mental illness and the
problems of coping with mental illness.
Well, Madam Deputy Speaker, this was all
discussed a couple of months ago. In fact, the Minister of Health came out to
the city of
* (1510)
While most people agree with
deinstitutionalization, the problem
always arises in the inability or lack of commitment by the government of the day to put in place
alternative health care, alternative
community health care for the mentally ill.
I had to laugh, while the
minister is in
The Rambler motel project was just
that. It was an opportunity for community living by people
who are mentally ill or post‑mentally
ill, and who want to live or who can be placed
in a group home or in some residence outside of the main institution, outside of BMHC in this case. Yet here they were, on a sort of a pilot project basis. For all the fine words, the minister, about deinstitutionalization, there
was not enough money available for the
Rambler motel project to carry on.
So I say, the Minister of Health's (Mr.
Orchard) words are very hollow indeed,
very hollow indeed, and virtually mean
nothing.
Another example in Brandon, Arm
Industries, which is a facility that has
been providing training for many a year for
people who are mentally deficient, mentally handicapped, mentally ill.
Here again, the budgeting was such that they have had to make changes there. Here again, you ask yourself, well, what
is this business of helping people live
in the community when the government is
squeezing and cutting back on monies for just those types of projects, projects to help people be
employed in the community who have had
mental problems, or people to live in some
dignity either in a group home or in a private home? So we see,
on the one hand, the minister talks a good line; on the other hand, there is no money. In fact, on the other hand, he is going in the opposite direction. So, Madam Deputy Speaker, in this whole area, we see nothing new whatsoever in
this particular report.
The reference to the number of physicians
per population, again, is nothing
new. The fact that
But what I object, on the part of this
Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) and his
high‑handed fashion of running that
department and his treatment of people in this province including people who go through the trouble of signing
petitions and go to meetings and are
totally ignored by this Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard), is his secrecy.
This government talked about being open at
one time‑‑we want open
government. Well, this government is so
open that it refuses to give the
opposition and members of this Legislature
information on operating costs of hospitals. You know, this is public money, and for the life of me I do not
see why the members of this Legislature
should not be able to obtain, not just a
generalized annual report of a hospital in this province, but a report showing the revenues and expenditures
so that not only the MLAs who represent
the people in their constituencies, but also
individuals and groups can see just how much money is being spent for administration, let us say, as opposed to
service in the various hospitals.
The public good would be served by opening
up the books and allowing the moths to
come out, dusting them off, and allowing
the public to scrutinize these reports.
Yet this minister refuses to
provide this information. What about
open government? What kind of response is that? It is a simple request.
I must say in this country and in this
province we are very secretive. We do not want to give out any information
and that goes for the senior bureaucracy
as well. They do not want to give out the information, because they are
afraid they are going to be criticized
once the information gets in the hands of the
public or members of the opposition in the Legislature.
This does the cause of health care reform
no good when we in this Legislature who
are duly representing our constituents, who
were duly elected, ask for information and are, time after time, being refused that information by the
Minister of Health who takes just such a
highhanded, bullying approach that it is
shameful. He is just a bully most
of the time when he answers the
question. He intimidates people rather
than giving them answers. Rather than giving answers, he goes on a
tirade, he will not give information.
Madam Deputy Speaker, could you tell me
how much time I have left?
Madam Deputy Speaker: Nine minutes.
Mr. Leonard Evans: Nine minutes.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we on this
side have a lot to grieve with the performance of this Minister of Health. We do have indeed. In fact, if I had my way I would not have reduced his salary to $50, I
would have reduced it to 50 cents. I tell you, he is not very popular with
the people in my riding right now. He should not show his face in the city of Brandon right now, because the
people there are very, very upset with
the highhanded manner with which he has treated
the Brandon General Hospital, highhanded manner with which he has treated the people of Westman and the Brandon
General Hospital, gives them the axe
once, now again this year. Then he comes
out with a report saying he is talking
about reform.
All we know in
Madam Deputy Speaker, I also wanted to
talk about the economic situation in
this province because I have a great
concern about that as well. You
know, there is a relationship between
our economic situation and health care, because there is no question that when we have intolerable
levels of unemployment as we have today,
this translates into poverty, this translates
into disease, this translates into social unrest. There is a
social cost involved in unemployment that you cannot measure. It is
out there and members of this Legislature, and I include myself, cannot imagine the grief that is
caused by the fact that we are now
suffering this high level of unemployment that is being experienced in this province.
In fact, using the last month available,
April, the number of jobs has been
reduced by 17,000. Those 17,000 jobs
were all full‑time jobs. We did not lose any part‑time jobs, we
lost just full‑time jobs.
The labour force has shrunk by
14,000. The members opposite do not like to hear this, but the labour
force has shrunk by 14,000, and if it had
not shrunk, this rate of unemployment of
10.4 percent actually would be even higher. It is 9.6 percent seasonally adjusted, but if the labour force
had not shrunk, had not become
discouraged and ceased looking for work, our rate of unemployment would be higher.
* (1520)
Madam Deputy Speaker, that is revealed
when you look at the participation
rates. The participation rate tends to
be pretty steady, but now it has
deteriorated from 66.8 percent last April
to 64.9 percent this April. When
you look around the province, you get
very disturbed when you look in the city of
In fact, Madam Deputy Speaker, only two
cities in
I say, when you look at the youth and look
at those figures, you see an even more
serious and disturbing situation, and
particularly when you look at the young males, the young men who are looking for work today, one out of five
cannot find work. They are looking; they
have been surveyed; yes, they have told
the survey people they are looking for work; they want to work. But one out five, over 20 percent‑‑I
believe it is 21.8 percent‑‑cannot
find work today. I say that does
translate into a lot of frustration, a
lot of anger, a lot of disillusionment,
and will and could result in social unrest. There is no question it results in social distress, a lot of which
is hidden and cannot be seen by us.
There is no hope for this year. While the government across the way, the Minister of Finance (Mr.
Manness) in particular, likes to brag about
how the economic forecasting agencies such as
the banks are now predicting an increase in economic growth in this coming year, what the minister fails to
point out is that the banks themselves
have indicated that there is no improvement
in the unemployment rate. The
unemployment rate for 1992 is forecast by
the Royal Bank to be virtually the same as it was in 1991, and 1991 had a very high rate of 8.8
percent, the highest we have had in over
a decade. This year it is predicted to
be 8.7 percent, virtually the same as
last year. So where is this improvement that is going to take place this
year?
The Minister of Finance says, be
patient. We have been waiting through five budgets, Madam Deputy
Speaker. We are patient, but our patience, not only ours, but
the people of
What is so disturbing, Madam Deputy
Speaker, is that the Royal Bank
forecasts that investment‑‑and I am not talking about residential investment, I am talking about
nonresidential or business investment‑‑is
going to go down in 1992 by 3.2 percent.
A 3.2 percent decrease in the level from last year, and we know last year was not very good. What does that mean? It means that
you are destroying the basis of real economic growth.
Similarly, if you look at population, the
census figures came out recently and
showed that
Madam Deputy Speaker, I know I have run
out of time. I simply wanted to put on the record my concern
about the total inadequacy of the
Minister of Health and his so‑called reform package and the attitude of the minister as
well, not only to members of the
opposition, but to the public, including the
public in Westman, those 5,000 people who signed the petition. He virtually gave them the back of his hand
in terms of his response to that
particular petition. I am very upset
about that, and I grieve on their behalf
in this Legislature.
Likewise, I am very upset and concerned
about the economic disperformance, the
lack of performance by this government and
the inadequate, intolerably high level of unemployment we have had to suffer and are going to suffer until
these policies that we have across the
way change, but I have no hope of that
occurring.
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.
*
* *
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise to use my right under Rule 26.1 to express a
grievance.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
Point of Order
Hon. Darren Praznik
(Deputy Government House Leader):
Madam Deputy Speaker, I in no way
would want to interfere in the right of
the member to exercise his grievance, but it has been fairly obvious this afternoon to members on this
side that members of the opposition are
wanting to avoid going into Estimates debate.
I believe, if you canvass the House on
this side at least, there would be a
willingness to allow the member to do his
grievance during the private members' hour so we could get into the debate.
Perhaps members of the Liberal Party would concur if members would like to allow that to take
place. He could have the whole hour for his grievance from 5 to 6
p.m., and then we could get into the
Estimates debate, unless, of course, members
opposite are afraid to do so.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux
(Second Opposition House Leader):
Madam Deputy Speaker, I just want
to concur with the minister, the deputy
government House leader (Mr. Praznik) that we feel, because of the major announcement that has
been made earlier today, that it would
be most appropriate to go into the Estimates
to allow both opposition critics an opportunity to ask some questions, and in fact, we would be in favour
of waiving private members' hour for the
day.
Mr. Leonard Evans: Any member of the Legislature can get up on
a point of order at any time, not just
House leaders or deputy House leaders.
I believe the deputy House leader really
did not have a point of order. It is not a point of order. I would point out, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it is a matter of right
of any member to engage in a grievance
which has to be‑‑
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
An Honourable Member: Just ask to canvass the House . . . .
Madam Deputy
Speaker: Order, please. On the point of order, there was no point of order, but there was a
request by the deputy government House
leader and an agreement by the honourable
member for
An Honourable Member: No.
Madam Deputy Speaker: No?
Okay.
Mr. Lamoureux: It is still a point of order. Maybe if you
canvass the House if there would be leave to waive private members' hour.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Is there leave to waive private members' hour?
Leave? No?
Mr. Praznik: Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker, I believe the
member for
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please.
I am experiencing great
difficulty in hearing the point that the deputy House leader is trying to put on the record.
Mr. Praznik: Madam Deputy Speaker, I believe the request on
this side of the House, we would be more
than prepared to grant leave to waive
private members' for the Committee of Supply to hear Estimates, and we would be prepared to grant
leave for that which would accommodate
the member for Burrows.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Deputy
Speaker: Order, please. That has already been dealt with and leave has been denied.
Mr. Martindale: On the House Business that the acting
House leader for the government raised‑‑
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Burrows is speaking on the House Business?
Mr. Martindale: Just briefly on House business, we could
have been out of Estimates the other
day. We are planning to go back into Estimates this afternoon.
* (1530)
MATTER OF GRIEVANCE
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Now, I would like to express my grievance.
I would like to use this opportunity to
talk about the increasing problem of
poverty, the increasing caseload of people
on social assistance and the horrendous number of people who are unemployed in the
It was Thucydides who said, "and
place the real disgrace of poverty not
in owning to the fact but in declining to struggle against it." This wise pronouncement by Thucydides, who
lived approximately from 471 to 400
B.C., I believe is very applicable to
the situation that we find ourselves in.
The government has not really denied the
statistics that have been put forward by
members on our side of the House, but their
disgrace is in not having a plan to deal with it, although, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would say that is not
entirely true, because the Minister of
Finance (Mr. Manness) yesterday did give us his
plan. His plan is to go along
with restructuring the economy.
Presumably he means restructuring the Canadian economy so that it is integrated with the American economy, and
he says if that means more unemployment,
then that is what is going to happen in
the short term, and prosperity is going to come in 1993 or 1994, and he said that what is happening now is
good. Those are his remarks which we have available now from
yesterday's Question Period.
Madam Deputy Speaker, we on this side
disagree, because we believe that we
need to do more to help Manitobans who are
unemployed now and not wait until the economy recovers. In fact,
I think this is central to the debate that is going on in the public in the
We believe that there is a direct
relationship between unemployment and
poverty. In fact, the approach of our
party is that the first way to attack
poverty is through job creation, that
the best way to lift people out of poverty is to give them jobs or to create jobs or to provide the
right economic climate in
We believe that there should be a co‑operative
approach. On numerous occasions the Leader of our party
has requested that the Premier call
together the representatives from all three parties in the Legislature to come up with an
economic strategy for
I would also like today to talk about many
of the specific problems and issues
facing people on social assistance.
The Minister of Family Services
(Mr. Gilleshammer) frequently puts on
record the record of the New Democratic Party when we were in office, but he does not always put on the
record all of the statistics. Instead, he quotes them selectively. We believe
that this government should do what the NDP government did. In the
first two years of office they increased social assistance rates substantially in order to make up for
the
I have repeatedly suggested that the
government do something about the work
incentive. In fact, I have talked
informally with the Minister of Family
Services (Mr. Gilleshammer) about this.
I have suggested that they do
some research on this and find out what
the cost would be. When I talk to people
about social assistance, one of the most
promising areas for public support is
the work incentive because people believe that people should be working and that those who are on social
assistance should be encouraged to work,
that they should be encouraged to supplement
their income.
There is a program now, the provincial
social allowances program that allows
for this, and it is called the work
incentive, but right now the levels are totally inadequate. The
levels are $50 a month. You can
be on social assistance. You can earn more than that, but anything over
$50 a month is deducted from your social
allowance cheque dollar for dollar.
In effect, a 100 percent tax
rate. So we recommend that be increased.
In fact, in the city of
Madam Deputy Speaker, there are so many
issues and problems for people on social
assistance I hardly know where to start, but
frequently I hear from people in the community. I hear the most regularly from the staff at St. Matthew's‑Maryland
Community Ministry, that is, from Karen
Tjaden, Genny Funk‑Unrau, and
Rosemarie Forbes, who write to me on a monthly basis, and I commend them for doing this. They are the best lobbyists that we have, and I presume that they write to the
Minister of Family Services (Mr.
Gilleshammer) and to the Liberal critic as well.
I have in front of me their letter of
April 14, 1992, in which they give us
some statistics on the number of people that
they are feeding from their emergency food supplies, supplied by Winnipeg Harvest food bank. In March, 244 households received food, representing 344 adults and 329
children, and they say, this is the
largest number recorded of children assisted by our program.
In addition to this, we also gave emergency food to 21 households as well as referring another 78
households to other food programs.
These staff work on a daily basis with
families who find that they cannot
survive on the provincial social assistance budget, whether it is on city assistance or on
provincial assistance. So they go to emergency outlets such as St.
Matthew's‑Maryland Community
Ministry. That is not the only place
that they go. They also go to
They meet with the Minister of Family
Services (Mr. Gilleshammer). They belong to an organization called Inner
City Ministries Food Working Group and
they co‑operate to raise issues
with the Minister of Family Services.
When they met with the minister
on February 11, 1992, they raised numerous issues and recommendations.
They recommended increasing the minimum
wage so that people can live on what
they earn, which is an incentive to get off
welfare. Unfortunately, this
government has not increased the minimum
wage in keeping with the cost of living.
That is a serious problem for
people who are poor but working and on
minimum wage. The Minister of
Labour (Mr. Praznik) is the one who
decides when and by how much the minimum wage will be increased.
We know that at one time people working
for minimum wage, earned, I think it
was, approximately 93 percent of the poverty
line. That has fallen over the
years, till now, I believe, people on
minimum wage earn about 46 percent of the poverty line.
So if this government and this minister want to do something to help working poor people, here
is something very concrete that he can
do, and that is to increase the minimum
wage, increase it annually, increase it enough that people can meet their basic needs.
In fact, I would recommend that the
minister might want to depoliticize this
issue. He might want to say, okay, we
are going to raise it by a formula. The formula might be similar to what, I believe, is in place in the
The minister might want to make a
substantial increase in one year; after
that, tie it to a formula, very much like our
salaries here. We do not get
criticized by the public for our
salaries in the Legislature of Manitoba because our salary increases are tied to a formula based on the
Consumer Price Index and other cost
factors. So we know that it is out of
our control; it is not in our
hands. It goes up every year by a formula.
So I would recommend this to the Minister
of Labour (Mr. Praznik), if he and his
government want to do something to
improve the lives of people who are working but poor‑‑that
is a substantially large number of
people. In fact, it is an overlooked and almost forgotten group of
people. They do not get the kind of media coverage that poor people
on social assistance get, because they
do not want people to know that they are poor.
They do not go looking for interviews.
They do not have self‑help
organizations. They are probably not
part of organizations like MAPO that
lobby mainly on behalf of people on
social assistance. So there is a
concrete recommendation for this
Minister of Labour (Mr. Praznik).
Other recommendations from the Inner City
Ministries Food Working Group, they
recommend: provide adequate child
care supplements and medical expenses to
encourage people to work. We know that there is a direct correlation
between the affordability and
availability of child care and people entering the work force.
We know that many women, especially, want to enter the work force, and they find it difficult or
impossible to do because of inadequate
child care support.
* (1540)
The Food Working Group recommends that the
housing allowance portion of social
assistance be increased. This is
something that has been a problem for a
considerable period of time and needs to
be looked at. I think the
recommendations that the different
organizations in the community have put forward are good ones.
They have said, we need to increase the housing portion so that people are not taking money
for housing, money for rent out of
discretionary items. Discretionary items
are food, personal needs and household
needs. That is the only discretionary money that people have on
social assistance.
The problem is, what will the effect be on
raising housing supplements
substantially? Would people move up in
the housing market and buy better
quality housing, or would that money go to
landlords, including unscrupulous slum landlords, and deny people the opportunity to buy better quality
accommodation?
We have a system of rent regulation in
place in this province. So it should be possible to give people more
money, and have them move up in the
housing market. But we know that many landlords charge the maximum.
In fact, I was made aware of an example
where landlords are charging different
amounts of money in the same rooming house,
depending on whether people are on provincial assistance or city assistance.
Two different amounts, one higher than the other for the same kind of accommodation.
[interjection] Well, I have very good
sources. I talk regularly to staff in
city social assistance, and I am sure
that they can confirm this for me.
It is regrettable. It should not be allowed to happen under
our current system, but landlords view
this as a guaranteed source of income,
because, in many cases, the payments are made directly from either provincial or city social
assistance to the landlord.
So there is a problem. I do not think we can just increase the housing allowance without looking at
whether or not people will be able to
purchase better quality housing. The
food working group recommends: create jobs, job entry and job training for those who can work. Our party has been very critical of the provincial government for not
doing enough in terms of job creation
programs.
We believe that people out there want to
work. We believe that they need to be retrained from time to
time. The era of people training for one job and staying in
that job for their entire lifetime is
over. People need to be trained and
retrained and retrained as the economy
changes, and as demands for different
kinds of skills change from time to time.
We know that many of these programs are
effective. I remember when I was working on social
assistance issues, the then Minister of
Family Services, at that time it was economic
security, the member for Brandon East (Mr. Leonard Evans), invited myself and others to go on a tour of
the Human Resources Opportunity Centre.
One of the questions that we asked was,
how many people who graduate from this
centre are still employed after graduation?
The statistic that we were given was that six months after the training program, 62 percent of the people
who were graduated from their training
program were still gainfully employed.
So we know that these programs are and can
be successful. We believe it is to the benefit, not only of the
individuals, but of society and of the
taxpayers of
Numerous times in the last few months I
have had people say, I would rather see
the government spend the money on job training
and on job creation than on paying people to sit home and do nothing.
The people who are at home would much rather be out working and contributing to society and
contributing to their families and even
contributing to the tax system.
They would willingly pay taxes if they had
a job. I believe that the government has an important role to
play in doing something about it, in
providing the job training programs and
retraining programs.
Instead, what we see is the government
cutting out some of these programs, like
closing the Human Resources Opportunity
Centre in Selkirk. We have heard
our member for Selkirk (Mr. Dewar) speak
on that numerous times.
One of the things that is frequently
overlooked when talking about poverty
and unemployment is the true costs, and in many
cases, the hidden costs, the human costs of poverty and unemployment, because stories in the media
tend to focus on statistics. I can tell you some of the human costs, and
many of my colleagues can too. In fact, I am sure that members on the government side could as well.
I have had two constituents tell me that
they believe that marriage relationships
broke up as a result of one of the income
earners becoming unemployed. So
that is one of the tragedies of high
unemployment. That is one of the
tragedies of people living in poverty,
the human cost and the cost to individuals and their marriage when a marriage breaks up. In these two cases, my constituents said it was due to becoming
unemployed.
The Minister of Education and Training
(Mrs. Vodrey) will be interested to hear
about the effects of poverty on education in
an article written by Benjamin Levin of the Faculty of Education at the
He says, the evidence in Canadian
classrooms is overwhelming. Students from economically poor backgrounds
are substantially less likely to be
successful in school, significantly more
likely to be below grade level in academic
skills, more likely to be kept back a grade in elementary school, more likely to be placed in special education
classes, more likely to be in lower‑track
programs in secondary schools. So there is a cost to poverty. The cost is children repeating grades in school. The cost is in special education
programs. The cost is in children not being
as successful in school.
This was also documented in an all‑party
report of the House of Commons called
Children in Poverty: Towards a Better
Future, by the Standing Senate Committee
on Social Affairs, Science and
Technology. In this document,
they actually have put a dollar figure
to the cost of children living in poverty, the cost to society.
They measure those costs, not in hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars or millions of dollars,
but in billions of dollars. I think the problem is that governments do
not want to spend money now in order to
save money later, but the axiom is,
spending less money now means spending a lot more money later.
The Children in Poverty report got a lot
of media attention when it was released. One of the headlines said: Spending not
cure for child poverty, minister claims.
Regrettably, the minister that
this report went to was not in agreement with all of the recommendations of this all‑party
committee. This report and other reports like it have numerous
recommendations on how to end the
problem of child poverty, how to reduce the problem of child poverty.
Here are recommendations on child poverty‑‑Canada's Children:
Investing in our Future. This
report is the result of two years of
study by the Sub‑Committee on Poverty of the Health & Welfare, Social Affairs, Seniors and
Status of Women Committee of the House
of Commons. It was a result of a motion
that said that this House expressed its
concern for the more than one million
Canadian children currently living in poverty, and seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty
among Canadian children by the year
2000.
That was a motion passed, I believe,
unanimously in the House of
Commons. Regrettably, in recent weeks,
we have seen the federal minister
responsible say, we cannot achieve that goal by
the year 2000. He said, we could
not politically vote against a motion
like that when it was introduced, but now we have realized that we cannot achieve that goal, which is
very sad indeed.
* (1550)
For example, the committee unanimously
agreed that statistics on infant
mortality need to be substantially lowered, and they recommend a program of a nutritional
allowance of $45 per month, 100 percent
paid for by the federal government, payable to women in a healthy babies program, a small cost for
a long‑term benefit and an
inducement to provinces and women to participate.
They have costs in here. The cost of care of a low‑birth‑weight baby is
estimated at $60,000 to $100,000. I can tell you some anecdotal stories that
reinforce this. I know some nurses at St. Boniface and other hospitals in
The report talks about prevention and
intervention. The subcommittee recommends that both federal and
provincial governments target funds for
nursery programs serving high‑risk
communities. These programs have
been shown to enhance both the education
and health status of children as well as improving parenting skills.
They have a recommendation about
housing. The majority of the committee recommends measures to increase
social housing and improve the quality
in existing subsidized housing. Instead, what is the federal government doing? They have completely cut out the co‑op housing program, and they
are substantially reducing funding to
social housing.
They have a recommendation about
welfare. The report provides evidence that eight of 10 provinces
are not providing welfare assistance
that covers the basic needs of food, shelter,
clothing and essential items. I
would be willing to bet that
The committee has recommendations on the
working poor, similar to the
recommendation I made to the provincial Minister of Labour (Mr. Praznik). The subcommittee recommends that the Minister of Labour study the financial impact
of raising the federal minimum wage from
$4 an hour. I believe this report was tabled in December of '91.
The federal minimum is $1 an hour lower
than the provincial minimum wage in
The subcommittee unanimously recommends
the study of a guaranteed earned income
supplement that would ensure that the income
received from employment would be greater than that received by employable welfare
recipients. This is the concept of a guaranteed annual income, something that
has been studied and endorsed by
numerous organizations and political parties over the years, including the New Democratic Party
and the Liberal Party. It was endorsed over a decade ago by the
United Church of Canada, and now the
federal Conservatives are talking about it.
We might suppose that there is an election in the offing if the Conservative government in
We believe that it is an idea whose time
has come, but personally I would put a
couple of caveats on it. The reason for that is that the Macdonald Royal Commission
recommended a guaranteed annual income,
but they recommended an income level of approximately
$12,000 when their report came out in 1984, 1985 for a family of four at a time when the
poverty line was around $18,000 a year
for a family of four. So I would only be
in favour of a guaranteed annual income
if the levels were substantially higher
than what social assistance levels are now.
The main question around a guaranteed
annual income has always been, will it
be an incentive for people to work or a disincentive? There have been numerous studies of this
question in the United States and in
Canada, because Manitoba was the site of
a Canadian experiment called Mincome, where people on social assistance in Winnipeg, in Dauphin and rural
Manitoba were given a guaranteed annual
income. Now that data, since 1979 when
the experiment was folded, has been
studied, and I recently read a study by
Wayne Simpson and Derek Hum of the
They had a recommendation on aboriginal
people. The committee unanimously recommended that the
federal government recognize that
political self‑government is of primary importance in eradicating child poverty amongst
aboriginal people, and that is something
that we in this party have always been in favour of, that is aboriginal self‑government. Aboriginal people are also mentioned in the report that I quoted from
earlier, called Specifics, by the Social
Planning Council. They looked at the poverty profile of children in different
categories, the national picture, the
local picture, a summary and then aboriginal
children.
Aboriginal children experienced the second
highest child poverty rate in our
country, second only to children living with
single mothers, who suffer a poverty rate of 61 percent. The national
poverty rate for aboriginal children is about 51 percent.
The poverty rate for nonaboriginal children is 20 percent.
I think all of us in this Chamber should
be ashamed of statistics like that,
ashamed of the difference in the level of
poverty between aboriginal children and nonaboriginal children. The appalling statistics are one of the
reasons why we believe that aboriginal
self‑government is long overdue.
What have we seen on the part of
this government? Well, they have had recommendations of the Aboriginal Justice
Inquiry report which recommends
aboriginal self‑government in many, many areas.
In 1984 there was a House of Commons all‑party
report on Indian self‑government
also recommending self‑government for
aboriginal people. In spite of
two committees who have studied it and
the reasonable requests of aboriginal people, we have seen almost no action from this provincial
government. I believe that they are failing not just aboriginal people,
but our whole society. I believe that aboriginal people will be
better off in many, many areas if they
have control of their destiny, if they have
control over how money is spent.
We are not just talking about spending
money because part of the concept of
aboriginal self‑government is economic
self‑sufficiency. They do
not want more handouts. They do not want more welfare. What they really want is economic self‑sufficiency and self‑government
so they are not dependent on nonaboriginal
society.
That is the historical problem in
Madam Deputy Speaker, there are a couple
of more local issues that I want to go
back to. One is the child tax credit
changes for social assistance recipients
in
As a result they changed it from doing it
this year to doing it next year. In fact I believe the forms had already been printed for this year but because of the
storm of protest by people on social
assistance they postponed it to next year.
People said to us and they said to the
government, we do not have any large
sums of income during the year except the child
tax credit and provincial tax credits.
We use this money for special
items. We use it to purchase
furniture. People in my constituency approached me and said that they
were using this money to pay tuition at
university. If there is anything that we want to encourage for people on social
assistance, surely it is going to
university, surely it is getting a better education and getting off social assistance and becoming
self‑dependent.
But what did this government do? They took away this lump sum which gave people those opportunities and
they gave it to people instead
monthly. They did it without any
consultation. They just did it in an
arbitrary fashion and we are still hearing
from people who are very unhappy with that decision.
* (1600)
Madam Deputy Speaker, earlier today in
Question Period I asked the Minister of
Health (Mr. Orchard) questions about the
relationship between health and poverty because even his own centre for analysis says that the single most
effective thing that they can do to
improve the health of Manitobans is to reduce
poverty. Would this minister, in
consultation with his cabinet colleagues,
direct their focus not just on health issues on what apparently are direct health issues but on
the issue of poverty, which has many,
many benefits if people are lifted out of
poverty, including longer life expectancy and benefits to our society as a whole such as less money spent
on the health care system?
Today we have the release of his
report. While the introduction mentions that the chief
determinants of health are standards of
living, the government persists in policies which create, not reduce poverty. As we know, to our sorrow,
But the government wants to study and
tentatively to test the reform waters,
while pouring gasoline on the fires of poverty,
the same fires of poverty which have ignited in
We have a very high concentration of
poverty in
The member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), the
member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen),
myself‑‑part of the constituency of Wellington, and part of areas south of the Assiniboine
River, I believe, are located in the
federal constituency of Winnipeg North Centre, and have the second highest concentration of low‑income
people in Canada. I think this government needs to recognize
that fact and to do something about it,
and not wait until we have serious or more
serious problems in our community, but to take action now.
In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker, I
have talked about some of the personal
hardship of individuals who are on social
assistance, people living in poverty.
I have talked about some of the
statistical information, the effects on aboriginal people, the effects on children, the effects on
children in our educational system, and
the increased cost that those problems cost
our educational system.
I have suggested action. I have suggested that this government act on the aboriginal self‑government
report, that we bring in aboriginal self‑government
as soon as we can. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. We look forward to debating this issue in the future. Thank you.
*
* *
Madam Deputy Speaker: As previously moved by the deputy House leader, that Madam Deputy Speaker do now
leave the Chair and the House resolve
itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.
Motion agreed to, and the House resolved
itself into a committee to consider of
the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty with the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr.
Laurendeau) in the Chair for the
Department of Health; and the honourable member for
* (1610)
COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
(Concurrent Sections)
HEALTH
Mr. Deputy Chairperson
(Marcel Laurendeau): Order, please. Will the
Committee of Supply please come to order.
This afternoon this section of the
Committee of Supply, meeting in Room
255, will resume consideration of the Estimates
of the Department of Health. When
the committee last sat it had been
considering item 1.(a) Minister's Salary on page 82 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux
(Inkster): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I guess we had run out of time the last time when I
was at the mike on the Estimates and I
was trying to emphasize to the, in particular,
New Democratic Party critic for Health the importance to come to the table in an open and honest
fashion to discuss the future of health
care in the province of Manitoba.
As I tried to point out to her earlier
that afternoon, it is absolutely
essential that the member who represents her party recognize the fact that all of us have a care
and a love for universal health care as
much, and I would even argue, possibly even
more than the member for St. Johns, the Health critic for the New Democratic Party. In fact, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, time after time my colleague, who has been here in
Health Estimates for 60 hours now‑‑he
has been our critic since we formed the official
opposition; he has literally debated hundreds of hours of Estimates time and has put on the record a
number of issues of importance to the
Liberal Party and always felt that it was
essential that we contribute in a positive way; that we take the high road in terms of trying to best serve
Manitobans by not only coming up with
criticism, but constructive criticism wherever
possible.
We have used the argument that really what
is needed is an overall plan. The Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard) today
brought forward a plan, which I know my
colleague from the Maples (Mr. Cheema)
has gone over quite thoroughly. A number
of the criticisms that will come from
the member for The Maples will come as a
result of this particular report, but I know and I feel comfortable, because he has argued it not
only at this table but from within our
caucus. It is absolutely essential that
we criticize the government where it is
necessary, and where the government has
done a good job we tell them that they have done a good job.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, the reason why I
spent 25 minutes last Tuesday and a few
minutes today to put on the record these
words is because I think that Manitobans would be best served if the New Democratic Party came to the same
realization as we came to four years
ago, and that is to address the needs of the health care for the province in a more nonpolitical
way. You have to be more responsible. You cannot take things out of proportion in the manner in which the member for
The other day I made reference to a
statement that was quoted from a rural
newspaper where somehow the member for St. Johns said that the Liberals were in full co‑operation
with the Conservatives and we did not
want to debate the Hospital line of the
budget, that in fact the government would have fallen had that occurred. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, how irresponsible. Really and truly, I do not know how the
member for
This afternoon, after this morning
attending in part the conference, I was
looking forward to concluding my remarks in and
around 2:30, but the New Democratic Party was scared to come to the table.
They did not want to come to the Estimates table to ask questions. For the first time, I have been denying leave
to waive private members' hour for the
last four or five weeks, and the NDP
have criticized me for denying leave, along with the government, but I would have expected that
from the government.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, today, I said,
yes, we would waive private members'
hour in order that we can discuss this report
that we have before us today.
This time, for the first time that
I am aware of this session, the New Democratic Party denied leave in order to waive private members' hour.
One has to ask the question why it is that
they feel they cannot come to the
Estimates table. I believe that the real reason is because they do not have an
understanding of health care. The member for
I think what you have done today has been
a disservice to all Manitobans and would
encourage, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that the
member for St. Johns, in particular, come to the table in an open fashion.
To conclude, I would say the reason why I suggest that is because my constituents, the constituents
that I represent need to have legitimate
debate.
As long as one of the political parties
that come to the table refuse to have
that legitimate debate, that party is jeopardizing
the health care in the province of Manitoba.
That is what the member for
I would look to the Minister of Health
(Mr. Orchard), Mr. Deputy Chairperson,
and ask the Minister of Health that even if
the New Democratic Party does not‑‑
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please.
Could I have just a little bit of
quiet while I am listening to the honourable member for
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I am asking the
Minister of Health if he would do a
service at least to the citizens of this
province by bringing to the table legitimate debate, to bring to the table what is going on in our
health care system. I would encourage the Minister of Health to be
as open as possible, as the Leader of
the Liberal Party (Mrs. Carstairs) brought
forward in her questions and the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema), to not fear exploitation of whatever
might come out of this in a deceptive
way from the Liberal Party.
We will play our part the best we can to
ensure that what criticism is given to
the Minister of Health is criticism that is
deserved and warranted and that we will not take the opportunity, because we believe that it is essential to
prevent the minister from coming forward
with the details of his budget, with the
importance of the health care to the province of Manitoba. We just
cannot jeopardize that, because one political party has chosen to play politics, even though they
like to think that they are coming to
the table saying that they do not want to play
politics with health care. We
know all too well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson,
that in fact they are playing politics with health care.
I would ask the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard), having said that, to do the
responsible thing and to be up‑front with
Manitobans and allow the NDP party to play their games and only hope that the health care in the
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Chairperson.
* (1620)
Hon. Leonard Derkach
(Minister of Rural Development): Mr.
Deputy Chairperson, I would just like to
put a few comments on the record with
regard to the‑‑
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis
(
Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will repeat the question.
I had asked the Minister of Health: Can he assure this committee that he will continue to come back
to the committee and be as open and
frank as possible in respect to what is going on in our health care system, even though the
New Democratic Party has chosen to
behave in such an irresponsible way? In
return, the member for The Maples (Mr.
Cheema) will be continuing to bring
forward legitimate criticism where it is warranted and will give credit where it is deserved.
Hon. Donald Orchard
(Minister of Health): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we have tried to provide a
substantial amount of information. I think that, when my honourable friend
possibly gets more time to digest the
entire content of the action plan, he
will see that there is a substantive underpinning of research and policy direction in that, which we think
will allow us to operate within the $1.8
billion that we currently are asking approval
to expend and at least be able to maintain the level of services.
In some cases we think there is an opportunity, with reinvestment of savings from high‑cost
institutions, to improve, in fact, the
level of services.
Where my honourable friend, I think, is
coming from is probably going to be
opposed if my honourable friend the New Democrat
gets a chance into the individual hospital budgets, and those are being finalized. This is an important component of that finalization of budget, as you can
appreciate, because in this fiscal year
our two teaching hospitals will see, phased out, 240 beds that are part of their complement,
with as much transfer of budget to other
institutions as is necessary to offer those
services in those institutions.
When we have the action plans of each
individual hospital, I doubt we will be
sitting in Estimates, but I have no hesitation
those will be public discussion, because there is, no doubt, going to be press releases on them as each
hospital develops its action plan. That will lead us to some discussion in
Question Period or other forms.
I simply put it to my honourable friend
this way. The process that we have undertaken and the
underpinning of research and knowledge
that we have tried to focus on the health care
system, I think, will stand the test of critical scrutiny. Not perfect. No program of government is going to be
perfect, but it will stand critical
scrutiny. It will not stand‑‑I
will be very blunt‑‑the kind
of questioning my honourable friend the member
for St. Johns was putting out, the rumours about 240‑250 beds closing at our teaching hospitals. If that is the extent of the information provided by New Democrats in
letters and mailers to their
constituents and across the province, no ministry of Health can withstand that, because that is only half
the facts. In other words, it is as close to an untruth as
you can get.
When you put in context the 240 beds at
the Health Sciences Centre and St.
Boniface, balance it off with the 150 beds that
are going to be funded in three other facilities, plus continuing care, to offset the services delivered in
those beds, then the balance all of a
sudden appears, and people can start buying into a process, knowing that there is integrity
behind it.
I am willing to provide those kinds of
directions to the Chamber, because I
think when they are put in context and in
balance they will receive general support. I cannot predict how the NDP are going to handle those kinds of
pieces of information, because we have
seen already today my honourable friend the
member for St. Johns (Ms. Wasylycia‑Leis) was into job protection, which union backing would
probably force her to do, and I did not
detect a question out of six where the patient was ever considered in terms of the integrity of
care to the patient.
Point of Order
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, on a point of order, the minister should correct the record,
because he knows that he is putting
incorrect information on the record. He
knows full well that in every question
asked today in the Legislative Assembly
the word "patient" was raised, and questions were asked about the safeguarding of patient care.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The honourable member does not have a point of order. It is a dispute over the facts.
*
* *
Mr. Orchard: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will certainly
withdraw that statement, if my
honourable friend is offended by it.
The whole process of the reform in this
document is underpinned with
evaluation. It is establishment of
protocols. I tell committee that if
there is one person who has been consistent
over the last couple of years, in terms of saying we need protocols and guidelines of practice,
the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema)
has been, but that is part of the process.
As much as possible, yes, we are going to bring information to the House.
The suggestion today, by the Leader of the
Liberal Party (Mrs. Carstairs) in terms
of sharing the evaluation process in a public
forum, I am taking that very seriously under
consideration, because I think that has an opportunity to do two things:
to reinforce what is being done right, to calm the potential for narrowed fears that could be
created with misinformation; and,
secondly, it has an opportunity to tell the
system what has not worked as well as we thought, so we get our minds around changing the process in a
fashion that will make it work with the
expectations we have.
Mr. Derkach: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, once again I would
just like to put a few comments on the
record with regard to the Health
Estimates.
I guess I would like to go back to Monday
night when the motion was made regarding
the minister's salary to be reduced to $50. Of course, from time to time that is done in
the spirit of criticism of a minister,
and in politics that is understandable.
However, I listened carefully on Monday night
to the remarks that were made after the
amendment was proposed, and the remarks that
were made from the member for
Now, that is not to say that the member
for
When I heard her reasons and what the
Minister of Health could do with the
$50, it made me somewhat embarrassed about the
fact that we are all legislators and are expected to be somewhat credible in the remarks we make. Sometimes we would probably want to bury pages of a Hansard where
comments like that would appear, because
I do not think it does any of us any good to be
placing comments like that on the record, especially when we talk about a serious matter that affects every
Manitoban and one that has become a very
serious one indeed for all people in this
province.
The Minister of Health I think made it
very clear, that health care goes far
beyond politics, that indeed every individual
in Canada and in Manitoba must pay attention to where we are going in health care. I watched the Minister of Health when he was on the Journal, along with two
other high‑level professionals, if
you like, from the health care field, or at
least from the academic field.
One of the things that struck me was
that
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, what do we hear
around our province? It does not matter
whether you are talking to New Democrats or
Liberals or Conservatives, or whoever they may be in terms of their politics, people understand that if we
do not take some steps regarding health
care reform in this province, our children
may not have the luxury of the health care system that we have before us today. That is a real concern. It is a concern for the senior citizens, it is a concern for
middle‑aged people, and indeed it
is a concern for the youth.
* (1630)
When I heard the comments from the member
for The Maples (Mr. Cheema), who is a
professional in the health care field himself,
who understands very deeply the issues before health care, who was willing to put aside perhaps some of his
political beliefs for the moment and
look at how he could contribute positively
towards assisting the Minister of Health through positive criticism and sometimes very hard criticism,
as it should be, and through positive
suggestions as to how health care can be
reformed‑‑to that, I think, Manitobans have to pay some attention, because it finally shows that in
the Legislature there is some
credibility, that people do not need to be cynical about what happens in the Chamber and in this room.
I guess if I had anything to say to the
New Democratic Party and to the Health
critic from the New Democratic Party, I would
say that perhaps it is time to set aside some of that political rhetoric that keeps coming at Question
Period, that keeps coming in these
Estimates, to take a very serious look at the document that was tabled by the Minister of Health
today, because indeed this is a document
that is probably going to set a certain direction
for health care in our province.
Yes, it requires the scrutiny of all the
critics and indeed the parties to ensure
that the document is made even stronger than
it is in its present form, but it is certainly not going to be made strong by the kind of rhetoric that I
have heard put on the record by the
member, both in Question Period and in these
Estimates.
One may say, well, I am coming to the
defence of the Minister of Health. I do not need to come to his defence, Mr.
Deputy Chairperson, because the Minister
of Health has proven that he is capable
of defending himself and, indeed, capable of defending the policies that he comes forth with.
So Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I would just
like to say that the comments that I
hear from individuals outside this Chamber, from ordinary Manitobans, are that Manitobans are
concerned about health care. They understand that it is time for
reform. They understand that this province simply cannot
go on the way that it has in the past,
and that if we are going to protect that very
cherished health care system that we have in our province today, we are going to have to combine our efforts
as government, as opposition parties, to
try and come up with the best health care
reform that is possible.
Yes, from time to time it may mean strict
and harsh criticism, but on points where
we agree, where we can set aside our
political ideologies, I think we have to state that very clearly.
When a position or a policy can be supported, there is nothing wrong with indicating that it is a
good policy. Indeed, that is, I guess, what I am looking forward
to perhaps from the New Democrats. I do not know if they are capable of it, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, because I have not heard
it. I have not heard or I have not read any suggestions from
the critic of Health with regard to what
directions she would take or her party would
take except for the criticisms that have been laid before the Minister of Health on his policies.
Well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, just in
conclusion I would have to say that I
think Manitobans are going to be looking very
seriously at what has been tabled today.
I think Manitobans are going to
be supportive of the directions that have been set. Indeed, these are not set just by the
Minister of Health or this government. There has been an enormous amount of
consultation done with the professionals
and with Manitobans. That has to be understood, because this is not a policy that
comes straight from the politics of the
people from government.
So, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, once again I
am hopeful that the member for
So with that, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I
thank you for your time.
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: I am certainly pleased with this opportunity to add my remarks to this Liberal‑Conservative
filibuster of the Conservative
government's Health Estimates, a most unusual
development in the history of the
I know that the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) and the other Conservative
Minister of Health, his Associate Minister of
Health, are taking great glee in stretching out Estimates in order to be able to develop their
relationship a little more closely and
develop their political agenda a little more
concretely.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I was going to say
this afternoon in the Question Period
that if the Liberals moved any closer to the
Conservatives they might as well cross the floor. Unfortunately
the member for
It is fascinating to watch and I am not
going to make comments, I am not going
to make judgments. I will let the voters of the
I want to start off by saying though,
although I realize that there has been a
considerable amount of collusion in an attempt
to set this up to try to embarrass me, to try to box me into a corner, to try to make it look like I am the
odd person out, the member for Roblin‑Russell
(Mr. Derkach) says I am not the minister
and he is absolutely right. That is why
the situation is even more peculiar,
that there has been such a concerted attempt
over the last little while to try to get at me, this poor little old member for
As I said the other day, I feel flattered.
I think there is no choice about all of
this but to feel flattered and to treat this
as a compliment‑‑
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please.
Point of Order
Mr. Gulzar Cheema (The
Maples): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, on a lighter note, I would like to let the member
for St. Johns know that we really like
her very much, but I think that there is an
issue here in terms of‑‑
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please.
The honourable member did not
have a point of order. It was a dispute
over the facts.
* * *
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: Well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, along those same lines, I want everyone to know that I do
not take this personally, and I do not
dislike anyone on a personal basis. I even tend to agree with the Minister of
Highways and Transportation (Mr.
Driedger). [interjection]
No, no, the other night the Minister of
Highways and Transportation who came to
tell us what a pussy cat the Minister of
Health is. I will not go so far as to
agree with that statement, but I will
say that there have been some lighter moments
in these 60 hours of Estimates, and there have been a few laughs, and I can see that there might be
another side to the minister and there
is perhaps another part to this personality.
But on the political front, in the
Legislature I only know one person. I only know one person, and he has not been
very pleasant to me. He has made this quite a personal debate and
I have been subjected to a great deal of
personal innuendo and abuse, and I have
said that before.
However, I still will not take it
personally. I understand it is part of politics. It is part of this whole legislative process, and I want to continue making a few
comments on that level in terms of the
policies we are dealing with and the politics,
because one of the things that is coming over and over again by the two Conservative ministers of
Health is that this is a nonpolitical
issue, and I am doing this great disservice to my country and my community by daring to ask
questions that are interpreted as being
political.
* (1640)
Well, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I will
concede that there are nonpolitical
concerns around this issue, and I said that today in the Legislature. There are generic concerns. Those concerns have been expressed by all of us. Those concerns have been expressed by every provincial government
across this land for the last five
years, whatever the stripe. Those
concerns have been described by academics
from all different persuasions. Those concerns have been mouthed and espoused by
community groups right across this
country. So there is very much an
element of nonpolitical focus to this
whole area, and I have indicated that in
reviewing this report today. I certainly
join with all members from all political
parties in agreeing with the concerns expressed
and clearly indicating that the goals are laudable. I have
not tried to hide that feeling whatsoever.
Our concern has been with respect to the
action plan, if one can call it
that. That really comes back to this
long 60 hours of questioning and why we
are still at it. The fact of the matter is that we still do not have a clear
idea of the action plan. We have, as I said in the House today, a
generic policy perspective, a multiple
choice paper document before us without any
further indication of where this government is clearly planning to take this province with respect
to health care reform. So, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, at that point it
becomes very political. It becomes political because we see the need
for change on an urgent basis, and we
are not seeing this specific plan of
action coming from this government after four years of promises.
I want to reiterate this is the Minister of Health's (Mr. Orchard) fourth anniversary as Minister
of Health.
An Honourable Member: Today?
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: It must be close. It must be around today. I think it is very‑‑last
week. So we are just on the heels of the fourth anniversary of the Minister of
Health (Mr. Orchard), and I think one
could expect after four years of similar kinds of rhetorical statements and expressed concerns
to see some specifics, see some movement
on a few major areas identified across
this country as absolute requirements for health care reform.
It becomes political when one sees from Conservatives, whether in
So, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, let us begin
with the most fundamental of health care
reform issues. That is our medicare system, our national standards and the
principles entrenched in the Canada
Health Care Act. I do not think I should
need to sit here and take any lectures
from either the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) or any of his colleagues on the Conservative side or the Liberals in the House about what is
right and good about health care reform,
and what should be focused in terms of health
care, and how to fight for a good quality health care system. It has
been Conservatives and Liberals who have worked hard to tear apart our national health care system and our
treasured medicare system in
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, let us face it, we
are in a difficult situation today
primarily because the federal Conservative
government has ripped the bottom out from under medicare, has gutted funding for health care, and we know
that means the end of an enforcement
mechanism for the principles, those principles
that the member for The Maples (Mr. Cheema) is so concerned about, which I share‑‑a concern I
share. He has asked about support for his bill. He knows that I have stood publicly and said the New Democratic Party will support
his bill. I do not know if he has those assurances from the
members of the Conservative side.
I do not believe that the [interjection]
the member for Sturgeon Creek (Mr.
McAlpine) says, why do we not speak on it?
Well, we are ready to speak on it.
We are not waiting to speak on it. The member for Sturgeon Creek knows that
bills go through a certain order. I can ask the same question about other bills that are before there that have been called‑‑and
the member for the Liberals has not
spoken. I can think about bills that
have been passed by all three parties in
this Legislature, like Bill 91; it is
still sitting gathering dust.
A commitment is a commitment is a
commitment in my books. The member for
The Maples (Mr. Cheema) knows that, and we will
support that bill. I think if he
had the same commitment from the
Conservative Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard), we could pass it tomorrow.
Let me indicate that when you put health
care reform in the context of the
serious situation caused by the federal Conservative
government, it is political. I do not
know how you can say it is not
political. It may not be political if
you are not going to sit there and be
concerned about that development and
fight to the nth degree to restore federal funding, ensure national standards and preserve
medicare. For me, the beginning of health care reform is preserving medicare
and that means a political fight that we
have never seen the likes of.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, you can tell all
the members of this committee to hang
onto their hats or their pants or whatever,
because this issue is going to get very political. We have just
seen the beginning of it, and we are going to be fighting like you have never seen before to preserve
medicare.
I have said this before and I will say it
again today, there can be no system to
reform if we are going to sit idly by and let
medicare be eroded and the federal government to abdicate its responsibility. I do not see the Conservative government and particularly the Minister of Health (Mr.
Orchard) fighting like mad to get the
federal government to change its policies.
I have not seen a letter, a
public statement, a press release or a pronouncement
from anyone on the Conservative benches saying, we are going to fight to the nth degree to
preserve medicare, restore national
funding and ensure a strong federal role in our
health care system.
This issue becomes very political when we
see, given the difficult financial
situation and the cutback of federal funds,
it becomes very difficult for provincial governments to preserve quality health care, but even recognizing
that, we still have very serious
difficulties with some of the decisions taken by this provincial Conservative government, and
so we will raise those issues.
If that means being political, then so be
it. We are political, and we will raise concerns at any
point along the way about any aspect of
so‑called health care reform under this
government that does in our estimation offer or hurt patients and deny security and quality of care and put at
loose ends hundreds of workers‑‑yes,
those are concerns. We too are
concerned, not only about patient care
but about the lives and jobs of hundreds
of Manitobans in a province that now has the highest unemployment rate in the country.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I think it is
pretty irresponsible to be dismissing
the concerns of workers in an economic climate like we are facing today and suggesting that those
hundreds and hundreds of workers add
themselves to the unemployment rolls and
the welfare rolls and the increasing poverty.
To what?
How can we beat the record for having the highest poverty level anywhere in the country? We are already there, so I think we do have a responsibility to worry
about economic security and employment
opportunities. We can do that in the context of fighting for quality health care
that is reformed based on the
fundamental principles of medicare.
So you know, when you start with that
federal Tory record and you see a
federal Tory policy of strangling the economy, which is strangling health care, you cannot say this
is not political. We do not need any lectures from anybody about
medicare and about fighting to preserve
the most treasured national program in this
country, something which is cause for more Canadians to be proud to be Canadian than just about anything else.
Mr. Deputy
Chairperson: Order, please. Could we have just a little bit of quiet, please? The decorum is getting a little bit of line.
The honourable member for
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: We will continue to play a constructive role around health care, as we have done in the
past. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, that means beginning with asking
questions, demanding answers, raising
concerns. That is what we have been doing over the last several months. That is what we have done in the last 60 hours of Estimates. That is what we did today when we received this action plan, this so‑called
action plan.
* (1650)
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we did not dump
all over this paper, because there are
not specific recommendations and decisions to
say yea or nay about. We clearly
said‑‑
Mr. Lamoureux: Do you support it?
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: The member for
We have said the goals and aims of this
paper in terms of health care reform are
laudable. Now, I wonder, if one says it is "laudable" to the member for
But, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we had
expected, based on the way the minister
had described and outlined the process leading
up to the document, and held out and created such high expectations around this paper, that we would
have seen some actual steps taken
towards a health care reform strategy, not
more broad policy statements saying, here are the options; here are the options for quality assurance; here
are the options for physician
remuneration; here are the options for community health care; here are the options for hospital beds;
here are the options for you name it.
That is what this paper is. It is a pizza approach to health care; it is a multiple listing of
toppings. We get to choose? No, we do not get to choose. The minister, who has the staff, the resources, the analytical tools, the
evaluative mechanisms, has the
responsibility to come forward with a set of steps that he is prepared to take based on all of that
experience and input and four years in
government, four years of promising health care
reform.
So our criticism today is not about the
content because you cannot disagree with
the content. You cannot disagree with
the content. What we are saying is, what are the
priorities for health care reform of
this government?
Now I know that in every other province in
this country, and in every other study,
Royal Commission Task Force review, consultative
process whatever, there are about five or six sorts of umbrella, key concerns listed in terms of
health care reform, suggested as action
for governments.
Those issues revolve around: (1) physician remuneration and method of medical practice; (2) equally
important, the priority of moving from
institutional to community‑based care; (3) a focus on prevention, something we know has been
missing from our health care plans to
date, from whatever government, whatever part of this country, NDP included; (4) a focus on
standards of care and quality assurance;
(5) and utilization reviews.
I think those are five general areas. There are more; there is too much to keep on top of. But in terms of all these studies‑‑the Royal Commission
from B.C., and the Quebec study, and the
Nova Scotia, and the New Brunswick, and the Ontario Premier's Council, and The Rainbow Report in
Alberta, and so on and so forth‑‑all
of those studies have focused on those big
umbrella areas and said, we have to take action; we have to take steps.
Some provinces have started to do it. Here, in this
document, I thought we were getting the
I thought on community health care we
would see by now a preference, maybe one
that would still need further input from
the community, but certainly an indication of where this government wanted to go with respect to CHOs
or HMOs or whatever version you want to
think about in terms of a community health
care model.
There are many, they all need to be looked
at, and they have to be part of any
health care reform strategy. So the
listing is here but there is, again, no
indication that a model is chosen, will
be tried, will be tested, will be a part of a movement in terms of beds from the institution to the
community‑based side.
I thought by now we would have seen more
of a focus on prevention and
promotion. Not a word in this report,
not a word, at the same time that we
just learned that
In fact, she came with a chart that said
that the best guarantee of health and
well‑being and long life is economic
security, and showed that as income rises you tack on, I think she said, eight or nine years to one's
life. Much higher than if you found the cure for cancer or found
whatever for heart surgery. So we know the correlations, yet there is no recognition of the root causes of ill health
and how we have to work on that whole
area and focus on prevention.
Maybe I was expecting too much, but I
thought, given how on the very question
we asked about, the rumours about hospital beds
and the closing of this and the end of this service, the minister kept saying, wait for my health care reform
plan. I thought, maybe naively so, that we would have
something a little more specific than
this.
So, again, let me say, I do not object to
what is in this report. I support the aims; I support the principles;
I support the philosophy. I object, and I am angry, and I will continue
to raise my voice about the fact that
this government, after all this time,
still is not prepared to come to us with a little more concrete strategy.
What is noticeable in this paper is that
there is very specific information
around one area, and that is with respect to
bed cuts. It is very clear, there
are numbers. If you see numbers anywhere it only has to do with bed
cuts. He confirms the 240 bed cuts at the teaching hospitals.
Although the minister has said that those
numbers were from fearmongering all
along, in actual fact they were right.
We were right. They should have been addressed long ago,
instead of creating this climate of fear
and uncertainty in our hospitals.
Ms. Becky Barrett (
Ms. Wasylycia-Leis: No, as the member for
Mr. Deputy Chairperson, it is very
specific around bed cuts, but not very
specific about the alternative community care
arrangements and not very specific about the patient and safeguards for the patient in that whole
continuum of care, not very specific
about bridge funding‑‑and I know the Liberals have raised this in Question Period‑‑not
very specific about the fact that there
will need to be, I hate this word, but this hump in funding in order to make the transition.
This report says it, that if you are going
to move from one system to another, you
are going to have to have extra funding and
parallel systems for a period of time to make it work. No indication
that that will happen, and no indication about the lives of people who work in the facilities.
The report says we should not be talking
about reductions in health care
spending, we should be talking about containment and reallocation and reprioritization, which I
agree with. But surely that would mean that you are going to
keep the same number of people in the
system, although in different facets and
different ways and different jobs and different positions and different places.
That means redeployment and training, and
we still do not have a specific program
to do with redeployment and retraining and
supports for workers as they make that transition. I do not
know how you can pretend to be moving towards health care reform if we do not address some of those very
fundamental questions.
* (1700)
So let me say, Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I
hope that the minister will tell us what
the next step is and how quickly he is going
to take us there, because this is broad, this is nice, this is multifaceted, this offers many choices,
this has all the right jargon‑‑
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please.
The time is now five o'clock and
time for private members' hour.
Committee rise.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Madam Chairperson
(Louise Dacquay): Order, please. Will the
Committee of Supply please come to order.
This section of the Committee of Supply is
dealing with the Estimates for the
Department of Education and Training. We
are on page 43, item 5.(b) Program
Analysis, Co‑ordination and Support.
Will the minister's staff please enter the
Chamber.
Ms. Jean Friesen
(Wolseley): Madam Chairperson, we
are looking here at policy and program
changes and also at the research and analysis
that the department does. I want to come
back to a document that I have been
referring to which relates to the cuts in
community colleges two years ago which the government, I believe, has still not replaced.
I have referred to this document before,
and we had some trouble finding it. Now that I have seen the document, I am not surprised.
This is a document called
I expressed surprise that there had been
such a document. She argued again that,
indeed, there had and gave me the title of
it. Well, what this document
amounts to, in fact, is a listing of the
programs which were cut. It does not
give enrollments, and it simply has a
number or a letter attached which says L, M,
low or medium demand.
There does not seem to be, in this
document‑‑and perhaps there
are more pages to it, but I only have one page‑‑anything which indicates the employability or
employment levels in each of these
areas. So, first of all, I would like to
ask the minister and her staff, is this
list of courses at Red River, Assiniboine
and
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey
(Minister of Education and Training): Madam Chairperson, I will say again for the record
that was a document that was tabled last
year, in last year's Estimates, and the context
of the tabling, there was discussion and information on that document, I understand, regarding market
demand and cost and completion rates,
alternatives and employment success. I
am informed that last year it was
discussed. Each program was discussed specifically, and I will remind the
member that those were last year's
Estimates, and the information, I believe, is
provided there and the document, though it does not contain specific statistics, does contain the
information that was requested.
* (1610)
Ms. Friesen: Madam Chairperson, then could we look at that document and look at some of the courses
which were indeed cut at
Mrs. Vodrey: Again, I will remind the member that she
refers to decisions made last year, last
year's Estimates. I will also make the distinction for her between
secretarial and clerical, which she
references, and bookkeeping, that there is a difference and that we have kept Business
Administration, Business Accountancy,
and that there has been a demand for that higher level or different type of skill.
Ms. Friesen: Madam Chairperson, could the minister indicate
then what is the difference between
Clerical Bookkeeping and the program
that she makes a reference to?
Mrs. Vodrey: I am happy to draw those distinctions. The business
administration course is a comprehensive, two‑year diploma course, as opposed to a one‑year
certificate program. The business
accountancy program is a one‑year program, and it pays particular attention to computer
application, programs such as Lotus 1‑2‑3,
Dbase and a program called Accpac.
Ms. Friesen: Madam Chairperson, in the booklet on high‑demand occupations in Canada, it does point out
under bookkeeping/accounting, which is a
high‑demand skill in Manitoba according
to the minister's records, the requirement for the ability to organize records of transaction,
to co‑ordinate activities relating
to paying and receiving money and to apply
principles of costing and budgeting.
It seems to me that is what is included in
clerical bookkeeping. I ask the minister again, if this is a high‑demand occupation, why was that program cut?
Mrs. Vodrey: There has been, I am informed, a demand for
the more sophisticated skills. The clerical and bookkeeping skills were previously introductory courses. They used a very basic approach.
There was less use of technology.
It was manual bookkeeping versus
bookkeeping by computer and by the program, by
way of example, Accpac. The
demand is now moving to a more sophisticated
skill from those more basic skills which were
taught previously.
Ms. Friesen: Then why, on page 7 of the same booklet, High Demand Occupations in
Surely one of the purposes of this
department is to match skills and skill
training with the unemployment levels in this
country, or at least in this province.
I do not see the connections
between the minister's own reports and the kind of programs and development of programs that are
going on at the community colleges.
Mrs. Vodrey: It seems to me that the honourable member is
simply taking a name and then, based on
the name, she is assuming the skills. In my last two answers, I have described to
her the skills and the training that are
attached to the specific names being
used for courses and for outcome occupations.
I would also like to remind her that there
is a distinction between active
recruitment‑‑active recruitment is not the same as high‑demand occupation. Active recruitment refers to those occupations in which there is an extremely
high turnover.
Ms. Friesen: I did distinguish between those two. There is
recruitment. There are high‑demand
skills. It seems to me that, in both cases, there are demands, for
whatever reason, for people with
introductory skills in bookkeeping. Yet
those are exactly the programs which
Mrs. Vodrey: Let me say again that the demand is for the
higher level skills. I have described that those occupations, and the kind of training that goes along with those
occupations‑‑business accountancy,
business administration, by way of example‑‑were demanded, and that we did, with those two
courses, expand them last year. We also expanded them this year. There has been an emphasis, with the available funds, to
develop skills that are required within
the community, that will contribute to the labour market and will also support the economy.
* (1620)
Ms. Friesen: But I am reading from lists which indicate
that these are high‑demand skills
and that these are areas where there is
active recruitment. So I simply cannot
understand the minister's response.
There is no point in talking about
creating programs when, in fact, you
have cut a large number of programs. You
are simply not even replacing the
programs that you had. There is a clear distinction in the list on high‑demand
skills between small business
management, which does include the financial management, the production management and the
bookkeeping, which requires the computer
skills that the minister is talking about, and the secondary, which is called bookkeeping and
accounting, which is a much lower level
of education and which requires the ability to
organize records of transaction to apply principles of costing and budgeting. It is an area of skill and demand. The minister
cut those programs. Why?
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Chairperson, well, I have provided for
the honourable member all the
information that I believe she would need
in order to understand the issue. I have
explained it. This is now a debate for
the Estimates of the '92‑93 year.
If those concerns were to be
raised, they really should have been raised
in last year's Estimates when that was a topic for discussion.
Ms. Friesen: The reason I am continuing to raise them is
because in fact we have a smaller
community college system now than we did
two years ago, and what we are discussing generally is the future of the community college system, the
scale of it, the way in which the public
sector should be and is not yet meeting the
needs of the 59,000 Manitobans who are unemployed. That is my
concern.
The minister's response, and the
government's response, in all of these
issues is to say that it has replaced 600 positions in the community colleges. When you have cut 2,000, or you have cut over 1,000 the year before, I think it
has to be said over and over again that
this government has reduced the size, the
scale and the ability of the community colleges to meet the needs of those thousands of people who are
unemployed in this province, and I want
to keep making that point.
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Chairperson, let me say again and
continue to say for the benefit of the
honourable member and others, that the full‑time
enrollment for '92‑93 reflects the enrollment of two years ago‑‑so the honourable
member is not correct in her assumptions‑‑and
that we have redirected money for programming to those higher level skills which will allow
Manitobans to compete.
The honourable member wishes to continue
focusing on those lower level skills,
she wishes to maintain the status quo, and it
appears that she wishes to particularly keep and make sure that students continue to study in those
particular areas in which there is not a
demand, which, as I said, maintain the status quo, do not necessarily allow for their further
competitiveness in Manitoba, and
therefore does not allow Manitoba to be more
competitive.
So I will remind her again that the full‑time
enrollment for '92‑93 will reflect
the enrollment of two years ago, and that our
programming is designed to put Manitoba, to move Manitobans into the '90s, to reflect the training culture
that we have discussed while we have
been in Estimates and as part of the government's ongoing activities in strengthening the
Manitoba economy by developing the skill
levels of our labour force. I will
remind her again, as I told her the last
time we sat together, that an extensive
review of community college programming was undertaken in 1991‑‑a review of that programming.
The aim was to focus on effective and long‑term
approaches to meeting our labour market
needs, rather than any short‑term quick‑fix
measures. I think the honourable member
is aware that we can no longer look
backwards; we can no longer look to how we
dealt with economic matters previously and in the past, that the current thinking is now we have to
restructure our thinking. We have to now look ahead, and we now have to
make decisions which will move
The review that I spoke about, part of the
process of this government to meet those
new challenges, resulted in a redirection
of programming from those less effective programs to the ones which would be more effective in
addressing the labour market mismatches
and matches. College programs were
evaluated, as I told her, based on such
things as enrollment levels‑‑a very
good indication of levels of interest and suitability‑‑graduation rates, job placements, projected demands for
the graduates, as well as program costs
and effectiveness.
Some programs, as I told her previously,
were eliminated and many were
added. In 1992‑93, we are
proposing a further expansion, as I have
told her several times, of $2.5 million to
college programming in areas which will contribute to the economic development of this province.
I have read into the record for her
benefit, the new programming that is
available at
Ms. Friesen: Well, I can understand why this government
does not want to look at its last four
years' record. I think the 60,000 people unemployed in this province do expect
some answers on that. It seems to me that community colleges is one
of the areas where we can begin to make
some inroads into getting people into areas
of employment where there are jobs.
These may be jobs that seem to be
listed here: the Active Recruitment
jobs, those where there are high demand
skills.
(Mr. Ben Sveinson, Acting Chairperson, in the
Chair)
The minister seems to make the assumption
that it is either/or: Either you have an entry level clerical
course or you have the higher level
skills. Nobody is objecting to having
the higher level skills, but why are you
eliminating the other programs, the ones
that would begin to get people into areas
where there are jobs? As for the
$2.5 million that the minister keeps
making a reference to as an increase in college
programming, it seems to me that does not bring us back even to the position we were two years ago in the
area of the funding for community
colleges.
So is the minister supporting a policy
where we are not matching jobs and
recruitment areas to training programs in our
public institutions? Is she
supporting a policy where the community
colleges are to remain at the level they were two years ago?
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Acting Chairperson, I will remind the
member that this government's position
is to restructure the colleges within
the resources available to the
I will remind her that this approach is
significantly different from the
approach of the 1980s when her party was in
power. Her party spent money to
increase the debt of this province. They spent money in a jobs fund for short‑term
job creation that did not add to the
skills training of this province, and
the colleges during the '80s were stagnant.
I think that she should remember
her government's record.
I will remind her again that the full‑time
enrollment in the colleges reflects what
it was two years ago. We believe that
the college programming is now
stronger. We believe that the outcomes are stronger and the planning for
the future will again come through the
labour‑market strategy which we have spoken about during these Estimates, and as the
colleges move on to governance and have
a greater opportunity to then develop their
autonomy and be responsive to their communities, then we will continue to look at the kind of programming
available.
* (1630)
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Acting Chairperson, I think the review of college programs and the development of
colleges is an important issue for every
government. I am not opposed to the
review. I am not opposed to re‑evaluation or to
changes in the colleges. So it is
erroneous of the minister to make those kinds of claims.
I will remind her that there were not
59,000 people in this province
unemployed when the NDP government was in power. There were
training programs, which as she said, were short term. I will
remind the minister again that these were short term, but not short‑sighted policies, to keep
people in training, in education, to
give them hope, to give them a sense of opportunity,
the ability to enter at the very beginning level of the labour force is something which is not
available to many of the constituents
that I now have to deal with.
I do not know if the minister from her
riding has to deal with people like that
who have no hope, who have absolutely no
future, and see the continuing and growing lines of waiting lists at community colleges, who cannot afford the
private fees that are being charged at
the secretarial colleges, for example.
To speak to those people on a
daily basis is one of the most frustrating
and the most debilitating parts of being a
representative in
When I see the community colleges contracting
and when I see high areas of demand and
skill levels where there is a turnover and
I see a government which talks with much glee about there not being poverty in
Let us look at the North. Let us look at the native communities.
The minister says that she wants to make the colleges more responsive to their
communities.
Could I ask then why‑‑
The Acting Chairperson
(Mr. Sveinson): Order, please. The honourable
Minister of Education on a point of order.
Mrs. Vodrey: No, Mr. Acting Chairperson, it is simply a
response before we go on to the next
question. I think it is very important for the member to understand that
she certainly does not own for herself
as an MLA the ability to empathize with people
in
I would like to remind her and state for
the record that certainly the MLAs on
this side also have the opportunity to speak
to those Manitobans, and I will speak in terms of my own constituency and my own background, which has
been 15, 17 years working with those
people directly. Nothing has
changed. I have spent a great deal of time speaking with
people whose situations are of great
concern to me as an individual, to me as an MLA and minister, and to our government. That is why our government, because we are so concerned, because we have
a belief that the situation is one of
concern, that we have developed an economic
policy.
In relation to education, we have done
restructuring of the colleges as we have
discussed. We are making every effort to provide
I would like to say that our solutions are
not short term, quick fix. They are not band‑aid solutions. They are long‑term cures.
They are the effort of this government to deal with those very real issues which we recognize also as
being very important.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Acting Chairperson, let us look then at
the northern college, at
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Acting Chairperson, I will remind the
member that the appropriation for
Ms. Friesen: As the minister so often said, we are looking
at cuts which were made two years
ago. So we are talking, in broad terms, about the policy guidelines for the
colleges as they move to governance.
Appropriation 16‑5(b) looks at the
overall policy and program changes in
response to government objectives. It
also looks at research and analysis on
the labour market. It seems to me that is what I am talking about here, is the match
between the labour market, the skills
and the occupations that are in demand according
to the minister's own reports, and the kind of programs which have been discontinued at community
colleges. So I submit that this is a policy issue we are looking
at, and I would like to discuss it under
this area.
Mrs. Vodrey: If the member's remarks are referenced in
Hansard, we will see that she
specifically referenced
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Acting Chairperson, we have been talking
for some time about
The Acting Chairperson
(Mr. Sveinson): If we are going to move these Estimates at all, perhaps we could
agree to disagree, to some degree, and
continue on in the sections that we are, and in
fact the member for Wolseley will be able to ask her questions as far as the‑‑
Mr. Reg Alcock
(Osborne): Mr. Acting Chairperson, on a point of order.
The Acting Chairperson
(Mr. Sveinson): When I am finished, member for Osborne.
Just so long as we can move along without
arguing, in fact, which section we are
in.
Point of Order
Mr. Alcock: We are discussing a policy analysis section
of the department. It has been the tradition in this House that
debate on that, because such a branch
has a wide‑ranging responsibility,
we have discussed often the actions of a variety of institutions and organizations. We have been discussing that for two days now, and I think the questions that the
member for Wolseley is asking are quite
in order and quite appropriate. There is
no need to pass this particular section
in order to have this discussion.
If the minister is afraid to answer the
questions‑‑
* (1640)
The Acting Chairperson
(Mr. Sveinson): Order, please.
Point of Order
Mrs. Vodrey: On a point of order, Mr. Acting
Chairperson. Those remarks are extremely personal, they are
attributing a motivation and they have
no place in these Estimates debates.
The Acting Chairperson
(Mr. Sveinson): Order, please.
I recognize the point of order
brought up by the Minister of Education. On that point of order, I would simply ask
the members within the Assembly to
choose their wording well, and we will
proceed from there.
It is the normal practice of the committee
to go line by line through the
Estimates. We do, in fact, also try to
offer some latitude in the
questions. At this point, I would ask
the member to try to stick a little
closer to the lines that we are in fact examining
at this point.
*
* *
Hon. Harry Enns
(Minister of Natural Resources): Mr.
Acting Chairperson, I was momentarily
called out of the House, but it is also
a long tradition of this House that all members have an opportunity to engage in the discussions of
the Estimates. I wonder if you could, for my benefit, tell me
which particular line we are on?
The Acting Chairperson
(Mr. Sveinson): Item 5.(b)(1) Salaries.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Acting Chairperson, I thought that I had
the floor, and I thought I had posed a
question to the minister dealing with
overall policy about community colleges and about courses which had been cut in areas where
jobs appear to be available, according
to her own reports.
So I will restate that, asking why courses
were cut in small motors, carpentry,
plumbing two years ago,
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Acting Chairperson, again I maintain that
these are program decisions, not policy
decisions. These are best discussed under the appropriation 16‑5(e).
However, for the honourable member's
benefit, in this case, I would like to
note that the programs she has referred to were
funded under the Limestone Training agreement. Their mandate has ended, and there were significant
difficulties within the mandate of the
Limestone Training agreement. Students
very rarely progress beyond Level I or
Level II, and for her information, approximately
30 of 1,500 students obtained trades qualifications. This was an NDP approach. It did not work.
This government is now consulting through
the Northern Development
Commission. We believe as the colleges
move to governance that we will, as I
said previously, offer a stronger mix of
programs and that we will be able to work through the governance process in a much stronger way to
meet the needs of the North.
* (1650)
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Acting Chairperson, we are discussing
options for policy and program changes,
as it says under appropriation 16‑5(b). Continuing on that line, it seems to me that
as I looked at the document that the
minister tabled, the 1991‑92 community
college program reductions, the alternative programs which were proposed in that document, for
example, the small motors at Keewatin
Community College, was in fact correspondence
or Red River Community College, which was also the alternative proposed for carpentry and for plumbing.
Could I ask the minister whether that is
still their policy, that people in the
North who are no longer served by the programs
which have been cut by this government are to apply to correspondence schools or to come to
Mrs. Vodrey: Mr. Acting Chairperson, well, it is very
important for programs to be offered
where the demand is sufficient and where
the resources are available. We have
worked very hard to ensure that there is
a high quality of programming in the North,
but as I told the member in my last answer, the funding under the Limestone Agreement has expired. In making decisions about programs, following that expiry, we also
looked at graduation rates, we looked at
the employment opportunities and we looked at
other related factors in making those decisions.
I would remind the member the programs
that she referenced are approximately
six or eight programs out of approximately 50
programs. The other programs are
continuing, and in addition to their
continuing, I would like to tell her again the programs that we have added at
I think, with the level of programming
that we have and the new programming,
that we are showing we do have a commitment and
are attempting to be responsive to the needs in the North.
Ms. Friesen: What I am trying to do is to reconcile the
research within, I guess this is
Manitoba Education and Training and Employment
and Immigration Canada, which list the following skills and occupations required in native
communities and reserves and as high‑demand
occupations in Manitoba: alcohol and drug abuse counsellor, community development
worker, nurses, teachers, social workers,
Child and Family Services workers, management
skills, certified tradespersons‑‑plumber, electrician and carpenter.
The programs which the minister listed as
having been added, the business skills
and the one or two others, would come under
the category of management skills, community and private organizations. There is one element there that the
government has matched up its new
programs to the high demand. What I am looking at is you actually cancelled ones in
other areas. That is what puzzles me. Even on your own list, the small motors is listed as a medium to high demand as it is
being cut, and students are being
offered private delivery or alternate programs
under correspondence or Red River Community College.
I am asking, is that still the government
policy, that in technical areas
correspondence programs are seen as a suitable
alternative, and a second alternative is to expect the students to move into
Mrs. Vodrey: I will again remind the honourable member that
some of these may be discussed fully
under other appropriations, because when
we get to those appropriations I think she will find that some programming and related types of
programming are delivered through other
parts of the Department of Education, and
I reference particularly the New Careers Program which is discussed under 16‑5(n), and by way of
example the retail management and
alcohol counsellors program. I reference
also the KCC nursing program, the
Northern Bachelor of Nursing Program with
the Swampy Cree Tribal Council and the BUNTEP program, and the Natural Resources officers program.
Then I will also tell her that some of the
specific programs which she has also
referenced, there was an extremely low graduation
rate. I gave some samples of numbers, approximately 30 out of 1,500 actually completed the
program; however, since those programs
are not offered under their previous place, we
also have some information that says there has been no reduction in the usual level of apprenticeship funded
under Employment and Immigration Canada.
* (1700)
Secondly, I would like to also reference
that as we have talked about during
these Estimates, I will be signing shortly a
new Canada‑Manitoba Labour Force Development Agreement. Within
that agreement there will be special measures looking at the participation rate and the success rate for
aboriginal Manitobans, and that we are
looking to new approaches, that the previous
approaches of the NDP government did not work.
The numbers speak for
themselves. We now need to look for a
new way to involve aboriginal Manitobans
in the trades. We will be looking for ways to do that partly through
the new agreement.
The Acting Chairperson
(Mr. Sveinson): Order, please.
The hour being 5 p.m. and time
for private members' hour, committee rise.
Call in the Speaker.
IN SESSION
Mr. Speaker: The hour being 5 p.m., time for private
members' hour.
Committee Report
Mr. Ben Sveinson (Acting
Chairperson of Committees): Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Supply has adopted
certain resolutions, directs me to
report progress and asks leave to sit again.
I move, seconded by the
honourable member for Gimli (Mr. Helwer),
that the report of the committee be received.
Motion agreed to.
* * *
Mr. Speaker: Is it the will of the House to call it six
o'clock? [Agreed]
The hour being 6 p.m., this House is now
adjourned and stands adjourned until
1:30 p.m. Tuesday.