NORTHERN AFFAIRS

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): 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 Northern Affairs.

When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 1. (a) on page 124 of the main Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): I was in a number of the other committees, so I did not have the opportunity to ask a number of questions related to Northern Affairs. What I would like to do is just briefly ask, and I realize the minister does not have his staff at the table with him, I am not expecting an answer at this point of time in terms of the specifics, but I would be certainly appreciative if the minister could respond, perhaps in writing, to the concerns that I will be expressing.

I want to raise a very basic concern that is a major concern of a number of my communities under the jurisdiction of the Department of Northern Affairs, particularly in the community of Nelson House, the community of Thicket Portage, the community of Pikwitonei, and, of course, Ilford is in a rather unique situation, now being transferred to reserve status, and also, of course, I represent the community of Wabowden, a further community, as well, which is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Northern Affairs.

I want to ask the minister, in particular, if he could respond in terms of the status of some of the basic services in the communities because this is a major concern, and I will not get into some of the more political elements. I must say that I have had people in a number of communities wonder if they even have to change the name of the community to Winnipeg Jets to be able to get the most basic service, Mr. Chairperson, because there has been some questioning of priorities. I know in Thicket Portage, in particular, people have written even to the Free Press, et cetera, pointing this out. If the minister could respond, and as I have said, I would be more than glad to accept it in writing, I am not expecting a detailed response.

Now in terms of the status of sewer and water in the communities that do not currently have sewer and water, whether it be Thicket Portage or Nelson House. Pikwitonei, of course, received it for half the community and is receiving it for the other half of the community, so it is in a different status. So that is the first question.

The second is in regard to provision of line power. This has been an area which has been kicking around, and it affects Thicket Portage and Pikwitonei quite directly. There have been negotiations between Hydro and Northern Affairs to this regard, so I would appreciate some information from the minister as to when he would anticipate those negotiations being completed because those communities are very, very anxious to see that kind of power. It is going to be important not only for the comfort of people in the communities but also for future economic development.

The other question I was going to raise too--and it is not directly in the jurisdiction of the Minister of Northern Affairs but it does relate to another significant concern in many Northern Affairs communities--is in regards to housing. As the minister is probably aware, the federal government has withdrawn almost entirely from social housing. We are in the situation where there is going to be a complete lack of new units available in many Northern Affairs communities and some question as to the degree to which funding will be available to repair housing. I am raising it in the context that the minister responsible for Northern Affairs may, for example, raise this with other ministers, particularly the federal minister. It is certainly a major concern.

The final area I want to deal with--and I will accept, again, something in writing on this, I have raised it in the House and will be continuing to raise it--relates to the implementation of the Northern Manitoba Economic Development Commission report. I am not talking, by the way, about the area that the minister covered, which is the northern board, the northern organization that is still subject to discussions, negotiations, et cetera, but the commission pointed to numerous areas for what they called immediate potential.

I point, for example, to road construction although, unfortunately, the government in the subsequent two years actually cut it back. I know the minister, from his experience at the meeting in Thompson earlier this year--when I know everybody was looking for the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay), and since the Minister of Northern Affairs was the only minister there, he ended up perhaps being the messenger--boy, did he get the message. I can testify to that, the unhappiness of many northerners about the road situation.

I put it in the context of the commission. They recommended that. They recommended action on sewer and water. They recommended action in a whole series of areas that they saw for immediate potential. I can document from the plan of action they drafted, the preliminary draft. I participated--many of the workshops I know--it was a very good report, and I commend everybody that was involved in part of the process. The concern in the north is make sure that is does not sit and collect dust. There is a lot that can be done. It is not dependent on that northern board. That is part of it; there is a lot more that can be done as well.

What I would appreciate from the minister--and once again I am not expecting an immediate response but even a written response as to what has been done thus far, at least what the minister feels in his opinion has been done, if the minister can take the rest of the report and look at what the time frame is for the rest of the report.

Quite frankly, what I would suggest, Mr. Chairperson, just to conclude on the commission, what should be done is that it should be sent to each and every department. I would suggest make this a recommendation of the minister that each department be asked to look at ways in which it could assist in the implementation of the commission's report, because it crosses virtually every department. Then I would hope there would be some benchmark process, because it would be a real shame if $1.3 million of money, a lot of hours of effort, a lot of good ideas, were not to be implemented because of the lack of follow up. I stress again that it is not just the minister's department; I am not blaming the minister per se, I am not blaming anyone. I think, over the two years now that we have had the report completed, I would like to have seen action, but there is some timetable now that can be developed. I believe it should be a very specific timetable. It is really important.

With those comments I apologize again to the minister for not being able to be in the committee earlier when these items would have been more easily dealt with under these specific lines, but if the minister can respond to any of those concerns it would be appreciated. I must apologize too, Mr. Chairperson, I have another meeting I have to attend, so I will not be able to listen to any of the comments of the minister, but I will certainly read his comments in Hansard if he wishes to respond, and any information in writing would also be appreciated. Thanks.

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Energy and Mines): Mr. Chair, if the member cannot stay for the answer, then I am not going to provide one to the committee. We will endeavour to answer some of his specifics in writing with respect to specific communities.

Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): I have a few questions for the minister. Once again, before I begin I would like to put on the record that my reasons for raising the questions are concerns over the accountability of this cabinet in awarding tax dollars and certainly not a reflection on the Manitoba Metis Federation.

I would like to ask the minister when he received a copy of the Sheila Jones Morrison book, Rotten to the Core.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I have been a member of this Legislature for seven years. I look to some of my colleagues who have been here a lot longer. To be quite honest with you, I cannot believe the previous statement of the member for Elmwood. It has to rank as one of the most silly statements that has ever been made at a committee.

The member for Elmwood just said the reason why he is questioning the payment of dollars to the MMF for decisions by cabinet to provide or grant funding for whatever means to the MMF has nothing to do with the operation of the MMF, that he does not in any way want to question their decisions or operations. So one must only assume then he wants to question the decision of government to fund the MMF.

I mean, that is the only logical conclusion from his statement. It is absolutely silly. From all of the questioning that he posed the last evening on this issue and from the questions in the House, I would take his comments to be that he has grave reservations and concerns about the operation of the MMF and the question of not whether the government should continue funding that organization.

As I said to him last night, our people in my department who deal with all of our various grants that we provide to various organizations were made aware of the Deloitte and Touche report when it came up by the interim board. They met with the interim board. They had very significant discussions about the interim board following the recommendations outlined in that report, following the election of a new administration and ensuring that public money, of course, is properly used.

The staff of the department met again with representatives of the MMF who were the new administration, went over the Deloitte and Touche report, had undertakings given to them about what processes the new administration was undertaking to follow as they try to correct their financial situation, and as I indicated last night we are awaiting the results of this year's audit to ensure that they have in fact done what they said they would do.

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So the only logical question that one can take out of this is that the member, like the public in reading this book or anybody else, would be questioning how the MMF handles its matters internally. For the member to come here today and somehow imply he is not questioning the MMF, that is exactly what he is doing. At least he should be honest enough to say that as opposed to weasel out of it with that kind of statement. I think it is absolutely abhorrent.

The member is trying to be on both sides of the fence. We saw him come to the House where he impinged on the honour of the member for Lakeside my colleague Mr. Enns, somehow implied that the member for Lakeside has provided a political favour to the MMF in his region in the purchase of a building to be used as a hall.

We only learn, when we investigate this matter, that the original decision to approve that grant was made by his colleague, one Ms. Wasylycia-Leis when she was the Minister of Culture and Heritage. Not only did she write to that organization to say the grant was approved, but the minister, the then minister, his colleague, a New Democrat, sent the letter one week before the 1988 election. Now, does not that raise the question of whether or not the government of the day was using that grant to try and court favour during the election campaign?

That raises a question as well, so I think the member should come clean in his motivation. I think the member should indicate clearly what he is looking for and not try to attack an organization on one hand and then on the other hand say, well, we are not trying to attack you. It is absolutely ludicrous. I would hope that he would at least do the honourable thing and come clean with the purpose for his questions.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, what we are interested in discovering, and we are having a very difficult time discovering, is this government's and this minister's role in the granting of funding to this particular organization. We are taking time to ask the minister questions in that area and we are waiting for answers.

We have found over the past that we can ask ministers of this government time and time again for information over a period of months and months and months, and we never, never, never get the responses. Now it is this minister's responsibility to see that funds spent under Northern Affairs are properly accounted for. I would like to ask the minister how much money has been recovered as a result of provincial government action over the last while. He indicated last night that he has read the Deloitte and Touche audit. He is aware that it only covered a very short period of time. I would like his comments on this.

Mr. Praznik: First of all let me correct the record, because the member again his memory from last evening is not quite accurate. I indicated that I had read the accompanying letter to that report personally, but my staff in the department, who monitor all of our grants and payouts and who are charged with that responsibility of monitoring these matters, had reviewed the report, the Deloitte and Touche report which, if the member has endeavoured to view it, is a very thick report, and I did not say that I had read the whole report, so I certainly want to clarify that on the letter.

The member indicates that the purpose of his questioning is to determine the reason why this government, if I understand him correctly, has made any grants to the Manitoba Metis Federation. Well, I would remind the member that the Manitoba Metis Federation--like all books that come out, one side of the story is told accurately or inaccurately or without all information. That is in this book, and he seems to rely on this book. The Manitoba Metis Federation has been an organization in Manitoba that goes back to the early 1970s, and that the party of which he is a member was one of the first governments to decide to fund that organization. I would take it, if you look at the record of the time, the reason why Premier Ed Schreyer, a New Democrat, and his government provided core funding was to support an advocacy group, a group who would do work in the Metis community of Manitoba, a community that did not have at that time, or up until that time, an organization to represent its views in dealing with government and programs.

I can only assume that that was the initial decision. The reason for that carried through a number of governments. Whatever the relationship was between the MMF and the government of Premier Lyon, that funding ended at that time, but the government of Mr. Pawley, although the member for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway) was not a member of it until some years later, but it was his party that reopened and began again the funding. The reasons I leave to them to answer, but when we came to power in 1988, the MMF was viewed by, I think, government as being an organization which, to the degree that any organization can represent a group of people, provided an avenue of representing Metis views and interests on a host of different issues of concern in the province. We continued that process that his party had in fact begun. I would assume it was for the same altruistic reasons as we carried them forward.

If the member wants to refer to the book or raise questions about this, I would just remind him to look at this book because it is interesting. On page 53, the author describes MMF in the 1970s, that it had become the Metis bureaucratic arm of the provincial NDP government. The author goes on, on page 58, to indicate that John Morriseau, who, I would remind him, was his party's candidate in Ste. Rose in this last general election, after fighting with the then-provincial government, resigned, citing failing health. And I quote: the MMF survived thanks to a provincial election that saw the return of the NDP to power. Morriseau quickly recovered his health to take the position of Deputy Minister of Northern Affairs under the new government.

So, if one reads this book and accepts all its premises, it would appear that his party got into funding the MMF in the 1970s as a political action tool, a way of organizing people in support of the New Democratic Party. That is very much evident in this book. I am not going to argue that case one way or another. I think the member may want to comment on that.

I can tell him this. When this administration came to power, the MMF was viewed as a group that represented a significant portion of the Metis community--no organization, even the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs does not represent all aboriginal people in the province. They offered a means of providing input into a variety of government policies and programs, which was worth supporting. I would tell the member, as an MLA that contains a constituency with a fairly significant Metis population, that the MMF, particularly in the housing area from my experience, has an ability through its locals and its groups of reaching out to a significant segment of people in our population in a better way than government bureaucracies have. They can be a very effective delivery agent, because many people feel much more comfortable dealing with the MMF and its locals or the housing branch than they do with provincial government bureaucracy.

That in itself suggests that they have a role to play. That is why this provincial government has continued the financial support that his party reinstated in 1981, although it has been reduced somewhat in the core funding. The MMF, like any other organization, from time to time, has applied for other grants and programs like Community Places, et cetera, and his party in power has supported it. One could make the argument, if you follow the book, that the New Democrats approved those grants purely for political reasons. I would hope it was somewhat more altruistic than that.

In the case of our government, it was because we viewed them as a valid organization, like many others in this province, that dealt in the provincial area jurisdiction. Until one has proven otherwise--and we may be proven otherwise at some point--one will continue to work with that particular organization.

The member has come to the House and to this table on numerous occasions making suggestions of wrongdoing, and yet he offers no proof nor does the author.

There is the Deloitte and Touche report. We have indicated that when the interim board came forward with that report, that our staff in the department who normally monitor this reviewed the report, met with the interim board, discussed the steps that would be taken, that the issues at hand were certainly issues that have to be dealt with.

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The new administration took office. Our staff met with that administration, had assurances, and from all the things that appeared to be happening, they were taking steps to correct the problems that they have in their bookkeeping and accounting methods, that dollars were being recovered on loans and things. Obviously, that was a year ago. When we receive this year's audited financial statement, it will be the proof to us, should be the proof, that the MMF, the new leadership at the MMF, has, in fact, followed through on the commitments that they had given us, followed through on their undertakings. If they have not, then we, of course, will have to review whether or not we fund them as an organization, and as will their other funders.

I would remind the other member as well that we are not the only funder of this organization. The federal government, the Government of Canada, is also a funder, and they have the same reviews of the Deloitte and Touche report, et cetera, and they are, to the best of our information, of the same view as the one that my staff presented to me.

Mr. Maloway: It is time that this minister lived up to his responsibilities to the taxpayers of this province and ordered a forensic audit to find out where all of the money has gone into this organization, and the minister should know that the Deloitte and Touche audit report that was done was not a forensic audit. It did not go back sufficient periods of time, and for the minister to hide behind shrill rhetoric at a committee meeting, he will find that it will not work. There are too many people at this time asking too many questions. This minister cannot run and hide forever. He has to come out, he has to come clean, and he has to order a forensic audit. I believe that if he will not do it, I think the Provincial Auditor will at the end of the day.

Mr. Praznik: Well, when one speaks about rhetoric, the member for Elmwood may be the king because it is very easy to come here today and demand that this minister, this government, order a forensic audit. First of all, the organization, the MMF, is not an organization that is part of the provincial government. I ask him, under what authority do I have the right, under law, to order that audit?

What I do have, as I said last night, is the decision to question whether or not this province will continue to fund that organization, and based on the Deloitte and Touche report--by the way, I have to ask the honourable member, if the accusations, or his sense of accusation is so strong, why the interim board, made up of a gentleman whom, I know, he admires greatly, the honourable Edward Schreyer, and two other individuals, did not themselves as an interim board order a forensic audit? That was certainly in their purview to do while they were in charge of the organization. They had ordered the Deloitte and Touche audit. They had received it. They had reviewed it, as the member for Elmwood.

So I have to ask the question, as does my staff when we have discussed this, if the allegations are sufficiently serious enough to warrant this forensic audit, as the member wants, why did not the board undertake to do that? Why did not Edward Schreyer undertake to ask for that as an interim board member? It was not done, and I suggest to him it was not done because the concerns expressed in the Deloitte and Touche report talked about process and account, the methods of which the operation and organization was run, and, consequently, the interim board undertook to correct those problems.

The new administration has also undertaken to follow through. They have some time to see if they, in fact, will do that. If they do not, like any other organization, then their funding, whether or not they are funded in future years, will be a question we will ask as we get into the next budget cycle. In fact, whether or not their funding this year continues will be dependent upon whether or not they follow through, and we will know that shortly when we receive the last year's audited statement.

So I have to ask the member as he points to this government and asks of us to do things which neither the federal government felt were necessary, which the former Governor-General of Canada, Mr. Schreyer, did not feel was necessary or the other interim board members did not feel was necessary, so I ask him on what basis does he request that I, as minister, take the step?

Remember, the step that is truly open to me is to cut off funding today. If that is what the member wants me to do then I will accept that, if he can give me a reason why that step should be taken when neither the former Governor-General of Canada, Mr. Schreyer, or his fellow interim board members, nor the government of Canada has taken that similar step. If he can provide me one, I will certainly entertain it. I will certainly give it full consideration. What I have gotten from the member today is nothing close to it.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister whether he can tell us how much money was paid to consultants during the past six years from the MMF funds.

Mr. Praznik: First of all, Mr. Chair, the information would be available to him as well as to me in the financial statements. I do not know if he has requested them or not. I notice that the member has waited to ask these questions when my staff is not available, but I believe we would have it. I look to my staff at the back of the room. I believe we would have the audited financial statements going back probably many, many years, at least 10 years of the MMF, and we would endeavour to make those available to the member for Elmwood if he would like to ask our staff for that information.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I would also like to ask the minister what the status is of the land claims negotiations with the MMF.

Mr. Praznik: Well, Mr. Chair, my understanding is we do not have land claim negotiations with the MMF. The MMF began a case under the Manitoba act some years ago as to a host of issues that they felt were not resolved in dealing with an entitlement to land by Metis people. The issuance of scrip by the federal government of the day, two provincial statutes which were designed, I believe, initially to protect the holders of that scrip and their particular effect. There is a host of issues.

I have had the privilege on one occasion of listening to former Mr. Justice Berger, who is their lawyer on this particular matter, as he outlined some of the issues. I am not in entire agreement with the position he takes. But the MMF pursued for a period of time that matter before the courts, as is their right to do. I would hope the member for Elmwood is not challenging the right of any citizen or group of citizens to test any issue before the courts.

We do not have a negotiating table because we, as a province, have not accepted the issue of an unfulfilled land claim. So consequently there is not a negotiation on land issues, but the MMF has talked from time to time, particularly the new president, about returning to court at some point in time. That is not a matter which I understand has gone forward. That is an internal matter he should address to the MMF.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, how much has this government spent on preparing the MMF land claims negotiations over the past six years?

Mr. Praznik: Again, Mr. Chair, the member for Elmwood--I wish he would have asked these questions under the various grant lines when my staff would have been available here. Needless to say, I must say I have never known the member for Elmwood to be entirely wanting to get to the facts so I have to assume that is why he waited for the Minister's Salary portion.

But I can tell him this, that information is not one that I have at my fingertips because he is asking that I go back over a number of years. I would assume, and that is all I can do at this point in time, is assume that what he is referencing is the dollars that the Department of Justice would have expended in presenting the provincial side of the case when certain matters that the MMF have raised have gone before the courts. That is all that comes to mind at this current time and, as the member knows, I do not have access to my staff to find out if there is more to it that goes back over a number of years when I was not the minister.

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Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell us what the term "the football team" means or refers to in these negotiations?

Mr. Praznik: Perhaps the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, I have no idea, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Maloway: Can the minister tell us how much provincial money has gone into Kingo [phonetic] Corporation through the department?

Mr. Praznik: As I have said earlier, I do not have that information handy. If the member had bothered to ask, when I had my staff, under the various lines and discussions we had last night, I could provide him that at this time. I will endeavour to find out if in fact there have been any dollars spent to that particular company and will endeavour to respond to him.

Mr. Maloway: Would the member also tell us the list of the current board members of Kingo [phonetic]?

Mr. Praznik: That information, by the way, is public information. I think the member can go look it up for himself at the Corporations branch, or we can provide it to him if we even have that information.

Mr. Maloway: Are there any provincial government appointees on this board?

Mr. Praznik: Which board is he referring to--the Kingo [phonetic] Board? In my year and a half as Minister of Northern Affairs, I have never come across a board for a company called Kingo [phonetic] to which I have recommended appointments.

Mr. Maloway: Could the minister tell us how much provincial money has gone to 2381579 Manitoba Ltd.?

Mr. Praznik: I cannot, as I have said to the member before, if he had asked these questions, if he had done me the courtesy as minister to ask these questions under that appropriation line when staff were available, I could provide him with the specifics if and any monies were provided to that specific corporation. I look to my staff at the back of the room, and they are shaking their heads that they do not believe that there are such funds.

I can tell him that the MMF has existed since the late-'60s, early-'70s, and in response to his question yesterday when he asked for lists of grants that the MMF might have wanted, I can tell him that our staff started going through the archives and we were able to go back starting about the 1980s, 1981-82 so far, and there is a rather extensive list in that particular period. When we compile our information, we may be able to provide it to him.

Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister whether the minister has approached or has he been approached by senior staff of the Department of Justice concerning irregularities in tax dollars spent, and can he confirm that they are conducting an investigation?

Mr. Praznik: No, I have not been contacted by senior staff or any law enforcement staff, by any law enforcement agency regarding the MMF. I have no idea whether or not there is an investigation. If the member is aware of one being conducted, I would appreciate knowing. Obviously the minister having that information is important, but to date no one, including the member for Elmwood, has provided me with any such information.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, has the minister requested copies of all reports, papers and memos dealing with the relationship of the previous Minister of Northern Affairs and his dealings with the previous president of the Manitoba Metis Federation and the current Lieutenant-Governor?

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I do not understand the question that the member is asking me, whether or not I have requested all papers dealing between my colleague the former minister. I imagine one could ask, I wonder why the member is not asking for the same papers for every previous Minister of Northern Affairs going back to the 1970s if he is truly concerned about the issue he has raised.

No, if the member has some allegations of wrongdoing that he wants to make, I would appreciate it if he would make them please so that we can then follow through to find out if they are true or not. If they are in fact true, if there are legal matters that the member is suggesting that he has information to, I ask him--indeed, I challenge him--to come forward and put them on the table. We want to know about them. To date, we do not know about them. If he has information he wants to provide in confidence or publicly, please bring it forward. We will investigate it. We will pursue it. If there is wrongdoing in this or any other organization that government is funding, if there are illegal activities going on, then certainly that would give us immediate grounds to suspend our funding. I would ask him to please provide that information so we can deal with it. Continual innuendo without any basis or specificity is of very limited use to any of us.

Mr. Maloway: Does this minister have copies of all reports that have been paid for by Manitoba taxpayers in grants to the MMF over the past six years, and will he table them to this committee?

Mr. Praznik: You are asking whether I personally have copies of all reports? I have not been minister for six years. If the member is asking whether or not we have reports that we had funded the MMF to prepare for us as a department, I look to my staff. I am not particularly aware of any. I will endeavour to check to see if any exist. But it sounds to me somewhat like the member for Elmwood is doing some fishing here. They do not exist. I look to my staff. They are telling me there are not any of the category that he asks for.

Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister that, given it has been confirmed that the author of the book was offered $50,000 not to release the book, and that the controversial aspects of the book primarily relate to the activities of the current provincial cabinet ministers, including this minister, why have this book and the audit not been turned over to the RCMP for an independent investigation?

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I find this absolutely remarkable. Obviously, the member has not read the book. Let me just make a few quotes from the beginning of the book. I think it is important to appreciate that one of the premises on which the author writes, and again I refer him to page 53, where I quote. This is talking about the MMF and its early days of the 1970s, and I quote: The MMF had become the Metis bureaucratic arm of the provincial NDP government.

The provincial NDP government. Right? Then we make reference to Mr. John Morriseau who was their executive director until recently, and Mr. Morriseau was also the New Democratic Party candidate in Ste. Rose constituency. Perhaps the member is suggesting that I should be turning over this book to the RCMP to investigate Mr. Morriseau, his party's candidate recently in Ste. Rose. I must say the voters of St. Rose were wise enough not to send him to the Legislature but return my colleague Mr. Cummings. The reference there in the 1980s when Mr. Morriseau was president and continually fighting with the government, the Lyon government of the day, the provincial government of the day, cut all of the funding to the MMF. I remember the New Democratic Party urging, supporting, demanding that funding be reinstated. The member for Elmwood's party demanded that funding be reinstated, and I quote again from page 58: Mr. Morriseau resigned, citing failing health. The MMF survived thanks to a provincial election that saw the return of the NDP to power. Morriseau quickly recovered his health to take the position of Deputy Minister of Northern Affairs under the new government.

So a major section of this book deals--and I am not saying whether the author's accusation is true or not, I am not going to be the judge of that, but the major premise in the beginning of this book is how the New Democratic Party made the MMF or created or used it or whatever to be an electoral tool for itself and was quick to restore funding in 1981 and all of those types of things.

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So obviously if the member is wanting this to be turned over to the RCMP to investigate the actions of his former colleagues, if he wants that, please state it. With respect to references to myself and some of my colleagues, I just point out, let us deal with some of those. On the tripartite issue where the accusation is made that we came into power and the honourable Jim Downey immediately developed a tripartite agreement with the federal government and jumped in and funded. Well, the member for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway), who became a member of this Legislature in 1986, he should remember that the negotiations for that tripartite agreement started in 1985 when the New Democratic Party was in government.

In fact, at that time, 1986-87, I remember working for the honourable Jake Epp who was the federal lead minister in the province, and the provincial New Democratic government was a big pusher for that tripartite agreement. All the work was done and completed and laid out when this administration came to power in 1988, and Mr. Downey, on reviewing the situation, agreed to participate in it, but the initiation for that agreement came from his party.

Perhaps we should ask the RCMP to investigate that part of it. Now let us deal with a couple of the other issues. The member has made accusations, as does this author, with respect to the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns). And what was the member for Elmwood's (Mr. Maloway) big accusation in the Legislature the other day? That the member for Lakeside provided a $40,000-and-some Community Places Grant for the MMF local to purchase a building and community hall.

You know what we find when we go through the records? We find that that grant was approved and a letter went out from one Judy Wasylycia-Leis. I have to ask the member for Elmwood if his memory has faded or failed him as to who Judy Wasylycia-Leis was. Do you remember her? She was an NDP cabinet minister and she sent out a letter on the 18th of April, a week before the provincial general election. One could certainly have been accused of having sent out that letter and hundreds others across this province in an attempt to buy votes in that election in which the member's party was fading quickly from any hope of being in office. She approved that grant; the cabinet, of which that member's leader was a part, approved that grant. How quickly the member for Elmwood forgets.

What happens, of course, is they lose the election. Our party came into power. There were thousands of dollars more promised and I believe at that time we made reductions in everyone's grant. The member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns), as the local MLA, took out the cheque as did previous government MLAs of his party when it was in power--and the member for Elmwood rises in the House and makes these accusations.

He raised another particular issue. I know the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Driedger) was getting him the information on that, but I would not be surprised if the same result came out.

Now let us deal with the accusation with respect to me as Minister of Northern Affairs. This book, of which the author by the way did not even have the common courtesy or good scholarship to contact the parties that she was naming and come and speak to us; she did not even bother to do that. When I went to university that was not viewed as very good research. The member talks and references the fact that I withheld the funding, the quarterly payments to the MMF during their election period. Yes, that is true. If she had come to ask me about it, I would have told her that the reason had a lot to do with the fact that my office and the office of other MLAs, including New Democratic Party MLAs, was being inundated with telephone calls from hosts of people involved in this internecine struggle in the Metis community, with all kinds of accusations about the way Mr. Morriseau--who, by the way, is certainly not a Conservative--was spending the dollars, a New Democrat.

He is well-mentioned in the first part of this book, accusations that the interim board were not minding the business, that bills were not being paid, that the interim board and its staff were doing all kinds of things to further the cause of one candidate or another.

I spoke with that member's leader at The Pas, and we talked about this problem and how bad this fight was. And I told the member's leader, at that time, that I should probably put some restrictions on how I spend the money or withhold it, because there was obviously a big fight, at least the perception of unfairness there. He certainly, at that time, did not challenge or say, oh no, no, or you should do this or that. We were all facing the same calls. In fact, one of the complaints came from an individual who ran for a nomination for the member's party, an individual I have a fair bit of respect for. She came forward and levied complaints about her perception of the way things were happening, because bills were not paid.

So what did I do? With cabinet approval I met with the interim board, and I issued them a letter with conditions on which we would pay over the interim or the quarterly payments of the operating grant. And those conditions, as I outlined yesterday, were fairly broad, but they required that the dollars be put into their lawyer's trust account, and they would be paid for salary for regular core staff--obviously people should not be put out of work because their organization is in the middle of a new election--that dollars be available for audits, for legal fees, for the expenses of the interim board, for rents on their buildings, including the regional offices and certainly for the conduct of new elections.

I sent that letter to the interim board, and the interim board said, no, we do not accept those conditions. We want to be able to spend the money basically as we see fit. We disagreed, and so the money was not provided until the new administration was elected but not yet in office. The cheques were sent over to the MMF office while Mr. Morriseau was still there. I have no reason to doubt that Mr. Morriseau was in fact doing everything appropriately, but perceptions out there--we felt that it was not appropriate, and I believe his leader concurred, to be appearing to have public money potentially used by one side or another, and so that is why we put the restrictions.

Nowhere in this book do they mention that letter. Nowhere in the book did they talk about my willingness to forward the money with some very tough conditions upon it and the fact that the board did not accept it. If they had asked, they would have had it. That letter has been provided to anyone who has asked for it. So that is not in the book, and certainly that part of the story is not portrayed properly.

I would remind again the member for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway), the comments in the same book that he would like me to send to the RCMP to lead to an investigation, that in the 1970s this same author--and if he accepts or tries to derive something out of the latter part of the book, he should also be willing to accept the author's comments in the beginning of the book. My argument, of course, is that there is a blunt side of a multifaceted story, but the member seems to accept it all. I would remind him, on page 53, that this author claims that the MMF in the 1970s and into the '80s had become the Metis bureaucratic arm of the provincial NDP.

So if the member wants an investigation and if his premises are right, then obviously this investigation he wants should not be just for six years. But the member, if he were truthful, would be coming and asking for an investigation right back to the 1970s when this author claims that his party literally bought and created the MMF to further its own political goals. I would hope today that the member is not suggesting that everything this author says is in fact the case.

Mr. Maloway: I would like to ask the minister whether he or his staff have met with Richard McNeilly [phonetic] prior to or subsequent to the publication of this book.

Mr. Praznik: Mr. Chair, I personally do not know. The name, Mr. Richard McNeilly [phonetic], does not ring a bell to me at this time. I to the best of my knowledge have not met with him. I look at my staff, they at the back of the room are shaking their heads. They have no idea who the member is talking about.

Mr. Maloway: How many consulting contracts has Mr. McNeilly [phonetic] or his companies had with this government over the past seven years?

Mr. Praznik: I cannot speak, obviously, on behalf of the whole government and I have to say to the member for Elmwood again, if he was truly interested in these facts, I wish he would have asked me when my staff was here, when these lines were up. He certainly was available to ask these questions. So now I have to rely at the shaking of heads at the back of the room from my staff, but they indicate to me that they have no knowledge of any contracts by the Department of Northern and Native Affairs and obviously, as the member can appreciate, I cannot speak for every department of government, but with respect to the department I am responsible for the name is not even one that is noted.

Mr. Maloway: Were any provincial funds part of the money in the Bank of Luxembourg account, the $50,000 offered by Mr. McNeilly [phonetic] to scrap the publication of this book?

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Mr. Praznik: I did not hear the latter part of the member's question. There was some other noise in the committee.

Mr. Maloway: Is the minister saying that he did not hear the question? I wanted to ask the minister whether he was aware that there were provincial funds or were there any provincial funds as part of the money in a Bank of Luxembourg account offered by Mr. McNeilly [phonetic] to the author, the $50,000 that was offered to the author to scrap the publication of this book.

Mr. Praznik: I can say to the member, I am not aware of any provincial funds being in any Bank of Luxembourg account as a part of a bribe.

The member brings a very serious accusation to this committee. If the member would like to make that same accusation outside of the House, without parliamentary immunity, because he has evidence to support it, if he believes that he has sufficient evidence, then I would ask him as well, I think most appropriately, that he provide that information to the RCMP or an appropriate law enforcement agency. If he has information which I should be aware of that would suggest some wrongdoing by those who were in receipt of provincial monies, I would ask that he do that so that then I as minister would be able to take appropriate steps. If that is what he is bringing to this table today, I would ask that he do so.

Mr. Maloway: Just a couple more questions to the minister. Will the minister at this stage request of his colleague the Attorney General to conduct a criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding this book with the view to getting to the bottom of what appears to be perhaps a very serious problem here?

Mr. Praznik: If the member for Elmwood has information sufficient to warrant investigation, I would ask him to provide that to me either here publicly and, if he is not comfortable in doing that, then within the privacy of my office. If there are other people involved, he brings very serious allegations to this table. If he has information to offer me that is sufficient to warrant that request of the Attorney General, then I will in fact make it, but I must have some basis on which to make that request and not just an accusation that the member for Elmwood only makes in this committee room and is not prepared to make outside of it.

Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, those are all the questions I have on this topic at this time.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Resolution 19.1(a) Minister's Salary $11,400--pass.

Resolution 19.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $408,400 for Northern Affairs, Northern Affairs Executive, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1996.

This completes the Estimates of the Department of Northern Affairs. The next set of Estimates to be considered in this section of the Committee of Supply sitting in Room 255 are the Estimates for the Department of Natural Resources. Shall we briefly recess to allow the minister and the critic the opportunity to prepare for the commencement of the Estimates? What is the will of the committee? Will we proceed directly into the committee? [agreed]

NATURAL RESOURCES

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply will be considering the Estimates of the Department of Natural Resources. Does the honourable Minister of Natural Resources have an opening statement?

Hon. Albert Driedger (Minister of Natural Resources): Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.

I want to make a few key points in my opening statement as an introduction to the Estimates of the Department of Natural Resources. I have to say that I have found that the Department of Natural Resources is one of the most interesting and exciting departments of government. I very much enjoyed my responsibilities as the minister of this department for almost two years now.

The Department of Natural Resources touches the lives of most Manitobans and many are interested in what this department does. One of the things that has happened with the department over quite a number of years is that there has been restrictions on the kind of capital monies that have been available. As a result of that, there have been some very innovative partnerships develop in the department, along with other arms within the department and external departments as well, for example, Ducks Unlimited, Habitat Heritage Corporation. I use those as examples where we have undertaken various projects. The one that comes to mind, that has always been a very important one to me, was the Rat River project which is in the southeast portion of the province. It used to be in my constituency when I was the MLA for Emerson. Now it is in the riding of the member for Emerson which is my colleague Jack Penner.

What we did in that particular case--because I have been working on it since the day that I was elected; in fact, I was reeve for the R.M. of Hanover in '67. At that time we already had a problem with the Rat River at that time flowing over its banks. Ultimately, now we have a project that has been completed, but it has been five funding partners in this thing. That is what gives it some satisfaction that ultimately we have to be a little bit more innovative than we used to be that we can still make projects happen.

We are blessed with many numerous lakes, rivers and wetland areas that provide many opportunities. The responsibility of my department is to ensure that these valuable resources are promoted and used in a manner that will keep them healthy and vigorous, not only for today but for future generations. I can speak about that because I not only have my children but I already have nine grandchildren. So when I am looking after the resources, I am looking after them for personal reasons as well.

In Manitoba, we are also very fortunate to have access to an excellent supply of the very best fresh water anywhere. Production and wise utilization of our ground water resources is one of the fundamental issues addressed in the application of the province's water policies. I have also discussed the possibility of developing a retention program for the province.

I will just skip from my notes a little bit. Over the years, draining of our lands or wetlands or sloughs was always a high priority with farmers and municipalities. That concept is changing to the point where now it is talking about retaining water. We can see examples of what has happened of that in the member for Pembina's (Mr. Dyck) area where we have a number of those programs going very successfully. We are using that as sort of a benchmark, and as an example of what can be done and what will have to be done. So this is, I think, an area where it will not only help us with flood control to some degree, but it is also something that is going to be beneficial economically.

When we talk of irrigation projects throughout the province that are surfacing, water is one of the most important things. From a personal perspective, I have to say that if you look at history, even when you read the old western history in North America, there was always war and controversy when it had to do with water. Everybody likes to have water. We are blessed. We have a tremendous amount of water. In the southeast corner we have aquifers where we are just trying to establish exactly how much water we really do have in there. We believe there are tremendous amounts of water there.

We have a company right now that has started hauling water and is bottling it because the one thing we will not allow anymore, under our water policy, is any water to be taken in bulk out of the province. These people are basically developing a new industry. They are taking and pumping water, which is virtually pure water, bringing it into the city, Lucerne is processing it for them and bottling it to them and it is now on our markets. This is just one example of the trends that are taking place. We have an asset that bar all the other resources, water is the most important one.

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Unfortunately this spring many residents along the Assiniboine River were affected by severe flooding. My department is on top of this situation, and municipalities in the area feel that the government has been moving as best they can, as quickly as they can, on this matter. We have made a commitment to assist people affected by severe flooding as quickly as possible.

I have to say that the flooding this year on the Assiniboine was by far the record. We have never had anything close to it; in fact, it was double anything we have ever seen in terms of flooding, the water that came down. We will probably have a chance to have some discussion on this as we go along in terms of the causes for it--the drainage systems that come out of Saskatchewan, the Langenburg systems. The critic from Dauphin maybe has heard about that or at least he will when we are through with this.

We also have announced operational adjustments which are expected to minimize flooding problems on Lake Manitoba. My department is continuing to monitor levels and flows along the Assiniboine River and make further reductions to Portage diversion flows as conditions permit.

Maybe just to give a bit of an overview, when that flooding started to come down the Assiniboine Valley, we have the Shellmouth Dam that basically is a controlled structure. It is supposed to be a flood-control structure. Sometimes during the dry years, it was perceived as a recreational area, and sometimes the perspective of why it was built sort of faded in the background. It is a flood-control structure just like the structure at the Portage diversion is where basically we then take the water off the Assiniboine and head it into Lake Manitoba and then it comes through by way of the Fairford Dam and the Dauphin River into Lake Winnipeg.

To balance that whole act, I have to say that I want to compliment my staff in terms of a real jockeying art, you know, calculated the way they did that in terms of letting the flows out of the Shellmouth, moving as much water as we could through the Portage diversion and as a result we have had flooding, yes. We have flooded a lot of land, the Assiniboine River Valley land, but we have had very little damage in terms of building damage. Always when you have flooding, there is damage, but basically I feel very proud of the way that we managed to manoeuvre that whole thing. That is why it never really got the highlight that basically it would have had when you have a record-breaking flood. You know there was not even that much general reaction to it. Naturally, people suffered and we have been trying to address that.

The Estimates include a new initiative in the capital program with $150,000 for the Winnipeg Floodway gate engineering investigation. We are still awaiting a reply from the federal government on the cost-sharing of this project.

The floodway gate has been in operation now since the time that it was built under Duff Roblin. It has served the city well in terms of flood protection.

We are starting to have some anticipated difficulties in terms of the structure itself. It works on bearings and hinges and stuff of this nature, and we are starting to run into difficulties. We know that we will have to expend monies, and we feel that we should do it rather sooner than later.

In conjunction with that, we had hoped, together with the City of Winnipeg--I wrote the mayor of the City of Winnipeg. They are keen to participate. I have asked the federal government to participate. They are very wishy-washy on it because we were talking about the possibility that we could exercise the floodgates during high summer runoff, not just during spring runoff, because each year we have high water levels at times when you have heavy rains. Then the sewers back up in Winnipeg, and everybody says, well, why do you not activate the floodgate?

The way the system is set up is that you have a berm. When you close the gate, it has to back up so and so far before it starts flowing over. As a result, there is always that controversy as to whether it is operating right. Is it creating more flooding than is necessary? So what we would like to do in conjunction with the repairs on the Red River Floodway is also deal with the potential of operating it not just in spring but at any time when the water levels come high.

I want to say that I am very pleased with the Fisheries Enhancement Initiative program. This is a very popular program. The popularity of this program is a good indicator of its success It very successfully promotes the conservation and enhancement of fisheries through various groups across the province. We will continue to work in partnership with these groups.

I have to say that one of the priorities that I felt certainly under the Fisheries Enhancement program was stocking where we go into fish stocking in the various areas together with communities. Very, very high on that and want to continue promoting that. We are continuing to build and develop our sport fishing industry, which contributes between $90 million and $150 million annually to this province's economy.

As part of this development, we are continuing the urban sport fishing plan, which will see the responsible development of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers' sport fishing potential.

My department will continue its efforts to stock fish throughout the province. In the past year my staff and commercial fishing organizations stocked lakes with more than 108 million spawn. This stocking effort demonstrates the commitment of Manitoba to sustaining fish populations throughout the province.

Also, in this regard, we are renegotiating a five-year agreement with Manitoba Hydro to maintain the year-round operation of the Grand Rapids hatchery.

I have to say that all of us have either children or grandchildren or know people who enjoy this sport of fishing, but there is nothing more frustrating really than sitting on a lake all day and coming home with one little jack. I think we have a great water sport, and if we do manage our resources well, I think that it would be something I certainly would like to see, that when you go out for a day of fishing, you come home with some fish and you have everybody enjoy the--at least three maybe, you know.

As you know, the department is implementing new measures to control the transportation of fish to reduce illegal activities. Tough penalties are being administered to those who choose to violate the new laws. Tough new laws are also being implemented to curb unsafe hunting practices. We passed The Wildlife Act last year, and we think it has been very successful.

Those choosing to violate any of the new safety laws will pay very stiff penalties, including loss of equipment and vehicles. Because of these new laws, dangerous hunting activities have dropped significantly. Charges for night-lighting, discharging a firearm from the road and dangerous hunting situations involving vehicles are less than half compared to the previous year. Total charges have decreased by 56 percent. Night hunting charges are down 55 percent, and discharging a firearm from vehicle offences have decreased by 40 percent.

I wish to thank individual hunters and hunting associations in our province and throughout North America for supporting the new regulations. With their assistance, the department will continue its commitment to enforce the new hunting regulations in its fight against illegal, unsafe hunting practices. The department is continuing to aggressively pursue economic opportunities, especially in the forestry sector where there is significant potential for growth. We are continuing to work with Louisiana-Pacific Corporation at Swan River which will provide significant economic benefits to the area and to the province.

The forests of Manitoba are one of this province's most valuable natural resources. More than 51 percent of our land base is classified as forest. The management challenges to maintain healthy, diverse forests while providing the resources we need to thrive. We have developed more than 40 policies for sustainable forest management which includes requirements for forest harvesting to be undertaken on a sustained yield basis. The amount of wood that can be harvested on a sustainable basis each year is called the annual allowable cut. The department in co-operation with the federal government has undertaken a feasibility study for a new national park in the Manitoba Lowlands region consistent with the desire to meet the goals of the Endangered Spaces Program and to contribute towards the completion of the national parks system.

In this regard, I was pleased to announce last February that the government had established four new protected areas in northern Manitoba as provincial parks which contributed to our network of special places. The four parks cover a total area of more than 2.1 million hectares. With the addition of these provincial parks, the province has increased the total area designated for this purpose to 5.5 percent. Our objective is 12 percent by the year 2000. This was a substantial step forward in the province's desired goal of protecting and representing the 12 percent of its natural regions. For parks and natural areas, a new initiative in the capital program includes $325,000; $200,000 of this total is for the Spruce Woods park interpretive centre.

As you know, we are continuing to look at better ways to ensure that campgrounds remain peaceful and quiet, especially on the May long weekend. This past May long weekend, six campgrounds were declared as liquor free. We had a liquor ban in effect. The department assessments indicate that the initiative was successful in bringing families back to the parks on the May long weekend. There were 105 families at Falcon Beach and Falcon Lake shore on the May long weekend. This compares with only five families in these facilities during the May long weekend a year previous. Our parks have more than five million visitors a year and the liquor-free May long weekend was an important step in ensuring that the visitors feel safe and can enjoy their stay in our campgrounds.

As an aside, I just want to tell you, Mr. Chairman, that previous to this year and the two previous years to that, we had tremendous rowdyism going on in our parks, and we ran as much as $80,000 worth of damage. It was frightful what was happening. Government was debating should we go with liquor free or not, and I know there are pros and cons to it. I just want to say that we have hired an independent individual to do an assessment of it, because the business community in Falcon feel that maybe they lost money on it. We think that ultimately maybe we can overcome that, that they will probably be making more money having good campers out there instead of the gangs that were coming out.

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I am pleased with the work of the Special Conservation and Endangered Species Fund. This program assists nongovernment organizations and groups by providing funding for projects that foster and promote the principles of sustainable development and support and preservation of wildlife populations and habitat. A very important aspect of this fund is that the projects are initiated at the local level. Usually we do it on a cost-shared basis. They have been identified within the community as projects that are important to the area. It is the local citizens who are the driving force behind them.

The department is continuing to urge the federal government to intensify its efforts in promoting Manitoba's fur market interests with the European Union, a significant increasing strength in the international fur market, which is of significant importance to our economy and the people of the North.

Mr. Chairman, this is a brief summary of issues within the Department of Natural Resources. There are many, many others, of course, some of which I am sure we will discuss during the Estimates process.

I would like to invite my staff to join me and, if we can, proceed with the departmental Estimates.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: We thank the Minister of Natural Resources for those comments.

Does the official opposition critic, the honourable member for Dauphin, have any opening comments?

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

I have been looking forward to the start of Natural Resources' Estimates for quite a while. I have had quite a two months over the last little while knocking on about a gazillion doors through the provincial election and attending meetings and debates and one thing and another.

When a supporter of mine, two days after the provincial election was over, asked me what job I would like to be appointed to, I had not really spent much time thinking about the critic position that I would like to be part of.

Two days before that I was asked what minister's position I would like. I did not jump into that question too quickly, and now, looking back, I am kind of glad that I did not. Then I started to think about what critic position I would prefer of all the various and interesting critic portfolios there are. Again I did not jump too quickly. My response was that I will fulfill whatever responsibility my Leader, the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer), would ask me to do.

In the back of my mind I had it in there that natural resources would be one of the ones that I would like to be involved in, because I have been involved in natural resources activities for quite some time.

A lot of this was due to the influence of my dad and my grandfather, who were very much outdoorsmen, who very much liked hunting and fishing and all the things that this province has to offer in terms of natural resources. Whether it is the experience of growing up with those two men or whether they just passed it down through their genes, somehow I have picked up on that. I was really very pleased when I was asked to perform the duties as the Natural Resources critic.

Now that I am in as the critic I am finding it to be quite a learning experience. The one thing that has occurred to me is that maybe this spring it should not be called natural resources so much as natural disasters. In a strange kind of way I have not so much a feeling of sympathy but maybe empathy with the minister. I think he summed it up one day in the House very well when I asked a question and his remark was that he had been fighting forest fires all day in his hip waders.

Given what has gone on this spring, I sympathize with the task facing the minister and his officials in his department. It is certainly a challenge when you have half the province on fire and the other half flooding. So much of this has to do with Mother Nature. We know that we have to work with Mother Nature, and we do ultimately realize that Mother Nature is a lot stronger probably than what we will ever be. So many times you are left to the whims of her moods.

I wanted to thank the minister for the information that he has been giving me so far in my job as the critic for Natural Resources. I have found that whenever I have asked for anything, policies and whatnot, the minister has complied promptly with any request that I have had. Certainly, even as I ask questions, I do not even have to solicit some of the information he has given to me, and I appreciate that very much.

I want to say, too, this has really been a learning experience. As I have gone through the Estimates book that was made available to me, I have learned a lot about Natural Resources. I am certainly no expert as I suppose no one can really claim to be.

An Honourable Member: Albert is.

Mr. Driedger: No, nobody is.

Mr. Struthers: Exactly.

I am willing though to work towards learning as much as I can about the Department of Natural Resources and the programs that the officials in the resources department are involved with. I offer that co-operation because I think this province has a lot to offer in terms of a wealth of natural resources. Certainly through our history we have taken advantage of the resources to build a province that is attractive to people to come and live in. We have built a province on our natural resources that has been successful. I do not quite agree with the people out there who claim that we are strictly a have-not province, because I think we have a lot of things in this province to offer. Many of those are the natural resources that we have within the boundaries of Manitoba.

Certainly our history has developed on the basis of our natural resources, agriculture and other such resources that we have. We have built a strong province that way. I think we can use the resources that we have to build an equally strong future if we manage in an intelligent progressive way, if we take into account the environmental pressures that are put on our natural resources, if we take account of the needs of all the people in the province, including in that group I would put farmers, ranchers and the whole agricultural community and their needs for our natural resources.

I would encourage the minister and his officials in his department to work together with the Agriculture, the Environment departments, the Energy and Mines, and Northern Affairs and make sure that all of the activities of the entire government are focused in such a way that the sustainable development aspect of our natural resources is not something that is forgotten about.

Of course I think we have made some good strides over the years in the area of recreation and leisure and taking advantage of the natural beauties, the areas of our province that can attract tourists to our area and provide recreation and leisure for our own citizens here in Manitoba. Of course, we use our natural resources to build a strong economy, and I think we can do it to build an even stronger economy in the future.

The minister went through, in his opening remarks, a long list of activities that the department is working at presently and has worked on over the last number of years. I want to assure the minister that he can look forward to the co-operation of the member for Dauphin in the programs that are providing benefits to all Manitobans.

I sympathize with what he says about restrictions on capital. I understand that the capital needed, the dollars that are needed to manage this province's resources, are many. I know that they come from various sources, not the least of which is the federal government, which is something that we have to work in co-operation with as well. I would encourage the minister to stand up and fight with the federal government whenever there are questions of funding that may be restricted from the federal government's side. I would also encourage the minister to be a strong advocate for natural resources, which I am sure he is, within his own caucus.

I support the moves that I have seen in terms of sport fishing and fish habitat, stocking of lakes, the examples that I have seen across the province. I would certainly encourage the minister to continue with the policy of strong penalties for those who are not willing to follow the regulations concerning hunting and fishing and extraction of any other natural resources from within the boundaries of Manitoba.

With that, I think I will end my opening comments. I look forward to the Estimates process, and I look forward to learning more about the Department of Natural Resources from the minister and the people who work for him, and that is about it.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: We thank the critic of the official opposition for those opening comments.

Under Manitoba practice, debate of the Minister's Salary is traditionally the last item considered for the Estimates of the department, and accordingly we shall defer consideration of this item and now proceed with the consideration of the next line.

Before we do, we invite the minister's staff to join us at the table, and we ask that the minister introduce his staff present.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, before I introduce the two people I have with me here, in conjunction with what the member for Dauphin, the critic, has said, I want to take this opportunity, and I forgot it before, a very important thing to say.

I want to thank all, basically the staff people that have been working both with the floods and fire end of it. They have been very challenged this year, and I want to take this opportunity to extend a special gratitude for them.

With me here today I have, on my immediate left, my Deputy Minister of the Department of Natural Resources, David Tomasson, and across from him is my Executive Director of Management Services, Bill Podolski.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: We thank the minister for that information and the introductions.

We will now proceed to line 1. Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits, on page 115 of the main Estimates book.

Before we proceed into the Estimates, I would like to clarify from the committee what is the wish of the committee. We normally proceed line by line in the Estimates process. What is the will of the committee?

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Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I will make a comment to that right away.

I just want to announce at this time, though, I just got this note handed to me that we are evacuating Leaf Rapids. The wind has picked up and the fire has jumped the lines and we have a major problem there. Just for the record, another evacuation taking place. Gods Lake Narrows is starting to look a little bit better but problems continue.

Mr. Chairman, in terms of making a comment as to how we proceed, I personally--I know it goes against the grain of staff and the Chairman as a rule, but I do not care how we do it. I will leave it up to the critic. I will operate whichever way he wants on a line by line basis or across the whole thing. I know there is only so much time that we have with this department, and I will deal with it whichever way I can and try and be as accommodating in terms of getting information as I can.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chair, I appreciate the minister's statement and my intention was to begin and go line by line. I think that is the easiest way for me to do it this time. I have a number of issues that I want to work in, and I will do that line by line.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: For the benefit of the committee, we will proceed line by line. Is that agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chair, in the first line under Executive Support I want to use some time here to get the minister to walk with me through the organizational chart for the Department of Natural Resources. My feeling is, as I feel my way through the Department of Natural Resources, it is going to be of immeasurable assistance for me to get a good overall view of the department that I am working with, and I want to start with the organizational chart.

For the most part the chart is pretty well straightforward from the minister to the deputy minister and then the four areas below the deputy minister. The part that I am initially interested in is the myriad of boxes just above the deputy minister and between the Minister of Natural Resources. I suppose a gazillion questions could come out of this. I do not intend to beat this section to death but I have sort of grouped them into--the first area that I would like to deal with are those boxes on that chart that deal with advisory boards.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could be of some assistance to the member for Dauphin. I know the block that he is referring to, and there are three categories of organizations, one that we call the active ones and one group that is called "as necessary" and then we have three that are inactive. If the member would want to, I can maybe tick them off. I have them colour marked here but he will not have them colour marked. Let us assume they are all active, and I will give him the ones that we call as necessary and that is on the first line the Greater Winnipeg Dyking Board and right below that the Arbitration Board of Forestry Branch. Those two are called as necessary.

If he moves further on that top line, the Manitoba Water Commission, and underneath that the Manitoba-Ontario Boundary Commission, and to the right of that the Manitoba-Saskatchewan Boundary Commission and to the right of that the Manitoba-Northwest Territories Boundary Commission.

These are all basically the ones I have said. These five are called as necessary. My deputy tells me the last three that I have there, the Ontario, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, they deal with anything that happens with the boundaries between the provinces and the Northwest Territories.

There are three that are inactive. In the third line, the Assiniboine Delta Advisory Board is inactive and the Souris River Water Commission is inactive, and in the top right-hand corner on the first line the Lower Red River Valley Water Commission is inactive. Those are the ones that are inactive just so that the member has a bit of an idea as to what is happening with some of these because the ones that I gave him prior to that are the ones that are called only as necessary. Now the rest of them are active boards.

I am just wondering how the member would want to do this because we start off with Venture Manitoba Tours Limited; the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation which is a very active one; Lake of the Woods Control Board which basically controls the flow of the water along the Winnipeg River into Lake Winnipeg; and then we have the Prairie Provinces Water Board and the Ecological Reserve Advisory Committee which is an active board which basically makes recommendations on ecological reserves.

Then we have the Canadian Permanent Commission on Geographic Names which has been a very, very popular thing because this is where the program was started. I do not know how many years ago, quite a number of years ago after the Second World War, where names of people who were in war, were killed in the line of duty, and we started naming lakes or locations in Manitoba for these people.

We escalated that program dramatically this year. We were hoping to have it completed by the middle of May. We have not quite done that because more people's names keep coming forward. It has been extremely popular in terms of people having now a lake or something named after the dead heroes that basically fought for the country.

There are certain things you get accolades from, some you do not, but in this one we certainly have been getting a lot of accolades, and it has been a very popular one.

Mr. Struthers: Does that one meet on a regular basis then as opposed to, as necessary?

Mr. Driedger: Yes, that Canadian Permanent Commission on Geographic Names is an ongoing group. We have appointees in there plus some staff people. That is an ongoing thing, and we have really, really escalated that in the last six months. They have been meeting very regularly.

Mr. Struthers: With the boundary commissions, the three blocks involved there, who calls the meeting if it is as necessary, and how is that all initiated?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I have not had the occasion to call any one of those three that he is making reference to, but it is the prerogative of the Minister of Natural Resources to call them. There has not been occasion to do that, so I have not had the privilege of going through that.

Mr. Struthers: Maybe if we could just keep going the way the minister has started here, and I can just indicate when I want more of an explanation. I think that will work well.

Mr. Driedger: That is fine, Mr. Chairman, because like I mentioned before, Venture Tours, Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation, some of these, there is a lot that we can cover later on as we go through them. The Saskeram Management Area Advisory Commission, that is on the third line on the left-hand side. The Oak/Plum Lakes Management Board and the Lake Dauphin Advisory Board are on the same line at the far end. The Assiniboine River Management Board is in the fourth line.

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Those four are sort of dealing with specific problems. For example, the member is probably aware of the Lake Dauphin Advisory Board. We have the same kind of a board for the Oak/Plum Lakes and the Saskeram thing, Assiniboine River Management Board.

There is another one here that I want to make reference to, and that is the Endangered Species Advisory Board. This is a board of staff people as well as professionals and individuals in the private sector that basically go through the list of--when we talk of endangered species it is not only animals or birds, it is also dealing with flowers, with fauna, the whole ball of wax. They come, a very intense group that basically then tries to identify areas or species that should be protected. We have an act that basically does that.

I have to tell the member that aside from the boards that are mentioned here we have two that are not on here. One is the Assiniboine River Advisory Board, which basically is a committee that I set up last year. They have been operating now for a little over a year. It has to do with the whole Assiniboine River water requirements. It came to a head at the time when the Pembina Valley group basically applied to take water out of the Assiniboine to take and bring it into the Pembina Valley. Environmental hearings took place at that time. There was a lot of resistance to it. As a result of that a lot of controversy developed, and my predecessor had started the initiating, the setting up of an advisory committee, and I followed through with that.

We have stakeholders all along from Winnipeg all the way down to the Shellmouth Dam that are involved, including the cities of Portage and Brandon. I have very, very high expectations from this group. They have been going out there having their hearings and their meetings, having input, and because we have all the stakeholders involved, it has really made it a lot easier for myself. Instead of fighting with individual groups they basically go out and deal with them. They will be making their final reports to me I expect within the next month or two. They have made some interim recommendations related to water licensing and some irrigation applications that have been pending for a while and then they will be making their final recommendations.

Further to that, I also have some of those members on a compensation board, because downstream from the Shellmouth Dam we have approximately 16 miles that as we operate the control structure, a certain amount of that land gets flooded every year--well, not every year, but it has been flooded at various times. These people feel that it is not that they do not have buildings down there, but the land they have out there. They feel that because they are, sort of, not the benefactors, you know, get the raw end of the deal because we control it as a flood-control structure, that they basically end up with the brunt end of it and cannot seed. I think they got flooded approximately eight out of the last 24 years.

Now because we have been trying to deal with it and we are not quite sure how to do it, we have set up a five-person group that basically is going to be working with the municipalities, with individuals, and hopefully come forward with some kind of a recommendation as to how we will deal with that for the future. The five people on there are Tim Ball, who is the chairman of that group; Ian Dickson, who is acting as secretary; and we have Clay Gilson, who is also a professor at the university; we have Sid Reimer, who is the director of Manitoba Disaster Assistance Board; and Terry Johnson, who is the CEO for Manitoba Crop Insurance. So these five are, hopefully, going to be coming forward and coming up with some recommendations.

Those are the two commissions or groups that basically are not on here. [interjection] The Assiniboine River, that is the one on there. So that other one, that five-man board has been set up there to see whether we can somehow address it. It has been an ongoing sore spot, I guess, with the people in the area for a long time, and with the municipalities, and hopefully we can address it.

I sort of tried to float over some of these things to some degree and am prepared to answer more detailed questions.

Mr. Struthers: I am interested in knowing, with the Assiniboine River Advisory committee, you mentioned that they would make recommendations to you. Is that just in this advisory board committee's specific case, or is that the case with all the advisory boards?

Mr. Driedger: In all cases the groups that are set here would be making recommendations to the minister, and in all cases, I believe, the minister still has the final authority and makes the decisions. They are all appointed basically by the Minister of Natural Resources.

Mr. Struthers: I am quite well informed when it comes to the Lake Dauphin Advisory Board. I have attended a number of their meetings and I know some of the people very well on the Lake Dauphin Advisory Board. I know the issues that they are working towards, and I want to make it clear that I support the establishment of these advisory boards, at least at Dauphin Lake. If the other boards are set up in the same manner, then I support them as well. I am not as familiar with the others as I am with Dauphin Lake.

One of the things that I am learning is that there are all kinds of competing interests when it comes to water in this province and the one thing that we always have to remember is that there is always somebody who lives downstream. The decisions that we make at one end of the lake have some drastic effects sometimes downstream. So I support the method of receiving input that the minister has developed here. Are the others, say, the Souris River advisory board, is it set up the same way as the Lake Dauphin Advisory Board?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, first of all let me say that the member assesses the point well about many complications about the water system, and I personally feel very strongly that, you know, very often there is a distrust of the general public out there of the bureaucracy of government as to whether they always make the right decisions. By having these kinds of advisory boards we have the input of it, and the Lake Dauphin one is, I guess, one of the best examples really of where I think there were something like 23 or 25 different interest groups, and having them work together on an advisory board ultimately overcame all the mistrust with each other and stuff of that nature, and came forward with a solid recommendation. It is my intention to take and expand in other areas using that approach in terms of dealing with the many outstanding issues.

I can tell you I was sort of almost shocked at the amount of water issues that are still out there that, you know, because people cannot agree they sit there and just fester away. I am not one to necessarily just sit there and let it happen. I would just as soon get at it and see whether we can resolve it. But there is a lot of emotion involved in some of these things.

The member asks specifically about the Souris River Water Commission. I am sorry, just for clarification, I wonder if the member could say--were you asking about the Souris River Water Commission, or was that just a misconception of mine?

Mr. Struthers: No, that was a mistake on my part. I have it marked inactive, and then asked about it. What I want to get is an idea of how the other advisory boards are set up. Maybe one that is active now would be at the Lake of the Woods.

Mr. Driedger: Yes, Mr. Chairman, the Lake of the Woods Control Board is active, because they are the ones that basically get together and establish--there is representation there from Manitoba, from Ontario, from Hydro, I believe. They meet to establish the levels at which the water will be maintained into the Winnipeg River and the level of Lake of the Woods which is a very big lake as well. You have the American exposure there as well. So, no, they are pretty active, because depending on the environment, we have had dry years where it was a problem, it was getting too low. The board itself, when they make the recommendations as to the level of what water should be being drained out of the Lake of the Woods along the Winnipeg River, if it is not done well you end up flooding all the docks and the cabins along the Winnipeg River system where there are all kinds of little lakes. Then the fur starts flying there. [interjection] Yes, real fast. So they are active, yes.

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Mr. Struthers: I noticed that the Lake of the Woods is a control board; the word advisory is not in there. Does that mean that they can do more than just advise to the minister? Do they have any kind of powers different than, say, an advisory board would?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, there is an act, The Lake of the Woods Control Board Act. If the member looks at Schedule 1, there is an act there that dictates all the things that they can do. It is on the same page where the organizational chart is; on the left side, there is Statutory Responsibilities of the Minister of Natural Resources. There are various acts and things that dictate some of the things that happen, and that board operates under the act. If I do not like the way they operate, I change the act or the board. They do the control according to the act, and if they do not operate according to the wishes of the government, so to speak, then either you change the board or you change the act.

Mr. Struthers: Does that mean, then, that they still go straight to you, they report straight to you, or do they report somewhere through your department?

Mr. Driedger: They basically have the authority to operate within those guidelines that are set out in the act. So I do not become aware of it unless there is some difficulty. I become aware of it when the people start phoning me from down in Winnipeg River, saying: My dock is flooding. What are you going to do about it? That is when I start getting back to the board and say: What are you doing? Then they clarify their position to me, but they have the right to operate at a certain point.

Mr. Struthers: I would be interested in knowing how a group of people living in a certain part of the province, wherever that may be, would go about setting up an advisory board. Is it an ad hoc kind of thing? Where there are big problems going on in a certain area, the minister would say, how about an advisory board here? Or is there a set of criteria that you have got to go through and a process to establish an advisory board?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I am going to use the example of the Assiniboine River Advisory Board, which is one of the latest ones that, at least, I was involved in establishing. Basically, the groundwork was done, or the concept of getting a group together like the Lake Dauphin group, the concept was there. Then we sat down among ourselves within the department and decided: How big a group should we have? The representation, the terms of reference, we worked them out and, at that point, went forward to my colleagues in cabinet, asked for their blessing and approval to proceed on that basis.

We then went ahead and appointed these people on the board, because you pay them a certain indemnity on a daily basis. You cannot expect them to travel or to attend meetings without getting some of the money. So all that gets sort of packaged, but, basically, it develops from the initiative of the minister and his department. If it is felt that we cannot maybe adequately deal with some of the concerns and problems out there, because of the controversy involved, it is a prerogative of the minister and the government that they can set up an advisory board of whatever size, magnitude, or you could be a one-man commission, if you wanted to. So there is a lot of power with the minister to move in these directions.

The minister could take it on himself to make decisions on it, but very often that is not wise, especially when you have diversified views and there is not necessarily a comfort level with the bureaucracy. It works a lot better, and I point again to the Lake Dauphin advisory group, which, basically, decided what they thought was best. They are now making recommendations. You see, that is the other side that sometimes gives some complications. They are making recommendations for a structure. Build us a structure so that we can control this and that, but it is still the minister and my department that has to decide: Is there the money, and can we prioritize it, and when can we do it? That is the other side of the coin. They can come up with all kinds of suggestions. Build me a dam. I am not being facetious, but, for example, it could be: Put another dam on the Assiniboine River, maybe $300 million. It cannot be done. But in most cases they are very reasonable in terms of the approach they use, and we work with them in terms of trying to get an understanding of the things that can be done, and I am impressed with that approach.

Mr. Struthers: I agree that at least from the Lake Dauphin Advisory Board stance that they have been very reasonable. I would suggest that one of the reasons for their reasonableness is the broad range of interests that are represented on the advisory board. Is that the approach that is taken with other boards around the province? I know there are tons of groups involved in Dauphin Lake. There is every interest you can imagine being represented and they meet on a regular basis. Are the other advisory groups as wide-ranging as the one in Dauphin?

Mr. Driedger: In the Lake Dauphin case I do not know of one other group that has that many diverse people involved, like I say, 23 or 25 organizations, depending on the size of the problem.

For example, at the Oak Lake-Plum Lake one, actually you have maybe three or four municipalities and certain individual interest groups, farm groups, whatever the case may be. What we try and do is set it up so that all the interest groups have representation on these so that there is not somebody left out because then it is counterproductive right away. So depending on the size of the problem or the project, everybody has a say in the matter.

Mr. Struthers: I want to move over a little bit over in the chart to the Flood Forecasting Committee. Both the minister and I in our opening statements made reference to Mother Nature, I believe, and I think we have conceded that Mother Nature is a lot more powerful than we can ever be. We can still protect ourselves somewhat when it comes to floods by forecasting accurately the amount of water we can expect. What is the make-up of the Flood Forecasting Committee? What kind of parameters does it have, what kind of authority does it have, and what does it consist of?

Mr. Driedger: I am going to try and have staff give me the composition of the Flood Forecasting Committee, but basically, in terms of authority, they have none. Their responsibility is basically to do assessments in terms of what the moisture conditions are in fall, winter, depending on the snow. That can vary from month to month the same thing as the rainfall can from time to time depending on certain areas, even during the drought years. But in the last few years we have had rainfalls up to five and six inches at a crack in some areas where everything was under water and then ten miles down the road you had virtually no water. I do not know whether there is any specific art in terms of doing the forecasting.

My deputy tells me that my department takes the lead in terms of representation on the Flood Forecasting Committee. We also have the feds involved. We have North Dakota involved. We have Saskatchewan, I believe, involved. I do not know whether we specifically say Joe Blow and John Smith are the ones, it is basically the provinces that co-ordinate the information within my department of Water Resources and then make the projections, and those projections are very important in terms of how we take and release, let us say, water out of the Shellmouth Dam at a certain time of year based on snowfall, moisture conditions in fall. The projection is sort of sometimes iffy in terms of forecasting how much rain we will get, but they work it over a period of time. You have people that have a pretty good feel for exactly what we should do in terms of the control structures, and that is where the importance comes in when we project, so that we can position ourselves. It is not 100 percent science at best, you know.

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Mr. Struthers: I would be interested in knowing just how the committee goes about collecting its data.

Mr. Driedger: I will have to undertake to get the sort of maybe a written criteria as to--because you have so much technical information that is being used through the climatology, federal, provincial, it is a complex science. I will try and maybe give a written undertaking on sort of just how they basically do that for the member. But I have not got that here right now.

Mr. Struthers: I would also be interested in knowing, since it has not got any authority itself, who exactly do they report to, and do they have any assurance that their recommendations will be acted upon?

Mr. Driedger: They report to moi, right here, and then we direct, make decisions based on that in terms of water resources. Let me just get away from the Assiniboine a little bit. On the Red River, for example, we get information from Minnesota and North Dakota and even further south in terms of the moisture conditions out there--they have many retention projects out there where there is an understanding that we have with them that they will release or hold back so and so much water at certain times and release it at certain times so we have a pretty constant flow, and it is sort of a flood protection for them, as well. So you know, there are so many elements to this in terms of how basically decisions get made, but in the less than two years that I have been here with the department, I have a comfort level that we have professional people in there that know what they are doing, because if they do not, then, you know, I find out real fast, because then I start having problems.

Mr. Struthers: Since they are reporting directly to the minister, I would imagine then that the chance of their recommendations being approved are very good.

I want to ask about some aquifers. When we talk about advisory boards, are aquifers seen as part of the system, or are there separate advisory boards dealing with aquifers on their own?

Mr. Driedger: First of all, maybe I can clarify to the member that really almost anything to do with water comes under my department of Water Resources, and that has to do with whether it is rivers, whether it is aquifers, and one of the challenges that the department has been facing over a period of time is to identify aquifer sources, to what extent we have water there.

The Carberry aquifer is one that has--the colleague from Neepawa is sitting here and well knows the sensitivity when it comes to irrigation or trying to move water from that aquifer into Gladstone at one time. Things hit the rhubarb pretty heavy at that time. You have the people that basically feel, that have lived their all their life, they know exactly what is down below there even though they do not have the technical ability to assess that. We are trying to be more definitive and do a better job in terms of identifying exactly the aquifers that we have, the amount of water that we have and how do they replenish themselves.

I know I mentioned this just a little while ago, that we have certain aquifers in the southeast area that are just--there is tremendous potential there. I think the colleagues or our neighbours to the south have a better feeling of exactly how much water is there than we do. We have this year budgeted a certain amount of money specifically to identify what we have in terms of water aquifers in the southeast portion of the province.

The Americans would very much like to take and use as much of our water as they could at opportune times. When it floods they want to send it to us for free. Other than that, when it comes for other purpose they certainly would like to take and make use of it, and are very envious, I have to say, of the good water that we have in Manitoba.

I think it is important, first of all, before we can make decisions on irrigation in some areas or any other projects that we undertake that we have to have a good understanding of exactly what is our resource. We are trying to do that on a progressive basis now.

Mr. Struthers: I do not think I have any more questions dealing with all those boxes at the top end of this organizational chart, and I thank the minister for all the information that he has been able to give me in that area.

The only question I have left for this chart in front of me here is under the area of Resource Programs, the Forestry box, and it says it is vacant. As of April 1, I guess, there was no director there, but has that position been filled now?

Mr. Driedger: That position, the director's position under Forestry, has been filled. We advertised I guess nationally and we had applications and it has been filled. Art Houle is the Director of Forestry now. Mr. Houle used to be with the Department of National Resources years ago and then went to the Ontario Department of National Resources, then he did work overseas for the Ontario government and came back and, being a Manitoba resident, saw our advertisement and made application and during the rounds of interviews that took place it was felt that he was the most capable individual, and we feel very fortunate in having him because, of course, the issues are very sensitive to us, the whole Louisiana-Pacific issue, the Repap issue, the Abitibi people, the Spruce Products, basically our four big operators. We have so many, many quotaholders, as my colleague from Swan River knows and I expect will probably want to talk about some of them along the line.

That position is now filled. Art Houle is the man and we are happy to have him.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chair, I have no more questions dealing with the organizational chart.

What I want to do right now is give the minister a chance to update us on the fire situation up north. I know he gave us a little bit of information before on some evacuations that are taking place in Leaf Rapids. I would like to have an update on what the fire situation is up there right now.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, the latest memo I have here right now is as of two o'clock this afternoon. This is the update of the forest fires:

Evacuation of Gods Lake Narrows continues with the last three planes bringing 48 residents to Portage la Prairie this afternoon. Once complete, 950 residents will have been evacuated and 250 will remain in the community.

The 679 residents of South Indian Lake who were evacuated yesterday remain in Thompson. The total number of evacuees in Manitoba is now 1,629.

There have been approximately 20 new fires in the province since yesterday.

At the Gods Lake Narrows fire crews are working against unfavourable winds from the southeast to protect the community of Gods Lake Narrows. Irrigation sprinklers have been set up to soak the edge of the forest, and fire-retardant foam is being used to protect buildings within the community.

The member is probably aware that these fires create their own wind draft, and that it is not unusual to have sparks and flames flying half a mile through the air.

Crews working on the fire near South Indian Lake will be concentrating on the south end of the fire closest to the community. Natural Resources has placed flight restrictions over the South Indian Lake fire area to assist with aerial fire suppression.

The fire south of Leaf Rapids is very active and there is a concern that it may cross Provincial Highway 391. However, this memo at two o'clock said, at this time, the highway was still open, but I just put on the record here, before the fact, that things have turned dramatically worse. The fire has jumped the highway and we have major problems there.

I will table this at the end. If the member wants to, I can continue. There are five other short notes here. If you want to put it on the record, I will do that.

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The south end of the Goldsand Lake fire north of Lynn Lake is continuing to hold, and crews and equipment working on this fire will begin moving to other fires in the region.

The east side of the fire near Creighton, Saskatchewan, is continuing to hold. However, flare-ups are continuing along the south, west and northern fire lines.

The Devils Lake fire east of Highway 6 has moved eastward towards Lake Winnipeg due to strong west winds. Crews will spend most of today checking this fire for problem areas. It is burning in swamp and lesser valued wood at this time, but it is very close to what we consider very valuable stands. The three land bombers that we basically brought in from B.C. are working on this fire trying to hold that fire there. Actually, that fire is right close to Lake Winnipeg, on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, close to Warpath River--the members maybe know where that is, in that general area.

Lightening throughout the eastern region set off seven new fires yesterday in the Whiteshell area, and the firecap [phonetic] bombers from B.C. were used on these fires as well and had good success.

Today there are a total of 120 fires burning in Manitoba. Of this total, 56 are being controlled, 19 fires are out of control. The remainder are being watched and are receiving limited action. To date a total of 392 fires in Manitoba have burned approximately 90,000 hectares of forest.

Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to table this memo.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: I thank the honourable minister for the submission and the Clerk will copy and distribute.

Mr. Struthers: I have no questions at this point. I am going to defer to my colleague for Swan River.

Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Mr. Chairman, this department is a very important department, and a department that plays a very important role in the economy of the people in my constituency. I have several questions that deal with the policies of the government, and I would like to ask the minister how they are dealing with these issues. I will raise these issues as they have been brought to my attention from constituents in my area.

The area I would like to begin with is an area that has been a subject of some discussion. I would like to ask the minister what the policy of his department is or whether there has been any change of policy with respect to game farming and elk ranching. As the minister knows, this is a sensitive area and there has been a lot of interest from various groups. There have been some comments. I know there have been people lobbying the minister on this issue.

I would like to ask the minister then what work his department has done on this area. Has there been any change in policy? Is the minister intending to open up the area of elk ranching and game farming in this province?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I refuse to answer on the grounds that it can incriminate me. Seriously, the member well knows the history of elk ranching in this province and elk ranching on a pilot project basis was started in 1978, I believe, under the Sterling Lyon administration when a pilot project was established in the Minitonas area. Mr. Eisner and some other people involved with him at that time set up an experimental elk ranch where they caught animals out of the wild.

The whole process of the elk ranching did not do well. There were many difficulties with that as the member is well aware, a lot of emotion, a lot of controversy with it. Ultimately, I believe the member's brother, then Minister of Natural Resources, made a decision I believe in 1986 or was it '87 with great difficulty to abolish elk ranching. Supposedly since that time, there has been no elk ranching.

There are some difficulties out there in the area right now. Permits were issued for game farms to have a certain amount of elk for viewing purposes. We have another element that has been developing where some of our communities and the reserves' people have been shooting the mother elk and keeping the calves and feel that they have the right to raise elk in captivity. We have to deal with the issue somewhere along the line.

I personally was the critic for six and a half years when the intense debate took place in terms of elk ranching, agonized on both sides of it and have been agonizing over it for a year and a half now. So the member is basically asking, what are we going to do with it? I can tell the member that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns), based on the fact that the Crow subsidy is being deleted, is promoting diversification for farmers because of that and has approached myself and talked about the possibility of having some discussion about elk ranching again.

At the present time I could be cute and just say we do not have elk ranching, but I have to be honest with the member and say that there is discussion. Nothing has happened, nothing has moved forward, but there has been some discussion about whether there should be another review done at this point.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I would just remind the committee at the outset of the committee of Estimates for Natural Resources we agreed to go line by line. I see in the line of questioning we have jumped several pages ahead. What is the will of the committee?

Mr. Driedger: It was not my choice, it was the choice of the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers), the critic. I told him whichever way he wanted to go, and I stick with that. So I have no difficulty whichever way you want to go. Whatever there is to discuss I am prepared to handle it whichever way yourself, Mr. Chairman, or the critics feel comfortable with it.

Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chair, with your indulgence I would prefer that we have the opportunity to ask a few general questions on policy in a few areas and stay under the policy first line until such time as the official critic, the member for Dauphin, is able to return. I would prefer if we could do it that way.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Is it the will of the committee to have general discussion on the Estimates?

Mr. Driedger: Seeing as it is my Estimates, I have no difficulty with that, and I think the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings) will probably have to concur with it. I think really that questions of the nature as the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) has raised basically would qualify under the policy end of it.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Is it agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

Ms. Wowchuk: I have a few questions that deal with this policy, and I am looking for the direction that the government is going. I would like to pursue it a little further.

The minister said that in, I believe, 1988 the elk ranching was stopped.

Mr. Driedger: In '86-87.

Ms. Wowchuk: No, later. It is a fact that it was under my brother's administration that it started, but it was your government that had to follow it through. Unfortunately, your government has not fulfilled some of the requirements that were supposed to be there. Those are the issues that I would like to pursue a little bit.

The people who were doing the elk ranching, I believe two of them were asked to disperse of their herds and could not keep them anymore, one in particular. The others were supposed to be keeping their herds as game farms.

It is my understanding that in actual fact we do have elk ranching in Manitoba, because there are a couple of operations that are growing far beyond what is a game farm and they are selling elk. I believe there is another person under this administration, a person by the name of, I believe, Mr. Taylor who did get a licence and who is operating an elk farm of some sort.

For the minister to say that they are looking at it but have made no decision--it is true. The government has not made any decision because--or they did make a decision for some people when they had to sell their game and go out of business, and there are other people who are continuing to operate.

I would like to ask the minister how he is going to deal with that. There are, I believe, outstanding bills that have not been dealt with. One person who was supposed to have been paid, a Mr. Holland, I believe--no, just a minute, a Mr. Hart. Pardon me, it was not Mr. Holland, it was Mr. Hart who was supposed to be paid for some elk, but who still has elk. Mr. Eisner still has elk. Mr. Taylor has been able to establish elk. Mr. Nelson was told that he had to disperse of his herd, and he does not have them.

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What I am looking at is, what is the policy of this government, and how do they consider this to be fair? Some people are allowed to continue under the auspices of game farming, which is not really game farming. It is elk ranching. All I am asking the minister for is some clarification--how the people that are there now with these elk on their land are able to operate and other people are not. I do not think we should pretend that this is game farming, because it is not game farming.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, from time to time in the department there are some issues that sort of create a little bit of sleepless nights and nightmares and stuff like that. It happened in Highways when I had to turn back highways to the municipalities. In this particular department, aside from fires and floods, the elk-ranching issue is one of those that has given me some nightmares.

Mr. Chairman, I admit there are problems, that the department has some problems right now, and that is why the issue will be dealt with. I made that commitment to the people that are in and out of the picture. I am not going to try and belittle it. It is a real challenge. We have to deal with it somewhere along the line, and we have to try and deal with it fairly without going into all the finite details of who got paid, could cease and desist elk ranching and who did not, because there were three partners involved at one time that are fighting each other and suing each other now, or trying to. The fact that we have some game farms that are considered viewing farms and that there has not been a limit on the amount of elk that basically could be involved in a viewing farm, these things, I wish I could tell the member that the plan is set, we know exactly what we are going to do. I do not have that. We are going to get it. I have made the commitment. I will address the issue. I will clean it up once and for all, and I am going to try and do it in a fair and equitable manner.

I can tell just by the questions, the way she has been asking them, that somebody like Mr. Nelson feels offended and done wrong by, not necessarily by government, possibly by some of the partners that he was with. He had to let his herd go. He says if anybody is going to ranch, then he wants to ranch as well, which is fair comment. So these are things, Mr. Chairman, that without getting into the finite details of the whole thing, I have a problem here. You know, I ask the member, maybe she can give me some suggestion as to how she would deal with it. I am agonizing over how we should do it.

Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chair, the minister does indeed have a problem that he is going to have to sort out. I do not expect the minister to have all the information at his fingertips, but I would like to know at some point, if the minister could provide me with the information, as to when Mr. Taylor got a licence and why he got a licence to set up an operation when the whole issue was supposed to be--there were not supposed to be any more licences issued, and how is it that he is able to operate? I can appreciate the minister is trying to deal with the situation, and the minister I believe did meet with the people in Swan River just quite recently or in March or April or--in his office, he indicates.

I hope the minister will not take offence to this question, but I want to ask the minister if at that point he did tell the people that there would be elk ranching in Manitoba at that meeting, because that is the information that was given to me, and I would just like to clarify the record.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I want to be very honest with the member. First I will try, because she raises the issue of Mr. Taylor, my understanding is that Mr. Taylor received a game licence, you know, for viewing purposes and with no limitation as to how many elk were considered game farm for viewing. That is one of the problems we have to address. The same thing when you look at Mr. Eisner at Minitonas--when I drove by there you know, the times when I visited the friendly riding of Swan, and certain times saw a whole raft of elk running around on Mr. Eisner's area, the man that supposedly was compensated for getting out of it, or one of them. So these are the problems that are out there. I do not know. I do not have the specific answer for it right now.

I met with those people that basically have elk right now that could be perceived as maybe elk ranching instead of just a game farm. We do not have that many game farms, but we have some. I met with a group, I think there were five or six of them, and at that time they were pushing for me to take and, you know, make some statement related to elk ranching, and I refused to make a statement. What I told them I would do during the course of the next couple of months. The time when I met with him I told him that I felt responsible to deal with the issue but I did not make a commitment that we were going to have elk ranching. Since that time I have had people that basically have phoned and said, we know you have made a decision, I want to be one of the guys on the list now. Well, that is definitely not factual. The best thing I can do is again repeat the fact that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) has been talking to me about the possibility of moving something forward. Nothing has happened to date and no commitment has been made other than that we are talking.

Unfortunately, at this time I cannot tell the member that we are going to go back into it or that we are not going into it. Certainly I can tell the member though that from the wildlife perspective and from the Department of Natural Resources that I am not supportive under this area here. If it comes forward as an agricultural initiative, that would have to be debated in public too, and the member full well knows that this is not a very easy question.

I could probably encourage her to sort of stand shoulder to shoulder with me as we walk through this challenging time related to elk ranching.

Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that the minister is setting the record straight because it is the impression and the message has been given to me that the minister did make a commitment that there would be elk ranching and now has backed off and said, well, now we have to study it. If that is not accurate, I am pleased that the minister did set the record straight because there are--

Mr. Driedger: Sorry, Mr. Chairman, I did not mean to interrupt, but my deputy was at that same meeting and he can confirm the fact that there was no commitment made towards elk ranching. It was going to be an item for discussion, and that basically is still the case.

Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that answer. The minister indicates that it is going to be a difficult discussion and it will. I encourage the minister if he takes this issue on and decides to move in the direction that it be studied very thoroughly and that there be input from the public.

I want to ask the minister whether he has also been contacted by any bands who are interested in setting up an elk ranch. What would be the policy there? What requirements, what restrictions--we hear the government say many times, well, we do not have any responsibility for the bands, we do not have to do different things with the bands. Does the provincial government have any responsibility, or can the provincial government have any ability to restrict if the bands were wanting to start elk ranching? What is the policy in this area?

Mr. Driedger: First of all, I will try to get back to the question that the member raised initially as to whether there have been requests from bands to get into elk ranching. The member asked whether there were bands who had requested to get into elk ranching, and yes, we have had requests along that line. The member asked also who would have the authority. The government, the Department of Natural Resources, under The Wildlife Act, would have the authority to dictate as to what happened with wildlife.

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(Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

The member is probably aware of the wood bison herd that we have at Waterhen. We are having great difficulty there right now, you know, but that was a project that was done jointly between the provincial, federal and the Waterhen Band, and so if it is going to be the intention to move into elk ranching, that portion of it would have to be addressed as well as to, you know, dealing with--we could not take and discriminate against bands. The rules would have to be applied, I guess, and we would have to sort that out as to how we do that and how we control that.

The member is probably aware that other provinces have game ranching, elk ranching, and some of the provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, it is quite an economic industry. The thing that makes it sensitive here is that the Manitoba elk that we have are genetically the most desired elk and, together with the disease factors, we try and keep our wild herds as pure as possible.

There are many implications, the member is aware of it, the velvet aspect of it, you know, the sale of sperm, the meat end of it, the inspection end of it. Other provinces that are in it, we can look to them, but it still has to be ultimately a political decision here by the government of the day as to whether we are going to get into it. And that is the thing that I am agonizing over at the present time and cannot give any more of a direct answer than I have given to this point. The decision is going to be made to change and reverse the decision that was made by her brothers specifically not to continue elk ranching. I mean, this is a thing that has to be made, and I will not make it by myself, I can tell the member that. But it is going to be a very emotional debate.

Ms. Wowchuk: Just getting back to if bands were wanting to establish elk ranching, what I am asking the minister is, if bands were deciding that they were getting into this elk ranching, would they fall under the same guidelines? I am looking to see, because of treaty status and reserve land, whether there is anything different that would apply to people on a reserve who were interested versus someone who was not on a reserve.

Mr. Driedger: I want to tell the member that it would make no difference whether it was a band or the Prime Minister. It does not make any difference. The Wildlife Act would apply to whoever so that there would be no variances that could take place.

Ms. Wowchuk: I guess the minister does have a major decision on his hands as to what is going to happen with this, and I would ask him that he look very seriously, should he decide to pursue this, and allow, along with the Minister of Agriculture, allow this to become an industry in this province, to look very carefully at what is happening in other provinces and what the implications are on the herds that are there, what the implications will be on recreational hunting and, in particular, what the implication will be on our breeding stock here in Manitoba which, as the minister indicated, is quite unique, and we would have to consider that if this becomes an industry what the implications are of bringing in new stock, because that will happen once you have an industry established.

You are going to see elk not only leaving the province, but I am sure that you will see elk coming into the province, breeding stock, and I would hope that the minister would look very carefully at what all of those implications would be on the resource that we have here in this province.

Mr. Driedger: I almost got the sense of feeling that the member for Swan River was helping me dictate policy here already to some degree on elk ranching.

Seriously though, these are the kinds of questions that are part of the decision-making process if the government would decide to move in that direction. My challenge would be, from my perspective as Minister of Natural Resources, is to make sure that the wildlife species of elk that we have, which is the most desired in the world I believe, that we would make sure that we protect that, that we do not jeopardize that.

I have to say, for example, in Saskatchewan it is considered a $60-million industry already. They have auction sales where they sell female elk for anywhere from $7,000 to $10,000 for an elk. I know that even in some of the marginal things that have happened in Manitoba, that some of the young elk have been sold abroad, to New Zealand and places like that, for tremendous money, which makes the whole thing so sensitive.

Once again, I think, the member by some of the questions she has asked realizes the problems that are related to this and the difficulties that I will be facing or the government will be facing in terms of making ultimately a decision. The status quo is not acceptable the way we have it right now; I can assure the member of that. So either one way or another it will be dealt with, it will be cleaned up, and I will try and make it as open and fair as possible.

Ms. Wowchuk: I appreciate the minister's comments on that and I want to say that I concur, that it has to be dealt with fairly. We have an unfair system here. We have people who for some time were supposed to get rid of their herds, people who have collected money from the government and not dispersed of their herds, an additional person who has gotten a licence for a game farm who is not operating a game farm. We have other people who have been told to disperse their herds and now are operating in Saskatchewan.

The minister has a responsibility to clean this up one way or another and treat everybody fairly on it. I look forward to it and I hope it is in the near future that the minister does address this and bring fairness because the minister has heard about this before and there are people who feel they are being treated very unfairly by this government. I look forward to the minister's addressing that issue very soon.

I have another area that I want to move on to dealing with wildlife as well. I wonder if the minister can indicate what the policy is on protection of endangered species. Can the minister indicate whether there is any legislation that protects wildlife or birds or any animals in this province, or whether all of that comes under federal jurisdiction?

Mr. Driedger: It is unfortunate possibly that the member was sort of preoccupied when the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) was going through this. We just went through this whole thing with The Endangered Species Act. We have an act that basically dictates that.

We also have, if the member looks on the organizational chart, we have The Endangered Species Advisory Board. That board meets and they basically deal not only with animals or with birds, they deal with flowers, they deal with weeds for that matter--well, I should not say weeds--but pretty well all fauna and everything. They cover the whole gamut in terms of what is considered endangered. We have a group that basically meets and makes recommendations to myself. The act basically allows us to do that. That is why we have raised some concerns with the federal minister, stating that we have our own act. Do not play with it, allow us to do our thing here.

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Maybe I can just say that, if the member will bear with me a little bit, six endangered species were designated by regulation in April of 1992. These are the burrowing owl, Baird's sparrow, loggerhead shrike, piping plover, peregrine falcon, and small white lady's slipper. Ferruginous hawk and western spiderwort were designated threatened by regulation in April of 1994. To date, the status of approximately a hundred species have been reviewed. These include vertebrae, invertebrates, and plants. So there is an ongoing thing. I have a very active group there that is very conscientious to make sure that spiders and crocuses, all the ones that are endangered, are protected.

Ms. Wowchuk: The reason I raised the question was there was an article, and I have it down in my office. It was in The Globe and Mail. It was an article about the lack of protection for various species, and they were discussing the number of butterflies that are taken out of this country, and that there is no protection. What they were talking about was, they talked about the federal wildlife act not being very forceful. They said that the whooping crane, which is listed on there, really has no protection.

So that is why I raised the issue with the minister, looking for clarification. If there is no strength in the federal endangered species act, I was looking for what kind of protection there is. If the minister says there is an act, I wonder whether--in this particular article, they were talking about the exploitation of butterflies, very rare butterflies that are being sold out or collected from Riding Mountain Park, Duck Mountain Park and there is no real way to pursue them. So that is what I was looking for. The minister indicates there is a board in place, and I am pleased to hear that. But that does not seem to make sense if the minister is saying that the provincial act is stronger than the federal act. Is that what he is saying, that we have more protection?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I want to tell the member, yes, our act is stronger than the federal act. In fact, we are very proud of what we are doing. The member made reference to some article, but just the other day further recommendations came forward of what we called--you see, there are certain categories; there are endangered, threatened, and protected species. It depends on--for example, the whooping crane, which we, incidentally, do not have here any more, but the whooping cranes are in Alberta. I had the occasion last winter to be out in the Padre Island, Corpus Christi area, where the whooping cranes nest in wintertime and then they come down to Alberta at that time.

There used to be whooping cranes in Manitoba, and they basically wintered in Florida. We now have our staff having discussions with the people in Florida; there is an organization in the States that is promoting the recovery of the whooping cranes that used to come to Manitoba, and we think we have some exciting things going. The whooping crane was one of the things that was brought forward to me the other day to be designated. I have to make sure whether it was protected, endangered--there are various categories.

It is the same thing as the grizzly bear. Grizzly bears, we used to have them in the province. You do not anymore. I use that only as an example. We also have under The Wildlife Act legislation that will not allow movement of, let us say, wildlife parts, et cetera; they cannot take out of the province other than the way we have it regulated.

I am told here that the feds have no legislation; they want to. We feel that this kind of legislation should be in our own province.

Ms. Wowchuk: Can the minister indicate over the last couple of years--many times I have raised in the House the issue on Lake Winnipegosis and the problem with cormorants. Quite often we are told--the responses have been that that is a protected species. Can the minister indicate then if that is actual fact? Is there a federal law that is protecting these birds, or are they protected under provincial legislation? What is the actual status of these birds, and is it possible to control them?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I thought if I skated long enough, the critic from Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) would come back and I would not get into this area of the cormorants. Oh, my. All right, well, let us talk about cormorants a little bit.

The cormorants are protected under the Manitoba act. Give me half a second, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make sure that I do not put false information on the record. My understanding is it is provincial legislation that basically gives the cormorants a protected thing. I have to tell the member that it is getting to be a very emotional issue because we have certain environmental groups, and I say this with due respect, that feel that the odd time a commercial fisherman I think probably has taken advantage and abused some of the cormorants. By and large, we have a tremendous amount of these birds around. If anybody ever doubts that, let him get up to Lake of the Woods, for example, and see the literally thousands of them.

This is not saying that I condone any illegal action to be taken, because they are protected. If we do not want them protected then we should change it, but once you have some bird or flower or animal on the protected list, you try and remove that. It is very difficult. There is a lot of emotion with that. I can recall when my predecessor, the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns) was the Minister of Natural Resources, and the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) was continually sort of raising questions about cormorants, and then the minister would always ask, well, what do you want me to do about it? We are virtually back in that same mode again.

I have to say that I am getting pressure because people feel that they have an illegally--let me do a little clarification here. I am getting some information now. They are protected under the migratory federal game legislation because the feds--even for hunting reasons you have to have a federal stamp to be able to hunt migratory birds because they are not Manitoba birds. They are from all over the place. I am told that they are protected under the federal migratory game laws, not the provincial ones, and that is why I was a little hesitant in terms of making a statement, but this is what we have here right now.

In order to change that, you would go through quite an upheaval, I suppose, if we wanted to remove them. But it is not like in removing a duck, for example. If you remove them, these people would not necessarily go out and shoot them for food purposes or stuff like that, because anybody looking at a cormorant, I do not think, would have very much desire to--it would not do much for the appetite anyway.

There are problems out there because there are commercial fishermen, and Lake Winnipegosis attributes part of the demise of the commercial fishing industry to the tremendous amount of cormorants that are on that lake. There are pros and cons in terms of technical information as to whether they really eat just the rough fish that are closer to the surface or whether they actually maybe have an impact on the better species of pickerel, jacks, whitefish, et cetera. Everybody has a view on that matter. I do not know what to do with it.

(Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson, in the Chair)

Ms. Wowchuk: I am not trying to put the minister on the spot on what he would do with the problem. I am looking for, what would be the process if the minister says that these birds are protected under the Migratory Birds Act? It is a federal act. What would be the process that we would have to go through if we wanted to have that bird removed? Would somebody from the provincial government have to lobby the federal government, or how would this come about?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, there is some effort being made by some of the member's constituents to try and meet with federal people in terms of asking what the process would be. I suppose, you know, if the initiative is being driven by people from your constituency, for example, and if we would maybe get a bit of an idea as to what is happening in other provinces as well, whether there would be a desire to move forward to ask the federal government to take and just remove them, but the problem I have, even let us assume that this process would move forward, that from local pressure that we would take and move as provincial governments to lobby the federal government to remove them from the protected species, from the list under the migratory game thing, which I think could probably happen.

But that still would not do anything really. I mean, would that mean that there would be a control program on it? You know, I am having some difficulty as to how we would deal with that at that point. I can tell the member, and the member is fully aware of this, that to move in that direction is going to be one big fight because there are people that feel very strongly that there should not be anything. Here is the man that is responsible for it, he is the one that basically said, you know, let them fly.

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Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate what the minister is saying, but it is my understanding that in some provinces, and I think on the east coast, that it has become such a nuisance that they do have control programs. I would ask that the minister--and I am not lobbying for a control program right now. I want to set the record straight. I am looking for what can be done and whether the minister has looked at what has happened in other provinces should the situation arise where it becomes so difficult that we cannot deal with it. The minister knows, he has heard from many people on it.

So, I guess what I am looking for is, has the minister looked at what is happening in other provinces, particularly on the east coast, how it was they were able to design a control program without causing many people to be very disturbed by what they were doing?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I am going to make a commitment to the member to find out exactly was has happened in other areas specifically on that and to get a better understanding of the full implications of how this would have to be, you know, whether these could be removed. The undertaking I give is only to get that information. That is not an undertaking that I will do anything with it, but certainly I will get that information and find out what is involved. At that point, I guess, somewhere along the line, depending on public input into the matter, some decision could ultimately be made.

But for the benefit of the member for Lakeside (Mr. Enns), we are into the cormorant debate, and we are trying to establish whether, you know, we have established that they are protected under the federal Migratory Birds Act, and there is some desire by some people that are pushing to have us move in that direction so that they can have that removed.

I will get that information and I can tell the member that I will, once I have that information, correspond directly with you on that.

Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chair, earlier on the minister and my colleague from Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) were going through this chart, the organizational chart, and the various boards that are under the government. There is another board that I do not see on this chart and that is the Elk Management Board. Is that board still in existence? I believe it is, and if so, why is it not on this chart? Where would it fall under, if the minister could clarify that?

Mr. Driedger: Not to try and deviate, the member would want to check the record as it went through with all these boards because the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) felt very keen in terms of finding out what the responsibilities of the various boards were. I gave him the ones that were nonactive and I gave him the ones that were based on demand and the ones that were active. With the exception of one board that basically is not on here, which is the compensation board for the Shellmouth Dam for that group. My understanding is there is no Elk Management Board at the present time. Whether it has been done away with, I am not aware. We do not know of a management board.

Ms. Wowchuk: Is there an elk advisory board? There is some board that is active in the Swan River area because there are people that have an elk problem--and I have a big long letter here that the minister has a copy of--people have been referred from the Department of National Resources to go to the Elk Management Board. It is the Elk Management Board that is supposed to deal with problems of elk in the area. There is a board or an advisory board--Ken Fulford.

Mr. Driedger: The member had me sort of uncertain there for a minute. There is a board, but it is a private-sector board. It is not funded and they do not report to me. We have not done any funding for them. It is a private group out there, by and large, that--and the member mentioned Ken Fulford--I know there is a group out there that has a very keen interest in terms of what happens with the out-groups. My information tells me it is a private-sector group; it does not report to the minister.

Ms. Wowchuk: I will look a little more deeply into it and come back to the minister later because it is my understanding that this board is called the Elk Management Board. It seems that they do have involvement and that they do play a role in how the elk should be managed and people are referred to them by the Department of National Resources. So I will get a little bit more information on it and I will come back because it is our impression that this a board that comes under the jurisdiction of this department. What I was looking for was I wanted to know what kind of funds were provided for them. If the minister could get that information for me, I would appreciate it.

Mr. Driedger: I still feel that it is not a government board. We will do some checking and see whether through direct or indirect sources that we have done some funding for various projects or stuff like that. I will get more detail on it.

Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): I would like to ask the minister a somewhat related question in an area related to the Freshwater Institute and the funding for freshwater research which, according to my sources within the federal research establishment, is being virtually eliminated by the minister responsible, Mr. Tobin, who is apparently meeting his quota cuts for federal reductions by focusing the entire cut on the freshwater side of his department.

Does the minister have any information to shed on that story?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, first of all, my department has not done any funding. They have not been funding any portion of that. The federal government in their wisdom, or lack of it, have virtually cut all the money that has to do with my Department of Natural Resources. Whether it is forestry, whether it is any joint program that we have had, they have virtually cut it. There are maybe a few programs that have not been terminated. Other than that, there has been nothing renewed. It is virtually wiped out. I feel it is very sad and tragic.

We expect even further damaging things to happen. When we had the minister's conference in Victoria, the federal minister at that time indicated that they were going to be pretty tough. Further offloading that is coming down, aside from the freshwater research thing there, the member is probably aware the decisions that the federal minister is making related to exempting the Island Lakes. Other changes that the federal government is basically looking at doing is offloading all their docks and wharfs throughout the province on the municipalities or private corporations or communities. So we are in for some very difficult times.

I think it is most unfortunate because our natural resources are the ones that have never really been that costly, and I think it is very important that if we want to retain those resources that we keep funding into there. I have to say that we have not from the provincial perspective funded this, and I do not know whether we are in a position where we can. We cannot pick up all the slack that the feds are dumping on us.

Mr. Sale: I thank the minister for that response.

My concern and the concern that was expressed to me by people who work within the federal research establishment is this. It is that fundamentally it appears that there will be nobody doing freshwater research in Canada, essentially, when these cuts are over. Now this has enormous impacts for the people of Ontario, for example, with the Great Lakes being the source of water for a huge number of places. It has very large impacts on us in Manitoba given our fisheries, given our drinking water questions, especially ones that cross borders. It impacts on the proposed storage of nuclear wastes at Pinawa because a great deal of the research that supports whether that is a good thing or a bad thing has to do with water flows and water seepage and emissions of gases from some of the rock structures.

I am not expecting and I would not advocate that the provincial government try and pick up all of that slack, but I would like to ask the minister, have you discussed with your colleagues in other provinces the mounting of a substantial protest or lobby or information that would show the risk to which Canadians who live in the freshwater parts of our country are exposed to by virtue of having no tracing of pesticide residues, no tracing of any of the polluting issues, no tracing of the degradation from, for example, any of the plant species that are finding their way across--I have forgotten--purple loosestrife for one example, zebra muscles is another example?

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This I think is one of those things that Canadians are not aware of in terms of the impact of these cuts, and I am not satisfied that I am hearing a clear message from this government about the degree of, I think, hazard. It is not just a question of pure research no longer being done, but the capacity to monitor real hazards is going to be gutted by this cut as well.

So I would like to know if the province has a strategy to address this serious question.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I think the comments are relatively fair from the member. I just have to say that at the time when the federal minister outlined--this was prebudget strategy I suppose, and he sort of raised some of the warning signs of what they are probably going to be implementing and then, ultimately, implemented without any further consultation.

It was my understanding from him that prior to some of these things happening that there would be an opportunity for--I felt federal Minister Tobin was responsible, that he would take and give the opportunity to have further dialogue directly with him. I have had some dialogue with him, raising some of the concerns, and it is just like with the federal forestry minister. The decisions are made and we have raised our objections. We will continue to raise our objections, but it is like blowing into this wind. It does not make much difference to them, but I really appreciate the concerns that the member is raising in terms of the impact that it will have on a province like Manitoba.

All the progress that has been developed for years in terms of developing the research and bringing the concerns forward so that we can be responsible environmentally is all going to go down the can, so to speak. I do not know how we can continue to operate that way. We certainly as provincial government cannot replace that. I will deal, together with my environmental colleague the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings), to see whether there are some ways that we can take and tap into some of this, to do some of this. But it is virtually hopeless, I think.

Mr. Sale: I appreciate the minister's comments. I am asking for a strategy and a willingness to inform Manitobans very clearly of the impact of these cuts, which we also will be attempting to do.

My last question is, does the minister know at this point the actual number of jobs, the actual cuts and the phasing of these reductions over the next period of time? Does he have that information? Would he make it available, if he does have it?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, my deputy tells me that we have approximations, but I am not comfortable putting the figures on without having a better view on that. I am prepared to take and by the next sitting of this committee try and have a much more definite position on that in terms of the impact that it will have had by the federal cutbacks, talking of the research end of it as well as some of the others.

The question I have of the member: You want this broken out as to on the fishery end of it and the forestry end of it or do you want a total picture of the whole thing?

Mr. Sale: I think the detail is always helpful, if it is not too much detail, but whatever the department has available in terms of those estimates. I am also concerned about the experimental lakes station which is not in Manitoba, as you know, but employs a good number of Manitobans at the station and brings to the University of Manitoba and the institute a reputation for world-class research which very few people in Manitoba are aware of. The ELA station hosts scientists from around the world and is probably the most widely cited location and source for this kind of research, and yet it apparently also is at risk.

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that the time when these things were coming down the pike, the federal cuts, each department was sort of summarizing the impact that the federal budget had on them and was being co-ordinated through the premiers opposite at the time. I will try and give as much detailed information by the next time as we can in terms of the impact that it basically has had on us job-wise, and maybe we can even try and get the financial figure impact of the dollar value itself of the changes that have taken place. It makes it very awkward, especially in this department, having been here less than two years.

I have a very, very strong affiliation to this department and the importance of the resource aspect of it to all Manitobans. I always say, there is not a person in the world or in this province that is not affected by what happens in this department, either through whatever it is, whether it is forestry, trees, animal wildlife, fisheries, birds, grass or flowers, it is all impacted to some degree by here. I sometimes feel that we do not treat it with enough financial respect so some of these things can take place, but that is my own view on it. I will try and get what information I can.

Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chairman, there are several more issues that I want to raise. The minister has given us a lot of liberty in moving throughout the department, but I have some questions with regard to policy and, particularly, with staff that is travelling.

I want to ask the minister, when his staff is on the road is there a designated list of hotels that people have to stay at, or do they have a choice of where they can stay?

Mr. Driedger: Mr. Chairman, my director here tells me that there is a suggested list of where they should stay. They do not demand them to stay there but they have a suggested list. I assume that if they stayed too many times in the Ritz when they should be staying at the Concord, and there is a big difference in price, that ultimately the suggestions might get a little stronger. But my understanding is, by and large, I believe the majority of employees go by the preferred list and adhere to that.

If the member has some information, I will try and get some of it.

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: The honourable member for Swan River for a very short comment.

Ms. Wowchuk: I was looking for clarification on whether the people had to stay at those particular hotels, and what I am--

Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being six o'clock, committee rise.