URBAN AFFAIRS

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Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Would the Committee of Supply come to order, please. This section of the Committee of Supply has been dealing with the Estimates of the Department of Urban Affairs. Would the minister's staff please enter the Chamber at this time.

We are on Resolution 20.1 Administration (b) Executive Support.

Hon. Jack Reimer (Minister of Urban Affairs): Before we begin, on Friday, the member for Wellington asked for the terms of reference for a feasibility study on a permanent voters' list and also the membership regarding the provincial land-use committee. I have that information for her, and I will just maybe give it to one of the Pages to bring it across. Thank you.

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Mr. Chair, I would like to continue on with the Executive Support line, and I have a question that I believe I recall seeing in last year's Estimates. Of course, I cannot find it now, but I think I did see it. Anyway, it was talking about special operating agencies. The minister was referring to this as a new kind of entity within the department, and I am wondering if the minister can give some background on this item and how far it has been extended into the department, if at all.

Mr. Reimer: Mr. Chairperson, in regard to the Department of Urban Affairs, because of its structure and its make-up, the application of SOAs or special operating agencies have really not been entertained or looked at in any type of a direction just because of the structure of our department. No, we have not looked at anything like that.

Ms. Barrett: I understand that, but could the minister, just for my own information, give me a general outline of what SOAs are?

Mr. Reimer: Mr. Chairman, SOAs or special operating agencies are set up in various areas within government. A good example is the Fleet Vehicles department. In essence, what it does is it sets up a faction of competitiveness in analysis and critical decision making regarding the accountability of various aspects of funding within the department. It sets up a goals attainment and a goals achievement type of directive within the department--pardon me, within that particular area of concentration, as I mentioned, for example, fleet vehicles.

In essence, what it does is it sets up a competitive nature within the department to look after, not only their budget but be competitive in the, for lack of a better word, private sector in an analysis of where the money is spent and the best accountability and the best direction and the best bang for your buck, if you want to call it.

Ms. Barrett: I will try and get some more information from a department that may have more of an opportunity, like Government Services, the minister said.

I will go onto another topic, if I may. This one is dealing with an issue that has had some public awareness attached to it and also some concerns raised by various people. It is dealing with the amendment to Plan Winnipeg request from the city that would redesignate land west of the Perimeter Highway between Saskatchewan Avenue and Portage Avenue to a neighbourhood policy area in Plan Winnipeg.

I am speaking in particular now about a letter that was written by the minister on May 19 to the mayor of the City of Winnipeg outlining the approval, subject to the following conditions of the request of the City of Winnipeg to amend Plan Winnipeg. I would like to ask some questions in that regard if the minister has the material.

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Mr. Reimer: As mentioned by the member for Wellington, the property in question is the property just on the other side of the Perimeter. This was, in essence, a concept for sort of, from what I understand, an auto mall set up in that particular corner. What it will do also, it will realign one of the road entrances so it lines up with, I believe it is called, Camp Manitou Road in there for a better access and ability for traffic flow. It is all part of, as mentioned, Plan Winnipeg. The analysis was gone through with public hearings. There was public presentation, and the Council of Women, I believe, were also in favour of this plan that was put forth.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, my understanding is that the letter that the minister wrote to the mayor was that the Plan Winnipeg by-law would be amended if the questions dealing with servicing and commercial use were addressed.

The question I have is that it appears from this letter that the minister has written to the mayor that he in fact is just sending back to the city that which it had already done, that the approval has been given before the conditions have been met. Is that accurate?

Mr. Reimer: It has been approved subject to the conditions that have been outlined in the letter. The conditions were regarding servicing. It is to promote the efficiency in servicing the development in accordance with the plan. An analysis shall be required of the overall cost of servicing the land to ensure that the property can be economically and efficiently supplied with the full range of services, and that the cost for these services can be apportioned fairly to this development and also the condition of commercial use in accordance with the Plan Winnipeg policy 5A-26, limited shopping centres. Limitations shall be placed on the floor area for the department-store-type uses to ensure that the development does not constitute a regional shopping centre.

Ms. Barrett: So what your letter is saying is that this will not be approved finally unless the city writes back to you saying that, yes, they have conformed with these conditions?

Mr. Reimer: My understanding is that they have approved the by-law and they recognize these conditions already.

Ms. Barrett: So under the servicing paragraph it says an analysis shall be required of the overall costs for servicing the lands. Has that analysis been undertaken, and if so, has the minister seen that analysis?

Mr. Reimer: An analysis does have to be done on the overall servicing costs of that property. The City of Winnipeg will not get into a development agreement until they know what type of costs are involved and what the commitment and where the direction of funding is, so that in essence there has to be a cost analysis done before there is a commitment.

Ms. Barrett: So who does that cost analysis?

Mr. Reimer: The City of Winnipeg and the developer will do those cost analyses.

Ms. Barrett: So the province has no more jurisdiction in this regard, having written a letter of May 19?

Mr. Reimer: Yes, that is right. That is correct. I should point out too that there has to be an awareness that the conditions are met, and then if they are not then the province would be involved again at that point.

Ms. Barrett: How does the minister know when an awareness that the conditions have been met has taken place?

Mr. Reimer: I point out that staff are in touch and monitor and are aware and cognizant of what is happening, and there is not an area that they cannot be made available to or aware of regarding the development on it.

Ms. Barrett: Will one of the elements of servicing and the overall cost for servicing be water?

Mr. Reimer: Yes. Water, sewage, drainage, all those things would be evaluated.

Ms. Barrett: I think this is an example that gets me into the next area that I wanted to spend some time on, which is Capital Region Strategy, and the concerns, very extensive concerns that we have about the direction or, in some cases I believe, the lack of direction this government is showing in regard to the capital region.

I think that this power mall, as it has been described in the media, is an example of what can happen when you avoid taking leadership and development issues, when you eliminate, as was done in 1993, the urban limit line in favour of a more flexible area designation strategy which in and of itself may not be a bad thing. When you do not have anything to put in its place, you end up with ad hoc development, you end up with something that appears to us to be not controlled from any central planning framework. There does not appear to be any real guidelines against which to judge a project. There certainly is not any overall sense of what is or should be the look and appearance and function of the various elements of the capital region.

What I would like to do is to talk for a bit of time actually with the minister about the Capital Region Strategy, using as a framework the Capital Region Strategy workbook that has been put in place and is in the process of revision and finalization.

I would like to ask first a specific question. The workbook talks about the process that will be undertaken and the revised strategy that will come out of the consultation, and the revisions will be adopted by the Manitoba Round Table on the Environment and Economy, the Manitoba government and the municipalities and the capital region. I am wondering if the minister can explain the process whereby that strategy will be adopted? Will it be under the guise of the Capital Region Committee that will adopt it, or will there be a more formal adoption process?

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. Is the committee at this time prepared to pass 1.(b) Executive Support? I notice the honourable member has moved to 3.(c) Region Sustainable Development Strategy.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, at the beginning of the Estimates process we sort of decided that we could deal with pretty much every issue under this one. So I will leave it up to the minister to say.

Mr. Chairperson: Number one, it is not up to the minister, it is up to the committee. The committee will make that decision, and we had made the decision that we would deal with the resolution 20.1, not all the resolutions as a unit.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Mr. Chairperson, just for clarification, I believe it was the consensus of the committee the other day that in fact it would be all right with the minister and the member for Wellington and others who were in attendance to be able to ask policy questions, some detail, and if in fact it is too much of a detail, the minister would then get back to us once we hit that particular line in order to facilitate maybe a different staff being warranted at the table. I do not have any problem whatsoever with what the member for Wellington is proposing, and we should just continue on.

Mr. Reimer: Agreed.

Mr. Chairperson: Okay, so is there leave then to deal with the entire Department of Urban Affairs as a whole? Leave? Leave is granted.

Mr. Reimer: We keep staff moving all over the place here. Thank you very much.

The Capital Region Strategy, I would like to point out to the member for Wellington, is something that came about in 1989 because of a lot of the concerns that were brought forth not only by the department but by the municipalities and the R.M.s around the city of Winnipeg in trying to come to some sort of an understanding and a direction of achievement and a concern of various aspects of growth and development and movement of peoples and movements of industry in and around Winnipeg and the various municipalities.

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The committee itself, as been pointed out by the member, is made up of I believe 16 municipalities plus the City of Winnipeg, and they meet on an average of two to three times a year. As mentioned, this has been ongoing since 1989 to try to come to a consensus of opinions and a consensus of direction. The study and the workbook that was brought out, the workbook on the Capital Region Strategy, Partners for the Future, was unanimously adopted by the municipalities, the R.M.s around the area and the City of Winnipeg. So you are looking at 16, in total, partnerships in the adaptation of the strategy.

The strategy is a workbook. It is a guide. It is an all-encompassing direction covering multifaceted areas. It is working within the partnerships of regional citizenship, the quality of environment. It is talking about the directed growth, the physical infrastructure within the area. It is looking at the economic strengths of the province and the region through the socioeconomic security for people. There is a flexibility of the workforce that is looked at, not only the youth but the workers. There is the striving for knowledge and technology and the sharing of these things through the advancement and support of the provincial and the regional economic development.

The fiscal soundness of the surrounding areas are taken into accountability of what is best for not only one area but for all areas, and there is the social quality which is naturally involved for the people that are moving or involved with the decision making in respect to any type of fostering of direction. Naturally, the quality of life is involved for the area, which must be maintained and enhanced. So there is a fairly broad spectrum of direction that is outlined in the book, and it gives the opportunity for consensus building within the whole area of the region for some sort of direction, a commonality of goals and an achievement that has been put forth.

The province's role is there as a facilitator to try to encourage this type of growth, to try to come up with a consensus, and being faced and recognizing that we are dealing with elected officials, not only within the city of Winnipeg but also all the municipalities and the R.M.s that are around Winnipeg and the small towns. I believe Stonewall is involved and some of the other areas. So you have elected officials who are all trying to bring forth various directions on what is best for the whole region, including the city of Winnipeg.

The Department of Urban Affairs, in a sense, acts as a catalyst or a facilitator in trying to bring these various factions together. The idea of being the sole mediator and the sole direction of decision making really is, to a degree, I guess, a difference in philosophy between the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) and government.

I think this is evident in what we look at in the various elements of government, not only here in Manitoba but across Canada, in a sense of people are wanting to be able to be part of change. They want to be able to contribute to change. They are looking at the fact that the heavy hand of government or, as the old cliché, government in your face, is going by the way. The people are wanting to be part of the decision making.

This government feels that if people have the choice, they will make choices that are not only good for themselves but good for their citizens and the people that are involved with their community. So the strategy itself, with this book, is a framework. It is a partnership. It is something to strive toward. There are quite a few and various objectives within the book, but it gives a broad sense of trying to accomplish in a direction that it is going.

At the same time, as the various aspects are being looked at, there is the opportunity for involvement. There is the opportunity for input, and, with anything, what possibly was considered in 1989 is out of vogue in 1995. This gives us the opportunity, through this committee, to look at these types of changes and try to incorporate them into a better plan, not only for Winnipeg but for all areas in the surrounding area.

So it is a good working relationship that we are fostering, but, at the same time, to have the department as the final authority and the direction of authority and the department that is the only one to give direction, takes away from the meaningful relationship that can be fostered through all the various communities and the various people that are, as I mentioned, elected by the people.

As we come into 1995, we are very, very aware of the fact that we have an election coming up.

This is a good time from the people who are seeking election, not only here in Winnipeg but people who are seeking election in the municipalities, to come forth with visions of what they feel is best for their area and the leadership that they can come forth.

The people that are going to be put forth for election, not only here in the city of Winnipeg, from the mayor right down to councillors, all have an obligation to tell the people what they feel is important, what they feel is a sense of accomplishment that they would like to feel for the city of Winnipeg. These are the types of things, and, if there is consensus and there is a willingness to make change and there is the desire to make change, the government and the department are there to ensure that this type of facilitation may indeed come about.

So I feel fairly optimistic and quite anticipatory that the people who are going to be elected will be able to put forth their ideas as to where they feel the services are best needed, where the accountability of services is going to come forth, where the priority of the spending should be, where the accountability is of the monies spent, where the tax dollars are going and what type of return the people are coming back for.

What we are faced and what we are going to be exposed to in a very short time, before the end of this year, is the fact that a lot of people are going to be running for election. They will have platforms to build their campaign on, and it will be interesting to see what type of priorities they put, whether they feel that they can tax and spend, or they can look at things in a very analytical and in a very critical manner as to what is best, not only for the taxpayers but what is good for the environment and what is good for the sustainable development of the region, including Winnipeg.

I feel fairly optimistic and feel the strategy that we have put forth through the capital region study is an excellent opportunity for anybody who is looking at a political career; they can run very, very strongly on these proposals that we have brought forth.

Ms. Barrett: I appreciate the minister's comments. He certainly has given me some food for further discussion.

I would like to make a couple of comments at the beginning. Number one, I do not think anyone on this side of the House--and I certainly do not believe I have ever said that the provincial government should be the sole director or have entire control over anything. If I have, I was misinterpreted.

I believe that we have a very challenging and I think unique situation in the province of Manitoba where we have a capital region--a capital city actually, not even the region--the city of Winnipeg with almost two-thirds of the population of the province residing within its borders and approaching 75 percent of the population in the capital region. No other province certainly west of the Lakehead has anything approaching this kind of challenge. I think it is very definitely a challenge.

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The other thing I would like to say is I think that city councillors, reeves and the elected officials in all parts of the capital region will continue, as I am sure they already have, to look very carefully at the issues that have been raised and the suggested solutions that have been sketched out by the workbook. I would put emphasis on "sketched out" because I think in many cases one of the major weaknesses of the document so far is that there is no leadership given in the directives.

I know the minister and I have had our discussions about the concept of leadership before. It is very clear to me from what he has just said and from the answers in Question Period and other avenues that we do have a distinct, very clear difference in how we see the role of leadership.

In the minister's own supplementary Estimates it says in Historical Background: Urban Affairs was first established in 1971, coinciding with the new City of Winnipeg Act and recognizing the uniqueness of the Manitoba situation in which its capital city contains over half the population of the province.

The role and mission of the department is to develop and co-ordinate provincial policies, not in isolation, of course, but in conjunction. I would suggest, Mr. Minister, with all due respect that the role of the Department of Urban Affairs is in the area of leadership as well as facilitation and of being a catalyst. There is no question the number of people in the department preclude lots and lots of direct programming, because that is not the nature of the department nor was it intended to be the nature of the department.

To abrogate, which I think the minister has begun to do, one of the major roles of the department, particularly in dealing with the issues that are facing the capital region, is not the way to go, I feel. I think you can be conciliatory and facilitative and still retain a leadership role in dealing with the issues facing the capital region.

The minister said that the communities will make choices that are good for themselves and their communities. My response to that is, yes, one would hope that were the case, but we are dealing with, as is brought out in this workbook, a huge range of issues and realities and facts that are facing the capital region. We have the city of Winnipeg which has all of the characteristics of an urban centre. Luckily, some of the negative characteristics have not become as fully functional as they have in some of the cities in the United States, but the potential for that is found in the city of Winnipeg and in the facts and the trends that are identified in this workbook.

In addition, there are the other communities that are part of the capital region and they have among themselves a range of issues that they are dealing with. Selkirk is a community that has been established for quite a long time. It has its own centre, urban centre if you will, and suburbs that are coming about. It has a stability and a history that rivals Winnipeg as far as length of time and the fact that there is something that is Selkirk. Some of the other communities are just in the process of establishing that identity, and in some of them the actions or lack of actions on the part of this government are precluding them from being able to come up with an identity.

Part of the comments in the provincial land-use policies say that you should do your development around the urban core, that you should not string things out. You should develop from the inside out so that you do not have an octopus effect with strip malls and strip actions all the way along those trunk highways and those corridors. What I see with the Chipman Power Mall and with the East St. Paul and the Headingley proposals is exactly that, an allowance by this government for that kind of development to take place.

I am saying that has been allowed to happen because there are 16 communities involved in the capital region. You are not going to get consensus, I believe, on any meaningful level when you deal with these issues because the self-interest, enlightened self-interest--I will give the enlightened self-interest--of the people who are representing the community of Stonewall versus the community of Headingley versus the community of East St. Paul, Selkirk, any one of them versus the community of Winnipeg, they are not congruent in many basic important ways.

We could deal with the issue of water, the issue of development, all of the issues that are identified. The issue of population is never dealt with in any meaningful way in this workbook. It outlines the problem very, very well I believe, the out-migration, the fact that the city is becoming older and less affluent while the suburban communities are becoming younger and more affluent.

What are we going to do about that? Well, this workbook says the trend will continue. There is nowhere in this workbook that I can find nor in any of the policy-area actions that meaningfully addresses this, and I believe part of the reason is that the committee is made up of 16 equal partners. I understand that there are problems with not doing it that way, but when you have one community that holds over half of the population in the whole province, with all of the urban characteristics that it has, attempting to work with 15 other communities that have more or less suburb and exurb and rural coming together, old, new, medium size, there is just too broad a range here for there not to be some recognition--I would suggest both--on the part of the committee structure and make-up as well as very definitely some leadership on the part of the provincial government. I do not see that taking place.

In speaking with the leadership--and then I will let the minister respond--when we look at the policies in the various areas and the actions that are to be taken, it talks about the three levels of the public sector, Manitoba government, municipal government and other--I will be honest with you, in many cases I have no idea who that other public sector group might be which I think is another major downfall of the workbook at this point--vs the private sector and NGOs. I think it is interesting that category is not split out. I think it would be much more helpful if the private sector and NGO categories were split out because they are very different groups of organizations--and then finally individuals.

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Nowhere here does it ever say which one of these categories should take the lead in developing the action plan that is underlined here. Sometimes there are only two or three of the categories that are checked, but there are cases where there are all five categories checked, and nowhere does it say one of these five has the most logical leadership role. I am saying a number of things here, but there are some major concerns that we have with the workbook and even more so with the underlying philosophy that I see pervading this and pervading your comments, and that is very concerning to us.

Mr. Reimer: The member for Wellington has mentioned a few areas, and I would like to just comment on them in regard to development in and around Winnipeg and that. I would just like to point out that there are various departments within government that are also involved in the achievement of any type of direction that the municipalities or the City of Winnipeg is looking at. For example, the Department of Rural Development is involved to a degree with plans that are brought forth on a municipal development area, so we have not only this department involved, but you have government involved through Rural Development.

The Environment department plays a significant role in a lot of development--well, I should not say a lot--in the development of plans that are put forth. A very good example is the call for public input regarding the solid waste management proposals that have been brought forth for hearings in August, I believe, August 15 and 16, and it has the opportunity for even some other dates, 17 and 18 or 14, 15--in and around that area anyway. There is the opportunity for input on a public basis to be part of any type of decision making, so there is more and more the achievement of trying to get public involvement. The co-ordination of the plans is achieved through provincial approval, so the province is involved in a sense through the various departments.

The trend, as the member mentioned, is there are people that are moving out and that. I guess you have to look at the amenities, the social characteristics that our people are looking at, whether they feel that the life in the country, if you want to call it, is a better quality or a better direction that they feel they want to get into. They may look at the movement of people because of the fact that they may be more recreationally involved with some of the sporting events or recreation in the country that they move out for.

There are various reasons why people move out of the urban area. I guess one of the biggest areas is the fact that, as has been alluded to from time to time, maybe the taxes that they feel they are paying are too high and they can feel that it is justified to move, but at the same time they have to look on the other hand at what they may lose on one hand, they may have to gain on the other hand. Possibly they have to look at commuting time. They have to look at the social interaction that they would enjoy here in the city with all the amenities and the tremendous amount of art and culture that we have here in Winnipeg that everybody is very, very proud of. They have to look at the lack of that if they move out to the country.

They have to look at possibly the insurance costs regarding fire, and the servicing of policing is at a different advantage. When you are here in the city, you are very close to any type of help, whether it is through the police or through the hospitals and through the emergency, so there are certain advantages that everybody weighs in their decision as to why and where they stay, whether it is in the city or in the rural area.

The availability of choice will always be there, but the administrative leadership that we provide through the government is something that is there. We can put in the regulations through the Environment department. We can put in the regulations through Rural Development for the development of the plant. The Capital Region Strategy, that we referred to just recently, provides the policy framework for the preparation and the amendments of these plans by the municipalities.

So there is a leadership role that is being played by this government on the administrative side and the fact of what the regulations and the rules must be for any type of development. So there is that type of an awareness, and, as mentioned, Environment is very, very aware of and involved with any type of new development or developmental plans as mentioned--with Rural Development also. So there is a close liaison between the three departments as to what is happening not only in Winnipeg but what is happening in and around the area. It is conscientious decision making that the government feels is best in looking at any type of development plan so that it fits into the criteria of sustainable development and the quality of life that people are looking for.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, the minister has spoken quite consistently on the issue of choice as it relates to the Capital Region Strategy. He talked just now about the kinds of issues that people look at in determining where they are going to live, the choices that they are going to make. Yes, that is true. There are people for whom this is an option, but the majority of the people who live in the city of Winnipeg do not have that choice. They do not have the financial wherewithal to be able to go and buy a house in a suburban development even within the city boundaries, and they most certainly do not have the choice to go to the large lot developments of St. Germain or Vermette or East St. Paul.

Anyone knows who drives through those areas, as we more and more are doing as we go through that corridor that is being developed, for example, from Winnipeg to Selkirk, the people who have those choices in front of them are not the people--a large number of them live in the older communities, the older portions of the city of Winnipeg, the core and the older, what used to be, suburban developments. For many of those people, as I said earlier, the city is becoming a city more and more of the poor people, of the elderly and of people who do not have choice.

One of the major things that is a problem with the underlying philosophy here of, let all 16 individuals come together and make these decisions by consensus, is that they are not making choices for those people. The workbook itself talks about the problems that municipalities have in reaching any kind of consensus. On page 11, for example, it says while there is a formal co-ordinated approach lacking--now this is talking in terms of institutional and regulatory framework--municipalities often compete rather than co-operate with each other.

These statements are made as the reality facing the municipalities in the capital region, and yet nowhere in this book and nowhere in the minister's comments do we find, having recognized that reality, a set of principles or a set of actions that addresses that reality, that you are not going to get those 16 municipalities. Even if you took the city of Winnipeg out of the mix, you would have a lot more homogenous group, but it certainly would still have a huge range of issues and perspectives.

When you put the city of Winnipeg into that group you have a challenge that is nowhere addressed adequately in this workbook about the fact that there is no formal mechanism, even in the action plans. There is no formal mechanism to say, if you have this as an action plan this is how it is going to be implemented. Who is going to take the lead in this?

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I guess there is not an addressing of a dispute resolution mechanism to talk in terms of trade treaties. Perhaps there are some parallels here that we need to deal with. I do not want to try and make a comparison where one is not valid. But when you are dealing with individuals in communities like this you cannot avoid the necessity for coming up with what happens if people cannot agree.

In families we have that happen all the time. Often there is a hierarchy in most families, the parents on top and the kids underneath. We can argue whether that is the best way to deal with intrafamilial situations, but it is something that is there and it does show a person or a part of the system that has the responsibility to take charge.

Nowhere in this Capital Region Strategy nor in the minister's comments is there a recognition that consensus is difficult at the best of times. When you are dealing with these massive issues facing the capital region it is going to be virtually impossible to reach on any kind of a level of any meaningful activity.

You can have consensus to meet three times a year for a dinner meeting, which is my understanding that the Capital Region Committee meets. You can have consensus that there will be minutes taken of those meetings, but beyond that, when you get down to any real discussions, I think it is going to be very difficult for that to take place. Again, this strategy does not take into account the fact that the issues facing the city of Winnipeg are very different from the issues facing the rural communities and the ex-urban communities and the suburban communities surrounding Winnipeg.

When Winnipeg has only one-sixteenth of the membership of this committee and three-quarters or 80 percent or whatever of the population of the region, that is not a good sign. What that says to me, Mr. Minister, is that the end result of the implementation of this workbook is going to be more or less development at the whim of the developers, that there will not be a check-and-balance system established to ensure that the needs of all of the residents of the capital region are met.

My statement to you, Mr. Minister, is that in this workbook and in what you have said, the residents of the city of Winnipeg are getting short shrift, and they are going to continue to do so because, Mr. Minister, nowhere in this book does it talk about what we need to do to reverse the population trends, what we need to do to reverse the tax base, which is shrinking in the city and expanding in the other parts of the capital region. Nowhere does it talk about what we need to do to try and avoid the doughnut that faces many of the urban centres in North America and that we are so far managing to hold at bay, minimally.

This workbook and the philosophies underlying it do not address those major issues, and I would like to ask the minister if he shares any of my concerns and what he is prepared to do about it.

Mr. Reimer: One of the things that I would like to point out to the member for Wellington, I agree with her when she says that Winnipeg and Manitoba have a uniqueness. We are very much a part of a structure that has the highest percentage of our population in one particular area, which is the city of Winnipeg.

One of the comments that was made, and I guess it was attributed to some other politician, was the fact that when you sleep next to an elephant anything that moves you feel it. I cannot remember who said that, but I think it was another politician. Anyways, it is true. And because of this uniqueness this is one of the reasons why the Province of Manitoba got involved with the capital region study, to try to recognize that there is this inequity or this disproportionate amount of people in our great province of Manitoba concentrated in one area.

Winnipeg is unique, as outlined by the member, in our deliverance of services and our people who are involved. The member mentioned the seniors and the things that they are faced with. At the same time, it has to be recognized that a lot of people in the rural area, when they retire, they like to come to Winnipeg because they have all the conveniences of services, they have the shopping available, they have the availability of the arts and the entertainment that is here. So you do not only have the population moving out of Winnipeg, you have a population of people coming in to Winnipeg. In fact, I believe one of the statistics that I saw was that about 17 percent of the workforce in Winnipeg actually leaves Winnipeg every morning to work outside of the city of Winnipeg. So that you know, that is where they have their working conditions.

You have got people coming and going out of the city in a sense, and at the same time Winnipeg becomes a magnet for a lot of the spending--the monies that are accumulated, the money that is spent through various aspects of entertainment or commodities that are purchased, so that Winnipeg also becomes a very strong merchandising centre for people to spend their money in. There is a benefit within the city of Winnipeg of all the sales tax that they should be getting.

I would like to mention to the member that in 1994 when there was the allocation of provincial grants to the City of Winnipeg, we ranked as one of the highest in Canada in the amount of money that we give to the city for their sources of revenue. In fact, in 1994 we contributed 17.5 percent of their monies to the City of Winnipeg compared to, say, a city like Regina where the province of Saskatchewan only contributed 7.5 percent. In Edmonton it was down to 6.5, and in Calgary it was 6 percent. So when we contribute over 17 percent of the city's monies by grants to the city, we are contributing an awful lot of money to the city for their use and for providing services.

The allegation that the city people are moving out of the city a lot of times can be attributed, and I hear it and I am sure the member has heard it, to the fact that they say the taxes are too high in the city of Winnipeg. The taxes that I am paying on my property do not compare to where the money is going. To a degree, in fact, believe it or not, just this morning I went and paid my property tax, and it was hard paying that money when I had to go to the bank this morning and pay for my property. I do not begrudge the fact because I enjoy my life and my exposure to what is available in the city of Winnipeg, but a lot of people are saying that they do not want to pay these taxes.

I guess the City of Winnipeg has to look at the fact that, well, maybe they should be looking at the services that they are providing, and maybe their services they are providing have to be changed. Maybe they have to look at a system where there is some competition for the services that they are providing. Maybe they have to look at the servicing out of contracts for certain types of facilities. At the same time I guess the City of Winnipeg has to look at the elimination maybe of some programs that they feel they should no longer be involved with.

Some of these things are often attributed slowly, just like a set of dominoes, to the fact of where the money is accumulating up and the taxes keep going up, and finally the people are saying, well, maybe I have had enough of it. The City of Winnipeg has to show leadership in the sense that, well, if we want to keep attracting these people to stay in Winnipeg, and if we want to attract businesses to stay in Winnipeg, we have to look at possibly eliminating some of these services or cutting back or being more competitive in our bidding for the supply of services, and possibly government has to look all over for ways of improvising where the money is coming from.

As has been pointed out within the department and in other various departments, with the scarcity of funds and the fact that the federal Liberal government is cutting back on transfer payments to the province, all these things are directly proportionate to the services that we are able to provide. The provincial government has to look at where its monies are going to go and where the priorities are going to be, and in essence the City of Winnipeg has to do the same. They cannot continually look at the province and say, well, we have problems, come and solve them; we have problems, come and give us more money; we have problems, allow us to raise more taxes. Those are the types of things that people are getting tired of. They are saying, no more, no more taxes, no more government in your face. We want to be able to enjoy the quality of life and maybe we have to sacrifice some of the amenities and some of the things that we take for granted.

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At the same time, there is an opportunity for change through, possibly, the privatization of some of the services, or the farming out of some of the services, or the cost-sharing of some of the services, the availability of selling some of their services. The City of Winnipeg has tremendous assets in some of the services that they provide that possibly they should be looking at selling them to the municipalities around so that the municipalities do not have to duplicate their facilities, that the City of Winnipeg could supply some of these services. A good example is the 911 service. Possibly the City of Winnipeg should be selling that service to the rural area.

These are the types of areas where they have to be more innovative. There has to be more of a conscious effort of accountability of funds, priority of funds. It is going to be difficult, there is no doubt about it. The forum that we provide through the urban strategy committee is one of the most positive things that can be brought forth because it is a unique situation. Manitoba is totally unique. Compared to what you look at in some of the other provinces where you have a diversity of population and a population base spread out over a large area, we here in Manitoba are very concentrated in Winnipeg. In that analogy the member from Wellington is very correct. We have to work at trying to find a solution and an area of commonality.

The elected officials that are involved, the people that are not only here in the city, but the mayor and people now are recognizing this more and more. They are working towards an efficiency in their fiscal capital budget and the budgeting that they are doing now. There are slow and methodical areas of concentration that they can come up with in trying to look at it.

I think the people are saying to us, as elected officials, we want more bang for our buck, we are tired of paying taxes. Somewhere along the line we, as elected officials, have to recognize this, and the changes and the decisions have to be made, and they come back inevitably a lot of times to the monetary considerations and the monies that are available, which in essence are taxes. As has been pointed out and talked about a lot, there is only one taxpayer, and whether that person is paying tax municipally or provincially or even federally, it is the taxpayer that is telling us now that they are either voting or they are walking for a better return on their monies that they feel they are investing.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, now I am going to take a bit of exception to some of the stuff--well quite a bit of the material that the minister has put on the record. It is not just this minister. It is the entire government, lumping all citizens of the province or the country as the taxpayer. First of all, most taxpayers that I know, most citizens that I know, do not object to paying taxes. They do not like it, but they recognize the fact that they get services for those taxes.

There was a study that was just done that was just released in the Globe this weekend that said that 75 percent or 80 percent of Canadians even if they had an opportunity to go to the United States and have the same job at the same rate of pay would not go, because they know they get the better services here in Canada than they do in the United States. So to say that taxpayers are tired of paying taxes and are voting with their feet does a disservice to the vast majority of the citizens of this province and this capital region and is not accurate anyway.

As I stated earlier, Mr. Minister, most of the people in the city of Winnipeg do not have a choice to move to East St. Paul or to move to St. Germain or to move to any of the other regional areas around the city. Most of the people in the city are forced to stay where they are, and they count themselves lucky to have a home that they own. In many cases they have trouble maintaining that home. So let us just be a little more clear when we talk about taxpayers and not lump everyone of them into the same category. Taxpayers, Mr. Minister, do not just live in the suburbs.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I would ask the honourable member to put her comments through the Chair, not to the minister.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, I will try and do that.

The minister has talked about the city and wanting more money and that kind of stuff, and that is another whole area in dealing with the relationships between the City of Winnipeg and the Province of Manitoba, not just in the Department of Urban Affairs but in many other areas. I think that is, to my way of thinking, a tangential issue to the one that we are dealing with in terms of the Capital Region Strategy. I think the issue of reliance on property taxes is one that the minister actually raised and one that is a very important issue. Winnipeg, of the five prairie communities, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Calgary, has the highest reliance on property taxes than any other one of those prairie cities, and it is shown to be a major problem. There is no question that there is too high a reliance on property taxes.

There is also no question, Mr. Chair, that the City of Winnipeg has repeatedly asked for the ability to raise revenues from other sources and that the province has repeatedly turned them down, so until there is more dialogue in that area, then there will be a reliance on property taxes. I would hope that this minister will change the lack of progress of his predecessors and work with the city to try and come up with a fair and equitable sharing of sources of revenue.

One of the areas, Mr. Chair, that the minister has talked about--again going back to choice and people want to move to rural areas, et cetera--there are a number of vacant land sites within the city of Winnipeg, many of which have quite substantial rural characteristics. They are not the large lot sizes, although there are some of those too that you would find way out, the further you go from the city, but there is no shortage of land for individuals to build homes on within the city of Winnipeg boundaries.

One of the concerns that we have, and one of the concerns that has been raised by the City of Winnipeg, the provincial Council of Women and other organizations, is that this vacant land is not being utilized, and the reason it is not being utilized as much as it could be is because the province is allowing development outside the boundaries of the city of Winnipeg. They are listening, Mr. Chair, far more to developers and private interests than they are to the common wheel of the people of the capital region.

One of my colleagues was saying that I was not being forceful enough in this, one of the few times I have every been accused of not being forceful enough. I cannot state too categorically and too strongly that we have not seen in any of the actions of this government an understanding that they are the government for all of the people, and when it comes to dealing with the capital region, that it is essential that the needs and the aspirations and the choices, Mr. Chair, of all of the people in the capital region are looked after, and the choices that people in the city of Winnipeg have are far more limited than people have in other areas of the capital region.

I would like to also, Mr. Chair, put on the record some of the trends and facts that underlie our concern that are also found in the workbook. The minister spoke about people choosing to come to Winnipeg, seniors sometimes choosing to come to Winnipeg because of the resources that are available here. That is true, but the trends over the last 20 years have been in exactly the opposite direction.

The Winnipeg population increased by 15 percent while the rest of the region's population increased by 51 percent. East St. Paul increased by over 122 percent in the last 20 years, 122 percent increase in population in an area of the capital region that only recently started to have any sense of community. The number of occupied dwelling units increased by 48 percent in Winnipeg, by 91 percent in the rest of the region, a doubling of the number of occupied housing units.

The rate of household growth in Winnipeg declined from an average increase of 3 percent per year from '71 to '81 to 1.4 percent from '81 to '91. The average rate of household growth also declined in the rest of the region, but to not nearly the same extent. The population in the city of Winnipeg, the people which are the basic resource upon which we build a community, is expected to increase by 5 percent between 1991 and 2011, in the next 20 years, while the rest of the region is expected to have a population increase of 28 percent, more than five times the rate of increase of population. The rate of change in Winnipeg is expected to be slower due to slow economic growth, changing city boundaries, out-migration of young people to other provinces, an aging population, decreasing fertility rates and low in-migration.

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These are facts that are not in dispute, and they are trends that this workbook sees as continuing and does not address in any meaningful way. What the Provincial Council of Women, the Urban Development Institute and the City of Winnipeg all stated in their presentations at public hearings last month or earlier this month were concerns that these issues were not being addressed in any meaningful way in the workbook.

If we had some leadership shown, if we had some accountability--the minister talked about accountability and how public officials and in particular the City of Winnipeg had to take some accountability--well, I would suggest that a goodly portion of the problems that we see with the Capital Region Strategy to this date, and with the comments made by the minister, would be alleviated if he and his government and this workbook took cognizance of the fact that there needs to be accountability.

There is very little accountability present in this document. It says this is the situation now, and this is the situation as it is going to be exacerbated in the next 20 years, and, gee, there is not much we can do about it. I am suggesting that there should be a great deal that the government can do about it. The government must take a leadership role in this area, the government must look at these issues, and the government must reflect the needs of not only the developers and the people who have "choice," but the people of the city of Winnipeg.

Finally, Mr. Chairperson, I think it is unfortunate that the needs of the residents of Winnipeg are being put on the block against the needs of the rest of the region. I do think that there is the potential for working together. I do think the concept of a Capital Region Strategy is an excellent one. I just think that there is no Capital Region Strategy outlined in this workbook. What there is is a continuation of what is already underway, continuing reliance on the private sector, on developers, on corporations that do not have as their best interests at heart the common wheel of the people of the capital region. Until that changes, I am afraid that we are going to continue to be very uncomfortable with what is in this book and, most importantly, what is not in this book.

I would like to end by asking the minister a specific question. The Capital Region Strategy has held public hearings throughout the province. They have had presentations made to them, and I would like to know what is going to be done with those presentations, those recommendations, those concerns, and what is next on the agenda for the Capital Region Strategy?

Mr. Reimer: I listened quite intently to what the member for Wellington was saying regarding the direction and the ability of leadership that she refers to, or so-called lack of leadership by the government. In her comments she mentioned the fact that the city has come forth with various recommendations for wealth creation, if you want to call it, which, you know, I guess is what we are talking about, allowing them to be able to give them different types of broader tax authorities to tax the people of Winnipeg for various venues of concern or direction.

I would suggest that this is an excellent time, as I mentioned earlier, with the civic elections coming up, that the councillors in the city, if they feel that that is what they want, they should have that on their platform so that when they go door to door they can say, well, we want to be able to tax you for frontage so that we can get more money to provide you services, or we want to tax you for gasoline so that we can give you more services, or we want to tax you for hotel tax or something of that nature so that we can give you more service, because we feel that the province is being unfair to us so we want to tax you more, so re-elect me. I think that is an excellent platform for candidates to run on now so that they can say that the province is shortchanging them of funding so we should be able to tax more.

I would think that would be very interesting if the mayor or hopeful mayors bring forth their ideas of how the Province of Manitoba is not giving them enough money because they feel that they should be getting more money so they should be taxing the property owners or the business owners with more taxes, because they feel that they want to provide more services so that they can do something better for the people.

It is an interesting scenario that is going to come forth, and I look with interest to the campaigns of all the councillors and the hopeful mayors as to what they feel the province is not doing for them because they want this taxing authority. It is a very interesting scenario that they can run on. In looking back at the amount of monies that the province gives to the City of Winnipeg, I can point out that in 1990 through various departments and through various grants and monies and co-operation within the City of Winnipeg, that there was over $129 million that was direct and indirect assistance to the City of Winnipeg.

In 1995-96 in the Estimates, the various direct and indirect assistance is almost $200 million, just over $190 million which represents a 47 percent increase in funding that we as the Province of Manitoba have given to the City of Winnipeg. Yet they keep saying that we need more money, we need to tax more, we need to get more from our owners because the province is not giving us enough money. Mr. Chairman, it is absolutely ludicrous for the City of Winnipeg to think that they are being short shrifted. I mentioned earlier that our provincial grants as a percentage of revenue is well over 17 percent. I have indicated that through direct and indirect assistance to the City of Winnipeg, we are looking at over $190 million. Money does not make the city a better spot. If it was that, we would have a tremendous city because all we have to do is just give them more money and everything was going to be better for them.

Mr. Chairperson, people do not like this scenario of taxing and the fact that that is the best way to supply services. What I am saying is they have to look at the services and the monies that have been made available to them, do with what they have, make smarter decisions, make the commitment and the priorities of where monies are going and let the taxpayers of Winnipeg know where they stand as to what they feel is taxing and where it stops.

The member mentioned about housing and the fact that there seems to be an innuendo or--I apologize for that word--that the developers are the ones that are driving the city of Winnipeg, that is not true. There has been a tremendous amount of co-operation of housing developments. A good example is the shared development in the member for Inkster's (Mr. Lamoureux) constituency with Qualico Developments for housing and affordable housing for people that are in that area. These are partnerships between a developer and the province for joint-held land through the Department of Housing, which is a different department that I am the minister for.

I can relate to the questions that the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) is talking about, through the fact that these are good developments. They are good for the people. The availability of homes, by the fact that the homes are selling, there is a demand for them so the market itself will dictate where the homes are going.

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The member has mentioned the statistics in comparing Winnipeg to some of the municipalities. We have to be careful when we look at statistics because in Winnipeg, when you talk about a 5 percent growth when you are talking 600,000 or 700,000 people, that is 30,000 or 35,000 people. When you look at say 120 percent growth in a small community of 1,200 people, that is maybe 1,000 people or maybe even less in regard to statistics. So statistics and percentages can be misleading as to the interpretation and the analysis of what it is applied to. We have to be very cognizant of the fact that when we are looking at large numbers of people like in Winnipeg, where we are looking at almost 700,000 or 650,000 people, and that percentage is a lot bigger than say in a small municipality.

The member asked what is the next step regarding the capital region study and the fact that the public hearings are going to come out with a paper called, What You Told Us. Through that consultation process there will be another evaluation as to the suggestions and the input that was brought forth. A more definitive direction will be most likely transpiring from that.

Ms. Barrett: I thank the minister for his specific answer. I will ask the specific follow-up question. Who will be putting together that next stage, and will the province be taking a leadership role in the institution of that? At what point does the workbook stop being a workbook and actually become the policy or the document that can be used as a measure?

(Mr. Mike Radcliffe, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mr. Reimer: The document, What You Told Us, will be brought forward to the Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and from there there is a bringing together of the report which is then brought forth in co-ordination with the Department of Urban Affairs.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, to comment on what the minister stated in his last comment about the housing situation in the city of Winnipeg, I know that when we get to the Housing Estimates the discussion of social housing will be a major portion of that agenda. The statistics that I quoted, the minister is accurate that the actual numbers are very different when you look at a base of $650,000 as opposed to a base of $2,000.

What is important in those statistics is not the numbers per se but the trend lines, and the trend lines are continuing to go in what we believe is the wrong direction where we are slowing down our growth rate in the city of Winnipeg and greatly expanding our growth rate in the ex-urban portions of the capital region. That is negative not in and of itself, but negative if the implications of those trends are not understood and recognized and used as a basis for future action. I am coming back to my comments that I have made throughout this discussion that the workbook and the action plan does not provide specific lead individuals or departments or groups to begin to implement or design the actions that are identified, and it also in a more global context does not deal with the negative implications that these trend lines have, not only for the city of Winnipeg but for the capital region as a whole.

There is nowhere in this document that I can find where it says we have some problems here and we have to reverse it. As a matter of fact, it says on page 15 that the population will continue to change in the ways that it is changing now. Where Stonewall, East St. Paul, St. Clements and Springfield will probably increase in population by more than 30 percent, and the city of Winnipeg's population will not change much at all.

Now, Mr. Chair, that is not leadership. That is not a vision. A vision, to my way of thinking, is looking towards an ideal. This vision as detailed in the workbook is just a continuation of the current reality, and I would suggest and have been suggesting throughout this discussion that the current reality, the current trends are negative for the city of Winnipeg. They are also negative ultimately for the capital region as a whole. The people that go out to the more rural, suburban parts of the capital region today, who are making those choices, who have the ability to make those choices, are, if this booklet, if this strategy is not tightened up substantially, going to be faced with the same kind of negative decisions and the same kind of negative choices that they have been moving away from the city to get away from.

There is going to be urban sprawl, there is going to be ex-urban sprawl, there is going to be strip development all the way through the capital region, all along those highways, those trunk roads, if we do not watch out. There is going to be a strip of development and that is not good for anybody. It goes against the provincial land-use policies in a big way.

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The whole issue of water is an issue we have not touched on, and it is an enormously important issue. It has to do with Urban Affairs, it is in Environment. What are we doing about the whole issue of our water supply? The city of Winnipeg has a huge problem on its hands, potentially, because that aqueduct is 75 years old and it is going to take hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars to repair or build another aqueduct. That is going to have to be dealt with, and that is an issue that not just the City of Winnipeg can be responsible for. This is an issue that the entire province has to look at. Within that context we are faced, as a capital region, with some enormous questions and issues dealing with water utilization throughout the capital region.

The previous minister in the Estimates last year mused about the possibility of rural communities such as Headingley buying water from the City of Winnipeg. Headingley is now asking for access to Winnipeg's water supply. This is an issue that crosses all of the boundaries in this province, it crosses many departments, and it is a bedrock issue for the people of Manitoba.

As far as I can tell, the Capital Region Strategy does not address in any meaningful way how we go about answering the questions about water strategy. We have 16 individuals who meet three times a year for dinner. This is not the kind of working group with those terms of reference who can make those decisions for the people of the capital region and the people of the province of Manitoba. I am not for a moment casting aspersions on the work that committee has done or the framework under which they have been operating, but if we are going to actually be dealing with these issues in a directed, focused manner, we need a process put in place that is going to be clearly defined, clearly delineated with responsibilities laid out for the various partners in this activity, and we do not have that in this strategy and I am not hearing from the minister that we are going to have that.

In the meantime, in the absence of any kind of directed, focused structure to implement water policy, for example, we will continue to have decisions made on an ad hoc basis. Yes, we will look at the provincial land use policies, yes, we will look at this and then we will proceed to just put in place the East St. Paul development that is going to require a huge amount of water and a huge amount of infrastructure. We probably will accede to Headingley's request for additional water. What are the water implications of the Chipman Power Mall that has just been approved? We do not know and I do not feel comfortable that there is any organization or group in place in this province that is prepared or able to deal with these kinds of issues.

Finally, going back to something else the minister said earlier that the City Council candidates and the mayoralty candidates--he would be delighted to see them campaigning on a we-want-to-tax-you-more platform. That was not the intention of my comments nor is it the intention of anybody from the city who has talked about the need to end the overreliance on the property tax system. If you end the overreliance on the property tax system and give the City of Winnipeg more flexibility to deal with its revenue sources, then you do not necessarily tax people more, you tax potentially more fairly.

There is an enormous range of possibilities that could be implemented that other communities have very successfully implemented that the province will not give to the City of Winnipeg. I find it very interesting, or I will quote one of my favourite MLA's "passing strange," that the province wants to offload responsibility either upwards to the federal government or downwards to the municipal governments in many areas, but they are not prepared to give the city the ability to deal with its finances in a fiscally responsible manner.

As long as they are straitjacketing the city, there will be major problems, and I do not understand the reluctance on the part of the province to implement these kinds of changes. It is not saying you will do this, you will not do that. Surely, there is enabling legislation that the province is putting forward in the City of Winnipeg amendments in Bill 7 and Bill 17. It is enabling the city to either act or not act as it sees fit. Now, what is the big deal about doing the same thing in the financial area?

Mr. Reimer: I should point out to the member for Wellington that the city from time to time has brought forth suggestions for the additional funding, and we have given them the ability to initiate these things. One of them, if I recall, that was brought forth was the request for a frontage fee that they wanted to put into effect against all property owners in the city of Winnipeg. We intended to give them that type of authority but with the understanding that they do public consultations and have some public input into that type of idea. They proceeded, from what I understand, to have some public consultation meetings, and it was roundly and soundly defeated by the people that did not want this type of thing. So they had the opportunity there to switch some of the tax load, if you want to call it, to a different type of format.

We also, from what I understand, a few years ago gave them the ability to charge for garbage pickup. They have not responded in any way that they feel that it is warranted to charge for this. So they have had the opportunity to utilize the garbage pickup as a utility, in a sense, like they do with some of the other areas.

There are opportunities there for them to respond, but it is the political will and the political decision making by the City of Winnipeg to proceed with this if they feel that that is the way they want to do it.

The entertainment of ways to raise funding are always open by this minister and this government to respond to. It is not that we shut the door on any type of discussion, whether it is by the mayor or through her councillors or through the committee as to innovative ways for fundraising. I guess where there is a concern is that you would look at an offsetting type of thing, so it is a revenue-neutral type of situation that you would hope if there is an increase in one area that there would be a decrease in another area. It offsets it so that it is not an escalation of taxes that are going up and up just because there is an interpretation or an evaluation that this is the funding that the City of Winnipeg needs. You can always justify spending money. It is the fact of trying to look at it in a priority manner of where the fundings are going and what direction should be taken.

The member alluded briefly to the water here in the city of Winnipeg. It is a concern. I think it is worthy of note. I agree with her that these are areas of discussion that have to be taken into account in the near future. We see right now with the addition of the Deacon Reservoir, under construction right now with I believe it is another one or two holding cells, because it is recognized that the aqueduct has to be properly serviced and maintained, not only for the water now but for the future. With the extra cells it is going to eliminate some needs and hopefully we do not get into a situation of a critical nature. These are some of the things I will be pursuing with the City of Winnipeg to try to get a resolve on the important areas of water.

The member mentioned the ad hoc type of development and the strip malling, if you want to call it, on major arteries leading in and out of the city. I must point out to her that through the municipalities there, the province through Rural Development has to have an approval mechanism for the municipal development plans and anything of that nature. So there is a control factor involved by government through the various factions, and if it is on highways I am sure that the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay) will have just as much input into what can and cannot be developed within the safety frameworks of highway traffic and the people and their perceptions.

It is not a random helter-skelter type of approach that we would advocate, and I am sure that through the departments and through the various venues that are available, whether it is through Highways or through Environment or through Rural Development, Urban Affairs plays a part, but it is one of the parts that come into play with any type of decision that may be coming forth for the area around Winnipeg.

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Government involvement is there. The department of Urban Affairs in a lot of places is the lead department but it is not the only department because of the various responsibilities of growth. Whether it is, as mentioned, through Highways, they have to have a strong input as to the use of land and the jurisdictions that they encounter. Rural Development comes into account, naturally, with the approval process that comes through them, and naturally Environment is playing more and more of a role as to the contributions and the parameters that they set up for development. So as I say, and I repeat myself, government does have a role and it is very conscientious of the direction that it does want to take with this, taking into concern and taking into effect what is better for Manitoba.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, I have one comment on the minister's last response and then I have some specific questions, if it is appropriate, to just go through some numbers before we carry on.

The minister was talking about the need to have any additional revenue sources to be revenue neutral, and I was struck by the comment by the then federal Minister of Finance when the goods and services tax was first introduced that this too would be revenue neutral. Also, I do not think that the minister's government has followed his own guidelines because--actually I think it was about a year and a half ago we figured out that given the tax changes and the user fees that have been implemented by this provincial government, the average family in Manitoba was paying actually over $400 a year more in user fees and taxes. So revenue neutrality is perhaps a goal to be achieved, but it certainly has not been achieved by this government.

I would like to ask some specific questions, if I may, and I will try and go through them in order.

The General Support Grant, 2.(c), last year the Estimates were $8,090,000 and this year it is $8 million. Can the minister explain the decline?

Mr. Reimer: The figure is based on the City of Winnipeg's eligible payroll cost, and as the member is aware, there has been some downsizing in the city workforce. So that would be reflected in this line here, the General Support Grant. This is why it is down, too. It is based on a percentage. I believe the percentage is 2.25 percent.

Ms. Barrett: So the method of determining the grant is the eligible payroll costs. Are there any other aspects to the grant eligibility criteria?

Mr. Reimer: No, it is just based on the payroll itself.

Ms. Barrett: That suggests that according to the Expected Results, the unconditional grant towards the cost of all city services and the definition on the part of the government of the cost of city services is solely payroll costs, not taking into account any other nonpayroll costs.

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Mr. Reimer: It is an unconditional grant regarding that, and it is, as I mentioned, based on the salaries itself. As the City of Winnipeg salaries would go down, our grant would go down accordingly.

Ms. Barrett: A question about the Dutch Elm Disease Program, 2.(d). I know it has stayed the same for several years now. Is this grant an unconditional grant? Are there controls that the province has over the implementation of the Dutch Elm Disease Program?

Mr. Reimer: It is not an unconditional grant. I will just relate to the member that it is to deliver the Dutch Elm Disease Program in accordance with the regulations and guidelines in The Dutch Elm Disease Act. It has continued to have its Dutch Elm Disease inspectors monitor quality control according to The Dutch Elm Disease Act and its regulations. It is also to provide a status report to the province on the program. The report will include a summary of the expenditures by activity, which will allow the province to determine the level and the success of the program delivery. It is also to include an overall assessment of the disease levels, the tree removal, the replacement plantings, et cetera. It also is to have the City Auditor verify on an annual basis that the grant funding provided by the province was used as intended.

Ms. Barrett: This may be beyond the scope of this particular line, but can the minister give us any indication as to how well we are doing?

Mr. Reimer: Actually, the program is showing a degree of success because the disease levels are being maintained at about 2 percent annually of the trees that are lost. There is a certain amount of success within the program; the levels are being maintained that way.

Ms. Barrett: Item 3.(c), the area that the previous Chair wanted us to get to earlier, which we refused to do--the money this year is down substantially from last year. Can the minister explain why?

Mr. Reimer: I think the member can recognize that with the establishment of the report itself, the printing involved with the initial report, and the bringing out of this report, there were certain costs that were nonrecurring now, and this is why the expenditures are going down. It is mainly because of the cost involved with the printing and the distribution.

Ms. Barrett: So the money this year will be for What You Told Us and the endorsed Capital Region Strategy, most likely in the next fiscal year?

Mr. Reimer: Correct.

Ms. Barrett: In future years--I would like to ask the minister to look into the crystal ball just a brief moment--assuming that there is a strategy that has been developed and devised and finalized by the end of this fiscal year, do you anticipate another line item like this in future fiscal years? I guess what I am asking is, what is the future for financial support for the strategy once it has been outlined?

Mr. Reimer: Mr. Chairperson, there may be additional costs involved as it prevails, but it is hard to envision or speculate as to what might be available down the road.

Ms. Barrett: So what you foresee is that perhaps the actual implementation of the strategy would go into other departments rather than there being a co-ordinating or, dare I say it, leadership role for the Department of Urban Affairs?

Mr. Reimer: Mr. Chair, as the member recognizes, as some of the initiatives come forth there will be other departments that would be involved with the decision making and the taking up of direction that would come about. Urban Affairs would be partially involved through the leadership that is shown through the staff and the amount of involvement that they would be involved with in their leadership role and their development of direction, and contributions would come about that way, too.

Ms. Barrett: I would like to go now to 4.(a) Financial Assistance to the City of Winnipeg, 1994 capital commitments. There was a major substantial reduction in the capital commitments. Is that decline due to when projects came on stream or were concluded? Is that a cash flow kind of situation, or is there another reason behind this anomalous situation?

Mr. Reimer: It has been pointed out that what we are looking at are cash flows towards the commitments of these various capital projects that are outlined in this particular section.

Ms. Barrett: I have no further questions of the department.

Mr. Lamoureux: Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to make the type of opening remarks that I would like to have. There is so much that could be said with respect to this particular department.

(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)

I have always found it a very interesting department because so many of the things that we do as elected MLAs, of course, deal with the city of Winnipeg. Those MLAs that represent urban, city of Winnipeg ridings, some 31 of the 57 ridings, can sympathize with exactly what you are saying. That is, of course, that many different issues that are brought to our attention are in fact within the City of Winnipeg's responsibility, and we still do what we can in terms of attempting to address them.

A number of years ago I attended the University of Winnipeg and had a course, maybe a couple of courses from the Institute of Urban Studies. I had found it very interesting in terms of the way in which cities are managed, not only across North America, but throughout the world. That interest level from my university days has actually been fairly well maintained, even though I have never had legislative responsibilities of the Department of Urban Affairs. Now having been given that as part of my legislative responsibilities, I think this is an area in which I do plan to learn.

This is going to be my first time through the Estimates and I appreciate the Minister of Urban Affairs dealing with the Estimates in a fashion in which he has chosen to, that is, at this particular line being able to ask whatever questions that we might have regarding the whole department. I find that is, in all likelihood, the best way to approach questions. I would like to see more departments move in that direction because it allows for a more wide scope of discussion that can prevail.

Quite often you hear during the Estimates process, well, can I ask this question here or at what line do I ask this particular question? So I am glad that the minister has allowed for us to have that wide-ranging discussion. Where should one start off? Well, there are a number of different areas where I want to focus attention on: the whole question of property tax, the issue that I brought up in Question Period earlier today; I wanted to talk about our rivers, both the Assiniboine and Red rivers; the whole question of land usage.

I am very much concerned about the airport, for example. I am very much concerned about the BFI proposal and the whole need, if there is a need, for another landfill site for the city of Winnipeg. I am concerned in terms of, as I say, the St. Germain-Vermette area. I think back to a few years ago when we had this discussion in terms of the Rural Municipality of Headingley when at one time it used to be a part of the city of Winnipeg, to talk somewhat about that.

The whole question of urban revitalization is something which I really have an interest in. I find that Manitoba is very unique, in particular the city of Winnipeg, to get the opportunities, I am sure, most members have and most staff. When you look and compare the city of Winnipeg to so many other cities in North America, we are indeed very unique. I think that if we do not take advantage of that uniqueness, if you like, in terms of heritage preservation of some of our wonderful buildings that we have throughout the city of Winnipeg, or if we do not take the action that is necessary in order to facilitate revitalization of some of the communities that are out there, I think that would be very tragic.

I look at the area that I represent, being Shaughnessy Park, and there are all sorts of programs that a very proactive government can enter into or venture into and, I think, would do wonders in terms of community improvements. I used to live in the community of Weston and I was a very proud resident of that area. Actually, I used to represent Weston and Brooklands or at least a portion of Weston, and was quite involved in the Weston Residents Association prior to being elected. We saw the benefits, tremendous benefits, of revitalization programs. There have been joint programs entered into and the benefits have just been tremendous.

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What I am concerned about is that this particular government, over the last few years, has lost a lot of interest in that area. I want to explore that at length because it is, as I say, an area which I am very much wanting to discuss.

The minister made reference to land banking. Land banking is an interesting concept. It goes back quite a way. I can recall discussions I had with reference to that back in my university days. I guess at the time there was this need for government to purchase land because there was this fear that the price of land was going to escalate to such a degree that the average person was not going to be able to afford to buy the lots to be able to construct homes and developments. So I think to a certain degree we entered into the land banking area in order to protect the consumer, ultimately, and in order to ensure that the public interest, whether it was public buildings or public projects, would be there in the future. I think that was an applaudable thing to do.

I have been somewhat concerned in terms of the degree in which the province has been involved. There have been questions regarding the manner in which this government, even six years ago, entered into the disposal of some of this land bank, and I am curious in terms of how much of the land bank is still there. The honourable minister might even want to take something of that nature as notice because I do not know if they would actually have that at the table. But I can recall a number of years ago when the issue of--was it the Ladco-MHRC deal a number of years back? Hopefully, what we will do is we will get some time to actually talk about that particular agreement because I can recall at the time--it would be close to six years; it might be a bit off--when there was a bit of an uproar inside the Chamber in terms of the way in which government entered into that particular agreement--[interjection]

The current Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) makes reference to its being a good agreement. At the time I believe she was actually writing for the Premier, so she is probably likely very familiar with that agreement.

There were many aspects of that agreement that we were concerned about, in particular what sort of low income housing was going to be put into place. Hopefully, we will be able to get into that sort of a discussion also.

I would be very negligent if I did not make reference to the Meadows West Phase 2 because, after all, that is an area that I represent and even during the Ladco ordeal a number of years ago, I raised the issue of Meadows West and Meadows West Phase 2. I am very much interested, and I had given the minister in his other capacity as the Minister responsible for Housing some notice in terms of that. I do want to get--or I was going to be putting forward a number of questions, and this might even provide me the opportunity to do just that because it is a part of this department in terms of urban sprawl, and he might even want to make comment on that.

Again, both with the Ladco and the MHRC deal, this would be a lot of good-will discussion from the minister because ultimately the development of these properties is through his other portfolio, that being Housing, but I understand that the land bank itself is owned through the Department of Urban Affairs, or the Department of Urban Affairs is the one that acquires. I am not too sure, and maybe what we can do is get some form of clarification because it could quite easily be out of the Department of Housing.

Having given somewhat of a preamble, I do want to start off by asking some follow-up questions and get some dialogue with respect to what I had asked earlier today in Question Period, and have raised in the past, and that being a real concern that the Liberal Party has with respect to this whole government's approach to the city of Winnipeg and providing the carrot, if you like, or ensuring that the city of Winnipeg is viable into the future. It is very easy for us to say, well, you know, it is a property tax issue and all the City of Winnipeg has to do is reduce its property tax, that makes it that much more competitive, or provide different services and that would, hopefully, retain individuals in the city of Winnipeg.

Those are very easy, straightforward answers which the Minister of Urban Affairs could, in fact, give, and I would imagine to a certain degree he will give those answers, but my intentions are to try to prod the Minister of Urban Affairs and see if in fact he might be able to expand upon those reasons in areas in which I would like to venture into, such as the education tax. You know, when we talk in terms of, well, why?

One of the primary reasons why you had Headingley and now you have St. Germain and Vermette looking at the possibility of seceding from the city of Winnipeg is because of the property tax, the primary reason is because of that.

I have articulated through the years, not from a Department of Urban Affairs standpoint, but, first, just as an MLA that was very much interested and then as an MLA that had education as part of my legislative portfolio, that this government, and the government prior to it under the NDP administration, has really done a disservice to the taxpayers of the province.

It has done that through a continual reliance on Finance department or public education on the property tax, and I believe it is very easy for us to say, reduce the property tax. It is awfully difficult if in fact there are many things that are out there that you really do not have too much control over.

There are, for all intents and purposes, many different issues that are facing the city of Winnipeg, and many of those issues they need to have a government in this building that is sympathetic to the needs of the citizens of Winnipeg. I do not believe this has been a government that has been sympathetic.

I am hoping to get from the Minister of Urban Affairs a better idea in terms of what it is that he would like to see in place so that communities that are out there that want to be able to secede, what this government's protocol process is that it has in place to allow that to occur. I am most interested in not how easy this government is going to make it but rather what this government is doing to try to alleviate the concerns of the city of Winnipeg and provide incentive for communities such as St. Germain to remain in the city of Winnipeg.

That is where I am most interested in terms of the city of Winnipeg and the whole issue of the property tax. Ultimately, we need to ensure, as the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) had pointed out, people do not necessarily mind having to pay taxes as long as it is a fair level of taxation and they feel they are getting services for those taxes. Mr. Chairperson, these are the types of things which I would like to enter into with the Minister of Urban Affairs.

Having said that, of course, at the end of the discussion I should try to focus in on a question, and at most times I will try to do that.

My first question to the Minister of Urban Affairs would be if he could indicate what process this government has in place to address the needs of those communities that want to be able to secede. What is it that he is making available? What is he telling these groups? If these groups are not satisfied with what the minister is saying, what process is actually in place for them to be able to secede?

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It is not, Mr. Chairperson, to say that I am promoting any community secede from the city of Winnipeg, because I do not believe it is in Winnipeg's best interests.

Mr. Reimer: It is indeed a pleasure to be able to share discussions and questions with the member for Inkster, because I have got to know the member for Inkster through various other venues. In fact, he and I shared a lot of time together, if you want to call it, when we used to go to various events when I was the legislative assistant to Culture, Heritage and Citizenship.

I found it interesting when he started to talk about the tax for heritage buildings, and the great amount of wealth we have in the city of Winnipeg for these heritage buildings, and the tremendous opportunity they represent as a landmark and a culture for this great city of Winnipeg.

I look forward to working with the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mr. Gilleshammer) in these various areas of concern regarding the heritage buildings.

The member mentioned in his opening statement regarding the University of Winnipeg and him going to classes there. Well, I can share some of his experiences with that building. At that time when I went there though, it was called United College. There is a thread of commonality between the two of us.

I believe, though, that I did not take the courses he took regarding urban studies. In fact, I believe the professor of urban studies at that time was the Minister of Human Resources, the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy was at the University of Winnipeg at that time. I can assume the member for Inkster has had a tremendous schooling from the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy and his philosophies and his perceptions as to what should or should not happen regarding the various areas.

The member is alluding to the municipalities that have seceded. He has mentioned Headingley. That is the only municipality that has succeeded. The member should know that what has happened with St. Germain and Vermette is not before the minister, the final report. I cannot speculate as to what their recommendations are or the directions that they seek because the report has not been put forth. I really cannot comment on that aspect of his question.

I can point out to the member though that, as I indicated a little earlier to the member from Wellington (Ms. Barrett), a lot of people are looking at the value that they associate with taxes and the amount of taxes that people pay. The member mentioned that people are saying that they do not mind paying a little bit of taxes for the services they require, and I can identify with that. I do not mind paying a little bit of tax, too. I guess where I become concerned is when taxes keep going up and up and up, and the perceived services that I am supposed to be receiving are not in tandem or parallel with the perception of monies spent for services rendered. I guess it is a matter of where the dollar is going and the priorities that are put forth for the tax dollars.

The people are saying that they do want the accountability to the taxpayers. They are not necessarily criticizing the civil servants or the people that are delivering the services, but they are looking for the opportunity to say that they want a higher quality or they are paying too much for what they perceive as the quality of services they are getting. So the area of concern that he mentioned in regard to people moving out to the rural areas is just a matter of people having the ability to say that we do not perceive the funding that we are paying, or the taxes that we are paying, are getting true value as to the services they are getting. So the people are moving, the people are finding that they want a lifestyle that is maybe a little different, and this is why they are choosing to go out into different areas.

Mr. Lamoureux: I would ask the minister, has he received any correspondence from residents of St. Germain-Vermette, with respect to seceding?

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Mr. Reimer: I have not received the report or any type of direction that they have asked this department to implement, no. The report has not been brought forward yet.

Mr. Lamoureux: So I understand that there has not then been any formal writing given to the minister. Has there been any discussions with the City of Winnipeg with respect to these two areas?

Mr. Reimer: Mr. Chairperson, as pointed out, we have not had any type of contact by myself as to the report. I believe the last part of the process was with public forum, which was just held down in the area. At that time the report is then formalized, the report is then presented to the minister and then a decision and discussion will take place from there.

Mr. Lamoureux: I am wondering if the minister could indicate, he mentioned that there was a public forum, I believe, that is the same thing that occurred with the municipality of Headingley before it seceding. Can the minister indicate to us, what were the events that took place that led up to Headingley seceding and the government giving its final approval?

Mr. Reimer: I can only relate, I cannot speculate as to the report that is coming back from St. Germain-Vermette, but I can sort of give the member from Inkster a bit of the direction that happened with Headingley. With Headingley, the report came back to the minister along the same guidelines that the St. Germain-Vermette meeting went. The report came to the minister. The report was then released by the minister. There were discussions after that with the City of Winnipeg as to the report. Requests were made from Headingley asking for a vote to be taken, and from there it initiated further discussions with the city to try to come to a resolve on it, and then from there, there was a procedure that was implemented for a vote with the residents of Headingley. Even after the vote was brought forth, there were also discussions again with the City of Winnipeg regarding the outcome and from there the final result was legislation that was passed recognizing Headingley.

Mr. Lamoureux: The vote itself would have actually been then initiated through the residents, because the residents, through a public forum, caused a report to come down. That report followed specific guidelines from the province. He might want to correct me on that, were that guidelines set by the province? Then after the report, it was then requested that a referendum be called that allowed for ultimately Headingley seceding from Winnipeg?

Mr. Reimer: It should be pointed out that after the report was presented to the minister, it was the residents of Headingley that wanted the referendum called at that time. So it was initiated by the Headingley residents to have this referendum.

Mr. Lamoureux: So once this report then comes down for St. Germain and Vermette, then all they have to do is request a referendum and that referendum would be granted.

Mr. Reimer: I think it should be pointed out that what will come from the residents of St. Germain-Vermette is the final report. At that time, I cannot speculate as to what some of the contents or what the information is in that report. There are various options or variables that are purely speculative as to what they may want and where they would go. It is hard to speculate as to what the actual direction that the report will come. I really could not speculate what the recommendations would be until I see the report.

Mr. Lamoureux: Can the minister then indicate why Headingley would have been allowed to have the referendum? What principles, arguments did they bring forward that allowed them to have access to a referendum?

Mr. Reimer: The biggest difference, I guess, is the set of parameters of variables within the district of Headingley and the priorities that they saw or felt were of importance in their decision making. I do not think we can compare Headingley and Vermette-St. Germain as two of the same type of communities in a sense that the social milieu and the property owners and the commercial venue that is there are totally different in their make-up.

I do not think that it is fair to categorize them both as the same type of situation because the people of Vermette and their stakeholders there in Vermette are totally different than what we have seen in Headingley, which is right next to one of the most busiest areas, with the Trans-Canada Highway and some of the commercial development that they have there. So the comparison is really not truthful in the sense of trying to say that one is just like the other one.

Mr. Lamoureux: If the minister was standing or attended a public meeting and wanted to give comment on the question of secession from the city of Winnipeg to the residents, what would he indicate--I know this is extremely hypothetical--to the residents of St. Germain and Vermette in terms of their chances of seceding from the city of Winnipeg. What sorts of criteria, what are some of the variables or the parameters that he is referring to? I think it is very important to get some sort of idea where the government is coming from on this.

Mr. Reimer: I must revert to what the member for Inkster said in his opening statements where he said this was my first Estimates in Urban Affairs. As Minister of Urban Affairs, this is also my first Estimates in Urban Affairs, and I would feel that speculative comments and suppositions and things of that nature are not really constructive in a sense of coming to an answer.

I am sure the member for Inkster would like some definitive answers, so, speculatively, to answer is really of no substance of quality when we are looking at things that we cannot perceive or areas that we are not totally aware of or the facts are in. So I could not really speculate as to what I might say if I was in a certain situation or what I might not say if I was not in a certain situation. I can only go by the fact that the report has not been put forth. At that time, once the report is there, why then that brings in a whole new set of parameters and decision making comes from the normal flow after that.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Chairperson, what I am trying, or at least attempting to establish is, what is the difference, if you will, from Headingley--and the government has approved Headingley--to St. Germain, Vermette and, maybe, tomorrow it is St. Boniface or Transcona, and the day after then we can look at Tyndall Park, Meadows West, all these well-defined communities, and instead of having to commission reports in all these different communities I would imagine there has to be some basic criteria, if you will, before even the government would give any sort of consideration.

For example, you know, it would be ludicrous for us to think that the inner city could secede from Winnipeg. Like, if the area of Point Douglas came back and they said, well, gee we think that we are getting a raw deal, we would be better governed if we had more councillors governing our little area so we want to secede, become a municipality amongst ourselves, elect our own councillors that all live in the immediate area, for example, and bring all sorts of different arguments. Well, I would hope and trust that they would likely not get too far with the Department of Urban Affairs.

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Headingley comes forward, it presents arguments as to why it feels it should be allowed to secede and was given that opportunity. I am trying to get a better idea in terms of what enables--I should not say enables, it is probably a bad word to use--at what point is this government seriously looking at communities that choose, or a group of residents that live in a community, that decide that they are better served by seceding from Winnipeg does he allow that sort of discussion to turn into a public report which this government would give serious consideration to, or is this something which is fairly wide open? That means that virtually any community within the city of Winnipeg could actually go through the same process that St. Germain and Vermette have now entered into.

Mr. Reimer: The member is referring to a situation where he says what is to allow for all the various parts of Winnipeg to secede, but you have to look at the fact of the services that are provided within the city of Winnipeg and the fact that the municipalities, like Headingley itself, the R.M.s, and they have the opportunity then to revert to the status of an R.M. but not a city itself.

The quality of life that is here in Winnipeg, you have to ask yourself what they are enjoying here in Winnipeg and they are part of the so-called character of the city. So the speculation of what would happen and why things happen are scenarios that are--it is not within the parameters of discussion in a sense that it is hypothetical in the case as to what would happen if this happened or that happened because these things have not been brought forth and the decision as to where they would happen or what was going is purely speculative, really, in a sense.

Mr. Lamoureux: Does the minister believe that he has a role to play in terms of keeping Winnipeg together as one city, and if so what is that role?

Mr. Reimer: The answer is yes.

Mr. Lamoureux: How does he say yes to that--I should not say that, no--I do not want to impute motives of the minister. I am interested in what or how he believes he can function in that role with the City of Winnipeg. Does he sit down with the City of Winnipeg and say here is what we are prepared to do in order to make it more feasible for residents to remain in Winnipeg if in fact they want to stay in Winnipeg, but because of the cost of property tax that is sending many of them to leave the boundaries? I am interested in terms of how he actually implements that role.

Mr. Reimer: Mr.Chairperson, I guess what the member for Inkster is asking is really the role of the department within the framework of government, and I guess I can revert to the goals and the mission statement that are within the book of the Estimates in which we say we are here to develop and co-ordinate the provincial policies that address the major urban areas and the needs and sustainable community planning and development. We are involved with urban finance, urban revitalization.

A good example of urban revitalization is the Winnipeg Development Agreement which we have just signed for $75 million, that type of assistance, urban services for programs, urban transportation that we are involved with within the City of Winnipeg with their grant. We provide financial assistance. I believe I earlier alluded to almost $180 million in grants to the City of Winnipeg which is an increase of just over 47 percent, I believe, since 1990 where we were about $129 million. So we are there to review and approve Plan Winnipeg in accordance with The City of Winnipeg Act.

We undertake legislative changes which I am sure the member is aware of. There are two bills before the House right now regarding the city of Winnipeg in which we have responded to the request for tax concessions for contributions for the race that is coming up, the mayoralty race.

The member alluded briefly to historic buildings. I think another City of Winnipeg Act that we are just in the process of actually coming up for Third Reading or going to committee soon for heritage buildings and zoning regulations, the remodernization of that, that is part of the changes to The City of Winnipeg Act. We also negotiate, we co-ordinate, we implement and monitor the intergovernmental agreements regarding the city of Winnipeg to then improve the urban living.

We also co-ordinated the interplay between the various levels of government within government itself. For example, the Highways department, the Environment department, Department of Rural Development, all these things come into co-ordination with the Minister of Urban Affairs. So there is an ongoing dialogue, not only within the city of Winnipeg or with the City of Winnipeg, but within departments here in the government as to what concerns the City of Winnipeg is involved with.

There is correspondence. There are meetings that are set up with the mayor. The are meetings that are set up with EPC, Executive Policy Committee, with the City of Winnipeg. All these things are made so that there was a better understanding and a correlation of objectives, not only within the city, but the city and the government, so that there is an understanding, and we are sort of trying to play with the same hymn book as to the best needs for the province and for Winnipeg. This is ongoing.

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There is the research that we do for the City of Winnipeg on issues and things like that. There is the consultation with the public on the urban and regional issues. A good example is the TransPlan 2010 in regards to the transportation corridors and transportation here in the city. These are things that we have initiated. So it is an ongoing process of development with the city.

You know, people said, well, where is the leadership, type of thing? Well, leadership is formed by not only being direct, but it is to provide the vehicle for other people to make decisions. You can be a leader by having the people that you are working with make decisions and that shows leadership. That does not mean that the minister is forefront and in the front of all the decision making, for photo ops and for everything else like that. But if the minister provides the format, provides the people, provides the department, has the confidence in the people in his department or her department, I should say, to make the decisions, that shows leadership, and the department gives that type of impression of having things done.

So leadership does not necessarily have to be the lead being shown on a visibility process by the minister himself or herself. It can be done by the people that they surround themselves with, the delegation of authority to the people that they work with and for them to make the decision. So there is the opportunity for networking. There is the opportunity for the public to participate, for the management to participate, for the employees to participate.

So those are the types of environments that decisions are made within in the department, and I would hope that is the best way to do it because I do not believe that the minister should be the person that has to give total direction within the department. The department itself has the capability, it has the people, it has the confidence in the department that when they are making decisions on behalf of the minister that it is for the best of the government in consultation with the minister.

To provide that type of environment for decision making is more important than to provide a strong heavy-handed approach to leadership which is sometimes dictated or mandated by certain members of the opposition or certain members of other parties who are saying you have to have that type of wave the banner, wave the flag because you are the leader, so get out there and lead the charge. Well, you would be the only one running down the street with the flag because no one else is going to be behind you helping you.

It is better having the people that are making the decision and the people that can make the decision and the knowledge that I have to rely on within the department and in the various factions of government and other departments of government to give that type of leadership, and things will work just as fast and even more efficiently because of the fact that their attitude of being involved, the pride of decision making, letting the employees make the decision, because they are part of government. They are part of a direction that is more or less given by the minister, and I feel that type of management by myself and this department will get more positive results because it is a delegation down to the field to make the decisions.

Mr. Lamoureux: Listening very closely in terms of what the minister was saying, you know, I might refute the argument by saying this is a government that is actually fairly status quo. They are doing the types of things in which one would expect of a provincial government in assisting different municipalities, whether it is in the province of Manitoba, Alberta, or any other province in Canada. Winnipeg is in a very interesting situation in terms of the property tax. This is something in which the minister and I, I believe, are in concurrence on. We both believe--and he will correct me because I will pose it in the form of a question. Would he not agree that the primary reason why we get requests to secede is because of the property tax versus services?

Mr. Reimer: It is an interesting concept that the member for Inkster is referring to because it is a concept that is not only prevalent in governments, but I think in business. In business in general we have seen some tremendous changes, not only small businesses but big businesses, in the way they now approach the market, if you want to call it, and the way they do business. They are becoming more and more cost analysis, they are becoming more and more time management, they are becoming more and more critical of direction as to how they make decisions and where they make decisions and the accountability and the priorities of spending, and the "profit" orientation that business should be involved with, which is not a dirty word. Profit is not a dirty word in the world of business, because if we do not have profit we are not going to have business going.

The scenario that the member for Inkster is referring to, I believe, is very apropos of a lot of the modern thinking that is going on right now in business which is relating now to government. I believe that government is becoming more and more aware that there has to be an accountability of funding. They are realizing that the amount of funds that are available for expenditures in all departments have to be very, very closely analyzed. There is no such thing as an automatic increase just because you need it. There has to be an accountability.

We see this here within our government, it was alluded earlier by the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) with the SOAs or the special operating agencies, where now they are in competition not only within themselves but with other departments and with the private sector in trying to provide services for a certain type of service or commodity. This is becoming more and more prevalent in decision making of government regarding the amount of money that is collected and the results that come out of that collection of funding through taxes.

As the member mentioned, that is a very, very noticeable amount of revenue that is generated by the City of Winnipeg and the province and the federal government as to where the money is going and how it is coming. It is true, I guess, people are saying to us that the taxation they are paying and the amount of monies that they are paying on taxes, they want to get the value. They want to get a confidence of decisions and the priorities of where the funding is going. So they look at it in a more analytical way as to what the dollars are going to.

I guess you look at what is happening with funding, as mentioned earlier. When you look at the federal government and they are saying that they are looking more analytically at their dollars and saying there is not money available, they have cut back in certain areas. They have indicated that there will be hundreds of millions of dollars less going to the provinces. That puts the provinces to look at the budgetary items and the budgetary lines that we have and where that allocation of funds is going.

When you have a large metropolitan area like Winnipeg that relies, as I think I pointed out to you, over 17 percent of their revenue comes from the Province of Manitoba. We look at direct and indirect assistance of over $190 million. Those are big dollars that we have to be very conscious of where those dollars are going. The people are saying, where is that money going, and where is that money going to? So taxes are a very, very big part of any type of government and where that money is going. People are becoming more critical and wanting more accountability. They want that funding to be directed to areas where they feel that they can get the best value from.

Mr. Lamoureux: I take it from the response of the minister then that he is in fact in concurrence with respect to my comment regarding the primary reason is property tax versus service. My question to the minister would be, what is this minister doing specifically to deal with lightening the load or assisting the city in lightening the load of the property tax being levied against Winnipeg residents?

Mr. Reimer: What we can do is, we can encourage the city to be, you know--and I believe that they have looked at a fiscal plan that they have just come out with. I believe it was just about a month ago that they came out with a fiscal planning strategy as to where their funding should be going and where they feel the priorities are. The funding that we have indicated to them, you know, the overlap, just recently the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) has been working with the City of Winnipeg, the social assistance that the City of Winnipeg is administrating, why it will be amalgamated with Family Services here on a provincial basis. So there is one area of a level playing field we are looking at in trying to assist the City of Winnipeg.

I guess what we can encourage the City of Winnipeg to do is to be maybe a bit more cognizant of servicing out some of their contracts, trying to look for competitive bids on a lot of their departments. There is the availability of amalgamating some of their purchasing power possibly through various departments. I believe the City of Winnipeg is looking at the amalgamation of their districts throughout the city of Winnipeg for the overlap of responsibilities.

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So I believe the City of Winnipeg is working, you know, towards that area. An example also was the Charleswood Bridge, you know. It is being built by the private sector and leased back to the city. So there are various innovative ways that the City of Winnipeg can look at as budgetary items.

One of the things that we can encourage is the fact of being a little bit more cognizant of where the money is going and the best way to get the services. Possibly the best way to look at services is maybe they have to privatize some of their areas of responsibility that they have taken on as their own area of expertise.

There may be room for competitive bidding in certain areas. There may be areas for privatization of some of their venues. There may be areas of asset depletion on some of their properties and some of their buildings. A lot of cities in areas not only in Canada but in the United States are now looking at the selling off of some of their projects and some of their capital to get down their debt because, as the member knows, Winnipeg's debt as a percentage is one of the highest in Canada, or as a city. So those are areas that once you stop paying money on interest you have more money to put back into the system, you have more money to get the taxes down, and that is what people are saying, they do not want to be paying taxes anymore.

There are a lot of innovative ways to look at cutting taxes in the city of Winnipeg, and it just means that there has to be leadership shown by the administrators, the councillors, and the mayor himself or herself with the election coming up that these things are all viable alternatives.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Chairperson, the latter comments from the minister I would concur, but I would also add in terms that there has to be leadership from within the Department of Urban Affairs and to expand on the example which he made reference to, the whole question of social assistance. There is a tremendous amount of duplication. The municipal hospital, these are all costs. Winnipeg Hydro--I do not know if Winnipeg Hydro actually makes money for the City of Winnipeg but there are some things that are out there and which I believe that there needs to be more communication if that communication has not been taking place.

At least we are not hearing of any real initiatives coming from this government to ensure that there is a sense of co-operation in tackling what is the primary reason, and many of these reasons are beyond their control, they cannot resolve unless they get assistance from the provincial government.

Is it then safe to say that we will see the Department of Family Services taking on the role of social assistance?

Mr. Reimer: I believe there are ongoing discussions right at the very moment that this is happening. I am not privy to the decisions that the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) is doing, but to the best of my knowledge these discussions are ongoing as we speak.

This whole area that the member mentioned regarding the funding and the availability of funds for the city, what is happening in other cities in Canada and the United States where the province or the municipality or the government is giving grants to the cities, what they are doing in some areas is, they are putting a portion of that grant allocated to competitive bidding. What they are saying is okay, we are going to give you an unconditional grant of X amount of dollars, but we want a certain percentage of it designated as open for competitive bid to supply certain services within that particular department.

What it does is, it puts the emphasis on that department to be more accountable so, possibly, the interpretation is that you are giving an unconditional grant to promote a monopoly on a certain area of funding that is allocated by the government to a certain area. When you add on a certain percentage of that fund that is going to go open to competitive bid, it puts that department on notice that what they are doing is up for scrutiny and that if there is someone that is in the private sector that can do that particular service at a cheaper rate, then that department has the ability to bid itself really for its own work, similar to what the SOAs are doing and it gives more of an accountability of dollars spent.

So some of the cities are now doing that and the allocation of funding then is more true in a sense of getting value for the commodity. That type of thought is becoming more prevalent. These are some of the areas that are always open for discussion as to which is the best way to get a return for your dollar.

Mr. Lamoureux: I wanted to give a couple of examples of the school portion, if you will, the education portion of the property tax. For example, in the house which I live in--and I live in Winnipeg School Division No. 1, for example--I would pay approximately $350 more annually, net, a year than a house of the same value that is in the school division of St. James. That $350, if you will, is about half of what my entire property bill was.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. Can I ask the honourable member where taxation falls in, in the Department of Urban Affairs?

Mr. Lamoureux: What we are talking about is the unfair advantage the City of Winnipeg has because of its property tax base. The Department of Urban Affairs has a very significant role to play on the property tax. This is what we are referring to.

Mr. Chairperson: But the honourable member was discussing school taxes, was he not?

Mr. Lamoureux: Correct.

Mr. Chairperson: School taxes are not under the Department of Urban Affairs. I would like the honourable member to be relevant towards the department at this time.

Mr. Lamoureux: Unfortunately, I believe and would maintain, and hopefully I would not be called into question for this, but that property tax, that portion of the property tax, this minister should be addressing. If he is not addressing, then he would be missing out on a very valuable point in terms of what he should be articulating within his cabinet, and that is that the reliance of financing education, because if you take a look, he made reference to his own property tax and he has it with him today, which he paid. Virtually half of that bill, depending on which division you live in, if you like, is made up from the education tax.

The significance of that education tax compared to other, let us say, jurisdictions and are we putting an unfair burden on the city of Winnipeg property taxpayers when, as a government, this government has done nothing to alleviate that concern? I am interested in knowing from the Minister of Urban Affairs what he believes with respect to the education levy that both the province puts on the property tax bill and the school division, and if in fact there is a need to change.

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Mr. Reimer: Mr. Chairman, without getting into too long of a discussion on this whole area of taxation and the school tax on property and that, the member is putting a hypothetical type of scenario out as to what if or what we should be doing. There has been no discussion within our Department of Urban Affairs regarding school tax and its implications. So it is really highly speculative for me to comment as to which way we should be going. I do not have anybody in the staff of Urban Affairs that I believe I could even call upon to give that, because I do not believe there has ever been any discussions regarding that other than that everybody sees that line on their bill when they pay their taxes, even now, because it all comes due in another three days. It is too highly speculative for me to comment.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Chairperson, it is not speculating when we say that Winnipeg has one of the highest property tax systems almost in North America virtually, if not very close to it, in terms of a major metropolitan centre. One of the primary reasons for that, again, and it is not speculating, there is a provincial levy for financing of education and there is to a certain degree--there was a rebate that was there, but that was also cut back on with this particular administration. When you have the City of Winnipeg saying, look, we want to be able to provide lower property tax in the province, from what I understand, is not even considering the inequities that are there with respect to what property taxes are being collected. I perceive that to be problematic, that in fact the Minister of Urban Affairs should in fact be doing what he can to address those inequities.

What I hear is that the current Minister of Urban Affairs is not doing that. I do not know if he would want me to leave that on the record. He might want to refute that. I would trust that in fact he is attempting to address the inequities that are currently there in the property tax.

Mr. Reimer: I should point out to the member that in the financial plan that the City of Winnipeg has come up with, which I alluded to a little earlier, there is a proposal regarding the education tax that is coming forth. I believe there is a meeting coming up in July with the City of Winnipeg, that this type of scenario will be brought forth in the report. At that time it would be brought to my attention, along with the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), to look at the various ways that this can be looked at, so I have been told that it is something on the city's request list, if you want to call it.

I should also point out too that we have provided other areas of opportunity for the City of Winnipeg that have come forth regarding the collection of taxes or monies, if you want to call it. We gave them the authority to put a frontage levy on property. They requested that, so they have been given that authority. The only stipulation we had was that they have public consultations with it, which I think is normal. You would want to know if the people are willing to pay more taxes, so you go and you ask them. They said no.

So then we said, okay, well, we can give you the authority to make the garbage collection a utility, and you can then charge for garbage collection. We gave them that type of authority and they said, no, we do not want to do that.

So, you know, you can only go so far with giving authority to the city and saying, well, here you have the opportunity, go ahead and do it and see what the people say. So when the people say no, they turn around, they come back and say to you, oh, you do not give us enough money now.

The people have said no. They do not want any more taxes. They do not want to pay for the garbage. They do not want to pay for the frontage levy.

So then they say, well, the province is cutting back. They are not giving us the opportunity to raise funding. Well, it is the people themselves that are saying, no, we do not want to do that.

So, I mean, giving the City of Winnipeg the authority to raise taxes, if they feel that that is the way to better manage their city, why, the election that is coming up is a perfect time to put that on their agenda. They can run candidates that are more in favour of rising taxes and spending more money and borrowing more money and becoming more and more indebted to the taxpayers of Winnipeg, and I am sure that the taxpayers of Winnipeg, when they go to mark their ballot, will take that into consideration.

If the people want that, they will vote for that type of government. They will vote for a government that wants to tax and spend, they will vote for a government that says, we want to raise revenues by various means, and we feel that this is the best way, and this is what we feel is best for the city.

Well, they have an ideal opportunity in the next two months, in October when the election is on, and if that is what they want, I am sure that they could come forth to the city or back to the province with these various and elaborate requests for funding, and if the public wants it and the public is clamouring for it, this minister will certainly entertain any type of proposal like that.

I am not saying that they cannot do that. I am certainly not going to have the heavy hand of government go in there and say that you can or you cannot ask the people to raise taxes, because if the people want to pay more taxes and they feel that that is the best way that they can justify all the things that they want and it comes forth that way, we are a government of the people.

Mr. Lamoureux: I am interested in getting some numbers from the minister and hopefully he might have them accessible in which he can probably bring them back and, failing that, maybe he could provide it for me sometime over the next couple of weeks. What I am interested in knowing is, if you take an average value of a home of $60,000, that is home and land, if you like, or building and land, and $100,000, and compare the total property tax bill, including education, to the cities which we compete with in Canada of Edmonton, Calgary, possibly even Regina and Toronto, I am sure the minister would have those sorts of numbers. I am also interested in the rural municipalities that are immediately around the city of Winnipeg, those satellite communities, and the average municipal property tax bill which would include again education for that $60,000 and $100,000 home. Would the minister make those numbers available?

Mr. Reimer: Certainly. We will do our best to get them. I imagine we cannot do that today but I am sure over the next few days we will certainly get that information for the member.

Mr. Lamoureux: Mr. Chairperson, the reason why I asked is that the numbers that we will see will indicate in terms of how Winnipeg is to a certain degree disadvantaged, whether it is from competing amongst other cities within whether it is western Canada or Canada as a whole and why we have created the problem in terms of the need by many residents to believe that they need to secede from Winnipeg in order to get a reduction of the property tax because, along with those, what is also important to receive is the provincial government percentage or the amount of money that the province contributes relatively compared for example to the city of Edmonton or to Calgary.

Again, I am going back a number of years but, from what I understand, the Province of Manitoba contributes the least amount when you compare Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, and I would also be interested in getting those numbers. Again, it is very easy to manipulate stats or something of this nature. I would ask that education also be taken into account, and that portion should in fact be factored out. What I am looking for is municipal services, amount of money in blocks that is given to the City of Winnipeg, and something to compare that to. The ones I would like to compare it to are, as I have indicated earlier, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina and Toronto.

That would virtually end my questioning with respect to the property tax, Mr. Chairperson. I do have a series of other questions in different areas.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being 6 p.m., I am leaving the Chair and will return at 8 p.m.