ORDERS OF THE DAY

Hon. Darren Praznik (Deputy Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I would move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae), that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair and that this House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.

Motion agreed to, and the House resolved itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty with the honourable member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson) in the Chair for the Department of Education and Training; and the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) in the Chair for the Department of Health.

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

(Concurrent Sections)

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

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Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon, this section of the Committee of Supply, meeting in Room 255, will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training.

When the committee last sat it had been considering item 1.(b)(1) on page 34 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the minister a few questions regarding the general policy of Estimates so far, but before I do that, I want to be sure that the record shows that Question Period ended at 2:30 and it is now seven minutes before three. I just want to make sure that is on the record so that we know how much time we have taken to get started here, if the minister would like to respond.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): I thank the member for being here 10 minutes; I thank him for pointing out that I am 10 minutes late. I say 10 minutes because when I left the Chamber, the Education critic for the NDP was still deep in conversation with people in the Chamber, and I took the time to go to the washroom and exchange books. I presume that is why the Education critic is not here herself yet. She may be trying to do the same thing.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairman, my questions deal specifically with how the minister sees the role of the school principal playing out over the next period of time in relation to the document, enhancing--I always mix it up--Enhancing Accountability: Ensuring Quality, that is it, and just generally the policies of the government and how she sees the role of the principal developing.

We had a little bit of a discussion on this last fall with Bill 5 and with Bill 6, that was voted on in the Legislature. Maybe the minister can refresh my memory, quickly. Has Bill 5 been proclaimed? If it has not been, is there a date at which we can count on Bill 5 becoming proclaimed?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, Bill 5 has been proclaimed and the regulations are being drafted. The roles of the principals are outlined on pages 16 and 17 in Renewing Education: New Directions, the action plan document.

Mr. Struthers: I would like to thank the minister for that. As a school principal in a small school before I became involved as the MLA, I had some concerns then at the direction that the role of the school principalship was headed. My main concern was the overburdening of the administration on any school, in particular the small schools. The trend that I see happening right now--and many school principals and educators out there have pointed to this--is to take the school principal out of the role of administrator and more into the role of teacher.

The problem with that kind of a trend is that if you end up being a three-quarter time principal and a three-quarter time teacher, it does not add up to a hundred percent. What I noticed in my role as a school principal in those days was that no matter how much you tried to free up the principal from administration to become more involved in the actual teaching of subjects, somebody had to perform the duties that were once the school principal’s duties of administration.

Fewer and fewer vice-principals are out there available to help school principals. The trend there is to move more towards head teachers who will simply replace a principal when they are not in the school at that time. I am really very much worried that we are overburdening the administrative staff of our schools, and I see the trend happening more in the small schools in rural areas where staffs are being reduced and principals are being asked to take on more and more of a teaching load.

Is that a direction that the minister sees continuing in education or is there a better way? Does she have a better way of setting up the role of the school principal?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, nowhere in our indication do we see that principals are being asked to teach. Looking in the document, we indicate that we are designating principals as the primary instructional leaders in schools and state their fundamental responsibility and roles to be the chief educational leaders of the school and administer and manage the school. Those two seem, to me, to be intertwined in such a way that they really cannot be separated, because if the whole business of the school is to teach, then managing and administering the school has to ensure that teaching occurs. That does not mean that the principal himself or herself has to do the teaching but has to ensure that teaching occurs and, of course, the other part of that is that learning occurs as teaching occurs, which is the whole business of the school. It is the end product, and as the chief person in the school concerned about the end product, to us, seems logical.

I am, for clarification, wondering if the member could indicate, does he believe that principals should not be involved then in ensuring the excellence of teaching in the schools but should rather just be setting the timetables? Is that what you are asking me to decide between?

Mr. Struthers: Being a school principal is not quite as easy as what the minister has just indicated. It is not an either/or between setting up timetables or providing instructional leadership. It is just not that simple.

What is happening in education, given a $15-million cut, is that small schools are ending up with fewer people to teach the courses. As a result, many small schools end up without a guidance counsellor and many small schools end up using their principals as teachers. Now all the fancy words in the document and all the assurances of the minister does not change the fact that $15 million was cut out of education and has forced many school divisions to reduce the number of staff that they have, forcing a lot of small schools to take their principals and use them as teachers and cut down on the amount of time given to school administrators to administer the school.

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I agree with the member that it is not that simple. That is why I was asking the question, because I thought in the original question he was implying that it was that simple, that they could be that easily separated. I agree with him, you cannot separate. That is why I indicated in my first response that they are intertwined. To me, they are irrevocably intertwined; those roles cannot be easily separated. I am pleased that he and I do agree on that.

I indicate as well that the role of the principal is very important and very significant, that effective principals are absolutely essential to effective schools. All of the studies that have been done on effective schooling, all of the five principles of effective schools that have evolved over time from a wide variety of sources--and I have them framed and hanging in my office--say, rule one, that you have to have an effective instructional leader in the school, and that is the principal. Those are internationally known principles for effective schooling by which many jurisdictions abide.

There is a leadership role for the principal. There is a role as an instructional leader. That does not mean they have to do everything themselves. We talk about collaborative approaches; we talk about advisory councils, school plans, teamwork, a team with a leader. A lot can be done that way.

We acknowledge the role of the principal is not an easy role. We know that many principals put in very long hours, that they do not go home at 3:30, that they stay. They have things they need to do, which is why they are in a different category in terms of pay, benefits and so on.

Our job as government is to assist principals by having sample school plans, for example, for them; professional development opportunities which we have put in place for them; clean and well-written curricula frameworks; help on how to involve parents; ideas on integrating subjects; and primarily, the ability to inspire and enthuse teachers to reach higher and higher heights of excellence; and to ensure that where teachers are having difficulty or slipping behind or maybe not performing to a level that is really good for students, that they are there with assists, with counselling, advice and methods to help that teacher ensure that the end goal of the school--the reason they exist is to ensure that students are able to learn--is met.

The member made reference to the $15 million taken out of the system this year. I ache for that $15 million; I want it back. I wish it never had to be spent on seven or eight days’ interest on the debt that his party left this province. I always feel a little bit that I am the recipient of a lot of chutzpa when I hear the NDP, as opposition, indicate that it is my fault that we do not have enough money to fund education to the level that we would if we did not have the debt that they left us. I say that not as any criticism of this current member because he was not part of government when they did that to Manitobans, but we all live with the results of it.

The member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk) indicated about Brian Mulroney, and I concur because I well remember the year that we were promised $138 million from that particular Prime Minister and had it clawed back at the last minute and sent us scrambling back to the drawing board frantically trying to figure out where we would find the money that we were expecting. We are seeing that now doubled with the current federal government. Those decisions to not try to borrow our way out of debt are long-term decisions that we believe ultimately will stand us in good stead.

The day that the debt is gone will be a red-letter day. I hope I am still here to enjoy that day in 29 years now when Manitoba becomes debt free and we have picked up $650 million worth of interest payments that we could then put back into education or leave with the families. It will be a day that I am happy and I believe will be a day that he will be happy too because it means that our children will not have to live with the difficult kinds of decisions that governments today have to make. For those of you who have small children, I hope in 29 years when they do not have to be burdened with this debt that you will give passing credence and acknowledgement to the hard work that this government is doing right now to try to stretch the dollars so that our children and grandchildren--well, my children will live in debt, but I hope my grandchildren will not.

That is just an aside to the member’s aside, but basically the answer to the question on principals is that the role that we outlined for them is a role that is one that is shown to be a necessary role. I appreciate that when you seek to achieve excellence to this degree, it is challenging and it is hard work. We know many principals who are rising to the challenge with great gusto and enthusiasm, and I am familiar with a few who wax quite eloquent on the thrill with which they have embraced these changes. Others will not be as thrilled but I take heart from those principals who say, as they have: Wow, I love this, this is great; things are really humming in our school--and they have embraced the changes with enthusiasm.

Where the principals have been positive in their attitude, by and large, they are having wonderful things happen in their school. We could hold up specific schools for examples.

I hope that school boards will continue, as they have in the past, to provide vice-principals where they are required. I do not discount what the member says, that some boards may not be. He has been in the position. He does know the challenges. He speaks from experience. I acknowledge his experience in this area, and I am listening to him because he has been in the field and he does have that experience.

Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the minister for the answer, including the aside. It amazes me, though, as a--still with two days to go, I am still a rookie MLA and I have learned a lot over the year, especially how quickly Tories jump the ship when we start talking Brian Mulroney. Ever since 1993, we have been watching a steady stream of people disassociating themselves with the former Prime Minister and it is kind of funny to hear that.

The other thing that I find quite entertaining--and I will tell the minister that I am perfectly willing to stand up and claim all those big bad deficits that the NDP seem to have racked up over the years, if she would stand up and take credit for some of the big deficits that the Filmon team racked up over the last eight years in government, $819 million which they would not even claim a couple of years ago, $762 million the year before. So I would appreciate if the minister was going to tell the story, she would tell the whole story, even though it was an aside and had nothing to do with the specific question I asked on behalf of some of the school principals in Manitoba.

A couple of things I would like to agree with that the minister said in her answer, though. I think there are a lot of schools humming along, as she put it. I think in my own riding I can name you a whole whack of schools that are doing some very positive things. I was in Ochre River School just on Thursday and was just absolutely delighted to see the activity going on there, and a lot of that credit is due to the woman who is the principal of the school working in co-operation with her teachers.

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What I do not understand though is why this government would want to throw cold water on that kind of progress by cutting $15 million out of the budget of Manitoba Education when they are running a surplus of $120 million, they say. Now, education surely has contributed something, I would think, unless the minister disagrees with this, but I would think that education has contributed something to the growth in the province that has produced a $120-million surplus, very modest growth in the province compared to other provinces, nothing to write home to mother about as far as growth goes, but, yet, if education has something to do with producing any kind of growth in society, it would seem fair to me that we should be returning some of that money to education to help our kids.

I also want to point out that when I was involved in administering a school, one thing that was very clear to us--this is several years ago before the current minister was Minister of Education--was that the number of professional development opportunities for administrators was down, but contacts with principals today tell me that the situation has not changed, that professional development opportunities continue to decrease because of the cutbacks that have been initiated in Manitoba to the tune of $15 million.

So I would like to throw a few of those comments out there and get some reaction from the minister on them, and I look forward to her asides again. They are very entertaining.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I do not know if we are entering into a whole series of asides, but it is okay. I think there is a genuine question about how money is spent for education in the questions that were just put forward.

I have to indicate in an aside, because I find it fairly amusing that the New Democrat opposition continually tries to imply that we are only now trying to dissociate ourselves from Mr. Brian Mulroney when maybe he did not read the papers or watch television at the time, but he may recall that the biggest fights in Canada took place during Mr. Mulroney’s time between Gary Filmon and Brian Mulroney. They were quite public and they were quite open and they were quite known and they were the subject of many headlines that it was well known that the provincial government in Manitoba and the federal Government of Canada simply could not tolerate each other’s positions and policies, and that was during the era of Brian Mulroney and Gary Filmon. So to say that we are now trying to dissociate ourselves from a man whom we never associated with in the first instance is kind of ironic. I would indicate that we-- [interjection] Well, you know what, we have had some very good relations with certain people in the federal government at this current time.

We are very distressed with some of their priorities, but we do understand that the federal government is finally attempting to get its financial house in order, and we know they have to do that because they are in the same situation Manitoba is in. We would wish that instead of cutting all their own departments by 2 percent and cutting funding to the provinces for health and education and family services by 35 percent, that they would flip those percentages, but, nonetheless, we know they are trying to get a handle on the debt, and while we disagree with their priorities, we do agree with their premise.

The member made reference to the fact that under this provincial government there have also been years of deficits. I do not want to belabour the point, but I must address the question because it was posed. I do not want to leave it on the record unchallenged. That is not my style, as the member knows, but the member is also fully aware, or at least their Finance critic should be fully aware of Manitoba’s circumstances over the last few years and Manitoba’s finances over the last few years.

There have been no annual, double-digit revenue increases for this government as there was for the previous NDP government. If we had been receiving double-digit increases in revenue in any one of those years, we could have done a great deal with it, but we are not receiving that as the Pawley government did. We are receiving something quite different. We are receiving transfer cuts that are brutal and devastating.

I believe I have mentioned before that the magnitude of the cut we will experience next year is equivalent to the entire operating budget of the University of Manitoba. I can say, as Minister of Education, thank God I share that cut with Jim McCrae. But Jim McCrae, as Minister of Health, has no great joy in sharing that cut with me, because if I say, Jim, you take that cut in its entirety, he closes down five community hospitals in Winnipeg. That is the magnitude of the cut.

We are not going to close five community hospitals in Winnipeg, and we are not going to close the University of Manitoba. We are also not going to go to the people of Manitoba and say give us that $220 million the federal government has chopped away. That is very applicable to the education topic, because it is the question the member asked as to why we are cutting money out of Education. This is the answer. This is why Education has received a 2 percent reduction, which is far, far less a reduction than it would have been had we passed on the full impact of that federal cut. That is last year’s cut. This year’s is $116 million, which is devastating in and of itself.

The member indicated, well, you have $120 million in surplus; why do you not take that and give it to Education?--was the question he asked. I draw him back to something that has been mentioned in the House, and I wonder if the member has any flooding in his area. I know the member from Transcona (Mr. Reid) spent a lot of time talking about flooding in his area. I wonder if last year, in the member’s area, if there were any forest fires. I wonder if the member has, in his community, experienced any forest fires or any flooding, if he would like the government of Manitoba to assist in some way with that. And if he would, I wonder if he would like us to have some money available to assist with those types of things. If he would like us to have some money available, then I ask, from whence does he think we should take it? From whence do you think we should get that money to fight forest fires and floods? [interjection]

Well, so, from the petroleum grant, says one member. We could start off on that topic if we wanted to, because I have a lot of feelings about the types of things we need to do with our money to ensure that we have things such as reduced aviation fuel tax, so that we can build a hub of transportation in the aerospace industry in Manitoba, the mining incentives we put in place which has resulted in tremendous exploration and discoveries in the North--which I think the member might be pleased about--creating new job opportunities, a direct result of those incentives which then will put more money into our economy so that we will not have this dilemma of decreased revenue, but rather increased revenue from private sector sources.

Government does not create wealth. Government creates circumstances so that the private sector can generate wealth, and then hopefully that wealth becomes available some day for things like education. So I think the $120 million which were placed in the Fiscal Stabilization Fund for use when revenues fall below our best estimates, and that fund cannot compensate for reductions in federal funding. We are trying to set program expenditures at sustainable levels and not to maintain them at unsustainable levels as happened in the past, which explains the debt now carried by Manitobans.

We have got $648 million in public debt servicing cost, and we cannot use that money to sustain education, unfortunately. So if we take the pieces of money we have that we need to have set aside for unexpected events or for sudden drops in revenue and use it for something else, then when those circumstances come, as they surely do--during 10 years of government we have flooding, we have forest fires, we have sudden drops in revenue through things like transfer cuts, et cetera--I think we do have to be prepared to deal with those items as they come up.

Perhaps we could call it an emergency fund. Maybe that would be more palatable. Maybe it is the semantics of saying a stabilization fund or, as the member for the Maples (Mr. Kowalski) says, election readiness. To me, if that money is needed this year because of forest fires or any of those things and we use it for those things, it automatically then becomes not an election readiness fund.

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This was part of our promise when we ran. We promised that we would do this. People elected us expecting that we would do this. This was the No. 1 issue in the election campaign, and it was the No. 1 mandate we were given, to come in with a balanced budget and to ensure that we would not have to be caught short and that we would be fiscally prudent and have sustainable program expenditures.

I, like the member, wish we had a lot more money for education. If I had my wish we would have so much money flowing into education. But I know at the same time that I want to see those hospitals kept running, and I want to know if there is a forest fire that we can put it out. I want to know that if someone is without--

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The minister’s time has expired.

Mr. Struthers: I said I enjoyed the minister’s asides. I did not enjoy them so much that they would take up all her time though and not answer the question.

The question was directly having to do with administrative professional development days being on the decline. I think what the minister needs to understand is that while in her reports and in her studies and in the group that went around the province talking with people, a lot of nice, fancy words were said but, at the same time that you talk about school principals becoming instructional leaders and team builders and all those things, you are taking away the very opportunities for those administrators to learn and to put into practice what they learn in the classrooms. I would like a quick, direct answer to that question.

At the same time, and connected with the role of the school principal, I am very concerned about how small schools will be affected when we move towards a system, if we move towards a system, where there is more choice amongst schools within divisions such as the one which I represent and the kind of protections that there will be for the very small schools out there in Manitoba that I think are one of those schools that are humming along, that the minister and I agreed on here a few minutes ago.

I want to kind of get an idea of how she sees protection developing for these small schools and if there are some regulations that she sees that she can put forward or are there regulations now that she can table having to do with the protection of small schools when we go towards these larger divisions in Manitoba?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member asks some very good questions about small schools and the time that principals have to continue to grow and develop themselves.

We have a small school funding formula. We have had it in place for some years now. Small schools do receive preferential funding. Because they have, we put them on a lower divisor. They receive a greater amount of funding per student to maintain them. That is something that has been in place now for some years, specifically targeted to small schools and to small rural schools and to isolated schools. That, we believe, is one way that we can ensure that small schools survive, particularly in remote areas where it is difficult to bus children long distances.

We are also looking at a variety of ways to pool resources and dollars for professional development. The province has established a minister’s advisory committee for the implementation of educational change--horrible title; great group. This actually was at the request of MTS, MASS and MAST who asked if they could have a committee to advise the minister on things they saw happening as educational change was implemented, where they felt they could make suggestions for improving the way that was happening. I agreed to that. On that committee, we also have two educators-at-large and two parents-at-large, and they meet regularly.

You may have noticed a few changes being announced, for example, in terms of the time lines for implementing some of the new curricula. We have extended some of those time lines a year, a few changes like that which have come directly out of that committee’s recommendations. I chair that committee myself so I am present at the meetings and hear the dialogue directly. The two educators-at-large on that committee happen to be principals. They are principals-at-large; one rural, one urban. The MTS has indicated that they too will be appointing a principal through the society who will be an official MAP person. The other two principals are just at-large principals; they are not officially selected by MAP.

That kind of input I think will be very helpful to address the very kinds of concerns the member raises as principals assume new roles, which will be new not for all, because some principals are already doing these things and have been doing them automatically, but as we say, we want all of them to do them. It will mean for many a change in the way they perform their duties. So we are looking for feedback from that advisory committee specifically and from others as to their thoughts and ideas.

We are looking at pooling resources in terms of dollars to look at regional professional development. A number of things have been happening in that particular venue, not just with the teachers and principals and superintendents and so on, but with school trustees. School trustees are beginning to look at co-operating in ways that were unprecedented many years ago, and regional professional development is one of them. The department is looking at providing a summer institute for professional development for those educators who are interested. Many educators, as the member knows, do avail themselves in the summertime to take upgrading or training of some kind, and it seems a perfect time of the year to do professional development, when schools are closed. We are also looking at some evening programs that might be possible in terms of professional development, not just for principals but for other educators, as well, but specifically if you are talking about principals, those are some of the things that we are looking at.

Did I answer your question or was there another component I missed?

Mr. Struthers: Just the area on small schools that I was asking.

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, as I indicated, the funding formula does take into account schools under a certain population and provides them extra funding so that they can be well-maintained. As well, there has been a lot of dialogue about the type of learning that takes place in small schools. Sometimes you will have a multigrade approach or a multigrade setting. I was talking just yesterday, because I regularly visit with schools and parents and teachers, with some people who are parents of children in Hutterian schools. Those are traditionally very small schools. Indeed, one of the schools that we talked about in depth has really picked up on distance education--as they only have 11 high-school students in that school--as a way in which they can see being able to deliver cost-effective, full courses.

Distance education and all of the components that go along with that are ways in which we see small schools, particularly in more remote settings, ultimately being able to deliver the full range of programs even into the post-secondary settings if all our articulations continue through as planned. Distance education, in some respects, is still costly, but we are working at bringing those costs down and achieving some modest success.

At the present time in bringing costs down, we have recently added CISCO. We have agreed to provide all the routers for technology and distance education at a 30 percent discount to schools in Manitoba even if they only buy one. That is a bit of a breakthrough that has been accomplished through MERLIN in attempting to persuade regulators, federal authorities and manufacturers that there should be a special rate for education, and the CISCO venture is the first indication that industry is moving to make substantial discounts for education purposes.

We also have set up, and it is beginning to function now, the computers in the schools program, again, part of distance education which should assist particularly small schools. We are seeing computers that are being donated from the federal government and other sources, that as companies upgrade, we get the used computers which are still relevant. They are still relatively new but not brand new.

We can go more into distance education, I suppose, on another line because I do not think it is right here, but it is one of the things that we feel will assist small schools.

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): Last night, I attended at the Manitoba Teachers’ Society building, along with the NDP Education critic, to meet with the Winnipeg Teachers’ Association council meeting, and we were invited to give some feedback on the document Ensuring Accountability. It was mentioned that the minister last night was meeting with the president of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society and Henry Shyka and others to discuss the document. I wonder if as a result of that meeting there has been any change in either MTS’s position or any agreement was ever reached at that meeting last night.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chair, although I have been responsible for setting up these meetings for dialogue between trustees and teachers I myself was not present at that particular meeting last night, although I have been present at an earlier gathering of those groups. Teachers and trustees, I am encouraged to note, are discussing with each other aspects of the accountability document to see if they have common threads that they can agree to, and it would be wonderful if they could. I am pleased that they are dialoguing. We are facilitating that dialogue as government and with them we are exploring ideas, looking for mutual understandings and mutual views.

There are not any concrete outcomes right now, but they are talking, and that is encouraging. Government is sitting at the table with them and hoping that they will be able to find a vehicle that is fair and balanced for teachers that will satisfy the dilemma in which trustees find themselves, and government would be absolutely delighted if those discussions resulted in that outcome. But we do not want to apply pressure or pre-empt any discussions that are going on between the groups. We are encouraged that they are talking, we are encouraging the dialogue, we will do whatever we can to assist in the possibility of a common consensus being arrived at. Beyond that all I can say is that the dialogues will continue and we will see where they take us.

Mr. Kowalski: I think I understand that the minister did not meet with Linda York and Henry Shyka alone, but I am not too clear if someone from the minister’s staff met with them last night and I am not too clear if someone from the minister’s staff is facilitating meetings between the Manitoba Teachers’ Society and the Manitoba Association of School Trustees.

Just so I will not have to ask the question again, if that is the case, is the minister’s department acting as mediators, conciliators in this process between the Manitoba Teachers’ Society, the Manitoba Association of School Trustees and the scope of bargaining and the arbitration process. Is that the intent of these meetings?

(Mrs. Shirley Render, Acting Deputy Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mrs. McIntosh: Madam Chairman, just to take the member back a bit, and I will answer his question, I am pleased to answer his question. I thank him for his interest in the topic. We did attempt a year or so ago to bring both parties together to discuss this topic and to see if there was some common ground. Those talks really went nowhere. We only had two meetings, in fact, they were very long meetings, but nothing happened at them, nothing, and so government then proceeded to put out a discussion paper and try to seek some feedback, some ideas, some suggestions, that might be helpful, that could be a springboard for discussion. That was the discussion document that has caused so much controversy. It was not intended to create controversy. It was really intending to lay on the table those concerns that trustees had expressed over the years and seek feedback or ideas or views on those concerns to find out if anybody had a magic solution or if they could serve as a springboard for discussion that would spark ideas and generate dialogue.

The conversations that we have been having lately, the member is correct in that as I indicated yesterday and on Friday, I have ongoing dialogue with the union executive and with the trustees’ table officers. I have ongoing dialogue with them on a constant basis about these problems and these situations. We have come together, the three of us, Manitoba Teachers’ Society, Manitoba Association of School Trustees and the government of Manitoba to dialogue on these issues. We are not there as government to facilitate or mediate. We are there as full partners in terms of the concern.

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Government is co-ordinating the meetings, but co-ordinating simply by virtue of saying, look, we will assume responsibility for setting dates and ensuring that everybody is available to come, and one of us will chair the meeting just to keep the dialogue flowing to say whose turn it is to speak and so on. But we are not there as mediators or facilitators. We are there as partners in education. Those are essentially tripartite meetings, but they are informal; they are loosely structured. They are simply opportunities for dialogue, and I indicate that I am impressed with the courtesy and forthrightness with which the parties are talking about very sensitive issues. As I indicated, it is not always possible for me to be personally present. I was with the group last week, I believe, but last night I was not able to be there, although government representation was there. Similarly, the president of the MTS may not always be able to be there in person, but the essential point is that dialogue is occurring in a tripartite way, in an informal, positive way, on these issues.

Mr. Kowalski: Thank you. The minister has made it very clear to me what is occurring now, and I thank her for that. What I am not too clear about is, first, there was this, some people called it, Carlyle commission--whatever name you want to give it--that was doing this task before. You talked about the two meetings. By someone’s judgment, I do not know if it was the minister’s or another person’s, the meetings were not productive. They were stopped. I do not know whose decision that was, and maybe the minister would like to comment on that. Then the document came out as a response to the lack of productivity from those meetings. Now what I am not too clear about--then there were the public hearings. These meetings now that the minister is talking about, when did they start? Did they start during the public hearings or after the public hearings? When and how many meetings have there been, how regular? The minister has indicated that the president of MTS was there and table officers from MAST. Who from government has been going to them? How often are they, and when did they start?

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

Mrs. McIntosh: I have been encouraging the two parties to sit down and dialogue since well before the hearings started when the committee stopped meeting the--let us call it the Carlyle committee, why not, everybody else does. Poor John. He was selected to chair the committee and so somehow that has lapsed into the vernacular, but it was not John’s committee. It was not really the Carlyle committee, but for want of a more appropriate term.

During those two meetings it became very clear that there was not going to be any movement taking place, and so we decided to proceed with getting out of the discussion document and trying to find ideas from other sources, but just because we were doing that did not mean that we wanted trustees and teachers to stop talking to each other.

If you visualize it this way, you bring two parties together and you realize that you run the distinct possibility of sitting for several years, periodically for three or four hours, and essentially indicating that nothing is going to happen. So as I indicated, we then went out to see if we could get ideas and suggestions from the field on a discussion document but, still, all through all of this, we have always hoped that the best solution would be for trustees and teachers to get together.

Even before the hearings started I was saying, if you can ever get together and formulate some common ground, then that would be great, that would be the best solution but, if that is not going to happen, and we do not see it happening, we will proceed along this course because we do need to get some ideas, some suggestions, some discussion going and try to address this problem.

If the final decision as to how to address the problem has to be made by government in isolation, then we will address the situation in as fair and balanced a fashion as we possibly can, but it sure would be helpful to have those directly affected part of the process, and so people came out to the hearings and expressed their feelings.

We did not get a lot of new ideas or suggestions during the hearings from the union. We basically were just told that our discussion paper was not very good and that the status quo was the best solution. Well, that did not give us a lot of ideas. We did get some ideas for change from trustees but they were already giving us ideas for change. We did get some fairly reasoned responses from people who were neither teachers nor trustees but, throughout all of this, there has been a desire on the part of both teachers and trustees to resolve this in an amiable fashion. So they expressed a desire ultimately to re-establish dialogue, which I am delighted to see as a thrust, and so with that expression of, let us get together and talk, government has agreed to co-ordinate meetings and to be partners in the meetings because, as government, we too have an interest in seeing a solution that will come out that if it is to be imposed on a system will be a solution such that we will not have either party coming back to us in just a few years saying that we have imposed a system that does not work well for one of them. We want a system that works well for both of them so that we do not have any more ongoing complaints that the system is tilted one way.

I think they are really listening to each other. I do not know how many times they will meet. I will be present, as I am able to be present, but we have indicated that our keen desire is to have MAST and MTS talking, and government will be at the table. Whether it is going to be the presidents of these organizations every time and the minister every time may not always be possible because our schedules are such we do not want to be saying you cannot have a meeting because so and so is not available tonight, but there will always be representatives from those three parties at those meetings.

Mr. Kowalski: So just briefly, how many meetings since the end of the hearings have there been, and how often have you met? Is it once a week? Is it once a month? Is it every two weeks, and how many meetings have you had since the end of the hearings?

Mrs. McIntosh: I have had meetings myself with both groups, but this tripartite group has met twice. They met this week and last week. The future meetings are sort of being set. People get together. They talk for a few hours. Then they say, when do we meet again, and they set a date for when they are all free. It is just sort of going along without a regular schedule, but, because it is very informal, it is not being set up as a really structured high-powered thing. These are just people talking about a mutual concern.

Mr. Kowalski: From government, is there anybody other than the minister, any other cabinet ministers? Has the Premier been involved in either one of those two meetings?

Mrs. McIntosh: I want to stress that these are informal kind of off-the-record sort of get-togethers. These are not big, formal, high-profile type meetings. We were having about four from each group there each time we meet, and there will be some threads of consistencies. There will be certain people from government that will be there each time just for the thread of consistency.

Certainly, I do not want to make them seem bigger than they are because I do not want to have people putting pressure on the fact that people are talking, I guess is the way I am phrasing it, because, when people sit down to quietly discuss concerns and see if they can come to some sort of resolution, that is often something that is better kept low key and not made into sort of a pressure-packed situation. If you think I am answering carefully here, I am, and that is why. I do not want this suddenly elevated into a big circus of activity that will make members suddenly feel they are unable to relax and just chat over coffee, which is, while they are serious in their discussions, they are not frivolous dialogues by any stretch of the imagination. They still are quiet.

The Premier is certainly aware that people are meeting and talking, and I believe, like me, that he is pleased that that is occurring. I do not know if that gives you enough information or not.

Mr. Kowalski: The specific question is, has the Premier been at the two meetings that the minister referred to? Has he been at either one of those meetings?

Mrs. McIntosh: The Premier himself has not been at either of those meetings.

Mr. Kowalski: I will get away from the line of questioning in regard to those meetings. Just generally, I listened with great interest to the questions and answers between the NDP Education critic and the minister in regard to this document, and one thing that the minister repeatedly said was, what is wrong with asking the question?

I would just like to raise the level of argument or the level of thinking about this. What profession would not be defensive if we questioned their rate of pay, whether it be a deputy minister, if people said, are you being paid too much? If you asked a police officer, are you being paid too much? If you asked a politician, are you being paid too much? If people talk about a Safeway clerk, what is their hourly rate, people become defensive. I would like the minister to acknowledge, that is a natural tendency in human nature, when people have to defend what they are receiving, that there will be a defensiveness there, an understandable defensiveness.

Mrs. McIntosh: I acknowledge the correctness of the member’s statement in that people do become very apprehensive if their salaries are made known. I think those of us who live under the public spotlight can get a sense of that because our salaries are always being held up to scrutiny. I think one thing I have indicated to teachers when I have talked to them, and I had mentioned it to the principals when I met with them, but they did not I think take too kindly to my comment, although I meant it kindly when I said, you need not fear disclosure.

You are paid with the public’s money. The public has a right to know how their money is being spent. It happens to us as politicians. Our money is known. Our wages are known. Our benefits are known. What we spend on lunch is known. Those things are all public.

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When you are first exposed to it it is a funny feeling. You feel very exposed but, then, after a while, after the first two or three times of people saying, oh yes, I know what you make and I know every penny you spend of the public’s money and I know how much you paid for the sign on the outside of your office and I have a right to know because it was paid for with the public’s money, once you get used to it you start to think, yes, they do have a right to know. It is their money.

You get to the point where you feel very obligated to say to people, yes, I put a sign in front of my office and it cost X number of dollars and I put it there so you would know where my office was. You start to then think about the money that you have and how you spend it because you begin to see it as the people’s money that is being given to you for a service provided. After a while, it just stops bothering you. It just does not bother you anymore. Certainly the deputy minister on the panel hearings, I think, got it every meeting, you know: Why do you make so much money? You make so much money. You make more money than me. You know, of course, that anytime anybody who makes more money than you earn, it is too much money. That is a rule I learned when I was little. Anybody who makes more money than you earn earns too much money, and anybody who earns less than you should work harder. Those are the sort of generic human nature things that float around in society. It is the nature of human beings to think that way. It is the old Biblical parable about the--well, I will not go into the Bible stuff.

But I mentioned this to the principals in much the same way that I just mentioned it to you and said, I realize it is disconcerting for you to have your salaries made known and to have the question asked: Is this deemed to be the right amount for the service you get from this particular system? I realize that is something that is hard to ask, and then I made the mistake in that thing of saying maybe my hide is a bit thicker because I am a politician, and I am used to being yelled at. That is when the principals took my comments not as well, because they thought I was saying that they should get a thicker skin, which was not my intent at all, at all. I was simply trying to say it is not so bad. Like, come on in, the water is fine. It will be all right. Do not worry about it. You may find that people say, $70,000 for a principal, hey, given what he has to do, that is not a bad salary for a particular school, a specific school.

So I appreciate that teachers did not want to have their salaries made known or the average salary made known or the comparisons known, nor did they want to have the question asked, is this the amount of money that you think teachers should earn? Although we did not ask that specific question, but they were questions that alluded to aspects of it, I quite agree. I think teachers need not fear that kind of exposure, that kind of questioning. I think, personally, that anybody who earns money from the public purse should have that known to the public who pays it. I think that is responsible and accountable, and I think, once people experience it, they will find that it is not really so bad. It is a question of getting used to it.

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Mr. Kowalski: It raises a couple of questions. The first part of that about the minister’s belief, and I think it is true, that many people believe anyone who makes more money than them is making too much money, but how does that speak to one of the parts, one of the options here, about a referendum if that is a basic premise of human nature that anybody that makes more money than you is making too much money? I believe that that is a natural tendency in human nature. Then what are we saying, that teachers will have to make less money, the majority of people in a school division, to win a referendum for a pay raise, because that is on her premise? I believe her premise is correct; that is what follows.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member gets right at the heart of the issue. That is exactly what we wanted to hear from people, how they thought about those questions. The referendum example was put in there because it is done in many jurisdictions, that it had been suggested as a way in which teachers’ salaries could be determined. So we listed, and we said quite clearly that what we were listing were possible alternatives that people might like to consider. We asked them to comment on those suggestions. We took things that were happening in other jurisdictions and said, okay, here is what they do in Boston. What do you think of it? We were really hoping that people would tell us, just as the member has, what they thought of those so we could take all of those ideas or thoughts or opinions, views discarded, views accepted, views modified, and decide which ones to throw on the editing room floor, which ones to build on.

I find it interesting, though, in something the member has said, the revelation that came in his words. By the way, I want to backtrack and say, when I said, you know, of course, that everybody who earns more money than you earns too much money, I was not reflecting my own personal view. As I indicated, that is how society feels. The member then indicated that that would be a good reason for not having a referendum and possibly he is very right in his response. But he also went on to say, are teachers then going to have to take a pay cut if that goes in, and the assumption in his question was that teachers make more than the constituents they represent. If you are worried that a referendum would mean that teachers would have to take less pay because people will not vote, people think that those who earn more money than them earn too much, inherent in your question is the acceptance in your mind that the teachers’ salaries would be higher than the majority of their constituents and I think that is interesting in and of itself.

What I find very interesting in all of this, I think the referendum idea has pretty well being at the public hearings responded to in the negative by not everybody but most people who commented on that option and that was feedback that we were seeking, but interestingly enough about a month before the discussion paper came out or several months before, the Manitoba Teachers’ Society had done a survey and they had then held a press conference based upon the survey and made a great case of saying that 60 percent of the people that they surveyed would pay higher taxes for quality education, for improved quality of education and they brought that to me and said, you see, they are willing to have taxes go up to pay us more. I said, but your question said they were willing to pay more taxes for improved quality of education. Do they mean by improved quality of education increased wages for teachers? At that time the society felt very definitely that is what people meant.

So the referendum idea came up and I said, well, a referendum would give you a marvellous opportunity to get your raise, because if you believe as you told me a few weeks ago you believed absolutely that if we went to the people and asked them, would you be willing to pay more taxes for higher wages for teachers, you believe that that 60 percent indication for improved quality meant that you were quite willing to go to the people, but now that you find out it might actually happen, now suddenly it is not really a fair way to do it. I am not disagreeing with them on whether a referendum is fair or unfair, I was just thinking the flip-flop on the position was dramatic, instant and hilariously funny to those who were watching from the outside. The mad scramble to suddenly say, no, no, no, the survey, we did not really mean what we said, we did not really want you to go to the taxpayers because those were quotes that were being made to us. If you think we are not worth more money, why do you not go ask the taxpayers? When we said maybe we will, there was apoplexy taking place amongst the people who promoted that from the Teachers’ Society.

So we backed off the idea of going to the people to ask their opinion pretty quickly, but at the same time so did trustees and so did a large number of the populace. So the referendum idea, I come back again to the member to say, when he assumes that we are promoting any one of those proposals over another, or when he assumes that we are even promoting any of those proposals, he makes a wrong assumption. What we did was put out a discussion document, very clearly called discussion, said the system we have been told is broken by one of the stakeholders in it. We need to fix it. Here are five proposals. These are five alternative ways to resolve disputes when they occur. Do you like any of these models? If so, which one? If you do not like them, do you have any other models that you could offer to us or suggest to us? That was the context in which they were put down, and I think it needs to be emphasized quite strongly that that was the context. We did not go out and say, hey, let us have a referendum. We did, however, say could you please tell us what you think about referendum, because some are telling us that it works in other jurisdictions.

Mr. Kowalski: I think if the minister checks the Hansard tomorrow, I would like to know where she could find any indication that I presumed that there was one favoured proposition in that document over the other. I think there is a big leap there by the minister.

Secondly, the minister was talking about, in my question, surprise that in some jurisdictions teachers would make more money than the majority of people in their constituency. In parts of the city of Winnipeg, in certain wards, that would not be a surprise whatsoever. In many rural communities that would not be a surprise whatsoever.

I have looked at the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics breakdown of economic levels in different parts of the city of Winnipeg, in different parts of Manitoba, and the education levels quite often follow the levels of income. So, in some areas of the city, the number of people with below Grade 7 education are probably the same areas where the mean income is below the poverty line or close to it. So, no, I am not surprised, and I do not make any apologies about that assumption. Yes, that would happen.

One forum I had for teachers, talking about this document, a teacher talked about living in a rural community and being the highest paid person in that community. But that person was also the most educated, was a professional, had gone to university for a number of years, and I do not think she should make any apologies for being the highest paid person in that community.

No, I think the premise that human nature indicates that anyone who makes more money than you is making too much money is correct and would cause any justified increases to a teachers’ pay to be voted down by an electorate who do not make as much money.

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Once again, my line of questioning started with: What is wrong with asking the question? As I said, everyone is defensive when they are asked to justify what they are already receiving. Public servants--right now public service, whether it be health care workers, police officers, teachers, I guess the public recognition of them has become in vogue to denigrate their service.

I will not once again quote from the Minister of Agriculture’s Budget Debate where he discounted teachers, health care workers, police officers, by saying they do not create wealth; they are consumers of wealth. I think he is just echoing comments made by many people in certain sectors of society right now that would like to make it a shame to be a public servant. I am a public servant. I do not think that my contribution to society is any less than the miner, which I have been, to the construction worker, which I have been, to the factory worker, which I have been. I do not think that because I am a public sector employee and that my income comes from the public purse means that there should be any more disclosure than anybody who works in a factory, who works in a mine, who works anywhere else.

Public service is an honourable profession. I know that the critic here would like to ask some more questions, and I have to make a few phone calls, so I will end my comments at that point.

Mrs. McIntosh: I thank the member for his comments. I would just like to start off by saying, without checking Hansard I can assure him that he is correct in that he did not imply in his original question that I was favouring one alternative over the other. So if anything I said contradicted that, I apologize because I know he did not say that. I do not have to check Hansard to know because I remember what he said.

I also want to indicate that his rationale against referenda is sound. The rationale that he presents in opposition to referenda as a final solution, in my opinion, is sound rationale, and rationale that has been provided by those who took a look at the alternatives and said, do not like this; do not like that; here is the flaw. Looking at the pros and cons and advantages and disadvantages, that was one disadvantage pointed out with referenda that I accept as being a sound rationale, so I appreciate his feedback on that.

I also want to stress, just in response to some of the things the member indicated, this issue is not about whether or not teachers should be fairly paid. I mean, they should be fairly paid. There is no disputing that and never has been any disputing that. The question is, how will the rate of pay be determined in the future?

I think some people either unconsciously or deliberately have been out there saying that the issue is something other than simply that. They are saying government is going to break contracts and roll back wages. That has been put in writing and circulated. Completely untrue, and nowhere is it referred to in the document. Nowhere. So those kinds of myths and dishonest statements falsely put out and consciously distributed have done immeasurable harm and perpetrated by people who claim that they care about teachers.

I found it interesting that giving the document cold to someone who had not read it and had not been subjected to the discrediting comments about it, people would read it and not be necessarily threatened. They might not like some of the questions, but they were not agitated. But those who had been told first, I am going to give you a document to read and when you get to this point, interpret it this way, became agitated before they even got to those paragraphs.

So I wish to stress that the issue is not about whether teachers should be fairly paid. They should be. The issue is about how the rate of pay shall be determined in the future and not about changing anything that people currently receive. That has never been said. Nowhere in the document are those statements made. Anybody who tells you they are in there is telling you a lie. They may believe the lie, but it is a lie nonetheless.

So referendum was one way that has been used in other jurisdictions, apparently to the satisfaction of those jurisdictions. Here in Manitoba when we ask the question, is it workable, the member’s response is a typical response, and that is what we needed to hear, how people feel about these issues. Thank you.

Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): My questions are going to be related to the issue of the boundaries review process and the pending recommendations from the Norrie report.

Education is changing and has been over several years. I think there is a consensus that change must indeed occur. In several areas, I commend the department’s work. I am concerned about the amount of supports that are available. I would like to see greater investment in public education. These are not huge surprises. I have seen school divisions go through many painful years of downsizing when needs have actually been increasing.

So it has been a very hard time for schools and children within those schools, and, on top of all of this, is Boundaries Revision. For most children, this has little to no impact. Imagine the amount of administrative headache in consolidating Winnipeg 1’s policy manuals shrunk down to virtually intelligible text so that they could be put into two large binders, merged with Seven Oaks or with St. James. The idea of the negotiations required and the administrative headache is just immense.

Not only that, but you are looking at all kinds of other implications that involve a huge amount of time and effort that many people have to be convinced will actually improve students’ education. I know that last year, when I asked a series of questions, my impression was that the minister was going to use reason, understood that at a time when school divisions virtually have no extra time and money to do something which is basically administrative, that she would give it due consideration.

Up front I would like to say that I, as one, appreciate the second round of hearings. People did have an opportunity to resubmit, and I believe there were over 600 submissions. Now we are looking at coming to a conclusion. Can the minister tell us as to the status of that report or those recommendations?

Mrs. McIntosh: I appreciate the point the member is making because those are the kinds of considerations that have been put forward to us since the second round, since they came back in December with the second and final report. Those kinds of comments are ones now that have been sent in to the department. I do believe that we have now received about all that we are going to receive in terms of information on boundaries. There was a great outpouring of correspondence that came about after Christmas as people took a look at the final report and wanted to make comment.

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So we still do not have a final decision. I still am expecting that we will have one this spring that we can announce to the government MLAs in the opposition, and I apologize that I do not have a specific date that I can provide. We have been going through all of the correspondence and examining all of the points that are raised and looking at cost versus savings and trying to get a handle on all of those things. At the same time, school divisions are writing to tell us of co-operative ventures they are embarking upon with each other, and I find that very encouraging.

What I can tell you is this. We have a couple of school divisions that have indicated they would like to amalgamate, and they are ready to go. We have some divisions that are pondering the pros and cons for themselves of a marriage of sorts. We have others that have said that they really do not wish to amalgamate, period, and so that is the range we are looking at. It will be a difficult decision. MLAs have been talking to their constituents, and I know the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk) has relayed to me concerns that her own constituents have had, particularly in the Brooklands area and places like that. All of those concerns are being looked at seriously.

Ms. Mihychuk: One of the things that the Norrie commission really did not spend a whole lot of time on was the cost analysis, and since that time, I am aware that the government has received some submissions.

Will the minister tell us what cost analysis studies they have commissioned, and which ones they have received voluntarily; for instance, the St. James one, and I know that they have received others. Perhaps you could share that with us.

Mrs. McIntosh: The member references the St. James-Assiniboia analysis, and, indeed, we have had that one. MASBO, which the member will know from her days as a school board chair, but for those who do not know is the Manitoba Association of School Business Officials, did some figures for us. They took some examples around the province and did a scenario of what they anticipated might happen in those particular jurisdictions if amalgamation occurred. They chose one in the city, one in rural Manitoba, one of the new larger configurations. Some school divisions are still having, or have had, public meetings to gather more views, and we are still occasionally hearing from some of those as they come up.

We are doing our own internal looking at the finances, and basically what we are doing is analysing those submissions that are being given to us by other jurisdictions, just to go through with people who understand finances their analysis to examine how they came to their conclusions and to look at any other facets of those that we feel we need to or to seek out verification of some of the figures contained in them. That is an ongoing process. We are still doing that. It is one of the reasons we have not quite concluded this study because MLAs will come in from the field and say things like, you know, my constituents say this and this about costs, and then we will have our own financial peoples go through and check those out to see what integrities surround them, and then add that into the big mix.

Internally, as I say, we are doing our own studies of the finances. External, we have had the two that I have just mentioned, MASBO and St. James, plus the Norrie report had itself some financial studies contained within it that we are also looking at. Then we will receive from time to time correspondence from people who--they are not real studies in the true sense of the word, but where they will make commentary. Well, Ingrid Zacharias, you remember or you may be aware of, people like that who have come forward to indicate that they believe this and this and this will happen with money. So we are looking at all of those, too. We are making sure everybody gets their case looked at, and we may not agree with all of the cases, but we are certainly looking at them.

Ms. Mihychuk: The minister mentioned the St. James School Division’s report and MASBO’s report but did not mention the Nicholl report. Was that a report commissioned by the department, by the Norrie commission?

Mrs. McIntosh: Dr. Nicholl was commissioned by Norrie. Norrie commissioned three: Dr. Glen Nicholl did a study on funding and what the funding formula would look like or could look like; Dr. Tim Ball was the other one, and he did finances from an urban perspective; and then Dr. Rounds, who did financial commentary on rural issues. Those three people, Dr. Richard Rounds, Dr. Glenn Nicholl and Dr. Tim Ball, all have expertise in these types of areas.

Those were part of the Norrie commission report itself.

Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister share with us now the total cost of the Norrie commission? She did give us a report last year. I appreciate it. There was considerable information. Now there has been a second phase, so we would like an update.

Mrs. McIntosh: I could tell you the ballpark figure is about--we will give you more than the ballpark--almost $700,000, just under $700,000.

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

Ms. Mihychuk: Can the minister share with us her perspective of the St. James-Assiniboia cost analysis? Would you consider that to be an accurate reflection of the cost of amalgamation? If I recall, they looked at salary settlements that were midrange and estimated that overall expenditures there would cost $7 million dollars approximately to amalgamate St. James-Assiniboia--and Fort Garry, is it? What is the perspective of the department on that report?

Mrs. McIntosh: I first of all would like to thank the member for the question. She and I both have commonality of interest here in that we both represent either in part or in whole the St. James School Division. I felt that the report that was given us was typical of the thoroughness and the research capabilities that St. James shows. They do this type of thing extremely well.

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Part of the problem we are having as we go through and study all of these reports is, depending upon the assumptions made, one could predict more or less different outcomes, and this is one thing that is making our study of these issues so time consuming.

St. James School Division has made some assumptions in the preparation of their research. Of course, you have to because you do not have a known thing against which you can measure; you have to make sort of your best guesstimate as to what you anticipate decisions will be. MASBO did the same thing, as did some of the other people like Rounds, et cetera, who made reports to us.

I think the St. James board, if they are assuming that it will be similar kinds of trustees with similar goals, making similar kinds of decisions to what they are currently making, that those are likely outcomes. If those assumptions hold, then indeed costs could rise if there is no action taken by a new board or by government or by whomever to direct the outcomes to be different than those assumed.

So will new boards always allow costs to rise to mid or high range? Hard to know. Will all programs that are currently in existence remain? Hard to know. [interjection] Well, the member indicates probably, and I think based upon observation in some areas that is a correct statement to make. I think they have identified the kinds of questions that need to be asked, and at this point, I do not want to pre-empt future announcements we might be making, so I am finding the question a difficult one to answer. I think they have done an excellent job on their analysis. If their assumptions are correct, then they have certainly done their figuring in a way that would show those results. If the assumptions are altered by luck or by conscious decision, then the results could change.

Ms. Mihychuk: Mr. Chairman, can the minister assure us that whatever changes there are to boundaries will have no additional costs incurred with that report?

Mrs. McIntosh: Again, it is a difficult question for me to answer because we have not yet made a final decision as to what we are going to do with the report. I always, over time, when asked a question like that, respond with, I can never guarantee anything, and that is I think a truism that we accept.

You think you can guarantee things, just like Chretien thought he could guarantee to get rid of the GST; and he did not. I guess I could say this, we embarked upon this study--and this may be the way that I can answer accurately without making promises. I cannot predict a speculative, hypothetical thing. When we went in to do the boundaries review, we did it for several reasons: one, it was a timely thing to do; two, there was predisposition in the populous to see such a review done.

We also were looking for two things: one, would there be any way that we could improve service and quality by amalgamation; and, two, would there be any way that we could make everything more cost-effective, either incur some cost savings or prevent the future escalation of costs? Those were questions that we take very seriously.

If, at the end of all our deliberations, our lengthy deliberations and studies on this topic, we conclude that quality or costs suffer, we are not bound to change for the sake of change. We are not afraid of changes is quite obvious I am sure. We can face change bravely and boldly if we think it is needed, but change for the sake of change has never been our style.

One thing that I am encouraged to see, as I indicated earlier, is this renewed interest in co-operation that boards are showing. Many boards were already showing tremendous co-operation with each other, but they are going at it with a vengeance right now. I said to a reporter, I do not know how much they have saved us already by this. Norrie has probably already paid for himself by virtue of this vigour with which people are examining ways they can work together and save costs. In fact, the chairman’s division, I was apprised of--the chairman may be interested in knowing--many of the things going on in his division by his board with neighbouring divisions on cost sharing, joint purchasing and so on. We will see where that leads us, and we will continue on with our deliberations. We will endeavour to be as wise as we can be and to not delay too much more, although we do not really feel that this is one that we should be rushing at if there is still more information coming in. It has pretty well dwindled off now though.

Ms. Mihychuk: Madam Minister, we know that the Norrie commission’s recommendations would reduce the number of school divisions fairly dramatically and logic brings, too, fewer trustees. Ultimately we would have more citizens represented by fewer trustees, and that is a concern to many.

Is there any indication, and I would like to suggest that we have seen other models where we have the amalgamation, that in fact you have fewer representatives that are locally elected and accountable through open elections every three years for the most part but that their stipends or their salaries will be related to the size of their constituency? So many of the cost analyses, or let us say some of the savings assumed, are based on fewer trustees, therefore less money for these trustees.

I would just argue, or I guess ask the minister’s opinion, when we look at larger boards like Toronto, like Winnipeg No. 1, you see fairly larger salaries. The concern is that you have less representation and much higher paid politicians then. Is that what the citizens of Manitoba want?

Mrs. McIntosh: I am taking that as a comment to put into our bag of things to consider. I accept it as such and know what the member says to be true because I recall amalgamations where that very thing did happen. So I thank her for that comment, and we will consider it.

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Ms. Mihychuk: I would also ask the minister to look at other jurisdictions that did go through this. I know that other provinces who have not actually moved on it have done cost analysis. When we are looking at salary levels it seems to me that the record has shown that we actually tend to settle at the higher level, and that is a serious concern. Perhaps not for part of my constituency which is in Winnipeg No. 1, but for other school divisions that would have to then meet those levels will have a significant impact on costs.

I appreciate you are still under consideration and hope those comments also will be taken with serious consideration when they make the decisions.

Mrs. McIntosh: I thank the member for that. We have indeed been examining the situation in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Alberta where amalgamations or changes have occurred, and that has been part of our study here internally as well.

Her point is well taken. I think examining how it has worked in other jurisdictions is of assistance in the decision-making process.

Ms. Mihychuk: I thank the minister and agree with her that we must not rush into it. The previous Minister of Education seemed to be a little bit more adamant on this subject than this minister, and I am glad that we are having a little bit of time for a second thought. But it does create still a little bit of concern out there. I know school divisions are getting employees transferring, for instance, into other parts of the school division in anticipation. Although I do not want to suggest she should rush into anything, because I do not want anything rash to be done--that due consideration be given to school divisions which are still being impacted by the Norrie commission, and I thank the minister for her consideration.

Mrs. McIntosh: I am aware of the concern that boards experience as they wait. It is difficult to wait, and some boards have indeed been holding off making certain decisions because they are not certain if there is going to be amalgamation proceeding or not. We are conscious of that sensitivity and, as I indicate, we hope to be coming forward this spring with a decision that will enable them to be able to start making decisions again and trying to walk that fine line between taking enough time to make sure we have done what we need to do without holding the whole system up with the sword of Damocles hanging over its head forever. So , again, your concern for the time lines is well put and accepted.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): I wanted to come back to the Enhancing Accountability document. The minister had been talking earlier today about the--and emphasizing her understanding that there is no intent in this document to roll back, as I understand her to say it, to roll back the existing wages of existing teachers. That was the understanding that she left with me.

Mrs. McIntosh: I do not know if I phrased it that way, but that was the intent, yes. We are not planning to roll back; we are not planning to open contracts. There is something that went around saying that the government of Manitoba intends to break contracts and roll teachers’ wages back and that is just patently false.

Ms. Friesen: One of the concerns that has been expressed has been about the future of the profession and the proposal that people believe is in this document for a lower starting salary for teachers. Can the minister comment on that? How does she interpret this document and this discussion being framed by the government?

Mrs. McIntosh: Just before we begin that, would the member be good enough to read the quote she is referring to into the record so we know what it is we are discussing?

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, that is what I am looking for at the moment, but what I was conveying to the member is something that has been discussed I think by many people, raised by many people at the hearings, is the comparison of starting salaries for a variety of professions and, by implication, the suggestion that starting salaries for teachers could be/should be lower. So I am looking for the minister’s response to that, in a sense. What did she intend in this document to suggest for discussion?

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

Mrs. McIntosh: I, Mr. Chairman, indicate that is why I need the quote, because I know those rumours are floating around and they need to be based on something. I am happy to give my position on it, but I think first of all we need to know what the quote was that sparked the rumour so that it can be noted. I find it interesting whenever I ask people to tell me where in the document they find this, they usually do have a tough time finding it.

I think there is a quote in there that makes reference to an example, that if we took what the MTS advocates is the starting salary and actually had it be the starting salary, there would be a lot more money in Manitoba. If the member is having difficulty, I think I could point out to her the one that is under controversy.

On page 20, and I believe this is the quote because I have heard people reference this and from this quote they have extrapolated and begun the rumour that people then took as fact and responded to. In fact, I have received many letters from people who said how dare you say that my salary as a beginning teacher will be rolled back to $22,000. For the life of me, I could not find that anywhere in the document. Then it was pointed out that it was from this quote that they extrapolated that assumption, restated it as fact and then scared the daylights out of all new teachers. It says, the different salary maximums of the various classification levels have a significant financial effect on the delivery of educational services in Manitoba. For example, if the maximum salaries for teachers was the maximum of class for a salary range, overall expenditures on teachers’ salaries in Manitoba would decrease significantly. There is that quote.

Then there was another that said that another classification--that is the next page--another classification-related issue that would appear to need to be examined is that of the level of pay for new graduates. If the salary maximum for existing class when levels were used, the starting salary of new teachers would better reflect hiring rates for other professionals, et cetera.

I quote those two comments to indicate that I have been informed that those were the comments that sparked the rumours the member is referring to. Ironically enough, for many years I have heard repeatedly from the Manitoba Teachers’ Society, teachers start at $22,000 a year; that is Step 1, Class I. When the public is told how poorly teachers are paid, that figure is always widely quoted: teachers start at $22,000 which is Step 1, Class I. That is what a lot of people out there really believed. Over the years that message has gone out that that is what teachers start at and teachers are very poorly paid. I think the union did a very good job promoting that as what the public should be led to believe is actually what teachers were making. Now, Step 1, Class I is $22,000. The difference between saying that is what teachers start at and that is what the salary level is, is simply this: There are very few, if any, Step 1, Class I teachers teaching in the public school system in Manitoba. I doubt that there are any at this point. There may be a few in remote locations.

Because a Bachelor of Education is now required, teachers start at Step 1, Class IV which is $32,000. This comment which perhaps needed clarification around it should have had some words inserted in it to make its meaning more clear, because it says--and here are the words that should have been in--if, in fact, teachers did start at Class I as the MTS proposes, the starting salary of new teachers would better reflect hiring rates for other professionals. The rest of the sentence stands as is. But nobody asked for clarification on it because the document was treated with suspicion, and people were prepared to read the worst into it immediately without asking for clarification. The opposition was only too happy to run with that and promote it, as well, without asking for clarification, which I am pleased has finally happened.

The other statement, as indicated, is the corollary of the other. If Steps 1, 2 and 3 are no longer used in the public system, then maybe everything should be renumbered. That would not necessarily change the amounts here, but, when people talk about the maximum teachers--and you will hear it said very frequently that teachers earn $51,000 or whatever, which is their average rate, and the implication is left that there are no teachers earning $60,000 or $70,000. Of course, we know that is not true. If the range was the range that is currently assumed to be the range by the public, then we would not be spending so much money on teacher’s salary. Also, the other thing to consider when all of these examples are given is that they are examples of things that could happen.

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If you are talking about costs, I could say just as easily as this, some other figure, plug in some other figure, plug in some other class, plug in some other step, and the document might have been more easily understood if there were a series of examples rather than just one. If there had been a series of examples saying the statement that is here, if the maximum salary was the maximum for Class 4, expenditures on teachers’ salaries would decrease significantly. If the maximum was the maximum of Class 7, and all teachers were able to rise to it, overall expenditures would increase. I mean, we could have put several examples in this document. They are not here. I do not know if that explanation gives you any clarification around these examples, which are examples that are put in there simply as examples. There could be others. They are also in there to reflect what are generally used as examples in the field by people who say teachers have to start at $22,000, and they never rise above $54,000. That is not true, but that is what people generally thought because the minimum of Class I was used and the maximum of Class 4 was used traditionally when people talk about teachers’ salaries, and they are not. If those were the true figures, there would be a lot more money in the system.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, well, I think the assumptions that people drew from the examples that were given was that the government was looking at the prospect of a classification system which began with graduates at $22,000, which is what it says on page 21. If the salary minimum of existing Class I levels, i.e., $22,000, were used, the starting salary of new teachers would better reflect hiring rates for other professionals, would allow for more years before the salary maximum is reached.

That is what the government is in this example suggesting be considered for new graduates. Then what people had on the previous page was a discussion of maximum. The existing Class 4 salary range would be the proposed or prospectively proposed maximum salary for teachers. So it seemed to me that that was the framework that the government was establishing and that people drew from that, it seems to me, reasonably logical conclusions that that was a salary framework that the government was looking for. They were looking in this document for a way to reduce the overall allocation of money within the education system that would go to teachers’ salaries, and this was one way of doing it that they were suggesting. Again, I ask the minister, is it not the case that in this document the pay for new graduates is being suggested as $22,000, and is that not a change from what would now exist, because the Class I salary now is not for graduates but is for the old system of certificates? So is it unreasonable for people to have drawn that assumption from this kind of a framework?

Mrs. McIntosh: If someone were reading the document literally, yes, it would be very unreasonable to draw that assumption, because if you read it literally and you read what it actually said, rather than make an assumption as to what it said, you would not draw the conclusion the member has just done when she said as she did, she said that on page 20, we were suggesting that $22,000 should be the starting salary. Now, could you please tell me where we are suggesting that, because what I see in reading this is an example. I do not see a suggestion, I see an example.

When it says, another classification-related issue that would appear to need to be examined is that of the level of pay for new graduates, if the salary minimum of existing Class I levels were used, and that is an example and then there is a statement, the starting salary of new teachers would better reflect hiring rates for other professionals, and that is true, and I do not see in there the government of Manitoba is suggesting that teachers’ salaries begin at $22,000. I do not see that phraseology in there, so you ask me, is it unreasonable for them to extrapolate that? It would be unreasonable if they read it literally the way it is written and interpret it word for word as written, yes, that would be unreasonable. If they read it through a cloud of suspicion and negative assumptions, then that would be probably expected.

Now, I guess the word “if” to me is usually followed by, for example--if, for example--and I come back to the fact that traditionally over time we have always been told that the salary minimum for teachers is Class I, so when you talk about it and they say, if indeed the salary level that is always quoted as being the real level were actually the level that were used, there would be a very different reflection, and a lot more money in the system.

It does not say, if the salary of Class I was used, the starting salaries had better reflect, therefore the government is suggesting that we do that. It does not say therefore this is a proposal that we are putting forward, as we did in the first part of the document we put forward five proposals. Nothing else in the document--and I will give you this answer that might help clarify it--the first five proposals are proposals of alternatives that people are free to consider and make comment on, modification on. They are alternatives that can be considered, the government is not married to any one of them, is completely prepared to examine other ideas for the dispute resolution mechanism. The rest of the document has no proposals. I believe I have said this before. There are questions, there are examples, there are complaints, questions and complaints that are being put down almost verbatim the way we have been hearing them over the years from trustees, and examples that are examples intended to have people see a scenario other than the one that exists so they can have something in mind to compare the current situation with. So there are no preconceived notions. There is no hidden agenda. There is no proposal. There is no suggestion. There are simply questions, complaints and examples.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, in effect, what the minister is saying on page 21 is that this fourth paragraph should have ended with a question mark. The government would like you to consider the level of pay for new graduates. Should the salary minimum of existing Class I levels better reflect hiring rates for other professionals?--question mark. Should the existing Class I levels of $22,000 currently used for certificate teachers be now applied to new graduates?--question mark. Should we be creating a system to allow for more years before the salary maximum is reached?--question mark. Is that what the government is essentially saying when these should all have been questions?

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we were hoping that by putting down the complaints and the comments that trustees have had over the years, along with examples, and questions that we had been asked, people would be able to evolve their own questions, their own examples, their own thinking, their own ideas. If they could look at an example and say, oh, that example makes me think of a question, and here are several questions or other examples that I can compare this to. This is a discussion document. It is intended to be a springboard for discussion to spark thinking and to encourage dialogue. The member can rewrite it any way she wants, but I would suggest that I think that the statement there, if read correctly, on page 21, says accurately, displays accurately the current situation versus a contrasting situation, and, from that then, the reader can also develop other comparisons.

The reader can say, okay, if I start with a salary minimum of existing Class I, then there would be a better reflection of other professionals. If I go to Step 2, Class I, what would happen? If I go to Step 3, if I go to Class II, what would happen? The reader then can go through the other examples that in many cases automatically spring to mind when the example is given. In the document on page 24, the member should read a very, very important point, which is a positive point which received very little prominence, but I think it is a critical point, where it says: A major purpose of this paper is to initiate open discussion regarding these issues.

I think that is a very important point. There is another very important point contained in that same paragraph. Alternative suggestions are invited. That is to the alternative proposals, the first five put out for the dispute resolution. Another important line on that page is: This process of review, discussion and feedback should allow for the development of a teacher collective bargaining process in Manitoba that meets the legitimate interests of all parties to the process.

I think that is very important. I had indicated the other day that I wondered if we could have phrased these issues in any way that would have made them more acceptable. I pondered aloud that I think no matter how we had phrased these issues, the reaction would have been very much like we received and it would only be a question of degree. I think all of those who are decision makers surrounding this area are beginning to believe that no matter how the issues were portrayed, there would be objection and there would be anger, because taboo topics have been brought out of the closet and put on the table to be examined. We are asking for creative and critical thought. These are sacred cows that have never been allowed to have that kind of creative, critical thought in public since the 1950s.

I find that the first time you say you are going to look at something that hitherto has not been allowed to be looked at, there is panic as people adjust. The member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski) earlier asked if by indicating what teachers made we should not be surprised that that would be upsetting to teachers to have their salaries made public. Indeed, that was not surprising, because we do understand. I indicated to him at that time that we do understand the first time things are made public that it is a new experience in many cases, it is a bit nerve-wracking, you are suddenly under scrutiny, but that it need not be a fearsome thing, it need not be something of which you should be afraid.

We have all around this table had an independent commission decide our salaries, and that was a subject of much debate. Members around this table had their allowances and all the things they do printed in the newspaper for all to see and for all to discuss. Editorials made comments about how we are paid and whether it was being done correctly or incorrectly or whether it was too much or not enough, all of those things.

I would imagine that if some of you were going through that for the first time, when that commission was doing its work, that it would have been upsetting. Those of us who have sat around school board tables for over a decade had to discuss and debate and vote every year in public on our salaries and then have people scream and yell at you because you are getting paid, because a lot of people thought the first time I was on a school board that trustees were volunteers. In fact, I did too. It was just great getting that first pay cheque. I did not realize until halfway through the campaign that you got paid, and I was pleased about that, because I felt that there should be a honorarium attached to that work. So I was pleased, but probably never would have introduced it as a topic had there not been an honorarium already there, and that is the nature of the self-consciousness when you suddenly see yourself as the person being discussed. I would encourage people to step back and pretend it is not them. I have found that I have been able to.

Throughout my years on the school board here, I have had no say on the salary because we turned it over to the public to decide, but I would sit at the school board and say, okay, if this were not me, what do I think this position is worth? What is the position of chairman of a school board worth? What would I be willing to pay as a taxpayer for any individual to fill this role? What do I think needs to be paid to make sure that we can get people doing it, and where is the fine line between just enough and not too much? I would then pretend it would be another person, and it made it so much easier to make the decision.

Teachers, of course, cannot make decisions about their own salaries. Unfortunately, boards say, neither can they. When I was getting questioned earlier about why there was no money for education, I have to indicate that money for education is up by about $100 million from 1988, when we first took office. Now, I grant you, the last year it was down and the year before that it was a freezing and the year before that it was down, but in the years before that it was high enough that over those years it is about $100 million more than it was when we took office. That is not a decrease, that is an increase overall, but costs have escalated and, unfortunately, the highest costs escalated are the salaries.

Even though teachers will say, yes, but this year we are finally accepting freezes, which boards have been trying to get for 11 years, it does not take into account the vast number of teachers who still get annual increments. They get the automatic annual raise, and they get it automatically. Find me someone who has not received it. It is supposed to be called a merit increment, but it is given automatically, and that has led to increased salary costs. Those are just real things. There is nothing personal in any of this. Those are just real facts with which the system has to cope, and I think they are coping very well, those boards.

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Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The minister’s time has elapsed.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, my question some time ago dealt with an attempt to assist the minister to make clear to the general public what it was she had intended in this document on page 21 by suggesting that if the salary minimum of the existing Class I levels were used, the starting salary of new graduate teachers would be $22,000. The minister said that this was for discussion, and I attempted to put this in the interrogative so that it would more clearly establish the kind of questions the minister had wanted to raise.

The minister essentially argued, in response, that people must evolve their own questions, I think--I am reading from my notes--and that they would evolve their own examples and, yes, there were other examples that could have been given, but people could develop those from their own experience, I guess. So the rest of the minister’s discussion to me, Mr. Chairman, did not seem relevant, and I thought that I had indeed attempted to assist the minister to put those questions that perhaps the framers of this document, the authors of this document, had perhaps not put as clearly as the minister would have liked them to have put or to have offered as many examples.

I wanted to ask the minister about quality, two sections to this argument, Enhancing Accountability: Ensuring Quality. Could the minister reflect for us on what it is in this document that she had hoped to get across about quality and about the ensuring of quality?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I will come at it from the member’s perspective initially in that the official opposition feels very, very strongly that in order to make education better you have to put more money into it. That is a basic premise of theirs: if you put more money in, it will be better.

We have not always agreed with that. We do not necessarily believe that throwing money at a system will automatically improve the system by virtue of the money being thrown. However, if we take the member’s premise that putting more money into a system makes it better, then trustees are looking at ways to make the money they have got go further, which is the extension of either having more money or better use of the money you have.

Trustees claim that they are having a difficult time containing the escalation of costs, and that as costs continue to escalate they have fewer and fewer dollars left to do things, such as connect to the Internet or programming initiatives. One of the things they say that they cannot contain, or the only thing they say they really cannot contain, as their biggest cost item, is the continued escalation of teachers’ salaries. That is the basis behind them feeling that they either need more money or more control over the money that they do have.

They asked if we could put in a system that would ensure that they can have some control in the final decision as to what teachers’ salaries will be, and that they not have it taken away from them completely in an arbitration setting, and that they not have to be bound by a precedent set in another division which may bear no application to them. They say that if they could get a handle on the escalating cost, then they would not have to do as they have indicated they will have to do otherwise, which would be to lay off hundreds of teachers.

I think in terms of ensuring quality, the member and I would probably agree that laying off hundreds of teachers does not ensure quality. Enabling trustees to get a handle on their escalating costs so that they can avoid massive layoffs would probably ensure quality by having more capable professionals retained in the schools rather than someplace else. We also take a look at ensuring that the public system is accountable, and accountability is extremely important to us. We feel that trustees want the same accountability that MLAs have in that they want to be able to be directly accountable for their decisions, one of which, of course, is setting the budget and dispensing the money that they collect from taxpayers. Taxpayers demanding accountability from trustees have said, we want to see a higher percentage of the money that you take from us go to programming, go to equipment, go to those kinds of things rather than escalating cost attributed to salary. So trustees have asked for that accountability as a way of ensuring the public of quality and accountability.

We also want to have some questions asked and answered, if possible, by people who work in the field or who are associated with the field or who pay for the field, about performance evaluation, about what you get for the money you pay. We know right now and we talked yesterday about the physical education department head who gets a degree in business accounting to run the summer store at the lake. Should that department head get a bump up in his classification and a raise in salary because he got that business accounting degree?

I am asking the question; I am not giving an answer. It is a question that has been asked innumerable times, more times than I could ever begin to count for years and years and years. It is a question that I know teachers have heard over and over. I know trustees talk about it endlessly, ad nauseam, in fact, and those kinds of questions need to be examined in terms of quality.

Certainly, any education you get is going to improve the quality of your teaching, but the word “sufficient” put in the question is, I think, important. Is there sufficient benefit to justify taking more money to give to that one teacher who has a degree that is not directly applicable to education but which will have some minimal benefit? Is there sufficient benefit to do that for a whole host of people if it means that you cannot afford to hire five or six more teachers that you would like to have to ensure the quality in terms of class size, in terms of being able to mix and match personalities in the school. Where you have a school that has a variety of people at various grade levels, it is easier for the student to be matched with a person where there is good personal interaction. If there are not enough teachers available, if the board cannot afford to hire as many because they are paying a few people a lot, so they cannot hire others, then opportunities for the student become more limited.

So we ask that question. It may be that the answer to that question is yes, there is sufficient benefit in a phys ed teacher having a business accounting degree to warrant putting him into another classification. I think the question is a legitimate one that has been floating around for years, and I do not know why anybody would be nervous about sitting down to discuss it. I think it is a good point for discussion, and I think all of those who care about education and its relevancy to the classroom should be eager to enter into discussions on topics such as these because they get right to the heart of what happens in a school.

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Teachers, as I indicated earlier, get an automatic increment for a number of years in their schools until they get into a new classification, and then they begin the process again. Then the question is asked, should teachers have to demonstrate that they are worthy of that increase? Should they have to have a performance evaluation before they get a merit increment, or should it just be automatically given because they have been there another year?

I was interested very much that the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) has very strong feelings. As a member of the NDP official opposition, he put on the record very clearly the other day that experience could mean one more year of entrenching bad habits, and one more year of being in a job does not necessarily make you better in the job. It could make you far worse because you have built bad habits that you could have a harder and harder time undoing. The NDP opposition put that on the record as their official position the other day very strongly and very clearly, so I know that they appreciate this question being in here for discussion. We just put it out for discussion; he came to a conclusion and stated it in Hansard. We just wanted to discuss it, but it is good to know how the NDP feels about that point. We wish we knew how more people felt about it.

Ms. Friesen: A number of things I would like to pursue with the minister there. One, of course, is her recognition that the layoff of 600 teaching positions under this government, indeed, has affected the quality of education. A second thing that concerns me is the minister’s belief that trustees are not accountable. That one I find very puzzling. Does the minister not believe that trustees are accountable at election time and at meetings with their constituents for the way in which they spend the money, the way in which they make decisions? Most board meetings that I know of are quite public meetings and the way in which they are accountable for decisions.

The third element, I think, of her response dealt with an area that we have been over before, and that is the issue of sufficient--the word “sufficient” in the proposal or the suggestion or the area for discussion, whatever it is the minister wants to call it--for additional education as an element of improving the quality teaching. The minister made reference to a whole host of people who are in this position who have asked this question before; it has been an age-old question, she said. If that is the case, I am a little puzzled as to why there was not more evidence, not more discussion in the paper about the number of teachers in Manitoba who have in fact taken additional degrees which were or may not be relevant to the kind of job that they are expected to do within the classroom, within the school or within the school system.

The example the minister gives, and she is very careful to use one from another jurisdiction, and it is a single example of the phys ed department head with Business Administration. Although we had the discussion yesterday where it seemed to me that an entrepreneurial division, an entrepreneurial principal, would find some very significant ways in which to use that unusual combination of education. Nevertheless, let us let it stand as an example of what the minister is trying to argue.

So as an element of quality, I want to pursue that particular angle since it has given much discomfort and much concern to many of the people who presented to the commission. I think there are two elements that I want to pursue there. One is, why is there not more evidence of how this is happening in Manitoba? How many people are there across Manitoba who have degrees which are not considered or could not--let us say, put it at this broad-as-possible perspective--be considered relative to the job they are doing in the classroom and yet are receiving additional pay for that? I think that is one element of it.

I think the second element, when the minister puts emphasis upon the word “sufficient,” really what we are doing here, what she is doing here, is saying that this is a judgment call, and she has asked for discussion on that judgment call. If I could put the question to her: Who does she believe should be making that determination of sufficient, and is she suggesting, is she in a sense saying that there ought to be a system, or one thing that we should consider is that before teachers embark upon a new course of study that they obtain a recommendation or an assurance from their school division that this is a course of study which will benefit them in the classroom?

So it is a question, really, of both process and of who determines this, and on what kind of broad basis was the minister laying this out as a major cause for concern in Manitoba.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Before I recognize the minister, I would just like to say we have about two and a half to three minutes left.

Mrs. McIntosh: I will try to make my answer considerably shorter than some of my earlier ones.

I will just indicate--she asked, does the minister not believe trustees are accountable?--they are held accountable at election time, and that is my entire point. No, trustees are not able to be accountable for certain aspects of their job. That is the whole point; that is the entire point of this discussion paper. Legally, in law, in reality, in every way, trustees are not able to be accountable in certain aspects of the role they are obliged by law to fulfill. It is a paradox and it needs to be addressed.

If they cannot be accountable for the biggest budgetary item they have and yet are being accountable for that very budget item, that seems to be directly contradictory. You said sufficient as a judgment call--I agree with you. You asked, who should exercise the judgment as to what is sufficient? I believe the school trustees should and, again, that has backed the whole point of this paper. It is what it is all about. Is there sufficient benefit derived from the current way of compensating teachers? Who should be accountable for that?--Trustees. Who is finding it impossible to be accountable for that? Under the current laws that bind them, school trustees. I believe school trustees should be the ones to decide what is sufficient benefit for services rendered for wages paid, and yet in many instances, they are not allowed by law imposed by the province upon them to decide or to use the judgment they were elected to use to decide what is sufficient benefit to get for services rendered for wages paid.

You have asked why there are not more examples or evidence of teachers who have relevant or irrelevant degrees. I come back to why are there not more examples on the--if we did this and if we did that kind of things. This maybe does not have enough examples in it but it was not intended to be a full discourse with all worldly examples included. It was intended to be a springboard for discussion and that is told in the documents. It is a springboard for discussion. The examples are held to a minimum perhaps to the distress of those who read too much into the few examples that are in there, but it was not intended to be a thousand page document. It was intended to be as brief as possible.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The minister will have roughly seven minutes to complete her answer when we return tomorrow.

The time being 5:30 p.m., committee rise.