Faneuil Corporation
Public Subsidy
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Madam Speaker, my question is for the Acting Premier.
In August of 1994, the government signed an agreement with Fanueil which had no mention of the arrangements between the government of Manitoba, the Manitoba Trading Corporation and the Fanueil corporation of a $3-million subsidy. We asked the Premier (Mr. Filmon) in December of 1995 about the subsidy and he rejected that a subsidy had been made. Subsequent to that, the Auditor has confirmed in Hansard that a $3-million subsidy was made to the Fanueil corporation through the Manitoba Trading Corporation.
I would like to ask the Acting Premier: Who has been telling us the truth, the Provincial Auditor or the government of the day?
Hon. Glen Findlay (Minister responsible for the administration of The Manitoba Telephone Act): Madam Speaker, we do not see where there is a $3-million subsidy in the offer that brought Fanueil here. The Manitoba Trading Corporation acts as a go-between between MTS and Faneuil, and MTS pays to Faneuil over the course of five years some $16 million. At the same time, $16 million worth of debt is written down on MTS's books with the government of Manitoba and $19 million is then paid by Faneuil back to the government.
So that is a gain of $3 million, not a subsidy of $3 million, and it represents the interest on the money over the course of time. So it is a basic wash. It is a zero-balance process; $16 million flows, $19 comes back. That is plus $3 million, not minus $3 million.
Mr. Doer: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Acting Premier how on May 10, 1996, the Auditor can say that there is a $3-million subsidy which has been reflected in the '94-95 Public Accounts through a provision against that account--it went through the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism.
I would like to ask the Deputy Premier, how can the Auditor say that there is a $3-million public subsidy and the government claim that they are making a $3-million profit? Whom should the public believe, the Provincial Auditor or the Conservatives who have withheld information time and time again about deals they have made with private corporations?
Hon. James Downey (Deputy Premier): Madam Speaker, the facts are as have been stated by the Minister responsible for the Manitoba Telephone System.
What I have a little bit of trouble with is the opposition being so opposed to a company coming to this province who will be paying off major debt on behalf of the people of Manitoba through the Manitoba Telephone System, with the projection of some, the creation of some 1,000 jobs over a period of time in this province. I continue to have a hard time understanding the opposition. The people of Manitoba last April spoke as it relates to the opposition members and where they should be, and I think that will hold for a long time.
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Manitoba Telephone System
Customer Database--Legal Opinion
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Madam Speaker, if all we are asking the government for is honesty and integrity in the discrepancy between the government's word and Auditor's word, I would think it would cause an Acting Premier and a minister responsible for the Trading Corporation some discomfort.
The Auditor went further to say, Madam Speaker, that the Trading Corporation purchased the database, which was transferred to it for some $10, and that was sublicensed over to Faneuil from the Trading Corporation from the Manitoba Telephone System.
I would like to ask the Acting Premier, could he table today any legal opinion he has on the transfer and utilization of the database from the telephone company through the Trading Corporation to Faneuil, a private corporation?
Hon. Glen Findlay (Minister responsible for the administration of The Manitoba Telephone Act): The database that is leased from Manitoba Telephone System to Faneuil is for use by Faneuil only in MTS programs or MTS campaigns. Those campaigns have been exceptionally successful in winning back customers who have left MTS, but that database is leased and only for use in MTS programs.
Manitoba Telephone System
Customer Database--Legal Opinion
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, the Minister responsible for MTS may wish to correct his numbers. He has them exactly backwards. It was $19 million worth of debt assumed and $16 million worth of preferred shares received. The Auditor is right; the minister is wrong.
MTS's customer database contains highly confidential personal and corporate information. Technically, the ability is there now for every call, whether long distance or local, that has been made to be recorded and extracted from that database for whatever purposes. Prior to entering into a contract such as the deal with Faneuil, is the minister saying that there was no legal opinion as to the use of MTS's data for Faneuil's so-called precision marketing or targeted marketing purposes?
Hon. Glen Findlay (Minister responsible for the administration of The Manitoba Telephone Act): MTS signed a contract with Faneuil, an initial contract and then a bigger contract, totalling some $47 million to retain revenue expected to be in excess of $200 million in this competitive environment we are in. It has had exceptional success in winning back customers. Faneuil has the highest success rate of winning back customers of any phone company right across Canada--highly, highly successful--with the leased database that is used by Faneuil from MTS to do that.
If I remember rightly, the industry average for winning back customers is about 75 percent and Faneuil, on behalf of MTS, is in excess of 85 percent customer win-back. That is very successful, supplying an existing 320 jobs in the province and moving over the seven years up to 1,000 jobs, so it is a win-win all the way around, particularly for MTS in terms of winning customers. MTS's business right now with Faneuil is about 30 percent of the total contracts they have. Some of those contracts come from outside of the country, bringing jobs to Manitoba, bringing revenue flow on the MTS system to Manitoba.
Mr. Sale: I want to table advice received from the legal and regulatory affairs department, signed by the senior associate counsel of MTS which states: The provision of the type of customer information identified in Faneuil's proposal raises serious and, in our opinion, insurmountable issues relating to the confidentiality of customer information, subscriber privacy and service listing requirements as established by the CRTC.
Madam Speaker, will the minister explain to Manitobans why his government never even bothered to get a legal opinion on a deal that can obviously seriously compromise the privacy of every single MTS subscriber in this province?
Mr. Findlay: In the many, many months preceding the signing of this agreement--I believe it was August '94--exceptional due diligence was done by the government, by MTS, by the Manitoba Trading Corporation, to be sure that the agreement signed covered all the aspects that were essential to be covered in the process of signing the agreement for the better economic development of MTS and Manitoba.
Mr. Sale: When you hire a painter to paint your house, you do not charge for the key to get in. Why did MTS charge Faneuil $16 million for a database to do MTS's own marketing? If that is all it is doing with the database, why in the world would they charge them $16 million to get it? It makes no sense.
Mr. Findlay: Madam Speaker, what makes an awful lot of sense for MTS and the province of Manitoba is winning back customers that chose an alternate provider of service, winning them back with the best success record anywhere in Canada. That means that MTS and Faneuil are both very successful in what they do and how they do it, and the jobs created in the province supplies employment for, as I said earlier, 320 people currently and growing. The proportion of the total Faneuil contract carried out in Manitoba, MTS is only 30 percent of that activity. So there is success all the way around.
No matter how that member wants to denigrate things that Manitobans do, they are going to do it in order to be successful despite him.
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Health Sciences Centre
Operating Facilities
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, I just returned from a visit to a patient at the operating rooms at the Health Sciences Centre where that patient was forced to remain in the operating room because there was no room in the recovery room because that room was full of extended care patients, and therefore the surgery in the operating room was backed up because the anesthetist and the patient were sitting in the operating room and operating could not be done there--and this after four years of Tory reform. Spare us more reform.
My question to the minister is, why can the minister not live up to his election promise to upgrade the unsafe conditions at Health Sciences Centre and still have room for a role and function of our community hospitals in the city of Winnipeg?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, the trouble with the approach being used by the honourable member and his Leader is that it betrays a serious rift within the New Democratic Party respecting where they stand on hospitals in the city of Winnipeg. On the one hand, I believe the honourable member for Kildonan when he talks about support for an integrated hospital system, but his Leader comes along and torpedoes his whole approach yesterday when he goes on the bandwagon for one particular institution. It is important that honourable members opposite get their act together.
Mr. Chomiak: Can the minister explain to me what staff told me at the Health Sciences Centre when I was there this morning, that in one operating room they have to put buckets around the operating table to catch the water falling from the ceiling and in another room there are fruit flies? There is an infestation of fruit flies in an operating room, a safety hazard as a result of this government's broken promises and constant cutbacks.
Mr. McCrae: It is somewhat hypocritical, I suggest, for the honourable member to speak the way he does, because it is clear that requirements at Health Sciences Centre go back many years, including all of the years of the Doer-Pawley administration. Let us get it in that kind of a context.
Now we are contemplating an integrated hospital system in the city of Winnipeg. As part of that integrated system, there will be capital requirements in some places. If we listen to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), we would torpedo the Seven Oaks Hospital, and that works at cross-purposes to what the honourable member for Kildonan is talking about, although today he is trying to sound a little bit like his Leader did yesterday.
Capital Projects
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, how can the public have any confidence in this minister's ability to plan an integrated system when four months ago they told the hospitals they would have $10 million in capital to replace equipment? Four months later now they cannot have that capital, maybe they will have it later on.
How many bake sales can these hospitals have to try to replace the deteriorating equipment that this government has failed to replace the past eight years?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): You see, Madam Speaker, it is okay for the honourable member to have the strategy that he has because it has nothing to do with responsible stewardship of the health system in the province of Manitoba. It has to do with targeting a different topic each day as part of your Question Period strategy. I accept that. That is all right, but the honourable member must keep in mind that we are trying to build a health system for the city of Winnipeg and also for the whole province of Manitoba. By talking about one institution at any given time, we defeat our own purpose.
The honourable member claims to be in support of an integrated and well-run hospital system in the city of Winnipeg and yet his comments betray that because now his Leader has put him in an impossible kind of position. I feel badly for the honourable member for Kildonan because he has tried, certainly during the Estimates process, to play a meaningful and constructive role, but his Leader is undermining his efforts.
Regional Health Boards
Appointments
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Madam Speaker, when the Minister of Health made his announcement to move towards regional health boards Manitobans were given the impression that they would have a say in who would represent them, but we have no assurance that that will happen.
Can the minister tell this House where the guarantees are that he will not continue to make appointments and Manitobans will be given a right to vote on the regional health boards? Where are the guarantees and when are we going to have a vote?
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Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): There has been no final decision about that. The Northern and Rural Health Advisory Council talked about ultimately, at some point in the future, electing these boards and that remains a possibility, but there is no hard and fast policy that is the direction that we are taking. We look at the experience in other jurisdictions, notably Saskatchewan, and we would like to see their systems develop a little further so we can learn from some of their mistakes before we get too far down the road. At the present time we are using a process of nomination from the public and from interested organizations and making board appointments from that, as well as ministerial and direct board appointments to the boards.
Ms. Wowchuk: This is absolutely appalling. Is the minister saying that he is going back on his word and there is no guarantee that rural people are going to have the opportunity to have an election on who will represent them on the board and he is going to continue to make these appointments? Shame on you. That is not what you said you would do.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, after such a stinging rebuke, I am left at a loss to know just how I can respond to the honourable member for Swan River.
An Honourable Member: Sit down.
Mr. McCrae: Did you say, sit down?
An Honourable Member: No.
Mr. McCrae: No. I thought I heard someone over there at the front bench say, sit down, and I thought the question was a serious one and was really wanting to have an answer which I would like to give.
It was the honourable member for Swan River who suggested publicly, put out a press release, that we ought to extend the time for nominations.
An Honourable Member: Obviously, you should have.
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, because she is concerned about something going on in Parkland, that area that nominated more people than any other area in the province of Manitoba, because of that, in an area where there are more nominations than anywhere else, the honourable member says there are not enough and so therefore we should extend the time. That is the kind of leadership we get from the honourable members opposite, but the honourable member is more interested in politics than she is in health care. That is obvious by her question.
Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Swan River, with a final supplementary question.
Core Services
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): I would like to ask the minister if he could guarantee rural Manitobans that there will be core services provided for them in the hospital and that there will be no user fees charged in Manitoba for health services and services delivered under these regional health boards.
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Unlike New Democratic provinces to the west where user fees are a fact of everyday life, we do not operate that way here in the province of Manitoba. We do recognize the principles of the Canada Health Act and we do our best as a government, like other governments across the country, to live up to the principles enunciated by the Canada Health Act. But the honourable member ought not to pretend by her question that the reality of the federal Liberal cutbacks does not exist, because it does. Madam Speaker, the longer honourable members opposite go around with their blinders on, the more people in Manitoba see them for what they are and that is a bunch of hidebound politicians whose useful life as politicians is past.
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Health Sciences Centre
Capital Funding
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, the urban health board came up with recommendations a while back, in January, suggesting that community hospitals and particularly the Seven Oaks and Misericordia would not have any role to play in terms of acute care services. It would appear as if the government is in fact seriously looking at the role, in particular the Seven Oaks Hospital, and it appears again that the public and those individuals that were involved in trying to influence the minister might have had some impact.
Madam Speaker, we have always believed that the tertiary hospital, the Health Sciences Centre, is absolutely critical. It is a world-class health care facility. My question to the minister is, is the Minister of Health prepared to make a commitment that the capital dollars that are necessary in order for the Health Sciences Centre to remain a first-class world teaching hospital will be there in the future?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, I think the record of the last eight years of administration in this province should be ample demonstration to the honourable member that we are committed to the health of Manitobans. Whatever structures, bricks and mortar are required to look after the health care needs of Manitobans is something we take as a serious responsibility and will continue to do so.
Mr. Lamoureux: Will the minister concur with the Liberal Party when we say that yes, there is a vital role for our community hospitals but also acknowledge that there is the need for strong tertiary hospitals? To that end, again to ask the Minister of Health, is he prepared to make the commitment that the Health Sciences Centre will be receiving capital dollars to improve their infrastructure?
Mr. McCrae: In spite of the fact that the honourable member for Inkster too seems to be changing his tune today, I can give that undertaking, that whatever programs we approve for the future are obviously programs we will have to support, not only with operating dollars but with whatever capital dollars are required as well.
However, I should point out that we have made the point that the Manitoba Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation is an important matter deserving of some priority, which I do believe honourable members in this House will agree with, but then they quickly follow up by saying, but everything else has to be a priority one item too.
An Honourable Member: No, just your promise.
Mr. McCrae: Well, the honourable member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) likes to harp away about promises, but he has no responsibility for priorities and his demeanour in this House demonstrates that every single day, Madam Speaker.
Mr. Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, would the minister acknowledge that the capital equipment freeze that the minister has put on will put severe limitations on emergency equipment that is in fact quite necessary to have, and will the minister agree today that the moment the strategy has been brought to the public's attention, that freeze will be lifted?
Mr. McCrae: No, and the capital requirements of the health of Manitobans is something that we will take up on an ongoing basis.
Youth Unemployment Rate
Increase
Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Madam Speaker, the Minister of Education's usual answer to questions about declining post-secondary enrollments is that the good news is that all those young people must have found jobs. I want the minister to explain today why this month we have in fact both increases in youth unemployment according to Stats Canada--compared to last year, the unemployment rate for young men has gone from 15 percent to 17.4 percent, considerable increase over a month. Could she tell us why we have an increase in youth unemployment and at the same time post-secondary education enrollment has continued to decline?
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I will take a look at the statistics that are available in my office and get back to the member with a response to her question as soon as I have the figures that she is indicating confirmed.
Ms. Friesen: The minister will find them in the Manitoba--
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Post-Secondary Education
Fee Increase
Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Would the minister confirm that her broken promise, her refusal to institute a fee policy for post-secondary education this year has led directly to fee increases of up to 20 percent in Manitoba institutions? Will she confirm that what she is doing is further reducing the opportunities for young Manitobans?
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I believe there were a couple of questions there. Basically, the member I think has asked me to confirm something and I will not confirm it. I will indicate that I find it ironic that she is even asking a question on this when she absolutely deplored and found absolutely abhorrent the cap on university fees that we imposed for a couple of years, that that was very objectionable to her. I find it rather amusing that she would even deign to ask the question, but, then, chutzpa is alive and well in this House.
I would indicate, Madam Speaker, that we have a tuition fee policy study under review, as the member knows, because it was announced quite clearly and quite publicly some time ago. That tuition fee policy will be an overview policy for the entire province. It has students on the committee as well. It has members of the interim transition committee on it as well. It will be reporting to the post-secondary council on education which was announced earlier today. The member was there for that announcement. I am sure she has already heard this answer, but I appreciate the opportunity to inform the people that that tuition fee policy recommendation will soon be ready for the council.
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Public Housing
Property Sales
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): Madam Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister of Housing about the sale of 20 units of public housing at 390 Behnke Road in St. Vital. He said that no decision had been made about the sale of those units.
I want to ask the minister to explain why 20 families have been ordered to move by September 1, to remove their children from school against their will because there is no other available public housing in St. Vital, if no decision has been made regarding that property.
Hon. Jack Reimer (Minister of Housing): What I had indicated to the member was that negotiations are ongoing regarding the proposal that was put forth by Home Depot for the purchase of that property. It was an offer to purchase. There were conditions that were outlined in it. The conditions are still within negotiations and no decision has been made as to whether that property has been sold.
Ms. Cerilli: I am going to table a list of the approximate waiting periods for new family applicants for public housing from the Manitoba Housing Authority. In St. Vital, the wait is at least one year. I want to ask the minister, how can his department even contemplate destroying this public housing, given that there are waiting lists and a shortage for social housing here in Manitoba?
Mr. Reimer: Madam Speaker, I should point out to the member for Radisson that overall in Winnipeg the vacancy rate for public housing hovers around 10 percent year around. It fluctuates from various portions of the city from time to time but overall there is more housing space available that is underutilized. If there is any type of movement of any individuals, they will be done at the Housing's expenses. The people will not be inconvenienced in any way for any type of moving.
Fleet Vehicles Agency
Board Membership
Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Government Services.
Yesterday the minister was about to provide us with a list of the members of the board of the Fleet Vehicles Special Operating Agency. Would the minister provide us with the list and confirm that it includes people from the automotive industry and tell us how many of these board members are from his constituency of Portage la Prairie?
Hon. Brian Pallister (Minister of Government Services): I appreciate the question from the member, though we were not able to cover this in the short time that was allocated by the New Democratic Party to Government Services Estimates. That being said, the advisory board that advises Fleet Vehicles Agency is one that gives us support and offers us advice on a number of issues, short and long term, assists us with strategic planning initiatives and contributes very significant advice and input to our special operating agency.
Let me say, though, that I think it is important to note that given the term of the New Democratic Party in the 1980s, there was a real reluctance to engage in any kind of creative efforts in the area of business organization to achieve better delivery of government services to client departments. The special operating agencies are doing that to the tune of a reduction of 20 percent in terms of the number of vehicles.
Now, in terms of the board memberships specifically--
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Point of Order
Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): Madam Speaker, I rise on, I think this is the third point of order on the same minister. He was asked the same question twice yesterday. In fact, on my second point of order yesterday, you admonished him for not following our rules, Beauchesne Citation 417. Since he is being asked the question again and he is again evading answering it, I would like to ask that you again call him to order and answer the very straightforward question, who is on this body and how many are from his constituency. It does not take much to answer that question.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. On the point of order raised by the honourable member for Thompson, I would remind the honourable minister that he should respond to the question asked and keep his answers as brief as possible.
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Mr. Maloway: Does the minister not agree that it is a conflict of interest to have car dealers sitting on the board supporting a plan to privatize the fleet which would directly benefit their dealership? Is that not like putting the fox in with the chickens, and will he provide us with a list of the members of the board?
Mr. Pallister: I gather the member speaks from personal experience in terms of foxes and chickens. I would agree it would be a conflict, yes, and there are no car dealers on the advisory board, the special operating agency, none at all.
Mr. Maloway: My final supplementary to the same minister is this: Can the minister explain why in Hansard, June 7, 1995--that is one year ago--the Minister of Consumer Affairs (Mr. Ernst) stated that: “Fleet Vehicles Operating Agency which has people from the automotive industry sitting on that as members of the board providing expertise.”
Could he explain this conflict, when one year ago the Minister of Consumer Affairs confirmed that these people are on the board?
Mr. Pallister: I recognize the members opposite are futilely trying to attack the credibility of this side of the House with issues such as this today and on other days past.
Let me just read for the edification of the members--if they are interested, they would be quiet and listen to the answer--the members of the Fleet Vehicles Agency advisory board, for their interest. The chair is Hugh Eliasson who is the deputy minister of Government Services. The two private sector representatives, I will save for last. The client representatives: John Hosang is assistant deputy minister of Highways and Transportation, Kathryn Bernhardt is a staff representative. She is the manager of Materials and Safety at the Fleet Vehicles Agency. Ex-officio members include Gerry Berezuk who is an assistant deputy minister with my department and Dennis Ducharme who is the chief operating officer of the Fleet Vehicles Agency.
Now we do have, yes, we have two private sector representatives, much to the disdain of members opposite, it appears. Norm Fiske, who is a respected member of the accounting community in this province and has been for many years, is a private sector representative, as is Raymond West who is the past-president of the A.E. McKenzie Co. Ltd. There is your board. They need to be encouraged in their efforts, and I do that.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Sheriff's Office
Bailiff Duties--Privatization
Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Justice. In addition to the Sheriff's Office's function of providing prisoner escort and court security, that office, of course, is also responsible for bailiff functions, for seizing and selling property and evictions, for example.
My question to the minister is, would the minister confirm our understanding that this bailiff function has now been privatized effective April 1? What is driving this privatization, given a departmental report recommending against this privatization?
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): Madam Speaker, yes, I can confirm that in the city of Winnipeg there has been a privatization of bailiff services and that in the rural area this is still being done by sheriffs.
The issues that have been driving this are, No. 1, the time that it takes to deal with this particular service. There is also an amount of risk and liability required. Some of the storage issues are particularly concerning since the storage required are for items such as cattle or tanks of oil. So there have been a number of issues which were well considered which led to the decision in the city of Winnipeg.
Mr. Mackintosh: Would the minister then explain the cost impact of her privatization, especially on users like the Maintenance Enforcement Program, which Saskatchewan, for example, concluded would result in higher costs to government and to taxpayers?
Mrs. Vodrey: Madam Speaker, I think a starting point is to say that, first of all, when sheriffs were doing this, there was a loss in revenue to the Province of Manitoba. The loss, I am informed, was for '94-95, approximately $188,180. Therefore, it simply cost us significantly more for sheriffs to do this work, and we were in fact losing money in carrying out this work. That is a significant amount of money, and we believe that there are a number of places across this province where that money is also needed. So that was another reason, the loss of dollars. It was more expensive in fact to run so that was another reason which drove the changes.
Garment Industry
Employment Opportunities
Ms. Diane McGifford (Osborne): About two weeks ago the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mr. Gilleshammer) said that 200 immigrant workers were coming to Manitoba to work in the garment industry but apparently the Nygard International plant at St. Malo, which opened in September '95 and enjoyed funded training from January to March 31, 1996, closed on April 14, 1996, laying off 22 trained workers.
I want to ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism to tell the House if there really are full-time continuing jobs available in the garment industry and, if so, where are they?
Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): Madam Speaker, it is my understanding that there are considerable jobs available in the garment industry. That information has been communicated to us. We have been working on two fronts, one is to identify Canadians who in fact could qualify for those jobs and develop training programs with the industry to make sure that they are in fact filled by Canadians. We are also working with the Canadian Immigration. My colleague the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship has been working with the federal government trying to clear the way to accommodate some people from outside of this country to come and fill the need of an industry that, quite frankly, is doing well but needs the support of a workforce to carry out the work that is needed to be done.
Nygard International
Training Program--Funding
Ms. Diane McGifford (Osborne): Can the minister tell this House who paid for the job training at the St. Malo Nygard plant and if it is true that some of the workers moved to the Steinbach plant and, once again, began funded training?
Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): As strange as it may sound to the member opposite, I believe that that training activity was carried out by the owners of the company that had the work being done.
Provincial Parks
Entrance Fees
Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): This winter this government travelled the province attempting to foster support for its provincial parks system plan. On all of these occasions the government had ample opportunity to inform Manitobans about this government's intent of not only raising park fees but also placing the onus on visitors to have to go out of their way to buy park entrance passes. This government however, in fear of the negative publicity, failed to inform Manitobans about this change.
Can the Minister of Natural Resources explain why, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising, he neglected to tell Manitobans about the new permit schedule and attached fines?
Hon. Albert Driedger (Minister of Natural Resources): Yes, Madam Speaker, while I have the opportunity to have the floor, I think we want to compliment the Manitoba Forestry Association for the trees that we have here today. I hope everybody will plant those trees and that they will grow.
I am a little, I guess, amazed that the member would raise the question from the Fred Cleverley column. I always was a strong supporter of Fred Cleverley over the years. I am reviewing that right now because Fred Cleverley normally is certain of his facts. In this case, he did not and neither did the member for Dauphin really when he is raising the question here today. I just have to tell him that the consultation that my Parks people have been doing related to the proclamation of The Parks Act is totally unrelated to the issue of the park fees. Incidentally, we did have a press release that went out stating that we were raising the fees.
Mr. Struthers: Can the minister confirm then that in accordance with the new park entrance fee changes that visitors to Manitoba's provincial parks will no longer be able to purchase daily passes but instead will be forced to either buy yearly or three-day passes?
Mr. Driedger: Madam Speaker, anybody who enters our parks will have to buy a three-day pass. In the case of some of our parks where we have always made a provision if people wanted to go and had business to do with the commercial establishments, they had a two-hour time limit that is still in effect and would still remain in effect.
Mathias Colomb First Nation
Health Concerns
Mr. Gerard Jennissen (Flin Flon): Yesterday several of my colleagues and I were privileged to discuss various issues with the chief and council of the Mathias Colomb First Nation at Pukatawagan. One major health issue raised by the chief and council was hydrocarbon contamination of the soil. According to Chief Caribou, the old Hydro site at Pukatawagan has contaminated approximately one-third of the town and that involves 60 houses, a nursing station, the band office and formerly the site of the school.
My question to the Minister of Health is, could the minister update the House as to what degree his department is involved with the federal government in dealing with this health hazard?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): I will report back to the honourable member, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: Time for Oral Questions has expired.