Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, I rise on a grievance. It is a preliminary matter. Little did we know when we agreed to some rule changes that the new grievance procedure and members' statements would be used to supplant the ability of this House to engage in full debate. I can think of no time such as this when a debate is called for, in this province that we care so much about, and not just a grievance by one member or several members but full participation by the members opposite, something that the members opposite fail to understand the importance of, whether it is on bills and whether, right now as we look around this Chamber, this is not a government that has respect for democracy. It is a government that is so disrespectful of our system of government that it will pull the rug out from underneath the judges, the judges perhaps the most important institution that we have to protect justice, protect our freedoms.

Madam Speaker, we have heard today of a case that went before the Provincial Court, before Judge Pullan. My honourable friend for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) read aloud this person's record which reads like an index to the Criminal Code, read the aliases of this individual. Here is someone that this community has got to deal with and has been unable to deal with because the record tells us that. Judge Pullan looked at this individual and heard the submissions of the defence and the Minister of Justice's lawyer, the Crown attorney, and she said: It is clear to me that the previous dispositions imposed on you, Mr. Williams, have not been successful, you have not got the message in the past. And then she went on to say: I have got to find a way to get a message to you now. She said: I am going to impose the intermittent sentence because I take to heart what the counsel says. By the way, counsel included the minister's own lawyer who agreed to a joint submission on sentencing. She said: It seems to me that going back weekend after weekend as the seasons change, depriving you of your free time may well have some significant deterrent effect on you. She believed it. It was a considered judgment. She likely agonized over this. She said: I want to be the judge that changes your behaviour, I want to be the judge that can help ensure some public safety, I want to be the judge that puts effect to the government's rhetoric and intentions, and I believe they were rightful intentions, to make this province the toughest province on drinking and driving.

Well, this is not the toughest province on drinking and driving anymore. That ended when this Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) decided on a little cover-up, and I will explain that little cover-up. The little cover-up was this. Five and a half months ago there was a riot, a very tragic situation in this province, perhaps the worst prison riot in the history certainly of Manitoba. Many individuals were hurt, and it served I think to outline how the Minister of Justice has turned a blind eye not only to victims in this province but to the needs of offenders too, to change their behaviour, and most important of all are to those individuals who in the morning get up and leave their family and children and go to work in our correctional institutions. She turned a blind eye, and having done that, she came back and said, oh boy, these people are going to clean up, in fact not only going to clean up this institution, they are going to rebuild the whole place. That was a real doozie. Then she went on to make things worse. When we discovered that temporary absences were being granted, not on the basis of an application to the TA board, not because a proper risk assessment had taken place, not because there were proper controls and supervisions in the community, but because of the riot. But did the minister say, oh boy, extraordinary times, we had to take some tough decisions. No, this minister said everything is tickety-boo. What riot? It made no difference. In fact, we are tougher than ever.

Well, then in Estimates we got the minister to try and be forthcoming--because this minister, I am afraid, has been so careless with the truth--and we asked her how many people were really given temporary absences following the riot. She came up with a new number. We asked did those include those on intermittent sentence? She said, no, that is not even included there. She said those on intermittent sentence at the time were doing some community work.

Now, Madam Speaker, did the minister at that time say that people who had yet to be sentenced intermittently would never serve time? Did she say at that time that she had no intention of ensuring that the intentions of the court, the reasoned decisions of the court, would be put into practice, be put into place, be enforced by her department? Did this minister say that there was any change in policy? Did she say there was some concern about contraband? Let us take this argument of contraband that she came up with today. She said there is some concern about contraband coming into the institutions from intermittent convicts. Well, let us follow that to its logical conclusion. You know, there is also concern about full-timers going in that are increasingly violent. Is she going to extend the pardons now to all prisoners because they pose some threat? We want to know how many people, how many convicts have been pardoned, because that is essentially what has happened here. It has been a political administrative pardon subverting, thwarting the court system and the reasoned judgements of judges in this province. We want to know how long this minister intends to keep people sentenced to intermittent time out of jail.

Our concern is this. What message does this minister give to Manitobans? She is giving a message that justice in this province is a joke. She is saying we are not serious. She was heard to say yesterday, and I think she got back to that argument today about, oh, there was just no space. Well, it is interesting, because the province of Saskatchewan, which was asked and gladly took in I believe over 30 inmates from Manitoba following the riot, would be more than happy to receive another request from this province. Have they received such a request? No. In fact, all of the inmates that had been sent to Saskatchewan have now been pulled back to Manitoba and plunked in Manitoba's institutions. If there is a space problem in Manitoba, Madam Speaker, it is as a result of a decision of this minister to pull people back from Saskatchewan institutions.

We have heard and suggested that perhaps the government should look at Bannock Point which I believe sits vacant. It is a correctional facility. I understood that it could house 40 to 50 inmates. I understand that Stony Mountain as of today has room for 34 inmates. I have heard that perhaps, if the minister would have rallied herself over the last five-and-a-half months to look at the issue of staffing of the correctional facilities, the Headingley gym and Annex A would be available for intermittent sentencing.

You see, the defence of the minister that there is no space does not wash. The defence by the minister that there should be no intermittent sentences served because of a concern about contraband is false. So what is the motivation for pulling the rug away from the judges? The motivation is incompetence--hardly motivation, but certainly an explanation. They do not care. She cannot run a department. She is a threat--I am referring to the Minister of Justice--to our safety, and she must resign. She must be made to resign. If the Premier will not do it, the people of Manitoba will.

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But of all of the issues we have raised there is none more critical than the cover-up of the Attorney General, which led to her refusal to tell the Crown attorneys on sentencing to tell the court that the option of intermittent sentencing is no longer available. That was her ultimate duty, and that is her ultimate downfall. She refused. It was a cover-up. She did not want it out. And here were these judges like Judge Pullan, after agonizing and trying to change behaviour, trying to serve justice in this province, being thwarted by a minister when they made judgments--and I want to know how many they made--requiring people to serve time on weekends and, lo and behold, no time was ever to be served.

They did not have the options they thought they did. How much police work? How much hope from victims for justice? How much court time has been squandered by this Minister of Justice who decides to impose her own political agenda on the proper functioning of justice in this province by our courts? If there ever was a time for resignation in this province, in this country, it is now and we call for her resignation now.