Is there leave to permit the bill to remain standing? [agreed]

Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to add my comments on Bill 73, The Construction Industry Wages Amendment Act. This has been a bill that I take it has been a long time in the making in that it was a number of years ago that the previous Minister of Labour, who is now Minister responsible for Energy and Mines (Mr. Praznik), was the Minister of Labour and had gone to the Labour Management Review Committee in this province and had asked specific questions of that particular body in that they should come forward with recommendations on how to improve The Construction Industry Wages Act so that it would be fair to all of the stakeholders, that it would be fair to those that were employed in the construction industries of this province and that it would be fair to those that were owners of business operations in Manitoba that had their businesses in the construction sector.

Now, with this particular bill, we find that it has mixed parts in it. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) here quite often likes to say that he is introducing his labour legislation in this province because he senses that there is, as he terms it, a need to democratize issues that are dealing with workplaces in Manitoba. I want to tell you, Madam Speaker, in looking at this legislation, this is one of the Minister of Labour's most regressive pieces of legislation that he has tabled in this Legislature and that it does not reflect the fair balance that we would expect that there would be from a government, especially the Minister of Labour, who is supposed to be the representative of some semblance of balance and order in this province, to make sure that there is a level playing field, first for the construction companies to compete with each other but that the rules are applied uniformly throughout the province.

I will get to specifics on that concern in a few moments as I continue my remarks.

One of the things that I have noticed that Bill 73 has done very clearly, and all you need to do is take a look at the Construction Manitoba document dated June 1996, it lists eight items that the Winnipeg Construction Association has indicated are of prime concern and are main points that they wanted to see in this legislation. I want the record to show that Bill 73 incorporates all of those recommendations, seven of them, in the intent that this Winnipeg Construction Association wanted and that the eighth one was included in a modified form.

So, when you compare the wishes of the Winnipeg Construction Association with the document, the Bill 73, you can see that they were incorporated into that document. Well, Madam Speaker, the Winnipeg Construction Association is not representative of all of the stakeholders in Manitoba dealing with the construction industry in this province. That is why we have the Labour Management Review Committee that is comprised of equal numbers of labour and business people with a neutral chair, the honourable Wally Fox-Decent, who members of this Chamber I am sure know, who has acted time and again on behalf of the people of Manitoba in a fair, impartial and neutral way.

(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

Mr. Fox-Decent was the chair of the committee that dealt with the letter that came from the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews), looking for recommendations on the amendments to The Construction Industry Wages Act. This particular committee, the Labour Management Review Committee, went out into the communities around Manitoba over a number of months and consulted with the stakeholders throughout Manitoba. They did not just confine their discussions and hold hearings inside the Legislative Building like this government is doing with various pieces of legislation. They went out through Manitoba and consulted with the stakeholders in the construction industry in Manitoba. For all of those hours of hard work that this government wanted that committee to do and the committee performed diligently, this government chose to ignore by far the majority of recommendations that came from the Labour Management Review Committee, construction sector.

There were 54 recommendations that this committee made, and then of those 54, they were further refined and the number was reduced slightly. Those recommendations went to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) and to the government, and yet the government chose to ignore, by far, the majority of the recommendations in this report. Instead, the Minister of Labour, through the Winnipeg Construction Association, chose to accept all eight of the recommendations of the Winnipeg Construction Association.

* (1450)

So you can see that the government is not playing on a level playing field here, does not want to have a level playing field. They do not want to have democracy in action in Manitoba, as we have seen with respect to their actions on Bill 32, one of the education bills; Bill 72, an eduction bill, where it has been very antidemocratic in nature. We saw it in Bill 49, where they appointed a commissioner to determine what unions should be representative of health care employees in this province.

We saw it on the Payment of Wages Fund, where the government eliminated that fund in this province that helped working people. Now this government is choosing, very clearly choosing to ignore the Labour Management Review commission's recommendations that were made after weeks, many weeks and perhaps months of hard work went into the development of this document and the 54 recommendations that are attached.

One has to think that while governments choose not to accept all of the recommendations of reports that come to them, there are some very, very important areas that could have--[interjection] Yes, well, perhaps. They listen to Bay Street reports that come to them, and it is clear there was a conflict of interest in that respect with the companies that are doing the MTS sale on behalf of the government and then are going to profit by it at the same time. It is clear that this government does not understand conflict of interest.

You take a look at some of the recommendations that are in this report. The only recommendations that this Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) and this government chose to accept from the Labour Management Review commission on The Construction Industry Wages Act were ones that agreed with the Winnipeg Construction Association. [interjection] Yes, this is the subcommittee report but there are 54, and, as I said a few moments ago, those were further refined down to a few other recommendations. The number was reduced from 54 down, there is no doubt. But at the same time these were the recommendations that that subcommittee made. They held the hearings throughout the province; they listened to the people of Manitoba. There are the stakeholders in this, and the recommendations that came back, the government chose not to accept them unless it agreed with the recommendations that were made by the WCA.

The recommendations that the LMRC made that were agreed to by the government was, one, to retain the act; the other one that they agreed to retain or to accept as a recommendation by the subcommittee was the removal of industrial maintenance from the act. They accepted the recommendation to retain the present definition of journeymen, and they accepted the recommendation of longer hours for work camps for employees, giving employees working in work camps the opportunity to work longer hours. The 47th recommendation that was in here was also a definition that the government chose to accept.

No other recommendations were accepted by this government. They did not choose to accept the ability for third parties to bring forward complaints for enforcement of the act, The Construction Industry Wages Act in Manitoba. They chose to ignore other segments of the act that would improve the level playing field between companies in this province that would have fines for companies that were found to be in violation of The Construction Industry Wages Act. Recommendation No. 8 of the subcommittee indicates that fines for companies breaking the law, the fines should be increased by two and a half times their present value for employers as individuals and for employers as a corporation, and the government chose to ignore those. Well, if you take a look at the number of enforcement officers in Manitoba you can see that there is a problem. Take, for example, Thompson, where there is an officer that is supposed to go out and enforce The Construction Industry Wages Act in that community and surrounding communities. The officer does not even have a car to allow the officer to travel to the worksites to make sure that the work is being performed and that the employees and the company are operating in accordance with The Construction Industry Wages Act of Manitoba.

The government has removed the house-building sector from The Construction Industry Wages Act. What is that going to say for each and every one of us and all of the people in Manitoba who we represent? We are now going to have people who are working in the house-building sector who are no longer going to fall under The Construction Industry Wages Act. Where is the regulation that is going to ensure that the people who are building our homes that our families live in have the appropriate skills necessary to build safe homes for our families? I think what is going to happen here, it is going to be downward pressure on the wage rates for those who are employed in the house-building sector in Manitoba and that you are going to see those who are searching for jobs now work for whatever money companies are willing to pay them and that there will be downward pressure on the wages of the people who are employed in that sector.

An Honourable Member: That is not true, Daryl.

Mr. Reid: Well, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) may not be concerned about safe housing conditions for our families in this province, and that is unfortunate. I would hope that he and his government would accept that there needs to be some regulation and some training and some skill level for people who are building the homes for our families in this province, and by removal of that you are going to put pressure and a downward pressure on the skill level of the people who are employed in that sector and a downward pressure on their wages at the same time. That is going to be one of the repercussions of removing the house-building sector from The Construction Industry Wages Act.

The other sector that the government has removed is the building maintenance, but the government does not realize, or maybe they do realize and do not care that 50 percent of the work that the construction sector has in this province is in the building maintenance sector, and what you are saying by removing that is that the work can be done for the lowest possible wage for anybody willing to work for minimum wage or perhaps even less in this province if no complaints are filed.

An Honourable Member: Daryl, you know that that is not true.

Mr. Reid: I have cases in my files downstairs, for the Minister of Agriculture's information, that relate to complaints that people have brought forward where companies, companies that his government let operate in Manitoba on pipelines in southern Manitoba, that brought labour in from Alberta to work on those because they are willing to work on pipelines cheaper than the people of Manitoba, supplanting the people or kicking out the people of Manitoba from having employment opportunities in those jobs. Is that what we want for the people of Manitoba? I do not think so. I do not think that is right. If we are going to have people in Manitoba and companies come in to perform work on behalf of the industries here or on behalf of the government, we have to take some steps to ensure that Manitobans are employed in those jobs. We had the same problem with the Louisiana-Pacific plant in Swan River.

An Honourable Member: We can build a great fence all around Manitoba and keep everybody out.

Mr. Reid: Well, the minister is saying then that perhaps we need to have the open borders. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) wants to have open borders and said, let us bring in all the Alberta people to take Manitoba jobs and Manitobans can sit at home, now that their welfare is going to be reduced or eliminated, and that they can starve to death and they do not have to go out and work for the minimum wage or close to it that these companies are paying. That is what he wants.

I do not think that is right. I have asked the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) here in committee to make sure that companies that are coming into Manitoba first comply with The Construction Industry Wages Act in the province of Manitoba, and that they take every reasonable effort to make sure that Manitobans are employed in those industries. The Minister of Labour and his government refuse to take that action, so where are Manitobans left in this? Companies come in from Alberta, bring their employees with them, and there is no level playing field between the businesses of Manitoba and the businesses of Alberta because the government will not enforce the wage scales, the wage rates that are set in this province by The Construction Industry Wages Act.

So we have an imbalance of playing field that is not level between the Alberta companies that are coming in here and taking that work, bidding on it because they know they do not have to pay the wage rates that Manitoba defines under the act and that the government will not enforce the act, making it a disadvantage for Manitoba companies. Now, if you do not care about the workers, you should care about the companies, but you do not even do that, so Manitoba companies are being disadvantaged. They are losing the business and their employees are losing the work.

One of the sections of the act, and one of the things that I have raised with the Minister of Labour in committee through the Labour Estimates, is that the building maintenance section is going to be removed from The Construction Industry Wages Act and that it will now be up to the Labour Board. The Labour Board will hold hearings under Section 16.1(2) of this Bill 73. The Labour Board will hold hearings on the jurisdiction and what work should be included under The Construction Industry Wages Act and which projects should not. I have raised this matter in this House during Question Period and during Estimates with the Minister of Labour. The Labour Board right now, today, does not have the resources to take on this extra workload. The minister is going to give the Labour Board extra workload under Bill 26 provisions. The minister is going to give extra work with respect to the certification applications or secret ballot votes under Bill 26, and he is going to give more work to the Labour Board to determine which businesses, which projects are going to fall under The Construction Industry Wages Act of Manitoba, all with the same people working there and no extra resources. This board, I tell you, I have the documentation from the board saying they are currently stretched to the limit and cannot take on any further work without the resources to allow them to do that.

An Honourable Member: We will roll up our sleeves and do it ourselves.

* (1500)

Mr. Reid: Well, it would be nice if the Minister of Labour did that, but I sense that he is more intent on taking other actions and finding ways to undermine the working people of the province of Manitoba than he is in trying to solve the problems of the Labour Board.

I asked the Minister of Labour on all his bills, as my colleagues have done on their bills, if the comments that we are making on these bills are, in your opinion as government, inaccurate, then provide for us the regulations that are going to be attached to these bills.

An Honourable Member: We have to pass the bill first.

Mr. Reid: So what you are saying is that you are going to amend the bill. That is what you are saying, either that or you are incompetent and you do not have that work done already. That is the only thing that I can determine from your refusal to release the regulations for the education bills, for the health bills and for the construction industry and labour act bills. So you have the regulations ready, and I know you do, but you do not want to give the public the opportunity to see those regulations and how they are going to impact on the public. That is what you do not want.

Well, the Minister of Labour must know that the Labour Management Review Committee is comprised of people from all walks of life, all the stakeholders, and you know that the Labour Management Review Commission and the Labour Board are involved in the development of regulations for these labour bills, so do not tell me that the regulations are not ready, because I do not believe that.

An Honourable Member: Well, I am not sure.

Mr. Reid: Then the Minister of Labour and perhaps other ministers are incompetent in not having those regulations at least drafted.

One of the other areas that I find is autocratic and, as the United Church said here on Bill 36 just two days ago, almost communistic in its nature--

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

An Honourable Member: Mr. Deputy Speaker, try and have order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I will as soon as the minister comes to order.

The honourable member for Transcona, to continue.

Mr. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know the government members opposite are sensitive to this and they took quite a hit in committee when members of the public came forward and accused the government of being like a communist dictatorship.

This Bill 73 will give powers to the minister and to the Premier so that every Wednesday on cabinet day the Premier and/or his designate will determine the projects that will be included or excluded from The Construction Industry Wages Act. The Premier will determine what is the definition of Winnipeg with respect to the wages act and where that definition will fall.

We know the recommendations that come on that issue from the subcommittee report and the final report from LMRC. It said to retain the current boundaries at 30-mile radius from this corner outside this building here. But you must know too that the Minister of Energy and Mines (Mr. Praznik) when he was Minister of Labour appeared before the committee and made representation to the committee on The Construction Industry Wages Act at the time he was minister. Now, is that not a conflict of interest, that the minister sends to The Construction Industry Wages Act, a letter asking them to review The Construction Industry Wages Act and to bring back recommendations to the minister of the time and then the minister, as a member of the public, I suppose, at least I hope it was, goes and makes representations to that subcommittee. Now is that not improper for a minister of the Crown to do? Is that not a conflict of his position?

I hope that the minister when he will have an opportunity here, the Minister of Mines and perhaps the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) or other government members will stand up and explain why the Minister of Energy went to that subcommittee and made a presentation. I do not think it is proper and neither did the people who sat in on that committee when that minister showed up and made the presentation. [interjection]

It is a free country, but you have to recognize that there is a conflict here and that is why we have rules in place on members of this Chamber, for the information of the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Pallister). He is bound by it the same way I am, but his minister clearly broke that conflict provision by going out and making a presentation. [interjection] You do not think so?

An Honourable Member: No, I do not think so.

Mr. Reid: So you think that the minister going out and making representation that perhaps could benefit his family's business just north of the city of Winnipeg is not a conflict. [interjection] So you are saying as minister of the Crown, you should be able to go out and comment on things that are going to benefit your family?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I can see we are heading in a direction that I would not be happy with at this time. I would ask the honourable member for Transcona to put his comments through the Chair, and I would ask other honourable members who want to make a presentation to wait until it is their opportunity to do so.

The honourable member for Transcona, to continue.

Mr. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and through you to members opposite, I find it abhorrent that the former Minister of Labour, while he was Minister of Labour, would take that action and go before that subcommittee and that the members that were the stakeholders of the industry that were represented on that committee were also offended that that minister would appear. It is not proper, and I hope that the minister will take every reasonable effort to provide some clarification why he attended.

I also want to point out too that the government has taken other steps in that the government is willing to allow for jurisdictions' competitive position of the construction industry in Manitoba relative to other provinces and jurisdictions.

It is interesting to note the position difference here between the position of this government with respect to the construction industry, and in fact all labour in the province of Manitoba, in comparing wages to other jurisdictions, not only provinces but perhaps U.S. states when it comes to the construction industry, but when the health care workers of Manitoba want to compare interjurisdictional, the government says, oh, no, we cannot do that.

* (1510)

So you cannot have it both ways. You cannot say for the construction industry, well, we are going to compare for other jurisdictions the wages of those and then set the wage rates for Manitoba people, and then when another sector of working people in Manitoba, the health care in particular here, want to have that comparison, you say no. How is that you can say you can have it both ways?

The minister is removing, through Bill 73, the ability and the power that these wage boards have--the heavy construction industry, the three wage boards--that they would meet annually, and they would put forward recommendations to the Minister of Labour on how to improve the act to make it representative of Manitoba. The minister now is taking back the power of those boards.

He is saying those boards will no longer meet, they no longer have his confidence and that he is going to appoint a board--perhaps another politically-appointed board like we are seeing with the regional health boards where you have got defeated Tory candidates, and God knows there must be enough of them around the province--to sit in on an advisory committee to consider matters that the minister will refer to that board, and they will meet at the minister's discretion.

So, if the minister says you are never going to meet, they are never going to meet to talk about issues affecting the construction industry of Manitoba. Not only that, they will be dealing with matters that the minister will refer to that board. If that is not an anti-democratic section, I do not know what is.

The independent wage boards were there before with stakeholders and a neutral chair to bring forward recommendations to the Minister of Labour on the construction industry. Now the Minister of Labour will determine if and when that advisory panel for committee will meet.

The minister is also saying through Bill 73 that he is going to determine all of the issues, he knows what is best for the industry, and he will determine when they will meet. The wage boards--the construction industry wages of Manitoba have been frozen by this government since 1991. This minister has effectively, by his refusal to listen to the recommendations coming from those three wage boards, taken any action to make changes or to listen to the recommendations since 1991, five years.

So it is very clear that there is a pattern that has developed here, first that the government does not care about the recommendations coming from LMRC; second is that the government does not care that the businesses that are being affected here are now going to have to compete on an unlevel playing field by the removal of the sectors that I have already spoken about and that the government does not care, for the third point, about the working people who are employed in these areas and let them fend for themselves and wherever the wage rate may settle out in those sectors that are now going to be excluded, so be it, in the minister's mind, and that he does not care what happens to those people.

It is very clear that there is a centralization of the power into the Minister of Labour's hands and that they did not take the recommendations to heart that came from either the Construction Industry Wages subcommittee, or from LMRC that came to the minister. So let not this Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) and his government say that he is taking these steps to improve The Construction Industry Wages Act of Manitoba when he refuses clearly to listen to the LMRC recommendations that came forward and chose instead to listen to the Winnipeg Construction Association and accepted those recommendations for Bill 73.

We look forward to this bill going through to committee, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to listen to members of the public who are in businesses or employed in that industry come forward with their recommendations to this government. I look forward to those committee hearings.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: As previously agreed, this matter will remain standing in the name of the honourable member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett).

Mr. Deputy Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews), Bill 18, The Payment of Wages Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur le paiement des salaires, standing in the name of the honourable member for Wellington.

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to say a few words on Bill 18, The Payment of Wages Amendment Act. According to what the minister has mentioned when he introduced this bill for second reading, currently Manitoba has reciprocal agreements with most of the other provinces in the country for the purposes of enforcing each other's payment of wages orders. This is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.

An Honourable Member: I cannot believe you said that.

Ms. Barrett: I cannot believe I said that. Where was I? In trouble. Can I start again?

It is important, we feel, that workers be protected and be enfranchised so that they can receive the wages which they are owed throughout the country, and we hope that the reciprocal enforcement agreements that are underway with other provinces such as Ontario come to quick fruition. My understanding is that the purpose of Bill 18 is to enable reciprocal agreements to take place between Manitoba and North Dakota. Currently the legislation does not allow for reciprocal agreement for a non-Canadian jurisdiction.

I think with the movement of goods and services and people north and south more and more, a movement that has some real problems with it as we have raised in this House in the context of free trade agreements and capital, et cetera, and the Americanization of not only our economy but our health care system, there are problems in this regard. It is good to see that we are recognizing the need to put in place reciprocal agreements with states, so that Manitoba citizens, no matter where they go, or if they go into North Dakota as well as the provinces, will be able to have their wages protected.

However, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we feel that Bill 18 is quite limited and does not address a major issue that has been engendered by earlier actions of this government. I am speaking, in particular, of the elimination of the Payment of Wages Fund which, in the budget of this year, was eliminated by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews), the Payment of Wages Fund which used to be protecting workers in Manitoba and now is no longer there.

It was to ensure that there was money available for workers to draw on should they not be paid their wages by their employer for any number of reasons, because the employer went bankrupt or had other financial problems or just because the employer chose not to pay. So the Payment of Wages Fund was put in place by the Schreyer government to be a pool of money that employees could draw on, not just willy-nilly, but employees could not just automatically have access to that fund. They were able to make application to get money up to, I believe, about $1,200 to tide them over between the time that they were no longer getting wages from their employer and the time unemployment insurance would kick in.

In the budget this last year, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) eliminated that fund, and he stated that the Payment of Wages Fund was no longer necessary. He stated this. The member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe), as well, stated that the Payment of Wages Fund was no longer necessary, not because employers were not going bankrupt, or not because employers were no longer choosing to pay their employees, not for any financial reason dealing with employers' ability to pay, but the Payment of Wages Fund was no longer necessary because the unemployment insurance fund would tide the employees over that period.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, it seems to us very callous, I think, or stupid--take your pick--of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews) to eliminate that fund when he should have known, as we know, and as unemployed workers certainly know in this province, that the unemployment or the employment insurance act has a two-week waiting period. If they had checked, if the Minister of Labour had checked before he eliminated the Payment of Wages Fund with Human Resources Canada, he would have found out very quickly, as we did, with one simple phone call that the unemployment insurance provisions do not cover situations where an employee is not paid his wages through a default of the employer or a financial exigency of his or her employer.

* (1520)

The unemployment insurance fund only kicks in after the two-week waiting period. So the Payment of Wages Fund was necessary, continued to be necessary, even though the Minister of Labour said that it was not, and the member for River Heights agreed with the Minister of Labour.

It seems to us that it was a callous move on the part of this government, another move to punish the workers of the province of Manitoba, a particularly callous move because this is money that these employees earned. It is not strike pay. It is not pay for them after they quit a job voluntarily. It is not any of those kinds of things that the government has said, well, employees have choices in the matter.

No, in these situations, covered under the no longer existent employee wages fund, monies were paid to employees after they had worked. They had fulfilled their part of the bargain. The employer did not fulfill his or her part of the bargain. The employees now are being penalized for the actions of their employers. They have already worked, and a contract between an employer and employee states that if you do the work you are hired to do, you should be paid for the work that you were hired to do. The Payment of Wages Fund helped ensure that where employers could not or would not pay that money, there was a fund available for employees to access so they could meet their own bills, so they could meet their own obligations, at least for a period of time until the unemployment insurance kicked in. But, no, Mr. Deputy Speaker, this Minister of Labour (Mr. Toews), acting on his own behest or at the demands of the cabinet, eliminated that employment fund available to employees.

That in and of itself was bad enough, but for them to baldly state in the Legislature that that fund was no longer necessary because unemployment insurance would take care of it, it boggles the mind that the government could be either so incompetent or uncaring or both as to not make that one phone call to do the background work that should be an essential part of any legislation to figure out exactly what the impacts of their government programming and budgetary cuts are going to be. This is a very simple cut, the consequences of which were very simply identified, but they chose not to find out that simple identification of the major problem this was going to be for Manitoba employees. Not only did they not find that out but they baldly stated in the Legislature at least twice that there would not be a problem for employees in the province of Manitoba.

Well, that is absolutely not the case. We would have preferred--and I must remind the House as well, particularly the government members, that while this Payment of Wages Fund was first implemented by the Schreyer government when Howard Pawley was the minister, so it was an NDP program to begin with, but the Lyon government continued the program and stated that it was a necessary safeguard for the employees and the workers in Manitoba. Gerry Mercier stated several times in the Legislature that this was not social assistance, it was not a handout, it was a fund designed to give workers a safeguard so they could have access to funds they were legitimately entitled to if their employers defaulted on their wages.

So it is not only the NDP that has felt that this is an important safeguard for the workers of Manitoba but the former Conservative government in the province of Manitoba, a government that has never been noted as a very progressive government, a government that was noted more as a very conservative government. Even that government's members continued the importance and stressed the importance of the Payment of Wages Fund.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, while we welcome the changes that are in place in Bill 18 that do provide some protection for Manitoba workers who are outside the boundaries of Manitoba, we wish that the government had not eliminated another element of protection for the workers of Manitoba, but we are not surprised.

To conclude, we are prepared to pass this legislation to committee at this time.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading Bill--the honourable member for The Maples. I did not see you standing there.

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have lost a lot of weight, so you may not have been able to see me.

I would like to put a few words on the record on behalf of our caucus in regard to Bill 18, The Payment of Wages Amendment Act.

An Honourable Member: Do you know what it means?

Mr. Kowalski: Yes. My colleague asked me, do I know what this bill means and what it provides for, and that is a good question.

This act amends The Payment of Wages Act which enforces payment of wages orders from other jurisdictions. The buzz phrase here is reciprocal enforcement of wage orders. The act is being changed to allow Manitoba to enter into reciprocal enforcement arrangements with jurisdictions outside of Canada.

The act was first amended in 1991 because of the new agreements with neighbouring jurisdictions: B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Territories, Yukon and Nova Scotia. Now steps are being taken to reach agreements with Ontario and North Dakota. This necessitates changes to The Payment of Wages Act.

The only real change to the act is, it allows the cabinet to designate another jurisdiction as a reciprocating jurisdiction by regulation. An official can apply for a copy of the payment of wages order from the other jurisdictions. Obviously the amendment to this act will be accompanied by a regulation designating North Dakota as a reciprocating jurisdiction. This accomplishes the purpose of the exercise, which is to enable Manitoba's Employment Standards branch to enforce in Manitoba payment of wage orders made by authorities in North Dakota and vice-versa, and we welcome this bill going to committee so we could hear public presentations at that point. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is the House ready for the question?

Some Honourable Members: Question.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The question before the House is second reading of Bill 18. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered.

* (1530)

Mr. Deputy Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay), Bill 67, The Manitoba Telephone System Reorganization and Consequential Amendments Act (Loi concernant la réorganisation de la Société de téléphone du Manitoba et apportant des modifications corrélatives), standing in the name of the honourable member for Flin Flon (Mr. Jennissen), who has 14 minutes remaining.

Stand? Is there leave that this matter remain standing? [agreed]

Also, standing in the name of the honourable member for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway).

Stand? Is there leave that this matter remain standing? [agreed]

As previously agreed, this matter will remain standing in the names of the honourable members for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway) and Flin Flon (Mr. Jennissen).

Mr. Deputy Speaker: On the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), Bill 72, The Public Schools Amendment Act (2) (Loi no 2 modifiant la Loi sur les écoles publiques), standing in the name of the honourable member for Transcona (Mr. Reid).

Stand? Is there leave that this matter remain standing? [agreed]

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Deputy Speaker, this bill, Bill 72, is driven by the government's desire to reduce the wages of teachers. It is driven by the demands of a Treasury Board, not by the needs of education, and it is driven by a Premier (Mr. Filmon) and a government who are hostile to the public service and who see an opportunity to continue their policy of wage reduction throughout the province.

Since 1990, the Filmon government has required public servants generally to cut their salaries. Combinations of wage freezes, Filmon Fridays and negotiated settlements by workers afraid for their jobs have all been successful in exerting a steady downward pressure on wages.

Those same workers, whether in Hydro, Telephones, schools or universities have seen their taxes increase at the local level as the provincial government has offloaded onto the municipalities and school boards. The myriad of user fees, the increased cost of services for everything from recreation to information to public schools has fallen on the public sector as it has for those in many of those areas.

Additionally, the public sector has borne the burden of the scorn of its elected government. Nowhere is this more true than in education. As we examine this bill we should remember the underlying recent economic and political history.

There are those who believe that the Filmon government's assault on teachers is merely a form of vindictiveness, retribution for perceived opposition of teachers during the election. But as I said in discussing Bill 33, I believe this only plays a small part. What is more significant and what would have in any case led to this bill is the ideology of a government of the New Right, which rejects the ideals of public service and which believes that wage costs must be reduced. The reduction of public sector wages is a means to a larger end of enabling Manitoba entrepreneurs to meet the competition of the international low-wage economies. That is fundamentally what much of the legislation in Labour has been designed for.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I hate to interrupt the honourable member, but there seems to be a lot of chatter throughout the room. Could I ask those members carrying on their private conversations to do so in the loge. The microphones are on at this time and it is picking you up, so I would appreciate that.

The honourable member for Wolseley, to continue. Sorry for the interruption.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Deputy Speaker, fundamentally I think what much of the government's legislation in labour has been designed for is to reduce wages, reduce the power of the unions, hold the minimum wage down until an election, ensure that the army of the unemployed exert their discipline on those still in work. We must certainly keep in mind the ideological context of this bill.

More particularly, we should bear in mind that this bill emanates from a Premier (Mr. Filmon) and an intensely political Treasury Board which believes that teachers make too much money. I tried to find a more formal way of phrasing that, but there is no other way around it, and the Premier certainly seems to have no qualms about it. At a meeting in the constituency of Seine River within the last few weeks, I am told that he argued that teachers were paid 15 percent, 25 percent too much and, yet, the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) would want us to believe that this bill is intended to level another of those playing fields or reduce the burden on local taxpayers or some other Tory version of accountability.

Fundamentally this bill is about reducing wages in the public sector. The original discussion document, Enhancing Accountability: Ensuring Quality, of January 1996 is quite clear about its purpose.

(Mr. Ben Sveinson, Acting Speaker, in the Chair)

It said: "The current process served the system well during times of buoyant provincial and national economies, and so long as the public tolerated increasing levels of taxation and government borrowing. The present fiscal circumstances and public attitudes are different however and demand a re-examination of the methods by which employee compensation is determined."

What the authors neglect to tell us of course is the role played in creating those fiscal circumstances by the New Right. Nor do they acknowledge the game they have played for some years now of offloading the tax burden away from the wealthy onto the middle class and cheering all the way as the middle class demands relief from that tax burden in the form of reduced services and a user-pay philosophy. It has been a devious and a temporarily successful strategy, but it has also begun a downward spiral for many groups within our society, and some of them are now beginning to recognize it.

The spirited defence of their profession that teachers carried out this spring was one indication that public toleration of this low-wage, low-skill strategy has reached its limit.

This bill, Mr. Acting Speaker, has both an ideological and a political context. It also has a history in Manitoba which begins with the Filmon desire to cut public schools and increase the assistance to the private schools and to create a market system for education in Manitoba. One part of that market system must be, in the eyes of this intensely political Treasury Board, that teacher salaries must be made responsive to localized market conditions.

I have spoken of that elsewhere in more detail on Bills 47 and 33, but I remind my colleagues in this House that it is also part of the ideological underpinnings of this bill. So I would advise members of this House not to become wrapped up in the personal arguments of vindictiveness of the Filmon Tories. Nor should we spend much time speculating on why individual Tories seem to dislike teachers so much, though the amateur psychologist might anticipate such a jaunt with relish. The Tory goal is and always will be a low-wage economy with a greatly reduced public sector. There are many roads to this and Bill 72 is one of them.

The more immediate history of this bill lies in a discussion paper, Enhancing Accountability: Ensuring Quality, issued by Manitoba Education and Training. We do not know who the author was. We do know it was not written in the Department of Education. The minister acknowledged as much last spring, although she quite properly took responsibility for it. Had it been examined in the context of the Education department, she might have been spared some of the howlers.

Somewhere in the Treasury Board or Policy Management Secretariat, there was a nameless and faceless group of individuals who produced what they tried to suggest was a discussion paper. This paper presented evidence to show that Manitoba had high salaries in comparison to many Canadian jurisdictions and that the pupil/educator ratio is one of the lowest in the country. The authors concluded that Manitoba teachers were overpaid and underworked. What is more, one source of their overpayment was in the classification system which encouraged further education and paid teachers accordingly. We had--horrors, Mr. Acting Speaker--well-paid teachers perhaps because they were well qualified. All of this was compared with Manitoba's economic standing relative to other Canadian jurisdictions.

For once, the Filmon government gave up its usual empty boosterism to argue that Manitoba had a poor economic performance and could not afford to pay the wages that teachers were currently receiving. Ironically, at the same time, the Finance minister was busy writing earnest letters to The Globe and Mail extolling his own and Manitoba's successful economy. The government, of course, selected the statistics which best supported its argument. Much was made, and rightly so, in subsequent hearings of the bias of these numbers and the inconsistent economic arguments offered by the government. But the numbers were merely the floss, part of an effort to give some respectability to the whole process of lowering wages.

The conclusion the anonymous authors reached, and I quote, "that the current system places too much control in the hands of arbitrators, limiting trustees' ability to be accountable to local taxpayers and potentially hindering their efforts to deliver quality educational services to students in the community," was one which did not require complex statistics. This was a political argument which was based on a belief that 40 years of arbitration had given too much power to teachers and that the size of their wage bill, not the provincial cuts to education, was the source of the financial problems facing school boards.

These anonymous authors, Mr. Acting Speaker, then offered some political solutions entirely in keeping with the authoritarian character of this government. Strikes or lockouts will be permitted for two weeks. This would, of course, have violated elementary and international codes of labour relations. But, in my view, the Filmon government was not seeking a just settlement. It was looking for a political club to be used and against an important element of the public sector.

It is interesting that for the moment they have abandoned that proposal in this bill. They abandoned, too, the proposal for local referendums on salaries. They heard from their own people in rural Manitoba of the divisiveness that such proposals would bring to communities where everyone knows everyone else. Two-tiered bargaining and traditional strikes and lockouts are also off the agenda for now, but no one should think that these have all been permanently consigned to the garbage cans of history. They are simply resting, and when the government thinks it can get away with it, they will be looking at them again.

* (1540)

Mr. Acting Speaker, why did they withdraw these proposals? Well, they held public hearings in a few centres in the province, and parents, teachers, superintendents and citizens turned out in great numbers. The Tories recognized that their agenda had to be slowed down and some of the more unpleasant aspects had to be locked up in the cupboard. But really the fundamental problem with the government's proposals, short version or long version, is that they intervene in agreements made 40 years ago between teachers and trustees, the people who must face each other across a bargaining table, people who know each other well and who both have the long-term interest of the students and public education at heart.

A government should only intervene in such a relationship when it is irretrievably broken and this was not the case, in my view, nor the view of many trustees and teachers. It is true that many school boards are facing very serious financial difficulties as the provincial government pursues its priorities of private education. It is also true that recent negotiations and settlements had, for the most part, recognized this situation.

(Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

There was no inherent opposition to a review but such a review should have been carried out with the full co-operation of both parties and in an atmosphere of openness. The government chose, and I could only think it was a clear choice, to dispense with co-operation and to steer a clearly divisive path. Their discussion paper was untainted by research. It did not examine teacher collective bargaining in other jurisdictions. It did not attempt to evaluate what worked well and what did not work in the existing systems here or in other jurisdictions. It did lay out a clear political agenda for the reduction of wages, the centralization of power in the hands of the minister, the reduction of incentives for further education, and the imposition of conditions that neither side of the bargaining table had desired or requested.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Manitoba Association of School Superintendents put it most succinctly in its brief to the Render-Dyck hearings, and I quote: "Government needs to be seen as fair and equitable in its treatment of public servants. Collective bargaining for teachers should be carried out within the context of teaching as a profession within one of the most valued institutions of our society, the public school system."

The superintendents argued in a measured way that long-term solutions are needed and that those solutions are found within the context of public school education where the interests of the student remain paramount. Sufficient time should be allowed for this important activity. The superintendents argued strongly that the work of the present committee be seen as only the beginning of a much more comprehensive and in-depth review of the collective bargaining process and its related issues.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, this was good advice in the spring and it remains good advice today. All parties to this matter would benefit from re-examination. We would all benefit from a longer, more thorough, more comprehensive and more balanced review, and that is what I want the government to consider. If we emerge with a co-operative framework, there need be no loss of face for the government or the minister.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Render-Dyck response was brought in very quickly after the hearings in order that the legislation we have before us today could be considered. The authors of that report heard voices that were inaudible to the rest of us and produced a report which gave us Bill 72. Bill 72, as the minister indicated in her introductory speech, is only the first in a series of changes that will flow from the Render-Dyck report.

We must assume that other changes will follow dealing with classification, education and other professional matters. We must try to take these into account, unknown as they are, in dealing with this bill. Although the government has chosen to take the strike lock-out proposals off the table for the time being, this bill remains one of the more contentious of the session. The most controversial element is the inclusion of the ability of school divisions to pay, to be taken into account by the arbitrator. Indeed, the bill goes further in saying that the arbitrator in all aspects of his or her financial decision shall--not may--but shall base his or her decision primarily, and I underline primarily, on the division's ability to pay. It must be the most important factor according to the legislation. There is no flexibility for the arbitrator there.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is to be noted that this is most unusual in Canadian legislation. This treads new ground, and I believe will make the job of the arbitrators, already difficult, even more so. Moreover, ability to pay is defined as being current revenues and includes the funding received from the provincial government and the Government of Canada. So just in case we had not got the message, this government is determined to drive down the wages of teachers. This section will make it quite clear.

The reduction of funds by the provincial government will be, shall be, reflected in the arbitrator's decisions by law. Arbitrators will also be required to take into account local pay scales in making their judgments. Mr. Deputy Speaker, in my riding, the average income is $19,000. In some parts of the riding, it is half that. In the minister's riding, it is $40,000 and in Tuxedo or Springfield, it is even higher. Here is a direct invitation to return to the pre-war days, and I mean pre-World War II days, when teacher salaries varied greatly across the province. As teacher wages varied, so did their qualifications and levels of education. Inevitably, we had greater inequalities in education than we do today.

I cannot believe that the rural Tories have considered where this bill is taking us. There may be an immediate political jolt in satisfying the populist right in disclosing and personalizing teacher salaries, in reducing the wages of yet another public sector worker, in narrowing the curriculum to what they remember from their own school days long ago, but will it be worth the price they are going to pay in the long term? No modern economy, rural or urban, is going to survive very long without a strong public education system. Let me say again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that no such public education is going to run very far on distance education alone. The backbone of any sound education system is a well-educated teacher who earns and is accorded the respect and support of their community.

Bill 72, like so many of the bills before us this session, increases the power of the minister in collective bargaining. The minister may now amend or add to the statement of matters referred by the two bargaining parties to arbitration. The minister may also initiate arbitration and may ask arbitrators to reconsider any judgments they make. I put "reconsider" in quotation marks because there is a pretty thin line between reconsider and reverse. Will arbitrators consider such ministerial requests as merely that, requests, or will they be required to defend their judgments in front of some new ministerial tribunal? From an arbitrator's point of view, the introduction of a third party who sits in judgment on the arbitrator is new and unfortunate.

The position of mediator-arbitrator that is created in this bill is also of interest and concern. In labour legislation generally, this would be considered very unusual. I shall be interested in hearing in committee of the experience of it elsewhere and the value that the minister attaches to it. I certainly heard from people who believe it will be unworkable or who point out that the qualities that make a good mediator do not necessarily make a good arbitrator.

There are also several sections of the bill which deal with the timetabling of budgets. Some of these changes may distort the collective bargaining process, and I expect that we shall hear more about this from the many presenters at the committee hearings.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, the minister has arbitrarily decided in Bill 72 that several matters may not be referred to arbitration. She maintains, or at least tries to, that they may still be negotiated and technically that is so. But as anyone who has been involved in collective bargaining will tell you, there is far less pressure to negotiate if none of these items, the transfer of principals and teachers, the methods of evaluation, class size and scheduling of hours of work cannot be taken to an arbitrator.

The minister, in responding to her many critics on this bill, points to the fact that this act requires school boards to act reasonably, fairly and in good faith in those matters not referrable for arbitration. From the teachers' perspective this is a new development and it may be helpful, but it will take some time for case law to develop to define what is meant by this. Grievance procedures are costly to all in matters such as class size and transfers which affect the daily lives of many families. In addition, from the perspective of the trustees, there is a great deal of uncertainty being introduced here. How will "reasonably," "fairly" and "good faith" be interpreted in Manitoba, and what will be the implications of this for the school boards across the province.

In all these matters, we come back to the fundamental proposition that the government is introducing law in haste, which will affect an important part of provincial society and which fundamentally does not have the consent of a large proportion of those whom it will directly affect, nor does it establish the co-operative atmosphere which should be required by collective bargaining in this sector. It increases ministerial powers yet again and will put arbitrators in extremely difficult situations.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, this law has been conceived in a climate of hostility and antagonism. Its long-term purpose is to reduce the wages of teachers and to create greater differentiation of salaries across the province. The minister has created strife where there should be mutual respect. She has lost the trust of many partners in education. For once, I need only quote the words of the Free Press editorialist on Bill 72, and I quote: By acting in the manner she has, Mrs. McIntosh has shown herself to be nothing more than a schoolyard bully.

* (1550)

So I move, seconded by the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid), that Bill 72, The Public Schools Amendment Act (2) (Loi no 2 modifiant la Loi sur les écoles publiques), be not now read a second time but that it be read a second time this day six months hence.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I just ask the minister to wait until I have read the motion or checked the motion.

Motion presented.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Does the member wish to speak to the motion?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: She has spoken.

Mrs. McIntosh: I would like to speak to the motion. The member has made a very interesting speech, full of her own impressions and speculations, assumptions and notions as to what the bill is about. She is wrong on many counts as to what the bill is about, but then she has an agenda that she must follow, which is to support whatever her caucus determines would make the issues that the government puts forward be shown in the worst possible light in order to, as so many people do, try to make themselves look good by making others look bad.

But, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we have trustees in Manitoba who have been waiting for the better part of a decade for the government--and I wonder if the member would like to listen to the speech on the motion that she has proposed. Perhaps she would like to hear what I am saying, and I would appreciate her attention, given that she has made this motion, and perhaps she might like to have some of her other party members join her in listening to the debate. I think it is a very important debate to have so few people on the other side is not, I do not think, an indication of how well supported this member's motion might be. Maybe they do not realize that she is making the motion to delay the business of the people of Manitoba, and that I think is rather significant.

Here we have the trustees of Manitoba who are elected by the people of Manitoba who have asked three years in a row for consideration of this type of legislation and now have it before the Legislature, and this member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) wants to further delay the needs of the field that have been identified through resolutions passed at convention, and I do wish the member would remain in the Chamber while the motion of hers is being debated.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mrs. McIntosh: I did not say that she is gone. I just said I wish she would stay.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Wellington, on a point of order.

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I know you will call the Minister of Education to order on the presence or absence of a member of the Legislature, but I would like to let the Minister of Education know that the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) is currently meeting with representatives of the school trustees in the province of Manitoba.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Deputy Speaker, on the same point of order.

I am currently missing a meeting with schoolteachers in Manitoba to stay and speak on the motion that that member put forward. So, when you only have a handful of people on the other side on a motion they are going to hold up what the trustees need and want, and they do not even have the courtesy to stay while they make me miss a meeting with teachers so they can go to a meeting with trustees, I think is absolutely appalling and deplorable. I have a meeting, too, but I am here doing what needs to be done and she is gone. I know I am not supposed to say it. I take that back. I apologize for referring to the fact that there are hardly any NDP in the House. I apologize for referring to the absence of members opposite.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I thank the honourable minister for the apology. The matter is concluded.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable minister, to continue her presentation.

Mrs. McIntosh: The member for Brandon, who was here in the Chamber today, has indicated that I do not need to speak on this motion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. May I remind the honourable minister that we are neither to say that a member is here or not here.

Mrs. McIntosh: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for that correction, I apologize.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable minister, to continue.

Mrs. McIntosh: The member for Brandon points out that I do not need to be here to speak on this motion. I can get anybody else to speak on it, he tells me. I guess that maybe I do not feel like absenting myself from my responsibility the way some other people may choose to do. The member for Brandon is hollering, is muttering. They are all muttering. Thank heavens, there are not too many voices muttering, but all the voices that are here are muttering.

I am going to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the trustees have asked for this. They said it was urgent. They are asking for some--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I am having great difficulty hearing the honourable minister at this time. There are separate conversations going on; there are different discussions going on. Could I ask those members wanting to do so, to have their conversations either in the loge or out in the halls. The minister has the floor at this time and I think we do owe her the respect to listen to her comments.

The honourable minister, to continue.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Deputy Speaker, the trustees, in resolution, as I said, at convention three successive years in a row have pleaded with the government to move on this. The net result they say, if legislation to this accord cannot be passed, is that they will begin laying off hundreds of schoolteachers.

I am appalled that the opposition wants consciously to see hundreds of teachers laid off. They have stood up and said, we want to delay this decision so that hundreds of teachers can lose their jobs, and I think that is a terrible signal to send. It is a good thing the member is not meeting with teachers right now, because she has just said, we want to delay this past the point where this legislation can be introduced this year, knowing full well that the consequences of that will be the loss of jobs for hundreds of teachers, because that was the alternative put forward to this government by the trustees, who said, if they could not have the scope and type of bargaining altered, because it has changed--the member said we need to go back to the beginning of when arbitration came into being. I say to you that if we did that, if we went back 40 years and did it exactly the way it was done when it came in, none of those items that are now labelled not referrable for arbitration would have been seen on any bargaining table anywhere in the province, nor would they have been 10 years later, nor 20 years later, nor 30 years later.

Those things have all entered and been placed upon the table within the last decade. Some of those have never been placed on the table. Some of those have never been bargained. Maybe the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) and the member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes) would like to hear this. I would appreciate them listening. They say it is important enough to hold up the business of the people of Manitoba and yet they sit there and they talk. They are speaking and they are distracting me, and I would like you to call them to order. They want this motion and they are talking to each other instead of listening to it. They are out of order. [interjection]

* (1600)

They are out of order. They are talking instead of listening. That is against--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mrs. McIntosh: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would appreciate it if members opposite would, if they are going to stand and talk to each other, not do it in the debate that they have asked to take place. They do this all the time to us. I am now in reverse doing it to them. I am asking them to live by the same rules. The member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) rises on a point of order 65 times a day on this type of thing. I am now rising to ask them to live by the standards they demand of us.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I thank the honourable--the honourable member for Transcona, on the same point of order.

Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): On the same point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, perhaps you could advise the minister that this is not a schoolyard nor a classroom and that we do not have to face her to listen to the words she is saying in this Chamber. If she wants to act like a teacher perhaps she can return to the classroom or to her former role as a division trustee if she wants to have the power over members of the Chamber and ask them to be obedient to her. We are members of this Chamber and we respond to the members of our communities' wishes, not to the wishes of the Minister of Education. I think her point of order is out of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable Minister of Government Services, on the same point of order.

Hon. Brian Pallister (Minister of Government Services): No, on a new point of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Could I just deal with the other point of order first, please?

Mr. Pallister: Certainly.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable minister did not have a point of order, but let me advise the honourable members in the Chamber that at times the decorum within the Chamber has been reaching certain levels that do not only not please us but do not please the public out there that is either listening or watching us. I think it is up to us behave in a manner that we would be proud of and that our children would be proud of in the future, so if we could maintain decorum a little bit I would appreciate it.

Mr. Pallister: On a new point of order. The member for Transcona's (Mr. Reid) response to the previous point of order, he spoke in an accusatory and defamatory way about teachers, about educators, and in an attempt, a feeble attempt I might add and a failed attempt to insult the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh)--I know that when he reviews Hansard he will be embarrassed by his comments, so I would like to give him the opportunity right now to withdraw his comments and apologize to the minister because of the disparaging comments that he made about educators in this province. I know he would want to do that now rather than have those comments go on Hansard unaccompanied by a full retraction and apology by him.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable minister did not have a point of order. As I had said--[interjection] Order, please.

For the information of the House, I would like to read to you from the Appendices of our rule book: "Points of Order are questions raised with the view of calling the attention to any departure from the Standing Orders or the customary modes of proceeding in debate or in the conduct of legislative business, and may be raised at any time by any member, whether the member has previously spoken or not."

I would appreciate it if we abided by the rules a little bit and were not just rising just to disturb or to disrupt the manners of the House.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable minister, to conclude her statement.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I, like the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pallister), am really intrigued by the words chosen by the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid). In essence what he said was my behaviour was disgusting and deplorable just like a teacher's, and if I wanted to be as disgusting and deplorable as a teacher I should go back to the classroom. I think that was just absolutely incredible. An incredible statement. He implied that--[interjection]

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I cannot hear myself speak over the heckling that still continues despite your admonitions to the House.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable minister is correct. I am having trouble hearing the honourable minister, but it is not only from--it is from both sides of the House at this time, so if I could ask the honourable members to carry on their conversations again either in the loge or in the hall or up in their offices, it would be greatly appreciated at this time.

The honourable minister, to continue again.

Mrs. McIntosh: As I said, the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) stood and in essence indicated that if I wanted to act as disgusting and terrible and horrible and bossy and rude and mean as a teacher, I should go back to the classroom. I cannot believe that that would be the essence of his message. It was the essence of his message. It tells me what he thinks of teachers. It offends me as a teacher to be thought of in the--[interjection] The member for Elmwood (Mr. Maloway) is speaking from his chair and heckling while I am trying to speak, and I would ask that he be brought to order. The member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), I ask that he would be brought to order for heckling.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I am having great difficulty this afternoon, I can see that, but there is one thing that is happening, and every once in a while when we have the floor we do tend to incite the debate a little bit or choose not to directly come through the Chair. I would ask all honourable members to please refer their comments through the Chair and not directly to any members of the Chamber. It might not incite the debate quite to that point.

The honourable minister, to continue.

Mrs. McIntosh: Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your support on that issue. I know the members opposite rise on a point of order constantly, and I think that it is interesting that they do not like it when I do the same thing in return to them.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would indicate that--back to the speech which I am trying to make.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Mrs. McIntosh: They are still heckling; for the record, I am not asking you to order. I just want the record to show they are still shouting from their seats.

Back to my speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The members opposite know that the trustees of Manitoba for three years have passed formal resolutions asking for this legislation. For many years before that, informally they were asking government--including the NDP government that came before us--that they have these changes to the legislation. They feel they are imperative that they be given quickly because of the length of time that new items have crept into the bargaining procedure over the course of the 40 years that binding arbitration has been in existence. The scope and style and type of items over those 40 years has changed, and the trustees feel that it has caused them great difficulty.

I am waiting till there is no talking in the Chamber so I can resume my speech. [interjection] I am trying to abide by the standards you insist on from us and insisting that maybe that you obey the same standards you try to set for us.

* (1610)

I say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I will talk above the noise coming from the benches opposite and say that the members opposite wish to delay this legislation by six months in direct violation of the will of the people of Manitoba, who have elected trustees right across the province, all taxpayers of Manitoba able to elect people who then represent them, who then say on behalf of all the people of Manitoba there is an urgent need for this legislation. The members opposite would delay it, run the risk of increased costs for taxpayers and lost jobs for teachers. I think it is irresponsible of them to do that. They have the right to do that under the law. They have the right to put forward the motion, but on behalf of the public interest, on behalf of the people of Manitoba who want this, and on behalf of the many teachers who want the protection and fairness that is in this, the right to grieve class size, things that they could never get under any other circumstances, the member should check with the union hierarchy at the MTS and find out how they feel about that fairness clause that the members say they do not want.

I believe that if they really think about what they are doing, this is not an issue to be used for grandstanding to delay the will of the people. Because in this instance this legislation is clearly and absolutely the will of the people, having been given from the taxpayers with thousands and thousands and thousands of votes to their trustees, who then by formal vote again, another vote at convention, have asked for this. So this legislation is not like other legislation in that it is simply the commitment of government. This legislation has clearly come from the people of Manitoba through legal vote at the polls and three times on the convention floor, and yet they would delay the will of the people.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I think that is not a good thing. I think it is not a right thing. I appreciate the need they have to make some kind of a public stand or display as they so often feel they need to do. I think in this case they are holding back good legislation that is in the best interest of trustees, in the best interest of teachers, in the best interest of the public and, most of all, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in the best interest of the students that we are all sworn to care for.

So, on behalf of the students charged to our collective care, for the good of teachers, for the good of trustees and for the public interest, clearly expressed by votes at the ballot, I say that it is not a good thing to further delay this request that has been made for three successive years of the government by duly elected people in Manitoba. So I say that I think that we do need to get on with the business, listen to the will of the people, and not try to delay what they have clearly asked us to do.

Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am quite frankly amazed at the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) taking objection to the opposition moving a motion in the Chamber. You know, the motion is our clearly stated view on this bill. We think it is bad legislation. We moved this. We are fully anticipating that in fact we will be able to put it to a vote fairly soon. It is not going to delay the bill passing unless it is adopted by this Legislature. If this Legislature was to vote not to deal with this bill, that is the ultimate democratic will.

To the Minister of Education, she talks about the Manitoba Association of School Trustees, they are one player in this whole equation. There are many people out there as well--many teachers, many parents, many others--who are very concerned about this particular bill, and I love this kind of view of democracy here of the minister that it is bad for the opposition to move this motion. That is her view. I guess we should sit back and listen quietly to the minister. I found it amazing when she was telling us about heckling, when she is one who regularly gives us advice and assistance from her seat. When you live in a glass house, I would suggest you should not throw stones, but, to the minister, through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is our right as an opposition--I think it is our obligation--when we see bad legislation to see that legislation defeated in this House, and this is bad legislation. I know that the minister is joining in this general power grab that we are seeing across the way. I likened this legislation, when I first saw it, to the war measures act of collective bargaining for teachers--[interjection]

To the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) who had better watch out because the Minister of Education is going to ask that he be called to order if he does not watch out, the bottom line with this legislation is this is draconian, it puts power--it distorts the power balance we have had in our society.

To the minister, who has been lecturing us, I think we would be doing our duty as an opposition if we could defeat this legislation because it will stop this minister from being able to dictate, through this legislation, to the people of Manitoba what will happen in terms of collective bargaining for teachers.

You know, this minister was appointed to cabinet. The Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) was appointed to cabinet. There is only one person on that side who decides who a cabinet minister is. We are all elected, all 57 of us; the people decide that we get elected. There is nothing magical about the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) being the Minister of Education. In fact, I would advise her to be careful because there has been rather a lack of job security over there with ministers of Education. We have had rather a rapid turnover the last little while, but that is what is fundamentally wrong, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with what this government is doing. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Education were not elected to be anything other than members of the Legislature and abide by a fair, democratic process. They are not elected to dictate, to have dictatorial powers over the people of Manitoba.

We are seeing the Minister of Health, and we are going to debate this on Bill 49, with the powers that that Minister of Health has to impose his will through the commissioner on the collective bargaining situation in our regional hospital boards.

We are seeing now with the Minister of Education on a personal agenda which has been very clear, and at least she is up front about it, and it is basically to take away the balance of collective bargaining in our schools. It is not the Manitoba Association of School Trustees she is concerned about; it is her own personal agenda. She should be up front about that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and not try and hide the reality of what is happening.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, my apology is going to the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) here. Perhaps he would care to explain to the Minister of Education, perhaps he has the same view, I do not know, but hopefully he has a rather different view of the democratic process than the minister does and a number of ministers. The bottom line is it is not just about electing a government once every four years, it is about maintaining participation, about discussion, and, you know what, it is about maintaining balance in our society. We have a Premier who now is talking about getting rid of powerful forces--he talks about this--in our society that are preventing change. Well, putting aside--[interjection] Including the opposition, says the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski).

You know, I listened to the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) lecturing us on this side, and the member for The Maples is absolutely right. Who do they consider these powerful forces that are stopping change? Well, we know it is the Manitoba Teachers' Society, Manitoba Government Employees' Union, the Manitoba Nurses' Union. Oh, by the way, it is all coincidental. They dared to speak out in the election against this government. [interjection] Oh, and the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe) talks about the war chest. I mean, you do not even have to be a rocket scientist here to figure out that this is get-even time with those words. They dared, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to speak out against the government in the election. You know what MTS did? They did not say, go and vote for a party. They said, think education. My God, what a terrible thing they did. They ran a nonpartisan campaign on education, and according to the member for River Heights, you know, that big war chest--well, I guess they are getting their just rewards now.

You know, every teacher I talk to in the province--we had a rally in Thompson. It was organized by the Manitoba Teachers' Society where more than 250 local residents, many teachers, many other people, our school board chairperson, by the way, for the Minister of Education--because the School District of Mystery Lake does not support this legislation or the minister's agenda on this. The bottom line is they are being punished for having done what? Speak out in an election. Well, let us run through what they are doing now--

Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Environment): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Unfortunately, I was attempting to listen to the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton), hoping that he would shed some light on the concern that the opposition has to the process of putting this bill through to committee, and basically he has for the last several minutes been impugning motives about the reason for this bill being in front of the Legislature. I think that for him to put on the record the kind of comments that would give this bill a flavour of revenge and vengeance is absolutely ludicrous, and I would ask that he be called to order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable minister did not have a point of order. It was clearly a dispute over the facts.

* (1620)

Mr. Ashton: Mr. Deputy Speaker, now they will not let me express my opinion, my freedom of speech, in this House, and I say to the minister opposite, there are a lot of people out there, a lot of teachers, that is what they are saying. I was in his constituency yesterday. I was in Minnedosa. I was in Virden. I talked to some teachers in Virden. You know what they said? They said, we know why this is happening.

An Honourable Member: Why?

Mr. Ashton: Well, to the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe), they said, you know what our big problem was? We dared to speak out during the election campaign. That is what grassroots teachers are saying in Virden, Manitoba, and the minister should be aware of that. He says that I am impugning motive. It does not take anybody to figure out. You add up one and one, and who has been targeted in this legislative session? Who has been targeted? It is everybody that has spoken out against this government. It is payback time, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and teachers are getting it. The Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) knows that. She knows that teachers know that--

Mr. Cummings: Mr. Deputy Speaker, on a point of order, unfortunately, the member denies that he is impugning motives on this side. I would also suggest, who are the most elected and closest to the grassroots in this educational community if it is not the trustees, a responsibile body that he says are being punished the same and being treated unfairly by this bill? This is a result of a duly voted request from those elected trustees.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable minister did not have a point of order, and as I had stated prior, points of order should be when we are moving away from the rules.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for Thompson, to continue.

Mr. Ashton: Mr. Deputy Speaker, once again, I look forward to hearing from the minister and other ministers in terms of this because it is very clear that this bill is payback time. It is very clear, and I do not think anybody in Manitoba knows better than the people who are directly involved, the teachers.

I was in Flin Flon when the committee made a presentation to the member for St. Vital (Mrs. Render) and the member for Pembina (Mr. Dyck). That is what they said there. That is the feeling that is out there, and do you know what? It is shared by a lot of people in society who realize that.

But this is the point. This Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) does not have, I believe, the right to do what is happening in this legislation any more than the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) does. I think we are ending up in a situation where this government is so arrogant that it believes that it can do whatever it wants in an election, get elected and then break every promise it ran on for four or five years, as long as they can hang in there, give themselves unprecedented powers. Then they face the people in four or five years, and that is democracy. Democracy is not about doing one thing during an election campaign and then getting in with a completely different agenda when you are in power. That is not democracy, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Having elections every four or five years is not the only part of the democratic process.

To the Minister of Education, bringing in motions in this House when we are opposition members on a bill that is a bad bill, I do not think it should be delayed from going to the committee; I do not think it should go to the committee at all. It is bad legislation. It is dictatorial. It is vindictive. I do not understand why the minister would be so sensitive. I know the Minister of Education does not want to listen to the teachers who are concerned about that. We know there is not very good relations between that. I mean, she has made comments in committee attacking teachers. She has made comments--oh, she is talking about the people coming in from the lake, picking up their pay cheques, Mr. Deputy Speaker--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable minister, on a point of order.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Deputy Speaker, the member has placed false information on the record. The member has said that I have said bad things about teachers, and I never have.

He made reference to a request made at one point in negotiations over a decade ago in one division, where the teachers asked to have their pay cheques in 10-month instalments rather than 12-month instalments because, as they indicated, they would prefer to get it in 10 months so that they would not have to interrupt their summer holiday, drive in from the lake and pick up their pay cheque. That is a fact. That is not an insult. That is not a bad thing. It is just explaining why they wanted a 10-month pay period instead of a 12. They are paid on an annual basis, 10 months by agreement. That is not insulting teachers, and the member has put false information on the record which I wish to have withdrawn because it is false information.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable minister did not have a point of order. It is clearly a dispute over the facts.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member for Thompson, to continue.

You know, I was critical of the member for Roblin-Russell (Mr. Derkach) and the member for Fort Garry (Mrs. Vodrey), when they were ministers of Education, on policy, but you know what? We have never seen this level of confrontation in this province, and it is because of those kinds of remarks that the minister makes on the record and the kind of confrontation we have seen with teachers. That is not going to build a better education system, to the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh). We can only have a better education system in this province when we work in partnership.

She talks about the Manitoba Association of School Trustees. They are an important part of the educational community. So are teachers, and right now there is such an atmosphere of distrust out there that we are not going to get the co-operation. Why is there distrust, to the member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe)? Because your government, the Conservative government, is engaged in a vindictive campaign against anyone who speaks out against them.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for River Heights will have an opportunity to put his comments on the record at another time.

Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): Mr. Deputy Speaker, on a point of order, the honourable member for Thompson clearly has put on the record their ability to frustrate the education system and not only their ability but their will and intent to frustrate the education system and put out false information to educators and the education system about how our government and our governance, our legislation will affect the education system in the future, and I would suggest that the honourable member opposite be very careful in how he portrays this government in comments that will be construed as being nothing short of being mischievous and therefore cause discontent and unrealistic expectations by the education system in rural Manitoba.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member did not have a point of order. It is clearly a--[inaudible]

Mr. Ashton: I look forward to the Minister of Education perhaps raising some concern about her own government members bringing in points of order, none of which have been points of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. Excuse me for just one minute. My microphone was not on. The honourable member for Emerson did not have a point of order. It was a dispute over the facts.

Mr. Ashton: Now, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am amazed. Earlier today, I had the Minister responsible for MTS (Mr. Findlay) justify spending $400,000 of government money on MTS because of comments I was making throughout Manitoba. Now we have the member, the member who spoke just previously, saying that I am leading to some great dissension because of my comments here on the legislation.

To the member, talk to teachers in your communities, to any member, and find out what they have to say, because you know what? It is nothing coming from the opposition. Teachers are not stupid. They can read the bill. They can figure out that you are imposing your will on this issue because of what happened in the election campaign, and I say to the members opposite, have you lost touch that much with reality that you actually believe that I or our Education critic or anyone is creating some dissension out there? The reality is, you bring in a bill where you target teachers, and they get angry. They get upset. They get frustrated. They came to the building because of that reason. They have had rallies. They have been putting signs up.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I know it would be a lot easier for this government if they lived in a period of time where there was no opposition. I know they would like to ram this through. It is obvious from the Minister of Education's (Mrs. McIntosh) comments, but you know what? It is not just the opposition that you are dealing with here. It is the people of Manitoba who are saying this, the teachers. The teachers are saying, you have targeted them. It is not me, the MLA for Thompson. It is the teachers. There were 250 of them in my constituency who held a rally. Get your heads out of the sand. Let us get a reality check for the Conservative government.

We are not fomenting dissension throughout the province. We are representing our constituents. We are speaking out to the people in the education community who are concerned about that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, that is democracy. That is democracy and nothing they can do will stop us from speaking.

You know what, Mr. Deputy Speaker? That, I think, is the ultimate goal of this government, to prevent that kind of democratic debate in this province.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for Thompson will have 14 minutes remaining.

The hour now being 4:30 p.m., time for Private Members' Business.

* (1630)

(Madam Speaker in the Chair)