When the committee interrupted its proceedings in the afternoon, it had been considering item 1.(b) on page 126. Shall the item pass?

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, I wanted to get back to Omand's Creek and particularly to ask about the legislative or legal basis of what is happening in Omand's Creek at the moment. As I understand it--and I write to the minister and the previous minister quite regularly once a year on this issue--The City of Winnipeg Act in one of its last reincarnations allowed, in fact, required the City of Winnipeg to be responsible for buildings over waterways. The City of Winnipeg, in order to take on that responsibility, had to have by-laws in place and those by-laws required public meetings.

I have been asking I think now for three years what has been happening with that and who in the interim is responsible, because it is my understanding that the City of Winnipeg does not have a by-law in place, has not held public meetings, and so that in the interim it is the province who is responsible and that the old regulations, such as they were before The City of Winnipeg Act was changed on this issue, must apply. I wonder if the minister could confirm that.

Hon. Jack Reimer (Minister of Urban Affairs): Mr. Chairperson, the member for Wolseley is basically correct. The City of Winnipeg has not passed a by-law on the construction over waterways right now, and any type of construction other than through utilities and that has to be dealt with through an O/C or Order-in-Council, you know, to pertain to that. She is right; the City of Winnipeg has not passed a by-law or had public hearings to that extent.

Ms. Friesen: I wonder if the minister could explain Order-in-Council. As I understood--did you say O/C, that everything had to be approved by the province in an O/C? Is it not the existing, extant regulations which would apply? Why would it require an Order-in-Council?

Mr. Reimer: What I am referring to when I say O/C--as the member mentioned--is an Order-in-Council or the Lieutenant Governor giving the authorization for construction over waterways. It is there because of the fact that the city has not passed the by-law and the responsibility does come back to the provincial legislation for the authorization of construction over waterways. I was thinking that the Charleswood Bridge fell under that jurisdiction but that was because of a totally different situation.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, could the minister explain how different it was and why it was different?

Mr. Reimer: Excuse me for taking a little time there just trying to get it clarified. Bridges and utilities do not require an Order-in-Council. I am sorry. I was alluding to the fact that they did need that, but that is not true. What the O/C would apply to would be building construction in and around waterways and things like that--I am sorry, yes, I have it straight in my mind now--and as pointed out, parking facilities, extension of parking facilities and things like that. That is what is more or less implied.

Ms. Friesen: Could the minister elaborate a bit on this? Obviously, I am interested in the Omand's Creek issue where the issue has not necessarily always been building from one side of the creek to the other side of the creek as one might expect in the words "building over waterways." It has often, in various proposals, required or been dealt with as an issue of extending the riverbank or of altering the riverbank or of cantilevering out over the riverbank.

Is it the case now that the province is still responsible for such issues and that anyone other than a public utility--and that is what I understand the minister to mean by utility, a public utility--or a public highway will have to come to the province for the regulations dealing with that and that the regulating of it will be dealt with by Order-in-Council?

Mr. Reimer: It is my understanding that is right. That is correct.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could ask the minister when he last discussed this with the City of Winnipeg and when this situation will be changed. The minister meets regularly with people from the City of Winnipeg. Could he tell us when this last came up as an issue and what he has been advising the City of Winnipeg on this issue?

Mr. Reimer: I have been told that there has been formal correspondence in a written form to the city asking them to respond in a manner of recognizing their responsibility to pass a by-law on it. They have indicated that they are not prepared at this time to pass a by-law. I have not talked to them verbally on this subject, but it is something that I can note for my next meetings with the mayor or EPC just to see what type of positioning they are on it and whether they are prepared to revisit that decision, but formally there has been correspondence to them requesting them to assume this responsibility.

Ms. Friesen: Would the minister be prepared to table that correspondence?

Mr. Reimer: Yes, it has been pointed out to me that it was part of a discussion paper that was sent--corresponded between the previous minister and the city. I would have to check as to the content of the total letter and what was also written in that before I could give a more formal response to handing over the total correspondence.

I am told that it was part of an agenda of items that were discussed by the previous minister with either the mayor or EPC.

Ms. Friesen: The section I am interested in obviously is that particular by-law, and the minister did say that there had been a formal written response and a formal written response by the city on this issue. I would think it would be possible to select those from it.

Could the minister give me an indication of when he would be prepared to answer on this?

Mr. Reimer: What we can do is I can have staff research the letter, the correspondence and the contents, and I will try to respond to the member as soon as I can with that.

Ms. Friesen: Could the minister indicate what reasons the city gave for not being prepared to act on the province's request at this time or at that time?

* (2010)

Mr. Reimer: I am led to believe that it has to do a lot with the legalities of assumption, and the department of--and their law department for some reason does not have a comfort zone of acceptance or of proceeding with it. Until there is that type of confidence, City Council has indicated that they do not want to proceed with it.

But I have no qualms, again, like I mentioned before to the member. I certainly can bring this up as a topic of discussion with the mayor and EPC at our next meeting.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, if the response of the city is that their own legal department is not comfortable with the legal basis of what they are being asked to do, it seems to me that that would require some response from the province, some reassurance that, yes, there is a legal basis for what they are being asked to do, that there are comparable situations elsewhere, that the province was within its rights in asking the city to do this or indeed the province was not within its rights and then amending that portion of The City of Winnipeg Act. So it seems to me that if that was the response, the next step is the province's.

Mr. Reimer: Yes, I think what has transpired is our department has given assurance that there should be no problems, but I guess it is like anything, that when you get two lawyers or two legal departments going at it, you always get three opinions. I guess that is what has happened, is that there is a comfort on our part of saying that they should proceed with it through our interpretation, and the Law Department of the City of Winnipeg is saying that they are not prepared or they would like to have more clarity or comfort in the opinion that they are forming.

It is, I guess, the yin and yang between two law departments and, until there is an understanding between the two of them, they keep it up in limbo.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, with all respect, I do not think it is yin and yang. I do not think it is three legal opinions. It is two departments with different opinions. One has proposed; the other has responded. That is, the city has responded. It seems to me that the next step is the province's, and there must now be an initiative on the part of the province to assure the City of Winnipeg, to reassure the City of Winnipeg that this is legal, or the alternative is that the City of Winnipeg has a point. It is not a legal or right thing to do, and then there must be some reconsideration of that.

So what has been the third step? We have had two steps. There is a third step.

Mr. Reimer: The member is saying that there should be this positive and this definitive direction that comes out of Urban Affairs, but at the same time, we have to take direction and we have to abide by a lot of the advice that we get from our legal departments when we are proceeding with any type of legislation regarding the City of Winnipeg and changes to The City of Winnipeg Act.

In the interpretation of the act, there were always various concepts of which way the interpretation should go. This is one of the challenges that Urban Affairs has from time to time when we get requests from the City of Winnipeg regarding some of the resolutions that come from council, is the interpretation of what type of direction they are indicating by the resolution.

In looking at the letter of the law, the interpretation of the letter of the law is always something for debate, and how and when it should be implemented is something that can take as long or as short as an agreement. When there is not agreement, that is when there is more interpretation or more give and take of opinions that have to transpire, and the longer that takes, the more these things become embellished in the rhetoric of legalese.

As the Department of Urban Affairs, we are vehicles of the City of Winnipeg in the sense of trying to administer The City of Winnipeg Act, and we work under the parameters of advice from our legal department, and if our legal department gives us advice one way and the City of Winnipeg and through their legal department feels that it is interpreted their way, I do not think that the Province of Manitoba should do the one-upmanship and say that we are right because we are bigger and we administer The City of Winnipeg Act.

I am of the opinion that there is a way to interpret this in a more constructive manner. If there is a way to try to come to some sort of resolve by using some sort of consensus and the fact that the City of Winnipeg and the councillors do not feel comfort until their legal department gives them a direction, I as the Minister of Urban Affairs cannot dictate to our legal department to make a decision that we feel is contrary to what the City of Winnipeg is asking for. I feel that there is still room for interpretation within it.

Ms. Friesen: The City of Winnipeg is not the vehicle of the Province of Manitoba. The city is, much to its chagrin, a creature of the province as it is a devolved responsibility from the province. The province is the ultimate authority on this. It creates The City of Winnipeg Act; it amends it; it defines the way in which the City of Winnipeg, in a very broad sense, should operate. And, yes, we have a debate here. We have a difference of opinion. What I am asking for is, what has the provincial government done to resolve this? Stated the case, made the law. The city has responded and has conducted inquiries--I assume with its own legal department--and has made a response to the province.

The minister, I understand, does not want to get into particular disagreements, but it seems to me that there must be a solution here. Has the minister, for example, referred this to the Justice department? Has he referred it to the legal branch of the Province of Manitoba? What next step has been taken, or is this going to sit in limbo for the next 10 years?

Mr. Reimer: I can only rely back on what I have said before, that if the City of Winnipeg does not have a willingness and the City Council has not given us a direction that they want to proceed with it, I find it kind of difficult for me as the Minister of Urban Affairs to impose our department's will or the provincial will onto the city and say you must proceed with this when they rely upon their advice and their legal department and their legal department says that we do not have a comfort feeling with taking over the responsibilities because of some unforeseen or perceived directions that could result from that.

Until they get that feeling of saying that they would like to proceed with it and going into further discussions and for a resolve on it for the sake of passing a by-law and assuming responsibilities, we as a provincial government, even though, as mentioned by the member for Wolseley, that the City of Winnipeg is administered by the province, one of the things that comes with administration is co-operation and consensus. I try to build very strong consensus building with the councillors and the mayor.

To begin being in a dictatorial manner, if you want to call it--that is a very strong word--in directing what the city should or should not be doing with their by-laws and when they should be bringing them forth, I think, is a detriment to any type of co-operation that I am trying to build with the City of Winnipeg.

* (2020)

The City of Winnipeg is a huge economic engine here in Manitoba. Manitoba is a huge economic engine. The more that there is a co-operation and a consensus building between the two, the better it is for the taxpayers of Manitoba. The taxpayers of Manitoba are saying that anyway. They are saying that we should be more co-operative and willing to work within each other's guidelines and try to come to a resolve on problems. For me to then come along and say, well, there is an outstanding issue here that I want you to resolve and get busy and do it, I think that it just goes against the sense of co-operation that we are trying to build.

Ms. Friesen: What we have got here is a situation where the province has passed a law and the city has said no, and the province, according to the minister, has made no further move on this. Now it seems to me that what this says is clearly there was a situation before the passing of that law which could have been solved in a more co-operative manner. If the previous minister had chosen to talk to the City of Winnipeg about this proposal, which presumably they had not or else we would not be in this stalemate situation, that could have been resolved co-operatively.

Now we have a situation of stalemate where a provincial law is in fact being--well, we have a stalemate situation, and the provincial government is not prepared to move any further. Now what is being lost here is public participation. When that law was passed there was the potential and in fact the requirement for public participation in the creation of by-laws to deal with buildings over waterways, so that, for example, in my constituency, in Wellington and in St. James, there would have been the opportunity for all those citizens who were concerned about the continuing threats to build over waterways to have the opportunity to have an input into the regulations and to the situations along that waterway, as well as along other waterways in the city.

Now what we have is a situation where that is only dealt with by Order-in-Council, that is, through the cabinet, in a manner which I would submit is not as open and as public as the way in which the law that the province had previously suggested might have been when we had the possibility of public discussion over the by-laws.

As far as I can hear from the minister, there is no way out of it. The minister is not prepared to send this to a legal opinion. He is not prepared to do anything more than--and I appreciate that he is. I appreciate that you are going to raise it again with the city, but I do not see that there has been any new basis of discussion. So my concerns are for the loss of that public participation that we were promised.

Mr. Reimer: Well, I can only point out to the member that even under the present status-quo situation, if you want to call it, construction over waterway is protected because it does have to come to the--unless there is approval by the LG. I mean the Order-in-Council here with the Province of Manitoba. I can recognize the position that the member is--because there is always that second-sober look through public consultations and public presentations in cases of situations where there may be construction closer, under or over waterways.

It is something that possibly should be brought to the city's attention regarding the by-law in trying to come to some sort of comfort factor so that they can re-evaluate it again. I can only give her the assurance that I will bring the matter back up to the mayor and EPC and ask them to give me a more definitive answer on it, because it has been brought forth for a resolve on it. I can keep her informed of a decision once I have talked to them again on it, but under the present circumstances, for what I am presented with right now, they have indicated that they do not want to proceed on it. However, reintroducing it for a point of discussion with them, following up in a manner of trying to get a resolve on it, I have no problem with doing that.

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Mr. Chair--

An Honourable Member: Pass.

Ms. Barrett: Yet again, we hear from the member for Sturgeon Creek (Mr. McAlpine).

We were talking at the break about the snowstorm and the blizzard today. Some of us were reminiscing about the blizzard of 1966, and one of the interesting things about some of the people who were talking about what happened in 1966 was that they recalled they were young and in their teenage years and they went to their local community club where they heard the Devrons, Burton Cummings' old band, and participated in other youthful activities of one sort and another, as young people are wont to do.

Some other members of our caucus who have younger children, quite a bit younger children, were saying, gee, in the blizzard of 1997 the only places we could take our kids were places like the Discovery Zone, an adventure land, adventure something that is just right around confusion corner, a new adventure land or something.

We had a further bit of discussion about, gee, what made the difference? What is going on here? It turned out that one of the things was that the community centres, in the city of Winnipeg in particular, and some of our rural and northern colleagues said the same thing was happening in their communities, a lot of them just are not functioning as real community centres anymore. They are having trouble getting volunteer boards of directors. They are having trouble with volunteers to help with the programming, that basically all that is happening if anything is happening at all is the hockey ice time being used, that there is usually not the problem with ice time, et cetera.

I thought that was an interesting discussion and a change, and we all started to think, yes, that is true. We know some community centres in our communities that are doing okay but a lot that are not, a lot that are literally dying on the vine.

I am wondering if the minister or his department has given any consideration to the role that the Department of Urban Affairs might play in identifying some of the problems that are involved in the community centre movement, any suggestions as to how the communities in Winnipeg in particular might function.

The reason I am asking this is because historically community centres in Winnipeg, dealing with Urban Affairs here, have played an enormously important role in the vibrancy, maintaining and enhancing the vibrancy of communities. I remember when I first came to Winnipeg in 1975, this was one of the first things that I noticed about Winnipeg, how each neighbourhood, literally each neighbourhood, it did not matter where in the city you lived, each neighbourhood had a community centre. This was something as coming from the States I had never seen before, and we are losing it. We are losing this resource, and I think it has an impact on the health and well-being of Winnipeg and, therefore, I think is an issue that should be being discussed by and looked at by the Department of Urban Affairs.

So I am just putting that out and would ask the minister if he has any comments or thoughts on this.

* (2030)

Mr. Reimer: Sometimes you get into, and I have mentioned this before, political differences because of the fact that we come from different political parties. But there is something that I will agree with the member for Wellington 100 percent on, and that is the fact that Winnipeg does have a tremendous asset in Winnipeg, and that is its community centres. The 77 community centres in Winnipeg play a very, very vital role in forming a sense of community in all areas of the city. I am very, very familiar with the community centres and their operations because I at one time sat as president of my local community and then I sat as president of the local district and then I was also on the community centre boards, the GCWCC, General Council of Winnipeg Community Centres.

I know the tremendous assets that these community centres can generate for a sense of belonging and participation. The member is very, very right when she says that it is unique here in Winnipeg because we have community centres that enjoy participation by literally thousands and thousands of volunteers, people who give freely of their time and spend hours and hours of volunteerism, which has become so very, very part and parcel of Manitoba's culture and Winnipeg's uniqueness within the community.

We feel very strongly that support of the community centres is something that we should be encouraging, and I was very, very pleased to be part of the announcements with the Green Team in which we have identified community support through the Green Team, and every community centre I believe took up the challenge of employing some of the youth during the summertime, during the Green Team, from about the middle of May, I think it is, until about the end of August. Of the community centres that I am aware of, I believe the number was 56 out of 77 employed youth for a drop-in theme through the community centres, and it proved very, very beneficial. In fact, I had the president of the GCWCC mention to me that that was one of the strongest uptakes they have ever had to community centres was the fact of setting up these drop-in centres throughout the city.

Community centres will and continue to play a big role in the development of a sense of community and a sense of belonging. I know there is a problem, as pointed out by the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett), that they are always having a problem finding volunteers. I am dating myself when I say when I was involved with the community centre in my constituency back in 1974 we talked about the same things at that time, that there was always this lack of volunteers and lack of people that wanted to get involved with the community centre, yet our community centre and other community centres that I am aware of are still growing at great lengths, improving programs.

Recruitment is still always on a high priority of trying to get volunteers to serve on boards to be part of the executive. I think that is always going to be part of community centres. If there was an easy answer now, I do not know how to pursue it because even back in 1974 when I first got involved with community centres we were talking about the same things. The idea of promoting sports participation, youth activities, and now getting into the idea of providing support to older clients, seniors, moms and twos and tots, having programs for them, having programs for the teenagers, having programs for drop-in centres, these are all things that I think are growing in community centres and the fact that the City of Winnipeg just recently has decided that they are going to relinquish more of the community centres' responsibilities to the community centres is something of a concern.

I think that it is going to open up opportunities and challenges for the community centres, and I think we as a provincial government will recognize some of these challenges because they are not only the emphasis that our government has come forth with trying to address some of the youth problems and the fact of trying to keep young people with an active mind instead of going down to the corner store type-of-thing and hanging around. Trying to get them back down to the community centre is something that we should all be aware of, not only through the City of Winnipeg but through the provincial government in trying to support and encourage these things.

So I think that with the community centres we have an excellent vehicle to try to reach out into the communities to build with an asset core of volunteers to capitalize on the sense of accomplishment and participation by not only the volunteers but the youth to get involved because I am a firm believer that you have to give back into the community some of the things that you take out of it. One of the easiest ways to do it, and the most ready way, is through the community centres that are usually very, very close to all our constituencies. I think we as MLAs recognize their value, their contribution.

I think each one of us tries to make a presence in all our community centres for support and for trying to help them in any way we can through various funding agencies that might be available through our communities, through our government. I encourage that. I see nothing wrong with that in trying to promote the Green Team through our community centres or any other types of things to try to help the volunteers.

There are always avenues that might be available for the youth and the volunteers to take advantage, and I think there is a responsibility as MLAs to make these programs known to the community centres to see whether they qualify for some of the activities that we as a government can bring forth. We have participated to a degree through our Manitoba-Winnipeg Community Revitalization Program, MWCRP, and we have earmarked special community centres; in particular Chalmers Community Centre, East Elmwood Community Centre around Keenleyside in Elmwood, Armstrong Park. We have done some tree-buffeting on Gateway Road. We have also done some works with Glenwood Community Centre in the constituency of Glenwood where we have construction of a new facility and ground improvement at Glenwood Community Centre.

(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

We are opening up Champlain very, very shortly, a new announcement, a new expansion.

There is an example of a very small club but a very aggressive club that has come forth with some very innovative programs. I am quite familiar with the former president of that community centre, a very active man in that community. I know the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) has been very active in some of the community centres that are in his area.

Glenlawn Collegiate has also been part of the enhancement in Glenwood. Naturally, we are doing some works along the Seine River which is close to community centres and things like that. In the east Norwood area, we were part of the construction of new facilities and grounds at Champlain Community Centre, as has been pointed out. I believe Archwood has benefited from some of our programs. I know that some other community centres like Southdale and Winakwa to an extent that I am familiar with have also benefited. I think that if we look at any of our community centres somewhere along the line they have tried to take advantage of some of our programs in the sense of being involved and proactive.

But the one thing that we should recognize with the community centres is the fact that even though there is provincial monies involved with that, a lot of time what is even more important is you have individual participation. You have people who have come forth to volunteer. There is a tremendous amount of sweat equity involved with a lot of these projects that get underway, and these are the types of things I think that as a government we should encourage and try to work with in trying to get things more active, even in Kirkfield Park, you know, through their community centres and some of their activities there. These are areas that we all look at in trying to improve.

The member is right that we also, I guess, to an extent, under the Winnipeg Development Agreement there are certain neighbourhood infrastructure programs that could qualify for community centre improvement. We are looking at applications possibly in that area, too, so I am very optimistic that community centres will continue to play a very dominant and prominent role in the communities, and we look forward to good-faith partnerships with them in trying to work things better for the community and in working with the community and with anybody who really is looking at improvements for the community.

* (2040)

Ms. Barrett: That was a very interesting if extensive response to my clearly extensive question. I understand what the minister is talking about when he is talking about the MWCRP program and the Winnipeg Development Agreement program and the Green Team. Some of those programs have implications for community centres.

I think a lot of that program money is capital. Some of it is program, but a lot of it is capital, and while no one would ever say that those programs did not have positive impacts for the community centres, it still does not get to the heart of the matter which is that for many, and particularly for many of the oldest communities in the city where the need is the greatest, the community centres are the least active, and there are a lot of reasons why those elements all go together: a small pool of available resources in the role of parents, a lot of single parents, a lot of two-parent families who have to work two and three jobs to make ends meet, a whole number of social and economic problems that impact on much more than the community centres. It seems to me that the community centres which used to have a positive impact on some of these neighbourhoods are dying, they are really dying, and none of these programs that the minister has talked about really, to my way of thinking, address these particular systemic issues.

The minister did talk a bit about the fact that the city under the new model that it is talking about, that the minister talked about in his opening remarks, was looking to relinquish control of community centres to their local boards, et cetera. I think he mentioned that there was a bit of concern on the part of the government potentially in that regard. He said that it provided opportunities and challenges if this goes through. I think that my concern is--where there are healthy community centres, putting more control or authority into the local community centres is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that many of these community centres, as I have said before, some of them are gone and they just are not going to be able to function because the community does not have the human and economic infrastructure available to support the community centre. We are not living in the '60s anymore. We are not living in the '70s anymore. The economic and demographic realities for many of our families, particularly in the oldest neighbourhoods in the inner city, are such that community centres, if they are designed under the old way of looking at things, cannot function. There just are not the resources available for them to do so, and giving them control over their funding, et cetera, is only going to make it worse. It is not going to help.

Yes, individual MLAs should be working to ensure that their local community centres have access to whatever program money is available, but there is a larger more systemic concern here and one that I did not see the minister address when he talked about 56 of 77 community centres participating in the drop-in program. That says something to me. It says that there is a huge need out there for more of this kind of activity. Is there a systemic recognition on the part of the Department of Urban Affairs in its role as co-ordinating department to address the kinds of issues that are reflected in the community centre problem, which is, as I have said before, symptomatic of a much deeper problem on the part of many of the community centres. I still do not see that recognition.

I am not suggesting that the minister come up with a huge program right now, but I do think it is important that he respond to this concern and make some commitment towards working with the city, working with his other departments in addressing this issue. It is an issue again that may not be under Urban Affairs' primary jurisdiction because Urban Affairs is a small department and does a lot of linking rather than direct program delivery.

It seems to me that the whole concept of relooking at community centres and how we as a government, not only as individual MLAs but as a provincial government, can work with the city and with the community centres to revitalize them because they could be a very important part of making the city a more vital place to live and addressing many of the social and economic ills that face us today, which are youth unemployment, the issues of gangs, family breakdown, all this kind of thing. Community centres should be an integral component in any kind of service delivery system that looks towards ameliorating those problems.

(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)

Mr. Reimer: The member brings up some very interesting points of view and, to an extent, I cannot disagree with her to too many of the things that she has mentioned because I think that as with any type of program you have to do an evaluation as to the direction that it is going and the benefits that you are putting your dollars towards. I think that it is only critical and it is only astutely common that you should be asking what type of results you are getting with the monies that are being spent and, as pointed out by the member, that a lot of the money at the present time does go within the capital allocation of community centres and the physical bricks and mortar of the community centres.

I think that what we try to do with the Green Team in funding on the program size, if you want to call it, is through the drop-in centre type of philosophy where we are looking at, as she is aware, the Green Team is going ahead this year. I have indicated to them that I feel that if community centres are wanting to have drop-in centres at their community centres, that there should be funding available for them at that time because I think that it is part of a very positive initiative in the community to have a place for the young people to go when they want to be there, not necessarily through the normal eight-to-five or nine-to-five type of hours but from the evenings or on weekends and things like that so that when there is a need in the community for the young people to gather, they should go to the community centres to gather, and that is when the drop-in centres should be open.

So I have no problem at all in allocating Green Team funding to that type of endeavour through the community centres. I think that that is a very worthwhile spending of dollars, and I think that it is monies well recuperated in the sense of building community worth and community involvement with our young people.

* (2050)

At the same time I have no problem--the member has mentioned that we should evaluate our programs. We should look at where we can get our sort of best, biggest bang for our buck in the monies that we are putting through my department or through any department. I have an advantage, to a degree, of working with the Department of Education through the urban Green Team, so it would be a natural progression to look at programs that could possibly facilitate co-ordination between Urban Affairs and Green Team, possibly through training or amalgamation of training programs or something of that forth, so that there is a further enhancement of the Green Team approach in trying to look at the problems of youth and the correction of ways that we as a government can be most effective in the utilization of our dollars.

I should point out that the MWCRP is under review. There is an independent review underway of the whole program, and we are looking at possibly, the review may come out with a refocusing of direction. There is a possibility there of looking at monies going into programming instead of trees and grass, as pointed out, and buildings and bricks and stone, to look at a more positive direction of the funding.

I think that we should look at it that way. The Child and Family Youth Secretariat may be looking at resources. I am not familiar with that. That would have to come under questioning under the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson) as to which direction is going there with programming in some of her department.

I should point out that we are not the direct funders of community centres. I think the member knows that. The City of Winnipeg is the one that is the direct funder of it but, because of the community responsibilities of all governments, I think that we are just as astutely aware of the value of community centres, that sometimes community centres, with memberships and the fact that they dwindle from time to time, they sometimes come back just as fast. Sometimes we see that in all kinds of neighbourhoods, where sometimes they have to go down before they go up, and then they can come back just as strong as before.

I can think of a small, little club out my way called Glenlee, how the memberships kept dwindling on that, and it was just a matter of getting people together and away it went. Another good example that the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry) is familiar with is Archwood Community Club, a very small community centre. It just needed a nucleus of some more people that decided they were not going to let this community centre deteriorate, and they got involved and they brought it right back.

A lot of it is the community itself and the community wanting to take hold of its problems and come to some sort of resolve, so I feel that, just as there are challenges and opportunities in the community centres, a lot of times the volunteers that rise up to meet these challenges are the ones that become the new leaders in the community. I feel that there is room for that type of optimism.

Programming dollars are something that can be looked at, like I say, through our Green Team and some of the programs we go through. I should point out that under the Winnipeg Development Agreement there are other initiatives that are applied to the community centres that possibly could be taken advantage of because, as she is aware, the Winnipeg Development Agreement is not limited to one particular area of the city. It is open to all areas of the city, which has the advantage of all areas, whether it is in St. James or in Westwood or anywhere, that they can try to fit in the criteria of either a development program or a neighbourhood improvement program.

There are other areas of incentives that are available and neighbourhood revitalization and neighbourhood infrastructure programs. These are all areas that I feel some of the various components in communities can look at and they can also take advantage of. So there are programs around. There is the availability of possibly dollars, but I think that the biggest aspect of it is for people to take the initiative, take the responsibility, take ownership of their community. When that happens community centres will grow. They will prosper. There will be more involvement with the community. It brings forth a better sense of where people want to live, work and raise a family. So these are some of the things that I think we all strive for, and community centres give an excellent opportunity for people to get involved, not only with their children through various aspects of coaching or being involved with the various sports programs, but also to be involved with other programs that can be of benefit to the community. So there is lots of room for growth within the community through the community centres.

Mr. Daryl Reid (Transcona): Mr. Chairperson, I thank my colleague for giving me the opportunity to ask some questions. I have some questions relating to a problem that has been occurring, and I am sure the minister is quite familiar with this, a problem that has been happening in the community of south Transcona now for quite a number of years, and that is dealing with the flood situation and its impact on the families that are living in that particular part of Transcona.

With the extensive snowfall, nearly double the annual average that we have, and, of course, the problems we have encountered over this past weekend with once again further heavy snowfall potentially compounding the problem with flooding, I wanted to ask the minister some few questions relating to the plans that the province has, perhaps in conjunction in a partnership arrangement with the City of Winnipeg, to try and alleviate or to end that perennial problem.

It is my understanding that the city has approved tentatively $1.7 million from their capital program based on whether or not the provincial government will also match that funding to allow the project to go forward. Now we have seen what the impact is on the community of south Transcona over the last several years where we have had once-in-a-hundred or once-in-300-year floods coming in consecutive years, so it has been quite a detrimental impact. There has been sewage backup with raw sewage floating around the ditches of the community, so it is quite a serious health risk as well for the residents living in that area.

I wanted to ask the minister, can he tell me what plans he has with respect to whether or not the province is going to be matching the city's $1.7 million which, I think, is contingent on the province also contributing to that particular flood relief program?

Mr. Reimer: I share with the member for Transcona the concerns of the south Transcona residents because, as he has pointed out, this has become an annual, if you want to call it, event out there, the unfortunate flooding of quite a few residents because of the water flow in there and then I believe they even got hit quite severely with a rainfall that came in there and now we are looking at some very, very serious flooding in the area because of the snowfall and the accumulation of snow in the last few days which is even going to compound it. So I recognize the concerns that the member for Transcona has, along with the member for Radisson who has brought this forth to me, and also the city councillor in the area, Councillor Shirley Timm-Rudolph, has been in correspondence with me regarding the south Transcona and the proposal for a large retention pond.

When this was first brought to my attention, it was brought forth--I will try to do it in a chronological order, if I recall and maybe staff can correct me if I get it wrong. I believe that late last year we got a request from the City of Winnipeg that they were going to include this in their 1999 budget for an appropriation of $1.7 million or I guess it was just over $3.2 million shared 50-50. When the budget by the City of Winnipeg then went for review, it was moved up into the 1997 budget with the City of Winnipeg and it was included that time with their estimates, and they included it in their estimates of borrowed capital that they would use as the funding for.

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The resolution was forwarded to me. As the member was aware, the City of Winnipeg brings forth their resolutions from the floor of council. This is when we as a province respond to it. They passed a resolution which was unanimous on the floor of council stating that they are willing to fund the Transcona project on a 50-50 basis if the province would participate also but with bringing in new money on our part to finance the project. That was their contention above and beyond what they call the UCPA III. Now, UCPA III is Urban Capital Project Allocation funding. We have had a project allocation funding I, UCPA I, a II that just expired, and now we are going into UCPA III that has been part of our budget process right now. It is approximately $96 million. Those funds are the funds that we as a province have to allocate to the city in looking at any type of capital projects and the implementation of it. We use that category for project funding.

Now, the City of Winnipeg specifically, in their request to the province for funding of this, indicated not to use those fundings, to use new funding of allocation of funding from the province. We do not have that ability, or I do not have that ability, to get that new type of funding of $1.75 million, because our budgeting with the city for capital allocations is dealt with through this UCPA III, this Urban Capital Project Allocation funding.

Now, if the City of Winnipeg would give me a different type of resolution saying that that funding for that pond, if you want to call it, can be allocated out of that category, we can proceed with it, because that is the only place that I can get funding out of my urban department, through that Urban Capital Project Allocation category. I do not have the ability to go to a new fund to get $1.75 million. I can allocate funding through that particular part of my budget.

I have written to the city explaining my position and asking them that if they will bring forth a resolution, and I believe now that Shirley Timm-Rudolph is on EPC, she may have a little bit more ability to persuade the council to reconsider that commitment. We are prepared to proceed on a 50-50 funding basis with that allocation. I think I have explained it to the member properly. If not, you can ask other questions on it.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Chairperson, the minister has given me a pretty good background to it. I thank him for that explanation.

The minister also mentioned that he is I think embarking on a third UCPA at the current time, and it is my understanding from what he is saying here that that has not been concluded, the discussions have not concluded to that point. I want to also ask at the same time, has all of the funding that was allocated through the UCPA II agreement been expended to this point? Is that money all gone or is there any money remaining that can be attached to that particular project to give the city some flexibility too?

Mr. Reimer: Yes, I believe that all the funds under UCPA II have been committed. The last amount that was available for commitment was the York-St. Marys extension into The Forks. Was it $15 million? That was the last. I believe there may be, until everything is sort of finalized, some monies available but not enough to cover that $l.75 million.

We are very tight with our UCPA II. It depends on how things all finalize, because there were a number of projects under UCPA II that have to come to a finalization. If there is money left over, it certainly can be possibly allocated as a partial payment towards that area, but we would not be able to evaluate that until we knew how the final estimates and everything else come in throughout UCPA II project allocations. There is not that much money in it left.

Mr. Reid: So if there is only a small amount of money that is left--and the minister said that there may be a willingness, depending on other projects and the priorities that are there, to break the project funding over the two project years--then I take it then that the only holdback is, since you say you are willing to allocate the money out of either one or both of the projects, the UCPA II or III, that the city would have to agree, being a partner to this agreement, to that money coming out of the UCPA agreements and that at this point in time the City Council has not agreed to that.

Mr. Reimer: The member is correct. In the resolution itself--the member is basically right. The resolution that came forth from the council specifically stated: funding to be allocated other than UCPA funding. When I have only that ability and that avenue of funding available to me and which is new money in a sense because we are going into a whole new arrangement, that is the area that I can utilize for funding.

I have very, very little funding left out of UCPA II which would not even barely cover possibly even the initial stages of development of the Transcona project, but at the same time the city has said--they simply indicated in their resolution not to use that type of funding. So what I have done is corresponded to the mayor stating that if they are willing to rescind that resolution in council and come forth with the ability for me to utilize that money, we have no problem in funding it on a 50-50 cost-shared basis.

Mr. Reid: The money that is needed or required for this project, the City of Winnipeg is insisting that this be new money outside of the UCPA III agreement or agreement II and that the province would have to kick in an additional $1.7 million from some other fund, not to take away from the agreement funding itself. They want to have all of their projects currently on that particular list paid for out of the UCPA III, and this project would not fall under that category. Am I interpreting that correctly?

Mr. Reimer: The member is correct.

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Mr. Reid: Can the minister tell me how long ago he wrote to the mayor advising the mayor on this matter, that the province would be prepared to fund this flood abatement program, if we can call it that, the water retention pond in south Transcona? How long ago did he write to the mayor on this advising that the province would be willing to pay for this project out of the UCPA III agreement?

Mr. Reimer: I believe it has been within the last week to 10 days. It has been very shortly that the letter went out.

Mr. Reid: If the City of Winnipeg refuses to change their position where they are calling on the province currently to take the money from some other source, does that mean that the province then will not be contributing to the project unless it falls specifically under the UCPA III?

Mr. Reimer: I can only point out to the member that because there was no room within my budget to allocate an additional $1.75 million within the budget that we are now considering, I have no room or avenue to access additional funding unless I look at my next year's budget and bring forth a proposal at that time. If that happened, we are looking at almost three years down the road, as the member would recognize, before anything could finally transpire in Transcona. If we look at trying to utilize the UCPA III money that will be approved now, we are looking at possibly getting in the ground this year with a finalization of next year for the project.

If it were always up to budget limitations and decision makings that come with any type of budget as to putting funds in for something next year that I cannot guarantee would be passed--I have more of a comfort feeling working with what I know is in my budget now where I can find funding than to speculate on new funding for next year, when I know the considerations of budget are more in line, with not being that optimistic that new monies like that can be found.

I have a fair degree of comfort in saying that within the UCPA III, I can work within there, and that budget, that amount of money, are the budget considerations that we are doing right now that will be passed.

Mr. Reid: I take it then that this project will go ahead as far as the province is concerned as long as the funding comes under the Urban Capital Partnership Agreement III and that it is essentially in the City of Winnipeg's ballpark right now and as long as the city councillor who sits as a member of the EPC, even before the minister's letter went to the mayor, could in some cases have a role to play or have some influence on the decisions potentially to be made by the City of Winnipeg to allow for this project to go forward under UCPA III. Am I interpreting that accurately?

Mr. Reimer: The councillor for the area has lobbied fairly extensively for this project. She is very familiar with some of the alternatives and the avenues of direction that we as a provincial government can go.

I would think that since the letter that I sent to the mayor is maybe only just about a week old, I would think, hopefully, that I would hear some sort of response back on very short notice as to what the decision would be as for the funding of this project because, as pointed out by the member, it is something that is of a significant nature, the amount of discomfort and dislocation that the people of south Transcona go through every year, whether it is a bad rainstorm or the flooding that we will experience in the next short while. So I think that in the fairness of working with the community that a resolve on it should come to some way or the other as soon as possible so that the people there in that area can know what the answer is going to be.

Mr. Reid: Just one last question, Mr. Chairperson, to the minister. Would it be possible to get a copy of his letter that he has sent to the mayor?

Mr. Reimer: Yes, I think that until I get a response from the mayor I feel more comfortable in getting that. So what I can do is I can give assurances to the member that as soon as I get a response back from the mayor I will make sure that he and the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) are fully aware of what the response is that I get. As soon as I get it, I will make sure he gets a copy or is made aware of it.

Ms. Barrett: On behalf of the members for Transcona and Radisson, thank you for that assurance.

I would like to go back a little bit to the Green Team and some of the issues that the minister raised in the discussion about the community centres. Again, just a question of clarification. I think the minister said in his first response that--he talked about the relinquishment of control to community centres that was in the city's paper on their new direction--it is not new directions but their paper that he talked about in his opening remarks. Did I hear the minister to say that he had some concerns about this proposal or did I not hear that?

Mr. Reimer: I did not mean to imply that there was not the ability for the community centres to respond, you know, in a manner of positive direction that they would take. I guess it is like anything. Whenever there is a different type of direction or policy taken towards community endeavours and things like that, there is always that apprehension that things will be different. But I think that actually the community centres have been lobbying this way for a long time. I can recall, like I say, when I used to be involved with community centres that we were always asking for more autonomy and more abilities to make decisions and be our own entities in the community because, if anything, it is the community centres that have the pulse of what is happening, and they have the ability to respond a lot quicker than a lot of times what Parks and Recreation or the City of Winnipeg can come about with.

So if I gave the impression that there was a concern on the negative, I apologize because I feel that the community centres have got the ability to respond quite positively towards community mores and norms that they feel they should be involved with, and the volunteerism that usually comes out of these things usually rises to the top in trying to set up new programs or new directions, new involvements, and it is usually the volunteers that will come forth. I have seen that happen so many times with community centres where they will pick up the ability to do things.

The various programs that are put on by community centres, a lot of times, because of the uniformity of Parks and Recreation, from what I recall, community centres were doing things that maybe they did not have to do because they could redirect some of their energies towards a program that had better results, that had better involvement and to some degree generated some revenue for the club that they felt they could highly benefit from. So each club has its own community forte, and they will sometimes make these even better because of the fact that the city now has given them more ability to make their own decisions on it.

As pointed out, one of the initiatives that was brought forth by the city in the '97-98 budget was that community centres will be operating the arenas. They would, as they put it, solicit community interest in the operating of civic arenas, wading pools, indoor and outdoor pools. These are very significant directions that the City of Winnipeg is taking. If they feel that the volunteers can take over that type of responsibility, I think there has to be some fairly significant input, not only on the city's end of it but on the community's end of it, as to where the responsibilities lie and, naturally, to a degree, the safety precautions.

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Ms. Barrett: I certainly do not disagree with the minister that local groups often have a better handle on the local issues and better ideas about what kinds of programs could be implemented to deal with their local concerns. Certainly, the needs of a community around Langside are different in quality and quantity, I would suggest, than the needs of a community in South St. Vital. At the risk of overgeneralizing, I do think that the reality is that those two communities are very different organisms. One community is live and vital, vibrant and growing, and another one is running the risk of imploding and dying, literally and figuratively.

So, in that regard, I am not disagreeing with the minister. I do have a very deep concern that the--and I will call it an offload, because I think basically for many community centres that is what it will be. Those responsibilities will have a detrimental effect in those neighbourhoods where we most need a vital and vibrant community centre functioning.

The minister earlier talked about, sometimes community centres have to go down before they can come up, and sometimes these community centres just need a nucleus of committed people to get re-energized and reactivated and to take control. Again, I am not denying that that is the process and the life cycle in some neighbourhoods. In some neighbourhoods you lose kids' population because the cycle works its way through, and then five or 10 years later there is another influx of young families with children and then the cycle regenerates itself again.

That is not the cycle I am talking about in largely the inner city of Winnipeg. That is not an upwards and downwards and natural regeneration cycle. What is happening in the inner city of Winnipeg is the death of these neighbourhoods, the death of any kind of infrastructure--social, human, economic--that will help bring those communities back to life, that will give hope to those young kids, that will give hope to the seniors, that will provide assistance to single parent families or families that are operating with three and four jobs. This is a very different situation than the situation that the minister is discussing, which has its own validity in other parts of the community.

I think the concept of turning over wading pools and indoor and outdoor swimming pools to the community again has some potential validity in certain parts of the community, but certainly in my community and the community that abuts on my community, there is a wading pool at Sargent and Home. There is no way, I would venture to say that, if the operation of that wading pool were turned over to the community, that pool would be operational, and it certainly potentially would not be operational with trained staff to provide the safety that is required. The people in that community are spending their time surviving, and that wading pool should be able to provide an assistance to that survival, but not if it is the same people who are just hanging on are being told that they have to take control over. So I think there has to be a recognition on the part of the city and also the province that the city of Winnipeg itself is not homogeneous. It is made up of a very large number of very disparate communities, and it is impossible for one scenario or one theory to work well in all parts of the community.

I would suggest that what is important is for the government, in all of its roles, to look at not how it will work. Again, I do not mean to overgeneralize because there are problems in virtually every part of the city, but I think we all agree that for the depth and breadth of problems, the inner city of Winnipeg, which is expanding exponentially, that is where the real crisis is upon us. I think that is the kind of community that needs to be seen as the benchmark against which programs are measured.

Programs will work in River Heights; programs will work in St. Vital; programs will work in Fort Garry; programs will work in Lindenwoods. More or less. Where we need to ensure that the programs are going to be there, and will target the people they should be targeting, is in the older core parts of the city, and, as I said, that core is expanding.

I can see it in my own community. There are streets along which two years ago--we were talking earlier about how two years ago today, we were out canvassing for the last provincial election. There was not a street then that I, or some or my other colleagues in that general area, would not go down up till 8:30 p.m., up till dusk, canvassing alone. Today there are a number of streets that after four o'clock in the afternoon I probably would not feel comfortable going down alone, and it is a very important concern. So I want to reflect that, that the programs that are in place need to be focusing on those kind of things.

I will end my discourse by asking a specific question. Back to the Green Team. Is there an analysis available, or is one being done of last year's program, that would include things like which community centres, which community organizations participated? What part of the city did they come from? Was there a good take-up in the older communities where the need is potentially greatest? I guess in the next set of questions, what are the criteria? Is it just first-come, first-served, or is there any vetting of programs, any ability on the part of the government to skew, if you would, the program?

So those are the kinds of questions I would like to ask about the Green Team, just the degree of analysis that has been done on the program and any ability on the part of the program to perhaps put more resources into certain parts of the city.

Mr. Reimer: The Green Team has proven itself to be very, very popular here in the city of Winnipeg. Last year I believe it was just over 750-or-so young people who got involved with the Green Team, and there was, I believe, 340 or 347 sponsors of these groups. The take-up on it was very diverse within the city of Winnipeg, but if we are looking for an analysis of where the concentration of the take-up was, it was noticeable in the inner city areas. We had a very strong participation in the--well, I do not like to say the core area--but the central area of the city of Winnipeg where there was a good take-up by community organizations, community nonprofit organizations, where we had a strong participation by the Green Team. In some of the outlying areas of the city of Winnipeg, in the suburbs, it was not that strong.

But I was very satisfied with the mix. There was a strong mix of, as pointed out, the drop-in centres with the community centres. There was some very significant pick-up by groups that did graffiti painting. There was a significant amount of groups that did cleanup and riverbank enhancement and green space enhancement through parks. There were walkway improvements. There was greenery improvement through some of the areas like Omand's Creek, Omand Park, Bruce Park, some of the small parks in and around the city. There were a lot of good initiatives through that. So, even though, as mentioned, it was a citywide project, there was a noticeable amount of younger inner-city students and young people that did pick up jobs with the urban Green Team. So it was, I think that it was, very beneficial for this segment of the city of Winnipeg.

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This year I would hope that we would get the same type of pick-up for the youth. We may be challenged for our numbers because of the strong economy that we have here in Manitoba and Winnipeg. The youth unemployment rate here in Manitoba now is, I believe, the second lowest or possibly even the lowest in Canada right now. So there will be a significant amount of students that will get jobs through the private sector and through the other areas of participating in Manitoba's economy. So those are some of the areas that I think that we will be competing with, but I do not find that disheartening for the Green Team because the last thing that we would want to do is just employ youth for the sake of making our numbers look better than last year. If anything, it is more of an advantage to have the private sector picking up the youth unemployment and providing jobs through the natural economy than to have government supplying it.

The Green Team has done a tremendous job and will continue to do a good job of employing youth and high school students through the summer and I think that, as I pointed out, will be in severe competition with the private industry because of the strong economic growth we have in our province and because of our programs and our--so we will leave it at that.

Ms. Barrett: The minister may want to leave it at that, but I do not think so. One very brief question: Do the young people who are involved in the Green Team, they do not have to be or do they have to be currently enrolled in school? You said at one point "students" and then at another point "young people."

Mr. Reimer: They are students. Right now the first application is university students, and then when high school is closed, that is when the second pickup is for high school students. I meant young people in that vein.

Ms. Barrett: So the reality is that students who may be 16, 17, 18 and have no current connection with the school system are not part of the target group for the Green Team. Is that an accurate statement?

Mr. Reimer: Yes, I believe that is the criterion, yes.

Ms. Barrett: A tangential question, but we will bring it back to the Green Team. The minister spoke earlier about not being particularly familiar with the Child and Youth Secretariat, with the programs of that government entity. I am wondering if he has read the report or has been briefed on the report in the strategy considerations for developing services for children and youth.

Mr. Reimer: I just got my copy through my mail the other week. I have not had a chance to go through it in a detailed manner. I have seen it, but I am not familiar with the contents, no.

Ms. Barrett: I have not made it--my own--either yet, but I have gone through it in a cursory fashion, and just tonight while one of my colleagues was you asking questions I went through it again to look for specific things. This has some very interesting information, policy considerations and statements that I think have some role to play in our discussion around community centres and problems in the inner city.

One of the principles and conditions in the policy directions stated services must change from being crisis and reactive in nature to being proactive and preventive, and programs must be targeted at the highest needs, not provided universally.

Now, I am not going to get into, although I could, a discussion of the concept of universality. I am not going to do that. I am going to say that within the context of the issues that we have been talking about tonight, both of these principles, if they were taken to heart by the Ministry of Urban Affairs in its linking kind of a role with other departments could have a major impact on even some of the programs that the government itself provides.

The MWCRP and the Green Team being only two that I will talk very briefly about. If, in effect, you were to take these two principles and apply them to those two programs, you would say, in the context of the Green Team, for example, h'm, the students are having a better time, not necessarily a great time, but a better time of it economically. There you did say you were going to be challenged in competition with the private sector for youth jobs this summer. We also know that there is a horrendous problem of youth underutilization, if not employment, in the inner city. That is one of the major reasons why gangs are increasing, that there is not a lot for the youth in certain neighbourhoods of our community to do, so they find something to do.

So an argument, I think, could be made for having, as part of the terms of reference of the Green Team, a focus on the specific needs of those kids, those young people, targeted at the highest needs, not provided universally. Now, the Green Team obviously is not provided universally, but it does appear that it is available to a very wide segment, that it is available to virtually any community organization in the city. I am suggesting that if you follow this principle, you would target its focus more.

Back to the proactive and preventive nature of programming. Again, back to the role of the community centre, when community centres, 25, 30 years ago, were a hot bed for music in Winnipeg. I wish I had been here then; my goodness, I would have really enjoyed it, but this is something that Winnipeg is known for in the North American music scene: the richness of the club scene in the '60s and early '70s. It was not only just a richness for those bands, but for the young people who went to those community centres to listen to those bands. That was something very proactive and preventive in nature because any time someone is doing one thing, they are usually not doing another, and that is the role of community centres: to find a positive outlet for the energies of young people, because an outlet will be found.

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I think even that, if you took a look at just those two principles, it could help reframe some of the programs and projects that are undertaken by the Ministry of Urban Affairs and certainly should be looked at in the context of how you link with other departments. I would strongly urge you to take a look at this report and most particularly the pages outlining--there are two pages that outline some of the high-risk factors for young people today in Manitoba. Now it is not specific to the city, but I think you can extrapolate in many of these instances severe problems in the city of Winnipeg. So that would be a couple of suggestions I would have; without changing any amount of money that you are putting in place, without even adding any new programs, you could refocus and make a difference.

Mr. Reimer: I thank the member for that insight in a sense of direction and her comments about universality. I see nothing wrong with evaluating programs that we are involved with at this particular time in our government and in our spending of money. I think it is prudent upon our part to try to look at the best utilization of any dollars that we spend, whether it is in programming through the Green Team or through the Justice department or any other areas of expenditure because of the fact that I think it behooves us as a government to question our directions and our community sense of worth and our community responsibilities that we as a government have in trying to address not only the expenditures of money and the economic side of government but also the social side of government and the ability for government to be there to help people who cannot help themselves.

I think that that responsibility should be there, and I think that there should always be a self-evaluation, if you want to call it that, of where we get our monies and where our monies can get the best value and the redirecting of fundings that are established in so-called programs that have been there year after year after year.

I have no problem saying that, hey, let us look at these and find out where we can get better utilization, and if that money means going into programs or supplementing programs or looking at enhancing some sort of community asset that has established itself and has proven to be of community worth, that we supply it or supplement it with catalyst funding or additional funding.

Those are the types of initiatives that I think government should be willing to explore at any time, and I would feel that within my Department of Urban Affairs I have no problem in giving that type of direction, that we continue to do that to try to find the best utilization of our dollars and which way we are going. We have strived to do this, and I believe we have come to some very, very good, strong, good-faith partnerships and relationships through our Winnipeg Development Agreement and our Urban Safety program. We have done a tremendous amount of good-faith networking and good-faith partnerships in the community.

I think that these are some of the things where we can get some very positive utilization, because you go to the community, you recognize where there is an asset of community participation, and you build upon it with a catalyst of funding or seed money of funding. It is like the nurturing of a garden. You plant good seeds and you get a good crop out of it.

We have had some excellent results with a partnership with Rossbrook House. Rossbrook House, I think, does tremendous work in the community. The two Sisters that are involved with that, Sister Leslie and Sister Bernadette, have done a yeoman's job there for over 20 years, 21 years that they have made that place an example of a dedicated structure where young people can find safety and security and a sense of self-worth. We had no problem at all trying to build a partnership through the Winnipeg Development Agreement with Rossbrook House, and I am very pleased to say that it has proved to be very, very beneficial, where we have an investment through our WDA contribution over the next five years of just over $87 million. [interjection] Did I say million? [interjection] Oh, pardon me, $87,800; I am sorry. It was, I am sorry, $87,800, a total project cost of $175,000. So with Rossbrook House, there is an example of a strong relationship.

We also built up a relationship through the Urban Safety program with the Fort Garry Boys and Girls Clubs for the establishment of a Winnipeg Boys and Girls Club in Fort Richmond which is to provide a developmental and recreational program for children in the six- to 14-year-old age group in and around our Manitoba Housing complexes in that particular area. There, again, it was $174,000 under the WDA contribution, for a total project cost of just over $574,000.

The ALIVE program is an educational program for the Grades 6 and 7 students, and it is conducted by the City of Winnipeg police department, and here again the Winnipeg Development Agreement's contribution was $58,800 out of a total project cost of just over $201,000. The counteraction program, again with the Winnipeg Police Services educational awareness program for the businesses in the area in alerting them to the prevention and deterring of crime, this has taken on a very positive aspect with the business community on educating them to what to look for and how to organize their business in the fighting of crime and theft and vandalism in their stores. The Winnipeg Development Agreement contribution was $82,500 out of a total allocation for that whole project of $674,000. These are examples where the other project partner has found contribution, because one of the criteria is to set up long-term programs in the community so that there is an ongoing benefit to the community. It is not a one-shot or a one-year project. It is an ongoing project. Usually we try to make it for at least five years so that there is something that will end up being of a solid nature and a permanent nature in the community.

One other program that we have initiated under the Urban Safety program was the employment preparation for young offenders through the Manitoba Justice department, a demonstration project getting high-risk youth through employment training and on-the-job training. This was, as I mentioned, a good-faith partnership with Manitoba Justice in setting it up, and it proved to be quite beneficial.

There was a project that was just started last week which is called CAMP, which is a circus and magic partnership that was just on, performed during the last week, and this was a partnership with the Winnipeg International Children's Festival. I had the opportunity to be there for the kickoff of it, and to see the young people. There were well over--I believe they were targeting almost 100 young people to be involved with the project for the week of the spring break. I think their total participation after they started to settle in was somewhere between 65 and 70 young people.

What it did, it gave them a chance to participate in various aspects of magic and circus performing acts with the idea of demonstrating and performing in front of their peers and their parents and at the same time practising for the Children's Festival that comes up in June of this year. I was there for the wind-up, and there was a tremendous amount of satisfaction and participation by the young people in self-worth and self-esteem as they were able to express themselves in front of their own peers and, more importantly, in front of their parents that they brought down to show them. A lot of times it was the first time that they had ever been able to express themselves openly in public like that, and the project managers there were telling me of the pride and the sudden blooming, if you want to call it, of these young people of doing something on their own and showing some sort of satisfaction that they did out of their own accomplishment. So it was an awakening by a lot of these young people as to their own self-worth.

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These are some of the things that are very, very important, because it was geared towards high-risk groups between the ages of 10 and 12. These were young people that were brought out of Rossbrook House, some of the inner city schools, and some of the areas where there was some very high gang activity and youth problems, and it really showed that there was a place for this type of demonstration in this particular area.

Another part of the Urban Safety program that has picked up very fast is in the Lord Selkirk Park area. We are working very hard in trying to bring that to a safe and secure area. One of the things that we were able to initiate there was to set up a Community Police office right in that complex, and we have had a very positive response from the tenants association in the area and, more importantly, as Minister of Seniors, there is a seniors block that is also in that particular area and it has given a sense of security to the seniors because of the fact that there was a policeman right on the site right now.

I believe the constable--his name is Constable Ducharme--has really taken to become part of the community. He walks the beat; he is seen by the people; the people can identify with him. It has proven to be a very, very strong and positive influence in the area, and I commend Chief Cassels and the attitude of having more and more community policing. I have made the offer to him that in some of my other housing complexes that if he feels there is a need to set up a police force presence in there, that we will make, through my Housing department, every effort to accommodate space for his placement.

We have talked about possibly at Gilbert Park. Gilbert Park is a very good example of a good tenants association. They have a very strong organization there. In fact, it is one of the few housing developments in my housing portfolio that has a waiting list to get in, and that is something that says something for the tenants association. But, there again, what we have done is we have empowered the tenants to make decisions. We have given them the ability to spend money. We have allocated a certain amount of our maintenance and M and I funding to them, and they have the responsibility of spending that money.

They have the ability to hire contractors for minor repairs. They have the ability regarding the snow clearing, I believe it is, and some of the cleanup when tenants move. We are trying to delegate more and more authority to the tenants association so that they take hold of their own complex. It has proven very beneficial at Gilbert Park. In The Maples they have a tenants association there. There again, they have a very, very small vacancy rate in that housing complex also, and it is mainly because of the involvement of the tenants association and people who want to take hold of their community.

Lord Selkirk Park, I originally was talking about that. We are trying to work very closely in trying to bring some sort of stronger sense of community in that area. We will continue to work with their tenants association in trying to bring some sort of sense of safety and responsibility in the area. It is an ongoing problem, but I am optimistic that we have turned the corner with the police presence in the area. The fact that the tenants association is becoming more viable and making their presence felt more and, with that, I believe that they warrant the delegation of decision making regarding some of their budgetary considerations and things like that.

We work very hard in trying to build up a sense of community participation throughout the department and throughout our programs that we have as a funding mechanism. I believe firmly that we should be using our funding as a catalyst to work within the community to build upon the positive aspects in the community. To reinvent new programs or to get involved with reinventing the wheel all the time any time there is a problem I think is a waste of money to an extent because a lot of times there are people in the community, there are programs in the community that are proven beneficial and have a track record of success. These are the types of people or programs that we should be courting more and possibly even enhancing to a degree so that they can become part of the solution more and, if anything, take over ownership of the problems and of the community in trying to come to a resolve on it. The government has a role, but it is the delicate balance of how far do you take the government into every program.

Ms. Barrett: Yes, the minister has given some very good examples of initiatives and projects that have been undertaken by the department. A couple of other comments on the Children and Youth Secretariat strategy paper that actually have some specific relevance to the minister's department. They talk on page 13 about funding links with other initiatives and actually mention the WDA, Innovative and Preventive Child and Family Services Program, urban safety and the urban sports camp, and the neighbourhood revitalization under WDA. So you can see that already there are connections that are there, needing to be enhanced perhaps, but they are there.

Two things I would like to add as far as the Children and Youth Secretariat and how it relates to what we have been talking about. Under the topic of Restructuring Existing Services, there is a paragraph that says that parenting courses are most effective when provided to the parents of very young children. Courses could be delivered within the existing licensed daycare system or in association with neighbourhood schools and community centres.

So here again is another potential role for the community centre as a service delivery system: parenting courses, parenting networks, et cetera. A favourite of mine from years and years ago was the Core Area Initiative project called parent-child centres. I think it must have been under Core I because shortly after, in the early '90s, the core area funding died for the projects. There were five centres, and we asked the then Minister of Family Services to please consider funding those centres. The total cost would have been in the neighbourhood of $300,000 for the seed money necessary to enable these five centres to continue operating. That did not happen.

I wonder if had something like that carried on--proven, volunteer-driven, locally delivered, very different services depending on the neighbourhoods that they were in, the perfect programs that the minister is talking about--if we had maintained that, there were literally hundreds of families who might very well have been enabled to provide better parenting skills. What a lot of these parents needed was some time out, some time with their kids, to talk with other parents. What are your problems? What drives you crazy? What do you do about it? Just those very basic interactive kinds of activities that often parents, i.e., mothers with small children, do not have the opportunity to engage in, and the sense of isolation that leads in many cases to very difficult social problems. So it is a small thing, could be delivered through community centres, could be delivered through other areas.

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Finally, there is a whole series that talks about how you can pay me now or you can pay me later. In effect, in child welfare, a high-cost institutional bed costs $73,000 and a foster home $24,000, a family group conference $6,000 per family, and then it says, by contrast, the annual cost per family of a parent mutual-aid network for high-risk families is $2,609. Again, something like a parenting class out of a community centre or parent-child centres, very cost-effective, very preventive in nature, exactly the kind of thing that should be happening.

So, just some suggestions--I hope the minister takes a look at this strategy, and I hope the minister talks with the other departments that are involved in this because there is a role, I believe, for program delivery under the Department of Urban Affairs, plus maybe even more importantly the perspective that the minister can bring to some of these issues and the urban resources that can be brought to bear on this.

Finally, the minister talked in his discussion about some of these programs which are very good. He talked about the camp project that took place, a very short-term project, and the positive outcomes that were as a result of that quite simple, not very complex situation. Yes, the problem is that you need to build on that. You have to have continuity in those programs. You have to have something--those kids have at least one experience with a positive self-image. If they do not continue to build on that positive self-image, if they go back into a family situation which is negative, a school situation where they are getting further and further behind, nowhere else to go except the street, very quickly the positive impacts of this program will be negated.

That is the great thing about Rossbrook House. It has been there forever. It is a community institution and they do wonderful work with those kids. The problem with Rossbrook House is that it is trotted out by everybody as this wonderful example of what can happen, but Rossbrook House needs not to be a token. It needs to be a prototype of the kind of community process that can be implemented. They do not spend a lot of money on overhead; they do not spend a lot of money on salaries. Most community groups do not, but they need that seed money. Community centres need that seed money. You cannot work with volunteers in most cases without some kind of support, usually in the form of a staffperson at one level or another.

The odd community centre runs very well with that, but the community centres in the core of the city do not have that resource to fall back on. They need something to energize that group of parents or that group of seniors or that group of young people that could act as a resource in providing services or interacting with kids in an inner-city community centre. I think we really need to rethink the concept that only parents can function in the volunteer capacities in community centres or other organizations.

So I think there is lots that we know how to do, and this for me is one of the most frustrating things about this kind of thing, is that it is not that we do not know what works. We do know what works. We are very inventive. This camp thing was really quite a brilliant idea. The pictures of the minister, on the other hand, were not all that brilliant, but never mind, I take awful pictures as well. The problem is that we know what to do, but we lack--and I am not saying just this government, and I wish there were some of the other government members here to hear this. It is not just this government. None of us have ever done as good a job as we need to do, but this government has been this government for 10 budgets. This government is not only the current government; it is the former government and the former, former government. So it is almost a decade. We are talking a long time here.

Let us build on the expertise and the knowledge that we have in the community and do something with it. The problem is we trot out Rossbrook House and do not ever say, okay, how can we replicate Rossbrook House in a number of other communities? Not to that extent, but how can we use the resources in our community to make the community work better? That is going to require political will and an economic focusing that is not here yet. There are some possibilities, but it needs to be worked on. So, ending then, I do not know precisely that there is a question.

Mr. Reimer: I would just like to add to what has been said in pointing out to the member that under the Winnipeg Development Agreement there is a very exciting component, the Innovative and Preventive Child and Family Services Program, which has been implemented by Minister Mitchelson and the Family Services department. That is an initiative of $4.5 million, and the intent of it is to develop pilot projects and to test new directions. So I would think that there is room through that initiative under the Winnipeg Development Agreement that we can--I really cannot give too much detail as to what and how things are transpiring because, as mentioned, it is under the direction of the Minister of Family Services. I can only point out that with an allocation of $4.5 million I would think that there are some good programs or some directions that can come out of that. I know that the department is looking right now at, their department is looking at, how to implement that and which way they are going. I cannot give the member any indication as to when and how. They would have to ask during the Estimates of Family Services as to what the utilization is going to be.

That is one area where I think that we, through the Winnipeg Development Agreement and Urban Affairs, can work quite closely with Family Services. As regards the suggestion made by the member for looking at innovative partnerships and innovative input and direction, I look forward to the proposals that come forth from Family Services to be part of it because I feel that there will possibly be some exciting new directions coming out of that effort.

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Ms. Barrett: I hope the Minister of Urban Affairs feels that he can contribute to those projects.

This is a new, quite a new project, and I just want to know a little bit about it, more than has been in the newspapers, and that is the North Main strategic development project. How much money is coming from the province? I assume that the status is--we are fairly early on in the project, but if the minister could give me an update on that.

(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Mr. Reimer: Maybe what I can just give is some of the parameters of what the North Main Economic Development is. It is a $1.5-million program being implemented by the Province of Manitoba. It supports the commercial revitalization of the North Main commercial strip. The subprogram's intent is to define and enable a new positive commercial role for North Main. The program authorizations for the North Main Economic Development--oh, it is just Appendix A.

I understand that the proposal for the study of the area is in the process of being finalized, and the objectives of the proposal are to encourage and support the physical improvement and the expansion of businesses in the North Main commercial district. The proposal also is to strengthen the existing and stimulate new commercial development and employment opportunities on North Main Street, and also, thirdly, the objective is to link the North Main economic development program with the North Main strategic development program, the aboriginal community facility program, and other complementary programs of the WDA.

So the proposal has gone out. I believe that it is in the very formative stages or finalization stage of awarding the contract for this implementation study. I look forward to it. I believe that the time frame is very short for the study to be initiated, and I would hope that we can find some sort of resolve on it, even this year sometime to get things going in that area.

Ms. Barrett: I am talking about the North Main strategic development project, which is a $6- million project that is under the auspices of the city, but I understood that it was to have some provincial input, or am I inaccurate in that?

Mr. Reimer: We will be part of the committee on this. My understanding is they are just in the very formative stage of implementing the development of the strategy, and other than the fact that we will be part of the committee, I do not think that they have moved too far on it yet at all. We have moved in our sector of the North Main economic development one, but as for the City of Winnipeg's commitment regarding the $6-million North Main strategy, to the best of my knowledge, they have not gone too far into their implementation yet.

Ms. Barrett: The $1.5 million that you talked about earlier under the North Main economic development part of WDA includes a contract for study you said. Could you explain a little more about the $1.5 million, what the components of that are going to be and how you see that linking with what the city is coming up with the North Main strategic development project?

Mr. Reimer: I think what we will look for is the direction that will come out of the study itself. The $1.5 million will be part of assisting in developing the priorities of the spending of this $1.5. The study will give us a direction, and through that study we will have an ability to possibly flow the monies through the priorities that are set up through the study. What they will be, I could not speculate at this time as to what the study is going to come forth with.

The study does have the objectives in the broadest sense, as pointed out in my previous answer, regarding the encouragement of support of the physical improvement and the expansion of businesses, to strengthen the existing and stimulate new commercial development and employment, and also the linkage of the North Main economic development, the North Main strategy and the aboriginal community within that area. So once the study has been formalized, I would think that there would be a direction that would come out of that study, that we can look at some sort of objectives that we can set and priorities for expenditure from and through that study.

Ms. Barrett: So the cost for the study will come out of the $1.5 million dollars. Did the minister say the contract had been awarded or was in the process of being awarded, and if it has been awarded, to whom?

Mr. Reimer: I believe there was a call for proposals. I do not know how many we received. Approximately--whatever, but I do not believe this has been a final award of who won the award, if you want to call it that. But, as to how many responded, I believe the person that handled it is not at the table here right now, so I cannot give her the exact number as to how many people or how many outfits responded.

Ms. Barrett: That is one of the problems with going free flowing, and that is fine. Do you have a time frame for when this study is to be done? I assume this million and a half is this fiscal year.

Mr. Reimer: Yes, I have just been informed that the package went out to 19 firms to respond. The parameters for reporting once the contract is awarded, and I have been led to believe to that we will be awarding to one of the firms within a very short time, possibly before the end of May, and then they will have four months to respond to it.

Ms. Barrett: Okay. Were you aware--was the department aware when they sent out the contract call tender of this North Main strategic development project and, if not, do you now have plans to incorporate this study and potentially the million and a half into--not incorporate, but work alongside the city's strategic initiative?

Mr. Reimer: One of the things that was quite explicit in the Winnipeg Development Agreement--there are, I believe, 25 various components of funding that have become quite explicit in our dealings and our directions that we set up with our other two funding partners--is that we did not want to get into an overlap and duplication of funding. It became quite prevalent right from the very beginning not only in the correspondence, but in the verbiage that came through with the meetings that let us not layer programs one on top of the other and duplicate the wheel, if you want to call it, for the sake of getting money flowing.

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So, when committees meet--this is one of the reasons why the management committees meet quite regularly when they are looking at all various components of the Winnipeg Development Agreement, whether it is a funding proposal that is entirely by the city or by the province or by the federal government--there is a recognition and a correspondence of not overlapping or duplicating what we are doing with funding from the City of Winnipeg, so that we are not both throwing money through the same manhole, if you want to call it. So, yes, we have become very conscious of where the money is going, how it is being spent, and who is spending it, so that we are not doing the same thing that one of our other partners is doing.

Ms. Barrett: So you said earlier that the province is part of the committee that is going to oversee the $22-million North Main strategic initiative that is being formulated by Joe Bova and Mary Richard and the city. So the province will be an active participant in that committee and, if so, does the minister know who the other players on that committee will be?

Mr. Reimer: I think the member may have misquoted. It was not $22 million. It is only $6 million on the North Main strategic development. The economic development that we are involved with--when I say we, I mean the provincial government--is $1.5 million.

We would not be part of the so-called funding through the City of Winnipeg, but we would be aware and we would be privy to directions, so that we would make sure that there is not an overlap or a duplication through the planning committees that would be set up through the City of Winnipeg and the other two partners through the North Main strategic development. We would be aware of what they are doing, yes.

Ms. Barrett: I would like to revert now to the beginning of the process when we were talking about the prior year's Estimates and particularly something that we spent a great deal of time on last year which was the Capital Region Strategy. I am sure the minister remembers that. The minister actually did reference that discussion in his opening remarks, so I would just like to follow up a little bit on this.

I believe the minister mentioned--again, I just took notes so he will have to correct me if I am interpreting this incorrectly--that there was going to be a task force established to make recommendations dealing with the enhanced operations of the committee and how to implement the Capital Region Strategy.

If that is accurate, I would like to ask the minister to give me some background on the task force. Who is on the task force? What other terms of reference are there, if any? How does he see this playing out? What reporting mechanisms are there, to whom, anything he knows about that task force.

Mr. Reimer: It is relatively an output working off the recommendations of the Capital Region Committee. One of the steps along the way of the implementation of the Capital Region Strategy was the fact of the communities wanting to have a stronger lead and direction by the province in keeping the Capital Region Strategy working towards its objectives.

So it was discussed at one of the meetings that a committee be formed or a task force be formed. What the task force objectives would be is to look at ways that the province can work in co-operation with the Capital Region Committee in bringing forth a positive direction, positive scenarios where there is a willingness to work co-operatively between the municipalities.

(Mr. Chairperson in the Chair)

So what was asked--it was a small task force of five members. There was one member from the City of Winnipeg, and then St. Francois Xavier had one and Headingley together. There is the Selkirk planning committee for one, Springfield and Tache and some other communities.

What it was, was there was a grouping of about two or three communities, each appointing one committee member for a total of five committee members, and this has been struck. They are in the process, I believe, of having a meeting shortly from what I understand--a regional meeting very shortly on that with the idea of trying to come up with a direction and a directive back to the committee and back to the minister as to what type of stronger role they see that this committee should take.

I feel that it behooves the committee to give the minister and the government more of a direction, outline and goals that they feel they should be pursuing. In this way they are part of the decision making, and they are part of the task force or the committee that makes the decisions on it and not government, per se, being the only decision maker involved with it. So I think that it is a positive step. I think that the more that the districts in and around Winnipeg--pardon me, the more that Winnipeg and around Winnipeg recognize that the best way to work towards resolve of problems is to work co-operatively and building on consensus, that it is better for the whole community. So Winnipeg has appointed their member, and we have got the other four members, and I would expect to hear from them in a short time as to what type of other directions they want us to take.

Ms. Barrett: Did the Capital Region committee give the task force a time by which they should report back or a regular reporting mechanism, or is it out there doing its job, or at one of the meetings of the Capital Region Strategy they will say, oops, maybe we should hear from the task force, or is it a little more definite than that? Also, again, could the minister clarify the two comments that he made about the task force--I am assuming they are terms of reference: the enhanced operations of the committee and how to implement the strategies. Are those the two parameters that the task force has been given, or are there any more specific areas? Is there any one of the, I think there were five main groupings in the strategy report--does the task force have any prioritization of those main groupings, things that they would work on first, or are they pretty autonomous in what they are going to do? I guess, what kind of directives has the task force been given by the full committee, in a shortened form?

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Mr. Reimer: I should point out to the member that the task force is relatively new. It is something that grew out of a concern by the committee to try to bring it more down to a smaller working entity, instead of always having all the communities there. I believe there are what, 13 community centres around Winnipeg--[interjection]--17. I cannot remember the exact number. But, instead of having all these communities and the City of Winnipeg together all the time just to discuss, it might be better to condense it to this task force. So this is a relatively new entity in that it was, I believe, just struck with the final member coming on stream just before Christmas for the membership.

As for its role and its objectives, I think what we are trying to do is to give them the sense of trying to set up some of the priorities where they feel they would like to take the community and the committees, and I have not had a chance to correspond with them as a formal entity yet.

As a task force, like I mentioned, it is in the very formative stage. As to their meetings, I believe that we would hopefully have some meetings set up very shortly, so that we could try to get some sort of not only resolve but maybe a definition of priorities from them, possibly before the summer rolls around, certainly before the end of summer for sure.

Ms. Barrett: Talk about a glacial time frame here. It has been three months according to my calculation since the last member of the committee was appointed. According to what the minister has just said, there has been no meeting set up yet, and the minister hopes that there will be something by the end of summer.

I guess my question would be who calls the meetings, and if there is not going to be any quicker turnaround or communication between the minister and this committee, then I wonder at the utility of having such a task force in place if it has been completed as far as its members are concerned for three months and nothing yet has transpired. Now, perhaps I am misunderstanding what the minister said, and if I have, I hope he tells me what the reality is.

Mr. Reimer: I have just been informed that the last member who was appointed, it was only within the last 30 days, so I guess I was a little premature in saying that everything happened before Christmas. I knew that we were talking about it before Christmas, but I understand that the City of Winnipeg just appointed their person within 30 days ago. That is the last person that needed to come on stream, if you want to call it.

We have been of the opinion that even with the formation of this task force, if there is a need for some sort of professional assistance to help them in setting up their parameters of understanding and direction, that we are prepared to assist them in setting this up. We feel fairly confident that this is the best way to try to get a resolve, to try to get a sense of purpose within the Capital Region Strategy in the sense that if we can get a task force to come up with objectives, they then can be taken back to the committee as a whole of all the communities around the city of Winnipeg, and we can start to work toward trying to come to some sort of resolve for the whole area.

It is a system that I think can work quite well, and it puts a little bit more emphasis on the fact that the Capital Region Strategy has the ability to make some decisions, not only that affect the city of Winnipeg, which is part of it, but the whole area, so that there is a sense of working toward the betterment of the community.

At the same time, it has the ability to assess again, which I have talked about before, where there is overlap and duplication and where there is the ability for communities to share resources or common directions, and these are some of the things that a task force and a smaller group can look at possibly much more readily than the whole envelope of all the communities looking and trying to come to some sort of consensus building on it. I believe it is the best vehicle to try to get some sort of direction with the Capital Region Strategy.

Ms. Barrett: I do not disagree that a task force of subcommittee or an executive, or whatever the title is for this group, is not a bad idea. I think that it is probably a very good idea, but it is only as good as its actual implementation. You have said that the province is prepared to assist this group. Has a staffperson been assigned to work with this task force? Who appointed the task force? Was it a selection made by the Capital Region committee itself? Who will call the meetings of this task force? Again, I guess, is there any expectation that there is a report back other than at the regular meetings of the entire committee?

Mr. Reimer: The participation in the task force was strictly determined by the cluster of municipalities for a member to come forth. There was no appointment by our department or any other level of government other than the individual levels of government for the municipalities. The City of Winnipeg appointed one of their councillors as a member. I believe the member is Glen Murray. He is the member that has been appointed by the City of Winnipeg to be on this task force. The initiative to call the first meeting, I guess, will be up to the Department of Urban Affairs. Once I have got the comfort that the task force has been formally structured, which I believe it has been, just has been, I have no qualms about calling a meeting to get to know them in a sense, and to have a meeting with them. I would hope that I can call a meeting possibly within the next month or so anyway. It is a matter of trying to get everybody together. That is always the hardest part, trying to get the timing of six politicians to come together at the same time. That is the hardest part.

Ms. Barrett: I hope the minister does take this task force to heart and do something, because there is a lot of work that has gone into the Capital Region Strategy. We have discussed this at great length in the past and there are some major concerns, but it requires commitment on the part of everybody to discuss this. This is, I think, a positive hiving off, if you will, of a group of people that could actually function in between the regular meetings. But it needs to be set up. It needs to actually start meeting and having some parameters put on it. I wish the minister well in getting them together.

One final comment or question about last year's Estimates, and that is with the City- Provincial Environmental Planning Committee that the minister mentioned in the Estimates last year and in the annual report on page 34. The '95-96 annual report talks about the committee, and that it issued its report on the status of 23 issues it considered during the year. I am wondering if the minister can share with us when this year's report will be available.

Mr. Reimer: I have been led to believe that this committee has been disbanded and it was through the initiative of the City of Winnipeg. The city was of the opinion that it had outlived its usefulness and there was not the need to continue with it, from what I have been led to believe.

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Ms. Barrett: So the province then just said fine, the city does not want to do it so we do not see any need to try and convince the city that perhaps there might be a continued utility for this planning committee.

Mr. Reimer: There had been consultations with the Department of Environment provincially, and the Department of Environment indicated that they feel the City of Winnipeg is now in a position where it can do an evaluation and has the capabilities of evaluation on itself. The city felt that they did not need to participate in that study anymore. So there was consultation with the Environment department and agreement in conjunction with their department that the city has the ability to make that type of decision now.

Ms. Barrett: What types of decisions is the city now being left on its own to make?

Mr. Reimer: I think that what could be of help is if we had the last meetings of the commission and the documentation that went towards that decision. We do not have that. We can get it for the member. It will give us a bit more background as to the lead-up to that decision. We will endeavour to track that down so that there is more complete information for you.

Ms. Barrett: Thank you, I would appreciate that. I am not trying for a moment to say that more committees are better or that you should keep a committee going if it is not necessary, but these are major issues that this committee has dealt with in the past, so I would appreciate getting some background information as to why the city feels that it is able to do that on its own.

On another topic, we have been talking about the core of the city, and I would like to raise an issue about one part of the core of the city which is the downtown area, and one part of the downtown area which is the Eaton's situation. I know that I asked in Question Period of the minister, shortly after the Eaton's announcement came down, what was being developed, and it is clear from his answer and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism's (Mr. Downey) answer that the lead department at that point was I, T and T and that they had a staffperson who was co-ordinating whatever actions were being undertaken on the part of the province to deal with this issue. I wonder if the Minister of Urban Affairs is working with the staff of I, T and T, what is the Department of Urban Affairs role, if any, in attempting to deal with this potentially devastating problem for the city of Winnipeg?

Mr. Reimer: I have been informed that there has been a multidepartmental committee set up to try to come to a recognition and resolve of the Eaton's situation down there. The person from our department is our Assistant Deputy Minister Heather MacKnight who will be sitting on that committee, and, as has been indicated by the member for Wellington, Industry, Trade and Tourism has taken the lead on this department.

I should point out to the member that I know Mayor Thompson has been very, very concerned about the fact of what might happen to Eaton's. She has perhaps one of the most direct accesses here in Winnipeg to the ear of Eaton's, if you want to call it, in the sense that because she used to be a buyer for Eaton's, she worked for Eaton's for quite a few years. In fact, she was a senior buyer with Eaton's and has become very well known to the Eaton family. I know this personally because I have been to various functions where the Eatons family have been to, and there is a very close relationship between the mayor and Eatons. I would think that her ability to persuade is very strong, and in any type of relationships I would think that we have got a very positive aspect in the sense that the mayor of the city of Winnipeg will have just as much clout, if you want to call it, in talking to the Eatons as anybody in trying to keep Eaton's store some sort of a viable entity downtown.

Within our government, Industry, Trade and Tourism is the lead department. We are part of the multidepartmental setup that has been formed. With having one of our staff, our assistant deputy minister, on that committee I would be kept informed. But as to date I believe that we have not had much--they are just in the formative stages of discussion. So as to a report, I have not seen anything yet.

Ms. Barrett: Again, maybe not glacial in its timing, but we are in a very short time frame. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) sent a letter to George Eaton on March 18 outlining what the government was prepared to do and identifying Dennis Cleve of his department as the contact person. It is now April 7. Not a lot of time has passed, certainly not in traditional governmental time frames, but we are dealing here with a crisis. We are not dealing with something that can be dealt with in the normal time frames. If this mutlidepartmental committee has not met or the minister has not heard about any activities that this multidepartmental committee has undertaken, I have some serious concerns about this. We are talking about an anchor, major anchor for the downtown area, an area that hangs on year by year that has potential for growth, has potential for stability. Without something in that 880,000-square-foot building, downtown Winnipeg is going to lose its balance literally. We do not have a lot of time. I would suggest to you that Mayor Susan Thompson, with her personal connection to George Eaton, at this point is not probably the most influential person or entity that should be discussing this issue with him.

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He is not, I would imagine, going to respond to a single person even though she was a senior buyer, has personal contacts and is currently the mayor of the city. If there is not a very clearly defined position taken by the Province of Manitoba on this issue which affects two-thirds of the province of Manitoba, why would George Eaton give a care about what happens with Eaton's?

It is totally incumbent upon the province to take the major leadership role here. If the province is not prepared to say this is essential to the health of our city, the city that incorporates two-thirds of our province, our city that the minister just earlier tonight said was a huge economic engine, if the government waits for three weeks before it even has a meeting about this multidepartmental committee on an issue of critical importance, with a time line that is less than three months away, bottom line less than three months away, then what message does that send to George Eaton and the vulture buyers in New York?

It seems to me it sends a pretty dreadful message. I would like to have the minister explain to me why nothing has happened.

Mr. Reimer: I have to point out to the member that Industry, Trade and Tourism, and I think she recognized this, is the lead department on that. They have assigned people to do the phone calls, to do the research, to do the background, to do the whatever needs or information has to be gleaned. I, as Minister of Urban Affairs, would not be privy to what is happening on that basis simply by the fact that it is handled and directed strictly by another department.

We would become involved in a sense because as the Urban Affairs minister, we have the assistant deputy minister sit on the committee in the logistics and the basic consultation basis with this committee, this interdepartmental committee. The ongoing and the day-to-day inquiries and correspondence, it would be better to be questioning I, T and T as to what is happening and what progress or direction is coming out of their meetings or correspondence or telephone calls or whatever they are doing. I just do not have that type of information available to me to really make the answer properly.

Ms. Barrett: Excuse me, but the minister says he does not have information on the role of the multidepartmental committee dealing with this critical, very time-sensitive issue, that it is handled strictly by another department. I cannot believe that the Minister of Urban Affairs--knowing he is coming into Estimates, knowing that the issue of Eaton's is a hugely important issue for the city of Winnipeg and should be a hugely important issue for the entire government of the province of Manitoba--does not have a report from his assistant deputy minister on this issue. Now something is wrong here.

It has been 20 days since that letter was written by the Minister of I, T and T, which means it has been at least a day or two earlier than that that the I, T and T took the lead on this. I cannot imagine the minister not wanting to know what is going on. If the Minister of Urban Affairs does not care about what is going on with Eaton's, then the people of Winnipeg need to know this and the impression that they have that this government does not care about the city of Winnipeg, that it puts very little importance to the city of Winnipeg, is borne out completely. I cannot believe that the minister does not have the interest in finding out from his assistant deputy minister about what is going on with this committee. Why not? What are you waiting for? June 29?

Mr. Reimer: There has to be a recognition by the member that the tragedy of any type of bankruptcy of a large scale, or the potential bankruptcy of a large scale major retailer like this, is something that is of enormous magnitude in its parameters of repercussions within the industry, not only within the industry, but as pointed out by the people who are working, the employees of Eaton's, the employees of the suppliers of Eaton's commodities, the stores that are in and around Eaton's. It has a huge magnitude of ramifications of what can happen with Eaton's.

Discussions that involve any type of bankruptcy or working with creditors or working with trying to come to some sort of resolve with the suppliers is something of a very delicate nature within business. Government has a role possibly to play, as mentioned by the member, of trying to find out what is the best way to facilitate these types of situations within the city of Winnipeg, but it is not something that is made public in a sense that all moves are open and transparent as to what negotiations are happening and transpiring within the negotiations.

There are formats and formulations that come about in any type of foreclosure or proceedings toward foreclosure. The development of assets, the listing of assets, the creditors, the securing of creditors, the paying off of creditors, the lines of communications that have to be set up between the suppliers and your creditors and the disbursement of funds and the end product of trying to keep the business viable is always in the back of everybody's mind as trying to save the company. These are all very delicate correspondences and very delicate situations of concern. The only time that these things should become public knowledge is when there is a resolve on all these problems or definite objectives have been set up or definite solutions have come forth from all these discussions. Once that comes about, then there is the comfort factor of all the various people that are working, the employees and everything else like that, all these things have to be brought into consideration when they start to do negotiations with such a large economic catastrophe with the so-called bankruptcy of Eaton's.

To be privy to everything along these things for the sake of knowing what is going on sometimes can be of a detriment in trying to come to some sort of resolve of an amicable solution towards keeping Eaton's here in Winnipeg. So the negotiations that are going on between Eaton's right now that this government or I, T and T is involved with should be kept in a proprietary nature in a sense because these are very delicate negotiations and very delicate situations. To say that I should be aware of everything and everything that is going on, this is a huge undertaking that Eaton's is going through in the restructuring and at the same time trying to cling to its own existence and at the same time trying to establish itself in the market as a large retail giant. These are tremendous pressures that the company is going through right now, and they are trying to be, I guess, as diligent as they can be in trying to come to some sort of resolve. So naturally I would not be privy to a lot of the decisions that Eaton's is going through in trying to look at which way and the directions that they are going to be involved with staying or who is staying or who is not staying here in Winnipeg.

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We are concerned naturally by trying to protect not only Eaton's and the jobs that go along with Eaton's but the whole entity in itself. It is an institution here in Winnipeg that goes back to, well, when was it, the turn of the century, I guess, when Eaton's first came here, and it is a long-established business that granted we should try and do everything we can to keep in Winnipeg, but when the realities set in and the economic decisions of viability dictate how things happen, a lot of times decisions are made that we can have nothing to do with and we cannot control those decisions. So we cannot be privy to every decision that is going to happen over on Portage Avenue regarding that building.

Ms. Barrett: The minister's answer would have rung truer had it been the first answer that he had given, not the second answer he had given. First of all, the minister was not lecturing but the minister knows, does not have to tell me or anybody in the city of Winnipeg about the importance of Eaton's. That is the whole point of this concern, the importance of Eaton's, economically, socially, historically, Eaton's as an entity and that physical building there. We already have a glut of downtown office space for a variety of reasons; 880,000 square feet coming onto that market can have nothing but an enormously devastating impact on the value of retail space in the whole city of Winnipeg. The ripple effect could be catastrophic with unbelievable consequences to the assessment process and the assessment money that would come into the City of Winnipeg.

All of those factors are vital and should--I am not asking that the minister share with me details about negotiations, nor am I asking that the minister say anything other than what I did not hear him say, which was, I am in contact with my representative on the multidepartmental committee that is talking about the issue of Eaton's; we are talking very seriously amongst ourselves and with other partners and stakeholders in this process.

Had the minister said that to me, that would have been the end of it. But the minister did not say that. The minister said: I do not know what is going on with that multidepartmental committee, not, I do not know the specifics. Nor would I expect the minister to know the specifics. As a matter of fact, it makes eminent sense that I, T and T is the lead department in this because they have a lot more staff than Urban Affairs does. They have the people, I am sure, who can deal with the number crunching and all the fiscal elements here and also who do, supposedly, have expertise in industrial and business development. This makes eminent sense, no question about that. It also makes eminent sense that there is a representative dealing with this issue from Urban Affairs because of the enormous impact on the city of Winnipeg and, by extension, the province of Manitoba should Eaton's fall apart.

But for the minister to say--and I believe he was being honest in his first answer--he does not know what is going on, that is something that I find very difficult to believe. I am sure there are meetings happening. I am sure things are being undertaken, and I would not for a moment, as I have said, want to ask any specific questions or get any information that needs to be kept private for the time being, no question about that. All we want is to see that the provincial government takes this thing seriously. Frankly, I do not see that the Minister of Urban Affairs takes this seriously if he has his ADM, who is a very critical person in the department, being on a committee and does not ask his ADM what is happening, generally speaking. Why else is she on this committee if not to come back and report back to the Minister of Urban Affairs so he knows basically what is going on?

So I will leave it at that. I am very disappointed, I must say, in the response, but frankly not completely surprised by it, because I think it does show that while the government may talk about the importance of Winnipeg and the economic engine that Winnipeg has, when it comes right down to it, this minister does not appear to have enough interest in the issue to ask his staffperson for a report on it, particularly when he knows we are going into Estimates. He must know that I am going to ask questions about Eaton's. I ask questions of him in the House.

I will leave it at that. If the minister would like to respond, I do have another major financial concern that I would like to raise before we end tonight.

Mr. Reimer: I do not have too much more to add to what the member has mentioned other than the fact that I can assure her that the concerns she has are concerns that we as a government have too, that we are very, very concerned about Eaton's and the viability of Eaton's and are striving to work towards some sort of resolve that is of benefit to not only Eaton's but more importantly to the employees of Eaton's, because there are an awful lot of people that would be affected by any type of closure of a large department store like that. The Eaton family I do not imagine would be hurt by what would happen, but it is the employees of Eaton's and all the jobs that go along with it that I think we as a government are very, very concerned about.

Ms. Barrett: I would like to go on to another potential problem facing the city of Winnipeg and that is the Winnport situation. For years we have been hearing about Winnport, and we in the opposition have supported the concept of Winnport. We have met several times with key players in Winnport for two or three years now. I have some concerns about how some of the environmental--and other concerns about how Winnport would be developed and implemented, but the concept had and continues to have our support.

However, there has not been much movement. There has been a lot of, oh, things are moving along; yes, we anticipate $6 million and 6,000 jobs and all this kind of stuff, but no specifics that you--tangible specifics. Now we read, just last week, where the president of Winnport, Lynn Bishop, is admitting now that the footprint of Winnport, if you will, has been severely truncated. We have lost, it would appear, at least the toes of the footprint of what Winnport was envisioned originally to be, even in its initial stages, which was to provide a 24-hour cargo airport facility serviced by planes owned by airlines. Now we find out that no, Winnport itself will have to lease or buy the planes, that the jobs that were talked about for a long time, Lynn Bishop says, will be severely reduced.

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Things appear to be not all they should be at this point in time. I am wondering if the minister or any of his staff are participating in--I mean, I know the government is on the Winnport team, and I am wondering if the minister has anything to share at this point about Winnport and the problems that are involved in it at this point.

Mr. Reimer: The member has mentioned Winnport. Winnport has become more and more of a topic recently with the fact that, under the Winnipeg Development Agreement, there was an allocation of funding through the Transportation department for $5 million.

Part of this allocation of funding was to set up a business plan to look at various components of how much capital should be raised from the outside--when I say "outside," I mean outside of government through private enterprise and private entrepreneurship--the assembly of land and how that should go about, the jurisdiction of that land, because there is land in the city of Winnipeg and there is land from Rosser involved with it, and the jurisdiction of that land.

They are also in the process of dealing with the airport authority through this business plan. From what I have been led to understand, these are the directives that have been put forth through the Winnipeg Development Agreement and the business plan, I believe, has not been finished as yet. The time frame on it was--it is very close to completion from what I understand, but it has not been presented as yet. So that is more or less where the Winnport initiative is standing right now. There has been, as mentioned by the member, an article in the paper regarding the leasing of airplanes and the setting up of contracts for that, and those are other areas I believe that they are looking at and trying to develop.

Ms. Barrett: A couple of questions. Who was working on the business plan? Secondly, how does the information that we have just received this last week impact on the business plan? Is the change in the scope of the first phase, if you will, of Winnport going to be reflected in the business plan? How does the timing mesh together?

Mr. Reimer: I have been informed that Winnport is the organization that is doing the business plan. We have not seen a copy of the business plan to date yet. They have not presented us with a copy of it yet, of the final one I should say.

Ms. Barrett: I would like to speak a bit about the I.D.G. Stanley report. It is a very extensive report, dealing with many of the issues surrounding the full implementation of Winnport, some very important issues. One of the ones that I am most particularly interested in is their discussion of the management structure of Winnport and the alternative models that are being put forward as possible models for the management structure. They suggest that instead of a public development corporation or a private development corporation there be a public-private partnership arrangement that would reflect Winnport landowners and the airport authority and private ownership. The people in the public sector would be Rosser, Winnipeg, the province and the Government of Canada.

They talk about in particular the landowners, saying the landowners have formed an unincorporated association with representation of the major landholdings in the planning area. Do you know who these landholders are, what this unincorporated landowners association, who they are made up of?

Mr. Reimer: Other than going through the Land Titles Office, I could not give the member the specific names of the landowners in that area other than I have been informed that there are approximately 20 or so various landowners within that component--more than 20, I am being told--within that area. We do not have the actual list of the landowners.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, one other area in the IDG Stanley report talks about how you actually implement Winnport and the problems surrounding, the challenges facing an entity that crosses several political jurisdictions and has a lot of potential partners.

What they recommend is a new jurisdictional entity which would take the airport area out of the jurisdiction of the city and the Municipality of Rosser and create a new administrative entity that would deal with land use regulation and development, taxation, sewer and water rates and municipal servicing obligations.

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Then there is a sentence here--well, two sentences--that when I read them flew out at me, and I think the minister will understand that when I read them, and they are, and I quote: The principal advantage of this alternative is that it does not subject the new entity to any restrictions inherent in the existing legislation. Essentially, it allows the province to start with a clean slate.

You can imagine my consternation when I read these two sentences, thinking, oh dear. I am wondering if the minister could comment on that concept of a new entity which would not be bound by any current legislation.

Mr. Reimer: The property in question is interesting in the sense that there are two jurisdictions that, so-called, oversee it. You have the City of Winnipeg with part of it, and you have the R.M. of Rosser with part of the property, too, and then, as has been pointed out, there is also the government level of ownership through the Department of Transportation that has a chunk of that property federally.

So the fact of jurisdiction, I think, came out of the fact that when there was a fair amount of discussion as to Winnport, one of the areas they looked at for consultation was an operation in Huntsville, Alabama, that entity down in that area, and the fact that down in Texas, I believe it is, there is another entity that is under the management of the infamous Ross Perot, and it is set up as a, what is the word for it--I guess, a free market or a duty-free zone or some free-trade zone. It had that type of situation.

I guess there are a lot of different scenarios that can be brought up in trying to create the Winnport situation here in Winnipeg, and the concept that the member has brought up regarding an entity outside of the jurisdiction of the--how should I word that? How did you word it? Outside the jurisdiction of provincial authority, I believe you said.

Ms. Barrett: Yes, the Stanley Report says the principal advantage is that it does not subject the new entity to any restrictions inherent in the existing legislation. It allows the province to start with a clean slate.

Mr. Reimer: I do not know how we would interpret that "clean slate." I can only think that the rules and the regulations regarding normal business practices and environmental concerns and jurisdictional directions would have to be complied with in a sense of building codes and environmental codes, and that would have to be adhered to in any type of establishment that is set up within the jurisdictions of Winnipeg or Manitoba in a sense. I believe what has been alluded to and something that the City of Winnipeg and Rosser are looking at--and it could be part of the answer that the member is looking for--is because of the fact that the two entities both have a so-called shared interest in Winnport, that they do come to some sort of understanding of the jurisdiction and the jurisdiction responsibilities between Rosser and Winnipeg. I believe the City of Winnipeg and Rosser are working on some sort of an understanding of that right now. Whether they have come up with an answer, they have not relayed it to us yet.

Ms. Barrett: I am still not satisfied. I am very concerned that a new jurisdictional entity that was not technically responsible to existing legislation allows for the potential for a great deal of bad legislation to be put in place, bad in a sense that you could theoretically draft legislation that would allow environmental concerns to take a back seat, that would allow the private part of the partnership to have more control than the public part. There are a whole bunch of currently available good restrictions to unfetter development that potentially could be eliminated through this jurisdictional entity.

Mr. Reimer: I think it should be pointed out that, in any type of plan or jurisdictional authority or something along that manner where there is government funding involved with it which we have indicated regarding our $5-million allocation that we have put, we would recognize anything that was of a difference in structure that we would have to make a decision on, and it would have to come before some pretty close scrutiny under our government if we were having a departure from the norm of any type of new entity that was being formed through the report. We would still have a very strong indication and a strong presence in any type of decision that was brought forth in any type of new jurisdictional or a different type of jurisdictional direction that the report is recommending.

No recommendation has been brought forth to us. There has been no decision. The business plan has not even been presented to us yet. We are dealing in a sense of speculation in a sense as to what and if could happen. So, until we get a report, until we get a recommendation, that is when decisions have to be made; that is when there is room for discussion and decision making. It is a bit speculative to set up definitive answers at this time on those.

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Ms. Barrett: I recognize that it is speculative at this point, but I did want to raise the concern. Is the minister, is the department, concerned about the delays of Winnport and the changing concept of the--I suppose it is phase one that is being changed. It sounds from the media coverage that it is a much scaled-back phase one. Maybe this is a question that the minister could ask Mr. Bishop or the Winnport committee.

If this is the new scaled-back Winnport phase one, are there going to be any changes to the anticipated infrastructure costs which, according to IDG Stanley, have more of the front-end infrastructure costs in phase one charged against the various levels of government than the private developers? The major roads, for example, in phase one, $4.5 million would be charged to the developers, the private part of the private-public ownership and $27 million would be charged against the various levels of government, which is quite an extensive change. All of the waste water, sewers and water mains would be government expenses, and only a small portion of drainage facilities would be charged against the private developer. So at the end of the first phase the total for that kind of infrastructure would be $10.2 million for the private part of the partnership and $36.3 million for the public partnership. Now that, over the final phases, reverses itself, and there are more costs associated with the private developers. But in the first phase it is front-ended against the various levels of government.

So what in effect they are saying is widening Inkster-Brookside Boulevard, which is in the works now, change Silver Avenue and deal with Saskatchewan Avenue, for example. In a sense, and maybe more and more on spec because they are at least a year late in even starting Winnport and now it is being cut way back in its focus, is the public part of this partnership going to get out of Winnport what they expected to get out of it when they sort of agreed to the process in the first place? And what is the department's role in dealing with this situation?

Mr. Reimer: In addressing the first part of the question that the member asked regarding the speed of decision making, I guess it is like everything, naturally you want to get on with the project and get things moving because it has a tremendous amount of potential and appeal for the export of our products. If anything, we have seen a very significant explosion, if you want to call it, in our agri-food business here in Manitoba, which is very, very conducive to exporting, which has grown at a very significant rate. One of the biggest advantages of having a 24-hour operation airport here in Manitoba is the fact that we can ship continually around the clock out of Winnipeg.

Winnport would fit into this scenario quite readily because of the fact that we have the Central time zone. We are central in North America in a sense that it is, from what I understand, less than--I have been told it is between a 200 kilometres to 300 kilometres difference between Tokyo and Los Angeles and Tokyo and Winnipeg in air miles, so the transportation of goods is just as an advantage to go to Winnipeg as it is to go to L.A. We have the advantage of shipping into about a 20-million person market in a very short period, so naturally the speed of trying to get Winnport going is of a concern to us, and naturally we want to get this industry going.

One of the criteria that has always been first and foremost with Winnport is the private entrepreneurship and private money involved. The fact of having private involvement with it is very, very important. It is like the adage that we have seen on TV, the cliche of "show me the money." That is exactly what has to happen to get the private industry involved here. They have to be involved with it. This will not be solely a public partnership in trying to get this thing off the ground. We are of a firm commitment that unless there is a private initiative, private ownership and private participation but, more importantly, private money involved with Winnport, we cannot be the sole jurisdiction of funding on this entity.

It is very important that this come about. The business plan that was proposed, if the business plan is adjusted, as has been indicated in the newspaper, is scaled back, we would only expect that our partnership would have to be scaled back at the same amount. We will not be sole proprietor, if you want to call it, of funding for this project. It is made very clear that private money has to be on the table, because it is just not a go-show if it is just our level of money. Whether it is our money or federal money, we cannot just layer the public's dollars onto something that private enterprise is pushing and promoting, and, like I say, they have to be at the table.

So naturally we are concerned. We would like to see it go as fast as possible. We have tremendous markets to export. We have a pork market that is growing by leaps and bounds. The hog marketing board and the marketing of hogs is something that is becoming quite aggressive here in Manitoba. The market for hogs in the Far East, from what I understand, into China, into Asia, into Japan and Taiwan is a huge market that we want this market to expand. So when we look at these partnerships we do not necessarily just mean that it is our money on the table. We expect it to be accountable, that it is not only our money but the City of Winnipeg's and the feds' as a public component also. It is something that we feel optimistic that Winnport will still happen. We just feel that, like anything, we would like to see it happen a lot sooner.

Ms. Barrett: The minister said that, if Winnport is scaled back, then the public contribution will be scaled back by the same amount. It is my understanding, for example, that the widening of Brookside Boulevard is well underway, that for the expropriation of the final piece of property the Order-in-Council came through to deal with that. It is in the budgets this year. It is a go.

For example, this is kind of facetious, but what portion of that widening of Inkster Boulevard would not take place if Winnport is scaled back by 25 percent. I think I know what the minister is talking about. Let me just ask a couple of other questions in light of this too. In the article it talked about the fact that while the airlift, i.e., the cargo planes, is scheduled to begin a year from now. They were scheduled to begin in 1996 with seven or eight flights per week. No additional private-sector financing has been solicited, and later it says that in order for them to work with the mini FedEx that Winnport is developing which, they anticipate, will generate about 200 jobs, they have to raise $30 million in new private-sector financing this year for that to happen, and that is a key component to this as well. Mr. Bishop is convinced and sure and confident and optimistic. These are not words that fill me, frankly, with a great deal of security given what has happened to Winnport in the past while.

Does the minister have--I guess I am circling back to the beginning of the question. Does the minister have contingency plans. Will he put some of this on hold, for example, the Brookside twinning on hold until that $30 million is in place, when he said, show me the money. Is he prepared to say, we are not going to do this until you show us the money, Mr. Bishop?

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Mr. Reimer: Brookside Boulevard was identified even before Winnport was identified as a target for expansion and expenditure. Brookside Boulevard has been, if you want to call it, the home of some very large trucking firms here in Winnipeg. In fact, I believe here in Winnipeg we have seven of the 10 largest trucking firms in Canada and the majority of them are located on Brookside Boulevard. Brookside Boulevard has become a safety hazard to an extent because of its two-lane nature and with the amount of trucks that were running up and down that stretch of road, so Brookside Boulevard was actually identified quite a few years ago before even Winnport came on to the horizon, that it needed to be expanded.

Brookside Boulevard will continue on the course that has been outlined for expansion. There will be no scaling back of funding that I was relating to regarding Winnport. It has been pointed out that the truck traffic and the fact that we are trying to encourage truck terminaling here in Manitoba. It only gives good common sense to have good roads, and Brookside Boulevard has been identified as a safety hazard, as a road that should be improved and twinned. It is shown that the trucking business here in Manitoba has grown at a very, very extraordinary clip. From what I understand, there is room for over 200 new drivers in the trucking industry. It is something that we have captured, in a sense, because of the entrepreneurship and the hard work of some very dedicated individuals in the trucking industry. So the twinning of Brookside is just a natural extension of good safety features and economic sense for a business that was there long before Winnport was even on the drawing boards.

Ms. Barrett: It also will make the BFI trucks have a much easier way of going out to the landfill in Rosser. However, that is another topic which we will get into later.

I know I know this. I know I have seen it somewhere, but I cannot put my finger on it. Are there other capital infrastructure projects that are envisaged for this year that relate directly to Winnport?

Mr. Reimer: Not that I am aware of, no.

Ms. Barrett: Okay. So, given that Brookside is going to be twinned, regardless of Winnport-- that is an independent decision that has been reached for reasons not dealing directly with Winnport--what the minister is saying is that the exposure of the province and/or the city for infrastructure costs to Winnport, there is no exposure at this point in this year's budget. By that I mean, there are not infrastructure projects that are going underway solely or largely because of Winnport that would not be undertaken if Winnport were not moving ahead.

Mr. Reimer: I really could not speculate as to other jurisdictions or other areas, but to the best of my knowledge we do not have anything planned, no.

Ms. Barrett: So the Saskatchewan and Silver Avenues extensions and expansions and I think in the case of one of them moving the road--[interjection]--Sturgeon Road, thank you--none of that is on the drawing boards for this year, so that if Winnport--heaven forbid--were to go belly up or to extend its deadline for another period of time, there would not be infrastructure underway that would not be needed if Winnport did not exist.

Mr. Reimer: No, not to our knowledge.

Ms. Barrett: Could the minister refresh my memory as to when this business plan that is underway is supposed to be in hand very shortly?

Mr. Reimer: The member was asking about the submission of the report. I would think that we would be getting that report possibly within the next two or three months from Winnport.

Ms. Barrett: Mr. Chair, I certainly do not want to have access to anything that I should not have access to, but I am wondering if it would be possible for the minister to let me know when you have access to that business plan just so I know it is in hand and can perhaps ask questions about that.

Mr. Reimer: You betcha.

Ms. Barrett: Thank you. I have several other areas that I would like to get into, and I am wondering if it is the will of the committee to call it twelve o'clock.

Mr. Chairperson: Is it the will of the committee to call it twelve o'clock? [agreed] The time being twelve o'clock, committee rise.