Madam Speaker: To resume adjourned debate on the proposed motion of the honourable member for Pembina (Mr. Dyck) and the proposed motion of the honourable Leader of the official opposition (Mr. Doer) an amendment thereto, standing in the name of the honourable member for Emerson (Mr. Penner) who has 25 minutes remaining.

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Mr. Jack Penner (Emerson): Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

As I ended off yesterday indicating the trauma that many of the people that experienced the flood of the century was like sailing into the North Atlantic Ocean on a small ship and experiencing one of the North Atlantic storms. The unknown that happened during this flood was very similar, and the many people that came to the rescue when the ship was about to sink will never be forgotten by those who experienced the kind of trauma that one can only experience when one has an ocean of water start slowly creeping up around your house. It gives one that sinking feeling.

So many people are very, very happy today that the province saw fit to enhance the diking program that was initially announced by the federal and provincial governments, a $24-million program, and that our Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pitura) and our Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Cummings) jointly announced would be increased. We had asked on a number of occasions the federal government to increase the floodproofing program. They have not yet decided to do that. However our ministers and our government indicated clearly that we must set at ease the people in the Red River Valley and allow them to continue to protect their homes and their properties. So we increased that portion of floodproofing by $34 million.

Madam Speaker, that and the other announcement, the other changes that were made whereby we set aside the deductibles and the depreciation on essential items of homeowners has allayed most of the fear that I heard expressed during and after the flood. Most people, after the waters were gone, started putting their lives back together. Many people in the Red River Valley are agricultural people, farmers, and they started putting their crop in as they normally had. However, back in July, roughly about July 20, they experienced something that they had not seen again in a while and that was a rainstorm that went through and dumped between six and eight inches of rain into the valley, drowning many of the crops. But one of the key things that attributed to much of the flooding the second time in a year was the closed-in and silted ditches that most farmers in the Red River Valley depend on to take away the waters during the summer months when we have heavy rains. So those are some of the things that farmers experienced.

I guess, through all this disaster that the communities in the valley experienced, none is more important than the recognition of communities actually putting their lives back together and getting on with doing the ordinary business of the day.

So our government has clearly indicated our support for the agricultural industry through many programs that have been initiated and encouraged the diversification of agriculture in our province. And diversify, it really has done. The announcement today of a new hog-processing plant in Brandon, Manitoba, the expansion of hog processing in this city is clearly something that farmers, a secondary industry, have been looking forward to for quite some time. It is a clear indication of the confidence that has been demonstrated by the initiation of our government over the last 10 years to get our economic house in order.

It is an indication that industries from outside of this province want to move here and make their homes here. It is an indication that unemployment has dropped and will drop further to the lowest level of virtually any province within Canada, and I think that is a compliment to the people of this province for putting together their minds as well as their resources and building this economy and that can only happen if government supports those initiatives.

Under the new Manitoba Pork Advantage, a hog production and marketing program sponsored by the government and industry has taken place, and Manitoba Agriculture has been promoting the potential of the province's pork industry. It is a tribute to our Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) for recognizing that through adversity can come prosperity. Many people were seeing as an adverse move the federal government's doing away with the Crow benefit, taking out of the hands of agricultural people throughout western Canada income of $750 million annually. There is no other industry in this country that has ever experienced that kind of reduction in government support in any given year. They did it in one year, like that.

It is about time that we recognize that the agricultural community and the industries supporting it turned around and said: Let us take advantage of a disadvantage. And that is where Manitobans shine; that is where Manitoba producers shine. They were not afraid to invest in an area of the agricultural community that gave them the competitive advantage. We now know that because we are going to have the highest freight costs on grain, on raw products, grain being moved out of this province, that at the same time designates it as the cheapest feed supplement in this country, and therefore processing of many of the other commodities, I believe, will have a real advantage in Manitoba.

We can build on those advantages and the pork industry is doing that. I think the 2,000 to 3,000 jobs that will be created by the announcement that the minister made today is a very significant factor. There will be a tremendous advantage for the city of Brandon. It will be a clear indication to people in western Manitoba that they are in an advantageous position to take advantage of that industry, and it will also be an advantage to all Manitoba producers.

But there are other aspects of the industry that it will have a great impact on, I believe, and that is our secondary manufacturing sector. Much of the equipment that will be needed in the production of the hog industry will be manufactured by local manufacturers, by small manufacturing plants all across this province and in the city of Winnipeg.

I believe that the initiatives that the Department of Agriculture put in place through the Farm Credit Corporation implementing the new credit corporation Diversification Loan Guarantee Program is a very significant program that will encourage further production and further expansion of other industries. We know that producers in the province have no hesitation at all to invest, but they want an assurance that the province, the government of the day, will not deviate too dramatically in their policies and their taxation initiatives.

I had the pleasure, Madam Speaker, of chairing the value-added task force a year and a half ago, and I was very proud to be associated with Merv Tweed, the member for Turtle Mountain, and Frank Pitura, the Minister of Government Services, when we toured the province. We heard people from all across this province tell us constantly, you as a government have a responsibility, a responsibility to search out the markets. I have heard snide remarks from time to time from opposition members when our ministers have travelled abroad on trade missions and those kinds of things, and clearly people in Manitoba indicated during our task force hearing that that is one of the key things that was missing in their ability. So people said continue this, expand this. Bring us back the information. Tell us where the markets are. This is what they were asking for. They needed somebody to go out and search out the markets for them. They are quite willing to make the investments, to do the processing, to add the value, but they told us that they did not have the marketing expertise that was required nor did they have the resources required to go out on trade missions by themselves continually.

So our government is doing exactly that. Our government has initiated a significant number of the recommendations made in the task force report. We believe that while government can continue to play the catalyst to change the success and efforts to expand the value-added activity in rural Manitoba, and indeed all of Manitoba, it hinges in large part on the willingness of Manitobans to form a partnership and play the role, the key role of investment broker in the expansion of our industries. We think it needs an attitude, a positive attitude. We believe that it is government that can nurture this positive attitude. We believe that there needs to be an adequate vision, that government must have a broad enough vision to put forward a long-term plan and indicate that we are not about to waver from that plan every time there is a ripple or an effect such as the flood of the century to make us change course. People expect us to remain on course with our policies.

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There is one thing that I think we need to talk about and discuss, and that is the environmental effect of much of the development that will take place, and most farmers know the value of the by-products of the agricultural expansion in the livestock sector. One of the key elements of the by-products is the fertilizer, the fertilizer that we can utilize which is one of the most natural products for the enhancement of crop production that we can find anywhere in the world.

I have always been concerned that manufactured products for fertilizer and other kinds of things, there should be some caution used. However, the livestock by-products give us back the opportunity to put fertilizers on our land from the most natural source anywhere in the world. I think we need to practise care and caution when we store those by-products to allow farmers to utilize them when the crops need them most, and that is for application in the spring or the fall of the year, to utilize them in such a way that they will not deter the longevity of the industry and our ability for our children to be able to take on the production of agricultural goods in the future. That means simply that we must maintain vigilance about the quality of our water and our land over the long term, that we must take care not to pollute as some have raised some severe concerns, and they should be concerned. We should all be concerned. But it is our government's intention, and has been continually, to review constantly the processes and procedures of production, as we should, and encourage that the environmentally safe conduct of the operations in all parts of the province be maintained at such a level that we do not destroy the basic elements of agricultural food production, and that is our land and our water.

We believe that there are a significant number of things that can happen in the province and should happen, but recognizing again full well that there are some very primary elements that need some support, some broader-based support. One of them is our transportation system. We have allowed the railways basically free access now to do away with branch lines through the deregulation process in our transportation system.

During the debate of the Crow during the past decade or so it was clearly indicated the impact to the municipal and provincial road structure would be immense, and we now see that happening. Many of our secondary roads are really suffering the consequences of a much, much greater degree of truck traffic, and we knew this would happen. I think this will be expanded greatly, and therefore we are becoming more dependent on increased revenue into our road construction system both through the municipal sector and the provincial sector. We believe and I believe that it is imperative that the federal government take part, at least part of the Crow benefit that they pocketed, part of the $750 million, and I would say even give us back 50 percent of that. Give the provinces back 50 percent of that and that would mean to the province of Manitoba that we would receive better than $150 million annually from provincial revenues, and they would still save $350 million that they could put in their bank account.

I also believe that it is imperative that the federal government should relegate some of the monies that they raise through fuel taxes back to the provinces for the construction of roads. There does not need to be any further increase in taxation as some of the federal ministers have indicated they might do. There is no need for that. All they need to do is transfer some of the monies that they are already raising back to the provinces. We could see a dramatic increase in road construction on a long-term basis in the province of Manitoba, as we should, and we are going to have to. If we do not, Manitoba taxpayers are going to bear the brunt of the decision on the Crow benefit as they are now, and I do not believe that that is fair. Nor is it right.

I am extremely fortunate in my constituency, extremely fortunate, to be a member that represents an area of the province that has seen the greatest growth rate in all of Canada over the last eight to 10 years. It makes me extremely proud to be a member of those communities. But it takes a tremendous amount of effort. It takes a fortitude that can only be expressed with confidence, and it takes a confidence in an economy and in a country. I believe that the people in southern Manitoba and the southeast part of Manitoba have that confidence in their country. They are true Canadians, but they also have expectations. But because they are confident in the economy of this province they have invested very substantially, and we have seen very significant growth in those areas.

Some of the community loans programs that we have put forward have been taken up by communities and community organizations such as the Montcalm Community Development Corporation, and I was quite proud to be involved in putting in place a program that will now see $75,000 be loaned to small industries and small businesses in the Montcalm area. I congratulate our Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach) for having put that program in place because it truly supports the economic base of our province, and that is the small business community because they are, after all, the people who initiate most of the job creation in this province.

The Grow Bonds Program is another program that I think has done a tremendous amount and can do a tremendous amount more if it is directed in the right way to see growth expanded in communities.

I believe that the $21-million water project that was initiated by the Pembina Valley Development Corporation and the Pembina Valley Water Co-operative two years ago is a step in the right direction. It will provide a security of water supply to virtually all of the communities south of Winnipeg in the Red River Valley, and that is, of course, what they need to expand and create growth. So we see that virtually all of the communities will see part of that growth.

I am extremely proud to see that Friesens Corporation in Altona is again expanding. This is the third expansion in the last decade that they are into, and this is a company that has demonstrated to all Canadians, indeed all North Americans, that you do not have to be located in a major city in order to be a leader in the industry. Friesen Printers--David Friesen is now at the head of the corporation--is clearly a very aggressive company, an aggressive organization, recognizing what it means to utilize the resources in your own community and cause growth by those kinds of initiatives, and they need to be congratulated on that.

Secondly, we have something that is very unique in our part of the world, and that is a radio station that has become a fairly significant player in the broadcast field. Golden West Broadcasting was born in Altona, where CFAM was the first radio station built by this corporation, and they are now the owners of a multitude of radio stations all across western Canada and indeed into Ontario. They have become a major player in the broadcast field.

Similarly Loewen Manufacturing took advantage of a disadvantage, and that was really when you buy equipment, when farmers buy equipment, they realize very soon that there are some parts that wear off or wear out very quickly, such as combine beater grates or chains that move grain through combines and those kinds of things. So Loewen Manufacturing was started on that basis, that there was a need for replacement parts, and they have become a major player in the replacement parts business.

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But what this all leads to--and there are many other initiatives that are taking place such as the wood industry in the southeast region. There are a number of new players manufacturing wood products. There is Dave Desjardins in Portage and Main, building wood stoves, and Dave Desjardins building palleting, making palleting out of poplar wood that used to be a scrub wood that nobody wanted, now adding substantial value and jobs in the southeast part of the riding.

But all of this is needed in order to support three of the prime elements of this government's initiative, and that is our health care system. We need a sound economic base. We need sound rural communities. We need a sound tax base in order to maintain, over a long-term period, a health care system that we all want and need. That is our desire. We all need a sound tax-based system in order to support an educational system that will serve the young people of our province. We all need a proper testing system to see whether the education system truly, truly demonstrates the current needs on a day-to-day basis We need a sound solid tax base and income base in this province to ensure that our family services, through the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), will be served on a long-term basis.

Without those key ingredients, our society would not be what it is today. It is only through the efforts of people in rural and urban Manitoba, whether it is the city of Brandon or the city of Winnipeg or Portage la Prairie or Steinbach or the towns such as Altona and Winkler and Morden and Dauphin and Vita or Piney--and we can name all these towns, but they would not be anything if it were not for the people. Those people we congratulate for having the wisdom to take on the initiative to build rural communities.

Our rural communities are the true lifeblood that we need and should not forget. They provide the basis for community living. They are the basis for our children's existence. They allow us to operate our schools, many of the community facilities and our churches. We should never forget our churches, and we should never forget the reason why our churches are there. I have some great fears about some of the things that we are into, which I will discuss at some other time. But it is really the essence of the people of Manitoba that I congratulate for having brought on the economy as it has been brought on in this province till now.

Madam Speaker, I thank you very much for your indulgence.

Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, as other members have done, let me add my voice of welcome to our new member, David Faurschou, who has joined us. I had the chance to welcome him informally when he came to the Legislature a few days after he was elected and had a chance to chat with him and wish him well, and more formally I would like to do that again here in the response to the throne speech.

Also, as well, we have had the demonstrations of the competence of our new pages already, and they have managed to make it through two calls with only one very minor slip, and David will be glad to know that he was elevated so soon to the ranks of the cabinet. But I know that that was a very minor slip, and it is quite amazing to be able to do it so quickly at the beginning of the session, and I congratulate the pages and welcome them here again.

There will probably be no responses to the throne speech, Madam Speaker, which do not reference the flood. Indeed when I came here as a clergyman in 1966, that was only 16 years after the 1950 flood--and I can tell the House that there was not a home that I visited in Wildwood Park, which of course was flooded out completely in 1950, where the subject of conversation at some point during a visit always turned to the memories of those people of that particular time. Whether it was maintaining the dikes or whether it was rebuilding the flooded-out homes, the flood of 1950 was still very much alive and well in 1966, so I expect that this one will be alive and well for a long time to come.

When we raised early in the flood the need to move the compensation level from the $30,000, which was badly outdated--it might have been reasonable in 1986, but it was not reasonable in 1997--when we raised that issue, we were heartened by the government's response, in spite of the fact that they had printed their manuals which we all have a copy stating that the compensation maximum was $30,000, the government moved quite quickly under some urging from the members, and probably from their own members too, to be more generous, and I think that was a good early sign.

Throughout the flood, as many of us did, I had the opportunity, and really both at the time and in retrospect, the privilege of working with people of all nations and statuses and ages and abilities on various dikes in various parts of the city, and in the riding of the Deputy Speaker in particular, on many dikes at many different homes. That was, while a very exhausting experience for those of us who are not labourers by profession, a lot of us found muscles we did not know we had after about two weeks or three weeks of this process and we were all better for it.

I do remember a particular time of understanding just how fit some people really are when I watched some Hutterian brethren who were sandbagging down on Turnbull Drive at a home where most of us were taking sandbags in two hands, they were somewhat frustrated by the slow pace of things because they were taking one in each hand with no difficulty at all and just doing this with them. The frustrating thing was not only that they were doing it, but they were doing it without a break and they were doing it without breaking a sweat, so we all were privileged to share many different companions on that line.

There were funny times. There were also incredibly sad times, Madam Speaker. I remember sandbagging one day in the Wildwood Park area, and you know how you always introduce yourself to the people that you are heaving sandbags at or receiving them from, and there was a young couple there. So I introduced myself and asked them their names. They told me and I said the inevitable question because people were coming from all over the place. They were coming from the States, they were coming from western Manitoba to be of help, so I asked where they were from and they said Ste. Agathe, and I said, "My goodness, wasn't Ste. Agathe flooded out just yesterday?" and they said, "Yes, we lost our home." There they were on a sandbag line next day saving somebody else's home. That, to me, was an incredibly poignant moment that I still have great feeling for because these people were amazing. They were there. They were going to help their neighbours even though they themselves had lost their home.

I remember, too, a truck driver, a big burly man, a City of Winnipeg employee, in one of the big trucks that those of us who were involved in sandbagging--I know that most of us in this House were--used to find it very frustrating. We would just get finished the sandbags in a big pile, and you would just think you know you were going to get a break and then along would come another one of those darn dump trucks, and they would dump another 500 bags and you would be at it again before you had a chance to have a real break.

Well, this guy was driving away and I just said to him, "Thank you very much. You know, you guys are doing a great job. You are just keeping us quite busy here and working a lot of hours and doing a great job to help save our city." And he stopped and said, "No, no, it is all you folks. We are getting paid to do this, you are the volunteers." Then he stepped out on his running board and he said, "But let me tell you, the next guy that bad mouths kids in this city is going to have to answer to me." Because he had seen the high schools turning out hundreds and hundreds of workers, and he had realized, as all of us do realize, that kids have a great deal to contribute, and that we often I think do not call on them enough to make their contributions because they are there and I think able and willing to contribute in ways that we often do not take advantage of.

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Unfortunately, we then move from that kind of spirit into what might almost be called a battle of attrition in which unfortunately it took the combined weight of public opinion, voices of the opposition, the voices of the press to wear this government down into a more reasonable approach to compensation for the flood. Finally after twisting arms and pushing and pushing and pushing, there was a recognition that the process of imposing deductibles on top of depreciation was simply not acceptable, and finally a more reasonable compensation program was arrived at, but so late and after so much frustration and after so many wasted months of effort with 300 people--260 I think it is now--still out of their homes over this winter unnecessarily.

Madam Speaker, I thought that it would have been so easy for the Premier (Mr. Filmon) to have backed away from his statement, whether it was misinterpreted or whether it was simply misinformed. It would have been so easy for him to be gracious and say to people we are all a family in Manitoba. We stand together with each other in good times and in bad times. We will not blame victims as a government, and if any interpreted my statement to be blaming victims, I apologize; that was not what I meant to say. What I meant to say was--and he could have clarified it and gone on with it and removed the hurt that was inflicted on Manitobans who had never been flooded in any flood, including the flood of 1854 and 1826. They had never been flooded, but they were flooded this year. They had been told they did not need a dike around Ste. Agathe, but it turns out they did. They had been told that they could stay where they were; they were not at risk. Unfortunately they were. They did what they were told to do. Unfortunately, it was not enough. Now, is that their fault? I do not think so, but this Premier, stubborn as he is, would not do the gracious thing for those folk and give them the support that they needed from their leaders at that time.

Then this week we had the sad spectacle of the government trotting out its chief spokesperson on the flood, Mr. Whitney, who did a wonderful job, did a wonderful job during the flood, of keeping people's anxieties as low as it could be managed.

Unfortunately, the Premier was quite absent from that process. He turned it over to civil servants in case things went wrong, I suspect. Trotted out Mr. Whitney again, stuck the minister up beside him and said this is what the Commission of Inquiry will find. Why not just write them a letter? Why not just write them a letter and say this is your finding; here is your report; those road cuts did not cause anything different to happen than would have happened anyway.

Well, of course, the obvious answer is if it would not cause anything different to happen, why did you do them? Why did you feel the need to relieve the pressure on the Brunkild dike? The answer is obvious and reasonable. The Brunkild dike was a fresh dike. It had not had a chance to compact and settle, so, sure, it was the right decision to relieve the pressure on that dike, to relieve the pressure by cutting roads, by blocking culverts, by changing the drainage pattern. That is the right thing to do, I suspect, although I am no expert, but surely it is also then the right thing to say of course our actions changed the course of the flood and we will not abandon you in that circumstance.

Even under the most crass of calculations this government makes 17 cents on every dollar that is spent just on direct taxes, and when it is spending only 10 cents on the dollar to begin with because of the federal formula, why would you complain? Because it might be seen to be more generous than you would like to be? Understand, members opposite, that charities in Canada will have laid out more dollars than your government will have laid out at the end of this day because of the flood formula, the 10 percent formula.

Well, the throne speech is usually a place where people talk about economic good news. Unfortunately, this throne speech is full of half truths. It talks about job growth. Last year, in 1996, there was some very good job growth. There is no question about that, some very good job growth in 1996. Unfortunately, it stopped in January of 1997. It not only stopped but went backwards, so that by October of 1997, 10 months into the year, we had lost 3,400 jobs from February; 2,600 jobs since January. Now that is not a gain of 15,000 as the minister talks about in his prebudget consultations. That is not a gain; that is a loss. Yes, there was good job growth in 1996, but the rest of the truth is there has been no job growth in 1997, and in fact, there has been a loss of jobs since January of 2,600, since the beginning of this year. The Finance minister, in an exercise in creative accounting tells his audiences partial truths and some outright whoppers, for example, on revenues.

Now, I acknowledge, Madam Speaker, that the Tories have a problem, and the problem is this: How do we position ourselves in regard to the Reform Party? How do we keep the Reform Party at bay because the Reform Party is ready to run 57 candidates? They will not hurt too many of us in the urban area, but they will sure hurt some Tories in the rural area. So how do we keep the Reform Party at bay and yet hold onto those middle-of-the-road Manitobans who want health and education and decent jobs and a good environment and parks you can afford to go to? How do you do this?

Well, the Tory answer is to make people think that things are much worse then they really are. That way you can pile up big surpluses during your time in office and then at election time you can offer all your Reform Party friends a big tax cut. In the meantime, you have misled Manitobans into thinking things are much worse than they really are, and what is the technique? Well, the Finance minister can tell us the technique, but it is actually simple. You use a phoney base number, but you use the real federal estimate of growth. So the Finance minister can stand up in the House and say the federal government tells us how much taxes are going to grow next year; we have just used the federal government's number. Of course, he is truthful; they do just use the federal government's number, but they used the wrong base. They used a base that the Finance minister knew when he used it was $140 million low.

So what is the result of this creative accounting? Well, the result is that I spoke of yesterday in the House. The result is that the Finance minister is in the embarrassing position, as the minister in charge of boosterism for Manitoba, of saying in his Public Accounts for last year, page 1-4, we got $1,653 billion worth of income taxes last year; $140 million more than we budgeted for. Oh, that is good news. However, the difficulty is that in his budget he is saying--this is on page 15--we are only going to get $1,626 billion in taxes this year. Now this is a problem. We have got a Finance minister and a Premier (Mr. Filmon) who boast about booming economies, booming export trade, booming rural Manitoba, booming investment, but their tax revenues are falling. Now this is a trick. How do you manage this? Well, of course, he will not manage it. He will have something in the order of $150 million to $160 million more in taxes than he has told us in his budget. He did the same thing with sales tax revenue and with lotteries. The bottom line is the revenues will be somewhere between $175 million and $200 million more than budgeted for.

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What else did he do? What else are we hearing about in this throne speech? Now this is really creative accounting. He draws on the slush fund $100 million because he says the federal government is cutting its funding for health and education, so we will take $100 million out of the rainy day fund and plunk it into our revenues. Why does he do that? Well, he does it at least for this reason that he wants to make that slush fund look a little smaller than it really is, because it is embarrassing as a Tory government to have $577 million there when 26 roofs in Winnipeg schools are leaking. That is embarrassing. It is embarrassing when seniors cannot afford to fill their prescription drug needs and are letting their food cupboards run down to get the drugs they need to have $577 million in the bank. So let us take some of it out. We will get rid of it.

What is the problem this creates? I mean this one is one that I think even those who do not like math--and I understand the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) does not like math a lot--but even those who do not like math will appreciate this one. Visualize it. You take $100 million out of one of your savings accounts, and over here you put $75 million of it in your debt retirement account. You just took some money from this account, and you put it in this account. Do you have any more money? No. You just moved it from A to B. At the end of the year what does the minister say he is going to have as a surplus? He says he is going to have $26 million as a surplus. Well, he took $100 million out of the bank and he paid his debt retirement fund $75 million, and he has got $26 million left. Let us add it up; 26 and 75, 101--$101 million. He took $101 million out of the bank, put $100 million back in the bank. Has anything changed? Oh, yes. There is $1 million better. Creative accounting. The peas move so fast under the pods being swirled by Julian Benson and the Finance minister (Mr. Stefanson) that nobody can figure out where they are going, but it all looks okay as long as you do not actually look at the balance sheet and actually do the numbers.

The math is pretty simple, though. You take $100 million out of your savings account; put 75 of it back into another savings account; have $26 million left and put it back into the savings account you took the $100 million from in the first place. This is a circle. It is not paying off debt. It is not changing the bottom line one iota, and any of the Conservative businessmen over there who think they can read a balance sheet would know that.

Why does the Finance minister not just tell Manitobans in his so-called consultations that his revenue numbers are much too low? We already know the answer to that. That might give them some ideas about how to improve the quality of our life as a province.

Then there is his capitulation on finally showing the pension liability. Finally. The last province in Canada to do so. He finally shows the pension liability. But, of course, that is all he does, he just shows it. It is a lump sitting there on the balance sheet now. He is not funding it partially or fully. He is not doing anything with the accumulating liability; it is just sitting there, a big lump on the balance sheet. But that is not new, Madam Speaker. The bond rating agencies knew it was there. The Auditor knew it was there. The public knew it was there. They even knew how big it was because the Auditor has been telling them for years how big it was because he would not approve the statements. Any change? No, this is truly a change without any substance. Contestant, the Finance minister (Mr. Stefanson). Subject, the bleeding obvious. So what is he going to do with the lump now that it is here? We did not hear anything about that in the throne speech.

Let us talk about things that really do matter to Manitobans. First and obviously, and we know this and you know this, they want sound financial management. They want to balance our day-to-day revenues and day-to-day expenditures just as a family would. Manitobans want that. We understand that. We want that. That is only sound judgment, sound business. But Manitobans are much smarter than this government gives them credit for. They also know that very often to buy a car, to purchase a house, to get newer farm machinery--the member for Roblin-Russell (Mr. Derkach) would know about that--to build a new barn, to build a factory, you sometimes have to borrow money to do that. In fact, it would be perhaps only the very wealthiest of the members opposite who could ever have a house if they did not borrow to buy it in the first place. There may be a few of them who could just plunk the cash down. There may even be a few of them that could just plunk the cash down for a new combine, but I doubt that there is too many of them over there that do that. I think they probably finance them.

Most Manitobans know that affordable, sustainable debt, repayable debt is a key to prosperity. There is no business person over there that has not taken out debt in order to invest in his or her future business. So Manitobans wonder why this Tory government is so keen always to show that debt just as big as it possibly can be and to hide the assets that that debt purchased. They even had poor Fred Cleverley--I do not know, you have to feel sorry for Fred Cleverley. Poor old Fred was writing an editorial yesterday about how the reduction in our debt service cost has been because of the wonderful management on the benches opposite. Now, I mean, Fred wrote the best part of two-thirds of his column on the wonderful management that had achieved the lower costs of debt service over there. He said, look, the proof is in the pudding. He said, our debt service costs have gone down by $80 million since these guys took office, $80 million. In fact, it is $77 million from the peak, but we will let him have $80 million.

Then old Fred said--and of course 1 percent of $8 billion is only $8 million. So, if interest rates went down 1 percent, it would only account for $8 million of the $80 million improvement, Fred said. Oh, Fred, get some new batteries for that calculator, because 1 percent of $8 billion is $80 million, not $8 million. All those Grade 3 kids that the Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh) puts through tests know that. So we have got to get Fred jacked up a bit on his calculation skills. So in fact the more than 1 percent that long-term interest rates have gone down is more than your debt service costs have realized. [interjection] She woke up all by herself. Yes, that is good. The Minister of Education is chirping from her seat. The Minister of Government Services (Mr. Pitura) was also talking about this debt service cost. Yes, it has gone down, and it has gone down entirely and only because interest rates have gone down, because you, I mean, mighty and powerful as you think you are, you really do not control how much you pay on your debt. All you control is the size of it and whether you honour that. You do not control how much you pay on it. It is interest rates that have saved you that money, and finally the Bank of Canada let interest rates fall a little bit.

We were talking about the things that that debt that you are so worried about, that $6.4 billion in debt has purchased, and, you know, Stats Canada actually records that stuff. You may not know that, but they do. It is called the capital stock, accumulated capital stock figures, and you can go to StatsCan, and if you are really sleepy and you need help to get to sleep, you can read the capital stock figures. What are the capital stock figures for Manitoba's--Manitoba's-- assets? Not Manitoba Hydro. Not Manitoba Telephone that you got rid of. Just the Province of Manitoba itself. What are our assets? Well, the answer, Madam Speaker, is $12.4 billion; that is the depreciated value of all the things we have accumulated in 127 years of being a province. What is our accumulated debt? $6.4 billion. $12.4 billion assets, $6.4 billion debt. What do we really have? We have $6 billion positive on a balance sheet of assets that we have through our collective effort built up.

Now it is interesting, the member for Pembina (Mr. Dyck) is chuckling. I think that the member for Pembina should be referred to Statistics Canada and he should ask them for their capital stock figures for Manitoba. In fact, if he is really interested, I would be glad to supply him with those figures so that he can find out the error of the accounting ways of this government.

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The Tories, however, are doing their level best to get rid of the assets that have been built up, those $12.4-billion worth of assets. We had an opportunity, a few of us, Madam Speaker, to tour the University of Manitoba. We took a look at what they are doing to manage their capital assets. There were more patches on the roof of the engineering building than there was roof. It was all patches. When you go down to the Minister of Education's (Mrs. McIntosh) library in the basement of the education building, they have actually had to build a new step. There is a nice new step at the base of the stairs because the basement has fallen eight inches. Well, I hope that step will be away just very soon. You go into the basement of the old agriculture building and you see cement block walls that have fallen over because the floor has fallen down. They no longer are supported. The Tories are trying to get rid of that $12 billion in assets just as fast as they can. They either privatize them or run them into the ground. They do not understand or they do not care about the social deficit, the education deficit, the health deficit. They even think that cutting health costs makes those costs disappear. They think they are Merlin the magician over there. We will just cut the costs and they will disappear. Of course, they do not. They just move from the public pocket to the private pocket. You take costs that were borne compassionately, collectively by all Manitobans and you give them to the sick to bear on their own in addition to the illness that they bear. That is Tory social policy.

Canada has shifted in this manner over $5 billion from the public sector to the private sector. Have the costs gone away? Absolutely not. Are they being borne by different people? Yes, they are. They are being borne by the sick instead of by all of us collectively.

Madam Speaker, Manitobans were dismayed yesterday on World AIDS Day that the government sent out the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Newman) to speak to the crowd, and he said to the crowd just be patient folks, just be patient, wait a few more hours, days, weeks, months, and we will get around to thinking about beginning to plan the possibility of needing to consider a strategy, and he was told very clearly by someone dying of AIDS, sir, I came here to have hope; I came here to hear that you were concerned about what was happening to me, and you gave me nothing. You gave me nothing. What callous hypocrisy.

Then to add to this, the Premier (Mr. Filmon) stood up in Question Period, Madam Speaker, and suggested that the government's contribution to the care of people living with AIDS was funding the Village Clinic. Well, now, is that not interesting? This was a response to AIDS as though those people with AIDS should be grateful that they were given health care at the Village Clinic. What was the option? To give them no health care? Is that what the option was? So this was the government's special response? Obviously, these people have some reason for their concern. Are they supposed to be grateful for receiving health care that is supposedly guaranteed to all of us; they are supposed to be especially grateful that the Village Clinic gets some funding?

Madam Speaker, I say, yes, let us set some targets. Let us balance the operating budget. I agree with that, that is a good target, but let us also agree that we should have some other targets, that no Manitoban should have to seek routine health care in another country or in another province. Let us agree that no Manitoba child should live all of her or his years as a child in poverty. Let us agree that the dropout rate from high school should be a half or a quarter what it is under this government. Let us agree that justice delayed is justice denied, and get our courts working again for Manitobans, for victims. Let us agree that it makes no sense to have 26 schools with leaking roofs which will soon have rotted walls, which will soon have fiendishly expensive repairs because this penny-wise, pound-foolish government has cut and cut and cut to the point where routine maintenance cannot even be done. Where there used to be more than 20 painters and routine maintenance people at the University of Manitoba, there are now two. How is that sound stewardship of public investment?

In concluding, Madam Speaker, I had waited in this throne speech eagerly to hear the government's position on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Now, if we are to believe the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey), he did not even know what it was when we raised it in Estimates. He did not even know what it was. I asked him about it, and he did not know what it was. He had to go home and do some homework. He had not heard about it. Now he probably does not know what is in it yet either. He probably has not taken the trouble to read the draft. It is not that long, about 150 pages. It is not like the Free Trade Agreement.

The draft says that even bonds and stocks and speculative capital will have rights under the MAI, that George Soros with his hedge fund will have the right to sue the government of Indonesia or the Philippines because he did not make as much money as he would have if they had not changed a rule of one kind or another.

The MAI wants to give companies like the Ethyl Corporation of the United States the right to sue governments, specifically Canadian governments because Canada does not want the latest antiknock additive put in ethyl gasoline for Canada. Why does it not want it? Well, the state of California has outlawed it on the basis that it is a carcinogen, a mutagen, that it is real bad stuff in other words, that there is no other company in the United States that is even trying to use this additive in its gasoline because there are states that are saying, no, you are not going to use it in this state. Canada has said, no, you cannot put it in our gasoline. But the Ethyl Corporation says, that is not fair, you have prevented us not from making a current profit, you have prevented us from making a future profit, so we are going to sue you.

Members opposite might want to confirm that the Ethyl Corporation is suing the Canadian government for $375 million under the NAFTA treaty. What would they do under MAI where they have even more rights? The MAI would outlaw any environmental or labour measure put in place after MAI was agreed to that would raise the goal posts in terms of environmental protection or labour standards.

Most interestingly, for members opposite who seem to be concerned about Manitoba from time to time, the MAI would bind this government because one of the terms of the MAI is that subnational units will be bound under the MAI treaty. So you are not even at the table, but you are going to be bound by the terms of that treaty in health care, in social services, in the environment, in labour. You will not be able to set any of the employment objectives that you set with the call centre firms that you brought here for example. You could not do that under the MAI. You could not have made the grants that you made to bring Maple Leaf to Brandon under the MAI. You could not do that; it would be illegal. There would be no grants.

An Honourable Member: There are no grants.

Mr. Sale: Oh, yes, there are. Read the agreement, $8 million, read the agreement. You could not do it under the MAI. The hands of governments are to be tied irrevocably under this treaty, and you do not know what is in it. So before you talk about it, read it and read whether you should not be concerned as a government of a sovereign part of a sovereign nation about what is happening to our ability to make our own public policy for our own people.

MAI believes that the fundamental system in the world is money and that everything else hangs off that money, that people are to serve money and not the reverse. It holds up as a model for the world the shocking fact that 412 billionaires in this world now collectively own more capital and more assets than the poorest 2.7 billion people in this world. That is the kind of wealth distribution that the MAI holds up as a model. It rewards those who would destabilize nations' currency, their financial institutions and then reap the evil rewards of their speculation.

Not a word in this throne speech about the aspirations of those global capitalists who flock every year to the slopes of Davos, where this Premier loves to chair meetings--he is noted as a great facilitator of Davos meetings--and where he buys advertising by the yard to get a puff piece in the Davos Daily Mail.

We believe that Manitoba is a Manitoba for all people, not just the elite 19 percent that the Ekos poll identifies that the Premier so easily socializes with, but a province for ordinary wage-earning, community-minded, fair-minded people who care about each other and act out this caring in part through a compassionate government collectively bearing burdens and sharing successes, not by joining in a mindless race to the bottom, a race that leaves most of us--perhaps not those on the opposite side of the House but most of us--far behind while those who seek the sun every February in Davos race on ahead.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

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Hon. Frank Pitura (Minister of Government Services): Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to put a few comments on the record with regard to the throne speech.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I am experiencing difficulty hearing the honourable Minister of Government Services.

Mr. Pitura: At this time, Madam Speaker, I would like to welcome my colleague that just recently won the Portage la Prairie riding, David Faurschou, and I wish him well. I know that he will represent the people of Portage la Prairie well and look after his constituents.

I would also like to welcome at this time the pages who will be with us for this session. I know that for them the first few days of the session was probably a bit of a nervous experience, but I think judging by the way they are functioning right now that they are well settled in and relaxed and they know exactly how to handle all us MLAs here in the House. So I wish them a welcome and hope that they have a good session here.

As well, I would like to welcome all members, all my colleagues and members opposite, back to the House for this session of the House.

Madam Speaker, as everybody has indicated that within this throne speech and the outset of the throne speech much has been said about the flood of the century that affected Manitobans this past spring, and there is no doubt that this flood was of a magnitude and probably the worst flood of this century and the second-worst flood of the last century in comparison. So I hope that it will take a couple of centuries before we see a flood of the same magnitude.

I would just like to go backwards a little bit in history and talk about some of the things that happened during the 1950 flood. During the 1950 flood I was a seven-year-old living on the farm. The flood waters from the Red River were on the road opposite the farm. As a family we were evacuated, and we were evacuated through the term of the flood. My father remained behind to look after the livestock and eventually had to evacuate the livestock. But as a kid we were evacuated to the north end of Winnipeg with relatives, and I can remember quite well that because of the contamination of the water supplies that it was necessary for all of us to have typhoid shots. I can remember full well lining up to have the shots, and it was a scary thought because at that time they used awfully big needles to give those, at least from my perspective. I was not really excited about getting three needles about a week apart.

I can also remember vividly the military and their active role in the flood-fighting efforts during the '50 flood as they moved around the city in their tanks and army ducks in terms of assisting the Manitobans fighting the battle of the 1950 flood.

If we move on a few more years, Madam Speaker, my next experience, personal experience, with the flood was in the 1979 flood. We were on the farm at Domain, and at that particular time, of course, the floodway had been constructed, and the floodway dike had been constructed. So we were deemed to be on the dry side of the dike, so that most of my neighbours on the south side of the dike were advised that they should get their grain out of storage and into the elevator space. So on a seven-day-a-week basis, my neighbours including myself, we helped those people on that side move their grain out, shovelling grain, moving canola into Altona to the crushing plant, moving all the cereals into the local elevators and having it loaded on cars on a seven-day-a-week basis and working well late into the night. Fortunately, in 1979 the water never materialized to what it was supposed to be, and so as a result the 1979 flood passed by and we were okay in our particular area. However, there were a number of people that were devastated by the flood, and they went through flood recovery program, through the Disaster Financial Assistance Program, and also into a floodproofing program which occurred probably a year, year and a half after the flood event when it came into being.

This year my involvement with the flood has been a little more intense from the standpoint that I happen to be the minister responsible for the Emergency Management Organization and the Disaster Financial Assistance policy and many of my constituents and friends and neighbours who were affected by the flood, in speaking with them, have indicated to me that they thought that I was really baptized under this flood this year. In fact, for me, Madam Speaker, having the flood right in my backyard also meant that on a seven-day-a-week basis I was constantly talking with people about the flood and flood issues, about financial assistance issues and so on. So I was never really able to get away from the concerns about the flood. But that is not bad, I think that was good. It gave me a chance to really see what people were concerned about and to be able to talk to them within the confines of their yard that had been damaged by flood waters, and so I could see first-hand. So I have had a lot of opportunity to get into and look around and see the devastation of the flood waters in many rural Manitoba yards.

At this time I would like to particularly give some thank yous and bouquets to the many, many, many accumulated efforts by many people in terms of fighting the flood. First, I would like to say a great big thank you to the Manitoba Red Cross and to the Manitoba Flood Relief Fund that was established. In particular, I would like to thank Blair Graham and Jackie Wright for all of their assistance and work in developing the programs that the Red Cross put into place to help those people that are affected by the flood. The Red Cross has indicated to me that of the total $22 million that they have received to date in terms of donations that some $16 million has been disbursed. They will have about $6 million left over at the present time. However, they also indicated to me that funds are still coming into the relief fund from across Canada and indeed from outside of the Canadian boundaries.

I would also in particular like to thank the Salvation Army in the form of Sally Ann who were present at the communities to help with clothing, with household needs that people might have as a part of their recovery process. I would also like to pay particular thank you to the Habitat for Humanity group. They help many people who are unable to construct homes readily. They moved in, and they helped these people build homes. In fact, in one particular instance I was advised of a young family where the mother of the family had recently passed away. Dad was trying to cope with trying to raise three young children, and all of a sudden, it was about a month that he was in that position, and along came the flood, displaced them from their home. Habitat for Humanity came in and helped them reconstruct a brand-new home. They had the ribbon cutting in that home I believe sometime in early August if I am not mistaken. So that was a very welcome event for that young family to be able to move back into a house.

I would also like to pay particular thanks to the countless groups of young people that gave of themselves and helped in the efforts in flood fighting. In sandbagging they just worked tireless hours in helping neighbours, helping people they did not know try to mitigate the effects of the flood.

Also I would like to thank the young people who came after the flood to help in the flood recovery, to help in the cleanup. They put their rubber boots on, put their gloves on, were not afraid to get dirty and start cleaning up after the flood, because after the flood it is not a very pretty sight to see the damage.

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I would also like to thank those organizations, the organizations such as the Lions Club, Kiwanis Club, Kinsmen Clubs that helped out during the flood as well as the religious organizations that willingly took part in the recovery process through the time period of the flood, and all of them in helping in the cleaning up of the aftermath from the flood. An event such as this, with the magnitude of an event such as this, takes everybody to be able to participate, to be able to effect the recovery process.

Madam Speaker, one of the things that I am very thankful in terms of what we have gone through with this flood is that we did not have a loss of one life as a result of the flood waters. I think that that is very commendable to everybody that participated in terms of flood fighting, in terms of recovery, that not one single individual died as a result of the flood. When I look at our neighbours in Quebec, where 10 people perished in the flooding that took place in the Saguenay, where over 200 people perished in the flood that affected the rising waters in Poland, from the standpoint of our ability to be able to respond to a flood like this and to be able to ensure that people's safety came first--and we were able to do this--really exemplifies the fact that Manitoba is a province that is ready to respond to emergencies most quickly and efficiently.

I would like to spend some time, Madam Speaker, just putting some facts on the record about the Disaster Financial Assistance Program and some of the things that have happened to this program over the course of the time that the flood waters started to recede and the Disaster Financial Assistance Program started to kick in. Some of the things that I would like to put on the record are some of the changes that have taken place in the program. These are changes that have come about as a result of constantly listening to the people who were affected by the flood, listening to the organizations and the feedback. I have been out in the area several times talking with groups, meeting with people, getting a feedback on the issues. As a result, many of the changes that took place in the program were a result of having all this input.

I would just like to say that, in terms of the program, right from the beginning when the flood waters were just starting to recede, the province offered a $2,500 cash advance right up front to a claimant, whether they had a claim in or not, and these recipients of this $2,500 were to use this money to help them in getting cleaned up after the flood and getting going with their recovery. We also very quickly raised the cap from $30,000 to $100,000 to reflect the needs of today's recovery process as opposed to the policy as it was historically.

We also, as a new initiative, Madam Speaker, were able to split homes and farm operations or small businesses for the first time, so these were all treated as separate claims. This doubled and tripled the amount of assistance available. For example, a farm operation that had the farm residence, had the farm business, and had a seed-cleaning operation was then eligible for up to $300,000 of disaster assistance under this program. This is something that in the past has never been in place before. This is now in place in our program now, and it will be in our program for years to come.

Madam Speaker, in terms of the housing, evacuation and long-term temporary costs are paid by the provinces. Another move we made this year was to make the evacuation costs separate from the Disaster Financial Assistance claim as it affected the residence and business so that these evacuation costs were paid separately and did not affect the claim. These costs, as we are all aware, are ongoing even at the present time, but that was a new initiative to split those costs away from the Disaster Financial Assistance claim.

We also waived the deductible for claimants who had unsalvageable homes, and were able to advance them the 100 percent of the value of their home. We also waived the deductible for those people who were participating in the Flood Proofing Program. Once they indicated and signed up for the Flood Proofing Program, their 20 percent was waived, and we would expect that the majority of claimants under this program will get their 20 percent waived as a result of going into the Flood Proofing Program.

Madam Speaker, we also removed the depreciated value off household items, such as furnaces, water heaters, water conditioners, air conditioners, water softeners, fridges, stoves, all the major appliances, and we chose to replace it with an average replacement value for structural items, so that this in itself has expected to provide an extra $8 million to be put into the hands of claimants. I am pleased to report that this money is already flowing to flood claimants, and as many of them that I have talked to--in fact, yesterday I was in Morris in the morning, and I was talking to some people there and they had already received their adjustments for these moveables.

The other thing, Madam Speaker, we also instituted a policy whereby if people were involved with moveable items that there was no invoice required in order for their payment to be made. Therefore the amount of paper flow that is required has been cut down dramatically. We also have instituted and had an agreement from our federal partners in this program of the food that was lost in a freezer can now be claimed under the Disaster Financial Assistance Program as well as people who have had foundation damage to their homes. Under previous programs, foundations and repairs to household--in fact, foundations were not even considered part of the Disaster Financial Assistance claim in years past. It is now considered to be part of that claim, and so people are able to repair their basements. That is a major change in this program that has allowed this to happen.

Also, Madam Speaker, people who put up temporary dikes in the spring of this year to mitigate against the flood, as a new part of this policy they have now been able to leave those dikes in place and have them paid for under the Disaster Financial Assistance policy. To put this into more of a perspective, if you had a temporary dike in 1996, in order to get payment under the Disaster Financial Assistance Program which, of course, is the cost-shared program between the federal and provincial government, you had to remove the dike in order for the funds to flow. This year, those dikes can be left in place and be paid for under the Disaster Financial Assistance programs.

The other important aspect I think of the changes in the program, Madam Speaker, is I have mentioned already about the advancing of awards in regard to unsalvageable homes up to 100 percent. We were advancing 75 percent of foundation repairs that needed to be done. We were advancing 50 percent to any others that had structural damage, and if anybody had indicated that they had cash flow problems they could get up to 100 percent of their award up front.

We also as a new initiative, as well, have taken and advanced funds to the rural municipalities most affected by the flood, and we have also put into place guarantees that they can borrow money and have the Province of Manitoba guarantee their loans from an institution that they will be borrowing from. We have also put into place as a new part of this program a spending cap where a municipality, once they have spent 5 percent of their annual budget, then everything that they spent thereafter in terms of flood mitigation and flood recovery costs was 100 percent covered by the province and the federal government.

So those are some of the changes that have taken place in the program, Madam Speaker, that I think have been reflective of this government's understanding, this government's sensitivity to the whole issue of the flood and the flood recovery that we put into place to be able to address those concerns.

Madam Speaker, one of the other areas that I just want to briefly touch upon is the fact that early on in the flood recovery process we put into place flood recovery offices in three communities, in the communities of St. Adolphe, Letellier and Rosenort. These flood recovery offices have been very much appreciated by the people who have been affected by the flood as it gave them a place to come and talk to people and to be able to do most of their paperwork with respect to the flood.

At these flood recovery offices, Madam Speaker, we have many teams there. We have our EMO staff there who are manning the office on a daily basis. We have the Manitoba Health trauma team, and there are a number of these teams who are active throughout the Red River Valley that have been able to respond to people's needs in terms of being able to deal with the disaster and having to move on and go through the recovery process. We also have Rural Development personnel who are also working out through the flood recovery offices, and they also supported the municipal staff who were running, logging long hours throughout the flood itself, and so they were able to help them out in their offices as well as the Red Cross and Salvation Army that are working out of these flood recovery offices. So many of the flood victims are assisted with counselling information and contacts for the government departments' agencies and programs as they deem necessary from time to time with people who are coming through the office.

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Madam Speaker, the next area I would like to spend a little bit of time in terms of discussion is the temporary housing program that is in effect. I know that there have been many comments made about the fact that if the dollars had flowed quicker, everybody would have been back in their homes prior to snow flying. However, I want to clarify that situation for the House that, as regards the temporary housing program for those people who are still in the temporary housing program, many of them are in the process of rebuilding. In fact, if you drive through the flood area right now, you will see some houses that are in the process of being rebuilt that are going to be probably finished within a month. There will be those homes that are going to be finished by Christmastime. In fact, as the weather continues to co-operate, I would expect that we will see a number of homes still continuing to be built and finished prior to spring.

Out of the total current number of 199 that are now registered with the temporary housing program, we expect that by April 30 this number will be down to 117 and a possibility of even being lower if the weather permits and more construction starts to begin.

But some of the reasons that families are still in the temporary housing program--and there are a number of reasons why they are not--and I can mention some that I know personally where they are seniors that were living on the farm and had their house devastated by the flood. They are now presently living in the town of Morris in an apartment. They are waiting to see what happens in the spring of 1998. If there is going to be additional water that they have to cope with, then they will make the decision to permanently reside in Morris. Frankly, I think that they will probably end up choosing a residence in Morris and choose to spend their retirement years in Morris and not go back to the farm.

There is also another seniors couple I know that have been able to return to their home. They are still in the process. They will need to have floodproofing if they will continue to live there. I have talked to them, and I think that they will make the decision as well to go within a ring dike community.

But there are also other reasons that families have not decided to start to rebuild. I alluded to it earlier with the anticipation of maybe another flood in 1998 because that would seem to be the rumour going around in the late summer, that the flood of 1997 was bad, but look out, the spring of 1998 is even going to be worse. A lot of people were very concerned that they would be seeing even a greater flood in 1988, so they have made that decision that they will not make any decision as to whether they rebuild or not until they get some sort of comfort level under their feet before they make that decision.

In other areas people are not returning to their homes because the studies are underway to take a look at ring diking the communities, and within the compassing of the rink diking plans not everybody will have their homes protected as a result of the ring dike in the communities. So there are a number of homes that probably will end up outside the ring dike. For those people who are kind of iffy as to whether they are going to be outside or inside, they are deciding that they will not rebuild until they find out where the ring dike is going to go, and then they will make that decision as to whether they rebuild and floodproof outside or in fact move their residence to the confines of the ring dike community and rebuild there.

There are also some families that are waiting for a particular contractor to be able to get caught up and to be able to come and start building their homes. They have chosen a contractor. The contractor is fully booked, but he cannot start on their homes just right now so that they have had to wait for this contractor to appear.

There is also the area, Madam Speaker, that people have got everything in place except that they cannot seem to get hold of the materials that they would like to have to build their homes. So there are many, many things happening that are causing people to choose a temporary location. In fact, the initial one is that some people have ordered move-on homes. Those are being built at another location. Those in fact can be set up and occupied throughout the winter. So if you drive through the flood area, you will see a number of basements that are built and awaiting a ready-to-move-on home, RTM it is called, to be placed on the concrete. So there are a number of reasons why people are in temporary accommodation.

Least of all, when you have two seniors living in a home out on a farm, and their home has been devastated by the flood, and they say, well, maybe we should not live here anymore, that decision is not that easy because now they have their children to talk to, and they have their grandchildren that they have to take into consideration. Because for some of them if they are going to move off that location into a community, is that community going to be a ring dike community or is that community going to be the city of Winnipeg for their retirement? So they take a look at the--and weighing, you know, if I move into the city how far am I going to be away from the children and the grandchildren, or if I move into the ring dike community of Morris or St. Jean or Emerson or Letellier or St. Adolphe, how is that going to affect me with my family?

So these discussions are taking place and, Madam Speaker, these decisions are not easy to make. These people have lived there all their lives. They have planned to die living there. The flood has changed all that, and they have to deal with the fact that they will either have to rebuild or they are going to have to move to be able to go on with their lives. Their lives will not be the same. They will have changed, and I do not think there is any such thing as getting and returning back to normal after the flood, because everybody is going through these situations where they have difficulty of being able to make these decisions and deal with them.

Madam Speaker, another area that we are seeing happening now during this flood crisis and the flood recovery is the fact that we have some homes that are now showing the effects of some mould that is appearing in these homes. This is posing to be a major concern for our people both in Manitoba Environment and Manitoba Energy and Mines who are closely monitoring the situation in these homes. We spent some time in discussion with our Quebec counterparts and what they had done with the issue of mould. They informed us that there are some close to 800 different species of mould that are present in buildings of one sort or another. The particular types of mould that seem to be springing up in these homes probably would not maybe affect you or me, but somebody who has a distinct allergy to these moulds will be affected, and so therefore it now becomes a health risk. So that is an issue that we are facing at the present time, and we are dealing with it on a day-to-day basis.

Madam Speaker, one of the other interesting changes that took place with the program this year is the fact that farmers could use to clean out the drains on their fields and use the Disaster Financial Assistance Program as a part of that funding for that initiative.

The R.M.s, rural municipalities, also under the Disaster Financial Assistance Program, can clean out municipal drains that have been lodged full of mud and debris as a result of the flood. So that in itself, Madam Speaker, is a new initiative under the Disaster Financial Assistance Program, which is being addressed with this year's flood and flood recovery.

As of today, there has been more than $43 million paid out to claimants through the flood-recovery process, and there has been $45 million awarded in private claims. One of the things that I would like to point out is that the number of claims are still coming in; the number of claims keep on increasing as we go along. We have extended the deadline to the end of December, and claims are still coming in to the Emergency Management Organization. As of today we are well in excess of 5,000 claims, where in early June we had not hit 3,000 yet, so we are still climbing, Madam Speaker, in terms of the total number of claims. The total number of dollars that are being paid out in this program is also being increased as well as a result.

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One of the things that we have and are proud of is the fact that, of the number of claims that we have in, almost 75 percent of those claims have been settled to date. When I take a look at our neighbours to the south in North Dakota, their funds have just started to flow late in October and early November. For some people there that have been assured that their homes will be bought out, they are finding right now that they have been given a small amount of money to tide them over, and the rest of the money, the city council, the state do not know where the funding is going to come from. They are hoping that the federal government in the United States will advance the money for them to be able to institute their floodproofing program and their buy-outs for all their homes.

Madam Speaker, I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about my personal association with the flood this year because it was kind of unique for me from the standpoint that the flood was in my so-called proverbial backyard. The area that I grew up in was affected by the flood waters having been along the so-called western dike of the floodway. Many of my relatives, friends, long-time neighbours, long-time acquaintenances and especially all the people in the Morris agricultural district, which is defined by the area where I worked out of the office there, that I got to know over the seven years that I was there, the close relationships I had with those people--all of them were affected by the flood. They all had to go through the mitigation of fighting the flood, dealing with the flood, and then going through the process of recovery. I am happy to report that most of those people, if not the vast majority of those people, have recovered from the flood and are back in their homes. As I have said, there are a few that are still waiting to be building their homes, but that is even progressing as well.

I would just like to share with the House what kind of a trauma a family goes through with regard to the flood. A family with young children, just south of Rosenort, got flooded very badly during the spring. They have since made all the necessary repairs to the hog barn, to the machine shed. They have fully renovated and rebuilt their home. They were living in a mobile home for many months during the summertime. They finally moved out of the mobile home in early November and then moved into their house. I had the pleasure of encountering this individual when I was in Morris, and I asked him how the recovery process was going. His indication to me was that it was great. Everything that the government did for them, that the province did for them and the other agencies did for them, they were very thankful. I said, well, is everything back to normal? He said, well, we have moved out of the mobile home into the house, which is very nice, but the important thing, he said to me, was that, although we have moved into our house, it is going to take a long time before we will call it home because it is different than what it was before, and it is going to take our family time to get used to this new building, this building that we are living in, and to be able to call it home. So the recovery from the flood does take a long time in terms of being able to deal with the emotional aspect of the flood and being able to adjust oneself to say we will be able to participate fully and put the flood behind us. It is going to take a long time. There is no question about that.

I also had the pleasure of attending the Riverside Church south of Rosenort that had a rededication service of their church. In fact, if somebody saw the file footage on the flood, you would see that in one case they could take a boat right in the front doors of the church and right up and down the aisles of the church and all the pews were in water. Madam Speaker, that whole community, each individual that is a member of that church, was also flooded in their homes, yet they all got together. They were able to work on that church. They got it back into shape, and they were very thankful for all the assistance that the province gave them in being able to help them with the recovery process. For this reason that was why we were invited to attend this rededication service of their church. They were very thankful. But they are back in their church, and they were very happy that night that they were able to have that initial church service back in the building where they call their home church.

So there are a lot of good stories that are coming out as a result of the flood. There are a lot of people out there that know that they have gone through the trauma, the emotion. It has been difficult, but they have been able to make the adjustment. People of the Red River Valley are resilient, they bounce back. There is that old expression, it is not how many times you get knocked down, it is how many times you get back up that counts. I think that residents in the Red River Valley have that kind of energy to keep getting up and keep getting on with life. Many of those people have gone through eight and nine floods. They are well experienced in going through the process. So going through the process of the 1997 flood, the magnitude was much greater. They just knew they had to work a little bit harder to get back.

I guess I would like to doff my hat to all those people that dug in their heels and said we are going to recover, we are going to stay here and we are going to protect ourselves from future flooding. They are doing the job, and they are also very, very appreciative of all the efforts that the province has made on their behalf in terms of helping them through the recovery process.

They are also ones who tell us as well is that they do not expect the province to be able to do everything for them. They say that we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to look after our homes, our families and rebuild our lives here, and we will take on that responsibility. We know that the province cannot do everything for us, so we have to do things on our own as well, but they are still very appreciative of the help that we were able to give.

Madam Speaker, you know, one of the things that as a result of the 1997 flood was the fact that when people did have their homes devastated by the flood waters that they were in a position where they said, well, if we rebuild, I do not want to rebuild here and just have it be flooded out again because we already had situations where people were flooded out in 1996, went through the recovery process, rebuilt, only to be flooded out again in 1997. For those people it was very difficult for them to be able to deal with this disaster. I say that there are families out there that are having still at this time a great deal of difficulty if they have been hit twice in a row.

So the floodproofing program that my honourable colleague the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Cummings) brought into place is a program that most people, because of their high level of anxiety, were more than willing to participate in, so they are going to be protected from future floods of a 1997 magnitude.

I am also very pleased to be able to say that the Manitoba Agricultural Credit Corporation is willing to lend the money with no principal or interest in the first year to all those claimants who would like to floodproof but cannot afford to pay their share of the costing.

Lastly, Madam Speaker, the JERI program has been recently announced as a 50-50 cost-sharing program between the federal and the provincial governments, and this program is going to be addressing the jobs and economic recovery for the Red River Valley. I think that this program, very briefly, addresses some of the issues in agriculture and addresses a lot of the issues with businesses trying to reopen their doors and re-establish themselves within the valley.

In summary, Madam Speaker, I would like to say that I am thankful there was no loss of life. I am thankful we live in this great country of ours that allows us to be able to respond quickly to a disaster of this nature. On that note, thank you very much. I know my time is up.

Madam Speaker: The hour being 6 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday). The matter will remain open.