Mr. Peter Dyck (Pembina): Madam Speaker, this past year has been a banner one for Manitoba and for Manitobans. The exciting news regarding the $112-million Maple Leaf meats invested in Brandon and the eventual 2,200 jobs that will be created highlighted what has already been a tremendous year for our provincial economy. However, it is important that as these important investment announcements come, we do not lose sight of the fact that there is a longer-term goal as well.

We recognize that our success as a province is based not on sporadic growth and investment but upon stable and steady growth. That is why, Madam Speaker, I am pleased to note that while recent labour force statistics indicate that our province's seasonally adjusted jobless rate fell to 6.4 percent in November and that our monthly job-growth rate was the second best in all of Canada, it is a part of a longer-term pattern of growth and development.

In fact, Madam Speaker, for the eleven months leading to November 1997, our province has achieved a seasonally adjusted employment growth rate of 2.6 percent, third highest among the provinces and well above Canada's 1.8 percent growth rate over the same period.

Madam Speaker, in the wake of major job creating investments, it should be noted that our government continues to focus on the long-term growth and prosperity of Manitoba. It is an approach which has seen us become a province of fiscal responsibility and unlimited opportunity, and it is an approach which will continue to make Manitoba stronger. Thank you.

Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): I rise on a member's statement. I want to pay tribute to an outstanding student at River East Collegiate, a Mr. Gordon Buck, who was recently awarded the Winnipeg High School Football League Trophy, the Harry Wood Memorial Trophy, for the player who best combines football, academics and community and school involvement.

The headline for the article says: Buck does it all at River East. It demonstrates some of the outstanding work that this young resident of North Kildonan has undertaken as a student at River East Collegiate. Besides starting on the offensive line for the City Championship Kodiaks, Gord Buck is involved with the peer counselling and tutoring programs, the school newspaper, the student council and the Manitoba NDP and various other charitable organizations.

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I know Gord and worked with him last year in April in the federal election, and I did not know all the other outstanding things that he has done. He holds a 98.6 percent average, winning academic awards in debating, English, science, Canadian history--that subject we want to keep in the curriculum in Manitoba--computer science and writing. He also represents Manitoba as one of 12 Canadian students on an international exchange program in Hong Kong.

His teachers and coaches at River East Collegiate talk about his outstanding leadership, his strong intellect, the co-operative and supportive way he works with other students in the school. They make note that Mr. Gordon Buck may at one point accomplish one of his things on his "to do list," which is to become the Prime Minister of Canada.

I am sure we would all like to wish him well in continuing with all of his activities.

Mr. Edward Helwer (Gimli): I would like to speak about the valuable work done by the Stonewall and District Youth Justice Committee. The committee, made up of 10 members from various south Interlake communities, is a community-based justice program, and it has been active in the area since 1984. The committee takes youth out of the courts and channels them through a community panel which determines their punishment for a crime which they have committed.

The youth, supported by family members, appear before a panel of community members and peers to talk about the crime--

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I wonder if I might ask those members standing at the back of the Chamber to move their meetings to the loge or outside the Chamber. I am experiencing difficulty hearing the honourable member for Gimli.

Mr. Helwer: The youth, supported by family members, appear before a panel of community members and peers to talk about their crime and how their behaviour can be changed. The committee takes referrals from the courts, from Justice officials and from the fine option program and finds a suitable way to make the offender accountable to the community and to their victims.

The Stonewall and District Youth Justice Committee boasts a 90 percent success rate. It is successful in the fact that it helps reshape the attitude of the offender in that it finds solutions at the community level.

The Stonewall and District Committee is just one of the 67 youth justice committees offering the same fine service around the province. So I would like to congratulate the Stonewall and District Youth Justice Committee for their fine work in the community and for providing such a valuable service throughout the years. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): Madam Speaker, I would like to make a statement on home care. The home care system in Manitoba was rated the best system in North America until this Tory government came in and tried to tear it apart in order to make profits for their friends. In February 1996, when leaked Treasury Board documents proved that this government planned to privatize the entire system and lay off 3,000 home care workers, the government admitted that this was indeed their secret plan. It was only the vigilance and determination of the striking home care workers, with the support of the clients and their families, that made this government partially back down by privatizing only 25 percent of the home care services. The minister fully admitted that the privatization would not save any money. Even this Tory government could not pretend that service would improve.

This week the government finally admitted that privatization, even partial privatization of home care has been a disaster. The government now admits that low wages, high turnover rate of staff, lack of continuity of care and loss of government control over the service all contributed to the failure of this partial privatization of home care. The government has yet to apologize to the home care clients, to their families, the home care workers and to the public for their foolish and cruel attempt to destroy a model system of home care in this province, just as they tried to do it for the purpose of profit making offering on the altar of money-making mammon. Many of these home-care workers are new immigrants, new Canadians. The action of this government irretrievably hurt them and their families as well.

Let me conclude, Madam Speaker, by saying that profit is no better than the care for people. People are higher than profits.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to express some disappointment in terms of a policy statement that appears to have been taken from the New Democrats which does disappoint me. The New Democrats have now indicated that they support VLTs in our restaurants and bars, that in fact the NDP, if elected in government, would not take away the VLT machines.

In fact, and I quote from the article, their policy seems, and this is the critic for the NDP commenting on gambling: Their--the government's--policy seems to be based on the amount of money they can make from Manitobans, said MaryAnn Mihychuk, NDP Lotteries critic. However, Mihychuk admitted her party would not remove VLTs from Manitoba bars and restaurants if it were in power: I do not think we can afford to take $125 million out of general revenues at this point.

Madam Speaker, I am standing today because I am hoping that the NDP will reflect on that particular policy and maybe reconsider and make a statement come Monday that would at least demonstrate that they are prepared to be a little bit more open and consult with constituents. I look at my colleague the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski), which has a wonderful high school, as we all have high schools, but you can walk across the street and there are VLT machines in a restaurant. Do the NDP now support that? What would the principal over at the Maples high school have to say, someone of the name of Brian O'Leary have to say about that particular policy? I am disappointed that they would have taken that particular position. I still wait today for the government to take any sort of a position as opposed to try to shuffle the blame or to shuffle its responsibility off onto another appointed, a politically appointed group, and when they brought it in, they brought it in on a false pretence of other justifications.