Mr. Marcel Laurendeau (St. Norbert): Madam Speaker, this morning I had the opportunity to visit Action daycare with the Honourable Bonnie Mitchelson, the Minister of Family Services. Our government has committed an additional $5.1 million to ensure that children and families in Manitoba are provided with flexible and quality child care. Our government listened to the parents who use our daycare system. We listened to the daycare providers who work in the system, and together we have improved the system.
Our government will now spend $48.3 million in 1998-99 on daycare. We will now be providing an additional 1,000 subsidized spaces to families. They will now have the ability to choose the daycare that best meets their needs, and 2,000 existing infant and preschool spaces will now be fully funded. Operating grants for the infant and preschool spaces in the centres and family daycare homes will increase by 2 percent. We will also be providing an additional $197,000 to extend the children with disabilities program to all nonprofit facilities. Also, an additional $200,000 will be provided for the development of new flexible child care arrangements.
I would also like to thank the Minister of Family Services for providing me with the opportunity to participate in the fact-finding mission of Manitoba daycares. I would also like to thank the daycares and families for their co-operation, and I would also like to thank the regulatory review committee for their research and assistance in compiling the information gathered in the fact-finding mission.
Madam Speaker, our government turned to the experts. Those experts are the people who work in daycare day after day. We asked them to work with us and find out how operations could be more efficient. We understood the necessities of those people who are being part of the decision-making process. We will continue to make Manitoba a great place to live, work, invest, and especially raise a family.
Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Madam Speaker, on behalf of the NDP caucus, I rise to congratulate the voters of Nova Scotia on an exciting and historic election last Tuesday, March 24. It was a massive, although not unexpected, breakthrough for the New Democrats who went from four seats to 19, tying the tired, ineffectual Liberals and relegating the equally tired and ineffective Tories to third place. The results were not only a repudiation of a tired, old-style government but also a message that government has to represent the best interests of all the people. Government must provide for and protect the public health care system, the public education system, and the future for all our families.
The Nova Scotia NDP built upon the solid base established by Alexa McDonough who, when she left Nova Scotia politics to lead the federal NDP, was heralded as the "best Premier Nova Scotia never had." Alexa's provincial and federal leadership resulted in an unprecedented six Nova Scotia seats for the NDP in last May's federal election and set the stage for Tuesday's historic election.
Robert Chisholm and the other 18 members of the NDP caucus will be a powerful, effective voice for all Nova Scotians. I hope all members of the Manitoba Legislature will join with us in congratulating the Nova Scotia New Democrats and wishing them luck in the exciting times ahead.
* (1450)
Mr. Ben Sveinson (La Verendrye): I rise today, in part, to address some of the comments made by the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk) here in the House yesterday.
The federal government has hindered efforts to commercialize the Whiteshell laboratories in Pinawa, increasing the uncertainty of the workers at the lab. The federal government has not responded to requests made by our Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) for meetings to discuss the impending prices facing the Whiteshell laboratories.
During the fall session of 1996, I introduced a nonpartisan, private member's resolution that called on the federal government to provide a long-term commitment to the Whiteshell laboratories . We wanted to show the federal government Manitoba's united commitment for the Whiteshell labs. However, the NDP refused to pass that motion or that resolution. Despite the comments they made about the importance of the facility to our economy, when the time came to give their support, the NDP abandoned the people of Pinawa and the affected workers at AECL.
Now, Madam Speaker, no one in this House or in this province is surprised when members opposite use people, such as the workers of the AECL, for their own shallow, political benefit. Comments made by the member for St. James illustrate that practice when she spoke here yesterday. The phoney concern presented by the NDP yesterday in this House can be characterized in a nice manner, I might add, as words without substance. The commercialization of the Whiteshell laboratories is the responsibility of the federal government. Our government stands ready to implement an economic development plan, as announced in December of 1996, as soon as the federal government lives up to its commitments.
I encourage an immediate meeting with the federal minister of natural resources, as was requested by our Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism. Thank you.
Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson): Earlier today we saw the kind of contempt that the Premier (Mr. Filmon) of this province continues to show for northern Manitobans. I might add it is ironic that this Premier is the Premier who has been sighted less in northern Manitoba than sightings of Elvis. I mean, this is a Premier who has not been in my community, the community of Thompson, since before the last election when he talked to the Tory faithful--has barely been seen in an aboriginal community in northern Manitoba. I think, in fact, the last time he was anywhere in the North was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in The Pas. He has spent more time in Davos, Switzerland, than he has in northern Manitoba. He is not a Premier that has any right to talk about the North.
I want to list some of the record of 10 years of neglect of this government. This is the kind of record that has led people in the North to reject the Conservatives time and time again. This is a record that talks about cuts to the Access programs, to New Careers, cuts to job creation programs. They even cut the program that provided swimming for young people, and water safety training. They cut northern hospitals, they implemented the $50 user fee, they cut our public schools, like the school district of Mystery Lake, more than anywhere else in the province.
They have had a terrible record on highways. We had as little as 5 percent of the construction budget, and our roads are not even worthy of being called highways in many cases. In fact, the Highways minister himself has admitted they were built only to pioneer standards. They cut the friendship centres, they cut MKO, they cut pretty well everything that moves in northern Manitoba.
You know, they talk about dealing in good faith. We see what age they live in. They live in the days of the 1890s, Madam Speaker, when the Indian agents went around northern Manitoba talking like the great white father. That kind of condescending and patronizing attitude is no longer acceptable. I say to the Premier, if he ever did bother to come to northern Manitoba, I will take you to the communities like Nelson House, where I believe six people voted Conservative compared to 200 for the New Democrats.
In Split Lake, six people voted for the Conservatives compared to 200 for the New Democrats. People of northern Manitoba voted. They said this Premier (Mr. Filmon) and this government does not represent them.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): I just wanted to continue on with the question that I had asked the Premier earlier today. What I was hoping to be able to see come from the government is some sort of a commitment to fairness. It is not necessarily to take a side per se but to acknowledge that we have many inequities that are there today in the way in which we administer our public education. So, if you are going to allow some citizens, for example, of the province to have more community-oriented school divisions, well, that same principle should also be allowed for all Manitobans. You cannot have one megaboard here and this small school division over here unless, of course, that is the will of what those actual people want.
If that is in fact the direction the government wants to take public education, then at least they should be on the record clearly demonstrating that. If in fact they want to look at a way of reducing the overall administration of school divisions, going towards the Norrie report, on which hundreds of thousands of tax dollars were spent, then they should show that by their actions.
I am disappointed that the government has not acted in any sort of tangible way in dealing with that, primarily because, whether it is the quality of service being delivered in different school divisions as a result of size or it is the extra cost that some Manitobans have to pay over and above other Manitobans because of the school division in which they live, it is not fair. I would appeal to the government to acknowledge the fact that the current system is not fair and for the government to take action to rectify it.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.