4th-36th Vol. 62-Committee of Supply-Highways and Transportation

We are on Resolution 15.1. Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits.

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Hon. Glen Findlay (Minister of Highways and Transportation): Mr. Chairman, at the end of our discussions last day, I was talking about St. Andrews and I had made some comments--excuse me. Not a good time to lose your voice. I said I would add more today if there was more to say. The additional information is that the R.M. has now sent a new letter of intent with Transport Canada and have retained a consultant, the Stanley Group and their auditor, to study some feasibility, and they expect that report to be in at approximately the end of August '98. That is the current update that we have.

Mr. Chairperson: The honourable member for Dauphin.

An Honourable Member: Not Dauphin.

Mr. Chairperson: Flin Flon. I am sorry. I had Dauphin--

Mr. Gerard Jennissen (Flin Flon): That is all right, Mr. Chair. That is close enough. I thank the minister for giving me that update, and perhaps just a couple of questions on Winnport. I know all of us are excited in this province with the prospects of Winnport.

I am still not clear, though, when they talk about the new multimodal cargo centre, what is meant by the onsite free trade zone. What exactly does that involve?

Mr. Findlay: Well, conceptually what is involved is that--pick an example. Let us say a plane load of product, whatever it is, comes in from Asia--and the staff will correct me if I am wrong here--that they would have the capacity without going through Customs to do certain assembly activities onsite before that assembled product or products would move by truck to, say, the U.S. or other locations in Manitoba.

So it is a process--well, it is a free trade zone. It is a zone in which you can do activities without incurring costs or the cost associated in dealing with Customs. In simple principle, I think that is what it is. What it might entail eventually, who knows, but in the early stages here, that will not be part of the start-up process.

The start-up process will be the 747 cargo loads between Winnipeg and two locations in China. That will be the start-up element, and it will just be freight movement, and the ultimate development of a free trade zone will be when and if there is a capability of doing that kind of business.

Mr. Jennissen: Is time of the essence? I am wondering, because I do believe that Winnport is also then in competition with other airports that are trying similar approaches; I believe Huntsville, Alabama, if I am correct, if my memory serves me correctly. So is time a factor, is what I am saying. In other words, if things do not grow over the next few years, then it may not work for us.

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, the member for Flin Flon (Mr. Jennissen) mentions Huntsville. Clearly, that is one of the locations that has been up and running for some time, and as for some of the technical expertise, it was obtained from them. We had a consultant who was up here from there and talked about how that one functions. There is also one close to Dallas, and there are other locations, I am sure, in the U.S. where smaller or larger operations with this idea in mind are functioning.

But in terms of the nearby competition, that does say that time is of concern to us, as, clearly, if the Air Force base at Grand Forks was to close, there might be a strong push in the U.S. to replace that economic activity with some other activity to use the airport, and an air cargo operation would certainly be one of them--you know, Winnport by concept.

Calgary and Hamilton have expressed interest in getting involved. They have come into the game late in terms of what Winnipeg has done, but, clearly, if Winnipeg does not get up and running by their targeted time of September of '98, it gives more time for these other competitive locations to get their act together and attract business.

Certainly, Winnport is very enthusiastic right now in terms of putting together their ground force in China, putting together the business element on this end in terms of the freight forwarders and establishing time lines and prices and having, what do you call it, a telecom system to track freight to be able to make their system work responsibly for the shipper and the shippee.

So I just say Winnport is well positioned. Having got the designation was a big, big hurdle to cross. They are raising capital right now, and I have every reason to believe and recent discussion with them that they will be up in the air in September of '98 for the betterment of Winnipeg and Manitoba.

Mr. Jennissen: Does the province have a direct role in helping Winnport? I am wondering what our role actually is. I know it is basically that the private sector and the city are involved, but I am sure that the province also plays some role here.

Mr. Findlay: The member's question is: is government involved? Yes, government has been fairly significantly involved along the way. Initially, there was a Northern Hemisphere Distribution Alliance Concept. I think they used $300,000 from the city, the province and the feds, and that was like five years ago. Then that process of discussion and development led to the evolution of Winnport. Winnport, under the transportation aspect of the Winnipeg Development Agreement, there has been a total of up to $5 million allocated. Mr. Chairman, $1 million has currently been spent, and $3.5 million is allocated to the next phase, the start-up phase. That Winnipeg Development Agreement is jointly funded by the City of Winnipeg, the Province of Manitoba, and the federal government.

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The Department of Highways and Transportation is in charge of this element of the administration of the Winnipeg Development Agreement, and we have worked very closely with the people at Winnport to help evolve the success story that is there. We currently have one staffperson, Rob Andriulaitis, who is seconded to Winnport for the time being, and an awful lot of indirect staff time has helped Winnport deal with a variety of issues over the course of time to help them evolve. It is, as the member said opposite, driven by the private sector fundamentally, but we are very much in the background in a fairly significant way.

Mr. Jennissen: Mr. Chair, last year during Estimates I remember discussing with the minister the possibility of user fees at the Winnipeg Airport. I know it is now a privatized airport under the Winnipeg Airport Authority. I am not clear whether those fees have actually been implemented yet. Are passengers being charged user fees at this moment?

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, the Winnipeg Airport, over the course of time, will have to be responsible for the upgrading or replacement of the runways, buildings--in other words, capital improvements. Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver all have airport improvement fees varying from $5 to $10, I think up to $15 depending on where you are going, and you pay that fee after you have gone through security. It is an annoyance to the travelling public that, whoops, they think they are getting on the plane; and all of a sudden they see a little booth, and you pay another $5, $10 or $15.

In Winnipeg here they have resisted, to this point, putting in place a similar fee, but have just recently announced a $5 airport improvement fee that will take effect on July 1 of '98, but the fee will be collected in the ticket price. So it will be an add-on to your ticket, and you will pay for it that way so you will not have to pay for it directly or as you board the plane, so the annoyance factor is removed. But the airport will collect that money for the future development of the airport, which, I think, is a good way to go. You need to have a reserve fund built so you can deal with emergencies that come along and capital, and they are starting July 1.

Mr. Jennissen: I thank the minister for the answer. Yes, I do believe it certainly saves a lot of problems if it is one ticket, one price. I never liked the idea of rushing to an airplane and then finding out you have to go to another booth and pay your airport tax or whatever it is called, the user fee or the improvement fee.

I am often wondering how we get to the point of deciding $5. I guess that is an internal decision. Certainly I do know that at the airport itself, there have been a number of improvements made. I particularly like their new observation deck. It looks great and, you know, I could see that as a wise expenditure of money.

At any rate, I would like to change direction somewhat and now ask some questions on the whole taxicab industry. Particularly, I am concerned about the Blueline licences having being changed to regular cab licences, and we can ask some questions about that later on, but at the outset, just maybe to alleviate my own ignorance, could the minister tell me briefly what the mandate is of the Taxicab Board? I have a pretty good idea of what the general mandate is, but is it strictly to safeguard the consumer, low prices, that type of thing, or is also part of the mandate to make sure that we have a viable taxicab industry in this city?

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, I will read what I have here. I will read the objectives, followed by what is called the activity identification. The objectives are to ensure persons within Winnipeg receive adequate taxicab service at a reasonable cost through the administration of a system of economic regulation.

The list of the activities that they would be involved in is to conduct public hearings on matters relating to the industry and users; establishes reviews and revises the number of taxicab licences required by the public conveyance and necessity; regulates rates charged by industry; issues taxicab driver licences and regulates licence transfers; provides training for taxicab drivers; establishes vehicle standards and inspects taxicabs for vehicle condition and meter accuracy; investigates and resolves complaints against taxicab operators and drivers for breaches of regulations and service failures when warranted; maintains a liaison between the board and the taxicab industry, governments and other affected groups.

So a fairly wide mandate, but fundamentally it deals with everything associated with the taxicab industry in the city of Winnipeg, and notice I said the city of Winnipeg. That is where their activities are restricted to.

Mr. Jennissen: I would like to delve a little deeper into the original decisions that were made by the Taxicab Board to allow luxury service, to allow it in the sense not only because there was this great drive for it, but I believe that perhaps the Taxicab Board itself had convinced itself that that was necessary. I do not know really how accurate those outside reports that the Taxicab Board relied on were.

I have a document in my hand--I think it is in the public domain--the Manitoba Taxicab Board on Superior Class of Taxi Services, dated September 1990. In it is a press release at the very front. Unfortunately, there is no date on it, but I presume it must be around that same time, 1990. The first part of it reads: the Taxicab Board today released its decision to issue new licences for luxury taxis and proposes to establish a benefit plan for taxi drivers. The decision was reached after extensive research and consultation over the past two and a half years.

Was that news release, in fact, every released, or was that a draft?

Mr. Findlay: 1990?

Mr. Jennissen: I have no date on the actual news release. I believe it was 1990. That is what I have in my possession. There, obviously, the decision was reached after extensive research and consultation. I guess my question is how extensive was that consultation and research?

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, we just are not sure what the member is referring to in terms of a document. Between the periods of 1988 and 1990, there was some significant public consultation and research done around and about the industry. I presume that is probably what he has in front of him, but things do change over the course of time. The Taxicab Board of today is making decisions based on an evolving industry, evolving need and responds to what they believe is out there in terms of public need and industry need in terms of being sure that they are seen to be suppling safe, effective, responsible service where and when needed.

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Mr. Jennissen: Reading some of that material though, it seems obvious. I am reading from it again: applications for 60 Class 1 licences will be invited. They are going to be released into two groups of 30. Further it says, successful applicants will be required to contribute $38,000 for each licence awarded to a trustee. The $2.28 million to be raised in this manner is proposed to assist in the funding of a group benefit plan for all taxi drivers and so on. So obviously that proposal was never acted upon.

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, I am not positive he got exactly all the right information, but it would appear that 40 premium-classed licences were to be allocated. Twenty were issued to Tuxedo which, for whatever reason, never got on the road, and 20 were issued to Blue Line of which nine, to my understanding, got on the road.

So there were further discussions, consultations along the way, and the end result was where there seemed to be a desire and need earlier identified for a large number, a much smaller number got on the road. Over the course of time, the people who had those nine licences applied to have them turned over to regular taxicab licences. So there was an expectation that there was need, and it turns out at the end through the pilot experiment of nine, there was not a need, to put it bluntly.

Mr. Jennissen: I guess the problem I have is those licences that I believe went for $100 apiece. The average cabbie today or the average person wanting to enter into the business would be paying probably for a cab and licence to run that business, in effect, probably buying himself a job so he can work, maybe in the neighbourhood of between $65,000 and $85,000, so that is obviously an enormous discrepancy. If you can get a licence for $100 and later on can convert it to a regular licence, somebody is making a lot of money. That is the point that I want to look at.

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, the member seems to want to challenge or question the decisions of the Taxicab Board over a course of time with maybe a limited knowledge of all the issues that were dealt with by the board. I am going to have to remind him that the Taxicab Board is a quasi-judicial board of competently appointed people and competent staff. I can assure him there is a balance of a lot of issues that they deal with in ultimately making the decisions they do.

It is a quasi-judicial board, and I as minister am not going to challenge or question or get involved in any discussion that is questioning in balance what they are doing with the industry. There are always hearings on decisions where people that have objections or other points of view have a chance to express them through that quasi-judicial board. If one selects little bits and pieces along the way, yes, you can present a funny looking story. I think the kind of people that are there with the commitment they put in, the staff and the professional effort they bring to the table, we have to respect their decisions at the end of the day.

Mr. Jennissen: I understand that, but I also understand for the lack of a more polite term that we are dealing with political appointees to some degree. If we look at the history, if I can go back again, if I could read just a little bit--this is from the Taxicab Board's own wording obviously: As a rationale for the argument that there would not be enough users for a superior service at a higher fare, it has been expressed that Winnipeg is not a thriving metropolis like other cities and is a wholesale town with a farm-based economy. The president and general manager of Duffy's Taxi has asserted that Winnipeg is nothing more than an overgrown farm town.

Now, that is what is obviously a spokesperson of the cab industry, or at least one part of the cab industry, states. Now the board goes on the other side and says, and I will quote again: In the board's view, the existence of a superior taxi service in Winnipeg will contribute substantially to an improvement in the city's image and, perhaps what is even more important, the self-image of Winnipeggers, and taxi industry members in particular may be enhanced. Nothing is gained by narrow-minded defamation of our city. If the negative attitude of some taxi industry leaders blinds them to market opportunities, then others with vision must be called upon. The matter is too important to the interests of the general public for the board to fail to take the necessary action merely out of timidity. Industry leaders must have confidence in their ability to succeed in a world that demands excellence.

But that sounds like boosterism to me. It sounds to me like the Taxicab Board is definitely taking sides, because looking at it now--and I admit it is the wisdom of hindsight that taxicab spokesperson was much more right. Obviously, the higher scale taxis did not thrive, did not work, so the industry was right. The board was wrong despite their report. Is that not correct?

Mr. Findlay: I will go back to what I said earlier. A quasi-judicial board--and I am not going to get involved in saying yea or nay on selected comments by individuals from the board or from the public. The member for Flin Flon (Mr. Jennissen) mentioned, well, they are an appointed board. It is a five-member board. One is a representative who is sent there by the Winnipeg city police, so if appointed by anybody, by the Winnipeg city police; one representative from the Winnipeg City Council; and three appointed by the government of Manitoba. Yes, we have three, but those three come there as independent citizens and perform the duties necessary on that quasi-judicial board.

I am not going to get involved in commenting on people's comments. It is not constructive, and dealing with the quasi-judicial board, I think it is inappropriate. If you are going to question their comments, then I would suggest they have a chance to rebut directly to the face of the member, and that is not going to happen. So I do not anything can be gained by rehashing history with this board, because it is not an easy board for the staff or the people on the board to carry out its functions. But I think over the course of time--and I think the member is well aware--they have done an excellent job, given all the dynamics associated with the board and the industry and public perception.

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Mr. Jennissen: Well, I understand that, and I certainly admire the minister for suggesting that all the members are independent citizens. We have the same feeling up North. They are all independent citizens. They are all good people. It just happens that, certainly on the health authority boards, the first three people who were put on there were people who ran for the Tory Party, and it does look a little coincidental up there. I am not suggesting this is the same thing, and nor am I suggesting that these are not good people or capable people.

But I am saying that if I am a taxicab owner in this province and more cabs are coming into the system, even though we claim that we are regulated, that decreases the value of my cab. You can argue that nine does not dilute the value much, but what if it becomes 20 or 30 or 60 or 100? Because in these documents--and some of these are minutes, I believe, from the Taxicab Board--they even talk at one point of putting in a hundred cabs, a hundred specialty cabs, top-of-the-line cabs. So, obviously, I would be concerned if somebody could get a taxicab and pay a taxicab licence and pay a hundred dollars and I have to pay $85,000, I mean, how is that considered to be fair competition?

Mr. Findlay: I will just put a couple of figures out for the member, and I mentioned this the other day and he has just referred to the number. There are 397 cabs; nine were added, a very small percentage, 2 percent basically. Cabs not that long ago had a market street value of $50,000. The member is mentioning $85,000. So, while the premium cabs were brought into the system, the price of the cabs on the street went up and up and up. So it did not dilute the price at all, the process of what is unfolding.

The board has its hearings. People who have points of view can come and express them. The board in balance makes decisions, and I will respect those decisions. I do not see how one can argue that the value of cabs has been diluted. It has gone up, up, up, and I have no reason to believe it will not continue to go up.

Mr. Jennissen: Is the minister aware, then, on what basis the board finally determined that the luxury licences were a failure? I mean, at what point did the board say, you know, the system does not work? Even though a few years ago we claimed there was a need for a hundred of them, now we claim nine cannot make a living, and therefore we have to convert them to a regular cab.

Mr. Findlay: The Taxicab Board, I think the member asked a question about what reasons did they give. They had a hearing and their decision was released on April 15 that the nine standard taxicab licences to be issued upon cancellation of the nine premium licences held by Blueline, and that there were several conditions attached to that licence. I do not have the conditions in front of me, but they were around the fact that they had to maintain the same vehicle for a year; they had to remove all visible decals that identified anything to associate with premium. The other condition I remember off the top of my head is that if a car is involved in an accident or it is a write-off, it must be replaced by a car of like condition in the course of that year. So there are significant conditions attached in the transfer. I will respect the board's decision in balance with all the circumstances they deal with.

I think it is important that we continue to promote the taxicab industry because it is important in the overall picture of tourism. For many citizens that visit the city, it is the first encounter they have. The board is trying to promote a positive encounter for people that come to the city and travel around, and we want to stimulate them to come back as tourists.

Mr. Jennissen: I certainly concur with the minister about the need of the taxicab industry and the job that they are doing. I take cabs all the time, and I am very impressed with Winnipeg cabs in general. I have had a few unhappy experiences, but, you know, they are minor. By and large, I think they run an excellent taxicab industry.

I have no difficulty with that; however, I must, in all honesty, tell the minister that when I talk to a lot of cabbies, it is a major concern of theirs that these licences have been converted, because they feel it is an unfair practice. It puts them at a disadvantage. They are competing with someone that got a licence for a hundred bucks where they have to pay a lot more than that. They do not think that is fair. Certainly I hear all kinds of scenarios, you know, about backroom deals. I cannot prove that one way or the other, and I would not suggest for a minute that is happening, but I do not really know. I simply would like to get at the facts.

Although the industry looks healthy on the surface, certainly I do know that cabs do not make enormous profits. I am referring here to the Arthur Andersen study, Arthur Andersen, the business consultant, the March 1998 study. If I could briefly read his conclusion, he concludes, on page 25: the above net income is the income available to the taxicab owner after all expenses. In other words, given our assumption that the owner drives a 12-hour shift, this is the wage for driving a taxi 12 hours per day, 365 days per year. The hourly wage, even at the high end of our estimate, is $7.04 per hour. At the low end of the range, it is possible to lose money. We believe that the Taxicab Board's estimate falls within the range of possible results. Based on this report, however, the Taxicab Board's results do not necessarily represent the average for a taxicab owner in Winnipeg.

It looks like a very good study, and Mr. Andersen is suggesting, you know, cabbies are barely hanging in there. In effect, they are buying a job and slightly above minimum wage if they run it very effectively. Therefore, they certainly would not be happy, nor would the industry be very happy with what would appear to be an unfair advantage to a competitor. I wonder if the minister would comment on that.

Mr. Findlay: Well, let us put the whole picture out here. You talk about those numbers, yes, it looks like it is a meagre living, and it begs one question. Why has the street value of the licence gone from $50,000 to $85,000 while I have been minister? Somehow they are paying for it. There is a tremendous demand to get into the industry, so somewhere in the industry it is a lot more positive than $7 an hour.

We need a number of cars out there for public service. There has to be enough to satisfy the demand, particularly in peak hours, and I think the industry works hard. The image being presented is getting better and better, but the strong demand is there to get into the industry. What they pay is incredible for a taxicab license, so there is a strong indication there that somebody who is viewing it says, I want to get into that industry, I can do better than what that report says, if those numbers are completely factual.

In balance, the board, I believe and I will say it again, does a good job, has done a good job, is continuing to do a good job of making sure the industry evolves and develops its customer service, reliable from the consumer point of view and the rates, everything is administered properly and they have safe cars on the road. Those are all issues that are important to us in government with regard to the industry in promoting Winnipeg and Manitoba.

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Mr. Jennissen: Is the minister suggesting then that he does not agree with the Arthur Andersen study, that at the high end, $7 an hour is too low?

Mr. Findlay: I just say it balanced. I cannot put the two solitudes together. If the income was so poor, why is the demand so high? I will have to accept the numbers are there, just like I am saying I accept what the Taxicab Board is saying, the two solitudes do not translate to something I can fully understand, if what you are saying is $7 an hour is not an attractive wage for 12 hours a day, 365 days a year. To me, the value of the commodity to buy to get into that industry should go down, not up, but it has gone up dramatically. So there is some incentive elsewhere that says it is a good industry to be in, but I will never for a minute say that they are overpaid.

The strange thing is again that the member has not asked this question, but I think it was for six years there was no increase in cab rates, but none was requested. Then there was a request last year, and I think it was 15 or 16 percent. If you divide that over six years, it is a little over 2 percent a year. But there was no public negative comment on that so the general point is it had been a long time at stable rates. It was reasonable to go up that amount, but I would suggest to the industry they should go up reasonable amounts every year, two or three, as opposed to wait so long and then ask for a big increase. But it went up without public comment, so it went well, and I am glad that they got that increase. It helps them deal with that seven dollars an hour problem.

Mr. Jennissen: I agree with the minister then. In approximately seven years there has only been one increase. I believe it was last year, what was 14 percent, I believe. Certainly it seemed reasonable. It appears to be reasonable, but we could look at it from different angles though. We could also argue that the taxicab industry has shown admirable restraint by not requesting a rate increase. We could argue that because, you know, by regulation we have only a limited number of cabs, inevitably if there is any kind of economic activity in this city the prices will go up.

I would offer another possibility of why people are eager to get into this, being a former immigrant myself, I know sometimes how difficult it is to get jobs in another country, specifically if you do not always speak the language 100 percent, and maybe in a sense people are buying a job. It may not be the best job, but possibly it is the only job they can get at that stage. That might be another factor. I do not know if it is or not, but there could be a whole variety of reasons why cabs could be at the $80,000 to $85,000 range.

Mr. Findlay: Clearly, at an unemployment rate of five and a half percent, there are lots of jobs out there, and there are lots of opportunities for training, but there is another point to look at and that is that referring to people that come to this country, and maybe this is an industry as an entry level industry, to get a handle on the country, its customs and get started in a business that you can move on from. That has been expressed to me. It is an entry-level opportunity. It is a comfortable entry-level opportunity for people from some other countries that allows them to move on into society more confidently after a period of time in this industry. There is nothing wrong with that.

Mr. Jennissen: Still, I wonder if the Taxicab Board--I do not in any sense wish to be negative about it--is aware that when you inject other licences into the system at a much lower price, it is going to affect the overall price of what your cab is worth. Therefore, it does erode the financial liability of the industry. Certainly, that cannot, in my opinion be, the intent of the board, but if you are focused purely on the public and giving them the best deal, then you might, in fact, be hurting the industry, and the end result being you are going to hurt all of us, including the public.

Mr. Findlay: Well, I would just say to the member that I am confident the board looked at all those dynamics in the process of making their decision and saw the strength of the value of the licence over the last period of time. I have already given the numbers, from 50,000 to 85,000, and the 2 percent addition of the number of cabs in an economy that is growing, with the number of people travelling growing, that it can be absorbed reasonably and responsibly.

I would assume that those were some of the elements of their consideration that caused them to make the decision that they made upon a request to the hearing that was held.

Mr. Jennissen: Would the minister admit that the person who does hold those nine licences that have been converted has reaped an enormous financial advantage? I mean, there is little doubt in my mind about that. I wonder if the minister would concur. Will it stop at nine licences or will it go to 30 or 20 or 40?

Mr. Findlay: Well, there is no other number than nine. There were only nine issued. That is it, over and done. There is no such thing as 20, 30, 40 or any other number. There was only nine. We have no idea as to what it cost that person in total to put that luxury cab in the marketplace and all those factors were in front of the board. They are intelligent people, responsible people. Some of them have been there for a fair period of time. They would not miss elements like that. I would not say whether anybody gained or lost, but I respect the process of making decisions. Decisions have to happen day in and day out, and, over the course of my almost five years being in this job, I believe the Taxicab Board has made in balance some tough decisions.

Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair

But I think that those decisions can be defended by them that in the course of ongoing business they were right decisions. I think a year from now we will look back, as these cabs enter the system at a buoyant time, it will be seen to be the right decision. Whether somebody made or lost depends on what information you have in front of you, but I think there were a lot of costs incurred over the course of time, it would appear, for the extra cab. He is required to keep it there for another year and allowed to only have the regulated rate that everybody else gets. So I would not say he came out ahead or behind.

Mr. Jennissen: Still I think we have to be fair on balance in the sense that, while it may be financially advantageous to one person, or tremendously so, because we are looking at nine cabs, maybe even three-quarters of a million dollars, maybe that high, what about the welfare of the 400 people that drive cabs and other people involved and families? I mean, it has to be balanced properly. I just feel there is an injustice there, or at least appears to be an injustice there. It might just be in my perception. I do not think so, because I have enough cabbies telling me there is something there. They are unhappy with it. Perhaps, if that has to be addressed, the Taxicab Board is willing to deal with spokespeople of, let us say, Duffy's and Unicity and other taxicab groups. Certainly I am not imagining this. There are some serious concerns about this.

My last question to the minister would be is the government really, in a roundabout way, attempting to deregulate the marketplace? In other words, to allow more cabs into the system. That, of course, then would lower the overall value of the cabs that do exist. I mean, it is always not done through the front door, but, in effect, it is being done through the back door. Is that a deliberate policy?

Mr. Findlay: No, we appoint the Taxicab Board, and they make the decisions in balance that they believe is right for the industry' as a quasi-judicial board, and that is what they are doing.

Mr. Jennissen: If the Taxicab Board, at some point, decided to deregulate the industry, let us say, totally, would there be any attempt made or would the minister push for attempt being made to compensate, to address compensation issues for those cabs already in existence? They are obviously losing a lot of investment.

Mr. Findlay: That is a speculative question that has no merit, and I am not going to answer it.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Dyck): Item 15.1. Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits.

Mr. Jennissen: I just merely want to point out to the minister that I am not making this up. I am not suggesting for a minute that there is not an issue there. Too many cabbies are telling me there is an issue. I hope that the Taxicab Board is open and above board about all of this and certainly meet with the spokespeople that appear to have serious and grave concerns. I do not want to leave the impression that this is a manufactured item made to embarrass the minister or the government or the Taxicab Board. It is not a personal thing, but too many cabbies made an issue of it, and I think I have to raise it. It is a transportation issue.

Mr. Findlay: I appreciate what the member is saying. It is an ongoing industry that is always going to require a significant, strong hand on behalf of the board to be sure that there is fairness and equity on an ongoing basis. I am confident that that is the outcome of their decisions over the course of time because there are very competent people there. Many of them had lots of years of experience, and particularly with city police having Rick Brereton in there. That is a pretty significant individual to have there, so I feel very confident.

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Mr. Jennissen: Perhaps we could move onto a less controversial, light topic.

I would like to deal with some real issues. I apologize to the minister that yesterday I had to rush out to the airport, so I did not hear all of his comments when I talked about private members' Resolution 40 on rail transportation in northern Manitoba. I was not trying to be impolite and rush away, but I just had to leave. I did read the minister's comments, and, yes, I think we all agree on that, that we have some work ahead of us in terms of resurrecting or bringing to some form of strength to the passenger transportation in this country. It certainly concerns us in the far North, or at least in the immediate north.

I want to ask the minister some questions, particularly about Justice Willard Estey's report. I had someone tell me yesterday that there was a preliminary report out on grain transportation across the country. Is the minister aware of such a preliminary report?

Mr. Findlay: We, as four western provinces, as four ministers, met with Mr. Estey on January 14, a very preliminary part of his process. Subsequently, we met with him again on April 21 and had good discussions with him in both cases. The four provinces have remained together in terms of the written presentation we made to him. We were involved in sourcing a consultant to help with the logistics review, which will be information that Mr. Estey will hopefully use in the second phase of his study. But he has released, I understand, and delivered to Mr. Collenette, his first phase of his study and will embark now on the second phase of his study.

We have just received a copy. Staff have had a quick look at it. I have not had a chance to look at their comments on it, but Mr. Estey has met the commitment of a preliminary report in phase one by the end of May to the federal minister, which is, I presume, now publicly released yesterday, but I have not had a chance to review it or staff's comments.

I think what he basically did--just a 30-second fly-by on it--is identify all the issues that were raised. He identified the issues, and the recommendations will come in his second phase. Again, hopefully, he will draw upon the technical assistance and help of the provinces in doing that process.

For a person of his age, he is an incredibly intelligent individual. Anytime you talk to him, you come away with an impression that this man has got control of what he is doing completely. I think he has made that impression on everybody he has dealt with. So his report, the recommendations, will have a lot of merit because of the credibility of him as an individual to seek out all the elements, flesh out all the detail and assemble it all in his mind and come out with what he believes are reasonable and right recommendations.

I do not for a moment think everybody will agree with him, but I think they will at least recognize that in balance he believes these are the right things to do for the development of the industry on into the 21st Century. I think everybody out there who might have gripes all say it is time for a total analysis, review, and a new direction, but I know at the end of the day there will be vested interests that will say, well, it should have gone this way or should have gone that way, and everybody wants it to go his way. There are about 15 ways out there that different groups want him to go. But he has identified the issues, and now he will put some time and effort into the appropriate analysis he believes must be done to be able to come up with the recommendations as to how to deal with the issues that have been recognized.

He has met widely and broadly with the public at large, farmers at large, industry at large, four provincial governments, many organizations like the Wheat Board, railroads. So I think he has done a great job of the preliminary round, and we will be prepared to work with him as he works forward to try to put recommendations around all the issues that were identified.

A week ago last Friday, we met with the federal minister as ministers across the country, and, clearly, as four western ministers we stressed to Mr. Collenette that Mr. Estey is going through a very extensive review process, two phases. The second phase, targeted for the end of December of this year, will come with the recommendations, but the recommendations only have meat, in effect, if there is federal action on those recommendations.

That means that the follow-up federal action, oftentimes and most definitely in this case, will need legislative change which would take an awful lot of 1999. So we are looking well past 1999 for outcome of what Mr. Estey is doing. We expressed some sense of urgency that we wanted a commitment that he would follow up effectively with the report and deal with the recommendations forthwith.

We said that on the basis of a previous review that was done by a grain panel about three years ago, appointed by Mr. Goodale, again a pretty esteemed group of people from across western Canada, and they made some strong recommendations for change in the industry. The report got set on the shelf and nothing happened. That was most disconcerting to people in the industry, that a good report was put together, some new direction was identified, and there was total inaction at the federal level.

So we do not want the same to happen here. Mr. Estey is also concerned about that, so we are going to keep pushing for his report to be implemented in a fashion that is fair and reasonable.

Mr. Jennissen: Well, I can certainly relate to reports sitting on shelves. Specifically, the economic development report on northern Manitoba was a wonderful report. They interviewed just about anybody and their dog that moves in northern Manitoba, but I do not know that too much has happened to many of those mightily good recommendations. So, yes, I can sympathize with that.

I also read the minister's notes from January 14 to Justice Willard Estey, as well as Judith Bradley's [phonetic], and certainly both gave, I thought, excellent presentations.

I do have a book here from Saskatchewan. It is Investing in Transportation. It is dated last year. Andy Renaud--I do not believe he is the Minister of Transportation anymore in Saskatchewan but was then. On page 25, I could just read a little blurb and get the minister's comment on that: A 1996 study commissioned by Saskatchewan Highways and Transportation estimated that producers in western Canada could obtain a net saving of about $3.5 billion in transportation costs over 20 years by owning the federal hopper car fleet. It would be extremely difficult to capture many of those savings without producer ownership of the cars.

I raise the topic because I have also heard the deputy minister wax quite eloquent on it. I was surprised he was that involved with that issue. He seemed to know a lot about it. It kind of struck a chord, because I know it is certainly discussion among farmers. So could the minister comment on that? Would those savings be realized?

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Mr. Findlay: I do not see how. I am a farmer too, and what we are promoting in the Estey review is accountability in the whole process, grain companies, Wheat Board, railroads, terminal operators, who want accountability, contracts, commercial contracts that assess accountability where somebody does not meet the shipping commitment.

We are really talking an awful lot about a customer pull process, so just pick an example. Let us say a customer in Japan was buying a boatload of canola. He would contract with the terminal operator. He would load this boat in July of 1998. A terminal operator, through the various avenues available to him, would contract right back to the elevator system for the collection of that from the Prairies. The elevator then would deal with the farmer to be sure it is in the system. The elevator company would deal with the railroad contractually to be sure that the grain in their elevators got through the rail system to that terminal at appropriate timing so it could be there to load the ship. We think that is the accountability, efficiency process, a commercial contract system that will work.

But I do not see how owning the cars in all of that makes that thing work any better. The principle behind owning the cars, well, we can save this kind of money. I think you save it by a faster turnaround. Well, if you have commercial contracts in place and the railroads own the cars, they have a vested interest in making them work, making them turn around fast, making sure they do not sit on the rail sidings or sit loaded at the Vancouver end, that there are contracts that make those cars be kept moving in the system.

Right now if you bring a carload of barley to a location in Winnipeg and they decide they have not got enough room in their facility, they can leave it sitting on the track for three weeks, two months. It makes no sense.

Now, if the farmers owned them, how would they be able to make that work any better unless there are contracts between all the players and there are penalties involved in doing that? I have said to the industry, the people looking at owning them, you have to strike contracts with the railroads. If the railroads do not fulfil contracts, you are into disputes. These rail cars are already old. Some people would say they are old technology, they are too heavy, they are not big enough. The new generation of cars are bigger, more efficient. As you have to repair and replace those cars, you have got capital upgrade costs. It will eat that three and a half billion so quickly your eyes will blink. I just do not understand the dynamics of how that will make the system work better.

Why should the farmer have to invest money in the system? Let the railroads invest; if they want to run their business, invest in their own capital infrastructure. The farmers invest in their machinery on the farm; the elevators invest in their elevators. But keep each distinct so down the road a farmer, let us say, in Manitoba in particular, be it good, bad or indifferent, there is going to be more and more of their commodities moving by truck. There has been over the last few years and will continue to be, because they are not going to be shipping through Vancouver. It is too costly. They are going to be shipping to hog plants, to feed mills, to feed lots, to processing plants like in Harrowby or Altona or Can-Oat at Portage. That is where a lot of the value is added before it ever sees a rail car. I just do not see what the advantage is of owning those cars.

As one of the issues identified by Mr. Estey, he sees it as an issue. It has certainly been raised out of Saskatchewan, but I say as a Manitoban, I question whether there is any real strategic value in owning those cars. I really, really do. I think farmers are better off to invest in granaries, aeration in their bins or bigger trucks than into rolling stock on the railroad at which at the end of the day, I do not know how they can have any greater say in the way the system is operating. A commercial contract with penalties, to me, is the best discipline there is. That is it.

Mr. Jennissen: Just to finish with the Saskatchewan booklet for just a minute, one other point that was raised in this booklet that came up was that modern logistics practices can improve competitiveness and would save us a lot of money. One thing that struck me was, and I quote, for example, a Just in Time logistic system was a major contributor to Japan's economic growth, and I do not deny that.

But on the other hand when I read, the people talk about sustainable development and less environmental damage, they are kind of condemning of Just in Time logistics, because they argue that it puts more vehicles on the road more often, less warehousing, more greenhouse gas emissions. I sometimes wonder if we are not going counter to directions. [interjection] Yes, going thataway actually.

Mr. Findlay: The answer is yes and the answer is no, and I will say why the answer is no because we have in the process of this Estey process, as four provinces, got together and commissioned an outfit to do a modern logistics study. We think there is a lot to be gained in that logistics study, and, yes, the industry is in a Just in Time principle.

In the front door, out the backdoor, all timed and maybe that is why the trucking industry is making gains on the railroad industry. They are better able to fit into that principle. But that is the way society is too. I mean, you go to the grocery store, you want fresh milk there. You do not want one that has been sitting there for three or four days; you want it to have arrived that day. That is, again, another aspect of Just in Time that meets a lot of demands.

Whether that is counterproductive to gas emissions, greenhouse gases, probably it is. I have read reports that would indicate that hauling by truck produces a lot more gas emissions than hauling that same tonne that long distance by rail. So the federal government on one hand is saying we have got to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such gasses by 19 percent between '90 and the year 2010. At the same time we are making sure we are getting rid of all those rail lines. So, you know, they are going in both directions.

Just considering what I just said, they are counterproductive. Now I think before you make a rash decision like maybe I might have made, let us look at a whole pile of other factors. How does it all come together in balance? Does it all fit over the course of time? Does Just in Time system create somehow reductions in costs and if our reduction in emissions--well, on the surface it may look like they are increasing. So I think that it is important, the whole package of issues we looked at. But I tell you, we are halfway, almost halfway, between 1990 and 2010, and we are still on the increase in terms of greenhouse gas emissions instead of starting to get a handle on them.

There is talk about much more cost-efficient engines, rail engines and truck engines that will reduce emissions. The same applies to a car. I mean, this Ballard fuel cell concept is part of that game. To just look at a little bit of information, sometimes we draw pretty strong conclusions that will not meet the overall test of time, but we are in a Just in Time society and economy in Canada and globally. I do believe the logistic systems that have proven themselves in certain commodities and certain countries need to be looked at here. Will they fit here? Do they work here? Because we do have to reduce cost in order to be competitive, but basic producers of raw commodities, whether it is wheat or ore or lumber, it has to get a fair return or he does not stay in business. If the basic producer cannot stay in business, then the whole system loses.

So there has got to be overall balance in how the economic system works, and it is in a rapid evolution right now. Hopefully that is an answer, but it is a bit rambling, but it is an interesting time in which we live.

Mr. Jennissen: Well, the answer is not as rambling as some of the positions the federal government takes, that is for sure. They ramble off, they gallop off madly in several different directions at the same time. There is no doubt about that.

I was going to ask the minister about Paul Tellier of CN who has stated that market forces must govern Reform Grain Transportation and Handling System. In fact, that is one of his favourite themes. He said the same thing when we were trying to save the Sherridon line. It was always market forces and American shareholders and so on. But what might make sense to the bottom line or to the shareholders, if you look at it strictly from an accountant point of view, it might not necessarily be good for a region or for northern Manitoba for that matter.

So I know I am getting into a bit of an ideological area we could talk about forever. But at what point do we counter the Paul Tellier's and say, yes, that makes sense part of the time, but there is also such a thing as nation building, there is also such a thing as regions that you may have to give preferential treatment to. So we cannot always say market forces dictate everything or ought to dictate everything. I mean, we have to be very careful about that, I would suggest.

If we use that same logic, you would not want to run a train to Pikwitonei because there are not enough people there obviously; yet, if you think a little deeper, a little more strategically deeper in the sense of long range, then you know that northern region has tremendous potential. Maybe if you hang in there and get those trains working and you do the proper marketing, eventually they will be very profitable. They are just not profitable now. Using the Paul Tellier logic, you cancel them, you cut it, you sell it, you scrap it, you give it to China.

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Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, I think Paul Tellier's principle is working, and I will tell you why. Paul Tellier and CN, for whatever reason, decided they wanted nothing to do with the northern lines. That was no secret in the years preceding the announcement that they were going to offer it for sale. We advocated to them that if you do not think you can make a business case out of this, at least open it up for tenders to anybody that might be interested to try to make it work. Lo and behold, there were some interested parties, and OmniTRAX became the successful bidder.

In the discussion yesterday, I think the member opposite indicated that there are more positive things happening now in that rail line with a vested interest now operating it. In terms of opening up the North, we think there is unbelievable opportunities. I mean, that is why we promote the prospecting business like we do to find new finds of all kinds of ores that can be mined and processed in northern Manitoba and shipped to the world. Forestry, in terms of the investments that have taken place in more recent times, has been fantastic. There are opportunities there.

Certainly OmniTRAX is looking at north-south trade. The northern segment of the north-south corridor here is from Churchill down into the northern states. That does not mean only Canadian product is going through Churchill. Maybe there are options, competitive, financially viable options that product can move to European or northern Russian markets through Churchill.

So I think OmniTRAX, again, with the market-driven principle and is the only principle they can function with because they invested their shareholders' money and are expecting a return over time, sees a whole new vision that CN did not see as a Crown corporation. Now CN as a private company has a whole different vision of things. I do not think it is any secret that railroads are streamlining their business interests so that they can increase their efficiency and increase their profitability and serve their customers better than they have in the past.

I think CN's recent purchase of Illinois Central and striking commercial arrangements with two other railway networks in the southern U.S. and into Mexico is a clear indication they see strategic market opportunities of north-south trade from Canada, when their system that collects like a funnel and feeds down through the Chicago area going on south through the Illinois Central system. The Illinois Central System is a pretty strong railroad, and CN, a Canadian company purchasing an American company? Most interesting. But I think they are strategically positioned for the north-south trade that we are going to get more and more involved in with the emergence of Mexico and Central America.

There are untapped opportunities that I think are rather immense, and as a carrier they see that opportunity. That is all part of the north-south trade corridor principle that we promote. Sure we promote the road, because that is the public entity, but I think the railroads are promoting theirs, and that is a good combination between the road and the rail of doing that.

So I think the market system works. I think it works very well. It is the system that has evolved the world very efficiently, and that is why we are so far ahead vis-a-vis Russia in what principle they tried. Now they are trying to market principle. I think I have said this other times and places. The member has maybe already heard it, but in 1991, I was in Moscow. I never thought I would ever be there, but it was a unique place to be. I probably would not want to go back, but nonetheless I have been there and done that sort of thing.

At a reception, a very senior deputy minister of the Russian government said to me there is only one government in the world. I said, who, U.S.? Who is it? He says, no, the international marketplace. I thought, my God, of all people to say that sort of thing.

You just think about it. It is what makes decisions happen. You take a million decisions, ten million decisions around the world by individuals all trying to compete and earn a decent living. That is a pretty effective government. You make five wrong decisions, 10 right decisions, and over the course of time a system and a path evolves. Big, small, it is all integrated over the course of time. Because if you make the wrong decisions, you drop off out of the picture. You make right decisions, you stay in the game. As governments and everything, we hope we make more right than wrong. You will always succeed if you make more right than wrong. There is no guarantee of success, but it sure motivates the soul. I think that is what makes Canada a strong country and North America a very strong competitor in global trade.

Mr. Jennissen: Well, I am not disputing the logic of that at a certain stage in human development at all. But it appears to me at the same time that it does favour the strong over the weak, and it does give advantages to some over others.

Historically in this country--I am sure it was not purely for monetary or market reasons--we drove railroad lines across this country. We had other visions that were, I think, much more global and were not necessarily a balance sheet vision, so I think there is certainly a place for the marketplace.

I do not know how important it is, but sometimes there are other overriding factors. Poorer regions of Canada, neglected regions of Canada, sometimes they need a helping hand. We cannot simply use the same logic. I would apply that same thing to telephones. It is easy when you have, not a captive market, but a very concentrated market like Winnipeg. Again, if you are in Tadoule Lake, that is a different matter. If you have to pay for a telephone what it actually costs you, if you are using only strict market principles, that is a different matter.

Mr. Findlay: I agree with the member, because we just made an announcement yesterday that is exactly along that line, keeping in mind the Tadoule Lakes of the world. The market principle works. We have got 70 percent lower long distance rates. We have got lots of competition. We have got service choice for the consumer. But, at the end of the day, the cost of delivering services to the smaller communities, rural and remote, is higher than delivering the services in Winnipeg. So you cannot force one service provider, in this case MTS, to go to all these small communities and have to spend--let us pick a figure--$80 a home when their return is $10. You eat the $70; meanwhile, come back to Winnipeg and compete square on with the AT&Ts and the Sprints of the world.

What we are saying is all those service providers have a responsibility to contribute to that extraordinary cost at Tadoule Lake. That extra $70 has to be paid out of a fund which they all contribute a certain element of tariff to for every service delivered. Then MTS and all Stentor companies are on a level playing field with the AT&Ts and the Sprints of the world. Strangely enough, I am told AT&T supports that principle. That is good.

But this is a Canadian concept of how the stronger regions should help the weaker regions in some matter of policy. That is what governments are here for: to develop the policy that helps the market system work, so that it does not disadvantage those that certainly have--in the case of telecom or transportation--a distance-related disadvantage.

The people in Toronto make a living off the mining in Flin Flon. There is no question about that, but they do not recognize it directly. I think they have a right and responsibility to be sure that the people who live there and extract that raw resource have a fair and reasonable opportunity to all the telecom services and transportation services that are available. So our system evolves. Yes, it is market driven. But we are here to help be sure that the Canadian policy of the weak being helped by the strong in a country that is far flung and has got many strengths and challenges--I will not call them weaknesses--but just challenges, to deal with. We have done that pretty well as a nation over the course of 130 years.

I think the principle we put forward here of a contribution fund with everybody contributing--I know some people say governments should contribute, but I think that is not dealing with the issue properly. Let the service providers contribute. Then everybody comes out in a win-win situation for reasonable quality services today at, what we will call, respectably affordable rates.

Mr. Chairperson in the Chair

Mr. Jennissen: Yes, to continue with railroads again, especially that northern section, the Bay line. Some concern, of course, that Churchill, which is the northern terminus of that, hopefully not just the Bay line but the whole trade corridor in mid-North America is having some difficulty with Akjuit, I think, at the moment. That rocket range is not doing as well as we had hoped it would do, and I do not know if that would impact on the viability of that railroad or not, but it is certainly a concern we have.

I am just wondering if the minister would outline for us what the province has done with respect not only to dredging the harbour, what other costs we may have had to make Churchill and the Bay line a functioning unit. I know that we are involved at some levels, and I believe dredging the harbour is one of them.

Mr. Findlay: In concluding the overall OmniTRAX deal, certainly they purchased the track from CN, and they took ownership of the Churchill port from the federal government. As part of that transaction, some $34 million were committed for port improvements of which $6 million is provincial money towards dredging of the port and the rest is federal money. So that is the agreement that was signed. We felt it was reasonable for us to contribute in that component of the overall package. We did feel that it was a federal responsibility, federal jurisdiction, and that they should contribute it all, but at the end of the day we committed $6 million to facilitate in the dredging operation to improve the viability and the competitiveness of that port, as we do believe it will expand and grow--and I do not think with one-way trade. I believe the two-way trade possibilities are fairly real there, no matter what is coming in. In some cases you could think ore could be coming in there and coming into northern Manitoba for various smelters, and that opportunity surely should be there. All kinds of products can move out.

When you deal with countries, and, I think, particularly Russia, you cannot always be selling to them. You have to be buying from them in some fashion. There has to be two-way trade or they will not have dollars to buy with.

I have heard also comments that maybe phosphate rock could come through that and get to the fertilizer plants in Alberta more cost-effectively than hauling it across North America or from Florida around through the Panama Canal and up the West Coast and across the Rockies. All kinds of opportunities exist if you have a well-run business through the Port of Churchill. I think OmniTRAX has got the incentive to develop a well-run business.

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Mr. Jennissen: Certainly the minister is correct that, if backhaul was possible on that Bay line, it would make a big difference, and we had hoped at one point Voisey Bay, but that seems now an impossibility. However, I have talked with Mike Ogborn--[interjection] Never say never, true, of OmniTRAX and I guess they call themselves the Hudson Bay Railway now, and they seem to be actively engaged in the former Soviet Union, Russia, negotiating about acquiring ore that would then come back through that rail line. I hope that that will work.

The question I was going to ask the minister: have we had any direct input in Akjuit, attempting to save it or the rocket range, or is that a dead issue?

Mr. Findlay: Well, Akjuit was a principle that I think back six, seven, eight years ago was very aggressively developed and pursued by, again, the private sector. They have done a lot of work. They have had help from this government through Industry, Trade and Tourism to get the business case up and running. I know they worked hard to try to contractually do business with various companies in the U.S. that launch rockets. It is clear that in the telecommunications industry, low, low level orbiting units are part of the future telecommunications. There is a lot of business there.

It is disappointing that Akjuit was not able at this time at least to put it together. I would not say that the issue is dead. It is certainly in some level of suspension right now, but you never know what might just lie right around the corner, because all the principles that were espoused as to how Churchill was a very attractive place to launch in terms of number of days that were clear sky and the fact that there was not a lot of population close by so that the stages of the rockets could fall down without causing an impact on people and all that sort of thing. All of those advantages exist.

In the early stages, clearly the rail line was critical. It had to be there for getting the rockets up there. I would suspect it is not good news for OmniTRAX that Akjuit is not--or its successor is in some level of suspension or abeyance right now, but again I say: never say never. You never know what opportunities, who might see it as a further opportunity, is able to pick up the ball and make it work. I think the principle is still there, and the advantages of Churchill being a rocket range are very real. Some investments certainly were made on the site. Those investments are not lost. The physical structure is still there, so we will wait and see.

Mr. Jennissen: One last question on rail transportation. Again, we did talk to some extent yesterday with regard to private member's Resolution 40 about rail passenger transportation in northern Manitoba. Are there any initiatives by this government, or does the minister have any initiatives to put some more pressure on VIA to simply take us to the middle of the 20th Century with their service up North?

We are still, you know, dealing with service. As the minister knows, I do not want to beat it to death, but it is just not acceptable in terms of trains being 12 hours late, having to phone New Brunswick to find out whether the train is two miles down the track or not, and they never have a clue. It is most disconcerting for us. We feel like we are dealing with a system that belongs properly in the 1880s, not the 1990s.

Mr. Findlay: Well, I will take us back to the discussion we were having 20 minutes ago about market principles, the private sector and how it makes things work. We have seen Crown corporations. CN could not make the rail line work, did not want to. OmniTRAX comes along, the private sector, I think the probability of making it work is a lot better than it was.

VIA is a Crown corporation and somehow or other they cannot get the message that they are not going to get business if they do not supply an adequate level of customer service, some reliability. They just do not seem to want to deliver a level of service that makes people want to use the rail. I think there is a certain psyche in Canadians that they do not want to use rail, and I think it is driven by poor, poor service, repeatedly poor service. Reliability is not there.

I think there was some interested parties over the course of time that maybe thought there was a business case there. Whether they ever made offers to VIA, I do not know, but there was interest and maybe if they were operating it, they could make it work. Whether they made offers to VIA, I do not know, whether the federal government said no, or even maybe had the offers made to them, but there are people saying there is a business to be done in rail transportation of people across this country in any and all ways.

Tourism capability through the North and up to Churchill is fantastic, particularly with foreigners. If Canadians do not want to go there, at least foreigners do, but VIA will not capture that, does not want to make the effort to make it work. If I was to do anything, I would be promoting that VIA should be privatized, then it would put the onus on somebody who was prepared to make an investment and they will make it work.

Right now it seems that VIA cannot be cajoled, twisted, pushed into saying we have a responsibility to deliver a better service. That is unfortunate because I cannot imagine the communities along there with that level of poor service. You do not know whether your train is going to be this hour or 12 hours from now. That is unbelievable in this day and age. Just with telecommunications alone, you can be more accurate than that.

I mean, the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) made the comment, well, you can phone down there; they say it is between here and there, and they really do not know where it is. That is stupid. Why can they not see that as being an irresponsible level of service? So I am just telling you personally here, I think if it was privatized you would see a better level of service. That is a personal point of view, and I do not think the federal government will listen to me anyway so I am free to say it.

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Mr. Jennissen: Yes, I certainly tend to agree with the minister that something is amiss there that needs to be changed. I cannot figure it out either. It just seems impossible for me to comprehend that I can be in Cranberry Portage trying to get on a train and have to phone New Brunswick and they say, oh, it will be there any minute now, and it could be 12 hours, it could be six hours. There is no way you can figure out where or when. It is just very frustrating, and then, of course, it discourages you from train travel and that is a further negative.

But apart from that, though, I believe the province could do more with tourism or could promote it more. Maybe I am sounding like I am promoting a bad railroad or bad passenger service, but, you know, we feel that if we put a lot of emphasis on tourism, perhaps the government should put a little more effort into that Bay line and the Sherridon line. Very few tourists travel the Sherridon line, again, because of bad service.

I do not know how you would address it because the alternatives that we have proposed also do not appear to get off the ground. One of them has been this railbus from Cranberry to Pukatawagan. We had talked about this ad nauseam. The former MLA from Flin Flon, Jerry Storie, was a heavy proponent on that, as well as the chief of Pukatawagan and others, and even Ron Duhamel supports the principle, but when we try to get it off the ground there was always some red tape or some reason or some safety consideration, whatever, it does not work.

Sometimes I throw my hands up in frustration and say, well, why do we not just give OmniTRAX the right to run a rail car or a passenger car and maybe stick it on with freight? I do not know, but there has got to be a better way in this day and age than what we have got up there. It is just not working.

Mr. Findlay: I do not disagree with the member. I cannot see why a railbus should not be a very viable option, a railbus that carried not only passengers but small freight and all that sort of thing that had a greater capability to be responsibly on time, reasonably on time. Maybe OmniTRAX, in some version, will strike a deal with somebody that would put that kind of business in motion.

Otherwise, I am no different than the member opposite. I went up to The Pas, I think it was about 1995, when the federal government had this review on rail transportation in the North. There was Duhamel and Harper who were the co-chairs and we made presentations. We talked about all these sorts of things, reliability of service, railbus, whatever, try something, but what we have got there now is not working.

I do not know what shelf it is collecting dust on, but nothing has taken place since then. They had this round of meetings, and it made me feel that maybe it was an impetus for some motion and nothing took place. So frustration still is here, and I have not seen them come back and enter that discussion again whatsoever. Maybe OmniTRAX and some partnership or somebody doing a business deal with them will put something in motion that will work there, because there are people that have been looking around to see where there are business cases, how things will work.

With the kind of service VIA is offering, the competition with them is you are going to win 19 times out of 20, because if you provide a better, higher quality level of service, you will get the passengers.

Mr. Jennissen: Then sometimes I wonder if it is not deliberate strategy by VIA to get out of the system. I mean, by offering bad service, you can do that. I have often felt that way about CN trying to run down the Sherridon line. I mean, they simply did not service the line at all. Then they run it into the ground, and then you have a good excuse to dump it and say, oh, it does not work anyway. There are go-slow orders there for most of the stretch; 15 miles an hour is about your average. Well, yes, maybe it is a deliberate strategy, I do not know. It is just voicing some frustration here, I guess. The minister is fully aware of that.

I wonder if we could move on now to trucking. The minister seems to be very knowledgeable about that subject. I do know there are quite some extensive changes that have taken place over the last decade not only in terms of larger and bigger trucks and more axles and so on, but the need possibly for better road surfaces. Certainly a total shift in direction in terms of trade flow from east-west and north-south. I guess that must have some major repercussions for us down the line in terms of highway expenditures, perhaps safety regulations--I do not know--thickness of road surfaces. I do not know, but I am sure that as we move into a highly modernized technological age, trucks are part of that. We are perhaps dealing with road systems, certainly in that area, 50, 60, 100 years old almost and maybe not designed for the changes that are happening right now.

Mr. Findlay: I can probably talk for 20 minutes easy, but I will try to keep it much shorter than that. Certainly, our road substructure or road surfaces and bridges 30 years ago were built for truck weights of those days, which were 40,000 to 50,000, kind of. Today you are running B-trains, 138,000 with eight axles, and there is pressure and requests to go longer trucks and heavier weights. We are not likely to be able to respond to that anywhere in the near future.

The major system where our truck traffic is highest, of course, is what we identify as our national highway system which is Highway 1, Highway 16, the Perimeter and Highway 75. By no means is it exclusive where the problem is, but that is where the majority runs. That network I just mentioned makes up about 800-and-some kilometres, about 5 percent of our system, 5 percent of the total provincial system. As I mentioned in my opening comments, approximately 25 percent of our provincial expenditures go into that system every year. I mean, suddenly we are rebuilding interchanges where maybe the bridge is showing stress and strain. It is resurfacing. We did a lot of resurfacing, because all the truck traffic does wear out the surface in the driving lanes particularly.

We have spent $100 million in little over 10 years in four-laning Highway 75 going south, which is fantastic that we got it in place now with the growing north-south traffic. We have some 700 trucks a day clear through the Emerson-Pembina crossing there. There is only one busier crossing in all of western Canada and that is in Vancouver. There is no question a lot of trucks are funnelling out of the U.S., up I-29 into Canada through Highway 75, and a lot of trucks funnelling out of Canada down that direction into the U.S.

We are certainly, as I said earlier, challenged to try to have efficiency on the road. We have improved certain aspects of moving through customs there. We have joint inspections with North Dakota and with Minnesota now, I believe. The trucking industry wants more harmonization between Canada and the U.S. and between provinces to reduce the barriers. They want to load a truck in Montreal and move it all the way to Vancouver without dealing with differences in provinces between weights and lengths and the mentions in hours that they can run on the road.

The unfortunate thing is in talking with trucking companies and with truckers themselves--and before I went to the ministers' meeting, I had a meeting in my office where we asked, I think, a dozen truckers, just guys that were on the road and heard their points of view on what were the challenges to the trucking industry. There are a few, but generally speaking things are going reasonably well out there, but clearly the trucking companies and the truckers say in answer to this question: if you are loaded in western Canada and you are going to eastern Canada, how do you get there? The instant answer is: to the U.S. as fast as we can. They have no desire to go around the northern route, the Trans-Canada route north of the Great Lakes.

That is bad news for us. It is not a recent thing that has happened; it has been going on for some time. Roads are better in the U.S.; fuel is cheaper; and they run the U.S. route. They will come back up into wherever they want to come; whether it is Sault Ste. Marie or Windsor or Niagara Falls, they will come back into Canada. If they were going from Vancouver to Montreal, they might run the whole stretch in the U.S. and all the business associated with that will occur in the U.S. That is most unfortunate. So those are some of the challenges we have, and we address this with the federal minister and say that we as provinces are going to have to focus on our north-south routes because that is where the growth in movement is, as the member opposite has mentioned, as opposed to east-west, which is the connecting link of Canada constitutionally and you as the federal government have the responsibility.

At the conference held last week at the University of Manitoba for National Transportation Week, Dr. Barry Prentice identified that the truck volumes, truck numbers east-west versus north-south, north-south is now 50 percent higher than east-west, which is a fairly significant figure. It is just again reflecting more of what is going on. So just quickly that will give you some analysis of what I think, what the department, I think, we all feel the same thing. We have incredible challenges to keep up with the needs of the trucking industry, tremendous growth in jobs there, tremendous growth in trade activities. Our trade to the U.S. has gone up from--gone up pretty well threefold since 1990. It is up over $5 billion now, and a heck of a lot of it moves by truck.

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As I mentioned, the pre-emptive move by CN to buy Illinois Central is, I think, trying to recapture some of that long-haul north-south movement, and I hope they are successful at that because the more we can get on the rail, the less impact in the roads. We still do the trade north-south. So I do not think any province is immune from this challenge. We met a little over a week ago as provincial ministers with the federal minister, and we all talk on the same problems. Demands are way beyond our ability to deal with them, and we are forced to concentrate, as I have already mentioned, on our major network because we cannot allow it to fall apart; otherwise, everything else is poorly served. This issue is not going to go away. The challenges are dumped on our lap by federal decisions, and they just keep increasing and do not decrease. So just broad, sweeping general comments.

Mr. Jennissen: But there are still, I believe, some irritants or some problems that have to be ironed out. There always will be. I am thinking particularly, if I recall correctly, there was some talk about the United States imposing--what was it?--visa requirements or at least some stiffer ways of getting across the border, and that would create problems. I believe as well that in terms of NAFTA there are problems once you get to the Mexican border. I believe you have to unload onto Mexican trucks, and, as well, the technologies are different. I believe, if I am correct on this, on some of our border crossings, our technology is a little bit more sophisticated and can speed things up a lot more than some of the American technology, in fact. So I guess there is a lot of harmonization, not just of truck dimensions and weights and so on, but also other things that need to be addressed.

Mr. Findlay: Yes, there is continued movement on harmonization. Another issue is cabotage in the U.S. There has been a little bit of give on that at their side. I think we are allowed now to haul into Mexico to certain mileage before you have to transload. You used to have to transload on the U.S. side. Things are opening up slowly but steadily. The visa question: I do not think we have it in writing, but we are led to believe that, with the Canadian-U.S. border, there will be ways and means or revisions made so there is not the negative impact. They are trying to deal with their other borders.

That is their target, not our border. We were originally in the broad sweep, but we are given reasonable assurances--and I think it was reiterated by the federal minister that there were some reasonable assurances that the issues that we are concerned about on the Canada-U.S. border will not happen. Boy, it is very important if it does. I think it will hurt more Americans than it will Canadians; nonetheless, it will hamper trade and increase the cost of trade, and it will be totally regressive.

So I feel comfortable, you know. I have heard it a couple of times through directly myself and through other ministers that the issue will be resolved before anything comes into action.

Mr. Jennissen: On March 21 of this year, the Manitoba Trucking Association had meetings in the city, and one of their concerns was the ARTAC road system and Winnipeg not being compatible with that. Is there any way that will be addressed? It is obviously the city's responsibility, I suppose, but is that being tackled? I think it was Mr. Dolyniuk who was pointing out that you cannot be a world-class city and talk about being a transportation hub and then not have the capacity to allow the ARTAC system within the city itself.

Mr. Findlay: Clearly, it is an issue. We have our designated ARTAC routes, so trucking companies will say: do not build a trucking company depot in Steinbach. He knows that he has an ARTAC route from his front door to wherever he wants to go. You take a trucking company in Winnipeg, say one of them that built along Route 90. They have a permit that they continue to run ARTAC weights in and out of the city at least to the Perimeter.

There has been no issue. Nothing has happened to cause any impact, but the trucking companies and ourselves continue to be nervous that somebody in this city at some point in time could say, yes, we are going to pull all the permits. I do not know why they would do that, but that potential is always there. So we certainly, as a province, have advocated, I as a minister have advocated. It would be so much better given the tremendous number of jobs in the trucking industry and our trying to be a transportation hub and talk about multimodal, intermodal activities. We have to be seen to be very friendly to the trucking industry in terms of our rules and regulations at least being on a level playing field with other jurisdictions.

There have been meetings, there have been discussions, particularly between the Manitoba Trucking Association and the city, about this issue. They tend to move it forward at times, but it never gets to a conclusion or it wanes for awhile. We are slightly nervous about it. Certainly the trucking industry, when they make investments, are nervous about it, but nothing has happened to create a negative impact in the industry other than this little bit of ongoing nagging doubt as to whether they will ever have ARTAC routes or whether somebody will make a decision on pulling a permit that has been in place for a long period of time. So progress continues, hopefully, but there is no absolute light at the end of the tunnel.

About three months ago, I had a discussion with a city councillor who said, yes, we are going to get it done, there is no reason we should not. But it still has not been done, so it is somewhat disconcerting. Again, I emphasize that they have done nothing to cause us to be concerned with the ongoing viability of what is currently in place, just not long-term comfortable, that is all.

Mr. Jennissen: One other concern that was identified by some members of the Manitoba Trucking Association at that meeting on March 21, I believe it was, was that they thought that the hours of service allowed to truckers were horribly out of date. I believe it is, what, 12 hours or 13 hours a day now. I presume they wanted to extend that. Are these numbers of hours set provincially, or is this a federal matter?

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, hours of service have been a bit of a complicated issue over the course of time. There are different hours, different jurisdictions. There are federal hours for interprovincial trucking, and we as a province have adopted them for trucking within the province simply for harmonization. But the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators and Transport Canada are looking at different means of administering hours of service from the standpoint of efficiency for the trucker and the truckers and to be sure we consider safety on the road for other road users.

There is a simplified formula being proposed that I think that CCMTA is actively looking at. When I talked with the truckers that I mentioned awhile ago, about three or four weeks ago, there was some strong desire from them to have the system that was more simple and straightforward and, therefore, more easy to live within the rules. The hours of service that are being discussed are 14 hours maximum per day on the job, 10 hours off, a maximum of 70 or maybe up to 84 hours per week with a mandatory 24-hour reset. That is a more simplified system than all the existing regulations with caps and reset hours that currently exist.

The truckers say for travelling through different states and through different provinces, and they have different rules--like, my log book, I can hardly keep my log book up to date with where I am at, and I might get caught sitting in Michigan for 48 hours. It is not very efficient. I would sooner be back home. So thinking about the more simplified system, I have not heard anybody speak against it to this point. I think it respects truckers' needs. I think it respects safety on the roads in terms of fatigue, and the truckers said they believed it would work and it promoted the opportunity to be home at least once a week and an adequate reset.

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The issue for me is, you can say you have a maximum 10 hours not in the truck each day and a 24-hour reset, but you cannot guarantee that the people sleep or rest at that period in time before they get back on the road. Everybody in the trucking industry is very safety conscious, promotes safety, and they know it is incredibly important to their industry in the eyes of the public at large that they be seen to be promoting safety not only to the kind of rig that they run but in terms of the driver behind the wheel. We are all doing that, and I think that the considerations for hours of service right now are a reasonable step to further improve safety on the roads.

Mr. Jennissen: As I drive north, I drive by some possible locations for weigh scales, but they do not seem to be any nearer to completion. As I read some reports, I also read that in the near future it is possible that we can dispense with weigh scales altogether. There are electronic ways of reading information, scanning it from the truck itself. How close is that to reality?

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, for enforcement purposes, we are still using only the static scale, because that is the only reliable information that will stand up in court. There are weigh-in- motion concepts out there, but they are not sufficiently reliable at this point in time. We have used some inroad installations for electronic screening to monitor weights on trucks. Accuracy is not 100 percent, but it would indicate to you if there is an increased frequency of loads that appear to be running overweight. You can bring a scale into the area and then do your enforcement that way. So it is a scanning device at this stage at best and not one that we can use for enforcement. It does not mean that the technology will not improve over the course of time, but at this stage it is not deemed reliable enough for court.

Mr. Jennissen: Does the minister have any statistics handy on inspection of trucks that are overweight? How many trucks in the past year were overweight? Perhaps a breakdown on those statistics--[interjection]

Mr. Findlay: He asks the questions; I answer them. You just pay attention.

Total number of vehicles processed in '96-97, 375,000; number overweight, 1,273, so a very small portion. 1997-98, 364,000 vehicles processed; 1,293 overweight. I can give other categories if the member is interested, but those are the numbers for overweight.

Mr. Jennissen: We have limited time, Mr. Minister, and also some of my colleagues want to ask some questions on roads, so I want to sort of bring this to a close.

I have one other area I would like to look at briefly. It again comes from the Saskatchewan pamphlet I discussed earlier; that is, Saskatchewan talks about expanding trucking partnership. If I could just read a little bit of this. We propose to expand the trucking partnership program. This program encourages the use of larger trucks and heavier loads but only under controlled conditions which improve safety. Under the program, the province works with the private sector to design overweight or overdimension truck-haul systems for moving commodities. Experience has shown that trucking cost-savings of 20 to 30 percent can be achieved through the trucking partnership program.

This, apparently, once fully implemented, would generate somewhere between $10 million and $20 million annually for highway improvement projects. This money is put into a transportation partnership fund where the revenues received are going, I believe, into innovative directions for improving transportation, transportation systems, perhaps even road systems, I do not know. It sounds like a very interesting direction to go, and I am wondering if we are contemplating anything similar in this province.

Mr. Findlay: Yes, Saskatchewan has had that partnership process in place, I think, primarily in the lumber industry where they sign an agreement with a company to run overweight trucks. They calculate what the incremental damage is to the road by the heavier truck, then calculate, as the member has indicated, the increased gain for the company, and they share in that increased gain in revenue. The company pays extra for running those extra weight trucks through the province which then theoretically should be using that money to further upgrade the roads that are impacted, because these extra weights will impact the roads and cause them to deteriorate faster.

We have actually done that kind of arrangement with Regal Feeds on a piece of road that was within one year of being reconstructed, and they wanted to run heavier weights. We said what the incremental damage will be, we struck an agreement on what that would be, and they paid it. We are in similar discussion with companies in the oil industry and Moose Lake Loggers about being able to run extra weight loads. We will be compensated for the extra impact on the road, and they will increase their efficiency and productivity which is a positive for them.

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We hope that, of course, that would make them more competitive in dealing with their industry; it is under discussion. Clearly if you run extra axle weights, extra truck weights, there is impact on the road. So there is the cost, the lifetime of the road will be shortened, and you have to come back and rebuild it sooner, and you have got to gain some revenue from that process to do it. That is what Saskatchewan is doing and what we are doing in isolated cases and will do it on a broader basis once we feel we have a policy that adequately reimburses us for our extra cost.

Mr. Jennissen: I wonder if we could switch gears a little bit and head into some safety and licensing issues. From May 18, for a period of two weeks, there was a vehicle inspection program in the city and, I believe, beyond the city. I am looking at the headlines. I am fully aware that the press sometimes exaggerates things somewhat, not always in our favour. I do have the Winnipeg Free Press of May 27, 1998, saying: Lemons lurking on city's streets. Then in the same Free Press on May 23: 80% of cars on road have safety problem, spot inspections find. I think the Sun on May 27 has the headline: Blitz dings trucks: Major defects found. And so on.

Would the minister care to comment on that? Are things worse than they were before?

Mr. Findlay: Well, Mr. Chairman, a number of things are taking place, a number of initiatives are happening to stimulate better vehicles, safer vehicles on the road. As the member surely is aware, you know, we instituted a PVIP, Public Vehicle Inspection Program, that requires that all vehicles on sale or change of ownership outside of family go through a safety inspection. Over 100,000 vehicles a year in Manitoba go through that process.

Annually we have what is called--it is a North American blitz--the CVSA, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. It has a three-day blitz. It happened in Manitoba here at the beginning of June. We as a department have inspectors out who can deal with things that can happen on the road, can stop vehicles and do an inspection. We have trained city police and RCMP people to carry out the programs that the member is referring to that have been reported in the Free Press. That started two years ago--I am not sure if it was three years ago--two or three years ago it started. It had not been done before. I think it is a very good idea to do that. It will pick off some vehicles that--you know, they target the vehicles--pick a vehicle that is obviously likely to have some problem with it, and that is good. Why not? Somebody is out there with a vehicle that is not up to spec, let us pick him off. It sends a signal that you better get your vehicles up to spec or you are subject to be caught in a blitz or caught in a spot inspection that you may not want to be in.

So the member asked, is it better or worse? My understanding, generally speaking, about the CVSA or the inspections in the city here is that it is slowly getting better, but they are pretty strict, and sometimes they say it is out of service. It may only mean a brake adjustment or a headlight or a turn signal light that is out. It is not that seriously difficult a thing to change, but if you are out operating on the road, you should have all your equipment operational. I think it is important to continue to do this.

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I also strongly support the stop check, spot check that they do at Christmastime. It should be done more often during the year. I think that the RCMP did it last weekend, or is it the city police? It was done in and around Winnipeg here a week or two ago. Again, it is a Christmastime process. It is a very good idea. It was done on a Friday before the long weekend maybe, in May. So it is good to do that to send a signal to the people that it is not acceptable to drink and drive. It is not acceptable to drive without a licence. It is not acceptable to drive a junker.

Some legislative changes that we have done as a government, the Stolen and Wrecked Vehicle Initiative is being done across the country. We are one of I think it is five provinces in all that implemented the legislation, again to prevent us from being a dumping ground for these stolen and wrecked vehicles that are put back on the road and get a licence and away they go. We are making it very, very difficult for bad vehicles to be on the road.

So there are a whole series of initiatives that are being done provincially, nationally, with the concept of being sure that we have better and safer vehicles and more responsible operation of those vehicles. We certainly appreciate the ability of the police to put some man hours and some resources to the inspections they are doing. I want to reiterate to the member, they were trained by us to do what they are doing.

Mr. Jennissen: Mr. Chair, in January I received an e-mail message from a person, and he talks about the failure of the Motor Vehicle Inspection Program. I do not normally like to read fairly lengthy letters, but this one touches on a group of issues that seem to reach my office on occasion. It sort of summarizes a lot of other complaints that I have been getting. So, if you will bear with me, I would like to read that into the record and have the minister comment on some of the allegations that are being made, or some of the suggestions being offered.

It starts off with the following: I wish to draw your attention to the problem-plagued history of this program--meaning the Motor Vehicle Inspection Program--since it has been implemented in 1995. The January 6 segment of Buyer Beware on CBC 24 Hours highlighted another instance of inconsistent and erroneous inspection results that were obtained when a sample vehicle was submitted in several government-authorized and licenced inspection stations.

This experience was no different than the results that have been uncovered in past 24 Hours stories on this program since its inception. In every case, including this one, the provincial officials' response is that the problem will be followed up and addressed, but as past and present history illustrates, this has not worked. I believe that the main motivation for the implementation of this program was to support the interests of the auto repair industry under the guise of protecting the public from unsafe vehicles. However, the public is not being protected from incompetent repair facilities and are left having to go from one repair facility to another in the hopes of getting an accurate inspection.

In the January 6 Buyer Beware segment, the provincial official interviewed indicated that the consumer must bear the responsibility of finding a competent repair facility. The government licensing and training process for inspection facilities is obviously a failure, if it cannot give the public an assurance of accurate inspection being performed by these facilities. The provincial government, in effect, is indicating that this program has been less than successful in that, they continue to provide a provincially staffed inspection station for consumers who are dissatisfied with inspection results from one of the privately run facilities. I say this is an admission of failure because why else would the government have the need to make this option available to the public if the private facilities were doing a satisfactory job?

I also believe that the provision and operation of this program should be returned to public jurisdiction and that inspections should be performed by provincial staff who have no benefit or profits to gain from the repairs that have to be done to the consumer's vehicle. In that way, the consumer could at least have some assurance of the objectivity of the inspection. In the present circumstance, the privately run stations stand to profit from the repairs that the consumer has to have performed in order to continue to drive their vehicles.

The government has had numerous opportunities to correct the problems with this program since its inception. What has been done to date has not worked, to the continued detriment of the consumer.

Now, the minister undoubtedly would wish to respond to some of those comments.

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, I will give some general answers to what the member raised, but I would hope that he is not promoting that we should just say to heck with it and put unsafe vehicles on the road. I would hope not. If that is the general inspiration for what we are doing, generally, we take the position that the registrar of motor vehicles should not allow a vehicle to be registered and insured without knowing whether or not the vehicle is safe and in roadworthy condition. That is a reasonable degree of consumer protection.

The PVIP program has in place across the province 900 stations with approximately 3,000 people registered to do that sort of inspections. The member says, well, let us go to a public system. Can you imagine how far you would have to drive to get to where we can afford to have the next station? The system we have is broadly spread, easily accessible, pretty well every community right across the province. If it was a government system, you would have a station in Winnipeg, one in Brandon, and one in Thompson, instead of 900 for easy public access all over the province.

This is not an absolute precise science. The member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans) is close enough to the industry. He probably knows. You inspect, and the book says--and the book is pretty thick and has a lot of detail, but everybody's eyes are not exactly the same, and you say, well, should it be three-sixteenths on the brake, and it is just, you know, I know it is over or under. Now, the owner of the vehicle would love you to err and say it is okay. But two weeks later that is going to be under. Should you be fixing the brakes today, or when it fails when your teenager is driving it two weeks later?

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I hear complaints saying, oh, they err, they are all over the ballpark. But at the end of the day, if you had to do some repairs, you know you have got a safer vehicle. We work hard as a department to be sure that we deal with the complaints, and that is why we have got staff that will go out and deal with the customer complaints. We have got 109,000 inspections, and if we get one, five, 10, or 25 complaints, man, percentage-wise, we have got a tremendously well-functioning system. We are working with the customers, we are working with the garages to be sure everybody understands what it is, what is expected of them, and try to improve greater level of consistency.

The CBC, for some reason, does not want to have any program inspection of cars. I would not mind some day just stopping over at CBC and just checking all their cars to see if they should be out driving on the road. We want safe vehicles throughout. The member opposite wants safe vehicles throughout. We have vested interests out there that do not want that, and I am not prepared to listen to their bogus arguments. The department works hard, the industry works hard, the Motor Dealers Association works hard. We all want safer vehicles on the road. That is why I said earlier I support all the inspection programs that are ongoing out there, which have multiplied.

One could say, well, it is terrible, all the bad cars out there. What are you going to do about it? Let them keep running and not do any inspections, or go out there and do some inspections and find out there are some problems, identify them, make them fix them and send the signal that it is not acceptable.

Just like speeding. You send a few tickets. You send the message. A few tickets, you send a message that it is not acceptable to speed; it is not acceptable to have overweight trucks. It is not acceptable to have bad brakes in your vehicles. It is not acceptable to have your turn signals not working. This is all part of promoting greater public safety and greater customer confidence in the system. It is why we brought in the Stolen and Wrecked Vehicle Program. I mean, we do a lot of initiatives. I will guarantee we will not be perfect in all of them. We will work to try to get better and better, but human nature being what it is, people will make errors.

But if you say that the brake is one-thirty-second over or under, it is not the end of the world. Should it have passed? Should it have failed? If it is close, I say you should fix it anyway, your own protection. You are the one behind that wheel. Do you not want reliable brakes when you get into a situation where you need them or good tires or turn signals that work, so that the guy behind with the big truck knows you are going to make a turn? If you do not have a turn signal and you slow down, he might run over you. That is kind of serious. So it is your own person protection, public protection. We want safer, safer vehicles on the road.

We can drive down any street in the city, and I bet you we will pick out a few vehicles that we would suggest should be subjected to an inspection, but they are still out there, no matter what we do or how often we do it. I would suggest more and more inspections are important. We will never be perfect. I mean, even the ones that the police inspect, does anybody come around to verify that all their decisions are right? No, but I will bet you eight out of 10 or nine out of 10 are right.

That is pretty good from my point of view. We will always work to get better and better. The public servants involved here and the people in the garages all work to get better and better. The person who takes it in for an inspection is not required to get it fixed there. You have said, filling the pockets of the garage owners. The person has the right to take it elsewhere. There is one garage set up, I cannot think of the name, which does only the $40 inspections--only. You have to go somewhere else to get it fixed, so he has no vested interest in saying it requires more repairs or less. He is trying to do it accurately and responsibly. If you want total independence, maybe that is the right place to go. A person has the freedom to go there, go where he wants. If he wants to go to another place to get it repaired, you have got the freedom to do that. It is consumer choice. But at the end of the day, I believe we are trying to improve consumer protection and safety on the roads.

Mr. Jennissen: I think the minister is fully aware that we are all in favour of safer vehicles. I do not think that we can ever get to a stage where vehicles are too safe, and, yes, there are a lot of unsafe beaters on the road, but it is not entirely a bogus argument. I will give the minister one example.

I will stop with that, because I got a call less than a week ago from a lady in Sherridon, Manitoba. Now, if I can just briefly give the example, and she is typical of many, she bought a '84 Buick Park Avenue in the city here in Winnipeg, for $3,600. She felt the brakes were not right. The guy claimed he fixed them. She drove North, had a heck of a time, did not trust the vehicle, smelled carbon monoxide inside the vehicle, and did not know what to do. She was fairly young. She phoned Autopac. Autopac said take it to the nearest garage in Flin Flon. She did. Either Flin Flon or Creighton, I forget. I think it was Flin Flon. The garage would not let the car out of the garage at all. He said there were major safety defects. I think she listed 28, if I am not mistaken.

She phoned the dealer back in Winnipeg who also inspects vehicles. Did not agree with the amount of money needed to fix the car. He sent a guy up who drove the car back. I mean, the garage would not really let the car off its own premises. Yet, here is a dealer driving it back. So on those 800 kilometres that is a dangerous car. Now, again, I am sure he is going to ding this young lady with a lot of extra bills.

Those are the kind of stories I hear a lot as well, and it just does not make me feel good. I wonder if the minister would comment on that. I mean, what would have become of this young lady. I mean, obviously we have got inspectors that inspect cars, driving unsafe cars to their own premises. I think it was over 800 kilometres roughly.

Mr. Findlay: The system that existed prior to PVIP was that that backyard operator was not required to do any safety inspections on the car. He did not have to certify anything; if you sold it out of a dealership, you did. We levelled the playing field. I do not know where this person bought it, from a small operator or a curbside or from a large dealership, but if she bought the car and had it registered in her name, she had to have a safety certificate. Did she have a safety certificate? If she did and it had all these problems, we have got an issue with that particular garage, and that is why we have the staff to deal with that. You know, phone DDVL, and we will have a person deal with that station, because, if he is doing that sort of thing, that is unacceptable.

So the issue is to find out, because that is how we make it better out there. We have suspended some. We have sent a message. Some have decided they want to sue us for that. Big deal. We are interested in public safety here, and that is how we track the bad actors down.

I mean, the car industry, a politician, used car dealers and lawyers have all gotten treated similar. I mean, they do not have a lot of respect. There are still people out there who will take advantage of the vulnerable public, but, if she had a safety certificate and had all these problems, we have got somebody to target. So I would ask that some activity be taken to let DDVL know so that they can follow up on it if there was a safety certificate involved in the transfer.

* (1710)

Mr. Jennissen: I am interested in speeding up, because I know the member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans) wishes to ask some questions on roads. I will just ask one more question of the minister, at least at this stage, and that is multiyear drivers' licences. Are they in the offing? Because it seems to me that would make a lot of sense. You know, you pay for your driver's licence once in five years or three years, five years preferably. That I would think would be a good direction in which to be travelling.

Mr. Findlay: I must thank the member for that question, because it is an issue with me, and it has been an issue with me for a long time. I will tell about the frustration I have. There are 63 jurisdictions in North America that issue licences, only two that do not have multiyear licences. I would love to have a multiyear licence. In Manitoba you pay $13 for the licence, and, if you had to pay it once every four or five years, the financial cost, say, four years, $52, not that bad a hit. Everything is electronic today anyway, so if you lose your licence, suspended, it does not matter what paper you have got in your pocket, you can carry that licence for four years after a suspension. It does not mean anything, because the next cop who looks at it and checks the computer, it was suspended three and a half years ago. The paper does not mean a lot. It would be nice to have multiyear licences.

But you know what has been the problem is that every licence, we have through Autopac mandatory insurance that every licence carrier must hold, and there is good, legitimate argument why that is in place instead of insurance only on the vehicle, because often the vehicle is in an accident not because of what the vehicle did wrong but what the driver did wrong, and the driver may not own any vehicles. He drives out there quite irresponsibly because somebody else does all the repairs. He does not contribute anything to the insurance. So there are good, legitimate reasons why there is a tariff on every licence, and it has been in Manitoba for probably ever since Autopac came in. Certainly for a long time that has been the case. It used to be $35. I think it is now up to $45. A recent PUB, I think a year ago PUB increased it to--

An Honourable Member: Tax grab.

Mr. Findlay: What? Tax grab? No, no. It pays the insurance on your vehicle. So you add $45 a year for insurance plus $13 a year for licence, and now you are paying $58 a year. You multiply that by four or five for a multiyear licence, and now it becomes too big a hit. There would be public resistance to that, so they have asked for a process of payments every six months or every year, so you are still always going back and back.

I like the idea of multiyear licences. I wanted to have it implemented, but we ran into this roadblock. We felt that the combined insurance plus licence cost was too high for a person to pay, you know, $200 in one shot, and that is where it is hung up. The principle is right, but we are complicated by the insurance aspect that is added onto the licence, and I would not argue against that because I think it is good to have it there.

Mr. Chairperson: Does the honourable member for the Interlake have leave to ask his questions from the front row? Leave? Leave has been granted.

Mr. Clif Evans (Interlake): Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time that my colleague has given me here. I will ask the minister to respond to some of the issues that I am going to raise as he has done before, and that is by correspondence. When we talked during Estimates a few years back, the minister was able to provide--and I would like that again--but I would just like to find out directly from the minister on a few issues and let him know of a few road issues.

First of all, travelling in the past month, not only my constituency, but a few other constituencies, I noticed, of course, the potholes that we have in some of our roads. In my constituency, I can name you Highway 68 from Poplarfield to Highway 6, and also in the stretch between Teulon and Inwood on Highway 17. I was just on Highway 68 coming back from Dauphin yesterday, and I really want to know what is the schedule that the department has to get that portion of 68 repaired?

There has been absolutely no work. I have been on that road 10 times in the last month between Poplarfield and Eriksdale and it is a disaster, an absolute disaster. Now, I can appreciate that the department has to deal with a lot of roads right now with the same situation, but nobody is seeing anything being done. Just last week I was called about the same situation, called about 224, going through Peguis, the same kind of situation where it has just gotten to the point that it is undrivable in some spots. I mean, coming back from Dauphin yesterday, I even had to slow down to maybe 60, 70 kilometres an hour.

An Honourable Member: That was the speed limit, likely.

Mr. C. Evans: No, the speed limit was 100, and it is not like me to have to slow down when it comes to trying to get to somewhere, but I am not being critical here. I am asking what is the schedule?

I noticed that at the Poplarfield yard, the plant was going, but people are saying what is happening with it? It is real bad. Of course, the trucks are still hammering it, and it has become a very bad safety situation, and vehicle-wise, too. I mean, we hit a few spots that were unmarked that I am sure that I will be having to check my shocks and that. That is not just for me, that is for everybody that travels that road.

Mr. Findlay: Well, certainly what the member has identified is, not that it will make him feel any better, but not unique to the roads. I will tell him some of the technical reasons behind why it is happening.

That has been an unusual year for road break-up. It is all over the province. There are not good reasons why in many cases, but it has just been a bad break-up year. I read a news release from Saskatchewan yesterday, where, you know, they called them golf courses, bad news all over Saskatchewan, too.

In dealing with 68, what you will see in the next two or three weeks will be such an incredible improvement over what you are seeing so far, is the break-ups happen, the potholes popped, and the department does not feel it is appropriate to go back and put a patch in at this stage because there is moisture underneath in the subgrade, and they want the subgrade to dry out. They call it, let the subgrade heal, and they put gravel and calcium in, which, you know, the big trucks pop it out quicker than we would like. Once that subgrade is dried out, then they will come back with the permanent asphalt patch, and that is usually around about this time, about mid-June. That is why you see the plant running. The time has come that the subgrade has healed enough, dried out, that you put the permanent patch in without it popping out with moisture rising. So that is the technical reason behind it. I would like it not to happen, but it does happen. I have seen where they have put some of the permanent patches in.

You must appreciate I might drive 16 highway once in a while. Then they are out there in the last couple of weeks putting permanent patches in, not just filling in the hole, but cutting out a pretty big square. I think this year they have done a beautiful job, better than I have ever seen with the equipment they have got, doing a better job than ever in terms of laying it in nice and smooth, but it is deemed appropriate to do that after it is appropriately dried out so there is not moisture trapped that causes a further problem. So that is what is behind it. We are committed to do it, we must do it, and I think our staff basically do a very good job, but there are climatic limitations to how quickly you can do the perfect fix.

Mr. C. Evans: I certainly appreciate the minister's answer to that. It is also what I have been trying to say. I have called the department and have always had a tremendous response from the department when I do call to make these inquiries. But as the minister may or may not know, in most cases the technological explanation is not what they want to hear. They want it done, but I am certainly hoping that we can get at it as quickly as possible with those and, of course, all the other conditions, because I drove 68 right from Dauphin and I saw in Mr. Cummings's constituency, I said to my wife, it is like we are driving through the Interlake.

An Honourable Member: No special treatment.

Mr. C. Evans: No. So I know that it is a situation across the province. I would like to put the minister, make him aware, I have written to you and you have responded about 326 from 329 north. I have been lobbied, and I have spoken about it in a few of our debates. I have requested that the department do a road count on that portion--

An Honourable Member: On the first five miles approximately?

* (1720)

Mr. C. Evans: Right, right. Again, I have been lobbied by all the companies that are situated there, have expanded, if the minister would go back and see in Hansard that I have used these examples. The community area, the population has grown, the companies have expanded, so, of course, people have moved into the area. It is a direct line. That portion, of course, goes on to Arborg or turns east to go to Riverton, which is pavement, so people are going from pavement north on 326 from pavement onto this gravel. Not only does the community that lives there but the people that have businesses there use Riverton and Arborg as a source of services, so they travel that road an awful, awful lot. The request, I guess, is going to come from the area people, through me to yourself, to have a meeting with you to discuss that portion of the road and, of course, get the municipality onside.

In the meantime, their concern is a bit of upgrade and maintenance on that road. I can tell the minister through personal experience that it is--and I know there has not been any gravel as yet put on that portion of the road--extremely dangerous. It is very dusty. It is the type of--I am not an engineer, so I do not know the type of soil or gravel or whatever that is on it, but it is very, very, very dangerous. The communities are asking: is there something that can be done in the interim as far as that dust control and upgrading that road with maintenance so that it is much safer?

The truck traffic on that road, just to let the minister know, has increased. The volume of traffic has increased. People used to by-pass that portion of the road, except those that lived near there. Now, with the business that is there, the trucks coming from Vidir and from the other businesses are large, big trucks, and they transport, as I said in one of my debates, all across the United States and Canada.

So I am wondering if the minister can respond by at least saying that the department will go out there seriously, look at the situation, and, perhaps, even be so good as to stop in and talk to some of the businesses around there just to get it first-hand from them.

Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, I think I can make the member a little bit happier before the day is over. We have met with the people there, and we have a program started last year where all gravel roads over 250 vehicles a day will receive dust control. [interjection]

That road qualifies. It is up to 310 now, so it will be done and that means extra gravel and dust control vis-a-vis calcium. So it will be done this year. Dust control, plus extra gravel, so that part is coming. It qualifies on exactly the stretch, of course, that the member is referring to because there is a high-traffic volume. So overall there should be an improvement seen.

Mr. C. Evans: Thank you very much, and I am very pleased to hear that. I was going to ask about the program with the 250. Is the department undergoing any process right now to determine--and I, of course, have talked about my constituency, some of the roads that I have been coming to the minister about. I give you 234 going to Pine Dock. We have requested road counts on that road, not just at a seasonal time either, because of the new development, new resort, that was built just in Pine Dock.

Matheson Island has also a tourist attraction. In speaking to the ownership of that resort, they tell me that, of course, with their expansion there too, the car travel has increased also. There are tourists coming from the south or coming to Winnipeg and then driving up, and they drive pavement until they hit that road. Then they hit, boom, and end up at this beautiful resort, and they wonder. So I was going to ask the minister if, in fact, gravel roads in my constituency--the minister can inform me which roads are being looked at and considered for this 250 and, of course--[interjection] All of them.

Mr. Findlay: The road the member is referring to, 234 north to Pine Dock has traffic counts of 130, 180, 180, 150 at different points along the road, so it is fairly well below 250. We will get the member a list of the roads in this constituency with regard to traffic counts--[interjection]

Yes, those that are going to be part of the 250 AEDT dust control program, so we will get you that. We think it works quite well. We are spending $1.6 million on that province-wide. There is extra gravel and the calcium as I mentioned, so there is a fair bit of money being spent already. I would like to lower that down to 200, but it would escalate the costs. It is just a matter of money. It comes right down to that.

Mr. C. Evans: I said off the record, a little bit of prevention, too, and 200 would, of course, increase the cost, but overall I think with good maintenance and--[interjection] Just a few more questions. Can the minister--and if he cannot now, I would appreciate a response on the situation, the issue that Lake Manitoba First Nations Dog Creek brought to the department's attention a year ago about extending 419 into the reserve. I know that the department met. What is the status of that road?

Mr. Findlay: Staff inform me that they have met with First Nations people and with the federal government. There is a memorandum of understanding being developed on a cost-sharing agreement to extend the road. There is a right-of-way issue. If we are going to build a road, we have to have the right-of-way. That is fundamental. You know that. So the process is moving along with the federal government involved, sharing in the cost to get this done, so it is in process.

An Honourable Member: It is only 12 miles.

Mr. Findlay: Yes, but--[interjection] By the sound of things, things are moving along. It will not happen overnight, but things are moving.

* (1730)

Mr. C. Evans: Because of time, I would ask the minister on record if he could, at earliest convenience, provide me with updated information from staff on the new construction of Highway 325, the condition and situation with Highway 329 from 326 west to 17, and, of course, Highway 8 from Gimli north, what the status on that road is. They are doing some work now on it around Winnipeg Beach. Of course, the questions are always, well, you know, everything stops at Gimli.

I feel that is a very fair comment by the people who use Highway 8, the folks that go to Hecla, the people that go to Pine Dock, Matheson Island, people that come to Riverton, live in Arborg or Riverton. That is a travelled road. It does need some upgrading, so I would appreciate a response to that. I do not know whether my colleague from Dauphin is going to raise the issue, but I will just raise it very quickly with the minister. I received a letter today from a Lydia Rawluk, and I do not know if the minister has had a chance to see that letter addressed to him, with respect to the condition of 328 from Highway 6 west. It is about a four-page letter.

An Honourable Member: The St. Martin area.

Mr. C. Evans: Yes, from St. Martin. The road is just a little north of St. Martin and then goes straight west, goes to Waterhen and onward. I do not know whose responsibility, whether it is the Dauphin zones area, part of it, or my District 2 area. It is something that has been complained about and raised with me and others, and the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) also. I am just wondering whether the department would take a look at that situation and see what can be done.

It also could become a very much travelled, more of a travelled road, I think, if the condition was better. You have all the population from the west end, you know, now having basically to go down to, I guess, 68 on the west side and then across. Then, of course, there are a lot of big cattle producers that are off that road. It seems like a desolate road in a way, but it is much travelled. I do not know what the road count is on it, but I would hope that the minister's department will address the letter and certainly address the situation. I cannot be sure whether the R.M. of Grahamdale and the Northern Affairs community and any R.M. or the First Nations community at the west end have approached the minister with this road or not, but I will certainly make sure that that process does occur.

So if a response from the minister on some of those roads--I will not keep him. I would just appreciate a follow-up on all the questions on the roads that I have asked so that I am aware.

Mr. Findlay: Mr. Chairman, just for the member's edification, traffic counts on 328, it is 160 at the east end, then it tapers off to 110; 50 in the middle; and it picks up at the west end 90 vehicles a day, so it is in that low category. But we will respond on all the roads mentioned with an updated written response as to where it is at. Highway 328 is a fairly long stretch of road, and I am sure what it needs is grade and gravel by the sound of it.

We deal with municipalities. We often ask, you know, you have got three or four or five requests, what is your priority? Because the best we can do is address the priority that is the most urgent. I am not aware of that having been raised to us, but we will review it, and anytime we are in discussion with the municipality in the area, which happens often because we deal with all kinds of requests for meetings, we will be sure to raise it.

As the member knows, Highway 6, a committee was formed last year to say where are the priorities on Highway 6, and that exists in many locations in the province. There is a committee of municipal officials all the way along giving us help, you know, work with us to help prioritize where the most urgent expenditures should happen. That happened last year and my response back to them wants them to do it in subsequent years. The target date is to do it by sometime in January so that it is information we have as we move into the decision in the next budget cycle.

Mr. C. Evans: Mr. Chair, just one final point and issue, and we are talking about the road counts and the 250 and the program that has been in place. I am just wondering, I did speak to a Grace Ponchon, who also wrote you a letter. She wrote on April 22 to you with respect to 233 from 17 going east.

Now, the Manitoba Pool elevator, the new elevator, is on that stretch of mile or so, or two. She talks in her letter about the health, the gravel and the dust, and I am hoping that the minister has responded to her. As of last week she had not heard anything from the department. I am wondering if that should not be seriously looked at for that program because of the elevator, because of the heavy traffic that goes down that road. I leave that with the minister and appreciate a response.

Mr. Findlay: We will respond.

Mr. Chairperson: Should I pass a few of the items?

Mr. Jennissen: Mr. Chair, I would like to ask one more question. Would it be all right if I asked one more question?

Mr. Chairperson: Yes, we have lots of time.

Mr. Jennissen: Then I think that would give us enough time possibly.

Mr. Chairperson: Okay.

Mr. Jennissen: I was happy to see the mayors meeting in the city here a while ago stressing and lobbying for the midcontinent trade corridor. I think that was exciting to see in Winnipeg. Also, it was interesting to see because of NAFTA, I guess, partially because of NAFTA, the need to upgrade our road systems. I was very interested in reading a bit of an article in the Winnipeg Free Press, Thursday, May 28, which was entitled: NAFTA forces the United States to update highways for surge in trade.

Apparently, the Intermodal Surface Transportations Efficiency Act, enforced in the United States since 1991, has put $26 billion yearly into the transportation system in the United States, and now they are going to update this with the Transportation Equity Act 21 known as TEA 21. That is $173 billion for highways, $2 billion for highway safety, $41 billion for mass transit. That is certainly an enormous amount of money and hard to sort of conceptualize, but we do not seem to be doing anything on that scale on this side of the border. I guess the final question basically to the minister is: how do we increase our effectiveness? How do we improve our lobbying efforts to bring the federal government on side to have the courage, the vision, the boldness, the money in place to make it happen on this side as well?

Mr. Chairperson in the Chair

Mr. Findlay: I will be quick. We certainly have addressed this issue with the federal minister, and I take it back to, I think I mentioned it earlier, way back in FDR's day, Roosevelt's day, they had the roads-to-market concept. It led to the Interstates, it has led to the ISTEA, it has lead to TEA 21. They are investing heavily in roads in the U.S. It improves their competitiveness vis-a-vis us, and we have said to the federal minister: how can we compete in trade if our infrastructure is not up to a reasonable par with the U.S.? They are investing in improving. We want them to do that because of our north-south trade activity, but we have got to do something on this side.

In the letter we have just sent to the federal minister, we have identified that he seemed to understand that reality, and he has given some small indication that he feels that the federal government should be giving more serious consideration to doing something if we are going to make trade competitive with the U.S. regarding our road system versus their road system. So that argument has been used with him. I think he realizes he does not have a good argument to say he can continue to sit still as the big money flows in in the U.S.

This is a quick aside. Out of that TEA 21 money, the Alaska Highway and through the Yukon gets $16 million totalling $95 million of expenditure of U.S. dollars on a Canadian road because they have given up on the Canadian investment in that road. I wish they would think the same in Manitoba. We would get U.S. money up here. But at least we get it up to the border.

I think in that TEA 21, 38 corridors were identified as potential recipients, and this north-south trade corridor, I-29 and I-35, is in the top three. So it is a very important corridor. It is going to get some investment. It is good for us in one respect. I say, thank God we have got No. 75 up to Winnipeg done. It does not mean that our initiatives are done, but we have got to try to continue to try to keep up. So thank you.

* (1740)

Mr. Chairperson: 15.1. Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $465,300--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $89,000--pass.

15.1.(c) Administrative Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $406,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $278,000--pass.

Mr. Jennissen: Mr. Chair, just one question I believe, and that is on the addendum at the bottom, the footnote No. 2: Increase due to implementation of government-wide desktop (computer work stations and related software) management strategy. Just for my own information, is this related to the Systemhouse project?

Mr. Findlay: Yes.

Mr. Jennissen: The various parts of the department where this is happening, that would be approximately $600,000, the cost? That is what I have added it up to.

Mr. Findlay: Staff says 598, so very close.

Mr. Jennissen: Sorry, it is short of my 601.7, but I am sure my math needs a little fine tuning, I am sure. Would anybody that is involved with computers for the department be involved in losing a job possibly because of this initiative?

Mr. Findlay: There are two SYs involved. One staffperson was redeployed back into the department and another staffperson took a job with SHL.

Mr. Jennissen: I am by no means a computer expert, but are those systems that are in place or being into place now, are they going to be year 2000 compliant?

Mr. Findlay: Yes.

Mr. Chairperson: Item 15.1.(d) Financial Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $643,400--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $230,700--pass.

Item 15.1.(e) Human Resources Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $786,000--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $243,800--pass.

Item 15.1.(f) Computer Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,606,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $634,100--pass.

Item 15.1.(g) Occupational Health and Safety (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $149,000--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $66,400--pass.

Item 15.2.(a) Management Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $381,900--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $58,000--pass.

Item 15.2.(b) Operations and Contracts (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,558,900--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $531,600--pass.

Item 15.2.(c) Bridges and Structures (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,958,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $369,300--pass.

Item 15.2.(d) Transportation Safety and Regulatory Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,709,200--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $692,900--pass.

Item 15.2.(e) Regional Offices (1) Eastern Region Office (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,281,700--pass (b) Other Expenditures $490,400--pass; (2) South Central Region Office (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,191,500--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $563,900--pass; (3) South Western Region Office (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,927,300--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $481,000--pass; (4) West Central Region Office (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,576,500--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $407,200--pass; (5) Northern Region Office (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,333,400--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $394,800--pass.

15.2.(f) Winter Roads $2,000,000--pass.

15.2.(g) Other Jurisdictions (1) Gross Expenditures $2,465,000--pass; (2) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($1,000,000)--pass.

15.2.(h) Planning and Design (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,680,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $488,200--pass.

15.2.(j) Northern Airports and Marine Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $3,231,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $2,395,000--pass.

15.2.(k) Materials and Research (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,646,000--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $532,000--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($1,049,200)--pass.

15.2.(m) Traffic Engineering (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $798,700--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $264,500--pass.

15.2.(n) Policy, Planning and Development (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,780,800--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $574,600--pass.

15.2.(p) Driver and Vehicle Licensing (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $11,320,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $6,112,600--pass; (3) Manitoba Public Insurance Cost-Sharing Agreement $4,653,800--pass.

15.2.(q) Boards and Committees (1) Motor Transport and Highway Traffic Boards (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $358,700--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $191,300--pass.

15.2.(q)(2) License Suspension Appeal Board and Medical Review Committee (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $236,400--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $99,100--pass.

15.2.(q)(3) Taxicab Board (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $319,600--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $96,900--pass.

Resolution 15.2: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $59,104,700 for Highways and Transportation, Highways and Transportation Programs, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.

* (1750)

15.3. Infrastructure Works: Operating (a) Maintenance Program $58,180,200--pass.

15.3.(b) Mechanical Equipment Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $6,741,400--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $16,436,800--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($23,178,200)--pass.

15.3. Expenditures Related to Capital (c) Construction and Upgrading of Provincial Trunk Highways, Provincial Roads and Related Projects $105,100,000--pass; (d) Aid to Cities, Towns and Villages $1,300,000--pass; (e) Work in Municipalities, Local Government Districts and Unorganized Territory $3,190,000--pass; (f) Rural Municipal Bridge Assistance Program $400,000--pass; (g) Other Projects $3,600,000--pass; (h) Less: Recoverable from Capital Initiatives ($5,000,000)--pass.

Resolution 15.3: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $166,770,200 for Highways and Transportation, Infrastructure Works, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.

We will now be moving on to the Minister's Salary. At this time, we ask the staff present if they would take their leave. We would like to thank them for coming to see the committee at this time and for all the great work in the past years, too.

15.1. Administration and Finance (a) Minister's Salary $26,300--pass.

Resolution 15.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $5,625,100 for Highways and Transportation, Administration and Finance, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.

This concludes the Department of Highways and Transportation.

Is it the will of the committee to call it six o'clock? [agreed] The hour being six o'clock, committee rise. Call in the Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Marcel Laurendeau): Is it the will of the House to call it six o'clock? [agreed]

The hour now being six o'clock, this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning (Thursday).