Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, if you could call Bill 2.

Bill 2–The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act

Madam Speaker: To resume adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 2, The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act (Loi modifiant la Loi sur les circonscriptions J lectorale), standing in the name of the honourable member for Broadway (Mr. Santos), who has 20 minutes remaining.

Mr. Conrad Santos (Broadway): Madam Speaker, I wish to speak now about what we may call the political formula, the justification, legitimation by which the rule of the few can be accepted by the many.

We talk about credenda of politics, the things that have to be believed by the people, by the masses, if they are to submit to the rule of the government by the few. One of these credenda of politics is the political formula which justifies the claim of those few in government to rule over the masses, over the many, over the people. In the days of absolutism, monarchies and kingdoms, the political formula was vox regni est vox Dei, the voice of the king is the voice of God. That was generally accepted by everyone, and we call it the divine right of kings. That political formula did not change for so many centuries, until after three violent revolutions, the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution.

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The formula now has changed into vox populi, vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God. Any true democrats have to subscribe to this view that the people, when they speak collectively, speak the divine with how they shall be governed.

Another credenda, another example of credenda is the belief among civilized people all over the world that the highest expression of leadership is the government. The government is the highest expression of human leadership in society. That is why we should logically infer from this statement that no government should be sued in its own court without its consent.

Now, the transition from the belief that the voice of the king is the voice of God to the now orthodox belief that the voice of the people is the voice of God illustrates the paradox of stability and change in our society. The paradox of stability and change, we can state briefly: the more things change, the more things seem to stay the same. If the organized, institutionalized political community of the people is to endure, the process of change should take place in the context of stability, in its own time, so that change may occur again. King Solomon said: One generation passeth, another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth and the sun goeth down, and then hasteth back where it arose. The wind goeth toward the south and returneth toward the north then whirleth about continually according to its circuits. All the rivers flow into the sea, but the sea is not full, and the water ultimately returneth where the water arose. Things that are to be shall be, and what has been done, it shall be done. There is nothing new under the sun.

Because we operate on the basis of incomplete knowledge of everything around us, none knoweth anything complete. We all operate on the basis of incomplete information. That is why man also knoweth not his time, as the fish that are caught in an evil net, as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of man ensnared in an evil time when it suddenly falls upon them.

Why must human laws and institutions change in the context of a framework of stability for the entire society? Thomas Jefferson stated that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As the human mind becomes developed, more enlightened, new discoveries are made, new truths are discovered, manners and opinions are changed, circumstances change, institution must advance also to keep pace with the times. This is what we are doing when we are amending institutional arrangement in our society such as this bill before us.

The persistence and stability of the political order which we have defined as the organized political community of people depends upon this expressed or implied consensus of the governed collectively to accept the rule of government, but this consensus is based on a core system of shared beliefs and values of the people. Underlying that fundamental framework of normative rules, we observe as members of the political system those rules that are promulgated by our chosen representatives that are according to the system to rule over us. But once this consensus, this agreement, this consent of the governed to obey is undermined, once this is weakened by all the shenanigans and mischievous trickeries and stratagems, which may or may not be legal but certainly morally bankrupt, unless a substitute such as the use of force is easily provided, the existing political arrangement of things breaks down. The structure of authority tumbles to the ground until such time as a new political organization is established with or without an interregnum period. Such a situation happened during the French Revolution of 1789 when the ancient regime collapsed, and then the Reign of Terror followed without any order before the civil authority was able to establish itself.

One type of change that is orderly and peaceful is the one that we are witnessing in civilized democratic society. This is the change of political and administrative personnel occupying positions in existing structure of authority in government prevalent in presidential or parliamentary types of government when a political party succeeds in a general election in securing a plurality or a majority of the support of the electorate, or, when a coalition of political parties in a multiparty system were able to form a coalition government.

We can see now that whoever becomes the majority party in government, the majority party in power is only there for the temporary duration during their tenure, and they are supposed to be stewards of the interests of everyone, the interests of all the people. They are trustees of the affairs, the future, present, destiny of all the people in the political system. You can imagine an employer who hires a steward to take care of his affairs. That is the government being hired by the people to take care of the affairs of the people.

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There is a parable of the unjust steward so written in the Good Book. There is an employer, a rich man who hired a steward who was a managerial, accountant, lawyer kind of type to handle the employer's affairs, but soon a rumour went around that this steward was thoroughly dishonest. So, the employer called him and said: What is this I hear about you stealing from me? Give an account of your stewardship or you may no longer be a steward. The steward said to himself: What shall I do? If I am through here as a steward, I am not able to dig ditches, and I am too proud to beg. Aha, I know exactly what to do. When I am out of the stewardship, I will have plenty of friends who will take care of me when I have lost my stewardship. So the steward invited each one of the debtors to his employer to discuss matters. He asked the first debtor: how much do you owe my employer? The debtor replied: 100 gallons of olive oil according to my contract which I signed. The steward said: tear up the contract, write another contract for 50.

The steward asked the second debtor: how much do you owe him? The second debtor answered: 100 bushels of wheat. The steward said: here is your contract. Replace it with 80 bushels of wheat.

The principal, the employer, had to admire the unjust stewards for being so shrewd, for it is true that the citizens of this world are more clever in being dishonest than the good and God-fearing ones. But shall I tell you to act the way they do, to buy friendship through cheating? Will such behaviour ensure your entry into the everlasting home in heaven? Of course not.

He who is faithful in that which is the least is also faithful also in that which is max, for unless you are honest in small matters, you would not be honest in large ones. If you cheat even a little, you would not be honest with greater responsibilities, and if you are untrustworthy in worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches in heaven? If you are not faithful with other people's money, why should you be entrusted with money of your own?

No public servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one or love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. No public servant can serve both God and Mammon. We cannot, as public people, serve both the interests of the people, whose collective voice we recognize as the voice of God, and at the same time the interests of the lords of money, who are only interested in themselves.

The word "Mammon" is an Aramaic word. It means riches. St. Augustine speaks about this when he talks about the idol of what is false and wicked. That is the Mammon. If anyone worships riches, it would be extremely difficult for him or her to do ethical, moral righteousness, because there can be no two masters, only one or the other.

What shall we do then? We have heard the saying, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Do they want to accumulate the wealth, the material things that come from the public purse, or do we want to accumulate the dignity and respectability from the people whom we serve? That is up for us to choose.

Now, I wish to focus on the relationship between authority to govern and morality, the relationship between the moral character of those who govern. I will borrow from an old master, and his name is Confucius. He is not a religious leader. He does not promise heaven or anything. He just dwells on the ethical morality of the ruling class in his society.

When asked about political rulers, the great master said: is the ruler not a philosopher who, though he be unrecognized, cherishes no resentment? What you do not wish done for yourself, do not do unto others. Remember, this is the same golden rule into which we have been inculcated. Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you. Positively put, do unto others what you want others to do to you. That is the teaching of the great master in that society about 5,000 years ago, even before the birth of Christ.

The two basic assumptions that permeate this Confucian ethics of the public service, the so-called Mandarin: the first assumption is that the common people are by nature because of their material needs in this world, greedy, that they are jealous, that they are lustful of things. The second assumption is that therefore the rulers have the moral obligation to inculcate into people's character whatever virtues define a good way of life in their own society by looking into the classics of antiquity until such moral values are morally internalized and become the habit and heart of the common people. When asked how one would improve one's own character, Confucius answered as follows: If one puts duty first and success after, will not that improve one's own character of the ruler? If one attacks one's own failings, instead of the failings of others, will that not remedy our personal faults?

How does the moral character of those who govern become inured to the general benefit of all the people in the political community? He continued: If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in personal character. If there is beauty in personal character, there will be harmony in the home. If there be harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world. So it is a whirlpool of goodness: goodness that starts from the individual goes to the member's family, the home; it goes to the community; it goes to the nation; and from the nation it goes to the entire world. That is the basis of civility and morality in society.

May I summarize, Madam Speaker, in a few statements. The effective powers of government derive from the consent of the governed. The governed gave their consent because they believe that people in government will work for their own collective interest. As soon as the people in government work for selfish interests or the interests of the few, they lost legitimacy to govern, and it is the right of the people to change their government. That is what we are having now. This is our system. Thank you.

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Mr. Gerard Jennissen (Flin Flon): Madam Speaker, I would be very happy to put a few words on record regarding The Electoral Divisions Amendment Act, Bill 2. I would like to put a few words on the record regarding the importance of the act and the position that this party has taken in supporting it, and why, despite our support, we still have some real concerns about that particular act.

I was before the commission, Madam Speaker, I believe it was in The Pas last September, if my memory serves me correctly, and I will be making some of the arguments that I was making before the commission then. I want to join others in thanking the commission members for their effort, for their concern, for travelling all over Manitoba, including northern Manitoba, although we would have wished they had spent more time in some of the aboriginal communities, but we do want to thank them for their hard work. We want to thank them for their ethical approach to the problem of equitably dividing the province in such a way that we have representation by population, but allowing for the variation that does exist and that we need to consider as well, because it is not merely a housekeeping item, so many bodies in the province divided by 57, a lot of other factors come into play. Particularly for northern MLAs, it would be the factor of travelling and adequately representing northern people.

The basic premise of the act is, I think, beyond debate. We certainly accept that and we support that. We support the independence of the commission and we would never, ever want to go back to a process that would allow for jerrymandering, which happened quite often in the past. I remember coming from Saskatchewan, under the Liberal regime of Ross Thatcher how one particular constituency in which I happened to be a teacher at the time changed from a square constituency, square in the sense of shape, four boundaries, to a constituency that ended up having 16 boundaries, and I cannot and my party does not support those kinds of antics.

I feel the North deserves five ridings. I have heard all the arguments why it should not, and I am sympathetic to some of the arguments and I am somewhat disappointed in the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), and I will quote the member for Inkster who said on April 19 in this Assembly. He believes in the one-vote, one-member system. He says I am sympathetic to the 25 percent and I know our party is sympathetic to the 25 percent. I would not personally support that it should be instituted, that it should be "shall be" 25 percent, I could not support that. I could see Elections Manitoba giving some guidance to be taking that into consideration along with the 10 percent. I do not believe that it should be "shall." I think that it would be a mistake.

I think, if I understand what the member for Inkster is saying, that he wants to go back to a rigid system where we have X number for population divided by 57 and that is where we should go, and that is not acceptable to northerners. It simply does not work. Madam Speaker, 25 percent variance was built into the system and some would argue that even that is not enough because when you take a look at representing your constituents, you cannot avoid the fact that for northern MLAs who want to do the same job that southern MLAs can do, travel becomes an extremely important factor.

I merely point out that for me to drive to Lynn Lake, which is one of the communities that I represent, that is over 1,000 kilometres. That would be, on that particular road, at least 11 or 12 hours of driving. If I want to do that in 10 hours at 100 kilometres an hour, I would be without a muffler, a windshield and brakes and possibly my life.

An Honourable Member: Can you claim it–Autopac will pay–because it is a government road?

Mr. Jennissen: Yes, the honourable member makes a good point.

Similarly when I go to Flin Flon, which is the largest of my communities, to drive it would take, if you stay within the speed limits, eight hours. If you drive like some honourable members drive, you might do it in seven hours. But nonetheless, it is roughly 800 kilometres. If I take an airplane which is a little faster but the service has been, shall we say, not frequent, although that is changing in the near future apparently for a little while, that plane ticket still costs me $800.36. That is a lot of money. It is not just a cost factor. It is servicing the people, being accessible to the people of the North.

If I want to go to Pukatawagan, what do I have to do? The honourable member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) would understand. I have to drive very early from Cranberry Portage, to The Pas, Grace Lake Airport, and I think that plane leaves, what, at seven in the morning?

An Honourable Member: Seven-thirty.

Mr. Jennissen: Seven-thirty in the morning, fly to Pukatawagan, and then hope that I can do whatever needs to be done in Pukatawagan Mathias Colomb First Nation that day and get out on the evening flight, but it may not be possible.

Now, members opposite must realize, specifically city members, that for them they can walk across their constituency, what, in half an hour? Twenty minutes?

An Honourable Member: Walk?

Mr. Jennissen: Well, for those that do walk, the ones that look slim and trim. Us northerners do not walk a lot. I just want to stress that the 25 percent variation is there for a very good reason. Travel is certainly one of those reasons, and there is another reason. The other reason is that we think that the population does not really reflect what the census figures tell us. I think that people believe that in some aboriginal communities on some of the reserves there might me underrepresentation by 15 or more percent, perhaps even higher. In fact, we know that the aboriginal people are in a baby boom situation, so we know the population is increasing. Therefore, I might ask myself, if that is the case and as some of the honourable members opposite say mining is booming in my constituency, then I should have a population increase over 1988. The sad fact is, Madam Speaker, I do not; a 20.8 percent decrease. So either the mining is going down, or there are not aboriginal babies being born as they say they are. Something does not quite add up.

What I think is happening is that the aboriginal population is being undercounted as is deliberately done when it comes to employment figures. The province merely ignores the fact that we have in some places like Tadoule Lake and Lac Brochet, 90-plus percent unemployment, or in the case of the Opaskwayak Nation, perhaps around the 60 percent level. The government ignores those facts. So figures themselves, Madam Speaker, only tell part of the story. What we want to do is we want to be able to represent our people as efficiently and as well as we can, as capably as we can. In order to do that, I do not see any sense in making the areas larger.

For example, I feel sorry for my honourable colleague, the member for Rupertsland (Mr. Robinson) who has to represent people in an area that must be roughly a third if not a quarter of Manitoba. That is a huge area, and many of those towns and many of those villages are not drive-in towns or villages. You have to fly in. The cost and the time are incredible, as I mentioned before. I could also add that if I want to go to some of my northern communities such as Brochet or Lac Brochet or Tadoule Lake, I have to then first drive to Thompson and catch a scheduled flight to one of those communities. I might not get out the same day. I might have to get out the next day, if the weather is okay.

Talking about northern weather, I am sure that the honourable Minister of Northern Affairs knows what weather is like. We were in South Indian Lake the other day, and it is not unusual for us to be caught in blizzards. I was caught in one last year, September 16, when the MP Bev Desjarlais and I went to visit Lac Brochet and Tadoule Lake. We ran into a blizzard–or flew into a blizzard would be a better word–the other day in South Indian Lake. It is only by the skill of good pilots that, you know, we seem to have trouble-free landings all the time. Sometimes we are not as lucky; so a lot of hazards involved with travelling in northern Manitoba. That has to be taken into consideration, Madam Speaker.

It is extremely difficult for one person–and I do not care which particular political party it is, but for one person to represent an area as big as Rupertsland or an area as big as Flin Flon or Thompson or The Pas, although The Pas and Thompson are somewhat, I believe, more manageable. I should not be speaking for my honourable colleagues. There are real concerns in travel and in being able to give fair and honest representation to the people of that region.

The variations that exist, the variations of 25 percent, are there for a reason. There is another reason, Madam Speaker, that we do not like to talk about, and that is that this is a high-need area. Some of the more prosperous parts of our province, I am not saying they deserve less representation, but if you live in an area and I am suggesting some of the very northern communities are such areas where unemployment is up to 90 percent, you know you are going to have social problems. You know that as soon as you see those figures, when people do not have a job, when there is no work to do, when the government appears to be less than enthusiastic about developing that region whether it is tourism or whether it is mining, whatever; diversification in what once were booming mining towns.

But in the far northern communities, as I said before, Madam Speaker, great unemployment, and great social problems. Our young people are very often despondent and without hope. Suicide is a serious problem. So is dependency on drugs and alcohol. Those are serious issues we have to wrestle with. I am not suggesting other members do not deal with those issues or do not face them, but I wonder if they face them to the same extent, to the same tragic reality level as I have to and some of my honourable members have to in northern Manitoba. So that is the reason why that 25 percent variation was there. That is the reason why I am arguing–although I know it is after the fact, but I would like it on the record–that the North deserves five seats. The North does deserve five seats. It is not a fact, but you could say that in terms of morality, in terms of justice, that would be the direction we ought to go.

Madam Speaker, I think northerners deserve the same kind of representation as southerners. I know that some kind of guidelines have to be used. I am fully aware of that, and you have to draw the line somewhere. I know that the commission members, independent and honourable as they all were–I do not doubt that for a minute–I think almost came to the conclusion we had four and a half seats in the North, but that is not quite the same as saying five seats.

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There is another reason why five seats would be useful, and that is that some of the regions that are lumped into the Flin Flon constituency do not naturally fit there. Some of the regions that are in the Rupertsland constituency do not naturally fit there. By that I mean that the people of Nelson House, for example, who were going to be put in the constituency of Flin Flon, more normally belong to Thompson. That is where they shop; that is where they go to the hospital, and so on Incidentally, Nelson House is back now, as it was, in the constituency of Thompson; however, when you go to some of those other constituencies, such as South Indian Lake, Lynn Lake and Leaf Rapids and northern constituencies, they more naturally fit with Churchill, or, they more naturally form their own region.

For example, there is no community of interest really between South Indian Lake and Flin Flon. I doubt very much if anybody from South Indian Lake ever gets to Flin Flon. If they are going to go anywhere by road–and that is most difficult because they have to go by ferry in the summer, then go by the south bay road through Thompson, south to Leaf Rapids and then to Winnipeg. They do not come anywhere near the Flin Flon part of the constituency. So there is no congruity of interest there whatsoever. The people up there do tell me that. They will say stuff like, yeah, we like you, but when Jay Cowan was there, he represented a region that we all felt we were part of. I can understand that, Madam Speaker.

Now, I know that not in every time can we do exactly what any particular region wants. We are cognizant of the figures that are there, but it seems somewhat weird that to get, for example, to Leaf Rapids or South Indian Lake I have to travel south till I hit Highways 10 and 39, the boundary between that and my colleague from The Pas. Then I have got to travel along that boundary for about 300 kilometres until I pass through the region that is represented by my colleague from Thompson. Then I have got to go way up north and hang a right, way right over top of that Thompson constituency, to get to an area that I represent. Those people over there feel they have a community of interest, and they deserve their own region, a northern region which would probably include Leaf Rapids, Lynn Lake, South Indian Lake, Churchill, and so on.

Madam Speaker, we want to be clear. We have put it on record before that we feel the North deserves that fifth seat, that the variation exists for it and that it should have been included. It was not included. We do not think that was fair.

I think I have put on record more or less what I think our people feel. They feel that there has to be an independent process that occasionally every 10 years in this case sets new boundaries. We agree with that. We support that. We think, however, at the same time, that the variations should have been more strictly interpreted, that the North is such a varied area, differences in languages, differences in ethnic backgrounds, and it is so widely disseminated, the population, is so sparsely populated, that in order to give those people the proper representation, we think we have no choice but, after the next time, perhaps 10 years from now, we have to revisit this issue again and give the northerners what they deserve, the representation that is a little closer to home.

Give us that fifth riding which represents a community of interests in the North around Churchill. That way perhaps we are a little bit closer to giving honest and fair representation because as MLAs we are then representing a smaller area that makes it easier for us to get around and meet the people on the ground. It is very easy in Winnipeg to make these theoretical divisions, as they always do within the perimeter, but the impact in the North is very often not measured.

We want to represent our people the best way we can, and one way of doing that is by making the size of those geographical units a lot smaller. I hope that the next time the commission seriously entertains the fifth northern seat and allows that full 25 percent variation to take effect. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: Question? Is the House ready for the question? The question before the House is second reading of Bill 2. Is it the will of the House to adopt the motion? Agreed?

Some Honourable Members: Agreed.

Madam Speaker: Agreed and so ordered.

Hon. David Newman (Deputy Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, on House business, I would like to have you call, please, Bills 3, 7, 8, 13 and 16 for second reading. I am wondering if we could proceed with the second reading of The Public Schools Amendment Act, Bill 7.