Hon. Darren Praznik (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, just a point of note, yesterday when we changed the sequence of Estimates here, it was only for, in fact, one day, so today we should revert back to the regular sequence of Estimates, just for clarification.

Madam Speaker, I will therefore move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Cummings), that this House do now resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Most Gracious Majesty.

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Mr. Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. The committee will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training. When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 16.1(b)(1) on page 46. Shall the item pass?

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, at the end of last time I had asked the minister about professional development activities in sustainable development in the past year, and I think the minister was going to–and Train the Trainer, both of them. I wondered if the minister had brought that material.

Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Education and Training): Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman, and I will say to the honourable member now that we made a number of undertakings yesterday, and we do not have all the responses yet, but as they come in, we will give them to the honourable member. We do not want to get too far behind on that. Mr. Carlyle and the department are working very hard to keep up with all the work that we are turning out for them here.

With respect to professional development for teachers, the honourable member did indeed ask about this. In order to address the mandate to communicate sustainable development concepts to teachers, university professors and K-S4 teachers, the Sustainable Development Initiative within Education and Training has organized and conducted the following workshops with Manitoba educators and future educators.

Sessions related to teacher training in Manitoba: On May 5 of this year the Graduate Adult Education course at the University of Manitoba, Teacher Education Program. The professor was Dr. John Didyk. Coming up on September 30, 1999, Undergraduate Social Foundations course at the University of Manitoba, Teacher Education Program, Professor Dr. Fred Drewe. Coming up October 21, 1999, Undergraduate Administration and Foundations course at the University of Manitoba, Teacher Education Program, Professors Dr. John Didyk and Dr. Dao Poonwassie. May 15, 1998, last year, Under-graduate School Organization course at the University of Manitoba, Teacher Education Program, Professors Dr. John Didyk and Dr. Fred Drewe.

Sessions related to professional development for teachers: April 30, 1999, SAG workshop, St. Vital School Division No. 6, How to Integrate Sustainable Development into the Manitoba Science Curriculum, session organized by Barb Shawcross. That was a half-day professional development session for teachers. On December 14, 1998, Integrating Sustainable Development into the Curriculum session at Ecole Guyot in St. Boniface, session for teachers K-6 organized by the school principal, Gerald Fouasse. The reason I am spelling these is because I had a chat yesterday with Hansard, and I think it is appropriate. October 25, 1998, a SAG workshop at St. Vital School Division No. 6, Integrating Sustainable Development into the K-4 curriculum. Session organized by Barb Shawcross, half-day professional development session for teachers.

Now sessions related to Manitoba Education and Training working with Learning for a Sustainable Future, otherwise known as LSF, to provide Train the Trainer workshops to Manitoba educators: December 1998, a two-day information session and workshop was held in Gimli with sustainable development educators in the province who have received professional development related to educating for sustainability. This was a co-ordinated event with LSF and MET, Manitoba Education and Training, funded by the Sustainable Develop-ment Innovation Fund and the organizer was Sandy Margetts.

An Honourable Member: A fine person.

Mr. McCrae: Known to the honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Tweed). I believe Sandy comes from the Killarney area or is it Boissevain?

An Honourable Member: Near.

Mr. McCrae: In southern Manitoba, we know that much. With respect to future sustainable development sessions arranged or planned, there is an SAG expected October 22, 1999, September to December of this year, providing sessions to undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Education Program. A Francophone Sustainable Development Integration session is in the process of being organized with Gerald Fouasse at Ecole Guyot school.

Now that is what I have to this point. I know I made a number of undertakings, and I am advised that more information will be made available later in the day.

Ms. Friesen: I wanted to ask a policy question about taxation and schools. I do not think I am on the right line anyway, but it is policy. It deals with institutions which are educational but which do not necessarily follow the Manitoba curriculum specifically, for example, English as a second language institutions or adult literacy institutions. They are charged, on a building that they would lease, the actual education tax which, for other institutions which follow the Manitoba curriculum, I understand would be forgiven or returned in some way.

I wonder if the minister could tell me where this policy lies, what the regulation is, and are there any opportunities for institutions in that position to talk to the minister, to talk to the government and to see if there are any kinds of changes or accommodations that could be made.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, issues related to municipal taxation on exempt or potentially exempt or under consideration for exemption buildings and properties come under the authority of the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach). That is something that the honourable member may want to raise with that minister. However, I know that public schools are exempt, subject to a certain number of acres of property being involved. Beyond that, if the honourable member wants me to, I can also raise the matter with the Minister of Rural Develop-ment or the honourable member can do it herself. Either way.

Ms. Friesen: Just for clarification, this would be in the city of Winnipeg. Would it still come under the Minister of Rural Development?

Mr. McCrae: Issues related to assessment and taxation are the responsibility of the Minister of Rural Development.

Mr. Chairperson: Item 16.1. Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $663,800–pass; (2) Other Expenditures $126,800–pass.

Item 16.1.(c) Native Education Directorate (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $358,900.

Ms. Friesen: I was pleased to see the addition of extra staff in this section of the department. This is Native Education Directorate. It increased by one staff person, one professional person. I wonder if the minister could outline for me what results are anticipated from the addition of one extra person.

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Mr. McCrae: As I alluded to on another day, Manitoba and Saskatchewan and other western provinces have a situation that is somewhat different from other provinces in Canada in that we have a higher proportion of aboriginal Canadians in our population. That presents tremendous opportunities for us. It also presents some challenges in achieving those opportunities. So we have an aboriginal education directorate in our department. The directorate is headed by Juliette Sabot, S-A-B-O-T. In that unit, in addition to the director, there is a secretary and three professional staff.

We know that the key to progress in dealing with any aboriginal issue or objective is dialogue, communication and understanding. We often hear that is missing in programs of the past which have resulted in little success and sometimes outright failure. We are going to see a day in Manitoba when many, many of the people seeking employment opportunities will be aboriginal Manitobans. We have to have a system in place which will accommodate bringing those aboriginal Manitobans into the workforce, and education is always the key, as we very well know. So we need, in that respect then, at the K-12 level and at post-secondary levels, more aboriginal involvement in our curriculum development, in the design of our programming. We need more aboriginal people to help us with that involvement. We need more meetings. We know we have lots of meetings, but we need more of those and better liaison with aboriginal leadership at all levels.

We need to forge more partnerships. I was pleased, and the honourable member I think was pleased, to see the relationship developed with Morris-MacDonald School Division and the Anokiiwin school. Now I got into trouble over this the other day. It is A-N-O-K-I-I-W-I-N. That partnership appears to be a very positive one, and no doubt it came about because of good, solid communication, understanding and consensus building. That is important.

This unit has a big job. Even though it is a small unit, we believe that we have made and can make further progress. The activities of the directorate, their overall program overview, is that they provide leadership and co-ordination for departmental initiatives in native education and training. The directorate works with Manitoba Education and Training and other government agencies, as well as with administrators, teachers, parents, students and native organizations, to ensure that the education system is responsive to the education of aboriginal students. I think that the honourable member knows very well that the rate of discontinuation, or drop-out rate if you like, is higher among Manitobans who are aboriginal, and that is an issue that this directorate needs to address and does address. A departmental Aboriginal Education and Training Strategy is being co-ordinated by the directorate. As Indian and Northern Affairs Canada devolves and transfers authority to First Nations self- government, the directorate represents Manitoba Education and Training in sectoral and policy development discussions related to self government.

To ensure a corporate approach to aboriginal education and training within Manitoba Education and Training is one of the main objectives. Another one is to promote the removal of systemic barriers to aboriginal student access in education and training. Another one is to oversee implementation of the department's Aboriginal Education and Training Strategy.

Manitoba Education and Training's education renewal initiative is committed to inclusionary education. The Native Education Directorate ensures that native education priorities are integrated into Manitoba Education and Training programs and activities. Those activities are co-ordinating the implementation of the Aboriginal Education and Training Strategy, participating in orientation and information sessions with educational stake-holders regarding aboriginal education and training policy directions, the promotion of the participation of aboriginal parents and communities in the education of their children, participation in the native education sector of the Western Canadian Protocol consortium, work with aboriginal and other educational partners to hold professional development activities and to provide cultural workshops and antiracist education training to department staff, educators, parents and community agencies.

I represent a constituency in which Brandon University is located, and Brandon University has, I think, been seen to be the university of choice for many, many aboriginal Manitobans. As one who attends convocation ceremonies and many other opportunities related to Brandon University, I know that aboriginal participation there is at a high level. I think there are good things to be said about the level of co-operation that exists between Brandon University–I single out Brandon University in this regard, simply because I am a little more familiar than I would, for obvious reasons, be with other universities, all of which, I know, are striving to create better and more opportunities for aboriginal Manitobans.

So I think that we have some very significant challenges and problems, challenging problems that we have on a national basis, and I know that aboriginal governments and nonaboriginal governments struggle along and have done for many, many years. As one who has been involved at the provincial level for 11 years, I sometimes feel the same frustrations as aboriginal people feel at the pace of progress regarding aboriginal issues. I think that there are times when I think we could do better. At times, I feel that aboriginal governments could do better, should do better, in the same way that we should. I sometimes think we inject a little too much politics into issues related to aboriginal Manitobans. I really despair about that. When I have in the past had opportunities to visit in aboriginal communities, I have despaired somewhat because if there could be better levels of co-operation, better levels of trust and understanding, I think we could make better progress.

So I hope the honourable member shares that concern; I think she does. In fact, we all do, but I am still trying very hard to understand–and maybe the Estimates is a good opportunity for the honourable member who is pretty knowledgeable with respect to aboriginal issues and she could shed some light on how we might go about making better progress. I have heard some pretty interesting proposals over the years. Not all of them have worked, but when there is a real job to get done, it seems that people can pull together. I have seen examples of that too. So I have seen examples of pretty good success, and I have seen examples of outright failure. The failures still bother me as a Manitoban, as a child of western Canada growing up, all my life, going back to the time of my growing-up years and being concerned about this.

So, for me, it is a lifelong concern because I am not planning to leave western Canada, and I know my aboriginal compatriots are not planning to leave either, and our children and their children. So we have to find better ways. I have been convinced for a number of years that education is the key, education for aboriginals, and for nonaboriginals about aboriginal issues, but we need to get aboriginal people into the workplace. We need them in work related to social and community development. We need them in areas related to economic development, and I think that the more attention we can pay to the economic development side of that equation, the more success we are going to have on the social side in the long term too.

I know I am supposed to be the one answering all the questions, but if the honour-able member has any perspectives on this, I am sure interested in hearing them.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the minister, I am not sure, really addressed the question. I asked what difference the increase of an additional person would make in the plans of the department. What did they anticipate? What did the government anticipate as going to be accomplished in the next year with that additional person? For example, last year the government had said that they would produce a human resource development plan in aboriginal affairs for the department. I did not hear that in the minister's statement; perhaps, I missed it. If that was done, could the minister table it?

Basically, this is a very small section of the department for a very large task. It is a section of the department which has been considerably larger in earlier years, and so the reduced nature of this department is a very serious concern, which is why I said at the beginning that I was glad to see the addition of a single person, and I wondered how the government intended to deploy those additional resources and what additional impact this would have.

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Mr. McCrae: I am sorry, I did not mean to be unresponsive, and I will give the honourable member some better detail as to what is happening, what is being achieved. There is an operational framework, and it consists of the necessary structures, processes and data to support the strategy. Actions undertaken include a refocused mandate for the Native Education Directorate, which includes a greater role in policy development and ensuring policy and programming congruency. In addition, staffing was increased by two positions in 1998 and '99, and one position in this budget.

A permanent departmental working group has been established to identify and review activities necessary to achieve the goals of the strategy. An aboriginal advisory council is being established to advise and make recommen-dations to the minister on an ongoing basis with regard to the strategy. The development of base-line data and systems of indicators to track progress have been initiated. There is a human resource development plan being implemented, as referred to by the honourable member. That is being implemented within Manitoba Education and Training.

Aboriginal employees are being recruited as permanent, part-time and casual positions become available. Training designed to increase sensitivity and operational ability to better understand and meet the program needs of aboriginal people is currently being provided for our department staff at all levels, including senior staff.

It is very important that there be better preparation of our preschool children, if they are going to succeed. This is something we have touched on, and this is true everywhere, but it is acutely true in many aboriginal communities. Preschool children, too many of them, are presenting to school unprepared to begin their learning experience. This is for several factors.

I mean, when you consider that aboriginal Manitobans are unfortunate enough to have rates of family breakup, rates of alcoholism, rates of abuse, rates of suicide, rates of substance abuse, all of those indicators of the health of a society, for the reasons I alluded to, I believe the aboriginal population suffers, and, yes, contact with the justice system is another indicator. All of those things make it very clear and it is very obvious that that is going to have an effect on the children. The kids are coming to school not as prepared as success would suggest they should be.

The department has increased its collaboration with the Children and Youth Secretariat and the Departments of Health and Family Services with programs such as Aboriginal Head Start, BabyFirst and EarlyStart. Areas focusing on aboriginal children must ensure that the necessary linkages are in place to strengthen the meaningful involvement of aboriginal parents, families and communities in education.

When we are talking about programs, I think sometimes we go over it rather quickly, and we forget the human element involved. We need to look very carefully at exactly what is happening in these programs. I am a big supporter of these programs, but I want to know: are they achieving the kinds of results that we should be able to expect with the investment not only of the financial resources but also the human resources?

We have excellent people providing services under BabyFirst and EarlyStart and Aboriginal Head Start, but are they making the kinds of contacts and the frequency of contacts that are making a difference? Is it effective in the sense that are the people being well matched? For example, a public health nurse attending on a new aboriginal mom who has recently given birth, does that particular worker have the right chemistry with the person with whom he or she is working? Part of that, I would assume, would be if you are dealing with an aboriginal family, some background or some understanding of aboriginal culture and aboriginal issues would really be an asset for someone involved in a program like that.

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So I am interested in making sure that our hiring policies take that into account when we are hiring people for these types of jobs. Then there is that thing that you cannot really train for or maybe you can, but, still, is there the correct level of commitment on the part of the people working in the programs and are the programs going to be sufficient? In other words, are there going to be enough people in there? Will there be enough funding as we address each and every family, because some families are so dysfunctional, I am sorry to say, that they need a lot of contact, and some of them do not even want to accept much contact. That is something where we have to have people who are capable of dealing with that, because those contacts can be essentially important to the future success of that young child.

I think the commitment is here in this building amongst the parties and the politicians, but, you know, we are not always there at each and every contact that gets made. That does not mean that we are the experts either, but I do want to see evaluations of these programs within a reasonable period of time after they have had enough experience so that we can make good, sound judgments about whether they are achieving what we want them to achieve. I think there is general support for programs like this. I know there is. It is simply a question of making it work, because there is too much opportunity going to be lost if they do not work well.

With respect to curriculum and learning resources in school environments, effective and relevant and high-quality curriculum, learning resources, and inclusive learning environments for all students will increase the success of aboriginal students. The department has under-taken some specific actions in this area. Some examples include: Aboriginal perspectives con-tinue to be developed and integrated in all core curriculum. That is an important thing. If you want aboriginal students to feel that they belong in the classroom, that they do not feel different or that they are somehow being treated differently, I think it is important that the curriculum reflect the true nature of our province and the people in it.

Existing grants such as English Language Enrichment for Native Students have been reviewed for program and cost effectiveness. Recommendations for improving and strength-ening this program have been brought forward and are being reviewed. The students at risk innovations grant for 1999-2000 focuses on proposals for teacher action research, which includes aboriginal perspectives in the areas of instructional resource models. That is for K to S4 and English language arts and mathematics in the early years. A framework for aboriginal languages is currently in its final stages of completion and will be distributed later this year. The department will play a leadership role in ensuring that school and divisional plans provide the opportunity for building success for aboriginal students.

Now, with respect to transition from school to post-secondary and training programs and the workplace, I think there has been more talk about this in recent times than before. That is a recognition of two things, in my view. One of them is that in the past we were not even close enough to success in school and post-secondary and training programs to even talk about transition to the workplace, but I think we are now getting closer to that and we are able to do that.

The departmental transition working group has reviewed current transition programs and is developing a phased and co-ordinated transition strategy. Issues and programs affecting aboriginal students are an important part of this initiative. You do not have to reinvent wheels all the time, but we are going to be very interested in seeing how things work at Anokiiwin, because they seem to have their heads on pretty solid there. I enjoyed visiting with Mrs. Cowan and Mr. Starr when I was there. They seem to have their finger on the pulse of what is going on there. Time will tell and results, of course, everybody is going to be interested and anticipating some good results. There is certainly a good attitude there, and that is a great place to start. Issues and programs, as I said, affecting aboriginal students are an important part of this initiative.

Employment programs and services being accessed by aboriginal people through employ-ment training and youth programs have increased members. Partners for Careers exceeded its goal for 1997-'98, and that has been expanded. The identification of skills and occupations required in aboriginal communities has been included in the recently released high-demand occupation report. This information is disseminated to all aboriginal communities and reserves.

With respect to post-secondary programs, financial support, campus environment, and support services, the Council on Post-Secondary Education is developing an aboriginal post-secondary strategy. The Aboriginal Apprentice-ship Training Initiative will be expanded. A post-secondary partnerships committee with membership from universities and colleges with teacher education programs has been established and is examining ways of collaborating on short-term and long-term initiatives. As a result of this collaboration the summer institute on aboriginal education will be a joint institute for the first time since its inception. The partners are the University of Manitoba, Red River College, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg School Division No. 1, and Manitoba Education and Training.

It is more inclusive than it used to be. We have still got work to do here, but it used to be that the institutions, each having their own boards and their presidents and various autonomous aspects to their existence, were operating somewhat in isolation one from the other. Thanks to the Roblin report and thanks to having the Council on Post-Secondary Education in place, we are seeing greater levels of working together.

The honourable member asks what is different. Well, the U of W are involved now and the Red River College are involved. That is the difference, but that is a very significant thing. I know that one of the main reasons that the honourable member has supported the budget this year was that we have established the strategic fund for bringing universities, colleges, the workplace, the school systems together and collaborating so that we can get co-ordination in our system bringing about better results. So that is what is different. It is a very positive change. The old system simply was, I guess, fine at one time, but the realities of modern life suggest that the old isolationism was no longer going to meet the needs of the society of today and of the future.

With respect to partnerships on economic, social and health issues, the department has been participating with the federal government and aboriginal organizations and other provincial departments to address economic, social and health needs. Much more work needs to be done to work effectively across departments, across sectors and across jurisdictions. The same can be said across institutions. Much more work needs to be done. We are very pleased at what has been done, but we would never want to suggest that we have done all we can. For example, we need stronger linkage to the provincial framework for economic growth which has a direct relationship to skills development. Manitoba Education and Training is a key department and has been working very closely with the Manitoba Round Table on Sustainable Development to ensure a co-ordinated and comprehensive approach to the urban aboriginal strategy.

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The Native Education Directorate chairs a recently formed committee with membership from the federal government, the province, the City of Winnipeg and aboriginal organizations like the Manitoba Metis Federation, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg. This committee will develop an action plan focusing on literacy. The government has approved the goals and principles of an Aboriginal Education and Training Strategy, and the goals are to strengthen partnerships with the aboriginal community and other stakeholders. I think that we have seen examples of those strengthened partnerships. I know that there were some people who showed up at the Legislature who did not want to be a testament to the strength of the partnerships. I recognize that, but the people who attended here, I believe, are not the ones that are involved in those partnerships to the extent that we would like them to be, I guess, because they had certain things on their minds that day. But I do know that there are some very good partnerships.

It was just a few days after the demonstration here at the Legislature–it was not a very nice demonstration either–but shortly after that demonstration, I had the privilege of attending at the announcement of the partnership between the Anokiiwin and Morris-MacDonald School Division. There was a representative there from the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs who said we are breaking down different kinds of barricades today. This was only a week or so later. It made me wonder why barricades were being broken down a week sooner when there is a will on the part of some leaders to make a positive difference and to do it in a positive way. So I was pleased because I was a little bit concerned; I guess, it was on opening day of this Legislature when the demonstration happened here. There were some things that happened that day that I just cannot support. I was pleased to be there to see that some people did not really mean it. That is okay with me because it demonstrates a willingness to work together and put the politics aside.

Another goal is to increase the graduation rate. These are the main goals of our strategy. They are so obvious that they hardly need to be said, but we do need to strengthen partnerships with the aboriginal community and other stake-holders. We need to increase the graduation rate of aboriginal students, and we need to increase the labour market participation of aboriginal people.

In order to achieve the goals of the strategy and in addition to continuing current renewal initiatives, the Department of Education and Training has developed and is implementing an action plan. This plan includes special measures that make education and training more responsive to the aboriginal community. The plan continually evolves and is being used on an ongoing basis. Actions related to the strategy have been organized around seven major areas. In my comments, I have been referring to that operational framework. The framework consists of the necessary structures, processes and data to support the strategy, and they include a refocused mandate for the Native Education Directorate which includes a greater role in policy development and ensuring policy and programming congruency–I have already talked about this–which is part of the action plan related to the Aboriginal Education Strategy.

Ms. Friesen: Well, I enjoyed the minister's comment that the strategy was so obvious as to need hardly to be said, which I think was the point I made last year when it was confidential. It boggles the mind that it could take you five years to do that and then keep it confidential. But, yes, I absolutely agree with the minister on that one.

I had asked the question earlier about the training for all levels of department staff that this section of the department was to have done last year. I wondered if the minister could give me some report on that. I am particularly interested in the minister's plan to increase the aboriginal staffing in the department, and I wonder how that is going to be accomplished with a 10 percent cut in the provincial government staff that was promised in the throne speech.

Mr. McCrae: While I am talking about the increase in staffing, I will ask my staff to prepare for a response with respect to the training. I guess we need to know what kind of training the honourable member is referring to.

With respect to an increase in aboriginal staffing, the honourable member asks about how you can do that with a 10 percent cut. I think you need to go back to what was said. There will not be anybody leaving work unless they want to. It is expected that there will be a turnover in the foreseeable future, and that turnover should be in the area of 10 percent or so, which will allow us to reduce the level of the civil service. But it has always been an objective to hire as many aboriginal people as we can possibly hire in the public service, and that is done through the various programs that allow for certain points under affirmative action which allows for us to increase our complement where that is possible. You have to have people applying for jobs that become available.

I just wonder if the honourable member, though, is saying that–I guess they are opposed to reducing the civil service by that 10 percent which was announced in the throne speech, and that makes an interesting debate all by itself. Whether you are aboriginal or whatever you are in Manitoba, you need a government that is providing the services that it is supposed to be providing, but you do not need to have a government that has staff that are not necessary for the delivery of the programs.

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So that is a bigger and wider discussion which goes to the very heart of the differences between the honourable member's party's approach and that of my own party. I am very happy to engage in that discussion because you cannot support the budget and then turn around and pick it all apart either and disagree with it. I mean, you cannot do both. You can, but you cannot do both and be believed by anybody.

An Honourable Member: This is the throne speech, not the budget.

Mr. McCrae: This is true. The budget carries out–[interjection]

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. We will try and avoid these private discussions. The honourable minister will continue with his response and the answer to the question.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, I think that when we are talking about the reduction in the size of the civil service, that does not preclude civil services anywhere from trying to meet laudable objectives. I did not mean to get into an unduly animated debate with the honourable member about that, but I can see that it is clear where she stands with respect to reducing the size of the civil service. So I am just saying that that is a clear indication of the differences in approach of the two political parties. That is the only point I was making, and I did not mean to get things going unduly.

With respect to the training of departmental staff, the directorate has been engaging executive management and managers in the department with sessions to gain a better under-standing of aboriginal people and their culture and their issues so that we can deliver programs in a more appropriate way. Then it would be the expectation that all executive and management would make their staffs aware of those issues as well. There is a need for us to do that because, if we are going to achieve our mission as an education and training department, we are going to have to do that in order to make the progress we want to make.

There are a number of ways to increase aboriginal staffing, but you still have to have a workforce out there that is appropriately educated and trained to take the jobs that we can make available. So it is not a vicious circle, but it is a circle nonetheless. It is a circle of opportunity. We need to have increased aware-ness of the needs and the benefits in each branch of adding and recruiting aboriginal staff. Then we need to recruit aboriginal staff through the system of competitions and bulletins. That is an ongoing thing.

We have increased aboriginal representation over the years. There is opportunity for us to do that more, but the fact that an overall government policy relating to reducing the civil service, if you think it through, you can see that life goes on and governments go on, and in any given month or year in any given department, there is a turnover of staff and opportunity. Each time there is a staff vacancy, there is an opportunity to consider matters related to how we could make it possible for aboriginal people to fill those positions and provide services to Manitobans, whether they are aboriginal Manitobans or not. We cannot have two separate societies. That is not what is happening; that is not reality. So we have to have a society in which both aboriginal and nonaboriginal Manitobans can be comfortable working together, to build together a strong future for aboriginal people and for non-aboriginal people.

So I think we have the right attitude. I think we are moving in the right direction. I think that the people in the department have that right attitude. We know that we have some definite goals that we would like to achieve in terms of getting more and more aboriginal people accessing education opportunities which will make them fit for the many job opportunities there are. It would be interesting to know today how many eligible, able-bodied aboriginal people there are out there who are unemployed and look at the job market and link everybody up. That is the constant struggle, I think, of labour and education organizations to match the right people to the right jobs. But, at this point, we do not have everybody appropriately trained and educated. That is not something we can do by ourselves. It is not something the honourable member can mandate or that I can mandate, because you cannot force people to do things that they are not yet conditioned or wanting to do. That is what has to change as much as the other end where we need to make the opportunities available.

If we knew that there was a strong demand for a certain type of training and that there would be a significant uptake from the aboriginal community, we could identify that and design it and get it going, but you do not want to go and invest a bunch of money that is wasted too. So we have to go right back to virtually to conception of children in Manitoba and work from that point on. To me, that is one of the best things that we can do: to create a better formative period for young Manitobans so that by the time they are in the elementary school they already have a good attitude about education and about how to proceed through their formative years. As I understand it, a lot of Manitobans, a lot of aboriginal Manitobans drop out of school. What are the reasons for that? If we can make better progress answering that question and dealing with the answer, we will have a brighter future for those people. In filling every position, we have a very firm and effective employment equity component or selection criteria that we use in assisting declared candidates to achieve success in employment interviews.

So I think that we try in every way we know at this point. It is the ways we do not know yet that we have not tried, so we are always open for suggestions that will help improve that situation.

Ms. Friesen: Last year the minister's predecessor told me that the human resource development plan would include training for all levels of department staff. The minister is telling me today that it has been for executive management. I suppose the best reflection we could have on this is that the department has, as it has elsewhere, adopted a Train the Trainer mode and is assuming that the managers are training other people in the department.

I am interested then in these initial training sessions for executive management. How many managers have been trained? What is the nature of the training in the sense of how many training sessions were held, how many people attended, and what kind of resource materials were made available to the participants? Has this been done outside the department as well? I am thinking of across government with other partners.

The minister mentioned earlier, his recent answers have been wandering over a wide field, shall we say, encompassing a wide range of discussion. He talked at one point about the aboriginal Headstart Program. I wondered if he could tell me what the provincial participation in that is.

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Mr. McCrae: A couple of years ago a report was prepared in our department. We can update that report and make its contents available or known to the honourable member. We do have a role, but it is not our program. But I can make that provincial report and its contents, at least, available to the honourable member. This being essentially a federal program, we are a little unable at short notice to give very much information. What information we have we will make available to the honourable member.

Ms. Friesen: It was my understanding that it was a federal program, so I was a bit concerned when the minister put it in the same context, I think in the same sentence as the BabyFirst pilot project and the Children and Youth Secretariat co-operation. So I will be interested in receiving that.

The other part of my question dealt with the nature of the executive training that has gone on in the department.

Mr. McCrae: Just in general response to that comment, I really think that it is good if we can view these partnerships as something we can talk about. I cannot always be responsible for every-thing the partners do, but anything that is good for young aboriginal children, provided it works, is going to have my support.

That was what was missing in the previous response, Mr. Chairman. The honourable mem-ber took from my answer, rightly so, given the way I gave the answer, that the training and cultural awareness issues, the impression I left was that that was simply with the executive and the management, and that would have been incorrect.

There are programs being built with the input of management obviously for staff in the department, and the secretariat is engaged through the Program Development Branch of the department in providing this kind of training for staff of the department, not just the managers and executives.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, could the minister tell me how many staff have been trained, and could he give me some idea of the nature of the training?

Mr. McCrae: We will get a piece on that, and then make that available to the honourable member at the next sitting. Perhaps, this after-noon, maybe tomorrow.

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Ms. Friesen: The obvious goals of this section of the department, as the minister has stated them, are to increase the graduation rates of aboriginal people, and I questioned last year the base-line data for this. I notice in one of his answers the minister talked about the development of base-line data in a number of areas of education for aboriginal people. I want to come back to that in a minute, but the minister last time, the minister's predecessor told me that the department staff were working with the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics on aboriginal school-age population statistics division by division, and I wondered if that had been completed yet.

Mr. McCrae: I will have to review the commit-ment that was made to the honourable member, but in terms of–

Ms. Friesen: Shall I pass it to you?

Mr. McCrae: Well, that would be helpful. The part outlined by the honourable member, from Hansard from last year–my predecessor says that we work with the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics. That is true on aboriginal school-age population statistics, division by division, which might be interesting to the honourable member when it is compiled. Now I know why the honourable member is asking it this way.

It would be interesting to me too if it was compiled. That is the point. I have some information to share but not very much, unfortunately, because, simply put, there is no requirement in our system that anybody has to declare that they are a Status Indian or a non-Status Indian or a Metis person or whatever. This problem will persist until we can develop an acceptable definition of aboriginal and a workable means of identifying students, i.e., through self-declaration, for example.

So here is an area where I think the honourable member might understand the problem of definition. I mean, even the definition of what is a graduate I suppose could become an issue. It is a difficult area, but it is an important area. If that information was better and we had a clearer picture, I think it would be so helpful in developing responses and programs.

According to Manitoba Education and Training, English language enrichment–no, this is not going to help me very much. I would prefer to give the honourable member a complete answer, and I do not think I have one in this regard. We know by the demography of our province where the population centres are but, in terms of absolute numbers, it is not an easy one. I think we have to keep trying to deal with the issue raised by the honourable member as effectively as we can.

It is imprecise, some of the information that we have. That creates some problems, but it is not as serious a problem as you might think. I think it is pretty clear where some of the needs are. We can apply health data to these issues too, and I might recommend that to the department if they have not already done so. Organizations like the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and Evaluation have some pretty good data. Manitoba Health has very good data. I am told that one of the better databases anywhere is there. In terms of determinants of health, it can be helpful to us in our planning and education too.

So if the department has not already done so, I would certainly recommend that that is a source that they could turn to in addition to the Manitoba bureau of vital statistics and maybe Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and agencies like that. We are encouraging parents and children to self-declare when we do work-shops. We are considering a letter to school divisions to encourage this, but the honourable member knows and I know that that is not something that you can demand.

Ms. Friesen: It is a difficult area. I acknow-ledge that. It is certainly one that is sometimes made more difficult by the changing definitions that Statistics Canada is using. I do not know if the minister is familiar with the most recent census data. It makes it very difficult to make comparisons, which is the first principle one would think in census data. So that was going to be my follow-up question, essentially how has that most recent changed–it is not really a changed definition. It is a changed acceptance, I think. Basically what Statistics Canada did, it seems to me to have double-counted people, to have identified people who considered them-selves part aboriginal and to have identified themselves in census data as both aboriginal and something else. So for Metis people, I mean, the numbers simply are not comparable, and they tell you that. I mean, that is how they alert you. It is not comparable to the previous statistics, which makes it very difficult. I wondered how that had compounded the issues for Manitoba Education.

Manitoba Education and Training has been attempting to deal with this since all the time I have been in the Legislature. The pilot projects that were run on school database. It was not only aimed at aboriginal identification, but that was part of the issue. It was essentially trying to track students with a student number, and that had been going on before I came to the Legislature in the 1980s, late '80s, early '90s. There were pilot projects which–I will not go into the money that was spent on it. I assume, and we will get to the Schools Information project later on, that some of that is being dealt with now.

Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair

Yes, the issue is self-identification, but if self-identification remains as the constant, then at least you have got something comparable. That was why I was hopeful of the initiative that the minister talked about last time, of working with the Bureau of Statistics at least to enable us to have comparable data to track whatever success we can have in increasing the numbers of aboriginal graduates. That is the context of the question that I am asking.

The minister talked about, in an earlier section of one of his responses, developing a whole series of base-line data and systems of data, including areas of post-secondary education, so I wonder if the minister could tell me what the department's plans are in that area for systems of base-line data dealing with aboriginal education.

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Mr. McCrae: I have been around this place even longer than the honourable member, and my viewpoint, I guess, is quite different. I see some excellent progress. I see change in terms of attitude in this province which is a lot more positive than it ever was a number of years ago. That is very clear in every indicator that you can imagine. We believe that there needs to be an Education Indicators project. We have a unit for that. This has been created since the last Estimates. There is a secretary, there is a director, and there are two staff.

With respect to the aboriginal question, I know that we will be greatly assisted if we could get past the problem of identification and get greater participation in terms of self-declaration. We made some progress there, but we would like to see more. The complement for this indicators unit was completed in February of this year. It is composed, as I said, of a director, a statistical analyst, a research analyst, and a clerical officer shared by those people. The mandate of the unit is to develop sets of education indicators that help monitor the performance of the province's K to S4 education system, promote critical inquiry, support provincial and local decision making and, where possible, enhance educational practice.

The focus of the indicators program is on developing outcome indicators. Additionally, the unit is also responsible for co-ordinating department-wide responses on all requests for information from the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. An advisory committee of stakeholders provides consultation to the department on the development of education indicators. This committee is chaired by Doug Edmond from School Division No. 1. Since its first meeting, in October 1998, the committee's major accomplishments include an action plan for developing education indicators being developed and shared with all Manitoba super-intendents and board chairs. In conjunction with the department, a public document on historical education statistical trends in Manitoba is being prepared for release this coming fall.

I think that, with the New Directions beginning to take hold in Manitoba, it is about the right time for this project, because, again, we want to measure individual students and basically the system through the standards and testing program that is part of New Directions. Well, we want to be able to find some way to measure the system-wide indicators of how the children are doing. An advisory committee, I talked about that.

There are current indicator developments that should be mentioned. Emphasis is on developing outcome indicators related to the following: student flow from kindergarten through public school; rates of student promotion, retention, mobility, school leaving, returning, migration and graduation; patterns of high school student course loads. The depart-ment is working with public school institutions to have the Manitoba Education and Training student number carried on to their administrative systems.

Student academic achievement is important. Test result rates related to a variety of factors, such as gender, size of school, qualifications of teacher, et cetera, comparison with other provinces of student performance levels on national assessments, receipt rates of academic scholarships and awards, student transitions and skill relevancy of graduates, a longitudinal study that has been initiated which will track students for four years after high school completion. First phase of the study is a survey of S4 students, which is currently in the field. It is a 20 percent sample of S4 students. The survey will collect information on the students' intentions following high school and their evaluation on how high school has prepared them for their planned future.

In 2001, these same students will be recontacted to find out what actually occurred to them after leaving high school and how they at that point reflect upon the preparation they received in high school. Future indicator developments: there is an area related to student citizenship achievement; participation rates in extracurricular activities; receipt rates from nonacademy awards; participation rates in community-based activities; rates of school-based crime, violence, suspensions; youth crime rates; youth employment and unemployment rates, et cetera.

Specifically a first task of the unit, as recommended by the indicators committee, is a survey of Senior 4 students, and it is looking specifically at student transitions. It has a question, No. 19, that is about aboriginal heritage. Here, again, the question goes like this: the Department of Education is working with aboriginal peoples to better understand opportunities afforded to aboriginal students. Which category best describes your heritage? The various aboriginal categories are status or treaty, nonstatus, Inuit, Metis, do not know, or, obviously, not of aboriginal ancestry. I assume nobody is compelled to answer questions, but that question is there, with a view to attempting to make this a more complete survey.

There is an interorganizational advisory committee for Education Indicators. This com-mittee will be composed of two representatives from each of the following education associations or organizations. They include the Department of Education and Training, the Manitoba Association of School Business Officials, the Manitoba Association of School Superintendents, the Manitoba Association of School Trustees, the Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools, the Manitoba Teachers' Society and the Manitoba Association of Parent Councils, as well as members at large as appointed by the minister. The minister asked Doug Edmond to act as chair of the committee.

Representatives identified to initiate committee work include the following: from Manitoba Education and Training, Jim Glen. Now, as we pointed out, Mr. Glen is retiring after some 25 years of yeoman service to his fellow Manitobans, and when his replacement is known, that person would be part of this. Suzanne Adnams is also on that. From the Manitoba Association of School Business Officials, Deann Lane and Linda Clark; Manitoba Association of School Super-intendents, Doug Edmond and Jerry Storie. Now, the honourable member will know Jerry Storie, and even Hansard will probably have a record of how to spell that name. I remember Jerry Storie very well in this Legislature, and I have had the pleasure more recently of doing some business with him as a school super-intendent for the Turtle Mountain School Division. Funny, Jerry is quite different today than he was in the other life when I knew him around this place.

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The Manitoba Association–

An Honourable Member: Perhaps you only had a nodding acquaintance before.

Mr. McCrae: You did?

An Honourable Member: Perhaps you only had a nodding acquaintance before, or not a nodding acquaintance.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. Hansard has difficulty recording more than one conversation at a time, so we would ask the committee to please come to order and the minister to finish his response.

Mr. McCrae: Jerry Storie is a product of south-central Manitoba, although he represented the Flin Flon constituency for–and I am sure did so very well in the opinion of the voters there because they kept returning him, and that was their judgment which I respect. But Jerry Storie is, in my view, a different person than he was when he was here. Something happens to us when we walk into that legislative Chamber. We become a different type of creature, and Jerry Storie was no exception to that rule, but he and I have, I think, hit it off fairly well in our new business relationship.

Representing the Association of School Trustees is L. Schieman and Jerry MacNeil. Now, I do not know if it was intended that the president of the association should be the representative. Then we have a new one, Mr. Doug McGiffin, and Mr. MacNeil will continue, although I understand Mr. MacNeil is planning retirement before too long, and that then would have to be reviewed as well. I guess the idea here is to get leadership from these organiza-tions. Organizations' memberships change, and their leadership changes from time to time.

The Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools is represented by Reg Klassen and Kirk Baldwin, and the Manitoba Teachers' Society, Ian MacIntyre. There, again, with the recent defeat of Mr. MacIntyre as president of the Manitoba Teachers' Society, they may review the membership on this committee as well. Then the Manitoba Association of Parent Councils will be represented by Doraine Wachniak and Peggy Lidstone. There will be members at large, Rodney Clifton and Diane Snyder, and ex officio will be John Carlyle.

So, the department, through the Education Indicators unit, will provide analytical and research support to the committee. The thing that I see here, and I am glad the honourable member raised this because in overall terms, something like education indicators can be extremely useful, especially as our society becomes more and more mobile, and people are exercising so many options that used not to exist and do now. This type of work will be extremely important but it is a big job, there is no doubt about that. So I am glad we have got these partnerships involved in the Education Indicators interorganizational advisory com-mittee.

It is like so many other things. There are advisory committees respecting things like school finance and curriculum and all these really important areas of endeavour in our education system.

I think Manitobans, generally speaking, have felt, and continue to feel, quite proud of our achievements in the education sector, and it is because we pay as much attention to detail as we do that we have built an education system that is probably second to none, or second to very few, in the whole world. So the indicators will, at some point in the future, be very reliable in terms of our ability to use them for policy development. I think that that will set us on a good course for the longer-term future.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I thank the minister for the information on the indicators project, which is further on in the department's Estimates. It is certainly something we have argued for, for a long time, brought to the attention of the department the Saskatchewan program, which has been going for a long time and which reports publicly, I think, in a very informative and responsible way. We look forward to those kinds of public reports from this section. Many of the things that the minister has outlined that are projects for the indicators section of the department, of course, would have answered questions that we have been raising in Estimates over the last 10 years in education.

As the minister says, of course, the proof of this is in the future. It is longitudinal; it is the comparisons over a long period of time. So, whereas I am glad to see this, I will point out that Saskatchewan and other provinces, although Saskatchewan is the one I am most familiar with, has done this for a long period of time, and that Manitoba over the last 10 years has been extremely slow to move in this area. It is not something which just affects the education planning and the education policies of Manitoba in this period. It is, of course, the absence of data for 20 or 30 years that will affect the kind of planning that goes on in the future.

Better to start it late than never. I hope that is has more immediate success than the department's statistical plans that are still under-way and still apparently are not providing the kind of information that we would like to see. What I assume from the minister's answer, and I will let the minister confirm or add to this, is that when he spoke earlier this morning about the Native Directorate preparing base-line data and systems of data, what he was referring to was, in fact, this indicators project. He was not referring to any particular subset of data that was specifically aboriginal, other than the question 19 that the minister read into the record.

Mr. McCrae: While the indicators unit is developing its work, the Native Directorate will, of course, rely on whatever quality information that it can in order to provide the overall policy advice that it is expected to provide to the various parts of the education system.

I heard what the honourable member said about the Saskatchewan indicators system, and I have no reason to disagree that they may be further advanced in terms of collection of data. I will always want to know a little more, I guess, about the quality of it and so on, but I take no issue with the honourable member.

I think that in Manitoba we take our place quite well. I suppose that, if you want to do a direct comparison of Manitoba and Saskat-chewan, you would have to extend it beyond simply whether they have a better data collection or better indicators system than we do and take it beyond that and look at results.

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I think of comments made about Manitobans and their level of skill overall, and we rate very well in surveys like that. Where are Manitobans today, the ones that we have, you know, in terms of taking their place in the world? I do not think Manitoba takes a back seat to anybody, including Saskatchewan. Where are we in health care? Well, we are head and shoulders ahead of Saskatchewan in terms of health care, which is a pretty good indicator of the quality of a society.

One of the best indicators of the quality of a society is the education system, and while I think we can acknowledge that because we have set up an indicators unit, that we have got work to do, on the other hand, I look at the economy generally, I look at how our economy in Manitoba is so much further along in terms of diversification than the province of Saskat-chewan.

I do not mean to speak ill of Saskatchewan. I have relatives there, and I have a long-standing relationship with the province of Saskatchewan, but I essentially am pretty positive about the province of Manitoba. I do not like to be foolishly positive or naively positive about Manitoba, but I look at export numbers and I look at jobs in high-tech industry, I look at the diversification of the economy.

Our economies were very similar not that many years ago–and the honourable member disagrees, but that is okay; that happens form time to time around here–when it comes to the reliance simply on the primary production of agricultural products is really where I am making my case here as much as anywhere. But moving on and even beyond value-added in agriculture to manufacturing and financial services and those sorts of indicators of diversification, I would challenge the honourable member who tends to disagree with me about this.

I would say that Manitoba is moving along quite nicely. I mean, just drive down Highway No. 1. I do it all the time. Drive down Highway No. 1, and remind yourself as you leave the area of the Perimeter Highway and you are driving west on No. 1 highway. You have only gone a few miles and you have come to Elie, Manitoba, where there has been developed over a hundred-million-dollar strawboard manufacturing plant which is value-added.

Drive a little farther and you come to Portage la Prairie, where they are producing a million pounds of French fries every day mostly for the American market. This was not there always. We are developing a potato industry which is second in the country, and there is still lots of interest. Drive down the highway just a little further and you get to Carberry, and there is another potato plant there. Drive a little further and you get to Brandon, where we are building the largest and most state-of-the-art hog-killing plant in the whole country, and we are putting virtually thousands of people to work in the plant alone, let alone out on the farms across the province.

I am not saying none of these things are happening in the province of Saskatchewan, but their rate of adjustment to the whole issue of grain transportation rate changes is different from ours. There is still a far greater reliance on primary production of things like wheat and barley and oats and canola and that is not wrong, because they have a lot of space in which to do that. The fact is that here in Manitoba we have taken advantage, and now in walks the legislative assistant to the Minister of Education and Training, the honourable member for Pembina (Mr. Dyck), he knows down in his area, all of the–no, it is in a neighbouring con-stituency, the largest book bindery in the country–

An Honourable Member: In Altona.

Mr. McCrae: –in the whole country is right there in the town of Altona. We have–

An Honourable Member: The largest recreational vehicles . . .

Mr. McCrae: Recreational vehicles, that is Winkler, is it not? That is in the honourable member's constituency, but we have canola crushing. I mean, we are talking about canola crushing. Head on up to Russell, Manitoba, where 1,200 tons of canola is crushed daily. Just get your mind's eye wide open and figure out how many carloads, railway carloads, of product comes out of that plant at Harrowby every single day. It is amazing. I say this because I made the point for the benefit of the honourable member for Pembina, that Manitoba is diversifying its economy faster than Saskatchewan is. I met with some disagreement from the honourable member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) on that point. I am just trying to go through that a little bit.

An Honourable Member: You need more examples?

Mr. McCrae: There are dozens of examples. In manufacturing–

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I would remind the members of the committee that we are trying to keep some decorum and order, so that the Hansard can record everything that is being said, which is normal and expected. So I would ask all honourable members to use some discretion when they are speaking outwardly. I thank all honourable members. The honourable minister to finish your response.

Mr. McCrae: Okay. I will finish up. I have probably got the honourable member for Pembina excited, and I do not mean to do that.

But I drive you down this road, Highway 1, or in the case of Russell, the Yellowhead Route, which is Highway 16. If we could come back from Russell on the Yellowhead Route you would see a lot of other developments along the way back to Winnipeg that demonstrate that we are diversifying.

Now diversification like that does not happen if you do not have an education system to support that sort of activity going on in our communities. What I gave was a tiny, tiny précis of the diversification and other activities that are going on which have diversified well past the farm gate, where a generation or two ago the majority of Manitobans were working in agricultural related industries. We now have financial industries employing more people than the agriculture industry.

An Honourable Member: Winkler itself has 400 businesses.

Mr. McCrae: Four hundred what?

An Honourable Member: Businesses.

Mr. McCrae: Winkler alone, I am told, has 400 businesses, which is a pretty significant point to make. But I am making a point, and the point is that you do not do this by not paying attention to the education requirements of your jurisdiction. I am not saying that Saskatchewan does not, but I am trying to be positive about Manitoba rather than negative. I think progress also requires a state of mind and Manitoba is different today than it was a dozen years ago.

It is a very, very different place. I am proud of that difference. It is important to point out that these directorates are not program units. They are directorates. They provide leadership, and they help co-ordinate others who actually do program. These directorates, they promote and they advocate and they advise. So the Native Directorate collaborates with the indicators unit as well to ensure that the plans and actions of the indicators unit address the needs that are identified by the Native Directorate unit.

A little while ago, for example, I referred to the S4 survey. With the S4 survey, a 20 percent sample of S4 students has been selected using a stratified random sample procedure applied at the school level. Stratification was conducted according to the region of the province; enrollment size of the school, whether it is a small or a medium or a large type size of school; the type of school, whether it is a public or an independent or a band school; the program, whether it is English, regular, franH ais, French immersion, business, or vocational. In total, 4,200 students within 62 schools are being surveyed as part of this sample in order to facilitate analysis on issues such as aboriginal students and geographic remoteness.

Frontier School Division and band-operated schools are being oversampled. In both these areas, all schools with S4 students will be included in the survey, adding 700 students in 200 schools to the survey. The survey will be mailed to selected schools in early May. Principals will be asked to have all S4 students in their school complete the survey during class time. In order to prepare classroom teachers for classroom implementation, an information sheet will be provided on the purpose of the study, as well as instructions on how to encourage students to complete the questionnaire. Principals will be asked to return the completed surveys to the department in postage-paid return envelopes. All student responses will be confidential. This is where there should be some comfort about identifying your ancestry. Hopefully that will be one of the results.

A public report will be released in late fall of 1999, this year. This document will not report results at an individual student or school level, but rather in aggregated format. The primary benefit is that the survey findings will be used to facilitate improved school division and depart-ment planning, as well as policy development related to the delivery of high school education across Manitoba. This is the purpose. These are good purposes, of having indicators and doing surveys, but I will bet you, when our indicators unit is up and running, when the results start pouring in, I should say, we will put what the honourable member said to the test because, much as I admire the things that go on in the province of Saskatchewan, there are some things that are not quite as admirable, but I admire a lot of things about Saskatchewan.

Essentially I think that you build yourself up by building yourself up and not by putting the other down. You certainly do not build yourself up by putting yourself down. That is what is so important about what is different today than a decade ago. Manitobans are feeling strong, Manitobans are feeling confident, and they have those feelings for good reasons. We have a good education system, we have had a good education system, and we are going to have a better one. Manitobans will just get stronger and stronger.

My point is that if Saskatchewan does not, well, they are going to be in our dust. We do not want that, because that is an important part of Canada too. As I say, we do not build ourselves up by kicking the other fellow. I do believe that the reference to Saskatchewan really is not all that helpful in a discussion of a quality education system like we have here in Manitoba.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I am interrupting the proceedings for the time being. We will recess until at the discretion for rising.

Committee rise.