LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA

Monday, April 19, 1993

 

The House met at 8 p.m.

 

ORDERS OF THE DAY (continued)

 

BUDGET DEBATE

(Eighth Day of Debate)

 

Mr. Speaker:  The hour being 8 p.m., resuming the adjourned debate, standing in the name of the honourable member for Thompson.

Mr. Steve Ashton (Thompson):  Mr. Speaker, when I began my remarks earlier today, I pointed to the mythology of the Conservative Party, the myths that we are seeing propagated by this Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) and this government in the current budget and Budget Debate.

      Mr. Speaker, it just amazes me how Conservatives, no matter what time in history, never change.  This is what I think has to be made very clear when one looks at the statements being made by the Minister of Finance and by other members of the Conservative Party.  They come and they say, as I said before today, these were tough decisions, these were the toughest decisions that the Minister of Finance could ever make, all people were sharing in the burden.

      The Minister of Finance said he was looking at the ability to pay.  I dealt with that earlier in pointing to the fact that the Minister of Finance is doing nothing more than repeating the same kind of mythology that Conservatives always preach, that they preached when Sterling Lyon was Premier, that they preached when Duff Roblin was Premier, that they preach through Brian Mulroney, that they preached in other countries throughout the world. Conservatives never change.  Their rhetoric never changes, Mr. Speaker.

      I asked people in this House the simple question:  Did the kind of things that this government did in its budget really surprise anyone?  Did it really surprise anyone that when the Minister of Finance was looking at breaking the fundamental promise of the Premier (Mr. Filmon) not to raise taxes he did look at two mechanisms?  One, expanding the sales tax to include items that will, in particular, hit low‑income people, doing it in a way with no offsets, no input credit, which is the case with the GST, and no tax credit offset.  This is more regressive than the GST even.  There is no offset in the budget for the GST of Clayton Manness and Gary Filmon, the GFST, as I put it.

      This is no surprise to anyone.  You know, it is the same thing as I said earlier.  The Minister of Finance spent most of his time talking about decisions in terms of revenue, in terms of that side of the ledger.  When one looks at the revenue side, I will argue that the mechanisms used by the Minister of Finance to raise revenue were regressive, but look again at the expenditures.  Who is being cut?  Does it surprise anyone that the Conservatives have cut, who?‑‑aboriginal people, people on welfare, seniors, the poor.  Does that surprise anyone?  No, Mr. Speaker.

      Let us put aside those Tory myths that somehow there are tough times, Mr. Speaker, and these are tough decisions and we are all sharing the pain.  How many of those members opposite and how many of the privileged friends who they are speaking so piously about in terms of sharing the pain, the person living in Tuxedo paying $4,000 worth of property tax, is now going to have to pay another $75 more?

      The person living in the Roblin‑Russell area‑‑and I ask that to the Conservative member representing that‑‑who is going from paying no tax because of the fact that they received full tax credits, is now paying $250.  Where is the sharing, Mr. Speaker? Where is the ability to pay in that?  Where is the ability to pay? [interjection] Well, you know, the Conservatives are almost shocked when anybody dares to challenge that.  What they do is they then turn around and they use the final myth.  They have been using this for‑‑[interjection] Oh, well, they may use other myths at times.  Pardon me, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) reminds me of that fact.

* (2005)

      You know, Mr. Speaker, they turn around and they say, you know, we had no other choice; this is not ideology; everybody is doing what we are doing; this is not ideology; we just have to do this.

      Well, it is interesting.  Almost any time period you go back in history, Conservatives have the same approach.  And is it any surprise in Manitoba that we do look around and we find this government saying, we do not have a policy, we are just doing what has to be done.  You know, I was reading from 1857, Sir William Harcourt‑‑no relation, I am sure, to the Premier of B.C.

An Honourable Member:  How do you know?

Mr. Ashton:  Well, maybe he is a relation.  He certainly has the same sense of wisdom, Mr. Speaker.

      He said in 1857:  It is not the metier of a Tory to have a policy any more than it is that of a king to be a democrat.  A Tory government may do very well without a policy just as a country gentleman may sit at home and live upon his rents.

      Well, Mr. Speaker, that was Tories in the 19th Century.  They did not need policies.  They would argue, well, you know, these were just the facts of life that you have such wretched poverty, that you had the perils that many people faced because of the rapid industrialization in terms of the societies in which they were in government.  There was no choice.  There was no ideology.  That just was the way it was.  Well, what really is the truth in terms of what the situation is, the choices that were made?  Was there no ideology in the Conservative approach in this budget?  Well, I would say to you that this budget is certainly the most ideological budget that a Conservative government has introduced in Manitoba.  I say a Conservative government because obviously any government, NDP governments, when they are in power, have their own ideology, their own approach, their own choices to be made. [interjection]

      Well, Mr. Speaker, even the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) acknowledged earlier that we have one of the most progressive taxation systems in the country, that we left this province with the most progressive taxation.  That has been said.  The Minister of Finance said it to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Findlay). The Canadian Tax Foundation quotes‑‑if the members wish to look at it‑‑the most progressive tax system in the province.  So I am saying quite up‑front that governments have ideologies and senses of who they represent, what they represent and what they wish to achieve in terms of goals.

      Mr. Speaker, the interesting thing is what this government has shown.  First of all, let us put it in perspective, because I think this is where the Conservative government should be warned about the course of action it is following.  It has brought in the most ideological budget of any Conservative government in history. [interjection] Ideology, indeed.  You know, it is interesting because, if one looks at what has happened in the rest of the world‑‑just look in the rest of the North American continent.  The United States has just turned its back on 12 years of right‑wing ideological government that has in many ways accentuated the social differences in that country, has led to the point where there are more private security guards now than there are police, where suburbs are being walled off from the decaying inner cities in the United States, where one sees a rise in terms of violence and gang violence, in terms of suffering.

      In fact, John Kenneth Galbraith has referred to, in his new book‑‑which I would recommend reading, which I have been going through‑‑when he talks about the culture of content, the contented, the underclass, the separation between the growing number of people who are finding themselves falling into that category and the culture of contentment bred by 12 years of Conservative ideology in practice.

      It is a direct attack on the poor, the dispossessed, minorities because it is a philosophy and an ideology that starts from the premise that those that have should not in any way, shape or form have to be concerned with those that have not.  It is based on that fundamental principle of greed and selfishness and avarice, but you know, Mr. Speaker, it is being rejected in the United States.  George Bush, who ran on a platform of no new taxes and then increased taxes and ignored the growing social chaos in the United States, is now on his farewell tour around the world going to Kuwait and various other places.  He is no longer president.

      I look at the situation in Canada right now.  The Finance minister talks about other jurisdictions.  I remember when this government came to power, there were eight or nine Conservative governments, including the Social Credit government.  There are now currently two provincial Conservative governments, one of which is before an election and may very well lose that election.  This government may very well be the last Conservative provincial government in this country.  Depending on what happens federally, they could very well end up being the last Conservative government in the continent.  What a scary thought, Mr. Speaker.

      When everybody else is throwing away the failed Conservative policies, we have now the dwindling number of Conservative governments, on the one hand, and this government bringing in its most ideological and right‑wing budget out of the six that this Finance minister has presented and, I would say, more right wing and more ideological than anything that Sterling Lyon ever brought in.  Is that an accident?

* (2010)

      Well, I say that this government is putting up the fences. There is a big fence running across the divide of this province right now.  It is being put up just south of the Swan River constituency.  It continues down, comes south of the Interlake constituency, cuts across the province, just sort of dips north a bit when it hits the Lac du Bonnet constituency.  Those people, to quote the Minister of Finance, they do not vote right.  So what happens?  The Flin Flon Crisis Centre gets cut.  Whoops, that is north of that‑‑[interjection] That is right.  The Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey).  Well, sorry.  I think that philosophy is being shared by the rest of the government now.

      Mr. Speaker, there is a divide.  There are fences being put up in the city of Winnipeg, you know, political fences because if one looks, there are no friendship centres in Tuxedo, there are no crisis centres.  Perhaps there are not people who look to the Manitoba Anti‑Poverty Organization in Tuxedo.  Those fences are being put up.  You know, I find it incredible that with those fences going up, there are whole groups of people being categorized as being targets for this government in terms of its cuts.  Because on the expenditure side, there is no doubt that they have targeted, in a very regressive manner, the poor, the disabled, seniors, aboriginal people, new Canadians in terms of the cuts in terms of multiculture.

      Is it any accident that to quote the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Downey)‑‑I am sorry, I want to attribute it correctly to the original source‑‑that quote, those people do not know how to vote right in the Conservative view.  It is not me who says that.  In fact, when the Minister of Northern Affairs said it, I will give him credit for one thing.  He said what a lot of people have told me that they always believe about the Conservatives.  They really do not care about the poor, and they do not care about the disabled, and they do not care about aboriginal people.

      When I talk to my constituents‑‑I talked to a woman who is disabled who spent four years living in a second‑floor apartment, her husband carrying her up every day in an area in Thompson which can only be categorized as a slum in terms of the conditions.  I have been in that apartment.  I know what it was like.  I have talked to her, and I have asked her for any concerns she has.  Her concern was in terms of what next.  She said, I was helping out at the friendship centre.  That was cut. The MLPH has been cut, she said.  She said social assistance recipients are being cut.  She said, I am lucky.  I am off social assistance right now.  My husband is working.  He has been cut. He is a public servant.  She said, I cannot afford to stay in my home right now.  What if they take my home away?  Do I go back to that second‑floor apartment, Mr. Speaker?

      These people know what the Tory ideology is about.  I can give you other examples of people I have talked to if the Finance minister wishes to question whether other people are saying this as well.  It is not just the opposition.

      I talked to someone who was working in the friendship centre in Thompson who said, I get paid $22,000 a year, and I provide service to 41 aboriginal seniors.  You know what they said, Mr. Speaker?  They said that when that cut was announced, they asked her.  They said, what are we going to do?  You are our window on the outside world, aboriginal seniors who look to her for access to service, who look to her for translation.  She sort of said, the second thing they said, that is the Conservatives for you, the same people were being cut.  They said, we might have known that; we could have expected that.

      I have talked to another individual‑‑and this is just last week‑‑who is on social assistance or was previously on social assistance, now a student, and asked how this government could target students on the Social Allowances Program.  You know, Mr. Speaker, she said, I realize that maybe those students do not vote for the Conservatives.  Maybe the Conservatives do not understand the concerns of those people, but how could they be so callous as to do that?  I could give you many more examples.  But that is the point.  The people understand that.  They understand what the Conservative Party is all about.

      I could continue further with the many comments the people have found, but whether you look back to the 19th Century or you look into the 20th Century or the 21st Century, Conservatives keep peddling the same line.  They say they are not ideological. There are no other choices, Mr. Speaker.  Yet what they do is they end up when the tough choices have to be made, funnily enough, the people who suffer are always the same.  It was the same under Sterling Lyon, and it is the same under this Premier. The only difference is the degree of it.

* (2015)

      There is another difference as well, Mr. Speaker, and this is what really disturbs me.  I mentioned before about the fences, the walls that have been put up, both physical and political walls.  But what concerns me is this government does not even come outside of those walls.  We had a demonstration on the steps of the Legislature a couple of weeks ago.

An Honourable Member:  We?

Mr. Ashton:  Not we‑‑that is right‑‑we as the province of Manitoba, we and the people.  Well, they sit here and they laugh, but the fact is this Premier did not have the courtesy to go and speak to 4,000 Manitobans who do not agree with him.

      Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Culture, Heritage and Citizenship (Mrs. Mitchelson) came in and gave a speech and left without answering a single question at the MIC meeting on Saturday.

      They have refused to talk to groups, to meet with groups that do not agree with them.  Not only that, but they have cut them as well.  They have cut them.  The Premier (Mr. Filmon) has got up and said, well, these are advocacy groups; they have to be cut. The only difference to my mind between advocacy and being advisory for this Premier is they like advisory groups.  Advisory groups agree with the Conservatives.  Advocacy groups are groups that do not agree with them, so advocacy groups get cut.  That is the only difference.  It can be the same process.  We see the favoured groups; we see those, the 56 that were cut entirely, whom they represent.

      Mr. Speaker, is this new?  Is this a new process?  No, it is not.  I took the time to read back, and it was interesting.  I was reading in terms of J.S. Woodsworth.  A lot of people may not realize this, but in 1916 when J.S. Woodsworth was working, at that particular point in time, on a prairie‑wide study of the poor, you know what happened?  He spoke out against the federal Conservative government.  What happened?  They cut the program that J.S. Woodsworth worked for.  So Tories of 1916 and Tories of 1993, the same ideology, the same approach.

      I talked about walls.  J.S. Woodsworth in 1911 said:  It seems to me the great task of statesmanship in this country in the coming years will be to break down that fence and bring together these great factors:  labour, natural resources, and the equipment of which we already have such abundance in Canada. Break down those fences, Mr. Speaker.

      I go further, because in 1911 the same august individual said, Mr. Speaker, that we are all neighbours.  He said, and I think this is something that this government could do well to learn from:  The welfare of one is the concern of all.  That is why we are so opposed to this budget and the ideology it represents.  This budget and this government are based on a single premise, that it can put up walls and fences, that it can say that certain people do not know how to vote right, that it can say that certain groups that do not agree with them can be cut, that it can target aboriginal people, the poor, working people, seniors, that it can try and divide and conquer.  But we know from history when the ideology of conservative parties becomes clear, as it is across North America, the Conservatives will find that there are more people out there that, in the words of J.S. Woodsworth, do feel that the welfare of one is the concern of all.

      I believe that is what is happening in this province at this present time.  A lot of people who are directly affected by the cuts are fighting back, but a lot of other people are saying this government just is not fair.

      I will predict right now, this is a watershed budget for this government.  By showing its true Tory ideology, Mr. Speaker, it is sowing the seeds for its defeat in the next election.  We will be saying we care about all, we do care about our neighbours, and we do not accept the tired ideology of the Conservative Finance minister, the Conservative Premier and the Conservative Party.

      Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier):  Mr. Speaker, I sense that the enthusiasm may be that I get on with the job, so that members can watch the hockey game, but I am always delighted to be able to stand up in one of our freewheeling debates, such as the throne speech and the budget, to add my contributions.  No matter how difficult the choices may have been or the presentation and putting together of the budget, I believe that this is a budget that is worthy of the support of all members of this House.  This is a budget that has been developed with a thought to the future in mind, the future of all the people of Manitoba.  I am pleased to be able to stand in this Assembly and speak on behalf of the sixth budget of this administration and to urge all members to support the budget for the way in which it presents an opportunity for the future for Manitobans.

* (2020)

      Mr. Speaker, as was the case with the throne speech for this fourth session of the 35th Legislature, the budget speech deals realistically with the problems that face Manitobans today.  It does not ignore them.  It does not attempt to avoid or postpone them.  It deals with them in a realistic fashion.

      The debate gives a real opportunity for us to separate the ideology and the philosophy that underlies the parties in this House.  It presents, I believe, a stark contrast between a group, the government side of the House, who are very, very realistic, not trying to paint an unduly optimistic or an unduly bleak picture, but rather to look in a very realistic fashion at things that face us as a government and as a people in Manitoba.

      On the other hand, we have the opportunity to listen to the contributions of members opposite.  They can be summarized, I think, very, very simply in saying that the members of the New Democratic Party, by virtue of their comments here in the Legislature, have learned nothing from the past and have offered us absolutely no alternatives‑‑and I will speak more about that‑‑have chosen as they always do in this House to simply criticize, criticize, criticize without offering any alternative, any substantive alternative, and have consistently, as they did throughout their time in government, advocated a tax‑and‑spend approach to government.

      They have said that any area of government in which we are spending money, we are not spending enough, that they would spend more and spend more and spend more.  Without answering it directly, indirectly by virtue of things that they do let out from time to time we know that the deficit would be higher except for the fact that some of it might be somewhat mitigated by tax increases, which has of course been the history of New Democrats in this province and every other province in Canada.

      The Liberals, on the other hand, have criticized, there is no question, and I say that some have been more positive and more balanced than others.  The member for Kildonan, who is listening attentively as he always does‑‑sorry, The Maples (Mr. Cheema); I apologize, that is an insult‑‑the member for The Maples, who is listening attentively as he always does.  He does indeed try to participate in a very realistic way, in a very substantive way, in issues of particular interest to him, such as health care.  He is even so broad‑minded as to be able to accept some of the solutions that are put forward by our Minister of Health (Mr. Orchard).  He is always, I think, attentive to the needs that are there and therefore does not reject anything out of hand without some very due consideration.

* (2025)

      Unfortunately, I think some of his colleagues tend to take a position that I think ultimately is the downfall of the Liberals, and that is to say, we agree with what you are doing in principle.  On the other hand, we do not agree with the specifics of what you are doing, you know.  We would do it differently. They never spell out what that difference is.  They end up in bottom‑line terms being very similar to the New Democrats of offering no alternatives.  I regret to have to say that to the member for St. Boniface (Mr. Gaudry), but that is true.  They just say we disagree with this cut, we disagree with that cut, for this reason and that one and that one, and they pick away and pick away to the point that they really end up agreeing with the New Democrats.  But they end up by saying in principle, of course, we agree with the government that we have to have the deficit down and we should not raise taxes.  It is a problem that has to be dealt with.

      Mr. Speaker, I believe that this latest Manitoba budget reflects the realities of living and working in the '90s.  It is a time of tremendous challenge for most.  Regardless of where we live in the world, this period leading up to the next century, the 21st Century, will be looked back in history as a time of enormous change.  In fact, I do not know if history will record a decade in which greater change has taken place throughout the world than this decade.

      Never, I believe, has the world moved so quickly and, indeed, in so many different directions.  Everything appears to be changing.  We remember Toffler's book in which he talked about the increasing pace of change as being the single greatest problem to be dealt with, but it is not just that pace of change.  It is that it is happening in literally every sector of society, in every sector of the economy.

      All nations of the world have been challenged to keep pace with a variety of problems that have come as a result of this sweeping social change and economic change that is taking place concurrently.  I have talked about it in earlier debates about the combination of both a recession and a restructuring and the massive, massive changes that that means for our economy and, indeed, for the world's economy.  Of course, as a provincial government, indeed as one of 10 provincial governments, we too have to cope with the effects of these changes, and we have to face the challenges that are presented by them.

      The economic challenges that we are experiencing in Manitoba and around the world are a result of, as I say, this unusual combination of a recession in the midst of a period of global restructuring.  The changes are both social and economic, and they are massive.  The basic elements of the new global economy have been on the horizon for some time, but the forces that drive the economic activity have been accelerated, accelerated by changes in technology, by a recession that has forced the re‑examination of how everybody does business.  Certainly, if you listen to business leaders, and you hear about these massive restructurings that are taking place and the way they are changing their business.  IBM, 25 percent reduction in their total staff worldwide; a company like Philips Electronics, about a one‑third reduction in their total staff worldwide; General Motors, incredible changes in reductions in their staff, so it is worldwide.

      They are having to re‑examine how they do business, if they want to stay in business.  Now who would ever have asked, in the recent past even, whether or not IBM would ever be threatened or General Motors?  They are all threatened because of these tremendous changes that are taking place.  They are accelerated, as well, by the world political and social changes that are truly staggering in their scope.

      We have talked since 1989, in this House, about the opening up of the Eastern Bloc, communism disappearing from the world but everything is changing so rapidly.  You go to South America, and you have countries that were banana republics five years ago who have taken hold of their economies, who have massively changed their debt and deficit economic structure, who have reduced inflation from 2,000 percent annually in 1989 down to 12 percent this year.  Argentina, for example; Chili, building a much stronger economy and on and on.

      The changes are massive, and they are occurring everywhere throughout the world.  As I said earlier, the Commonwealth of Independent States did not exist a couple of years ago.  China today is talking about moving toward the socialist market economy and is investing in businesses such as a pulp mill in British Columbia and other American businesses.  Sounds like a free market economy, tastes like a free market economy, but it is called a socialist market economy.

* (2030)

      The foundation of the global economy is changing, and changing rapidly.  Today's economy is information driven above all else.  It immediately absorbs every advance in technology, in computers or telecommunications.  The new global economy is trade driven and the response to actions by governments either to cut trade barriers or to form large trading blocks or both.  The new global economy is market driven, and it is driven by markets that have been fragmented and segmented in a way that was impossible as recently as a decade ago.  The global restructuring obviously affects us here in Manitoba.

      Now I think New Democrats still do not believe that.  I do not think they believe that we have to be a part of the global economic restructuring.  They still believe that we could raise barriers, that we could have a protected economy in which we only purchase within our own economy, we do not allow imports to come in here, we circle the wagons and we somehow cut ourselves off from the global trading arrangements that go on.  They still do not believe that is a necessity of life.

      We have to compete globally.  I will talk a little later about decisions that were made even in the last six months by multinational corporations, such as Ayerst and Monsanto, in which they examined as many as 40 different countries worldwide as the potential place in which they would locate or expand their business and chose Manitoba.  That is the kind of competition that we have for business, for jobs, for trade, for opportunity, and it is from these sources that we will generate the wealth of our province and our nation in the future.  It is from these sources that we will support an infrastructure and a society that has made Canada the envy of the world, the best country in the world in which to live according to the United Nations.  We have to continue to keep it that way by virtue of being able to ensure that in this new global economy we can still attract investment, we can still have jobs, and we can still have the wherewithal to pay for all these programs that are so dear to Canadians.

      There is no question that we must respond to the changing world around us in order that we can protect and enhance the society that generations of Canadians have worked so hard to build.

      We are certainly amid difficult and changing times, but we have been preparing well for our future during these difficult times, better than most provinces, I would argue.  Many of the things that are contained within our budget and the comments that I will make, I believe will verify that we have been preparing better than most provinces for those challenges that lie ahead.

      We are responding to the challenge of global competition.  We have removed, for instance, obstacles to success.  We have always said that high taxes drive business and opportunity elsewhere. Howard Pawley proved that in spades in Manitoba during the decade of the '80s.  NDP administrations in other provinces of Canada are repeating those mistakes with similar unfortunate results, I might say.  That is why at no time in our six budgets did we take the short‑term solution that many governments have preferred of simply raising taxes.  It has not been easy.  In fact, we are now the only provincial government and one of the few in the world that can say we have had no increases in personal, corporate, or sales tax rates since we have been in office.

      In fact, we have reduced the tax rates in many areas.  We have reduced personal income tax rates by 2 percent.  We removed the payroll tax off the backs of more than 70 percent of the Manitoba employers who were paying it when we took office.

An Honourable Member:  Seventy percent never did pay it, right?

Mr. Filmon:  No, that is not true, but we reduced it off the backs of 70 percent who were paying it when we took office, and, Mr. Speaker, despite difficult challenges we found an opportunity to remove even yet a few more with this budget, a few hundred more‑‑

Hon. Clayton Manness (Minister of Finance):  600 to 700.

Mr. Filmon:  ‑‑600 to 700, as the Minister of Finance rightly reminds me, in this budget.

      We created a mining tax holiday to encourage new investment in Manitoba, and it is working. [interjection] Well, you see, this is the kind of short‑term vision that the members opposite have.  They say it sure helped Snow Lake.  The problem with Snow Lake was that no investment in mining took place by virtue of any incentive being given by the New Democrats for years and years and years.  You have to say, what happened before then?  Mining is something in which you have to have a 10‑year window and longer.  You have to have companies doing exploration for mining 10 years hence, and it was not happening under the New Democrats and that is why Snow Lake is in the shape it is.  That is why Lynn Lake was in the shape it was.

      Mr. Speaker, this latest budget continues the trend of reducing taxes to add momentum to Manitoba's economic recovery, like the one‑year freeze on diesel fuel tax to support the trucking industry; like the reduction of three and a half cents per litre on railway diesel fuel tax; like the reduction of eight‑tenths of a cent per litre on aviation fuel tax. [interjection] Got 210 already.

      We have worked hard to create an environment that encourages the entrepreneurial spirit of Manitobans.  Through initiatives like the Economic Development Board, the Economic Innovation and Technology Council, rural Grow Bonds, Community Choices, Workforce 2000, to highlight just a few of the things that we have been working on.

* (2040)

      The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) takes great pride in ridiculing the money that is spent in areas such as I, T and T on programs like the Vision Capital Fund.  I think that is a terrible attitude to take.  He should know so much better, as a part of a government, the NDP government, that brought in a Jobs Fund, that did what?  That created short‑term make‑work jobs that he criticized.  I remember when he said that they were paying people to plant flowers alongside of the highways in Manitoba, and not one of those jobs that they created in the Jobs Fund is there today.  He used to regale his friends by telling them a story of how the NDP sent a crew up North, I believe it was to Cross Lake, to put up a green and white sign for a Jobs Fund project and this crew‑‑where was it? [interjection] It took them three days and their only job was to put up a sign on a project at a northern community.  They were sent from Winnipeg.  They paid gas, they paid lodgings because they had to stay overnight, they paid meals, and they sent a crew of two people to put up one sign, and that is the kind of jobs that the Jobs Fund created. Shame, Mr. Speaker, shame.

       (Mrs. Louise Dacquay, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair)

      The absolutely fascinating part is that you cannot find anyone who is still working whose job was begun under the Jobs Fund of Howard Pawley and his cabinet‑‑not a soul.

      We have updated the way government does business so that we can be more efficient and more effective and more innovative as we move towards the next century.  We are going to continue that trend because governments cannot be immune to all of the same efforts that are being put forth in the private sector.  The private sector is doing everything they can to downsize, to ensure that they become more efficient, more effective, and to get the job done better with fewer people just to survive. Governments cannot be immune from that effort.  We have to do the same thing, and it is a foundation of our four‑year plan that at the end of a four‑year period we are going to balance the budget based on controlled government spending, based on modest increases in revenue.

      I would argue with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) that he has been too small "c" conservative in his projections as to the revenue increases in this province in future.  I believe that the economy is going to grow at a better rate than he is projecting, but I think that is okay.  We do not want to create undue expectations.  I believe that his estimates of revenues from both the taxation levels of this province and the transfers from lottery revenues will indeed see us reach that target of a balanced budget in the four‑year period that he has put forward. A perfect example of the efficiency that has been a hallmark of this administration is provided for me by the rhetoric that has been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) when he states with a straight face that the NDP government of Howard Pawley left a surplus in this province when they left office, Madam Deputy Speaker.

      Well, just in case any member of the Liberal Party or any member of the media was tempted to believe that, no matter how often he repeats it, we pulled out, of course, the budget that was defeated, that fateful budget that was defeated in March of 1988 by a vote of one Mr. Walding from St. Vital.  He did not vote against that budget because it had a surplus in it.  He voted against that budget because it called for a $334 million deficit.

      But, Madam Deputy Speaker, when we came into office and we got a hold of the books, we found that budget with its $334 million deficit did not have anything in it for a settlement with the MGEU, despite the fact that they were scheduled to get an increase in pay in September of that year‑‑not in the figures. There was nothing in that budget for a settlement with the doctors.  There was nothing in that budget for a settlement with the nurses.  There was $1 million in that budget for forest fires.  Despite the fact that the average cost over the previous five years for forest fire fighting was $10 million, they had $1 million in the budget.

      So, Madam Deputy Speaker, we had to put in almost $100 million more to cover these items in order to make it an honest budget.  Despite all of that, because we also had to look for ways to reduce it because we did not think 334 plus 100 was an acceptable level.  So to get it down below $200 million, we had to reduce the expenditures.  That was responsible fiscal management.

Some Honourable Members:  Oh, oh.

Madam Deputy Speaker:  Order, please.

Mr. Filmon:  I know that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) is finding this difficult.  The truth hurts.  I will invite him to take a look at the graph that is in the budget, that shows what was the debt of the Province of Manitoba at the time that the New Democrats took office at the beginning of 1982.  We will compare the six budgets of the New Democrats with the six budgets of our administration.  We will grant you the deficit that has been added on to cover 1992‑93.  We will show you that, and I will tell you this is what happens.

      Madam Deputy Speaker, I know this is very hard on the Leader of the Opposition, and he is having great difficulty with this. I will try and persist so that he does not have to exercise himself any longer.

      In 1982, when Howard Pawley first took office, the general purpose debt of the province was $1.436 billion.  That was the general debt of the province.  After six budgets of Howard Pawley that rose to $5.162 billion.  That is an addition of $3.7 billion to the general purpose debt of this province in six budgets.

      Now in six budgets under our government it has gone from 5.162 to a projected 6.505.  That is in six budgets‑‑$1.35 billion added to the deficit during that time.  During the period of time that the New Democrats were in, their revenues were growing at double‑digit rates almost every year they were in government, and they were spending it faster than it was coming in at double‑digit rates.  They were still running up the deficit at a rate that was double the average of our budget‑‑double the average of our budget.

      That is the thing that embarrasses the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer).  That is why he has to shout hard and loud because he is totally embarrassed by that statistic, and it tells the truth.  It is the truth at the financial markets; it is the truth at the bond‑rating agencies; it is the truth that the people who judge the economics of this province know.

      The bottom line is that no matter how much that we have saved by virtue of introducing greater efficiencies throughout government in the last five years, regrettably it still has not been enough.  Even though our economy is recovering and even though we are providing services more efficiently, today government revenue in Manitoba is down just like it is right across Canada, and the projection is that it will stay that way.

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      We had an economic briefing from people who are involved in the economic think‑tank that analyzes the economic forecast right across this country, and they put a slide up on the overhead projector that showed what personal income growth was in Canada in the '70s, in the '80s, and what it will be in the '90s.  In the '70s we all remember that Trudeau had to bring in the anti‑inflation war.  It was going wild, the inflationary increase.  You know that per capita income grew on an annual basis at 13 percent per year during the 1970s.  In the '80s that had gone down by more than a third to 7.9 percent per year.  In the '90s it is projected to increase at 3.1 percent per year.

      What does that mean to governments?  Well, every government, federal and provincial, has as its major sources of revenue either personal income taxes or consumption taxes which are based on the amount of money you have to spend.  Same thing.  They are both directly correlated to the income growth, and the income growth in the '90s is going to be less than a quarter of what it was in the '70s.  That is a reality that every government in Canada has to deal with, and that is why you cannot look at governing in the '90s the way you did in the '70s when money was coming out of your ears, and all you had to do is look for ways to spend it.

      Madam Deputy Speaker, what that means is trimming expenditures and evaluating every single service to differentiate between what services are vital and necessary and essential and what ones we just simply cannot afford anymore.  Many of the things that the New Democrats and the Liberals have been criticizing with respect to our budgetary decisions are because of the fact that we simply cannot afford to do the things today in the '90s with growth rates that are less than a quarter of what they were in the '70s.  We cannot afford to do all those things that were built into government services.  We have now got to be far, far more discerning about what we choose to put on to government as its responsibility.  You know what?  The taxpayers agree with that.  The taxpayers are not uncomfortable with us saying government cannot do it all.

      The taxpayers are responding in a variety of different ways. You take a look in many of the fields of social services and recreation and sport.  What is happening?  Volunteerism is coming back.  People are going out and doing things and working in the community.  We have retired people, we have other people who are going out and working in the community, Madam Deputy Speaker.  As well as that, we have people who are contributing funds to the universities.  They are contributing funds to the universities in a big, big way that they did not before, contributing funds to health care in this province, major capital campaigns that are able to raise $5 million and $10 million and $20 million, because people want to say, I will take this as a personal commitment, as a personal responsibility.

      Madam Deputy Speaker, the public is way ahead of the New Democrats in this whole thing.  The New Democrats are mired in yesteryear.  They are mired in the old‑think in which they cannot adjust their thinking to the new realities.  They are quoting J.S. Woodsworth; they are quoting Tommy Douglas; they are quoting all of those people of many, many decades ago, because they cannot face the reality of today.  That is the difference.

      Two‑thirds of our provincial government spending is concentrated in three departments:  Health, Education and Family Services.  A further 10 percent is in debt servicing.  It is only logical that we have to review every single service, every single department, every single function of government to examine how we spend our money and what priorities we can justify in the light of today's realities.

      I believe that the government of Manitoba is leading the way.  All areas of the public sector must share in the responsibility of spending control, and finding ways to deliver services with greater efficiency and innovation.  I say to you that I compliment every single member sitting on our side of the House, because this was a team effort.  This was a difficult budget.  The Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) has talked about how tough it was to have to make those choices, but, you know, he had a team working with him from every single department and from caucus as a whole to help him to make those priority choices, to make a commitment to preserve the very essential parts of government that people depend upon, that vital social safety net that has come to differentiate Manitoba from many other places in this world.  They said, we have to do it.  It is important.  If we do not do it now, there will be serious and grave consequences in the future for all generations to come.

      Through attrition, through voluntary severance, through elimination of positions we have substantially reduced the public service of Manitoba over the last five budgets.  It is down almost 1,800 people out of a starting staff of 18,000; in fact, we are down to a staff complement in the public service of Manitoba that is at the level it was in 1986.

      That is not something that we are saying as a means of saying we are better than, or we are boasting about.  It is reality.  If IBM is down by 25 percent worldwide, if Phillips is down by a third worldwide, if everybody, even corporations in Japan that are doing very well, is doing it with fewer people, the government of Manitoba has to be oriented in the same way.  It has to have the same commitment to efficiency, to effective delivery of services, and we have not stopped.  We had to find a new and creative way to ensure that we reduce the total payroll, and so this year we have the reduced workweek as well, which will reduce our payroll costs by another $20 million.

      Madam Deputy Speaker, everyone‑‑civil servants and elected officials alike‑‑will share the responsibility of cost cutting as equally as we can apply it as a result of this budget.  The reduced workweek is a classic example of an innovative approach that is going to be picked up by other governments in the country.  A number have already said so.

      Sadly, the funding for programs and services had to be reduced in our latest budget.  We did not relish the thought of reducing program funding in so many areas of government.  They were not decisions that we wanted to make.  As the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) said, they were decisions that we knew we absolutely had to make if we were to secure our economic future and the core of our social safety net for today and for the future.

      The simple fact is, no matter where we live in Canada, we, like many other nations, are being challenged by recessionary times and by global restructuring.  We too must do more with less.  It is not a choice.  It is a reality.  We have to protect our future by making some personal sacrifices now if we are to continue to build a strong Manitoba.

       (Mr. Speaker in the Chair)

      Time and time again, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) got up on his soapbox, and he blindly criticized our administration for decisions to reduce funding without saying where he would cut or what taxes he would raise.  Two weeks ago, he was asked for alternatives, for NDP ideas about how to deal with the global challenges before us.  His response was published in the April 5th Winnipeg Free Press:  "Opposition Leader Gary Doer refused to say what he would do if he was on the government's side of the Legislature."

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      Now, that is real leadership.  For someone who has an idea of being the Premier one day, that is irresponsible.  That is totally irresponsible.  He has certainly demonstrated that he would not be capable of handling the job.  He cannot even come up with any alternatives.  Criticism‑‑oh, he is good at that, but alternatives‑‑not one.

      I will give the Leader of the Liberal Party (Mrs. Carstairs) credit.  She at least said on budget day, she said that she did not like some of the areas of revenue increase that we had in our budget.  She said she would rather raise personal income taxes. That is what she said.  She would rather raise personal income taxes, Mr. Speaker.

      Mr. Speaker, the simple and the unfortunate truth is that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) has no ideas and no alternatives.  He is not capable of finding solutions.  He is only capable of providing criticism in opposition.  I think it is obvious by his hollow performance here, daily in the House and on this Budget Debate, that he is not capable of doing even that effectively.

      In fact, you know, his most exciting day in Question Period was the day after the member for Rossmere (Mr. Neufeld) made his speech that gave him some material he could go on.  He thought he had a big issue here.  It was his leading question, because he could not come up with one.  Well, I think it is time that the Leader of the Opposition rolled up his sleeves here in the Legislature, instead of just in front of the television cameras.

      The few ideas that he does bring forward and the ideology they represent have been proven to be outdated everywhere in the world around us.  He does not recognize the changes that are taking place in the Soviet Union, in China.  He does not recognize the changes that are taking place worldwide.  He just says, let us turn back the clock.  Let us go to good old Howard's notebook and let us bring back the Jobs Fund and let us spend and tax, spend and tax.  That is all he says.  But, you know, the other interesting aspect of the Leader of the Opposition's attacks is that he would have people believe that this government is solely responsible for the world's economic problems.  I have great faith in the ability of Manitobans to be successful in the world market, but I do not believe that Manitobans themselves can actually control the world's economy and seriously influence it.

      I really do not believe that there are too many Manitobans who think that we could influence the interest rates, the exchange rates, the inflation rates of this nation, or any of those things.  I give a lot of credit to our Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness), but I do not believe that even many Manitobans would give him the credit that he could do all of those things.

      Just as an aside, Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey) and I were in Davos at the World Economic Forum in February and there were some of the world leaders in the business world, in the economic world and in the political world there.  I will tell you that listening to the top academics, the top economists, the top financial people in this world and they will say to you that there may only be one country that really does seriously affect the economic future of the world.  They right away say that even Japan and Germany, despite their economic might, do not influence the direction of the world's economy. Aside from the United States there is absolutely no one else, there is such a globalization of economic activity.

      The multinational corporations of the world, in deciding where they will invest, how they will move their resources, how they will trade and all of those things, have greater influence on the economy of the world than any nation in this world does. Maybe the United States does influence the actual flow of the economy to some extent, but it is that group of multinational corporations ultimately.  So when he gets up to say that it is Manitoba's fault that we are in a recession, that it is Manitoba's fault that trade is down, it is Manitoba's fault, he does not have a clue.

      But what we can do in Manitoba is prepare for change, and take every possible step towards creating prosperity for all Manitobans, and that is exactly what we have been doing in the last five budgets and that is what we have been doing in this budget.  The simple fact is that no matter where we live in Canada, we, like many other nations, are being challenged by recessionary times and by global restructuring.

      I do not understand how the Leader of the Opposition could lead with his chin with his criticisms about what we are doing in our budget without even opening his eyes to read the papers about what New Democrats in other provinces are doing in their budgets.  He cannot believe it‑‑that he could not see what is happening in all of these other provinces.  In British Columbia they increased the personal income tax surcharge by 50 percent in that budget, from 20 to 30 percent on high‑income people.  They eliminated totally the renters' tax reduction program.

      Here is what they did to seniors on fixed income.  They brought in these massive surcharges on those they thought were wealthy people, people who had homes in older areas that they had lived in for 30 years.  When they moved into those homes, they had on the‑‑three days after the budget, they had on the front page of the Vancouver Sun a story in which‑‑[interjection] If the muppets from Concordia and Thompson are through, Mr. Speaker, I will carry on.

      This is the point, Mr. Speaker, is that it is not a wealth tax.  They had on the front page of the Vancouver Sun three days after the budget a chap who was a teacher at a Vancouver community college.  He was earning maybe $60,000 max, and he had bought a house in one of those old desirable neighbourhoods in Vancouver more than 25 years ago for less than $100,000.  Today it was assessed at $900,000.  His taxes as a result of the moves in the NDP budget went from $5,000 to $9,500, absolutely no relationship to his income or his ability to pay, and there were countless thousands of seniors who are in exactly the same position.  They had bought a house 30 years earlier, they were on fixed income much less than this community college teacher.  This community college teacher said, I have been a lifelong New Democrat and that is it; I will never vote New Democrat again. He said:  Not only is this unfair, not only does this make no economic sense, but they did not even understand what they were doing.  They readily admitted it.  Neither the Premier nor the Minister of Finance understood what they were doing in that budget move, Mr. Speaker.

      So when they talk about what we have done to add $75 or $175 or $250 to a property tax of an individual, how would you like to have $4,500 added to your property tax overnight?  That is the idiocy of New Democratic parties.

      Speaking of idiocy, earlier today in his speech, the member for Dauphin (Mr. Plohman) suggested that in fact if you combined the loss of $175 seniors grant, because it was now income tested, with the $75 reduction in the minimum Property Tax Credit, and then you added that to the $250 of minimum tax that would have to be paid, somehow somebody was going to get hit for $500, not $250.  He had just found that out.  What he does not realize is that if they have to pay the additional $75 and $175, that is $250 minimum they do not get another $250 added on.

      Well, that is a person who was in the cabinet of Howard Pawley and cannot figure out the changes.  That is why he built the bridge only halfway across the river, with no roads on either side.  Wow.

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      Mr. Speaker, in Saskatchewan, for the second straight year the sales tax has had to go up from 7 percent to 8 percent last year, from 8 percent to 9 percent this year.  The same kind of elimination, the broadening of the‑‑

An Honourable Member:  Do not even talk about Saskatchewan.  No Tory should even mention Saskatchewan.

Mr. Filmon:  They do not want us to mention Saskatchewan, Mr. Speaker.

      Two cents a litre on gasoline, Mr. Speaker.  Closure of hospitals all over the province.  I will not point the finger at Roy Romanow, because I believe that Roy Romanow is doing what he has to do, and I am being honest in saying that, unlike the New Democrats opposite who, facing the same kind of thing here in Manitoba, are arguing that it does not have to be done.  You do not have to reduce your spending.

Some Honourable Members:  Oh, oh.

Mr. Filmon:  Saskatchewan‑‑listen, Mr. Speaker, listen, just listen if I may give you some information, to what cuts Saskatchewan had to bring in.  They reduced their funding transfers to rural and urban municipalities by 8 percent.  They reduced their funding to hospitals by 2.8 percent, to school boards by 4 percent, to colleges and universities by 4 percent.

      Again, I say I do not criticize Saskatchewan, but they are facing reality with some integrity, with some honesty, not like New Democrats here who, facing the same situation, say, we would not do that.  We would not cut the expenditures.  Trends are exactly the same.

      Mr. Speaker, I will not even speculate on what has to be done in the Province of Ontario, and I suppose that the member for Thompson (Mr. Ashton) is going to say that most of their debt was built up by somebody else, that the last three years of $10 billion deficits have nothing to do with the responsibility of the current New Democrat administration, or the $17 billion structural deficit that they are facing has nothing to do with them.  That is what he will probably tell us.

      I will not even embarrass him by even responding to that kind of nonsense, but they sit there, saying that we do not have to be a part of reality.  We do not have to be a part of anything that is happening throughout the world, or in Canada, in other provinces.  New Democrats here in Manitoba are isolated from everything else, Mr. Speaker, in their mind.  It is absolute nonsense.

      Mr. Speaker, I will say this, that the member for River Heights (Mrs. Carstairs) has been much more responsible in that, as I said earlier and I will repeat it, she has at least acknowledged that something has to be done.  The only thing is that she does not like all of the reductions that we have made, but she has not said where she would save the money elsewhere. We look at her colleague in New Brunswick, we look at her colleague in Newfoundland, and they have chopped in as harsh a fashion as any government in this country, those Liberals, because they too are faced with reality and they know that if you want to preserve the infrastructure, if you want to preserve the fundamental services of a province, you cannot afford to do all of the things that you used to do in the '70s and the '80s.  It just simply is not possible.

      But the Leader of the official opposition is trying to sell Manitobans on the idea that there is no problem.  He could magically wave a wand and he could do it all without raising taxes, and he would give them all the things that they want, and he still would not have a big deficit, Mr. Speaker.  Well, the fact of the matter is that the citizens of Manitoba know the truth, and the thing that I think is most astonishing is how he underestimates the intelligence of the people of Manitoba by the positions that he takes.  For too long this style of politics has given people false expectations, and it has marred government's credibility by making promises that they cannot keep.  Those are the kinds of things.

      Mr. Speaker, the honourable Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) summed it up perfectly in his Budget Address when he said:  "In each of our homes, when spending overtakes income, and when there is no way to earn more, habits must be changed, and family members must be asked to do more with less.  Governments are not immune to this reality."

      We can only offer the people of this province the truth of the situation that we face and ask them to work alongside us to fix the problem.  More than ever before this budget reflects our commitment to build a strong Manitoba with a strong and competitive economy, with a fair and accessible social safety net and a high quality of life.  This budget demonstrates that we are taking steps to preserve our social services, because without curbing our spending now these services would surely be gone in the future.  We would not be able to afford them if we did not take the mid‑course correction that we are taking in this budget.

      Mr. Speaker, I listened to Roy Romanow on his budget day, and he said something that struck a very, very truthful chord because it was the same thing that Clyde Wells was saying over in Newfoundland.  He said, we are having to make these difficult choices, we are having to make these tough budgetary decisions because we want to take responsibility for them.  He said, if we do not make these cuts, if we do not take these difficult choices, then some bankers in Zurich or London or New York and some bond rating agencies in New York are going to make them for us, and I will not be so irresponsible to do that.  That is what he said because he is a man of integrity, not like the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer).

      Mr. Speaker, I just want to talk about one other thing, and I hope that the member for Wellington (Ms. Barrett) and the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) read this in Hansard because I think it is important.  Day after day after day in the debate here, they attempt to talk about how much money is going into particular areas in education, in post‑secondary education, for the universities.  Day after day after day, they want to transfer the focus of the debate from what are we getting out from these areas, what are the outcomes, to put it onto how much are we putting in.

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      The fact of the matter is, until we in education, whether it be in our public schools or in our post‑secondary institutions, start measuring outcomes and judging the effectiveness by the results of the efforts and not how much money goes in, we will never improve the ability of our children to compete, of our children to be educated for the real world and the global market that is out there.  The fact of the matter is, they are going to have to compete globally.

      New Democrats, and particularly several of those who judge themselves to be critics, are saying over and over again that you should not test these people.  You should not measure outcomes. You should just simply ignore all that and keep putting more money in.  What is the result of that?  The result is that this country puts in more per capita and more as a proportion of our budget into education than any other nation in the world, and we do not compete in terms of the quality of our graduates and the quality of their learning.

      Then you have somebody like the chairperson of the largest school division in Manitoba who gets a video that outlines and delineates the problems that we have in terms of our competitiveness in education in this country, and she says, I viewed part of it and then I turned it off.  It is sponsored by big corporations.

      Well, all of a sudden, it is not worth looking at because it is sponsored by big corporations.  Those are the very people who employ the vast majority of Canadians, those big corporations, but do not listen to them, because they should not be listened to in terms of the quality of people whom they want to work for them.  They should have absolutely nothing to say about the education system in this country.  She says, they are talking back to basics, and that is not a good thing.

      Talk about having your head in the sand.  This is the chairperson of the largest school board in Manitoba, and she will not look at anything for fear that it might be different from her views and her feelings, and it might potentially criticize what we are doing in education today.

      Mr. Speaker, you cannot judge whether or not you are making progress toward a goal or whether you are improving your ability to educate people or the outcome of it unless you test.  That is a fundamental precept of anything in life.  You cannot tell whether you are doing better or worse unless you test and evaluate.

      The Teachers' Society of this province says, do not test.  It is not good for children, and it will not do anything for the education system.  The head of our largest school board in Manitoba says, we do not have a problem, and I do not want to look at this video because it was paid for by a corporation.

      Mr. Speaker, I think that it is absolutely astonishing that this could happen in our society today.  That is indeed our problem.

      Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit while I have the time about some of the good news items that have been taking place in Manitoba as a result of decisions that have been announced, even in the past few months.

      ISM that used to be the Manitoba Data Services has added 50 jobs since they were divested from the Province of Manitoba's ownership.  IGT, International Game Technology, had their official opening in February with 26 new manufacturing jobs.  In aerospace four Winnipeg firms will receive $370 million worth of contracts on the EH‑101 helicopters, that is, unless Jean Chretien has his way and cancels that contract and then $370 million worth of work and hundreds of jobs will go down the drain.  Unitel has announced that they will open a telecommunications centre in Winnipeg‑‑400 jobs expected there. Canada Post Service Centre will give Manitoba 100 new jobs in the telephone service centre.  A Centre for Excellence for Engineering in Manitoba, a joint venture between UMA and Black and Veatch, between 45 and 100 high‑tech jobs.  Canada Post and MTS have opened Connections, the world's first resource centre devoted to enhancing direct marketing in Manitoba and Canada.  CP Rail System will open their customer service centre in Winnipeg, consolidating nine locations from across Canada; one central location will employ 210 people.  GeoComp is now in Manitoba, the world's most efficient and sophisticated image processing system for the production of satellite free‑image composites, world leaders in satellite image processing, combining mapping with satellite and computer technology. [interjection]

      Well, the member opposite says that Tupperware is a company. See, this is the interesting thing.  He says Tupperware‑‑he is always concentrating on the negative.  He takes great pleasure when people lose jobs.  Mr. Speaker, he has said absolutely nothing about the fact that the latest Stats Canada figures say that there are 14,000 more Manitobans employed today than were in August of last year; year over year, March '92 to March '93, there are 10,000 more Manitobans employed. [interjection]

      But more than were there when you were last in government; more than were there when the New Democrats were last in government.  And he talked about Morden.  Morden now has the world's first dry Roundup plant.  Monsanto looked at over 40 locations worldwide.  That is in addition to the expansion of 3M.  They have almost doubled their size.  All of this has happened since the announcement of Tupperware.  3M doubled their size.  Rimer‑Alco came into Morden, Monsanto came there, and there are two more businesses coming in there in the next few months.  Stay tuned.  The employment increase will be more than the losses of Tupperware, but those are all good news stories and New Democrats do not like to hear that.  I know that.

      Ayerst Organics, $300 million capital investment, annual cash crop income for Manitoba farmers of almost $100 million more as a result of that expansion to Ayerst Organics in Brandon.  We have companies doing business all over the world, in the Pacific Rim, companies such as Feed‑Rite with a new feed mill going into Shanghai.  Agri‑Tec and Feed‑Rite have letters of intent for six more agricultural operations and feed mills in China in that area.

      We have another company that has technology which is going to be used on HVDC lines in China.  Worldwide, we have Manitoba products being sold that never were sold before.  The PMU‑derived drug Premarin is now being sold worldwide, and Crown Royal, Seagrams, produced in Gimli, Manitoba.  Computer software systems are being used in New Zealand and throughout the world by international companies like Estee Lauder.  Made in Manitoba sounding rockets are being sold worldwide.  Manitoba egg‑white enzyme is being extracted for European pharmaceutical companies. Agricultural breeding stock is being sold in markets as far away as Thailand and the Philippines.  Bottled water in Mexico, a resort hotel in Yalta, another hotel in St. Petersburg, commercial offices in Moscow, three‑wheel‑drive parking vehicles being used in Fort Lauderdale and Las Vegas made in Portage La Prairie.  Manitoba peas are being used in outer space, again made by a company near Portage la Prairie.  All of these things are evidence of the success that is taking place by individual entrepreneurs and businesses investing in Manitoba.

      Mr. Speaker, we believe that the credit belongs to Manitobans for taking the initiative, for investing their time, energy and talent in making these things happen, but I believe that some of the credit should go to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) for putting in place an economic foundation that allows for this investment and co‑operation.

      Mr. Speaker, I am calling today upon all Manitobans to join with us in support of these economic initiatives, in building a strong foundation, in attracting investment, in creating jobs and opportunities for the future, and in competing in the great global market, because I believe that Manitobans will indeed be able to meet the test and will indeed be able to succeed in the great future that holds for us in the world.

      Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker:  The hour being 9:30 p.m., in accordance with subrule 23(5), I am putting the questions necessary to dispose of the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) that this House approve in general the budgetary policy of the government and all the amendments to that motion.

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      The question before the House is the proposed subamendment to the honourable Leader of the second opposition party (Mrs. Carstairs).

      THAT the amendment be amended by adding thereto the following words:

      And further regrets that:

      (a)  this government has failed to adequately invest in theeducation and training of Manitobans as witnessed by thecuts to student social allowances, to universityfunding, to the Advanced Education and Skills TrainingDivision;

      (b)  this government has failed to address the needs of thepoorest and most vulnerable members of our society bycutting speech pathologists and hearing clinicians forchildren with special needs, by requiring parents whorequire subsidized daycare to pay more than they canafford, by raising nursing home resident fees, byreducing payments to foster families, by reducingdental, optical and pharmaceutical benefits to socialassistance recipients, by cutting funding to friendshipcentres;

      (c)  this government has failed to ensure the universality ofthe medicare system by introducing user fees for clientsunder the home care plan, by placing a cap on medicalfees and by discontinuing the treatment portion ofChildren's Dental services; and

      (d)  this government continues to obfuscate the government'sfinancial statements with its continued use of theFiscal Stabilization plan.

A Standing Vote was taken, the result being as follows:

Yeas

      Alcock, Ashton, Barrett, Carstairs, Cerilli, Cheema, Chomiak, Dewar, Doer, Edwards, Evans (Brandon East), Evans (Interlake), Friesen, Gaudry, Gray, Hickes, Lamoureux, Lathlin, Maloway, Martindale, Plohman, Reid, Santos, Storie, Wasylycia‑Leis, Wowchuk

Nays

      Cummings, Dacquay, Derkach, Downey, Driedger, Ducharme, Enns, Ernst, Filmon, Findlay, Gilleshammer, Helwer, Laurendeau, Manness, McAlpine, McCrae, McIntosh, Mitchelson, Neufeld, Orchard, Pallister, Penner, Praznik, Reimer, Render, Rose, Stefanson, Sveinson, Vodrey

Mr. Clerk (William Remnant):  Yeas 26, Nays 29.

Mr. Speaker:  I declare the motion lost.

* * *

Mr. Speaker:  Now, the question before the House is the proposed amendment as moved by the honourable Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) to the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

      The proposed motion of the honourable Leader of the Opposition in amendment thereto,

      THAT the motion be amended by deleting all the words after "House" and substituting the following:

      Regrets that

      (a)  this government's tax increases are regressive andunfair to seniors, young people, low‑ and middle‑incomeearners; and

      (b)  this government's inaction on job creation means morehardship for many thousands of Manitoba families; and

      (c)  as a result of this government's callous and unfair cutsin government services for education, health care,social programs such as the reduction in Children'sDental Program in rural and northern Manitoba, home carecuts and reduction for schools and universities,Manitobans are losing their hope for the future; and

      THEREFORE this government has thereby lost the confidence of this House and the people of Manitoba.

      All those in favour of that motion will please rise.  All those in favour of the proposed motion will please say yea.

Some Honourable Members:  Yea.

Mr. Speaker:  All those opposed, please say nay.

Some Honourable Members:  Nay.

Mr. Speaker:  In my opinion, the Nays have it.

Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader):  Yeas and Nays, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker:  Call in the members.

      Order, please.  The question before the House is the proposed amendment as moved by the honourable Leader of the Opposition.

A STANDING VOTE was taken, the result being as follows:

Yeas

      Alcock, Ashton, Barrett, Carstairs, Cerilli, Cheema, Chomiak, Dewar, Doer, Edwards, Friesen, Gaudry, Gray, Hickes, Lamoureux, Lathlin, Evans (Brandon East), Evans (Interlake), Maloway, Martindale, Plohman, Reid, Santos, Storie, Wasylycia‑Leis, Wowchuk.

Nays

      Cummings, Dacquay, Derkach, Downey, Driedger, Ducharme, Enns, Ernst, Filmon, Findlay, Gilleshammer, Helwer, Laurendeau, Manness, McAlpine, McCrae, McIntosh, Mitchelson, Neufeld, Orchard, Pallister, Penner, Praznik, Reimer, Render, Rose, Stefanson, Sveinson, Vodrey.

* (2140)

Mr. Clerk:  Yeas 26, Nays 29.

Mr. Speaker:  I declare the proposed motion lost.

* * *

Mr. Speaker:  Now, the question before the House is the proposed motion of the honourable Minister of Finance (Mr. Manness) that this House approve in general the budgetary policy of the government.

      All those in favour of the proposed motion, please say yea.

Some Honourable Members:  Yea.

Mr. Speaker:  All those opposed, please say nay.

Some Honourable Members:  Nay.

Mr. Speaker:  In my opinion, the Yeas have it.

Mr. Ashton:  Yeas and Nays, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker:  Call in the members.

A STANDING VOTE was taken, the result being as follows:

Yeas

      Cummings, Dacquay, Derkach, Downey, Driedger, Ducharme, Enns, Ernst, Filmon, Findlay, Gilleshammer, Helwer, Laurendeau, Manness, McAlpine, McCrae, McIntosh, Mitchelson, Neufeld, Orchard, Pallister, Penner, Praznik, Reimer, Render, Rose, Stefanson, Sveinson, Vodrey.

 Nays

      Alcock, Ashton, Barrett, Carstairs, Cerilli, Cheema, Chomiak, Dewar, Doer, Edwards, Evans (Brandon East), Evans (Interlake), Friesen, Gaudry, Gray, Hickes, Lamoureux, Lathlin, Maloway, Martindale, Plohman, Reid, Santos, Storie, Wasylycia‑Leis, Wowchuk.

Mr. Clerk:  Yeas 29, Nays 26.

Mr. Speaker:  I declare the motion carried.

      The hour being after 10 p.m., this House now adjourns and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday).