ORDERS OF THE DAY

Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): I move, Madam Speaker, seconded by the honourable Minister of Education (Mrs. McIntosh), that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.

Motion agreed to, and the House resolved itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty, with the honourable member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson) in the Chair for the Department of Education; and the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) in the Chair for the Department of Health.

COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY

(Concurrent Sections)

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon, this section of the Committee of Supply, meeting in Room 255, will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training.

When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 1.(b)(1) on page 34 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chair, I think we had indicated before we left last time that there were a number of other issues that could be discussed on this line. They also fall under another line on policy, as well, but if we ask them here, we will not be asking them there. So these are related to the policy functions of the department, which I notice are seeing an increase in both expenditures and also in salaries.

I wanted to ask the minister about the Enhancing Accountability document that came from the government. The minister, in questioning last time, said that this was only in part written by the Department of Education, and I wanted to pursue that a little bit, to ask the minister, first of all, if she and her staff had read this document before it was released.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Chairman, when we stopped on Friday, I was in the middle of answering a question, and I wonder if before we get going on today’s I could complete that answer.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Is it the will of the committee? [agreed] The honourable minister, to complete her answer.

Mrs. McIntosh: I did not have too much left to say. It is just that the member had been asking about whether or not it was politicizing the deputy minister to place him on a panel that was out receiving information for the ministry. I would just indicate that I do not believe putting the deputy on a panel to receive submissions from the public politicizes a deputy because everyday of the year--and the opposition when it was a government did the same thing, as well--everyday, we have our deputies go on camera, explain positions, take public phone calls, attend meetings, go on the radio, listen to presentations and so on.

Indeed, the member may recall, because it was the subject of some controversy in the newspaper, when her government, when it was in power, when the Manitoba Association of School Trustees specifically asked if they could have access to the minister to come to a particular meeting to explain a political position of MAST, that the NDP government declined to send the minister and sent instead the deputy, Mr. Ron Duhamel, who appeared on behalf of the government to answer a political question of the government.

That was the way the NDP government utilized its deputies. We do not go to that extent. We do not put deputies in the position of having to actually appear at a public forum to answer a political decision question, but we do do some of the things the NDP used to do, which is to allow deputies to represent the department, to hear information, to receive presentations, to answer questions on the radio as to various pieces of information. I just wanted to clarify that if indeed we are politicizing the deputy by asking him to appear in public to receive information, we are certainly not going nearly as far as the previous NDP government used to go. I think if she was not concerned about them, and I understand she was not, then she need have no concern whatsoever about this government’s conduct in that matter.

In regard to the question she asked, did we read the paper before it went out? Yes. Did I say that our department only wrote a part of it? No. Again, I would urge the member to review Hansard. What I did indicate, and I may be paraphrasing the words somewhat now, is that any document issued with the approval of government is a government document and that there would be many sources that would collaborate on providing information to certain documents because certain areas of government have knowledge and expertise in certain areas that is deemed appropriate for inputting into the final government documents.

She misinterpreted my words, which I thought were rather clear, but perhaps they were not, and interpreted my words to mean that the department only wrote a portion of the paper when what I really said was there were many people having input into the production of the paper. A collaborative effort is just as logical a conclusion to draw as that the department only wrote one portion of it. In the final result, Mr. Chairman, the point I would like to make is that it is a government document, and a government document will certainly have more than one author and certainly will have more than one source of input. There is no one person who sat down and authored that document from beginning to end.

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Ms. Friesen: The minister says that her government does not put deputies at public forums to answer political questions, but I was at a meeting in Gimli very recently, I think it was last week, where an assistant deputy minister was sent out for precisely that purpose, and put in a rather difficult position because those kinds of questions were being asked and the purpose of the meeting was to talk about the government’s recent policy.

The assistant deputy minister was quite proper in saying that she could not answer those questions, but of the 31 MLAs in the Tory caucus, not one could be found to go and speak to a meeting in Gimli which had been called to discuss the political proposals of the government in many areas of education.

I think perhaps the minister is drawing too broad a sweep there when she said her government never does that. If we want to look in my previous critic areas in Culture, Heritage, for example, when the government was cutting the role of the Manitoba Heritage council, I remember one very heated meeting where it was deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers who were sent to answer for the political judgements of the government.

Over the last few years, I think the government has certainly done this, and I draw it to the minister’s attention, particularly because the document she claims to be nonpolitical was certainly perceived as a very political document by the people to whom it was directed and who were asked to respond to it. It was in that context that I thought it was unwise for the minister to put a deputy minister on that committee and to be exposed in that public a fashion to the, indeed, hostility. One would have to say that it was outright hostility in many areas. I felt that in the long term this would diminish the deputy minister, whomever it was. It is not a question of reflection on any individual, but it diminishes the prospects for a deputy minister in maintaining that open communication that we talked about last time.

The minister has said that this is a collaborative document. Most documents have an author attached to them. For example, if we were looking at the research documents that the government has many times talked about in the context of hog marketing, there are three authors mentioned on that one. This one has no authors, and the question comes up because so many people in the hearings questioned the information that was being presented in that document, and so the question of authorship does become significant. Secondly, because the proposals were, in the view of those many people who went to the hearings, of such a limited nature as to be perceived as extremely political, hence again the question of authorship becomes significant.

So that is the context in which I am asking the question. The minister has said the document was a collaborative one. Could she tell us who collaborated in the production of this document?

Mrs. McIntosh: Before I begin the answer to the main question, I believe it is critically important that I correct the wrong information put forward in her lengthy preamble. I hope the people who are reading Hansard will flip back to the questions she made. I can only pray that if they read her questions, that they take the time to read the response because the information she put on the record about the assistant deputy minister is absolutely, totally and categorically wrong.

I received an invitation in my office about a week and a couple of days before an event that was to take place in Gimli. I understand that the member herself was quite critical of the fact that I did not appear at that meeting in Gimli. [interjection] Then maybe my sources are wrong. The member then made no reference to the fact that I was not there, although I will check with my source after who quoted to me that the member had said she thought it was really unfortunate that I had not cared to come. The member may wish to put on the record that she never said that to any of the witnesses who reported to me that she did say that.

As it turned out, when I got that invitation about nine days before the event was to take place--my calendar, as the member is probably aware, is booked five, six weeks ahead, and I had committed myself to be the keynote speaker at an annual general meeting of parents and teachers at Pierre Elliott Trudeau Collegiate and was not about to break that promise. They had made that request many, many weeks before the event, the usual lead time that most people will give a minister of the Crown, so when a last minute invitation came in, I knew I could not go. The invitation had said that there were two topics to be discussed. One was they wanted to discuss the programming surrounding New Directions. The other was the arbitration paper Enhancing Accountability.

We contacted the Gimli people, and I am very sorry if they did not do this, but we said we are all committed in terms of time. The minister has a previous engagement. She would love to come and clarify a lot of the misinformation that we are pretty sure the opposition will be trying to put on the record, but the minister is unavailable. However, in terms of a resource person to provide information on New Directions, we could send a senior civil servant who has expertise in that area who could answer questions on the programming.

But if we send her, we want to make it clear that she can be there as a resource and participate to answer any questions on the programming or on New Directions, since she is one of the top experts in the government on that, but she cannot be coming as a political person because she is not an elected person. So she will not be able to answer any political questions, but if you need someone there to tell you what New Directions is all really about in terms of the implementation, in terms of the requirements, in terms of the thrust and the procedures and intent, we have a person in the person of Carolyn Loeppky, our assistant deputy minister, who knows more about this topic than anyone in government. We would be pleased to provide her as the expert on that for your panel, and because I cannot appear in person, I did write a letter outlining the true intent of the Enhancing Accountability document which we asked to have read.

Now, I am really concerned if the member did not hear that letter read, because we did ask to have it read, which would indicate that a lot of the innuendo going around about the document was, in fact, inaccurate. Like, for example, there would be no wage rollback in wages and those things. So the ADM was sent as a resource person only, because she had the knowledge that the people putting the panel together said they wanted. The people putting the panel together accepted that as quite in keeping with their desires. They were sorry that I was not free to attend, but they were quite willing to have a senior civil servant come to address the factual aspects of New Directions, and I believe they made that clear at the meeting.

I would ask the member for Wolseley if it was not made clear at the meeting that the ADM was there as a resource person, not to answer political questions, because I have been told that was made clear. Maybe the member just did not hear that being made clear, because if she did not hear it being made clear then I can understand why she would say she was concerned that I sent a deputy to do political things. If she did hear it made, if she heard that statement made, then she is putting false information deliberately on the record, and I would ask her to tell me whether or not she heard that being said, that the ADM was not there to answer political questions but was provided as a courtesy to be a resource for the technical and factual things.

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That had been agreed to by the panel who apologized for giving me such short notice and who did not expect me to break another commitment with other parents in another community. So I would appreciate the member telling me whether or not she was basing her first premise on the assumption that I did not know what had gone on at the meeting and allowed deliberately false information to go on the record that I had sent the ADM to answer political questions. If she heard that clarified, that I had not sent her for that reason, then could she please withdraw the inherent criticism in her statement and apologize to me for putting false information deliberately on the record.

If she did not hear it--I know it was said; perhaps she did not hear it even though she was there--then I would like her to explain that she did not hear it, and I will apologize to her for assuming that she heard all that was said at the meeting she attended.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, I think the member, if she checks the record, will hear that, in fact, I said the deputy minister acted quite correctly and was not there to answer political questions. Secondly, I also said that this was not a criticism of the minister, that there were 31 Tory MLAs who I had hoped would be able to come to that meeting, and I think I said here exactly what I said at the meeting.

I notice that the minister has digressed for quite awhile and has not yet answered the question I put last time, which was, could she tell us something more about the authorship of this document? I gave her two reasons for the questions, the context of that document and, of course, the question of the accuracy of the information.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the clarification the member made. I think if she checks Hansard she will see that in her question she implied that the deputy minister was sent, and to her credit did not answer political questions even though, and this is definitely implied, the minister sent her into a political forum expecting her to do that.

The way you worded your question left the impression--and you are very good at this, Madam--clearly left the impression that the minister had consciously sent the ADM out to answer political questions and that the ADM, because of her high integrity, correctly did not fall into the trap the minister had laid for her. That is the implication that I read into your question. That is the implication that most readers would read into your question. I think you know it, and I know it. We did say before that if you kept the tone of your questions as high, the tone of my answers would be high, but when I see the subtle way in which you are trying to do these things, I will call a spade a spade every time, so we can carry on courteously or not.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. I hate to interrupt, Madam Minister; however, I would ask all members, both the member for Wolseley and the honourable minister, to address their comments to the Chair. Thank you.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, who wrote the budget? Who wrote the throne speech? Who wrote the Accountability document? Who wrote any number of things issued by the government? I am puzzled and perplexed by why, with this particular document, unlike any other, the opposition suddenly seems to be concerned with authorship. You never ran around and asked who authored the throne speech. The opposition never asks who writes the budget presentation or the budget document, and the reason they do not is because it is quite clear. Once government issues a document with the name Government of Manitoba on it, the government itself becomes the author, the government claims authorship, the government acknowledges authorship, the government takes responsibility for the document once it has the Government of Manitoba’s signature on it.

As minister, I take responsibility. All the members of government take ownership of documents which are labelled Government of Manitoba official documents, so I think the number of people involved in putting input into the document, the variety of departments, the levels of expertise, do they change the content of the document? Does it change the level of debate over the contents of the document if you find out, for example, that so-and-so had input into it versus so-and-so? I believe the document deserves and requires debate on its own merit without worrying whether it was 22 people or 23 people or whether it was Civil Service or Department of Labour, Department of Finance or Department of Education or any of those other departments who played any particular lead role in the establishing of it.

What is important is that the member has indicated she believed that there were some pieces of information in that document that were incorrect, and I would be very grateful if the member could indicate which areas of the document she believes are inaccurate. Where are the so-called errors? Where are the so-called mistakes?

Could she indicate to us what she thinks is not accurate in that document, so that we can, for the record, clarify for her and correct any misunderstandings she may have? We have had one brought to our attention already which we checked and verified that we were correct. Unfortunately, it was one that the Teachers’ Society had published wide and far as a mistake when it was not a mistake. We did correct it, but I doubt very much that they informed their same readership that they had, in fact, been wrong in saying that our document was wrong. I think they let their statement stand and we did not have the time or the money or the energy to chase down all the hundreds of people they may have written to saying that there was an error where there was none. So if you have any information about an error that you think is in there, could you please do us the honour of telling us what it is, and we will look into it for you.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, some of the ones that have been brought to my attention deal particularly with the pupil-educator ratio. As I understand it, there are three different versions of this number. In 1994-95, I believe that the document itself proposes that the pupil-educator ratio in Manitoba is 14.9 and it gives reference to that. The footnote for that is the British Columbia Ministry of Education. The FRAME document of the government itself offers for the same pupil-educator ratio 18.9, or it offers another figure of 16.4 as well for the lower one if you include administrators.

Statistics Canada in its most recent edition of education statistics, which I think the library received a few weeks ago, lists 15.2. So there are three different ones there, I think all of them relating to, if I take that 18.9 one, the ratio between pupils and educators in the classroom, that is excluding the administrators and the clinicians, et cetera. So that is one of the areas where there has been certainly comment and some clarification would be required.

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Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, but could the member tell me where the error is? I mean, she has quoted some statistics. I presume she knows the difference between a pupil-teacher and pupil-educator ratio.

But I had asked if you could show us where there were some errors, and I am wondering if you could show us where the errors were in those.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, could the minister tell us why the pupil-teacher ratio--and I was using educator, you are quite right; I should have said pupil-teacher--from Statistics Canada is giving us 15.2?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, as the member knows, the Stats Canada figure, there is a new one out now. The latest one, aside from the one that has just come out, was done in July ’92, and if the member has that, she can look on page 35, where clearly it shows it is a statistical portrait of elementary and secondary education in Canada. It is a graph that shows the ratio of enrollment to educators in public schools by province and territory across Canada, and it clearly shows Manitoba on the bar graph as just under the 15, around 14.9.

That was the latest one that we were working on. There is a new one that may show us slightly up, but the one for the document which we are working in--I believe, sourced--would indicate that.

The other one that we have to collaborate that is a more recent statistic from British Columbia in the fall of 1995, which polled every province and territory in Canada, and the 1994 figure was indeed 14.9 from that source.

So there are two sources, one from 1992 and one from 1995, two different sources on student-educator ratios, both showing 14.9 for Manitoba, well below the national average. If you use our own FRAME Report for the total student-educator ratios, the total figure for ’94-95 also shows 14.9, also again amongst the lowest in Canada.

There are three sources there, and if you want the number that you were talking about in terms of class size, which, again, is a differing comparison--the three I have just given you have been pupil-educator ratios. Pupil-educator ratios involve the number of students to the number of professionals in the school who work with students as resource teachers, classroom teachers, et cetera, and it includes all educators in the school.

The other figure that you may be interested in, which is the regular instruction class size, is 18.7, and that is the average number of pupils per classroom teacher, which is different from the number of pupils per educator, because you may have educators in the school who do not teach a class. Teaching librarians, for example, may not register a home class, so the average number of pupils per teacher is 18.7. That is the ’94-95 figure from FRAME accounting.

The key is to try to be consistent in your comparisons. So when you talk about pupil-educator, which is basically what you have to talk about when you compare with the rest of Canada, because that is the only true comparison, where you are comparing apples with apples-- when you say pupil-educator in every province, they are measuring the same thing you are; they are comparing apples with apples instead of apples with oranges. Those comparisons are valid, and they are compared by three different sources.

The class size at 18.7 is our own indication from our own statistical analysis, and the FRAME financial reporting shows 18.7 pupils per classroom teacher in Manitoba. Those are correct figures.

Ms. Friesen: The British Columbia source is, in fact, the government of Manitoba.

Mrs. McIntosh: As is every province. When British Columbia does its comparisons, it goes province by province, takes all the information from each of the provinces, and does the comparative study. They gave us the definitions with which we were to provide them the information. They set the parameters. They indicated their definition of pupil-educator, which was the valid comparison that finally came out.

When they said to us, please provide us with this information based upon the number of this and that and the other thing, we complied with their request for the pieces of information they asked for, and they came out in the final analysis with the same figures that Stats Canada showed, that our own figures show, et cetera.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, are there any differences in the criteria that British Columbia establishes as it looks at this Blue Cross provincial comparison? Are there any differences between it and the Stats Canada criteria?

Mrs. McIntosh: We do not take ownership for British Columbia’s decision making. However, they define educators the same way that all provinces and Canada now does, so we now have a common definition so that we can compare apples to apples, as I said before.

British Columbia and Stats Canada and us and other provinces now, when we talk about pupil-teacher ratios, all use the same definition. We mean those educators who are in schools versus the number of students, and we include in those the special needs teachers, clinicians and counsellors, those kinds of people who are in the schools full time and work with the students in the schools but do not have their own classroom, and we also include classroom teachers. That is standard now.

All areas use that as a definition, so there is no more comparing of apples to oranges and no more saying, well, pupil-teacher versus pupil-educator, which are not the same things. So we have two statistics we put forward then. We put forward the pupil-educators statistic which is 14.9 for Manitoba, and we also put forward the pupil-teacher statistic which is the number of pupils per classroom teacher which is 18.7 for Manitoba. We know those are two different things we are talking about, and in both of those instances Manitoba fares very well indeed compared to other provinces.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, did this particular document, Enhancing Accountability, talk about the pupil-teacher ratio, the 18.7?

Mrs. McIntosh: No, Mr. Chairman, it does not, because the other provinces--we did not want to put anything in here unless we could absolutely guarantee we were talking, as I said before, apples to apples. We know with the pupil-educator it was absolutely straight comparison apples to apples. Although we know informally pupil-teacher ratios from other provinces, we know what they are, we did not have statistical charts that could verify that. Therefore we did not include that in the document.

It has been subject of many, many conversations, it is well known by the organizations, the stakeholder groups, and we know, as I say, from informal contacts with other provinces and territories that our pupil-teacher ratio is a very favourable one here in Manitoba, but we did not include it specifically in the document because we did not have the documentation that we can absolutely verify from every province; we did not have all the provinces statistics on that in written form that we could verify to include in the document. We did not want to put anything in the document that could not be verified the way this pupil-educator ratio can.

If she is aware of any document that has all 10 provinces and both territories with that particular statistic verified from each province formally, we would be very pleased to be able to put that in. We know informally what our figures are, but formal presentation in a codified format would be very much appreciated if she has access to it.

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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the desire for comparability and for equality of definitions, but what I want to ask the minister is, is she aware that that particular element in the preparation of this document caused a great deal of anxiety, concern, hostility? I would say many people who presented to that committee pointed to that particular table as, I think in their minds, first of all, conveying an unrealistic scenario in Manitoba.

The minister asks why, Mr. Chairman, and I think it is because without a good deal of explanation, what that portrays to members of the general public who are not versed in the educational statistical language is that the actual classroom participation of teachers and students is at that level, and many people obviously said, no, it is not, and my classes are much larger than that.

I think it was one of the things which contributed to that sense of the undermining of the teaching profession and of the people in the classroom. Had there been a broader discussion--and that is really again why I am getting at authorship. If this had been a broader discussion paper which would have been much more research-based in the sense of, all right, here is the full discussion of teacher-educator relationships across the country. Here to the best of our knowledge is where Manitoba stands in teacher-pupil relationship. Here is the difference between the two. We know that some classes in Manitoba are larger. We know that some classes are smaller.

If that kind of general discussion could have been included, if this had been a research paper, I think it would have helped considerably to conduct this discussion in public on a much different basis than it has been.

So that is why I started with that and again started with the authorship and the relationship of this to the Department of Education, because so many people that I have heard, who have talked about this document, have said, look, surely the department knows. We know the department knows the difference. The minister has just put it on the record, but that sense of conveying that to the general public is not there in this document, and I wonder if in the minister's response to this document--and I assume at some point there is going to be a formal response to the committee's presentation--those kinds of issues can be discussed, and, in particular, that one.

Mrs. McIntosh: I am reading page 7 of the accountability document where it indicates that the pupil-educator ratio is the number of teachers employed in relation to the number of pupils enrolled in the schools. It quite clearly indicates that it would include all teachers employed versus classroom teachers.

I find it interesting that no representative for the Manitoba Teachers’ Society asked or posed a question concerning the accuracy of that figure. They knew. They said that you are talking pupil-educator, not pupil-teacher, and we said that is correct, so they knew the difference quite clearly.

Is the member saying--I am going back to my original question. You indicated in your opening today that there were a lot of mistakes in this document, a lot of inaccurate figures and a lot of errors, and I asked if you could give us some, but, so far, all you have done is indicate that there is a figure in here that is correct.

(Mr. Mike Radcliffe, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

So I am just wondering if I could, with respect, ask you again where are all these errors, where are all these mistakes, and where are all the factual inaccuracies in this document, because you have named one, and it is a correct figure. It is not wrong and it is not being questioned as wrong.

People seem to know because they have said, why do you not have pupil-teacher in there, as well, and I think we have explained that. At least the MTS seems to know the difference between pupil-educator and pupil-teacher, and it says in the document that pupil-educator is the total number of teachers employed in relation to the number of pupils enrolled in the schools.

To me, that seems clear as a definition. Perhaps it could have been expanded and enlarged upon and made more clear or be more detailed. That would be a good point, but it is not inaccurate as you indicated in the beginning, so could you tell us where the mistakes are, so we can look into them?

Ms. Friesen: One of the contrasts that seems to me to be there is in the comparison with Statistics Canada, the most recent production, which from my notes does say 15.2 for pupil-teacher relationships. Now, I have just sent for a copy of that book to make sure that, in fact, I did read it correctly. I may not have read it correctly, so I have sent for the actual copy, so we can all have the same copy in front of us.

My basic point is that the minister and the department were aware that there were other numbers, 18.7, which were closer to teachers’ experiences, and I think the concerns of many people whom I heard discuss this at the hearings was that this was a document which was being sent out, and, of course, we have to remember that it was accompanied by that friendly fax from other sources.

Point of Order

Mrs. McIntosh: On a point of order, this was not accompanied by anything. The government of Manitoba put out this document, and it was not accompanied by any other document that the member is referring to. I think maybe that is a dispute over the facts.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Radcliffe): Thank you, Madam Minister. I think you have labelled this correctly as a dispute over the facts. I thank you for that information, and I would invite the honourable member for Wolseley to continue with her question.

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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, my concern is, again, to put this document into context of the government sending out a document which had very narrow definitions of the relationship between teachers and their responsibilities in the education system, and, in this case, for example, did not talk about the 18.7, which, although, as the minister has said, she does not have comparable data across Canada, it certainly would have given people who are not familiar with educational statistics, and there are, I would say, many thousands of those in Manitoba, some sense that there are other ways of examining this particular position.

Really, what I am saying to the minister is that in her response to this commission, she has the opportunity to put these things into broader context, that she has the opportunity to talk to parents, teachers, superintendents and trustees, all the people who presented to this commission, perhaps to give a broader context.

So it is an issue of timing. There is another step to be made. I am flagging this for the minister as one of the areas of concern, and I am sure members on that committee will tell her the same thing, that this was one of the areas of concern, and I am asking and suggesting to the minister that she take that opportunity to expand upon this area.

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member has indicated that in terms of actual experience, that 18.7 students is closer to what most teachers experience, and, with due respect, I do not know any classroom teacher who has not had some experience utilizing resource teachers, special needs teachers, clinicians, counsellors, teacher-librarians. I do not know any. If she could produce for me a Manitoba teacher who has only had experience with the number of students in their own class and no other teacher working with those children, if she could produce for me the teacher in Manitoba who has never utilized the extra educators in the school--the principal, the resource teacher--then I would concede that there might be a point in one or two instances. But most classroom teachers that I know, in fact, all the classroom teachers that I know, have from time to time utilized reading recovery teachers, resource teachers, clinicians, counsellors.

So for her to say that most teachers have an isolated experience, in which they never are aware of the other educators in the school, by saying that 18.7 is what most teachers experience and completely negate the worth of the other educators in the school who lift, in some cases, a very heavy burden indeed from the backs of the classroom teachers, I think maybe it would be good if the member could come into some of the K to 8 schools and watch what happens there because there is interaction. If what she is saying by implication is that putting resource teachers and special needs teachers in the school makes no difference whatsoever to the classroom teacher, then I would like to know what teacher she has been talking to who gained no benefit whatsoever in terms of lightening their load or assisting with the teaching of their students from other specialists, other educators in the school. Maybe she could tell me which teachers receive no benefit from other educators in the school.

(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)

I thought we had progressed to the point where other educators in the school were seen as an integral part of the school staff, as an integral part of lessening the load of those classroom teachers who experience, on average, 18.7 students in their classroom and do receive help from the other educators in the school with those children who require attention over and above what the classroom teacher is able to provide. So to completely negate, as she has by implication, the impact of the other educators in the school by saying that the formula using educator-teacher formula is not a good thing to do because 18.7 students is what most teachers experience is to indicate those other educators have no impact whatsoever, I do not think that is correct. I think they do have an impact and I think it is a very beneficial positive impact. I am sorry the member does not feel that way. I am sorry the classroom teachers she has talked to do not feel that way, but I feel that they do help in the schools, they do help the regular teachers.

We would have included other statistics such as class size, such as the 18.7 to show that Manitoba’s position vis-à-vis the other provinces is good, but we did not have certifiable verification the way we do on the pupil-educator. I think if we had put it in without being able to verify it absolutely, we would then be criticized for putting it in without being able to verify it absolutely and probably by the same member who is now saying we should have included it, but to include it out of context--and I suppose we could have put it in verifying it against one or two provinces, but we would prefer to have a nationwide look when we are doing a comparison to this study.

You may feel there should have been other data in; you may feel there should have been some data left out. Whether you agree with the data that was included, or disagree with the data that was not included, the fact is the teachers and the teachers’ union were invited to comment or propose anything they wished, whether it was in the document or not in the document, but they chose not to provide other alternatives, except to say that they did not like the document.

I think that was unfortunate because the Manitoba Teachers’ Society has an extremely good research staff, very, very capable people. They do know the issues and they do know the definitions and could have presented some alternatives that might have been very helpful to the committee, rather than just to simply say that they did not want to deviate from the status quo. So an opportunity, in my opinion, was lost, although as I did indicate, I have had many teachers informally indicate to me some other ideas and directions that we could take. They prefer not to get into a wrangle with the union over it, but there are some--well, there are many educators, in fact, who had some good ideas to bring forward, although the official position publicly was simply to say the document is not well-written, the document is not accurate, the document is not worthy of discussion, we want the status quo.

I would like to know, and maybe I can ask the member if she has any figures--again, this is about the fourth time of asking, could you show me where the errors are, please? You started off, as I indicated before, saying this document had many errors, many incorrect figures, and I think this is about the fourth time that I have asked, could you please tell me what those errors are, because to date, to this moment, I have not been informed of any. I have simply been told that the member wished there could have been additional information provided or that certain kinds of information should not have been provided or the document did not give enough explanation or maybe it was written by somebody that the NDP do not like. I do not know, but to date, they have not told us where there are any mistakes in the document, which is what I believe we were going to be discussing today.

I would be interested to know, too, what about the issues in the paper? I think this is an interesting tactic of diversion. Let us not talk about the issues raised in the paper. Let us not talk about the ability of school boards to pay. Let us not talk about a myriad of important matters. Let us talk about who wrote it, how they wrote it, who read it, how they interpreted it, who felt badly about it, who felt good about it, but let us not talk about the issues contained in the document itself. That, to me, I think would be something I hope we do get to eventually in these Estimates because that is what is at the heart, or should be at the heart, of these questions.

Point of Order

Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): On a point of order, I am still relatively new here, but I understood the purpose of this process was to examine the Estimates of Expenditure, okay, and for the minister to be asking the opposition questions--the minister is the one who has the staff here, the minister is the one who is putting forward this budget, and it is up to the opposition to ask questions or the members of the government who do not understand it.

My understanding was this was not a place for debate generally about education. It was to examine the expenditures of the Department of Education, and I do not understand the minister asking questions of the questioners.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The honourable minister, on the same point of order?

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chair, I was inviting questions on meaningful topics. I was getting questions on topics that did not really get to the heart of the issue, and I was inviting the opposition to put forward questions of meaning and substance so that we could get discussing the heart of the matter rather than the things that go around the edge of it.

Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. I am going to rule that, in fact, the member does not have a point of order, but it is a dispute over the facts, and simply in this way, that, in fact, members from all sides of the table, if you will, make comments and questions. I do believe that the minister, in asking for verification of certain questions, can pose questions in her comments.

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Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The honourable minister, to finish her comments. I believe there is about a minute and a half.

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I believe I have concluded. At that, I will let them get on with their questioning.

Ms. Friesen: The minister has digressed quite a bit from the context of my comments last time, which was to invite her to make that fuller response at the next stage. I thought it was offered in a spirit of constructive advice. This is an area where there was a lot of discussion. I think people felt, the people whom I heard speak to the commission certainly saw this as a--although it may not have been inaccurate in itself, it certainly did not portray the conditions in the classroom which they saw themselves experiencing, and I was offering the minister the opportunity in her next stage of this paper to, in fact, reflect on that.

I did say that I had examined the most recent Statistics Canada material, which goes up to 1993-94, and on page 171 of that document I think the minister and her staff will find that Manitoba is listed of having increased its pupil-teacher ratio in public elementary, secondary schools--this is across Canada--from 14.8 in 1989-90 to 15.2, so that in 1993-94 Statistics Canada definition of pupil-teacher ratio is 15.2.

Presumably, Statistics Canada's material comes from Manitoba. So, again, we have British Columbia's statistic, whose source is Manitoba, saying 14.9; we have a Statistics Canada one saying 15.2. The minister had earlier said that Statistics Canada and British Columbia were asking for the same kind of criteria. So I am asking the minister what the reason is for this.

Mrs. McIntosh: If that is the latest StatsCan, I do not know from whence they drew those statistics because they are not the same as our statistics for the same year. They are very close, but I do not know how they sourced that particular information. I do not have the document here. Maybe the member could indicate what source they used. They usually will list their source for how they gained the information.

Relatively speaking, however, I believe if you look at the relative comparison, which, I am sure, must be in that document she has, that relative comparison would still show Manitoba as it does in the 1992--I do not have it here--as it does in the year previous, which is the year that we were using. Pupil-educator ratios by province, ’94-95, from British Columbia shows Manitoba the second lowest pupil-educator ratio in Canada from last year. I wager that, if you look at that StatsCan statistic, albeit I do not know how they sourced it, you would see Manitoba’s position vis-à-vis the rest of Canada still is in that highly favourable percentage of being either second lowest, lowest or third lowest--in the bottom three.

But I would be interested to know what the relative positions are from that particular document. I am quite sure they verify these because the trend has not changed, and you may wish to read that into the record, if you have it there.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, yes, it shows Manitoba as about in the middle. There are lower pupil-teacher ratios in schools in--[interjection]

Mrs. McIntosh Are they pupil-educator or pupil-teacher?

Ms. Friesen Mr. Chairman, the minister asked, is it pupil-educator or pupil-teacher. I am using the StatsCan language, which says pupil-teacher ratio in public elementary, secondary schools. I wonder if that is not one of the issues, in fact. Is Manitoba including private schools in its overall statistics?

Mrs. McIntosh No, and it may be that particular thing, if they are using pupil-teacher as opposed to pupil-educator, may be talking about a different comparison. They may not be talking about this same one that gives us 14.9, which is the educators in the school versus the pupils. The FRAME budget is for public schools.

Ms. Friesen Mr. Chair, there are, obviously, some different elements there in comparison as well, but what it does show for 1993-94 is that there are five jurisdictions in Canada that have lower per pupil-teacher ratio in public schools. So I do not know whether Manitoba has changed in that position or not, but it puts us about in the middle under StatsCan’s numbers.

Mrs. McIntosh I do not know what the range you have there is, if it is a wide range or if those four that are under Manitoba are just minimally under or way under. The pupil-educator ratios for ’94-95, the range is quite dramatic Saskatchewan at 17.3, for example, versus Manitoba at 14.9, and the only one lower is Quebec at 14.3. Alberta is at 17.9; Prince Edward Island, at 17.1; Nova Scotia, at 17.2; New Brunswick, at 17.0. So they are all considerably higher, and the one that is lower is only lower by a portion of a percentage. I do not know if in that document you have the ones that are under Manitoba are under Manitoba by more than a percentage point or not or if they are all in that range.

But, be that as it may, if they are talking pupil-teacher and we are talking pupil-educator, you can still see that Manitoba fares very well either at the bottom or in the middle. It is certainly not in the high range.

Ms. Friesen Just for the minister’s staff, that is page 171 of the 1995 Statistics Canada document, if you wanted to follow it up. The interesting thing, of course, also, is it shows which jurisdictions are increasing their class size and which are decreasing. More or less half of them are increasing, half of them are decreasing. Manitoba unfortunately is on the increasing side.

Mrs. McIntosh We will take the page down and look into that. What year is that again, Jean?

Ms. Friesen 1995.

Mrs. McIntosh Thank you.

Ms. Friesen I wanted to ask the minister again about some of the issues that have been raised, again, on the research angle of this particular document. There are a number of people who looked at this document and looked at the representation that this document makes of the increase in teachers and the decrease in students. One of the comments which I think was frequently made to the committee was that the document does not acknowledge that many teachers have become part-time teachers and that had there been specifically a look at that issue of full-time versus part-time teachers, there would have been a very different conclusion reached, or a somewhat different conclusion reached.

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Mrs. McIntosh The member unfortunately is incorrect. These figures are full-time equivalents. They are not part-time teachers, or if they are part time, they are only counted as part time. For example, if a principal is a teaching principal, he only teaches .35 percent of the time, then he is only counted .35 percent of the time. I know that rumour has been floating around, and I know that some people have actually put it out as if this figure were incorrect. It is not incorrect; these are full-time equivalent teachers. They do incorporate part-time teachers, but a half-time teacher is only counted as a half-time teacher, and you have to have two half-time teachers before you can count one on this figure.

That was raised at the principals’ conference, in fact. We went back and had it all verified, checked and rechecked, and it came back that this figure stands as correct. The member has been misinformed, and I am glad that she raised it so it could be noted that the figure in the document has been verified by officials as indeed being correct. The source for that in terms of accuracy were two sources, the Manitoba Association of School Trustees--and they do have some knowledge of which people are working full time and part time because they are the employers and the hiring agency--and the Schools Finance Branch, as well.

Ms. Friesen So that on pages 8 and 9 of this document--that is where the relationship between teachers and students is spoken of--the minister maintains that all the references to teachers take into account the 14 percent increase, I think it is, in Manitoba in part-time teacher positions.

Mrs. McIntosh Under where it says number of teachers on page 9, those are full-time equivalents. It could be that they have 12,000 full-time teachers or 24,000 half-time teachers, but they are to the equivalent of 12,000, actually 12,331 full-time teachers.

Ms. Friesen Another issue that was raised in this same area of the document is that the government chose to take the numbers from ’88-89 and hence show a percentage change in the number of teachers by 2.5 percent.

One argument that has been made is that, had the government taken it from other dates, from later dates, you would show the decrease that most people have experienced, a decrease of about 0.8, I think.

Mrs. McIntosh: I think the member is probably fully aware that whenever we make comparisons, maybe not in every instance but primarily in most instances, we always start from the date that we took office. I have done that innumerable times; the Minister of Finance (Mr. Stefanson) has done it innumerable times; the Minister of Justice (Mrs. Vodrey) has done it; the Minister of Health (Mr. McCrae) has done it. We will stand up and say, in 1988 when we took office the figures were this, and today they are that, and you will see that repeated over and over as a theme. We always start with the year that we took office to make comparisons.

Now, I suppose we could have started at a different year. The teachers generally start, when they are talking to us, I think it was 1993, the first year we had a 2 percent cut in funding. That is where the union likes to start, and I suppose that unfortunately is also where the official opposition likes to start, so I can probably throw the same accusation back, although I will not, that, well, we always start with the year we took office. You always start with the year that the revenues from Ottawa began to decline. I think it just easier to start with when we took office and we have always got sort of a benchmark against which we can measure. It may have been that the year before or the year after certain things changed in any given comparison, but our common pattern is to start with 1988, because that is when we started.

Ms. Friesen: What I am trying to do is to reflect back to the minister some of the anger about this document. One of them is that people presented, believed that it did not reflect the reality that they were seeing in the classroom or in their school divisions.

The minister is right, of course, that people who have been in the education system in the last few years certainly have seen a change as a result of the cuts to Education. One of the changes they believe they have seen is an increase in the number of students in many of the classes across Manitoba.

That is why I am raising it. It is a sense of reflecting on the general intent of the document and trying to explain or represent to the minister why it has aroused so much anger and so much hostility at public meetings across the province, because indeed it has. Again, it seems to me that if a research paper had been done, one which presented pros and cons, both sides of an issue, in this case the issue of staffing and the issue of changes in teachers ratios, whether it is educator ratios or whether it is classroom-teacher ratios, I think the teaching profession, the trustees, indeed, and the general public would have had a greater confidence in a document that was setting out to deal with an issue in a fair way. What has concerned me and what I am reflecting back to the minister is that I am very concerned that that opportunity has been lost.

Now, I hope it has not. I think the minister has an opportunity to reflect on the report she gets and to take account of these kinds of questions, and although I am dealing with them, as did many other people deal with them in terms of the statistics, the issue is the nature of the document itself and the way in which it was presented as narrowing into five options with a range of numbers which people felt did not reflect the whole picture.

I am wondering again, if I can just focus it on the future, what does the minister see as the next stage of this? In other times the government has, for example, responded to the Boundaries Commission. Is the minister going to have a formal response to the collective voice that she gets from her committee?

Mrs. McIntosh: I am interested, as the member indicates, that the document proposed five options, and they were very narrow, and I heard inherent in the question that that was not good, but I stress that there were five proposals in the document and a request for others. It was very clearly worded in the document. It could not be more clear. In fact, I will read to you what it says. [interjection] A member says, page 24. Yes, I am looking for a particular quote, but I will indicate that--well, I will just read the last line which says--there is another quote in here that is better, but it says: A major purpose of this paper is to initiate open discussion regarding these issues.

It goes on and invites people to a public meeting, and then it says: In addition, written comments and alternative suggestions are invited and should be sent to address and so on.

I indicated, as well, very clearly, in a letter that I sent to the editor and in the press release, that we were hoping that those five proposals would be a springboard for discussion that would lead to discussion and feedback and might spark some ideas that could be presented to government as a way to try to resolve the dilemma that trustees found themselves in.

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So it was very, very clear, no ifs, ands or buts about it, that those five proposals were hoped to be the basis of a discussion that would spark wider perspective and other ideas. Unfortunately, and again I say it is very unfortunate, but perhaps there is opportunity still, the members of the union who made presentation did not have any other suggestions or ideas. They did not put forward any other options or alternatives. They indicated that they did not like the paper, they did not like the way it was written, they did not like the statistics that were put forward in the document. They questioned the validity of the statistics. They questioned the validity of the comparisons. They indicated that Manitoba teachers were far worse off, in most cases, than other provinces, even though information was there that indicated, on a comparison-by-profession basis and a comparison-by-province basis, they were doing all right, but they did not put forward any other options or alternatives.

It is very hard to consider other ideas if they are not presented, but the trustees and some of the other groups, by contrast, did use the opportunity to present alternatives to the current system. I have reams of letters from citizenry with other suggestions, some of them, I am sure, are ones that the union would not want to see invoked because they are quite clear and plain and colourfully worded. I got the bulk of those scribbled on the back of little pink folders.

I understand there was one Saturday or something that the union went out to the shopping malls, and they handed out quite a few of these pink folders with information and asked people to contact the minister and they did. They were usually scribbled all over with yes, I am contacting the minister to tell her that, and they were very, very supportive of the minister and I do not think that the union realized that would be the end result of their little pink pamphlets, because I have got them all over my office, I am with you, Minister, kind of statements. I do not appreciate being accosted at the mall by the union, et cetera, but I am sure they never sold out the teachers.

I have a whole scrapbook full of them which I am reading and taking seriously, because underneath the way in which the comments were sent back in are some suggestions. I wish that the teachers had taken opportunity, when they were given it, to do more than stand there and say we are really hard done by, and you are not nice, and we want the status quo, and we will not give you any other ideas. I think that was not helpful to us, but we still are willing to hear from teachers. As I say, there have been some who have come quietly forward to say have you ever thought of doing this, have you ever thought of doing that, it might work, it might help.

There are some teachers who are close to and friends with many trustees and understand the dilemma that trustees face, and have some empathy and sympathy for the dilemma that trustees find themselves in. There are, indeed, a lot of teachers who have indicated to me that they, too, are taxpayers and they have said that we pay taxes, too, and we understand the dilemma; it seems sort of strange to raise our salaries by a certain amount, only to take that same amount back in taxes because taxes have had to rise to accommodate my salary. There are I think a lot more teachers like that around than the union realizes. I think I have been contacted by almost all of them in that who feel that way.

I wonder if the document had been worded any differently, if the response would have been any different, and I guess that was something that has been stated to me by an awful lot of people that raising this topic, even if encouched in the most user-friendly language possible would have raised the ire of the union, and the union would have seen in its duty to inflame the membership. Now if the wording of the document was terse and blunt, perhaps it was easier for those methodologies to succeed, but I wonder aloud if the response would have been that different, perhaps by degree, because we know in years past, this is a subject that just simply could not be raised. It could not be raised because the feelings on the issue were so sensitive.

Trustees have been afraid to raise it over the years. Parents have been afraid to raise it. Teachers have been afraid to raise it. Ministers of Education have ducked the issue for the better part of a decade. I know as president of MAST, we appeared before Minister Storrie. He ducked the issue. Ministers of Education do not want to touch this one; it is a hot potato. Trustees have been reluctant to take it to the floor of the convention in the last two years they have. I think that had the government spent another year to phrase this in user-friendly language and made sure that all the statistics were fully explained, I think that the teachers would still have been incredibly angry that we would raise this issue and question the method by which compensation is made to those employed in the field, because they have never been questioned this way before.

Ms. Friesen: I think the dilemma that the trustees find themselves in is a constant cutting of funds from the provincial government and an off loading onto the local tax base, particularly onto a local tax base which is increasingly bearing the bulk of taxation in Canada, the two changes which have been going on. So it is not an abstract issue, the dilemma of trustees, it is a series of political choices that Conservative governments have made.

I think what I am suggesting to the minister is that the document was perceived, widely seen by many teachers, as an unfair document and that it did not recognize the conditions that teachers face in the schools today and that is really all I am pointing out to the minister at this stage that--well, we will move on.

I wanted to ask the minister, she mentioned a scrapbook that she has of pink slips, and I wondered what the pink slips from people who signed these when they were approached in malls and then sent them to the minister. Could the minister--yes, pink slips has another term, so I wanted to specify that. Would the minister be sending that to her commission? What is the disposition of those documents?

Mrs. McIntosh: I do not have them in a scrapbook. I said I could fill a scrapbook, probably several scrapbooks. The pink slips that I am referring to are not the dismissal slips or telephone slips. They were little pink brochures that the teachers’ union put together and they were about the accountability document. I forget how they were worded. It had something about, look what your government is doing to education or something, and they went to the mall on a Saturday--it must have been a Saturday because these things all came flooding in on the Monday and Tuesday--and handed them out.

Many of them are, indeed, signed. People put their names on the bottom and one person attached a piece of paper saying, no, no, I shall not write the government and then proceeded to write the government with his views on what he thought about being given this piece of paper. Some of the wording on those were pretty colourful and some of them were fairly intense and, like, I am a retired teacher and I used to teach with 34 kids in the classroom and no prep time and no assistance and no resource teacher and no librarian and had to supervise lunch hour and did my homework at night and taught from nine to four and all of these things and I think teachers have got it pretty good these days. Those kinds of comments were there and as I indicated to the member, things that were written to be submissions and were intended for public consumption will all be referred to the commission to study.

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Letters that were sent to me privately or that I consider were sent to me by someone who thought they were writing me a personal note and not a submission would be kept as private correspondence to me. Those particular ones I have set aside as personal correspondence because they were not sparked by the commission. They were not written submissions to the commission, they were not even in response to the commission. They were in response to a piece of paper they were given that had information on it that really did not have anything to do with presentations to the commission. They are given a piece of paper that said the government of Manitoba has cut back on funding, and the government of Manitoba is hurting education, and the government of Manitoba is no good where education is concerned, and they are going to roll teachers’ wages back and all of these things. I cannot remember what was on it exactly, but it was along that line.

So they were responding to that pink brochure. They were not responding to Enhancing Accountability. They were not responding to the Enhancing Accountability document at all. They were responding to a pink brochure that they were handed in the mall by a union member and they disagreed with what they had read or, in some cases, they just simply disagreed with the fact that somebody had given them this and told them to write me. So I do not really consider them submissions although I will go through them if there are any that I think could be considered that. I will phone the people who sent them and ask if they want them forwarded. They were not all signed, but the majority of them were signed.

You indicated that trustees are facing this dilemma now because of all the cuts in Education, but I assure you absolutely that trustees were facing this dilemma in 1985 and 1986 and 1987, and you can check the record, but I believe that there were no cuts to Education in those days, and trustees were making those requests of government. I know because I was in those years the past president, the president and the vice-president of the Manitoba Association of School Trustees. It was a huge agenda item. It was debated hotly at many of our table officers’ meetings. There were two presentations that I am aware of and that I was part of to ministers of Education asking for relief from the confines of binding arbitration in 1985, 1986, and 1987.

In 1986, the school trustees of Manitoba banded together to try to get a wage freeze. They wanted a wage freeze, that was 10 years ago, officially wanted a wage freeze. They were not successful, but there was no cutting then.

To say, well, trustees are now finally asking for a change in binding arbitration because of government cuts makes it very difficult to explain why they wanted the same thing 10, 11 years ago. Maybe the member could explain why 10 or 11 years ago, when we were getting money from the government in increases every year, maybe she can tell me why trustees, 10 and 11 years ago, wanted changes to binding arbitration, and why it was such a big issue, and why it was a topic of complaint every year, and why the ministers of Education of that day were asked to do something about it, officially, on behalf of trustees.

We can debate on the budget line school division funding, and the member has indicated that teachers have differing conditions today than they used to have before, and indeed they do, and, in fact, ironically enough, just a few moments ago I mentioned a retired teacher who pointed out how different the conditions are today than they used to be.

I know the other side of the coin. Conditions are different because, by and large, children today, unfortunately, do not have the same kinds of respectful attitudes in the classroom that they used to have 20, 30 years ago.

There are a lot of children who survive birth now and enter the school system who never used to, fetal alcohol syndrome children, for example. If there is a fetal alcohol syndrome child in a classroom without an aide, I would like the member to tell me where that child is, because every fetal alcohol syndrome student that I am aware of does have an aide or an assistant assigned to that student or assigned to the classroom teacher to help her or him in the classroom with that student.

Teachers are increasingly having to be social workers, nurses, parents, as well as teachers. Sometimes they have to be representatives of the justice system, and they do face pressures that teachers did not have to face 40, 50 years ago in terms of student contact. It is very difficult to hug a child these days. Teachers face a lot of pressures and we understand that, and we have great empathy for the teachers who work in the schools under these changed circumstances. They are different.

Even when I was a young teacher, 30 some-odd years ago--[interjection] Thank you, you say 20. In the early ’60s, when I was a young teacher, there were not the same problems in the classroom that there are today. At the same time, to try and assist the teachers, we have also introduced as a system things like preparation time, things like teacher assistants in the school, money for special needs and resource teachers.

We have tried to get those kinds of things into the school to try to help teachers with the very difficult job they have, and not for a minute should anyone ever think, when we start to talk about wages and the increasing costs to school systems of their teacher compensation package, that we are saying that teachers do not do a good job and are not worth being paid. I know that equation has been made, very clearly made, and I think maybe made quite clearly by members of the official opposition. If you do not give the teachers a raise every year, even if you cannot afford one, that means that you do not value teachers and think they are doing a terrible job, and that is not an equation that is true.

We value teachers. A really good teacher is priceless. You cannot put a price tag on a top-notch teacher, and for a parent who has had a child in distress whose life is turned around by a good, caring, competent teacher, that parent would give almost anything to that teacher in gratitude. But the world does not work that way. The union itself has put levels that say in terms of competence there is a level, and we see that in all areas of government and in big, wide systems where a teacher is a teacher is teacher, and if you are a Class IV, Step 1 you will get a certain wage. There is no way to honour those who are superb, and unfortunately that is part of the downside of the great equalizer that is built into the compensation packages.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, my question was, what will happen to those pink cards, and the minister said she is treating them as submissions to herself, some of which she might send on to the commission if she believes that would be appropriate.

Perhaps I can ask the minister, since she is saying that the vast majority of these--or perhaps I should ask, what proportion of these does the minister believe are--how would she classify them? The vast proportion are supporting the minister’s position, or there is a 50-50 balance, or where does it add up to, or has she not had the chance to look at it yet?

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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I think there are four or five that support the teachers’ position, and the rest are all--to be blunt, the rest say things like I got this crummy thing shoved in my face in the mall. They told me to send it to you. I am sending it to you to say if anybody sends you this saying they support them, then I think they are right out to lunch. That kind of comment, and they were sort of scribbled across it. It actually evoked a fair deal of hostility. I was quite surprised, because the very first one I received was supportive. The very first one I received had the little pink thing with a little note saying please do not be so cruel to the teachers, and I thought, oh, okay, I am going to start receiving a lot of these and they are going to have that sort of message, like please do not be so cruel to the teachers. Then they just dumped all in a couple of days or the Tuesday, Wednesday. They just sort of dumped. Some of them were stuffed in my mail box at home, a few things like that.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, would the minister tell us approximately how many she received? Would it be more or less than 100, say?

Mrs. McIntosh: I did not count them up, but say between 70 and 110, something like that; a pile about that high, however many that would be.

Ms. Friesen: But, effectively, Mr. Chairman, we will have to take the minister’s word for the variations of expression on those cards, because they will not become part of the public record in this first instance.

Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, you do not have to take my word for it if you choose not to. If I do not submit them, they will not be counted as part of the submission to the panel, and if I do submit them, then they will be counted. I may call some of the people who have been good enough to put their names and addresses on them and see if they want them in, but you know, some of them that just had three or four words across, I got the message pretty clearly, but I am not sure that they are the kind that you would want to have tabled publicly.

Be that as it may, I do not mean to have the panel consider things that were sent to me that were obviously not addressed to the panel and that were not in response to the written submission. They were not in response to Enhancing Accountability, and, I guess, like any other private correspondence, the member is quite right, I have no objection to those entire comments of mine being discounted, because if I do not submit them, then there is no documentation that they even exist. So, if you do not want to count them, do not count them. It does not bother me. I figure they were sent to me, for me.

Ms. Friesen: One of the other areas that people have great concern about in this document is its discussion of teacher education and rewards for education, incentives for further education, and hence the encouragement of further education. Clearly, that is one of the options that the document talks about, quite forcefully in some areas, that further education does not necessarily make a better teacher. I believe there were some concerns generally expressed around this same time about the whole area of teacher education and the various policy changes that seem to be being considered, both in this document and as a result of the Shapiro first report.

So I am asking again, in the issue of policy, where does the minister see the proposals in this document fitting into teacher education overall?

Mrs. McIntosh: For clarification, Mr. Chairman, could the member please read the specific proposals that she says we have regarding extra education for teachers? I am not aware of any proposals in the document. I know it was raised for discussion, asking what was the merit, but she has indicated that we have policy proposals here, and could she read them into the record please and tell me what pages they are on so I can respond properly?

Ms. Friesen: What this document does--for example, on page 20, this government document raises the question, and one assumes this is the minister speaking, of whether or not the educational system in Manitoba derives sufficient benefit from paying teachers for acquiring additional years of education, particularly in the absence of any measurement to indicate a particular teacher’s performance is improved as a result of this education.

Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, that is where the question is raised. I wonder if the member could tell me now where the policy proposal she says we have in the document is printed, because I do not see it.

Ms. Friesen: Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, it is not a dispute over the facts, but a dispute over the wording. This is a government document. This is a government discussion paper. One of the issues that the government has proposed for discussion is the question of whether or not teachers should benefit financially from additional years of education. I am looking at this, as teachers were and other people were at those hearings, in the context of other changes that are being considered in other areas of teacher education.

I suppose, first of all, I would like to ask the minister, since this is her paper, why she raised that issue, and does she herself believe, or not believe, that additional years of education should be rewarded and/or encouraged?

Mrs. McIntosh: I think it is well known that I support lifelong learning and that I support, as do most people, people in any profession acquiring additional skills that will assist them in enhancing and developing in that profession. I still do not see the policy--she says that we had a proposal in here.

We have raised a question. It is a question that has been raised by trustees for over a decade. Most everybody in the education system knows what is meant by this question. The question was raised for discussion. It is a discussion document. There are only five proposals in the document. They all relate to the collective bargaining dispute resolution mechanism with the request for us to receive more if there are more.

We then have a series of questions for discussion. This question does not propose a policy. It raises the question. It essentially says, do you think there is sufficient benefit from paying teachers for acquiring additional years of education? The answer could be yes, but the member chooses not to see that as a logical answer. The member assumes, as does the union, that the answer will be no. I do not know why they would make that assumption. I do not know why the member makes that assumption when we say, does Manitoba derive sufficient benefit from paying teachers for acquiring additional years of education? The rest of the sentence is, particularly the absence of any measurement to indicate a particular teacher’s performance has improved as a result of this education.

The member assumes the answer will be no. I first of all wonder why she makes that assumption and does not also assume the answer could just as easily be yes. Or, if the answer should be we would derive more benefit if there were some way of evaluating teachers to do just what I said in my earlier answer, how do you reward those superlative teachers who go over and above the call of duty? We know there are many, and there is no ability to reward them.

I can recall in our school division when I was a trustee wanting to hold an appreciation night for teachers who did extracurricular activities. In our naivete we said, gee, you have all these teachers that coach basketball; they do dramas; they do wonderful things; they stay after school; they do it on their own time, they are just wonderful, wonderful people. Let us have a banquet, bring them all in, give them a nice dinner and thank them publicly for their efforts.

We ended up doing it over the protestations of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society which told us, and we got into quite a heated debate, you are honouring teachers for doing extracurricular activities, and by doing that you are implying to all the others that they are not deserving of appreciation and recognition. All teachers are equal, they are all paid the same, they are all treated the same, and for you to single out people for special recognition the way you are doing is to make the rest of them feel bad.

I can remember standing there with my mouth hanging open and talking to the local association and saying I cannot believe I hear you saying this. We had well over 100 teachers that we wanted to honour; we had not just picked out a couple. When I said that we have like a room full of people here that we wish to honour, they said that is the point. If you had only picked out the one or two top-notch ones, that would have been maybe all right but by singling out so many you are implying that the rest are not doing a good job. I said we are not implying any such thing. He was really remarkable. I could not believe it.

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But that is off topic. How do you? We did, we had an annual banquet. To heck with them. We had the annual banquet. We honoured those people. They were wonderful people. The plays and the dramas and the teams and the choirs and the things that they did just made the division wonderful. I will always be grateful to them, and I will hold a banquet for them any day of the week as long as I have enough money to do it.

The member knows, or ought to know if she has been at all following education over the last decade in the kindergarten to Grade 12 sense, that there are a lot of teachers who go out and get educational degrees for special interests of their own that do not really apply to the classroom. I will give an example. It is not a Manitoba example, so I am safe to do it, and the person involved has retired. But a phys ed department head, a very good phys ed teacher, one of the best, terrific phys ed teacher, no concerns there, went out and got a degree. I forget what the degree was in, but it had something to do with business accounting.

He got that degree because he owned a sporting goods store which he ran at the lake in the summer and needed that acumen, that expertise, to be able to better run his store. Do you think that his school board should have had to bump him up to another pay level because he got that degree when (a) he did not get it for the school and (b) it had nothing to do with physical education? There are some who enter into that category who feel they should get the extra money.

Now, maybe the opposition members feel they should, but I think it is a legitimate question to raise, and you know that most people who have been asking this question over the years know that it relates to that kind of situation, not to a kindergarten teacher who goes out and gets extra learning experience in early childhood development. Extra learning experience in early childhood development for a kindergarten teacher would be absolutely applicable, appropriate and worth spending some extra money on. That is the situation around which the question is being asked.

Most people who were aware of the issue as not an uncommon issue--it has been discussed for, as I say, a decade--understand that is why it is being asked. One of the presenters at the hearings--and the member may not have been there--who was a professor at the university, asked the very same question. It is one that has been asked by countless people over the years. It is not a new question. It is not a question that attacks the importance of furthering education. It, in fact, asks the people who see the question to provide an answer. It invites a good reason in support of financial and rewarding further education. It is all in how you read it.

I suppose the member’s point that she is trying to make is that people who feel threatened or angry by the document are going to read it in the negative as she does and assume the answer should be no. People who feel positive will read it and assume the answer should be yes. There is no proposal or policy being put forward in this paper. The member is highly literate, is highly knowledgable about the use of words, extremely skilled in the use of words and should realize that this is a question that invites an answer and not a proposal. I mean, even I can see that, and the member does not credit me with a great deal of native intelligence, but I can understand the difference between a question and a proposal.

I think that inherent in there is, do you get sufficient benefit from paying teachers for additional years? If you do, then the answer, of course, will be yes. If you do not, why do you not? Would you if there were sufficient ways to indicate the performance that is enhanced by those extra years of education? What kinds of education would be appropriate? What ones should automatically result in a raise? What other ones should result in an examination of the issue? What other ones should automatically be denied? Are those questions that have applicability? Are people afraid to discuss this issue, or is this one of those issues that you cannot ask this question because, when you ask this question, people get upset?

I personally support lifelong learning. I think teachers who get education that is applicable to their area of expertise should have that recognized. I think the example I gave, though, of someone who gets an extra degree to run a summer business, it has nothing to do with the subject he teaches, should not get credit for teaching on that particular example. That is a real example, by the way. It is not a made up one.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, I am interested by the minister’s real example, and I expect that she and I would actually agree that a school division with imagination, a parent council group might be very interested in the ability of that particular phys ed teacher to deal in business administration. Skills for independent living, for example, the entrepreneurship that he is suggesting, may, in fact, be very useful if the school chose to use them.

Sport has become a business, whether it is the Jets or whether it is people who are dealing at the community level. I would have thought there was an opportunity there for curriculum linkages and for the use of a quite unusual combination of skills.

The minister is indicating really just that particular person’s intent. I think the result of it is something which could be very valuable for the schools, but that is if it was used appropriately, and I am sure that I would have thought that the minister would have seen that as an opportunity for schools to relate to.

My question, then, perhaps should be more pointed. The minister said she is raising this in this paper simply for discussion. Can the minister tell us whether she believes that the educational system in Manitoba derives sufficient benefit from paying teachers for acquiring additional years of education?

Mrs. McIntosh: I have to indicate that I was not just talking about the intent. I was not just indicating intent. I was saying, do we get sufficient benefit from taking a course--and the key word there is “sufficient,” because anything you learn will obviously be of some benefit. The key word in there is “sufficient.” Do you get sufficient benefit in the phys ed class to warrant an extra some thousand dollars per year to have a phys ed teacher who knows how to balance an accounting book? The member feels that there would be many parent councils who would feel they would get sufficient benefit to spend thousands of dollars to have a phys ed teacher who knows how to balance accounting books.

I am not so sure that I would be able to find very many parent councils who would agree, but, then, we do differ, because you could take that to great extremes, and, when you are counting dollars as school boards are, as the member has indicated--school boards are concerned, in her opinion, because of the cuts, even though they were concerned about these very issues 10 years ago when there were no cuts. School boards, I believe, watch for value wherever they go. I am not sure that a lot of school councils, or parent councils, or school boards would feel that there would be sufficient benefit. If the member wants to read this sentence again, it does say sufficient in it. That is a key word because, obviously, obviously, there will always be some benefit. There will always be some benefit. Those that directly apply, the benefit is obvious, and, in my opinion, would be sufficient.

I was hoping that I might get some feedback from teachers on how they felt about this issue so that we could talk about it. I was hoping that teachers would say, well, I got a degree in anthropology, and I teach English, but I found it very useful because, when Hamlet stood with Yorick’s skull--I do not know, you know, but they could maybe draw some parallel. I was hoping teachers would answer that question for us, but they chose to ignore it and simply say that we should not have asked the question, and that is unfortunate.

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I understand the union’s strategy, but I think it was not helpful. Perhaps, and there is still time, and as I indicated before, I am always in contact with the union executive and with the trustees’ executive, and I think there may be some willingness to discuss answers to the questions as opposed to just saying, you must not ask the question; the question makes me uncomfortable; the question, if answered a certain way, will not be an answer I like, and, therefore, we will not answer it at all.

Well, after 10 years of the question being asked, in days of financial constraint and ever-growing costs and new technologies, why should we be afraid to discuss questions that are put forward in a discussion paper? This is a discussion paper. I believe it even says on the front, discussion paper, does it not? A discussion document. It clearly says it is for discussion. It does not say proposals. It does not say white paper. It does not say green paper. It does not say proposals for consideration. It says, this is a discussion document.

Hopefully, we still have opportunity for a discussion because I think teachers could be tremendously helpful in discussing these questions to let us know what benefits they do perceive from their extra education, what they feel is sufficient. Discuss it with trustees. Tell trustees how they benefit from this extra education. Let trustees tell teachers what they observe to be true benefits of extra education.

We have seen many. We have seen teachers who have gone off and got degrees in educational administration, extremely helpful to them in the system particularly for moving into principalships or vice-principalships, very applicable, very appropriate, very worthy of monetary recompense.

I know we are running out of time, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday, if I may, we had indicated we would table some documents today, and I am fearful I will run out of time. I forgot yesterday to table them. If I may table them now so that the committee has them.

Mr. Chairman, I have the form for merit increments that was asked for that we use in the Department of Education and Training, and I have the Manitoba Education and Training performance management program. It is rather thick, but I have several copies there which I will leave with you. Then we have the executive office salaries, the increment gross pay less reduced workweek and the annual salary, and again several copies for you there.

For information, we had a question posed by the member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux) about We Care and what kind of funding they might have received from government. We have checked through. We Care did receive support from Workforce 2000 in 1991-92. They received approximately $7,000. It was one of about 750 small businesses that had training contracts that were approved that year. We have had about 2,800 training contracts with other small businesses up till last year, and of course we now have discontinued that portion of the program and are now into sectoral training.

There are no other programs that we have been able to discover that have provided any funding to the We Care company. We looked at the Employment Development Programs branch, et cetera, and, Mr. Chair, I do not have any documentation on it, but those are the figures the member for Inkster had asked and I did promise that I would table or read into the record the amount. So it was one of 750 small businesses that received a training contract in 1991-92. The amount was just a little over $7,000. It was $7,100 and something.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, can I repeat the question I asked the minister last time, and that was whether or not she believes the educational system in Manitoba derives sufficient benefit from paying teachers for acquiring additional years of education.

Mrs. McIntosh: For certain forms of education, absolutely. I say for certain forms of education, absolutely, but I do not think you can answer that totally in isolation from other related matters. I think you have to look at the nature of the education, the context in which it is being pursued. In other words, is the additional education the only means for increasing the salary? You know, there are a wide range of things of that nature, but I think any education acquired should be looked at to see if there is sufficient benefit in the classroom to warrant providing extra money for the acquiring of that education. You will always get some benefit.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, whom does the minister think should be making that determination?

Mrs. McIntosh: Again, Mr. Chairman, I had really hoped that teachers would have provided us with some insight into this, and I regret very deeply that they chose not to offer any thoughts on the topic. I would really like to yet have a chance. I do dialogue with, as I said, the union executive and other teachers who are friends of mine because having been a teacher by background, the majority of the circle of friends I move in still happen to be teachers. You do not lose those bonds. But I still hope to receive some feeling from teachers as to that very question so that I can answer it and be able to, in my answer, reflect some of how they feel.

Right now, to be quite blunt with you, no teacher has told me the details of how they feel about that question. They have indicated that we should not have asked the question, and some teachers in the panel presentations have expressed great insult that the question was asked and have indicated that all education is useful. I concur that all education is useful, and I concur you never lose when you learn something.

I have a daughter who has a degree in music performance. She is not a music performer, but that degree is extremely beneficial to her. She happens to be a schoolteacher. That degree, to me, I think is probably very useful to her in teaching music in school. Is that sufficient benefit to the employer?

I had hoped we could have had a discussion with teachers and trustees on that topic, and I am hoping we still can because I intend to continue meeting with them free from the cameras and the glare and the adversarial sensationalism that surrounds public things. I am not going to commit my final answer to that question prior to having had those discussions or prior to hearing feedback from the panel that circulated around the province getting information for me on that very topic.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The hour now being 5:30 p.m., committee rise.