ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
Canadian Wheat Board
Marketing System--Legal Challenge
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Madam Speaker, my question is to the First Minister. The Canadian Wheat Board is centred in the city of Winnipeg and has over the years produced significant returns for the producers of western Canada, producers of Manitoba, and we have also enjoyed a number of jobs that are located in the community of Winnipeg.
A couple of months ago the Province of Alberta initiated two legal actions against the integrity of the single-desk marketing system of the Canadian Wheat Board which we believe would have devastating impacts on producers and jobs here in the city of Winnipeg and in the province of Manitoba. The Province of Saskatchewan has intervened, asked for intervener status and was granted yesterday that status to oppose those court initiatives and challenges.
I would like to ask the Premier why we have not intervened in these court cases, and when will this province and this Premier take a stand on behalf of the Canadian Wheat Board here in the province of Manitoba.
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question of the Leader of the Opposition. I want to say that I firmly support the Canadian Wheat Board and have on many occasions not only gone abroad with the Canadian Wheat Board but referred to the tremendous advantage that they provide for Canadian producers in marketing our wheat overseas. In many of the countries that are used to having government agencies control their procurement and many aspects of their economy, they prefer to deal with a government agency such as the Wheat Board, and it is an advantage to us. I have said that on numerous occasions.
Madam Speaker, we also, of course, want to maximize the returns to our producers in Manitoba. We want to ensure as well that we build value-added agriculture in this province. There are some problems with respect to the Wheat Board's current operations, one of which is, for instance, in the opportunity for us to build a flour mill here or a pasta plant, our producers would have to sell the wheat to the Wheat Board and then buy it back at a greater rate, not only a greater rate than they were paid but a greater rate, for instance, than a flour mill or a pasta plant in Alberta would have to. This is something that is detrimental to our interests in building more investment, and perhaps thousands of jobs in our economy are at stake over this particular issue. So we look at this in a balanced fashion.
As a result, both our cabinet and our caucus have had meetings within the past six months or so with the officials of the Canadian Wheat Board. We have invited them here to our cabinet room to make presentations to be able to discuss these kinds of issues. There was of course a very thorough review that was done by the special so-called blue ribbon panel for Minister Goodale that pointed out a number of changes that ought to be made to increase the flexibility of the Wheat Board to deal with those kinds of issues. In that panel report there were many recommendations, ones that ought to be supportable in the best interests of Manitobans, and we support that report. That is our position.
Mr. Doer: Madam Speaker, I thank the Premier for his answer that he makes a number of speeches across the world about the status of the Canadian Wheat Board, but the court case is being heard in the Alberta court and the federal court. Changes to an institution are one thing but the absolute elimination of the single-desk institution and the end of the Canadian Wheat Board, as proposed by the court cases in Alberta, are an entirely different matter for the producers of Manitoba and for the workers at the Canadian Wheat Board in the city of Winnipeg.
I would like to ask the Premier, rather than talking about the speeches he has made around the world, will he take Manitoba's position to the courts and intervene as Saskatchewan has done to protect the integrity of the single-desk marketing system? Improvements, yes, but not the elimination of the Canadian Wheat Board as an institution of single-desk selling here in Canada.
Mr. Filmon: Madam Speaker, it is difficult to deal with people who want things to be all or nothing, to have blinders on and say that you can have absolutely no change, you have to have the single-desk selling and total control and total and absolute adherence to what has been there over the past 80 years or 60 years.
The fact of the matter is that Saskatchewan is arguing that the Canadian Wheat Board must stay as it is. Alberta is saying it must go. We are saying there is a better answer which is that the Wheat Board should stay with changes. That is what a panel of experts who spent months and months reviewing the situation recommended. That is exactly the situation that would be in the best interests of the producers and indeed the agribusiness community of this province. That is why we have taken that position.
* (1340)
Mr. Doer: During the Premier's very busy summer, some of us were listening to farmers across this province, and the majority of them want to maintain a single-desk marketing system for wheat here in the province of Manitoba. Many others, over 500 people, exist and work in the community of Winnipeg along with hundreds of others because the Canadian Wheat Board is centred in the city of Winnipeg.
I would like to ask this Premier, why will he not get off the fence and defend the integrity of the institution of single-desk selling? Institutional changes, yes, but do not get rid of the institution of single-desk selling here in the province of Manitoba. Why will he not intervene in the court case? Why is he sitting on the fence taking no position about the Canadian Wheat Board in the court cases?
Mr. Filmon: I, too, went throughout the province and listened to many people. It is pretty obvious that the Leader of the Opposition must only have been listening to certain people, because if he had been listening to everybody, he would recognize that there were many differing views on this and that the panel that reported, that studied the matter for months, that were experts, said that the single-desk for wheat should remain but that there ought to be many other flexibilities.
He, of course, takes a position as typical of that Leader of the Opposition and his party that is Neanderthal, that is so narrow that he is blinded by two alternatives. With that kind of inflexibility we could never progress, we could never change and adopt new ideas and better practices and more opportunities for Manitoba because we would be stuck in the past as they have been throughout their existence as a party and even when they have been in government. It is not that kind of backward-looking policy that will be in the best interests of Manitoba's future. That is why we do not accept his stick-in-the-mud, head-in-the-mud position.
Canadian Wheat Board
Government Position
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Madam Speaker, the Premier just said that on one hand he supports the recommendations of the marketing panel and on the other hand he supports the Wheat Board. Will the Premier finally understand that accepting all the recommendations will destroy single-desk selling and in reality destroy the Wheat Board? Will he agree today to send a strong message to the federal government on behalf of Manitoba producers rejecting the recommendations that will destroy the single-desk selling monopoly of the Wheat Board?
Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, there is no inconsistency with supporting the Wheat Board and supporting the panel because the panel advocated for the retention of the Wheat Board. If the member had read it, she would understand that, but she obviously does not understand those things terribly well.
Madam Speaker, the grain trade and the agribusiness sector in Manitoba is more than the Wheat Board. The Wheat Board is an important component, but we have a commodities exchange here and we had all of the head offices of grain trade and agribusiness here before the Wheat Board came in 1931. What we want to do is to take the Wheat Board into the modern era and give it an opportunity to take advantage of all of the value-added agriculture opportunities that are here and to promote that so that we can get more investment and thousands more jobs. The NDP are only interested in their hidebound ideology of the past, and that is not in the best interests of Manitobans.
* (1345)
Ms. Wowchuk: And this Premier has the Alberta ideology.
Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable member for Swan River with a supplementary question.
Ms. Wowchuk: How can this Premier expect producers of Manitoba to have any confidence in this government when we see this contrast position where we see the Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture saying, we certainly will not stand idly by and let Alberta destroy this institution, and by contrast, our Agriculture minister is saying, we will look at what they are doing but we are going to sit this one out?
How can you put forward such a weak position? Is this what you predict for the future of agriculture in Manitoba? Get off the fence and take a strong position and stand with Manitoba agriculture.
Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): It is perhaps by fortuitous circumstance that we have visitors from that great country of Poland in our public gallery today who understand the world is changing, including the grain trade.
The position that has just been very clearly enunciated by my Premier indicates that this government is prepared to recognize the changes that are about us in the best interests of all parties concerned: first and foremost, the producers; first and foremost, Manitoba; first and foremost, the good reputation that Canada has as a major grain exporter.
Madam Speaker, that is not my Premier, that is not necessarily this Minister of Agriculture saying it. This is the panel of experts that the federal Minister of Agriculture appointed, sought out, to study the issue for the last seven or eight months. They made certain recommendations. Why are we being faulted for listening to those recommendations?
Ms. Wowchuk: Can the Minister of Agriculture explain to us why, if he is supportive of the Wheat Board, he has agreed to share legal research with the Alberta government on the Wheat Board? The Alberta government are on the same ideology to destroy single-desk selling. We have seen it in hogs and now we see it in the Wheat Board.
Will the minister agree that his agenda is to destroy single-desk selling?
Mr. Enns: In no way are we sharing or in any way being part of the Alberta court intervention. What I have asked for and the Alberta government has had the courtesy to provide us with is the documentation on which they base their challenge. I, quite frankly, think they are wrong. But we as a province or as a Department of Agriculture are not in any way sharing or in any way co-operating in kind or in money the court action that is being entered into by the government of Alberta.
* (1350)
Regional Health Boards
Justification
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, last week members on this side of the House outlined 100 major problems with the government's super board health plan. Yesterday, the MHO sent to the Premier (Mr. Filmon) a major critique of the plan, and it is clear that nobody outside of government Tory appointees supports the government's super board plan.
Can the Premier explain why the government is going ahead with this plan when MHO states--and I will quote from MHO--that they would maintain the current politicization, this plan would maintain the current politicization of health care decisions in Manitoba?
Why are you going ahead with that?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): I do not think anywhere in Canada where there is regionalization happening that it is anybody's intention to get away from any type of accountability for the health care system. Fortunately or unfortunately--I think fortunately--public health is a public issue in our country, and so whenever something is a public issue there is bound to be a little politics thrown in. If you are looking for expertise on that, Madam Speaker, you need look no further than the honourable member for Kildonan when it comes to politics in health.
But we see the regionalization, and we look at what we are doing here and compare it with what is happening in other provinces which have gone ahead with regionalization and are further ahead than we are. We have been able to put together a program that we think avoids the mistakes that have happened in other jurisdictions such that in NDP B.C. they had to put a hold long enough so they could figure out what they were doing there with their regionalization process. We do not want to lose out on an opportunity to link prevention, population, health and treatment into a seamless continuum of care here in Manitoba, and so it is for those reasons we will be proceeding.
Faith-Related Institutions
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, can the Premier (Mr. Filmon) or the Minister of Health, who have been accused of politicization by the MHO, explain why they have gone back on their word with respect to faith-related institutions, taken away their rights, and why they are not prepared to put legislative guarantees in the proposal with respect to super boards to protect the position of faith-related institutions that comprise one-third of the institutions that are health related in this province?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, last June, I asked the leadership of the faith-related organizations to review Bill 49 over the summer, to get back together with us this fall with their concerns, which is exactly what is happening, and we are looking at whatever concerns they have. We share any concerns that faith-related organizations would have that might somehow rob us as Manitobans of our culture and our history in health care. There has been a great contribution made to health care by faith-related organizations and the work of addressing and reviewing our legislation is underway now.
But those people are the same as me, Madam Speaker, they believe in evidence-based decision making. They think it is appropriate that we do the best we can to improve the environment for physician recruitment and retention. They believe also that there needs to be a broader base for service planning and delivery, enhanced consumer choice and involvement. Our objectives do not differ and the process is going forward, as we agreed it should last June.
* (1355)
User Fees
Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, why is the government in this proposal for super boards and in this act, why are they going down the road towards privatization and user fees and where the MHO itself has stated that it is the insidious deinsuring of health services that is taking place under this government and this act? Why are they going down that road towards privatization and user fees, putting it in the act and forcing regions, hospitals and boards to charge user fees for health care services? Why is the minister doing that in this act? How does that meet with his claim--
Madam Speaker: Order, please. The question has been put.
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): I know the honourable member tries to do his homework, too, Madam Speaker, and I am sure that he will have been using the summer months to review Bill 49 himself and to prepare himself for this fall's session. He knows--he has been around as a Health critic for quite a long time--that there are user fees in the system today. He knows there are certain services that never have been part of the Canada Health Act and are not today. He knows that. He also knows that in The Manitoba Public Health Act and the hospital insurance act, what we need to do is bring from those statutes into Bill 49 the same kinds of provisions that were there before. After all, we cannot just throw out the law in Manitoba.
What the honourable member is talking about when he talks about these things is he is picking out clauses that no doubt were found in the old legislation as well and now tries to make something out of that. Well, that will not wash, Madam Speaker, and the honourable member knows and so do Manitobans know what our intentions are in this regard.
Canadian Wheat Board
Government Position
Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Madam Speaker, my question is for the Premier (Mr. Filmon). Manitoba farmers need the single-desk selling advantage of the Canadian Wheat Board. This Premier spews hot air in the House and does nothing to help these farmers. While the Premier is being wishy-washy, the farmers across the province are left high and dry.
Can the Premier confirm that the government's position is actually the same as the Alberta position, which is to destroy single-desk selling in orderly marketing as outlined by his own member for River Heights (Mr. Radcliffe)?
Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): Madam Speaker, if the honourable member wishes to discuss farmers, I am very happy to report that the farmers of Manitoba are hardly out to dry. They are right now bringing in a record harvest, fortunately not just in Manitoba but right across the west, and fortuitously, prices are also virtually at record levels. So all of this speaks very well for the farm economy that is coming to a conclusion with this harvest.
I only wish the honourable member would stop reading his prepared questions and he would actually listen to some of the answers that are being provided on this side of the House. One of the advantages is that when we answer these questions, these prepared written questions, we actually have to understand what we are answering, what our answers are all about. We cannot write them out or have spin doctors write them out for us. Please listen to the answers. The question that he asked has been answered.
So today is supposed to be Wheat Board day, and you got the Manitoba position, you got the government's position, you got the Premier's position and you have the Minister of Agriculture's position.
Madam Speaker: The honourable member for Dauphin with a supplementary question.
Mr. Struthers: Madam Speaker, this government is not giving us any answers, and they are not taking a position in favour of the Manitoba farmers.
Madam Speaker: Order, please. Would the honourable member please pose his question now.
Mr. Struthers: Can the Premier explain why the government is on the one hand wishy-washy while members of his own back bench from Emerson and from Morris publicly claim the government favours dual marketing? Where does this government stand?
Mr. Enns: The panel of experts that was appointed personally by federal Minister Goodale--and they were experts, by the way, Madam Speaker, and they did take time, seven or eight months to consult with all interested parties, including holding meetings here in Manitoba, at which I and the Department of Agriculture gave studied and written presentations to--recommended both, a dual system and the retention of the single-selling system. They saw wisdom in the fact that the Canadian Wheat Board only handles 22 percent of all the barley. Seventy-seven percent is already used domestically. Why not do as in fact that which was attempted very successfully by a future federal Minister of Agriculture, put barley on the open market? On the other hand, they also recognize the concerns of maintaining wheat under the current single-selling desk, and that is precisely what the panel recommended.
Madam Speaker, that is why the position of Manitoba, the position of my government is that we can accept those recommendations of Mr. Goodale's select panel that reported on the Wheat Board.
* (1400)
Misericordia General Hospital
Emergency Services
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health, and it is a question I guess of priorities. When we take a look at what the Minister of Health has done in that particular department, we have seen a propaganda piece in which a quarter of a million dollars was being spent, and one has to start questioning. The Victoria Hospital, St. Boniface Hospital, Health Sciences Centre over the weekend used the Misericordia emergency services and ICU in terms of diversion of patients coming from those particular facilities, yet we see a government that is going to be closing down that particular facility while at the same time it is giving quite a bit of propaganda and saying that we are doing good things and spending a lot of money telling the public that they are doing good things.
I am wondering if the Minister of Health can tell Manitobans, how does it make sense that we are using the Misericordia Hospital for so many other hospitals in terms of diversion of overflow, yet we are closing it down?
Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Health): I am pleased, Madam Speaker, the honourable member has acknowledged that there are good things going on in health in Manitoba. The newspaper held up by the honourable member today, produced and distributed in Manitoba, does set out--the first edition, at least--the directions we are taking in Manitoba. We felt, and we were told by many, many, that it was a good idea to bring Manitobans in. Do not leave them out; do not operate, as the honourable member's question seems to imply, totally without consultation with the members of the public of Manitoba.
The people of Manitoba are entitled to know what is happening with their health system, and I am pleased to be part of an effort that lets them know what is happening. Similarly, Madam Speaker, the consultative approach is working with our Winnipeg integration of hospitals. As the honourable member who stood in that place many, many times last spring to advocate for the Seven Oaks General Hospital and others, but Seven Oaks Hospital, we have been listening and that is reflected in the documents that are going out to people.
Mr. Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, the question put simply to the minister is: You have several hospitals that are using the Misericordia emergency services as a diversion because of their overflow requirements. Why is the Minister of Health looking at closing down--not looking, is actually going to be closing down the emergency services when it appears as if those emergency services are in very high demand? How are you going to be able to achieve meeting that demand if you are closing down the emergency services?
Mr. McCrae: Madam Speaker, again, I believe what will be happening at Misericordia General Hospital is the result of a lot of consultation with health care providers and consumers over the past number of months. I do not think the honourable member can come forward today and ask that everything that has been put together in partnership with the players here in Winnipeg ought now to be begun to be taken apart. But he forgets when he asks this question that what is needed in Winnipeg is something in the order of an urgent care centre that is available to people on an ambulatory basis, 24 hours a day.
The honourable member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) asked for just that and that is what we are doing. Everyone seems to understand that change is necessary and required here in order for us to be able to sustain a good health system, and ambulatory care 24 hours a day at Misericordia Hospital fits very nicely into the integrated Winnipeg plan.
Mr. Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, will the Minister of Health acknowledge, by the closing down of ICU beds over at the Misericordia Hospital, that you are in fact going to see an increase in backlogs in very critical important surgeries, whether it is bypasses or pacemakers being put in, to lung transplants or lungs being removed, that by closing down the ICU beds there is going to be a dramatic negative impact in quality health care being delivered to Manitobans? Will he at least acknowledge that fact?
Mr. McCrae: Again, Madam Speaker, the honourable member wants to replace the judgment of the experts with his own. I simply think that we ought to consult some others besides just the honourable member.
Education System
Student Transportation
Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Madam Speaker, since 1988 the Filmon government has reduced its investment in public education by cutting $43 million, by presiding over the loss of 570 teachers, by increasing class sizes by 20 percent, by instituting policies that led to the loss of home economics, industrial arts and basic French, by cutting clinicians, and the list goes on.
I would like the minister to confirm what she refused to confirm on Monday when I asked her, that she has in fact cut transport grants for eligible pupils by $5 per eligible pupil in urban areas, in rural areas and for special needs students and that she has in addition reduced by 2 cents the loaded kilometre grant.
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Madam Speaker, I could not begin, in the time that I would be permitted to answer, to respond to all the points in the member's question because the rules do not allow me to spend the time required to answer all the points she made. I will indicate and I would ask please that the members opposite listen to the answer they have requested.
I would indicate, Madam Speaker, that there is one very basic error in the preamble and that is the support that we give to education because the member knows that since 1988, $113 million more is now given to public schools than was when we took office in '88, and I could answer the other points had I time.
I will say though in terms of the transportation grants that the funding for transportation for students in Manitoba: for rural Manitoba if you live over 1.6 kilometres from your school, your division will receive a grant of $345 per pupil; in the city, it would be $195 kindergarten to Grade 6, which is different than the previous $200 kindergarten to Grade 3. I think that distinction needs to be made clear and not just the dollar amounts which could be misleading if the full facts were not put on the table.
Ms. Friesen: Madam Speaker, let me table the documents which show this quite clearly, the minister's documents prepared by the schools Finance Branch, and I will table them so the minister can look at them and perhaps she will be prepared to answer a question on this.
I want the minister to confirm that not only do the cuts that she has added in fact add yet another Filmon tax to the families of Manitobans with young children who must now find extra money to transport their children in safety and that it also sends a message to the world that in fact this is a government which is continuing to deinvest in education. What kind of a message is that?
Mrs. McIntosh: Madam Speaker, I repeat again: $113 million more this year than when we took office in '88 is not a cut. It is an overall increase. The member also is fully aware that while that amount is larger, there have been fluctuations and in the last few years, in direct response to very massive federal transfer cuts, we have still managed to keep whatever minimal cut we have had to pass to public schools on an annual basis far less than the magnitude of the cut we receive from the federal government.
I indicate, Madam Speaker, that we have increased services in many areas in education that are not noted in the question the member puts forward. In terms of transportation, when we say that we used to spend $150 for students who went K to Grade 3, we are now looking at K to Grade 6 in the urban setting. I have the figures that she is going to table. She got them from my department, but I thank her. I will be able to read them again, and I am glad that she has now read them as well.
* (1410)
Dorothy Martin Case
Ministerial Review
Mr. Eric Robinson (Rupertsland): Madam Speaker, I have some questions for the Minister of Justice.
For years aboriginal people and the justice system, the relationship has been strained to say the least, with the Helen Betty Osborne case and the J.J. Harper case, two cases that sparked the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in this province and most recently, Madam Speaker, Dorothy Martin from the Moose Lake Cree Nation was shot and died of wounds to the head. This is something that greatly troubles the First Nations community not only in The Pas, the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, but indeed throughout Manitoba and indeed across Canada as far as aboriginal people are concerned.
Now the weapon in this case was a sawed-off shotgun. We understand that the only charges were possession of a prohibited weapon and unsafe storage of a firearm, and the man charged with this is Gerald Robert Wilson, who then ran to his father, the sheriff of The Pas. This is the same man who gave evidence before the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry and that he had been told the names of the suspects in the Helen Betty Osborne murder to the RCMP months before the RCMP were notified.
I would like to ask the minister, given that this matter is before the courts--we understand that--but at a minimum, will the minister review the matter and determine that the proper charges were laid?
Hon. Rosemary Vodrey (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): As the member said, this is a matter before the court, under investigation, and it is very difficult for me to make any comments. Obviously our senior prosecutors are involved in cases. Reviews are managed where necessary, but at the moment to publicly speak about the case or any action that I as Attorney General might take specifically at this time, I am not prepared to make that public statement at this time.
Mr. Robinson: Madam Speaker, I just have one more question for the minister. Given the potential conflict of interest of provincial staff and the accused in the murder of Dorothy Martin, I wonder if the minister would not agree that there are some valid reasons here for some people to question the neutrality of the provincial government in this case.
Mrs. Vodrey: If the member has some concerns, I think he should put those forward. I think he should not just leave them hanging in the air for surmise. But in relation to the specific case, I am simply not able to comment on the details of that case at this time.
Deputy Premier
Clarification of Comments
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): Madam Speaker, for the past two days the Deputy Premier (Mr. Downey) has tried to defend his shifting stories about his wife's travel with bombast on the outcomes of the trip.
We on this side are very pleased when the government achieves positive results, but we and Manitobans are very angry when cabinet ministers mislead Manitobans about their activities as ministers of the Crown.
Will the minister now admit to the House that on Monday he misled the House again by telling the House: “that there will be some 15 tourism operators, women tourism operators, coming here to put Manitoba and Winnipeg on the venue as it relates to the Pan American Games,” that in fact the possible trip of Argentinean travel operators is only at the discussion stage, no plans have been confirmed at all, that the grandiose statements in the House on Monday and Tuesday were based on an internal briefing note from a Canadian Embassy employee who suggested the visit as a possible follow-up to the Manitoba mission?
Hon. James Downey (Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism): Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate the member has to find something negative in everything that has happened. I have provided in writing for the media, for the House, to assess for themselves, and that has been dealt with.
Mr. Sale: The problem is, Madam Speaker, the material he provided contradicts his own statements.
Will the minister finally admit that the whole sorry mess of shifting stories, bombast and deception came about because the minister wanted his wife along at public expense so he told his staff to carve out a role for her but not to put her on the list of the entourage, but he got caught and then the deception began? What a web we weave when first--
Madam Speaker: Order, please.
Mr. Downey: No, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: The time for Oral Questions has expired.