Madam Speaker: The hour being 4:30 p.m., time for Private Members' Business.

Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers), that

WHEREAS the government of Manitoba has been operating in violation of the spirit of The Environment Act since the minister withdrew financial support and duties from the Manitoba Environment Council in April 1993; and

WHEREAS the Minister of Environment has reduced the size of the Manitoba Environment Council from at least 50 to six individuals; and

Madam Speaker: Order, please. I am experiencing some difficulty hearing the honourable member for Selkirk.

Mr. Dewar: WHEREAS the effectiveness of the council has been seriously undermined by the withdrawal of support; and

WHEREAS the Minister of Environment has not taken advantage of the advice and experience offered by both experts and the general public, and has caused his relationship with the community to deteriorate; and

WHEREAS the mandate of the Manitoba Environment Council, which is to serve as an independent advisory body and a source of expertise for the minister, is not being fulfilled; and

WHEREAS during its existence the Manitoba Environment Council developed a large network of volunteers who lent their expertise to examine the environmental impacts of various policy initiatives and also performed an important public education role.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba urge the provincial government to consider reinstating the Manitoba Environment Council to include a representative cross section of expertise from the fields of science, natural resource management, environmental groups and others. Thank you.

* (1640)

Motion presented.

Mr. Dewar: Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to present this resolution to the House, one that I hope all members of this House will seriously consider and, I am certain, all members of this House will endorse and will support. I want to begin by offering a tribute to all the members of the Manitoba Environment Council, both past and present, men and women who gave of their time to provide expertise and advice to the government and to the Minister of Environment and to the government on environmental issues pertaining to Manitoba.

The Manitoba Environment Council was formed in 1972 and its functions and duties were confirmed in The Environment Act. The act states, and this is Section 8, Clause 1: The minister shall appoint a Manitoba Environmental Council to provide advice and recommendations on environmental matters, promote environmental awareness and provide assistance in the development and in the presentation of environmental education programs.

The Manitoba Environmental Council was given the mandate to initiate an investigation into environmental matters either on its own volition or on the request of the minister. The act also requires that the minister shall appoint the chairperson of the council from within the council and that the Manitoba Environmental Council and the Clean Environment Commission shall conduct at least one meeting per year.

Madam Speaker, in 1982, for example, the Manitoba Environmental Council had 68 members; in 1993, the government, the minister, reduced that amount to the present. I believe at that time in 1993 he reduced it to six. I believe it is up perhaps closer to eight now. But at that time he had 68 members representing a cross-section of individuals from across this province, individuals who again gave of their time to provide expertise to the government, representing a cross-section of individuals who were concerned about very different environmental issues.

Looking back at that list they have individuals, farmers and writers, lawyers and city councillors, individuals who are interested in energy policy and animal ecology, fisheries research scientists, town councillors, consultants, teachers, physicians, city planners, farmers, a professor of civil engineering, management consultants, retired biologists, individuals who are concerned with energy and transportation, wildlife policy, animal-plant ecology, recycling, environmental legislation, financial planners, pharmacists, Madam Speaker, as I mentioned, 68 individuals who represented many different occupations and interests across this province.

In 1993 the government eliminated that council and formed their own council. Now he has again maybe six, maybe eight individuals on it, which was significant, obviously which is quite a lot smaller in number, but as well I think, even though I do want to commend the individuals on that council and thank them for participating, but I do not think it represents a broad enough cross-section of Manitobans and individuals concerned with environmental issues. The issue was, why would this government do this?

Some would argue that the reason the minister eliminated this council was that this council was too critical of this government and of this minister on certain environmental issues. As well, they received, I believe, a small allowance. They had an office. The government provided them with an office, I believe, and they had a very important function to perform here in Manitoba on behalf of individuals who were concerned about environmental issues. Part of their role was of course advice to the Minister of Environment, either specific requests from the minister, and as well they would provide advice on notice of environmental problems.

Part of their task is to provide evaluations of initiatives by this government, whether it is in the area of policy documents, legislation and regulations, activities of certain government boards such as ACRE, formal enquires before a quasi-judicial board such as the Clean Environment Commission. They made a presentation before the Clean Environment Commission on stubble burning, before the Public Utilities Board on activities of Manitoba Hydro. As well, they were providing advice and evaluation of initiatives by other jurisdictions that affect this province, evaluation of initiatives from the federal government, for example, on national parks policy or water quality guidelines in other provinces; Shoal Lake which is, of course, the source of the city of Winnipeg's drinking water or the Rafferty-Alameda dam, and, as well, not only within Manitoba or Canada but, as well, initiatives taken by foreign governments such as the United States as it relates to the Garrison Diversion.

So, Madam Speaker, they were very active. It played a very important role in the debate on environmental issues here in the province, but for whatever reason the government reduced that from 68 members down to the handful we have now, and we feel that by reducing this, the government reduced the ability of this council to function and to provide advice to the government. We feel that because of that reduction, that it is restricting, I would suggest, a healthy debate on environmental issues here in the province.

Why would the government do this? Perhaps they were saying things this government did not want to hear. I know they were critical of, I believe, the government's policies on the review process of the Louisiana-Pacific project. That is one example, or the government's initiative on hydro development in the North, and in this particular case it was Conawapa. They offered this advice; they offered criticism to the government, and perhaps the minister did not want to hear this particular information, so he disbanded that group and set up his own council, a smaller number without the office space, unfortunately limiting their ability to function.

Madam Speaker, I also was interested in finding out the activities of the Manitoba Environmental Council, and I did a little investigation. I went to the Clerk's Office and went to the Legislative Library trying to get an annual report, and I understand the last report that was prepared by the Environmental Council was in 1988 to 1990, so we are kind of interested in what happened in between that time. Is it because the minister is concerned about what they are saying? Is that why there has not been a report over the last four years, five years, six years? Even in the annual report that was tabled in the House a number of weeks ago, there is very little mention. There is just one line in here, and it says, the Manitoba Environmental Council is responsible for the provision of advice to the Manitoba government on environmental matters--one little line within the annual report of this council.

* (1650)

We are concerned about why the government does not fund other environmental groups that are out there, as well. I think that is the other issue, that instead of withdrawing funding to environmental groups, they should be broadening that to allow other groups out there to--even though they have the person power, as it were, they have the expertise, but they lack the financial resources, and maybe that is a strategy of the government opposite, to try to muzzle some of the criticism out there, and our concern about what they are doing is that they are manipulating the hearing process to their benefit.

I guess another question that we want to know about the current council is what is the criteria that the minister is using in the selection process. We feel that if he had a much broader council representing individuals of many interests, many concerns, that the government would be able to develop a better, more comprehensive environmental strategy, Madam Speaker.

We feel the council is very useful, has served a useful purpose for many years, and the purpose of our resolution is to get the government, of course, to change its strategy, to listen to Manitobans and to listen to individuals who have environmental concerns, Madam Speaker.

So we hope that the minister across the way is an individual that is open to our suggestions. He has proven that in some ways. Some ways he has proven that and some ways he has not. So we offer him today the chance to stand up and endorse our resolution and to support our resolution so that the Manitoba Environment Council can get on with the task that it was originally assigned, and that is to provide environmental advice to this government. Thank you very much.

Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Environment): Madam Speaker, I am certainly pleased to respond to the comments from the member for Selkirk regarding his view of the present Environment Council and the changing of the guard, as it were, in terms of the Manitoba Environment Council.

I think he does a disservice, first of all, to the previous council and to the existing council when he observes that it has reduced from 50 or 60 individuals down to six. Both ends of that spectrum are somewhat out of sync, because one of the things that in fact I was encountering with the old Environment Council was that we had a large number of people--and my predecessor, as well--had a large number of people who were appointed to the council, but their attendance was somewhat sporadic. There was in fact a core group of individuals who were very dedicated and worked very hard on behalf of the council, and I want it on the record that their dedication to the Manitoba Environment Council was never in question.

However, let me address as well the comment that there are now only six individuals. There are 12 and potentially 15 is the normal size of the existing format that Manitoba Environment Council will follow.

But, Madam Speaker, to context this in whether or not the council was receiving additional support and funding from the province or from any other source of revenue and to indicate whether or not that has any bearing on the influence or the opportunity for the council to influence I think does a disservice to the people who are on the council, because what we have today is a council that--two things changed in terms of the size of the council, yes. That was one. The other is the direct access that they now have to the minister's office.

They, in response to a smaller council, have a direct commitment from myself that they will meet a minimum of four times with me or a significant portion of the management of Department of Environment and that they will have a quality opportunity to influence policy and direction and provide advice.

Frankly, I think that is a much more productive format for the council to be involved in than previously occurred when the council met on an ongoing basis and frankly had a meeting probably only about once a year where they communicated directly with the minister of the day. Whether it was me or whether it was any of my predecessors, no matter what their political stripe, it was not a situation, as I understand it, where the council met face to face for any ongoing period of time or for any large number of times with the minister of the day.

I suggest to the member that if he is serious about examining the mandate of the Environment Council that he has to ask himself the question, is it an opportunity to provide policy advice, direction and provide advice and opinions in advance of decisions being made by government or is it the responsibility of the council to, after government has made a decision, dissect, observe and criticize?

I suggest that if the council wants to influence the direction of environmental management in the province that the format that is available today provides them a significant opportunity to shape environmental practices in this province and that is in fact what we are attempting to have them capable of doing. As with any other advisory council, I would say that its efficacy is a direct reflection of the willingness of the advisors and the minister, in this case the Minister of Environment, and our government or any other government being advised by a volunteer group of individuals, that they have a willingness to provide a forthright and a clear comment on direction that they wish to see unfold. That is the true sense of being able to provide advisory status to a department as opposed to only providing the other comments, very often in a post-implementation period.

I would also tie that to the context and the criticism that Manitoba Environment Council used to make some number of presentations to the Clean Environment Commission, to other independent bodies dealing with environmental matters. I want to make it very clear that I have indicated to the present council that they are in no way inhibited from making presentations, but they should indicate that those presentations are being made on behalf of individuals, and their opinions may very well be developed during their discussions within the meeting framework that we have set up. But one only needs to look at the present make-up of the council to know that this is a pretty broad cross section of our community and a broad cross section of the environmental community that certainly is not of the matter where there are about four dozen people sitting at the table. In this case, we have about a dozen members on a regular basis, and I would say the good part about today's council is that there is a real recommitment on the part of the members to actively become involved.

In response to that, the ministry and myself have made every effort to make sure that issues are presented to them prior to their becoming issues in the public or issues within government so that they can truly provide some comments on what direction they would like to see environmental responsiveness taking. If you consider, and I will pick up on one issue my critic raised in terms about their ability--formerly they took considerable advantage of the opportunity to comment on parks policy, they took the opportunity to talk about waste reduction, obviously, in the early years of our administration. The opportunity to influence and shape those types of policy early on is very important because they are ultimately developed very often by consensus, and the direction of some of the consultative pieces that go out have been a direct result of input by a group such as this. Any government needs the best broad-based consultation and not just from people who are prepared to say, yes, that is a good idea just because you put it on the table.

* (1700)

You need quite regularly a group who will not always agree with you. I know that there is a criticism out there by some people who are saying that this present council may be some sort of a group that I have hand-picked. One who knows any of these members, first of all, they have a significant scientific background to a large extent, but I think it would be fair to say, and in this Chamber certainly it should be appropriate to say, that this is not a list of people who are necessarily politically aligned with myself or this administration. They are people who are prepared to speak their mind, and we approach this with the opportunity for them to speak their mind to my department and to our government before we actually embark on some of the adventures that we have recently in terms of environmental regulation and environmental initiatives.

So the criticism of the size in counting numbers is not the only criteria. In fact, what we have found is that the members of the present council have been encouraged, and I have in fact encouraged them to use their linkages within the community to go out and discuss some of the issues that we have raised with them. They are genuinely issues that have not yet reached the floor of this Chamber who have necessarily not reached public consultation situation, and I will give an example, being the White Paper on Sustainable Development. This body has twice reviewed that prior to it ever being presented here or in the public. I think, much to the amazement of other members, in the early commentaries on how we develop thinking around and in this manner, that has to be an example of true consultation and a true willingness to accept from a broad cross-section comment about initiatives that we are making.

The member makes one other comment that I want to respond to specifically. I think it demeans not necessarily just his comments, but I think the members of the original council demean themselves when they refer to the fact that they could not function because there was not funding available for them to run the type of process that they used to run before. The fact is that what we are looking for and what we have and what we had to a large extent even prior to the reorganization is that the active members of the council were those who were there because they were concerned about the issues, because they felt they could make a difference and because there was, in many cases, a lifelong interest in the environment.

Those people continue to function in the council; they continue to function in the community. We even made available to the council all of the environment offices across the province. If they wish to communicate with people across the various regions of the province, whether it was in the North or in the west or in the south, they were given access to communication processes, fax machines and other opportunities to work with the Department of Environment on predetermined areas of consultation if they wanted to bring in people from the other regions. That is one of the areas where the funding was previously spent. It was spent on travel.

I have to ask you, is it not better to spend those dollars perhaps in enforcement or other areas of responsibility within the Department of Environment when we can on a regional basis? If people are so interested or so desire to become involved, we can still receive their advice and it can still be funnelled through the existing Manitoba Environment Council.

I would only comment further on one small aspect. We have put some significant emphasis on the technical qualifications of the people who are involved in the present advisory council, not to the exclusion of others who are simply active and dedicated people within the environmental community. When I look at the likes of Will Grieve, who is formerly the head of Ward Lab here in the province, a long-time civil servant, I think the kind of thinking that he brings to the table when balanced with that of some of the environmental activists who are also at the table, and we have the past president of the Sierra Club at the table as well as part of this--the local chapter of the Sierra Club--we have that person at the table as well in the person of Christine Common-Singh. That kind of balance is the kind of debate that myself or anyone else who might want to sit in that office or be given the opportunity to sit in that office will need in order to make sound decisions.

I reject out of hand the WHEREASes in this resolution that effectively leave the impression that there is no longer a consultative approach, that we somehow have a group of puppets that meet for pizza and coffee four times a year and have little or no impact on where the thinking in the Department of Environment might go in relationship to the issues of the day.

In fact, they are being given an opportunity ahead of the issues rather than after the issues, and that I think is a much better way of dealing with the problems and having some real opportunity to impact on them.

In fact, Madam Speaker, there is a statement out there that some people from time to time use tongue in cheek, and that is that you can be famous or you can be influential, but you cannot be both. I suppose there is an element of that in relationship to the present Environmental Council as it is presently operating. They have individually gone out, presented, made headlines in their own right and comments on environmental matters, but in terms of their advice to the ministry, because they are talking to the department early on in the process, they are in fact flagging issues for the Department of Environment and for this government in advance of their becoming an issue that perhaps we might not have dealt with as soon as we would have otherwise.

So I make no apology for the fact that they are seen to be meeting on a much more regular basis and that they meet with a commitment from myself and from the department, that the topics on the agenda, while they have a significant input on the agenda, but in fact we deliberately make sure that we search out areas of interest and areas of concern that they want to discuss in advance of decisions being made or initiatives being taken on our part in order that we have sufficiently canvassed all the views that are out there. They represent that cross section.

A good example, obviously, is the sustainable development act, but also issues around forestry. There are some people on this council who are very interested in forestry and continually raise at the table issues of management, licensing and sustainability of our forestry. That is legitimate, but they were raising those questions long before the Clean Environment Commission sat on hearings. They were raising those issues as a matter of the overall management of resources in this province. So I think, Madam Speaker, that they are contributing significantly. The premise of this motion, I reject.

Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to rise today and talk briefly on the resolution put forward by my colleague from Selkirk, and I want to commend my colleague from Selkirk for putting the environment back on the table here again and to put it forefront in the Legislature, where we need to have this type of discussion take place, because the environment is something that we must treat very carefully. I also wish to commend the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings), the current Minister of Environment, for explaining to us that he does believe that there is a role to be played for a strong council, diverse council, one that has a lot of technical expertise. My hope, though, is that the government will actually listen to this environmental council and not continue with the practice of simply cherry picking the kind of issues from the environmental council that suit its very big business kind of approach to our environmental issues that we have before us.

* (1710)

The question is not so much what the numbers are on the council and what this government has done to reduce those numbers. That issue is clear. The downsizing of this environmental council has in fact taken place. Nobody can dispute that the council is much smaller now than it was at one time. What are the results of that? Well, the minister mentioned the Sierra Club in his statements, and I want to remind everybody in the House--I am sure they will remember--the mark that the Sierra Club has given this government for its performance on environmental issues. It has a D-minus from one group. An F--I realize that the minister--it slipped his mind. I imagine he intended to tell the House that that mark was the one that was given to his government. You know, they get those kinds of marks for very valid reasons, and one such reason is the lack of input that northern people had when new parks were established in the northern part of our province just recently, that the public process is something that needs to be taken very seriously when it comes to environmental issues. That is an area that this government has, in my opinion at least, completely fallen down in.

Another example is, and the minister mentioned briefly, forestry. It does not make a lot of sense, from a sustainability environmental kind of an angle, to take a process which is there to be followed by companies like Louisiana-Pacific and mess around with that process simply to allow the company easier access to our timber in the Parkland Region. The government took that process and split it in two, allowed the company to do an environmental impact assessment of the plant first and then at some point later decided that then maybe we will see if there are enough trees to run through this plant and whether we have got enough wood, in fact, to satisfy the needs of Louisiana-Pacific.

Common sense tells us that you would do that all at once or, if the government was really intent on splitting the process, find out if there are enough trees first and then build the plant and do the environmental assessment on the plant then. That makes sense from a sustainability point of view. It does not, however, jibe with this government's big-business attitude towards purely developing what we have in rural Manitoba. It does not jibe with this government's pro big business kind of an attitude, pro corporate transnational corporation attitude that says that this government's role in life is to simply jig the system so that big business and multinational corporations can make huge profits and cut away at its will, clear-cut in our parts of the province.

What I would like to do is speak briefly about where this government can look to get some good, solid advice on how to approach issues of sustainability and issues of the environment. Now, I know the background of the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings) and I know that the minister and I represent similar parts of the world here in the Parkland area. We have a large agricultural base and many commonalities between our two ridings.

What I would suggest to the minister and to other government members is that we take a good lesson, good hard look and learn from what our farmers are doing out there that are very sustainable agricultural practices. The sustainable practices in agriculture can very easily be transmitted to sustainable practices generally in the environment.

Let us look at some of the things that farmers are doing in my community and in the minister's community, things like green manure, ideas such as clover plow-downs. These are two very practical ways that farmers are using to cut down. It may be that it is driven partly by an economic reality that says we cannot afford the input costs anymore for chemicals and fertilizer that are going through the roof but, at the same time, in the farming community, there is a drive, there is an ambition to become more sustainable.

By sustainable, we mean long term. We mean that we are going to practise these agriculture practices so that, No. 1, the soil and the content of the soil is there for years to come so that we can pass on our farms to the next generation. Over the past number of years, farmers have been leaving a lot more trash on top of their fields. Instead of simply just burning off the amount of straw that we leave on our fields, we have been taking the more sustainable approach of plowing that trash back into the fields and not simply blackening the land so that it can float off across into the neighbours' fields.

In agricultural parts of our province, we are into triple rinsing of the chemical cans that we do use. Triple rinse the cans and then recycle them into such things as fence posts, very much in keeping with the sustainable principles upon which I would like to see this government move. In both the constituencies of Neepawa and in Dauphin, there is a tremendous use of shelter belts. Shelter belts, the zero-till concept is something that has been promoted--[interjection] Cutter bees, yes, sure.

Organic farming is another way that this government, I think, can do a lot more in promoting, but individual farmers and farm families out there in rural Manitoba are looking at all of these kinds of options so that they know they can have some assurance that their land is going to be there for the next generation.

Madam Speaker, I point in rural Manitoba to new technologies that are starting to come on stream in the area at harvest time when, without using chemicals, we can control the weed problem that we have in rural Manitoba.

Indeed, Madam Speaker, there are some lessons in rural Manitoba where we have messed up where we have to learn, as well, and in this case, I point directly to the use of chemicals to produce spray-resistant weeds. In some parts of this province, we have gone so overboard with the use of chemicals that we have produced weeds that develop a resistance to these chemicals. So now we are looking at different ways to--[interjection] Exactly, they are the superweeds. We are looking for ways now to make ourselves less reliant on synthetic fertilizers and chemicals. It is a very progressive, very sustainable step that we in rural Manitoba are willing to take.

We have put a lot more emphasis on crop rotation, and we have put a lot less reliance on the burning of stubble. Cattle producers in both my area and in areas represented by Conservative MLAs, cattle farmers recently have got a lot more up to date on the care of riverbanks. We realize that we in agriculture have a role to play in taking care of our streams and the banks that are found along the streams. We have enhancement groups that have arranged and spent a lot of money on their own rehabilitating these streams. We have fish and wildlife enhancement groups in Dauphin. I know we have one there. I think there is one in Neepawa. There is one, I know, in Swan River, where they are reclaiming areas that we have made mistakes in before.

So, Madam Speaker, the reason I go through quite a long list--and it is not an exhaustive list of all the things we are doing right out there in Manitoba, in the rural parts, in agricultural Manitoba. There are a lot more other sustainable practices that we are employing. The reason that I put them out here today is to try to convince all MLAs and in particular the Minister of Environment (Mr. Cummings) that what we need to do is base our decisions here in the Legislature on good solid common sense and base our laws, our legislation, on the fact that we want our environment to be sustainable and not just succumb to the easy way out of signing agreements with the large multinational corporations, be they mining companies or forestry, where we simply sell the farm, which this government has a penchant of doing.

So, Madam Speaker, with those words, I would like to congratulate the member for Selkirk (Mr. Dewar) for bringing forward this resolution, and I certainly am one who would support it.

* (1720)

Mr. David Newman (Riel): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak against this resolution. It is always, I think, a great opportunity to be able to speak on environmental issues. I have a deep and abiding interest in that area, having practised law and having been involved in some public education in that area before I entered the political life.

The resolution has a certain amount of worthiness, and that is that it has brought us up to speak and to speak of the spirit of the environmental legislation we have and the sustainable development legislation that we have in this province which I as one of the many honourable members in this Legislature on the government side believe is state of the art, setting an example for the rest of the country and for the world, and we do not toot our horn enough about this. The mean spiritness of the resolution tries to do the opposite.

So in speaking against the resolution, I want to emphasize the many positives of this department and its approach to public consultation which seems to be one of the targets of this resolution. No department in government, I would submit, does more to seek public opinion and input and to respect it.

Madam Speaker, we have the Round Table on the Environment which is given the highest status one could possibly give it as a government because the Premier (Mr. Filmon) chairs it. We have, right in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment with a presence and, I might say, with a whole variety of processes that are very sophisticated in getting public consultation on all kinds of issues, not just affecting this province but affecting the whole country and the world beyond that. After all, we are all very interdependent now, and what happens in Manitoba, what happens in Winnipeg, affects other parts of the world as well.

We have networks of interest groups in this province that are well known and vocal, and we have now an increasing number, Madam Speaker, of informed individuals and, I am delighted to say, many of them being young people, young people who are not even in school yet, young people in elementary school, all of them becoming very conscious of the environment. Whenever I go into the schools, I am delighted to see the degree of awareness which reaches beyond what many of our generation, my generation, received by way of education through our public school system. They are becoming very, very aware, and they, as individuals, are conscientious stewards reminding sometimes their parents and grandparents of some of the things that can be done to better protect the planet for their sake and their children's sake. There is a lot of wisdom that is being accumulated in these young minds and hearts which is positive for our future, and their very vigilance and their informed vigilance makes a contribution to the development of policies, better administration and better legislation.

We have processes that this department has used, and the sustainable development group. We have policies and methodologies that they have used, workshops and workbooks, policy books, white papers, all to get consultation. This minister, in this department, has gone even further and, as we have seen over the past months, has developed a near bill which was circulated for more public opinion. A huge effort is made to make sure we do things right, that this government does things right in this area, and there is a demonstrable respect of the quality of input that individual citizens and interest groups can offer in this respect.

Now, the composition of the committee. The minister, in his humble way, his characteristic humble way, did not brag about the quality of this council, for which he can take considerable credit in appointing as an advisory group. Even in the press release, there is an understatement when he says that the make-up of this council will ensure well-rounded, candid advice on a variety of topics. The new council will feature a mix of members from the previous council joined by newcomers. The minister also noted that additional members may be added to the council as required. A broad range of experience, interest and expertise is represented in the latest of round of two-year appointments with the council chairperson appointed from within the council by the minister.

Lest we forget, these names are so well known that they probably need not be stated. But for the record, because they are deserving of recognition: Mrs. Christine Common-Singh, a well-known community leader and environmentalist; Mr. Rick Howard, a member of council since 1976, also, formerly president of Manitobans versus Garrison Diversion in North Dakota, formerly member of a think tank, Conservation Association of Manitoba; Dr. Bill Turnock, served as a council chairman, '76-77, and is currently the chair, and he was involved with the Entomological Society of Canada, member of the Naturalist Society of Manitoba and an adjunct professor, Department of Entomology, University of Manitoba, 1975-82. I know him personally as well because I worked at Red Rock Lake in my first summer job in a camp when I was about 17 years of age, after Grade 11, before I went to university, and Bill Turnock and his doctoral colleagues there introduced me to the wonders of the sauna beside Red Rock Lake in the Whiteshell. We were studying the life cycle of the larch sawfly, and the eggs are laid in the new growths in tamarack trees in swamps throughout the province.

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): I am sorry to interrupt but on a point of order, if the members opposite do not like these names, and they think these people are just laughable and are making fun of them and laughing at them, maybe they would like to stand and put on the record that they do not have any respect for these individuals that are being named right now, instead of just muttering across the hall.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Minister of Education does not have a point of order.

Mr. Newman: I think that the honourable minister might have been concerned that I was sort of writing an essay on what I did during my summer vacation sort of thing, but the honourable members apparently do need reminding of who these people are, so I will continue and depart from my essay.

Dr. Ian Rollo, former member of the MEC for over 20 years; Dr. Diane F. Malley, research scientist with the Freshwater Institute and a published author; Dr. David Punter, the past chairman of council, Professor of Botany at the University of Manitoba; Dr. Peter Miller, Associate Professor, University of Winnipeg, Department of Philosophy, and a prolific author; Mr. Will Grieve, chief chemist with Department of Environment Laboratories until 1994; Dr. Bill Pruitt, Professor of Zoology, University of Manitoba, and previous member of council; and Dr. Derek Muir, research scientist with the Freshwater Institute, a member of the MEC since 1978, also a published author; Mr. Jim Bell, a silviculture specialist with the Canadian Forest Service, Forest Development in Winnipeg, another published author; and Mr. Dale Stewart, the Chair of the Clean Environment Commission.

What a sterling committee. The size of the committee shows it is a lean and effective committee made up of quality people providing quality advice, treasuring their volunteer time, respecting their volunteer time. It is a working committee. It does good work. I have had the personal and pleasurable experience of sitting in on their supper meetings, giving up volunteer time, away from their homes and families over a sandwich--I might say a humble sandwich--and coffee after long days of work. They have made contribution that I have seen translated into actual changes in proposed legislation. They have that wisdom and that sense of responsibility and conscientiousness that is characteristic of volunteers in this province, and we respect that and we respect their time well.

I urge all honourable members to resoundly defeat this resolution, and by doing so, we will send out a positive message of congratulations and appreciation to the hardworking and capable members of the council.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. When this matter is again before the House, the honourable member for Riel (Mr. Newman) will have five minutes remaining.

The hour being 5:30 p.m., this House is adjourned and stands adjourned until 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday).