4th-36th Vol. 33-Oral Questions

Madam Speaker: Prior to Oral Questions, I would like to draw the attention of all honourable members, firstly to the Speaker's Gallery, where we have with us today members of the Standing Committee of the Public Accounts of the Legislature of the North-West Province, South Africa, led by the chairman, Mr. Van Deventer. On behalf of all honourable members, I welcome you this afternoon.

Also seated in the public gallery we have twenty-one Grade 9 students from Isaac Newton School, under the direction of Ms. Jane Lower. This school is located in the constituency of the honourable member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale). On behalf of all honourable members, I welcome you this afternoon.

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Madam Speaker, my question is to the First Minister (Mr. Filmon). A report released today by nurses on the front line indicates that close to 86 percent of the nurses working across Manitoba believe that since 1995, which would be through two different Health ministers, three areas of health care services have been neglected in terms of their roles. These are three areas out of basic nursing care, treatment, medication, vital signs, charting and patient education. I would like to ask the Premier: what impact has his government's decision to lay off or fire close to 1,000 nurses had on the disastrous state of affairs in Manitoba's health care system, as reported by the nurses here today?

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, it is interesting that the comparison only goes back to 1995. I think if one were to go back somewhat farther, I have today, and I am prepared to table it, a report from the Winnipeg Free Press dated July 11, 1983, and I would like to quote from it just to put this report into perspective and context: The union bargaining for Manitoba nurses says understaffing of hospitals has continued throughout the year despite an increase in the number of incidents endangering patients. As a result, the Manitoba Organization of Nurses Associations is stepping up its campaign to make the public hospitals administration and the provincial government aware of what it sees as a health care crisis.

This is back in 1983. Vera Chernecki, president of the 7,300-member union, which, by the way, I believe is larger today than it was in 1983, is quoted as saying: They are being silent Florence Nightingales. Chernecki said the danger to patients continues unabated and cited some recent examples. Those are listed in this particular result.

The point that I make, Madam Speaker, is this has been something the MNU has continually put out for well over a decade.

Mr. Doer: Well, thank you, this no-show minister, Madam Speaker, for--and if the minister is not listening to patients and nurses--[interjection]

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Doer: During the last election campaign, Madam Speaker, which was in 1995, the Premier (Mr. Filmon) stated that hiring Connie Curran would have been judged by most Manitobans and paying her some $4.5 million U.S. was a mistake. Regrettably, after the election campaign the Premier then proceeded to implement the reductions in nurses across Manitoba as recommended by Ms. Curran, and nurses today feel that this has really affected the patient care, the patient workload, the effectiveness of nurses and the numbers of nurses in Manitoba.

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier: why did he implement the cutback of close to a thousand nurses in Manitoba after he said in the heat of an election campaign that hiring Connie Curran was a mistake?

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Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, again, to put things into context of this report, this report has been a tool used by the Manitoba Nurses' Union, and I am not to take away--some of the information in this report I find very useful. I want to say that. But let us put the document into context, because going back to 1983, even before the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) had entered this Legislature, the same Vera Chernecki is quoted in the Free Press as saying: Chernecki said direct or potential danger to patients has included many incidents when nurses could not offer all the necessary care for their critically charged patients and were reduced to keeping them alive. In many cases, Chernecki says general duty bedside nurses were so busy with urgent chores that vital sign collection and recording ordered by patients' doctors at one- and two-hour intervals could not be carried out.

The fact of the matter, as the Free Press I think rightly pointed out in its editorial this weekend, is that the system has always been under a great deal of pressure. This is certainly not something new. It has been around for many, many years. There are some ways of improving the situation, and the hospital authorities will be exploring them.

Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Again, the minister did not answer the question. At another forum which he refused to attend last week, Madam Speaker, Tony Quaglia said it has never been so bad as in the last five years under this Premier (Mr. Filmon) and this government in terms of what is going on in health care.

I would like to ask another question. A hundred percent of the public health nurses have stated that there has been a reduction in the nursing staff dealing with the public; 97 percent of public health nurses feel that they do not have the adequate resources. Given the Postl report and the promise of this Premier in the election campaign, why are we not giving our public health nurses adequate staffing levels and adequate resources to do the job on behalf of Manitobans?

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, I believe the Leader of the Opposition meant to say that whatever percentage he was quoting of public health nurses was the percentage that responded to the study, not in total numbers of public health nurses. As we have moved to regional health authorities and as resources are being looked at and examined by those regional health authorities, I can tell the member that some of the issues that Ms. Chernecki has raised with me in terms of the staffing levels for nurses--her claim that great amounts of overtime are currently being used by our independent hospitals and that those resources put in to help make more positions available for full-time nurses would go a long way to solve that problem. That is one of the issues that the regional health authority will now have the ability to deal with, and that ability did not exist until the creation of those regional health authorities.

Mr. Dave Chomiak (Kildonan): Madam Speaker, if the government is not even willing to acknowledge or listen to the nurses, to the 5,000 nurses of Manitoba who filled out this form, then this province is in grave difficulty. The pattern continues of blame, blame, blame. This report is unprecedented in the history of Manitoba. Let the minister pull out a study or a report from Manitoba or any other jurisdiction that is as bad as this one where nurses say that--oh, 51 percent of nurses rate the quality of patient care as very poor to fair.

Will this government finally listen? What steps will they take to finally do something in terms of health care and stop blaming everyone for the problem and finally do something about it?

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, no one is blaming anyone here. What we are doing is putting into context a report that is released regularly. This report goes back to the early 1980s when members opposite were in power, and that report--[interjection] Well, I am quoting the Free Press. I guess they can defend their own paper and their reporting, but the fact of the matter is the same kind of language describing the situation in health care, very similar language, was used in 1983, so let us put things in context. There is no doubt that our acute care system has gone through great difficulty as we have moved in the transition to long-term care.

An Honourable Member: No, you have not.

Mr. Praznik: Well, the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) says, no, we have not moved. While tripling the home care budget in a decade, we now spend--I think Saskatchewan spends some $70 million, a little over $70 million a year for home care. We spend $123 million. Do we see in this report any acknowledgement of that shift in services? No, Madam Speaker.

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Mr. Chomiak: Madam Speaker, can the minister explain, since in his first response he said: well, the regional health authority in Winnipeg is going to clear this up, why in this report it states that in all but one category northern Manitoba has the worst ratings of anywhere in the province of Manitoba when, in fact, the minister's own regional health authorities are already operating in that jurisdiction? Is that not an indictment of the policies of this government as it relates to health care?

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, we have spent countless hours in Estimates getting into very great detail about the changes that we are taking on as a province. The member for Kildonan is very well aware that there are some fundamental problems in our system around how we organize and administer health care, how we have accountability in our budget, which makes it very difficult to move resources accurately around the system, as well, with our ability to garner the right information on which to make decisions. All of the fundamental changes that are needed to correct those fundamental problems, which I believe will lead to significant improvements in the delivery of health care, are in the process of taking place. Do they happen overnight? No, they do not, and the member knows that. We have discussed this in Estimates. Today he comes to this House as if he has amnesia.

Mr. Chomiak: Madam Speaker, will the Premier (Mr. Filmon) or the Minister of Health or anyone on that side at least acknowledge and recognize the fact that 5,000 nurses put together an unprecedented report that is the greatest indictment of the health care system that you have been managing for 10 miserable years in this province? Will you at least acknowledge that there are major deficiencies that need address, that you cannot hide behind the regional boards, that you have to implement some programs and systems immediately to deal with this or people are going to continue to get hurt and suffer in the hallways of the province of Manitoba?

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, if things are in crisis today, according to the same group of nurses, they were in crisis in 1983. So let us put the report into some context. We have never denied some of the very real problems in this system.

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. The honourable Minister of Health, to complete his response.

Mr. Praznik: Thank you, Madam Speaker. We have never denied where there have been problems, and we have never been afraid to discuss the solutions. The member and I engage in that debate regularly about where we need to go. One of the things we have learned just in the last year as we have taken over those facilities across the province, some 180 independent boards, I have a number of facilities, particularly rural facilities that had operating surpluses in the bank, and they told me one of the reasons they had them is because they were not hiring their full complement of staff. Does that result in the kinds of statements that are made in here? Yes. Is that the problem with the provincial government? No.

The way in which we budget and hold health care, the delivery system accountable is very fundamental to the reform and change. We are taking the steps to do that, while the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) continues to support 180 independent boards.

Mr. Gord Mackintosh (St. Johns): Madam Speaker, to the Minister of Justice. Before the current budget, the government polled Manitobans, which showed that 71 percent said as their highest priority they wanted increased spending going to street gang prevention programs, and this, with one single exception, was the highest demand for a program. My question to the minister is: why did this government selectively reject this advice from Manitobans, and why did he not even so much as mention street gangs in the throne speech? The minister never so much as mentioned street gangs in his December speech on his plans for the year for Justice, and even more importantly, why did they not even mention the word "gangs" in the budget speech? What planet are these people on?

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Hon. Vic Toews (Minister of Justice and Attorney General): The issue of the justice system and its responsiveness, not only in the area of tougher enforcement of our laws to ensure that people are safe but the issue of social agencies or camps that assist people in the inner city, particularly with activities to channel their activities in a positive way, is a very, very important part of this government's and my department's thrust over the last number of years. I know that we have been very successful in working together with the Turtle Island urban sports camp, which is in the member's riding or just outside of it. I am told by the director of public safety that 1,100 children on a monthly basis use that facility. So I do not know what planet the member is on, given that this is happening in his own constituency.

Madam Speaker: The honourable member for St. Johns, with a supplementary question.

Mr. Mackintosh: If everything is okey-dokey, why did they ask the question--

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Mackintosh: I ask the question of the minister: why, then, did this government trash its own report on gangs, our own Gang Action Plan, slash all its funding for friendship centres, which meant the layoff of crime prevention workers? Why did it kill the Night Hoops program for inner-city prevention? Why did it now walk away from Ted Hughes's report on the real solution of marketable skills and job prospects for people, why, in fact, this government, in no small way, has helped create the conditions that have bred this crime under this government?

Mr. Toews: I will not attempt to try to answer the number of questions that this member has just put to me. I know that I am entitled to answer one question. What I would suggest is that if--and I have asked the member before. I said why do you not come to my deputy's office, and my deputy will sit down with you and go through all of the programs that we are in fact doing. Now I know the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) is again chirping from her seat and says why do I not tell him. All right, well, why do I not. I will start.

Madam Speaker, the first thing I would like to, of course, say is that the Turtle Island sports camp has been a very successful sports camp. We have worked together with the Salvation Army and fund that program on an annual basis. There will be an announcement very shortly in respect of another sports camp that I understand may well be in the member for Wolseley's constituency where, I might indicate, members of the community are working together with government as opposed to the member for Wolseley who has nothing but negative things to say.

Madam Speaker: The honourable member for St. Johns, with a final supplementary question.

Mr. Mackintosh: Would this government, instead of this puffery and talking about one single program, open its eyes and see that gangs are claiming ownership of part of this city through their graffiti, loved ones are being murdered, families are hiding from their front windows, kids are afraid to go to school, to community centres? Will it explain why it continues to ignore the needs of Manitobans and the clearly stated wishes of Manitobans?

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Mr. Toews: Well, Madam Speaker, I disagree with everything that the member for St. Johns has just stated as a fact in his question. I want to say that this government has worked very closely with police, worked very closely with social agencies and has been very strong supporters of our Crown attorneys. Now I know the member for St. Johns just attacked another Crown attorney last week. I happen to know why he particularly chose to attack that Crown attorney, because that was the Crown attorney who went on CJOB and asked the member for St. Johns to quit misrepresenting what Crown attorneys do. So now he is attacking that Crown attorney. Well, I can tell you we stand with the Crown attorneys, we stand with the police and we stand with social agencies that are moving to protect the people in Manitoba and Winnipeg.

Mr. Steve Ashton (Opposition House Leader): On a point of order, Madam Speaker, Beauchesne Citation 417 is very clear that answers to questions should be as brief as possible, deal with the matter raised and should not provoke debate. Once again, the Attorney General is not only not answering the question but is engaging in some kind of personal vendetta he has with the member for St. Johns. He should be drawn to order and should be required under our rules to either answer the question or not waste the time of Question Period, as he is doing repeatedly in this House.

Madam Speaker: The honourable Minister of Justice, on the same point of order.

Mr. Toews: On the same point of order, I believe that it is essential that people actually understand why the member raises questions and for the purpose that he is raising them. In that particular case, I was simply responding to the question that was really asked, and that was he was criticizing a Crown attorney who had the courage to speak out against that kind of conduct of the member for St. Johns.

Madam Speaker: Order, please. On the point of order raised by the honourable member for Thompson, indeed I would remind the honourable Minister of Justice to respond to the question asked and not provoke debate.

Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Madam Speaker, today I received a newsletter from east area Child and Family Services, and I would like to quote from it. It says: kids going to school without lunch, babies being fed diluted formula, moms not eating because there is not enough food to go around. Sad but true stories that CFS workers hear often. This ties in with the recommendation or the observations of the Children's Advocate in his fourth annual report last week where he said: "The needs of children and families involved in the child and family services system cannot be isolated from the broader social problems of poverty, unemployment, family violence, etc."

I would like to ask the Minister of Family Services what she and her government are doing to address these broader social problems besides reducing social assistance rates, forcing the City of Winnipeg to reduce food allowances and expanding the PST to include children's clothing and baby supplies, thereby making these problems worse. What is this government going to do to address these very serious concerns?

Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): Madam Speaker, I thank my honourable friend for the question because it does provide me with the opportunity to share with all Manitobans exactly what we have been doing as a government to try to address the needs. I know that government cannot do it alone, and no one wants government to do it alone. They want us to be working with the community to try to ensure that the best programs are in place to get children off to a healthy start to life, to work with parents and children to try to ensure that parents have the parenting skills to deal with the issues that really are quite complex in today's society and today's reality.

We will continue to work and implement the programs that have just been announced like BabyFirst, like Earlystart in many of the communities and constituencies that my honourable friends across the way represent. We know that there are needs out there, Madam Speaker, and we will continue to address those needs and those issues. I will attempt to provide some more information on the positive initiatives that we have undertaken in subsequent questions.

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Mr. Martindale: Will the Minister of Family Services encourage her cabinet colleagues and her government to institute a comprehensive plan to improve the lives of some very poor people who frequently end up in the care of Child and Family Services, the highest rate per capita in Canada, and act on the recommendation of the operational review which says: in Manitoba the Departments of Education, Health and Family Services are all reducing services.

What is this government going to do to co-operate and improve services so fewer children come into care?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Madam Speaker, that is exactly what we have been trying to do. Through the Children and Youth Secretariat we have been working very aggressively, the Department of Family Services, Department of Education, Department of Health, Department of Justice and others, seven departments within government, to try to ensure that we have a comprehensive approach. As a result of that, we have over $20 million more in this year's budget that is going to go to services for children through nutrition programming, through early intervention programs for pregnant women and those that are delivering babies, in their first year of life, for those in the preschool system to ensure that they are ready to learn and that they can socially adapt to starting off to school.

All of those initiatives, Madam Speaker, are looking to try to keep children out of the Child and Family Services system and get them off to a better start to life. We all know that if children get off to a healthy start to life, they are better prepared for school and better prepared for the workforce.

Mr. Martindale: What is this minister and her government going to do to reverse the contraction of human services in the human services envelope which is exposing children to greater degrees of risk and being brought into care? Is she going to influence her cabinet colleagues and Treasury Board and her government and her Premier (Mr. Filmon) to reverse the cuts to school counsellors, public health nurses in schools, cuts to children's speech, language and communication disorder services? Will she act with her colleagues to reverse the cuts that have been made that make these problems much worse?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Madam Speaker, I look forward to the opportunity of my Estimates starting and some dialogue and discussion with my honourable friend, because quite frankly he has his head buried in the sand. He has not recognized or realized that we have over $20 million more in the budget for children and services to children and their families in this year's budget. That is a significant amount of increased resource, not cuts like my honourable friend has said.

We have increased support in our child care system so people can enter the workforce. We have increased support through our child care system to children to work with parents and their children. We are increasing the number of public health nurses that are going to work through our regional health authorities on our BabyFirst initiatives. So, Madam Speaker, he is dead wrong when he says there have been cuts to children and families in Manitoba.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health. In listening to his answer I was somewhat disappointed, when you have thousands of nurses, who are the backbone of our health care services and delivery, trying to express their concerns to the Minister of Health. My question is to the minister: specifically, does he give any validity to what the nurses in the province of Manitoba are in fact trying to say?

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, if the member for Inkster had listened to my answer, he would have found that I had said there were many things in this report that one can learn from. Vera Chernecki, president of the Manitoba Nurses' Union, and I meet from time to time. She has raised with me some issues that we believe have to be explored. She does not have the accurate numbers either, and that is one of the things that we wanted to ascertain, is accurate numbers and move towards a correction of them and do that in a co-operative fashion.

In the facilities that I have toured and my observations of the system in being Health minister for over a year and a half, I can pretty much identify many of the areas of pressure that they have outlined. The kinds of things we need to do to relieve that pressure, the tools to do that are currently underway. The regional health authorities give us a much better ability to make those changes and do the things that Vera Chernecki and the Manitoba Nurses' Union--some of the things that they are asking for.

So, yes, we are listening very closely.

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Inkster): Madam Speaker, can the Minister of Health then indicate what is he prepared to do in a tangible way in order to reach out to what the nurses are in fact saying? Is the minister prepared then to--for example, in education, they had parental conferences in the previous administration. Is the Minister of Health prepared to bring to the table in a significant way our nurses in order to ensure that we are hearing first-hand what needs to be happening in health care?

Hon. Darren Praznik (Minister of Health): Madam Speaker, despite the fact that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) continues to support the old system of 180 different boards delivering health care, we have moved on regionalization. I can tell the member that in the case of Winnipeg, the 13 program teams that are dealing with issues in specific program areas--as part of the management of that team, there is a nurse appointed to that management team, along with a physician, an allied health-worker representative and a manager.

So nurses now in a very real way are very much involved in the re-engineering of the health care system, and I am proud of that fact.

Mr. Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, the question to the Minister of Health was--obviously it is very clear that the nurses want to be able to participate in a significant way. The question specific to the minister is: is the minister prepared to provide a vehicle in which those nurses are going to be able to give more direct advice to the minister through some form of a council, open forum, much like they had for the teachers and parents?

Mr. Praznik: Madam Speaker, I am a little confused as to whether the member for Inkster is proposing we get on with solving problems or we enter into another round of talking about problems. Many of the issues that are outlined in this document, many of the issues around how we better organize care to deliver it in a more patient-friendly manner and more effectively to our patients are presently being done by our program teams, and nurses are represented on those program teams by having a nurse on every one of those 13 program teams in the re-engineering of those programs. There is no better way to be involved.

If the member for Inkster is suggesting that the Manitoba Nurses' Union be formally represented in management decisions, let us separate function. The Manitoba Nurses' Union is the bargaining agent for nurses. Their responsibility is to represent the issues of employment to nurses. Nurses within the system are involved in the management and in the decisions around the re-engineering of those programs. So, yes, nurses are very well represented in the decisions today.

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Madam Speaker, according to a recent report on Manitoba's educational statistics, aboriginal people aged 20 to 29 were less likely to graduate from post-secondary institutions than aboriginal people in general. If this is the case, it is truly a backwards step, and what we are looking at is the case of a lost generation. I would like to ask the Minister of Education to tell the House: what has been the impact of the deep cuts, almost 50 percent cuts, to Access imposed by her government in creating that missing generation?

Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): I share with the member a concern for seeing that our aboriginal population is able to grow and achieve and succeed in the world which they enter as adults.

Madam Speaker, I have to clarify of course what the member I believe knows, is that Access funding reductions were sparked by the withdrawal of some $4.5 million from the federal government back in the early '90s. But she has asked specifically what the results are, and I am pleased to provide her with the results because she knows we have, on top of the Canada Student Loans, provided for students in need unlimited funds in nonrepayable bursaries to allow students who are disadvantaged to succeed. When we came into office in '88-89, they were, in the intake, taking in about 265 students; we are now taking in over 300. They were graduating around 110; we are now graduating regularly 115. So the intake and the graduation has continued to grow through the years. We are pleased about that because that is what it is all about in the final analysis.

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Ms. Friesen: Could the minister tell us then what the impact on aboriginal education and indeed Manitoba's future will be of the inability of First Nations now to fund Access students? In fact, in this coming year, as indicated in letters now going out from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, they are telling their young people they cannot fund them for this year, but they are taking applications for '99. That is the future for aboriginal people in Manitoba. Where is the government on this?

Mrs. McIntosh: Maybe the member did not hear me in my first answer when I said that we do have approximately 23 percent of our Access students receive nonrepayable provincial bursaries on top of the other monies they receive through Canada Student Loans, et cetera. I recall last year we had the debate as to whether or not students were receiving up to $26,000 per year on top of their other money, and I was able to show the member indeed that was correct.

We fully support bringing the aboriginal students up to the levels that would make them fully successful in our society. We keep doing that with a number of initiatives, not just through Access, although I have to say that 93 percent of the graduates from our Access programs are successfully employed. We also have other initiatives such as Partners For Careers, and my colleague the Minister of Native Affairs (Mr. Newman) has been very actively involved through the urban aboriginal strategy in things such as Partners For Careers, which sees an astounding number of some 300 aboriginal graduates successfully employed in industry.

Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Madam Speaker, on March 14 when the Premier (Mr. Filmon), the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey), the CEO of Air Canada and the mayor announced a $2-million tax credit for a new Air Canada customer service call centre in Winnipeg, the Premier stated, and I quote: many in the aboriginal population will have jobs.

The Air Canada CEO pledged to, quote, recruit as many aboriginals as we possibly can.

What is there in black and white to assure us that urban aboriginal hiring will be more than just another empty promise as we have seen from this government over the last 10 years?

Hon. Gary Filmon (Premier): Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Wellington for making a note of the fact that in the recruitment of yet another job creation initiative for Manitoba, we were successful in competition with many other provinces in Canada in getting Air Canada to come here. Through that all, it involved a number of very positive initiatives for Winnipeg, the assurance that there will be about another 500 jobs in downtown Winnipeg, the restoration of a heritage building that will ensure that we preserve one of Winnipeg's oldest buildings in that core area of Winnipeg, and also an agreement by the investor, that is Air Canada, that they will do everything in their power to employ aboriginal people within that environment. Those are all positive things which I think we should all be very pleased about and be very supportive of. I fail to see what problem the member for Wellington has with that issue.

Ms. Barrett: Madam Speaker, since the Premier himself stated in January that Winnipeg's having the highest population of aboriginal people of any city in Canada is, and I quote, a very significant challenge for us collectively and must be addressed as a priority, end quote, I would like to ask the Premier and maybe this will clarify it for him: what specific indicators have been put in place between the government and Air Canada so that we as a population, as citizens, and most particularly so that the aboriginal community in the city of Winnipeg can have a sense of degree of accountability for a change from this government as to when and how many aboriginals will be hired at the call centre?

Mr. Filmon: I know it must be simple, because you are the one asking the question but--

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Madam Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Filmon: Madam Speaker, what I think the member fails to understand is that by setting up all sorts of empty targets, as she and her colleagues used to do when they were in opposition, nothing gets done. I would say to her that every single person that we are able to employ from the aboriginal community in these areas, in all areas of employment, is a positive move forward. That is why, as part of our call centre initiative, as part of our industrial recruitment initiative, we are working with companies to get them to make commitments to hire and to employ aboriginal people. That is why we did it with the call centre for the Royal Bank. In fact, there were people from the employment community there; there were people from the aboriginal training community there. A former member of this Legislature from the New Democratic Party was part of that process for training those aboriginals for it.

Madam Speaker, if we employ 50, if we employ 100, if we employ any number, it is a positive step forward. That is what this government is committed to, and that is why it is happening, instead of getting the empty rhetoric of the member for Wellington.

Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Madam Speaker, Statistics Canada figures show us that Manitoba grain and cattle farmers have the lowest income in the country. This is particularly disturbing since these farmers constitute roughly three-quarters of the farmers in Manitoba. This is a very serious situation and one that I am afraid is going to get worse. I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture what steps he is taking to ensure that we have proper safety net programs and other supports to help, and what steps he has taken to urge the federal government to ensure that we have proper programs in place to help grain and cattle farmers through these very difficult times.

Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): Madam Speaker, allow me simply to make this observation in response to the honourable member and remind her that it was a Liberal government in Ottawa that took away the support program with respect to the movement of grain out of this region. It is a Liberal government that still impedes the ability of some of our farmers to access the most available market, namely the United States. Regrettably, it is former Liberal members of this House who are attempting to stop and impede the very resolution to some of this problem, namely, diversification into livestock, and I refer particularly to one Harold Taylor who has made a living out of doing this in different parts of rural Manitoba.

That is precisely why, Madam Speaker, we in Manitoba have to divert into the value-added aspects of agriculture. That is why it was so encouraging to be in the city of Brandon this morning and see the beginning of a $112-million industry started there that will process hogs, provide jobs for Manitobans, provide an outlet for grain and for hog farmers in Manitoba.

Madam Speaker: Time for Oral Questions has expired.