Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Would the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply has been dealing with the Estimates of the Department of Natural Resources. Would the minister's staff please enter the Chamber at this time. We are still on Resolution 12.1. Administration and Finance (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits.
Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): Mr. Chair, I would like to ask the minister a question on behalf of a constituent of mine, Mr. Robert Tesch. He lives at 692 River Road which is just north of Lockport on the west side of the Red River. Mr. Tesch, he lives directly across from the floodway spillway, directly across from where the water that is collected in the floodway is diverted back into the Red River. As the minister is, I am certain, very much aware, in the spring of 1997 there was a tremendous volume of water that was diverted into the floodway and a tremendous volume of water that entered the river at that spot.
Now, Mr. Tesch, for many years, had a series of platforms and stairs leading down from the River Road to the river. At one time, he was a commercial fisherman in that area.
Now last spring the lower set of his stairs was carried away by the extraordinary flow of water from the floodway, but just the lower set. Now I sent a letter to the minister in September of last year, September 5, asking him and his department to pay for a reconstruction of the lower set of those stairs. So then from there the letter was sent to Deputy Minister Tomasson, who then sent the letter to Mr. Topping, Steve Topping, director of Water Resources, who then sent the letter to the Emergency Management Organization. Now I contacted them and talked to them. They said they did not get it, but, besides that, they would not cover such a situation.
Now once again I am just asking the minister if his department would contact Mr. Tesch to see if his department would reconstruct the stairs or hire a contractor to do so. As I said, this happened once before a number of years ago, and the government did pay at that time to have his stairs replaced.
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Hon. Glen Cummings (Minister of Natural Resources): Well, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that this would fall under the Disaster Financial Assistance aspect of government support under these circumstances. I would be quite glad to make sure that the information got into the hands of the appropriate people in that department. If the member is saying that Natural Resources had paid previously to replace the stairs, I have no reason to question him, but I have no reason to believe that this would normally be something that Natural Resources would be managing. But we have had a program going on all of last year that would have received any application. The member says that Government Services indicated they had not got the request. We will make sure that a copy is sent to them if for some reason it did not get there. It should have.
Mr. Dewar: I want to thank the minister. But officials I talked to in the Emergency Management, Disaster Assistance branch, said they would not cover this anyway, even if they did have this request from Mr. Tesch. Mr. Tesch argues that he simply lives across from where the floodway spillway is located, and all of us in this province recognize the tremendous asset that the floodway is to our province. He has lived there longer than there was a floodway. He is arguing that the tremendous volume of water flowed into the river at that time, and anybody who had a chance to drive by there or to notice the amount would certainly be aware of the flow and the potential damage that it could cause to the opposite side, the opposite shore.
So I guess, if the minister wants to, he could perhaps discuss this further with Mr. Tesch. Now it was a number of years ago he mentioned that his steps were washed away. It does not happen every year. It is a very rare occurrence, only twice in the number of years that the floodway has been in operation. I guess if he is prepared to talk to Emergency Management about it, but, as I have said, they have already said that they would not cover such a thing, and I am asking the minister if his department would contact Mr. Tesch to see if there is something that they could do to help him replace the stairs that lead down to the Red River.
Mr. Cummings: I am not looking to be argumentative with the member, but I do not want to raise false expectations either. Sure, we will contact the gentleman in question and see if Government Services or the Emergency Measures has indeed given him the correct answer, or if there is something that I do not understand about the situation that he finds himself in.
Mr. Dewar: So I assume then that the minister still has the copy of my initial letter I sent September 5, and it includes Mr. Tesch's address and his phone number, so someone from his department can contact Mr. Tesch.
Mr. Cummings: Yes, I am pretty sure I will have a copy of it. What the member is saying is that the letter did not get to the other department. I do not want it left on the record that we did not appropriately deal with it. I am sorry that it may have fallen off the wagon somewhere between one department and the other, but there certainly was no intention not to give the person a direct answer. If, however, Emergency Measures was talking to him directly, I assume that the answer that I will find in my files is that this has now been dealt with because Emergency Measures did deal with the gentleman however that information got to him, whether it was through the member for Selkirk, or whether it was through normal procedures, but the member seems to be leaving it on the record that somehow we did not deal with the man.
I do have a pending file, and I cannot believe that I would have had a pending letter for six or seven months on the file that we did not pursue, so I am assuming that the file was closed based on the fact that Emergency Measures had talked to the gentleman. But we will undertake to do it again.
Mr. Dewar: Yes, I do have a copy of the letter that was sent to Mr. Tesch from Mr. Topping, but this is just what I have discovered because Mr. Tesch called me He wanted me to follow up, and I talked to someone from Emergency Management, and they said they did not have a copy of this letter. Anyway, regardless of that they said they would not cover this, but I will leave it with the minister then, and thank him for his assistance.
Mr. Stan Struthers (Dauphin): I would like to go back to where we left off when we previously met two days ago discussing the Estimates for Natural Resources. I want to go back to some words that were left on the record concerning the Manitoba Trappers Association. Since Monday, I have had some information given to me that indicates that we were not accurate with some of the figures we were using on Monday in terms of the amount of money coming from the Department of Natural Resources to the Manitoba Trappers Association. I think that this is just a confusing issue, and I would like to be able to understand what exactly has been going on with the grant that is available to the Trappers Association.
The minister had said that there was $60,900 that went to the MTA. The statement of income for the Manitoba Trappers Association, I find out that was correct in 1996. But according to their statement, it was $80,900 in 1997. I wonder if there is an explanation for the discrepancy in there.
I meant to do this, I can table the financial statements the Manitoba Trappers Association have sent out. I should have made sure the minister had this maybe before I asked the question but there they are. I need that back, I realize it.
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, there is certainly no intent to mislead anybody about the amount of money that they received. The grant from the Province of Manitoba has not changed. According to our records it is $60,900, but there may well have been other sources of money that they were able to access which would not be listed as a direct support of the Trappers Association. They undertook certain projects that would have qualified in another area. That would not have been included in the initial amount of money that was allocated through the Department of Natural Resources for the Trappers Association. So I will share this with staff. If the member wants to go on with another question, I will respond to this in a moment.
Mr. Struthers: I appreciate that there would not be any intent on the part of the minister to mislead. That is not the reason why I am bringing this question forward today. I just noticed the discrepancy and wondered where the extra $20,000 in 1997 was coming from. The minister will notice that the statement of income of the Manitoba Trappers Association Inc. for the year ending March 31, '97, does just list it as a grant, the Department of Natural Resources, and lumps it all in as $80,900. I am hoping with some consultation with staff, the minister will be able to indicate why the difference.
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Mr. Cummings: To begin with, the number I quoted the member was for fiscal year '97-98. So we are looking at two different years, unless I misunderstood his question in the first place. We will have to look at '97 to see if there was something different listed in Estimates of that year or whether there was, in fact, a special. I believe there was not. So unless they could have accessed for a special project and, as I indicated on Monday, we used the Trappers Association to lead on a number of issues regarding the leghold trap issue, the hunting opportunity that was being denied because of the fur ban potentially in Europe. They may well have received some special conservation and/or sustainable development innovations money to support them in that respect. It would have been administered through the Department of Natural Resources. Remember that both of those funds, particularly the Special Conservation is administered by Resources. The SDIF is administered by the appropriate department, and it would be the most closely linked to any applicant, so that is probably the answer.
Mr. Struthers: The reason why I brought this whole issue up on Monday was that I wanted to make sure that taxpayers' dollars were being accounted for when they were being given out to different groups. One of the things that the minister mentioned was that there were work plans that the Trappers Association submit to the Department of Natural Resources. My understanding is that 1997 would have been the first year that the work plan was submitted by the Manitoba Trappers Association and that that work plan was submitted to Natural Resources in December of '97.
Now, am I correct in assuming that the money granted to the Manitoba Trappers Association for that year would have been given out in the spring before the work plan was ever submitted to Natural Resources, or have I got the sequence wrong there?
Mr. Cummings: It would not necessarily have gone out right away. The other thing is that there are certain regularized activities that organizations such as this carry out under a normal process of the year. I also remind the member that I believe the Trappers Association brought in a new administrative officer towards the end of the year as well, which has explained why some of the paperwork had not been brought up to speed. But the member should not assume that cheques were being blindly forwarded without any concept of what the organization intended to do.
I would be the first to defend the activities of the Trappers Association in what were extremely sensitive years in terms of just dealing with the public issue around trapping and fur trading. It has been pointed out to me that what we receive is based on their financial statements and how they have expended it. What we might consider giving to them is based on the financial statements and number of issues that they may have put forward as part of their budget.
The papers that the member for Dauphin shared with me are on the letterhead of Cassidy and Company, who would have prepared that statement for government, so I think that in part also answers whether or not we were able to keep track of the expenditure of dollars.
If somebody sets out to deliberately misuse grant dollars, they might get away with it for a short period of time, but eventually they are going to be called to task for whether or not the dollars are actually being spent in the area that they are intended to be. For this type of a statement to be anything other than what it is purported to be would require a pretty deliberate act of camouflage.
So unless the member has a strong reason, other than some concerns that have been raised by particular individuals who, I acknowledge, have a bone to pick with the Trappers Association, I have no reason to believe that they are anything other than what they purport to be, but I put that in the context of the fact that we asked them to do some things on behalf of their own people that would go beyond what we would normally expect a regularized operation of this association to do for the reasons that I explained.
Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairperson, first of all, I am not making any assumptions that the Department of Natural Resources would just write cheques and throw them towards any group, whether it is the Trappers Association or anyone else, without knowing where that money is going. That is not my goal, my allegation or anything right here. What I am simply trying to do is work through the paperwork to show that there is a line of accountability to the Trappers Association.
The minister is partly right in his comments about some people who have made some allegations against the Manitoba Trappers Association. I am not interested in their motivation. I do not know why they are motivated to do what they are doing. If their allegations are proven correct, then I am worried that the government would be putting money into something that is not accountable to the taxpayers. But that remains to be seen, because I understand the Provincial Auditor is also interested in this association and is also investigating the cash flow, the accountability of the Manitoba Trappers Association.
What I would hope is that, once the Provincial Auditor makes a report on what is going on with the Trappers Association, then maybe that report would be available to all of us. I wonder if the minister can confirm that I as a critic would receive a report from the Provincial Auditor when he finishes his investigation of the Manitoba Trappers Association and their statements.
Mr. Cummings: Well, I would certainly be interested in what the member is saying. I think there has been one Mr. Maki who has written to the Provincial Auditor, I believe. I do not know if that one individual has precipitated the Auditor doing an audit of this organization, but, if that is what is happening it is, in fact, news to me.
Mr. Struthers: One of the other interesting issues that I have been presented with is a cheque. It comes from the minutes of the Trappers Association annual general meeting which is held March 21 and 22 of 1997, in which a grant of $10,000 was presented to Doug Pollock and, I believe, Bruce Williams, and this was to aid the Fur Institute in their efforts.
My understanding was that there was no vote taken on this at the meeting. My understanding, as well, is that the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Newman) was present at the meeting and witnessed what was going on. I am wondering if that is the sort of thing that the Minister of Natural Resources would inquire about and see if this, in fact, did occur, see if that is a suitable way for the Trappers Association to be handling money that comes from the Manitoba taxpayer.
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Mr. Cummings: If I understand the member correctly, he is saying the Trappers Association provided $10,000 worth of support to the Fur Institute. I have no reason to have any misgivings about the Fur Institute; but, if there is an implication that that was improper for the Trappers Association to redirect that money, I will certainly review what may have happened under those circumstances. But, again, remember we were fighting an international war on whether or not trapping was--in many ways, the very existence of trapping was going to go on in this province because if the European trade in furs were to collapse, though Manitoba trappers are pretty a small cog in the wheel, the loss of that market would have been devastating to the value of fur prices in this province. They were low enough as it was. In fact, the low price was being partly driven by the very uncertainty that was being inserted in the market.
I cannot say, in responding to this question, that I am intimately familiar with the activities of the Canadian Fur Institute, but I have met with the representatives of that body in Europe or a parallel body. I can tell you that, if you do not have organizations like that within the industry, it will not be too long you will not have an industry. They were, along with political efforts that were made on behalf of--by the Government of Canada at our behest and others--at the same time I have been reminded by looking at my briefing notes here that the Province of Manitoba in fact provides a grant to the Fur Institute as well, so I hope that means that my comment about the credibility of the organization is correct.
Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairperson, I have seen first hand the negative impact that actions across the ocean have had on an industry in northern Manitoba that for years has sustained a way of life. I understand the minister's frustration, and I understand the minister's desire to try to promote the fur industry in Manitoba. Indeed, I had a grandfather who was actively involved in the fur industry as a trapper for years and years, and some of my best memories are trailing along behind him out on the trapline.
All I want is to make sure the minister understands that I am asking these questions as simply questions of accounting. The reason I asked about the $10,000 cheque that was presented was that while it appeared in the minutes of the Manitoba Trappers Association annual general meeting, nothing in the order of the $10,000 cheque appeared in the financial statements anywhere. Maybe I am looking in the wrong place, but it would seem to me that somewhere in there the Trappers Association should be accountable for the money it is handing out. I think the minister understands the distinction that I am making between, on the one hand supporting the initiatives that the minister has taken in the area of promoting the fur industry, but at the same time we have to make sure that this group and others are accountable when it comes to the spending of taxpayers' dollars.
Mr. Cummings: The member is quite correct. We cannot have monies of that magnitude flowing around without people being accountable for the expenditures that they have made. As a matter of fact--I think I put this on the record on Monday but I did I will do it again--we do have a number of groups that we relate to regularly. We do a rotating audit, and 1998 is probably the year that we will be doing a rotating review of the Trappers Association books and their audit. So if there is something along the lines that the member has raised, we will find out, and I will be glad to share any information with him.
Mr. Struthers: I am just moving along quickly, still keeping with the theme of wildlife for just a little while longer. I have been contacted several times by several different people and several different organizations wanting to know the status of the polar bear capture. The government has been looking at guidelines governing the capture of polar bear and the criteria by which the polar bear would be sent to zoos outside of the polar bear's natural habitat. I would like the minister to update the House on just where those guidelines are and where the criteria are for polar bear capture.
Mr. Cummings: Yes, this will take me a minute or two because there was a fairly extensive review that was done. During the process, the Manitoba Humane Society was involved. They withdrew from the process in the end saying that they did not believe they had gone far enough. If not on the record, they certainly said in media and other places they were opposed to any kind of a zoo program that did not go beyond the standards that were being proposed. But we have been working with people of international reputation and people who are respected in terms of the management of zoos, particularly bears and polar bears, as to what is an appropriate standard we would set for any zoo that might wish to retain a polar bear.
But the more important question which I think the member prefaced his question on is: is there even a polar bear being contemplated to be given to a zoo at this time? Although those were not his words, those are my words. The fact is there have not been any requests recently, so we have not had to deal with this issue directly. But the issue is very much alive in that the Humane Society just returned from a trip to Churchill. They have indicated, on my request, that they will meet with me before too long. They want to talk about what they saw and some of their impressions.
When I met with them in the spring, I did challenge them: had they ever been to Churchill and seen what the people there have to deal with when the bears come in? Well, as it turned out, they could not get there when the bears come in. They had not been to Churchill, but they did take up my challenge and went there recently to have a look around. I imagine they will have some observations on the polar bear hotel and the management up there.
I can say for the record that I am absolutely impressed and pleased with the individuals that we have had working there the last few years. I have only been associated with this department for two years now, a year and a half. But I did see the facility, I did meet the people, and I have followed the issue fairly closely knowing the hot potato that it can be.
I believe last year we removed a record number of bears from the town. The number eludes me. It was in excess of 100 bears, I believe, that were taken off the streets and out of the garbage dump in Churchill. That is only a portion of them. Those were the ones that were about to get themselves in trouble. They were then relocated. The only time we have an issue around whether or not a bear should be relocated into a zoo would generally be if there is an orphaned cub that could be made available to a zoo.
We have been accused of this: we do not deliberately destroy the female bears so that we can have the cubs for zoo placement. That does not mean that the odd bear is not eliminated. In fact, I cannot tell you whether there were any this immediate past year. But, certainly, when you have a bear coming through your front door and all that stands between you and that bear is a 12-gauge shotgun, you are going to do what you have to do to save your life or you are going to call a resource officer who may have to do the same thing. I think there have been a number of bears over the years that have been dealt with with the final coup de grace, as it were, and they had to be eliminated. Then they would never have been subject for zoos anyway. I say that only to make the point that consideration for any donations to zoos was generally only based on whether or not there were available orphaned cubs.
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Our people in the field are reviewing whether or not orphaned cubs can be put in a position where they will be adopted by a sow that already has a single cub and whether or not that is successful. One thing, being a farmer myself and recognizing the issues around dealing with live animals, the polar bear has a rather unique and nasty streak in him. That is, that the male polar bear will kill the cubs if he finds an unattended cub, or even if there is an attended one with a sow. The male bears, if nobody drives them off, will kill them in the first year or so of their life. So it is not entirely heartless and unthinking on the part of Resources to consider that maybe those cubs could be better off placed in a zoo. The Humane Society has taken the position, and I respect their position, I do not necessarily agree with it but they have taken the position, you are better off to euthanize them, which is just a nice word for killing them rather than put them into conditions which we might not be able to control.
That of course is the issue. How far can we go in controlling the conditions under which any bear would go to? We can control the first transfer. We can probably control the sale of that particular bear, because we would only sell to very particular and well-managed zoos. The problem that we have is there are some bears out there who we believe did not even come from Canada, or Manitoba for sure, but they are being identified as polar bears. Manitoba's symbol of the north is a polar bear, so we are getting all of the heat saying, you sold these bears into captivity or you gave them into captivity ergo you are responsible; therefore, you should quit doing this.
It is probably an argument that can never be totally and accurately settled, but I am not convinced that the bears that are being shown on the postcards and in other manners even were born from Manitoba bears who were in captivity, that they probably came from other sources but no one has a real way of telling it at this point. The same thing is true of the one particular bear that shows up on a postcard that arrives in my office regularly complaining about the very act of having a bear in captivity.
The fact is that bear developed a skin condition, but he did have three of the best veterinaries in the world that were available to him, and no one could decide what the problem was. Veterinarians tell me that does not necessarily mean that that problem was unique to that bear being in a zoo. We would just never have seen that bear if he developed an allergy or something of that nature in some other location, but he would have showed up as a carcass in the tundra somewhere. More than likely the conditions as well were not what we would even consider licensing for bears, the conditions of the study, and the report and policy that we have in front of us, do speak to some very generous space and very humane enclosures for polar bears.
The fact is that the London curator of the London Zoo, which is one of the most respected zoos in the world I believe, I cannot think of his name, but he apparently has looked at our policy as well and may well have had some input, and believes that this is one of the more progressive ways to deal with this problem, whether it is new bears or whether it is existing bears.
Mr. Struthers: This is all a very interesting topic as so many we come across in Natural Resources of trying to find that balance. On the one hand, you know, if Mother Nature had intended for polar bears to be living in Taipei, I do not think they would have got all that blubber underneath all that fur. I think if she intended the polar bear to eventually end up in those climates that she would have done it in an evolutionary kind of way, so that the polar bear could adjust to those new conditions instead of just one day being in northern Manitoba, and the next day being in Mexico or somewhere else where they were never intended to be.
Having said that though, Mr. Chairperson, the other part of that balancing act are the very real dangers that exist in the town of Churchill. How many times have we seen newscasts around Halloween time when little kids are out going door to door and parents and Natural Resources people are on the lookout for bears wandering into town doing a little trick or treating of their own? I want to ask the minister, several years ago, when I had a chance to go to Churchill, the fellow that was touring us around town and out to the dump to see these bears kept pointing at different marked bears and talking about there is a good one, and she is a good one and that one is not a good one, that is a bad one, that one has been moved out of town twice that we know of. How many strikes does a bear get before it is moved out a fair distance away from the town, before the bear is destroyed?
Mr. Cummings: Well, without making too light of it, it is a bit like a baseball game. They probably get about three strikes and they are out. But they do attempt to identify them as best they can. Remember that one of the problems, as it was explained to me, and I have reason to believe that this is a correct assumption, one of the biggest problems is, if you get a female bear that is habituated to come back to Churchill who comes back with her cubs, all of a sudden, if she has twins, you have three bears that now think of the dump at Churchill or the town of Churchill as a good place to jump off the ice and visit.
So eventually it comes down to this question for these cubs. If their mother has been back three or four times, do you take her and her cubs back to the tundra? If she has cubs, that would normally be what would happen. But eventually, do you kill them, or do you see if there is an alternative that can be established for the cubs because, as with so many wildlife, if they have gone there as cubs and they find it to their liking, particularly if they come back a second time as yearlings, all of a sudden you have a problem, and, very likely, the makings of a problem bear?
You know, I do not want to overdramatize this, but I talked to a fellow who said he stayed in the hotel in Churchill, and I guess he was there the last time a human was killed. He said it sounded like one heck of a fight in the back alley. It was, all right. It was a guy fighting for his life. He thought it was just a fight that had spilled out of the bar, but the bear went by the window dragging the guy by the neck.
So you have to deal with reality. The difference we have is the standard of the zoo protection that the bear might have and/or whether you euthanize, particularly the cubs, when they are there with the sow. My own view is, generally speaking, most animals, as with humans, given a choice, would like to live.
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Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chair, most animals would like to live in a place where they are safe and where they are fed and where they are not being neglected, where they do not suffer from the elements of nature. Most animals like to live where they are intended to live. Now, that just happens to be in northern Manitoba where people like to live too, and that is where the balancing act comes in, and I understand that.
What I want to get from the minister is an indication that all measures are being taken when we do, even if it is rarely that we get requests for polar bears to go to zoos or to shows or whatever the event is in southern climates, equatorial climates, that all measures are being taken to see that these animals are still living in as close to conditions as they were taken from. I understand the problem that we have when we get nature and people too close together in the same living conditions, but what I think most people are worried about is taking that polar bear out of its natural habitat and putting it in somewhere where it obviously was never meant to be.
What conditions are we setting for those animals to enter into when we send them to a zoo outside of its natural habitat? My understanding was that the group that the minister put together in the first place, that was the prime question that they were going to be dealing with, setting up some criteria by which they could go by when these requests come in. So maybe the minister can provide me with those kinds of criteria.
Mr. Edward Helwer, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, yes, the committee grappled with the problem of standards and made recommendations on that. I do not have the policy with me. I have not released the policy because I have not accepted it yet, but I am curious whether the member for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) supports any kind of maintenance in a zoo under the best conditions we can devise or whether he supports euthanasia because it does come down to that basic question. I have no other way of grappling with it. When I said three strikes and out, very often that means that the fourth time the bear comes back is when they might have to deal with it. Particularly if it is an adult bear sow with cubs, they will try not to euthanize her. Obviously, that would be creating orphans, and that is what we attempt not to do. However, if she were to attack someone, then that is a different matter.
I will say, when it is true to say that a northern animal might not be happy in a warmer clime, remember that our standards today call for a significant amount of water to be available, and shade to be available, in an enclosure, and the repugnant scenes that you see of bears in very small, noncooling situations are not acceptable to me or anyone else. I think of myself as a humane handler of livestock, and it is no more true than when you are handling wildlife you have to try to replicate--if you do not have a comfortable animal, you do not have an animal that you would want to display anyway, so most zoos would operate on that basis. An unhappy and unhealthy animal, they cannot even share him with the public; therefore, it is not of any benefit to them to even have them. There is always an argument that some particular species might be bred in captivity and the cubs might have some value. Again, we recognize that, probably when you get into an extended version of where a descendant of a descendant could end up, we would not be able to control that.
I think I feel that there are a number of very reputable zoos around the world that we can trust to take care of our animals if we in fact adopt this policy and move on it. I have not yet adopted it, and I will be talking to Ms. Burns and her cohorts further before I make that decision. But there is one thing that I do want to put on the record, and that is that we have a request from a zoo, would you believe, in Chile, whose polar bear is 30 years old and is about to die of old age. Now you cannot tell me that that has not been a happy and healthy bear for most of his life if he has lived that long. That is probably far beyond or well beyond what they might normally live in the wild, given the rugged conditions they have to contend with, given perhaps his teeth might have been gone for the last five years and he would not have been able to hunt as well in the wild as he might have anyway.
I think a policy that deals with square feet of access, provides some play area, if you will, water for sure, air conditioning where it is appropriate, and that we are able to have an agreement on resale and the breeding of the animals--I think any zoo that would meet those conditions would also probably have access to high-quality veterinary services. So you can tell I am leaning towards the acceptance of some high standards that we can live with, but I am not looking to deal in a way that would--I have a high regard for the Humane Society and the work that they do, but I also believe over the last few years that they will have euthanized thousands of cats and dogs. So we have a complex problem with one line drawn between whether you euthanize or you try and find some other compromise for these animals from time to time.
Mr. Struthers: Was the option ever open to the committee to just say no to the capture and transport of these bears to zoos in equatorial regions? Was that ever a possibility, or were they just commissioned to accept that as a fact and then find out the best way to mitigate?
Mr. Cummings: The committee could have recommended that option. The member makes the point that to ship them to any warm climate might be the wrong thing to do. I look around our own zoos in this country. These are normally the birds and animals that are the greater attraction, and I am a believer in zoos in the sense of education. The same as with falconry; it makes people more familiar. It in many ways provides--the more they learn about the animals and the more they understand them, the greater respect and admiration in many cases they have for particular species like the polar bear. So, you know, that criticism would apply to our own zoos as well. We have equatorial animals that probably do not like our winters too well.
Mr. Struthers: We have humans who do not particularly like our winter too well.
Just a final question: what kind of time frame are we looking at now? Are we on the verge of hearing from the minister finally on this after he meets with the Humane Society? When can we look forward to the release of these criteria?
Mr. Cummings: I am not in any particular hurry, but it is a while since I have looked at this policy. I had put it aside and did a little research of my own. I will make up my mind, but I do not have a waiting list. But we will make a decision.
Mr. Struthers: Connected with wildlife is the enforcement of the laws that we have to protect wildlife. This leads us to maybe an explanation on the part of the minister of why he took the decision to issue side arms to conservation officers. I am well aware that the Natural Resources officers were a very effective lobby group. I had met with them and talked with them. Maybe lobby group was not the right term to use, but they are very efficient lobbyists at the very least. They presented some facts and some figures and some arguments and some logic to why they should be issued side arms. The minister, since our last go at Estimates, has okayed the use of side arms by NROs.
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Maybe we could start by having the minister explain the rationale for the decision that he took.
Mr. Cummings: It is a safety issue, plain and simple, but I think the NROs association has demonstrated that they are a lot more than a lobby group. They have become an increasingly respected professional body, and that is what I consider them.
This was not a decision that was taken with any haste over last summer. They have been pushing this issue for about 10 years, more directly probably for the last five or six years, but I and, I would say, our government have become increasingly convinced that because we are part of the cause, we collectively, as society, not just government, society demands greater punishment of those who abuse the law. That is also driven by the fact that there is value being attached to some of the species or some of the parts of some species, which means that there is sometimes some big dollars attached to this. As an example, if you are hunting out of season and you are driving a $30,000 four-wheel-drive and have the misfortune to get caught nightlighting, let us say, that is a pretty significant loss. Your only recourse is to go to the auction and buy it back if you are found guilty.
I think the member for Dauphin may have met the officer, but can you imagine being the officer who was confronted by, stopped a group to inspect them and the guy got out of the truck with a rifle and said: I am going to shoot you, you SOB. And the guy had no arms. He crawled under the truck, he crawled in the ditch, and the guy followed him around pointing a rifle at him. Now, tell me that you want to put an officer of any description in that position without a side arm.
In the end, he was not shot, but I can tell you that there is an officer that appreciates the value of having a side arm, because nothing that he could do short of the fact that the fellow finally did not pull the trigger, for no apparent reason, frankly. But he is confronting people who are armed, generally, if they are hunters, and if you get one that is in a mood like that, you have no way of protecting yourself.
Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairperson, it seems by the example that the minister just gave that what is essential now is a protocol as to when a Natural Resources officer can and cannot use the side arm that he has been issued. Has there been some thought put to--obviously, I am going to make an assumption here that there has been some thought put to when and how an officer can use a side arm. What is the process which the minister has gone through to consult on the best way of coming up with a protocol to govern his Natural Resources officers in times like he talked about? Because I think that the minister is pointing to something that has become more and more obvious in rural Manitoba. That is that fines are much stiffer for people who are out poaching and breaking the rules of Natural Resources and rules of the law, the laws of the province. There is a lot more at stake. There are a lot more illegal animal parts, animal rings that we know of. It is international in scope. There are all these kinds of pressures now that Natural Resources officers have to contend with out on the front lines.
So what I think will protect Natural Resources officers now is a good, solid protocol that can give them a feeling of safety as they are being issued these side arms. Maybe the minister can indicate what has gone on in terms of a protocol for the use of these side arms.
Mr. Cummings: To begin with, when I recounted what I did just a moment ago, I also should add to the fact that that member could have approached that truck with a shotgun in his hand. Officers have had a right to use shotguns for apprehension or self-protection or for elimination of problem animals. They have had that available to them, but stopping a vehicle and walking up to it with a shotgun in your arms is not a particularly sociable way to meet people, if you do not know who is in the truck. That smacks of the Wild West in a way that I do not think we want our society to go.
So, yes, there is a very strict need for a policy which has been developed for protocol for any time that an officer might feel bound to use his side arm. It is only a self-protection matter. Also, no one will be issued a side arm without first appropriate training and psychological testing. It will all be provided, the same as the police forces have done on their own behalf within Winnipeg and the RCMP.
It is interesting that the average age of the Natural Resources officers in Manitoba right now is 33. The average age of the incoming officer is probably 27 years of age right now. I had the pleasure of giving the badges to, I think it was, 18 members last year; 19 in total, but 18 at one time which is almost the largest intake. Interestingly enough, almost all of those officers had been in Natural Resources and acting in an assistant capacity or a number of different capacities that have been with Natural Resources an average of six to nine years before they made it to full-fledged officer.
So, the maturity of the NROs workforce right now made this a very good time, if ever there was a good time, to issue side arms because the maturity of the individual will probably mean we will have a good success rate on the psychological and protocol training that we will put in place for the officers.
Mr. Struthers: I am checking with people that I know who work with the Winnipeg City Police, people I know in the RCMP. When they pull a firearm, they need to fill out a form to say what they have done. Is that the kind of protocol as well that the NRs will be faced with as well?
Mr. Cummings: Yes, and if there are any results--first of all, yes, any time a side arm is drawn and used for any purpose, there will have to be a report. Certainly we will be using policies similar to police forces for internal review, if there is ever an incident that would require a review of the actions of the officer, either to support it or to provide corrective direction.
Mr. Struthers: As part of the corrective action, if a Natural Resources officer is shown to abuse the side arm that he or she has or, if they are unwilling to use properly the side arm, is there a provision to permanently take a side arm from a Natural Resources officer?
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Mr. Cummings: Well, that flows directly from the question of the appropriateness and the psychological mindset of the officer. Yes, the answer is obvious: that if someone is not following, or refuses--worse yet, if they were to refuse to follow direction of the policy, then yes, they would probably not even be able to stay as an officer. We do have a situation where implementing a side arm as a tool in mid-career of some officers, if there should happen to be a senior officer, or any officer who has been with us for any period of time who, for whatever reason, personal, I do not care, chooses not to carry a side arm, that was not part of the deal when he joined the force, obviously, he or she, then we are making it very clear that this will not be a detriment to their career if they choose not to carry one.
Mr. Struthers: I have also had conversations with people on the city police and RCMP that indicate to me that one of the most risky times to have a law enforcement officer with a side arm is the period of time that is leading up to Christmas. For whatever reason, that tends to be a time when law enforcement agencies need to be very much on their toes in recognizing those who may be dangerous with a side arm. I do not know if there are any other periods of time during the course of the year that that happens.
It is my understanding that they have a system in which they can temporarily remove the side arm from the officer and then reissue that side arm shortly after the period of time, whatever period of time the commanding officer sees as being fit. I am wondering if that is something that would be considered in this protocol as well.
Mr. Cummings: We are hiring some professional people to lead and work with the officers in the area of psychological evaluation, and certainly we will accept their recommendations within reason. I am not inclined to be particularly lenient about the situation that the member might have described. I am not sure if I understand clearly what he is getting at, but as I understand it, if he is talking about someone who becomes unstable for a period of time, I suppose it is obvious that that person should be relieved of their duties, let alone relieved of their side arm.
There is another issue I thought the member was heading towards and that is the safety of the holster. I am not a gun owner myself--well, I am a gun owner but I am not as familiar as I might be with various side arms, so I cannot quote the number and size of the side arms that we have chosen or that the officers are recommending. One of the key issues, as well, is to make sure that they have a holster that is similar to that used by, I think, all the police forces now, which does not allow someone who would attempt to remove their gun from them easy access to it. In fact, it makes it difficult for anybody to take their gun out of their holster other than the officer who knows how to do it.
Mr. Struthers: Could the minister walk me through what he would see the process being if a Natural Resources officer has occasion to draw the side arm in the course of duty, how that Natural Resources officer then would have to report that? I would assume there would be a standard type of a form that would need to be filled out. Who would the Natural Resources officer report to, and then who would that commanding officer report to within the Department of Natural Resources?
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, the question was would I walk him through the process. I do not have the policy in hand, so I do not think I am going to put on record in Hansard what I think might be part of it. I know the principles as I just stated them. Certainly, if there is any issue around an officer and whether or not they have appropriately used their side arm, that will go through the regular channel of command. It is a very small group, so it would very quickly be at the most senior level to be dealt with. That process, I have had discussions personally and received some general advice from officers in the police forces of our province, and I have in turn, our department has been seeking advice on what is the best way to handle these matters.
So the only answer the member is going to be able to expect from me on that particular issue is not step by step what I think might occur, but to tell him that that policy is being developed based on the advice that we are getting, that our people in the department are seeking, and that the one standard that I gave to our department is that we must be equal to or better than the standards of any police force.
That raises a second reason, frankly, that it was important that our officers become able to carry a side arm. There are many locations in the province where the only backup to the RCMP is a Natural Resources officer. Very often they are called out as backup and sometimes under some very short notice and difficult situations. I do not need to go into detail about what they might be. You can put your own imagination to them, everything from domestic disputes to auto accidents, for that matter. As a recognized authority in the community, they are very often asked as backup, and very often, I am told, where there are small police detachments and small NR detachments, under certain conditions, very often they are teamed up together because of the common interest in certain things that they are doing.
I do not have the immediate policy in my hand, but I hope that answers the question.
Mr. Struthers: Could the minister indicate whom he consulted with before he made the decision to go with side arms for Natural Resources officers, what groups he may have met with to seek advice for the decision that was made?
Mr. Cummings: Well, I am not surprised by the question, because I received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) on the very issue of how much public consultation occurred prior to this decision. As I stated, the NR officers have been working with this issue for about 10 years, more intensively in the last five years. This certainly has caused a fair bit of public debate, but did I go out and have a public forum? I did not. The very issue of whether side arms should or should not be issued went around a number of different concerns, some of which I have already discussed.
If it gives the member for Dauphin any comfort, many other jurisdictions have had to move similarly. I do not think I am breaching any confidence to make it clear that I am not unaware, nor was Saskatchewan unaware, of what we were doing. They are dealing with similar problems, similar issues, similar public issues.
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I am also very painfully aware that some northern communities took umbrage in the short term about whether or not NROs should have been issued side arms. I hope that their fears were allayed. There was one particular community that appeared to be quite upset, but, in the end, the elders seemed to have a different view of it than the original spokesman did on behalf of the community. So I am satisfied that the Natural Resources officers are, in fact, welcome in that jurisdiction, and I hope that will be the case everywhere.
Is it subject for public debate? I am held accountable here, and I am quite prepared to be held accountable for it. It was a discussion that I had with numerous people, but did I put it in the public forum? Natural Resources officers put it in the public forum, because they made no secret about their desire and their concern for their own safety around this issue. After some significant discussion within our own administration, the recommendation was made and accepted by our government.
Mr. Struthers: I did not think that the minister would be surprised with that question. I am finding it very hard to surprise this minister on issues, which is intended as a compliment, Mr. Chairperson.
I think the other reason that the minister would not be surprised that I would ask that question is that he received the same letters from AMC, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, and from MKO that I have received, and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) received as well. They did express in writing some grave concerns with the decision to issue side arms to Natural Resources officers for a variety of reasons. I am wondering if the minister has met with the AMC or with MKO, maybe with any of the tribal councils who have also, at least unofficially, expressed concern with this decision. Has he met with any of the bands that have expressed concern with this decision? What steps has he taken to allay those fears?
In his comments just a minute ago he said that fears in the communities were being allayed. I wonder what the minister is doing to try to gain the confidence of these groups on an issue that is so important to aboriginal people since aboriginal people, not just in Manitoba but in Canada, have certain treaty rights that they see as being inalienable, but also in which they feel a lot of their rights are being ignored by not just Natural Resources in Manitoba but across Canada, as we see in so many different instances.
It seems to me to be a good case for the minister to be taking steps to meet with the groups that have these concerns, AMC and MKO, to try to gain their confidence in this whole issue. So maybe the minister could indicate if he has met with them and what the results of the meetings were, if he has had them.
Mr. Cummings: I have had meetings with individuals and with some of the groups that the member has indicated.
Mr. Chairperson in the Chair
Side arms for Natural Resources officers was not on the agenda. I have received initially a handful of concerns that were expressed, as I alluded to earlier, but almost nothing since then.
When I said that the fears of the communities appear to be allayed somewhat, I also indicate that the elders of some of the communities, when they sat and thought and discussed the issue quietly among themselves, I think came to the conclusion that this was not necessarily a bad thing and was certainly not intended to be a hostile act.
I am quite prepared to discuss this with any of the groups if they wish to put it on an agenda and ask for a meeting in that respect, but no one yet has been issued a side arm. No one is in the field carrying a side arm. I suppose, out of sight, out of mind, in some situations, but I honestly do not believe that there is a significant apprehension out there about Natural Resources officers beginning to carry side arms.
There will undoubtedly, any time you have a group of 100 and some individuals, there will be some who might not make the screening, but we are very conscious of what we are doing and want to be very careful about how we implement this. The first group is about to take their training with their side arms, but no one will be in the field, I do not think, before fall.
For the record, I am quite prepared to meet and discuss the issue with any community that feels somehow that there is a motive or an action here that might be threatening.
Mr. Clif Evans (Interlake): Mr. Chairman, I just may raise a few issues, constituency related, and I would like to start off with the drainage issue. I am sure the minister is well aware of many drainage issues that are out there throughout the different areas of the province, and in my constituency particularly, an issue that has been around and has been a burden, I guess, as far as council, the local council, the R.M. of Armstrong, and a few of the constituents around the Dennis Lake situation now. I know that the minister met with the R.M. of Armstrong last week to discuss a few drainage situations, and the council did raise the issue of Dennis Lake.
I suppose where I am going with this--and this is at the request of the R.M. to raise it with the minister. The R.M. is willing to undertake the situation and the issue itself, and I am gathering that they are looking for some support and some direction that the minister's department can help in alleviating the problem that is at Dennis Lake right now. It is quite a problem.
I was out there about two Saturdays ago looking over the situation with some of the constituents, and I have been there many, many times before in the past four or five years since the issue came to my attention. Of course, the problem is there that there is an awful lot of water going into that area and with no real outlet. I know that the council would like to address this. I know that the constituents around the area would like to address this. Council has, I know, mentioned it to the minister last week at their meeting, and I know that there is going to be a Dennis Lake meeting either next week or the week after. A lot of my constituents who live around and farm around Dennis Lake have been raising this with me and with the council for quite a few years now, and it seems to have gotten to a point that it is at its worst.
What I am asking the minister, first of all, is--I know that he has promised or indicated to the R.M. that they would be looking at it, that the department would be looking at it. Is there anything positive that the minister's department might be able to provide in the near future, even before the meeting, about Dennis Lake that can be helpful in dealing with this matter?
Mr. Chairperson: Before the minister responds, might I ask leave of the committee to allow members to ask questions from the front row? Leave? Leave has been granted. This is just to make it a little easier for the sound man, by the way.
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Mr. Cummings: Yes, I met with the R.M. of Armstrong recently, just about five minutes before the member across met with him, I think. They were in on another issue, and then they brought this one up after the meeting was over. So I did not have much of an opportunity to respond with any very intelligent conversation with them.
It sounds like there is some reason to--anytime you have a lake with no outflow--lake, swamp, whatever--if you are putting additional water in it, eventually you are going to get into trouble. I am not all that fired up about putting in a Dennis Lake drain. I believe this would lead to further complications down the road and leads to the very question about cost. You are talking a several million dollar project, I think, in the end if you were to put a main drain in. But they did have a useful suggestion that there might be a way of diverting some water with a culvert in a highway into another existing drain.
I am not sure whether that is a real alternative or not. Further to that, let me simply expand on the problem we have in government. The member for Interlake (Mr. C. Evans) may not be all that sympathetic, but the fact is we have had an enormous amount of high water damage this last couple years that we are wrestling with, and it is consuming the budget of Natural Resources for drainage in a way that no one could have predicted.
I am confident that there is reason to discuss this problem with the people in the area. I am interested in where the water is being brought from and put into that area. They indicated there was some implication for highways. I have not looked at the levels. I have not looked at the alternatives. Like I say, this was brought up as an afterthought, if you will, after another meeting that I had with some folks from that area. I did not have a chance to really contemplate how I might answer them, and I indicated we would be taking a look at it.
I think I have now shared with the member all I know about the problem at this point, other than to repeat some of the concerns that people in the area have. They have now got pastures that have been under water for so long that the ice has now pried the fence out of the ground. I mean that is not very good.
On the other hand, what is the normal level in this area? You know we all have examples along the lakes. Some of our flat lakes where people are farming or pasturing half a mile out into the lake, as soon as the water gets high, they say, oh, I have lost my pasture land. Well, in some cases they have. In other cases the neighbours will say, yeah, but you never had that in the first place, except the lake was low for a few years, and they were able to go in and pasture it. That is the essence of high water, low water, and very shallow water levels in bodies of water. I do not know whether there is an element to that in this issue or not.
Mr. C. Evans: If I might share with the minister. I know the time element that was there to discuss this with him in the R.M. of Armstrong, but again over the last five or six years I have been out there different times and have seen the different levels. In the last four years, the lake, Dennis Lake--they call it a lake--has created an awful lot of problems. Yes, there is water. A concern is where the water is coming from.
Now, I know that the R.M. of Armstrong has made a proposal for a drainage system that would divert a fair amount of water into Dennis Lake from the north and west. They have their proposal. They have provided all the information for the department. The question of a licence was raised. I am under the understanding that a licence will be issued for that project and that might help.
The minister talks about the level. Over the years there has always been a bit of a discussion as to what the level of Dennis Lake should be. Now we see that the lake--my information that I was provided--is around 818, and they are talking and hoping of bringing it down and maintaining it at a maximum level of 814.
Now with respect to a highways issue with Dennis Lake, yes, the Roney Road is almost like a dike for one of the producers and Dennis Lake itself, with one culvert going through it. Now the constituent who has been affected--and there is others that are affected. I mean, this past year I have had more than just one call. Prior to that it was one or two about it, because of those mostly affected with that Dennis Lake problem. Now there is more.
A gentleman by the name of Mr. Mike Senga has been coming to the department for years through myself, through himself, through the Department of Highways, with his concerns. The council themselves have provided resolutions on behalf of Mr. Senga to have something done, anything, whether it be from the Department of Highways, if it is their responsibility, or department of Water Resources. Engineers have been out to see the area. I have taken them out there myself. I have been with them myself and with Mr. Senga. What I am getting to is that there are suggestions.
In my discussions with Water Resources people, who have been very, very co-operative with this in trying to come up with some sort of solution, my suggestion to council, and I would like to suggest it to the minister is that--the minister indicated earlier that he did not know if he wanted to see an outlet out of Dennis Lake--whether it be an outlet or whether it be a point of saying what might we also be doing about all the water that is coming into the Dennis Lake area. So there are two issues.
Now, in discussions with the R.M. and local people who have their own ideas, and Mr. Senga's idea is one, just seem to create a bit of a problem for others, like costs, what would it take, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Now I believe, and I would like to ask the minister's support for this, the department could undertake to provide the R.M. and that area with a complete review of levels, flows, and provide not just one solution. I know that the department has at its availability all types of diagrams, drawings, stats, for that area. Now I know that there are perhaps two or three different ways that there might be an outlet made available for Dennis Lake. Council and the people around there are sort of at a bit of a bind because, well, they want to know too, if there is, what are the ways, how can we, and what would the costs be.
So I would ask the minister's support to have the department work with the R.M. in providing all that information so that that information could be looked at, could be discussed amongst the community and a decision made through them whether they want to go the route of doing an outlet for Dennis Lake, and if they do, what are the options, so they can choose the option that will benefit everybody and be cost effective.
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Now I know that the R.M., in some of their infrastructure, might want to be a part of the cost. I do not know, I am not speaking for them; I cannot. The minister understands that. But in my discussions with them, it is a problem. For an example, the Saturday that I went out, I went out to Mr. Senga's property again, and every year for the last four years there is water sitting over his hay land. There are geese and ducks nesting not 50 feet, 60 feet from his home. It is all backing up. It is backing up in other areas too, and it is causing problems for other farmers in that area for their hay and that. So that is my suggestion, and I am asking the minister's support on behalf of the community to have such a review be undertaken by the department and see what we can provide for them.
Mr. Cummings: I believe we did indicate to the council that we were prepared to take a look in the area as to what some more apparent solutions might be. A general review or study of the area would probably be useful. If it is going to be a good one, it cannot happen overnight, because a lot of levels might have to be shot and some alternative solutions as to which direction the water might be able to be moved would undoubtedly have to be reviewed. What I think I remember from my meeting with Armstrong was they were looking at an existing drain that might be able to take some more water, and that water then would not go into that lake or swamp and that would mitigate against it rising so much. That would be the first place to start, I suppose, if there is enough volume or capacity in that other drain to take additional water instead of letting it go into the lake.
One thing, I do not want to make light of the problems that the people are having in the area. That has to be made clear. When I said I am not real keen on the idea of a drain, I believe this drain will end up in Netley Creek.
An Honourable Member: Not necessarily.
Mr. Cummings: Well, the member says not necessarily, and that is something that can be reviewed. But that is the preferred drain which would be a main drain and which a lot of people down at the Netley end of the drain would not be too happy with, as I understand. So that is the kind of dilemma that we have. Every time you drain, you better make sure that you are not putting it in like a funnel that there is too much room at the top and not enough at the bottom. We have enough of those problems already without building more into the system. So that is why I am interested in the possibilities of an alternative route for some of the water that is presently running into that lake, but I am prepared to commit on the record that we will be looking at the area.
Another thing that happens is municipalities do move water around. Armstrong would acknowledge that with their roads, they have done some land development as a result of drainage that has been included and as a result of putting their ditches in, so maybe they are part of the solution, too. They did not say they would not be willing to work with us on some alternatives. I did not really put the question to them, because as I said I did not have the background in front of me when I met with them. We should explore some of those possibilities.
Mr. C. Evans: Yes, I agree with the minister on the issue of the Netley Creek and, of course, the minister may or may not be aware of the fact that under a previous minister, the Netley Creek issue was big. There were many discussions about it and the proposal of some major work being done in Netley Creek system, but what the minister has not mentioned and up to this point I have not either, I realize that one outlet may create a problem, but the R.M. councillors, and there are three councillors that are involved, all support an outlet, but a controlled outlet. So whether it goes here, there or wherever, wherever they can decide on, once a review may be done, hopefully it would be done to point them in the right direction.
The only discussions that we have ever had has always been on a controlled exit, because the minister is right, you do not want to start funnelling out water to another area without any control. You do not what will happen at the other end, and the community realizes that. So they are hoping that the department can be able to provide something so that it is a controlled system and cost effective. A lot of people say that at certain times of the year, it is good to have the level at a certain point on these lakes or marshes or whatever they might be called, and then when the time comes and there is an opportunity to be able to let it out, maintain it at a certain level. Hopefully, it would be productive in doing so. So those are my comments on Dennis Lake. I am certainly hoping that--and I would like to, and I think I will--I know I will--mention that, if I am available for the meeting on the Dennis Lake system, we have brought this issue to you, and that you are willing to at least certainly look at it and have the department look at it and support that area.
This is not just a one- or two-person request. It is a request of council and many of the people that live around Dennis Lake, and whatever solution we can work out and work together on it and help them out would be greatly appreciated. I know by them, and I certainly appreciate the fact that is that it is not going to, as he says, take overnight and there is a cost factor, but I believe that the community has some solutions themselves. Those that have been living around the area for many years, it is a matter of working with them to see whether their ideas and Water Resources ideas can be put together so that it can be done economically and cost effectively.
Mr. Cummings: I do not need to prolong the discussion on this, but I do want to know when we look at what the possible solutions are, how come this is a problem now and it was not 20 years ago? I suspect there is a lot of local drainage that has contributed to this problem, and that is why I suggested that Armstrong might want to help us out a bit as well, and I am sure they will want to work with us. I am not poking them, but I am saying that, when you have local drainage and when the council has set out to improve the land in their municipality--and that is to their credit--we have a fairly modest drainage program in the department. If this is equivalent to one year's entire budget, it is going to be difficult to deal with it, so I am interested in whether or not there are some incremental things that can be done to at least stop the problem from getting worse and then start to reverse it.
Mr. C. Evans: I thank the minister for those comments. I would like to just make a few comments on the commercial fishing season. The minister knows that season opening has at times been a controversial one for dates and times of the year that we are opening the season up. I am aware of the program that has been put in place to determine opening up of different areas for the fishing season and support that. I have told the department that and the fishermen in my area that checking for spawn in different areas and making sure that a percentage of spawn is there for opening up of a season in an area is--and I have yet to hear any fishermen say that that is not a good way of going about it now, but the minister is aware there was an issue last week where Area 6 fishermen were not allowed to fish pickerel, start the season in their area, and the reason being that the sauger in totally another area, in a channel area, that were not fully spawned to the prescribed percentage.
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The question to me was raised: why are we being punished for early opening or opening not much longer after the season starts elsewhere when the sauger issue has nothing to do with us in our specific area? I think it is very valid. I can understand if there was sauger fishing in that area, but they do not depend on the sauger there. They depend on the pickerel. The pickerel were spawned already for two weeks and they were still being told that they could not go out because sauger numbers were not right in the other areas. I would like the minister to make a comment on that, and hopefully that would be looked at.
Mr. Cummings: I have acknowledged the issues around this. I would also like to compliment my predecessor on a lot of work that was done in bringing the issues around the fishery to focus to the point where we were able to make some decisions last spring. One of those decisions was that we will not open the season until we have an appropriate amount of spawn. There is always an argument about when the season opens. I was quite surprised, frankly, that opening the season according to the spawn was not a long-standing practice. I assumed that that was the practice. Of course, it was the intent when dates were set. Now we are putting some judgment into the hands of the fish biologists again, but I am not upset by that because it does allow us to incrementally open the season across the lake as the spawn progresses. But I am told that the sauger, of course, are slower to spawn, and this is going to create a problem all the time.
If the member believes that is a problem, I wonder, and I know this is his opportunity to ask me questions, not the other way around, but that raises the question as well about whether there are areas out in the big part of the lake to the north where the sauger are lurking and around some of the islands, and the only ones who can get to them are the whitefish fleet. Do the people in the regions around the edge believe that those sauger should be protected, or should the whitefish fleet have access to them, because there is a view that maybe they do not get in the area where the skiff fishermen can get to them.
A little bit of the same problem here in reverse that the member has indicated to me, that with sauger being protected, where the fishermen who want to get out on the water and work probably are not even getting to them. This is not as big a stretch as the member would at first reaction maybe like to think. He just made the case that we should open up an area because even though the sauger had not spawned, they were not going to go out there and fish them anyway because those fishermen who needed to get out there were not going in the area where the sauger were. Well, I have other pockets of the same problem on the lake. Some of it simply because they are out further away from the shores of the lake and away from the--it raises an issue that creates an interesting debate.
So I am informed that what we did was we were able to attain 80 percent spawn in the south basin and 80 percent of pickerel in the channel area and that we went with opening the season when the sauger spawn was at 50 percent. It is a judgment call because even as the spawn starts to progress, biologists have to make an educated guess as to when they will reach the 80 and the 50 percent because the fishermen need a few days notice as to when they can put their nets out there. So the north basin, we are still holding it at 80 percent for pickerel.
I did not mean to diverge too far on the member, but there is a parallel to the problem. The shore fishermen believe that the whitefish fleet has been appropriately dealt with in the capping of their access to sauger. I see the member nodding in acquiescence on that point, but the question is, is there perhaps some sauger out there that the skiff fishermen will never get to, and that perhaps we have been unfair in the allocation of the cap on the whitefish fleet by protecting sauger that maybe do not need protection because they are away from the shore anyway and that the number is quite significant.
Mr. C. Evans: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make sure the minister understands and realizes that the comments that I made come not directly from me. They come from fishermen from that area who have been fishing in that area for many, many, many years. They know the system, they know the lake, they know the waterways, they know where they fish, and they know what happens. So this is information provided to me by fishermen asking those questions. Now if the minister's answer wants to throw it back at me, I would suggest to the minister that his department take his answers directly out to the fishermen and deal with it with them. Let them know directly what the minister is thinking and how the minister wants the operations done.
So I say to you that we certainly support the fishing industry. It is an important industry in our area and in Manitoba, and whatever way that we can enhance the fishing industry, so much the better. I know that there are fishermen that have basically given up in some areas. There is nothing. I have talked to some just a few days ago, and where some in one area are doing real well, there is an area that is not. That is another problem.
When it comes to this specific issue about when to open the season up, this is the request of the fishermen in that area who are ready to go, know that the spawn is done, know that there are fish out there, and before they get out into the lake when they normally have their opportunity to fish, they did not have that opportunity to start early enough. They are just looking at seeing that a solution can be brought to that issue and addressed and work with the department, work with the biologists so that the commercial fishing will be enhanced and not put in any type of jeopardy.
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Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, to begin with, we will be holding meetings probably in July to review the process, but--[interjection] No, this is like the hot stove league in the elevator. Sometimes the stories are bigger than the bins. I think I have been around long enough to know that it would not matter which fishing community we went to, there would be diversions of opinion and very often always the big guy would be the Department of Fisheries or Natural Resources. But there may be areas where we could be more imaginative, more flexible in how this is handled. I do not pretend to be much smarter than the next guy, but this strikes me as a pretty obvious way to deal with a fishery that has been under some stress and the ability to get out there--the fish are easier to catch, of course, when they are schooled up and spawning. So, when we reduce the spawn sometimes they--or when we hold them off waiting on the spawn, sometimes there is a very short period of time, I am told, before the fish might be gone.
I saw this as a better alternative than cutting back on quotas. I am not in a position to offer buy-outs, although I contacted the Freshwater Fish Corporation, contacted the relevant federal ministers on this issue about buy-out of quotas. There was no agreement or acquiescence or interest in doing that, although apparently that is not necessarily the last answer on that, but when asked about what is the answer on the lake, unless we have destroyed the habitat of the lake so that it cannot produce, perhaps having a little more respect in the opening season for the condition of the spawn will go a long way towards restoring the viability of the lake. If I am wrong, I am wrong. But I am told that this year looks like the dawning of a pretty darn good year. You know, nobody will know until it is over, but there seems to be fish out there in numbers that they were not known to be there recently.
The lake ice fishing season, of course, probably they did not have a good season there because of the fragility of the ice and everything else, so I am optimistic that we are going to see some improvement. Of course, it always comes down to the question: what is the average quota out there? About 9,000 pounds? If you catch your full quota at a buck and a half a pound or two bucks a pound, that is not a very substantial income for anybody, but it is better than nothing. There is always interest, and some fishermen are able to fill their quotas and two or three others besides. Others who, of course, do not have as good as a luck and end up with maybe five thousand bucks for their effort by the time they are done. My view is that until I can be shown other alternatives is we do our best to improve the quality of the fishery through some of these practices without putting people out of business, there will be an evolution, in my mind.
Some people just are not going to stay in the industry, but the total catch on the lake is about a third I believe of what it was 20 years ago. I met with 14 different groups last spring in discussing how we would unfold this different regime for the lake. There was the whole gamut of problems there, to the point where all the way from the fact that the habitat may be getting destroyed on some of the rivers and streams where fish would normally spawn through to accusations that there were literally hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish that were going on the black market. I do not think either is entirely true, but I think there is an element of that both ways.
Now, the member seems somewhat incredulous on what I just said. I do not think it is the condition of the streams that are feeding the lake that he is smiling about. Maybe he concurs that there are hundreds of thousands of pounds going into the black market. I would be interested if he feels that way, because that is a reflection on the ability to enforce, for starters. It is also a reflection on the fishing community as to whether or not they are giving us the straight goods on how they are marketing the fish out of the lake, and that is why I say that not starting until the spawn has reached an appropriate level might not be a bad way of making everybody be honest.
Mr. Tim Sale (Crescentwood): I would like to ask questions about the recently completed Linnet sale to management. I have indicated to the minister that I have asked questions in Industry, Trade and Tourism and the minister has undertaken to find certain information and try and provide it within a reasonable time frame. I want to start by asking whether the sale of the company also involved this minister's department or whether the sale was handled entirely by I, T and T.
Mr. Cummings: The sale was handled by I, T and T and MDC, but there was personnel from this department involved. Is that what the member is asking? I can confirm that, yes.
Mr. Sale: Who was Manitoba's representative on the board during the process of the sale?
Mr. Cummings: Deputy Minister Thomas.
Mr. Sale: The methodology that was used to determine the value of the company, was that methodology approved by the board of Linnet? Was it discussed with the board of Linnet prior to Mercer and company providing their estimates in 1996 of the sale value of the company?
I should tell the minister, just to be up front with him, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey) has tabled Mercer's two letters, the letter from March and the letter from August, with the committee, so we have those letters. I am not playing games about them. I am simply wanting to know whether the methodology was debated at the board of Linnet or not.
Mr. Cummings: Well, as the member might expect, I would like to context my answer to begin with. Number one, if he has seen the evaluations, he knows that the format it takes was by way of advice. Obviously the board would have been apprised of that, but that, putting it in context, does not mean that they in turn would be in a position to compromise Mercer in terms of their advice because their professionalism would be, I think, their strong suit in terms of they would not want to be seen to be doing anything other than providing a credible opinion. As with any of these situations when professionals are being asked to express an opinion, I put a fair bit of confidence in that because of the fact that professionals, if they do not maintain their credibility, after awhile their opinion does not count for as much.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairperson, the accepted methods for valuing a company usually have something to do with the assets of the company as well as the earnings of a company. I can just recall an example for the minister's own sort of memory recall. Iris Systems, a company that the government had heavily invested in through Vision Capital, was sold for numbers of millions of dollars. Even though the company was bankrupt and from a cash-flow point of view had a negative cash flow and had accumulated losses of millions of dollars, nevertheless the company was sold for millions of dollars. So if the methodology used by William Mercer had been applied to Iris Systems, then Iris would have had a negative value, not a positive value at all.
The minister, I think, knows that when you sell a company, you have to take into account a number of factors that are on the balance sheet. Can the minister tell us whether, on the balance sheet of Linnet, there is any proprietary software?
Mr. Cummings: I do not think I can answer that question directly, but I will say for the record that the member and I might well have a disagreement, as would professionals in the area that we are talking about, over what is an appropriate way to establish the value of a company. There are other situations I can quote scripture and verse of, both in the private sector and in the government, where cash flow becomes the only important part, because the assets, unless they are used for what they are intended, all of a sudden become useless.
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I can point to the nursery that was at The Pas where it was offered by government for sale, and because there was not a lot of business attached to it, it was worth nothing and, ultimately, the assets became salvage. So the member may well want to make a case about whether or not assets should be added in some way differently than what this sale was handled in terms of the valuation by Mercer, but I know when I go to the bank, and I am a farmer with a fair amount of dirt that I can point to as an asset, but when I want an operating loan, the banker does not give a hot you-know-what whether or not I have a lot of dirt. He wants to know whether or not I can create a cash flow out of that so I can pay him back at the end of the year without selling my assets. So, yes, if I were to sell the farm, I would sell the dirt, but when I go to promote my industry or my business, the banker really just looks at my cash flow. There are a number of ways of skinning the cat. I am sure the member knows that, and I am sure that is where he is headed with his questions.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairperson, indeed I do know that. I also know the minister could answer the question, if he chose to, as to whether there was proprietary software on the books of Linnet Graphics because his deputy minister is a member of the board of directors and has access to that information. It does not seem to me that is particularly privileged information. I am not asking for what the asset is valued at. But Linnet has made a great case over the years that it has proprietary software that is very valuable, that it has spent a great deal of time developing on behalf of its various partners, and that is, in fact, its stock in trade.
The minister knows darn well that he does not have any particular proprietary knowledge. When he goes to the bank as a farmer, he is a farmer. The question of whether he can produce a cash flow or not is not dependent on whether he has got some proprietary knowledge locked up in a cupboard somewhere. He has his skill and his knowledge base as a farmer, but it is not proprietary.
The whole point that makes software companies and high-tech companies valuable is precisely their proprietary knowledge. If they do not have that, they do not have much value. The other thing that makes a company like that valuable is its accumulated assets. Linnet owned and presumably still owns very substantial hardware and software in various locations. It has ongoing contracts. I do not believe it has completed its contract with Louisiana-Pacific yet, but it may have. I am going to be asking that as well.
I am suggesting to the minister that a net profit after taxes basis is the most conservative possible way this company could have been valued. Yes, it is defensible as a methodology, but it is the most conservative, possible way to value a high-tech company. High-tech companies generally trade for very high multiples of their cash flow or their earnings based not on the numbers of earnings or cash flow, but based on the fact that they have some kind of curve that is linked to their proprietary knowledge, their particular skill.
So did this company have on its asset sheet proprietary knowledge? Did it have good will? Did it have assets depreciated appropriately, and what were those worth?
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, I did not say I would not answer the question. I just said I cannot answer it right now.
The debate about whether, or not, there are different ways of evaluating and whether or not this was an appropriate evaluation, one should also consider what William Mercer said in their comments, which the member has in his possession. They contexted their comments, as I recall. I do not have them in front of me. They contexted that in terms of the liquidity, or otherwise, of what might be available to attract capital dollars. So the short answer is: whether or not that asset is worth something that was not acknowledged, obviously, is what the member is asking. I can point out that the observation on the liquidity of the assets probably addresses that question.
Now, further to the member's concern about putting this company in context of what it is worth, he, with great glee, a couple of times referenced whether or not there were 350 jobs as opposed to 60 jobs. As I recall, my colleague my predecessor contexting Linnet and what it was possible for it to do, I think acknowledged very clearly in order to achieve a 360-employee number, it would have to do something in the neighbourhood of four times or five times the value of the contracts that it was doing at the time of its sale, and that was said prior to anything even being contemplated in that area. That was a direct reflection on what it would generate in jobs, as opposed to the amount of work that it would undertake.
That, I think, very clearly indicates the fact that this was the care and caution that has been taken by government in incubating an opportunity for some jobs that were needed in this province, an asset that was needed. We now have, within the Department of Natural Resources, one of the best inventory records in the country for work that was done in part by the expertise that these people were able to provide. That does not mean that that is a hard--that does not answer his question, pardon me, of the hard saleable software, but it does, I believe, put in context why encouraging this type of an operation to be resonant in the province is a heck of a lot better. I am still bearing the scars of my colleague for Dauphin (Mr. Struthers) asking me why in the world would we not have made sure that a Manitoba company did the campground reservations through this department.
Well, I mean, it is very small peanuts compared to the two operations, but the same principle holds. Just how far can government or should government go in incubating opportunity within the community, or throwing it open and having--as the member for Dauphin took considerable satisfaction in pointing out that it was a Mississauga-based company that had to reroute some calls to the States. Well, that does not warrant an attaboy to me, because what that indicates is that we would have turned around and jeopardized some opportunities.
Mr. Sale: I have a couple of very specific questions that I want to have answers to, I hope. But I want to say the minister is playing the government line very well here, but it is in complete ignorance of what has actually happened.
What did they buy? They bought 60 employees with $30-million worth of contracts between the City of Winnipeg, Louisiana-Pacific, Hydro, Telephone, Centra Gas, all contracts that were forced into Linnet by virtue of the leverage of the province, the City of Brandon, the Town of Selkirk, neither of which wanted to deal with Linnet but they were compelled to do so, and what did we get? We got exactly one-third of the Canadian average of jobs that exist in this industry in other provinces as set out in the Nordicity study of 1995, which was contracted for by the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism, precisely because they knew that the geomatics industry was dying in this province. It was dying because the government had a monopoly. There are six other small companies that contacted us and worked with us to point out the degree to which they were prohibited and prevented from thriving. So, yes, the minister has got one company with 60 employees, and he has got one-third of the Canadian average number of employees in this industry per capita, the worst in the country.
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So what have we achieved? We have achieved the stagnation of the industry, the strangling of small companies, and the production of a very expensive map which may or may not have much value at all. So he has his take on it, the industry has its take on it, and I am reflecting the industry's take outside of Linnet. I want to ask the minister, as a consequence of this sale: who owns and who controls access to all of the data that Linnet has produced on behalf of the province and for public funds? Does Linnet retain the rights to control access to this data? Do they charge for access to this data? Or are all of these various base maps and mapping systems reverted to the public sector so that public sector has the control of access on the part of companies or nonprofit or other public sector groups? Who owns the data, who controls access, what are the conditions of access?
Mr. Cummings: We own the data.
Mr. Sale: Does Linnet have any residual control, interest or revenue flowing from access to data that they have produced over the years on behalf of the province and for the province?
Mr. Chairperson: Prior to recognizing the minister, I would ask the members to wait until their microphones have been energized, wait till the light is on, otherwise Hansard will not pick you up. [interjection] See the little red light? Wait till it goes on, otherwise it does not pick you up. It has to energize. It takes a second.
The honourable minister.
Mr. Cummings: Actually, the province received some royalty.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairperson, I did not hear the answer.
Mr. Cummings: What I said, Mr. Chairman, was that, in fact, the province receives some royalty.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairperson, the province receives royalties from whom, from Linnet?
Mr. Cummings: Yes.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairperson, in that case, is Linnet then providing the information to others and paying a royalty to the province when it does so?
Mr. Cummings: They can sell data, but we receive a royalty from any out sales other than what would be within our own purview.
Mr. Sale: The minister, I believe, is telling the committee, Mr. Chairperson, that Linnet retains the control of the data that they produced for, for example, the digital orthophotographic map that they produced for the province in--I do not know what percentage of the province is covered now, but they continue to control access to this data. They charge for it, and they pay the province a royalty when a client gains access.
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, that ignores the fact that we own the data.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairperson, I understand that. I have acknowledged that the contract that the province entered into indicates that it owns the data. I am understanding also that the minister is saying that Linnet is housing the data, maintaining the data on behalf of the province, and continuing to charge for access to the data and then providing a royalty payment back to the province when a client accesses the data through Linnet. Is that correct?
Mr. Cummings: If I understand the question correctly, I believe that would be the case, yes.
Mr. Sale: So, Mr. Chairperson, this whole charade is now exposed. Linnet is still in a monopoly position, controlling and maintaining access to data, earning money for data that they supply, that was provided at public cost, developed at public cost. They are now going to continue to profit from it.
So much for the notion that this is now back in the public sector. It is still being provided through a service agreement with Linnet. They maintain the data. They charge for access. They give the province a royalty every time they give access to the data.
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, if the sinister view that the member has of this is as he would like to portray it, then why is it that there is an accusation that when people come and we provide through the province information to them, that the province is, in fact, becoming the agent and not Linnet? I mean, we provide an enormous amount of information to the public when they come to us, information that we have acquired through this process.
Mr. Sale: Mr. Chairperson, I am not making any sinister allegations about anything. I am trying to understand what has happened here, so that people in the industry who would like to understand it, too, would have a transparent sense of what has been accomplished.
What I am hearing the minister saying is that Linnet is maintaining a role as a service provider, charging for access to data that have been developed with public funds and remitting to the province some royalty level every time they do so. So Linnet maintains this particular role on behalf of the province as its service provider. No other agency is able to provide this service. The province is not taking it back.
So the province has not severed its connections with Linnet at all. The province is continuing to feed this company through a special arrangement or a long-term arrangement to maintain and provide data to municipalities, communities, companies, whoever wants access to the data. Linnet is still there.
Mr. Edward Helwer, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair
Mr. Cummings: Well, I suspect it will be there for a good long time, but the member is ignoring the fact that this is why the province had 24 percent of the company to sell.
Mr. C. Evans: I would just like to go back on a few issues that I wanted to raise with the minister. Can the minister tell me why the department will not support the agricultural producers who are in the line of flight and landing with the depredation program when it comes to the bangers that the department for so long had provided the service to the producers? I understand that the program is still available for the Oak Hammock area, and the question arises from the producers in the area as to why that portion of the Interlake region does not have that service, even though, yes, the bangers are available at the Natural Resources office and producers now have to take time off from their duties on the farm and come in. The question has been raised with me: why will the department and the government not support this initiative as it did before?
Mr. Cummings: Across the province, we said to the agricultural community we would be glad to continue supplying the bangers. We have a pretty heavy workload in almost all of our NR offices, and, to be quite honest with the member, Teulon and Arborg, I guess, were the only areas of the province where we had any negative feedback on that policy. Now I recognize that it is an inconvenience sometimes for the farmers to go and pick up the bangers. I also recognize, however, that some of the most knowledgeable people on where to locate them are the very farmers whose land the bangers need to be located. Sometimes the NRO has to find the farmer and find the field and set the banger, and very often the farmer ends up going with him anyway to do the job. So it is not as if it has not been a co-operative effort over the years, and this simply improves our opportunity to be out there doing enforcement in a number of areas rather than doing this particular, rather routine job.
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As with a lot of other things, there is some obligation on the part of the landowner to become involved in the removal or protection to at least some extent of his own property from wildlife predation, although we have one of the most generous wildlife predation programs in Canada. We are the only ones who have reached 100 percent of crop insurance values on lost land, so we are not without some incentive ourselves to make sure that the job is done properly in order to keep the predation losses down. It is unfortunate that the farmers in that area took some considerable umbrage at being asked to come and pick up the equipment themselves, but I believe it is working reasonably well. I hope the member will encourage them to work with our officers on this. There is certainly not a shortage of equipment most times, unless there is a real inundation of waterbirds particularly coming through the area.
Mr. C. Evans: I think with good reason, as the minister indicated, that the Teulon-Arborg-Riverton area was opposed to these changes. I mean, it is probably one of the heaviest lines of flight north and south that there is. Oak Hammock Marsh falls right into the same line. You are providing that service in the Oak Hammock Marsh area, but you are not providing it in another area where it is the same amount of flight, same numbers.
Of course, the other thing that comes into factor here is that some of these producers might need three, four or five bangers alone. They come in, they have to pick these up, put them on their vehicles. Now I want to ask the minister: it is my impression that the Natural Resources officers went through some training to be able to handle these bangers, transport these bangers. That was part of the process, so when you had more than one or two bangers on your vehicle, and if the Natural Resources officers had to go from one producer to another, maybe with 15 or 20, they were trained enough to be able to handle, haul and disperse these bangers. Now if one farmer, one producer, needs four or five of these bangers, is he qualified, has he had the training to be able to handle these on his vehicle to take them out to his fields? Now I understand, and I have seen it is not a hard system as far as getting it, but that question comes into mind: what is the minister's reaction to that? Was there not a training program?
Mr. Cummings: These are reasonably simple pieces of equipment, and the dangerous part of course is that there is a propane tank associated with them, a barbecue tank, the same type that is on a barbecue, but again I am sorry that the farmers in that area feel abused. I must say that it is the only area in which there has been much negative feedback. My own experience is that the farmers in my area are quite happy to go and get the bangers. They move them around themselves, rather than wait a day or two for somebody to come and get the job done, and they get the job done quickly. They put them where they feel they do the most good, and if they do not do the most good, then they move them themselves. I am not aware of a safety issue around them.
Mr. C. Evans: The minister has just said he is not aware of a safety issue. Part of my question was: were these Natural Resources officers not trained to handle these propane tanks and these bangers? Was there not a course that they had to take? Now the minister says: well, the farmers know best where to put them out. But it is a hazardous commodity, the propane, the tanks, and sure it is like a barbecue tank and we all have to be careful when we light our own barbecues, I can appreciate that, but that question is there to the minister. If these officers were trained to do this, now you are telling the farmers to come and pick up five, six or seven propane tanks, and all of a sudden it does not become a safety issue anymore. It was a safety issue for the Natural Resources officers to carry, but it is not a safety issue for the producer to carry them.
Mr. Cummings: I did not say that the officers did not provide some training to the farmers. I mean, obviously when you are giving somebody that equipment, they should be given some instructions on how to handle it. That is what the officers would be expected to do.
Mr. C. Evans: And also in transporting it.
Mr. Cummings: The member says that there is an issue around transportation. I suppose there is an issue around transportation of propane at any time.
Mr. C. Evans: So the minister basically is saying that he is not concerned for the producers on the safety end of it and the transportation end of it when we are concerned with the Natural Resources officers, and we well should be, that they have the proper training and got the training, they went and they were trained for whatever particulars, but he is not concerned that now the producers have to go and pick a numerous amount of bangers and propane tanks up and transport them five or ten or whatever amount of miles it may be necessary to get out into their fields. That safety issue now is no longer an issue. I mean, and I am not sure, do the Natural Resources officers' vehicles have, when they are carrying these tanks and that, do they not have to have the hazardous sign on their trucks when they transport these? Do the producers have to have these on? I ask the minister.
Mr. Cummings: Well, the alternative is that we would stop supplying them and that the farmers could buy their own and provide transportation. I do not think that would be a very co-operative way to work. If there is an issue around the transportation of the product, it is the same issue that would be around transporting the product home from the barbecue, because they are the same equipment. Secondly, as farmers, we transport chemicals on our half-tons, and there have been people who have tried to indicate that the agricultural community should be, even though they are much smaller quantities than a semitrailer or transport would be dealing with, that the farmers should be included in the same regulations as transporting for personal use.
If the member is suggesting that, then he is suggesting a system that may become a little bit too complicated and cumbersome for government to easily deliver. This was intended as a co-operative and a joint effort to deal with predation, and we were looking to co-operate with the community. I am not for one minute saying that we should ignore a safety issue for the farmers, as opposed to the NROs. I am simply trying to context for the member what is the safety issue. If the safety issue is the transportation of 20-pound tanks of propane, then he should put that on the record. If that is what the safety issue is, then that is the safety issue. How far does he wish us to go in dealing with that? Iif somehow we are in flagrant violation of Workplace Safety and Health by giving farmers half a dozen of these bangers to take out, along with the appropriate number of tanks, and if those farmers are transporting them in an unsafe fashion, then we have an obligation to not let them transport them.
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But I tell you that this is the only area from which I have received any negative feedback, so I have to ask: are we doing something different in this area? I will investigate that with the department, because there certainly seems to be something different about the way the member is raising this. He is a credible member, so I do not want to discount his concern. But I have to say that maybe we are just careless out west, that this has not been a problem in my own area, and I do not think we are any more reckless or careless than they are in the Interlake. I think it is probably a situation where the community is quite used to Natural Resources providing this service and takes some considerable umbrage at our not providing. I indicate that Natural Resources from the point of view of best use of qualified NROs in the field, this is not necessarily the most productive use of their time, when it may well be during the hunting season and they have probably hundreds of hunters in that area who also are in the field. They may also have a number of fishing issues. Although, they may well be done at that time of year.
So I will investigate the concerns that the member is raising. I am not discounting any of the safety issue, except that I am puzzled that this has gone very smoothly in other parts of the province and has not been well accepted in this area. Perhaps we are doing something different here, and that will be corrected if that is true.
Mr. C. Evans: Mr. Chairperson, I would just like to touch on a matter. I would like to ask a few questions with respect to the Hecla village. If I can ask the minister, the Gull Harbour Resort had a--
Mr. Cummings: My deputy minister, in fact, has a conflict of interest around Hecla. I will ask him to leave during these questions.
Mr. C. Evans: Mr. Chairman, the resort has always had a residency for the manager at Gull Harbour in Hecla village. Does the department still provide that home for the manager, whoever he or she may be, in the village?
Mr. Cummings: The present residence for the manager is probably not necessarily the proper location. We have been looking at another location, so the manager was not, along with the casual, in the same compound, if you will, or location; a lot of temporary housing that was involved.
The whole ambience of the island is probably going to change with the rehabitation of the village. There were a couple of houses in the village that were used for staff houses. I am not sure if one of them, perhaps, was the manager's residence. Those areas are now being sold. So we have been looking for an alternative solution. One solution was to build a residence. We are looking for perhaps a less costly, more modest price in order to be able to do that.
One way or another there should be some opportunity for residency for the manager, so that he either does not take up a hotel room--although that might be one option--or put him in some location on the island other than. Because the whole area is probably going to change, in terms of providing residency for staff as a total, to tell you the truth.
Mr. C. Evans: Mr. Chairman, I have been in the manager's house on numerous occasions. Is the minister saying that that house is no longer available? That particular house that has been there for the manager is no longer available to the manager and when was it not made available? When did this house go to other--has it been moved? Has it been sold? It has been the manager's accommodation at Hecla, my understanding, for many years, before I even came out to the area. What has happened with the house?
Mr. Chairperson in the Chair
Mr. Cummings: It may be reassigned to other staff because, as I said, some of the houses that we used to keep staff in are no longer going to be available as those lots are taken up by ex-island residents. As they come back, some of the staff houses we are going to lose. So there is a shrinking of the availability of casual residency for staff and/or the manager on the island because we are losing two houses for sure that people are taking up the lots on. So the people who were accommodated in there are going to have to be accommodated somewhere else, so whether you accommodate them in another temporary facility, trailers of some sort, as I said might might well be the option.
But I know the basis upon which the member is asking the question. Certainly, rumours have been rampant about what the ultimate solution might be for residency knowing that these other houses are not going to be available. I do not want to add to the rumours because no decision has yet been made, but we are looking at a range of accommodations, basically because we are losing some of the ones that we have, that are existent.
Mr. C. Evans: A quick answer from the minister, has this house that has been the manager's residence for many years been sold, yes or no?
Mr. Cummings: I did not say it had been sold. The member I think heard my answer which was that other houses that we had for staff have been sold, so there is going to have to be some changes made to accommodate staff. That could involve changing the manager's house to accommodate the fact that we need extra space. If the member is saying just leave the manager's house alone, then fine, that is one way that it can be managed. I am not sure what the thrust of the question is beyond the fact that there are a lot of rumours about a castle being built out there to accommodate the manager. If that is the rumour he wants allayed, then I will be glad to allay that rumour.
The fact is we are losing two houses, I believe, not necessarily one of them being the manager's house, but that does not mean we might not use the manager's house for something else and find other accommodations for the manager. I mean, that is obviously a decision that I do not think the minister has to go and decide who is going to live in which temporary residence out there, but I will assure him that the minister will be watching to make sure we do not overexpend in a solution.
Mr. C. Evans: Can the minister tell me whether the manager's house--has any work been done on the existing property in the house? Has money been spent in renovating the manager's house?
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Mr. Cummings: I do not know.
Mr. C. Evans: Will the minister then provide me with the answer as quickly as possible, and if so, I would like to know how much was spent on renovating the house, the manager's house? So if the minister would be so kind as to provide me with that at the earliest convenience.
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, of course. This is managed through Venture and is a Crown that reports through the department to me, and I would be quite prepared to review that question and provide him with a correct answer.
Mr. Struthers: I want to thank the minister for putting up with a little bit of helter-skelter from a number of different issues and from a number of different critics, all of whom had questions that they needed to have answered.
I just want to finish off the questions that I was asking previously on wildlife. I want to ask some questions about Oak Hammock Marsh and Ducks Unlimited, and welcome back the deputy minister of Natural Resources.
Could the minister indicate to me how much money the province has contributed to Ducks Unlimited over the last several years? Is that a figure that the minister has available to him? Can he tell me how much money Ducks Unlimited has received from the province?
Mr. Cummings: The member asked whether or not we had contributed any money to Ducks Unlimited. If I were to strictly interpret that question, the answer would be zero. But we do have an agreement to assist with the development of the interpretive centre, and that is a longstanding agreement. There was a five-year agreement in place, and there was nothing that went to Ducks Unlimited last year.
At any rate, I am sure it was public knowledge before. This is just reconfirming that the original Oak Hammock agreement was about $150,000 a year for six years, and there was nothing last year. We are entering into a new agreement in support of the interpretive centre.
Mr. Struthers: Is the minister at liberty to explain the new agreement that he talks about entering into with Ducks Unlimited on the interpretive centre, or is that not public information as of yet?
Mr. Cummings: We are having a press conference on Friday to announce this, so I guess the member is asking me if I want to pre-announce it. I think he can read the paper as well as I can. There was some speculation in the paper a couple of months ago around these negotiations. I am quite prepared to say that what we have done is not striking a new agreement, but simply renewal, amendment, if you will, to the existing master agreement for a further five-year support. The precise amount I will be announcing on Friday at Oak Hammock.
And to be sure that I am clear about this, the agreement is only--the dollars are in support of the interpretive centre, not in support of Ducks Unlimited, the company, but in support directly towards the interpretive centre at Oak Hammock for which we feel some joint responsibility and some stewardship, because it is a very aggressive and well-known site. The Interpretative Centre needs to be consistently renewed. I think we had a quarter-of-a-million schoolchildren that have been there. It is very successful in that respect. There was always an assumption that there would be some support that would be needed to make sure that was always refreshed and updated.
Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairperson, I had the chance recently to go out to Oak Hammock Marsh to check the facility out and the Interpretative Centre, and I was amazed at the number of metres of boardwalk that are out there and the opportunities there are for learning to take place.
I also noticed there was not a sign on No. 7 Highway showing that the Oak Hammock Marsh was anywhere, which might be an idea for whoever makes the decisions on the signs to stick one up. It would have saved a friend of mine and me a little bit on gas money as we went cruising past the turnoff. That is something that maybe should be looked into.
I want to ask the minister: in light of the announcement that he is going to be making on Friday, is he concerned about the allegations that have come forth suggesting that Ducks Unlimited is considering moving its headquarters outside of our province?
I will be the first to concede that this is, as far as I know, a rumour that they will be moving to Calgary, or that they may even be withdrawing from Canada to their offices in the States, in Nashville. Now I understand the risks involved in dealing with what amounts so far to be just speculation, but it also makes me a little nervous that we would be putting money into a project if one of the partners is considering leaving and not showing the kind of support that maybe they should be showing to this whole project.
That is not to take anything away from Ducks Unlimited, who does good work. I think of a project in the minister's own riding out behind the Ste. Rose Curling Rink and dance hall, out by Burnside park, where Ducks Unlimited is involved in a project there with the local conservation district. I do not want to take anything away from the good work that they do, but I do get a little nervous when I hear that Ducks Unlimited could, in fact, be moving away from a project that the government is putting some money into.
I would just like to hear comments from the minister in terms of those kinds of concerns that many people have in regard to this Interpretative Centre.
Mr. Cummings: Well, rumours have been circulating along the line that the member indicates, but I think they are in the main precipitated by the fact the Ducks Unlimited has gone through a reorganization. It was well known that they do not have as many staff onsite as they did have, based on the fact that they had more of decentralized structure. I think, as a government that has done some decentralizing itself, that we can appreciate what they were attempting to do.
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Nevertheless, any agreement along the lines that I have just discussed is also subject to the conditions of the master agreement, which provides some protection in terms of operations, but the principle that is involved is whether or not DU intends to be here in the long haul. It is my expectation that they will be here in the long haul and that they will live up to their end of the bargain.
They will remind you, and I appreciate the fact that they will remind anybody who asks, their primary goal in life is to improve habitat and increase populations. They want to direct as many dollars towards doing that as possible. They very often want to partner with governments, local governments and the province on major projects. We are pretty fortunate to have them interested in a number of projects here in the province--[interjection]
I never like to hear those types of rumours and certainly have challenged Ducks Unlimited in that respect, because it does create an aura of suspicion when those rumours are floating around. I am very pleased when Ducks Unlimited chose this direction to become involved in education, because if I were to speak about what I think is at least a significant portion and responsibility that they have is that the hunting fraternity, which is very much part of the support base for Ducks Unlimited, has to be understood at the same time they are encouraging the public to produce and invest in habitat, take care of the wildlife which they intend to harvest.
But not everyone who supports Ducks Unlimited is a consumptive user. The big portion of their support as well comes from people who may never pick up a shotgun and simply support habitat development and the protection and the development of the population's restoration of breeding grounds being part of that.
So the question was: does it make me uneasy? It was dealt with in the way that I just described. Their decentralization did go forward. That I was not particularly happy with, because it did mean there were a few less jobs at Oak Hammock than there had been originally. But in the end, if they spend their money along the lines of the mandate that I just described, then we will get our money's worth out of Ducks Unlimited, and the centre will continue to be one of the best interpretive centres around.
Mr. Struthers: I thank the minister for that. I would like to ask a couple of questions having to do with--I am going to switch gears a little bit here--the joint Agriculture-Natural Resources committee on elk ranching. It was something that was a topic not so long ago in Question Period. I think there were some very disturbing issues brought forth from the minutes of one of the meetings that took place between the joint Agriculture and Natural Resources committee.
One of the issues that came out of that would be what is called a penned hunt or canned hunt, or whatever the terms are for that practice. But what we learned from the minutes of that meeting was that the committee has been struck to look into the pros and cons of going towards, I guess the word is legalizing, a penned hunt in the concept of penned hunting here in Manitoba. I know other jurisdictions have gone this route.
Once they have accepted the whole concept of elk ranching, it is hard to fund a jurisdiction that has not gone to a penned hunt after accepting the concept of elk ranching. So knowing that other jurisdictions have gone that route, I am worried that Manitoba is going to go the same route and that at some point we too will be releasing elk into a pen and allowing hunters to come along and not just lasso them, but--and probably would not be lassoing them as the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism is indicating, but that would shoot the animal for what would be "sport."
I think I clearly stated a while ago in Question Period that that is a violent and disgusting concept. The minister at the time seemed to agree with me, so I am wondering why has a committee been struck to look into this if everybody is in agreement that this is a disgusting idea in the first place? Maybe the minister could comment on the work of that committee, where they are at now, what the mandate of that committee is, and when he expects the committee to report to him or the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Enns) or to the both of them or to cabinet? I would just like to know more about this committee.
Mr. Cummings: Maybe I will answer this one sitting down. I got quite lathered up the last time the question was asked. The fact is that as far as I am concerned, the question as it was raised, the way the question was asked I suppose that got me excited, because the fact is it was taken out of context, the question of the committee being struck.
Secondly, the valuation of the issue was being driven not so much by those who wanted to do it but by those who were opposed to it, and Natural Resources being the good co-operative committee people that they were said, well, then let us meet and talk about it. I think I am understating the context to some extent, but that is the basis upon which I understand the process.
My statements at that time still stand. One of the things that we did when we entered into this process, we worked with a number of different stakeholders, and I am not about to see that good working relationship blown apart because somebody feels that the very fact that any discussion was occurring was a reflection of intent on our part to move in this area as opposed to just allay the fears of some people that were being raised at that point that we were seriously considering making a move in that direction. Some people undoubtedly would like that to happen, but my comments stand that it was not contemplated, it has not been something that we have endorsed or supported nor are we likely to.
It is, I recognize, something that has happened in other jurisdictions, but we have very much a fledgling industry here. The industry was being developed for the antlers, eventually for the food value that would come from the surplus stock, I suppose, but that is much more of a low-end usage. I fail to see how we would encourage a different usage except for culled stock. Nobody is talking about that at this juncture, and nobody wants culled stock when they are looking for trophies either. So it strikes me as my comments of the day still stand.
Mr. Struthers: It seems to me that in that case, the minister would be prepared if this joint committee were to recommend a move towards penned hunts that this minister would then take some kind of action to thwart that kind of a recommendation. If the minister believes that penned hunts are wrong, and if the minister believes, as he indicated in Question Period, that this is not a practice that is acceptable to him, the possibility exists that this committee will come back and say they had lots of good reasons to go towards a penned hunt.
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Would the minister be willing then to in a sense put his foot down and say: no, we are not doing this, or does he have that power to begin with?
Mr. Cummings: Well, if the member were to read the quote in the paper at that time, I said that I did not support it, and the department did not support it. It would likely be a pretty short consultation.
Mr. Struthers: The people that I have talked to in the minister's department did not support going into elk ranching in the first place, and yet we have elk ranching. Maybe I will give the minister a chance to take another run at the question. If that is the recommendation of this joint Agriculture-Natural Resources committee, is he willing and does he have the authority as the Minister of Natural Resources to not allow penned hunts in Manitoba?
Mr. Cummings: Well, Mr. Chairman, I do not know how much more plain I can make the answer. I answered the question already.
Mr. Struthers: I do not think the minister did answer the question. Maybe he does not want to answer the question, but I guess it just remains to be seen whether the Department of Agriculture can talk the Department of Natural Resources into yet another practice that I do not think the Department of Natural Resources is all that in favour of.
Mr. Cummings: Well, the member is obviously opposed to elk ranching. I think we can assume that from his comments on the record. In fact, he is nodding across the way. He is opposed to elk ranching, and I have just said--
Mr. Struthers: Mr. Chairperson, I do not want the minister to just assume through innuendo and through body language that I am opposed to elk ranching. I will tell him straight off, I am opposed to elk ranching.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point of order. It is clearly--no, it is not a dispute. Yes, it is a dispute over the facts. Difficult to find on this one.
Mr. Chairperson: The honourable minister, to conclude.
Mr. Cummings: That is quite educational, but I am quite clearly opposed to penned hunting, certainly the way the member describes the activity. He described it as abhorrent and a few other adjectives that go with it. I wonder if he feels the same way about the release of pen-raised pheasants because there are two or three different ways of describing how recreational hunting has evolved around species that are perhaps bred domestically.
Nevertheless, he does no one a service when he refers to minutes of committees that he takes out of context and for his own purposes. He may well not like my innuendo, but he will like this innuendo even less because if he wants to take out of context the reason for discussion that committees may use for at least part of an agenda, if he wants to use that as a reason to try and portray this government and my motives as anything other than what they are, then I have to take severe umbrage to that.
The elk business is a fledgling industry here in the province that we are doing everything we can to nurture right now. Not only is he opposed to elk ranching, he certainly was apparently opposed to the capture of elk, undoubtedly talking to people in the Swan River Valley about their view of elk ranching and elk capture, but we have I think a pretty good opportunity developing in this province.
We have made an agreement with the Assembly of Chiefs to assist them with their various bands getting involved in the opportunity of elk ranching, an area that they are wholeheartedly in support of. Interestingly enough, they apparently were willing to forgo some of the jurisdictional struggles that surround the right to elk in the wild in order to become part of the system where they can have value added within the activity of holding elk, because Manitoba elk are going to be very much in demand.
Manitoba elk are some of the best-known developed elk, certainly in western Canada, and I would say in North America, given some of the traits that our elk display. They are some of the most desirable animals to have for elk ranching. It leads me to believe that there are a considerable number of his constituents out there who probably agree more with me than they do with him about the future of elk ranching.
All I need to do is talk to the people in Crane River to know that they are very much in favour of elk ranching--they in Crane River being constituents of the Ste. Rose area. I would think that the thinking is very similar in the aboriginal community that he represents. So he is putting himself in conflict with some of the people that may most be wanting him to assist them with developing some opportunities for well being in their own communities. He is free to do that, but I also have no compunction about exploiting that opportunity.
Mr. Struthers: I have no doubt at all that the minister will try to exploit that opportunity, and if the minister would--well, maybe some of my speeches are a little on the boring side, but he should maybe pay attention every now and then because everything that he is speculating I have said, I have said.
I do not like the elk capture. It is something that I was opposed to when this government brought it forth in the House. I am not going to walk around behind the minister's back and not tell him to his face that I do not like what he is doing with elk, that I think he is wrong. I will tell him that to his face. I will tell it to the people in McCreary who phone me to say that I am right, and the constituents that he has that think that he is wrong in capturing a wild animal and using it for the purposes that he is. I will go to sit in on band councils and I will talk to them as well. I will talk to the ones who approached me saying that this is a silly thing to be doing. I will talk to Sapotaweyak, where, as the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) has indicated the day before yesterday, instead of going to a capture and ranching elk, they would just as soon capture elk and relocate them to another part of the province to let the animals start a new herd there.
So the minister can talk all he likes about using statements I make in the House to his political advantage, but he is playing with a two-edged sword there and he might find that he might cut himself on that as well. My point of view will always be on the record, and I will stand by it. I do not mind doing that. The minister has been up front with me on this, and I intend to be up front with him. If he thinks he can make political hay with what I say, then all the best to him, but it is a two-edged sword, and I do not mind getting into that game with the minister as well.
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Before six o'clock rolls around, Mr. Chair, I would like to move on to the area of Forestry. One of the concerns that I have had in the three years that I have been Natural Resources critic is a concern concerning our database that we have in Natural Resources. Certainly, a database, good, solid data, is essential to making decisions, whether it is in Natural Resources or any department. Any minister has to rely on solid information when he makes his decisions having to do with Natural Resources items, none more important, I would say, than the area of forestry.
We have signed some very large agreements with companies in Manitoba, agreements which have allowed hundreds of people to be employed both in the construction of plants and in the extraction of resources. It has also meant a huge harvesting of timber in our province, and we cannot be making decisions on the harvesting of timber and other resources without good solid information to base our decision making on.
That is why I was listening very closely to the conversation that took place earlier this afternoon between the minister and the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale). It is my understanding that Louisiana-Pacific has a relationship with Linnet Graphics. It is my hope that the relationship will produce something tangible and useful that can be used by the company and by the government and by citizens of the province of Manitoba.
Can the minister indicate to me if a base map has been completed for Louisiana-Pacific by Linnet Graphics?
Mr. Cummings: Mr. Chairman, I would be glad to share that information about the contract between Linnet and L-P, and certainly the information will be public, but I cannot answer completely whether or not the work would have been completed in all areas. I am sure there would be more than one phase to getting this work done, but I cannot answer it at the moment.
Mr. Struthers: Was the minister aware if there was a date agreed upon for a completion between L-P and Linnet, or does he know if there had been a projected date by which to complete a base map?
Mr. Cummings: We will have to provide that information. I do not have it with us here.
Mr. Struthers: I think a role that the provincial government can play in this is to make sure that eventually all of the information that is produced through the relationship between Linnet and Louisiana-Pacific can be something that is used by people of the province of Manitoba. Can the minister tell me if there, in fact, will be access for anyone who wants to use that information that is eventually produced by Linnet for Louisiana-Pacific?
Mr. Cummings: It will be provided to us. It will be provided at the Clean Environment hearings where necessary. It will be provided as part of the public record on all of the information that needs to be filed in various forms by Louisiana-Pacific. So it will be available from more than one source actually.
Mr. Struthers: Is it the type of information that would be available to John Q. Public in preparation for, say, a CEC hearing, or is it something that just ordinary citizens can readily access?
Mr. Cummings: In the context that I just answered the question, where they file information and where we achieve information, like if there is some context in which the question whether or not it is every last page of it is available, we will provide that answer. Remember, this is a contract between the company. It is a private work that they are doing for a private company. We require information which they will have to provide. That does not mean that Linnet cannot do work for the company and that information, for reasons that I cannot imagine at the moment, but there might well be reasons that that information would be proprietary to Louisiana-Pacific. I mean, they are paying for it.
This is the type of assembled information that would need to be available for certain environmental information, for harvesting information in some cases, and that sort of thing. Just so I do not hang myself out giving an answer that gives a false impression, let me double-check the context of the question.
Mr. Struthers: Maybe when the minister is looking for that information, could he establish whether or not a fee that would be paid by an individual to Linnet, or to L-P or whoever, to get a hold of that kind of information when it is eventually available?
Mr. Cummings: Well, if I understand the question correctly, he is asking me about whether or not Louisiana-Pacific would provide information for which they have just paid a lot of money to have assembled. So, would they provide that free to somebody? The answer is very much the same as the last question. You have got to be careful how you context this, because when you have an agreement between two private companies, there is a limit after you get past the regulatory requirements for information about certain geographic features, stands, densities. We require and can require that information one way or the other. Either we have it or we have somebody else, in this case Louisiana-Pacific, produce it for us. But there might well be, as I said, between two private firms, we are not the middleman on this, if that is the implication that the member might have. This is a private deal, so there will certainly be some things where they would require payment if they were going to provide that information.
Mr. Struthers: Can I take from those comments, then, that the minister sees no role for the province in requiring that even if it is, and I understand what he is saying about a deal between two private outfits, is there no role for the province in there to try to encourage access by individuals of that information whether there is a fee on it or not? Or would that be stepping into a contractual agreement that he cannot do?
Mr. Chairperson: The hour being six o'clock, committee rise. Call in the Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Marcel Laurendeau): The hour being six o'clock, the House is now adjourned and stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. (Thursday).