Mr. Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon, this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training. When the committee last sat, it was considering item 16.2. School Programs (d) Program Development (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits on page 48 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister about the number of courses that are being delivered across Manitoba by school divisions on the Web. This particular program area does deal with piloting the development and delivery of a Web-based course, Senior 3 Applied Mathematics. I assume that is something that the department intends to complete this year, so that is part (a) of the question.

Part (b) is: what other Web-based courses are there across Manitoba? I understand that there are several school divisions which are doing it, some of which are doing it within one school, if we are looking at Garden Valley, for example; others which are doing it, if we look at Interlake School Division, across several schools.

So does the minister have a compilation of that, and is there any intent to bring any of this Web-based instruction together and to make it more widely available across school divisions? What kind of co-ordinating role is the department intending to play in this?

Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Education and Training): Mr. Chairman, we are obtaining that information, and while that is happening I would like to follow up on some things from yesterday. We tabled yesterday a document about Manitoba schools with aboriginal language instruction. The honourable member was wanting to know the number of students and not just the schools. We said we would get the number of students for her and table that information, as well, but in fact the document that I tabled–and I overlooked this–did include not only the schools but also the number of students corresponding to each school. If that is not the point the honourable member was making, then maybe we could get that cleared up now.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, yes, the material that the minister tabled before certainly did give the number of students in the school. But the issue I had raised and which I repeated was that I was interested in the number of students who are actually taking courses in native languages. What the numbers in the document that the minister had indicated are the numbers of students in the schools where native languages are offered, so that, for example, you have numbers like 300, et cetera. It does not specifically indicate the number of students who are taking native languages, and that was my understanding. Perhaps, I am misreading the document the minister offered, but it seemed to me to be a much broader answer to a quite specific question.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, the numbers that were provided do reflect the number of students actually taking native language courses. So the numbers that we gave the honourable member refer not only to kids attending schools that offer those things but the numbers, I am advised, do apply to the number of children actually taking them.

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For example, on the third page of the document at the bottom, Lord Selkirk School Division, the school is listed amongst these schools, but it is not being taught this year at Lord Selkirk, which indicates there are no children enrolled in that program, but that is still, I guess, available if they have sufficient numbers. But the point is, just to confirm again, it does refer to the number of students actually taking the courses, not just attending the schools where the courses are taught.

In addition, I have another document which may be of interest to the honourable member which deals with special language credits actually granted for aboriginal languages, which means children who have completed the courses in aboriginal languages and challenged for the credits and got them. I am making that information available to the honourable member.

We talked yesterday about copyright fees. The copyright fees for materials used in four forms of the English language arts examinations and standards tests administered during the 1998-99 school year are as follows and this refers to the January S4, the June S4, June Grade 3 and June Grade 6 exams. The total copyright fees for English language examinations and standards tests was $6,495. The average copyright cost per test was $1,624. The restrictions placed on current copyright materials prevent them from being used in electronic form after the test is administered. This would prevent them from being posted on the Internet.

However, for future copyright materials, electronic permission can be pursued. Our current experience is that some copyright holders will provide permission to use an electronic version and others will not. If one copyright owner refuses to do so, the department would not be able to publish the test electronically. After provincial examinations and standards tests are administered, sample copies are sent to the Education and Training library and can be obtained by individuals, including parents. The availability of previously written ELA examinations through public libraries would depend upon the conditions for use identified by the copyright holders. This matter will be explored with copyright holders. There are currently no copyright materials used on provincial mathematics examinations and standards tests. Copyright permission will likely be necessary for upcoming social studies and science provincial standards tests.

We discussed yesterday post-secondary representation on school programs committees and teams. Some of this information would be of interest to the honourable member. We have ongoing consultation between representatives of Manitoba Education and Training and the province's post-secondary institutions as essential to ensure that educational programs developed and implemented in the province's public school system articulate with those offered in colleges and universities. A close alignment of programming facilitates students' transition from high school to post-secondary programs. A number of structures and processes are in place to support communication between the department and post-secondary institutions, including post-secondary appointments to departmental advisory committees, post-secondary appointments to departmental curriculum teams, departmental appointments to post-secondary committees, informal consultation regarding new curricula and admission requirements, formal consultations related to the development of new curricula, distribution of new curricula and policy documents to post-secondary institutions.

I think the honourable member would be interested perhaps in knowing, for example, on the inter-organizational curriculum advisory committee, there is representation there from the Faculty of Education, David Jenkinson, University of Manitoba. With respect to English Language Arts, kindergarten to Senior 4 steering committee, Deborah Schnitzer of the English Department, Faculty of Arts, University of Winnipeg; Deborah Begoray, from the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba; and Jean Louis Guillas of Assiniboine Community College from the Dauphin campus.

Mathematics kindergarten to Senior 4 steering committee, there is Grant Woods, from the Math Department of the Arts Faculty of the University of Manitoba; Lars Jansson, a retired senior scholar from the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba; and Gene Karlik from the Red River Community College.

Science kindergarten to Senior 4 steering committee: Gordon G.C. Robinson from the Faculty of Science, U of M; Arthur Stinner, Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba; and Andy Burzynski from Applied Science, Red River College.

Social Studies, kindergarten to Senior 4 steering committee: Bill Norton from the Geography Department, Faculty of Arts, U of M; Jack Deines, Faculty of Education from Brandon University.

So I think that covers the issue related to post-secondary representation as discussed yesterday. Now the honourable member asked us about some statistics respecting home schooling. I have some statistics to share with her. There has been an increase of 53 when compared to the number that I gave to the honourable member two days ago. The increase represents activity in the time since the compilation of the statistic that I shared with the honourable member.

In Grade 1, in home school study in Manitoba there are 84; in Grade 2, 125; in Grade 3, 139; in Grade 4, 150; in Grade 5, 148; in Grade 6, 130; in Grade 7, 119; in Grade 8, 120; in Grade 9, 95; in Grade 10, 79; in Grade 11, 42; and in Grade 12, 7, for a total of 1,238. These statistics are as of May 27, that is today, 1999. That represents a current total enrollment of 53 pupils over and above the enrollment reported on March 1, 1999. That is the information that I brought to bring us up to date. There may yet be an undertaking or two that we have made. As far as we know, there is one left that we have not provided information on yet. We are still working on it.

Oh, I am sorry, in answer to the honourable member's question, we are aware of one consortium, the southwest consortium delivering Senior 4 world issues online. Also, Garden Valley School Division is offering a Senior 4 English language arts course online, as is the Brandon Adult Learning Centre, which is affiliated with Assiniboine Community College and the Brandon School Division. A number of school divisions are currently interested in pursuing the online delivery of courses. Those divisions are: Morris-Macdonald, Fort Garry, Interlake, Swan Valley, Garden Valley, River East, Evergreen, Agassiz school divisions. They have all expressed interest in this regard, as has the southwest consortium expressed its ongoing interest in this area.

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Staff of the department are meeting with these various school divisions and have as well hosted a number of workshops on the topic of Web-based courses as well as demonstrations on the various software platforms that can be used to develop and deliver online courses. We are pursuing Web-based development and delivery as well and will pilot along with divisions and schools an online version of Senior 3 applied math in the 1999-2000 school year. These efforts are being co-ordinated by the staff in the School Programs Division through a partnership approach within its branches, program implementation and program development, and in units, the Distance Delivery Unit and the Learning Technology Unit with the MERLIN. Most particularly we are partnering with school divisions interested in online learning.

Ms. Friesen: I am interested in the co-ordinating role of the department. The minister has talked about partnerships. I am wondering: is the minister prepared to have a situation where different school divisions will be developing the same course on the Web, or is there an intent on the part of the department to rationalize or to enable co-operation between school divisions so that the best use can be made of this interest and activity across the province? I am interested in what direction the government is going in this area.

Mr. McCrae: Yes, the divisions and groupings that I referred to do not amount to everybody. So it is not like everybody is doing this at this point. I think we are in a fledgling area where things need to happen fast because the technology changes pretty fast. We still need to try to find some way to identify the best practices in this area. I do not think it is useful for us to preside over a whole lot of duplication in this area. It is for this reason that the branches that I referred to and MERLIN are engaged in a co-ordinating role and at this point working with these various parties to develop the best way of proceeding, keeping in mind there is a requirement of curriculum congruency. We will continue to partner with school divisions to determine which courses will be put online in response to student needs.

An important role for the department is to co-ordinate the activities of the various partners to try to ensure that we are not duplicating a whole lot of effort. In an area like this that must be a challenging thing. I am not into technology as much as I would like to be, but I do know that there is more than one way to do things. Finding the best way, we may do that this school year and find that next school year there are already better ways being discovered. So we need to be able to move without too much duplication along with the technology so that we are always trying to keep right on top of the latest opportunities that we can make available to Manitoba students. So I think that is as much as I can say about that.

Ms. Friesen: I wonder if the minister could tell me what the role of the Assiniboine Community College is in the development of high school programs on the Web or by other means of distance education.

I have another question too dealing with the Web. Obviously when you are doing a Web-based course you are going to be putting curriculum resources, not just curriculum outline, not just questions and answers, but actually other people's resources. I am wondering what the difference is in terms of copyright between those resources on the Web and the difficulties the minister was outlining earlier with similar kinds of resources essentially put on the Web for the English exam.

Mr. McCrae: There is a lot of exploration work going on in the area of Web-based material. The copyright issue exists I guess every time you address Web-based material, because somebody is there and wanting to get their appropriate credit for their property. So we are always going to be in a position as long as this situation exists where we are going to have to be negotiating copyright agreements. The other thing, I guess, is to try to avoid, in whatever legal ways are available, copyright issues because, obviously, there is going to be a saving there, and we are not also going to have to be tying up human resources in these negotiations.

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With respect to the question raised by the honourable member about Assiniboine College. Assiniboine Community College has been partnering with the southwest consortia and the Brandon Adult Learning Centre using the ACC-developed platform called On-line Learning Environment, OLE for short. The southwest consortia developed and delivered world issues, and the Brandon Adult Learning Centre developed and delivered the Senior 4 ELA. The content for these courses is developed and delivered by the school divisions involved using certified teachers as subject matter experts. ACC's role has been in the area of technical support related to the OLE platform and in relation to providing a server to host the Web-based course.

Manitoba Education and Training has also explored with ACC the possibility of using OLE as its platform for developing Senior 3 Applied Mathematics. We are now considering OLE and WebCT as potential platforms for the development and delivery of this course.

Ms. Friesen: The minister mentioned specifically, obviously, I think guessing at one of my concerns, and that is who is actually developing the curriculum and he said that teachers were. I am wondering what the relationship is between the college and the school divisions who are delivering this. What is the financial arrangement and does this financial arrangement pass through the Council on Post-Secondary Education? Does it pass through MERLIN? Does it pass through the department? How are these kinds of negotiations and partnerships developed? So that would be part one. I am interested in how it is operating at the school division/community college level.

Then, secondly, the department is considering this same base or platform for its own pilot project. I wonder if the minister can tell me what the advantages are in that to the department. Where does MERLIN fit in this? I am having difficulty understanding what the role of MERLIN is when there seems to be so many–it is as though you have a central core of a wheel which is supposed to be MERLIN which is initiating and developing these partnerships and assisting in, one assumes, the kind of financial arrangements that would give the greatest financial benefit to all concerned, and yet the department seems to be operating on a completely different spoke here.

We also have the Council on Post-Secondary Education with its own distance education component seems to be operating on a different level. So I wonder if the minister can for the record make sense of this and give me some indication of where the co-ordination is and what the direction is for both Web-based and distance education in the high school system which is what we are looking at at the moment.

Mr. McCrae: I think it needs to be clear that ACC does not develop curriculum. ACC has played a role in assisting with the development of a platform to assist with that. By the same token, MERLIN serves in capacities that assist school divisions, assist the government in its endeavours. The consortia I referred to contracts with ACC to use its platform, the OLE platform I referred to. ACC got a grant from the Human Resources Development department and, of course, the Council on Post-Secondary Education also is involved because it is through the council that the operating grants for colleges like ACC are flowed. Interesting that the honourable member should mention the Council on Post-Secondary Education in this context.

It is, in my view, desirable that our colleges, universities and every other sector work more closely together and in a more co-ordinated way, and the Council on Post-Secondary Education plays an important role in that regard. Now, when you take into account the traditional way of funding the various institutions and then you bring in the Council on Post-Secondary Education, you can imagine that there are some adjustments that need to be made. Certainly the colleges, it has only been a few years the colleges have been involved with their own governance structures. In this regard, I am trying very hard to make sure there is a clear understanding of what everybody's objectives are here.

I have really sensed long before I ever was appointed Minister of Education and Training that we need to get past the era where everybody sort of works away, sometimes very hard but in sort of a splendid kind of isolation where it does not matter, because we have an autonomous system or structure for a given institution. It does not matter so much what is happening elsewhere, but more and more the realities of the '90s and the new millennium suggest that a much more partnership-oriented approach is what we need. I think former Senator Roblin, former Premier Roblin, recognized that and made certain recommendations. COPSE, as we call it, the Council on Post-Secondary Education, is there to carry out some of the role carried out by the previous agency, the Universities Grants Commission.

Well, I think the COPSE, its role needs to be well understood. It needs to be well talked about. I enjoyed the opportunity just today to meet with chairs of boards of universities and colleges and vice-chairs, along with the chair of the Council on Post-Secondary Education and some of the staff there and myself, and to talk about issues related to the ongoing understanding that we need to have. It was a good discussion, because I think everybody wants this to happen. It is hard sometimes to break down some of the way that we used to look at the world in light of what the world was like a dozen years ago. Well, there is a lot of change that has happened since then, change for the good, and we want to maximize on that. We want to do that in our institutions too.

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I think that is one of the reasons too that we have in our budget this year, and we are pleased for the support we have been getting for that budget, by the way. We have that in there, that strategic money in there, so they can all develop the programming that we need to meet the needs of the market. I think it was just yesterday the honourable member was asking me questions about this, and these are the answers to the questions.

We certainly have challenges in front of us. I think of them as opportunities but whatever they are called, we are in a position now where we have jobs galore in Manitoba, and we need a really good understanding of where the jobs are, what kinds of activities in the private sector need the support of an educated workforce. So we need to know whether we are educating appropriately and training appropriately the right numbers and the right kinds of people for the new economy.

I think the Council on Post-Secondary Education can play a very valuable role, already is, in this regard, but I think it is thanks to a lot of forward-looking people in the last few years in Manitoba that we find ourselves in the enviable position of addressing a new challenge, that being making sure we align our post-secondary education system in such a way that we maximize the opportunity.

I was pleased to see a headline in today's newspaper, that Manitoba grads are staying in Manitoba in droves, and this is good news. It is not all good news because there is always another side to it, but it is a lot better news than we used to read daily in our newspaper. MERLIN's role is to assist us in evaluating any or all platforms and giving advice on network design. That is the role that MERLIN plays. It will assist in obtaining the best prices we can for services and for equipment. As I said, this is quite a different world that we are working in today. Strategic partnerships are absolutely required. It is not just desired, it is required to make new and complex things work, things like technology and curriculum delivery, evaluation, design, software creation, platform creation, training, and on and on.

There are many players in all of this. MERLIN is just one. It is not, for instance, a writer of curricula. It does not write software or create platforms, but it does evaluate certain types of software. It evaluates platforms. It brokers and delivers certain types of technology training. It purchases equipment at the best price, for example, on personal computers and modems and servers and routers and provides advice on platform design tasks such as networks, all of which is fairly technical and sounds to me like MERLIN provides a lot of technical services, but I would not want the honourable member to think that they write or that ACC actually develops curriculum. We have talked at length about how that happens and the kinds of people that are involved in it.

I read out a while ago for the honourable member some information about consultation with Manitoba's post-secondary institutions with respect to departmental advisory committees; departmental curriculum teams and appointments to post-secondary committees and informal consultation regarding new curricula and admission requirements; formal consultations related to development of new curricula; distribution of new curricula and policy documents to post-secondary institutions.

I do not mean to imply–I hope I was not. I did not mean to be unclear about that, but I am pretty in favour of getting people working together. It is not only a nice, pleasant way to do our work and to get it done, but if we are at all results oriented, we know that putting the best minds to work on what are indeed pretty complex issues and tasks that we have to do in our system, it is good to have as much partnership as we can get.

With respect to MERLIN, the Education Resource and Learning Information Network, the stated objective of the MERLIN is to be a central co-ordinating body for technical resources to provide direction and management in the educational use of telecommunications networks; to provide service offerings to support the education use of technology; to support education using learning technologies; and to identify partnerships with the private sector. I think that I did not mean to be unclear. I hope I have straightened that up.

Ms. Friesen: Did the minister suggest that there is no payment, there is no exchange of money between a school division which is using the ACC platform? I am not quite sure what ACC's role in this is.

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Mr. McCrae: I know of no invoice sent out by the ACC for its role in the development of this online learning environment platform. The Adult Learning Centre is an agency of the ACC, so it is in ACC's own interest to do this. I do not know all the answers here. It may also be that students at ACC could have been part of this which has an educational aspect for them, and it may be in the developmental stage that this online environment business–there may be a time when ACC will make it available elsewhere and for dollars, I do not know that. The fact is they are funded by Human Resources Development Canada, and, as far as I know, they are not into, at this stage, making money on this.

Ms. Friesen: I had understood from what you said, and it could be I was running two sentences together, that ACC was also involved with the southwest consortium as well as the Brandon Adult Learning Centre.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, I am a little intrigued by the questions here. I am going to undertake to make myself a little more acquainted with this particular topic, and it may be that next day we can talk about it further. I am not really undertaking to bring back a whole lot more information because I do not know what I am going to find out at this point. But I am going to find out some things, and we will be able to talk about it a little better next time.

Ms. Friesen: The minister mentioned earlier the coming on stream of standard tests in social studies, and I wondered if he could give me a date for that and the grade levels. I am interested in the curriculum in information technology, much of which is at a local level, and I wondered if the department kept a compendium of locally initiated curriculum in information technology.

I notice the government, for example, is interested specifically in the middle years keyboarding program. One of the comments that I frequently hear from parents is that the students seem to be doing keyboarding over and over and that the curriculum, particularly in the middle years, does not seem to develop beyond that, and parents are puzzled by that.

Now, I understand the issues of teaching across the curriculum with information technology, but I am also specifically interested in the longitudinal development of skills in the use of information technology. The government I think also has an advisory committee working on this, so I am interested in the timetable for that, and whatever documents the government is able to make available on that I think would be warmly received.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, the April 1998 educational change update scheduled social studies standards tests for Grade 6 in June 2001 and for Senior 1 in January and June 2001, dependent on release of Manitoba curriculum frameworks. Timelines for implementation of social studies frameworks and standards tests have been extended in order to align Manitoba curriculum development with the Western Canadian Protocol of social studies project. As an interim measure until new Manitoba social studies curricula are developed, the department will update an online version of the social studies overview, kindergarten to Grade 12. Till further notice, schools should continue using existing curricula for kindergarten to Senior 4 Social Studies. In December of '97, there was a ministerial letter to school divisions Senior 3 Social Studies, as indicated in that letter, Senior 3 Social Studies will continue as a compulsory core requirement even after the release of the new social studies curriculum. The honourable member knows the history of that one.

In the English program, this requirement alters the configuration of credits for compulsory core and compulsory complementary subject areas but does not change the number of credits students can earn for optional supplementary courses. I think we have discussed how we are working with the Western Canadian Protocol on social studies. Yes, I remember, and the honourable member has made a point that it is an old curriculum, well, the fact is that is true. On the other hand, history is the type of subject for which there is a lot of other resource material available in order that children and students can receive a quality education in history pending the completion of our work through the Western Canadian Protocol social studies project and getting ourselves up to speed in terms of implementation of that curriculum in Manitoba. There is another benefit as well and we have referred to it. The profession has been very busy adjusting to new curricula in the other areas and trying to digest all the material and trying to make sure that all of the issues related to New Directions are being done well.

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I had a chance today to speak to the Manitoba Teachers' Society annual meeting and, oh, there must have been 200 or 300 maybe more teachers there today, more than 200 anyway, I think. I was able to have the opportunity to thank them most sincerely for their work in the past two years as Manitoba has moved to improve our education system in the K to 12 system. I was quite cordially greeted by the outgoing president of the Manitoba Teachers' Society as well as the incoming president of the Teachers' Society. I was able to have a few moments to speak with the teachers who were there as delegates to the convention, and it was clear to me that it is the kind of message that strikes a responsive chord when you remind teachers that they are indeed very much appreciated for their efforts. In a time of change, there is sometimes a tendency for the people involved in the field to feel that, well, if you are changing something, it must be that we were not doing something right. That certainly is an unfair characterization of the situation in Manitoba, because that is simply not what this is about. I think that by reminding teachers that their efforts are appreciated, we tend to dispel any suggestion that New Directions is all about casting some kind of criticism in any particular direction.

The teachers of Manitoba have brought us, to a large extent, to where we are today as a modern society, a modern provincial society within a Canadian federation and in a global economy. We are doing very well, thank you very much, in terms of our ability to work within that global economy. We are taking advantage of lots of the opportunities that that economy presents. I firmly believe that that would not be possible if it were not for the work done by the teachers that have helped to bring Manitoba's population to the point where that population is able to take advantage of the opportunities that exist.

So I enjoyed that opportunity, although Mr. MacIntyre reminds me he reads all these proceedings in Estimates review. It is hard for me to believe that that gentleman, as busy as he is with his responsibilities, could have the time to read everything that goes on here in this Estimates review. My assumption is he, like I, had good teachers and learned to read very fast. I think he has probably learned to read a lot faster than I am able to read but, in any event, he reminds me that he pays close attention to what is going on in the review of the Estimates, but he also, after I made my comments today to what I thought was a fairly warm response from the gathered delegates to the convention, used the opportunity in thanking me to give me a gift.

The gift was a button that said to stop the YNN, which is the Athena project that the honourable member has been asking me about recently. I thought, well, I wonder why that is happening. There are lots of issues that we could talk about in a public forum like that, but then I was asked about this later by the media.

It seems Mr. MacIntyre, the outgoing president of the MTS, is thinking of running for the New Democrats in one of the provincial constituencies. Well, that has basically been confirmed. I understand it says so on the website, the NDP website. So then you start to wonder, okay, well, now, he is the outgoing president and he is making a big, fairly big, deal out of this matter. It all starts to come together just a little better.

You know, whatever your individual views are about the Athena project, I guess Mr. MacIntyre wants me, as Minister of Education, just to say to everybody, no, for philosophical reasons we will not allow this to go on. I think that school superintendents, school trustees, teachers, and parents in Manitoba are quite able to look at the proposals coming forward and to make decisions on them. I noticed in Brandon School Division No. 40 they have decided not to go for that. That is their right to do that. The point that is being impressed on me is that I should not allow some other division who may see some benefit in it from proceeding

It occurs to me that one of the arguments being used is that this proposal has, I guess there is some youth news on it, and there are commercials there that are basically commercials that would be directed at a young audience. The allegation is that you have got a captive audience when you have a classroom full of kids and, therefore, this is wrong.

Then I think, well, now, teachers have a captive audience too, and we certainly trust their professionalism but, now, I wonder, if a division makes a decision to go a certain direction that the teacher does not agree with, well, is Mr. MacIntyre suggesting that teachers should use that audience in an inappropriate way? I certainly hope not, because it would not be a very professional thing to do, in my opinion. Anyway, it was an interesting event.

I enjoyed the opportunity to attend and to say good-bye to Mr. MacIntyre and to wish him well in his endeavours and to say hello to Mrs. Speelman and to offer to get together and talk about some of the issues that the MTS has raised with me. There are about seven of them, and I am thinking that one thing we should do is maybe arrange about seven meetings on the different topics that were raised and hash them out with the members of the Manitoba Teachers' Society, something I look forward to doing.

I find that members of that profession are amongst the most positive thinkers that I know of. You would not always know that when you follow the reports in the newspaper but, as a matter of fact, it just does not seem to come through that a teacher, as a member of the Teachers' Society, may indeed have some kind of opinion about this or that, and that is perfectly all right. It does not mean that it is the view of all the teachers out there on any given issue. Nothing is ever unanimous. I understand that, but I certainly see a more positive group of people than you see portrayed in the newspapers when you read about different disagreements going on between the teachers and the government, the Teachers' Society and the government. Mr. MacIntyre even joked about that I was the fellow who showed up and I was actually the one who was invited today, a reference to a recent conference put on by the Teachers' Society at which the Premier (Mr. Filmon) was invited and declined and sent me in his stead and Mr. MacIntyre would not let me speak. He was even able to joke about that this afternoon, which I thought broke whatever tension there might even have existed. I think that it was a positive experience attending the annual meeting today.

There is more to be said about the issues raised by the honourable member respecting information technology and the issue she has raised about the middle years and keyboarding and some of the comments parents have made to her. I have had comments made to me too and I look forward to discussing that maybe the next time we get together.

Mr. Chairperson: The hour being 6 p.m., committee rise.