The Manitoba Legislature Session - Week Two

October 1 to 5, 2007: Week two of the Manitoba Legislature: A week in which NDP ministers try every contortion possible to avoid responsibility

Health Care:

1) The Personal Health Information Amendment Act:
Tuesday this week, Kevin Lamoureux and I introduced Bill 204 at second reading. This bill which has the objective of ensuring that when a person is in a hospital or personal care home in Manitoba, that he or she will have access to their medical record, as it is available on the ward or elsewhere in the hospital or personal care home, within 24 hours. Presently medical records are not required to be available for 30 days. As Mimi Raglan has pointed out, her mother died before the 30 days were up. Thirty days is too long. If patients and family are to participate well and share in care, then they need to have access to the medical record. The intent of this legislation is to move to a situation where patients and their close family members are full participants in care. In today's world this is very important. Where patients do not have good and accurate information, there is increased anxiety (I saw this with a friend of mine in hospital recently), and such anxiety certainly does not contribute to healing. Patients and family members have access to a wide variety of medical information on the internet and elsewhere and they can and should participate in care. I have seen many examples where patients and family members have made a huge difference to improve care because they knew what was happening and could better advocate for themselves or their family member.

In the Legislature, when I asked the Minister of Health for her support for this bill, she declined to give it. She clearly had not read the bill properly. She said that implementing the bill is not reasonable because accessing records going back many, many years is not possible in 24 hours. Bill 204 specifically says that only "immediately available information" - the chart on the ward, for example, must be made available in 24 hours. It is very sad when we have a Minister of Health who has not even properly read such important legislation. Members of the public should appreciate how difficult it is to work in the Legislature with a Minister who has not done her homework properly, and who insists, even when she is corrected, in putting forward misleading and erroneous information.

2) Raising questions about the accountability of Regional Health Authorities:
Two weeks ago, when I was in Pine Falls, I was met with concern from local residents because they perceive the quality of health care provided locally has deteriorated significantly in the last several years. The result is that many more local residents are going to Winnipeg for their health care needs. This is sad for people in Pine Falls. Interestingly, however, the NorthEastMan Regional Health Authority saves money when people go to Winnipeg, because then the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority must pick up the costs of health care. This process is called the offloading of services and costs from one regional health authority.

We do not know exactly how much offloading there is from one regional health authority to another. Certain specialist services will need to be provided in Winnipeg. But all serivces which can reasonable be provided in a community like Pine Falls should be provided and the services should be of high quality so that people want to use the local services because they are of excellent quality. Thus, it is wrong to have a system which has within it incentives (for cost saving reasons for their RHA), to offload services.

The system needs to be changed, and our report on reform of the RHAs would do this, so that Regional Health Authorities have the incentives to provide excellent health care services for local residents, instead of allowing RHAs to save costs by offloading services to other RHAs. To see our report visit
http://www.mlp.manitobaliberals.ca/ or go directly to http://mlp.manitobaliberals.ca/wpcontent/uploads/liberal-rha-external-review-submission.pdf

Lake Winnipeg - Erosion: NDP Ministers do everything possible to avoid accountability:

In estimates on Monday, I asked Oscar Lathlin the Minister of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs about the severe erosion problems along the Winnipeg River at Sagkeeng, near the entry of the Winnipeg River into Lake Winnipeg. These problems are so severe that one night last fall, some 15 meters of bank was eroded. A home which had been in the 1980s so far back from the River that you could stand by the home and not see the river, was destroyed as a result of the erosion. The tangled wreckage of the foundation, half extending over the bank, is all that is left and visible today. This erosion, if it is not halted, threatens a major highway and a school. Action is urgent. Yet when I asked the Minister of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs he said he would not answer my question because "the lead department is the Department of Conservation"

So on Tuesday, I asked Stan Struthers, the Minister of Conservation, he in his turn refused to be responsible. He replied "I dont' want to get involved in the tennis match back and forth between the Ministesr of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs and my colleague from River Heights. I'm not the lead minister."

When I asked the Minsiter of Conservation who was responsible, he replied: "the chief [of Sagkeeng] asked me to bring it to the attention of the minister responsible for Hydro because the chief and council believe it's a Hydro issue. I believe that Water Stewardship plays a role in this sort of portfolio as well."

Well there you have it. NDP ministers avoiding responsibility for serious problems in Manitoba.

The Environment:
Tuesday saw a debate on a resolution calling for all-party support for the Kyoto Accord. While we Liberals and members of the NDP voiced support for the Kyoto Accord, the Conservative MLAs chose to talk the resolution out rather than allowing it to come to a vote.

One of the problems in Manitoba at present is that the NDP have not yet put forward a plan with specific targets to achieve the changes needed for Manitoba to achieve by 2012, a 6% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels. For eight years, Gary Doer's NDP has dithered and delayed in setting specific targets and in putting forth a specific action plan to achieve these targets. The result is that Manitoba, at latest report, is now 11% about 1990 levels of greenhouse gas. Furthermore, from 2004 to 2005 Manitoba's greenhouse gas production rose 20%, a rather large increase, at a time when we should be reducing greenhouse gas production. The failures of Gary Doer's government are large and continuing to the detriment of all Manitobans.

Justice:
Kevin Lamoureux had the opportunity to ask questions of Minister Chomiak with respect to Youth Justice Committees in Manitoba. The Minister had to acknowledge that many Youth Justice Committees in Winnipeg are receiving very few cases and are not being well used to help young people who have got into trouble turn their lives around.

Business Support:
Recently we have seen the failure of a tire recyling company. It has been argued, and I believe with some justification from what I have seen, that the company's failure was related to sub-optimal management of the program for tire recycling in Manitoba. In estimates, I asked Minister Jim Rondeau, who has the responsibility for working with businesses to make sure the environment for business is good in Manitoba, whether he was aware of the problem and what he and his department had done to ensure a good environment for business in Manitoba. He replied that this program was entirely under the Minister of Conservation and that he had nothing to do with it. Once again, an NDP Minister ducks responsibility and does his best to shift it to another Minisiter.