The Manitoba Legislature Session - Week Six

The Health and Well-being of Children

1) Jordan's Principle once again: Several times this week I spoke up for better approaches to improve the health and well-being of children. On Monday, I was asking questions about a grandmother who was being told she would have to have her grandson put into the care of the government's Child and Family Services if she wanted him to go to school. I have heard quite a number of complaints about families being told that if they wanted services they would have to put a child in care. It is time to end this. Services in education, in health and for special needs concerns should be provided to the family without a child having to be put in care. Jordan's principle is that the health of the child should be considered first. Supporting the child at home is part of this.

2) The Healthy Child Manitoba Act: I spoke on Bill 3, The Healthy Child Manitoba Act on Monday, to move three Report Stage Amendments. I was shocked to find that the Gary Doer NDP are only requiring a report on the health of Manitoba children every five years. Almost every other area of government has an annual report. This same week we dealt with The Adult Literacy Act which requires a report every year. Although I spoke forcefully of the need to have an annual report, the NDP refused to change. Awful.
I also introduced an amendment to have the members of the Provincial Healthy Child Advisory Committee appear before a committee of the Legislature to answer questions about the health of children every year. This is highly desireable. Once again, the NDP refused to consider the amendment and it was defeated.
The third amendment I introduced was to have a representative of the Manitoba Institute of Child Health on the Provincial Healthy Child Advisory Committee. Thanks to my intervention in this area, the NDP will invite a person from the Manitoba Institute of Child Health to sit on the committee when it is formed, but they would not go as far as I would like in having a legal requirement for there to be a member of the Manitoba Institute of Child Health of the Healthy Child Advisory Committee.

The Environment:
This week I announced that from henceforth I will be "carbon neutral" with respect to my travel. This means that to the extent that I generate greenhouse gases from my travelling, I will be purchasing carbon credit offsets that will sequester or reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the equivalent extent. All provincial government travel should be treated like this - so we are aware of the greenhouse gases we produce and make adjustments. This is what British Columbia is going to do. Manitoba should do it also.

One of the problems at the moment is that it is difficult to purchase such offsets from Manitoba sources. We need to have a provincial initiative to ensure that such offsets are available from Manitoba sources to stimulate Manitobans to engage in activities which will reduce or sequester greenhouse gases.

Manitoba Hydro and the Line on the East side of Lake Winnipeg or the West side of Lake Winnipegosis and Lake Manitoba

In the Legislature and in an Op-Ed piece for the Winnipeg Free Press, I provided details of our approach to the question of whether Bipole III, the major new transmission line planned should be located on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, or the west side of Lake Winnipegosis and Lake Manitoba. Our view is that the East side option is preferable, but that first Manitoba Hydro needs to be more open about the precise routes proposed and the details of payments for easements and for environmental mitigation. Once Manitoba Hydro has made the full details public, then we should hold a plebiscites for those living in both east and west side corridors, to determine the level of support. For the full details see the Winnipeg Free Press on Friday November 2.