The Committee met at 7:00 p.m., May 15, 1991.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Good evening and welcome back, Mr. Minister and your staff, to what may be a very historic estimates committee meeting, considering some of the deliberations this afternoon that find us all here.

Let me very quickly introduce the Committee to you. To my immediate left the Member for Humber East, Ms. Lynn Verge; and Mr. Arthur Reid, the Member for Carbonear; Mr. Jack Harris, the Member for St. John's East; Mr. Aubrey Gover, the Member for Bonavista South; and Mr. Doug Oldford, the Member for Trinity North. And I want to welcome the young gentleman from the St. John's Evening Telegram. Of course our secretary for this evening is certainly no stranger to any of us, the Clerk of the House of Assembly, Miss Betty Duff.

So Mr. Minister perhaps it is now appropriate for me to ask you if you would be kind enough to introduce your staff again for our friends at Hansard.

MR. DECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Williams is the Deputy Minister; Gerald White, Assistant Deputy Minister; Brian Lemon, Assistant Deputy Minister; Debbie Sue Martin; and John Downton.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Inasmuch as the Minister was here before with his staff for some three hours and odd minutes I do not think there is any need for an opening statement. I am sure the Minister would agree. And I would turn it over to the Deputy Chair, Ms. Verge, for the initial question.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. I would like to begin by asking about mental health services, particularly mental health services for young people, for adolescents and children. Examining the estimates of the Departments of Social Services and Education we heard the Ministers responsible acknowledge that there is a continuing rise in the reports to the Child Welfare authorities of child abuse, sexual abuse and physical abuse. While the Minister expected that the number of reports of child abuse would have levelled off by now, he told us that in fact has not happened, that there continue to be more and more reports of child abuse.

The Minister of Education acknowledged that an appallingly large number of children are going to school hungry. The social assistance caseload in the Province is perhaps at an all-time high. The Minister told us last night that there are 50,000 individuals in the Province on welfare now. All these statistics mean that there is a great number of young people in the Province in need of mental health services.

Now I know the Department of Health has been operating in St. John's two services, the mental health service for children at the Janeway Hospital and the Anderson Centre. I know that when the previous administration established the Anderson Centre it was with the intention of progressing to adding similar mental health services for young people in other regions of the Province. I recall in the winter of 1989 the Department of Health came to Treasury Board saying that its priority for expansion for the 1989-1990 budget year was establishing a young people's mental health service modelled on the Anderson Centre, which had proven to be successful in St. John's, in central Newfoundland where there were virtually no mental health services for young people and where to this day there are virtually no services. It was the Department's plan or vision to proceed in later years to set up a mental health service for young people in western Newfoundland and a similar service in Labrador.

Over the past two years nothing has improved. In fact the services in St. John's have lost staff and I understand the Anderson Centre now has a waiting list of over 150. The Department of Social Services, trying to meet the need for counselling, psychological and psychiatric services, or mental health services for young people, instead of going to the Department of Health and cooperatively ensuring that the Department of Health staff are boosted to meet the need, have instead followed a different course. The Department of Social Services has now called for proposals from psychologists and psychiatrists, evidently intending to contract out on an ad hoc, piecemeal basis.

I would like the Minister to address this general subject of the unmet needs across the Province for mental health services on the part of young people; to address the staff shortage at the Anderson Centre and at the Janeway in St. John's; to talk about the appallingly long waiting list; to talk about the absence of services in other regions of the Province; and to comment on the discrepancy between the delivery of service by the Department of Health, and the Department of Social Services call for private ad hoc services.

MR. REID: Mr. Chairman, a point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Reid.

MR. REID: Will you tell me where this question, related to information in the estimates, is in the estimates?

MS. VERGE: 2.3.01, Mental Health services.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I wonder if the Vice-Chair would be kind enough, when a point of order is raised, to give the Chair an opportunity to respond.

MS. VERGE: I am sorry.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I appreciate the assistance of course, and I suppose God only knows sometimes I need it. But I would want to hear the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Carbonear. And I think I know what the Member is talking about. May I just take a moment to say in all fairness that the Chair would ask the Committee members tonight to probably be - not probably, but to be, so the Chair does not have to make rulings that it does not want to make - a little more direct, a little more precise, and a little less....

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: You mean no speeches?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. I would want to thank the Member for St. John's East. I was trying to be a little kind. Yes, exactly that. I do not need speeches, the Minister does not need any speeches, the Committee does not need speeches. What we need are direct questions and hopefully direct answers. And I would suggest that -

MR. HARRIS: I would hope we will not be hearing speeches from the Minister either, will we?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I would hope not. I would ask the Minister to give the same consideration. But I have listened to the Member for Humber East now for approximately five minutes -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well. The Chair has been talking -

AN HON. MEMBER: And what's the question?

MR. CHAIRMAN: - for maybe - and I am trying to come back to your point of order, Mr. Reid. It is a very good point of order, and I would ask hon. Members to consider exactly what we - we know what we were prolonged with this afternoon, and the amount of dialogue in debate that kept us here until 6:30 p.m. this evening and it is not again the Chair's intention to cut anybody off, but we would do ourselves a lot better, all Committee Members, if we would ask direct, concise, unpolitical questions and I am sure the Minister would respond in the same light.

Having said that, Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am not qualified to comment on what Social Services is supposed to have done - I can only take the hon. Member's word for it. I cannot say whether it is accurate or not so I do not want to comment on what Social Services are doing. I am going to ask Debbie Sue Martin to give an outline of just what we are doing with the mental health programme in the Province. There seems to be a little bit of a misunderstanding as if the whole thing is at a standstill, which is not quite accurate.

The Anderson Centre has not yet been up to full par since it has been put there and we have been aware of that and are trying to deal with it. We are in the process now of putting the Anderson Centre under the Janeway Board and we are hoping that rather than having a free standing structure we might be able to have more success with recruiting.

But Debbie Sue if you would be kind enough to explain to the hon. Members just what our mental programme is throughout the Province.

MS. MARTIN: I could probably start off with the Anderson Centre that is here in St. John's. The Centre has been open now since 1988 and we have yet to have the full complement of staff working at the Centre. The major reason for that has not been the lack of effort at trying to recruit but it has been very difficult to recruit the people who have the specialty training and the specialty experience that is needed to deal with the mental health problems of children and adolescence. We have done a number of recruitment efforts; we have advertised publicly; we have done advertising outside the Province as well and it has just been quite difficult to recruit into the positions. We currently are accepting referrals, we do have a waiting list at the Anderson Centre, but we have seen approximately 1,000 people since the Centre opened. There are three programmes there: the preschool, school age and adolescence age children and each one of those are specialized programmes. We thought there was a lot of benefit to having this programme closely aligned with the programmes that are offered through the Janeway while still maintaining its autonomy and its community base service. In recent years it has been quite evident that children do not do well by spending three weeks in hospital. What they need is an ongoing support and involvement from families and things like that. So, we are moving along with that and as soon as that transfer is completed we are hoping to fill those positions with another major recruitment effort.

The other efforts that we have been making, because we do recognize the limited number of people who are available with specialized training, we have had discussions with Memorial University to look at providing a programme here in the Province that would equip people to work in specialty programmes and particularly with children's mental health. There are not many programmes even across Canada that are directed specifically towards children's mental health. As you mentioned, we have had a change in the staffing. I think we are probably one less that we would have had last year but we still have six people working there. There has also been an increase in one of the other services that we have operating in St. John's, the St. John's Adolescence Health Counselling Service, which is on LeMarchant Road, and there has been an increase of one additional staff member to that service over the last year.

I do not know what other specific kinds of things we - I guess in terms of the other thing, that is the St. John's area, we have over the past year, I guess we have eight other hospitals that are providing some mental health services.

Some of these are ones that were already in existence but there are some new programmes; there is not specialized children's services associated with this, but each one of the programmes has identified, as you mentioned, I think anyone who is aware of anything happening lately knows there is a lot of increase with the demands for victims of sexual abuse and things like that.

Carbonear has been given funding to have a full-time mental health worker and that person I think, if he has not started already is fairly close to starting. Stephenville, in this last year has two people, a psychologist and a social worker and the Stephenville area has identified children's mental health as one of its main priorities and they will be directing some portion of that programme to children's services.

Port aux Basques has one full-time psychologist, and again, it is not a dedicated children's service. If you look at the statistics on the referrals that are there, you will find that about 60 per cent of the people seen are children or young adult and we define adolescence up to the twenty-first birthday, we do not cut off at sixteen, that sort of thing.

Labrador City has four workers in their mental health service and there is one, who is a new person and over the last year was the fourth but prior to that, there was one person who was basically working full time with children and they have a lot of demands there.

The other place that has instituted some mental health service over the last, I guess eighteen months, has been Clarenville, and they have a full multi-disciplinary team there comprising a psychiatrist, a social worker, a psychologist and a psychiatric nurse. A lot of the work they are doing, not alone doing some tertiary kinds of treatment, they are trying to work in the schools, working at the promotion of good mental health, that kind of thing as well, but a lot of their work there is with children and families. You do have the usual problems of distances and things but, that is a first for Clarenville to have that full team in place out there.

Out in the Burin Peninsula, the Burin Peninsula Hospital has two people working in mental health; they have a psychiatrist and a social worker and the other two places are in St. Anthony at Curtis Memorial. Now they have two psychiatric nurses, they do not have other disciplines represented on their service right now and the last place that offers some - none of these places, I should have said at the beginning offer in-patient treatment, this is all an out-patient outreach community based service as much as you can, when it is based in a hospital kind of thing.

The last place would be Melville Hospital; Melville Hospital has one social worker and one nurse who work in the mental health service.

MS. VERGE: What about Corner Brook? We always had a child psychologist, Dan Ashborne there a few months ago and I do not think he is going to be replaced.

MS. MARTIN: Yes. I said the ones whom I have just listed there are the ones who do not have in-patient services for mental health, but, I could run through, like Corner Brook does have an in-patient unit for mental health and they also use their Paediatric unit for some admissions for children who do require admission and as you mentioned the CAG service there just recently lost its director and-

MS. VERGE: And last year it lost its teacher when the Department of Education eliminated that position, so it is down to two positions now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I have great difficulty with the Member asking questions to which she knows the answer.

If Ms. Martin would continue, I am sure the Chair and the other Members of the Committee would be very pleased.

MS. MARTIN: I would mention as well that there is a children's service at Corner Brook, there also is a mental health service at Gander and Grand Falls, which again, is not dedicated to children's services but does not exclude children from services.

There is a recognition of the need for working between paediatricians and psychiatrists, the kind of problems that children have in mental health are not only the purview of paediatricians, they would also be the purview of psychiatrist. There needs to be a concerted effort or a co-ordinated effort involving paediatricians, schools, social services sometimes and over the last year there has been trying to be a recognition of that and people trying to work at the problem, not as an individual, in something that can be solved in two or three weeks or two weeks, but that it is an ongoing problem that will require a lot of support from a number of areas, not only the hospital sector. That is probably about it in terms of children's, because outside St. John's there is nothing more specific (inaudible).

MS. VERGE: Would you comment on the (inaudible) waiting list?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Martin. No, no, there is no need of a point of order. I just want to remind the hon. Member for Humber East that there are five committee representatives. I would suggest to the hon. Members there has certainly been a fair amount of time and I want to thank Ms. Martin for her very detailed and comprehensive report.

Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Thomas Anderson Centre has been questioned by the Member for Humber East, could the Minister say how many positions are currently involved with the Thomas Centre, how many positions have been approved and, there is some talk of recruitment problems, but how many positions have in fact been approved and if the Minister could find the people to fill them how many would it be able to have under current budgetary allotments?

MR. DECKER: The current budgetary allocations have nothing to do with it; we do not have a full complement, I do not know if it is twelve or fourteen we are supposed to have, but we if we can recruit we can fund, so do not confuse budgetaries with the bodies, we just cannot get the qualified people. But what is the number (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: But what is the right terminology, are we talking about approved positions or - just tell me because I do not know, I am going to be naive now, I will not ask for budgetarial allotments; how many positions would you fill if you had the people to fill them?

DR. WILLIAMS: There are ten approved positions and there are four vacant.

MR. HARRIS: So approved positions is the correct terminology?

DR. WILLIAMS: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: And you have four vacancies and the last time there was a recruitment plan?

MS. MARTIN: Okay. We have not done a formal recruitment since last spring; I guess it would have been around May and June of last year, and since October of last year we have been negotiating the transfer with the Janeway and we have not done any recruitment during that time.

MR. HARRIS: So the transfer at the Janeway, the unit is going to move into the Janeway, is that it or, what do you mean by transfer?

MS. MARTIN: No. The unit will maintain its autonomy, but it will come under the administrative structure of the Board of the Janeway in a similar way that there are other health programmes, a perinatal programme that operate under the direction of the Board of the Janeway.

MR. HARRIS: Is it the intention, and I am just looking at the brochure that is produced by the Department of Health, is it intended that that be a provincial referral centre or is it still just to serve the St. John's or Avalon area?

MS. MARTIN: It is not intended that it be a provincial centre. The intention was that other similar types of centres would be set up throughout the Province in the Central, Western, and Labrador region.

MR. HARRIS: Is the planning time-lined for those other centres?

MS. MARTIN: We have -

MR. DECKER: We would like to get one centre up and working and fully staffed so that we can have a true model but after that is done we will then decide, depending of course on the budget of the Province when we will go to other parts of the Province. But we really do not have an accurate picture yet until we get it up and working. After it is up and working we plan to move out.

MR. HARRIS: So, this idea of having them across the Province is part of the overall long-term ultimate policy, but we will see. It is part of the dream, is it? There is no definite decision to do that is there?

MR. DECKER: No, Mr. Chairman, dreams are things the NDP have and they are really good dreamers. It is part of our plan in due course once we get one up and going we will make it a reality. It is not just a dream.

MR. HARRIS: The Minister must be really delighted to have these paid monkeys to laugh on cue. I am really pleased.

MR. GOVER: A point of order, Mr. Chairman, I believe that the Speaker has already ruled that a Member cannot refer to another Member as an animal. I would ask the hon. Member for St. John's East to withdraw that unparliamentary remark.

MR. HARRIS: I do not think that was unparliamentary. I think the thing that was unparliamentary was trained monkey, I said paid monkey and that is a very different thing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Trained, paid or whatever I think the reference in this House was that under no circumstances were any hon. Members to refer to other hon. Members in a derogatory sense using an animal connotation I guess. I would ask that the hon. Member for St. John's East withdraw that statement.

MR. HARRIS: The reflection on the animals which I made I will take back. I would not want -

MR. CHAIRMAN: I ask the hon. Member without reservation to withdraw the statement.

MR. HARRIS: I do withdraw that statement without reservation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MR. HARRIS: However, I do find that the people on this side are rather easily amused.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, we are especially when you are (inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: I thank the hon. Member for having the courage to withdraw.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: No, paid not trained. You may not be trained.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

There is no need of any further debate, I would want the hon. Member to continue with his questioning. Up until now I would have liked to compliment the hon. Member on his line of questioning but I am not so sure now; anyway, continue.

MR. HARRIS: If members did not invite those comments they would not be made.

MR. GOVER: (Inaudible) asked to be called a paid monkey, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The point of order has been addressed and the hon. Member -

MR. GOVER: There would be no need of a point of order if the hon. Member would stop the unparliamentary language.

MR. HARRIS: I would prefer, Mr. Chairman to question the Minister and the officials on the important matters that we are here for.

MR. GOVER: Well, get on with it.

MR. HARRIS: You will have to remember this was all started by the partisan comments of the Minister, Mr. Chairman, and I think that has to be noted.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is true.

MR. DECKER: I apologize, Mr. Chairman, (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: So, we have for the immediate future, for the next fiscal year and beyond perhaps a single centre in St. John's.

The Minister is talking about a model that needs to be tested and up and running before it works. Is there some special methodology being used here that is different, some new counselling procedure that needs to be tested, or are we really just talking about different modes of delivery of service, whether you do it with a team or whether you do it with individuals? Is this something that really needs to be tested?

MS. MARTIN: The model is an alternative service delivery model. Traditionally mental health services for children were offered through a hospital setting through an in-patient program that is usually headed by a physician or a psychiatrist. As I mentioned earlier, that in the past has been seen to be not as effective, with children in particular, but probably not as effective with adults either. This is a different model in that it has no in-patient program associated with it. There are plans, and there is approval for a day treatment program which would be a partial hospitalization in which children would attend during the day but would remain with parents and families, you do not have the disruption that you would have by taking a kid away from their family. There is also some benefit in having a number of disciplines, mainly psychiatrists, social workers, psychiatric or mental health nurses, and sociologists, as well as educators all available and being able to deal with the children's problems. It is a different model in that, particularly in Newfoundland, we have never had anything that has not been, I guess, on a medical model. This is an alternative model.

MR. HARRIS: Is it not the case that as much as two years ago the Department had satisfied itself that the model being adopted was a good model?

MS. MARTIN: I think the model was accepted as being the best model that was available. We have not been able to confirm that because we have not had the opportunity to have a full complement of staff there to make sure that the model is going to work the way we want it to.

MR. HARRIS: Was there not priority recommendations for those other centres made a couple of years ago, or are we now taking back that recommendation and waiting and seeing? That is what I am concerned about. What the Minister seems to be saying is that we are now waiting another little while to see whether or not we like it, but I understand this was already accepted as a good model and that it was recommended to have centres in Gander and other places.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, the hon. Member some day might serve in some Government and he will learn that no Minister has the authority to pre-commit next year's Budget, or the Budget after, that sort of thing. We do have long-term plans but there is a process we have to go through, and I would certainly hope that in that process there will be a place for duplication of the Anderson Centre. Some day you might learn that I cannot pre-spend on next year's Budget. That is a process I have to go through.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to acknowledge the Member for Carbonear.

AN HON. MEMBER: Could the Chair indicate what (Inaudible) there have been so far?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to think that we should not exceed ten minute increments. I did not want to interrupt Ms Martin when she was answering the questions put forward by the Member for St. John's East, but I think your line of questioning, Mr. Harris, is excellent, it is back and forth, and it is direct. The Member for Humber East asked in five minutes, probably about nine questions that I could remember, so if that is the way she wants to do it, to extend the answer up to sixteen minutes, and you were just over ten minutes, I would like to move to do it in ten minute increments.

MR. HARRIS: May I deal with that point of order? We have been through this before and if I have been asking questions back and forth and it is ten minutes from the beginning of the time that I speak to the end of the last question, that is a ten minute increment.

Now if the Member for Humber East wants to spend six or seven minutes or eight or ten minutes speaking and then there are another ten or twenty minutes coming back, that is a total allocation of about twenty minutes, and I just do not think it is a reasonable allocation of time if the time allocations spent are measured in that way. To be fair, if that were the procedure, if I could ask fifteen questions in ten minutes and have them interspersed by answers then that would be fair to me, and I just wonder whether the Chair would be a little more flexible in dealing with that because you do not manage to get very much done, if you allow in your ten minutes the Minister and the officials to answer the questions.

I mean we can stay I suppose all night until the other fellows decides to shut her down, but I would like to get some questions in at least before that happens.

MS. VERGE: To that point of order, I have to support the Member for St. John's East. I think each of us should have roughly the same amount of time. I have a different style of speaking and questioning than does the Member for St. John's East, but I think he should have just as much time as I had and I think he is asking a good set of questions and I think we should allow him to finish his exploration of this subject before cutting him off.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, well to that point of order, I would want to remind both the Member for Humber East and St. John's East, that the Chair has been totally honest and candid. I think I have been more than lenient, I have given both the Member for Humber East and St. John's East more time collectively, night after night than I have given the other hon. Members on this Committee.

There is no point of order. The Chair will decide as to who asks questions and when. I am now recognizing Mr. Reid, the Member for Carbonear.

MR. HARRIS: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I do not sit here and ask questions at the favour of the Chair. I sit here as a Member of the Committee, as a Member of this House, elected, with the right to ask questions and question the Minister on the Estimates, regardless of the Chair's view of how fair he has been, and I am not suggesting that he has been unfair. We have spent an awful lot of time arguing about how fair you are or are not, which has wasted an awful lot of time. There are a lot of important questions to ask and I do not think we need to wrangle about all of that as long as we are prepared to stay here and ask the questions.

You know if you want to do it in ten minute increments that suits me fine, as long as I get an opportunity to ask these questions and keep on going. We spent three hours down at the Colonial Building and I think I might have had fifteen minutes out of it, that is not sufficient as far as I am concerned.

This is a Department that spends $800 million or $900 million on a very important aspect of our political and social system -

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has no intention of debating with the hon. Member for St. John's East. There is no point of order as far as the Chair is concerned.

The hon. the Member for Carbonear.

MR. REID: I have no problem, Mr. Chairman, in yielding to this socialist parasite, paid or unpaid, if you wish to do that, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS. VERGE: On a point of order, Chairperson.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will ask the Member for Carbonear to withdraw that statement.

MR. REID: Oh, I withdraw, Mr. Chairman. I forgot you ruled on that; I did not realize a parasite was an animal. The question is to the Minister: Mr. Minister, you must be really disappointed tonight, that after what we went through this afternoon in this House, that one Member of the Official Opposition, and, not being even the Health critic, you must be disappointed that the Health critic from the Opposition side tonight has not showed up and I know you must feel disappointed because there would have been lots of good questions.

The question I have for you, Mr. Minister is a more serious one. In the Province in recent years under Workers' Compensation, it is becoming a serious problem in my area in particular, and it must be true everywhere in the Province where hospitals are paying out tremendous amounts of money to cover workers' compensation. Can you give me any idea of what we have to pay out in workers' compensation every year. That is automatically taken out of the budgets of these hospitals and nursing homes is it not?

MR. DECKER: Yes, Mr. Chairman, before getting to the question, your preface about the disappointment that the Health critic is not here, I am indeed disappointed and I would like for the record to show that we have already spent three hours, which means that I had to bring back officials from the department. Last night we sat three hours and waited to be called to this Committee, and tonight we went through an hour and a half of wrangling in the House and I was expecting to see the Opposition Health critic as well as a half dozen members from the Official Opposition here tonight to ask questions.

MS. VERGE: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. It is unparliamentary to refer to the absence of any Member of the House. And it is ironic that just a few minutes ago the Minister of Health and the Chairperson complained about my asking so many questions. Now they are expressing disappointment that they are not getting enough questions. So the next time I have a turn I assure the Minister that I will pack in even more questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I want to remind the Minister -

MR. DECKER: To that point of order, Mr. Chairman. As I was saying, Mr. Chairman, I am surprised that the hon. Member would have the face to even address such a point of order. The fact of the matter is that her party today had this House in a total uproar, and she is forcing the Department to bring back officials who had -

MS. VERGE: On a point of order, Mr. Chairperson.

MR. DECKER: I am on a point of order, so ask that hon. Member to shut up, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, order!

MR. DECKER: I am on a point of order. So if she won't shut up (inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: I am extremely disappointed -

MS. VERGE: On a point of order.

MR. DECKER: - that this hon. Member did not have the courtesy -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order!

MS. VERGE: The Speaker ruled in favour of the Opposition this afternoon after the Government House Leader tried to pull a fast one on us.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! First of all, I would remind the hon. Minister that it is unparliamentary to talk about the absence of any Member in the House. I am not sure and would want to take some advice from the Table as to whether or not that also applies to a Committee of the House, I would suggest that it does. So I would ask the hon. Minister if he would be kind enough to withdraw his statement about the absence of the hon. the House critic.

MR. DECKER: I will withdraw that, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: And I withdraw stating that the Health critic was not here.

Mr. Chairman, the price of the workers' compensation, I think, is somewhere in the vicinity of $18 million for the whole Province. The recent increases in workers' compensation cost somewhere between $9 million and $10 million, just for the increase. So you are absolutely right. It is a tremendous amount of money which is being paid out.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just as a point, the question from the Member for Carbonear and the response from the Minister took three minutes and thirty seconds.

Mr. Gover.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Chairperson, why would he not? He is a Liberal Member who is trying to make the Minister look good.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to remind the hon. Member for Humber East that each Member of this Committee is entitled to their fair share of time. I am sure that the Committee would agree to that.

MR. HARRIS: Did you count all the political bantering and bull in all of that three minutes and thirty seconds?

MR. REID: You took up a lot of the time -

MR. HARRIS: Was that all counted in the Minister's spurious remarks about other Members, and things like that, was that all counted in the three minutes and thirty seconds?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, it was.

MR. HARRIS: Okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, just before we proceed, I must say -

MR. HARRIS: Do not say it please.

MS. VERGE: Resist the temptation.

MR. GOVER: - it is unparliamentary to impute motives to any particular Member of the House. And the Member for Humber East imputed a motive that the Government Members on this Committee are only here to make the Minister look good. Now I can state quite categorically that I am not here to make the Minister look good, nor am I here to make the Minister look bad. I am here to get some answers to some questions, none of which have been given to me by the Minister or his staff or the Premier or any Member of the Cabinet. I am here to ask questions that I consider relevant to my particular district and the health care in the Province. So, you know, I resent the fact that motives are being imputed to me here tonight. I am just a private Member of the House of Assembly. I am not bound by Cabinet solidarity. I do not even necessarily have to endorse the course of action taken by the Government so I resent the implication made by the Member for Humber East with respect to making the Minister look good, look bad, look indifferent. We do not care how he looks. That is up to the Minister, not up to me.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. GOVER: And -

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to make a quick comment. I totally agree with the hon. Member. I would ask the Vice-Chairperson for the sake of expediency to get the deed done. These kind of comments from all hon. Committee Members are unnecessary and should be contained so that we can get on about our business.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to go back and ask the Minister a question that I believe I asked him, maybe not at last year's Estimates, but maybe the Estimates before that. As the Minister is aware there is a tremendous problem in rural Newfoundland with recruitment and retention of physicians. And when I last asked the question, the Minister had some plans as to how the department could improve the recruitment and the retention of physicians in rural Newfoundland. And I just wonder since that, I cannot remember if it was last year or the year before, what plans has his Department put in place to encourage physicians to practice in rural Newfoundland and have the plans that he has put in place met with any degree of success?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: Now that is what I call a sensible, well thought out question.

MR. HARRIS: Obviously, he is a Liberal.

MR. DECKER: It is obvious that the Member has the concern of the health care of this Province well in hand, and I compliment him on that. Mr. Chairman -

MR. GOVER: Just before the Minister comments, I would like to say to the Member for St. John's East that I do have a hospital in my district and we have tremendous problems recruiting physicians for that particular hospital. Now if he would like to say to the residents of the Bonavista Peninsula that they should not be concerned about the answer to this question, I would like him to say it on the record.

MR. HARRIS: I will say something on the record. I will say that if the Minister of Health wants to answer your very important question about the people from Bonavista well he should answer it and not make partisan, bull comments.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman. In Bonavista, as the hon. Member just pointed out, not only is there a problem with recruiting doctors but there is a problem of retaining doctors. Retention in the Province is also a major problem which we have. The problem is going to get worse because now the residency rate for the intern has been changed and now they have to intern for two years where it used to be one. Traditionally we could always at least depend on foreign doctors coming in. It is getting more and more difficult to get foreign doctors through immigration now, and as I say the two year internship is going to be a problem.

Over the past year I have been working very closely with the medical school at Memorial University, and the phrase we use is `growing our own.' We are trying to put in place a system whereby we grow our own physicians. The University is graduating about fifty doctors a year, forty of which are usually Newfoundlanders. Many of them are setting up practice on the Avalon Peninsula where we have too many general practitioners. That makes the problem even worse, especially when we are in a capping situation which we are now. We only have x number of dollars which must be shared out among everybody.

But I am not in a position to say precisely what our plan is because it has not been totally approved by Government and it has not been totally approved by the University. But I could tell the hon. Member that we are getting very close to coming with a programme which will hopefully address the problem in getting doctors for rural Newfoundland. It is a very serious problem and for anyone who represents a rural district of this Province it is one of the major problems we have in the health care system and we are working to address it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: Yes. Just to follow up along that line of questioning. Bonavista Hospital like many rural hospitals is concerned with a primary level of care which only requires a GP. I should not say "only" but requires a GP as opposed to a specialist. And there is certainly a high level of turnover at least in my area with respect to these particular physicians. But the Bonavista peninsula is also served by a regional hospital. My friend here represents the district of Trinity North, the G B Cross Memorial Hospital in Clarenville.

And according to the Minister's three-tiered structure for health care, specialist services are supposed to be available at the regional hospital, such as the regional hospital in Clarenville. And I just wonder - I am not so familiar with the hospital in Clarenville as I am with my own hospital - is retention and recruitment of specialists for the regional hospitals a significant problem, or a problem to the extent that retention and recruitment for GPs in the smaller rural hospitals is?

MR. DECKER: Yes, it is a similar problem. We have a similar problem. But now I am going to ask Dr. Williams to explain just what we are doing with our specialists because we have not been doing too bad in the last year and a half. Some of the hospitals are giving bursaries to people to go outside and train for certain specialties so we have been bringing them back. So I am going to ask Dr. Williams if he would be kind enough to explain what we are doing about the specialists. But a similar problem exists (Inaudible).

DR. WILLIAMS: Thanks very much, I am Bob Williams.

Back in 1980, the Department of Health with the corporation of the Newfoundland Medical Association and the Medical School, set up a programme of bursaries in essence for physicians who were undergoing specialty training.

This bursary was set up in the form of an interest free loan, which the resident who was in training in a specialty area would get in his or her final two years of residency training, in return for a return service commitment to the Province.

This programme has been up and running for approximately those eight to nine years and it is under the direction of a tripartite committee representatives from the Department and the medical school and the Medical Association; I can get you the detailed breakdown of the number of physicians who have been approved for those bursaries, where the physicians have practised in the Province and the current retention rate, but the results of that programme are fairly significant and in fact, over the past ten years there has been a significant increase in the medical and human resources available in the Province.

I think in Clarenville for instance, if you are talking about Clarenville, there is one of the specialist there who is from the Province who was a recipient of one of those bursaries, and Clarenville is one district which comes to my mind there maybe more, but I am just trying to think that these physicians who are specialists are scattered throughout the Province, some at the Regional Hospitals, so there has been I guess, a greater success rate over the years in recruiting specialists for our district and rural hospital networks, but it is an ongoing problem.

It is a problem basically that is similar all across Canada. If you look at provinces like Manitoba and Saskatchewan which are very rural, they have similar problems with distribution of physicians in the Province, both GPs and specialists, and there has been a variety of attacks on the problem, but the programme that was put in place ten years ago has worked and I can get you the specifics and the number of physicians who have gone through and where they are practising and in what they have specialized.

But I have some figures, if people want to hear them, they are just figures that our medical manpower division has prepared for the Department as we are monitoring it on a regular basis; we have our own medical manpower data bank, but perhaps the best data bank for medical physicians in the Province is operated by the Medical Association, because they have a compulsory membership and so all physicians who practice in the Province must be members of the Medical Association.

Back in 1983, there were 695 physicians in the Province according to the information we had, and currently, the last data we have, we have not updated it for this year; January 31, 1990, I need to get the 1991 figures but there were 867 physicians in the Province from 1983 to 1990.

We are trying to look at about a 50/50 balance between specialists and general practitioners, that would be a reasonable rate. Although one can say that it is a difficult problem with getting physicians for rural parts of the Province and rural parts of North America in general, a study done some years ago in the Canadian Medical Journal, published by the Canadian Medical Association indicated that we, in this Province, had done fairly well compared to other provinces.

It is a constant struggle. We have depended on physicians who are what we call foreign trained physicians, physicians from Ireland, England, India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand have been the prime stock, and many of the physicians who are now in practice in the Province, have come over from other countries and have given valuable service in the Province. Some of them still remain in rural Newfoundland, others have gone away and done specialty work and have come back and are (Inaudible) staff in the Province.

With changing, I guess, licensure status because of a two year internship that apparently we are heading for in Canada for medical school graduates, that may have some implications for foreign medical graduates who wish to come to Canada and wish to come to Newfoundland with respect to their long term licensure. Right now they have to meet the requirements of the Newfoundland Medical Board. And because requirements from country to country are different, especially with respect to internship - and for instance in Canada you have to do a rotating internship with a number of months psychiatry, a number of months paediatrics and obstetrics and some of the other disciplines - in some of these other countries they might do just six months in medicine or six months surgery, and different mixtures. So we have to do some upgrading.

With the two year programme it may have some implications for our ability to recruit physicians from other countries. So we are having to in Canada take a close look. And as the Minister said we have had a lot of ongoing dialogue over the past year with the medical school. There was a rural health (Inaudible), I think, Minister, about a year ago which you spoke at and there was some good information flowing from that. Just yesterday we had a meeting with the representative of the medical students' society at the medical school, and we are now looking at how we might address, on the long term basis, the problems of physician recruitment and retention in cooperation with the medical school, with graduates from Memorial University.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Dr. Williams.

MR. GOVER: Just for clarification. The 695 and the 867, is that GPs and specialists, total physicians?

DR. WILLIAMS: Yes.

MR. GOVER: Okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. I notice that the Department of Health has a Policy and Planning division or branch. It is provided for in the estimates on page 198 under head 1.3.01. I would like the Minister to tell the Committee what issues or ideas the Policy and Planning branch of the Department are now examining. What are the priority areas for reform or significant change of health care that this part of the Department is examining? And related to that, what does the Minister see as the major health problems in our province, the major causes of disease and preventable death?

And related to that again, the Department of Health has a relatively small and insignificant effort which I think unfortunately in the estimates on page 203 is labelled Health Prevention and Promotion. It seems to me Government uses the word "health" to mean "illness." At any rate, under Health Prevention and Promotion there are listed education, promotion and nutrition, on which the Minister is proposing to spend $600,000 out of over $800 million estimated to be spent by his entire Department. I am wondering if there is a hope for preventing illness? Hopefully not preventing health, all hinges on a paltry allotment of $600,000 out of an $800 million budget?

MR. DECKER: Yes, I am not going to say that one disease is worse than another disease. I would not want to get into that. The question about -

MS. VERGE: But perhaps the Minister could comment on -

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, can I have protection, I am being abused?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I would ask the hon. Member to at least give the Minister a sentence and a half or two sentences.

MR. DECKER: At least a sentence and a half.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Chairperson, I was trying to be helpful -

MR. DECKER: (Inaudible), she is being a pest.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me now. There is great difficulty in expecting when you pose a question in a certain form for the Minister not to respond in the same form. So I would ask you to give the Minister a chance without interference, please. Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, I am not going to dare to suggest which diseases are major or worse or better than other diseases. When a person has a particular disease, whatever that is, it is a serious business, so I do not think that is in the realm of my expertise to discuss on -

MS. VERGE: On a point of order, Mr. Chairperson. I asked the Minister a very important, but straightforward question: What does the Minister see as the major health problems in this Province?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well the Chair heard the word `disease', I was as startled as probably the Minister was. So if there is a misinterpretation of the question I will give the Member a chance to clarify the question.

MS. VERGE: Well that is what I was trying to do. I asked the Minister to tell the Committee what he considers to be the major health problems in this Province today? Now I assume the answer to that question would involve some discussion of diseases, prevalence of diseases, the causes of diseases. But quite simply what does the Minister see as the major health problems in the Province?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, this is a difficult question to answer, because she is asking for my opinion. Now the facts are there are certain cardiac diseases which are the major numbers in the Province and all this sort of thing. You know, we can get these statistics. But whether or not I consider a heart attack as being a worse disease than someone who has cancer or this sort of thing, I do not think my opinion is the issue here. But we can provide statistics to show where the demand on the system is increasing and all this sort of thing, we can certainly do that.

The Health Policy and Planning, Mr. White is responsible for that Division. I am going to have him explain to hon. Members just what it is that Division does. And the Health Prevention and Promotion. Now Dr. Hogan was here last night, but he is not here tonight, maybe Dr. Williams would be the best person to ask. Jerry White will take first the Health Policy and Planning, and Dr. Williams will talk about the Health Prevention and Promotion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Dr. Williams.

DR. WILLIAMS: Probably I will attempt to deal with both those issues. The area as referred to in the Estimates under Health Policy and Planning, I will read out some of the key functions in that area. This is sort of a support area to the Department of Health in the Province. It is a resource, I guess, to most branches of the Department of Health. One key area is the Research and Statistics Division. And that Division is set up to provide and maintain reliable and current health statistical data, morbidity data, mortality data, hospital utilization data, demographic and other related socioeconomic data that any division of the Department of Health needs in order to operate.

So it is utilized by the Department of Health in doing planning, it is utilized by our institutions branch in looking at some of the data in utilization in the area of hospitals and nursing homes, this type of thing. It is utilized by health care professionals in delivering and administering planning activities and evaluation of their programmes in the Province and gives an overview of the health status in the Province in general.

One of the key efforts in that division now is directed towards a national thrust in Canada, along with Health and Welfare Canada, Statistics Canada and other provinces of Canada plus a number of non-government organizations throughout the country, in trying to devise a reliable, I guess, system of health data for Canada.

There is a lack of co-ordination on the national level with health information in order to plan programmes at the national level and ultimately for provinces to compare their information, how they are doing in the health care area with other provinces and utilizing those data to plan, as well as the ongoing function of that division which is administered by Cathy Ryan, there is also this national thrust on which Cathy is spending a lot of time. Now it is an important issue for Canada. We really do not have a good system of national health data for the country, so that is one of the key areas that we are talking about in that whole area, as a resource.

The other area is the Health and Human Resource planning area and we talked about that before in the issue of Physician Human Resources Planning. That division establishes policies and programmes with regard to supply, demand, production distribution, utilization, productivity and Government legislation of all health manpower groups in Newfoundland in order to improve health care effectiveness and efficiency.

Some of the key areas that group is dealing with now is the Nursing Human Resources Committee, in looking at nurses human resources, planning for other health care professionals; that division is involved in the medical manpower planning, involved as well in the administration of what we call Training of Health Services personnel.

The Department of Health provides bursary assistance to a wide variety of health care professionals who are in training, so that division administers health bursaries as well and the final area, and this will speed things up a little bit, is a systems designed and development area and that is the basic health information system support to computers and that within the Department, so that is it. That is the Resource and Planning area for the total department.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A quick question.

MS. VERGE: Under the heading Policy, what issues or ideas for significant improvement or reform are the officials of the Department and the Minister examining now; is any one in the Department standing back and trying to look at the woods as opposed to fixing sight on the trees, is anyone examining in a comprehensive way what we are doing here in the western world, Newfoundland, similar to other parts of North America and western Europe and considering significant changes or looking at other options?

You know, given the kind of financial pressure that is on the system now and given the life style related illnesses, given the incidence of poverty, especially among children, given the poor diets, given the bad habits of our people, is anyone thinking about a radical reorientation or even a slight change in focus?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: I think the Member is confusing overall Government policy with a particular division within the Department. I will address part of the question but first I would like for Dr. Williams to just continue on with - do you have something further to say on that?

DR. WILLIAMS: That is a good question because we often ask that ourselves in the Department of Health. When you are operating in the sense of a large department with so many people in the system, 12,000 people, and responsibility for such a large budget, it is difficult sometimes to step back and take a look at the broader picture. But this is not necessarily the only area where we are looking at policy. We do have meetings of our senior executive, we do discuss policy. This is the area where we formulate I guess major policy papers that we discuss with the Minister and issues. We have a number of issues from time to time that are ongoing that we look at with other provinces.

For instance one of the things that has been mentioned before is the issue of new drugs coming on the scene in Canada and new health technologies. Some of these drugs are very expensive. They are for specific illnesses. We have been looking at policies with respect to these type of issues and looking at health legislation issues. Looking at how roles of various health professionals are changing and the need to introduce legislation and this type of thing. So these are the kinds of things that go on there.

One of the areas that we talked about earlier, the whole issue of health in this Province. One of the key areas that arose out of the Newfoundland Health Review that was published in 1986 - and I think we had some discussions here about that before - was the area of the incidence of heart disease in this Province. It seems to be as you move from west to east in the country, and that is similar to the situation in the US as well, as you move from west to east for some reason the incidence of heart disease increases fairly dramatically and we are no exception to that rule. But there have been some major changes in heart disease and incidence rates and deaths from heart disease over the past ten or fifteen years. In fact a 25 per cent decrease.

And one of the major things that arose out of this area in the public health thrust is a thrust with Health and Welfare Canada. We have completed the first phase which is a detailed analysis of our population for risk factors for cardiac disease. And now, based upon the identification - it was a pilot project done with the provinces of PEI, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Health and Welfare Canada - and we took blood samples, interviewed people throughout the Province, a statistical sample, and now we are moving forward. We have a major committee in place from all facets to do some detailed planning and health promotion efforts aimed at decreasing the high incidence of cardiac disease in the province by attacking the risk factors. And based upon the survey that we have come upon there are issues of diet, high blood pressure, and smoking is another issue that we need to tackle.

So that is one area in the area of diseases that we are looking at that is preventable. There are other preventable diseases. We could talk about them all night if one wanted to talk about them, but that is just one example of some of the issues that are ongoing in public health. This part of the public health budget you are looking at is only a component of our public health. It is not the total expenditure on public health. Much of the nutrition counselling, much of the other preventive programmes, do not take place in the consulting services budget you are looking at but it takes place in the health unit, so you have to look at the health units budget as well. Because this is just a planning focus. The actual implementation and the health promotion takes place at the regional health unit level.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, I shall move on now. I think the hon. Member was also referring to the overall Government policy and Government long-term planning for the health care system.

I am pleased to advise that over the past year we have indeed done a major review of the health care system in the Province. In my introductory remarks the first night that we met I spent twenty minutes or so explaining just where we are going. We did have a major review which lasted about six to eight weeks, mind you as I said it was accelerated because of the budgetary situation that we found ourselves in. We have been making a major restructuring of the health care system and a lot of the things which we have done in this year of fiscal restraint was simply what we intended to do over the next five years anyway. I should tell the hon. Member and she will be pleased to know that much of the programmes and much of the advice we are following came from the Royal Commission of 1985-86, which we are following as close as we can because that was indeed professional work, which was not fully implemented for whatever reason.

The hon. Member will realize, of course, that the Social Policy Committee, along with other long-range planning, is responsible for the health policy of Government but I would not confuse that with the Health Policy and Planning Committee which is a division within the Department and which is a more technical committee as Dr. Williams has already explained. But the overall policy is done within the Social Policy Committee and most of their recommendations are made to the Minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am interested in this area of - well it is not exactly planning, well, I guess it is in some sense - research into health care delivery. Health care is a very, very expensive system; most of the money goes to pay salaries of medical professionals. I was very concerned when I learned the last time we met that the Government had taken the $2.5 million it got from the C-22 Federal Funds and put it into general revenues when this money was, at least politically, earmarked for research. Would it not make a great deal of sense, Mr. Minister, to spend money on research in the area of health care delivery? I know the Minister will tell us about - and he is rightfully proud of the ongoing demonstration project in Ferryland with respect to the nurses in primary health care delivery, but I am not talking about these expensive demonstration projects. I am talking about a grant of maybe $10,000 or $20,000 to someone in the health care field at the university in the school of nursing or the school of medicine who might need support to do a research project to prepare a paper for publication, to do a little travel and look at some other facilities and provide the kind of background evidence that might be required to help us develop and promote some alternatives that would be less expensive perhaps, coordinating efforts. I suppose the ideal would be to have health care delivered by the persons who are able to do it for, not necessarily the lease amount of money, but perhaps at lesser cost at that level. Indeed, in modern and progressive thinking about health care, closer to the community where it may in fact be more effective in terms of both delivery of the service, and in areas that would include prevention of the interventionist kind of cost when things go wrong.

Does the Minister have any regrets about taking that money and putting it into the pot and not using it for research and delivery of health care; is the Minister prepared to reconsider that or can he identify in his budget areas where that is being done?

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, I have to agree totally with the hon. Member, he made some excellent points.

When we took that research money and put it into general revenue, it was not an easy decision; it was not something that we did with any amount of glee, as a matter of fact we had planned to use it for research dollars exactly along the lines the hon. Member was talking about, but this year, because of the recession and because of the problems we find ourselves with, that $2 million dollars went into general revenue - it was a judgement call.

We had to decide whether we would go with all these good things that the hon. Member talks about, and no person can doubt the benefit of these things, or laying off another 100 nurses. So this is what it boils down to and we chose the lesser of the two evils, neither of which was desirable, so the lesser we thought was not to lay off the nurses, so it is not something we did or have any regrets, that is not the issue, I mean my personal feelings are not the issue here, but in a normal year, without being faced with these fiscal restraints, we probably would have gone with the research committee and would have done all the fine things the hon. Member mentioned and they certainly are valuable.

MR. HARRIS: I do not want to enter into debate with the Minister, but you know, the Minister always talks about laying off 100 nurses, what is wrong with the poor nurses that they have to be laid off every time the Minister is making decisions. Surely, that is not the key expense point in the health care system. But if we are talking about the long term here, what I was suggesting and I think that the Minister will have to agree is that a research effort in this area could lead to reductions in expenditure in the long term and if the Minister is doing planning and is doing all these other things and studying statistics, then surely he can see his way clear to finding some money for nursing research or health care delivery research.

I am told by people at the School of Nursing, for example, that although they have people in graduate level programmes, they have almost no money to engage in research, that they do not have much access to it from the National Health Research Council, because it is controlled by another medical profession, the doctors. They do not have any money for that or they have very little for it; they do not get their share, they feel, of this type of money and you know, they may have alternatives or be able to come up with alternatives that will be helpful. So I just feel that the Minister perhaps is, by saying that we lay off 100 nurses every time we talk about $1 million or $2 million, that is being a little unfair and if the Minister is serious about looking at health care alternatives and delivery, perhaps the Minister could find in his budget somewhere, a fund that could be made available for this type of research to academics at Memorial University, whether they are in the field of mental health or nursing or in the medical school itself, but particularly in the area of the delivery of health care systems.

Is the Minister prepared to consider something like that?

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, I can only repeat the first answer as I said earlier, I could say 200 maintenance care workers, I could say take some ambulances out of service. The thing is, I am in the position to have to make that judgement call and in my judgement, as good and valuable as this programme was, we could not have everything, we had to make some judgment calls, and that is the one I made. The economic program whereby, perhaps you might find the money somewhere, we cannot very well apply that particular philosophy to the way we run government, Mr. Chairman, because a dollar spent is a dollar either taxed or borrowed, it has to come from somewhere. So perhaps we will find somewhere, is not quite the economic philosophy that we operate under. We like to have the million dollars before we allocate it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Along the same lines, Mr. Minister, we spent a fair degree of money on the Memorial University Faculty of Medicine. I see an allocation of -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps you would quote the subhead number, Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, I am looking at subhead number 3.1.01 - Memorial University Faculty of Medicine, $17.6 million, overall vote. I recall when the medical school was being set up and Lord Taylor was here, brought over by the then Premier to set it up, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on this notion, I think it was called community medicine. And this medical school was going to be the forefront of - it was called community medicine in those days - and I wonder if the Minister can tell us what has been the results of all this money over the last twenty years in the medical school in the area of what is called community medicine. I know that they have developed a speciality in family practice at Memorial which is certainly of assistance in that area, but my own sense is that the bloom is off the rose on that and we have not really seen any development of an ocean of community medicine that we can see in our Province where the Minister is still trying to find a solution to having medical professionals come to rural areas, we are still experimenting with models, as Debbie Sue Martin has pointed out. We are still trying to figure out a certain basic thing. We certainly have not spent $18 million a year for the last - but we have spent a lot of money for the last twenty years on this medical school. And I would be interested in the Minister's comments on this whole notion of community medicine at Memorial and what happened to it.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, I am going to ask Dr. Williams to go over the Community Medicine Program. I do not share the same opinion. Before doing that I would like to comment on the University Medical School which is costing #18 million a year now. When the medical school was set up there was a shortage of doctors per se in this Province, and the shortage was as much on LeMarchant Road as it was in Nain. Now the University has done tremendous work over the past number of years to the extent that we now have an oversupply of GPs, especially in St. John's. We have sufficient GPs in Gander, Clarenville, in all the major parts of the Province. So the University addressed the need over the past number of years which met our needs right there, as a matter of fact they have gone too far in that we have too many GPs in the immediate St. John's area.

I have been working very closely with the University over the past year and a half and we are trying to address the problem which exists in rural Newfoundland. The idea of community medicine: that particular program is a part of the university which the university is rightfully very proud of and I do not think the hon. Member is fully cognizant of what that branch of the university is doing. So I will ask Dr. Williams if you could enlighten the hon. Member, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Dr. Williams.

DR. WILLIAMS: Perhaps just as a bit of background, of course, any university, especially a medical school has, I guess, three main goals, or I see three main functions of it, one is obviously the education of medical students. That is one of the key goals of any medical school. I also see a research function, any centre of learning has a research component. And I think the third part and a very important part of the medical school, and particularly in the medical school in Newfoundland, is the service component. I think in the service area the Minister has alluded to, we are seeing more and more specialists coming out of Memorial who have gone away or stayed here and under special training have located to many of our regional hospitals throughout the Province as well as St. John's and provided some of the much needed speciality services in the Province

Without a medical school I think some of the programmes we are now carrying on in St. John's that are what we call tertiary level programmes may not be able to be conducted here but people will have to go outside the Province for that particular service. So the physicians who are on staff at the medical school do provide a significant service role along with their teaching and research role. As well, data collected by the medical school comparing Memorial with other medical schools in Canada has shown that the retention rate for Newfoundland residents going to Memorial has been on a par or better as far as retaining those graduates within the Province. Compared to Dalhousie or other medical schools in other provinces they have had a very good record. They produced a document some two to three years old now which showed how well they have done in that area.

In regards to community medicine - and I am going to just separate family practice from community medicine, although they are closely allied and I think they should be more closely allied - when it comes to community medicine they have a number of people in the community medicine area, the pure community medicine area. And some excellent work has been done at Memorial. Doctor George Fodor, I think, is one of the leading people on the issue of high blood pressure, heart disease and research in North America, and he has had some interesting findings, some of which are being used in the cardiovascular disease prevention strategy that has now been implemented with the Federal Government.

As well, Dr. Max House - he has a foot in I think every department over there - has pioneered I guess the issue of communications, in terms of providing health services and in health education. And he is recognized the world over. He was runner-up for a major World Health Organization prize just recently for his work which is internationally known in the area of telecommunications and how this can help provide education in the health care field. Also how it can provide transmittal of cardiograms. Electroencephalograms are now done in places like Labrador and the test is transferred by phone and transmitted to the General Hospital where it can be read the same day by a specialist. So these are things that are all possible. He is now experimenting, and has actually almost perfected, the mechanism whereby X rays can be sent by telephone lines. So an X ray can be taken in Melville, be transmitted to the General Hospital, and could be read by a radiologist on staff there, just as well as if it is done at the hospital.

So there has been a lot of good work I think come out of there. What one does not see in the medical school budget, and which is not reflected in the budget because it is a grant that is given by the Department of Health, is the money that comes in to the Province. Some of the staff who are working at Memorial are not supported by this budget per se, but are supported by grants that come in from the NHRDP in Ottawa, the Medical Research Council, the Canadian Rheumatism Society, the Canadian Heart Foundation or this or that type. So there is a significant amount of money out - I thought at one stage it might have been up to $6 million maximum in a year comes in to the medical school in research dollars to the Province.

With respect to the family medicine programme, again they have one of the best family medicine programmes in Canada. I think it is well recognized. We have very high competitive rates for entering that programme. A newer thrust now that the medical school is taking is to ensure that the family practice programme is more directed towards meeting the needs of rural Newfoundland. They have a new chief of the department now, Dr. Robbins, for the last few years, and they are redirecting or rearranging themselves more towards rural Newfoundland than ever before. And they have a significant number of their graduates in rural Newfoundland. Not necessarily by the way people from Newfoundland but people from other provinces have come, taken the family practice programme, and are practising in places such as Twillingate, Melville, places throughout the Province.

With the two year training programme that is going to come in I think that will place more emphasis on the family practice programme and I think more physicians will opt to go that route because one will need two years to get a licence anyway. Presently a family practice programme is two years so that will be for many physicians an initial point into a practice. Already there are plans under way to have the university more involved with their rural practice sites hoping in that way to encourage physicians who are in training to go back to those sites when they are finished their training programme.

As you are probably aware, Memorial Medical School, Family Practice Department, actually staffs and operates the Dr. Newhook Clinic in Whitbourne. So, they are providing actually the primary care services in Whitbourne. I guess one could argue and debate the roles but that is the way I see it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I just might add the clinic on Shea Heights.

DR. WILLIAMS: Oh, yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Dr. Williams.

MR. HARRIS: I was mouthing it for him. I thought he was going to say that too.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

The Member for St. John's East questions and answers have taken up sixteen very quick minutes and the Chair suggests this might be an appropriate time for a coffee and perhaps tea, juice or whatever you wish. Coffee is in the Government Common Room.

We will have a ten minute break and I am sure when we return the Minister and his staff will be here to provide the answers.

Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I hope everybody feels a little better now.

Moving right along, the hon. the Member for Carbonear, Mr. Reid.

MR. REID: Mr. Chairman, we have been sitting here now for almost two hours. I am not sure of these times but in my estimation both the Member for St. John's East and the Member for Humber East have accumulated something in excess of sixty minutes tonight, and the three Government Members have approximately sixteen and a half minutes accumulated. We have already had three full hours previous to tonight. We made the Minister and his staff wait last night three hours for us, it was two hours tonight and I am finding a lot of the questions to be very repetitious. A lot of the questions I do not even understand to be quite honest about it.

I would like to move inclusive 1.1.01 and 4.5.02 of the Estimates be as presented.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It has been duly moved by the hon. Member for Carbonear that subheadings 1.1.01 inclusive to 4.5.02 and seconded by the hon. Member for Trinity North, Mr. Oldford -

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Chairperson, to the motion. I have a couple of questions on heads along the way, particularly on head 4.2.01, Grants to Hospitals. The total estimated is $483 million and I would like the Minister to give us a breakdown of the grants.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A point of order, the hon. the Member for Carbonear.

MR. REID: Mr. Chairman, please advise me if I am wrong here, there has been a motion made and duly seconded and the only debate can be directly to the motion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That point of order is correct and I would ask the hon. Member for Humber East to speak to the motion.

MS. VERGE: To the motion. One of the heads which the Member for Carbonear moved that the Committee pass is head 4.2.01, Grants to Hospitals, total estimate $483 million, which is a very significant part of the proposed spending of the Provincial Government. Now, the Minister has acknowledged -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, the Chair would agree with that. But I want to remind the hon. Member she has the right to speak to the motion and only speak to the motion once. And the motion is that: inclusive, 1.1.01 to 4.5.02 be passed. So if the hon. Member wants to speak to the motion and speak to the motion once, it does not permit the hon. Member as far as the Chair is concerned to address a question to the Minister.

MS. VERGE: Of course. Chairperson, there are lots of precedents for discussion about heads when it is moved that they be passed. The usual procedure of committees is that we go through the heads one by one and along the way Members of the Committee ask questions, so we know what we are voting on. And before we vote on $483 million for hospitals I think the Committee is entitled to be given a breakdown of that amount, entitled to be given the proposed allocation among the different hospitals, with a comparison of the amounts provided to each of the hospitals last year. What is the percentage change in Department of Health grants to each of the hospitals from last year?

MR. REID: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member for Carbonear on a point of order.

MR. REID: On the motion, Mr. Chairman, the Minister or none of his officials may debate or vote on the motion, therefore the motion is as stands and nobody on the other side can debate or discuss or even speak. And I will not allow it, Mr. Chairman. The motion is inclusive, and I would like for the Chair to rule on the motion as soon as possible.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Now the Chair certainly appreciates the advice from the hon. Member for Carbonear and would concur with the hon. Member that the motion is read, and duly seconded. I would let the hon. Members for St. John's East and Humber East speak to the motion once and that does not include asking the Minister and/or his staff a question.

MS. VERGE: Point of order, Chairperson.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Humber East on a point of order.

MS. VERGE: There is nothing in the rules that says that committee Members may speak only once to a motion. Consistent with the long-standing practices of estimates committees of this House, as we are dealing with the heads one by one before voting on them, it is perfectly normal to ask questions to make sure that we all understand what it is we are voting on. All you have to do is read Hansard for the last several years to see all kinds of examples of estimates' committees scrutinizing heads one by one as they are moved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, but the Chair would want to say to the hon. Member that participating in the last three years in estimates that there were times with different Departments that I observed each subheading being moved one at a time. Now, it was moved that: shall - the Table would ask - 1.1.01 pass, and of course it is voted. But in this case there has been a motion duly moved and seconded that all subheadings inclusive be passed. And I think we are looking at a different precedent entirely.

MS. VERGE: No, Chairperson -

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, the other evening -

MS. VERGE: - there are lots of precedents for (Inaudible) -

MR. CHAIRMAN: If the hon. Member would let the Chair finish. I know the hon. Member has great difficulty letting anybody finish but the Chair would like to finish.

The other evening - I am not sure, I think it was Environment and Lands - that we passed all subheads inclusive. There was no breakdown. It was duly moved and seconded. The opportunity was given to all hon. Members to speak to the motion. And it is my understanding, and I stand to be corrected by the Table, that each hon. Member is permitted to speak to a motion once, and the mover should close, and then the question should be called. What I am going to do is to just recess for as long as it takes me to clarify the position with the Table.

MR. GOVER: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South on a point of order.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to bring to your attention the fact that the position the Member for Humber East is taking now is inconsistent with the position she took last night when a similar motion was on the floor. Her argument then was: well, we cannot have this motion because this would effectively close debate on the estimates. Now she has shifted her argument. She is saying: well, this is not a motion to close debate, now we can have questions on the subheads. But that certainly was not her argument last night. Her argument last night was: the motion would effectively shut down the Committee. And that was also, I believe, supported by the Member for St. John's East. That the motion was a motion to close down debate.

MR. HARRIS: We must have been wrong (Inaudible).

MR. GOVER: So that was their position last night. They are certainly taking a contrary position tonight. So the long-standing precedent - the Member must be confused or failed to recollect that last night, because her position is certainly inconsistent. And I would say that the motion is duly on the floor. And the only question that can now be entertained is whether the motion is in order or not. And that does not involve questions relating to the subheads.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well I do not think the Chair has any other alternative but to rule that the motion is in order. And to pick up again after last night, if last night was to be precedent setting, and I want to thank the Member for Bonavista South, that we were prepared to ask the question last evening. We did have some points of order associated with the motion. And subsequently what evolved was that the Member for Bonavista South withdrew the motion. And the Member for Eagle River - who was here replacing the Member for Carbonear - seconded the motion, the Chair requested that he also would remove his second, because the Chair could not of course call the motion out of order until that happened, and he did. Of course at that point in time we continued on into further estimates.

So I would again want to remind all hon. Members that the Chair wants to be sure that the Chair is doing exactly what should be done in this particular case, and I would want to recess and discuss the motion and points of order associated with it with the Table and then we will reconvene. So, for a minute? Thank you.

Recess

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Good evening. The Chairman would welcome the Members for Grand Falls and Humber Valley. Thank you.

The Chair is certainly not surprised to find out that the Chair was exactly right in its decision, that the motion was duly moved, duly seconded, and it incorporated and included all subheadings. There is no room for discussion. So again I would say to both the hon. Member for St. John's East and the hon. Member for Humber East

that they have -

MS. VERGE: You should welcome (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: I just welcomed him.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, not now. I am sorry. The Chair would love to give the Member for Grand Falls an opportunity to speak. However, we have a motion here and the entitlement is only for the Member for Humber East and the Member for St. John's East to speak once to that motion and the Chair would now ask the Member for Humber East to speak to the motion and, of course, it has to be to the motion.

MS. VERGE: Yes, Chairperson, as the Member for Bonavista South so helpfully pointed out this motion was made before Committee Members had finished their examination of the Estimates, to cut us off. To have a vote on all the heads of the Department Estimates is the same kind of a motion made prematurely by one of the Liberal Members on the Committee last night.

Now last night the Committee had the good sense to back off and allow Committee Members to finish our examination of the Estimates.

MR. GOVER: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! A point of order, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. GOVER: Am I mistaken, did the Chairman just not rule that the motion was in order? So where the Member draws the conclusion that the motion was prematurely made last night, when it was made before three hours expired last night, it was made before three hours tonight expires, is ludicrous. I mean what is in affect happening is a questioning of the Chairman's ruling that the motion is in order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I would ask the Member for Humber East to carry on. As she well knows the motion last night was just as in order as the motion is this evening, it was because the Member for Bonavista South and the Member for Eagle River of course withdrew that we continued. So it is not fair for the Member to say that the motion last night was out of order because it was not out of order.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Chairperson, I just talked about the motion last night the same as the one here tonight having been made before Committee Members had finished our questioning of the Estimates of the Department we were considering. Now last night the Member for Bonavista South, being a gentleman learned in the law, and very fair and reasonable, withdrew his motion and allowed the Committee time to finish our questioning. It did not take much longer. Then when the motion was finally put to pass the heads of the Department we were examining, even though we differed on whether the Estimates should be passed, we all had a better feeling about it.

Now here tonight we are looking at the Estimates of the Department of Health, which is the largest spending Department of the Government, proposing to spend over $800 million. I had just a couple of more questions, one in particular on the $483 million proposed expenditure for hospitals. A simple question. And I would ask the Member for Carbonear, who I know also is a learned, reasonable fair gentleman who does a good job on chairing the Social Services Legislation Review Committee -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: - to back off and just allow the Committee a little bit more time to finish our questioning on the Department of Health before we finally vote on these Estimates.

MR. REID: May I speak to the point of order, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You certainly may. The hon. the Member for Carbonear.

MR. REID: Can I assume, Mr. Chairman, -

MR. HARRIS: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: There is a point of order along here somewhere.

MR. HARRIS: (Inaudible.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order!

MR. HARRIS: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. This gentleman moved a motion, he is now speaking presumably to the motion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, to the point of order.

MR. HARRIS: No, I did not realize there was a point of order. Is there a point of order?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is entirely correct and I want to remind the Member for Humber East that the Chair will not tolerate of course, any repetition just to absorb time; as long as the hon. Member is speaking to the motion, directly to the motion, then the Chair would be prepared to give the Member the time to do so.

Before the Chair recognizes the Member for Carbonear, let it be understood that if it is not a point of order and the Member for Carbonear is recognized, then that would end debate on the motion and then rightfully so, the Chair would call the question, so the only Member for St. John's East is right. I would ask the Member for Humber East, if she will be kind enough to finish speaking to the motion.

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I think I had finished, for the time being any way, speaking to the motion, but I was intending to raise a point of order, making a suggestion to the Member for Carbonear that he follow the very humane and thoughtful example of his colleague from Bonavista South in withdrawing his motion and allowing the Committee just a few more minutes to finish our questioning on the Health Estimates, especially on such significant heads as Grants to Hospitals, $483 million, we have not probed that yet-

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, no. I am sorry, the Chair cannot let the hon. Member move off into figures; I mean we have already discussed the motion and the Chair is not going to permit any Member to discuss anything in the Estimates; we are now speaking to the motion and I think the Chair has given the hon. Member for Humber East sufficient time to speak to the motion and I would now recognize the Member for St. John's East, before I call the question.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to speak to the motion and I also want to address some of the points that the mover of the motion raised in moving and speaking to the motion.

I want to say that this being the end of our Estimates Committee, I find this process intolerable, unconscionable, insulting to the intelligence of the public; if this were televised I think the public of Newfoundland would be shocked to see how elected politicians get on.

MR. REID: Get all of this, catch all of this because this is his last chance tonight (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I would like the hon. Member for Carbonear who said -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: - we debated this for three hours, we talked about it for three hours before and we have been here for two hours tonight, well, we are spending, the Minister is proposing to spend $837 million and I have worked that out at $166 million an hour that we are dealing with here and I think that the public of this Province is entitled to have the Members that they have elected, question the Minister and officials on areas of policy, on areas of expenditure, on areas of alternatives and to do that in the most expeditious way and as lengthily as it needs.

Now the Member for Carbonear suggested that it was becoming highly repetitious, I did not hear any single question being asked twice, in fact, I have to commend this Minister as compared to some of the other Ministers, who questions were forced to be asked five, six, seven and eight times because the other Ministers were purposely misunderstanding and misinterpreting the questions.

At least this Minister was dealing with the questions one at a time and not trying to make, except the occasional political comment, make things more confusing than they need be. But I think that the process that we are talking about here and the behaviour of Members, and I have to say that I have not always been totally toeing the line myself because the nature of the process does not allow you to do that, but I must say that I find this process and the whole approach to it, insulting to my intelligence and the intelligence of the public and to the Ministers and everybody involved. It seems to me that the approach seems to be to get these things over with the least amount of questions being asked, with the least amount of controversy, with the least amount of questions, and to come in and suggest let us get this over with and get out of here because there is a hockey game on or because it was two hours late when we started or whatever, these are not very good reasons at all for us to shut down these estimates committees.

There are lots of questions that I would like to ask about the health care systems that are there. One question that the Member for Carbonear brought up was the $18 million spent on workers' compensation. I think that is a very large amount of money but the important there is not how much money we are spending, and it is a very serious thing, but the problem that that indicates for the working conditions that the people who are working in the hospitals endure so that they end up making claims against Workers' Compensation.

AN HON. MEMBER: To the motion.

MR. HARRIS: This is all to the motion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I think the hon. Member for St. John's East has had ample opportunity to speak to the motion. Actually, the hon. Member is drifting from the motion and is digressing. He has already made his point about the unfairness and so forth and so on and I think done so very well. However, he must understand that the Chair has no alternative but to respond to the motion and I think I have given the hon. Member -

MS. VERGE: A point of order, Chairperson.

MR. HARRIS: Is there a time limit on this? Is there two minutes, three minutes or four minutes?

MS. VERGE: The Member for St. John's East was making a very good commentary on the whole process of examining the estimates.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The Chair heard the hon. Member repeat twice and in one instance the third time the irresponsibility of this process to the public. I want to remind the hon. Member for St. John's East that if he has something new to add to the motion then the Chair will entertain that. The minute that the Member starts to become repetitious then the Chair must recognize the fact that we have to question the motion.

The Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: The Chair interrupted my new comments on the issue of working conditions in our hospitals and nursing homes and seems to want to exercise some editorial control over my intervention on this most important motion which causes the expenditure of $837 million being recommended through our House.

Among the questions I wanted to ask was this question about working conditions in our hospitals and nursing homes and what is being done to ensure that we do not have these high expenditures for employees in the Workers' Compensation system as a result of suffering work related injuries because of, either the nature of the work or the type of supervision or the expectations that are being placed on people. There are lots of questions but I do not think it is appropriate to use this speech to try and raise all the questions that I would want to, but I wanted to give that as one of the things I wanted to get into and there are lots of other areas.

I think it is inappropriate that we be shutting down this debate right now. I think the process seems to be designed to prevent rather than elucidate issues or prevent them from being explored. I am not very happy with that but it seems quite clear that the Chair is quite intent on having this meeting shut down. It is only 11:15 p.m. there is lots of time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to tell the hon. Member that the Chair is not intent on having this meeting shut down. The Chair has a responsibility to control the meeting and the Chair has discussed with the Table, whether or not the motion, as moved by the Member for Carbonear and duly seconded by the Member for Trinity North, has been in order.

The Chair was advised that it certainly was in order. I am sure the hon. Member for St. John's East understands the Chair's responsibility, and the Chair has no other option but only to give hon. Members an opportunity to speak to the motion and then to ask the question. The suggestion from the hon. Member for St. John's East, that the Chair is trying to rush this, the Chair has absolutely nothing to do with the time frame allocated to this evening's meeting.

MR. HARRIS: I am concerned; to the motion itself and the fact that the motion is in order of course, has no bearing and I am not suggesting that the motion is not in order; but the fact that the motion is in order has no bearing on whether or not it is appropriate to be brought at a particular time and I certainly can speak to that and I have been speaking to that. I apologise to the Chair. I did not intend to say that the Chair was trying to shut down the meeting and so I take that back, because I think the Chair is dealing with the motion that is before it.

But I do think that we have not been given adequate time to consider these Estimates. Like the Member for Humber East, I do not think that we would necessarily have gone beyond the midnight hour, which I am sure the Chair would be concerned about, but we have spent fifteen minutes debating the fact that we have been shut down a little early-

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Member for Bonavista South on a point of order.

MR. HARRIS: -and I am not very happy with that and those are my remarks and I tend to vote against this motion, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The Member for Bonavista South speaking to the motion.

MR. REID: What are we going to do here? Why do I not withdraw my motion?.... Mr. Chairman, this is terrible.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why don't you go home.

MR. REID: At ten minutes to eleven I made that motion, it is going for twenty minutes after now-

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to remind the hon. Member for Carbonear-

MR. REID: Mr. Chairman, are we going to be here until twelve o'clock?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I want to remind the Member for Carbonear, that each Member on the Committee is entitled to speak to the motion.

MR. REID: For how long, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: As long as the question is not called, then the Chair would give the hon. Member for Bonavista South (inaudible).

MR. REID: Go ahead; then I will want to say something on the motion too, then.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well you will close it.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, with respect to the motion, you have already ruled that the motion is in order and I just want to, certainly with respect to the motion and the allegations which are made and the concerns which have been raised about the insufficient time to examine the Estimates of this particular Department, that pursuant to Standing Order 120: All questions relating to this particular Department at twelve o'clock tonight, which is in forty-two minutes time, will have to be moved in any event, so the maximum amount of debate left and questioning time left for these Estimates, whether the motion is moved or not, under whatever circumstances one can imagine, is forty-two minutes.

Now, the Member for St. John's East says that he finds the process ludicrous and he would not want to see it televised; well he is certainly entitled to his opinion, but I-

AN HON. MEMBER: Want to see it televised?

MR. GOVER: I do not want to see it televised.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. GOVER: I would advise the hon. Member that I was on a committee that recommended televising the proceedings of this particular House, so my position is fairly clear on the matter, and I would remind the hon. Member that although he may find the proceedings useless, I am certain the Member for Humber East cannot say the same thing, because she has asked a great many questions and received answers, maybe not satisfactory, but answers all the same on a great variety of subjects from acute care beds, to nursing homes, to prevention, to AIDs, what have you. I myself have asked questions on EPF, the spectrum of care in the Province, the recruitment and retention of rural doctors, and I for one do not find the process to be useless or ludicrous or in any way demeaning to the Minister or to the public. As the hon. Member says if television was here perhaps the proceedings would be conducted differently. But to say they are ludicrous, I mean if the Member wants to maintain the position that the proceedings are ludicrous what is he even doing here? His presence here is a negation of that particular argument.

But the point I want to make is that in any event there is only forty minutes left. We have had three hours of debate. These gentlemen were on call for three hours last night. The Department of Education, which has a similar expenditure to the Department of Health, was moved in less time than this particular Department, so the quantity of money involved has nothing to do with the issues and certainly the Department of Education is as controversial as the Department of Health. I find it surprising that Members would now chose at this late hour to start asking questions about the $483 million in expenditures. You know - what were they doing for the five hours the Committee was sitting before this?

So my point is that the debate is going to expire in forty minutes anyway, I certainly feel that I have exhausted the questions I wanted to ask and I am certain that the Government Members have also. We have restrained ourselves to allow the Opposition Members to utilize the time of the Committee. And as my colleague for Carbonear has pointed out, tonight the Opposition Members on the Committee have had sixty-four minutes to sixteen and a half minutes for the Government Members, which is a ratio of six to one, and while we may be on the Government side we are entitled to equal time on the Committee, and it is going to expire in forty minutes anyway, the motion is in order and I would certainly endorse the motion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Chairperson, I would just like to say that in the time that we have wasted on procedural wrangling about when to vote -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

MS. VERGE: - I could have finished the questioning about the Health Estimates -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order! The hon. Member for Humber East had her opportunity to speak to the motion. I would now ask the hon. Member for Carbonear to close debate on the motion.

MR. REID: No question, Mr. Chairman.

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: The motion is that Subhead 1.1.01 inclusive to 4.5.02, as moved by the Member for Carbonear, seconded by the Member for Trinity North, be passed.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through to 4.5.02, carried.

On motion, Department of Health, total heads, carried.

The Chair will now entertain a motion to adjourn.

On motion, the meeting now stands adjourned.