The House resumed at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The commencement of the adjourned debate.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I would like to have a few more words to say on this bill. I spoke a couple of days ago on the six month hoist and I made such an eloquent speech that nobody over there changed their mind, so I daresay what I say today will probably have the same affect. But the reason for saying it today is not so much as having the affect as just slowing down the bulldozer, that is what I call it. It is to try to keep the Government from bulldozing this through as fast as they would like to have it bulldozed through. See if they can get it done before the Minister comes back, so he does not get up and embarrass them again by making some statements, or showing that he is not as familiar with this bill as he would like us to think he is.

It was mentioned by the Member for Mount Pearl in his speech that he thought the presentation by the Minister when he introduced this bill was one of the worst that he has heard since he has been in this Assembly. Well, it has been one of the worst I have heard. The Minister made very weak arguments in trying to put forth this... Bulldozer Bill, I call it, try to have it finished up by Sunday, I think, (Inaudible) some date in this, by December 1, or the fire hall regulations at least will come into effect.

But there are too many questions unanswered just to let this go. Between now and when I finish - I just sat down for five minutes before we came in here today and I have written out ten what I would call fairly legitimate questions that should be answered before this Bill passes. I do not expect they will be. The Member for St. John's East Extern only this morning asked the Premier or the President of Treasury Board some fairly reasonable questions. They should not have been very hard questions to find the answers for. They were legitimate questions when you are dealing with this bill on what some of the costs of the affects of this bill will be. There were no answers then. This late - after discussing this bill for at least a week, I guess, we have been at this bill now - you would think some of the ministers on that side would have taken the initiative to go and find out some of the answers to the questions that have been asked.

It is the responsibility of the acting Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs to try to get up and probably defend or give some information as to the answers to some of these questions. I believe the Minister of Health is the acting Minister. He has made no attempt to speak in this debate and he has not tried to give any answers to these questions.

Some of the things that concern the people of the Goulds - and I was in the Goulds last night, happened to be there till 12:00 a.m. at a function that the volunteer firemen had last night. Actually it was their election of officers for the next two years. They are very optimistic because they are continuing as if the Goulds' volunteer fire department will be continuing for the next two years. They have no choice. They have to continue that way to protect the citizens of the Goulds. Because they have not been told what is going to happen. The Goulds' volunteer firemen do not know what will happen to their fire hall on January 1. They do have some commitments from the City of St. John's and I am glad to hear that. They have had some meetings with the City of St. John's. When the City takes it over, depending on the package they have, they have some agreements as to what will happen with the Goulds' fire hall.

But I am concerned of what the package is going to be that the City takes over. What will be the restrictions the City will be given by the Provincial Government when they give them the package of the St. John's Regional Fire Department, I guess it will be called at the time? One of the things the Goulds' volunteer fire department would like to see - and they have an agreement from the City on this; they have also talked to the Fire Fighters' Association of St. John's on this - they want to see their fire station kept open. That is their first priority. The City of St. John's agrees with this. The St. John's Fire Fighters Association has no problem with it, so we hope that the Goulds Volunteer Fire Department will be kept open. But the Provincial Government will not give them any answer whether that is going to be possible or not, whether the resources will be there to keep that open.

One other thing that the Goulds Volunteer Fire Department would like to see over time is to have a fully paid fire department in what is the Town of Goulds now. The City of St. John's agrees to phase that in, to replace the volunteers with paid firemen over time. The St. John's Fire Department thinks the phase in would probably be a reasonable thing to do, because 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 1992 the St. John's Fire Department is not going to walk into the Goulds and take over that right away, but they still do not know what the Provincial Government is going to agree to when the takeover comes.

The Goulds Volunteer Fire Department has seven or eight people in that fire department who could qualify to become members of the St. John's Fire Department if given the opportunity. They are young people. They have five to seven years experience. They have many of the same training courses that the Fire Commissioner's Office puts off throughout the Province. They have many of the same training courses that the St. John's Fire Department has already. So the Goulds Volunteer Fire Department would like to see, when the St. John's Fire Department starts to expand to cover other areas, particularly the Goulds Fire Department, that these fire fighters in the Goulds be given the opportunity to have the first crack at those jobs. The City of St. John's does not have a great problem with that. The St. John's Fire Fighters Association does not have a problem with that as long as their people who are now on layoff are called back first, which sounds reasonable to me, but they do not know what the Provincial Government is going to say about it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Why did Mount Pearl hire so many people?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Why did they not? I have no idea.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why did they not apply?

MR. R. AYLWARD: I do not know. They did apply, by the way. Some of them did. They were forced to apply by the - actually what happened, their union said not to go in and apply. Their union said not to go in and apply or they would lose their seniority, so that put the fire fighters in an awkward position. The unemployment insurance people told them to go and apply or you will lose your unemployment insurance, so some of them had to go and apply anyway. I do not know what happened to them. I only know there is one of them who lives in my district, and I have not talked to him in the last couple of weeks, so I do not know what - pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, he might. He probably did not, and that might or might not have been intentional. I am saying that some of them might have failed the exams that were required. Maybe it was intentional. Maybe they did not want to lose their seniority in their own union. That could very well have been, but whatever the reason, it has nothing to do with me.

What I am here arguing today is the case for the Goulds Volunteer Fire Department. They cannot get any answers from the Provincial Government as to what is going to happen to them. If the Provincial Government hands the package over to the City of St. John's, which states that - I think it is twenty-three fire fighters in Mount Pearl are the first to be hired - it does not seem to be unreasonable to me, but it certainly would be very unreasonable to a Goulds volunteer fire fighter who wants to get a shot at one of these jobs - but if the Provincial Government forces the city to hire the other way then we have a big problem, and I mentioned that problem the last time I spoke.

There are many questions with this amalgamation that have not been answered, and if they were answered they could very easily have been answered by a feasibility study. They could very well have been answered if we had had a feasibility study. One of the questions that the residents of the Goulds would like to have answered before January 1 so they can plan next year's budget,

so they can plan on what taxes they have to pay for next year, so they can plan to sell their homes if necessary. Some of them might have to. Mr. Speaker, one of the questions that the people of the Goulds would like answered is: will the increase in taxes be phased in over an extended period of time the same as it was done in Kilbride, Shea Heights, Airport Heights. Those are the only three annexations I recall in the recent past, Mr. Speaker, but the people of the Goulds would like to know if that is going to happen to them. There is only one group that could answer that, and that is the Provincial Government, the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, and we do not have a minister in the House to answer these questions. None of them, not even the acting minister, makes any attempt to answer any of these questions to relieve - the people in the Goulds know that they are going to be bulldozed into the City of St. John's. They have no choice of what is going to happen to them, so they would like some questions answered. Had these questions been answered early on, maybe it would not have been such a traumatic experience for them over the past few months of having to have been forced into the City of St. John's.

Mr. Speaker, the Goulds fire hall is not only a worry of the Goulds volunteer fire fighters, but the regular residents of the Goulds wonder what is going to happen to their fire fighting services. If the fire hall is closed down, their insurance rates go up. That is another cost to the people of the Goulds. They do not know if that cost is going to come, and the Provincial Government will not give them any answers. The city cannot answer that. They do not know. They do not know what kind of a package they are going to get. The City of St. John's has not been told yet what the package will be when they receive it. So, Mr. Speaker, they cannot answer it - although they tried. The City of St. John's has been meeting with the Goulds Council and the committee from the Goulds ever since this was announced to try to work out and make things as easy as possible, but the city will not allow them to phase in their taxes because the city cannot afford it. I do not expect the City of St. John's to allow a phase in of taxes. They just cannot afford to do it. If the Provincial Government wants this amalgamation, the Provincial Government should come up with some money to help out the people who are being forced against their will to join a more expensive municipality, and a more inefficient municipality at that.

Mr. Speaker, in the Goulds, I guess, you can pick individual items and make examples of them. Maybe you could find some more expensive things that happen in the Goulds than they do in the city, but I thought for a couple of nights, and I spoke to the mayor last night in the Goulds of what would be done in the Goulds more expensively than is being done in the city now, and he did not know of anything. The unit cost for unit of garbage collected in the Goulds is somewhere around 50 cents to 75 cents and is somewhere around $2.50 in St. John's just to collect it. No disposal, not getting rid of it or anything else, but just the collection cost. Unit cost: if you have a unit, which is a home, you know, the household cost, that was their contract price in their last contract. So they are going to get that bag of garbage or three bags of garbage removed once a week anyway the same as they did while they were in the Goulds or while they were in the city, but they have to pay three times the taxes to get that garbage removed.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I know why. The City of St. John's has different contracts with their employees, they have more expensive equipment, but they are not more efficient. They are not doing it cheaper. They might be more efficient, but they are still more expensive. If you have a bigger truck you would think you would be more efficient if you have a more modern truck and you have one man operating it rather than two people. That should be cheaper, in my mind, it should be more efficient, but it is not.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: It is something around 75 cents in the Goulds in their last contract, and it is $2 plus change in the city. That is the private contractor, a fellow who comes around in his truck. Well they have a used city garbage truck actually is what they use, a second hand garbage truck.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. R. AYLWARD: I know there are a thousand reasons for it but it still does not make sense, if I am a taxpayer in the Goulds, for me to pay three times what it should cost me to take away that garbage. They cannot understand why they should be put into the City of St. John's to pay these extra taxes. Somebody in the Goulds will not have their streets cleared as fast, and as good, as someone in the City of St. John's, but they realize that and that is why they are paying less taxes. That is why they moved in there in the first place. A lot of people in Kilbride at one time, as still do now, moved into Kilbride from the city. They paid a little less taxes, not a lot but in the subdivisions in Kilbride taxes were a little bit less than the in metro, only half a mil or something, but the land value is cheaper. They could afford to live in Kilbride. They could come in away from St. John's where the land was more expensive. Now, it has nothing to do with taxes, efficiencies, or anything else, it is just the land value to buy a piece of land, so that is what they made their plans on. They are not running away from taxes as much as it is running away from land values. If you are going to pay $50,000 for a fifty foot lot in St. John's, or a fifty-five foot lot in a St. John's subdivision and you can get the same thing in the Goulds for $25,000, or $30,000 at the most, well, you go in the Goulds. Now that is not running away from taxes. That is not why they are doing it. That is what they get blamed for doing but it has nothing to do with taxes. It is just the economics of buying a cheaper lot so that they can afford to live and have their own private home the same as all of us would like to do. That is why people run away from St. John's, because land values get too expensive in the urban core or in the subdivisions. Maybe because of city taxes some of them are more expensive but that is not the only reason the land value is so expensive in the city. Mr. Speaker, the people who move to areas such as the Goulds, Paradise, or Conception Bay South are not necessarily running away from the expense of taxes but they are doing it to get reasonable prices for pieces of land to be able to live on. Mr. Speaker, if the Deputy Mayor is correct, and I know that he is correct, because what he raised a couple of days ago in the paper about this standby fee for the City of St. John's snow clearing operators, if we happen to have a snowfall in St. John's on September l, if something happened and we had a snowfall on September 1 in St. John's, because of the union agreement the city workers are tied into, the city council is tied into, from 1 September until sometime next June all of these snow clearing truck drivers, snow clearers, plough drivers and sanders are on a stand-by fee of an extra twenty hours a week from the first snowfall.

MR. NOEL: We had our first snowfall in November.

MR. R. AYLWARD: We had a first snowfall in November and that is where it started this year.

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible)

MR. R. AYLWARD: The foreman who works with these people and the workers who work there, the ones that I talked with, I do not know what their contract says, as has happened in the past and maybe only because the Deputy Mayor raised it now and somebody bothered to look at the contract, always in the past with the first snowfall you did your work and you were on standby from the first snowfall. If that happened in September, then it happened in September. I hope the contract does have November in it, I did not see the Telegram today, but even if it does have November in it, why? We do not usually have any amount of snow in this area until January so if they have to get called out, yes, they have to go out and they get paid overtime to do the work but why on standby for the next two months? I do not understand it. That does not happen in the Goulds. The taxpayers in the Goulds are paying a cheaper rate because that does not happen. They contract out their snow clearing operations and their per kilometre of snow clearing costs, compared to the city, is about half. I forget the figures on that now. I will not give out figures because I forget the exact ones now.

But that is why the people in the Goulds are paying less taxes than residents of the City - that is another reason. It is not the only reason. But that is certainly another reason. It is why people in Carbonear probably pay less taxes than people in the City of St. John's. It is reasonable for somebody in the Goulds to question why they have to double their taxes and going to get that same road ploughed pretty well on the same occurrence. It would be a bit better with the City, I have to admit that, they will do a bit better. They do it a bit faster or they put more salt on it or whatever they do. But it is not that great that they have to double their taxes to cover it. That they want to double their taxes.

As I mentioned the last time, there is a good chance that every well in the Goulds, on the Back Line, Ruby Line and on Bay Bulls Road, will be polluted in a couple of years time after the City takes over the snow clearing. Because the City, because of some regulation they have or some - the reason, because of the City's storm sewers they use all salt on their road maintenance program, rather than sand and salt as the Department of Transportation does. When they take all their salt and go into areas such as they did in Kilbride they pollute the wells. All the wells are overly salted. Airport Heights got the same treatment when they joined the City. Kilbride got the same treatment, the Goulds will get it eventually.

So the people will go from their own well and septic tanks that they built and paid for themselves to getting water delivered by truck. That is certainly a backward step in this day and age in my mind. Why would I want to double my taxes next year if I lived in the Goulds to have a truck come up to my driveway once a day and deliver some water for me? If I run out I cannot wash my car, I cannot water the lawn, I cannot do a lot of things that I could do today for a cheaper tax rate. So why would I want to join the City of St. John's and double my taxes to get service like that? That is going backwards. That is why the people in the Goulds and those areas are upset over this.

Now Wedgewood Park might be different. Wedgewood Park is an urbanized town the same as the City of St. John's is an urbanized city. You could make arguments for that. I could even make arguments for Mount Pearl to be in or not. But I do not know why they would want to go in if they are more efficient now. If their land prices are a bit cheaper or if their contracts are a bit better, why would they want to go in and pay more taxes for the same services? It does not make sense to me that they would. It does not make sense to me that they even should. If you are going to regionalize the services in this area why get it to the highest level of costs? Why not try to balance it a bit? Maybe there is a way to get some type of service between what the Goulds provides, which is a fair service, to what Mount Pearl provides, which I understand to be a great service, and St. John's is in the middle of that. Now if you get the cost to work out the same as the services do maybe you could sell this package to all the people of the region. But it has not been sold right now.

The St. John's City Council will be required to do the snow clearing and maintenance on the major roads through the Goulds. The Bay Bulls Road, we will say, Ruby Line and all those areas. The City will be taking all them over from the Department of Transportation. Most of the roads again - and the taxpayers of the City and the Goulds and whatever other areas will be paying for it. Yet most of the traffic is coming from the southern shore or from Topsail or from somewhere else. There should be an agreement in the feasibility study for the Department of Transportation to continue to clear these roads. Because the people who use the roads quite often or most often, are not from the City of St. John's.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I do not know. Whenever your enquiry is over, maybe. I am just trying to keep it going till that enquiry is over.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) next Friday.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Alright. I will start a good speech next Friday then. Probably congratulate you for being completely cleared of all wrongdoing, I hope. I hope to be able to say that, by the way. I hope that it is pinned on the one that I think really did it. But he will not be around then anyway, so it will not matter then.

But, Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation should continue to service the main roads through the Goulds and through the Back Line going back and forth to Mount Pearl (Inaudible). The City of St. John's should not have to take these over. The Department of Transportation does that in every other municipality in the Province except St. John's that I know of. They look after the main roads.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: No, I was really hoping that they would have a public enquiry. Now, I suppose I am getting off track on this, but, Mr. Speaker, what I really wanted to do - and I am going to call on the Premier. He has not said yet whether he is going to have a public one or not. I will demand a public enquiry into the Sprung. Because there are three groups after looking at it so far and I know what they are after finding. Zero. Nothing! That is why there is no public enquiry into Sprung.

MR. EFFORD: That's not what you said to me in the corridor.

MR. R. AYLWARD: What did I say in the corridor? I would love to have a public enquiry into Sprung. I say it publicly right here now. I will be asking for one, Mr. Speaker, but I will not need to hire a lawyer. Because I know exactly what was done on Sprung. I will not have to have a lawyer represent me. I will go as Bob Aylward and I will go as a former minister. But I know now there will be no enquiry into Sprung. The last Minister of Justice, the one before the seat warmer, made that decision already because he was told by his Premier. You could have gotten rid of what money you wasted on Sprung by listening to the Auditor General two years ago and what he found on Sprung. If there is an enquiry I will be delighted to go to an enquiry. But I will not be worried to death and dragging a lawyer along with me so that they can try to cover up anything that I might be accused of. I do not need it.

Another thing that the people of the Goulds would like to know and they cannot find out, another fairly reasonable question - it is not anything that would require a lot of thought on behalf of the Provincial Government. It would have been answered had we had a feasibility study. That is, what is going to happen to the school bus system in the Goulds? Does the school bus system continue in the Goulds or will it be replaced by the St. John's transportation bus system? School boards in the Goulds, school boards representing the Goulds, have asked this question, and get an answer. The City cannot give it to them. The Town of the Goulds cannot give it them. The bus drivers cannot give it to them. Only one group can give it to them, and that is the Provincial Government.

Where is the Minister to get these questions? Where is the Minister to answer the questions on - any of these questions, actually - but school buses alone?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is over in Bristol. Even if they had publicized the phone number where you could get him at the hotel I suppose you could have a shot at getting an answer to a question. But I do not even know - nobody even knows what hotel he is staying in over in Bristol. Bristol's Hope, as it was said this morning.

But that is a very simple question and a very - if it is gone, I can tell you now, besides the doubling of taxes, if the school bus system is taken away from the people of the Goulds, if you have one child, besides putting your taxes up by, well, 78 per cent - it is not quite doubling it - it will cost another $180 a year for most residents of the Goulds to get their kids to school. Costs fifty cents each way to get on the City school buses. So not only will they have their taxes almost doubled, for each child that goes to school they will have another $180 a year bill to get him back and forth to school.

They are concerned. They are not getting any answers. They are not likely to get any answers either with the way the Department is handling this operation.

One thing that is dear to my heart is what is going to happen to the agricultural zone? I cannot get any answers from the minister or the Premier. I say it is still going to be under the control of the department.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: What is going to happen to the agricultural zone? Any man who answers a question with a question certainly does not know any answers, does he?

Mr. Speaker, the agricultural zone is going to come in jeopardy. It is going to be gone. It is the only resource industry in Newfoundland that can be expanded upon. All of the rest of them are to their limits. We are to the limit of the resource in the fisheries. We are to the limit of the resource in our agricultural industry. We are to the limit of our resource in our forestry. We are to the limit of our resource in our mining industries, from what ores we have, because all of our mines are closed down. The only industry that we can expand upon is our agricultural industry. The only resource industry that can be expanded upon is our agricultural industry. Yet we have this Government putting the resource that is necessary to keep agriculture alive, a land base, in jeopardy of being lost. No answers, Mr. Speaker. I cannot get any answers for that.

Another question that could be asked is: Would the Government consider giving some capital works money so that the areas like the Goulds can be upgraded to be equal to a Wedgewood Park or areas of the City of St. John's? Could the main roads going in and out through the Goulds be upgraded to handle extra traffic if that is what is going to happen with developments in that way? That is the only question that I have an answer to. The Premier said that you are getting no money. St. John's is getting no money to carry out this amalgamation. It will not get any capital money. It will not get any current account money, because it is going to take over the Aquarena and the like of that. That raises a concern for me for the rest of the taxpayers in the City of St. John's. Their taxes have to go up to cover all of these expenses. They have to pay more, and I do not think it is fair. They have paid their share all along, especially when you start in the centre, the people who have been paying taxes for years and years in the city, and further as you go out there are less years, but they have paid their share. They built their own roads. They paid for their own water and sewer. They paid for their own sidewalks. Now they have to start paying for everyone else who is being brought into the city, which is not fair.

One question they ask in the Goulds is when will the ward councillors be elected? The plan was, the bungled plan of the minister again was to have the ward councillors elected in November and take over on January 1. He obviously did not give that much though, because that was another illegal act that he tried to do. Now we are going to pass this Bill 50 -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. R. AYLWARD: By leave, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave of the House?

AN HON. MEMBER: No. No leave. Not a second.

AN HON. MEMBER: What? How come?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEARN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

It is ironic, I suppose, that the Member for Kilbride finished while I was glancing at today's paper, and I was reading -

AN HON. MEMBER: You were looking at the enquiry.

MR. HEARN: No, I was not looking at the enquiry, unfortunately. I have not gotten to that yet. I usually keep that for my bedtime reading. I must say, it is quite interesting. It is amazing when you read in the paper how people heavily involved in the department look upon a minister once the minister is no longer around, and I presume it is true of all of us, but it does make for some good bedtime reading.

I was reading, actually, a letter to the editor, and it is a copy of a letter sent to the Premier. It talks about exactly what we are talking about here. It says: 'Explain, Premier Wells,' and they are asking the Government to explain why you deliberately annex the Towns of Wedgewood Park and the Goulds and deliver them to the City of St. John's without giving the residents their chance to have a say in what happens.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) say deliver them from evil.

MR. HEARN: Deliver then into evil, maybe, is the way it is looked upon here. Why did you and your Government not allow the citizens of Wedgewood Park and the Goulds to hold a free vote on the matter of amalgamation? A very good question, Mr. Speaker. The Premier talks a lot about referendums and about free votes. Of course going back to his Meech Lake stand everyone should have a say. Then when it comes down to anything within his own domain the reverse is true, where only one person has a say and that one person is the Premier himself. The cartoon in the Newfoundland Herald this past week is typical of what is happening with the Premier and his Cabinet. If anybody has not seen it then it is worth your while to spend $1.00 and buy a copy of the Newfoundland Herald to see the cartoon of the Premier and his Cabinet, where he says, 'You do not have to take my word for it, ask any of my Cabinet ministers,' and they are all there with gags on. That is quite typical as we have seen examples firsthand this last three or four days in the House where ministers are basically told not to speak, and they have agreed with the Premier. Here we have the Premier talking about freedom of choice and everybody having a say then when it comes to making decisions in his own domain he goes out and does what he feels like doing without letting anybody having any say whatsoever. Typical examples are Wedgewood Park and the Goulds. Another question asked: why did you and your Government not allow the citizens of Wedgewood Park and the Goulds to hold a free vote? Why are you now informing the people of Newfoundland, with the exception of Wedgewood Park and the Goulds, and this is a good question, why are you now informing the residents of Newfoundland, as he did in the House last week, with the exception of Wedgewood Park and the Goulds, that any amalgamation plans for their cities or towns will be decided by a free vote by the citizens concerned? examples given, Corner Brook, Mount Moriah, Massey Drive, etc. The Premier said here last week that he would let people have a say as to whether or not they wanted to be amalgamated. Where is the say that Wedgewood Park or the Goulds have? Of course, we hang our heads in shame and say that we did not give them any say at all, that we basically told them they were going to be amalgamated, and now we are trying to push the bill through.

MR. EFFORD: Are they going after your district?

MR. HEARN: The Member for Port de Grave is worried about my district. The Member for Port de Grave need never worry about St. Mary's - The Capes, let me tell him. They can look after themselves, and you will notice that nobody has suggested any amalgamation up there either. The day when you try to force amalgamation on St. Mary's - The Capes there will be a little more action in the galleries around here than there is presently.

AN HON. MEMBER: They could under this bill.

MR. HEARN: There is absolutely no doubt about it. The precedent is set right here in Bill 50, whether it be St. Mary's or Port de Grave, whether it be Bareneed or Bear Cove, to be amalgamated if the people sitting in Cabinet so wish.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. HEARN: Well, the member sometimes speaks my language. We have a lot of things on which we do not agree but I must say on many issues, including many of my stands on the fisheries, we see eye to eye. He is a man for the common man. He is in the House of Assembly to represent the needs and the wishes of his constituents. Mr. Speaker, if you wonder if I am relevant or not I will certainly show you that I am when I say that many members here, some of them representing affected areas within the amalgamation process, are here sitting silently, hoping and praying that something will happen so that this bill will not go through, so that they can go to their constituents and try to take some credit for not having any say in passing this bill. It is not only the people who are affected in the Goulds and Wedgewood Park who coincidentally happen to be members on this side of the House but people in other parts. The Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island who just scurried out of the House, and members representing St. John's also are affected by this bill because even though the city council might have originally - and I say originally - pushed for this amalgamation, now that they see that some of the promises and the allusions made of good things to come may not necessarily be factual. They are concerned that they are going to be caught with an albatross around their neck. The longer this drags out - and that is why we are here of course this afternoon. The Government House Leader is aware that the longer this bill drags out in the House of Assembly more and more of the elected people out there are becoming aware of the total sham that is being perpetrated upon them by this Government, and they are starting to see also, the seemingly beneficiaries, are going to be hit also right in the pocketbook. Where people in this day and age cannot afford to be hit. When I spoke a few days ago I gave examples of the decline in the economy in the Province this year. People just cannot afford to pick up extra financial burdens. Everyone, including St. John's, is going to be hit tremendously by this Bill.

(Inaudible) I sort of strayed from my letter. The questions being asked are: why all of a sudden is the Premier saying: oh, we will give areas a say, when he did not give Wedgewood Park or the Goulds a say. And why, if he is saying from now on: we will give other areas a say in their future, why then do we have Clause 10 (3) on the last page of the Bill saying that: "In addition to establishing and altering the boundaries of the cities and towns under subsection (2), the Lieutenant-Governor in Council" - meaning Cabinet - "may, in the order referred to in that subsection, (a) amalgamate a town with a town or city or annex areas to a town or city" - without any say!

They can also, in 10 (3) (b): "establish an area as a town...." Go out and say: you are going to be a town, we proclaimed it in the House, that is it. Or, in (c), "disestablish a town...." Of course the concern is there, what happens after the next election, if this present Government is re-elected, to Mount Pearl? What is the truthful intent in relation to the City of Mount Pearl? Most people, if you were betting, you would say that after the next election Mount Pearl will be told: you are now part of St. John's. Because this Bill will give the Government the right to do just that. Without any hearings, without any chance, without any referendum, without any say, they can just snap a finger in Cabinet and say: Mount Pearl no longer exists, we can disestablish a town.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not true.

MR. HEARN: Black and white, just like the Marine Institute Bill. I wish - see, once again, this is twice in a row, Mr. Speaker, debating bills, we have seen the former head of the NTA, the great educator in the Province, the Member for Exploits, say: that is not true, in relation to remarks we have made about the bill.

I do not know what process takes place in the present Cabinet in relation to bills. But I know in Cabinets which we were involved in, when you were bringing in a new bill the bill would be brought into Cabinet, it would be discussed thoroughly, you would look at all kinds of possibilities, the long-term and short-term affects, but every Member in Cabinet and every -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: I wish the Member for Port de Grave would keep - I would suggest he save his throat for next Monday night. I would hate for him to be hoarse next Monday night, December 9. So I suggest to the Member he be quiet and sip his water, keep in good shape.

But the Member for Exploits apparently has not been briefed on Bill 50, and apparently he has not been briefed on the Marine Institute Bill. Because what is written is written. That is an old quote. Once it is here in black and white and passed by this House then it does not matter what he thinks or what I think or what anybody else thinks, the fact is it is now the law. The law, if this bill is passed, says that Cabinet will have the right to "amalgamate a town with a town or city and annex areas to a city or town...." They can go out, they can take from, they can add to. Cabinet can do it. Not the House of Assembly, not after referenda, not after public hearings. Cabinet will have the power to add to and take from. They will have the power to "establish an area as a town..." and worse still they will have the power to "disestablish a town...."

So whatever Cabinet wants to do, if they do not like a certain area, if a certain area votes against them, or they do not like the Member, or they do not like something the mayor said, they can go out and say: you're gone! Wipe you off the face of the map. Port de Grave now becomes part of Bay Roberts. So. Cabinet has the power to do it. It might seem farfetched, but if Cabinet so wished Cabinet can do it. No Cabinet, no government, should have the power to do this on its own.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not true.

MR. HEARN: No government should have it. It is in the Act, it is there in black and white and you can interpret it how you like. Once the precedent is set by affecting the Northeast Avalon then what is to keep Government from generalizing?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: No no, the precedent is set. Once you establish a precedent of course then generalities follow and there is absolutely no doubt.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: No, no, no. They wanted to do it. They were not forced to.

MR. SIMMS: Foxtrap wasn't forced. They came in after water and sewer went in, they wanted to come in. We left them out, as a matter of fact.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. SIMMS: But we left them out! In 1985 they were left out of it. They came in afterwards.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) get you (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Eighty-nine per cent voted against it!

MR. SIMMS: Get your research (Inaudible) do a bit more research (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: Get back down to that enquiry. Never mind this stuff up here.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. Member for Placentia for guidance. We will get to the next question in the letter. It says: why, after thousands of Newfoundlanders gave their lives or were wounded in various wars to preserve our democratic way of life, have you taken away the basic right of the citizens of Wedgewood Park and the Goulds to vote on their future with regards to amalgamation? Why?

Of course, Newfoundlanders pride themselves in the stands we have taken, our ancestors took over the years in the different wars to preserve our democratic rights and freedom. If there is one thing that we are proud of in this country, and in this Province in particular, it is our freedom. Complete and utter freedom to determine our own destiny. That was until the present Government was elected. Now we find that basic rights that people ordinarily had have now been taken away. They have no say in how they are being manipulated. They are being grabbed up by greedy land lovers or money lovers or whatever. They are being absorbed by others who want power and authority, and the people affected have absolutely no say.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who wrote that letter? Who signed (Inaudible)?

MR. HEARN: The letter is signed, actually. It is signed by R A Tipple, Wedgewood Park.

AN HON. MEMBER: R A (Inaudible)?

MR. HEARN: Tipple. T-I-P-P-L-E. Tipple. Wedgewood Park. It is a pointed letter to the Premier: why will you and your Government permit the dictatorial annexation of Wedgewood Park to St. John's, which will result in a doubling of our property taxes and a major reduction in our municipal services?

Good question. Picture yourself living in a municipality - whether within or without the area involved here - where you have the services that you are satisfied with. You may not have everything that can possibly be provided, but you are satisfied with the services you have. Because of the way you have evolved you are effective and efficient and you have a say in the overall planning because of the smaller community concept. You have developed a unique little town or community or village or city. You know what is going on. You are not afraid to pay your fair share because you feel you are getting true value. All of sudden somebody else comes in and just absorbs you, and say: because of our size and inefficiency, or because we want to impose upon you our values or our standards you now have to pay a lot more for what you are getting. You pay more, but you are going to have less say in what is going to happen in the future, and this really concerns me. Whether or not - I will never live in Wedgewood Park, and I will never live in Mount Pearl, and I will never live in the Goulds, and I will certainly never live in St. John's, but it concerns me that in the smaller areas where the people who are directly involved are controlling their own destiny, or they have developed over the years the type of infrastructure that they wanted, whether it be - in some cases - standards which are much higher than those of larger surrounding areas, sometimes maybe not as good, but certainly standards with which they are quite satisfied. The basic services that they know they need and they can afford, and then without any say at all, we have somebody coming in, because they want what we have, because they feel they need to be larger, or they want to look good on the national scheme. They just absorb us, and then all of a sudden we have no longer any say in our destiny. I do not think that is fair to the people in these areas.

Now, if the people in the areas wanted to become part of the larger scheme, that is a different story. If they say: we are small, we do not have the financial base to improve our services, and we want to join with the larger area because now we can take advantage of the expanded tax base. The money that the larger area is getting from us because we must go there for all government services, or a lot of us go there to work and we contribute to the business involved. People from the surrounding areas built up the City of St. John's, as I said before, and if the surrounding areas say: now we want some of that back, some of these dollars spent in the surrounding areas that support the major city, and our services will be improved, and we will take advantage of your money, well that is fair ball. The city, on the other hand, might want to spend money on the environs unless government helps. But if that request is there from the smaller areas, well then that is fair ball if they want part of it, but where sometimes the smaller areas are much better off as they are, and if you analyze the set up in Wedgewood Park, or certainly if you analyst the set up in Mount Pearl - which is not directly affected here yet, question mark - you will see that you have services and efficiency that certainly compares favourably with anything you are going to have by being absorbed by the larger City of St. John's, and certainly in relation to controlling their own destiny, and having a say in what goes on within their own borders. They are going to lose that say tremendously, and I really, really get upset about that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: I will probably be down tomorrow or next Monday night. I will probably be in the vicinity next Monday night.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Absolutely, no doubt about that. But let me say to the member that what he has to wave and shout, and try to get his message across by waving placards, I have never had any difficulty in getting the same message directly to the people involved. Hopefully it will be beneficial for everyone. I have never hesitated to get the message across either, let me say to him also.

But, Mr. Speaker, what we see happening here with Bill 50 is a bill that is satisfying the larger area, a bill that is decimating the smaller areas, and a bill which is going to lead, eventually, to everyone once the truth of the matter is known, leading to everyone being upset, and it might be wise for Government to forget about it. Unfortunately they defeated the motion on the six month hoist because it might have given them a chance to really see what is going to happen here.

St. John's is just starting now to see that perhaps all is not as bright as we thought it was originally. The very first clause in the bill says: The Canada Games Park Commission Act is repealed. Title to all the property and assets of the Canada Games Park Commission is vested in the St. John's Municipal Council of the City of St. John's.

So the Canada Games Park, all property and assets, go to the Canada Games Park. The question is liabilities. I presume they also go to the City of St. John's. The St. John's Municipal Council is charged with and assumes all of the obligations and liabilities of the Canada Games Park Commission.

It is not cheap to run the Canada Games Park or the Aquarena. Here is an interesting one: Upon the commencement of this Act, all the employees of the Canada Games Park Commission are to be employed with the City of St. John's in positions where the years of service of those employees are recognized by the City of St. John's.

It looks good on paper, but the next clause, clause (4) says: The St. John's Municipal Council may make by-laws that may be necessary to facilitate the transfer of employees under this section.

What does that mean? Does that mean that the City of St. John's might now, as they absorb the Canada Games Park and the Aquarena being part of it, might manipulate the workers who are involved there? Are their jobs secured? There is no guarantee. It says that the city, those who are employed in positions where the years of service of those employees are recognized. The years of service are recognized, but it says that the city might make by-laws to facilitate the transfer of these employees. Even though you recognize their years of service, I presume in relation to seniority in employment, there is no guarantee where the city will seek to place these people. That is something that I am sure the employees of the Canada Games Park would like to make sure before any final decisions are made. The big question, of course, is what is the cost going to be to the City of St. John's in relation to the Canada Games Park? On a number of occasions when we were in Government I can remember seeing requests coming for funding to do major repairs, reconstruction of the Canada Games Park, specifically the Aquarena. What about if major expenses are needed again? Who foots the bill? Now, after this of course, it will be the City of St. John's. Then, do you keep it going or do you close it? That question has been asked in the past. Is the Canada Games Park an operation that should exist, or are we better off without it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who asked that?

MR. HEARN: It has been asked several times.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: By people involved in the field, and by Government officials. Are we getting value for dollar with the Canada Games Park? That is a Government asking that, and I agree. I think we are, provided it is run effectively and efficiently. But if the City of St. John's takes it over, are they going to be able to cope with the cost the same as Government? Then you might find that the facility may or may not continue to operate.

So there are so many unanswered questions, but the most important one, I think, is the lack of say by the people who are affected. They are just being taken over like a bunch of sheep and driven into a pound, with absolutely no say in what is happening. The people in Wedgewood Park and the Goulds were just herded within the fences of St. John's, and saying: You are now under the domain of the St. John's City Council. Now I am not sure after watching tv on a few Wednesday nights whether I would relish the thought or not.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's that?

MR. HEARN: Of thinking that I was under the domain of the City Council of St. John's.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're against St. John's.

MR. HEARN: No, I am not against St. John's and I am not for St. John's, I am strictly neutral. They have absolutely no jurisdiction over me. As I said before, I have no intention of living in St. John's or anywhere else. But the point is, I would not want somebody to come to my community and say: you are now going to be controlled by somebody else.

The Member for Placentia who continues to interject is in an area where amalgamation will undoubtedly be forthcoming, because it probably makes a lot of sense. But hopefully when it does it will be done upon agreement within and between the different towns and communities in the area. There are a number of them. You can throw a lasso around all of them. It makes a lot of sense perhaps, if you are going to amalgamate, to amalgamate there. But in a case like that it is coming slowly and the individuals involved are working out - hopefully - the proper plans and procedures. It may be an area where the tax rates and so on are not going to be changed all that much. Because I presume they are pretty standard for most of the area.

But St. John's and the Goulds. The people in the Goulds are going to pay through the nose. They do not know what has hit them yet until they get their bills next year. Some of the old farmers who have the old farmhouse and a fairly large tract of land with the nice flower garden and a few heads of cabbage growing in the backyard and so on, when they suddenly realize they are going to be hit with exorbitant tax bills, and when they ask: where are the services?... and have to pay the same as people in the centre of the city with every efficiency right next door, where they have so little and will not have it for years, and yet will be expected to pay, the question is, is this fair? When the City of St. John's realizes the tremendous amount of services they are going to have to provide the outlying areas they are going to ask, is this fair? When people suddenly realize that this say we had over our local playfield, or our minor hockey system, is now no longer our minor hockey system in our part of the city, and everything starts to fall apart around their ears, people themselves are going to be extremely upset. There are so many angles to all of this that have not been worked out. Where are the benefits? If anybody, even the Member for Pleasantville, if he took a list and added up the minor things, he might say that is not important but to individuals it is extremely important, add up all the negatives in relation to this forced amalgamation, add up the negatives and add up the positives, and you might say they are going to thank us way down the road, but if proper planning was put in place and infrastructures were changed, or whatever, all of this might come about way down the road through agreement. It should not have to be forced. I think you will find out as a Government that people do not like being forced into anything and it would be much better to let this thing die for now and eventually go back to the drawing board. Not the drawing board because there were some good suggestions made in some of the studies that took place and in some of the hearings that were held, but Government decided not to listen. Government decided to do its own thing, to go out, and in the words of Frank Sinatra - the Premier and Frank Sinatra seem so similar. I am not sure whether he can sing or not. I have not heard him sing. I have not had him on stage yet, but if he did I am sure he would sing 'I Did it My Way,' the song of which Presley also had a version and which became famous. He sang it towards the end of his career, but the fellow who had the big recording of this song was Sinatra.

MR. SIMMS: I am sorry. I have not been listening to my colleague. How did we get on this?

MR. HEARN: I am talking about the Premier. If he is a singer, which I do not know, as I say, I am sure his favourite song is 'I Did it My Way.'

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I spoke briefly this morning in a very preliminary way for an hour or so. It was not quite an hour. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, Your Honour will recall that I was not going to take advantage of the right and privileges of the Leader of the Opposition and use the full hour so I only went fifty-eight minutes. When you look at this piece of legislation, when you look at this bill, it becomes very evident that there is enough to comment on in that bill that could take one hours and hours, and hours. If the Government opposite does not force this legislation through, does not ram it down our throats as it is doing with the amalgamation itself, if it does not force closure, cut off the rights of the members in the Legislature to participate in the debate, then we may very well have hours and hours and hours of debate and contribution to make to the debate over the next number of days and weeks. As my hon. friend's old colleague Steve Neary use to say: we will be carving up the Christmas turkey on the table of the House. This will be a first, of course, for the new clerk of the House who will have the opportunity, perhaps, of having the first slice. Who knows?

AN HON. MEMBER: We will bring him in an apron.

MR. SIMMS: We are going to bring him in a Christmas apron.

Mr. Speaker, this morning I talked briefly. I just wanted to refresh hon. members memories of some of the points that I was trying to make, and then I will get on to elaborating on some of those points and actually talking about some new points that I did not even touch on this morning because I hardly had time. An hour, I mean an hour is hardly time to talk about the preamble.

AN HON. MEMBER: You cannot even get your throat cleared.

MR. SIMMS: You can hardly get your throat clear in just getting through the preamble. I barely got through reading the explanatory notes in that hour. I have to get my glasses now because I want to do a little bit of quoting from Hansard, the minister's quotes and so on, which will be pertinent in this debate as time goes on.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I said this morning that there are a lot of outstanding questions, a lot of outstanding issues that the Government has not addressed, and questions for which the Government has not provided the answers for. For either those elected to run the municipalities, or for the people affected in those municipalities on the Northeast Avalon, or for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador in general who have an interest in this amalgamation issue that recently has resurrected itself over the last couple of years since this Government came into power. There are many people, of course, from the old days, like the Minister of Education, and the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Fisheries. There are people from the sixties who were involved in sixties politics who very well remember amalgamation, remembered it very well. However, in those days it was not called amalgamation as we all know, it was called resettlement. So it is not really a new phenomena, it is an old issue. Bigger is better. Resettle, move the smaller communities into larger communities. It went on and on and on in the sixties. Then there was a breather - thank God - under the previous administrations, between the time that Mr. Smallwood left office and the time Mr. Wells came into power. So in that period of time there was very little talk about resettlement or about amalgamation. There were some, and some were successful. Most were successful, I think, that did occur. I can only speak with a bit of experience of my own situation in Grand Falls where I have represented the people there since 1979, and involved prior to that for three or four years. So I have had a close association out there in a political sense since 1975. The issue of amalgamation between those two communities has been going on since the early 1970s.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Grand Falls and Windsor.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I mentioned those two, but the member was not listening to me, and I am not going to repeat it. He can read Hansard.

Anyway, the amalgamation question as it related to those two communities began back in the early 1970s. In fact, there was a study done back in the early 1970s. The name of the study just escapes me for the moment -

MR. TOBIN: The Urban Region Study?

MR. SIMMS: No, Grand Falls - Windsor.

MR. TOBIN: Hugh Whalen?

MR. SIMMS: Warren something? The hon. member might recall, I am not sure. Out in Grand Falls - Windsor back in the early 1970s there was a major study done to look at -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No, Grand Falls - Windsor. Anyway, there was one done, Mr. Speaker, and that particular study was inconclusive, but there was no ramming it through. There was no forcing it through, no forcing upon the communities involved. The idea was to let them decide among themselves and take the time necessary to decide among themselves - between themselves in this case, two communities - about whether or not they wanted to amalgamate. Mr. Speaker, the debate in Grand Falls - Windsor has been ongoing for nineteen years, or was ongoing for nineteen years up until the time that the last municipal councils, not the present councils obviously although some of the same members, but the last municipal councils in the two municipalities decided now was the time. After feasibility studies were done, after public hearings were undertaken, and after nearly twenty years of debate on the issue had occurred. I am pleased to say that it did occur I think with the support of the people. We have no real way of knowing because there never was a plebiscite or a referendum or a vote per se. There were some public opinion polls done by the councils in question. But there has not been an outcry, let's put it that way, to oppose it.

I guess those are the areas that we are talking about when we say the people have not got the answers, the people have a lot of questions on their minds, the people are concerned. It is in those areas where there is an obvious public outcry, like on the Northeast Avalon. There is a public outcry from areas that are seriously affected, like the Goulds, like the City of Mount Pearl, like the Town of Wedgewood Park. But there is also an awful lot of public concern expressed by other communities like the Town of Paradise, Outer Cover, Logy Bay, those areas. There is an obvious unacceptability of amalgamation in those areas.

I guess my point is: the Government would have been much wiser if it had taken the time. If it feels so strongly that amalgamation is the way to go; if it feels so strongly that there will be tremendous benefits in it for the people of the communities affected; if that is in fact how they feel, then why didn't they take the time to convince the people in those communities that it is to their benefit? Now, they would have to do an awful lot more homework than they have done, because one of the problems with this whole thing is that they do not know. Theoretically, they are arguing that there will be a lot of benefits by taking in the smaller communities. It is a theoretical argument but there are no feasibility studies done to actually prove that is the case. Whether we disagree with it or not it is only a matter of opinion of ours. What is important in the whole process is that the opinion of the people be listened to, and that in fact they have an opportunity to present their opinion in a proper and formal way, through public hearings or whatever.

That is what the argument is all about. Mr. Speaker, when you come down to it, it is pretty fundamental, it is pretty simple, it is pretty obvious, I think, to anybody who takes the time to listen to the argument and to the debate. Anybody who would take the time and think about it a bit. Nobody is arguing whether amalgamation is good or bad. I mean, we are arguing it, sure we are. Everybody has their own opinion and view on that. But the people cannot argue it, we cannot legitimately argue it, you cannot legitimately argue it, because there are no feasibility studies done to show what the actual costs are going to be.

How can you have a logical and sensible argument? You can only argue in theory. You assume that if a small community is swallowed up and taken into a larger community you will eliminate some bureaucracy and this, that and the other thing. You argue, theoretically, that it will be beneficial. Well, you may be right. The problem is, we do not know. I suppose there could be just as strong a counter argument that maybe it might create, down the road, a larger bureaucracy. Who knows? Who is going to handle, as I asked this morning, the $1.2 million that this Provincial Government had in its Budget for the cost of fire services?

MR. WINDSOR: There is only one regional fire service in Canada. Only one in Canada.

MR. SIMMS: But this Provincial Government in its Budget this year budgeted $1.2 million for fire services. That was after all the municipalities paid their share. So who is now going to pay that $1.2 million? What is the answer? Nobody can give the answer. I mentioned this morning the conflicting answer that I got when I asked the question the other day in Question Period.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) one answer (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No. See, the minister did not know. The minister did not know because he could not see the Minister of Municipal Affairs. I asked the question to the Premier or to the minister, because they were both sitting, and I said: Will the City of St. John's now be responsible for paying this $1.2 million? Will the taxpayers of the City of St. John's now have to pay this $1.2 million? The Minister of Municipal Affairs was over there shaking his head; no, the Premier -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Oh, he had something wrong with his neck? Oh yes, sure. Yes, of course.

The Premier stood up and said: Except for the share of those services that we should pay as a Government, because we have some buildings here and there, the City of St. John's will have to pay. That is what he said. The Minister of Municipal Affairs, sitting next to the Minister of Education from the sixties, was over there shaking his head saying 'no'. Something wrong with his neck - sure. Then he must have had a tough neck because I asked the supplementary question and I said: What about the Aquarena? The budget for the Aquarena this year is $900,000 or something? I do not have the figures - somewhere in the area of $900,000; now I do not know if that was that high this year for some special reason. I cannot remember. It always used to be $500,000 or $600,000 I remember, so it could be a million bucks. Who knows? Anyway, it has gone up a lot. I must say it has.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Actually, quite frankly just as an aside, I thought that the Provincial subsidy had gone down considerably. I thought the Aquarena itself was taking in more income because of some innovative programs they had initiated over the last few years, but -

AN HON. MEMBER: Salaries have (inaudible). Expenses and costs have (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I guess expenses and costs or whatever. The bottom line to my argument is, there is nearly $1 million there - $900,000 that this Government paid. Now, turning that over to the City of St. John's, who is going to pay that $1 million, or $900,000 or whatever it is next year? Who is going to pay that? Is it going to be the City of St. John's, I said to the Minister of Municipal Affairs? No. Even the Premier said, or was it the minister? Maybe it was the Premier who said - no, it was the Minister of Municipal Affairs - there will be very little cost; very little cost associated with the transfer of the Aquarena to the City of St. John's. My God, I almost believed him. I almost believed him until that very day that my friend from St. John's East Extern asked the same question and got the same answer from the minister. That same day in the newspaper there was a story with an interview with the city manager of St. John's, Frank Power, where he said he expected the subsidy to be somewhere in the area of at least a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and that would only be after they made some considerable cuts, probably some layoffs. Maybe they will curtail the hours of operation. There was a whole bunch of options that they would have to look at in order to be able to operate it with no help from the Provincial Government at all. Then, lo and behold, the Deputy Mayor of St. John's, who is a pretty strong proponent I think of amalgamation, now is starting to ask a lot of questions about the cost. So is the Mayor of St. John's. Everybody is asking questions.

The Town of the Goulds, as I mentioned this morning, have a volunteer fire department. Their taxes are going to nearly double - 6.5 mils up to 11 mils. They have a volunteer fire department. If my taxes were going to nearly double, I would expect to have the same service as the rest of the taxpayers in the city, i.e. a full-fledged, full-paid fire department serving our municipality. That is what I would expect as a taxpayer if I am going to pay double the taxes. Is that going to occur? If that is the case, who is paying the cost of that? Who is going to pay for that expense, the additional cost of providing a paid fire department to the Town of the Goulds, for argument sake? Who would pay for that? The taxpayers will pay for it. The minister is confirming it. The taxpayers will pay for it; but we do not know how much it will cost. We do not know how much additional taxes taxpayers will have to pay. We know how much the Goulds taxpayers will have to pay, but we do not know how much the City of St. John's taxpayers will have to pay. We have no idea, and that is the whole argument.

Mr. Speaker, I believe we are sort of repeating ourselves now, but I have a feeling that the President of Treasury Board, who is an honourable gentleman -

AN HON. MEMBER: Who?

MR. SIMMS: He is an honourable gentleman.

AN HON. MEMBER: The President of Treasury Board?

MR. SIMMS: I almost have a sneaky feeling that deep down in his heart, deep down in his soul, he believes that this process is wrong. I think deep down he believes in our argument that the people should have a say, that there should have been feasibility studies conducted which would show what the cost would be, so that people would know how much their taxes are going to be. I think deep down in his heart he really believes it.

Now I realize despite the power that he wields in that Cabinet over there -

MR. TOBIN: There is only one vote in Cabinet (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Acting Minister of Justice, acting, acting. No, he gets four salaries, I have heard. He tells me he is worth four salaries - I am sorry, I said it the wrong way, yes, he is worth four salaries. Mr. Speaker -

MR. TOBIN: Len, there is only one vote in Cabinet and that is the Premier's.

MR. SIMMS: Yes well, that was the point that I was going to try to make. I realize that he has this feeling and I think other members over there feel the same way. I think they are somewhat uncomfortable with this whole process. Some of the backbenchers from St. John's have spoken out loud on this particular issue, they have articulated their own personal feelings. It generally mirrored the Government's approach and the problem with the Government's approach is that it really is a forced amalgamation approach and as we have often said, we are not questioning the principle of amalgamation but what we are questioning is the approach and the process that the Government used in trying to bring it about and nobody yet has been able to answer the question: why the rush? Why is this being forced? Why cannot the Government take the necessary time to convince the people if they think it is the best thing since sliced bread, take the time to convince the people of the area that it is going to be beneficial to them and explain to them what it is going to cost. Let them know all the facts and all the details. Take another year if you have to, there is nobody going to be hurt by a year's delay. Do it properly.

I cannot understand for the life of me, why they continue to take all this heat when it is not necessary. They could avoid all this controversy, do it properly, give the people answers to their questions and probably, at the end of it, who knows? Maybe at the end of the process they might be able to convince all these people, all these taxpayers. They might be able to convince them. Sure, you know it will be a two-year benefit to have your taxes go up from 6.5 mils to 11 mils because here is why, or to the City of Mount Pearl, sure, it will be a two-year benefit not to have a fire department, because here is why -

AN HON. MEMBER: Not to have the worry about Southlands (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: - not to have to worry about Southlands and here is why or, it will be to the City of St. John's, it will be to your benefit City of St. John's, taxpayers of St. John's, to take on all these additional costs, millions of dollars for the Aquarena, fire fighting services, all the rest of those services, it will be a two-year benefit or whatever, but you cannot say it to them because you have no facts, there have been no studies done, there are no financial bits of information that you can give to these people and that is why the hullabaloo. People want answers to their questions, Mr. Speaker, and I know that you understand full well the point that we are trying to make.

Now if the minister was prepared to stand up in this Legislature and say: well you know, you have made some pretty good arguments, it made a good point and you could even lambaste us and attack us for saying all you said. You have said it over and over and have been repeating yourself and you can say whatever you want to negatively, but accept the fact or acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of problems with this process the way it has gone, and I know there are members over in that caucus there who feel uncomfortable with the process, I know that personally. I would not mention any names but I know it and I would dare say the Government House Leader knows there are a lot of unhappy people with respect to the way the process went; a lot of unhappy people -

MR. TOBIN: The Member for Carbonear says he does not mind saying it.

MR. SIMMS: - No, I know, I have heard the Member for Carbonear, I have heard the Member for Pleasantville, for different reasons now, mind you. They have different arguments and different reasons than we have, but overall, the point that we are trying to make is that the process is wrong, for whatever reason, the process is wrong. The people have not really been given the opportunity to have their say.

And, Mr. Speaker, the Member for Exploits who is not in his seat, he is only a rookie in the House and I know he does not understand all the rules; he starts to interrupt right off the bat, sitting

in another seat, and should be taken to task. But we will let him go, he's only a rookie in the House.

I know that he has had some discussion with municipalities out in his area about amalgamation. Now I notice out in that area, Mr. Speaker, nothing has happened. Nothing is happening. As a matter of fact I have a funny feeling there is not going to be much happening anyway. I do not know now. The Minister would know, the Member for Exploits would know. But I have a sneaky feeling they just might decide to take a bit more time and think about this whole process. Do the proper thing. Have some feasibility studies and tell them what the costs are and tell them how much more taxes it is going to cost and everything like that.

Now the Member nods his head. He agrees with that approach, the Member for Exploits, and I agree with him., It is the right approach. The problem is, the Government is inconsistent, the Government is hypocritical in its actions. Because it is saying to communities out in Exploits, and I think it has said to a community in a statement that the Minister made himself - where was that? Down in the Bonavista North area somewhere, there was a community left out of the amalgamation process? The Minister said that it was going to be done from now on in a cooperative manner. Over on the West Coast we are not quite sure what the Premier is saying about Corner Brook, Mount Moriah and Massey Drive. We do not really know what the process is. One day we thought he said there would be a plebiscite and the next day he got up and said: no, no, no, I did not say that. As is his wont. He often does that. 'Let me correct the hon. Member,' and things of that nature.

But if it is happening out in other parts of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, if the Government is prepared to give communities outside of the Northeast Avalon region an opportunity to study it, find out what is going on, then why aren't they doing it for the communities in the Northeast Avalon? I have yet to get a satisfactory answer. The people in the Province do not have a satisfactory answer.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) first study (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Yes, but my friend from Exploits is still missing the point. This has never been studied. Well, if they have been can the Member for Exploits stand up next in the debate and answer these questions for me? Okay? How much is it going to cost the taxpayers of the City of St. John's?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: In other words you do not know. Precisely. Answer to my first question. Will the City of Mount Pearl residents and taxpayers now pay an additional 5.5 mils - almost doubling their mil taxpayer rate - in the Town of the Goulds as of the first of January?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: That will be - so you do not know the answer? Question number two, Mr. Speaker. He does not know. How about the Town of Wedgewood Park? Will the residents there be paying as of January 1 an additional 5.5 mils taxes?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Answer to question number three, Mr. Speaker, the Member for Exploits does not know. How about the Town of the Goulds Fire Department? Will it be a full paid fire department now? Will they get full paid fire services as the other taxpayers in the City of St. John's have?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: The Member is nodding yes? They will. The Member for Exploits is saying they will?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: In other words, answer to question number four, Mr. Speaker, I do not know. Somebody else will decide.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)?

MR. SIMMS: Well, why didn't you - what we want you to do? We want you to have some feasibility studies done so that you can answer those questions. We want public hearings so that people can participate and express their views and opinion on this amalgamation proposal in Bill 50. Not on the one that was studied twenty years ago. On this amalgamation proposal.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No, we want you to tell the City of St. John's and their taxpayers, the Town of the Goulds and their taxpayers, and Wedgewood Park and their taxpayers, how much it is going to cost them.

AN HON. MEMBER: But that is not our job.

MR. SIMMS: It is your job! That is exactly, Mr. Speaker, where the Member for Exploits is wrong. That is what is wrong with this entire process. That is what is wrong with the Member for Exploits' argument. It does not wash. They have ignored the people.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Grand Falls - Windsor (Inaudible)?

MR. SIMMS: In Grand Falls - Windsor, Mr. Speaker, you did not have the outcry against amalgamation that you have here in this area. The people want answers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. SIMMS: The Government went out and had public hearings and they did feasibility studies. The municipalities agreed with what was going on and understood what it was going to cost.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I do not know if they asked the question. That is not the point. See, all the Member wants to do is try to find some flimsy way of beating back a legitimate and logical argument that is being made by the people. He is missing the point. It is the people - are you saying the people are not asking all these questions and they would like to know before they are forced into amalgamation?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Well, you cannot have it both ways. You are saying no, yes, no, maybe, somebody else will do it. I think the Member should go back and do some research and some homework.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Oh, Mr. Speaker, I have not even started yet. This is only preliminary. As a matter of fact I was going to sit down about twenty minutes ago but the Member for Exploits has fuelled the situation, provided me with more fuel. I know that the Government House Leader will be delighted with that.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I forget what I wanted her for now.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) apologize for upsetting (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, the Member did not upset me. I hardly paid much attention to the Member so he could hardly upset me. But I do not want to offend him by sounding nasty or anything like that. I do not intend to be arrogant. I know that the Member for Exploits gets enough arrogance every day around the Cabinet table that he does not need it from me as well.

These comments are basically just general, preliminary comments. Well, let me ask the Member for Exploits some more questions, (Inaudible) seems to be in a good mood to answer, although he has not given me one answer yet. Let me ask him this: In terms of compensation, does he have the answer? Because the Government House Leader does not. The Government House Leader now is trying to tell the Member for Exploits to ignore me, not listen to me, do not pay attention to me, do not comment at all, that is what he is trying to convince him to do now. Stay away from the debate. If you cannot keep your trap shut, go out and have a smoke or go out and have a coffee. That is what the Government House Leader is telling him to do.

MR. TOBIN: Chewing tobacco (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Not to interrupt me, I know. I know what he is telling. But let me ask the Member for Exploits this question: Who is going to compensate the City of St. John's for providing all of these additional services to their new residents?

AN HON. MEMBER: Well, I will check with the Minister of (Inaudible) -

MR. SIMMS: I knew you would have to ask somebody.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I am. Well, I possibly might. But I am not a taxpayer in the City of St. John's. Not at the moment. I would like to know from the Member for Exploits, is he not going to... he is not going to communicate with me any more now, is he?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Well, can the Member for Exploits tell me who is going to compensate the City of St. John's for these additional services? Are they going to get a transition fee? Is there going to be a transition period, first of all? Can he tell me that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) in the transition (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Well, how can they be in the transition period? It is not even passed yet!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Oh, in their minds! In their minds they are in the transition period, Mr. Speaker! Well, isn't that an interesting approach? Is the Member saying that this is all in their minds?

MR. WARREN: Not true!

MR. SIMMS: This is all in their minds. They should not even worry about this. There is a transition period going on in their minds. I am talking about the transition period where these other communities are going to be swallowed up, that is the transition period I am referring to. What about the transition grant? I daresay that is in their minds too, because it is not going to be coming forth from the Government, I suspect.

But can he tell me. The $1.2 million for fire fighting services, the $1 million or whatever it was for the Aquarena. Those additional expenses. Is the Government going to provide the City of St. John's with a grant of any sort - transitional grant - to help ease that pain?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Oh my, oh my. Mr. Speaker, could I suggest that the Member for Exploits go back to his seat, pick up one of the books read by his colleague the Minister of Transportation, and sit back and relax and settle back? Because he is not contributing to the debate one bit. I can understand why. I asked about eight or ten questions - at least eight or ten - and he never had an answer for one.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes he did: in their minds.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Okay, I only asked seven. One answer he gave me was: it is all in their minds. It is a figment of their imagination.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I can tell him there are an awful lot of people who wish it was a figment of their imagination. But it emphasizes once again exactly the point that we have been making on this side. Nobody, but nobody, has the answers to the questions. That is sad, that is unfortunate. It is a reflection on democracy, and the Member for Exploits preaches democracy from time to time out in schools.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I know. He used to be a teacher. When he was a young teacher, by the way, he ran against me in Grand Falls in 1979.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) did he win?

MR. WARREN: No he never.

MR. SIMMS: No, I do not believe he won his nomination fee, as a matter of fact. I think -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) won it just barely.

MR. SIMMS: Barely, did he? I thought it was well over two to one.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Oh yes. You hear that? He said publicly the best man won.

AN HON. MEMBER: I said (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: And he still says it out there. I know he still says it out there. The best Member Grand Falls ever had, I hear him saying it all the time.

AN HON. MEMBER: The union he lost.

MR. SIMMS: Behind the scenes. He is very kind to me. Not I have not been overly negative to the member either. I do not think the member has heard me saying too much critical. The odd one or something. Water treatment plant issues. Occasionally there are issues that arise like water treatment plants and things like that where I have to rap him on the knuckles a couple of times. But nothing too heavy. I am sure he can overcome that. Now whether he will overcome it in time to win the next election out there, that is another question and we will deal with that on another occasion.

But anyway. So the Member for Exploits cannot tell me -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Landslide? Yes. He had a landslide the last time. In fact he tied me, I think, in my 1985 vote. Forty votes was it, or something. Forty-one? That is exactly what mine was in (Inaudible). Remember that infamous 1985 election.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I will not comment on the Member for Bellevue. Because he is kind of irrelevant in this Legislature, but anyway we will just carry on.

I wanted to know who is going to compensate the City of St. John's. He cannot answer that. Can he tell me specifically again if the Town of the Goulds will now get a full-fledged paid fire department? Since they are going to be paying taxes -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Pardon me?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: So will they get a fully paid -?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: How is it a regional fire department?

MR. WINDSOR: It is not a regional fire department.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: It's only a name.

MR. SIMMS: Oh, you are going to call it the St. John's Regional Fire Department.

MR. WINDSOR: It's only a name. It is not a regional fire system.

MR. SIMMS: So will they now provide paid fire fighters for the Town of the Goulds? Can he answer that question? Oh, all of a sudden the Member for Exploits has the answer. Five minutes ago he told me it was in their minds.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) fire department (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: That fire department covers St. John's. Yes, but will it cover the Goulds?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) be part of St. John's.

MR. SIMMS: Yes? So it will cover the Goulds. So they will have a paid fire department, will they? They will have a paid fire department. Is that what he is saying?

AN HON. MEMBER: The House Leader does not know (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Can he answer my question directly?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No!

MR. WINDSOR: How about Conception Bay South?

MR. SIMMS: He cannot answer the question. What about Conception Bay South?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: They will have a paid fire department as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: St. John's (Inaudible) -

MR. SIMMS: Does Conception Bay South have paid fire fighters now?

AN HON. MEMBER: Today? No, none that I know (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: None?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: See, the Member does not even know. Sure they do. They have a partial paid fire department and they have a partial volunteer fire department at the moment in CBS. I think that is the correct information.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Six, I think, they have six paid fire fighters, as far as I understand it. Anyway, it is all part of the overall question and the overall issue.

There are so many questions outstanding, Mr. Speaker, and I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government will not bite the bullet, will not swallow its pride and say: look, we think perhaps we have been too hasty, and here is what we will do. We will call a plebiscite, we will have a plebiscite. The Premier's argument always was - when we were arguing on behalf of the little people in the Goulds, Wedgewood Park, those places - the Premier's answer always was: well, I think - in his mind; getting back to what the Member for Exploits said - the majority of all the people in the Northeast Avalon support what we have done.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Bill 50. Support Bill 50. I think that is a fair statement. The Member for Exploits confirms it. He was the Premier's executive assistant, parliamentary assistant -

MR. TOBIN: Gofer!

MR. SIMMS: Now that is unkind. We will not use those terminologies. He was his caddy, yes. (Inaudible) he might have been the Premier's caddy. He was his - what do you call those who do all those grease-and-oil changes on trucks and cars and everything?

AN HON. MEMBER: Grease monkey.

MR. SIMMS: He was the Premier's grease monkey. These are all compliments. He eats, sleeps, and drinks the Premier. Whatever the Premier does the Member for Exploits knows it. The Premier has him in his confidence totally.

MR. TOBIN: He should if he is his executive assistant.

MR. SIMMS: Exactly. The Member for Burin - Placentia West would know how those people are treated. The Member for Exploits has confirmed that this is what the Premier said. He thinks the majority of people on the Northeast Avalon supports it. He does not think it, he knows it. Oh, yes, the Premier said, I know it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: Yes. In his mind. We have debated and argued this whole issue since the resolution came up in May, and now the bill itself, so if he is so certain then why do we not have it out? Why do we not have a plebiscite and give the people an opportunity to express whether or not they agree with what has happened in Bill 50? That is all you have to ask. It is a very simple question. They know whether they have enough information to make a valid decision on it or whatever, so for whatever reason they will vote for it. Maybe they are Liberals who will want to support the Premier blindly, maybe they are Tories, maybe they are NDP, forgetting that part there are an awful lot of people out there who may not have enough information and might be against it. Or maybe there are people out there who might agree with it. To hell with the process and who cares about giving the public a chance to have a say, who cares about answers to questions about how much it is going to cost, let us vote anyway because we believe it. Why do we not have a plebiscite?

MR. GRIMES: We do not need one.

MR. SIMMS: Oh, now the Member for Exploits says we do not need one. Well, the Premier said we may need one in Corner Brook, Mount Moriah, and Massey Drive, so why would we need one in there and not one in here? Can he tell me that?

MR. GRIMES: It depends on the level of perceived uncertainty.

MR. SIMMS: It depends on the level of perceived uncertainty. Perceived by who?

MR. GRIMES: Whoever is in a position (inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: And, who is that?

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: The Member for Exploits is now starting to give some answers. Who is that? Oh, you are too embarrassed to say it are you? Say it outright, boy. Do not be afraid. Say, God. Do not be afraid. Tell us who it is. Who makes that decision?

MR. GRIMES: The Government makes it.

MR. SIMMS: Ah, the Government. I see. So, the perception is that in Corner Brook there may be a need for a plebiscite. In the mind of the Premier, or in the mind of the people of there?

MR. GRIMES: In the minds of the people out there.

MR. SIMMS: In the minds of the people of there. Okay. That is the Premier's perception.

MR. GRIMES: I do not know if it is the Premier's perception.

MR. SIMMS: Well, I am asking the Member for Exploits. He is so close to him he should know the answer. You gave me the answer a minute ago. You said it is up to him.

MR. GRIMES: I did not say that.

MR. SIMMS: Yes, you did. It is in Hansard. I should not be asking the Member for Exploits all these difficult questions. He has only been in Cabinet a couple of weeks, is it? He is only in the House a couple of years so it is unfair, I guess, to be asking those questions of him. Again, it proves the uncertainty, Mr. Speaker. Once again it proves what we have been saying, that people do not have the answers to the questions. People do not know what it is going to cost.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SIMMS: When he says the Government he means the Government caucus? When the Member for Exploits says Government does he mean the Government caucus or just the Cabinet?

MR. GRIMES: The Government.

MR. SIMMS: The Government which is the Cabinet, and not the caucus. Okay. I perceive in my mind, like the Premier does often in his mind, that there might be some people in the Government caucus who might welcome the idea of a plebiscite. In fact, I would not be surprised if there are.

AN HON. MEMBER: I know two.

MR. SIMMS: Well, let's not embarrass anybody. We only know from speculation. We do not know for fact. They have not stood up in their place and said they would welcome a plebiscite. Maybe they will, although I am not sure; I believe the Member for Pleasantville did say -

AN HON. MEMBER: I think he did.

MR. SIMMS: I missed the member's speech.

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible) we would all agree to abide by the (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: We would all agree? Are you speaking for the Government?

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: So if we could agree on the right question. Now see, I would buy that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I would buy that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Whatever.

What you had is Bill 50. What you are doing is Bill 50, and you have to ask - pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: That plebiscite would not be on Bill 50.

MR. SIMMS: Well, sure that is what you are doing. You are doing Bill 50. If this is not what you want done, what are you doing this for?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: He tried to get an amendment passed, but it was defeated by his own colleagues on the Government side, so now we are back to Bill 50.

AN HON. MEMBER: He was lucky to get a seconder.

MR. SIMMS: Could not even get a seconder, was it?

AN HON. MEMBER: He was lucky to get one.

MR. SIMMS: Oh, he was lucky.

So what is wrong with having a plebiscite on what the Government is proposing to do on the Northeast Avalon? That is the issue that we are talking about today.

MR. NOEL: We might lose that.

MR. SIMMS: Aha! Well, Mr. Speaker, I hope Hansard recorded what the Member for Pleasantville just said, because for once we have an honest opinion being expressed here.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did he say?

MR. SIMMS: He said, we might lose that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, they might lose it.

MR. SIMMS: For once we have seen an honest comment, an honest reply from the Member for Pleasantville. When I asked the question: Why not have a plebiscite on the Government's proposals for the Northeast Avalon as outlined in Bill 50, the Member for Pleasantville said, and I want to say this clearly for Hansard, the Member for Pleasantville said: We might lose that.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I commend the Member for Pleasantville for having the courage and the guts today to say that in this Legislature.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Because that is precisely what we think. We happen to think there is a good chance that might not be approved, but now that the Member for Pleasantville, a member for the Government caucus, and I hope the people in the press gallery picked it up, because if they did not they will hear about it afterwards. I can assure you, if the press gallery did not pick that up, they will hear about it afterwards. We will make sure they will hear about it afterwards. I can see it now: Noel says we cannot have a plebiscite because we might lose it. That is the headline. I can see it tomorrow.

AN HON. MEMBER: He certainly knows what he is talking about.

MR. SIMMS: I have always respected the Member for Pleasantville, to tell you the truth.

AN HON. MEMBER: So have I.

MR. SIMMS: It is hard for a Tory to say that he respects and appreciates a Liberal, but he is one of the ones I do over there, because the reality is, of course, he is not a Liberal -

AN HON. MEMBER: He is a Socialist.

MR. SIMMS: Well he used to be a Socialist, but I think he is more of a conservative. Mr. Speaker, the Member for Pleasantville is bum to bum, and cheek to cheek, day in, day out, with my colleague, the Member for Menihek, the old entrepreneur, the old money bags.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about Jack?

MR. SIMMS: Now he avoids Jack.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: The Member for Pleasantville.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No, the Member for Pleasantville avoids Jack for some strange reason. Now, mind you, it is not coincidental that the Member for Menihek used to be involved in the New Democratic Party either, but to see them now, the two of them multimillionaires I suppose in their own rights, the two of them. Right? Made fortunes as business people, entrepreneurs.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: The Member for Pleasantville and the Member for Menihek.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Oh, I am not going to talk about him yet. No. The Member for Port de Grave is being persecuted enough, and I do not need to try to do it here in this House. I am not even going to mention it. I will leave him alone.

The Member for Pleasantville though, and the Member for Menihek, just to prove my point, I suppose a couple of the biggest business people in this House, millionaires in their own right I suspect, both of them wealthy men. Now you would never call them Socialists - never.

AN HON. MEMBER: Another Water Street Merchant.

MR. SIMMS: Yes, another Water Street Merchant.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

All hon. members know the proper way to address any hon. member in this House, and I ask members to stick to that when they are referring to hon. members from either side.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure if you are admonishing me or members over on the other side, or who, but anyway I respect that, and I understand it.

Anyway I am a bit off track. Members opposite now have been successful. Members opposite have been successful in diverting me away from the real issue at hand, because of the damage to their case that I have been making over the last hour or so.

AN HON. MEMBER: Four fifteen.

MR. SIMMS: Well how long have I (inaudible) five minutes or how much time do -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Only two minutes left! No, no, no. Sure I have only been speaking for about ten minutes.

AN HON. MEMBER: He started five after three.

MR. SIMMS: What time did I begin Elizabeth.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Oh, lots of time yet, lots of time.

Anyway, back to the Water Street merchant and my friend for Menihek. The point I was trying to make was I have a lot of respect for the Member for Pleasantville, and I know that he is very close to my colleague, the Member for Menihek. They exchange business secrets, how to make money, and you see them every day behind the curtain or anywhere like that.

AN HON. MEMBER: How to be a socialist in disguise.

MR. SIMMS: I wish my colleague would stop saying that. I do not think he is a socialist.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Misinformed. Sorry, I do not have as much time as I thought.

Anyway, the Member for Pleasantville -

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. SIMMS: Now, I have been kind to the member.

AN HON. MEMBER: He has fifteen minutes left.

MR. SIMMS: By the way I do not want leave anyway, okay. I just want to make this point once again, Mr. Speaker, because I am not sure if Your Honour was listening to me, and I am not sure if he heard the Member for Pleasantville. When I asked the question: why don't we have a plebiscite on what is proposed by the Government on the Northeast Avalon in Bill 50, why don't we do that, the Member for Pleasantville said: no boy, we might lose that, which, Mr. Speaker, is the big news story out today, and I am sure the press are going to be carrying that. That will be the headline.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Do not be deceived by the fact there is nobody up sitting in the press gallery. Let me assure the hon. member, and he knows it better than anybody, the Member for Pleasantville has confirmed what we have thought ourselves. The reason why there is not going to be a plebiscite is not because of what the Member for Exploits said which was that everybody supports it, or what the Premier said which was that everybody supports it, or the majority of people in the whole region support it. It is not that reason. It is the reason that the Member for Pleasantville just let blurt out. It is because you think you might lose it. Now your own member is saying it. Now, Mr. Speaker, if that is the case -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Perhaps the Member for Exploits should spend a bit of time talking to his own colleagues in the back bench, and not be wrapped up with his new found position. That often happens to Cabinet ministers you know. I can speak from experience. You often lose touch with your own back benchers. Do you hear me? Ministers often lose touch with their own back benchers, and I can attest to that. I can attest to it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did that happen to you?

MR. SIMMS: Yes, it happened to me. It is sad to say, it happened to me.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No, I was never in the back bench, I say to the hon. member. That is one of the problems, I was never in the back bench. And the problem is with a Cabinet minister you get so wrapped up with everything, day to day forty or fifty items on a Cabinet agenda, Treasury Board meetings, resource policy and social policy meetings, House of Assembly meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, House of Assembly meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings. You forget to talk to your friends and supporters who are in the back benches, the private members, and I have a sneaky feeling that is occurring a bit with this particular government. One of the issues that now emphasizes that point from my perspective is what we just saw occur here in the House, the exchange from the Member for Pleasantville, who usually speaks his mind and I respect him for being an open - well, I do not know if he always, but he certainly usually speaks his mind and he is always honest and open, I will give him credit for it and there are other members by the way -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) very smart.

MR. SIMMS: - I do not mind - well, whether you agree or disagree with his opinion, he does not mind standing up to this Government -

MR. TOBIN: Who?

MR. SIMMS: - he does not. The Member for Pleasantville, and there are other members. The Member for Carbonear does not mind standing up and speaking his mind, I do not mind saying it. Certainly the Member for Port de Grave does not mind standing up and speaking his mind and we all see it from time to time, so thank God, we have people like that in that caucus over there, who will tell us the truth. The Member for Pleasantville has told us the truth today.

The Premier says, there is no need for a plebiscite because the majority of the people in the region support what we are doing in Bill 50. The Member for Pleasantville says, nonsense, the reason we will not have a plebiscite is because we might lose it. Now, that is rather interesting, Mr. Speaker. I do not know what will happen tomorrow. If the Premier gets wind of this he might have the Member for Pleasantville forced to stand to his feet tomorrow, on a point of privilege or a point of order or something, to clarify his statements and what he meant. I would not be at all surprised to see that occur.

AN HON. MEMBER: Open the House tomorrow?

MR. SIMMS: Yes. Open the House tomorrow, especially for the Member for Pleasantville to be brought before the Bar of the House. I would not be at all surprised if the Premier ordered that member to come before the Bar of the House to explain his position, because I will tell you, if he is upset with Richard Cashin, he has not seen anything yet, until he gets to the Member for Pleasantville, so, Mr. Speaker, it is -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: I have been asked - no, no, by leave, he gave me leave.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who gave you leave?

MR. SIMMS: Oh, everybody in the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Burin - Placentia West wants me to read this into the record. This is a letter that the Premier wrote to the Mayor of Lewin's Cove, which again should be entered into the debate. Part of the letter - I will not read it all. It was September 24, 1989 about this whole question of whether it should be forced upon people, which is -

AN HON. MEMBER: Where is it?

MR. SIMMS: - Burin - Placentia West. Now the hon. member is only a rookie member who has only been in the House a couple years and has only been a minister for a couple of weeks so he would not know where a community as strong as Lewin's Cove is located I suppose. It says, this is the Premier now to Mayor Gilbert Inkpen: I assure you that if the majority of residents of Lewin's Cove are opposed to being amalgamated with any surrounding municipality, then there are no plans to force the issue. A direct quote.

Now, if that is the case for Lewin's Cove and the case for a community out in Bonavista North, which we heard about a couple of weeks ago, why is it not the case for the Goulds, Wedgewood Park? Why? Is it because you would not expect to have the support of the people if you had a plebiscite, is that maybe one of the reasons why? Is that possible? The Member for Exploits is not saying anything now. You cannot get him to answer any questions.

MR. TOBIN: He wrote the letter I think.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately my time is drawing nigh in this particular debate, and I did not get a chance at all yet to address all of the statements made by the minister the day that he opened the debate and some rebuttals and comments and questions so, I will have another occasion to do that in committee stage or we might even have - God knows, we might have some amendments, there could be third reading debate. There are all kinds of opportunities so I will get back at it after those few preliminary remarks, Mr. Speaker, although how much time do I have?

AN HON. MEMBER: Three more minutes.

MR. SIMMS: Oh, I have three minutes yet. Well, perhaps I will - Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No, no, no. This is all preliminary so far.

AN HON. MEMBER: Go over it again, I missed them. Perhaps he will start again.

MR. SIMMS: No, with the few minutes I have left, I want to draw the Government House Leader's attention to the point I was trying to make in the debate this morning lest I might have been misunderstood, as the Premier often says. Let me clarify - no he never says clarify, he always says let me correct because of the misrepresentation of the members opposite. It was on the issue of Clause 10 (3), the discussion that we had this morning. I fear that the Government House Leader and the Minister of Development were missing the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make is that, first of all these two sections, if it applies to just the Northeast Avalon, and I take their word for it if that is what they said, if it applies to just the Northeast Avalon, that includes CBS and all these other communities on Northeast Avalon, but the point still stands that it is wrong for Cabinet to have the authority to do these things, to amalgamate a community, to disestablish a town, or whatever, without having hearings, without having feasibility studies done. The point is still appropriate. The second point is this, that if it is done now this precedent is now set, giving the Cabinet that total authority over this kind of question, if that is the spirit, if that is the precedent that has been set here now, then what is to stop the same Cabinet, or some future Cabinet from some other Government, with coming in with another little bill to do exactly the same thing somewhere else in Newfoundland and Labrador and simply get up and make the argument: this was done back in 1991. This is no big deal, this is not new, this can be done at any time. Mr. Speaker, I think that is wrong. I do not think that any Cabinet, or Government, should have that power. Now, the Member for Exploits, by the way, should have another word with the Government House Leader about our discussion earlier on that issue, and if he does he should be very careful because there are certain things happening that he does not know anything about. I do not want to embarrass him here today so I would suggest that he have a little chat with him about that before he carries on any further.

MR. TOBIN: What about the road components for a minute?

MR. SIMMS: No, I want to continue on with this issue here because I think this is the issue on which I have the most difficult problem, notwithstanding all the unanswered questions, notwithstanding the lack of feasibility, notwithstanding the legalities not being totally followed, notwithstanding the breaking of democracy, notwithstanding the down loading on municipalities, notwithstanding the unanswered question about why you ram regional services board's legislation through this House and have not even used it since, using closure, notwithstanding all of those questions, this issue here is one that bothers me almost more than anything else. Would the Government House Leader have a chat with the minister? Perhaps the Government House Leader could chat with the minister because I do not want to talk to him again. He obviously did not listen or hear. He is not listening to what I said because he will get up like the Premier and he will say: let me correct the hon. member for his misrepresentation. I just explained all that. What I am saying is if it does apply only to the Northeast Avalon then the precedent is set for the future and any Cabinet can then say, well, it was done back in 1991.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: No. No. If you read the Hansard from this morning you will see. That is the problem with the Minister of Development, he does not listen. People out around the Province say he does not listen.

AN HON. MEMBER: You changed.

MR. SIMMS: I did not change. If the member will read this morning's Hansard he will see that I asked the questions first of all and at the time I said -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SIMMS: You answered them. You answered. And? What is your point?

MR. FUREY: You carried on the same argument.

MR. SIMMS: I carried on the same question. See that is where the minister's problem is, and the Governments, he does not listen. You are not listening, and worse than that, you do not hear either. Lots of people get accused of not listening but what the people want is not only somebody who listens but somebody who hears what they are saying. That is one of the problems and members opposite do not understand it. I certainly do not expect the acting Minister of Justice, freshly returned from a trip to Bristol, to have all the answers to the questions I have asked today. I do not understand why the acting, acting Minister of Justice, the in-House Minister of Justice, not the out-House Minister of Justice, the in-House Minister of Justice, I do not understand why he came back from Bristol. He is the Member for Bonavista

The Minister of Municipal Affairs, whose legislation we have been debating and haggling over and having afternoon and evening sittings over, is not here.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: Perhaps he will get up in the debate and explain it, Mr. Speaker, and I will get back to this at another time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave! By leave!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) tell me my time is up?

MR. SPEAKER: Yes. The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. SIMMS: I thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I understand I only have a few minutes to speak this afternoon. What I have to say will not take longer than half an hour.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I know the hon. Member for Port de Grave wants to speak. He was here every afternoon this week anxious to get on the Speaker's list but without success. But perhaps he will have a chance a little later on or next week to debate this particular piece of legislation.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the bill that is currently before the House is a bill that ought to be defeated. Because the people of this Province deserve a better statement of principle about amalgamation and about the organization of municipal affairs than this Government has provided. I was at a hearing last night of the Constitutional Committee and one gentleman was suggesting that there ought to be a time limit on members represented in the House. Elected representatives. They ought only to be able to serve -

MR. EFFORD: There should be what!?

MR. HARRIS: They ought to be only able to serve two terms.

MR. EFFORD: Two terms? (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: The reason that he said that - and I know the Member will be interested in this - was: the longer people serve the lower their IQs get.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: Who said that?

MR. HARRIS: One of the presenters to the Constitutional Committee last night. He said that there should be a time limit on serving in public office because the longer you serve the lower your IQs (Inaudible) get. I do not know how long the hon. Member for Port de Grave has been here. He must have been here a long time.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible)!

MR. HARRIS: He is certainly demonstrating that he has been here too long, Mr. Speaker.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible)!

MR. HARRIS: Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to speak, however, to the bill. Because the bill is what is before the House and that is what we are here to talk about.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Now, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition spoke about whether or not the Government listened. Perhaps -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if you could inform the rabble on the other side that they should be quiet?

MR. HOGAN: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia on a point of order.

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible) apologize to this side of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: No point of order.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible) apology. You should apologize to the House for wasting the time of the House!

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The bill that is before the House is really about power. About how much power this Government is prepared to exercise to do exactly what it wants without the consent and consultation of the people of this particular region. They went through a process that involved a certain amount of discussion and talk, and in the end they called in all the players and said: this is what we are going to do. We do not care what you think or what you thought or what you told us.

Now to give you proof positive that this is about power, all you have to do is compare what the Government of this Province is doing to the people of Wedgewood Park versus what the Government is doing to the people of Mount Pearl. The people of Wedgewood Park, 1,300 strong, do not want amalgamation. Everybody knows that. The Member for Pleasantville will acknowledge that, they do not want amalgamation, they want to be in their own enclave, providing their own services at their own cost, that is what they want. They are opposed to amalgamation. So, Mr. Speaker, that is what the Government is faced with, the opposition, perhaps 99.9 per cent, there might be one person in Wedgewood Park who says: yes boy, we will go along with amalgamation for the greater good of all in the whole region. There might be. There might be ten. But the vast majority of people in Wedgewood Park are as opposed to amalgamation as the hon. Member for Mount Pearl.

So what does the Government do? The hobnailed boots, as the former Member for Baie Verte used to say, we have not heard very much from the new Member for Baie Verte yet; he is probably the most intelligent person in the House according to the formula put forth to the Constitution Committee last night, having just arrived, but the former Member for Baie Verte - White Bay, Mr. Speaker, had a good expression for what the Government is doing to the people of Wedgewood Park, the hobnailed boots, and why are they exercising that power over the people of Wedgewood Park but not Mount Pearl?

Now I know the Member for Mount Pearl says they are destroying Mount Pearl and they are doing this and they are doing that, but the Premier has a reason. The reason we did not amalgamate Mount Pearl is because of the opposition of the people. Well, Mr. Speaker, what is wrong with the opposition of the people of Wedgewood Park? Is their opposition any different from the people of Mount Pearl? Now granted they do not have their own member, there is no member for Wedgewood Park. The Member for St. John's East Extern represents Wedgewood Park, along with many, many other people but they do not have their own member.

They do not have a Mayor and Town Council who are prepared to organize demonstrations, they do not have a town council or city council as committed as the City of Mount Pearl is, by taking risks and starting their own fire department and trying to challenge this Government, so what do we have ? We have one group of people who are prepared to stand up and challenge the Government and we have another group of people who do not have the power, who do not have the resources, who do not have the strength, perhaps do not have the same commitment to the cause as the people of Mount Pearl, but they are opposed to it, just as strongly, just as clearly, just as obviously as the people are of Mount Pearl, or at least the people of Mount Pearl who have been expressing their opinions mostly.

I think, Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of people in Mount Pearl, perhaps the majority of people in Mount Pearl who, if this case were presented in a different fashion - if the Government had acted in a different fashion, had not tried to do this the way they are doing it, who had told the people what they were going to do before they did it and said: here is our plan, we think - and the Member for Pleasantville knows all this - we think that the people of all this region will be better served by one regional authority. Let us not call it the supercity, let us not call it any name that is going to make people think negatively about it but our idea is that there ought to be one entity, one municipal entity. It can be in the form of regional government, it can be a form of something like that but we are going to have one entity, we are going to bring everybody in and we are going to provide for fair taxation or provide a mechanism whereby there should be fair and equitable municipal taxation amongst this region and people will share in the services and if they had suggested that, I have moved that amendment, actually I tried to second that amendment.

The Member for Placentia, the hon. Minister of Social Services, may not know that the Member for Pleasantville and I - he was desperate for a seconder for his amendment. He had an amendment to the resolution, he could not find anyone on your side of the House, he could not find anyone on the Government side of the House to second his amendment. They were flipping a coin at one time, Mr. Speaker, as to whether I would move it and he would second it or, he would move it and I would second it and five minutes before he got up to speak, the Member for St. John's South decided to jump on this very small band wagon. It was a very small bandwagon on the Government side of the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: St. John's South was (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: St. John's South - he tried to jump on a small bandwagon and finally decided to second it. When the Member for Pleasantville got up to move this amendment, much to my surprise it was not seconded by the Member for St. John's East, as I had been told five minutes before, but it was seconded by the Member for St. John's South; but that is okay. I understand that. He had gotten some support on the other side of the House, and he wanted to flaunt that to the rest of the members of the House, and that is okay.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) seconder.

MR. HARRIS: No, he certainly did not. He told me that was fine. He was going to move it, and I was going to second it, and the first time I discovered otherwise was when he stood on his feet and said: And I move, seconded by the Member for St. John's South - and he moved the amendment that he and I had agreed upon. In fact, I think I helped him word it. He will admit to that. He will agree to that. We worked on it together, in any event. So he understands the proper approach that should have been taken to all of this, and we both agreed on this amendment, and I spoke on it, and in fact I voted for it. I do not know, there may have been - was there anybody else on your side of the House who voted for that? I do not know.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I believe there were only two on the Government side of the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Because he was listening -

AN HON. MEMBER: Murphy did not vote for it.

MR. HARRIS: Murphy did not vote for it. The Member for St. John's South did not vote it. He just seconded it? He only seconded it. Okay.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I do not know. We will have to look at the record. Hansard may record who voted in favour of it and who voted against it, but that is not the point. The point is that an opportunity was given to the Government members to amend the resolution so that it was fair to everybody, so that there was not differential treatment between the people from Mount Pearl as opposed to the people from tiny Wedgewood Park. The people of the Goulds were given the same treatment as the people from Wedgewood Park, but the people of Mount Pearl were treated differently. Why is that? Is that because the Premier was frightened? Was he frightened that the next election the Member for Mount Pearl would get re-elected? Was that his concern? Is that why he changed his mind so fast? Because up until the day the resolution was brought into the House, no one knew. Everybody assumed, and I think the Member for Pleasantville assumed that when amalgamation was coming down it was going to be amalgamation that provided for equitable services throughout the North Avalon region.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) full amalgamation.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, I know there was support. The members in the Cabinet for St. John's I think were all supporting full amalgamation. I see the Minister of Education nodding his head. Perhaps he was nodding at something else, but I know that he agreed with full amalgamation. The Member for St. John's West, the Minister of Mines and Energy, he supported full amalgamation. He is nodding his head. I think, at the end of the day, the Cabinet and the Government side of the House went along with doing to Wedgewood Park what they were frightened to do to Mount Pearl, and that is include them in the amalgamated scheme, because the people of Wedgewood Park enjoy a mil rate of 6.5 per cent. The people in St. John's, I think, is 11 per cent. I am not certain if it is exactly 10.5 or 11 per cent, 11 mils; 6.5 mils in Wedgewood Park, and they are very happy. They have a high level of services. They control their services. They have a recreation facility second to none.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is not a percentage (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: It is not a per cent. It is a mil rate; 6.5 mils. That is .65 per cent. Sixty-five over one thousand or something like that. A mil is one tenth of a percent. Mr. Speaker, those people in Wedgewood Park are not happy with amalgamation and why should they be? Not only that, they would never vote in favour of amalgamation, so I agree when members opposite say that you cannot necessarily ask one little group whether you want to give up your privileges, because they are going to say, no, if they have any common sense at all. If there was going to be a plebiscite, if there was going to be a vote, a real democracy would require that everybody participate and not just the people of a small place. If Government wants to do something that would command the respect of the people of this Province for making a decision that is in the interest of everybody they would have done a proper job. Instead of that, Mr Speaker, what they have done is done a continuation of what they did in the back rooms of the Cabinet by implementing Section 10.2 when they said: we will let Cabinet decide all these things. The Cabinet is now going to have the power to disestablish towns, to establish another area as a town, to amalgamate one town with another, to annex an area to a city or a town, to limit boundaries and orders. All of this, Mr. Speaker, in order to implement the resolution passed in this House and that is the power that this Cabinet has taken to itself. It is not prepared to come here and lay before the House what its plans are if it passes the resolution. It is not prepared to come and lay before the House what the effect of all this is and say, no, no, you pass this, you give us the power. We will go in the back rooms of the Cabinet and we will draw the line, we will do this, and we will disestablish whatever towns we like and move this around. You can look at it afterwards and maybe it will be in conformity with the resolution and maybe it will not. It is suppose to be, but maybe they will invite Mr. Hodder and his council to go to court to find out whether it is in conformity with the regulations or not. That is the way this Government has chosen to deal with the City of Mount Pearl. Have a standoff, a good Mexican standoff. Invite them to go to court and challenge them by the way they do things. And not only that, Mr. Speaker, what they have done by amalgamating, through this bill, the Town of Wedgewood Park and the Town of the Goulds, they are leaving them without representation.

On January 1, 1992, Mr. Speaker, the people of the Town of Wedgewood Park will be thrown in with the citizens of St. John's, all fine people, but thrown in without their consent and with no representative. No one there, they had an opportunity to do that, Mr. Speaker, elections were even called. Now I have not researched this issue, but I have been told by a lawyer who has researched this issue,that the Government did have the power to ensure that on January 1, 1992, there would be a ward representative for the Town of Wedgewood Park sitting in with the city council and helping to integrate the functions and the activities and the problems that come with this amalgamation, by sitting on the council as a representative of a ward that includes Wedgewood Park, the Government had the power to do that under the Municipalities Act but they did not do it, Mr. Speaker.

They asked the city council to postpone the elections and they are leaving the people of Wedgewood Park, as of January 1, 1992, without any representation whatsoever. Their town will be disestablished. I have no doubt that Section 10 (2) will be implemented by then, that the Cabinet will have met behind closed doors and that they would have de-established the Town of Wedgewood Park, the town council would no longer exist, the mayor and councillors who served that town will no longer have any authority to speak on their behalf and to assist in the amalgamation, to ensure that the City of St. John's and the members of the council of the City of St. John's, have knowledge of the importance of the services that were provided by the Town of Wedgewood Park, continue to be provided and are integrated in a proper and appropriate way with the City of St. John's activities. But, Mr. Speaker, they prevented that from taking place by failing to take action which could have been done, Mr. Speaker, I understand, through an Order in Council to ensure that as of January 1, even though the town was not amalgamated, that they would be able to elect somebody who could take office on January 1st, 1992.

So, Mr. Speaker, we therefore have clear evidence of the inability of this Government to take seriously its responsibilities to be fair to everybody and to give everybody an equal opportunity to not-

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh!

MR. HARRIS: Could I have order, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member has requested silence.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know I am trying to make a speech and say something about this act and I must say that the hon. member in debate, the Leader of the Opposition, talked about the Government not listening to the people, but, Mr. Speaker, I do not know how you could expect them to listen to the people, they do not even listen to the members when they are speaking in debate in the House, and I had -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: To the people of this Province, Mr. Speaker, and when they come to this House, they are appalled. I had three gentlemen who were here last week from out of town, they came and watched the House and they talked to me after and they could not believe it. They could not believe that members in this House would carry on conversations and turn their back to the Chair, like the Member for Port de Grave, and talk, and carry on conversations, and not listen to what was going on. They were appalled. They could not believe it. No wonder, Mr. Speaker, that the people who want to deride politicians are given the kind of ammunition that they get from this House when this sort of thing goes on.

Mr. Speaker, I think the Government really should have the courage of its convictions and withdraw this bill, and go back to the drawing board. Go back to the drawing board and try to achieve a consensus on what to do. They have not done that. They have taken the guts out of Mounts Pearl, and what they have done, Mr. Speaker, is created another Wedgewood Park, and in ten years time there is going to be another Government, it is certainly not going to be this one, faced with the inequities of having Mount Pearl the way it is, and St. John's and the region paying one level of taxes, and a little enclave of Mount Pearl paying off its debt and having cheap services, and not being fair. Somebody has to be facing the fact - well the same argument is going to happen again because they have taken the guts out of Mount Pearl. They have refused to allow Mount Pearl to expand. They are either going to have a city or they are not going to have a city, Mr. Speaker. If you are going to put a noose around the neck of Mount Pearl - I am not saying you might as well put - then what you are doing is going to be causing a slow death to Mount Pearl rather than saying, rather than being honest as they have been with Wedgewood Park, honest but disreputable because they are doing to Wedgewood Park what they were not prepared to do in Mount Pearl. They might as well have been honest, Mr. Speaker, and said that we are going to do a proper job and say: we believe in amalgamation, and because we are government of principle - we always hear the Premier talk about principle. I think it is a matter of principle with the Premier whether he has marmalade or jam on his toast in the morning. That would be a matter of principle for the Premier. Mr. Speaker, if it is a matter of principle, amalgamation, why don't -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Perhaps the members did not understand. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, when the Premier decides to have marmalade or jam on his toast in the morning that it is a matter of principle, that decision. And if, Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of principle, then the Government and the Premier should have had the courage of his convictions, gone ahead, and had a proper amalgamation done, and done a proper job, and said: here is how we are going to do it because we think it is fair. Fairness and balance is what the Premier has talked about. Where is the fairness, Mr. Speaker? Where is the fairness when Wedgewood Park is disestablished with the stroke of a pen. There is going to be a pen stroke taking place within the next thirty days, Mr. Speaker, prior to January 1st, 1992, signed by the clerk of the Executive Council to disestablish the Town of Wedgewood Park. There will be no more Town of Wedgewood Park, Mr. Speaker.

Now, Mr. Speaker, that is what this Government is going to do with the stroke of a pen. That is fairness to the Town of Wedgewood Park.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Social Services knows that you cannot make sauce of one - well, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and if you are going to say Wedgewood Park is gone, why don't you have the courage, why don't you have the guts to say: well, we do not believe in these separate towns. Why don't you have the guts to say: we are going to get rid of Wedgewood Park, and we are going to get rid of Mount Pearl. Either you believe in amalgamation or you do not.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the Government does not have the courage to do that, does not have the courage to do what it says it believes in.

Now, Mr. Speaker, some hon. members have asked whether I am in favour of amalgamation or not. Well, I do not think there should be any doubt about that. The Member for Pleasantville knows where I stand on that issue. If there is going to be - it would be easy for me to say (Inaudible) know I'm in favour of this, I am against the Government on everything, I am against amalgamation, I stand behind the people of Mount Pearl who are fighting against the Government. I stand behind them in some issues.

But I believe that if we are going to have an amalgamation of this area then we should have a proper amalgamation and everybody should be a part of it. I really believe that the ordinary person in Mount Pearl - who is not involved in the council, who is not involved in the issues - would accept that to be part of a greater region will be okay.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: They would not have any major objections to that. I do not know if the Minister of Development goes to the Aquarena or not. I do not know anything about it. I know the Member for Torngat Mountains - he seems to have changed his hairstyle a bit - but I know he goes to the Aquarena every day.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Oh, I do not think the Member for St. Barbe, the hon. the Minister of Development, is a member of ACTRA. He does not need to be. I think he is probably a graduate from ACTRA. He certainly can carry a bit of acting, though. I have seen him do it in the House. A very dramatic person.

AN HON. MEMBER: There's nothing wrong with (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I used to be a Member of ACTRA, Mr. Speaker. Up until 1976 I was a member of ACTRA. There is nothing wrong with being a member of ACTRA. There is another member of ACTRA there. I used to be a member of the labourers' union too, and I am proud of it. So I have no difficulty with being a member of unions.

But this bill before the House ought to be voted against because in principle it fails to do what the Government says is it's intention, and gives itself too much power. Runs roughshod over a number of things. I spoke about some of them the other day when the Member for Port de Grave was elsewhere. I spoke about them the other day, about what they are doing to the St. John's Fire Department Act and the powers that they are giving to the City of St. John's. This hastily drawn up bill throwing to the City of St. John's all kinds of powers that they really ought not to have. Powers over the establishment of offenses, over the summary jurisdictions Act, and all kinds of other matters. Treason, mutiny. The City Council of St. John's is going to be able to deal with traitorous or disloyal activity, with mutinous or insubordinate behaviour. This is the kind of thing that the City of St. John's is going to now have the power to make rules.

But not proper. They have done a lot of things in this bill but they have not done the right thing. They have been unfair and discriminatory in their action to the citizens of this region. Unless these matters have been corrected this bill ought not to be supported and I do not intend to support it. I am going to vote against this bill, because it does not do a proper job and it gives this Government far too much power to diddle -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) what!?

MR. HARRIS: To diddle with the boundaries of towns and to interfere with the rights of citizens of this Province. That is what it does. There is a Cabinet full of diddlers over there which is going to do it between now and January 1, 1992. They are going to do all those things that they can do in paragraph 10 (2) and (3) of the resolution. That is not proper. They should not be giving themselves that much power. If they get this through watch them, we will see what they do after that. The rest of the municipalities in this Province better stand up and be worried. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, I am amazed there is nobody opposite permitted to speak.

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: No. Too bad. Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me thank my hon. colleague for St. John's East for his remarks. I think he made a tremendous contribution to this debate in his few words. I am very pleased to see him take the position that he has taken. I will address a couple of things that he said, not to contradict what he said but perhaps to clarify it. The hon. gentleman said: The majority of people of Mount Pearl would agree to a regional authority. The hon. gentleman is quite true. In fact the record will show that the people of Mount Pearl, in particular the City of Mount Pearl, have been advocating regional services and a regional authority since back in the early 1970s when the first urban region study was carried out. We have always advocated the sharing of regional services on a regional basis. The hon. member has, I think, struck on a key point of what we are talking about here, but that is not what the Government is proposing. It is not regional services. As I said on Tuesday when I spoke briefly in this debate, regional government, or regional services, or a regional board, is the willing joining together of municipalities to share in common services, and the sharing of control over those services; but that is not what we have here. What we have is another municipality being given absolute control over all the rest of the municipalities in the region.

It is not just Mount Pearl, I say to my friend from St. John's East. Every municipality in the Northeast Avalon will now be subservient to the City Council of St. John's, and will be dictated to by the City Council of St. John's. It is absolutely true, I say to the hon. Minister of Labour. Every municipality will be subservient, because the City of St. John's will decide what the cost of services will be in this region, and has the power here to simply send a bill to those municipalities. They have no control over the cost of operations - nothing they can do with the efficiencies.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Mount Pearl on garbage.

MR. WINDSOR: On garbage? We have had problems over the years not only on garbage but on water supply too. I remember well back in 1973 when I was Town Engineer for Mount Pearl. There was a big dispute then between Mount Pearl and St. John's on how much we were being charged for water by the City of St. John's. In those days our water was supplied by the City of St. John's. Today it is the reverse, I say to my friend from Pleasantville, who said that we get all of our service - no, I think it was the Member for St. John's South who a while ago said that Mount Pearl gets their water from St. John's - it is the reverse.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Bay Bulls - Big Pond is a regional system, but it flows through Mount Pearl into St. John's. It is just the exact reverse direction at Dunn's Bridge where there is a meter there now, a new one on the new system, which meters the amount of water that goes into St. John's. Back in 1973 it was the reverse. The old system came from St. John's. We got our water from Windsor Lake and from Petty Harbour - Long Pond through the St. John's system, and there was a meter at Dunn's Bridge which I was able to prove did not work. After years of arguing with the City Council, and in a meeting in the Minister of Municipal Affairs Board Room here with former Mayor Dorothy Wyatt and former City Engineer Mr. Mercer, who recently retired from Municipal Affairs, I was able to prove that Mount Pearl indeed had not used just a fraction of the water for which the City of St. John's had charged them. We eventually resolved it, and the Minister of Municipal Affairs had to step in to do that. Subsequently, I think there was a mechanism put in place now to solve disputes.

The difference now is that we have a regional authority at this point in time. The St. John's Metropolitan Area Board is, for all intents and purposes, a regional council, and if hon. gentlemen opposite wanted to provide a greater host of regional services in this area and have all municipalities participate in them, they had a mechanism there - the St. John's Metropolitan Area Board. They had a structure in place. It is in place. The point that has not been raised here is that regional board and everybody who is employed with it will no longer exist on January 1. We have not had any debate on that. That point has not come out, Mr. Speaker. What happens to all of those people? They have an administrative structure in place there to handle regional services.

The Metro Board has been a regional board, has been providing regional water supply, has been administering regional trunk sewers in the region, and has provided local services in unincorporated areas, as it was always designed to do.

But what is being proposed here is not a regional authority, Mr. Speaker, because there is no sharing by the other municipalities. The City of St. John's will be the regional committee, and the mayors - insult of all insults - will be invited in to enter into the deliberations. It does not say that they have any voting powers. What voting powers would the Mayor of Mount Pearl have sitting in with nine St. John's city councillors anyway? What foolishness. It is an absolute insult the way that legislation is written.

So it is very clear that the City of St. John's will operate all of the facilities. They will have absolute control over the cost of those facilities. They will say how much the administration at City Hall is dedicated towards regional facilities so they will charge a portion of the administrative cost of running City Hall to those regional facilities. Then they will say: we will apportion it out on a per capita basis - or whatever they decide - to other municipalities. Yes, we can go to the Public Utilities Board. That is the only safeguard that is there. I suspect we will be forever in front of the Public Utilities Board with disputes between municipalities and the City of St. John's.

AN HON. MEMBER: No guidelines.

MR. WINDSOR: No guidelines, no. None whatsoever. So, Mr. Speaker, this is not a regional authority we are talking about in any way, shape or form. The most blatant thing is that no one has had any input into this except here in this Chamber since the Government has said: here is what we are going to do. There have been no feasibility studies carried out on this proposal. No one during the term of the studies and the hearings carried out by the commission that was appointed in accordance with the feasibility study regulations - the Assistant Deputy Minister and three other gentlemen were appointed as commissioners to study this region and receive briefs. They received eighty-four written submissions. Dozens of oral submissions.

They studied the previous reports and they hired a firm of chartered accountants to carry out a professional financial analysis of the recommendations that the Minister had brought forward. That commission was empowered to come back with a report which said: yes, we accept the Minister's recommendations, or no, the majority of the people do not like this or that, and to come back with another set of recommendations to the Minister. Which they did. They came forward with the report, which was far from perfect in many people's opinion. Some people accepted parts of it, some people rejected parts of it. I do not think that is unusual to expect when a commission studies such a big area with so many diverse points of view and so many opinions.

But they came back with a report. The point is that this report is at least based on feasibility studies, on public hearings, on having an opportunity for municipalities and individuals and groups in the region to have an input. That is exactly what is envisioned by all existing legislation, by The Municipalities Act, The City Of St. John's Act and The City Of Mount Pearl Act. That if there are to be changes we will first have a feasibility study, and the commissioners so appointed will take public input. So at least there was a process. For whatever faults may be in this document, for however much we may disagree with certain details, at least it was arrived at through a reasonably legitimate process. We have some arguments about some of the legal points but those are legal arguments. But the principle at least was there.

But what we have in Bill 50 came out of left field. It was not one of the proposals or options ever considered during any of those hearings or in any of the briefs.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: Right field, not (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Came out of right field. Good point. If it were out of left field it would have a little more concern for the people.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right!

MR. WINDSOR: This has no concern for the people.

The point I am making is that there has been no input into this. Never during those discussions was the concept of the City of St. John's administering regional services ever considered, so my friend for St. John's East makes a very valid point. What the Government has in effect done to Mount Pearl, and he is quite right, Mount Pearl has been left bitter, and the Premier has admitted publicly that the only reason Mount Pearl is there was because we had eighteen thousand names signed to a petition in one night, and I presented that petition here on behalf of those people. He said that was a very strong message and we decided we had better leave Mount Pearl as it was, but they made sure, Mr. Speaker, that we had nowhere to go but down. The member's comparison is quite accurate, they have made us another Wedgewood Park, a little larger, 23,000 people. We can grow up to perhaps 30,000 people with the amount of infilling that is available, maybe 35,000 people with our existing boundaries, but that will be it. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, that is not so bad because at least we are left as a city, and if you could look from a planning point of view at what was done and say, well, there was some rationale for it then you could probably live with it. But what has the minister done? He has taken the Southlands area, another little urban island, which is what it will be, four kilometres separated from the urbanized area of St. John's, separated by four kilometres of agricultural land. The only boundary that is co-terminat with the Southlands is the Mount Pearl boundary. Outside of that you have agricultural reserve and you have the water shed, and you have the gravel quarry on the other side of the Trans-Canada Highway. Those are all areas that cannot be developed, all totally dependent on Mount Pearl for services. All the services in that area has to come from Mount Pearl. That whole area is designed and planned as a natural extension of Mount Pearl, under the 1970 Murray V. Jones and Associates Mount Pearl Development Scheme Plan, a plan which has been followed since 1970. The former Premier Smallwood referred to a Satellite City. That was his dream. It is interesting, he wanted to put it on top of West Hills. That is where the former Premier chose to put the city, up around the area where Masonic Park and the Wyatt Boulevard is, and Murray Jones being a very prominent planner said, Mr. Smallwood if you want to build it there find yourself another planner. He said I will not put it there, that does not make any sense, to develop, first of all, with nothing else around it, try to build a city on top of a hill. From a servicing point of view it does not make any engineering sense. First we will build down in the valley because everything has to drain into the valley. It makes more sense to build into the valley first and that is why the Mount Pearl Development Scheme Plan was developed, as a natural expansion and development, and it included Donovans as I have said in this House many times before. What his Government has done now is taken a small part of that plan that was developed in 1970 and said, we will change it. We will put that now as part of St. John's. Now, there is absolutely no rationale, Mr. Speaker. How anyone can look at a map such as this one, which is the map attached to the report so it is a pertinent document, Mr. Speaker. How anyone can say that this green area here should be attached to this green area here. There is the Southlands, this is Mount Pearl, and this is St. John's, and the Southlands are four kilometres away from St. John's, separated by all the farms and agricultural land on Brookfield Road. The Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs stood in his place and said that makes good planning.

Mr. Speaker, like I said in this House before, if he can find a professional planner who is prepared to come into this House and say that makes good sense I will pass in my licence to practice engineering, because it makes absolutely no sense. I have never seen anything as foolish and as ill-conceived in my life as that. I will say to this hon. House, Mr. Speaker, that it was not recommended by the officials, and I know it was not. It was not recommended by the officials. It came out of right field late at night in the minister's office the day before the resolution was passed into this House. Obviously, nothing but raw political motivation for that decision, and as the member said, they have now boxed in the City of Mount Pearl. They have made us another Wedgewood Park. They have made us totally subservient to the City of St. John's. The City of St. John's will tell us how much we will pay for water supply, for trunk sewers, for storm sewers, for garbage disposal, for transportation, the bus system, for fire protection; they will even control recreation. How long before the Pearl Gate Track and Field Centre is taken over by the City of St. John's as a regional facility? How long before the Mount Pearl arena is taken over, and the second arena that is about to start construction, and maybe the swimming pool? Maybe it will make sense to tie that in with the Aquarena. The point is that the City of St. John's will control all of these costs.

The City of Mount Pearl will now simply be hewers of wood and drawers of water. They will be the people who impose the taxation, and that will be dictated by the costs of services, as dictated by the City of St. John's. So, it is in fact taxation without representation, very clearly, and as a result of a proposal that has come to this House by illegal means - by illegal means - because there are strict guidelines laid down in the legislation, strict regulations under the feasibility reports regulations of 1989 which direct how these matters shall be put together, and how they shall come to this House; and the method that the minister has used, I say, is illegal.

This Government has introduced a piece of legislation which is allowing them to break the law. They have not changed the law. The Municipalities Act has not changed. The requirements for feasibility studies have not been taken from the act. This piece of legislation simply says: notwithstanding the acts, this Government shall have the power in this case to break the law, and they will manipulate the House of Assembly to do so. That is precisely what is taking place here. They are using the House of Assembly to break the law. Now that is a very serious charge, and I see the Speaker heading to get his gowns on to go back in the Chair. It is a very serious charge, and that is exactly what is taking place. Government is manipulating the House of Assembly to break the law. That is what is taking place here. They cannot do it legally under the existing legislation. You would think, Mr. Speaker, if the law was wrong they would change the law. You would think that if what they are trying to do to Mount Pearl is correct to be done anywhere else in the Province, they would change the law so they can do it anywhere else in the Province. No, they will not change the law, but they do take upon themselves even greater powers. They take upon themselves even greater powers in section 10, the area that was being discussed earlier. It says: In addition to establishing and altering the boundaries of cities and towns under subsection (2), that section which is all then referred to. In addition to that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council may in the order referred to amalgamate a town, establish a town, disestablish a town, or whatever. They have taken absolute power.

AN HON. MEMBER: (inaudible)

MR. WINDSOR: Just to the Northeast Avalon. Section 2 refers just to the Northeast Avalon. Section 3 says, in addition to what we can do under Section 2 in the Northeast Avalon we can do anywhere else.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, hon. gentleman opposite say no. If they ever had the courage to get on their feet and enter the debate they have had every opportunity. I am not going to yield. You have had every opportunity. We have had sixteen or seventeen speakers on this side, we have two or three that have had the courage to get on their feet and make some contribution to this debate. The rest of them over there have not been allowed to speak. They will pay the price for that at the polls but that is another issue for another time. Even if I am wrong, I say to the Minister of Development, even if it is wrong, you are still then treating the Northeast Avalon different than the rest of the Province. You are treating them differently than the rest of the Province, discriminating against municipalities in this region, so not only have you broken the Municipalities Act or found a way around the Municipalities Act, or used this House to get around the Municipalities Act, and totally ignored the Regional Services Act that Government put through last year. If this Government wanted to have regional services, why then, Mr. Speaker, did they not use the Regional Services Bill, the Act that was passed? It provided a mechanism for all municipalities to participate. No, Mr. Speaker, a discrimination. Mr. Speaker, they will pay the price for that in good time. There are any number of things I want to talk about but I only have a few minutes left this afternoon. I started to say in response to my friend for St. John's East that Mount Pearl would have accepted a regional authority. Mount Pearl would have accepted a regional fire department. In August of this year the Mayor of Mount Pearl said to the Premier in a meeting in his office, and the council said back on October 12, 1989, they would accept a regional fire department if the cost was reasonable. If Government was prepared to deal with the present St. John's Fire Department to bring in certain efficiencies to bring the cost down, and the Premier made a commitment in front of the whole council and all the senior staff, the Premier and the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. He said, it is our position that a regional fire department will be put in place and that there shall be a regional board established, comprised of all the municipalities involved, to operate it. Fine, if that is the decision of Government there is no problem with that. He also said that, we will take steps to make that department more efficient so that the cost comes within reason. He said: if we cannot do that we will allow you to operate your own fire department. Now, that was a commitment made by the Premier and the Minister but that is not what has taken place here, Mr. Speaker. The Premier and the Minister have broken their word to the City of Mount Pearl, and the City of Mount Pearl on the strength of that promise said, fine, we will not go ahead and open up our fire department. If you will make that commitment, that if you cannot make it more efficient and that you will put in place a regional board to operate it on a proper basis and everybody will have representation, but that if you fail in that we can open our fire department. On the strength of that the City of Mount Pearl said: fine, we will not open our fire department.

They have been double-crossed, Mr. Speaker. If that is unparliamentary I will withdraw it. But certainly the Premier and the minister have broken their word to the City. They have broken a trust and a deal that was made by the City of Mount Pearl with the Premier and the Government. That same Premier will stand up then in Mount Pearl at a Rotary or Chamber of Commerce luncheon and say: oh, the City of Mount Pearl has insulted the House of Assembly. It is the Premier who has insulted the city council and the people of Mount Pearl. He has broken his word to them as he has done to so many other groups. Certainly, none the least of which have been the unions in this Province, and we know what they think of the Premier. I cannot repeat that word in the Chamber. Clearly it is an appropriate term.

Now, as I had pointed out, the real problem here is that this procedure has been flawed from the beginning, in that the minister did not take proper procedures to put this proposal before public hearings. There has not been an opportunity for input into the proposal before being brought to this Chamber, as is clearly required under the Acts. So in view of that I would like to make the following amendment, seconded by my good friend for Torngat Mountains.

I move that all the words after "that" be deleted and the following substituted therefore: 'This House declines to give second reading to Bill 50, "An Act To Facilitate The Amalgamation Of Certain Municipal Authorities And Municipal Services In Relation To The Northeast Avalon Region," because the Minister has failed to comply with the provisions of the municipalities feasibility reports' regulations, 1989, as amended, in that this Bill has not been the subject of a feasibility study and no opportunity for public input or consultation on this proposal has been provided.'

Mr. Speaker, I ask Your Honour to rule that that is in order.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member gave us a copy of the amendment previously and we have had a chance to study this. We find that it is in order, that it is an amendment that is called a 'reasoned amendment', and we find it in order.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now, in speaking to the amendment -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) copy of the amendment?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, I am quite happy to send a copy over to the Government (Inaudible) -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I have to tell the hon. Member that it is now 5:00 p.m.

MR. WINDSOR: I adjourn the debate, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: It is now 5:00 and the Chair has no choice but to adjourn the House until Monday, at 2:00 p.m.