The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Before moving on to our routine business, on behalf of hon. members I would like to bring to their attention the presence in the Speaker's Gallery today of the hon. Rod Laporte, MP for Moose Jaw -Lake Centre.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Also, we would like to extend a warm welcome to eighteen students from the Central Newfoundland Community College in Lewisporte. They are accompanied by their instructors Linda Day and Linda Fiander.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, I do not have a written statement but I did get a briefing on the electricity situation a few minutes before I came over. I thought I would give at least a couple of minutes on that so we can all be as up-to-date as I am.

For your information, there are five transmission lines that supply electricity to the St. John's area, and we have had some serious problems with them because of the sleet storm two days ago. The problem seems to be isolated now to ice loading and salt contamination around insulators on some of these lines. It has caused intermittent problems on all the lines. As of now, a line from the western Avalon, with Bay d'Espoir power, to Hardwoods outside of St. John's is operating; a line from the western Avalon to Holyrood, with Bay d'Espoir power, is operating; and a line from the Hardwood sub-station to the Oxen Pond sub-station here at St. John's is operating.

However, we have two lines that are not. The line from Holyrood station to Hardwoods is not operating, and the line from the Holyrood station to Oxen Pond is not operating. That is what has caused our problems this morning. With good luck the lines that are operating will keep us going this afternoon. But if there are continued problems in the higher areas that still have this ice problem this afternoon we could lose power any time, we could continue all afternoon with no problem. So we can just wish everybody good luck and hope the power stays on.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, we are used to hearing good news from this minister and we thank him once again for this monumental announcement here this afternoon. I have to say to him, without being too sarcastic, that I heard it myself today between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. at least four times, on CBC and VOCM and everybody else who has had it. So I thank him for bringing it to the attention of the House. I wish that he had been standing to tell us that something new had been accomplished in Hibernia, St. Lawrence, Hope Brook, or something like that, but perhaps that announcement will come tomorrow, with any luck.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions for the Minister of Health this afternoon. As the Minister of Finance announced in the Budget, and I think the minister has said publicly outside, it is the government's intention to reduce the number of hospital boards down from twenty-five to five. I think that is what we have been hearing. Can the minister confirm that he has already made the decision to locate those new boards in St. Anthony, Corner Brook, Gander, Clarenville and St. John's? And will he confirm, therefore, that all other boards in this area will be disbanded? And can he tell us when these changes will occur?... because as he knows this came totally out of the blue. Hospital boards around the Province are very confused and concerned about what is going on. So we need some information.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. the Leader of the Opposition for giving me the opportunity to respond to this question, because it is a very timely question.

The Budget referred to this - made the statement that over this year government will be looking at ways to reduce the number of hospital boards from twenty-five to five. Now I want to say to the hon. Leader of the Opposition: do not get hung up over the figure 'five'. Five is not in any means cast in stone, but it is an accepted fact in this Province by people in the system that there are too many hospital boards. Whether the ideal figure is five, or three, or ten, has not been determined.

Mr. Speaker, over this coming year the Department of Health will be taking on a facilitator, and that person will go throughout the Province and meet with every single hospital board, and with as many interest groups as are interested, with everyone who is concerned about it. In addition to that, I will be having a resource committee advise me, as minister of the department, which direction we should take. That resource committee will have a subcommittee which will be working with the facilitator, and we will have a year of input - the like of which has never been known in the history of the Department of Health in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: At the end of this year, if it makes sense to go from twenty-five to fifty, or twenty-five to one, or twenty-five to six, or twenty-five to eight, that will be done.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: I thank the hon. member for giving me the opportunity to say it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition on a supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a supplementary for the minister.

I am glad I asked the question too, because he has now confirmed that what everybody out there thought, is not going to happen. In fact, what he has announced here today is that the Department of Health and the government are only going to study - only going to look at it, with all these subcommittees and facilitators coming out of your ears, but that is not the perception that hospital boards have, I can tell him this; they understood from the announcement in the Budget, that, in fact, the decision had been made, it was going to be reduced, and the numbers out there were twenty-five to five. So, I thank the minister for explaining that and clarifying it and I hope he chastises his colleague, the Minister of Finance, for leaving that perception when he read his Budget Speech.

Let me ask him, Mr. Speaker, if I may, specifically about the St. John's hospitals in this area. Last year, the St. John's Hospital Council, I think it is called, the boards, gave the minister nine options for consideration to re-organize the hospital services in the area and I believe the minister, himself, added one additional option -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I just have to ask the Leader of the Opposition to take his place for a moment.

The Chair is noticing several conversations going on that it finds rather annoying, particularly when the Chair is trying to listen to the question so it can determine what the answer ought to be or a reasonable facsimile of an answer.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: I thank Your Honour for that protection. I will have to start again, now, because Your Honour got me right in mid-sentence and I appreciate being given that chance once more.

With respect to the hospital services in the St. John's region, I say to the minister again, last year, the St. John's Hospital Council gave him nine options and I believe he added one which was actually, I believe, one hospital board for the entire St. John's region. I believe that was his option that he added.

I would like to ask him now, has he made a decision with respect to that option? Has he now decided, in fact, to go with that option, one hospital board? And may I ask him, as well, when will the hospital boards at the Grace, St. Clare's and Janeway be disbanded? What is the time frame and what are the dates?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, there is perception and then there is the reality. Here is the reality, and I will quote the hon. the Minister of Finance. I will read it:

"I am pleased, Mr. Speaker, to announce that during the coming year Government will be exploring ways to reduce substantially the number of hospital boards, from 25 to five".

Now, Mr. Speaker, the perception might be caused, because there are people who have political motives in this Province and who want to give the perception that we are going to go in like a bunch of storm troopers with big hard leather boots, but we are not going to do that, Mr. Speaker.

Now, Options 1 to 9 plus Option 10: Just after we became the government, we were presented with nine options by the St. John's Hospital Council, recommending ways to deal with the hospital situation in this city. The hospital council recommended option seven, which would have had a new Grace Hospital built on the north side of LeMarchant Road, with buildings in-between, where rooms, such as operating rooms and delivery rooms, could be made available.

The cost of that, Mr. Speaker, was $250 million. That is in the last quarter, 1988 dollars. Government immediately said, to go this route, even while we were talking about it, it had probably gone to $400 million. We thought this was totally unrealistic. So we went back to the Hospital Council and asked: 'Would you look at another option?' - namely, dubbed 'Option 10' by the media, and, of course, Option 10 is right. Option 10 would see an additional 100 beds attached to the General Hospital on Prince Philip Parkway and an additional eighty-five or ninety beds attached to St. Clare's Hospital. Option 10 also asked the Council not to look at one board for St. John's, but to look at two boards for St. John's.

Now, when we asked the Council to do that, we were quite aware that the Grace Hospital and St. Clare's Hospital are privately-owned institutions. So, in addition to its being a public issue there is also an ownership issue, which is being dealt with over the course of time. When is it going to be done, Mr. Speaker? From the latest information I have, I will be receiving the report of the St. John's Hospital Council in September. Depending on what that report says then we will move on along. But this whole St. John's situation now has become part of the provincial situation and we will be looking at it in that context.

Will we have two boards in St. John's, one board, neither board, or twenty-five boards? Only after we have a lot of consultation, Mr. Speaker, in the true Liberal way, consultation with the people in this Province, will we make that decision.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have to say to the minister - I won't say it, I'll ask him, since it is supplementary. Isn't he aware that the concerns I have raised here today are not politically motivated concerns, but they are concerns that have been passed on to many of us from members of hospital boards around the Province whom he himself has appointed? It is not politically motivated. We have not asked any questions on it in fact, until today. So that is a bit of a slur, and a bit of an unacceptable slur at that.

I want to ask the minister, as well, Is this government's move to reduce the number of hospital boards - or at least to explore looking at reducing the number of hospital boards from twenty-five down to five, and to get rid of twenty boards - is that not also consistent, perhaps, with the intention of this government to eventually reduce the number of hospitals, perhaps down to five or whatever the number might be? Is that also part of the thing that the government is examining and exploring?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I don't know where the hon. the Leader of the Opposition got the impression that I was throwing slurs at the Opposition for casting this political (inaudible). I would not dare think of the like that they would try to make politics out of a health issue, Mr. Speaker. Far be it from my mind.

I should tell the hon. member, though, that shortly after the announcement was made, I met with the Newfoundland Hospital and Nursing Home Association and they subsequently issued a release within hours to all the hospital boards explaining exactly what we are doing, and they are totally behind what we are doing, Mr. Speaker. They are totally behind what we are doing.

Now, we are doing this for several reasons, and let's never underestimate that cost - we are looking for dollar savings and I am not going to apologize for that. We are spending $880 million, almost $1 billion a year in delivering health care, Mr. Speaker. We would be remiss if we did not look at ways to make sure that these dollars are spent properly and that we get the best return on every dollar we spend.

We are also looking, Mr. Speaker, at the quality of care that we deliver. Is there some way we can deliver a better quality of care by reducing the number of boards? We are looking at the problem that rural Newfoundland boards are having with recruitment, Mr. Speaker. Some of our smaller boards are having difficulty recruiting physicians from other parts of the world. This is an issue which we hope to deal with as we look at this, and there are a whole lot of other reasons which would make it reasonable to have fewer boards than we have in the Province, Mr. Speaker. These are just some of the reasons, but there are many others, and they all have good motives, good intentions to improve the hospital system in the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port au Port.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Health.

The Budget announced that services programs of the Alcohol and Drug Dependency Commission would be transferred to the soon-to-be-formed regional community health boards. When will this transfer occur and how will the functions of the Alcohol and Drug Dependency Commission be administered and delivered by the community health boards?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, by coincidence, I just happen to have with me the chart of a community health care board. This community health care board includes health promotion, mental health, health protection, continuing care and alcohol and drug dependency problems. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is a board which I would be quite willing to table in this House so that members could see it.

You see, Mr. Speaker, if you go to a hospital - there was a time when broken legs were treated, broken fingers were treated, but that day is gone. You now treat the whole person. The whole person. It is the holistic approach, Mr. Speaker. It is quite conceivable - but not always - that a person with alcohol and drug dependency problems might also have mental health problems. Might also want the services of continuing care.

In the past these things were sort of put in pigeonholes and had no inter-relation with each other. But now, as a result of those community health care boards, those experts - the counsellors in the Alcohol and Drug Dependency Commission - they will be able to share their knowledge with the Mental Health people, and the Mental Health people with them - and health promotion.

This is a major step forward. It surprised me when people started to talk negatively about it. It is one of the major steps that we have taken in health care. We are hoping to have all the services in place before the end of this fiscal year. If there is an interim period when the boards are not yet in place, we would have the services directly taken over by the Department of Health and administered through our community health care nurses, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Member for Port au Port.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: You're a big bluff, that's what you are!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: How do you ask a question like this?

AN HON. MEMBER: Pardon?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port au Port.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, the only improvement is in the minister's mind. Is the minister aware that professionals and users who are familiar with the services provided by the Alcohol and Drug Dependency Commission have been unanimous in their criticism of the approach taken by government? Is he aware that Ontario has tried a similar experiment that has resulted in reduced services and increased cost? Can the minister assure us that we will receive the same level of services in view of those budgetary restraints?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. DECKER: No, no, yes, Mr. Speaker. Now. The first question is no. Yes, some experts - and I put (experts) in parentheses - are saying that this is not the right approach. But there are more experts who are saying: this is late, this should have been here five years ago. This is the kind of stuff my good friend Dr. Twomey and I used to talk about. But Dr. Twomey and I used to talk about this when he was surrounded by a bunch of dinosaurs who would not let him push forward with the health care system, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: Am I aware that Ontario tried this similar experiment? Ontario did not try this similar experiment. Ontario, Mr. Speaker, is phoning us almost on a daily basis asking for information. Ontario sent ten cancer patients down here a little over a year ago to be treated. Ontario is asking us on a daily basis for information on how to run a health care system, as is the rest of the country.

Now the last question was: will this improve? The answer is absolutely yes. This will improve the delivery of this particular program. That is why I stand here today and so proudly proclaim this model, which I know will be adopted by every single province in this nation, and the territories, within eighteen months, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port au Port.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, this change will result in one administrative unit being taken over by five administrative units; this means these five boards will repeat or duplicate the services offered by a single board.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what I want to ask the minister is: how can the services be improved under this system especially when the Budget estimates indicate a reduction in fiscal support?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the mistake the hon. gentleman is making is, he is falling into the same trap that he did when they were in government. They think that the only way to deliver health care is to add more money to it, but the problem we found with the health care system was not a lack of money, it was a lack of organization. It was allowed to fall into the ground, that is what we found. We are organizing the system and if the hon. member wants to put a name on this, this is decentralization. This is decentralization, this is what they have been preaching almost every day when they question us. They have been accusing us of centralization . This is taking five units and putting the experts right out there in the trenches where the problems are. I forgot the other part of his question, what was it?

AN HON. MEMBER: It is not important.

MR. DECKER: Not important? I thought it was; I just forgot what it was, but anyway -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair feels that the minister has addressed the question.

The hon. the Member for Port au Port.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, the minister is singing a fine song if he thinks that less money is going to mean better health care in this Province. Mr. Speaker, dedicated funding has been provided for education and health through the education and health tax, why is it that the minister will not do the same for the Alcohol and Drug Dependency? For instance, by taking revenues from the Newfoundland Liquor Control Commission, so that it can adequately address the needs for education and service of those people who need it.

Mr. Speaker, this Province is making some $80 million from alcohol in this Province and yet it puts very, very little - peanuts, back to the people who are afflicted by disease from alcohol.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, unlike the previous administration, we are not taking $24 million out of the $80 million and putting it into cucumbers; we are taking that $80 million and putting it into the health care system. We are putting $880 million into the health system. Where does that come from?... some of it comes from the Liquor Commission, some of it comes from retail sales tax.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if we had to take one dollar every time someone buys a bottle of Old Sam and write on it 'health', then make sure this goes to the hon. Minister of Finance, that would be a little bit cumbersome to operate, but who can say where a dollar comes from? If $80 million and other funds are going into the pot, $880 million of that is going into health, Mr. Speaker. I can see why they have this Province in such a mess.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Finance in his Budget, told us that the economy is expected to decline by a half a per cent this year, unemployment is going to increase by 2 per cent and he responded by increasing personal income tax and payroll tax. Would the minister like to tell us what programs he is proposing to help improve the economy and create some jobs this year?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker. we have in place the Economic Recovery Commission, which is doing a fine job; we have Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador, which has been creating jobs. I notice in the papers today, there are 1,100 or 1,400 jobs that they have created recently and also -

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear, that many!

DR. KITCHEN: - that many yes, and also we have in place now, or virtually to be launched, the Strategic Economic Plan and with all these initiatives, and with the help of the low interest rates that the federal government has been able to bring forward and hopefully, the lowering Canadian dollar, things should become a little bit better in this Province than they have been.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl, on a supplementary.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, clearly, the minister has no plans to deal with the situation today. We are still waiting for more than three years now for an economic recovery plan from this government.

Could the minister tell me and is he aware, that in 1988 there was an 18.1 per cent growth in the number of new homes under construction in this Province and that the growth rate has declined steadily so that last year we in fact declined by 12.6 per cent in the number of new homes started? That is a major industry in this Province. Since the minister has frozen wages in the public service would the minister consider freezing the price of Government developed building lots in this Province at the 1990 level? Would he also consider putting in place some sort of subsidy to persons buying privately developed building lots so that they would have the same benefit? Would he put that program in place as a means to stimulate the economy and create some jobs?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: The hon. member speaks out off both sides of his mouth at the same time. On the one hand he keeps saying that we have raised taxes too high and at the very same time he is saying why do you not spend more on something else? I cannot quite understand his rationale. Perhaps he would clarify it a little bit.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would be delighted. The Homebuilders Association projects that the homebuilding industry is worth $300 million in this Province. If we could stimulate that by 25 per cent and bring it back to the level it was in 1988 when this Government came into power we would generate some 3300 additional jobs in this Province. Now, would the minister consider another proposal? Would he do what we did a number of years ago? Would he lower the retail sales tax on building materials to 8 per cent thereby stimulating the economy by increasing new home starts by 25 per cent and by improving renovations by 25 per cent creating some 2500 jobs in this Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, recently the federal government at the insistence of our Premier, I think, and a few other Premiers, have brought in a proposal by which RRSP funds could be used to help in the construction industry, but we cannot lower our taxes. Our deficit position in this Province is as much as we can tolerate. Our taxes are in place for the forthcoming year and that is it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl on a supplementary.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, we are aware of what the Government of Canada has tried to do and the Budget takes account of the fact that Registered Retirement Savings Plans can now be used, and that the down payment has been reduced to 5 per cent, and that has had an impact in stimulating home purchases at the lower end of the scale. My question to the minister is: is he is aware that of the $300 million of new home construction one third of that cost or $100 million is building materials and that in renovations, which is valued at $300 million, 50 per cent is for materials for a total of $300 million and that 8 per cent of $300 million is better than 12 per cent of nothing if that home is not being built?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: The hon. member forgets when he boasts about the past that their credit rating was lowered in their regime to the point where we are now at Bs for three of the credit rating agencies and we are A- in the other ones. I suppose what they would do if they were here was make them all Bs then we would be in the junk bond market which is where these people were headed when we, thank God, took over and ran this Province in a sensible way.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, the people of the Province are tired listening to the hon. member as his reception on Open Line showed this morning.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

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

I have a question for the Minister of Fisheries. I understand there is a proposal from the Canadian Sealers Association before the provincial and federal governments looking for some funding to help with their sealing activities. I am wondering if the Minister of Fisheries could inform the House what the status of that particular request is now and can we expect some action soon?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I met with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa yesterday and we discussed this very matter and it appears that they are now in the process of putting together a package. I understand it has not been finalized yet and as soon as their package is finalized then we will take a look at it and hopefully put it together with one that we are coming up with. Hopefully, within a few days we will know exactly where we stand in that matter.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary to the minister.

The minister must be aware that time is passing us by very quickly and if we do not get something done soon, if there is not some funding arrangement put in place, then it is going to be too late and consequently there will not be any seals harvested and the potential markets that have been lined up - and there are some very substantial markets that have been arranged - are going to be lost.

So I ask the minister: is the Province giving consideration to funding the Sealers Association themselves, because it does not have to be a federal-provincial arrangement. The Province can come up with adequate funding to enable the Canadian Sealers Association to get on with the proposed activities. Is the minister giving consideration to going this alone to help the Sealing Association out?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, the record will show that over the last few years the Government of Newfoundland has been very generous in terms of trying to promote the landsman seal hunt, very generous. We have been informed now that the federal government is willing and almost quite prepared to join the Province in putting together some kind of a more comprehensive package. Now it will only take a few more days to get the thing together so I do not think it would make sense for the Province to assume full responsibility, even if we could, for this year's harvest by way of paying subsidies and research and development and all that sort of thing, if there is an opportunity there where we can plug into the federal program, and that is what we are endeavouring to do. The fact that it has not been announced, I guess, can be attributed by and large to the fact that it has taken the federal authorities - and I can understand they are all quite busy - quite some time to put it together. In fact, yesterday in Ottawa the Deputy Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Bruce Rawson, was not too well clued in on it as a matter of fact and he needed another day or two to sort of get briefed on what it was all about. I guess, Mr. Speaker, to make a long story short certainly some time next week we should be able to make some kind of an announcement.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture. The minister will know that an ongoing problem in the forest industry of this Province is the use of sawlogs for other than the cutting into lumber, providing an excellent value-added, Mr. Speaker. Sawlogs used for pulpwood, for chips to generate electricity or for firewood or fuel. I want to ask the minister whether his department has done any studies on the extent of the use of sawlogs for other than the production of lumber and what are the results of these studies? What is the extent of the amount of underutilized timber in this Province that is being cut down and not being used for the production of lumber but for other less useful purposes?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question, and I recognize obviously that he is speaking for the sawmilling and sawlogging industry in St. John's East. But in any event, Mr. Speaker, the sawmilling industry is very important to the economy of Newfoundland. It is particularly important to the economy of rural Newfoundland. Indeed in some communities the sawlogging industry is the greatest contributor to the economy. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the member that yes, the Province is aware, I am aware and the department is aware, that sawlogs are more valuable to the economy of this Province when they are turned into lumber than for making pulp.

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you going to do about it?

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, we are doing a lot more about it than the hon. member when he was Minister of Forestry.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: Let me tell the hon. House what the hon. member did when he was the Minister of Forestry.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask hon. members please to extend to every member a courtesy when answering a question, and ask hon. ministers when they are answering to keep their minds on the question and not on any extraneous comments that might be made.

The hon. the Minister of Forestry.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, to answer the hon. member's question, which I might say is an excellent question, and the question and the answer is very important to a lot of people in Newfoundland. As a department we are instructing, or it is our wish and we intend to enforce, that sawlogs harvested off Crown lands will be turned into lumber. Obviously the by-product, the pulp, will go to chips and to pulp; but we are going to insist, and find ways to enforce, that sawlogs produced off Crown lands will be turned into lumber. We are even prepared to look at the possibility of sawlogs produced out of company limits being turned into lumber.

MR. SPEAKER: The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

MR. SPEAKER: Oh, sorry. It is such a rare occasion for the Speaker to get a chance to present one.

The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: I would certainly defer to Mr. Speaker, if you would like to proceed first.

MR. SPEAKER: That's okay.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, in compliance with the requirement in the Act, I would like to table, today, the Fifth Annual Report of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal, commend it to the attention of the members of the House, and just point out that in the past year, 1991, there were some thirty-one decisions rendered by the Appeals Tribunal from people who were not content with decisions rendered on their behalf in the Workers' Compensation system. Of those thirty-one, in ten of them, the appeals themselves were allowed, and the decisions of the Commission were overturned. There were four others where they were partially overturned, or referred back to the Commission. In seventeen cases, the appeal was denied and the original decision of the Workers' Compensation Commission relative to the claim was upheld.

I table the report and commend it to the attention of the members of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask hon. members, particularly during this period, if they would please stay in their seats as much as possible. When the Chair is calling on somebody, when somebody stands, obviously the Chair thinks the person might be up to do something and some time we are going to run into problems on that. So, if hon. members would remember that, please.

In accordance with the Internal Economy Commission Act, I am pleased to table the 1991 Report of the Commission of Internal Economy, which sets out the decisions of the Commission and members' expenses for 1991.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Eagle River.

MR. DUMARESQUE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will, on tomorrow, ask leave to introduce the following motion:

WHEREAS the Rails for Roads deal was signed in 1988 for fifteen years; and

WHEREAS Labrador only received 3 per cent of the $800 million for their transportation needs; and

WHEREAS 90 per cent of Labrador communities are isolated from the rest of the Province for up to six months each year because of a lack of roads; and

WHEREAS economic development in forestry, tourism and the fishery is being stymied and hundreds of jobs are being lost;

BE IT RESOLVED that this House of Assembly call upon the federal government to re-open the deal; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that unless new money is added to the agreement, that existing funds be re-allocated to complete the Trans-Labrador Highway.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Orders of the Day.

MR. BAKER: Order 2.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, Petitions.

Shall we go back to Petitions? Do I have the consent of the House to go back to Petitions?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bellevue.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to our Standing Order 90, I have, today, three petitions from constituents in my district that fulfil all of the requirements of our Standing Order 90 except that they are not on the proper forms. These petitions were circulated by the communities. I have checked with the Clerk of the House, and other than that everything else seems to be in order, so I ask leave of the House to present those petitions.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member has leave.

MR. BARRETT: I have leave?

MR. SPEAKER: Yes.

MR. BARRETT: The first petition is signed by 783 residents of the communities of Gooseberry Cove, Butter Cove, Little Heart's Ease, Caplin Cove, Hodge's Cove and Long Beach. It refers to a section of the highway on Highway 204. On that particular highway there is one particularly dangerous curve where, over the last two or three weeks that we have had two or three practically serious accidents in that -

MR. TOBIN: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West, on a point of order.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I don't want to take up too much of the hon. gentleman's time, but I wonder if he could give me the date on which the petition was circulated, please - the date on the petition?

MR. BARRETT: There is no date.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bellevue says there is no date.

AN HON. MEMBER: Two years old (Inaudible)?

MR. BARRETT: No. The hon. member did some clinics in his district, finding out issues in the district, and this was presented by a group of people to me and -

MR. TOBIN: When?

MR. BARRETT: - they requested me to present them in the House.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. BARRETT: The point that the (inaudible) -

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

I ask the hon. member to take - in the interest of expediting matters, I understand that the House has given the member consent to present his petition. Now if that is withdrawn, that is fine. But if it is not withdrawn, I ask the hon. member to continue with his petition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Continue with the petition please.

The hon. the Member for Bellevue.

MR. BARRETT: The point is that on this particular highway there is a dangerous curve right now that needs to be widened. We have school buses travelling this particular road and recently a couple of cars went out over the guard rail. Except that there were a few trees that held them up, they would have been down over a 400-foot embankment. It is a very dangerous situation. I would like to see this work done as soon as possible.

The other petition that I have, and it regards road work, is from the Town of Chance Cove. The road in Chance Cove was opened in 1948 and in 1974 it was paved from the Trans-Canada at Gull Pond to the end of the settlement, approximately nine kilometres. Since that time, very little maintenance has been performed on this portion of the road and it is a very deplorable situation. At the end of the road we have a major fish plant. There are hundreds of people who go to work, and also there is a lot of traffic in terms of transporting of fish. Recently a lot of the wholesalers will not go over the road from the Trans-Canada to the community of Chance Cove because they do a lot of damage to their cargo. I petition the House that there be something done about this particular issue.

I am proud to present another petition from the 352 residents of Dildo in Trinity Bay. The same sort of condition exists. The roads are in deplorable condition in the community and recently the Trinity South bus service was unable to travel over this particular road. We all know that most of these roads were paved many years ago, they are in deplorable condition and they need to be resurfaced.

Mr. Speaker, I request that this hon. House refer these petitions to the department to which they relate. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to stand and, obviously, support the petitions presented by the Member for Bellevue. I can certainly see the frustration that the people of his district must be experiencing, as well as most other constituents throughout the Province. If this government, of which he is a member, had not reduced the provincial roads budget from some forty-odd million dollars to $25 million over the past few years there would be money there for the people of Bellevue, and this petition might not need to be presented in the House today.

Mr. Speaker, this administration has reduced the budget by between $15 million and $20 million over the past number of years since they came to power. The last year we were in government the budget was something to the tune of $48 million. Today it is $25 million. That's what has happened to the roads budget in this Province, the government has kept the cash for some reason other than doing what needed to be done in capital expenditures.

I know what the people are going through. In my own constituency, people living in the communities of Monkstown, Beau Bois and Rock Harbour have exactly the same problems. The trucks can't get in with fuel, with oil, they can't get in with groceries, the school buses are having difficulties operating, and it is all because this government have not placed priority on the need for road improvements in this Province as the previous administration had done.

I will say one thing, that the Member for Bellevue at least represented his constituents, even though the petition has been presented long after the Budget came in, rather than before the Budget, and I would suspect he had the petition prior to the Budget but refused to present it in the House. But he did do it. He didn't do what the Member for Eagle River did - who, because this Province has put no money worth talking about into road improvements in Labrador, is now up on a Private Member's bill, calling on the federal government to put more money in.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is aware of the rules with respect to presenting petitions. He has now gone into an extraneous matter. I ask the hon. member to keep his remarks to the prayer and the material allegations of this petition.

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the roads in Labrador and on the Island part of this Province have to be treated equally and fairly by the provincial government. The Member for Bellevue had the courage to come and represent his constituents and present the petition, unlike another member, Mr. Speaker, who got no money for his area. He is ashamed of his life, and he is trying to blame it on the federal government. Mr. Speaker, it is time that this Minister of Transportation did more than get up in this House, flex his muscles and shout and scream, fold his arms and jump up and down. It is time this minister did something for the people of the Bellevue district as well as the other districts in this Province. It is time the Department of Transportation took some responsibility and put back - I call upon the minister to put back, Mr. Speaker, into the Budget the monies that were not spent last year. There were millions and millions of dollars not spent last year in transportation, yet the people of Bellevue and Chance Cove and other communities in the Bellevue district, the same as in my own district, were without road improvements, while this government refuses to spend the money that the Budget allocated.

I ask the minister if he would give consideration to putting the Budget back to where it used to be, under the Conservative Government, if he would put $40-plus million into the road works this year rather than the measly $25 million they are putting into it, because the people of Chance Cove and the other communities referred to by the Member for Bellevue deserve to have decent roads to drive over. Why should the people in rural Newfoundland not have decent roads to drive over, Mr. Speaker?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Yes, there is a road to Petit Forte and there should be a road to Petit Forte. It may upset the Member for St. John's South to know that rural Newfoundland deserve their fair share, but I would say that is too bad. It is time this government realized that there a place outside the overpass, and that the roads in Bellevue and Burin - Placentia West, and Grand Bank and Bay of Islands and every place else, Mr. Speaker -

AN HON. MEMBER: And Eagle River.

MR. TOBIN: - have the right to receive the types of road improvements the member just called for. Mr. Speaker, it is time that members stop hiding behind their responsibilities.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. TOBIN: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GOVER: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that there are great needs for road construction -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has called for order. That is what the Chair means, and that is what the Chair expects.

The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt there is an immense need for road construction and road improvement in all of rural Newfoundland, and there is no doubt that in the district of Bellevue, needs are great, perhaps greater than many other districts around the Province. Why is that, Mr. Speaker? If you looked at what was spent in Bellevue district for the last seventeen years while the members opposite were in power -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GOVER: - it is not surprising that the needs in Bellevue district are great. Since this administration has come into power, Mr. Speaker, it has adopted a policy of fairness and balance so that the needs, not only of Bellevue district, but the needs of the district of Burin - Placentia West and districts of members on the opposite side of the House are met, as well as the districts represented on this side of the House.

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West, in the great spirit of fairness and balance, in an objective assessment of needs, I believe received three projects under the provincial roads program in a great spirit of fairness and balance and an objective assessments of needs, I believe received three projects under the Provincial Roads Program. I wonder if the situation was reversed, would that have occurred in Bellevue district?... if it was still on that side of the House, based upon the past seventeen years when the other members were in power, Mr. Speaker, I sincerely doubt it. Given the fact that there is a great backlog of need built up in Bellevue district, in the Strait of Belle Isle district, obviously all these needs, if we are to be fair to all the residents of the Province, cannot all be addressed at one time, although we are making the best efforts that we can to address the needs in Bellevue district. I believe significant amounts of money have gone into Bellevue district in the last few years to correct the injustice which occurred for seventeen years. Also, in the Strait of Belle Isle, significant amounts of money have gone in there to address the imbalances which have occurred over the last seventeen years and we will continue to do that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) pork barrelling.

MR. GOVER: It is not pork barrelling, Mr. Speaker. I understand why hon. members opposite shout across the House 'pork barrelling', because the record for the last seventeen years would bear out that is the way the previous Conservative administrations operated. Districts like mine, Bonavista South, were well looked after, were well looked after, perhaps to the detriment of districts of Bellevue and the Strait of Belle Isle.

AN HON. MEMBER: Mount Scio - Bell Island .

MR. GOVER: Well, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite says, their government was doing a great job with the roads program, that in 1988 they announced $40 million worth of work. I do not think it was ever announced.

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. GOVER: No, I do not think it was ever announced but they were the roads government. If that was the case, Mr. Speaker, why did the people reject them on April 20, 1989? If they were doing such a good job, why did the people reject them? I think the people of this Province, on April 20, 1989, said: no more pork barrelling, Mr. Speaker, no more patronage; we want the roads money to be assessed on the basis of need; we want hospitals to be built on the basis of need; we want nursing homes to be disbursed around the Province on the basis of need. We want water and sewer money to be disbursed around the Province on the basis of need rather than pork barrelling and that was the reason, one of the most important reasons why that administration fell and was replaced by this administration, and we intend to live up to our commitment in that election, that hard fought election, to deliver the services to the people of this Province on the basis of need.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite says that they were doing a better job in expending money than we are and that there was $40.8 million devoted to road construction in 1988. Mr. Speaker, it is easy to make that allegation and in fact I will go back and get all the records for the last seventeen years and see who is doing what, but we must remember, Mr. Speaker, that the people gave this government a mandate and in 1988 they did not have an opportunity to bring in a Budget, so we do not know what they would have put into it if they had come back in power, but I think one conclusion can be drawn-

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GOVER: - if they had come back in power and they did spend $40 million, 98 per cent would have gone into Tory districts.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. minister's time is up.

MR. BAKER: Order 2, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order 2, Bill No. 18.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on said bill, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

A Bill, "An Act To Amend The Public Utilities Act, 1989." (Bill No. 18.)

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

DR. GIBBONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I move that this minor amendment be approved. It is an addition of Clause 3.1 to the Public Utilities Act, to allow the change from 1 megawatt to 15 megawatts per site for small hydro. I really have nothing extra to add to what I said in debate on second reading.

Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have just a few short comments. I made most of my comments the other day on second reading of the bill. I just want to make a couple of further comments on something that has happened since then. I mentioned it to the minister earlier today. It has been most evident in the last couple of days how nice it would be if we had a few more mini-hydro sites on this Island, to be able to tap into them and be able to bring power into, for instance, the city of St. John's or any other particular town on the Island. We should never be dependent on such a system as we have. I know it is one of the best but this particular situation with regards to the mini-hydro sites would see private development and Newfoundland Light and Power would be able to take it and feed it into St. John's, Gander, Grand Falls, or wherever. It would be nice this morning for Newfoundland Hydro to be able to hook into 50 megawatts or 100 megawatts if they had it, so this is another example of what could happen under this particular program and I again commend the minister.

Is this third reading now? No, we are in committee. Will this be going through tomorrow?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Third reading tomorrow.

MR. WOODFORD: It will be going through tomorrow. Then, I say to the minister that I suppose in the next week, within a couple of weeks Newfoundland Hydro will be calling for proposals.

DR. GIBBONS: Next week.

MR. WOODFORD: Next week. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed bill No. 18 without amendment, carried.

On motion, that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, Mr. Speaker returned to the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde.

MR. L. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to it referred and have directed me to report Bill 18 carried without amendments and ask leave to sit again.

On motion, report received and adopted, Bill No. l8 ordered read a third time on tomorrow.

MR. BAKER: Motion 1, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 1, the adjourned Budget debate.

The hon. the Member for Bellevue.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday I adjourned the debate and I have a few minutes left. To get back to my former profession I guess I should review what I did twenty minutes before last week. Normally, as a teacher you would review what you did the day before so the students could be up on the information you had provided the day before but since it has been two days it may take me a little longer today. We just heard a debate on the petitions I had presented in terms of how Bellevue district had been treated over the last seventeen years. On Tuesday I outlined the kind of treatment the district received in terms of municipal capital works. In roughly about a seven or eight year period the total allocation was about $700,000 or $800,000 in municipal capital works in the municipalities in the district of Bellevue. In the last three years since this Government took office there has been roughly $7.7 million allocated in the district of Bellevue in municipal capital works.

I presented petitions a few minutes ago from three communities complaining about the condition of the road. When I got elected three years ago in the district of Bellevue we had a lot of communities that just had dirt road. In fact in the district of Bellevue there were fourteen communities out of the thirty-six that had gravel roads. Some of those roads were not only roads within the communities but roads connecting communities. We had a situation in the town of Markland in the Spring of the year where the potholes were so deep you could lose a car. In the last three years out of the fourteen communities that lacked asphalt in the District of Bellevue, after this year's roads program there will be only four left. In other words, ten communities in the last three years have received - I don't want to brag too much because on Tuesday I am travelling throughout the district with the hon. the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to look at some of the conditions that presently exist in the district. So I have to be very careful when bragging about what happened in the last three years because he may cut me off and not give me anything else. But out of the fourteen communities, ten of them.

There is one community that is going to be done this year that I have received many calls on, not only from the district but from all over the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. As a matter of fact, the phone never stopped ringing after the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation announced the roads program. I think it even came up on Open Line, as finally the people of Adeytown got their fairness and balance. We all know the history of the paving of Deep Bight and Adeytown, and what happened -

AN HON. MEMBER: What did happen?

MR. BARRETT: What happened? The money was allocated for the paving of Deep Bight and, of course, Deep Bight was in the District of Trinity North. For some reason the contractors couldn't tell the difference between Adeytown and Deep Bight. So the hon. Member for Trinity North, the story goes, and I think it is accurate, was on his way home to his district on the weekend and he saw the paving machines in Adeytown. I mean, this is a true story because it was on Open Line and everybody remembers it. The paving machines were in the Community of Adeytown and when the member saw them he said: My Gracious, they are in the wrong community. So he had to go and order them back into Deep Bight to start putting the asphalt down in the Community of Deep Bight.

Well, the people of Adeytown, even though they didn't vote for me in the last election - I did not win the Community of Adeytown but I can assure you that I will win it the next time - the Community of Adeytown this year, under the roads program, will get their local roads within the community paved. Not only Adeytown, but the Community of Ivany Cove with about nine or ten houses will get asphalt, and also that great Community of Northwest Brook will also get asphalt.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BARRETT: Also, to show you how fair and how balanced this is, the Community of Adeytown didn't vote for this government. The people of Northwest Brook did and the people of Ivany Cove did. But not to be outdone and to be fair to everybody, not only throughout the Province but to be fair to people in districts where they normally don't support the MHA that was elected, we had to get fairness and balance.

Of course, the hon. the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, when he announced the roads program also announced that the road between Bellevue and Bellevue Beach will be paved this year, six kilometers between Bellevue and Bellevue Beach. Even though in the last election I guess I got the highest number of votes of any Liberal candidate in the communities of Bellevue and Bellevue Beach - fifty-nine people voted for this Liberal government, but there were more people voted for the other side than voted for us - in fairness and balance, the road between Bellevue and Bellevue Beach, which the hon. minister and myself on Tuesday will travel over so that he can see why there was a great need to pave that particular stretch of road, will be paved.

Now that we have a lot of the gravel roads within the District of Bellevue being looked after we have a situation now where we have roads, such as the roads in the communities of Dildo, Chance Cove and other communities, that were paved, I guess, with election pavement years ago. In a lot of cases what happened was that the pavement was just laid on the bogs. Probably some were laid in the wintertime. We have a situation in the communities of Dildo and Chance Cove right now where the roads are in very deplorable condition and they need extensive resurfacing and upgrading. If we continue on with the fairness and balance of this particular government, over the last three years there has been an average of $1.5 million or $2 million under the provincial roads program that has been allocated to Bellevue district. We still need some equalization payments. We were successful in the municipal capital works to receive equalization payments and to correct some of the ills that were inflicted on the people of the Bellevue district over the years. But after next year's road program I am sure that these roads will be looked after. Because I am sure that they will be - if we look at the Province as a whole and in terms of the priorities, that they will get on the list to be done.

The other things in the Budget this year that is applied to my particular district, of course, was the clean up of the waste in the community of Come By Chance. It is a project of mine, one that I have had for the last year and a half, and I was pleased when the Budget was read that there money allocated for the waste clean up that was a carryover from the oil refinery and the old pulp mill in the community of Come By Chance. The people in that community are very happy that this work is finally being done, as are the people in Makinsons and the people in Gander who will -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I have to inform the hon. member his time is up.

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave! By leave!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bellevue has consent of the House to clue up his speech.

MR. BARRETT: The other area that was announced in the Budget of course was the fact that the new youth centre in Whitbourne would be open this year. Probably one of the areas where there would be an expansion of staff would be at the youth centre in Whitbourne, which is I guess a state-of-the-art facility that will probably be a leader for the rest of the country in terms of service to young offenders, and the people of that area in terms of the economic stimulus that will be created because of the 150 jobs that will be created at that particular centre. I am sure that it will have a great impact on that particular area. The number of positions that will be created of course will depend entirely on the transfer from St. John's to the boys' home in Whitbourne. But we are looking forward that there will be an expansion of staff and that there will be some people from the local area who will be hired and there will be some jobs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Grace.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CRANE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to stand and say a few words on the Budget Speech that was so ably delivered by our Minister of Finance just a little while ago. What amazes me about this Budget Speech is that I listened to the Opposition Finance critic for almost a week, and most of the time it seemed like he was trying to convince himself there was something wrong with it. He had a very difficult time coming up with anything wrong with it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. CRANE: Why don't you be quiet, now? I don't barb you when you get up. Just shut up for a while.

It is embarrassing when you get a person like the Member for Mount Pearl, who knows so much about budgets and has been around so long, and could not find anything wrong with the Budget Speech of this minister.

The one thing I think he did find that was giving him a problem, was that any pensioner who was making money had to pay taxes. That was a real problem. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that in these difficult times many Newfoundlanders are accepting the Budget as being a very fair Budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) gallery today!

MR. CRANE: Oh, I noticed the people in the gallery, some of those people do have a quibble with it. But they would have a quibble like you fellows regardless of what went on.

Some of the things that I feel that have caused the problems, the fishery, Mr. Speaker. You know, what really amazes me is to sit here and listen day after day to the people across the way who say: we are going to unite this House and we are going to send a message to Ottawa that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CRANE: Hold on, now. We are going to send a message to Ottawa that we are really going to tell them that they are the problem; that they are causing the problem and they should do something about it. But when everybody walks out of this House, everybody seems to go their own sweet way. Yes, okay, you can point at who you like. It really does not matter to me. Everybody seems to have their own agenda when it comes to the fishery, and that is what is embarrassing to me. The Minister of Fisheries is going his way. The opposition are going their way, and every individual seems to have their own agenda with the fishery. I think if everybody stuck together and worked their energies in the one direction we would certainly do something more constructive and maybe more beneficial to the fishery.

Everybody acknowledges that the fishery is the backbone of the Newfoundland economy. In my district of Harbour Grace they are no different than anybody else. When the fishery is dead, the economy is dead. We have two fish plants that employ people from my district, about 400 or 500 people. At the present time there is not one, I don't think, working, and some of them are beginning to run out of stamps. I think this year if the fishery is as bad as it was last year, we are really in for trouble.

In the fishery you can blame who you like for what has caused the problems in the fishery. You can blame the seals. You can blame the foreigners. You can blame who you like, but in my opinion the problems have been caused in the fishery by successive federal governments. The federal government are the only people who can control our destiny in the fishery. It is not only the present federal government that have mismanaged, in my opinion. It has been successive federal governments. However, our present federal government does not seem to be inclined to do much about it, and regardless of what one might think, we might want to do it ourselves.

The opposition keeps asking: what are we doing as a provincial body? I can tell the opposition, in my opinion, that the provincial body can do nothing unless the federal government is willing to make the changes.

Other things that are causing our problems is the recession, of course, and it is not a Newfoundland recession. It is a countrywide and worldwide recession, and the federal government are having their own problems financially. In trying to balance their own books they are cutting into the transfer payments of provinces like Newfoundland.

We are not the only ones having financial problems. I will tell you, last year when the Premier, and Cabinet, and government - this government - began to freeze wages and cut jobs, many provinces in Canada laughed and said, what a stupid way to fight your way out of a recession. Ontario said that. They said, it is a stupid way to fight your way out of a recession.

AN HON. MEMBER: Fourteen billion later.

MR. CRANE: Ten billion dollars later, they are still in trouble in Ontario. Even the Liberal Government in New Brunswick thought it was crazy, but I see this year that they are cutting hospital beds like nothing else. Saskatchewan, who has an NDP government, a people's government, were going to spend their way through. Their credit rating is after dropping in the last few months a couple of notches, and at the present time they are on par with us, which is nothing to be crazy about. Now they are talking about cutting $115 million from hospitals, schools and municipalities.

So you see, it is not a Liberal philosophy or a Conservative philosophy, or an NDP philosophy. When there is no money to spend, you have to cut.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is not true.

MR. CRANE: It is not true? I did not figure it would be. I did not figure it would be, because listening to the Opposition House Leader over there, it is not true.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CRANE: It wasn't you, was it? You know what amazes me? If the members on the other side only knew how to run a government when they were in as well as they know now, boy we would have had a great Province here, and never would the crew on this side ever have been a government, because they seem to know all of the answers right now, and three years ago they did not have either one.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CRANE: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CRANE: Oh yes, I got that in Labrador City.

You know, the Member for Mount Pearl got really taken up on taxes - the increase in taxes. I think I heard a quote the other day at a funeral home that really suited the Member for Mount Pearl. He said: Why is that the Tories are always one up on you fellows?' I said: I don't know. Explain that. His father was lying dead in the funeral home, by the way. Well, he said: you fellows will tax you to death, and the Tories will tax you after death. Seven per cent GST on the grave digging.

The Budget had some pretty good things in it this year, things that will please a lot of people. One thing they had in it that in our opinion was good was getting rid of the school tax. That certainly was the ambition of this government when they came to power, to get rid of the school tax and to level up school boards across the Province. To some people that is terrible, because they are not going to get an increase this year. But to people in the outports, every school board outside the overpass will improve. Their funding will improve. We do not hear - I do not know about the Opposition, but out in our districts we are not getting any flak on abolishing the school tax and putting it into income tax.

As far as I am concerned, the school tax was the worst thing that ever could hit this Province. With a person making $7,000 or $8,000 a year and a person making $100,000 a year paying the one tax, it had to be the most unfair tax that was ever introduced by any government. So the Tories on the other side can always be proud of that. They introduced to this Province the most unfair tax ever levied.

Income tax. The income tax is a very fair tax. If you make money, you pay money. Why shouldn't somebody making $100,000 a year pay a little more towards education, health and every other facility in Newfoundland? To the poorer section, the lower class, the lower income people, right now they are very proud because from $30,000 down will pay less. From $7,000, $8,000, $9,000 they will pay nothing. So they are certainly better off than they were before. The people making $50,000 to $70,000, like my hon. friend from Flatrock, he will have to pay a little extra. I am sure he does not mind because he has....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: He'll make it with a few seals.

MR. CRANE: Yes. A little while ago the minister was asked a question about seals. The Leader of the Opposition was saying they had a market for seals. Well, I think we have one of the best sealers here, except his brother who is up in the gallery - he's gone now - and this brother here says the Newfoundland Sealers Association never had and have not got any sale for seals.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not true!

MR. CRANE: He says it -

AN HON. MEMBER: He doesn't know what he is talking about!

MR. CRANE: He does, he's been at it a lifetime.

MR. RAMSAY: No, no, you don't know, Harold, no (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. CRANE: Okay. Some of the better things in the Budget. Funding provided for the third phase of the Opening Doors program in public service. Works, Services and Transportation. I do not think - I have heard more about Little Bay Islands and Pilley's Island ferries from the member opposite in the last couple of years, but I have not heard him say a thing about those ferries since the Budget came out, and say we are going to reinstate that service.

MR. RAMSAY: Not interested. We solved it for him.

MR. CRANE: The Petit Forte service, South East Bight. All last year that was one thing I heard here from the Member for Burin. Over and over, every day he would be talking about Petit Forte, South East Bight. Today? Never heard of it. Because it is looked after for him.

MR. RAMSAY: Responsive government.

MR. CRANE: The only thing, sometimes I feel that these fellows are taking advantage of us because of fairness and balance. We are being too fair, right? That is something they would not know anything about over there.

MR. RAMSAY: Waving their $3 million capital works in our face.

MR. CRANE: That's right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CRANE: Fisheries funding; $300,000 has been provided for the Province's campaign against overfishing. I do not know what $300,000 or anything else could do against the Province's campaign on overfishing. I think right now the Premier is putting on a good campaign. We have had other members put on good campaigns. The Member for Port de Grave is stressed out - beating himself out. He is worn out going around the Province trying to inform people of what is going on on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks.

AN HON. MEMBER: Spokesman (inaudible).

MR. CRANE: Oh, he is not a spokesman any more that anybody else for the Liberal party, but at least he is doing something, and that is more than I can say for a lot of people on the other side. Even the fishermen, like the Flatrock -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CRANE: But I sincerely think that if this House of Assembly and the members of the House of Assembly concentrated on bringing the problem to Ottawa - the only people who can solve the problem. There is nobody else who can solve the problem. You can send out boats. You can send out what you like, and you can talk to the foreigners, but really, basically you have to get down to basics. The only people who can solve our problem in the fisheries is the federal government, and I do not think the federal government is fussy about unilaterally taking over the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks or doing anything else.

Education; the Minister of Education is not here today, and the Minister of Education is very proud of his part in the Budget. Although there are some flaws in the Budget, I am sure that freezing wages again this year has to be something that people are accepting very well because they understand that you cannot spend money if you do not have money. We do not have a money tree in the basement, and I think people are beginning to realize that. That is one of the roughest parts of the Budget, but I think even today that the majority of people out in the District are beginning to understand it. Maybe one time, because they thought people spent like drunken sailors that there was a money tree in the basement of the Confederation Building, but believe me, ladies and gentlemen, there is no money tree here, and the only money being spent here is the taxpayers' money.

I think right now, with the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Education, and the other ministers we have now, they are spending very wisely and prudently.

MR. RAMSAY: Tough medicine for tough times.

MR. CRANE: Tough medicine for tough times, but there will be brighter days ahead, and this Finance Minister will bring down many more budgets, I am sure, if he stays around.

The only increases in taxes that I did not like was the increase on cigarettes. Being a chain-smoker, I tried to get the Finance Minister to cut out that tax and drop it back, but he is so prudent that he would not even listen to me. That has been a terrible tax, and I have been terribly penalized by that tax, Hubert.

Health care; since we came into power the health care budget has gone up by millions, and our health care minister is doing everything he can to re-organize the health care system so we will get more bang for our buck. I am sure, over the next year or two, we will see where we have made great strides in health care since coming into power.

MR. RAMSAY: Other provinces are looking at us now.

MR. CRANE: It got to the point now where other provinces, including big provinces like Ontario, are phoning and looking for the minister to inform them on how he is making such great strides.

Development; one the smartest ministers of Development we ever had.

MR. RAMSAY: A top notch minister.

MR. CRANE: Yes, one of the top notch ministers we have today, and a man who is travelling world-wide and logging many hours for this Province. I am sure, in the not to distant future, you will see many enterprises because of his hard work.

We are a very dedicated, hard-working government - a government that certainly we cannot expect the opposition to appreciate. I would not expect them to appreciate it. What really bugs me more than anything else, I know some of the opposition members who stand and make great speeches, and speeches I would like to hear some times. The one thing that bugs me in the House is because of people yelling back and forth across the House, I have great difficulty when the House Leader stands up and makes a great speech about the fisheries over there, sometimes he does not make much sense but usually he makes a great speech, and it is those speeches that I would like to listen to sometimes, instead of people yelling across the House and making a mockery of the House. So that is one of the things that has bugged me since I came here. I think one of the best weeks I spent in this House was the week when we had the Meech Lake Accord on the floor, and everybody was under the gun and under the lights, and they played ball very -

MR. RAMSAY: It was the best decorum (Inaudible).

MR. CRANE: It was the best decorum I've ever seen in the House and I really appreciated that week. Although it might have been a strenuous week at that. So in future I would like to see a little more decorum when I can sit down and enjoy the speeches of all hon. members.

I feel like my district is not being neglected, but when I hear some of the members standing up on this side I am not sure that I am getting my share for my district. I was kind of embarrassed when the Member for Bellevue was up there preaching about all he had over in his district. It made me feel sort of embarrassed, because I thought I was doing very well out in my district until I heard all of what he is talking about down there. But nevertheless, I will be chasing the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to see if there is any more money available after this.

This government has one philosophy and that is to treat all members and all districts fairly. There is no trouble to see it these days when you see a member on the opposite side with $2 million and $3 million going into his district -

AN HON. MEMBER: For capital works.

MR. CRANE: - who was in - for capital works, from any department. Certainly that was never the case before this government came to power, because the Member for Port de Grave was in there four years and he could not get $15,000 to put water into ten houses up in Makinsons one time. He had to go to the federal government and get it. That was fairness and balance with the other government. So I am sure it is great to see that changed. It is nice to see the Opposition members getting some money going into their districts, as well as we ourselves.

In my district the needs are not as great as some districts, but in work, employment, at the present time, running about 35 per cent, I would think, and certainly that is one thing we could use. Any kind of employment. If the fishery does not pick up I am afraid we are in for a bad year again. Outside of employment opportunities, my district I imagine is looked after and has been looked after as well as one can expect, and I am quite happy with the government's philosophy of fairness and balance. I hope it keeps up in the future.

I listen to some drives back and forth across the way sometimes and the Opposition is quite happy to tell us that we will not be here after the next election. But we have news for those fellows. We spent seventeen years out of government, and I think that we are going to have seventeen years in here. So, Mr. Speaker, with those few words, thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I would like to have a few words to say on this Budget. If you would bear with me, I would like to hear what the Member for Port de Grave said, but I will just wait, we will wait another day to hear what he has to say. I am sure it cannot be very supportive of the government that will not support him in his fight for fishermen in this Province. But we will wait for awhile to see what (Inaudible).

Mr. Speaker, I heard on the radio one day that the Minister of Finance - they were changing their dates several times about when they were going to present their Budget. I heard finally one day the Minister of Finance say to this House that he was going to present his Budget finally, the long-awaited Budget, on March 26, I believe was the date that he announced it. Ironically, on the very same date, in the mail coming on my desk was this notice. I had thought it was a notice that had to do with the Budget. It said: Forage Focus '92, Manure Management Workshop. I expected that was what the Minister of Finance was going to deliver.

After he did deliver it, I am afraid that it would have been better, it would have made more sense to me, to have gone to this Manure Management Workshop than to sit here and listen to the garbage that the Minister of Finance delivered in this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: The only other possibility was a press release that came out from the Member for Mount Scio-Bell Island, who said he was going to deliver a paper on behalf of the Minister of Development and Tourism, maybe he delivered that Manure Management Seminar; I am not sure which one of them did it, but I guess one of them did.

Mr. Speaker, of all the ironies you see in this House of Assembly, of all the hypocrisy the public would hear if they were listening to what is happening in this House of Assembly, there has to be a particular one last week - or the week that the fishermen's group came back in the trawlers when they returned to St. John's. We were in the House of Assembly during Question Period that day, when the Minister of Fisheries got up and lambasted the President of the Fishermen's Union.

He said everything he could about the President of the Fishermen's Union to put him down; then, when the Member for Burin - Placentia West, stood up and said: 'I think we should close the House and go down to the waterfront to meet these brave Newfoundlanders who went out trying to protect our resource.' And what did we see in the paper the next day? The height of hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker, the Member for St. John's South and the Minister of Education, waving for an hour to Ricky Cashin coming in the Narrows. I am not sure what the gesture meant, it looked friendly when I was talking about it, but that is the picture in the paper, the Member for LaPoile was there, and they were in the House five minutes later, insulting and embarrassing the President of the Fishermen's Union.

But, on that same day, even more ironical, when all of these guys who thought the cameras would be around at the waterfront, rushed down to see the President of the Fishermen's Union and all the fishermen come back in, the Premier was at the airport all by himself without anybody to see him. He was supposed to be away somewhere fighting for Newfoundland and where did his members go, where did his caucus go, did they go out to the airport to welcome the Premier back for doing such a fine job for Newfoundland? No, Mr. Speaker, they all went to the waterfront and the Premier came home all by himself - I guess, as he was when he came back from Meech Lake, crying at the airport, except this time he wasn't crying because there was no one around to see him cry.

He was probably crying when he heard that his members were down at the waterfront shaking hands with Richard Cashin and welcoming him back, when their Premier, who was supposed to be representing that crowd - I don't think he was representing me very well - Mr. Speaker, up working on behalf of Newfoundland, we all thought, that's what you were telling us he was doing anyway, and you wouldn't welcome him back to this Province, you went down and welcomed Ricky Cashin. That certainly has to be an irony of that day and I hope that day goes down in history, Mr. Speaker.

I cannot find the - That is why I should have gone to that Manure Management Seminar, but I don't need too much fertilizer in my strawberries next summer, because I understand the Member for St. John's South drives by every day going home to Tors Cove, so if I could get him to divert a couple of days and come for half-an-hour into the strawberry patch, I am sure he will help with the fertilization of the strawberries for next year. Mr. Speaker, the picture that was in the paper really speaks for itself and I suppose - I can't get over this picture, I really can't. I wish they would put that back in the paper twenty times.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: No, I was sitting in the truck. I saw you all there, I got wet, you see, I didn't have a coat on, and the rain on my bald head was running down into my eyes, so I had to get out of there, but I saw that the closer the boat got, the more they would squeeze over towards the cameras, the whole lot of them. Finally, they got one little bunch, and the nephew of 'Tom Murphy', the Member for St. John's South, must have come up and taken the photograph of his uncle.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. R. AYLWARD: But I don't blame him, he should be proud of him.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MURPHY: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for St. John's South, on a point of order.

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

Just a few short days ago the Chair, I am not sure, but I think it was Your Honour, was very adamant about hon. members in this House addressing other hon. members by their names. I just want to remind the Member for Kilbride of your ruling, Sir, and I would ask you to remind him, also.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South raises a valid point of order. Members are to keep in mind that when addressing other hon. members, they should refer to them as the hon. members for the particular districts they represent.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I apologize for misnaming the hon. the Member for St. John's South, who moved out of his district two days after he was elected and went to live in Tors Cove. I could refer to him that way, which would be parliamentary, I believe, but it won't work for the next election, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, along with the many disasters in this Budget, one thing that really irritates me is this government's attack on the senior citizens of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, if the government of our Province has to attack senior citizens in such a way, I think we have to be in very hard shape. We can see from this Budget - well, we see from 1989 when they got in, the public service pensioners in this Province have paid more than their share of the recession in this Province. The average public service pension in this Province, from figures that I have, is about $8,000 a year. Now, that is not very much money, in this day and age, to try to live on. The average public service pension, including teachers, as I understand, will be $10,000 a year. Now, Mr. Speaker, that, again, is not a very big pension for anyone to try to live on in this Province.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I know every time I say this, the Minister of Finance tells me I am wrong, and the reason he tells me I am wrong is that he is embarrassed that he is receiving a pension from Memorial University and getting $120,000 in this House, too. That is why he says I am wrong, Mr. Speaker, because he is receiving his own pension and he is not receiving $8,000 or $10,000 a year. And I wonder if the Memorial University pension is indexed. I don't know for sure if it is or not. It would be interesting to know. But that is why the Minister of Finance shouts out every time I try to make a point here for the pensioners of this Province whom I have met with. I talked to them on the phone last week when I brought in my Private Member's motion and we weren't able to do it. I spoke with them on the phone. I got the facts and figures from the pensioners association. I am not making this up, Mr. Speaker. They didn't know that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Education were receiving pensions along with the $108,000 or $120,000 cheques they are getting besides that, Mr. Speaker. No wonder they can't feel for the pensioners of this Province. No wonder they cannot give them even a miserable 2 per cent or 2 and-a-half per cent raise they gave the social services people. We gave them a raise every single year we were in, Mr. Speaker, and I am proud of it. We gave them raises every year, something you will not be able to see during the next election. Mr. Speaker, we gave them raises every year that we were in - not enough, I agree, not enough, but as much as we could afford, a raise, Mr. Speaker, not a decline. What has happened this year, not only do they not get a raise, but any of them who were fortunate enough to put some money away in RRSPs or - they would have to do that to be able to survive, have money from some other source, because they will never survive on the pensions you are giving them. Mr. Speaker, any of those who did happen to have a bit of money put aside, when they became 65 years old, at least when we were in government, they could depend on it that they wouldn't have to pay at least one tax. They wouldn't have to pay school tax when they became 65, Mr. Speaker. That was at least guaranteed to the senior citizens of this Province.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what happened in this Budget, the senior citizens who become 65 and were expecting not to have to pay school tax next year will now have to pay an increase in income tax to substitute for the school tax. The public service senior citizens in this Province get penalized for having no wage, by having an earned income. Having lost out on their income since 1989, since their last wage increase, they are probably 12 to 15 per cent behind in spending capacity or money. In real terms, they are 12 to 15 per cent behind, because they haven't received any raise. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, now they get nailed with an income tax increase so that they will have to pay school taxes now, along with all the rest of the taxes that have to be paid in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, another thing in this Budget that really irritates me - it irritated me last year and it is even worse this year - is the payroll tax. This province has never been a 'have' province. We have always been a long way from being a 'have' province. But as long as I have been involved in politics, every public opinion survey that has ever been done - bar none; even in good times or bad times - the number one issue by a long shot was jobs. They want more jobs, we need more jobs, we have to keep people home who will get educated. We have to try to bring people back to this Province who have been educated and left. That is always the number one issue.

What does this government do last year and increase this year, triple this year? They bring in a payroll tax for someone creating a job. If you create a job today you will be taxed for it. That is almost unbelievable in the Province that needs more jobs and needs jobs more desperately than any other area in Canada.

MR. WOODFORD: They are going out to get their sign!

MR. R. AYLWARD: They are going today, Mr. Speaker, but they will be back. There will be more back tomorrow. They have gone out there to get the signs made up for tomorrow. I have not gotten around to what this Budget has done with Bill 17 yet. I have not gotten around to the bill that was just dropped on our desk a few minutes ago.

One way I knew for sure - when I was talking about pensions I forgot it - that the Ministers of Finance and Education were getting pensions was that the Member for Bellevue in this House of Assembly a few days ago - I do not know if I have the exact quote here now. The Member for Bellevue was the one who put me on to the fact that the Ministers of Education and Finance were receiving pensions when he referred in this debate to people over sixty-five - I don't think either one of those members are over sixty-five - but he was talking about pensions, and talking about people over sixty-five who were making $150,000 a year. There are only two I know in this Province who would be close to sixty-five and who are receiving a pension. Both of them are in this House of Assembly. One happens to be the Minister of Finance, who is presently in a conflict of interest in making decisions about the pensioners of this Province. I would say it is a direct conflict of interest that he can make decisions on what the pensioners of this Province can have when he has no realisation at all what the pensioners of this Province are suffering.

Mr. Speaker, there are also two other members on that side of the House of Assembly who are getting pensions, by the way. They are not getting public service pensions. The Minister of Fisheries is getting a pension, plus $120,000 a year from the taxpayers. He is getting a pension for years served in the federal system, I would imagine. The Minister of Justice, who is not in this House of Assembly - I made a mistake, he is not in here yet - the Minister of Justice for this Province is presently receiving an MHA's pension. He is presently, this day, receiving an MHA's pension, and he also receiving a minister's salary. Whatever a minister gets - I do not know what it is now, thirty-odd, $37,000 to $40,000.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: So, he is receiving an MHA's pension, which I would guess to be around the $30,000 mark, maybe a bit more, I am not sure. He did serve a good amount of time here. So he is getting an MHA's pension in the thirties, he is getting a minister's pension in the $38,000s, he is getting expenses paid by the minister's office. Another thing I can't understand is why the Minister of Justice in this Province has an executive assistant.

Now, I don't understand for the life of me, the appointment of an executive assistant. That side of the House tells us that an executive assistant looks after district work for the ministers because they are so busy - yet we have a Minister of Justice in this House who is not elected, who doesn't have a seat, who doesn't have a constituency to look after, who has an executive assistant. That is strange. I find that passing strange. We don't know why this government, which wants to save money on the backs of the taxpayers who are making $8,000 and $10,000 a year, would allow a Minister of Justice for this Province to have an executive assistant when it is illegal. Well, it might not be illegal, Mr. Speaker, but he doesn't have a district to look after.

We also have a Minister of Transportation who had an executive assistant when he was Minister of Transportation. Now, I don't know if the new Minister of Transportation inherited that executive assistant or if he has his own, or that man is finished, maybe. The person who is executive assistant to the former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation has finished his job in the system, I guess.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Well, I was just talking to him on the elevator. I just went up on the elevator with him to the fourth floor.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, his name is Mr. Milley. I just went up on the elevator with him a few minutes ago. I don't know if he is an executive assistant right now or not. I forgot to ask him.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Well, if he is not, I will accept your word. But the Minister of Finance has an executive assistant, a pretty good one, too. The Minister of Justice has an executive assistant, and he has a political secretary in his office, yet he doesn't have a district. I don't understand that. I don't understand, if the Premier of this Province is trying so hard to save money on the backs of pensioners, that he would allow this to continue for January, February, March, so far, into April, the fourth month. It has to at least go into the fifth month. Probably he is keeping him on staff so he can go up in Menihek and work on his behalf in the by-election, Mr. Speaker. That is quite possible.

Mr. Speaker, another thing that this Budget does not do directly - it intrigues me how the Premier over there can treat the people whom the Liberals of this Province have sent into this House of Assembly. I understand, Mr. Speaker, that the Premier of this Province is encouraging and is in cahoots with the member who did the Task Force on agriculture, Professor Hulan, to have him run, take on the nomination for the Member for St. George's, now. He has been out there the last month going door-to-door. I don't understand why the Premier of this Province would try to encourage another - I mean to the detriment of the member who was sent in here by Liberals in that district. Why would the Premier of this Province encourage another member, this Mr. Hulan, to go out in the District of St. George's and try to knock off their own member. I don't understand that, Mr. Speaker. I can't for the life of me understand why the Premier - certainly, he is not a team player, in that case. But he was out one day last month.

AN HON. MEMBER: Door-to-door.

MR. R. AYLWARD: He started his door-to-door already. Well, I would tell him for the Member for St. George's, now, that he has a long way to go yet, because the Member for St. George's will win the nomination. I bet on the Member for St. George's to win the nomination.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: That is right. Despite what the Premier wants, the Member for St. George's will win that nomination.

Now, there is a newer member in this Legislature, too, who also has a problem with the Premier - the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay. Now, he came in here in a hard fought by-election between him and his brother. It was tough going. It was neck and neck all the way, and I congratulate him.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: He is the winner. He won it, and I congratulate him for that. He obviously had more votes, and he had something going that the other candidate did not. He was more popular or his policies were better, or the Minister of Health went out and made promises he didn't keep. I don't know what was the reason, but some of it was. But now that member has a problem in his district. Who is the member - maybe the Member for Grand Bank can help me with a name that the Premier is trying to set up out in Baie Verte - White Bay against the member.

MR. MATTHEWS: Gus Roberts.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Gus Roberts - that is the person who has met with the Premier now and who is out working in that district all ready to knock off their own member. Now, I don't understand that. I find that offensive, actually. I find that offensive. A man who put his career on the line, came out, he probably will be neglecting his fish plant business and his fishing business to try to come in here, and the Premier of our Province is not satisfied with him. He wants to try to get rid of him in the next election. Now, Mr. Speaker, I put my money on the Member for Baie Verte to win the nomination.

Mr. Speaker, I will put my money on the Tory candidates to beat both of them the next time around. That will be the outcome of it, so it doesn't really matter if they win the nomination or not because the candidates we have out there are going to beat them, anyway.

There is another one, Mr. Speaker - I can't say it, though, because he is in the Chair. There is another rumour I have heard, a very strong rumour, Mr. Speaker - I almost can't even say the district now because of the predicament I am in here - that a member very close to the Avalon region will be called into the Premier's office very soon because the new Minister of Justice, the non-elected Minister of Justice, might not be elected in Menihek.

AN HON. MEMBER: Naskaupi.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Naskaupi, I mean. He would never be elected in Menihek. Mr. Speaker, it might be difficult for him to get elected in Naskaupi. Now, that is what I heard. Now, the Premier has been up there and tried to plead and beg the Liberal Association: 'Please give him to me for one year. Please don't embarrass me by saying that we don't want him here in this district. Would you please give him to me for one year, and I guarantee you that I will make sure he never runs here again. Because he is not going to be much of a member anyway, he is a bit arrogant and a bit uppity for the people of Happy Valley - Goose Bay, Northwest River and Mud Lake. So, I won't leave him there long. But I beg you to give him to me,' and they are considering it. I heard the Premier of this Province on the radio yesterday, saying they are considering it. Boy, you have a great team over there, that's all I say for you. You have great team players on that side of the House. Mr. Speaker, it certainly is a formula for disaster when you are not working with team work.

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you forget 1989?

MR. R. AYLWARD: No, I didn't forget 1989. We happened to have more of the popular vote than you did. The numbers didn't work out right.

Mr. Speaker, because of that problem in Happy Valley - Goose Bay in the Naskaupi district, because of the problem with the Liberal Association up there, which really doesn't want to take the Minister of Justice, which really doesn't want to take Ed Roberts -I can't call him by district, as the Member for St. John's South so correctly informed me I did wrong before. I can't call Ed Roberts by district. He is not in this House of Assembly right now, and he is not elected, so I can't call him by district. But because of the problem in the Naskaupi area of him maybe not getting elected, the Premier first considered maybe waiting until the Member for Ferryland resigns, finally gives it up. He might wait for that, but he found that was pushing it a bit too far. `Now, if I am not going to get him elected in Naskaupi in a Liberal district, I will have a harder job getting him elected on the Southern Shore. I will have a very difficult job getting him elected.' So he decided: Well, I had better not wait, and it will probably be too long, anyway. It will probably be a bit longer. So by next week I am going to have to call in one of my members and see which one of them is going to give up their seat. Now, Mr. Speaker, I have someone lined up in Baie Verte - White Bay so I can't call him in, because I don't want Ed Roberts out in that seat, and I have someone already lined up for St. George's for the next time around, so I can't call him in, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Member for Mount Scio has the only safe seat in the St. John's area, according to him. He keeps telling me that he has the only safe St. John's Liberal seat.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who?

MR. R. AYLWARD: The Member for Mount Scio. He keeps telling me that. He tells me he does his own polls regularly and all the rest of the members are in trouble. He is not sure about the Member for St. John's West, but he keeps telling me that he is the safest one in the St. John's area. That will tell you something about how safe the rest of them are, if he is the safest one.

Mr. Speaker, because he is the safest, probably I will have to leave him there. Now, the Member for St. John's South won by one vote one night and then he doubled his majority in a week's time. He won by two votes in a week's time.

MR. MURPHY: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South, on a point of order.

MR. MURPHY: I do not know if it is a point of order, maybe a point of clarification.

MR. R. AYLWARD: You know it's not a point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. member on a point of order?

MR. MURPHY: Yes, a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member made a statement which is totally incorrect. I think it is a point of order I rise on. I increased my majority 100 per cent and not many members do that. I just want to remind them.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, the Member for St. John's South is in his usual mode, he does not listen because that is exactly the next statement I made.

MR. MATTHEWS: He did, he increased it by 100 per cent. He had a one vote majority and then he got two.

MR. R. AYLWARD: And he got two. That is what I said. His mouth goes in gear before his brain most often, anyway, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, what else do we have over there? We have a couple of them looked after. Now, Danny Dumaresque, the Member for Eagle River, there is no getting him to leave that seat. There is one way to get him to leave and that is to get Bill Rompkey to leave but I do not think Bill Rompkey is going yet because he knows he is not going in any Cabinet.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes he is. Bill Rompkey is leaving. I found that out in Ottawa the other day.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Well, the Member for Eagle River knows because the Premier called him politically immature, or whatever it was, he was immature. He is not going in the Cabinet with this Premier so he figures his best bet is to get out and go federally and I wish him every success in the world. That is a potential seat for the new Minister of Justice but the Member for Eagle River will not do it to his constituents. It might hurt him in the next federal election. It could very well. The Member for Port de Grave, now he is one over there who is considering voluntarily giving up his seat for the Minister of Justice. He is the only team player on that side. He is the only one who will stick with the Premier and if the Premier's pleas to the Naskaupi Liberals do not work he will volunteer to give up his seat.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. MATTHEWS: We thought they were the same John.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. MATTHEWS: We thought the Premier and God were the same person.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, the problem with that is the Premier will not go and ask him. The Premier is too proud. The Premier knows that the Member for Port de Grave is doing a good job for the fishermen.

MR. MATTHEWS: The Premier is afraid of him.

MR. R. AYLWARD: And what did I hear the other night? The most visible cabinet minister in the Liberal Government was the Member for Port de Grave and he is not a cabinet minister anymore. I heard that quote somewhere.

MR. MATTHEWS: Ray Guy said it.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Well, who else do we have over there who might have to give up his seat for the Premier? Maybe the Member for Lewisporte might but I do not think so.

MR. MATTHEWS: You know the story on him?

MR. R. AYLWARD: No.

MR. MATTHEWS: He was suppose to go up in the Premier's office but Brian Tobin called, got upset, and wanted the Member for Stephenville and he got pulled back.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I think he is a good choice by the way. I would rather see the Member for Stephenville up there. I think he should be in Cabinet because there should always be an Aylward in cabinet as I said before. Preferably this one but if not then the Member for Stephenville should be in there for the next, well, give him eight or ten months in there. He should have one shot at it before he gives up. Now, another potential is the former Minister of Justice, the Member for Humber West. Maybe he will give up his seat. He wanted to give up being minister and nobody can figure out why he did it. He was suppose to be the successor, I understood, to the Premier in a few years time when the Premier wanted to go federally.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. R. AYLWARD: By leave. I have not told you which one is going over there yet. You guys do not know. I still have to tell you which one of you are going to get it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Before I recognize the hon. Member for Port de Grave I would like to inform hon. members of the questions for the adjournment debate.

Question number one: I am not satisfied with the responses of the Minister of Health and the Minister of Environment and Lands to my questions about the Corner Brook water supply. I would like to discuss these questions at greater length on the Late Show - the hon. Member for Humber East.

Question number two: I am dissatisfied with the answer from the Minister of Finance to my question today relating to the provincial sales tax on building materials - the hon. Member for Mount Pearl.

Question number three: I am not satisfied with the answers to my questions to the Minister of Fisheries regarding funding for the Canadian Sealers Association - the hon. the Member for Grand Bank, a former teacher, great speller and writer.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, what was the first one again? I did not catch it.

MR. SPEAKER: The first one was to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Environment and Lands regarding the water supply in Corner Brook from the hon. Member for Humber East.

AN HON. MEMBER: What was the second one?

MR. SPEAKER: The second question was the hon. Member for Mount Pearl on the sales tax on building materials.

The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to say very clearly from the outset that I am very pleased to be able to rise in the House of Assembly today and take up the time allotted to me as a member of this House of Assembly. I have some thirty minutes to speak on the Budget and things related to the Budget, related to the economy of the Province and also related to my district. I think none of it is separate from the other. When you talk about it and pull it all together, it is all one and the same - the Budget, the economy considering the present situation with the fisheries crisis, the economy of the Province, and what happens in each one of our districts.

My district is no different than any other district around the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and it is facing difficult financial times - very, very difficult financial times. I will tell you very quickly, we have eight fish plants in the district of Port de Grave and eight fish plants today are closed. If you have those types of things happening all around the coastal communities of Newfoundland and Labrador, just imagine the impact on the economy in all the larger centres in Newfoundland and Labrador. Just imagine the number of jobs lost in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador when the fishing industry goes down to the low esteem it is held in today.

How can any government, regardless of its political stripe, or how can any Minister of Finance draw up a Budget that he or she would like to, with an economy such as this? How much choice do you have when you are not bringing in the revenues you need in order to pay out and to provide the services in health, education and other social programs, capital grants and municipal grants in this Province? There is no magic tree growing out in someone's backyard. There is no magic area out there where you can just take money away and spend it just because people are asking for it.

It is very difficult for any minister in any part of the government to have to say 'no' to constituents - to have to say 'no' to the people of the Province, and compare the low economy, the state of the economy in the Province today, with the dept hanging over our heads of some $6 billion; where over $500 million every year is paid in interest alone.

When you look at the needs of people in hospitals; when you look at the needs of people working in the public service; when you look at the needs of the pensioners, and you look at the needs of all of the services that need to be provided in the Province, you have a choice to make. You have to do the best you can with what you have until the economy rebuilds to the point where you can spend the money in order to provide the services for the people of this Province. Nobody in this Province in their right mind takes any pleasure in saying 'no'. Everybody's needs are as important to those individuals as to the other person. There is no one person who has a greater need than the other person, whether it is in health; whether it is in the needs of education; whether it is in the needs of services, or social services or jobs. It is equally as important to those individuals as it is to the other person, and that is what you have to keep in mind, Mr. Speaker, when you draw up a Budget. How do you distribute that money equally and fairly in an effort to try to provide services to the people, and a decent wage and a decent income so that all people living in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador can live within the best means of the economy and the financial situation that we are facing - and that is the very, very difficult situation that we are facing.

Now why are we in this difficult situation? Is it any one person's fault? Is it any one government's fault? Or is it any group of people's fault? It does not really matter now. It does not really matter whether it was NDP, or Liberal, or Tory, or one organization or union - it does not really matter. The fact still remains that we are faced with this very difficult situation, and it scares me and frightens me no end to look forward to 1992. As I heard my hon. colleague from Harbour Grace say today, if 1992 is a repeat of 1991, God help us. I tell you, God had better be there to help us, because we will be facing a total economic collapse in this Province if the fishing industry fails. If anybody in this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador does not believe that, then I feel sorry for them, and I feel sorry for this Province. We cannot survive without the fishery. It is absolutely impossible for Newfoundland and Labrador as we know it today to survive without the fishery. I will try to explain that as I go on.

I spoke to some students at a high school this morning in my district. I likened it to a large building where if you pull the centre pillar out, the whole building collapses, it is the same thing with the fishery in this Province. You take away the fishery in this Province and you are going to have a total economic collapse.

I spoke to the Marine Institute students just about two weeks ago; 1,000 students in the Marine Institute, each and every one of those students is dependent on the fishing industry for jobs in the future. Where are they going to get jobs if there is no fishing industry? Where are the students from the Cabot Institute going to get jobs, where are the students from Memorial University going to get jobs? I spoke in Grand Falls yesterday. Some people joked with me and said, why would you speak in Grand Falls on the fishery, it is not a fishing town?

You take all the coastal communities around that area, Harbour Breton and all those people who go into Grand Falls -Windsor and spend their money, you take away from it all the people there who go in that area, in those towns and spend their money and I am going to tell you very much so, it will have a drastic effect on each and every business in that community, in those towns. It is the same in Gander, it is the same in every area in Newfoundland and Labrador, it is the same here in St. John's, it is no different from anywhere. Everybody is affected by the fishery, if it is good everybody benefits, if it is poor, everybody loses.

Now it is getting to the point where we are scared there is going to be a total collapse. How can you pay out wages if you do not take money in?... that is the key question, Mr. Speaker. You cannot pay it out if you do not take it in. If somebody in this Province has the answer on how to pay money out without money being taken in, tell me. In all my years of business I never learned it but I would sure like to sit down and listen. I would surely like to be a recipient of how to manage a business, and a government is no different from any other business, you take monies in and you spend monies out to the best of your ability and to the best of your knowledge. Some administrations are a little more careless than others, some are a little wiser than others but nevertheless, it all comes down to the one thing.

You talk about the loss of jobs in this Province because of the fishery; I am going to give you some examples, very quickly. This is how serious we get when we talk about an issue that is facing this Province. In 1990, FPI landed 200 million pounds of fish -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. EFFORD: In landing 200 millions pounds of fish, Mr. Speaker, they created 8,000 jobs; 8,000 direct jobs in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Consider the spin-off factor for 8,000 jobs and you have 1.5, 8,000 times 1.5 is 12,000 jobs in the spin-off factor. In other words, landing 200 million pounds of fish they created 20,000 jobs, that is a lot of jobs. That is a lot of jobs for one company to create and we are only using that as an example.

In that same year, the foreign countries reported to the Government of Canada taking in excess of 800 million pounds of fish outside the 200-mile limit - 800 million pounds. If FPI can create 20,000 jobs by landing 200 million pounds of fish, the foreign countries took away four times that amount, therefore that is a loss of 80,000 jobs out of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador -

MR. MURPHY: Full employment John, full employment.

MR. EFFORD: 80,000 jobs, full employment, and that is what is wrong with the economy of this Province. The fishing industry is the main resource, the main basis of the economy. Everybody else is getting the full advantage of it in the world except Newfoundland and Labrador. We are the recipients of the loss and everybody else is the recipient of the gains of it and we do not have the gumption to take control and take the problem in own hands. I am not talking about the government, I am talking about the people of the Province. In fact, very few people in this Province realize and understand how serious the situation really is.

We talk about the seal population. We do not have a seal hunt in this Province and we are still studying to see if seals eat fish. In the name of God, what do they eat if they don't eat fish? If they don't eat Kentucky fried chicken or turnips or cabbage, then they must eat fish and not codfish alone. They eat caplin. They eat herring. They eat mackerel. They eat flounder. They eat flatfish. They do eat cod, and they eat shrimp. Now let me give you some numbers of what I am talking about, how frightening the situation is today, and how four boats left Port de Grave last week, steamed 175 miles to the Grand Banks, were gone six days, and came in without one fish of any kind.

AN HON. MEMBER: Never had enough for a stew.

MR. EFFORD: Never had enough to cook, and that is scary. Does that not frighten you out of your very wits what is going to happen to this Province if that happens again when they go out and cannot find any fish, and again and cannot find any fish? A total economic collapse. We have pulled back; the inshore fishermen have pulled back; the deep-sea draggers have stopped fishing in Newfoundland, but while we have done that the foreigners are still fishing, and the seals are still eating fish.

Let me give you some numbers about the seals. I have said it many times before, but let me say it once again. Six million seals eating on an average of ten pounds of some species of fish a day, is 60 million pounds of fish a day. That is equal to about 7,000 jobs. Sixty million pounds of some species of fish each and every day, if they only eat ten pounds. Multiply that by 365 days a year, and you are talking about 22,700,000,000 pounds of different species of fish, and we wonder where the fish stocks are going? We have to have more research to see if they are eating fish? We have to wait another year? Well I am telling this hon. House of Assembly that we cannot afford to wait another year, because if we allow the foreigners to maintain that same killing as they have every other year, this year, and we allow the seal herd to increase as they have each and every other year, and eat the same amount of fish, then the total collapse of the fishing industry is that close to 1992.

Just think, March 10 the seal population pupped again. Another 700,000 seals were born March 10, added to the population that is out there. I am not dreaming up those numbers. These are real and factual numbers - 700,000 - and we are wondering if we should have a seal hunt? We are wondering what is happening to the cod fish and the caplin and the herring, and the mackerel. And we are wondering why we have 80,000 to 100,000 people unemployed in this Province today? My God, you do not need to be a genius. You do not need to be a so-called expert in the fishing industry. All you have to use is a little bit of common sense. We wonder why the Minister of Finance has to bring in the restrictions that he brought in the year? He has no other choice, because if there is nobody working there is nobody paying taxes. If there is nobody working there is nobody buying products, and if there is nobody selling products they are laying off people, and it continues and continues and continues.

The district of Port de Grave, as I said earlier, has eight fish plants - would employ 1,400 people directly. A spin-off factor of 1.5 is another 2,100. You are talking 3,600 jobs in that district, and if all of those people were working, every business out there would be flourishing, and every business and every individual would be paying taxes - but not so. Everything is closed. Businesses are closing. Businesses are going bankrupt continuously, and we do not have the ability, in this House of Assembly, to listen to it.

We showed our expense accounts today for a total of so many million dollars as MHA's, and the best we can do is crack jokes back from the opposite side of the House to say: well he is crazy over there. He is not telling the truth. He is misleading and he is yawning. That is all that matters. We are in this House of Assembly, paid by the tax payers of this province, to try and do something about it. We do not have the authority here in this Province to do anything about it, but we can certainly put enough pressure on the federal government to do something about it. But if we keep joking about it, and keep calling each other names, and keep going into our own different direction, each one trying to get his own little territory and look good in it, then Newfoundland is doomed for failure. Newfoundland is doomed for failure if we do not wake up and realize it.

It is not my cause, and it is not the opposition's cause, and it is not the government's cause. It is everybody's cause. It is the cause and the responsibility of every man, woman and child in this Province - 550,000 or whatever the population is - it is their responsibility. Boy, it is going to be too late a year down the road when the total collapse of the inshore fishery and the offshore fishery comes and there is nobody working. Sure we will scratch our head. We are alright. John Efford has a few dollars, like most members of the House of Assembly, looking forward to a good pension, but what about our children? What about your children? What about the right to work in this Province - at least the right to choose to work here?

What is going to take place now is we are going to be forced to leave the Province. Your sons and daughters are not going to have the right to work here. They are going to have no other choice but to move out. I do not like that. I would like for them at least to have a choice. But we are being totally ignored by the federal government in Ottawa to the advantage of every other province in Canada in trade relations. Really nobody is saying that very clearly or very loudly, at least enough to make a difference. The problem is that we are paying the price for every other Province in Canada, and we are paying a heavy, heavy price. Someone remarked the other day that there were 64,000 people today on social services, 10,000 more than last year. Is anybody in this House of Assembly going to say what some people will say about Newfoundlanders? Are you telling me those 10,000 people are lazy? Are you telling me those 10,000 people are on social services because they want to be? Absolutely not. They are here because they have absolutely no other choice only to go to social services or starve to death.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Or starve to death. No government has the responsibility. No government can create those kinds of jobs. You have to have a basis for the economy. If you have a good basis for the economy and you have a good industry, and you have a good resource everything will come after that, and then the governments can do their part to help people diversify and bring in new businesses and stuff, and show them the direction in how to make it easier. That is the government's responsibility, but you can't take 10,000 people and put them into a job if you aren't receiving any money.

AN HON. MEMBER: This is boring.

MR. EFFORD: This is where the problem lies, Mr. Speaker. Yes, it is boring. Probably it is boring according to you, but I am going to tell you one thing, it will be a lot more boring next year when we have another 10,000 people on social services. Those little children who need food in their stomach, it is pretty boring to them, and those people who would like to have the right to earn a living, it is pretty boring to them.

AN HON. MEMBER: What is your government doing about it?

MR. EFFORD: What are we all doing about it, Mr. Speaker?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.

MR. EFFORD: You see, Mr. Speaker, there is the problem with Newfoundland and Labrador today. We are not willing to face up to our responsibility. No one group of people, Mr. Speaker, can do this alone. No organization could do this alone.

AN HON. MEMBER: No government.

MR. EFFORD: We have everything in Canada working against us, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Including John Crosbie.

MR. EFFORD: We have everything in Canada working against us including the hon. the Minister of Fisheries in Ottawa.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: This is a press release he sent out to me. Let me read the first paragraph on extending the jurisdiction from the Law of the Sea, out to 350 miles. 'Mr. Effort is simply wrong,' said, Mr. Crosbie, 'The Law of the Sea allows countries to exercise jurisdiction over the ocean bottom out to a maximum of 350 miles, but this does not include jurisdiction over the fisheries, only mineral rights.'

Just listen to me. Give me two minutes without any heckling. Give me two minutes to make a case. I agree, mineral rights, yes, extension of the 350 miles. The Law of the Sea states very clearly that is a fact. Let's use, Mr. Speaker, as an example a judge in the world court and you over there make the case on behalf of the Portuguese and the Spanish, and all those people that they should have historical rights to fishing. Yes, they should...if the fish stocks allow it, and nobody is going to disagree with that. But then comes in the lawyer representing Canada and he makes a case to His Honour that they are out there destroying the environment. Every living creature on the bottom of the ocean they are just wiping out, and they are wiping out the spawning grounds, not giving the fish a chance to reproduce. They have no respect for conservation measures whatsoever, and they have overfished so much that in a year or two, Your Honour, there is going to be a complete extinction of the fish stocks.

Are you telling me that the judge in the world courts would not rule in favour of the coastal community, which is Canada, to properly manage, protect the environment, and protect the stocks? Mr. Speaker, I believe they would. I believe it is only common sense that they would. My only question is: why does not the federal government put it in the world courts? Are they afraid to win? I will tell you, they are afraid to win because what they are afraid: Ontario, British Columbia, the wheat farmers, Quebec, and all of those manufacturing provinces are afraid to lose some trade relations, and because Newfoundland, with only a small population and with less than 1 per cent of the gross national product, is being downtrodden by that very political system. It would be no different if somebody else was there because more political clout from the larger provinces verses one minister from Newfoundland, he does not stand much of chance, Mr. Speaker, fighting that battle alone, and this is where our problem lies.

I am saying to Mr. Crosbie that I am not misleading the people of this Province. I am saying unequivocally that the Law of the Sea is recognized in the world courts and that if we applied to the world courts and made a case for environment and total extinction of stocks we would win, and when the stocks are restored to a reasonable measure then you bring the foreigners back and allow them to fish. I never said they should be kicked out completely, but bring them back and allow them to fish quotas with the proper surveillance and management plan in place, the same as we are going to have to do inside the 200-mile limit, the same as we are going to have to do to bring the economy back in this Province. If we don't do something quickly, Mr. Speaker, there is going to be nothing left for anybody.

What I have here in front of me, Mr. Speaker, is a copy of the number of people unemployed in my district today, people who used to work in a plant who are now unemployed and not one of them receiving UI benefits. That is only in the District of Port de Grave, eight to ten pages of people in my district not working because of the fishing industry. Now, can you imagine what those people are going through? Every MHA in this House of Assembly can bring the same thing up about his or her own district, people unemployed because of the economy of the Province, and it is because of the fishing industry. Over 200 people right here. If they were working today, what a benefit it would be to my district. The people in business would be earning money and their families would be well fed. The kids would be going to school with good clothes to wear and with food in their stomachs.

You talk to the teachers in some of the high schools, as I did this morning, and find out about some of the kids there without food. It is not hard to pick out the children in school with no food in their stomachs. It is not very hard at all. It is not because the parents want to do that, Mr. Speaker. They have no other choice, Mr. Speaker. They have absolutely no other choice.

It is our responsibility, Mr. Speaker, as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, to stand up for what we believe in Newfoundland. I believe in this little Province and I want to live here. I would like for my daughter, who is now in university, to have the choice to work here when she graduates. I would like for her to at least have the choice. But if we let everything take place and unfold the way it is now, she will have no choice but to move away, the same as every student graduating. There is nothing worse that to see people go through eight or ten years of education, spend $40,000 or $50,000 - whether they spend it themselves, get loans or their parents give it to them it is still money spent - and then end up with no job and having to move out of the Province.

It shouldn't be like it, Mr. Speaker. We have the richest resources, or I should say had - not have, of the whole world in our waters and we have allowed it to disappear, almost beyond restoration. I think we still have a chance if we can save it this year. I am scared if it goes beyond this year - we won't have a chance. If we don't take some major steps now to extend jurisdiction and to control it, we don't have a chance left.

I don't know what it is going to take to wake the federal government up. Perhaps it will take what I said earlier. The Member for St. John's East Extern said: Well, Efford, you are advocating going out there and shooting off guns. Probably that is what it is going to take. Probably someone is going to have to get hurt. Probably some loss of life is going to have to take place, some major confrontation. It is unfortunate but that is probably what is going to happen.

I can guarantee you one thing, as sure as I am standing in this House of Assembly today, if what took place out there this year, when they arrested the small Newfoundland fishing vessels and they let the foreigners take all the fish they wanted at freewill, I can tell you somebody is definitely going to get hurt, and it won't be planned, it will be reactionary. I am giving you that assurance as sure as I am standing here. I am not planning it and nobody else is planning it. But if you see those people kicked around as they have been kicked around and you see the foreign boats coming in over the 200-mile limit - as one skipper said the other night when he was out there he watched them come in - people are going to get hurt. That is unfortunate when there is no need of it, when our federal government has total control, the power in their hands to extend jurisdiction and to do what needs to be done in order to protect what is out there. I don't know what else can save the economy of this Province.

If I am wrong, then I am willing to sit down and listen to other people tell me the alternatives, the other options. We have tried a lot of them. We tried the cucumbers, and where did that get us? We have tried a lot of other things over the years. Where did it get us? You can't destroy your natural resources. All of our mines are closed down because you can't restore them. We have the logging industry and that depends on the world markets. We have the ability to keep restoring it. And we have the fish. You take those two great resources away and we don't have much left. I don't know what other choices we have, Mr. Speaker. I really don't know. If there is something else, as I said a second ago, please tell me. I can tell you one thing now, we can be a good Province, we can be a fairly well off Province. I don't know if it would be a totally `have' Province. I don't know if that is possible but I can tell you one thing, we can be a lot better off than we are today. We would not have 64,000 people on social services and we would not have another 35,000 or 40,000 people who cannot find work at all and do not even bother to look anymore, and we would not have another 50,000 or 60,000 people on UI benefits all Winter long. The economy of this Province could be such that we would have at least a reasonable amount of seasonal employment the same as the country of Iceland.

I want to take a few minutes before I conclude. The country of Iceland, half the size of Newfoundland, has so much in common that you could call them sister countries or provinces because they are so much alike. The people in Iceland are now experiencing a 5 per cent unemployment rate and they are worried about it. We have what? We have 19 per cent according to Statistics Canada and probably another 7 or 8 per cent who do not register anymore, at least that percentage who do not even register anymore. Iceland has 5 per cent and they are worried about it, and it is all because of the fishery. They take full advantage of their fishery. They drove out the foreigners. They drove away the British warships, the British fishing vessels, the German and the Portuguese and there was not even as much as a fingernail cracked. They never even cracked a fingernail. Where was the violence? They cut the cables off and they hit them where it hurts most, in their back pocket financially. They cut the nets off 147 vessels, a little country the size of Iceland. There are 230,000 people in Iceland and in excess of 25,000,000 in Canada and we are afraid to drive away the foreigners for long enough to get our fish to come back because we might offend somebody. You say we are not wimps?.... we are wimps. We are the biggest wimps in the whole world to allow that to take place.

The Charter of Rights says that everybody in Canada should have equal and fair opportunity to live in his or her own Province, to have the right to work, to have equal and fair opportunity, and at least the right to make a choice. What choice do we have if our federal government will not stand up for us? The Prime Minister of this country is travelling the world talking about unity. He is not the least bit concerned about Newfoundland. What happened when the plants closed up in Cambridge, Ontario - the big auto plant? The Prime Minister was out screaming the same day. What happened out in British Columbia when the Americans started talking about putting on subsidies? He went out screaming calling it a tin pan dictatorship. What happens when the fish stocks go in Newfoundland? He wants to fly over the Grand Banks to have a look at it. That is what they campaigned for, Mr. Speaker, and that is what I am talking about. Even though the Opposition are saying some things, I know they believe and listen to what I am saying. It is fact.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

It being 4:00 on Thursday I call upon the hon. Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak once again about the water supply for the City of Corner Brook, the Town of Massey Drive and the Town of Mount Moriah. Last week people were quite startled and upset to be told by officials of the Department of Health and the City of Corner Brook that the water supply is contaminated. The contamination has caused, and causes, a disease called Giardia or 'beaver fever'. Mr. Speaker, most of us have lived our lives in Newfoundland and Labrador enjoying and taking for granted clean, pure water for drinking, for preparing food and for cleaning and it comes as quite a shock to discover that we can no longer take that for granted. It is very disturbing to learn that the water supply for the second largest municipality in the Province is infected. I understand, Mr. Speaker, this infection is permanent and now the municipality is left having to add iodine to the supply to permit the lifting of the boil order and the city will have to look at installing on a permanent basis filtration equipment so that the water will be safe for the future. Mr. Speaker, when I asked questions about this to ministers responsible their replies were quite disappointing.

I asked the Minister of Health about the seriousness of the problem and the cause. He replied that the cause was beaver droppings and that the government was not responsible. I asked the acting Minister of Environment and Lands what measures can and should be taken to contain this problem and to prevent it from spreading, or to prevent it from occurring in other municipal water supplies. Again, what I got was defensiveness. The attitude shown by both ministers was inappropriately defensive and close-minded.

Many people in the Corner Brook area believe that the basic cause of this contamination is not beavers but humans, regardless of what municipal or provincial regulations have been in place, in fact, there has been a considerable amount of human activity in the Corner Brook watershed area. People in a virtually unrestricted way have been in that area for recreational reasons - riding ATVs, snowmobiles in the wintertime. People have been there logging for Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, people have been in there cutting wood for their own domestic use. It was said to me by a public health official that while the immediate cause of the problem may be beaver droppings, the beavers became infected because of human waste.

So when we have an environmental problem such as this, and I believe this one is indicative of a much greater problem, we have to try to have an open-minded attitude. We have to try to cooperate. There is not much sense in one blaming the other, or ministers denying. The minister responsible for public health has a responsibility; the Minister of Environment and Lands has a responsibility; the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture has a responsibility; and the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs has a responsibility. The City of Corner Brook has a responsibility, individual citizens have a responsibility.

But the provincial government has a role of providing leadership and guidance for enacting and enforcing appropriate regulations within provincial jurisdiction - jurisdiction over public health, environment, forestry or municipal affairs. I would hope that since I first raised questions on Monday -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS. VERGE: - the ministers responsible -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. If I might finish my sentence. The ministers responsible might -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS. VERGE: - show a constructive approach today.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member seems to suggest that I did not take her question seriously. Well, she misunderstands. I took the question seriously; I did not take the member seriously. Any member who would try to make political points on beaver droppings, it is extremely difficult to expect anyone to take that member seriously.

Now the reality is that in 1991 there were twenty-seven cases of giardia in Corner Brook. In 1992, which is only three months past, there were thirty-nine cases. On March 17 there were seven cases identified, and on March 18 there were eight cases. Now as soon as that large increase - especially on March 17 and 18 - was noticed an investigation was immediately prompted.

The investigation found that the majority of the cases were users of the Corner Brook water supply. Some of the people who had giardia, it was discovered that they had drunk water from other sources, like some untreated ponds and some lakes, and brooks, but the reality is, most of it was in the Corner Brook water supply.

So on March 19 - now remember, this was noticed on March 17 and 18 - the public health director for Corner Brook and the western region, Dr. Wesmare (?), and the public health inspector, immediately met with a representative from the Department of Environment and representatives from the City of Corner Brook, who are responsible for the water supply. In that meeting a course of action was set out to deal with the problem. It is a public health problem. It was decided in that meeting with the Environment and the City and the Department of Health present that all new cases would be monitored daily, and followed up immediately.

The medical officer of Health would write to local physicians and advise them of possible problems with giardia and request assistance in the identification of cases. The third thing that was done, Mr. Speaker, the chlorine dosages in the water supply were increased; the fourth thing, increased testings for bacteria and chlorine would be carried out. The Department of the Environment, Mr. Speaker, and the City of Corner Brook, would initiate action to remove any of the beavers from the watershed, however, as I pointed out in the question, ice conditions made it difficult to move them immediately but it is one thing which is being looked at and arrangements have been made to have the trapped animals tested for the presence of giardia.

Now, Mr. Speaker, on March 19 as well, the Department of Public Health contacted a Dr. Peter Wallace, an expert who is in Medicine Hat, Alberta, regarding the specialized testing equipment and the analysis of the samples, this was all done. On March 22, Mr. Speaker, this equipment was received and installed by the City of Corner Brook; it was received on March 22 and installed on March 24. On March 27, samples were sent to Dr. Wallace in Medicine Hat, some delay was experienced due to problems with the calibration in installation of the equipment. On March 30, the results were received and the confirmation was put in place; the boil order was issued.

Mr. Speaker, the meetings with the City of Corner Brook and the Department of Health and the Department of Environment are ongoing, with a press conference called on March 31, the people of Corner Brook were told about the problems. So what I have just gone through, Mr. Speaker, is a routine response by the Department of Public Health to a problem which occurs from time to time. Hon. members will recall that there is hardly a month passes but some particular town or community in this Province has to have a boil order for some reason or other.

Last year this same disease turned up in the water supply in Botwood. Mr. Speaker, I do not remember the Member for Botwood trying to make any political points on a public health issue. I do not remember the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations getting up and trying to make political points out of it. What happened in Corner Brook happens from time to time. There is in place a process to deal with this whenever it happens; what we saw in Corner Brook, we saw in Corner Brook that process worked perfectly well and action is being taken to deal with it, so I tell the hon. member to crawl back under her rug, she is not going to make any political points on beaver droppings, Mr. Speaker.

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

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible) ten copies to the people in Corner Brook.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question was to the Minister of Finance relating to some mechanism of stimulating the economy, using the home construction sector and renovations in the home construction industry. It is a $300 million industry in this Province, annually, at least in the 1989 figure the estimate was $300 million in new home construction, $300 million in renovations, as well, the point I wanted to make, I made to the minister during Question Period.

The other aspect, the other possible way of stimulating that industry is to freeze the price of building lots developed by Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, even at the 1990 level, if not earlier. The Housing Corporation lots have increased in price something in the magnitude of 10 per cent over the last two years, because the Housing Corporation has adopted a policy basically of meeting market. What I am saying to the minister is: since salaries of public servants at least have been frozen and since the economy itself has frozen salaries of persons in the private sector, that perhaps the government would consider freezing the cost of those building lots at the rate that was established in 1989 or 1990, as a stimulant to help move along some new homes.

In order to do that, the minister would also have to consider privately developed building lots because those people are obviously paying interest on the funds that have been invested by those private corporations, so in order to be fair in the marketplace the minister would have to find a mechanism to subsidize those building lots, either to the developers or to the home builder, the home buyer, the person who builds that home by way of a direct grant to a person who buys a private building lot, a percentage of that could be made by way of a direct grant.

My second suggestion, was to lower retail sales tax. This is not a new concept, it was a concept we initiated back in the early 1980s. It was very effective in stimulating new home construction and renovations, and it treats everyone quite fairly because it goes right across the board depending on how much you spend on building materials. Obviously, the benefits would be there. Now, the minister in Question Period said, 'Well, we can't afford to do that because it would cost us millions of dollars.' I will just take some numbers, Mr. Speaker, for comparative purposes. It is a $300 million new home construction industry. Statistics will tell you that one-third of the cost of a new home is building materials. It is basically one-third, one-third, one-third - one-third for labour, one-third for land, and one-third for building materials. So at $100 million, Mr. Speaker, being the value of building materials in the new home industry, at a loss of 4 per cent would cost the Province $4 million. On renovations, a $300 million industry, 50 per cent of renovation costs are materials. So $150 million at 4 per cent would be $6 million. So, to drop the cost of retail sales tax from 12 per cent to 8 per cent would cost the Province a total of $10 million. That is what it would cost on the building materials used in new homes.

Now, assuming that that stimulated the housing industry simply bringing it back to 1989 levels, which is not unrealistic, that would be a 25 per cent increase. That is a fair increase. But if that program, together with the federal government initiatives of Registered Retirement Savings Plan and lowering the down payment to 5 per cent, that together might increase by 25 per cent. That would stimulate, Mr. Speaker, an additional $75 million in new home construction and $75 million in renovations. The new taxes that would be paid on that $150 million at 8 per cent would be 12 million. So that is $2 million more than government would lose by lowering the sales tax on the existing level of building. Now, if you want to say that 25 per cent is too high, say 20 per cent, Mr. Speaker. If you took it at 20 per cent, you would be about breaking even. The amount of taxes you would lose by lowering from 12 to 4 per cent would be approximately equivalent to the taxes that would be raised by the increase in activity.

If you still want to be pessimistic and say, well, you might get a 10 per cent increase and no more, then the cost of that, Mr. Speaker, would be approximately $4.8 million and you would lose $5.2 million a year to create 1,000 jobs. At 25 per cent you would create 2,500 jobs, and at 10 per cent you would create 1,000 jobs. That is $5,000 a job, Mr. Speaker. Even at that, that is not bad. Five thousand dollars a job, the minister, I am sure, will agree, is not a bad investment.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker I will let the minister have a look at that. Let us see him take some action to try to stimulate the economy of this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, I have never heard anything so foolish in my life, except when he last spoke.

He wants me to reduce the tax on building materials from 12 per cent to 8 per cent so that we can have more houses to sell in St. John's or wherever throughout the Province. Now, the problem is that we are now in a buyer's market. We are now in a buyer's market as far as houses are concerned. There are lots of houses for sale. Not only that, there are good programs in place.

Right now the down payment on a house has been reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent, which makes it pretty easy - easier than it was, anyway. You can take your RRSP's, if you have any, out and buy your house. The mortgage rates have been dropped. They have been dropped for the past several years. Within the past year alone, one-year mortgage rates have dropped 1.5 per cent, and within the past year alone, three-year mortgage rates have dropped 1.25 per cent, and five-year mortgage rates have dropped .75 per cent in addition to what they had already been dropping before that.

The interest rates for contractors have gone down. If you want to go to a bank and borrow money now, it is much cheaper to borrow money now than it was before - perhaps 5 per cent as to what it was a year or so ago. The cost of land has gone down. You can buy land, selling last year for $40,000 in Northlands, for $29,000 now. You can buy it below the cost if you want to.

There are plenty of houses for sale. The problem is not that there are not enough houses, it is that there are too many houses for sale. And if we subsidize new construction, so that we have even more houses out there for sale, what happens to the guy who wants to sell his house that he built two or three years ago? There is the problem we are creating. So the whole question is that while normally you would like to stimulate construction, there is no point in stimulating something that doesn't need stimulation. It doesn't require stimulation because there is no market.

What we have to do in this Province is not to go throwing money at problems. The member, as usual, as his party did before, thinks that if you can spend, spend, spend, you are bound to be prosperous. But what happens when you spend, spend, spend, is that you end up further and further in the hole, with more and more interest to pay and that is not the long-term way to build this Province. It has to be done carefully and quietly, and with great thought. There is no point in bringing coals to Newcastle, Mr. Speaker. There is no point in throwing money at a problem, or to exacerbate a problem. What we have to do in this Province is keep the course steady as she goes, and let it go at that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

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

I had a question to the Minister of Fisheries earlier today, and a request by the Canadian Sealers Association, but before I pursue that I want to say to the Minister of Finance that I didn't know everything was so beautiful in Newfoundland and Labrador, as the minister now enlightens us. As my colleague from Humber Valley said, there is no one left to live in houses. They are even gone with the lights left on in a lot of them, I say to the minister, because they cannot afford to be in them.

Mr. Speaker, this past fall the Canadian Sealers Association had discussions with the provincial Department of Fisheries pertaining to possible assistance for the sealers, to pursue the harvesting of seals and so on, for the people so involved. There were discussions, as well, between the Province and the federal government to get a possible funding arrangement. I was told this morning, I say to the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay that, indeed, there are some markets. The price for pelts is not all that great, and consequently, they needed to be able to sell the seal meat, the carcass, and that, indeed, there have been some markets accessed for that. But what they need is some assistance to enable them to do this. I am told that with a half million dollar infusion of funds, that would generate a minimum of $3 million to the provincial economy. If that is the case, or anywhere close, then it would seem very, very logical that the Minister of Fisheries, and even the Minister of Development, and the Minister of Finance, should consider very seriously the request from the Canadian Sealers Association to help them. Because, with all the talk about seals, after listening to the Member for Port de Grave rant and roar about seals and how much they consume and everything else, you would think the Member for Port de Grave would at least be half serious at trying to use some influence with his own Minister of Fisheries to get some funding for the Canadian Sealers Association so that they could go about harvesting some seals and selling them to the markets they have established. This government can do that, Mr. Speaker. The government can do it. But again they are resting back, waiting for the federal Minister of Fisheries to see if he can get some federal funds.

As well I was told this morning that time is running out, that we do not have a lot of time left. Again, I say to the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay, he knows more about that than I do. But I am told that it is ideal conditions now to harvest seals and that is not going to last too long. So we cannot wait for the Minister of Fisheries for another week or two weeks or three weeks to make up his mind whether or not he is going to support this request, because if so it will be too late.

So I was dissatisfied with the response by the provincial Minister of Fisheries and would only wish that the Minister of Fisheries would do something while in his term as minister to help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FUREY: It's certainly at an appropriate time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)!

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the hon. member talk about the seal fishery. As critic for the fisheries he ought to know - and I am sure he does - that the fishery is in the exclusive domain of the federal government. Now there is not much that we -

AN HON. MEMBER: No, no, (Inaudible).

MR. FUREY: - as a province.... Well, it is. Well, it is in the exclusive domain -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) not true (Inaudible).

MR. DECKER: That's the problem, he doesn't even know that.

MR. FUREY: He probably doesn't.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, it's not true, no.

MR. FUREY: But, Mr. Speaker, he raises some good points. I want to tell him, and to reaffirm what the Minister of Fisheries said earlier today, that we are in constant conversation and discussion with the federal government about this issue. In fact, we would like to see a joint arrangement between the Province and the federal government to help the landsmen prosecute the hunt this year. The member is quite right, we are looking in a vigorous way for new markets for the various products. In fact, the Marine Institute, under the former and current governments, are looking at designing new products from the various parts of the seal. Some of it is turning out to be extremely good.

He asks what the Province did. Well, the Province, as he knows, last year through Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador put up I think just under $2.5 million to look at, not just paying the fishermen themselves for the pelts - and we are talking just exclusively about the pelts here now - but also we looked at diversifying, to see whether or not we could convert the pelts into leather through a tanning operation in Ontario. If that had worked out then we would explore a possibility of secondary manufacturing right here in the Province.

Now the $2.5 million really looked after 60,000 pelts. The tanning and all of that kind of stuff went very well, but the marketing was difficult. We penetrated through various trade shows into Italy, Hong Kong, the south part of China, Japan, and it is very difficult. The leather market out there right now is fairly depressed.

So, Mr. Speaker, the Province has not turned its back in any way at all on the seal fishermen. We have put our cash on the table. But I would like the hon. member to recognize that this is in the exclusive domain of the federal government, the fishery is. As it is landed across the wharf it is in our domain.

The hon. member refuses to understand that, yet he goes to Ottawa and meets with the Prime Minister, face to face, Tory to Tory. I wonder, did he raise the seal issue then?

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes.

MR. FUREY: Was it so urgent then that he looked at Prime Minister Mulroney and said: Please, this is in your jurisdiction. Help them out.

MR. MATTHEWS: I did.

MR. FUREY: You did?

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes.

MR. FUREY: Well what did you accomplish? I will sit down, and you rise now and tell us how much money Mr. Mulroney committed to you for the people of Newfoundland who prosecute the seal fishery.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, we are seeing the reaction now.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much are you going to put in?

MR. FUREY: We are seeing the reaction now. Opposition Leader to the Prime Minister, Tory to Tory, zero to zero is what we see, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FUREY: Zero to zero.

Mr. Speaker, you cannot run with the foxes and hunt with the hounds and that is what the hon. member wants to do.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is exactly what he wants to do.

MR. FUREY: Do you know what he got from the Prime Minister? He got a commitment that on his way to Paris he would overfly those Grand Bank seiners. On his way to Paris he would have a look at them from 40,000 feet in first class as he sipped french wine. He would have a look at the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks. Is that the commitment that the hon. member got?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: That is what he got.

MR. FUREY: That is what he got because he got zero. A great big fat zero from Mulroney for the landsmen who prosecute the seal fishery. The funny thing, Mr. Speaker, about this Opposition House Leader, he is not a bad fellow but he doesn't know a lot, I think.

AN HON. MEMBER: We will look at him fly across to Paris.

MR. FUREY: It is a funny thing because when the cod fishery gets in trouble and there is no fish, Mr. Mulroney won't help us. Now that there are seals and too many of them he won't help us. So I say to the Leader of the Opposition quite seriously: you cannot run with the foxes - foxes being Mulroney and Crosbie - and hunt with the hounds - those fishermen who are hunting for fish and hunting for a way of life. You can't be that big a hypocrite.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform hon. members that tomorrow morning I will be introducing Bill 17. That is my intention at this point in time.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Friday at 9:00 a.m.