November 2, 1992             HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS           Vol. XLI  No. 55


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, before we move on to routine proceedings, this might be an opportune time for me, on behalf of the government, to extend a warm welcome to two new members of this House. One is the brand new Member for Ferryland district. I want, on behalf of the government, to extend a personal welcome to him and assure him that our effort to prevent him from getting here was nothing personal against him. It was an effort to increase the ranks on this side and was not, in any manner, directed against him personally. I assure him that he is a welcome addition to the House. We look forward to working with him for the remainder of this term, and then we will let the electorate decide which of us comes back after that time around.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: I want to also extend a welcome back, I guess is perhaps the most appropriate way to say it, to the new Member for Naskaupi, who probably has collectively spent more time in this House than anybody else presently sitting here. I don't know if there is anybody else sitting here who has spent quite as much time here as the new Member for Naskaupi.

I am particulary pleased that the people of Naskaupi district answered the government's request and chose that new member. He has made a very significant contribution to the government, and I am sure that his many years of experience in the past will be of benefit to the whole House.

I want, Mr. Speaker, to extend a warm welcome to both new members.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I want to join with the Premier in welcoming the two recent additions. I cannot exactly call the Member for Naskaupi a new addition to the House. He has been around for quite some time, on many occasions that I recollect. I recall, in fact, being in Your Honour's place as Speaker of the House, and getting some so-so advice from the Member for Naskaupi when he was then, I think, House Leader for the Opposition, if not Leader of the Opposition - I can't quite recall now - 1979 to 1982.

There is no doubt that the Member for Naskaupi has made a large contribution to the public service of this Province. I only wish it might be able to last a little longer than this one is likely to. I don't express that sentiment in any negative way, other than the fact that we, too, felt that his narrow victory in Naskaupi was one that we should have tried to avoid, if we could possibly have done it. Maybe we will do it the next time.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Yes, his narrow victory in Naskaupi.

In the case of the sweeping victory of the Member for Ferryland, one which will become massive after the next election, I suspect, I can speak more readily, because I have been working closely with the Member for Ferryland over the last few months. I can tell the people of Ferryland and the members of this House of Assembly that we have in our midst, forgetting partisanships, an individual who is going to make a tremendous contribution to the future of this Province. He is a very hard worker for his people, the people of Ferryland district, and I have no doubt in my mind he is going to be around for a quite a long time. I join with the Premier in welcoming both members.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to join with the Premier and with the Leader of the Opposition in welcoming the members to the House. We did our very best to keep the new Member for Ferryland out, but were not successful in doing so, and we welcome the opportunity to hear what he has to say on behalf of the people. Of course, we gave the Member for Naskaupi an easier ride by not opposing him. We also welcome him to the House and look forward to debating with him in his new role as Minister of Justice, and/or his new role as House Leader, as well as his former role as Minister of Justice. I welcome both of them and look forward to an interesting session with both.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, before we proceed, I think it would be appropriate, as well, to pass on a few sentiments to our friend, the Member for Gander, who served the Legislature for three years and served the Premier as House Leader. And I mean this in all sincerity when I say it, that the Member for Gander did a tremendous job, I think, as Government House Leader. I know he was very co-operative with us. My House Leader tells me that he was very co-operative with him in all of his dealings. I understand the public reason the Premier gave for the move and that is acceptable; I understand and take his word for that, but I didn't want the opportunity to go by without saying to the Premier and to his colleagues in the government caucus, that the Member for Gander performed his role as House Leader for the government side, in our view, in a very admirable way.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I sincerely thank the Leader of the Opposition for his generous comments. It gives me an opportunity to acknowledge the terrific responsibility that the Member for Gander undertook in the formation of the new government, both as House Leader and in his role as President of Treasury Board and President of the Executive Council. When we did the re-arrangement recently and combined the Finance and Treasury Board ministerial responsibility in the way in which we did, the Member for Gander and I discussed the matter. He requested a bit of relief from the level of the burden, and I was quite prepared to grant it. He has, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, served the people of the Province and the House, in particular, in that capacity, extremely well. I am happy that the Leader of the Opposition has mentioned it because it gives me an opportunity to publicly acknowledge that terrific contribution and to express, for it, the gratitude of this side of the House to the Member for Gander. Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wouldn't want the occasion to pass without adding my support for what the Leader of the Opposition has said. My dealings with the former House Leader, I have found to be very cordial. He served the House with great diligence, with great courtesy to hon. members and with great honour to the position. I thank him for his contribution.

Oral Questions

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier. I read with some interest a newspaper coverage of his speech, last Wednesday, I think it was, to the Provincial Employers Council, and I watched some of the television coverage. I think, if the newspaper reports are accurate, the Premier is quoted as saying that 'the government is prepared to do it's part to create an attractive economic climate for businesses to invest in.' That is the end of the quote, or at least part of the quote.

I wonder if he can tell the people of this Province what it is specifically he has in mind, and that his government is now prepared to do to encourage business to invest and to create jobs, and specifically whether this is something that he hasn't done in the last three-and-a-half years? What is it he plans to do specifically?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I can take the balance of Question Period and that would just about get me started to lay the foundation for the full program, but I don't think people want me to abuse Question Period in that way, so I won't do that. I can say, Mr. Speaker, that spelled out in the strategic economic plan is the basic approach that government intends to take in terms of reorganizing government management of the economy, the social sector, the taxation regime, in order to create the regulatory regime, in order to create an attractive climate.

Now, I can go into some detail, but I don't want to get started and then have people say: 'That is enough. You are abusing it.' It would take at least and hour to spell it out in the kind of detail the member asks for.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, on a supplementary question. I am interested to hear the Premier refer to the Strategic Economic Plan. I reviewed this today in the Liberal policy manual of 1989, the one he used for the election campaign, where he said: we've had enough studies and task forces, among other things, the state of the economy has been studied to death, what we need now is action.

I want to ask why specifically his government has rejected any concrete action to stimulate investment and economic growth over the past three and a half years? Also, why after having said 'read my lips, no more studies,' did his government do nothing except another study to prepare another booklet of promises?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I'll ask a Page to get the Strategic Economic Plan and bring it to the member so he can read it. Obviously he hasn't read it. It is not a study. If he read it and understood one single word in it he will know it is not a study. It is a specific outline of the specific courses of action to be taken in each individual area. There are some 134 specific actions, as I recall. It is not a study. We've put in place a monitoring committee and they're reporting quarterly to the Cabinet on exactly what's done, what action's been taken, under each one. That's got nothing to do with it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: No, that's got nothing to do with it. The government didn't do that at all. Read the Strategic Economic Plan, and please listen to the plain English that's in it. I understand the opposition have their political concerns and they have to try and present it in a political way. But, Mr. Speaker, the Strategic Economic Plan specifically spells out the course of action. It is not studies. We rejected during the campaign and we reject today this concept of studies - then put them on the shelf and forget them all. This is a specific outline, a specific blueprint, and the government is going to follow it in detail.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, the Premier didn't answer my first question. What have they done in the last four years, and why haven't they done anything to specifically stir some economic growth? I remind him that the Strategic Economic Plan was developed after a period of study and consultation by a committee that he set up himself. So he doesn't know what he's talking about. It was a study, it was the result of a study, after saying he wasn't going to do any more studies.

Now I want to ask him, getting back to the speech to the provincial economic council - the reference in the news coverage that I followed at least implies that the Premier has said that Newfoundland businesses had done very poorly in the area of generating economic activity and creating jobs. In fact the Premier himself wondered aloud, according to the papers and the quotes in the papers: where have we failed? I think those were his words, or words to that affect.

I want to ask him: doesn't the Premier remember the introduction of his own payroll tax, the increase in corporate income tax brought in by his government and the increase in corporate capital tax brought in by his government? I want to ask him: in fact, haven't the business profits in this Province been stymied because of the massive burden of tax increases imposed on businesses in this Province by his very own government? Isn't that, in fact, where we have failed?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: It is not, because as usual, like all half-truths, it deceives more effectively than a lie. It is a half-truth, but it is only a half-truth. What he doesn't say is that the school tax was abolished for all businesses, and anybody paying less than $100,000 in payroll pays no school tax.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: So the half-truth deceives and misleads very effectively, Mr. Speaker.

What he also doesn't say, Mr. Speaker, is that we have inherited a very difficult economic situation, some of which we inherited from the former government, some of which flows solely from the mess they made, and some of which derives from the economic recession that the whole nation has been in in the last two years and may well be in for another year or so yet, depending on how circumstances unfold over the next few months. Now, in those circumstances, Mr. Speaker, when the federal government in making fishery decisions put twenty-odd thousand people out of work, it is impossible to put forward proposals that will fly in the face of everything operating in all the rest of the world and reverse all the economic pressures of the rest of the world. This little government here is suppose to do that? How irrational can that point of view be, Mr. Speaker?

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised to hear the hon. Premier cast blame on everybody else in the world and not take any responsibility himself. I want to remind him that when he became Liberal leader in 1987 he promised, in fact, to the Liberal convention to stop blaming others and "vow the Liberal Government will not stand idly by and do nothing until the feds and others come to our rescue." This was his very quote, "Liberals will never do that." Your Honour probably remembers because he was probably there. "We have to stop blaming our problems on others and start coping with them ourselves," Mr. Speaker.

I want to ask the Premier: will he not concede that his promise made in 1987 is a false one and one that he never was really prepared to keep? And will he, once and for all, take the responsibility, or at least his share of the responsibility for the economic decline that has occurred in this Province over the last three-and-a-half years, instead of doing precisely what he saidhe would never do - blame others?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I'm prepared to lay out for the House - and I'll probably get that ready in the next day or so - exactly the circumstances that we're in. Exactly what we have responsibility for, and exactly what the members opposite have responsibility for, and I'm prepared to put the two side by side, and let the people of this Province judge where responsibility lies.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: Now, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SIMMS: Call an election (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: Yes, I'm quite prepared to do that too, I'm quite prepared.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: Just invite me! Just give me cause! Just give me cause!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: They are quaking in their seats over there. Now, Mr. Speaker -

AN HON. MEMBER: Call it!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: Now, Mr. Speaker, -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: - that we're following the right course has been confirmed by the federal government. Did anybody read the federal government document just issued? It's virtually a copy from what we put forward in our Strategic Economic Plan.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: Yes, I'm delighted with it. I take it as a great endorsement of the approach that we've taken. Even the format is the same. Spelling out the problems, the objective, and then the action items to be taken. Even the format of it is the same. They didn't quite give us full credit for authorship of it, but I understand that. They don't usually. But what I do is take great encouragement from the fact that the federal government at long last is going along the same lines.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the two governments will be able to work well together to put the plans into operation. Because don't ever overlook the fact that the government that will benefit most from economic improvement in this Province is the Government of Canada. They get the greatest direct financial benefit, and it's in their best interest to do the maximum they can to achieve economic development here. I'm confident they will cooperate with us.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, it's interesting, the Premier is referring to the prosperity plan, I think, of the federal government, that he now says is a copy of his Strategic Economic Plan, which in itself was a copy of the House Royal Commission under our administration about two or three years before that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Therein lies the purpose for this line of questioning today. When is the Premier and his government, or when are the Premier and his colleagues, going to do something, take some specific action? What action is he going to take now that he hasn't been able to take over the last three and a half years? All of a sudden he's going to take some action. What is it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I'm glad the hon. member brought up the Royal Commission on Employment and Unemployment which they put forward and I commend the former government for having done that. But then they took it and put it on the shelf and promptly forgot it. That's precisely what they did with it. Now just to put it in perspective, I was told just this morning that this matter was put in great perspective, as somebody was talking about the new Strategic Economic Plan being the bible.

AN HON. MEMBER: Being the what?

PREMIER WELLS: Being the bible for future economic development in this Province. Being the bible. Now, Mr. Speaker, Dr. House put it in a little better perspective. He said: it may be the bible, but it's really only the new testament. He said: the Royal Commission was the old testament. Essentially he's correct. The Royal Commission assessed the circumstances that existed in the Province. But the guidelines, and how we go for the future, and the plan for future development, is in the Strategic Economic Plan. It was not in the Royal Commission Report. That was a Royal Commission Report and it depended upon a government having the competence, the initiative, and really the determination to make the effort to design a plan out of it to make the economy of the Province work.

Now I referred to the federal proposal. It's their new one, called Inventing Our Future. If you take that and look at each of the items, they spell out, in exactly the same form as we did, what the challenge is, what the objective is, and the action to achieve it. I see by The Evening Telegram editorial that it took seventy-five pages and cost $20 million to do. I'm happy to say we came in at a good deal less cost than that and produced what, in my judgement, is a far, far more effective plan, but I nevertheless welcome the federal initiative.

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

MR. TOBIN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier said he was going to make comparisons to what we were responsible for and what their government is responsible for. So in that vein I would like to ask the first question in the comparisons to the Minister of Social Services. Will he tell us how many people, how many cases, and how many people today are on social assistance in this Province compared to when they took office in 1989?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, to be exact I would have to check the figures, but 1989 - the caseloads would be up approximately 50 per cent in the three year period.

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

MR. TOBIN: I would certainly hope, Mr. Speaker, that answers the Premier's question, that there are more people on social assistance today in this Province - 50 per cent more under his leadership than there were under the Conservative government. That is the fact the Minister just stated.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Social Services no doubt has seen an advertisement that was in The Evening Telegram this past weekend, by the Newfoundland Association of Social Workers, that says that children in the care of the Director of Child Welfare may not see a representative of their guardian for months at a time, regardless of the foster home situation, because there are not enough workers to provide adequate supervision and assistance to foster families.

Mr. Speaker, there are people in this Province today starving, day by day, waiting for social workers to visit their homes because of the lack of staff.

Let me ask the minister, Mr. Speaker: will he confirm to the House that the article in The Evening Telegram is true, number one, and that people are waiting days upon days, and sometimes weeks, before they can get a social worker to visit them for social assistance?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to react to an advertisement in The Evening Telegram, but I can say that our caseloads are up, as I mentioned. I think the figures would be neighbouring 50 per cent after three years, since 1989, as I said. That, of course, means that social workers have demands on them.

You mentioned child welfare, and we have added people in the child welfare division. We added some fifty people a couple of years ago, and compared to other provinces - because I have checked the stats - they are up, but they are not inordinate for this period of time. Other provinces are experiencing exactly the same difficulties we are, Mr. Speaker, and we are coping as well as we can, and making sure that the resources we have available to us above the district office level are moved down to the district office level. We are in the process of doing that right now. So, Mr. Speaker, we are addressing the problem.

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

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the social workers in this Province cannot do their caseloads. The social workers in this Province cannot visit people who want social assistance, and there are people starving, day in and day out, because this minister and this government will not provide staff.

Let me ask the minister this: Why is he laying off social workers in this Province? Will he stop laying off social workers in this Province?... because there was a social worker laid off in the Marystown office in the last couple of months, where they are overworked as in other parts of the Province.

So will the minister tell this House when he will stop laying off social workers in this province, and when he will hire new social workers to look after the needs of the people who need it?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of any social workers or financial assistance officers being laid off in Marystown or any other office. I am surprised to hear that statement.

What may have happened is that as the result of a competition a person may have been bumped out of a position, but certainly not laid off. Nobody has been laid off in any of the offices throughout the Province, of which I am aware. I will check that out, Mr. Speaker.

We are doing all we can to make sure that services are being delivered, particularly in the areas where the caseloads are the highest - and we have some areas that are worse than others. Albeit the caseloads are high practically everywhere in the Province, but we are addressing the caseloads and making sure, as I said, that social workers and financial assistance officers are supported by adequate clerical staff; that we are moving people down from our regional offices. That process takes time, Mr. Speaker. It is ongoing right now. We have to deal with union agreements and the Public Service Commission, but as quickly as the competitions can take place and the changes in work duties can be brought about, we are positioning people on the front lines to deliver services as we should.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINSOR: I have a question for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. On September 18 the minister announced an $11 million job creation program. The funds now have been nearly all spent, if not all spent, yet the demand is steadily increasing. In fact the latest Stats Canada shows some 6,000 more unemployed and 11,000 have left the work force from August to September.

Let me ask the minister: what does he intend to do for all these people, the thousands of Newfoundlanders who are seeking work but have been unable to find it on the programs? What is he going to do for these thousands of people?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly appreciate the question from the hon. member. As he indicated, on September 18th. we announced our attempt, on an emergency basis, to provide some short-term employment opportunities for people who hadn't been successful in this year of continuing recession in getting work as they normally had in previous years. This is a problem that has been with us now for the last couple of years, and again as pointed out earlier, not only in our Province but across the country.

We have been successful in putting almost 3,500 people to work in the last couple of weeks. These people are working today because of initiatives taken by this government, who otherwise would not be working today as we stand here in this House of Assembly. So we have recognized and we announced at the time that that was not going to meet the full need, and also we pointed out consistently that that is not the answer in any kind of a sustainable basis to the economic problems in the Province.

We believe firmly, and have committed to it now for three years, in terms of trying to make sure that the circumstance prevails where we can assist employers in the Province who want to hire additional people themselves. In this year alone, through three different programs that we have put in place in terms of wage subsidies for private sector employers, we have in fact put in place 1,336 full time jobs by providing subsidies to employers and another 1,891 seasonal jobs of up to fifteen weeks in duration as well as some student jobs where we paid half the cost to employers who are willing to hire people themselves. We believe and we will be committed to maintaining that kind of an effort through the long-term because we believe that helps the long-term solution.

In the meantime we have recognized that from time to time, as we have done again this year, we may have to intervene. We can't meet the full need, but we have managed to help some 3,500 people, recognizing that there are quite a few that still need and would like to have assistance, but we don't have the financial capacity in the Province right now to meet that entire need.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me remind the minister, that is 1,000 less than his press statement of the 18th said.

Mr. Speaker, let me ask the minister: how does spending for job creation in all the government departments compare with spending in 1991? I am not referring to the EERP program where it is increased by 2 million, I am talking about overall spending for job creation which this government said it wasn't going to do, but yet it does each year. How much less was spent in 1992 as compared to 1991?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I will have to check that information for the hon. member and will undertake to do so. He mentioned at the beginning, however, that the short-term initiative is 1,000 less than we announced in the press statement. That is because today I am telling how many people are working today. The total amounts of monies that we had indicated of the $11 million are not fully expended yet in the social services component, but just about every one of the projects are on the ground in terms of the other departments that are sponsoring work. We still fully expect that by the time the full $11 million is expended that somewhere between 4,000 and 4,600 people, as was pointed out in the press statement, will in fact be put to work because of this initiative of the government.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell the minister that in my district on Fogo Island, 150 people applied for eight positions with the Development Association. The same thing occurred on the mainland portion with the Development Association there. That is about 300 applicants for about sixteen positions. What advice or hope does the minister give to the thousands of unemployed Newfoundlanders for the coming year?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: I have, Mr. Speaker, actually been speaking to quite a number of the hon. member's constituents and many others because I have received phone calls from interested individuals from all over the Province. They are pointing out to me shortcomings as they see it in the current program because we have a lot of people, for example, who have not been able to access work for a number of years and need twenty weeks to start in the workforce again and qualify for unemployment insurance and so on, they have been in that position.

I have been quite honest and up front with them in saying that what we have is a circumstance that this government by itself cannot alleviate or deal with. However, we are quite confident that we did not do anything at this point in time to worsen the particular situation which we are in, and with the monies that we have available, because we also have to keep that in mind, we have found a way to help up to 4,500 of them in these couple of months. We have not found a way to help them all, and they have been buying into the message by the way, that they have recognized that it is not in their best interests or anybody else's, to hold out hope that the only place they could ever find employment or work, is if the government puts them to work, and they recognize that fully.

They are saying to me in their conversations that they hope that this government's long term plans as spelled out in the Strategic Economic Plan bears some kind of fruition, so that there will be job opportunities for them in the private sector and otherwise, and that all of them can get to a point where they won't have to be waiting around in September, October or November of any one year, hoping that maybe the government might put them to work. So they are certainly hopeful that there will be enough private sector involvement, with some useful encouragement by the government so that they will have useful, meaningful job opportunities in all the regions of the Province.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the minister responsible for Works, Services and Transportation. The minister is probably aware that a demonstration was held this morning at the St. Joseph's Depot by the people of Mall Bay protesting conditions of the road. First of all, the minister will also be aware that for the last three years I have listed this as the only priority to be addressed in the area, and I ask the minister if it is his plan to see that his department will address the conditions of the Mall Bay Road in this coming Budget, in relation to major upgrading and paving?

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

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am aware that the people of Mall Bay had some concerns about the conditions of the road today and the regional manager, I understand, had a meeting with the people at 10:30 today. I am awaiting a report on that situation to see what action can be taken to rectify their difficulties in the short run. As to commitments with respect to next year's financial resources, with respect to the capital roads program, as the hon. member knows, no commitments of that nature could be given at this particular point in time, save this, that the roads needs of the Province will be assessed on a priority basis in the spirit of fairness and balance.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes, on a supplementary.

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for his answer. The last part we will talk about later on. I will talk about the fairness and balance that we have received in the past. I said to the minister that today's demonstration was not for the long term, as my first question alluded to, but in relation to the present conditions.

The condition of the four-mile stretch - which is the only piece of dirt road in the total district now leading to a community, by the way - shows the lack of work being done by the minister's department in the area, when they cannot maintain four miles of dirt road. The reason they cannot do it is not because they have an inadequate depot or crews out there, but the fact is they have no money to do any maintenance at all. So I ask the minister: when he consults with his people who are out there today - very good people by the way - will he go according to their recommendation and provide the funds needed to do the job that has to be done to make sure that road is in a passable and acceptable condition?

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

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I find the member's question somewhat interesting when he says that the department does not have the funds to maintain the road. I understand that one of the principle concerns arose due to the fact that the department was out ditching along that stretch of the road, and as a result of their ditching efforts and improving the ditching and drainage along that stretch of the road, the ditch was deepened, and now one of the concerns is that there be guide rails placed beside the deepened ditch. So to say that the crews are not out working on that stretch of the road is totally inaccurate. In fact, it is because we are out there trying to improve the road that maybe even further improvements are required.

So, Mr. Speaker, after I get the report from the competent officials who are out there assessing the situation, we will see what action can be taken to rectify their problems, as has been done and will continue to be done.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HEARN: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

The old words, `dig, dig', and the minister has just dug himself a bit deeper. The fact of the matter is that for three-and-a-half years the residents of Mall Bay have been asking the crews locally and the department, through petitions and delegations, to put a bit of gravel on the road. The crews refused to do it during the summer, but they went out and dug a ditch that took away twelve feet of the road. They dug a ditch wide enough to bring a boat from Mall Bay up through, and took away twelve feet of the road whereby the road is now dangerous.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. gentleman is on a supplementary.

MR. HEARN: I ask the minister: Will he please correct the goof that his department has perpetrated upon the residents of Mall Bay?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GOVER: Yes, Mr. Speaker. In fact, I have just this moment received a preliminary report from the meeting. The regional manager has agreed to partially fill the ditch again, which will alleviate some of the concerns.

Contrary to the member's allegation, the principal concern of the people there was for the upgrading and paving of the road. Again, Mr. Speaker, a decision will have to be made in due course on this particular issue. As I indicated to the member, the needs of the people of Mall Bay and St. Mary's - The Capes will, for the first time in history, since this administration took power - when they were over there they did it on a purely political basis, but he can be assured, notwithstanding that the people of Mall Bay are represented by an Opposition member, that road will be given every consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Just before moving on to the routine matters of the day, the Chair thought, since there has been a little bit of a recess, that I would quote from our Standing Orders, just to remind hon. members -I am sure hon. members will know what I'm quoting - about this most important ruling from our own Standing Orders, 31(c). I thought there might have been some necessity to do this, so I want to remind hon. members of that important Standing Order which says:

"In putting any oral questions, no argument or opinion is to be offered nor any facts stated except so far as may be necessary to explain the same; and in answering any such question, the Minister is not to debate the matter to which it refers."

I think that is a very clear rule, a very clear Standing Order, for both sides of the House to acknowledge. Thank you very much.

Notices of Motion

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled "An Act To Amend The Uniform Services Pension Act."

I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, 'An Act To Amend The Public Service Pension Act."

I also give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Gasoline Tax Act, The Horse Racing Regulation And Tax Act, The Liquor Control Act And The Retail Sales Act."

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

MR. GOVER: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act, No. 2."

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act Respecting The Licensing And Inspection Of Health And Social Agencies." Also, on tomorrow I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Medical Act."

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Lands.

MS. COWAN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend the Waste Material Disposal Act, No. 2."

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following resolution:

"WHEREAS it is evident that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has not addressed the impact of the moratorium on the fishing industry;

"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador address its responsibilities to those directly affected by the moratorium."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Orders of the Day

MR. SPEAKER: All rise.

Addressed to the hon. the Minister of Finance:

I, the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Newfoundland, transmit supplementary estimates of sums required for the public service of the Province for the year ending March 31, 1992, by way of further supplementary supply, and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867, I recommend these estimates to the House of Assembly.

Sgd.: _______________________________

Frederick A. Russell, Lieutenant Governor

AN HON. MEMBER: Order 1.

MR. SPEAKER: Order 1.

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I move that the message, together with the amount, be referred to the Committee of Supply.

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

Committee of the Whole

MR. CHAIRMAN (Snow): Order, please!

Bill No. 26.

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wish today to introduce to this Committee, Bill No. 26. Hon. members will notice this bill was prepared by my predecessor, the Hon. Hubert Kitchen, Minister of Finance. That is the name under which it appears.

Mr. Chairman, I would like, first of all, to pay tribute to the former Minister of Finance.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: He, Mr. Chairman, has helped guide this Province through perhaps a couple of the most difficult years that the Province has seen, a time when transfers from the federal government were, in proportion, declining, when there were fundamental changes in the structure of the economy of Canada. The former Minister of Finance, Mr. Chairman, helped guide this province through those difficult times with a very distinctive flair.

Members opposite sometimes have referred to him by a variety of names and various terminologies that, I understand, were terms of affection rather than of abuse. I am sure that they also recognize what a tremendous job the former Minister of Finance did in his portfolio.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: Mr. Chairman, this bill is a supplementary supply bill that refers to some expenditures for the 1991-1992 fiscal year. Perhaps it could be argued that this should have been dealt with a little earlier. I would like to remind members opposite that when we took over this government we dealt with a couple of supplementary supply items that were a couple of years old, at least, and that, in terms of this type of supplementary supply, it is a normal thing that the Special Warrants be issued; that the special warrants be tabled in the House; that everybody, all members of the House, the press, and the people of the Province, through the Special Warrant process, are aware of the expenditure and it becomes part of the budgetary expenditure for that year; that later on a supply bill is introduced to give effect to same; and that these expenditures have been properly done through the supply process.

The expenditures mentioned here, Mr. Chairman - I would like to just briefly go through them - are under a number of headings, and they deal with six particular Special Warrants, again that have been described in this House and have been dealt with by the House.

First of all there is one for the Executive Council to the tune of $500,000. This expenditure was perhaps one of the amounts of money that could be classed among the better spent amounts of money ever brought into this honourable House. There is $500,000 relating to the Economic Strategic Planning Committee. The money was used, in part, to develop what we now know as the Strategic Economic Plan for the Province, a document that will see this Province pull itself up by the boot straps, Mr. Chairman. So this was a well-spent $500,000 that government allocated for the future of this Province.

The next amount, Mr. Chairman, was a Special Warrant having to do with the Legislature, itself, a Special Warrant of $255,000 for communications and members' travel expenses. This was at a time when there was some change in the process of budgeting from yearly to fiscal yearly and so on, and it required an extra amount of money, so that was done through a Special Warrant.

There was an amount of $821,000 - a Special Warrant for Forestry and Agriculture - of which, I am sure if members opposite require a lot of detail, the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture will only be too glad to oblige a little later; it has to do with a Canada/Newfoundland subsidiary agreement relative to the livestock feed initiatives, better known as ALFI. This was an agreement that was reached during the year, and we had to then do a Special Warrant to give effect to that particular agreement.

The Department of Health had a warrant that year of $3,329,300 and that, largely, had to do with physician services, about $l,200,000, and grants to hospitals about $2,100,000. This is the kind of adjustment that happens periodically, year by year, in terms of expenditures in the health care system, that essentially are unavoidable.

There is a Special Warrant for $1,350,000 for the Department of Justice. If members remember, that particular Special Warrant is one that had to be brought in in reaction to an arbitration award having to do with the correctional officers. That arbitration award was separate from the arbitration award for the police officers, and was an unpredictable amount. Once the arbitration award was brought in, then there was a certain amount of retroactive pay that was involved, and the total amount retroactive, plus the ongoing expenses for the year 1991-1992, amounted to $1,350,000.

By far the largest amount there, taking up three-quarters of the total amount, was a warrant for the Department of Social Services - $12,700,000. As members opposite realize, when we do a Special Warrant for social services, half of that is recoverable; so, in effect, it was a net expenditure of half of that, or $6,350,000, on the part of the provincial government. Again, this was an overrun in social assistance for that year, as well as an extra expenditure in the foster home allowances.

Mr. Chairman, these are normal amounts that from time to time governments have always had to bring in to obtain extra money - money needed that was unexpected at the time of the Budget. I am sure members will recognize that each of these Special Warrants was unexpected.

I would like to also indicate that the number of Special Warrants that have been used over the last three years is 'way down from when members opposite were in government - 'way down. Instead of issuing dozens and dozens and dozens of them, this government's practice is to issue Special Warrants only when there is an absolute necessity. Our intention is to continue with that practice, to issue Special Warrants in only the circumstances that special warrants were intended to serve, and to not use Special Warrants as a way to get all kinds of extra expenditure approved. It is simply for use in emergency circumstances, when the House is not open, and certainly these types of expenditures are emergency expenditures.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to introduce this bill, and I say, if members opposite want more details of each of these expenditures, I am sure that the ministers will be only too glad to provide the details, as much as members opposite require.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me also, in beginning my remarks this afternoon, address the change in portfolios and the impact that has. Let me welcome the Member for Gander to his new portfolio, and congratulate him on taking the dual responsibility of President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance.

Now, I have some reservations about that because I think there is some benefit in having two agencies that are two different departments, two ministers that are responsible for the finances and financial administration for government in this Province. So I have some reservations about combining the two although it has been done in the past. It was done by previous administrations and I had the same reservations then.

MR. BAKER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon?

MR. BAKER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: No. I never did have to. I always thought it was wiser to have them separated, to be quite honest, even though my predecessor had both portfolios for a while. It has been done on a number of occasions, so I am not suggesting that it is something new, but there is some merit in separating the two.

But I wanted to congratulate the President of Treasury, the Minister of Finance. I have confidence in the minister that he will, indeed, bring a measure of common sense to the portfolio. I extend congratulations to the former minister, who, I am sure meant well, but unfortunately, I am afraid I don't bear the same respect for his performance in that particular portfolio.

We brought him into this government in that portfolio with a substantial surplus and he very quickly turned it into record deficits and maintained that; his only consistency is in maintaining a deficit for ever year that he was a Minister of Finance. So I say, we wish him well in his new portfolio of Health, and we say, thank God, we finally have him out of the Finance portfolio, because of the devastating effect he had on that portfolio and the economy of the Province.

Mr. Chairman, the minister, himself, pointed out that this bill is far too late in coming before the House. We are talking about the 1991-1992 fiscal year and here we are, halfway through the 1992-1993 fiscal year, so it is certainly closing the barn door after the horse is long gone, long spent, long forgotten about. Obviously, it shows that there is absolutely nothing the House could do about these expenditures. This bill, of course, will be approved - it has to be approved. Even if the government didn't have to use their majority in the House, it would have to be approved in due course, because the monies have been spent. So we have no intention of even attempting to try to stop this bill, even if we had the numbers in the House of Assembly to do so.

But one has to question the impact of having such legislation before the House today on the accountability of government. As the minister pointed out quite correctly, Supplementary Supply or Special Warrants, is a tool that every government must have; we don't question the government for using Special Warrants; things will arise during the course of a year that governments certainly could not have predicted. But, Mr. Chairman, it is ironic that one of the things that is being financed is the Economic Strategic Planning Committee. Well, there wasn't very much strategic planning in the budgeting process if they didn't know that during the course of the year they were going to establish that committee and begin what they have put forward as a great work. That is another question, Mr. Chairman, and we will have the economic plan or economic strategy document up for debate, no doubt, in due course. We could get into it now, I suppose, but I will hold that for another time.

I certainly want to take considerable time during this sitting of the House talking about the economic strategy of this government, or the lack thereof; let me simply say the economic strategy plan is, I guess, remarkable, simply in its lack of any details. What is remarkable about it, is that it took so long, three-and-a-half years for this government, of whom one of their prime objectives, prime planks, in their political platform during their last election was that 'We are going to immediately get on with economic reform.' Mr. Chairman, we have not seen very much, in fact, we have not seen any economic reform.

We have seen economic destruction in this Province as a result of the tax policies of this particular government. They have done nothing to generate employment or economic activity in this Province and that document is certainly not going to do it. All that document represents, Mr. Chairman, is a compilation of numerous reports that were on the shelves of government, programs that were in place or that were looked at, Mr. Chairman, over the past number of years. The committee now has studied all of those and they have come back with nothing new, just another report, Mr. Chairman.

What is this government doing to deal with the problems today? The Premier tells us, over twenty-five years the economy of the Province will improve. I am sure we are all worried about twenty-five years, it is a matter of concern; but our chief concern today, Mr. Chairman, is unemployment in this Province today, jobs for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians today, jobs for young people coming out of our schools, our universities and our technical colleges. They are not available. The promise of this Premier to bring every Newfoundland mother's son home has gone in the wrong direction, Mr. Chairman. We saw more young people, our best young people, our brightest, best-trained young people leaving this Province to find jobs because of the failure of this government.

Now, this government came up with one program - one program! When they came into office they said: 'We won't use make-work programs.' That is one of the reasons for this approximately $12 million for the Department of Social Services. This government said: 'We don't believe in short-term make-work programs. We are not going to use it.' Well, they soon found that developing the economy does, indeed, take some time. There are no instant solutions. In the short-term, any government in office today will have to turn to short-term make-work programs to allow people enough job opportunities to get them and their families through the year. So they have had to turn to it, and they turned to it again this year.

The Minister of Employment together with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and the Minister of Social Services made a great announcement some time ago: Emergency Employment Response Program. The minister spoke about it in response to some questions from my friend, the Member for Fogo, earlier today. It was back on September 30th - I have the press release here. I ask the Minister of Employment: What would an Emergency Employment Response Program do? It would create jobs on an emergency basis, I assume. That is the objective of an emergency employment response program, to create jobs immediately - short-term jobs, but jobs immediately to put people to work. So we welcome that. I have a copy of the press release issued by the Official Opposition Leader saying, we welcome this program. It is a bit too late, and there is not enough money, but we welcome this $11 million.

I was pleased, Mr. Chairman, when I got directly from the minister's office: the minister was kind enough - and I congratulate him on that - to send me a copy of the information on the qualifications for jobs under this program. I was pleased that the minister had the courtesy to do that - he gave me a listing of those projects applied for in my district; now, Mr. Chairman, the minister is, indeed, to be congratulated for that, I think it is indicative of the minister's approach to working with the members of the House of Assembly and recognizing their role in municipalities and in the district - until I looked at the projects, Mr. Chairman.

I was given a listing of projects for the District of Mount Pearl. I said: 'Good.' I was asked for my comments on them. The first one I looked at, Mr. Chairman, came from the minister's own department, Employment and Labour Relations, and the sponsor was - this was approval by district - 1992, Seventh Day Adventist School Board, Mount Pearl, $37,950. I thought, this sounds like a pretty good Budget. Then there were two other applications by districts, so I assumed that these were not yet approved, but I was later told that they were.

The first one came from Employment and Labour Relations again. Mary Queen of the World Parish, Mount Pearl, $12,000. That is the Catholic Church in Mount Pearl. Then there was, through the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, $30,000 for the City of Mount Pearl for employment generation. Well, I was quite pleased, Mr. Chairman. I was quite pleased that my District of Mount Pearl was getting three make-work programs because there are not a lot of applications that come from my district -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: You are pretty prosperous though.

MR. WINDSOR: We are very prosperous, but we don't have the same rural development associations, the communities councils, and all the various groups that normally apply and sponsor projects under this particular program. The City of Mount Pearl is taking advantage of it over the past number of years. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and his predecessor have been fairly generous in providing grants through the City.

I looked at them a little more carefully and tried to get more information about how people could get employed on these projects. The first one I checked was the City of Mount Pearl application. I called the City Clerk and said, `What is this $30,000 going to be spent on and how many jobs are there?' He said, `I don't know what you are talking about.' I said, `What are you talking about, you are the City Clerk? I have a letter here from the minister saying that there is a $30,000 project for the City of Mount Pearl. Tell me what it is.'

Well, after a couple of days we found out what it was, Mr. Chairman. There are zero jobs created. When I look back, I should have known. It was my stupidity. If I had read the sheet at all I would have seen under the City of Mount Pearl: Labour, zero dollars; other, $30,000; total, $30,000; number of jobs created, zero; and number of weeks, zero. So what is this doing in an Emergency Employment Response Program? We are supposed to create jobs but yet, on the minister's list, zero jobs and zero weeks. What is the $30,000 for? I found out, Mr. Chairman, it was the last $30,000 of a $90,000 commitment the previous minister had made to build a building up on Kenmount Hill, not in my district at all. It is in his own district of Waterford-Kenmount, and it didn't create any jobs this year. It was last year the building was built, a community centre on Kenmount Hill.

The present minister, unfortunately, in bailing out his buddy, has taken $30,000 from an Emergency Employment Response Program to make a capital grant to the City of Mount Pearl for work that was done last year. That is a wonderful way to create jobs, Mr. Chairman!

AN HON. MEMBER: The minister is not listening now, he is ready to go.

MR. WINDSOR: The minister is listening because he knows what is about to come next. I am going to move on to the Department of Employment and Labour Relations next. I am going to move on to the next one, Mr. Chairman, the one that was approved for my district. Seventh Day Adventist Church, $37,950. So I checked with the church to find out, `What is it you are going to do with this $37,950?' Again they said, `We don't know what you are talking about.' But then we figured it out. The church is not in Mount Pearl, but their office is and that is why it was listed. The head office for the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Newfoundland is on Topsail Road in Mount Pearl.

`Oh, he said, `I know what that is. That is the $37,950 we spent a year-and-a-half ago upgrading a quonset hut in Botwood to a gymnasium for the school in Botwood' - a year-and-a-half ago, Mr. Chairman.

How many jobs are we creating this year? None. It was an excellent project, the church was very grateful, the money was well used, and the benefits are very real and very significant. It was a superb project and deserved to be funded. And if it had been funded a year-and-a-half ago, I would welcome it. But to parade this stuff before us this year and say we have an $11 million program and look at all the jobs we are going to create - well, so far, Mr. Chairman, that $67,950 in Waterford-Kenmount, theoretically, well, part in Waterford-Kenmount and part in the Exploits District, heck, it is to be in the minister's own district, that was spent a year-and-a-half ago. We haven't created a job.

Then I looked at the third one, Mr. Chairman, and it was Mary Queen of The World Parish, the Catholic Church on Topsail Road - again, in Waterford-Kenmount, not in Mount Pearl. But I don't mind that. Mary Queen of The World services people from Mount Pearl. The total was $12,000 and it creates three jobs. So, out of a total, Mr. Chairman, of eighty-odd thousand dollars there were three jobs created this year. I welcome those three jobs. All three projects were good projects. The capital funding for the City of Mount Pearl had no business in an Emergency Employment Response Program. The minister, no doubt, made a commitment without full authority and the present minister had to bail him out. That is what it amounted to. There was $30,000 left out of a $90,000 commitment made a year-and-a-half ago to build a recreation centre in the minister's own district and the present Minister of Municipal Affairs had to bail him out.

MR. HOGAN: Do you want me to cancel it?

MR. WINDSOR: But you're a minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. WINDSOR: By leave, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. member have leave?

MR. WINDSOR: Just for a moment, because I know I can get up again. I just want to finish this.

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

Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: By leave, the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman, how can this government put this forward as an Emergency Employment Response Program? How can the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations justify paying past debts with funding that he stood somewhere in the - probably in the Cabinet room or the Caucus room, and had a press conference, together with the Minister of Social Services and the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs? The three of them stood there and made this great announcement. And here are two projects just in my district, two out of the three - and they're not even in my district, but that's irrelevant - but three projects that I was notified about directly, two of which will not create a job.

Now, Mr. Chairman, that is not only unfortunate, that is downright deceitful, it is misleading, it is an abuse of the privileges of the House.

MR. MURPHY: Stick to the bill, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WINDSOR: Because here was this government saying - I'm sticking to the bill. If the Member for St. John's South knew anything about the House of Assembly, he would know that on a money bill I can't be irrelevant. Every time the member gets up he is irrelevant.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the fact of the matter is that this is deceitful. It is an abuse, it is misleading, falsely telling the people of the Province that we have an $11 million program to create employment this summer. Thousands of poor unfortunate people out there who have been unable to find jobs this summer -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. WINDSOR: - thousands of people who are unemployed, who are on social assistance, who are desperately looking for at least short-term work to help them support their families, have been led down the garden path deliberately by this minister; he deliberately misled these people into thinking that they could get a job.

I had dozens of calls from my district. It even says in the release: 'If you have questions, contact your member of the House of Assembly for details.' I had no details other than one-liners which say, Here's your district, here's a sponsoring agency and the amount of money - no details. So I immediately went about, as I'm sure other members did, getting the details of these jobs so that all of these people who were calling my office looking for help and how to get them could be given the information. There was no information to give them.

So while I'm finished on that aspect the hon. gentlemen will give me leave and then I'll sit and I'll come back with another topic in a moment.

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

MR. WINDSOR: The minister is not even going to respond to that?

MR. GRIMES: To what?

MR. WINDSOR: To what? Were you listening to what I said?

MR. GRIMES: I will straighten it out for you but you obviously don't know how it works.

MR. WINDSOR: I do know how it works, because I have talked to your officials and I know how many jobs were not created.

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) explained it to you. Perhaps you didn't understand when they explained it.

MR. WINDSOR: The minister is too embarrassed to get on his feet and defend himself now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

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

The Chair has already recognized him.

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. HEARN: I won't take too long. I also want to refer to some happenings in the minister's department in relation to the programs, as he knew I would, and also perhaps mention the fiasco in Mall Bay.

Let me say to the Minister of Employment and Immigration - how I wish he were! Let me say to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations that we received in our district a few dollars from the minister's department, certainly not one-fiftieth of the total amount, but we did receive two or three projects - three projects, I believe, about $40,000 or $45,000, which was probably as much as the member got.

I am not complaining about that. We are thankful for it. It did provide a few jobs. It wasn't money that had been promised last election, it was new money, so we could create jobs with it. However, the minister's department did award one project to a regional association - Southern Avalon Regional Development Association - covering a large geographic area where a number of people are looking for employment this year. They advised the committee that they had been successful in obtaining a small project, $6,000 or $8,000. The regional board and discussed procedure, talked to the minister's department and worked out the details, advertised for a couple of positions. But before they could start the projects or hire anybody they had a subsequent phone call which told them that the project wasn't theirs, that a mistake had been made, apparently a computer print out and the project number didn't coincide with the district involved or the association involved. Consequently they were informed: the money is not yours.

Now this is after I have been advised by the department. I don't get on singing out about projects we get. I just let the associations apply and take the credit for it. The minister's department had dealt directly with the association. Then for the sake of $8,000 to have to call them up and say: Sorry, we made a mistake. The computer was wrong. It is really someone else's. Surely God somebody in the department or certainly when it reached the minister they should have said: Well look, if we made a mistake like that after calling a regional board and having them go through the procedures of working out all the details, to tell them we are not going to give them $8,000 when we found out it was going to St. Mary's - The Capes, you know it was a terrible embarrassment.

I presume it is an oversight. I give the minister the benefit of the doubt. I presume it was an oversight. Mistakes can be made by even computers. But even if it was a legitimate mistake surely a department or if not the professional staff in the department, the minister, will overlook such a mistake and say: Well I mean we can't let this happen. We can find in a total amount of $11 million, $8,000 for a regional association, the members of which didn't receive any other money. It is the only project they received that they could find the money. I hope the minister is going to be able to tell us in the next few days that a mistake was made and that it was a bit embarrassing, that he feels bad about it, and that he will find in his department the $8,000 to let the association go ahead with the project they had planned.

Getting back to the other problem in the district, the road to Mall Bay. A bit of an embarrassment because when I talked about only four miles of road in the area, what I was trying to stress is the fact that the department crews, the highways -

MR. WALSH: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Tourism who was always gabbing trying to make an impression as a backbencher is now a minister. So consequently keep quiet and listen. He has received his reward now. I am sure he can keep quiet while we are speaking in the House.

The area involved, because we only have four miles of road, what it should mean is that the local depot involved should not have a serious problem in maintaining the road in an acceptable driving condition. The people of the small community, the small isolated to some extent community of Mall Bay, who have to drive every day to school -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Mr. Chairman, I ask if you could keep the Member for Port de Grave quiet.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. Member for St. Mary's - The Capes is having difficulty speaking. I advise hon. members to stop -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: You are having difficulty listening. It is the same old joke that you had fifteen and twenty years ago.

MR. WINDSOR: When did you dust that one off? You should get somebody else to write you some new lines. That is an old one.

MR. HEARN: The only thing we can do to compensate for the twenty and thirty year old jokes of the Minister of Justice, I figure, is to bring back the former Member for St. John's North. Maybe we will have to get him to -

AN HON. MEMBER: He can run in St. Mary's - The Capes.

MR. HEARN: He certainly can. Or any good Tory can run up there and win the election.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: Now that might be an interesting scenario because we do have a candidate running up there for the Liberals, a former member who came in looking for a seat. A fellow by the name of Fred Rowe.

MR. WINDSOR: What?

MR. HEARN: A former Member of the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINDSOR: We will be back to 1965 in no time.

MR. HEARN: He is going to run in St. Mary's - The Capes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HEARN: No affiliation, of course, in St. Mary's - The Capes, but he is going to run up there.

So what they did, apparently, in Mall Bay, was to try to dig a channel down to the community. Well let me tell the minister responsible that when polling day comes up in Mall Bay the residents of St. Mary's - The Capes always get out and vote. In fact in one election we had 94 plus per cent, the highest in the Province. Let me say to the minister that the residents will get out and they will go by trike, they will go by bike, they will go by car, they will go by train; but even though he is trying to dig a channel down there, they are not going to row.

Mr. Minister, the point I was trying to make is that the highways depot in the area has four miles of dirt road to maintain - very little else to do except some ditching and shoulder maintenance and so on. Most of the depots, as you are aware, have very little money, and they will tell you that we need to do a good gravel job on the road, but they do not have the money to do it.

What they did is bring in machinery to ditch the road, but instead of just digging an ordinary ditch to drain the road, they dug a moat - a channel. They took away twelve feet, apparently - that is what the local residents tell me - they took away twelve feet of the road, and now they have to go back and spend more money to fill in the ditch.

All we are saying is that the local crew he has up there are a very good crew, a conscientious crew. They know the job. They are good workers. They do not have the money to bring in equipment to put some gravel on the road. That is all the residents are asking for, short-term. Long-term we hope the minister, in his spirit of fairness and balance, after requesting it and only it for three years now in a row, that the fourth request he will grant.

The residents of Mall Bay, for the eleven years I have been there, up until the past few years, never had a problem, even when it was a dirt road; neither did the people who drove across the country from St. Mary's or drove on the Cape Shore. The roads were well maintained, because they have good maintenance crews, as the member knows, when they have money enough to do the job. The problem is, they are cut back so much up there, they have no money to operate. They can drive around in the truck and stick up a sign here and there. They do not have money enough to bring in a backhoe to dig out a gravel pit to haul some gravel on the road, and that is the responsibility of the minister. So hopefully after he sees what has happened the last couple of days, he will make sure that even if they take some of the gravel they dug out of the ditch, and put it on the road instead of hauling it away somewhere, they would have a reasonably good gravel road and that will do them until the minister gets a chance in the Spring to upgrade it and then pave it.

It is not a major job. It is something that should be able to be done through the regular maintenance, but they even tell you: We cannot do our regular maintenance because we do not have money enough to do it. It is not the people telling you that. The people of the minister's own department will tell you that.

One of his chief officials was up there today and had a meeting with the people - a very good conscientious individual. I have had a lot of dealings with him and have not had any problems with him. I am sure the minister will get, number one, a report of the situation, and he will also get a recommendation as to what can be done. So it is entirely up to the minister. His engineers know what to do. They know how to do it. They have the equipment, and they have the men to do it. All they want is the go-ahead and the financial support to do the job which has to be done. So I presume the minister will do that.

I think the Member for Mount Pearl has a few more words of wisdom, so I will let him take over, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. Minister of Social Services.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make some brief comments on the bill. Before I get into some detail I just want to make a comment.

Earlier the Member for Fogo questioned the fact that we would spend some $11 million this year, and the fact that we said previously we had hoped this would not have to take place in this year. Every year, of course, you hope that the economy is going to be such, in co-operation with the federal government, that this government and the federal government together could have a situation where a program like this and the three departments involved - Employment and Labour Relations, Municipal Affairs and Social Services - would not have to get together to bring $11 million into the economy. But, Mr. Chairman, we are not in that situation as yet and we are still left in a position in this year that such a program was necessary.

In spite of what was being done in Employment and what was being done in Social Services with our regular program initiatives, it was necessary to put such a program together, so I am surprised to hear that comment from the Member for Fogo, questioning why in fact we would put this program in place, because this program has helped members on both sides of the House, in districts throughout the Province both on the Island portion and Labrador to a considerable extent, and, Mr. Chairman, we have made sure that the projects that have been approved have been substantial, have been worthwhile.

That has not always been the case in the past, Mr. Chairman, and I am sure members will attest to it, that not always are these projects worthy of approval or have not always been worthy of approval. They certainly have been this year, Mr. Chairman. We have taken great pains to make sure that we have done worthwhile projects in co-operation with development associations and municipal councils, churches and community groups. I think I am safe in saying that it is one of the best programs this Province has seen, albeit, we wish it was not necessary. We certainly wish it was not necessary, Mr. Chairman, but until we come up with more substantial initiatives on the part of the federal government, until we come up with changes in the way we assist people in need, whether it is with unemployment or social assistance or any other support program, until we make some substantial changes and bring about, as has been talked about, a guaranteed annual income, which has to be done in co-operation with the provinces, it cannot be done with the federal government alone and we know that we have such a hodge podge of services across this country now that that is going to take considerable work.

I am involved with that now as are other ministers across the country, there are four or five of us put in place as a committee to work with the federal minister and try to do something with a base of income that will bring together the great variety of programs we have across this country, but it is going to take some time and we hope that it is not going to be introduced piecemeal or even introduced perhaps as an election platform, which will not be thought out properly and that could happen very soon on the part of the federal government. That would be very unfortunate, Mr. Chairman. We hope that when it is finally introduced, it will be very worthwhile and we will see the provinces and the federal government co-operating to provide a base of income for our people to replace the many programs we have now with good incentives, so that people can earn more than that base of income. They will not be confined, they will not have clawbacks. That would not be necessary because once they -

AN HON. MEMBER: Jobs lead to permanent jobs.

MR. GULLAGE: That is right, and jobs lead to permanent jobs, a good point. Training programs, and education programs are put in place to assist people as they receive a reasonable base of income upon which they can build by way of incentives, so they have incentives in place to be educated, to be trained and to do worthwhile work if it is available to add to their base of income. We are not in that position as yet, Mr. Chairman, so we see ourselves once again this year having to provide employment initiatives as we have done and I think we have done a good job in that.

The Member for Mount Pearl mentioned some projects that were approved, one I think he mentioned in his district, I am not sure how many are still in progress -

MR. WINDSOR: None in my district.

MR. GULLAGE: - but I may say this to him: we go to great pains to try to distribute these projects throughout the Province. A lot of the initiatives for putting these projects in place come from the members themselves and because he did not come forward with projects for his district, is hardly our fault, Mr. Chairman.

As a matter of fact, three or four, I will mention them: Cowan Heights Elementary and St. Matthew's School, Mary Queen of the World and the Kenmount Park Centre he mentioned, they are all in my district, Mr. Chairman, several of those were initiated by me -

MR. WINDSOR: Not by you.

MR. GULLAGE: By me.

MR. WINDSOR: Not by you.

MR. GULLAGE: Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. We went directly to those groups -

MR. WINDSOR: Kenmount Park, yes.

MR. GULLAGE: - and we suggested, all the others, every one of them -

MR. WINDSOR: (Inaudible) Kenmount Park development?

MR. GULLAGE: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I was involved with that from the beginning, from the very beginning.

MR. WINDSOR: You had nothing to do with it, (inaudible).

MR. GULLAGE: St. Matthew's School and Mary Queen of the World and Cowan Heights Elementary, all initiated directly by me, by conversations with the people involved encouraging them to submit an application -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. GULLAGE: - and why did the Member for Mount Pearl not do the same for his district?

MR. WINDSOR: Father Ron would be delighted to hear you say that.

MR. GULLAGE: Why did the Member for Mount Pearl not do the same for his district, I might ask?

AN HON. MEMBER: He never had to ask when he was in government.

MR. GULLAGE: So why the Member for Mount Pearl would criticize the initiative of his colleague representing a good chunk of Mount Pearl, as he knows -

MR. WINDSOR: Tell me if you think that Kenmount Park should have been funded from the (Inaudible).

MR. GULLAGE: This is an initiative, Mr. Chairman, he could have taken for his district -

MR. WINDSOR: (Inaudible) that you made (Inaudible) years ago.

MR. GULLAGE: - and didn't do it.

MR. WINDSOR: This is the final $30,000.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Chairman, why the Member for Mount Pearl would criticize -

MR. WINDSOR: Should it have come from (Inaudible) -

MR. GULLAGE: - criticize -

MR. WINDSOR: - (Inaudible) $90,000 in your own district without (Inaudible) -

MR. GULLAGE: - a project -

MR. WINDSOR: - with no funding in place -

MR. GULLAGE: - for a section of Mount Pearl that's so badly in need of it, Mr. Chairman. Kenmount Park has virtually nothing in it, no services at all, very little recreation.

MR. WINDSOR: (Inaudible) capital works program (Inaudible), employment program!

MR. WALSH: Is that comment from Mayor Hodder?

MR. WINDSOR: Be honest for a change.

MR. WALSH: Mayor Hodder brought that comment, didn't he?

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Chairman, it's unbelievable the Member for Mount Pearl would criticize a project of this magnitude that will provide recreation and community services -

MR. WINDSOR: Not a great many jobs.

MR. GULLAGE: - to a group of people now who are cut off from the rest of Mount Pearl and have no facilities or services at all. Nothing!

MR. WALSH: Mayor Hodder doesn't want that one. Mayor Hodder hates to see that one.

MR. GULLAGE: So, Mr. Chairman, I have to repeat that members throughout the Province have initiated many of these programs. Now granted, development associations, churches, schools and councils and so on, many of them were banked and ready to go when we announced the program, because they anticipated that perhaps the environment would be such that we would be required to do it. But on top of that we had projects initiated by the members themselves, on both sides of the House. Now why the Member for Mount Pearl didn't take the initiative to do that I can't explain to this House. Perhaps next year he will. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. WINDSOR: The hon. gentlemen (Inaudible) Halloween too long if they think this is going to pass this quickly today, Mr. Chairman. Spent too much (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I'm amazed, Mr. Chairman, that the hon. Member for Naskaupi's sense of humour didn't improve any with his rest from the House of Assembly. Not only is he back - he's a member from the Dark Ages, his humour is from the Dark Ages as well. Try to get a few more modern lines, I say to the Member for Naskaupi. Try to make some intelligent comments for a change, instead of these silly little quips. I'm not going to waste my time with the member, Mr. Chairman. He's only here for a brief holiday anyway. He won't be here very long.

Now let me deal with the Member for Waterford - Kenmount on his statements. Let me deal with that. It's very clear what happened here. When the minister was Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs he made a commitment to the City of Mount Pearl, $90,000 towards the capital cost of building a recreational complex on Kenmount Park. Indeed, it needed it. Kenmount Park has been neglected. It was neglected by city council, by the Metroboard, before it became part of Mount Pearl. It was given to Mount Pearl with no transition grant, like the $12 million the City of St. John's got when the member was in crying because the City of St. John's had to take in Shea Heights and some of these other areas, and Kilbride. So they had to have $12 million.

The City of Mount Pearl has spent $6 million or $7 million in the member's district in areas that were not part of the City of Mount Pearl but they were forced to take some time ago. In response to that the Member for Waterford - Kenmount takes away the expansion area of Mount Pearl that would have balanced it up, and destroyed the future of Mount Pearl. That's his idea of good economics and helping a municipality grow. The most prosperous and best-run and best managed, most effective municipality in the Province. That's their reward for taking a difficult area, bringing it inside the City of Mount Pearl, and providing services. What do they ask for? Ninety-thousand dollars.

Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with the recreation centre in Kenmount Hill. It needs a lot more. It got a heck of a lot more since it became part of the City of Mount Pearl than it ever had before, or would have hoped to have had. I don't argue with the project. The member can't crawl out from under what he's done by trying to say: the member doesn't want the project. The project was long ago built. What are you going to do, tear it down?

What I don't like is the minister making a commitment for a capital funding and then stealing it from an emergency employment response program. This is supposed to get people some jobs this year, to feed their families and help through the cold winter they have coming up. But the new minister had to bail out his colleague and take $30,000 from a job creation program to pay a debt that the minister committed in his own district. Now if that is not an example of pork barrelling, Mr. Chairman, I do not know what is.

Then the minister is going to try to say that he initiated the projects. The citizens' committee - Councillor Pearson and her committee on the Kenmount Park, drove him nuts trying to get something up there. They were the ones who initiated it. They will be delighted to hear the minister say today that it was his idea.

I do not have a problem with the funding for Mary Queen of the World. I have a problem with the minister trying to take credit for it, but it was Father Ron who initiated the project and who has put together the whole thing. It is a good project. I hope it is approved and they get the funding. That is going to create three jobs. At least it is three. It is a good project. But for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to try to pass off work that was done in his own district - to take an old shed and convert it to a gymnasium for the Seventh-Day Adventist School in Botwood a year and a half ago, it was finished last year; the final cheque was paid in March. In March of 1992 the final cheque went out to the Seventh-Day Adventist School Board, and here on September 30 the minister stands up in a press conference and says: I am going to spend $11 million and some of this is going to the Seventh-Day Adventist School Board, when it was money that was spent a year before in his own district. That is absolute, outright, deceit, Mr. Chairman. It is deceit for a minister of the Crown to stand up and make such a statement, knowing that it is not true. It is cause for a resignation, Mr. Chairman. He is deliberately deceiving the people of the Province.

He does not have a defence. He has not gotten on his feet yet. I do not say he will.

It was a good project. I do not have a problem with the project, if it had been funded under last year's program. But to stand up this year and say we are going to create jobs; I do not know how many jobs it says in the press release - all kinds of jobs they are going to create. Anyway, a couple of thousand jobs they were going to create, short-term jobs this year - and to find the money was spent and paid out. All they are trying to do now is juggle the books.

We will have another special warrant. We are doing supplementary supply for 1991-'92. That is what we are debating here today. Next year we will be debating supplementary supply for 1992-'93, and the Minister of Finance will come in with an $11 million extra expenditure; $1 million under employment; $5 million under social services; and $5 million under municipal affairs.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Whatever.

That will be a special warrant, and you will try to tell us then: Well we did not have any choice, 1992 was such a terrible year for employment, the worst in history - in recent history at least - we had to create some jobs. We will not forget when that comes up. We will not forget where the money was spent - that it was spent the year before. It was actually spent here. The minister should have tacked it on to this special warrant, because this is the year in which it was spent - not try to pretend that this is new money for a problem this year; that we are going to help try to alleviate the problems.

I found it very difficult to explain to my constituents, once I got the information - it took me a day or two to find out because nobody knew what it was all about, and no wonder they did not - I found it difficult to call those people back and say: I am sorry; that was announced; it was in the paper; there was supposed to be money there, but it was spent a year ago. It is not going to help you this winter.

There are three jobs at Mary Queen of the World, and they were told: Hire heads of families first. Hire those that only need one or two stamps first. Do not hire those who need ten, because they will want ten weeks. Hire only the ones who need one or two stamps, and then get rid of them and hire somebody else; so there will not be three jobs; there will be ten or fifteen jobs - but they will all be for two or three weeks each; and every one of the project co-ordinators have been told that. Hire the heads of families first, those that only need a couple of stamps to get them on unemployment. That is what this is all about, Mr. Chairman.

Now I'll leave that for now, but I'll be back to it, you may rest assured. I'll be back when I check some more districts and find out how many more projects like that have been announced that are not going to really create a job.

It's interesting. I can understand the minister trying to pull a little trick here and there, but when he states - right on his own sheet - zero jobs. It's laughable. Employment and Labour Relations, emergency employment response program, 1992-1993. Funding, City of Mount Pearl. Under Municipal and Provincial Affairs, $30,000. Jobs zero, weeks zero. Emergency response program. Jobs zero, weeks zero. He could have at least pretended that there was one job. Perhaps a part-time job, perhaps the city clerk who'll spend ten minutes bringing the cheque to the bank or something. He could pretend there was something generated.

How can they deny it? Jobs zero, weeks zero. Tell me - for $30,000? That's the last $30,000 of the $90,000 commitment the Member for Waterford - Kenmount made to put a little recreation centre in his own riding when he was Minister of Municipal Affairs. He didn't have any money to do it, you see. He only gave them $60,000 at the time: we'll give you $30,000 next year. So there's where they found the $30,000. This is where they found the $30,000, from money that was committed by the minister last year.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Completed? I guess it is completed. The Seventh Day Adventist School Board got their last cheque from the minister in March of 1992. In September the minister announces funding.

Mr. Chairman, an amazing minister. He'll be on his feet, he was there this afternoon, saying: we created 3,500 jobs this summer. Line them all up in front of Confederation Building, let's see them, let's see the 3,500 jobs. I tell you who created jobs. The federal government through the funding that they brought in here. If we didn't have a transportation agreement that this government opposed so drastically when they were in opposition, thought it was a great sell-out, and now they're out there tripping over themselves to make announcements of all these highway construction programs - what a great creation of work and employment and economic activity. The same federal-provincial agreement that the previous government negotiated with the Government of Canada that they were knocking, saying: that's a sell-out, the Roads-for-Rails agreement. If we didn't have the Roads-for-Rails agreement we'd all be on the rails going out of here.

Without that program, without the Hibernia project that wouldn't be here without the huge commitment made by the Government of Canada, without all of the make-work money that's coming in here, without the fisheries adjustment program that this government wants to turn its back on and accept no responsibility for, without federal money coming in here, there'd be no money in here. None whatsoever.

If this government doesn't wake up and stop playing games with their great economic strategy document, the only employment that document will create is the printing of the document. Nothing new in there. Some of it has been taken verbatim out of previous reports. They didn't even have the ability to paraphrase it, put different words in there and different adjectives. Right out of previous documents. Wonderful document. It took them three and a half years. They came to power saying: we will change the economy, we'll create jobs, we'll have a whole new approach, we're immediately going to appoint this great economic planning team, Economic Recovery Commission. There's more money in the Budget for economic studies and economic strategies, but none for economic action. When are you going to start creating some jobs?

We don't like these make-work programs either but they're a fact of life in today's economy. Because no, you can't create thousands of jobs overnight, not long-term permanent jobs. The Minister of Industry knows that. He's learned that by now. He got his feet back on the ground. When he came into office he said: Now I will take over and I will create jobs. Boy, we will have the economy rolling in six months. He now knows it is not possible, and I am not here to try to pretend that it is possible. It's a tough job. It's a tough job, but I haven't seen a lot of action.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be back again.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: I will just rise for a couple of minutes, Mr. Chairman, -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: - mostly because I wanted to save the hon. member opposite from the barrage he was about to take from the hon. Member for St. John's South, and I will be much kinder than I am sure the hon. Member for St. John's South would have been.

I just wanted to point out, Mr. Chairman, that there is a slight problem with the hon. member opposite in that I have had experiences with only two of the fifty-two members in terms of the information I supplied them corresponding to our involvement in the Emergency Employment Response Program. We had two of them, one member who spoke in the House and one who is not here today for some good reason and both in the Opposition. But it is obvious to me the only thing I can understand in terms of what has been said and what they have done is that they didn't read the materials I sent to them.

I sent materials, Mr. Chairman, to every member because as was indicated I really believe that when we are making these kinds of decisions that the members from the areas might have more information about the local area than I would have or the officials in our department. And together with that input we can make, probably the best decisions.

What we had in a couple of cases is we sent out a letter outlining two things. One was a list of projects that had been approved last year so that everybody would understand the kind of thing that happened with this program last year and the kinds of things that were funded so we could get a feel for the type of initiatives that were approved in a previous year. The point that has just been referenced, the hon. Member for Mount Pearl talks about the Seven Day Adventists, that was only the list of projects for last year. That was a project funded last year provided to the hon. member as an example of the kinds of things that were done.

MR. WINDSOR: Well why was it approved in 1992?

MR. GRIMES: Because all of these were given final approvals last year - and if any one of you wanted to call the office to get clarification we could have straightened it out for you, but obviously some people misunderstood.

MR. WINDSOR: I did call your office. Your office didn't understand it either.

MR. GRIMES: Strangely enough, Mr. Chairman, there were only two people as I point out. One is the hon. member who has spoken here, and the other is the hon. Member for Green Bay. The hon. Member for Green Bay went a step further and took last years list of approvals and announced them all again this year - the ones that I sent him as an example of what was done last year.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: I get a call and find out because it said approved - and you don't have to be an absolute genius, Mr. Chairman, because look at the procedure we followed. We were sending them, Mr. Chairman, a list, examples for last year and then a list of potential projects for this year to ask for input as to which ones we think should be approved. And for someone to misunderstand that and then make an announcement saying that these are approved when I am asking which ones, I am asking for some help and guidance and advice as to which ones should be approved and because there was a list given of the ones last year so they would know the kinds of things that were done and in what area, somebody went out and re-announced them and said these are already approved when I am writing a letter saying: Please suggest to me which ones we might approve this year. Now there is some misunderstanding there somewhere. In the case at hand immediately, the Seven Day Adventist example was a project approved last year. It gives me a perfect opportunity to point this out as well because this matter might come up again later as we discuss this issue in the House of Assembly.

Mr. Chairman, all of these projects are funded. The funding passes through some funding agency: Development Associations, Town Councils, service clubs in different communities and so on. And the only way they can be tracked by way of what we do in our offices is by taking the address of the agency that is making the application and therefore gets the funds. You'll find lots of times that in our breakdowns - for example, in the central Newfoundland area where I'm from, many of these things, the development association, which is headquartered in Grand Falls - Windsor, sponsors projects in Exploits district, in Windsor - Buchans, in Grand Falls and sometimes even almost out as far as Lewisporte, even though they have the Lewisporte area development association. The boundaries don't exactly coincide with provincial boundaries.

So there'll be some difference. Because for some reason members opposite seem to be preoccupied sometimes about saying: how much money was spent in these districts and these districts? We look at where the need is, and where the money should be spent to have impact on the people we're trying to impact. That's not the kind of thing that we often keep track of. But it seems to be a question first to the lips of those members opposite. Because as I've said in this House before, Mr. Chairman, it's the way they used to make decisions, and they can't get it out of their minds.

All they used to do was look at the districts and say listen, load up the PC districts and give a few scraps here and there to the poor old Liberals, because it doesn't want to be 100 per cent. We don't do that. We give money to the different districts because of the fact that there are people in that area who have need. Because we've checked the unemployment insurance statistics. We've checked to see how many people are about to come off the unemployment insurance rolls. We check the social services rolls, and we try to identify the areas of greatest need. We fund projects in those areas.

It was made clear when we announced these projects that they were not intended to try to alleviate difficulties being experienced by people attached to the fishery. So there are areas of the Province that have high unemployment rates at the present time, and difficulties with social services, but we're still trying to make sure that there are appropriate fisheries responses for those, mainly from the federal government. If that doesn't come through in any way, shape or form, we'll have to reassess our position on that matter at the point in time. Clearly we made that as part of our announcement as well.

So we looked at funding for last year that we provided to everybody as examples and funding for this year that were potentials. The only ones that had already been approved on that list were some projects in the one million dollars from recreation, through the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, because the minister had tabled that list the same day that we made the announcement. So on the list for 1992-1993, which is this fiscal year out of which we're funding this project, there would have been one or two approvals at the top - if there were some recreation projects or local service district projects already approved - and all the rest would have said: pending.

The members were asked: look through these. The other thing that happened as well was it said: if you are aware of, in any way, shape or form, other project work, other projects that should be considered in your district, please advise us. This is what my colleague and good friend, the hon. Minister of Social Services, was talking about. When he looked at it he went out, like many members did, and said: here's a list of some things, but maybe there are more things in my district that should be considered. He went out and talked to people about that and other applications came forward. Some of the current list got approved, and some of the new ones got approved. It wasn't a first-come, first-served. It was greatest need, and trying to make sure we were doing things that were in the long-term benefit of the people involved. Something that would be lasting and something that would make a contribution.

So I can't be responsible for some misunderstanding of people. If they didn't get it straight, maybe they'll get it straight after today.

The other thing I'd like to point out is that the very fact that we sent a list - he gets up and ha-has and pooh-poohs about $30,000, no jobs, and so on. We provided the information deliberately because as he said: why couldn't I have pretended that there was a job? We don't do that. That's not the way we operate. We provided the information so that people would know. At the very beginning of this program we said: basically, 70 per cent of the monies that are in this total of $11 million will end up being spent on wages for people. It's no good to give money to people if they have nothing to work with. Thirty per cent of the money will be spent on materials, and making sure there's something there that they can do.

In many cases, as we had discussed with our colleague, the Minister responsible for Municipal and Provincial Affairs, in many of the recreational and local service district projects that he announced, much more than 30 per cent of the money was needed for materials and things to make sure that something useful got done. So the trade-offs were made, and in some instances, as with say, a $30,000 project, it is possible that some of those could have been 100 per cent for capital and material, and then from some other part of a project, either through Employment and Labour Relations, or Social Services or elsewhere, a labour component would be provided so that useful work would be done. And we were not about to send out a list trying to doctor it up and say that every one of these projects, one by one, will come out to say there are so many jobs here, and so many weeks of work and so on. Some were designed to provide capital and materials, others were designed to provide exclusively labour, and in the whole combination, the Cabinet committee was charged with the responsibility to make sure that as close as possible to a 70/30 split occurred, so that 70 per cent of these monies would find its way into the hands and pockets of people to spend and to help them on a personal basis, and 30 per cent of it would be required to make sure there was useful work being done in all the projects that were approved.

So you can see, Mr. Chairman, as well, that we did not try to pretend, or try to fool anybody, or doctor up some numbers to make it look good. We believe in presenting the facts as they are.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

I apologize to my colleague. I did not realize -

MR. FLIGHT: That's what it is to be a lame duck (inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: I am sure the hon. minister knows all about being a lame duck, Mr. Chairman. If there is anyone who has more experience in this House now than that member -

MR. ROBERTS: Could the hon. member speak (inaudible)?

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, no problem. We will just keep it going until the Government House Leader gets back because we know the place won't function unless he is in his seat. We know the place won't operate without him here, so we will all try to keep it going until he gets back. If he takes a bit longer, I am sure members opposite will give me some leave. Then my good friend, the Minister of Finance, might go to bat and try to keep it going for him. You never know. He might have enough experience to be able to do that.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to have a few words on this bill, this money bill. As you can see, the debate has become quite wide-ranging and most of the discussion is taken up in job creation, which I think is very, very appropriate, because the number one problem in our Province today is the lack of employment -

MR. WARREN: He is back already.

MR. MATTHEWS: He is back already.

- the lack of jobs. Everywhere in the Province there is a very serious employment problem, and I am sure that is why members are speaking the way they are today, in debate, because of the very serious problems out and about our respective districts.

I just want to say to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations that he did a very good job in trying, I guess, to weasel out of the situation, as brought forward by the Member for Mount Pearl. It is a very serious situation where you have a minister who goes to a press conference and tables documents, figures and statistics, an emergency job creation program - monies that do not create one job for the year for which it is supposed to create jobs. I think that is very serious, I want to say to the minister.

Some of the problems, I might say to the minister again, is maybe some of the officials in his department, not that I want to cast aspersions on any officials, but there have been various reports coming out of the minister's department, of sponsoring bodies and sponsoring groups contacting officials there, and they have not been well received, I say to the minister. And there is one particular official over there, who asked - among the first questions that individuals were asked when they called to enquire about the status of their specific project - asked where they lived, who their member was, and then went on to elaborate from that.

So even though the minister gets up and tries to say it didn't matter where an application came from, what community, what part of the Province, what district it was, who the member was, of what political stripe the member was, I say to the minister, there have been a number of instances where one particular official has made it known quite clearly to the people who have been calling, that that was certainly a factor. He has made some very strong comments to some people who have called, who didn't call to get that kind of comment. They called out of a legitimate concern for their sponsoring body's project application, to see what the status was. They wanted to do two things, quite naturally, they wanted to create employment and get on with doing the work of their project.

So I say to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations - and I hope he is listening to what I am saying, because that is a fact, that some of the problems were created by the minister's own officials. That, I am sure, we can all - any of us who have served in a department as minister knows that these kinds of things can happen without the minister knowing about it. We all realize that, or certainly, I do. It is kind of hard to know everything that is going on with your officials on a day-to-day basis.

But that is what raises the level of scepticism out and about the Province, when you have officials who say the things that some of his officials have said, particularly when you look at the background of the officials who said it. I think the minister knows where I am coming from and of whom I might be talking, and I would ask him to deal with that situation in his department.

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I was quite delighted to have projects receive funding in my district, good, worthy projects, creating some much-needed employment. I am grateful to the minister for that, and to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs for the recreation funding that we received. Because it won't go a long way but it will certainly help the cause of many unemployed people. The money is helping unemployed people in my district who have now picked up a few weeks work on those project. Much more is needed, we all know that, because we realize the seriousness of the unemployment problem out and about the Province.

There are many good project applications in the ministers' offices, Both the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, and the recreation division of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. I have a number of very good applications that sponsoring bodies have in from my district. One I want to go on record - and I've spoken to the minister personally about it - is on behalf of Grand Meadows Golf Association, who are attempting to develop a golf course in Frenchman's Cove Park. It is a provincially-owned park, a nice parcel of land for a nine-hole golf course. There has been some progress made - through federal funding, I might add, job creation money - where a lot of the work had been done with clearing fairways and so on. It is a very good project. The sponsoring body has put in years of work trying to access enough funding to develop this golf course.

It has a lot of tourism implications for my area of the Province, particularly with our flow of traffic to the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, where there is anywhere between 25,000 and 30,000 people who go there annually. What we find is, people drive down to the ferry in Fortune, take the boat, go to St. Pierre and Miquelon, come back, get in their cars and drive out.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not counting the ones who go back and forth.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, those are the people from the area who go back and forth frequently. I'm talking about tourists who come into the area. Really, what we need there is some kind of attraction. I am glad that the Minister of Tourism is listening. We need an attraction or attractions to keep people there overnight so that we get some benefit. Because the most we get now, if we get anything, is a tankful of gas, I say to the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible). They have some very good ideas.

MR. MATTHEWS: They do. But this particular project is a very good one, I say to the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes. But what I am saying is that we do have a natural attraction in St. Pierre-Miquelon. People come to go to the French islands. But what is happening is, the ferry schedule is such that they get aboard the ferry, go to St. Pierre, come back, get in their cars and drive away. So we need something there to keep them overnight or for a day or two, and certainly a golf course would go a long way towards doing that. Because a lot of people plan their vacations around golf. They play a number of golf courses during their vacation.

So it would be a great benefit to not only attract new people into the area but people who regularly re-visit St. Pierre and Miquelon could stay and hopefully spend some of their money. That would benefit the area, so I want to mention it to the minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Minister of Labour.

MR. MATTHEWS: Sorry?

AN HON. MEMBER: You might get the Minister of Labour down there.

MR. MATTHEWS: You might even get the minister, himself, if we could ever get the golf course finished, to come down and a have a round or two. The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations has been known to play a few rounds of golf. I know he likes the game. He's very good at it. He is very good at most things he does. He is very good at most extracurricular things he does, like golf, hockey and other stuff. Athletics he's very good at. Now I'm not willing to evaluate the minister quite yet on his job as Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

But I just want to go on record as supporting that. I personally called the minister at his office to talk about this particular project application. It is very worthy, and I hope the Minister of Tourism, if there is any influence he can use, would certainly take it under due consideration, and if sometime he is down in the area, even look at the area we are talking about, because it has a lot of potential, I say to the Minister of Tourism. It is really a beautiful area that, if developed to nine holes, would do a lot for the Burin Peninsula, to keep there some of those out-of-province visitors and in-province travellers, where now, we don't have a lot of attractions, do we? If they drive the natural loop around the Burin Peninsula, you need something to hold them there a bit longer.

MR. BAKER: How about a statue of you?

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, it may cause everyone to leave but that is the other problem. You make decisions, I say to the Minister of Finance - you have to be careful, you can't make rash decisions about that because you could put up a statue of me and there would be nobody left within fifty miles of the golf course. I don't want that to happen.

AN HON. MEMBER: There are a few areas where (inaudible) come up against the plans (inaudible) that was in the beginning.

MR. MATTHEWS: Where, the Burin Peninsula?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, it has been very difficult. I thought that the ones to be the generators should have been those people directly involved in the industry, who have restaurants, hotels and whatever, that they should be the catalyst to get it going, but there has been somewhat of a reluctance to do that, I say to the minister. They are the people who have, I guess, the most to gain directly from that kind of a situation, but yes, the minister is right.

I am hoping that will be dealt with shortly and we will get on, hopefully, with the support of the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, that he will not be using emergency employment funding for projects, really, that have been done in the past and do not create jobs. Because it is a very serious situation out and about the Province, I say to the minister, and I am hoping that he will give this particular application some serious consideration. I don't know if all his money is gone and, of course, I don't expect him to tell me. When I hear about that it will probably be on some announcement.

There is one other thing I want to bring to the minister's attention. I noticed, with the lists that were sent out, there were a number of projects listed, as well, from the Department of Social Services, the Community Development Program. There was a whole whack of projects there and I scrutinized those and was quite delighted at first when I looked at them, because I thought there were going to be three or four projects approved out of the Community Development Program, the social services for the Grand Bank Social Services District office; but, of course, once I did a bit of checking, as the minister said we all should have done, that again, it was money that was spent earlier, it was not new monies.

I don't know the reason for lumping it all together and sending it out together, if it was a public relations gimmick in the hope that the press would pick it all up and print all this stuff and people out and about the Province would think that government was doing far more than it really is with job creation. Because, once I checked it, I found out that the projects I had received -

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. member's time is up.

MR. MATTHEWS: - the money had already been spent and they, indeed, again were not creating new jobs, I say to the minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, not to belabour the point, but again, a little further explanation may be necessary in light of some of the comments that are continuing to be made.

There was a point made again by the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl, in his few remarks about the Emergency Employment Response Program, suggesting that all this was, was an opportunity to qualify people for UI and that, in fact, where you had some money, it wasn't one person going to work for ten weeks, but it was somebody going to work for three weeks and somebody else going to work for two weeks, so that it wouldn't be ten jobs, it might be fifteen or eighteen or twenty jobs.

I didn't quite know what he was saying, except the tone of his voice was as if he disagreed with that; and I didn't understand again, why anyone would be under any delusions as to what we were doing, because that was announced, those questions were asked and that was clearly explained the day we made the announcement. Maybe he is mixed up with another year, because last year we announced a similar program on the 4th of October - this year, we announced it on the 18th of September, and he keeps talking about a press release that he has in hand, of the 30th September. We didn't do anything on the 30th of September. Many of the projects were already up and running and operational, people were working on the 30th of September, this year, and some of these projects in recreation, local service districts and also in Forestry were already approved and actually functioning. And the intent was made clear that we would try to maximize the number of people that we could impact possibly with this amount of money that we were about to expend. We talked about the point that the hon. the Member for Grand Bank just raised again, in terms of the money and how it was to be expended.

I want to point out again that in order to make sure we were doing useful work in as many areas as we could, most of the groups, in applying and putting in their projects, indicated to us that they would need some of the money for materials and administration purposes. It was no good for us to give them $8,000, $10,000, $12,000, $15,000 or $30,000 dollars just for salaries, because they wouldn't have anything for the people to do, there would be nothing for them to work with. They had good ideas about things that needed to be done, but they might need to buy some lumber, they might need to get some chain saws, they might need to get some nails or they might need to get some other kinds of materials. There were going to be some costs associated with it.

Overall, in our administering the program, we tried to ensure that, in fact, at least 70 per cent of the money would end up in salaries and would help as many people as possible, that we would maximize the number of people that we could put to work. And some people who needed ten weeks of work could go to work because they would qualify for unemployment insurance at the end of a ten-week project. But if we could put two people in there who needed five weeks each or four people in there who needed five weeks each and so on, then we were better off doing that because more people would actually get the experience of working and more people would be able to be guaranteed income for the rest of the year.

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl surprised me when he talked about that as if that was something new or something that we tried to fool the people with. We told everybody upfront that that was our intention, and that is our intention. The same as in providing these lists, if the money is 100 per cent materials money in any one project the list says that. It doesn't indicate, as the hon. Member for Mount Pearl suggests, that we could have tried to at least pretend there was a job or two there, because we would be lying. I know we are not supposed to talk about anything other than the truth. We are not supposed to reference lying in this Legislature, and we don't, and we wouldn't put it in our materials to suggest that there was one job in that for ten weeks just to make it look like that amount of money was going to create a job, but that amount of money, in conjunction with other parts of the project and other funding from Social Services or other departments, would guarantee useful work being done with people accessing the work, getting the money and qualifying for unemployment insurance. We make no apologies to anyone for that, Mr. Chairman, and we hope everybody understands that. They should know by now that that is the way we have been operating for three-and-a-half years.

The other thing, in terms of the hon. Member for Grand Bank talking again about the lists that were sent out and the projects on it and suggesting that we might be doing that to try to fool the people again or get some extra media attention and so on, I want to point out to the hon. member that those lists have never, ever been given to the media, unless an individual member chose to provide them him or herself.

I made one announcement with respect to the Emergency Employment Response Program. That was on the eighteenth of September with my colleagues when we announced the program. The materials that were sent to all fifty-two members of the House were for individual use so that again you could look at the types of projects that were funded last year and to also give advice for consideration as to the types of ones that should be considered for this year. It didn't at all guarantee that the information that came back from the members was the information that was going to be used, but it would fit into the mix of the information that the staff already had and a selection process would be followed and there would be successful projects.

So again it only exposes, Mr. Chairman, the thinking of the members opposite, which is why they are now there. That is the way they operated consistently and they are showing themselves by these comments. So it is obvious to me now that members opposite would not have hesitated a few years ago, if they were running this program, to put out some kind of press statements saying, `Oh, there are no jobs in it but let's change the number to, like, $28,000 and $2,000 and say there are two weeks work there and five people are going to work and that kind of thing, because this is supposed to be job creation.' So you wouldn't dare put out a piece of information saying there are no jobs with this money. It shows the way they think and the way they used to operate.

The hon. the Member for Grand Bank again just demonstrated, obviously, his thought patterns. It was natural for him to assume that this is material we would have sent out to the media to try to make them believe that we were doing more than we were doing. We have told the people, Mr. Chairman, exactly what we are doing and why. We have told them exactly what we are doing and why we are doing it and we continue to do so.

So again, Mr. Chairman, I am certain that anytime there are any questions about the individual types of things that are raised, I would be more than glad to try to answer them so there is no misunderstanding or confusion. So I would certainly hope that because the members opposite happen to be conditioned to think a certain way, that they will not assume and try to suppose that we think and operate the way they used to. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador voted to change that in 1989. They got a real change. They are getting open information. They are getting it given to them up front, and we will be consistent in that approach. So for the rest of the time that we deal with these projects, Mr. Chairman, it is clear to us that we will always let people know what is happening and why it is happening.

The only unfortunate part that I point out in this in closing is that I have been sending out a lot of letters lately, telling people they were not successful, and it is a little distressing. It is the toughest part of the job, but it is the kind of thing where you have to make certain decisions.

We have had $35 million worth of requests, and $11 million with which to try to answer those requests. So it is quite obvious that for every project that we approve, and for every 1,000 people that we put to work, we are writing out letters saying to another group of people - three times as many - that I am sorry; your project was good, but we are out of money. It cannot be approved at this time; and we are going to leave some other people not being assisted through this avenue. But we will help somewhere between 4,000 and 4,500 people, and we will continue to look for ways in which we can help the other people who still need some assistance.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: I am very impressed by the hon. Minister of Employment and Labour Relations in his sincerity. I do not echo the same sentiments for the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

His department official informed the mayor of one of the towns in my district that they would not receive funding because they voted heavily PC. He told the town manager in another that they had a poor chance of getting a project under recreation; and told the chairperson of a recreation commission in another - actually that was the same minister who came to the district on June 22 and spoke with the mayor, and invited the recreation commission to a rally in the district, and was assured by a candidate that they would receive funding.

I would like to ask if the statement by Premier Wells: Provincial funding would be reviewed - this is 1989 - to ensure that the government expenditures for municipal works and services are responsive to needs, and based upon principles of fairness and balance and not on the basis of political support.

On August 21 the hon. minister released $1,007,905 for community water services programs, of which 92 per cent - $912,905 went to Liberal districts, and only the balance of $95,000 went to PC districts. Is this the fairness and balance being shown through all departments?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is a little disappointing, Mr. Chairman, when the Member for Ferryland stands up -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. MURPHY: - when the Member for Ferryland stands up, and his discourse lasts about a minute and a half and he talks about - I would suggest to you - one of the most honourable, admirable, and fair-minded ministers of Municipal Affairs that this Province has ever seen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MURPHY: Now I am also fortunate to spend a lot of time - as a matter of fact, most of my time, of the little time that I have when I am not dealing with my constituency problems - in the district of Ferryland.

Historically, I remind the hon. member, in the good-bye letter written by his predecessor, who openly told the people of Ferryland district, and openly told the people of this Province, and I suppose the people of Canada, that the department that he was minister of was called the Department of Internal Ferryland Affairs, because of all the pork barrelling that he did. I just want to remind the hon. member of that, and I will resurrect that letter for him, and at another time I will quote from it.

So for the hon. member from the district of Ferryland to stand up in his maiden speech, and have a go at pork barrelling on the part of the minister - the only things not paved up there are the wharves. The hon. member knows what I am talking about.

Now to get back to the bill, Mr. Chairman. Eleven million dollars. You know we were all, every single member in this hon. House was waiting to see - waiting with bated breath to see what the hon. minister and the Minister of Social Services would come up with and how much money we would have because we all collectively, fifty-two of us had people unemployed, number one, bread winners unemployed, and we needed that funding the same as the other members opposite needed it when they were the government. The Member for Grand Bank knows only too well.

The hon. Member for St. Mary's - The Capes who got up today and said only four miles of road in his district are left unpaved - four miles - there are more unpaved roads in St. John's South than four miles and he has the gall to stand up and talk about four miles of unpaved road.

AN HON. MEMBER: At least he has a road.

MR. MURPHY: Well I think if we look back at the record we will find out that the residents of Mall Bay supported Mr. Hancock some eleven years ago and they have paid the price. I can't be sure, but the true answer will find itself.

We ended up with $11 million to try and provide some form of employment generation, emergency generation for the whole Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on.

MR. MURPHY: For the whole province. So each and every member who went to their constituents and said: I will be responsible..took off with their projects to try and do the best they could for their constituents with what we had.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: I certainly did because nobody else could get it for them. That is right, I certainly did. And I remind the retiring Member for Kilbride -

AN HON. MEMBER: That is what you are going to do.

MR. MURPHY: Mr. Chairman, that just goes to show. It is only confirmed now because the member is down in the ditch that the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes was talking about. We should bury you down there.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: We should bury you down there. The hon. member, Mr. Chairman, should do better in strawberries than he did here because all he would have to do is go out every evening and talk to them and they will grow magnificently, and they would be red and luscious because there has been nothing but fertilizer coming out of him since I came here. Nothing.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, before I was interrupted, $11 million was not enough but it was all that this government had. It was all that this government could afford, and why? Well the reason why is simple. The Member for Mount Pearl gets up and he rants and raves about $30,000. Now let me remind this hon. House that the Member for Mount Pearl was obviously spoiled for too many years. Totally spoiled for too many years. Somebody will accuse me of saying you have nothing else to bring up - but the interest that this government has to pay on the $24 million that was wasted on Sprung would have been $2.5 million and that is better than 20 per cent of what we had to offer the people. So there is no sense in the Member for Mount Pearl jumping to his feet and crackling on about getting nothing for Mount Pearl and/or the residents of Mount Pearl. The first thing you have to do is to make sure that you send in applications for projects.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: You know that is the problem. That is the problem, and then you take in three years - and I remind the hon. Member for Ferryland - in three years with the recession that is facing this particular government and every government across this nation now, every government. The Member for Burin - Placentia West jumped up today and charged at the hon. Minister for Social Services. What he needs to understand is that there is $500 million less in transfer payments in this 1992 recession that was forecast by the previous leader of the Members Opposite. 'I don't have the political will to run again.' 'I do not have the political will to run again.' Because he knew what was happening, because 1992 was as close to 1932 as we have seen and this government is faced with it. Then, the Leader of the Opposition gets up, without his musical accompaniment - what is the name of that song boys?

AN HON. MEMBER: Me and Charlie McGee.

MR. MURPHY: He got up without Charlie McGee today, on his own, no Charlie McGee with him, no Charlie McGee to lead -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Bobby Mc Gee, is it?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Bobby McGee.

MR. MURPHY: Bobby McGee, he got up today without Bobby McGee at his side, right?... no musical accompaniment, right?... and he made a run at the Premier about what is he going to do. $500 million less in transfer payments than the hon. members had, $500 million less, and do not forget who paid off the overpayment that you fellows got when you were in government. This gentleman down here, the Member for St. John's Centre, that is who paid it off, he has paid off $152 million bucks and you guys have the gall to get up here and talk about $11 million that the three ministers here have begged Cabinet to give them to try and generate some programs, and they are not beach rock moving programs either, they are meaningful programs. If any hon. member wants to see one, I will take him up on Shea Heights and show him; show him a school that has been painted and reconditioned with weather stripping put on the doors and windows. The Member for Mount Pearl gets up with his piety and chastises and criticizes the minister who has a measly $11 million to try and go around the whole Province. We all know what the need is. The hon. members opposite know what the need is. These hon. members here know what the need is. We know what the need is -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: We did what we could. We did what we could. They will get up and they will natter and prate and they will talk about pork barrelling and everything else and ditches and four miles of unpaved road, knowing only full well - I mean, the hon. Member for Fogo is over there laughing, he wants a rink. He wants a new rink and he deserves a new rink and he will get his new rink. No, I should not say 'he', he will not get his new rink, the people of Fogo will get their new rink.

The people of Fogo will get their new rink long after the member - the chalk, the school dust, he will be home - the chalk dust will be so ingrained in his clothes he will forget all about it. He will be back at the board, so, Mr. Chairman, this bill is a bill that is required to do the best we possibly can for the residents of this Province, the 575,000 residents of this Province, the best we can do and the hon. members know it because this government is sadly faced with the sins of the previous administration and every day it goes on and on and on -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. MURPHY: - so we are lucky to have a minister -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. MURPHY: - we are lucky to have a minister who has done such a marvellous job with so little money.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief.

I want to have a few words on this - I did not bring down my file today on this $11 million job creation program so we will probably go on to this a little later on to some more extent, but I will have a few comments on it today, but before I do, I want to thank the hon. Member for St. John's South for giving me that little plug again for the strawberries.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. R. AYLWARD: I appreciate his plug, Mr. Chairman, and I do notice that when he drives through Kilbride the strawberries do get a little boost, they do grow a little better. They grow quite considerably, but there is only one thing that grows more than my strawberries when he is going through Kilbride and that is his expense account. It seems to me that when a member representing my neighbouring district has expenses of some $23,000 or $25,000, and in my district with the same needs, the same expenses, the same everything that I know of, it costs $4,000 or $5,000, Mr. Chairman, there is something out of whack, and it is not strawberries. So something is growing pretty good.

I also want to say to him: congratulations for getting your project on Shea Heights for painting the school. That is not a bad project. I agree that we have to do it. But if the Department of Education was giving the school boards the proper amount of money to maintain their schools you wouldn't have to be painting schools. You could do some projects to create long-term jobs. Its your government and your Department of Education and you have little chance of getting any extra money now with the new minister. That is for sure. You will get no extra monies now in the Department of Education. Mr. Chairman, school boards are desperate to find money wherever they can just to maintain their schools. That is one of the reasons why we have projects for painting schools when we should be having long-term projects.

Mr. Chairman, the District of Kilbride applied for three projects that I know of. I said to two of them: I will support two with a letter and we will have one that will not be supported by a letter, let's see what happens in the District of Kilbride. Both of the ones which were good long-term projects, one for the Dairymen's Association, which I supported by letter, which was a very good project for long-term benefit to the dairy farmers in the biggest industry in the district, and one for the senior citizens club in the Goulds, the Daffodil Senior Citizens Club, both I supported by letter, neither of them got approved. The one that I didn't support by letter that came from the Goulds Lions Club happened to get approved. When the people who were looking after the projects called the Department of Labour and asked them - and I will not dance around this, Mr. Chairman, I will say it flat-out. They asked Rod Fowler -

AN HON. MEMBER: Fowlow or Fowler.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Rod Fowler or Rod Fowlow, whatever his name is. He works with the Department of Labour. He was in charge of these projects. His was the name we were told to tell people to call. I didn't know he was a former Liberal candidate. I didn't know that he ran against the Member for Harbour Main until a couple of days ago. I didn't realize that Rod Fowler or Fowlow ran. But when my constituents called him and said there is a desperate need for employment in the area of Kilbride and the Goulds and how do we apply for a project? He asked: Who's district is that in? They answered: It is in the District of the Member for Kilbride, Mr. Aylward. He replied: Oh, that's too bad, it is in a P.C. district. You have very little chance of getting that approved. That is what Rod Fowler said. Now, I am not dancing around this. I am naming the name. I am naming the person who said it. He said: There is very little chance you will get that approved because it is not in a Liberal district.

Now, Mr. Chairman, that is what the man said to the person who phoned. Right flat-out, that is what he said.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

AN HON. MEMBER: Withdraw! Withdraw!

MR. R. AYLWARD: I'll withdraw nothing. You should go down to Portugal Cove and fix up the wharf, that is your responsibility and the responsibility of this government. Ross Reid has to get it fixed up for you. Ross Reid has to get it fixed up for you because you can't do anything with it. Ross Reid is putting a fortune into it and it is this government's responsibility to get it fixed.

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture, on a point of order.

MR. R. AYLWARD: The hon. the Member for St. John's South has to do it for the school if the Department of Transportation can't do it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. WALSH: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Tourism and Culture.

MR. WALSH: It is truly regrettable, Mr. Chairman, that the member, in his dying days of sitting in this House of Assembly, has to revert to innuendos and all the other things. Allow me to assure you that the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation has done a marvellous job in repairing the provincial wharf; but yet, the federal government today announced a wharf for the fishing industry that may never be needed. But they are willing to spend the money, and I am willing to see it go there - a nice, safe, boat basin for the fishermen - a brand new development. We welcome it in the district, and we welcome the money; it is a brand new one - never there before, never existed, about to be built, going to be put together, and we are happy to have it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: The only one in this House who talks about the dying days of a member in the House - how ironic, Mr. Chairman! You will never see the doors again after the next election, unless you are up there somewhere.

I will walk out voluntarily, but I don't say you will be back, ever again.

Mr. Chairman, I said flat out, and I ask the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to check it out, because it is not one instance. I know of two people to whom this was said. There are other members on this side of the House who have also had the same complaint. Before anyone knew one or the other had said it, it was said to different people - not to political people, it was said to community leaders in different parts of this Province, most of them who are in PC districts right now. Most of it was said by the same person, and that same person happened to be a former Liberal candidate. Whatever his name is, Rod Fowler or Fowlow - I am not sure which it is -

AN HON. MEMBER: Fowler.

MR. R. AYLWARD: - Fowler. That is the person who is saying it to - not to me; I don't care if he says it to me. I will admit to him that I would do it. I would be there tomorrow; I would do it. I don't mind admitting that. You are the ones who said you would never do it. This fellow here on the high horse - you see him out around Calgary on the high horse every now and then - he is the one who said: This would never happen under my direction. That is what the hon. King Clyde says in this House of Assembly, Mr. Chairman, and that is not true. It is happening, and it is happening more and more and more. The closer we get to an election, the more and more it happens.

Now, if 92 per cent of a water services budget from one department goes out in Liberal districts, and 8 per cent goes into areas that are just as needy, in PC districts, that is not sharing around the wealth, that is not spending it evenly. Even if you admitted you were doing it to get elected again - because you are going to have to pull some stings out of the bag - if you admitted you were doing it to get elected, I wouldn't argue with that. So what? That is politics, I would say. I would do it. I would try to do it, if I could; but I wouldn't be up here, two-faced, saying that I would never do it, that I wouldn't possibly do it, that it is not being done under my administration. I would never say it.

This $11 million make-work program was so ill-thought-out, there was no thought given to it at all. There couldn't have been until a week or so before it was announced. It was so bad that there wasn't even an application form that community development groups could go in and get and fill out to get their projects done. There wasn't even an application form from the Department of Employment and Labour Relations so that a person who had a project in mind could go in and they would say: What do you want? Here it is. Here is your application form. Fill that out. This is the information we are looking for, and we will have a look at it.

That has to be the most ill-prepared plan and it is probably - I have written the minister two-and-a-half weeks ago now, and asked him for a list of projects that were applied for, and a list of projects that were approved. I haven't heard a sound. I don't expect to ever hear a sound of it. I will never get that list. But if you approve a project today for anywhere, I don't care where it is, it is on a list. It is in the computer or something. It is only a matter of pushing a button and the list comes out. I don't know why you have to wait two-and-a-half weeks.

Another thing that is too bad about this $ll million program is that the Department of Agriculture didn't get any of the money. The forestry department got some. You were going doing some work for forestry, but agriculture got nothing, zero, not one cent. You never spent one nickel in agriculture in that department. It is the resource industry in our Province that has the most potential to grow, and we spend nothing on it, Mr. Chairman.

When you get a project in my district to improve pasture lands, that will leave long-term benefit for every dairy farmer in the eastern region of the Province - not only my district, but every dairy farmer all around Torbay and Outer Cove can all use that pasture land in there, because it is geared for dairy farmers, and they can't get a nickel, not a cent. They have applied for it under two different sections now. The Department of Labour asked for it, they asked your department, and now they are going to Social Services, Mr. Chairman, and they won't get it approved because it is in my district.

Now, I ask the Minister of Labour, if he is within earshot, to check on this Rod Fowler and see what directions or what information Rod Fowler was giving out to the people who were asking for information to apply for money for a government-sponsored make-work program.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. WARREN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to say a few words also. Listening to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, I think he made a statement during his comments that we shouldn't be giving false information in the House. Now, I am going to table this particular letter, because he did say that he only received replies from two members opposite, which is definitely incorrect, because I have a copy of a reply that I sent back to his department. That's number one.

The second thing I find most unusual, and maybe the minister can explain it to us - because it says here that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WARREN: Mr. Chairman, I say to my hon. colleague that this letter was written by a fellow by the name of C. Johnson on September 30, 1992. It says: 'Please be advised that these projects should be prioritized and returned to this office by noon, Friday, October 2. I refer to my friend that on October 1, it was faxed to 729-6639.

MR. R. AYLWARD: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Kilbride, on a point of order.

MR. R. AYLWARD: (Inaudible) about the hon. the Government House Leader drinking water in the House of Assembly, but as far as I understand, there are no beverages allowed in the House of Assembly except water, and probably the hon. member is drinking just water in a coffee cup, but I'm not sure.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, if I may, to that point of order. I was drinking a beverage -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: Am I allowed to speak to the point of order, Sir?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the House Leader will be recognized when he's in his place.

MR. ROBERTS: I am in my place.

MR. WARREN: Now you are.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I was in the - hold on, now. We hear from the lady from Humber East. What does she have to say?

MR. WARREN: Speak and forever hold your peace.

MR. ROBERTS: We hear now from the gentleman from Torngat Mountains.

AN HON. MEMBER: Go ahead.

MR. ROBERTS: Am I allowed to proceed?

MR. WARREN: Well, you're not going to run the show yourself! You're not going to run the show!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WARREN: What are you, a bodyguard or what?

AN HON. MEMBER: What's this?

MR. WARREN: A bodyguard.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, the hon. gentleman from Torngat is nothing but a sheep in wolf's clothing. Now, let me just come back to the point of order. The precincts of the House, Mr. Chairman, do not include the area where I was standing, but if I inadvertently offended my friend from Kilbride, I am the first to say I'm sorry, and it won't happen again.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, it is not for me to tell the gentleman -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I still have the floor, if my hon. friend would - Mr. Chairman, it is not for me to tell the hon. gentleman from Kilbride the rules of the House. He came in here, if memory serveth me, in 1979. You would think, in the thirteen years he has been here, he would have learned something of the rules. But if not, Sir, 'tis not for me to help him on that.

MR. R. AYLWARD: The hon. the Government House Leader has suggested that the precincts of this House are something that he has defined? I would ask the Chairman to define the precincts of this House. Mr. Chairman, I don't think you're allowed to be drinking coffee in the galleries, and I don't expect you're allowed to be drinking coffee over right next to the Member for Lewisporte.

MR. ROBERTS: Ask him to spell it, let alone define it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To the point of order. It is a tradition in the rules of this House that the only beverage to be consumed in the House is water. I can't determine what the hon. House Leader was drinking but if it was anything other than water I would ask that in future he would refrain.

MS. VERGE: After all those years.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

MR. WARREN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I was saying to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations that on page 2 of this particular document it said: Emergency Employment Response Program, 1992-1993. He lists five particular projects in my district, in Postville, Hopedale, Makkovik, Nain and Rigolet. At the same time, the dollar figures given to it are for 1992-93; however, it says total jobs, zero, total weeks, zero, although there are all together $31,900. So, I say to the hon. minister, if he is going to start some employment in the various districts and he is going to use the $31,000 or $32,000, surely goodness, there should have been some weeks of employment and, at the same time, some jobs created. Now, Mr. Chairman, I say to my hon. colleague and, in fact, I said earlier, that I did respond to his request on the 30th, which he failed to recognize.

Now, Mr. Chairman, earlier today in Question Period I found it most interesting that in answers to the questions from the Leader of the Opposition to the Premier, the Premier was trying to defend small business. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say this while my hon. colleague, the minister responsible for trade and technology, who is also the minister responsible for the five retail government stores on the Labrador Coast - at the same time the minister and the Premier are advocating that we have to support small business where necessary and small business have to pull their own load.

Now, I want to bring to the attention of the minister that for a number of years the government stores along the Labrador Coast were trying to accommodate small business retail stores wherever possible. However, on this past weekend, against the wishes of the managers, some 1,000 to 1,200 cases of two-litre soft drinks arrived in the depots, and here it is, getting complete competition. The government wasn't even selling chips, bars and soft drinks for the last number of years, and all of a sudden, this past weekend, going completely against the small businesses that rely on these confectionery items to make a few dollars, the minister's department ships in 1,200 cases of soft drinks. I should say, Mr. Chairman, at the same time, these are not the Pepsi or the Cola brands, but some other cheap brand that they are selling now for $1.58 compared to what a small business in Makkovik has to sell for $2.39, the Pepsi or the Coke product.

So I say to the minister what he has done is right against what the Premier is saying - cutting out small businesses. We are going to have small corner stores in those remote areas having very, very tough times by government competing against them with bars, chips and cheezies and things like that. At the same time, I say to the minister, there is no flour in some of the stores; at the same time there is no frozen chicken in some of the stores, at the same time there is no roast beef in some of the stores but they did see fit this weekend to bring in 1,200 cases of soft drinks. So, Mr. Chairman-

AN HON. MEMBER: Soft drinks?

MR. WARREN: Soft drinks, yes, soft drinks, competing against the small businesses in those little, tiny towns along the Labrador Coast. So, Mr. Chairman, I understood and it was understood by the minister's officials, and there was an agreement on it, a gentleman's or a lady's agreement with the small businesses in those communities, that we would not compete with those confectionery items -

AN HON. MEMBER: It is driving the prices up on the Coast of Labrador, is that what you want?

MR. WARREN: No, Mr. Chairman. Let me just say to my hon. colleague: I understand where my hon. colleague is coming from, he has not spent too much time on the Labrador Coast, but he should realize, Mr. Chairman, that come February month, this same government will be shipping in by aircraft, frozen products which should have already been brought in there, at a much higher price than it is now, that is what is going to happen.

It is as one of the employees said to me this morning, come February month, we will have to pay nine dollars for a chicken, whereas now, if it could have come in from Lewisporte on the boat, it would only cost us six or seven dollars, and this is what this government is going to do because now they are shipping in soft drinks, candies and bars and in the winter time, when the real food is needed, they will send it in and it will cost seventy or eighty cents a pound. This, I bring to the attention of the House. I bring it to the attention of the hon. member that this is exactly what has happened on this particular weekend, and we have this minister, a Minister of the Crown, who does not understand reality along the Labrador Coast.

MR. GRIMES: That is not true.

MR. WARREN: You do not understand reality my friend. You are so far, far removed from it, even in your thinking, you are still far, far removed from the reality of the Labrador Coast.

MR. GRIMES: What you are saying is not true.

MR. WARREN: Now, Mr. Chairman, my hon. colleague said, what I am saying is incorrect. I would say to my hon. colleague, it is correct, it is correct. As of today 1,200 cases of soft drinks arrived on the Labrador Coast into the government stores. I say to him also that the small businesses are upset about this, and furthermore it is a brand that is lower priced than the ordinary Pepsi or Coca Cola products.

I want to just say, Mr. Chairman, that while we are debating these issues, it is very, very important to realize that if we have a business such as the minister is running - and by the way, I have to say that the Public Accounts Committee, when we met with the minister's officials and the store managers, we were quite impressed with at least the straightforward answers that we received from them.

I was most interested in the manager in Hopedale. I will always remember the manager in Hopedale. He went on the Coast of Labrador in 1967 - in fact, the same year that I went there - and I asked him a question. I said: Ray, could you tell us if you have seen any changes with the government operations in the last twenty-five years? Surprisingly, his answer was: Very little. In twenty-five years he saw very little change. It goes to beg the question: Are we, as government, going to stay in that kind of a business that is costing taxpayers $500,000 a year; or are we going to pass it over to a co-operative movement which is recommended by the study; or are we just going to be in there and at the same time compete against the small, individual entrepreneur?

I suggest to my hon. colleague that he should check with his staff. In particular, I say this to him, which is very, very, upsetting: What happened this past weekend was completely uncalled for. The managers were not advised. The managers did not order the product. The only thing that happened was they received the documentation from head office, saying: Those drinks are on the way. Again it shows, as my hon. colleague from Mount Pearl, who was the Chairman of Public Accounts will know, it shows that the managers do not have any say in the operation of those individual retail operations.

Mr. Chairman, I can continue much longer but I understand that some of my colleagues want to say a few words; and I am afraid I will not pass the day unless my hon. House Leader does not have anything to say, or someone else, but I am finished now, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Minister of Finance, and the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to take a couple of minutes to report to the House, and I am sure that the finance critic opposite will be very pleased to hear about this, as to one-half million dollars of expenditure that we are now talking about that had to do with economic planning, the strategic plans and so on, in this special warrant there is half a million dollars that was appropriated for it. Up to date, the expenditure on this particular activity has been generally this: that there's been about $5,332 of that amount spent on supplies. There's been some travel other than the public consultations, an amount of about $4,500. That there's been the printing and so on, that's cost about $37,700. The rest of it, the rest of this expenditure, has been on some research and on the public consultation process undertaken by the Advisory Council on the Economy. As members know this Advisory Council travelled around the Province receiving input from people all over this Province, and they spent quite a bit of time at this.

So the expenditures here were primarily in terms of contact with people of the Province - receiving their input to a White Paper that was produced by government. I'm sure that the finance critic also will be pleased to note that the total expenditure, the actual cost, ended up being $431,218.24. Which means that there's a balance of $68,781.76 in terms of this particular activity. So the activity was budgeted, the expenditure came in close to the budgeted amount but did not go over the budgeted amount, which shows very good planning on the part of the people who were involved in this process.

So, Mr. Chairman, it was an excellent expenditure of money, mostly spent in contact with people around the Province, that was the main purpose of it, the consultation process that we always say we must do with the people of this Province, especially in terms of something as important as this document has been and will indeed be in the future. If you compare that to the $20 million that the feds spent on their plan, and you compare the two documents, I think you'll see that we have indeed been very frugal and conscious of spending the money that the people of this Province are contributing to our activities. So, Mr. Chairman, that's some information that I wanted to give.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

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 Bellevue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Supply have considered the matters to it referred, and wishes to report some progress and ask leave to sit again.

On motion, report received and adopted, Committee ordered to sit again on tomorrow.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, may I say in my first afternoon it is good to be back. Nothing has changed, really, I am happy to tell hon. members opposite. Nothing has changed at all except my jovial friend from Grand Bank is more jovial and more of my friend than ever.

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we shall carry on with this enlightening debate. Now that ladies and gentlemen opposite had their dress rehearsal I hope they will get it right tomorrow. On Wednesday we will be doing the motion from the Member for Ferryland. It is a day when the Opposition determine the order.

Let me mention, if I may, one housekeeping thing which I understand is acceptable to my hon. friend from Grand Bank.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: No, he is not learned, at least in the formal sense, but in the school of hard knocks perhaps, and more to come.

Mr. Speaker, the Revised Statutes of Newfoundland 1990, came into force on the first of June 1992, in the interval between the time the House rose and sat again today. Now the bills that were standing on the Order Paper when the House rose at the conclusion of the first part of this session have had to be re-printed because there are references in them - most of them are amending bills you will recall, Mr. Speaker - there are references in them to the statutes that were amended, all of which were either in the 1970 RSN's or were enacted in the period between 1970 and 1992.

So it is my understanding that we don't need to introduce them again and to give them first reading. They have been reprinted. The Clerk will ask the Pages to distribute them as the bills are called for debate. So I just want to advise the House and make sure it is in order so we don't have to introduce them and give them first reading again. There are no changes in substance except reference to the RSN's have been changed from RSN 1970 to RSN 1990. If that is in order I will proceed on that basis, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Will the hon. member move the adjournment?

MR. ROBERTS: Yes, I just wanted to be sure my learned friend from St. John's East, who is my learned friend, was of one mind.

I move that the House adjourn until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 2:00 p.m.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 2:00 p.m.