May 21, 1998 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLIII No. 29


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

Before we begin our routine proceedings the Chair would like to welcome to the Gallery today thirty-five students of Democracy class in Brother Rice High School, in the District of St. John's East, accompanied by teacher, Carino Jardine.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: As well, we have twenty-eight Level II students from Jane Collins' Academy in Hare Bay, in the District of Terra Nova, accompanied by teachers; Kirk Goulding and Shirley Goulding.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

 

Statements by Ministers

 

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to inform hon. members that I would table amendments to the Public Tender Act in the House of Assembly this afternoon. Earlier today, representatives of various groups and organizations joined with me in a press conference to outline the general directions of those amendments.

I would like first of all to acknowledge the interest in this consultation process and express my appreciation to all interest groups for their cooperation and for their candid discussion of the issues surrounding the Public Tender Act. During the consultation process, more than 100 individuals attended the public information sessions and my Department received more than forty written submissions. This was an open process which fostered debate and dialogue on how legislation governing procurement practices should be structured.

Mr. Speaker, we heard a lot of positive comments about the Public Tender Act and about the importance of preserving the spirit of the Act and the principles of fairness, competition and openness. The amendments I am introducing into the House today, Mr. Speaker, respect and maintain those principles.

Among some of the most significant amendments is the establishment of a Registry of locally produced products which will be used as a reference point, wherever possible, in calling tenders. This move is intended to give local businesses a fair opportunity to bid on government contracts and on subcontracts. Also, Mr. Speaker, we will be making provisions to allow Requests for Proposals under special circumstances. In addition, exemptions for economic development purposes will be permitted in some instances. Government is also introducing a modest increase in thresholds for inflationary purposes. As well, we are opening the door to electronic tendering by removing the statutory requirement for adverting all tender calls in a generally circulated newspaper.

Mr. Speaker, for the most part, the way we procure goods and services will not change. Low price will continue to be the primary factory in awarding contracts, however, we must also make provisions for unique instances that may arise from time to time.

The amendments that I am tabling today represent the views and concerns of a variety of groups and organizations representing both the private and the public sectors. We have worked closely with all of our partners to strengthen the legislation for the benefit of all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank the minister for a copy of his statement, a full ten minutes before the House sat today; an improvement, Mr. Speaker. I thank him for that.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the minister's statement: Consultation Process, again it is a good thing. Finally, Mr. Speaker, they are starting to listen to some of the public out there, something we have been calling for, for some time.

On this side of the House, the member for St. John's South had public meetings himself, over the past winter, with regard to manufacturers inside the Province.

The registry of locally produced products: A good thing again, Mr. Speaker. We called for that also on this side of the House. It gives access and opportunity to local businesses, Mr. Speaker.

Now, with respect to the request for proposals: I had some concerns when this was spoken about, that the minister would make changes to the Public Tender Act, and that, in actual fact, it may weaken the Public Tender Act. I have concerns that the request for proposals section may, in actual fact, weaken the Public Tender Act.

One aspect of it is, that it gives to much power to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology in unique situations. Who is going to define unique situations, Mr. Speaker? The minister, in his release this morning, at his press conference, referred to the fact that in these situations of request for proposals we report to the House of Assembly. If that is going to be the case, I would suggest that in the reports to the House, the first thing that would have to be available would be: Why was there a request for proposal over the Public Tender Act?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. J. BYRNE: There should be an evaluation, a criteria report included -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. J. BYRNE: By leave, Mr. Speaker, just to clue up.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. J. BYRNE: There should be an evaluation, a criteria report, Mr. Speaker. Who decides on the rationale for the decisions, and who gets the contract, Mr. Speaker, and how much is the contract worth?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

Does he have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

The Chair asked if there was leave, and my understanding was that there was no leave. Members on this side of the House said there was no leave.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: By leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We welcome improvements to the Public Tender Act. We know there have been some significant problems with government's operation of the existing act, and we ought to be very weary of what changes might be made in the request for proposals. I would also look for some improvement, Mr. Speaker, in the area of subcontractors where we have general contractors, after they get a tender, going around, shopping it around, and doing improper things with these contracts.

Mr. Speaker, I would also welcome an approach to a fair wages condition in public tendering so we don't have people bidding down the wages of workers, and particularly construction workers in this Province. That should be part of the Public Tender Act improvements as well.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce today government's decision with respect to the community fish plant at Lawn, one of only three remaining government-owned processing facilities on the Island portion of our Province.

Over the years this plant was leased to a number of companies, but it has been idle since 1994 because of the impact of the groundfish moratoria.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to announce that government is selling the Lawn facility to Grand Atlantic Incorporated, the company that owns the fish plant in the nearby Town of St. Lawrence. Essentially, the Lawn plant will now be integrated with the St. Lawrence operation, which employed an average of 250 people per week in 1997, with employment peaking at times to more than 500.

This divestiture will be beneficial to the economies of the towns of Lawn and St. Lawrence and the surrounding region. Grand Atlantic, having invested several million dollars or more in refurbishing the St. Lawrence plant to permit the processing of snow crab primarily, is actively pursuing the diversification of its operations into other species. Access to the Lawn facility will therefore further strengthen the role which it will pay in the local economy, given prospects for the recovery of 3Ps cod.

Grand Atlantic's operational plans for Lawn will only enhance the viability of the St. Lawrence plant but will also provide additional jobs for plant workers from Lawn, exclusive of approximately seventy-five workers from Lawn who have already received employment at St. Lawrence. Initially, an additional twenty plant workers will find employment at Lawn, where the principal emphasis will be on the production of salted fish. In this context, Grand Atlantic will invest approximately $500,000 in the refurbishing of the Lawn plant without assistance from the Province. It is anticipated that the workforce at both locations will total upwards of 500 in 1998, thereby having a major economic impact on the region's economy.

Mr. Speaker, it is government's full intention to remove itself completely from the ownership of community-based fish processing facilities, and to see the industry driven fully by private sector investment. Government's decision with respect to the Lawn plant is fully consistent with this policy objective. It is also consistent with government's regional fish processing objectives in that the combined operations of both plants will ensure that the regional processing capacity in the area is optimized.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are certainly happy over here to hear that news, and happy for the people in Lawn, I say to the minister. When you hear of twenty people going to work in a community the size of Lawn, it would be probably the equivalent to 200 or 300 going to work right here in the City of St. John's. That is about the only economic activity that we are going to see in some of those rural areas, activity that is going to come from the fishery in this Province.

I have read the minister's statement. I thank him for providing it to me prior to the opening of the House. I thought I might see there what money the Province got for the sale of this particular facility, since the minister said it was sold to Grand Atlantic. I also wonder if the minister now is doing a double take, because the minister continues to talk about overcapacity in the processing industry. What the minister is doing is putting all the government-owned plants right back into processing capacity again. He has talked about that there are only two out of the three remaining, which hopefully will go back in processing again. I am wondering how the minister can stand here on one hand and say we need to reduce capacity in processing -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: - and on the other hand take government-owned plants that have been closed since 1992 and open them up and put them right back in the industry again. I would like some clarification -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: - from the minister on those particular issues.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, does he have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased to hear the news from the minister today that the people of Lawn will have an opportunity to work in the fish plant in the next short while. I am very pleased also that Grand Atlantic is prepared to make the kind of investment it is in innovative products, and hopefully they will be successful at that. However, I don't think we should say that the only kind of fish plant or fish operation should be exclusively private. We have some terrific examples of community, economic-based fishery and fishing operations (inaudible) the Fogo Island Co-op, and the Fishermen's Union Shrimp Company -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: - and others which should also play an important role in our fishery and our community development activities.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the inability to reach property agreements with the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation is interfering with school board plans for renovations and reorganization of existing school resources in time for the September, 1998-99 school year. I am referring specifically to the situation surrounding Dunne Memorial Academy, Dunne Primary, and St. Anne's school in District 9, as well as St. Joseph's High School, St. George's, in District 4. The two projects, Mr. Speaker, involve $4.3 million worth of extensions and renovations and are intended to improve facilities for over 600 students in the two areas.

In July of 1997, almost a year ago, the Department of Education authorized funding for these two projects; and since that date, despite the efforts of the boards to reach an agreement with the RC Episcopal Corporation, their attempts have been unsuccessful.

Section 84 of The Schools Act, 1997, requires the denominational authority to enter into an agreement with the school board before the board can expend any funds to renovate, refurbish, modernize or add new construction components. All parties concerned with these two projects are meeting today and I urge them to resolve the situation without further delay. Failing that, Mr. Speaker, government is prepared to take the legislative action necessary to resolve this serious problem if boards and the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation are unable to reach a satisfactory agreement.

All planning leading to an expenditure on these projects is in limbo at this point because of this negotiating impasse. The result is that the children in these areas, over 600 of them, may not be provided with the types of educational facilities conducive to their learning experiences. I am very concerned that if agreement is not reached shortly there will be no work possible in these facilities this summer, and another school year will pass before much needed work can commence.

Mr. Speaker, we have the responsibility to ensure that the schools in question, and for that matter all schools, are ready for student occupancy in time for the September 1998-99 school year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have great difficulty with this statement, Mr. Speaker, and I will tell you why: because this is the way of the hammer. This is the way of the legislative hammer, the legislative threat.

What this minister ought to do is show leadership, Mr. Speaker, by providing the resources, by providing the personnel, to the parties who are involved in negotiation, to hopefully work out a resolution and to resolve this dispute. That is what the minister should do. He should not hold this legislative hammer over all parties. He should in fact offer resources, offer the personnel, and assist in the hopes of a speedy resolution. That is what he can do.

He can also go a step further. Section 84 of the act includes denominational authorities and the boards. Why not include and invite the citizens of the various communities so that they can have some say also in the hopes of a speedy resolution? I say to the minister, no more legislative threats, no more hammer approach. Let's work it out with leadership by his own department.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, does he have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think we all understand in the Province that ultimately the public interest gives the Province the power to expropriate private property, or in this case a school, and Section 84 of the education act deals with some of these issues. I think we should be very wary of making sure that this is a last resort in the kind of delicate situation we have between church and state in the Province. Perhaps we should better be talking about the kind of principles that might be involved in an appropriate negotiation, the kind of principles that might be involved in compensation, and the kind of principles that should guide us to a solution before we start talking about using the hammer of legislation.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

 

Oral Questions

 

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to ask, again, some questions of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology with the closure of BPS Imaging. Can the minister confirm that HRDC, the day this centre opened, began to subsidize 100 per cent, all of the salaries for employees at that company?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to answer any questions that have to do with the provincial government's funding of the centre. Any questions on federal funding should be put to the federal government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I have spoken to HRDC officials who have indicated they have been working with the Province since day one on this issue, and that actually their subsidy amounted to $8,000 per job, which was on top of the $5,000 per job the Province provided, which was actually $13,000 per job. Maybe the minister can confirm this: that in fact each and every month that centre was open, HRDC provided $110,000 up front to cover the salary costs. Can the minister confirm that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: I guess, I don't know, Mr. Speaker, maybe the hon. member is getting to some point. Whatever the federal government provided, the federal government provided. It was their decision to do that. I have been dealing with the money that was put forward by the Province. I said up front that the money the Province put into this centre was to attract the centre. It was to deal with the things like the cost of equipment, start-up costs, that go into establishing a call centre. If the hon. member has questions he wants to put to HRD, then he should put them to HRD.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the minister. Yesterday she tabled a document in the House which said that part of the money the Province gave to this company - she said that a loan guarantee of $200,000 was put in place at the request of BPS by Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador; $53,500 of this was drawn down to cover the payroll of May 8, 1998, pending receipt of traditional job funding.

You cannot have it both ways. Traditional job funding was provided up front each and every month, not after the fact, so there was no waiting period. The question I ask the minister is: How is it that we can pay $53,000 on top of salaries that have already been paid?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, we had every indication that money would flow from HRD; there was no question about that. It was when the demise of the call centre took place and the closure took place, when the sheriff went in there, HRD stopped flowing the money.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: For the record, Mr. Speaker, the payroll was paid up front. Any payroll money that the Province put in was in addition to, so it would not be covering 100 per cent of the salaries; but the payroll money that the Province put in could amount to 120 per cent of salaries. That is how ridiculous the situation is.

Let me ask the minister this: Can she confirm that there was sufficient enough funds provided to the call centre to pay all of the employees up until last Friday? If she can confirm that, the question remains, then: Why is it that employees are still two weeks out of salary?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Now, Mr. Speaker, the member has hit on something that is of interest to me and that is the salaries that are owing to those employees. That is a real concern for us, and one on which we are working very diligently. We have been dealing with the committee that has been struck. Officials in my department have been speaking with a Ms Puddicombe on this, and the whole point is to try and make sure that these people are not out of pocket. That is the priority here, Mr. Speaker.

We have people here who worked and are entitled to receive money for the hours that they put in. We are working very hard through the Labour Standards Division of the Department of Environment and Labour to try and do everything we possibly can to help them realize the money that is coming to them.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, can the minister confirm that four weeks ago she was informed by HRD officials that an audit would be done, which in fact was three weeks before the call centre closed?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, we met with HRD about the possibility of an audit and they expressed some concerns. We encouraged them to go for the audit, but we also had an understanding with HRD that as long as that centre remained open they would flow the salary money.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: You were aware then, three weeks prior to the centre closing down, that HRD were going to conduct an audit because of some significant concerns they had. Is that what the minister is saying?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I am aware that HRD was going to conduct an audit, yes.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. E. BYRNE: The minister said she was aware of an audit. Yesterday, the minister in the House indicated that there was no need for the Province to do an audit of BPS Imaging due to the fact that HRDC was already carrying out such a procedure.

Would the minister please inform the House, then, of her department's participation in the Terms of Reference of this audit - especially in view of the fact that she knew about it four weeks ago - and indicate those terms which specifically specify that provincial sources of funding will be traced and accounted for?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, in the discussions that my officials have had with HRD there is a comprehensive audit being done by a very reputable firm, and we are waiting for the results of that audit. We want to make sure, of course, that if that audit is not complete we will go for an audit. But, Mr. Speaker, why would we duplicate efforts? It does not make sense. There is a comprehensive audit being done.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Did the Province participate in the Terms of Reference for this audit to ensure that the provincial money that was spent was accounted for, yes or no?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, HRD is doing an audit. We will wait for the outcome of that audit, which I expect will be finished this week, or so HRD says. If that audit does not come through with the type of information we are looking for, we will do our own audit. But, Mr. Speaker, we are not about to duplicate efforts if there is in fact a comprehensive audit being done.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SULLIVAN: You duplicated payrolls.

MR. E. BYRNE: A good point, I say from the House Leader and Member for Ferryland, that government did not mind duplicating payrolls but they do not want to duplicate audit efforts to ensure that the public interests are being protected.

Mr. Speaker, the provision of funding for BPS Imaging was no doubt covered by a contract between the Province and the company. Can the minister table that contract, or a copy of that contract, in the House for all to see?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to answer whatever questions the hon. member wants to put to me on this call centre: on the demise of the call centre; on the money that went into the call centre; on why the money went into the call centre; on the number of employees that were employed. I am not about to go tabling a contract between the private sector company and the government on this call centre.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, is the minister saying that close to $1 million of public money is not open for public scrutiny in this House? Is that what the minister is saying? I ask her again: Will she table the contract between her department, the government and the company, in the House? Will she do that, Mr. Speaker, yes or no?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, let me say again, there is an individual called the Auditor General who will look into whatever happened in this case. That is to whom we have to report. I am answering whatever questions there are to answer with respect to this contract. Again, whatever questions the hon. member opposite wants to ask, I will answer.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I can tell you, it would be the first time an answer came to the questions I have asked on this issue in the last three days.

Let me ask the minister this: The demise of BPS Imagining and the start-up of Cabot Call Centre seem to have occurred sequentially. What part has the availability of provincial funding, which is a legitimate question I would think, played in the deterioration of the partnership of BPS Imagining? And have we paid twice for one call centre, Minister?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, again the member is out in left field.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS FOOTE: What has happened here, Mr. Speaker, is that the initial call centre started up. The second call centre started up on December 2. The problems with the ice storm and other problems did not come into play until January. The second partner decided to remove himself from the partnership the end of January. No, it is not the same call centre. They were not even doing the same type of business. The hon. member knows that BPS Imagining was doing portrait studio business for the Bay. The business he is in now is the selling of magazines and charitable donations. It is a totally different business, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: My understanding is that last January or February when the Vice-President of the Hudson Bay Company came down and indicated to the company that they were no longer independently owned, that they would be branching out into other products and services like magazines. Can the minister confirm that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot confirm that the Bay will be branching out into selling magazines. I do not even know if the Bay is into selling magazines. I can tell you that the Bay carries 40 licences - licences for things like carpet cleaning, drapery cleaning, portrait studios, any number of licences. But no, Mr. Speaker, I do not know if magazines is one of them. I do know that the business that is being done now through Cabot Call Centre is not for work on behalf of the Bay.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, maybe it is me. One hundred per cent of the salaries were provided, another $800,000 worth of forgivable loans provided on top of that, and the company goes bankrupt. Now, am I the only one who wants to ask some questions on this? Why is the minister not being more forthcoming?

Let me ask her this: Can the minister inform the House where the Province's investment went? For example, was it used to purchase equipment? If so, how much of it was used to purchase equipment?

Was it used to pay outside consultants? If so, how much of it was used to pay outside consultants? Was any of it used to pay salaries? If so, how much of our investment was used to pay salaries? And was any of our investment into this company used to pay or buy out any one of the partners when their relationship dissolved?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I have said from day one that this is a competitive business, that what we have done is no different than what is done in any other jurisdiction when you are competing for this type of business. The $800,000 was a request that was made. If the company had not gone here, it would have gone to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, who were competing on the same basis that we were. What we put up front - the $800,000 - was to cover start-up costs, recognizing the cost of putting in place call centres, and the equipment costs that go with that. Mr. Speaker, there is no breakdown of how that $800,000 was spent. It was $800,000 that was put in to attract a company here that would see 160 people employed.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minster of Finance and Treasury Board.

Minister, the Public Service Commission was established in 1973 as an arm's-length body to set standards and procedures to be followed in recruitment and selection in the Province's public sector. It was established to bring the public service out of the Dark Ages, when hiring was done on political favours, whims, and what have you. Will the minister confirm that over the past two years this government has moved away from that and is actually sidestepping the Public Service Commission?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When the hon. member made the comment that the Public Service Commission was brought in to bring the government hiring out of the Dark Ages, I thought he was going to ask for its assistance in recruiting Tory candidates for the next election.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. DICKS: No, Mr. Speaker, that is not the case.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis, a supplementary.

MR. J. BYRNE: Could you repeat the whole answer, in full, please?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: No, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis, a supplementary.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, he confirmed in the Estimates Committee meetings they were getting away from the Public Service Commission. I am not surprised that the government is ashamed to be up front about this decision regarding getting away from the Public Service Commission, because it is shameful.

I ask the minister: Why is the Public Service Commission substantially reduced? Why is funding reduced for the Public Service Commission? And, is government being dangerously liberal in its interpretation of the legislation setting out the role of the Public Service Commission?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: No, Mr. Speaker. Far from being dangerously liberal, we are being admirably conservative in our approach.

The government has done very little hiring in the last several years. One of the issues in Program Review was whether or not we needed it, and the issue was raised in the Estimates here last year and the year before, whether or not we needed a Public Service Commission the size that it was, which was in excess of thirty people.

We decided that with the extent of hiring that was occurring it was not necessary. What we have done is, we have devolved to the departments the responsibility for hiring, the responsibility for training, the responsibility for management of its personnel, and we have asked the Public Service Commission - and required it - to perform an audit function of the departments to ensure they are complying with the appropriate legislated hiring standards of government. That is being done.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis, a supplementary.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister confirmed in the Estimates Committee meetings, Mr. Speaker, that the departments are doing the hiring now and not the Public Service Commission. The Public Service Commission was never intended to be a rubber stamp to give the false appearance of legitimacy to politically motivated decisions.

Will the minister admit that moving away from the Public Service Commission, it leaves the public to wonder if people on the public payroll are hired or promoted on the basis of factors other than merit, qualifications and experience?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Of course not, Mr. Speaker. The hiring in government is done at the departmental level under the supervision of the Public Service Commission. The candidates are ranked according to merit, and the government is required and does in fact hire the top ranked candidate.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

Can the minister confirm that the former Deputy Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, as well as Works, Services and Transportation, Mr. John Abbott, has been rehired by his department?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. A. REID: That is correct, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South, a supplementary.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Can the minister confirm that there are going to be some changes to his department, and that they may well see the collapsing of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation into the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, so that Newfoundland and Labrador Housing will be no more?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. A. REID: It sounds like a good idea, Mr. Speaker.

No, I cannot confirm that, Mr. Speaker. The government has hired a new Chief Executive Officer of the Housing Corporation; he has been assigned new duties at the Housing Corporation. We were in the process of making some changes at the Housing Corporation, as we have been doing the last year. He will continue the devolution mandate that the previous chief executive officer had. I am not in any position to say to this House or to the Province what he is going to do or what is going to happen at the end of the day. We are in that process right now.

He started work on Tuesday morning and I am going to let him get his feet wet for a few days at least. I guess he will come back to me, and ultimately to Cabinet, and we will then make the decision on what is going to happen at Newfoundland and Labrador Housing.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South, a supplementary.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Also, can the minister tell me today if there will be any loss of jobs as a result of the restructuring of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing and his department? And is this the reason Mr. Abbott has been hired, to oversee the job losses, despite the fact that the Minister of Finance promised in this particular Budget that there would be no more job losses in the public service?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. A. REID: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is asking me a question that I cannot really answer. I just finished saying that he is doing a review, the same basic review as the previous deputy minister, or chief executive officer, was doing.

The commitment to this government is to try our utmost to save as many jobs as we can when we make changes to departments. I do not know, at the end of the day, what is going to happen to any of the departments. I do not know at this particular point in time. I can only say to the hon. member, that we will do everything in our power to try to maintain and preserve what jobs we can. I do not know what will happen to Newfoundland and Labrador Housing at the end of the day, so I do not even know if there will be any jobs displaced.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South, final supplementary.

MR. FRENCH: I would also like to say, Mr. Speaker: Of course, we are not questioning the ability of the person who has been hired. That is not the issue here. The issue is: Will there be job losses or not? Regardless of what spin the Premier of the Province might want to put on it, that is not the case and that is not the idea of the questions.

How soon does the minister expect to have some kind of a report from the new Chairman of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing in this regard?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. A. REID: Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that the new chairman will report to me in the next week or two. At that point in time, I then have the responsibility to report to the Premier and the Cabinet. At that time, Cabinet will make a decision, I guess, on the recommendations that the new executive officer will be putting forth.

I cannot answer the hon. gentleman's question, Mr. Speaker. It is just so hypothetical at this point in time that I am at a loss to be able to say anything, other than I will let him know at the end of the day. When we decide all these things, I will let him know. I cannot make any commitment or make any comment on job losses over there at this particular point in time. There are no decisions made on that. I do not think he has to worry about it at this particular point in time.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods, a couple of questions, Mr. Speaker, concerning watershed management.

I would like to ask the minister, if the Gander River Management Plan has been approved by his department.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources sand Agrifoods.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question.

The Gander River Management Plan Study and Evaluation has been submitted for the past year-and-a-half. The only thing that has been approved is the River Specific License Pilot Project. Other science and rehabilitation work on the river has been carried out over the past few years. That is the extent of what has been approved.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South, a supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to ask the minister, if the part of the Gander River Management Plan, whereby this particular management group is allowed to charge an extra fee for salmon anglers on that particular river, has been approved by his department.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, it was announced almost a year ago, that there would be a two-year pilot project on the Gander River, which would see a Gander River Specific License implemented. That would allow for fishermen, interested anglers, to fish the Gander and have this specific licence. That is the only river in the Province where that project is under way. We are looking at the second year of that right now. Again, that is the only river where we are doing it.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South, a supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I understand that most, if not all, Minister, of the Gander River Management Plan has been approved by your department.

Minister, in that particular management plan titled, It Can Be done From Concept To Implementation, it clearly states on page 11, and I quote: That all major habitat problems on the Gander River have been rectified over the past three years.

Minister, how can community watershed management be about river enhancement if the Gander River Management Plan clearly states, that all major habitat problems on this particular river have already been rectified?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, to correct the member: The management plan that they submitted is over 150 pages. There are all kinds of suggestions in their management plan, all kinds of recommendations, and it is based on consultation in the Central Newfoundland Region.

We have looked at certain proposals, we have accepted certain ones, and certain ones we have not. We are concerned, though, about the science in Newfoundland and Labrador on our rivers and we are talking to them about increasing the science effort and helping enhancement - to the credit of the (inaudible), there has been some enhancement on the Gander River. They have done some tremendous work over the last two, three or four years, and it has helped the Gander River.

We have a big concern, because last year there was supposed to be a major run of salmon. DFO had planned for that with their science people and that didn't occur. So there is still a lot more to know about the salmon resource of our Province, and we hope that we will have more volunteers to help us do that.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Minister, as you know, there is a lot of confusion out there regarding watershed management on both sides of this issue; and I posed a question to the Premier a few days ago.

I ask the minister, if he has thought about holding public forums to allow those people to come forward in an organized way to put forward their concerns and suggestions, and a chance for those people to advance their views and concerns.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, we have been dealing with those concerns, ongoing, for the last couple of months. We have met with some of the groups. We are meeting also with some more groups in the next couple of weeks. We are considering the possibility of a further consultation process, and in due course we will indicate our direction on that. We want to make sure that we clear up any misunderstanding about what has been approved and what has not been improved.

We would ask the member for the Opposition to understand what the answer is: That when it comes specifically to the Gander River project there is only part of that proposal approved, and the rest is not. That is it.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Environment and Labour. The Workers' Compensation Review Committee presented its report at least a full year ago. It was made public last fall.

Can the minister tell the House, and the injured workers of this Province, when he is going to announce changes that will fulfil the recommendations and significantly improve the lot of injured workers in this Province, and repair some of the damage that was done as a result of legislation introduced after the Workers' Compensation review of 1992?

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

MR LANGDON: Mr. Speaker, thank you.

I want to assure the hon. member that over the next little while we will be bringing the recommendations that have been proposed to the House to the groups concerned.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Perhaps he could clarify that. If what he is saying is, in fact, true, I think the 1,500 people who have signed these cards, along with the other 9,000 or 10,000 who have already presented to the government and Premier, will be pleased to know - if the minister is saying the recommendations will be brought to the House and implemented, I would be very pleased to report that to them. Can the minister confirm that indeed is what he said?

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

MR LANGDON: We have evaluated the report, Mr. Speaker, and we have diligently looked at the recommendations. Over the next few days I can say that we will outline the recommendations that we have accepted from this report for the injured workers and for the employers to see.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It appears he is pulling back his statement now.

Will he increase the compensation for injured workers to 85 per cent after thirty-nine weeks? Will he reduce the CPP offset? Will he change the deeming provision? Will he remove the top-up prohibition? Will he do the positive things the report required to be done to re-balance the Workers' Compensation Commission between injured workers and employers?

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

MR LANGDON: Mr. Speaker, if I were to answer that question I would reveal all of the things we have done before I have a chance to talk to the stakeholders. I will do that over the next few days, and obviously then you will be able to see what recommendations we have brought forward.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal. Of course the anxiety is continuing to build, especially in rural parts of Newfoundland, as we wait and speculate on what is going to happen with the news TAGS program, specifically for the 2,000 people who have come off recently, and people who have been coming off in the last little while.

I would like to ask the minister: Depending on what happens with this program, which we will find out, hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, what is your department doing to prepare in case there is an inadequate response from Ottawa? What is the provincial government ready to do?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I have to give the hon. gentleman the same answer that I gave to his friend from Bonavista South some two or three weeks ago, when he asked the same question. I am not prepared, at this point in time, to hold up my hands to the federal government and say: Hey, we are going to solve your problems for you. But rest assured, we will do everything to ensure that the people who are coming off TAGS get their just rewards, which is a living hopefully.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

MR. SHELLEY: I say to the minister, Mr. Speaker: With all due respect, people are getting more anxious everyday because there are more people going to be looking for those few jobs that are going to be around, especially for the spring of the year.

I will say to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs then: Some project money was used this fall which was put to some good use in some communities. It is certainly not long term, but at the same time it is very useful in a lot of communities for the short term, Mr. Speaker, and a lot of people made very good use of those projects.

I would like to ask the minister: What does he see forthcoming for this spring, especially for people coming off TAGS and everybody else who are looking for money?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. A. REID: Mr. Speaker, for one, I am hoping and praying - and I am serious when I say praying - that the federal government comes up with a program to replace the TAGS program or at least continue the TAGS program.

MR. EFFORD: They must.

MR. A. REID: I am not even going to accept the fact that they are not going to do it. I can only say that they will do it. I know in my heart and soul they will do it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. A. REID: Therefore, I don't know if there is a need for me to answer the question, other than to say -

MR. EFFORD: I wouldn't answer it.

MR. A. REID: I say to the hon. member, thank you very much for congratulating this side and the government for coming up with the creative program that we did come up with to provide a few people with a few weeks of work. I don't have anything this year in my budget to continue that but I am sure, as the year goes on and if the government on this side can find a few extra dollars to put into a new program, I can assure the member that he will get his share the same as everybody else in the House. We will, hopefully, if we need to and we have the money to do it, be able to provide some needed work for some people out there. But I hope that none of the people that are on TAGS today are going to be in that situation. I hope it is not TAGS people.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has ended.

 

Notices of Motion

 

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

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act."

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

WHEREAS May is Multiply Sclerosis Awareness Month across Atlantic Canada and 1998 marks the 50th anniversary of the MS movement in Canada; and

WHEREAS MS is the most common disease of the central nervous system affecting young adults in Canada today; and

WHEREAS it is roughly estimated that one in every 500 Atlantic Canadians and their families is affected by this devastating and unpredictable disease; and

WHEREAS the Atlantic Division of the MS Society of Canada is a `not for profit' organization committed to achieving its mission of being a leader in finding a cure for MS and enabling people affected by MS to enhance their quality of life;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that all members of this House acknowledge and support the Atlantic Division of the MS Society of Canada for their dedicated efforts in finding a cure for MS and improving the quality of life for those who face the challenges of this disease, in particular, promoting accessibility to new breakthrough therapies that have been clinically proven to significantly improve the quality of life for many individuals with Multiply Sclerosis.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Public Tender Act". (Bill No. 24)

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Provide For Participation By The Province In An Intergovernmental Joint Purchasing Agreement And To Repeal The Provincial Preference Act."

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, having just heard the resolution laid down by the Opposition House Leader on the question of Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month and the clauses that are contained therein, I think I can say on behalf of this side of the House that we are prepared if, Mr. Speaker, you deem it appropriate and consent of the House is given, to give immediate passage to this resolution as an expression of the will of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I certainly don't have any problem with that. I think it would certainly be appropriate. The more expeditiously we can get the approval of the House here on this and move forward to achieving some of the particular things we are resolved to do, the better.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad to see that both sides of the House are prepared to deal with this right now. In fact, it was my suggestion that we deal with this because it seems to me that we should, on an occasion such as this, where the efforts of this organization to raise awareness about Multiple Sclerosis, and the importance of this disease, and the debilitating nature of the disease that affects so many people, that we approve the resolution right now. I would support its unanimous passage.

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, on this side, we would ask that this resolution be recorded as being unanimously approved.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

So it is not necessary then for the Chair, at this point in time, to put the resolution? Do you want to do that or just -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) unanimous approval.

MR. SPEAKER: Okay.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: No, that is fine, as long as it is recorded.

On motion, resolution unanimously adopted.

 

Petitions

 

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

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

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of the Catholic Women's League of Canada, St. Thomas of Villanova Parish, in the Topsail district. This particular petition, Mr. Speaker, expresses displeasure with the recent decision to reduce welfare payments to families by the amount given through the Child Tax Benefit, and is signed by seventeen residents of my district. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read it into the record:

This petition to the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned members of the Catholic Women's League of Canada, Topsail district, in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, ask for the House of Assembly to accept the following prayer:

We, the undersigned members of the Catholic Women's League of Canada, of Topsail district, do hereby petition the House of Assembly to direct the Department of Human Resources and Employment to review the recent decision to reduce funding to recipients by the amount of the Child Tax Benefit.

Now, Mr. Speaker, these particular residents are expressing their concerns. My colleague, the Minister of Human Resources and Employment, along with fellow ministers across the country, designed the National Child Benefit to have three goals, Mr. Speaker. One was to help ensure an effective response in preventing and reducing child poverty; to promote attachment to the workforce, resulting in fewer families having to rely on social assistance; and to reduce the overlap and duplication.

Mr. Speaker, the fund that this group is concerned about is a redirection of provincial social assistance funds freed up by the increase in Child Tax Benefits, a corresponding decrease in provincial assistance related to children for basic needs. This redirection goes into additional benefit services for all low-income families, Mr. Speaker. Let me point out that this arrangement will not result in any income loss for social assistance families because the amount of money they are getting under social assistance would now appear under Canada Child Benefit cheques.

This arrangement increases the benefits available to low-income families to equal more closely the level available to clients of social assistance. It also gives the Province more financial flexibility to design additional benefits or services to assist low-income families and their children. Let me point out, Mr. Speaker, that our government is committed to helping the underprivileged in our society and this will not change.

This change will not see a decrease in funding for those on social assistance, but rather a different source of funding. It is a long-term plan, Mr. Speaker, which will reduce child poverty by providing families with incentives to move from social assistance to the workforce and I, as the Member for Topsail, applaud the Catholic Women's League for their concern for those on social assistance and I am pleased to present this petition on their behalf.

I want to stress, Mr. Speaker, to the members of this House and our constituents, that the goal of eliminating child poverty is something for which we all strive, and this new National Child Benefit is a move in the right direction.

Mr. Speaker, it is always difficult when you sit in government and you have a multitude of problems that you have to deal with and decisions have to be made. When the Minister of Human Resources and Employment met with her colleagues across the country and they put together this particular program, it was in agreement that this would provide to those in most need an opportunity to better themselves.

I can understand the resistance to change. There are people who do not want to change. We in this Province have carried on the same program probably, I think, since 1949, and it is time to make that change, to try and make a difference to those who need it most.

What I am asking today, on behalf of the Catholic Women's League in my district, is that this government, and the Minister of Human Resources and Employment, review the program they have put forth, and if there is a possibility that they can make adjustments to the program, or whatever they see fit, that we can make the lives of those people more productive, and especially the children. All of us will agree that it is the children who we have to foster and make sure they get the right nutritional foods, the right programs, so that we can change the direction of where we are going.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you very much for your time.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this. Perhaps I could see the petition. I was listening to the member speak on the petition, and the words that I heard don't seem to be supported by the comments of the minister, that: ...the undersigned members of the Catholic Women's League of Canada, of Topsail district, hereby petition the House of Assembly to direct the Department of Human Resources and Employment to review the recent decision to reduce funding to recipients by the amount of the Child Tax Benefit.

Mr. Speaker, what this member has said is that the government is not reducing the payments to anybody in this Province.

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader on a point of order.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, as I understand it, there are very clear rules laid out for the presentation of and the speaking to petitions in this House. One of the rules is that the petition not be debated, and that there not be a debate between members, that we confine ourselves to the subject matter of the petition and whether indeed you support the petition yourself. I would ask the Speaker to see if the hon. gentleman is relevant to this petition.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, the hon. member is correct. Every member offering a petition to the House of Assembly shall confine himself or herself to the statements of the parties from who it is comes, the number of signatures attached to it, and the material allegation it contains. The petitions are not to be debated in the House.

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Let me confine myself to the words of the Catholic Women's League, Mr. Speaker: We, as members of the Catholic Women's League of Canada, and as concerned Canadian citizens, would like to express our displeasure at the provincial decision to reduce their welfare payments to families by the amount given through the Child Tax Benefit. This is discrimination and gives no benefit to families who could probably use it the most. As our government representative, we request that something be done to end this unfair practice.

That was the petition from the Catholic Women's League. What we have here is another one with Ralph Wiseman's signature on it, and Rick Woodford, and Wally Andersen signed a petition to the House of Assembly, and this petition says something different. This is not the Catholic Women's League; these are three members of this House. It is called: The petition of the undersigned members of the Catholic Women's League of Canada. The Member for Topsail, the Member for Torngat Mountains, and the Member for Humber Valley are members of the Catholic Women's League of Canada petitioning this House.

I am confining myself to the words of the petition, Mr. Speaker, and to the names and the signatures on it. What is being perpetrated here is a fraud!

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader on a point of order.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. gentleman that what he should do, if he followed the right procedures of this House, rather than get off in a fit of pique in the first place, the petition should have come from the member to the Table, and then he should have gotten it from the Table.

In the second place, let me just say to the hon. gentlemen that if he sees something wrong with the petition then he should stand up and point out to Your Honour that there is something wrong with this petition, and ask for a ruling from the Chair. He is not to make rulings in this House.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. gentleman that by reading out three names on that petition, and then using the word `fraud', he has done something in this House which he is not allowed to do, and that is to accuse members of this House of committing a fraud.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

To the point of order, again the Chair was about to intervene and tell the hon. member that he is out of order in terms of the language that he is using and I ask him to withdraw that statement.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw any language that was unparliamentary, and I would raise a point of order with respect to the petition.

I thank the Government House Leader for his advice as to how to handle this matter. I would ask the Chair to examine this petition and examine whether or not members of this House can present themselves - male members of this House can present themselves - as members of the Catholic Women's League and present an unsigned petition to the House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland, unsigned by the member presenting it, and, Mr. Speaker, a petition of the Catholic Women's League of Canada which is not signed by the member -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: - and obviously not supported by the member, being presented to this House. Whether this, in fact, is a breach of the rules of this House by the hon. member - a deliberate breach of the rules of this House -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: - and a deliberate breach of the privileges of members of this House who are making this kind of presentation to the House of Assembly.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Are you speaking to the point of order that the hon. member is raising?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair would just like to deal with the point of order that the hon. member has raised and then I will hear what the hon. Government House Leader has to say.

I understand that the hon. Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi has raised a point of order, that he wants the Chair to look at the petition to see if it is in order. The Chair will take that point under advisement, look at it and report back to the House.

MR. WISEMAN: (Inaudible).

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

MR. WISEMAN: To that point of order, my understanding was that the petition had to be worded in a proper way. So all I -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WISEMAN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that is all that was done. If the wording of that petition was changed... It was never this member's intention to change it. I just assumed it was put into proper format and I presented it here in the House.

If the member opposite wants to raise the issue to try to get at me for some reason, for trying to deny him leave today, that is up to him, Mr. Speaker. If I have in some way done something that does not appear to be right then I apologize, because it was never my intention. I came here today and rose in my place to present a petition on behalf of my constituents.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: What I have said, Mr. Speaker, is very clear. If the hon. member wants to make something out of it, then so be it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has ruled that it is taking the point raised by the member under advisement and will report back to the House.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I would also ask Your Honour to take into account as to whether indeed the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, the Leader of the NDP Party, has been completely out of order here, and whether indeed he had abused the privileges of a member of this House by standing in his place and accusing the member of deliberately distorting a petition. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that is the kind of act and the kind of speech which is not permitted in this House and which indeed, if allowed to go on, will impede members from carrying out their duties in this House.

One of the prime privileges that a member enjoys in this Legislature is the ability to present the views of his constituents and other people. If he is going to be accused of deliberately distorting petitions then I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that his privileges are being abused and the hon. gentleman should be asked to withdraw or be named.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader. Are you speaking to the point of order?

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

The Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi raised an interesting point. I am looking at a copy of a petition, as to the authenticity of it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. member speaking to the point of order raised by the Government House Leader?

MR. TULK: Point of privilege.

MR. SPEAKER: Point of privilege, okay.

MR. SULLIVAN: The Government House Leader asked that the Speaker take under consideration... I would like to ask him, and I stand on a point of privilege to ask him, to take under consideration another particular item, Mr. Speaker. The particular item is the constitutionality or authority of members to present a petition in this House, purporting to be members of a Catholic Women's League in Topsail district, when the signatories to that petition are neither, Mr. Speaker, when some of the signatories are neither members of the district nor members of that league, if that is within the confines of this House and the ability of this House to do that. That - the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi used the word, I think - perpetrates a fraud.

If I sign as a member of another district and a member of an organization of which I am not part of, is that an authentic petition that was raised here in the House? I would like to ask the member -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I believe the Chair has taken that question that the hon. member is raising under advisement. It is not a new point of order.

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to the point of privilege raised by the Government House Leader.

Mr. Speaker, what I have asked Your Honour to rule on, after examining the documentation that should be in the hands of the officers of the Table, is whether or not a petition from the Catholic Women's League, which says one thing, was presented to this House as a petition which says another thing, signed by three members of this House. The question is whether or not - I asked Your Honour to rule on this - the member has deliberately distorted that position and himself abused -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: - the privileges of members of this House by presenting inaccurate material to the House.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, to that point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member, I believe, was speaking to the point of privilege that you raised earlier? Do you want to comment on that as well?

MR. TULK: I want to point out to Your Honour the difference between what Your Honour originally committed himself to do, which was to look at this petition and indeed see if the petition was in order, but that is not the question in my point of privilege. The question in my point of privilege is another member standing in this House and using the word, `deliberately' distorted. I use the word deliberately, not distorted. If the petition is distorted that is one thing, but to say that a member of this House `deliberately' distorted a petition is unparliamentary unless the hon. gentleman can offer the proof that indeed it was deliberate.

Mr. Speaker, I would contend that it was not deliberate and that the hon. gentleman should be asked to not impugn upon the morals or the character of people of this House in that fashion. He has to either withdraw it or be named, in my opinion.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, deliberately or otherwise, the Government House Leader is distorting what I said, because what I asked Your Honour rule on - the facts are going to speak for themselves, Mr. Speaker. Your Honour has not seen the documentation. The Table has just seen them. We have two separate petitions, one of which comes from the Catholic Women's League, and another which comes from people - I don't know whether they are Catholic. They don't appear to me to be women, Mr. Speaker. They were sworn in as members of the House and I don't know if they are members of the organization. I know they are members of this House.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am asking Your Honour to examine the facts and make a ruling as to whether or not the hon. member has deliberately distorted this petition and abused the privilege of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: Now if I can't ask Your Honour to make such a ruling -if the petition is in order, I also want to speak to it, Mr. Speaker. I don't think this is something that we can put off until tomorrow or the next day.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair -

MR. HARRIS: I would like to speak to that petition if the petition is in order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair said it would take the point raised by the hon. member under advisement and will report back to the House.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I take it that you are also going to take my point of privilege -

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, the Chair has already indicated the point of privilege.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South, on the point of order.

MR. FRENCH: Might I ask, Mr. Speaker, as well, if he would make a ruling as to whether we have one petition presented or are there two? I am just curious. I don't know if there is one or two. I wish to speak on the petition, in support of the petition, but I don't know if we have one or if we have two.

MR. SPEAKER: To that point of order, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, seeing as the petition is still the item of business before this House and there is still the opportunity, I think - only the speaker's time would have run out on the clock. The opportunity for a third speaker - if there is a petition or two before the House, there would be time allocated that we could speak on whether it is one or two.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: Unless it is determined whether we have one or two, how do we know what we can speak on?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member who wishes to speak would not be allowed to speak if there was one or two petitions, because only one member from the opposite side can speak to a petition.

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi,on a point of order.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I rose to speak to the petition, and it wasn't until I saw the petition that I was brought about, by looking at the petition, to raise a point of order. Mr. Speaker, if the petition is valid I would like to speak on it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member was speaking on the petition when he was interrupted, I believe, and then he raised the point of order afterwards. So the hon. member's time has expired.

 

Orders of the Day

 

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, Order No. 2. I would move that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole to consider Consolidated Fund Services, Legislature and Executive Council.

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

 

Committee of the Whole

 

CHAIR (Oldford): Order, please!

Order No. 2.

The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I rise in my place once again on this Budget, I suppose, and the Estimates regarding the Executive Council.

I had been asking the minister in this House of Assembly some questions the other day with respect to the Executive Council. One of the topics that I hit on, of course, was the Voisey's Bay project, wondering where the Voisey's Bay project was going, if it was going. I wonder if we are going to get a smelter in Argentia. These are the types of questions I was referring to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, with respect to the Voisey's Bay project and the Executive Council.

There is some $504,000 budgeted this year for that project, of course, and we know now there have been some delays in the project. I suppose people in the Argentia area felt they would be well on their way now with the start-up of their smelter. I believe, actually, pretty well every district in the election two years ago campaigned on getting that smelter. The Member for Placentia & St. Mary's, I would say, got elected on that promise of the smelter. It's not down there yet, not even started, and they are talking about delaying it.

My question is: I wonder will it ever come to the Island of Newfoundland and Labrador? I sincerely hope so. As I said, the Voisey's Bay project is a great project and we are looking forward to great things from that project for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I asked the minister: What about the taxation regime and the royalty regime and what have you? When is that going to be put in place, when do we expect to see that? The minister didn't really give an answer to that question. It's something we have been asking in this House of Assembly for some two or three years now.

The previous premier was planning on bringing that in in the fall of 1995, the royalty regime, and the changes to the taxation and the royalty regime for Voisey's Bay; the mineral tax act. We haven't seen it yet. I expect it is before Cabinet. I don't know when it is going to be coming to the Province or what form it is going to take. Is there going to be taxation on the amount of mineral that comes out of the ground, the tonnage? Will it be after the profits are made in the company, Mr. Chairman? Will the profits be taxed on the companies that are doing the work there? We really did not get any answers on that. We see, as I said earlier, $504,600 to be budgeted on the Voisey's Bay project.

I see the minister is in his chair paying attention, taking the pressure off the Government House Leader. He is taking the pressure off and I am sure the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal is quite relieved to see the Minister of Finance in his chair. There is no doubt about that.

Anyway, I say to the Minister of Finance: I have asked you a number of questions and while I have you here today, when you gave me the answers with respect to the Public Service Commission - I know we are on Executive Council, and I would imagine there has to be some relevancy here. It is all part of the Budget, I suppose, Mr. Chairman, and I know there is some latitude given, when we are talking about the Budget in the House of Assembly.

In the Estimates Committee, the Minister of Finance quite clearly stated to me and his assistants that were here, that the department and this administration has gotten away from the Public Service Commission. The role is reduced and the hiring is done through the departments. He was trying to rationalize and explain to me why?

Now, I was getting to that today in the House of Assembly, Mr. Chairman, but the minister really did not admit to that. He really did not admit to it. It is a concern for me, Mr. Chairman, and it is a concern for a lot of people in this Province. Are we now hiring in the Civil Service and promoting? Is it going to be based on education, experience and qualifications, Mr. Chairman? Or is it going to be based on political favours, political whims, nepotism, or anything like that?

MR. EFFORD: What is wrong with that?

MR. J. BYRNE: The Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture says: What is wrong with that? That will tell you, Mr. Chairman, the level of that man's responsibility to the people of this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

There was a system put in place back in 1973, by a Tory Administration, Mr. Chairman, to be fair and to take the civil servants out of the dark ages, and I stated it in my questions. Of course, now we have a situation where the Civil Service - and I am only asking the general question because it has been asked of me. How are these people being employed? What criteria is been used, Mr. Chairman? It is throughout government, all throughout government departments, corporations and what have you.

So I say to the minister: That is something that he could address and be a bit more elaborate in his answers, when he gets up to speak on this, than he was today in the House of Assembly when I asked specific questions? Now, the specific questions, of course, Mr. Chairman - I am not sure if I have them here before me now or not. Oh, yes, here they are. He will not admit that they are backing away from the Public Service Commission in the House of Assembly, Mr. Chairman, and they are backing away. There is no doubt in my mind, and everybody knows it. Talk to the civil servants and they will tell you that.

I also asked him, basically: What is wrong with the system that is in place today? Well, I cannot say today, because the proper system is being changed, Mr. Chairman, and the system that was in place before they decided to make the changes two years ago - what was wrong with that system? It was working find. People would be interviewed and recommendations made to the minister. The minister still had some latitude in who he hired, or who he wanted to put in the position, because a recommendation of three people was made to him. So he still had some latitude.

I refer, Mr. Chairman, to the public enquiry into allegations of irregulars associated with the Public Service competition, done by Justice Geoffrey Steele in May, 1992. In that, he made some specific comments. He said: I adopt without reservation the foregoing statements. Here it is. He says: It is manifest that any conduct, act or activity by any person that circumvents, debases or invalidates the merit principle in any matter, thereby subverts the selection process of the Public Service Commission, its mandate and its statute.

So we if are not hiring through the Public Service Commission, but going through the departments instead of the Public Service Commission, we are basically not following proper procedure, and a fair procedure to the people who apply, Mr. Chairman. Even if they do hire the best candidate through the departments, the perception is out there that they are hiring people based on factors other than merit, experience and qualifications.

That is what I was getting at today, when I spoke to the minister and asked him questions in the House and he did not respond. That ultimately gets back to the Budget, Mr. Chairman, and how much money we pay for certain people in the civil service. Again, if we get away from the Public Service Commission, we may end up getting away from the proper amounts of money to be paid for services rendered in the civil service. So, if we are getting away from the Public Service Commission, it will have far-reaching effects, not necessarily only on the person who was done out of a job because they did not follow proper procedures, but, Mr. Chairman, on how much money we would pay.

Mr. Chairman, I am going back to the Estimates here. This government had many, many announcements, I would say, before the Budget came down and they put out this Budget Highlights 1998. One of the things that they have talked about over the years, of course, is that there were no cuts; it was a balanced Budget last year, which really, in actual fact, it was not. They still have the Slush Fund of $30 million, Mr. Chairman. I think they referred to it in the Budget as having a $10 million deficit this year but in actual fact they have a $20 million surplus.

It says: "Living Within Our Means."

"Government is on track with its three year financial plan which will be balanced by 1999-2000." Now, Mr. Chairman, I referred to the Budget before and the Estimates, and I have a copy of the Estimates right here. Here we are. How many pages? Let me see, Mr. Chairman; 255 pages of Estimates for a Budget for this year alone, for 1998/99. In their Budget Highlights, they refer to a three-year Budget plan, three pages versus 255. So, Mr. Chairman, what kind of a three-year Budget did they really, really pass or adopt a few years ago with Cabinet? Because it certainly never came to the House of Assembly to be approved. It would not be approved, Mr. Chairman, if they brought a three-page Budget to this House of Assembly. I would say members on the government side of the House would even have to say no to a three-page document for a Budget for three years, when one year is almost 300 pages, Mr. Chairman. So that is one factor by which certain people in the public would be led astray, when they hear of a three-year financial plan.

Also, it says here: "Government continues to be prudent in its financial management and accordingly, is providing for a $30 million contingency reserve again this year." I already commented on that, Mr. Chairman, whereby it actually gives the government a $20 million surplus, not a $10 million deficit. So in actual fact, they are talking about balancing the Budget in 1999-2000, when they could have balanced it last year, Mr. Chairman. So they are padding the Budget on that side of the House to make things look rosy and hunky-dory for a year or so down the road, when the Premier is likely to call an election. I do not know if I am going to see another Budget in this House of Assembly, I say to you, Mr. Chairman, before another election; because in the Budget there are some structural problems, structural deficiencies.

I have a lot to say on the Budget, Mr. Chairman, but I am going to sit down now for a couple of minutes and get back up after one of my colleagues on this side of the House continues with the legitimate concerns on this side of the House, and that the people of this Province have.

There is one thing that always boils my blood, Mr. Chairman, when I read the Budget. Listen to this now, Mr. Chairman. There are no tax increases in this Budget. That is like the Premier saying there will be no layoffs this year; the same thing, the same comparison could be made. There are no tax increases! Yet, in the past number of budgets - the year before all we saw were three pages of licences, taxes, permits and increases of all sorts. Last year there were six pages of licence, fees and permit increases, Mr. Chairman. That is where they are taking it out of the pockets of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. They can't survive, they can't take it any more.

MR. BARRETT: If you don't have a car, you don't pay for it.

MR. J. BYRNE: What a statement! If you don't have a car you don't pay for it. That is like saying, if you don't have food, you don't pay for it. That is something to say. What a statement to make by a Member of the House of Assembly. Can you believe it?

MR. SULLIVAN: Jack, I know people who are paying off cars now who don't have them anymore, but they are still paying them off.

MR. J. BYRNE: Yes.

Mr. Chairman, I can't believe my ears. Here we are in the House of Assembly, the Legislature for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and we have the Member for Bellevue making the statement: If you don't have a car, you don't pay for it. It's like saying, if you don't have food, you don't pay for it. So that's alright, let the people starve to death. My God, you must be related to Marie Antoinette or someone. You know, let them eat cake. It's shocking!

Anyway, I have to sit down and let my throat rest for a few minutes and let one of the members from my side get up and say a few words.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

MR. SHELLEY: Absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. You are going to hear something else more sensible again. I can't believe the Member for Bellevue would make a statement like that. That made about as much sense now as the member for Mississauga who came up to the microphone, when we were presenting for TAGS in Ottawa, and said: We have 100,000 jobs in Toronto. Tell them all to come up here. That is about as sensible as that. That is what I say to the Member for Bellevue.

Mr. Chairman, what I wanted to get up and comment about first today was - hopefully I could have gotten to my third question today. I couldn't believe how the Ministers of Fisheries and Aquaculture and Development and Rural Renewal responded to the second question. I never even got to the third question. I tell the Ministers of Development and Rural Renewal and Fisheries and Aquaculture that the questions I asked today were questions that I got in phone calls from other districts across the way. People are asking me to start asking that question over and over until we get a straight answer.

Very simply put, it is as simple as this - and the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, if he is being honest, will stand and say the same thing - if we are trusting Ottawa, if we are so confident Ottawa is going to bring down an adequate post-TAGS package for this Province, we might be whistling Dixie. Because the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture knows full well that the attitude of that crowd in Ottawa towards this Province, when it comes to the post-TAGS, when it comes to the seal industry, is out to lunch. There is no other way to say it.

After the meetings I have attended up there and the people I have talked to, even the media, the mentality of Ottawa and how they relate to this Province, I'm telling you what, the people of this Province, if they could only travel to Ottawa to get in front of those people up there who speak like that, the message would be loud and clear.

My questions today for the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal that he laughed off, and so did the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, are a reality in this Province. The reality is this: That people in rural Newfoundland and Labrador don't trust and don't have the confidence in the group in Ottawa to make sure we have an adequate program forthcoming. That is what is so serious about this, and that is what is really starting to upset people in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. That is why the anxiety is starting to build, Mr. Chairman.

I say to the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's, I spoke to a gentleman from his district the other day, who is on his way back to Placentia for the third time since the smelter was announced. This is a young man, married with two children. The first time he came back when he heard all the announcements, he went down in Placentia, he was telling me, and there were parties. They called them smelter parties. They were starting to have a party, every second house, that there was a smelter announced for the area. That is what happened. They all came back from Toronto. I don't know what numbers. He couldn't give me exact numbers, of course, but he could say that quite a number of them who were in the Scarborough area, Fort McMurray, any of those areas, started to call each other and Internet and everything else, he said, and they started to say: Let's go home, the smelter's announced.

Mr. Chairman, for this particular gentleman it's his third trip home. He will be home this week to Placentia to have another shot at it. He was asking me what did I think of it, when it was going to happen. I could only tell him: Your guess is as good as mine. Because I'm going to tell you now, since that smelter announcement we don't know where Voisey's Bay is. We don't know what the end result is going to be.

I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that I spent time with Mr. Gendron some three and a half weeks ago now, with our leader and some of our staff, to get a full presentation on what is really happening in Voisey's Bay, what is happening with the smelter proposed for Argentia. They don't know. That is what they say, that they don't know. The truth is they know very well that their intentions are to go in and mine that ovoid, to do it as quickly as possible, make the billions of dollars profit and get out of this Province. Their intention is not for a nickel smelter, it is not for a copper smelter. The same mistake over and over again in this Province, Mr. Chairman. We have the resource in front of us, one of the richest nickel finds in the world; I think it is the second largest nickel find in the world. We are ready to benefit from secondary processing in this Province and the truth is, that this company does not plan to build a smelter of any kind.

Mr. Chairman, secondly, I am not convinced yet that there should not be a copper smelter in this Province. I understand there are some discussions going on now and some work being done for the provincial government on behalf of Mr. Virbiski and they are considering it. I remember, from the very first day I raised that issue in this House of Assembly, long before anybody else raised it outside, about a copper smelter, I premised my whole argument on logic. Not that I am any expert in the mining industry, it was on logic. I asked the then Minister of Mines and Energy, Mr. Gibbons: How much copper do we need here in this Province in order for us to have a copper smelter? He told me how much. I think he said 100,000 tons at the time, per year.

Then my next question was: How much copper do we have in Voisey's Bay? He did not know. No, my second question was: Should we have a copper smelter here? He said no. My third question was: How much do we have in Voisey's Bay? He said: We don't know how much copper we have. So, Mr. Chairman, just logic will follow that if he does not know how much copper we have, how can you say we do not have enough for a smelter? So, Mr. Chairman, it is another -

MR. SULLIVAN: Inco told him.

MR. SHELLEY: Inco must have. Somebody was telling him, Mr. Chairman. Inco told him, wasn't it? People in Newfoundland and Labrador were telling him, because, Mr. Chairman, the dye was cast on this whole deal a long time ago. We hope that at the end of the day a nickel smelter, copper smelter or whatever can be done in this Province, is done here in this Province. That is what we all have to make sure of. That is why we have to go deeper than we have ever gone before and address that.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to go back to the questions. The third question of course that I had planned to ask today, when we ran out of time, was: Right now, today, to date, this spring - because spring is when people start calling all their members because their unemployment is starting to run out. It is two-fold this year because their unemployment is running out and, Mr. Chairman, there are 2,000 more people coming off TAGS in the near future. There are thousands who came off already.

Mr. Chairman, what we have to remember is that besides the fact that they will not have an income, those thousands of people now are going to be looking for the few skimpy jobs that are around that everybody else is looking for; the displaced loggers, the people who are never talked about, these people who are displaced by the harvesters. Where are they going to get the work? Now they have more competition, 2,000 more people coming off TAGS who are going after the few jobs that are there.

I am telling you, I told the minister before, and I am serving notice again this spring, that the time is critical. I believe there is a ticking time bomb in rural Newfoundland right now saying: We want to see something that is tangible, something that is real, something that you are going to be able to sink your teeth into. The reason why I ask the questions today, Mr. Chairman, of the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal and the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, is because this spring is going to be a critical time to address that problem when you have almost like a bottleneck. People crowding into that bottleneck, Mr. Chairman, are going to say: I need to get to work. The only resort left, if we don't address that problem, is welfare. We are going to see tens of thousands of people turn to welfare.

The man from Mississauga who walked up to the microphone and said that we should send all Newfoundlanders up to Toronto, Mr. Chairman, maybe he should come down and talk to the man I talked to from Placentia who is forty-seven years old, has four kids and owns his own home. Tell him that he should pack up a bus, put everything in it and go to Toronto and look for a job. They are not real.

Ottawa is disconnected from this Province as far as I'm concerned, Mr. Chairman, with the mentality that we have seen coming out of Ottawa, not only by the politicians but the media. I was asked questions like: Oh, what are you here for now? What do you want passed out to you now? That is what they were saying. People in this Province have to remember that $235 million out of the economy of this Province, that is one negative impact. That is bad enough. That is money not spent in the stores, the gas stations, the hotels and the grocery stores. Mr. Chairman, the double-whammy that we are going to see here, besides the negative impact of less money coming into the Province, is that thousands of people are going to be going out in competition for the few jobs that are there now for displaced loggers, displaced miners, all those people there who have not had compensation. So that is what the fearful thing is in this Province.

So the Province should be ready - and that is why I put the question to the Minister of Development and Rural Renewal today. Is he just saying: No, I am really confident that Ottawa is going to save us this time, that it is going to be adequate? Well, Mr. Chairman, if the minister of this Province is so confident of that then I am not, and I don't think the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are, because that problem will have to be addressed and it is not years down the road. We are talking days, weeks and months that those people are going to be looking for something there.

I will go back to the point I raised a little bit earlier, the people in Placentia and their hopes built up on what was going to happen and then not materializing. That is where we have to address the real situation that is in rural Newfoundland. There is no way you can hide from statistics that are factual, the fact that some 11,000 people left this Province last year.

Our best resource - never mind the nickel in Voisey's Bay, the oil in Hibernia, and all those resources, Mr. Chairman. There is nothing more important than the resource of our young people in this Province, and what they can contribute to us, if they had a chance to do something.

So, Mr. Chairman, there is one other point I wanted to raise today, before I go on. It was raised in Questions in the House the other day. Statistics, again, Mr. Chairman: Over 1,200 people in this Province last year declared personal bankruptcy. They added it up and found out there was no way they could handle their bills. With the economic downturn and with the problems with jobs in the Province, they could not handle it, so they had to file for bankruptcy. It was not something they wanted to do, and I say, Mr. Chairman, it is the second last resort. It is not the last resort because the last resort, after that, is welfare. The second last resort is bankruptcy.

The truth, Mr. Chairman, is, if you know a lot about bankruptcy, it is not so bad if you have to do it. The fact is, it gives you a chance to start over again. Well, to add to that statistic, out of 1,200 people who went bankrupt last year, at least 400 of those were students, young people coming out of university and colleges with debt loads they could not control and had to bow to their dignity and go in and file for personal bankruptcy.

Well, Mr. Chairman, we had the Premier of the Province, the Leader of the Province, standing in the House this week, and saying he did not know that the rules were changed by the federal government. He did not know that this negative impact - and the rule is this: Up to June of this year, a student would have to wait for two years, once they graduated, before they could go and file for bankruptcy, if they had to do it. God forbid! I hope they would not, but the reality is they do have to do it some times. But now, Mr. Chairman, as of June, with this great millennium fund - the Premier says he knows nothing about - students will have to wait for ten years before they can file for bankruptcy.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not know how many members know that statistic or realize it, but that is a fact, that up until June of this year, with the new millennium fund, students who come out of university or colleges anywhere, would have to wait two years before they file for bankruptcy. As of June they will have to wait ten years.

Mr. Chairman, what is going to be their alternative? They are going to end up, educated students, with $30 thousand and $40 thousand debt, going to the welfare office. That is what is going to happen to our young people of this Province. They will get enough money together, they will get a bus ticket or a plane ticket, or hitch-hike, and get out of this Province. That is what they are telling me, Mr. Chairman. These are things that are happening in the Province that the Premier did not know anything about. So I wonder who else knows about it, Mr. Chairman.

MR. SULLIVAN: He is not here enough.

MR. SHELLEY: They are not here, Mr. Chairman, they are not connected. The focus is not on this Province, it is elsewhere. It is all over the place. People are getting sick and tired of a major pie-in-the-sky again. They are not happy. They have to see something that is tangible.

We have to do something to address the student debt and the demoralization of the students in this Province who have given up on their roots. They have given up on a way of life - that is the saddest part of this whole scenario, Mr. Chairman - that they have given up on their roots and their way of living here. They are going to Ontario, they are settling in, and saying: I have given up on my Province. That is a real shame, Mr. Chairman!

That is what we have to address. It is the most critical issue facing Newfoundland and Labrador in the next six months. It is no good to say it is a year or two years away; it is soon, it is within months.

Imagine, I talked to two students in my office last week, who sat there and said that they have no intentions of staying in Newfoundland; not even a thought. Not even a thought, Mr. Chairman, that they are going to stay in this Province. Neither one of them are looking to you and saying: I think I have a good job coming up, I think I am going to be here in this Province for awhile. They just look at it like it is a forgone conclusion. Yes, I am going to graduate, and if I have enough money for a one-way ticket - I am trying to get a Canada 3000 ticket - I am going to Fort McMurray.

It is not even a discussion anymore, whether they can stay or not. They are looking at their parents, their families and the places they have been raised - Mr. Chairman, even if they could stay in the urban parts of Newfoundland, St. John's, Corner Brook, or Gander, the bigger places, but they do not have that option anymore. No, the only option is one: Give up on your Province and go elsewhere. That is the saddest situation this Province has ever encountered.

We are heading into a new millennium. When other parts of the world are getting ready to take off in space industry and all kinds of other technologies that are going on, our students are looking at us and saying: Well we have our education, which taxpayers' dollars went towards, their education and our institutions here, and all they are thinking is: Good-bye, I am gone. I would love to stay but I am out of here; the same as this young gentleman I spoke to from Placentia just a couple of days ago. He said he is going to come back and try again because he has to. It is his third attempt back since the smelter was announced. So we have to see something tangible, something that is real, and we have to address the problem of out-migration and student debt so we can keep some of these people in this Province. It is a really sad statement in this day and age (inaudible).

Mr. Chairman, with those few remarks I will end up for today and pick up a little bit later on. Thank you.

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, just a few words as we speak to this particular motion. My learned friend, the Member for Baie Verte, has made some interesting points with respect to the effect that many policies of this government are having on rural Newfoundland, and how unfortunately so many thousands of our people, our native people, find it necessary, in search of employment, to leave. Of course, we see this perhaps even more particularly in our smaller communities. We see it in our communities, Mr. Chairman, where schools have to close, where houses are boarded up, where families are being depleted, and where employment is virtually non-existent.

Mr. Chairman, it is a difficult time, and of course the question that has to be asked is: Where are the policies and where are the programs that in fact will entice our people to stay in rural Newfoundland and hopefully one day return to rural Newfoundland? Of course, we find that simply does not exist. The programs, the policies, are not evident. They are certainly not in place, Mr. Chairman, and as a result we see a continuation of the out-migration which has stricken this Province so severely in the past number of years. But in view of that sort of reality, we also have the fact that one has to question how financially this government is going to deal with its fiscal reality in years to come.

Several weeks ago, the leader of our party issued a press release on the issue of the budgetary measures which were put in place, and how in fact these measures are going to be depleted and these programs are going to be depleted in the years to come. I am thinking in particular, Mr. Chairman, of the HST transitional funding and the benefits which were to accrue under Term 29.

Under HST transitional funding, which was a 1996 harmonized sales tax deal, it cut the total sales tax rate from 19.84 per cent to 15 per cent, and the Province is losing over $100 million a year in revenue. Over $100 million a year is being lost in revenue as a result of HST transitional funding. To make up for the loss, the federal government provided transitional funding: $127 million in 1997; $127 million in 1998; $63 million in 1999; $31 million in the year 2000; and none thereafter.

So, all things being equal, we have to find next year an additional $64 million, $96 million the following year, and $127 million the year after, just to break even. The question has to be asked, Mr. Chairman: Where does the money come from? How will, in fact, this government be in a position to offer a budget, a budget of confidence, to the people of this Province, when, based on HST transitional funding alone - we look at the figures again: in 1997, $127 million; 1998, $127 million; 1999, down to $63 million; the year 2000, down again to $31 million; and in the year 2001, absolutely zero.

How does this government propose to the people of this Province that it can deal adequately and effectively in the preparation of its fiscal agenda when we see in some three short years what is $127 million this year from HST transitional funding will in fact be reduced to zero? And we have to keep in mind, Mr. Chairman, the backdrop; we have to keep in mind the context in which we are operating. As I indicated just a few minutes ago when I began my few brief comments, Mr. Chairman, we continue to have thousands and thousands leaving our shores in unprecedented numbers.

It has been referenced to me from time to time: But Newfoundlanders have always had a tradition of leaving. Yes, it is true. In the 1940s and 1950s the Boston states, in the 1960s Toronto, in the 1970s primarily Toronto, in the 1980s and 1990s primarily it appears to be all over - Ontario, Atlantic Canada - but perhaps even more specifically, Western Canada. It has always been a problem.

The main difference, and why our population has always been prepared to maintain itself, is the fact that families were larger. So if there were a family of eight or ten and we had four or five leave Newfoundland to resettle in other parts of Canada, that left three or four to remain and settle in this Province, enough to allow a community to exist, to thrive, to give it a basis for its medical clinic, to give it basis for its primary, elementary or high school, to give basis for infrastructure and institutions within its community. The problem today is the fact that our young people continue to leave, and because of the reduction in family size there is nobody left. If there is a family of two and two leave, parents and grandparents only are to remain in that particular community. That is the problem.

Again, how is government, in a very direct, tangible, hands-on way, dealing with this crisis of out-migration? Certainly not doing it in adequate budgeting, I would say, the HST transitional fund being just one example. Let's look at another example, the Term 29 award. Under that award, Newfoundland and Labrador is entitled to $8 million a year from Ottawa forever and a day, a Term of Union. In 1996, the government decided to take twenty years of payment, twenty years of its investment, worth $160 million, up front in lump sum payments: $50 million in 1996, $40 million in 1997, and an additional $40 million in 1998. The remaining $30 million we forego for the privilege of spending the money all at once. So after this year we receive no more Term 29 funding until the year 2016. That is, what, another eighteen years. That is when we will see any derived benefit from the Term 29 award. So we are spending $40 million this year, and we will not be receiving next year, or any year thereafter until the year 2016, any benefit under the Term 29 award. Again the question has to be asked: Where is the money coming from?

We are not getting it in HST transitional funding; we are not getting it in Term 29 funding. How does this government propose once again to instill confidence in the people of Newfoundland and Labrador when two very real and viable sources of income through HST and through Term 29 have, to put it simply, dried up. It is gone. How do the people of this Province expect to have confidence in a government when in fact the very basis upon which its fiscal planning is created is no longer there? They are serious questions that have to be addressed.

The issue once again of out-migration, we hear it daily. Every member in this House has spoken about it repeatedly, but it appears the problem continues to exist. Young people today in our Province graduate for one reason, and that reason is to leave. I was told the other day, and I am sure other members have heard it, that complete classes at university - electrical engineering classes - have left in bulk, getting good jobs, well-paying jobs, primarily in Western Alberta. Students who have been enroled in business administration courses and marketing programs and finance administration programs at what was once Cabot College, now the College of the North Atlantic, the vast majority of these students are gone.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. OTTENHEIMER: That is right, but I cannot understand why the change of name, I say to the minister, of all years. Last year when we had the Cabot celebration we changed the name, Cabot College. It still bewilders me.

Mr. Chairman, a class that I once taught two or three years ago, it was a law course for appraisers, for students at Cabot College who were doing property appraisal work, could not find work in this Province and found it necessary to again, in bulk, the vast majority of them, having to leave to Ontario, leave to Alberta, in search of work.

It is a sad reality - again the people of this Province who are left, and that number is dwindling - but very soon people will require answers. It is only a matter of time when people are going to say: Enough is enough, we want our children to stay here. We want people who receive degrees from university or certificates from our post-secondary institutions, or diplomas from high schools. The time is going to come, and it is going to come very soon, when the people of this Province who are left will say: We will want these other people to stay. We want our graduates to remain here to live fruitful lives in their native Province, and not having to leave in search of work, which essentially is being done against their will.

That is the challenge to this government, and that is a fundamental issue which has to be recognized, and hopefully in due course will be addressed.

I will now ask my colleague to resume debate on this topic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I say to the Minister of Justice, slow down. How many more hours do we have left? I think we have another twenty? How many more? You can blame it on the Government House Leader. If you were House Leader, Minister, we would probably be out of here now, because you have a way of dealing with and handling people, I say to the Minister of Justice. If you were sitting in the Government House Leader's chair we would probably be on our way out of here now. We would be greeting members opposite here and wishing them the best for their summer vacation.

Because the Government House Leader a couple of months ago got up and took a smack at this side, I say to the Minister of Justice, and said: I don't know why they want the House re-opened, because they left ten or fifteen hours on the Budget last year that wasn't debated. You recall that. You would never say something like that, I say to the Minister of Justice, because he knows that he would have to get the good will of the House in order to get legislation through. In fact, if we had another Government House Leader here I would suggest that we wouldn't be spending half the hours that we spend here after regular hours.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I never referred to him as being gone, I say to the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. If we had a Government House Leader here who was more in tune with the people, could get along with people, give and take a little bit, Mr. Chairman, I think we would be a lot better off.

My comments today are going to be brief, talking about the budget. The first thing I remember when I think of the Budget, naturally, is Budget Day. We saw the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board show up with his new suit, his new tie, and his new shoes on, deliver a Budget, members on the opposite side getting up to congratulate the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board and tell him what a wonderful job he has done, how he has hoodwinked the people again in this Province, put forward a Budget and talked about the wonderful strides this government has made, and talked about how far they have taken the books of this Province and the balanced budget that they project to bring forward.

There has been a big price to be paid for this Budget. There has been a big price paid in order to balance the books. The people who have paid the price are not people sitting in this House, but the common Newfoundlanders and Labradorians out there today who find themselves unemployed, living in other provinces, in other countries.

I don't think the person - your son or my daughter or your uncle or your aunt - living up in Alberta or British Columbia is going to get any great charge out of picking up a paper someday, The Globe and Mail, and saying: Well, the Budget in Newfoundland has finally been balanced. It would be good stuff if we could look after our people here and maintain them here in this Province, and they were able to live, work and raise their families where they wanted.

The Minister of Finance went through with the consultation process just a week or two before the Budget was delivered. The Minister of Finance decided that he was going to go out and consult people. He thought about how he would do it. He thought about what he did last year, where he travelled to a couple of the centres around the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, but that was too much trouble this year. He was not going to allow them to do that; he was going to go high tech. He was going to allow people to go to certain areas and call him and the Member for Conception Bay East & Bell Island and offer their suggestions on what they thought should be and should not be in the Budget, and where cuts should be made and where money should be spent. Mr. Chairman, the Budget was already written; the document was already printed. Still, the minister wanted to appear as if he was helping somebody.

The problem here, the problem with people opposite, especially government ministers, is that they feel there is no problem. The reason why people leave this Province is not because they cannot find work; it is because they want to go. That is what the government member said. In fact, a minister stated here not long ago that most people are leaving the Province because they want to go.

I can tell you, that is certainly not the case. The calls that I receive from people looking for work, people looking for jobs, are not people who want to be told that there are jobs up in Alberta or there are jobs in British Colombia. They would like to be able to find a job right here in their own Province, not necessarily in their own community. I do not think that will ever happen. It has never happened in the past, and I do not think it is going to happen in the future, where we can all live in our little communities dotted around the Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, and be able to get up and walk to work and go home for dinner. That is utopia, I say to members, and that is certainly not going to happen. But I do not think it is too much to expect for people to want and to be able to access a job right here in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I know in the community where I live - it is not a fishing community. Most people there work in the lumber woods, or they chase construction around the Province and, for the most part, around the country. Most people there in the summertime - most people are away, especially during the week. You will not find too many men at home. People go away and work during the week and they go home on weekends, if they are lucky, or else they come home once a month, once every six months, or whatever their work situation will allow. There are not very many people there who get up every morning and work in that particular community, unless you are a school teacher or if you are fortunate enough to be working in one of the government buildings in Clarenville; I think of the hospital, HRD, and what have you. That is utopia. Most of the people there are not willing to do that, but they do not complain if they can find a job.

When you look at statistics that show 41 per cent of post-secondary graduates having to leave this Province last year to find a job, Mr. Chairman, I think we can do better than that. I think government has to start addressing some of those concerns.

We look at schools closing in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Most people are very realistic, and they understand that when the student population decreases we cannot maintain all of our schools and we cannot maintain all of our school teachers, that there has to be a reduction, there has to be a comparable ratio.

Mr. Chairman, if we are going to close our schools, and if we are going to expect those students to travel miles and miles over our roads, then the least we can do is provide them with a decent road to drive over and a decent building to attend school.

When you look at what is happening in rural areas today, and you look at some of those roads that those school buses have to drive over, and when you look at the school buses themselves, I sometimes question if government is really interested in what product we are putting out on the other end.

I want to question, Mr. Chairman, if government is really interested when we see school bus operators being allowed to go to other provinces to buy fourteen-year-old school buses to transport our children over roads which are probably the worst in this country. I question, Mr. Chairman, if government has the best interest of safety uppermost in their minds, and I do not think this should be allowed to happen.

I realize we have inspections, and I realize that bus drivers are good operators and bus owners are responsible people, but I do not think we should have ourselves in a situation whereby we go and buy equipment that other provinces have deemed to be either unsafe or unsuitable to transport their children to and from school, and we go and purchase those buses and use them here in this Province for five and six years after they have been deemed to be unsuitable in other provinces.

Health care in Newfoundland and Labrador is another issue, but before I move from education I have to talk briefly about the condition of two schools. I was hoping to see an announcement of a school in the - well, I guess it is shared between my district and the district of the Member for Terra Nova. An old high school is there today, built in 1960, probably one of the last schools built from wood, one of the last wooden-structured schools existing.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: 1960.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Not the picture, but that was when the school was built.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: No grey hairs there now, I say to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology - the Minister of Mines and Energy, I should say.

Mr. Chairman, I had hoped to see an announcement made, and I still expect to hear an announcement made, for a new school to replace the Musgravetown Integrated High School. It is a school that houses students from thirteen communities in my district. It is a school that has almost taken the lead in technology. Only a couple of days ago, the Member for Terra Nova and I travelled out to the Musgravetown High School and took part in a special ceremony they had there, where two students from that particular school were chosen from all across Canada to go to England to take part in the reopening of Canada House and to meet the Queen.

It goes to show that students in this particular school are not hung up on the type of school it is, or how inconvenienced they are by some of the shortcomings of the building. They have still been able to maintain their sight as to why they are going to the school. They are still able to proceed in a direction that has highlighted them right across this country. It shows that even though they go to a dilapidated old school, they still can compete with the best and be challenged by that.

I think we should take a lesson from that, and we should take a lesson from those who are giving something back, that we should be providing for them. Because if those people are expected to compete with their peers when they graduate from high school, I think at least they should be exposed and be allowed to go to a school and receive schooling in a friendly, upgraded environment. That is certainly not asking a lot. The school needs to be replaced, and it needs to be replaced soon.

I have an elementary school in Lethbridge which I would think, should a high school be built, that particular elementary school would be closed. Because then they would use the elementary school from Lethbridge to Musgravetown and house the entire elementary students from probably K to Grade VII or VIII in that particular building. Mr. Chairman, this is another old dilapidated building where students do not even have a place to eat. They stay there at lunchtime and have to eat on the floor of the corridor.

I had a call from a parent the other day who said: Do you know what is happening in our school? I said: Well, tell me. I am hearing lots of stories. Tell me what is happening. `Do you realize that my child takes her lunch to school - she likes to have a sandwich - but do you know where she has to eat it? They are told to leave the classroom and eat their lunch on the floor in the corridor.' Just imagine, in 1998, students having to sit on the floor in the corridor of a school to eat their lunch.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: That is true, I say to the - it has changed now. I say to the minister, it has changed now because when I heard it -and sometimes, as the minister knows, you get lots of calls. You don't interfere. You know it is parents calling because they are overzealous or they are overprotective of their children so you don't get involved; but when I heard this I said, this is not right.

I did not pick up the phone and call the Minister of Education. I did not think there was any need to do that. I picked up the phone and called the school board. I called the school principal and said, something is happening here.

It has been resolved, but you have to question as to why this should be allowed to happen in the first place. Sure, their lunchroom was taken from them because it was old and dilapidated. The floor had been rotten, so they decided they were going to remove the portable classrooms. In removing the portable classrooms they did away with the lunchroom where those students normally ate, where they normally went to eat their lunch, to eat their recess. Once it was removed, the teachers did not want them eating in school. They made too much of a mess around the classroom, so they were asked to eat in the corridor, to sit on the floor and eat their lunch.

AN HON. MEMBER: Eat on the corridor?

MR. FITZGERALD: Eat on the floor of the corridor. That is what was happening.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where is that?

MR. FITZGERALD: In one of the schools in my district. They had no place to eat, I say to the member. They had no place to eat. They had lost their lunchroom.

In the high school in Musgravetown today, if you go there when it is raining, you cannot find a wastepaper basket. The wastepaper baskets are out in the corridors, spread around the corridors and around the classrooms in order to catch water.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, you had better speak to the Member for Terra Nova because that is where the school is. You had better speak to your buddy from Terra Nova; he is the member there. He is a long-time member and he served the area well, I say to the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, but it will be looked after. I promise the minister that, it will be looked after.

If you go there today when it is raining, you will find the wastepaper baskets lined up and the leaks coming from the roof. I talked to the principal there and he told me that he has had to dump a fifteen-gallon wastepaper basket sometimes three times in a day. Open the door, take it outdoors, dump it out over the steps and run back in again in order to catch the leaks. That is not good enough, I say to members opposite. If we are going to be -

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: No, that is the other school that I just referred to. I think I told that story here before, of how they had a problem with rats in the school. The school structure was so unsafe that they would not even crawl up underneath the school in order to get the dead rats out of there that were killed from rat poison. They had to cut holes in the floor and get down through and fish them up that way because they were afraid that the classrooms would fall on them. Those are not lies. Those are not tall tales, I say to members opposite. This is true. This is what is happening out in rural areas of this Province today, and this is what students have to contend with.

Sometimes it is little wonder if they fall short when they leave those schools and come in here and enter university or some of the private colleges and find it hard to compete. They find it hard to keep up. Those are some of the reasons. Because in order to get a good product out one end, not only do you need a good product entering the door in the beginning but it has to be maintained all the way through. If we are going to provide a school in Musgravetown then those people should have the same opportunity as a school here in St. John's. They should have the same opportunity as a person in Bonavista. Sure, they may have to travel a little further; we all understand that. We pay a price for living in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, but we should not have to pay a price that great.

I call on the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Education to attend to some of those problems, Mr. Chairman. I call on the minister to make sure that there is funding available so those 275 students at Musgravetown Elementary, and 150 or 160 at L.R. Ash, are given an opportunity to be able to go to school and go to a building that is comparable to any other building in this Province today. That is why we over here on this side do not get up and reach out our hands and congratulate the minister, and talk about what a wonderful Budget it is. If I see funding announced for a school, I would be the first one to say thank you. I would be the first one to go and say to the minister: Thanks, it was needed and you responded to that need.

Mr. Chairman, the Member for Baie Verte got up and made some good points on the TAGS program, talked about the need for it and how we should be ever vigilant in trying to get this program brought forward in as early and timely a way as possible.

It sometimes concerns me when we talk about it, or we sit back and say: Yes, we think there is going to be a program, there is going to be money for early retirement, there is going to be money for licence buy-back, economic diversification, income support, income replacement. But, I ask, when? When is this going to happen? The need is out there now; the need is real. We have people out there today unable to collect a pay cheque, unable to go and buy groceries today. People are out there in rural Newfoundland and Labrador today, Mr. Chairman, probably trying to find a time to get into the department of social services without their friends or neighbours seeing them. It is not a place that they want to go. It is not a place they are proud of having to go in order to access funding. Mr. Chairman, they do not have any other choice. They are now left without a payment: people who have put twenty or twenty-five years into the fishery, people who got up every morning and went to the fish plant and went to work. I am not talking about ten weeks of the year. I am talking about fifty or fifty-two weeks of the year.

You might say: Well, if they were working for fifty-two weeks of the year, and if they were there for twenty years, how come they are not entitled to funding until the duration of the program?

Mr. Chairman, there have been many people taken off this program through no fault of their own. Women, because they were pregnant and missed a year's work - not a year's work but missed part of a year's work - were done away -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, tell the man what you said, I say to the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Tell him. The member knows that when I stand here I do not say anything negative against him. He knows when I stand in this House or anywhere else that I give him whatever credit he deserves. I do not shout out and say, because there is a dilapidated school in the Town of Musgravetown, that the member is not doing his job. I correct that, I say to the Member for Terra Nova. Those were statements from the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, not from this member here, I say to the member.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: He will verify that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, we see people on the TAGS program who are not entitled to it today, not receiving a pay cheque, for the mere fact that they were off on workers' compensation. Women who were pregnant have been taken off the program.

The Member for Torngat Mountains tells his story about the people down there who were denied access to the program altogether. Mr. Chairman, nobody I have met would put a TAGS cheque or an unemployment cheque or a social services cheque ahead of a job. I have not met one person who has said to me: I do not want to go to work. I have not met one Newfoundlander who has said to me: I need TAGS, I do not need a job.

What they want is a job, every single one of them, and we do not need Eugene Harrigan or somebody else from Central Canada to come down here and patronize us by saying that we want to go to work. That is no news to the Member for Bonavista North.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: He said it. That was no news for the Member for Bonavista North, or the Member for Terra Nova, or anybody else in this House here today. Newfoundlanders want to go to work.

Mr. Chairman, a few months ago - well, it was longer than that - a few years ago, a Canadian Tire store moved into Clarenville. They were going to hire fifteen or twenty people, and the rate was the minimum wage. The hours were something like fourteen or fifteen hours a week, a part-time job. They advertised in the local paper, The Packet, which predominantly goes to the Bonavista Peninsula and out as far as probably Arnold's Cove, I say to the Member for Bellevue. It covers part of your district as well.

MR. BARRETT: What?

MR. FITZGERALD: The Packet, the local newspaper there.

They advertised in the local paper for those fifteen or twenty jobs, minimum wage, fourteen or fifteen hours a week. How many people do you think applied?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is that?

MR. FITZGERALD: Canadian Tire, when they moved into Clarenville. The Canadian Tire store moved into Clarenville a few years ago and they wanted fifteen or twenty people to work for fifteen hours a week, for the minimum wage. They had over 1,000 applications for a job which paid them the minimum wage for fourteen or fifteen hours a week.

Mr. Chairman, I venture to say, if you went out in any part of rural Newfoundland today, and put up a sign saying you will be hiring tomorrow, and if it was the minimum wage or whatever, you had better be there awfully early to get into the first 1,000 who will be lined up the next morning.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Absolutely.

The pride is there, Mr. Chairman, the work ethics are there, all we need is the opportunity so those people can go to work. Now, we should not take advantage of that. I do not think we should go out and promote what is happening in this Province by saying: Our people are destitute, our people are screaming for a job, so now bring in the sweat shops. I do not think we should do that. Be careful of that, because those are the people who will feed on us, those are the people who will keep the people's living conditions as low as the lowest ebb that we can possibly go, if we promote ourselves as being in that kind of a situation. We need jobs, we will accept any job, but we should be ever mindful of the fact that people deserve to be able to make a decent living as well.

Mr. Chairman, I do not think anybody over here has the answer to all the economic problems, nobody here in this House, but what we have to do is listen. We have to listen to people and we have to go out and talk to the people in the rural areas, learn from the mistakes we have made, and not be afraid to take a chance or to invest in a company that is going to provide some opportunities. I will never - I will never! - Mr. Chairman, stand in this House and condemn a minister for travelling in either this Province or in the world to attract industry to this Province. I have never done it in the few short years I have been here and I will make a commitment right now that I would never do it. I would never to it!

If a member is travelling in this country today trying to attract industry here or trying to tell somebody about the opportunities here and our people here, he should be supported and promoted for doing that. That is the only way that we are ever going to attract somebody here. We are not going to attract very many people by writing an ad in The Evening Telegram or taking out a page in The Globe and Mail. There is nothing wrong with hopping on board a plane, taking a group of people, whether they are businessmen or politicians or local people, and saying, here is what we have and here is what we have to offer, and try to get people to come here to this Province.

In fact, Mr. Chairman, I feel that we are limited too much ourselves, here in this House. I think I, as a member here, should be allowed to go and try to attract something to my district or to the Province. If we identify something, some possibility where we can attract somebody here to provide employment and opportunity, I think we should be allowed to do that, and should not be scrutinized by other people saying it is a waste of money or it should never have been tried. It is not a waste of money if something happens.

We should be judged on our efforts and not only by the things we accomplish, because many, many times people may not accomplish a lot, but I will tell you, their efforts mean a lot, the efforts that they put forward in trying to attract something or somebody here to provide an opportunity.

There is nothing worse, Mr. Chairman, than going to the airport and seeing families embracing each other, where the husband or the head of that family has to go away. For the most part they go away and all they do, a lot of them, Mr. Chairman, is survive. They have to keep a house home here, they have to maintain a boarding house or some other arrangement up in Alberta or somewhere else. A lot of them are not fortunate enough to have trades and make the big bucks where they could return home with their pockets full of money and draw EI for another couple of months. That is no way to live and for the most part, many of our people go away and all they achieve is to be able to get a source of income over the winter months. That is all achieve and that's wrong. Mr. Chairman, they should be allowed more. We should be putting a greater amount of effort in having our representatives go out and seek good employers to come here and relocate. I am not talking about relocating to St. John's. I made this point to the minister the other night, that I think government themselves has to show some initiative.

A couple of years ago, I say to the Minister of Finance, they moved the department of Motor Registration from St. John's to Mount Pearl. So what? Did it mean anything? There is no reason today why the department of Motor Registration cannot operate just as well in Bonavista or Port Union or Catalina as it can here in Mount Pearl or as it can here in St. John's. We are talking about the age that we are living in, the high tech age, where we can take a whole encyclopedia and send it around the world in about twenty seconds, but still we are reluctant to take a service and put it out in a rural area. We are reluctant to do that.

Mr. Chairman, I don't think we would have any trouble finding good employees in Bonavista or Musgravetown or Bloomfield. I don't think we would have any trouble finding good employees in Lumsden, Ladle Cove and Cape Freels. I don't think, Mr. Chairman, we would have any problem finding good employees in those communities. It would give them a chance to be able to go to work and be productive, and if government showed a commitment to rural Newfoundland then other people would as well. The next thing you know, from that one little move, you would have businesses growing up and you would have a solid base there for the community. That is what has to happen.

Some of the decisions made by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture stands here in this House and says he disagrees with them. I talk about vessel replacement, I say to the minister, where you look at a fellow today out there, who made a purchase and spent his lifesavings to buy a boat over 35 feet - 4 feet above 35 feet, that would give him about a 39 foot boat - unable to go fishing because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans says that he can only have a vessel up to 34 ft. 11 in. Now just imagine, that individual, if he wants to go fishing this year, has to take his boat out of water, put it up on a marine centre and hire somebody to cut the boat in half, take four feet off the boat and put it back together again. Now did anybody ever hear of a foolish policy, rule or regulation such as that? He is not looking for any more licenses, Mr. Chairman. He is not looking for any bigger quota. All he is saying is: I have made this purchase, I want to provide a safe boat, I want to have something under my feet - is the phrase that they use - I want to have something safe under my feet for me and my crew. I want to be able to land a good product. I want to be able to go out, take enough ice with me and when I bring ashore my crab, my turbot, my lumproe, capelin or whatever, I want to be able to land a good product.

That's the philosophy of the minister. That's the philosophy of each and everyone of us here, that if we are going to survive in the fishery today we have to put up a good quality product. Here is an individual willing to do all that but because he has a boat four feet longer than DFO says that he has a licence for, although he is not looking for anything extra, not looking for any money, not looking for anything from government, Mr. Chairman, he is probably going to have to sell the whole thing off, end up on social services or be another statistic who has to travel up to Alberta somewhere to look for another job. How silly! But try to talk to the bureaucrats up on Slater Street, or whatever the name of the street is up in Ottawa, try to talk to some of those people and convince them they should do away with those rules and regulations, they don't hear you and they don't understand.

Mr. Chairman, the fellow I talked to the other day, I suggested to him: Why don't you go back to Ottawa, why don't you go back to DFO, why don't you call your member - he was not on the Baie Verte Peninsula - and see if you can get the boat registered as a thirty-four-foot-eleven rather than a thirty-nine-foot boat? If you ever sell your enterprise, or if you ever want to enter a fishery, all the rules and regulations will be as a thirty-four-foot-eleven boat. Why don't you do that? Because a few years ago I managed to get it done for an individual and it worked out. No way! Not willing to do it any more.

It is a policy that has been brought in by bureaucrats in Ottawa -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) for just a second.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: I think the rules call for the Late Show at 4:30 p.m. If not, there is a motion to adjourn. I think we have agreed that we will continue the debate until 5:00 p.m. Right?

AN HON. MEMBER: Are we going to sit tonight?

MR. TULK: No. I'm going to let you go home, boy. After the big feed you had last night you want a good night's sleep.

MR. FITZGERALD: I compliment the member for doing that, Mr. Chairman.

We saw the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture stand here today and talk about a plant opening down in Lawn, a plant that was going to employ twenty people. Good news! Nobody's going to argue against that. Nobody's going to say that twenty jobs created in Lawn is not good news, because it is. The people in Lawn need a job just as badly as the people in any other community - pick one - in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Chairman, my concern about it is the overcapacity in the processing industry. The minister says we have too much processing capacity. The minister says the Tories caused the problem because they allowed all those fish plants to be built and to be opened; government owned fish plants. So out of one side of his mouth he talks about all the bad things that were done in processing, and out of the other side he says: Now, we are going to get rid of all the government owned plants, we are going to try to get them open again, bring more capacity back into the industry. I would think, Mr. Chairman, if government wanted to reduce capacity the place they would look first would be the plants they own.

The minister talks about regionalization. I can let him know right now - the minister knows full well - that we already have enough processing on the Burin Peninsula. If you are going to talk about regionalization, if you are going to talk about regional processing, there are plants already in Fortune, Grand Bank, Marystown and St. Lawrence. He can't use that excuse.

It concerns me when I see those kinds of decisions made. As bad as we need jobs, and as happy as I am for the people from Lawn to have the twenty jobs, it concerns me when I see the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture say we are bringing another plant back into the processing sector. On one hand he is saying: Your plant has to disappear because we can't have three plants here and two plants somewhere else, but on the other hand he is saying: I'm so happy today that now we have added a fifth plant to a particular area, a government owned plant.

That bothers me, Mr. Chairman, because I would have thought that after six years into a moratorium we would at least have learned the lesson of what a fishery should look like. Has anybody in this House seen the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture get up and tell you what the fishery of the future is going to look like? Has anybody in this House ever heard the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture talk about the fishery of the future? I haven't heard him talk about it. You get up and form a question, and the first thing he says is: This is no place to be political. Mr. Chairman, the place to be political is here in this House. If we have to be political, then let us do it wherever we have to, in order to get answers, because people want to know. People today should know. I do not think people will rebel and turn the place upside down when they find out the truth, when they know out what is happening. I think they will react to it, but they will be reacting in a way that is promising and will be reacting in a way that is responsible. Until we do that, we are only hoodwinking the very people that we have been elected to serve right here in this House.

Mr. Chairman, the department of social services is another issue today, where we have brought in social services police, if you will. For the most part, some of them have probably done a good job. They have gone out and found people who have not been abiding by the rules and regulations, they have taken them off funding, and there is nothing wrong with that. If people are taking advantage of programs, or if they are doing something that is wrong and not within the rules and regulations, Mr. Chairman, then they should be taken off the program, and they should be punished.

Mr. Chairman, there is something wrong when we tell people that they are not allowed to go out and go to work. There is something wrong when we say to people: We want you to stay on Social Services because we are not going to give you enough money in order to access a job. I have received calls, members over there have received calls, where people wanted mobility allowance, wanted to leave the Province and go somewhere else - by choice, I say to the members opposite - but cannot be allowed mobility allowance because the department of social services says: I am sorry, but we do not have funding for that. We are willing to leave people on social services rather than help them obtain a job. We would rather leave people, Mr. Chairman, on the public trough, than help them find gainful employment where they can contribute themselves.

I had a phone call today from a constituent of mine, who was in and had an operation, I say to members opposite. He had a brain tumour, and he is getting treatment. He has to travel to Clarenville once or twice a week for treatments. The chemotherapy that he is taking - he also has to have blood tests to go with the chemotherapy. The family is not given enough income in order to pay the cost of the trip on a weekly basis to Clarenville. He needs twenty-five dollars for it. Twenty-five dollars is a lot of money when you are getting less than $200 a week and you have to go out and pay the light bill, the phone bill and all the other bills that you have as a family. She has gone to social services to ask if they would pay for the taxi to Clarenville; twenty-five dollars once a week.

This individual, who worked all of his life with the Department of Works, Services and Transportation - he was an operator with Department of Works, Services and Transportation - has been refused. He has gone to the Department of Health and Community Services, gone to social services and gone to Blue Cross to try to get that twenty-five dollars a week paid. No, sorry! It is not our policy to pay a trip from your town to the hospital. If he was going to St. John's, they would pay it. It has to be 160 or 180 miles. That is the only reason they will pay.

Mr. Chairman, I know we need rules and regulations, and I know we need policies we should uphold, but if we see people in that kind of need, if we see people out there trying to help themselves, and we can get them off a government service, then we should do whatever we have to.

I remember calling a social services office one day, to try to get somebody mobility money, that he had found a job up in Alberta. I gave them a call and tried to convince the gentlemen on the other end of the phone that this was a positive move. I knew the individual, I knew he was sincere and I knew it was not a trip just to get somewhere for a week or two, to visit a relative or friend or have a good time, Mr. Chairman. The answer was no, no, no. So then I went back and asked them if they would loan him the money: Why don't you loan him the money and let him go, and he will pay it back. He is willing to pay back the money. The answer was: I am sorry, we are not a lending agency. Tell him to go to the bank. Now, which bank is going to give somebody, with no employment record, with no collateral, money to go Alberta to look for a job, Mr. Chairman?

AN HON. MEMBER: He had a job (inaudible)?

MR. FITZGERALD: No, he had the job, I say to the member. Do you know what they do? They pick up the phone and they call the employment office, where the job is supposed to be, and if there is somebody in that area with the same skills as this person who is looking for a job, then they will not send him. Now, there might be 100 there with the same skills but they do not want to go to work. You have competed -

AN HON. MEMBER: You prove that you have a job and you can go.

MR. FITZGERALD: He has proven he had a job. He has proven it. Yes, I say to the member, and the reason he was refused was because there were other people in that same area that had the skills for what that job called for. You can shake your head, but it is true.

The member knows as well as I do, many, many times you have to compete for a job. Other people come with the same skills and you get a job most of the time because you have -

AN HON. MEMBER: Did he have a letter from the employer saying that he had a job?

MR. FITZGERALD: He had a letter saying that he could be hired!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) be hired.

MR. FITZGERALD: No, he would be hired. They would not provide him with the funding because there were other people with the same skills in that area.

AN HON. MEMBER: Could be hired and hired are two different things.

MR. FITZGERALD: No, the same thing, I say to the minister.

You have people, Mr. Chairman, today who want to go and take courses, like a heavy equipment course, for instance. HRD is very reluctant, our own provincial training programs are reluctant to get involved in helping people take certain types of courses. There argument always is, that there are too many trained for it already: There are too many heavy equipment operators; there are too many mechanics; there are too many carpenters; and probably there are. But if somebody feels that they can get employment, Mr. Chairman, then why shouldn't they go and take it.

Here is a situation, I say to the member, if they have a letter that they could be considered, if they have a letter from an employer saying that they would hire them - now, it is no trouble to get a letter from an employer saying that they are going to hire you. It is the easiest thing in the world for me to give somebody a letter saying that I own a truck and if you will train him as a heavy equipment operator, then I will provide him with a job. I am not going to stop, I am not going to hesitate doing that.

Most employers are responsible, I say to the member. Most employers will say: I cannot give him a letter saying that I am going to hire him, but I will provide him with every opportunity to get a job.

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

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

MR. EFFORD: Do I understand, Mr. Chairman, that the hon. member is on leave? Because if he is, Mr. Chairman, I withdraw leave.

MR. FITZGERALD: You are not in charge here. You might wear a blue shirt. You might feel good today because you are wearing a blue shirt and think you are in charge, but you are not.

CHAIR: Order, please! order, please!

The hon. member has been speaking since 3:55 p.m., and there has been no interjection. The Chair has just assumed that, at this particular stage where we are in Committee, the member can speak as often as he wished, as long as there is an intervening speaker. The very fact that he has gone beyond the allotted time, I just assumed he was speaking by leave. If leave has been withdrawn -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Leave is withdrawn.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think this Budget presented perpetrates a fraud, almost, on the people.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Almost, I said. That is why I want my colleague for Bonavista South to tell us some of the reasons why.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before the House opened today, I went to the funeral of the mother for the Member for St. John's West. I saw a couple of members there from the other side as well. On my way into the church I spoke to this businessman who told me he had just gotten into the u-haul business, and he advertised. How many calls do you think he had the first day he advertised?

AN HON. MEMBER: For what?

MR. FITZGERALD: For rental of u-hauls. How many calls do you think he had? He had ninety-two calls the first day that he advertised, ninety-two calls from people trying to rent u-hauls to leave this Province.

I said to him: There are much more going out than coming back. He said: Boy, we aren't into that. We are renting them here and once they leave the Province it's somebody else's responsibility to get them back. It is somebody else's responsibility to get the numbers back here. Just imagine, Mr. Chairman! Ninety-two calls in the first day that he advertised. Those were people who were leaving this Province.

I can tell you, I just recited a statistic that said 41 per cent of post-secondary graduates left this Province last year. Those are not post-secondary students, Mr. Chairman. Those are not people who just graduated university who are going to hook onto a U-Haul and take their belongings to Alberta, British Columbia, or some other province. Mr. Chairman, those are families taking their worldly belongings, hooking them onto the back of the car and taking them out of this Province. This is what is happening. This is what is happening here in this Province today.

Payroll taxes, Mr. Chairman, I thought we would see that disappear altogether in this particular Budget. I thought that would disappear altogether.

MR. SULLIVAN: Scratched the surface, that is all.

MR. FITZGERALD: Scratched the surface, played with it, the same as the former House Leader did with the realignment of the districts. That was the biggest farce of all, the realignment of districts.

I will tell you how members opposite can create a couple of jobs if they want. Members opposite might be able to create a couple of jobs by giving some of us rural members some extra staff in order to look after our constituents. That is one way members can create a few jobs, I say to people opposite. When you see the number of calls that rural districts get, and the number of inquiries that rural members get here in this House, Mr. Chairman, it is impossible for the members and their secretaries to look after them. It is impossible.

I remember going to do a submission before the committee that went around the Province looking at rejigging the boundaries, Mr. Chairman. I remember going and making a submission to the committee, and I remember Judge Mahoney's comments. Judge Mahoney's comment to me was that: if your district is going to be busier than it is now, it is a rural district, then there is no reason why you cannot be provided with extra staff. There is no reason why members with thirty and thirty-five districts in rural Newfoundland cannot be provided with extra staff.

Mr. Chairman, that is needed. I can assure you, that is needed more today than it has been in the five years certainly since I have been here. It is alright for the ministers; they have their executive assistants, their political assistants, their secretaries, and the secretary to the political assistant and the secretary to the executive assistant. They have staff full and plenty, but I can tell you that the rural members sitting in this House today, with 40 per cent and 50 per cent unemployment in their districts, certainly can do with extra staff.

I know in my district, from the number of calls I get, and I do not think my district is much different... We can all stand here and say our district is busier, or our district has the most problems, and we all believe that I suppose, but I do not think my district is much different from that of the Member for Lewisporte or the Member for Marystown, the Member for Bellevue, or the Member for Grand Falls. I do not think my district is a whole lot different. The number of calls I get, I am sure, is an indication of what other members in rural areas get as well.

The Member for St. John's North, ask him how many calls he gets a day from his district. My colleague here, ask him how many calls he gets a day from his district. Ask him. Ask the Member for Placentia how many calls he gets. Ask the Member for Terra Nova. Ask me how many calls I get a day and you will find there is a vast difference. Ask the Member for Lewisporte and you will find there is a vast difference in representing a district from rural Newfoundland than a district in an urban area right here in St. John's.

The members opposite may stand up and say that constitutionally we can only have one person for one vote - one person, one vote. Be that as it may, Mr. Chairman, if we cannot have a plus or minus 25 per cent -

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible) twenty-five. Roberts changed it. I said it should be plus or minus twenty-five and he changed it to ten was it, or something?

MR. FITZGERALD: Ten per cent, was it? If we cannot have a plus or minus 25 per cent in urban areas, Mr. Chairman, then we are not giving fair representation to our people.

When the boundaries committee was travelling this Province, I remember the former Member for Mount Pearl - and at that time he had something like 17,000 people, if I recall, in his district in Mount Pearl - standing in this House, right here where I stand today, and saying: Give me another 17,000. I can look after another 17,000 people with the number of calls I get.

I know he was right, because I worked side by side with him and I saw what his secretary did and I saw what my secretary is doing, and I know that he was probably right. The Member for St. John's North will probably tell you the same thing.

Mr. Chairman, come to a rural district and do a work check on the workload that a rural member has, and the workload that is put on a rural member's secretary, and you will find that we have very little time to do follow-ups. You will find that we have very little time to go the extra step in trying to help somebody. For the most part, you want to return your call, and you try to give them the quickest answer possible, because you have another stack there like that.

That is wrong. I think we should be given the goods to be able to represent our people. That is why people elect us. It is something this government should seriously look at, providing extra staff to rural members. There is nobody going to complain about it, nobody going to say we are spending extra money now in the House of Assembly because the member wants extra money for this or extra money for something else. I think it is justifiable, that you want extra money to represent your people. It needs to be done, and it needs to be done soon.

I have thirty-five communities, I think the Member for Bay de Verde probably has forty-two, the Member for Bellevue has thirty-six, and the Member for Lewisporte, nineteen; but he has some bigger communities there. I have thirty-five, I say to the member. My district is not bad geographically. It is a good district geographically; but thirty-five. You have your fire departments, you have your town councils, you have all your organizations and associations. They all want to meet with you.

If your secretary is off a day or two days or three days you don't get somebody else, you are expected then to carry the whole load yourself. If the secretary goes on holidays, three weeks, Mr. Chairman, then without -

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: Mr. Chairman, I've just had a conversation with the Opposition House Leader. Just for the sake of seeing the Contingency Reserve of $30 million appear in the right place on the Order Paper, I'm asking for leave - and I think he is going to grant to me - to move Motion No. 6. Even though you are in the Chair - we will get away with that. We can do what we like here.

By leave, I move Motion No. 6?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave!

CHAIR: The motion is: "To Move that a further Estimate of Expenditure related to a Contingency Reserve in the amount of $30 million be referred to Committee of Supply."

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: Opposed.

Carried.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Chairman, I say to the Government House Leader, that is something that we should think seriously about.

Would the Member for St. John's North tell me how many electors are in his district? How many electors are in your district?

AN HON. MEMBER: Sixty-eight hundred.

MR. MATTHEWS: Electors? Voting people?

MR. FITZGERALD: Electors, yes.

MR. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible) 6,800.

MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, the member is right. Just listen to this. Let's go back to the last election, I say to the Member for St. John's North. The Member for St. John's North represents an urban district of 6,800 electors. That is what he has, 6,800 electors.

The Member for Bonavista South - I will talk on my own, because I know what I have. You have how many?

MR. MATTHEWS: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Well that changed since the last election. The largest one is Bonavista South, 9,277. In the last election Bonavista South had the largest number of electors, 9,277.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: Well maybe it has. I can't argue against that. But I am going back and comparing the 6,800 that the Member for St. John's North has. Now, is there any comparison? Show me the comparison. The Member for St. John's North is entitled to exactly the same staff as the member for an urban area. Now I have to ask: Is that fair? No reflection on the member. Forget the member. Look at the district, an urban district. He very seldom gets a call - 6,800 electors compared to well over 9,000 in rural areas, Mr. Chairman. No comparison whatsoever!

That is why I say to members opposite that I think we should put a committee of this House in place to look at providing extra staff to members that represent rural areas. I am dead serious when I say that, because it is needed in the worse kind of way. It is not hard to find out -

AN HON. MEMBER: We should make a presentation to the Cabinet Committee.

MR. TULK: Why don't you write the IEC?

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, would the IEC have the power to appoint a committee?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: It is something that should be looked at seriously, and I am very serious about it, Mr. Chairman. There is something wrong when I see an urban area with 6,800 people getting the same staff as somebody representing a rural area with over 9,000 people and thirty-five communities; and forty-one communities in the Speaker's district.

The Member for Terra Nova knows what I'm talking about. His calls are reflective of mine, and he knows full well what his secretary has to do, and what he has to do. I would say to the member, I would say to the minister, seriously consider it, because it is something that needs to be done. All we are doing is providing fair representation to our people.

It's not hard to find out how busy a district is. Telephone bills are a good indication. Telephone calls are a good indication of how busy your district is. It's not hard to do that.

Mr. Chairman, with those few words I will clue up and pass it back to the Government House Leader. I will adjourn debate.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. TULK: 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 Lewisporte.

MR. PENNEY: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred, have directed me to report 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. TULK: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House adjourn until tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m., and that at that time we will be back on Order No. 2 again.

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