The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Newfoundland entrepreneur who passed away on January 14, at the young age of fifty-five.

Gerry Pritchett left Newfoundland in his teens and returned in the late 1980s. The Pritchett group of companies, which he started, includes businesses in aviation, construction, tourism, heavy equipment, and he is well known as a founding father of our new dimension stone industry. The contract he won to supply dimension stone to The Rooms will be a major showcase for Gerry's black granite and will always remind us of him.

Gerry had a unique style - he was an outspoken, risk-taking, determined, controversial, results oriented person, who wanted the very best for his town and his Province. Many of us also knew the other side of Gerry - the caring, generous side, the man who had a great sense of humor, loved music and lived for his fishing trips to Labrador. Gerry also served on the boards of the Gander and Area Chamber of Commerce, and Junior Achievement, and he was a great supporter of the Health Care Foundation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all members of this House join with me in expressing condolences to Gerry's wife, Connie, and all his family. He will be sadly missed, not only by his family but by his friends and business associates all over the world.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for The Straits & White Bay North.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On Saturday, March 15, I, along with the Leader of the Opposition and the Member for Baie Verte, had the pleasure of joining 1,500 other people at Grenfell Ride 2003.

At 7:00 a.m., many of us met at the Grenfell Historical Properties in St. Anthony for breakfast and then departed for a fifty kilometre ride to the Main Brook intersection. There, snowmobilers from all over the Northern Peninsula and indeed from across the Province came together in an attempt at breaking the world record for the longest continuous line of moving snowmobiles.

Mr. Speaker, 739 snowmobiles participated in the record-breaking attempt. At the end of the ride in Main Brook, 320 snowmobiles crossed the line without a break, setting a new Guinness World Record.

Mr. Speaker, the Grenfell Ride has grown every year to become the Province's premier snowmobile event, Atlantic Canada's largest snowmobile meet and, as of March 15, the biggest snowmobile ride in the world.

Saturday past was a great day for winter tourism in Newfoundland and Labrador and, Mr. Speaker, it was brought about by the tremendous volunteer efforts of people all around the tip of the Northern Peninsula.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Grenfell Historical Society, the Grenfell Ride Organizing Committee, the people of Main Brook, and all those people from around the Northern Peninsula who came together to make the Grenfell Ride a truly regional event.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of those involved with the Grenfell Ride, I would like to extend an invitation: When the snowbanks seem too high, when the temperatures dip too low, when you feel that you have to get away, come to a place where the warmth of the people surrounds you. Come to a place where the winds will blow your worries away. Come and stand on the whitest beaches in the world.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome everybody next year to Grenfell Ride, the biggest snowmobile ride in the world.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Lake Melville.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. McLEAN: Mr. Speaker, on February 16 of this year, for the first time, a musical band from Labrador won at the East Coast Music Association Awards.

The Flummies album, Way Back Then, received the award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year. That award has been many years in the making for the band who celebrate a quarter of a century together in 2003. As a prelude to their ECMA win, the Flummies received a Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador award for 2002 Aboriginal Artist/Group of the Year.

The Flummies have chartered a course for future Labrador musicians. This accomplishment is even more astonishing because the band has remained only a weekend endeavour for the members.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all Members of the House of Assembly to join with me in congratulating the Flummies on receiving the award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On Saturday evening, March 22, 2003, Sport Newfoundland and Labrador held their annual awards banquet to honour the best in the Province for 2002.

It is with a great sense of pride that I stand here in the House today and congratulate Carl English, who was named the top senior male athlete of the year, and Jenine Browne, who was named the top senior female athlete of the year.

Both of these fine individuals are not only from the District of Placentia and St. Mary's, and not only are both from the Cape Shore area of my district, but both are former students of Fatima Academy in St. Bride's, my own former school. To say they have made us all proud would be an understatement. The have helped develop the game of basketball into an obsession with many people throughout the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Watching both of these star athletes perform on the courts of North America has won both our praise and our hearts.

Carl has excelled as a member of the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. He has won several awards including top scorer, most valuable player and was one of only fifty nominees out of the thousands of U.S. college basketball players chosen for the prestigious John R. Wooden Award. He was recently the subject of a three page article in Sports Illustrated and also highlighted in a major spread in ESPN Magazine, March edition.

Jenine Browne has taken ladies basketball to a new level. She has led the MUN Sea Hawks to the Atlantic University Sport Crown two years in a row. She has won many awards and honours including AUS regular-season and playoff most valuable player, AUS and CIS top scorer with 21.1 points per game. She was named to the CIS first all-star team and was also a member of the Canadian Junior Women's under twenty team which competed in the World Juniors in Brazil last summer.

Much has been said and written about those two fine young people but I want to make a special recognition today to a person who played a very important and vital role in the early development of Carl and Jenine. That is Mr. Gordon Pike, a native of St. Lawrence who came to Fatima Academy as a physical education teacher many years ago. He may not want me to mention how many. Gord Pike, who has a great love for basketball, saw the potential of Carl and Jenine and helped to hone their skills and laid a solid foundation for both of them that has served them well both on and off the courts.

Saturday night's award I am sure was very satisfying to Gord, and on behalf of everyone I congratulate him also and publicly thank him for his guidance and support to all our children over the years. By the way, Mr. Pike is now the Principal of Fatima Academy.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Carl English and Jenine Browne on being Newfoundland and Labrador's best athletes of 2002.

Along with being great athletes, both Carl and Jenine have become excellent role models -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. MANNING: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. MANNING: Along with being great athletes, both Carl and Jenine have become excellent role models for our young people and wonderful ambassadors for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Congratulations, keep us the good work and remember, the sky is definitely the limit.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In January of this year two residents in my district celebrated very significant birthdays.

On the twentieth, Mrs. Elizabeth Bradbury of Coley's Point turned 105, which in today's world is a great accomplishment. Until she was 103, Mrs. Bradbury loved to be driven around her community. She enjoyed watching the dedication and continuous growth of her town, especially during Christmas. The bright lights of Christmas and the festive spirit from residents, always managed to make Mrs. Bradbury smile with pride.

On January 28, Mr. Chesley Earle from Shearstown celebrated his ninety-third birthday. Mr. Earle has not let his age interfere with his life. He remains very active and neighbours can always find him outside doing chores around his home.

Mr. Speaker, both Mrs. Bradbury and Mr. Earle are strong, determined individuals, who through the years have made a strong impact in their communities. On behalf of my fellow Members in the House of Assembly I would like to thank them for their years of influence and support in their communities, and wish them both a very happy belated birthday.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to take this opportunity today to extend birthday greetings as well to a constituent of mine, Mrs. Alice Squires, who celebrated her one-hundredth birthday on Valentine's Day, February 14.

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly an education to sit down and listen to Mrs. Squires recall the events of her life over the past century. I went to visit her on Valentine's Day and I found her sitting at the table - she resides with her son, Cyril, and his wife, Joan - eating a good old Newfoundland feed of fish and potatoes. I sat down and enjoyed the meal with her.

Her only wish, Mr. Speaker, was that she could look out through her window and see her former house restored to the way she remembered it in days gone by. I understand in talking with the family after that the Bonavista Historical Association has recently purchased her house and it is on their list of historic homes to be restored. So, I am sure I echo the wishes of everybody here when I offer our congratulations and best wishes to Mrs. Alice Squires of Bonavista.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MERCER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to inform my colleagues of a very important event taking place this week in Gander: the 3^rd Annual Clean and Safe Drinking Water Workshop. More than 300 delegates have registered for this workshop and the majority of those attending are representatives of municipalities from across the Province. This event provides an opportunity for my department to share information, to educate and be educated, and to respond to questions from the people who operate water systems throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.

I thank my colleague, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, for his department's assistance in making it possible for many of these municipal representatives to attend.

Mr. Speaker, the quality of drinking water in this Province is a high priority for this government. Government has made a significant commitment to ensure the provision of safe drinking water. We have financial and human resources within four different government departments - Environment, Municipal and Provincial Affairs, Health and Community Services, and Government Services and Lands - all dedicated to the issue of water quality. We have a progressive action plan which was outlined when we released the Source to Tap document nearly two years ago.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to advise this House that we are making progress in implementing our action plan effectively. We have increased chemical and bacteriological sampling, increased investment in capital projects, enhanced training initiatives, we have experienced a decrease in the number of boil water advisories and we have provided an annual public report on the safety of public water supplies.

In keeping with our commitment to openness and transparency, one of the key areas where we have made significant improvements is in the level of our communication to the public. We have substantially enhanced our public communication through our Web site and with direct communication with communities should there be any indication of an emerging issue.

Mr. Speaker, our annual water conference is a means by which we continue our efforts to enhance our communication with municipalities and to work cooperatively and collaboratively with the people who have the day-to-day responsibility of operating drinking water systems throughout this Province. We are committed to providing operator training opportunities since we are quite aware of the important role that water system operators play in the provision of safe drinking water.

Over the course of this workshop, we will provide these operators with access to some of the best technical experts in the area of water quality. They will gain much information which will assist them in carrying out their responsibility to ensure the people who live in their communities have access to safe drinking water.

Mr. Speaker, I commend all those who will make the effort to attend this workshop. It is clear they share government's commitment to safe drinking water. The people of this Province expect and certainly deserve no less.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: Mr. Speaker, these workshops are always good. They are always progressive. However, I will say that after ten years of poor water management and water quality, after six years of withholding the state of the Province's water supply, with over 200 boil orders in the Province, more than any of the other province's in Canada, and, in fact, more than all of the other provinces in Canada combined, these are all factors, Mr. Speaker, that contributed to government starting to take these actions. We still have 200-odd boil orders in this Province. The Province still withholds information to the general public on Haloacidic Acids and the health concerns that they create for the people of this Province. This Province was shamed into these actions and, while they are a good start, Mr. Speaker, they don't go far enough. I am looking forward to the day when we can sit on that side of the House and put in place the measures that have to be put in place to put public confidence in the water supplies in this province -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: - to ensure public confidence and public trust, Mr. Speaker, in the water supplies and water quality in this Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When the document that the minister refers to, the Source to Tap document, was issued in 2001, in May of that year, there were boil orders in place in 223 communities throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. Fully 18 per cent of the people of the Province in serviced areas had boil orders in effect.

I would have expected the new minister, on whose job I congratulate him, in making his first report to the House would, in fact, be giving us a progress report on the elimination of boil orders. We are happy to see that some education is taking place, because it is obviously very important, but what we really need, Mr. Speaker, is progress on this most important and vital area of safe drinking water for every community in Newfoundland and Labrador. We should not rest, Mr. Speaker, until that happens. The minister should be giving us a report on that, not telling us about a seminar which his department should be doing, in any event.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the recipients of the second annual Newfoundland and Labrador Youth of the Year awards.

These rewards, which provide a $500 scholarship to each of the winners, were established to recognize the outstanding achievements of youth ages fifteen to thirty, who contribute to the social and economic development of our Province. The awards were developed by Futures in Newfoundland and Labrador's Youth (FINALY) in partnership with the Department of Youth Services and Post-Secondary education and Memorial University of Newfoundland. Youth and youth related issues are of high priority to this government and we could make no greater investment than in our young people.

I was honored this morning to help present awards to five of our Province's most outstanding young people: Olivia Heaney of Mount Pearl in the Expression category; Niraj Shukla of St. John's for Innovation; Jay McGrath of Branch for Heritage; Lisa Saunders of Bay Bulls in the Linkages category; and Amy Parsons of Twillingate for Vision. These individuals have joined us in the gallery today, and I would like for them to stand to be recognized by the Members of the House of Assembly, and I would like for members to join with me in congratulating them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minster for an advance copy of her statement. We, on this side of the House, certainly join with her in congratulating these fine young individuals who have just stood and were recognized for their accomplishments in the various areas. It is great that we can recognize the youth and their potential, and it is up to us to make sure that we continue to present opportunities for the youth of this Province to excel.

To Olivia, Niraj, Jay, Lisa and Amy, I, as well as my colleagues, pass along congratulations for a great job. Keep up the good work. Certainly, rising in the House today has brought a youthful, bright -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HEDDERSON: - bit of fresh air into this wonderful House.

Thank you again.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would just like to take a moment to join in congratulating these five young people on their accomplishments and their contribution to the social and economic development of the Province.

I think, Mr. Speaker, that while they are being recognized, and deservedly so, they will probably be the first to recognize that there are many, many young people throughout Newfoundland and Labrador who do play a significant role in our communities with their own ideas, with their own enthusiasm, with their own ability, and contribute to our Province, and I want to congratulate them and all the other young people who go out of their way to try and make this a better place for all of us to live in.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions this afternoon are for the Premier.

Last week, Mr. Speaker, I heard the Premier say that the Throne Speech marked the beginning of this government's election campaign. Well, after just two days in the House, it is pretty obvious that members opposite plan to embark on a fearmongering campaign, the likes of which this Province has never seen before.

Mr. Speaker, last week I listened in disbelief as the Premier and others suggested that our party would make massive cuts to the public sector, and stated that nothing is safe, nobody is safe, if our party forms a government.

Let me set the record straight, Mr. Speaker, that those statements are absolutely incorrect.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Now, Mr. Speaker, let's find out who really carries the hatchet around this House.

Would the Premier please confirm that it was this Liberal government, in which most of the current members opposite had a seat at the Cabinet or at the caucus table, that in just one budget announced some 2,500 job cuts and a wage rollback?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the line of questioning. Obviously, we have struck a nerve with the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Speaker, I quote from Hansard, which is the official document that records the words spoken in this House, where the Leader of the Opposition, in responding to the Throne Speech - well, in making his own mini Throne Speech, I should say, because he chose not to respond to the Throne Speech - said, and these are his words that the people of the Province, including Mr. Hanlon, head of the public sector union, that were said earlier in the public in Deer Lake by the Member for St. John's East: I, for one, in my caucus, will not be bound by commitments made by a government.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER GRIMES: That is what he said.

AN HON. MEMBER: He is wrong.

PREMIER GRIMES: That is what he said, Mr. Speaker. Now, today, he is trying to suggest that he is saying something different. Well, through the weekend, I guess, the alter ego, the real Leader of the Opposition, the Member for Kilbride, who speaks as the leader outside the House because the real leader says nothing outside the House and sends out the alter ego, the real leader from Kilbride - on the weekend, I am sure the Leader of the NDP, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, and the Member for Labrador West were absolutely astounded to hear that the Tories, all of a sudden, were going to be left of centre. They must have just moved their seats down and joined the NDP, because they are - we are striking a chord, we are striking a nerve, Mr. Speaker.

The question with respect to the Budget that did lay off 2,500 people, I do believe, if I am not mistaken, probably the only person on this side of the House who was in the Cabinet at that point in time was me. We have a new team over here, Mr. Speaker, new leadership.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER GRIMES: I can tell you again, Mr. Speaker -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Premier to conclude his answer quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Speaker.

I can tell you again, just like I told and was proud to tell the students at Memorial University on Friday, that when I was the Minister of Education in another Liberal Administration with a different leader, I was Minister of Education when we were increasing tuitions. Now that I am the leader and we are leading this group, we have reduced tutitions by 25 per cent and became the lowest in Canada, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the Premier now to conclude his answer.

PREMIER GRIMES: This leader and this Party will stand on its own record quite proudly, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, in quoting me from Hansard the Premier forgot to read the rest of the sentence. It says, "I, for one, and my caucus, won't be bound by the political commitments made by a government in the last days of their electoral term without first evaluating them through a comprehensive due diligence process." Due diligence is something you do not understand, Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, in my thirty-odd years in the private sector I have created thousands of jobs and I stand on my private sector record.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: I have never had a major layoff, not once.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member now to get to his question. He is on a supplementary.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member now to get to his question, quickly.

MR. WILLIAMS: Unlike members opposite, Mr. Speaker, I have always, always, honoured negotiated collective agreements.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, can the Premier also confirm that by very conservative estimates this Liberal government has, in fact, eliminated well over 4,000 jobs since they took office in 1989?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I might point out, while the Leader of the Opposition suggests his proud record in the private sector we do know of incidents where he sold out companies and had someone else layoff Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: He might not have done it directly, Mr. Speaker, but he took the cash and let someone else lay off Newfoundlanders and Labradorians here in St. John's, in Corner Brook and elsewhere in the Province. The public record clearly shows that.

Mr. Speaker, the public service in Newfoundland and Labrador is of a size that is required to deliver the programs and services that the people want, need, desire and expect for health care, education, and other public services. In some areas, certainly, there have been fewer workers such as the area of teaching because in that same ten-year period, he might be interested in knowing, that the school age population of Newfoundland and Labrador has decreased by over 40,000. Over 40,000 fewer students are in our schools today compared to ten years ago. So, is he now suggesting that we should have exactly the same number of teachers as we had ten years ago? There are some reasons why some sectors of the public service, paid for by the government, are a little bit smaller today than they were ten years ago. He also understands that because of a set of circumstances largely beyond the control of the government here, a moratorium in the fishery which he does understand is an impact like closing down the auto industry in Ontario, that we do have 50,000 people in total fewer in the Province today that we are servicing -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: - for health care and other services, and there are some reductions in the public service but not because of massive layoffs by any government that I have led, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I also heard the Premier say last week that no collective agreement would be safe under a Progressive Conservative government. Mr. Speaker, I will once again state categorically that any government I lead will honour all of the collective agreements that have currently been negotiated, just as I did in the private sector.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, can the Premier please confirm for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and members of NAPE and CUPE in particular, that it was a Liberal government, of which he was an elected member and a Cabinet minister, that broke government contracts, rolled back salaries and ordered wage freezes?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the Leader of the Opposition making my point as well, or better than I could make it myself. His words were these - and we have said there is one thing about the Leader of the Opposition that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have come to understand and understand more every single time he speaks, he is consistently inconsistent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, here is the evidence again. Here was a man - we saw the body language when he stood up being so proud to say, "I, for one, and my caucus, won't be bound by the political commitments made by a government...". That is what he said, and he almost beat his chest he was so proud to say it.

Now today, because he has been challenged by NAPE and CUPE, he says: oh, by the way, I will honour the commitments made to NAPE and CUPE. No due diligence needed there now. Everything has to go through due diligence. Forget the due diligence; no due diligence now.

I would expect, as you see an election unfold, you will see him turn himself inside out, twist like you wouldn't believe, to try to be all things to all people. The only thing he is, is absolutely, totally, consistently inconsistent, and it is evident here again today, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, it is too bad the Premier was not invited to the session that I attended at NAPE eighteen months ago when I was clearly on the record, with Mr. Hanlon sitting next to me, that we would honour collective agreements - the same statement eighteen months ago. That sounds pretty consistent to me, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, would the Premier in fact confirm that, as Minister of Employment in a Liberal government, he supported the cuts in the 1992 fall mini-budget, and as Minister of Education he cut nearly 1,000 teachers in budgets 1996,1997 and 1998, including sixty teachers at the School for the Deaf?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My recollection is very clear of his address to the NAPE annual meeting a year or so ago, in which he did not say what he just stated at all. What he did say at that point in time was this: If we have to make some changes to your contracts, we will not make them without consulting with you first.

That does not say we will honour the commitment, Mr. Speaker. That was the speech he made, and the members opposite know it. The members opposite know it. Again today, because he was so proud to say: I will not be bound by commitments made by a government - now, because he is challenged, he is saying: I will be bound by the commitments to NAPE and CUPE. I will be bound by the commitments to doctors.

So, which ones is he not going to be bound by, Mr. Speaker? He will have to explain himself because he is taking both positions.

The reason that we can do things differently today than we did ten years ago is because today we have a future. Today we have Hibernia. Today we have White Rose. Today we have Terra Nova. Today we have Voisey's Bay.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: None of these things were on the horizon a decade ago, and a government would have been irresponsible to be going ahead and spending money when they saw no future, no development, no growth in the economy.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to conclude his answer quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: All of these things are in Newfoundland and Labrador today because of the things that this government has done and that group has resisted. That is why we are moving forward.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Maybe we should talk about today and the last two years that the Premier has been in office.

Would the Premier confirm that during the last two years he has ordered health boards to cut their operating deficits, which resulted in loses of jobs; that he had budgeted a 5 per cent reduction in government salaries, that resulted in a loss of some 300 equivalent jobs; and that the same budget required the elimination of some 208 teaching positions?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What the Leader of the Opposition knows - and I know he is trapped now because he is being consistently inconsistent - is this: that in the last two years that I have been the Premier and the leader of this government, we have increased funding to the health boards by over 20 per cent - an absolute increase in the funding in one year alone -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: - in excess of $100 million. His Finance critic from Ferryland, if he is still in that position, got up and pooh-poohed it by saying there is at least $100 million wasted in health care and we wouldn't be putting $100 million into health care, we would be cutting $100 million because it is being wasted in health care. That is the what the Opposition are doing, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, in the last two years, as well, we had a brand new teacher allocation formula that would have seen over 400 -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: - teachers removed from the system. We reinvested over $20 million in teaching services to keep the teachers in the system, to make improvements, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, lets talk about where the Premier is getting some of this money from. Over the past several budgets the government has extracted dividends from Hydro to apply against its ballooning deficit. It took $69.9 million in 2000, $53.3 million in 2001 and it took at least that much or probably more in 2002. In addition, this government demands that Hydro pay a 1 per cent debt guarantee charge.

Mr. Speaker, would the Premier agree that these recent layoffs at Hydro and the application to the Public Utilities Board to increase hydro rates in the Province are a direct result of government syphoning cash from Hydro to soften the blow of its ever ballooning deficit?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I can tell you this, that maybe, unlike the Leader of the Opposition, we learned a lesson over here from the people of Newfoundland and Labrador about the value of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. The people of the Province value Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro as the absolute gem of public corporations. They are proud that it is successful.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: They are proud, Mr. Speaker, that it is profitable. They begged us, as a government, to keep it as a Crown corporation. Maybe the Leader of the Opposition is still supporting privatization which he did several years ago. Maybe that is part of his plan, to privatize Hydro because he doesn't seem like he wants to take any dividends from it.

They generate dividends, Mr. Speaker, for the people of the Province and we use them to provide health care services, education services, basic municipal services, because that is what the people wanted. The corporation generates the revenue, it is profitable, and it is right and proper. A Crown corporation is there for the Crown and for the people, Mr. Speaker, and it is running itself in a wonderful fashion, it is very profitable and it should generate money for the people of the Province -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Premier -

PREMIER GRIMES: - years and years and years into the future.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the only crowd that wanted to privatize Hydro are that crowd across the House. It will never happen here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: The Premier refers to Hydro as the gem of the Province. He has taken the debt to equity ratio, increased it, and he is heading that corporation towards bankruptcy. That is what you are doing, Premier. Wait until we see the tab on the Lower Churchill deal. That will be interesting.

Mr. Speaker, IBEW has indicated this weekend that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is cutting its workforce, while it has an application before the Public Utilities Board for a sizeable rate increase. The union says that the company has already laid off permanent employees and will lay off more over the coming weeks. In addition, the company will not recall up to 180 employees who live in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, who have worked for the company for years and performed summer maintenance on behalf of that corporation.

Mr. Speaker, in light of the Premier's purported no lay off policy, will the Premier undertake to personally intervene and direct Hydro not to proceed with these layoffs?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Maybe, Mr. Speaker, that is the way the Leader of the Opposition would operate if his buddy was still over as the Chair of the board. Maybe that is the way they plan to operate. That is not how we operate, and I will give you the reason why. It is serious. We do not operate that way because we respect the law of the land. The law of the land has established Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro as an -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The law of the land - and I invite the Leader of the Opposition to check it out; it is in the Statutes of the Province - has created Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro as an arms-length removed Crown corporation that takes no direction. And this is the point: By law, it does not give the Cabinet and the government the authority to give direction to Hydro because they are to run themselves as a proper corporation, not to be the political hacks for people over here. That is what he would suggest, that the Premier and the government should be able to take a Crown corporation and just go over and say: You are not allowed to do what you want as a group of business people. You are not allowed to make the right decisions.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier to now conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: I am the Premier and I am telling you: Don't layoff anybody.

Of course we have seen that because that is the way a dictator operates.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: That is the way a big hero operates, Mr. Speaker. Now that is consistent with what we have seen before, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting for someone who does not interfere with Hydro. The television cameras captured the chairman and the CEO being dragged in to the carpet up on the eighth floor so that the Premier could intervene in the Lower Churchill negotiations.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: And you know that Premier; you know it!

Let's talk about the laws of the land. What about Trans City? What about the Cabot Corporation that you testified in?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to get to his question.

MR. WILLIAMS: What about the payments for breaking the law? What about contravening the Public Tender Act? What about contravening the Financial Administration Act? Who breaks the law around here, Premier?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member now to get to his question; he is on a supplementary.

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Would the Premier not agree that as a result of irresponsible, fiscal mismanagement by his government and previous Liberal governments, of which he was a member and a Cabinet minister, that his annual bleeding of cash from Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has resulted in a significant loss of employment for the people of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, plus the double whammy of forcing them to pay higher electricity rates?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I understand he is getting a little perturbed today, as the Leader of the Opposition; not particularly having a good time. But, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you this: we have not interfered with the operation of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. We have, rightfully so, on behalf of the people of the Province, accepted dividends from a very profitable company, that everybody in Newfoundland and Labrador is delighted that they are very profitable. They have one of the very best balance sheets anywhere in the country, Mr. Speaker.

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is treated and considered by all the bond rating agencies as a great asset in Newfoundland and Labrador, not a liability. They are instructed, by law, to make decisions within that corporation to run it appropriately and properly. They, no more than anyone else, should have staff, in any part of the operation, who are not necessary when technology has changed, when new things are added, when new ways of doing things are found, that use technology instead of people. So, I guess, the Leader of the Opposition today is a champion for a few people who may be being displaced through Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, but in any other position he will not honour any commitments made by the government unless there is due diligence. I guess he has to make up his mind. If he wants to be the Chair of Hydro, or the CEO of Hydro, he should apply for the job, and I would consider him for the job, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to conclude his answer.

PREMIER GRIMES: But in any event, today we are dealing with the general policy of the government. We are not going to privatize Hydro. We are not going to interfere with Hydro as a Crown corporation and, Mr. Speaker, he will speak for himself when he answers as to what his real view is of Hydro in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, I will quote directly from government policy issued on November 16, 2000: The requirement for an impartial and effective public service makes it necessary for any government to restrict some public servants from running for political office or participating in political activities. This was first announced in a Minute in Council Cabinet document in 1988 where it said: At any time such an employee who falls under the restricted category at any time should not take part in political activities as to impair their usefulness.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier to confirm that under the government policy politically restricted employees include individuals occupying management positions, individuals occupying positions that have been excluded from bargaining units, which include Crown corporations of government, agencies of government, and all boards of government? Can the Premier confirm that is still his government's policy?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I can tell him I would have to check as to what the policy is. He did mention this, he referenced 1988 as being the inception of the policy when the Progressive Conservatives, under Brian Peckford, were the government. I can tell you one thing, in the two years that I have been the leader I have not reviewed that policy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, a final supplementary.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

For the Premier, just to remind him that my first statement referred to his own policy issued by this government on November 16, 2000. Included in this policy means any person who - and I will quote it: individuals occupying management positions, individuals occupying positions that have been excluded from bargaining units, which includes all agencies, all boards and all departments of government. Can the Premier confirm that his former campaign manager and leadership campaign worker, and now the Chair of the Petroleum Pricing Commission, Mr. George Saunders, has been actively recruiting candidates for the Liberal Party while holding an executive position in contravention of this policy?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The other date they have referenced, being November 2000, I know the Province probably would have been better off if I was the Premier at that time, but I was not the Premier then either.

As I have indicated, in the two years and a bit that I have been Premier I have not reviewed this policy. I can tell you one other thing, Mr. Speaker - I can tell you and the people of the Province one other thing - Mr. Saunders, as the Petroleum Pricing Commissioner, is doing an excellent job on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: An absolutely superb job on behalf of the people of the Province. I have never ever had a meeting with him to try to tell him how to do his job, and I have never discussed with him whether or not he is out - because he happens to be, in my view, as far as I still know, a supporter of the Liberals because of the great job we are doing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I do understand that, but I am not aware of any activities that he is doing outside of his job or within the confines and parameters of his job. Ask the question of him directly. The media can ask Mr. Saunders directly.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier to conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: He is quite capable of speaking for himself. I cannot answer the question because I have not discussed it with him.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Premier as well, and it concerns the construction at Voisey's Bay this summer.

The Premier is on record, as is Voisey's Bay Nickel, in agreement with the principles of adjacency regarding the hiring of people in Labrador on the project. The adjacency principle, Mr. Speaker, is Aboriginal people first, union members in Labrador second, qualified Labradorians third, and union members from the Island portion of the Province followed by.

I want to ask the Premier, Mr. Speaker: Is the Premier prepared today to assure this House that his government will include these principles in a special project order under the Labour Relations Act to ensure that the adjacency principle will be adhered to?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

I would like to assure the hon. member that we are confident that the company will abide by all of its commitments, and we have set up a series of requirements for that company to ensure that we maximize benefits for our Province. As the company indicated last week, their development is on schedule, it is going according to plan, it is going to be a very positive development for our Province.

It is good to see that the Leader of the Opposition seems to be coming around to supporting this development, according to some of his comments in the paper last week. He is still not reassured that the full project is going to be completed, but I assure him that it will be completed. It is going to be a great project for this Province and you need not worry that the company is going to abide by its obligations under our agreement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Let me ask the Premier: Seeing as how the minister has sort of shirked his responsibility, will the Premier guarantee people in Labrador that employment at Voisey's Bay will not be based on the generosity or lack thereof of any company or of any trade union movement? Will this government, in its commitment to the people of Labrador, guarantee that this will indeed be covered under a special project order that will guarantee people in Labrador employment, as he has professed in the past and as has Voisey's Bay Nickel did, but will he commit to doing that through a special order rather than relying on the good will of all the other parties involved?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. NOEL: Mr. Speaker, this development agreement we have with Voisey's Bay and Inco is a good deal for this Province because we worked on getting a good deal. We ensured this project would not go ahead without a deal that is going to maximize benefits for our Province. The jobs and the benefits that are going to be provided are not going to be provided as a result of the generosity of Inco, but as a result of the effective negotiating style and the effective accomplishments of this government, Mr. Speaker

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. NOEL: The people who have a right to the jobs as negotiated under that agreement, and as will be assured under any further regulations we need to make, will get the jobs that have been guaranteed to them by our government and by the collective agreement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has ended.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity North.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition in this House on behalf of the people who live in Pollard's Point and Sop's Arm in the White Bay area. The prayer of the petition, Mr. Speaker, reads:

WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador have indicated that they may close the community clinic at Pollard's Point; and

WHEREAS the residents of Pollard's Point and Sop's Arm are very concerned about the possibility of losing their community clinic; and

WHEREAS this will leave the residents with only one clinic operating in that area, in Jackson's Arm;

THEREFORE we petition the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to maintain both clinics, one at Pollard's Arm and one at Jackson's Arm.

Mr. Speaker, this clinic that has been operating at Sop's Arm - Sop's Arm and Jackson's Arm are close to each other, and they have been sharing a physician for a number of years now. All of a sudden, when they were successful in finally recruiting a physician and leaving some hope for the people of that area, finally now that they have a physician in the area there has been a decision to close one of the clinics, one that has been operating in conjunction with the one in Jackson's Arm for many years.

It was always the plan, as we understand it, Mr. Speaker, to have one physician servicing both communities, sharing the service and continuing with those effectively functioning clinics that have been there for a number of years. Now, Mr. Speaker, having been successful, the community finally excited about getting a physician, only to hear last week that their clinic is going to close. Not only was it going to close, it was a total surprise to them. There has not been any consultation, no discussion, with the people who live in that community at all. This was a total surprise to them.

They had assumed that the service they had enjoyed for years and years was going to continue. Now, all of a sudden, Mr. Speaker, they find themselves caught behind the eight ball. A new physician arrives in town and has been told that she will only operate in one clinic, and that is the one in Jackson's Arm.

One of the unfortunate things about this, Mr. Speaker, is that it has pitted the communities of Sop's Arm and Pollard's Point against the community of Jackson's Arm because they have been told in that region there will only be one clinic. Now, what you have is communities fighting against each other to maintain a service in their community when, in fact, the reality of it is that both of those communities have worked harmoniously together in the past, have shared the same services of a physician, have shared the services of clinics together, and have worked together as communities to make it an enjoyable place for a physician to live and, in fact, have assisted the health board in trying to recruit a physician for their area. Unfortunately, with this decision, they are not only going to be finding themselves without the medical services they have enjoyed for many, many years, but are now going to find themselves in a dispute with their neighbours. They are asking this government to make a decision immediately to continue with the practice that has been enjoyed in that area for many, many years.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: This is not adding something new; just continue with the current practice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today in this House to bring forth a petition from the residents of Georgetown. The petition reads:

To the hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador.

WHEREAS the roads in the community of Georgetown have deteriorated to a point that the safety of motorists and pedestrians is being compromised; and

WHEREAS access to residences, businesses, churches, postal facilities and recreation areas have been seriously affected; and

WHEREAS little, if any, maintenance and repairs are carried out on an annual basis;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to make a commitment to include the upgrading of this road system in its annual capital disbursement for the upcoming fiscal year;

As is duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I bring this to the attention of the House because it was brought to my attention by a petition which was signed by well over 100 of the residents of Georgetown. The point of the matter is that this road system has been there since the community began. The particular part of the road that I want to draw to your attention is the unpaved section of that particular road system, and it leads to a business. At the end of the road there is a business. This individual is an entrepreneur who is trying to run a business. Obviously, in order for her business to be successful, she needs the travelling public.

Because the road is in such deplorable state at any time of year - this is not just during the spring or the winter but all through the year - they are calling upon me to bring it to this House. A copy of this petition has gone to the minister. It is their desire to make the minister aware of the situation and to ask for, again, just the regular maintenance. It is unfortunate that this gravel road is at a state where it is mucky, the potholes are causing damage to the vehicles, and because it is causing damage to the vehicles many people are not patronizing this particular small business in order to keep that business going.

Again, Mr. Speaker, they are not asking for pavement. They are simply asking that this section of the road in particular be given the treatment it needs to bring it up to a standard of a gravel road, not necessarily a paved road. Certainly, pavement would be ideal because it would be the answer to it all.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. HEDDERSON: Again, in closing, I ask the minister to take this petition seriously and to review the situation in the hope that this spring maybe the money will become available to do the upgrading required.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. LUSH: Order 1, Mr. Speaker, Committee of Supply, Resolution and Bill 2 Respecting the Granting of Interim Supply to Her Majesty.

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

MADAM CHAIR (M. Hodder): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

I want to speak today for a few minutes on this particular bill that is before the House. This bill here is looking for approval for $1,349,772,200. That is a bill, I might add, Madam Chairperson, that the minister wants approved in three days - three single days. She states in her statement in the House the last day - and she is trying to use sympathy and touch on sympathy strings around this Province if we do not approve it. She goes on to say, it is important that we have Royal Assent by March 26. That is Wednesday. It is Private Members' Day on Wednesday. This bill has to be dealt with by tomorrow. It was only introduced and started debating on Thursday, in three days. She is trying to say that we need that to pay people, for social assistance recipients, especially in Labrador.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I will tell you how it differs, I say to the Government House Leader. If they would give me time, Madam Chairperson, I will tell how it differs.

That same member, the Government House Leader, stood in this House and wanted to adopt a parliamentary calendar. The calender states that we meet on the second Monday of March, March 10. This government did not open this House until March 18, eight days beyond the point that was agreed. The Government House Leader - I do not know but he was a member of the committee. I vice-chaired that committee.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: He chaired the committee, and when we requested -

MR. LUSH: (Inaudible). Eight days is (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: Madam Chairperson, the Government House Leader, the Member for Terra Nova, I would like him to give the courtesy of being able to speak for ten or fifteen minutes on this topic, and afford that courtesy, instead of singing out and interfering with the normal procedure in this House. I think it is disgraceful. A Government House Leader should set an example in this House, not one that should be out dictating and pointing fingers and so on in this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: He should be setting an example to raise the level of decorum in this House to a standard where people can sit back and listen to good discussion going on in the House, not the nonsense that you have to put up with in here, Madam Chairperson. It is utterly ridiculous.

Now, they are playing on the sympathies; if we do not approve it, the people in Labrador will not get their social assistance cheques, the Minister of Finance said. Now that is abhorrent, I would say. That is ridiculous, to play on the sentiments of people who are depending on a social assistance cheque, because they would not call this House together until eight days beyond the date that we agreed here in this House. Then the Government House Leader starts to jump up and get excited about it.

Now, I do not know if the minister knows what the bill is about. She said here in this House on Thursday, and I quote what she said in this House, and I am really confused by what she said. She said that the purpose of Interim Supply will recognize that providing it you are merely allowing departments to continue on with programs and services that they are currently providing. That is what the minister said. We just want approval to spend $1.35 billion to carry on with programs that are already here.

Well, Minister, you contradicted yourself Thursday in the same statement. You said on page 68 in Hansard that this "...bill... has funding for two new expenditure initiatives..." Then you turned around - it is in Hansard on page 69 - and said: it is only to carry on with ongoing programs. Minister, you have to make up your mind. Do you know what this bill is about? How do you expect the people of the Province to understand it when the Minister of Finance contradicts herself seven paragraphs later and says it is ongoing, and then she says: Two new initiatives. It is pretty confusing for ordinary people out there to understand what Interim Supply is.

Interim Supply is a purpose of a bill to allow the wheels of government to go forth. I do not think it is adequate time in three days to debate how this government wants approval to spend $1,350,000,000 over the next three months. She wants approval to spend that in three days, when they sat home for over a week and would not open the House. I think that is wrong. Madam Chairperson, that is wrong. It is an affront to the democratic principles that we agreed to follow here in this House. It is an affront to it and does not allow people to debate the important issues of government expenditures. I have every reason to be skeptical how this very government on government expenditures - I do not trust this government, and that is why we need as much time as we can to flush out every single item.

We are talking about - and the Premier today questioned the law of the land. Well, if you look at the law of the land - on Trans City, I will make reference to. The lowest bidder on Trans City was $761,388; N.D. Dobbin. The highest bidder, $928,732. The lower happened to be a PC and the higher was a Liberal. Who got it? The higher bidder! We paid $167,000 more and amortized over thirty years. It cost the taxpayers $5 million extra to give it to a Liberal crony. Is that democracy and why they don't want to debate bills here in this House?

In Port Saunders the lower bidder was N.D. Dobbin, who is a noted political stripe of being a PC supporter. The higher bidder again was Trans City, $266,000 more and amortized over thirty years, $7,997,000, almost $8 million, to a Liberal supporter as opposed to a PC. It violated the Public Tender Act.

We went on to St. Lawrence, and Health Care Developers were the lowest. I do not know them personally or what political stripe, but I do know that $203,000 higher was the same Trans City Liberal supporters who put money in the coffers of this Province and that cost over $6 million. In all total, $19 million-plus that taxpayers shelled out to give a tender to their own friends. When you hold a public tender you should go with the lower bid, but that government went every step of the way to the Supreme Court to defend their own buddies and the Supreme Court said: you violated the laws of the Province, you broke your Public Tender Act.

We had cases of amnesia and memory loss worst than the Premier had here in Question Period today, I might add. We have more serious cases. They could not remember. He couldn't remember his policy from 2000. God, help us! He sat around Cabinet. He sat around as the Premier's parliamentary assistant, and then as a minister during the years of Liberal government. He sat around and allowed this travesty of injustice of $19 million of taxpayers' money. Then he is talking about wastage; $100 million he used as a quote that I said. I have never used that quote. I have never used it. The Premier could not find it.

Madam Chairperson, he read out and twisted words in this House before that were far from saying that, but I can tell you, we will find a significant waste of money cut out, passing out, violating public tender. Also, let me tell you, we had public hearings before the Public Accounts just recently. One other example, almost $1 million on the Coastal Labrador Marine Service, according to the Auditor General, was given to the Woodward Group of Companies without public tender, violating the deal in which they can operate; given to them.

AN HON. MEMBER: For what?

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, for what ? I would ask the Premier: For what was it given to them? That is what I would ask him. For what? Given to them without - I certainly know what it was given for, I can tell you. I have read the volumes of information on Public Accounts and questions in Public Accounts on these issues. It was given, almost $1 million, without public tender and violated the Public Tender Act of this Province. That is what is going on in this Province. They do not want to hear it, Madam Chairperson.

Then we had Atlantic Leasing, another noted PC, that they would not renew. They went to court and lost, and cost millions again to the taxpayers of this Province. Also, Coastal Excavating, a known PC political connection - they lost at every stage of the court, the government did, and went to Supreme Court and had to pay them because they were so vindictive that a PC would get a lower bid on a contract. Look, the purpose -

MR. SWEENEY: Just like in the 1980s. That is your (inaudible) government (inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: The Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace, Madam Chairperson, is interrupting. I would like to have a little bit of courtesy from people here in this House.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: A little bit of courtesy for people who are speaking here. The Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace is shouting out and trying to interfere with it. I do not care what anybody did before. I do not care what anybody did in the 1980s or the 1970s or the 1990s. What I care about, Madam Chairperson, is the taxpayers of this Province. The taxpayers of this Province should get the best return on the taxpayers' money in this Province, and I do not care what government of the day is in power.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would just like to make a few brief comments with respect to the debate on Interim Supply. My good friend from Ferryland, the Member for Ferryland, my next door neighbour in the real world, that I know, Madam Chair, is not trying to be everything to all people because he is consistent. He has always been consistent, and I am sure that he was embarrassed when he heard another former leader - because he was the former leader of the party - heard another former leader of the party, the Member for Kilbride, saying that in their policy book they would be left of center. Because, I can tell you, the Member for Ferryland, in his whole life, has never run for anything that is left of center. He is a Tory, he makes no apologies for it. He is a right-winger, and that is what you are supposed to be in politics, Madam Chair. You are supposed to believe something. You are supposed to stand for something. He just said then that he knows there is $100 million in waste that he can cut out of government. He can cut it out. He is the finance critic. Now, he is going to be displaced by the great Ms Marshall, who has said - and I relate to the one that he talked about, Madam Chair -

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible).

PREMIER GRIMES: No, no.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER GRIMES: The point is this, Madam Chair -

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: Madam Chair, a point of order.

MADAM CHAIR: On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to make sure it is clear what I heard. Does that mean the Premier has already conceded defeat in the next election and there is going to be a new Finance Minister?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Madam Chair.

No, what I am saying, quite clearly - and I know they would like the explanation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Madam Chair.

What I am saying, quite clearly, is what they already know, that inside their caucus the little dictator has already replaced the Member for Ferryland in his discussions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER GRIMES: He has already replaced him and he knows it. He is not involved in any of the discussions anymore, and he knows it. That is the unfortunate part, as do the members opposite, because Ms Marshall, in talking about running, said: I am only running for this party because the leader has said that he will implement the things that I suggest and propose. So he is not listening to the Member for Ferryland anymore, Madam Chair, he is listening to Ms Marshall, the former Auditor General.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Madam Chair, I can tell you this, the Member for Ferryland is not trying to be a left-winger and middle of the road, he is a proud right-winger. He knows where to find $100 million in waste, at least. So somebody is going out the door, somebody is not safe, somebody is cleaned out here and he knows it.

Madam Chair, just a couple of points. The Member for Ferryland tried to talk about the fact that we are eight days late coming to the Legislature; talking about a rush in the debate. He knows two things. He knows that the Interim Supply debate, for all intents and purposes, is routine. It is a formality. We are going to present a budget here on Thursday that we will have over two months to debate. No rush, over two months to debate. We came here with the agreement of his House Leader on the date that we came here. He might not have been involved in the discussion. I guess he is not involved in any discussions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER GRIMES: Are you in the caucus? Are you a part of the caucus? You should go to a caucus meeting and find out what your House Leader and your leader are agreeing to. We opened the Legislature on a date agreed to by your party, Madam Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: The other thing is this, if he was so offended by being here late, as he describes it, he could have done like many politicians have done in the past, he could have gone out with the television cameras and knocked on the door of the Legislature and demanded that it be opened because he was being deprived the right to come in and debate something critically important. Did we hear anything from the Member for Ferryland about wanting to come to the Legislature? Not one word, not a word, Madam Chair, not a single utterance until today.

Madam Chair, the Leader of the Opposition today, and all the members of their caucus, are feeling the heat, because they know they are trapped by the words from the Member for St. John's East in Deer Lake where he said, they would cut and slash and burn and nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, no commitments are going to be kept by this government, we are going to make up our own mind. They are so full of themselves, that if they form the government they are going to decide what is important in education, not what the previous crowd decided, they are going to decide what is important in health care, not what the previous crowd decided, no commitments will be honored. Now, it is in black and white in the official record of the House of Assembly from the Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: So from that, from no commitments being honored to getting a call from the President of NAPE saying, what does that mean about us, he said: Oh, oh, oh! Your commitment is okay. I didn't mean you, you are okay. Trust me, I didn't mean to say that. When I said that, I didn't mean you. The President of NAPE calls: What about the fact that you said no commitment will be honored? He said: Oh, I didn't mean you. Your commitment is okay. Yours is alright.

Now, this was agreed to, by the way, by the whole caucus, so we are told, I and my caucus, the whole caucus, the same crowd, every single one of them, the Member for St. John's South, the same person who voted in a caucus meeting to not accept Ron Dawe under any set of circumstances. He voted for it in a caucus meeting. The Member for White Bay North voted in a caucus meeting not to allow certain people to run for this party. He is okay. I am okay, I am allowed to run, I am a fine person, but I am allowed to cast judgement on some other individual in the Province and say: You cannot come in here under any set of circumstances and sit next to me. You are not worthy to be considered to sit in this Legislature.

That is the same group, Madam Chair, who sat in the caucus and said, no commitments will be honored by us, and as soon as the doctors called they said: Oh, we didn't mean to talk about you, doctors. As soon as NAPE called they said: Oh, we didn't mean to talk about you, NAPE members. As soon as CUPE called they said: Oh, we didn't mean to talk about you, CUPE. As soon as the nurses called they said: Oh, we didn't mean to talk about you, nurses. So, Madam Chair, who are they talking about? They are not talking about anybody. The Leader is just making a speech. He is trying to be a big hero to somebody by saying: No commitments will be honored, but as soon as he is asked by individuals about their commitment he tells them all: Oh, you are okay.

We would love the opportunity to get to the bottom of this over time, because on this side we tell people what we stand for. We tell people what we believe in. We tell people what our plan is. We tell people what we are going to do. We have a track record that says that, when we make a commitment, we keep it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: I look forward to seeing more of the view - the Member for Ferryland again talked about the Woodward Group of Companies and some work that was given not tendered. It was all about extending the ferry services to the coastal communities in Labrador at the request of the people from Labrador. It was decided to extend the service, and it was going to cost a bit of extra money.

Of course, the former Auditor General would say: You cannot do that because it is not in the budget, so you cannot even entertain the concept. Tell the people from Labrador to go home, do not talk to us. Do not ask to have goods delivered to your communities. Do not ask to have a ferry come up so you can actually travel back and forth and see people because there is no ice yet. Do not even entertain the notion.

That is their view, Madam Chair. That is what the Member for Ferryland just used in the example because he wants to talk about it without giving any detail, without talking about what really happened, without talking about a choice being made to meet the needs of the people of the Province and defending to everybody in the Province why we made that choice, as a government, and why we were proud to do it, rather than to feel hog-tied because some Auditor General said: You must live right by the line in the book, you must exercise no judgement, and you must not meet the needs of the people under any set of circumstances.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. Premier's time is up.

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Madam Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

The Premier is giving the wrong impression. I am not talking about extending a costal service to Labrador. I am talking about not going to public tender on almost a million dollars worth of work and give it to the Woodward Group of Companies without public tender.

Are the taxpayers best served without public tender? My feeling is, no. Is this the same Premier who talks about not allowing things? The same one who told us that he could not sleep, to have Danny Dumeresque in his party, and then he apologized? The Premier tries to play both sides. The Premier speaks one thing and he does something different. That is what he does.

Madam Chair, what we want to do is see the wise use of taxpayers' money. I do not think it is a wise use of taxpayers' money when we pay almost $1 million to anybody, whether it is a Liberal supporter or not, whether it is the Woodward Group of Companies or whoever it is, without going to public tender. I think that is wrong, Madam Chairperson. That is not the proper use.

It is not right when you give tenders out to the higher bidders and cost this Province $19 million extra in the long haul. That is money that is coming out of the taxpayers of this Province. Many of them are the very same people who cannot even afford to put oil in their tanks or pay their electrical bills. That is wrong.

The same way with the Cabot Corporation. Because they happened to be branded as PCs, they were fired from their jobs, and won it and got redress in the courts of the Province. That is the type of anarchy, dictatorship, that is going on in this Province, and it is about time that has to stop.

This Premier sat around the table with the Premiers and the Cabinet that supported those decisions here, and he is playing right along and endorsing those decisions. Then he talks today in the House about Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro; the very Premier who sat as a minister here, who voted to get rid of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and privatize it. Only one person had the gumption, and that was not a Cabinet minister, to oppose it out of the entire caucus. Are you trying to tell me that everybody over there at the time thought that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro was better served in private hands? Well, today they are singing a different tune because they have milked it for ten of millions of dollars here. I asked a question in the House, the very same question three years ago, that the Leader of the Opposition then asked today. Is this going to drive up rates in our Province? Oh, no, it is not going to drive up rates.

Our leader today asked the question on layoffs. They did not have the money to pay out. They did not have it, they have to borrow it. When you borrow money, you increase your cost. How do you reduce those costs? You lay off people. This government has presided over the largest layoff in the history of this Province in the public service, and they are out preaching something different. They have done it in health care. They have done it, they might say, to put more money into health care, but they have rolled into the health care budget family and rehabilitative services that were not there before. They have rolled child protection and youth services in there, that were not there before. They have rolled other areas in to give it a larger department, of course, but the budgets have gone up anyway.

There were 3,100 hospital beds in this Province when that government came into power. Today, there are about 1,700. Fourteen hundred beds and the jobs that go with it in this Province, and why people out in nursing homes today cannot get out of bed. One man is 102 years of age and I spoke with his son. They came to get him out of bed about 11 o'clock in the morning and he said the day is nearly over. That man is used to being up 6 o'clock in the morning. I went in on his one hundredth birthday. He said to me: I cut myself shaving this morning about 5:30. Those type of things, it is a shame that the seniors of our Province who have lived and toiled and worked in our Province are neglected and being subject to indiscriminate cutting without doing proper evaluations.

Our Health critic has called for a proper assessment. I spoke with a person in one of those homes recently and the worker said to me: We will never get these people out of the building in case of a fire. How do you get eleven and twelve and thirteen people out of bed, in the case of a fire?

They are down to the minimum levels now for fire protection. If anything ever happened, people could die in their beds because of understaffing. That is a possibility, and we want to -

AN HON. MEMBER: Fear mongering.

MR. SULLIVAN: It is not fear mongering. People are not allowed to leave. I know people have been told -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I say to the Member for Bellevue, the demoted minister from Bellevue, that I spoke to a person who told me, even to leave for personal reasons to try to get off work, you were not allowed to leave because we are down to the minimum standards for protection and safety of these people here.

That is what they are down to now; that is what it is becoming. You have cut the guts out of health care. You have laid off hundreds of teachers over the last number of years, and here is what you say: but we could have laid off more.

Look, there is a certain base that is needed. As you increase students, you do not increase teachers proportionately. You get economies with larger numbers, and when you reverse them you do not get all the economies. When you cut down lower, you do not lay off the same ratio that you have always added. If you add on teachers, you need a certain amount of administration. If you have a school of five people, you still need a teacher. If you have a school of ten, you still need a teacher. You do not get the same economies.

MR. BARRETT: Tell us what you are going to do.

MR. SULLIVAN: The Member for Bellevue, the newly demoted minister, if he would keep quiet, I might get a chance to be able to tell him what I might do.

I can tell you one thing, what we will not do, we will not do what this government has done. We will not do what this government has done, and I can tell you -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: The member wanted to know what we would do, Madam Chairperson. I will tell him. We will not do what you have done. We will not go off eliminating positions and so on out here in the public service, massive layoffs in the public service. That will not happen, I can tell the Member for Bellevue. It will not happen here, and the member knows it quite well.

I want to use another example, and my colleague from Cape St. Francis knows this only too well.

MR. BARRETT: You do not have the monopoly on brains, Danny Williams. You might be a dictator but you do not have the monopoly on brains.

MR. SULLIVAN: I would ask, Madam Chairperson, the Member for Bellevue to stop shouting and interfering here in the House.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: Why would a government of today buy a rustbucket, a member called it, $500,000 U.S., bought a boat in Estonia for the ferry service here in our Province and, do you know what? It is now gone up in the $8 million range and it could be $10 million, and they would not even pay for federal government inspectors to go over there. They brought it back and spent millions and millions and millions, from $5 million to $7 million and now up around $8 million - it could be $10 million - and now it is delayed again. For anybody who knows, it is not going to be ready for June any more. It is going to be August now, and possibly September before it is ready. It is going to be later, and how much do we know? I asked a question, what would it cost? Government officials could not tell me in public accounts what it is going to cost. They do not know how much more it is going to cost. The argument they use now is: But, look, we are employing people out in Clarenville. I said: It is great to have local people here working, but that is not the issue. The issue is, the taxpayers of this Province deserve to have officials here, and ministers, who are going to be responsible over their money. They are going to see that money spent is money put to use, that can be used in our Province, not $10 million later. We could have bought a brand new ferry for $14.5 million with no major maintenance costs for probably fifteen or twenty years. We bought an old boat with millions and millions of dollars spent, and that is just not adequate. We have to look at more efficient use of taxpayers' money.

We have a bill before this House that is looking for expenditure all over the place, and obviously that is standard Interim Supply, but I cannot figure out why the minister would tell us that this bill is only dealing with paying for programs that are ongoing. That is what she said on page 69 of Hansard on Thursday. Then she said, we have two new funding initiatives in this.

Do we have funding initiatives in this or don't we? Let's see the breakdowns, I say to the minister. Give us the detailed breakdowns to see if you are telling the truth. Which is true? Your statement on page 68 or the one that contradicts it on page 69? Which statement is true? We deserve the right to know if it is ongoing programs or you are putting new programs in an Interim Supply bill. The minister, if she does not know, should find out and come back to this House and tell us before this bill is passed here in this House. You have a right to tell the people of this Province what Interim Supply is, and if it is for new programs or if it is for ongoing. You have asked that, and you have said it here. I will just quote it - the minister is nodding - in case she does not know where I am referring to her comments. On page 68, she said, "The 2003-2004 Interim Supply bill includes, this year, funding for two new expenditure initiatives of which, I think, Members of the House of Assembly are familiar with." She goes on to make reference of a broadband initiative, and she talks about an agrifoods program. Then she goes on, on the next page -

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: Just to finish with this sentence. She said -

MADAM CHAIR: Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. SULLIVAN: - most people will recognize that in Interim Supply we are merely allowing departments to continue on with programs and services they are currently providing.

Which is it, Minister? Are there new initiatives here or just old initiatives being carried on until the Budget is approved?

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I thank you, Madam Chair.

I am very pleased today to stand and speak on Interim Supply, because it is a very important issue.

MR. SULLIVAN: A point of order, Madam Chairperson.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I haven't even started. I am not shouting loud enough? What is it?

MADAM CHAIR: On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Yes, I just want to establish, before it goes too far in the proceedings here, that a statement made here by the Premier in this House is not accurate and I want to ask the Premier to withdraw it.

There was no agreement reached by members of this House on the opening of the House. I said that you should follow the parliamentary calendar on March 10, the second Monday of March. That is what the calendar states. There was no agreement by anyone on this side of the House. That is an incorrect statement and I would expect the Premier, when he returns, to stand here and withdraw that and apologize for giving the wrong impression to the public of our Province.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. LUSH: Madam Chair, if the hon. gentleman wants to engage in triviality, let me point out to him, first of all, that he talks about the House being delayed eight or nine days. The House was delayed three debating days, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, because Wednesday is not a debating day. I suggest to him, I do not know that - there was no agreement. We would simply be called up. We have an agreement in our calendar. By the same token, that there is an agreement to open, there is also an agreement to close, I tell the hon. gentleman, and his party has not been vigilant about closing either.

MADAM CHAIR: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am very happy today to speak about Interim Supply. I will say to the member opposite, I am sure he did not fully read the information that was in Hansard. He needs to read the Hansard and to be clear on exactly what was said.

I can go on by answering the question. First of all, clearly there is a request for $1.3 billion as part of Interim Supply. It is a part that is brought to the House every year. I am sure if the people of the Province read the speech from last year, the member opposite stood up and said the same thing about trying to pull the heartstrings. The fact is: It might be pulling the heartstrings from the Member for Ferryland's perspective, but getting people out their social assistance cheques is not pulling the heartstrings. It is about providing people with the money they need to live, and we take that very seriously, Madam Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: It is really a function of what this House is supposed to do and why we are here.

He went on to say that really he does not trust this government. Really? Well, do you know something? I am wondering, really, about the people of the Province trusting the PCs and where they are coming from, because people are quite nervous. Look at the line of questions today in Question Period. Why, all of a sudden, the contradiction to what you said, to what you really meant? I guess the trusting part is a little bit slim and not quite as transparent as perhaps people would like, because the people in Corner Brook who were there, and the media that were there, certainly expressed a lot of concern about the trust-me attitude, particularly when they try to align, very clearly, the Tories in this Province to Mike Harris' Tories, and to the common sense revolution. What was the common sense revolution all about?

AN HON. MEMBER: Firing.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes, it was about firing people. It was about reducing government. What is government? Government is the people. Eighty to ninety per cent of government is people. If you are going to reduce the government, you are reducing people. Let's call a spade a spade. Let's be truly transparent, if that is what you are, and not hide behind what you said but what you really meant.

What else does it talk about? It talks about downsizing government. That is the Mike Harris common sense revolution which the people who heard the presentation from the Member for St. John's East aligned those comments to.

Getting back to a more specific issue, every single year Interim Supply is brought forward to the House. It is brought forward to allow programs and services to continue for the people of the Province. It is very difficult to say it is routine because $1.3 billion is not routine, not routine to any of us. It is a very important part of how we deliver the programs and services.

There is no misinformation, and I would say to the Member for Ferryland he needs to read the full transcript of Hansard to understand really what was presented. He knows the difference. Again, I know it is about trying to create misinformation for the people of the Province. I have done this Interim Supply Bill now for the last three budgets. It is something that is put forward to allow a government to proceed with programs and services until the main supply, or the main budget, is passed. That is what it is about.

Now, I said normally in Interim Supply you talk about the expenditures that are used for the programs and services currently in place. However, I did say and I will say it again, it is not normally intended to fund new services. However, if it is brought to the House it can in fact be used to fund new services, and I spoke about the two new services. I say to the member opposite to read Hansard to understand, or ask his colleagues who were here to hear the presentation on Thursday.

The Interim Supply Bill, while it is not normally intended to introduce new services and fund new services, it is possible for the bill to authorize new services. I referred, when I spoke on Thursday, to the comments that were made, first of all, in the Throne Speech about broadband and how we were hoping that rather than hold it up, if the money came forward from the federal government and the public sector partner, that we would move forward to implement the $5 million allocation for broadband. That was discussed on Thursday and I am only too happy to speak to it today. As I mentioned on Thursday, my colleague, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Rural Development would only be too happy to elaborate more about it.

The other new service - and I mentioned both of them Thursday but for the purpose of the member who does not clearly understand what the issues are about, I am only too happy to mention for him again, and I will. The first one was the broadband, hoping the federal government will come onside with the $5 million, and we are looking for a private sector partner to do this. The second one is an Agriculture Policy Framework. We all know this was a new program that was put in place to replace the Safety Nets Program and it is called the Agriculture Policy Framework. It is included in the department. Again, because of our short season in this Province, we were hoping that we could allocate this $6.5 million for beginning the program. I am sure all of the farmers in this Province, all of the people who depend on that industry, would be very happy to hear. That is why we are putting it forward. It is a new program, because it is a new program announced by the federal government. It is called the Agriculture Policy Framework. It is to replace the existing Safety Nets Program that was in place for the federal government and it is under - what it does is that it allows the programs to enhance the core programs around forestry industry. It also goes on to talk about work around science and innovation, renewal, food safety, food quality, all that will help employ and ensure long-term stability.

So these are the two new programs that I talked about on Thursday. I also offered the opportunity for both of my colleagues to mention that and I am sure they would be happy to do so today.

Further, I do want to say, and I will say it again because it is important. Interim Supply would need to be passed by tomorrow afternoon. We can still debate fully, because this is only a portion of the Budget. As the Premier mentioned, we have the next number of weeks to discuss the full Budget and what each of these allocations mean. The amount of money was read out, which departments are requesting what amount of money and what it is used for. Again, each of the ministers would only be too happy to speak about that and how these funds are being used.

This is a bill that is put forward every year. Again, as I said, it is very important for the programs and services to be offered, but most importantly - call it pulling on your heart strings, I call it a fact of life - it is to allow the people who are receiving social assistance, specifically in Labrador, to meet the requirements so that they can receive their cheques on time.

If you were to read the speech last year from the Member for Ferryland, he started off the same way, about opening up the House and doing all these things. Everybody knows we need to do this. Everybody knows that it is an important issue. It is one that allows for much more debate when the House reopens, and we talked about the main budget which will be delivered on Thursday. I say, Madam Chair, that there is certainly - all of the information is available and I would encourage any of my colleagues who want to speak about the specifics.

I would say to the member opposite, one of the reasons the issue around new programs were introduced was again to avail of money from the federal government to make sure our season is maximized so that we can move forward with our forestry industry and move forward with the broadband that was mentioned in the Throne Speech. These are two programs that are hopefully going to start immediately, with the federal government's assistance, to replace old programs with respect to the safety nets and also for the broadband.

I thank you, Madam Chair, for your opportunity to raise this issue around Interim Supply and speak to the importance of it. I urge members opposite to stick to the facts and recognize that this is a very important bill and one that will allow a lot more debate as we move on to main supply.

Thank you very much.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Madam Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Madam Chair, it is important, I suppose, that in the process of debate in the House there are times when it gets heated and people's emotions are involved, and there are other times that has called for a sober analysis of what is taking place.

In the last couple of days it has been very evident, since the House opened, that the government opposite, led by the current Premier, is - as part of a strategy - trying to ensure that, and part of a political spin, trying to convince people in the Province that if a Progressive Conservative government were elected that we would be about balancing the books on the backs of people.

Now, the intellectual dishonesty associated with that really is appalling. For example, the Minister of Finance talks about wanting to stick with facts. Let me provide some, about what type of government we would provide. For example, Madam Chair, during the last election we said that we would immediately reduce personal income tax by five percentage points. Now, I was leader at the time and bore the burnt, primarily, of former Premier Tobin saying: that young Mr. Byrne does not have a clue. How is he going to deliver public services by reducing? It is going to cost $1 billion to do what he is doing. Now, that was the spin in 1999.

During the election, leading economist Wade Locke confirmed that this was possible. Now, the election occurred in February. Every member over there who was elected in February, 1999, said it could not be done. In the fall of 1999, six months later, I was attending the Federation of Municipalities convention in Corner Brook when the Advisory Council on the Economy, chaired by Peter Woodward, announced what the new policy was going to be. Guess what it was? They called for an immediate reduction in personal income tax of five points - immediate, right out of this book. It was embraced by the Premier at the time, and by every member, and what did they do? They went ahead and implemented it.

Our colleague for St. John's East goes to Deer Lake to speak to Junior Achievement - a group of young people. He talks about eliminating the payroll tax. The next day, an editorial, which we have no control over, suggested that we were going to form a Mike Harris type of government. Now, are we the only ones that have called for elimination of the payroll tax? During the election of 1999, that could not happen.

MR. REID: We never mentioned the payroll tax.

MR. E. BYRNE: The Minister of Education says they did not mention it, but most importantly and the most important fact that you are not in possession of is that the only tax that the member mentioned was the payroll tax. That is the key and that is the fact, whether you want to deal with that or not.

In March, 2001, government was pumping up its own chest in its Renewal Strategy for Jobs and Growth, talking about how they should eliminate the payroll tax. Everybody understands in this House that we must do it - the second point.

If somebody wants to see what type of government we are going to be, in 1999, during the election, we said, "FOR THE RECORD: ...A PC Government will increase the minimum wage after commissioning a review to determine what the appropriate level should be."

Our Leader, the Member for Humber West, announces that at a NAPE biennial convention eighteen months ago, and what happens two weeks later? The provincial government increases the minimum wage. We said it in 1999. Does it sound like somebody who is trying to balance the books and slash public services? No, it sounds like a group of people who are committed to putting more money in people's pockets -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: - and ensuring that the level of public services and people's ability to live and meet their financial obligations, a healthy lifestyle, is ensured. That is what it is.

Another point of view from last year, when we talk about this government's record, we talked about: How is it best that we can ensure that children in this Province are protected? We talked about two things in particular under a Secure Social Policy.

One, for the record again, and this was debated and denied and said it could not be done by that crowd opposite - if elected - "A PC Government will immediately establish an Office of the Children's Advocate."

Who did it? After two-and-a-half years of saying that it would not be done, they knew it had to be done because people shamed them into doing it.

Here is the second thing that we said, "A PC Government will immediately establish a Child and Youth Secretariat...". Now where is that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: When we talk about the prosecution of sound public services, I believe it was the Minister of Education that accused everyone on Thursday of shouting and screaming, and he for one sits back and listens intently to everybody. You are providing a great example today.

On justice matters, here is what we said during the last election: A PC government is committed to two strong police forces in the Province, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, and will provide the resources to our police forces to enable them to continue protecting persons and property.

What have we seen? We have seen the RNC Association, over the last several months, having to engage themselves in a campaign to demonstrate to people how limited their ability is to respond to personnel, or to issues such as protecting persons and property. My prediction is that Thursday, government will go some way - I am hearing fifteen officers per year over three years - to put forty-five back. It is still less.

The fact of the matter is, and the point that I am underscoring, that this is not the type of policy that is about Mike Harris or any other right-wing agenda. This is the type of policy that this group, and in particular this leader, is committed to: to bringing sound, secure, public services to the people of the Province because that is what they deserve.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Madam Chair, the second thing we said: In recognition of every municipality's right to govern themselves, we said a PC government will not force amalgamation on any municipality against the wishes of its residents.

Can this government opposite say that? They cannot, because it was their government that arbitrarily, unilaterally, forced municipalities together without even giving them the common decency of consultation.

Madam Chair, it was our party, and it was our social conscience, that said, if we were elected to government, that we would deal with the biggest population, or the most emerging sector of our population, dealing with seniors issues. What did we say? We said, and we continue to stand for this, that if we were the government, we said then that in recognition of our aging population and the dramatic effects that seniors are feeling in society today, that we would put in place a seniors' secretariat.

Another point we made: In recognition - and we said it here - of what people are feeling, and the pinch that they are in, that we would rebate the HST portion of utility bills to put some money back in those who are hurting the most. Does that sound like a crowd who are going to slash, cut and not deal with the human condition? Not on your life, I say to the members opposite.

Madam Chair, when it comes to, for example, the issue of protection of our resources, during the last election the gentlemen and ladies opposite who were part of the government, were pursuing actively an opportunity to ship bulk water out of this Province. Was it them that said to the people of the Province this - because this is what we said: For the record, a PC government would introduce legislation to ensure all fresh water exported from Newfoundland and Labrador is first fully processed in Newfoundland and Labrador, and would forbid the export in bulk of fresh water from this Province. That was us! That was ours, not theirs.

Madam Chair, I will say to you, as one member of this caucus, and one member of the Official Opposition, and I know all members opposite feel the same way, that when we see the type of tripe coming from members opposite to try to spin a political spin to save their own political hides in the next election, just to say that we are going to be some right-wing, neo-conservative opposition that would cut the guts and stomach out of everybody, we will not let that go unchallenged, because our record on that is on a much higher plane than yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: Madam Chair, I am glad to have a few words in the debate this afternoon and to talk about some of the great things that this government is doing, to talk about some of the great things that we will be asking for money from this Interim Supply to pay for the services that we will be providing the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Madam Chair, a lot of philosophical debate is going on this afternoon. I remember engaging in a similar philosophical debate back many years ago when I was sitting over there - way up in the air over there, when we were on the tenth or the eleventh floor - and there were some of us then who were philosophizing about left-wing, right-wing, because, after all, we all do have a policy. We are regarded here, on this side of the House, as having a policy that adheres to Liberal philosophy, and on that side of the House, obviously, they adhere to a policy that adheres to Conservative, Tory, policy. We know what that policy is, but obviously this poor gentleman who was a Tory all his life did not, and when we were talking about left-wing, right-wing, centre, he gets up and says: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what all this talk is about left-wing or right-wing or centre. All I know is, I am a Tory and I am happy to be one.

That is a fact. It is in Hansard. He absolutely did not know that he was left-wing, right-wing or centre.

Well, Madam Chair, I know what I am. I know what I am. I know that I represent a government that is progressive. I represent a government that is progressive with respect to policy, social policy for its people. We have demonstrated it this year, taken one of the most historical reforms ever in Canada by developing a social strategy and linking that strategy with our economic strategy and there are people on the other side who know about that great development, know what has happened over the past couple of years in developing that social strategy and enunciating what we believe about social programs.

One of the great benefits of that, one of the great pieces of legislation was the piece of legislation introduced in this House by the Department of Human Resources when we brought in the Income and Employment Support bill, one of the most revolutionary bills ever brought in by any government in this Province, by any government in Canada; this great social reform that is going to bring great benefits to the people of this Province.

MS S. OSBORNE: The only revolution would be the parents of those four children (inaudible).

MR. LUSH: I do not know what the hon. Member for St. John's West is saying. She is muttering that she does not like the bill, that she doesn't like this great reform that was brought in, this great social reform. I would say the hon. member would have liked to have been a part of it. She would probably have liked to have been the government that brought that in.

MS S. OSBORNE: On a point of order, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for St. John's West, on a point of order.

MS S. OSBORNE: Merely, what I was saying to the speaker, to my colleague, is that I don't like a strategy that would cause this Province to have the highest number of children in this nation living in poverty. That is what I said, Sir, thank you.

AN HON. MEMBER: Twenty-six point two per cent.

MS S. OSBORNE: Twenty-six point two per cent.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. LUSH: That said, these statistics are always unfortunate. We always work towards trying to improve these statistics, hon. Chair. If the hon. Member for St. John's West thinks that is a statistic she can overturn in a very short while, she has some other thinking to do.

What we have done is a step towards improving the quality and the standard of life of all people in this Province, from the lowest income, Madam Chair, to those on the highest income, to try and bring about some balance, some fairness, so that we can all enjoy a standard of living, so that we can all have a standard of education, that will help us to improve our lives, so that we can all have a health standard, Madam Chair, that will make us able to be healthy people. That is the plan of this social policy, of this social strategy, and it is a forward, progressive piece of legislation.

Sure, we can look into it and see flaws in it. We can see that there are some people not at the level they should be. Madam Chair, that is probably the way that things will be forever. We will always have those people. That doesn't stop a government from reforming, that doesn't stop a government from trying to bring self-esteem to people, that doesn't stop a government from trying to bring dignity to people, and that is what we have done with this Income and Employment Bill. That is what we have done, to bring some degree of self-esteem people, to bring some degree of dignity to people.

When that bill starts filtering its way through all of the areas where it has to infiltrate itself, that is going to be a very beneficial bill to the people of this Province, to the poor people of this Province, to those people on low income. They are going to see the benefit of that bill, Madam Chair, and it is going to be a great reform of this government. I am so proud that we are asking hon. members opposite today to support an Interim Supply that is going to support education.

Madam Chair, I ask: Is there a government, has there been a government, has there ever been a government, that has gotten the accomplishments in education that this government has this day? Any fair-minded person, any logical thinking person, could not answer that question, Madam Chair, but in the positive. They could not answer that question but with a strong affirmative yes, that there is not a government in this Province, there is not a government past, that has had the record that this government has had in education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: What a fantastic record! What reform they have brought about.

Honourable gentlemen and ladies opposite all went to school. They know the kind of educational system they went through. They knew how badly it needed to be reformed. They knew that. What government had the political will to do it in the last ten years? There has not been any reform in education to match the standard of reform that has taken place in the last ten years, and I am proud I was with the government that initiated that fantastic reform. Education will never be the same again in this Province.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: You got that right.

MR. LUSH: And I hear the hon. gentleman on the other side from Trinity North making a derisive remark about it. I heard him make a derisive remark and laugh derisively. I ask him: Is he prepared to go to his constituency and say that education has not improved in the past ten years in his area and improved immensely? I see the Member for Windsor-Springdale shaking his head. Well, I tell the hon. gentleman I had the honour of teaching in his area and I would venture to say -

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: On a point of order, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Trinity North.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I say to the hon. member opposite: No, I will not stand here today and say there has not been improvements in our education system because I think there has; there has been some real good improvements.

I would also tell the hon. member that prior to coming into this new profession I spent a number of years as a school trustee. I was a school trustee who went through that change that you are talking about, went through that period from the last 1980s up to the mid-1990s when we had to endure massive cuts in our operating budgets. We had to endure massive cuts in the number of teacher allocations. We had to endure massive consultations within our communities to talk to parents and students about how we were going to cope with the big reduction in the number of teaching units that we have. I went through that period, I say to the hon. member.

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

I will ask the hon. member to get to his point of order.

MR. ROSS WISEMAN: Point, very simply, Madam Chair, is: yes, there have been some improvements, but during that period in which the member is referring to there has been a tremendous amount of anguish, tremendous amount of turmoil, and a tremendous number of cuts being made in the system. So, as he stands and talks about the change in the system, I ask him to be more accurate in his comments about what has actually happened in the last ten years, Madam Chair.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: What has happened in the last ten years is that there has been a massive change in education. The likes of it has never happened in this Province before and it has all been very positive.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his time is up.

MR. LUSH: Madam Chair, let me conclude by saying, I am so proud that I was a part of the reform, and wish that I could be part of such a great social legislation in some other area of endeavour in this Province as we were in education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Madam Chair.

It is my pleasure to stand in the House today and debate Interim Supply. We heard the Premier earlier today twist and malign things that our leader and our Member for St. John's East have said. Madam Chair, I am going to tell you that it is this side of the House, our party in 1999, who brought in such policies as televising the Legislature. That policy was since adopted by government. It is this side of the House who brought in the policy of a Citizens' Representative, or Ombudsman as we call it. It is that side of the House that has adopted this policy as well. It is our side of the House who advocated to put in place a Youth and Child Advocate for the children and youth of the Province. It is that side of the House who has adopted that policy as well.

The Chair just changed, so I say to the Chair of the House, it is this side of the House that has advocated to bring in fixed four-year terms. Our leader announced a policy that we would have fixed four-year terms; that we would have electoral reform; that we would put in place measures to control the amount of lobbying that can take place in the Province, that it would have to be registered; that the ministers being lobbied would have to register the fact that they have been lobbied. It is now that side of the House which is adopting that policy.

The Premier, some two years ago, stood in this House and stated that he will, to the best of his ability, adopt each and every policy that we bring in and put it in place and implement it prior to the election. That is what we see happening in this Province. That is what we see happening. The policies that are being put forward by this party have been adopted and put in place by government. What we are seeing in this Province, Mr. Chair, are policies that are being put forward by our party, robbed by government, put in place by government. Then they have the nerve to stand in this House and say that we have no ideas; we have no policy. Where is our policy? Those policies have been stolen.

Our leader stood in response to the Throne Speech, Mr. Chair, and said, "I, for one, and my caucus, won't be bound by the political commitments made by a government in the last days of their electoral term without first evaluating them through a comprehensive due diligence process." There is nothing wrong with that, Mr. Chair, but we have this Province's version of Weird Al Yankovitch on that side of the House twisting and maligning the words of members of this side of the House so that they are similar but have a different meaning. That is what is happening right now in this Province.

The Premier and members opposite, Mr. Chair, are nervous. Their electoral term is winding down. They know that the candle is about to blow out for them. What is happening in this Province, Mr. Chair, is that they are putting forward a strategy of twisting and maligning what is being said, a fear monger campaign throughout this Province. They are putting forward a campaign to try and twist what is being said and create concern, to hide their own record; to bring concern to the people of this Province that we are going to do something that the people of the Province do not want to see. They are trying to put forward the notion that the people have something to be concerned about. The only thing that the people of this Province have to be concerned about, Mr. Chair, is another four years of government by that side of the House.

Mr. Chair, we have, on this side of the House, advocated for a four-year term. The Premier is now saying that he wants a four-year term. The Premier is now saying that he wants a reduced size of Cabinet. Well, this is the time to show the people of the Province how sincere he is. We have gone beyond the four years. The Premier is standing in the House and saying we have to remove any speculation on when the election is going to be. We have to let people know by putting in a set term, a four-year term. Remove the suspicion of when elections are going to be and the government's ability to call an election when it is to their best timing. Mr. Chair, what is happening is the Premier is now advocating that position but he will not put that position into place prior to an election. He has gone beyond the four years. He has gone beyond the four years that he is saying he is going to put in place but he will not remove the speculation on when an election is going to be. Why? Because he is waiting. He is hoping that their fortunes are going to improve or that we make a mistake, and neither of that is going to happen. Yet, he will not remove the speculation on when that election is going to be called. He is being coy with reporters and being coy in this House on when that call is going to take place.

He is talking about reducing the size of Cabinet, but yet when he had the opportunity to prove his worth, when he had the opportunity to prove to the people of this Province that he can be trusted, that the policies he is promising, the things that he is promising in this Province are going to take place, when he had that opportunity, instead of reducing Cabinet, instead of keeping Cabinet even the same, he increased Cabinet. He increased the size of Cabinet by one, Mr. Chair. He is going around the Province telling people he is going to reduce the size of Cabinet, and what does he do? He increases the size of Cabinet just prior to an election. Why? Because he did not want a caucus revolt. He did not want the caucus revolt. He had to try and satisfy each and every member of his caucus. So, he pulled from the back benches and put in place Cabinet ministers, increased the size of Cabinet to avoid a caucus revolt. Do you know something, Mr. Chair? The people of this Province are not gullible enough, not naive enough to believe that he is going to reduce the size of Cabinet or put in place a fixed four-year term because he had the opportunity to do both, and he hasn't. He has had the opportunity to prove himself and hasn't.

Mr. Chair, the time is coming because the clock is running out on government. That is the only reason, because the clock is running out on government. So, the time is drawing nearer and nearer to an election, and what are we going to see in this Province? We are going to see government put forward their policies, we are going to see our party put forward its policies, and you are going to see the Premier - I can see it now in the all Leaders debate - try to malign our policies, try to tear apart our policies, try to say that our policies are not possible to put in place, that our policies, fiscally, are not able to be done, the same as they did in 1999, when the Member for Kilbride was the leader of our party.

We all saw it, Mr. Chair, in the all Leaders debate, when the then Premier said our policies are not possible, there is no possible way of putting them in place. Fiscally, it is not possible, they don't make sense. Yet the majority of policies that we put in place in our 1999 policy booklet have since been adopted by your party, have since been adopted by government and they have since been implemented. So we are going to see, in an all Leaders debate, the Premier of the Province try to tear apart our policies, try to destroy the credibility of our policies, but the people of this Province have already seen that and they have already seen the fact that our policies have been put in place, almost every one of them, from our 1999 book.

The people of this Province should know that the policies we put in place in this booklet - let me tell you, they are fantastic policies. Those policies that will be contained in our election booklet, our policy booklet, Mr. Chair, will be implemented by this side of the House. Despite what the Premier and the other members of that side of the House say, they are good policies, we will implement them. They are as good as our policies in the 1999 booklet. Those were all put in place, Mr. Chair, by the Premier on that side of the House.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I wish to advise the hon. member that his time is up.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Gander.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS KELLY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I was particularly interested today in participating in the debate on Interim Supply because this will be my last time to debate Interim Supply. I want to take my ten minutes to talk about the importance of financial decisions, how important it is that we look at how we spend our money and what we spend it on. As my colleague, the Minister of Finance, has said on many occasions: It is easy to be all things to all people when you have no responsibility to anyone. I think today I would like to demonstrate, in using my district, the District of Gander, as an example, what has been accomplished in my district in the past few years.

I think it is really, really important for us to realize that the money this government has spent has been spent on people. It has been spent on making the lives and the quality of lives of people in our Province better, whether it is in health care, education, in our roads and any of the services that we have a responsibility, as a government, to provide.

The list that I am going to use today as the basis for what I am going to say is the list that I keep on my web site, the list of accomplishments that we, in Gander district, have been able to do together as a result of the wise and fiscal responsibility of this government in putting the priorities correctly. Not only do we do it on a district by district level, but we do it provincially in this Province as well.

Of course, in my district the most important thing that we have done in the last few years is the $70 million that we have put into James Paton Memorial Hospital, to make sure that hospital is redeveloped and is there to service the health care needs of people in our region.

Of course, a lot of work has been done at Lakeside Homes. This work badly needed to be done. The home was beginning to show its age and it was important that it get redeveloped so that the people of the whole region in Central Newfoundland were able to avail of the services in this fine home. Also, you know, people recognized and spoke to me a lot about it as the member for that district, saying how badly we needed a personal care home. We now have a private entrepreneur who is coming forward and building a personal care home in Gander and it should be open late next fall.

One of the things I am also very proud of, and one of the reasons I work very hard to become the MHA for Gander district, was the importance of bringing jobs to my area. I think with jobs come economic development, more tax revenue so that as a government we can do the things that need to be done.

I am particularly proud of the new aerospace facility, CHC Composites, that government put almost $10 million into. Right now it has about 125 people employed there. It has some very strong contracts for the next five to seven years, and we hope that this will be the core and the beginning of a great aerospace industry for the district.

The relocation of Government Air Services to Gander complemented this aerospace industry, as did Gander Flight Training when it built a new facility in response, and started another arm of their business to train people for the Composites industry, and the College of the North Atlantic expanded their operation to be able to supply the skilled tradespeople that were needed by CHC Composites. Also, in conjunction to that, the government gave the King Air, when it was finished, to the College of the North Atlantic so they would have the great training facilities that they need.

Of course, another thing we are very proud of, that a lot of funding came through Municipal Affairs for almost 50 per cent of the project, the provincial government actually put more money into this facility than did either the municipal government or the federal government, in the new Gander Community Centre. That is a great recreational facility but is great for Gander as a convention centre and is certainly helping to keep people healthy.

The sewer treatment facility that was announced last year for Glenwood and Appleton, these communities will only be paying 10 per cent to 15 per cent of cost. The provincial government will pay for the rest of it, to protect the mighty Gander River and the environment in that area.

The Water Treatment Plant for Gander, that will start to be built this year, that will give us better water. The completion of the Cooper Boulevard Extension is very important to the business community in Gander and finally completed this year. I notice that it is being very well used.

The donation of Canso water bomber parts to the Aviation Museum, that preserves the proud aviation history of Newfoundland and Labrador. Now they are actively selling these parts and their hope is, within a matter of months, they will have enough money to pay off the mortgage on that museum and they will also be able, hopefully, to get their parking lot paved.

Back to job creation: The opening of Hospitality Marketing Concepts, a small call centre in Gander that is providing jobs in that important sector in our Province.

This government has been a leader in making sure that, with these technological centres, we have been a leader in Atlantic Canada in bringing these types of businesses to St. John's, to Carbonear, to Corner Brook, to Grand Falls-Windsor, to Gander, and hopefully many more in our future.

We also find that there are important infrastructure things that need to be done, like the completion and the rebuilding of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge. There is no more important thing than making sure of safety on our highways, and this government has done that.

As we move forward with all of these types of initiatives, the list goes on and on. Some really important things have been done, some regular programs like providing funding to the WISE program, to the women's centres, to setting up the Family Justice Central pilot project. There is a lot of work left to be done, but as long as we keep great programs like SWASP and other things going, we know that we will be able to continue to work with the people of this Province, to continue the economic prosperity that we have been building on and we have been leading the country on for the last few years.

It is really, really, important that we continue the work that we have been doing at a steady pace, and that we have a plan, we have a vision, that it is nothing like this common sense revolution that we see in other areas of our country and that we sort of start seeing a little bit now leaking into the conversation of the members opposite.

We know that it is so important that slash-and-burn is not the way to go. While, when times come, you have to make sure you are efficient, we know that if you give people the money, you give them decent salaries, they have good jobs, keep taxes as low as you possibly can, people will spend the money. That is what is keeping our economy going. Trust me. I know that I have been a part of a Cabinet, a caucus, and a government, that have taken the chances, taken the risk, and we know that every single time that you work with people, that you put money in their pockets, you get the dividends back. That is not to say there is not more work left to be done. We all know there is more work left to be done. I think that the number one priority of the work that is left to be done is to get the federal government to treat this Province responsibly.

We saw an example with the Gander Weather Office, that we will be debating here in this Legislature on Wednesday afternoon in a private member's motion. We know that problem has to be solved, along with several others, but it is the big overall attitude that the federal government has to this Province. Let me tell you, if a barrel of oil was treated the same in this Province as it is in the Province of Alberta, we would not have the financial difficulties that we have, and that has to be the main thing that this Province has to tackle. We have to get the federal government to listen and to treat our resources with respect and make sure that the people of this Province benefit from the great resources that we have.

Getting back to speaking about my district, I know there is work left to be done. There is work - for instance, the road to Benton is in a deplorable state and really needs to be fixed up. Many of you in this House know the importance of renal dialysis, and how important it is that our regional centres and people in this Province have reasonable access to these facilities. Also, we know that outside of St. John's now we need an MRI. We know that a mobile MRI is what will work best for the people of this Province to bring the services they so badly need pretty close to their doorstep if we had a mobile MRI.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I would like to remind the member that her time is up.

MS KELLY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for The Straits & White Bay North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to stand for a few minutes this afternoon and pass a few comments on Bill 2, Mr. Chairman, on Interim Supply. As has been rightly pointed out so far in the debate on Bill 2, on granting government the authority, I guess, to spend $1,349,772,200, it is no small amount of change, as far as I am concerned, and as our critic for Finance has pointed out this afternoon, certainly we have a very short period of time to be able to do this.

Mr. Chairman, the minister speaks about how this is for ongoing programs and maybe for a couple of new programs. Any time we debate money bills, of course, it is an opportune time, I think, to look at government's performance over the past number of years, to look at what government has done with previous authorizations for expenditures, for lack of a better way of putting it, and what the fiscal situation of the Province is, and how the government is managing the people's finances, what they are doing with it.

Mr. Chairman, I listen here. I have been here a little over two years now and I have listened almost on a daily basis, I guess, in the days that we have been in the House of Assembly, and certainly fairly regularly on the days that we have not been in the House of Assembly, to the Minister of Finance, the Premier, various ministers from that side of the House, various members from that side of the House, probably every one of them, at one point or another, talk about the wonderful job that this Liberal Administration is doing and has done over the past thirteen or fourteen years.

Mr. Chairman, you know, we came here last year around, I think it was March 17 that we came and sat in this House. No, it was probably before that. I think the Throne Speech was brought in somewhere around March 19 last year, as I recall - I looked at it there a little while ago - so the Budget, I guess, was a few days after that. What was in the Budget, Mr. Chairman?

You know, the government stands up and talks about the wonderful job they are doing, the wonderful job they are doing with managing the finances of the Province. I forget what the exact number was now on March 21?

AN HON. MEMBER: March 21.

MR. TAYLOR: Okay, March 21 last year. Now, what was one of the key components of the Budget that the Minister of Finance tabled here in this House last year?

We all know that the legislation that would have enabled this government on the other side to take $100 million out of the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund was never, ever tabled in the House, never, ever got debated, never, ever got passed, so I can only assume - I do not know if I am correct in assuming this - that they did not take the $100 million from the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund, but why didn't they take it? Why didn't that piece of legislation come to the House?

It did not, in large part, because of the opposition that was raised by people from this side of the House, by the general public in Labrador, by the Member of Parliament for Labrador, Mr. Lawrence O'Brien, by the Member for Labrador West, by members of our caucus, by John Hickey, the Mayor of Goose Bay, and a lot of people, Mr. Chairman, throughout Labrador -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: - and also a lot of people on the Island of the Province, because they looked at the $100 million that the government was going to take from the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund. They looked at it and said it was wrong. The people of the Province said that it was wrong, not just the people in Labrador who were going to be directly affected by it. The rest of the people of the Province looked at it and said this is a fund that was established from funds that were received from the federal government for transportation initiatives on the Coast of Labrador and throughout Labrador, and, Mr. Chairman, $100 million was going to taken for general revenues. Why did that happen, Mr. Chairman? Why was the government going to do that? Because of the poor job they have done in managing the finances of the Province.

The Member for Ferryland, the Finance critic, stood up here earlier today and he talked about - I don't know what you would call it; I am trying to find a parliamentary word for it - some of the incorrect or inappropriate uses of the people's funds. That is the best way I can put it, the most parliamentary way I can put it, Mr. Chairman.

He spoke about the Trans City affair, and how much that cost the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and how much it will cost over the course of the contract. He talked about the millions of dollars; $19.9 million, I believe, is the figure that the Member for Ferryland used earlier. Situations like that, Mr. Chairman, where the government is contravening the Public Tender Act. That is the reason why the provincial government, this Liberal Administration, had to come to this House last year and - they did not do it because of the opposition - look to take $100 million from the Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund.

Mr. Chairman, I will move along and talk about transportation in my district, the Straits and White Bay North. The government stands up and talks about the wonderful job they are doing in managing this Province. Well, Mr. Chairman, I can tell you today - and I met with the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation on this just recently. I do not expect him to solve the problem immediately because he only just took over the portfolio, but the former minister knew about it and did nothing about it, like he did with a lot of the situations that were put in front of him, Mr. Chairman. I have a community, Big Brook, not a very big community, not as big as the name might suggest. It is a small community, very small, but that community was on the main road before the reconstruction of the Northern Peninsula highway in the late 1970s and early 1980s. That community was a very vibrant community at the time but, because the route changed down the Northern Peninsula, that community now finds itself eighteen kilometres out on a side road. What has this Liberal Administration done with the people in Big Brook? They have told them: We are sorry. You are out there on that road, and we cannot guarantee you snow clearing services. We cannot clear the snow to that community on the weekend. We cannot clear snow to that community at any time if overtime is needed.

That is what they have done. Do you know what that resulted in, Mr. Chairman? That resulted in that community being cut off from road access eighteen kilometres approximately for close on a month so far this winter. The people of Big Brook have not been able to get into or out of their community because of the wonderful job that this Liberal Administration is doing with managing the finances of the people of this Province. That is what is happening there, Mr. Chairman.

What else is happening in Works, Services and Transportation? Look at the Northern Peninsula highway, roughly twenty-five years old, probably, I would suggest, the second most important highway in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador when you look at it from the perspective of the population served, the length of the highway, its importance for economic transportation, its importance for tourism transportation and so on. There are millions and millions of pounds of fish hauled over it every year, thousands of loads of wood hauled over it to go to the mills in Corner Brook, Stephenville, and probably Grand Falls, loads of lumber that come from the sawmills in Main Brook, Roddickton, and Croque. It is a very important thoroughfare, and what is the biggest complaint we hear from tourists who travel the Northern Peninsula in the summer? They come down and talk about wonderful scenery, the great history, the great geology, the wonderful UNESCO World Heritage site at Gros Morne, at L'Anse au Meadows, and over in Southern Labrador, Red Bay, and the National Historic Site in Port au Choix. They come down to see all of this, and what do they do? A lot of them now, because they are travelling in caravans, park their vehicles and motor homes up the coast, as we say, around Deer Lake or Bonne Bay, or somewhere like that, and get buses to carry them around because the roads are in such a deplorable condition, such a deplorable state, as a result of the management of this Administration, that they are not fit to drive over.

We now find the biggest complaint from tourists - 35,000 tourists that visit L'Anse au Meadows National Historic Site every summer - the most consistent complaint is: You have to do something about the Northern Peninsula Highway or you will never realize the tourism potential that is down in this area. What are they doing? Nothing.

I will tell you how far it has gone now. I am not sure if the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation knows this yet because, as I said, he is only new in his portfolio and I am sure this will all come to him in time, if he gets very much time there. I will tell you what the situation is. Right now on the Northern Peninsula - and this might seem like a very small complaint to some people who do not have to travel the Northern Peninsula Highway in a snowstorm, who do not have to travel the Northern Peninsula Highway in dense fog, but is a very important issue for the truckers, the bus drivers and the general travelling public who have to travel those roads when there is drifting snow or heavy fog. The wonderful job that this Province has done and this government has done with running this Province now find ourselves where we cannot paint white lines on our highways. The white lines along the edge of the highway on the Northern Peninsula are not painted. They have not been painted for just about two years now. They started by cutting out one side and now they have two sides cut out. I contacted -

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. TAYLOR: By leave to clue up, Mr. Chairman?

CHAIR: Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

CHAIR: No leave.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to say a few words. I am sure I will have a chance to get up and enlighten the people on the other side of the House about some more of the truths of the wonderful job they are doing with managing our Province.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources and Employment.

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

It is certainly a pleasure for me to rise today in support of Bill 2, knowing full well the importance of the timely passing of this bill to the people I serve - the people of most need, I should say - in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Hopefully, as a group in this House, we will have this bill passed in a timely fashion so that the people I represent can get their cheques on time on April 1. I know that it would be pretty disconcerting, I guess is a good word, if April 1 comes and the people I serve do not receive their cheque of support from government.

It is quite interesting -

MR. E. BYRNE: Are you suggesting that is going to happen?

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: The Opposition House Leader now is asking me if I am suggesting that this is going to happen. I am not suggesting anything. I am just saying that the people that I serve are the people of greatest need in this Province, and if on April 1 they do not have their cheque then it is going to cause them a lot of distress. That is all I am saying.

MR. E. BYRNE: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

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

The minister is certainly not saying that, but he does not have the intestinal fortitude to - he wants to leave an impression that somehow people he serves would be upset if they do not get their cheques on April 1. Now, what is he suggesting? There is only one group that could hold that up, and that is us as the Official Opposition.

Let me remind the minister that if he has an accusation to make, then stand up and make it. Have the backbone and intestinal fortitude to make it.

I will also remind him, Mr. Chair, that last week when we debated this we made a commitment on this side of the House that, by tomorrow, Interim Supply will be passed. Stop the fearmongering. Stop the insinuations. Stop the misleading comments and deal with what is, is my suggestion to the minister.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Minister of Human Resources and Employment.

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: I think, Mr. Chairman, the Opposition House Leader would like to know what intestinal fortitude means, and wants to know if I have the intestinal fortitude to stand in my place in this House and represent the people of Topsail. I can tell him, let there be no doubt that this member will stand anywhere, at any place, any time, to represent the people of Topsail district.

It has been quite interesting to hear some of the language that is coming from the other side about intellectual dishonesty, and what they would do if they were government, and what they said and what they did not say and so on and so forth, but, Mr. Chairman, it was quite interesting to hear the Leader of the Opposition talk about, he was going to have lobbyists registered. Well, the first one who should be registered is himself. He should register himself because, I can tell you, he was one of the biggest lobbyists that the former government, under former Premier Tobin, had ever seen. He is the same man who went to Premier Tobin lobbying for the contract for the telephone services for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, so that he wanted a Newfoundland company to get it, but what happened? When he got the contract, he flipped it within a few weeks and made millions of dollars, and he was committed to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. He wanted a Newfoundland company to have it. Now, what happened? You have a skeleton crew up there managing the place because he sold it. He has no other interest in it.

I heard him talk about the fact, the first time I heard about the business one, taking the business administration out of Industry, Trade and Rural Development, was during the campaign in Conception Bay South. Guess where he is going to put it? Right in the Premier's Office. I guess it is starting to add up now, Mr. Chairman. Because he did so well lobbying when the former Premier was here, he wants to take all the business out of government and have it totally attached to the Premier's Office. I can understand that. I can understand that, because that is how he got the telephone contract worth tens of millions of dollars, by lobbying the former Premier.

I was down in Bonavista North, Mr. Chairman, doing some campaigning, seeing this big van go by, the Leader of the Opposition. A big picture on it of the golf courses. What it did not say is that those golf courses, one in Mount Pearl, got $236,000 out of the taxpayers of this Province for a road to a golf course, and I, in my department, had calls every day that people are living in houses that they say are substandard. Guess what? We have a Leader of the Opposition who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It is public knowledge. Yet, he takes the money from government and says to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador: Trust me. I care.

Well, I want to tell you that this member sees something wrong with that picture. You people opposite may not see it. You are over there laughing now. You think it is a big joke, but that is the reality of the world in which we live. Let's not talk about intestinal fortitude. I have been living in my area for thirty years. I stood for the people I represented long before I came to government. Topsail was never a sleepover for me.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: I worked on the ground with the people who live there, and I intend to work again when they make their decision in the upcoming election.

What was most interesting about all of this, not once did the former Auditor General talk about the $236,000 that was spent from Newfoundland and Labrador Housing to put a road to a golf course. Not one single word. Why not? Many people have asked the question, what her agenda was. I do not know. I do not know what it was, but I can tell you that since I have been here in Topsail district tens of millions of dollars have been invested by this Liberal government right here to make a difference to the people in that area.

I remember fifteen years ago, people had sewer in the ditches. They were screaming for clean water. Guess what? They got it. My area, after this round of servicing, about 86 per cent serviced with two treatment plants. We just finished a new school in the area. We have been doing extensions. We have been doing a great job for the people of Topsail district, and I am proud to say that I represent them, but I have no illusions about the job.

When I listen to people about what may happen or what might happen, they talk about, well, almost 900 people came out and voted in the nomination. What they did not say was, 9,000 people never voted for the star candidate. It is kind of interesting, they had a star candidate in another district who got 1,800 people out. Imagine, picked personally by the leader to run in my district. Other people were told to back off. In fact, one of the guys even told me that the letter he put in the Shoreline was dictated by the Opposition, what he would say. There was no place for him. There was no place for anybody in my district, only what the leader had said they should vote for.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Of course there was an nomination, because one individual said: I want to seek the nomination; I am going to do it - and he did it. That is the kind of individual we should have here. Somebody who is prepared to stand up. Let there be no doubt about it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) one there now.

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: The member opposite says they do not have one there now. He should go up in my district and talk to the people in my district, and ask them what has happened since I have been the member there. They are delighted with what I have done. They are proud of this government and what they have done for the people of that area. You cannot sit here and sit in judgement of something and talk about something you know nothing about. You do it because you are in front of a camera and you want to make an impression. Let me tell you -

AN HON. MEMBER: You live in your district.

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: I live in my district. I do not have to stand in front of a camera to perform. My performance speaks for itself.

It was quite interesting, during the CBS campaign, they wanted the bypass road to be extended. Guess what? In 1993, those same individuals wanted it stopped because it was going to have a negative impact on their district and on their business.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I want to advise the member that his time is up.

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: By leave, Mr. Chair.

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

CHAIR: No leave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Chairman, the minister should stick around because he has some explaining to do. On behalf of his colleagues he has some explaining to do because he has let some pretty interesting comments stand here. I am going to ask him when he gets back. I will give him the opportunity. We will all give him the opportunity because what he has left here are some impressions that somehow, on a couple of instances, the Leader of the Opposition was somehow involved in activity that he should not have been involved with.

For example, he talked about that he was a lobbyist for a telephone contractor. Imagine! First of all, the minister knows full well where the lobbying activity has taken place in the last several years. Who has been the chief Liberal lobbyist in this Province? One needs only look to the federal registry for lobbyists. It is a shame that we do not have one here, which we have called for over a year-and-a-half because we would see him here too. Who has been the chief lobbyist for Voisey's Bay Nickel Company and an active member in the Premier's leadership bid? One, Gary Anstey. It is on the federal registry.

MS FOOTE: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Well, the minister raised a question, I say to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. He deserves to stand up and talk about it, and deal with the suspicions that he has raised and aspersions that he has put on a member's character in this House. We are not going to stand here and take that because it is shameful and it is not right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: In every major contract in this Province in the last seven years who has been the lobbyist? For Kruger, Provincial Airlines, the Nurses' Union? Who? One person.

Now, with respect to the telephone contract that the member talks about, this government offers a public tender process where a private individual, and individuals, apply to the public tender process, have it submitted to the Cabinet and wins a contract. Is the member now saying that something untoward happened? It was his colleagues. The Minister of Forestry and Agriculture right now was the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation at the time and was responsible for the Public Tender Act. Is he saying that his colleagues somehow broke that tender? I doubt it, but that is the impression he is trying to leave.

Is he also saying that as Leader of the Opposition, the current Leader of the Opposition, the Member for Humber West, who has employed thousands of people through his own ingenuity and his own business sense, who has paid millions upon millions of dollars of taxes, in excess of $10 million to $12 million a year when he was in the private sector; he is somehow saying now there was something wrong with that? That as a private individual he employed people at more than competitive salaries? That in tough times he kept them on? There is something wrong with that?

He talked about the former Auditor General and where the member and Leader of the Opposition had applied to government for - I think he said - $236,000 worth of contracts for a golf course, in here I believe, in the Cochrane Pond area. He said: I did not see the Auditor General investigate that. Is he suggesting there was something untoward that happened there? Is he suggesting - because that is what he is doing - his colleagues were involved in something that was untoward and should not have happened? The fact of the matter is, the minister is fear mongering, casting aspersions on a person's character without any merit or foundation. That is exactly what is going on here and that is what we talked about earlier.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chair, and it may be - and I want to put the Chair on notice today or inform the Chair, that his comments may even be a point of privilege. I am going to take the opportunity when this House closes to have a look at that because what he is suggesting is unbelievable. Now, the other side of the equation is, what is the difficulty? He talks about his record and this is not a sleep over in the Topsail district. That is great for him. The people in Topsail will decide what happens in the next general election; not the minister, not me, nobody else. But, I will tell you this, for you to stand in your place as a minister of the Crown and suggest that some things were untoward that happened, when they did not, is shameful minister. It is absolutely shameful. Is this what politics in this Legislature has been reduced to, that we have ministers of the Crown who have to stand up and personally attack the Leader of the Opposition because he happens to be in a certain position in the polls today? Is that what it has become? That in this Assembly, the people's House of Assembly, where the debate on ideas should take precedence over personalities, where we see ministers of the Crown personally attacking the Leader of the Opposition - come on.

I do not think, in my own view - someone asked me about George Saunders. I am glad you brought it up. I asked a question, a legitimate question today -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. E. BYRNE: Absolutely! I say to ministers opposite -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: A legitimate question. We can deal with that in Question Period tomorrow or I can deal with it in a second.

So rules governing the executive branch in government now are all out the window because we asked a question about the executive head of a commission. The fact of the matter is this, Mr. Chair, that in the House today - and the minister is leaving certain impressions that are wrong, that are not right and he should do the honourable thing about, not only himself, who is part of a government that made decisions, but about his own colleagues who also made them, and that is unbelievable.

Mr. Chair, with respect to Interim Supply, the minister talked earlier about: People in my district will be upset if they don't get their cheques on April 1. My God!

AN HON. MEMBER: I did not say in my district.

MR. E. BYRNE: Yes, you did. People I serve, you said. People I serve and around the Province. As if, by implication, somehow every member in the Official Opposition is going to stand and stop the delivery of public services in the Province. I mean, come on.

The very first day when this bill was introduced we said we look forward to the opportunity of debating Interim Supply. We also made the commitment, clearly on the record of this House, that when it comes time to pass it, in the appropriate amount of time so that the delivery of public services will not be interrupted, then we will do what we always do, we will pass it at the appropriate time. To suggest otherwise is absolutely wrong.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources and Employment.

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Just by way of putting my position clear. What I forgot to mention, Mr. Chairman, was the $634,000 that a company he was involved in, in a wood deal in Norway, that stuck Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador with. My whole point is this, the point I am trying to make here, that the Leader of the Opposition is standing before the people of the Province and saying: I want to help you. I want to be there with you. I want to do what I can for you. My point is, a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars is coming here to government and getting money, and then says: Well, I want to help you. I see something wrong with that picture.

MR. E. BYRNE: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: This is an interesting mindset, Mr. Chair.

On behalf of all members in the Official Opposition, I would like to ask the minister this question, and I will give him whatever leave he requires. Are you suggesting, as you did earlier, that in any sort of a relationship, a contract when the Leader of the Opposition was a private citizen - you said earlier that the Auditor General did not look into $236,000 for a road. Are you suggesting there was something wrong with that? Because you did. Now, whatever leave this minister wants to explain himself, and to continue to swallow himself whole if that is what he wants to do, we will gladly provide it. Stand up and answer the question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources and Employment.

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: No, Mr. Chairman, I did not imply that there was anything criminally wrong. What I said was, I had some problem understanding -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RALPH WISEMAN: Just give me a chance to say - to imply that somebody who was worth hundreds of millions of dollars would be coming here to get money, to then say I am going to help you, basically that is what I said. I think that was right here. If you want to twist it, it is entirely up to you.

MR. E. BYRNE: A point of order, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Order, please!

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

MR. E. BYRNE: No, Mr. Chair, what the minister did say is that the former Auditor General did not look into how he got that money. The record of Hansard will show that. Stand up and tell us why you think the former Auditor General should have looked into why the current Leader of the Opposition should not have gotten that money. Tell us!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: I stand today, Mr. Chairman, to speak to Interim Supply, and the fact that over $16 million that is being requested here is being requested for the Department of Industry, Trade and Rural Development. It is, in fact, to cover off a number of programs that are ongoing within the department - very valuable programs, I must say. Things like, for instance, the Small Business Seed Capital Equity Program, the Venture Capital Tax Credit Program and the Small Business and Market Development Program. Those are just some examples of the types of programs that we need to continue to fund, and why we are looking to Interim Supply to do that for now.

If you look at what this government has done in terms of small business in particular, we are very proud of our record. When you look at the fact that 95 per cent of the businesses in Newfoundland and Labrador are small businesses, obviously we need to continue to support those businesses. The difference between what we do as a government and what the people opposite would do if should ever form the government is interesting indeed, when you consider the whole idea of growing the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador.

When I look at the measures that we have taken as a government, when you look at, for instance, one example, the whole idea of providing loans to small business in particular, providing grants in some categories, when you look at his statement from the 1999 Election Policy Document of the PC Party, it says: "A PC Government will end the practice of providing loans or grants to businesses."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS FOOTE: That is when the Opposition House Leader was, in fact, the Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party at the time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Your critic.

MS FOOTE: My critic, that is right, for Industry, Trade and Rural Development.

How that fares with what his leader is saying is questionable when, in fact, his leader is saying that he supports small business. Either you support it as a party or you do not support it as a party. Clearly, we have two differing views on the other side. When the PC Party decides whether it supports or does not support small business, and how it is going to go about that, maybe they will let the rest of us know, because right now we have a quote from the 1999 Election Policy Document of the PC Party where my critic, the Member for Kilbride, was then the Leader of the Opposition, who clearly stated that, "A PC Government will end the practice of providing loans or grants to businesses."

That, I find unsettling; that, I find disturbing when you consider that 95 per cent of the businesses in Newfoundland and Labrador are, in fact, small businesses.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: The other issue that really begs a question that we really need an answer to is the whole issue around payroll tax, and the whole idea of either getting rid of it or not getting rid of it. Again, back to the 1999 Election Policy Document of the PC Party. Then Leader of the PC Party said, "A PC Government will eliminate the payroll tax...".

Recently, in a speech by the now Leader of the Opposition: Williams said he won't make a commitment on the payroll tax until "I find out exactly what the fiscal state of our province is."

Now, either you are going to do it because you believe it is the right thing to do, or you are not going to do it because you do not believe it is the right thing to do. Again, we have two versions coming out of the Opposition, two different policy statements, I would think, that beg the question: Do you or do you not want to get rid of the payroll tax?

Interestingly enough, the Opposition House Leader stands to defend his leader, and I can understand that. I suppose it is a natural thing to do, to stand and defend your leader, as it were.

The fact of the matter is, when that telephone contract was given, it was given to the Leader of the Opposition. Did he lobby for it? I do not know. I would assume, if he got it, he must have lobbied for it. The fact remains that, within a month of getting that contract - one month - the ink was not dry before it was split, sold to another company, a contract worth $60 million.

If that is what you want to talk about in terms of your business experience - because that is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition has been saying. He says his own personal business experience is probably the best thing that I can bring to government. If that is the kind of business experience that you are going to bring when we are talking Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are talking rural Newfoundland and Labrador, then I question whether or not we want that kind of business experience in our Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS FOOTE: We want jobs that are going to stay here. We want people committed to Newfoundland and Labrador. We want businesses that want to be here, that want to create employment.

This government, since 1996, in Newfoundland and Labrador, has created a business climate where, in fact, we have seen over 26,900 new jobs created in Newfoundland and Labrador. We have worked very closely with business. We have put measures in place to make it possible for business to create those kinds of jobs, and we are very proud of our record.

Our Renewal Strategy for Jobs and Growth is working and is creating new opportunities for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. As a government we are really proud of what we have been able to do.

We have to support small business and if you look at the small businesses around the Province we can be very proud of them. In fact, I heard on the Open Line one morning, Mr. Williams calling in to say that he had been out to visit several small businesses. He actually sounded surprised that they were so viable, that they were doing so well in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, but when you consider that 95 per cent of the businesses in Newfoundland and Labrador are small business, it is happening everywhere in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Let me give you an example. Weather Shore Windows Inc. in Trepassey - I am sorry the Member for Ferryland is not here - a vinyl window manufacturing plant, quite successful, import replacement strategy resulting in annual sales of $4 million in the local market. Hygenitek, in Trepassey, the startup of a new manufacturer to produce dental hygienic products. Do you know what the owner of that company said? That without support from government it would not have been possible. So, tell the people who are working in that particular industry, from the Trepassey area, that that was not a good investment of government money; that was not a good investment of their tax dollars and you will hear from them that this is exactly what we should be doing as a government if we are going to grow the local economy. And we are doing just that, not just in Trepassey but in many, many areas of this Province.

We believe in small business. So when we get a statement from the Progressive Conservative Party, a 1999 election policy document that says: a PC government will end the practice of providing loans or grants to businesses, my question is: Is that still the policy of the members opposite? Because if it is, then I would be very concerned as a small business in this Province or be very concerned as someone looking to invest in this Province. I would be very concerned if I was an entrepreneur out there thinking that there is an opportunity in Newfoundland and Labrador, especially in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, if that was the policy statement of a PC Party. Especially, a PC Party looking to form the government.

Mr. Chair, I find it really difficult to understand comments from the Leader of the Opposition, that if our Province is to have hope for a bright future we need to start creating job opportunities -

CHAIR: Order, please!

I would like to advise the hon. minister that her time is up.

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

CHAIR: No leave.

MS FOOTE: We are very proud, Mr. Chair, of our record as a government in supporting small business in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. E. BYRNE: A point of order, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, on a point of order.

MR. E. BYRNE: I did not want to rise on a point of order while the minister was speaking, I wanted to hear what she had to say, and I certainly do not mean to interrupt my colleague from Labrador West, but what the Minister of Human Resources and Employment said here earlier - in my view, I stand on a point of order, and I am asking you to rule on it. In Beauchesne, page 141, in Content of Speeches, §481.(e), the Minister of Human Resources and Employment clearly imputed bad motives or motives different from those acknowledged by a member in this House, and that is unparliamentary.

I am asking the member - on page 141, I can direct the Chair, at the bottom, §481.(e). He is imputing bad motives or motives different from those acknowledged by the member; which I believe he did. I believe - a review of Hansard would have to suggest this - he made a personal charge as well, that there was something untoward that occurred in the Leader of the Opposition's private life when he was a citizen. I am asking the Chair to rule in favour of this point of order and ask the member to stand up and apologize.

CHAIR: I would like to advise the Opposition House Leader that I will take his point of order under advisement and report back.

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

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to rise today, too, and take part in the debate on Interim Supply, and indeed the finances of the Province as to where we are going in the future.

There is no question, during the past two to three years I have presented almost on a daily basis, during the sitting of the Legislature, petitions calling for the Province to adopt and amend their medical plan, the Provincial Drug Prescription Plan to provide coverage for such drugs that are needed to treat MS, Alzheimer's, hormone replacement drugs and other such high-cost drugs that are provided for in other provinces, but are not provided for people who need them in this Province.

I think it is ridiculous that people in our Province today have to look at the possibility of relocating to another Province in this country simply to get a drug that they need to treat their illness instead of having to make a choice between getting that drug in our Province, or putting food on the table, or taking care of other family needs. This is one area that I hope, during the upcoming Budget on Thursday, this government will see fit to address because the need is certainly there and this government has heard that need as they travelled throughout the Province in their pre-Budget hearings.

The other area, Mr. Chairman, is health care, and what it means to the people in this Province to have services available when they need them. In certain areas of this Province there is a lot of difficulty and a lot of expense associated with obtaining proper medical services. I think this government would do well to look at expanding the non-emergency medical relief fund that is presently in effect that covers medical related expenses over and above the first $500 to the tune of 50 per cent. It still adds up to a lot of money, Mr. Chairman, for a lot of individual people in this Province who find it necessary to have to travel great distances to come to a center location such as the Health Sciences Centre here in St. John's.

I agree with the Member for Gander when she talked about the necessity of a mobile MRI machine. That is something that is in a lot of demand in this Province. I am sure every member of this House of Assembly has dealt with constituents who have called and complained about the length of time it takes to get an MRI in this Province. Where we only have the one located here in St. John's, there is certainly a need of having another one. I agree with the Member for Gander, that the best way of doing that would be a mobile unit that could travel to the different areas of this Province and provide that much needed service.

Education costs, Mr. Chairman, is something that I talked about at great length yesterday, in terms of reducing the cost of education, to allow students to finish their university or their post-secondary education and not be saddled with a debt that is equivalent to that of a mortgage. That is wrong, Mr. Chairman. I acknowledge that this government has moved in the right direction, but there is much further to go.

There is also, Mr. Chairman, as I said many times before, the need for parents in this Province to be able - if they are paying for their children's education, they are doing so at great personal sacrifice to themselves and to the remainder of their families. I think, Mr. Chairman, that there should be provisions for parents who do this, for parents who sacrifice their own retirement and their own personal standard of living to put their kids through university. There should be something in place whereby they can claim back in order to get some relief from the high cost of putting their kids through. There are a lot of areas like that, Mr. Chairman, that this government has to address in the months and years to come. It is long overdue.

We also talked about the deficit and what that means to the Province. Well, I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, speaking from our party and from myself, as the Member for Labrador West, that the deficit, while you may look at it and study it and see that it is high, the alternative between having a deficit that you can look down the road and be able to contain at some point in time versus cutting all the services that people rely on in this Province would be a much fairer way of doing things. We cannot just, unilaterally, remove all of the services that people depend on and need simply to balance the Budget.

On that note, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that this Province could be very healthy indeed, from a financial perspective, if we were on a level playing field with that of other provinces. For example, if we look at the Voisey's Bay revenues that will flow to this Province we will realize it is only 10 per cent of that which will flow to the federal government. The figures for White Rose are the same, ten dollars for Ottawa for every one dollar that we receive as a Province. If we look at Hibernia and see the amount that we are getting per barrel compared to what Alberta receives or Alaska or Norway, it is a small pittance, Mr. Chairman. Some of the reasons we are in this position financially have very much to do with the arrangement between this Province and Ottawa in terms of our natural resources and how little we are able to benefit from them.

Mr. Chairman, there are other needs in this Province as well, and transportation is certainly not a small one among them. When we look at the area that I represent, and other areas of Labrador, and we talk about transportation, we are now in the Twenty-First Century without a decent road to drive over, and one that does not connect all of Labrador. We have a highway system from Labrador West to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and from Cartwright down to The Straits. There is a huge gap in between there that needs to be filled in.

Now, this government said last year that they will undertake to do that as a provincial initiative. I would be very much surprised to see if that road will be completed in the six years that this government has promised to do so. I do not believe that they will have the wherewithal or the financial capacity to be able to achieve that, and that worries me a great deal.

The existing roads: if this government were serious about completing a transportation network throughout Labrador, this government would commence immediately with this Budget and announce monies that will start a paving project on the sections of the highway that are already completed; because right now, Mr. Chairman, as it stands at the present time, you are risking not only damage to your vehicle by travelling that Labrador highway, but indeed at times you are risking your life as well. There have been many accidents on that section of road because of the road conditions, not because of driver error. For transportation to be a priority with this government, the only way that they can convince me or the people of the Province and the people of Labrador in particular, is by announcing funding in the Budget to immediately commence a paving project.

Mr. Chairman, when we talk about small business, as the previous speaker spoke about, there are many opportunities in this Province for a small business to be established and to provide meaningful employment in many of the communities around our Province. There has to be a greater commitment on the part of government to enable people to do that, not to be caught with the red tape that they find themselves in now when they try to get a venture off the ground. That applies equally, Mr. Chairman, to groups and organizations around this Province that provide employment, good employment, to many people in a lot of areas, in a lot of regions of our Province. I can give you one example, that of the White Wolf Club in Labrador West, a Ski-Doo club that has worked really hard over the last number of years to try and increase tourism to our area of the Province, and the funding that they have received from governments over that period of time is certainly inadequate and leaves a lot to be desired.

Most of the financing that they have received comes from individual memberships, which I suggest are much higher than they are for memberships on the Island portion of the Province to belong to Ski-Doo groups. This club, while they are filled with volunteers - they have a lot of people doing a lot of work without being paid - they still hire a number of people each year and pay them, to their ability, to perform work such as grooming trails to attract people to the area to increase the tourism and the awareness of taking a vacation in Labrador. One of the things that we have come to recognize in recent years is that the tourism industry and the tourism season in Labrador is really built around the winter and the spring months of the year more so than the summer; however, that is important as well. The emphasis has to be on winter and spring activities because that is what we are all about.

Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of areas that we can talk about when it comes to Interim Supply.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I would like to advise the hon. member that his time is up.

MR. COLLINS: By leave, just to clue up, Mr. Chairman?

CHAIR: Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

CHAIR: By leave.

MR. COLLINS: One of the other areas, Mr. Chairman, that I would just like to touch on would be home care, and the increasing need that we are going to face in the years to come concerning home care in this Province. I am not talking about private home care. I am not talking about an arrangement that looks at public-private partnerships. I am not talking about that either. I am talking about real publicly-funded health care systems that offer a good service to the people who require it. So there are many, many needs in this Province that people have and that government will be responsible for providing.

I will wrap up my comments on that, Mr. Chairman, and I am sure that in the days and weeks to come there will be much more debate on these and other issues.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Environment.

MR. MERCER: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have just a few comments - the evening is wearing on - on Interim Supply, and just to have a few words about some of the comments that have been made in this Chamber today and last week about the great pilferers that we are for having stolen ideas from the Blue Book, and taking good ideas wherever they might come from.

As I recall, not so very long ago we were accused of actually stealing a thought around the minimum wage. Actually, we were going to propose a minimum wage, but some members opposite claimed that we were stealing that as an idea from their - I am not sure if it was in their Blue Book or in comments made by someone before a labour group. The fact of the matter is simply that the minimum wage is something which is reviewed statutorily every so often. Whether we had it in our book or you had it in your book, someone had to review it because that is what the law of the land said. Now, you might very well have had the same thoughts about increasing it to the same value that we did, but I fail to understand how that means that we stole your thoughts or stole the Opposition's thoughts. So there are a lot of thoughts going around about stealing this one's ideas and that one's ideas.

In the last comments I made on Interim Supply, I think I made reference to rushing to the microphones subsequent to some announcements happening down in St. George's, and some three-pronged policy being announced by the members opposite. One of those dealt with the term of elections, four years, which was a great policy. I don't see anything wrong with it at all. I think that is a great policy. Our leader has said he was going to implement it. The thing is, he had talked about that some two or three weeks before the members on the other side had said the same thing. Did we accused them of stealing our idea? No, it was just a good idea and if he wants to adopt it that is fine. We do not have a problem with that.

The second thrust of that three-pronged policy dealt with election reform, election expense reform, a good idea. I think we think we need to do election expense reform in this Province. I think we need to be more accountable as politicians when we raise funds, and we need to be very clear as to who we are accepting funding from. There is entirely nothing wrong with that at all. The only thing was: It had been all the subject on Parliament Hill in Ottawa for some several weeks and several months by Jean Chrétien. Who stole what from whom? It just so happens that both sides had a good idea and they brought it forward at more or less the same time.

The only thing that was new in that particular speech was the issue of a lobbyist, because that was the third prong, that we needed to introduce lobbyist legislation. While, to the best of my knowledge, our side has not yet done that, I think that is a good idea because we have had too many lobbyists floating around the hill, knocking on doors and trying to conjure favour with this one or that one. I have no great problems with that at all.

This whole business about stealing your idea or stealing my ideas, to me it is a lot of hogwash. If it is a good idea, it is a good idea and it will stand the test of time. If it is not, it will be consigned to the dustbins of history.

Madam Chair, we do need to be able to stand for things that we believe in. I make no bones about it, I am a Liberal. I have always been a Liberal and will die a Liberal. I always will be. I say that very simply because I believe in the principles of Liberalism. Unfortunately, over the last number of years the concept of Liberalism versus Toryism has been somewhat blurred, and so on and so forth, but I really believe in the principles of Liberalism, which is in helping the common man. I have no problems with that whatsoever.

Madam Chair, when I talk about that, I talk about it in a sense that you try to help people do the things which people need to have done for them. If that means that you have to run a deficit, well, you have to run a deficit. No arguments in my mind with that whatsoever. The whole business of adding up your minuses and your pluses and getting a balanced budget, great stuff if you can afford to do it, but we have had one experience with that once before. It was called the Commission of Government. It was a Commission of Government in which the learned gentlemen of the day figured that they could not pay any more than six cents a day to our people to live and sustain themselves. It was a balanced budget, and we stuck to the balanced budget. In 1949, when the light of day looked upon the books of the Commission, we found that there was a huge surplus. Madam Chair, this is going way back in history, I am not arguing that, but this whole nonsense and business of balancing the budget.... It is great, and if you are in the business community I am sure it makes a lot of sense, but when you are running a government and you are trying to provide services for people who need services, you have to look at things other than the bottom line. If that means running a budget to provide long-term health care centres for the City of Corner Brook, Harbour Grace or St. John's, I say so be it. I will not be the one who will look into the face of an aged person and say: Sorry, we have no money. I will come back and talk to you fifteen, twenty years from now. Because in fifteen or twenty years that individual, more than likely, will not be with us.

Madam Chair, the whole notion of balancing budgets, I really have some difficulty with that. Unfortunately, we hear a lot about that these days. Parties opposite and parties of different stripes are saying that is what they would commit to. We are getting people saying that yes, we agree with a long-term health care facility in the City of Corner Brook but I am going to have to take a look at the books before I can make a commitment to that.

Well, you can look at the books all you want. It isn't going to change the face of the people who are needing of the service. That is something which I firmly believe in, and I believe needs to be done.

Madam Chair, a lot has been said about the speech that was made in Deer Lake. I was not present in Deer Lake. I have no idea what the hon. member opposite from St. John's East said. I have no idea, but I do know the gentleman who wrote the editorial, and I do not believe for a second that he would have said the things in the editorial and he would have fabricated those facts. He heard them somewhere in that speech in Deer Lake and that was the interpretation he placed upon it. We have seen the speech, and that is not a problem with seeing the speech. Maybe there were other things said in the speech. Like I said, I was not there, but I do know that the young man who wrote that editorial did not say anything or make up things of his own accord. He heard things that caused him to say what he said. Now, whether that was in the member's speech, I do not know, I was not there. When we all make speeches like I am doing now we ad lib a lot, and maybe things were said that I do not know. I am not going to impute any concerns one way or the other. All I am saying very simply is that the editorial made statements which I am sure the young man heard from the people concerned.

Madam Chair, the other thing I would like to talk about very simply is the issue of education, because in this particular Throne Speech a lot has been said about education and a lot of commitments have been made. Not only have they been made to the future, we have made commitments to the past and we have kept the commitments, Madam Chair. This is not electioneering. It happens to be the last year of this current government's mandate, but does that mean that anything and everything we say is electioneering? How crass, how beneath contempt.

This government in the past, Madam Chair, has talked about things in education. We have reduced tuition at the university. I am very proud when I talk to the President of the Council of Students' Union in Corner Brook saying, when he goes to a national meeting, he is very proud, because the people from the rest of Canada are saying: We wish we were in Newfoundland; we wish we could get the reductions that you guys are getting.

That is not a promise; that is a fact. It is done. We have cut tuition by some 20 per cent over the last several of years. We said we are going to do it again this year and, Madam Chair, we will. Not very complicated, we will.

Last year, we brought in a policy whereby if a student were to complete his program or her program within four or five years we would forgive 100 per cent of the provincial portion of his student loan. Not a promise, we did it. It is a fact. Students are out there today benefitting from that policy.

Madam Chair, just because you make statements and you make policies in the last year of your mandate does not mean you are always out electioneering. You do it, Madam Chair, because it is the right thing to do. I would say, when we see the Budget here on Thursday, we will see some very interesting things with some meat on the bones, if you wish.

Madam Chair, as well, when you are in a government, whether you are in this House of Assembly, there is a need for clarity.

MADAM CHAIR (M. Hodder): Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. MERCER: I am sure I will have lots of time to speak about clarity the next time I arise.

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I stand to respond to some of the comments that have been made in the last couple of moments. There is no question, when it comes to Interim Supply - for people who do not necessarily understand the process, it is a finance bill that gives members on every side of the House the opportunity to discuss general government policy with wide latitude.

First of all, I would like to deal with the last speaker, the Minister of Environment. You have made the suggestion - and I agree with it, by the way - that a good idea, if it is a good idea, is exactly that. It is irrelevant to the people of the Province, I think, where it comes from. Our response over the last couple of days in terms of trying to highlight what we have talked about in the past simply is a response to a charge that has been made that we feel is wrong, that is not right. We, as a party and as a group of individuals, do not stand for that sort of right-wing approach and never have. There will never be a government in Newfoundland and Labrador elected by a strong right-wing agenda, in our view, but we have responded the way we have just to set the record straight. I do agree with the minister when he talked about: An idea that works for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is irrelevant where it comes from, Minister, as long as it does work. When it does, we should pursue it aggressively and implement it as quickly as possible, and we shall.

MR. LUSH: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: The Government House Leader said: So give us some more. I say we will, but we just will not do it when you have the opportunity to implement them in the Legislature which brings us to the point that - well, there is no question about it. The point is, whenever the election is called. That will happen in due course, whenever it may be, that is up to the Premier of the Province. The people will have an opportunity to judge in terms of the party and the government-in-waiting and who they wish to be the government.

The other point I would like to make is to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Rural Development who talked about, she would like to know where we now stand with respect the EDGE program. I want to refer her back to the fall of 2000. Actually, first of all, to the fall of 1999. The reason, in 1999, we objected to the EDGE program was because there was a legitimate question of its effectiveness. Was it working? For example, two companies, just two companies who received EDGE status at the time, had received in the vicinity, I think, of about $23 million or $25 million in government grants. We suggested that those companies who received that money represented about 75 per cent of all the money collected from every other company in Newfoundland and Labrador; represented about 75 per cent of the money taken in in payroll tax. There are many businesses in the Province that will say to you that while we see the merit in the EDGE program, I am a businessperson in Newfoundland and Labrador. I have been here thirty-five or forty years. I have been here twenty and twenty-five years. I am surviving here. Is there some way that I can get an edge, whether it is the EDGE program? Is there some way that government can help me because I am a small businessperson - men and women who have stood the test of time in keeping our economy going. It angers me when I see companies get the EDGE program and within a year or so later they fold, and we have nothing left to show for it. That was the impetus for our policy in 1999.

Lo and behold, I say to the Minister of Industry, in the fall of 1999, after the election, the government's own Advisory Committee on the Economy asked government and questioned the effectiveness of the EDGE program. It said - led by Peter Woodward, the Chair of the Economic Advisory Committee on the Economy to the Premier and to the government of the day - that government should re-evaluate the effectiveness of the EDGE program. I think in all honesty, if we are to be forthright, straightforward and honest with each other, there was a need to re-evaluate and evaluate the effectiveness of the EDGE program. Government saw that need.

In direct response to the Minister of Industry, who asked just a few minutes ago, she would like to know where we stand now; where do I stand versus the Leader of the Opposition. No question, I stand side-by-side in support, unconditionally, for the Leader of the Opposition. When it comes to the EDGE program, I would like to refer her to the debates that occurred in this House in the fall of 2000 when the then Premier, the former Member for Bonavista North was Premier, introduced legislation in this House that re-evaluated the EDGE program and in many ways, in his opinion, put forward government's view to make it stronger. That whole notion of re-evaluating the effectiveness of the EDGE program, a government initiative came out called the Renewal Strategy for Jobs and Growth. If the minister would like to know, I can repeat what we said then. Where do we stand with respect to the EDGE program? We support it, that initiative, in this House in the fall of 2000. To try and suggest that, you know, last time out we would not want to see money given to businesses or assistance provided where good and sound economic and valid ideas present themselves to offer some economic activity that will see job growth, that will see, as a result of job growth, community growth and economic growth that will bring people into rural Newfoundland and Labrador, absolutely. We said in the fall of 2000 when government re-evaluated its EDGE program, made changes to it, that we would support that, and we did.

So, in answering the minister directly about where we are, I think the record is straight. It was straight in the fall of 2000. There was a need, and a strong need, to evaluate the effectiveness of the EDGE program as it existed in 1999 and 2000, and that was supported not only by our statements, but it was also supported by the government's own Advisory Council on the Economy when they called for government themselves to evaluate the effectiveness of that program, which government did, which they also heard many submissions around the Province when they went on their tour regarding the Renewal Strategy for Jobs and Growth. Many business people in this Province suggested the same thing.

To answer the minister, and it is important for her to understand exactly where we are, I take at face value that she has asked a legitimate question of us and I refer her directly to, then, the debate that occurred on the redesigned EDGE program that took place here in the fall of 2000.

Madam Chair, it now being the hour, I believe, I will adjourn debate. I will begin again tomorrow, but I want to talk about services that government are offering and what they are doing with respect to my own district, the District of Kilbride, and the tremendous infrastructure needs. I notice the Minister of Human Resources and Employment earlier talking about all of the services that he was able to deliver to his district, and I do not fault him for that. I am happy that district received those services because now, if that is the case, then it is done. There are other priorities within the Province that must be done as well.

Certainly, when it comes to infrastructure, water and sewer development, proper drinking water, I do not know if there is a place in this city in as much need as in an area that I represent, in the Goulds. I am not going to take the time to elaborate now because I know that we are at the hour, but tomorrow I will have the opportunity to elaborate on that much further.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: Madam Chair, I thank hon. members for their participation in the debate today and 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 (Snow): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Burin-Placentia West.

MS M. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Supply 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. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 1:30 p.m.