MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

This afternoon we are very pleased and very honoured to welcome members of the Newfoundland and Labrador Chapter of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association. Members of the Armed Forces and veterans hold a very special place of honour in our Assembly, and we are delighted to have you join us today.

Welcome - a very special welcome - to your House, the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: This afternoon, members' statements are as follows: the hon. the Member for the District of St. John's South, the Minister of Justice, with leave, and I do understand leave has been granted; the Member for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune; the Member for the District of Bonavista North; the Member for the District of Grand Bank; the Member for the District of Placentia & St. Mary's; and, the Member for the District of Humber Valley.

The Chair recognizes the Minister of Justice and the Member for St. John's South.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Opposition for leave to allow me to present this statement today.

As everyone in this House is aware, Canadians have a strong and glorious peacekeeping tradition. No other region of the country has shown as much dedication and courage in peacekeeping efforts as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and, given our small population, it is really quite astounding that there have been thousands of peacekeepers serve from this Province.

From peacekeeping efforts in the Suez Canal to ongoing efforts in Cyprus, Canada's peacekeeping commitment is known throughout the world - and it has certainly not been without sacrifice. Approximately 230 peacekeepers have lost their lives in the service of peace over the last fifty years, and many of these have been Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Mr Speaker, it is with these sacrifices in mind that I rise in this House to bring to light the work of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, Newfoundland and Labrador Chapter. The Newfoundland and Labrador Chapter has done tremendous work to educate Canadians and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians about the invaluable work that peacekeepers provide. Today, I want especially to recognize their efforts to erect a permanent monument in the City of St. John's, which honours all Newfoundland and Labrador peacekeepers, as well as those who have fought with Canada prior to Confederation in 1949. All three levels of government were approached for funding, and I am proud to stay that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as the City of St. John's, did provide funding towards this particular monument.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all members in the House today join me in recognizing the members of the Newfoundland and Labrador Chapter, and I encourage all Members of the House of Assembly, and all residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to visit this outstanding memorial that was unveiled in August of last year at Veterans Square, which is located in downtown St. John's.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the Newfoundland and Labrador Chapter of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association for its excellent work, and all members of the House for allowing me to make this statement today.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune.

MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of weeks I have had the pleasure of attending two annual ceremonial reviews of Sea Cadet Corps movements in my district.

On May 25, the Admiral F.J. Mifflin Cadet Corps in Hermitage reached a milestone achievement and celebrated the tenth anniversary of their formation. Twenty-four very active cadets from the community of Hermitage-Sandyville presently make up the membership of this Corps.

Mr. Speaker, the staff members of this Corps include: Jeffrey Herritt, Myra Herritt, Sharon Osmond and Norman Hollett. Mr. Speaker, these people have been there for ten years, since the inception of the Corps. The reviewing officer for this annual review was Brenda Pinto, President, Navy League of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador Division. The review ceremony included a banquet and awards presentation with some seventeen awards being given to deserving cadets.

Mr. Speaker, on June 3, I had the pleasure of attending the 7^th annual ceremonial review for the 3065 Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps in the community of English Harbour West. The reviewing officer for the review was Major Noel Hand, Music Coordinator for the Newfoundland and Labrador Cadet detachment.

There are currently eighteen cadets in this Corps and are under the direction of Commanding Officer Maxine Clarke and staff and officers: Sheila Keeping, Cathy Bullen, Winston Keeping and Steward May. I also wish to recognize the English Harbour Lions Club for their active participation as sponsors of the local cadet corp.

Mr. Speaker, during the review ceremonies some eleven awards were presented to very deserving cadets. The formal review was followed by a reception attended by the cadets and invited guests.

Mr. Speaker, I want to wish the cadets, officers and staff of the Admiral F.J. Mifflin Cadet Corp of Hermitage and the 3065 Royal Canadian Army Cadets of English Harbour West best wishes for their future involvement with the cadet movement.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARDING: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer congratulations to the Cape Freels Heritage Trust, operators of the Barbour Living Heritage Village.

The Village, located in Newtown, Bonavista Bay, was recently presented with an award from the Kittiwake Coast Tourism Association. The award recognized the important contribution the site has made to the economy of the Kittiwake Coast and the invaluable role they have played in the development of the tourism industry in that region.

This is the latest in a growing list of awards received by the site, a list that includes the Southcott Award for heritage preservation and restoration, the Manning Award for excellence in the public presentation of historic places, and the Scotiabank Award which recognizes exceptional efforts in customer service.

These awards are a testament to the hard work and dedication of a select number of volunteers who have laboured hard and long to transform the Barbour Living Heritage Village into one of Newfoundland and Labrador's premier historic sites.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members to join with me in congratulating the Cape Freels Heritage Trust on their most recent award and on their continued efforts to restore and preserve our heritage and culture.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to extend congratulations and a sincere thank you to Frank Crews of Grand Bank. Mr. Crews is the recipient of the 2007 Newfoundland & Labrador Teachers' Association Bancroft Award.

The Bancroft Award recognizes outstanding service at the branch level of the NLTA for the betterment of education and professionalism for teachers.

A teacher for over thirty-two years, Mr. Crews has been an active member of the GranForLine Branch of the NLTA since 1980. He has held numerous executive offices at the branch level including: communications officer, secretary, vice-president and president, a position he currently holds.

Mr. Crews has been active at the committee level including membership on the Ad Hoc Committee for Teacher Mediation and the Provincial Communications Committee. He was a delegate at the NLTA convention in 1971, 1972 and from 1988 until the present. He was a member of the Branch Liaison Committee and Chair of the Branch Public Relations Communications Committee.

Since 1988, Mr. Crews has chaired the Retirement Committee which organizes celebrations for teachers in the GranForLine Branch. He was involved in every aspect of these events, ranging from ticket sales to emceing the event.

Mr. Crews is presently the Principal of John Burke High School in Grand Bank.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join me in congratulating Frank Crews and thanking him for his many years of service to teachers and students in our Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this hon. House to congratulate two people in my district for their outstanding achievements in recent weeks.

Priscilla Corcoran Mooney is a primary health facilitator with Eastern Health at Placentia. She is an avid and hardworking volunteer in a number of initiatives in her home community of

Branch and is also mayor of the town.

Mayor Mooney was recently nominated by Flare Magazine, along with 200 other women across Canada, for the Community Volunteer Award. Last month she was selected as one of only six winners across Canada, and was invited to Toronto to accept her award.

Mr. Speaker, David Constantine is a teacher at Laval High School in Placentia. Recently, at a national conference in Moncton, New Brunswick, David received an award from the Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation for teaching excellence in physical education.

Last week, at Laval High School, Mr. Constantine, along with co-teacher, Sean Ryan, and their workplace safety students, received a provincial award for their radio ad contest on Safety in the Workplace, sponsored by the Workplace Health and Safety Compensation Commission. This radio ad will be aired on local provincial stations.

I ask all hon. members to join me in congratulating Ms Priscilla Corcoran Mooney and Mr. David Constantine and wish them well in their future endeavours.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to recognize four young constituents from my district: Sarah Bass and Mila Major of Reidville; and Brandon Roberts and Chantel Coles of Deer Lake. This fantastic four were recently awarded the Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Mr. Speaker, for any individual to qualify for this award, the participant must undertake a balance program of leisure-time activities and meet the prescribed standards in four important areas, including: community service, adventurous journeys, physical fitness and skill development.

Sarah, Mila, Brandon and Chantel completed all the above requirements and were presented with their Silver Awards at a recent ceremony attended by the Honourable Ed Roberts, Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador.

This group of four Level II students at Elwood Regional High School in Deer Lake have set a wonderful example for their fellow students. They are well liked in the school, very visible in the town, and great stewards for our Province.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members to join with me in extending congratulations to Sarah, Mila, Brandon and Chantel. They are glowing examples of today's youth, and I am proud to say they live in my district, the beautiful Humber Valley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I understand that the Opposition House Leader has a copy of the statement from yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to announce new service improvements which will provide enhanced interpretation services and overall engagement for Innu and Inuit people involved in the justice system. This government recognized the need for better access to the justice system for Aboriginal peoples and their communities; and, Mr. Speaker, we have acted upon that need. These new service improvements have been developed under the umbrella of the Northern Strategic Plan, and are part of our overall commitment to the people of Labrador, and are the result of extensive public consultations and input, supplemented by cross-departmental efforts.

Through monies allocated in last year's budget, my department was able to engage a consultant to research and consult on interpretation issues in the justice system. The consultant's report has been summarized and translated into Inuktitut and Innu-aimun, and distribution of this document is currently underway. Following the recommendations, we allocated $424,000 for an Aboriginal interpretation initiative. With these funds we will develop and deliver a legal interpreters course for Innu and Inuit interpreters in Labrador through the College of the North Atlantic and we will be able to hire staff interpreters in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Nain and Natuashish. We will also hire a senior advisor who will facilitate access to justice activities and work directly with communities to improve dialogue and understanding.

I am particularly pleased with the collaborative effort that was demonstrated through the development of this initiative. My department has identified and engaged all relevant stakeholders and has fully researched existing programs to follow best practices for interpretative services for Aboriginal people.

Furthermore, we are actively building partnerships with Aboriginal communities in Labrador, with educational resources, including the College of the North Atlantic, Memorial University and the Department of Education, as well as with the Public Legal Information Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. I am very excited and enthusiastic about this initiative and look forward to working with our partners to make this a meaningful and responsive program for the people of Labrador, and I wish to congratulate all of those who were involved in the development of these new services.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, these new Interpretive Services are yet another example of our government's commitment to be proactive and fully engage residents of all communities across the Province, including the communities in Labrador.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ANDERSEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Let me say to the minister, Nakummek means thank you for this commitment - thank you in Innu for an advance copy of your statement.

Minister, let me say that the previous Administration did a lot of groundwork as well to help bring about this initiative. The Member for Burgeo & LePoile was instrumental with the women of Labrador in bringing in full-time policing to the communities of Makkovik and Rigolet.

Minister, this is a good statement.

Mr. Speaker, we are well aware of the negative effect that alcohol has had on the Aboriginal people, not just in Labrador or Canada, but worldwide.

Mr. Speaker, we believe that we have people who have served time in Her Majesty's Penitentiary for a crime that they are unaware they have committed. What is far more important, Mr. Speaker, is that very little translation services were available at the time.

Minister, if justice is to be served, then it is the Aboriginal people whose time has come for justice in many ways. Let me say, as an Aboriginal, today I am very proud of the statement you just made, that it is a good start and it will go a long way toward the people in Labrador having a fair trial.

Again, minister, thank you for this wonderful initiative and certainly, anything you can do for the Aboriginal people in Labrador, I trust that you and your government will do so.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for the advanced copy.

This is a wonderful step in the right direction. I think there have been many injustices in the past because of Innu and Inuit not understanding what was going on, as my colleague has referred to.

I hope, too, that - and I am sure you are - the minister and the department are open to exploring other ways with the Aboriginal communities that the justice system can meet their needs. This is a step recognizing that it is dealing with the justice system as it is, but I think we also need to have conversations with the Aboriginal communities about justice being meted out in a way that fits more within their culture and the way in which they do it within their communities. I hope that would be the next step that your department would look at.

Thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

Oral Questions.

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

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Fisheries.

Most people in the Province would agree that the marketing and secondary processing division of FPI is its most valued resource. Yet, your government is allowing that division of FPI to be sold to a Nova Scotia competitor.

It is our understanding that the bid put forward by the Barry Group of Companies for the purchase of FPI would have included all of its assets, that meaning the Newfoundland portion as well as the secondary processing and marketing division in the United States. This would have meant that all of FPI's divisions would have been owned and operated by a Newfoundland company.

I ask the minister: Can he tell us why the Barry bid for FPI was not acceptable to your government?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I will have to undertake to have my memory refreshed, so what I am going to say now I say with that caveat.

My recollection is that the Barry Group - FPI called for proposals for certain categories of their assets: the marketing arm, the primary assets that they owned in Newfoundland, and I think it was one other group. I believe there were three parcels, if you want - I am searching for the right word here - of assets that people could bid on. The Barry Group put in two bids.

I will have to undertake to have my memory refreshed what was included in each bid. I do know that one of the Barry bids, and the bid that you would put up against the OCI bid as a comparison, included the Newfoundland based primary producing assets and the offshore scallop and shrimp. I do know that was one parcel of bids, and that was a parcel that was -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the minister now to complete his answer.

MR. RIDEOUT: That was a parcel that was compared with the OCI bid.

Also, though, I have a recollection that Barry had another bid, but what was included in that I would have to undertake to get the detail and get back to the hon. member on it rather than - I am not prepared to fly by you know what on this.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are not asking you to fly, but if you would - we are going to introduce the bill to repeal the FPI Act later in the day, so if you could get the information we would like to hear it. I do appreciate the answer that you gave.

Mr. Speaker, the residents of Little Bay Islands have been notified that their crab plant won't be open or operational this year.

I ask the minister: What is your government doing for the employees of that town who will find themselves without any source of income this summer?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that Little Bay Islands has been advised by the operator, Daley Brothers, that they don't intend to operate the facility this summer. The town, with the approval of the department, took out an ad to try to determine whether or not there was any other interest in operating the facility, leasing the facility perhaps from the owners and operating it. That process is not completed, as I understand it.

Having said that, of course, the operation in Little Bay Islands right now is, because it is on an island with ferry service and so on, very much at the mercy, for anybody who might want to operate, of environmental conditions, ice and so on. There is an interest, I can say, in an operator operating, but whether or not present conditions would allow for that to happen is problematic right now.

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

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the plant doesn't open in the very near future, the crab will be caught and processed elsewhere.

I ask: What will you be doing for the residents of that community who will have no source of income as a result of the plant being closed?

The other question, Mr. Speaker, concerns the crab license. I do believe it is the policy of your department that if the plant is not operational in a two-year period, then the license is cancelled. That is of grave concern to the people of Little Bay Islands.

What I am asking, Mr. Speaker: Will you make an exception for that island community to ensure that if the plant doesn't open this year, the license will be available to them in the future?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, on the latter question first, I have checked into this matter and it is my understanding that the licence on Little Bay Islands is not in any jeopardy. The minimum amount of processing took place there last year which protects the license. It is not in its second year of a two-year phase out.

If, for some reason, environmental or otherwise, the plant doesn't operate this year it won't be the second year of a two-year, it will be year one. There isn't any problem as far as that goes in the immediate future.

In terms of employment for people on Little Bay Islands, if there isn't any in the fish plant, Mr. Speaker, that is an issue we certainly will address as time goes by, as we will in any community around the Province where there is an employment problem because of a failure in a major industry, this case being the fishery.

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

MR. REID: Just a quick supplementary on that, Mr. Speaker.

Maybe you could check this out as well, while you are checking out the information on FPI. The Mayor, Perry Locke, is of the understanding that the licence will, after this year, be two years of inactivity and that it did not meet the necessary processing requirements last year. So could you check that out and let us know, as well?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes, absolutely, Mr. Speaker.

I was approached by an operator who operated on Little Bay Islands previously, and who, I understand, has had some interest in operating there again this year and who raised, with me, what they understood to be a problem, a carryover from last year in terms of processing.

The production reports that we have at the department indicates, Mr. Speaker, and this is the advice I have received from senior officials in my department, the minimum requirements to keep that licence current did take place on Little Bay Islands last year. If there is anything different from that, that comes to my attention, we will obviously deal with it and deal with it promptly, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My first two questions are for the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

Mr. Speaker, it is government policy this year for people in the Province wishing to purchase salmon licences that you must have a valid government photo ID. For those who do not have a driver's licence, for example, this means paying an additional fee to get this piece of identification.

I ask the minister: Why are the people of this Province being forced to pay the additional $25 to obtain a photo identification before they can purchase their salmon licence?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I think the Opposition House Leader is probably referring to the family licence situation, which was raised in our department, I believe, about a week-and-a-half ago. That has been addressed. What we are looking at is, the individual who purchases the licence on behalf of the family is the one that we will require the ID from. They are not going to be required from the other individuals who are on that family plan.

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That was leading to my second question. I am pleased to see that there is something being done with it. Unfortunately, again, that has not been made known to the public.

I had a call yesterday afternoon from a gentleman in Port aux Basques who provided me with your licence purchasing agreement and it says that the back portion of the stub must be completed by the vendor, angler is to supply names and driver's licence, photo ID from Motor Registration of all persons who will be fishing under the licence. The gentleman in question, I do not mind - he asked me, in fact, to say his name, Mr. Jack Elms, an eight-two-year-old vet from Port aux Basques, for years has bought a licence for his thirty-three-year-old, now, disabled grandson. All of a sudden, before he can now get his salmon licence to put his grandson on as a family member, he has to pay $25 for the grandson before he can buy the licence. So, that is the circumstance. I think it is totally unfair.

My question, I guess, now that you said you are going to look at it, is: How and when and how fast can that be distributed to the Province so people become aware of this?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: In the case of the individual that you have mentioned, it is unfortunate that they find themselves in that situation that they may not know, but I can tell you that department officials have already been in contact with the venues who issue the licences and they have been - people have been informed of that. So, it is unfortunate in that particular case but there has been notification sent out across the Province.

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My last question will be for the Premier.

The government committed to a full judicial inquiry into the faulty breast cancer hormone receptor testing issue which has been in the public domain for some weeks now. We had the judicial inquiry announcement made, I believe, two weeks ago now, plus.

I ask the Premier, again: When can we expect to see the terms of reference of the inquiry and who government will be actually naming as the Commissioner?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the hon. member for that question. Right now there is a judge who is considering taking over the inquiry. That person is having discussions with Mr. Thompson with regard to consideration of terms of reference and to make sure that the judge is comfortable with the exercise. So, that should be completed, I would think, by the end of the week and we should be in a position by next week to announce who that person is.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment was on his feet in this House praising the government's Poverty Reduction Strategy. This week in the news we heard once again that this Province has still the highest per capita rate of food bank use in Canada.

I ask the minister: Given this statistic, does he think that this government should be praised for their achievements in their terms of poverty reduction?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, last week in this House I did stand and announce some of the initiatives that this government has undertaken. I will point out to the House and to the people of the Province that we are basically not quite yet one year into our Poverty Reduction Strategy. We have made tremendous strides, as have been indicated in previous statements.

It is not about, necessarily, patting government on the back, Mr. Speaker, it is about recognizing that it is a ten year strategy. There is progress that has to be made. We are making progress and as we make progress we will eliminate some of the barriers and hopefully, raise people out of the level of poverty that they are into.

This government, Mr. Speaker, is interested in moving forward, recognizing the challenges that we have and we will incorporate those challenges into our strategy as we move forward over the next nine years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, no doubt, the poverty strategy was brought in last year, but I say to the minister, this commitment was brought in, in the Blue Book in 2003.

Close to 6 per cent of the people in this Province use food banks. This entails approximately over 29,000 individuals, 41 per cent of them are children, who use fifty-eight food banks in this Province.

I ask the minister: Does he think this is evidence of the success of his government's Poverty Reduction Strategy? And, if not, can he tell this House what they intend to do differently to address this unacceptable high number of people who depend on food banks?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, this government has already committed $91 million toward our Poverty Reduction Strategy. We have done things like elimination of schools fees. We have done things like providing school books for children in our schools. We have increased the income support rates. We have indexed them to the cost of living. We have put in special initiatives for single mothers, mothers with new children, women's centres. There has been a myriad of initiatives that we have done.

I will say, and I will continue to say, Mr. Speaker, that we do not believe for a minute that we have addressed all of the initiatives that need to be done, but it is a working document. It is a document that is in process and as new things become available to us, new challenges - we become aware of them as a government, we will address them. As has been said before, this is a ten year strategy, we are in year one. We have made tremendous progress and we recognize that we have more progress to make.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

We appreciate, on this side, the $91 million that is going to help the people of this Province who are in need, but I say to the minister, after four years in office, this past week we heard talk of a second soup kitchen opening up in Corner Brook, right in the Premier's district or pretty close to it, Mr. Speaker.

Given that the School Lunch Program and the Kids Eat Smart program and others help feed our hungry children during the school season. Can the minister indicate just how his Poverty Reduction Strategy will help feed those same poverty-stricken children during the summer months?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, all of the initiatives with regard to the Poverty Reduction Strategy are meant to try and address people who live in poverty and people who face challenges.

With regard to the Kids Eat Smart Foundation, just as an example, as the member is already aware the government of today has increased the amount of funding that we provide to the Kids Eat Smart Foundation by $200,000, and I believe another $50,000 was put into that strategy by the Department of Health and Community Services as well, to increase their funding level to $750,000 from the $500,000 that it has been in the past.

We will continue to work with our community based groups. A lot of the initiatives that this government have announced have come from our community based groups that we partner with and that we consult with. We will be undertaking a consultation process in the future and we will continue to make sure that the word we hear from the consultation process and from the people on the ground are things that will be incorporated into our strategies.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of Natural Resources in reference to the new revised mandate of Newfoundland Hydro and the mandate of the new energy corporation.

In the Hydro Quebec Act one of the objects of the corporation, in addition to supplying power, is to pursue endeavours in energy conservation. The Act also says, and I quote: The company may implement energy conservation programs. To that end, it may grant technical or financial assistance.

My question for the Minister of Natural Resources is: Will the minister add energy efficiency and conservation to the list of things that Newfoundland Hydro and the new energy corporation will do as outlined in Bills 27 and 28?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the hon. member for the question.

Two days ago in this House those two pieces of legislation received a third and final passage after a briefing that was afforded to members of the Opposition. We have to keep in mind, of course, that what we have here is the creation of a new energy corporation. Mr. Speaker, one would think, as this process evolves - and, at the same time it is the creation of a new corporation - that energy conservation would be very much part of the thinking and mandate of a new corporation that is envisaged by both Bills 27 and 28.

I would say to the hon. member, yes, I am sure Hydro officials and executives from Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro will be very mindful of conservation efforts and will take all steps to ensure that conservation practices are protected, again for the benefit of all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In that case, Mr. Speaker, my question is, I look first at what is happening in a province like Quebec, where Hydro-Quebec and Quebec's energy efficiency agency provide financial assistance for retrofits and energy saving technology. Efficiency New Brunswick provides energy savings to consumers and has created energy efficiency services in the province.

I ask the minister: Will this government set up an energy efficiency agency as a separate Crown corporation, or as part of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, that will assist consumers to adopt energy efficiency technology and facilitate the growth of an energy efficiency services sector?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. OTTENHEIMER: My answer is similar to the first, Mr. Speaker.

Again, it is the mandate of the new hydro energy corporation as envisaged under both bills, Bill 27 and Bill 28, to do what is in the best interests of all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. If that includes working with my colleague, the Minister of Environment and Conservation, with respect to energy efficiency, I feel quite confident in saying, Mr. Speaker, that will be done.

Again, this new corporation, its mandate is to move forward, to move forward as we embark upon very significant megaprojects, again for the benefit of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and whatever can be done in the realm of energy efficiency will be done, again, in the protection of the very people that we have been elected to lead and to represent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi has time for a brief supplementary.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Natural Resources and the CEO of Hydro have been in the news pitching green energy. Yet, Hydro was not deliberately given a mandate to invest in energy efficiency initiatives in the bill, in Bill 27.

My question to the minister is: When will government use oil and gas revenues on an energy efficiency program that will save consumers money, reduce demand for dirty energy from Holyrood, and free up energy for new users?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Energy efficiency is certainly one of the key components of reducing energy consumption. As I said here a couple of weeks ago to the member when she raised a similar issue, we met with officials from New Brunswick to take a look at their program. The Minister of Natural Resources and I have looked at how we can incorporate that into our overall plan. I will just have to ask her to hang on and see what is going to come out of it, but there definitely will be a direction coming from this government in terms of retrofit and energy efficiency.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BALL: My question is for the Minister of Health and Community Services.

I would like to remind the minister of a quote that he made on July 29, 2002, in a press release, in which he used a statistical projection that 12.5 per cent of the population would be in the senior bracket by 2006. He went on to say that letting the home support problem fester unaddressed is a recipe for disaster.

In light of the fact that our seniors now comprise a much higher percentage of our population, and that the home support problem has not been addressed by this Administration, I ask the minister: Does he still stand by his 2002 statement that this home support sector is heading for disaster?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, what I can tell the hon. member and members of this House is that we still believe that a quality home support program is still at the heart of the supports that we provide to an aging population. We believe that the work that we have been doing in enhancing home support services, and the investment that we have made year over year since we have been in government, not only enhancing the capacity and building the capacity but enhancing the salaries that we pay to home support workers, will, in fact, enhance the program, but it needs to be coupled with some of the other initiatives.

Some of the work that we have done in our long-term care and supportive services strategy and some of the announcements we are about to make as we roll out our healthy aging strategy, all together, if you fit it all together, it is a reflection of this government's commitment to support an aging population, to support their independence as long as we possibly can, to provide the necessary supports that -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the minister now to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

- provide the necessary supports to allow seniors to live in their homes, independent, as long as they possibly can. That is the commitment we made in our blueprint, that is the commitment we are working on today, and that is the commitment we make to the seniors of this Province on a go-forward basis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BALL: I certainly support the minister in saying that the seniors should have the ability to live in their own homes as long as possible, given the fact that home support workers are still working for - some are still between $7 and $8 an hour and it is, I think, very insufficient.

Another concern that we are seeing in the home support sector is that many times people have to travel to and from different clients' homes and there is no transportation allowance provided for this.

I ask the minister: Will he consider today to provide a transportation allowance as part of this benefit package to help address this issue with home support workers?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As a government, I think we have demonstrated very clearly over the last three-and-a-half years that we have been re-evaluating the programs and services that we provide. Any time we have an opportunity and we see an opportunity to create an enhancement, to improve on, to build on, to enhance what we are currently doing, we respond.

I just look at the track record. I ask the members opposite to look at the last three years' budgets particularly. Look at the investment that we have made in all aspects of health care.

I outlined in this House the other day that we, as a Province, in the last two years have been some of the leaders in the increase and investment we have made in health care. This year, $2.2 billion. If you look at the total overall budget of this Province, that is a significant investment, and we continue to grow our investment in health care, I say, Mr. Speaker. So, I say to the member opposite, yes, we are prepared to look at -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: - ways in which we can enhance our services, whether it is home support, long-term care facilities, acute care facilities, community-based programs of any kind. We are committed to continuous quality improvement, I say, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BALL: Mr Speaker, the issue of professional shortages in our health care system continues to be a major issue. Yesterday, the Minister of Health and Community Services indicated that he is satisfied with the fact that we have the highest number of nurses today than ever in our Province. Well, Mr. Speaker, those numbers do not reflect the reality of what is required to deliver a quality health care service.

Can the minister tell this House just what the real understaffing number is for nurses in this Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I think if the member opposite were to check Hansard, I think he would find my comment yesterday was that I was boasting the fact that we had achieved those kinds of numbers. In fact, we had achieved the same level - physicians, we have the highest number of physicians any time in our history in this Province. What I also said, Mr. Speaker, if he recalls correctly, I also indicated that we, too, had some concerns around some of the issues of staffing in some locations. We, too, acknowledge that there are occasional challenges with staffing. We, too, acknowledge that there will be times, have been times in our history and I suspect there will be times in our future, where we will have pockets of recruitment issues to deal with, whether it is nursing, physician, Allied Health Professionals and many other disciplines within our health system, I say, Mr. Speaker.

So, for the member to suggest that we are quite satisfied with the current status, no, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister now to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: What we are committed to is continuing to build to improve and to enhance, as I said a moment ago. So, I say, Mr. Speaker, yes, we are pleased with the number of nurses we have. Do we want -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair recognizes the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, the number is available. I did not hear it today in this House but I know it is a major problem affecting the nurses in this Province and I would certainly hope that as part of the resolution to the problem that the minister would get that number. One of the problems in retaining and recruiting nurses is a competitive benefits package. Soon nurses in this Province could be the lowest paid in the country.

I ask the minister: With such a poor compensation benefits package, how can you expect to attract and retain the nurses we need?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, to listen to the words of the member opposite because he has used two different words but he has used them interchangeably, but they are two different things: salary and benefit package. Salary is one thing. That is what you get on your pay cheque. That is what you take home, but when we look at the benefit package, Mr. Speaker -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WISEMAN: When we look at the benefit package that we provide to our health professionals, when we consider -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair asks the hon. minister to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, when we look at what we provide for nurses as a part of that benefit package, when we look at annual leave, when we look at the sick leave package, when we look at education leave, when we look at weekend differential, shift differential, those sorts of things.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the minister to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: I say, Mr. Speaker, a fine testimony to what this government has done for nurses in this Province. The Premier this morning -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. BALL: I would like to remind the minister, that it is not the testimony they are looking for, it is the salary and the benefits package.

Mr. Speaker, not only are nurses understaffed and overworked, but we have heard from other associations, including the Association of Allied Health Professionals, and they are very concerned about the shortage of health professionals in this Province, including psychologists, physiotherapists, audiologists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists and pharmacists. Obviously, our current package in not addressing the shortage of health care professionals.

What are you prepared to do to solve this problem?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I indicated in the House yesterday in the debate that, as a government, we have put in place, and have continued to work with associations like the Allied Health Professionals and put in place for them bursary programs. We have put in place financial incentives to assist them in getting into educational programs.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador provides financial support to Dalhousie University for occupation and physiotherapy students. We provided bursary programs to allow us to attract many of those difficult to recruit professions, I say, Mr. Speaker.

One of the things that is important, I listed to Carol Furlong this morning on Open Line when she talked about some of the challenges her membership has with recruiting. What she said, what was important is we are all working together towards a solution, I say, Mr. Speaker. We are working with NAPE, we are working with the Association of Allied Health Professionals, we are working with the Nurses' Union, we are working with the physicians. All working collectively trying to develop -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the minister to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

- trying to develop an appropriate strategy to respond to some of the challenges that we face today and will face tomorrow, because we want to ensure that we have quality people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair recognizes the hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair. You have time for one question only.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

It was outlined earlier by government that there would be ten community youth council coordinators hired in the Province for a term of up to one year to promote youth programs under Human Resources, Labour and Employment. I understand, Mr. Speaker, that six of those areas have now been designated. I am wondering if the other four are going to be designated? I also understand there has been no positions selected for the Northern Peninsula or for Labrador.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite clear on the position that the hon. member referred to. If she is referring to the Community Youth Network, I am not sure if that is what she is referring to, there have been some decisions made on that and I can certainly discuss that with the member later. I have to honest and say that the position you referred to is not one that I am familiar with.

MR. SPEAKER: The time allocated for Question Period has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Notices of Motions.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Just in case, I move pursuant to Standing Order 11, that this House not adjourn on Monday, June 11, at 5:30 p.m. nor at 10:00 o'clock on Monday, June 11. As I indicated, Your Honour, just in case.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair notes that the hon. the minister gave notice. He said he was moving but the Chair reads that as giving notice.

Further Notice of Motions?

Answers to Questions for Which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present this petition on behalf of residents in my area. It is asking for cellphone coverage in the areas between the Labrador Straits and Cartwright, in particular.

Mr. Speaker, I presented a number of these petitions already. I think this one has another 150 signatures. I think, all together, there has probably been hundreds of people who have signed these particular petitions in that area. The reason for that being of course, as you know, there are long stretches of road in that region between L'Anse-au-Loup and Red Bay, between Red Bay and Lodge Bay, and especially between Port Hope Simpson and Cartwright, where there isn't any adequate cellphone coverage. People often find themselves in a position on that highway where they become stranded and have no communication contact.

We have discussed with Aliant and have made representation to Aliant to provide cellphone services in that area, and in fact, Mr. Speaker, were asked to submit a business case to them in terms of providing that service. They did agree, at one point, on a business case, to provide the service in the Labrador Straits area, although it only reaches into certain communities. However, the business case that was put forward for the rest of the region was rejected and is deemed to be a cost that is not acceptable for Aliant right now to install that service.

What these petitioners are asking is that the government provide the necessary subsidy in terms of partnering with a communications company to provide that cellphone service in the area, whether that becomes Aliant, that is now the existing provider, or some other company. What they are looking for, Mr. Speaker, is to have a line that will allow them to be able to access someone in a time of need. I don't have to tell you that once you are driving over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of gravel road with no communities in between, you often find yourself in a situation where you end up in snow storms, you end up stuck out in weather and not able to make it to the next community, you end up having problems on the road, either having you tires damaged or some other reason, and you don't have any way to reach anyone.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of accidents that have happened on that particular stretch of road as well, and they haven't been able to make any contact. I know because I was in accidents myself on that road and I wasn't able to contact anyone and just had to wait until someone came along to give you some help or some assistance.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important issue for the people in that particular area. It is a very important issue, because it is an issue upon which peoples' lives depend. I think we have all heard of situations where -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will just clue up my comments now.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been granted.

MS JONES: We have all heard of cases where people have been in dangerous situations and cellphones have certainly allowed them to communicate with someone outside in an instance that probably saved their lives.

I know, in my own district, just off the Coast of Forteau, there was a situation where a group of seal hunters were out sealing and got stuck in foggy weather and in ice, and, Mr. Speaker, had damage done to their boat and had to abandon their boat and stay on an ice pan. Only for the fact that they had a cellphone to contact someone on shore, to come out and rescue them, it could have been a terrible tragedy, Mr. Speaker. Because they had that access to a telephone and were able to let someone know what was happening, they were rescued by local people in the area.

Mr. Speaker, I think that cellphone coverage is important in this particular region of the Province, primarily in that northern area where there are all kinds of dangers that people encounter on that highway, especially in the winter months, in heavy weather and snow and ice, and I think that government should listen to their request and seriously consider that issue and see if there is something they can do to put cellphones into that area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this House today to present a petition on behalf of a couple of hundred people from the communities of English Harbour East, Grand Le Pierre, Terrenceville, Swift Current and Garden Cove, North Harbour, Arnold's Cove, and that area there. There are two concerns with regard to the road infrastructure within the District of Bellevue, and the prayer of the petition is:

WHEREAS the section of the road to Terrenceville referred to as "long grade" is in disrepair and presents a safety hazard; and

WHEREAS the road from the Terrenceville intersection is also in deplorable condition and in need of significant repairs; and

WHEREAS these roads are important transportation routes used to transport school children and other traffic; and

WHEREAS the section of the main Burin Peninsula Highway, particularly the section going through Swift Current, and from Goobies to Swift Current, is in need of serious repair;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, call upon all Members of the House of Assembly to urge government to find the necessary funds to repair these roads.

And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, the first part of this petition here, when we talk about the "long grade" going down into Terrenceville, it is a very, very high embankment. As a matter of fact, right now, the traffic going down on this particular road, to prevent themselves from falling over the bank, the traffic itself, the vehicular traffic, is going sideways down over the bank and they have to go on the inside of the road to make sure the school bus doesn't tip over. The school bus actually has to go on the inside of the road, so that the school bus will not tip down over the grade. That is how bad the grade is, on this particular section of the highway.

Mr. Speaker, this government and the school board, last year, closed the school in English Harbour East and Grand Le Pierre. They promised a new school and they promised that they would repair the roads, and make sure that these kids, kindergarten children, leaving English Harbour East early in the morning on a school bus - five-year-old kids riding on a school bus, and they are riding on roads that are treacherous. It is an accident about to happen, and this government is just sitting back and doing nothing about it whatsoever.

Also, Mr. Speaker, the section of the road from Swift Current to Goobies - this government, when they got elected, decided that they were going to ignore the Burin Peninsula. There has not been a cent of money, except for storm damage and some bridge work done on the Burin Peninsula Highway, in the last four years. The road from Goobies to Swift Current is in deplorable condition. As a matter of fact, there have been serious accidents. There have been people killed on this particular section of the highway. The highway is in deplorable condition

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been granted.

MR. BARRETT: I call upon the government and the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation - we hear a lot about how much money is being spent on roadwork in the Province. I guess it is just a fabrication, really, because it is not accurate. We have the report here of the consolidated funds of the Province. As a matter of fact, there has been a 55 per cent decrease, from a high of $80.4 million in 2002 to a low of $36 million in 2005, on roads in our Province. Since this government got elected, there has been less money spent on highways.

We hear them talking, on the other side, all the time about the big fortune they are spending on highways. In the year 2002, when I was the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, there was $80.4 million spent on our roads within the Province. We are talking about the main roads, like the Burin Peninsula. We are not talking about a byroad going to a small community. The Burin Peninsula is one of the major economic and social regions of this Province, and we have a government right now that is ignoring completely the Burin Peninsula of this Province.

So, I am calling upon the government to move immediately and allocate money to do the work on the Burin Peninsula Highway and make sure that this grade, this treacherous situation that exists for the kids travelling from English Harbour East and Grand Le Pierre to Terrenceville, is corrected immediately.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, want to speak to the petition with respect to the condition of the roads on the Burin Peninsula, but specifically today the road leading to Terrenceville, and certainly that part of the Burin Peninsula Highway that is around Swift Current.

The conditions there, I have to say, because I have had the chance to travel down to Terrenceville, I can tell you that what my colleague from Bellevue says is absolutely correct. The condition of the road there is treacherous for anyone, not just for people who are travelling on a school bus, our children, but certainly for people who have to leave Terrenceville and travel to other parts of this Province. It is dangerous, and while you might think it is okay on a fine day, I call tell you, when the weather conditions are such as they are - we know in Newfoundland and Labrador you can expect to see the weather change, expect four seasons in one day, Mr. Speaker - the conditions are such that certainly they are not amenable to having the roads the way they are leading to Terrenceville.

The part of the Burin Peninsula Highway around Swift Current, again, I travel that all the time. I spend a lot of time, as you would appreciate, on the Burin Peninsula, as the MHA for the District of Grand Bank. Again, the conditions there are such that I cannot imagine anyone in authority ever travelling that and not just stopping and saying there is something we have to do about the conditions on the Burin Peninsula Highway.

As my colleague from Bellevue has said, it is a major, major part of our road system. It is one of the trunk roads off the Trans-Canada. You know, it is really important for the residents who live on the Burin Peninsula but it is also important for the tourists. We are always speaking about how important the tourism industry is to our Province, and that it is, in fact, one of those industries that we are trying to grow and promote. At the same time, how can we expect tourists to even want to travel over roads that are in this condition? I would expect that once they turn down the Burin Peninsula Highway, because of the neglect by this government, many of them will just say: That is enough of this. I cannot take a chance on going down over this highway, going down into Terrenceville - one of the prettiest, prettiest places in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I would expect that anyone going down there would have to say: No, I am going to turn around and go back because it is too dangerous. I am here on vacation. I am here for a holiday. I am not here to take my life in my hands.

On the Burin Peninsula Highway, around Swift Current and other parts of the Burin Peninsula Highway, we as well have those conditions that would make people think twice about going down the Burin Peninsula Highway and going to see what the Burin Peninsula has to offer, which is a great deal for any tourist coming to Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, the conditions of the road are such that I would encourage the Minister of Transportation to make it a point to go down there, because it is one thing to have us stand up here and talk about it -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MS FOOTE: Just enough to clue up, Mr. Speaker?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been granted.

MS FOOTE: Thank you.

I would encourage the Minister of Transportation to go down there. We can stand up here and talk about it, and present petitions on behalf of the people on the Burin Peninsula, but until, I think, he sees it first-hand, he is probably just going to, you know, say: Well, that is okay. I will deal with it when I can deal with it. I am emphasizing today how serious the condition is, certainly going down into Terrenceville. I would encourage the government, through the minister, to have a look at that.

On the Burin Peninsula itself, particularly around Swift Current in the first instance, because that is where the petition is from, representing the people who live in that area, but for all of the Burin Peninsula, leading right down, right around the boot, I think it is time that the government took their job seriously and put some money into that trunk road, which is a major, major part of our road system in Newfoundland and Labrador.

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, want to present a petition on behalf of the area residents of this Province with regard to the closing of the road maintenance depots and the lack of maintenance thereof in certain areas of our Province.

I want to speak, in particular, to the area of the District of Port de Grave. Even though, Mr. Speaker, I know there was an announcement made last week in conjunction with my hon. colleague from Carbonear-Harbour Grace, that we are going to get a grand total this year of somewhere in the vicinity of $700,000.

We have seen all the reports coming out on the road work throughout this Province, $2 million and $3 million for each area, but we are going to share our $700,000. We are trying to find out, to be honest with you, where it is going to be used.

MR. SWEENEY: The white line or yellow line?

MR. BUTLER: My hon. colleague said he is wondering if it is going to be used to put the yellow or the while line on the road.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, on a more serious note, there are several issues I want to bring forward. Hopefully, government will take a look at them and see that they can be considered this year, whether it is through the funding that is going to be provided under this amount of money or maybe through some of the road maintenance programs.

I have two particular roads. I know they are class 4 roads, but on those roads there are seven or eight major businesses, farmers, both blueberry and vegetable crop, and other people who have acreage in there where they grow hay for their animals. Those roads are becoming in a deplorable condition. They are not asking for them to be paved, Mr. Speaker, all they want is a grader to go in, in the spring and again in the fall, to bring the roads up to a reasonable level.

Another area, the same thing. A dirt road, lighthouse road in Port de Grave. This is not a class 4 road. It is a road that is in the inventory of this department and people are just asking that they would go and grade that road and probably bring it up to a little better standard.

As my hon. colleague from Carbonear mentioned about the lines on the road. All I hope is that the department will get out this year and get those lines done sooner than they did last year. The snow was almost on the ground when we finally got them to do the roads in the Bryants Cove and Upper Island Cove and Bishop's Cove area. Through Bay Roberts, I have to say, I guess is one of the most treacherous pieces of road in this Province. Today, there is very little lines there and people just cannot see. It is bad enough when the lines are there, let alone with no lines on them.

Mr. Speaker, having said that, I know there is going to be some paving done in Spaniard's Bay this year and hopefully that will correct some of the problems. I call upon the minister in the department - they are aware of those situations - to just ask them if they would consider those, as well as probably coming up with some extra funding this year for the New Harbour Barrens road, which was started two years ago. This year, they totally cut off the funding. It is being put in communities in different areas because it is an election year, and no other reason, Mr. Speaker. That road is getting closer to the District of Port de Grave. It is a link between the two areas, and I ask government to intercede and see that some funding can be used there.

Thank you very much.

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate an opportunity to present a petition on behalf of the residents of the Burgeo & LaPoile area. Actually, not only Burgeo & LaPoile, some of them come from the Codroy Valley area as well. It concerns the provincial parks. I did it last week and, of course, I did not get any response from government, so they asked if I would do it again. I almost feel like it is a repeat of the porta-potty situation we had in Ramea last fall. In this case, it concerns the parks and the use of our parks.

The minister has been out this week, the Minister of Environment and Conservation, proclaiming this is Environment Week, make use of our environment, treat it with respect, do it safely and so on. This is exactly what this petition is about. The provincial parks are part of our environment. Yet, in order to use them this government, in the opinion of these petitioners, are continuing to gouge people for using them.

For example, to go to J.T. Cheeseman Park now, which is about five miles outside of Port aux Basques - it is quite common in that area. People who work all week long, that is the big thing in the summertime, they go up to Cheeseman Park and spend the weekend. They cannot do it anymore now unless they call a Quebec firm and pay $10.60 to make a reservation. In fact, a lot of people, because they do not have the money to travel all over the Province or all over the country, that is where they spent their annual two-week vacation. Lo and behold, they cannot even do that anymore now on the one reservation $10.60 fee, because you can only make a reservation in a provincial park in this Province right now for up to seven days.

So, if you take your family to the park in Port aux Basques, Cheeseman, you set up on your site, you have already paid your $10.60, meanwhile you pay for all of your firewood or whatever else, too - everything you get now is user pay, no question about it. God forbid. On top of that now, you are there seven days, you have to up and move from your campsite because you have no guarantee you can even stay there for the two-week period of your vacation. Then you have to pay another $10.60. Now, that might seem minuscule to some people. Needless to say, it grates everybody in this Province, bar none, that we are paying the $10.60 to reserve a spot in our provincial park to a Quebec company. There is nobody, not a government member, not an Opposition member who favours that. The fact that we have students looking for summer jobs and everything else, and we have to pay $10.60 to book a reservation in our park. Now that galls anybody. Besides that, the little practicality pieces about, you can't even do it for two weeks, you have to pay another $10.60 in order to stay on your site for week two - you have to call in and do that. You can't go to your park administrator, for example, while you are there and say, oh, by the way, Jack, I am going to stay on for two weeks. Okay if I stay on this site? Apparently, he has no control over it. That is all managed by the call centre. Can you imagine!

Then he has to up stakes now. Come Tuesday morning when his week is up he has to up stakes and take everything out of site 21 and lug it all down to Site 42. Meanwhile, he had to call Quebec to find out that it was Site 42 he was going to. Meanwhile, buddy says, thank you very much, give me your credit card. I will just charge you $10.60 to move.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you.

Absolutely unfair, Mr. Speaker! Just a moment to clue up here?

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been granted.

MR. PARSONS: Absolutely unfair! The government has to take a look at this. This is absolutely reprehensible for the people of this Province.

Thank you very much.

MR. SPEAKER: Orders of the day.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

At this time, I would like to call Order 6, second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act, Bill 23.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act, be now read a second time.

The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, I am proud today to stand in this House and open debate on Bill 23, which will amend the Highway Traffic Act to include the mandatory requirement for booster seats.

We have taken considerable time and effort to examine this issue closely, because quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, out children's safety is our main priority. Much has changed since the current seat belt and child restraint legislation came into effect in this Province in 1982. Over the last few years awareness of the need for booster seats for a child over forty pounds and over five years old has been growing. In September, 2004, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, a senior federal-provincial and territorial advisory group that we are a part of, adopted recommendations known as the national occupant restraint program. The use of booster seats is part of that recommended safety program. Since then, three other provinces have used this model to develop their own legislation, Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Today we are doing the very same thing.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation will require all children age eight and under who weight between eighteen and thirty-seven kilograms which is roughly forty and eighty pounds, and who are less than 145 centimeters or four feet nine inches tall, to be in a booster seat while they are being transported in a vehicle, excluding buses, which do not have seat belts.

What makes this legislation so important is that current seat belt restraints in passenger vehicles are designed for adult bodies. This puts smaller children at risk for serious injury in vulnerable body regions such as the neck, shoulder, abdomen, and the groin and hip region, if they have not reached a given weight or height.

Mr. Speaker, when a child is restrained properly in a booster seat which is appropriate to their height and weight they are less likely to suffer serious injury or to die in the event of a crash. The cost of a booster seat varies, depending on the type of model, but they start between $25 and $35, which, I say to my hon. colleagues, is less than the cost of a single tank of gas for many of us. As well, a booster seat will fit a child for several years as they grow.

I am sure that parents and guardians will view booster seats as being equally as important as infant and child car seats, which are already a requirement, especially once they are aware of the risk of injury their child could face if they are not placed in a properly installed booster seat.

To that end, in co-operation with the Department of Health and Community Services, we will be conducting a public awareness campaign to inform parents, guardians and other caregivers about the benefit of booster seats.

While these new requirements will be brought into effect in July 2008, we would encourage all parents, caregivers and other drivers transporting children to secure these children in booster seats as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge, in particular, the Newfoundland and Labrador Public Health Association, the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association, the Association of Registered Nurses of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the non-profit organization, Kids In Safe Seats, for their support and encouragement on this important initiative.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to stand and say a few words this afternoon on Bill 23.

I understand the intent of the bill is to provide safe passage for our young children in the Province. I see the rationale going up as far as age eight, and I think it was ninety kilograms, in that process. Minister, we on this side of the House concur with this for the protection of our children but there is something I have to say.

I am dealing with a very troublesome situation today in my district, of 130 people not sure where their next dollar is coming from, and an increasing number of crab plant workers from other areas, with small children, who are in contact with our offices, who are not sure if they are going to qualify for any benefits this year, or even get their amount of work. Minister, I will say that this is a costly venture, especially for one lady I know who has three children under the age of eight. For that family, right now, to go out and buy three booster seats would certainly add a lot of difficulty to that family circumstance.

I certainly understand, Minister, where I would be if I had to face the difference between buying groceries, booster seats, or paying my light bill. I understand, Minister, you will probably come back and say that is July 1, 2008, but still, when the future is bleak for the next little while, for the next twelve months or so, that is little consolation.

I would like to say to the minister and the government: Why not create some kind of a program that would help subsidize low-income families or people who are in dire circumstances to acquire these seats for the protection of their children? Again, it is nice to come up with these rules and these laws, and whatever we want to call them, but when it comes down to finding the money and the means for families to be able to acquire these particular seats it is a different story.

Another suggestion I would have for the minister is to maybe eliminate the sales tax on those seats, to make it easier for families to go out and purchase them to protect their loved ones.

Minister, without getting political here, the condition of our highways right now is creating a very great hardship on a lot of families with regard to keeping their cars on the road - broken struts and so on, roads not being repaired. My colleague was up a few minutes ago talking about the $700,000 that was going to be put between our two districts. Well, $700,000 would not fill the potholes in some of the streets in my district alone. I look at Harvey Street in Harbour Grace, the deplorable condition that is in, and Bristol's Hope.

Minister, it is expensive to travel our highways, and for people with low incomes - and anybody, I guess, with any income - to take two or three children out in the car and travel our highway for the summer - the Minister of Tourism has a brochure out this week talking about stay at home and travel the Province. Well, that is great, but if you have to come up with probably $300 for these booster seats for three children to sit in your car, it is certainly going to cut your vacation short.

Couple that, Minister, with high fuel costs in this Province. The price of fuel dropped today, I think, about four cents a litre, and I would suggest it is only going to be a short period of time and it is going to go back up again.

Minister, protecting our children is of tantamount importance to us here in this Province, but in the same boat, I think we should also look at some of the social and economic needs that these families might experience in trying to get these seats in place. Maybe having these seats in the car we could lobby our insurance companies to drop some of their rates for people with small children with these seats, to give a 5 per cent discount as they do sometimes in an instance of a non-smoking home, or homes protected by smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors, or if it is a non-smoking family, your rates will be lower. I think there should be a lot of thought go into this and some help from the government to lobby some of these agencies to help the poor of our Province.

Speaking of insurance, minister, I would suggest that maybe the 15 per cent insurance tax that this government is currently charging people to insure their vehicles, if we had that reduced it would go a long way to providing some means to help some people purchase these booster seats. Minister, if you would consider that - I do not think the members on this side of the House have any great objection to providing a law to make our highways safer for our children and to make the cars in which they ride safer. Again, I have to say that a law is only as good as the enforcement that goes with it.

We have a cellphone law in this Province. That is not being enforced. That is not being upheld. Every second person on the highway right now has a cellphone stuck to their ear. I travel the highway everyday. I commute from Carbonear to St. John's and I could literally count, I would say, hundreds of people with a cellphone stuck to their ear. So, again, enforcement - making a law for somebody to put a child in a seat is no good unless that law is enforced and that child is put in the seat.

Minister, I would like to say to you, I have offered a few suggestions there; a subsidy for the seats for families, or eliminate the sales tax, or both, I think would go a long way to ensuring the better safety of the children of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time that I have had this afternoon to comment on this and, minister, I hope you pass these comments along to your colleagues in Cabinet and the Minister of Finance and see if there is something we can do to make this law more practical and more acceptable to the people out there and more useable.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Falls-Buchans.

MS THISTLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am delighted actually to speak to Bill 23 today, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act.

I can relate to the issue here in this bill because I have four grandchildren. It was only a few months ago that I went out and bought two booster seats. I was surprised at the regulations on the booster seats. They actually would cover children up to ninety pounds, the ones that I bought. I thought to myself, too, you know that is a good thing.

I learned something last week, because when you have not had young children for a while yourself, as parents, I did not realize because - I have a couple of grandchildren now, one is seven and the other one is five, and I did not realize when you actually sat them in your backseat without a booster seat and you put the seat belt on them, that you had to actually take the seat belt and flick it until it went into position. Because the weight of the child, in case of an accident, would throw a child to the front seat or wherever, but if you actually take the seat belt and you flick it until it snaps, then the child is actually in a snug position with just a seat belt on. I did not know that until my daughter and daughter-in-law told me.

Until next year, until this becomes law, I would say it would be a good piece of public education to let parents or guardians or grandparents whatever, know just this simple procedure to ensure the safety of a child riding in a vehicle who is not even in a booster seat. For those in a booster seat, I expect you would have to do the same thing because there is a lot of flexibility on a seat belt and if you do not ensure - with an adult it is a different matter. If we have a loose seat belt on, if there is a sudden change or if there is an accident or whatever, automatically the seat belt will come tight on an adult because of our weight, but it does not occur with a small child. They do not have the weight for that to happen. That is a key feature that I learned myself last week and with four grandchildren it is a very important one. I think this is a good move by government.

I was watching last week when the RCMP reported on an accident, a fatality in our Province, and they stated that had the people been wearing a seat belt it would probably be a different story. First when seat belts were brought in as legislation in our Province we had the highest user per capita across the country. We had the highest user per capita across the country for seat belts, but that has dwindled over the past few years. It seems people are taking a different attitude now towards seat belt usage. That has to be reinforced again, because lots of times we are hearing the RNC and the RCMP, whenever they are asked to report on fatalities around our Province, they will always add that seat belt usage should have been used.

In fact, they are saying that with traffic fines and tickets there are a multitude of tickets passed out to people who do not wear seat belts. We need to begin, and probably the minister, in her capacity as Minister of Government Services, needs to launch, I think, an education program again, because it has become a real problem in our Province. We need to talk about seat belt usage. We need more than road signs on the highway. We need it in our living rooms, when we are watching the news in the nighttime. We need a better education program on that.

I do agree with my colleague, the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace, that it is going to be an additional cost, for certain, bringing in this new program. I remember first when bicycle helmets were introduced. The Town of Grand Falls-Windsor, with their corporate sponsors, provided free helmets for young bikers, originally, when bicycling helmets were brought in as a safety measure.

There has to be some way that you can probably partner with those producing those booster seats to provide some kind of a subsidy, a discount, or something like that to make sure that booster seats will actually be used.

You also have to consider the problem of the actual room in the vehicle, too; because, if you put three booster seats in a small compact vehicle it is going to be cramped quarters. You are going to find that children are going to be fighting, throwing things at each other, and they are going to be irritated and so on. Just by bringing in a small measure like that, having to put three booster seats, probably, in the back seat of a small compact car, is going to make a difference. It is going to make a difference, especially with snowsuits on and heavy clothes in the winter.

It might have to be that a family with more than three children might have to move up to a bigger vehicle. So, you might start out thinking that booster seats is not a big expense, it is only in the area of $30 or $40, but it might cause, through the implementation, for some families to have to actually move up to a bigger vehicle that would cause more money that way.

I am sure that anyone who stands in this House will agree that anything that can be done to promote and keep our children safe, there is not going to be anybody against it. In bringing in change like this, when it comes to safety - and I know, too, that someone called me today and asked me a question. They asked me if Medic Alert bracelets were going to be provided for school-aged children. Is this a government program? I said: I have not heard it announced yet.

That is another issue that government needs to look at, Medic Alert bracelets for children attending school, particularly elementary and primary grades, if that could be provided. We need to do everything we can to keep our young people safe, and this is one more step.

I would certainly agree with this legislation, and I would like for the minister to take into account the suggestions that have been made by other speakers here this afternoon. You have a whole year to bring it in. You need to develop a proper education piece and you need to partner with those producing and manufacturing booster seats and see if you can come up with some way to lessen the cost for families.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am happy to stand and speak to this bill, and in support of the bill.

I have some comments that I hope will be helpful, but obviously I think this is a need. It is a need that has been identified by many groups for several years now. I notice that the minister, in her introduction, did name the various groups that they have been in consultation with. I am very glad to know that consultation happened, and that the government has taken some steps towards some of the recommendations from groups like Kids In Safe Seats and the Newfoundland and Labrador Public Health Association, et cetera, the various other groups that she named.

I, too, have a concern about trying to reduce the cost factor for families, knowing that, in a lot of cases, it is going to mean especially more than one booster seat. If you have just two years between children, you can easily have two or three children needing booster seats all at the same time, and they are not cheap.

I notice that in Ontario, Ontario has taken steps to remove the provincial sales tax on booster seats, and they have also removed them on child and infant seats. I think they removed the tax on child and infant seats first and then, in 2005, Ontario removed the provincial sales tax on the booster seats.

I think one thing that we could do to help parents is the removal of the sales tax on the booster child and infant seats, all of them. I think it is particularly important outside, or in rural areas outside of the major urban areas, but in rural areas where car use is so essential, where people have to use their car so much for getting around, even just for going to the store to get milk sometimes. The booster seats are essential. Helping families with the cost by removing the sales tax, I think, would be one way to deal with that, and I do encourage the government to think about doing that.

It is hard to know what to say when you think of a family maybe having to have three booster seats. I certainly would not want it to lower our birth rate, at the rate that we are going with our birth rate. I think that it is an issue. If somebody does have three, there are some cars that would not hold three booster seats in the back seat. That is a reality, so it is an issue; however, I do not think that we can stop putting this law in place, especially when you read a statistic like this, that the Kids in Safe Seats organization put out in April, that the death rate for children in this country between the age of five and nine years old in motor vehicle collisions has not dropped in over ten years. That is a pretty serious statistic. We have to bring down the number of children who are dying in motor vehicle accidents.

The other statistic that goes with that one is that almost 50 per cent of the deaths in children involved in motor vehicle collisions are children who should be in booster seats. Almost 50 per cent of the deaths have been because children have not been in booster seats.

In light of that statistic, I think we have to try to make this work. I really would encourage government, as I have said already, to help families by removing the provincial sales tax, as has been done in Ontario, for example. I am assuming that we could only remove the provincial part of the HST. I am not really perfectly sure how our tax system works when we want to reduce HST or remove HST. I would like to see all the 15 per cent removed. If we can do that, that is what I would like to see, not just the provincial part of the HST.

There are a couple of things in the Act that I would just like to comment on or that bring up some thoughts, I guess. Before I do that, the minister also mentioned that there will be a public awareness campaign program, and I think that is absolutely essential. The program, I think, has to be a wide one. I don't think it can just be notices in papers. I think maybe we need householders that will have detailed pictures that show how the booster seats work and how the safety belts work with booster seats; television ads that actually show the seats being used and how a child is put in the seat; posters with pictures on them that could be all over the place in public places showing how things should be done. I think when it comes to this kind of thing a picture does speak much more loudly than written word. Having these images everywhere that we go as the public, I think will be very important. I hope that adequate money is in the Budget for doing a really wide public awareness program, as the minister indicated she will be doing.

One of the things in the legislation that I just would like to comment on is the section 2(5) that says, certain requirements do not apply to the transport of a child described in that paragraph, paragraph (2)(c), in a bus or school bus that has not been equipped with a seat belt assembly. I guess, that just begs some comment on the need for seat belts in school buses. I know that there is a lot of discussion on that in different parts of this country. I know there are different ways of looking at it. Not everybody is on the same word with regard to the efficacy of seat belts in school buses. However, some recent accidents in Canada have indicated that safety belts in school bus accidents could have saved lives.

I would like to see the government continue pushing this discussion and meeting with the organizations that are concerned about child safety, meeting with other experts, getting the feedback from other experts in Canada, and really look at what it would mean to have seat belts in our school buses, to have it mandatory.

I know some of the implications - it is not just economic - the refitting of buses. Some buses cannot even be refitted, but a program could be started. I do acknowledge that there are different points of view on this from experts. Not all experts are agreed, but I would like to see the discussion going on here in our Province and I would encourage the minister to help with that discussion.

The recognition in this document that some school buses are equipped with the assembly, to me, begs that question of: Should we not have it mandatory in Newfoundland and Labrador?

I think they are the comments that I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker. I am happy to support this, and I know that the minister will be very thoughtful in the ongoing work that will flow from the changes that are being made.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the Minister of Government Services speaks now she will close debate on Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act.

The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleagues for their input and suggestions in this bill.

I want to say to my hon. colleague also, she talked about the school bus with no seat belts. In fact, there have been new guidelines from Transport Canada, as of April 1, 2007, that will require some seat belts in school buses.

Also, I want to say that we are indeed going to be doing a public awareness campaign in conjunction with community health. We will be working with those people.

This will come into effect in 2008. We will give parents an opportunity to be prepared for this legislation.

You know, you cannot put a price tag on our children's safety. I have to say that our main priority is our children's safety.

On that note, I would like to move second reading of this bill, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that the said bill, Bill 23, be now read a second time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act. (Bill 23)

MR. SPEAKER: This bill has now been read a second time.

When shall this bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House?

Now? Tomorrow?

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Later today, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Presently.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently, by leave. (Bill 23)

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Order 4, second reading of a bill, An Act Respecting Safer Communities And Neighbourhoods. (Bill 9)

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that Bill 9, entitled, An Act Respecting Safer Communities And Neighbourhoods, be now read a second time.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act Respecting Safer Communities And Neighbourhoods." (Bill 9)

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

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

Residents want to feel safe in their own communities, in their neighbourhoods, and the objective of this legislation is to establish a mechanism for government to respond to complaints about targeted activities whereby residents feel unsafe in their communities. We have seen several examples lately of grow ops, marijuana operations and so on, in this Province. There have been a number of busts of grow ops in the Province just in the past two weeks alone.

This particular piece of legislation will directly affect the activities that adversely affect or harm a neighbourhood. It uses a civil law process to suppress nuisances and to promote peaceful and safe communities and neighbourhoods.

There are several features within this piece of legislation that make it more effective than other approaches in ridding communities of targeted activities. One of those is to address the revolving door rather than just removing an individual from a residence and allowing an activity to continue at a residence simply because police have not concluded an investigation on other residents within a particular residence and so on.

Having said that, this particular piece of legislation does not deal with criminal law. It does not deal with criminal activities. It deals with targeted activities and ensuring safer communities and safer neighbourhoods. It also provides immediate results in terms of shutting down problem locations because of targeted activities.

In shutting down a location, I want to give an assurance that every reasonable effort would be made to resolve the complaint informally. Every effort will be made to deal with an informal process, alternative processes, to speaking with the individual that is in question to identify and address the issues that were uncovered as a result of an investigation by the investigators and try to curb that activity through written correspondence to the individuals long before a closure order is sought through the courts.

Experiences in other provinces, in fact, have shown that almost all incidents are resolved through this informal process. If a property owner or the tenants choose not to comply with the informal process and a co-operative process, the investigation unit may apply to the court for a community safety order or a closure order.

Again, Mr. Speaker, that is done as a last resort. The test for obtaining a community safety order is that the property has to be habitually used for the targeted activity, has to be creating an adverse effect on the neighbourhood or community. As well, Mr. Speaker, a judge would have to look at whether or not, and take into consideration whether or not, accommodations are available to innocent occupants of a residence. That particular part of it is being put in place as a result of an amendment that I am proposing to bring in, in third reading, to give added protection to innocent individuals who may be affected as a result of a targeted activity within a residence.

If a matter does proceed to court, the investigator acts as the complainant as well, so there is protection to complainants who bring issues to an investigator or the safer communities and neighbourhoods investigative division. These individuals who bring a complaint would be protected, because any evidence that may identify the person who made the original complaint is kept confidential unless, of course, Mr. Speaker - and I will say that no complainant, without their consent, will be identified to any other person, a court, an institution, local authorities or law enforcement agencies. There is protection and confidentially to a complainant as well. Having said this, Mr. Speaker, I want to say: unless, of course, a complaint is frivolous or vexatious. Then there is also within this legislation components to ensure the protection of an innocent individual from a frivolous or vexatious complaint. There are measures there to ensure that individuals who are innocent are protected in these circumstances as well.

Removing persons from a property, as I have said, is a last resort. The legislation provides due process to the property owners directly affected by an order under this legislation.

One of the areas that we are looking to put an amendment in third reading or committee on this, as well, is an amendment to extend that due process to residents. It is not only landlords or building owners who would have the protection of due process, it would also be the residents of the property as well.

This legislation is designed to improve public safety in all of our communities. The legislation is intended to deal with one house at a time. There has been some concern raised by some stakeholders who we have consulted with, that if there is a closure order and we shut down a residence, people will simply pack up and move to another location and start the targeted activity in another location as well. If the illegal activity moves to a new location, officials will respond to any new complaints that are filed, Mr. Speaker, and they will act on those and deal with those. We are not targeting individuals here, we are targeting activities. We want to rid our communities of these activities that make a community unsafe.

Mr. Speaker, safer communities and neighbourhoods legislation is a new way in this Province to promote community safety, but it is not a new method of promoting community safety. Manitoba proclaimed their legislation in 2002, Saskatchewan proclaimed legislation in 2004, and we also have the Yukon and Nova Scotia who have proclaimed legislation. This Province, as well as the North West Territories, have introduced legislation during the current sittings of our Legislatures.

Mr. Speaker, police agencies are quite pleased with this proposed legislation. They, in other locations, cooperate with investigation units created under the safer communities and neighbourhoods legislation with respect to information sharing and the conduct of operations. We have consulted with police agencies here in the Province as well and we are given the understanding by police agencies that they are in favour of this legislation. It is another tool in the toolbox that is intended to provide safer communities and ensure that people feel safe in their communities.

Mr. Speaker, it is important to note, as I have said, that this is one tool. It is not a panacea, it is not going to solve all of the problems, but this is an extra tool, an additional tool, that can be used to ensure communities can shut down places that are chronically and habitually used for targeted activities for an extended period of time.

I think, based on the success in other provinces - and I met just recently with my counterparts, the Ministers of Justice, from other provinces at a meeting just last week, Mr. Speaker - and based on the successes that they have and the successes that they have shared with me, we believe that this is a very important tool for this Province and for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

At a 2006 federal-provincial and territorial ministers meeting for Ministers Responsible for Justice, a report was tabled at that meeting, Mr. Speaker, and that report lauds the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, who were the provinces at that time who experienced great success as result of this particular legislation, for their initiatives in adopting safer communities and neighbourhoods legislation; as the legislation has improved and continues to improve the detection and shutting down of clandestine labs and grow-ops within communities.

As well, Mr. Speaker, it has supported the increasing capacity to respond to community concerns about illegal drug houses. The working group recommended that all provinces consider adopting safer communities and neighbourhoods legislation. Many of our communities are now faced with situations, such as we have seen last week and the week before, where there are marijuana grow-ops and other drug operations operating out of residential properties. We have seen and experienced great success with both the RCMP and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in recent months with shutting down these types of operations. Mr. Speaker, this legislation will be an added advantage to allowing, not only through the criminal process but through a civil process now, to shut down operations and to do it more expediently than the tools that are available right now to the RCMP and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. So, this piece of legislation is proactive and it provides the tools that are necessary to ensure that our communities and neighbourhoods will remain safe and secure.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be bringing this legislation forward. It received first reading last December and again in May of this year. It is very progressive legislation. It is legislation that has worked very, very well in other provinces and it is legislation that I believe will work very, very well here. I want to say again, Mr. Speaker, that we are not targeting individuals here and certainly innocent individuals should not be affected by this legislation. What we are targeting here is targeted activities that cause neighbourhoods and individuals within those neighbourhoods to feel unsafe.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will have a few words as it relates to Bill 9, and I am sure there are many others who would like to speak to this bill as well.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I have to say that I have absolutely no problem with having safer communities in our Province. I think it is all something that we should strive towards and work towards achieving, safer communities and neighbourhoods, and there is absolutely no doubt about that. You cannot argue the actual principle of having safety anywhere in our Province, whether it be in our communities, in our homes, in our workplace or whatever the case may be.

Mr. Speaker, I look at Bill 9, and I guess I look at it in the context of who this bill is really going to be applying to. When you look at what this bill is doing - and the minister says he does not want to target individuals, he does not want to target groups and so on, but when you look at this particular bill and you look at, in essence, what it is doing, it is monitoring and restricting the uses of alcohol products, of drugs, of any type of crime that may be going on in any proposed neighbourhood or community in the Province. It is all outlined here, the specified uses of different things on properties.

Mr. Speaker, a lot of times when we hear, in our Province, of things going on, especially in terms of alcohol, in terms of prostitution, in terms of drug addictions, oftentimes it is related to poverty. It is often related to homelessness, and it is also - many of the people who seem to fall into those positions are people who have fallen, I would say to the minister, into very bad times, as we used to refer to it years ago.

So, Mr. Speaker, to say that it is not targeting something, some group or people, I think is wrong. I think that many of the people that this does target are not homeowners, but they are actually people who either rent from government housing or they rent in low-income housing. Mr. Speaker, I think that it is targeting those particular individuals in particular.

I can say that because when I read through that particular bill and I see the kinds of things that are going to be monitored by a director - I have no problem, as I said, with safe communities, but I think that when you have a director - and I do not know if this is going to be one director or ten directors or twenty-five directors that is going to be appointed by the government, but I do not know how one director is going to do the things that have been outlined in this bill, in particular. Especially if they are based in St. John's and they are serving the whole Province, but that is a different issue. The issue that I want to speak to here is how this particular legislation is going to impact upon people.

Mr. Speaker, the Women's Centres in the Province, the women's groups, the activist groups who have been involved in the consultations in establishing anti-violence legislation in the Province, have all added their voices to this particular bill in terms of saying this is not the appropriate legislation. This is not what we want and this is not what we are asking for.

Mr. Speaker, if you have all of those groups out there saying this is not the legislation that we are asking for, or that needs to implemented, I guess it begs the question of the minister: Who is asking for this legislation? Where does this request and lobby effort come from, to see a bill like this being implemented in the Province today?

If it is just something that he and his government decided they would go forward with as an initiative, that is fine, I have no problem with that, but there are activist groups out there today that are saying this bill is not being implemented because it is going to be the means to an end for some of their problems. In fact, what they are saying is, it is going to create even more problems for them, and that it is not legislation that they are requesting or that they have lobbied for. So the minister might want to tell us, when he stands, where this came from and who was directing the government in terms of this particular piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, a lot of these individuals who are saying this were part of very in-depth consultations around the Violence Prevention Initiative, in which they had working groups, in which their input was sought out, they suggested means by which they could counteract violence in the Province, how it needed to be dealt with, and at the end of the day it was their suggestions that comprised a strategy which we know today as the Violence Prevention Initiative. Many of these same people are saying that they were not consulted on this particular bill. In fact, many of them have said, Mr. Speaker, that it is only in the last few days that they have had anyone from the Department of Justice even engage them in any kind of discussion. Once they became engaged in that discussion, they discovered what the impact this was going to be on women and children in our Province.

The minister has said that he is going to bring in some amendments as we go along in the bill, and maybe those amendments might help clarify some of these things to a certain degree, but these particular people, if they are living in an area or in a home adjacent to this activity, or in a home where some of this activity is even going on, even if they are innocent victims here, they stand a chance of being evicted from their properties. They have to go through the court system at a cost that many of them cannot afford.

We also know that written right in here in this bill is that, if they decide to file a complaint application and it is frivolous or vexatious the court may order the complainant to pay costs to the director in addition to another order for cost. That is written right into the bill.

If I have a home where my partner, my spouse, my roommate, my whomever, is trafficking into something that might be illegal, or I deem to be, or my neighbours, and I want to protect my children and I file a complaint, does that mean that if I lose this case that I have to pay for the expenses of the director that I have had to call to supervise and investigate and all of the rest of it?

Those things need to be clarified. These are expenses that people do not want to have to incur. If there is a risk that they will, they are not going to use the system anyway. They are not going to use it because they are not going to take that chance.

Mr. Speaker, I had a call, actually, back a few months ago, when the Turner inquiry was going on. I had a call from an individual, and this individual had no custody rights over their grandchildren but had a concern with regard to their grandchildren. They called me up and they were concerned about where these grandchildren were now living, and if they were being supervised by social services and being looked after, and all of the rest of it. I happened to ask: Where is the mother of these children? Where does the mother live? Well, I don't know where the mother lives - although it was his daughter. I don't know where she lives. I know that she works in a gentlemen's bar downtown. I have not seen her in over a year. I understand she is okay, but I do not know where she is.

I said: Well, where is the father of these children? Well, the father is in jail right now. So, I asked why the father was in jail. Because they were trafficking narcotics, alcohol, running a prostitution ring, out of the residence where he was living. The residence, as I found out, was a Newfoundland and Labrador Housing house that this individual was living in.

So, if government wants to play an active role in terms of safer communities, the first thing is to start screening some of these applicants that you are placing in your own housing lots to start with. If the RNC can discover this, and move in and crash this operation, surely these applicants should be screened better before they are placed in that housing, especially in neighbourhoods where there is other adjoining housing with children and families that have been placed there by the government as well. That is certainly one of the places that you could start in terms of reviewing that particular piece of it.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation - and I can only read the comments that have been put out by a number of groups in the Province. I am sure that we will hear from the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women on this particular bill because she has been called upon directly to intervene - is what this letter says, that I have received - that she has been called upon directly to "....intervene and stop this bill from going any further. This legislation will place women and children at risk and has far too much potential to do harm...".

That is what is being asked of individuals, and this particular group is the Newfoundland and Labrador Feminist Coalition, who is calling upon the minister to intervene here and to ensure that this legislation does not pass. Maybe we will get to hear from her in a little while.

Mr. Speaker, let me just tell you what some of the other people are saying. This is from Noreen Careen, who happens to be a feminist who lives in Labrador West, who has been involved with women's issues ever since I can remember, in Labrador, and is a very active member. She says, "This is outrageous. In a last minute effort to appease us, government Justice officials are scurrying around the Province in an attempt to convince women's groups that this legislation is good for women and families and communities. Well, it is not! In Lab West we have a major housing shortage, no judge and no proper legal aid services, and the provincial government is now attempting to bring in legislation which could throw women and children on to the streets."

That is how they perceive this legislation. That is how they perceive it. They perceive it to be written in such a way and, if implemented, that they will lose some of the autonomy and the rights that they have, and that they could indeed find themselves out in the street with nowhere to live based on how your director and how the Province implements the policies that are contained in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, that is a pretty serious concern, coming from a woman who has given all of her life to women's issues in this Province, whether they be in Labrador or otherwise, but has given her life to women's issues in the Labrador City and Wabush area, who has lobbied and built up Women's Centres, who has lobbied tirelessly day after day for proper accommodations for women in that community, so that they have a good roof over their head and they have a home to raise their family in. I know this personally and firsthand, because I have dealt with this woman many times. When I get something from her that tells me that she is very concerned about what is happening here, I take her concerns very seriously, and I would suggest that the ministers do the same, the Minister of Justice and the Minister for the Status of Women. You should actually pick up the phone and call her, find out what it is that is troubling her so much about this bill, and see if there is a way that we can make some changes here to accommodate those people so they have a sense of security around this, because they don't have it right now. These aren't people who are out there making frivolous comments. They are people who understand the system very, very well. They understand it very well because they deal with it every day.

Mr. Speaker, let me read this one, "Women and families are concerned that our present laws are often limited in their approach but the solutions have to come from the communities, and women's centres know these issues very well." This is from Myra Reid. She cannot understand why they were not consulted in terms of this legislation coming before the House of Assembly. They have something to offer here and they feel that they have been left out, because they were consulted after the legislation was brought to the House. I don't know if it was before or after the first reading, I can't say that for sure, but certainly the consultation has been in very recent days.

"In rural NL, we do not have enough services and programs for women and children and we would like to see government focus on improving these rather than bringing in legislation which puts the responsibility on landlords and neighbours to police illegal activities in our communities." That is how they feel. They feel that responsibility is being transferred over to the people who live in and around their neighbourhood. Maybe, when you explain to us about how this director is going to work, and we get to understand that a little bit more, maybe that might give her a little more comfort, but I sincerely doubt it.

Of course, there were other comments, Mr. Speaker, from an individual with the Gateway Women's Centre in Port aux Basques, Susanne Ingram, who is from my colleague's district, the Member for Burgeo & LaPoile. I am sure that he has already talked to her and can certainly enlighten you as to how they are feeling about this in the Port aux Basques area, this legislation coming in and how it is going to impact on them.

Mr. Speaker, in Bay St. George, as well- the Minister for the Status of Women represents this district. It is her constituency. The Bay St. George area and the Corner Brook women's council have also expressed their concerns and feel that Bill 9 would have a negative impact on vulnerable populations. There has been no lobby by equality seeking women's groups for this legislation. That is what they are saying, they did not ask for this. Yet, they feel that they will be left dealing with the fall out if government continues to fast track this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure what the minister had intended here was to be a good bill, to be a bill that would implement safeguards and measures in our communities so that we could all feel safer in places where we live. Well, it is unfortunate, minister, that all of these groups have concerns that have not been addressed. My recommendation to you would be to not pass this bill at this time, but to put the bill on hold and take the time that is necessary to go out and consult with all of these women's groups, with these coalitions, with these people who are involved with the violence prevention initiative and work with them to design legislation for safer communities that is going to be not only acceptable and tolerable, but is going to be supported and is going to meet the needs that they currently want. I know that government can do that. I do not think there is an urgency here, but I do think that there is an urgency in addressing the concerns that have been raised by these individuals. If this was coming from just any ordinary person out there in the Province in the form of a press release, I am not saying I would ignore it, but I would not give it the same weight and credence as I do this particular letter that I am holding in my hand.

I know the views that are expressed by these groups and these women around the Province come from individuals who work day in and day out with making our communities safe and enhancing the lifestyles of women and children in this Province, helping rise people up out of the depths of poverty and put them in a different place in our society. I know that these individuals know the violence that exists in our communities, more than anyone else in this Province, because they deal with it on a day-to-day basis. So when they hand me a piece of paper and they tell me that this is how they feel about this legislation being implemented, I certainly do not question it because I feel their concerns need to legitimately be addressed and need to be dealt with by government.

My recommendation at this time, minister, before you would even go any further with this bill, is to take it off the Table, go back and do some proper consultation with these groups, listen to what their concerns are and work with them to develop legislation in this Province that will be workable legislation that does not infringe upon the rights of women, children, or anyone else in our society, but, in fact, accomplishes the goals that you have set out, and that is to make our communities safer, to make our neighbourhoods safer. I am sure there are many ways to do that, notwithstanding Bill 9 that you have tabled here. I think there are many other ways we can do that, and I would think that is the appropriate measure for government to take right now.

On that recommendation, I will conclude my remarks.

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

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I certainly wanted to be able to speak on this bill today. I will have to leave shortly to catch a flight over to Stephenville, but I wanted to make some comments before I was required to leave.

The whole idea about safe communities is a concept that everyone embraces. The hon. Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair certainly started her comment on that vein, because we all want to make sure that our communities are safe and that they are healthy environments for people to live and to grow, especially children; because sometimes, far too often, children are exposed to elements within their neighbourhoods and within their homes, unfortunately, that sometimes certainly do not foster what we would consider a healthy environment.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, many children are raised in homes or in neighbourhoods where they see violence. They see family violence. They see family members being subjected to violence. They understand, at far too young of an age, what it means to live in fear and understand what fear is. Mr. Speaker, we need to make sure whatever policies we look at in government, whether it is our Violence Prevention Initiative, our Safe Communities, our Poverty Reduction Strategies, we need to make sure that as we bring these strategies together that we create, in this Province, an environment and a neighbourhood that protects our children and other vulnerable people who may be living in a neighbourhood; whether that may be senior citizens or people who are disabled, or women, or whoever lives in a community. They need to be assured that they do not have to tolerate behaviour that leaves them at risk, or certainly leads them to feeling fearful.

Mr. Speaker, we have seen some changes over the years in some illegal behaviour, particularly around drugs; the drugs that we have seen in our Province and the harm they can impose on families. We are all very familiar, over the years, to having seen, I guess, some drugs in the classification of depressants, when we look at seeing drugs such as alcohol or marijuana. These drugs have been around a long time, probably dating back to the 1960s, I would guess, and even before that with alcohol and the problems that stem from alcohol abuse. Sometimes the whole issue of violence stem from substance abuse anyway.

Then we moved from understanding the depressant type of drugs into probably what came into the Province known as the psychedelic drugs. That was probably back, again, in the late 1960s, early 1970s. We saw drugs come in then which would probably be like LSD, otherwise known as acid, or the magic mushrooms, or whatever was in vogue back in the 1970s. We had those drugs around for a while and then that escalated into, about the early to mid-1980s when we started to see in the Province drugs we had never heard of before. We would think that they were probably in the bigger cities, but they certainly came here. That would be our stimulants, such as cocaine. Those drugs came onto the scene and certainly had an impact. They led to a lot of criminal activity, whether it was violence related or extortion, or what other criminal activity that might have been attached to that type of behaviour.

Beyond the stimulants, we have also seen, probably in the last ten years, a rise in what is known as the opiate drug as well. These are drugs that are based in the opium plant and are narcotics. That would include drugs like heroine or OxyContin, which would be a prescription drug. They would have a similar affect to a narcotic based drug or an opiate.

As we look through the escalation of drugs that were introduced to the Province, and we go from our depressants to the psychedelics, to the stimulants, to the opiates, we can certainly see that there is an escalation in the seriousness and the type of behaviour that results from these drugs, from the sale of these drugs, from the manufacturer of these drugs and what happens in our neighbourhoods.

Mr. Speaker, we are at a point in time now where there is another change happening, and one that we are all very concerned about. As we look at the escalation of drugs, we also look at the escalation of the seriousness of the drug. Right now, we are also seeing another drug that is probably in the Province. I cannot say into what degree because unless we have real statistics from the police or from the judicial system, we do not know exactly. That type of drug is the crystal meth. What is most fearful about that particular drug is it can be made by just about anyone from very common products that are available; that we can buy, possibly, in a drug store. All of a sudden the grow-ops and the importation and whatever becomes very different because the drugs can be manufactured in a very simple process. I am sure that through technology, being on-line, the Internet and the global world that we are in, people have far more access and understanding of how to actually participate in this type of behaviour.

Mr. Speaker, I do not necessarily feel that the safer communities legislation is going to clear up all of these issues but it will provide another tool that we can use to address what we deem sometimes as behaviour in communities that instills fear into other people, whether people are fearful because there is drug activity going on within their home or within their neighbourhood, and for that reason they are afraid because they see people coming and going from the house. They are afraid of what happens after dark in that neighbourhood or during daylight hours. They are afraid to walk past the house, they are afraid to confront their neighbours. All of a sudden, when you live in a whole area of fear, it certainly reduces the quality of your life and certainly the health environment that you are entitled to.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation will provide another means, and it will certainly be legislation that will be conducted in cooperation with other services that we have available in the community, and that certainly would be our police force.

I don't necessarily see this as the end to criminal activity in Newfoundland and Labrador. I see it as another aspect that people will have access to, to help them deal with their issues as they try to address problems that they see in their own neighbourhoods.

Mr. Speaker, there have been concerns from the women's community, as has been noted by the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair. I had been made aware of the concerns from the women's community and I had taken time to speak with officials from the Department of Justice and the Minister of Justice as well, to make sure that the concerns from the women's community were heard. Last week, there was consultation with the regional coordinating committees, or their chairs and their coordinators in Stephenville. There was a meeting. They had the opportunity to meet with Justice officials and, as well, there was some consultation with the women's centres.

I also understand that there may be some other groups that don't necessarily agree with this legislation. Mr. Speaker, they certainly have a right to speak out and make their concerns known. Again, I want to emphasize that their concerns have been brought forward, they have been assessed by the Department of Justice, and we certainly need, as a government and as the Department of Justice, to make sure that we continue to consult and work with our partners out there. Mr. Speaker, this government has probably done more to advance the status of women in Newfoundland and Labrador than any government has probably ever done in the past. We want to continue to work on that road, Mr. Speaker.

If we need to have continual consultation, not just on this issue but on any issue that comes forward, that is certainly something that we need to engage in as a government and something that we are extremely sensitive to as well, Mr. Speaker.

This whole legislation is meant to address harmful and disruptive behaviour that is going on in communities. Again I want to emphasize that it is not going to be a measure that comes in that is going to eliminate criminal activity, but if it can help alleviate some fear that is in neighbourhoods of residences that people feel have a very negative impact, if it is limiting the fact that children can go out and play in their neighbourhood because their parents are concerned about the people who are coming and going from a particular house on the street, or that they can't go out and enjoy evenings in their neighbourhood because they are afraid of activity that may be going on, they feel they are at risk or harm, this will provide them an opportunity and another avenue where they can address their concerns.

Mr. Speaker, in order to achieve safer communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, it is not just going to be the director that we hire under this new legislation. Safer communities are not going to be a result of any one piece of legislation or any one person who is involved in trying to work with that type of behaviour. Safer communities will truly be a result of all of our efforts and the investments that we make into the justice system, investments that we make into the police forces we have in the Province, investments that we make into our Women's Centres, investments that we make into our Violence Prevention Initiatives and our whole social safety net program.

Mr. Speaker, this will be another aspect of helping make our communities safer but, again, it is certainly just another part of an entire process that we need to make sure that we work at every level and with every agency and funding body that we have to make sure that we all go for the same goal, and that is to make sure people have a comfort level in their own neighbourhoods, that they feel safe and they do not have to live in fear of what is going on down the street or in the house next door.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that this piece of legislation will certainly help us achieve that in this Province.

Thank you.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am happy to have the opportunity to speak to Bill 9, An Act Respecting Safer Communities And Neighbourhoods.

I have to say that, when we first received this act and I looked at the title, I thought: What is this about? Then, when I opened it and read it, I really had to ask: Where is this coming from? What is it about? Why do we need this act?

I read it and I was wondering what community I was living in, what province I was living in, as I read the act, because I have to say that I have not heard any outcry in our community for this kind of legislation. I have not heard it from any sector. I have not heard it from municipalities. I have not heard it from the women's community. I really had to ask: Where is this coming from? Who is asking for this kind of legislation?

I have found out, in the last few days, that others are asking the same thing and, in actual fact, one of the groups that I would have thought, well, maybe they are the ones who are looking for it, certainly are not the ones who are looking for this legislation, and that is the women's community and it is also the anti-violence community. So, I have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns about the legislation, and I will use my time, obviously, to speak to that.

I want to talk, first, to the process. You know, the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women just referred to the consultation process, and I have been speaking to the women inside of the women's communities, the women who are running the Women's Centres. I have been speaking to the Coalition Against Violence. I have been speaking to all kinds of groups that supposedly have been involved in consultation and, yes, it is true that in the last couple of days there was consultation, but it is not true that these groups took part in consultation prior to the last few days.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS MICHAEL: May I continue, Mr. Speaker, to explain the facts that I have?

One of those facts is that, on December 1 there was a conference call, a provincial conference call, where the Department of Justice depended on the Women's Policy Office to organize the call, and the Department of Justice did the right thing. They expected the Women's Policy Office to put together a conference call that would have engaged women's groups. Well, it is a fact that the Women's Centres, the eight Women's Centres, were not notified of that conference call and were not involved in that conference call. That is a fact. I have spoken to a number. I have not spoken to all eight, but I have spoken to a number of the women who run the Women's Centres and they were not involved in the conference call. They were not invited to take part in the conference call.

That is not the Department of Justice fault, but it is a fact. That is why the women's communities this week are upset, because it is only now, at the last minute, that the consultation is happening. They should have been part of that conversation back on December 1. If they had been part of the conversation back on December 1, perhaps we would have changes in this legislation.

Nobody is saying we do not want safe communities, but we have a lot of things going on in our society to try to have our safe communities. We have a lot of good programs going on inside of our criminal justice system. We have a lot of good programs happening because of the anti-violence movement. We have a lot of good programs happening because of Women's Centres and Status of Women Councils, so there is a lot going on. You know, safety, it is almost one of these things that is in the mind of the beholder. That is why I am asking: So, who is it who feels unsafe?

One of the things talked about in the legislation, one of the activities that is talked about as an activity that can make a community unsafe and unhealthy, is prostitution. I am not saying that is not the case but, you know, I grew up here in St. John's. Prostitution was known in St. John's in the downtown when I grew up here. I went to my grandparents' house every few days of my life. There was a woman across the street, who lived there; we all knew she was a prostitute. Men were going in and out all the time. I knew she was a prostitute. I never, ever felt unsafe. The people on New Gower Street did not feel unsafe. So, it is all in the mind of the beholder.

Some people would say: Well, gosh, should you have known at the age of nine or ten, that woman was a prostitute? That is the reality of life. Knowing that she was a prostitute, that is a fact. Prostitution happens. An awful lot of women, the only recourse they have had to keeping food on their table has been prostitution. That is the way in which they have actually fed their children. Whether we like that or not, put all morals aside, that is the reality in our economy. That is the reality in our economy.

When I read that - and I even said to my staff, I don't know what it is going to sound like if I stand up and start talking about why is prostitution in here, but I have to do it because prostitution is something that exists in our society mainly because men look for it and women who, in most cases, do not have other options, are the ones who provide it. So, I find it very problematic when I see that there. I am making this statement completely in a neutral way. This is something we have to look at, not from a moral perspective. It is a fact of our economy and our society.

I get really worried when I see that. Like I said about being in the eye of the beholder, I look at the legislation and I read, for example, section 4. "For the purpose of this Act, a community or neighbourhood is adversely affected by activities where the activities (a) negatively affect the health, safety or security of one or more persons in the community or neighbourhood...".

For me, I read that and I think about when I am coming through my neighbourhood and I see a sign on a lawn that indicates, this lawn is unsafe for twenty-four hours, don't come near it and keep your pets away, I do not feel safe in my community when that happens. The use of pesticides that can poison, to me, is something that creates an unsafe community. May I start interpreting that activity under this legislation? Safety is in the eye of the beholder.

The same way, let's be honest, moonshine, traditionally in Newfoundland and Labrador, is made all over the place, folks. Let's face it, it is made all over the place. This legislation is now saying, if I know that my next door neighbour is making moonshine, then I now have the right to report that person and get it stopped. Well, there are all kinds of reasons. We know these are illegal activities that I am talking about, but we have to be honest, we know that these illegal activities are going on everywhere in our community.

So, I am really worried - I will not be able to vote for this legislation by the way, I really will not be able to. I have seen the copies of the proposed amendments that the minister said he will be bringing forward in third reading, and those proposed amendments go nowhere near allaying the concerns I have about this legislation. I just think the legislation, right now at this moment, is flawed in the context of our society here in Newfoundland and Labrador. I really do not see the need for it. I think it is going to require a lot more discussion for us to figure this out. I am really serious when I say that we have to consider the implications for some activities that have gone on in our society all the time, that are going to be affected by this legislation. It really bothers me.

The thing is, too, that a lot of the activities that are named are activities that are going on because of the economic status of people and because people are having a hard time economically in our society. When we are talking about these activities, unless we are talking about really huge drug dealers, we are not talking about people who are earning $100,000 a year. Now, if we are talking about huge drug dealers, do you know what? Then I think our criminal system deals with that. I do not think that we create this new layer of working through the civil law to deal with those issues. We have a criminal justice system. We have policing everywhere in our Province. I really do not see statistics and information which tells me that our criminal justice system cannot handle what is going on in our Province. I really do not see any evidence of that.

What is really interesting is that the women's organizations that I have been in touch with over the last few days, they do not see evidence for it either where they are. What they are concerned about is what happens if, from a women's perspective - I am not saying it is only a man who can do this - but, from a woman's perspective, what happens if it is a couple, common-law or married, or whatever, and the man in the house is the one who is dealing from the house and then the women and children have to go? I know there are things in the legislation that say it covers that, but what if you are up in Labrador West where they do not have adequate housing?

Right now, women trying to get out of violent situations cannot find safe housing to go - if they have been in Transition House but after that. There isn't adequate housing. So, where do you get the housing to put that woman and her children in if it is the man of the couple who is doing the illegal activity? So, in order to stop the activity, they all to leave. I just cannot see how this is going to work, I really cannot. Practically speaking, I cannot see how it is going to work. I do not see the need for it because, as I said, the criminal activities you deal with it through the criminal justice system. It really worries me. I find it really worrisome that we actually - the justification, and the minister said it. The justification for this legislation - not the, one of the justifications for this legislation is that it is going to make it easier to get at people. It is almost going to make it easier, right on the edge of, by making it easier to deny their rights.

I am reading here: in criminal matters the judge must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. All right, that is the standard that has to be used. If police are going to get a warrant and move in, for example, somewhere. A judge has to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that there is a reason for giving that warrant. I think the minister has been saying that a higher standard of proof - and I think the working group that he referred to maybe has said the same thing - often requires more time and resources. Well, I am not sure there is proof for that, number one, and number two, I do not think that we should be using a lower standard of proof. I think it should be with beyond a reasonable doubt before somebody can have somebody else go into their house. We have to protect people rights. You know, people make assumptions. People in neighbourhoods make all kinds of assumptions about things they observe in people's houses and things that are going on. I am sure we all have enough examples of gossip to know how wrong people can be sometimes with their gossip, assumptions that get made. It is very, very dangerous. I really consider what we are doing here something that is very dangerous. I think it promotes a vigilante mentality. I really do think it promotes a vigilante mentality, and surely, that is not something that we want. Good law and order is what we want and that is what our criminal justice system delivers.

If we want to get at what is happening in communities, I will come back to something that has been part of the NDP policy for a long time. I think we need more community policing by foot. Let the policing system have more personnel so that they can make more observations. If they make observations and have the resources for then checking out what they are observing, and then by the time they get a warrant, it is because they can prove to a judge: we really, absolutely, believe there is something going on here. It will require more policing. I think it should be done in a system that is under our current accepted system, not under this civil law system that this legislation is talking about.

I mentioned the amendments. For me, the amendments are just band-aids on what I see as an unnecessary and flawed piece of legislation. The amendments do not do anything for me at all.

I just really worry about some of the language that I have been hearing and that I even read, but some of it I have been hearing. I think it was the Minister of Justice, it could have been the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, but I think it was the Minister of Justice who said that this legislation will allow for tools that are more expedient than tools that are now available within the criminal justice system. That means it can be done more quickly. Well, do you know what? Doing more quickly sometimes means we may not be doing the right thing. It allows for errors. The criminal justice system has all the checks and balances in it that it needs so that we do not make errors, and errors still happen. The wrong people still get arrested. Wrong people still get charged. Wrong people still get found guilty, but at least we have checks and balances.

I have absolute real concern that a more expedient process, outside of the expertise of the criminal justice system, is going to lead to - I do not want to use extreme language - but is going to lead to mistakes being made, going to lead also to people being unduly upset in their lives, people going through stress that they may not need to go through. It is really bothersome.

At this point this piece of legislation, for me, should be put on hold. I think we have to have a much broader discussion in the community, and not just with the women's community - with the women's community, with the anti-violence community, with all of the community out there. I just do not think it is going to work.

As I said, if the government wants to consider putting more money into something - and this one here, I am understanding, initially would cost almost $300,000 for personnel - if you really want this to work, I think it is going to require much more personnel than is being referred to, but I think the money would be better spent if we had the activities, if we had the policing that we are talking about, because it is policing, but the policing in the hands of our criminal justice system, that we put more money into our policing so that it is people who are well trained, people within our system who are out there in the communities, on foot or on bicycles but out in the community, doing the policing. If we start putting things into the hands of the person living on a street to do the reporting, I just think we are creating a mentality that can be very dangerous.

One of the pieces of literature that I read, that was sent to me in the last couple of days, pointed out, for example, that a landlord or landlady, either one, because they were upset with a tenant who is not doing anything illegal, could use this legislation to report the person, saying: I have reason to believe that there is illegal activity going on there - and could actually end up using the legislation to get somebody evicted. That can happen. Yes, it can, that could happen.

I think this legislation is alarmist. I think this legislation - there would have to be some kind of a public awareness program about this legislation. I think the public awareness program will cause undue alarm in the community. I really do. People are going to start saying: Oh, my God, what is going on? What is it? Should we be afraid? Should we be afraid for our lives? I think that it is very, very problematic.

My recommendation is that this piece of legislation not go on to third reading. I think it should be put on hold. Yes, we all want safe communities but I do not think this is the way to go. I think what we have always proposed as a party, I think, should be considered. I think we need more policing out in the community, but on foot.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that her speaking time has expired.

MS MICHAEL: Just to clue up, please, Mr. Speaker?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much.

I understand, you know, the need for wanting to be concerned about safe communities, and I am sure the government has done this in good faith. Some of the lack of consultation that I have referred to, maybe the Minister of Justice was not aware of some of it, but what I have said is accurate. I have tested it to find out. It is disturbing that the women's community does have a very sophisticated analysis about this. They really do, and I do not think, just over the last couple of days, in hurried consultation sessions, could there be an analysis of their analysis that would have made amendments that would have met their needs. I know that the amendments that are going to come to the Table in the form that I have seen them are certainly not going to meet the needs of the women's community, so I put that out to the minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Before we proceed, I have the pleasure of welcoming to the House, seated in the Speaker's gallery, the Minister of Government Relations from the Province of Saskatchewan, Mr. Harry Van Mulligen, and his Chief of Staff, Mark Pitzel.

Welcome to our House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just have a few comments as well with respect to Bill 9.

The Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair had a few comments on this, as did the Leader of the NDP, and I can say, as well, one of the names mentioned here today who had concerns with this was the lady who is the Executive Director of the Gateway Status of Women, Ms Susanne Ingram. She has been involved in the women's movement in this Province for decades. Again, the issue revolves around consultation.

She acknowledges that the minister's office or someone sent a person out there last week to discuss what concerns they might have, and I can say to the minister they are still not satisfied, Minister. There is a way to have legislation. There is a way to accommodate one's agenda. There is a way to do what needs to be done, and there is no one here suggesting that we do not need safer communities, or that this particular legislative initiative is not going to move us in a right and positive direction, but we cannot, simply because we, as a ministry, might have decided that we are ready to fly with it, force it down people's throats without having the necessary consultation.

What happened last week, by the way, wasn't sufficient consultation. I have been advised as well by Ms Ingram, who I say was a board member, as I understand it, for years and years on the provincial advisory for the women's council. She is very adamant, she is a very commonsensical person who is legitimately, sincerely concerned, and is supportive of this bill generally speaking. The concern is that they haven't had an opportunity to get the answers that they want. There has been a rushed, as the Leader of the NDP said, a very rushed consultation process that was implemented last week. The answers weren't forthcoming to satisfy them.

MR. ORAM: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: I say to the Member for Terra Nova again, if he would like to make some comments in this regard, by all means stand on your feet. If anything I am saying about Ms Ingram is not true and not accurate, by all means refute it.

MR. ORAM: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: I agree. If you are saying we have lots of time, I agree. If that is the case, we should yank the bill, as was suggested by the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, and do it right.

Nobody here is opposed to this Bill 9 in principle. The opposition is coming here, not from the Opposition - we are just here as mouthpieces in this case, to bring forth the legitimate concerns of the people of this Province as they are expressing them. In this case, it is the Status of Women's Council, not only in Port aux Basques but Bay St. George and other people, and not only the Status of Women's Councils, there are other groups, as I understand it, in the Province who haven't been consulted yet.

I say this, and the minister can correct me, for example, it is my understanding that municipalities in the Province have not been consulted on this bill. Now, that is my understanding. If you have ruled out consultation with municipalities in the Province and you haven't consulted to a satisfactory extent with the women's groups in the Province, we have a big hole here, not with the legislation itself but with the consultation process.

Now, this government has a mantra of openness and accountability, and a big piece of that being open and accountable is that you listen to people. You are not only open and transparent after you rush through or jam down their throats what you want to do. We have already seen an example of closure brought in here in the appointment of Mr. Reynolds. We have had the hob-nailed boots approach once this week already. We have seen it once. Now, in the name of God, if we are going to take out the hob-nailed boots on something like Bill 9, simply because we haven't consulted with legitimate groups in the Province, we have a read problem. The world will not end tomorrow or next week or next month because we hold it up long enough to do due diligence and consultation on Bill 9. Sorry, Minister, the world will not end if you insist - and, by the way, the world will not be saved, and the communities will not be safer, simply because you rammed Bill 9 down people's throats today, or tomorrow, or Monday. It will not be.

The concerns - I just had a fax sent in to me here. These people are watching us on TV today, by the way. I just had a fax, after the minister spoke, and after the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair spoke, from the very lady I am talking about, Ms Ingram, who said: I watched that, and we are not satisfied.

They might be going to propose a couple of amendments to this. If they are going to propose a couple of amendments, they would like to have the opportunity to be consulted on the amendments. Either way, if you do not allow the proper consultation, we end up, at the end of the day, having done something because you simply used your parliamentary majority to ram it down people's throats, and they have not been consulted.

If it is true, as I have been told, it is not only these women's groups that have not been consulted. Of course, it is the Status of Women Councils who have a first-hand involvement with a lot of these cases that this bill is going to impact. Often, I can assure you, in places like rural Newfoundland where I live, when you have a crisis of this magnitude, where there are women involved, children impacted, it is often the Status of Women groups that get called upon. They offer these services in these rural communities. You might have all the networks and support systems you need here in the Northeast Avalon when you make a decision to use Bill 9, but we do not have all the resources in rural Newfoundland. Don't talk about courts, and running over to get a court order under number nine when we only have a circuit court that comes to town once a month. The first thing you have to do, if you are going to implement number nine, and you make the decision to do it, and the director is going to do something, you have to yank whoever it is off to Stephenville or Corner Brook to do it. There are practical considerations that need to be taken into consideration here.

Nobody is suggesting that government is on the wrong path. Nobody is suggesting that government should not do this. No one is suggesting that there is any malice on the part of government. All that is being suggested here is that you are being too heavy-handed in insisting that it be done without consultation.

What is wrong with taking, today, tomorrow - we are not going to walk out of here any time soon. The Premier said we will stay here, if we have to, another month to do the Green commission, so what is the urgency when these people are saying this?

I had this fax come in to our caucus room out here, outside the House of Assembly, within the last twenty minutes, saying: We have heard the debate, we have seen the minister, we have read the bill, we have had the consultation that they readily threw at us last week, and it is not good enough.

I say to the minister, we are at second reading here when we talk about the general principles of a bill. At the end of the day, with the proper consultation and the proper considerations, and everybody being allowed a proper, reasonable opportunity, we will probably vote in favour of this, but let's do it right.

We do not know, for example, but I understand there might be some amendments in the wind. I have not seen them at the floor of the House, but I understand there might be some consideration being given to amendments. If there are, surely the Opposition has to be given time to read them and comment on them and analyze them. Surely, as part of that analytical system, I would like an opportunity to go back to these same people who have these concerns and say: Okay, now government has given us a couple of amendments. Does this satisfy your concerns?

That is a pretty reasonable thing. I am not going to pretend that I am going to stand up here to speak for the Status of Women's groups around this Province who have concerns with Bill 9, without having had an opportunity to consult with them should amendments come forth.

It is 4:19 p.m. here, Thursday afternoon. I do not think we need to belabour the point to make the point any further that you need consultation. I guess we just have to leave it in the minister's hands, that you are either going to push this or you are not. We can get into a shoving match back and forth, and you can propose amendments, and we get into Committee and we are saying, no, we propose fifty amendments to this just to stymie it, but it is not about stymieing; it is about doing it right.

I say to the minister, I implore you, please be reasonable. Please take this off the floor of this House today until the proper consultation is done. If that can be done between now and Monday, do it. If it takes Tuesday, we do it. At least then we can all stand up here and say: Thank you very much, Minister, you are on the right track. You listened to the people. Their concerns are resolved. Let's move ahead and let's vote on this. I suggest, if you did that, we would end up with a legitimate unanimous debate.

We can get into a six-month hoist, and all of that kind of stuff. I just think this is not a case of using parliamentary trickery or parliamentary rules to try to prolong this. We can only, on behalf of these concerned groups, put ourselves at the good wishes and the good intentions of the minister and say: What is the point? Your reputation and your popularity is not going to soar through the roof in any popularity poll between now and October because you did the right thing on Bill 9, but I suggest the government's popularity is not going to be too good if you are seen as being dictatorial to the point where you don't listen to people. Let's be practical, I would suggest, and let's do what is right here.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: I remind the hon. member, if he speaks now he will close the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to what was said on the other side, and I will make some comments. We do have six amendments and certainly I will ask that the amendments be delivered to the Opposition House Leader and the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi as well. They can have a look at those amendments and so on.

I will say, that this piece of legislation - we are not just rushing this through in this particular session of the House. This was tabled last December and received first reading last December. Prior to it being tabled, the department did conduct some consultation in November and December of 2006.

I would agree with the Opposition House Leader and the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, that eight of the women's centres in the Province were overlooked, and that was quite unfortunate. When I had discovered that, a week and a half ago, I indicated to the officials in my department that prior to moving further with this particular piece of legislation I wanted those eight women's centres that are in the Province that were overlooked - and I have a great deal of respect for the opinions that come forward from the advisory council and the women's centres - I wanted the individuals, those eight centres, consulted with. I wanted them to see the legislation and I wanted to get feedback from them. I will say that based on the feedback that we have received from those eight centres, that is part of the reason the six amendments that we are now making today are on the floor.

In November and December, there was a discussion document that was used as a basis for the proposed legislation, and the Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women were consulted with in November of 2006. The department had received a written submission from them in December, and as well the status advisory council had participated in a conference call in early December, and discussed the legislation as well at a minister's advisory committee on violence against women in mid-December. In fact, the minister's advisory committee, in mid-December, met. There were a number of stakeholders. This particular item was one of the items on the agenda and it was discussed, and all of the stakeholders who were at that meeting were party to that discussion, and the minister's advisory council on violence against women in mid-December.

A consultation document was circulated to a number of organizations in the Province, including - and I will say a number of organizations, but included in those organizations were the coordinators for regional violence prevention committees, Women's Policy Office, the regional coordinator, as well as Victim Services, The Roads to End Violence, and Newfoundland Aboriginal Women's Network. As well, there was a conference call that was organized by the Women's Policy Office, but I think both the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair and the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi had talked about, and in that there were a number of organizations that were party to that conference call, including urban Aboriginal Women, Executive Director of the Native Friendship Centre, provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women, the Newfoundland Aboriginal Women's Network, Metis representatives. In addition to that, the following persons from regional violence prevention committees e-mailed their comments to the Department of Justice, including the coordinator for the Burin Peninsula Voice Against Violence, coordinator for the Coalition Against Violence, Avalon East, Labradorians for Peaceful Communities, Eastern Regional Coalition Against Violence, The Roads to End Violence, and the Grenfell Regional Anti-Violence team.

Now, was that enough? No, it was not enough because eight women's centres in the Province were overlooked, and I was very clear in the direction that I had given the department a week-and-a-half or two weeks ago that I was not going to proceed with this legislation until those eight women's centres had been contacted and this particular piece of legislation discussed with them. Having said that, the legislation was tabled in December of last year. It was discussed with stakeholders that - while they did not get a copy of the legislation in November or December during those consultations, it was discussed with them that the legislation would be the same as the legislation in Manitoba.

Based on the feedback that we had received in November and December of last year, we had made some changes to the legislation prior to it being tabled in December of last year and receiving first reading. As a result of the consultation with the eight women's centres in the Province last week, we had made six more amendments that are proposed amendments, which I intend to propose during the Committee stage of this particular piece of legislation.

Some of the comments that were made by the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair and the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi - and I have a great deal of respect for both of these individuals. The reason they made the comments that they have made today was because of their concern with the legislation, or concern that they have with different pieces of the legislation. I just want to discuss some of that.

I know the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair said: How will it affect people? Will people be evicted from their homes? The answer to that is no, because there is a graduated method in which interaction will be carried out with individuals or residents of residential properties. Part of that is to deal with these individuals face to face, have discussion with the individuals to talk about the activities and how the activities are having an adverse and negative effect on the communities or neighbourhoods in which they are, and try to curtail the activities. If that does not work there would be written requests to the individuals, again, as part of the graduated process in trying to deal with these activities. Only as a very last resort would the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods inspectors go to the courts to look for a safety order, or as a last resort, a closure order on a property.

There is a test for obtaining those safety orders and community orders, that is that the activity has to have an adverse and negative effect on the community, or the safety of a community. Therefore, a judge would have to consider that. We simply would not bring a case to a court or to a judge saying we want to close a property because we have received a complaint. Certainly, we would not bring something forward without an extensive investigation to ensure that the complaint was not unfounded. Only after there is an investigation, and only after it is determined that the investigation has merit, and only after a graduated process of confronting and dealing with the individual, and trying to explain to the individual, and receive co-operation from an individual to curtail an activity that is having an adverse effect on the safety of residents within a neighbourhood or community, would they proceed further. It has to be determined that the activity is habitual. So, it is not just a one-time party where maybe some people had smoked marijuana at a party and it was a one-time event. We are not going to close down a property because of something like that. It has to be an habitual activity that is having an adverse effect on a community, on a neighbourhood, creating a safety concern for a neighbourhood. Then, and only then, will they bring it to a court.

With the amendment that I am proposing in Committee, a judge would then have to determine that there is merit to this. Once a judge determines that there is merit to this, the judge would also have to consider whether or not alternative accommodations have been arranged for anybody within the residential property who are considered to be innocent occupants. So, in the case of a woman and her children who are affected because the woman's partner or spouse is manufacturing marijuana within the property, or other activities, the order would look at that individual and not necessarily even evict all individuals per property. What may happen is the court and the judge may decide to evict one individual from the property.

Should the judge deem the activity to be onerous enough on a community that there is certainly an adverse effect on the community, the safety of a community is compromised because of the residence as opposed to a particular individual, then a judge may order the closure of the residence itself as opposed to an eviction notice. If a judge were to go that far, we would ensure that innocent occupants of that residence were taken into consideration. The proposed amendment would ensure that a judge would have to ensure that there are alternate accommodations arranged for those individuals.

Where does the legislation come from? That was another question. The legislation comes from, originally, Manitoba and from Saskatchewan. In Manitoba - just to use a statistic from Manitoba. This legislation was proclaimed in Manitoba in 2002. In that time, they have received over 1,000 complaints. In fact, they have received 1,386 complaints. Of those complaints - keeping in mind now that our legislation was modelled on the legislation in Manitoba. After the consultations in November and December, we have improved our legislation over what Manitoba's was, to provide additional protections to people. As a result - and yes, the consultations last week were rushed, and I apologize, sincerely, to the women's centres for that, but I wanted to make sure that their voices were heard before going to second reading or Committee. I was the one who had asked for those consultations with the women's centres. Yes, they were rushed, and I sincerely apologize, but I felt that I was not prepared to go to second reading in the House after I had discovered that the Women's Centres had not had input into this legislation. I wanted to ensure that their voices were heard.

I had received a list of sixty questions from the Women's Centres, after consultation with them. After reviewing the sixty questions we made six amendments, six additional amendments. Those consultations, while they were rushed, and that is regrettable, they were meaningful consultations, because we had made six amendments as a result of those consultations.

To go back to Manitoba, they had received 1,386 complaints. That resulted in their officers, their investigators, dealing with 200 residences. Not every complaint is going to lead to a residence being dealt with. They have dealt with 200 residences, successfully dealt with 200 residences where, through the graduated process of dealing with individuals face to face, and trying to co-operate and compromise with individuals to curtail an activity, 200 residences were dealt with successfully where, to the view of inspectors, they have achieved results for the community, for the safety of a community; but, of the 200 residences, let me be clear, they were not 200 residences where there were closure orders, or safety orders, or eviction notices. In fact, to our knowledge, there were six of those. There were three shutdowns that occurred in Northern Manitoba where there was a closure order. There were two in Western Manitoba and one in Southern Manitoba. So, of 1,386 complaints, there were six closure orders.

I understand the concern that is being raised, and the concern that innocent people are going to be evicted, but, in all sincerity, I would not bring that type of legislation to the floor of the House. I would not bring legislation - because I know that my district represents a very large portion of the downtown area of St. John's. I take in Shea Heights, Blackhead and Fort Amherst. I know that some of the communities that we are dealing with, the very reason we are bringing this legislation in is so that communities such as communities in the downtown core of St. John's, which is the district that I represent, can feel safer because we will be able to get at some of the activities that are happening and try to deal with individuals.

We are not looking to evict people. I would never look to evict innocent people and, even in a case where somebody is absolutely involved and it is proven that the activity is habitual and it is proven that the activity is having an adverse effect on the community, we are not going after all of the residents. I would never, ever, advocate for something like that. We are looking at targeting the activity, not individuals, and if an individual fails to co-operate with the safer communities and neighbourhoods investigators - because, really, that is what this is intended to do; they are going out to co-operate and try to deal with the activity - if an individual fails to co-operate, they do that really at their own peril because we will go through a graduated approach in dealing with individuals.

If an individual fails to co-operate, then and only then, after extensive work by the investigators, would they seek a safety order or a closure order, and then and only then will a judge determine, first of all, whether that is necessary, whether the test has been met, and whether - if there is to be an eviction, then innocent occupants of the residence would not be evicted, only an individual, but if, for some reason, if there is something really unsafe and really onerous for a community that is happening, and for the safety of the community a judge would determine that we have to close the entire residence, invoke a closure order on a residence, he will only do so after consideration is given to whether innocent occupants of that residence have been provided alternate accommodations. So, we have gone that far.

There was the concern about frivolous or vexatious complaints being made. I mean, again in Manitoba there were well over 1,000 complaints that were made. This particular clause is put in for the protection of individuals so that - and, again, one of the concerns we heard from the Women's Centres and from the Status Advisory Council was a concern that innocent individuals would have complaints made against them. Some of the Women's Centres said: If somebody in a community does not like the colour of their skin, or their sexual orientation, or something else about an individual, they may try to have that individual removed from the neighbourhood, even though the individual is not involved in any targeted activities.

Well, for the protection of those individuals, we want to ensure that - there is a section in this for frivolous or vexatious complaints so that an individual whom a complaint has been made about, if they are innocent, that individual would not be affected. That individual would not be removed from their home. They would not be evicted. Again, only after an extensive investigation that proves that an activity is habitual, is causing a safety concern for the neighbourhood, would we take action. So, there is something in here to protect against frivolous and vexatious complaints as well.

Will this put people at risk? No, I do not believe it will. If I thought for a second it would, I would not be here speaking about this legislation today. My intentions here are sincere. In fact, what this is intended to do is protect people against risk. What it is intended to do - and I will go back to saying that, if there is a mother and children who are affected after an investigation proves that there is a habitual activity that is causing concern for a neighbourhood and we deal with that individual, we want to protect the innocent individuals. In addition to that, we want to protect neighbourhoods. We want to protect the safety of communities and neighbourhoods.

We had an incident last week where neighbours knew of a clandestine lab where they were growing marijuana - it was a drug lab - in a residential neighbourhood, in a basement apartment, a quiet residential neighbourhood. Some of the neighbours suspected something. They were not absolutely sure, but they suspected something was happening. Now, as a result of this particular grow op, the door was blown off the apartment of this particular residence because there was an explosion. That is what we are after.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. minister that his time for speaking has expired.

MR. T. OSBORNE: By leave, just to deal with some of the other issues?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the minister, by leave.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you.

I will do it very quickly. I will not abuse the time of the House, Mr. Speaker.

What we are after here is protecting communities and neighbourhoods. The door was blown off a residential apartment. What would happen if there was a child outside the door when the door blew off? What would happen if the individuals who were operating this particular apartment and the grow-op also had weapons because they were concerned that they were being investigated? What would happen, Mr. Speaker, if it were something worse, if it was a crystal meth lab, which is very explosive, which can have an adverse safety affect on a number of residents. If that lab actually exploded, it would cause great damage to a number of properties around it. Those are the things that we are trying to get at.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to abuse the time here in the House today. We do have amendments in place and I am hoping that the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi and the Opposition House Leader and the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair will have a look at these amendments. They are not onerous amendments, they are really amendments that were brought in as a result of the consultations. Again, I apologize to the women's centres because they were rushed consultations. The Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair and the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vide and the Member for Burgeo & LaPoile are absolutely correct, these consultations with the eight women's centres were rushed last week, and I am very sincerely apologetic for that, but I did not want to move forward without hearing their concerns.

They had meaningful input. It may have seemed rushed, and for that I apologize to them as well, but their input was meaningful. We did have a look at their input and we did make six amendments as a direct result of their input. There were other amendments that were made to the legislation before it was ever tabled in December of last year as a result of the consultations that had taken place in November and December.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I'll conclude my remarks and we will wait until we get to Committee Stage to discuss the amendments and to further discuss clause by clause of the bill if members should so wish.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 9 be now read a second time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: Carried.

CLERK (Ms Murphy): A bill, An Act Respecting Safer Communities And Neighbourhoods, Bill 9.

MR. SPEAKER: This bill has now been read a second time. When shall this bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House?

MR. RIDEOUT: On tomorrow, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, a bill, "An Act Respecting Safer Communities And Neighbourhoods, read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill 9)

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole to consider certain bills.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that I do now leave the Chair for the House to resolve itself into Committee of the Whole for the resolution of certain bills.

All those in favour, ‘Aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

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

CHAIR (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, I would like for the Committee to carry on with its consideration of Bill 21, An Act To Amend The Elections Act.

Your Honour will recall that - does Your Honour have to do anything, or do I carry on?

CHAIR: No, that is fine, I say to the hon. Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Your Honour will recall that we adjourned this debate in Committee a few parliamentary days ago. When we did, there was some debate back and forth as to suggestions, particularly as it related to the special ballot; how the special ballot could be accommodated so that people who live outside of St. John's, in the forty-eight districts around the Province, could have the same equal opportunity to avail of special ballot kits without the onerous burden of having to get a kit, make an application, have it sent into St. John's, have a ballot sent back, vote, send it back in again and all of that kind of thing, as was experienced in a previous election, I guess.

Special ballots, as we all know, are relatively new to the electoral process in Newfoundland and Labrador. We have only had the experience of one full general election, which was the last one. As a result of that experience, and as a result of the debate in the House, I do not mind saying, Mr. Chairman, I think we have made some progress in improving, I hope, the availability of special ballots to citizens in the Province. We have reached some understandings on that. We have had the Chief Electoral Officer reflect, in writing, to me and to the Opposition House Leader and to the Leader of the third Party, our understandings as to how the special ballot system will operate.

Basically, Mr. Chairman, not to prolong the issue, but to put it in perspective is this: Special ballots will be available in every district in Newfoundland and Labrador four weeks before the general election, four weeks before the writ is dropped. Assuming now that we have a fixed election - and a fixed election, of course, is the ninth of October. Assuming there is a writ around September 18, then around August 18 special ballots will be available through the electoral office to the returning offices in the district and to the DROs, the Deputy Returning Officers, or in other places.

In certain rural districts where the advanced polls are actually run by poll clerks, there is provision in the act for the Chief Electoral Officer to designate special ballot administrators, and those special ballot administrators can be the DRO, or can be a poll clerk, so that you will have an election official in every district in Newfoundland and Labrador who will have those special ballot kits. Those special ballot kits will be available, as I said, on the dates that I have referred to, four weeks before the writ is issued. Those election officials, either returning officers or deputy returning officers or poll clerks, will have those special ballot kits available in their offices, if the offices are set up. The offices could very well be their homes, because many of those people in the smaller rural communities are operating out of their homes until you get office space for them to work on leading up to election day. That is the intent.

The other piece that we looked at here, Mr. Chairman, was having those special ballots counted - no, before I go there let me say this, as well. People who go in and get a special ballot application, once they fill out the special ballot application, they have a choice. They can vote and deposit the special ballot with the returning officer or the designated person in the district where they voted, or they can put the special ballot into a postage-paid envelope and drop it in the mail and it will come back in here to St. John's. The choice is up to the voter. The choice is up to the elector. They can vote and pass it right in there, into the deputy returning officer in the district or the poll clerk if it is a place where there is an advanced poll and no DRO. They can do that, or they can opt to mail it back into St. John's.

Now there is a restriction on the mail-in and a time restriction on getting the mail-ins in from the forty-seven other - I suppose it is forty-eight, because it is all forty-eight - or forty-eight other districts, there has to be some time constraints because of deliveries. The ballots have to be in and opened. The envelope that they go in have to be in and opened and counted. The ballots themselves, of course, are not counted right at that point in time but they have to be - the preparatory work to count the ballots has to be done prior to the election day itself because in the last election - and the people who drafted this act got some advice from the former, former Chief Electoral Officer on this, Mr. Green, and there were a tremendous number of people who voted by special ballot. If you get that then you - first of all, you have to have time to get the ballots in here. Secondly, you have to make appropriate arrangements for a time to have them counted so that you are not unduly holding up returns on election night. That, of course, leads me to the second matter.

We had considered perhaps having those special ballots that were deposited in the districts, in the forty-eight districts held and opened and counted in the districts. Well, there are two problems with that - potential problems, according to Mr. Green who, again, gave advice on this. One is the issue of, if you have a huge number of those ballots and you hold them until election night, again, you could have the problem of significant delays in getting the ballots open and counted. The second one, of course, is security. Some of those returning officers in the rural areas are in people's homes until you get closer to the election when office space becomes available and so on, but if you get it all in here, at least there is one central location and security does not become the issue in terms of holding the ballots themselves. I think we have gone a long way through consensus in arriving at accommodations here, arriving at some understandings.

I want to conclude by saying this, Mr. Chairman, that we learned a lot of lessons - I think the parties themselves learned a lot of lessons - from this special ballot procedure the first time it was used, which was the last time around. One of the lessons we learned is that we wanted to get this process out of the hands of political parties, and out of the hands of politicians, because it was too easy to make the allegations that there was something happening that should not be happening. The amendment does that. It gets the process out of the hands of political parties and into the hands of those people who are appointed to run our elections.

The second thing I think it does, Mr. Chairman, it shows we have to be open and learn by experience. The general election coming up in October 2007 will be the second election in which we have had those creatures called special ballots. We may very well learn again that, despite our best efforts to make this work well, to tighten it up and to put security arrangements in place, despite those best efforts, we may still have some amendments that are required before we head into the 2011 election. If we do, then obviously whoever the government is, I cannot commit any future government, but I would expect that whoever the government is, whichever Administration it might be, whoever the leader is, would be open to making sure that whatever amendments are necessary as a result of the experience in October 2007 would be put in place in time so there are changes for the following general election after that; and, of course, then there is always the possibility of by-elections.

Like I said, I think we have made significant progress. I believe, through consensus, we have reached further than the amendments themselves intended, but I think it is good progress that we have been able to build our understandings into some written undertakings by the Chief Electoral Officer so that all of us - because we are all part of this process, those who are not running, certainly those of us who are running again, or hope to run again - we are all part of this process and we want it open, we want it fair, we want it accessible, and we want it done in an open and unbiased manner.

With that brief explanation, Mr. Chairman, I will sit down and we will see if there are any remarks from the other side.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would concur with the remarks made by the Government House Leader. I found it a very helpful and productive process, actually. We started Bill 21 back, I believe it was Monday, in great detail, and Tuesday. It took a lot of negotiation. I am pleased to say that I think that is how this House works best, when people have concerns, when you can lay your concerns out on the floor, you justify why you are concerned, and explain it to people, and if there is a way to resolve it, we work to resolve it rather than ram it through. That, to me, is the ultimate in democracy and parliamentary procedure.

The bottom line is, no matter what political party you might belong to, if you are going to get involved in the electoral process in this Province, we all have to apply and live by the same rules. That is the bottom line. So, the thing about the discussions that have taken place and the negotiations that have taken place in the last week or so is that, that is exactly what that has been driven towards. Let's, all of us, understand what the game is - for example, in this case, an election - and what the rules are going to be, so everybody is on the same wavelength.

We got a letter - I say to Mr. Reynolds, the newly appointed Chief Electoral Officer, I was very impressed, actually, that the gentleman has taken the time to see and to listen to the discussions that have taken place here in the House between the Government House Leader and myself, principally, and taken those comments that we have made into consideration and given us written correspondence and undertakings as to how he, as Chief Electoral Officer, intends to act when it comes to these special ballot procedures.

We do not need anybody in this Province involved as a candidate or as a voter in the election of 2007 to come, on September 10, for example, and say: What are the rules? That is not what I understood to be the rules. Why is that crowd getting a different set of rules than we got? If there is anything we can define the rules on, we ought to do it.

I say to the Chief Electoral Official, as well, and to the Government House Leader, that if there are any other issues that crop up between now and election time that can be amicably and properly resolved, the same process should be undertaken, albeit the House of Assembly might not be open.

I just throw out a couple of these now for the Government House Leader. They might not fit strictly under Bill 21, but a couple of little issues that were brought to my attention as well. For example, the enumeration list. The enumerator comes to your home, he takes your name, your street address, your occupation, your phone number, and he puts it all in a big list. That is going to come out to everybody who is going to be running as a candidate; or, if you are a registered political party in this Province you are going to be allowed to get that voters list when it is done, the new enumeration. That is transferred and it becomes the voters list, we call it, whenever that is done, and I understand the new one is supposed to be ready and completed and ready for circulation by August 1, I do believe, is the timeline.

The problem in the past was, one of the problems, all of that information that the enumerators took from you, as Mr. Citizen and Mrs. Citizen, when they give you the voters list, they give you it all except for the phone number. The phone number is not on the voters list. The person's name is there, the person's street address is there, it is all there, so it is not a privacy issue. What is the difference between whether -

AN HON. MEMBER: It is in the public phone book.

MR. PARSONS: It is the public phone book anyway, what your phone number is.

Yet, for the sake of convenience, the first thing that happens in a lot of elections - if you are a candidate for example in this Province, the first thing you do is bring in your campaign workers, you take your voters' list, you break it up into all your polling booths, and you say: Okay, ladies and gentlemen, let's put the phone numbers to the names.

Now, in this day and age all of that information is public information anyway, and by the press of a button, when the Chief Electoral Officer does up his voters' list now in August, all he needs to do is have that column there with the phone numbers. By the way, folks, it is the most recent phone number. You don't have to worry, is John living on another street or living wherever, the phone number has been changed or whatever, it is the latest phone number that voter would have given to the enumerators, which happened, I believe, two weeks ago.

What is the problem with having that information put in the voters' list? All it does is anybody who wants a copy of that voters' list just has that extra piece of information, the phone number. You have broken no privacy rules, because it is public knowledge anyway in the phone book. You gave it to the enumerator when he came to your door anyway. It saves everybody a lot of work. You don't have to go check on all the phone numbers. It is not a case of unfair, it is fair to everybody who should ask for a copy of the list.

That is another practical consideration. Albeit Bill 21 we are dealing with here today doesn't specifically take into consideration that as people involved in the political process, the Chief Electoral Officer, as an administrative piece, can easily do. We are dealing with here - there have been many references here about section 86.9 which talks about the administrative procedures. That is just another one I put out, that I think ought to be done in the forthcoming election. It is fair, it is practical, it is simple to do. All you need do is add another column on your voters' list and that information is there.

The other question I asked to the Government House Leader and to the CEO, a very practical consideration again. We have agreed, and the CEO has reflected this in the letter that he gave us as of today, that when the special ballots are done, for example, in the District of Terra Nova, just to use that as an example, the different parties involved and the different candidates involved have got all their special ballots done up. We have agree now that instead of trying to count them all in the district which is kind of cumbersome or whatever, they are all going to be sent back to the cental office, the CEO's office, in St. John's because he has the resources to get it done in a timely fashion to have it included in the count on election night. No problem? I can understand it. Maybe in the future we might be able to get it done in the districts, but you have to learn to walk before you can run. We are learning to walk now.

The question is, the Member for Terra Nova, who is going to be a candidate for the PC Party, for example, he has had his campaign staff out from August 18 to whenever, trying to get these people into special ballots who cannot be available on an advanced day and on polling day. Nowhere have we said that he is entitled to have a list of who they are. You, for example, might have called 100 people to go in and do the special ballots and say: I understand, Jim, that you are not going to be around, and Jane. They say: Well, how do I vote? You say: Oh, you can go down to the DRO's office and cast your vote on special ballot it is called. Give him a hand, give him a ride if you want to. There is nothing wrong with it. If they want a ride, you can take them down and give them a ride. So, they go down and vote.

My question is, can you then, on a daily basis or a weekly basis, call up that DRO and say: Excuse me, I wonder if you can tell me who has voted on special ballot so far? You can do it in an advanced poll. You can have a scrutineer sitting in on advanced poll and do it. Otherwise, if you have had 200 people go in and do that in a DRO's office on special ballots, and yet you have no way to confirm they voted, everybody is going to be running around again on polling day not knowing whether Jane or John voted. I am just wondering if that is possible to do that, or if there is no way to implement that? I throw that out to the CEO to consider as an administrative process again. Is there any way, or any system that could be implemented to do that?

Again, fairness is not the issue because when you call up for the list you get the full list for everybody. You do not know who they voted for. All you are calling for is: Can you give me a list of people who voted so I can cross them off the voters list? They are not going to be here on October 9. If he gives you a list and there are forty-seven people that he says voted special ballots, you take them and cross them off the voters list. You do not know if they voted PC, Liberal, NDP or what, but you do know they voted. So, therefore, they are out of the voters list come October 9. You can do that in an advanced poll. You can call up after an advanced poll and say give me the names of the people who voted. You get a complete list. You can take that and cross them all off the voters list. What is the problem with doing it in the case of special ballots on a weekly basis or whatever? So, I throw that out, again, as a possibility.

There is some confusion - some people have asked, too, about the time lag. Somebody said, where did September 18 come from? The reason September 18, of course, is being bandied about in the last couple of weeks is we know the fixed date of the election is October 9. We know, by law, that the minimum number of days for an election is twenty-one. So you back up from the ninth and that puts you up to around the eighteenth of September.

There is also another law that says you have to call the election within thirty days of the fixed date. So, you really have a window between September 18 and you back up nine more days to September 9. Somebody said: Well, if you have a fixed election date, why wouldn't you fix your calling date? Because the way it is right now, the Premier can call the election on September 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 or 18. He has a window of eleven days, shall we say. Again, I believe that is an anomaly that is in the system. The laws about when you call it, the maximums and the minimums, just have not been worked out yet in our Elections Act.

We have rules when it comes to special ballots but all of it has not been caught up and married together. Because down the road we are going to be back here, no doubt, sometime in four years out, in the next four years, and somebody is going to say, that does not make sense anymore. Okay, so the Premier gets nine days advance now and he can drop it whenever he like or whatever. But, I mean for all practical purposes, the party who is not ready for an election on September 9 is not going to be ready for it on September 18. That eleven days is not here nor there. It is just not practical. Anybody who is in election mode in this Province has been in election mode for at least two years if they are interested in running, if they are prepared at all. So, that is just an anomaly, but that window does exist right now and will exist for this election. There is no way to change that right now without going through a whole new complicated process of getting rid of the maximums and the minimums. So, everybody just still has to live with that.

I would say, Mr. Chairman, as well, that I think it is unheard of that we dealt here, this past week, with a piece of legislation that involved all the parties in the House saying this is what we were going to try to do, but the person who had the ultimate authority and the administrative responsibility was never mentioned in Bill 21. There was no mention in Bill 21 about section 86.9. While 86.9 was there, that left all of these administrative procedures in the hands of the CEO. Notwithstanding that was not in Bill 21, the CEO, I am pleased and proud to say actually, came to the table and said: Okay, if these are the questions that are being asked, let's iron them out now. I will tell you now up-front and in writing what the rules are going to be, what the administrative procedures are going to be that I am prepared, as the CEO, to live by, come October 9. I applaud him for that. I think that is a very good move. Notwithstanding everything we have heard about the current CEO in the last two or three weeks in this Province, if that is an indication of how he is going to act in the future and conduct himself, open, transparent with everybody, that is a good sign. That is a good, first sign that I have seen here in this past week and how he has dealt with this issue under section 21 and administrative procedures.

Mr. Chairman, given that explanation, and in particular, given that letter, we will certainly be voting in favour of the amendments to The Elections Act that have been put forward in Bill 21.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant Governor and House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened as follows.

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry to Bill 21?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The enacting clause is carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The title is carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report Bill 21, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991, carried without an amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, I think there are already amendments to that bill, so it would be with amendment.

CHAIR: Yes, you are right. Clause 2 was amended.

Shall I report Bill 21, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991, carried with an amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Bill 21, as amended, is carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill with amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, Committee consideration of Order 6, Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act.

CHAIR: The Committee is ready to hear debate on Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act." (Bill 23)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Clause 1.

Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 1 is carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 4.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 4, inclusive, carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

MR. RIDEOUT: (Inaudible) I believe the Leader of the Opposition (inaudible).

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. REID: I just want to ask one question of the minister on the booster seat. I understand now that if you are under the age of eight, or eight and under, you have to use a booster seat. Can you tell me how they arrived at that age rather than the weight like it used to be?

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. REID: The reason I am asking that, minister, is because, obviously, there are some very small eight-year-olds but there are some very large eight-year-olds. I am just wondering, because some people consider kids who are eight-years-old, some of them are as big as adults. I am just wondering if you arrived -

AN HON. MEMBER: Eight and a certain weight (inaudible).

MR. REID: Okay, it is eight and a certain weight, but if you are over that weight does it mean that you do not have to...? Still, if you are eight years old, regardless of your weight, you still have to use the booster seat, is that correct?

I am just wondering how you arrived at the eight years old. I am still asking the question: Why the age of eight? Was there a study done on it?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: I was just wondering if -

CHAIR: Order, please!

For the benefit of everybody, maybe I would recognize the hon. the Minister of Government Services.

MS WHALEN: I thank my hon. colleague for the question, but I will have to get the rationale of why we used eight for you and get back to you.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 4 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clauses 2 to 4 are carried.

On motion, clauses 2 through 4 carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor and House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened, as follows:

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The enacting clause is carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The title is carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act, carried without amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Bill 23 is carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

CHAIR: The motion is that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

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

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South and Deputy Speaker.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report Bill 23 carried without amendment and Bill 21 carried with amendment, and ask leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chairperson of the Committee of the Whole reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act, carried without amendment.

When shall this report be received?

MR. RIDEOUT: Now, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

When shall this bill be read a third time?

MR. RIDEOUT: Presently, by leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Presently, with leave.

On motion, report received and adopted, bill ordered read a third time presently, by leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chairperson of the Committee of the Whole reports that the Committee have considered matters to them referred and have directed him to report Bill 21, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991, passed with some amendment.

When shall this report be received?

MR. RIDEOUT: Now, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, report received and adopted.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said amendments be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that the said amendments be now read a first time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: First reading of amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said amendments be now read a second time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that the amendments be now read a second time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: Second reading of amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall Bill 21, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991, be read a third time?

MR. RIDEOUT: Now, by leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, amendments read a first and second time, bill ordered read a third time presently, by leave.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, with leave, I would like to move third reading of Bill 21.

AN HON. MEMBER: Leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave is acknowledged.

It is moved and seconded that Bill 21, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991, be now read a third time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that Bill 21 be now read a third time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991. (Bill 21)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 21, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991, has now been read a third time and it is ordered that the bill do pass and its title be as on the Order Paper.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991," read a third time, ordered passed and its title be as on the Order Paper. (Bill 21)

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

By leave, I move third reading of Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act.

AN HON. MEMBER: Leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave is acknowledged.

It is moved and seconded that Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act, be now read a third time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that Bill 23 be now read a third time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act. (Bill 23)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 23, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act, has now been read a third time and it is ordered that the bill do pass and its title be as on the Order Paper.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act," read a third time, ordered passed and its title be as on the Order Paper. (Bill 23)

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We had agreement, I believe, to begin debate on Bill 1, the FPI Act, but I think by consensus we are going to agree that we will begin that debate on Monday.

Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment motion, I would like to wish my colleagues in the Official Opposition a pleasant trip to Gander and I hope they have an enjoyable weekend. We will see them all back here on Monday.

Anybody who has nothing to do on the weekend, I commend the Green Report to them for bedtime reading.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I move that the House on its rising do adjourn until tomorrow, Monday, June 11, at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do now adjourn until Monday at 1:30 p.m.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

This House now stands adjourned until Monday at 1:30 p.m.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until Monday, June 11, at 1:30 p.m.