The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order please!

Admit strangers.

Today, the Chair would like to welcome fifty-eight Grade 8 students from the John Burke High School in the District of Grand Bank.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The students are accompanied today by their teachers: Ms Susan Tobin-Bursey, Mr. Herb Stuckey, Mr. Glenn Rogers, as well as their bus driver, Mr. Murdock Hiscock.

I might add, Ms Susan Tobin-Bursey is the daughter of a long-time member of the House of Assembly.

The Chair would also like to welcome fourteen students from the Keyin College of St. John's Campus. The students are accompanied by their instructor, Ms Paulette Sampson.

I would like to welcome both groups to the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The following members' statements will be heard: the hon. the Member for the District of the Bay of Islands; the hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave; the hon. the Member for the District of Topsail; the hon. the Member for the District of Bellevue.

The hon. the Member for the District of the Bay of Islands.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LODER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this great House today to recognize the late Mark Baldwin. This nineteen-year-old man was fatally injured on May 14, 2002 in a single car accident in Fort McMurray.

Mr. Speaker, family and friends were devastated over the loss of this young man.

To keep Mark's memories alive, Mr. Speaker, family and friends each year plan the Mark Baldwin Memorial Hockey Tournament in Cox's Cove in the first week of February. Family and friends all over Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Alberta come home to Cox's Cove to play in the tournament and reminisce the good memories with Mark's family.

The three-day tournament is spearheaded by Mark's cousin, Tommy Buffett and his wife Natasha.

Mr. Speaker, the net funds raised through the tournament goes towards the Mark Baldwin Scholarship fund at Templeton Academy in the amount of $500. The scholarship is awarded to a student who is most dedicated and spirited.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of Mark's mom, Kay, I would like to thank Tommy, Natasha, and all of his family and friends who participated in the memorial to Mark.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to pay tribute to Ms Margaret Bradbury of Coley's Point. Ms Bradbury recently was awarded the Newfoundland Seniors Resource Centre's Dorothy Whittick Memorial Award.

The award is presented to an exceptional volunteer who has set high standards for volunteerism and who shows overall dedication to the Seniors Resource Centre of Newfoundland.

Ms Bradbury is the secretary of the 50 plus club in Bay Roberts, President of the Bay Roberts Lions Club and an active community peer advocate.

She has also assisted with the Atlantic Seniors Housing project, Seniors Information Line, RCMP Seniors Advisory Committee and the Community Inclusion Project.

In accepting this award, Ms Bradbury said: "I like to be there to help people out, I've been like that my whole live."

I ask all hon. members to join me in congratulating Ms Margaret Bradbury on receiving the Dorothy Whittick Memorial Award. Truly an exceptional volunteer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS E. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, on February 21 of this year, I had the pleasure of attending the 38th Charter Night of the Conception Bay South Lions Club, when a very special woman, Betty Tizzard, was named Citizen of the Year for 2008.

Betty gives her time and talents to enrich the lives of people in the CBS area. On Mondays, you will find Betty making lunch and cleaning house for a woman in a wheelchair, attending a quilting guild, making quilts for Daffodil Place, blankets for the Janeway, and covers for walkers used by nursing home residents.

On Tuesday, Mr. Speaker, she transports a group of volunteers from CBS to St. John's and, along with herself, helps to prepare and serve lunch to seventy-five to eighty people at the Salvation Army soup kitchen. She also helps a children's group at the Salvation Army in Conception Bay South.

Wednesdays bring another commitment, a group called New Creations, which make hats, sweater sets and blankets for the Janeway and cancer patients at the Health Sciences Centre.

On Thursday and Fridays, Mr. Speaker, Betty and her friends get together to hem clothes and make curtains and other items for many organizations. Practically every child she knows is the proud owner of one of her Quillos – a blanket-pillow combination. This is also her time for visiting senior citizens in their homes.

Saturday and Sunday is set aside for her prayer group to pray for anybody requiring special prayers, and yes, Mr. Speaker, this includes government.

In addition to her weekly activities, Betty also finds time to collect for the Red Cross, the Christmas Red Kettle Campaign, St. George's school breakfast program and many others.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join me today in congratulating Ms Betty Tizzard on being selected Citizen of the Year for 2008 for the Town of Conception Bay South.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PEACH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise here in this great House today to talk about the Seaside Fire Department.

Seaside is celebrating its thirtieth year of operation this year.

Seaside Fire Department is made up of a regional department that represents and provides services to the communities of Blaketown, South Dildo, Old Shop, Spread Eagle, Broad Cove, Dildo and New Harbour.

Seaside Fire Department currently has thirty-three members, very active members on roll call.

On March 28 of this year, I had the opportunity to attend the thirtieth anniversary of the Seaside Fire Department, along with the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, and the Minister Responsible for Volunteer and Non-Profit Sector.

We had the pleasure of presenting the following firemen with long-term service awards: thirty year service: Donald Bishop, Alonzo Reid, Ronald Smith, Melvin Newhook and Rex Hollett. Twenty-five years of service: Baxter Smith; fifteen years of service: Ricky Smith, Gregory Brazil and Edward Brazil.

I would like to commemorate these fine firefighters on all their heroic acts of bravery, for their dedication and commitment of volunteer services to the communities they save.

I ask my colleagues to join with me in congratulations and thanks to the Seaside Fire Department for thirty years of service.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House to share with members and the public at large, what can only be described as a historic day for the Province and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

You have heard our government say on many occasions that we are striving to take control of our own destiny, we have put action plans in place and we have exercised wise and strategic financial management to position us for future economic growth.

We have taken equity stakes in our offshore projects; we have invested in strategic areas of growth; and we have risen above the detrimental actions of the federal government and stood strong in the face of adversity.

We have also made it very clear, that we will control the development of one of our most valuable renewable energy resources, the Lower Churchill project.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, our government's Energy Plan set in place a plan to develop this resource with a view to 2041 when we finally take full control of the Upper Churchill project.

In the meantime, we have been working to secure maximum benefits strategically and financially from our recall power from the Upper Churchill project.

Since 1998, we have had a power purchase agreement with Hydro Quebec for a block of recall power from the Upper Churchill. This renewal expired on March 31, 2009.

Essentially, this agreement gives Hydro the right to recall 300 megawatts at the same price as Hydro Quebec's current pricing under the 1969 Churchill Falls power contract.

Nalcor Energy in conjunction with government, decided not to renew this agreement.

Instead yesterday, on April 1, we as a Province for the first time in our history sold hydro electric power from the mighty Upper Churchill River in Labrador directly through Quebec and this hydro electric power was then sold into markets in the United States.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, simply put, we as a Province began wheeling our power through Quebec unfettered to North American markets for the first time in history. This is precisely the obstacle that was not overcome in the original Upper Churchill agreement, resulting in that unfair and lopsided deal.

Today, we have overcome that obstacle. We have proven that no challenge is too big or too daunting for our people to take on. In fact, this new arrangement means that we can now sell our own power, which may access the United States and Canadian markets.

At the present time, we are working with Emera Energy to have our power get to these markets. We have concluded a sale agreement with them so that with their considerable expertise in the industry our power will be sold into those markets. Our goal is to eventually develop that expertise at Nalcor Energy so that we can act as a seller into the final marketplace.

A maximum of 250 megawatts of power can be transmitted in the summertime through lines out of Labrador through Quebec and into the northeastern United States and can potentially go to other Canadian provinces.

I want to also assure the people of Labrador that the priority of Nalcor and this government is to ensure that local and domestic needs for power are met with recall power. As with past recall arrangements, only energy which is surplus to the Province's own needs would be exported outside of the Province.

We understand from Emera that power from Labrador today is being sold directly into the United States; destination - New York. Newfoundland and Labrador is now taking a bite out of the Big Apple, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Nalcor secured this transmission access through Quebec to the Canada-United States border under Hydro-Quebec's Open Access Transmission Tariff. This represents a tremendous accomplishment and bodes extremely well for the Lower Churchill development as we move forward. It also opens doors in terms of our future ability to sell wind power and other potential energy into a hungry North American marketplace.

Mr. Speaker, this is truly a historic and momentous occasion for the people of our Province, as never before have we been granted access to the Province of Quebec with our own power. This power sales arrangement puts us squarely in the game as a hydroelectricity producer and seller, with our clean, hydroelectric generation being sold from Newfoundland and Labrador and finding its way into the North American marketplace. Just as we have taken equity stakes in our offshore resources, we see tremendous potential for long-term value in entering this business arrangement and will continue to assess future potential.

This is about our Province finally acting in a strategic manner and going through proper processes to wheel our power through our neighbouring Province of Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about today is our future and the future of generations who will follow us. Today's announcement is one more step on that road. Our view is long-term and we will not be swayed by short-term thinking.

I ask all hon. members to join with me in celebrating what is truly an outstanding and significant day in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Obviously what we have here today is another tweaking of a Liberal government initiative by the members opposite, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS JONES: They are getting pretty good, Mr. Speaker. They are getting pretty good at tweaking other government deals, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I was saying, they are getting pretty good at tweaking former government deals and initiatives in the Province. They are not so good at getting their own deals in order, though, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, because it was a Liberal Administration, as the Premier well knows - a Liberal Administration - that secured the recall rights for power on the Upper Churchill in 2001.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

It is obvious this last two days that all members are highly charged here in the House of Assembly, but I would ask member for their cooperation and allow the members who are identified by the Chair to have their time for speaking.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am not in any hurry. I can get on with it whenever they are ready.

Mr. Speaker, it was a Liberal Administration, actually, that secured the recall rights on this power in 1998 and signed the first deal in 2001.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier, today, talks about our first opportunity to sell this power directly into the US market. Well, why did you do it in 2004? When you renewed the deal in 2004 for five years, with Quebec, you had the same option to do then what you have to do today. You had the same option then when it comes to wielding power through Quebec.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask members for their cooperation.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is no doubt this government can spin almost anything in the world. They are the greatest spin doctors I have ever seen, and they can do it without giving you one ounce of information. For example, Mr. Speaker, we look at this great agreement they tweaked today, as they say, and they are telling us how beneficial it is going to be for the Province, yet we don't know what one dime of profit is that is going to be earned by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. We don't know how much money is going to come to the people of the Province over and above what they got in the last five years under the current arrangement.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude her response.

MR. SPEAKER: Mr. Speaker, there are absolutely no details attached to what the government is giving us today. We don't know if it is financially prudent or not, but it is the way they spin the information, the way they put the story out there (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Further Statements by Ministers.

The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don't know if it is appropriate to respond to the minister's statement, but I don't think she could say that with a straight face, Mr. Speaker.

I think, Mr. Speaker, you talked about being highly charged yesterday. I think we are really highly charged today and it is all about electricity, definitely about the electricity.

Mr. Speaker, on the heels of that, I have this ministerial announcement.

I rise in this hon. House today to acknowledge and announce that it is government's intention to make all regional games held in the Province smoke-free.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: The regional games provide an opportunity for our Province's youth to come together within their respective regions and participate in multi-sports events over a three to five day period, in a fun, structured and non-competitive environment. By participating in this program, the Province's youth will discover their own abilities while increasing their self-esteem and improving their physical health.

In keeping with the goals and objectives of our Provincial Recreation and Sports Strategy; Active, Healthy Newfoundland and Labrador and Achieving Health and Wellness; the Provincial Wellness Plan for Newfoundland and Labrador, this government is encouraging all communities across the Province to establish and incorporate smoke-free outdoor recreation and sport area policies.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, the Recreation and Sports Division of the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, is in the final stages of developing a how-to manual for communities interested in hosting a regional games event. The manual is scheduled to be released on May 21, 2009 at the Recreation Newfoundland and Labrador's Annual General Meeting. Copies will be distributed to the recreation committee and all municipalities.

And I am pleased to say, within those guidelines, there will be a stipulation noting that all outdoor recreation facilities and areas must be smoke-free.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, I would like to note that this government will also apply this same policy in those communities who are selected to host the Newfoundland and Labrador Winter and Summer Games.

It may not be widely known that the Alliance for the Control of Tobacco and Recreation Newfoundland and Labrador, in partnership with the provincial government, have supported over thirty municipalities in the Province in the development and implementation of 100 per cent smoke-free policies for their outdoor recreation and sports facilities. Moreover, three provincial sports organizations in the Province have declared their sports smoke-free, those being soccer, softball and volleyball.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I invite all members of this House, and all citizens of this Province, to fully support all future regional games hosted in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that they be smoke-free.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for providing us with an advanced copy of his statement today.

We, in the Opposition, are certainly in favour of this initiative. Again, talking about Liberal initiatives, it was back in the Grimes Administration and Tobin Administrations that, due to a lot of good advice and persistence actually, from the Alliance for the Control of Tobacco, the Province first embarked on restricting where one could and could not smoke. It started, of course, with the nightclubs and the bars. There was a lot of furore back then about whether it was going to bankrupt a lot of businesses and so on but I think it has proven over time that most people still enjoy those facilities and bars and have their activities and it has not impacted the financial end of things at all.

Then of course this government, I do believe, took it a bit further, extended it to patio decks and so on and now it is becoming a point very recently, most people now understand that even outdoors sometimes it is not appropriate to be smoking. We have also, through this government, extended where we can smoke in terms of distances. The buildings, for example, you cannot be not only not in the building, but there were further requirements that you move away from the buildings. We have had it now in our hospitals for example. It is very, very firm that you cannot smoke in or near a hospital or anywhere upon hospital facilities. So that is good to see, and this is an extension of that very good policy. Obviously, when you are around recreation, particularly with the youth and the children of our Province, anything that you can do to restrict this deadly, deadly activity, actually, we would certainly commend you for doing so.

Thank you.

MR. BUTLER: Good job.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before this hon. House to report on a provincial government led delegation of food and beverage companies that recently returned from the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association show in Toronto. The delegation marks the second time that Newfoundland and Labrador-based companies participated in the event that links food producers with buyers, agents, distributors, and restaurant owners.

The three-day show included 675 exhibitors from across Canada and the United States. During the show, exhibitors sampled products, participated in seminars on increasing business activity, and watched some of Canada's top chefs in action.

I am extremely pleased to report that members of the delegation took important steps in growing their export activity.

St. Anthony-based Canada Ice Enterprises viewed the event as providing a tremendous opportunity to market and showcase its product called, 80 Degrees North Iceberg Water. The show also attracted several thousand potential buyers and end-users to its booth, leading the company to establish new contacts, contacts that have already led to tangible results.

In addition to the trade show, companies also attended a networking reception co-ordinated through the Ambassador Newfoundland and Labrador program and sponsored by Memorial University's Office of Alumni Affairs and Development. This reception attracted 150 participants, including Memorial University alumni and those with a strong affinity to the Province. The event provided an opportunity for the delegation to market their products and network with a captivated audience.

Brent Smith of Newfoundland Chocolate Company found the Ambassador event to be a valuable opportunity to introduce his company's gourmet chocolates to a group with a strong connection to Newfoundland and Labrador. The company departed Toronto confident that it will derive benefit and business growth from its participation in the mission.

Other exhibiting companies included Pure Labrador from Forteau, along with Dockside Appetizers, Kory Kookies, and Jumping Bean Coffee from St. John's. Members of the delegation that walked the show included India Gate and IC Spa Products.

Mr. Speaker, interest in Newfoundland and Labrador-manufactured products and services continues go grow in markets across Canada and right around the world.

It takes time and persistence for local enterprises to nurture the necessary relationships to build their export capacity. I am pleased that local enterprises are benefiting from trade missions and taking a proactive approach to targeting new sales opportunities.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for providing an advance copy of his statement.

Trade shows, regardless if they be to Toronto or anywhere else in North America, of course, are indeed beneficial to people in this Province who have businesses and who want to grow those business; and also trade shows within the Province, of course. We have all kinds within, whether it is crafts or manufacturing. We have many activities by the Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce throughout the Province, and that grows these businesses as well. Even in some cases, once they have grown provincially, it takes them to that next level to go national, and that is what we have seen in some of the cases here with these people.

Being Minister of Industry back in 2002-2003, I had occasion to take part in several of these and meet a lot of the entrepreneurs who today have very thriving businesses because of the contacts that they made back at that time. Their businesses have grown by leaps and bounds since they made those contacts. Because business is, to a large extent, contacts: who you know, where they live, and how can you mutually benefit each other so that you can grow your business? It is not only through ITRD. We have other relationships, for example, even the Irish partnership, which is not only a cultural type thing but also an economic thing.

I would encourage the minister, in fact, because we face some downtimes now, such as the economy, for example, I am a firm believer that, like they say, if your business is not doing well you might need to advertise more and buy more advertising. I think the same thing would apply to trade shows. Just because we are facing a global downturn in the economy, I would encourage the minister to keep up these trade shows and activities, because we need to keep your foot at the door, trying to get through those doors where we can sell our products. We certainly are supportive of the initiative. It has been going on for years.

I believe Premier Tobin –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude his remarks.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

I believe it was Premier Tobin who ramped up this trade show piece to a new level, and it is good to see that it has been maintained at that high level and there has been no reduction in that.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

Oral Questions.

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Abitibi's potential topple into bankruptcy will provide no protection, or very little, under the Wage Earner Protection Program, I think the minister said yesterday, and we understand that is something like $3,000 a person. This is for hundreds of mill works who are due to receive their severance packages in two weeks, as a result of the shutdown of the Grand Falls-Windsor operation. Government has really been taking a hands-off approach, in my opinion, when it comes to these severance packages.

I ask you today: Will you look at using profits from Abitibi's seized assets that are now in the hands of government to honour these severance packages if they happen to fall through the company's safeguards?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources and Deputy Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I said here in the House earlier in the week, we continue to monitor the activity around Abitibi very closely. We understand the options that the company has available to it, and we will see where they go in the next several weeks.

We also clearly understand the responsibilities that the company has, and while the company is solvent we expect them to live up to those responsibilities.

In our talks with Abitibi, Mr. Speaker, we have clearly put severance for the loggers on the table as part of those talks. We are mindful of their obligations to the people of Grand Falls, and we will continue to keep that in mind as events unfold.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, these workers have given years and years of their lives to this company and they are due extreme amounts of money. I guess what we are asking is: If there is no other security for these workers in being able to collect this severance, is government prepared to use the profits that you now earn from the assets that you have seized in Grand Falls-Windsor to pay out those benefits, not just to the mill workers but also to the loggers?

I can only reiterate what I just said. The company still remains solvent, even though it is in grave difficulty, but in its current state it has obligations to the former workers of the mill at Grand Falls-Windsor and we expect them to live up to those responsibilities.

We are very mindful of the needs of the people in the Central Region of the Province. That is why we have severance on the table in our discussions with Abitibi. It is also why we have, in our recent Budget, committed to an addictions centre in that area of the Province, as well as putting our home heating rebate services there.

Unlike members of the Opposition, Mr. Speaker, we have great confidence in the people of Central Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister phrases her answers by talking about the current state of this company, but we know that this company is on life-support and may not survive, Minister. We also know that there is an unfunded pension liability in the pension fund for Abitibi workers.

I ask the minister today: Can you tell us what the amount is of that unfunded liability?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I am not absolutely clear on the question. I could not hear her, in the noise of the House. If she is asking about the unfunded liability of the pension plan of AbitibiBowater, we believe that the fund is 75 per cent funded.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the company was to go bankrupt, what does this mean for the pension plan if it is already carrying an unfunded liability, and will that fund be secured against creditors?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, the first thing I want to state is that in this House I do not like to deal with hypothetical situations, and certainly I will not deal with hypothetical situations because the company has not even applied for bankruptcy protection at this point in time.

Under our own legislation, which we brought in March 2008, the deficit in regard to the unfunded liability in regard to pensions has to be funded over a period of time of five years. That applies to bankruptcy as well in regard to that. As you know, if a company goes bankrupt well then you are lined up with all the other creditors. Certainly, the deficit then is a non-secured liability, it is a non-secured credit. We are aware of it, we are monitoring the situation, but we can't deal with a hypothetical situation because they haven't even filed for bankruptcy protection at this particular time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, the minister might want to refer to this as hypothetical, but this is the reality: today there is a company in this Province that has displaced hundreds of workers who are depending upon receiving a pension from that company that has an unfunded liability.

Now, if that company is to go bankrupt - I just want a straight answer - is the pension fund protected against creditors or is it not? Could these people foreseeably lose their pension fund?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, all pensions around the world at this particular time are affected by the global downturn. Certainly, you will find that even our own pensions in certain areas are suffering in regards to global markets, and this pension is no different. There pension is there, it is protected. The pension is separate from the company itself. It is affected by the markets no differently than any other pension, and that is what we have today, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, personal care homes in the Province with greater than fifty beds are able to avail of Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation insurance on their loans. However, smaller homes don't have that same security and, as a result, they are unable to secure funding from banks right now for expansions or upgrades.

I ask the minister and the government, if they are prepared to lobby the federal government and to ask that there be exemptions made under the Canadian Housing and Mortgage program, so that smaller homes across the country also have that financial security in their operations.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: The issue around CMHC's lending policies and practices, as you have clearly indicated, are subject to the rules and regulations laid down by that corporation. Any assistance that we, as a Province, can provide any industry in securing funding from a federal agency we would be only too glad to assist them with that process.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We all know that major changes like this need to start somewhere. I am asking you, as the minister, if you are prepared to have it placed on the agenda for the next First Ministers' Meeting across the country, and to highlight this as an issue of policy that needs to be changed in the country.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I do not have control of the First Ministers' agenda, obviously, but I can undertake to pursue it with the appropriate minister responsible for the corporation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you.

Minister, of course that is not the only thing we know you do not have control of.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, has the government given any consideration to using our own housing corporation, Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, to secure financing for the small personal care home operators in the Province, many of whom we know could be forced out of business if they cannot secure this assistance?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the primary mandate of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing is to look after people who are in low-income situations, to assist them either in securing assistance to upgrade their own personal homes or to assist them in accessing affordable housing that might be administered through Newfoundland and Labrador Housing. We have no mandate in Newfoundland and Labrador Housing to engage at all in personal care homes, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

With all due respect minister, we know what the mandate is of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing today.

We are asking: Have you ever looked at expanding that mandate to be able to ensure loans in the Province for small personal care home operators, like Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation does for larger homes across the country?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, I can only say to the hon. member, I am not aware that housing has looked at that, and I have to say, I doubt that we would go down that road.

Mr. Speaker, we have a huge amount of infrastructure under the responsibility of Newfoundland and Labrador Housing right now that is in the range of thirty to fifty years old; that has, by and large, been neglected for most of that thirty to fifty-year period, Mr. Speaker.

Only under the past couple of budgets, since we have been in power and since we have been able to get our financial house in order, have we increased funding in multi-millions of dollars annually, Mr. Speaker, in order to be able to begin retrofitting the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing units.

As for abilities of personal care homes to access financing, Mr. Speaker, there is a suite of programs in Innovation, Trade and Rural Development in the form of loans. I know some personal care homes in the Province have access. It is a loan and it is there, able to be accessed if the business case exists, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In 2006, government did increase the subsidy they were paying out to personal care homes but at the same time, they also removed the night security grant. They then later changed the staffing requirements that these homes had to meet and they also had a mandatory increase in the salaries or the minimum wage in the Province. All of these policies have caused financial hardship to personal care home operators, especially small operators in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

I ask the minister today, if he is prepared to revisit some of those policy decisions allocated to personal care home operators and if he would reinstate the grant for night security?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Anytime, as government, anytime we have a role and responsibility to ensure there is appropriate standards of care being provided and regulations are in place to protect the residents of those homes, that is our responsibility I say, Mr. Speaker. So any standards we have introduced, any new policy changes that have come in place, have come in place focused on ensuring that we provide safe quality care.

Now the member opposite would have people believe that the personal care home sector is in dire straits. Let me point out something. If we look at the personal care home sector in this Province since we formed government, there has been an expansion of capacity in that sector by about 1,000 beds. If you look at the number of new homes that have opened in recent years, I say, Mr. Speaker - in fact, I am aware today there are two under construction as we speak.

So, anytime you look at an industry that expands its capacity by 1,000 beds or more in about a four-year period and we see new homes being built all the time, I suspect, Mr. Speaker, these people make decisions to invest because on a sound business case -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude his response.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Obviously, we have created a regulatory regime that is appropriate for that industry. We have created a regulatory regime that provides an adequate protection for the residents of those homes and they are able to survive, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

But, the minister knows that the expansion of beds is in larger personal care homes in the Province. He also knows that the policies are not causing financial hardship for those homes. It is the smaller homes, the homes that we have seen go out of business in the last few years.

Mr. Speaker, in this current Budget the minister also approved a personal care home subsidy rate of $37 per month per subsidized client, but if you do the mathematics on what your government requires in staffing in one of those small homes, plus the fifty cent increase in minimum wage that they have to start paying this year, you will find out that your subsidy does not even cover the minimum required costs that they will increase by this year.

I ask you minister: If you were going to give them a subsidy, why not give them enough to cover off the mandatory policies that you are putting in place this year?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, if we had made an adjustment in the personal care home rates this year, and was the first time we have ever done it, then yes, that is a reasonable question, but I think the member needs to put in perspective the kind of investment we have made in that sector in recent years.

This is not the first; this is one of a number of increases we have made. We made the changes that she referenced earlier around consolidation of the rate with the former night security rate, we blended those together and provided an enhancement in that area, I say, Mr. Speaker.

I think, Mr. Speaker, since we have been in government, I think there has been about – I stand to be corrected on this, but since we have been in government this is probably the third, if not the fourth increase we have provided in rates for personal care homes in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I go back to my earlier comment, Mr. Speaker, obviously, this sector is flourishing. All we need to do is look at the number of new homes built and the expansion of capacity in that sector. So obviously, those owners see it as a viable business to be in and are comfortable with the regulatory regime in which they operate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Minister, you are giving it out in one hand and you are taking it back in the other, and that is the point. Every time that you have made an increase you have also changed policies and requirements that have caused financial hardship for the small personal care home operators in rural areas of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, currently today, under this government, whenever seniors living in personal care homes receive an increase, either in their old age security or in their CPP, your government is clawing back this money. You are the first government to do that. That practice came in in 2003 when you took office.

So I ask you today: Will you stop clawing back the additional benefits that are being paid to seniors in personal care homes?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The member opposite keeps referencing her question about rural Newfoundland and Labrador. I just want to point out a couple of things.

If you look at the homes that have built – all you need to do is look at the homes that have been built in recent years. There is one in Port Saunders that has been recently built. There is a new one open in Botwood, I say, Mr. Speaker. There is a new one open out in the Springdale area, I say, Mr. Speaker. There are two homes in my own district that have exchanged hands in recent years -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WISEMAN: Again, small homes. So individuals are entering that market, buying homes that are varying sizes.

Again, Mr. Speaker, the member opposite speaks like she is representing the voice of every single personal care home in the Province, but many of them are doing quite well, many of them have expanded their business, many of them have recently opened businesses; and, like any business, some operate more profitable than others and some are managed better than others.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WISEMAN: Our role as a government is to ensure that there is fair compensation for those clients we subsidize, and we have –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don't believe what I am hearing the minister say, because he knows the difference. These people have met with you, Minister, several times in the last two years. These people represent an association of sixty members. They operate small homes across the Province.

My question was: Why is it, when you put a subsidy out there in your Budget, like you did the other day, at $37 per person, that then you go and claw back the very money that they receive as additional benefits on their Old Age Security and CPP? You are the first government to do that, and I ask that you stop the practice. Will you give that consideration?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have said many times in this House, we are always considering how we might improve our health system. Every year in our annual budgetary process we look at opportunities to invest new money in various parts of the health system, and we will do that again in years to come. In fact, this year we have invested so much money in our health system we have become the Province that invests more on a per capita basis than anyone else in the entire country. That is the kind of consideration we give our health system.

My commitment to the member opposite, and to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, is that we will always be looking for opportunities to improve our system, and where we have a capacity, and where it is appropriate, we will make the necessary investments to ensure we build on the successes that we have had and build on the good work that we have already done in the last four years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Recently in the Budget, Memorial University requested $27 million in funding and the government opposite voted $21 million.

I ask: Why did you not give them the full amount of money that they requested? What did you expect them to do to make up for the shortfall? Are they supposed to cut programs or services?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education and Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member should know, when we go into the budget process, we often have many budget requests for all kinds of different expansions, or new programs, or ways to grow institutions. When we look at that through the budgetary process we have to make decisions, we have to set priorities and we have to fund those priorities.

Mr. Speaker, one thing that was in the media today was the fact that the acting president of the university indicated that they would have preferred to have $3 million more regarding their fixed costs and their salary increases.

Mr. Speaker, in keeping with the salary increases, and the way that we have budgeted money - not just this year but certainly in the past, probably going back to at least 2001 - is that we increased the base budget to cover the salary increase cost, but when we get to the incremental cost of the step increases, and some of the benefits that go along with that, we fund that at 75 per cent as opposed to 100 per cent. In previous years government departments, as well as the university and other agencies, have been able to certainly cover their salary costs based on that amount of money.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude her answer.

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What we have done this year has certainly been no different than how we fund the step increases at 75 per cent. Sometimes the full 100 per cent is not necessary because there may be times when the staffing is not always at 100 per cent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister says that when they look at the budget they make decisions. Well, let me ask you, Minister: What was your decision in terms of how the university was going to make up for this $6 million shortfall? What were they supposed to cut to do it?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, let me just make a comment first about what the acting president said on Budget day. He said this is very good news for us on the whole.

Mr. Speaker, what the issue is, they came in and asked for $27 million. What we were able to provide for the university was almost $5 million to maintain a tuition freeze. We also had incremental adjustments so that they could expand their programs in health care in their professional schools. We added $1 million so graduate students could have fellowships. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we have also funded their ocean strategy with money for the School of Ocean Technology. We have put money into the Holyrood Marine Base. We have put money into research and development. There is incremental funding for Sir Wilfred Grenfell College so they can become a more autonomist institution. There is also incremental funding for the Centre of Environmental Excellence. We brought in the post degree for social work, the fast track program, and there is also incremental funding for mass communications.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS BURKE: We looked at all of their priorities and -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, it sounds like the minister was robbing Peter to pay Paul, I say to her.

The university is saying they may have to make cuts in their staff and in their faculty. Minister, can you tell me how you can allow the university to be laying off people, reducing its faculty, at a time when they need stability and not shortcuts?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader and Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, this government has said many times that Memorial University needs strong leadership, and under strong leadership they will be able to deliver their full suite of programs with the budget they have been allotted this year.

With regard to salary increases and step adjustments, they indicate that they would like to have $3 million more. They have 75 per cent of what has been requested, and when you look at leaves of absence and maternity leave, and other leaves and vacancies, and filling vacancies, and people leaving at a higher step and coming in on a lower, they should be able to operate. In this Budget alone for their salary increases and step increases this government has given them $8.7 million.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This minister likes to poke her fingers in, and intervene in, the university when it comes to who is going to run it and who is going to operate it, but she is not going to intervene to make sure they get the money to maintain the complement of services and staff that they require.

Mr. Speaker, Memorial has been requesting a capital grant for the past number of years, actually, to upgrade the forty- or fifty-year-old science lab that is critical, as we know, to research at the university.

I ask the government: When they put out their infrastructure priorities for the Province, was this not considered? If it was, why wasn't it funded?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, as I said, when we do a budget, particularly for the university, there are many demands and many requests, especially in the area of infrastructure. This government has committed funding that we are going to upgrade and build new residences here in St. John's as well as Corner Brook, and we have also indicated that we are going to be building an academic building at Sir Wilfred Grenfell at the tune of $34 million, Mr. Speaker. So we have looked at all the infrastructure requests from the university but we have to set priorities.

The residences right now, and the academic building, are what we have announced and are the priorities of government. By saying that, Mr. Speaker, it does not mean that we feel that the science building and other buildings do not need to be upgraded or new buildings, but we can only do so much in any given fiscal year, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The summer season will soon be upon us and the summer maintenance crew for the Department of Transportation and Works will be assigned their duties.

I ask the minister: Can he tell this hon. House what the budget for the summer maintenance is this year? Is it more or less or the same as it was last year?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in all honesty, I cannot give the exact number but it is the same as it was last year.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the budget for materials needed for the summer maintenance program this year has been determined, but that the budget for workers is under budget because of salary overruns for last year.

I ask the minister: Can he confirm to this House that there will be less workers for the summer maintenance program or are they going to be the same as last year?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there is any change in the number of workers that we are going to have on our summer maintenance program. I am not aware of it from any discussions that I have had with the department. I do not anticipate any changes, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I asked the Minister of Natural Resources some questions earlier in the week concerning the caribou hunt, the illegal hunt that was taking place in Labrador. We understand now that the hunt is winding down, if not concluded.

Just some clarification, when we asked the minister during the week, the indication was that they could not send in our enforcement officers because of security risk. I assume that it was our security conservation enforcement officers that might have made that assessment, but later it was reported in the CBC National by Mr. Mansbridge that actually it was the RCMP who made the call on the security issue.

I am wondering if you can clarify for us: Was it an RCMP decision as to the security or our enforcement and conservation branch, or was it a combination of both?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, our conservation officers on the ground who are well versed in this activity and well trained to do this kind of work, made an assessment that the situation was too volatile, and for reasons of safety and security it was very wise to be prudent in their activity.

They were in constant communication with the RCMP in Happy Valley-Goose Bay describing the situation to them and the RCMP confirmed their decision not to take any more provocative action to exacerbate the situation, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister indicated in this area again throughout the week when I asked the questions, we now know that the hunt is concluded or is concluding, apparently. We do not know if they have hunted them to extinction or not, because I guess we were just monitoring. We have not had any reports.

Could you give us a status now as to how many they did ultimately kill, to our knowledge based upon that monitoring? Also, will there be charges laid against these illegal Quebec Innu hunters, and what do you intend to do on a go-forward basis to make sure that it does not happen again?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we estimated that in the Joir River herd there were approximately 100 to 108 animals. Our best estimation from our observations during the last week, is that forty of those animals have been taken.

We understand that the group of Innu hunters from La Romaine have gone home. There are still some hunters from Saint-Augustine still in the area; at least twenty-six snowmobiles still in the area. There has not been any hunting activity in the last three days and we are very hopeful that the rest of the group will return back to Quebec. We will continue to do, in terms of education and discussion with the Quebec Innu, in conjunction with the Labrador Innu, to rise awareness on the vulnerability of this herd and to do everything we can to prevent hunting.

Evidence is being assessed, and where evidence will support it, Mr. Speaker, charges will be laid, and the Department of Justice is engaged in that activity at the moment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Notices of Motions.

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

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act Respecting Chiropractors." (Bill 8)

MR. SPEAKER: Further Notices of Motion?

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Seeing today was a day of making history, maybe, just maybe, with this petition I might make history once again.

Mr. Speaker, I want to stand today and present another petition on behalf of the residents of Long Island with regards to the Long Island causeway, and to join the member for that area, for Grand Falls-Windsor-Green Bay South, to bring forward the concerns of the constituents of that area, being the critic for Transportation.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for that area stated, I think it was around March 30, that he has been lobbying government now for years to try to get a good service for the people in that particular area. I know that particular petition and request he was making has been ever since this government has been in, and previously to that, but there was an announcement made back in 2003, that a causeway would be built to Long Island.

Mr. Speaker, that is why I am presenting these petitions, to call upon government to reconsider their decision.

Mr. Speaker, those people, like they said, had an excellent service for some twenty-five years and that is all they are asking for now. They are asking for a fixed link to the island; and, not only that, they have asked if government would look at providing an adequate ferry service because at the present time, apparently, they are not receiving that. There is some concern from parents with children who have to travel to school, as well as business individuals and so on.

We are calling upon government to look at this petition, to reconsider their decision to not proceed with the causeway. Hopefully they will reconsider a fixed link between Long Island and Pilley's Island for the residents of that particular area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Further petitions?

Orders of the Day.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Consolidate The Law Respecting Revenue Administration. (Bill 4)

I further move that the bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is properly moved and seconded that the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Consolidate The Law Respecting Revenue Administration, Bill 4, and that the said bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 4 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.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board to introduce a bill, "An Act To Consolidate The Law Respecting Revenue Administration," carried. (Bill 4)

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Consolidate The Law Respecting Revenue Administration. (Bill 4)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 4 has now been read a first time.

When shall the said bill be read a second time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 4 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Repeal The Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund Act. (Bill 5)

I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is properly moved and seconded that the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act to Repeal The Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund Act, Bill 5, and that Bill 5 be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the minister shall have leave to introduce Bill 5, and that this bill 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.

Motion, the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board to introduce a bill, "An Act To Repeal The Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund Act," carried. (Bill 5)

CLERK: A bill, An Act to Repeal The Labrador Transportation Initiative Fund Act. (Bill 5)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 5 has now been read a first time.

When shall the said bill be read a second time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 5 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An Act To Amend The Pensions Funding Act. (Bill 6)

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to call from the Order Paper Motion 1, moved by the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, to move that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of government, the Budget Speech, and to continue the budgetary debate.

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I certainly want to rise and speak to the motion on the Budget. As you can tell from the last few days of debate in the House of Assembly, there is certainly no shortage of issues coming out of this or surrounding this Budget that are of concern to people.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about a couple of issues today, and one is the issue that is unfolding in Grand Falls–Windsor. Mr. Speaker, it is a really sad chapter, in fact, in our history. If you look at what is happening right now there is so much uncertainty around all of this for the workers in that particular area, but what was really ironic about all of this is that - and I think I read this in an editorial somewhere in the last couple of days as well - the irony was that it was on Budget day in this Province, a day when we brought down one of the largest revenue budgets ever in the history, a Budget that was nearly $7 billion to allocate programs and services to the people of the Province. It was on the very day that the mill in Grand Falls produced for the very last time. It was a day when workers walked off the job, when the doors were locked, and they knew the next day they did not have the opportunity to get up, to pack their lunch bags and to go through the plant doors again.

Mr. Speaker, it was ironic that while we were introducing the largest Budget ever in our Province, to the people and to the taxpayers, that we had another group of people somewhere else in our Province that was experiencing the largest setback ever in their lives.

Mr. Speaker, we have continued to raise issues and ask questions around what has been happening in Grand Falls-Windsor. We started long before the Budget, but we continued through the Budget and we did ask questions about government's plan to rejuvenate the economy in Central Newfoundland. Because what we see is a vision that lacks substance, a plan that lacks vision, and certainly not one that will be a catalyst for new economic development and growth, at least at the stage of where it is now.

Mr. Speaker, I say that because the members opposite took great offence, apparently, to some comments that I made. In fact, I heard the Mayor of Grand Falls when he said: Oh, I think this infrastructure funding is going to be great for Grand Falls-Windsor.

Well, he is entitled to his opinion, but I have taken a lot of phone calls from Central Newfoundland since all of this happened - a lot of phone calls - and I am still taking them, even before I came to the House of Assembly today. They are just not from people who want to be frivolous or want to be political. These calls are from people who have serious issues, serious concerns, and they are worried. They are worried as to what the future will hold for them, and they are hitting the panic button, many of them.

Mr. Speaker, when government laid out its plan for Grand Falls, which was supposed to be the grandiose solution to what was happening out there with the economic shift, they were really disappointed if anyone dared to speak negatively about it, but the reality is this: the millions of dollars that were committed for infrastructure projects in Central Newfoundland will be welcomed. They will be welcomed by the construction industry right across the Province, Mr. Speaker, because it means jobs for everyone, short term jobs for everyone who are eligible, qualified, and have the skills to work in that business. So, when government says, we are going to do an upgrade on a hospital, we are going to do an upgrade on a college, we are going to do an upgrade on a school, we are going to fix this road, we are going to fix these potholes, we are going to do this and do that, it is no different from what is happening with infrastructure development right across the Province.

People have to remember, that the provincial government has just signed on to multi-millions of dollars from the federal government to do those infrastructure projects. The federal government will transfer huge sums of money for infrastructure over the next two years to be invested in Newfoundland and Labrador.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: It is correct, I say to the minister, and I can get the information that was provided by the Federation of Municipalities and the National Federation of Municipalities, Mr. Speaker, which shows the amount of money for every jurisdiction of federal infrastructure dollars.

Notwithstanding that, Mr. Speaker, the government themselves will put money into infrastructure. The provincial government will put money into infrastructure as well. All of that money has conditions and all of that money will be spent over the next few years.

What is happening in Grand Falls-Windsor is no different than infrastructure spending that will be spent in Western Newfoundland, that will be spent in Northern Newfoundland and Labrador, or that will be spent on the East Coast of the Province, Mr. Speaker. It is all money that is being spent right across the Province in all different areas. It is not like the government said, we have an economic crisis in Central Newfoundland so we are going to take a large chunk of this and we are going to spend it out there, and that is going to be our stimulus for that region.

Mr. Speaker, what they have done they have done with everyone in the Province. Whether it is municipal infrastructure money, whether it is highways infrastructure money, whether it is provincial or federal sources of money, it is being spent right across the Province.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, what else did they announce for Grand Falls-Windsor? Well, they have an office out there, and from what the workers are telling me the provincial government has them going around like a crowd of chickens with their heads cut off, because they are going to one office on one side of the road and they are being told to go to another office on the other side of the road. They are being told to go to this office, to go to that office, because, Mr. Speaker, their member, who happens to be the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, has a budget to put an office on every corner in Grand Falls, and to send people wherever they want to go to get a resume done, to find out about a job, to go talk to this one, to go talk to that one.

Let me tell you, minister, what your constituents have said to me. Let me tell you what they have said to me: Going in and out of an office everyday is not helping me deal with the job I have gone, the severance money that I do not know if I am going to get, the pension benefit I am not sure if I will ever be able to draw down, but in the meantime my member has opened an office and I can go in there any day and get a resume done, but where am I going to send my resume? I cannot send it to Alberta, because they are all getting laid off in Alberta and getting sent home. I cannot send it to Gander, because there is no new industry in Gander. I cannot send it to Wabush, because 200 people just got laid off up there in the mine. So, thank you to my MHA for opening an office down the road so I can go in and get my resume done, but I have nowhere to send it. That is what they have been telling me.

So, Mr. Speaker, that was one of their solutions. That was one of the solutions. Not all bad, I say. There is lots of opportunity for people to retrain, to look at money for retraining. Providing those services is very important, very important, Mr. Speaker.

In addition to that, what else did they do? They decided we are going to move the infamous baby bonus office out of St. John's to Grand Falls, and we are going to move the office that does the calculations on the Home Heating Rebate to Grand Falls as well. Nothing wrong with that, Mr. Speaker, but is that the answer to stimulating the economy of Grand Falls, where hundreds of mill workers just got displaced? Is that the solution, Mr. Speaker? Wow, that is so creative, I must say, of the government opposite. So creative! Where have I heard it before? When Stephenville shut down, where did I hear it before that, Mr. Speaker? When another government did it, moving the offices into Corner Brook, and the members opposite stood up everyday and said: Oh, you cannot do that. That is shameful to do that! And what are they doing, Mr. Speaker? The exact same thing! The exact same thing! You talk about being short on ideas. You talk about being short on innovation. It is recycling. Recycling!

I heard a minister the other day comment in the media, and I knew I had heard the phrase before so I went back and I looked it up. It was the exact same words used by one of their former colleagues four years ago, responding to the same issue. I had to get the two transcripts and sit down, Mr. Speaker, to make sure that I was not making a mistake.

Mr. Speaker, that is supposed to be their solution for Grand Falls, move the baby bonus office, move the Home Heating Rebate office, but remember, the people who work in those offices it is their jobs. When the office moves they have the right to move as well. They have the right to move as well, move with the job and with the office to Grand Falls-Windsor. So there may never be either new job created by moving these two offices. What it will do is give the town a little bit of taxes. You put two more offices out here, maybe they will get some taxes but I am not even sure if they can tax government offices. I will have to double-check that one. Maybe they will not even get the taxes.

The other solution, Mr. Speaker, was the youth addiction centre, a very important piece of infrastructure, very important programs for this Province. If there is anything in this Budget that I would pat the government on the back for it would be to do the addiction treatment centre and the youth mental health treatment centre, because they are definitely, definitely needed. People are crying out for those services in the Province. So if there is one thing I would compliment the government on it would be that.

What I fail to see, Mr. Speaker, is the justification of government putting the centre in Grand Falls, other than the fact that they are doing it because the area is economically depressed right now. This is how narrow minded this government is, that they would look at an area that is economically depressed and they would take a service, a vital, critical service that should be designed and the only decision around where that treatment centre should have been placed in the Province is where the best services can be provided to the people who need it. That should have been the only thing that equalled into the equation of where an addiction treatment centre should go. Just like when government makes the decision as to where the treatment facility for mental health services should go in the Province, it should be based on one thing, Mr. Speaker, providing the service to those that need it, not because an area is economically challenged.

I know today, I had an e-mail a while ago from some people who left Grand Falls and moved to Ontario. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I had conversations and dialogue with a person of very high calibre, tremendous skills who worked in Grand Falls area, who was a psychiatrist in Grand Falls, who operated his own clinic there, who moved out of the Province and left because of the workload, because of the lack of support services that were being provided to them. Mr. Speaker, today, there is not a psychiatrist there for the patients to see.

We had, only a couple of weeks ago, a family in that area who called me, in fact, because they had to bring their son to St. John's to get psychiatric treatment. They could not get the treatment in Grand Falls because the psychiatrist that their son was seeing had closed up the clinic and left the Province because they were overworked, because of the caseload that they had and they were not able to do it.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if government's decision to put the addiction treatment facility in Grand Falls–Windsor was based on the fact that it is going to serve the most people, that it is going to provide the best service, that they are guaranteed to be able to recruit the complement of staff that they need, then I have no problem with it. I have absolutely no problem with it. Put it in Gander. Put it in Corner Brook. Put it in St. Anthony, as long as you are going to meet the needs of those who need the service but do not do it because you are short on ideas and you are short on vision and you are desperate to be able to say to the people of Grand Falls–Windsor, this is what we are going to do for you. For God's sake, be a little bit more creative than that, I say to the members opposite.

Mr. Speaker, if the service is going to be there, if the resources are going to be there, and it is going to reach the people who need it, we have no problem with it. Absolutely no problem with it!

Now, Mr. Speaker, what else was in this for Grand Falls? The other thing that was in this was money under the development program, the Community Development Trust, which was a federal government program, a program that was signed in 2007-2008. I think the first money flowed in 2008-2009 to the provincial government for $23,400,000; a cheque from the federal government to the Province. The very government they say that never gives them any money; another cheque from the federal government to the provincial government.

Well, out of that money, Mr. Speaker, they have done a number of things, such as building resource roads. They have used some for grants and subsidies. We will have to find out what that is about. Some of it went into aquaculture. Some of it went into professional services – I do not know what that one was about - and some of it will now be used over the next two years, with $2.5 million this year and next year, to help Grand Falls-Windsor diversify their local economy.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we also know that under the Community Development Trust in other provinces in Canada that money got used to help make workforce adjustments. I refer to the Province of British Columbia, where monies under that program were used to help workers who were displaced, who needed to bridge the gap, Mr. Speaker, in terms of receiving pensions and benefits, who needed adjustment measures within the Province in order to find new jobs and new opportunities, and money was used under that program to do that.

We are not going to see any of that being used in Grand Falls-Windsor. We are not sure what that money is going to be used for yet. I guess the government will tell us. Someone will tell us eventually. If not, when it is all spent I guess we will find out; but someone may tell us. You never know.

Mr. Speaker, the reality is what we are dealing with today, and today we are dealing with the possibility, the prospect, that AbitibiBowater could go into bankruptcy. This is a company who, in the last two weeks, have tried to refinance its loans to no success. In fact, Mr. Speaker, they have called all the talks off, and they have not been able to raise the capital that they needed to refinance the loans and the debt that the company had. So, in the absence of a restructuring plan, there is a very good possibility that they are going into bankruptcy.

We have been, for days - for days - asking this government, what does that mean? Do you know why we are asking? Because of e-mails like I have here from workers in that area who are saying, what does this mean to me?

In fact, Mr. Speaker, there was an interview on the radio this morning – I do not think I have a copy of it – from one of the workers out there, and I think they put it better than anyone I have heard in the past, because they were definitely speaking on behalf of the workers and outlining exactly how they are impacted.

Mr. Speaker, they are concerned, and every time that I have stood in this House of Assembly and asked, what will this mean to the severance packages for workers out there? I am always being given the hands-off approach by government. We have no control; it is all under federal legislation. We do not know how much the severances are. We do not know how they are going to be affected.

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about hundreds of people, with nearly $25 million of their money on the line in this Province, and of all the ministers of the packed benches on the other side, no one can tell us what the fallout will be for them.

Well, Mr. Speaker, we know what the fallout is going to be for them under current Canadian and U.S. legislation. We know, Mr. Speaker, that there will probably be no security for them. What is $3,000 to be paid out to a worker who should be receiving $80,000 or $90,000 in severance? Mr. Speaker, it is a far cry from where their expectations are.

What we are saying to government is that if this company goes into bankruptcy and those severance packages are no longer on the table come April 16 for those workers, what will your role be? Are you prepared to step up to the plate? Are you then prepared to step up and pay the severance to these workers, based on the fact that you have secured the assets and the resources that stimulated their jobs? When their jobs went, you moved in and secured the only thing that could earn a profit to pay those particular wages.

Now, I do not have a problem with you securing those assets, so don't interpret it as I do have a problem with it because I do not, but what I do see is this: I see government today earning money off those assets, and I see people in that area who are going around in worry, and tormented, and in panic because they do not know if there is going to be any severance cheque for them two weeks from today.

So, Mr. Speaker, we are asking government: Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is, when you went out there a few weeks ago and you stood in the union halls and you told these workers not to worry, that we will look after you? Because those are the speeches that were made: Don't you worry; we will look after you.

Well, they are asking today: How are you going to look after me? They want to know how you are going to look after them. Are you going to ensure that they get their severance packages?

Let's talk about their pension funds. What does it mean for the pension fund if this company goes bankrupt? I don't mean the flak that I got from the minister today in Question Period. I mean, really, what are the consequences? There is a pension fund that we know is underfunded. There is an unfunded liability in this pension fund, and we do not know if there is any security on that fund when it comes to the creditors. If there is no security on that fund, what does it mean? Does it mean that pensions will be paid out until the pot runs out and then that is the end of it? Does it mean that you are only going to get 75 per cent of the pension that was supposed to be accrued to you because the rest of the money is not there to pay it, or does it mean that you are not getting any pension?

These are the questions that we are asking, and do not get up in the House of Assembly and get on with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo around this and that and something else. Come clean with people and tell them. Do you not know what the consequence is? Because if you do not know say you do not know but at least make an effort to go and find out. Do not wait for another two weeks until the shoe drops and the bottom is gone out of it and then you are going around scrambling to find out what this means, if there is money that has to go in, if there is any security from the creditors, if there is either pension cheque going to be sent out or if the fund is just going to run out of money in a certain period of time. This is people's lives and it is simple questions, questions that government should know. Questions that ministers, if they were on top of the situation and they had their heads wrapped around it, they would know these answers. They would know them like this, right off the top of their heads. If the people of the Province cannot depend upon their government to protect them at a time like this, who do they depend upon? Who do they depend upon? There is nowhere else for them to turn, Mr. Speaker.

So, Mr. Speaker, these are the things that we are seeing in Grand Falls-Windsor, and I have no problem with the Mayor of Grand Falls coming out and touting the fact that he likes the infrastructure money. I would expect him to, but I am sure today he is every bit as concerned about what is going to happen with severance and pension plans for workers in Grand Falls-Windsor as anyone else in this Province is. That much I can assure you.

Mr. Speaker, it does not hold water with me. I have the members opposite everyday trying to stop me from asking questions when it comes to how these workers and families are impacted but I will tell you, I will not stop asking the questions and I will not stop expecting to get answers. Now I am not getting a whole lot yet but it is quite obvious that the ministers do not have their heads around this issue. They do not understand the international laws that come into play here and they do not understand how these laws pertain to everyday workers who have given their life to this plant and this operation.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am going to talk a little bit as well about the Lower Churchill, I only have an hour in debate. I want to talk about this deal because yesterday in the House of Assembly I asked a number of questions around the Lower Churchill project, and guess what? I never got an answer. I got all fluff and no stuff is what I got, not one answer came from the minister opposite. Two very important questions, I might add.

This is a government that is out there everyday talking about how they are going to do the big deal around the Lower Churchill. If you were to sit back and read the material, if you were to sit back and listen, if you were to take a little bit of time to do a little bit of research, you would find that there are a lot of questions around the government's Anglo-Saxon route to develop the Lower Churchill project. You would find that there are a lot of questions but there are no answers. Talk about spinning an issue, talk about trying to convince the public in the face of facts. Well, Mr. Speaker, this is the perfect example. I have never quite seen anything like it in my entire life.

There are lots of editorials around, there are lots of pieces in the paper, there are lots of letters which challenges the government's perspective on the Lower Churchill and what they are proposing.

First of all, the first thing you get out of this government opposite is if you ask a question about anything, you are against it. So as soon as I ask questions about the Lower Churchill project, you are automatically against it. Nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Speaker. I would love to see the development of the clean energy of the Lower Churchill in this Province, but I would like to see it done sensible. I would like to see it done in a way where people can actually see a return for their money. I would like to see it done in respect for the Aboriginal people that live in Labrador, such as the Innu and the Metis. I would love to see it done, taking into consideration the great risk and sacrifice for all Labradorians and to ensure that they get benefits from this resource, just like the people in Grand Falls, I believe should be getting benefits from the resources and the rivers that have been developed in their area. I think adjacency needs to be a principle that is not just a side agreement but is a part of the full agreement anytime you do a deal.

Let me take you through a little bit of history around the Lower Churchill project. In fact, history that goes back to probably two or three years ago when the Premier had his first spats with the Province of Quebec, and the Government of Quebec. Mr. Speaker, the Premier went off on his tangent, he was volatile, he was not going to rely on Quebec, they were too political. He did not want to have anything to do with them. We are not going to be governed, he said, by a process that Quebec wants to do. This is the kind of language that he was using. Making all kinds of overtures and insults to the point that a couple of days ago he had to come out after that and apologize to the people in the Province of Quebec and to the people of Canada for his comments, for his behaviour. He said it was not my intention to offend the people of Quebec under any circumstances and he was sorry for it, but acknowledging as well that he was merely making a statement.

This is the kind of Premier that we have, Mr. Speaker. One that says one thing one day, says another thing the other day. Go back two years ago and read these articles, articles that were the fighting words for the Premier of Quebec, fighting words for the people of Quebec: we would have nothing to do with you. So harsh, so extreme, that a couple of days later the Premier had to come out, get down on his knees and apologize to the people of Quebec for his volatile manner and his angry words that he had shot across the bow.

Mr. Speaker, the underlining current was this. We are not going to be doing business with you. We are not going to develop the Lower Churchill to wheel power through Quebec. No, we are going to look at our own route. We are going it alone - I think were the words he said. We are going it alone, and this year we have a deficit of $700 million or $800 million in the Province, but we are going it alone on the Lower Churchill.

You talk about how they spin information. He said: we do not need to go through Quebec. We will not go through Quebec. We do not need to go through Quebec. We do not need you to do this. We are going to look at the Anglo-Saxon route. We are going to look at the route that brings the transmission of power to the Island of Newfoundland. There is nothing wrong with that, Mr. Speaker. We are going to look at running a line under the water, a subsea cable under the Strait of Belle Isle. Fourteen kilometres of subsea cable at a cost of $1.5 billion, I think it is, Minister, or more, maybe even $2 billion. That is what you asked the feds for, $2 billion. You never got it. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, we are going to run a subsea cable under the Strait of Belle Isle, and then we are going to bring a transmission line down through one of the most prominent national historic parks in the country, one of the national historic parks that have fostered development in tourism for the West Coast of Newfoundland and the Northern Peninsula and the people of the Province for the last two decades.

Don't worry, Mr. Speaker, we are going to run towers, sixty-meter towers, right down through. We are going to run power lines through hundreds of kilometers of a national park, of Gros Morne on the Northern Peninsula, and we won't bother to ask Parks Canada. No need to ask Parks Canada about that. They just have a law, Mr. Speaker, that says, we don't have that kind of development in national parks in the country. But that is okay, we are the government, so we will forge ahead. Then, when we get that transmission line and all those towers coming down through Gros Morne, then we are going to bring the line across the Island.

When we do, Mr. Speaker, we are going to close out Holyrood, because we are going to have clean energy in the Province, we won't need Holyrood. Well, Mr. Speaker, that myth was disputed by profs at the university, who say that you can't close Holyrood. The government, in their own plan, in Hydro's own plan, they tabled with the Public Utilities Board, says they can't close Holyrood, that they have to operate Holyrood. Even with the transmission line, even with the power coming into Soldiers Pond, they would have to operate Holyrood at about 30 per cent capacity, if not more, in order to do the conversion of power from the Lower Churchill into the main grid for the Province.

Mr. Speaker, the government out there is saying, we are going to close down Holyrood's polluting plant when we get this clean energy, but it is just a little tinge away from the reality of what Hydro has tabled in their own long-term plan to the Public Utilities Board.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we have no idea what the breakdown of cost is on all that. What we do know is this, that to bring the line to develop the powerhouse at Gull Island, Mr. Speaker, and to develop the powerhouse at Muskrat Falls, and to transmit from Gull Island back to Churchill Falls, to build that line, to transmit then from Gull Island to Muskrat Falls and, as I said, develop the powerhouse at Muskrat Falls, and then bring that transmission line from Muskrat Falls right on down through to the Straits of Labrador by subsea cable under the Strait of Belle Isle and then down through the national park of Gros Morne, and then across the Island of Newfoundland and into Soldiers Pond, the only thing we do know is that government has a big round figure of $10 billion to do all of that. But where is the figure that tells us how much the transmission line is going to cost from Muskrat Falls to Soldiers Pond? Where is the breakdown that tells us how much it is going to cost to develop the powerhouse at Gull Island and to tie it in to the Churchill Falls project? Where is the breakdown of the costs of where they are going to develop the powerhouse at Muskrat Falls?

No details again, no information, just haul the big round number, the big round figure, out of the air and stick it out there and now you believe me, you trust me, this is what it is going to cost. We cannot tell you anything else because it is all sensitive. It is all highly confidential.

Well, Mr. Speaker, nothing they had to say to the nurses at the bargaining table was confidential - they were touting that all over the Province - but when it comes to the Lower Churchill, and how much it is going to cost to do each section of this line, that is highly confidential information. Well, Mr. Speaker, I do not buy into that argument. I do not think the government has their head around this at all. I think they are being led here, and they are trying to lead everyone else along with them. They are trying to lead us into thinking that doing this is going to be feasible for the taxpayers of the Province.

Let me just tell you where the real unfeasibility of all this comes in. When you start talking about bringing the transmission line from the West Coast of Newfoundland, then - you are going to tie it in to the West Coast of Newfoundland - to that Lower Churchill grid, you are going to bring it over to Port aux Basques, you are going to run a subsea cable that will be over 100 kilometres across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, you are going to run that line then through two Atlantic Provinces, you are going to bring that line through Nova Scotia and you have to bring that line through New Brunswick.

Just think about that, Mr. Speaker. You are not only going to run this transmission line across Labrador, under the Strait of Belle Isle, across the Island of Newfoundland, but now you are talking about bringing it to the West Coast of the Island, then bringing it under the Gulf of St. Lawrence, then bringing it ashore and across Nova Scotia, and then running it through New Brunswick before you ever get to enter a market in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, what happens when you actually get that far? Let's just say you get that far. Then I will come back and talk about the challenges of getting that far. Let's just say you get that far. Then what do you have to do? Then you have to transport that power through five states in the U.S. Through three provinces and five states you have to transport Lower Churchill power before you get to the very market, the New York market, that you could have gotten through by going through Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, let's have a look at the transmission capability through the states; because I have looked at it, Minister. If you look at the transmission capability through Maine, through New Hampshire, through Massachusetts and through Connecticut, you will find that those states do not have the power capacity to wheel the power that we have. Is government now proposing they are going to build transmission lines through three provinces and five states, and cross two bodies of water, and they are going to come back and tell us it is still feasible?

With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, I have a degree of respect for Ed Martin, who is the President of Nalcor, but I am going to tell you they have a lot of talking to do yet before they ever convince me that having to build transmission lines through three provinces and five states is actually going to be feasible for the development of Lower Churchill power.

You talk about the Upper Churchill, Mr. Speaker, and not getting payout until 2041. I would say it will take 2,000 years to get payout under the proposal that this government has for the development of this project. It is all smoke and mirrors.

Anyone with common sense who sits down and goes through these documents, and sits down and goes through the plan that this government is producing, will know that it makes absolutely no sense financially what they are proposing. Notwithstanding the fact, Mr. Speaker, that they still have to go through a national park. Even if they do not go through the national park and they have to go inside of the national park, it inflates the cost of the project again.

So, Mr. Speaker, prove your point. Prove your point. Put the numbers out there for the public. Put it out there for the public. Tell us how much of this transmission line you are actually going to build. Are you going to build the lines through Nova Scotia? Because we know today the capacity is not in Nova Scotia to wheel that power from the Lower Churchill. Or is the Nova Scotia government going to build those lines? I have not heard the Nova Scotia government announce, or Emera announce, that they were going to build that line in Nova Scotia. So, are we going to build it or not?

Let us talk about New Brunswick, Mr. Speaker. Let us talk about New Brunswick and what has been happening there; because, in New Brunswick, the Premier of New Brunswick, who was speaking in Toronto a couple of nights ago, Premier Shawn Graham, has already said to this government - a good Liberal Premier, I might say, Mr. Speaker, is already saying to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador - that I am putting the stake in the ground and you are not coming in here wheeling power through New Brunswick and giving no benefits to the people of my province. You are not going to come in here and do what you want to do. If any power is going to come through New Brunswick, we are going to get paid for it. We are going to benefit from it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER (T. Osborne): Order, please!

I recognize the hon. Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The same regulatory process by which we got the right to wheel power through the Province of Quebec into New York, that same process exists in New Brunswick. We have applied. There is nobody who can stop it unless they are going to cancel all of their commercial arrangements in the U.S.

The Leader of the Opposition, as in so many other things, does not have a clue what she is talking about.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

I recognize the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: I read the full agreement this morning.

Mr. Speaker, let me inform the minister that the agreement they announced today, they could have done it in 2004 because the wheeling rights she talks about that they have through New Brunswick were in place for a number of years. It was their government who missed the boat five years ago in negotiating that deal. Now they are out there today saying: Oh, look at us. Look at what we have done.

Well, it is time you woke up and did it, I say to the government opposite. It is time you woke up and did it.

Mr. Speaker, let us get back to New Brunswick, because the government opposite is out there talking about running power through Atlantic Canada and they do not even talk to the governments and the premiers in those provinces. They do not even talk to the Premier of New Brunswick, Mr. Speaker, but they are telling the people in Newfoundland and Labrador, we are going to run the power lines up through Atlantic Canada. We are going to bring the power through Nova Scotia, even if we build our own lines. We are going bring the power through New Brunswick, even if we build our own lines. Well Mr. Speaker, the Premier of New Brunswick has news for them.

Mr. Speaker, the reason the Premier, two years ago, was volatile with Quebec when he ended up apologizing to the people of Quebec - they would not have anything to do with Quebec, because they had to pay to get the power wheeled through Quebec. Will they think they are going to get the power wheeled through New Brunswick for free?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: No, that is right. That is right, Mr. Speaker, they are going to pay. They are going to pay to have the power wheeled through New Brunswick.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I recognize the hon. the Minister of Natural Resources, on a Point of Order.

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, misinformation again.

Wheeling power through provinces, Mr. Speaker, is a regulated activity, and the amount of money that is paid is regulated, not negotiated.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no Point of Order.

I recognize the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for just confirming what I said. If they put the power through Quebec or if they put it through Nova Scotia, or if they put it through New Brunswick, they still have to pay. But, they will make people of the Province believe that if we go through Quebec, if we take a financial secure route for the Province, that it is a bad thing,

all because the Premier had a fight and a racket with the government of Quebec. So, he says, we are doing the Anglo-Saxon. We are building lines, we are putting subsea cables in, we are going across two provinces, and if we have to, we are going to build this line down through five states on the Eastern Seaboard, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in order to get to the market, government would have to be able to feed this power into a grid when it crosses the border. Maybe they can tell me, on another point of order, if the State of Maine, if the State of New Hampshire, if the State of Massachusetts, and the State of Connecticut, have the transmission ability today for the government to be able to wheel that power. My guess is, Mr. Speaker, they don't have that ability.

Mr. Speaker, they have the option at anytime to table the information. They have the option at anytime to table what the cost is of developing every single section of this project and disclose that information to the people of the Province. They have, at any opportunity, the ability to table in the House of Assembly what it will cost to put the subsea cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They have the option, Mr. Speaker, at any time, to table for the people of the Province where they will have to build transmission lines. Will they have to build lines through Nova Scotia? Will they have to build lines through New Brunswick? At anytime, Mr. Speaker, the minister and her government can disclose that information to the people of the Province, but they are not doing that. At anytime they call tell us, Mr. Speaker, what the deal is when that power crosses the border into the United States: what grids it is going on; how it is going to be transported to the market; will they have to invest in the transmission lines there; and will someone else be building those lines and they be leasing or renting the space on the lines. These are the details that they keep hidden. These are the details that they do not disclose to the people of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, they have an EIS out now that is about that thick on the development of the Gull Island power plant and the transmission of that power, but they will not tell you how much it is going to cost to develop the powerhouse at Gull Island. Now, why won't they tell you? Because they know, Mr. Speaker, that there are economists, there are accountants, there are investors, and there are companies, that if they put those numbers out there they can sit down and crunch that information and they can tell government if what they are doing is a smoke screen or if it is realistic.

Mr. Speaker, why won't they put the information out there? They won't put it out there because they do not want it debated. They do not want to be challenged on anything they do, so they keep the facts hidden. That is what is going on with the Lower Churchill project, Mr. Speaker. That is what is going on. They are not putting information out there because they do not want to be challenged on what they are doing. That is the only reason, the simple reason, Mr. Speaker.

This is a government, Mr. Speaker, that when the Voisey's Bay deal was done, the entire deal ended up online practically. The deal, Mr. Speaker, was tabled in the House of Assembly. There was a full debate around it. Now, Mr. Speaker, they have this idea out there that they are going to build transmission lines right through Atlantic Canada and right through the Eastern Seaboard and they are going to develop the Churchill project and they are going to run it through national parks and under the Strait of Bell Isle and through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but we are not going to tell anyone how much it is going to cost to do this.

Mr. Speaker, they will tell you that this line is going to be able to transport this amount of power and this generating station will generate this amount of power. But, Mr. Speaker, even in all of that information, which I will not get into today because I only have ten minutes, if you sit down and you look at all of that information, government is even inconsistent with its own numbers. Numbers that they were putting out a few years ago as to what the production capability was at Gull Island is all of a sudden changed. The production capability is all of a sudden changed with no explanation, with no rationale. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the tie-ins for the project from Gull Island have even changed.

I know I would say a lot more about this than the minister knows. I would profess that I know more about what is going on with the Lower Churchill project, Mr. Speaker, than the minister knows, because it is all being handled by Nalcor and the Premier's Office. The minister, Mr. Speaker, is only propped up with a few notes when the government needs someone to speak. That is about the extent that the minister knows about what is going on with the Lower Churchill project, just like with Abitibi, Mr. Speaker, just like it was the Premier's Office making the calls over to AbitibiBowater. It was the Premier's Office that was calling up the head office of AbitibiBowater, not the minister's officer. They only prop the minister up with her notes when they need her to get out and say something, Mr. Speaker, but the reality is that it is the big energy corporation, Nalcor, and the spin doctoring from the Premier's office that is managing the Lower Churchill, not the minister's office.

Anyway, all will be known, Mr. Speaker, but I can tell you one thing, that government's concept of development of this project is far from feasible and I would challenge them to put the information out there. I would challenge them to put the numbers out there, because do you know something? When something is good for the people of the Province, don't hide it. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, I do not mind being proven wrong.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I do not mind being proven wrong when that wrong is going to amount into a great project that is going to derive wonderful benefits for the people of the Province. Let them prove it. Let them come out with the details and the expenditures and the cost estimates and where they are going to transmit the power and the cost of building the transmission lines. I am sure the minister would get up today and give me that information, but she does not have it. She does not know it. She has not gotten that note yet from Nalcor. Ed Martin has not sent her over the details yet on all of that, and until he gives it to her, she does not know the information.

Mr. Speaker, my guess is this, give it another year and the Province will not be going it alone, but they will be going. Give it another year and it will not be going the Anglo-Saxon route. It will be going down through Quebec and right into the State of New York. You can mark it down, and they know it themselves. This is all one big spin for the people of the Province. Why? Because the Premier had a temper tantrum with the Government of Canada and the Province of Quebec. When they have a temper tantrum they run for the next available option and they will try their best to push it into play. It does not matter how big the key is, it has to fit in that hole because I cannot be proven wrong.

Mr. Speaker, my prediction is this. Give it a year or so from now and we are going to be back here talking about doing a deal on the Lower Churchill that will be wheeling power through the Province of Quebec and into the U.S. market.

Mr. Speaker, there are lots of details around the Lower Churchill deal that have yet to be sorted out. If there is a way that we can bring transmitted power to the Island, of course. I would like to see a lot of that power left in Labrador for the development of industry in Labrador, because I think it needs to happen. I think the demand is there for it and there is a resource sector based there that can use that power.

I say to the Minister of Finance, it is not about what is there today. It is about where your vision is to ensure that there are developments in the future to use that power. I can safely say, Mr. Speaker, with the visions that the members opposite have, we are not going to see it for quite some time.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, let me say this. If there is a way that we can wheel power and leave it in Labrador, if there is a way we can wheel power to the Island to create industry for ourselves, that should be our focus. That should be our focus because it is about developing as a Province first. It is about developing industry for our own people first and not just giving it to someone else, not just looking at a way to transport it through two other Atlantic provinces and five states because I am having a temper tantrum with someone.

Let's talk about going it alone for a moment, because that was the big phrase by the provincial government when it came to the Lower Churchill: we are going it alone. We already know that the Minister of Finance had been in Ottawa when they were bringing down the stimulus package looking for $2 billion from the feds in loans and grants and programs. We already know that he went there, cap in hand, trying to get the $2 billion for the Lower Churchill project just a couple of months ago. He said: we will take it in a grant, we will take it in a loan, we will take it in some other form. We are looking for $2 billion. Well, we know that did not happen. That never materialized. I give the man credit and I pat him on the back for actually going to look for it, but that did not happen.

Mr. Speaker, the government's phrase is: we are going it alone. They make the phrase and then they go it alone to the federal government to look for $2 billion. Then they come back and bring in a Budget that has a deficit of over $700 million. Then they hide the numbers. They will not even give you the numbers of what it is going to cost to develop the project.

So, they may be going it alone but no one will know how much they are going it for or where they are getting the money at. If we do not know how much the project costs, if we do not know what the return is going to be on it –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS JONES: – how do we know how it is going to be financed? They know that, and that is why I have gotten their goat over there today. I have gotten their goat over there today and they are shouting from the benches because they know what we are saying is right. They know what we are saying is all right, Mr. Speaker. They know that if they disclose the information we will be able to figure it out and we will know that they cannot go it alone; they do not have the money to go it alone. It is not feasible what they are proposing and they know it. It is like this, you can make anything feasible.

It is like when the Premier drove up the Northern Peninsula back in the election of 2003, and he looked across and seen the Labrador Straits, where I live, Mr. Speaker. He looked across and said: Well, that is nowhere to build a fixed link. The next morning he got on the Open Line show and said: We are going to build a fixed link across the Strait of Belle Isle, one of the priorities of my government.

What did they do, Mr. Speaker? What did they do? They convinced people that they were going to do this. They convinced people that this was on their radar. That it was a possibility, and guess what? They threw $300,000 into a study. They got a study back, and they said: Oh no, it is not feasible.

Well, it is like this, Mr. Speaker, we know that you can make anything feasible if you want to, and you can make it unfeasible if you want to. So I guess it is going to be a wait and see on this issue. A wait and see on the Lower Churchill, but if the government has nothing to hide, I would suggest that they put the information out there, they educate the public and they stop spinning the yarns and let people look at the documents, look at the financial information, and make their own decisions and their own judgements. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, I say, are quite capable of making our own determinations and interpretations of deals like this.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is very unlikely that I will get any leave today, so that will conclude my comments.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Before I recognize the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, twice yesterday the Chair had to stand and interject because of the level of noise in the House. I am asking all members to be cognizant of the speaker that is recognized. I am hesitant to stand while a speaker is recognized and take away from their time speaking, but I am asking for a level of decorum in the House.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is almost hard to know where to start, Mr. Speaker, after that. From what I can understand, the oil is gone, we are not going to be able to develop the Lower Churchill, I doubt we can do anything with wind power, and nobody is going to move off the Avalon. According to that, it is all gone. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am here to tell you it is not gone anywhere.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: The hon. Leader of the Opposition started out talking, today, by saying that this government had no plan, no vision, and no idea of where we are going with the situation in Grand Falls-Windsor. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, my experience is that that couldn't be further from the truth.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: This government, Mr. Speaker, this Premier, has vision, this government, this Premier, knows exactly which road to go down, and this government, this Premier, will put in place, for Grand Falls-Windsor and surrounding areas, a plan that will take us into the next 100 years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: I want to say, I couldn't be happier to be part of this government at this time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: At a time when my district needs the support of a government that knows how to govern. Can you imagine what it would be like if AbitibiBowater went down under their watch? Can you imagine what that would bring?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I shutter to think how things could happen; a government that believes nothing good can happen off the Avalon. Certainly, we couldn't possibly take any business and put it in the Central part of Newfoundland and Labrador, because we can't find people out there who could staff up a business. How ridiculous, how ludicrous, is that, and what an appalling thought! What a demeaning, disrespectful comment to the people of Grand Falls-Windsor! It is not very difficult to figure out why, from Bay Roberts to Port aux Basques, there is not a member.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: There is not a Liberal member - I want to say that again - between Bay Roberts and Port aux Basques and we know why. We absolutely know why!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I want to take advantage of this afternoon's time to talk about and talk to the people of my district. Because, more than anybody in this House, more than anyone who gets the odd phone call, Mr. Speaker, I understand my district. I understand the hardships of the people who are in that district. I understand precisely how they feel to have lost a 100-year-old industry. We have all benefited from that industry. We have all been part of a town that was respected across this Province, that had a culture, that had an identity that all of this great Province could relate to, and to lose that particular part of our culture is more than difficult, Mr. Speaker. It is part of a loss that is like a grieving, and that is precisely what is happening in my district. I want to tell the people of Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans that this entire PC caucus Cabinet is with them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: This government, at a time when this area needs you the most, will guarantee you that we will be there with you. It is not going to be a quick fix. We all understand that. It is not about throwing something out there and saying: Here you go; now you are fixed. It will take time, it will take patience, it will take a period of time, but it will happen. There is no doubt in my mind, it will happen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: We talk about planning. This government does not lead by just throwing money out there. This government leads by putting in place a plan, and what we have done is, we have structured strategies. We have seven ministers, Mr. Speaker, seven ministers who are part of the task force. Almost half of Cabinet is dedicated to that particular task force, and all of Cabinet, all of caucus, are dedicated to helping us. I am one of the people from Grand Falls-Windsor.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: I sit at the table. I hear, see and feel the concern expressed by every person at that Cabinet table, by every person in caucus, and I am 100 per cent sure that we are going to get that support, but what do we hear from the Opposition? We hear nothing but criticism. Where are their suggestions? They are great with the criticisms, and they are great at telling us what we cannot do, but where are the suggestions? Where are their options for what can be done? Have we heard any of that? I do not think so, Mr. Speaker. What I heard on Out of the Fog, what I heard when the Official Opposition Leader was standing, was that Grand Falls-Windsor could not support a residential youth addictions centre.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

Shame on you.

MS SULLIVAN: That is it exactly, shameful.

The question was asked, why? Why is it going to Grand Falls-Windsor? Well, I want to answer the question as to why it is going to Grand Falls-Windsor. It is going to Grand Falls-Windsor, yes, because the area is economically depressed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS SULLIVAN: Thank you.

That centre is going to Grand Falls-Windsor because the area is economically depressed. Why wouldn't it go to Grand Falls-Windsor? What is wrong with Grand Falls-Windsor is the question I want to ask the members opposite. What is the problem with Grand Falls-Windsor?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: The area needs that kind of support, and the area can support a residential youth addictions centre.

I heard things like you are not going to be able to staff it. What an insult to the current staff who already exist. We have two child psychiatrists. We have two psychiatrists apart from that. We have psychologists. We have a mental health and addictions team. We have people out there who are social workers, who deal with addictions issues every single day. What is the problem? Why couldn't we attract people to Grand Falls-Windsor, Mr. Speaker? What is wrong with the Town of Grand Falls-Windsor?

AN HON. MEMBER: Absolutely nothing.

MS SULLIVAN: Absolutely nothing is right.

Let me tell you about my hometown. It is the largest town off the Avalon Peninsula. It services 100,000 people. It is the service centre for Central Newfoundland. It is geographically in the centre of the Island. It makes more sense to have a centre in the centre of the Island so that everyone can access it.

This town has amenities equal to any town on this Island. It has schools. It has the College of the North Atlantic. It has private colleges. It has all the recreation centres you may need. It has all the cultural supports you might need. It has the people who can support the area. It is a welcoming community. I hear they are resilient people, from my colleague opposite, and that is exactly right. In 1903 the people were told: You cannot go to the centre of the Island and build a mill; that is not possible.

They must have been the ancestors of the members opposite. Let me tell you, they went to Grand Falls-Winsor, they built a mill, and that mill spawned a mill in Corner Brook, and that mill spawned a mill in Stephenville. We opened up the centre of the Island where there was nothing before. That is who the people are in Grand Falls-Windsor.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on about that town that is Grand Falls-Windsor, and the surrounding area. On my bio it says: Susan Sullivan is immensely proud of her hometown. Nothing could be more true than that. I am immensely proud of that area, and I am here to work for the people of Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans. I will not give up until the people of Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans feel that security again, because we know right now it is a difficult time. We understand. I understand. I go home every weekend. I am part of that community, and I understand just how difficult this is at this time.

To hear the Opposition do nothing more than stirring it up, which is what the Leader of the Opposition said to me, stirring it up with negativity, naysayers, doom, gloom, talking about what cannot be done out there, pains me. At a time when this community needs support, needs to be bolstered up, all they can offer up is naysaying about that community.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, I cannot stand for that, and I will not stand for that, and this government will not stand for that.

The Leader of the Opposition also spoke about the fact that the infrastructure that was going to happen through this Budget is no different than would ever have happened. Let me tell you the difference of that, too, because she was wrong on that piece as well: $23.5 million in Central Newfoundland will be spent in terms of infrastructure. That is unprecedented in this area, and that is just roads, $23.5 million. If I remember correctly, I had $2 million last year. I will let others speak for their districts, but in the Central Newfoundland area, where people can be employed this summer, $23.5 million in roads alone; $10 million in the hospital. This hospital is the headquarters. It is the second largest health board on the Island. We need to recognize that when we talk about Grand Falls-Windsor and whether people can come there and live there and survive there as well. It is the second largest health board on this Island, Mr. Speaker, and this government has committed a further $10 million; $5.6 million of that to the redevelopment plan for the hospital in Grand Falls-Windsor.

There are all kinds of other announcements that come out of the Budget, and maybe since I am talking directly to the people in my district, maybe what I can do is run down that list a little bit for them - as soon as I find it here among my notes -in terms of the kinds of things that we want to do in the region.

We are looking at the forest and agriculture resource roads construction, $2.3 million; $1.6 million in maintenance and improvements to the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation units out there, much needed improvement out there. I want to thank the minister for this as well because we understand for low-income families, this is a piece of work that needs to be done and we have committed $1.6 million in Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans to doing that; $3.4 million for support for the construction of an aquaculture facility in St. Alban's.

Mr. Speaker, Grand Falls-Windsor has been, for some time, striving to be the service centre for the aquaculture industry and I have no doubt that we are well on the way to being able to do that as well out there. So, a $3.4 million injection into that industry is a very welcome addition; $500,000 in upgrades to the College of the North Atlantic. The College of the North Atlantic will be pivotal to us as we start to rebuild the community of Grand Falls-Windsor. There is no doubt in my mind about that. We will see great things happening out there and this $500,000 will certainly help with that; $445,000 in repairs to schools, renovations to schools in the area; $5 million in the Community Development Trust that will help to stimulate the economy in Grand Falls-Windsor.

When I hear the Opposition talking about the fact that we are going to do nothing to stimulate the economy of Grand Falls-Windsor and I start to read through some of this, I am absolutely flabbergasted at their lack of understanding of how economies are stimulated. If it is not stimulated, Mr. Speaker, by putting these kinds of dollars into the economy, how else is it stimulated? Dollars into the economy bring people into the area, people spend money, the economy is stimulated. What part of that don't they get?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Apart from that, we are relocating two offices to Grand Falls-Windsor, the home heating rebate office and the parent benefit office, creating twenty-three jobs. They are six-month jobs. They are good paying jobs. That will come at a cost of $720,000.

Apart from that, Mr. Speaker, I can go on and on about grants, subsidies, all kinds of other initiatives. Money for the Central Status of Women, increased funding for the Exploits Valley Community Centre, increased funding for the CYN, funding for the remediation of the former Buchans mine, and it goes on. I do not have time with only four-and-a-half minutes left to enumerate all of the things that are in this Budget to stimulate the economy of Central Newfoundland, but let me tell you, I am more than happy, more than pleased, and more than proud of a government that sees a need and stands up and addresses it.

Now, the Leader of the Opposition also spoke about the fact that we are not doing anything in terms of diversifying the economy in the area. Mr. Speaker, one full part of the task force is dedicated to stimulating and diversifying the economy in Central Newfoundland, but it is going to take time. We are in the perfect economic global storm right now. In case they have not noticed, there is a downturn in the economy. Investors are not rushing out at this point in time, however there is interest. There are groups who are looking at our area. There will be uses for the fibre. There will be uses for the power, and we, again, will stand on top of that mountain, which is the mountain that says, Grand Falls-Windsor and area is the place to live because we will find industries. We will find that industrial partner.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS SULLIVAN: Work is happening. To the people of my district, I need to assure you once again that this government is with us. This government is concerned about this area. This government is not going to let go. We have made a start here with this particular Budget. We will be holding hands all the way through this until we get ourselves back to the point where are self-sufficient again.

There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that there are people in the area right now who are nervous, who are angry, who are concerned, and they have every right to be. Their jobs have been taken. I hear the people opposite talking about severance. I hear them talking about pensions. Well, Mr. Speaker, this government year over year over year invested millions of dollars in AbitibiBowater to keep them going so that they could keep employed the people of the area. It is now time for AbitibiBowater to accept their responsibility to the people of the area and to see to it that those severances are paid.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: To see to it that those unfunded liabilities in pensions are topped up, and we will hold their feet to the fire to do that. That is their job, that is their responsibility and make no doubt about the fact that this government is following through on a commitment to ensure that AbitibiBowater does what they morally and legally ought to do for the people of Grand Falls-Windsor.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, there are many places that I could go when I talk about this particular issue out there. Life is about choices, Mr. Speaker. Life is about sizing up a situation, accepting where we are and moving on, and I think we have done that in Grand Falls-Windsor.

I hear positive comments when I go home now, especially after this Budget. I hear comments from people that say: well, you know, we never thought this could happen but now that it has we have to find a way forward. I hear from people that we have strong leadership in our government. We are able to see a way forward because we understand that there are people who care for us and who will lead us along the way.

I heard criticism from members opposite this afternoon about the fact that the Mayor of Grand Falls-Windsor happened to say that he thought the Budget was a good Budget for Grand Falls-Windsor.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: He said that he was pleased with the fact that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador recognized the needs of the people of Grand Falls-Windsor and is setting about helping out all of those people. Mr. Speaker, to be criticized for being positive does not really surprise me when I know it is coming from that side of the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, Rex Barnes is a mayor who cares about his community. He understands the need to work together. He has promised that he too will lead the charge forward as we find our way to that better future. I want to publicly say that I am not disappointed with Mayor Rex Barnes.

MR. SPEAKER (Collins): Order, please!

MS SULLIVAN: I, on the other hand -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: I will give the hon. member a few minutes to clue up.

MS SULLIVAN: Thank you.

I would like to say again that I believe that the Mayor of Grand Falls–Windsor is on the right track when he says that what we need is positive leadership, a positive attitude. A way forward can only be found that way. Patience is difficult to have, sometimes, and I understand that. Impatience is born of fear, and I understand why we might be fearful at this point in time, but we do need to be patient. We do need to support each other. We do need to find that way forward by being positive, by being supportive, and by relying on this government which, I guarantee you, will be here for everyone.

We will work together. There is no question about that. We need to say, though, to the naysayers, to those negative people who are out there - but I want to say I believe it is only a handful of negative people out there; there is certainly only a handful on the other side of the House - I want to say that with that negativity things are not happening, but it is with that positive reinforcement and support and leadership and working together that I absolutely believe we will find the new Grand Falls–Windsor.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Exploits.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FORSEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As my colleague from Grand Falls–Windsor–Buchans said, the Central Region right now is going through a difficult time, there is no doubt about it, but I would like to go back a few steps, back a few months actually, when this Premier came on the scene and knew that there were going to be some difficulties coming up with Abitibi in the future, and a possible closure. What did he do? He moved ahead - actually, the response was quick - formed a task force of ministers who are very qualified in their field, and had the resources to react to what we needed to do in Central Newfoundland.

Our chairman of the task force, the Minister of Innovation and Trade, no doubt has put a lot of time into the committees and getting the committees working out in Central. It has not been easy. It took time, but we saw meetings after meetings in Central Newfoundland with the task force and with the chair of the task force, and these ministers came in with their hearts in the right place and ready to work for our region. Shortly after the minister of the task force came in, he wanted to set up a committee: a committee that would work; a committee that would actually, I guess, promote the region and take us in the right direction. It was not easy. There are a lot of people out in Central Newfoundland who are qualified to certainly lead us and give us the ideas that we need.

This committee was put together, I guess, with a lot of thought, and when the minister made his decision it came out that he had basically all the sectors of the region included – including representation from the Exploits Valley Economic Development Corporation, representation from the joint councils, representation from the lending agencies, representation from the college, and representation from the business sector – a very good mix of people who know fair well what they need to do and where they need to take us.

Unfortunately, and this is the downside - the Opposition showed it today, and they are going to keep showing it because they want to put fear in the people in Central Newfoundland. That is very unfortunate, when they get playing partisan politics with such a serious issue, because we know that right now they have people on the ground out there. I think one of them used to the past Minister of Health when they were in government. They are out there, and what they are doing is just bringing a negative swing to what is actually happening.

I know I heard the Opposition Leader say today, she has been talking to people in Grand Falls, displaced workers. They do not know where to go. They are going across the street to one office, and they are going across the street to the other office.

That is totally false, like everything else they have been saying here today, because the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment only recently came in and opened a new office in Grand Falls. That is the career centre, and everything is housed in that career centre.

What did this task force do, and the minister do? Took eighteen to twenty people, brought them in – professional people, as we would find professional people as well for the addictions centre – they are there and they worked on individual cases with the displaced workers. They also met with them in different sessions. They worked on their pensions. They worked on retraining, if necessary, and there were a lot of other things included in that, so there was a good mix of people involved, staff people from Human Resources and Labour. Unlike what the Leader of the Opposition said, they do not have to go all over the place. It is basically a one-stop shop.

Again, I know that the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment referred to what was said by the Opposition House Leader. Well, basically what he said was: You did not have the professional support that you needed out there, so why did you do it - this is from Hansard, by the way - so why did you do it, other than trying to make yourself look good and look after Abitibi's situation? So, there is a lot of negativity out there on that move.

He is saying there is a lot of negativity out there on that move. Well, we are going to have the construction of a new building out there. We are going to have an addictions centre that is going to be second to none in the Province because it will be set up out there with professional people and it is going to serve, as my colleague from Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans said, all the people in the Central Region and all the people in the Province, wherever they may come from. That part of it with regard to the Abitibi situation, we are dealing with.

Also, we have our Minister of Business who has been in the region on several occasions and meeting with, I guess, prospective investors who want to start up business there. Because of the competitive nature of the businesses we really cannot disclose the information, because they have asked that it be kept in confidence and that is where it is going to stay.

There are some good possibilities there coming up in the future; however, just in the small four or five position jobs that are coming up, I know right now there is one in Bishop's Falls that is coming up early May, a new company that is starting up there that will employ five or six people. This is the kind of thing that we are looking for. There is also another company out there as well that is looking to expand, and they will be employing eight to ten people. These are small, but small business is what makes the economy grow in the Province, and certainly out in Central Newfoundland is not going to be any different.

Now, I would like to go back to the Budget and the Budget consultations. I would like to thank the Minister of Justice for coming out to Central Newfoundland. He made a remark when he presented his Budget, that there was a question of the day: Are the consultations worth it? Well, from what we got during the consultations out in Grand Falls–Windsor, when the minister was there, it was certainly worth it. He figured it was going to take about three hours and I believe it went to four and a half. I know it went at least an hour or an hour and a half more than what it was. Presentations were made from almost every sector, from the development corporation, from the towns, from the youth, from the unions, and from the private sector. The minister listened and he documented and he made notes, and during that process and the process right through the Province, some of these recommendations and suggestions that were put forward came through and they came out in the Budget.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, right after the Budget - the Budget came down on Thursday and I was fortunate enough to drive back to my district Thursday night. I had several events during the weekend and, actually, I was expecting people to make remarks about the Budget, Mr. Speaker, about certain things that would probably pertain to them. The first remark I got, the first compliment I got, on that budget was that they were glad the debt was now at $7.9 billion dollars.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FORSEY: During one of the events, I think the main topic, although I was expecting people to talk about what we were doing for health care, what we were doing for infrastructure because of the people who I was involved with and the mix of people that were there, surprisingly, it was the interest, the provincial interest, on student loans. One of the first parents who met me came along and said she had gotten a call from her son. He finished last year and he was elated with the provincial interest being dropped from the student loans. During that event that night I had three compliments on that particular topic, on that particular issue. That was an investment that will not go astray, especially when it is going to affect 49,000 people.

I would to thank the Minister of Education because she listened, as the Minister of Finance did, when presentations were made by the students and the student unions looking for their reduction in the provincial interest on the student loans.

You sit there and you listen to the Opposition and you listen to, especially the Leader of the Opposition - and she is pretty quiet today for a change. That is good, but that does not happen very often. They are always nagging: how are you going to do that, how are you going to do this, you are always talking about the policies and the initiatives that you are going to take, but you do not do anything. It is a funny thing, because that is what they said about the broadband initiative back four years ago: Oh, well, you are only doing it for your buddies. Do you know what? It was one of the best investments ever made. That is now completed and it was run down through the South Coast and all through the rural areas of the Province, and right now, most of our people in this Province are getting the benefit from the broadband.

We were not going to get any money from the Atlantic Accord. What happened? The Premier came back with $2 billion. That is why we are able to spend today because of his initiative and the move that he made a couple of years ago with the feds.

They are always saying: you cannot do this, you cannot do that. I guess the problem with the Opposition is that they did not do it. They did not take the initiative to do it. Well, either they did not take it or they did not know how to move ahead with it. Because of the initiatives that we brought in, in infrastructure this year, just in the Exploits District alone there is one town that I know of right now, because of the cost-shared ratio that we brought in last year - and it is working through a lot of communities, and a lot of smaller communities, in the past year. We have been able to avail of this.

One community in my district right now is going ahead with a $600,000 project. It had a boil order ever since the water lines were there, probably thirty years, and this in the first time they have been able to do it. I remember meeting with that community and the former member for the district. They asked the former member for the district for a meeting to try to do something with their water supply. He did not meet with them. He refused to meet with them. Guess what? The former member was the Premier of the day, and would not meet with them.

That is the kind of thing that they do when they are in power. I remember when they ran in the election in 2003. The only thing that they could put on the table that seemed to be receptive to all the people out there was the elimination of school fees. Well, boy, we have come a long way since 2003. The school fees are gone, but free text books are in, the skilled trades are in, the tuition is frozen, and the provincial interest is gone. That is just in education. The investment in infrastructure in the schools has just been phenomenal. They, in their Red Book, said, we are going to eliminate school fees. That was the best that they could do, eliminate school fees.

I also have to thank the Minister of Justice, because when the ministers get together and they are doing their budgets, they have facilities around – we are fortunate. Out in the District of Exploits we have a correctional centre, a very good correctional centre, again, with some very good, competent, intelligent, professional people. From what I understand from the Opposition, we do not have that out there. We do not know how to get professional people.

Well, I will have to thank the Minister of Justice, this year, for the investment in our correctional centre that is located in Bishop's Falls. We are going to spend $10,000 on windows, $4,000 on light fixtures, $13,000 on beds, $15,000 on the inmate washroom in the school area, $35,000 for a new doctors' office, $30,000 for a new segregation cell, $20,000 to modify the control room, and $25,000 for a new visiting room; approximately $152,000 that is going to be spent in that facility in the District of Exploits. I thank you very much, Minister.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FORSEY: There are a lot of other good things in the Budget. We went down through them, and as my colleague from Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans said, we are going to spend $40 million in Central Newfoundland.

Well, it was only a couple of weeks ago, and I do believe it was right after the announcement was made, that I looked in the back of our local paper and there were construction companies that were advertising everything from a labourer to a heavy equipment operator, and electricians and mechanics. I think each one that was there, each company that advertised was looking for something like twenty to twenty-five workers. Why are they looking for workers? Because of the initiative of this government and the Premier, that brought in a stimulus of $800 million, that we will be very fortunate if we have the capacity to spend it. I hope we do, because it is going to mean a lot of jobs for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and I will say for the Central region. It may not be for all the mill workers because they all have different - we have a situation when we look at Abitibi, we have a variety of people who are skilled. They were skilled at what they do. If they were loggers, they were skilled at what they did. If they were paper makers, they were skilled at what they did, but we also had electricians there. We had millwrights there. We had silviculture workers. One that sometimes is forgotten, we had some very good stevedores there, Mr. Speaker, sixty-seven to be exact. They had a skill, but where is the next skill going to come from? That is why the government was so fast to react, to come in and set up a taskforce that would give the younger members an opportunity to retrain, and I know this is working.

For the information of our members and the information of the minister of our taskforce, Innovation and Trade, there were two members who worked with Abitibi that called me within the past two weeks and said they had decided to go in for retraining. They did not go, as the Leader of the Opposition said, across the road to this place and that place and another place. They went to the one-stop shop which was the career centre on Hardy Avenue in Grand Falls-Windsor. Right now, these two people have been approved to go and retrain and they will be starting when the next classes start. Now that is the kind of stuff that we wanted to do. We wanted to be able to move their files and their ideas forward as fast as possible. Was there a certain job for them when they came out? Not at the present time, but I know that this government and the committee, and especially the community development committee that was set up by the Minister of Innovation and Trade, the leader of our taskforce, has some other things that I know is going to be beneficial for Central Newfoundland.

So, I would just like to say, by cluing up, Mr. Speaker, that the Opposition is great at trying to scare people and they actually send their little people out there to do it. That is unfortunate, but do you know what? I think the people out in Central Newfoundland are smart enough to figure out that the Member for Exploits and the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor-Buchans and the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor-Green Bay South and all the members and ministers in this government are there to help them and will be there in the future.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is a pleasure to be able to stand today and take part in the Budget Debate and with regards to the sub-amendment.

Mr. Speaker, before I get into my comments, I have to refer to the debate that took place here on Tuesday. I guess I have been in the political arena now, not elected for the full twenty years but it goes back twenty years ago, as the Member for Topsail is well aware of. I guess after twenty years you get a fairly thick skin but then again, what went on here on Tuesday, I think it was just a personal attack from one member to another in this hon. House. That was the comments that were made by the Minister of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, when we get elected we come here from all walks of life. As I look around, there are people from the fishing industry, from the teaching profession, from business, farming and the various business fields, and yes, there are lawyers. Mr. Speaker, each time I stand I may not have the knowledge that the minister has, I may not have the speaking skills that he has, I may not be able to talk on my feet as good as he can, and yes, Mr. Speaker, like he said, maybe I cannot spell the word feet. But I can tell you one thing, and we have all heard the expression: open mouth insert foot. I can assure you this member here does not go around with both feet in his mouth like some people do. Mr. Speaker, I think it is a shame, a discredit, to this hon. House of Assembly.

Having said that, I will be nice. Having said that, this is not a place to get personal. We all have our little debates back and forth and that is where they end, but not with some people. I think the decorum in this House on Tuesday was not called for. We should never get personal, because we all know about Pandora's box: when it opens you never know what is coming out.

Mr. Speaker, having said that, and getting that off my chest, I will move on. I want to go back to my district, like all the other members have done, because we come here to represent the people who elected us. In my district, in the comments that I will make, like my two colleagues, the Member for Burgeo & LaPoile and the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, they gave credit where credit was due, what was in this Budget and the things that government are doing, and I will do that, but I can also assure you I will still stand and bring the concerns of not only the people in my district but the people throughout this Province to the floor of the House of Assembly. It is not in a political way, it is not in a negative way; it is just bringing their concerns forward.

I have to say, Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of the district that I represent. It is an area that is, as I said before, in close proximity, I guess, to the larger Avalon area, the St. John's area, but it is an area that is well known for its involvement in the fishing industry. Later on, whether it is in my twenty minutes today or the next time I get up, that is one of the things I am going to speak on, because I think in this hon. House and in the House of Commons it is a thing that has gone by the wayside. We fail to bring it up, but we have to realize it has been the lifeblood of our Province for some 500 years, and the day will come when the oil will not flow and we will have to go back to the way of the past with our fishing industry.

The other thing my area covers, Mr. Speaker, is a tremendous involvement with the farming industry. We may not be as large as what it is on the West Coast and some other areas, but we are very fortunate to have five or six fairly large farms in the area and they look forward to continued support from this government. They hire many people in that particular area, and it is a benefit to the economy there.

The other thing is tourism. Tourism is alive and well, not only in my area but in the areas surrounding. My hon. colleague from Harbour Main has two major events coming up: one this year, the Bob Bartlett event, and then the next year the 400 Anniversary of Cuper's Cove - today it is known as Cupids.

In Bay Roberts alone we have the walking trails. We have the fishing community of Port de Grave, where tourists travel when they come here to St. John's. They travel there by bus tours and so on. So, tourism is a major factor in that particular area of our Province as well.

We have a tremendous business community that employs a large number of people. Some people, yes, have to come to St. John's - commute back and forth on a daily basis – but the business community there is alive and well and doing a tremendous job.

Mr. Speaker, I said that I would speak in response with regard to issues that were in the Budget, and we all know – I have said it before, and I will say it again – there was never a Budget that some good did not derive from it for each and every district in our Province. Then again, there are other issues that you would like to see, and the people are still asking questions about them and we will bring them forward.

I reference the home care. I think it is a tremendous thing for the people of our Province to know that a couple who originally would have to pay $1,100 for home care is now down to less than $150. People in my area appreciate that, as well as in the other areas of this Province.

The other thing was the interest on the student loans. I commend the minister and the government for that, for the interest-free loans. I know that covers some forty-odd-thousand students. My wish and prayer is now that the federal government would go along with the same initiative, to really help our young people to come up with an education and to be able to take care of their loans, interest free.

The other thing I would like to mention is the services – and my colleagues have mentioned this – the changes to the prison services. The upkeep that is going on there will benefit not only those who work there, but those who unfortunately have to go there and serve their time.

The other thing is the facility to treat addictions and mental illness for youth. I know my hon. colleagues get up and say that we are against it, but I think my two hon. colleagues made some very important points that they have concerns about. Can the specialists that are needed be provided? That is not against it going to Grand Falls. There is nobody who mentioned that, not to my knowledge.

The other thing, I guess, that I am very proud of is the long-term care facility – it finally being announced that funding would kick-start the long-term care facility for the Conception Bay North area, in the community of Carbonear. As I said before, Mr. Speaker, it was not an issue where that facility would be built in that area. Everyone would like to have it in their district, but for me that is not the case. As long as it is there to provide a good service to the people not only that serve my area, but my hon. colleague from Harbour Main, Trinity-Bay de Verde and Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

We know that this is only the initial start with that facility. From my understanding, looking at The Economy booklet that came down with the Budget, I think the magic date and possibly, if everything goes as planned and the revenues keep flowing the way they do, that could be completed by the year 2014. We are not jumping in the streets and going to cut the ribbon yet, but it is a major step forward to be able to do that.

The other thing is the district profile that we received this year. I think this is the first one that I have received under this Administration. They used to be a way of the past, where you would get your district profile outlining what was recommended, and hopefully it would go ahead in your district. I am pleased to say that I received mine. I know there was a tender last year that was called for the community of Upper Island Cove; government allocated $300,000. When the bids came in, the tender came in, it was over $1 million and it has to be cancelled. I have to say the Minister of Municipal Affairs now, who was Minister of Transportation at the time, called me and informed me that could not go ahead as planned, but she assured me that this year all of the funds would be made available for that project. The present Minister of Transportation has confirmed that, and there are other projects that will be going ahead, so I want to say that I am also happy with the things that were in this year's Budget.

Then there were many other announcements made, and my hon. colleagues and others have referenced them, and other people in the general public. Many of them have been announced several times. I am hoping next year that I will not hear another announcement that there is going to be a long-term care facility for Carbonear. It has been announced and next year, hopefully, there is will be funds saying that we are going to proceed with additional work that has to be done.

Mr. Speaker, recently we received the Public Accounts, Volume I, the Consolidated Summary Financial Statements ending March 31, 2008. It showed there an increase in total revenues of $1.6 billion from 2007 to 2008, attributed to the increases as follows: there was $1.3 billion of offshore royalties due mainly to increased production and higher oil prices. We know how that can change overnight, and by triggering those higher royalty rates it accounted for 32.8 per cent of our own source revenues; and $151.1 million was from mining and minerals (inaudible) caused by strong growth in the metal prices along with increases in production. We all know how volatile that can be; because now those same mining companies have said that with the crisis in the economy around the world they will be cutting back to some degree over the summer.

Mr. Speaker, we also noted in 2003 that oil at that time, I was told, was approximately $25 a barrel and the deficit at the time was around $30 million. Today, in 2009, the oil at the present time is $50 a barrel but with this Budget we find ourselves with a deficit of $750 million.

There was also an audit of the financial statements which the AG released to the House of Assembly for 31 March 2008. The oil revenues in 2004 were $127 million, which made up for 4.7 per cent of our own source revenue. In 2008 the oil revenue was $1.754 billion, for 32 per cent of our own source revenue.

I ask the question: Where did it all come from? We stand here in the House and, like I said, we have our comments back and forth about how this Administration came on stream and straightened out the economy. We were bankrupt when they took over in 2003, and no doubt probably we were not in a financial position like we are today, but you have to stand back and say to yourselves: The wealth that we enjoy today, where did we inherit it from? Where did it begin and who were the masters that started it?

It is not gloating because it was all done under a former Liberal Administration. It goes back beyond that, Mr. Speaker. It goes back to Administrations, provincially and federally, of both political stripes that helped to put it together and bring us to where we are today.

It is true, like my hon. Leader, the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, said, yes, there was some tweaking done with some issues. There were a few million dollars gotten here and there, but we have to realize we have to take credit and we have to understand where it all began. That is why, I guess, we put forward a motion of non-confidence and then the sub-amendment to that non-confidence motion, because former Administrations did do the groundwork, and that is no different than what this Administration is doing. Because the government of the day stand and tell us about what is going to happen with the Lower Churchill, and they stand and tell us about the deal on Hebron. We have to realize - who knows? - some of those projects are being announced but they might not come on stream for another ten, fifteen or twenty years and there could be another Administration of a different political stripe. It could be Liberal, it could be the New Democratic Party, and that is possible, because I can assure you governments go in cycles. We can be as popular and as powerful as we want to be, but when the people decide that they are going to change, the forty-eight of us in this hon. House of Assembly cannot change it.

That is what we have to look at, because with the Lower Churchill and Hebron I do not think it would be fair for whoever is here at that particular time to stand and say what we are doing because of the Lower Churchill and Hebron. Whoever is here would have to give credit to this Administration for the work that they are doing on those projects now, and what others will do in the future.

Mr. Speaker, we hear all too often about the mess that we inherited, whether it is schools or various other infrastructure, but when you realize what revenues were coming in as compared to today we can totally understand where government can come up with the money to do what has to be done with many of those projects.

The AG's 31 March 2008 audit of the financial statement also states – they give us a breakdown of our federal revenue as a percentage of the total, and the revenue year ended 31 March 2008. In 1999, 49 per cent of what was coming to our budgets was from federal. In 2003 it was 38.8 per cent. Even last year, in 2008, the federal revenue, as a percentage of our total revenue, was at 25 per cent.

When we look at it, when you look at the 38 per cent, close to 40 per cent, from our mining and offshore royalties, and the 25 per cent that comes, even though we do not have a good relation -the ministers stand and say they have a good relation with Ottawa. Thank God for that, so that those revenues can come. When you look at 25 per cent of your budget, it is a fair chunk of change, I say.

Mr. Speaker, I hear hon. members and ministers saying how they turned the economy around. We have to realize the economy turned around because of major projects that I just mentioned, and what caused us to get in this position where we can put our house in order. We have to realize that, because you take the Lower Churchill. As of right now there is no deal, there are no revenues flowing. Hebron: we all hope is going to come on stream, and no doubt it will. The deal has been signed. We do not know what is in it, but it has been signed. The contents are unknown. As of today, there is no revenue flowing from that project.

Long Harbour, the Voisey's Bay project, Vale Inco: the project that the Premier said back in 2002 would never go ahead under his watch because there were holes so large that Mack trucks could go through them. Mr. Speaker, I know he was in Opposition that time, playing the political game, I guess, but I can assure you: for the tweaking that was done and what is happening in Long Harbour now, the main part of that deal was struck back when it was signed a few years ago under a former administration.

I hear the Minister of Natural Resources, from time to time, say: there are so many off-ramps with that particular project that I can assure you, the funds that are flowing, the jobs that will be created from that project in Long Harbour, will go into many, many years for the young people and our grandchildren. We have to realize it is going to take time, yes, before the revenues even flow from that particular facility.

We have to look at other projects where the tweaking was not so good. I take us back to the FPI, the debates we had here on FPI. They were, I have to say, very forceful at times. We have to realize that this government at the time - and I am going to bring this up again when I get back another time with regards to the fishery, the FPI issue. That was legislation that was brought before this House. It went before Cabinet and it came here as a bill for us to debate, and it was debated, and there were people in the galleries here from Fortune and Grand Bank and Bonavista and Catalina. Everyday they were in the galleries. It was the same time, I guess, we saw the jellybeans fly, because someone threw them from the galleries.

When we look at that, Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, there we were talking about FPI and what was going to happen with it and, lo and behold, when we took the vote on that piece of legislation, the Premier stood in his place and he looked up in the galleries and said: I cannot vote for it. There are too many loopholes. I cannot vote for it. He knew full well that he had enough individuals and hon. members who were going to stand and vote for it. He could not vote for it, the legislation, and looking in the galleries, he said, I cannot vote for it, and he voted against it. I can assure you he gave the message to enough people that he knew that it was not going to go through.

We go back to Stephenville, and I know hon. colleagues said the economy and everything in Stephenville has turned around, and that is good. Then again, the same individual who said, that will never close under my watch – but it did close. We have the same situation in Grand Falls, and I hope, because I know the hon. Members that represent that area, I hope the economy will be strong in Grand Falls. There is no one against that. Whatever government is planning to do, whatever they have plans to do there, we wish them all the best.

Mr. Speaker, I know my time is out, and I will take my leave until another time.

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

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I certainly would like to take some time to speak on the Budget and the debate this afternoon, certainly in my capacity as Minister of Education.

I would also like to make some comments, as well, about the situation in Central Newfoundland and comparisons that are being drawn to Stephenville, and how my hon. colleague, the Member for Port de Grave, just spoke about Stephenville. I am not sure when was the last time he was actually in Stephenville to meet with the people to discuss the issues on the ground and what we have done as a community and as an area, but I would certainly like to speak to that for a bit.

In 2005, Mr. Speaker, Stephenville and the Bay St. George area had a very difficult year. We had known since July that the future of the paper mill in the local area was certainly in question. I think it is also important for the people to understand that the people in the Stephenville area lived under that stress and that anxiety about the paper mill for many years before it actually closed. There was always this stress, this anxiety, in the air in Stephenville, about the fact that the mill may close. The mill had many challenges, and the challenges, Mr. Speaker, were on a number of fronts.

One, certainly, was the cost of hydro, another was the availability of fibre, and the other was the cost of labour. As the mill announced that it would close, and we had to face the reality of the fallout from that, Mr. Speaker, the government had negotiated a deal regarding hydro, a ten year deal, which was satisfactory to the company.

At that point, the company turned the tables on the union and wanted to strip out their contract, and wanted concessions, and wanted the union to take action that they did not feel they could take. That was a very difficult decision for the members of the union to be able to vote on those conditions and what was happening at that time, because of the anxiety that filled the community. The leadership who had the authority to make the decisions made the decision that they felt was the best decision at the time, Mr. Speaker. As a result, they knew that there was the real possibility, which happened, that the mill could close. No one made any decisions on the blind or not understanding what could happen.

Again, Mr. Speaker, the situation with the mill in Stephenville was in the works for years. The anxiety had been there for years. I moved back to Stephenville in late 1996 and from 1996 until 2005 that was a constant message in the community that this mill may actually close.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, in 2005 we also had some other events that seriously disrupted the functioning of the community. In late September, we had a flood that took out 150 homes, 150 families were displaced in Stephenville, and other families that did not actually lose their homes but had to leave their homes. When I say leave their homes, Mr. Speaker, this was not just for overnight or for a weekend, these people were actually out of their homes for a year or more at the time. We had the community devastated by a flood, we had a state of emergency called, we had a situation where the municipal infrastructure needed to be redone for the houses that were not destroyed, and we had families, we had senior citizens, and we had young children who were displaced for an extended period of time.

Mr. Speaker, what happened in Stephenville in the face of adversity, in the face of the flood, and with the mill closure was exceptional. The people pulled together, the community responded, and people supported each other.

I think that one of the shining stars of Bay St. George was the regional leadership. Mr. Speaker, I speak of people now who served on the Town Council, who continue to serve on the Town Council in the Town of Stephenville, in the Town of Stephenville Crossing, in the Town of Kippens, in the Town of Port au Port West, in the Town of St. George's, and there are other municipal leaders as well. I know, in particular, we certainly counted on the leadership at that time of people like Wayne Ruth who was the Mayor of Kippens at that time, and Brian Joy who became the Mayor of Stephenville Crossing the say of the flood, Mr. Speaker. That same day he had family members who lost their homes, and he was also a mill worker who lost his job at that time. People who faced such adversity at that time were able to pull together and work together for the betterment of that area.

Mr. Speaker, we also have our own mayor, Mayor Tom O'Brien, from the Town of Stephenville who I describe as an eternal optimist. Mayor O'Brien is able to see the bright side of every situation. I remember when the reality hit that the mill would actually close and how we all felt, myself included that day, and I remember hearing him on the news and he said: We are all going to get up tomorrow morning and the sun is going to shine again. We are all going to get on with our lives and things will be okay. He was right, because the next day did come, everyone pulled together. It was not because it was easy times in Stephenville, nor do we go off with this sense of confidence that we cannot fall back again, but there are a lot of initiatives that happened in Stephenville. There was a lot of hard work by people to make things more positive over there.

I am just going to speak to some initiatives that government took at that time because they certainly parallel to some of the issues that we are seeing in Grand Falls-Windsor, in Central Newfoundland at this time. We hear the naysayers that we are putting an addictions centre for young people in Grand Falls-Windsor and that it is not going to work because people do not want to go there and do not want to work.

Well, Mr. Speaker, Central Newfoundland is a lovely place to work and live and to raise a family. So are most places in Newfoundland and Labrador, whether you are on this side of the overpass or outside the overpass. People understand that and they truly appreciate it.

We opened offices in Stephenville at a time when people would have thought the economy was failing, that housing prices were going down, and that we would not be able to attract people to that community.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that housing prices in Stephenville have never dipped as a result of the closure of the mill. They actually have increased and they probably parallel with prices in much larger communities, probably in other provinces, or certainly here on the East Coast. It is amazing sometimes when you think about the price of housing in Stephenville.

As a community and as a government, we were there to respond. One thing we did was we opened the Newfoundland and Labrador prescription drug office. The Prescription Drug Program itself has been a cornerstone of our Poverty Reduction Strategy. What that program has administered through Stephenville, when we opened that and we did up the staffing that would go in the office, the types of skill mix that was needed for that office, there was no trouble to fill that office. Those jobs were all filled, and I am sure there are people who would love to get into those positions.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we also opened the Program Development Unit at the College of the North Atlantic. That is a highly professional unit that certainly works in the program development of the college. They were highly skilled, trained, university educated individuals who are not necessarily in Stephenville but had to be attracted to Stephenville or had to come here. None of those jobs are vacant. Those jobs are all filled. There were no worries that people would not see Stephenville as a place to live and a place to raise families.

Mr. Speaker, the other thing we did was we expanded the search centre, which is part of the Marine Institute, the Search and Rescue Centre in Stephenville. A lot of the staff who work at that centre are professional firefighters. We did not have a community of professional firefighters. We had some at the local fire hall; professional firefighters who were paid in their profession, but those jobs are all filled as well. There are probably twenty-five people working at that centre right now.

So people have moved to these areas. They saw that the jobs were something that they felt could complement or build their career and they came. I anticipate a similar fate for Grand Falls-Windsor. There is no overnight solution. If there was a magic bullet that could rebuild the economy and we could tell people that there is no need to be concerned or no need to work together, well that would be something we would all welcome.

What I do have to say is that in time things do rebound, but in order to rebound we need to be there as a government, just like we have been for Stephenville, just like we have demonstrated in this Budget for Central Newfoundland, but we also depend on the regional leadership as well to be able to look at things in a way that is constructive, that there is optimism there and that there is an air of co-operation to work together to make sure that the economy and the people are well looked after. I think that Central Newfoundland certainly has that capacity and we do not need to criticize the people and criticize the efforts of government. We all need to make sure we move together in that process.

We also invested in infrastructure in Bay St. George at the time. We have redeveloped. We have done work with the arts and culture centre over there. We have done work on the court house. We have done work on roofing projects and school upgrades, and the whole Port au Port area and Bay St. George.

Mr. Speaker, in this Budget we have also had initiatives that target the Bay St. George area as well. We have seen an increase in the funding to the Bay St. George Status of Women Council. We are going to see upgrades at the West Coast Correctional Centre in Stephenville. There is going to be an endoscopy unit at our local hospital.

Mr. Speaker, I remember when I was first elected, all the anxiety that was created around the hospital, and the fact the hospital was going to close, and how we had no commitments to the hospital, but since we have been in government the services at that hospital have actually expanded. We have more services there now than what we had prior to 2003. That is indicative of our commitment, and our commitment to our health care services in the Bay St. George area.

As the Minister of Education, I was pleased to be able to announce that we will no longer be collecting interest on student loans, and a number of members have spoken about that in the House. They have spoken about it, Mr. Speaker, because it is so important and it does affect so many people in this Province. It affects approximately 49,000 people. In particular, in Bay St. George –I do not know if everyone realizes this, but just as the university and Sir Wilfred Grenfell College plays such an important role in St. John's and Corner Brook, the College of the North Atlantic plays a very significant role in Bay St. George. Unlike any other community in Newfoundland and Labrador, we have five campuses of the College of the North Atlantic.

We have a campus in Bay St. George, the Martin Gallant campus; we have the heavy equipment school; we have the main campus; we also have, along with that, the L. A. Bown campus, and we have the visual arts building as well. So we have five campuses of the College of the North Atlantic. So when we make announcements regarding students, and I know it hits all Newfoundland and Labrador, it is certainly significant in the Bay St. George area as well.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we also continued with our tuition freeze. As we had indicated in our blueprint in 2007, that we will continue with our tuition freeze for the mandate of this four years. Mr. Speaker, that is important as well, because when you have five campuses of the College of the North Atlantic, it is extremely important to understand that the post-secondary system in this Province is accessible and is affordable to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. When we had our time of crisis - and I anticipate the same will happen in the Central regional area as well. It is when we were in a time of crisis the college was there to respond, and the college was able to assist people who were displaced from work by helping them with skills upgrades, by being able to provide additional programs, being able to provide the necessary training that they needed so they were able to move into another career path or get their necessary papers with the work experience they had. So the college did play a very important role as we had to recover from the closure of our paper mill as well.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take some time to comment on the Budget initiatives regarding the Department of Education because I think that this government, since 2003, has been instrumental in promoting education in Newfoundland and Labrador. We have been leading in this promotion by being able to invest heavily in education, because any investment in education is an investment in our young people, and we will certainly get paid back in dividends every time we invest in our young people.

Mr. Speaker, in this Budget alone there was $50 million allocated for the ISSP to continue with the rollout of the ISSP report and the recommendations in that report. We are also continuing with our teacher allocation model and we have the salary increases. The teachers in Newfoundland and Labrador, over the next four years, will see an increase of 21.5 per cent, and 8 per cent this year. I think, Mr. Speaker, that is certainly something significant for the teachers of this Province.

We also, Mr. Speaker, have invested heavily in infrastructure in this Province. Last year we were able to invest $20 million in repairs and maintenance, and we have been able to double that this year to $40 million.

We understand that there are challenges, but we have also put our money there. We are getting the work done. We understand that if we have leaky roofs and leaky windows that they need to be fixed, and certainly the $40 million will go far to help us improve the infrastructure that we have throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.

In saying that, Mr. Speaker, we also recognize that the infrastructure, the schools in Newfoundland and Labrador, are aging and we need to do our best to make sure that we keep up with the work because there is never going to be an end point. As much as we get the work done, we go year over year, the schools that we have done in the last three, four or five years, or do today, when we move ahead they will certainly need more work in the future as well; but it is important that we certainly catch up with the work, and this $40 million investment will be extremely helpful as we do that.

We have also invested over $80 million in new infrastructure, Mr. Speaker, and one area that certainly has benefited from this is going to be the St. John's area. We looked at the Eastern School Board priority, and their number one priority was St. Teresa's, a school that certainly needs to be replaced in Mundy Pond. Their second priority was in the Town of Carbonear, and Davis Elementary will be replaced. The third priority was a west end high school, and we certainly want to have more financial analysis done about how we proceed with the high school and the placing of high schools in St. John's. We have not rejected the board's priority for a high school in the west end of St. John's. I know people are anxious to see when we are going to move ahead with that, but at this time we have been able to address the two top priorities and we certainly will be looking further at the high school configuration in the entire city.

What we have also been able to do, Mr. Speaker, since 2003 is really get at what is important in the education system. That is making sure that everyone has access and that we provide an education that is free and that people can join in. Two initiatives that we undertook in recent years, Mr. Speaker, were to provide free textbooks from our Grades 9 to 12 and we also eliminated school fees.

We have also increased heavily in things like healthy eating initiatives in the school, our phys. ed. equipment, Cultural Connections, which provides musical instruments, and being able to say that there are certainly some schools in Newfoundland and Labrador that have really been able to progress under Cultural Connections and the money that we have brought in to our music programs. Certainly, on the West Coast that is not lost. The Codroy Valley provides fiddles to the children in school. It certainly builds on the local culture and the local heritage of that area, and they have certainly done very well with that.

Mr. Speaker, we have also invested heavily in Memorial University. As the news has indicated today, the university came forward with $27 million in requests and we have been able to meet $21 million out of requests of $27 million. Mr. Speaker, that is significant, especially considering that this is a time when we really had to look at our priorities and we had to make some very serious decisions because we certainly know that the price of oil this year has not been what it was in previous years.

In saying that, as I said, Mr. Speaker, we have been able to increase our funding for the university. As we did that, we were also cognizant of how we have performed as a Province. It had been mentioned here in the House earlier as well that our deficit now, our debt, is at $7.9 billion, which is a significant reduction for Newfoundland and Labrador, and something we should all be proud of – our net debt.

Mr. Speaker, what I would also like to talk about, as I had mentioned, is the university and the money that we have invested in that university. We have invested $8.7 million in salary increases and step adjustments. In the news today, the university said that they requested $3 million more in that area; but, Mr. Speaker, we have funded them at 75 per cent, which has been the funding for step increases that we have followed and the previous government has followed for quite some time. They will be able to work within that allotment to be able to meet their needs for salary and their step increases.

Mr. Speaker, we have also invested, as I said, $4.9 million to maintain the tuition freeze. We have also provided incremental funding for growing health care at the university. Again, that was at a price of $1.6 million. We have also continued the incremental funding for growing our professional schools. That was over $1 million, $1.1 million as well. We have been able to invest in graduate student fellowships at the tune of $1 million. We have provided $1 million for repairs and maintenance to a backflow problem that the university felt they may have with the water system, and this would be a preventative measure. We have provided funding for that, Mr. Speaker.

We have certainly invested heavily in the ocean strategy and that meant that we put money into the School of Ocean Technology. We have also invested, or we will be investing, in the marine base at Holyrood. There is also money put in for research and development.

Another initiative, Mr. Speaker, that we have provided significant funding for this year is to assist Grenfell in doing the due diligence and further analysis and plans that are necessary as they move to become a more autonomous institution.

Mr. Speaker, we also invested money this year for the post degree social work, or the social work fast track program. We certainly understand that we need more social workers in Newfoundland and Labrador. We often hear about the other professions, but there is certainly significant turnover in the social work profession as well. We certainly all heard from the news last week that recruitment efforts - going up to New Brunswick and attracting new graduates from New Brunswick to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador - have certainly been successful.

Mr. Speaker, we have certainly grown as a department. Our budget increased this year by $130 million. We now have a budget of $1.29 billion, which is a significant budget for a Province of 500,000 people, and our education system, but it is indicative of where this Province is going and the value we put on education.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I had an opportunity to speak earlier on some of the issues involving the Budget. Of course, we have all the estimates now, as a result of the Budget that was brought down last Thursday by the Minister of Finance, and projections and so on, and what we expect to do this year based on certain prices for oil, next year's projections and the projections in the year out. Of course, we have seen that we are into a deficit this year, or projected deficit, to the tune of about $750 million as a result of drastic revenue declines that we have experienced as a result of the economic downturn.

We have also seen that program expenses in the last eight years, since 2002 until now, have been ramped up by this government to the tune of 76 per cent. That means, yes, they had money coming in over the last three or four years in surpluses, but that money has been attributed, as it was needed, in a lot of poor infrastructure that existed and so on, putting it into new programs. The bottom line is we have increased those fixed expenditures in programs and services now to the tune of 76 per cent higher than it was back in 2002. That was confirmed, by the way. I did estimates this morning with the Minister of Finance and that is confirmed. That is actual, factual. The bottom line is: Will we ever be able to afford and sustain those expenses if the revenues stay down?

We know we cannot this year. We know we are $750 million short, based on those expenses. We know we are not going to do it next year, based upon the projections. The minister is already estimating at least a $141 million deficit next year. The question is we do not know what is going to happen beyond that. That is when you run into problems as a Province and as a government if you have your expenses ramped up and for whatever reason the bottom comes out of your revenues.

Now nobody, including the Opposition, should or can blame this government for the economic downturn. This government is not responsible for that, folks. It is a global issue. It has impacted not only us in this Province. It has impacted Canada, the United States, all of North America, South America, the world. It is everywhere.

By the same reason, that we cannot blame this government for the economic downturn, the government cannot take the credit for the revenues that they have been getting. It works two ways. You cannot take all the credit and say oh, we created all this revenue so give us a big pat on the back but don't blame us when things get bad. You have to look at that balance.

I went through all of those things about who created Hibernia, who created White Rose, who created Terra Nova, who created the mineral royalties that we get each and every year now as a result of Voisey's Bay, the massive infrastructure we are going to get in Long Harbour. None of that was done on the watch of this government, none. So we have had a good go at that but there are a couple other issues I would like to refer to.

This one about Central Newfoundland - a couple of points to clarify things, first of all. I would like to refer anybody who is watching, and certainly the government members, that in Hansard - and that is the printed press, by the way. That is the official transcript of what persons say in this Chamber. Several government members were suggesting on Tuesday that this member might have been opposed to a youth addictions centre in Central Newfoundland. The Minister of Finance suggested it. The Minister of Natural Resources suggested it. For the record, and I like to deal in facts, I would refer the members to page eighty-five of the March 30 transcript. At no point, no point whatsoever did this member oppose, object to the placement of a youth addictions facility in Grand Falls centre. Not at al!. So I just would advise members of course, feel free to get the facts in that case.

I listened intently to the comments from the Member for Grand Falls–Windsor–Buchans. She does not speak very often. She speaks very eloquently when she does, very passionately. She spoke today. She is a part of – we get a lot of e-mails. I do not know if the government members know or not. You get copied on this, but in the e-mails - and I do not know if it is something that is widely known because I have gotten them from Western Newfoundland, Labrador, the Northern Peninsula, and the northeast area, like Twillingate area and so on, and they have referred over time to the CT Gang. I see you gave the CT Gang a hard time today, and so on. I did not think anything about it the first day and I didn't think anything about it, about a week later when I said the CT Gang. I said, what is going on? This CT Gang reference, I saw that a week ago and this is from a different fellow in a different part of the Province. What is going on?

Sure enough, I got five or six of them now, the CT Gang, when they talk about the government. So I went back to one of the guys on the e-mails and said: What is this about the CT Gang? They said: That is the coattails gang. That is where the crowd on the government side get up and cheer-leads the Premier. Of course, we all know where the coattails piece came from. I guess that is a referral to the fact of how some of them might have gotten here. Anyway, that is the explanation, and it is out there in the big World Wide Web. I did not create this. It is out there, folks and sure enough the Member for Grand Falls–Windsor–Buchans had a go today in her cheerleading role for the Premier.

Talking about Exploits, and I heard the Member for Exploits, Central Newfoundland again, talking about the stimulus package. He read in the back of a newspaper out in his district about ads looking for workers to help produce, carry out and deliver on the stimulus package. Great stuff that local contractors and construction workers in Central Newfoundland need to have some workers, but we cannot gloss over what has hit Central Newfoundland by pointing to a few ads where people are hiring, folks. There will never be replaced in Central Newfoundland by as many ads as you want to put in the paper, never will you replace the high paying permanent jobs to the tune of about 700 jobs, about 400 in the mill – this is only direct jobs - and approximately 300 in the logging industry. You will not replace it at all, and those high wages, from your short-term measures. It will not happen. So do not try to gloss things over by suggesting that because there are a few ads - by the way, this stimulus package is exactly that. That is not long-term permanent employment for the people of Central. That is only short-term to try to stimulate the economy. The people out there are going to need and want to see something that is more definite, more permanent and certainly more sustaining and higher paying than what we are going to see in these short-term jobs, but of course, we like to see that glossing over.

Now, a couple of other questions we get for example – and I do not know if anybody in government followed up on this, just little interesting stuff. We have been days in Question Period saying: What is going to happen to their severance pay? What is going to happen to their pensions? Oh, we do not know, that is all speculation says the Member for Gander. I do not get into speculation. I cannot tell you what is going to happen. Well I do not know how much closer to reality it has to be before you start to figure out what my options might be if that thing goes bankrupt tonight. Is that a case of let the horse out of the barn, shut the door and then we will talk about it? Are there any options on the table if this place goes bankrupt tonight? What an answer to give and say: Oh, it is only speculation. We cannot waste our time on that. Let it be done and then we will figure that out after the fact.

With regards to the expropriation, a little question. For example, I wonder in our haste to take all of the assets that belong to Abitibi, did we take them all? I understand, for example, that there is a luxurious hunting camp on the Hunt River in Labrador that belongs to Abitibi. I do not know if anybody in government is aware of it. That is our information, is that there is a very luxurious, high-end, high-scale, hunting camp still owned by Abitibi on the Hunt River in Labrador.

Now, wouldn't that gall you to no end to know that despite our attempts to try to take what they had, to show them that they are not going to push Newfoundlanders away, we might have missed something here, because they consider it one of their plums. They are still going to send their executives and their bigwigs from Abitibi down here to Newfoundland to relax and catch our salmon up in Labrador. Anyway, just a little point for the minister. Maybe there is something we can check into there as well, because the workers that we have spoken to, they are spiteful now. They do not want Abitibi to take one red dime out of this Province that they should not have. So, if there is any way to expropriate that, I throw that out to government. Maybe that is something you might like to consider as well. That is important.

By the way, it is not just the Opposition who talked about: Was government doing enough for the mill in Grand Falls, the closure? I am referring to a Telegram editorial of yesterday, April 1. I will just make a few quotes. This in not Opposition persons saying this in the House. They call it "Mills and milestones" that is the title on the article. It says, and I quote from one part: "The truth is that – even if the government is loath to admit it – the salaries that were a way of life for mill workers in Grand Falls-Windsor are gone for good. They cannot be replaced, because there are no other industries that are willing to bring a payroll of that size to what is, without a paper mill, just another large town on the Trans-Canada Highway."

Now, they also said, "The government may have been criticized for providing no more than a song and dance at the end.

"The truth is, there's little else they can do.

"Grand Falls-Windsor and its workforce will have to get used to shards of eggshell and splattered yolk – because, in all honesty, Premier Danny Williams and his cabinet committee aren't going to have any more luck with this broken egg than the king and his men did with Humpty Dumpty."

Now, that is not the Opposition saying this, that is other people who feel that - which brings me to the point about the $41 million pot. Go do the math, folks. Five million of it came from the federal government, came out of the Community Development Trust fund, not out of the coffers of this government. It came out of the federal government. Then you go take the other $36 million you have left, and see how much of that would have been done in the ordinary course by way of infrastructure anyway, in any given year, through the Department of Transportation and Works, and the Department of Municipal Affairs, and you will see that there is precious little of the $41 million that is being put in there. Other than, as I alluded to on Monday, the stop-gap measure of, we have to be seen as doing something. So, oh, we need to build this youth addictions centre, so we will say we are going to put that out there. By the way, we do not know how many people yet it is going to employ. We do not know if we are going to be able to get the specialists to do it. Yes, it will create a little bit of short-term employment in the construction of it, but after that nobody has thought out, folks, what you are going to do to run the show.

Now, talk about some of the things that are not here. The Member for St. George's-Stephenville East gets up today and talks about Stephenville, and what is going on in Stephenville. She lives there. Obviously, she gets a feel for what it is like for her community. She lives amongst those people. That is her home. A lot of the rest of us travel through Stephenville from time to time, too, but I tell you, folks, it is not all rosy in Stephenville. It has not all been fixed, because we cannot overlook the fact, either, that this Premier said: It will not close on my watch.

Now, you can cut that any way you like; it closed on his watch, number one. Number two, you will never replace the jobs in Stephenville, no more than you will in Central, with the high-paying jobs that were lost with the closure of the mill. It is not going to happen. Stephenville does not have everything rosy. You can stick a bit more improvements, for example, enhancements into CONA. Yes, government posted jobs. You just take them out of one place and move them somewhere else. The former member of your party, the Government House Leader, the Member for Kilbride - I have a copy of a statement he made here when the Liberal government moved some jobs out - he said it is like moving the chairs on the Titanic. He said you are taking the wealth and you are shifting it around from one place to another. You are not creating anything.

If there are jobs for CONA, all you have done is said: Let's take them out of St.John's and we will stick them out in Stephenville. It makes it look like we are doing something, folks. Stephenville has some areas, people say - are you in an area of decline?

The airport, for example, I know ten years ago the Stephenville Airport was far, far ahead of where it is today, and an airport in a place that is trying to grow and develop is one of the essentials, one of the essential pieces of infrastructure you need. Unfortunately, the airport there has fallen on tough times, folks. I mean, I see another piece again today compared to Deer Lake, for example, which I understand is going to get some inspection services and so on from the federal government now that are not going to Stephenville. So, Stephenville is not as rosy as everyone would have you believe. The $800 million grant that government has been sinking in there for the last three years to help because of the loss of taxes that they were getting from the mill, that has stopped this year. So the good times are not back in Stephenville, as people would have you believe. We will see this year a truer picture when the town cannot provide the services and facilities that they want because they do not have that $800 million any more. That is going to be felt, so let's not go gloating and blowing our horn about what we have done in the good community of Stephenville, and what we are going to do in Central, until we see how some of this thing washes out.

Some things we do not hear much about - the fisheries. We do not hear a lot about the fisheries in this Budget. We do not hear the ministers or anybody out touting it so much. We hear a lot about aquaculture. We hear a lot about aquaculture because there has been a lot of money been put into aquaculture. Again, another initiative that was started by the Liberals, by the way.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, boy!

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Yes, I say to the minister, the first kind of serious growth, input and investment you saw in the aquaculture industry in this Province was done by the former Liberal Administration. That is the absolute truth.

Even today, you want to talk about initiatives, we had two Ministerial Statements today, or three Ministerial Statements today, and all three of them were only a furtherance of what was started by a Liberal Administration.

We talked about trade shows. Nobody, nobody in this Province, as a Premier and a government, ever gave the profile, investment, the funding, the boost and the kick-start to trade shows as the Tobin Administration, bar none. Bar none! The facts are there to show it. It was a Liberal Administration here that started the anti-smoking piece and gave it some teeth, that you could not do it in public places, for example.

The one that brings me to my comments here is the Premier's statement today, the quote: historic statement. The historic statement that the Premier made today. No doubt about it, folks. By the way, I notice a lot of the government members, when you start saying this stuff, their eyes open. They light up. Because guess what, folks? A lot of them never heard some of this before. A lot of them are hearing this for the first time.

Just for the record, and so you are informed, what the Premier said today about this historic statement, this happened, by the way, this 300 megawatts, the different arrangements we had on recall, that was negotiated by none other than Premier Brian Tobin, folks. He went and negotiated with Quebec and they agreed, as a result of those negotiations, to say we are going to let you take 300 of what is produced in the Upper Churchill and you can go sell it, do what you want with it; it is yours.

Some attempt to ameliorate for the bad feelings that existed over the Upper Churchill deal - that is where it came from. Okay, but you notice in the statement today the Premier zoomed from 1998 through to 2009 and said: We are going to do things different now.

Guess what, folks? Guess what? The recall contract was negotiated in 2001 and put together in 2001 by a Liberal Administration, and guess what? It came up for renewal in 2004 with this government. The same amount of megawatts, the same power we are talking about, and what happened then? The government, the same administration said: Oh, yes, we will renew that. Guess what, folks? We have not been able to do anything differently because this government tied it up for five more years. They did not do it in 2004, but yet, today it is very convenient to say: Oh, we are going to say this is historic. We are making some fantastic deal here.

In 2004, whether the government members know it or not, this government had the opportunity, had the right to wheel the power through Quebec. The FERC rules which provides for the wheeling of power through Quebec did not come about this year. The rules that permitted power to be wheeled through Quebec existed before 2004, folks. You could have done it at any time, but you did not. Now it is convenient to put it out as some kind of we are creating an historic event here. Guess what, folks? Nowhere in the course of all of this is there any indication that it is going to benefit the people of this Province one iota.

The media asked today: How much money are we going to get out of this? Oh, we cannot tell you that, we do not know. Well, how come you don't know if it is such a good deal? How can you say it is a good deal if you cannot tell us if you made one cent, five cents or lost to the buck? You do not know! This just goes to show the flash and the dash of this government, but when you get down and you start to peel the layers you realize –

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: - very suddenly we have an onion here and it can make you cry sometimes.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Shall the subamendment as put forward by the Leader of the Opposition carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: The subamendment is defeated.

On motion, subamendment defeated.

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

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

At this point we will conclude the debate for today, but I would like to inform that this afternoon the Resource Committee will review the Estimates of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture commencing at 6:00 p.m. in the House.

Further to that, Mr. Speaker, on Monday, April 6, the Social Services Committee –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Government House Leader has been recognized by the Speaker and I ask members to show co-operation and hear what the Government House Leader has to provide.

MS BURKE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I was saying, on Monday, April 6, the Social Services Committee will meet in the House at 9:00 a.m. to review the Estimates of the Department of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

And further, Mr. Speaker, Monday afternoon, the Government Services Committee will meet in the House to review the Estimates of the Department of Transportation and Works and the Housing Corporation at 6:00 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Transportation and Works that the House do now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do now adjourn.

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

This House now stands adjourned until 1:30 of the clock tomorrow being Monday.

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