May 30, 1991                HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS                Vol. XLI  No. 60


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the indulgence of the House to give me two or three minutes to make a few comments, because I have to leave very shortly to catch a flight to attend the Maritime Premiers' Conference.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know that it is absolutely certain - I suppose nothing in this world is absolutely certain - but the probability is that today will be the last that the Leader of the Opposition sits as Leader of the Opposition in this House. Whether he may even find another vocation besides being a Member of the House, in the meantime is, I suppose, a possibility but I will not comment on that; I will leave that for him to say. But I think it is fairly certain that this is the last day he will sit in the House as Leader of the Opposition.

In that respect, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that while the nature of our parliamentary system provides for what might be described akin to our legal system for an adversarial system of operation, where we have her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, whose duty it is to criticize to the severest degree reasonable or appropriate in the circumstance, the Government, by that means, the objective of keeping the Government on its toes, dedicated to its purposes and honest and straightforward in performing the duties on behalf of the taxpayers of the Province is supposed to be achieved. I believe, largely, whoever sits on this side of the House, whichever parties form the Government, from time to time, I think the system of Opposition and Government has contributed greatly to secure stable, honest, dedicated Government in the British Parliamentary system.

The present Leader of the Opposition knows the role and responsibility of Government as he participated in it for a great many years, so he knows it from that point of view. He, now, as a result of the last couple of years, knows it from the Opposition point of view. While, the adversarial system gives rise to a sense of adversity and confrontation and conflict, usually, that is part of the system. I would like to think, and I can speak certainly from my part, that nothing that has ever been said has been taken personally. Certainly, nothing that the Leader of the Opposition at the moment has ever said has been taken personally by me. I know that he has his responsibility. I acknowledge that. I want to pay particular tribute to him, Mr. Speaker, as I do to all who serve the public. It is not all fun and games sitting in this House and serving the public, either on the Government side, or on the Opposition side of the House. Frequently, it costs individuals financially a great deal to provide that public service. It often costs individuals a great deal in terms of family and privacy and in terms of time that they have available for their wives and children. And I know that the wife of the Leader of the Opposition and their children have been very supportive of the Leader and have enabled him over the years to make the kind of contribution that he did make to public life in this Province.

And whether we have political differences or not, Mr. Speaker, I stand today, with all sincerity, to acknowledge that the Leader of the Opposition in his role in this House, as a backbench Member, originally, as a Member of the Cabinet for a long period of time, and though he never served in the House as Premier - he did serve as Premier but he did not sit in the House, as such - he did, for a total of sixteen years, provide service to the public of this Province. So, he gave of himself, and his family gave of themselves, for the public service of the Province during a period of sixteen years.

Mr. Speaker, it is entirely fitting that, on an occasion such as this, we set aside totally any partisan political differences or the consequences of having to operate in an adversarial system by reason of having Government and Opposition as our structure, that we put that aside and acknowledge the contribution. And, on behalf of the people of this Province, for whom I can dare to speak, I express to the Leader of the Opposition, to his wife, Jacinta, and to their children, the appreciation of all of the people of the Province for the contribution that the Leader himself has made and that his family has helped him make, and has contributed to his making.

Mr. Speaker, I can only sincerely wish the Leader of the Opposition well. On behalf of the Liberal Party and on behalf of all of the people, generally, in the Province, I sincerely wish him well in whatever the future holds for him, and I thank him again for his terrific contribution.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the hon. the Leader of the Opposition would wish to speak in reply to the address of the Premier. Before he does so, I want to add to the remarks of the Premier, in which I wholeheartedly concur, my views and those of my party, with respect to the service of the hon. Tom Rideout to this Province. It is, indeed, a long record of service and a distinguished one. He is still well remembered as a very able and capable Minister of Fisheries, for his long service, both as a Member of the Cabinet and as a backbencher and, although, as the Premier indicated, not in the House, as a former Premier of this Province.

I have had the occasion during the session of the House, on a regular, daily basis, of seeing the hon. the Opposition Leader in the House, and I must say, I have been very impressed by his ability as a debater, as a speaker. He is most vigourous and most persistent, and I have to say, fearless, in the presentation of his views during Question Period and during debate. I must say, I have been very impressed by his abilities in that regard. His vigour and attention to detail and persistence on issues will be missed.

I thank him, along with the Premier and other Members of the House who have shown their appreciation for his service to the Province by offering himself and serving in electoral politics, and, of course, the contribution of his family in supporting him and making additional sacrifices, as well, is also very much appreciated.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure and privilege of serving as the House Leader to our present Leader, and I have been asked, on behalf of our caucus, to make a few comments in the public Chamber, as well. We would certainly like to take this opportunity to join with the Premier and the Member representing the New Democratic Party, and, I am sure, every Member of the House, and, as the Premier said, the people of the Province, without doubt, in expressing our admiration for and our deep appreciation to our Leader.

Tom has had a career in public life, as the other speakers have mentioned. I would describe his career in public life as exceptional, if you give it some second thought. For sixteen years, through five general elections, he has represented the people of Baie Verte - White Bay as their Member of the House of Assembly. From 1984 to 1989, he served as a Minister of the Crown, and in 1989 he became only the fourth Newfoundlander to have served as Premier of this Province.

I think it is fair to say that he will long be remembered and perhaps go down in history, at least remembered by the people in the fishing communities around this Province all throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, as one of the Province's most outstanding Ministers of Fisheries, of that there is no doubt. During his tenure there were significant improvements and significant positive developments in our Province's largest resource industry; for those improvements, we owe a great deal of gratitude to Tom Rideout.

The other thing I want to elaborate on is his respect for the Legislature itself, he has always held the Legislature and the people who have been elected over the years to serve in the Legislature in the highest esteem; he has fully and always respected the long-standing traditions of Parliament and of this Legislature. I think it is fair to say in short, that he loves the House; without a doubt he loves the repartee, he loves the back and forth as we have all seen from time to time and indeed, he is often at his best in this Chamber and will go down in history.

From time to time, if people check the records, although Hansard probably would not have recorded it, it was a superb speech, you might be able to tell by the number of 'hear, hears' that Hansard might record. He has done a fabulous job, he was a tremendous debater without question.

There will of course, Mr. Speaker, be occasions for us in the Progressive Conservative Party and the official Opposition, to have an opportunity to further express our respect and our appreciation for his dedication, but I would like to take the opportunity on behalf of our caucus and our Party here in the public forum, in front of all Members of the House of Assembly, to express to Tom, our appreciation for his leadership, his guidance, his enthusiasm, his commitment to the Province and to the People of the Province; his respect for this Legislature, his respect for our traditions and his unfailing confidence in the future of this Province, and we wish him well in whatever his future may be.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

People on the floor of the House in particular, may not believe this, but it is one of the first times I have been stuck for words. There might be many who have sat with me in the House over the years who might have wished there were other more similar occasions when I was stuck for words. But, Mr. Speaker, I do want to take the opportunity to thank the Premier for his most gracious words. I would like him to know - I realize he had to leave to catch a flight to go on public business - that personally I appreciate very much what he said. I think it is on an occasion like this that only the people who are the recipient of the words can understand that they do mean an awful lot to you personally. I would like to thank the Member for St. John's East, the representative of the NDP, for his kind remarks and my colleague, representing our caucus here for his remarks.

It is very difficult to know what to say on an occasion like this. The general public knows, I made it public in January, that as this session of the House finishes I intend to step down as Leader of the Party and Leader of the Opposition and sometime over the next few months as the MHA for Baie Verte - White Bay. So, therefore, it is quite possible, unless there is some emergency that occurs over the next few months between now and October, that for now at least, this will be the last time that I will rise and take my place in this House as a Member of the House.

Now, my friends and so on over the last few months have been saying to me, "Are you really finished with politics?" I consistently say, "Yes, for now." Because I am not sure. Over the last few months I have been reading a lot of political biographies, Mr. Speaker, to try and ascertain what other politicians, particularly former politicians around my age, have done with the rest of their lives. The one that I keep coming back to consistently, picking up almost every night before I fall asleep, is the political biography of Robert Bourassa. The House will know, Mr. Speaker, that Mr. Bourassa was Premier of Quebec. He got a tremendous drubbing in a general election and then disappeared. He was gone for not too many years in the political life of a person, and he came back stronger and more powerful and more dedicated than ever. So, who knows, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: So, as I walk out of here, the one thing that will be consistent under my arm will be the political revival of Robert Bourassa.

But seriously, Mr. Speaker, it is my firm intention - as firm as anything can be in human life and political life - to finish this phase of my career. In so doing I would like to take the opportunity in public to thank first of all the people of Baie Verte - White Bay who gave me this opportunity. A politician cannot be a politician or have any political opportunity without a constituency. My constituency has been very, very supportive of me over the last sixteen years in the course of five elections. I do hope that in some small way I have been able to improve the quality of life in all the communities on the Baie Verte peninsula, and I do hope that as a result of their support and my efforts that life in every community on that peninsula is better than it was sixteen years ago. If that can be said of me then I am very, very pleased and satisfied with my time in politics. That is why I came into it in the beginning, no more fantastic reason than that, than just to try to do something for the people whom I was born with, raised with, grew up with, and was the first one of them that they ever elected to serve their interest in this Legislature.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank my family. Of course, politics is a very difficult business and a lot of families do not survive the business but I have been very fortunate with tremendous support from Jacinta and the children as they grew older, and we all enjoyed it. I think it is fair to say that Jacinta has enjoyed the political experience as much as I have. And I think we grew closer together really as a result of politics. So we have no regrets as far as that goes.

I want to thank the caucus, and I will have another opportunity to do this in more detail later. But the support that I have received from this caucus has been tremendous over the last couple of years through difficult times. It is not easy losing an election and losing the government and still being able to put on a pretty face in the public Chamber day after day right away after those kinds of shocks. But that is democracy, that is politics, and that is what it is all about. We all have to be big enough to take it.

So to all those who have expressed their kind words today, I thank you very much. I am looking forward to the winding down of the session sometime today, and I do not expect that I will be back here on the floor of the Legislature again. But I can tell you this: the many memories of sixteen years in this Legislature will be certainly a part of me forever. I might just at some time or other try to commit some of it to paper. I have been tempted to do it. There has been a lot of colour develop in this Legislature, in many ways, in the sixteen years that I have been here. I have been here with Mr. Smallwood, with Mr. Crosbie, with Mr. Moores, and with Mr. Neary, and I have seen a lot of colourful political figures come and go. So there are many, many chapters that, perhaps, could be written about the memoirs of serving in the Newfoundland Legislature for sixteen years. For example, the time that I spoke all day and all night, when all the Opposition walked out and I was the only one left. They told me I had to speak, because, if I did not, the Government would clear the Order Paper and the House would close. So I did what I had to do, and spoke for eighteen or twenty hours.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Like you would!

MR. RIDEOUT: As a matter of fact, talking about that particular event, it was only two or three nights ago I was going through a bunch of old books and I found this book on Trudeau that Ed Roberts, who was our leader at the time, gave me, as a momento of the eighteen or twenty-hour speech that I made in the House of Assembly. And, of course, there is the leaving of the Liberal Party and crossing the floor. It is my understanding, through the bit of research that I have done, that it is the first time, certainly since Confederation - and I can't find any event before Confederation - that a member has physically crossed the floor of the House. A lot of us have changed parties, but we did it at press conferences, or we did it in some other way. But to physically stand up in the House, make a speech and physically walk across the floor of the House, I can't find any evidence where that has been done before. I do not know if it was guts or foolishness, but it happened.

Finally, of course, achieving the highest political office in the Province, even though it was only for a short time of forty-four days. I have to say to the House, it was not the shortest. If anybody wants to go out and look around the lobby, there is a former First Minister of Newfoundland who served less than forty-four days. So I do not have that record.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: So, they should stop bringing it up.

MR. RIDEOUT: So, the members opposite will not bring that up anymore now, that is their history lesson for today. But it was a very exhilarating forty-four days, not one that I longed to give up, but one that I longed to have continued with a little longer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: We have not, as yet, officially entered into the business of the day. I do not know whether the President of Treasury Board is up on a Ministerial Statement or on something else.

The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On a different matter. I would like to, first of all, assure the Leader of the Opposition that our kind thoughts for him today do not extend to his resurrection.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the work of one of the legislative reporters, who is leaving the media. Randy Perry has covered the House of Assembly for Q-93, KIX FM, and is leaving us here, I believe, tomorrow. He is going to work for himself in a new business venture in St. John's.

On behalf of hon. members on this side of the House, and, if I may, on behalf of all hon. members, I wish Randy every success in the future. In the time I have known him, he has been a hardworking reporter, and he has always proven himself to be fair and balanced in his reporting. As a testimony to his versatility and talent, which goes beyond reporting, I will mention, in particular, that Randy was a producer of the Straight Talk, open-line show, hosted by Andy Wells. Also, we all know, and I guess an awful lot of people all across Canada know, of his expertise in the field of curling. Randy is one of the best curlers ever to appear for Newfoundland in a national championship.

His colleagues are losing a fine member from their ranks, and, while it is with some measure of regret that we see him go, I am certain that everybody will join me in wishing him the very best in the years to come, and we hope that he enjoys himself and is very successful in his new job.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, just a few words in conjunction with what the Government House Leader has said. I happen to know Randy Perry as well. Randy and I both entered this Legislature at about the same time in 1979. He was outside, mind you, looking in and I was inside looking up. Nevertheless, he has been around for a long time and as the old history goes, he served four Premiers, I believe, he told me.

What is interesting about Randy Perry, aside from the fact that he has broken many a story and, I think, is highly respected by his peers, is that I had a telephone call not too long ago from another journalist in this Province, just a few days ago, who expressed a deep interest in ensuring that the proper tribute was paid to one Randy Perry. I think that in itself says it all with respect to the respect he has from his peers as a journalist.

So, I wish him well on behalf of the caucus and on behalf of this Party in whatever it is he is going to do, whether it be bingo or curling or whatever it might be we want to wish him the very best.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I wish to join in the remarks and congratulations to Mr. Perry on his new business venture and wish to wish him the best. I have known Randy for a number of years both before I entered here obviously, and since then, and I find him as well to be a very dedicated and conscientious reporter. As the House Leader has said, to be the producer on the Straight Talk show with the host that he had is also an accomplishment at Q-Radio.

I also want to join in the remarks and congratulate Randy on his years of service in the press gallery and to wish him well in the future.

MR. SPEAKER: Before getting into the regular business of the day, on behalf of hon. Members I would like to welcome to the gallery today Mrs. Ruth Flowers, the Mayor of Makkovik, and Mr. John Anderson the Recreation Director from Makkovik.

Also, I would like to welcome twenty-three Grade V students from Holy Cross Elementary School, Eastport, in the District of Terra Nova, accompanied by their teachers Dan Rideout and Mrs. Budden and their bus driver, Gerald Ralph.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear

Statements by Ministers

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

MR. GILBERT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There have been concerns raised recently by the independent truckers in the Province, particularly those in the dump truck industry. One major concern is contractors undercutting the rates established by the Board of Commissioners of the Public Utilities and paying owner-operators of dump trucks less than the legal rate.

Undercutting takes two forms: it could either be a direct reduction in rates or an indirect reduction by means of over- charges on the fuel supplies or rate reductions on the use of equipment not regulated by the Board. Both are illegal under the present regulations to The Motor Carrier Act, 1990. Under the present legislation when an offence occurs both parties, the contractor and the dump truck operator face the same fine, which is a minimum of $100 and a maximum of $500.

Mr. Speaker, the new regulation will establish a stiffer deterrent in the form of a separate offence for the guilty party. New legislation will set the minimum fine at $1,000 and a maximum of $5,000 for the contractors. The fine for the dump truck operators remain at a minimum of $100 and a maximum of $500.

Perhaps more significantly, Mr. Speaker, the court will be empowered to order compensation to be paid by the guilty party to the truckers in the amount by which the rates were undercut. Inspectors in the Motor Registration Division are available to investigate any complaint directed to the Board, to the registrar, or to myself. The change in regulation is a clear indication of the Government's position on this issue and should serve notice of our intention to have contractors or anyone else who hire dump truck operators to pay the rate established by the board.

I would like to take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to assure hon. Members that the concerns of the truckers are under active consideration by myself and my hon. colleagues. Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say thank you to the Minister for a copy of his statement. I would like to be able to stand here today, and I say this in sincerity, I would like to be able to stand here today and in keeping with the tone that has already been established by the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition, I would like to be able to say to the Minister, good job, great statement, but instead, Mr. Speaker, I have to say to the Minister, what a scam, what a piece of fancy footwork, and what a piece of garbage when you get right down to it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DOYLE: This is a piece of garbage, Mr. Speaker, it is cosmetics. The Minister should be ashamed today with the independent truckers in the galleries, to come in here today with a statement that insults the intelligence of the independent truckers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DOYLE: This insults the intelligence of these people. This is not what the independent truckers are looking for, and the Minister knows it is not what they are looking for. What the Transport and Allied Workers Union are looking for is amendments to the Labour Relations Act which would allow the Transport and Allied Workers Union to become the official bargaining agent for the truckers. When is he going to bring in that amendment?

MR. SIMMS: Hear, hear! Right on!

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation comes in and says he is going to raise the minimum fine from $100 up to $1,000, and the maximum from $500 up to $5,000. I say to him, big deal. Big deal, Mr. Speaker. What is that going to do for the truckers? If I thought for a moment by raising the minimum fines you were going to keep one trucker in business, that you were going to keep one trucker from going bankrupt, that you were going to keep one trucker on the road, then I would support what the Minister is saying here today, and he is saying that he is going to bring in legislation. Legislation - when? Six months down the road for a little regulation, a minimum fine. Why couldn't the Minister come in here today and say he is going to bring in legislation, amendments to the Labour Relations Act to make the Transport and Allied Workers Union the official bargaining agent? This is what they are looking for.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DOYLE: They are not looking for a minimum fine to be raised. What is the Minister trying to do here today?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MR. DOYLE: This is cosmetics and it is a scam, and he should be ashamed of himself.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask leave of the House to respond to the Minister.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave, the hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister has taken some action to increase the penalties for violations of the provincial laws, but as the Member for Harbour Main has said, this is not what the truckers of Newfoundland are looking for. This is not going to have the effects that the truckers need, and the Minister of Health says he knows that. He knows that. Well, they all know that and we all know that. So for the past six or seven months when this request has been before the Government they have known that what they were going to do today is not what the truckers want and it is not going to have the effect that they want. Why have they waited until now to try and figure out what the problem was? It is a very specific thing that is required, and it is required to recognize for truckers of this Province just as it has been recognized for fishermen, just as it has been recognized for longshoremen under the Federal Canada Labour Code that there needs to be some kind of legislation to look after common employers, a geographical certification for truckers in this Province. It is a very specific and simple amendment to the Labour Relations Act that is required. The Government has been thinking about it for six months, and now they want to think about it perhaps for another six, perhaps forever. What they brought in today is a measure which is designed to make it look as if they are doing something when the truckers of this Province are still going to have to spend this whole summer and this fall, and maybe forever, if this Government stays in power, trying to fight to keep themselves in business and trying to organize and bargain collectively.

Oral Questions

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I have a question for the Premier but, knowing he is away on Government business today, I will refer my question to the Minister of Social Services, or the President of Treasury Board, or the Government House Leader or whatever he wants to be called today.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister will be well aware that the Public Service Commission Report which led to the firing of the Member for Port de Grave as Minister of Social Services, also stated that Mr. Beaton Tulk, Assistant Deputy Minister of Social Service, committed an unacceptable omission, when he failed to inform the Deputy Minister of allegations that were made known to him in December, 1990, concerning irregularities in a competition for a position with the Department.

Does the Minister agree that the Assistant Deputy Minister, Mr. Beaton Tulk, committed an unacceptable omission by not reporting to his Deputy Minister?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: As I indicated to the hon. gentleman, yesterday, I believe, the judicial inquiry will look into all these matters and report back, and, until that time, I am not going to comment.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member can try to cover up all he likes, but I will continue to ask questions.

The Minister will confirm that the Deputy Minister is the administrative head of all the departments, and that Mr. Beaton Tulk, as an ADM, will be immediately under the Deputy Minister, who would be his superior. Mr. Tulk should have known that it was the Deputy Minister's responsibility to deal with departmental employees, not the Minister.

Why did Mr. Tulk withhold the information from the Deputy Minister and report directly to the Minister, who has no direct administrative responsibility for this matter?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: I will respond to part of that, Mr. Speaker, because I do not see that it has a bearing. On the last question, the reason was simply that the Deputy Minister was not in town that day.

I will say to the hon. member, that this is the Government that brings things out in the open, not covers them up; that may be what was done in the past, but it is not being done with this Government.

I also remind him, that the Leader of the Opposition, and presumably, all members opposite, agreed with the judicial inquiry that will be appointed, and I say to him that I am not going to fall into the trap of conducting a judicial inquiry in this House when there is a proper process in place for it. The Leader of the Opposition already indicated that this was the proper course to follow. I agree with him, it is the proper course to follow, and I am not going to follow the member's foolishness.

MR. R. AYLWARD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Speaker, I agree, too, that it is the proper course to follow, but there are other courses to follow, in the meantime. It is even more unacceptable, if the Deputy Minister were not available at the time, because the responsibility then falls on the Assistant Deputy Minister to report what he heard to the Public Service Commission.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, does the Minister agree that Mr. Tulk's unacceptable omissions would go well beyond unacceptable practices, by not reporting to the Deputy Minister, but the fact that it was his direct responsibility for not reporting this to the Public Service Commission, his direct responsibility, not the responsibility of the man who suffered the loss of his job because of it?

MR. SIMMS: Right on!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My answer is essentially the same, but I would like to remind the hon. Member and this House, that, that was the Minister who sat on Sprung for a couple of years earlier and would say nothing about it and hid reports.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, he can try to cover it up and deflect it all he likes, I sat through Sprung and I defended Sprung when I had to.

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

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: But I would not have fired a person who was not responsible for what happened, I would be looking at the people who were responsible for it. Actually, when I was reporting Sprung, my Premier stuck with me, he did not turn his back on me like your Premier just did.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Tulk's unacceptable omissions, or as the Premier stated of the former Minister of Social Services, his improper actions on the matter, are extremely serious because he had handled the matter properly - I cannot read my own writing, Mr. Speaker, that is the unfortunate part of it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: Read it! Read it!

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I will not read it!

Mr. Speaker, it was through the improper actions of the Assistant Deputy Minister of Social Services, when the former Minister had another enquiry on him, that he was suspended while we were waiting for the outcome. Will the Minister of Social Services now suspend the Assistant Deputy Minister until the outcome of this enquiry?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: To the last question the member asked, Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. To the other questions he asked and alluded to, the answer is the same as my previous answer, there will be a judicial enquiry looking into these matters and I will not comment on it any further. And I would suggest to the hon. member that he get whoever wrote the questions for him in here to do some interpretation for him.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the same Minister, the Minister responsible for Social Services. There is still some controversy in this Province about the Social Assistance Appeals Board and the Minister did nothing, yesterday, to allay our concerns. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, at 10:00 a.m., I will represent a constituent of mine before the Social Assistance Appeal Board.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. POWER: Exactly, case lost. There is the answer!

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, at 10:00 a.m., I have to represent a constituent in an appeal against a decision of the Department of Social Services. Let me ask the Minister this question: Is he confident, and can he assure my constituent and me, that the appeal will be heard and decided on its merits only, and the events of the past month will not influence the decision of that Social Assistance Appeal Board?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Absolutely, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, I would like to be as confident as the Minister of Social Services. The sworn evidence presented to the Public Service Commission in their investigation into irregularities involving the Chairman of that Appeal Board provides substantial grounds for my concern. Has the Minister dismissed the findings of the Public Service Commission and does he think they are a fabrication on the part of the PSC?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

AN HON. MEMBER: Go get somebody else to write your questions for you.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, we have not dismissed anything and, in a short time, I am assuming there will be a new Minister of Social Services in place who will deal with the problems.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, we are not ignoring anything. We are taking this matter very seriously and I am assuming that shortly a new Minister will be in charge of the portfolio and will, at that point in time, deal with the situation as it exists.

MR. WINSOR: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINSOR: If the Minister is not prepared to remove the present Chairman from the Board pending the judicial enquiry, as he indicated yesterday, will he, at least, ask the present Chairman to remove himself from the hearings and await the decision of the judicial enquiry? When that investigation is complete, then, if the Minister wants to re-instate him, let him be; but, for the time being, until that judicial enquiry is complete, will the Minister, at least, remove this individual as Chairman of the Board?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: No, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

My question was to the Premier, but in light of the fact that he had to leave to go to an important meeting, I will ask the Minister of Fisheries: About five or six weeks ago, a delegation from Trepassey, including the town council, met with the Premier and, I understand, the Minister, supporting a request for a second processing licence for Trepassey. Has the Minister responded to the delegation, or does he intend to? If so, would he indicate what that response might be?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I have responded to the delegation. It might not have been the kind of response they want, nevertheless, it has been conveyed to them. At the meeting - and the hon. gentleman, I think, attended the same meeting I am referring to - we discussed the problem. First of all, I explained to the delegation that under existing regulations I do not have the authority to issue a new groundfish processing licence. I do not have that authority - there is a freeze on, as the hon. member knows - but I do have the authority, under certain well-defined circumstances, to transfer a licence from one plant to another. I explained that to the committee, and I suggested to them, that being the case, then they should maybe make an application to transfer the licence from the FPI plant in Trepassey, that is about to close, to the plant they are hoping to open. That is where it stands now. In fact, I am having a letter drafted now for my signature to be forwarded to the Mayor of Trepassey and others indicating just that to them. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that all of the cajoling or demonstrations cannot help matters. I do not have the authority to issue a new licence but I would be certainly willing to entertain from the committee, an application to transfer the licence that is currently in Trepassey from the plant that is now closing to the plant they want to open. That is where it stands to date.

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

MR. HEARN: Just to make sure the Minister understands where I am coming from, I attended the meeting the Minister is referring to when we had the delegation in, but following that, apparently not being satisfied with the Minister's answer, another delegation met directly with the Premier - I am not sure whether the Minister was there - and the Premier apparently promised to get back to them with an answer, but has not, to this date. I presume the Minister is now talking about responding to that meeting, also?

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

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I apologize if I did not get the hon. member's question correctly. Yes, we did. A delegation from Trepassey did meet with the Premier and myself and others, subsequent to the meeting the hon. member attended, and the Premier did undertake to reply. In fact, I was informed no later than this morning, that reply is now being drafted; I think it is waiting for the Premier's signature, and it will be in the mail to the people of Trepassey within a matter of hours.

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

MR. HEARN: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the Minister of Development. The building concerned with the application for the second licence, is one that was owned by Newfoundland Development Corporation, and now by, I presume, Enterprise Newfoundland. I wonder will the Minister tell us the conditions surrounding the lease of that building, lease payments, the amount paid to date, and whether or not there are other conditions attached to the lease?

AN HON. MEMBER: He did not hear the question.

MR. HEARN: I am sorry! The building in Trepassey, concerned with the application for a second processing license, is one that was owned by the Newfoundland Development Corporation and now, I presume, Enterprise Newfoundland. I wonder if the Minister could tell us the terms and conditions of the lease, the lease payments to date, and what other conditions might be attached to this peculiar lease?

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

MR. FUREY: I do not readily have that information available to me. NLDC, that the hon. member talks about, which is the predecessor of Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador, that corporation deals with hundreds of companies, on a weekly basis, throughout the Province. I would have to take that under advisement, to get those specific questions answered. You want the lease, the amount of payments, and all those kinds of things. I will have a look at Hansard tomorrow, get the specific questions, and bring the answers back to the House.

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

MR. HEARN: I wonder if the Minister, in light of the fact that this building is sitting there in Trepassey, and in light of the fact that they are searching for jobs in the area, would undertake to get that information to us as soon as possible, because there is a possibility that a number of jobs could be created if the conditions around this building are clarified?

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

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, I will undertake to take a personal look at this. We are very sensitive to what is happening at Trepassey, to the great loss of jobs there. I know that the Economic Recovery Commission, and Enterprise Newfoundland, have been looking to try to draw new investment into that area. I think Glamox Ltd. was one of the smaller ones, that created ten or twelve jobs, and we are looking at creating small companies and trying to lure them into this area. We are very sensitive to what is happening, because of the downturn in the fishery and, particularly, that plant, and the number of people who have been displaced.

I would take that, again, under advisement, and I will undertake to look at it personally, to see what has been done to date, particularly with that facility. I think you are referring to a story this morning, or yesterday, that they were looking to open it on a smaller scale, if the quotas were correct and that kind of thing. So, I will take that under advisement and look into it for you, personally.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, on Monday past, the Minister of Health accused the Opposition of having its head in the sand - those were his words, I believe - when we claimed that the Minister's policies and the Government's policies are going to drive doctors out of this Province. In fact, he scoffed at that idea and suggested that there was no evidence to support it.

Well now we have a letter, signed by a Doctor Turner, an Eye, Ear and Nose Specialist in Grand Falls - Windsor, and co-signed by ten other specialists in the Grand Falls - Windsor - Gander area. I want to quote, just briefly, from his letter: "Despite Mr. Decker's claims to the contrary, many doctors, particularly specialists, are now actively looking at jobs elsewhere." Is this not evidence enough for the Minister to, at least have a further investigation into the Government's policies. When is he going to get off the pot and take some action to prevent this hemorrhage of doctors from the Province. That is what is happening.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, most paragraphs have a key sentence in them, and the key sentence in this letter is, that doctors are now actively looking. Now, Mr. Speaker, the questions that were put to me last week were: How many doctors have left the Province because of the rearrangement we have made to health care? I said at that time, and I say today, that not a single doctor has left the Province, to date. Now, Mr. Speaker, this letter backs up exactly what I am saying. There might be 900 doctors who are actively looking, but the fact of the matter is, that to date not a single doctor has left as a result of the reorganization that we made in health care.

Now, there might be 10,000 actively looking to leave Canada, or there might be 100,000 actively looking to leave Europe, but the question was: How many have actually left? And these two statements are totally different. I do not know how many are actively looking. But I know how many have actually left. Not a single one.

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

MR. SIMMS: Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mean, is it any wonder that we are in such trouble in this Province when the Minister himself now is taking his lead presumably from the Premier? Instead of giving direct and honest answers, he tries to fool the people.

Now is the Minister aware also that Doctor Turner says in his letter that: Mr. Decker seems more intent on flexing political muscle and making doctors appear the greedy villains? Is he aware of that particular quote? Does he agree with Doctor Turner on behalf of the other ten specialists? Does he agree with those quotes? And why does he not tell the truth? The fact of the matter is that many doctors in this Province probably take home a lot less than the Minister does.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Opposition House Leader talks about honest answers. I would like to see some honest questions in this House. This is a part of a political charade. The fact of the matter is, I said last week that hon. Members opposite should get their heads out of the sand. Obviously they have not taken my advice. I have an article here which comes out of The Evening Telegram: flood of Canadian doctors turn out for US job fair. An article here from The Globe and Mail: doctors in Quebec planning mass rallies.

The fact of the matter is we have a Tory Government in Ottawa which is determined to somehow ensure that Medicare disappears from this nation. And this is where the hon. Member should be looking. To his colleagues, his cousins, his friends, his cohorts in Ottawa, who are trying to disrupt this Medicare system.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I could care less what doctors in Quebec or Ottawa are doing. What we are concerned with is, what are doctors in Newfoundland doing? And the fact of the matter is, they are thinking very seriously about leaving this Province unless the Minister changes his policies. Now that is the point.

Now the other comment that is fairly interesting from Doctor Turner is that: the Minister's confrontational gun-slinging posture is becoming as much a concern as the cutbacks in health care. Does the Minister agree with that? And does he also not acknowledge that his arrogance, deception and trickery, which we saw more evidence of here today, is more responsible now than anything in turning the people in the health care sector against this Government and this Minister?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is we cannot ignore what is happening in Quebec or Ontario as much as the hon. Member would like for us to do that. Because the issue here is bigger than Newfoundland. It is a Canadian problem which is brought on by an unlistening, uncaring Tory Government in Ottawa. Now there is where the basic problem lies.

Now the accusation by Doctor Turner about my confrontational gun-slinging policies. I do not accept that at all. I am proud to say that in the history of this Province there has not been a more listening, open Government, and certainly there has not been a more open, caring and listening Minister than we have at this time.

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

MR. PARSONS: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs and I will wait a second until he sits down. Several weeks ago the Minister announced layoffs of six firefighters with the St. John's Fire Department. Shortly after, the Minister as part of his municipal amalgamation plan announced that the Fire Department would be transferred to the City of St. John's and its responsibilities would be extended to include the station in Mount Pearl which has not yet been staffed.

Will the Minister cancel the layoffs until a full review of the fire protection service and staffing is undertaken by the City of St. John's, the City of Mount Pearl, and other towns in the region served by the Fire Department?

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

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, Government's intent, quite obviously, by the resolution that was passed by the House last Friday is to extend the jurisdiction of the St. John's Fire Department to include the unmanned station in Mount Pearl and the Goulds. That resolution has passed the House, that is still the Government's intent. We will proceed by way of a transition process over the next five or six months to facilitate that change.

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

MR. PARSONS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The fire fighters who were laid off comprised of a large percentage of a specially licensed high risk rescue team in the St. John's Fire Department. Will the Minister delay action on this decision pending a review of the effects of those layoffs on the department's ability to provide rescue services on the northeast Avalon?

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

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, the effect on the layoffs and the men involved in the St. John's Fire Department is, of course, tied into the Government's decision to expand the St. John's Fire Department to the other jurisdictions I mentioned. So we will continue with the transition process and the dialogue that has to take place with the Towns of the Goulds and Mount Pearl, and the fire fighters who had been affected by the current Budget process in the layoffs will be involved and be part of that decision making process. I would hope as quickly as possible that those fire fighters will be back on the job.

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

MR. PARSONS: My final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. One of the fire fighters laid off is John Blackwood. He will be honoured for his successful rescue efforts on a fellow fire fighter in a boarding house fire last year. He will be presented with the medal of bravery and the Duke of Edinburgh Award by Governor General Raymond Hnatyshyn for his heroism. Is taking away his job the best the Province can offer this hero? Is this bitter gratitude all his employer has to offer? By the way, Mr. Minister, those layoffs will come into effect on June 14.

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

MR. GULLAGE: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am fully aware of the impact on the fire fighters affected, the fact that they were, of course, at the end of the seniority list and irrespective of their particular contribution in the case mentioned, of course, I am fully aware of the gentleman's contribution to the fire department, and certainly the fact that he is about to be honoured with the Duke of Edinburgh Award. But, Mr. Speaker, that is aside from the point that the layoffs were effected because of the budgetary process, and I can only repeat myself by saying that as quickly as possible we will evolve into the situation where the St. John's Fire Department will be expanded into the other jurisdictions, and I would hope that the fire fighters affected will be back on the job as quickly as we can affect that change.

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

MR. WARREN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My question is also to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. Recently there has been correspondence between the Premier and the Band Council in Davis Inlet with respect to relocation. I understand discussions have been held. Would the Minister bring up to date as his department will be involved - has his department made any decision whether Davis Inlet will be relocated approximately seven miles north of its present location?

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

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, I would have to check into the details of the gentleman's question and report back to the House. But I do not think that the decisions - native affairs, of course, is under the Premier's jurisdiction - I do not believe that any decision has been finalized, but I will check into the matter, and either the Premier or myself will report to the House.

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

MR. WARREN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. What I also suggest to the Minister is that a figure between $40 million and $55 million has been tossed around as the cost of relocating this particular community. Would the Minister not agree that presently there is construction about ready to begin on the new nursing clinic for the Town of Davis Inlet? So would the Minister come to a decision as soon as possible so that the nursing clinic can be constructed in that community.

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

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, native agreements, of course, are part of the mandate of my department as far as municipal infrastructure is concerned, water, sewer and roads and other municipal infrastructure, so, if and when agreements are finalized regarding the location that he mentions and if they do affect my department we certainly will expedite the work and the tendering and get on with it as quickly as we possibly can. But I would have to check on the details and the timing and whether a decision has been made, and I said I would do that earlier.

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

MR. WARREN: My final supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Would the Minister confirm that his department with other government departments are considering resettling the people from Paradise River to other towns on the Labrador Coast?

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

MR. GULLAGE: No, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East on a quick question.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is to the Minister of Health and has to do with the decision of the Grenfell Regional Health Services to establish a new clinic in Northwest River.

I have a grave concern, Mr. Speaker, about the decision that was made and I wonder if the Minister was consulted on that decision? I wonder does he share my concerns that have been raised by the Innu of Sheshatshit that perhaps racial prejudice has had some role to play in the decision? I find that to be a very serious allegation, Mr. Speaker, and I wonder if the Minister of Health can tell us what steps he has taken to look into this matter and to follow up on these allegations, which I am sure are not made without careful consideration by the Innu?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, there is no new clinic going in Northwest River. There has been a clinic there I suppose since 1892 when Dr. Grenfell was the doctor serving Northwest River and the Labrador Coast. There was some thought given by the Grenfell Board to moving the clinic from Northwest River over to Sheshatshit and that had more to do with the ability of the Grenfell Board to find a space. The space which they were occupying in Northwest River was too expensive to heat and they were going to move to new premises. The town council was going to rent them space but I do not think the rent was right, but I think they have since dealt with that.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned whenever the term of discrimination is mentioned. But I have no reason to believe there was any racial discrimination practiced there. I would be more than surprised if I were to find out with certainty that there was discrimination involved. I do not share that belief.

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

The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: I would ask leave of the House to revert back to Statements by Ministers. There were two statements distributed, the Minister was absent and did not have a chance to make his statement, so I ask leave of the House to revert back to Statements by Ministers?

MR. SPEAKER: Do we have leave to revert back to Statements by Ministers?

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: I am responding to the one on the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation. Someone else will be responding to the one on native affairs. Regarding the one I have, Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to give leave conditionally, and that is if the Minister is prepared to tell us the date that he will be announcing the Capital Works.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, there is leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave for which?

AN HON. MEMBER: Native Affairs.

MR. SPEAKER: Native Affairs.

The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues on this side of the House. I am not so thankful to the Opposition, especially considering the fact I was delayed because of attendance at a CNIB luncheon.

AN HON. MEMBER: I was also a part of that.

MR. GULLAGE: You were not a part of -

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. GULLAGE: I did not see you at the head table, though.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Minister has permission to present a Ministerial Statement, and he should present the Ministerial Statement.

MR. GULLAGE: Do you mind if I speak? Do I have your permission?

MR. SIMMS: You have leave. Do you want to lose it?

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, as Minister responsible for Housing, I am pleased to announce that twenty-three homes will be constructed on the northern coast of Labrador to help in addressing the housing needs of native and non-native families.

Funding for this housing activity, Mr. Speaker, will be provided under the 1991 Federal/Provincial Rural and Native Housing Programme. The aim of the Programme is to provide suitable and affordable housing for families and individuals living in remote communities.

Capital funding for these housing projects will amount to approximately $2 million, and will be cost-shared by the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, along with its Federal partner, CMHC. In addition to the capital costs associated with these projects, the Federal and Provincial Housing Agencies will cost share an annual subsidy to cover maintenance and other operating costs. This operating subsidy will ensure that rental rates remain affordable for the residents.

Mr. Speaker, the following is a breakdown of activity by community:

Sheshatshit: NLHC is, once again, negotiating an agreement with the Sheshatshit Innu Band Council for the construction of five homes for native families. Under the terms of the agreement, the homes will be constructed by native workers living in Sheshatshit and, once completed, will be rented by NLHC to low-income native families. The purpose of the agreement is to provide native workers with an opportunity to develop home-building skills, while at the same time, supplying functional and affordable housing for their community. To date funding has been provided for the construction of twenty homes in Sheshatshit through similar agreements. Under this arrangement, the band council also provides assistance to NLHC in selecting needy households as tenants.

Cartwright: NLHC is gearing up to call for tenders for the construction of an eight-unit housing project for single-parent families in Cartwright.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.

MR. GULLAGE: The Housing Corporation will retain ownership of the Complex, while the Eagle River Community Housing Inc., through a management agreement with NLHC, will administer the project and look after day-to-day operations. This will be the second housing project since 1989 that the Eagle River Community Housing Inc. has sponsored in Cartwright.

Rigolet: Negotiations are underway between NLHC and the Torngat Regional Housing Association for the construction of two homes in Rigolet. Under this arrangement the Torngat Regional Housing Association will construct the houses for NLHC, thereby creating employment opportunities for local native workers. Once completed, NLHC will rent the homes to native families, with rental rates based on total household income.

NAIN: NLHC is preparing to call for tenders for the construction of eight houses in Nain to increase the supply of much needed affordable housing accommodations for low-income native families.

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation has placed a greater emphasis on native housing in recent years. I believe that the co-operative spirit in which this housing activity is being funded, constructed and managed illustrates that commitment, and that through co-operation by the various parties the long-term housing needs of families in Labrador will be more appropriately addressed.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would also like to note that NLHC, in conjunction with the Federal Housing Agency, is finalizing details of the 1991 Urban Native Non-Profit Housing Program. Under this program assistance is provided to native organizations to develop and administer housing projects for native families living in larger urban centres. Details of this funding will be announced within the coming weeks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WARREN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to say to the Minister, it is only just a couple of days ago that I was in Hopedale to address the Housing Conference and - well, this is old news. Because everybody knew about it. This was announced in Hopedale a couple of days ago, I say to the Minister.

I notice on the Minister's statement also the Minister says: "constructed on the northern coast of Labrador." I am sure my colleague for Eagle River knows that Cartwright is in southern Labrador. And I say to the hon. Minister I should send him a map of Labrador to let him know where the different communities are located.

I wanted to say on behalf of the people of Rigolet and Nain, they are quite pleased that again both Governments, the Federal and Provincial Governments, have come through for construction of those houses. However, what about the people in Makkovik, Hopedale and Postville? There is housing needed in those three communities as well. And I say to the Minister, twenty-three houses, twenty-five houses, we need about 125 to meet the demands of the people on the Labrador coast. I say again to the Minister that I would suggest that if he is going to get money from the Federal Government to construct family homes for low income families, then surely to goodness, put it in the communities that have the greatest need, such as Hopedale, Postville, Makkovik, Rigolet, Nain, Cartwright - all along the Labrador coast.

And again I would like to reiterate to the Minister that it is fine and dandy for him to announce these things but most of the money is coming from the Federal Government.

MR. TOBIN: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West on a point of order.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify the matter with the Minister of Municipal Affairs. We are not asking for the capital works list. All we are asking for is the date that he is going to announce it. So we on this side are prepared to give leave to the Minister for this statement if he will give us the date that he will be making the announcement of the capital works.

MR. SPEAKER: No point of order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees.

There are a lot of Members standing from both sides and I do not know which one I am supposed to recognize! The Chair would appreciate it if Members please did not stand while I was calling items. It makes it a bit confusing.

Notices of Motion

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act, 1977, No. 2," and that will be Bill No. 40.

MR. SPEAKER: The Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow move that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on Supply to consider certain resolutions for the granting of further supplementary supply to Her Majesty.

Answers to Questions

For which Notice has been Given

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

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the response to a question left on the order paper for me by the hon. Member for Green Bay.

Petitions

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have a petition today on behalf of some fifty-three truckers in this Province. And I will read the prayer of the petition without my glasses again: we the undersigned of this petition hereby ask the Provincial Government to take immediate action to have the dump truck owner/operators of this Province certified under the Labour Relations Act of Newfoundland and Labrador.

This petition is a continuation of the more than 2,000 names that were submitted here yesterday on behalf of the owner/operators of this Province who are asking some very reasonable requests of the Government or the Minister of Labour, who some time ago assured them or at least gave them some comfort that she would be preparing amendments to the Labour Relations Act in order that they could become certified in this Province.

Now I understand and I think it is commendable of the Minister to have her staff and a representative of the Teamsters' Union sit down and draft the appropriate amendments to the Act. The Minister on that occasion some time ago acted properly and tried to ensure that the proper changes to the Labour Relations Act would come in by consulting with the representatives from the truckers of this Province. But what happened when the Minister put that to the Cabinet was that the Cabinet looked at it and the Premier obviously could not agree with that, because the people that support him, the bigger companies that support this Premier in this Province, had gotten to him. They had a meeting with the Minister of Justice, I understand, and the Premier and the Minister of Transportation and they said they would not put up with this amendment. And that is why the truckers of this Province are in the situation they are in today.

The amendments are prepared. It can be done if Government wants to do it. We will see some time later today that an amendment to the Labour Relations Act that the Government needs in a hurry was done in a hurry and it was done today. And we will see and we know that if the Government of this Province wanted to bring in those Labour Relations amendments today they could bring it in today, and it probably would be a good time to bring it in because Members know that this House is closing and we could pass it with very little debate and ensure that the legislation will be approved. Now the Government has the Member for Harbour Main's commitment that this side of the House would pass it without much debate as long as the legislation was that which was prepared by a representative from the truckers in this Province along with the Department of Labour.

Most of the names on this part of the petition I see are from Bell Island, and I do not know if they did ask their Member to present it but he would not present it anyway like he did not present it for St. Phillips, would not present one for St. Phillips the other day.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker -

MR. TOBIN: State your position, now, state your position when you are up!

MR. R. AYLWARD: Are you for the truckers or against it? Are you for these people or against them?

MR. TOBIN: State your position now while you are up!

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island on a point of order.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the hon. Member to withdraw his statement. I have at no time had a petition in my hands that I have not presented. He continually tries to allude to the fact that I had petitions that I am not presenting. If that Member cared as much about his district as I do about mine he would be in much better shape than he is today.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride to the point of order.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I did not say anything about the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island. All I suggested is that I have a petition from people from Bell Island and I do not know if they asked him to present it or not. But I assumed he would not present it, the same as the petition he had from St. Phillips last week that he did not present in this House. There is no point of order.

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

There is no point of order. The hon. Member took advantage of an opportunity to clarify his position. I would ask the hon. Member to continue. Very briefly.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I note that the Member who represents Bell Island did not get up in this House of Assembly and say that he would support the truckers of Bell Island. And try to get the Minister of Labour and the Government House Leader to bring in the legislation today in this House so that they can be certified. That is a very reasonable request. We would do it for any other group in this Province which came in. A group of forestry workers would do it, a group of fish plant workers came in here, they would automatically sign up their cards and right off the bat they would be certified.

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

The hon. Member's time is up.

The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the petition so ably presented by my colleague, the Member for Kilbride, today, with respect to the truckers and what they are looking for, their very reasonable request that they are looking for. So I would hope that the Government before this day is over will at least make some statement of intent as to what they intend to do to help the truckers out of this dilemma that they find themselves in. Because as we said yesterday truckers in the Province are in a very frustrated state right now. A lot of the truckers are going bankrupt, a lot of them have mortgaged their homes. They are all independent businessmen, when you get right down to it. You cannot go out and pick up a truck today for $100. If you are going to get involved in the dump truck business, in the trucking business, even if you have one truck it is going to cost a minimum of $100,000 to get involved in that industry.

We saw the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation today come in to the House with a statement, saying essentially that he was going to bring in legislation that would raise the minimum fine from $100 up to $1,000 for those people, contractors, who violate the terms and conditions of the Public Utilities Board Act. Well, that is not what the truckers are looking for. They are looking for amendments to the Labour Relations Act that would allow the Transport and Allied Workers Union to become the official bargaining agent for the independent truckers Province-wide.

That is no different than what the fishermen have. This is what the fishermen have under the Fishing Industry Collective Bargaining Act. The current legislation that we have in place right now does not allow the truckers to certify companies. The current legislation that we have, they can go in, try to organize the company, make application to the Labour Relations Board to have a company organized and what will happen, by the time they have their application dealt with by the Labour Relations Board the job is finished. So because of the short term nature of the work that the trucking industry is involved in it makes it very difficult indeed for these people to get companies certified.

So it is a reasonable request that they are making. And I certainly hope that the Government House Leader will be a little bit reasonable and make a commitment to the independent truckers today that not only will the legislation come governing the minimum and maximum fines that are going to be imposed some time down the road but that they will also bring in amendments to the Labour Relations Act to allow the truckers in the Province the same privileges as other workers have. And they are not asking for anything different than other people in the Province have. They are independent businessmen and they have the right to be unionized. They should have the right to bargain collectively with any employer in this Province. So it is no great deal what they are looking for.

And we found out today, the Premier came in to the House and he said that it is going to be necessary to bring in an amendment today to the Labour Relations Act because of a court ruling, a Supreme Court ruling somewhere, that we need to bring in an amendment to the Act to conform to their legislation. That has been done at a moment's notice. We have amendments that have already been prepared by the Department of Employment and Labour Relations along with the truckers' legal counsel, Mr. Randy Earle. These amendments are ready to go. So it is only a matter of bringing these amendments in today if the Government had that commitment. Bring the amendments in today along with the other amendment that has to be introduced and I can assure the Government House Leader that these amendments would receive very speedy passage.

Because independent truckers are going bankrupt. A lot of these people - and yesterday while we were talking to the independent truckers out in the lobby of Confederation Building, we had a wrecking firm or a wrecker coming along taking a truck and foreclosing on it right there, in the parking lot. And one more independent trucker yesterday was informed that his house, which had been mortgaged against his truck, they were foreclosing on him. And taking that away from him. So, Mr. Speaker, it is only reasonable that we do this for the independent truckers.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take a couple of minutes to react to the Member for Harbour Main and some of the comments he made. First of all, let me say that I was appalled by his re-action to the statement that was made by the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, I was totally, absolutely appalled.

He pretended as if this was our proposal to be the total answer to the problem; how silly, how silly. He got on with a lot of histrionics and shouted and screamed and everything else and tried to put on a show.

Mr. Speaker, the statement today was the result of some meetings that the Minister had with representatives of the independent truckers and one of the things that was mentioned was this, so that one thing has now been taken care of; there were many other things, that legislation does not come under the purview of the Minister; that was one of the things that was mentioned and that one thing has been taken care of.

The other problems are currently being considered and this was the beginning, this was one problem that was taken care of, the proper response for the Member for Harbour Main would have been to say: look, this is one part of the problem which has been taken care of, now, Government get on and consider the rest of the problem, that would have been the proper response, instead of shouting and the screaming and the histrionics of the Member Opposite, who knows, that accomplishes nothing except put on a political show and I would remind the Member Opposite, that belly dumps did not come into existence this year.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker -

MR. DOYLE: You do not understand the problem, that is your problem.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, just a brief point of order. I realize that the President of Treasury Board is pretty testy today and people in the gallery I would say are probably intimidating him somewhat, so, my point of order is, he should not be attributing motives to my colleague, the Member for Harbour Main, because that is totally unparliamentary; not only is it unparliamentary according to Beauchesne and all the other Parliamentary references, it is so much out of character for the Government House Leader to make those kinds of attacks.

It would be much better if he could respond to the issue precisely as opposed to making personal attacks on the Member for Harbour Main, which are unparliamentary.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker, attributing motives is something that is very difficult to define and that is the point the Member has raised; it has to do with attributing motives, Mr. Speaker.

In his speech, obviously the Member for Harbour Main, attributed many motives to Government and, Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind Your Honour, that the only reason, and I am going to attribute a motive now, and I will say, the only reason the Opposition House Leader stood to his feet on a point of order, at this particular time, Mr. Speaker, was to kill my time because I was just getting around to pointing out how belly dumps did not come into existence this year, but were in existence when the hon. Member was Minister of Employment and Labour. They were in existence when Members Opposite were in Government and they did not do anything about what was happening then -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: - they did not do anything about it, so, Mr. Speaker, I am simply pointing that out.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Hon. Members know the rules in presenting petitions and the rules are clear; hon. Members should not enter into debate, they should speak to the petition and speak to the material allegations in the petition, the signatures in the petition; those are the restraints and those are the limitations placed on Members when speaking to a petition; so I would ask the hon. Member to continue if he is not finished.

The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How much time do I have left?

MR. SPEAKER: About forty seconds.

MR. BAKER: Forty seconds. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to conclude by saying that there are some things that are ongoing and this was one of them this morning that the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation announced; we are considering the other aspects of the problem and in the near future we will be announcing what our intentions are, so, Mr. Speaker, I would like to conclude by pointing out, that the Member for Harbour Main does not understand the problem, he is quite upset that I mentioned belly dumps and says that, that has nothing to do with the problem, but I say to the Member for Harbour Main, go and talk to the truckers again and he will find out that, that is a very important part of the problem.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. GREENING: I am pleased to rise and present a petition -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I would like to call some order so that we can hear. I have recognized that - the Member for Terra Nova could maybe take his seat - and I have called for order, I have recognized the Member for Terra Nova. He was about fifteen seconds into whatever it was he was doing. But because there was so much noise I was not able to figure out what it was he was doing.

The hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

MR. GREENING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to rise and present a petition on behalf of 400 residents of the community of Winter Brook and surrounding area. The prayer of the petition reads: we the undersigned, as users of the road leading to the community of Winter Brook on Route 234, are petitioning the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to upgrade and pave this gravel road.

Over the past couple of years I have received letters from the Minister responsible for Transportation asking for my priorities as it pertains to road work. At every request I have suggested to the Minister that this particular road would be upgraded and paved. Route 234 is approximately twenty kilometers long, of which ten kilometers has been upgraded and paved. If the people get the request that they are asking for and have this road paved, it would enhance the economy. This road is being used daily by school bus runs, people going to the doctors, people going to work. I have support letters here from two elementary schools, a high school, (Inaudible) for the Winter Brook Development Association, and from the local doctor which I will table.

AN HON. MEMBER: How many people?

MR. GREENING: Approximately 400 people have signed this petition in the area. Also, if the Government would reconsider upgrading and paving this particular Route 234, this would create some employment for some of the truckers here in the galleries today and would probably save some of them from bankruptcy and be able to allow them to put bread on their table. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HEARN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand to present a petition from a number of residents of Mall Bay in the district of St. Mary's - The Capes. The prayer of the petition is: we the undersigned do hereby request the Government to give serious consideration to the upgrading of Mall Bay Road which is now in a deplorable condition. I stress the fact that the petition requests upgrading. They do not even add paving which I know that they hope for down the road.

A few days ago the Minister of Transportation in discussing the road work that was allocated for this year mentioned that road work was not being done in certain areas of the Province because all the roads were paved. And one of the areas he listed as having all the roads paved was the district of St. Mary's - The Capes. I will tell the hon. Minister that there are still roads left unpaved in the district of St. Mary's - The Capes. Not as many perhaps as a few years ago. In 1985 we had 175 miles of dirt road, today we have twenty-five. But twenty-five miles of dirt road is as many miles of road as some people have in their entire district.

One stretch of that, about four to five miles, is the road down to Mall Bay, the only community now to which there is not a paved road. These people have to leave the community daily to go to school. All the children are bused out daily to the schools in the area. All the people down there who work at fish plants and so on have to leave their community to go to other surrounding communities. So it is a heavily travelled road on which most residents will find themselves daily. There is also an extremely steep, dangerous hill leading into the community which is usually in a deplorable condition as is mentioned in the petition.

So consequently we ask the Minister of Transportation - and I know he is not here right now, I presume he is attending meetings, but I know he is listening. So we ask him to give serious consideration to the petition from the members. And once again, some work will be created. We see this year very little activity in relation to calling tenders for road construction. We hear absolutely nothing about the capital works programmes of the Department of Municipal Affairs, and we have contractors out there starving for work. Many of the problems being experienced by the truckers, are as a result of the lack of activity around the Province. So, we ask the Ministers to get with it, try to get some work created, look at the areas of need, and in the case of Mall Bay, we ask that the Minister give serious consideration to this petition. It is only a four-to-five-mile stretch, and all they are asking for is that the road be brought up to an acceptable condition. That, certainly, is not too much. In light of the Minister's planning programme for this coming year, we ask him, as we have done for three years in a row, to list Mall Bay as the priority for that area. For the past three years, since this present administration has been in power, the District of St. Mary's - The Capes has not had one red cent for road improvements, in spite of the fact, as I said, we still have twenty-five miles of dirt road in the district. So, once again, I stress to the Minister that the priority for the district is the road to Mall Bay, and we ask him to keep this in mind, as he plans his next agenda. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. DOYLE: Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition, today, on behalf of approximately 462 residents out in my district, Seal Cove, Conception Bay, and the Town of Conception Bay South. The prayer of the petition reads: `To the hon. House of Assembly in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Seal Cove, Conception Bay South.

We the undersigned object to the recent decision to delay the repairs of the Seal Cove bridge. We are also very disappointed with Government's opinion that the closure of the bridge is nothing more than an inconvenience to the community. We are taxpayers, and we find this kind of attitude unacceptable, especially, since the need is real. Repairs should start immediately. It appears the Provincial Government is trying to ignore or put us off, and that is just not good enough.'

It is a bit of a long prayer. The prayer continues: `Seal Cove has always been a whole community with a bridge spanning the river. The bridge has always been maintained without problem and it should be that way now. Since the bridge collapsed because of ice in the spring thaw, school children are required to remain on buses exposed to the dangers of the road for longer periods of time. People must drive as much as ten kilometres to get to the store or post office, and in the case of illness, accident or fire, five to ten minutes delay could mean the difference between life and death or property loss.

The bridge is a vital part of Seal Cove; it maintains the integrity of the community, and at present, there is a wooden foot-walk built across the bridge. We assume it was put there to appease us. We do not consider it an architectural masterpiece but, rather, an eyesore that we are ashamed for outsiders to see. Very few, if anyone, uses the walkway and it is a waste of taxpayers' money. If that is all you have to offer, we suggest you have it removed. We do not know if Government is aware that the river valley is a real wind tunnel and during windy or icy weather conditions, someone using that high structure could be seriously hurt.

As the bridge and the structure now stands sagging down into the river, it is more of an obstruction than it ever was before, and when the spring thaw comes next year and the ice jams around the bridge, who will be responsible for flooding or other serious damage incurred? We guess we can accept the first flooding as an act of God, however since Government chooses to ignore the seriousness of the problem, in the event of another flood, we may have to seek legal advice as to our rights, as residents of the community.

We realize money is scarce, but we also know that Government always seems to find money to do any job it deems necessary, and this is necessary. We look forward to positive action in the very near future. We petition the House of Assembly to undertake restoration of the bridge.'

I have to say, Mr. Speaker, in defence of the Government - and it is not very often I speak in defence of the Government - this petition was taken up approximately two weeks ago, and since that time, I believe, the Department of Works, Services and Transportation have agreed to put a temporary Bailey bridge there - a temporary one, and the Town Council of CBS have agreed to set aside about $500,000 to put a permanent Bailey bridge there, but, of course, that would be contingent on any 60-40 road money they get from the Department of Municipal Affairs. They intend to put some of it into the bridge, if they get any money, at all, from the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

So, I present this petition, today, on behalf of the people of Seal Cove. It is a very legitimate one and, hopefully, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs will come across with a few dollars for these people so that they can get their bridge replaced.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wish to present a petition of more than 1,600 citizens of the Province. Most of these people are students at Cabot Institute in St. John's, and they come from all over Newfoundland and Labrador.

The petition was spearheaded by single parents at MUN. The prayer is as follows:

`We, the undersigned, support the recommendations of single parents at post-secondary educational institutions in the Province of Newfoundland, that the Department of Social Services change its policy regarding the inclusion as income, of the Canada Student Loan for the purposes of calculating social assistance benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I wholeheartedly support this petition. I have spoken in support of this reform on many occasions over the past several months, since the matter has been brought to my attention and that of all members by the single parents at MUN.

Mr. Speaker, single parents, trying to further their education, trying to go to university or a non-university post-secondary institution, find that the social assistance policy, instead of helping them in their effort to become educated, and, in that way, to become independent, actually hinders them.

Social assistance regulations treat student aid, both grants and loans that have to be repaid in full following graduation, as non-allowable income; the way the money flows, Mr. Speaker, once a student starts a semester, say, around the middle of September, and receives a student loan, the student has to wait about two months before receiving a grant; in the meantime, in the eight weeks intervening, a single parent with a child is left with less than $500 to live on, and that is, obviously, insufficient to meet basic needs, so the policy discourages a social assistance recipient from trying to break out of welfare by educating herself or himself and, through that means, become self-sufficient.

Mr. Speaker, as I have said in the House and in the news media, the number of single parent families in our Province, now on social assistance is 7,500. There are 7,500 single parent families getting social assistance now, and that means over 10,000 children of single parents, mostly single mothers, who are living in poverty. This number has increased by 20 per cent in the two years since the members opposite formed the Government. There has been a 20 per cent rise in the number of single parent families on welfare, over the last two years.

There has been a 20 per cent increase in the social assistance case load over all, so that, today, there are 50,000 children, women and men in this Province on welfare; that is a disgrace, Mr. Speaker, and this Government should move immediately, having been made aware of the problem, having appointed a committee last March to study it, to reform the Social Assistance Policy, to give students contemplating going to school in September, ample time to make their plans.

I think the President of Treasury Board, who has been the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, and as of the other day become acting Minister of Social Services, appreciates the need to move quickly on this change to the social assistance policy.

I hope the Minister gets the support of his colleagues and puts the necessary reform in place, as I say, quickly, in time for single parents on welfare to take advantage of an improvement for the next school year, starting in September.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: I rise in support of the petition presented by the Member for Humber East. The petitioners form a rather unique group in this Province, who have been quite active in advancing their own interests, and not only their own interests, Mr. Speaker, they are also advancing the interests of this Province, in seeking for themselves an education through Memorial University and other institutions, and trying to do that despite the handicaps they have, such as lack of funds, lack of support, and a lot of things going against them.

I want to make these comments directly to the Member for Gander. I call him the Member for Gander because it is easier to call him that, than to call him by all the titles that he now possesses. Perhaps sometimes he forgets he is the Member for Gander. He is now the Acting Minister of Social Services. I say this to him, because I think there are some people who are glad he is the Acting Minister responsible for Social Services. When I asked some of the group involved in this what their feelings were on the resignation of the former Minister, they said, `Relief.' They felt relieved. I think that is important to note, Mr. Speaker, when we have so many, perhaps, partisan people saying publicly to the news media and to the open lines, what a compassionate former Minister they thought they had. This is one group, Mr. Speaker, who feel that the former Minister was not listening to their concerns, and, in fact, was trying to do things that was putting off their concerns.

Mr. Speaker, the Government position, up until now, was that they had a serious question with respect to social assistance, to decide whether or not they were prepared to regard student loans as income under the Social Assistance regulations. Mr. Speaker, this is not something that the former government did, or did not do, or addressed, or failed to address. It is a decision that this Government made. This Government made a decision to disallow student loans as allowable income under the Social Assistance regulations, thereby suggesting that this was deducted from their allowance given under the regulations.

Now, I understand that the current Minister responsible for Social Services has met with the group, and has recognized that there is a serious problem, and that it is really a technical problem. It is not something that needs a committee of five or six or seven people to meet for months and months, and put off making a decision. The only question that the Minister of Social Services had was, whether it was going to affect the CAPP, the Canada Assistance Plan Programme. Well, all that takes, Mr. Speaker, is a bureaucrat, either here or in Ottawa, to answer that question. It seems to me, it is a very simple question with a very simple answer. Once that question has been answered - and I have no doubt that it will be answered favourably to the students - the Government, if it so wishes, merely has to determine, as a matter of policy, that it will no longer deduct from the students' social assistance, amounts they receive as student loans. Loans, Mr. Speaker, are not income. Loans are merely monies that are made available, that people have to pay back.

Mr. Speaker, when these individuals are trying to get themselves an education so that they will have opportunities in their future and not be a burden on the taxpayers of this Province, they should be encouraged in their efforts to do so. In fact, what is happening is that these individuals are being discouraged. Some of them are talking about not being able to go back to university in the Fall. Some of them are so frustrated by this Government's actions that they may not even have done well enough in their courses, this year, to be able to go back in the fall.

So, I ask the Minister to consider, very seriously, the position of these individuals and make a decision soon to allow them to continue their education and to make it possible for them to do that without considering their loans as income under the social assistance regulations. The Member for Humber East said there are 7,500 single mothers living in poverty under these circumstances and I accept that. I think that we are going to see more, and the reason we are, Mr. Speaker, is because it is becoming more and more socially acceptable for young women, some who are not married or never married who have children to keep them and to bring them up, and there are going to be more single parents who are in circumstances that they will have to get themselves out of, and I ask the Government to help them to do that.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

The hon. the Member for Bellevue.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise today in support of this particular petition. Not only in support of this particular petition and what this petition sets out to do, but I would like to lend my support to further encompass the whole area of adult education and training.

I became involved in adult education in the Province in the early 70's and I remember one of the first meetings I ever had when I became an official of the Department of Education. After getting in contact with a lot of the students, particularly at the Adult Education Centre in St. John's and around the Province, I found that a lot of students who were on social assistance were not only on social assistance, but on low incomes, the working poor in this Province who were trying to up-grade their skills and trying to get a better job.

I remember meeting at that particular time and submitting a proposal to the Minister of Social Services who was the Member at the time for St. John's Centre, the hon. Ank Murphy and Vern Hollett who was the deputy minister of Social Services. I presented a plan and a paper at that particular point in time suggesting that anybody on social assistance who agreed to up-grade themselves be paid an extra amount - forget about student loans, forget about all the other things. We have to do that, I think, in order to break the welfare cycle.

I think one of the things we should look at is that some of the money that we use now probably encourages people to stay on social assistance, a lot of the community development projects. There is a lot of money being spent and I think that a lot of it would be better utilized if we were to give extra incentives. A lot of these people, and I used to see them in adult education classes, go back to school and find there are a lot of other needs students have that you do not normally have when you stay at home. I mean most of those people when they go to school at night or in the day time have transportation costs, day care costs, etc.

As a matter of fact in 1987 I did a major paper which I worked on for five weeks in response to the royal commission on employment and unemployment outlining a five year plan where I recommended to the previous government and the Minister at the time, the Minister of Career Development and Advance Studies, the present Member for Ferryland. As a matter of fact I worked on it day and night and weekends because it was a rush, and one of the things that I indicated in that report was free tuition fees, child care, transportation allowances and various other support for low income families, not only single parents, but low income families who want to go back and up-grade their skills. The hon. Member for Humber East, I am sure, saw a lot of these papers that were generated by Bill Shallow and myself over the years. A lot of it I am sure is in the registry of the Department of Education. I remember protesting the increase in tuition fees. At one time in adult basic education we had free tuition fees. Under the Minister we increased the tuition fees for single parents and adult education tremendously. I always fought against increasing tuition fees for that particular clientele. I can assure you, as a member of this particular Government, that one of my objectives is to make sure that people who are in this Cabinet are made aware of the disadvantages that people have in trying to upgrade their adult education or university training. I can assure you, that I will be lobbying strong and hard to make sure when the funds are available that some of these services are provided for the people in this Province who are trying to break out of the welfare cycle.

I could stand here all day and give you examples of hundreds, yes, thousands of people who were on social assistance, single parents, as a matter of fact, we had a lot of classes where both the husband and wife came back to adult education. As I travel around this Province now, I see a lot of these people in very high paying jobs, who did their Grades IX, X and XI in adult education at night, and went on to further training.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. BARRETT: I can assure you, as a member, I fully support this petition, but I also support the fact that we need to look at income support and other allowances for not only people who are on social assistant, but the working poor in this particular Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Orders of the Day

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like leave of the House for the Minister of Development to introduce a special resolution. I wonder if the Minister would be allowed to explain it to the House.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes.

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

MR. FUREY: Just a quick correction, Mr. Speaker, from yesterday. The Premier made a statement concerning the Advisory Council on the Economy, and the name of Miss Julie Briffett of Pasadena was inadvertently omitted. We regret that error, and we wanted to read it into the record, Mr. Speaker.

I thank hon. members for the leave to present this resolution which essentially calls for the changing of the name of the Province, or at least the Island portion of the Province, for twenty-four hours.

Whereas a millennium, 1,000 years, has elapsed since the transatlantic crossing by the Vikings, who, led by Leif Eiriksson, made landfall at L'Anse-au-Meadows; and

Whereas Iceland and Norway, in a joint venture to mark this anniversary, by re-enacting the voyage of Leif Eiriksson, have commissioned a replica Viking long ship, and named it, The Gaea, after the Greek Goddess of the Earth; and

Whereas the Vikings knew the land they found as Vinland; and

Whereas this event is focusing the attention of the world on our Province and attracting visitors to our Province;

Be It Resolved that, for all purposes connected with the celebration of the anniversary of this notable feat of exploration and navigation, the Island of Newfoundland, as the known site of the Viking landfall, shall for the full day of August 2, 1991 be designated Vinland.

Mr. Speaker, I should tell the House that on May 17, of this year, replicas of the 1,000 year old Viking ships departed from Bergen, Norway, for North America. One of these ships, The Gaea, will sale across the North Atlantic with a crew of twelve to recreate the voyage of Leif Eiriksson, which the Norwegians claim brought Eiriksson to North America, which he called Vinland at that time, a full 500 years before Columbus. This commorative voyage is part of a joint venture, Mr. Speaker, sponsored by the Icelandic and Norwegian Governments, in co-operation with the world city discovery of Norway, and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Gaea will visit the Orkney, Shetland and Faeroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, before landing at L'Anse-au-Meadows on August 2, of this year. The Viking site at L'Anse-au-Meadows, which is a Unesco world heritage site is the focal point of the whole project. L'Anse-au-Meadows will receive world wide attention as a result of this visit, and the participation of the President of Iceland, the Norwegian Minister of Cultural Affairs, Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, who were the discoverers in the 1960s, as well as other senior Federal and Provincial government representatives and the world media, would be at L'Anse-aux-Meadows on August 2nd. The gaea, I think will remain there for two or three days and then it will depart for the capital city of St. John's and will arrive here, we are told, August 9th and will remain until the 17th, then depart for Halifax and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States where it will ultimately end up in Washington D.C. so, Mr. Speaker, I thank Members for leave; we think that this is an important event, not just for our Province to celebrate the thousand years of history of the discovery by the Vikings, but it is an international event which will put the spot light from the international media on the entire Province -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FUREY: Indeed I have. In fact the Canadian Embassy in Norway at Oslo, invited me to speak at a dinner in their honour, and it was at that time that I thanked them publicly on behalf of the Province, for their great work in the 1960s and 1970s.

Last year, if the hon. Member would look at my expenses, he would see that I was in Oslo last year-

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible).

MR. FUREY: - and it was at that time, but I did - this is true that I have been gone a long time but I always remembered to come back. Mr. Speaker, just seriously, for a minute, I did meet the Ingstads, they are a lovely couple; their coming here and -

Mr. Speaker, I said the Vikings were not coming until August 2nd, At any rate, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for leave and for quick passage of this resolution to name the Island portion for that twenty-four hours converted from Newfoundland to Vinland, so thank you, very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, I want to acknowledge the appointment of Mrs. Julie Briffett to the Advisory Council on the Economy that the Minister mentioned was inadvertently left out of yesterday's statement. Certainly, we wish her well with the rest of our colleagues in her deliberations in trying to advise a Government that knows as much about the economy and how to develop the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador as I know about the moon.

But, Mr. Speaker, coming to the - as I know about the Viking.

MR. SIMMS: Oh, he knows well about the Vikings, just listen.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues in the official opposition, I want to say that I am pleased to support this resolution. The Minister and the Premier have spoken to me about this particular resolution during the course of the last couple of days and I think it is eminently appropriate, that symbolically, for the twenty-four hour period, first when this ship arrives at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, that the Island portion of Newfoundland or the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador be known as Vinland; I have no difficulty with that at all, in fact, I think it is eminently appropriate that we do that.

I had an opportunity, when I was Minister of Fisheries to officially represent the Province at the official opening of the L'Anse-aux-Meadows site and I must say, it is a very impressive development, very, very impressive development and as I said, I represented the Province as Minister of Fisheries at the official opening of that site, together with the Canadian Minister and the Inkstads and we had a very special -

MR. SIMMS: Helga and -

MR. RIDEOUT: Helga and Anne Stine; we had a very special tribute paid to the Inkstads in St. Anthony at that time. I hosted a Government dinner, because, as we know, they discovered the site, they worked very diligently through the 1960s and 1970s and really, it was a very, very significant discovery, because they had nothing to go by except the old sagas; there was nothing written down historically that would lead them to L'Anse-aux-Meadows, and it -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: Yes. - and in fact, they told me and people in the area told me, that if you were to walk by what is now the L'Anse-aux-Meadows National Historic Site, unless you were very keen of eye, there was nothing noticeable, except for the odd little mound that might leave you with the impression that years and years ago it might have been a potato garden or something of that nature. So it was a great historic discovery, and I am delighted that Canada or Unesco has declared it to be a world site. I think it is very, very significant for Newfoundland and Canada that has happened. And I believe that it is entirely appropriate that on the occasion of this discovery and that on August 2nd, 1991 that Newfoundland be symbolically, at least, known as Vinland.

I am pleased, Mr. Speaker, that the President of Iceland will be coming for that, a very high profile Minister from Norway, and I am sure that as it was the last time I was in L'Anse-au-Meadows that the international press will be there. I am very, very confident of that because it is a world historic site. The European community in particular is attracted to it because of the connection with the Vikings, and I think that you will see that there will be a tremendous in pouring again of international press to that site and that can only be good for tourism in our Province.

So, Mr. Speaker, anything that is good for Newfoundland and Labrador we support, and I believe that this will be good for the Province, good for the tourism industry, good for the promotion of the Province and therefore on behalf of my colleagues, I wholeheartedly endorse the resolution and commend the Minister and the Government for bringing it forth.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to rise to support the resolution presented by the Minister of Development and to say that I am very pleased to see that the Province has decided to take the action to participate in the event in a very unique way, to symbolically change the name of the Island part of the Province to Vinland as it was known by the Vikings.

I am not going to get involved in whatever disputes there might be over the Viking sagas as to which land was Vinland and which land was something else. I think that it is accepted that the landing at L'Anse-au-Meadow was a very important and significant part of the Viking sagas and the Viking navigation of 1,000 years ago. I suppose there is some debate, Mr. Speaker, as to whether or not they were the first of the scandinavian or European people to travel to the island portion of Newfoundland, of course, to find the people who were already here making a living and living for centuries and thousands of years, perhaps. But there is also some - and I have not heard anything of it in recent years, but there is also some evidence that the Irish navigators, those of St. Brendan, may have also been on the northwest coast of Newfoundland. There is some evidence of runic writing that has been found in certain portions of the northwest coast. Perhaps the Minister of Development is familiar with some of these stones that have been found some distance from the shore with various symbolic and significant writings on them. But the Vikings, Mr. Speaker, have made a very significant mark by presenting and finding through the work of the Ingstad's in discovering the location of the settlement at L'Anse-au-Meadows and to know that the Vikings in those early days were able to travel the seas in the ships that they had.

I had occasion, Mr. Speaker, to visit Norway several years ago and to look in near Oslo at a museum which had a number of the very well preserved Viking ships that had been found in a peat bog and thereby preserved. The size of those ships and to know that the Vikings 1,000 years ago had built those ships and were able to navigate the north Atlantic to be able to travel to this Province at that time on voyages of exploration and discovery is quite something. I did not have occasion at that time to meet the Ingstad's, but I know of their work and how important it was for them to be able to discover through the evidence available from the sagas and from what they were able to know about the knowledge of wind and currents to be able to discover that site, and I think we owe them a debt of gratitude for bringing that to the attention of Newfoundlanders and indeed the world. And I am also very proud along with other Members of this House to see that L'Anse-au-Meadows has been named a World Heritage Site. I believe if I am not wrong that it was in fact the first World Heritage Site designated by the United Nations through the Unesco programme. And I think it is a very positive gesture in the interests of participating wholeheartedly in the celebration by the Norwegian and Icelandic people to re-enact the Viking voyages that we for this day rename the Province "Vinland" to give recognition and commendation to the voyages of the Viking explorers so long ago.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Those against, 'nay'. Carried.

The President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like leave of the House to call as the next item Bill 40 which has been distributed. And I would like leave of the House to deal with all three stages of the Bill today. And if I do get that leave I would then like to call the first reading of said Bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Labour to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act, 1977, No. 2" carried. (Bill No. 40).

On motion, Bill No. 40 read a first time, ordered read a second time now, by leave.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act, 1977, No. 2". (Bill No. 40).

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This Bill is something that was put together very quickly as a result of a decision in the Newfoundland Supreme Court Trial Division concerning the construction industry panel of the Labour Relations Board. And a ruling was made that in essence declared that panel nonexistent. The panel of the Board has since 1987 been deciding matters such as the existence of collective agreements, imposition of first collective agreements, issues related to transfer of businesses and so on. Until the particular case the validity of the appointments to the panel have never been issues in any particular decision.

The problem is that Section 9-3 of the Act provides the panel consist of a Chairman, or Vice-Chairman if appointed by the Chairman, and two representative members who are representative of employees and employers in the industry or service with which the matter before the panel is concerned. The judge concluded that appointing two representatives of each group instead of one - which it seems to me, just an off-handed comment, is probably even better than one from each group.

AN HON. MEMBER: You would think so (Inaudible).

MR. BAKER: Yes, and to guarantee you always had one (Inaudible) and so on. But that appointing two representatives from each group was an error. And on that basis, Mr. Speaker, he made his decision that the Minute of Council appointing the panel was ultra vires.

So it creates an tremendous problem. There have been 400 such decisions made by this panel since 1987. And whereas they have not all been appealed the possibility exists that during the summer decisions that have been long-standing, decisions that have been in place for four years and decisions that perhaps have meant a lot of money and exchange and so on in terms of unions or in terms of businesses - could wreak havoc in some areas of the Province.

So whereas an appeal of this decision has been commenced this amendment will ensure, for all parties' clarification, that the status quo has been accepted over the past four years and it remains in as far as it relates to decisions already rendered by the construction industry panel.

The wording is very careful so that there is no interference with any other issue that may arise and says that Section 9 of the Labour Relations Act 1977 is amended by adding immediately after subsection (6) the following: a decision or action of the construction industry panel or other panel of the Board appointed under subsection 9-1 as enacted by Chapter 64 of 1977, whether that decision was made before or after the coming into force of this subsection, is not invalid or ineffective by reason only of a defect in the constitution of the panel.

So that leaves the door open for any other proper challenge of any decisions made since 1987. Mr. Speaker, that is the reason that we have had to rush in this piece of legislation at this particular time.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would want a few brief words to say on this particular Bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act." We understand the timely necessity and the bind that the Government finds itself in. Obviously if the Minister wished he could be a little political and say that this Government did not create the problem, and that is true. I am sure the previous government, in appointing more members to the panel than the Act provided, did not do it deliberately and thought that they, with whatever advice that was available, were making the appropriate decision.

However, the fact of the matter is that we have to deal with the here and now. And the here and now is that it has been found - because there were two more members on the Board than the law provides as I understand it - by Mr. Justice Halley that this is inappropriate, that it is illegal, and that therefore 400 or 500 decisions of that panel could conceivably be open to appeal and that could cause quite a disruption. It could cause a lot of difficulty. I mean, a lot of decisions have been made, money has been paid out, life has gone on under what everybody thought to be the due process of the law. So I do not see anything wrong with this amendment. In fact I think we have no other choice, we have to approve it.

The only point I want to raise, the only comparison I want to make very quickly is this. When it is in the interest or perceived to be in the interest of the government of the day it is not something that - I should say I probably can be less nonpartisan today than ever I have been. But when it is perceived to be in the interest of the government of the day things somehow have a way of getting done quickly if they must be done quickly. The fact of the matter is that I would suspect somebody worked into the wee hours of the night to draft this particular amendment, because as I understand it the decision only became known hours ago. So because it was perceived to be in the interest of the Government - not necessarily the public but in the interest of the Government - legislation can be drafted quickly, consent can be sought to deal with it quickly in the Legislature, and that happens on many an occasion.

But there are also other situations where I think that it equally applies when the Government does not necessarily perceive it to be in its interest and therefore it does not move. I am talking about of course another amendment, and it could have been part of this same Bill. I am talking about another amendment that is urgently required to the Labour Relations Act of this Province to give 900 individuals, truck owners in this Province, the right to organize. The right to have a union and be able to bargain collectively. The right to be able to work in this Province and not be forced perhaps to go into bankruptcy because of inadequacies in the law.

The request to do that has been before this Government, as I understand it, for some six or seven months. There is no excuse any assessments or studies that had to be done on the impact of what that amendment may be to other sectors of our society could be done. This Government was not asked to act overnight. This Government was not asked to act without doing the assessments, this Government was asked six months ago and yet, Mr. Speaker, this Government had the political gall to sit on its haunches for six months until the rigs appear in the parking lot and then they have no answer. Then they do not know what they are going to do. They cannot cave into pressure now because it will look like we are blackmailed, it will look like all you have to do is bring in a few trucks, or bring in a few protestors and we will do whatever the protesters want, that is the bind the Government found itself in. But, when it wanted to do something legislatively that would suit its own fancy, that would get the Queen in the right of the Crown in Newfoundland and Labrador off the hook, then it can use the power of the legislature. So, while we support it, Mr. Speaker, I must take the opportunity to condemn the Government for the lack of other action that it should have taken in amending this particular piece of legislation.

So, Mr. Speaker, we are not going to unduly delay this amendment. We are not happy about it. I do not expect the Government is happy about it. If we made a mistake then I say, mea culpa, we made a mistake and we will help correct it. But in helping correct this one, Mr. Speaker, there was a prime opportunity for the Government to keep faith with another group of its citizens who have been begging for help, begging for assistance, begging for the Government to use the Legislature to be able to give them an opportunity to go on with their lives in some kind of a way that would allow them to make a living, Mr. Speaker. I am deeply disappointed. In fact, I am disappointed to the point of being almost angry with the Government that having made the decision to come with this little piece of legislation today they would not have made the decision in the wee hours of last night, or whenever it was they made it, to include a second clause in this bill to give some of our citizens out there an opportunity to be able to come together collectively in a union and put some of the crowd in this Province who have them over the barrel, who have them in a bind, who can pretty well blackmail them into working for the right they dictate, not the right that the law dictates and the rate that collective bargaining would dictate, Mr. Speaker. It is a situation that is deplorable and the Government has lost a very, very excellent opportunity to correct it. Not in the fall, not five or six months from now, but now, Mr. Speaker, and the Government should have done it.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wish to rise and speak in support of this bill but in doing so, I have to say it is one of these things when you are asked to do, with special leave of the House to put a bill through in the afternoon, in one day, you kind of wonder what is really going on in labour relations in this Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: We have no Minister.

MR. HARRIS: We have no Minister, the hon. Member next to me says. Well, Mr. Speaker, that maybe one of the problems we do not have a Minister who appears to be on top of things. We do not have a Minister who appears to be able to respond to the needs of the people of this Province in the area of labour relations. There is some discussion about this particular defect in the legislation being the fault of the previous Government that we are now going about to correct.

Well, Mr. Speaker, it is a technical defect, a technical defect in the legislation perhaps, but perhaps also in the way that the board was appointed. It is a problem that some lawyer who somewhere along the way discovered on behalf of his or her clients and brought it to the attention of the courts and was successful in having a decision of the Labour Relations Board overturned.

Now, Mr. Speaker, labour relations in this Province, and I am not going to make any comment on any particular decision of the courts, I have not even read the decision that has given rise to this particular amendment to the legislation, but labour relations in this Province more than any other field of activity has suffered, Mr. Speaker, from technical defects in its legislation, from the ability of one side in particular to go to the courts and to overturn decisions that were made by a specially appointed tribunal appointed by the Government under The Labour Relations Act to decide because of their particular expertise to make decisions about matters affecting labour relations in the Province, matters affecting the affairs of individual employees who gathered together into trade unions and sought to represent their members collectively with their employers.

This Board has made decisions over the years that have constantly been referred to the courts by employers who are prepared to use the legal technicalities of the law to seek the overturning of these decisions; but, Mr. Speaker, when this happens, and as it has been so successful in the past, this Government and the previous Governments have been required to bring in amendment after amendment, to protect the Labour Relations Board and to protect their jurisdiction to allow them to exercise their jurisdiction to see that labour relations run smoothly in this Province.

We constantly see over the past ten or fifteen years amendments having to be brought in, usually in consequent of a court decision that has shown some defect or something that has not been thought about or something that the Government or the Government Legislative draughtpersons have not come to grips with, to try and right some wrong that has been on consequence of some technicality or legal defect.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it is time that the Government started taking the issue of Labour Relations in this Province seriously, we see a situation before the House today, the Government has come to the House and asked unanimous consent to bring the matter on, and that was so graciously given by all Members of the House to see this problem corrected, to try and avoid chaos in the construction industry and in the decisions, but at the same time, the same Government is prepared to allow chaos in the construction industry over the summer with respect to the trucking industry and the independant truckers who are going bankrupt.

Mr. Speaker, there is no legislation on double-breasting that is before this House which is acceptable to the players in the labour relations field, there is no action to protect the independent truckers from bankruptcy, that is what is going to be happening; it is like the family farms out west, the family farmers are going bankrupt every day and getting less and less and less and the governments of Canada in the western provinces try to seek means to stop that from happening, but this Government is prepared to see trucks being repossessed on the door steps of Confederation Building without addressing the problems of the independent truckers.

It is a serious problem, but not a serious legislative problem, it is not something that the Government has to refuse to answer letters for six months in the face of the growing problem. The Government started talking about it presumably only started taking it seriously when the first demonstration took place in this House some months ago, then they started believing the people, then they were prepared to take the issue seriously and now, because yesterday we had sixty or seventy trucks parked out in the front in some of the Members parking places, including my own, because that took place, the Government all of a sudden feels that it has to do something and so we had the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation get up today and say well, we are going to change this regulation, we are going to that, dilly dallying around, instead of taking the bull by the horns and recognizing that the time has come for the Government to recognize that the independent truckers have a right to bargain collectively and to make contracts and to enter into contracts and if the legislation that exist right now is inadequate to do that, then it ought to be changed and I do not see how the Government could sit around, as the President of Treasury Board, Minister of Social Services, Minister responsible for the Status of Women, Acting Premier, President of Council, all this individual said this afternoon in his capacity as Member for Gander, ia that the previous Government had done nothing for seventeen years about this issue.

Well, Mr. Speaker, to be fair, when the fishermen of Newfoundland had organized and they wanted to bargain collectively the previous administration, not the administration of the Leader of the Opposition, but one of the previous administrations of the Progressive Conservative Party, did pass specific legislation to allow them to bargain, as they did for the teachers, and as they did for other groups who wanted to bargain and the Public Service Collective Bargaining Act was also passed under their regime; not everybody liked it or the provisions of it, but at least they provided an opportunity for these groups to bargain collectively, and in these circumstances, Mr. Speaker, what has been recognized, is that there is a group of truckers in this Province who will not be able to bargain collectively even though in theory they have that right, they can bargain collectively as what is called: Dependant Contractors, under the legislation, but you cannot keep the employer pinned down, because, the employer is going to change from day to day and week to week and there is not enough time for the process to work. So, what is needed, Mr. Speaker, is a form of legislation that would allow the independent truckers, who have signed up two-thirds of the members, to be able to bargain collectively, to enforce their collective decision-making and to use their economic strength to take on the construction companies. Mr. Speaker, that is not an easy thing to do, to gather together the majority of independent truckers from all over this Province. They are a fairly single-minded, independent group of people, who see themselves, to some extent, as small business persons. They certainly have loans that are big enough to qualify them as small business enterprises, and they have a very serious investment. But, Mr. Speaker, in my meetings with these truckers it seems to be quite clear that, despite the fact they may well be in competition with each other, they had decided to work together, they had devised a method of sharing out the work that was available. Some of them who owned even more than one truck were prepared to forego business opportunities that they could have for the sake of the greater good; and that, Mr. Speaker, is the kind of co-operation that is needed if we are going to have economic progress in this Province, not having people out undercutting one another, outbidding each other for houses (inaudible) they can work because they are so desperate, but working together to try to demonstration some economic strength. What is needed is a response from this side, Mr. Speaker, that recognizes that, and not to make it a partisan political issue in the narrow sense that the President of Treasury Board was prepared to do. But it is a political issue. It is a political issue because it is an issue that has to do with the balance of power between the truckers, on the one hand, the independent truckers, the individuals, the little guy, on the one hand, and the big, nasty construction companies that have all the power, and control the decision-making.

So, it is an ideological issue, a political issue, having to do with the balance of power in this Province, and this Government has, once again, come down on the side of the construction industry and the construction companies and not on the side of the individuals -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: by refusing to recognize the rights of the independent truckers to bargain collectively by refusing to respond to this, by allowing confusion. There is going to be no legislation to protect these workers. All-summer-long, Mr. Speaker, we are going to have more demonstrations like we had here this morning, and they are not going to be in the Legislature of this Province, they are going to be on the highways, on the construction projects, they may be out at Bull Arm, Mr. Speaker. The RCMP may be dragging them away before this summer is over, and this Government has failed to act. That is what is happening here, Mr. Speaker, the Government has failed to take seriously the matters that were brought to it - brought to it not yesterday -

MR. HOGAN: Where were you the last three summers?

MR. HARRIS: - but six or eight months ago, and this Government has failed to take the time to consider it in that period of time and to have an answer for those people. Where was I when? The Member for Placentia wants to know where I was.

MR. HOGAN: The last three summers.

MR. HARRIS: Where was I the last three summers?

MR. HOGAN: The last twenty summers.

MR. HARRIS: The last twenty summers, Mr. Speaker.

The independent truckers had not organized themselves to the point where they were prepared to work together, to bargain collectively, and to go and seek representation until now. Now that they are ready, now that they have done that, the Government should respond. If the Government are failing to respond, Mr. Speaker, they are failing to take their duties seriously.

I will support this amendment before the House right now because it will prevent chaos in labour relations in this Province but, at the same time, I condemn this Government for failing to prevent chaos in the construction industry by recognizing the legitimate rights of independent truckers to bargain collectively on behalf of themselves and the other truckers.

So, Mr. Speaker, I offer my co-operation. I will not be obstructionist. I will not prevent this amendment from taking place, but I say to this Government that they ought to take serious action and afford the same courtesy to the truckers of this Province as they have to those who are the recipients or the beneficiaries of whatever decisions the Labour Relations Board made in the last several years under the anomalies that have been created by this decision. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board. If he speaks now, he will close the debate.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just a couple of very brief comments.

First of all, I would like to thank all Members of the House for leave to proceed with this particular bill at this time. It was an emergency situation; we felt it needed to be done, and I thank hon. members for the leave.

It is interesting to see, Mr. Speaker, how a matter such as this can be dealt with in a non-partisan manner. I was pleased that the absence of political rhetoric in the speeches from members opposite, although, on a couple of occasions, I think the Member for St. John's East got carried away a little bit with empty rhetoric and pretended to know exactly what was going to happen in the next while, pretended to know and proclaim as fact exactly what was going to happen in the future. It is nice to have such an individual in this House, Mr. Speaker, who can contribute an awful lot to the House and certainly to the development of the Province. I bet he also knows exactly what is going to happen in a lot of other areas, too, in the Province, in the months and years ahead. I bet he has exact knowledge of exactly what is going to happen in the future. I am really pleased to see him in the House and I hope he continues to contribute in the constructive manner he did today.

In terms of what the Leader of the Opposition said, I cannot help saying, Mr. Speaker - and I hope he is listening somewhere in the confines of the building where there is a speaker - we are going to miss him. He gives a real good speech and puts on a good show. He is quite an orator, and we are going to miss him. It is too bad. We are going to miss him in the House.

Mr. Speaker, Bill 40 has to be done to correct a potential problem that could occur and, Mr. Speaker, other labour legislation will be handled properly, I can assure all Members of the House, at the appropriate time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act, 1977, No. 2", read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House, presently by leave. (Bill No. 40)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Motion 1.

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is a pleasure for me to rise and continue where I left off about, I think, two-and-a-half months ago.

AN HON. MEMBER: Already, you go back to that now (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: How long?

AN HON. MEMBER: Eight or ten hours.

MR. WINDSOR: Eight or ten hours, is that all? I am only beginning.

MR. SIMMS: `Neil', as you were saying before you were so rudely interrupted two-and-a-half months ago.

MR. WINDSOR: - rudely interrupted by a minor two-and-a-half month break, Mr. Speaker, dealing with the Budget Debate.

A few things have happened in the interim, we have passed all the Estimates, and one-quarter or one-third of the money has been spent. We have passed a lot of companion legislation, loan bills, I think, were passed here, yesterday. Most of the things have gone on. So it is almost a little redundant for me to carry on in the vein that I started out in two-and-a-half months ago. It would be almost comical if the ramifications of what we are talking about were not, in fact, quite so serious.

I think it is interesting to note that other than the Minister of Finance, when he read his Budget Speech on Budget Day, I am still the only person to speak to the Budget.

MR. BAKER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The Minister's speech - yes, I mentioned that. If the President of Treasury Board would listen, that is what I just said. And I still have unlimited time, of course, so I can go on for days and days, and the Minister may not get to L'Anse-au-Meadows on August 2, you never know. I could carry on. But, of course, Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of doing so.

But I am disappointed that we have not heard more hon. members in this House address the Budget. Now, I say that my colleagues have had many opportunities to discuss the issues and the policies brought forward in the Budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you going to the banquet tonight?

MR. WINDSOR: Am I going to the - ?

AN HON. MEMBER: Banquet.

MR. WINDSOR: Which one is this?

AN HON. MEMBER: The banquet in Mount Pearl, Marlin's banquet.

MR. WINDSOR: Not tonight, we are going to be here, I am afraid. We will not be going to the Marlin's banquet tonight.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, no hon. member opposite has spoken. Our colleagues on this side have spoken and have had the opportunity, through Question Period, through loan bills, interim supply, any number of bills, to make a number of very important points. And we have dealt, I think, with many of the major issues and the major difficulties that we have found in the Budget. I am really disappointed with some hon. members, particularly those in the backbenches opposite. We realize that the Ministers are not allowed to say very much because they are Members of Cabinet, so they could hardly get up in their places and criticize the Budget. I would like to have heard some of them stand and represent their constituencies, which is normal practice in a Budget Debate or Throne Speech Debate. I do not think we spoke very long on the Throne Speech. I think we may have had one afternoon that Throne Speech debate was called, maybe two. And we might have heard half-a-dozen members speak in the Throne Speech debate but we have not heard many Members opposite speaking on matters relating to their districts.

I do not know if the Member for Lewisporte even has a voice, anymore. He has been stone silent. I have not heard him say much in support or in defence of his district. He has really been noticeable by his silence. In fact, I think it is quite clear, and the record will show, that I have represented the people of Lewisporte in this House far more than the hon. gentleman opposite. And the day may come, Mr. Speaker, when I represent them full-time!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINDSOR: You never know, they are begging me out there to run against the hon. gentleman so that we can be rid of him.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: I challenge the hon. Member.

MR. WINDSOR: Well, the hon. Member just may challenge me and he may get his challenge accepted. We saw his silence on a number of very critical issues. He turned tail, he is over there. I will tell you what he reminds me of, he reminds of one of these little dolls with the heads that nod? 'Yes, Mr. Premier, yes, Mr. Premier.' That is what he looks like over there in the backbenches. And several more of his colleagues have been strangely quiet.

The Member for Fortune - Hermitage was one of the most vocal Members on our team when he was a Member on this side of the House. He spoke almost every day. A very strong speaker I might add. Made a number of presentations in this House that I congratulated him for. And I thought he made a contribution to this House. But since he is over there he has been silenced by the dictator along with the rest of them, and we have not heard a word from him. The people of Fortune - Hermitage are wondering if he is still alive.

I could go on down the line. The Member for Bellevue: he was strangely quiet when the hospital was closed down in Come By Chance. They were looking for him out there. Very quiet.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The clinic or whatever it was in Come By Chance was closed down this year. Incredible how that one was closed down yet we opened up a couple of new ones in other places in the Province. But we did not hear very much from him. The Member for Mount Scio has spoken up on the amalgamation issue. He had the intestinal fortitude to come forward and speak in accordance with his conscience and so I congratulate him for that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Didn't speak for St. Phillips though.

MR. WINDSOR: Only for St. Phillips, yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, he wouldn't (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Oh, he would not speak for St. Phillips! No, you are right. But he spoke for Paradise and he spoke for Mount Pearl. Give him credit. As a constituent of mine he spoke for Mount Pearl. Not like the Member for Bellevue, he was all in favour of Mount Pearl being taken in by the City of St. John's.

AN HON. MEMBER: I supported Mount Pearl (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: No you did not. You supported nothing. Did not have the nerve to stand on his feet and speak. Was not allowed. The only ones who had any courage over there at all were the Member for Mount Scio and the Member for Carbonear, who also made it clear that he was not prepared to have municipalities in this Province dictated to.

But we have seen this Government over the past few months - they have not brought forward the Budget debate or the Throne Speech, they have not given their own Members an opportunity to speak. Democracy is not alive and well in this Chamber, as we saw during the amalgamation debate. It is not alive and well in the Province as it relates to municipalities. We have seen how this Government in their dictatorial manner has made unilateral decisions as it relates to municipalities, pension reform, as it relates to massive layoffs in the public service. The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is that the people of this Province have lost their confidence in this Government. They no longer trust this Government, Mr. Speaker. This Government has broken trust with the people who elected them to guide this Province. Now, Mr. Speaker, we saw the Premier break the trust of all Canadians during the Meech Lake debate as a result of which Canada is now in grave danger of being totally destroyed, the Canada as we know it. The Premier and the Premier alone is responsible for that I say, Mr. Speaker.

We saw, Mr. Speaker, the Premier talking about loan guarantees. He threatened not to honour loan guarantees, which is a sacred trust of any government. When a government gives guaranteed loans to industry, to financial institutions, it is a sacred trust, Mr. Speaker, and the Premier threatened not to honour those loan guarantees and he soon found out he could not get away with that. And, Mr. Speaker, very clearly he has broken his word to municipalities as I just mentioned. He made it very clear that he would not force amalgamation on municipalities that did not favour such amalgamations. He very clearly, very deliberately broke his word in that regard. And, Mr. Speaker, he broke his word to the public service bargaining units in this Province by refusing to honour negotiated agreements that had been made by this Government, by refusing to honour the increases that had been negotiated by this Government in good faith with those public service bargaining units. In fact, he rolled back the wages of public servants, some 30,000 of them in this Province, and we saw massive layoffs to several thousand other Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

The Minister of Finance may not think, Mr. Speaker, that has great impact on the Province but I suspect he is finding that now. I suspect that when he did his Budget initially, he did not make allowance for the impact that those layoffs would have on the provincial revenues and on the impact in the economy, but if he did, Mr. Speaker, he grossly underestimated them. I say to this House, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance is now finding out that the economy in this Province is as bad as I have been saying that it is. He tried to hide his head in the sand and ignore the facts but the facts are there and they are clear, they are unmistakable and undeniable. The economy of this Province is in the worse shape that it has been in many, many years - in decades. The Minister of Finance has done absolutely nothing about it. His response to an economic crisis in this Province is to add to it by increasing the number of the unemployed in this Province by about 3,000 or 4,000 directly.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the Minister may like to believe that has not had an incredibility detrimental impact on the economy. The fact of the matter is that it has been devastating, absolutely devastating. If the Minister would leave Confederation Building once in a while and go out there and talk to the people of the Province, particularly talk to business people in this Province and find out what business is like, he would find out that by adding all these unemployed to the list, Mr. Speaker, he has done nothing at all except make the situation worse. Added to that, Mr. Speaker, he brought in his infamous payroll tax, which is a penalty on people who employ people. He penalized people because they create employment. Now that is a great economic stimulant, Mr. Speaker, you hire people then you pay a penalty for it. It does not matter if you are profitable or not. It does not matter if you are making money, you can be losing money hand-over-fist the fact that you are employing people you must pay a penalty of 1.5 per cent of your payroll. Now, Mr. Speaker, that has done absolutely nothing except make the economic situation worse.

Then he tried to pull a sneaky one through the gasoline and fuel tax by freezing it at the incredibility high levels we saw at the beginning of the Gulf War. He changed it from the ad valorem method to a percentage and he fixed it then, Mr. Speaker, at a fixed amount instead of the ad valorem. He fixed it, Mr. Speaker, at the highest price level that we have had for many years. It could have been higher, the Minister of Mines and Energy did not increase it, as he could have based on the surveys that he took, if he had taken a survey he would have had to increase it. It could have gone up a bit but nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, it is at the highest level we have seen in the longest time that the Minister has it now frozen at. So, in effect what he did was introduce a 4 per cent increase in fuel tax and gasoline tax and on diesel fuels. He did not have the nerve to bring it forward clearly in the Budget, he said we are just going to hold it where it is. But he knew that the price of fuels were going to go down and therefore his tax revenues would go down with it. So, he said: I will grab what I have and hang on to it now. It is like mortgaging your house and fixing it in forever at the lowest possible rate, when in the reverse he is fixing it in at the highest possible return. That is what he has done, Mr. Speaker.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this Government has done nothing to stimulate the economy. My friend earlier today asked questions about the water and sewer program from the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, we do not see that yet. Here we are just about into June, Mr. Speaker, and the Minister has yet to announce his water and sewer program. When does he propose to do that? Would the Minister like to tell us? I will give leave for him to stand and tell us now, tell the people of this Province. I ask him for no other reason than there are thousands of unemployed out there, there are thousands of construction companies out there that are almost insolvent, thousands of private contractors such as the truckers who were here today who are depending on these construction contracts to start working. And, Mr. Speaker, in this Province the construction industry is a major employer on a seasonal basis at least, and one of the largest contracts is represented by the various small contracts that go through municipalities. It represents a very significant portion of the construction activity in the Province, and it is just unbelievable that this Minister who stood in this House a couple of years ago and talked about early tendering and getting construction activity going early in the year so that we could take advantage of a short season, if the Minister needs a reminder, all he has to do is look outside at the snow that is coming down today on the 30th day of May and remind him of what it is like to try to carry out construction activity in the winter season in this Province.

The water and sewer projects, Mr. Speaker, should be going full steam now. Instead of that the Minister has yet to announce where his programme money will be spent this year. Not one tender has been called. By the time the Minister announces, and we call tenders and the contractors mobilize themselves we will be into July. We will be into July before there is a machine turned in this Province. So I can see us now in the fall of next year - maybe this is their game, Mr. Speaker, but I can see us in the fall not having completed those contracts and it will be carried over until next year. So the Minister of Finance may come in very proudly and say: Oh, we did not spend all of the money that we had allocated, we saved a bunch of money. That is how they are going to save it, by delaying the work so it is not done. Well, Mr. Speaker, that is really trying to mislead the people of the Province. But they are only fooling themselves. It is counter-productive because if that activity does not take place, unemployment levels will stay at a high, people will not get their twelve or fourteen weeks of Unemployment Insurance stamps and you are going to find more people on welfare. The Minister will pay the full price for that.

So, Mr. Speaker, Government - not only have they not done anything to correct the economic situation that we are in, here is an opportunity when it is clearly in their grasp to start to stimulate the economy. They do not even move ahead in the normal manner. We are seeing all kinds of patronage throughout the last number of months, Mr. Speaker. Patronage has been absolutely terrible. We saw one Minister bite the dust a couple of days ago. We take no great pleasure in that, Mr. Speaker, but I think it is indicative of what is taking place over here, this self-righteous Government that talked about patronage from previous administrations -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

It is 5:00 p.m. Do we have agreement to stop the clock?

Agreed.

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: The self-righteous Government, Mr. Speaker, that spoke so much about what they perceived to be political patronage in the past, and they have broken all records. I could list them all off here, Mr. Speaker. I have a list of positions that have been filled, straight forward, blatant political patronage. There are twenty-two on this list, Mr. Speaker, that one of my colleagues put together. Twenty-two people, former MHAs, candidates, people directly connected with the Liberal Party who have been appointed. This is several months old now. These are just the most blatant ones, and that does not talk about all the boards and agencies (inaudible) talks about the Chairman of the Social Assistance Appeals Board, those types of things; the Chairman of the Workers Compensation Commission Tribunal, Mr. Speaker, the Chairman of the Waterford Hospital, who is that?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is it?

MR. WINDSOR: Who is it? Former MHA, Mr. Roberts.

AN HON. MEMBER: A former Leader.

MR. WINDSOR: Good heavens, a former leader. The Assistant Deputy Minister of Social Services.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is that?

MR. WINDSOR: We all know who that is don't we?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is it?

MR. WINDSOR: Ah, we all know who that is, I do not need to tell the hon. gentleman.

MR. SIMMS: (Inaudible) in the last few days.

MR. WINDSOR: The Board of Directors of Marystown Shipyard has the former Liberal candidate down there, Mr. Wood, appointed to the Board of Directors.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on.

MR. WINDSOR: The president of the Liberal Party is on the Newfoundland Hydro Board of Directors. I mean I can go on down. There is a whole list of them here, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, you know, I am not going to stand here and tell hon. gentlemen opposite that they should not be making appointments for people who are connected with the Liberal Party. One should have some basic competence at least to fill a position to which one is being appointed, and that is where the weakness comes into it, Mr. Speaker. That is where the weaknesses come into it. But to be so self-righteous as to speak about the previous administration and the way that we handled such affairs.

Mr. Speaker, we dim into insignificance when we see what this hon. crowd has done with patronage appointments, when we see the public servants who have been summarily dismissed from the public service, seeing your public servants with long-time records of achievement and service to this Government and to this Province summarily dismissed out of hand by this Government, Mr. Speaker. And then they would have us believe that there is fairness and balance.

Mr. Speaker, the record of this Government is dismal. The record of the Minister of Finance is dismal even by comparison with the rest of his colleagues. I do not know how he would expect any of us to have any confidence in his Budget. Two years in a row, Mr. Speaker, he was horribly in error in the predicted deficit. In fact, he predicted surpluses and in two years running went from projected surpluses to deficits; last year from a $10 million surplus to a $117 million deficit, only off by $130 million, Mr. Speaker, that is nothing - $130 million in one year, but he expects us to believe that deficit will be reduced this year to $57 million. I suspect by the end of this year we will find another $117 million deficit. That is where we will be because the Minister has totally ignored the impact that this Government's action is having on the economy of this Province - totally ignored it and grossly underestimated the impact that it is having.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has predicted a fairly healthy growth, for example, in retail sales tax for this year. A growth that he predicted for last year, I think it is around 5 per cent, and he found last year that he only had about a 1 per cent increase. All the economic factors indicated that this year retail sales would be down even further. Still the Minister of Finance predicts a 5 per cent growth. Well, Mr. Speaker, he is going to find once again that he has grossly overestimated that.

Now, he has increased his revenues by piggybacking on top of GST. So, in fact, he did by the back door increase the rate of retail sales tax by almost 1 percentage point. They are actually paying 12.84 per cent retail sales tax in this Province since the GST has been added, Mr. Speaker. The Minister could have lowered it if he had wanted to stimulate the economy, he could have lowered the retail sales tax by 1 per cent which would have been a positive thing, not major, not as if he would have lowered it by 5 per cent, of course, which, no doubt, he is not in a position to do, but he could have lowered it by 1 per cent to 11 per cent. He would, in fact, still be gaining his 12 per cent, but the impact of that would have been significant. The perception that taxes were, at least, starting to decrease would have been significant.

Mr. Speaker, there would be many things - many, many things that this Government could have done and should have done. And all that we have heard from this Government is cutback, retrenchment, layoffs, wage freezes, wage rollbacks, doom and gloom. Not a positive announcement, not a job creation project have we seen. No new programmes, no new initiatives to create employment in this Province. No new initiatives to help business and industry except the Economic Recovery Commission, which amounts to nothing more than spending tens of millions of dollars reshuffling the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. Not one new initiative I say to the Minister of Development has he brought forward here that creates jobs, not one in the two years that he has been in office, unless he wants to depend on the Economic Recovery Commission, and they are a dismal failure. They indeed are a dismal failure. All that has done is taken the authority out of the hands of Government and given it to a bunch of high paid bureaucrats. And we will soon see Dr. House disappear if he has not already done so. Dr. House's days are numbered as head of the Economic Recovery Commission. Not necessarily by his choice, I say. But he will be asked to leave very shortly. If he has not already done so.

The most cruel and coldhearted thing this Government has done have been the cuts in the health and education sectors. I do not think there is a district in this Province that has not felt that. We spent years and years trying to improve the level of education of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. And very basic to economic development is the strong level of education in the Province. Not only has this Government done nothing to enhance that but by the significant cuts in funding that they have brought forward, particularly this year, we are in grave danger of losing what we had built up over the years. Our health care system is suffering greatly. People are not receiving the care that they have become accustomed to. Certainly not receiving the care that they would like to receive, because there is tremendous room for improvement in our health care system as well. But I see no hope of seeing any of that take place over the coming year or two.

And the Premier's promise of bringing every man's son home has been met with sending the daughters up where the sons are. A massive out-migration of trained Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, a massive brain drain. Our most competent people are forced to leave the Province to find work. There is a hardly a week goes by that I do not get a call from somebody in this Province, a constituent or a friend, who says: that I have really reached the end of the line, there are no job opportunities here, and I have to leave the Province. Hundreds more - thousands more - capable people, educated people, people with university degrees unable to find employment in this Province. And the only answer the Government has is to create an Economic Recovery Commission. Well, I am afraid that we cannot wait for an Economic Recovery Commission. I do not have any difficulty with the mandate that they have per se in the long term. But we cannot wait for the long term. We need to do that but in addition to that we need a short term strategy to pull us up by our bootstraps at this point in time, before too many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are gone, before we have missed too many of the opportunities that are here.

I see no point in going back over all that I said before about the Budget. I see no point in trying to analyze the weakness in the Budget. We are well into the fiscal year. This Government now has enshrined for this year at least the policies that the Minister enunciated in this Budget. We are probably past the point of no return. Certainly this Government has given us no indication that there is any flexibility in anything that they do. In fact, the record of this Government has been one that I do not think any Member of this House should be proud of. We have seen in this session of the House closure used more times than in the whole history of the Newfoundland Parliament since Confederation in this session alone.

So as I said in the beginning democracy is not alive and well. We see a Government resolution brought before the House and then they just push it through as quickly as possible, stifling debate using closure, totally unprepared to consider any suggestions as how a piece of legislation could be changed. It might be meaningful to stand in this House day after day and carry on debate with hon. gentlemen opposite if we thought there was even a slightest hope of changing the direction of what was taking place. If we even thought that a minor amendment could come in which would make it a little more acceptable. If we could offer some good constructive criticism and have any opportunity whatsoever of seeing it brought about, seeing it accepted by the Government. But very clearly this Government is very much entrenched in their own way of doing things. There appears to be no other alternatives.

And I say, out of charity for some hon. Members opposite, that the crux of that seems to be sitting in the one chair, the Leader's chair. I do not see a lot of democracy within that caucus either. I do not see too many opportunities for Members opposite to change the mind of the Premier. It is a very dictatorial Cabinet. I for one, Mr. Speaker, do not think that I would particularly enjoy being a part of that Cabinet or serving that particular Leader for that reason. Not that he is not a capable individual but you know it is very difficult, in fact it is impossible,

AN HON. MEMBER (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: No, I do not have to worry about it and neither do hon. gentlemen opposite. You may rest assured that is one thing that is not on my list of ambitions. I may one day occupy that Chair, Mr. Speaker, but it will not be with those hon. gentleman sitting behind me you may rest assured of that.

Mr. Speaker, but if I did you may rest assured that the approach would be a lot different because a team leader can only be a team leader if he has learned how to follow and that is the Premier's problem. The Premier has never learned to follow. He is never prepared to accept the fact that some of his colleagues may well know something he does not know and may well have a better idea. That is where he fails as a leader, that is where he fails as a Premier, and that is where he will fail politically, Mr. Speaker, I say to hon. gentlemen opposite. Many of them will fall with him. The attitude that we have seen in this House, Mr. Speaker, this session, particularly as it relates to the amalgamation issue, I think has showed to the people of this Province more than anything else the Premier could have done of how totally inflexible he is as an individual, how totally inflexible he is prepared to allow his Government to be as a government. That will be the Premier's downfall, Mr. Speaker, that will be the downfall of this Government. If the Premier had any desire to put this Government on a course which is going to help this Province, the first thing he would do is send off the Minister of Finance along with the former Minister of Social Services. He would save us that agony and put somebody in that position, Mr. Speaker, which is a very important position. It is probably the most important position in Cabinet, the position that has the most influence over the destiny of the Province and the economy of the Province certainly, and he would put somebody more competent in there, Mr. Speaker. Then he would learn to operate as a team leader, not as a dictator, because it can never function, not in our concept of a democratic society, clearly his concept and ours, Mr. Speaker, are tremendously far apart.

So, Mr. Speaker, to the delight of hon. gentlemen opposite, I am sure, I am going to take my place. I would very much like to carry on for several more days, there is a great deal that I could say, there are a great number of issues that I could address.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: More, more

MR. WINDSOR: By popular demand, Mr. Speaker, I could stay for a couple of weeks, I do not mind.

But, Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I do not have the spirit to do it. I see the futility of it. If I thought my words were being listened to, if I thought I would have any impact even a small impact on the future decisions of Government and the hon. Members opposite, I would speak on and on, as long as they were prepared to listen. There is a big difference, Mr. Speaker, in listening and simply hearing somebody's words. You have to be paying attention, understanding what is being said and accept the fact that perhaps the fact that even though we have political differences, we may well be making some suggestions that are valid. We may well have some knowledge and some experience and some expertise over here that could be valid. I am the first to admit during my eleven years in Cabinet, quite often I learned a great deal from hon. Members who were sitting opposite, some who are over there now. Quite often I did and quite often it influenced the position that I took around the Cabinet table. I do not expect hon. gentlemen opposite to admit that sort of thing publicly any more than I did. But I say to you, Mr. Speaker, there were many times that I learned from listening to the hon. gentlemen opposite.

The only point that I regret about the House of Assembly is that we are not here truly in debate, we are here listening to a government resolution that is going to go through regardless of what is said. And that all that we say is really window dressing. It is going to go through.

And what a pleasure it would be to sit here and see a resolution come before the House of Assembly that you had reason to think that you could have an influence on -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon? I realize that. I am not saying that the situation today is any different. It is no different here, it is no different in any other Parliament across Canada, it is no different in Ottawa. But I guess I am being a naive dreamer saying that there has to be a better mechanism than having a government come in to a Chamber and simply defending what they are going to do. In many cases I suspect many of the caucus Members, the backbenchers, do not really see the legislation before it comes here.

I know we have the legislative committees now, and I think to a large extent that is an improvement. Some of the most important pieces of legislation unfortunately bypassed the legislation committees. There were several pieces that I do not think got to the legislation committees this year, that came straight to the House. And so again that may well only be lip service. But I do not think any legislation was changed in the legislative committees. There were some minor amendments but only if Government were proposing them.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: If that is the case and I will accept what the hon. House Leader is saying because I have not sat on any of these legislative committees. But if these legislative committees are to work as one would hope that they should, that there was reasonable debate in those committees, that there was an opportunity for input, and that it was listened to and that the legislation was changed and that what came forward was essentially - obviously you are not going to have the Opposition Members always agree with the legislation. But if blatant flaws are dealt with and changed, the Government is prepared to listen, then I think that is an improvement.

Again I say I wish we could sit in this Chamber and debate legislation and know that there was even an outside chance that if you could clearly show something was wrong that it would be changed. But that is not the case, we do not do that. And I think that is a real weakness in our Chamber here. That it is not a matter of debate, it is a matter of Government justifying what they are doing and Opposition criticizing what they are doing, all knowing the minute the Minister introduced the piece of legislation that it will go through.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: It is the Party system. I am not saying it is not. I guess what I am saying is that I wish there was a better mechanism. I wish that this Chamber was more democratic and gave more opportunity for Members on both sides - Members in the backbenches opposite - to have input here in this Chamber. I wish there was an opportunity for Government to admit that maybe, just maybe, something that was said in this Chamber by Members on this side or backbenchers on that side influenced their way of thinking. That maybe they realized that may be there is a slightly better way, if only ever so slightly. That there was a better way of doing it than the way proposed by Government.

Because, as I know well, all too often legislation that comes to this Chamber approved by Cabinet has been really put together by bureaucrats. Depending on the work load on the Cabinet table on a particular day and the diligence of the particular Minister, it may not have had as much debate in Cabinet as it really could have and should have. Perhaps something went through and really was not considered as much as it should have been.

I would like to think that this Chamber is the final resting place and that there was an opportunity to change what was being brought forward, that there was an opportunity for input. So that the legislation after it went through, regardless of the fact that the Government's policies and central theme of that legislation, we know that that is hardly about to change the central policy of the Government. But at least if we had input into changing some of the details of the legislation to make it more appropriate and more tolerable, then I think this Chamber would be a better place.

So I will now take my place with the final remark that to lament that this Budget will go down in history as probably one of the most dishonest and incompetent Budgets ever delivered in this Chamber, and I will once again predict that at the end of this year, the Minister of Finance will come forward and admit that he is way off on his estimates and we are faced with another $120 million deficit at the end of the year.

It is going to be amazing to see what we do next year, where will the cuts come next year, Mr. Speaker? How will the Minister eliminate his deficit next year? We all know now, that the money markets are largely controlling him, that he does not have a lot of room to borrow and we do not want to see a lot of borrowing.

There is no question, Mr. Speaker, expenditures cannot be cut greatly without seriously impacting on programmes that are essential and very basic to the very fabric of our society, and so I suspect we are going to see more tax increases next year; we may well see more layoffs in the public service, that was the only opportunity; the Minister nods his head, so I guess we are faced with more public service layoffs next year and I suspect next year's Budget, Mr. Speaker, if possible at all, will even be worst than this year's.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would be surprised if this debate would end already after only one speaker. I did not see any Members on the Government side jumping up to defend this most despicable Budget that we have seen from this Government. We did not see anybody getting up to speak on the other side to defend the actions that the people of Newfoundland have turned their backs against, have said that they do not want, have gone against them.

I have heard a figure, 55 per cent, from the Minister of Forestry. Well, it may be that 55 per cent of the people of Newfoundland would still vote if there was an election, but there is no election. What is very interesting is what the people of Newfoundland have to say about this Government's budgetary plan. The major plank in this budgetary plan was that they were not prepared to borrow any money. That is the main plank of this Government's Budget, that they said that we only have a certain amount of borrowing room here and we have exceeded it.

Well, the people of Newfoundland do not believe them. Seventy-one per cent of the people of Newfoundland disagree. They said they should have borrowed a little more, and I agree with them. And I have been telling this House that in the opportunities that I have had to speak on this Budget. And there are other provinces which have done that and not just the Province of Ontario. Other provinces have borrowed a little more to ease some of the burden.

But I will speak about the Province of Ontario because I think it is most interesting, this whole debate about Ontario's credit rating. I am reading in the St. John's Evening Telegram today, the headline is: Ontario credit rating lowered again. Now I do not know who writes the headlines for these things. Maybe they come along with CP, maybe they are written on Bay Street. But the credit rating of Ontario has not been lowered again. It has just been lowered by one of the other bond rating services. And all of them have in their turn had an examination of Ontario's deficit situation and Ontario's prospective performance over the next couple of years, and the bond rating agencies have all lowered it by one iota on their rating scales.

And instead of being a AAA, for example, for Moodys Investors Service - the Dominion Bond Rating Service of Toronto last week dropped its government bonds to Aa Low from Aa, following the lead of Moodys of New York and the Canadian Bond Rating Service. They are all getting together in line one after the other because they all have the same approach. They look at the same figures and same bottom line and say: okay, well we have a credit rating and it relates to a certain level of deficit and expenditure. And in these circumstances we will lower it by one iota or one step on our scale.

Well, that is not surprising. They did exactly the same thing in 1985 when the Liberal Government in Ontario took over and Peterson's Government brought in its first budget. All the bond rating services took it down a peg. They took down the bond ratings a peg because they did not necessarily have confidence that that Government was going to respond in the same way to the economy and because of the deficit that that Government brought in because of the programmes that they had. So that is not surprising. That is to be expected because the Government of Ontario made a choice just as this Government did. They had a choice to make. They could have kept their AAA rating, the only province in Canada with a AAA rating, or they could have decided to take measures that would lower that rating slightly by one level on the bond rating services and still be ahead of every other province, or at the same level as every other province.

But here is the interesting thing that the Canadian Press reports: analysts have said that the credit reduction will cost the Government about $2.5 million in higher interest costs for every $1 billion that the province borrows in public bond markets. That means an additional $15 million in interest payments this year because Ontario plans to borrow about $6 billion.

So to borrow $6 billion and to have to pay an additional $15 million in interest, Mr. Speaker, that was the price that Ontario paid to have a budget that responded to the needs of the people as opposed to the needs of the bond rating agencies or the Bay Street lawyers and the Bay Street stockbrokers and the Bay Street bankers who demonstrated in the City of Toronto some weeks ago; it was very interesting to see, Mr. Speaker, the stockbrokers and the investment bankers and these people demonstrating in the streets because they did not like the Ontario budget.

But the people of Ontario, the unemployed of Ontario who are benefitting from this budget because of the capital works programme which they initiated; the people on social assistance in Ontario, who benefitted from the measures that the Government took by increasing the social assistance by 7 per cent across the board in Ontario, unlike the Government here, the increased numbers of people who are going to be on social assistance in Ontario because of the recession that we are suffering as a result of the policies of the Federal Conservative Government, the people who are going to be suffering as a result of that, they are not demonstrating out in the streets against the Ontario Government and against the extra $15 million that they are paying to have a policy that supports the people of Ontario as opposed to this Government in Newfoundland, as opposed to the Liberal Government here, who have chosen to bow down to the request of the investment bankers, to bow down to the bond rating services and not be prepared to borrow a little bit more money in order to ease some of the burden of the people in this Province.

They are prepared to try and pretend, to whistle in the wind as it were, with respect to the budget predictions that the Minister of Finance made; we have a budget for social services that is exactly the same as last year, no increase in the overall budget for social assistance in this Province, how can they expect people to take their predictions credibly, when they say there is going to be no increase in expenditure in social assistance in this Province?

Well, Mr. Speaker, I think I know how they expect them to take them seriously because the people to whom they talk, the bond rating markets, have probably been told that if they increase the number of people on social assistance, we will cut back on the programmes; we will cut back somewhere else, we will make the people who are on social assistance suffer; that is what they have probably told the bankers who have been down to visit them; don't you worry, we will give a zero increase in the overall budget for social services and when the time comes, when the need gets worse, when people are crying out for assistance from the Department of Social Services, they will look for areas of cutting, as they have cut back in the transportation of individuals, for medical and other appointments.

These are some of the measures this Government has taken in order to try, not to balance the books but to try to make the people of this Province pay for the recession, as opposed to using the Government's economic measures to borrow properly and to ensure that people receive decent social services.

They are making single parents pay; single parents on welfare who are trying to go to University, they are being expected to pay; there has been no response to their very reasonable request to make a small change in the regulations and some of these people are from the Minister of Forestry's riding, but he does not care, he will go over there and maw-mouth and try to distract me from the speech that I am making instead of responding to the needs of his constituents who are trying to attend Memorial University or other institutions in the Province, who are required to borrow money from student loans and to try to do that and have the money, the money they are borrowing that they have to turn around and pay back, that money is regarded as income, and, Mr. Speaker, that is a shame; that is a despicable shame.

The people who are trying to improve themselves and to get themselves from a category of being social assistance recipients to being educated and still Newfoundlanders able to look after themselves and their family. These are the people that this Government is hurting, and that is a remarkable thing to try and do.

I remember when I was in high school or early university there was a family who lived on my street and the head of the household was a woman who had a number of children, I think three or four children, all of them of school age or younger, and that woman was on social assistance and she wanted to go to Memorial University. We lived on Parade Street right around the corner from Harvey Road, and I remember hearing the stories about the struggles she used to have in trying to get social services to recognize that she should have support from social services while she was attending university. She had to struggle. It was a remarkable thing, Mr. Speaker, for her to be able to do that. She was expected to stay on welfare and raise her children and not improve herself. The Department of Social Services did very little to help her, and yet she was struggling day in and day out to try and better herself.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased last year to see this same individual appear as a witness in a hearing that I was involved in, and this person appeared as a witness as a professional social worker having attended Memorial University and having received her degree in social work. This woman had punched in a number of years by this point; an experienced social worker testifying at a hearing on a very important matter. And this was the same individual who had many years ago been a very strong of example to other single parents in this Province by struggling against the odds and the bureaucratic odds to improve her situation and to improve the situation of the Province, Mr. Speaker. This Government by its policies and budgetary measures has done nothing in this area but made some measures and some changes in the social assistance regulations, and I think that they aught to be recognized that they removed the discrimination against single parents by treating the first child of a single parent the same as it would an adult, so a single child and one child in a separate household would be given the same treatment as two adults or a couple, and that is only fair, and that results in some improvement in the lot of single parents. But the area that we are talking about here, the area of single parents who are trying to attend university, a very simple thing ought to be changed, and it would not be a very expensive measure, Mr. Speaker, but is a measure of great fairness that ought to be changed and this Government throughout this programme has failed to take cognisance of the needs of the people and were satisfied instead to take cognisance of the needs of the bond markets and the decision that this Government made that they did not want to spend anymore money on borrowing.

Mr. Speaker, I saw an interesting comparison the other day. Unfortunately I do not have it with me, but the comparison was the number of cents of every dollar of revenue that Government's across Canada would spend servicing the debt. Now where was Newfoundland in that, Mr. Speaker? Do you think it was up at the high end? Do you think that Newfoundland spent more of its revenue on servicing the debt than other provinces? No, Mr. Speaker. The Government of Canada -

MR. BAKER: Only half of them.

MR. HARRIS: What the hon. President of Treasury Board says is quite right, only half of them. And here is the Prime Minister of Canada talking about the budget in Ontario being an economic disaster because they are borrowing money, and his Government spends 35 cents out of every revenue dollar paying interest on the national debt, and he says that the Government of Ontario, by taking measures to protect the people of Ontario, that costs according to the Canadian Press an extra $15 million to the Province of Ontario with its multi-billion budget an extra $15 million in interest payments because of the change in the credit rating. That is all it cost in interest payments on the current budget to finance the deficit that is required to provide programs to look after - that is the extra cost of it as the President of Treasury Board so rightly says. The additional cost is an extra $15 million because they are borrowing $6 billion. If we could borrow $6 billion we would not have any problems here, but we are not exactly in the same position as Ontario. Nevertheless, I agree with 71 per cent of the people of Newfoundland when they say this Government did not borrow enough. They made the people of this Province pay an inordinate price for the Budget that this Government has brought down. I oppose that, Mr. Speaker.

In the area of health: this Government once again failed the people of this Province by cutting back on essential services. Their approach again is to be contrasted with that of the Province of Ontario.

In the area of doctor salaries: this Government has gotten itself into a fine pickle with the doctors of this Province now by trying to treat them unfairly in their medicare payments and by cutting back the same percentage for each doctor no matter what the doctor's income is. That is not proper, Mr. Speaker, because many of these doctors, particularly the ones at the lower end of the scale are not earning as much as the hon. Member for Gander, they may not be earning as much as an ordinary Member in this House of Assembly. Many of these doctors are also being asked to sacrifice an inordinate amount for this Government's budget measures. The Province of Ontario also had the same problem, they made a deal with the doctors. They did not impose anything. They sat down and made an agreement with the doctors and that agreement -

AN HON. MEMBER: The doctors? One half a million dollars.

MR. HARRIS: Yes, the doctors, $500,000. Anybody billing over a certain amount do not get paid 100 per cent of anything billed over a specified amount. They only get paid a certain percentage of that. So, the doctors who are not making an inordinate amount of money, the doctors who are making less than this amount have agreed with the whole medical profession that they would save money that way rather than making all doctors pay, even those doctors who are making $300,000, $400,000 or $500,000.

If one looks at the figures that the Minister of Health tabled in this House from the MCP days, when the report of MCP was tabled, there are many doctors in this Province whose billings from MCP are significantly lower, Mr. Speaker, particularly when one regards them as billings as opposed to what a doctor might put in his or her pocket from their work.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Overhead 40 per cent, that may be consistent all the way along and many of the doctors listed there might earn when billing $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000, if you took 60 per cent of that, 60 per cent of $70,000 is about $40,000. A doctor making $40,000 for some people might be a very good income, but in the professional field, Mr. Speaker, it is not comparable with the incomes of other professionals. I think it is unfair to make doctors in that category suffer a significant loss of income when there are many, many doctors making significantly higher incomes whose incomes are not affected in the same way.

Mr. Speaker, I think this Budget deserves a resounding defeat because it has failed the people of this Province. It has failed the workers of this Province, particularly public service workers, who are being harshly treated by this Government. We know the campaign that the labour movement is carrying out, questioning the integrity of this Government and the Premier, questioning the trustworthiness of this Government and this Premier and also the President of Treasury Board, in entering into agreements and contracts, negotiating allegedly in good faith and then, in a matter of days or weeks or months, when they knew of the precarious situation, turning their back and tearing up collective agreements, tearing up arbitration awards, tearing up the whole history of negotiations by the measures they brought in with this Budget.

Mr. Speaker, we do not see, if we borrowed a little bit more money, on which 71 per cent of the people of this Province agree with me -despite what the President of Treasury Board says and what the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture might say about the 55 per cent who might half-heartedly support the party if they had to vote in an election, the vast majority of Newfoundlanders agree that this Government made a mistake in their budgetary measures. They do not agree with the Budget. They do not agree with the cutbacks in health care and education, and they do not agree that the Government was required to stop where they stopped in borrowing, they could have borrowed more money.

I think, Mr. Speaker, the people of this Province do not agree that this Government ought to have cut the guts out of the pay equity agreement. And I think the time will come when the courts of this Province - and that is a prediction, the President of Treasury Board likes predictions - I will predict that there will come a time when the courts of this Province will see, that in what they have done to pay equity, Government will find themselves on the wrong side of the argument; and I think the Government will find themselves on the wrong side of the legal argument when it comes to the Charter of Rights and discrimination against women.

Now, the President of Treasury Board will remind me of that, and I have to say to him, look, this is a prediction; this is not a legal opinion, it is a political prediction. I have not had the fortune of being asked to provide a legal opinion on this matter, so I have not provided a legal opinion on it to anyone. I know there are some people who have, and they have been paid handsomely for it. If I were asked to give a legal opinion, I would do that, and I would do the proper research for it; but I say, as a political prediction, I think the time will come when this Government will find themselves on the wrong side of that legal argument. They are already on the wrong side of the moral argument, Mr. Speaker, they are already on the wrong side of the political argument. The women in this Province will remember that, particularly the women in the public service, who know that this Government have turned their backs on the women of this Province, reneging on pay equity agreements signed by the previous administration. Reluctantly - they were forced to make it retroactive, I think a little sleight of hand went on there that the Government guaranteed the payments would start on 1 April - they signed the agreements. They might have been out-manoeuvred by certain people in the labour movement, nevertheless, kicking and screaming, the hammer lock in the back, as the member says, they signed those agreements, and agreed to pay equity as of April 1, 1988, recognizing the Government of Newfoundland was discriminating against women in the public service. Now, Mr. Speaker, this Government have chosen to turn their back on those agreements and say, no, despite the fact that we agree we are discriminating, we are not going to pay and we are going to, by legislation, treat women unfairly.

Now the President of Treasury Board, over there, grins when he says he thinks they are right. Well, they, themselves, did not get legal opinion. When we asked them to table a legal opinion in the House, they hemmed and hawed for a few days - it took them three or four days to figure out what they were going to say - and finally said, `Oh, well, we have the legal opinion, now. We asked someone in the department if it was all right.' Well, I suppose a few lawyers looked at it, Mr. Speaker, they always have lawyers look at legislative drafting. All these laws are drafted by lawyers and some are drafted pretty hastily. In fact, this law was drafted so hastily that they, themselves admitted they had some problems with it and had to bring in new amendments to fix up the anomalies they had created in the legislation.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I do not think the Minister, the President of Treasury Board, should grin the way he is grinning about that, because there was another Minister who grinned for a long time, for the last three or four months; the Minister of Social Services was grinning from ear to ear every time anyone mentioned problems in his department and the Public Service Commission. He was grinning, too. But I do not think he was grinning after the report came out. I suspect, Mr. Speaker, the President of Treasury Board will not be grinning when the Supreme Court of Newfoundland has a look at that legislation that has been put through. That is a prediction.

MR. BAKER: I will take you out to dinner.

MR. HARRIS: He is going to take me out to dinner, if I am right, I think is what he said, is it not?

MR. BAKER: No, no, if I am right.

MR. HARRIS: If you are right, you are going to take me out to dinner.

MR. BAKER: For crow.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, he says he is going to have crow on the menu. If there is crow on the menu, I will eat it.

But, Mr. Speaker, I think I am right on that. Whether I am right legally or not, I know I am right politically. I know this Government has done the wrong thing for the women of this Province in passing that legislation and I think that the women of the Province will remember that. The Minister responsible for the Status of Women, amongst other things, should be ashamed to come to this House and say that he has turned his back on the women of this Province, and on pay equity, one of the most important factors that affects women in the public service and in the private sector, as well.

So, I say to this Minister and to the Government that instead of doing what our political friends in Ontario have done, expanding pay equity, taking measures to bring it into the private sector as well as the public sector and insist on it in the private sector, give more money to municipalities and to government institutions and other bodies that depend on government largesse or government grants. What the Government of Ontario did was give them more money to enable them to engage in pay equity programs to guarantee they would have the funds to be able to do it. The Government of Ontario did that, Mr. Speaker, because they recognized they had a responsibility to the women of Ontario.

MR. TOBIN: Did you see the (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Yes, we saw (inaudible) and they were prepared to pay the extra cost to go the extra $15 million in interest payments because their credit rate was lower. That was a conscious decision, Mr. Speaker, they were prepared to do it because they believed that the people of Ontario, the people they represented, deserved to have those programs.

MR. HOGAN: Why do you not (inaudible) and go back to Ontario?.

MR. HARRIS: Now, the Member for Placentia wants me to go back to Ontario. Mr. Speaker, the last time I was in Ontario I was representing the people of St. John's East in the House of Commons, fighting against the kinds of policies that this Government has instituted, exactly the same as the Conservative Government of Canada and the Liberal Government of Newfoundland, the exact same policies. I am fighting them here, I fought them in Ontario, in Ottawa, and I will continue to fight them here whether the Member for Placentia likes it or not. So, maybe I will go back to Ontario, maybe I will go back to Ottawa, but when and if I do, I I will be fighting against the very policies that he supports. He supports them here, the Conservatives support them in Ottawa and I am going to fight against them as long as I can.

MR. WALSH: (Inaudible) go to Bell Island.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island can speak on behalf of the residents of Bell Island when he is allowed to do so by the Government House Leader over there. He will not be speaking in this debate.

He can mawmouth all he likes while he is reading his paper, but he will not be getting up in this debate and speaking on behalf of the people of Bell Island, because he is told to sit down and stay put. The same with the Member for Placentia, we will not see him speaking up in this House, on this debate, this afternoon, you just see him over there making comments that he thinks are smart.

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude my remarks on this Budget Speech by saying that I think this Government has failed its responsibility to the people of this Province. They have failed to do their job of protecting employment in this Province, of ensuring that people receive adequate social services and that the health care system provides adequate services to people. We are seeing, in the health care sector, a pullback from a guarantee of services. We have seen the thin edge of the wedge in optometrists' services, in dental surgery in hospitals and in other services. Part of it, I suppose, is transportation to hospitals and doctors by Social Services. Now they are only allowed to pay fifteen cents per kilometer to travel by private transportation to doctors or hospitals or other appointments.

Now, that is not fair or adequate or reasonable. Public servants, Members of this House, are paid twenty-two or twenty-three cents a kilometer when they use private cars for transportation. Members of this Legislature and members of the public service are treated that way. Members and Chairmen of Social Assistance Appeal Boards are paid twenty-two cents a kilometer or whatever the going rate is. But the people on social assistance are only allowed to pay fifteen cents a kilometer. Why is that, Mr. Speaker? Is it because they are poor and helpless and this Government can trample on them? Is that the reason? I think that is what it is. I think this Government is prepared to treat them that way because they are poor and on welfare. They fail to recognize that it is impossible for these individuals to get that kind of transportation help.

So, Mr. Speaker, this Government has failed in its Budget to take the responsible approach of looking after the needs of the people of this Province and having the courage to say, yes, because we have confidence in the future, we are prepared to borrow to do that and, if necessary, pay a little extra in interest charges in order to do that. Because our position in terms of the amount of our revenue spent by this Province per dollar of revenue, the number of cents per dollar, is very moderate, very average, when one looks at other provinces in this country, in fact, lower than many and certainly half, or less than half of what the Federal Government pays per dollar of revenue on its budgetary deficit and interest payments on the Government debt.

We all say we should have as little debt as we can, but, in this Province, at this time, we need to have more debt if it means looking after the needs of the people for the short-term. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I must say, I suppose some of it has to do with the kind of day it has been for me, personally, and the great sincerity and generosity that I detected on both sides of the House earlier in the day, that it is kind of difficult to get wound up into slinging the arrows that this Government deserves to have slung at it as a result of the Budget of this most incompetent Minister of Finance that we have seen since Confederation - I do not mean incompetent, as an individual, I mean incompetent in the fiscal matters that the Province has foisted on us.

Mr. Speaker, I am not proposing to take a long time, so you might as well sit there and take it, because I am going to say what I want to say before I finish, anyway. The hon. members realize that I have not participated in the Budget debate yet in this House on this Budget, so I have an hour, and you know I am entitled, as is any Member of the House, to move a non-confidence motion. And do you know, if he moves a non-confidence motion on the Budget, what that gives the Leader of the Opposition?

AN HON. MEMBER: Unlimited time.

MR. RIDEOUT: Unlimited time, so you better keep your - it could be a long night. I mean, I told members today - there are only four members here who remember it - that once before, in 1976 or 1977, I was called upon to keep this place going. Those were the orders I was given, `Keep her going,' and I did it, I believe, for eighteen or twenty hours or so, without getting off my feet.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: That what?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RIDEOUT: So do not get me wound up, for God's sake, because the chicken might get cold.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, those few jovial remarks aside, I want to take a few minutes this evening to make a few comments before the Budget Debate winds up. I want it to be clearly understood that we, in effect, in the official Opposition, and our friend from St. John's East, have now been debating this Budget for three months. The Budget was brought down in the House on March 7, and ever since, I think I can say without fear of contradiction that every single day and every single parliamentary strategy and everything that we have done as an official Opposition has been Budget-oriented, every Question Period has been Budget-oriented, every Late Show has been Budget-oriented, every petition has been Budget-oriented. There were seventy-five hours of debate on Interim Supply and the Budget. There were fifteen days numerous sitting hours, I do not know if they even tally them up anymore, hours and hours of intimate Estimate study and scrutiny of the Budget. So, let it not be said, or let nobody think, Mr. Speaker, that this cluing up of the Budget Debate is any more than a formality, because really, that is what it is. We have been debating this Budget day-in, day-out, night-in, night-out, week-in, week-out, for three solid months, Mr. Speaker. And, because of how bad this Budget is, we could continue to debate it for another three months and still not have said all that this Budget deserves to have said about it, Mr. Speaker; but, at some point, the debate has to be finished. At some point, members have to think about their constituencies and think about their families and think about doing other things that they have to do; or, of course, this Government, as it is known to do with great levity, brings in the hobnailed boot and the guillotine. And I suspect, Mr. Speaker, if I were to take what the rules of this House permit me to do and that is unlimited time on a non-confidence motion, that sometime over the next day or two certainly, I do not think it would be a week or two I would say to my friend, I suspect you would see the old closure order dragged out and dragged upon the floor for the seventh time in this session. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, six times in this session the Government have used the gag order on Members of this Legislature. Never before has it been known in the history of parliamentary democracy in Newfoundland and Labrador that a government used closure six times in one session. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we were the Government for seventeen years and we used it twice in seventeen years. The Liberal Party was the Government previous to that for twenty-three years and I believe it used it once. Three times in forty years you might as well say, this Legislature was gagged, but six times in three months this Government has instituted the gag order on the parliamentarians that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador elected.

Mr. Speaker, before I finish and before I conclude those few remarks on the Budget I want to make sure that a tradition of this House is maintained. While it is only symbolically a tradition, there are times when it might be necessary for the Official Opposition of the day or the House to want to take seriously the parliamentary tradition of a non-confidence motion in the Government because of lack of confidence in the Government's fiscal plan.

We know the numbers are such that we can do nothing about it. The Government has the majority in this House and at the end of some day, whether it is this day or another day, the Government majority will prevail with or without closure. I think it is important to our democratic institutions and to this parliament that the tradition of the Leader of the Official Opposition moving a non-confidence motion in the Government be maintained. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I wish to move, seconded by my friend from Kilbride, that all of the words after "that" be struck and replaced with the following "...that this House condemn the Government for its failure to accurately represent the true state of the economy of the Province and the Government's consequential failure to take appropriate budgetary action to deal with the real problems." If I could have a page we could probably ask Mr. Speaker to have a look. I am sure Mr. Speaker will rule the motion in order because I have some recollection of having moved that same motion before and having it ruled in order, so I do not think it will take very long.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, the amendment is in order.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for ruling the amendment in order.

As I said, I am not moving this motion to be called stupid or silly or to say that we are putting up a front. I am doing it for a parliamentary reason and the parliamentary reason, Mr. Speaker, is that it is tradition that the Official Opposition and the Leader of the Official Opposition move a motion of non-confidence in the Government when we have a Budget that is as extremely as bad as this Budget, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in my sixteen years in this House I have witnessed seventeen Budgets. Now, Members might say to themselves, how did that happen? Well, we had two Budgets in 1975. The Government brought a Budget into the House in 1975, and went to the people and was re-elected in September of 1975, and brought in a mini budget. Mr. Speaker, I bring that point out because it is the beginning of the fiscal difficulties that this Province is facing today. The beginning of the deceit and deception that is hurting this Province fiscally and economically today began last year. You cannot really look at this Budget in isolation of what happened last year and last year's Budget. The trail of deceit and deception was weaved into last year's Budget when this Minister and this Government brought before this House a document that I will believe until my dying day that this Government knew was wrong, they knew was fraudulent, they knew could not be lived up to and could not stand scrutiny.

I do not care how much they protest or say otherwise, I believe that last year this Government - maybe because they did not know the difference, maybe because they were new to the game, maybe because they did not understand the implications - as happens every year, the bureaucrats in the Department of Finance and Treasury Board gave the Government three options. They gave them the worst case, they gave them the middle case, and they gave them the most optimistic case. And this Government chose the most optimistic case. And they overestimated revenue, they underestimated expenditure, and they deliberately ignored the economic signals that were coming out of central Canada that would affect equalization and transfer payments and affect what would come to Newfoundland and Labrador from the Government of Canada. And the result was not a $10 million surplus as the Government said but $120 million deficit.

Now, you cannot take that in isolation either. You also have to keep in the back of your mind the fact that in the Budget previous to that this Government made a $100 million tax grab. They increased personal and corporate income taxes. They increased tobacco and liquor taxes. They increased fees and services. They took away the $30 million subsidy on hydro electricity. This Government in the Budget previous to last year's Budget grabbed for themselves an additional $100 million. Now we have it laid out before us.

What did we find last year as a result of the Budget? The additional $100 million was gone. And another $120 million on top of that was gone! That is the fiscal mismanagement that brings us to the cold, harsh reality of the Budget called 1991-1992. It all began last year. Now as a result of it we are seeing a constriction, a tightening up of the hospital system that is going to cause great harm to the health care system of Newfoundland and Labrador. We are seeing a tightening up of the system that is going to harm individuals, that is going to harm people. We are seeing a tightening up of the education system that can only negatively impact on the future generations of Newfoundland and Labrador, all because this Government bungled and blew it last year.

I appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that they do not have much choice this year, I think I would have made other choices; the first choice and the first thing I would have done, would have been more realistic last year, but I appreciate that having made last year's bungle this year's reality was very, very stark reality indeed and the Government had to face it, but, Mr. Speaker, the point of the matter is simply this: When the Government sat down and began to prioritize what they could do in order to minimize the impact on people, it is my view that the Government went for the jugular first. Let us get the big blobs out of here; let us turn on the civil service; the people of Newfoundland and Labrador they thought - do you know, Mr. Speaker, the Government thought that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador would not care or could not care less if they fired every last civil servant on the public payroll, but what does public opinion tell us now? Public opinion tells us that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are extremely concerned, the vast majority, 60 odd per cent were against this lopping off, this firing of civil servants, in other words, taking more jobs out of the economy -

MR. SIMMS: Which I bet is unexpected.

MR. RIDEOUT: - and, Mr. Speaker, I have to say to this House in all honesty that I was surprised; I always thought that there was a feeling in the general public that there were too many civil servants, they were probably overpaid, they were not working for their dollars and it was great to have leadership that would come in and tighten up and clean up and downsize the system, but, Mr. Speaker, that is not what the people are thinking.

The people are thinking opposite, so, the first thing is, this Budget was an attack on jobs; it was an attack on jobs in the public service and then, Mr. Speaker, it was an attack on people who worked on the public payroll; it was an attack on the least fortunate of those in our society, pay equity, retro-actively for women for example, this Government jumped on the least defensible.

This Government jumped first of all on the people who were least able to defend themselves, in their Budget, they did not jump on the big Corporations of Newfoundland; I am starting to sound half like a New Democrat and a Socialist now, but they did not jump on those; they did not jump on the banks and the trust companies and the legal firms and the lawyers and all that kind of stuff, they jumped on the poor people, that is who they jumped on, Mr. Speaker.

They put the old boot to the people who are least able to stand the pain; they stuck the hobnails right into those least able to stand the pain, but, but, Mr. Speaker, more importantly and more cowardly politically, they put the boot to those least able to defend themselves, that is what this Budget has done.

This Budget, Mr. Speaker, is a crafty, cowardly document and does not deserve to be passed, but it will be passed; there is nothing we can do about it. This Budget I suspect, Mr. Speaker, will go down in history as the second most offensive Budget that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador ever endured; the most offensive Budget, of course, was the Budget that cost us responsible Government and cost us our democratic institutions.

This Budget, I say to this House, will be second only to that Budget when it is recorded in the annals of history of Newfoundland and Labrador, so, Mr. Speaker, those people who are the Government today bear a heavy responsibility for their actions.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot finish, without thinking about Bill 16 I believe it was; I mean, when a Government in a democracy, voluntarily, of its own free will, negotiates agreements with somebody, whether it is a union or a trucking company, or whomever, they freely negotiate the agreement and both parties sign their hands to it; or, Mr. Speaker, when both parties come to the conclusion, or are bound to come to the conclusion by law, that they cannot reach an agreement and put it to binding arbitration, when that is done, Mr. Speaker, and the party having the ultimate authority, that is, the authority of this House, decides to tear it up, what kind of taste does that leave in the mouths of people who are affected? What kind of confidence does that leave in the ordinary civil servant in Newfoundland and Labrador? What kind of trust does that build among the people of this Province that this Government really can be trusted, that this Government, when it says something, means it, that when it gives you its word, it means it, that its word is its bond?

When it can use the heavy arm of the Legislature to undo anything that they want to undo, that is the kind of session this has been, Mr. Speaker; that is the kind of Budget this has been. Hard times, granted; nobody disagrees that the Government is facing some very, very difficult times, fiscally, but, Mr. Speaker, it is not as difficult as the fiscal crisis that this Province faced in the 1980s, when we went through a recession more severe than the current recession we are going through.

You cannot go to any indicator, today, and find that the economy of this country is worse today, than in the recession of the 1980s; you cannot find it. And, somehow or other, we managed our way through it. We managed our way through it, not by tearing up collective agreements, not by taking away retroactively, by legislation, things that had been given to people in this Province. We did not manage our way through it by being politically popular forever; we froze wages, but I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I would rather take the approach of freezing wages than put 3,500 people out of work. There will be 3,500 people, as a result of the actions of this Budget, who will be out of work, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SIMMS: Are these spin-off and everything else?

MR. RIDEOUT: The Minister does not understand the multiplier effect, the spin-off.

MR. TOBIN: It is more than that, it is 5,000 (inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: If they ever answer our questions, we will know.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, that is the easy approach. The easy approach is to take the big chop, to chop off the great big blob, and then come in here to this Legislature, where you have a majority and where you have the rules, including closure, if you need it, to ram it through; that is the easy approach.

The innovative, more responsible approach, would be to bring in those who are affected and say: `Ladies and gentlemen, we have a major problem. We have to do something, I am telling you now, we have to do something, and if you do not co-operate, we are going to do it anyway, but, how can we do it in a way that will be the least painful to you and to the people we are serving in this Province?

But no, that was not the way it was done and, consequently, we have a Budget today that you cannot even argue is fiscally responsible. I mean, after all that pain, anguish and disappointment, after socking it to those who cannot defend themselves, the Government is still projecting to run a deficit on current account, and I say today, a deficit much much larger than the Government is projecting will be realized on current account again this year.

So, we are in very, very difficult times. We, as an Opposition, do not play down the fact that we are in difficult times. What we want to play up, in my view, is the lack of innovation, ability and imagination on the part of a new Government. Mr. Speaker, you could understand it if this hon. crowd were the Government for twelve or fifteen years. You become kind of stale, complacent, you are no longer enthralled with the trappings of office. You are burdened down with the day-to-day worries and care of governing. But this hon. crowd have only had two years of it. I would have thought there would be fertile brains blooming and blossoming all over the place. With brand new ideas, with new vision, with a new compassion, with a new way of doing things. I would have thought that you would have had to bulldoze your way down the aisle of this House to get out of the new brain power and the new thrust and the new vision that was coming from this new crowd that had not held office for seventeen years. But it is like going up and giving a kick to a dried-up old spruce stump. There is not a bit of life left in them. They are shell-shocked.

MR. WINSOR: A stunned birch, we call it.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, this crowd burns like a stunned birch. I thank my friend from Fogo. There is no vitality left in them, no enthusiasm. Two years in office and they are shell-shocked! Two years in office and they cannot stand debate in the House - `Bring in closure, let's get this over with,' `This is stupid and silly!' It is unbelievable! They are like a crowd that has been in office for fifty years. I think the best thing we can do for the people of this Province is to retroactively amend the MHA pension plan and make every one of this crowd pensionable immediately. Let them go home. It will be less cost to the people. The taxpayers will be money in. It will be money well spent, let them go home!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: The worst thing that can happen, Mr. Speaker, God forbid, is that those individuals on the other side who are lacking so much in vitality and enthusiasm should be dared by the generosity and largesse of the MHA pension plan to run again. That would be the worst thing that could happen to the people of this Province.

I wanted to take this opportunity to move the traditional non-confidence motion. I think it is important in the parliamentary tradition of this House that it be moved. I do not expect I will ever have the opportunity to move it again.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Remember Bourassa!

MR. RIDEOUT: Well, if that happens, there will be somebody else moving it, I will be defending it.

Mr. Speaker, on a serious note, before I take my seat - there will not be another occasion as we go through the parliamentary business of the evening to say a few words - very seriously, once again, I thank members for the generosity of spirit that was accorded me today. And, take seriously, I say to the Government - you do not have to heed me - but perhaps it might be good for the soul, once in a while, if you would take seriously some of the suggestions that come from this side of the House. They are not all foolish, they are not all stupid, they are not all silly, and in all cases, I suspect, they are given for the right reasons, with the right intention, and that is to provide the best possible Government, not party Government, not partisan Government, but the best possible Government for the people who sent us here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the House ready for the question?

On motion, amendment defeated.

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to have a word or two on this. A number of points have been made which I would like to respond to, very briefly. First, I would like to state that the economy this year is better than it was last year. This is not just what I am saying but what other leading indicators are saying, so we have to stick with the truth. I might also indicate that our early signs, contrary to what was said opposite, is that are revenues are holding constant, at least for the first month, so that is important to keep in mind, as well. I might also say, with respect to the NDP in Ontario, there is no doubt that they did have a choice. With a credit rating of AAAAAA you can afford to go down, but in our case we had no choice, so that is the difference between the two groups. However, let me say this, the actions of the Ontario Government, in taking a somewhat irresponsible stance in this, has rubbed off on most of Canada, and that has hurt all Canadian provinces, to some extent.

I am amazed by the Leader of the Opposition who does not believe in taxes, does not believe in cuts, and does not believe in borrowing. How, then, can he stimulate the economy or do anything in the midst of a recession?

I move, Mr. Speaker, that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on Ways and Means to consider the raising of supply to Her Majesty.

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

Committee of the Whole

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

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

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

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde.

MR. L. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred, have directed me to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

On motion, report received and adopted, Committee ordered to sit again presently by leave.

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, I wish to state that I have received a message from His Honour The Lieutenant Governor.

MR. SPEAKER: To the hon. the Minister of Finance: `I, the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Newfoundland, transmit Estimates of sums required for the Public Service of the Province for the year ending the 31st day of March, 1992, by way of further supply and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867, I recommend these Estimates to the House of Assembly.'

Signed: James A. McGrath (Lieutenant-Governor)

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

MR. BAKER: I move that the message be referred to a Committee of the Whole on Supply.

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

Committee of the Whole

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Chairman, I move that the total contained in the Estimates be carried and that a resolution be adopted to give effect to the same.

On motion, that the totals contained in the Estimates be carried and a resolution adopted to give effect to the same.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

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

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde.

MR. L. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Ways and Means have considered the matters to them referred, have directed me to report that they have passed the amount of $1,939,055,900, contained in the Estimates of Supply, and ask leave to sit again.

On motion, report received and adopted, Committee ordered to sit again presently by leave.

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole on Supply, respecting the Estimates for 1991-1992, together with the resolution and a bill consequent thereto, be referred to a Committee of the Whole on Ways and Means, and that Mr. Speaker, do now leave the Chair.

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

Committee of the Whole

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Resolution

"That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the granting to Her Majesty for defraying certain expenses of the Public Service for the financial year ending March 31, 1992, the sum of One Billion, Nine Hundred and Thirty-Nine Million, Fifty-Five Thousand Nine Hundred Dollars."

On motion, resolution carried.

On motion, Clauses 1 through 3, carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the resolution and a bill consequent thereto, carried.

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde.

MR. L. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole on Ways and Means have considered the matters to them referred, have directed me to report that they have adopted a certain resolution and recommend a bill be introduced to give effect to the same.

On motion, report received and adopted, resolution ordered read a first and second time now, by leave.

On motion, resolution read a first and second time.

On motion, a Bill, "An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 1992 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service", read a first, second and third time, ordered passed and its title be as on the Order Paper. (Bill No. 33).

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, by leave, I would like to proceed to Committee of the Whole on Bill 40, the labour bill.

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

Committee of the Whole

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

MR. SIMMS: This is the bill that we dealt with earlier today by agreement. We agreed to put it through all three stages, so, whatever had to be said, I believe, was said in the second reading debate by, in our case, the Leader of our Party. I do not know if the Member for St. John's East has anything further to say, but I know that he spoke in the debate. We have no intention of further debate in Committee; there are no amendments or anything that we are proposing.

A Bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act, 1977 (No. 2)". (Bill No. 40).

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

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order 14, Bill No. 31.

Shall Clause 1 carry?

MS. VERGE: Chairperson.

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

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I move that this bill, Bill 31, "An Act To Amend The Schools Act" be amended by adding the following clause, Clause 2: Section 63 of the Schools Act is repealed and the following is substituted, 'Subject to Section 83 a school board shall not refuse to any child admission to any school under its control unless the child can be accommodated in another school administered by that board, or in a school administered by another board which is more reasonably available to him or her than the school the child wishes to attend.'

Chairperson, when I spoke in the debate on second reading of this Bill I explained that under the existing Section 63 of the Schools Act parents have been denied what I consider as their right to choose for their children the school closest to their home. To illustrate the problem I mentioned a case that arose in Corner Brook, in the district that I represent. Last September as school was opening, a family by the name of Day, Jim and Pat Day, wanted to have their seven year old daughter Jean go to the school closest to their home, St. Gerard's School, which is operated by the Humber-St. Barbe Roman Catholic School Board. There was room at the school and the school is only a short three minute walk away from the Day's house. The school board refused to take the child and she has had to go by bus more than a mile away from her home to an integrated school. Now, a few days before school was opening last September and after the school board refused to give a straight answer to the parents they wrote the Minister of Education asking the Minister to make a ruling under Section 63 of the Schools Act requiring the school board to admit the child to St. Gerard's School. The Minister, acting like Pontius Pilate, washed his hands of responsibility saying that the law did not give him the authority to require the school board to take the child. Now, at the time I disputed the Minister's interpretation of the law, but today, here and now, there is an opportunity for the Minister and the Government to change the law by accepting my amendment. It is simple, five and a half lines, and it will clarify once and for all that no school board in the Province is allowed to turn away a child from a school that is closest to the child's home, and that is most reasonably available to the child and the family. Now, this Minister presents himself as a proponent of educational reform. He speaks eloquently about his support of parent's rights. He says he wants parents to be more involved in education, but when he is put to the test, as he was last September and as he is being put to the test again now, he wimps out. Now, either he does not mean what he says or he lacks the courage of his convictions. It has to be one or the other. When I brought this up in the second reading debate yesterday he said he was not ready to proceed with this reform now. I do not know why he is not ready. He has been studying these issues for years at the University and he has been Minister for two years. Instead he wants to wait until the Fall when he brings into this Assembly his proposal for a revision of the whole Schools Act. Now, Chairperson, by delaying any move until the Fall the Minister is going to allow at least one more school year to go by with school boards in this Province getting away with refusing to take children, with refusing to respect parents' reasonable request to have their children go to the school closest to where they live.

So I hope after sleeping on this last night that the Minister will rise in his place now and say: thank you, I am really pleased to have a chance to put into practice what I have been preaching, and yes you are right, it is better to do this much now and we can do the rest of the revision in the fall and let's end this sitting of the House of Assembly on a note of harmony. Let's get together and co-operate and put together a progressive move in education. Let's respect parents' rights. Let's allow children to choose the school that they will attend.

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Chairman, I do not know if I heard the hon. Member say it, but I think I heard her say she dreamt about me last night. I do not know if she did - something to that effect.

AN HON. MEMBER: I dreamt about you too, Phil.

MS. VERGE: I do not have nightmares.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) said, I dreamt about you too, Bill.

DR. WARREN: Anyhow, I -

MS. VERGE: No, I do not have nightmares (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Hey Phil, did you hear that? She did not have a nightmare, she said.

DR. WARREN: Mr. Chairman, the hon. Member raised an important point. Number one, her interpretation of the law was not the interpretation last year of the Department of Justice. I know that she would not want to oppose the interpretation of the Department of Justice. Number two, what she proposes is totally unworkable. Number three, nowhere else in the country is that which she proposes in existence. Nowhere in the country. Number four, I want to deal with this issue when we revise the Schools Act.

We are going to totally reform the Schools Act. It took the hon. Member years to try to get it done. It did not happen. My friend the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes was more successful than she was. He got a draft done. But next fall, after fourteen years of trying to reform the Act, this Government will bring in a totally new and modern, visionary Schools Act, and we are going to address this issue in the right manner at that point in time. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, we cannot support this amendment.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am surprised to hear the Minister of Education say: I am sorry we cannot support this amendment. This is a Committee of the Whole, and every Member over there has the right to decide whether he or she, if she happens to be here, will support this amendment. This is an amendment to the Schools Act which is a democratic amendment to the Schools Act. I am sure that if the Minister of Education is not prepared to take this progressive step that there may be others who are over on the other side of the House, in the spirit of democracy and free votes which this Government seems to be fond of at certain points in time, at certain points in time they are prepared to recognize that free votes ought to take place.

The President of Treasury Board, now that he is here and the Minister of Development is no longer in charge of the House, perhaps we can have other Members over there instead of having the Minister of Education speak for "we," that there are other Members of the House who could perhaps consider this amendment and recognize that it is a democratic amendment. We may in this Province have to do this by degrees, to democratize the education system in this Province. And this is one small degree which may assist in the democratic process. We have a number of ways to go -one small degree for mankind.

It is not very bold. It is a bit too bold for the Minister of Education at the moment. But there may be others over there who can follow that. To say that a school board should have the right to deny a child the right to attend a school, except in these circumstances, is not proper. There ought to be an opportunity to attend the most reasonable alternatives available to them. I see I have see some support from the benches over there. I am not sure if they are trying to encourage me to continue or to stop.

However, I think that if the Minister of Education is not convinced that there may be others over there that need convincing, I know there are some of independent mind over there, the Member for Pleasantville has been known to exercise his opinion as an individual from time to time - an independent mind, yes, and he has one. And he is over there persuading the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island that he too should, instead of blindly following on blind faith whatever it is the Minister says is appropriate, if this is appropriate now, or not now; we are ready for this, we are not ready for that. I am sure the Member for Mount Scio - Bell Island can exercise his independent mind and decide for himself whether or not school boards ought to be able to refuse attendance to a student when it is the most reasonable alternative available to that student. And that is a very simple principle.

It is not as profound as some of the other principles. But I see the Member for St. John's East Extern whose district has a great interest in this issue - a great interest. They do, in Pouch Cove, the Member says there should be one school down there and I agree. If the people could get together and say: well, we are going to decide, we are not going to wait for the school boards. We are going to send all our students to one school. The school and the board ought to accommodate them. Because it is not reasonable to have two schools. So if it is a reasonable alternative then they should go to the one school, and the school board ought not be allowed to say no.

But this amendment is not terribly profound, and I know that the Member for Humber East is capable of more profound amendments. But it is significant because it is a step in the right direction. One small step for the Newfoundland school system and for the democratization of that system. And I am surprised that the Minister of Education is not willing to take it on.

He will wait until the fall, but we will not see this in the fall.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bolder steps!

MR. HARRIS: Bolder steps. Well, we look forward to the bold steps. But in the meantime there is registration coming up for the fall school year and there are going to be children who are going to be forced to go to schools that they do not want to and that their parents do not want to, and that is the most reasonable school for the students to go to. So, Mr. Chairman, I ask - even though the Minister of Education is not going to vote for it - the other Members over there to exercise their independent mind in this free vote and vote in favour of it.

On motion, amendment defeated.

On motion, clause 1, carried.

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

MR. BAKER: Order 13, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order 13, Bill No. 7.

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to have a few words before the House votes on my amendment, to say to the Minister of Finance again that although the police did have their

arbitration done perhaps there is some room for thought along those lines. I want to say to the Minister of Finance that there are two other groups out there, the fire fighters and the warders, who are in a different situation. So I want to say to the Minister -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) and in conclusion.

MR. PARSONS: I am good for God knows how long, Mr. Chairman. I want to say to the Minister of Finance that he and I have discussed this privately on a couple of occasions and his thoughts and aspirations I suppose are not that farfetched. But I want to remind the Minister of what happened here. This Government was the architect, the people responsible for this coming into place. There are two groups of people out there who do not have the arbitration work done and this might never come to pass in their favour.

So what I say to the Minister is, I think that the nineteen years is a bit much and I ask the Minister to reconsider. I asked for a zero, but I also want the Minister to rise and give us his views as it pertains to the pensions act and my amendment because we have to remember that this was a pre-Confederation pension right. It was grandfathered and I think that the Government found a loophole when they found some young policemen who were prepared to open their pension act for monetary gain for the present. I think there are a lot of senior people out there within the ranks who would differ certainly in their opinion from what those young men did.

And they did allow the pension act to be opened, and I think it is wrong. I think that the nineteen years is really too high, and I would like for the Minister to perhaps say a few words on what his feelings are as it pertains to my amendment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amendment that everybody basically who is presently in the organizations be given the right to make a choice is a costly one. This is the basic problem. But before I get into that let me just indicate that the new plan is a very good plan by comparison with other plans across Canada.

The contribution rate will be 8.5 per cent but that includes the Canada Pension Plan contribution. In Halifax, the police and fire fighters pay 6 per cent up to CPP and 7 per cent on what is over the CPP limit and then also they pay 2.4 per cent of Canada Pension Plan. So it is about the same, the 6 per cent and the 2.4 per cent comes up to 8.4, and we pay about 8.5 per cent. And St. John, New Brunswick, they pay 8.5 per cent plus 2.4 per cent, or 10.9 per cent. Whereas our Newfoundland plan is only 8.5 per cent.

As you look through the various other parts of Canada, in Ontario it is 6.5 per cent plus 2.4 per cent CPP, which is about 8.9 per cent, a bit higher than ours, the contributions that I am talking about, and similarly in the other provinces. In Vancouver the police and fire fighters pay 6 per cent to the limit of the Canada Pension Plan, and 2.4 per cent for Canada Pension Plan, which is 8.4 per cent. And that is the way it goes. So our contributions are pretty good.

Our benefits are better in that our vesting is now five years instead of ten and these other people still have it at ten. They may be changing it after a while but they have not yet. We allow our people to calculate the best three years. In Halifax it is the best five; in St. John it is the best three; in Ontario it is the best five years; in the RCMP it is the best six years. Ours is the best three, which is better than theirs, as good as anything in Canada. And similarly as we go along the line, this is a good pension plan and it is a new one and it is well funded.

Now I would like to address the problem that the Member raised that a friend raised concerning why we would not lower the limit. The thing is we put it at nineteen because that is when there is a change in the old one where the rate of accrual increases dramatically. If we lowered it to ten that would mean that perhaps 400 people, we think, would be eligible to join it, as they have ten they would be eligible to remain in the old plan. If we eliminated it altogether, if everybody joined, there would be 500 in the old plan. This would impose an additional hardship to Government because we have to meet the additional contribution rates. So, we would have to match it and it would cost us whatever it would cost in the additional amount. We estimate now, perhaps $250,000 to $300,000 every year extra.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

DR. KITCHEN: Well, that is for the ten year thing and it would be a little bit more if it were altogether eliminated.

So, then the main purpose of it is to bring in a good plan, to make it functional, not to increase the unfunded liability, and I might say that neither plan will have the unfunded liability increased because we are increasing the pension contribution rates under the old plan so that the unfunded liability will not increase under the old plan or under the new plan.

I would like to address the question: it is true that the police had their salaries adjusted by an arbitrator to take into account the improved plan, in fact that is how it came about to a large extent. Right now the fire fighters and the wardens, I believe, have gone to arbitration and it is highly likely, quite probably that the arbitrator will take the new pension plan into account when making his assessment as to how much the people should make in salary. That will be part of his contribution. He has no choice but to do it. So, we feel that certainly the people who have gone to arbitration will not be hurt by this.

Also, the only question that might arise is from the people who are not in unions. There is some concern by the upper management, if you like, all the officers, that they might be hurt. I think, the proper approach to that is not to change the plan for them as much as to ask the Treasury Board to address that problem directly. I do not know how the Minister responsible for Treasury Board feels about that, maybe he would like to have a word about that if he chooses. But I think that would be the proper way to address that. Right now, people in management, the lowest rank I think gets 5 per cent over the people who are in the union and the next one gets 1 per cent higher than that and the next one 1 per cent higher, perhaps the differentials are a little small but that should be addressed by Treasury Board rather than through the pension plan.

So, our preference, Mr. Chairman, is to defeat the amendment if you like and to stick with the original proposal, but we have considered quite seriously the proposition advanced by the Member for St. John's East Extern.

On motion, amendment defeated.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall clause 2 carry?

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment I would like to move too, maybe the page might like to give a copy to the Chair and one to the Minister of Finance. There are two amendments on this actually but I will do the first one first, as it relates to clause 2.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment is moved by me, the Member for Kilbride, seconded by the Member for Harbour Main, both of us served on the Government Services Legislative Committee. It reads this way, Mr. Chairman, Paragraph 2(r) of Bill No. 7 be deleted and the following substituted, (r) "RCA employee" means a member of the pension plan who (subsection (i) is listed in Subparagraph 2 (q) (i), whatever is on the list, I will just read it out. Number 2 of that amendment, Mr. Chairman, is listed in Subsection 2C (i) and has more than nineteen years pensionable services. The first paragraph has ten years and the other one has nineteen, 'and has elected to participate in the retirement compensation arrangement.' This bill would amend the definition of RCA employee to provide that the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Commissioned officers, Her Majesty's penitentiary correction officers, and the commissioned officers, and members of the Fire Fighters Association who have completed at least ten years of pensionable services be given the right to elect either plan. Mr. Chairman, I know this is not the same as the former amendment, and I know the Minister did have a few words on it. He said it would cost, I believe, between $200,000 and $300,000 a year. I would just like the Minister to consider this. It is an expensive option to the employee. Whoever is going to take this option, the policemen, the firemen, or the warders, whoever will avail of this option, it will cost them between $100 or $150 per pay check because their rate will go up to 11 per cent. Now, I know it is not a great option to give them but it is an option. I would expect that there would be very few of them who would take this option and therefore it would not be necessary, or as expensive to the Minister, as if they all took it. I would suggest that if we accepted this amendment it probably would not be as expensive as the Government thinks it is because not too many people would avail of it.

Mr. Chairman, I move that amendment.

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

MR. SIMMS: Just a quick word to the Minister of Finance. When he mentioned in his earlier comments about the cost for the ten year amendment, let us call it the ten year amendment, just moved by the hon. Member for Kilbride, he said it would be $250,000 to $300,000, I believe was what he said.

AN HON. MEMBER: $280,000.

MR. SIMMS: $280,000 per year. I think he said there would be 400 who would be eligible to take the ten year option and 500 who would take the option proposed on the amendment by my -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: I will try it again, Mr. Chairman.

This is an important amendment on behalf of the uniform services people who have approached us to move the amendment. The Minister said in his earlier comments that it would cost about $280,000 to bring in the ten year amendment, to accept the ten year amendment as just proposed by the Member for Kilbride. That is what he said. He is nodding so he is acknowledging that. He also said in his comments that that figure is based on probably 400 members availing of the ten year option, because he said it would be about 500 if everybody did as my friend for St. John's East Extern proposed in his amendment. So, my question to the Minister of Finance: is the $280,000 estimated expenditure based on the assumption that 400 of the members would accept the ten year option? My information from members of the Fire Fighters Association, in particular, is as put forth by the Member for Kilbride, the likelihood of 400, probably the likelihood of forty availing of this option because of the additional cost, because of this option it will not cost the Government anywhere near the $280,000 because it would probably only be ten or a dozen that might even accept it, therefore the cost is not likely to be anywhere near what he is suggesting, because as my friend for Kilbride said, it will cost each individual member of the uniformed services that we are talking about in this amendment about an additional $100 to $150 a month extra for each individual to avail of this ten year option. Now, I do not think the 400 eligible will touch it. I doubt very much if forty would touch it. There is a chance that maybe ten or a dozen might touch it and all we are asking on their behalf is that Government consider this matter and accept the amendment and, at least in view of what has happened in the public service these days, it might be a half decent gesture if they might put it forward.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall the amendment carry?

The amendment is defeated.

MR. SIMMS: Division.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Call in the Members.

Division

MR. CHAIRMAN: All those in favour of the amendment, please rise:

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Rideout), Mr. Simms, Ms. Verge, Mr. Doyle, Mr. R. Aylward, Mr. Tobin, Mr. N. Windsor, Mr. Hearn, Mr. Hewlett, Mr. Warren, Mr. S. Winsor, Mr. Power, Mr. Greening, Mr. Parsons, Mr. Woodford.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Those against the Motion, please rise:

The hon. the President of the Council (Mr. Baker), the hon. the Minister of Development, the hon. the Minister of Health, the hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, the hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy, the hon. the Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Grimes, the hon. the Minister of Finance, the hon. the Minister of Education, the hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, Mr. Hogan, Mr. Reid, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Gover, Mr. Noel, Mr. Penney, Mr. Dumaresque, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Short, Mr. Langdon, Mr. Oldford.

CLERK (Miss Duff): Mr. Chairman, ayes fifteen, nays twenty-one.

On motion, amendment defeated.

On motion, clauses 2 through to 23, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall clause 24 carry?

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Chairman, on sub-clause 24(5), which has to do with the benefits for survivors in the pension plan. It is 55 per cent in the RCA plan now and in the new plan it will be 60 per cent. This amendment will read that sub-clause 24(5) of this Bill be deleted, which will in effect have the optional plan and the new plan the same with survivor benefits of 60 per cent each. Mr. Speaker, that was requested on our committee. I think it is very reasonable and it is a 5 per cent increase in the survivor benefits. I think it would be some show of faith to allow this amendment, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Chairman, as Members opposite know those who opt for the old plan will be paid a pension based on their last days pay. In the new plan, it is on the three year average. So, the 55 per cent survivors benefit on the last days pay would be equivalent to the 60 per cent benefit on the three year average, leaving one at 55 and the other at 60 provides an equitable pension, so that is why we will be voting against this.

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

MR. SIMMS: I wonder if the President of Treasury Board can explain to the House, why on earth then a Liberal dominated, majority dominated Legislative Review Committee would have recommended it, then none of them support it, that is quite strange.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When we set up the Legislative Review Committees we did so on several understandings. One of them was: where the Committees recommended changes that fell within the general government policy that Government could make changes and re-do the Bill actually before it is done in the House, so quite a lot of changes in the Committees were made in the Bill preparation stage and the Committees have been very effective in making that kind of change.

The other thought we had, is that the Committees would be independent. The Committee members would be independent. I do not think the Opposition understands that because there is no such thing as committees being told to toe the Government line, committee members. You talked about the Liberal dominated committees, why did they simply not do exactly what the Government told them to do? Well, that is not the function of the committee.

The function of the Committee is to look at it and suggest changes. They carried out their function as a Committee and presented a report to the House.

Now, it so happens that Government did not go and see their recommendations and say: Boy, you have to change those or, these are the recommendations we want. We did not. After looking at the recommendations we have examined the financial implications of these recommendations and decided that we cannot do it. So, Government policy is that we will not accept these particular amendments, so that is where the situation stands now. The committee has operated independently and made their recommendations, but now it is Government policy that these amendments do not get accepted. That is the result of the vote that you see here now.

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

MR. SIMMS: Can he explain to the House, why the Liberal Government Members on the Committee, -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: Will you listen, until I ask the question.

I say to the Minister of Development, if he would relax, all he is doing is belabouring the thing, if he wants to continue to interrupt, carry on, no problem. I have not even asked it yet.

Now, Mr. Chairman, perhaps the Minister could relax.

My question to the President of Treasury Board is: Can he explain to this House, why the Liberal Members on the Liberal dominated majority committee would recommend to this House major changes like these amendments that have been put forward by the Member for Kilbride, but stand in the House and vote against it? That is the question.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: No, he did not explain it.

MR. PARSONS: No he did not. They were the people who brought it in. At least they should have stood up and said no.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: I have already explained it but perhaps I was a little bit too circumspect for the Members to follow. So, I will put it in another way.

AN HON. MEMBER: Could you make it simple?

MR. BAKER: Members of the Committee, looked at the legislation and felt there were some changes they would like to make; it was recommended.

We took the recommendations, looked at them and discovered that for financial considerations we could not accept these amendments, therefore now it is Government policy not to accept these -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: Of course they are (inaudible).

MR. BAKER: - obviously, obviously; this is the democratic system, there is no free vote on it -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: What is the big deal?

MR. BAKER: The Committees are perfectly free and we have accepted an awful lot of recommendations from the Committees; we have made a lot of changes because of recommendations from the Committees, but it so happens that because of financial considerations it is Government's position that we cannot do this, so then it becomes Government's policy therefore that is the explanation of the vote, this is what I am explaining to you now -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

On motion, amendment defeated.

On motion, Clauses 25 through 42 carried.

A bill, "An Act To Revise And Amend The Law Respecting Pensions For The Members Of The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary And The St. John's Fire Department And The Staff Of Her Majesty's Penitentiary". (Bill No. 7).

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

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity - Bay de Verde.

MR. A. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred, have directed me to report Bills 40, 31 and 7 carried without amendments, and ask leave to sit again.

On motion, report received and adopted, Bills 40, 31 and 7, ordered read a third time presently, by leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Government House Leader.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, by leave, I would like to call third reading of Bill Nos. 40, 31 and 7.

On motion, the following Bills read a third time, ordered passed and their titles be as on the Order Paper:

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Labour Relations Act, 1977 (No.2), (Bill No. 40).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Schools Act", (Bill No. 31).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Law Respecting Pensions For The Members Of The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary And The St. John's Fire Department And The Staff Of Her Majesty's Penitentiary", (Bill No. 7).

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, orders 4 to 12.

On motion, the following bills read a third time, ordered passed, and their titles be as on the Order Paper:

A bill, "An Act to Amend The Newfoundland Law Reform Commission Act, 1971". (Bill No. 13).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Law Society Act, 1977". (Bill No. 5).

A bill, "An Act To Revise And Amend The Law Respecting A Pension Plan For Employees Of The Government Of the Province And Others". (Bill No. 6).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Evidence Act". (Bill No. 4).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Co-operative Societies Act". (Bill No. 24).

A bill, "An Act To Revise The Law Respecting The Provincial Court". (Bill No. 2)

A bill, "An Act To Revise And Consolidate The Law Respecting Juries". (Bill No. 3).

A bill, "An Act To Revise And Amend The Law Respecting A Pension Plan For Teachers". (Bill No. 25).

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Newfoundland Crop Insurance Act, 1973". (Bill No. 30).

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It has been a long day and the clock has been stopped now for well over two hours. We have finished off a lot of legislation.

Before calling for adjournment I would like to add a few words in connection with the Leader of the Opposition. I had intended to do it earlier but I did not have a chance to. Just to say to him that I really enjoyed being in the House with him. He will be missed and I especially will miss the colourful phrases that he sometimes uses and I doubt very much that ever again in this House will we hear the phrase "The face of a robber's horse". We may, but every time I hear it I will always remember the hon. Member sitting opposite in full flight, his gestures and so on, his voice a very loud voice, very penetrating voice, I will always remember that. I would like to thank him for the years that we spent together in the House.

Mr. Speaker, we will be adjourning until sometime, I guess, towards the end of October, barring unforeseen circumstances, and that may happen. There may be emergencies or whatever, but barring any unforeseen circumstances, I envision Your Honour calling the House together sometime around the end of October, I would suggest. I do not know if the Opposition House Leader wants to respond to that or not.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, very quickly I would like to personally thank the Government House Leader for adding his remarks to other remarks that were made today and I want him to know I appreciate them very, very much. I have enjoyed a tremendous relationship, I think, with the hon. Government House Leader both when I was in Government and in Opposition. We have always seemed to have a bit of chemistry and got along very well. I would like to tell him in particular I have enjoyed accusing him of having the face of a robbers horse. I had to tell him because I know he gets a charge out of it, but I do not know if he knows what I mean when I say it.

Mr. Speaker, if you ever watched a movie of a bank robbery or something of that nature, or a good old western - have the facial expressions of a horse ever changed? It is constant, it never moves. And the facial expressions of the Government House Leader always reminds me of a robbers horse. You do not know if there is an emergency, you do not know if he is going to put down an adjournment motion, you do not know if it is going to be a closure motion, and they do not know it. Some people would say it is stoically but I do not have the ability to use those big phrases and besides that they do not mean anything in Ming's Bight. But everybody in Ming's Bight knows what the face of a robber's horse is, Mr. Speaker. Everybody in Ming's Bight knows what backuppable is and that is the kind of stuff that I like using.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: When I say a few words in a public place either here or on television or in a scrum or whatever, I like to be able to talk to the ordinary Newfoundlander and Labradorian and in that context, Mr. Speaker, I hope somebody in the Official Opposition for the next year or so that that Party is in Government, will take the opportunity to remind the Government House Leader that he has the face of a robber's horse.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, a brief comment on his point about recall of the Legislature, the end of October I think, barring unforeseen circumstances, would fit in nicely with our Party's plans as everybody is aware. Our convention is around the 20th, so it will give the new Leader an opportunity to have a week or ten days or so to put the house in order, or whatever. So, we would be pleased with that and we accept that.

The other thing I would say to the Government House Leader since it is an appropriate time and it is obvious that we are going to adjourn until the fall, is to thank everybody for their assistance and their help, at least on behalf of Members on this side, the Clerks at the Table, the Clerk of the House, the Speaker's Office, the Speaker's Staff, Hansard people, Pages, Press, the Sergeant at Arms, Sergeant at Arms Staff, the Commissionaires, Commissionaires up in the gallery, the Director of Pensions in particular who is in the gallery tonight, I am delighted to see him here. Of course, I could not forget Norma Jean and the staff at the Library who provides assistance to every Member. So, a thank you to all the people who helped us.

AN HON. MEMBER: And you hope they will all be delegates.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: I make no comment on that, Mr. Speaker, but I will say to the Government House Leader and to the Leader of the Opposition that he need not fear. After he is gone, and maybe even long gone until the Bourassa revival, we will ensure on this side of the House that the Government House Leader continues to be referred to as one who has the face of a robber's horse, at least by people other than myself. My intention is to tell him up front what he really looks like, and I will not repeat it here tonight.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to make a few remarks on the closing of the House and the fact that we may not be here with the current Leader of the Opposition next time. I have to say that this session of the House - I cannot say that I have been here long enough to say that I enjoyed it. I have to say that I found it very interesting. It has taken about three months to get the people on both sides of the House to recognize that there are three parties in the House. I had to shut down the House in order to do it one day. But shortly thereafter as the Opposition House Leader said the next day, all three Partys had agreed to the changes in the order of business the next day.

So I am glad to see that finally after a period of three months all three Partys have been recognized. And no doubt over the course of the summer we will have a number of chats about the proposed new rules. So I will conclude those remarks, Mr. Speaker, with that and thank the Government House Leader and Opposition House Leader for their co-operation during the last session.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to echo the comments of both gentlemen opposite in terms of thanking the staff of the House and the staff whom we do not see in the House, in terms of Hansard, Library and so on. And our commissionaires and everybody who contributes to this House.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House at its rising do adjourn until the call of Your Honour and the House do now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: Before putting the motion I would just like to wish all hon. Members a happy vacation, particularly the Leader of the Opposition who a little earlier in the evening mentioned that he spoke for eighteen hours. There are just a few of us here in the House who had the privilege of sitting for these eighteen hours. I think there are two of us here now. The Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, myself, and the Member for Mount Pearl, and I believe the Member for Port au Port. So we are getting fewer and fewer. So I want to wish him happiness and success in whatever his future endeavours will be, and to tell hon. Members that I shall keep recalling the House as long as I can.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned to the call of the Chair.