December 6, 1993             HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS          Vol. XLII  No. 29


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

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

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am speaking today, making a Ministerial Statement, in my role as minister responsible for the status of women. Today marks the anniversary of the massacre of fourteen women at Montreal's École Polytechnique Engineering School.

In commemoration of this extreme example of violence against women, and in memory of those fourteen women, December 6 has been recognized as the national day of remembrance and action on violence against women. This date serves as a stark reminder of the many women who are beaten, sexually assaulted, or who live with the threat of violence every day of their lives.

We need only look to the findings of the recent Statistics Canada survey, or the National Panel Report on Violence Against Women released this summer, to see just how pervasive violence against women really is in our society. The Statistics Canada survey found out that the incidence of violence against women in this country is alarmingly high. In our Province, 33 per cent of women have experienced at least one incident of violence since the age of sixteen. Almost one-half of Canadian women reported violence by men known to them, and one-quarter reported violence by a stranger, and more than one in every ten women in Canada who reported violence in a current marriage has, at some point, felt her life was in danger.

Last week my colleague, the hon. Roger Grimes, urged other male colleagues in this House to wear a white ribbon as a symbol of their opposition to men's violence against women. I am wearing a purple ribbon to show my concern, and have given purple ribbons to the other two women who sit in the House. This is to show my concern as a woman. Of course, wearing one of these ribbons, white or purple, is just one way of showing your friends, your family, and your co-workers, that violence against women is unacceptable. There are many other things each of us can do as well to show others that we will not tolerate or accept violence against women.

You will notice in front of you today, a bookmark. I have more of them, if you would like some to distribute. This bookmark is also available in bookstores and libraries across the Province, as well as to women's groups and other interested individuals. It is titled, `Take Action. Work to End Violence Against Women.' The bookmark asks us to examine our own values, the life choices we make and our behaviour to achieve equality for women and to stop violence. To help us do that it offers tips for both men and women taken from the National Panel Report on Violence Against Women. For instance, men are encouraged to ask women about their experiences, their fears and to listen, to share responsibility for child care and home maintenance without being asked, to challenge violence or sexist behaviour whenever they see it and to challenge other men to become part of the solution.

There are also things we can do in our lives as both women and men to show that we are a part of the solution. We can boycott movies and other media that glorify violence, we can commit to not blaming women for the violence in their lives, we can practice cooperation instead of competition, we can challenge stereotypes about male and female roles and about cultures that are different from our own. We can commit to act on what we learn and we can speak up. You may wonder how some of these ideas will help in our struggle to end violence against women but take a few minutes to review them and think about how each one reflects the inequality that exists for women in our society. I urge you to not only read this bookmark but to start acting on it today.

I should also take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to update you on the progress of our provincial strategy on violence. As you may know, in April we published a consultation paper on building a provincial strategy to address violence against women, children and elderly and dependent adults. In June we began a series of five consultations across the Province to receive input on that paper and to look at ways government and the community can work together to address the issues of violence. We are now preparing a report on those consultations and will soon begin work on a long-term strategy against violence in our Province.

This is one way government is showing its commitment to eliminating violence against women. I urge each of you to use the suggestions in this bookmark to be part of the solution as well. While we are not responsible for the actions of men who commit violent acts against women, we are responsible for what we say and do every day that hinders equality and encourages violence.

As we remember those fourteen women today, let us also remember the many other women who are victims of violence every day of the year. Let us continue to work towards a society where it is safe for women to walk alone in their own neighbourhoods, where women can feel safe with their male partners, where violence against women is not tolerated. Let us work towards a society that is truly equal.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to join with the minister on behalf of our party and our caucus on this side of the House in recognizing and remembering the events of four years ago that shocked hundreds of thousands of people across Canada out of their complacency towards the violence that women in this country face every day. It was four years ago, today, on December 6, 1989 at about 5:30 in the afternoon that a man armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife walked into that institute, the École Polytechnique, an engineering school associated with the University of Montreal, where he stalked the halls, declared his hatred for feminists and shot and killed fourteen women and wounded perhaps a dozen more. Regrettably, just about everyone remembers the name of the person, the man responsible for this extremely violent act. Regrettably, most people do not remember the names of the fourteen women who were massacred, fourteen young engineering students who are not alive today because of the actions of that one man, and we have to ask, why don't we remember and place more emphasis on remembering people like Geneviève Bergeron, Anne-Marie Edward, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michele Richard, and all of the others. Why don't we? Here in our own Province, I guess, there was reaction, shock, just a few weeks ago when we heard the results of a recent survey, which the minister referred to in her statement, which showed that 33 per cent of women in this Province have experienced at least one incident of violence since the age of sixteen - and I wouldn't be surprised if that study were inaccurate. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were even higher. Thirty-three per cent, Mr. Speaker. How can we possibly remain complacent knowing the extent to which violence against women is still present and tolerated right here in our own communities?

I am pleased to hear the minister say that they are working, as a government, on a long-term strategy against violence in our Province and I am pleased to hear that a report is now being prepared on the consultations that took place last June, but what I wanted to hear, and I think what the people of this Province want to hear, from the minister, is that after nearly five years in office now as a government, there would be more concrete policies and programs to be announced.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. SIMMS: If I could just have a minute or so to conclude.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank members opposite.

Things have changed over the last twenty years; they have changed a small bit, I guess, but those changes have come about in a large part because of the work of women's organizations, which have forced people and forced governments, really, to recognize the nature and the extent to which this problem exists. It is not tolerable to laugh and joke about violence against women; at one time it was tolerated, it is no longer tolerable. But simply taking away the jokes and the humour that used to be associated with that will not correct the fundamental problem. So I say to the minister, yes, I agree, there must be more education, there has to be more education, and maybe a suggestion that I will repeat, which was made by my colleague, the Member for Humber East, I think, in one of her responses to a similar statement a while back:

Maybe the minister could arrange to have some kind of a special workshop put together dealing with the issue of violence against women for Cabinet ministers, for MHAs and for other people who have to make policies from time to time to ensure that they have this particular issue, front and centre in their minds, at all times, when they are making decisions dealing with women and issues of this nature.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

MR. HARRIS: I would like to ask the leave of the House to speak to this Ministerial Statement and, in doing so, I would like to remind hon. members that what I am seeking here, is what has -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed, agreed!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. -

MR. HARRIS: May I finish my point of order, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

First of all, if the hon. member's point of order is to the question of leave to speak, I believe the hon. member has leave of the House.

MR. HARRIS: I wanted to point out, Mr. Speaker, that what I am seeking by seeking leave, is the same courtesy that has been granted to the Leader of the Liberal Party in the Province of Saskatchewan.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, if I am to speak to my point of order -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: He is speaking to his point of order, still.

MR. SPEAKER: I can't hear the hon. member or anybody else in the House. As I said to the hon. member, if your point of order is that you wish leave to speak on the issue, you have leave.

MR. HARRIS: I wish to make my point of order, Mr. Speaker.

First, there may be somebody who wants to deny leave, I don't know, but I want to make my point of order, if I may.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. member's point of order something other than having leave to speak to the House?

MR. HARRIS: My point of order was, in requesting leave to speak to the House, to remind hon. members -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

If the hon. ministers wish to be recognized, I will recognize them after the hon. member speaks, but I'm having difficulty in determining what the hon. - if you could tell me what the point of order was, first of all.

MR. HARRIS: My point of order is to ask leave to speak to the Ministerial Statement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Leave granted!

MR. SPEAKER: The leave is granted so there is no need to continue with the point of order, was my point.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To this statement, I want to join with the minister and with the Leader of the Opposition in recognizing today as an important day to remember the Montreal massacre, but also to remind ourselves that it wasn't very long before that incident four years ago, that when Margaret Mitchell, M.P., raised the issue of wife-battering in the House of Commons, she was met with laughter from the other side of the House.

We have come a long way since that time, as the Leader of the Opposition has mentioned, but we still have women who feel hunted, we still have the necessity in some places for patrols at night. I know in McGill University they have patrols at night to protect women. We still have a situation in this Province where women's centres are struggling to survive financially, and transition houses and shelters are also desperately in need of funds to continue. It is a time for us to redouble our own efforts, to recognize that there has been a fairly massive consciousness-raising at certain levels of society, and that we have to commit ourselves to redoubling our efforts to make sure that women, all women, are safe from violence. That requires far more work on the part of all of us and perhaps, as the Leader of the Opposition has suggested, an attempt to involve both men and women in that effort by some sort of massive symposium involving all sorts of groups - women's groups, individuals, service groups, and anybody who can contribute to this effort.

So, in doing that, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time has elapsed.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: - we recognize this tragic event, and I think it is important that we do that in a non-partisan way. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, the Premier is out of the Province and the Minister of Finance, I notice now, is out of the Province. I wasn't aware of that. So I will direct my questions, I think, to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. I think it applies to him more than, perhaps, others. Maybe he is the lead minister, anyway.

Last Thursday, I watched a television news program on CBC and the Here and Now program carried a report that the provincial Cabinet here had submitted to the federal Cabinet, a plan for a new income support program. That plan, presumably, as I understood it, would replace unemployment insurance, social assistance, fisheries compensation and other similar federal transfers to individuals.

Can I ask the minister, first of all: Has such a plan, in fact, been approved by the provincial Cabinet? Has it been submitted to the federal Cabinet? What were the dates of those actions taken, if that is true, and when would such a plan take effect if it were, in fact, approved?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the hon. the Leader of the Opposition for the question.

It is a fact, and I think publicly known for some time, that Dr. House and the Economic Recovery Commission, at the request of the provincial government, had spent some time over the past year and some-odd - a little longer than that - working toward the basic concepts of a proposal that would look at income security for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

The proposal was presented to the Cabinet some time during the summer, and agreement in principle was given at that time with the concepts contained in that proposal. As well Premier Wells, upon his visit to Ottawa, presented a copy of Dr. House's proposals that had been endorsed in principle by the Cabinet to Prime Minister Chrétien shortly after Mr. Chrétien was sworn in as Prime Minister, and there will be a follow-up meeting. Minister Axworthy is visiting Newfoundland, tentatively next week, I believe, a week from today, at which point in time there will be further discussion of that matter and others with the federal minister.

We are also seeking further meetings relating to the matters contained in that report with the federal ministers, because any or all of the proposals contained in that document would need and would depend upon the great co-operation of the federal government for any of it to go forward.

The plan then, upon meeting with Minister Axworthy next week, is for the Premier to make the details of the proposal that has been presented to the Prime Minister and to the federal minister public some time later next week.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So the details of the proposal will be made public next week; I think that is what the minister indicated.

I want to ask him this question: A year ago - I guess it was at least a year ago - the Premier struck an advisory panel to draft a Strategic Social Plan. I am sure the minister remembers it. We all remember the announcement. Now one of its key tasks was to put together an income support program, but it was going to be done after extensive public consultation to receive submissions and to have discussion. Can I ask the minister: Has that panel been struck? Who is on the panel, and has it met at all in the last twelve months?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you again, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, there is a planning and co-ordinating group that has been meeting regularly with respect to the Province's Strategic Social Plan, which will be the companion document to the Strategic Economic Plan, recognizing that both developments are required and are necessary in the Province, that if the economic basis is stabilized then certainly we should be paying more attention to the kinds of social programming that the government could then properly provide with the monies that would flow to government from a proper economic base.

That work has been ongoing, and one of the things that group has been made aware of - not the total details, to my knowledge - but certainly they are aware of the work that the Economic Recovery Commission, under Dr. House's guidance, has done with respect to income security, and they are looking at a broad range of other social issues, including some aspects of income security that, at a point in time, when they are prepared, when they bring forward a report to Cabinet, there is again intended to be a public consultation process that will flow out of that.

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: I wonder if the minister could tell us who is on this panel?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

At this point in time I will have to go and seek out the actual names of the group, but it is a working group of senior bureaucrats, at this point in time, combined with others from outside of government, who are putting together the details of the kind of thing that would be taken forward for a public consultation.

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

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

I hope maybe the minister could sort of get quick access to that and table it before the day is out, or tomorrow, or as soon as he possibly could. I am anxious to see that.

I would like to ask the minister: In view of the fact that a broad income support program such as the one that we hear being advocated - or at least we hear about being advocated by the government - could have a major impact on, I suppose, nearly half of the people in this Province - certainly well over 200,000 people in this Province - who rely in some way on UI, or fisheries compensation, or social assistance, or some other fixed income like the Canadian Pension Plan or whatever, for all or part of their income.

I wonder can the minister give a commitment to this House, that in order to give the people who would most directly be affected by any changes in this program, that the government would be willing to, in fact, fulfil the commitment that the Premier made when he talked about this panel to discuss the Strategic Social Plan? Could the minister tell the House if the government intends to carry out the announced public hearing process, to take this whole issue to the people of the Province so that people can have some input, discussion and all the rest that the Premier alluded to a year ago?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we will certainly have that looked into. I will attempt as well to get the names, the actual names of the people who are involved in this planning process at this time. Again, as I indicated in an answer to a previous question, the planning is being done to my knowledge, with the full intent that the outcome of it would be a full round of public consultation and part and parcel of any strategic social planning that would occur, would in all likelihood as well, include reference to the details that are about to be released next week of the proposals for income security that were hinted at in the News a week ago on Thursday.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Friday I raised some questions to the Minister of Social Services about the methods used by the new welfare investigators. I want to come back to the issue of whether the investigators are uncovering fraud or overpayment resulting from inaccurate or incomplete assistance made by overworked welfare officers. The former minister, Mr. Gullage, said that investigators hired in the Western Region, as a pilot project, recovered over $1 million from that region in one year. Mr. Speaker, that is a lot of money and I would like to ask the minister, how much of that $1 million was obtained by fraud and what, if any, charges were laid?

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

MR. LUSH: The investigators have been on the job since September, that is the official list of investigators. The investigators to which the hon. member refers was part of a pilot project. I cannot, with any decree of certainty at the moment - I can undertake to find it out for the member whether or not - or what amount of the activities of wrongdoing were related to fraudulent activities. I can ascertain to get that for the member but as of this moment I cannot put a number on that for him.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: I would like to ask the minister, Mr. Speaker, if the people who are told that they have to pay back this money have any recourse to challenge the findings of those investigators? Many of those people are very poor and perhaps not very well versed on the recourse that they can take. Do you provide assistance, Mr. Minister, to those people so that they can verify whether the amounts that they must pay back are valid or not?

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

MR. LUSH: The member seems rather concerned that people who owe money to the Department of Social Services should not be required to pay it back. Doesn't the hon. member realize that when people owe money to the Department of Social Services that they ought to pay it back? As far as they can appeal, they can appeal the decision, they can appeal any decision - yes any decision can be appealed to an appeal board - so they would have the normal recourse, there is an appeal to the regional director. The regional director in each area is the person to whom these people should appeal.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, that is something new to me. Maybe the minister could clarify that when he gets up to answer this question. I was not aware that there was an appeal board in place where those people could take their appeal to, once the investigators were finished with the case. However, I want to raise the matter of confidentiality with the minister. A social assistance client called us to complain that an investigator had disclosed confidential, financial and personal information about another person who was also a social assistance client. He had no idea why unless it was an attempt to draw information out of him.

Has the minister received complaints of that kind? Do the investigative procedures approved by the department permit the use of confidential information to elicit information from potential informants? I would like to ask the minister also if he would table the rules of conduct for those social service investigators in the House, please.

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

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, first of all, with respect to appeals, all members know that there is an appeal board and all matters relating to Social Services can be appealed through that appeal board. All matters can be appealed. There is also another level of appeal at the regional level, before it reaches that appeal.

With respect to the -

MR. TOBIN: You cannot appeal overpayments!

MR. LUSH: I tell the member you can appeal anything. There is nothing written down as to what can be appealed. You can appeal anything.

With respect to confidentiality, I tell the hon. member, if he knows of something, a specific case, the proper place is to report it to the officials, not to bring it up here in the House. If he knows of something special, report it to the department and we will act upon it immediately. With respect to a code of behaviour, I don't know if we have one, but if we have one we will bring it in. It is pretty difficult to legislate behaviour but if we have something down we will bring it in.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Education. When will the government fulfil the 1989 Liberal campaign promise of expanding Grenfell College? People remember that the promise wasn't to expand the Corner Brook university campus facilities at some unspecified later date. The promise was to expand Grenfell College facilities immediately. Will the minister tell us today how much longer Grenfell College students will have to put up with inadequate science labs and overcrowded library facilities? How much longer will Grenfell College students have to sit on the floor in crowded corridors to study between classes?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, it won't be long now. In due course we will do all these things.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We heard that phrase once before. It was Frank Moores' campaign slogan. I think the members on this side will reactivate that slogan, and it is true. It won't be long now. It won't be long before members opposite will be defeated and a competent group which will expand Grenfell College facilities is substituted. Mr. Speaker, plans had been prepared for new Grenfell College facilities. When will those plans be implemented?

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

MR. DECKER: The voice of one crying in the wilderness. She wants another election. We only had one, what, not a year ago. Six months ago, whenever it was.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not at liberty to divulge anything which is in the Budget, even if I knew what was in the Budget. Hopefully in due course we will be able to do all these fine things for Grenfell College, and the people of Corner Brook will be so happy to see their college expanded. Hopefully in due course it will be a full degree granting university.

MR. SPEAKER: Final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question which I will put to either the Minister of Education or the Minister of Health. It has to do with nursing education. Last week in answer to my questions the Minister of Health said that he and his officials are currently reviewing nursing education in the Province in a comprehensive way, and I appreciate that. Can one of the responsible ministers ensure people that whatever changes result from the current review will include equivalent nursing education opportunities in Corner Brook for students in the western region as will be available in St. John's?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that this government will continue the practice that we have been continuing now for the last five years, which is known as fairness and balance. Everything we do will be fair to all of our people, will be balanced for all of our people, and that will include Corner Brook, that will include Croque, that will include Goose Bay. That will include all of the Province and all of our people, Mr. Speaker. That is what Liberalism is all about in this House.

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

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to also address my questions to the Minister of Education. The Department of Education and the educational agencies it regulates require students to reveal their social insurance and/or MCP numbers. These numbers along with other student identification information, are on computers at the university and other post-secondary institutions and, in some instances, the Department of Education, itself. Are there any regulations or guidelines applying to all these agencies to control access to this information, its use and distribution?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure of the details of just specifically what is there to protect the use of this information. The reason it is there, of course, is simply to assist in giving out student loans and so on but, as a general rule, I know that it is just impossible to access confidential information legally; I won't say it hasn't been done illegally but, as a general rule, people's privacy is protected, and I am quite certain that that is the case with the colleges and the student loans and all that sort of thing. However, just to be absolutely certain, I will take a look at that. If the hon. member has some specific reason to suspect that somehow people's privacy is being invaded, I would certainly appreciate it if he would bring it to my attention so that I could check this special case. I wouldn't doubt, but as a general rule, no one is supposed to have his privacy invaded in this area, but if there is a specific case, by all means, bring it to my attention.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for St. John's East Extern.

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

Well, I am about to bring it to your attention.

My question has a purpose. I have a list of students, right here, accepted for a certain program at Memorial University that shows addresses, telephone numbers, and MUN registration numbers, as well as Social Insurance numbers and MCP numbers. This list is available from the responsible department to anyone who asks for it. I ask the minister, who is responsible in this Legislature for MUN to determine how free the university is in spreading around this kind of information, and what procedures it has, if any, to protect the student information?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, until I see what the hon. member has, I really am at somewhat of a disadvantage in even commenting on it. He might simply have a page out of a telephone book with some social insurance numbers attached to it, so if he would bring -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is making a statement. I am at a clear disadvantage; I have not seen what he is quoting from, I have no idea under the sun where he got it, but I would certainly appreciate it if the hon. member would bring the matter to my attention, and if someone has done something which is illegal, then we will put it through the legal process and deal with it as it should be dealt with, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

Well, basically the information that I have here, Mr. Minister, was attained by an individual walking into the university requesting names and addresses, and all this information was given to him.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. J. BYRNE: At Memorial University. The information on the sheet I have, could be used by anyone to access academic, personal and financial and medical information about a student, as well as for many other purposes. Will the minister consider bringing in legislation to limit the access and to control the use of this kind of information on education students in this Province? Mr. Minister, this person walked in, did not show any identification whatsoever, asked for the information and was handed it outright. And I would certainly make it available to the minister, but I won't make it public, to protect the names on the list.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will know that the university is bound by the Privacy Act just as every other institution and every other legacy of government. I will certainly take this matter under advisement, and see if someone has acted illegally, and if that is the case, then whoever acted contrary to and in contravention of the Privacy Act, will bear the consequences whatever they are. I have to qualify my answer by saying, I have not yet seen what the hon. member has there, it could be something which is quite innocent, but after seeing it, I will certainly pursue it further if, in my judgement, it has to be pursued further.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the government's Strategic Economic Plan, it is stated that public consultation and participation will be sought for decisions on the management of forest ecosystem.

I want to ask the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, if there has been any public consultation and participation in the decision to allow the use of mechanical harvesters in the logging operations of the three paper mills in the Province.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest and Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, we have a twenty-year plan, and that plan is administered by way of increments every five years. And, yes, that twenty-year plan was submitted to public hearings all across the Province.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: I would like to ask the minister, on what basis has he allowed the use of mechanical harvesters in the logging operations, was there an environmental impact study, did he have any significant evidence that the use of this technology would have a negative impact on the ecology, and would he table those in the House?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware that the use of feller bunchers or mechanical harvesters, as he is talking about, was submitted for a specific environmental assessment, but I am aware that groups from all over Newfoundland have had input and have indicated their concern, or their support, for the use of mechanical harvesters. The hon. member talks about the mechanical harvesters and our forests being over-cut and going the way of the fishery. Doesn't the hon. member know that in this Province we operate on the basis of an annual allowable cut? It doesn't matter if you cut the trees with axes or saws, chain-saws, or feller bunchers, you only cut the same amount of wood, so it has no bearing on the annual allowable cut.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: Whether you cut it with axes or with feller bunchers there may be - and the only concern that has been expressed so far about feller bunchers, apart from the fact that they displace workers, which is obviously a major concern of all of us, is the potential for doing some environmental damage that other types of harvesting wouldn't do, and that is being looked at now both by the government and by the companies.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I can tell the minister that I am sure every member in here has heard about all the studies that have been done. It was also done for the big trawlers in the fishery. We didn't listen to them years ago and the same is happening here in forestry unless we get smartened up in this House of Assembly. The minister keeps referring to this management plan that will bring about the management of the forests on a sustainable basis. The federal fisheries minister used to make the same claim about the management of the fisheries but the fishermen knew it wasn't working the same as now, the loggers say this is not working. Environmentalists and loggers have similar concerns about the minister's so-called forest management plan. Has the plan, or any part of it, been subject to a full environmental impact study and are there any studies to verify the minister's claim that the forest has been managed according to the principles of sustainable development?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows, coming from the Baie Vert Peninsula, that a great many of his constituents depend for their livelihood on the forests. Now, would the member have me shut down the forest industry in Newfoundland today pending an environmental assessment? Because the hon. member will know that most environmental assessments carried to the extreme take a year or two? Now, I ask the hon. member, does he want me to close down the forest industry on the Baie Verte Peninsula starting now while we do an environmental assessment?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Minister of Education. In the Royal Commission report called, Our Children, Our Future, Recommendations 63 and 64 deal with the changing face of teaching. The teaching profession has changed dramatically in the past few years and recommendation 64 reads, in part, that the Department of Education's consultation with parents and the Newfoundland Teachers' Association calls upon them to convene jointly a provincial symposium on student discipline and attendance with a view to (a) creating a public awareness of the issues, (b) generating a public debate on the issues, (c) seeking ways and means to improve discipline and increase attendance, and (d) sponsoring research designed to identify the magnitude of the problems. Mr. Speaker, could the minister outline the department's initiatives in addressing Recommendations 63 and 64?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I am beginning to wonder if that hon. member is not following me around in the daytime to see exactly what I am doing and where I am going, because just today we had a second meeting with representation from the NTA. We had dinner today at the Stone House, by the way, and before hon. members start accusing me of wasting government money, I would quickly add that the NTA paid for lunch.

We met to discuss specifically these two recommendations, but in addition to the recommendations in the Royal Commission, last spring when the government and teachers were meeting to discuss ways to find savings in our budget, and that sort of thing, we agreed at that time that we would put in place a special committee to deal with the problems of discipline, and so on, in the schools.

So, what is happening now - Dr. Crocker, acting to implement the Royal Commission Report, has some people working on these two specific recommendations but, in addition to that, we have agreed to broaden even Crocker's committee to bring in the NTA and other groups. As a matter of fact, we even discussed some of the people - well, I won't say any names in the House on this particular issue since we haven't yet approached the people we talked about today, Mr. Speaker.

So we are thinking about broadening it. But the issue is well in hand, we are getting excellent co-operation from the various stakeholders that we have asked for assistance, and I would like to pay a special tribute to the NTA, who are making a tremendous contribution to this particular issue, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, many parents, teachers and school board officials are asking the minister to take a new approach to the problems of student discipline and the associated loss of valuable instructional time. Teachers are afraid to chastise students in this Province in some classrooms; students are intimidated by disruptive behaviour of their peers in some classrooms; parents are demanding a more appropriate and positive learning environment, and there must be a solution. If not, all the talk we have had in the last few weeks about restructuring the educational system would be nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

So, Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: Will he take decisive action? I am happy to know that he met today with the Newfoundland Teachers' Association. I implore him to address this very important issue because, in some classrooms, we could extend the valuable instructional time by as much as 50 per cent by trying to address the issues of disruptive behaviour and what that means for the learning environment of far too many students.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is raising some very important issues, and the department is very much aware of these issues.

If I could continue just a little on the line he was talking, there are discipline problems, and then there are discipline problems. I don't think the hon. member is talking about the little boy who pulls on some girl's hair or something - that is not what we are talking about here.

Within this city, there are probably close to twenty extreme discipline problems, Mr. Speaker. Social policy has been made aware of it; the department has been made aware of it. In the old days, where corporal punishment was accepted, children used to be beaten up for these things. Right now we recognize that there is a social problem there which is extremely difficult to tackle, but we are not going to shy away from it, by any means.

We are attempting, as a Department of Education, as a government, in co-operation with anyone who has anything to offer to this, to make sure that this is dealt with in the interest of the child because, as the hon. member points out, the children who are in the classroom where there is a disruptive student, 89 per cent or 90 per cent of the children have a problem, but also don't forget, the children who are causing the problem also have a problem. So we have to try to strike a balance so that we can address the needs of both the child who has a discipline problem as well as the children who are suffering because of that discipline problem, Mr. Speaker.

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

MR. SPEAKER: Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees.

The hon. the Minister -

MR. FLIGHT: I'm not sure I have the right heading to present a report.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you (inaudible) for fifteen years?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I expect to be here fifteen more of them!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, as required by the statutes, I want to table the annual report 1991-1992, 1992-1993, of the Newfoundland Farm Products Corporation. Based on the interest, Mr. Speaker, I'm sure every member will read it.

Notices of Motion

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

MR. MANNING: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow introduce the following private member's resolution:

WHEREAS the five-year federal-provincial rural co-operation agreement expires on March 31, 1994;

AND WHEREAS funding under this agreement supports, among other programs, rural development associations, co-operatives, and local development organizations, to plan and implement economic development programs in rural Newfoundland and Labrador;

BE IT RESOLVED that this House of Assembly supports the negotiation of a new rural co-operation agreement that will continue to fund rural development associations.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, if I may give two notices of motion. I would say to the Pages, I don't have the written notices here.

I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, entitled "An Act To Amend The Automobile Insurance Act".

On behalf of my friend, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, entitled "An Act To Amend The Occupational Health And Safety Act".

Orders of the Day

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, if the House would wish, I would be happy to outline what I have discussed with my colleagues opposite. I may say, I don't present this as an agreed plan, but let me say what I hope we will do.

I will first ask Your Honour to call Order 24, which is Bill 27. That is the adjourned debate on the Forestry Act bill. I believe my friend for St. John's East had adjourned that debate. I will then ask that we go into Committee, Sir, to deal with Motions 1 through 4. Those are all finance bills which would, of course, go through to be debated at Committee stage and then receive their third readings after that.

MR. WINDSOR: Is the Minister of Finance here?

MR. ROBERTS: No, my friend, the Minister of Health, will speak for the government, and I will be here. The Minister of Finance will be away until Thursday.

Mr. Speaker, we will then, if time permits, go into Order 28, Bill 51, which is a very small piece of legislation, to amend the City of St. John's Act. Then again, time permitting, we will go into Order 29, Bill 47, which is the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Amendment Act. Members may be interested in that.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, the plan is to go - and I will refer to the orders on today's Order Paper so members can refer to these: Orders 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 25. Wednesday will be Private Members' Day and we will see how we get along then.

I think, Mr. Speaker, with today's notices, we probably have all of the notices on the Order Paper but I won't - that is not a warranty in the legal sense, but it is my understanding the bills that have been approved by the Ministry for introduction have now been given notice. With that said, Sir, I move the House do not adjourn at 5:00 p.m. today, and when that motion is dealt with, would ask you to call the Forestry Act bill, which is Bill 27, Order 24. Thank you, Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: There is a motion on the floor that we do not now adjourn. Before putting the vote, I recognize the Member for Burin - Placentia West, on a point of order.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to make one thing clear. When the minister gets up and dictates in this Legislature about the House not going to adjourn at 5:00 p.m. and so on, the question still begs the answer, as to why the minister and the government didn't see fit to open the House prior to the latter part of November. What were they doing all of September, October and the earlier part of November that they couldn't open the House? Instead of bringing the House together for a couple of weeks, getting us all in here, Mr. Speaker, trying to push through legislation at the last hour -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TOBIN: - trying to cover it up and hope that -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: We had a week on the Throne Speech - nothing ready.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that is the another thing, we had a week on the Throne Speech because they had no legislation ready to bring before the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member, as he knows, is not raising a point of order. The government leader doesn't dictate to the House on these issues. It brings to the House a motion and it is up to the House to decide its own procedure. So I rule there is no point of order, and unless there are further matters -

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, our Standing Orders are very clear on adjournment. I refer to Standing Order No. 7, of our own Standing Orders which says, `if at the hour of 5:00 p.m., except on Wednesday and Thursday, the business of the House is not concluded, Mr. Speaker shall leave the Chair until 8:00 p.m.' What the minister is proposing now is to change the Standing Orders. There is a procedure for changing the Standing Orders. It is not something that can be done on the whim of the minister opposite. Our Standing Orders govern. The House can be master of its own rule but can't change Standing Orders except by going through the motion of changing a Standing Order, which requires Notice of Motion and all the rest that is very clearly laid down in our rules and in Beauchesne.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes. I believe I addressed - I don't need to hear from the Government House Leader. The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl raised the same issue last spring, I believe, essentially, the departure from the Standing Orders, and checking precedent at the time, as I indicated, I believe the hon. member is probably correct in terms of the original intent of the rules; although I did come across a reference to the supper break - the hon. member suggested it was for the benefit of members, apparently it was not, it was for the benefit of Speakers and was known as the Speaker's Chop, because the speaker used to, of course, eat lamb in those days, and I guess it is certainly going to get the chop in a lot of legislatures but certainly the government by virtue of precedence, if nothing else, has a right to propose a motion to the House and if the House passes it, to depart from the procedure in that fashion. So I don't think it is a point of order that I could hold as being valid under the circumstances.

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Not to question Your Honour, but I would submit to Your Honour that I think you - if I read what you have said correctly, you have admitted that the mistake has been made in the past and therefore that is a precedent. I would submit that a precedent that was made by way of a mistake is not a precedent that this House should follow. If the government wanted to change the Standing Orders to allow the procedure they are now proposing, they have had ample time to change the Standing Orders and the precedent that was an error should not be followed as a precedent but we should stand by the rules of the House, as clearly laid down in the Standing Orders, until they are properly changed.

MR. SPEAKER: With respect to the hon. member's position, the other part of our procedure is not only what is written in the rules but the precedence that has been followed and certainly, as I will point out, goes back to at least 1950 or 1949. Our rules are in variance with our practice and substantial variance particularly on our meeting times and so on, but notwithstanding that, I share some sympathy for the member's view. I really believe that, in the nature of the sort of rulings I have to make, that the precedent is clear and binding and I should follow it.

MR. WINDSOR: Why are the Standing Orders around here if we are not going to follow them?

MR. SPEAKER: Well on that point, we are not following many of our Standing Orders at times but certainly the government has a right to put the motion to the House. In the absence of further points of order I will put the motion.

All those in favour of not adjourning at the regular time of 5:00 p.m., `aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Those against, 'nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: The `ayes' have it.

Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: If that matter has been disposed of by the House, could we have the Forestry Act - Order 24, Bill 27, and my recollection is that the gentleman for St. John's East had the floor.

MR. SPEAKER: Order 24, the bill to amend the Forestry Act.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Friday, I was engaged in this debate concerning Bill 27, "An Act To Amend The Forestry Act," and in doing so, I know some hon. members are asking, `What does the Member for St. John's East know about the forests?' Well, I want to tell hon. members that I know as much about the foresst as I do about anything else, as the member says. I am not a forestry expert or a forestry scientist but I can read, Mr. Speaker, and having heard what the minister said in the House today about the forestry being managed properly, I can only quote him back his own words which he said on December 8, 1992, when he tabled this report in the House, in which he said that although the forests are being managed better now than ever the analysis clearly shows that on the Island we are presently harvesting more timber than we should. So we are not, Mr. Speaker, managing the forests in a proper way and, in fact, not only that, the plan for the next twenty years is to over-cut the forests by 25 per cent over-cut on a yearly basis, based on the management strategy set forth on page 90, of his own report. the report says, in dealing with the years 1990 to 2009, that the management strategy reveals first of all, that there is a deficit of 17 per cent per year above the available wood supply, projected to increase to nearly 600,000 cubic metres per year or 25 per cent over-cut during the period 1994 to 2009, so for the next fifteen years, Mr. Speaker, the plan is to over-cut the timber supply by 25 per cent.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the other part of the strategy is to somehow or other increase the yield by 30 per cent from the existing forests and there are a few pie-in-the-sky projections placed there, which I would put in the same category as the optimism shown by the fisheries scientists for the last ten years about the availability of fish in the sea. I put it in the same category, because we are on the same brink with respect to our forests as we have been with respect to the fisheries for the last ten or fifteen years and most people, except the fisherman didn't seem to be prepared to admit it.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am not satisfied with what the minister had to say here this afternoon in answer to the question by the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay. I am not satisfied at all, because what he said was this - when he was asked whether or not this report had been subjected to environmental review, he misled the House. He said this report had been out for public hearings for the last twelve months. Well, Mr. Speaker, let me tell you what this report says about environmental issues, and in this 135-page report, it only spends two little paragraphs on the top of page 27 on environmental assessment, only two paragraphs, and what does it say, Mr. Speaker?

It says: It wasn't acknowledged that the Environmental Assessment Act has never been applied so far to the forestry issue because it has been exempted. What it says, is that the five-year forest management plans for each forest manager are to be submitted for registration with the Department of Environment and a schedule has been agreed to which details when the plans will be registered. It lists a number that have been registered and it says, in the interim, one-year exemptions have been provided. Other resource users had provided guidelines for forestry to follow when operating during the exempted years. So the plan, Mr. Speaker, is to exempt forestry for the next four or five or six years until all these plans had been assessed. So, Mr. Speaker, when the minister tries to suggest to the public and to this House, that this twenty-year forestry plan has been for the last year, subject to public hearings, and has all been approved and environment have looked at it, then he is misleading this House, Mr. Speaker. I am not saying he is doing it deliberately, I am saying he is doing it because he doesn't seem to understand what his own reports had to say.

Now, let us go back to the issue of harvesters. I raised it on Friday, the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay raised it again today; and again, I don't come here as an expert in all issues of forest management, they are all issues of forestry biology, but I can tell you this, Mr. Speaker, in terms of common sense, when you have - there are two kinds of harvesters, and I will tell the Member for St. John's South, who would be very interested in these issues. I know he is very interested in areas outside the urban area because he is the Premier's Executive Assistant and has to inform himself on issues all over the Province, and he would be very interested in knowing there are two kinds of harvesters operating in the Province, two kinds, one being used by Abitibi - Price, which operates within the woods and it cuts down the trees, limbs them on the spot, lays them down and someone carts them away.

There is a second kind that is being used by Kruger, Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, called the whole tree harvester, which chops down the tree, the whole tree, limbs and all - limbs, branches, needles, everything that goes with it, buds, regeneration, everything that is taken with the tree is taken out to the road, taken out to one spot and at that place, Mr. Speaker, there they are limbed and all of the biological materials, all the rest of the tree, except the stem, that is being cut up and used for pulp or, perhaps hopefully some are for saw logs, but all the rest of that tree goes out to the road and the debris from those trees, all the biological material, the nutrient that would be put back into the soil in the area where the tree was growing, doesn't go back. It stays out on the road, in one place like some big, overgrown compost heap. The nutrients that were in the soil where the tree was growing for the last forty, fifty or sixty years, those nutrients are now nowhere near where they were, and these mechanical harvesters, which are huge machines, which are going into the forests already disturbing and destroying a very thin soil, are also taking the nutrients - not just the trees, but all the other nutrients - out of the forest, as well.

I don't have to be a forestry biologist, or a tree harvester, or a forester, to know that can't be good for the forest soil that is left. Someone has to replace those nutrients that are being taken out of the forest unnecessarily.

Mr. Speaker, that hasn't been dealt with by the minister. I haven't heard the minister say one word about it - not one - and those harvesters are brought into this Province without any environmental review being done, without being subject to the Environmental Assessment Act, without being subject to the kind of review that every little factory or plant, or anybody else who wants to set up a business in this Province, has to go through.

It deserves scrutiny, Mr. Speaker. We have individuals in this Province who are travelling all the way to British Columbia to protest about the forests of British Columbia, and here in our own Province we are allowing this kind of stuff to go on without proper environmental review, not just of the five-year plan - we are seeing the five-year plan now, finally, at long last, being subject, over time, to some sort of review - but we are not seeing the forestry techniques being submitted to review, and we are not seeing the minister's own regulations being submitted for review. We are not seeing the proper kind of environmental assessment that is needed.

So I think, Mr. Speaker, we have an emerging crisis in our forestry industry - an emerging crisis recognized by reading between the lines of this report here. When we say for the next fifteen years there will be a 25 per cent over-cut during the years 1994-2009, I am very worried, Mr. Speaker.

We have, down at the bottom, a projection or a hope - and I will just call it a hope, Mr. Speaker - a planning hope, a hope to increase the available wood supply by 30 per cent by the following approaches, and there is just a sort of list of them. It is the forestry manager's wish list, Mr. Speaker, on which they are risking the entire future of our forest industry in a forest management wish list.

They want to increase the rate of growth by silviculture, and the resulting annual allowable cut increase - the resulting AC - could increase the supply by 10 per cent to 15 per cent - `could increase'. That is what it says.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture shakes his head. Every time I hear the minister speak, I shake my head.

This is a hope, a wish list. Then they say: Improving or at least maintaining the effectiveness of the insect and fire protection programs. That is going to, somehow or other, increase the utilization of the forests - again, a wish list, a hope, without any projections related to it, or any explanations as to why or how that might happen.

Increasing the level of utilization in harvesting operations, recover more softwood fibre per hectare. This could produce an additional 10 per cent over time.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: That is not accurate, the minister says. Well, if it is not accurate, Mr. Speaker, why is the minister relying on it in projecting a 25 per cent over-cut? That is what I would like to know. And why are we having a situation now where these $500,000 harvesters are coming in, each of them replacing ten loggers.

The minister laughs. The minister thinks it is funny that there are ten loggers unemployed each time a harvester comes in. He laughs but, Mr. Speaker, that is reflected every year in our unemployment rate, in the obligations of the Minister of Social Services to look after people in this Province, when more and more the number of loggers are going down year after year. We see that happening over time, Mr. Speaker. We see greater mechanization in the forest, and I have no doubt there have been changes. I am not suggesting, as the former leader of the Liberal Party suggested, that we should dig tunnels from the Strait of Bell Isle with soup spoons or picks and shovels to create employment. I am not suggesting we go back to harvesting trees with a hacksaw, Mr. Speaker. I am not suggesting we go back and cut down trees with an axe or a saw, Mr. Speaker. The chain-saw is here and that is obviously the tool that is used by loggers. The mechanical harvesters are not appropriate to our forests, they are not appropriate to our soil conditions, they are not appropriate to our environmental conditions, they are not appropriate to our landscape. I think they have not been properly subjected to the right environmental tests and when they do I would be very surprised if they come out showing they can effectively harvest wood without damaging the environment. If the minister believed they could he would have ensured that that process was undertaken to make sure that the proper consideration was given, and in order to make sure that the environmental concerns were dealt with before these harvesters were put in place.

I want to talk about another issue in terms of utilization of our forest resources. The Forestry Development Plan recognizes that there has been a poor history of harvesting on Crown lands, for example. In fact one of the reasons given for the timber supply deficit - I know the minister has his back turned to me and I know he does not want to hear more about this because he seems to want to live in the dark on these issues. The timber supply deficit is a product of two decades of attack by the spruce budworm and the hemlock looper and an even longer history of unregulated timber harvesting on Crown lands, so we have a serious problem, and I want to know what the minister himself is doing about it, as the man responsible for the department that oversees the timber use in our areas?

Perhaps when the minister gets up to speak he can tell us, and maybe if he does not tell us I will put it on the Order Paper, how many sawmill permits has the minister issued in the last five years? Perhaps he could tell us that on a year by year basis? Perhaps I will have to put it on the Order Paper to get the proper answer. I will do that because that is a very interesting question, Mr. Speaker. We have a large number of sawmill permits out there and many of them are inactive, some of them are issued to satisfy the political needs of the minister or the minister's colleagues on the Liberal benches, and what is happening is that some land that has been properly harvested is being passed over to the unregulated harvest by sawmill operators who are not doing a proper job.

In many cases, having great difficulty operating, but nevertheless are able to make a few dollars themselves but not necessarily pay the people they employ very well. I would like the minister to tell us what his plans are for the sawmill harvesters. I think what is happening to the forestry industry is the kind of thing that happened in a way to the fishing industry over the last while - the minister laughs. He thinks it is funny. The fishing industry in this Province has been made the industry of last resort, where if somebody does not have a job he will go in a boat, and now the Minister of Forestry says, well, if you do not have a job you should go in the woods and cut a few sticks, go in the woods and cut a few pulp sticks, go in the woods and cut a few pieces of timber.

What is going to happen to the timber industry with this kind of use of the timber resource for the short-term political purposes of the minister and the minister's colleagues on the Liberal side of the House is the same thing that happened to the fishery. Everybody is at it, everybody is trying to make a living from it, and the resource cannot handle it so there has to be some greater regulation of the industry, Mr. Speaker. In the last year or so we have seen very angry people from the Bonavista Peninsula because they have been cut out of any participation in decision making over the use of the forest resources. I am very sympathetic to them, Mr. Speaker. I have had a number of discussions and meetings with the people from that area who are concerned about the use of forests. They are concerned for themselves, for their communities, for their children and for their children's children. The long-term use of that resource has to have - the communities which depend on them being involved in making decisions, in planning the use of that forest.

Mr. Speaker, when we look at the use of resources in our Province, natural resources, renewable resources, it is very clear that the people who live in those areas, the areas around those forests, are the ones who are going to - whose communities, and the existence of whose communities, are going to depend on the use of that resource. While we have to have management and regulations that control these things there must be a method by which the communities in those areas can participate in decisions about the use of that forest.

I know even the twenty-year forestry development plan recognizes that clear cutting is not the way to go in the utilization of much of our forest resources. We see that our timber stands are not the same kind of timber stands that have been subject to clear cutting in other countries and other areas. They don't have the same fast growth replacement. They don't have the same size of timber that responds to clear cutting and grows fast to replace it. We have a lot of marginal forest. The economics of clear cutting is based on taking out everything. You must take out everything, and the devastation that is left behind takes many years to recover and may not even recover at all.

Even the areas where clear cutting was introduced, it is now being discovered that when you clear cut and you replace that with a single culture tree, a single type of tree - it is called a monoculture - that that might get you a second cut in thirty or forty or sixty years time, but you are very unlikely to get a third cut out of it because of the amount of nutrients you are taking out of the soil.

That is something that farmers recognize. I know the Member for Exploits is very familiar with farming. We know that you can't put the same crop in the same ground year after year and continue to get results. The minister remembers that from Grade IV geography. It is called crop rotation, invented many thousands of years ago. The same problem exists.

MR. GRIMES: I learned it better in my second year (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: In the minister's second year in Grade IV he learned it even better than in the first year, he says. We all know, Mr. Speaker, that if you plant the same crop year after year in the same soil the nutrients are going to be gone and you won't get that crop to go. So what is done is crop rotation.

In clear cutting a whole forest is taken away. A monoculture, a single tree, is put back to grow because that is what the forest companies want. That might work once, it might even work twice, but I think we know that it is not going to work forever. Management techniques have to be developed that are going to be sustainable themselves and ensure not only that you have the forest but you also have the multiple use environment that can still exist in that forest. Because a forest is not just wood fibre growing in the ground. The forest is the animals that live there, the birds that live there and fly through there and sing there and create an environment. All of that makes up the forest that gets used for recreational purposes, it gets used for industrial purposes, it gets used for tourist purposes and everything else.

All of that has to take place in the same area of ground, and all of the users of that forest have to be able to play a role in determining what the forest is going to be used for. I don't see the kind of vision and determination that is required to enforce such a regime on the paper companies of this Province to allow them to operate, of course, but at the same time ensure that we have maximum utilization of the forest.

I mentioned Friday that one of the persistent problems in our construction industry in Newfoundland is the lack of available local lumber for construction purposes. We still import fully two-thirds, I believe it is, of the wood. Two-thirds of the lumber that we use in this Province is imported from outside the Province, and that is a consistent year in, year out -

AN HON. MEMBER: More than that.

MR. HARRIS: More than that, the Member for Humber Valley says, and I would challenge the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture to give us the proper information if we are wrong in saying that the minister's department has not done anything to significantly increase the output of lumber from our own forests.

I notice he made a Ministerial Statement last year where he was so proud of the fact that there was some lumber being exported to Europe from the Roddickton area, and I think that is a very positive thing - obviously a very specialized product, hopefully a very great deal of value added, and a return to this Province, but we are not able, Mr. Speaker, to maximize our use of lumber. We still see an incredibly large amount of birch hardwood going into firewood that could be turned into furniture. It could be turned into birch hardwood flooring. It could be turned into other products instead of being burned in fires, burned to heat homes, and would thereby have a tremendous amount of value added. If that birch could be turned into an industrial product, it would certainly increase the value and offset the alternative energy costs that might be associated with heating your home in a different fashion.

We do not see the kind of vision that would be required to develop that industry in this Province from this government and from this ministry, and I ask the minister to deal with these problems. I ask the minister to deal with these problems, because they are significant problems, and there are ways in which we can increase our economic output, where we can return value added to our people, where we can give entrepreneurs a chance to develop new products, and new products line, but we must have a management plan that aims not just to sustain the forest, but to make sure that the utilization of the forest is maximized for the benefit of the people of this Province and not just for the shareholders of Abitibi-Price or the shareholders of Corner Brook Pulp and Paper.

I know that the government is very interested in shareholders. We have had a lot of talk about it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I note that my time is up and I hope, when the minister rises to speak to this, he will address some of these problems that are very significant problems in our forestry industry today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. minister now speaks, he will close debate.

The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I cannot quite hear the hon. minister.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, in as far as the bill is concerned, proposing the amendments to the act, obviously neither the official spokesman for the Official Opposition nor the Member for St. John's East had any real problems because they never referred, in either of their speeches, to the amendment. As a matter of fact, they acknowledged that it was indeed housekeeping and they had no problem with it. Of course they went on and took advantage of the amendment to talk about other things - some people knowing what they were talking about, and others not knowing what they were talking about, Mr. Speaker.

Now there is no question that the Member for Baie Verte lives in that area. He is somewhat familiar with forestry. He knows that a lot of his constituents depend on the forestry for their livelihood, and he should know - or he had better get to know quickly - that some of the things inherent in the comments he was making would not augur well for the future of that industry on the Baie Verte Peninsula. So the member wants to be careful.

Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns that the hon. member has always had is my comment that 'trees don't swim', so I will take a minute now to try to clarify it. I said it. It was a flight of wit, I thought, and the next day the hon. member went out and pumped out a press release saying how irresponsible it was for the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture to make these kind of statements, and he had a couple of minutes on the radio. I understand that, because I did it, too, when I was sitting over there, Mr. Speaker, but he should get to understand something.

It is a fact that the Department of Forestry and Agriculture in this Province today has an inventory of existing wood, and wood that will grow, and the various age classes, and they operate on an annual allowable cut with sustainable development - and it does not matter whether that wood is cut by feller bunchers; it does not matter if it is cut with chain-saws; it does not matter if it is cut with axes and saws. You are still only going to cut the same amount of wood.

Now there may be some concern, and it is being looked at now. I am not saying there is some concern. I am saying that people are expressing concern about the potential for environmental damage, the loss of nutrients with feller bunchers. Now people express concerns with skidders, they talk about the damage with skidders, they talk about the damage with forwarders, they talk about the damages with every piece of equipment in the forests. Well, Mr. Speaker, to use another line that the member might call irresponsible, there is an old saying that you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs; well you cannot go in and move the kind of wood that we have to move to maintain the production of those three paper mills and the saw log industry in this Province without making what some people would call a mess in the forest, it cannot be done and the member should not be hypocritical about it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh. oh!

MR. FLIGHT: The member should talk to the Member for Humber Valley so, Mr. Speaker -

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

MR. FLIGHT: The member should remember. Let me tell the hon. member that there has not been one new sawmill permit issued in this Province for the last three years. There has not been one new cutting permit issued. Every cutter in this Province has had his permit reduced in an effort to stay within an annual allowable cut. There are very few members of this House who have not come to me and pleaded to increase cutting permits, to issue new cutting permits, so, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member representing the Opposition would have to be responsible. The hon. Member for St. John's East has nothing to be responsible about; he does not have to be responsible to anybody, but the hon. member should be.

Firewood, he raised the question of firewood. It has been an historical and traditional right in this Province for 400 years for Newfoundlanders to cut enough firewood to heat their homes. Now, would the hon. member have me stop that? Would the member have me discontinue this right?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FLIGHT: Is that right? Now the member is either blind or arguing for arguments sake. I have just finished telling the member that, now are you questioning the ability of the officials in the Department of Forestry and Agriculture or Abitibi-Price or Kruger to determine the amount of wood inventory in this Province?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: You don't believe that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) accommodation.

MR. FLIGHT: Accommodation? well I am telling the member that we are operating on a sustainable basis; that the -

AN HON. MEMBER: What (inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: That's it. The member discounts it; 100 per cent utilization. He discounted the effect that thinning will have and we are spending millions of dollars per year on thinning; he discounted the fact that we can import and have imported wood from Labrador, and let me ask the hon. member this: Is the hon. member for or against, bringing in wood from PEI and Nova Scotia?

AN HON. MEMBER: Against.

MR. FLIGHT: Against. He is against bringing in wood from PEI and Nova Scotia and he is against cutting it, so does the member want the people who are making a living in forestry today to stay or does he want to close it all down?

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

MR. SHELLEY: I am not sure where the minister is coming from. I did not realize that I had turned to the government's side and suddenly, now, I am on Question Period, but if the minister wants to ask me some questions, as long as I can get up and respond to him, I will do that, but I have not been here for fifteen years. The minister made a mistake a little while ago when he got up in the House, I am not too sure about it, I will admit that, but he is questioning me and if I can get up and answer the questions that is fine-

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SHELLEY: - he can ask me but right now I do not know where he is coming from.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order. I was tempted to interrupt earlier because the minister and the member were talking across the House, posing questions and answers, and it is not proper and I don't think either party should be questioning or answering the other as far as that goes in debate, so I would ask the hon. minister to continue.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member might as well accept it, he cannot have it both ways. He cannot maintain the level of jobs that the forest industry in this Province has supported this past twenty-five or thirty years, and they supported them on the basis of these past ten years of an annual allowable cut that is based on sustainable development. Now he cannot have it both ways. He cannot have the jobs in his area or all the jobs in Newfoundland supported by the forest industry and then not permit the paper companies or the sawmillers-

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FLIGHT: - to harvest. He cannot have it both ways. He might as well accept the facts, Mr. Speaker. If I'm going to maintain the level of forest activity we have in this Province that supports three mills, supports the sawmilling industry, then we have to cut the trees to do it and we have to use the technology that is available. We are doing it in an environmentally sensitive manner. It is being done in an environmentally acceptable manner. The hon. member should be careful. The hon. member can't hold with the hares and run with the hounds, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, let me point out to the hon. member something about domestic firewood cutters. Almost every person who lives in rural Newfoundland cuts firewood to heat their homes. Those domestic cutters, firewood cutters, require a cutting permit. These past two or three years they have been directed to cut in low volume stands, insect kill stands, the hardwood stands, birch, asp, juniper. It is against the law in this Province today to cut prime pulpwood or prime saw log material for firewood.

The member knows that but he won't acknowledge it. He gets up and says: the forestry is going to go the way the fishery is going to go. Mr. Speaker, I will make sure of something now. I will make sure that the sawmillers and the pulpwood producers on the Baie Verte Peninsula, for instance - because I know that he is very concerned and I know that he is well aware - I will make sure if we have to get into environmental assessments, I have been on the Bonavista Peninsula. There are no feller bunchers that I'm aware of operating mechanical harvesters by the paper companies on the Baie Verte Peninsula. I may be wrong. Is there...?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. FLIGHT: Pardon me?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, the member should appreciate the jobs that are provided on the Baie Verte Peninsula by the forest industry. He should appreciate the jobs that are created in the district of the Leader of the Opposition from the forestry industry. Or the Member for Humber Valley. Most of the members in this House, Mr. Speaker.

For the first time in the history of forestry in Newfoundland we are implementing rules and regulations that will guarantee the established industries the level of cut in this Province can be maintained forever.

MR. SHELLEY: That is a guarantee.

MR. FLIGHT: That is a guarantee.

MR. SHELLEY: I will remember that.

MR. FLIGHT: Fine, remember it. Let me tell the hon. member, a lot of things have to happen. We have to make sure we stop burning pulpwood and prime saw logs for firewood. We have to get 100 per cent utilization. We have to look at the mix of bringing wood in from Labrador. We have to make sure that the paper companies harvest what up till now was considered uneconomical wood. Build more access, longer access. We have to do all that. If we do all that - and we are doing it now - then there will be no question about the forest industry in Newfoundland being able to sustain the level of development and jobs that we have now. We probably will never be able to exceed the number that we have now, depending again on what might happen in Labrador when the various issues up there are resolved, Mr. Speaker.

So the hon. member should take a good look at what is happening in forestry. He should be more complementary to the people who are designing forestry products in this Province because they too are aware. Their biggest commitment to their jobs is to make sure that ten, twenty or twenty-five years from now the forest industry in Newfoundland can sustain at least the number of jobs that it is providing for now.

I move second reading, Mr. Speaker.

On motion, a Bill, "An Act To Amend The Forestry Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 27)

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, could we now go on to the motions, perhaps taking first Motion No. 2, where there will be a message from His Honour, of course, and then thereafter would the Committee deal with Motions 1 through 4?

MR. SPEAKER: Motion No. 2, Bill No. 53. That we resolve ourselves into a Committee of the Whole to consider Certain Resolutions for the Granting of Supplementary Supply to Her Majesty.

The hon. the Minister of Health.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleague the Minister of Finance I wish to say that I have received a message from His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

To the hon. the Minister of Finance:

I, the Administrator of the Province of Newfoundland, transmit supplementary Estimates of sums required for the Public Service of the Province for the year ending March 31, 1993. By way of supplementary supply and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867, I recommend these estimates to the House of Assembly.

Sgd.:___________________________________

Noel Goodridge, Chief Justice as Administrator.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of new members (inaudible)

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

MR. ROBERTS: The Constitution Act, formerly known as the British North America Act requires that the House may not deal with estimates of expenditure without the approval of the Crown, in this case the Lieutenant-Governor, that approval comes in the form of a message signed by the Lieutenant-Governor, or in this case the administrator, the hon. Noel Goodridge the Chief Justice of Newfoundland. The tradition is that when a message from the Governor is read by His Honour we all stand, so I say for the benefit of new members it was not simply a seventh inning stretch.

Your Honour, if we could perhaps go into Committee now and deal with these motions?

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!

Motion No. 2.

The hon. the Minister of Health.

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Bill 53 which is basically the Supplementary Supply Bill for $42,360,000 and as the schedule indicates the Department of Finance requires $4.56 million, Employment and Labour Relations, $7.5 million, Municipal and Provincial Affairs, $1 million, and Social Services, $29.3 million. A little bit more detail, Mr. Speaker. On the finance requirement this is basically money which is required for the abolition of the school tax, the department had to incur some additional expenses in order to wind up the school tax authorities, having to do with some severance pay involved there, some refunds, tax collection costs, and so on. The net amount was $4.56 million. The Employment and Labour Relations amount of $7.5 million consists of $5 million to cover expenditures for job creation initiatives associated with the Emergency Response Program, and $2.5 million for additional funds for employment generation strategy. The $1 million for Municipal and Provincial Affairs was for a special warrant to provide additional funds for job creation activities, and the amount of $29.3 million for Social Services was $5 million for job creation initiatives, and $21.8 million for additional funds for the continuing programs in Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: First of all before addressing this bill I guess I should address questions to the Government House Leader as to why we are bringing these four finance bills before the House today in the absence of the Minister of Finance who should be here to defend these bills. I know there is nothing stopping government from having another minister, a former minister, or whoever, the House Leader himself could introduce the bills, but it is somewhat irregular not to have the Minister of Finance in his place. These bills could be done tomorrow or the next day, whenever the minister gets back.

I yield to the minister.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, we are in committee, of course, and members may speak more than once. My hon. friend acknowledges that there is nothing irregular or unusual about it. It is simply that my friend, the Minister of Finance, has a long-standing commitment that will take him out of the Province until - he may be here by the end of this week; we expect that he will be - but he has a long-standing commitment, and given two things, we decided to go ahead. One is the fact that the House is anxious to move on with its matters and, number two, there is nothing in these four bills that is, in any way, unusual or represents a new departure in policy.

The supplementary supply is for the 1992-'93 year. The Income Tax Act implements amendments announced last year in the statement in December, and the two loan and guarantee bills are simply the routine annual authorizations of money that have been spent. So in that light the decision was taken that we would go ahead. The ministry are here to answer, and we shall gladly answer.

The Minister of Finance will be here for the Tobacco Tax Act, which is one of our major substantive changes. That will not be called until he is back in the House.

Now that is what I can say by way of answer. It may or may not satisfy my hon. friend, but that is what I would say to him by way of answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the Government House Leader for that; however, it does not change anything. The Minister of Finance should be here. There may well be many questions. These are generally routine pieces of business, as the minister says. I do not disagree with that, but there are still lots of questions, and the Minister of Health, when he was Minister of Finance, answered no questions. We hardly expect him to answer any now when he is Minister of Health. He is a very unacceptable substitute for the Minister of Finance who normally is quite co-operative and gives us the kind of information that we need.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: All we ever got from the Minister of Health, when he was Minister of Finance, was `yes', `no'. Even in Question Period his answer was `yes' and `no'.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, we are stuck with him today, but I think it should be pointed out to the House that there is no reason, I say to the House Leader, that these bills could not have been called on Friday, or on Thursday. They have all been here on the Order Paper. We could have had them, and could have done them on Thursday or Friday, if they are so routine, when the minister was here, so there is no excuse at all for this.

Now let us just look at some of the items in this particular bill. Under finance, $4.56 million, the minister tells us, to abolish school tax, to deal with that. Obviously the government's estimates of revenue from abolishing the school tax, or the costs involved therewith, were way off base, as most of their estimates have been. They have found that they had severance to pay. I guess they forgot that when they decided to take over the school tax system - that there would be severance involved in eliminating many positions that were eliminated. They tried to tell us that there would not be a great job loss associated with eliminating the school tax. We found out afterwards that indeed there was and, in fact, part of this $4.5 million results from the payment of severance pay.

Other parts of it, the minister tells us, deal with refunds and collection costs. Not only refunds - I wonder how many bad debts were there. I wonder how far off the government was in their estimate of how much they expected to collect from the school tax authorities, that was left there on the books as owing, or was it indeed owing. Maybe it was not owing. Maybe it was simply something that was being disputed by those who had taxes levied against them.

We had many problems, of course, with the School Tax Authority, people arguing that they had been taxed unfairly and unjustly, and it took some time to straighten that out. I suspect what the Minister of Finance has found now is that many of those people who disputed those matters were quite correct in disputing them, and that indeed the amounts that were there as owing were not really owing.

Mr. Chairman, $7.5 million job creation - the Emergency Response Program - there is a misnomer if one ever saw one. Every year since this government has been in power we have told them: You do not have enough money in your budget. You will need to create some short-term employment for those who are not in a position to support themselves for the balance of the year.

They continually tried to convince the people of this Province that they were going to create long-term employment - jobs by the thousands - so we will not need the short make-work projects. Well we know that this government's record is a dismal failure in creating employment in this Province - a dismal failure. Jobs today, or unemployment is higher today than it has ever been. What is the - no, I won't say what I was going to say - the hon. gentleman for Fogo, what is he nattering about down there now? Why doesn't he go back over to Social Services and face what he ran away from over there - go over and face up to the mess that he created when he was jammed into Social Services? on his qualifications no doubt. The great Premier that talked so much about putting people into positions based on their qualifications. I would like to see what the hon. gentleman's qualifications were to be Assistant Deputy Minister of Social Services - none except that he had been a Liberal member in the House of Assembly, that is all - the only qualification he had. He did nothing when he was there. He was totally ignored by everybody over there, by his staff and everybody else who came in.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, I am not here to waste my time on the Member for Fogo. He is of no consequence. We will get back to this job creation program, this emergency response program, I say to the House, Mr. Chairman, that it is not an emergency job creation program at all, it was an absolute necessity that government very deliberately did not put in their estimates at budget time. We told them that they would not get through the year, that they were cooking the books by refusing to put a job creation program in there. There was nothing in their budgets for job creation, knowing that they would come in at the end of the year with a Special Warrant and here we are, $7.5 million - and we will have another this year. The minister has already spent $6 million or $7 million this year in an emergency response program.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: There is a good one, Mr. Chairman: we all got letters from the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations - as members, we all got letters saying, `We have this program, here are the terms and conditions, get your applications in to us right away.' We got that on a Wednesday, I believe, and the applications were to be in on Thursday and approved by Friday. Now, that gave us twenty-four hours as I recall, from the time I got the letter - it may have been mailed a couple of days earlier, but it gave us about twenty-four hours to get groups from our district to put together something. Now, the key point, before I get on to the rest of it, is that you have groups now that have twenty-four hours to put together a project. If government had had in their Budget the $6 million that was spent this year or the $7.5 million that was spent last year, if they had said there will be a program and received applications properly, gave the groups and organizations time to properly prepare projects, to properly research them and plan them, to have proper things in place so that the money is not being wasted, we would have accomplished a great deal more from this program, but again, it wasn't done. An emergency response program - the only emergency associated with it was an emergency that has been going on ever since this government took office, that of the gross unemployment rate that we are faced with and an emergency to which you had twenty-four hours to respond with projects. Now, Mr. Chairman, some groups and organizations had them there. I would be very interested if the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations would give us a list of all of the funds approved under that emergency program, district by district this year. Would the minister undertake to do that so that we can see where the funds were approved, Mr. Chairman? I think you will find it very interesting.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I got none in my riding. I will correct that, the city council, I think, in conjunction with Rotary, did get some but it is for the Waterford Valley (inaudible) Park, and it goes for two or three ridings and that's about it. That one slipped through, I suspect.

Mr. Chairman, when constituents call to find out how they would get employed, what were they told? `Call your MHA. The MHAs have all of the information, they will tell you how to get hired.' Now, when constituents were being told that, MHAs knew nothing about the program. The only information that I had on my desk when I started getting calls from my constituents was what I read in The Evening Telegram. The next day I got a copy of the Press release and the day after that I got a note from the minister's office saying: The program is in place, here are the terms and conditions, here is what is required in order to apply, and here are application forms, and all the rest of it.

But I had two or three dozen phone calls prior to that from constituents who were asking me: How do I get a job? All that I could say to them, Mr. Chairman, was: First of all, we don't have the jobs. The funds will be provided to community groups and organizations that apply. We don't know who is going to apply yet, but they haven't got much time to do it. We don't know which ones will be approved, but as soon as they are approved we will phone you. As soon as we know what jobs are approved, and who the contact person is for that organization that is doing the hiring, we will call you back.

So I kept in touch with the minister's office, and I will give credit where credit is due - there was a lady in his office, I won't name her, but she was very co-operative and she did give me whatever information was available to her. She was very patient with me, because I called her I would say thirty times, waiting for this information. Because it was supposed to be approved on Friday. I believe it was the 6th or the 7th of the month, the minister said in his letter. I can get the letter for the minister. But was it approved on the 6th or the 7th of the month? No. It was about two weeks after that, before the projects were approved. Then, hardly any of those that were submitted, were approved in the area - let alone in my district itself, but even in the area.

So all the minister did was cause hundreds of people to call their MHAs looking for work, knowing full well that the MHAs couldn't hire them anyway, that it was the groups and organizations that were eventually going to do the hiring. Yet he referred them to us before we even had any information on what was entailed in the program. When I heard that finally some approvals had been made, and I called his office to find out which projects had been approved, do you know what I was told? `We will let you know when the other groups and organizations are notified.' So he liked to use the MHAs as a buffer so that whenever an individual who was desperate for work wanted a job called his office, they said: `You have to call your MHA,' but when the approvals were given, we were the last to know.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: They were announced publicly, always announced publicly. We never ever told anybody to call their MHA. Hundreds and hundreds of phone calls came into MHAs' offices. It is just a political game by the minister and by the government, to try to deflect the fact that they had this $6 million program and all calls were to go all of the MHAs, yet he gave us absolutely no information, and when he finally got about to approving it, Mr. Chairman, we were the last to be given the information. I was told by his office: I can't release it to you until we notify all the groups. So all our groups who, in the first instance, were told: `Call your MHA,' now they are not going to give the information.

It is the biggest sham you have ever seen to call that an Emergency Response Program. The $5 million job creation under social assistance? Same thing. This hon. crowd opposite, tried to convince us that they didn't need these types of programs - no need of it whatsoever. Cooking the books is all it is. They should have known - they did know, I submit. I submit they did know they were going to need that $10 or $12 million for these make-work programs in this Province, at a time when we have record unemployment, we are into a recession. The economy is falling to pieces thanks to their lack of action on the economy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave!

MR. WINDSOR: I will have another shot at it, Mr. Chairman, no problem.

Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. ROBERTS: No, somebody has to speak in between, I think.

MR. WINDSOR: No, they do not. We have been ruled on many times before, Mr. Chairman. If hon. members fail to exercise their right and their responsibility to stand up in this House and speak to a bill, then I have every right to stand up and be recognized as often as I want to.

Let the record show that nobody over there has anything to say about this $42 million that the minister wants approved retroactively. It is already spent. There is nothing we can do about it. They are going to ram it through the House one of these days.

MR. EFFORD: Sit down, then.

MR. WINDSOR: I did sit down, and the minister missed his chance to stand up. It would be nice to get Minister Gulliver there, who travels all over the world, to stand in his place and speak for a change.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Well, I hate to tell the hon. the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, Mr. Chairman, the garbage we are getting on with is our right and responsibility in the people's House. Maybe if he spent a little more time participating in the democratic exercise here, he would have a greater appreciation for it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible). Ran away from the House for a whole year.

MR. WINDSOR: Ran away from absolutely nothing, Mr. Chairman. The House was open more when we were in power than it will ever be here. Maybe the minister would like to tell us why we didn't open until the end of November - the latest time that we have opened since 1979.

In 1979 - the first year that Premier Peckford became Premier - that was when we adopted the policy of having two sessions a year. Prior to that, there was only the one session. In 1979 we brought in the two sessions, or it might have been 1980.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are wrong, `Neil'.

MR. WINDSOR: No, I'm not.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Well, why did we not open until November? All of this pressing stuff, all of this legislation which the government finds so urgent - the 22nd of November. Last year we opened on the 2nd of November.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Our election was back in May.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, the (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The federal election has nothing to do with the business of the people in this House of Assembly - nothing to do with it. November 2nd, we opened last year, and about that time or earlier, the year before, but this year it was November 22nd before we were called into this House. And now, the minister, the Government House Leader, has to stand in his place today and pass a motion that is totally undemocratic, unparliamentary, dictatorial, to change the rules of the House of Assembly without using proper procedures, because a former Speaker made a gross error of judgement in approving something, and now you call it a precedence.

Well, if it is so urgent that we now have to sit nights - now, I don't mind sitting nights; I will stay here all night - but if it is so urgent now that we have to, all of a sudden, start sitting nights, why was the House not opened a month ago? What was the government afraid of, trying to negotiate a deal with Hydro behind our backs - behind the backs of the people - afraid to come before the House of Assembly and answer for what they were doing with Newfoundland Hydro. Perhaps that is the issue, Mr. Chairman. What was the issue, I wonder? Maybe it was that one.

Maybe it was the negotiation that they didn't have with the churches on the educational issue. Maybe that was the one they were afraid to bring before the House of Assembly - any number of things.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: We are debating a money bill now. I can assure this House that this House will hear where I am on that in due time, but I doubt very much if the minister will stand in his place, because I haven't heard him speak on any more than two or three bills since he has been in the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. WINDSOR: It is not hard to know when you are hitting the core. They try to divert you away to something else. I have been around too long. I have been around long before the minister, and I will be here when he is long gone, I can assure you of that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINDSOR: As John Diefenbaker said, "I will not be diverted by rabbits when I am chasing elephants" - not a chance.

MR. SIMMS: The only difference is that he is going to be richer, I think.

MR. WINDSOR: He is richer; there is no question about that. I bought lottery tickets last night, and out of six numbers I had one number right. I thought I would try it, what a waste of time; maybe the minister will pick numbers for me and tell me his secret.

So, Mr. Speaker, $29 million for the Department of Social Services. I dealt with $5 million, dealing with job creation which is a sham, the balance of it, $24.3 million or whatever it is, again, Mr. Speaker, all this government had to do is, look at the state of the economy and the unemployment rate. They were telling us and we told them, you looked at the Budget, it was contradictory. The Budget was hypocritical, Mr. Speaker, it said we were going to have a terrible time, transfer payments were going to be down, tax revenues are going to be down because of the state of the economy but we are going to spend less on social assistance. What kind of a dreamland is that?

It does not take anybody very smart to know when you have such a state of the economy as we have in this Province, when unemployment is going through the roof, that your social assistance cost is going to increase, drastically, and this government could have been forgiven if they had come into this House with a Budget that showed an estimate of $10 or $15 million more needed for social assistance this year than was here last year on the basis of their economic projections, which they had in their Budget and we could have forgiven them, Mr. Speaker, if they had said: we are going to need $15 million more.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did you do.

MR. WINDSOR: No, Mr. Speaker, we brought in a good, honest Budget that told it the way it was. We didn't cook the books as this so clearly proves that this government did. You cooked the books, you tried to keep your deficit down and you have done it every year, tried to keep the deficit down. You are only fooling yourself, whom do you think you are kidding, Mr. Speaker, by coming in here with a Budget that says: oh, we are going to get a small deficit for one year.

I will never forget the former Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health, who is defending this bill now. I can see him standing, I think it was in the former House or it might have been this House, but I can see him standing there with his chest out, I am going to have a $10 million surplus; a $10 million surplus. The first time in years that we are going to have a surplus, what a minister I am! Well we saw what a minister he was, at the end of the year he had a $110 million deficit, that is what kind of a minister he was.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) believe you.

MR. WINDSOR: You are only kidding yourself if you come into this House with a Budget that is not factual; you are only kidding yourself and in the end in the analysis you will have to come back with a $42 million Supplementary Supply Bill.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if Confederation Building burnt down and you had to build a new building, or had ten schools burnt down or we had a great disaster, something that could not be predicted, then you could be forgiven for coming into this House, nobody would question it, nobody would question the fact that you needed an extra 10 or 20 or $50 million for an emergency, for something that is unforeseen -

AN HON. MEMBER: It was an emergency.

MR. WINDSOR: Nothing emergency about this.

AN HON. MEMBER: An emergency to cover up the Tory federal government (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The only emergency here is to cover up your incompetence in creating jobs and employment and economic activity in this Province and you have been a dismal failure and you are afraid to bring the House together to admit to it, Mr. Speaker. Now, Mr. Speaker, what is this Municipal and Provincial Affairs, a million dollars, I did not hear what the minister said. Would the minister tell me again what that item was for, that million dollars for municipal and provincial affairs?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you.

Well maybe the minister will stand up and tell me what that is.

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

DR. KITCHEN: The $1 million for Municipal Affairs was a special warrant to provide additional funds for job creation activities which was part of the same job creation initiatives. I think some went through Employment and Labour Relations, some went through Municipal Affairs, and some went through Social Services.

Resolution

"That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the granting to Her Majesty for defraying certain additional expenses of the public service for the financial year ending March 31, 1993 the sum of $42,360,000."

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

MR. ROBERTS: Could we now call Motion 1 which is the amendments to the Income Tax Act, Bill No. 39, and of course there is a resolution to go with it, Sir.

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This Bill, "An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act, is to implement an announcement basically which was made by the Minister of Finance in December last year when he proposed three things, basically, one of which was bad news for some people and the rest of which was good news. The bad news portion first was that the personal income tax rate would be raised from 66 to 69 per cent, and the good news was that the corporate income tax rate, the general rate, would be reduced from 17 to 16 per cent, and the small business rate from 10 to 5 per cent with appropriate adjustments down to 7.5 per cent for manufacturing and processing companies.

Mr. Chairman, this is a very interesting Bill and one which is part of the government's initiative to encourage corporations to expand in the Province. I believe I heard an announcement or a suggestion made by the Premier down in Newfoundland Hotel the other day that we were considering certain further down reductions in these taxes so that we could encourage businesses to expand, particularly small businesses where the rate would be down from 10 to 5 per cent in manufacturing and processing and also for the general corporate tax rate.

Mr. Chairman, I think that should be enough for now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The only good thing in this Bill, I suppose you could say it is good, is the reduction from 17 to 16 per cent to the general corporate income tax rate. On the surface that sounds like pretty good stuff if the minister who has just sat down had not been the minister who increased it from 16 to 17 per cent a few years before. We told him then he was making a mistake and he finally admitted it, and it is only fitting, I suppose, that he is the minister who is here today to introduce the Bill to undo the harm that he did a few years ago because he was the minister who raised it from 16 to 17 per cent. The real problem though with this Bill is the personal income tax rate going from 66 to 69 per cent. The Minister of Finance announced that in his December mini-Budget last year and we are only now getting around to bringing in the increase even though it has been in effect from last January, 66 to 69 per cent. That is quite an increase in one year. Three per cent on the provincial component. I believe that makes us the highest of any province in Canada. Sixty-nine per cent of the federal tax rate.

There is no wonder -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) surtax.

MR. WINDSOR: No, we don't have a surtax. There is one province of Canada that has a surtax. Québec. Maybe a couple now, alright. Most provinces are resisting that as well.

Mr. Chairman, what a time to increase taxes on the people, when the economy is so weak. When is this government going to realize - if what the minister just said is true, then we wait, and we will welcome any decrease in the taxation on the people of this Province, I would encourage government to really examine that. If you are ever going to use the private sector as the engine of the economy, as the Premier likes to put it, if you are ever going to do that then you are only going to do it if you leave some funding in the hands of the private sector. Something disposable for them to re-invest. How can they kick start the economy if they have nothing left to re-invest.

The people of this Province are taxed to death. You only have to look at the amount of taxes on almost every commodity, particularly alcohol, liquor, tobacco. The sales tax of course is the worst of all. Coupled with the GST. You walk into a store today and buy an item for $50, it costs you $60. Ten dollars on a $50 item. Direct taxation at the source. Just incredible how much we pay today. When you sit down and look at what the average family is paying in income taxes, in municipal taxes, in sales taxes, any other taxes that will be applied generally to individuals, sit down and analyze all of that, you will find that a great percentage of a wage earner's dollar is going out in taxes of one form or another.

It is not unusual for the average family today, particularly with two wage earners in the family, as many are in order to survive today, you have two wage earners, it is not unusual for that family to be in an income tax bracket where they are paying 30 per cent, 35 per cent, of their income by way of income tax. Thirty-five per cent. Not unusual today. That leaves you with 65 per cent. If you spend that 65 per cent, and you are paying 20 per cent on virtually everything, except for food and clothing perhaps - some clothing - virtually most of what you spend you are paying 20 per cent on it. So that is another 10 or 12 per cent. You are not far off a 50 per cent tax rate just right there, before you pay municipal taxes, which I don't put in the same class as taxes. Because they are fees for service, basically.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: The net money. Oh no. So you are paying well over 50 per cent of what you earn in taxes. What is left by way of disposable income after you put shelter over your heads, put food on the table, clothing on your children's backs, send them to school, and provide transportation. An automobile is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity in today's world. It is a necessity. You can drive a small car and you can use regular gasoline but you still have a significant cost just to transport yourself and your family around in a city the size of even St. John's. Very difficult today, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) social dollars.

MR. WINDSOR: About a social cost? Oh, social dollars. No question about it. The point is that we have fewer and fewer wage earners who are supporting more and more. It is leaving us with less and less. We are the only ones who can stimulate the economy. Those who are depending on the social safety net, through no fault of their own or whatever, they are buying the basic necessities of life. Food, clothing, shelter, basically. Heat and light. The basic necessities of life, but it is those wage earners who would hope, at the end of the day, to have some disposable income to spend on the sorts of things that stimulate the economy. When you tax them to the level that they do not have any disposable income, or similarly when you tax corporations to the level where they do not have any money left over to invest, or to reinvest, that is when you get past the point of diminishing returns.

I think it was former President Reagan, when he was Governor of California, brought in this great new reform to reduce taxes. He was a little bit radical in the approach that he took, but the concept was not totally without merit. There is some merit into looking at the concept of reducing the level of taxation on those that stimulate the economy.

What this Bill has done is increase the tax on the individual, the personal income tax rate, by 3 per cent, the provincial component, and the same Bill is reducing the tax rate on businesses, so you have taken in one hand and given in the other. It would be interesting to see what the net impact of this measure, or these measures contained in this Bill, would be. I have not worked out those numbers. It would be a difficult thing to do, but I am sure it could be done, but the net impact on the Province is probably negligible. It is simply shifting more onto the backs of the average wage earner.

While we welcome the reduction in the taxation on businesses, this increase of 3 per cent on personal income tax is a regressive measure, Mr. Chairman. It is not the time to be increasing taxation. It is a time to be decreasing taxation. It is a time to be putting in place incentives for us to be more productive. People are not being overpaid. They should be paid more, but maybe they need to be producing more. Maybe if they thought they were going to earn a little bit more they would produce that much more. Maybe they would make a greater contribution to the economy, and it all goes around in a circle.

Mr. Chairman, I will leave it with that. I can see there is great interest in what I am saying, over there, so I am going to let government carry on, as I have no doubt they will.

A Bill, "An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act." (Bill No. 39)

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

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

MR. ROBERTS: Your Honour, would you be good enough, please, to call Motion 3, which is The Loan And Guarantee Act, or the schedule to the Loan And Guarantee Act, to be precise.

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This Bill, "An Act To Amend The Loan And Guarantee Act", is another one of those more or less routine things but which are important, of course, to bring before the House of Assembly. These are loans; these are guarantees, that the Province has made with respect to loans, and we bring them here for your approval.

One is an amount of $1,544,300 - a guarantee for Newfoundland and Labrador Computer Services Limited for micro computers for the Department of Social Services - a very important matter - to enable the Department of Social Services, through Newfoundland and Labrador Computer Services Limited, to be more efficient and more effective, to do things more speedily.

Another loan that we have guaranteed is to Newfoundland Ocean Enterprises Limited for $1 million, to enable them to obtain a letter of credit from the bank to bid on a federal government contract, which has since expired.

Another one is for a $500,000 guarantee of a loan to the Torngat Fish Producers Co-operative Society Limited. That will expire May 31st coming and is an extension of a previous loan guarantee for the same amount. It is not a new guarantee, it is just the time extension to an existing guarantee. Also we are extending the expiry date of a $100,000 loan guarantee to Wm. Goudie Limited, bringing them up to June 30, 1994; and to extend the expiry date of a loan guarantee to Heritage Woodwork's Limited so that the guarantee will now expire on April 30, 1994; also to Newfoundland Ocean Enterprises, whereby we increased the amount of a loan guarantee up to $23 million. Another one, in Clause 4, to extend the expiry date of a $1.3 million loan guarantee to Fogo Island Cooperative Society Limited so that that will now expire April 30, 1994; then one to James Doyle, again expiry date extension for $700,000 loan guarantee; also an expiry date extension to a guarantee of a loan of $175,000 for Smith Seafoods Limited, that will bring them up to November 30, 1993, whereupon the guarantee expired; and extending the date of a $600,000 loan guarantee to Earle Brothers Fisheries Limited which will now expire April 30, 1994; $350,000 to Moorfish Limited which expired on May 30, 1993; and $1 million to P. Janes and Sons which will expire on April 30, 1994. Mr. Chairman, all I have really done here is read the explanatory notes to these loan guarantees, most of which are extensions in time. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: There are a number of points that need to be made about this particular piece of legislation. It is something that comes through every year of course, which is simply ratifying loans and guarantees given out by government the previous year. It begs the question of course of the approach that this government took before they were a government that they did not think that loan guarantee's was the way. In fact, the Premier prior to the election in 1989 made great ado about cancelling some loan guarantees. They were going to cancel a lot of the loan guarantees, put some of the business community, Mr. Chairman, right into the horrors. To think that a loan guarantee that would be in place, under the authority of this House of Assembly, would be cancelled by a new government coming in place. Well I guess the Premier soon found out, Mr. Chairman, that is a good way to destroy your credit rating by not honouring the financial obligations that you make.

So we see here a whole host of them and many of them, Mr. Chairman, are simply extensions. Again many of those are fish plants - most fish plants in this Province today have some loans guaranteed by the Province. The question that brings up, Mr. Chairman, is what has government done? We know that there is a 1 per cent guarantee fee charged to Newfoundland Hydro. Well that means the ratepayers of Newfoundland Hydro pay that 1 per cent. That amounted to some $10 million last year but nothing is charged to any of the fishing companies.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: No. The Government House Leader, I say with respect, he is wrong. You are wrong. I think you will find that you are wrong. If you are not I would like to know that. The minister should check - you will find the fish plants are not paying it. There are very few -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: One per cent. Well we will check our sources again.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I hope that is the case but that is another issue. I will check it out again. That is right, it is not there. We had reason to believe though that none of the fishing companies are paying it. The commercial operations, Marystown Shipyard, Newfoundland Hardwoods, those types of companies, the commercial operations are paying it; fishing companies of course are commercial operations but they are resource based. You are led to believe by officials of the Minister of Finance's Department that fish plant owners are not paying it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: It could be the case, the Minister for Industry, Trade and Technology, tells me and I think he is right, and I think we are right but we will check it out a little more thoroughly and bring that issue up, but that is not the point I wanted to raise right now. I will raise that on another occasion. The point I wanted to raise is that the problem I have with these guarantees, and that I have had for years, and raised the matter when I was Minister of Finance in fact with the banks, is that a bank probably has a debt outstanding to - and a fish plant is a good example - to a fish company for half-a-million dollars. Over the last number of years when that debt came due and was being renegotiated, the bank said: we will not extend your loan unless you get a government guarantee, so they have been putting all the pressure on to government, and government has no choice, you can negotiate and fight all you want, the bank says: that's it, we are calling the loan, the other option is that the plants have to be shut down. Maybe the government should do that and buy some of the plants but nevertheless that is another issue.

But the plant would have to be shut down unless government issued the guarantee and this government I am sure has found as we did, that we had to issue those guarantees in order to keep the plant opened. What that has done now, leaves the bank with absolutely no exposure on that loan. Government, the taxpayers of the Province are taking all the risks, yet the bank is still getting their 8 or 9 per cent that they got before, and the point I am making is that, it is not the fish plant that should be paying that 1 per cent guarantee fee, that simply increases the cost of producing fish, makes our companies less competitive in the marketplace. It is the bank that should be paying that 1 per cent or 2 per cent or whatever is appropriate. If government is taking the risks, government should be getting paid for that risk.

I mean the banks will give you all the money you want. No, let me correct myself. There used to be a time when banks would give you all the money you want if you had a government guarantee. I have seen cases in the last six months, when even with government guarantees the banks did not want to pass out the money. Now what the bank manager in that particular case is doing there, I don't know, because he has no concept. If I had some money to loan and somebody would give me a government guarantee if I loaned it to the Minister of Health, I would give it to him tomorrow; with a government guarantee, why wouldn't you? How can you lose, unless we think the Province is going to go bankrupt, but the banks are still getting their 8 or 9 per cent, the same rate of interest, after they get the government guarantee as they had before, and I say, Mr. Chairman, it is time to take on the banks on this one. It is time that the people of the Province, through the private corporation that government is trying to help, government is trying to help these fish companies survive, trying to ensure employment, trying to ensure that we are competitive in the international marketplace, that is why we give the guarantee.

Well, we should get the benefit of what government is doing, taking the risk; that benefit should go back to the company, not so much for a guarantee back to the Province even, that is one way for the government to get a little bit back, but maybe if we left that 1 per cent into the company, get the lower rate from the bank and not charge that guarantee fee, is a way for the government to raise money and it is not an improper way. I am not against charging a guarantee fee if government is putting the public purse at risk, there should be some premium paid for that, it is a very small premium, 1 per cent; but I would be more interested in seeing the bank get the benefit of a reduced interest rate on the strength of a government guarantee. I would encourage this government to start pushing forward on that.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there are a number of these that need to be questioned. Some of the ones that are simply straightforward extensions, I don't think we will want to spend a lot of time at, but one-and-a-half million dollars worth of microcomputers for the Department of Social Services at a time of restraint, seems quite excessive, and why was that not budgeted? Why are we doing loan guarantees to buy computers for Social Services. Is the minister telling us that Computer Services are buying these microcomputers, providing them to Social Services and they are in turn leasing them back or, what is the arrangement there? Can the minister tell us that? Otherwise, why is $1.5 million, microcomputers for Social Services, going to Newfoundland and Labrador Computer Services Limited?

I don't understand the arrangement. It is unusual. Unless Computer Services now owns all of the computers in the building. Is that what has been done? If so, when did that transfer take place? When did that occur? I can't recall that it was always that way. I may be wrong. It may have always been that way. I'm not aware of it. I thought every department was buying them. Bought them through Computer Services. Maybe this is just a transfer. Maybe Computer Services had to have the money to buy the computers and then sold them in turn to Social Services. I don't know. Would the minister undertake to get me the information on that? He nods that he would.

Newfoundland Ocean Enterprises, Mr. Chairman, a $1 million loan guarantee. Nice to see that the government has recognized that you have to do that from time to time. So Marystown Shipyard could bid on a federal contract. Of course, it expired upon execution of the contract. A legitimate role for government to play in supporting private enterprise in the short term, to give the financial backing that is necessary for them to bid on a contract, provided Marystown Shipyard is not competing with other shipyards. That is a legitimate question. If Marystown Shipyard is competing, for example, with a shipyard in Clarenville or Glovertown, if that contract was something that was being bid on by more than one company in the Province, then I say they should not have been given a guarantee. Would the minister like to tell us what contract was being bid on? Would the minister tell us which contract it was that that guarantee was being put in place for? Because it does make a difference, if that is giving Marystown Shipyard or any shipyard an unfair competitive advantage over other shipyards.

Lord knows that there is nobody in this House, other than my friend for Burin - Placentia West, and perhaps my friend for Grand Bank as well, who has greater commitment to the Marystown Shipyard than I do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. W. MATTHEWS: They should name it after us.

MR. WINDSOR: Well, the hon. Member for Waterford - Kenmount, his roots do not qualify him as a great supporter of Marystown Shipyard, but he is, Mr. Chairman. He hasn't been around long enough yet to put his support in action, but he will. He is a great supporter.

MS. VERGE: He is from Marystown, (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: He is from Marystown. Well, he is from Creston North, actually.

AN HON. MEMBER: Creston South.

MR. WINDSOR: Creston South. Marystown will not recognize him. Creston South claims him.

Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Health will give us that information. At the same time would he tell us the increase in number in Clause 3(b), the bottom of the page on the Bill. Again to Ocean Enterprises Limited, which is now the parent company of Marystown Shipyard, I think. The amount of loan guarantee is increased to $23 million. Increased from what, and for what purpose? What was the amount of the increase? Would the minister tell us what was the purpose of that increase to Ocean Enterprises Limited? Would he give us that information?

The balance are extensions. Would the minister like to tell us as well what loan guarantees in the past twelve months has government been called upon to honour? What have we been forced to pay, and for whom? Have there been any loan guarantees that we have had to honour because the corporation to whom we gave those loans have forfeited, have not met their commitments on that?

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to sit down and see if the minister will answer some of those questions for me now.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: Is the minister going to give me those answers? No? Well, we are going to be here all night if he doesn't give us the answers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Chairman, I sat so the minister could give me some answers and he has indicated now across the House that he is not going to answer these questions. What are we into here? This is in Committee, where the minister provides information. That is why we are ten minutes back and forth, so we can ask questions, get clarification on the Bill; we can get into a clause-by-clause and ask more questions, but the minister has to give us the answers so, Mr. Chairman, I will sit down again and give the minister an opportunity. I asked him four or five very clear, straightforward, succinct questions, and I would like to see those answers, Mr. Chairman.

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

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Chairman, what I will do is check out these answers and see precisely what they are. I cannot, off the top of my head, tell you what these detailed answers are, but if you are ready to wait I will ask the officials who do know to supply the answers and I will read them out to you.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, if it would help the process, I am prepared to suggest that we adjourn this debate and go on and do the Local Authority Guarantee debate, and that will give my colleague an opportunity to speak with the officials, and let us see what we can provide by way of information to the... It is nothing mysterious. It is simply a matter of getting the information, and my hon. friend opposite is quite correct. This is the place to do it, so we will see what we can do.

I would move we adjourn this debate. If that carries in the Committee then we will go on to another bill and come back to this a little later.

My friend from Carbonear is here. He knows everything there is to know about municipal loans, so any detailed knowledge he will be able to provide.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Resolution No. 4.

I recognize the hon. the Minister of Health.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Chairman, Bill 57, "An Act To Amend The Local Guarantee Act", is basically a list of the towns to which the government has guaranteed bank loans.

As you know, when a council does capital works, the usual procedure is for the government to guarantee the amount, and while the construction is ongoing, and the usual period is two years for that construction to be undertaken, then when the final amount of the expenditure is known, then this becomes part of the Newfoundland Municipal Financing Corporation and is financed in a different way and the bank loan is looked after. So these are the lists of guarantees that have been put in place during the period specified.

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

MR. FUREY: Did you want me to answer on the Marystown -

MR. ROBERTS: We are on another bill, but if you permit we can answer the Marystown one now.

MR. FUREY: That was simply a bid bond of $1 million on the conversion of the fisheries vessel. There were two bids at that time, one by the dockyard and one by Marystown. The federal government required a posting of $1 million bid bond. We have since won that contract and it is required, by federal statute, I guess now, that we have to put in place a performance bond to cover the $28 million. So that million has fallen off the table now. We are retroactively telling the House, I guess, that during that bid process we had to put up that bond.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Just to respond, I am not sure the minister is totally correct. I thank him for that information, but as I understand it from the Bill here, it was simply a guarantee that was in place for the bidding. It does not automatically become a performance bond. They are two different things.

What I wanted to know and the point I was making, the reason I asked the question, is that Marystown was competing with the St. John's dockyard. How much did it cost St. John's dockyard to purchase that bid bond that they had to put in, and is this not giving Marystown an unfair advantage?

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

MR. FUREY: Mr. Chairman, I cannot speak for the dockyard, but I can tell you that the dockyard is owned by the federal government and I would assume that they would be required by law to fulfil whatever requirements are placed before them, as well. In the case of Marystown, which myself and my friend for Burin - Placentia West were pushing for very strenuously, we had to put up that $1 million bid bond. That is a separate issue, and that has since fallen off the table, but we are required by statute to present it to the House at the first sitting of the House. That is off the table now but what will be coming before the House, I guess, under the next bill will be a $28 million performance bond. That $28 million performance bond is required by the federal government to conduct that work so, yes, there are two separate issues. Does that cause unfair competition? I don't believe so. If that is required by both entities where would there be unfair competition? I don't see it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: The unfair competition, Mr. Chairman, is if Marystown Shipyard is given a government guarantee and the St. John's dockyard has to pay for that bid. Where is the Member for St. John's South? Why is he not on his feet condemning the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology for discriminating against St. John's South? I can't believe it!

MR. FUREY: For the same reason that the Member for Burin - Placentia West is not up hanging the Member for Mount Pearl - for the very same reason.

MR. WINDSOR: Why would the Member for Burin -Placentia West be up condemning me? I haven't done anything. I am trying to find out what the government is doing here. What kind of games are we playing? Before the minister goes, if the minister would like to wait, there were two parts to that question. What was the $23 million for? The loan guarantee for Ocean Enterprises was expanded to $23 million. What was it, how much was it expanded for, and what was the purpose?

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

MR. FUREY: It was again, Mr. Chairman, for the Marystown Shipyard to expand their operating line of credit. We needed extra cash to prepare bids for the Hibernia-related contracts, which we were very successful on, on the access towers M 71, 72, and 73. I am happy to report that there is $82 million-worth of work on the books now and 600 people will be going to work in January.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is too bad though that we didn't get the big contract, I say to the minister. He let that one slip through his hands. But, Mr. Chairman, I don't have a problem with those answers. The minister is finally giving us the information. The real problem here is the Minister of Finance who doesn't know the bills he is trying to put through the House of Assembly here and he cannot give us information. It is too bad that the real Minister of Finance is not here. Maybe we can get back to the Local Authority Guarantee Act now.

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

MR. ROBERTS: The Minister of Health has gone to get the information from officials as he undertook he would. Now, let us not have any mystery about this. The Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs is here. We are now debating the Local Authority Guarantee Act, which is the bill that approves the money that has been spent on water and sewer, and the Minister of Health, acting as the Minister of Finance, explained that. So, if we have any questions dealing with the Local Authority Guarantee Act, or any member wants to speak, let us deal with that, and then we will come back to the Loan and Guarantee Act, and by that time the Minister of Health will be back, one hopes, with these detailed facts.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to have a few words based upon some of the comments that have been made as it relates to the role of the funding being approved for the Marystown Shipyard.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

We have adjourned the debate on that particular resolution. I have been a bit lenient.

MR. WINDSOR: We can get back on it by leave, Mr. Chairman. By leave we can stay on that.

MR. ROBERTS: I have no trouble by leave, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I say to the Member for St. John's South that it is about time you got up and spoke for the workers of the St. John's dockyard. The Member for St. John's South threatens me with: `If you get up and speak on this I will get up.' Get up. You should be up. Wake up, I say to the Member for St. John's South!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I will not be intimidated by such - I don't care if he gets up or not. I want to say that I have had the opportunity to have a lot of discussions with the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology over the last little while as it relates to the Marystown shipyard. I would say to the Member for St. John's South, yes, the Minister of Industry, Trades and Technology supported Marystown in terms of getting the research vessels. Sure he did. He worked hard to try to get the job for the Marystown shipyard, and I was delighted. I went to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and I asked him would he do it. I asked him would he come up front and go public and support it, and he did. Sure he did.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: Shouldn't I have asked him? Where were you? I say, Mr. Chairman, to the Member for St. John's South, that if he has a problem with the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology supporting Marystown, don't be telling me that if I get up to speak you are going to get up to speak. I'm not going to be kept quiet by the Member for St. John's South in speaking for the people of Marystown, or supporting and commending the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology for coming out and supporting the Marystown shipyard over the St. John's dockyard. I make no apologies for that, and I'm sure the minister doesn't either.

MS. VERGE: After he lost the big one (inaudible) cancelled.

MR. TOBIN: What is that?

MS. VERGE: After he lost the big one.

MR. TOBIN: I tell you right now, I don't lay any blame on the shoulders of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology for Marystown not getting the $120 million contract. The total responsibility for the failure of that contract lies with the Premier of this Province, who last week said he knew about it before anyone else knew about it. He was given inside information before anyone else had any information. That is the person who is responsible for this government, and that is the person who has to bear the responsibility for Marystown not receiving the contract, Mr. Chairman, I would say.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: If the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, who has 63 per cent unemployment in this Province - if he wants to withdraw leave for me because I speak out about a few jobs that are being created in this Province, then let him withdraw. I would say it is the Premier of this Province.

I also wonder if the Premier of this Province shared that information with the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. I have reason to believe he probably didn't, I would say to members opposite. So it is the Premier of this Province who should for two reasons - number one, as Premier of the Province, number two, as the shareholder of the Marystown shipyard, as the owner. This government owns the Marystown shipyard, I say to the members opposite. This Premier is the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. He has sat on information, had information pertaining to the contract at the Marystown shipyard and he did absolutely nothing about it. That contract - not getting the contract should not be borne by the Minister of Industry, Trade & Technology.

Now, Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of other things, the funding that was approved - sure the government approved money, the minister approved money. He did what he should have done to approve money to enable Marystown to bid on the research vessel. Sure he approved money but do you know why? Because it is the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador who owns the Marystown shipyard, but is the Government of Newfoundland - and if the owners don't put up the money then, Mr. Chairman, who is to put up the money, I ask members opposite? The Member for St. John's South can't attack me for standing up and supporting the people from -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I don't know what he did, but I know that I had calls from the union down at the St. John's dockyard. I had calls from union leadership at the St. John's dockyard asking, Mr. Chairman, what my role was and why I was involved and all that, and I make no apology. I worked, Mr. Chairman, like a dog, if I may say so, and so did the minister, to get that work for Marystown.

Now, the Member for St. John's South goes down and tells the union that he took on the Minister of Industry, Trade & Technology and he let it be known about what he said on television last night and all that kind of stuff. Mr. Chairman, that doesn't get us anywhere. Marystown won the contract for the mechanical outfitting - and the Member for St. John's South knows this - not because of my interference, not because of the minister's involvement, not because of his own involvement, but because Marystown had the best bid and the best vessel. Now, there is only one thing happening with all of this, I say to members opposite and all the House, and I think members might be interested in this - that is, in November that vessel was coming to Marystown, and part of the contract, when she went up and docked, was that there was an extension to go into that vessel. Now, Mr. Chairman, do you know what this new government in Ottawa has done with that research vessel? They have cancelled the extension, number one, and she is now delayed until February or March.

AN HON. MEMBER: Cancelled for (inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: They have cancelled the extension program that was there, cancelled the extension of twenty feet or whatever was supposed to go in it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, that is out. That is not going to happen. They postponed the other work but cancelled the extension that was supposed to go in the vessel. I don't know what all of that means but it is not what everyone thought it was going to be in the first instance, and I am hopeful but suspicious as to why there has been a delay. A vessel that is owned by Clearwater that was to be purchased by Marystown Shipyard last week just -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: That is right and Fishery Products International bid on it with Halifax Dockyard, one of their vessels, but what I am saying is that I am wondering, I say to the Member for St. John's South, why now there is a delay? She sailed to go shrimping again, I believe it was last week.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: What is that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I would hope that the vessel would come in, but it is clear now that the extension to that vessel, the section that was supposed to go in her is gone. The other thing I would say to members opposite that when you talk about the research vessels - you know, yesterday something strange happened, when you talk about the work that the shipyards did and the dockyard did in terms of repairs, Marystown did most of Fishery Products International work, the dockyard did most of NatSea's work, and there has been a tremendous fall out from the tie up with the fisheries not just by people directly involved in the fisheries but by the employees of both the St. John's Dockyard and the Marystown Shipyard, in terms of the work they did in repairing trawlers and construction of new vessels and people working in both these facilities. The men and women in both of these facilities are paying a very high price as a result of the tie up in the fishery, and yesterday, Mr. Chairman, there were seven trawlers sent from Burin to go to Peru -

AN HON. MEMBER: FPI ones.

MR. TOBIN: FPI ones, the old Sorel vessels, seven.

AN HON. MEMBER: Six I thought it was, not seven.

MR. TOBIN: Six, well the (inaudible) is gone with them too, and the interesting thing of all this, they all had their names changed before they left port, they registered somewhere else -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Registered in Peru.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, and they got Spanish names and I wonder where will they be fishing? I wonder where will these vessels be fishing in the matter of a few months?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: What's that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I would not be surprised if they are outside the 200-mile limit, it would not surprise me one bit, I say to the Member for Fogo, if that is probably where they end up because there are seven trawlers and it is not a long -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Seven Spanish trawlers. Mr. Chairman, I believe there are seventeen or eighteen that Fishery Products International have sold now and I am hearing that NatSea is looking at some of it as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: They must be (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Well, I would not say that they have a lot of money, I say to the Member for Fogo, for the simple reason that Fishery Products International had applied or had made it known their intentions that they wanted to scuttle the vessels, that was their intention, so they put it in and in order to do so, you had to apply for a permit from Environment Canada and the Province's regulations I am sure fit in there too, because of the oil and the gas and everything else that is in them, so it is when they applied for the permit from Environment Canada to scuttle these vessels that some other interest became aware that they were there. It was cheaper, as I understand it, for the company to scuttle the vessels than to maintain them where they were of no use, I would say to the members opposite.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Carried.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, the House is open now since 2:00 p.m., I would say to some of my hon. colleagues, that is the first time I've had a chance to speak. I'm just getting warmed up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. TOBIN: That's the point. He got the message. Mr. Chairman, there is one thing I want to say though before I do sit down. I want to encourage the Member for St. John's South to stand up, I really do. I think that the Member for St. John's South has been too silent. I want him to become involved in this debate and to stand up and speak for the St. John's Dockyard workers. Stand up and speak for the interests of the St. John's Dockyard workers. When I sit down.

AN HON. MEMBER: He is not allowed to speak!

MR. TOBIN: No, Mr. Chairman, the Member for St. John's South is not muzzled, and I don't think he is the type of fellow who would be muzzled, I say to members opposite. Unless it was someone like me. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make these few comments.

I want to lay the blame for that $120 million contract loss where it should be, on the shoulders of the Premier of this Province. No one else. Because the Premier knew about it. I would suspect that he was told about it on a fishing trip the week, or two weeks before, with Bob Kimberlin when they were on a fishing jaunt together. If I had my calendar here I would tell you the dates that they were on it. The Premier was given the information then and I venture to bet he did not even share it with his minister. All during that period of time negotiations or clarifications were taking place whereby they were talking prices. The prices of the bids changed -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. TOBIN: I'm speaking by leave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: He can come back. Let Tom have a go and he can come back.

MR. TOBIN: Sure. No problem.


 

December 6, 1993         HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS           Vol. XLII  No. 29A


[Continuation of sitting]

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

MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few words - number one about the remarks made by the hon. Member for Mount Pearl and of course the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West. Now let me say first that I can understand why the Member for Burin - Placentia West would stand in his place and heap praise upon the Minister for Industry, Trade and Technology because he was dealing with a sound, solid minister interested in the welfare of people in his district. The problem this member had was, I had to deal four-and-a-half years with the hon. John Crosbie. Now there is the difference, there is a big difference I suggest to the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: Now let me finish. There is the difference and the Member for Mount Pearl knows only too well because he was part of a government, he was in Cabinet when the money was provided to the Newfoundland Dockyard for the synchro-lift by the provincial government. Now who is carrying that debt right now? The people of this Province are carrying that debt right now. It was not this government or anybody in this government or anybody on that government who sat by and let two vessels be built in Sorel, Quebec that were thirty-five or forty feet too long for the Newfoundland Dockyard. Purposely, 600 jobs for six months or you can say 300 jobs for a year - that was not this government.

So the member has every right to get up and heap praise on the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, and so he should, but the member should also know about the Newfoundland Dockyard as he has people in the Marystown Shipyard who live in the District of Grand Bank. I don't think they live out much further than that but I would suggest to the hon. member that the Newfoundland Dockyard, to my knowledge, has thirty-one people on the callback list who live in the District of St. John's South. There are more living in the District of Mount Pearl, there are more living in the District of Ferryland, there are more living in the District of Harbour Main that worked on a callback list at the Newfoundland Dockyard. So this member has fought long and hard with Mr. Crosbie and we finally found $6 million from Mr. Crosbie to come in and take the Newfoundland Dockyard and give it some kind of an opportunity with new equipment, new capital money to compete and bid because the Newfoundland Dockyard is not in the ship building business.

While Marystown was designed, built and constructed by a Liberal Government, not only to repair and refit but to build ships and the Newfoundland Dockyard is handicapped in that sense. Although right now - and I don't mind telling the hon. member - I am working very hard with management at Newfoundland Dockyard to build a boat from the keel. So we may be competitive, we just may build a boat in the Newfoundland Dockyard yet but by and large I wish the member and I wish the Marystown Shipyard all the success in the world. I would like to see them get every contract they bid on as long as the Newfoundland Dockyard gets its fair share.

Now the vessel the member talked about was a decision made by DFO that the vessel that was coming from Clearwater was a better vessel for what they wanted, the extension and so on. But I want to remind the hon. member, he would be upset and his workers would be upset if you were $3 million or $4 million cheaper, even though it was another vessel and you are comparing apples and oranges, I say to the member -

AN HON. MEMBER: It is not true.

MR. MURPHY: The member says it is not true. It does not make it true because the member says it is untrue.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: It is not lies at all. The member knows it is not lies. It is comparing an apple and an orange, the two vessels are completely different. So I say to the Member for Mount Pearl, who will have his opportunity, who knows that this government is now carrying $12 million worth of credit at the Newfoundland Dockyard on a decision made by the hon. member when he was in Cabinet.

MR. TOBIN: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: No, I'm not saying that at all. As a matter of fact I'm saying to the hon. member that if the truth was known Marystown doesn't have the capability to lift that vessel, which they were trying to get, out of the water. That is the truth. That is the truth if the hon. member wants to know it. Now if he wants to hear the truth I will tell him the truth.

MR. TOBIN: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: No, I'm not trying to start any rackets at all but the hon. Member for Burin - Peninsula West at his will, at his leisure, jumps up: I would like to hear from the hon. Member for St. John's South, he is muzzled, he is not allowed to get up, he can't say anything. That is not a fact. The only one who is allowed to get up and hoot and holler is the Member for Burin - Placentia West. The Member for Burin - Placentia West has to realize that he doesn't own this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: No, the Leader of the Opposition can get on and sit down. He doesn't say it to his own members.

AN HON. MEMBER: Repetitious.

MR. MURPHY: It may be repetitious, I say to the hon. member. You have to be repetitious if you want to get it to sink into your heads sometimes, alright? You have to be repetitious, repetitious and more repetitious, because you don't hear well, no matter what the subject.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: The hon. the House Leader on this side will let me know when he wants me to sit down, I'm sure. I'm entitled to take the ten minutes that every member is entitled to take. Alright?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: No, because the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West gets up, he is great. The Leader of the Opposition pounds on his desk when he gets after any hon. member on this side. Pounds on his desk -

MR. HARRIS: Why are you wasting time? Why don't you say something?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MURPHY: Listen to the king of waste of time. I heard a dissertation today of twenty-five minutes on the woods. The only thing the only member knows about the woods, when he was in the Boy Scouts he got lost for three days.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: That is fine. Then you fight with the Member for Ferryland. Because he doesn't let you on his feet.

MR. HARRIS: I learn from my experience (inaudible).

MR. MURPHY: You learn from your experience, alright. You are still wearing the short pants. I would say to the hon. member, I thought I saw him on the corner on Military Road selling apples on Apple Day. Anything for a dollar.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to stand in my place and correct the incorrect statements that the hon. Member for Burin - Placentia West likes to roar into Hansard. They will be on the walls in his district now next week, but he will cut off after what he had to say. I will fight on behalf of the Member for Mount Pearl, the member for St. John's East, who has workers at Newfoundland Dockyard, the Member for Waterford - Kenmount, the -

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. MURPHY: No, I will fight not for him, not on your life. The member has no social conscience. He represents a party that is supposed to have social conscience. I have never heard him say one thing positive about the Newfoundland Dockyard. Not one thing, and he is here four years. Not a thing.

With those few words, Mr. Chairman, I will sit down.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Chairman, I want to speak and inform the Member for St. John's South that though I may have been lost in the woods at least I came out of the woods, and I haven't....

As for speaking out on behalf of the Newfoundland Dockyard, I've always supported the efforts of the workers at the Newfoundland Dockyard to attempt to keep that Dockyard in a positive financial condition, while it was continuously being downgraded by the Government of Canada, under the PCs. We've seen that happen.

I give the Member for St. John's South credit. They are his constituents, he should be speaking out for them.

MR. MURPHY: They are not my constituents.

MR. HARRIS: Many of the workers there are your constituents, I say to the hon. member, because I know them. Maybe he doesn't know them. Maybe he doesn't know the workers at the Newfoundland Dockyard. I do, and I say to the Member for St. John's South that some of them are his constituents. The president of the Dockyard union lives in his constituency. Perhaps he should know a little bit more about his constituents if he is able to say things like that.

What I see is a failure in this country -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: If the Member for St. John's South would want to listen, perhaps he and the Member for St. Barbe are now in a position to influence the policies of the Government of Canada, because the reason that both the Marystown Shipyard and the Newfoundland Dockyard are in trouble in this country is because we do not have policies that support the shipbuilding industry.

The Member for St. John's South and the minister have rightfully criticized, as has this hon. member, the policies of the Government of Canada, the PC Government of Canada, who were quite rightly tossed out on their ears three weeks or a month ago for not having a proper shipbuilding policy, I say to the members opposite, and I hope the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology will now get on his feet and tell the House his plans to go to Ottawa and talk to Paul Martin. He knows a little bit about shipbuilding in the Province of Quebec and some of his own little operations. He knows a little bit about that. Now is the time.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Ask the new Minister of Finance how many of his ships have changed their flags in the last five or ten years, and how many Canadian ships he has.

Perhaps we are going to hear from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, and he is going to tell us what his government is going to do. Now that there is a Liberal team in Ottawa, what is this government here in Newfoundland going to do to insist that that government in Ottawa develop an industrial policy for shipbuilding -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Well, they might have to.

The NDP has adopted a shipbuilding policy that this government, I think, would support, at least on paper. I think the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology would support it because he has said a number of things that are very similar to the policy of the NDP on shipbuilding, and I respect him for that, but now the question is: What is he going to do, and what is his Premier going to do, now that we have, in Ottawa, a new government, a new opportunity for the Canadian government to adopt policies that favour shipbuilding here, that provide the same kind of incentives to industry as other governments who want to have a shipbuilding policy?

We see the Americans with their Jones Act, protecting every single piece of cargo that goes from one American port to another. Every single piece of cargo is carried on an American ship, owned by Americans, built by Americans, crewed by Americans. Those are the three conditions of the Jones Act for every single piece of cargo, every single ton of cargo, that goes from one American port to another.

That is not done for industry, Mr. Chairman. The Americans do that for defence reasons - so they say - so therefore it is not involved in NAFTA, not protected by NAFTA, but in Canada there are no such similar reciprocal possibilities under the NAFTA agreement, no commitment to a shipbuilding policy by the previous government, and I have yet to see a real commitment from the new Liberal Government of Canada. Perhaps the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology can get on his feet in this debate, while we are talking about Marystown and St. John's.

I am not going to get involved in a debate between the Member for St. John's South and the Member for Burin - Placentia West over the relative merits of Marystown versus the St. John's Dockyard. They are both facilities that are needed, that are necessary, and that can produce jobs in this Province, high tech jobs, good quality jobs, skilled jobs, that we need to keep and we need to maintain. It is not a question of one versus the other. Both of these can be viable operations, but they have to have the work. It has to be supported by policies from government at the federal level as well as the provincial level that is going to keep both of those alive.

If we do not hear from the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology on this, I will assume that he has nothing to say. I will assume that if the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology does not get up and tell us what his plans are, now that we have a Liberal government in Ottawa, with respect to shipbuilding, I will assume he has nothing to say. On that, Mr. Chairman, I will end.

Thank you very much.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I think we are finished with the Municipal Bill so let us conclude that. My friend and colleague the Minister of Health now has the information which should address the issues raised by the gentleman for Mount Pearl.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The resolution that was being debated was Resolution 4 under the Local Authority Guarantee Act.

MR. ROBERTS: Let us drop that, if the committee are so minded, and then we will revert. Members look a little puzzled. What happened was my friend for Burin - Placentia West got up to take a crack at certain gentlemen on this side and certain gentlemen on this side were drawn into the debate, and then the gentleman for St. John's East, given leave from the Opposition, decided to speak in the debate as well. The order we have been on all along, as the Chair has just reminded us, is Motion 4 which is the Local Authority Guarantee Act, so if we are not done with it let us go back.

"That it is expedient to bring in a measure respecting An Act To Amend The Local Authority Guarantee Act, 1957 (No. 2).

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

MR. ROBERTS: Now, Mr. Chairman, we will go back to Motion 3 and our friend the Minister of Health will give us the information.

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was asked four questions two of which, I understand, my hon. informed colleague the Minister of ITT answered concerning Newfoundland Ocean Enterprises Limited, but I have since found out the answers to the other two. One was: How come we are financing computers in this way? Basically what happened here was this was a two year lease purchase arrangement by the Department of Social Services from Newfoundland and Labrador Computer Services Limited and they will be paying Newfoundland and Labrador Computer Services Limited over a period of two years. In the meantime NLCS needed a loan guarantee in order to finance this themselves.

The other question was: How much have we paid out this year with respect to loan guarantees? We have paid out two. One was the Newfoundland Sealers Co-op for $770,000. I do not think that has been tabled yet but it may be coming up. The other was Gander Masonic for $1,067,000, and we are still negotiating with the principals here to see if we cannot get our money back.

MR. WINDSOR: The Gander Masonic - is that the proposed park they are building?

DR. KITCHEN: Yes.

"That it is expedient to bring in a measure respecting An Act To Amend The Loan And Guarantee Act, 1957 (No. 2)."

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, we will rise the Committee and then we will deal with the bills in the House. There are then only two relatively straightforward bits of legislation to be deal with including the Police Complaints Commission Bill.

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 Bellevue.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole on Supply have considered the matters to them referred, have passed certain resolutions, and recommends that Bills Nos. 53, 39, 57 and 56 be adopted to give effect to same.

On motion, report received and adopted.

Resolution

"That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the granting to Her Majesty for defraying certain additional expenses of the public service for the financial year ending March 31, 1993, the sum of $42,360,000."

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

Resolution

"That it is expedient to bring in a measure to amend the Income Tax Act."

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

Resolution

"That it is expedient to bring in a measure further to amend The Local Authority Guarantee Act, 1957, to provide for the guarantee of the repayment of loans made to, and the advance of loans to certain local authorities."

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

Resolution

"That it is expedient to bring in a measure further to amend The Loan And Guarantee Act, 1957, to provide for the advance of loans to and the guarantee of repayment of bonds or debentures issued by or loans advanced to certain corporations."

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

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

A bill, "An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Additional Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 1993 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service." (Bill No. 53)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act." (Bill No. 39)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Local Authority Guarantee Act, 1957 (No.2)." (Bill No. 57)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Loan And Guarantee Act, 1957 (No.2)." (Bill No. 56)

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, would you be good enough please to call Order No. 28, which is Bill No. 51.

MR. SPEAKER: Order 28.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's (Loan) Act, 1978". (Bill No. 51)

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

MR. REID: Some time ago, Mr. Speaker, the government passed over a responsibility to a company called R and M Trust to perform functions on its behalf. We are talking about the bond registry, the paying agent and the transfer agents. We are talking about bonds here, basically, City of St. John's bonds. At the same time the City of St. John's appointed Montreal Trust as its agent but in doing so, in changing the legislation, we overlooked in the new bill to put in any new bond issues. The only authority that the Montreal Trust company had was to handle old issues, issues that were ongoing.

The City of St. John's asked us then basically to permit the company, Montreal Trust, to perform that function for new issues of bonds. That is all we are doing here, is correcting the mistake, I guess, that was made some time ago, to allow the City of St. John's now to appoint on behalf of the City of St. John's, through a motion with majority of the voted council, the company Montreal Trust.

I move second reading, Mr. Speaker.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The City of St. John's (Loan) Act, 1978," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 51)

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: Perhaps before proceeding to the next motion - the resolutions were read, we should have regressed to read the actual bill titles themselves. Perhaps what we could do, I think, is put a resolution to the House to have the Clerk read them once to constitute first, second and third readings of the bills, as such, because the motions for the resolution have gone through.

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 Income Tax Act" (Bill 39)

A bill, "An Act For Granting To Her Majesty Certain Sums Of Money For Defraying Certain Additional Expenses Of The Public Service For The Financial Year Ending March 31, 1993 And For Other Purposes Relating To The Public Service" (Bill 53)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Loan And Guarantee Act, 1957 (No. 2)" (Bill 56)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Local Authority Guarantee Act, 1957 (No. 2)" (Bill 57)

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

MR. ROBERTS: Your Honour, could we call the last piece of work we will address today? That is Order 29, Bill 47, which stands in my name, Sir.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Act, 1992".

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This bill, if approved, as I hope it will be, will add two provisions to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Act, specifically to the portion of that act that sets up and governs the operations of the Public Complaints Commission.

The first of the two is found in subsection 1 which, when one puzzles through the words that the drafters had to use, boils down to one simple thing, and that is to allow the appointment of a chief adjudicator of the panel.

Now, the House will recall that last year, in a fairly contentious debate, at the end of the day the House authorized the appointment of a panel of six adjudicators who sit individually. These adjudicators deal with complaints referred to them by the Public Complaints Commissioner, Dr. Leslie Harris.

It has been brought to our attention since then, by some of my lawyers, I hasten to add, that it would probably be preferable, and we have opted to take the `probably preferable' route, to provide that the assignment of cases to individual adjudicators should not rest with the Commissioner, but rather should rest with an adjudicator called the `Chief Adjudicator'.

The model that has been used in this Province is the Human Rights Commission. The legislation was amended a year or two ago, and Ms. Gillian Butler, a well-known and very capable lawyer here in St. John's is the Chief Adjudicator for the Human Rights Commission Adjudication Panel. When the Human Rights Commission refers a matter out for a hearing and a determination under that act, then Ms. Butler actually assigns adjudicator A, adjudicator B or adjudicator C to hear the matter. So that is the effect of section 1, if it is adopted, and we would then designate a chief adjudicator, who would deal with the matter.

The matter is not, I will say for members, a matter of charter concern, as many think. It is rather a matter of administrative law principles. It is a little more certain this way than the other way, so that is why we ask.

The second purpose is in clause 2, and that is to increase by three the number of members of the panel, and let me be very candid about this: this is to remedy an acknowledged failing for which I take responsibility. Whether it is good or bad, I was the one who fell into this trap and I will answer for it. Let me just take a minute, though, and give the House some interesting statistics, because there has been a fair amount of uninformed comment. There has, as well, been some informed comment.

Taking as a guideline, eight years at the Bar of this Province, in other words, starting at January 1, 1986, eight years ago, there have been fifty-two women called to the Bar of this Province since then. About 500 men and women were called during the same period, so, roughly one-tenth of those called, of those fifty-two persons, thirteen have left the Province or resigned from the Bar for other reasons, four have been appointed to the Bench - two in the Provincial Court, and two in the Supreme Court, one in the Trial Division, and the other, Madam Justice Cameron, in the Court of Appeal.

Seventeen work for the government, including Hydro and the Legal Aid Commission, for these purposes. It is quite interesting that one-half of the lawyers in the Civil Division, in the Executive and Legislative Council's office - in other words, the non-Crowns, the non-criminal prosecution lawyers in my department - one-half of them are women at this time.

In any event, of fifty-two, if you take away thirteen and four and seventeen, you are left with eighteen - and that was the pool from which we began to approach this matter - ten had conflicts, including, let it be noted, my wife, who has been ten years at the Bar, but we removed her from the list because she also chairs the Human Rights Commission. There were others - I don't think it appropriate to go into the names.

MS. VERGE: Why is that a conflict?

MR. ROBERTS: I think it is a conflict for an appointment to be made by the Cabinet, a matter for which I am responsible, of my wife. It is not that she is not capable. One may question her judgement, but one, I don't think, can question her capability.

AN HON. MEMBER: In some matters.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ROBERTS: I thank hon. ladies and gentlemen for at least having the good grace to laugh at that. I felt it was inappropriate for me to go forward to Cabinet with a recommendation of an appointment for my wife. In fact, she doesn't answer to me administratively, she answers to my friend, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations. In other context, I answer to her, of course, but that has nothing to do with my public responsibilities.

Let me say a word about my own procedure on appointments. There is always a chicken-and-an-egg conundrum to be addressed in making appointments. One can either go to the Cabinet and ask: May I have approval to appoint X and Y and Z to a certain position? or one goes the other way around and asks: May I let your name go forward? The risk in the latter case is that the Cabinet may not approve the request and then one is left to go back to the individual and say: I have some bad news for you. I took your name forward but my colleagues didn't buy it. So I prefer the former course, and that is what was done in this case.

I take the responsibility - it was my doing and I will answer for it - for the fact that, of the two names who were approved by the Cabinet at my request, neither accepted the appointment. The Premier dealt with that early on. I happened to be away from the Province at the time. So we are now left with the situation.

The six adjudicators who were appointed are all capable. There is no reason to dismiss any of them. In fact, I'm not sure we have any right to dismiss any of them, and we are not prepared to come to the House and do it. So the obvious solution is to increase the panel by three. There will be no cost to the Province because these people are paid on a per hearing or a per diem basis when they are actually at work. I think I can assure the House that if the amendment is adopted the three adjudicators who will be appointed will all be women.

Now, the other point I need to make is this troublesome business of the ten-year guideline. This was done at my recommendation - I don't back off on it, I think it is a wise one. The ten years is statutory with respect to the appointment of judges, Provincial Court, and the section (inaudible), the federally-appointed courts. Given the powers that the House has put in these adjudicators, in my view, they should be lawyers of some seniority at the Bar, so we have stood by that. We have dropped it to eight to give us a slightly broader base from which to draw.

The other point I would make, Mr. Speaker, before other members get up and flay me - I guess it is my day to be flayed, as it were: `Flay on, O Ship of State!' - is that members may be interested to know that since the public complaints commission came into legal being, and since the act was proclaimed as of April 1, fifty-two complaints have been made by members of the public against members of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Thirty-one of those were made to the complaints commissioner and are referred back, nineteen went directly to the police here in St. John's, two from Corner Brook, and none from Western Labrador.

Of the fifty-two, thirteen have been withdrawn, two have been informally resolved, one has led to discipline proceedings, twenty-three have been dismissed on the grounds of insufficient evidence, zero have been found unfounded - if one follows the Irish or the English in that one, "found unfounded". So thirty-nine of the fifty-two have been disposed of, thirteen are still active. These numbers were as of November 18. I have no reason to think they have changed materially since then.

Of the thirty-nine disposed of, three have been appealed by the individuals concerned, to the commissioner. Because one will remember, the way the act operates is that if disposition of the matter at first instance is not satisfactory to either the person who makes the complaint or the person against whom the complaint is made, either of those may take the matter of the commissioner. So three matters have actually gone to the commissioner.

In conclusion, I want to thank my colleagues for their steadfast support over here. My friend for the Strait of Belle Isle has even come awake to take part in this debate. I want to thank him for that. I move second reading of the bill, Sir.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is interesting that the Government House Leader, the offending party in this matter, waited until the supper hour to call this bill - the supper hour when no reporters are present.

MR. ROBERTS: Oh, they are listening.

MS. VERGE: The minister says they are listening. Well, they will hear in other ways. The minister may have expected to avoid them by waiting until the supper hour to call this bill, but don't worry, people will find out what is going on.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what the minister, the Premier and his colleagues did in appointing only men to the police public complaints commission adjudicative panel is a sterling example of the good old boys playing politics the good old-fashioned way - the good old boys, Mr. Speaker.

Now, at least the minister, after having been shamed publicly, summoned the courage to admit that he made a mistake, that it really was a mistake to fail to notice qualified women in our population. The Premier didn't have the grace to acknowledge such an error. The Premier staunchly defended the appointment of only men to this panel, saying in a very sanctimonious way that `only men were qualified to do it.' They really had to have lawyers, and they had to have lawyers with at least ten years experience, and it so happened that the only eligible people were men, and it so happened that the only eligible men were Liberals.

MR. SIMMS: Now, isn't that strange, eh?

MS. VERGE: Now, when it was later pointed out that one of these eligible Liberal men didn't meet the Premier's standard, didn't have ten years at the Bar, namely, one, George Furey, then the minister revised the standard downward to eight years. Okay, they made a little slip. So now the standard is eight years at the Bar.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the Premier, the head of this administration, pays lip service to a policy of fairness and balance. He even pays lip service to a policy of gender equity - your leader, I say to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

Now, the Premier has put in writing such a commitment. I quote, and I will be glad to table this letter, this is the Premier writing on April 25, 1990, after a year in office: `While it is true that the participation rate of women on government boards and commissions has not increased for almost a year now' - that happens to be the first year in office of the `Real Change' Liberal Administration - `While it is true that the participation rate of women on government boards and commissions has not increased for almost a year now, I assure you, it is government's policy to appoint, where possible, women to alternate discretionary appointments until their representation is at least 50 per cent.'

Now, what we have before us here are discretionary appointments. What is the minister proposing to do to remedy his mistake, bring up the participation of women to at least 50 per cent? - no, bring it up to 33-1/3 per cent - not bad. That is terrible, Mr. Speaker!

Now, the remedy should be to enlarge this panel to twelve. There is no magic in the number. Cases are assigned to one adjudicator. The minister claims that this is paralleling, this is modelling the Human Rights Commission procedure. In that case, complaints are referred through the Chief Adjudicator to one adjudicator. There are a couple of dozen adjudicators on the panel, so why can't there be a couple of dozen police complaints commission adjudicators, half of whom are women?

Mr. Speaker, the gender inequality was glaring, and the minister, quite properly, got roasted by women's groups and the news media. However, I give the minister credit for apologizing publicly and for promising to rectify his mistake. As I said before, it was noticeable that it was only the minister who acknowledged the error, that the Premier never did, first nor last, own up to the mistake. The Premier seemed to be quite happy to staunchly defend it.

Now, not only is there a gender inequity, there is an inequity by geography. This complaints commission is mandated to deal with public complaints about the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Mr. Speaker, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary are responsible for policing in three geographic centres in this Province, the St. John's Northeast Avalon area - now, that area, surprise! surprise! is very well represented on the panel. St. John's residents number five - five of the eligible ten-year Liberal lawyers appointed are residents of St. John's. One, only, of the six, resides outside St. John's: Paul Althouse is a resident of Corner Brook, and there is no member on the panel from Labrador West.

Now, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary police all three centres and there should be representation on this panel from the three centres, one reason, fairness, another reason, keeping down cost. Mr. Speaker, as complaints arise from citizens in Corner Brook or Labrador West against the Constabulary, it doesn't make sense to appoint, as arbitrator, a St. John's lawyer, Liberal or not, who is going to have to travel to the centre of a complaint for the hearing at public expense. Does that make sense? Is there any need of that? No. We are suppose to be in an era of restraint, not to mention fairness and balance.

So the corrective action that is needed is an enlargement of that adjudicative panel to provide for 50-50 women and men, and to provide for representation from the three areas for which the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary are responsible.

Mr. Speaker, the minister is now saying that the standard is eight years at the Bar. That is after he got caught out on the appointment of George Furey. Now, Mr. Speaker, why eight years? The act itself, the minister's creation, simply calls for a lawyer. Why put an age limit? Why constrain the Cabinet by putting a seniority limit? The act simply says a lawyer. Now, there are dozens and dozens of women lawyers in this Province who have no conflict. The minister suggests that the women working for the Provincial Government are not eligible. I ask: Why? Why can't a woman working for a Crown corporation or, for that matter, working for a government department, serve as an adjudicator? What would be wrong with having a Hydro lawyer - he mentioned Hydro in particular - what would be wrong with having a Hydro lawyer serving on this panel?

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: Yes, that is something else for which the minister will continue to be roasted.

Mr. Speaker, there is no reason, in my view, why women lawyers working for the Provincial Government can't serve as adjudicators, certainly not women who work for Crown corporations. And, Mr. Speaker, while I am at it, why restrict this to lawyers? Why give lawyers a monopoly on this work? There are other qualified people in the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. VERGE: It is not only lawyers who are learned, I say to the minister. There are, after all, people who serve on the panel of labour management arbitrators who have been trained and admitted to that status. There are women on that panel. There are even people on that panel who are not lawyers. There are a couple of women on that panel who may not be lawyers, I say to the minister - that would be a pool of talent he might look to. Now, granted, we would have to amend the act, but I would be very happy to co-operate with the minister in amending the act, to open it up, give Cabinet complete discretion.

We don't need to have lawyers with ten years at the Bar, we don't need to have lawyers with eight years at the Bar, we don't need to have lawyers - we simply have to have qualified people. But we should have half-and-half, women and men, not only because it is fair but because it is consistent with what the Premier himself wrote. I will read it again for the benefit of members opposite. This was written after the Premier had been in office for one year, `While it is true that the participation rate of women on government boards and commissions has not increased for almost a year now, I assure you, it is government's policy to appoint, where possible, women to alternate discretionary appointments until their representation is at least 50 per cent.' Now, I say to the minister, the Premier didn't say, at least 33-1/3 per cent. What the minister is doing is enlarging a panel from six to nine. Now, he says he is going to keep the six men who are there, they are all qualified, he says. Well, what are their qualifications?

AN HON. MEMBER: They are good Liberals.

MS. VERGE: They are lawyers with ten years at the - o-oops, not all ten, eight years at the Bar.

AN HON. MEMBER: Good Liberals.

MR. SIMMS: Now, here it is! Here is the confession!

MS. VERGE: They are Liberals.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) team, good Liberals.

MR. SIMMS: I hope Hansard got Grimes' comment.

MS. VERGE: The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations,

who is vying with the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation for emphasizing patronage, just made the confession. There are six men they are not willing to jettison because they are all good party supporters, and they are proposing to add three positions to bring the total up to nine. And how patronizing - they are going to look at appointing women to those three positions! Big deal! So we will have six men and three women. Now, does that represent at least 50 per cent? That is what the Premier wrote. There is a signature here, Clyde K. Wells. That is what the Premier promised. So what are we going to end up with? - a panel with the six original men making 66-2/3 per cent and three women making 33-1/3 per cent. Are they going to appoint anyone from Labrador West?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS. VERGE: Well, they probably won't be able to find any women in Labrador West to come up to their standard. What about Corner Brook? Are they going to appoint any women from Corner Brook? The Constabulary is no longer a St. John's force. The Constabulary is a provincial force with responsibility for three centres.

Mr. Speaker, the minister is trying to sneak this through during the supper hour when nobody is listening and nobody is paying attention. He may well succeed in that aim because I don't think any of the reporters are working now. None of the reporters are watching. We are going to have other ways of getting this news out to people. Because when the minister did have the grace to apologize for his mistake in overlooking women he just - he is a senior politician with many years experience holding the position of Minister of Justice - but he just didn't notice that there were qualified women in the population. A slight mistake, slight error.

The Premier still hasn't even recognized that he is in any way deficient in overlooking half the population. When the minister did apologize he gave people the impression that he was going to correct the mistake by changing the legislation and then appointing women to bring up the complement to half men and half women. That is not possible under this amendment. Neither is it possible for him to adjust the geographic imbalance. Mr. Speaker, this is quite shameful.

While we are amending the act I suggest we remove the specification that only lawyers are eligible. I point out again that the current act doesn't say lawyers with ten years at the Bar or lawyers with eight years at the Bar. Let's take out the requirement that these adjudicators be lawyers and follow the same practice that is followed for determining the qualifications of labour-management arbitrators or, I say to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, use the same criteria that are used for appointments to the Workers' Compensation Appeal Tribunal, a quasi-judicial board.

In that case there is a variety of people from different backgrounds. There are lawyers, there are women and men. I don't think it is quite 50/50 but it is not far off. There are women who served admirably on that quasi-judicial board who could do equally well on the Police Public Complaints Commission. The police legislation unreasonably limits the choice of Cabinet. I suggest to members opposite, especially those who are not members of the Bar, that part of the old style of politics has to do with the disproportionate power held by men, obviously, and also lawyers. Lawyers have a nice little closed shop and tend to slip phrases like this into legislation to preserve their power and to preserve their monopoly.

Why should it be that only lawyers can serve as police complaints adjudicators when we don't have that requirement for labour-management arbitration, I ask the Member for St. John's South.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did you do when you were a minister?

MS. VERGE: What did I do when I was minister? I did a lot of things when I was minister, including bringing about an overall government policy of appointing 50/50 women and men to discretionary boards and commissions. During the Peckford Administration, after a couple of years of paying lip service to the desirability of having more women on Cabinet appointed boards, we found that that simply wasn't happening. We couldn't simply trust to evolution. So we adopted an affirmative action policy and every single minister and every single deputy minister was issued a directive from the top, from the premier, saying that from now on every second appointment has to be a woman until we approach equality. We had to have corrective action in a very deliberate way so that women could catch up. Because for many years men had it all sewn up.

People were not consciously shutting out women, but people were acting from force of habit, and when opportunities arose simply looked to the familiar `use the buddy' system. Once again we see the buddy system at work, but thanks to the vigilance of the women's movement and the news media, the Premier and his minister and their cronies did not get away with it this time.

I gave the minister credit when he publicly apologized and acknowledged his mistake. To me it was noticeable that the Premier did not have the decency to do the same. He basically allowed his minister to be alone out there on the limb. The Premier did not back up his minister in reiterating the apology, but when I was hearing the minister, when I was looking at him on television, I understood him to pledge to bring in a corrective measure.

This is not a corrective measure. This is a patronizing, insulting, partway measure. It is not good enough, and while the minister may have, in his foxy way, expected that by timing this debate for the supper hour, when nobody was listening, that he would avoid scrutiny, let me assure the minister that we will get the word out, and I would hope that more pressure will be brought to bear so that he will do the honourable thing and enlarge the membership of the police complaints adjudicative panel so that there can be true equality by gender and also fair representation by geography.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thought for a moment we were going to repeat the debate of last December when we were going to go all night on the bill by the Minister of Justice.

I want to join this debate because I think it is quite relevant to discuss this issue. I am not here to beat up on the Minister of Justice, although I am here to say that I was quite surprised - I was one of those who was quite surprised - when the announcements came out that six individuals, Reg Brown, Bob Sinclair, George Furey, Paul Althouse, Ian Kelly and David Eaton - six men - were named as adjudicators in this commission, because I thought two things.

First of all, I thought that one of the primary reasons that this commission was brought into place was the complaint of a woman being harassed by two police officers. I am not going to speak about the complaint, but that was a complaint that she made which received a very wide amount of publicity, and she complained about that. It was covered on the news media for days on end, and partly out of response to that the minister brought in this legislation, so he should have been sensitized to the idea that this was, in part, about issues related to women and to the status of women.

A second reason I am really surprised, although the minister is, as the Member for Humber East has said, a member of the old boy's network, he does have a significant influence in his personal life which I would have expected would have assisted in raising his consciousness.

MR. ROBERTS: My wife and my four daughters.

MR. HARRIS: His wife and his four daughters. I do not know his four daughters; I do know his wife. She is very well-known, very prominent, and I am sure has spent many an hour trying to raise the consciousness of the minister on matters as they relate to the status of women - that is after making him conscious, I suppose, in the first instance, and then to raise his consciousness and help him to understand some of these issues.

I was very surprised, not to say shocked, when I heard that these members of the Bar had been appointed.

Mr. Speaker, when that took place I was taken aback. I did, looking down the list, have some very curious concerns in reading through the list. I didn't see people with a lot of experience in the area of criminal law, police practise, police behaviour. I'm not saying that any of them are bad lawyers, I think they are all very good lawyers. But I don't know what involvement some of them - I see Mr. David Eaton here, very familiar with the criminal law and police procedure, police behaviour, and has put quite an extensive career at the Bar defending people and prosecuting. He has played both sides of the street as far as police activity is concerned. He has prosecuted drug prosecutions for a number of years. Then David Eaton defended drug prosecutors for many years. He is a member of a well-known Liberal law firm. I don't know his personal politics. I suspect they tend toward the red.

Mr. Reg Brown, not well-known as a practitioner before the criminal courts involved with criminal behaviour. I know some prominent members of his firm are very active in the Liberal Party, however.

MR. TOBIN: What is the name of that firm?

MR. HARRIS: That would be O'Reilly, Noseworthy. Tom O'Reilly, Ron Noseworthy. Very distinguished lawyers, but Mr. Noseworthy in particular a very well-known Liberal. Bob Sinclair, again, not a lawyer who has been particularly involved in the criminal courts, but very involved with a firm known as Halley, Hunt, which I think the minister has some knowledge of and some dealings with.

George Furey, a fine man. A friend of mine, actually. That doesn't qualify him for this. He is also the brother of the minister. He is a friend of theirs over there. I know he was one of the gang of five, I think, who helped the former leader into the House of Assembly.

AN HON. MEMBER: If he was a friend of theirs he qualifies.

MR. HARRIS: If he is a friend of theirs he qualifies. He doesn't qualify as a friend of mine. Paul Althouse, a very qualified individual. Again, I think - I'm told - a well-known Liberal. Ian Kelly, a very good lawyer indeed, but not - and practices criminal law as well in some respects. I don't know his personal politics. I know that his firm is the firm of a former Minister of Justice and President of Council, Les Curtis. That is the firm that he comes from. Les Curtis, a former Liberal -

MR. TOBIN: Who is that?

MR. HARRIS: Ian Kelly. So I wasn't terribly surprised when I saw all these people, but I was surprised that the minister and the government would be so obvious about doing this.

I want to say one thing. I don't blame it all on the Minister of Justice. If you look at section 29 of the act it says that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council shall appoint a panel, on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice. So he only made the recommendation. I wonder where the rest of them were. I know the Minister of Education was sleeping when the bill was being introduced, and the Minister of Justice thanked him for waking up and paying attention. Where were they all at the cabinet table? Where was the minister responsible for the Status of Women, `Stand Pat'? Where was she when this was coming through?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARRIS: Where was the minister responsible for the Status of Women when these six men with Liberal connections and Liberal law firm connections, where was she when they were being presented as the six people to adjudicate on these issues under the Constabulary Act? Where was she? Did she say - maybe Cabinet secrecy prevents her. Maybe she got up and said: hold on a minute, I'm the minister responsible for the Status of Women. Where are the women on this panel?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HARRIS: Maybe when she did that the Premier said: sh, sit down, this has been decided. Ed and I have already made up our minds. Maybe that is what happened, I don't know. Where was the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations when this was going through Cabinet? What did he say? He stood up in the House the other day with his white ribbon on and sanctimoniousness, borrowed from the Premier, and told us all about how he was concerned about violence against women and the importance of women's rights. Where was he when this was going through the Cabinet? Did he get up and say: hold on a minute Clyde; hold your horses Clyde; you are appointing six men to a commission, you are appointing six men, why don't you stand up for the principles that you espoused and start appointing some women to this commission?

Where was ITT?

AN HON. MEMBER: Up in Ontario.

MR. HARRIS: Where was the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology? He may have been there for brother George, I hope he wasn't. He may have been there for brother George, but if he -

MR. FUREY: Why wouldn't he be there for brother George?

MR. HARRIS: Oh, oh; I am sure he would not have been there to see brother George appointed to an appointment by the government, he would not be there for that. I cannot imagine that he would be, but if he was aware of these appointments going through -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Well I know the Member for Gander has a brother George in Ottawa, but if he was there, if he says he has no conflict, maybe he is right, I am not going to debate that issue, that is not the issue; the issue is, where was he for the women who should have been appointed? Did he say: hold on, hold on a minute here now, where are the women on this, or is he colour blind?... if he looks at the list and sees red, that is enough, he does not have to look any further, so I don't think it is fair to place all the blame on the Minister of Justice, he deserves a few lashes and he is getting a few lashes, but he at least had the courage to come out afterwards and apologize and recognized that he had made an error, but where were all the rest?

Where was the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, where was he when this happened, and the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, was he there saying: what about appointing women to this, because this is an important board, women have complained about police activity and they need to be represented as well. But I am not going to go on, I think I have made my point and I am sure the minister responsible for the Status of Women will have her say in this debate when I sit down, but I want to say to the Minister of Justice that I was making some inquiries today, because it is an important issue as to the composition of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, we know that there is an overwhelming number of men in uniform; there are now 340 uniformed members of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, of this 340, there are twenty-three women.

I am informed that there is a recruitment drive going on right now, and I say to the Minister of Justice: you and your Cabinet colleagues, but you in particular, have a chance to redeem yourself by announcing to this House and to the people an affirmative action policy with respect to the choice of recruitment in this. I am told, Mr. Speaker, that there have not been any recruits for several years, for three or four years, and that the proportion of women and men has been as it is for some time. I believe in the last recruitment there was one out of ten chosen. One tenth of the recruits were women. I think that is one of the issues and I want to move to a very serious note for a moment.

The issue we were talking about in the House today under Statements by Ministers having to do with the Montreal massacre with violence against women in general, the issue raised by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations last week in the White Ribbon campaign.

MR. MURPHY: (Inaudible)

MR. HARRIS: There is, I say to the Member for St. John's South, a relationship between policing and police attitudes when it comes to domestic violence. There has been some consciousness raising going on in the police force, I say to hon. members, just as it has been going on in the home of the Minister of Justice. There has been some consciousness raising going on in the police force but not enough. The only solution to the attitude towards domestic violence is going to come when we have an equal number of women in the police force as men. I say that quite sincerely, and I say it as a result of my understanding, my knowledge, and my talking to people who are concerned about this issue, the women who are involved in justice issues, the women who work at Kirby House and the transition houses across this Province will tell you that police attitudes towards domestic violence are required to be sympathetic to an understanding of the situation women find themselves in, and I think that is going to come more strongly and more quickly when the proportion of men and women in the police force is more evenly balanced.

I say, Mr. Speaker, there is a chance very soon for the Minister of Justice and this government to redeem itself on this issue by making it very clear that there will be an affirmative action policy put in place to ensure that in the upcoming recruitment to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary at least half of the appointments are women. Maybe they should be all women, I say to the hon. Member for St. John's South, to help increase the balance. I say to hon. members that at least half of them ought to be women. That would be designed for better policing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the Member for St. John's South talks about candidates and talks about this. I say to the hon. member we are talking here about government offering employment to people at public expense for a very important job, the policing of our society. I say to all hon. members that policing will be better if we have a better proportion of men and women doing those jobs. There is, I say to the Minister of Justice and to hon. members, and to the Cabinet, there is a chance to redeem yourself and I suggest very strong that you should take it up, and the people of Newfoundland, the women of Newfoundland will thank you for it. Perhaps not at the polls but they will indeed thank you for it.

There are one or two other points that add to this. I know hon. members are anxious to get up and speak in this debate. I see the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations scratching her head and planning her speech. The Minister of Environment and Lands scratching her head and planning her thoughts. I know that she will get up and speak because we are talking here about an issue involving the status of women and about the role of them on boards. Perhaps she will explain to us this governments policy on appointments of women to boards and how somehow it slipped up. Perhaps she will explain how somehow it slipped up here and tell us why that that happened while she - or perhaps that she was absent from the Cabinet meeting that made the decision. I say in response to what the Member for Humber East has said, yes, there is no real necessity for adjudicators to be lawyers in these circumstances. The powers of the adjudicators seem to be very closely related to the kind of decisions that labour arbitrators would make.

When you look at section 33 that the decision the adjudicator can make - an adjudication in making an order that the police officer who is the subject of the complaint comply with the standards of police service prescribed in the regulations, enter a rehabilitation or training program, be reinstated with or without a reprimand, whether or not a commissioned officer be not considered for promotion for a time period of three years.

The kinds of things that a labour arbitrator, when considering disciplinary matters, would have to decide whether or not a particular level of discipline, up to and including firing, was appropriate. Those kinds of skills - which I say to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, his brother George has and does a very good job as a labour arbitrator - don't have to be a lawyer to do it. There are many people on that adjudicators panel; Dr. John Scott at Memorial University, Dr. Leslie Harris, who is the police complaints commissioner, Mr. David Alcock a professor at the University. Some newly qualified individuals, both men and women, who don't have legal training, Mr. Speaker, but can certainly handle the kind of adjudicative decisions that are made here and have the same powers under the Public Inquiries Act under labour arbitrations as the adjudicator will here. So I say it is not necessary to be a lawyer to make the kind of determinations that are being made here. They are made every day in this Province -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: They are made every day, Mr. Speaker, by labour arbitrators in this Province, about half of whom are lawyers and about half of whom are not. The success in terms of upholding these decisions in the court - I know Mr. Speaker himself, who was a very learned arbitrator for a number of years and I don't know what his track record was in the courts, I don't know if he was over-ruled -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: He had a superb record he says and I have no reason to doubt that. I sat as a panel member with Mr. Speaker on a number of occasions when arbitrations were being conducted. I don't remember any decision that we made, Mr. Speaker, that was over-ruled by the courts. I think on the whole, the labour arbitrators have a fairly good track record. So when I say that, Mr. Speaker, I don't mean to say it facetiously. I say from my own experience that the kinds of decisions and determinations that are being asked to be made by adjudicators don't need to be made by lawyers, don't need a ten year rule which we have for QCs. I think you have to have ten years at the Bar to be a QC. I don't know why. The QCs don't seem to do anything that anybody else does except put QC after their name.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: No, I don't have one. I don't expect that I will be getting one either but one never knows. I know the Member for Humber East is a QC but, Mr. Speaker, that is not the point. The point here is that they don't need to be lawyers to be good adjudicators. They certainly do not need to be ten years at the Bar. This whole malarkey about unqualified women is just that - malarkey.

If you look at the Human Rights Commission there are, I think, twenty-five or twenty-six adjudicators. I do not know how many of them are women. I suspect it is close to half of the Human Rights adjudicators who are women. The minister responsible for the Human Rights Commission, when it was transferred to him from the Minister of Justice, I am sure, will tell us that perhaps half of the Human Rights adjudicators are women. Some of them are lawyers. I think maybe all of them are. Most of them, when they were appointed, did not have ten years at the Bar, and have been making very important decisions; decisions, I may say, in many cases far more important, far more complex legally, and far more significant in their effect, than the adjudicator under the Police Complaints Commission Act.

I say that in all sincerity because I know some of the issues that the Human Rights Commission have to deal with, and they are not very simple issues at all, and they involve institutions and bodies with a considerable amount of power.

So I make these remarks in criticism of the government's approach to this, but I say that there is a chance to redeem yourselves in the recruitment practices of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, and I hope that other hon. members, including the minister responsible for the Status of Women, the Minister of Environment and Lands, will rise to speak about this, and tell us how the government plans to look after some of these issues, particularly with recruitment in the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Perhaps the Minister of Justice will respond to that issue as well.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the Government House Leader speaks, he will conclude debate on the bill.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the demands of my colleagues that I reply at length to these devastating attacks, which I can only compare to being lashed with a wet, cold noodle -

AN HON. MEMBER: You used that one yesterday.

MR. ROBERTS: I did, but the speech was the same yesterday. It was more linguini yesterday, now a noodle.

Let me just say two points. First of all, Mr. Speaker, in our judgement the powers of these adjudicators are such that they should be lawyers -

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: `Our' speaking for the government of which I am a part.

The hon. lady is not used to being part of a government. It has been years since she was there, and I venture to say it will be many more before she ever again sits as part of a Ministry.

My hon. and learned friends, I will simply have to agree to disagree on that. I would say to my friend from St. John's East that the powers of these adjudicators range far beyond that of a labour arbitrator who is trained for what he or she does, as lawyers are trained for this type of adjudication.

With respect to the police force, it is correct that a recruitment process is under way. I understand there have been about 2,000 applications for the ten available positions. We have not hired any members in the RNC for, I think it is three years now because of the downsizing, but we anticipate that over the next number of years a number will be hired.

The people who get chosen are being chosen by the Public Service Commission. They will be chosen strictly on the basis of merit, with due recognition for gender a factor, but on the basis of merit. We are not going to appoint police officers on any basis other than those best qualified to do the job.

So those points made, Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members opposite for their participation and move the bill be now read a -

MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible) cancelling the QCs.

MR. ROBERTS: Cancelling the QCs is something that my friend for Burin - Placentia West and I agree on, but it is not a matter that is dealt with in the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary bill so we will put that off for another time.

Mr. Speaker, with that said I move the bill be now read a second time.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Act, 1992," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 42)

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friends want to do some more legislation we will, but I....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No, no.

MR. ROBERTS: I didn't think they -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: If you do this any other evening you are buying supper for the works.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ROBERTS: I've heard, Mr. Speaker, of people selling themselves out for a mess of pottage but not for supper.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank hon. members. We are moving right along now. I will move that the House at its rising adjourn until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 2:00 p.m., and that the House do now adjourn.

Tomorrow, before we go, Bills Nos. 41, 44, 45, 38, 40 and 35.

MS. VERGE: Bingo.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, that is not only the funniest thing the hon. member has ever said, it is probably the most intelligent.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 2:00 p.m.