November 25, 1994          HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS          Vol. XLII  No. 69


The House met at 9:00 a.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. GIBBONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise this hon. House today that government has approved an amendment to the Wildlife Regulations 1984, which will be gazetted in the next few days. These regulations will allow the sale of moose and caribou antlers and other parts such as hooves for the purpose of manufacturing of crafts by recognized craft operators resident in the Province. I emphasize the "resident in the Province."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. GIBBONS: This has been done to facilitate the use of both the shed antlers and those antlers acquired through legal hunting. Mr. Speaker, in the past it was legal for hunters to give away antlers and parts from moose and caribou but they were not allowed to sell them. While that provision was meant to ensure the elimination of illegal hunting for antlers and other parts, it created problems for legitimate use of these parts in the crafts industry which could not get enough material for their operations.

The new regulations will require the purchasers of antlers and other parts to obtain a permit from the Wildlife Division of the Department of Natural Resources. The permit holders will be required to maintain records of their acquisitions and information from licence holders from whom they make a purchase. These procedures are aimed at ensuring that only legally taken antlers and parts are sold. The new regulations will also allow under permit the gathering of antlers shed annually by animals. The sale of the shed antlers will now be permitted.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that these regulations will maintain a balance between the need to protect our valuable wildlife resource and the legitimate needs of the craft manufacturers of this Province to utilize these normally discarded parts for various products. Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Here is an example again of what we have been saying all along about this government and different ministers in this Administration not listening, not consulting with people. Why should people in this Province have to be criminalized before such an action is taken? Just in the last couple of days, my colleague, the hon. the Member, for Green Bay, brought in petitions on behalf of a constituent of his, and now the minister has acted in a rational way to try to help the craft industry in this Province.

That is the way it should be done, not the other way. Tell the people up front, consult with the people, you would be much better off.

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for not having a written statement. I would like to announce simply that government has decided to refund the RST on the unused portions of the Hiland Insurance policies.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: This is to avoid double taxation, obviously, and it will amount to a cost of about $800,000 to government.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Another example of the government yielding to pressure but better late than never.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. VERGE: Now, let's have the inquiry, let's have the independent full inquiry into the government insurance regulatory system. The inquiry can be set up now -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MS. VERGE: - it doesn't conflict with the criminal investigation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. the Member for St. John's East have leave to address the House?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I want to come back to some answers that the Premier provided to the House and to me last Friday concerning

the Trans City contracts. Last Friday he told us that he had appointed a committee of Cabinet consisting of the then Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, the Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir; the then Minister of Justice; Your Honour, the Speaker, the Member for Humber West; the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and the President of Treasury Board to take care of the tenders and the contracts for lease purchase of the three health care centres in question.

Now, taking the responsibilities out of the hands of the officials in the Department of Justice, and so on, passing them on over to a committee of Cabinet ministers is highly unusual. Before we had public tendering it was probably normal. But could the Premier explain why this Cabinet committee was set up in the first place?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, to begin with, it is incorrect to say that I appointed a Cabinet committee. Cabinet appointed a committee. It was done in a Cabinet meeting. Secondly, it is incorrect to say that it related to Trans City. It related to the entire program of building health care facilities. Why it was set up in the first place was fairly simple, Mr. Speaker. My recollection of it, and I would have to go back and check this to be sure, so I do not want anybody to hold me absolutely to this unless I check it, my recollection is that the government had received some considerable pressure from a number of sources, including in the health care, to say part of the reason why you are running into high cost for building health care facilities is you are coming out with these detailed and extensive specifications by architects, engineers, and so on, and this is running into excessive costs. Why do you not invite proposals? You would be surprised, you may get some very good proposals, get good health care facilities, and save you a lot of money, so we invited proposals, Mr. Speaker.

That was a different process. We set the standard. It was not the conventional design and call tender process, so a committee was put in place to deal with this whole process. It was the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology. That was the committee and that is why it was done.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, it would have been more plausible if the Premier had admitted that the purpose of the committee was to make sure that Marco Construction got the contracts to build those hospitals because that is what this is all about.

Let me ask a straightforward, simple question. Why would the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology be on this particular committee if it was set up to deal with the building of hospitals, and why was the Minister of Health not on that committee?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, it was not set up to deal only with the building of hospitals. Health care facilities was what was before us at that point in time, but the objective of it was to take a new approach to it in the Province and to consider taking a new approach, not just to hospital buildings, hospital is one, it could apply to other buildings as well, schools, university construction buildings, any variety of buildings that government builds. The same approach would apply to all such buildings.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition on a supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that is what the Premier told us in the House last Friday. I believe he told us it was set up to deal with this issue of the tendering on the question of the hospital health care contracts so it is one thing or the other, you can't have it both ways.

Now, Mr. Speaker, a further question to the Premier.

We now have learned that taxpayers are paying for a private lawyer to represent the former Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, the Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir in the current court proceedings regarding these hospital contracts. That too, is highly unusual, because I think it is well-known that a Minister of the Crown or a former minister for that matter would be normally entitled to and given the services of a Crown solicitor from the Department of Justice on any matter arising from the performance of his or her legitimate responsibilities as a Minister of the Crown, so I would like to ask the Premier and the Minister of Justice, two short questions: Is the former minister's interest in this particular matter different or at odds with the interest of the Crown, would that be the reason why you would provide him with a private lawyer and how much will this cost the taxpayers? What rate is being paid to this private lawyer?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I don't know the detail of it. It was done during the period of my predecessor in office but I will find out the detail and advise the House; but I do recall the reasoning given for it because the minister at the time enquired of me as to my views as to the acceptability of doing it, and it is a fairly straightforward position.

Mr. Gilbert, who is the former minister that is involved, felt it inappropriate and so did the minister, that he should be taking advice or depending upon advice from an official from the Department of Justice when in fact that same Department of Justice was in the process of conducting an action against him on a criminal matter, so it just separates the two.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and the Premier will table the information for us as to what the rate of pay and the cost is?

Well, just one final question: The Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir was a member of the Cabinet committee that we talked about earlier; what I would like to ask the Premier is this: does the government expect that it may have to engage private lawyers to advise the other ministers who are on this patronage committee to oversee this particular matter?

AN HON. MEMBER: He is not getting up?

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have questions for the Premier too; questions about the conduct of the Member for Naskaupi while he was still Attorney General.

According to the Premier's own statement announcing the resignation of the member as Minister of Justice and Attorney General, the statement the Premier issued on Tuesday, after search warrants were issued for the RCMP to search the premises of the member's businesses, the member interfered with the police investigation while he was still Attorney General.

In paragraph three of the Premier's statement it says that the member, while still Attorney General, along with certain directors and the company solicitor, caused enquiries to be made, and turned over to the police further information in relation to the activities of certain employees of the businesses.

Now, the police had search warrants for good reasons. Will the Premier admit it was completely wrong for the Attorney General of the Province to meddle with the police investigation by influencing which documents were turned over to the police?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: It is difficult to believe that any hon. member could devise such a totally unfounded proposition and put it forward.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: I said no such thing. If the hon. member is prepared to read the whole statement, she will know that the instruction by me to the Deputy Attorney General was: the Attorney General was not to be aware of it at all until the search warrants were fully executed and the police had whatever they wanted. That was done and complete, and it wasn't through the Deputy Attorney General or it wasn't through me that the minister became aware. The minister became aware through company sources, as far as I know, through the company solicitor, who advised the minister.

After the search warrants had been executed and the police had obtained whatever information they wanted, it was then that the directors took this additional action and found additional information that the police had not sought, that they turned over to the police. Now I can only commend such action, not condemn it as the hon. member seeks to do.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is shameful for the Premier of the Province to be covering up for the former Attorney General.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS. VERGE: Now, I am not asking about just any company directors. I am asking about the former Attorney General who acted, while he was still Attorney General, by causing enquiries to be made and influencing which documents were turned over to the police.

Now I say to the Premier, as Attorney General now, will the Premier cause a police investigation to be conducted into the conduct of the former member in meddling with the police investigation by attempting to influence which documents were turned over to the police? Doesn't the Premier believe that justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: The only thing that I have seen that warrants investigation is the reprehensible conduct of the hon. member.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier has gone along with the pretence of the Member for Naskaupi, who seems to lead a charmed life in the Premier's administration, that the member was at arm's length from Pharmaceutical Supplies, which was selling millions of dollars worth of supplies and drugs to the Province's hospitals and nursing homes each year. If the member was at arm's length from Pharmaceutical Supplies what was the member doing while still Attorney General, while still in the Cabinet, along with company directors and the company lawyer, causing enquiries to be made and turning documents over to the police? Will the Premier finally do the proper thing and drop this member from his Cabinet altogether?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, it is fortunate that this government believes in prosecution in accordance with the rule of law, not persecution in accordance with furthering political objectives.

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

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Education and Training. There are 211 recommendations in the Williams royal commission. The minister knows that 80 per cent of these recommendations -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I'm having trouble hearing the hon. member.

MR. HODDER: There are 211 recommendations in the Williams royal commission. The minister knows that 80 per cent of these recommendations can be implemented under the legislative authority already granted to the government, and that a further 10 per cent has been approved in principle through consensus building between the government and the church leaders. If the minister is truly committed to reforms in the educational system, why does he not introduce his legislative amendments in this session of the House?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. gentleman for his question, but I have to confess I'm having a difficult time keeping up with members opposite. One minute they come in and criticize government because we are not moving fast enough with the implementation of the royal commission; the next day they come in and say: Let's give the churches a solemn declaration that no matter what we will not touch the Constitution. That in itself is saying: Slow down the implementation. I think it is time to have a christening. I use to call the hon. member `flip-flop,' but he is changing so swiftly I think it would be more adequate for me to call him `spin top.' He is continually going around and around. I can't keep up with the hon. member. From henceforth he is no longer `flip-flop,' it is `spin top.'

The royal commission is divided into two broad general sections. About twenty of those recommendations have implication for governance. In order for us to go ahead with these twenty-odd recommendations we would either have to have a consensus by the churches or we would have to have a change of Constitution, whichever way we want to do that. We can't move on these twenty. That is what all the talks have been about, these twenty. Some have said twenty-five, some have said fifteen, but there are a certain number of recommendations that have implications for the Constitution.

The hon. member is quite right. All the other recommendations can be implemented without consent of the churches. What the hon. member doesn't seem to realize is exactly that is happening. For example, the hon. member will realize that a few days ago we published some of the results of the standardization tests. That is right out of the royal commission. We are trying to determine how one school is doing in comparison to another. We have developed testing which is second to none in this country. We are using the testing.

The kindergarten. We plan to go ahead this fall, if not with a full-fledged full day kindergarten, but we will be going ahead with some pilot projects. The curriculum for kindergarten has been fully developed. We are now talking to the NTA about it to get further feedback.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I would ask the hon. minister to draw his answer to a close.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I can go on with a whole lot of recommendations. The teacher training has been dealt with with Memorial University, the curriculum in the high school has been totally re-evaluated, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: I thank the minister for his answer and I will ask for a supplementary from the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, a year ago the reforms were due to be implemented by September. In fact, at one point they were to be introduced last spring. Put off to some time last year, then it was going to be in this session of the Legislature. I say to the minister, three of the government's primary objectives, as I understand it, and he can confirm it, have been achieved in negotiation with the churches. It is my understanding that agreements in principle have been reached on a Province-wide prioritization of school construction, the reduction of school boards to ten, and an acceptable model to rationalize school bus transportation. These were primary objectives of the ministry. Will the minister confirm that agreements in principle have been reached on these three primary objectives of the Administration, and would he therefore implement the necessary legislative changes to the legislation of the Province to get on with the job of reform?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member seems to have half the facts. Remember where the mate on the ship was drunk and the captain wrote in on one entry that the mate was drunk today, and that was the truth. The next day the mate wrote in that the captain is sober today, and that was the truth, but the log showed only one entry that the captain was sober. It was the truth, but not the complete truth.

Here is the problem with the hon. member. Yes, we all agree on ten boards. If we really pushed it, I believe we could get the church to agree on five boards, but the problem is, when we talk about a board, what is a board? What government means by a board and what churches mean by a board are two totally different things.

For example, one of the problems, government wants ten interdenominational boards with provision for the non-adherents to have representation on the boards as well and, in most respects, that board would govern the school system with provisions made for some of the uni-denominations where a committee of the board would have input into the hiring of teachers, (inaudible) in the schools, and pastoral care.

Now the churches, on that particular issue, are insisting that those committees on the boards would have statutory authority; they would be there by statute. They would, for all intents and purposes, on many issues, become boards in themselves, so you would have boards within boards. Ezekiel talked about the wheel within a wheel; we are talking about boards within boards, and those boards, in many respects, those inter-commissions that the churches want to call them, would have more authority on some respects than the whole general board would.

So, yes, we can get ten boards. Yes, we can get five boards if we wanted to, but when you consider the power of those commissions within the boards you could end up with - well, I suppose in an extreme case you could have a board with five commissions within that board, and each commission would have more authority than the board, in certain respects. So that is the problem. The hon. member has half the truth when he knows there are ten boards, but it is the power of the commissions within the boards.

Now, the hon. member talked about the school construction committee. I have to answer it, Mr. Speaker. If he keeps asking questions that need long answers, I have to answer it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. minister has taken about two-and-a-half minutes already. I will give him thirty seconds to complete the answer.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, you will have to put those questions on the Order Paper because I don't have time.

The school construction body the hon. member talked about, yes, we agree on a school construction body. Yes, at least one of the churches is prepared to forget the cyclical nature whereby every five years we balance out, but at least one of the churches is insisting that over a certain period of time that their church would get their amount of money over a five year period, so instead of having nondiscriminatory distribution in one year, that church -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

If the minister is going to take any longer, the minister can put it on the Order Paper (inaudible).

The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount, a final supplementary.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, in 1962-'63 there were 1,249 schools in this Province. Through a process of negotiations, compromise, trust, and consensus building, that number has been reduced to 477 as of today's date. That means we have closed an average of twenty-four schools per year for thirty-one years.

These changes were achieved without constitutional amendment. Why does the minister not today open up a new dialogue with the churches and abandon his threats, his intimidation, and the whole process of referendums and constitutional amendments?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, in 1962 - well okay, in the 1970s, I am not sure of the '62 figure. In the 1970s, there were 179,000 students in this Province. Today, Mr. Speaker, there are less than 115,000. This past year alone, enrollment declined, Mr. Speaker, by 4,000 students. That is one of the explanations why the number of classrooms is getting smaller. It is simply declining enrollment, Mr. Speaker. What the hon. member does not pick up and he is talking the line that the churches are talking. The churches are suggesting that we can achieve what we want to achieve by joint services. The system remains the same in most respects but where it is impossible to have a viable school, you would have a joint service. Now that is what the church is talking about.

Government is talking about a true inter-denominational system, church based school system, true inter-denominational, Mr. Speaker, where you will not be busing your high school Catholics out of Pouch Cove to St. John's, your high school Protestants out of Pouch Cove to St. John's and trying to maintain two elementary schools side by side in Pouch Cove, Mr. Speaker.

One example he says. I can take him up to Roddickton, Mr. Speaker, two schools 1,000 feet apart. I can take him to dozens and dozens of communities in this Province where two schools and sometimes three schools are trying to deliver education but the argument comes back, `but look what we have done.' What we do not point out is that we still send buses out to Brigus every school morning and pick up all the Protestant children in Brigus and move them to Bay Roberts.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: And then we send a bus into Bay Roberts and pick up all the Catholic children and bus them into Brigus, Mr. Speaker!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The minister is -

MR. DECKER: This is what we are trying to (inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I would ask the minister to resume his seat.

MR. DECKER: Every morning children are bused past Prince of Wales -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

When I call the House to order I would like the members to at least listen, particularly the minister answering a question. Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question, Mr. Speaker, is to the Premier, who is now responsible for Justice as well as other responsibilities, on November 23, on Wednesday of this week, Mr. Speaker, I was speaking on a petition here in the House pertaining to Hiland Insurance.

The Premier, in response to that petition, said that he had - in debate I mentioned the fact and asked the question I suppose, in an indirect way, about the reporting requirements of Hiland Insurance. The Premier, in his response, five times stated, `so far as I know, to the best of my knowledge.' `So far as I know,' and I assume that Hiland had met the reporting requirements as it pertains to the insurance industry in the Province. Could the Premier now be more categoric today and tell me if Hiland Insurance had met all the reporting requirements as it pertained to that insurance company?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I have not done any further enquiries since. Although since that time I have had a meeting with Mr. Tapper, who is the Superintendent of Insurance. While I did not discuss that issue with him specifically at that time, my recollection of the context of that whole discussion, was that indeed there was no concern about the filing requirements of Hiland in March, April or up until August. The license, I believe, was renewed in August and the superintendent was satisfied that the requirements up until August, at least, were met.

Now I remind hon. members of this, there are two aspects to this. There is the aspect of the level of reinsurance, the contracts for reinsurance obligations being taken on and the extent to which Hiland was required to provide for reinsurance, they were deficient some time in January. The superintendent tells me that was corrected on January 19, that was fully corrected and maintained in a correct state.

They were also concerned about the level of capital because of the level of insurance and the lack of reinsurance but the level of capital in the company, that too was corrected by, he says, the injection of some $300,000 of additional equity capital in the company and over the period of time that was maintained. So that in August of 1994, when the license was re-issued -

MS. VERGE: But the other concern (inaudible)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: If the hon. member would stop prattling I would try and answer the member's question.

Up until August 1994 when the license was re-issued, the superintendent was satisfied that the reporting and other requirements were met; but now I also remind hon. members that there is a police investigation underway at this moment into certain matters relating to the handling and management of Hiland Insurance. There are certain aspects of it that I would be causing interference in that police investigation if I mention it to the House. I just say to hon. members, let the police do their work.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: Stop trying to interfere with what the police are doing. I am satisfied on everything that I have seen to date that Mr. Tapper, at least up until August 1994, and I presume sometime thereafter, fully met the requirements of his responsibility as Superintendent of Insurance. I am satisfied as to that.

Now, in the meantime, other actions were taken with respect to Hiland Insurance. There is a police investigation with respect to that matter; please stop trying to interfere with it and let the investigation take its course. They will finish shortly and if the superintendent did anything wrong, the government will answer for the superintendent.

MS. VERGE: What about if the minister is doing something wrong?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

The question that I am asking this morning does not only pertain to Hiland; those requirements and regulatory processes apply to every other insurance company in the Province, it has nothing to do with a court case.

Now for the first time since the questioning began on this, about a month ago, since November 4 especially, it goes back to October 3, that the Premier has admitted that there were some concerns as it pertains to the reporting requirements of Hiland. He just said that there were deficiencies with regards to re-insurance; there were deficiencies with regards to capital requirements. I ask the Premier today, could he tell me now if there were any other deficiencies that were found by the Superintendent of Insurance back as early as March, Mr. Speaker, that this government and the Superintendent of Insurance did not take any action on?

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. member to read all of the documents tabled in the House on November 18, and he will see everything I have just said with respect to the reporting requirements, he will see everything -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: - he will see everything that I just said with respect to the level of capital in the company, he will see everything that I have just said with respect to the contracts of re-insurance, all of that was there and reported by the Minister of Justice on 18 of November in documents tabled in the House.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Could the Premier, in his capacity now as Minister of Justice, tell the House today or confirm to the House that all other insurance companies in the Province operating under the auspices of the Superintendent of Insurance have met all the reporting requirements?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: I have no reason whatsoever to think anything to the contrary, but I will enquire of the Superintendent of Insurance and I will ask him to enquire and report to the House. You see, we have a civil service system. The politicians do not run the system of insurance; we have a civil service system and we entrust those responsibilities to the civil servants and I am confident that Mr. Tapper has performed his duties in that. If I did not have that confidence in Mr. Tapper, I would put somebody else in to perform the duties, but I will make an enquiry of Mr. Tapper, I will tell him of the concern expressed by the hon. member and ask him to provide the information to assure the hon. member that the reporting requirements have been met.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Notices of Motion

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act To Provide For Economic Diversification And Growth Enterprises In The Province".

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act".

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture.

DR. HULAN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Livestock Insurance Act".

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BAKER: I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following bills, "An Act To Amend The Tobacco Tax Act", "An Act To Amend The Liquor Control Act", and "An Act To Amend The Mining And Mineral Rights Tax Act".

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act To Amend The Wilderness And Ecological Reserves Act".

Answers to Questions

For which Notice has been Given

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes last week in the Legislature was asking for information with respect to the amounts of money spent to date in planning, studying, and preparing for the Caboto Legacy Building. I will table the information. The money has been coming forward from the budget of Works, Services and Transportation in advanced planning and studies. The tabled amounts here today will show that as of November 21, 1994 the total paid was $304,659. Ongoing work not yet invoiced would bring it to $400,000 and we expect additional commitments with the site study for Fort Townsend which is ongoing now, conceptional design and so on, to bring the total to the end of December, 1994 to $530,000. I would like to table that information, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture.

DR. HULAN: Mr. Speaker, when I rose in this hon. Chamber yesterday to answer the question regarding the issuance of sea urchin processing licenses posed by the hon. Member for Grand Bank I interpreted the question as to whether government had recently issued a stand alone license for primary processing of sea urchin who are 3 T Fishery of Bonne Bay.

Since that time I have acquired a copy of Hansard and I realize that I interpreted the question wrong. The question that was posed was: can he confirm that a sea urchin processing licence was issued in the last few days to 3 T Fishery of Bonne Bay? Of course the question that I had interpreted, whether a stand alone licence was issued was definitely, no.

To answer the question that was recorded in Hansard I must tell this House that government saw fit to issue three additional licences in order to further develop that species.

In order to be fair to all, government solicited proposals from all interested parties in this Province and we received twenty-eight proposals. We reviewed them carefully, and on the strength of those proposals, three additional primary licences to process sea urchin were issued to companies that already hold primary processing licences for groundfish. One of those was indeed 3 T's of Bonne Bay.

So the three licences that were issued were licences to process sea urchin, and were tack-on licences to already existing primary processing licences. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House there were a couple of questions, and I now have the information that I can provide. One was from the hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West, who asked me if I knew what date HMDC expected to get the work that was being sent to Saint John back and completed. He asked me what date they expected to get it from Marystown had it been left in Marystown. I knew the answer with respect to Marystown. I told the House I wasn't certain of the answer with respect to Saint John.

Yesterday afternoon, at a meeting with the Marystown Town Council and Mr. Ken Hull of HMDC, I asked that question. He told me, the date they expected to have it completed at Saint John was October 15, 1995.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: I undertook to inform the House, so I've informed the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: No, what he expected for Marystown was sometime in 1996.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: That is not what he (inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: I know what Mr. Ruelokke told him, but the question was when HMDC expected to get it, so that is the answer I have given.

Mr. Speaker, I think it was the Member for Grand Bank who asked me another question about the role played by my executive assistant in Corner Brook, Eddie Joyce, in relation to the application for a sea urchin processing - primary licence to process sea urchin in Frenchman's Cove in the Bay of Islands. I am pleased to advise the House that virtually every allegation made in the course of asking that question is false, is totally wrong, totally incorrect.

Mr. Joyce did indeed release the information but he released it with the full consent of Mr. David Joyce, the proponent, having obtained it beforehand.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not true.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. David Joyce says it is true, Mr. Eddie Joyce says it is true. I certainly accept their word over the hon. member's allegation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WELLS: As to the allegation -

MR. W. MATTHEWS: The mayor told me that Dave Joyce (inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: As to the allegation -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: Does anybody wonder why I repeat myself in Hansard? It is pretty obvious. You have to, trying to get over the roaring noises from the opposite side.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WELLS: As to the allegation that Mr. Joyce interfered with the application to promote the interests of others, Mr. Joyce advises me - and I have no reason not to accept what he says - that his first knowledge of that application was two weeks after the request was rejected.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I say to the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture, I asked you to table a list of all the sea urchin processing licences issued and when they were issued, and I say to the Premier that Mr. David Joyce told me yesterday, that Mr. Eddy Joyce released this information without his permission and he summed up by saying that he has been ruined by Mr. Ed Joyce. He spent $20,000 preparing this and your assistant went and made it public to every processor in the Province. He has ruined him, and I say to the Premier, the information you have been getting is not correct.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member does not have a point of order.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, to that point of order, let me say simply that -

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order. I don't need to hear from the hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, if I may make a further point of order, then?

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

MR. ROBERTS: What I want to say, Mr. Speaker, is this: my submission is that the hon. the Member for Grand Bank inadvertently abused the rules of point of order and in making that submission, I want to point out that if the hon. the Member for Grand Bank has a quarrel with anybody, it is not with those of us on this side who have told him the truth -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman from Mount Pearl by way of Lewisporte should try to keep quiet.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. WINDSOR: (Inaudible) all day telling people to sit down, now it is your turn to sit down.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Let me hear if the Government House Leader has a point of order or not.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: I still can't hear the hon. the Government House Leader. We could be here a long time trying to find it.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the point I was making is in the same vein as that of my friend, the Member for Grand Bank, that if he has a quarrel with anybody, it is with the gentleman whom he told us, and I accept the hon. gentleman's word - who told him yesterday -

MR. SIMMS: Do you like to listen to yourself or what?

MR. ROBERTS: I would rather listen to myself than to the hon. the Member for Grand Falls. At least, Mr. Speaker, I make some sense. Mr. Speaker, when I am being obnoxious it is because I am trying to be, unlike the hon. gentleman from Grand Falls who makes it on his own.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I always find Friday mornings are a little more boisterous than normal. I am struggling with the early stages of laryngitis, I'm sure, but if I could have the silence of the House for a few minutes I will hear the hon. the Government House Leader, and perhaps make a ruling, if not -

MR. ROBERTS: All I was trying to say is that my friend -

MR. SPEAKER: - with the due leave of the - I will sit him down if he doesn't have something, I tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, otherwise, I will never tell if I don't hear him.

MR. ROBERTS: - the Member for Grand Bank, if he has a quarrel - and I accept what he says in this House, as I know he accepts what the Premier says - if he has a quarrel, Mr. Speaker, the quarrel is with the gentleman who gave him the information, because it appears that the gentleman who gave him the information, for whatever reason, misinformed the hon. gentleman and I accept that.

MR. WINDSOR: A point of abuse, Mr. Speaker - that's all that is.

MR. SIMMS: You're better off, sitting down, `Ed'.

MR. SPEAKER: Well I don't really need to hear more on the point of order. Hon. members rise at any point to use points of orders as an opportunity to put matters before the House in contention with other members and, of course, the problem with the Chair is, you have to hear something before you decide whether or not it is a point of order and usually the member has made his point and then sits down. If the hon. member has a legitimate point of order, I will hear him, but if he just wishes to pass argument back and forth, I would rather not get involved in that. I will give him the opportunity in this case.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I was responding to the point of order made by the Government House Leader and I just want to say to him that, I mean, what I reported to the House is what happened yesterday and I can't believe that Mr. David Joyce would call me, so concerned about what has happened to his business plan. I mean, why would he do that?

Now, I am not saying that the Premier didn't report what he was told by Mr. Ed Joyce, or whoever, I'm not saying that, but I can't believe that Mr. David Joyce would call me yesterday, so concerned about the release of confidential information from his business plan that he paid for and that he says has ruined him because other processors now have available, the information that they can utilize. So I say to the Premier and to the point of order, that I think the Premier should look at it again and make sure that what he reported to the House today is indeed correct.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Just on matters such as this, I will refer the members to paragraph 494 of Beauchesne which addresses these circumstances and it has occurred before, has been formally ruled by Speakers that statements by Members respecting themselves and particularly within their own knowledge must be accepted", as the hon. the Opposition House Leader says. "It is not unparliamentary temperately to criticize statements made by Members as being contrary to the facts; but no imputation of intentional falsehood is permissible. On rare occasions this may result in the House having to accept two contradictory accounts of the same incident." I think that is very straightforward.

Petitions

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

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today to present a petition on behalf of thirty-three people in the community of Point Lance in my district. Yesterday, due to Roberts rules of order, I was not permitted to present this to the House, and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to present it today.

As I said, Mr. Speaker, I am presenting this on behalf of several people who are in desperate need of employment and are looking forward to this Provincial Government bringing forward some type of employment generation program. Mr. Speaker, the petition reads:

To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador asks for the House of Assembly to accept the following prayer:

`We, the undersigned, do hereby request the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to immediately provide emergency funding to generate desperately needed employment in our communities. As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.'

Mr. Speaker, over the past couple of weeks, my office, and I am sure, offices of hon. members on both sides of the House, have received several requests and more or less concerns about the possibility of an employment generation program this Fall. I am pleased to know that the hon. the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations is in Ottawa now trying to work out some type of deal with the Federal Government on a cost-shared agreement, to come forward with some type of program but, at the same time, I think the onus is on the Provincial Government to come forward with some dollars, too.

Mr. Speaker, we talk about the amount of dollars being spent, while I sit here and thank the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for tabling today expenses that have so far been utilized in relation to the Caboto Centre - we are looking at around $400,000 that has already been spent on this piece of property and on four sites that were being looked at for selection - and at the same time, after this money has been spent, Mr. Speaker, the department decides to select another site. There seems to be a fair amount of money for some things, Mr. Speaker, while people who are looking for work in, not only in my district but indeed the districts of all of us, that there does not seem to be the dollars there to take care of those people.

Mr. Speaker, there is a fair number of people who have been lucky enough, should I say, to be part of the TAGS Program, but then there is a fair number of people who are not so lucky, who had what you would call indirect jobs in relation to the fishing industry. Those people didn't have the opportunity to be part of the TAGS Program and therefore, now, are finding it very difficult especially as we are only a month away from Christmas. Those people are very concerned about Christmas time and beyond. Young families, Mr. Speaker, for the first time in their lives, many have had to resort to social assistance. While this is a sad commentary on behalf of the Province, Mr. Speaker, I believe that the government of the day has an onus to provide at least some type of work. That is not the answer to all of our problems. These short-term programs are definitely not the answer to the problems that we face, not only in rural Newfoundland, from what I hear on the radio, the problems are just as huge right here in the City of St. John's and indeed the whole Province. Mr. Speaker, I think there is an onus on government to come forward.

I hope the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations returns from Ottawa with some good news, but in case he doesn't, I hope for some reason or other that he can convince his Cabinet colleagues to come forward with some type of employment generation program so that these people who are in desperate of some type of employment will see at least some dollars put in their pockets before Christmas, or early in the new year.

The thirty-three people from Point Lance who signed this petition which I present to the House today are people who have decided to make their homes in rural Newfoundland, who have decided to stay in their home town of Point Lance, and for that reason I believe they are being penalized. Over the years we talked about the TAGS program or the NCARP program, and all the different types of training that is available to these people, but most of this training is more or less provided so that people can find jobs that are definitely not in the community of Point Lance, or in the immediate area, but are a one-way ticket off the Island.

I think this, Mr. Speaker, is wrong and I think people should have an opportunity at least to do whatever they can to stay in their own community and do some work. Last week I heard the Minister of Finance relate to a positive review of this year's finances with hopefully saving some money on the borrowing of the government. While I realize that the minister has a debt to worry about, he should also hopefully lean towards the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations with some dollars to provide this very necessary work.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

I rise today to support the petition presented by my colleague, the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes, and strongly urge the government to consider the points he has made here today in responding to a crisis in this Province at the moment where people who never before will end up on the social services lines like they never have.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations after his discussions yesterday with the federal minister for Newfoundland, Mr. Brian Tobin, comes back successfully with some dollars from the Federal Government. The fact remains that it is not the Federal Government's responsibility to respond to this issue. It is the Provincial Government's responsibility. It has been, it is, and it always will be their responsibility.

Over the last three years this government in times of crisis saw that an emergency existed in the Province and responded with an emergency employment program. Today the unemployment rate in this Province is higher than it has ever been and this government has decided to do nothing.

MR. GRIMES: That is not true.

MR. E. BYRNE: That is so true, I say to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and he knows it. If he talked with Statistics Canada last week he would know that the unemployment rate today is 20.9 per cent.

MR. GRIMES: It has never been higher than that since -

MR. E. BYRNE: That is not what I said.

MR. GRIMES: That is what you just said.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the reality is this, and the minister may try to detract from the issue by getting into what is the unemployment rate, but the fact is that there are 20.9 per cent of Newfoundlanders who are unemployed today and that is unacceptable.

Now, we talk about government's expenses. The people of this Province need a program today. Why the Member for Windsor - Buchans who publicly supports such a program did not stand in this House and support these petitions is beyond me. The Member for Twillingate did stand and said that he would be remiss in his duties if he did not stand and request his government, the government which he sits with, that they respond to the crisis and this emergency. The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains publicly indicated that he needs in his district a program. They have not spoken to this petition or to petitions presented by this House, and as a matter of fact they have not presented petitions themselves.

The reality is this, whether you like it or whether you lump it, people in this Province today need help, and this government has not responded to date. Now, what we may in fact see next week is the long arm of the Federal Government reaching out to this Province, accepting responsibility that this government should have accepted six to eight weeks ago, but the jury is still out on that and we will see what next week brings.

Now, last year the former minister brought in a $6 million program to respond to an employment crisis in this Province. The people need it, they people deserve it, and we have a moral responsibility to respond. This government has spent close to $7 million on the privatization of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, that people clearly did not want. They clearly did not want it.

We have spent $1 million putting together an Income Supplementation Program that was presented to the Federal Government without any consultation. Where is that proposal now? It is a million dollar proposal sitting on the shelf, collecting dust, that will never be implemented - a complete waste.

This government recently spent $1 million on reforming or updating the Elections Act, or the election enumeration list. We are at least two-and-a-half years away from a provincial election - a complete waste, I say to the relic sitting opposite me, a complete waste, yet no response to the people of this Province who need two, three and four weeks work to gain enough insurable weeks to keep food on their tables, to pay their mortgages, to pay their rent, to pay their light bills. No, this government has not responded - has not responded to date.

Mr. Speaker, day after day we have presented petitions here. We have outlined the real stories. I, myself, told the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board three specific incidents of 195 people I have on a list from my district who are in desperate shape.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. E. BYRNE: By leave?

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

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to present a petition on behalf of citizens of this Province who, `as undersigned citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador, vehemently oppose the proposed changes to the Highway Traffic Act regarding the elimination of the motor vehicle safety inspections, and demand this be reconsidered in the best interests of the people of this Province.'

Mr. Speaker, this particular petition is signed by fifty-six Newfoundlanders, but I am told that it represents part of a petition being collected that has anywhere between 25,000 and 50,000 (inaudible) signatures so far of people who are opposed to changes brought about by this government under the name of the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, changes that will eliminate the mandatory requirement of annual inspections for older vehicles.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the minister concerned, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, has gotten involved in a lot of rhetorical badinage back and forth in the House about this issue, and some might think he doesn't take it seriously, but I want to say to the House that this is a very serious safety issue, and that the people who were involved in the protest outside the House yesterday were people who were sincerely concerned about the issue as it related to public safety.

Now, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation was there at that protest demonstration, and he engaged in some conversation with the people who were there, and it was fairly obvious that the minister was not prepared to listen to these people because he said they had a self-interest; all they were interested in was their own business interest. That is all they were interested in, and he was putting this forth as the only people - and he said this in the House yesterday - that the only people out there yesterday that he believed concerned about this issue were the people who stood to gain or lose by it.

Mr. Speaker, that is so far from the truth, as will be presented to this House when the 50,000 signatures - there aren't 50,000 garage owners or mechanics in this Province. The ordinary people of this Province are concerned about safety on the highways.

The minister tried to justify this in various ways. One of his justifications for removing the inspection procedure was that only 1 per cent - he said only 1 per cent of fatal accidents in Canada were caused by motor vehicle defects. Since he said that, it has come to light that in 1991, of the sixty-one motor vehicle deaths in Newfoundland, seven of them were the result of accidents caused by defects to motor vehicles. Seven people died in this Province as a result of defective motor vehicles. That, to me, is a serious matter. I understand that these statistics have improved in the last couple of years, which indicates once again that the system of motor vehicle inspection, the tightening up that had been done in the last couple of years by the Department of Works, Services and Transportation, in fact was having some effect.

The same minister two weeks ago brought legislation to this House to reduce the alcohol content of drivers as an offence on the basis that if one life could be saved it was worth doing. This same minister now is throwing safety to the wind by suggesting that we don't need to have a mandatory inspection policy for vehicles.

In listening to the minister talk about this, and in seeing him operate yesterday outside the House - he turned his back, essentially, on the people who were protesting, saying that they did not really have a legitimate voice on this issue because they had a particular interest in the matter. When I gave that some thought my first reaction was: This is crazy, that you don't listen to people who know about the issue. This is not -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. MANNING: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition on behalf of fifty residents of the community of Branch in my district.

The petition reads: To the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador asks for the House of Assembly to accept the following prayer:

`We, the undersigned, do hereby request the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations to immediately provide emergency funding to generate desperately needed employment in our communities. As in our duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.'

The petition comes from the community of Branch, St. Mary's Bay, with fifty signatures. People have asked me to bring this petition forward to the House of Assembly because of the inaction, I should say, of this government in relation to some type of employment program for this coming winter. These people are concerned as Christmas is closing in. For many of them, their UI benefits are being exhausted and, for the first time, many have had to turn to social assistance. They have asked me to bring this petition forward in the hope that our Provincial Government will come forward with some type of program in the next few weeks.

I should add that I think it is, as a matter of fact, a month or two later than they have been in announcing anything. Usually, we are glad to hear around the month of October that some money is being announced for employment generation, but now we are closing in on December 1 and still we haven't heard of anything from the Provincial Government.

I'm sure that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations would like to stand in this House and announce something, but from what I gather, there seems to be a problem in getting consensus from some of his Cabinet colleagues in relation to this program. I would like to emphasize, especially on behalf of the people of Branch, that they are at this time being hard hit because of the crisis in our fishery. Several years ago the plant was closed in Branch, which had provided a fair amount of employment for that community down through the years. Then, a couple of years after that, the fishery closed down, to all intents and purposes, and indeed several of the people in the community of Branch were successful enough to be part of TAGS program. But then, many others who had, as I said before, indirect jobs, were not fortunate enough to be part of this program and were left out in the cold.

I had a call from a lady in Branch the other day who has three small children, and is finding it very difficult living on less than $600 a month coming into the household, and finding it very difficult to come forward, keep food on the table and keep the bills paid at $600 a month. When the expenses of the Premier's latest trip to Asia were tabled the other day, we found that he paid $600 a night for a hotel room, and here we expect a family of five to live on $600 a month.

I ask the government, really there should be some very intense negotiations and consultations in relation to an employment generation program coming forth. Not only the people in Branch, but indeed the people throughout my district, and a fair amount of this Province, need this money.

Mr. Speaker, we look back over the past year or so and we talk about $1 million being spent on coming in on the ISP program - an incredibly stupid program. Over $1 million was spent on it, and the people's backs were put to the wall over the past couple of months and all this government has come forward with is the ISP program. The people rejected that, even though there is some - I think what the provincial government did, in doing that, was give an opening to the federal government to bring in changes to the UI system that will definitely hurt Newfoundland. The latest social reforms they are talking about are, from what I can gather, certainly being put together for central Canada, not for Newfoundland and Labrador, and I think we will suffer in the long run.

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to present this petition in the hope that the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations makes an announcement in a couple of weeks so people will have the opportunity to maybe have some extra dollars in their pockets for Christmas.

I realize that neither this government nor any other government can provide jobs for everybody who is looking for jobs in our Province, but indeed I think that there are a fair number of people we can help out with some type of employment generation program.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Speaker, some people ridicule these programs, but they are indeed good programs and I hope that the government comes forward with something.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand to support the petition by my colleague from St. Mary's - The Capes. There is indeed a crisis situation here in this Province in terms of employment. We have seen 12,000 less people in the workforce today than there were four years ago. We have 19,000 more people on unemployment insurance than there were four years ago, and the Premier was elected in this Province on a promise to bring jobs to this Province, to create jobs and economic diversity, bring home every mother's son, and to create a climate where people could have dignity and be proud to be able to go to work, instead of the high unemployment rate.

We have seen, in this Province, a failure by the Premier to bring in programs to stimulate the economy, and almost into his sixth year, was tabled in this House today, or notice given, of legislation to deal with business and future development six years coming, in a promise that was made back in 1988 actually, six years later, and very inadequate aspects to that specific legislation have been voiced to government by various groups and individuals and by the official Opposition. We have indicated there are many inadequacies in that program. The St. John's Board of Trade recognized it and did a presentation to government.

We have people in this Province now in a worse plight than they have ever been. Now, we don't advocate going out and every single person qualifying for UI, and put them on UI and draw benefits, but this Province has a moral responsibility to take care of needs of people who never before in their lives had to go to the social welfare lines.

We have people who have left this Province. In my district there are about fifty people who left this Province in the past month. One particular family, both in their early fifties, left this Province - who worked twenty-five years in the fishery - left and went to Yellowknife early this month. We have another family who moved up to northwestern Alberta. We have another forty single people who left my district this past month and went mostly to Alberta, a few to B.C. and Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories. We are seeing people moving out of this Province at an alarming rate, and I am sure it must be happening in other districts around this Province also.

Rural Newfoundland is under attack by this government in many ways, not only by their failure this year, and they have indicated... The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations stated - I am appalled by some of the things he stated. He said first of all the government is not prepared to have a stand-alone emergency response program. He has gone away, with cap in hand, to Ottawa, he has gone up to Ottawa now to ask them to participate in a shared emergency employment program so people can put food on the table.

When the Premier in his trip to Europe spent $40,000 at over $500 a night in a hotel room - that is an income, for some people on social assistance, an entire month of income. We have the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations who stood here in this House and said: I'm not going to take any approach, I say to the member, that is going to impact upon or affect negatively, the federal government's negotiations with this Province in addressing the whole social program.

The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations said: We will not do anything that will interfere with what the federal government is going to do. That minister is not a minister in the federal Cabinet, and that Premier is not the Prime Minister of Canada. Until such time, they should be fighting for the rights of Newfoundlanders to have an equal opportunity for employment in this Province. They have caved in and supported all the federal government's directions in the starving out of people in this Province. We've seen a decline in our population rate because this government has failed to create an economic climate to create jobs.

They knew years ago on Hibernia, they have failed to have trained people, they failed to do their job in Marystown, that has cost this Province hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in the provincial economy because they didn't have the necessary programs in place. They didn't take the initiative to improve and stimulate the economy. Now they are coming in with legislation - and any legislation to promote business is good, but six years into a mandate in which they campaigned on jobs and economic growth? We've stripped this provincial economy of jobs. We've another 19,000 more unemployed than there were in 1989. We have almost turned this Province into a ghost town, and they are leaving -

MR. SPEAKER (L. Snow): Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: On a petition, hon. member.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, we've now had three petitions. I assume we are ready to move on to Orders of the Day. That being so I anticipate Your Honour may want to call the Orders of the Day. My understanding is there are no more petitions to be presented today.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: To be presented today. Well, we've had....

Orders of the Day

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

MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Your Honour, We won't get three every day necessarily unless we do as we've done here, where only one spoke to the petition, my friend for St. John's East.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: That is right, and that is fair enough. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if we could deal first of all with Order No. 13, which is Bill No. 20. For the fourth day I think my friend for Gander will ask the House to give second reading to An Act To Ratify, Confirm And Adopt An Agreement Between The Government Of Canada And The Government Of The Province Respecting Reciprocal Taxation Of These Governments And Their Agencies.

Order No. 13, please, Sir.

AN HON. MEMBER: Behave yourself.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. gentleman should talk about behaving himself. If he and I could have a minute behind the Speaker's Chair it might be helpful, whenever he is ready. Thank you, Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: Order No. 20.

The hon. the Member for Menihek.

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Didn't you make your speech yesterday?

MR. A. SNOW: I spoke for a few minutes yesterday and I just want a few more minutes.

MR. SULLIVAN: He had an impressive debate yesterday, it was impressive.

MR. A. SNOW: It was very impressive, yes, a lot of content for such a very brief few minutes that I was on my feet.

AN HON. MEMBER: The usual good job.

AN HON. MEMBER: What is the name of this bill?

MR. A. SNOW: This is Bill No. 20, An Act To Ratify, Confirm And Adopt An Agreement Between The Government Of Canada And The Government Of The Province Respecting Reciprocal Taxation Of These Governments And Their Agencies.

Mr. Speaker, this finance bill is a very important bill, and we all like to speak on finance bills, especially -

MR. EFFORD: Especially you.

MR. A. SNOW: I speak on them because I recognize the importance of having good financial fiscal policy and good financial policies in general, because I recognize the importance of the financial security of the government and the people of this Province and so should the minister, instead of the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, who is part of a government that says that the answer to the problems in this Province, the answer to the economic ills of this Province and the social ills of this Province is the recovery of the private sector.

They tout this no matter where they go; they talk about how the private sector is going to be the engine of recovery, that is what is going to drive this economy, that is what is going to get this Province out of the depression that it is in, and then, Mr. Speaker, they come in with another bill, another piece of legislation that somebody opposes, the first thing that, that particular minister, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation does, is, attack members of the private sector and accuses them of self-interest only of promoting business. That is what he does.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we saw yesterday on provincial TV where he was attacking the garage owners and the mechanics because they expressed a concern about the effects of the regulations that he is changing with regard to motor vehicle inspections in this Province. Now their concerns were about the safety of people driving and now, Mr. Speaker, we hear the catcalls coming from the minister saying that these individuals were only concerned about their business. Now, Mr. Speaker, you know, he of all people should recognize the importance of self-preservation. I mean, we saw how that minister behaved when he was a private member.

AN HON. MEMBER: He did a good job too by the way.

MR. A. SNOW: Yes, he did in self-preservation. Now, Mr. Speaker, these people should not be named and belittled because they have an interest and want to promote the interest of their business which is the repair of vehicles, they should not be belittled for that, they should not be accused of being greedy, they should not be maligned as business people because they want to do business, we should be encouraging more people to enter the business field especially the small business sector, whereas this government says on one hand they are going to do a thing, promote small business, they believe in the entrepreneurial spirit but on the other hand they will attack you if you are in business, personally attack you.

Now, Mr. Speaker, that should not surprise anybody because that is what this government is all about; they are all about smoke and mirrors, saying one thing and doing another. That is what they are all about, they are all about window dressing, doing nothing substantive, they don't do anything substantive. You talk about the promotion of small business. The Premier got up and -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: I can tell you one thing, the polls have been changing drastically. People are beginning to see this government for what it is and it is only because this government has shown really, in the last few months, what they are. People are seeing the arrogance, they behave worse than a government that was in power for seventeen years and they were not even there -

MR. EFFORD: That is saying something.

MR. A. SNOW: That is true, Mr. Speaker, that is saying something, that is a mouthful.

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: Know what?

MR. EFFORD: That is not accurate.

MR. A. SNOW: Well, it is accurate; you talk to anybody out on the street and they will tell you how arrogant this government is perceived by the people of this Province and we all know that perception is reality in today's world. Now, Mr. Speaker, this government talks about promoting small business, about how that is going to be our engine of recovery, that is how we are going to get people back to work and that is how we are going to solve the economic problems and some of the social problems of this Province.

Now, the Minister of Finance stood this morning, Mr. Speaker, and told us that he is going to be introducing a bill, The Tobacco Tax Act. Now I am hoping that that is going to be a bill that is going to put the businesses in Western Labrador on a level playing field with the businesses in their neighbouring Province of Quebec. Petersbill they are going to call it. It is going to be named after Peter. That is what I am hoping it is going to be. Now can the minister confirm that is what it is?

I hope that is what it is, Mr. Speaker, because the people of Western Labrador believe in the importance of the private sector. Here is a town that was built by the private sector, an industry that was built by the private sector and today I would suspect has one of the healthiest economies in this Province, in that area. One of the healthiest economies in this Province. So they know and understand the importance of the private sector but they also know, they are educated enough to know that you need a government to establish certain rules and regulations that we can live by and accept - give it an aurora of being able to participate in the economy, Mr. Speaker, to be able to do business, they recognize that. They know that this government has not responded to repeated requests to change simple little regulations. A simple change in regulations would allow businesses, small businesses, to operate on a level playing field with the competitors in a neighbouring Province.

We see in the Province of Quebec, the Town of Fermont, their businesses have practically doubled in sales in grocery stores, dry goods stores and hardware over the last year. They have created employment in Quebec. This government has created more jobs in Quebec than they have in Western Labrador by their lack of direction with regard to taxation. They say that they agree with the principle of creating a level playing field but yet they will not do it.

There is a tax rebate system now - I am sure that some people are aware of it here in this House - that there is a tax rebate system now in place where a business is given a rebate in tobacco tax in Western Labrador and other border communities I believe down in Southern Labrador, to allow them to compete. Because the tax structure has changed so drastically in the Province of Quebec and this government, for whatever reason, whether it is the politics of the Cabinet, that the Minister of Finance cannot convince his colleague the Minister of Justice, that it is the right thing to do, some people suspect, but for whatever reason I do not know, they will not increase the tax rebate. So there is a tremendous difference.

You can go to Fermont, Quebec and purchase a carton of cigarettes for twenty-one or twenty-two dollars and in Newfoundland they are fifty dollars a carton. Now, Mr. Speaker, we know that that creates cross-border shopping. Whether that occurs - there is such a tremendous difference because of the taxes - as it did down in the Windsor/Detroit border situation with the GST and everything. We knew what happened down there, we know what happened to the tobacco, the liquor taxes and everything in that Province and also on the (inaudible) reserve in Quebec. We know how those governments responded.

This government would not respond, why? Some people say it is because of arrogance. Some people say it is because of indifference, they do not care. They get elected, they get $100,000 a year as a Cabinet minister and they sit in their ivory tower here in St. John's and they know absolutely nothing of what is going on in a small business, whether it is in Gander, whether it is in Goose Bay or whether it is in Western Labrador. They do not know and they do not care, it's indifference: I'm okay Jack, so everything else must be okay.

Now that is what some people are saying out there. They have lost touch with reality, that is what has happened. They do not understand. They say that we are here to support small business yet they do not do anything about it. They will not help small businesses in Western Labrador to be on a level playing field. What do they do? They go out and arrest housewives out picking up their groceries, coming back with two packages of cigarettes. Can you imagine having our police officers down checking grocery bags to see if a housewife has a couple of packages of cigarettes? Can you imagine? They order the RCMP back into western Labrador. They get them in. That is the same RCMP that they couldn't afford to have there a year previous, the same RCMP who were transferred out and said: We can't afford to police the borders where there is cocaine and things like that coming in, but if you bring in two packages of cigarettes we will bring them back.

That is what they did. They hired skidoos, rented helicopters, did all those things. Boy, they had all the gadgetry of the Twentieth Century, I tell you. It looked like a war zone there for awhile - chasing housewives.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's it like now?

MR. A. SNOW: Business is poor, Mr. Speaker; business is bad.

You talk to the Chamber of Commerce, you have had representation from the Chamber of Commerce. The Minister of Justice had representation from the Chamber of Commerce. The Minister of Natural Resources has had representation from the Chamber of Commerce. The Minister of Works, Services and Transportation has had representation from the Chamber of Commerce. Now, they have all had representation. They all understand the problem. The problem is that the businesses want to have a level playing field.

The Province of Quebec recognized the problem in their Province with gasoline and tobacco. In border situations in that Province they have a graduated tax. This Province recognized it. We have a graduated tax on gasoline. They just don't do it totally. They have a different graduated tax in eastern Labrador, down in the Blanc Sablon area, than they do down in western Labrador. I argue it should be the same.

Mr. Speaker, all the people of western Labrador want is to be treated fairly. That is all the business people want, and that is all the consumers want. They don't want to be harassed. They don't want to have policemen going through their grocery bags, and these policemen don't want to be doing that. Neither do these same policemen want to be crawling up underneath vehicles checking the brakes, or checking the tires. They don't want to be doing that. They want to get down to doing what they are supposed to be doing.

Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board is going to, in his bill, the Tobacco Tax Act, this new bill that he has proposed this morning, to solve that particular problem, and that is going to help. Then I will firmly believe, and I will stand in my place here and praise the minister - I will praise him - for what he has done, because he will have solved a small problem, such as the Minister of Natural Resources this morning stood in his place and was going to make a regulatory change about the antler problem, the antlers that people need in the craft industry, a very small, thriving, young industry, and it is a growing industry, but they need assistance in the form of regulation changes.

For weeks the Minister of Justice has thrown the weight of the Crown behind attacking these small business people, hauling them into court. It wasn't until they got national news stories on television, national news stories on the radio and, of course, an uproar raised here in this House by the hon. Members for Green Bay and Humber Valley.

AN HON. MEMBER: Thank god it's Friday.

MR. A. SNOW: Thank god it's Friday, the Minister of Justice says. Thank god it's Friday, he says; I've had a rough week.

Mr. Speaker, it took weeks for this government to react to that simple little change, and they say they are business friendly. There is a distinct difference between business friendly and friendly with businessmen and women. They get the two things confused. You are supposed to set the climate and the regulatory regime in place to allow business to operate fairly. That is what you need to do, and without a heavy tax burden, and without a regulatory regime in place that they just can't operate.

That is all this person who operated a small business over in Humber Valley, or Green Bay, wanted to do. That is all they wanted to do. They weren't into going out and slaughtering animals just for the sake of getting a piece of bone.

AN HON. MEMBER: They weren't hiding anything.

MR. A. SNOW: They weren't hiding anything. They weren't being deceitful, but this government saw fit, from their ivory tower in Confederation Building, to bring the big heel of the law down on them, hounding them with lawyers and inspectors and everything else. That is what they saw fit to do.

This government saw fit to do nothing to allow consumers to stop being harassed in Western Labrador with regard to the tobacco tax. They did absolutely nothing to allow the businesses in Western Labrador to be on a level playing field with the businesses in Fermont, Quebec, twenty kilometres away. They did nothing. Why?

People in Western Labrador don't know why, people in the Province don't know why. They've had a rough week in the polls this week so we see some good news coming out now this morning. They've decided to change. They decided to implement a few changes. They are going to change the antlers, and I hope that the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board this morning when he stood up and threatened us with a change in the tobacco tax act, I hope that he is going to change that, fix, solve the problem in Western Labrador. I know that the Member for St. John's Centre is going to speak up, and I know he would support that particular bill, I know he would.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: Yes. Because after you sit down - the former Minister of Health, you know, he and I have had some set-tos here in the House in particular debates over some issues. But when you sit down and talk to the Member for St. John's Centre, Mr. Speaker, he is a reasonable fellow. He wants to see things done properly. He has solved some things in our particular district with regard to health problems while he was the Minister of Health. I have to admit that. He did a good job in my district. He came in, held a public meeting, did a real good job.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: No, the former Minister of Health, the Member for St. John's Centre. He did a good job there in -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: Well, we will see. Yes, there are some real good people appointed to the board. I don't believe that boards should be appointed, though, I think that the boards should be elected. I mentioned that to the minister at the time. I believe that he felt strongly that the boards should be elected too. I think he believes in the democratic process. I think that gone is the day when people can sit in a room somewhere and have a payback system where you get patronage in that manner. I think people, especially in the delivery of health care, if they have a responsibility, they need to be elected to have the public have faith in the board, Mr. Speaker, in the process. I think the process would be better if we did have elected boards.

I hope that the present Minister of Health would continue in that way. We all know and recognize that there is need to reform the heath care system in this Province. What we don't want to see are things such as what happened with the health care facilities down in Burgeo, Port Saunders and St. Lawrence when we are talking about reform. We don't want to see things where we are throwing away taxpayers money. Where we've been told that some $18 million, a substantial amount of money in this Province, and I suppose in any province in this country, that this government threw away $18 million belonging to the taxpayers of this Province. This is the same government that says we can't afford to have an emergency employment program because we just don't have the money, we can't continue doing this.

The same government threw away $18 million, contrary to their appointed officials who the Premier defended this morning, contrary to the opinions, the recommendations of these highly paid, highly professional - probably the most professional public employees in the country we have in this Province, for a lot of reasons I will get into some other time. We have very professional public employees in this Province, especially at the higher levels, the directors and the assistant directors and the deputy minister levels. We have very professional employees. This government saw fit to go contrary to their recommendations and spent an extra $20 million of hard-earned money belonging to the taxpayers of this Province to build three health care facilities.

That is the type of thing that has cost this government a lot of support, Mr. Speaker, because people see it as part of the arrogance when you can sit in St. John's and divide up the $20 million somehow, I do not know what they did. I do not know what they did with the $20 million. I do not know why they would give somebody $20 million extra.

AN HON. MEMBER: Twenty-three million.

MR. A. SNOW: Twenty-three million, and then be completely indifferent to the plight of the thousands of Newfoundlanders who find themselves, through no fault of their own, find themselves with no food, no money in the bank, no job, and no unemployment insurance. This government says: well, there is nothing we can do. Philosophically we just do not believe in make work programs. We do not believe we should be able to create a job to build a piece on the town hall. We do not believe in supporting that concept any more because it is not a long-term solution.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is not creating a job.

MR. A. SNOW: It may not be creating a job but it gets an addition on the town hall, gets an addition built on the fire hall, and it puts a meal on the table at supper time. It is a lot more creative and it is a better solution to the individual problem than wasting $20 million, a lot better solution than wasting $20 million. It is a better solution than travelling around the country looking pretty. Window dressing is all it is, all window dressing. It is better than $500 hotel rooms. Five hundred dollars can buy a lot of groceries for somebody who has worked for fifteen or twenty years in the fishing industry and now find themselves thrown out. According to this government there is absolutely nothing they can do. They will not have an emergency employment program.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. A. SNOW: I am sure that the Minister of Finance has never been considered as just another pretty face. Of all the things I have heard said about him I have never, ever heard anybody accusing the Minister of Finance as being just another pretty face.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible)

MR. A. SNOW: Mr. Speaker, I have heard him accused of a lot of things but not of that. I have heard him of being accused of being indifferent, of not understanding the problems of business people. Well, I can understand that because he has never been in business. He has no experience in business.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who is that?

MR. A. SNOW: The Minister of Finance.

He has been in here so long he loses touch with reality. I have heard people in his own district say that. He had a social conscience. He is from similar roots as me. We go back to the NDP, Mr. Speaker, We used to be NDPers and we had a social conscience. I still have mine but the Minister of Finance doesn't. He has no concern. At least that is what is out and about in the Province.

The Minister of Finance is now more concerned with lining up the millions of dollars, and lining up people in patronage appointments, than he is with the concerns of ordinary Canadians, ordinary Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. It is bad that he would forget his roots. It disappoints a lot of people in his district. It disappoints me, and I am sure there are times when he needs to be reminded, when he slips back into his old mold and says: we have to do something for these people who just do not have the wherewithal to be able to get a job today.

Now, if we can get that person over the hump, so to speak, so that he can qualify for some benefits for the next eight to ten months, or for six to seven months, maybe he can find a job later on and keep his family together, put some groceries on the table and pay the heat bill, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure that every now and then he slips back into that.

Then of course they call another Cabinet meeting. Boys, we have to get around the public tendering process here now, what do we do this time. Because he is the only man who can figure it out, right? He is right out in the forefront today now on the issue about health care centres. It bothers me, you know, because this man has credibility. He is one of the few Cabinet ministers who still has credibility.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: This is one of the few Cabinet ministers who still has credibility. He is going to lose it, I think. I hope he doesn't. I think he could lose it on this issue, lose all his credibility. It should be important to him. It is bad enough that the Province lost some $20-odd million but now we are going to see this minister, who has a tremendous amount of credibility, he could lose all that.

Why is he going to lose it, Mr. Speaker? Because he has been set up. That is what people are saying. His seat mate across the aisle there. We know what is going on out in the street. I'm sure somebody has told him. It has to be done for the party, protect the party. We have to do it with all conscience now, we have to do it with a clear conscience and we have to do it properly, it has to be done properly. You are the only one with credibility so you should stand and take the heat. You can do it. Will you do that? Don't compromise.

MR. SULLIVAN: They've been rehearsing it three years, they should get it right soon.

MR. A. SNOW: Yes, the hon. Member for Ferryland I think probably echoes the sentiments of thousands of Newfoundlanders out there today, who are saying that they've rehearsed it for three years. It is too bad the notes are still there, too bad the notes were kept. Too bad it wasn't all shredded. But the notes -

AN HON. MEMBER: Should have been.

MR. A. SNOW: Yes, the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board says they should have been. I guess the minister couldn't get the shredder to get all the notes in.

Mr. Speaker, when you put this political interference into that situation of businesses competing to do government business, and they throw away a public tendering act - that was thrown to the wind a lot of people say to reward political buddies. Payback time. It cost the taxpayers of this time $23 million extra. Kickback time. They said: It is time to kick it back. That is what is said out and about in the streets of this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. A. SNOW: If I could just have a minute to clue up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave!

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board if he speaks now will close the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would first of all like to thank members on the opposite side for their rather enlightening and thorough discussion of the reciprocal taxation agreement between the Province and the federal government. It is good to see that they are keeping on top of things and understand the importance of these agreements between the Province and the federal government to ensure that we pay their taxes and they pay our taxes. I'm very pleased that we've had a full four days debate on this issue, and I would like to thank members opposite for their very valued input. I would like to move second reading.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Ratify, Confirm And Adopt An Agreement Between The Government Of Canada And The Government Of The Province Respecting Reciprocal Taxation Of These Governments And Their Agencies," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 20)

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Order No. 16, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order No. 16.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Pensions Funding Act". (Bill No. 35)

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a very minor change but an extremely important change to the pensions funding act. Very simply, Bill 35, if the hon. member would find it there, as hon. members know, pension funds and their viability depend upon two things, it depends upon the money being deposited in the pension fund and it also depends on the rate of interest that is earned, and the actuarial studies that are done in terms of pension plans and their viability, would naturally assume that money is deposited expeditiously and their calculations on the amount of interest that would be thus generated, is based on the fact that these original amounts are put in.

We have gone into the situation a number of times in the past, Mr. Speaker, where, in terms of pension funds matching contributions, instead of being put in at the same time that the contributions were collected from the employees, the matching contributions were not being put in until some time later, thus affecting the funded ratio of these pension plans. So this bill tries to ensure that the funds that are collected for the pension plans from the employees and the matching contributions that the employers make, if they have to make matching contributions, or in the case of where the pension plans are totally the responsibility of the private sector, that these funds are deposited in the account in the pension fund and put to use immediately as they are supposed to have been deposited so, Mr. Speaker, this is just a minor change but a very important one to all the private pension plans that exist in the Province for the protection of these workers.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to make a few comments on this particular bill and on some other issues that are directly related of course.

First of all, I will ask the minister - I don't have a problem with the legislation, in fact it is probably long overdue; I don't know how many plans are out there that are underfunded as a result of this problem and maybe the minister would like to address that.

MR. BAKER: The biggest underfunding is in our own.

MR. WINDSOR: Well our own, I wanted to get into that but I first of all want to -

AN HON. MEMBER: I would like to get out of it if I could.

MR. WINDSOR: I would like to get out of it, but I wanted, first of all, this bill primarily addresses private pension plans, not government, and is a protection for the employee working with a private company that has a funded pension plan, a cost-shared pension plan, and from that point of view I support that. Maybe the minister can tell us how big a problem is this?... the minister did not give us any information that there are numerous, hundreds perhaps of private plans out there that are underfunded as a result of this.

I suspect most of them are not because most pension plans are purchased from insurance companies or something of that nature, so most of them I think would automatically have to be funded on a regular basis, so it would only be where a company operates its own pension plan and operates it itself rather than purchasing from one of the big insurance companies that we will have this problem, so I would think it would be the larger companies, the larger corporations primarily that would be involved and a small company would not be in a position to operate its own plan.

AN HON. MEMBER: There are some that do it (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: There are some? I will be interested to hear what the minister has to say if he has some information. I would have thought that they would be, as I have said, purchasing from a larger company therefore would have had to keep their payments up to date otherwise they would be getting in trouble with that company so the minister can enlighten us on that.

Then I get into the question the minister himself has raised, where are we with government pension plans? I know that they are grossly underfunded, they have been, but the minister could tell us how much government is contributing this year. There was a figure in the Budget and I believe it was in the magnitude of $50 million, this year, being contributed by government towards the pension plans?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The minister will tell us but I think that is important for us to know, where we are on that and what progress we have made. I know back in early 1989 we had discussions with the NTA on the teachers pension plan and around this very thing, where government does not necessarily contribute all the money, we borrow from our own pension plan, probably at a more favourable rate than we would be paying in Japan or in Zurich, so in effect we are borrowing from ourselves and I do not have a major problem with that, as long as we are in a position to service that debt on a regular basis.

MR. BAKER: We've stopped doing that.

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon?

MR. BAKER: We've stopped doing that.

MR. WINDSOR: We've stopped doing that. We've stopped borrowing from our own pension plan. That is an interesting question. Because there is some merit in borrowing from ourselves. We are certainly protected from any exchange rates, any changes in - particularly if we are dealing in foreign currency, and we are investing in ourselves. We are keeping that money in the Province rather than borrowing in Japan and then investing the money of our pension plan in other companies that are generally downtown Toronto. That is where that money normally goes. The pension funds are invested all across Canada and not a lot of it in the Province so it seems somewhat counterproductive. I realize there has to be a good balance but it is important for us to keep a very close eye on that sort of thing, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the minister, where are we on that? What negotiations have continued with the teachers, with the NTA? We made a commitment that we would honour the shortfall that was there as a result of the fact that the Province hadn't contributed. We also made a commitment that we would honour the shortfall that was there because we hadn't asked the teachers to pay enough for a long period of time. We found when we had that actuarial study completed that the teachers' plan was grossly underfunded, primarily because neither government nor NTA had contributed enough to that plan. We advised them at that time that the contributions would have to increase from both sides because it is a 50-50 cost-shared plan. Teachers would contribute more, we would contribute more, but because we were managing the plan, and because we had not contributed our share, and obviously anything we had to contribute, plus interest on that, is a government liability, but also the shortfall as a result of the fact that we hadn't asked teachers to contribute as much as they really should have in order to make the plan self-sufficient, that government would honour that.

I would like to ask the minister to address that. Has this government fulfilled that commitment that we made to the NTA? Is there a plan in place now, or is the liability there on the government's side of the ledger rather than just a shortfall in the plan itself? Because it is indeed a liability on behalf of government.

Where are we on the other plans? I know the MHAs' plan is underfunded. Relatively not a major problem because of the size of it, but it needs to be dealt with. The government plan itself, the public service pension plan, of course is seriously underfunded. It is a big liability on the books and that needs to be addressed. I would ask the minister if he could tell us what progress we've made in the past year or so on that and what he is proposing to contribute this year to it.

As far as the legislation goes itself, it is very difficult to argue with ensuring that persons who are contributing in good faith to a private pension plan have reason to believe that the funding is there and that the employer is fulfilling his or her obligations to that plan.

I would like to ask the minister a few questions, if he would be so good as to take notes of some of the questions I'm going to ask him, dealing with the special warrants that were tabled yesterday. The minister tabled six or seven special warrants that were approved over the year. Special warrants, something every government has to use when the House is not in session. We recognize the need for that, but I think we also recognize the fact that traditionally government has tried not to issue special warrants at all. If necessary - it is only under emergency circumstances, circumstances that cannot be dealt with in any other way, that this is urgently required, cannot wait for the House of Assembly to open. It could not have been foreseen in the Budget, or it is a new plan for which government will answer when the House opens, a new program. Generally speaking, special warrants are issued for something that is of an urgent nature that was unforeseen and that has arisen and that cannot be left for another date.

Let me go through some of these and ask the minister. First of all we have one, Fisheries, Food and Agriculture, production subsidies, grants and subsidies. This is funds for chicken production subsidies. Can the minister tell us what has changed with - I assume this is through Newfoundland Farm Products - what has changed with Newfoundland Farm Products in the last year that has caused the level of subsidies that we normally put in place. This is under subsection 3.2.02.10.

I can't even find it here. In fact, there is not even a vote there. There is not even a subhead 3.2.02.10. There isn't anything here, that concerns me a little bit. So, there is no provision in the Budget for subsidies at all, not that I can find, not under that subhead 3.2.02.l0. Maybe the minister can help me, because I just cannot find it here. Pre-engineering is 3.2.02 so I suspect we have the wrong subhead in here. It is repeated several times. This is under fisheries, food, and agriculture. I think I was in the wrong section. Yes, grants and subsidies. There was $125,000 provided. That does not make any sense either. Has the minister found it? I am trying to find that subhead but I cannot find it, Mr. Speaker. I am on hold. I will start again if you wish. Has the minister found it because I cannot find it?

AN HON. MEMBER: I think it is the best conversation I have heard all day.

MR. WINDSOR: I am looking for the subhead under special warrant but it does not seem to exist.

MR. BAKER: What is the special warrant number?

AN HON. MEMBER: I think they should issue another warrant.

MR. WINDSOR: Special warrant number? I do not see a number.

AN HON. MEMBER: They have that one shredded, too.

MR. WINDSOR: Everything will be shredded later.

It is under the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture. I suspect these subhead numbers have changed.

MR. BAKER: This is what I was wondering. Farm products is dealt with under 3.4.05. That was in the Budget now, but maybe they have changed.

MR. WINDSOR: Well, these are the 1994 estimates that I am looking at, and I am sure the minister is. Is this under fisheries or under agriculture? Obviously, now they have changed but it would still be under agriculture, which would have been under forestry and agriculture? Let me try that. Farm products is 3.2.05. Okay, production subsidies, 3.2.02, Subsection 10, grants and subsidies was $1.7 million. I finally found it. The titles have changed so much it is difficult to follow.

Maybe the minister can tell us what has happened here and why that has gone up by an extra $1.5 million. It has doubled over last year. What has caused that? Does this have anything to do with the sale of Newfoundland Farm Products?

MR. BAKER: It has to do with the Ontario prices which have gone way down.

MR. WINDSOR: But where are the production levels in Newfoundland now? I have reason to believe that we have grossly overproduced chicken in this Province. I have reason to believe that we recently shipped hundreds of thousands of chicken to Ontario for sale. What the minister is saying is quite right the price in Ontario is down, and if we are dumping 300,000 chicken into Ontario then I suspect we are going to lose our shirts on it. Maybe it would be interesting to hear the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture.

MR. SULLIVAN: Our production is going up 70 per cent over the next four or five years.

MR. WINDSOR: Maybe the minister would explain it because I cannot explain it. It will be interesting to hear the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture explain this. I am almost tempted to sit down now, I am so anxious to hear the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture explain that one. This should be good. The Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture is going to explain it - the back of his head; he is not even paying attention. The Minister of Finance and Treasury Board should rattle his bell and try to get his attention over there, to get him moving.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Well, he will get up afterwards. My time is clicking. I have lost enough now just trying to find out where that one was.

Now, let's have the next one, `forest fire suppression', $506,000. We had a $2 million estimate; you are asking for another half-a-million dollars. In my recollection, this summer was not an unusual summer for forest fires. It was an unusual summer.

AN HON. MEMBER: A very dry summer.

MR. WINDSOR: Very hot and very dry. I didn't hear there were a lot of fires. I thought we were extremely fortunate in view of the conditions this summer, the hot weather we had. It was the warmest summer in my memory, I will say, the nicest summer we have ever had in this Province - spring, summer and fall - absolutely unbelievable. No question, the forests were extremely dry, but I wasn't aware that we had any tremendous number of forest fires. We have had much worse years. There have been years when you couldn't look at TV without seeing a forest fire. I assume this is just additional expenditures for forest fires.

Now, we have to do a couple of dillies on the Wildlife Division of the Department of Natural Resources at the moment, $725,000 - wildlife regional services, transportation, research and inventories, salaries, and more transportation. Would the minister like to give us an explanation of what those things are?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) vehicles.

MR. WINDSOR: No, the vehicles are coming up next. I have that here, the purchase of twenty-eight vehicles for Wildlife Division. We will do the two of them together, $560,000. I would like for the minister to tell us why all of a sudden we needed twenty-eight new vehicles for the Wildlife Division. Is the minister telling us that many vehicles - is this an expansion of the program? No? These many vehicles were -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: They were no good? And the minister didn't know that when he brought in his budget? Did they just all of a sudden fall apart, or did they drop over the end of a cliff? What happened to them? Twenty-eight vehicles all of a sudden, I don't know what the date was - that might be interesting to see - June of 1994, three months after the budget was introduced, only a month or so after it was actually approved by the House, all of a sudden there is this great emergency. The Cabinet Minute says: The necessity is urgent. They weren't urgent a month or so before when the budget was being done? I am sorry; I can't buy that. Twenty-eight vehicles just didn't rust and fall apart, or all of a sudden have 300,000 kilometres on them in one or two months.

AN HON. MEMBER: The new minister appealed to Cabinet.

MR. WINDSOR: The new minister appealed to Cabinet? Well, I compliment the new minister, because we told this government three or four years ago one of the great policies announced by the former Minister of Finance before he got turfed out, in his budget of 1990, I think, no more new vehicles. What a wonderful, great revelation. We are not going to replace any light vehicles, any light trucks or cars. Do we all remember that, what a great major announcement that was in the budget, and we told the government at the time: How foolish! You have a fleet of hundreds, thousands probably, of vehicles, and if you are not going to rotate those, not going to turn them over and replace them on a regular basis, then eventually they are all going to fall apart, and I don't disagree with the fact that it is urgent, because they were falling apart, because I saw some of them that weren't fit to drive.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WINDSOR: Now we know why we had the amendment to the Highway Traffic Act. Now we know why we just changed the requirements, or eliminated the requirements, to have annual inspections, because the government vehicles are falling apart. That's what is wrong. The government vehicles are falling apart because of this great policy four years ago saying we won't replace any more vehicles. This is a waste; we don't need to spend all this money. We are going to keep them on the road longer. Now, they are falling apart and it is an emergency now, twenty-eight new vehicles for the wildlife service.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's wrong with that?

MR. WINDSOR: There is nothing wrong with that. I am simply pointing out the short-sightedness of this government - not only that, while we are talking about it, it is a wonder the vehicles are worn out at all because government has cut the funding for your wildlife officers to the point where they can only operate vehicles about three days a week; it is a wonder there are any miles on them and the same is true with the forestry officers and I have seen it, I have talked to some of the officers and they tell me: We can only afford to put the pickup on the road about three days a week to go and ensure that people are not cutting wood where they are not supposed to, they are not lighting fires and all the management things -

MR. BAKER: We are responding to that need (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: You are responding to the need? It is about time, it only took them five years to wake up. Five years ago we told the minister it was shortsighted not to replace vehicles on a regular basis. You can only maintain a vehicle so long. We all know that, a vehicle that is owned and operated by a government department or agency or by a private corporation, does not get the same love and attention that the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board gives to his Cougar. How old is the minister's Cougar? Is it a new one you have out there now or did you have it painted.

MR. BAKER: The red one (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The red one gave up the ghost, it was eight years old?

MR. SULLIVAN: No, he could get her licensed now.

MR. WINDSOR: He can get her licensed now, no problem to get her licensed now. That is all, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Finance and Treasury Board can keep a vehicle for eight years, there is not a government vehicle that is going to last eight years unless it is assigned to the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board but we don't have that any more; he gets his vehicle allowance now, so instead of providing him a vehicle for when he needs it on government business, now we give him the money to go and buy one for himself and he keeps that, that was a nice little change, a nice little innovation, that is a great cost-saving measure for this government, too, Mr. Speaker. That was a good cost-saving measure. So now the ministers own their own vehicles, paid for by the Province instead of having one made available to him when he needed it for government business. He got around the problem I suppose of being able to use it for personal use, didn't it? It did that and you did not have to be so careful now on the weekends; you can use your own vehicle now whenever you want to; government vehicles, you used to park them because I did, believe it or not.

MR. BAKER: Government vehicles are so old now, nobody wants to use them.

MR. WINDSOR: Government vehicles are so old. When we the ministers, had vehicles available, I used to park my Chevy in the driveway on Friday afternoon and take my Pontiac station wagon and go in the country.

MR. EFFORD: What?

MR. WINDSOR: That's right.

MR. EFFORD: Who had the trailer hitch on it?

MR. WINDSOR: I beg your pardon?

MR. EFFORD: You had a trailer hitch on yours for the weekend.

MR. WINDSOR: A trailer hitch?

MR. EFFORD: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: It was on it when the vehicle was bought.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, I guess it was!

MR. WINDSOR: It was on it when it was bought.

MR. EFFORD: Boy, oh boy!

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon?

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) sit on the parking lot with trailer hitches on it.

MR. WINDSOR: The one the member is talking about was a four-wheel drive and had a trailer hitch attached to the bumper. It is as simple as that.

MR. GRIMES: There has never ever been one sold with an automatic trailer hitch on it.

MR. WINDSOR: Oh, that one had one, that one had it on.

MR. GRIMES: Somebody asked for it or it wouldn't be on.

MR. WINDSOR: You can go back and check the invoice.

MR. GRIMES: (Inaudible) never come out of a plant yet with a trailer hitch on it.

MR. WINDSOR: I say to the minster, you go back and check the invoice; you will find no charge for a trailer hitch on that vehicle.

MR. GRIMES: Oh no, no, that is different (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Now, Mr. Speaker, let's get back to what we are talking about here. How come, all of a sudden, we have twenty-eight vehicles, urgent - What was the Member for LaPoile saying to the minister?

AN HON. MEMBER: We used to order them with golf clubs in them.

MR. WINDSOR: Try golf clubs in them, yes. I had forgotten about that. Yes, the hon. minister had his fingers burnt, didn't he, when he was up in the Premier's office; driving the Premier's vehicles, one of the car pool vehicles, out to Bally Haly, was it? I suppose that minister's car came with golf clubs in it, did it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: Yes. I think all ministers' cars should come with golf clubs in it. Just as well to have them out on the golf course because that will be the most productive use, at least they will be out hearing what the people are saying and it will be good for all of them. But I really find it just absolutely amazing that a month or two after the Budget was brought in, now all of a sudden, bang! Twenty-eight vehicles in the Wildlife Division have to be replaced, absolutely amazing!

How about this other $725,000, Mr. Speaker? How come all of a sudden - what happened in Wildlife that we are $725,000 under budget? What was so urgent? This appears to me to be normal, ongoing operations of the Department of Wildlife.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: New survey camp? No, this is wildlife regional services and protection salaries. It is under Transportation and Communications, Research and Inventory Salaries and Research and Inventory Transportation. So would the minister like to tell us what those things are for? What was so urgent about them? Why could they not have been predicted at the time of the Budget?

Did the minister get that question? No. Maybe if the ministers would stay in their seats and listen, when we are talking about their department, they would have a shot at it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: No, I am talking to the Minister of Natural Resources now, who is now responsible for this, or the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance ultimately answers for this bill but that minister should be turning around to his colleague and saying, `explain to us again what this was so urgent for.' This is $125,000 for salaries under Wildlife Regional Services and Protection; $100,000 for Transportation for that division; $50,000 under Research and Inventories and another $450,000 under Transportation and Communication. What would that $450,000 under Transportation be for? Is it helicopter time for the ministers flipping around? No, or is it more - if the minister wants to tell - I will yield for a moment as long as he does not take up too much of my time here.

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

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, a number of major initiatives have been approved by Cabinet in government and started since last year's Budget. The last things that the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl has been talking about - one of them is the inventory that we are doing. I tell the hon. member, we have started a three-year inventory of the big game population, particularly the moose population of the Province. So the biggest chunk of that is one-third of about $1.5 million amount to do the three-year big game survey, and that is where you have a lot of helicopter time by people like Shane Mahoney and his biologists who are doing a survey.

The smaller amounts that you talked about, the $125,000 salary and some support, that is related to initiatives that we took in the enforcement area, particularly relative to inland rivers. We added some fees to salmon licenses in the past year. I am not sure of the exact total that it came to but about $300,000 or $400,000 or so to increase that enforcement. So these are the two things there that caused these numbers.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the minister for that. I have to say to him that it makes sense to do proper surveys on wildlife.

Let me tell you a little story. Back about 1987, I chaired a Resource Policy Committee meeting of Cabinet. We had two Cabinet papers on the resource policy committee meeting, one for my friend, who is now the Leader of the Opposition, who was Minister of Forestry and Agriculture at the time, and one for my friend from Deer Lake who is Minister - no, you were minister of -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I am not sure, maybe -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: One from wildlife and one from agriculture.

AN HON. MEMBER: John Butt.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Butt it was, yes.

The first paper came from the agriculture people who wanted hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a cull of moose around agricultural areas, because the moose were causing such damage in farmers' fields - they were eating the crops. Moose were so plentiful, they were all over the place.

So we had the two papers the same evening. We had an evening meeting in the new building over here, as I recall, and we had two papers, one after the other, on the agenda for those policies. The first one wanted money to kill some moose. The second paper said we have to reduce the number of moose licenses this year, and we sat there, my colleagues -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: My colleagues and I sat there and said, `There is something inconsistent here. One paper wants money to cull moose and the other one wants to reduce the number of moose licenses. What is going on here? So we called the officials in. We deferred it for a week and we had our next meeting with the officials present, from both departments, with both ministers, and we finally found the story, that both departments were right.

Agriculture had a serious problem with moose destroying the crops and the wildlife officials were quite right in their concerns as to how many moose licenses should be issued. The problem was simply this, that the wildlife officials did not know, they did not have the data, because at the time in our resolve to cut deficits and to reduce expenditures we had cut this actual vote, the research portion of that division so much that they felt they did not have reliable data under which to make the proper recommendations to government as to how many licenses should be issued. They did not have the helicopter time. We had cut everything out, cut back, to try and meet the financial restraints at the time, and unknowing we had cut them to the point where they were able to say to us in all sincerity, Shane Mahoney was the one, who I have great respect for as a naturalist, he made it very clear, look, we do not have information enough where we are confident to say that we can issue these many licenses, so naturally our recommendations will be on the small conservative side. We are recommending that you cut back.

We make an agreements with the officials of both departments, we will not give agriculture money to go out and kill moose but we will give tourism money, about one quarter of what agriculture was looking for. I think agriculture wanted $1 or $1.5 million. I think we gave the wildlife people $300,000 or $400,000, or less than that, for helicopter time to do what they considered to be a study that was necessary, and the result of that study when they came back a month or so later - the minister might correct me, but if I am not mistaken they recommended an additional 750 moose licenses across this Province. They said we could do it with confidence because now we have good, hard data. We know what the population is. We know what can be sustained.

I think it was 750 additional licenses across this Province that were issued as a result of it. I say to the minister that the story is a little irrelevant. I thank the minister for the information, but it is important, so I do not have a problem with it, outside of the fact that we should have known it at Budget time, again. This is not something that is an emergency that comes up in the middle of the year. I do not have a problem with a special warrant if a building is found unsafe or if there is an emergency situation in a community somewhere, or if a highway gets washed out with a great flood. Those are what special warrants are for, but special warrants should not be used to correct inadequacies in Budget preparation.

That is what I see here in both of these cases. Even though I do not have a problem with the fact that wildlife services probably needed those twenty-eight vehicles they did not fall apart in two months. That could, and should, and I suspect was known. Maybe the minister gave the truthful answer, the new minister argued with Cabinet and won. The former minister did not get what he wanted in the Budget process, but the new minister made a stronger case and won. If so, then I congratulate the minister for that. We cannot have people doing proper enforcement if they do not have the equipment and facilities to do it with.

MR. ROBERTS: You should have heard (Inaudible)

MR. WINDSOR: The hon. House Leader should sit there and be quiet. We will let him know when we want him to speak to us. He has been lecturing us all day as to who should speak, and who should be quiet. He has been trying to do the Speaker's job of controlling the House and saying who is interrupting and who should not be interrupting, but now he is interrupting, Mr. Speaker, and we do not need a lecture from the hon. gentleman. It would be better if he went back into the archives of his law practice, or his other businesses, and check on what is taking place down there, and not bother to interrupt when we are trying to do something here in the House. Mr. Speaker, that is the wildlife one.

Now we have $882,000 additional funds for the preparation of a list of electors. My friend for Humber East is interested in that one, I am sure.

MS. VERGE: What is that?

MR. WINDSOR: I got her attention. I did not mean to wake you up. There is $882,000 additional funding for the preparation of a list of electors.

MS. VERGE: Oh, that was a waste.

MR. WINDSOR: Now, this is a great emergency. We are not going to have an election for a couple of years. I realize it is required under the act that we have one. Why didn't we say: Yes, we will have to do one.

AN HON. MEMBER: Can't even do a by-election.

MR. WINDSOR: Can't even do a by-election. Who is planning on resigning, or who is going to be thrown out? I know we are going to need one up in the Straits of Belle Isle very soon.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The Minister of Finance and Treasury Board might resign? Well, I hope the news media is reporting. There will be dancing in the streets of Gander tonight.

Mr. Speaker, this is hardly an emergency expenditure again. If an election were called, or if somebody resigned and we say: Well, we have to have a by-election, but we will give you thirty or forty-five days to do a new voters list; then we will have it. We could do it in that one district.

Maybe the Premier is going to resign. Maybe the whole government is going to resign and we are going to have another general election. Tell us that. Now we have something to shout about. Maybe that is what is going to happen. They are taking such a body bruising here in the House of Assembly in the last two weeks, they are going to give it up; they can't stand it any more. They are all going to resign and we are going to have an election. Now that would be a Christmas present that the people of this Province would appreciate. That would be a Christmas present they would appreciate.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where are you going to run this time?

MR. WINDSOR: Oh, there is no question; the same place I ran the last six times.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Yes, and several times with the biggest majority in the Province. The question is, where is the Member for Eagle River going to hide, this election? There are a few other members over there we want to know where they are going to hide.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The member had better be careful. The Member for Eagle River is putting the fear of god into the Member for Lewisporte now. He is frightening the life out of him, suggesting I might think about running out there.

MR. SULLIVAN: Does he agree with the increased ferry rates? He didn't when Crosbie was there.

MR. WINDSOR: Increased ferry rates? Yes.

MR. SULLIVAN: Does he agree?

MR. WINDSOR: Yes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I give him credit. He is concerned. He has shown his concern. He talked the Premier into putting him on the public accounts as vice-chair so he can keep an eye on me. Oh, yes, he has me under close guard now.

It would be better if he spent some time out in his district and kept his eye on that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: We will see. We will have fun with him yet. The week is only young, I say to the Member for Lewisporte. The week is young. This could be a week that he will not forget.

Now, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs looks at me over his glasses, wondering, what is he at now? The question is: What is the minister at? We will find out in the next couple of days, I suspect, I assume. The minister nods his head. He will tell us in the next couple of days, and we will see what happens.

Eight hundred and eighty-two thousand dollars, perhaps it is not - maybe the government does not have the good sense to resign. Maybe we are going to have some sort of a referendum and that is why we need it. It couldn't have anything to do with education. Ah, there it is, $882,000 to try now to get the people of the Province to say: Yes, we like your educational reform program. Is that what this is all about?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Oh, your business investment program. I dare you; I dare you to put that one out to a referendum.

MR. ROBERTS: Tremendous support.

MR. WINDSOR: Tremendous support. I heard that yesterday, listening to the President of the St. John's Board of Trade speak to the St. John's Rotary Club how much support.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did he say?

MR. WINDSOR: Oh, not happy with it at all. In fact, there is a document - I have a copy of it up on my desk - a copy of the board's position on that particular piece of legislation.

AN HON. MEMBER: Very supportive.

MR. WINDSOR: Some of it they are very supportive, not all of it, not with the amount of $500,000 that has to go in there, not with the million dollar incremental sales, not happy with those, not happy with the fact that it relates only to new businesses coming in and does nothing for existing businesses.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I won't comment on that one.

Mr. Speaker, that is another $882,000 going there. Perhaps the minister would tell us what this $400,000 is for the Strategic Regional Diversification Agreement. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology might be able to tell us and what is the great emergency there? Obviously, it is a federal-provincial agreement just by the wording of it.

One of the problems, I say to the Minister of Finance - I will yield - I say to the Minister of Finance, one of the problems with the tabling of special warrants is that it does not give us much information. Perhaps if the minister gave a short explanation, similar to what was given in Cabinet - I do not expect him to give us the Cabinet paper but I am sure he could paraphrase that or have his staff paraphrase it - to give us a little more information about what this is being requested for, we might not be up asking a lot of these questions because a lot of them no doubt are legitimate. I yield for a moment to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member yielded for a moment.

The $400,000, Mr. Speaker, represents a part of the SRDA Agreement that we had intended to fund but you will recall, Mr. Crosbie cut the tourism agreement by 10 per cent. There was a case made by the Member for Ferryland, for example, to restore the funding for the archaeological dig. He made a very good case and we restored it and that is what that money is -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Before I recognize the hon. Member for Mount Pearl, I would like for hon. members to my left to keep the private conversations down because I am having difficulty hearing the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for that ruling. I have to say I am having trouble hearing myself.

AN HON. MEMBER: The money is very well spent.

MR. WINDSOR: Well spent. Well we could use a lot more money. I would be the last, as the minister knows, to disagree with any money that can be found in keeping with our overall financial position for any money that can be found for that sort of thing is certainly money well spent and well directed. If it was used for that purpose, Mr. Speaker, I do not have any problem with it. So we can deal with those in due course.

Maybe the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation could tell us - additional road reconstruction, this is 100 per cent recoverable from the Government of Canada, $8.5 million. I would just like the minister to tell us -

MR. EFFORD: It is all in Liberal districts.

MR. WINDSOR: All in Liberal districts. Now that is the kind of unintelligent response I would expect from the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, Mr. Speaker. I asked a very logical, reasonable question, perhaps the minister could tell us what this $8.5 million was spent for, realizing that it is 100 per cent recoverable from the federal government. Any money that we can get 100 per cent recoverable from the federal government, we should get, we should spend and we should spend it quickly.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: And that is the only money we spent, that is right, but the answer I get from the minister is not to give any explanation of where it was spent, what it was for or why it came up all of a sudden. His comment is, `well it was spent all in Liberal districts.' That comes as no surprise, I say, comes as no surprise to any of us that the minister would take that kind of approach. He takes that approach with the life safety of people on the highways and he starts talking about changing the liquor laws, he takes that when it comes to eliminating the requirement for vehicle inspections, now we can see it. The government's vehicles are in such bad shape that they do not have to have them inspected any more. That is part of the problem because they have cut back so much on the maintenance budget and the money to replace those vehicles, Mr. Speaker.

So, Mr. Speaker, those were the questions that I had, particularly those dealing with the special warrants. The minister I am sure, when he responds, will give us some of those answers and I thank the ministers who have already responded. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture.

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thought I should rise and offer an explanation for the additional warrant required for the chicken subsidy program this year.

The price for chicken established by Newfoundland Farm Products Corporation is based on the Nova Scotia price plus ten cents per kilogram. The subsidy then is calculated as the difference between that established price, as I have just indicated, the Nova Scotia price plus ten cents a kilogram and the cost of production here in Newfoundland.

The cost of production is determined using a nationally adopted and accepted formula right across the country but applicable to the conditions for each individual province. The difference between our cost of production and that established price, the subsidy is based on 75 per cent of that difference. Where the monkey wrench came in to it this year is that the Nova Scotia price has always been traditionally and historically established on the Ontario price plus five cents a kilogram. This year, because of the GATT ruling and where we are going to be going with regard to supply management and confined production of animals in the future, Ontario jumped the gun. They increased their quota without direction by 20 per cent, therefore flooding the market with chickens. The price dropped, therefore the Nova Scotia price dropped, and Newfoundland Farm Products' price also dropped. The difference between our cost of production and the price that NFPC pays became wider. The seventy-five per cent just ballooned. That is what the problem was.

MR. WINDSOR: How much overproduction did we have? I indicated (inaudible).

DR. HULAN: In this Province? None. No overproduction. In fact, we are not quite meeting our quota. Ontario and Quebec are the ones that are overproducing, but it is primarily Ontario.

MR. WINDSOR: Would the minister permit (inaudible)?

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Just a brief question to the minister. I don't have the right to speak a second time, but if the minister will just entertain a question. I'm advised that recently Farm Products has shipped hundreds of thousands of chickens to Ontario from here. Does the minister have any information in that regard? Can he confirm or deny it, or will he check that information and get back to us?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture.

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't confirm or deny. I will look into that and get back to this House.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board speaks now he will close the debate.

The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I would like to thank members opposite for their support of this particular piece of legislation which attempts to tighten up the rules and regulations with regards to the funding of private pension plans in the Province. It is a measure designed for the protection of the people who have the greatest stake, the people who will eventually collect these pensions.

The Member for Mount Pearl asked a lot of questions and it will take some time to deal with them all. I would suggest that perhaps when we have the second go at it we could perhaps provide more detailed explanations. However, let me attempt to start at least right now.

I know that there are a surprising number of private pension plans with companies, not just the large companies. I don't know off the top of my head how many, but I would advise the hon. member that I have a meeting scheduled Monday morning at 9:00 to discuss this particular issue about the private pension plans and other measures that might be taken to guarantee that they are properly funded and so on. I think most of the private plans are 100 per cent funded. I think that, for instance, the NewTel plan, and I believe the Light and Power plan are 100 per cent funded. Some of the larger plans are very solid and 100 per cent funded. It is the smaller ones that are of greater concern to me right now. Perhaps when we get in the Committee stage I can give some more detail on the state of the smaller private pension plans in the Province.

With regards to government's plans, the member knows the history. At one point in time government simply collected money from workers, did not match the amounts, and simply took the money, put it in general revenue, and did the necessary public work and so on, with the understanding that government would stand by the obligation and would itself provide the pension plan as described.

I suppose at the time it was a way of not having to go to the market and borrow money. It was a source of revenue that in one sense I suppose could be hidden in the Budgets of the Province. This was recognized in 1980, perhaps in 1979 actually, the change was made in early '81, made effective as of 1980. It was recognized that this situation could not be allowed to continue, the obligations were building at an enormous rate, and at some point in time you were going to have a tremendous drain on the public purse unless something sensible was done so, in 1980, effective 1980, the funded pension plans were established whereby government would contribute a percentage, the workers would contribute a percentage into a fund that was managed and the fund was invested and so on, and so the fund started to build, so government has a tremendous obligation in connection with the pre-1980 situation.

In terms of the teachers' pension plan, that obligation which would include the teachers' contribution, plus a matching government contribution plus accumulated interest, ever since the money was supposed to be put in, would probably amount to over $300 million, that is the teachers plan alone. The teachers plan is unfunded to the extent of about $1.1 billion, okay? Now, I am talking about pre-1980.

In terms of the public service pension plan, I guess the total of the unfunded liability relates to pre-1980, so government would have an obligation in the public service pension plan in the vicinity of $800 or $900 million; so in other words, for government to stand behind its obligation, pre-1980 obligation, would require over a billion dollars that would have to be taken and placed in these two plans. That would make the public service pension plan 100 per cent funded, that would make the teachers plan probably 30 per cent or 40 per cent funded if we were to do that; maybe 30 per cent funded, 40 per cent is perhaps too high, so there is a tremendous obligation that government has to meet. It is crucial that we almost immediately do something with the teachers' plan, not as crucial that the money be put in the public service pension plan because that is funded to a much higher level, but at some point in time that is going to have to be done and an arrangement should be made now to handle that liability, no doubt about that.

The problem with the teachers' plan was, that in 1980 when it was brought in, the funding level was so low that it did not account for half of the liability the plan was generating. In other words, the current service cost of the teachers plan was never ever covered. As opposed to the public service plan, the full current service cost was being covered right from 1980 on, the teachers plan, the current service cost was not being covered, and there are many explanations for that but the only one that makes any sense is that: No. 1) the NTA of the day and No. 2) the government of the day did not have the guts to increase the contributions to teachers at the time, and it was a shared responsibility at that point in time, and it is not government's fault, not NTA, it is a combined fault here, that when the plan was funded, when the announcement was made that the plan was funded, there should have been two different rates announced.

The rate for the public service pension plan that would cover the current service cost from that point on and an amount for the teachers plan that would have covered the current service cost from that day on, then we would not have the serious problem; we could fix the pre-1980 problem at some point in time but in the teachers' plan a tremendous liability of $800 or $900 million, $800 million perhaps has developed since 1980 that really is a shared responsibility between government, we being the government of the day now, and the NTA, with their current executive it is a shared responsibility, that particular part of the unfunded liability.

We as a government, to this point in time, have not done a great deal to solve that problem but here is what we have done. In 1990 when there was a surplus on current account - at the end of the year it worked out that way because there were some extra payments, we took $22 million and put it into the teachers' pension plan, a drop in the bucket. It is almost insignificant but at least that gesture was made.

During the collective bargaining process in 1989, leading up to 1990, we agreed through the collective bargaining process, to make certain changes in the teachers' pension plan, and what we did was in essence reduced benefits and increased premiums, so that since 1990 the current service cost is being covered. We made some changes, but again, Mr. Speaker, very minor changes that are not in themselves constituting a solution to the problem. The time has come now, in the next few months, when the solution to the funding of the teachers' pension plan has to be found. There is no doubt about that at all, and steps have to be taken in the next few months to ensure that that plan continues to build and will not become depleted at any point in the future.

Our normal contributions are put in but this year the savings that we generated through the strike, and everybody remembers the strike, the savings to government from that strike, are being deposited in the teachers' pension plan. Government receives no windfall from that at all. That is being put in the pension plan and we are right now in the process of coming up with a mechanism to solve the rest of the problem. That amounts to about $25 to $28 million being put into the teachers' pension plan.

There was a committee set up jointly through the collective agreement to try to come up with a solution to the problem and that committee has been working but there has been no solution forthcoming from the committee. Within the next two weeks we are going to try another mechanism where the President of the Newfoundland Teachers Association and myself sit down and see if we can ourselves come to some resolution.

That particular problem is coming to a head and hopefully a resolution will be found very quickly. If there is not then government is going to have to take some unilateral action, it is as simple as that, to solve the problem. So, that is the situation with regard to the government pension plans.

The member also asked about the other plans. The Uniform Services plan has been taken care of in the sense that that plan has been grandfathered out of existence, in a sense. The Uniform Services plan is being paid to those who had beyond a certain number of years' service, but everybody else is under a plan similar or almost the same as the Public Service pension plan. So the old Uniform Services plan is being grandfathered out of existence. It will cost us reducing amounts of money over the next ten, fifteen, twenty years, but that will disappear.

In terms of the MHAs plan, we had an enquiry into pensions at one point in time, in 1989 and 1990. They suggested that the MHAs' plan was not a pension plan, it was simply a salary continuance scheme. We have been looking at some alternatives with regard to the MHAs' plan, and sometime in the next two or three months we will be presenting a position on that as well.

We are trying to find solutions to all these problems. Much more of the detail of the private plans in the Province I will give during the Committee stage.

Mr. Speaker, I move second reading.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Pensions Funding Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill No. 35)

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, could we begin debate on Order 11, which is Bill 17, the municipal grants act.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Municipal Grants Act". (Bill No. 17)

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

MR. REID: Bill 17, Mr. Speaker, is basically to clean up some housekeeping. If you remember, last year - I should say this year - we brought back the road component grant under the municipal operating grant formula. Now, in order to do that we had to find some other method of reducing a part of the formula to accommodate the $500 per kilometre. I have some notes here and I'm going to briefly run down through and try to explain as well as I can to members what we did there.

In order for us to pay the municipalities the $500 per kilometre for roads, then we had to come back - it is not a case of regulation - we had to come back into the House and get permission to do it. This is what I'm asking for today. Even though my hon. colleague across the floor there realizes that it is a fait accompli anyway, because I've already more or less given them the money, I have to come back, I suppose, in hindsight and try to change the regulations to do it.

I'm happy to say that when we did that last year, most of the rural members on the other side representing rural districts were happy, because that was what the rural communities of Newfoundland were looking for anyway.

The original MOG consisted of four different components, an equalization component, a household component, and a local revenue incentive component. Then, on top of that, was the roads component grant, and that roads component grant was the floating grant. As municipalities increased their qualifications for the other areas, then the roads component grant gradually disappeared.

The whole question and the problem with this, of course, is that the total MOG for the last number of years has been capped at $41.5 million, and being capped at $41.5 million basically as the figures change each year, and in most cases go up, then the different components have to be reduced.

The previous legislation basically said that we would pick up that loss out of the roads component. Well, what happened in 1994, in 1993 really, the road component amount disappeared completely, and if we had continued in 1994 with the road component grant we would have gotten into a negative number, believe it or not, and how do you operate with a negative amount? So what we have done basically is we have changed the system.

We have offered now a subsidy component of $500 per kilometre, and I am hoping that amount will stay in the 1995 Budget, but then, in order to accommodate the drop in the other ones, we have decided that we would take the local revenue incentive component and make that the floating unit, so basically, you are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The only thing about that, I suppose, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that if you remember, last year we discussed here in the House, and I did with a number of my colleagues, the possibility of providing some extra money to some rural municipalities around the Province who were finding it harder to survive, and harder to survive in regard to actually having a good tax base in order to generate revenues.

If we look at the City of St. John's, and Mount Pearl, and Conception Bay South, and Gander and Grand Falls, and the larger areas, they have the ability, municipalities have the ability, to collect business taxes and other types of taxes from, number one, large numbers of people in residences. Then, on the other hand, business tax generates a sizable proportion of the budgets of those larger municipalities.

If you take a smaller community, a Cox's Cove type, or you go on the Northwest Coast and find, I suppose, numerous ones up the peninsula, smaller areas - my friend, the Member for Fogo has a number of smaller communities - most of us rural members have small communities, small numbers of people, and in a lot of cases one little corner store, and that is about it in the community. It offers very little in regard to an avenue whereby a council can actually generate business taxes, so they are at a disadvantage.

In the past couple of years, especially with the downturn in the fishery and the fact that some of these small communities have had fish plants, for example, there and very little other avenues, they are now losing the money from the fish plants. Most small communities in the Province are finding it extremely difficult to survive.

So, Mr. Speaker, small rural municipalities around the Province will benefit from this move because we are now taking it from the Local Revenue Incentive grant which was really an encouragement for municipalities around the Province to raise their taxes, and based on the amount of revenue they received, we would subsidize them. This now is not going to have a great impact on the ability of smaller communities to collect taxes but will offer them, at least for now, that $500 to help them offset the cost of snow clearing and the other financial responsibilities they must address.

Mr. Speaker, I wish that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador were in a position where we could increase the cap, or increase the $41.5 million a year. In comparison to most other provinces of Canada, this is a large sum. For example, in Alberta last year, there was only $8 million provided by the provincial government under the same formula to municipalities around the Province.

If you look at the movement in the rest of the country towards actual funding of municipal services by provincial governments, you will find that in most cases, most provinces have been removing themselves somewhat in supplying subsidies to municipalities. I have my fingers crossed inasfar as I am hoping that we can at least maintain next year the level of $41.5 million. When we get into the budgetary process, of course, that will determine at that particular time what we will do, or what we will have to do with regard to providing monies to municipalities.

As said on numerous occasions it is hard for me, as the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, to sit across the table from the Minister of Health, the Minister of Social Services, or the Minister of Education and Training, and take that little bit of money we have and try to argue with the Department of Education and Training and say municipalities need money moreso than education, health, social services, or some of the others. I was fortunate last year to be able to maintain it at $41.5 million and I am hoping that we will be able to do it again next year.

Mr. Speaker, on that note, I adjourn the debate.

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

Mr. Speaker, the House will adjourn in a moment. We will meet at 2:00 p.m. on Monday and carry on with the debate on the municipal grants bill. When that is done we will go on, so members can prepare, to the Assessment Act which is Bill 18, and then we will go on, whenever we get there, to the act to continue The Newfoundland Pharmaceutical -

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I am sorry?

MR. SULLIVAN: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: Well, that's fine. Okay, the third one will be the Newfoundland Pharmaceutical Association, and between now and Monday, I will undertake to let members know so they can prepare themselves adequately to debate. I am sure the Member for Ferryland is ready to debate any bill now, but some of his colleagues may want some warning. The House will not sit beyond 5:00 on Monday evening -

AN HON. MEMBER: Did you say, will not sit?

MR. ROBERTS: Will not sit beyond 5:00 on Monday evening, and after that we will play it as it comes, as it were. My friend, the Member for Grand Bank and I -

MR. WOODFORD: By note, not ear.

MR. ROBERTS: Play it by?

MR. WOODFORD: By note.

MR. ROBERTS: By note. The hon. gentleman has never heard me sing or he wouldn't say that, I say, Mr. Speaker. Anyway, with that said -

MR. SULLIVAN: Not by ear, by see, s-e-e.

MR. ROBERTS: As in the See of Rome?

MR. SULLIVAN: No. See what happens on Monday.

MR. ROBERTS: Your Honour, I have heard of people being `all at sea', such as my friend, the Member for Ferryland.

I move that the House do now adjourn, Sir.

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