March 30, 1995              HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS               Vol. XLII  No. 9


The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

Oral Questions

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

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

My question is for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations regarding the Review Division of Workers' Compensation. I ask the minister: Can he confirm that Eric Gullage, his political appointment and his government's political appointment, when he postpones a hearing on behalf of an appellant, he gets paid $500 for postponement and that actually, when he hears the case, two to three weeks later, he gets paid another $500 for hearing the same case? Can the minister confirm that this is happening?

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

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

No, I cannot confirm that. My understanding is, when my colleague, the minister changed the old tribunal system to the review system last year, that we changed the fee structure from an hourly structure to a caseload structure which was $500 per case, so I will have to take that particular question under advisement and get back to the member.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, my information indicates this: that in the last seven months, fifty-nine decisions have been postponed of which, $500 for each of those decisions have been paid to the Chief Review Commissioner, totalling, $29,500, and that when the Chief Review Commissioner hears the cases before him, he gets paid another $29,500 - clearly, Mr. Speaker, in violation of the legislation which indicates that each case heard is supposed to be heard at $500. What is happening here is that the Chief Review Commissioner, in some cases, is getting paid $1,000, double dipping within the Review Division.

Will the minister look into it and will he report back to this House?

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

MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Let me assure the hon. member that if there is a violation of the legislation, it will be dealt with, but let me also inform him that under the old tribunal system, from July 1 to December 31, 1993, a caseload cost was $1,254.16. The tribunal system from January 1 of 1994 to June 30, the tribunal case cost was $1,138.66. When my colleague brought in the new legislation it went from $1,136 per case to $500 a case. Now, let me say to the hon. member that from July 1 to December 31, 1993 there were 187 caseloads of backlog. I remember the Member for Kilbride standing in his place and ridiculing the minister, ridiculing government that the caseload had backed up. As a matter of fact, it backed up to 286 cases.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. MURPHY: Well, let me say to the member that it is an awful lot better now than it was when the previous administration appointed Mr. Maynard.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the minister indicated in his initial response that he has really no knowledge that this is going on and that he will check and report back to the House. Well, my information tells me that, in fact, Eric Gullage and other review commissioners, several months ago, met with the minister on this very issue, brought it to his attention, sought and got granted his seal of approval for them to go ahead and do this.

Can the minister confirm that he actually knows about it and is not being forthcoming with the House today?

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

MR. MURPHY: Let me say to the hon. member that his information, or his source is about as valid as his chicken coupons.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Natural Resources. In light of the major crisis we see today in the fishery you would think that we would have learned a lesson, and that lesson is that our natural renewable resources have to be controlled right here in our own Province and not by the so-called experts from up along and away, as we have seen so often, Mr. Speaker.

I want to ask the minister: Is he satisfied with the fact that the closing of the regional forest centre here will not have a negative environmental impact on the forest industry in this particular Province?

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

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, whether there is a forest centre here or not we are going to ensure that there is proper management of our forests in this Province, regardless.

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

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Speaker, the people I have talked to in the industry since they have heard this announcement don't feel very encouraged by the minister's remarks here today. I can tell you that. I can tell the minister, if he doesn't believe it - and maybe that is the problem, that he doesn't believe it himself - there will be serious downsizing in the forest research capability in this Province, so much so that the facility may have difficulty` maintaining its mandate, and I suspect that there could be serious negative environmental effects.

I will be more specific, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister confirm that there will be no adverse effects to the operations of the Thomas Howe Demonstration Forest, for one, and the seedling purchase services, which are currently projects of this forest centre?

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

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, I'm not about, today, to get into the details of the types of research that are presently being done by the Canadian Forest Service. Yesterday, I expressed my disappointment with the decision that was made regarding the closure of that centre, or the reduction of that centre to a smaller unit. I have corresponded with the federal minister in that regard over the last three months; I am continuing to correspond with the federal minister in that regard. I will continue beyond today in having discussions with the federal minister with regard to the role of the federal Forest Service and the research that it does. But we are going to continue to do our job as well, and we are going to ensure that there is proper management of the forestry of this Province.

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

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say to the minister, obviously, the corresponding has had no clout behind it, because right now Newfoundland's is closed down while New Brunswick is still open. So, obviously, correspondence hasn't been working, I say to the minister.

The minister has mentioned that there has been an accumulation of an expertise in this Province regarding forest management. These people will be laid off and could move from this Province in search of work, which seems to be the trend of our trained people these days. Can the minister tell the House if he plans to open a provincial forest centre to replace the federal one, thus keeping the trained people he keeps talking about right here in this Province, and not shipped away like the rest of them?

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

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, at this time we do not have any plans to open a provincial forestry centre. We do not. But we are going to do everything that is necessary to manage the forest resources properly in this Province.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is to the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture. In last week's Budget there was much talk about no job losses, and it was announced there would be no job losses or, if so, very few within the next twelve months.

The Member for Baie Verte - White Bay just yesterday brought up about the forestry centre closure here in St. John's, which will have an effect on the West Coast and other areas of the Province. The minister responsible for agriculture - just a couple of years ago, the government closed a swine station in Pynns Brook, recommended by the minister to stay open. Now, I wonder could the minister confirm to the House and tell the House if his department, and government as a whole, have made a definite decision to close Newfoundland Farm Products in Corner Brook?

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

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

No, government has not made that decision.

MR. WOODFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WOODFORD: The minister had some grave concerns in his task force report back in 1991, especially as it pertained to the political and socio-economic repercussions it would have on the eighty-three to eighty-six employees at Farm Products in Corner Brook. Could he tell the House today that one of the reasons why government will make a decision over the next short while to close the Newfoundland Farm Products building in Corner Brook would be a condition for the sale of Newfoundland Farm Products in Corner Brook? In other words, whoever is interested in it would like to see the Corner Brook operation sold off first before they would be interested in buying.

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

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely not.

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

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

MR. WOODFORD: Could the minister confirm that when the sale of Newfoundland Farm Products takes place in Corner Brook, there would be other opportunities for the eighty-six employees there? Would he be making any recommendations to look after those employees?

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

DR. HULAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One thing I, as minister, must assure is that we have a good supply of chickens to meet the increased demand due to the Tory vouchers that are going out there to keep the Tory election campaign for the leadership going. The question the hon. member has asked now is too hypothetical. I cannot answer it. It is a hypothetical question.

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

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

Obviously, the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture is too `chicken' to answer the question.

Mr. Speaker, the day before yesterday, I asked the Minister of Natural Resources a question concerning a GIS - Geographic Information System, combining various government divisions, and I noticed the Government House Leader coaching the minister who was as confused and in the dark as he was with the Hydro privatization. So I would like to ask the Government House Leader: Is there a plan of study underway to combine the Registry of Deeds, Crown Land Registry, and other divisions within government?

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

MR. ROBERTS: The answer to the hon. gentleman's spontaneous question is a spontaneous `no'. We are looking, not in any concentrated way at this stage, at the possibility of simplifying the registry system, including the introduction of a land title system for all or part of the Province. The hon. gentleman, I think, would acknowledge that the present system is cumbersome, it is becoming more cumbersome, and much more difficult to operate, but the answer to his specific question is `no'.

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

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

The assistant deputy minister of lands, as I understand, is the chairperson of the Geographic Information Systems Steering Committee, and the technical sub-committee. The purpose of the committee, obviously, is to combine the registry and other divisions. When will the report be completed and submitted to government?

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

DR. GIBBONS: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member continues to confuse the situation, and confuse what is going on. I know that the hon. member worked in the lands department for a number of years as a surveyor, and I know that he is aware that back in 1978 there was a report prepared relative to this subject of the registry, relative to the Crown lands base, but there is nothing going on with regard to that right now; relative to GIS is a different matter. GIS, for people who may not understand it, is Geographic Information Systems.

In the Natural Resources Department which we now have, and have had since August 26, we have several different GIS systems. They have different software, different hardware; they are different systems, and they are incompatible. Right now we have a review going on to see if we cannot integrate the systems that we have within that department. We have a GIS system for the geological survey. We have a GIS system for forestry. We have a GIS system for wildlife. We have a GIS system for Crown lands. Well, if we are going to be an integrated land management, natural resource department, we have to have an integrated GIS system. We are working on that, and we have people working on that, but we are not looking at an integration of the Registry of Deeds with that, but, obviously, there has to be some co-operation between the two.

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

MR. J. BYRNE: I would like to ask the Minister of Natural Resources: When this integration is completed, and the study is completed, is there any thought, or are any plans being made to privatize these services?

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

DR. GIBBONS: We have, at this time, given no consideration to that subject at all. What I am most interested in right now, as the Minister of Natural Resources, is to have a completely integrated system so that when someone comes in to our offices and wants to know something about minerals or forests or wild life or lands, they can get it all from whatever source they come in through, and an integrated GIS system will give that to them.

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

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations.

Mr. Speaker, the buzzword in many government circles these days, is training. Millions of dollars are being spent throughout the Province on ABE courses, computer courses and the like. Part of the criteria to avail of these training programs in most cases is that a person must be the recipient of TAGS or UI benefits. I ask the minister: what about all the people who are not on TAGS or UI, who want to train, what is his department and his government doing to assist these people who have fallen through the cracks?

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

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

Let me say to the hon. member, that we do have programs to assist now. However, last August, the training component of our department was turned over to the Department of Education so if he wants to readdress the question to the Minister of Education and Training, no problem.

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

MR. MANNING: No problem. My next question will go to the Minister of Education and Training and end up with a longer answer, maybe.

Many Newfoundlanders who are directly involved in the fishing industry are being compensated and trained. Many others who were employed indirectly as truck drivers, baby sitters et cetera have been left out in the cold in relation to both compensation and training; many are looking for only the opportunity to train and upgrade their skills. I would like to ask the minister: would he investigate this very serious matter and put a plan in place that all Newfoundlanders can take advantage of the millions of dollars that are being spent in training in this Province?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, there is a perception around that the community colleges and the various post-secondary education institutions are so jammed with TAGS people and with Manpower seats and so on and so forth, that there is no room left over for the other people who want to get into the schools. Now this, Mr. Speaker, is a bunch of crap that people get on with and they don't know what they are talking about. It makes a great political statement for people to think they know what they are talking about but they haven't got a clue.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that if the community colleges and the private schools get contracts from the federal government to provide schooling and in many cases we use classrooms in the community colleges; in other cases when the community college gets a contract, they put on an additional class. Sometimes they rent town halls, parish halls, school basements wherever they can get. If these contracts were not there it would make no difference whatsoever to the students, Mr. Speaker, who want to get in.

I should tell the hon. member that last year we were advised that students finishing Grade XI had to go on a waiting list for three or four years before they could get into a community college. We, government, said we must attempt to address that so we freed up $1.5 million and we made space for 500 students, to take them straight from high school into the community colleges. Mr. Speaker, we couldn't fill the classes; we couldn't fill the seats. We made it known to the various schools and we only got about 200 students to go in so what the hon. member is getting on with, is nothing, only a pile of crap, he doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A final supplementary, the hon. Member for St. Mary's - The Capes.

MR. MANNING: I say to the minister, only because it is such a serious matter, I would play his little political game but I can tell him that in my district alone, that the provincial government is selling seats to TAGS in the colleges here, the provincial government is doing it.

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations which concerns the so-called $5 million Emergency Employment Program. I ask the minister: how many new positions were created in his department to administer this program and would he table in the House, expenditures under this program on a district by district basis?

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

MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There were four temporary positions to administer the program; I think the cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $80,000 somewhere in that area, and when we draw in for the four individuals, when we finish and conclude the program, the hon. member can be well assured that I will table all the dollars associated with each and every district when we are finally finished, and I might add that we are going to do a little more this year. We are going to send out questionnaires to all the projects so we can get a real handle on the program and how well it did. I think it did exceptionally well.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Education and Training and concerns the Auditor General's Report as it affects school busing in the Province. Is the minister aware of the serious deficiencies pointed out in the report? Of the seven school boards examined, five of them provide school bus transportation, contrary to the regulations, to students who live less than one mile from the school. Five out of the seven boards did not have two-way radios which are required as part of the safety program. The average load factor on these buses was fifty-four passengers in seventy-two passenger buses. For the second year in a row the Public Tendering Act deficiencies were noticed, some contracts being annual renewable contracts from 1979 and other gross deficiencies of the Public Tendering Act. Is the minister aware of these problems and what is the minister doing to correct them?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is raising some excellent points. Indeed the Auditor General did bring to our attention some issues that we had suspected all along that there was difficulty. We have a lot of concerns about the busing. I should tell the hon. member that even as I stand here today, we have a dozen people who are going throughout the Province and we are going through every single bus contract in this Province with a fine toothcomb, Mr. Speaker. There are things happening out there which would make your hair stand on end.

In River of Ponds, on the Great Northern Peninsula, Mr. Speaker, three buses leave every morning; one takes a dozen Pentecostal's to Hawke's Bay, another takes twenty Intergraded to Hawke's Bay and another takes fifteen or twenty Roman Catholics through Hawke's Bay into Port Saunders. If that were the exception, Mr. Speaker, we would live with it but unfortunately that is not the exception. It is happening all over this Province.

So the hon. member is quite right and the Auditor General is quite right, the busing where we are spending $30 million we have to look very closely at it. I have said that we could save $10 million if we could smarten up our busing. As of now I still stand by that statement. Hopefully, Mr. Speaker, over the next little while I will be able to put concrete proof on the table to show that we will save that kind of money. There are problems there and we are addressing them. I thank the hon. member for bringing it to the Houses' attention.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, as the minister will know the schools act requires that transportation grants for pupils be given to school boards and be used on a non-discriminatory basis. Now an average cost per pupil of school busing in this Province is $475 per pupil transported. It has been in some cases, as pointed out by the Auditor General, one pupil being transported for $11,000 per year another contract want people for $7,700 and others where there is in excess of $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 per pupil. In St. John's students are required to either walk to school if they live one or two miles or more or pay their own way on the City of St. John's buses. Is the minister prepared to do something to end the discrimination against students in St. John's which exists right now under the school transportation system and ensure that students in St. John's receive transportation on an equitable basis with those outside of St. John's and not have to walk to school which they do from my district right now, as the minister well knows?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I find it difficult not to agree with the hon. member because there are so many discrepancies in the busing in this Province. He is quite right, the people who live in St. John's do not get busing, yet there are subdivisions in this city where people do get busing. So you say urban centres do not get busing, yet in Mount Pearl they bus. Mr. Speaker, I have inherited a busing system which needs drastically to be corrected and to be improved upon. I only trust that if I have to enter into some sort of a debate with the people responsible for this, I hope the hon. member will then support me instead of trying to get up and make some political points on it. There is a problem here, I am trying to deal with it, Mr. Speaker, and I assure the hon. member that in due course it will be dealt with but the hon. gentleman should remember, that we had seventeen years of mismanagement in this Province, Mr. Speaker. We arrived in the nick of time -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: We arrived in the nick of time. This is only one of the many things. The Province was going busted, Mr. Speaker!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: There are so many things that we have to correct!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We did not come here to spend six years to have the hon. member complain about the previous seventeen. The problems of discrimination of school busing, pointed out by the Auditor General, two years in a row, when is the minister going to do something about it and stop blaming this crowd for what happened in the last twenty-five years?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, we might just have to go for another term. I was hoping we could do all the things in this term but it looks like we might just have to come back. Because we had to take this Province in hand and try to straighten it out. Normally you could do it in one term, but it is taking us - and I apologize that it is taking us into the second term. Hopefully we can finish it up in another year or so.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health. I would like to ask the minister if he would confirm for the record here in the House what he related to me a couple of days ago, that there are no monies directed in this Budget for the opening of the ten new beds recently added to the Golden Heights Manor at Bonavista.

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I can so confirm for the record in this House that there is no provision in the Budget for opening the ten beds that have recently been redeveloped at the home in Bonavista. Having said that, however, I would also inform the House of the other thing that I told the hon. member. That is that with the arrival imminently of the new regional health care board which will have responsibility for Bonavista, Clarenville and the Burin Peninsula, that board may in fact be able to find resources that would enable them to open up the beds. The fact that we did not specifically provide for funding to open the beds this year does not mean that they will not necessarily be open.

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the minister if he believes it is good economic sense to spend $1.4 million to refurbish a Level III ambulatory care facility to respond to a need, and then allow the extra beds to remain vacant and forget about the health care needs of the seniors in that particular area?

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It makes imminent sense to make provision for developing or redeveloping those ten beds, because in time they will be needed, and at what point in time they are required this government will see that there is funding available to open them up. They will be there when the need is appropriate to put people in those beds. If the hon. member is suggesting that there are people in other regions who should be moved to those beds, that is a different circumstance, a different question, I think.

MR. SPEAKER: Final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister if he could make a commitment, not leave it to the new health care board. Because by the new health care board's very structure there is little or no representation from the Bonavista area. I ask if he would make a commitment today to respond to the need down there and react by directing monies so those ten new beds can now be opened instead of lying there vacant. I ask if he would make that commitment today.

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, I can only imagine, speculate, on the response that the people in this member's district are going to have to the suggestion that there is little or no representation being provided by the two very capable individuals we appointed from Bonavista to that health care board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I would have to say that -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I would have to say to the hon. member that the representation that is on the board from the Bonavista region that he represents are very capable individuals, and I would be highly offended and insulted if I were them, or his constituents, to suggest that there is little or no representation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: What a slight on the people who put you where you are, who put you in this House. What a (inaudible) -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Now, to the first part of the question. The hon. member can read the Budget as well as I can, and the hon. member can accept the answer that I've given you, that there is no provision for extra funding to open those ten beds this year. Notwithstanding that, the beds might eventually find their way to be open once the new and capable board, of whom there is representation from your area on, whether or not you think they are good people, they will see that the job is done properly down in the area.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

(Inaudible) the hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I go back to the minister again, and I say to him, if he considers two people, two individuals, on a seventeen-person board, equal representation, with ninety-four beds, taking from a catchment area of in excess of 13,000 people, equal representation, that he couldn't have been able to find any Liberals down there to put on his board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FITZGERALD: That is the blatant example, and I call upon the minister now to put equal representation on that board. I understand there is one vacancy there -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Does the member have a question?

MR. FITZGERALD: - and to bring forward the name so at least there will be three, instead of just two.

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

MR. L. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. member doesn't understand the difference between equal representation and equitable representation. The people on the Bonavista Peninsula have more than equitable representation on the new regional institutional health care board. I would suggest that -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member go back to his caucus room and, for want of a simpler way of putting it, do his sums, because if he takes the number of people on that peninsula, and compares the number of trustees that we have put on the board, he will find that there is both equal and equitable representation. Furthermore, we have every confidence in the people we have put there, that they will see that long-term care and acute care in that region will be delivered on a fair and appropriate basis, and will adequately meet the needs -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. L. MATTHEWS: - of the people that he should be representing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

On behalf of hon. members, I would like to welcome to the public galleries six members of the 4-H Club from around the Province who have been selected to attend the 4-H National Citizenship Seminar in Ottawa next week - they are accompanied by their leaders, Marie Finlay and Robyn Moss; and secondly, a group of twenty students from the ABE Provincial Learning Program in Melrose, Trinity Bay, and their instructor, Mr. Kilkland Blackmore.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Notices of Motion

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following resolution:

WHEREAS the current practice of the House of Assembly with respect to the conduct of private members' business does not conform to the existing rules of the House; and

WHEREAS the current practice of the House of Assembly does not provide an opportunity for private members to have resolutions debated without the concurrence of either the Government House Leader or the Opposition House Leader, which restricts members in the representation of their constituents; and

WHEREAS the current practice promotes the use of Private Members' Day as a government, or Opposition motions day with private members expected to vote in accordance with party discipline;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the House of Assembly endorse a system that would provide that Private Members' Day be devoted to private members' business only, with the exception that every fourth Wednesday the resolution for debate would be one designated by the Opposition House Leader and be considered an Opposition motion. All other Wednesdays the motion for debate will be the one chosen by lot by the Speaker from those private members' resolutions of which notice has been given prior to the Monday of the week in which the debate is to take place;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the mover of a private member's or Opposition motion may speak first and last on the day of the debate, that all speeches be limited to fifteen minutes, that all motions are to be voteable, and that it be clearly understood that party discipline does not apply to private members' resolution;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Clerk of the House of Assembly be requested to draft an appropriate rule incorporating the above principles for consideration and adoption by the House.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, we are back on Interim Supply. It is Order 2 (a) on today's Order Paper. I am not sure who adjourned the debate. Perhaps my friend, the Member for Grand Bank had the floor when the Committee last dealt with the matter.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: I am on leave.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. gentleman is on leave, or left? He was speaking by leave but hadn't left.

Your Honour, if you would be good enough to put the House into Committee, please.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of Supply on the granting of Interim Supply to Her Majesty the Queen, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I want to have a few words to say today in this debate, and I don't know what better place to start than in the Department of Health, after watching the performance just now, of the Minister of Health. The performance of that minister a few moments ago is unbelievable. He stood in this House and said to the Member for Bonavista South, `You have equitable representation, two versus seven.' Now, he is either saying of the people on the Burin Peninsula, that seven of them are only as good as two from Bonavista, or the two from Bonavista are as good as the seven. Mr. Chairman, I don't know which it is; I have my own interpretation on it, but I don't know the two from Bonavista, so the minister is probably right.

But I can say to the minister that if he expects that health care board to find funding to look after the needs of opening ten new beds in Bonavista, he is dreaming in technicolour, Mr. Chairman. The minister knows full well that these health care boards do not have enough money now to operate what they presently have, let alone look at operating an additional ten beds. I don't know where the minister is coming from, to put the onus of his lack of ability to get more money for these ten beds, and now to try to extract it from the clinics and hospitals in the other part of the eastern region is crazy.

Mr. Chairman, his board was not appointed right, in my opinion. He did not go out and seek out the best people. He did not ask my colleague, the Member for Grand Bank, or my colleague, the Member for Bonavista South, or myself, for any input, I can say to him. He did not ask us for any input into what is happening, because I will say one thing to the minister, if he had to ask for the best people available, regardless of their political affiliation or association - if they had any, or if they had none - if he had to seek the best people available, then I would not be able to stand here, but we did not get that from the minister. The minister did not ask us if we would get involved and assist.

The minister now may say we got - I challenge the minister to lay on the Table of this House who recommended these people to serve on that board, to tell us who recommended the people to serve on this board, not in a broad sense, to lay it on the Table of this House, with the recommendation. Mr. Chairman, I challenge him to do it, but I know he won't do it because it will clearly indicate and show that some of these people were put on the board strictly because of their political affiliation, and not because of what they are bringing to the board. That's what is going on here; then, for the minister to get up in his sanctimonious way and say that the board may find money. Well, I don't know where they are going to find the money, because I can tell you something right now; the Burin Peninsula Health Care Board is basically surviving with the money. I can also say that the Burin Peninsula Health Care Board is in big trouble. The Burin hospital is in big trouble.

AN HON. MEMBER: How come?

MR. TOBIN: Because of the lack of specialists down in that area; they don't have money enough to pay the specialists. There are regulations in place, I have been told - not by the minister, they have not been put in place by the minister, and I give him credit for that - or at least I have been told they haven't, but I would say this to the minister: Don't try to take any more money away from the health care system on the Burin Peninsula - I would say that to him - because if he is, then he is jeopardizing the health care of every man, woman and child living down there. And that hospital on the Burin Peninsula was not built for him and the Premier, and the Minister of Finance, it was built to serve the people of the Burin Peninsula. I spoke with a doctor the other day, and it is in big, big trouble down there, so don't let the minister come in here and get on with that type of thing.

Maybe the minister can tell us if the Member for Bellevue recommended some of the people from the Burin Peninsula.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Well, I don't know anything about the person. He is probably a good person. I don't know him, but I do know that if the Member for Bellevue had the opportunity to put people's names forth, I would like to know why I, as the Member for Burin - Placentia West, or my colleague, the Member for Grand Bank, or my colleague, the Member for Bonavista South, were not given the same opportunity. I would like to ask, as well, if he contacted the Member for Bonavista North and asked him to submit names, Mr. Chairman; I would like for the minister to tell me why I was not asked - why we did not get the same courtesy and the same letter that his colleagues got on that side of the House. Those are the questions that have to be answered.

This government is looking for Interim Supply. This government want Interim Supply in a rush. They want to ram this through so that they can get it by Friday. Why was the House closed since January? What was the big deal of keeping the House closed, the doors locked and barred up? Why didn't they have the House open? I would suggest it was because the Premier was on his jaunts, because there was no one home. Ministers were everywhere except in Newfoundland while she was collapsing around us. While everything was happening there were no ministers around. The Premier was over in China, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation was over in Japan. The ministers were everywhere except in Newfoundland.

So they expect us now to come in and ram through Supply by Friday. I believe that this is probably one of the latest times the House was ever open in terms of a Spring session. And now, all of a sudden, there is a big rush so they can pay the bills. We were home until March 1. When did the House open, what time in March?

AN HON. MEMBER: March 16.

MR. TOBIN: March 16. We were home.

AN HON. MEMBER: We were open on March 15, opened a new session.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, March 16 they opened the Legislature, and now they want Interim Supply by the end of this week. Why wasn't the House opened?

AN HON. MEMBER: They're calling an election.

MR. TOBIN: An election next week? Mr. Chairman, I hope they are. I hope the Premier has the courage to call an election. Because the sooner the Province rids itself of this corrupt bunch over there, that we've seen on Trans City, that we've seen raised in the House again, the sooner the people of the Province are rid of them the better. Seven million dollars on Hydro - one of these days we will show you who got the money from Hydro and their affiliation with this party over the years. We will show you who got the million dollars. We will point it out quite clearly. We will show you who got the million dollars out of the Hydro deal, we will show you who made the money. We showed who made the money on the Trans City deal. We've exposed that, who made the millions on the Trans City deal, and we will expose who made the millions on the privatization attempt of Hydro. We will see all of that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I don't care where I am, as long as I'm speaking out for the people of this Province. We have just seen the government take $10 million away from the poor of this Province and put it into the Department of Natural Resources because the Federal Government have taken the $10 million, and this government never said a word about their friends in Ottawa, not a word.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. TOBIN: By leave, Mr. Chairman.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I thank the Minister of Education and Training.

Never, Mr. Chairman, did we hear `a whimp or a whimmer' from the Minister of Natural Resources attacking Ottawa, taking on Ottawa which was destroying the forest program in this Province. While Frank McKenna was hauling the jobs out of this Province, 100-plus jobs gone from this Province to New Brunswick, not a whimper from the Minister of Natural Resources. I'm not sure he knew anything about it until it was raised by the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay. I'm not sure the minister knew anything about it until then, because his answers clearly indicated he knew very little.

Mr. Chairman, there are other areas - and I don't want to hide this, I will come back to it in a minute - but there are other areas such as the budget of the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs that we have to get at, and how it is going to shut the construction industry in this Province. The construction industry in this Province this year has been brought to a halt and all the hundreds of jobs, the thousands of jobs that have been created will not be there.

When a contractor moves in some place you look at all the fuel, the gas, the food, the water and sewer supplies. Is that going to be there? Because the Premier wanted to balance the Budget so that he could retire, Mr. Chairman, because the Premier wanted to say he had a balanced Budget so he could announce his resignation some time this Fall, the construction industry has to go under? There will be contractors in this Province who will go bankrupt this year because the Premier of this Province wanted to announce his resignation with a balanced Budget, that's what is happening, and the crowd over there are so happy to get rid of the Premier, they are going along with it.

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

MR. TOBIN: I will have the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to get back to this debate in a little while.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, I don't share the extreme sentiments at all that an hon. friend from across the way seems to have. I think it would be highly appropriate that this House would go on record as congratulating the Minister of Finance for bringing in a balanced Budget. I am not sure if hon. members realize just what the Minister of Finance did. It struck me as a shock. Everybody expected that he would balance current account, that was fait accompli, but nobody expected that the hon. minister would balance current and capital accounts, Mr. Chairman. Can you imagine the message that he has sent out to the rest of this country and to the world? Current and capital - Mr. Chairman, just think what else the hon. minister has done: for the first time since Confederation we have actually made a payment on the debt which previous governments had run up.

What we were like, Mr. Chairman - we were like someone who goes and gets a loan from a bank; a year goes by and you discover that you can't afford to pay your principal back, so you pay the interest. Now, for years and years they went on, the loans would come due and they would pay the interest. Then the previous Administration ran into such a mess that when the interest would come due they would have to go and borrow to pay the interest and run up more capital debt. Now, where were we heading? We were heading, Mr. Chairman, into bankruptcy. But I still believe in fate. I still believe that somewhere some power guides what happens to a people, whether it be -

MR. TOBIN: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

On a point of order, the hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Chairman, I am having difficulty hearing the hon. minister while the people behind him are straightening out earning salaries. I wonder if they would be quiet and let the minister continue?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I ask hon. members for their co-operation, that they give the hon. member an opportunity to speak and let all other members hear him.

The hon. the Minister of Education and Training.

MR. DECKER: I believe in fate, Mr. Chairman, f-a-t-e. I believe that somewhere there is a power which guides the lives of people, and I believe that fate intervened back in 1989. Can you imagine where this Province would be today had Tom Rideout and his gang taken power? Now, if you looked at the polls when the election was called, do you realize that we were twenty points behind the Tories when that election was called? There is no way that we could have closed that gap. And had that crowd, with their leader, Premier Thomas Rideout, become the government of this Province, today, we would not be standing in this House; we would not be standing here today as members of a sovereign Province, we would probably be a territory. Some time ago, I visited the Legislative Assembly in the Northwest Territories; hon. members should go and visit it - a beautiful House, Mr. Chairman, it is a semi-circle, no parties, similar to a town council or a city council.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. DECKER: In the Northwest Territories. When I sat in that House last Fall, I began to think to myself, that's what we would be like in Newfoundland and Labrador, totally dependent on the Federal Government, no say in our own destiny, we would have been wiped out for the second time in our history. And, as I said, I believe in fate, I believe there was intervention which brought this particular Administration to power, and look at what we have done. Now, just look at what the hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board did, when he brought in a totally balanced Budget and just look at the odds under which he did it. He did it after seventeen years of mismanagement - seventeen years of mismanagement. We came into power in 1989 with all the hopes to bring some progressive government, to bring some Liberal government to this Province, and when we opened up the books, what a mess was there facing us!

The first thing, $25 million for cucumbers, and I can remember watching the television set and seeing truckloads of cucumber being bused out to the Goulds and out to the bay and dumped, and the cows turning up their mouths as they had to face another meal of cucumbers. I remember going to the shops and seeing those blessed, big cucumbers that Peckford talked about, that long, they were, a dollar each, Mr. Chairman, and it was costing $5.00 each to grow them! What a mess we inherited!

Then, Mr. Chairman, when we opened the books we discovered that thirty cents on every dollar that we spent had to go to pay off the massive debt that was run up. This is what happened - $500 million per year just in interest alone. Now hon. members should realize just how much money that is. You know the Education Budget for this coming year is a little over $700 million. Now, that is to go into teachers' salaries, into school construction, it's to go to Memorial University, to go into all the different educational institutions and the service that we provide, $700-and-some-odd million, yet, we are spending $500-million-plus in interest, Mr. Chairman; in interest used to pay for stretch limousines, to pay for Dawn Sprung -

AN HON. MEMBER: Frank Moores.

MR. DECKER: - Frank Moores, deals cooked up behind the curtain as to whether or not -

A few days ago we were looking at the pension fund, and there is a little line in the pension fund which says that a Premier shall collect a pension when his age plus years of service equals fifty-five. Everybody else is age plus years of service equals sixty, so why should the Premier be treated differently? We were wondering why. And to find out the answer from someone who knows, by sheer coincidence -

AN HON. MEMBER: Did `Joey' do it?

MR. DECKER: Did Smallwood do it, they ask? No, Mr. Smallwood didn't do it. Did Clyde Wells do it? No, Clyde Wells did not do it. Did the present Minister of Finance and Treasury Board do it? No. Did Ed. Roberts do it? No, Mr. Chairman.

By sheer co-incidence, Frank Moores, on the day that he wanted to retire, his age plus years of service would equal sixty-five? No, fifty-five. Now, that is the kind of government we had in this Province for seventeen years. Logic was thrown to the wind, no one cared about logic or reason, all they did, Mr. Chairman, was cave in to political self-interest.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

I don't really want to take the minister's time, but he can't be allowed to go unchecked because, on a number of occasions, I have heard the Government House Leader brag about how much input he had in developing and devising the current MHAs' pension plan, so I think it is unfair for the Minister of Education to stand up now and to blame it squarely on former Premier Moores when the Government House leader - I don't know if he is minister; half-Minister of Justice now - bragged so openly about how much input he had, and how proud he is of the scheme. So I think the minister should at least be fair and say that the Government House Leader did have some input into it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

MR. DECKER: Of course, there is no point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Education.

MR. DECKER: When you start cutting to the quick, they will do it every time. They will get up on phoney points of order, which are not points of order. Next, it will be a point of privilege. Then they will walk out because they can't face the facts. The fact of the matter is they practically put this Province bankrupt, and they know it, and when anyone slaps it up to them, they use phoney rules of the House to try to shut us up.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. DECKER: You see, my time is up; they interrupted me, Mr. Chairman.

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, we are supposed to be debating the Interim Supply bill. We heard previous speakers. I think the Member for Eagle River, the other day, had a few words to say on Interim Supply. The Minister of Education, this evening, was supposed to be speaking on Interim Supply, and spent ten minutes talking about the faults of previous governments, and where some of the money went.

Mr. Chairman, the minister, though, in talking about the $700 million that is in the Education budget for this year, and about the $25 million that was spent on Sprung, failed to say - and there is not a member over there who will get up and admit it, or say it - that the $700 million it takes to run the Department of Education is the proceeds of one year's revenue from Hydro-Quebec on the infamous Churchill Falls deal. Who did that? What party in this Province had to do with giving away our birthright? What other party in this Province gave away a total sum of approximately $800 million per year - per year?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WOODFORD: Five years, and we could have our deficit wiped out completely, and we have members opposite who have the gall to stand in their place and talk about $25 million for Sprung - not even enough to pay for one transformer from Hydro-Quebec, $25 million.

Hon. members opposite stand in their places and talk about previous governments. If ever we went back and took it from 1949 to 1971, there is not enough paper - we would have to start a new paper mill in this Province just to mark down and put in the statistics, and document the faults and the errors that were made from 1949 to 1971, and I won't even talk about the last six years.

Mr. Chairman, some of the people opposite the other day when we were discussing just a few short months ago talking about the sale of Hydro -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: I didn't have to take nasty pills, I say to the hon. member, because what I am saying can be documented. I am not talking about $25 million of Sprung that is not documented - but to get up and talk about a measly - we won't even talk about what happened with some of the businesses in the Province, and some of the money that has already been wasted in the last six years. We won't look at travel; we won't look at money spent on trying to privatize Newfoundland Hydro - we won't look at any of those things - but people should realize that we got elected to come in here and represent our people the best way we can under the conditions that exist out there today.

The hon. the Member for St. John's Centre got up the other day and gave a speech, and not one word he said was wrong, not a word. Now, one thing I will say about the Member for St. John's Centre, even when he was a minister, at least when he got up to speak on Budgets, Interim Supply, or something like that, I can remember some comments he made that were very pertinent to his constituents at the time, and he was consistent. I say that, not because he is out of Cabinet. He stood in his place and spoke on behalf of his constituents. He didn't get up and lambaste former governments. He didn't get up and spend his ten or twenty minutes talking about a previous Premier. He got up and told it like it was, the way all hon. members in this House should. I am living in his district now and he is doing his homework for the next election. It is no good in saying he is not running again. If ever he gets up and says he is not running again, he is doing an awful lot of work out there as the Member for St. John's Centre, and doing it well.

Mr. Chairman, we have to call a spade a spade, and no matter what hon. members say, last week's Budget, while it looks good, it is glossed over. We have people out there who are suffering. We have people out there who can't make ends meet. We are in here, some of us making $100,000 a year; we are okay, we get paid every second Wednesday. But I have people in my district, as well as the hon. Member for St. John's Centre.

Now, I say this to members opposite who are representing constituencies in rural Newfoundland: if the Member for St. John's Centre has problems in his district, then God help some of us out in rural Newfoundland today, I tell you that. When they say there is a 20 per cent or 22 per cent unemployment factor out there, Mr. Chairman, I beg to differ. I would say there is more like 35 per cent or 40 per cent, Mr. Chairman. Every day the phones are ringing.

You always have some people saying something about social services, or about something else. You always have a few - no matter where you go you have a few. And some will say, `so and so' is beating the system. But do we have to throw out the babe with the bath water? Do we have to just clean everything out, throw everything out, just because we have a few bad apples? Mr. Chairman, if we, as members, are listening to constituents of ours, each and every one of us, not only on this side of the House, we have our beliefs and our partisan views to speak of when we get up, but hon. members opposite, backbenchers as well as Cabinet ministers, they have to hear it. I am living in the same area, we are living in the same Province.

Now, getting back to the question to the Minister of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture today with regard to Farm Products, there is one thing I would like the minister to stand in his place and tell me: The beliefs that the minister had in February 1991 - how are they so different from the beliefs he has today? The minister sat there just after presenting this document, a good document, no question, some great recommendations in there but, I mean, we have done it all before. We go back to the Doug House Commission on rural development, some years ago - I just forget the exact title - that was put on the shelf by members of the PC government at the time. Some things were implemented and some were not.

This is one written by a gentleman, a minister, who is now in a position to do something about each and every part of this document. He is responsible for an industry, where, if you look at the economy for 1995, it grew - agriculture grew in this Province last year and pretty well every commodity group had an increase. A few years ago people just laughed when you talked about blueberries, but look at the increase this year, 664 tons from about 100-and-some-odd tons just a short year ago. The potential there is unreal.

Now, I say to the minister that he is going to have to collar his colleagues in Cabinet and get support from members in the back benches, especially the Member for Port au Port, who knows full well what I am talking about when it comes to rural development, and about the potential for agriculture and aquaculture in this Province. You are going to have to get support. If you, as a government, and Cabinet ministers, find fault and find a reason to dilute and cut certain things, or put something in place that will be detrimental to agriculture in this Province, then God help you in other departments. The other departments don't have a prayer, or a leg to stand on.

The minister told me today the decision is not made to close Newfoundland Farm Products in Corner Brook. Why would management talk to the employees in Corner Brook and tell them - as good as tell them, or insinuate, or whatever - but leave them with the impression yesterday evening that that particular facility would close? Now, there is something in the wind. There is a subsidy cut this year to Newfoundland Farm Products, almost 50 per cent. You don't have to look at the Budget or be a mathematician to know what is going to happen if you cut a very small, minuscule amount of funding from Newfoundland Farm Products. We know what is going to happen. I say to the minister, some things he is going to have to be very cognizant of.

What about the eighty-six employees? The Forestry centre is gone, that is going to have a trickle effect down to Corner Brook and other areas of this Province, and even out his way, to some extent, albeit it may be small. But no matter how small it is or how big it is, in the rural areas of this Province today it is going to hurt.

What about the processing capacity in St. John's? Has that been looked into and has it been determined that that particular facility can accommodate the processing capacity of the West Coast of the Province? What about the extra quota that is not allocated to this Province, that has been sitting in Ontario and Quebec for the last number of years, that should have been allocated to this Province? We are missing out - and there was a 12.7 per cent increase in broiler production in this Province last year. That is pretty well based on the old quota. There was a little increase in quota, not much, but we have a great potential.

What is happening is, if we don't act fairly soon we are going to lose the quota allocation from Upper Canada, so to speak. They took away the feed freight assistance program. That will be gone over the next number of years. That will be, I think, something like $0.12 or $0.13 per broiler, or $0.12.8, whichever. Then we have the subsidy gone now to broiler producers in this Budget. If that is going to continue - because I think it was recommended, if I'm not mistaken, in this particular task force that it would be reduced by approximately 5 per cent a year until it was done away with.

We have to be very careful in those cases. We have employees, we have producers - I think about 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the broiler production in the Province is in the Humber Valley area - Humber Valley, including Howley, Cormack, Reidville areas of the Province, Mr. Chairman. I realize that consumption is on the East Coast of the Province but up to 56 per cent or 57 per cent of the production now, is probably on the West Coast of the Province. A lot of it is in Whitbourne and in other areas of the Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: My time is just about up, anyway, Mr. Chairman.

If the minister rises in his place, I would like him to address some of those problems and not get up and be partisan all the time. Let's be constructive and do something. Because if we want to go casting blame and talk about blame, and talk about monies that were wasted in the past, we can go on forever and a day. I can start plucking out from every department in the Budget and have a field day with every minister over there.

DR. HULAN: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: Yes, okay, you can speak to the industry. I hope you have something good to deliver to the industry, and I hope you stand to be counted down there. Don't and don't milk nothing else out of the diary industry like you did with the broiler industry.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I would like to spend a few minutes on the forestry aspect. In the estimates - in the Interim Supply Bill, under natural resources there is $20,107,000 for natural resources which includes forestry. Now, Mr. Chairman, forestry is one of the most important sectors of our economy in this Province, especially after what happened last year. As people know, Kruger was pretty close to closing out number four machine in Corner Brook last year but they got an agreement with their employees, the dollar strengthened and added some help to what was happening in Corner Brook. The government brought back $15 million I think it was 500,000 or 600,000 hectares of timber rights in the Province but, Mr. Chairman, we should not have to buy back anything from anybody. I am a firm believer that we should have total, total control of our forest industries in this Province.

If I or any member opposite has to go down to Crown Lands or has to go down to the forestry office to get a permit to cut 200 cubic metres of pulpwood or 2,000 cubic metres of timber for lumber for sawmills, why shouldn't Abitibi Price and why shouldn't Kruger have to go down and get a permit? We've operated for years - agricultural people in the Province today have to go and get a lease from Crown Land. We cannot get a grant anymore because the government doesn't trust us. The government says: well you may work your land and after a few years you may relax what you were doing with it. You may not do it and then it is gone forever because we only got one percent of the land in this Province suitable for agriculture.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: That is right, who brought in the regulation about granted land. We know who brought in the regulation about granted land but what I am saying to the minister is - she is affected by this in her area because there are a lot of sawmills and so on in the area and surrounding areas - why shouldn't Abitibi Price and Kruger have to go down and get a permit? If a farmer in this Province goes to the bank today the banks will take his fifty year lease or his fifteen year lease, they will look at it and they will give him his line of credit, give him his capital funding to invest. Why can't the banks give Kruger or Abitibi Price their capital funding and their lines of credit to invest? No, we got to own it. Ninety percent of St. John's, the commercial sector of St. John's is operating on a lease. Yet, we cannot build a cabin, we cannot grow a stick of wood, you cannot go down and build a wharf, you cannot do anything now.

AN HON. MEMBER: You can't jig a fish.

MR. WOODFORD: Well, if you want to get into that, you can't jig a fish, you can't catch a trout, you can't run your ATV. Well soon, Mr. Chairman, it will be a police state. You will soon want to carry a little booklet with you, Mr. Chairman, on the rules and regulations before you get out of your car and step on the shore or step in the woods or step into a park. Now that has to change.

We have people who went in the woods - the former minister is there now who brought in those infamous regulations pertaining to ATVs. There was never any consultation put into it. We had people going in - and I am a firm believer of protecting the environment but if someone can tell me that if I went in on White River Road today, I went in to cross it - the minister doesn't know any more about bogs in this Province then I know about flying the shuttle. The minister didn't know any more about bogs then I knew about flying the shuttle to the moon.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is why she is not there today.

MR. WOODFORD: That is why she is not there today.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't be nasty now.

MR. WOODFORD: And that is not being nasty. That's why I am saying the minister should have gone out and got some input into it. A fellow goes in last year -

MS. YOUNG: (Inaudible) do nothing.

MR. WOODFORD: Do nothing, well if she doesn't want to go through another Caucus meeting like she did yesterday morning, now I say she better be careful, Mr. Chairman, because I would say now the Minister of Social Services is soon going to be on the hot seat again. I guarantee you -

But, Mr. Chairman, members opposite, members in the back benches, members in the front benches, over the past year have gotten all kinds of representation from people who were in the woods. They go in on a bog to kill a moose and they cannot even carry it out. They cannot even take the ATV and go in and take it out. Now what is that going to do? What is that going to hurt if a gentleman takes an ATV, goes in and puts his moose on it, brings it out and that's it?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for LaPoile.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I suppose if we sit here long enough and listen to what's wrong about the Province and what's wrong about government and what's wrong about this crowd opposite as they would put it over there, then maybe we would start to believe some of what we hear; but, Mr. Chairman, let us talk about some of the good things that are happening in the Province; let's talk about some of the positive things that are happening, some of the positive government initiatives that will take place and even though, those who are blinded in the opposition by their desire for power, would want not that anything was happening in the Province; they would prefer those who are in despair to perpetuate in despair; they would prefer that those who are downtrodden remain downtrodden.

Let's look at some of the good things that the government has brought forward. What about government's recent initiative to focus on the development of information technology and establish a task force called ONLINE, which is the Opportunities in Newfoundland and Labrador in the New Economy, what about that? That's one thing that we have done; they have developed a Secretariat to work with the private sector and government and identify the opportunities and report back to government in six months time, to give us some direction as to how they feel a government should go forward in the new economy with respect to ONLINE, computers and high technology areas.

What about privatization and the outsourcing of government expenditure? Well, we have already sold Newfoundland and Labrador Computer Services, Mr. Chairman. Newfoundland Hardwoods and Hotel Holdings Limited will be sold soon and that's another one where this government took the initiative to make sure that the Hotel Holdings was not given away for a dollar. The court decision was appealed and the Province is now in the driver's seat and stands to gain for the taxpayers of this Province, substantially, on Hotel Holdings, so that's another initiative that this government undertook in the good stewardship to try to maintain for the people of the Province.

What about the privatization of certain services that are done and have been done over the years and maintained by this government in Works, Services and Transportation? Some 70 per cent of the budget of Works, Services and Transportation is now publicly tendered so some 70 per cent of that budget is in the public area, privately tendered for private sector companies to be involved. All capital works of the department is contracted out, I mean, anything that we go through and they often talk about Trans City, but really the overall effort of Works, Services and Transportation is to support private industry, partner with them by providing them with the information and they do the work and that is a good, genuine way of government providing this.

The winter and summer road maintenance activity in Labrador will be up for public tender by mid-1995, that's another area where government is going out to the private sector and undertaking initiatives of partnering. The provincial Cabinet and a Chamber of Commerce have developed a committee which will soon move forward with the identification of other initiatives and this is undertaken out of the public/private/ partnering conference that was held recently under the direction of the Newfoundland and Labrador Chamber of Commerce and the government has decided to take a pro-active approach in this.

What about getting the message out? It is one of a few different programs that the government has initiated. We have initiated through the school system, A Getting The Message Out Program so that the success stories here in the Province, that these stories are told, that the students in their school system realize that they can do it here at home, that they do not need to leave, that they can create something here at home just as well as they can anywhere else in the country or in the world. The efforts through the Ambassador Program. We have supported this initiative to take expatriate Newfoundlanders and others who have reasons for being involved with Newfoundland and Labrador, to support and promote the Province through our contacts with them, through our provision of information to them throughout Canada and throughout the world and this has proven to be very successful. There are other efforts that we have made in the area of co-operative education, areas of providing funds and expanding enterprise education throughout the school system and this will reap benefits in the future.

Another point which I would like to make is in the area of Employment and Labour Relations. An initiative which came out of the Strategic Economic Plan, is the Preventive Mediation Program and this was established last year and they had 370 requests. This is where we are trying to do what we can to improve the labour relations climate in the Province, prevent labour strife before it happens. So this preventive mediation program has really reaped good rewards for us. Some 370 requests for services last year and new funding committed this year to continue that program. It is proven this government is pro-active and is taking efforts in order to see to it that the Province puts forward its best foot in the area of labour relations.

What about some good news on taxation. Changes to the general corporation tax regime and the mining tax regime have also proven to be quite positive. These efforts have really brought it home that new developments in Newfoundland and Labrador will certainly reap benefits.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) lottery revenues (inaudible)!

MR. RAMSAY: Some lottery revenues are there, and there are problems associated with that. Did you have a question or something?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) how does that benefit businesses (inaudible) changes that your government made to lottery revenues (inaudible)?

MR. RAMSAY: Just to respond to that issue. As lottery revenues grow - which it certainly seems. I know a number of bars in the Province that have split themselves up into three and four companies. One here in St. John's I know has now three or four bars inside the same premises so they can have more and more of these lottery machines. They've taken advantage of a situation. Of course, business people usually manage to rise above small changes in government policy which - and I fully understand, it may be a large -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) answer a question?

MR. RAMSAY: I suppose I can. Go ahead.

AN HON. MEMBER: You said take advantage. Do you mean take advantage as in abuse, or take advantage in (inaudible)?

MR. RAMSAY: No, no, fiscal advantage. As in business.

AN HON. MEMBER: Pardon?

MR. RAMSAY: As in a business way.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: Anyway, getting into the new mining tax regime here in the Province. In conjunction with the changes to the mining act and a small exploration assistance program, we've seen a large increase in mining exploration here in the Province. It increased by some 10 per cent in 1993, by 40 per cent in 1994, and a projected increase of another 40 per cent again in 1995. It is noted as one of the more friendly places for mining and mining exploration in the country, and probably throughout North America. Peggy Witte, the chair and CEO of Royal Oak Mines, was quoted as saying, at the Canadian Mining and Metallurgical Association meetings last year, that Newfoundland was one of the best places in all of North America in which to mine. That the efforts made by the government here have made it a very friendly place in which to do business.

The department that I'm involved with, the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology, has significantly expanded its budget this year to undertake efforts under the Strategic Economic Plan. Also, new initiatives in the area of promotion of business, new initiatives to professionalize the effort that is being put forward in promotion of the EDGE legislation to attract new business investment to the Province; and also, reorganization of the department has taken place and a more strategic focus has come forward, so that we can go forward and do our best to attract new business investment. It can be new business investment growing here at home, it can be new business investment coming in from other provinces and countries, but also it is the overall approach we take to make Newfoundland an attractive place in which to do business.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who said you are doing a good job, (inaudible) apart from yourselves? After yourselves, who said you were doing a good job in attracting business?

MR. RAMSAY: The Newfoundland and Labrador Chamber of Commerce is interested in supporting the efforts we've made, the St. John's Board of Trade. We have good support and cooperation from the rural development council on the efforts that we've been making. The zonal process that we have developed, (inaudible) zonal approach to regional economic development, that is another area where there is a lot of cooperation that has been exhibited. They are in approval of the government's progress on this to this date. Hopefully there will be significant amounts of money committed so that the different zones can undertake economic development initiatives close to home, in their own areas.

If you look at editorial comment, the terrible coverage that we've received over the years that I have held a bad taste in my mouth over, the same as members opposite, in The Globe and Mail, seems to have shifted somewhat. We don't know if it is a full shift or if it is just every other editor (inaudible) -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to make a few comments in regard to Interim Supply, and also a few comments on what the Member for LaPoile had to say.

AN HON. MEMBER: He should have a public meeting.

MR. MANNING: First, I think he should have a public meeting out in LaPoile with the people out there, and see how many people are happy about the good things that this government is doing out in LaPoile.

Just to touch on a couple of the good things he talked about, about the task force on information network - another task force - my God, how many task forces can we handle?

Taxation changes, I say to the Member for LaPoile, the payroll tax was a great change, a really good thing for the business people in this Province, the payroll tax, excellent. They talk about new business investment, and the people who are supporting the government in their initiative on new business investment. They talk about the Newfoundland and Labrador Chamber of Commerce; maybe they are. We talk about the St. John's Board of Trade; maybe they are.

He touched on the rural development council and their support of the zonal concept under the Strategic Economic Plan. I say to the Member for LaPoile, as we stand here or sit here today in the House of Assembly, members of the rural development movement in this Province are converging on Gander for the annual general meeting, and I can guarantee you that there is not much support for the zonal concept among the rural development associations of this Province. There may be among the hierarchy of the development movement that were thanked for their help in delivering the zone concept to the Province, and by the latest appointments to the Economic Recovery Commission, I say to the Member for LaPoile.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MANNING: What's that?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MANNING: The zonal concept that the Province has put forward under the Strategic Economic Plan will create havoc for a lot of small communities in this Province, especially in my District of St. Mary's - The Capes. With thirty-one small communities, we can see that a lot of those communities are going to be left out in the cold because of this zonal concept that the Province is putting forward.

I say to the Member for LaPoile that you may have some people within the Province who are supporting the new business initiatives of the government, but in the latest edition - and he talked about The Globe and Mail, and I brought this up the other day, and I will reiterate the few comments I made the other day and add on a few more as it relates to the Atlantic Progress magazine that graded the Premiers. I say to the Member for LaPoile, and anyone opposite, to check out the final analysis that they rated our Premier as last in relation to a provincial rating of premiers in Atlantic Canada for bringing business investment into their province. Frank McKenna from New Brunswick scored the highest, with a B+; Catherine Callbeck, who our Premier says he wouldn't compete with in order to create jobs in the Province, from Prince Edward Island, was second with C+; Premier Savage and Premier Wells tied for third place with C; and some comments were passed by business leaders in the Province that if the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador were a business, we would be bankrupt.

So, I say, don't read The Globe and Mail. They are the same crowd who condemned us as barbarians and savages when it came to the seal hunt back a few years ago, I say to the Member for LaPoile. Don't believe in The Globe and Mail. Believe in yourselves. Believe in the people of this Province and what they are trying to say.

I say to the Member for Lapoile, we look around this Province now and there are a lot of people hurting because of the economic situation. We look and say: Sure, we balanced the Budget; and in one sense of the word you feel like congratulating the government on balancing a Budget, but then you have to ask yourself, on the other hand, is at what cost did they balance the Budget? They balanced the Budget on a $10 million reduction to social services, that we heard in the Budget the other day. They balanced the Budget on selling off the south coast ferry, and taking the funding for that from the federal government and putting it toward the current account to bring up and balance the Budget, over $30 million, that was put there to keep the south coast ferry operating for years to come. We will see reductions in the next couple of years in the services, as the Member for Placentia touched on the other day in the House, and I am sure that we will see this.

Mr. Chairman, I will touch on a couple of things I was asking the Minster of Education about today in relation to training. I was in my district yesterday to a couple of classes that are doing some type of training, and they are finishing up, I believe, today or tomorrow. They wanted to do some further training with ABE, or whatever is the case, and because they are not on TAGS, or receiving UI benefits, they cannot partake in this training.

Therefore I say to the members opposite, and to the minister who took it as a kind of joke today, the joke will be back on the minister who is responsible for education and training in this Province when hundreds of Newfoundlanders, not only in my district but throughout the Province, are being left out in the cold in relation to all the millions and millions of dollars that are being spent in training in the small outports, and indeed in the cities of this Province, Mr. Chairman.

I say it is not fair to these people who are indirectly put out of their jobs because of the fishery closure. Because they were not directly involved in the fishery, they are now being left out in the cold and cannot take advantage of all this training that has been going on. Those people have brought their concerns to me and I have brought it here to the House today only to be ridiculed by the Minister of Education and Training, but time will tell who will win the debate on the dollars that are being spent on training in this Province, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to touch, if I could, on something we were talking about the other day in relation to the fishery. My district is 100 per cent dependent upon the fishing industry for hundreds and hundreds of jobs, and people have found that over the past couple of years people who are directly involved in the industry are being compensated for training, being compensated for the loss of their income, have been compensated and helped out in every way possible, but some people who were not directly involved in the industry, as I said before, have been left out in the cold. I believe this concern should not only be addressed by the Minister of Education and Training but should indeed be addressed by all members of the government, because this is a big concern that people have.

There is also concern in the reduction of social services, and exactly where those reductions are going to take place is a concern that will come up over the next couple of months. We talk about the Budget and trying not to be dependent upon the federal government, and trying to chart our own course. The Premier is off in the States now trying to drum up some business for the Province. I do not necessarily disagree with all his efforts in trying to go to other parts of the world to bring back business to the Province and bring back jobs and industry, but we also should be putting as much effort on maintaining what we have and building on what we have, Mr. Chairman. I say right now there is a problem with maintaining what we have.

There is a lot of government waste, and I say to the House today that we should look at places in this Province who could use some dollars for some type of training, or some type of work, related projects, or whatever the case may be. We had millions and millions of dollars to spend on trying to privatize Newfoundland Hydro, we had millions and millions of dollars to spend on travelling all over the world, but at the same time we have hundreds and hundreds, and thousands in a lot of cases, Mr. Chairman, of people in this Province who cannot make ends meet. I am sure it is no different in St. Mary's - The Capes than it is in other districts.

I say that the new business investment that we talked about in trying to bring in business to the Province, I am sure, is welcome news to anybody who is trying to stay here in this Province and trying to make a living. With the cutbacks in the fishery and with the downturn in our economy now, I say to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation that what he started in Employment and Labour Relations certainly cleared out the front benches here today after Question Period. I say the trouble is only starting with that, Mr. Chairman.

I say, Mr. Chairman, that we balanced the Budget, but we balanced it on the cost of putting a lot of Newfoundlanders back to the food banks, back to social services, who never had experienced this before. I say we should certainly put our priorities straight and not have the Premier, in his last year in office, at any cost balance the Budget, Mr. Chairman. I think it is unfair to the people of the Province, it is unfair to the many people who have been left out in the cold by this government over the past number of years, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for LaPoile.

MR. RAMSAY: Mr. Chairman, I am scarred by that scathing attack by the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes.

Anyway, in response to some of the things the hon. member was saying, I would hope that he does not think that any of us would close our eyes to problems in our own given districts. As he knows that kind of crass politics would be the kiss of death politically, and that kind of activity is certainly not becoming any member of this House. I would certainly hope that he does not think that any member on this side of the House, nor any member on his own side of the House, would act that way.

Now, I was giving some of the good news, and there is more good news, Mr. Chairman. There is more good news in this Province. It is not to overlook the bad and the difficult things that people are experiencing, the bad times that some of them have, and the difficult situation that faces us, but to focus on that wholly and solely gives you a jaded view of the world. To think of an animal, a salamander say, or a fish, swimming in a well and looking up through, then that particular fish will only think that the sky is but a blue circle. To think of that as an example of someone or some thing that sees the world from a very narrow perspective; that is probably the way that the Opposition would see the world, from the narrow viewpoint of an animal, a fish, salamander, what have you, chameleon, down inside a well looking up, and thinking that the sky is nothing but a blue circle.

MR. DUMARESQUE: A red circle now.

MR. RAMSAY: To understand that there is a positive side. To deny the positive side is to deny your constituents the enthusiasm that is necessary to help them get up out of the difficulty that they are in, and to inspire them and lead them into the new economy, to lead them along into new and brighter things for their children, for your children if you live in your given district, for all of the people in your given area.

Mr. Chairman, there are some good things happening. The hon. Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation has undertaken some initiatives and certainly has recently developed an advisory council to give input into the overall tourism development strategy. This is a way that we can see to it that we are listening to the industry, that we are developing the necessary strategies in the areas of adventure tourism, festivals and events throughout the Province for tourists who come into the Province over the year.

Recreational fisheries strategy. We get a large boost to our economy from recreational fishermen. These people, local and people from outside, do spend significant amounts of money in the Province pursuing the recreational fishery in both trout and salmon, and other activities that are undertaken.

The hon. Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation is actively supporting the Cabot 500 Corporation and its planning for the 1997 celebrations. I have some personal reservations about the overall focus that seems to be taken, but hopefully with good communications back and forth between Cabot 500 and the government and the caucus here, and even the Opposition caucus, should they be so interested in pursuing efforts on their districts' behalf, that we can make this a better initiative for all concerned, and that we can make the Cabot 500 celebrations a significant event for the Province and for the nation.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. RAMSAY: The Department of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture is another area that there are significant efforts being undertaken. The recent development of a scallop-spat hatchery down in Belleoram is the kind of public investment that we hope eventually to privatize, but it is the kind of thing that will allow us to stimulate the aquaculture industry. To look at other areas, the overall focus of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa is to catch up where we've fallen behind in the area of aquaculture as well. That kind of strategy, combined with the efforts of the provincial department, will see new rewards and developments. It will never employ the numbers of people who were employed in the past in our fishery as it once was, but it would certainly add significantly to the overall economic prospects and economic base of the Province.

Also, we are moving ahead on our commitment to establish an internationally competitive business climate. There are a number of different initiatives in this area and we are pursuing it through our reductions in corporation taxes, through the elimination and reduction of unnecessary regulations - the commission established under Mr. Justice Nathaniel Noel, retired gentleman who is undertaking this on government's behalf. It will see the rescinding in this Legislature of any unnecessary regulation that is not needed by the people of this Province for purposes of safety, for purposes of public security for the general good of the people. Any regulation that exists for the perpetuation of bureaucracy or the reshuffling of paper will die on the Order Paper after the report of, Mr. Justice, comes in. So that is the kind of initiative that we have to undertake.

We are streamlining and consolidating government departments and agencies under the so-called one stop shopping or the one stop government permitting structure. This is another area where government is doing something good for the people of the Province. We are also getting our own fiscal house in order. Balancing the Budget is another area that will give a good message to the people throughout the country and throughout all of North America, that we know what we are doing and we have our house in order.

We are reviewing all current labour legislation here in the Province. That is another area, along with the preventive mediation process, is certainly going to see good results for the Province. We are streamlining the environmental assessment process. Soon we hope to have a White Paper issued by the hon. Minister of Environment on how they feel that they can best go about this. So this is another initiative to make sure that sustainable development is the key - that the regulation of the environment does not act as an impediment to overall sustainable development here in the Province.

EDGE legislation; well what do we have as far as results on the EDGE legislation so happily supported by the Opposition? We have had two companies approved in January, there are two more which will be announced shortly and there are eight currently being reviewed by the Public/Private Evaluation Board and this is certainly a lot of activity. Seven others have submitted applications that are currently being dealt with and over twenty other applications are anticipated soon. These are inquiries ongoing, negotiations and information being sourced back and forth between the companies and the departments of government that are necessarily providing information. Also to note, if hon. members opposite recall, we had a toll free telephone campaign recently. We received over 1,000 telephone calls and we have sent out over 5,000 packages. They have been sent out worldwide on the EDGE legislation of Newfoundland and Labrador. So we are seeing substantive results.

We have had extensive promotions so far in North America with the Premiers visit all across Canada and down the Eastern Seaboard of the US. There are further visits planned for other parts of the United States and we also have plans for Europe this summer. So these are the things that are happening. This government is not sitting idly by and doing nothing. This is a government that is taking a proactive approach to economic development here in the Province and it is a government that is going to do it in spite of the downtrodden views and feelings of the members of the Opposition at times. We know they had to put forward an opposition to government policy but it would be so good to hear more constructive criticism, to hear criticism with a view and a vision for the future, to hear criticism that gives us a way of going about it in a different way and at times they have been very good at that. They offered constructive criticism of the EDGE legislation, government undertook to review it and did make changes. So the Opposition should know that when they come forward with good criticism it will be listened to and this government does respond.

Also we point out some other things. The recent Budget that we are speaking about here in Interim Supply puts forward an amount of $10 million for new initiatives under the Strategic Economy Plan. Those new initiatives are initiatives of the people, not necessarily initiatives of the government. Government carries it out on behalf of the people. The Strategic Economy Plan was developed in consultation with the people of the Province and members of the Opposition had input into it. So this is a template, it is a living document. It is a document which allows us, as the government and trustees on behalf of the people of the Province, to work hard on their behalf, to focus our energies in areas that the people of the Province want us to focus on. It gives us a guideline to go by but - it being out for the last two years of course, and its need to be a living document - there will have to be changes.

Some things have changed since it was first brought out. The fisheries crisis was not upon us at that time. The other aspects of information technology and the convergence of different technologies has allowed it to be so that there are significant things that were not taken into account at the time. So we are making changes as we go along. There will be future amendments and deals with the Strategic Economic Plan and how we go about improving the plan for the benefit of the people. I don't think we need a thorough deliberation process throughout the Province. Maybe it will take thorough consultation with economic development groups throughout the Province to know what we need to change and to know what different areas we need to focus on as we proceed in the future.

We put in $500,000 for improvement to the service quality initiative to the service quality secretariat of the Public Service Commission. We want to improve the front-line workers' abilities to deal with the public. It is the public of the Province who need public services as provided by government. Government is not here for the people to support. It is the government that needs to support the people, and the needs of the people, in the public services that we provide, so we want to be able to offer them high quality service. We want the public servants to feel good about their efforts in serving the people. We want the public servants to feel good about their jobs, and we want them to carry out good quality public service for the public of the Province, and this is an effort on that behalf.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Menihek.

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

I listened with avid interest to the hon. the Member for LaPoile when he was talking about the things that this government does. Everything is positive. Absolutely every step it makes is a step forward. It is too bad they don't live in the real world out there. I don't know what happens to some members when they get elected. All of a sudden they come in here and the real world disappears, and everything that you do in here cures all the ills out there. Well, it doesn't work like that, and if you stop and listen to some of your constituents, and listen to them honestly, and don't block them out, don't refuse to hear them, you will hear that everything you are doing isn't correct, the same as when you went forward with your idea of privatizing Hydro. We told you time and time again that the people were out there against it. No, no, you said, they are not against it; it's just they haven't been told yet.

AN HON. MEMBER: They are still not against it.

MR. A. SNOW: You see what the hon. Member for Exploits is getting on with again? They are still not against it, he says; they are in favour of it. They want it sold, they want it given away; that is what the hon. Member for Exploits says, but that is why people have such a disparaging view, or a disgusting view, or a poor view, or maybe it's the real view, of the politicians today, because we don't accept the reality of it; we are not accepting reality.

I don't stand up here and say that everything that this government has done is wrong. Every reform that you have made hasn't been wrong. Some of the things you have done have been good. I can think of the funding of the Trans-Labrador Highway. It is good that you are continuing the construction of the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Balancing the Budget in a proper fashion, the aim of eliminating a deficit, balancing a budget, if it were done properly, is good, but I can't balance my budget by taking my Visa and paying off the MasterCard. That is not a balanced budget. That is not balancing my budget.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: No, the hon. Member for Naskaupi, now, we are talking about this year's Budget. I want to bring him back to reality.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: Anyway, he will get the opportunity, in a couple of minutes time, to stand up and speak on whatever he wishes, but he should allow me to continue now and say what I want to say. Then, he can speak after. That's fair. That's why people have devised rules for the operation of this forum that we are in here in the House, so I would hope that he would respect that.

Now there are some things this government has done that I agree with in regard to legislation, the EDGE legislation as an example. It is a good piece of legislation, but it is not the only thing. It is not the be-all and end-all. It is not going to cure everything. It might attract some businesses from other provinces, and they will accuse our minister of poaching.

AN HON. MEMBER: I never poached in my life.

MR. A. SNOW: Well, if you haven't poached in your life you are one of the few Newfoundlanders who hasn't.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, but he has eaten it.

MR. A. SNOW: I am told that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: I won't continue in that vein.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: Yes, I will get out of there as fast as I can.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, other provinces will accuse this government of poaching. In other words, going into their jurisdiction and their provincial boundaries and attracting businesses to locate over here through incentives that are being offered under this particular legislation. And that has been said already.

When people stand up on the other side and say: What this is going to do is cure all the unemployment, it is going to be fantastic for the business community - it is going to be good for certain businesses that will come here and be accepted under the EDGE program, but it is not going to cure everything. We can't have that many vodka plants, believe me. There are not going to that many attracted here - vodka plants, that is.

There are things other than this particular legislation that this government is going to have to do, or any government that wants to attract business, to encourage more business investment within this Province. It is not just me saying that. I'm talking about - I live in the real world. It is not just me here saying that the businesses are disappointed. The business community in this Province thinks that our Premier has done the worst job in Atlantic Canada for attracting business to this Province. They think he has done the worst job. That is a quote.

Yet we have people standing up here saying - the Member for LaPoile stood up here in the House and said that the business community supports this government wholeheartedly, that they are a good government, that they are the best in the country. That is not what the polls are saying. The poll in Atlantic Progress, in March -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: You won't believe it anyway, so what the heck is the difference what it is? It is an article. What they say - here is a quote. It says: I give Callbeck an A for attacking debt only because the province is forced to cut or virtually go bankrupt. She got an A. What did Clyde Wells get? These are comments from a business leader.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: The Member for Exploits, now, you can understand why he is really pushing for business. He has never met a person yet who has read Atlantic Progress. He has never met a member of the Chamber of Commerce, he has never met a person who has been in business, who has ever read this magazine.

Mr. Chairman, I will tell you - this is what a business leader said.

MR. ROBERTS: Name him!

MR. A. SNOW: `Clyde Wells is concerned with image and public perception - '

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. A. SNOW: ` - but there is often no real substance beneath the veneer of the position or the program.'

Now, the Member for Naskaupi says: Hear, hear! It is the Member for Naskaupi who said it, who agreed with it. The Member for Naskaupi said: Hear, hear! He agreed with this person. He said: Hear, hear! Now, that is, I believe, in parliamentary terms -

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, the hon. gentleman has every right to be confused, as he demonstrates every time he opens his mouth, but he has no right to misrepresent. My question to him, which I repeat now, was: Who was this business leader? He has gotten up and quoted anonymously. Now, that is the mark of character assassination. I say again, he has every right to be confused and every privilege to be confused, but I wish he wouldn't let his confusion spill out and expose himself in the way in which he does.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

The hon. the Member for Menihek.

MR. A. SNOW: Mr. Chairman, I read the quote of a business leader in Atlantic Canada and while I was speaking the Member for Naskaupi said: Hear, hear! Now, I know the Premier is in New York and he is out, so you can knife him. The last leader they knifed, he was in Boston! The last time you took on a leader and stuck him in the back, he was in Boston! I don't know why - now listen. I can give you some warning now. The Member for Exploits or the Minister of IT and T, when you get to that chair, don't go to the Eastern Seaboard. Because you know what can happen if you go down the Eastern Seaboard. Because I think you two are the top runners here.

AN HON. MEMBER: `Chuck' is ahead by a country mile.

MR. A. SNOW: Well, we have a hopeful in the back benches but he doesn't have the wherewithal, I don't think, to do it. He definitely doesn't have the support of caucus. I am told the Member for Exploits, the minister responsible for ITT, the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, the Minister of Education and Training, believe it or not -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. A. SNOW: By leave, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I wonder if the hon. member could take his seat for a minute while I announce the questions for the Late Show?

The questions for the Late Show are: `Mr. Speaker, I am dissatisfied with the answer provided by the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation to my question re the Wabush airport safety,' and that's the hon. the Member for Menihek.

`I am not satisfied with the answer to my question to the Minister of Finance concerning lease financing, the cost of the health care centres,' and that is the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

The third question is: `I am dissatisfied with the answer provided by the hon. the Minister of Education and Training re my question on budget allocation to Memorial University,' and I think that is the hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

The hon. the Member for Menihek, by leave.

MR. A. SNOW: I was about to say I am pleased to place this name in nomination, but I won't go so far as to say that, Mr. Chairman. People over there are saying -

AN HON. MEMBER: How many?

MR. A. SNOW: How far did I get, anyway? I got over as far as - oh, yes, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. He wants to have a go at it, but he is not sure about how much public support he is going to get out there.

AN HON. MEMBER: How about the Minister of Finance?

MR. A. SNOW: The Minister of Finance, I think, is going to bow out of this race. I say there is a pretty good chance that he could be the interim leader. He will just fade off into the sunset.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. A. SNOW: We could have two now. The story coming out of Labrador has it that you could have two. There are only four seats up there, forty delegates up for grabs and two of them are going to be into a dog-fight. I don't know who is going to win this one, whether it is going to be the young fellow from Eagle River or the old political warhorse from the 1950s, or the 1960s, or the 1970s.

Then, of course, we have the Minister of Health. He has more suits than most of the dry cleaning plants in St. John's, so he is ready for the campaign. Now, he thinks it can be won with a new tie, a smile, and a visit to the old age home. That is all you have to do, he says - that's his strategy. But it is going to be more difficult, and those people I mentioned know it is going to be more difficult than that. I want to wish them luck, and I hope they do a better job at governing when all this starts.

MR. ROBERTS: Over the next ten years?

MR. A. SNOW: No, you only have about two years. The Member for Fogo, I think, is going to be - the camps are starting to split up. There was almost a majority at caucus in one camp there today right after Question Period. There was almost a majority of the Liberals right there in one little bunch. I mean, if somebody had planted a - well, I won't say it. Anyway, Mr. Chairman, apparently that's the list of people who will be running for the Liberal leadership. I wish you luck and I hope you do as well in the promoting industry in the Province and helping out with keeping the economy going -

MR. MURPHY: The member has finally admitted that there are ten people interested in leading this party and only two in leading that party.

MR. A. SNOW: I want to remind the hon. minister that he should never confuse quantity over quality. Now, that may be what occurs with people involved with the Workers' Compensation appeal process, there is quantity there but, Mr. Chairman, it is quality we have to be worrying about, quality, and I will urge the minister to think about those things when he starts looking at appointments to boards and all of that stuff, make sure it is quality and not quantity.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for LaPoile.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you. Question, Mr. Chairman?

AN HON. MEMBER: Is he up or what?

MR. CHAIRMAN: If the hon. member wishes to speak, I wish he would start.

The hon. the Member for LaPoile.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In rebuttal to the hon. member's comment about quality not being mixed up with quantity, I would suggest that the huge numbers that they purport to have attended some of their nomination meetings were possibly more influenced by the quality of food and not necessarily an interest in the party, so really, one has to always look at all of the factors that affect the influence and the confluence of individuals who purport to support political parties.

MR. A. SNOW: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Menihek, on a point of order.

MR. A. SNOW: I wonder if the Member for LaPoile could tell us how many of these nomination meetings he attended? By his girth he has attended several of them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

MR. RAMSAY: Oh, now we are getting into the `fat' jokes, Mr. Chairman. Anyway, I am not bothered by that, I have a thick skin.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that there is no point of order. These are trivial points of orders that are being raised. The point of order is there to enable members, if they have a legitimate point of order to raise it, but this afternoon there have been several points of order which have been trivial and I ask hon. members to refrain from that in the future.

The hon. the Member for LaPoile.

MR. RAMSAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) fridge.

MR. RAMSAY: I realize I have but a voice of the fridge, yes.

Anyway, I just wanted to continue with some of the positive things that I have been saying, and you would swear, Mr. Chairman, that the hon. members opposite are terribly afeared, they are scared of hearing positive things come forward from this government, to hear positive speeches, to hear things that inspire, things from those of us on this side, the many who aspire to lead, the many Liberals in this Province who feel that we can carry this Province into the 21st Century, Mr. Chairman.

Members opposite have but two, and two reluctant ones at that, who decided after so much prodding and poking that they had best come forward or there would not be a leadership convention for the PC Party, the onetime great party in this Province, the onetime great party in this nation, which has been decimated to the core, which has been decimated to a meagre phone booth existence in the national capital region of this country. And to see that, is to understand the problems they are having with the two remaining leadership candidates for their party.

Now, I was speaking about some of the positive initiatives that this government has taken, and I have certainly been able, over the last couple of times I have spoken, to put forward a lot of the positive side of things. There are a number of others, of course, as I mentioned, the $500,000 that was committed to mineral exploration assistance. The Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation has another $800,000 for various tourism-related activities; the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology, as I mentioned, with a $3.5 million commitment to business promotion, and the promotion of the EDGE legislation, and the promotion of a variety of different initiatives which will yield results here in this Province.

There are exciting things that will happen in Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador is no longer seen as the junior partner in Confederation. Newfoundland and Labrador is seen as a place that is serious about its commitment to high technology, its commitment to small business. It is serious about its overall commitment to getting its economy in order, and the commitment to money to promote the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology initiatives is this government's commitment to see that through.

We have also committed another $1 million, as I mentioned, to aquaculture research, and the stimulation of the aquaculture area as a full-fledged industry partner in the overall provision of economic benefit to this Province, so that is another thing; the $100,000 that we have committed to expand the Preventative Mediation Program, to see to it that labour relations in this Province do not go the way that they create a terrible impediment to the overall provincial economic climate.

We have also committed $10 million to forestry, to arrangements in silviculture, to pick up the slack left because of the non-renewal of the co-operative agreement on forestry development, so that is another positive.

We are also - and we will be doing this in consultation with industry - implementing a science research and experimental development tax credit. This tax credit will allow new initiatives and inventions, and new technology applications being made, to develop new products for industry here in this Province, to give them the advantage that is necessary, because current tax policy in Canada does not allow people to input money into the research and development area. As it currently stands, they are better able to leave their money in mutual funds, better able to leave their money in a variety of different banking instruments, rather than putting their money up for high-risk things such as high technology development.

So this initiative is an area where the government of this Province has said: Look, we need to put some tax credits in place that will help make the overall picture for investment in high technology that much better for the investor. By doing so, it will help us to access some more of the capital that is necessary to stimulate this sector, to access the capital necessary, and to make it such that these people who have availability of money will want to put their money up and invest in these small, high technology companies, and do it here at home. So that is the kind of initiative that this government has taken.

Now, what about small business formation? You say: Oh, this is wonderful; this is grand old stuff, `Bill', what you are saying here, but what does it mean? Have we been getting any results?

The fact of the matter is that we have. We have looked at the figures and we have, at this stage - and it is not just something that has been created as a result of the TAGS monies that are flowing into the Province, it is not just the fact that people are all setting up training programs for TAGS, or other initiatives in that area. The overall establishment of small business in this Province is not exceeded by any other province. It is equalled by British Columbia, a booming province, and this Province, of course, is equalling British Columbia in the establishment of new small businesses, and this is not just a statistical error, or a statistical aberration. It is such that when you look at the figures, and they are analyzed - and the departmental officials who analyze this do tell us that it is a significant improvement in the overall establishment of small business here in the Province, and it is the kind of thing that it good to hear - it is good to know that the long-term planning that this government undertook, when it took power in 1989, is reaping some results in spite of the problems in the fishery, in spite of the general economic difficulties that have been happening throughout the country.

So these are the kinds of things that we want to put forward, not to blind ourselves or hide away from the difficulties that we face but to emphasize the positive; to build on our strengths to make sure that the people of the Province realize that there is hope, that there is a reason to look forward to the future; to feel that your children and my children will have opportunity here in Newfoundland and Labrador, a place where the standard of living and the quality of life is above and beyond many, many places throughout North America. It is a place where I want to live out my years. I hope not to have to leave Newfoundland and Labrador, ever, and I hope that my children can make a good life here, they can make a good living here. Through this kind of initiative and long-term planning, sometimes at the expense of short term political gain, which we know we have done at times but for those reasons it is wise and just for us to follow the governments path that it has been following and we hope to continue in this area, Mr. Chairman.

Also, in getting the message out, there is one final thing I wanted to say, that each and every member of this House has a responsibility, not only to get the message out about what they feel that the government is doing wrong in the Opposition but to get the message out about the good news stories. Now maybe Opposition's are there not to support government, not to see to it that the Province moves ahead but to see to it that their desire for power is achieved. But I would submit that if every one of us, each and every one of us puts forward a positive face, gets away from the negative and does things that will help the people in your given districts to be inspired, to be interested in trying to start something of their own, in wanting to start their own business, to take the initiative that they have seen the people of this great Province use over the years and to use it to our full advantage with a small increase in improvement on behalf of each and everybody here in inspiring someone to act and inspiring someone to take that plunge, to take that initiative, then we can make this Province a better place for everybody.

Mr. Chairman, with that I will sit down and allow a member of the Opposition to have a say. Thank you.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I might have leave of members here present to revert to Notices of Motion. I am not going to suggest that, Your Honour, leave the Chair. I think if all present consent, that would serve the purposes. The motion of which I wish to give leave is a change to Standing Orders with respect to Private Members' Day and if leave is given and if notice is given I would suggest that we call it for debate in the morning. It may not take very long to debate it in the morning and get it dealt with.

So I wonder if I may have leave of the House?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. member have leave of the House?

AN HON. MEMBER: Leave.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, it is fairly lengthy but perhaps members will permit me to read it.

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

MR. ROBERTS: I give notice that I shall on tomorrow move that the Standing Orders of the House of Assembly are amended by striking out Standing Order 53.1 and by substituting the following;

53.1(1) The determination of which private members' motion shall be called by the Speaker on Private Members' Day rests with each side of the House with the Speaker calling a motion from each side of the House on a weekly alternating basis.

(2) At the beginning of a new session the Speaker shall follow the custom of recognizing a private members' motion from the Opposition side of the House on the first Private Members' Day.

(3) On the Monday before the Wednesday of the week in which a private members' motion is to be debated the Government House Leader or the Opposition House Leader, as the case may be, shall announce to the House the private members' motion to be debated on that Wednesday.

(4) A private members' motion shall be debated for not more than one sitting day and at 5:00 p.m. at the close of the day, the motion then under consideration shall be put by the Speaker, if the debate has not been concluded by that time.

(5) Notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order 49, no member may speak for more than fifteen minutes on the debate on a private members' motion.

(6) The member introducing a private members' motion has the right to close the debate and if at 4:45 p.m. on the day of debate on the motion the debate has not been concluded the Speaker shall recognize that member who shall then close the debate.

Now, Mr. Chairman, that is just a codification of the practice we have been following in the House.

(7) On Wednesdays the question period shall commence not later than 2:30 p.m. and the ordinary daily routine of business shall end not later than 3:00 p.m., and at that time the private members' motion shall be called by the Speaker.

That is in the present rules with the time changes.

(8) In recognizing motions introduced by members who sit in the Opposition, the Speaker shall ensure that motions made by Opposition members who do not sit with the Official Opposition are called for debate in proportion to the number of those members to the number of all the members who sit in the Opposition, with the intent that each member sitting in the Opposition shall have an opportunity to introduce a private member's motion once during a session.

This is an attempt to address the point raised by the gentleman for St. John's East several days ago. That would be the end of the amendment to 53.1.

I give notice that I will move a second amendment. Number 2: The Standing Orders of the House of Assembly are amended by changing the daily sitting times of 3:00, 6:00, 10:00 and 1:00 to read: 2:00, 5:00, 9:00 and 12 noon respectively. The Standing Orders are further amended by consequently changing the other references to time wherever they occur so that the references to time shall read one hour earlier.

That simply incorporates the practice that we have been following for six or seven years which I think is universally satisfactory to the members of the House.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the members for allowing me to give notice. The intention, subject to consultations behind the Chair, would be to call this for debate in the morning and we can probably dispose of it quite quickly, as I believe there is a widespread -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. ROBERTS: A widespread consent, a widespread support for it. I thank the Committee. I suspect my friend for St. John's East Extern will try to catch Your Honour's eye.

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

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say a few words on Bill No. 6, referred to as the interim supply bill, where the government is looking for $1,054,155,600 to get them through the interim before the Budget is approved. I believe the government would like to have this approved by tomorrow at the latest, by the end of the month. Hopefully that will happen. I wouldn't want to see anybody, any civil servants or anything, not receiving their cheques.

This Budget that was recently brought into the House by the Minister of Finance is referred to as a balanced budget. I certainly would have to question that. Although there are no new monies in the Budget - all I could see are cuts, more cuts, down loading to the municipalities. We have a freeze on the capital spending for the municipalities this year. I don't know if that has ever happened in the past. We have cuts to the fire fighting equipment that has been budgeted over the past number of years at $1 million. It has been cut now by 75 per cent down to $250,000.

The Canada-Newfoundland Infrastructure program is down to $10 million this year. I managed to get that figure out of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs at the Government Services Estimates Committee meeting the other night. In the Budget, on page 5 of the Estimates, it says: "Funding of $40,000,000 is provided for the continuation of the Canada-Newfoundland Infrastructure agreement for 1995-1996." In actual fact it is $10 million this year. The minister admitted at the meeting the other night that basically they had thought there would be a $5 million freeze or a hold back for the next two years, if I understood it correctly, and it worked out that it would be actually $15 million, $5 million times three, for the input from the municipalities, the Province and the federal government. So it is cut by $15 million down to $10 million.

There is a moratorium in this Budget on new capital works projects for the municipalities which is basically, from my estimation, more jobs lost for this coming summer, especially in summer employment with the municipalities and the work that would be done, such as water and sewer and/or roads.

The Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation recently announced that it is going to close twenty-nine parks across the Province, which will save them $300,000. Just after the announcement was made of the twenty-nine parks closing down I had a number of calls to my office from concerned individuals, in particular people in and around St. John's who utilize the Corcoran Pond Provincial Park. The people who were phoning my office, with the number of calls I did get, were basically mostly from senior citizens who live in and around St. John's and certainly do not mind travelling the short distance to Cochrane Pond park because it is quite handy and they like the services. Although there are not a lot of services there they like to get out there in the park, and are quite upset actually that park is being closed. I have to question the logic in closing that park. But the curious thing about this is that I had two calls also from people in my district who were interested in operating the parks on a private business nature. I think one of those individuals has already contacted the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and is planning to put in a proposal to operate Cochrane Pond provincial park.

Now, I know there is some hassle going on between the City of St. John's and the City of Mount Pearl with respect to Cochrane Park Provincial Park. I believe it is now within the jurisdiction of the City of St. John's. It falls within the boundaries of the City of St. John's. Mayor Murphy, I believe, made a comment in the media the other day that he would not mind giving up Cochrane Pond Park if the City of Mount Pearl would turn over the industrial park in Mount Pearl to them for the Cochrane Pond Park. I think that is being quite facetious.

MR. HODDER: Some chance.

MR. J. BYRNE: There is not much of a chance there, the Member for Waterford - Kenmount says.

With respect to the provincial parks there is $1 million budgeted over a five year program which is basically $200,000 per year put into the provincial parks. They are basically saving $300,000 by closing down twenty-nine parks, so they are up $100,000 there. Again, what I foresee there is the loss of jobs which this government has been noted for, Mr. Chairman. I think every plan they bring out is to cause a loss of jobs within this Province.

The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation recently announced a railway park. In the House the other day he made a Ministerial Statement on the park across the Province, the corridor across the Province, the old railway. Now, I think that is something that a lot of people have been promoting over the past number of years, since the railway closed and I see it as probably a good idea, but I certainly see some logistical problems with respect to implementing the regulations for the use of that park which is a narrow corridor probably sixty-six feet wide, or 100 feet wide in certain areas.

The travel part of that right-of-way would probably be ten or fifteen feet maximum, and going through a number of towns, and being utilized by various people across the Province. Also, you have people who have built cabins on the right-of-way itself, Mr. Chairman, so what is going to happen to those people? Are they going to be notified that they are going to have to abandon that railway, or the right-of-way itself because it is now located in the park, and will there be compensation for those people?

With respect to the Budget itself, where we are talking about a balanced Budget, as I said all I saw there were cuts, cuts, and more cuts which has been the tradition over the past six years of this government. Social Services, Mr. Chairman, has been cut $10 million from my understanding of the Budget. There is one thing in particular that has been told to me, and I have not actually picked up on it in the specifics of the Budget, but the special needs children, or the care for special needs children, is being cut, especially for people who travel maybe outside the Province and who have certain physical or mental disorders. That is being cut, and I think that is being quite cruel and an unnecessary attack on the people of this Province. Basically what the government is doing is balancing the Budget on the backs of the needy, or the extraordinarily needy of this Province.

Another thing with respect to the Budget so far this year is the Emergency Employment Program. I did not see anything in there for the Emergency Employment Program, but if it is compared to the one that was brought in this past year by the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations it is not much odds anyway. There is no point in having something there that cannot be utilized. The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations this past winter, in January after a Fall of torment -

AN HON. MEMBER: Adjourn the debate.

MR. J. BYRNE: Okay, Mr. Chairman, I adjourn the debate.

Thank you.

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

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

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Supply has considered the matters to it referred, wishes to report some progress and ask leave to sit again.

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

Debate on the Adjournment

[Late Show]

MR. SPEAKER: It being 4:30 we will begin the Late Show. The first question is from the hon. Member for Menihek.

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

Mr. Speaker, I asked a question of the Minister responsible for Works, Services and Transportation, with regard to the potentially dangerous situation that will exist at the Wabush Airport with regard to the full-time Emergency Response Services being removed as of April 1, and I wanted to know what his department has done and is going to do, to ensure that this potentially dangerous situation doesn't continue to occur, and it will occur if this government and the federal government -

I recognize that this is a federal government responsibility and they are changing the format, but what I wanted to do in this particular forum, was to ensure that this minister who is responsible for Works, Services and Transportation in this Province and this is within this Province, albeit it provides air transportation, landing and takeoff privileges for the communities of Labrador City, Wabush, Churchill Falls, in quite a few cases nowadays and the community of Fermont in the Province of Quebec, and because of the removal of the ERS the Emergency Response Services, I believe that it is a potentially dangerous situation and will exist there because of that.

The people of Western Labrador, I must say, also agree that it's a potentially dangerous situation because if indeed we did have a situation where an aircraft did crash on a takeoff or landing or end up in an explosive situation where there is a fire, the Wabush Town Council in conjunction with their fire department, a volunteer fire department albeit they are thoroughly trained, have a tremendous amount of experience, they aren't qualified nor trained nor do they have the equipment to fight a fire that is going to be fuelled by aircraft fuel, a very dangerous situation, will have to assist the crew of the aircraft to remove passengers from the aircraft; they aren't trained to be doing this, they are trained to fight mostly residential fires and any fires in a commercial property, not at the airport, Mr. Speaker.

Now, Mr. Speaker, what I wanted this minister to do, wasn't to just be the hero and fly into Wabush like the ordinary citizens are going to have to do, he thought he was going to do the heroic thing and do that. What I wanted him to do specifically, and what the people of Western Labrador wanted him to do, is to ask his, demand from his political cousins in Ottawa that this policy has to be changed. You cannot treat human lives as frivolously as they are. What is happening here is, that because Western Labrador - they say because of the change in category, the change in the policy has removed all ERS coverage at the smaller category for airports.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this implies that people don't consider smaller communities to be as important. Their lives aren't important as the people who fly into larger airports and to me that is absolutely ludicrous. A jet can land, if we had jets landing rather than Dash 8s, this airport would qualify for this service but they aren't jets, they are Dash 8s, they are five feet shorter than the minimum required by the federal government, five feet shorter, forty passengers on that aircraft or thirty-eight I think.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: I am not sure. But indeed, if these were jet aircrafts, if the Dash 8s were five feet longer, they would qualify. There are thirty-seven, thirty-eight people on a Dash 8, and is the federal government saying that those lives aren't as important as the twenty sitting on a longer jet?

It is absolutely ridiculous, and I am asking this minister if he would present the case on behalf of the people of this Province, on behalf of the people of Labrador City and Wabush, on behalf of the people who are working at the airport, on behalf of the people who are going to be flying in and out of Wabush, that he would put the case strongly to his federal counterparts, the hon. Doug Young, that this is silliness. It is absolutely ridiculous that a government would consider this type of change, would go so far as to save a few dollars at the expense of the safety of hundreds of people who fly in and out of Wabush every day, and it is merely to change a little regulation that would include the Dash 8. Because the Dash 8 is five feet shorter than the minimum requirement of twenty-four metres - it is 22.5 metres - because of that requirement it doesn't meet the category that some pigeonhole has created, that some bureaucrat has created a pigeonhole in Ottawa -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. A. SNOW: It doesn't fit in his particular pigeonhole, so now we are going to be without fire-fighting capabilities in Western Labrador. This is tremendously unfair to the people of Western Labrador who have made a tremendous contribution to this Province and to this country, and they shouldn't be treated so poorly.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

The hon. the Minister of the Environment.

MR. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of Works, Services and Transportation is not here today, so I have been asked to respond and to bring an answer to the very legitimate concerns that the member has for the airport, and it is a serious situation. It is a situation that the Province is going to have to deal with the federal government on.

The National Airports Policy which is being brought forward is of concern to a lot of us, and is of concern to the government. The feds are trying to unload their responsibility, basically, downward, and they brought in a new policy which is saying that you have to balance your operating budget in five years, bring it down to zero, and to operate your airport. Now in rural Newfoundland and Labrador that is going to be tough to do for a number of the airports in the Province. It is going to be very difficult for them to do.

There was an analysis under way in the Department of Works, Services and Transportation to ensure that the impacts of the new policy are going to be assessed so that these impacts can be measured and an appropriate response put forward. Transportation to the Province is extremely important if economic development is to occur. These airports are very important to economic development, and I think the legitimate concern brought forward by the member is going to be reviewed by the minister. He is reviewing it further as of yesterday's Question Period, but we are going to have to find a way, we are going to have to deal with the concern, because this is going to start happening to other airports around the Province, and it will be a concern that is not going to go away.

Some of the municipalities are probably more able to deal with fire-fighting capacity at airports, but a lot of them really don't want to have to undertake that responsibility because there is a lot of money involved, and a lot of expense, and a lot of liability, so these are big issues to have to deal with. I can tell the member that the minister, I am sure, will very shortly come back with a response that will deal with the situation, or attempt to deal with it, with the federal government, but it is one that won't go away. It is one that is going to have to be dealt with.

At the end of April there is a conference in Gander on the new National Airports Policy, where all the airports in Atlantic Canada are going to get together in Gander to review the whole airports policy that the federal government is bringing in, and the Province is hoping that there are a number of recommendations that will come out of that, and that a decision, then, will be taken by the government here as to what role we will play in the future, but it is a federal responsibility, and it is something that we are going to have to deal with, because it is extremely important for development in this Province.

Thank you.

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

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The last few days I have been trying to get the Minister of Finance to confirm what happened with the Trans City hospital development, the three contracts that were awarded to Trans City. It has been a matter of great public debate, and a matter of a Supreme Court hearing and a ruling. We know what the Supreme Court said, Mr. Speaker.

The bottom line of that is very clear, that the government invited tenders for development of three health care centres and have violated the Public Tender Act. They failed to take even the low bidder let alone the preferred bidder. There are clear guidelines set down in the Public Tender Act and local preference act as to how you decide who is a preferred bidder in any contract and Mr. Justice Orsborn ruled very clearly that government has, without any doubt, violated its own Public Tender Act. If I am not mistaken, I heard the Premier say somewhere publicly, if the Public Tender Act does not work then it is wrong and we have to change it. Now that seems to be the approach that the Premier likes to take on many things, Mr. Speaker, when the legislation does not quite suit what he wants to do then we will have to change the legislation.

It is very much a banana republic, Mr. Speaker, when we get to that but that is not what I am here to talk about today. I want to talk about the numbers here. This is Thursday now, I have been since Monday asking the minister to confirm some numbers, to give us some additional information and provide some documentation on it but we do have a certain number of numbers. We know for example that health care developers submitted a bid which was deemed by Mr. Justice Orsborn as being the preferred bid and the low bid. The Supreme Court has ruled that government should have accepted their combined bid. The individual bids by health care developers were not necessarily the low bids on each one of those contracts but they gave - as they were asked to do - an option of a proposal to build all three government - quite wisely - I suspect that if we had a contractor bidding on a package of three we would get a better price on three buildings from one individual than three individual prices and so they did.

The price that was quoted, as written in a Cabinet paper that was sent to Cabinet, for health care developers was $2,527,355. Now that is an all inclusive price for three facilities. That is the lease price, that is the lease per year. That is a fixed lease price, Mr. Speaker, with no escalator in it and that by simple mathematics adds up to $75,000,000 to be exact $75,820,650. Now that is the price that government could have had these three same facilities constructed for, had they taken the lowest bid as they were bound to do by the Public Tender Act, and, at the end of it, in accordance with the tender call, they would have had the right, at the end of thirty years, to purchase those three facilities at $1, so you can add $1 dollar to that amount, but let's round it off, for argument sake at the moment, at $76 million.

That was the price of a lease payment over thirty years - not borrowing money up front, as the minister tried to defend with his silly argument yesterday, saying: Well, you can't compare payment over thirty years with paying money up front. Of course you can't; I wasn't suggesting that. That's another option that should be considered, but that's a different issue. That is not what we are talking about here. I am comparing this lease payment of $2.5 million a year for thirty years, totalling $76 million over that thirty years, versus the payment by health care developers, which amounts to $96 million.

That is the value over thirty years, the total payment over thirty years, of the contracts that were eventually accepted by government, an escalating price, because they gave two options, and that information is accurate. The minister can say my numbers are wrong, but that information comes from the documents that the minister tabled, and these are signed by the Clerk at the Table here, dated - I had better put my glasses on or I won't see it - November 30, 1994. This is signed by the Clerk of the House as being tabled by the hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. So, Mr. Speaker, that number adds up to $96 million; $96 million versus the $76 million that health care developers had bid. That is a difference of $20 million.

We also know, from the numbers that have been provided to us, and that the minister has confirmed, that the sinking fund that has been put in place, into which we are paying $77,200 per month right now - per year, rather -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. WINDSOR: My time is up? Another minute, Mr. Speaker? One minute?

MR. SPEAKER: Okay, one minute.

MR. WINDSOR: That sinking fund will add up to $16 million, and that is how much has to be paid to Confederation Life at the end of thirty years, now - not $1, as would be paid to health care developers. That money now will be there for Confederation Life to buy out those three buildings. So with the $20 million difference in the lease over that thirty years, plus the $16 million payout, that is $36 million additional. That is the difference in cost between accepting the low bid and accepting the bid that government finally accepted, the ones from Trans Pacific.

Now, add to that the fact that that $16 million is being paid in, I understand, to Confederation Life now, so they actually have the use of that money during this 30-year period, and I ask the minister to confirm that and to tell us what interest rate is being paid to government in what is being built up in that sinking fund. What interest rate is being built up into it, because Confederation Life has the use of that money and we could say that it is the same money that has been loaned back to government through the lease.

We know we are paying 9.41 per cent on the lease, that is the interest rate we are paying in that lease, I would like to know how much Confederation Life is paying back into the sinking fund for the money that they have held in trust to pay at the end of the contract. Anyway you shake it, Mr. Speaker, there is $36 million difference in the tender who was the low bidder, as decided by the Supreme Court and the tender that was accepted by this government. I would like to hear the minister's justification.

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

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will try to deal rather quickly with the points raised. First of all, the violation of the Public Tender Act he indicates there was without a doubt, that matter is still before the courts, Mr. Speaker, and we will get a judgement from the appeals court as to whether in fact, it was in violation of the Public Tender Act, so I would say to the hon. member that he is substituting his judgement for the appeal court, he might be right but he also might be wrong.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, he indicates that government could have had a facility constructed for $76 million. That's an exact quote of what he said. Obviously, what he is saying is totally incorrect. The construction cost of the facility is not $76 million or could not have been $76 million or we would not have, ever agreed to have $76 million construction costs for any facilities, Mr. Speaker. The construction costs were around $25 million that we ultimately decided on and he compares that with - In actual fact, this amount of $76 million, is a combination of the principal plus the interest over thirty years; it is not the construction cost at all and he shouldn't be portraying it as such. He is just trying to confuse the issue.

Then he says, Mr. Speaker, that we accepted a bid that cost $96 million, that is not true. We accepted a bid that cost about $25 million and we have decided to pay it out over thirty years at an escalating rate so the amount he is talking to is a combination of principal and interest and there is nothing extra beyond that at the end of the time. The lease rates in there include the contributions to the sinking fund and so on, so -

MR. WINDSOR: No.

MR. BAKER: Yes.

MR. WINDSOR: No.

MR. BAKER: So that's the amount and is made up of construction costs plus interest payments. With the escalating rates, Mr. Speaker, we are borrowing more money for longer periods of time, therefore interests costs are higher.

Now, Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated to the hon. gentleman he should start thinking about those things sensibly. There is about a $25 million construction cost for these three health care facilities. We have chosen a method to pay it out that is cheapest on the Province. Now, at the end of that time we will have thirty years service of these three health care facilities. At the end of the thirty years we will owe nothing on it. This is not something that will add to our debt. We will owe nothing on it and we will still have those three health care facilities to use. If you compare that with the Sprung greenhouse, we spent $26 million, we went to the market and borrowed it, and we are going to be paying interest on that also for the next thirty years which will amount to, again, a comparable expenditure of maybe $70 to $90 million on the Sprung greenhouse over the next thirty years.

Mr. Speaker, we have not had thirty years service in that. We have not had thirty years of jobs. We have nothing at the end, and the only thing we have to show for that is a picture from a masquerade party of the hon. Member for Mount Pearl dressed up as a cucumber.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House I addressed some questions to the Minister of Education and Training relative to the Budget allocations for Memorial University. I, in particular was talking about the current account budget, the operating budget for the university, and there seems to be a very wide gap between the monies which the university expected to receive in terms of getting their programs in place and planning for next year. In fact it shows that they are almost $4 million short of what they were last year.

The net effect is that the university was planning on, or needs, a $5 million increase over last year's budget. The government has given them nearly $4 million less so they almost have a shortfall of $10 million. Mr. Speaker, I know that the minister mentioned yesterday that there were some allocations in capital, they mixed the two together, however he knows quite well that these funds are not transferable in that kind of way.

Mr. Speaker, in the Budget that was presented last week, the Minister of Finance said: In line with restraint measures imposed across government, the grant to Memorial University of Newfoundland and other post-secondary contributions will be reduced below the 1994-95 levels.

He continued to go on to say: Government anticipates that these educational institutions will implement efficiency measures in order to avoid reductions in student access to educational programs. We also expect that these reductions will not cause financial hardship to students or to institutions themselves.

Yesterday the minister said that he was adopting an arm's length approach in dealing with the university. I know that the officials at the university, and the students' union at the university, are already talking about a 10, 15 or 20 per cent increase in the student tuition fees for next year.

I was saying to the minister yesterday that he has a responsibility to try to make sure that the university education which we all espouse is an important feature of our Province's educational system, and should be accessible to all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, that we do not go and permit a situation to arise where the university returns to what it was in the early days, and that is a place where only those people who are the sons and daughters of the `well off' will be able to attend.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister played a word game. He tried to divorce himself from his responsibility, so he played the game of: Well, this is up to Art May and his people at Memorial.

Last year he came here and said: I am going to answer for the university, because he denied the people who sit in this House the opportunity to have the university brought in before the Public Accounts Committee, or any other committee of this House, and make them directly answerable. Therefore, we cannot ask the questions of the university. We can only say to the minister that he is responsible, he is answerable, so therefore he has to take measures to make sure that university tuition does not escalate beyond what is reasonable, and a 20 per cent increase in one year is absolutely unreasonable.

Mr. Speaker, I should point out to the minister that since his government has come to office in 1989, university tuition in this Province has increased by more than 60 per cent. That is 10 per cent a year; therefore, we can't very well deny that the University students are paying more for the right to get into the University. We were averaging a 10 per cent increase in tuition every year for the past six years. The minister yesterday said: If the president of the University says he has got to put it up by another 10 per cent, 15 per cent, or 20 per cent, I'm going to say I can't do anything about it.

I'm saying to the minister, he is answerable to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, he is answerable to the students of this Province. I call upon him to make sure that when he said in his Budget Speech that there were efficiency measures that could be achieved, would he tell the House what are the efficiency measures? So the students can themselves say to the University: You have to adopt these procedures before you -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

MR. HODDER: - start to increase the tuition fees to the students of Newfoundland and Labrador. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, when the announcements were made for the Late Show I was in the Common Room, and the Whip told me that I was on Late Show. I assumed that it was the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes, who asked some questions today, so I started to put a few notes together. Because the hon. member was on to some good questions. I only discovered now, or a little while after, that it was the Member for Waterford - Kenmount who wanted to ask me some questions. The whole reason for this exercise is that the member is not satisfied with the answer to a question that he put forward during question period. I have to be honest and say that the Member for St. Mary's - The Capes probably had a reason to not be satisfied, because I didn't get time to go into the details of his question. He took me unexpectedly.

Rethinking the answer I gave the Member for Waterford - Kenmount, I can't see for the life of me what grounds he has not to be satisfied with the answer I gave him yesterday. It was one of the clearest, most succinct, distinctive, revealing answers ever I've heard given in this House. So there is no reason in the world why he should not be satisfied with that answer. However, I will take him at face value.

We have said to every single department in government, to every agency of government: Times are tough. We are trying to get the fiscal house in order. We are trying to get this Province back on its feet. We said to them: One thing we will not do, we will not build a greenhouse.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: We said to the people, we want you to help us. We want us all to work together to try to offset seventeen years of people spending like drunken sailors. We have to deal with that. We wiped out the school tax, Mr. Speaker, but that is another story.

So we went to all the different government agencies and we said to the health boards: You are going to make a contribution. They said: Yes gladly. We went to the post-secondary, to the colleges: We expect you to make a contribution. They said: Yes, gladly. We went to the university and said: Look, we recognize how important you are. You are an institution that is going to be a big player here in our future, we need educated people. However, would you be satisfied with $2.5 million cut in your operation? They said: Yes, gladly. Mr. Speaker, it was because they recognize the mess that this Province is in and they recognize that they have to have good solid fiscal management, Mr. Speaker.

I don't know where the hon. member is getting off trying to make some political points on a non-issue. Now he wants me to go and say to the University, you can't raise your tuitions or you can't do this or you can't do that. Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't see any reason why they should have to raise their tuition. It is only a $2.5 million out of $112 million budget. I don't see why they should have to do that but I am not going to go over and say to the University, you can't teach economics or you must teach Greek or you can't teach Hebrew or you must do this or do that. That is interfering with the institutions autonomy, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member must know that there is nothing more valuable to a liberal education and that is a big L and a small l liberal education. There is nothing more valuable than academic freedom, Mr. Speaker, and you cannot have true academic freedom unless you have institutional autonomy. Now when the University gives government some indication that they are not able to manage their affairs and they are not able to spend this money as they should then we will deal with it but I can't take the hon. members word for this. I have to tell him that the answer I gave was a good answer and he has no reason whatsoever, Mr. Speaker, not to be satisfied with it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, in a moment, Your Honour, will put the adjournment motion that the clock will have been stopped a second.

Tomorrow morning the proposal will be to call for debate the change to the Standing Orders of which I gave notice today and once that is done we will carry on with Interim Supply and get on with it from there. With that said, Your Honour, perhaps should put the adjournment motion which I predict will carry.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, at 9:00 a.m.