The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

Before we begin, I would like to welcome to the Speaker's gallery, a distinguished Irish writer, Mr. Colin Tobin. I understand that he is accompanied by Mr. Thomas Burke, Past President of The Irish Newfoundland Association.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: As well, we have in the gallery today, fifty-four Grade VII students from the St, Pius Tenth Junior High in the District of St. John's East and they are accompanied by teachers: Mona Morrow, Pauline Albert and teachers' aid Gail McGettigan.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to advise the House today of the formation of a New Premier's Advisory Council on Economy and Technology for Newfoundland and Labrador. The Council will provide advice to Cabinet in several different areas - advice on economic policy, business development, competitiveness, science and technology, sustainable development and advice on how to integrate the environment, Mr. Speaker, and the economy.

It is important for government to keep on top of economic issues as they arise. The members of this Premier's Advisory Council being named today, I think will be clearly demonstrated, have their fingers very much on the pulse of business and industry in this Province and this of course, is a very valuable information tool that we as members of government need to draw upon. Their hands-on experience makes them an invaluable resource.

The Advisory Council on the Economy and Technology will be made up of key business leaders who have the knowledge and expertise to respond to requests for advice and to make recommendations on questions that I, as Premier and members of the Cabinet, refer to them.

I am pleased to have a panel of expert advisors who deal with important business issues every day and economic development issues every day. After all, Mr. Speaker, who better to assist us as we broaden our economic base, explore new markets and refine our growing industries than the collection of women and men who have stepped forward today.

The Advisory Council will be chaired by Mr. Peter Woodward of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador. The Council's membership will include: Moya Cahill, Howard Hewitt, Mary O'Brien, Bill Parsons, Anne Rose, Lewis Rose, Derrick Rowe, Wes Simms, Kathryn Small, Steve Vessey, Bruce Wareham, Bill Buffett, Clyde Melendy, and Ches Penney.

The members of the Council bring with them a broad range of business backgrounds, from experience in traditional sectors such as the fishery and farming, to expertise in newer areas, Mr. Speaker, such as high-tech information services. Geographically, their backgrounds are all diverse, from Arnold's Cove to Cormack to Labrador City, and many points in between.

The Advisory Council meet at least four times a year, and will report to me at least twice during that period.

Mr. Speaker, I think you can see that this distinguished group of citizens from Newfoundland and Labrador will bring with them a diversity and wealth of knowledge that will well serve the people and Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I suspect that there is, within this group, not only diversity of knowledge and expertise but perhaps even a diversity of political representation. Although I note lately it is getting harder and harder to find a Tory.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad to see that the Premier is seeking further advice on the economy and technology and based on his government's economic performance, it is badly needed. What surprises me, Premier, what took so long?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Today offers me the first opportunity in this House, to share with my colleagues, information about the National Child Benefit.

The National Child Benefit is a national program that has the agreement in principle of the federal government and all provinces and territories (except Quebec). The parameters of the program have all been developed and agreed upon collaboratively.

The $0.6 billion federal investment in the NCB recently announced in the federal budget is viewed by this Province, and all provinces/territories, as a beginning down payment on a long-term plan.

The primary goals of the NCB are to begin to address child poverty, with particular emphasis on promoting attachment to the workforce, resulting in fewer families having to rely on social assistance. In developing the NCB, all provinces and territories recognized that there are significant work disincentives in our social assistance programs that make it very difficult for some families to re-enter the workforce. At the same time, some low income, employed families, have fewer benefits and services than families on social assistance. Some of the issues that contribute to this include the fact that social assistance is based on family size and living arrangements, while wages are not; social assistance benefits decline rapidly once a family begins working; and there is a loss of supplementary benefits such as drugs, vision care, municipal tax payments, etc. Social assistance is designed to meet basic needs and so much includes these types of benefits, but there are unintended consequences.

The National Child Benefit, by design, will assist families on social assistance to make the transition to work by addressing these disadvantages and concurrently raise incomes for low income employed families.

Although the precise details of how the NCB will work have yet to be finalized, the general design features have been agreed upon. Both the Federal and Provincial/Territorial Governments have a specific role in the National Child Benefit. The federal role is based on an offer to begin assuming some of the costs of provincial social assistance for children. In return, provinces and territories must agree to reinvest the provincial monies freed up by this approach in complementary programs and services for low income families and their children.

These are the basic premises which explain the design of the NCB. The two parts of the NCB will be the Federal Child Tax Benefit and complementary provincial programs. The Child Tax Benefit will increase in 1998. Concurrently, in all provinces, provincial social assistance payments - and that is the portion related to children - will be decreased by an equivalent amount. The income of social assistance families will not be affected, while low income, employed families will experience an increase in their income.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Additional programs and services will be funded by the provinces and territories aimed at supporting low income families, including social assistance families.

The opportunity for this Province to identify monies for programs and services to support families and their children is a very exciting aspect of the NCB. I reiterate that the monies cannot be spent on roads, nor on buildings, nor on other capital construction. A Federal-Provincial Framework Agreement is currently under discussion to guide provincial reinvestments.

A range of program/service options must be developed and costed for our government's consideration. Program examples, used during our NCB discussions, include a provincial child tax benefit or top-up to the National Child Benefit; an earned income tax credit; an extension of other in-kind benefits such as drugs, vision care, and children's services such as child care. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list by any means, as no decisions have been made. We will be the first to admit in this Province we need to improve our support programs for families and children. What constitutes the best approach for this Province will have to be carefully considered, but our desire to emphasize prevention and early intervention has been previously noted.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to conclude by restating the many positive aspects of the NCB. The program will begin to address some of the disincentives that exist for low-income families pursuing employment by providing additional incomes and benefits. Social assistance families will not receive any less money and will have their NCB benefits to count on when they move into the workforce. Lastly, this Province, for the first time in many, many years, will have a significant amount of monies to reinvest in improving programs and services for families with children. For these reasons, this Province has made the decision to give approval in principle to the program and to continue with further discussions. We must work together in partnership with the Federal Government and the other provinces and territories to ensure that the National Child Benefit is a permanent and sustained program which will help our children for years to come.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister has not said anything today that she has not said on previous occasions in the last several weeks. We should look at what precisely has been said.

In the last paragraph she says: "Social assistance families will not receive any less money...." But then, in the fourth or fifth paragraph she says the "provincial social assistance payments... will be decreased, by an equivalent amount," which basically says that the $60-a-month that will be coming to low-income families in this Province will be clawed back if these people continue to be on social assistance. Let us not disguise this. This is simply a way in which we are going to say on the one hand - the minister said: We are not going to decrease your social assistance payments. We are not going to give them any more. That is precisely what is being said here. Let us not be fooled by the words.

Therefore, when the Federal Government sends down its $60-a-month, then the Provincial Government, for people who are not working, they are going to say: We are going to claw that back. They get their $60-a-month on the twentieth day of every month. The social assistance people are paid twice a month. One has to ask and say: When will that deduction come? Will it be spread out? But the intention here is quite clear.

We, on this side, are all for new programs to help those people who do not have jobs to go to work. We ask ourselves, where are the jobs? The assumption here is that all people who are on social assistance are staying home, that they have disincentives not to go to work, lots of jobs out there, and that they prefer to be in a comfortable pew. That is not the case. What we are doing is, we are funding a program to help the working poor on the backs of the very poorest children in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, the federal Minister, Paul Martin, said in his Budget Speech: Opportunity lost in childhood means opportunity lost in adulthood. The very poorest of children in this Province will continue to lose the opportunities in childhood and continue to lose the opportunities in adulthood. Also, the federal minister said: The Federal Government is willing to move sooner than 1998 if the provinces are ready.

Now, Mr. Minister, I ask you: Why are we not ready? We have poverty in this Province; 40,000-plus children go to school hungry every day. We have seen all the stats. They are not new - they have been there for a long time. We have more children hungry in Canada today than we had ten years ago. We need this plan, we need it now, and I totally disagree that we can fund new programs by taking money from the very poorest of families.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. H. HODDER: And make no mistake about it, we are not letting the children of this Province share in the opportunities that have been given to them by the Federal Government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Does the hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi have leave?

By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for making available a copy of this statement. I see that the minister's spin doctors have finally gotten to her and she seems to now be fully aware that the federal Finance Minister, Paul Martin, insists that the Province claw back every dollar that is given in the child tax benefit to a family from the provincial Social Services. She now finally is aware of that and says it in disguise in this Ministerial Statement. This is the minister who, while she complains about disincentives in the social assistance program, has clawed back, by her policy initiatives last year, the income tax provisions for social assistance recipients who happened to have a job in the previous year.

Mr. Speaker, what I see here is this minister cheerleading on the Federal Government who has, over the past several years, removed $7 billion from social transfers, deeply affecting this Province which had at least some protection under the Canada Assistance Plan, which has been removed. And there has not been a whimper out of this government, or the previous government, about all of that. Mr. Speaker, what we need is an improvement. We need programs for children. We need programs for children on social assistance, we need programs for children who are not on social assistance but we also need to improve the basic level of social assistance. A family of four, Mr. Speaker, is required to spend 85 per cent of the basic social services budget in order to have a nutritious food package. That is a statistic released by the Newfoundland Dietetic Association and the minister ought to take that seriously when she looks at the level of basic social assistance that her government gives to people who are required to live on in this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier.

Premier, your government, in its program review for parks, clearly states that the privatization of public parks in the Province was not advisable, particularly this year because of the Cabot 500th celebrations. Why did you decide to go against your own staff recommendations and privatize, risking turmoil with accommodations this year?

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

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the hon. member that no parks are being closed this year. These parks are being privatized. We have, to this date, more than 300 responses of enquiries of people who are interested in looking at taking over these parks.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS KELLY: The document to which you are referring was a document that was put together at the very beginning, before the end of last year's tourism season when stats were not even known, that was put together. We sought all opinions from all our staff right through the system, from the park ranger to the directors in the department, to the deputy ministers, to Cabinet ministers and on to Cabinet. We have to recognize that when we are looking at program review and looking at change, we look at everything, we considered everything. We know that this is a good year for these parks to be privatized. Actually, I think any private entrepreneur or any employee who will take over these parks will know that there was a fair chance given to them in this year when we expect huge increased numbers of tourists in this year and we have very, very adequate numbers of camping spaces available.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The last fifteen you privatized, five are now closed. I say to the minister, five are closed to date. Parks and natural area division -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: This document, Mr. Speaker, September 27, 1996, is an extensive document by parks and natural areas division program review. I ask the minister: Does she have another document that she can table that gives us more up to date and more current information than the one that her staff prepared for her?

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

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, the documentation I think has been out there. The research has been shown. We have been providing to all of the MHAs, to all of the employees, to every entrepreneur, all of the facts and figures, all of the revenue figures, all of the equipment that goes with these parks, the land mass that goes with these parks, all of the information that you request is available and much of it has been discussed on television and in the newspapers for the last two weeks.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Premier, in thousands of tourist information guides - paid by taxpayers of this Province and published quite recently - it has detailed information regarding our parks. It was provided to tourists across North America and the entire world. Now that the parks are up for sale, this information is outdated and the plans of thousands of tourists are in jeopardy. I ask him, what was government thinking? Now why did this government waste thousands, in fact hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars? Why did you make a decision in haste to close those parks, jeopardizing what your government has called the most important tourism year in our history?

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

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to outline to my hon. colleague that first of all the parks are not closing; the information in our documents is certainly not outdated; that when tourists come this summer - when they come to these parks, do you think we are going to burn them down, or...? What do you anticipate we are going to do with out parks?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS KELLY: They will be used this summer, and used well.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

One-third of the ones that government attempted to privatize are now closed, I say to the minister, with people coming from all around the world. There are even operations and bus tours that have booked to enter provincial parks in this Province that could be closed when they arrive, I say to the minister.

Now, will the Premier confirm that just one day prior to the park privatization announcement -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: The minister might be taking a walk in the park very soon.

- that $30,000 worth of promotional material was spent on our provincial parks, information that was delivered to the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation one day prior to this announcement? Will the Premier confirm that this costly material, now outdated, is going to sit in boxes, unused?

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

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I really need to understand again why you would consider this information to be outdated. These campgrounds, all these picnic tables, everything, will be there. The barbecues will be there, and the grates will be on the barbecues. This information is not outdated.

Furthermore, we have to outline that we have national parks in our system. We have two very good national parks. Forty-eight per cent of the camp spaces that are available in this Province at the moment are already in private parks. We have a very adequate number. The bus tours that are booked, and the people who are coming, we have not had any difficulties with accommodating.

AN HON. MEMBER: Give us the numbers.

MS KELLY: Some numbers for bus tours, for instance, I was talking to a young gentleman in early January - so several months ago - on the Northern Peninsula, who told me he had eighty bus tours booked last summer.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MS KELLY: Eighty.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, eighty was last year's number. This year, as of January 1, he had more than 200. We have people coming.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Can the minister tell us why she and the Premier, this government, went against their own departmental recommendations that stated - and it stated here specifically - adequate accommodations and diverse outdoor recreational activities will be crucial to the enjoyment of the people's visit this year. The park system will no doubt be utilized to the limits in response to these demands. For these reasons it would be unwise to close parks or experiment with extensive privatization during the 1997 season.

Why did you go against your own department's recommendations?

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

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to categorically state that I have not gone against my own department's recommendations. We are not closing parks. The accommodations that we have all over this Province, in our parks, in our hotels, in our B&B's, on our boats, everywhere, are very, very adequate and we are very proud of them, and there is a diversity of even campgrounds. In our private and our public and our national parks we have a great range of diversity. There is no reason for you to lay awake in the nighttime worrying.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have great reason to lie awake and worry, with a Minister of Tourism who has made so many blunders over the past few months. I have every reason to worry!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: When did your department change their mind or advice? Was it on the advice of Premier Malcolm that you changed your mind on those parks?

AN HON. MEMBER: The real Premier.

MR. SULLIVAN: The real Premier of this Province, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SULLIVAN: I ask the Premier: Can he tell us why students in this Province were given job applications for provincial parks just two weeks before the announcement that those parks were going to be closed and those job opportunities were yanked from them? I ask the Premier: Was that decision to privatize parks made in that two-week period after he made applications known, or did he already know it when he passed out those applications that the parks would not be operating?

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

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, in my department, we have Visitor Information Centres, parks, Commissariat House, museums. We offer a wide range of employment to students in the summer and I anticipate that this summer, with various government programs, through the private sector especially in the private tourism sector, that there will be many, many jobs for students this summer and something else that you probably do not need to worry about.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In case the minister did not understand the question, I will simplify it. I ask the minister: When students were given job applications, two weeks before the parks were announced to be privatized, did you know they were going to be privatized, or was that decision made at the last moment?

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

MS KELLY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to state as previously, that we are not closing parks. There are still jobs within the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for the summer. So, was I to make a decision that no students would have jobs this summer because we are privatizing some of our parks? I anticipate that many students will get jobs in the privatized parks, as well as throughout my department as in previous years, but more than ever, we will have jobs in the private sector. Already, the tourism establishments are pointing out to us that they are not even laying off in this season, that in the winter season, they still have staff on and anticipate hiring more than ever in the private sector this summer, and in government, we will continue to have jobs.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask the minister: Did you deal with integrity with students when you gave them applications two weeks before the announcement, or was it a last-minute decision to deal with those applications? They are government-funded, government-paid-for, government- selected students in those parks. Did you deal in honesty and sincerity and integrity with those students?

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

MS KELLY: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I did deal with integrity on this issue. Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The minister has admitted it was a decision made within two weeks of the applications going out. That is what the minister said.

Now, Premier, your minister has announced the privatization of public beaches and she has retracted it; she has also announced the privatization of a logger exhibit at Beothuck Park and retracted that. She has announced the privatization of parks that were donated to the people of this Province, a right that she should not have to do; she should not be allowed to do it. Now, the minister clearly does not know what she is doing.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to get to his question.

MR. SULLIVAN: I ask the Premier: Will he do what is right and honourable and reverse the decision on parks here in the Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the minister in question, is the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation in this Cabot 500 Celebration year. Now, let us look dispassionately, for a moment, at the facts.

Mr. Speaker, this year, the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador has been voted the No. 1 tourist destination in North America by the American Bus Association

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, the British travel writers have named the Cabot 500 Celebration, this year, the No. 2 event, internationally, in the world.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, at the prestigious advertising awards in New York a few weeks ago, the Newfoundland Advertising Campaign for the Cabot 500 Celebration won five gold international awards.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, what was to be a run of some eighty or ninety buses concurrent with last year's record on the Great Northern Peninsula, this year has become 200 bus tours on the Great Northern Peninsula. Mr. Speaker, some 40,000 conventioneers representing over 100 conventions in the City of St. John's alone is scheduled for this year, the Cabot 500 year!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, a record number of cruise ships is going to tour the ports of call of Newfoundland and Labrador this year.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, do I have confidence in this minister? Yes, I have confidence in this minister!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Minister of Education. The minister announced recently the lay-off of an additional 468 teachers in our Province. In fact, we have seen the reduction of some 1,700 teachers since 1991. That is in six short years, 1,700 teachers less operating in the schools in our Province. The minister continues to justify this through student enrolment decline. This type of mass reduction in educators cannot be an improvement for the children of our Province, and I ask the minister: Why is he decimating our education system? Why is he decimating our communities? Why is he threatening the very existence of rural Newfoundland? Because, when we have numbers like this, of teachers being reduced in our system, and when we have these kinds of reductions in our staff, it is only a matter of time before we will have school closures in these very communities that I am referring to. Why is he threatening the very existence of rural Newfoundland in these decisions?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the question, because it is a very serious and important topic. The reality of it is that in the questions asked, we are doing none of what the hon. member proposes.

As a matter of fact, for the record, it might be important to note that in the last five years, the student population in the Province of Newfoundland from Kindergarten to Grade XII, the reality is that we have a shrinking system. In fact, it has reduced in the range of 15.1 per cent over that period of time, and it has gone from student enrolments five years ago that were in the range of 127,000 down now to school enrolments that are below 106,000. The reality is that when you have less students in big numbers, because these are significant decreases, then you do not necessarily need the exact same number of teachers that you had before.

What has been happening is that the size of the teacher workforce and the size of the school population, from students and schools, are following basically a parallel track. We have a 15.1 per cent decrease in the number of students in our schools from K to XII; over the same period of time we have had a decrease in the number of schools that comes out to 14.6 per cent. There are schools closing in this Province every year by virtue of the fact that there aren't students to go into them any more. Finally, over the same period of time, the proportion of teachers available has shrunk by 14 per cent.

So the student population has declined by 15 per cent, the number of schools that are in the Province has decreased by 14.6 per cent, and the number of teachers who are still available to teach them has shrunk by 14 per cent. The government is signalling clearly we will provide professional, trained, dedicated teachers into the system to match the size of the system. When the system is shrinking, it stands to reason that there can be fewer teachers if there are fewer students and fewer schools.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When the population of this Province voted for reform, they voted for change. They were told the money saved would be redirected back into the system. Why has this government hoodwinked the population of this Province? I ask these particular questions of the hon. minister. Where are the real classroom reforms? Where is the action on the Canning report? Why is there nothing being done for students who require special education needs? Why is there nothing being done for students who have particularly advanced educational needs? Why is there a breach to the commitment to the children of this Province?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thought that the hon. member had been elected a year or so ago and had been in the Legislature and following the debate closely since, but he may have, in fact, missed some of the things that have been going on in education.

The reform was made clear to the public, and by this particular government, last year in the Budget, that we would concentrate, for last year, on reform of the administration of education. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it has occurred. On January 1 of this year, we formalized the moving from twenty-seven administrative school board units down to ten school board units. We did some administrative reform in the college system. There was some further administrative re-arrangement in the rest of the post-secondary system. What we are looking at now, and I invite the member to stay tuned for the government laying out its plan in a week or so in the Budget, that we have indicated we would concentrate very heavily and seriously on reforming the administrative delivery structure for the system first. That has largely been accomplished. Then we will clearly lay out a plan as to how we intend to see the rest of the reform agenda and the positive impacts on the students in the classroom unfolding over the next number of years.

Phase one and stage one was clearly concentrated upon, clearly delivered, and there has been an increasing level of satisfaction with respect to that restructuring at the board office level. Now we will focus our attention in the next years on the classroom issues, on the delivery issues that impact more directly on the students in the classes in the schools of the Province, and we will unfold that plan, most likely in the Budget next week, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

In view of the fact that the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board is not here, I will have to ask a question of the acting minister, but I am wary because the entire Cabinet may stand up in terms of acting. The question deals with HST. The chairperson, Senator Michael Kirby, said this morning: It is time for the provinces involved in the harmonization tax to look at giving provincial rebates to lower-income families. Have the government looked at that, and if they have, can they say today what provincial measures will be taken to ensure that low-income families, which will be definitely hurt by this tax, will not be hurt in perpetuity?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, we join the Opposition in missing the presence and the particular skill and guidance and capacity to inform that is represented by the presence of the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board in the House, and we look forward to the full text of his Budget Speech next Thursday.

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

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

The Premier really cannot answer or refuses to answer. Can he say that he will follow suit with his counterparts such as Premier Frank McKenna, Premier John Savage, and move expeditiously and quickly to introduce rebates to low-income families and, as a result, stop them from being hurt financially by this Harmonized Sales Tax, and ensure that the sales tax that he is introducing will not be borne by that group of individuals?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see the member opposite recognizing the tremendous benefit to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in seeing for the first time since Confederation, since 1949, a massive decrease in the overall sales tax burden of the Province, a reduction from 19.84 per cent down to 15 per cent. This is indeed the largest single reduction in the sales tax burden of the Province since 1949.

With respect to whatever measures may be taken in the interest of ensuring that low-income families in the Province are properly looked after, all I can say is that the member will have to wait. I would ask him to be patient and wait for the full statement of the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board in his budget presentation next Thursday. I can only tell you that the Minister of Social Services, with a particular responsibility in this area, the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, and indeed, all members of this caucus, have been working hard looking at these questions, and we hope to produce a good comprehensive plan next Thursday.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a very serious question for the Premier, a question that has been asked of me many times these last few days. The only way I can find out the answer, I guess, is to ask the Premier.

I would like to ask the Premier if the sixteen Cabinet positions in his government require that ministers be full-time members of the House of Assembly or as part-time duties if Cabinet ministers consider it acceptable by the Premier?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, given that I have no idea where this question is going I will sit down and wait for the next part of the question.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, it is a simple question.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South on a supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: I asked the Premier if his Cabinet ministers were required to accept full-time employment when they became Cabinet ministers or are part-time duties acceptable to the Premier? That is a simple question.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, most of them work double time or triple time.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon the Member for Bonavista South on a supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: I ask the Premier how he can justify to the taxpayer's of this Province, the poorest in all the Dominion of Canada, paying the Minister of Mines and Energy a Cabinet Minister's salary while he is out in the District of St. John's West actively campaigning on a full-time basis? I ask the Premier how he can justify that to the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, when I am forced, as I have to do on occasion, to justify seeing the payment of this member's salary who has just spoken it is easy to justify the salary of the Minister of Mines and Energy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South on a supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: My next question is to the Minister of Mines and Energy. I ask the Minister of Mines and Energy if he would do the honourable thing today and resign his position as Minister of Mines and Energy and not be out bleeding the taxpayers of this Province while actively campaigning, knocking on doors, in the district of St. John's West. We need a full-time member and not a part-time member in the front benches of this government.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, if I may be permitted?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: What are the major concerns that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have with respect to his portfolio? They want a minister who will be effective in ensuring that the great development of the Terra Nova project is moving expeditiously ahead. I ask you if it is moving ahead? Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is. They want a minister to ensure that the third oil field combined with Terra Nova and with Hibernia will bring to Newfoundland and Labrador 340,000 barrels of light crude production a day by 1999, fully 36 per cent of the total supply of Canada. Is that being delivered? Yes, it is.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, they want a Minister of Mines and Energy who will see to it that the largest and most technologically advanced smelter refinery complex on the planet earth is being built right here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Is that going ahead? Yes, it is.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, we want a Minister of Mines and Energy who will see to it that the transshipment of oil occurs right here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Is that going ahead? Mr. Speaker, if we were paying this Minister of Mines and Energy what he is worth we would bankrupt the Province for sure.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South on a final supplementary.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, the Premier makes my point exactly. The reason why we need a full-time minister is to bring in a tax regime for Voisey's Bay. The reason why we need a full-time minister is to implement and answer the taxpayers and the poor people in this Province when they go to the gas tank tomorrow and pay another five or ten cents per litre. That is why we need a full-time Minister of Mines and Energy, and I call on the Premier to be responsible and fill the seat with somebody who will be here full-time.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, let me in a more serious vein, more serious than the question deserves, give this answer. The Minister of Mines and Energy in every way, shape, and form, is fulfilling every part of his obligation as a member of the Cabinet and doing so in an extraordinary fashion. The member opposite should seek to emulate him in the carrying out of his duties.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Social Services. We have all heard a lot of talk about the tragedy in Canada of child poverty. Now, Mr. Speaker, the stats for Newfoundland and Labrador are alarming. While we agree on this side, that the federal initiatives are appropriate to get people back to work we have a real concern that we are taking food from the tables of the poorest families in this Province to fund these new programs. We are not giving them any less money but they are not getting their fair share. How can the minister justify taking money from the poorest of children to fund programs to assist the working poor, to give incentives to those who are out there willing to get jobs and able to find them?

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

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of all I would like to say that I think the member opposite is starting to understand the concept of National Child Benefit. It was designed and it is going to be used for low income earning families. That was what it was designed to do and that is what it will do.

I ask my hon. colleague across the way, what is wrong with assisting social assistance recipients to move into the workforce, when I might add - when, Mr. Speaker, let me say, that a single parent on average, on social assistance, with one child, receives an average of $500 to $1,120 a month on social assistance, when a single parent with one child working in this Province gets an average of $740? What is wrong with assisting those people into the workforce and giving them some security? I ask, what is wrong with that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period is over.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, with leave, if we have the consent of the House, I would like to take advantage if it is appropriate now.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

PREMIER TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to, on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, pay tribute to two former Members of the Legislature who passed away since last week, who met in this place, and I am referring to Mr. Gerald Hill, who was a veteran of politics in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, who passed away recently.

Mr. Hill was born at Wesleyville, Bonavista Bay, the son of Captain Sydney and Sophie Hill of Wesleyville. He joined the Confederation Life Insurance Company as an agent and rose up through the ranks of that company. He entered politics in 1960 and was elected in the District of Labrador South, which he represented for some thirteen years. He was a member of Mr. Smallwood's Cabinet for eight years, and served there without portfolio. Mr. Hill has made a contribution to the economic, social and political life of Newfoundland and Labrador.

On behalf of all members I would like to express condolences to his wife, Frances, to his daughter, Gerry Patricia, son-in-law Dr. Raymond Winsor, granddaughter, Victoria Winsor, and sister, Martha Andrews.

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to note the passing of a Member of the House, a more recent Member of the Legislature, indeed one who served with many of the members here today, and I am referring to Mr. Jim Kelland, former MHA for Naskaupi. Mr. Kelland was, by training, a veteran in the telecommunications field. He worked all over this Province and all over northern Canada before making Labrador his permanent home. He had been, while there, prior to entering politics, a Justice of the Peace. He had been publisher and, with his wife Louise, the creator of a newspaper in the north. He served as the Mayor of Happy Valley - Goose Bay, was a dynamic man who gave freely of his time in a wide variety of volunteer fields. He was elected to the House of Assembly in 1985. He served as a Liberal spokesperson in opposition to a variety of portfolio areas: public works, agriculture, northern development, tourism. He was a frequent critic and commented on the attempts to redevelop Churchill Falls; it was a great passion for him. He entered the Cabinet in 1989, became the Minister of Environment, and served there for the Wells' administration for several years.

Mr. Speaker, we want to express condolences on behalf of all members, and indeed the people of the Province, to his family, to Louise, to Jackie Holwell, to his children, James, John and Jennifer, and to acknowledge both the service of Jim Kelland as a son of this Province and a member of this place, and that service as well of Mr. Hill.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, join with the Premier in extending, on behalf of our caucus, condolences to the families of Mr. Hill and Mr. Kelland, and certainly to comment on their contribution, having spent a significant part of their life in service here in the House of Assembly and to the Province in general.

To their families and to their loved ones we certainly send our condolences during this difficult time over this past while.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker,

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to join with the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition in asking you, on behalf of members of the House, to send the condolences of all hon. members to the families of Mr. Kelland and Mr. Hill, who have served this Province's public life in the House of Assembly, and both of them in Cabinet. It is an unusual thing for citizens of this Province to have an opportunity to serve their Province in this way, and I think they deserve the recognition that we give them in recognizing that formally on occasions such as this, and I am pleased to join in the request to have you send condolences to their families.

MR. SPEAKER: In accordance with section 13 of the Auditor General's Act, I hereby table the Auditor General's Report on the John Cabot 1997 500th Anniversary Corporation.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of Finance, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Tax Agreement Act."

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition from approximately 250 residents of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, who are petitioning this House as follows:

WHEREAS poverty and its effects are serious problems for so many in this Province and things are getting worse - now, more than one-third of Newfoundland and Labrador children live in families on social assistance; and

WHEREAS child poverty and hunger are a sad reality which hurts children today and their chances for the future in education and in life. Hungry children cannot learn; and

WHEREAS a universal school lunch program would provide a stigma-free way of ensuring every school child a good, nutritional meal every day; and

WHEREAS school reform in the Province will result in very significant savings in education costs, thereby making funds available to improve the quality of education and the quality of students' lives;

WE, the undersigned, petition the House of Assembly to direct the government to establish a universal, comprehensive school lunch program for every school in Newfoundland and Labrador to help end child hunger and to give our children a better chance.

Mr. Speaker, these petitioners recognize the grave need that exists in our Province amongst children because of the effects of hunger. The recent report of the review of special education by Dr. Patricia Canning, recognized the grave need and the grave problem in this Province.

She devoted a whole chapter on poverty and education and said at the outset of that chapter, that Newfoundland and Labrador experiences the highest rates of both family poverty and adult literacy of all the provinces of Canada, and that the poverty rate for Canadian families in 1992, was 13.3 per cent but in Newfoundland, over 18 per cent of families representing over 38,000 children live below the poverty line.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Canning recognized that based on Statistics Canada reports of family incomes, it is estimated that at least 50 per cent of the school population is at risk of low educational achievements due to factors associated with low income in this Province. Mr. Speaker, this is a very, very serious problem.

The statistics alone, of course, do not tell the story. The story is of hungry children - children who do not have an adequate nutritional basis on which to learn, an adequate nutritional basis on which to be able to participate in the advantages that school is supposed to offer them for their lives and for their future.

This petition, Mr. Speaker, is signed and supported by people from all over the Province. I note some of the signatures are from Bonavista Bay, from Labrador, from various parts of the St. John's metropolitan area. The single parents at MUN have circulated this petition, Mr. Speaker, because they recognize that child hunger and child poverty is an especially difficult problem for single families and single parents. The poverty rate, in fact, for children living in single parent homes is estimated to be 73 per cent. Mr. Speaker, that is a very, very serious problem, one that must be recognized on many fronts - on many fronts. That is why I have criticized, as have others, the fact that the new child tax credit, once given to poor children, will be clawed back by the Province, but that, in a sense, is another issue.

Here is an opportunity - Mr. Speaker, when we see the savings that the Province is making in its Education budget, in school busing, in school consolidation, in changes in the student-teacher ratio resulting in another estimated $20 million to $25 million being saved on teachers' salaries this year or next year, there is plenty of money being saved within the education budget itself, that can be redirected to this program. And we are talking here, not about a program of volunteers; we are not talking about a program that can only exist where there is a charity-based organization in the community to make it happen. We need a program that is universal, that exists in every school in the Province regardless of the ability of the community to support that program with volunteer effort. It should be comprehensive, planned by, initiated by, and directed by the government of this Province to ensure -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: - that it takes place everywhere.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: That is what these petitioners want, Mr. Speaker, and I support it wholeheartedly.

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

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to rise today and speak to the petition that has been so ably presented by my colleague to the right.

Mr. Speaker, there is no greater tragedy in this country than the tragedy of child poverty. We should be, as legislators, ashamed of ourselves for managing the resources of this country so poorly that we have increased child poverty in the last ten years. Ten years ago we were saying that by this time, in 1996-1997, we would eliminate child poverty in this country. Instead, today there are more people in need in this country than there were ten years ago, more children who go to school hungry. The Williams Royal Commission report said it, the Canning report said it. We found out when we were doing the study for the special interests of children that it was said then. The parents said it, the teachers said it, the clergymen said it, and the public said it. They all said that child poverty is a major inhibitor to the growth and development of the children.

We know that children who go to school hungry behave just like anybody else. If we were to say, for example, to all of this House today: You come to this House and you do not have any breakfast, do not have any lunch, and you come in here in the afternoon and you sit here and you try to concentrate, put yourself in the position of a child, a six-year-old, a ten-year-old, who goes to school with no breakfast, has no money for lunch, and that child is expected to concentrate. Children are just like adults. They get irritable, they have poor attention spans, they have poor concentration, and it is shown that children of the poor have higher rates of absenteeism; they have the very high rates of school dropout. Why? They simply are not able to function. They do not have equal opportunity.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible) laughing at you?

MR. H. HODDER: We have a situation in this Province today where the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture laughs at the children. He is laughing at the children out there who are poor. He is laughing across the House here and making fun of the fact that we on this side would speak up for hungry children. He cannot have it two ways. He is either with and identifies with the poor of this Province, or he does not. In this particular case, by his actions in supporting the claw backs to the child tax benefit, he is saying it is okay to take from the poorest of the people in this Province to fund programs. He cannot have it both ways.

Mr. Speaker, we, on this side of the House, will be constantly speaking up for the children of this Province. We will support the kinds of petitions that have been raised here by my colleague. Until this government say they are going to give a fair share to the children of this Province, then they will not even have gone near to fulfilling their mandate they talked about in the famous Red Book. I did not see any ticks in the report card that talked about addressing child poverty - that was not there, no ticks for child poverty. In fact, maybe we should have given the report card on what is not there. We should have said: Here is what is not in the report card. The fact that we have 45,000 children going to school hungry today, that is the kind of stuff that we should see addressed, not those whimsical, nonsensical statements, and paying the $25,000 or $30,000 to prepare a report card that is self-congratulatory and, of course, says very little.

We should have put that kind of money into child poverty and then we probably might be able to do a little bit about it. As of now, we have situations where the children of this Province want food on their tables; they want food in the school system. Until we address that, then we cannot pretend to be really sincere about issues that affect the livelihoods of the youngest people in this country.

As I said earlier, children today who are hungry in childhood and have to do without food in childhood, these children will not have opportunities others have in adulthood.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to present a petition to the House of Assembly to ask the House to immediately reverse the decision on the privatization of the provincial parks. The petition reads as follows:

We the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador wish to petition the Provincial Government, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and the Premier to immediately reverse the decision to privatize the provincial parks, as they are the people's resource. We feel that this decision was made in haste without the consultation of the people of the Province, the people who own these parks.

Mr. Speaker, the program review which was dated September 27, 1996, I imagine people went to great lengths - it cost the Province a great deal of money to put together this program review, and the program review itself says that this year is not a good year to experiment with privatization of provincial parks.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister feels that this program review is no good? I wonder does she have any confidence in the people in her own department who have put together this program review. I wonder if she feels that the people who have conducted this program review were competent. Because throughout the review it states that the private operators do not operate parks at the same standard that the provincial parks are operated. Mr. Speaker, it states that 1997, being the year of the Cabot 500 Celebrations, and due to the influx of people expected into our Province, they do not recommend experimenting with privatization of parks this year. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the minister is going against her own review. She is probably as competent as she feels the review is itself.

The minister states that the parks are not going to close, Mr. Speaker. She says that these parks are not going to close. They are not going to burn the parks down, she said today. Well, Mr. Speaker, I wonder, if all of these parks are not privatized, is the minister going to guarantee us today in this House that the Province will remain the operator of these parks for the Cabot 500 Year? Is she going to guarantee that these parks will remain open even if the Province has to operate them as provincial parks?

Mr. Speaker, in 1995 there were twenty-eight parks cut from the provincial park system. Fifteen of them went for privatization and of those fifteen, in the program review it states that there are eleven still operating. Well, Mr. Speaker, I wonder, even if these parks are privatized, will they remain open this year? Because there are parks that are in the hands of private operators out there today that are not open. Mr. Speaker, there are parks out there, in the hands of private operators, that are not open.

Mr. Speaker, a couple of these parks had land donated by private individuals throughout the Province. These parks that had land donated by private families, by private individuals, what does the minister plan to do with this land that was donated by private individuals? Mr. Speaker, this is a sham, this is a disgrace. It is absurd and it is disgusting that this Province would privatize these provincial parks. These are the people's resource.

She states that 48 per cent of the campgrounds are now operated by private individuals. Mr. Speaker, the program review, throughout, is full of accusations that the private operators either do not have the resources or do not have the interest to put the money into the parks that the Provincial Government does, that they do not operate the parks to the standard that the Provincial Government is operating them.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder, seeing as how the minister has so much confidence in these operators now, why did she not have confidence in the private operators when she conducted the program review?

Mr. Speaker, the minister states that there is no need to lie awake at night and worry. Well, I will say to you today that the parks workers are lying awake at night worrying.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. OSBORNE: With leave, Mr. Speaker.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

MR. OSBORNE: Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member does not have leave.

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I stand to support the petition presented by my colleague, the Member for St. John's South.

MR. TULK: A good idea.

MR. E. BYRNE: I say to the Government House Leader, it is a good idea. It is too bad that he and his government have not taken the advice.

What the minister has said, I believe - and the minister is acting on behalf of Cabinet instruction; it is a government policy and she is the minister responsible, she is articulating that government policy - is that they are about to save $1.8 million. Is that correct? I believe it is $1.8 million with respect to the provincial park system.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible) projected.

MR. E. BYRNE: That is projected, right.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to look at two or three fundamental issues dealing with this very important issue that people are extremely upset about. The first one is consultation.

Over the last several months while program review was being conducted, people in this Province had no idea that the provincial park system was, in fact, on the table to be privatized. Two years ago, in 1995, another Minister of Tourism stood up in this House and closed twenty-one parks and said that we would save a little in excess of $1 million. As a result of that saving, we are going to redirect it into the provincial park system to upgrade the parks, to hold it, because it belongs to the people of the Province. Mr. Speaker, there was no consultation whatsoever, and that has infuriated many, many people who use these parks for recreation, for holiday purposes.

Secondly, I would like to talk about the idea of where these parks came from. When the minister announced that a number of parks would be privatized, people were upset for a legitimate reason. Our tax dollars have paid for those parks; they have paid for them dearly. It was a provincial park system put in place to attract tourism, controlled by the Province, controlled by the government, for the people of the Province. There is no rationale - no legitimate rationale - provided by the minister with respect to the privatization of parks.

Would it not have been better, like other provinces have done, and other states within America have done, to look at attracting commercial operations to come into the park to run concessions, to make the provincial park system more accessible, to offer more concessions?

Mr. Speaker, we, as a Province, do not have to sell or give away the provincial park system in order to accomplish what government wants to accomplish. If government wants to accomplish added attractions to the provincial park system that will bring in new tourists, if government wants those new tourists to come and spend new tourist dollars, it does not have to turn over to private interest the provincial park system.

Mr. Speaker, the minister has said publicly, and she said again in the House today, that the number of expressions of interest that they have received positive-wise has been overwhelming. There is no doubt, I say to the minister, that when you have a provincial park system with specific provincial parks that are so attractive in terms of a private initiative, there is no doubt in my mind that there has been a number of private investors or private groups coming forward to say, `We would like to have it'. They will make money on it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Will they?

MR. E. BYRNE: They know they will. That is why they are interested. It is the same rationale this government used to sell Hydro, because it was a good investment for the private sector. Everybody would be interested in purchasing that.

Another reason which is completely without foundation, she said that the provincial park system will be open, will be accessible, to the provincial park employees to take it over if they wish. Mr. Speaker, let us investigate that a little further. While the opportunity may be there, the limited resources of those employees to take it over are not there.

If you look at the parks that were privatized two years ago and asked just one question - one very simple, straightforward question: How many of the provincial park employees who were working in parks that were privatized two years ago, are actually working in those parks today?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Pardon me? All of them? Not according to the provincial park employees I have talked to. In parks that were privatized two years ago, a significant number of them are not working in those parks today.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Pardon me? What is that, minister?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: None of them, I would say. The minister was on a public show and talked about it. She said: I do not know the answer to that. The reality is that none of them are. The reason, simply put, is that government - the question that must be asked is what else is for sale in this Province. What else is for sale? I guess we will know within the Budget, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. E. BYRNE: Finally, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time is up.

MR. E. BYRNE: Finally, Mr. Speaker, I will say that there is no legitimate reason for the sale of these parks. We are nickel-and-diming the resource of the people, and people will not accept it. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

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

MS KELLY: I wish to respond to my hon. colleagues with some great disbelief at some of the statements that have just been made in this House. To begin with, I find it quite surprising that my hon. colleagues who call themselves Tory do not believe in privatization when, on many occasions in the past, they have clearly gone on the public record stating they do, and we have seen many supportive people in our Province state that we have to make choices. Our government had to make choices. That is why we did the program review. This is a result of our choices. We consulted with people in the pre-budget consultation. They said: health care, education and social programs were their priority. We are responding through program review and we have a very, very good privatization program put in place.

The reason, the last time that parks were privatized, why none of the employees are working in private parks, is because of the labour agreements that this government has in place. All of the previous employees in the privatized parks before were absorbed in our present parks system. Out of the ninety-two laid off employees this time, forty-seven will go to work in the core park system that remains. Three of the vacancies that presently are occurring will not be filled. We are working with all the employees who are interested in takeover of parks, and we are working with them in very clear, concise terms. We are outlining to them, working with them on business plans. We are working with both the union and Treasury Board to have severance packages that can enhance takeovers.

We know that our employees are the ones who have the experience and the training, and we will work with them. Many of them will work in partnership with concessionaires who are already into parks, or other private entrepreneurs. It is called public-private partnerships. Many of our employees are addressing that. Some are wanting to do this themselves.

We do have a system of parks left. I again reiterate, we are not closing parks. We will have a core system of thirteen parks, three keystone and ten campgrounds. We are not selling the people's land. No land will be sold. All the land that needs protection for ecological reasons will be protected. We are either leasing land or giving licences to occupy.

I find it absolutely astounding, your research on what other provinces have done. You obviously are not aware of the different labour contracts that are in place all through this country. In other provinces they are able to do this, they are able to privatize some of the operations within parks and contract them out, and then leave the parks in the provincial parks system. We have a labour contract in this Province that that is not possible to do, and that is why the approach we are taking is the correct approach. I would also like to point out to my hon. colleague that the people who made these decisions were competent. They were the people who work in my department; they were the program review committee. They are very competent people.

I also find it very insulting to the private entrepreneurs of this Province that you have the nerve to say that there will be no standards in private parks. We have some very, very fine standards in private parks. We have more than 300 people who are interested in proposals to take over these parks and we will work very closely with them.

Sure, our park workers are worried. Those who are unemployed in this Province are - we have a high unemployment rate. Sure, they are worried. But we are doing everything possible. Over half of them will go back into the core system. Some will retire through the early retirement program and some will want to work in partnership or alone to set up businesses. Is there anything the matter with becoming an entrepreneur? Is being an entrepreneur a dirty word all of a sudden in this Province? I would like to tell you that it is not, and we believe in assisting business, and in assisting our employees to take over business, and we will work very closely with them.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition of over 4,000 names. The petition reads: `Save our Mounties.'

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. FITZGERALD: I say to the minister, he can laugh at this, but this was a petition that was circulated around the area, and I say that many of his constituents signed the same petition. I do not have it, but I know they took part in the campaign, and rightly so. It reads:

We, the concerned citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador, are proud to have the members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police provide policing services to our communities.

We demand that our government consider the impact to the citizens of our Province of further reductions and/or elimination of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This issue is much too important to be decided by government alone and we ask that all citizens be consulted before any decisions are made.

Mr. Speaker, this particular petition was presented to me a number of months ago at a rally that was held in my district but it encompassed the district of Trinity North and some from the district of Terra Nova as well. I might add that it was the second biggest rally held in Bonavista.

AN HON. MEMBER: The first one.

MR. FITZGERALD: No, the biggest rally, not the first one, but the biggest rally was held on February 21, 1996. That was the biggest rally that was ever held in the district of Bonavista South, a day after the Premier had his, which was the smallest rally that was ever held there.

Mr. Speaker, not to be sidetracked, what these people are asking, what those 4,000 signatures are asking is for the minister to come out and consult with the people before he makes any decision on what policing is going to look like in rural Newfoundland in the future. The minister, in his wisdom, went out and met with the Superintendent of the RCMP sometime prior to Christmas, and at that particular time, indicated that while he would like to see two police forces continue to police rural Newfoundland and Labrador, it may be that we will have only one.

This same minister is the chairman of the Program Review Committee, Mr. Speaker, and right away the red flags went up: What is the minister trying to do here? So, some of the people in the rural districts, especially the committee members of the Crime Prevention Committees and other people who work very closely with the RCMP and saw the very valuable service they were providing, said: We are not going to stand for this. We are going to protest. We are going to parade. We are going to do whatever we have to do, in order to continue to have the RCMP police our towns and our communities. Because they felt they should have had a choice; they feel that you should not put a price tag on everything in this Province. Some things, Mr. Speaker, deserve to be considered without considering the cost of it - unless it is astronomical, then we have to be reasonable, I suppose.

The minister, in his usual bully fashion, said: This is wrong. We cannot allow the RCMP to go out and take part in demonstrations. We cannot allow police cruisers to be leading parades. I have to stop this. So the minister, in his wisdom, hopped on the plane and away he goes up to Ontario to see his federal cousin, the Solicitor General, Mr. Gray. He said: This has to be stopped. Send a directive down to the Superintendent of the RCMP and tell them they are not allowed to take part in this. They are not allowed to be out protecting their jobs.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I tell you, the demonstration that I saw was not a situation where the RCMP were protecting their jobs as much as the people wanting to be consulted and wanting to voice their opinion and have a say in who was put in the community to police and protect them. It was wrong for the minister to go out and announce those changes, announce what he considered, Mr. Speaker, as something that was probably happening or about to happen, without consulting the people.

Some of those RCMP officers were involved with the Cabot 500th corporation, heavily involved with volunteer groups in the community and all of a sudden they were sidetracked. What he did was remove a group of volunteers involved in community work, Mr. Speaker, working with the community, working with the schools, working with the churches, the Lions Clubs and the Legions. He took them out of doing community work and the red flags went up because now they have to go and see what they can do in order to fight for their jobs and protect their families.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, this had nothing to do with not wanting the Newfoundland Constabulary to police them -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

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

I am delighted to rise today on behalf of my colleague and support him on a 4,000 name petition - very significant, not something to laugh at, Mr. Speaker.

If you look around the Province, Mr. Speaker, when the RCMP started their campaign - which the minister did not want them to start - you saw very quickly what support the RCMP have around this Province. What the real shame of this debate is, Mr. Speaker, what the real shame is, is that it is unnecessary because we have two fine police forces in this Province, the RCMP and the RNC, both who have been in harmony in this Province for years and worked together. Mr. Speaker, more than police forces, these people in the communities, in the bigger communities and also in rural Newfoundland, are a very important part of those communities. The RNC and the RCMP are the two police forces that we can be proud of, one is a provincial police force and, Mr. Speaker, the RCMP is a national police force that we should all be proud of.

I, for one, grew up in a small town in Baie Verte, Newfoundland, where the RCMP were a big part of my growing up, especially in sports activities and other things throughout the town. Mr. Speaker, there was a lot of respect for the police force. Then again, on the other side of it, the RNC officers, I know quite a few of them, especially in the St. John's, Corner Brook and Labrador City area and, Mr. Speaker, I also know what their contributions have been to the community.

What bothers me about this entire debate, Mr. Speaker, is that we have to have the debate in the first place. From what I can understand, from talking to both groups, is that the bottom line, the fiscal dollar I guess, has never been proven. Which is right and which is wrong? Why was it done in the first place? The RCMP had their arguments, the RNC would have their arguments on it but both of them really were providing good services to this Province and they did not want to have to go campaign like the minister forced them to do. They did not want to go out in this Province - the RCMP has never done it, as far as I can understand and neither have the RNC. Mr. Speaker, they did not want to take that route.

I talked to some of those individuals, who I know personally, and they were annoyed that they had to take that action, Mr. Speaker. Basically the RCMP and RNC go about their duties, they perform them as well as they can and I would say, Mr. Speaker, that most people in this Province would commend them for their services but aside from their professional services, Mr. Speaker, it goes much deeper than that. What these people contribute to the communities that they live in, to the young people, with young people's programs, with sports and so on is much deeper than what they do as a profession. What they are really bothered with, Mr. Speaker, is this whole procedure and how the consultation process was not in effect. So we have to back step a little bit and look at what the whole reason was for this in the beginning. Like I just referred to, Mr. Speaker, the people I have spoken to, in both forces, said they wish they never had to take those routes.

Then of course we have the RNC (inaudible) against the RCMP, Mr. Speaker, which nobody wants. What they want to do is remain what they were, which was living in harmony, working in this Province in harmony and serving the people - what they were paid to do and doing a good job of it. Also, Mr. Speaker, a point was made that the RCMP have resources at the national level that compliment the RNC. They co-operate, Mr. Speaker, and use each other in the Province to provide the best service for the safety of the people in this Province.

The RCMP have access to the national resources which the RNC may not have in the Province and I am sure, on many occasions, Mr. Speaker, they have co-operated and collaborated and joined forces to do what they are put here to do and that is to fight crime, Mr. Speaker, here in the Province and in the country. So my whole point in my supporting this petition, Mr. Speaker, is that, No. 1, the RCMP and the RNC are two forces of which we can be very proud and served us in rural and urban Newfoundland very well over the years, and lived in harmony and co-operated with each other.

No. 2, Mr. Speaker, is: What was the reason in the beginning, why we started this, and why are we divided in our police forces having to go out in force to put forward their case, Mr. Speaker, in public and which they did not want to do? But I can assure the minister of this when he goes back to Ottawa, that he saw very quickly what the support of the RCMP has in this Province when he saw the motorcades and so on and I can assure him of this also: that the RNC have the same type of support. People are not judging RNC and RCMP, they don't want to because they believe we have two very good police forces of which we can be proud and that we support, Mr. Speaker, so the whole process was flawed from the beginning with lack of consultation and we should support both RNC and RCMP in this Province, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SHELLEY: - and I am sure that we could remain with two entities that can work in this Province for a long time to come. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition.

We, the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador wish to petition the provincial government, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and the Premier, immediately to reverse the decision to privatize the provincial parks as they are the people's resource. We feel that this decision was made in haste, without any consultation with the people who own the parks, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud today to present this petition in the House. I had the opportunity several days ago to attend a meeting where there were quite a number of people who were very concerned about provincial parks in this Province and the minister - unfortunately she is not here now - but the minister sent two people from her department to attend this meeting and to listen to the concerns of others. The minister had been invited to that particular meeting, Mr. Speaker, but unfortunately could not attend.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the people who were at that meeting were very concerned about the provincial parks in this Province, about the parks being privatized, and how some of these people who had, maybe two weeks holidays a year, spend them in our provincial parks and who spend every weekend that they can, Mr. Speaker, travelling to one park or another around this Province, and they were very concerned. As a matter of fact, one gentleman who was there with, I believe there were two children, raised the point: don't they realize that these parks belong to the people of this Province and the government should not have the right to take those parks away, to privatize them and to leave maybe, some of these people with absolutely nowhere to go?

Now the minister said, Mr. Speaker, she was astounded to hear some of the comments made by my colleague and, Mr. Speaker, I have to say that, I am astounded by some of the comments the minister made. I don't know how many phone calls the minister has received but I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, I have received quite a few. The next one I get that agrees with the privatization of the parks in Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, will be the first one. It will be the first one.

Now I realize that some of the members of course can take off at Easter and go to Florida for two or three weeks; some of them are very fortunate that maybe they can do that three, four or five times a year. I can't do that but certainly some of them can. I know that my hon. friend over there can, but some of the people over there, Mr. Speaker, should certainly listen to the people. They should certainly listen to some of their constituents who, by the way, have phoned me from every part of this Province and at this particular meeting, Mr. Speaker, referred to the provincial parks in this Province, as their trip to Florida, the two weeks of holidays that they get in the summer was their trip to Florida, or their trip to Bermuda, or their trip to wherever. That was their holiday, to take their families and go out and camp.

I was glad to see a reversal when they mentioned, certainly, Topsail Beach, with which I have been more than familiar for a goodly number of years. All of a sudden, I guess, a bright light went off and somebody realized the Rotary Club had been servicing that particular area of Topsail for goodness knows how many years. So it is amazing to stand here and hear the minister say that she is astounded. I think the only thing she should be astounded at is maybe her knowledge of exactly what was going on here. I wonder who made the decision. I wonder, was the decision made by Cabinet or was the decision made by Malcolm? I begin to wonder who is running the ship.

I will touch here briefly as well on the gravel pits. I also had numerous calls from people throughout this Province who do not even go to provincial parks, who actually go to gravel pits. Let me tell you something, Mr. Speaker; these people are just as clean and just as good citizens of this Province as anybody who goes to a provincial park or to a private park.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. FRENCH: By leave, Mr. Speaker?

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, I say to my colleague.

I would just like to say, and I will be brief, that I hope the government rethinks this. The people of this Province own the parks, they deserve the parks, and there is no way in this world that these parks should be privatized. Hopefully I will be back here day in and day out presenting such petitions until somebody comes to their senses.

Thank you.

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to support the petition so ably put forward by my colleague, the Member for Conception Bay South, in saying that the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador wish to petition the provincial government, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, and the Premier, to immediately reverse the decision to privatize provincial parks, as they are the people's resource.

Mr. Speaker, what a lot of people are upset about, about this privatization scheme with provincial parks - once again words that have been used from this side of the House many, many times - is the lack of consultation. Why weren't the people asked to put forward their suggestions of what might happen to those parks, or a way that they could improve the parks, a way they could make them profitable, a way that it could be done better?

The parks are costing us money, and there is no doubt they are. I do not think there are many parks around Newfoundland and Labrador today that are profitable. I do not think there are; I would be awfully surprised. If people take those parks over to operate them and try to make them profitable, I doubt very much if many of the people who use them now will be able to afford to use them because, as the member said, this is a holiday resort for many people in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Many people have their soft-top camper, or they have their canvas tent for the children, and they go out and set up in the park and spend their weekends there and form bonds with certain people from certain communities, and this is where they meet. This is their holiday, this is their resort, and they would like to be able to afford to continue to do that.

We saw the Minister of Government Services and Lands bring a piece of legislation through this House a few short months ago that was highly discriminatory against the poorer people of this Province when he came out and said: We are going to sell you your land now. We want $2,500 for your land. We will give you a little bit of time to pay, but if you want to go to that cottage that you enjoy so much going to, we are going to want some money for it.

I fear that if you leave the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs alone with his regionalization plan, you will find out that same piece of land that the Minister of Government Services and Lands sold to you a few short months ago you will now be getting a tax bill for, because it will be part of that regionalization scheme.

This is what government is doing. They are reaching out and trying to solve the problems of this Province, the financial problems of this Province, on the backs of the working poor and on the backs of the people, Mr. Speaker, who can least afford it.

We talked about gravel-pit camping, something which a lot of people in this Province enjoy. Not everybody goes to a provincial park. A lot of people go to their favourite meadow or their favourite pit. I will tell you that they are not people who go out and flick their garbage out in the ditch or take their waste disposal and throw it in the nearest stream, either. It is people, for the most part, who go out and clean up the ditches and clean up the pits. It is people who usually leave their camping area much cleaner than they found it. What is wrong with going out into your favourite gravel pit, I ask people opposite, and putting on a good feed of salt beef and cabbage? What is wrong with that? Nothing wrong with it. What is wrong with going out and seeing a bunch of Newfoundlanders being happy? I ask the people opposite.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: I say, yes, if you eat too much salt beef and cabbage, you begin to look like the fat cat of the Liberal Party, the `Old Suspenders' there, Mr. Speaker. There is more elastic on the Government House Leader than there is in a garter belt factory up in Ontario. A lot of elastic, I say, in order that he can keep it all together. The fat cat of the Liberal party knows. It would not be the first time he ate salt beef and cabbage out in the meadow, I can tell you, and he has it all there to show it, he has it all there to prove it. All you have to do is look at it. The pease pudding and the duff, nothing like it, I say to the hon. people opposite.

Why should we as Newfoundlanders be deprived of being allowed to continue on with that privilege? Why should we not be allowed to carry on with that tradition? All of a sudden, we get a government member who is taken from the municipal arena and put into the provincial arena and put in Cabinet, and wants to bring about all those changes.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FITZGERALD: Wants to bring about all those changes - wants to bring the Premier back.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: Does not know what it is to be a Newfoundlander.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FITZGERALD: Lived away from the Province for the last twenty years.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time is up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FITZGERALD: By leave, Mr. Speaker?

AN HON. MEMBER: No, because you are too nasty.

MR. SPEAKER: No leave.

MR. FITZGERALD: I shall return.

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

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

I did not think the member was being nasty at all, Mr. Speaker. He was making some very good points. I am sure he will have a chance to get up and make some good points again. I do not think you will see the last of these petitions, because people are right now, today, circulating -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. member presenting a petition?

MR. SHELLEY: I am sorry. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition.

I am presenting a petition to the House of Assembly:

We, the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, wish to petition the Provincial Government, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, and the Premier to immediately reverse the decision to privatize provincial parks, as they are the people's resource. We feel that this decision was made in haste without any consultation with the people who own the parks, the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, when I was listening to the minister make some comments a little bit earlier, I was surprised she was so upset. The minister was really getting upset. The first thing she made comments on was not on the parks, it was on privatization. I support privatization of many things, but not everything. What we have to do is consult the people - especially when you talk about our own resource - before you privatize. This was pulled out of thin air at the worst time possible in our 500-year history. Before we even get into the pros and cons of whether to privatize the parks or not - that is another issue - the first thing we have to look at is how this came about.

Here we are, about to go into the 500th birthday of this Province with thousands of people coming to the Province. I would like to add, the Premier does not have a monopoly on saying he is pleased about this. We are all pleased - delighted. Down in my district I hear the Matthew is coming in to La Scie and there are going to be lots of people coming to the District of Baie Verte. In Green Bay and King's Point they have Come Home Year. As a matter of fact, out of forty-eight Come Home Years in the Province - or sixty, so far, I know of sixty that are officially -

AN HON. MEMBER: There are ninety-three to this point.

MR. SHELLEY: - ninety-three - okay, we have gone to ninety-three now; the minister said sixty the other day, but ninety-three Come Home Years - eight are in my district alone, Mr. Speaker. I am delighted about the crowds of people who will be coming. Everybody is delighted about that. The government does not have the monopoly on being happy that there are people coming. I am delighted that there are eighty busloads going up the Northern Peninsula.

That is not the point, Mr. Speaker. What got the people frustrated at a public meeting the other night - and I will be attending one in Central Newfoundland on Monday - is, people are upset that this came out of thin air right on the eve of the biggest celebration in 500 years in this Province. Why now? That is the question we have to ask, Mr. Speaker. And then the minister, all of a sudden, related back to the consultation process that the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board did. Now, I do not know about the minister, but to everybody I know who attended the consultation meetings of the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, provincial parks were never ever mentioned. Now, I can be corrected on that. Maybe the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board could tell us when he comes back to the House, but as far as I understand, Mr. Speaker, the privatization of provincial parks was not even uttered, not one word - or very little, if any, Mr. Speaker. I think Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador made one reference to it. But, Mr. Speaker, out of the whole consultation process, that is very little. There was no consultation on the privatization of parks.

Another point I would like to make, and it is probably at the heart of it, is that we talk about the parks and what is in them. Well, let me tell you, whether the numbers are up or down, the numbers of people who use the park love what they see. That is their Florida trip, Mr. Speaker, when they go the parks in the summer. Like a man said the other night at this public meeting, when he takes his three kids, he said, they go to a different park every summer across the Province and they enjoy the quiet, pristine environment that they find at the park. They cannot go to Florida. He said they could not afford to go to Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia. But I am glad to hear, he takes the opportunity to go and visit the different parks around this Province.

In my district, Mr. Speaker, the beautiful park at Flatwater, the tourists come down there and the numbers are up some years and some years they are down. I take advantage of going in there if not to camp, some days just to have a cook-up or a boil-up. That is what people enjoy. They do not want to go into a Wonderland up in Ontario. They go to the park because that is what they like, and for the amount of money we are talking about in this budget, $1.8 million, Mr. Speaker, I wonder what kind of improvements could have been done to the park so that the numbers did go up and that we could benefit better from the resource. But that is something that should be questioned, talked out, consulted upon, and if we are going to do anything with the parks, involve the people who use them most, like the gentleman at the public meeting in Torbay the other night - that is the point he made. He said: I am one of those people - and maybe there are not a lot around - but I frequently use the parks; my family, my kids enjoy it.

Mr. Speaker, I received a letter today, by fax, which a lady from my district sent me. A six-year-old wrote the letter to the minister, and I am going to give the minister the letter. This six-year-old little girl wrote and said how much she enjoyed the parks and wanted the minister to keep the parks open. Now the minister begins by saying we are not going to close the parks. Mr. Speaker, the next question, which will be a long time in debate, is: What happens after they privatize? That is what I want to ask the minister. How can she assure us that they are going to remain parks, they are not going to (inaudible) or whatever?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Speaker, the debate has only just begun and I think it is going to be a long debate.

AN HON. MEMBER: On a point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member, on a point of order. Does the hon. member have a point of order?

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

MR. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am going to speak to this petition.

MR. HARRIS: (Inaudible).

MR. OSBORNE: Okay, I will give the hon. member leave to speak to this petition, as I have done so already.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: I want to thank the Member for St. John's South for his co-operation. I would say to the Speaker that I was indeed standing first but I appreciate the Member for St. John's South giving me an opportunity to address this petition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the issue of the privatization of our park system is one that has struck a note, a chord, with the people of this Province for a number of very, very good reasons.

I, along with many of them, was shocked that the Province would announce this without any consideration of the wishes and desires of the people of this Province who have paid the cost of building up this park system. Now, Mr. Speaker, our parks belong to the people of this Province, who at least have an opportunity to have access to the wilderness that is protected by these parks. People want to be able to experience the outdoors and the wilderness without the risks that might be involved in going into the woods holus-bolus, and perhaps being in the same area where hunters are at work or perhaps other dangers are lurking, or where it is unregulated wilderness, but they have access to wilderness in the parks system.

The parks are there, people know that there are wardens on duty; people know that there is special protection and look-outs for forest fires, people know that there are wardens available in case there are emergencies, that they can experience the outdoors with their families, experience the wilderness and, at the same time, have access to official government-sponsored, government-provided employees who are trained and specialized in bringing the outdoors to families, protecting them from intruders, and protecting them from others who want to disturb their enjoyment of the outdoors.

They are a very special kind of park, Mr. Speaker. They are not amusement centres. They are not, by themselves, tourist attractions. They are opportunities for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to enjoy part of their heritage. That is what they are there for, and the people of this Province expect to be able to go to them and enjoy that part of the wilderness in various parts of the Province.

I have been to many provincial parks, Mr. Speaker, and the one that I remember from a long time ago, which thankfully, at least this government does not want to privatize immediately - if we wait until next year they will probably have a go at that one - is the Sir Richard Squires Park. I remember way back in the 1960s being able to go to that park and see the salmon jumping the falls there. It was a natural wonder that has remained with me all my life.

MR. FLIGHT: For a city boy.

MR. HARRIS: For a city boy, as the Member for Windsor - Buchans said. You have changed your district now. He has left Buchans behind. After having lived there and represented the district, he has left them behind and now he has gone to Springdale. The Member for Windsor - Springdale said, for a city boy to be able to enjoy the wilderness was a remarkable thing, and that is important. I think, not only city boys and city girls, but everybody in this Province likes to be able to travel around and enjoy the wilderness through our park system. So to go ahead and privatize that without any planning, without any consultation with the people who want to keep this wilderness, is a very, very negative thing and one that shocks the consciousness of the people of this Province as to what this government is capable of doing.

What is coming next in the Budget, Mr. Speaker, if this is what they are doing and announcing before the Budget is even down? Do we have other things to fear in terms of what this government is prepared to do with our public services - with our hospitals, with our school system, and with our public services in general, if this is what the government is prepared to do with our parks?

Mr. Speaker, I join with the petitioners in condemning the government's action and ask that government reverse this policy as soon as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. TULK: Motion No. 1.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I have received a message from His Honour The Lieutenant-Governor.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Newfoundland, transmit estimates of sums required for the public service of the Province for the year ending March 31, 1998 by way of Interim Supply, and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution Act 1867, I recommend these estimates to the House of Assembly. A. M. House, Lieutenant-Governor.

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I move that the message, together with a bill, be referred to the Committee of Supply.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that the message, together with a bill, be referred to the Committee of Supply.

All those in favour, `Aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Those against, `Nay'. Carried.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. CANNING: I ask leave to report on behalf of the Select Committee to the Speech from the Throne.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave! By leave!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member has leave.

MR. CANNING: On behalf of the Select Committee appointed to draft a reply to the speech of His Honour The Lieutenant-Governor, I am pleased to present the report of the Select Committee as follows:

To His Honour The Lieutenant-Governor, the hon. A. M. House. May it please Your Honour: We, the Commons of Newfoundland and Labrador, in legislative session assembled, beg to thank you, Your Honour, for the Gracious Speech which Your Honour has addressed to this House.

I have signed it, along with the other two members of the Committee.

On motion, report received.

CHAIR: Bill 2.

The hon. the Minister of Justice.

MR. DECKER: Mr. Chairman, this is the Interim Supply Bill. As hon. members know, about this time every year, the House asks permission to have a similar bill passed. The 1997-1998 Interim Supply Bill, as presented to the House of Assembly, makes provision for three months' supply, from April 1, 1997 to June 30, 1997, with a total allocation of $1,019,465,700. This amount provides for the payment of essential expenditures and to fund ongoing current and capital programs and projects, inclusive of the payment of government salaries, including the salaries and allowances of members opposite, and members on this side of this House, as they go about Her Majesty's business from time to time - government salaries for seven pay periods, applicable to the 1997-1998 interim supply period. I am quite pleased to hear hon. members' few brief comments on this bill. I am sure we should have it through within a half-an-hour if other years are any indication.

MR. TULK: I think, 4:00 p.m. Three minutes.

MR. DECKER: Three minutes.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am pleased to rise today to have a few comments. I do understand, the tradition of the House is that we will speak back and forth on ten-minute intervals; that has been the general rule and I assume that is the rule that will apply during the Interim Supply debate.

Mr. Chairman, we note that the government's request is relatively comparative to what was there last year, with some divisions and departments a little more and some a little less, than they were last year. I assume throughout the debate that members on the opposite side - in particular, when the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board is able to get an opportunity to address this matter, that he will do a comparison between the various expenditures of last year in the subheadings and the expenditures that are being requested this year.

We understand the Interim Supply Bill is necessary, because the government delayed the opening of the House until March 10. In effect, this is the first day that the House has been really in active session. This is March 13. Traditionally, the House has opened up in the latter part of February, but for whatever reason, this year it did not open until, as I said, in effect, March 13, although officially the House opened on Tuesday, March 11.

Now, Mr. Chairman, if we had opened the House a little earlier, we would probably have had the Budget presented by this time. Then we could have gone to compare the various expenditures in a total comprehensive manner. What we are doing today is giving the government, I guess, a bit of a blank cheque, because we only have the categories listed here. We have no details offered. We are being asked to approve 25 per cent of the next year's budget with only the headings shown. Now, Mr. Chairman, for that reason we will be using some of the time in Interim Supply to debate a wide variety of issues but we would love to have more breakdown of the details because then we could get very specific in terms of the kinds of questions that we would like to ask.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we know that this particular government has failed to address many of the issues out in Newfoundland and Labrador today. For example, the issue of job shortages, now the underlying premise of the Minister of Social Services is that there are lots of jobs out there and that there are people out there who will not go and take jobs that are available. That is the kind of premise on which I guess all of the Ministers of Social Services across the country and all of the people connected with the territories and federal government seem to operate on nowadays.

What I find is that nobody has presented any evidence to show that those people who receive social assistance help are any more reluctant to accept jobs than anybody else. So, Mr. Chairman, we operate on assumptions. We operate on premises and as a consequence we find that the Minister of Social Services, in this Province today, is saying that you can get your child tax benefit -with the increase that is coming in - providing that you do this, this and something else but I am sorry if you are not going to take a job. If you are not out there trying to take a job that pays you $5.50 an hour than you are not going to get any benefits. I always thought that poverty centred around the inability of people to put food on their tables. There are people who say no you can't have a pair of skates and go to the local arena and participate in recreation activities like all f your friends in your class or in your neighbourhood.

So, Mr. Chairman, I find it very disconcerting that a philosophy prevails in this country and in this Province in particular, that says that we believe, the minister seems to believe, that there are lots of jobs out there, good paying jobs, and that the people who receive social services benefits won't take them. Now I see absolutely no evidence of that, not one little smidgen of evidence, not even a snippet, not even a little tiny tinge of evidence to show that people on social services are any more reluctant to take jobs than anybody else. In fact, the people in my constituency - I have some people who unfortunately do receive social services benefits - they call me all the time looking to see if I can help them find a job.

Mr. Chairman, the federal Liberal Government got elected in 1993 on a promise of jobs. In fact, when Kim Campbell said that she believed that the unemployment rate would stay around 10 per cent for the balance of the '90s, the Liberal leader, the hon. Jean Chrétien scorned that. He said: no, no, no, we can't accept that. So he told the people of Canada: you vote for us and we will give you jobs, jobs and more jobs.

Mr. Chairman, I want to address the issue of jobs. I know that members opposite don't want to be reminded. It is that one of their functions is to provide a climate in which people can find meaningful employment in this Country and in this Province.

Mr. Chairman, the federal Liberals got elected on a promise of jobs and job strategies. Unfortunately, nearly four years into their mandate, unemployment in this Province is as high as or higher than it has ever been. Unemployment in this country is as high as or higher than it has ever been.

Mr. Chairman, in Newfoundland and Labrador we have an out-migration rate that is a threat to the integrity of our population in rural Newfoundland. You only have to drive around rural parts of this Province and notice the number of vacant houses. I spoke to a school principal the other day in a little, small community, who told me that since last fall he has lost thirteen students. Unfortunately, in that school there are only 100 students; and that says something. We are losing our youngest, our brightest, the people of tomorrow, the people who are going to be in their childbearing years - some of them are in their childbearing years -we are losing those to other parts of this Country.

We need in this Province, before the Minister of Social Services says that she is going to penalize the poor of this Province, before she behaves more like the Earl of Nottingham and takes from the poor to give to the rich - in this case she is taking from the poor to give to the poor - we know that strategy might be a national strategy, but it is based on two false premises. It is based on the premise that there are lots of jobs out there, and it is based on the premise that people who receive social assistance, those on welfare, do not want to go to work. I see no evidence of any of these. I see no evidence to show that people who are on social assistance refuse to take jobs. On the other hand, we know that there are already some incentives in place. To the credit of some of the governments, they have some incentives in place now.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. H. HODDER: By leave, Mr. Chairman, to clue up?

CHAIR: I would like, at this time, to announce the questions for the Late Show, for the Adjournment Debate.

The first question is to the Minister of Social Services, regarding the Child Tax Credit, from the hon. Member for Waterford Valley.

Question number two is to the Minister of Education regarding my question on education cuts, and that is from the hon. Member for St. John's East.

Question number three is to the Acting Minister of Finance regarding my question on the HST, from the hon. Member for Kilbride.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just take a moment to clue up. I was addressing the issue of jobs, the lack of jobs, the issue of out-migration, and the issue of the child tax benefit.

As we have said in this House, the very fabric of our society is under attack. We know that the Minister of Social Services has been planning some strategies commonly known as the Strategic Social Plan. We are hopeful that her strategy in the Strategic Social Plan is a little fairer, a little more reasonable.

I would finally say to her that when she got elected, she got elected on a promise for a brighter tomorrow. I would say to you, for the people who are on social assistance, their brighter tomorrow is not going to be very bright when they find that they are going to claw back the child tax benefits the same way that we have reduced the social assistance emergency fund last year, the famous $61.

We have cut back and cut back and cut back. The people on social services did not create the situation that we face in this country. They are the victims; they are the victims of the system. They did not create the unemployment we have; they did not create the fact that we have so many poor families. They are the victims of these things and because of that, Mr. Chairman, I would say to the minister: reconsider, reconsider the strategy that you have which is basically a strategy that we are going to take money from the poor to fund a program to assist the working poor. We have not made any allowance at all for families where people, not only can they not find work, they can't work.

What do you say to a mother who is receiving social services because the father in the family has been injured or is ill? We are saying to that family: no, no, no, no, you can't have your child tax credit because that will put you over the minimum amount of money that we believe you should be receiving, therefore that family gets fewer dollars. Ask yourself the question: Is that fair? Is that reasonable? Is that, what we would like to have done to ourselves? Basically, if we were to say to ourselves: will we like that done unto us and you know, if you wouldn't like that done unto you, what gives you the right to impose that kind of decision on someone else? None of us here would like to have the money that we receive clawed back and yet, this government, as legislators, do not find it in their conscience to be compassionate to the very poorest families in Newfoundland and Labrador, and we want to say to the Minister of Social Services in particular, that, the minister's mandate is to be a champion, a champion for the have-nots.

What is happening now is that she has kind of reversed the role a little bit. The people of this Province expect the Minister of Social Services to stand up for them, to be their advocate, to be there and to say that I am going to be there for the very poorest of families. The minister says no. We were going to give you this amount of money that is going to bring you beyond some kind of threshold and when you get there we are going to claw it back, we can't make our poor people too well off; we can't have poor people with the ability to be able to put, you know, something in the lunch tins for their children going to school, we can't do that. We can't make sure that they have good footwear to wear, and God forbid, if a poor child should ever be able to afford a bicycle or be able to have skates or be in minor hockey because these things cost money, and so we have developed in this country a social fabric which is designed right now to keep the poor perpetually poor.

We have institutionalized poverty in this country, and then of course, my colleague, when he gets a chance to speak in a few moments, he will be addressing the initiatives of this government on the harmonized sales tax and what that means to people who are poor. So, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the children of this Province, we say to hon. members on the other side, in your caucus speak up for those who are not able to speak for themselves. Speak up for those who have no voice. Speak up for the young children.

I don't hear the voices of the poorest children being very well heard in the Caucus of the members opposite. So I say to these people opposite, think about it. Would you want your grandchildren treated like that? If you don't want your children and your grandchildren treated the way that the minister proposes to treat the poorest people in this Province than you have no right to impose that kind of decision making on anybody else. That is the bottom line.

Mr. Chairman, with these few comments, my introductory comments, my preliminary comments, I will conclude and permit my colleague from Kilbride to address some of the other issues.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

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

MR. TULK: My member is up now.

MR. E. BYRNE: Yes, there is no doubt. One of my most belligerent constituents sits on the other side of the House, always calling, always phoning, and always nagging: Can you do this for me? Can you do that for me? He is the Government House Leader. I tried to explain to him on Sunday night when he called that he was the Government House Leader and I was on the Opposition side, Mr. Chairman, but I don't mind. I don't mind at all. I did get a vote from his house, not two of them but I know I got one of them on February 22, a little over a year ago. I knew that.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Well we had somebody up at your house who voted for me. Oh definitely sir, definitely. How they got there, how they ended up living there I don't know. Election Day, we got a call from Chesley Drive. The Member for Fogo lives there. We got a call from Chesley Drive: Come up, come on up, we are going to vote for Tories in Kilbride! Right from the minister's house we got a call. We sent up the driver, picked him up, walked him down, in he went and voted, he marked his x for the successful candidate in Kilbride, for the successful candidate.

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. TULK: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I know that the hon. gentleman does not want to mislead the House. I am absolutely certain of that because my member would not do that. He would not mislead this Legislature otherwise he would not be worthy to be my member. The truth of the matter is, that 12 Chesley Drive, in last year's election was all closed down, basement and the whole works because they were all out in Bonavista North voting for your constituent.

CHAIR: No point of order.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. E. BYRNE: No point of order, exactly.

Well all I can say to the hon. Government House Leader is that if it was a mistake - it must have been 10 Chesley Drive. I understand now that if there were Liberals in 12 Chesley Drive, I understand now why it was all closed down and shipped out of Kilbride somewhere else.

Mr. Chairman, it is nice to be back for the spring sitting of the House of Assembly. Although it does not appear that it is going to be opened very long. I am still looking forward - well all indications from the Premier certainly are that he would like to be out of here before the Queen comes. Normally we open the House the middle of March, normally open the House. We take a ten to twelve day break normally for Easter then we head off - we come back around the middle of April or shortly after Easter and we are normally here until around June 21 or 22. However, the closing of the House certainly is yet to be established and this is the first day it is opened and we will see what the legislative agenda of the government is going to be. We are going to see what great new initiatives, Mr. Chairman, are coming forth from the government and where there are great initiatives and where they need to be supported, Mr. Chairman, let me say now, that this member will support them. If there initiatives that are in the public interest that benefit the public then we will support them

Mr. Chairman, let me say now that this member will support them. If they are initiatives that are in the public interest, that benefit the public, then we will support them. But if they don't benefit the public interest, if there is little concern for the public in terms of what government's legislative agenda will be, well then we will be holding them accountable.

One of the recent initiatives that is taking place, that will occur on April 1, is the Harmonized Sales Tax. There has been much debate about the sales tax, its implications on society, its implications upon classes of people, those who are in lower income brackets, those who are in higher income brackets. Let me say for the record that this party supports one sales tax. We support a harmonized tax, no question about it. But I will say this, that when it comes to the tax inclusive pricing of the deal, that is where some of our sort of philosophy on it begins to take big -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: No. I said I support a harmonized sales tax with some qualifiers, and I'm about to enter into it. There is no doubt the benefit of a harmonized tax, what it will have for society in general.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Definitely. I have no problem in saying that. I said it last year when I asked questions. Where I do take some exceptions -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Yes he does. There are exceptions that must be made. I don't support a harmonized sales tax that introduces for the first time a tax on children's clothes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: You can have it both ways; there is no doubt about it. I don't support a sales tax that doesn't provide rebates to the lower income people in society where that sales tax will not benefit them, will have a direct negative impact on them.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Nothing wrong with that. According to The Record to Date, legitimate questions need to be asked about this record. But according to The Record to Date the Liberal government has said that it has had its cake and it has eaten it too. So there is nothing wrong with that, I say to the Government House Leader, nothing wrong with it at all.

The Premier today in questioning alluded to the fact that there may be some relief coming in the budget; alluded to the fact that there might be some rebate, possibly.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Don't need to give me credit. As long as the credit goes back to the people who are marginalized by the tax, that is fair enough for me.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: No, wouldn't say it. He knows that; would not say it. But the Premier alluded today that there may be some relief, some rebate.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Chairman, last Sunday I was in church and the parish priest sent me down - in the bulletin there was a little sort of spoof or joke about - and it is pretty appropriate. Because when I first read it I thought about the Government House Leader. I couldn't help but think about the Government House Leader. This little thing in the parish bulletin, a politician died and went to heaven. Got to the Pearly Gates, talked to St. Peter and he said: St. Peter, why are there so many clocks in heaven, and why are all of them on different time? St. Peter said to him: It's very simple, Beaton. Everybody in life has a clock, and for every time that you sin the clock ticks faster. Beaton said: St. Peter, do you know where mine is? He said: Yes, Beaton, I do. It's in the kitchen, and we're using it for an exhaust fan.

It was pretty appropriate. But when it comes to the HST, this morning the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board clearly indicated a number of things. The first one he indicated was government's own review, and I will quote it: The amounts in most cases, even if you could identify them, would be so small as to whether one might justify if one could do it or not. He was dealing with this form of rebate that the other two provinces in Atlantic Canada are dealing with to try to alleviate, to try to, I guess, offset what the negative impact will be, certainly on the lowest group in society in terms of the financial impact on them.

Here is what he said. The minister said clearly and unequivocally this morning: we are looking at it but presently our analysis shows that all income groups from $10,000 upward are going to benefit, or will benefit economically as a result of harmonization. So, my question is simple, and is one I am sure that the Minister of Social Services has asked, and will continue to ask her Cabinet colleagues, what about those people who receive $10,000 or less? Our analysis shows that anybody who is receiving $20,000 or $25,000 household income with a family of four will stand to lose upwards of $3000 or $4000 per year as a result of harmonization. That is a lot of disposal income, but where is it coming from? What will happen to the social service recipients if there is no rebate? Seven per cent on an average light bill of $200 a month significantly adds up at the end of the year when $20 is a lot of money.

Mr. Speaker, the impact on the Province at the end of its agreement with HST. Where will we make up that revenue, the lost revenue of some $150 million, the revenue that we require to keep hospital beds open, to maintain services, to keep roads cleared, and to build new roads? Where does the Province expect to make up that lost revenue? These are questions I know that all members of the House, because no one has a monopoly on compassion in this Assembly, nobody, so I suspect that all members are asking the same fundamental and basic questions when it comes to the HST and the impact it will have upon people living in their districts and thus the people living in the Province?

The question, simply put, at the end of the day when this Province, at the end of year four, is $105 million short in revenue than what it could have been, where do we make up that $105 million? That is the question. The Minister of Finance and the President of Treasury Board have said that they believe it will be offset, that the amount we are talking about will be offset by the economic activity created by the HST. If there are no rebates, Mr. Speaker, at the rate we are going we will all have to buy new cars to be able to afford to put gas in them. That is what the real irony about this tax is. We give breaks on big ticket items, but at the same time because we give those breaks we have to broaden the base in terms of revenue to get back the money that we gave breaks on the big ticket items.

Now, what does that essentially mean? It essentially means that we are going to increase electrical bills in this Province by 7 per cent and as a result government is going to take $20 to $25 million extra in revenue from electrical consumers. On oil and gas, home heating fuel and gasoline, what does it mean? What does it mean to broaden the base on home heating fuel and gasoline to the people of this Province? It means that because government has given big ticket items a break, or people who buy big ticket items a break, those people who are making $35,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000, $90,000, or $100,000 a year, as a result of giving that group of people a break we have to increase taxes on home heating fuel and gasoline by at least $20 to $25 million. That is where the extra revenue is coming from, and that is where I fundamentally have a problem with what this tax will do, what a harmonized sales tax will do to those people who can least afford it.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. E. BYRNE: By leave, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Does the hon. member have leave?

MR. E. BYRNE: At 4:30 it is the Late Show.

That is where I differ from this government's initiative. You talk about a harmonized sales tax. Did anybody hear about it on February 22 or during the campaign? I went through it from cover to cover, from back to front, in the Liberal's own self-padding way of saying what we have done on record to date, and nowhere in this have I found any mention, or reference to, the harmonized sales tax, and there is a good reason. On record to date I have not picked up a page that said, social service recipients will be clawed back, record to date. Harmonized sales tax will increase electrical rates to those who can least afford it by $20 million, record to date.

Gasoline and home heating fuel will go up by 5 per cent to 7 per cent, thus bringing another $20 million to $25 million in government revenues, record to date. That is why it is not contained in this Red Book, because that is the real record to date. Nobody talked about harmonization of the sales tax, or both taxes, GST and RST, during the last election. No one talked about it, only the Cabinet. A Memorandum of Understanding signed shortly thereafter, no consultation and no committee of the House sent out to discuss it. Mr. Chairman, that is the record to date. So conveniently there have been many government initiatives that have been left out, record to date.

We did not hear anything about Crown Land increases, where government expected, through a tax grab, when there were supposed to be no new taxes, they said: We anticipate bringing in $6 million in revenue as a result of the Crown Land initiative in last year's budget. We do not see the record to date which says they brought in $21 million from the people of the Province that charged them to go out and spend recreational, leisurely time. That is in the record to date.

Mr. Chairman, it is 4:30 p.m., time for the Late Show. I know you have given me the nod, and I will sit down and continue tomorrow.

Thank you.

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

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): 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.

On motion, report received and adopted, Committee ordered to sit again on tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: It being 4:30 p.m., we are moving to the Adjournment Debate. The first question is from the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has recognized the hon. the Opposition House Leader for the Adjournment Debate.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wish to rise this afternoon to speak to the question that I had on the question session today relative to the minister's statements and to the Child Tax Credit.

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure and I want the minister, in her commentary, to address it: In her Ministerial Statement the minister says: Social assistance families will not receive any less money. Now, that would lead one to have the impression that they might benefit from the Child Tax Credit; however, on the first page of her statement the minister says: The Child Tax Benefit will increase in 1998. Concurrently, in all provinces, provincial social assistance payments, that is the portion relating to children, will be decreased by an equivalent amount.

Mr. Speaker, what the minister is saying is that the policy of this government is that they are going to claw back any benefits that go to families who are on social assistance; and while we do not disagree with new initiatives, new incentives, new programs, we cannot accept the fact that it is okay to take money from the poor to fund a program that is designed to assist the working poor.

Mr. Speaker, what does that say to families whose parents are unemployed because they cannot work? Is that fair? Mr. Speaker, we know that the minister has made a number of statements. On VOCM a while ago, she said: the money that will be paid by the federal government will allow the provinces to use that money, the new money that ordinarily was paid to social assistance to develop programs for the same people. She said: the federal government will now pay the portion the provincial government paid before. In other words, for the very poorest of families, the child tax benefit will amount to zero. There will be no new money coming into those families.

Mr. Speaker, I remind the minister of the commitment of the federal government and the federal minister who said, as I mentioned today, that it is the provinces, the provinces are preventing this program being implemented before 1998. Mr. Speaker, how long does it take to get a program working? We are saying a program that is now being designed and talked about in the federal budget and here in this House, and will become a major point in the Liberal platform in the federal election, will not benefit any of the children until 1998 because the provinces cannot get their act together any faster than that.

I ask the minister: What are the impediments? Why is it that we cannot get the act together before mid-year 1998? I know there are some minor adjustments in June of 1997 so, Mr. Speaker, why is this government, which pretends to be interested in combating child poverty, why are they compromising the programs that are being introduced by the federal government? Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Minister of Social Services will avail of the opportunity to enlighten all of us and I hope that her commentaries will give some assurances to the very poorest of people that we are not going to fund programs for the working poor by denying access to benefits for the very poorest of children.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am very delighted to rise and to respond to my colleagues' questions and once again, try to explain for his benefit about the NCB and the process that we have undertaken.

As Minister of Social Services, I have worked with the hon. Pierre Pettigrew over the last number of months as co-chair of the social services ministers to help design a National Child Benefit Program for low-income, employed families in the country. This was set out by our Premiers last June in this Province when they met and gave various ministries directions.

One of the most important directions was to work on the issue of child poverty in this country. I would still ask my hon. colleague, what is wrong with helping to move families on social assistance into the workforce by giving them a guaranteed amount of money that they will not lose when they go into the workforce? What is wrong with that? What is wrong with removing children in these families into the workforce and giving them an opportunity to grow up without the stigma which many of them feel receiving social assistance?

This National Child Benefit was designed for low-income families. It will create an increase in the programs and services available for the children in the Province and yes, Mr. Speaker, many of the families on social assistance will avail of these programs and services because, oft-times in this Province, we know working families and social assistance families are one and the same. So yes, it will help families on social assistance as well, and I will again reiterate that we planned this program to assist families on social assistance with children, to move into the workforce knowing they will have a stable amount of money and will help de-stigmatize the whole issue surrounding social services.

What was I supposed to do, tell the federal government to keep their $12 million? We don't want that money for new programs and services. When one of the poorest provinces in the country have come forward and said we need more programs and services for children. No, Mr. Speaker, we will avail of the services and programs. We will build on the ones we have and we will create what we have as a bridge to the National Child Benefit. We see this as a positive program, unfortunately the people across the House do not see it but on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, we live in hope for fear of dying in despair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, earlier today we raised issues with respect to repeated announcements and repeated decisions being made by this government which obviously impact upon the educational future of tens of thousands of children in our Province.

We had to go, Mr. Speaker, to the issue of reform and what is reform all about? It was certainly, Mr. Speaker, the hope of Newfoundlanders, the children and the parents and those involved in the educational system that reform would have meant true reform. It would have meant an education system, Mr. Speaker, that would have been of greater advantage to the young people of our Province. It would have meant greater opportunity, greater selection of curricular courses, greater potential within the educational system, Mr. Speaker, which would allow the young people of our Province to excel.

One has to review very quickly and very critically and analyze what has happened, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the proposed education reform. We have seen programs being reduced. We have seen significant numbers of teachers being reduced. We have seen a total absence of attention being given to reports, in particular the report that was prepared by Dr. Patricia Canning entitled, `Special Matters' which made hundreds of recommendations as to how young people in this Province were to be influenced, presumably, by an increased and improved education system.

Mr. Speaker, the government has not recognized those advantages and those recommendations as found in this report. The government has failed to pay tribute, in a critical way, to what this report is saying in terms of special needs being afforded to the young people of our Province. Parents are confused, Mr. Speaker. Parents wanted and requested an involvement in education and these same parents today, Mr. Speaker, are confused. They are troubled as to what their involvement is to be. They want to be a part of an improved educational system. They want to be a part of a more streamlined education system but they are asking questions, Mr. Speaker. They are asking questions: How can we become involved in a system which has provoked the confusion and the disarray which now exists? So therefore, Mr. Speaker, parents feel that they have been left out. They feel that they have been deceived. This frustration continues when we see, Mr. Speaker, the kinds of decisions that were made several days ago when some 468 teachers have now been added to the reduction in numbers of educators in our Province. We add that to some 1,700 teachers in total, which have been reduced since 1991.

So my question, Mr. Speaker, just in summation and perhaps just in furtherance to the points that were raised earlier today, is when we eliminate the educator, when we eliminate the special needs human resources and when we fail to funnel the savings derived from educational reform back into the classroom, how is it that we can receive and expect to receive the type of education system and the type of education reform which was promised by this administration? It is not a commitment. The redirection of funds in the education system, Mr. Speaker, was a promise that was made. Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister this afternoon, what will he do to ensure that this promise is kept so that the young people of our Province are the beneficiaries of a much more improved education system in this Province?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad, again, that the hon. member asked the question. I just ask that he stay tuned because the answer that he is seeking will be clearly given a week from today in the Budget. In the meantime, as a matter of course at this time in the year, school boards annually need to know how many teachers they have for the next year so they can plan their offerings for the students.

We have had significant reform, and I might just again give the history and track record of, in terms of governance at the school board level, going from twenty-seven school boards to ten, matters along those lines whereby we do not have to spend money in education for administrative purposes that do not accomplish anything at the classroom level. So we think we have refined that very much as well as we can.

There are a couple of things that I want to put in context with respect to the number of educators, trained, professional, dedicated educators in our system compared to the rest of the country. The hon. member tries to use language suggesting that this is a massive reduction, that this is going to wreak havoc in the system. The reality is as follows: Even with these reductions of units we will be providing, in Newfoundland and Labrador, a trained, professional educator for every 14.8 students in the system. In the country there is only one jurisdiction that provides more educators, and that is in Quebec. The range goes anywhere from our 14.8 up to one teacher for every 17.9 students in provinces like Alberta, where they have a much greater capacity, acknowledged by all of us, to pay. They have isolation in northern communities, much like we do. They have many of the same circumstances to deal with, and they provide an educator for every 17.9 students.

Even after these changes we are providing an educator for every 14.8 students, with much less of a capacity to pay, the difference being, of course, they have a system that is still growing. We have a system in serious decline, and we will have, in a matter of another year or two, a teacher workforce that is very much matched to the size of the education system we are trying to service.

The hon. member keeps making reference to a Special Matters report done by Dr. Canning. The report was received last summer and fall, was shipped out to the stakeholders for their review, we have the review in, the hon. member might be interested to know that the stakeholders and so on do not necessarily agree at all with some of the suggestions of Dr. Canning. There is not unanimous support for her recommendations, Mr. Speaker, and is being studied now within the department. It is not a matter of it not being implemented; we are studying a divergence of views, some people agreeing with Dr. Canning and some people totally disagreeing with some of her recommendations. The government has to decide, Mr. Speaker, what we will try to do about it in the future.

The hon. member as well, Mr. Speaker, mentioned some confusion and disarray. The only confusion and disarray, Mr. Speaker, is in language used by people like him, adults who basically have used those words because it is to their advantage to try to suggest that it exists because they want to resist change. The students in the classroom this year, Mr. Speaker, by and large, if you went and contacted the students -

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: - who are in Grade III, Grade IV or Grade V, Grade VIII, Level I, Level II, they have seen no negative impacts in their classrooms and in their offerings. I am giving the original from my collection; that is my third one now. You know you have really made it when you make the cartoons so we are getting right up there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: So, Mr. Speaker, the continuing reform agenda is meeting with quite a bit of success at this point in time. As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, we have a K to 12 system that is shrinking at the rate of 3 per cent to 4 per cent a year in terms of the number of students. We have the number of schools that are actually open, shrinking and will shrink again this year because of natural, logical, sensible reorganization, not because of devastation, not because of any of those kinds of things but a natural, orderly, logical reorganization of the system and we are all going to concentrate on making sure that the consolidations that do occur, benefit the students -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. minister's time is up.

MR. GRIMES: - and, Mr. Speaker, I hope there are lots of other questions asked about this so that we can continue to educate the members opposite who seem to be a little confused when everybody else in the Province thinks that we are doing a great job and this is well on track in a wonderful reorganization.

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

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

The other day in Question Period, I asked questions to the Acting Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. The Premier responded dealing with the impact of the HST on the Province and possible rebates. Possible rebates emanating from what the other provinces, Frank McKenna, John Savage, in terms of the Premiers of both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are about to do.

Mr. Speaker, it has to be said. It was said here last November and has to be said again today. Last June, government spent $336,000 on a Consumer Advocate to keep power and utility rates down to the people of this Province. At the same time they entered into an agreement, a Memorandum of Understanding that would see electrical rates rise in this Province, to people who could not afford it, by 7 per cent. Where is the logic and where is the thinking in government's decision making on that?

Now if government were right, and if they were pursuing the avenue they should have pursued with respect to the Harmonized Sales Tax, they would have said up front that in bringing in the HST we will exempt those people who cannot afford the increase by establishing a benchmark of people on an income level of $25,000 or $30,000 or less will not have to pay that 7 per cent. They would bring in rebates next week to ensure that there would not be a 15 per cent tax on children's clothes.

The Minister of Social Services stood today and entered into the record a Ministerial Statement dealing with the Child Tax Credit, dealing with child poverty. At the same time, the Minister of Social Services must be asked what her government's policy is. What will be the impact of the HST agreement on people who are on social services, people who are the working poor, people who cannot afford the increases? Those are the questions that must be asked. Is she going to increase by 7 per cent the level of funding given to social services recipients as a result of the impact of HST? I don't think so. Is she going to stand up and say that they are going to increase the level of funding for people who cannot afford the increase in gasoline and home heating fuel as a result of HST? To this date they have not.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: I hope they do. If government does that, I will be the first one to stand and applaud them. They should move in that direction, and move very quickly, and take the advice of Liberal Senator Michael Kirby who said today, clearly: I believe it's time right now for the three provinces who are involved in the agreement on the Harmonized Sales Tax to give some rebates to the people who are in low income families.

The Minister of Finance today, in a radio interview, admitted as much when he said: Government's analysis shows, that anybody who is making $10,000 or more will receive some benefit, but what about those who are not? Our analysis as an Opposition shows that a family of four on a household income of $25,000 will end up paying between $2,500 and $3,000 more each year as a result of the Harmonized Sales Tax.

We talk about consultation. In the Liberal record to date there are a few pages missing, a few appendixes missing. There is no reference to the impact HST will have on people who can least afford it in our society. Essentially, Mr. Speaker, what we have done, and what government has done, is they have given tax breaks on high ticket items like fur coats, cars, washers, and dryers, to people who can afford to buy these big ticket items and they have done so on the backs of the poor.

Electrical rate increases alone will see $20 million to $25 million extra in revenue coming in on that item alone. Home heating fuel and gasoline increases, another $25 million to $30 million that they are going to be taking in in taxes from each and everyone in the Province that was not there before. There will be 15 per cent on children's clothes when for years, for decades, we achieved a level in terms of trying to take care of children, for parents to take care of their children, not to be taxed on clothes. It is absolutely scandalous that this government has moved in a direction to see that happen, and at the same time they stand in their seats and talk about child poverty and what they are doing for child poverty. Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely unacceptable.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

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

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the first time I ever heard about a sales tax was shortly after Confederation.

AN HON. MEMBER: You could not have been that old.

MR. DECKER: I was just a boy, actually. It was in 1949. In the early 1950s you would go into a shop to buy something, whatever it was, and the clerk would say, five cents for Joey. It was always 5 per cent for Joey. Now, Mr. Speaker, the five cents for Joey continued to keep on rising and in the 1970s and the 1980s, that tax rate went from the measly five cents to the unbelievably high 12 per cent.

MR. TULK: Who did that?

MR. DECKER: I do not want to cast aspersions on different parties, different Tories. I do not want to do that. But they were so lacking in their imagination that every time they wanted $40 million they would up the tax rate by another 1 per cent and they drove it to 12 per cent. Then, along comes another group, a particular political party in Ottawa, and stuck on the GST at 7 per cent. So you have 7 per cent and 12 per cent. Now, think about the working poor who go into Biway or goes into Byron's downtown or wherever they go to buy a coat, 7 per cent and 12 per cent. It works out to pretty close to 20 per cent. Now, for the first time since Confederation -

MR. TULK: Who said all that?

MR. DECKER: Well, I do not want to brag. I do not want to boast. I do not want to blow my own horn, Mr. Speaker. I am not one of those people. I just want to say that since Confederation, retail sales tax was going up until it went through the roof. It blew the roof off the place. Now, when the working poor - after April 1 when the working poor go in to buy a coat, it is 15 per cent, Mr. Speaker. Now, that, to me, is an awful lot of difference. That is a tremendous difference, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: Before this Administration decided to go with the HST, we looked at every possible scenario, every different sector, every different income, and no matter how you run the figures, no matter how you cut it, Mr. Speaker, the average Newfoundlander and Labradorian will be better off. Everyone will be better off. How many million dollars is coming out, $200 million or something? One hundred-and-ten million dollars is coming out to be distributed to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That is something to crow about. That is something to brag about. That will put $110 million into the economy, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: Now, hon. members over there picked up - when the Senate Committee met, they said something about looking at a special break for a certain particular group. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Minister of Finance will look at that and if there is any basis to it, in due course he will deal with it. He will look at that. We have already done some exemptions and he will do what has to be done.

However, Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the Opposition is so much against this particular tax, because this tax and their leader have so much in common. Their leader is 15 per cent in the polls; the HST will be 15 per cent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: In 1950, Mr. Speaker, we talked about five cents for Joey. In 1997, we will be talking about the Loyola Sullivan tax, 15 per cent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DECKER: So hon. members should be supporting it.

MR. TULK: I hope it never goes up to where our leader is.

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