November 26, 2002 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLIV No. 35


The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

Statements by Members

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS M. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was very pleased recently to attend the 28th annual Fireman's Ball of the Burin Volunteer Fire Department. For forty-one years the Burin Volunteer Fire Department have been dedicating their time and energy to not only protect the community, but also educating residents about fire prevention.

While I recognize all of the firefighters of the department, Mr. Speaker, for their efforts, I want to send a special tribute to Clarence Mitchell, who celebrated thirty-five years of service with the department and was honoured at the ball.

Clarence is no stranger to anyone and his voice is often heard on Marystown's radio station, CHCM, on public service announcements promoting fire department initiatives. Clarence has also contributed greatly to the heritage of Burin area through his involvement with the Penney Folk dancers.

On behalf of all members of this House, I congratulate Clarence for thirty-five years of service with the Burin Volunteer Fire Department, and congratulate Chief Terry Walsh and the rest of the department for their efforts in prevention of fires in the Burin area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to compliment the administration and teaching staff at Mary Queen of the World School, as well as the Father John B. Kent Council of the Knights of Columbus for their partnership initiatives in trying to foster and enhance literacy at the primary grade levels.

Students who are experiencing difficulty in reading and writing will receive volunteer assistance in word recognition, sentence context and spelling under the direction of school personnel but in a program partnership involving nineteen adult volunteers from the community. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that all nineteen volunteers, fifteen men and four women, are all retirees and their sole objective is to make a difference in the lives of young children for whom learning to read and write is often a challenge.

More than sixty children will be participating in the learning program which will be available each afternoon, Monday to Thursday of each school week.

The Principal of Mary Queen of the World, Jim Brazil, and the teaching staff are to be complimented and encouraged for their participation in this initiative. Noel White, a retired educator and an outstanding community leader is helping to coordinate the program.

The volunteers from the Knights of Columbus and the Ladies Auxiliary are looking forward to assisting our youngest learners become successful readers.

For these children, this initiative is crucial to their being able to maximize their learning opportunities. Each and every child, Mr. Speaker, deserves the opportunity to achieve and to reach his or her potential.

Mr. Speaker, my congratulations to the teachers, the administration and to the volunteers from the John B. Kent Council of the Knights of Columbus and to the Ladies Auxiliary. We wish them every success and we hope that their efforts will encourage others to partner with our schools in providing learning opportunities for our young children.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Centre for Nursing Studies in St. John's will be developing an auxiliary nurse-training program in four Central American countries; El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The CNS is operated by the Health Care Corporation of St. John's and will work with Memorial University's Telehealth Education Technology Resource Agency, the Canadian Nurses Association and educational institutions in the Central American countries.

This program, which will be delivered through distance learning to field sites in rural communities, will help provide a cost-effective solution to primary health service delivery in some very poor areas.

In undertaking this work they will receive $4 million over six years through the Canadian International Development Agency. Mr. Speaker, I think this is a fine example of how people from this Province can expand our range of involvement internationally. It is an example of how we can both teach and learn from the international community.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the Centre for Nursing Studies for undertaking this very important project and for the innovation they have shown in pursuing international opportunities.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MANNING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On Friday, November 23, I had the opportunity to attend the graduation of St. Catherine's Academy on Salmonier Line. A great night for the St. Catherine's Academy school community, almost 450 people in attendance with thirty-three graduates graduating. It was a night filled with anticipation, scholarships and awards that were passed out to deserving students; thousands of dollars worth. With the great community support that St. Catherine's receives from the outlying communities, this was able to be done, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Principal Gary Corbett, the staff of St. Catherine's Academy and, indeed, the entire school community on another great night of pursuing excellence From Here to Eternity at St. Catherine's on Salmonier Line.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER GRIMES: (Inaudible) member's statement with respect to a constituent (inaudible).

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador has produced many notable athletes who have brought home regional, national and international titles. These athletes continue to proudly represent this Province, some as star athletes on scholarship at Memorial University, and other universities including other provinces of Canada and the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to inform the Members of the House of Assembly that the commitment and hard work of another athlete has led to a remarkable achievement.

Paul Andrews is from Point Leamington, in the Exploits District. Paul acquired an interest in the sport of arm wrestling several years following his graduation from high school. To his credit, Paul has two Canadian National Championships for arm wrestling and finished fifth at the World Arm Wrestling Championships held in Finland in 2001.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to report that at the World Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, held in mid November of this year, Paul Andrews defeated a challenger from France to win the World Arm Wrestling Championship in the lightweight division.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: This is an exceptional accomplishment of which Paul and his family are extremely proud. Paul has represented this Province and our country with great spirit and ability. He is yet another ambassador of Newfoundland and Labrador who is very proud of our Province. I join with him, his family and friends in Point Leamington, in extending our heartfelt congratulations.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair would like to take this opportunity to welcome to the House of Assembly today, Mr. Graham King, Mayor of Millertown, and his wife Elizabeth.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Ministers

 

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to announce that government has agreed to a medium-term solution regarding ninety-nine-year non-renewable timber licences for Abitibi Consolidated.

Government considered and explored various options and has agreed to harmonize the expiry dates of all of the company's thirty-eight non-renewable timber licences to 2010. This will result in the rolling back of the expiry dates of the longer term licences to 2010 and government extending Abitibi's earlier expiration dates to the 2010 common expiry date.

Mr. Speaker, some of the licences went right on to 2021. One was due this week, a few more in the next few weeks, but now we have all 2021 back to 2010 and the other three or four licences extended out to 2010. So, in 2010 we can deal with all the licences for Abitibi Consolidated in the Province.

The 2010 common expiry date is contingent upon the company maintaining its current production levels at the Grand Falls-Windsor Mill -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WOODFORD: - which includes, Mr. Speaker, a two machine operation and maintaining annual production levels at substantially the same levels as those in the preceding three years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WOODFORD: I will be tabling legislation to seek amendments to the Forestry Act and to facilitate the 2010 common expiry date initiative.

Harmonizing the non-renewable licences' expiry dates to 2010 will allow ample time for continued research on future land tenure systems, as well as comprehensive public consultations and input from various government departments.

This agreement demonstrates government's commitment to a sustainable forest industry and environmental integrity of our forest ecosystem, as well as Abitibi's commitment to its employees and the Province.

Harmonizing the timber licences will, in the short to medium term, provide security for Abitibi mill workers and communities which depend on the industry. It will also remove short-term uncertainty for the company regarding fibre supply at the Grand Falls-Windsor mill.

It is also important to point out that in addition to providing security for Abitibi mill workers, the 2010 expiry date will provide stability to the sawmill sector, which is involved in a co-operative arrangement with the company.

I would like to take this opportunity to commend my colleague, the Minister of Labour, for her diligent work in improving the labour relations climate between Abitibi Consolidated and the union. Government will continue to provide support, where required, to maintain sound labour relation practices at the mill in Grand Falls-Windsor.

Mr. Speaker, implementing a new land tenure agreement with Abitibi Consolidated that furthers its goals and objectives of modern and sustainable forest ecosystem management is a priority for government.

I wish to make it clear, however, that government is proud of the stride it has already made in delivering modern forest management practices. We have very progressive forestry legislation which requires licence holders to manage the resource on a sustainable basis using sound ecological principles.

Through implementation of responsible forest management practices we will ensure the future viability of our forest industries which are valued at over $800 million and employ more than 10,000 people annually.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Windsor-Springdale.

MR. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for forwarding a copy of his Ministerial Statement.

A lot of questions in our forest industry today are not being answered. I say to the minister: Why has it waited so long for an agreement to be reached? Why has it waited until now, the last minute, to have an agreement on probably one-third of the company's tenure with no consideration made to other stakeholders in that industry? Other stakeholders have to wait up to eight years to have input now into an agreement that could affect them and probably close a lot of small businesses in rural Newfoundland today.

I say to the minister and the government, if this agreement expires and there is a new agreement negotiated with consideration and consultation with other stakeholders in the industry, then I certainly welcome that and agree that would be a good thing for the industry.

With respect to the long-term commitment by the company of Abitibi Consolidated to the Province and the Town of Grand Falls-Windsor, I welcome that. I say this a good thing that we need a commitment from the company and from the government to ensure that number seven and number three paper machines continue producing in Grand Falls-Windsor, and that there is a stable forest supply for the company in Grand Falls-Windsor. I agree that this is an important issue for the company. I agree that steps must be taken and agreements must be made to ensure the viability of this company. So, I do congratulate the minister and the government for taking the steps to see that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HUNTER: It is just that I am disappointed that it took so long. I am disappointed that other stakeholders have not had a say into what could happen in the next eight years. We need more consultation with the public.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The expiry of these leases did not sneak up on the government; this is something, obviously, that has been coming for years. There was plenty of opportunity for public consultation amongst the various stakeholders for input from everybody and to look at alternatives before this particular first lease expired for over 300,000 hectares of land. The government failed to conduct public consultations. While we welcome the stability that is going to be existing for the next seven or eight years in the Gand Falls mill, what we see absent from this particular decision is the kind of public consultation that is required now and is going to be even more so required, Mr. Speaker, when all of these leases expire. It looks like there is going to be a need for a full, entire public consultation to look at the alternatives. There are lots of people who have an interest in the forest lands of our Province, and there have been a lot of changes made in considerations -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. HARRIS: By leave, Mr. Speaker?

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

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: There has been considerable change in understanding of how forest ecosystems work, and there are modern ways of managing forests that can produce excellent results for commercial users, as well as preserving much of the forests for community uses and alternative uses.

Mr. Speaker, while we have seven years, we shouldn't wait until six-and-a-half years to have another short-term consultation or discussion, and a decision made, without full public hearings and full public consultation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Labrador and Aboriginal Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. McLEAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform this hon. House that the Premier will be travelling to Happy Valley-Goose Bay on Wednesday to host a round table discussion on the proposed Gull Island project.

I will chair this discussion, Mr. Speaker, and we will be joined by my Parliamentary Secretary, the Member for Torngat Mountains, the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair and also the Member for Labrador West. This will be an in-camera session, by invitation, and will include community leaders from such organizations as Labrador's various Chambers of Commerce, Regional Economic Development Boards, Aboriginal groups and the Combined Councils of Labrador. The MP for Labrador has also been invited to participate.

The purpose of this round table discussion, Mr. Speaker, is to consult and provide information on the proposed project, as well as to clarify issues that have been raised in relation to the Alcoa discussions of some months ago.

Mr. Speaker, as indicated in this year's Speech from the Throne, this government firmly believes that the next few years will belong to Labrador. We have seen tremendous progress in Labrador on a number of fronts, Mr. Speaker, mainly because we have consulted with and included the people of Labrador in our decision making. It is important that we listen to what the people of Labrador have to say about the Gull Island project, so that we can work towards meeting their expectations.

I want to thank the Premier for his continued commitment to listen to the concerns of the people of Labrador, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege today with respect to this Ministerial Statement. I want to say from the onset that the critic, the Member for St. John's East, has graciously given me the chance to respond.

While we, on this side of the House, congratulate the people of Labrador for pushing the issue, particularly related to Gull Island, and have forced the government to hold consultations before a decision was made, we also must point out that members in this House, each and every member, enjoy certain rights and privileges equally.

Mr. Speaker, it says in Beauchesne, that a question of privilege must be brought to the attention of the House at the first opportunity. I believe I have satisfied that. It is our view that the government, in inviting and being selective about who they choose to bring into the fold, or who they choose will get the information related to the Gull Island project, has impugned and infringed upon every member's right in this Legislature who has not been provided with that opportunity.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, I commend the Member for Labrador West for being invited, and I hope that he brings what he always brings to the process, honesty and integrity to the issue, but, Mr. Speaker, it is simple this: that it is not good enough, according to Parliamentary Privilege in Canada Joseph Maingot -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. E. BYRNE: I am on a point of parliamentary privilege and I would like to finish it, Mr. Speaker, if I could, uninterrupted by the cattle calls from the opposite side of the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, in inviting the Member for Labrador West, as a member of the Opposition - and we commend that, we agree with that - but in not inviting other members of this House, we believe, according to the definition, that the invitation by government prohibits and infringes upon our ability, as the Official Opposition, to do our parliamentary work.

All of this week, the Premier of the Province has accused the Leader of the Opposition of fearmongering and scaremongering, and now an opportunity presents itself, Mr. Speaker, to be invited to such a consultation to inform each and every member equally of what is contained in the deal.

Mr. Speaker, let me quote for all members. "Alleged acts must relate to a member's parliamentary work:... But it is because of its nature that the valid question of privilege arises only infrequently. There must be some act that improperly interferes with the member's rights, such as his freedom of speech or freedom from civil arrest. The interference, however, must not only..." - and this is the important point, Mr. Speaker - "...obstruct the member in his capacity as a member, it must obstruct or allege to obstruct the member in his parliamentary work."

Mr. Speaker, secondly, for further consultation: "Parliamentary privilege is the necessary immunity that the law provides to members of Parliament, and for members of the legislatures of each of the ten provinces and two territories, in order for the legislators..." - meaning us - "...to do their legislative work."

"Because of its nature, a true question of privilege should arise in the House only infrequently. To constitute "privilege" generally there must be some improper obstruction to the member in performing his parliamentary work either in a direct or constructive way...".

Mr. Speaker, we believe, and we assert here for you to rule on, that inviting only one member of the Opposition, while we agree with that, obstructs the rest of us from doing our work, as we are supposed to do. Mr. Speaker, we ask you to rule because this act is contemptuous.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Opposition House Leader knows very well that this is not a point of privilege. A point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, as he pointed out, is something that is raised rarely in parliament. The reason why it is raised rarely, Mr. Speaker, is because a point of privilege is so circumscribed and so restrictive that very often when hon. members rise on a point of privilege it is not a point of privilege, it is just a matter of making some political point, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, I submit that in order for a point of privilege to be valid that it must affect first of all a member's ability to do his work. There is nothing in the announcement made by the hon. minister today that will affect a member's work.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, it refers to the collective rights of the institution. Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in the ministerial statement that affects the collective rights of hon. members in this institution. If that were so, Mr. Speaker, government would be so circumscribed, so restricted in its efforts that it would be able to do nothing.

What the minister announced today is a meeting in Labrador, in Goose Bay, to have discussions related to the Gull Island project. Nobody knows what the nature of the discussions would be now. If it were known that - if it were said that the Premier was going to release the details of the deal, even that would make it a little different, but I would not even subscribe that that would be a point of privilege. The government is permitted to consult with groups of their desire.

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in this that affects the parliamentary privilege of either a member or of the institution. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that this is one of the most specious and spurious points of privilege that has been raised in this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair will take the point of privilege raised under advisement.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I certainly look forward to going to Goose Bay tomorrow and taking part in these discussions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Don't clap too loudly yet, I am not finished.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, that I think it is incumbent upon this government, in keeping inline with their open and transparent method of governing, that the least they can do is make sure that the only member on the board of directors, Mr. Bill Kelly from Labrador, the only member from Labrador on the board, is also present at these meetings -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. COLLINS: By leave, Mr. Speaker?

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. COLLINS: - is also present at these meetings so he can tell the people in Labrador exactly the rationale behind his voting against this deal when it came to their board meeting. I think it is very important to all of us from Labrador that we hear Mr. Kelly's response.

As for the issues that will be raised, Mr. Speaker, I have lived in Labrador long enough to know and anticipate what many of those will be. As I said earlier, I look forward to taking part in these discussions.

Thank you.

Oral Questions

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions this afternoon are for the Premier. We have an ever increasing list of people who oppose this deal on the Lower Churchill. Two former premiers, Tom Rideout and Brian Peckford -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WILLIAMS: The least you could do is show some respect for two former premiers of this Province.

Two Members of Parliament, John Efford and Lawrence O'Brien; two former Chairpersons of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, Vic Young and Dean MacDonald; two Directors of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, Mark Dobbin and Bill Kelly; former Minister of Mines and Energy, Chuck Furey; myself, as Leader of the Opposition, and my fellow caucus members. As of last Thursday - not as of today, because it is an increasing number - 67 per cent of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, last week I raised a number of issues concerning the terms of the pending deal for on the Lower Churchill. In light of more recent developments, I would like to ask the Premier for clarification on some of these issues. Will the Premier please confirm that the financing arrangements for this project will saddle our Province of Newfoundland and Labrador with 100 per cent of the cost overruns?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do recognize that some of the people mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition have expressed some concerns, and rightfully so, because if what is described by the Leader of the Opposition as being the arrangement, we would be concerned too. That is the whole point, Mr. Speaker. The fact of the matter is, they are responding to a version of an arrangement described only by the Leader of the Opposition. If that was the arrangement, I can tell you, there would not be anybody here supporting it. Not a soul on this side would be supporting what he has described.

Just to use the one example about the financing arrangement. When we are - because there was a phrase used, I think, by the former Chair as well, about lopsided financing arrangements. The language strikingly similar to that of the Leader of the Opposition; I just say that in passing comment. We have financial experts who will say to the people of the Province, if we are fortunate enough to have a deal to talk about - because we are trying to do it, not trying to find ways not to do it. We are trying to find something to develop Newfoundland and Labrador, not to live another thirty years of sad days doing nothing. These financial experts have advised this caucus and have advised the board of Hydro - which is why, I guess, seven of them had very few, if any, reservations in terms of supporting the arrangement. They would say that the financing they have been privy to - because it was confidential to the Chair of the board, to all the board, it has been confidential to this caucus - that the financing arrangements - and we will gladly make it public to the people of the Province - will be the exact opposite of what has been described. As a matter of fact, it is described by financial experts who have advised this government for over thirty years, people from institutions like Merrill Lynch, to be the best financing arrangements available in the marketplace today. The absolute best arrangements available today.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It appears that three directors on the Board of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro agree with some of the issues that have been raised here today, including the nominee from Labrador, Mr. Bill Kelly. It is obvious that the Premier disagrees with Mr. Kelly's position.

Mr. Speaker, there are now other opinions from the Board of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro that there is a relatively high probability that because of overruns on cost we could lose the entire project to Quebec, or our return on the project could be minimal, or, in fact, nothing. Mr. Speaker, would the Premier confirm that there are provisions in the deal whereby we could lose the project to Quebec, or our profits could be little or nothing if there are overruns?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The financial advisers that advise the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador - our negotiators who have been at this for parts of four years, but certainly very intensely in the last year-and-a-half, and certainly in the last several months. These are longstanding financial advisers to the Province and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. These are the same financial advisers with the same international reputations who advised Premier Moores, Premier Peckford, he would have advised Premier Rideout had he asked for any and been around long enough to get some - not said in an unkind fashion, just stating a fact. They have advised all of the Premiers of the Province consistently with a world and international reputation.

They have indicated the exact opposite and will provide full detail and full written and public documentation that in their opinion, as advisers around the world in looking at the arrangements here, that in fact there is an extremely high probability that the revenues from this project will be extremely positive and significant for the Province of Newfoundland.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: The exact opposite of what has been said now by the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition used the exact words that were on a transcript from the now retired Chair of the board from the media yesterday and last night.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that the Premier stoops to the lowest of levels in answering my questions in this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the Labrador Director of the Board of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro voted against this deal, and there is opinion from that board that we are now giving up on Labrador in terms of their abilities to foster industrial development and have power available to them for their domestic use. In fact, the hon. the Premier last week in this House said, with reference to the recall power: There is no demand, there is no use for it in Labrador. Those are the Premier's exact words. He has quit on Labrador and he has quit on the use of power in Labrador.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary now; I ask him to get to his question.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, would the Premier confirm, for the people of Labrador, that the recall notice -

MR. ANDERSEN: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WILLIAMS: The hon. Member for Torngat should listen to this because this is very important to the people of Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, would the Premier confirm, for the people of Labrador, that the recall notice will be short enough and there will be sufficient guarantees of power available immediately to satisfy the demands of leaders like Lawrence O'Brien and the Mayor of Happy Valley-Goose Bay?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

With respect to a couple of the preambles, to correct the statement so it is the statement that I did make about the recall, we were talking about the fact that since 1972 there have been 300 megawatts of the cheapest electricity in the world from Upper Churchill available for use in Labrador. What we were talking about - my own words, and if you had finished the sentence you would read it for the record to be correct - we said there are 170 of it currently being used in Labrador. It powers the industrial development in Labrador West, and every other use that is on the grid, and there is 130 that has been sitting there for thirty years for which there has been no use and is no use today. It has been shopped around to potential silicate smelters - the Member for Labrador West knows what I am talking about - to other industrial users in Labrador, and there has been no use for it in thirty years in Labrador, and it is much, much cheaper electricity than what is going to be generated from Gull Island when it comes on stream.

Mr. Speaker, that is the context, and with respect to recall, we have always said from the beginning in the principles that we have talked about and the issues that we will talk about tomorrow, that there will be recall provisions in any arrangement that we sign, as well. Whether or not they are big enough or timely enough, people will debate when, if we are ever in a position to actually do a deal and move forward and have some energy to talk about recalling, because the course that the Opposition is on, you will not be talking about recalling anything because there will be no energy produced to even talk about. That is their position: Don't do the development. That was their position on Voisey's Bay -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Premier now to conclude his answer quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: - that is their position with Gull Island: Don't do the development.

So, talking about recall is not much of an issue if there is nothing even built to generate the electricity in the first place.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Let me be very clear, Mr. Speaker. Our position is not to do development, it is not to do this development on the Lower Churchill.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, would the Premier confirm that his financial experts, the people who advise him, would he confirm that these financial arrangements that he is prepared to enter into on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, could leave our Province, Newfoundland and Labrador, with the entire project development bill, yet place Hydro-Quebec in control of the project development itself?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, with respect to the preamble, the language is strikingly similar to the Voisey's Bay debate because the Leader of the Opposition then said, we are not against developing Voisey's Bay, we are against this deal. Now he is saying, we are not against developing Gull Island but we are against this deal.

Mr. Speaker, maybe the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting to the people of the Province that there is some alternate deal or other deal that is available to be had that he can describe to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The choices, as we see it, are these: You find a way to move forward and do something on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that is in our collective best interest or you do not do it.

The choices that are presented by the Leader of the Opposition are ones that lead to not another development that might be as good as or better than this, but no development. That is the whole point, Mr. Speaker. They are talking about no development, no energy, no prospects for Labrador, the Island or any place else. That is the whole mantra that they talk about.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Premier now to conclude his answer quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, fundamentally, what we have is this: We have a circumstance where the best financing arrangements available on the planet from financial experts are being made available to Newfoundland and Labrador now, and that will be verified when we talk about it publicly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, can the Premier confirm now that, as a result of the rate that will be charged to Quebec for our hydroelectricity, Quebec will, in fact, receive more windfall profits from the Lower Churchill project while Newfoundland and Labrador profits are at risk in that they are dependent on budget and schedule performance on the project?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad that he has probably had an opportunity now to have a fuller briefing with the former Chair of the Hydro board, whom I have great respect for, Mr. Speaker.

In fact, I guess the Leader of the Opposition is showing quite clearly that his principles, his morals, are such that it does not really matter what questions you ask, where you get the information base, or what you do, as long as it furthers his political agenda.

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is, I think it has been acknowledged in the media today, that the Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged publicly that he has compromised -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to quickly conclude his answer.

PREMIER GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

The Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged, I think, publicly in the Province, that he has compromised the former Chair of the board of Hydro by speaking to him through all of last week, while he was still Chair of the board, and, in fact, that is okay according to the Leader of the Opposition because -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to take his seat.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, it is very rare; I have never raised a point of order during Question Period but I am going to now because the slanderous attack by the Premier, in view of your ruling yesterday, putting into question the morals, the integrity, of the Leader of the Opposition, is contemptuous, Premier! Do the right thing, stand up and apologize, because that behaviour does not belong in this Legislature!.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader, to the point of order.

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, this is the hon. gentleman who does not waste the time of Question Period. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe I have ever risen in Question Period with a point of order, and maybe the other day waited a little too long in terms of not delaying the House.

Mr. Speaker, I heard nothing from the Premier questioning the honesty or the integrity of the Leader of the Opposition. It is just another case of the hon. Opposition House Leader trying to take this place on his back, trying to control the place -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: - standing up, Mr. Speaker, and wasting the time of the House.

Let it be known that nobody on this side of the House wants to waste the time of the House. They want the business to proceed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has already heard the point of order.

As the hon. member -

MR. E. BYRNE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

To the point of order, the Chair will certainly review Hansard to see what the hon. Premier actually did say, and the context in which it was said, and will review it and report back to the House.

MR. E. BYRNE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I just want to remind hon. members that it is most unusual for us to have points of order during Question Period. It is usually reserved until the end of the Question Period, but if hon. members insist on points of order, then that is -

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

If the Government House Leader is of the view that members on this side are going to stand and let those scurrilous accusations imputing the member, imputing the motives of the Leader of the Opposition, think again; because when they are made we are going to take them on (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we are here as an Opposition to present the very serious and the very legitimate concerns of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, as reflected in the poll that we did last week.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, hon. members may laugh but I consider this very serious to all of us here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Premier.

Premier, let me say this: If you will not kill this deal, and if you will only disclose this deal to selected members of your caucus and your Cabinet and to the Board of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, I ask you, I challenge you today, to present this deal and all the detail before this House, to this House, to the people in this House of Assembly, before a deal is signed, so that myself, you and the Leader of the New Democratic Party can have a full and open televised debate on all the issues, clause by clause, section by section, and let's see if you really have the answers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Obviously, we are striking a bit of a nerve across the way today, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we have already indicated that the full details of any deal that we can do will be brought to everybody in the Province and to this Legislature, to the people of the Province and this Legislature, for full, informed debate. That is the difference, Mr. Speaker. That is the standard that we use, and I use, versus the standard that the Leader of the Opposition uses.

Let me finish the point from before, Mr. Speaker. The standard that the Leader of the Opposition uses is that he sees nothing wrong with putting the Chair of a Crown corporation, a major business, in jeopardy and in possible breach of trust, by conferring with him and talking with him. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the public record says - and the Leader of the Opposition bragged about it - that he spoke with the Chair of the board throughout last week.

MR. WILLIAMS: That is not true. That is not true.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER GRIMES: It is verbatim, Mr. Speaker, it is a quote.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

It is absolutely (inaudible) withdraw it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

I would ask the hon. Premier to conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: I would gladly withdraw if these words from the media, attributed to Mr. Williams, are false. Mr. MacDonald indicated to me, I guess, well over a week ago - and this was yesterday - well over a week ago -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Premier now to conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

The Leader of the Opposition acknowledged that publicly, now tries to deny it in the House of Assembly, and has been conferring with the Chair for over a week, Mr. Speaker, and he sees nothing wrong with it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: The hon. the Premier - and the record of Hansard will tell the truth - said that I spoke to Mr. MacDonald all through last week about this matter, and he used other terms which I didn't hear, but we will check the record. This is improper, you are misleading the House, and you are lying to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to withdraw that remark.

MR. WILLIAMS: I withdraw the remarks with respect to lying, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Finance.

The actual deficit for the fiscal year 2001-2002, as reported in the Consolidated Summary Financial Statements and tabled in this House yesterday, was $473 million.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: Will she tell this House why she is trying to hide the size of the Province's real deficit?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, I will say to the hon. Member for Ferryland, these were our reports that we tabled, government's reports, the public accounts that states the deficit by the accrual method is $473 million. There was never any intent to do otherwise. These are our reports. These are not the Auditor General's reports. These are our financial statements for the whole Province for this year past.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That is exactly the point I am trying to make. She talks about a cash basis all the time and it is only once a year when they have to tell the real deficit by their own comptroller general and confirmed, I might add, by the Auditor General, and she tries to hide it for the other eleven months and twenty-nine days.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Mr. Speaker, this government says that great things are happening in Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are leading the country in economic growth for the last several years. In the last three years this government has added $1 billion to the net debt of our Province. It took fifty years to accumulate a debt of $7.9 million.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary, I ask him to get to his question.

MR. SULLIVAN: I ask the minister, in just three years you have added $1 billion to the debt of this Province. If things are going so great, Minister, can you tell us how we are going into debt at an unprecedented pace?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

First I would like an opportunity to respond to the fairly lengthy preamble the member raised with respect to the Public Accounts Committee.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to get to her answer.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

I would say to the member opposite, there is nothing hidden. These are public documents that government reported and have tabled in this House of Assembly; the same as we did last year and the year before.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the question, I would say that this government, these members on this side of the House, have decided very clearly that we are not interested in the numbers specifically and only, but we are interested in the balance, and that means people. It means striking the balance between the economic and social needs of this Province. I can account for the money, the people here can account for the money, in our health programs and in funding our unfunded pension plans. That has been our priorities, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Premier. In light of the comments of the Chairman of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, Dean MacDonald, about the lopsided financing arrangements. I am quoting here: With a reasonable chance that for the life of the project we could receive nothing, that Hydro Quebec will get a disproportionate share of the profits of the Gull Island deal, that Labrador will be marginalized for future economic development. In light of these comments by the Chairman of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, will the Premier not acknowledge that this deal, based on these comments, should not be proceeded with? How can the people of this Province have any confidence in a deal of this nature when Dean MacDonald, the Chairman of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, has these comments about it?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am sure that the Leader of the NDP, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, does not mean to degrade or diminish the intelligence and capability of the other members of the board either because these are all qualified, educated, committed and dedicated Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are there to serve the Province and to serve Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

The point is this: one person has said that that is his view. The financial advisers that advise the government and the board disagree totally and completely with that one person. That will become obvious and evident as we disclose the information if we arrange to have a deal. The fact of the matter is, that we will see - because everybody will make their own judgement. Mr. MacDonald, the former chair, and a person that I know personally and respect, is not the only person who has an opinion about this. The other opinions are contrary to his.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: As a matter of fact, what is interesting is that ten people received the information and seven of them obviously disagree with Mr. MacDonald and voted to proceed because they thought Newfoundland and Labrador's interests were protected in this arrangement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier had enough confidence in Mr. MacDonald to have him on the board for six years and to name him Chairman of Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. When three of the members of this board - who have had the most opportunity to look at it in detail and with some objectivity - have seen that they must not support this deal, how can the public have confidence in this deal? Why does the Premier not admit that this deal will not fly with the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I guess the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi practices a strange view of democracy and majority and expression of support. The fact of it is this - not to be lost - seven people, that I respect their views and opinions every bit as much as the former Chair, seven of these people have looked at it and have not registered those kinds of complaints. One person has.

When the Leader of the Opposition was speaking earlier about a poll that he had conducted -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier now to conclude his answer, quickly.

PREMIER GRIMES: - he was bragging about the fact that 64 per cent of the people viewed it a certain way and therefore I should do something. Well, 70 per cent of the people viewed it in detail and said it is something we should proceed with and vote it to go ahead.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Question Period has ended.

Notices of Motion

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Agrifoods.

MR. WOODFORD: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, "An Act To Amend The Forestry Act." (Bill 27)

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for The Straits & White Bay North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Bide Arm and the surrounding area. It is a petition dealing with an incinerator, a teepee style incinerator that is in close proximity to the town. I will read the petition:

To the hon. House of Assembly in Newfoundland and Labrador, in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador;

WHEREAS the incinerator is located very close to the highway, making it an eyesore to the area just before entering our community; and

WHEREAS since it is located in a valley, the same valley that our community is located in, the prevailing winds cause smoke and fumes from the incinerator to be funneled directly over our community. Furthermore, if there is no wind the smoke just hangs in the air over the community; and

WHEREAS there is a little stream that flows by the base of the incinerator and the dump site. This stream then continues to flow out the valley and into a larger stream that flows into the harbour. The water should be tested in this stream to see if there are contaminates present because our people catch and eat fish from this water; and

WHEREAS we believe that all kinds of garbage is being burned at this site, including materials that can contain toxic substances and harmful chemicals. Fast growing cancers are reported to be caused by contaminates from these kinds of waste products. In our community alone, within the time frame that the incinerator has been in operation, there have been at least eight people die of fast growing cancers;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to immediately remove the incinerator before more health and environmental problems are realized, as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the members opposite find so funny about the petition that is being presented here today. There certainly seems to be a lot of jesting and remarks coming from the other side. I can tell you, when I was out to meet with the people of Bide Arm just about a month-and-a-half ago on this issue, they found it to be no laughing matter. The people in this community live within one kilometre of this incinerator. Three days out of five there is smoke coming from that incinerator blowing right through the community when the prevailing wind is blowing out from the north-northwest.

Mr. Speaker, these people have put up with this incinerator for quite a number of years now. I think it was in 1991 that the incinerator was initially put there. At that time, of course, incinerators were being constructed all around this Province and not too many of us thought about the impact that this might have on our environment, about the impact that this might have on our people, but now we know the difference. Certainly, over the past year government has brought forward plans for a new waste disposal strategy for the years to come. Certainly, the people of this area, the people of Bide Arm in particular, but also the people in Englee and the people in Roddickton who use this waste disposal facility, also support the people of Bide Arm in their desire to see this incinerator shut down.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly support the people of Bide Arm and the surrounding area here. As I said when I started out, this incinerator is within one -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, just a few seconds to clue up.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I said, the people of Bide Arm are within one kilometre of this incinerator, and we all know what is burned in incinerators. There is practically everything burned in incinerators. They do have very serious concerns about the impact of this on their health. As they note in their petition, there have been a number of people in this community who - in the view of the community, an excessive number of people - have developed fast growing cancers over the past number of years since this incinerator has been in place here, and they are very concerned about it.

At the very least, Mr. Speaker, I think that it is incumbent on the Department of Health and the Department of Environment to have a serious look at this matter, to review the statistics when it comes to the health problems of the people in this area; to look at what is being burned in the incinerator and, Mr. Speaker, to expedite the move of shutting down teepee style incinerators around this Province. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, to put the incinerator in the Bide Arm area first and foremost on the list, because of its close proximity to the people, as one of the sites to be closed down early.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition signed by approximately 2,600 people from the communities of Churchill Falls, Wabush, and Labrador City. The petition states:

WHEREAS the Trans-Labrador runs through 600 kilometres of wilderness and the lack of any form of communication along the highway poses serious safety concerns; and

WHEREAS this is an issue of public safety that government must address; and

WHEREAS this issue of public safety can be addressed by making reliable cellphone coverage available along the Trans-Labrador Highway.

We, the undersigned, petition the House of Assembly to direct the government to take immediate action to rectify this serious safety issue and have cellphone service made available along the entire length of the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this year I raised this issue publicly, back in July. I issued a press release, written letters to the ministers and asked that they take action to initiate such a procedure that would allow people to have communications along the Trans-Labrador Highway. Two weeks later the minister responded publicly by making an announcement. He did not refer that I initiated it but he did make an announcement after as if he did stating that he was going to take some form of corrective action. To date, Mr. Speaker, we still have not heard anything from that minister concerning providing communication capabilities along that section of highway.

Mr. Speaker, many people travelled that highway in recent years but there are still times when you can be on that highway for long periods of time and not see any traffic coming towards you at all. If anything should happen during that period of time, if you go off the road. In the wintertime conditions are pretty severe, temperatures are very, very cold, you could freeze to death in the matter of minutes or hours if your car is not able to stay running. It is important that people have a means of communication in order to call for assistance.

Mr. Speaker, we have had many occasions, along this highway, where a cellphone could have cut down response time by the RNC or by ambulances that would have responded to people in a much more fashionable time period than what is available at the moment. We have had people who spent many long hours on that highway stranded, and it is not a great feeling to be stranded in the wilderness of Labrador in the summer or winter.

I implore upon the minister to keep his commitment to the people of Labrador and to provide the coverage that he promised back in July but has yet failed to act on. This is a very important issue, Mr. Speaker. It is not that people want to call ahead to tell someone to get a loaf of bread or they are going to be a few minutes late, this is a matter of life and death for people who become stranded on this highway.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. COLLINS: By leave to clue up, Mr. Speaker.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, this is a very important issue to people in Labrador and the travelling public from other places who happen to use this highway. The time has long gone, Mr. Speaker, when we can be without services that people in most parts of this country take for granted. It is high time that we have these services available to us so that when we need them we are able to use them as well.

I implore upon the minister to take corrective action to do something about this immediately; not wait for another couple of years and keep stalling and making empty promises.

Thank you.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS S. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a petition here signed by in excess of 520 people. I will read the prayer of the petition:

To the hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador;

WHEREAS the government has requested the Board of Regents to consider a name change of our University; and

WHEREAS Memorial University of Newfoundland is excluded under the Newfoundland and Labrador Act; and

WHEREAS publicly funded universities can be named for a region of a province; and

WHEREAS when other political entities changed, the name of the university within it did not; and

WHEREAS our educational mandate is not limited to this Province; and

WHEREAS the University is on the Island of Newfoundland; and

WHEREAS the first university in other provinces did not reflect the entire name of the province; and

WHEREAS there will be enormous costs to undergo this name change; and

WHEREAS there are enormous disadvantages to not having a geographic identity attached to the University; and

WHEREAS another proposed university in this Province is more suitable to have Labrador added to its name;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to retain the current name, Memorial University of Newfoundland, as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

I understand, Mr. Speaker, that this petition which is from alumni from all over the world - actually from England, Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ireland, Switzerland, Vermont, The Netherlands, Labrador, Royal Canadian Legion in Twillingate; some e-mails and signatures from the general public as well as the support of some of our MPS. I understand that these numbers are among many of thousands that have been presented to various Members of the House of Assembly who will be, I am sure, presenting a petition in due course.

I would like to deal with a couple of the clauses in the petition, one of them being the enormous costs that a name change would present. Prudent management would suggest that a cost benefit analysis should be done for an institution of this magnitude. This has not been done. It will be a cost that this University cannot afford in these times of rising tuition and low enrollment. I guess what the people who have signed the petition are saying is that there are many more priorities that they can do. For instance, having the cost of tuition lowered and the other numerous costs associated with that, that there are many more important things that the money can be spent on.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MS S. OSBORNE: A few minutes to clue up, Mr. Speaker?

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MS S. OSBORNE: Thank you.

I present this petition on behalf of the many people who have sent e-mails from abroad and hope that this House will listen to their petition.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand today to present a petition as well. The petition reads:

To the hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador;

WHEREAS Route 235 from Birchy Cove to Bonavista has not been upgraded since it was paved approximately twenty-six year ago; and

WHEREAS this section of Route 235 is in such a terrible condition that school children are finding their daily trips over the road very difficult;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to upgrade and pave the approximately three kilometres of Route 235 from Birchy Cove to Bonavista.

Mr. Speaker, this is one of a number of petitions that I continually receive from people living in not only Birchy Cove and Bonavista, but in all the communities leading from Bonavista all the way up Route 235. This is the main road leading to the Town of Bonavista on that particular route. It is the only way that people from King's Cove going south to Bonavista have access to the Town of Bonavista. It is the only road that they have access to the hospital, to the schools there, and to other government services that is operated in the larger town, which is Bonavista.

Government, in its wisdom, has made approximately four attempts to upgrade and pave the five kilometres of road that I have been talking about for the past four years. This past year they made a commitment to go there and complete two kilometres - not a big project, but it was acceptable. The people said: Well, at last we are going to get some meaningful work done. In their wisdom, they decided to cut back on the amount of pavement and upgrading that they were going to do and ended up doing 700 metres of road there.

Mr. Speaker, when you drive down this section of road now you do not know if you are on the shoulder of the road or if you are in the middle of the road because the shoulders of the road and the pavement have deteriorated so much that you have gravel leading all the way out to the center of the road.

We heard the Minister of Tourism stand here a couple of days ago and read about how well the tourism industry is doing here in Newfoundland. Mr. Speaker, tourism is a big drawer in the District of Bonavista South. In fact, the Town of Bonavista, King's Cove and that particular area, is probably one of the focal points of tourism here in the Province. People would like to go down Route 230 and then make the detour and do the complete loop up Route 235. We call it the scenic route.

Every time you talk to people who are going down there with their motor homes and people travelling there by private vehicle as well, the first thing they talk about is the condition of the road. They enjoy the sites. They enjoy the hospitality of the people, but the one thing they do not enjoy is the road that they have to travel over in order to get to Bonavista and in order to come up and connect with Route 230 again, to connect with the main highway leading to the Trans-Canada Highway. A few years ago, the people in the area decided that they themselves had to do something with this road. They decided they were going to protest.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the member's time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: By leave to clue up, Mr. Speaker.

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, they did not want to close off the road. They said: We are going to be responsible. What we will do is we will go and hold an information session on the side of the road. They handed out pamphlets and asked for support in order that they might get this road completely upgraded and completed. The road still needs to be completed. There is still three kilometres of very bad road there. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that this member will stand and present whatever petitions come until this section of roadway is completely upgraded and repaved.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition pertaining to a name change of Memorial University. I just want to reference here the prayer of the petition. It reads:

To the hon. House of Assembly of Newfoundland in legislative session convened, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and Labrador -

MS KELLY: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: I say to the Minister of Youth Services and Post-Secondary Education, I am reading the petition as it was presented to me, and she is interjecting and saying that it is not correct.

The petition was presented by people to me and I am going to read it as it was presented. If that is not in keeping here, the minister has a right to rise on a point of order to that effect.

The petition says:

WHEREAS the government has requested the Board of Regents to consider a name change of our University; and

WHEREAS Memorial University of Newfoundland is excluded under the Newfoundland and Labrador Act; and

WHEREAS publicly funded universities can be named for a region of a province; and

WHEREAS when other political entities changed, the name of the university within it did not; and

WHEREAS our educational mandate is not limited to this Province; and

WHEREAS the University is on the Island of Newfoundland; and

WHEREAS the first university in other provinces did not reflect the entire name of the Province; and

WHEREAS there will be enormous costs to undergo this name change; and

WHEREAS there are enormous disadvantages to not having a geographic identity attached to the University; and

WHEREAS another proposed university in this Province is more suitable to have Labrador added to its name;

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to retain the current name - Memorial University of Newfoundland, as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, this petition was signed by 610 people in this Province; 303 people from Memorial University of Newfoundland have signed it at the St. John's and the Sir Wilfred Grenfell College. It has been signed by 163 people through the Legion clubs in Ferryland, Catalina, Blaketown and St. Alban's, and by 144 members of the general public outside the circulation area of these particular petitions. These people want an opportunity for their voice to be heard. Over the past little while, since the House opened here, I know there have been several thousands of people have put forth their name on a petition asking that this be considered. I put forward this petition on behalf of these residents here and ask government to seriously consider the input of people in this Province with respect to this very important issue.

Thank you

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Orders of the Day

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

MR. LUSH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Order 11, second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's (Loan) Act, 1978. Bill 19.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that Bill 19 entitled, An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's (Loan) Act, 1978 -

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. LUSH: Sorry, we will change that.

Order 13, Bill 17.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of Corner Brook Act, The City Of Mount Pearl Act, The City Of St. John's Act, The Municipalities Act, 1999 And The Urban And Rural Planning Act, 2000." (Bill 17)

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

MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this particular piece of legislation was brought to the House in the spring session but did not get through second reading at that particular time. This piece of legislation, by the way, has been requested by the Federation of Municipalities over a number of years, and also requested by the City of St. John's, the City of Corner Brook and the City of Mt. Pearl, along with some of the larger towns.

Currently, where municipal bylaws and regulations are not obeyed, the municipalities may take remedial action by recovering the costs through the courts. That is very, very cumbersome for them and in many instances they do not arrive at the benefits that they should have gotten from it. When this is not a viable option for those nuisance issues, that is when the federation and the city approached us to see if we would bring in the legislation to correct it. That is what we have done, Mr. Speaker.

There is no extra revenue to the Province from this. The revenue goes to the municipalities, and where there are outstanding tickets issued to a property owner, it will be treated as a lien against the property and the municipality will be able to collect on that.

As I said, neither does it give additional authority to the municipalities either, but merely simplifies and streamlines the current municipal enforcement process. Tickets here would be issued for offences rather than going through the court process, as I suggested earlier. It is more effective in ensuring compliance with municipal bylaws and less costly than pursuing the matters through the courts.

I will give you some of the ideas of what we are talking about here: violation of noise bylaws, for example. I can give example number one, where late night parties are disturbing neighbours. Up to this particular time, if there was ticket issued it would have to go through the court system and probably never be able to recover.

Another example is where a car wreck or unsightly vehicle is left outside for a period of time and becomes an aesthetic nuisance; an unsightly building that requires painting; a fence left in a state of disrepair; litter and waste left on a property; unsecured material left dangling from a roof - like a ladder for example; walkways to a house in a state of disrepair.

There is another one that the municipalities have some trouble with, and that is commercial waste. For example, when you have those big trucks coming into the neighbourhood at, say, 5:00 a.m. to collect from the large disposable containers. The municipalities would like to be able to change some of these things in relation to the noise bylaws. The other example we have, of course, is the improper disposal of waste.

These have been thought about. We have worked with the federation for a long, long time. The city has been involved, all of the stakeholders, they have asked for it. I have talked to my colleagues across the way and they do not seem to have a lot of problem with this piece of legislation. I look forward to its speedy passage in this House, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

Certainly, as the minister said, we have had some discussions on this particular bill, Bill 17. It basically allows the cities and towns in the Province to issue tickets for certain offences. Of course, unpaid tickets could be assessed against property taxes and assessments for property related ticket offences.

Mr. Speaker, as the minister said, we have had discussions - and our colleagues - on this particular piece of legislation and we are certainly not going to hold it up in any way, but we do have a few comments to make on it.

Of course, he has also stated that the Federation of Municipalities have asked for this for quite some time, as a matter of fact, and it was in the Legislature in the spring but we did not get to that particular piece of legislation.

In keeping with that, we will certainly co-operate, as we do, Mr. Speaker, on many occasions in this House when legislation is brought forward, especially by groups such as the Federation of Municipalities, and towns and cities throughout the Province where we can help, in some way, clear up, make it less cumbersome, as the minister has said, so that the councils throughout this Province can indeed, in a less cumbersome way, collect these fees the same as they do with taxes and so on.

When you deal with the piece of legislation which concerns municipalities throughout this Province and you see another way of - I guess, again, it is a money-related bill in the way that towns can collect on these tickets; but when you think about that, you also cannot help but think of how towns and cities throughout this Province have such a hard time in getting funding to do the things they need to do in their communities. Although this bill in particular deals with the tickets and being able to collect on these, some of the examples that the minister has given - for example, noise levels throughout the community, car wrecks, unsightly buildings, and so on - it allows those communities to be able to act on those things that they see happening throughout their community.

Mr. Speaker, we do not have a problem with any of those, but you are still reminded, any time you hear of a town trying to collect money, be it through tickets, through taxes, fees and so on, you cannot help but be reminded of the problems that the municipalities around this Province face today. For example, when we talk about the councils being able to collect money, I cannot help but think about the Municipal Operating Grants throughout this Province that have been slashed by some 50 per cent since 1995-1996, and councils and towns throughout this Province are struggling as they lose people through out-migration, and the numbers speak for themselves. The statistics change, the numbers change. I have heard different numbers spoken of in this Chamber but somewhere in the area of 60,000 people have left the Province since 1992, and, Mr. Speaker, most of those come from rural parts of Newfoundland and Labrador. As a matter of fact, when people talk about out-migration and the effect on rural Newfoundland and Labrador, rural parts of the Province have been hit twice because really they have seen people leave their communities to go to the mainland, which we have seen throughout the Province, especially to Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, but the rural towns in this Province have also seen people leave the smaller towns in Newfoundland and Labrador to go to St. John's, Corner Brook, Grand Falls, Gander, the bigger centres in the Province where they hope they will find jobs.

At the same time when you look at the statistics of the 60,000 people who left the Province, really it does not take into account the people who left rural Newfoundland and Labrador and went to the bigger centres to find help. That is the way it is, especially in these days when you see, of course, even the cod closure we talked about just a few days ago; what kind of an impact that will have on the smaller communities in rural Newfoundland and Labrador and their ability to collect taxes and fees and so on, and the struggle that they have, and then to talk to the councillors who are on the front lines.

The councils in this Province are volunteer councils. Especially in this day and age, Mr. Speaker, when you can get young people adding onto the councils to get some new blood infusion into the councils around this Province, they see the struggle right away of people and how they, as a council, can collect on fees and taxes and so on, so that they can still offer the same services in these small communities. Because, simply put, although the tax base has shrunk and people have left, the councils are still left with the burden of still providing those services. That has not stopped. So, when the minister talks about anything to do with councils and fees and collecting of taxes and so on, something they should be reminded of are the MOGs, the Municipal Operating Grants, the little bit of money that means a lot to small communities. The Municipal Operating Grants have, since 1995-1996, been slashed by sometimes in the range of 50 per cent. So, although a small community like Fleur de Lys, in my district, may have collected $40,000 to $50,000, for example - I do not have the exact numbers but we discussed it a little while ago with the council - let's say $50,000 a year in Municipal Operating Grants, it might not sound like a lot to the bigger communities in the Province but to a small community it means a lot. That particular community is now probably somewhere in the range of $20,000 to $25,000 a year, so they have lost $25,000. Now, what does that mean to a small community in rural Newfoundland and Labrador? Mr. Speaker, when you want to get right down to it, that is a council that has to go around its community and decide what street lights they are turning off next. Mr. Speaker, that is the way it is. That is simply what it comes down to in rural Newfoundland and Labrador when you talk about collecting fees and taxes and trying to help a council who are still there with a shrinking tax base but still have to provide the services that people have come to expect.

What do they expect in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker? The simple things like decent drinking water, a decent road to travel over, and every single time I talk to a council - and I know I have spoken to my colleagues in rural parts of this Province who say the same thing over and over - they are not asking for a lot. They are asking for the simple things: knowing that when their children drink a glass of water from the tap, it is decent water and it is healthy.

Mr Speaker, many, many communities throughout this Province face that challenge every single day. We, as provincial members - but imagine the people on the front lines, councillors in the small communities in our Province, who have that to worry about day in and day out. The fact is, the number of communities in this Province to date - maybe the minister can even talk about it when he gets up - it is well over 200 communities in this Province today. I think there are 236 or 246 that still have boil orders on. There are some communities that have had it on for a year to a year-and-a-half and there are some communities, Mr. Speaker, in this Province - and we should all be ashamed to say it or to acknowledge it - that there are communities that have ten years, fifteen years of boil orders in their communities and have struggled and struggled to try to improve water systems in their communities, and I speak to them on a daily basis. I have thirty-three communities in the Baie Verte District. The Member for Bonavista South - forty-four rural communities spread throughout his district. He will tell you how many communities in his district. Or on the Northern Peninsula, in The Straits, White Bay North, St. Barbe - they will tell you how many community councillors they talk to on a daily basis and one of their biggest fears is the health and safety of the people in their communities, and the fact that boil orders continuously pop up.

Since the situation in Ontario some years ago, Walkerton has put certainly a scare into everybody, and so it should because it is our families, it is our children. Imagine the simple necessity - not a luxury, the simple necessity - of good drinking water, to have a clear conscience, to feel safe to tell your residents, if you are a councillor in those small communities, that yes, it is safe to drink the water. Or, if it is not actually safe to drink, is it safe to use at any cost?

Those are the things that communities around this Province challenge this government to make sure that when they are talking about Municipal Operating Grants, which may sound like a small amount of money to some people in this Province, to a lot of people and a lot of communities, and a lot of small councils in a lot of small communities, it means a lot. It means the difference between them being able to tell them they have decent drinking water.

Then, when you look around the roads - and we could go on for days and days talking about the road situation in this Province. It all comes together under the same umbrella, Madam Speaker. The fact is that communities throughout Newfoundland and Labrador are struggling, day in, day out, for the basic necessities of decent drinking water and a decent road to travel over.

Then, of course, we could go on into other things like the state of the school system and what that means to rural Newfoundland and Labrador; health care - we have talked about that over and over - but when I look at this piece of legislation and just connect it to it, because it is all connected any time you talk about municipalities throughout this Province. The convention that the Federation of Municipalities held in Corner Brook just a short time ago, if you walk around that convention and talk to councillors and mayors and town clerks who, on a daily basis, face those types of questions, you really truly understand, Madam Speaker, why municipalities in this Province continually talk to the government on correcting things such as the Municipal Operating Grants.

I understand, Madam Speaker, and I hope, and I have heard it many times as I talked to the Federation of Municipalities lately, that there is something coming very soon. It is long overdue, it is definitely long overdue, that there is some kind of redress to be done with the Municipal Operating Grants in this Province, to give the small communities in Newfoundland and Labrador a chance for a bit of common decency, when you talk about our road system and you talk about safe drinking water throughout our towns.

Madam Speaker, there is not a lot I want to say on this particular bill today. It is certainly something that the Federation of Municipalities and the councils throughout this Province have been suggesting for quite some time. As a matter of fact, it is overdue, this piece of legislation that is here today. We should have had it done this spring. It could have been enacted by now, so that anything that we can do as a Legislature to help municipalities throughout this Province, and the bigger towns, to make it less cumbersome so that they can act on things they need to do in their own communities, well, Madam Speaker, we are all for it.

Many times you hear of legislation throughout this House when we don't co-operate. Well, that is not true, Madam Speaker. As a matter of fact, we support this piece of legislation. We are glad it is here, it should have been here earlier, but anything that we can do to help municipalities throughout this Province do their job better, because they are the ones on the front line, then we fully support, and we fully support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER (Ms Hodder): The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I am very pleased today to rise in debate on Bill 17. I was just sharing with one of my colleagues, that in the ten years of being in this Legislature, I think this is the only bill that is specific to my district in a significant way, that I have asked and pushed for in terms of its introduction.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nine-and-a-half.

MR. MATTHEWS: Nine-and-a-half. Then, nine-and-a-half plus one day is effectively ten years, as the hon. member would know.

This bill, Madam Speaker, is a bill that has importance for the constituents that I represent in St. John's North because of the extra ability it will give the City of St. John's to deal with some very serious, some very specific, issues that occur and have been occurring in the district that I represent for the past number of years.

Let me describe it briefly without taking too much time. The district that I represent, of course, largely involves the area around the Memorial University of Newfoundland. It takes in the area of the Baird Subdivision. It takes in the area of New Town Road, Empire Avenue West and beyond that.

What we have seen happen in that area over the last number of years is: in significant numbers, the properties have been purchased by people who do not always live in the houses that they own. There has been a very high rate of rentals occurring in that area. In the case of rentals, of course, what you have is a circumstance where you have landlords who own properties, properties are rented out sometimes to working people, sometimes to students. In that area of the city there is a high preponderance of students who do rent those properties. It has been well highlighted in the media many times that in that particular area, unfortunately, there are higher than usual - particularly on weekends - incidents of noise, rowdiness, partying, and that sort of thing, that disturb many of the residents who live there in their own homes and who have lived there for many years. Many of the seniors in that area have asked me if there is some way we could deal with this issue.

This particular bill actually was initiated by myself, as minister, when I was in the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. Following that, my successor, the current Minister of Finance, and then beyond that the current minister, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, moved this forward in consultation with the Department of Justice.

What we have culminating in those requests and those activities, is a bill here today that will give greater ability to the City of St. John's to be able to issue tickets to landlords whose properties are being occupied by renters and who are less than respectful, I regretfully say, of the citizens who live in that area traditionally, their neighbours, people who live across the street, many of whom, I would point out, are seniors, people who have moved in that area thirty or forty years ago and still live in the residence that they bought.

As a matter of fact, Madam Speaker, I bought my first house in Baird Subdivision thirty-seven years ago myself. At that time, I moved in there as a very young parent. People of my ilk who bought property in that area thirty-seven, forty years ago, and who decided to stay there, are now getting up in years where their family has been raised and they are now enjoying, as I am, grandchildren in their lives. This particular bill will serve to recognize and serve to give ability to city council; to make ‘ticketable' and to provide the issuance of tickets for people who occupy properties and who violate certain statutes of municipalities.

I would just point out for the record, Madam Speaker, the type of offences that can be covered by this ticketing system and by this authority that has been given to the City of St. John's and to other municipalities named in this particular bill. Once this legislation passes, properties will be able to be ticketed. The owners of properties will be able to be ticketed for such things as unsightly building repairs and painting; fence left in a state of disrepair; landlord or resident fails to provide working smoke detectors; litter and waste left on the property; unsecured material left dangling from a roof, and that sort of thing.

It will also provide authority to the city to be able to ticket for those who are disrespectful of noise curfews and who are in the process, or in the habit, of engaging in partying activities that are most disturbing to people as residents of the area.

This year I recall seeing on two occasions, Madam Speaker, on the evening news, incidents where residents have had to call police in, to provide protection and to enforce law to ensure that rowdiness and things that were happening in the area where brought under control. There was actually one, I remember a couple of months ago, an evening news piece showing police actually in the area of the Baird Subdivision making arrests of unfortunately some young people who had gotten a little bit out of hand.

I have had a lot of requests from citizens, from residents in the area, to give the city greater ability to deal with these issues by way of being able to ticket them, and if they do not pay their tickets lien the property so that it makes them more responsible and pay more attention to what is going on in their rented properties. This year, I have had numerous requests and I have had petitions from people in a whole different area of the Baird Subdivision that before did not seem to be as affected as some other areas with this type of thing going on.

I am commending of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs for finally being able to move this piece of legislation to the Legislature, so that we can put this additional authority in place for municipalities, in this case the City of St. John's, to deal with some of these issues.

This, in and of itself, obviously, Madam Speaker, will not cause to see all of the problems disappear. We will still have those types of issues to deal with. There is still the level of authority and responsibility that the police will continue to have, to deal with these people.

This particular bill is a significant step forward in that it allows the City of St. John's to issue tickets which, if they go unpaid, will form a lien on the property owners, which in that event makes it more of a conscious issue for the landlords to ensure that their properties are being properly occupied, that the residents are being properly respectful of the property and respectful of the rights of citizens of long standing in the area.

I am happy, Madam Speaker, to see this bill come forward. As I said before, it is an issue that has caused me a lot of discussion and dialogue with my constituents. I only wish that we could have moved it forward a year or two ago. It would have relieved some of things that have happened in the interim. The fact of the matter is, as I have explained to my constituents, it does take some time to move these bills to the Legislature. Consultations have to be held with municipalities that are being given this authority, to ensure that it is going to work for them. Consultations have to be held with other departments, such as Justice, to ensure that the ticketing process is going to be effective and will deliver, in some measure at least, the desired results. I am very pleased today that we have arrived at this point.

I say to constituents who may be listening today, that while this will not solve all of the issues of rowdiness, untidiness, partying and untoward behaviour by some of the people who rent some of these properties, it will go a long way to help.

I would also point out, Madam Speaker, that while this may seem to be a big, big issue in the district, it is, but in terms of the magnitude of it, the number of people who cause these problems in any neighbourhood or in any area are grossly and singularly in the minority. This bill does not reflect a circumstance where we have bedlam or where we have things happening on a scale that would almost suggest we are New York or something like that. That is not the case. But where we have even one incident on one Friday night where there is one party going on and where one group of individuals are out of order and out of line and causing disturbances by acting inside the property and outside the property to the detriment of neighbours, where we have one circumstance of that happening, it is one too many and this bill will have, I hope, in some way been the result of providing a remedy to cause these things to be less prevalent and, hopefully, cause these things to disappear altogether.

So, to put it into perspective, Madam Speaker, before I sit down, I do want to recognize that this is not something that is a big, big occurrence everyday of the week but there are areas of the city, there are areas of the Province, there are areas within specific municipalities, where by virtue of a preponderance of a particular type of clientele in rental properties is more serious than in other areas. If I can prevent grief, if I can, in some way, cause to have less problems, less disturbances, less discomfiture, less nights awake for seniors, in particular, in my district where these things have been an issue, and for anybody in the district, young families in the district where these things have been disturbing and if it prevents even one incident in the future, it, in and of itself will have been worth bringing to the Legislature and getting this legislation passed.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for your time, and thanks again to the sponsoring ministers who have made this bill possible for the purposes that I have outlined.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley.

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

I am very pleased to rise today and to support this particular bill which is, of course, an amendment to The City Of Corner Brook Act, The City Of Mount Pearl Act, The City Of St. John's, Act, The Municipalities Act, 1999 and The Urban And Rural Planning Act, 2000.

Madam Speaker, I come to this position in this House after having served twenty-two-and-a-half years in municipal government; sixteen of them as the Mayor of Mount Pearl and the balance either as a deputy mayor or as a councillor. I can say to all hon. members, it gets very frustrating when you are trying to make sure that things in your municipality are going along in acceptable manners when you have some people who choose not to obey the rules as laid down to take pride in your community.

Certainly, when I look at the list here of offences that the minister may establish by regulation as being offences onto this particular act, and other members have noted, some of these things - for example, the car wrecks left on streets in front of property, or you have car wrecks on private property itself, or you have a very untidy and unkept front yard or back yard that becomes a nuisance to the people in the neighbourhood who want to keep their property in good shape.

We also note here people who have things on their property that can pose hazards. Mr. Speaker, we know of cases where children have been hurt and, in some cases, children have died because they have wondered onto property and have been victims of accidents which could have been prevented if the owners and others had made sure that the property was properly kept and these hazards were eliminated or reduced. Mr. Speaker, we cannot protect our children from all things in a municipality but certainly we can make sure that if a child or an adult goes onto a piece of property that the hazards are reduced as much as we can possibly make happen under the force of law.

Mr. Speaker, we note as well that when the minister gave the example he mentioned the practice of the commercial waste collectors collecting their big containers at very odd hours. I had a complaint just a while ago from my constituency where there was a collection system going on at 6:00 o'clock in the morning. Mr. Speaker, that becomes a bit of a nuisance to people in the neighborhood when you hear those large vehicles, these collection machines, out in front of a piece of property making the collection at 6:00 a.m. Certainly, we can make regulations on that.

What this bill does is give the mayor and the councillors in these municipalities the power to be able to go and get some redress; to make people remember that if you are going to go and commit these offences there will be consequences.

However, I did want to note a couple of matters that I would like to bring to the attention of the House. For example, it is very important when we talk about the officers or the officials who will go out and make those decisions, whether to issue a ticket or not to issue a ticket. We should make sure that all municipalities have some form of regulation but we also should make sure that these regulations are communicated to people in the municipality and that the officers themselves have some degree of consistent training, so we do not have one officer doing an aggressive kind of enforcement, another officer not being as aggressive or for that matter, we should make sure that all of the officers have the same level of training so that we have some consistency.

I note as well here that there is a thirty-day period between the time that a ticket is issued and an appeal can be made to a provincial court judge. In some cases, and in most cases, the thirty-day appeal period is quite acceptable. However, in some cases you cannot find the owner of a piece of property and in some instances it can take a longer time to find that for various reasons. The owners may have moved, their mailing address may have changed, and there is a need to use some discretion in some cases. Of course, the concept here is that these offences, if they are not paid immediately, will become liens against the owners of the property.

Mr. Speaker, there may be some consideration as well for the owners of the property because if you have property rented then you cannot take responsibility for everything that a tenant does. There has to be some recognition that the tenants themselves have to be somewhat responsible. So, we have to be careful what we put on the owners of the property to make sure it is something that they have control over. For example, if a piece of property has a very untidy yard, that might be the responsibility of the property owner, providing it is something over which he has control. However, not in all circumstances is the owner able to go and immediately address that problem. So we have to be very careful that we make sure that owners are going to be penalized justly. In some cases, make sure that the owners are not being held liable for things that should be property charged to tenants or to other people who might have an interest in that property.

The other thing that happens is when you have - for example, a wrecked car that is parked in front of a piece of property. It may be just abandoned. It may be on public property but we have to be very careful that we make sure that when we issue those tickets, we issue them to the right people so that we do not have an example of where some property owner finds that a ticket has been issued, he knows nothing about it until the next year when his assessment comes out. He finds out that he has a ticket for x number of dollars that is added to his property tax, only to find out that it is not something he had any control over whatsoever. So, we need to use the powers that are included in this particular piece of legislation with some discretion, with some degree of wisdom, and that only comes about if there is proper training for the municipal enforcement officers.

In my time as the Mayor of Mount Pearl, I can say that we had some very good municipal officers who did a very good job, but there were occasions when we had people who were either too forgiving, and in some cases, we had people who were far to aggressive. So I say again, we have to make sure that we do have a consistent and a balanced approach.

I also want to note here that these regulations, and what the offences that are going to be included, should be communicated to all property owners as quickly as possible. For example, by the first or second week of January every municipality in this Province will be sending out their tax bills. The minister should make sure and encourage all municipalities to send out in the tax bills, to the owners of the property, a statement clearly saying what these offences will include. For example, you cannot go and have this bill come into effect and not have any communication with the owners of properties. So I am calling upon the minister to use his office to encourage the municipalities - I am calling upon the Federation of Municipalities to use their good offices to make sure that there is an appropriate communication plan put in place to make sure that the property owners have knowledge of the changes that is going to occur when this bill comes into effect.

Mr. Speaker, this also is an opportunity for us to look at some of the issues. We are talking about principles of the bill, and, as my colleague from Baie Verte has mentioned, all is not well with municipal government in Newfoundland and Labrador. The member comes from a rural area and he has talked in our caucus repeatedly, as have other members in this caucus, about Municipal Operating Grants. We have talked about the complete breakdown of municipal infrastructure.

We heard tell of, just a few weeks ago, two municipalities in this Province that have decided they want to be unincorporated, because, they say: We don't have the money. Our municipalities cannot collect the taxes. Our people do not have any employment in our community. We cannot continue on. They said they would be better off if they were unincorporated.

Madam Speaker, this is a very, very sad and regrettable occurrence, when you have municipalities saying they would rather be unincorporated, not have these powers at all, because other towns which are not incorporated are better off than they are.

I say to the minister, in all sincerity, look at what is happening in some of our smaller communities. When you have municipalities which are making a choice, they would rather be unincorporated, they would rather have no municipal government whatsoever, than to have an incorporation and a council and then find they have no money, no power, and no means to be able to address the real issues they have to deal with day after day after day.

Then, when they look to the next town, which is not incorporated at all, they see a higher standard of services. Therefore, in some cases, some towns have been penalized for being incorporated. They have been penalized for taking leadership in their municipalities. When that kind of thing happens, there is a message there to all of us: Let's make sure that when we have municipalities that are incorporated, trying to do the best that they can in their communities, that we do support them, that we do make sure that they have some operating money to be able to provide the services that their people deserve, that their people need, and that their people should expect from their local government.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to make note here, when we are saying this as well: Let's look at our special circumstance people. Let's remember that we have an aging population. We have a lot of seniors out there who are trying their best to stay in their own homes. They are trying to make sure that they can live in harmony in their own municipality in their own homes. Let's make sure that we do everything we can to facilitate that. Let's not forget these people, our seniors, our low-income families, and all these other people who are trying to make their municipalities work.

Yes, I believe that the principle of this bill is good. It does give the municipalities listed here, and the authorities listed under the Urban and Rural Planning Act, extra powers to do certain things for certain offences, but let's make sure that we continue to support our municipalities. Let's make sure we support them, particularly our rural municipalities who are finding that they are, today, able to provide a lower level of service than they could ten years ago. They are not going forward; they are actually going backwards. When we have some municipalities that want to be unincorporated, then there is a message here for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a step in the right direction but we have to keep in mind that all is not well in all municipalities in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

 

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am standing to speak on this bill today. Obviously, as the Minister of Mines and Energy pointed out, I represent a district in St. John's as well, and I have had several calls from individuals who have had problems with their neighbours, primarily students in most cases, who are renting, having parties on Friday and Saturday nights, whatever the case may be, creating a disturbance into the wee hours of the morning and causing headaches for their neighbours. The city virtually had very little authority, very little power, to deal with this nuisance in the past.

At this point, this bill will give authority to municipalities and give them the ability and the clout to address some of the problems that residents experience throughout the city and throughout the Province, throughout all municipalities - problems such as noise bylaws, neighbour properties, properties in disrepair, fences and grounds in disrepair. Now the municipalities have the ability to significantly and meaningfully go in and do something about it. Municipalities have the ability to go in and ticket a property owner for a nuisance. Essentially, if the property owner does not comply with the ticket, they have the ability then to put a lien on that person's property until the ticket is paid.

This bill, essentially, will take care of a number of problems that are being experienced by municipalities. In the downtown area of St. John's - I am not sure if it covers, and maybe the minister can speak to this; I am not sure if it deals with the problem - I know a lot of downtown homeowners have complaints on a regular basis, with noise that comes from the downtown area because of night clubs and so on, primarily in the summer months. It is of concern to people who are living on Queen's Road, New Gower Street, Water Street, and even in areas like Livingstone Street and Lime Street and those areas where the residents in those areas, particularly senior citizens and those with small children, find that the loud noise is quite a nuisance. They find that the noise coming from the downtown area creates quite a problem for them, and the city has not been very effective in being able to deal with that.

I have had calls from a number of residents who have experienced similar problems with private parties. So I know this act will cover private parties and private property. I am not sure if it will cover commercial properties in the same manner. Maybe the minister can answer that when he stands to his feet.

Hopefully, with this new act - and it covers the Cities of Mount Pearl, Corner Brook and the City of St. John's as well as all municipalities, urban and rural, throughout the Province - will, by giving the authority to the municipalities to deal with some of these issues, be of great help and assistance to those municipalities, and obviously to the people throughout the Province as well.

I think most people in the House, maybe all people, will support this bill and the intent of the bill. I am not sure, like I say, on commercial property, if it applies to commercial property as well, but I know, on residential property, any unpaid tickets could be assessed against the property and property tax assessments until these tickets are paid.

Mr. Speaker, I, for one, will be supporting this bill.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to speak for a few minutes in debate on Bill 17, An Act to Amend the City of Corner Brook Act, the City of Mount Pearl Act, the City of St. John's Act, the Municipalities Act, 1999 and the Urban and Rural Planning Act, 2000. These amendments are designed to give these municipalities the right to issue violation tickets for bylaw offences. I want to say, first of all, that we support in principle this move. There are lots of reasons why, and other members have spoken to how this works, that the difficulty of enforcement of bylaws requires the municipality to take someone to court and actually get the court to get a conviction and to get any action. The notion of ticketing is one that we accept for parking violations, we accept it for speeding violations and other violations, and it does give a little bit more direct deterrence, I guess, to an individual who has a ticket. The ticket indicates that you have been charged with an offence and the fine is such and such. You have a choice in those tickets, to either pay your ticket to the relevant authority or you can go and contest it. That is a scheme that I support but, in looking at the bill - and I have had some discussions with the minister - I have a concern about the way that it is handled in this particular legislation.

Pretty clearly there is a need to have a ticketing situation for someone, whether there is a noise bylaw or whether someone is breaching a littering bylaw by having garbage strewn around their property or around the sidewalk, that ticketing is a way to do that rather than have to take people to court through a lengthy and uncertain process and a long process. I have a problem, and I pointed it out to the minister with reference to each of those acts, the scheme that is set up there is that if a person does not like the fact that they got a ticket, they have to appeal to a provincial court judge. For example, in clause 2(g) of the first reference here to the City of Corner Brook, it says, "...that an appeal may be made to a Provincial Court judge within 30 days of the issuance of the violation ticket."

That, Madam Speaker, when you say that you can appeal to a court, the implication there is that you have already been found guilty of it and that you are appealing the fact that you got the ticket, you are appealing the conviction, and that is fundamentally wrong in my view. A person who wishes to pay the ticket can certainly go and pay it and recognize that they have been in violation of the bylaw, pay their fine and carry on and hopefully be more vigilant in the future about obeying town or city bylaws, but if they do not believe that they have been properly given the ticket, they should not have to appeal and, by implication, have the onus of proving that they were innocent. There should be a process whereby if your ticket is contested then it must be proven in a court.

Now, in looking at that, I have had a look at the Summary Proceedings Act, which we changed here in this House quite a few years ago now, in trying to look at how would you have the ticketing offences work and parking tickets under the Highway Traffic Act or other acts, and how this ticketing system would work so as you can contest a ticket and have the matter go before a court, if you so wished. Essentially, the person who gave the ticket would have to prove, in the normal manner, that a person had been in violation of the act and you have the right to defend yourself and all of those normal safeguards of legal process. I noticed, Madam Speaker, that these were really absent in this situation here, whereas instead of having the person who gave the ticket, the bylaw enforcement officer go to the court and testify, demonstrate that you have been in violation of the bylaw, you had to appeal, and the implication being that you had to show to the court that you did not violate the act, instead of the other way around.

I have spoken with the minister on that, and it appears that he has had discussions with his officials. We may look at changing the wording of that in committee so that there will be a process whereby if a person is dissatisfied or wishes to contest the issuing of a ticket, that that matter would then be resolved by the provincial court judge. There is no exact wording worked out yet, as to what might be the best way to word that, but I imagine, it will be something similar to what we have in the Summary Proceedings Act. We leave that to the officials and to the Law Clerks to come up with an appropriate wording that would satisfy the objection and the concern that I am rasing here now.

Other than that, Madam Speaker, I think that the bill is a good one. I think it has been, as others have said, a long time coming. There have been requests by the City of St. John's, I know for many years, and other municipalities as well. The Federation of Municipalities has been urging the government, for a number of years, to get moving on this and to bring it before the House.

As the Minister of Mines and Energy has said, he had it on his plate when he was Minister of Municipal Affairs, the Minister of Finance, and now the current minister is bringing it forward for debate. I think it is timely that we do that, to allow - much of the stuff is new since that type of thing, whether it be littering, whether it be violations of noise bylaws, whether it be some things as simple, I suppose, as people putting garbage out when they are not supposed to. That is a problem, I know, in the City of St. John's where garbage is out the night before the garbage comes to be collected, and there are animals - seagulls seem to like garbage a lot here in St. John's. Maybe they travel from Robin Hood Bay and come around and swoop around the town and see what garbage is available. They are the St. John's seagulls, and they tend to go and strew garbage all over the place because people put their garbage out the night before.

MR. MANNING: I can say our (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I understand that in the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's district that seagulls there are very well behaved and they do not bother anybody's garbage. They have a sanctuary for them down there, for not only the seagulls but all the birds, and they stick to their sanctuary, they don't need to come looking for garbage. The St. John's corner boy seagulls are a very rowdy bunch and they are quite happy to disturb garbage if you put it out. That is the kind of thing that ticketing offences would relate to, and I think it can act as a deterrent to people who continue making a nuisance of themselves by doing that sort of thing.

So, I want to say I support this move, with the reservation that I mentioned, about the process for contesting a ticket if you feel that you have been wrongly ticketed. I am sure that the minister and I, in discussions with the Law Clerks as to appropriate wording, will be able to work that out for the Committee Stage. The minister indicates that that is being done as we speak.

Having said that, Madam Speaker, I will end my remarks and indicate that I support, in principle, Bill 17.

Thank you.

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

I rise today, as well, to support this act. I think it is a very important amendment that is being put forward. It is one that has been long in the making. I also believe that it accomplishes a number of things without infringing on people's rights. Not only does it meet the needs of municipalities that can prove the need for such an amendment, but what it does is makes it very clear that these types of infractions that have been pointed out will not be tolerated, and eventually if tickets are not paid then a lien will be put on that particular individual's property.

I think, as well, that it is very important to note that the ticketing system, as described, does not give municipalities any more authority. It is not about more governance, it is about being able to ensure that the respect people deserve, neighbour living side by side with people who perhaps don't always behave in the most orderly of fashions, that their views and their concerns are respected.

I think it is also important to note that the Province is not going to receive added revenue. This is not about increased revenue for our Province, although certainly we are open to that in many ways, but in this particular case that is not the intent of this bill. The intent is really to send a very clear message to the municipalities, that, in fact, demonstrate the need, that there has to be better enforcement and that, eventually, if property owners do not comply, then, of course, they will see their property having a lien placed upon it and that will create a lot of other problems.

Again, I think this is not a problem that is extremely widespread. I know, in my district, I have received a number of phone calls over the last number of years concerning people, again, who have not always acted in an orderly way, oftentimes on a weekend. My district is one in the center of the city that has a very diverse group. We have a number of senior citizens who certainly, in most cases, don't apply, very long-standing citizens in this particular neighborhood. But from time to time, we do have rental areas where there is a transient population and we oftentimes have received concerned complaints from those people about a lot of noise, about disruptions, and maybe even property not being kept up to the level that they would like because it affects their own neighborhood and the value of their own properties.

So, without any further ado, I would like to say, as a Member of the House of Assembly representing St. John's Centre, I think this is a very good piece of legislation. It is not one that limits a person's rights. It allows people to continue to expect that their property will be valued and their behaviours will only be condemned in a way that infringes on their own neighbour's rights. So I think it is important, again, to say that this does not provide any more power, it does not provide revenue to the Province, but does allow a certain assurance that people's rights will be respected. Even though it is a long time coming, I certainly stand here today and speak in favour of this act.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER (M. Hodder): The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I would just like to take a few minutes to make a few comments, Madam Speaker, with respect to Bill 17, An Act To Amend The City Of Corner Brook Act, The City of Mount Pearl Act, The City Of St. John's Act, The Municipalities Act, 1999 And The Urban and Rural Planning Act, 2000.

It is interesting to note, that really - I guess the operative section, which is repeated on a number of occasions throughout this draft legislation, is really the section under the City of St. John's Act. It is found under section 403.1(4). This particular section, as I say, is repeated throughout Bill 17, and it is the key section. I would just like to review it briefly. It states, "Where a payment required to be made under subsection (3) for a contravention is not paid within the required time, that payment amount shall be imposed, levied, collected and recovered from the owner of the property or business" - I think that answers the question that was raised by a couple of hon. members - "to which the contravention relates in the same manner that taxes and assessments are collected under the St. John's Assessment Act."

So clearly, the City of Mount Pearl, the City of Corner Brook, and the City of St. John's and indeed, all those municipalities that come within the ambit of the Municipalities Act, obviously these town, municipalities and cities within our Province, presumably upon the passage of this legislation, will now be governed by the provision of that. Namely, property owners will then have their properties assessed and levied with respect to those outstanding fines in relation to the types of violation that we have been speaking about this afternoon.

The hon. minister opposite indicated - in fact, he gave some examples, namely, repairs to a property, or inappropriate fence lines, or littered properties. These are being used as examples, whereby once a municipality or once a city or a town in this Province, in fact, levies a fine and if the fine remains unpaid, then, of course, the property owner becomes responsible.

There are a couple of points I would like to make with respect to that legislation, Madam Speaker. One is, it obviously puts an increased onus on a landowner or a landlord, because if they use the examples that were given by some members this afternoon, you may indeed have an owner of a property who obviously rents or sublets this property to third parties. The third parties, because of the conducting of their own activities, violate the noise bylaws of a particular jurisdiction, but the ultimate responsibility could obviously be left with the property owner.

Clearly, there is a further onus and a further responsibility on a property owner, a landowner, a homeowner, or a business owner to ensure that the landlord/tenant relationship is such that there is a full understanding of really what is taking place within that particular property, because if not, the property owner could ultimately be responsible as a result of these particular provisions. Clearly, it seems to me, that landlords and tenants in this Province want to be fully conversant with these particular provisions because it ultimately would impact on the ultimate responsibilities of a property owner.

I think what is important, Madam Speaker, is that this particular piece of legislation is coming forward today, in the House of Assembly, as a result of requests made - the hon. minister made reference to this in his introduction - by the Federation of Municipalities and the various cities within the Province. I think it is important that we speak to that briefly because, clearly, what we are seeing here is - in a cooperative spirit, we are seeing the provincial Legislature responding to what the municipalities within our Province are requesting. That, to me, sends a very important signal and is worthy of some note because we must keep in mind, Madam Speaker, that we all represent the same people; we all represent the same constituents.

I happen to be the Member of the House of Assembly for the District of St. John's East, which is essentially, the old East End of St. John's. In fact, this building is in St. John's East. In fact, I am the only member who can say that when I go to the Confederation Building each day, I go to my district each day to work. This is the area of the city that I represent, the old northeast land assembly around George's Town area, the University area, the Pius X area, Churchill Square area, down around the stadium. That vicinity is the area that I represent. So, obviously, I have to have contact with representatives of City Council and employees within the City of St. John's.

Madam Speaker, that relationship is very important. Why is it important? It is because I, like my colleagues who sit on the Council of the City of St. John's, we represent the same people. Therefore, it is incumbent on us to work together in the spirit of cooperation to ensure that their interests are met, that their needs are met, and if there are serious issues or concerns that we deal with them in an expeditious way. That is why, on a regular basis, it is necessary for us, as provincial Members of the House of Assembly, to work closely and in a spirit of cooperation with municipal representatives as well. Whether we represent a district within any of our cities in the Province or any rural districts within Newfoundland and Labrador, we must work in a cooperative way with our municipal representatives as well.

This legislation - as the minister has indicated in his introduction - is a result of what was requested by municipal leaders throughout the Province. Therefore, we must work with that request, take that request - I feel confident in saying that members on both sides of this House, in a unanimous way upon final conclusion of the debate, will vote in one, in a sense, to respond to what the municipalities are requesting, and in that spirt of cooperation work together because, again - and I would like to repeat the fact, Madam Speaker - we are all here to represent the same people. It is the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador and, as forty-eight members of this Legislature, that incorporates all municipalities within our Province. It is their request, so therefore we have to respond to that need and respond to that request.

In conclusion, obviously we have no difficulty in supporting, Madam Speaker, the spirit of this legislation, keeping in mind the point I made just a few minutes ago, that there will be, it seems to me, a further requirement of due diligence on the part of property owners and landlords, in particular, to ensure that they have a better understanding and are more fully aware of the activities and the conduct of their tenants and those individuals who live or work within their properties, because if not, there is an ultimate responsibility placed on them in accordance with what is being requested in Bill 17.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

If the hon. minister speaks now he will end the debate.

MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I want to thank all the members who have spoken in support of this particular piece of legislation on both sides of the House. There is no need for me to go into more detail than that. The item that was noted by the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, we will take note of that and hopefully, in committee, then we can address that particular point.

Again, thanks to all of the people who spoke on this, Madam Speaker.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of Corner Brook Act, The City Of Mount Pearl Act, The City of St. John's Act, The Municipalities Act, 1999 And The Urban And Rural Planning Act, 2000," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill 17)

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. LUSH: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Order 12, second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's Act. (Bill 18)

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's Act." (Bill 18)

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

MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

This particular piece of legislation here - there has been a request, again, from the city to amend that. Basically, what it does is now the Mayor of the City of St. John's has a second vote when there is an equality of votes, but this would remove that if this particular piece of legislation is passed. That would be an equality of votes on a motion, which would be then considered to be defeated of the motion. So, clauses 2 to 5 of the bill, again, would amend sections of the act that permits the borrowing of money by the city with the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. The amendments would require the approval of the Minister of Municipal Affairs for that borrowing.

The second part of it, Madam Speaker, paragraph 2, 3, 4, and 5; now in the municipal act across the Province there is only one municipality that is not consistent with every other. For any city - the City of Mount Pearl or the City of Corner Brook or any municipality in the Province can get an order to borrow by getting permission of the minister. St. John's has to be the Cabinet, and that does not make sense for us to do that. So we want it changed, to make it consistent. That is basically where that would be. By the way, that recommendation also comes from the City Council of St. John's as well. They have asked to have this done.

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

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

Certainly, we are not going to prolong the debate very long on this. I understand, with the minister, that this was a request from the city. In the first clause, clause 1, it basically deals with that, and that is the Mayor of St. John's.

Clause 1 of the bill would repeal and replace section 19 of the City of St. John's Act to remove the ability of the mayor to vote a second time where there is an equality of votes. An equality of votes on a motion would then be considered to be a defeat of the motion.

I understand that comes as a request from the city, from the mayor. I am certainly not going to have very much to say about that. With all due respect for the mayor, I think this is the only place, if I am correct, in the Province where the mayor gets a second vote. Albeit, with respect for the Mayor of St. John's and the good job that he does, I would say that the mayor also concurred that one vote is enough for him, I say to the minister.

On the second part of it though: Clauses 2 to 5 of the bill would amend sections of the Act that permit the borrowing of the money by the city with the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. The amendments would require the approval of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs for that borrowing.

In this particular case, I suppose it is a funny thing that comes to mind, but again, the city has requested that. It is the only town or city in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador which, up to this point, had to got to Cabinet for approval. It is almost like - as somebody said to me before - they do not understand why, when they are giving weather reports, the St. John's weather report has to be given by a meteorologist as opposed to an announcer on the radio. So I guess the same thing applies here.

We certainly do not have a problem with that, the fact that the City of St. John's is going to go through the Minister of Municipal Affairs for their borrowing. Anytime you speak of borrowing you always have to certainly at least make a few comments when it comes to borrowing from the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. Throughout the entire Province, day after day, councils throughout this Province look to government for help and assistance in trying to keep up the infrastructure in this Province. Again, it gives me the chance and an opportunity when you speak on any piece of legislation - although this particular Bill 18 being very specific to St. John's - that any borrowing in this Province by any community should be all treated with fairness and respect for what the councils are trying to achieve in their communities when it comes to basic infrastructure. Again, I say, and another opportunity to say it in this House, decent water to drink and decent roads throughout our communities in Newfoundland and Labrador.

So, without getting into a long debate on that, I say that we would certainly have no problem in supporting the fact that the Mayor of St. John's now has one vote, like every other mayor in Newfoundland and Labrador, in every community in Newfoundland and Labrador, and the fact that when borrowing is requested through the government that again, the City of St. John's is the same as any other town or community in this Province, and in fact, the borrowing requested would be approved under the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs.

With that said, Madam Speaker, I do not have a lot more to say on this. Maybe my colleagues from the St. John's area would have more to say on that, but that is all I have to say.

Thank you.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I would just like to say a few words on Bill 18, An Act to Amend the City of St. John's Act. There are two principle sections here, one which amends section 19 of the City of St. John's Act by repealing the double vote for the mayor. The circumstances as they exist right now under law is that the mayor can not only vote to create a tie, he can vote again to break it; in effect, to have a double vote.

As much as I admire the Mayor of St. John's, one vote is certainly enough for him and enough for any mayor. I say that with a certain tongue-in-cheek, Madam Speaker, but in the City of St. John's we have seen many occasions where the vote has been very close, there has been one vote in the difference, a lot of controversy in St. John's, a lot of people who want to have more of a say in what goes on in the city, and this controversy is fuelled often by personalities. To have a situation where the mayor has two votes, one to bring about a tie and one to, in effect, overrule what would have been a minority - because normally the mayor does not vote at all.

In the City of St. John's, the mayor chairs the meeting, takes the vote, and whatever carries, carries. In cases where the mayor chooses to exercise his vote, if he finds a four to three vote amongst the council, he can say, well, I am going to vote to make a tie and then I am going to vote to break it in favour of the side that I want. It is perceived as being very unfair and certainly it is an anomaly. I do not know of any other municipality in the country where such has happened. I was even shocked to hear the mayor say that as long as this was here, as long as he had the double vote, he was prepared to use it. I am glad we are changing this section and bringing St. John's into line with proper democratic voting procedure.

The second issue in this bill has to do with borrowing requirements. Under the current legislation, the City of St. John's cannot borrow without the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, which we all know is the Cabinet, whereas other municipalities, other cities, other towns, can borrow as long as the minister approves the borrowing requirements. This is seen as an anomaly. It is also perhaps a little bit more cumbersome because you have to prepare a Cabinet Paper and it has to go to a Cabinet meeting and get on the agenda, and all of those things have to happen. Not that I would suggest that, whether it would be St. John's or any other municipality, it should be allowed to borrow without some oversight, because I think that even if the money is not guaranteed by the Province, the Province's credit rating is certainly affected by the borrowing that the municipalities undertake, and at the end of the day if there was a problem no doubt the municipality or the city would look to the provincial government to bail them out of a situation where they borrowed more than they could pay back.

I think it is proper that we do have oversight by the provincial government but I believe that the minister and his officials, in considering requests of that nature, have the capability of making appropriate decisions on matters such as this.

I want to say in conclusion, Madam Speaker, that we support Bill 18, An Act to Amend the City of St. John's Act, to remove the double vote and to allow borrowing to take place with the approval of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, as is done with other municipalities in the Province.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I rise today to speak in support of Bill 18, An Act to Amend the City of St. John's Act. Again, it appears to me to be a housekeeping detail; housekeeping in the sense of not necessarily putting Mayor Wells' house in order, but certainly to make, I guess, the City of St. John's more in line with the rest of the municipalities around this Province of ours, this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

There are two aspects that I certainly would like to speak about. One is that double vote. Certainly, in looking at my district, the fourteen communities in my district, some mayors there would love to have a double vote on certain issues, but in this case, obviously, a double vote goes against the procedures and the rules and the Standing Orders of just about any elected assembly, whether it be municipalities, school boards, whatever organizations, and a double vote for the chair or mayor is not in keeping with the standards that have been set down by the rules of order in assemblies, the Robert's Rules of Order or any rules of order.

How this came about, Madam Speaker, I am not entirely sure of the history of it, but I am sure at one particular time it must have been for a good reason, or what was seen as a good reason, but those were different times. In these, of course, more modern times, we cannot have a situation where the mayor of any municipality can certainly exercise a double vote where, in actual fact, on any particular issue or any particular act, that mayor could literally tie up the vote and then confirm the vote with a double vote. I would suspect that the double vote was intended to break ties and to break impasses, not create them. So in this particular situation, I am sure - and it is heartening to realize that this is a request made by the Council of St. John's, the Municipality of St. John's. It is something that they requested and something that we can, as an Assembly here, deliver, and deliver I would imagine it will be, because I think I join with colleagues on this side of the House and the other side of the House who are certainly in full support of taking away - and, Madam Speaker, any time you take away something, you have to question the taking away of something. You wonder if it is a privilege, if it is a right, and hopefully that the taking away of this particular right or privilege of a Mayor of St. John's will only add to the democracy in that particular council chamber.

The second aspect of it, Madam Speaker, is the aspect of borrowing money. Again, I question: Why was it that the City of St. John's were treated differently in the fact that they had to go to the provincial Cabinet to ask for permission to borrow money? Again, knowing that these are elected representatives, that the people of St. John's elect these councillors and mayor, deputy mayor, to run the affairs of that particular city, because they are elected representatives and they are guided by the Municipalities Act, under that Municipalities Act they have a responsibility to the residents of St. John's to manage the affairs, especially the financial affairs, of that city in a manner that is in keeping with the rules and regulations of the act, of accounting practices and, of course, fulfilling the needs, the services, that are required by the residents of St. John's.

Moving it from, I guess, the responsibility of the Cabinet, the government, and moving it back - not back, I guess it was never back there - but moving it to where all other municipalities in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador are, namely, to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, that is the proper thing to do. It is the right thing to do. Of course, a move that I can only support because money, I say, Madam Speaker, can bring about many wonderful things especially to municipalities in regard to services, in regard to the beautification of a particular city or town.

Just reflecting upon my own district, money has played a very key role in the municipalities, the local services that fall under my jurisdiction in the Harbour Main-Whitbourne District. Money, I tell you, Madam Speaker, is a commodity that there is not a lot of out there with regard to providing services. In my district, I have to admit, there are many needs.

I am sure that the councils, the mayors and the local service committees, are trying every way they can to stretch the dollars that they have to provide the maximum services that are needed and required in the municipalities. The needs are great, I say to you, Mr. Speaker. I say that the needs are certainly very, very great.

They have a responsibility, as the Mayor of St. John's has a responsibility, to make a case; in this case to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. I shudder to think, if all of the municipalities in this Province had to go before the Cabinet and seek approval for their budget, or for their borrowing, the business of the Cabinet certainly would be taken up. Just in my district alone, I say to you, with the needs and demands, I would say that the Cabinet would have to meet twice as often as they do right now if indeed all the municipalities in this Province had to go before them in the borrowing of money. With regard to them dealing with it, again I have to talk about how important it is in my district and in my municipalities and local service areas, how important it is to have a high level of service to the residents, to my constituents. I am telling you, they have great difficulty even now in convincing one minister, and indeed the Minister of Municipal Affairs, to prioritize the needs of each of our municipalities. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that I have spent a fair bit of time meeting with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and meeting with my councillors, my mayors, and lobbying the minister for funds to take care of the needs in my particular district. In all fairness to the minister, I have not yet asked for a meeting that he has certainly has not complied with. The mayors and councillors certainly feel that when they come in and lobby the minister, in lobbying the minister, they feel they can truly present to the minister across the table, usually in an informal meeting, and they find it very comfortable in presenting it to the minister and his officials as they make a case for borrowing money or looking for money or whatever, but I cannot imagine coming in before the Cabinet and first of all getting time to lobby the Cabinet with regard to the borrowing of the money. I can only imagine the difficulties that St. John's, the mayors and councillors of St. John's must of had in dealing with a Cabinet in trying to convince them that the money they were requesting was money that was needed. This bill hopefully can eliminate that step.

Again when you look at, I suppose - yes, I would have to say that the City of St. John's is our largest city in the Province. It is one of our oldest and probably has the largest budget with regard to a municipality in this Province. Perhaps that was the reason, I am not sure - and again, maybe when the minister gets a chance to maybe give a little history of these two, the double vote and the borrowing of the money from the Cabinet - because I am not sure how that ever developed. Does it go back to perhaps the 1800s? Is it the fact that St. John's is a capital city and happens to be in the seat of government where we meet in the Legislature, here on Confederation Hill? Was it perhaps a punitive measure to force upon the City of St. John's, to force them to come in to the Cabinet and to rely on the Cabinet's, I guess, good graces in order to secure the amount of funding that was necessary to run the City of St. John's.

I tell you, I am certainly a commuter back and forth between my home community of Georgetown and this City of St. John's. Because a lot of my working hours are spent in here in this House and at Confederation Building where my office is, I do have, you know, to spend a fair bit of time in St. John's. Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate coming from a small community of Georgetown and coming into the capital city of this Province, of St. John's. Just looking around the streets and seeing the volume of traffic and the number of houses and so on and so forth, I can appreciate the type of budget that the mayor, Mayor Wells, and his councillors have to put forth, and the amount of borrowing that they perhaps have to undertake in order to service this city of ours, this capital city. Basically, again, moving it from Cabinet will certainly give them a great deal of flexibility and expedience. It is a lot easier to get an audience with the Minister of Municipal Affairs than it would be of the Cabinet. Quite naturally, there are a lot of people in the Cabinet and getting all of these people together certainly would delay okaying of any particular thing.

Again, Mr. Speaker, to get back to the borrowing of money and looking at the municipalities that fall within my district, I tell you, borrowing money is not an easy thing these days. My municipalities certainly are having a great deal of difficulty in managing, in some cases, a debt load, and a debt load that is almost overbearing. They struggle in coming to some sort of an arrangement so that the money they are paying on a regular basis keeps ahead of the debt. Let me tell you, it is not easy. Perhaps St. John's does not experience this as much as rural municipalities, that borrowing money may be smaller amounts but it is, with the out-migration in a lot of my rural communities, with the increasing age of the residents in my municipalities, getting harder and harder to establish a tax base that can certainly keep ahead of the debt that is there within a particular municipality, but they are doing as good as they can and I certainly support them wholeheartedly.

To return to Bill 18, again, as I started off, I indicated that, to me, it appeared to be a housekeeping bill or amendment that was crying out for change for a number of years, that the double vote and the request of St. John's to go to the Cabinet for approval for borrowing money is different from any other municipality in this Province.

I would like to see the consistency that should be there. The council themselves have requested these changes and we, as a legislative body, certainly will not stand in the way of this particular progress, and we will comply with, I would assume, the mayor's request - be it a reluctant one perhaps, especially as it applies to the double vote - unanimously, I would think, to Mayor Wells' request. That is something to say, that we are all unanimous -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) council request.

MR. HEDDERSON: Council request. Maybe I should rephrase that. I am looking at the minister over there. Maybe I should rephrase it and look at it as a council request from the Council of St. John's to bring about these changes that will certainly give them greater flexibility, greater control, more in line, directly in line, with other municipalities. I will not stand in the way, as I am sure my colleagues on this side of the House will not. We certainly look forward to the passage of this bill for the sake of the Council of St. John's.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER (Mercer): The hon. the Minister of Justice.

AN HON. MEMBER: Minister of Justice?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

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

I can honestly say, Mr. Speaker, it is the first I have heard of it.

I want to take a moment today to talk about Bill 18. I was very happy to hear my colleague from Harbour Main say it was only housekeeping. I know he represents the District of Harbour Main -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) housekeeping.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes. I do not know if he is going to out-migrate to St. John's, or if his heart is in St. John's or what. Anyway, we are happy to hear his comments.

AN HON. MEMBER: His head is in there too.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Perhaps his head is too, as my colleague says.

I just want to take a moment. While it is housekeeping, I think it is a very important bill, Bill 18, which, I might add, is An Act to Amend the City of St. John's Act, not any other municipality or community, I would say, Mr. Speaker. It is very specific to the City of St. John's and it is one that I would like to compliment my colleague, the hon. Oliver Langdon, Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, for bringing it forward as an issue that will address, I think, two very important points.

I think it is important that the ability to borrow and permission to do so will no longer require Cabinet approval. I think, when this act was done, it was written at a time perhaps when St. John's was a much smaller city and perhaps not quite as large and defined in their policies and borrowing practices, and perhaps with not as big a budget as they have right now. I think it was never clearly the intent to hamstring the City of St. John's because it is our capital city, it is one that behaves quite fiscally responsibly, and I think that clearly it was never the intention to limit their ability to borrow or to conduct their own business.

What this bill does do is, it no longer requires the City of St. John's to go to Cabinet to seek approval for borrowing. In fact, what it can do now is go directly to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs as Cabinet's representative governing that particular portfolio. I think that is very good and progressive inasmuch as it certainly eliminates red tape. It affects the time process, particularly when borrowing is important. You are going to the markets and you want to be able to borrow in a timely fashion, when the rates are appealing. I think again it is very important, and while it may be considered housekeeping, I think it certainly will allow the City of St. John's to conduct their business in a much more timely manner.

I would also like to take the opportunity to speak about the elimination of the double vote that was given to the mayor a number of years ago in a piece of legislation. I think this is something again that City Council has asked for with the concurrence of the mayor. I think it will allow for due diligence and a normal process to occur, and that it was always intended to actually break ties, but it was never clearly demonstrated that way in the legislation. As a result, there is a fair bit of flexibility in how it can be used, and rightly so, because that was the way it was interpreted in the legislation. To write it as it is now, it is quite clear that the intent of this is to allow the mayor the same opportunity to vote as everyone else and there is an equality of votes recognizing that a councillor's vote is equally as important as the mayor's and vice versa. So it is certainly not an intent to diminish anyone's role, but certainly clearly to outline that each member of the council, each member elected by the citizens, has the same access to democracy, being they have one vote.

Mr. Speaker, I would say, without further ado, recognizing this is a housekeeping issue and recognizing that I am a resident of the City of St. John's, as are many of my colleagues in this House of Assembly, but certainly my family and those related, that this is an issue that I think is one of housekeeping, but still quite important, to allow the business of St. John's City Council to be done in a timely manner and also one that respects the wishes of council in that they brought it forward to us to put through the Legislature. I would urge all members, both from the City of St. John's, as well as outside the City, to support Bill 18.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I, too, am pleased, as a representative of the District of Waterford Valley which, of course, includes a part of the City of St. John's. In most of the areas in this region, the members here only represent one municipality. I happen to have a district that has part of Mount Pearl and part of St. John's.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to reflect on what has happened here over many, many years. Many, many years ago, in most of the municipalities in the Province, the mayor did have a double vote. Some years ago, when I was on the federation - that was some time ago because I have been in the elected office since 1969, so I spent twenty-three years at the municipal level before I came here - there used to be a system in place then, under the Municipalities Act, whereby, in some circumstances, the mayor would have a double vote. Perhaps that was patterned after the laws that were formulated and promulgated for the City of St. John's. However, over time the municipalities in the Province changed the system. The system as it now stands for Mount Pearl and Corner Brook and all the other municipalities is that, when there is a tie vote that particular vote is lost. There is also another little catch to it, that says that when there is a tie vote, not only is the vote lost but, under the law, it cannot be reintroduced in that same session. For example, if you were to have a tie vote at one council meeting, you couldn't later on, in that same council meeting, have it reintroduced if another member, who happened to be absent on that day, happens to come in late or something like that.

So, the municipalities in the Province, other than St. John's, have been operating on the one member, one vote principle for some time. While this change here does not require the City of St. John's not to have it introduced in the same session, I do believe that the standing rules of order for St. John's would probably have that matter included there as well.

I certainly support this initiative. I note that it has been passed by the Council of St. John's by a majority vote, and I do note that the Mayor of St. John's at the time voted against the motion. He didn't see anything wrong with having the double vote. It is a part of St. John's history. St. John's has had it's double vote for a long, long time. St. John's was incorporated in 1888 as a city, so they have had a long history of municipal government, the longest in the Province. In fact, it wasn't until the late 1940s that we had the Town of Windsor incorporated. So there was a long time when the City of St. John's was the only incorporated municipality in Newfoundland and Labrador.

What we see here is the evolution of a democratic principle, whereby each elected member has one vote, as happens in this Parliament here, in the House of Assembly. Each member has one vote. It happens in the Parliament of Canada, either in the Senate or in the House of Commons, one member has one vote. So, St. John's was operating on a different principle. In certain circumstances the mayor in St. John's could vote to tie it. For example, if there happened to be eight members sitting in council, he could vote to make the tie and then he could vote to break the tie. So, if you had eight people seated and the vote came out to be four votes to three, then the mayor would vote and he would tie it, and then he would vote again and, of course, he would break the tie and the motion would be passed. Most people found that to be a little bit odd and different. The City of St. John's now has made the request and the minister has acceded to that.

On the second issue, which is the issue of financing, it says that when St. John's makes requests for borrowing, times prior to this the approval had to be granted by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council or the Cabinet. I certainly agree with this change. This is a matter of streamlining. It is a matter of letting the City of St. John's be able to operate and make decisions in an effective and timely manner. As members who have been in council would tell me, each time that you come to a council meeting, it is sometimes difficult to get even minor matters on the agenda. This certainly gives the City of St. John's greater autonomy and it also lets the City operate in a very effective manner, and also, to be able to make sure that once decisions are made they are not held up unnecessarily by bureaucratic red tape.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to record that I am voting in favour of the amendments put forward here. I do believe that both are timely and I would certainly compliment the minister and the City of St. John's for asking for these amendments.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I, too, would like to have just a few words on this Bill 18, which was introduced this afternoon by the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. Again, as a representative in this Legislature for a St. John's district, the District of St. John's East, even though - and the terminology is used that it is largely housekeeping, but it is of some importance. I think that has been alluded to by members on both sides of the House.

Perhaps the point that I would like to speak to briefly is the second reference in the draft legislation which deals with the fact, Mr. Speaker, that now the amendments would require the approval of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs for borrowing, as opposed to the City of St. John's having to proceed and seek approval from the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. As members have indicated, this allows for a more appropriate and a more expeditious manner to allow the City of St. John's to accomplish what it, in fact, wants to do. It deletes unnecessary red tape and allows for the necessary approval to go, not to the Cabinet but to the minister. Obviously, what that does is help expedite what the City of St. John's wants to accomplish, and, obviously, it can be done in a much more timely fashion.

On that point again, and it is similar to the point I made earlier, Mr. Speaker, this is a request of the City of St. John's. This is when the mayor and councillors proposed to government a more timely fashion, a more productive way, in which these matters could be addressed and the necessary approval sought. So, what this draft legislation does, and what Bill 18 seeks to accomplish, is again in response to what the City of St. John's has, in fact, requested. Again, it is, in our view, representative of what both provincial and municipal levels of government can do when they wish to work in tandem and in co-operation with one another. So the legislation, largely, is in response to a request by the City and, from that point of view, it makes sense because it obviously helps resolve and helps answer legitimate concerns that were raised by the mayor of St. John's and his colleagues on council.

The other point, Mr. Speaker, is relatively straightforward and it is simply just a democratic act. It is nothing more and nothing less. We have one person, who in this case happens to be the mayor, it could be any mayor, now simply being limited and restricted to one vote as opposed to two. So it is simply an act of democracy and a relatively straightforward one, but again I say to the minister as well, it is similar to his words by way of his introduction, it is in response to what the city fathers had debated in their own chamber in City Hall. There was some discussion, I understand, that went on for some time, but at the end of the day there was a decision, there was a resolution, and this resolution was now brought forward to the appropriate provincial authorities and we see again their wishes and their answers and their requests now being reflected in Bill 18. Again, another example of both levels of government working together. Why is that significant, Mr. Speaker? It is significant because again we are dealing with the same constituents, we are dealing with the same constituency - the citizens of St. John's who are represented by the mayor and the councillors of the City of St. John's are equally represented by Members of the House of Assembly. We are talking about the same individuals whose interests and wishes are being reflected and being worked upon and answered by both levels of government.

From that point of view, Mr. Speaker, as my previous colleague had indicated, that is sufficient reason to allow relatively swift passage of Bill 18 and I, too, as one member of this Legislature, will be standing to vote in support of Bill 18 as was introduced by the hon. minister.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Bill 18 sets out to accomplish two items, as previously talked about by other members. It sets out - clause 1 of the bill would repeal and replace section 19 of the City of St. John's Act to remove the ability of the mayor to vote a second time where there is an equality of votes. An equality of votes is a motion that would be considered to defeat of a motion.

In this particular case we are talking about an act of democracy where you have one member of council with one vote. I guess there are times in this Legislature that we, as members, would oftentimes like to have a second vote on certain issues but that would be undemocratic, as is the case with any elected official having two votes. In the case of the City of St. John's, this act has been in place for several years so it could have been any mayor, it could be any mayor. In this particular case, this repeals the ability of the mayor to vote two times, which, in having two votes, he could in effect tie the vote and then vote again to break that tie, which, as I said, is an undemocratic process. Council themselves have requested these changes. Council themselves have asked that this Legislature change section 19, Bill 18, to put in place new legislation to make a vote at city council more democratic.

We have seen cases where there have been very heated debates within council chambers at the City of St. John's because of the mayor's ability to vote twice, to tie a vote and then break it himself. What we are doing here is a housekeeping item. It is creating a situation at City Council where the mayor would have one vote and that vote would be used to break a tie. In the event of a tie, the mayor would have one vote. In that particular case, Mr. Speaker, I think all members of this Legislature would agree that democracy should rule, and that is the case with this particular clause.

In clauses 2 to 5 of the bill, the bill would amend sections of the act that permit the borrowing of money by the city with the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, and this particular act, the amendments would require the approval of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs for that borrowing as opposed to all of Cabinet.

Again, the city should have the ability to borrow money without the red tape of having to require a vote by Cabinet, or approval by Cabinet. This, again, is a housekeeping item. This, again, allows the city to just go to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs and simply request the ability to borrow money.

There are some times and there are cases where the city, because of an emergency or because of attractive borrowing rates, would require a decision be made expeditiously. If we require all of Cabinet to come together to decide, or to make that decision, sometimes there are certain months of the year, I guess, most especially during the summer months, where Cabinet do not often meet, and when they do meet, I am sure there are times when Cabinet have a full slate and have enough to deal with, that to slow down the process for the city to be able to borrow is really tying the city's hands. This act, in effect, will give the city the legislative ability to simply go to the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs, request that they have the ability to borrow, the minister would then make that decision and the city would have the ability to borrow. It would eliminate the inability of the city to borrow in a timely manner.

Again, this a housekeeping item. This is an item that members who represent districts within the City of St. John's, here in our provincial Legislature, agree with these items. These are items that have been requested by the City of St. John's, by City Council, and I see no reason that we should tie up this legislation. I am going to vote on this legislation. I am going to vote in favour of Bill 18.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

I also thank the Minister of Fisheries for the applause that he has provided to his colleague from the other side of the House. I appreciate it. I have noticed, too, Mr. Speaker, that in recent days the Minister of Fisheries has been a little less stressed since other sittings, and I have complimented him on that outside the Legislature today: that he has less of an edge to him and it bodes well on him. Now, we will see over the course of the Legislature if he can continue it. I mean that in all sincerity.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today is obviously being supported by all members of the House. As a member who represents a district within the boundaries of the City of St. John's, I wanted to offer a few remarks on it as well.

Certainly, with the first section of the bill dealing with the double vote, I do not know if there is anywhere else in the free world today, in western democracies, in a municipal sense - maybe there is; I am not suggesting that there isn't. Maybe there is, but certainly in the context that we live and operate in, nowhere else does a situation occur where, on the one hand you can vote to create a tie on an important municipal matter facing a city council and then, at the same time, use the double vote to get your way, whomever it may be. That is not exclusive to the current mayor. It has been for every mayor prior to the current mayor.

I guess council, in its wisdom, in deciding on the issue - I recall the debate that took place in the city's chambers with respect to this motion. We stand to rise on that today, all of us. Certainly our critic, the Member for Baie Verte, who, in his capacity as the critic for Municipal and Provincial Affairs, is our lead debater when it comes to legislation dealing with Municipal and Provincial Affairs issues and all municipalities, and anything that falls within the purview and administrative responsibility of the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. In his capacity, he has dealt with the issue, and other members: the Member for Waterford Valley, who represents part of the City of St. John's; the Member for St. John's South, representing all of his constituents in the area; the Member for St. John's East, all of his district being in the area; and we had the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne who wanted to point out the inconsistencies in the second part of the bill in terms of one municipal group having to deal with all of the Cabinet, the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, when it comes to by way of issuing loans, as compared to the rest of municipalities that have to deal with only the minister.

I want to say from the onset that we support this piece of legislation, the spirit and intent of it. We are not going to unduly hold it up. We will have second reading in due course, but I want to make this point in terms of the City of St. John's. It is a growing municipality, a huge municipality, that has a significant budget each and every year. In the last decade - and I stand to be corrected - it has put a very prudent plan in place in dealing with its finances and its debt to equity ratio. Each and every year - the minister, when he stands to conclude second reading of the bill, I would like him to speak to this in his capacity as minister, in how he deals with these sorts of situations -

MR. SULLIVAN: Our Province's debt to GDP is not so good, though.

MR. E. BYRNE: No, but the situation from the City of St. John's point of view, in terms of - one of the strong points, I believe, if they continue the succession plan they are on with respect to their debt versus their ability to pay, the debt to equity ratio, if I can put it in those terms, as each year goes on and as each year moves forward, if that plan is continued, certainly it will put the city in a very strong financial point of view and financial position with respect to being able to increase the level of services, a better level of services, a higher level of services, more infrastructure.

On that note, Mr. Speaker, from the district that I represent, newly amalgamated - I can say that, newly, being in the context of the last eleven years, 1991-1992 - that many parts of that area still, to this day, are waiting for services that were promised, not just from the City of St. John's or the expectation, but also from a commitment from the provincial government.

I know, for example, Mr. Speaker, that in 1985-1986 when the term was not amalgamation at the time, it was annexation. That seemed to be the popular politically correct buzzword of the day in the mid-1980s. In around this area, annexation was occurring all over the Province. Some of it was forced by the provincial government, and other sort of annexations were brought about by municipalities within the Province or certain local service areas who wanted to become part of a municipality. Some of that was driven by themselves.

In 1985-1986, under a plan that seen parts of the city, the outlining areas of the city that were not part of that municipality - for example, Airport Heights, and part of the district that I represent, which is Kilbride, compared to the other part being the Goulds, but the Kilbride part was annexed to the city at the time. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that the Member for Waterford Valley in his capacity at the time as Mayor of Mount Pearl, sat on the Metro Board for twelve years that dealt with the administration of municipal services and financing in the area.

I want to get back, because this is important in terms of the City of St. John's (Loan) Act in the context of money, Mr. Speaker. In 1986 a decision was taken by Municipal Affairs of the day to annex Airport Heights and to annex Kilbride to the City of St. John's. Now it was very clear - and I know this was debated at Metro Board at the time, and the minutes of Metro Board certainly would bear this out to be true. But, the services that were available in those areas as compared to the services that existed in the City of St. John's, such as water and sewer, access to metrobuses of the day and other services, garbage collection, et cetera, the normal array of services that you would anticipate and expect within a municipality of the day certainly did not exist to the level they did in the city. The big issue of the day was water and sewer.

Now the provincial government of the day, 1985-1986, made the following conclusion. The mill rate in Kilbride, for example, was very low as compared to the mill rate in the City of St. John's; six mills, I believe, is what it was. I believe six mills was the same rate ten years later that the incorporated municipality of the Goulds was operating under when it was forced to amalgamate with the rest of the City of St. John's; but I will get to that in a second.

In 1986, in recognition that the services were not up to par with the remainder of the city, the provincial government led through the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs of the day said: We will provide a capital grant to those areas. The purpose of that capital grant would be to bring, to the extent that it could, with the financing available - and it was a grant, not a loan. It was an outright grant by the provincial government of the day. That they would provide that money so that over a period of three years, as more water and sewer, more city sidewalks - if I can put it that way. There is still not a lot in Kilbride, but there are some. That as more services were delivered, more people hooked up and became part of a better level of services, the mill rate would rise accordingly over a period of three years until it equaled and met what the mill rate (inaudible) with the City of St. John's was.

The point is this, that Municipal Affairs in 1985 and 1986, in annexing did not put any inordinate strain either upon taxpayers in the areas that became annexed, or any inordinate strain upon the city - most important the taxpayer in the city, one in the same in some ways - any inordinate strain upon either the city or the taxpayer but felt that seeing they were annexing those areas, they would provide grants to bring up the level of services, and as services increased so would the mill rate.

Now, seven years later, in 1989, a new government was elected under the stewardship and premiership of the now Chief Justice, the hon. Clyde Wells, and within the first year it became apparent. The Member for Waterford Valley was intimately involved in this as well because of his long association as a municipal leader in the Province, not only for the city that he represented, Mount Pearl, but provincially on the Federation of Municipalities. Now amalgamation became the buzzword of the day. Many municipalities were rezoned, realigned and a master plan was talked about in terms of who, in what communities, and what communities should be amalgamated with whom. It was attempted in Mount Pearl in Mount Pearl; no question about it. There was a strong attempt to amalgamate the City of St. John's. Now, I am just speaking historically. The people of Mount Pearl did not want to do that and the decisions that were made, based upon those protests, were made by the Liberal government of the day.

In the case of the Goulds, when it was amalgamated with the city, there were many discussions that took place with the then mayor and council - different than the now mayor and council - about what would the city expect to any assistance that may be given by the provincial government to improve the level of services in those areas. Now, anybody new or building new homes in the area are getting hookup but particularly for the livyers, the older areas of the Goulds that I represent and my colleague, the Member for Ferryland, represents; discussions about, would there be any capital grant money available to assist the city in view of the fact - now these are not my words - that another area was being added? Would there be any capital grant money to assist so that there would not be unrealistic expectations put on the people in the area; so there would not be any unrealistic costs associated with improving services put on people in the area. A primary consideration.

Secondary consideration, that for those requests in terms of capital grants, would there be any - and the request for them was such that there would not be any inordinate or extra amount of strain upon the municipality that is taking in another municipality and bringing them under the umbrella of the City of St. John's. The big difference was that it was not provided. It was not provided. People to this day in the area - particularly members of the Goulds eight who represent the frustrations of many people and some others who have their own points of views on it. The fact remains, the fact is clear, that when it came to amalgamating or annexing, which is the same thing, that if we are going to do it and we are incorporating areas or telling one municipality that we have, as a public policy decision, decided to add to your boundaries, then we have an obligation, in my view, that in doing so, before people in an area, like people in the Goulds had to go through, jump from five and six mils right to ten-and-a-half or eleven overnight without an increase in services, without seeing any increase for services immediately, then I believe, at the time, the provincial government had an obligation to provide the type of capital grants to assist the municipality, to ensure there was not an inordinate amount of strain put on its financial ability. Secondly, directly for residents, so there would not be unrealistic expectations and costs expected of them, in terms of trying to adequately and realistically demand a fair level of service for the type of mil rate they were paying. As a result, Mr. Speaker, of not doing that, as a result of not recognizing- it is one thing to recognize it, it is quite another thing to provide the assistance required. Some of the public policy areas facing the City of St. John's today, primarily in the area that I represent and the Member for Ferryland, are still disadvantaged as a result of that decision ten years later. There is still an injustice and an unfairness involved in what happened.

Mr. Speaker, what does this have to do with the bill? It has a lot to do with the bill. It has everything to do with - the City had a plan in place to bring down its debt, trying to act responsibly so at some point they can continue in perpetuity to offer the types of services that people deserve, richly deserve, and expect from a municipality like the City of St. John's, and they have done so. With this particular piece of legislation they are coming before, now, only the minister. I agree with the legislation. Every other municipality only has to deal with the minister, so should the City of St. John's.

Mr. Speaker, those are, in a nutshell, I think, some of the situations that the City has faced, but in particular in the district that I represent some of the situations that people have faced because they were treated unjustly, they were treated unfairly, even in the face of all the advice that was given to the current government of the day and the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs of what it would mean to people, that their taxes double overnight. There was no phase in, it was a take it or leave it approach, and that is the type of approach that people to this day are upset with and that was the type of approach, or the lack of understanding and the lack of providing those types of capital grants of the day. Fundamentally, people are still facing the consequences of the lack of that commitment to the people in the area, not unlike any other region or any other place in the Province that was amalgamated.

In some areas, like out in Central Newfoundland, there has been a move where many municipalities are acting in concert. There are many examples of that, and I applaud any municipal government and the people on it and the leaders for taking and seizing opportunities that will enhance the region.

Mr. Speaker, we must also recognize that if we are going to continue down that path, then we need to deal with people honestly, in a way that involves them in the decision but recognizes inequities, and recognizing our own responsibility to help solve some of those.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs. If he does now speak, he closes debate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I want to thank the people who have spoken on this particular bill on both sides of the House. There is no doubt about it, it is housekeeping, but I could stay here for a long, long time and talk about some of the things that we, as a government, are doing to help the municipalities, especially in the rural areas, even though it is in the larger centers as well. I won't do it today for time, but hopefully before this session is out I will have an opportunity to do that, and be able to outline to this House and to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador exactly what some of these issues are.

Again, I want to thank the people for supporting this and, Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that at this time we can have the end of Second Reading to this particular bill.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill 18)

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

MR. LUSH: Order 11, Mr. Speaker, Second Reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's Loan Act, 1978," Bill 19.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's Loan Act, 1978." (Bill 19)

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

MR. LANGDON: Mr. Speaker, I have a mind to say ditto and sit down, but I won't do that, I will elaborate for a few minutes.

I guess we could have taken this particular piece of legislation, this Bill 19, and incorporated it with Bill 18, but what you have in Bill 18 is amending the act so that it can happen, and Bill 19 is actually the act itself, the St. John's Loan Act, to make the decision that we are making in Bill 18 legal. So, that is the whole purpose of it.

I would assume that everybody here, the people who have spoken on the second part of Bill 18, like the Member for St. John's East, the Member for Harbour Main-Whitbourne and the Member for St. John's South, will all want to speak again. If they do, then I know that they might be able to prolong the debate longer than it should be, because I think everybody knows what is in this particular act, Mr. Speaker. I would hope that we could do this as expeditiously as possible.

Thank you.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

I agree with the minister. We will do this as expeditiously as possible. I remind the minister that I do have an hour if I want to take that much time, but in all fairness, we have all discussed this one in conjunction with Bill 18. We know that this is a follow-up and we are basically following along from Bill 18 to Bill 19, to make it legal, as the minister puts it.

Mr. Speaker, anytime a debate is on municipal affairs and borrowing and the government and so on, lots of times it triggers activity, for us as members in the House of Assembly, to think about our own districts, to think about the affect on borrowing and so on - of course, listening to the Member for Kilbride and how it has affected his district.

Another one that comes to mind - and the minister, I know, has talked about it many times in this House, so have I and other members on this side of the House - is debt restructuring and the actual state of affairs of a lot of communities and municipalities throughout the Province when it comes to their debt. I know, and the minister agrees, that a lot of the debt restructuring that has happened in recent years has helped tremendously a number of communities get through some very tough times in their towns.

Again, Mr. Speaker, it falls back to the people who are on the front lines, the volunteers, the councils, that run those communities throughout our Province, who are dealing with those things on a daily basis and are dealing with a financial burden that they have found themselves in, their towns in, as a result of things such as out-migration, closure of the fishery and so on. Although these things may be housekeeping, trivial - some words that have been used - they are also very, very important. As someone mentioned before, municipalities and towns throughout this Province and the Federation have suggested some of these changes to make it less cumbersome on the municipalities, the councils, the mayors and town clerks throughout our Province so that they can do their jobs better, so that they can, in fact, provide the services to these communities that they, as the Member for Kilbride said, richly deserve.

At a time in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, as we go through these tough times, and even last week when we talked about another closure in the fishery, these council members and these mayors throughout this Province wonder where the next dollar will come from so they do not have to turn off more lights, so they can provide decent drinking water, so they can provide sewer services in communities.

A community in my district, Burlington, just a couple of years ago we dealt with it, was on a boil order for some sixteen years. Sixteen years on and off on a boil order until we finally, through debt restructuring and also through the infrastructure program, thank God, we could correct that problem. It took some time but this summer it was completed and we can say now that a community that actually had sewage and a water line in the same trenches, if you can imagine that, and the threat that was to the community, that community went through debt restructuring and went through borrowing and through that whole process so they could provide a decent service to their community.

Throughout the day as we talk about it, yes, Bill 18 connects with Bill 19 and yes, it is trivial and yes, it may be housekeeping, but at the same time it is important to not just the City of St. John's, of course, but rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and any way that we can amend, change, improve legislation that helps councils throughout our Province to deal with the matters at hand, with the problems they have facing them as volunteer councillors throughout this Province, we support. That is why people do not see it very often where we do, in fact - and I know amendments are needed to this particular piece of legislation, but there are times when we, as an Opposition, and it is our duty, to make points and raise concerns if there is a piece of legislation before us in the House, to amend, as the Member for St. John's South said. I remember in the last session, six or seven amendments to a piece of legislation which improved that legislation. So, as the government of the day, duly elected, may have to make the final decisions, it is our job, as Opposition and the two members of the New Democratic Party in the House, to raise the concerns, make changes, make improvements, that, at the end of the day, will help alleviate some of the problems that the councillors and the small towns and the City of St. John's and the City of Corner Brook, all of the municipalities throughout this Province, find on a daily basis.

Although we connect these bills one after another and have just a few minutes of comments, it is important to remember that it is important to the councils and the people in this Province who are trying to do their best under the circumstances that they find themselves under.

I would say to the minister, certainly we do support this piece of legislation, and take a couple of minutes, my colleagues in this House, on both sides - and I commend all members for standing up when a word triggers something in their district, an issue that they may want to speak on, that is what you are here for, to stand up and talk about your districts and the problems and see if we can correct some things, because it is not always opposition in government, it is also co-operation. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, as we near closing of the House today, there was co-operation and there were concerns raised. There were things addressed. Trivial as they may seem, they were also important.

I would like to tell the minister, we will be supporting this and voting on this. If some more of my colleagues want to stand and make a few comments on this, or make lots of comments on it, we support it and that is their right to do so. We will be supporting this particular piece of legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I also want to have a few comments here on this aspect of legislation to amend the St. John's Loan Act. While I do not think it is necessary that we have the Cabinet having to make a decision there, because the fiscal situation of the City of St. John's, or any municipality as far as that matter, is usually known first by the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs and if Cabinet is going to get informed on a lot of these issues, it is done through the minister anyway and in their hand. If the City of St. John's can have authority to borrow, even it comes to banks and so on, they have people there elected by the people to represent them. They are dealing with a significant budget, in the ballpark, I think, of around $100 million, give or take a little bit, so we are talking about a fair amount of money here.

One of the concerns under borrowing there, coming to Cabinet, while we talk about this, one of the concerns of mine is the borrowing of our particular Province and where we are in the situation here, dealing with this aspect here. We do have net borrowing of $6.17 billion and that is really a major cause for concern here in our Province. We have seen our net debt in this Province go from $8.4 billion to $8.9 billion just in this past year alone. We have seen $488 million, going on $500 million, in debt. If we look at extra deficit, and accumulated deficits make up a debt, that is basically where it is: $6.17 billion in net borrowing.

When we look at our unfunded pension liabilities, $3.39 billion, other liabilities $1.09 billion, for a total amount of liabilities in this Province of $10.65 billion. Now we do have some assets and the assets are identified and priced. The values of these assets is $1.73 billion. When you apply that against our total liabilities, our total amount, it brings us down to a figure of $8.92 billion. So that is basically the position our Province is in today, and we are seeing that going through with Cabinet approval. Maybe the less we have in Cabinet, the better, because Cabinet has presided over those types of decisions. Maybe they are better off left with the minister, because the records of our fiscal performance here over the last few years does not give me any credence in what a Cabinet is doing here, at least this particular Cabinet. We have seen $1 billion in the last three years added to the debt of this Province, in the last three years, going through with Cabinet approval, basically. If you can imagine, it took us fifty years to get a deficit of $7.9 billion and we put another billion on top of that in the last three years. It does not add confidence, basically, in what a Cabinet is doing. It does not add great confidence at all.

Maybe we should go a step further, I say, Mr. Speaker. Maybe we should go further. Maybe we should let them make their own decision, the City of St. John's, without even going through the minister, if history has shown in our Province, especially in the last few years, that our debt has spiraled under Cabinet's direction. Maybe the more you get out of their hands, the healthier it will be for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the healthier it will be for the City of St. John's.

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: What is the Minister of Government Services and Lands shouting out at me, Mr. Speaker?

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible) saying our debt is not high enough.

MR. SULLIVAN: The Minister of Government Services and Lands is just not making any sense whatsoever, Mr. Speaker. He is talking about wanting the debt to go higher. He is a minister that is presiding over the highest debt in the history of our Province, Mr. Speaker. That is what he is presiding over. He sat in a Cabinet that saw our debt increase by $500 million this year. He sat in Cabinet most of the last three years when our debt went up by $1 billion. No wonder we want to get the powers of borrowing out of his hands. Is there any reason we want any different, Mr. Speaker? That is what is wrong. No wonder we have a problem in our Province, people sitting around Cabinet putting $1 billion on our debt. Thank God the power, I would say, is coming out of Cabinet and is going to the minister, because I have a little more confidence in the minister than I do have in the entire Cabinet - a little more confidence.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: They are sinking us down. The Auditor General expressed concern, the Auditor General has expressed grave concerns, that it should be a priority of this government.

I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, if the priority of this government is increasing debt, they are accomplishing their priorities. I just hope it is not their priority, because that has been the single thing you can link to this government here, an increase in the total debt of our Province. I did not see it published in the Red Book - it is a priority of them to increase debt - but it is, in actual fact, what is happening when you look at all government programs. The whole concept of government's operation has been an increasing of debt. Can you imagine, $1 billion in three years? A billion dollars in debt. Debt is increasing rapidly. Debt, as the percentage of GDP, has gone from 57 per cent to 63 per cent. Borrowing has gone through the ceiling. We are finding GDP is not the best indicator, I said, of the wealth of a Province. It is one of the tools. It is a measure, not the measure. It is a measure of a governments performance - their debt in comparison to the GDP. The debt to GDP ratio is a measure. It is not the measure, because GDP - I will say to the Minister of Works, Services & Transportation, increasing GDP does not always result in the same proportionate increases in jobs, in real wealth in the economy. It does not equate in taxation, and you only have to look at the public accounts that were tabled here yesterday. Look at the budget of this government or performance to find out the truth on that matter. That has not happened.

We have seen enormous increases in GDP but we do not have the same transfer proportionately in jobs, in the spinoff in industries, and the reason why is because GDP growth in this Province lately has been driven mostly by oil. The economic rent from oil is not staying in our Province. The bulk of it is going to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and the rest of this country. We are not getting the benefits.

A former Premier just said recently that basically we are asleep at the switch in guaranteeing that the benefits from the Atlantic Accord are followed by this Premier. In other words, we failed miserably in that regard. That is why we are not getting the benefits. We should be using our resources to stimulate more economic growth, spinoff industries here to enhance the climate for business in our Province, to create more jobs, more wealth, so we can have more people paying more taxes and we can have more money into the Treasury of our Province. That is a mark of a successful government. This government has failed miserably in that regard.

The only thing we can put on this government's resume is that they have presided over the largest increase in debt in the history of our Province. They have taken us to unlimited levels almost in borrowing, far beyond the ability of our Province to be able to sustain it. They have been told by the bond rating agencies that it is not sustainable, that this particular government is not doing its job in using sustainable methods. We have gone from 21 per cent to 30 per cent now of our non-taxation revenues since 1989. We are getting out farther and farther on a limb and this government has not done that. Thank God, we are going to take some of the authority of the City of St. John's borrowing out of the Cabinet. Would anyone wonder why it was left there so long?

I support this, Mr. Speaker, and I think rather than delay it another second, I will conclude what I was going to say, get it over with, get it done with, and get some of that power out of the Cabinet.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

If he speaks now he will close the debate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad I had the opportunity to sit and listen to the Member for Ferryland for the last couple of minutes. I want to remind him of some things that he did not mention when he talked about the debt of the Province. I want to remind him that in 1996 this government had to spend $900 million for health care. That was our budget in 1996. Do you know what it was in 2002? It was $1.4 billion. Whose money was it? The people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Not Ottawa! They are sending us less now than they did in 1996. What do you do to the services? Is that what you are suggesting, that we should not provide these services to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? Is that what you are saying?

Just think of the municipalities. We think of them across the Province. We just signed, last year - we are into the second year of a $300 million program for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Of the $300 million the federal government is picking up $1 million. Who do you think is picking up the other $2 million, most of it? We are. In many of the smaller communities that most of you guys over here represent, we, as a government, brought in a variable rate formula where we do in some instances - my critic from Baie Verte would know. In some of his districts the provincial government picked up 93 per cent of the municipalities share. That is what we did. If you are going to do a $1 million program in Sunnyside, for example, out of the $1 million do you know what the community would have to contribute? It would be $70,000. We have done it for many of the smaller communities across the Province. Shouldn't we do that? I think that we should.

When we talk about water disinfection where people are on boil order, we had anticipated that we would spend $7 million over two years. Do you know what we have spent? Fifteen million dollars because we care about the municipalities that are out there. That is why we do it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LANGDON: The other part, Mr. Speaker, that I think is very important - and I pushed for it with my colleagues, and I am glad to say that they have agreed with me - and that is debt relief for many of the smaller communities. I am telling you, the Municipal Operating Grant, we talk about it. We say we need to double it. We need to triple it. Just think what it would be for Ming's Bight if you double the Municipal Operating Grant. It would probably go from $10,000 to $20,000, and what are you going to do with that when he talks about infrastructure? What we have done is we said we will restructure your debt, and we have done that for 150 communities plus. We are hoping to have it done by 200 communities by the end of this year, to restructure their debt.

I have used it this way, when your debt ratio is high, like many of the communities out there, 50 per cent or 60 per cent, what would be better for us to do as a government? Would it be better for us to double the Municipal Operating Grant in the small community or would it be best to pay their mortgage? I have said - and I know I am not wrong - we will pay your mortgage for you. We will assume your debt; the long-term debt that you have for infrastructure. The water and sewer that many of the smaller communities paid 50-50 for, and couldn't afford it. So, we made it possible for them to do that. We are saying to them, we will absorb your debt because I believe that once a debt is absorbed, once you pay the mortgage, then the Municipal Operating Grant that they have, even though it is not enough, will enable the smaller communities to be able run their businesses better than they are at this particular moment.

So, I could go on and on but I am not going to do that. I think I have made my point. We, as a government, do care and we have looked after the municipalities and I am sure that St. John's would be more than pleased to know that they are treated like every other municipality across the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The City Of St. John's (Loan) Act, 1978," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow. (Bill 19)

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

MR. LUSH: Order 19, Mr. Speaker. Second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act No. 3. Bill 29.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Highway Traffic Act No. 3." (Bill 29)

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this is an amendment to a bill, An Act to Amend the Highway Traffic Act, to provide that municipal regulations made under this authority, delegated to a municipality by the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, come into effect the date of publication of a notice in the Gazette and a newspaper circulating in the municipality. At present, a municipality is required to publish the regulation itself. What we are doing here is giving authority to the municipalities to publish in the newspaper regulations under the act. It is just a simple amendment to cover back situations and violations in terms of the municipalities, so it is here at the request of the municipalities.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

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

The Minister of Mines and Energy just said, and in conclusion - or suggesting that I be as efficient with my time in responding to the bill as the minister was in tabling it and entering it in second reading.

Mr. Speaker, while legitimately we understand the need for the bill, there is some sense that there are a couple of clauses in this piece of legislation that are causing some concern. One of those deals with - if it is passed as it is, without amendment - regulation made by a council in the section but not published in the Gazette, is required by subsection 8, as it read before the passage of subsection 8, at the same time as the passage of this subsection are considered to have had effect for all purposes notwithstanding that they were not published.

To use language outside of the legislative language, that there is no requirement to publish the regulations. That is how I read it. That is how I see it. There is obviously a problem with that. My colleague from St. John's East - we were talking about it earlier - said: What a defence in terms or anybody who may have any sort of grievance with this particular piece of legislation. What is the problem with publishing regulations comes to mind.

We are not in the business of trying to obstruct this piece of legislation. I have talked to the Government House Leader about it and indicated that we are not going to unduly obstruct, but this is certainly an area of concern with the bill, and the other part of the bill dealing with the nature of retroactivity legislation: making a law today, for example, that applies to dates behind us, back in time, as opposed to, from this day forward.

What I have asked the Government House Leader is, with his concurrence, if he can leave this with us. Tomorrow is Private Members' Day, where we will be debating a private member's resolution put forward by the Member for Trinity North. Leave this another day or so with our critic, to deal with the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, to see if the concerns that were raised - we believe they are bona fide and legitimate - that maybe there is some way we can work with this to come to some sort of agreement, that we can move on from second reading, get into the Committee stage of the bill where we can make some amendments by agreement, hopefully - we are not saying that is going to happen, but hopefully it will - that will deal with the concerns, with the two issues -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. E. BYRNE: Absolutely, and deal with all of those parties who are involved. That is very important, no question. I thank the minister for indicating that. That is critical. To ensure that the concerns that have been raised are addressed in a timely way. If we can do that and facilitate that without obstructing the legislation, we will certainly do it.

With that, Mr. Speaker, if we have the agreement of the House, I will move adjournment and we will deal with the legislation on Thursday.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, it simply shows how co-operative we are. We will do anything to move and expedite the legislation to improve the quality and the standard of living of the people of this Province. That is our purpose and we co-operate in all such matters.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House at its rising do now adjourn.

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