The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

On November 29, the hon. the Opposition House Leader raised a point of order concerning the hon. the Premier's assertion that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was spreading rumours by innuendo. In making his point of order, of course, the hon. the Opposition House Leader suggested that the hon. the Premier was using innuendo.

While the language may be somewhat unflattering, it is the Chair's opinion that what we are dealing with, in this instance, is not a point of order but a difference of opinion between the two hon. members, and the Chair so rules.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS M. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to congratulate a youth organization in my district that is celebrating fifty years of providing leadership and opportunities for young people in Marystown and surrounding area.

The Royal Canadian Sea Cadets Corp, 121 Mary Rose of Marystown, is celebrating their 50^th anniversary. Throughout those fifty years, hundreds of cadets have learned such skills as leadership, drill, seamanship and pride in one's country. Many have travelled to further develop their leadership skills at camps across the country during the summers. Some of these cadets, when completing their training, go on to become officers with the Canadian Armed Forces. All of these cadets, however, learn skills that will benefit them as they look for a career, and many youth obtain their first summer jobs as a result of their membership in the organization.

The cadet movement is also known for its commitment to the environment with such initiatives as Cadets Caring for Canada, where all cadets come together to help beautify the communities they serve, and they are also present at Remembrance Day events and Christmas parades.

Mr. Speaker, 121 Mary Rose provides a unique opportunity for Marystown's young people to make new friends and learn valuable skills, and any youth aged twelve to eighteen can join. I want to thank such supportive groups as the Kinsmen Club of Marystown for their support, and I congratulate the officers and the cadets of 121 Mary Rose on celebrating their 50^th anniversary.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HEDDERSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to pay tribute to a very gracious lady, Mrs. Isabel Harris, a long-time resident of Markland, formerly of St. John's, who passed peacefully away on December 1, 2002, at the age of ninety years, in the presence of her family.

The late Mrs. Harris was an organist in Christ Church, Markland, for some forty years, Mr. Speaker, and only retired from that ministry just last year. She was a devoted and dedicated church worker, always willing to lend a helping hand. She was very active in her church, in her community, and was also a former girls auxiliary leader in her church. She enjoyed good health and she enjoyed many pleasures, but her two great pleasures were to play cards in the community with her friends, and also crossword puzzles.

She is predeceased by her first husband, William Cook, and her second husband, Leroy Harris, and her daughter Bernice. She leaves to mourn two sons, George and David, eight grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and a large number of family members and devoted friends.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Isabel Harris was certainly a great Newfoundlander and Labradorian and was held in much esteem by her family, her friends, and she lived a full life, and life to the fullest.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask all members of the House to extend condolences to the Harris and Cook families on the passing of Mrs. Isabel Harris.

Thank you.

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.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge a local company, ZeddComm, that has been ranked as one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America by Deloitte and Touche's ‘Fast 500'.

Founded in 1992, ZeddComm is the first company headquartered in St. John's to make the North America ‘Fast 500'. ZeddComm had experience a growth rate of 1,300 per cent over the past five years and has offices situated in Ottawa and Irvine, California. The successful full-service consulting IT firm, employing fifty people, not only made the ‘Fast 500' but over the past twenty-eight months has placed in a number of Canadian business rankings, including the Top Companies to Work For, Profit 100 and Fastest Growing Companies lists.

ZeddComm is a respected leader in the technology industry. Their innovation and commitment to technology has secured the company an impressive client list, including such familiar names as Sony, Microsoft, Cisco, Pfizer and Health Canada.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to acknowledge the value of technology and the leadership and vision that is necessary to succeed in the competitive IT industry.

I ask all members to join with me in congratulating ZeddComm on their accomplishments.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse St. Clair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to rise to congratulate two young students from my district who did extremely well in the fourth Canadian National Immunization Poster Competition.

Christy Groves, who attends Grade 6 at Mountain Field Academy in Forteau, was chosen as the National Runner-up for the contest, while Heather Tamara Trimm, who also attends Grade 6 at Mountain Field Academy, was chosen as the provincial winner for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, this competition takes place every two years by Health Canada's Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, in partnership with the Canadian Immunization Awareness Program.

I want to congratulate these two young and artistic leaders and minds in Labrador for their interest and their high standing in this national competition. Their posters will be promoting awareness and the importance of proper immunization processes and practices within our country.

I am sure all members join with me, Mr. Speaker, in congratulating these two young Grade 6 students.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I want to update the House of Assembly today and the people of the Province on the meeting which was held in Ottawa this past Monday evening, regarding the state of cod stocks in the Gulf and the Northeast Coast.

This was an unprecedented meeting, convened as a result of the unanimous resolution which we passed in this House of Assembly following emergency debate two weeks ago, upon hearing reports from Ottawa concerning the future of the Newfoundland and Labrador cod fisheries.

Participating in the meeting with me were: the hon. Gerry Byrne, Newfoundland and Labrador's representative in the federal Cabinet, our Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, federal MPs, senators, the Leader of the Official Opposition, the Leader of the New Democratic Party, and other representatives from this House of Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, not since Confederation has there been a joint meeting with federal and provincial representatives of all political backgrounds surrounding a single issue. I believe that our willingness to set aside partisan politics highlights the importance of this issue, and our desire to work together for the best interests of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. As a result of the reports from Ottawa, we have been given an opportunity to address significant issues before final decisions are made about the cod fisheries by the Government of Canada.

The main consensus of our meeting, Mr. Speaker, was that we are not satisfied that a closure of the cod fisheries in the Province is necessary at this point in time. Rather, we all agreed that further analysis and a comprehensive rebuilding plan is required, so that the key issues that are negatively impacting the fish stocks can be effectively dealt with.

This plan will outline positive measures to help us in addressing issues including seal overpopulation and predation, custodial management, and gear types.

Mr. Speaker, as a first step we have agreed to establish an all-party committee, with representation from the provincial and federal levels to look into the specific issues, with a view to reporting back to the larger group as a whole prior to Christmas. This committee will be chaired by the provincial Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

Mr. Speaker, the group will continue with a united front, as we develop an action plan which represents the best interests of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and our fishery.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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 was, indeed, an unprecedented but a wonderful meeting. It lasted, I guess, between four and five hours. A good discussion. All parties there agreed that it would be a frank, very open discussion and we would move forward on a common front.

It was interesting on the way back yesterday, I think it took us about ten hours to all get back from Ottawa yesterday and, of course, the common question that was asked to me was: Why are you all travelling together? Why are you all together? The nice thing about that was -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: You were bonding.

MR. WILLIAMS: - we were able to say that we were up there bonding, as the Minister of Finance said, working together for a very, very important issue to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: I must say, I was very proud to say that. It was nice to see us all working together, and that is the commitment we all made.

I was also pleased to have our fisheries critic, Mr. Taylor, join me; and the former Premier, Tom Rideout, was there as well from our party. It was a very worthwhile discussion; a very detailed discussion; a very fruitful discussion. We have committed to look at this again before Christmas. I thank the federal minister, Gerry Byrne, for chairing a very productive meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was very pleased to also participate in this historic meeting in Ottawa. We talked about what we were doing as a common front on the fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador. We did not go so far as calling it the bloc Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, but there was a real sense that the political representatives of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and our representatives of the Senate, wanted to assure all the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that we were going to be united on this issue as long as we could. We have an early heads-up on what might be happening to the Gulf stocks and to the Northern Cod. We were determined that we could work together and try to represent, to the Government of Canada, a united front of members, and this we will continue to do as long as that -

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: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: This we will continue to do and are determined to do so that we may be able to more effectively influence what the Government of Canada will do in their responsibility and, certainly, what measures the Province might take as well, should there be a need for drastic action with respect to closure but it also an opportunity for us to press the important points that have been made about the issue of custodial management, about the issue of seal predation, and about other issues in terms of rebuilding those stocks which is very important to the future of this Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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.

Mr. Speaker, with each passing day we learn more and more about the terms of the secret deal on the Lower Churchill, which appears to be a very, very bad deal for Newfoundland and Labrador and a very, very good deal for Quebec. Now we all know why it is, in fact, a hidden deal and why the Premier will not answer any questions on the terms.

Mr. Speaker, would the Premier confirm what was told to the private meeting in Labrador, that at the end of construction of this multi-billion development of our resource, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will only get fifty - fifty, Mr. Speaker - long-term jobs while Quebec will use more of our cheap power to create thousands of new jobs for Quebecers?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, there is nothing to learn about the Gull Island project at Lower Churchill because there is no deal; there is no project to be presented to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. There is only speculation by the Leader of the Opposition, which has been going on for a couple of weeks.

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is this: In a very good discussion that we held in Labrador, which was almost as unprecedented as the one we had in Ottawa about the fishery a few days ago - because people put aside their political hats and came in to have a frank discussion about the future of Labrador, about the whole notion of things that were possible and could be done for economic development in Labrador, and what the hopes and aspirations of the people are.

With respect to the issue that the Leader of the Opposition just raised, it was clearly acknowledged and the context of it - because he tries to describe it as something else - is that when the plant is up and running in ten years' time, that the workforce to run the plant is likely to be fifty. That is common knowledge; everybody understands that. That is how many people it takes, by the way, to run a hydro plant of that size - fifty people. That has nothing to do, nothing whatsoever, with any possible economic benefits in Labrador, the use of recalled power, new industry in Labrador, jobs in Labrador -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

PREMIER GRIMES: - forestry developments in Labrador, possible smelters in Labrador. It has nothing to do with the benefits that would accrue from having energy available. It only addresses the fact that it takes fifty people to run a power plant.

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, I thank the Premier for that answer, that in fact from 2010-2055 there will be in fact fifty long-term jobs created by this project in Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, even more information came from the meeting in Labrador which the Premier held. Would the Premier confirm that he told that private meeting that the prefabrication of the turbines and powerhouse components would be done by Quebec companies, in Quebec?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the Leader of the Opposition has some difficulty dealing in the real world, the context of the discussion was this: We acknowledged that when we tried to secure benefits for Newfoundland and Labrador in offshore projects such as White Rose, that there was not much point in the people of Newfoundland and Labrador trying to suggest that the benefits to Newfoundland and Labrador could include the building of the hull, the actual vessel that is going to contain the drill rigs, the accommodations, the facilities and all of the modules, because that cannot be done anywhere in Canada, anywhere in North America. It was a $600 million piece of a $2.35 billion project.

The reality is - and the people in the room, Mr. Speaker, understood it fully and appreciated the honesty of it, they appreciated the forthrightness of it, and they appreciated the fact that we are dealing with real issues - that if there is anybody - and if this is what the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting - that maybe to build a single powerhouse in Labrador, that somebody is going to build a plant in Newfoundland and Labrador to start producing turbines for power plants, if that is what he is suggesting, that that is in the real world as a possibility, then I guess he should go and put those false hopes out before people, if that is what he wants to do. We deal with it realistically, and we understood -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

PREMIER GRIMES: The question was this, Mr. Speaker, that the turbines are already being built by plants in Quebec. They will either be built in Quebec, somewhere else in Canada, somewhere else in the United States, or somewhere else in the world. We acknowledge they will not be built in Newfoundland and Labrador now or in the foreseeable future.

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.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, it is because of that attitude by our Premier that we have the highest unemployment rate in the country, and that is why our people, our young people, are leaving our Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: It is a quitting, can't-do attitude.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WILLIAMS: We will contrast a more can-do attitude by the Premier of Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, last month, in his economic plan for the next three years, called Horizon 2005, Premier Landry of Quebec said his government is concentrating on an agreement with Newfoundland and Labrador concerning the development of Gull Island which could lead to the creation of numerous jobs and numerous business opportunities for Quebecers. That is the contrast with our Premier.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Premier: Why are we entering into an agreement to create numerous jobs and opportunities for Quebecers and only fifty long-term jobs for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am saddened by the approach of the Leader of the Opposition because I guess what we are learning now is this: that the position of the Leader of the Opposition, in trying to be so adamantly opposed to something that he knows nothing about, that is not in the public domain, that will be presented to the people if we ever get a chance to finalize it, Mr. Speaker, is that he would - and let's recount it for the record, because this is what the debate will be at some point in the future. The position of the Leader of the Opposition is that there will never be a development at Gull Island unless the Upper Churchill contract is reopened as a pre-condition. That is number one.

Now he is suggesting to the people of the Province, today, in his question previous to this last one, that he will never allow the project to proceed unless the turbines for the powerhouse are built in Labrador. That is what he is saying today, Mr. Speaker. Now he is suggesting that the energy - you can't have any of the industrial development in Labrador without building the project and generating the energy. That is the key to all of it, Mr. Speaker. If the energy is needed in Labrador, that is what the recall provisions are for, so that we can use it in Labrador to meet the hopes and aspirations and visions of the positive people who spoke in that room in Labrador last week, not the naysayers, not the negative people, but the positive people.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I think it is grossly unfair to the people of the Province for somebody in a position of responsibility -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

PREMIER GRIMES: - to be trying to put forward a proposition that any government would put forward a project that would see fifty jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador and thousands of jobs someplace else. That is not something we are interested in, Mr. Speaker, not at all.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

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, the reason that the Upper Churchill is so important to myself and to the caucus is because every single day that that contract continues $2 million a day worth of profit goes to the coffers of Quebec. That is $40 million after twenty days. That is $60 million dollars after thirty days. We could put that into creating jobs, into education, into health care -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. WILLIAMS: - into roads in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. WILLIAMS: That, quite simply, Mr. Speaker, is why it is so important to the people of our Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WILLIAMS: On the question of recall, Mr. Speaker, which the Premier mentioned: Could the Premier please explain why, when he met with the leaders in Labrador, he would not address questions on the very, very important issue of recall? Why wouldn't he come clean with the people of Labrador by giving them the notice period, giving them the quantity, giving them the price at which we have to try and buy back the power which we sold to them cheaper in the first place?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess for the great fighter across the way, who wants to now suggest to the people of the Province that every single cent - that is the numbers he is quoting - that is generated as a result of the sale of power from the Upper Churchill should come to Newfoundland and Labrador, that the Upper Churchill contract would be completely torn up. I do not know who is going to do it, because we have challenged it, and the Supreme Court of Canada has said - because the great fighter, who is his role model and idol, Premier Peckford, took it there twice, and they said it is a contract that is in place. It is a proper contract. The only way it can ever be reopened, Mr. Speaker, is if there is some willingness by a government in Quebec.

The Leader of the Opposition cannot tell them that they must open the contract. We have taken it to the courts before and the courts have ruled that the contract is valid. So I guess if we want - that is why we spent thirty years having the kind of thing that he has talked about and have done nothing about the Lower Churchill. We have had thirty years of it because of that kind of attitude and approach. To pretend you are fighting and accomplish nothing, instead of doing something.

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.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier has indicated in the Legislature over the last two weeks that the federal government does not want to participate in developing a hydro project in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, can the Premier explain why Gerry Byrne, the federal minister for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, is indicating today that he was not even asked about the Lower Churchill file? Nothing, absolute nothing, was mentioned to him about pursuing funding on the Lower Churchill when he met with the Premier in Ottawa on Monday of this week.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess if the Leader of the Opposition were to read the rest of the story that was in The Telegram today he would also know that Minister Byrne acknowledges that the government, that he is a part of and that he is in the Cabinet of, does not participate and has no plan to participate in megaprojects, Mr. Speaker.

The fact of the matter is, it is a position of the Government of Canada since the Finance Minister, Mr. Martin at the time, stated in 1995. It has been restated to us. We do acknowledge that the Prime Minister raised it in a meeting with the Premier of Ontario. I have chatted directly with the Premier of Manitoba. We have talked to the Premier's office in Ontario. We have talked to the Prime Minister's office. There are no discussions involving Manitoba, Ontario and the federal government about participation in any hydro project in Manitoba or any place else.

We are going to check it further, Mr. Speaker. We are going to check it further because I am in the process of writing to the Prime Minister again, to have a further confirmation that they do not plan to change their particular position and if they do, that they would certainly treat Newfoundland and Labrador no differently than they would anybody else on the basis of participation in a project of importance to Canada.

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.

Our Premier, last week, was not even aware that any negotiations, any discussions, had gone on between Premiers Doer, Eves and/or the Prime Minister. He was not even aware. He had to pick it up in the National Post.

I also read other parts of that article today, Premier, from Mr. Gerry Byrne. The federal minister said, and I quote him: He was certainly open to the specific request for federal involvement -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. WILLIAMS: - and yet he was not even asked.

Mr. Speaker, if the Premier needs federal support why didn't he even bother to consult with any of the federal MPs on this very important matter to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? Is it, in fact, because he simply has no working relationship whatsoever with any of these people?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, the tired old tactic of the Leader of the Opposition. He talked about not being aware of any discussions between the Premiers of Manitoba, Ontario and the federal government. Rather than jump to conclusions based on a newspaper article, we called these people. They did confirm that it is not a matter of not being aware of any discussions, they confirmed that there has been no discussions. There have been no discussions between Ontario and Manitoba for over a decade. There have been no discussions with the federal government at all with respect to this particular issue and funding; the story that was in the paper.

Mr. Speaker, it is not a matter of not being aware of it. It is a matter of taking the time to check it out and be told by the very people involved that there are no discussions ongoing and there have not been any discussions with respect to that.

Mr. Speaker, our federal members will be very, fully and completely supportive of this government if we have something to do that requires, needs, and can be better for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador by having some federal involvement. To date, what they know, because they are members of the federal caucus, is that they sit in a federal caucus whose official stated position is they are not getting involved in any megaprojects anywhere in Canada, period. Now, that is the circumstance they know they are in today. If that changes, they will fully support us in having the Government of Canada participate in Newfoundland and Labrador as they would anywhere else.

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.

Yesterday when I asked the Minister of Mines and Energy questions about the public relations campaign that had been developed to sell which was a deal two weeks ago on the Lower Churchill, to Monday no deal, and now yesterday and today a possible deal. He admitted outside this House that the government would be spending in around the same vicinity - either they have already spent in some or in whole - the same amount as the Voisey's Bay campaign, which is about $1 million.

I would like to ask the minister this question: Will he confirm for the House today that Lower Churchill negotiations to date, dating back to the Tobin Administration, have cost the people of the Province or Hydro approximately $50 million; $35 million of which was spent under the Tobin Administration, and approximately $15 million since this Premier became Premier? Can he confirm that is how much this Administration has spent on Lower Churchill negotiations and that approximately $3 million of that has been spent on needless public relations campaigns?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What I can confirm is the obvious, that over the last four or five years - in particular, going back to the 1998 negotiation and proposed conclusion to a deal - there has, in fact, been a fair amount of money been spent on negotiations, on the engagement of experts to advise us, on the engagement of professional, legal and technical and financial advice. We have spent a fair amount of money through the hydro organization in-house to do that work. Now, if it appears to be unreasonable to suggest that because you do a lot of work, you should be able to do it for nothing and spend no money, than that is a new concept to us and a new concept, I would suggest, to the real world out there. We have spent a fair bit of money, and we intend to continue to spend money until we come to a conclusion one way or the other, whether or not we can get a deal that is good for the Province at which point we fully intend to ensure that all of our costs will be fully and completely captured in a project that we hope we will bring to conclusion sooner rather than later.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, when I was growing up a fair amount of money was a couple of hundred dollars, not $50 million or $60 million. By anyone's estimates in Newfoundland and Labrador, that would be considered astronomical when you have yet to produce anything for it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. E. BYRNE: I would like to ask the minister this question, Mr. Speaker: Will the minister confirm that the approximately $50 million to $60 million that has already been spent on negotiations on a public relations campaign, that that money which they have spent will be rolled into the capital costs of the Lower Churchill project and financed with interest over the forty-five year life of the contract? Is that how you plan to hide it from the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, when you start down a road of trying to develop a project like this, or when you start down the road of negotiating on any issue, the minute you start in a direction and start to do work, you start to incur expenses and you start to expend money on that particular issue. We fully intend - any prudent proponent would fully intend and expect - to be able to capture all of the costs from the get-go, in terms of negotiation and consideration of a project, in the final and conclusionary cost of the full project, at what point we get a project.

So what I say to the hon. member is that we have spent money on negotiations, we have spent money in a number of areas with respect to the negotiations, and we hope that some day, sooner rather than later, all of that money will be a part of the full cost of the project that we sincerely hope for the benefit of the people of this Province we can bring forward, in like fashion as we have done with Voisey's and White Rose and other projects, to advance the economic cause and the good of the people of the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, this is the government that says $50 million or $60 million is a fair amount of money. No wonder they think that the budget, which is going to escalate approximately to $600 million, means nothing to the people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Let me ask him this question: Will the minister also confirm that all of Quebec hydro's costs associated with these negotiations, which are approximately the same or a little bit lower than what we have just described, will be rolled into the money Hydro-Quebec will lend us to build the project and that we, the people of this Province, will in fact pay it off - every single penny of it - over the life of the forty-five year contract that you want to sign?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Speaker, let the record be clear that, while the hon. member is suggesting amounts of money that may have or that may yet be needed to be expended, I have confirmed nothing of the sort as he suggests I have confirmed in the questioning that he has put forward.

What I say to the hon. member is this: that he will have to ask the people in Quebec how they are accounting for any money they have spend on negotiations over the past four or five years. We will account for the money that we have spent. I can tell the hon. member this: that we have not -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. MATTHEWS: I say this to the hon. member: that as I speak, and up until this point - and obviously in any logical context this should be the case - we have not picked up one ten cents of expense that Quebec has spent on any part of this project. We do our work and we pay for our bills. They do their work and I guess they pay their bills, and negotiations go on or will go on, hopefully, to successful conclusions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions today are for the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation.

Minister, highway conditions vary from place to place around the Province. Many people travel from east to west, and some of those people travel to Port aux Basques to get the ferry. I ask the minister today, would he consider using 100 per cent salt for all the Trans-Canada Highway right across the Province, where temperatures and conditions warrant?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the process that is in place in terms of plowing and salting and sanding our roads is a process that has been in place for the last fifteen years and we see no reason to change it at this particular time. There are reasons why there are percentages of salt and sand used. It has to do with temperatures and various locations within the Province. That is analyzed by experts within our department. We have set the program for salting and sanding our roads for this particular year and we see no reason to change it, because we are doing a good job.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Windsor-Springdale.

MR. HUNTER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister, all the travelling public likes to feel safe on our highways, particularly the Trans-Canada Highway. Two weeks ago you decided to increase the combination of salt and sand from Grand Falls, Windsor, to Badger to 100 per cent salt. You changed your mind very quickly on that issue in that short distance. Minister, will you now consider using 100 per cent salt further west than Badger to protect the people who travel from Grand Falls, Windsor West? In the last two weeks we have seen many vehicles off the road, and some serious accidents. I think safety should be taken into consideration here, not the dollar value. Will you consider using 100 per cent salt west of Badger?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BARRETT: There was a section of the road from Grand Falls to Badger where we increased, for a short period of time, 100 per cent salt, but the hon. member will realize that the traffic levels from Badger -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BARRETT: The hon. member asked a question. If he wants to find out the answer he will listen to what I have to say. If not, I will sit down, okay?

The thing about it in terms of 100 per cent salt, and whether you are going to use sand, also depends on the traffic levels on a particular section of the highway. The traffic levels from Badger to South Brook and all of those areas there, there is less traffic on the road. You know that with 100 per cent salt there needs to be a great deal of traffic on the road for the salt to have the proper traction, so the sand will also provide the traction that is needed for people on the highway. This is all done in a scientific way; it is not done on an ad hoc basis. We have experts within the department who have done this for years and years, and I respect their point of view.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Windsor-Springdale.

MR. HUNTER: Minister, two weeks ago you said that the conditions were too cold from Grand Falls, Windsor, to use salt. A couple of days later you decide to use 100 per cent salt from Grand Falls, Windsor, to Badger. Now, how did you come up with statistics to prove that had to be changed when now you are saying you do not have the evidence to say that it could be 100 per cent salt further west than Badger? Where did you get the information?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BARRETT: I do not know how much clearer I can state it. The decisions that are made in regard to whether it is salt, sand, a mixture of the salt and sand, is done by experts within the department. They determine what is needed. The objective of the minister is to get the money to do the job, and we have done the job, and we are doing a good job on our roads within Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Mines and Energy.

A Belgium company is reported to be planning to build wind turbines in eleven Coastal Labrador communities and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is apparently looking at whether to join as a partner in this project.

I want to ask the minister: Why is he not instructing Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro - instead of looking at privatization as a solution here - why aren't them taking the initiative in wind power and other alternative energies to replace diesel in the twenty-nine sites in this Province, as low as one-third of the cost by wind generation, which is being done in Quebec, in Alberta, and even tiny P.E.I.? Why isn't Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro not taking this type of initiative instead of leaving it up to someone else?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the hon. Member for Kilbride, he will make a good backup in the event we have systems failure on that account.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: To the question raised by the hon. Leader of the NDP, let me say this to him: As a matter of fact, our Hydro, as the Crown Corporation who is responsible for most of the generation of power in the Province, has in fact been very directly engaged in the issue of wind power. We have just completed a pilot project, an experimental exercise, on the Burin Peninsula - I believe it was in the St. Lawrence area - and the results of that experience and experiment is being factored into the overall energy needs of the Province, vis-á-vis its cost effectiveness and whether or not it adds value to us in terms of our electricity generation capacity. We have had a Belgium company -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MR. MATTHEWS: - a private sector company, on the South Coast of Labrador this year spending their money to look at the same thing, the possibility of using wind power to generate electricity. Hydro does not need to be directed by me today because it is now, as we speak, fully engaged in the consideration of wind power for purposes of electricity generation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

You have time for one quick question.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Tiny P.E.I. built eight of these in 2001. This is not an experimental technology. When is the minister going to direct Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro to act quickly to try and replace some of the diesel fuel that we are burning for Kyoto reasons, or the hundreds of thousands of tons of SO₂ plus greenhouse gases being produced in Seal Cove right here on the Island?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Mines and Energy.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I agree with the hon. member. This is not new technology, and I never suggested at any point that we are experimenting with a new technology. What I said is that we were having some work done to see if the technology can work to our benefit, given our circumstances, given the wind volumes that are needed, given all of the issues that have to be factored in as to whether or not wind power is the right way to go. We, through our hydro, are actively and fully, and today as we speak, involved in the consideration of wind energy for purposes of use in this Province. I appreciate him raising it because it gives us an opportunity to, in fact, state the case and state the facts as to where we are with that issue.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has ended.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition signed by nearly 500 residents of this Province, covering communities from Gambo to Glovertown, Grand Falls-Windsor, Bishop's Falls, Botwood, Norris Arm, Badger, La Scie, Lewisporte, Milltown, Cox's Cove, Buchans, Birchy Bay and Triton.

Mr. Speaker, this petition is addressed to the hon. House of Assembly and I will read the petition:

WHEREAS in 1998 the Province provided funding for four new multiple sclerosis drug therapies, Betaseron, Avonex, Copaxone and Rebif, under the Newfoundland and Labrador Prescription Drug Program; and

WHEREAS the Newfoundland and Labrador Prescription Drug Program only provides medication coverage for senior's under the Senior Citizen's Drug Subsidy Program and people on income support; and

WHEREAS these drugs can cost between $1,800 to $3,600 a month; and

WHEREAS all citizens in other Canadian provinces can receive assistance with high cost MS drugs, using co-payment and sliding scale programs, not limited to social assistance income levels; and

WHEREAS the drugs can significantly improve the quality of life for people with multiple sclerosis;

WHEREFORE we the undersigned, petition the House of Assembly to direct government to implement a co-payment or sliding scale program for Betaseron, Avonex, Copaxone and Rebif so that people who do not qualify for assistance under the existing programs can get financial assistance with these high cost drugs, as in the case in other Canadian provinces, as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr. Speaker, I have stood in this House on many occasions and raised this question with the Minister of Health, and I have presented petitions on many occasions. This petition that I am presenting today from all of the communities that are mentioned, and I have presented them from every community across this Province, pretty well. From Labrador West, I have presented many, many petitions on this subject. People are getting frustrated with the lack of commitment that this government is making to people in this Province who desperately need these drugs to improve their life.

The question, Mr. Speaker, that this government should be asking themselves is that if they do not provide assistance to people now with these debilitating diseases, it is going to cost them longer and more money in the long run, because these people, rather than leading a productive and a better quality of life for a longer period of time, are going to be incurring costs in the hospitals of this Province, something which is not funded to proper levels right now. So, it is a system where they can introduce a program now which will save the health care system money in the long run. I think it is a ridiculous - as I said yesterday to the minister - situation where people in this Province can be making $30 an hour and if they have MS or some of the other drugs that are required that they need, they can move to another province, make $10 a hour and be financially better off.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for this government to take responsibility and treat the people with MS. It is not a disease that they brought on themselves. It was not self-inflicted, by any means, and it is time for this Province to recognize that and provide the assistance -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

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

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

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. COLLINS: So, Mr. Speaker, it is time for them to take their responsibilities seriously, to be able to provide coverage for these drugs and let people lead a better quality of life that will save the health care system money in the long run.

I think, Mr. Speaker, we cannot allow a situation to continue where hardworking people of this Province have to reduce themselves to poverty levels, jeopardize their retirement, ruin any chances that their kids have of having an education fund in their name. It is time for this government to recognize that and move on to provide the coverage that is required.

Thank you.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in bringing forward this motion today I want to raise the whole issue of fisheries management in this Province, and I want to have it discussed here in the House so that I can get input from other people.

Last spring when I placed this motion on the Order Paper I intentionally wrote the motion to allow for a wide-ranging debate about the importance of the fishery to the Province and the need to have in place the best possible resource management. I did not bring it forward to be just critical of any organization or any individual, but rather, I am hopeful that we in this House of Assembly can, through expressing our views on this issue, cause others to re-examine and reflect on how we are managing this resource.

Mr. Speaker, a lot has happened since last spring when I placed this motion on the Order Paper. The motion is probably more timely now than it was then, when I presented it last spring. The news coming out of Ottawa, if you want to call it news, reinforced the need for us in this Province to have a debate on the issues raised in this motion. There are a lot of questions which need to be asked. They need to be asked about how the federal government manages the fishery, how they managed the resources off our coast and how they managed the human resources of our people here in our Province.

Mr. Speaker, before I go any further I would like to read into the record of the House the motion that we are debating today:

WHEREAS the fishery and aquaculture are extremely important parts of the economic and social well being of this Province; and

WHEREAS the current state of our understanding of the fishery resources off our coast is an underdeveloped area and more research is needed in this field; and

WHEREAS bringing administrative functions closer to the people who pursue the fishery would result in a better exchange of ideas and better management;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that this House of Assembly supports a comprehensive review of the organization of the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans with the purpose of providing improved services to the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, this is a wide-ranging motion and I am looking forward to hearing the debate which will be generated in this House today.

The first WHEREAS of this motion is about the importance of the fishery to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I want to take a bit of time to put forward some facts about the role of the fishery in the economy of this Province. It is important that we keep those in mind.

First, Mr. Speaker, let us look at the landed value. The dollar value of the seafood brought ashore in this Province is substantial and, in fact, many people find it hard to believe that since the close of the Northern Cod fishery the fishery, in recent years, has generated record landed value. The fact is because of the growth of the shellfish sector with crab and shrimp accounting for approximately 70 per cent of the industries production and export value.

Mr. Speaker, although landed value has increased the number of people employed in this industry, the number has dropped dramatically since the moratorium. The number of individuals now directly employed in the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery has declined from a peak of approximately 37,000 in the late 1980s to a level now of approximately 22,000 in 2001. This represents approximately 10 per cent of the workforce in this Province. The fishery accounts for a far greater percentage of the total regional employment in many areas, and in some areas the fishery is the sole economic generator. To sum up this point, the fishery is still a significant part of the economy of this Province despite the decline in the employment after the moratorium.

Mr. Speaker, it is useful for the purposes of this debate to look at the background leading up to the collapse of the Northern codfishery. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans is responsible for the management and protection of the Atlantic fishery. Since Confederation with Canada in 1949, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians transferred their right to protect their most valued resource, and that is the fishery. By the late 1980s, DFO scientists were beginning to revise their estimates of the Northern cod stock downwards. On February 12, 1989, the federal government appointed the independent review panel on Northern cod, under the chairmanship of Professor Leslie Harris. In March, 1990, the panel released its report that confirmed the fishing mortality for Northern cod was much higher than previously believed, and was at a level that could threaten the viability of the Northern cod stock. I guess none of us needed to be told that when we looked at the number of draggers out there raping our Grand Banks.

The panel recommended immediately setting a substantially lower Total Allowable Catch that would reduce fishing mortality. When the Northern Cod Adjustment Recovery Program - I guess we became brainwashed with the term NCARP - was introduced in 1992, it was widely accepted that the moratorium on the Northern cod would last for two years. We find ourselves now, almost eleven years later, with our fishery still closed. Despite the moratorium, the condition of the Northern cod stock continued to decline and it was becoming clear that recovery and resumption of a normal fishery was much further into the future.

Mr. Speaker, that is a quick summary of what happened. We have to ask some questions on how this was allowed to happen and what needs to be changed if it does occur again. What could have been done differently to prevent what happened? Do we have enough scientific information about the state of the stocks? Do we listen to the people directly involved in the fishery? Did we experiment enough with the various species of fish off our Coast? Did we fully understand the implications of the fishing technology being used? Mr. Speaker, these are some questions which we should be asking. These are questions which should be asked of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

How can we ensure that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans provides better service to this Province than they have in the past; and even recently, the arguments that exist, coming from Ottawa, among the various scientists. On the news program last night, a science professor at the university stated that the numbers are not right and they still don't merit the fishery closing.

Mr. Speaker, as we look to the future there are other questions that must be asked. Do we know more about the fishery off our coast now than we did when the collapsed fishery took place? How does a country like Canada allow the continued destruction of a resource off our coast? Why does what is happening in our fishery receive such a low priority from our federal government and the national media? Why haven't we, in this Province, become leaders in the world in industries related to the fishery?

One very important question is about the safety of our people who pursue the fishery. Should DFO be allowed to dictate the size of fishing vessels? Why should a fisherman, if he is willing to invest in his own enterprise, be restricted to the size of the ship that allows him to fish safely to feed his family?

These are just a few questions we should be asking. The fishery is a major part of the economy of this Province and we should be asking how we can get better service from DFO, the people who manage the fishery for this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I want to take some time today to refer to an interim report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans tabled in 1998. The report was done following public meetings held on the East Coast of Canada concerning fishery management issues and the Atlantic Groundfish Strategy. It was referred to as the East Coast Report, and I am sure most of us have read it.

Many of the things in the report are still relevant today, but I want to share some of their findings. One of the findings of this committee was that there was little confidence among fishermen and coastal communities in DFO's ability to manage the fishery. Instead, there is a widespread belief that DFO policies are driven primarily by corporate interests and that DFO has an undeclared agenda to eliminate the inshore fishery altogether. To some extent, these views were fuelled by the perception that DFO senior policy-makers in Ottawa were remote from the fishery, had no contact with fishermen, plant workers and their communities, and have little understanding or even empathy with traditional fisheries and the rural way of life.

Madam Speaker, the second finding, which is important for our debate today, relates to centralized decision making. Although there was generally respect for the DFO front-line staff, witnesses who spoke to the committee frequently voiced frustration over the lack of authority of local DFO staff to make decisions. Centralized decision making at regional offices often contributed both to delays and, in some cases, to questionable decisions.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SWEENEY: I say to the hon. member, I had salt fish for lunch just to get in tune for today's discussion.

In some cases fishermen reported that DFO was not providing the critical information such as deadlines for permits, the deadlines for applications, the deadlines for licences and quotas, until after the appropriate dates. The committee also heard complaints about a lack of effective enforcement resources by DFO.

Madam Speaker, another point brought forward in the report was made by the inshore fishermen about what destroyed the fishery. It was not the inshore fishery, using fixed gears such as cod traps, hook and line, or even gill nets, but federal policies that sanctioned both foreign and domestic dragger fleets in the interest of foreign policy and domestic political patronage.

Only the draggers were capable of using year-round capability of fishing. It was only the draggers that were able to target the heavy concentration of cod on their spawning grounds. The Northern cod had been protected by nature for centuries. It was no longer given the chance to rejuvenate during the respite dictated by the seasonal nature of the traditional fishery.

Other witnesses to the House of Commons committee supported the midshore and offshore fisheries. Communities off Newfoundland's South Coast have had a heavy dependence on the offshore fishery. Thousands of residents of the Burin Peninsula have earned a living as a result of the good wages and the year-round work provided by the offshore fishery. These witnesses insisted that the first right of access to reopen Grand Bank stocks should go to the offshore fishery and the communities and the plants that have historically relied on those stocks.

Madam Speaker, in general, witnesses had little confidence in DFO science, and the more information that comes forward, I think it becomes more evident that their science is inaccurate. Errors in the scientific estimates of the sizes of the cod stocks are seen as a major factor in the collapse, and not enough has changed to re-establish confidence in DFO's ability to manage the fishery in the future. The leadership of that department was viewed as more concerned with defending its reputation in the wake of criticism directed at DFO by the scientists and others who accused them of bureaucratic interference in the science. Having failed so far to face up to its mistakes, the department could not be entrusted to manage the fishery any better in the future, and I share that confidence with those people.

Madam Speaker, the House of Commons committee also bears some skepticism about the independence of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council. The FRCC was created in 1993 to provide an arm's-length body to provide greater independence on fisheries management advice. The primarily allowable catches, this information was provided to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. It was observed that the council operates from the department and uses departmental staff as its secretariate. It was suggested that politics continues to influence the FRCC and that is falling under the department's control.

Other witnesses spoke in support of science. One acknowledged that there was a great deal of sentiment against science but cautioned against throwing the baby out with the bath water. What failed was not science per se, but DFO science, and what was needed was for science and DFO to have complete autonomy from management.

Madam Speaker, these are some comments from a House of Commons committee in 1998; comments that still hold a lot of relevance today. There have been other House of Commons Fishery Reports since, and I am sure there will be a lot more in the future, most notably the report released earlier this year which was dismissed so quickly by the federal minister, Robert Thibault.

Madam Speaker, a number of concerns have been raised about the management practices of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. These issues are serious and they should be discussed in this House. I think these are the kinds of issues we should be pushing for action on as a Province, and I encourage all members to support this motion.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER (M Hodder): The hon. the Member for The Straits & White Bay North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I would like to have a few words on this private member's resolution this afternoon. I would like to certainly thank that Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace for the opportunity to speak on fisheries issues again today. I have only been here not quite two years yet, but I guess it is fair to point out that over the course of the little bit of time that I have been here, both sides of the House have brought forward quite a number of resolutions related to the fishery. We all recognize, I think collectively on both sides of the House, how important the fishery is to all rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and certainly to many parts of urban Newfoundland and Labrador.

Madam Speaker, there are a number of issues, and while the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace spoke about the past and our experience in the fishery and what transpired back in the 1970s and 1980s which led us to the cod fish moratorium and groundfish collapses of the early 1990s, today I guess I am going speak more about the, "THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that this House of Assembly supports a comprehensive review of the organization of the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans with the purpose of providing improved services to the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador." I think that speaks more to the issues we are faced with today and where we go on these issues and with our industry in the future.

Madam Speaker, as we were talking before we started this debate, myself and some of my colleagues here on this side of the House, I was reminded of a meeting we had, probably about two months ago I guess it was, with myself, the Member for Baie Verte and the Member for Lewisporte. We were out on the Baie Verte Peninsula one day and met with some small boat fishermen in less than thirty-five foot fleet in Brent's Cove. A number of issues were brought up by them then, which have been brought up to each one of us, I am sure, in this House - I do not know about each one of us, but certainly those of us who represent fishing districts and have a substantial number of small boat fishermen and larger boat fishermen raised some of the same issues.

The issues that they raised is the lack of a real vision and plan for many parts of our industry. I suppose it is best demonstrated when you look at vessel replacement policy, for one issue. It is best demonstrated also in how the federal government and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans have treated the less than thirty-five foot sector, in particular, as it relates to crab permits and the unwillingness of the federal department and unwillingness of the federal minister and the federal government to allow the small boat sector to move from crab permits to crab licences. That might seem like a small issue to some people. Some people might say: Well, what is the difference between a permit and a licence? You still have the same amount of fish to catch. Well, the fact of the matter is, there is a very substantial difference there. A permit can be removed almost at any time and a licence is much harder to remove from an individual and from a fleet. It also has implications for fish harvesters when they go looking for financing arrangements for boats and gear and motors, stuff like that. When they go to a bank, a financial institution or a credit union they are often asked: What kind of licence do you have? Well, they cannot answer that they have a crab licence. They can only say that they have a crab permit. Of course, the answer that oftentimes comes back is: I am sorry we cannot help you. Then they have to go to see their local fish processor.

Madam Speaker, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Minister Thibault, in recent months has clearly told the people in the small boat sector that there are a number of conditions they have to meet in order to get their permits changed to licences. These conditions are certainly, we would all recognize, pretty restrictive, and they are conditions that have not been imposed on any other fleet in Atlantic Canada. Not just any other fleet in the crab fishery. Not any other fleet in the fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador but any other fleet in fishery in Atlantic Canada, or probably all of Canada.

Some of the conditions that they put there cannot even be met. Even if the fleet was prepared to do it, they cannot meet them. I mean, such conditions as they must be able to demonstrate that changing their permits to licences will not affect the viability of the larger boats, the supplementary fleet, the full-time fleet in the crab fishery. I think it is fair to recognize that these fleets fish separate areas. The less than thirty-five foot sector fish the very inshore and near shore area, and the supplementary full-time fish the outer near shore and offshore area. To say that the small boat sector has to demonstrate that they would not affect the viability of the larger fleet is impossible. If they were removed from the picture altogether they could not guarantee the viability of the larger fleets because they do not even fish in the same area. They do not take the same crab. They do not fish the same quota.

So, Madam Speaker, those are issues that really, clearly demonstrate - I guess, it raises concerns amongst the small boat fleet about: What is DFO and what is the minister's and federal government's game plan for the small boat sector? As we have all along suspected, are they out to get them? That is a legitimate question that they asked there, especially in light of what we seen from Ottawa in the past two weeks on cod. It is clear to everybody that a closure of what remains of the cod fishery on the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Southern Labrador, is something that would only affect the small boat sector or primarily affect the small boat sector. A loss of that would have serious ramifications for those fleet sectors in these areas. As I said, it would not affect anybody else other than these small boat fishermen and fisherwomen. You know, it adds to that paranoia and cynicism that these people have and, I think, quite rightly they have this.

Madam Speaker, these are the things that we need to be addressing here. We need to look to the future and, yes, there needs to be. I support the member's resolution that there needs to be a comprehensive review of the organization of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. There is one very important part to the resolution, and it says, "...with the purpose of providing improved services to the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador." As we all know, over the past couple of years there has been, and continues I guess, an ongoing Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. But, will it be to the benefit of the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador?

I get the feeling that when these reviews are conducted, most times it is more beneficial to the people outside of Newfoundland and Labrador, to the industry outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. When restrictions are placed on our shrimp fleet, for example, where they are not able to fish in the summer months to some extent; when the size of their vessels are restricted so that they do not have the vessels that are big enough and capable enough to go out in November and bring in shrimp, for example, and October, and we leave - as happened a couple of years ago - 20 million pounds of shrimp in the water. What happens? Because of the restrictions that are placed on our fleet by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we find a transfer, or a new allocation I should say, of shrimp to the Province of P.E.I., to a consortium in the Province of P.E.I.

The argument that was used by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans then was: You are not able to take the quota. It is beyond your needs. It is beyond the needs of the people and the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. Of course it is not beyond the needs of the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador, because there is much more in the way of need in the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador than there are resources to satisfy that need. Even though our fleets were restricted in its ability to increase the size of the vessels to be able to go out and get this 20 million pounds of shrimp we left in the water, what happened with the P.E.I. consortium? Did they have to go out off the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in a fifty-five footer or a sixty-five footer in November or December or January or February? No, they did not. As a matter of fact, they did not even have to have a boat to go out there. They got their quota. They chartered somebody else to go out there in a 200 footer to catch it for them.

This is the thing that really rubs the salt in the wounds, I think, of the people in the fishing industry of Newfoundland and Labrador and certainly in the general public in the fishing industry of Newfoundland and Labrador. What happens is we see, not a double-standard, but a whole range of standards being applied in the industry throughout Atlantic Canada and Quebec, where oftentimes it is to the detriment of the people in the industry here in the Province.

Madam Speaker, I mentioned just a few minutes ago about the announcement out of Ottawa just a couple of weeks ago about the possible and probable closure of the cod fishery on the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and in the Northern and Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence. In the resolution here, in one of the WHEREASES I believe, "WHEREAS the current state of our understanding of the fishery resources off our coast is an underdeveloped area and more research is needed in this field." I think that was clearly demonstrated when the announcement came out a couple of weeks ago about the possible closure of the fishery. Clearly, there is a tremendous lack of knowledge, first of all, from DFO's prospective. I do not know if it is a lack of knowledge or a lack of acknowledgment, of what is happening with the cod stocks around our Province and why they are not rebuilding.

I took the liberty just in the past few days when we travelled to Ottawa for our all-party, all representatives of all Legislatures, you might say, from Newfoundland, from the Senate, to the House of Commons, to our own House of Assembly here when we met - I took the opportunity on the way up to read a research document, the preliminary assessment or preliminary report, from the DFO research vessel crews in the Gulf of St. Lawrence back in August on the Alfred Needler. Clearly, if you look at that document and take the time to read it, the sixty-odd pages that are there, it raises more questions than it provides answers about the status of groundfish stocks in general, and cod stocks in particular, in the Gulf. While there are many out there who seem to accept that the cod fishery has to close down in order to rebuild the stocks, I think if they read many of these reports they would find themselves asking: Well, what is the benefit of closing these fisheries? We had our fishery effectively closed for the past ten years, our codfishery, and to what gain, I suppose, we could ask ourselves. I do not think any of us, anywhere, either in the fishing industry or outside, would deny the closure of the fishery if we thought that closing it for a reasonable period of time would result in a reasonable growth in the stock, but we are not convinced of that. We have not seen that over the past little while. There are many more factors.

As a fisherman from the Northeast Coast said to me the other day - and I am sure it was shared by many throughout the Province when they were confronted with the possibility of closure of the fishery - it was said to me, quite clearly, if the federal government came to me, after addressing the problem with seal predation, after addressing the problems outside the 200-mile limit invoking custodial management, and if they had dealt with the bycatch issues in the fishery and then they came to me and said, Fisherman X, we think that you have to stop fishing in order to do your part for conservation, then, he said, I would accept it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Madam Speaker, the message is clear, I believe, from the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador, that they are tired of being asked first to take the knock. They are tired of being asked first to change their gear. They are tired of being asked first to take the closure, to take the cut in quota, while all these other issues are going on unaddressed.

Madam Speaker, none of these issues have been addressed, and we all recognize that they are very difficult to address, some of these issues, but the unfortunate thing about it from the federal government's perspective, I believe, looking at the federal government's reaction to many of these things, is that they have not even tried to address them. They have not even tried to deal with the seal predation problem that we have. Yes, we have a quota that is being taken right now, but why is it being taken? Is it because of anything that this federal government has done? In my belief, it is in large part because of mad cow disease in Europe that we see a sealing industry that has taken off in the past couple of years, a shortage of leather, and a change in the attitude of people in Europe and in particular in Russia and the Far East towards fur. That is what is after happening. It is not because we went out there and promoted it. It is because of things that have happened in the world and we are fortunately in a position to be able to capitalize to some extent on that and do something for our industry as a result of it.

If you look at what the federal government has done with grey seals, for example, which we all know consume somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 tons of very small cod less than thirty centimetres in length in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, I should add - there would be quite a substantial amount more than that in the Northern Gulf, if you include the Northern Gulf as well - if you look at that, what they have done there, they eliminated a bounty that was on that seal, the grey seal, back in the 1980s, and have not implemented it since, even though the grey seal herd in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence and on Sable Island and throughout the Gulf has grown by 12 per cent to 13 per cent every year since the hunt was stopped, and is creating substantial problems for our industry.

Madam Speaker, these are the things that I believe need to be addressed in any comprehensive review by DFO. Yes, we all recognize that there need to be more resources. I could go on here for quite a period of time. I believe I only have twenty minutes and I am going to try not to use that because some of my colleagues want to add to it.

Madam Speaker, clearly there are a number of issues that need to be reviewed and they are in the process of... Some of them are going to be reviewed, but will they be reviewed to the benefit of the industry in Newfoundland and Labrador and for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? Now, there is going to be a review of the vessel replacement policy by DFO now, but will it be reviewed so that the people in the industry are allowed to access the boats that they need in order to do the job they have to do and that we ask them to do, and to be able to land the product that the market wants? Are the people in the less that thirty-five-foot sector, for example, going to be allowed to buy a boat that makes sense, to be able to go where they have to go, and not have to buy a forty-foot boat and cut four feet off in order to live within the restrictions, or to buy a forty-two-foot boat, as it is right now, I guess, and cut two or three feet off in order to stay below the thirty-nine-foot-eleven barrier. These are the things that need to be addressed, Madam Speaker.

We also have to recognize - and I know what it is to try, as everybody knows -

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his time is up.

MR. TAYLOR: My time is up already. By leave, Madam Speaker, just for a second to conclude.

These issues, Madam Speaker, need to be addressed. We have to be realistic. One thing I believe, Madam Speaker, that really, clearly needs to be done: While we must call on the federal government to conduct a comprehensive review of their policies, in the interest of the industry in Newfoundland and Labrador, we must, as a Province, and an industry in this Province, put together our ideas and our plan for our industry. That, first and foremost, must be done. It is no good for us to ask the federal government to conduct a review on the fishing vessel replacement policy if we don't have a position on exactly what the fishing vessel replacement policy should look like. While we do say that there should be changes, I think we have to clearly demonstrate what those changes should be, what makes economic sense, what makes sense from a safety perspective, an economic perspective, a market perspective, and so on.

Madam Speaker, I have gone on much longer than I had intended. I know there are others here who would like to make some comments. I believe we will all support this resolution today.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BUTLER: It gives me great pleasure to stand today and say a few words on behalf of the private member's motion put forward by my colleague from Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

We all know, Madam Speaker, the importance of the fishery and the aquaculture to the economy and the social well-being of this Province, and I know only full well what it means to my district in particular. I just want to relate, to begin with, the activities that take place in just one of the fishing communities in my district, and that is in the community of Port de Grave. This year, the total value of all species landed in that community, up to this point in time, December 4, has been $13,947,000, with an additional amount of $5 million landed in other areas. There are five companies that offload at Port de Grave and thirty-one companies that work in conjunction with the harbour authority there. A total of 270 people work on those fishing boats and the spinoff from the offloading and the processing accounts for another 230 jobs. The total value of the boats that are tied up in that harbour at the present time, Madam Speaker, is in the vicinity of $40 million.

I can only imagine the tremendous amount of spinoff to the communities like Bay Roberts, Carbonear, St. John's and Harbour Grace, that comes from the items that are used by those people, such as insurance, groceries, car dealerships and fishing equipment. I can only imagine if something should happen. We all have concerns. What a tremendous loss this would be to not only that community but to the district and many businesses throughout the area.

We have to listen to the people who pursue the fishery because if we do not, Madam Speaker, which was not done in the past, I believe that what happened in the early 1990s will be just a Sunday school picnic.

In order to do that, Madam Speaker, I want to reflect back just for a moment so that we will be ever constantly mindful of the things that were carried out to try to make changes. In 1988, the Canadian TAC on the Northern cod in 2J+3KL was set at 266,000 tons. That was reduced down to 190,000 tons by 1991. We all know what happened in 1992. The Northern codfishery was closed. At that time, scientists were advising us that the spawning biomass to maintain sustainability within the Northern cod stocks was at 1.2 million tons. In 1962, the biomass which showed that we demonstrated the stocks were healthy was known to be in the vicinity of 1.6 million tons. In 1992, just thirty years after, the biomass had been reduced from the estimated 1.6 million tons down to 22,000 tons. What destruction! What lack of consideration to the concerns expressed by the fishermen themselves.

At that time, Madam Speaker, Newfoundlanders were denied the right to fish, and yes, they were arrested off their own shores while the EU fleets still conducted a plunder of the oceans, destroying the nursery areas and taking thousands of tons of juvenile fish before they reached the spawning age. While this was happening, Madam Speaker, our country, Canada, continued to pursue diplomatic solutions. I believe that Canada must establish regulations to take action against vessels of other nations which fail to comply with responsible fishing management rules.

Having said that, I believe the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has failed us and, if we are not very careful, the fate of the Northern cod could very well be the fate of other species. Just imagine the impact on the economy and social well-being of our Province.

Management is a very important resource to the key of its survival. As stated in the resolution, the administrative functions must be dealt with close to the people who pursue the fishery. The management arrangements made in 1992, Madam Speaker, included understanding of the resource, especially predator prey relationships and oceanographic factors, but all of this did very little to the fisheries resource.

I want to take you back to 1992, when Decima Research, a group out of Ontario, polled the people of Canada to see what their attitudes were with regards to the fishery in general and foreign overfishing in particular.

At that time, Madam Speaker, many people thought that maybe this is why the federal government, through the Department of Fisheries, was not carrying out the actions because the popular vote in the country was against it. But that was not the case, because 90 per cent of Canadians, at that time, thought that overfishing to be a very serious environmental problem. One of the questions that was asked was: Should Canada control the waters? Not only within the boundary of the 200-mile limit, but it was suggested that they may be able to take management of the fish stocks beyond the 200-mile Canadian boundary to protect the areas where vital fish stocks are located. A resounding 85 per cent of the people who were polled in this country went as far as to say that the use of the Canadian Navy, to keep foreign fishing boats out of the boundary area, should be put in place. Those are staggering figures, Madam Speaker.

My colleague from Carbonear also mentioned the independent review of the state of the Northern cod stocks which was done in 1990, by Dr. Leslie Harris. One of his main recommendations was, Madam Speaker, and I quote, "that Canada should seek international agreement to permit its management of all fish stocks indigenous to the Canadian Continental Shelf and that extend beyond the two hundred mile economic zone; and that failing achievement of this objective, Canada should take unilateral action to acquire management rights in accordance with provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention."

Madam Speaker, while those statements were being made by Dr. Harris at the time to the federal minister, in 1991, just the very next year - and he made many other recommendations - in the first seven months, NAFO, member countries, caught 220 million pounds of fish in excess of their quotas. At that time, it was estimated that was enough to virtually take care of every fish plant that was closed in Atlantic Canada. The federal government has proven itself incapable of sound fishery management, judgment and response.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of this resolution put forward by the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace and to suggest, as he has in that motion, that a comprehensive review of the organizations of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans with the sole purpose of protecting and providing improved services to the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, to us, here in this Province, the fishery is more than a job. It was, still is, and will continue to be a way of life for us.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Certainly, I want to rise today to take some time to talk about this very important issue, and I commend the member for bringing forward this particular motion. Anytime we get a chance, I guess - the timing of it, in particular, just a couple of days ago members in this House, all parties, the all-party alliance travelled to Ottawa to have a meeting, again, on the fishery. I guess like any Newfoundlander and Labradorian, Mr. Speaker, because I have also done it, with the former Minister of Fisheries, travelled to Ottawa on the sealing industry. Every time we attack this issue - because it is an issue that is so dear to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

As we speak in this Chamber, day after day, about issues such as Voisey's Bay and Churchill Falls and so on - which are huge issues - I think everybody agrees that the mainstay of Newfoundland and Labrador's economy is in the fishery. It is what brought us here. Every day, in rural Newfoundland and Labrador - districts like mine where there are thirty-three rural communities - the dependence on the fishery and what really happens to Newfoundland and Labrador depends on that industry. There is no doubt about it.

Last year alone, I do not have the exact numbers here, but just over $900 million value of export in the fishery in this Province. Almost $1 billion value in this Province. Then we talk about the people directly involved in the fishery; some 20,000 to 25,000 from plant workers to harvesters in this Province. So that is what we are talking about when we talk about the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. When people from Mainland Canada talk about Newfoundland and Labrador, the fishery is the first and foremost what they think of this Province and what brought us here.

Mr. Speaker, the Member for The Straits & White Bay North just mentioned a little while ago - I think it was about a month or six weeks ago that he was in my district, myself and, as a matter of fact, the Member for Lewisporte who was our former Member for Baie Verte district, Mr. Rideout. We were asked to go down and speak with some inshore fishermen in Brent's Cove. They were from various communities, but we sat for quite a while and had quite a chat with these people. The member mentioned earlier about some of the concerns they have. For example, the vessel replacement issue that keeps coming up day after day, time after time, and has not been really addressed yet. Some of the stories, and I will not relate all of those stories that they told us today - some of the circumstances that they found themselves in trying to get the proper vessel so that they could go on the water, do it in a safe way, do it so that - remember in that part also, these people, especially in the inshore, and the dangers that they face everyday when they go in their boats out to make a living, that safety has to be utmost on everybody's mind. When we talk about dollars and cents - and we mentioned it in this House today - but when we talk about the safety of the people in the industry it has to be foremost.

Also, the former Minister of Fisheries - again, when we talk about vessel size and so on - besides the safety he has also mentioned many times about the quality, how it would improve the quality of the catch, whether it be shrimp, crab, cod or whatever. All of those things come into play. Also mentioned in the study that we just talked about a while ago was, of course, the economic benefits of having the proper vessel, a good safe vessel so that they can do their job properly. They are not talking about excess quotas or anything of that nature, but trying to address the concerns that they face each and every day in in their industry. This is something that should be addressed and addressed soon.

Also, Mr. Speaker, the Member for The Straits & White Bay North, who knows the fishery fairly well - more than I do. I can say that, but I have lived in a fishing industry, but I guess he knows it even more to the aspect that he has worked in the industry. When we saw the cod closure - and the reason for this last meeting that the group went to Ottawa for just a few days ago. When we got the news of how that came down to us here in Newfoundland and Labrador, that in fact, the Minister of Fisheries for this Province got that type of news through a media release. It just speaks volumes of the way that Ottawa, over the years - and we have said it in this House many time over the years, whether it be a PC government, an NDP government, or a Liberal government that manages our affairs in Ottawa when it comes to the fishery because the bottom line is this, they have control of the management of this resource; the resource that brought us to this Island and Labrador in the first place. They are the ones in control. Over the many years, it is simply down to the mismanagement. In looking at the past, as the member alluded to earlier, we can see the mistakes of the past, over and over.

The point I am really going to strike home today is when we talk about the cod closure, and I hear the words, scientific knowledge. It is actually a joke if you sit down to talk to people in the industry. The fishermen themselves, when you talk about the scientific knowledge. How much scientific knowledge? How many people here today can sit in this House and tell us about all the scientific knowledge that we have seen in front of us over the years? The real scientific knowledge that we have in this Province are the people who are in the boats and the people who are in the industry directly. That is where most of the information can come from when we talk about this industry. Back in 1992, if the scientists had been listening to the people on the water, the fishing people of that day, maybe some things would have been different back when they closed the cod fishery in 1992.

Today, with the small bit of cod that is left, and the fact that they could make an announcement without even contacting this Province to tell them of the final nail in the cod industry in this Province - they did not have the decency to contact this Province, the minister in this Province, and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, to tell them it would be closed. That is why people are upset. There is not a fisherman today, I do not believe, Mr. Speaker - if they were told, as the member said earlier: Yes, we are taking care of foreign overfishing. We are really addressing that problem. And if the federal minister could look at them and tell them: We are also taking care of the overpopulation of the seal herd. We are addressing that problem. We are making sure that all the ghost nets - that we all mentioned before - we are taking care of that problem.

If they would start from the top and work down, there is not a fisherman in Newfoundland and Labrador who would stand up and disagree with the final closure of the cod industry in this Province. Now that is from the fishermen that I have talked to. It is straight from them. They said: If they were included in the consultations - and they knew that the people managing this resource, their livelihood, what makes rural Newfoundland and Labrador tick. If they knew those concerns were being addressed, with foreign overfishing, the seal herds, right on down to the bycatch, the ghosts nets, all of those major problems that we see day after day and we hear about day after day in the media, then, Mr. Speaker, there is not a fisherperson in Newfoundland and Labrador who would disagree. Once those are addressed, they would certainly do their part and do whatever it takes to make sure that stocks survive. There is nobody.

That is why people in this Province are upset. That is why the fishing industry in this Province are so uneasy and paranoid. I have to mention Mr. Thibault, and what he knows about the fishery remains to be seen, as far as really understanding the fishery of Newfoundland and Labrador or the Atlantic Provinces or the West Coast for that matter. But, the fact that he would write a letter with reference to Mr. McCurdy and the restrictions and talking about the long-term viability of the offshore, that is fine and dandy. Everybody is worried about the viability in the offshore, but also on the inshore. Everybody, all the stakeholders. Everybody has to be included in this. This is not one for all. This is something that has to be discussed at every level, brought up through, so that everybody has input.

When they talk about consultation - the people that I talked too are talking about: If you are going to consult, that is one thing. That is the first step. But if you are going to consult, then listen, and then put it into action. That is the second step. That is when it means something. That is why the people in this Province are so skeptical when they hear Minister Thibault or previous ministers get up to talk about the direction that the fishery is going in this Province. Mr. Speaker, they are sick and tired of hearing, through a media release or some other way, what is going to happen to their livelihood.

As I mentioned in the beginning when I spoke, I know full well, and I know the Minister of Fisheries, through his district, another rural district, knows first-hand, when he lives in the district and knows the communities in the district, what it means to rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

I know this year past, for example, when the fish plant in La Scie is doing well, the entire peninsula is doing well. When Little Bay Islands fish plant worked this year in my district, throughout the area, all the Green Bay area did well. That is how it reflects. It is not just the 25,000 people I talked about earlier who are directly involved in the fish plants and the fishing industry. It spins over into the truckers, it spins over into the gas stations, the restaurants and the grocery stores. That is how much the fishery has impacted rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

For the minister now, Minister Thibault, to look around and say this is the last straw and we are about to close it down, nobody would argue about the closure of that final bit of cod stock, if it was in jeopardy, if the main issues of the day were attacked first: the foreign overfishing, the seal industry, and so on.

The seal industry alone, Mr. Speaker, the potential - we saw it last year and hopefully we are going to see it this year as the improved prices go on. Imagine, one of the biggest problems that could be staring us in the face could be a part of the biggest solution in this Province. Imagine a full-fledged seal industry.

When we went to Ottawa just some two years ago, myself and the Member for Bonavista South, with the former Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Efford, and I think the now Minister of Fisheries was there on that occasion also, we went to Ottawa and talked about seals. It was funny; it was almost like the room was soundproof. We walked in, and we all had our good points to make. The Member for Torngat was there. He told us stories about the seals on the roads and up in the salmon rivers and so on, but it was a funny feeling that I had, Mr. Speaker, in that trip to Ottawa. When we spoke, and we all poured our hearts out and talked about what could be done with the seal industry and the problems in this Province, it was almost like it was hushed after we left the room. That was it. Do not bring it up any more. It is not a good word to mention seal in Ottawa, until somebody takes that issue.

I really believe, Mr. Speaker, that the people in this Province who are directly related to the fishing industry, if they saw a real addressing of that particular issue in this Province, they would be willing to stand up and go toe to toe and address the others issues involving the industry. Until such massive problems as that - at the top of the ladder is the foreign overfishing, the seal industry, the bycatches, the ghost nets - all of those issued in line, then you come to the person who is in the water in small boats in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Then you could say: What can I do to help out? There is not a fisherman today who would not stand up and say, I will do what I can, but let's attack the problem from the top.

That is the message I have gotten throughout my district. I know the member has gotten it through his district. Let's attack the problems face on to the front. That is why I want to see where we go with the next meeting of this group that went to Ottawa just a few days ago and we will really attack the issues that really concern the people in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, although we do not have a lot of time to speak on this today, and the different issues on it, I know the minister - I hope the minister is going to have a few words on this. The message from the inshore fishermen in this Province, in particular, is that we address those issues and then come to them and they will certainly be a part of the solution.

The last thing I want to say today, Mr. Speaker, is they need a long-term plan. They have to see where they are going. When he talked earlier today - the Member for The Straits & White Bay North - about going from permits to licensing, if those permits were changed to licences they could then go to the financial institutions in this Province and talk about security and long-term and two, three and five-year plans. So, they can treat it as a business which is what it is. It is a business. They have to have those securities in place, too, so they know what is happening next year and two and three years from now. They are still raising families in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. They need that security in the industry so they can carry on and run the business as they see fit, so that at the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, they can remain living in small-town rural Newfoundland and Labrador where they love to live, where they have grown up and they have no intentions of leaving. In many cases, many of these people have left, tried to see if the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, in Alberta and Ontario and so on, but they came back to where they started. They still think there is a chance, if we put it all together now and we address these major issues, that there can still be a life in the fishery, that there can still be a life in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, if there is not an industry of fishing in this Province, it means the last straw for rural Newfoundland and Labrador. That is what we are down to and that is why this debate should continue, not just on this private member's motion. I commend the member for bringing forward this motion today. We certainly support it. I support more debate on this. There is going to come a time in this Province, in the very near future, Mr. Speaker, when a full and open debate - not only a debate, but the actions that we take in the next two to three years are going to tell what the fate of rural Newfoundland and Labrador will be. So, this is the issue - this is the issue! - for rural Newfoundland and Labrador and, subsequently, it means the issue for the entire Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. If we can attack this issue and get somewhere with it this time, then we can maintain a living in rural Newfoundland and Labrador where people want to live and raise a family.

Mr. Speaker, those are my remarks for today. I commend the member for bringing forward this motion. I hope the minister has a few points to make on it. Anything that we can do, as we did a little while ago with this particular committee - when we all stand in this House, I am pretty sure that if we all link on this particular issue which is going to be critical over the next two years, the decisions we make on this particular issue, then we can certainly make a living in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Because when rural Newfoundland and Labrador makes it, the rest of the Province makes it, including the bigger cities, St. John's and Corner Brook and these places.

Mr. Speaker, I commend the member and I am sure we will be supporting this motion.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words today. I know that others want to have a few words so I won't keep you long.

I would like to comment the member, my friend from Carbonear-Harbour Grace, for bringing forward this resolution today. It is very similar to one that we discussed last spring and we will continue to discuss in this House, Mr. Speaker, because it is very important to all residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, and that is the custodial management issue. That is, basically, that we are asking the federal government to take control of the area called the Nose and the Tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap, for the benefit of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, first and foremost, and maybe Canadians secondarily.

A number of issues have been brought up today, Mr. Speaker, but before I get into some of those I would like to tell the hon. members in this House something about the district that I represent, and it is called Twillingate & Fogo.

I was at a conference in Gander a few weeks ago of harbour authorities around the Province. When I was being introduced by an official for DFO, I guess I didn't realize how important - well, I did realize how important the fishery was to that district because it is that district, it makes up that district, but I didn't realize the number of vessels, the number of people involved in the industry.

Apparently, we have 770 registered fishing vessels in District of Twillingate & Fogo. That makes up more than 10 per cent of the 8,100 registered vessels in the Province. We, last year, landed $30 million worth of fish product in that District of Twillingate & Fogo - $30 million, Mr. Speaker - 70 per cent of it crab and 19 per cent of it shrimp, totalling 13,310 tons of fish landed in that district.

What I was also very pleased to see, Mr. Speaker, was that provincial riding of Twillingate & Fogo has the largest levels of landings for the under sixty-five foot fleet. Like I said, it is made up of thirty-nine communities on the Northeast Coast of the Province, settled there by people to prosecute the fishery, and that is the reason they remain today.

This year we did relatively well compared to the last few years because not only did we have pretty well full employment on Fogo Island, as a result of the Fogo Island Co-operative and the operation in three plants that they have there, but we also had a new shrimp plant owned by Notre Dame Fisheries, that opened in Twillingate. I am proud to say that they employed in the area of 100 people this year and it worked very well, and I congratulate the owners of that company for doing a tremendous job not only for Twillingate but for the whole area of Twillingate, New World Island.

I would be remiss if I also did not mention another company in my district involved in the fishery, and that is Breakwater Fisheries in Cottlesville. They opened a crab plant there back around 1991 and they have done a tremendous job. I would like to congratulate all those people for the tremendous amount of effort and the hard work they put into creating work for the residents of my district.

Mr. Speaker, to get back to the custodial management issue, and the fishery in general, we survived in this Province for some 450 years prior to Confederation in 1949, and we did so based on the fishery; but, for some reason that I guess we will always kick ourselves, we passed control of the fishery over to the federal government in 1949. Now we realize that was a tremendous mistake and one that we would like to have the opportunity to re-address. We talk about it quite often with our federal counterparts, about some type of a joint management arrangement with the federal government over our fisheries, because in the House of Assembly very often I am asked: What is your plan for the future of the fishery? What are you going to do? What is your plan?

Well, it is very difficult, Mr. Speaker, to make a plan because all the Province controls when it comes to the fishery is the processing of fish, once it is landed in our Province, because if it is not landed in our Province we have no control of it. If a fisherman or a fisherwoman on the Northeast Coast or in the Gulf of St. Lawrence or anywhere else wants to go out and harvest that fish and take it to Quebec, there is absolutely nothing that we can do about it; but, once it comes to land, we require that a certain amount of processing be carried out on those species.

The problem is, Mr. Speaker - when I am asked, what is your plan for the processing sector? - you have to ask yourself the question: How can you plan for the processing sector when you do not even know if there is going to be a fishery three or four months down the road? When I am asked that question - what is your plan if the crab stocks collapse? - if I had that plan right now, if we had the plan for what would happen if the crab stocks collapsed, sure, we would not need the crab fishery. The plan would be in place; you would not need the crab. You would have all those people employed at something different. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

To go back to what I was saying, it is very difficult to plan. For example, people talk about how we have too many licences for this or too many licences for that, but what do you do with a codfishery? What do you do with those plants this spring, Mr. Speaker, if there is no codfishery? What do you do with the plant in Burnt Islands, in my hon. colleague's district, next spring if there is no codfishery?

I keep saying if because we do not know. We hear rumours about it in the media coming out of Ottawa. I was standing here in the House of Assembly just two short weeks ago and I was called outside by one of the media who asked me to comment on a meeting that was held in Ottawa about the closures of the Gulf stock and the Northern codfishery. I mean, it came as such a surprise and such a shock that these individuals were in Ottawa talking about the future of many hundreds and thousands of people in our Province without even having the decency to pick up the telephone and call us to tell us these meetings were going on, or what was being discussed. That is not unusual. It has been happening.

I came to work in the Department of Fisheries in 1989 and that is no different. As the Member for Lewisporte and the previous Premier said the other day: It does not matter if there are Liberals in Ottawa or Tories running the government in Ottawa, they still have the same amount of disdain for the people of this Province when it comes to the most important industry we have, and that is the fishery. It is certainly frustrating and I know that it angers all people, because you just stop to think about it. We have a whole group of individuals in this Province today and our preliminary figures indicate that there is somewhere in the area of 15,000 who will be impacted to some degree by the closure of the codfishery, but just to think about it, Mr. Speaker. If you are living in a small community on the West Coast or the Northeast Coast of this Province and your livelihood and that of your family is depending on the fishery, and there is a group in Ottawa trying to determine whether or not you are going to have a livelihood. Christmas is coming upon you and you are wondering, should I go out and spend money on Christmas? Because, come the spring, I might be thrown to the wind, no employment, no income to support my family.

Just put yourself in that situation. Just even try to imagine it, sitting at home in a small community somewhere in this Province today wondering what the future holds for me. This has been happening to us for the last ten years since they first talked about the closure back in 1992. It is absolutely ridiculous that these decisions can be made in Ottawa with no respect for the people of this Province, no respect for the government of this Province.

Before I sit down, Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a couple of the points that some of the members opposite made. As most people know, right now the federal Department of Fisheries is looking at an Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review, and it has been going on for quite some time now. Let's face it, the whole policy needs to be reviewed, and I have been part of some of the discussions that have been held on that in the past year-and-a-half that I have been the minister, and each time I go to a meeting, the federal minister and his bureaucrats talk about the co-operative approach to our fisheries. They talk about transparency and opening the lines of communication between the federal government and the provincial governments with regard to our fisheries. All very nice words and very good ideas, but that is all they are. They are nice words and very good ideas because we do not see any evidence that any of this is transparent, any of this is open, any of this is looking towards a co-operative approach.

Just in the meeting that I had on Monday morning with my provincial counterparts in the Atlantic provinces - Quebec and the federal minister - we talked about some of these issues again that needed to be reviewed. As the Member for The Straits and the Member for Baie Verte mentioned, when you talk about the under thirty-five foot vessels that fish crab in our Province, all they are given right now is a permit. They were given permits back there some years ago. They were told three or four years ago that these permits were going to become licences once one condition was met. Well, then, the year after that there was another condition added, and then the year after that there was another condition added, such that even today - and I brought it to the minister's attention on Monday that we, as the Province and as the government of this Province, would like to see these permits made into licences. We say that categorically. I hope that every fisherman and fisherwoman out there in the under thirty-five foot fleet hears me today. We presented that to the federal government and we certainly stand by it.

As one of the hon. members opposite said, when one of these permit holders goes to a bank and asks for money to buy an engine or to replace a vessel, the banker looks at him and says: Sure, you don't even have a licence. You don't have a licence to harvest crab. All you have is a permit, and a permit can be lifted at any time.

That is not acceptable. We certainly asked the federal minister to make those permits licences, but he says: Well, maybe if they were to combine. Like I told him on Monday: Look, what difference does it matter if they combine first before they get the licence or after they get the licence? What were saying is, give them the licence now. If these individuals want to combine -

MR. FITZGERALD: (Inaudible) combining. What do you mean by that?

MR. REID: What he is suggesting, I think, in response to the Member for Bonavista South, is that if you have two crab fishermen in the under thirty-five feet - and he has not been clear yet on exactly what he means by it, but - if you have two boats, two fishermen, with two permits, combine your two permits and he would think about giving you a licence.

MR. FITZGERALD: (Inaudible) the quotas.

MR. REID: Combine the quotas and maybe even get one vessel.

He also talks about, in the vessel replacement program, that if you get people combining then he would let you move into a larger vessel. So, if one individual is fishing a thirty-four-eleven and he combines with someone else, he might allow you to increase the size -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: Yes, but what I am saying is: Look, change these permits to licences. Then, if an individual wants to combine and make a deal between himself and his buddy who lives next door, that should be entirely up to those individuals what to do with that. I do not think they should have to be forced to do anything before those permits become licences.

We also talked about the vessel replacement program that the federal government - they have very stringent regulations that you have to fit into a particular size of a vessel and that you cannot go beyond this particular size. Anyone in their right mind knows that we should not be fishing 200 or 250 miles off the East Coast of this Province in the fall of the year in a vessel that is less than sixty-five feet in length. If makes no sense whatsoever why the federal government continues to impose that rule upon our fishermen here in the Province. There used to be, in the not-too-distant past, that we had the competitive fishery. Basically, you fired the gun and people went out and caught the fish. Today, everything is under quota, Madam Speaker. If you have your quota, what difference should it make to the federal government what size of vessel you should fish in? You should be able to fish in a vessel that you feel comfortable and safe in.

I had an individual from up the Southern Shore two weeks ago who came in to see me. He was fishing 260 miles southeast of Newfoundland in a forty-foot vessel. Think about that! Having to carry three drums of fuel on the deck because there was no room in the boat to carry it. Two hundred and sixty miles southeast of Newfoundland in a forty foot-vessel. You ask him: Why are you out there in a vessel like that? The answer is: I am not allowed to have a vessel any larger. Basically, that man has to take his life into his hands, and the life of his crew, because they have to feed their family. One of these days, what I am worried about, and I am sure every member in this House is worried about - they talk about the perfect storm, and they talk about it as if it is a movie. Well, I will tell you, there are lots of days out there, on the Northeast Coast of this Province, when the perfect storm could easily occur and we could lose the entire fleet. It might be too late then for Ottawa to come down and say, we are sorry because we did not change this regulation.

We have been proposing this for years. Every time I meet with my federal counterpart I say to him: Change the regulations pertaining to vessel size. The answer keeps coming back: Well, we are looking at it.

Well, they have been looking at it a long time because I have been involved with this department since 1989. If that is how long it takes them to look at it, it is time to look at themselves and see what they are doing in this country.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. REID: Madam Speaker, those are just a few of the issues that we discussed and we are discussing. To get back to the custodial management, we developed that plan in the early 1990s. We thought it was a good idea then; we think it is a good idea now. We presented it to the Standing Committee on Fisheries last spring. I did it myself - the first one to do it from the Province. I know that, back in the spring, the Member for Port de Grave also stood in this House with a resolution supporting custodial management. It was accepted by the fisheries committee in Ottawa and it was recommended to the federal minister. He dismissed it outright, back in the spring, and he did it again just a few short weeks ago.

Madam Speaker, we are not giving up. We think it is a good proposal, custodial management. We think that something has to be done, will be done if we can do it, with what is happening off our shores. There is not much point to talk about closing the codfishery on the Northeast Coast of our Province and closing the codfishery in our Gulf if we still have those pirates raping fish stocks. They might not be catching the cod, the Northern cod, out on the Tail of the Grand Banks, but they are catching other species. They have caught cod. In fact, the Russian vessel that was hauled in here last spring because of an environmental infraction out on the Nose of the Grand Banks, we found in the hull of that vessel Northern cod and codfish. To say that they are not doing it is ludicrous and we certainly want a stop put to that. We will not relent. I tell you, we will not relent. We will continue to push the federal government until they realize and back us on custodial management.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER (Ms Hodder): 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 this resolution. I know the member introducing the resolution indicated that it was a very broad resolution, the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace, and did it purposely, so that we could have an opportunity to speak broadly about the issue. I know there are other members who want to speak, so I won't take up all of my time. Because it is such an important issue, other members would want to speak on it.

I want to thank the member for presenting this resolution. It is always timely to have a resolution on the fishery of Newfoundland and Labrador, moreso this week, Madam Speaker, when we have been to Ottawa as an all-party committee to discuss with our federal counterparts in the House of Commons and the Senate the idea of having a common front in this Province for members of the provincial and federal parliaments to deal with the issue and the crisis facing the codfishery. It was an important and historic occasion, to have all parties represented in the provincial and federal houses from Newfoundland and Labrador together, to meet together and, in fact, issue a communique at the end of the meeting which reflected our consensus as to what is going on in the codfishery in the Gulf and on the Northeast Coast. We have to be very vigilant here in Newfoundland and Labrador if we are to influence the decisions of the Government of Canada.

This is what we've got, Madam Speaker, and this is why this resolution is important today. The resolution talks about the need for a comprehensive review of the organization of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans with the purpose of providing improved services to the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. This is just one example of many, but obviously a very crucial one. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans - the minister actually said the other day that he wasn't all that concerned about issues of compensation. In other words, what he was saying, he wasn't concerned, really, about the social affects of the closure of the fishery. He was interested in the fishery itself. His job was to assign quotas. His job was to decide on the biology. That is what Minister Thibault said and was quoted as saying in the paper. He was not really interested in these other issues. That was up to ACOA, that was up to HRE or that was up to Human Resources Canada and other programs that might exist, Employment Insurance. Not his department, he said.

That show me, Madam Speaker, the problem we are facing with the way that DFO is approaching the fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador. We do need a comprehensive review, as the motion says, to ensure that there is a different mission, a different vision, for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada, if we are to have the kind of fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador that we need. We have seen the failures.

It is pretty ironic - and I think a number of people have commented on that over the last little while - it is pretty ironic that for years and years and years the fishermen and women of Newfoundland and Labrador were saying: There is a problem with the fish stocks, we have got to cut back. I remember being a young boy, hearing fishermen talk on the radio, back in the 1950s and early 1960s, in particular, talking about foreign overfishing, the Russian trawlers coming inside - this was before the twelve-mile limit - coming inside the headlands of the bays, foreign trawlers fishing inside, fishing on the breeding stocks. One of the first expressions I remember: They are killing the mother fish. They are killing the mother fish, is what they said. That is what the fishermen said: They are killing the breeding stocks that were keeping the fishery alive in Newfoundland and Labrador. For years and years, perhaps twenty or thirty years, the fishermen were complaining about the fact that the size of the fish was going down and the abundance was going down. We were seeing the Hamilton Banks off Labrador being fished during the winter while the fish were congregated for breeding. They were plowing through the breeding codfish with their factory freezer trawlers, starting in the 1950s but continuing headlong into the 1960s. Germany, Russia, Eastern Europe, all of the Eastern European countries, England as well was involved in it, they had huge factory freezer trawlers taking the fish out of the water. Not until 1972 did we see Canadian Government action. After the United States declared a 200-mile limit, we did. We followed them. We did not protect those stocks for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and we saw the results later on.

The irony is, Madam Speaker, that in the last couple of weeks, when the Government of Canada is talking about the inevitability of a closure of the Gulf stock and the inevitability of a closure on the Northeast Coast, the fishermen are saying: I do not understand this. We are seeing more fish now than we did a few years ago. So, there is something wrong with this picture. Some people do not understand and some people are saying: Well, you know the fishermen are the ones to blame, they just want to go out and keep on fishing. Well, Madam Speaker, that is not the history of the fishermen of this Province. The history has been that when there were problems in the fishery, the fishermen were very interested in complaining, and complaining loudly and long, about the lack of stocks and the lack of conservation measures being taken about overfishing. So, there is something a little bit amiss, and we were not sure, we were not sure of the science, we want further analysis, we want to check the methodology, we want to see what is really going on with the Gulf stock and with the stocks on the Northeast Coast.

We also have to see measures being taken that have been recommended by the FRCC, for example, in its 2001 Report. We have to recognize that seal predation is causing a very serious decline in the fish stocks of this Province. That is something that has to be recognized. We do not have to be inflammatory about it, we do not have to cause headlines about it, but we have to recognize and we have to get the Government of Canada to recognize that seal predation, particularly seal predation against the stocks in the bays of Newfoundland where we know the fish are aggregating for breeding purposes - we know they are under significant predation and attack by seals. In fact, the FRCC recommended that there be seal exclusion zones to allow those stocks to rebuild and to grow. That is something that should be taken seriously and considered by the Government of Canada, and yet that has not happened. That has not happened.

In the science field, we have seen significant cuts to the point that we no longer have the kind of confidence that we should have in the scientific methodology of recording and reporting on catches. We have for years wondered, Madam Speaker, about the value of the science. We have also wondered whether the science that they did know about was even being listened to when decisions were being made about quotas. So, we have that aspect of it that we have never been satisfied with in Newfoundland and Labrador. The reality is that, we, in this Province, have not had much control over that.

I think it has been reported that there are some 20,000 employees of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa, 20,000 employees working in Ottawa and hardly any spread out where the fish resource is, where the people are who depend on the fishery, where there is a necessity for there being a relationship between what is happening on the water in the communities of this Province and with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We have not seen any significant change in that in the last number of years. So, there needs to be a look at how that department is organized, how it undertakes its work, how it determines its priorities and how it responds to the circumstances that we are faced with.

Madam Speaker, the issues are many. Custodial management is one of them. Is that something the Department of Fisheries and Oceans really does anything about or is it something that is left to External Affairs? You know, we had the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans here last spring. The minister indicated that he made a representation to that Committee, but so did I, Madam Speaker. I made a very strong representation on behalf of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that custodial management is of vital necessity if we are going to protect the remaining fish stocks off the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Flemish Cap. Those stocks are important to the survival of the codfish and the codfishery and the rebuilding of that codfishery.

There is no notion, Madam Speaker, under international law about the rebuilding of stocks. There is no notion about allowing those stocks to rebuild and grow and get stronger and increase to the point that they can help to restock the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Labrador. There is no notion of that under international law. We have to have custodial management to take on that task of rebuilding those stocks just as we have to expect that in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the Northeast Coast, in 3PS, we have to expect that there is going to be, not just a sustainable fishery, not just keep it at the level that it is today, but, in fact, to rebuild those stocks, to take positive measures to rebuild those stocks. That must start on the outer limits of our Banks. That must start with custodial management of the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks, inside the 200 mile limit. We have to look at positive measures, not just negative measures, not just having less fishers catch fish. We must look at positive measures for rebuilding those stocks, whether they include aquaculture, seeding or re-seeding bays, having seal exclusion zones to ensure that we do not have predation destroying what stocks there are, and allowing those stocks to rebuild and re-seed around the bays, which is some evidence of between 3L and 3K, according to the Fisheries Resource Council of Canada. So, we have to take positive measures, we have to demand that Ottawa ignore the complaints of External Affairs and look at it as a fisheries management issue, expect the Department of External Affairs to help us find ways of achieving that objective and not look for reasons not to support a custodial management.

So, Madam Speaker, I am going to clue up now and allow some other speakers to say a few words, but I do want to say, we support this motion. We think it is long overdue to have a more responsive, a more flexible, a more activist Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and more responsive to the needs of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I stand today to say a few words on this resolution as put forward by the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace. It is certainly a good resolution. Nobody on this side of the House, I say to him, is going to stand and vote against this particular resolution.

One of the WHEREASES here struck me kind of funny when I read it. In fact, both of them. It says, "WHEREAS the current state of our understanding of the fishery resources off our coast is an underdeveloped area and more research is needed in this field." Nobody is going to argue against that, Madam Speaker.

The next one goes on to say, "AND WHEREAS bringing administrative functions closer to the people who pursue the fishery would result in a better exchange of ideas and better management."

Madam Speaker, let me tell you what happened down in my district. We do not have to talk about Ottawa. We all agree with what is happening in Ottawa is wrong. We all agree that the decisions are made in the ivory towers up in the nations capital as it relates to the fishery. We will talk about the fishery off Newfoundland and the East Coast, but let me tell you what happened as it relates to that particular WHEREAS - and I will talk about it - down in my own district. I have stood here in this Assembly many times and talked about the need to get the decision makers out to where the action is, to get them out on the wharfs, to get them into the fishing boats, to have their offices located where they can go and see firsthand what the problems are - and if they talked to the fishermen they would find out very quickly what the resolution to those problems are.

Down in Catalina, Madam Speaker, there is a fishery office located there for probably the past thirty or forty years. One of the biggest fishing capitals, I would say, in Newfoundland; Catalina, Port Union. A plant there which employed in excess of 1,400 people at one time. And there was a federal fishery office there. Then the Department of Fisheries and Oceans decided that they were going to start combining offices and close down offices. When I had heard that, I said: Well, that's great. What we are going to do now is we are going to see more activity in a place like Catalina, or Port Union, which also takes in that particular fishery office there, and look after Bonavista as well. If anybody knows anything about the fishery, knows that the tip of the Bonavista Peninsula is one of the biggest fishing areas in this Province today.

What did they do, Madam Speaker? Instead they went and built this great, big building, a Taj Mahal, up in Clarenville; so far removed from the fishing industry, so far removed from where the activity and the action is, that it almost goes back to the things that we talked about - going back and saying how wrong it is for people up in Ottawa to be carrying out and not recognizing the problems in the fishery, but we can relate it directly here in this Province by seeing what has happened here.

They went to Clarenville, built a big fishery office - I do not know how many square feet it is, but I know that it is certainly a big building - and then went and moved the people from Catalina up to Clarenville. Now, that's about how much sense that some of those moves and some of the things that are being done by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans today.

I understand, Madam Speaker, that the next office was located in Glovertown, I say to the Member for Terra Nova. I can tell you there is not a lot of fishing activity in Glovertown. Does it make any sense to close a local office, cutback on a local office in one of the biggest fishing communities in the Province and move it an hours drive away? What they expected the fishery officers to do, because those people had relocated and had lived in the Catalina, Bonavista and Port Union area, they said: Now you are going to have to commute to Clarenville or move to Clarenville. Does that make any sense? No wonder we are in the condition we are in, and no wonder we have the problems that we are having today in the fishing industry.

Madam Speaker, I listened to other speakers before me get up and talk about some of the things that are happening in the fishing industry. They talked about the lack of science. They talked about the despicable decision that was made a couple of short weeks ago by the federal minister. That is what is was, it was a decision for that minister to stand among a certain group of people and talk about closing the cod fishery on the coast of Newfoundland, or on most of the coast of Newfoundland. The only thing he did not talk about was 3PS and the Quebec North Shore. That was a decision that he had his mind made up would happen. How did he make that decision? Did he make it with good scientific knowledge? Not so, Madam Speaker. The FRCC was in the process of travelling around the Province getting advice and getting information from the real scientists out there, the fishermen. The minister did not even have the courtesy to wait until the FRCC had filed their report.

We heard about the FFAW and FANL having meetings somewhere on the East Coast of Canada, I think it might have been in Nova Scotia, in Halifax. That certainly was not their recommendation, if they had recommended at all. It certainly was not their recommendation to have the minister make that decision. He made it among a certain group of people. He did not think it was going to be leaked out. He thought it was going to be kept quiet. Not so. You do not talk about the fishery and talk about bringing hurt on Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to any Newfoundlander and Labradorian and expect them to stay quiet. That is not the way we work and it is not the way that it should unfold.

Madam Speaker, it is time for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to get off fishermen's backs and to get out of fishermen's pockets, because that is the only way that this industry will survive. There is no other industry in the world, I say to the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace, that is so regulated as the fishing industry, and it is shameful. It is shameful some of the things that are happening there.

You talk about vessel replacement. The minister referred to it, and other speakers before me referred to it. Why should the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, why should somebody up in Ottawa, dictate to a fisherperson here in this Province the size of boat that they should be allowed to go fishing in? Fishermen who have come to see me are not saying they want extra quota, they are not saying they want extra licences, they are not looking for any government handouts. All they are asking for is to be given the opportunity to build a boat or to buy a boat so that they may be able to go out and take part in their profession with some degree of comfort and safety and land a good product in order to go on the supermarket shelves and feed a demand that is in the world today. That is all they are asking for.

I do not hear the Mayor of St. John's talk about the size of taxi that Bugden's or the city's cabs are allowed to drive, nor should they. Those fishermen have their own enterprises. They are business people. Fishermen in this Province today are business people. Who knows better what is right for their business? Who knows better what that business can afford than the fishermen themselves? So, why are we so hesitant? Why is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and why is the federal minister so hesitant about allowing fishermen to make decisions as it relates to their own enterprise? Those are the kinds of things that baffle me because we are talking about people here who are not only business people but they are scientists, they are fishermen and they are Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who know best what their industry and what their enterprise can support and maintain.

When the federal minister flicked out the other day his decision that he might close down certain areas on the Northeast Coast. I am always amazed how we always tie 2J and 3KL, those three fishing areas together. If you say one, it automatically runs right into the other one. I never hear people talking about 3L, or 3K, or 2J separately. It is always the rhyme: 2J and 3KL. If you bring in one rule or regulation, then automatically the mindset is that it affects the whole area. When I hear people talking about 3PS, I do not hear them include other areas in that particular zone.

I am going to talk about my own district. I am going to talk about area 3L that my district falls in. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, that most people in that particular fishing zone did not have any trouble coming up with the quota of cod that they were allowed this year. In fact, around the Bonavista, Tickle Cove, Catalina area, in that particular area, there was probably more fishing activity this year than we have seen this past ten years. Even before the moratorium, we can go back pre-moratorium days.

This past season we saw - in fact, the businesses in Bonavista, in that particular area, were doing quite well. The hotel rooms were full. The restaurants were busy. The gas stations were busy. People were coming from all other areas - coming into that particular area to fish cod because there was a great supply of cod there. People had no problem whatsoever in going out and getting their quotas. Some of them in two or three days. So, when the minister comes out and talks about closing areas down because of lack of cod, then I suggest that he go out and consult with the fishermen, consult with the real scientists, talk to people about areas that should be closed and areas that should not be closed, and that he separate the areas, because that is why they have been drawn on all of the scales right around the Province. That is why they are put there, to designate certain areas in order to control, I guess, and bring forward some kind of conservation measures when we have problems. You cannot tie three areas together and say, because there has been poor fishing or there has been a lack of cod in one particular area, to close them all down. If there is no cod in 3L, close 3L down. If there is no cod in 2J, close it down. But, if you have a good supply of codfish in one particular area, Madam Speaker, then why close that area with the other two areas?

They say they want certain areas to replenish cod stocks so it might be able to replenish and support activity outside the 200-mile limit. They want to build the stocks outside the 200-mile limit. Build them for who? They are not going to build them for the less than thirty-five foot boats, I say to you, Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace. They are not going to rebuild them for the people who go out with the forty-four-eleven boat either, I say to you. You know who we are going to rebuild the cod stocks for. Those are the people we should keep in mind. Those are the people we created those inner zones for.

When we talk about permits - the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture talked about combining permits - maybe one way to do away with the problem that we have where the people now, the boat owners under thirty-five feet with permits might get a licence to combine licences or combine permits and give licences. That should be an option. If there are two people who fish from the same boat, if they want to combine and get a double quota and get a licence, certainly there is some merit in that. Here, again, it should be done with the wishes of the people who are directly involved. There is one thing we have to get away from. We have to get away from the silliness like we see happening where a fisherperson or a fisherman or a fisherwoman has a core enterprise and has a permit, if they cannot go out and fish from their boat because they only have a boat licence that is eighteen feet long, then we have to get away from the foolishness where you see somebody go out in a bigger boat and tow out a smaller boat and get in that smaller boat and fish and catch their 7,000 pounds of crab and then go and get in the bigger boat and tow it all back to shore again. That is some of the silliness that happens with the rules and regulations brought down from above, brought down from people up in their ivory towers.

The member talked about 22,000 people still involved in this industry, and he is right. There are. In fact, I think there are probably even more than that. The sad part about it is, while 22,000 people is certainly a lot of people and it is certainly an industry that drives the economy of this Province, not only rural areas - you cannot just refer to rural areas when you talk about the fishing industry because, as the fishing industry goes, so goes Newfoundland and Labrador. The sad part about it, Madam Speaker, is that 22,000 people who are working in the fishing industry today, for the most part, have to struggle in order to get enough contributions or enough hours to qualify for EI. Even some of the fish processing plants today that have always done very well - I know down in my colleague's district in Bonavista North, I am sure he can speak and talk about the need in his district this year. I see the need down in my district where people have no problem getting their hours of work. In fact, their problem was getting time off to spend with their families for vacation and Christmas. This year, I find that we are going and we are having to depend - again, people who have never depended on it before - on make-work projects in order to qualify them for EI. The rural members here, every one of them, know exactly what I am talking about.

Madam Speaker, we all seem to hold out a lot of hope when there is a new federal Fisheries Minister, because I do not know of another minister in Ottawa that means more to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians than the federal Fisheries Minister. When we hear that there is a change or a Cabinet shuffle, we all hold out great anticipation that it is going to be somebody we can deal with, that it is going to be somebody who will come and meet with the fisherpeople, go out and travel around the Province and see first-hand what is happening.

The present Fisheries Minister, I will tell you, has not impressed a lot of people. I listen to the Fisheries Broadcast on a regular basis, and the people I hear calling in to that particular program are certainly not excited and happy about some of the decisions that this federal minister has made, even though he is from the East Coast of Canada. He can certainly do a whole lot better, I say to you, Madam Speaker.

When you hear the Standing Committee on Fisheries in Ottawa, the federal standing committee, you would think - those committees are put in place for a reason. They are put in place to go out and hold hearings and bring scientific information back to the minister so that he can make wise decisions, knowing how important the fishing industry is not only to Newfoundland, although it is our most important industry, Madam Speaker, but when you hear that particular committee come back and make recommendations on what should be done with seals and what should be done -

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FITZGERALD: - with foreign overfishing, and what should happen with custodial management -

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his time is up.

MR. FITZGERALD: Just a second to clue up, Madam Speaker.

- and the minister pay no attention to it whatsoever, then how can we help but be dismayed? How can we help but go out and appear before the Royal Commission that travels around the Province, where people go and stand up and talk about our place in Confederation, and talk about how little our problems are being recognized in Canada?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FITZGERALD: I did not attend the Royal Commission. I did not think it was a place for politicians to go and take over the show or ask questions, or be the people who drove it, because we have our forum.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FITZGERALD: We have our forum, I say to the member from Gander.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's not from Gander.

MR. FITZGERALD: We have our forum here, where we can put forward our piece and talk about the things that need to be talked about. We should not deprive the common person out there an opportunity to appear. I am certain, without even knowing who appeared or what they said, I think I feel certain when I say that I can assure you that fishing issues and how little we have been listened to and how much we have been ignored by the central government had to be the theme that was carried right through the whole hearings. In fact, I have seen little bits and pieces as it appeared on television and I think it was the dominant decisions and suggestions that were brought forward even from the urban areas, Mount Pearl and St. John's.

With that, Madam Speaker, in conclusion, I say to the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace that it is a good resolution. Every time we get a chance to talk about the fishing industry or the problems that fishers face in this Province, there is no problem to get speakers in this House of Assembly, because it means so much, not only to rural members but to every member who occupies the forty-eight seats in this Assembly.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace. If the member speaks now, he will close the debate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I listened intently to the hon. members this afternoon as they brought forth their views and their opinions regarding this very, very important industry that affects all the people of our Province. Even though I stated earlier that 10 per cent of the workforce of our Province was represented in the fishery, I think the spinoff, with direct and indirect jobs in other sectors, is very widely spread in this Province.

The fishery has been referred to as the backbone of this Province. It is worthy to note that the issues that were raised by the other members are issues that we all share, the forty-eight members of this House who represent the people of this Province. We are duty bound to discuss these issues. The politicians in Ottawa need to hear the concerns that we have.

We have heard about the adjacency. You know the frustration that I face when I look at a quota being given to Nova Scotia or P.E.I. We have vessels that are landing their catch in Nova Scotia, not even stopping in Newfoundland or Labrador long enough to get water, not to spend one nickel. We look at the permits and the licences, you know, the necessity of a fisherman having a licence versus a permit, so that he can take his licence to a bank and use it as collateral to buy a new vessel which is safe for him to go out, and to feed his family.

It is interesting to note that since we started this debate here this afternoon, I had a call from a fisherman in my district who has heard today that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has given a change from permit to licence in his own province, and still no change has been made here. I must say I have to follow-up on that tomorrow and see if that is true. Usually, when you hear a rumor, usually it is founded.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SWEENEY: I say to the hon. member, yes, we have heard a lot of rumors and you have created a lot too. We are all in the rumor business, I guess.

The vessel sizes; I do not think anybody should determine - and it is a good analogy the hon. Member for Bonavista South used about the taxis. If a person has the will to go out and invest in his own future and buy a vessel that is going to make it safe for him and his crew members, to provide a living for their families, then by all means, nobody in Ottawa should have the right to dictate and say: no, you can't do that. You go out there with what you have.

The seal fishery; well, we have heard that debate for years and years. I guess the hon. member who was here as Minister of Fisheries a year or so ago stated that seal do not eat Mary Brown's. I think it is a fair assumption when a scientist said the other day: Yes, seals do eat fish. But, he does not draw the conclusion that they are destroying the stock. Where does this stuff end, this fairytale of what is affecting the resources of our Province?

Custodial management; that is an issue which, I guess, goes back to 1995 with the Estai when they made some changes to Bill C-29. One thing that is for certain, and that is the importance of this fishery to the economy of this Province. It is important to us here as we, every year, get into this situation of being concerned about our people having some resource to get through the winter, especially those people who are caught in the fishery, trying to stay there and trying to keep rural Newfoundland alive. It is a concern. I know my phone does not stop. People have concerns about how they are going to get through this winter.

The interesting thing about it is we have had some very capable people appointed to the position of Minister of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, some very capable people. But, it seems almost as though they are only sworn in then they are neutralized. They are totally made ineffective by whatever happens to them in Ottawa. I think what happens is the bureaucracy of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I firmly believe. Then, of course, we get into bartering with our foreign countries and trying to make the best trade deals for the interest of somebody else and not for the people here in this Province.

You know, science has been mentioned - and it is interesting to note that in this Province where the crab industry is worth over $500 million to the people of this Province, that there are only two crab scientists in this Province, and we have all heard the intentions of DFO to review their structure in the Province. You know what that is going to mean. That is probably going to mean we are going to lose one or both of our crab scientists. It is not fair.

I think what we have all said here today is, the inconsistencies of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans are destroying us here in this Province. It is the inconsistencies. Prince Edward Island can have a quota off this coast, but we cannot have a quota of lobster or anything else, mussels, or scallops, off the coast of Nova Scotia. It is so inconsistent with people making a living and trying to survive.

Mr. Speaker, before I concluded my opening remarks, I mentioned the most recent report of the House of Commons Standing Commission on Fisheries and Oceans. I think the report is important and it deserves a second look. I would like to take some time to review the recommendations of this committee because I feel they are important. There are five core recommendations. Number one is, "That the Canadian Government pursue discussions with the NAFO Fisheries Commission to establish a process whereby observer reports would be more transparent and would be submitted in a timely fashion."

Recommendation 2, "That the Government of Canada amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act to implement Custodial Management of fisheries resources on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and on the Flemish Cap."

Number 3, "That the Government of Canada inform NAFO and its Contracting Parties that Canada will withdraw from NAFO and proceed with the implementation of custodial management on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and on the Flemish Cap no later than one year following the September 2002 NAFO meeting."

Recommendation 4: That the Government of Canada conduct a targeted public information campaign to increase awareness of violations of NAFO conservation measures by vessels under the flag of member states and to canvas for public support to end the abuse of exploitation of the fisheries resources of the Northwest Atlantic.

Recommendation 5, and this is the one I mentioned a few moments ago, "That Canada make clear that it is prepared to use the provisions of Bill C-29 against NAFO members who have not ratified UNFA and in the case of NAFO members who have ratified UNFA, Canada is prepared to use its provisions to ensure conservation." Canada should confirm, "...its intentions by prescribing offending countries in the Coastal Fisheries Protections Regulations."

I think, Mr. Speaker, recommendation number 5 makes reference to Bill C-29 and, I guess, the important part of that, prior to the ratification of that bill, the Estai would not have been arrested. So, we have the means to protect our fishery.

I want to conclude by saying that the committee put forward a very solid list of recommendations. I want to encourage the federal minister and the federal government to go back and have a look at this report, and even consider some of the things that we have considered and talked about here today.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all the hon. members for their input. We have had an interesting debate here today and I ask all members to show their support for this motion.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: All those in favour of the resolution, ‘aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Against.

I declare the resolution carried unanimously.

On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, at 1:30 p.m.