June 14, 2007 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLV No. 30


The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

This afternoon we are very pleased to welcome twenty Grade 5 students from Twillingate Island Elementary School, in the District of Twillingate & Fogo. The students are accompanied by their teachers, Ms Karen Dove, Ms Patricia Vincent, Mr. Jody Cooper, as well as their principal, Mr. David Dove, and their bus driver, Mr. Eric Bourdan.

Welcome to the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: This afternoon we have members' statements as follows: the hon. the Member for the District of Terra Nova; the hon. the Member for the District of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair; the hon. the Member for the District of Conception Bay South; the hon. the Member for the District of Humber Valley; the hon. the Member for the District of Trinity-Bay de Verde; and, the hon. the Member for the District of Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

The Chair recognizes the Member for the District of Terra Nova.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. ORAM: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the organizers and participants in this year's "Help a Village Effort" walk for water. Mr. Speaker, Help a Village Effort, or HAVE, has raised money to drill sixty water wells in India that will provide safe drinking water and life to 30,000 men, women and children in India.

Mr. Speaker, this year it was my privilege to be a participant in this walk. The walk took place in Glovertown, with participants from Glovertown, Traytown, Gambo and the Eastport Peninsula. This venture has raised over $4,000 this year, and that is in addition to other donations that will continue to come in over the next three to four months.

Mr. Speaker, one may well wonder if there are similar size towns anywhere in North America or even in the world which can make a similar claim to show such a concern for the well being of fellow mankind.

We must never forget that this effort would not be possible without the volunteers who work so diligently to make this program a success; more specifically, the event organizers, Gerard Feltham, wife Yuvadee and son Geravad, and Mr. Stanley Sparkes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members to join with me in congratulating the participating communities for their efforts in providing safe water for the people of India.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in the House today to extend congratulations to a constituent from my district, Wayne Russell of William's Harbour, who was awarded the St. John Ambulance Gold Life Saving Award on Tuesday, June 12, in an investiture ceremony at the Anglican Cathedral in St. John's. Mr. Speaker, this is an award that honours citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador for their contributions and acts of bravery.

On January 2, 2007, Wayne Russell was travelling with some family members across the ice along the South Coast of Labrador in a place called Winter Tickle, a waterway that separates the community of William's Harbour from the mainland. They suddenly realized that Trevor Larkham, who was travelling with them, had gone through the ice. Mr. Russell, without thought for his own life, travelled back across the ice to a point of land. Once there, he threw a rope to Mr. Larkham and pulled him to safety. Mr. Russell stayed with Mr. Larkham until help arrived.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Russell is to be recognized for his courage and heroic efforts in saving the life of a friend.

I ask all my hon. colleagues in this House to join me today in extending congratulations to Wayne Russell of William's Harbour, for receiving the St. John Ambulance Gold Life Saving Award.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On May 26, I had the privilege of attending the Annual Ceremonial Review of the 2562 Queen Elizabeth Cadets. The cadets upheld the traditions of 2562 with a phenomenal display of talent at their fifty-first annual inspection.

The Corps Commanding Officer, Mr. Rodney Priddle, and all of the officers of the cadets are to be congratulated for the commitment they make to our young adults. They take our children from boys and girls to men and women at a time when proper guidance is essential in today's world.

The inspecting officer was Deputy Chief of Police, Mr, Robert Johnston, who echoed the sentiments of the many people in attendance by congratulating the cadets on their dedication to discipline and training.

There were many awards given out at the annual inspection covering everything from public speaking to outstanding rifle shooter. I cannot name all of the award winners, but some of the multiple winners include: Warrant Officer, Jessica Alyward, Lord Strathacona Medal, Excellance in Drill Award, and Best Shot Level III; Chief Warrant Officer, Brad Power, the Leadership Award and Contributing Most to the Corp; and Cadet Ashley Bradley, Best Cadet Level II, and Best Junior Bandsmen. And congratulations certainly to all the other award winners.

I ask all hon. members to join with me on congratulating 2562 Queen Elizabeth Cadets on their professionalism and commitment at the fifty-first Annual Ceremonial Review.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to recognize the Deer Lake Regional Airport Authority. The staff and board of directors are preparing for the grand opening of the new Air Terminal Building. This new building will more than double the size of the existing space.

The amazing thing about this project, Mr. Speaker, is that it was self-financed by the airport authority themselves.

The state-of-the-art facility is due to the tremendous dedication, commitment and determination of a lot of people including: Mr. Carl Stratton, Chairman of the Board of the Deer Lake Regional Airport Authority and his fellow directors; Mr. Jamie Schwartz, airport manager and his fellow staff members.

The Deer Lake Regional Airport has experienced its sixth consecutive year of record traffic growth. This unique facility has seen a 77 per cent increase in passenger traffic since 2000 and provides full-time employment for 175 people.

The new Air Terminal Building is now the home of a new arrivals lounge complete with customs and immigration facilities, a new domestic arrivals area, a gift shop, five car rental counters, a 250 seat departure lounge, and many other additional amenities.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join me in extending congratulations to the Deer Lake Regional Airport Authorities Board of Directors, management and staff as they prepare for the grand opening of the new Air Terminal Building.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Trinity-Bay de Verde.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, today I wish to congratulate Mr. Robert Royal, or Robbie as I know him, a constituent of mine from Job's Cove, who is one of this year's recipients of the Order of St. John Award. This award and special vote of thanks was presented June 12 by St. John Ambulance to Robert and Ms Lisa Heffern for their life-saving efforts, and Mr. Terry Hart of VOCM for his promotion of St. John Ambulance.

Mr. Speaker, Robbie and Ms Lisa Heffern of Eastport, from the great District of Terra Nova, are credited with saving the lives of crew members of the Rebel's Pride. Last September, four crew members were exposed to dangerous chemicals which had leaked into the ship's hold. Robbie and Lisa, even though putting their own lives at risk, rescued and resuscitated them with skills learned through St. John Ambulance.

Mr. Speaker, I can state from personal experience of the important role that the St. John Ambulance course has in our day to day lives. It is because of the teachings of the St. John Ambulance that a life crisis can be overcome.

Mr. Speaker, for their courageous efforts, Robbie and Lisa will be presented with Gold Life Saving Awards, and I ask that all members join with me today in congratulating them as well.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to extend congratulations to the Carbonear Collegiate Sentinels who took home the male and female banners at the Provincial High School Track and Field Championships.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

 

MR. SWEENEY: This is a member's statement so I cannot get political, Mr. Speaker. I will respect that part of it.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I will start over again, with your indulgence.

I rise today to extend congratulations to the Carbonear Collegiate Sentinels who took home the male and female banners at the Provincial High School Track and Field Championships, May 26.

It was a typical cold, foggy East Coast Saturday morning, as athletes from all over Newfoundland and Labrador gathered at the Pearlgate Athletic Track in Mount Pearl for the Provincial High School Track and Field Championships.

Although the Carbonear Collegiate Sentinels participated in regional track and field competitions throughout the past three years, they never attended a high school provincial championship. The athletes from Carbonear Collegiate did not know what to expect going into the competition and their opponents did not pay must attention to them.

Mr. Speaker, to their surprise, the Sentinels got an early start on Saturday morning in the 800 metre run and never looked back. The male and female Sentinels led in points throughout the day and did not relinquish their position in both running and field events.

Sentinels Coach, Randy Ralph, says: In order to be successful at track and field, it is vital to train a whole team, not just individuals. A successful team must have a solid roster from top to bottom. That also adds to team spirit, as a good coach will encourage an athlete in tenth place as the athlete in first place, since every point counts towards the team total.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join with me in extending congratulations to Carbonear Collegiate Sentinels who took home the male and female banners at the Provincial High School Track and Field Championships.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to announce that the Honourable Justice Margaret A. Cameron will be appointed as Commissioner of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry on estrogen and progesterone receptor testing for breast cancer patients.

Mr. Speaker, Justice Cameron is highly qualified to lead this very important inquiry. She was first appointed to the Trial Division of the Supreme Court in September of 1983, becoming the Province's first female and youngest ever Justice of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador. Prior to her appointment to the bench, she worked for the provincial Department of Justice from 1975, having served as an associate deputy minister for the department for two years. She served in Unified Family Court Division until 1985 and was appointed to the Court of Appeal in May of 1992.

Justice Cameron will officially begin her work as Commissioner on July 3, 2007 and will deliver her final report to the Minister of Health and Community Services on July 30, 2008.

Mr. Speaker, further details, including the Terms of Reference, regarding the inquiry will be publicly announced in the coming weeks as Justice Cameron takes on her duties as Commissioner.

I am sure I speak for all hon. members when I say that we are very pleased that Madam Justice Cameron has agreed to take on this important inquiry and we look forward to receiving her final report next year. Ultimately, we are committed, through this process, to ensuring that the public's confidence in this area is restored and that all necessary details are disclosed in an open and a transparent manner.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Premier for the advance copy.

We, too, on this side of the House, certainly support this release and are pleased with the choice of Justice Cameron. Madam Justice Cameron is certainly well respected in the justice system and widely respected in the public at large for sure.

We do look forward, too, to seeing the Terms of Reference in the upcoming weeks. We do recognize this has been a very serious issue affecting a lot of people throughout the Province, women and families, and we are thankful that the government has responded to the Opposition's call for this inquiry. We certainly look forward to the improvements within the health care system itself.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Premier for his advance copy, and obviously welcome the announcement.

I think that the public out there want as much information as can be gleaned. I am glad that the government has given the Commissioner a year to do the work that should assure that she will be able to get at all the details and get to the bottom of why what happened, happened.

Thank you very much, Mr. Premier.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to advise this hon. House that over the course of the next six years the provincial government will increase its provincial contribution for the Provincial Home Repair Program, the PHRP, by an additional $24 million.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: This doubles the provincial contribution for the program to a total of $48 million.

The PHRP is administered by Newfoundland and Labrador Housing. This cost-shared federal-provincial program assists low-income households with critical home repair needs, or those who require adaptations to permit accessibility or alleviate difficulties faced in daily living. Since 1976 this program has assisted over 45,000 individuals Province-wide.

The PHRP primarily benefits seniors living in rural areas of the Province. The average homeowner is sixty-one years old, has an annual income of $13,000, and occupies a forty-one-year-old home.

Work covered under the program typically ranges from bringing privately owned dwellings up to minimum fire and safety standards to critical structural restoration of a house.

The demand for housing repairs in the Province is substantial, and over the next six years this current funding commitment will help us address the more than 4,000 applications now on our waiting list. The extra money will allow us to assist approximately 2,500 applicants this year alone, as compared to approximately 1,800 applicants annually in past years.

The program will continue to serve individuals on a "first-come, first-served" basis from the current waiting list. Urgent cases with special needs will also continue to be addressed on an exceptional basis.

Mr. Speaker, we know and understand that safe affordable housing is a basic first step in helping people achieve greater self-sufficiency and independence. PHRP has received broad support within the community at large and is consistent with government's social policy objective which encourages seniors to live independently within their own homes as long as they are able, and consequently is in keeping with the Province's Poverty Reduction Strategy, which is focused on preventing people from potential homelessness.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this government has taken up the challenge. We are committed and we will continue working to improve housing for low-income households in this Province.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune.

MR. LANGDON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement.

I am sure, Mr. Speaker, I can speak on behalf of all Members in the House of Assembly, on both sides, especially for the rural members, that this particular problem is one that we or our staff face on a daily basis. There is no doubt about it, housing is a major, major issue.

It is great to see that government has recognized this particular fact and has increased the amount of money into the Provincial Home Repair Program by an additional $4 million a year so that it will now be $8 million. It is great also to see, as I said, that the program has been there for a number of years, since 1976.

The minister's statement says that we have looked after 45,000 homes, and the need is still there. If we look, Mr. Speaker, in the third paragraph of the minister's statement, we will see that the average person receiving this is sixty-one years of age, his house is forty-one years old, but his annual income is $13,000. I am telling you that, without a program like this, it would very, very difficult for these people - impossible for them - to do the repairs. What we are seeing more and more in the rural communities, as our younger people leave, this particular program is needed much, much more to fill the gap.

With the 4,000 applications that are on file, hopefully this year a large number of them will be looked after. The minister says it is going from 1,800 to 2,500, so there are 700 additional applications that will be approved this year.

Mr. Speaker, we will look forward, I am sure, in the future, where this amount will be increased so that our constituents in the rural part of the district especially will have this program to fall back on.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, thank the minister for the advance copy.

This was one of the announcements in the Budget that obviously I applauded when it first was announced. We cannot do enough for people on low income when it comes to their housing in particular, and especially for senior citizens.

As I expressed in the Budget discussions, I do wish that we could do this a little bit more quickly. I know that there is a plan for over the next six years but it would be really good if, in coming years, we could speed up this process. Because, with every year that somebody does not get the help, number one, the house will deteriorate more. Secondly, one of the things that is part of this home repair is retrofitting -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MS MICHAEL: Just to clue up, please, Mr. Speaker?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been granted.

MS MICHAEL: The main point I want to make is that retrofitting is part of this program, and that is really excellent, and I do wish that government would continue to look at the need for a full retrofit program in the Province for all people who cannot afford to do that themselves.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, on numerous occasions I have asked the Minister of Fisheries if it was a done deal that Cooke Aquaculture was going into Fortune. On every occasion he has assured me that it is and I could, in fact, take it to the bank.

Today, VOCM is reporting that Cooke is re-evaluating its decision to establish a farmed salmon processing plant in Fortune. Needless to say, the people in Fortune are confused by this latest turn of events.

I ask the minister: What is the truth?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: The truth, of course, is as I told the hon. member in this House. I would never tell anything else in the House only the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth.

In terms of what is on the VOCM Web site today, I understand that there have been discussions ongoing involving the union and Cooke Aquaculture and there are some issues there. I understand there have been discussions ongoing involving Cooke Aquaculture and the Citizens' Committee in Fortune and the Town of Fortune and there are some issues ongoing there.

A quick check with Cooke Aquaculture and at least with the union - I have not had a chance to speak with Fortune - is that everybody that I have spoken to so far believe that those issues can be resolved and, in fact, will be resolved.

In terms of the property, the assets being transferred out of FPI to OCI to Cooke, that is the done deal, and if the business arrangements can be made then there is no problem with anything else.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the minister understands, certainly, the confusion, and why people are upset with this latest turn of events.

All I would ask him today is: Will you stay personally involved in this file so that this initiative does not get off the tracks?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is absolutely no need for confusion. From time to time there may be matters that have to be finalized in negotiations between various parties, because it is not only just Cooke and OCI and FPI involved here, as I say; there is the union and there is the Town of Fortune.

In terms of being involved, Mr. Speaker, I will be involved in this file, and the government will be involved in this file, until it is brought to a conclusion, and we firmly believe a successful conclusion.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Environment and Conservation said that the fees being charged by the call centre in Quebec for anyone in the Province to make a reservation in our provincial parks was, in fact, to cover the cost of the contract.

I ask the minister: Are there any additional costs to the Province to cover the cost of this contract, and how long is the contract for?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, indeed it is the cost to cover the contract. I believe the contract is for five years.

As I said yesterday, this is the first year of that plan, of that contract, and at the end of the season we will be reviewing it, in its entirety, to see if there are any adjustments we need to make, but it is for five years.

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

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is to the Minister of Education.

Mr. Speaker, the Eastern School Board has an established priority list for new school construction in their district. The new school for Terrenceville was assigned first priority on the list and a school in Torbay was assigned number two. When it is convenient for this government, they make the claim that they will not interfere with the priorities established by the school board.

I ask the Minister of Education: If there was no political interference, why do we have the school in Torbay, in the Minister of Municipal Affairs district, going ahead before the school in Bellevue district, which was higher on the priority list? Can the minister explain why?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, when we receive capital plans from any of our school boards we certainly hire consultants to go out and look at the scope of work that needs to be done.

In the case of Terrenceville, Mr. Speaker, I understand we are waiting for a final report, but I also understand from the information based on the particular building down there, that the information we receive will say that we will not have to replace that building. There will be some work that will need to be done, but I understand that the space down there will be able to accommodate the students and will be appropriate accommodations for them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BARRETT: To the Minister of Education: There was a report prepared by the school board that they closed out the school in English Harbour East and Grand Le Pierre and these people were promised a new school for the Terrenceville system. Your colleague next door said the reason that Torbay got the school was because the Member for Cape St. Francis lobbied harder. Now, the school board is elected to set its priorities and they promised the people of English Harbour East and Grand Le Pierre and Terrenceville a new school.

I say to the minister: Stop playing political interference and announce today a new school for Terrenceville.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, when we do get a request for any type of capital construction, which would include a new building, we certainly do our homework and due diligence to make sure that if we are going to be investing in new buildings, that it is the appropriate infrastructure at the time and for that particular place.

Mr. Speaker, we understand that the school in Terrenceville will be able to accommodate the students. We will not need to replace the building. Mr. Speaker, we will take any requests that come in from any school board, we will look at them and we will be able to proceed with what we feel is work that is appropriate and needs to be done.

Mr. Speaker, the other point I want to make on this, is this government has put more money into school construction -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: - new schools, renovations and we are trying to bring all the schools in Newfoundland and Labrador up to an acceptable standard. Because, Mr. Speaker, in 2003 we were handed a lot of schools that had leaky roofs, that were not fit to send the students to school in.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the minister now to complete her answer.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, any request that comes into us, we will take seriously and we will make sure that we have healthy environments for all the children in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that will be done on a priority basis and not a political basis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is for the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

I have been asking in the past couple of days, concerning the issue of the salmon licences and the need and the new requirement for individuals to present a government photo ID before they are eligible to obtain a licence. The minister stated that this requirement had been dropped for family licences and this decision had been communicated to vendors across the Province. Yet, we note in the media this morning it has been reported that, albeit the change may have been made on May 22, this requirement, that it is only now, this week, that the vendors were notified of it; and also the issue of people who paid unnecessarily for these photo IDs.

My question is: Why did it take you so long to get this out when it was brought to your attention earlier, and are you prepared to reimburse those people who paid unnecessarily for your requirement?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, the decision, as soon as it was made, was reported to the vendors. Now, if in some case some vendor did not get the information earlier, that may have been, but as soon as the decision was made it was reported to vendors. Secondly to that, as I said yesterday, in terms of all youth under seventeen years of age, that will be straightened out as of the end of next week.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is quite obvious that this program and this new requirement by the Minister of Environment and Conservation was not very well thought out, and it has been pretty evident by the number of problems that have been encountered in the past number of weeks.

I say to the minister, your comment to the media yesterday that you will have something by the end of next week, not saying you are going to have a solution. You said: We will be making a statement of some kind by the end of next week.

I say to the minister: Isn't it easier - at least for this year and until you have put the proper thought processes into place and work this out so that we do not have this discrimination against people who do not have a driver's licence - isn't it either scrap the program for this year or allow some alternate means of identification, such as an MCP card, which people already have under the new issued MCP card system, so we can get on with this and stop procrastinating?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, the reason we moved away from the MCP cards is there were some issues around confidentiality around health issues.

Secondly, I can assure the member that if I am going to make a decision by the end of next week it will be clear to him. There will be no questions afterwards, Mr. Speaker. It will be clear and definitive, and we will find a solution and it will settle the matter. Mr. Speaker, I can assure him of that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Justice.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Ombudsman for recognizing and reporting on the situation facing women offenders in Labrador. I fully support his recommendation to have a secure adult female custodial building for those low-risk women offenders in Labrador, situated in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that the majority of these women offenders are Aboriginal and face significant language barriers and cultural differences which have contributed to longer periods of stay in the Island-based penitentiary.

I ask the minister: In light of this recommendation by the Ombudsman and the cries for help for these women offenders, will your government now commit to building this facility in Happy Valley-Goose Bay?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, I was asked in a scrum yesterday and answered the question. I can send over a copy of The Telegram today actually, because that answer is in The Telegram today. We cannot commit, Mr. Speaker, without a proper assessment of the viability and practically of a facility in Labrador. The Citizens Rep had indicated up to five offenders for Labrador. That is the historical high. The facility in Clarenville holds an average of anywhere from eight to twelve offenders on a daily basis. So, you are looking at an average of about ten offenders in Clarenville. To take two or three would compromise not only Clarenville, perhaps, but you are looking at housing maybe one or two or three in Labrador.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the minister to complete his answer.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Having said that, Mr. Speaker, it is more than just a dollar that we are looking at here, it is the service to individuals and ensuring that individuals are close to their support networks, close to family, close to their own culture, close to their own religious beliefs. We need to look, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Under our protocol, the Chair must rotate.

The Chair recognizes the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I am appalled to hear the minister say the viability of a penitentiary in Clarenville rests on ignoring the needs of the women offenders in Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to speak to another recommendation that was in the report. The Ombudsman asked the government to take immediate steps to deal with citizens who suffer from complex mental health needs. This is something we asked the government, as an Opposition, to address a year ago in Labrador. This whole report stemmed from a case, and a case we all forgot, of how a woman was treated when she was incarcerated in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, in a penitentiary.

Mr. Speaker, we already recognize, and so does the Ombudsman now, that one room in the Labrador Health Centre to meet this need in Labrador is as inadequate today as it was a year ago.

I ask the minister: On this particular recommendation, will you and your government move immediately to increase the space at the Labrador Health Centre and to recruit additional staff to provide for these mental health patients?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The member opposite will recall back in December 2006 we passed in this House a new mental health bill, one that had been revised. After some thirty-odd years, I say, Mr. Speaker, that bill will be proclaimed this coming fall.

As a part of that process of proclaiming that bill, there are a number of requirements that we need to re-evaluate our ability to be able to accommodate individuals with mental illness throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, and we are working with each of our health authorities to look at what that infrastructure need might be.

We recognize some of the shortcomings that might exist in the Labrador region of the Province. We are working with that health authority now to identify how we might address that so we will be prepared, when we proclaim this bill in the fall, to be able to respond to the infrastructure needs of individuals with mental health in the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

My first questions today are for the Minister of Health and Community Services.

Yesterday in the House, the minister stated that the new health facility that is being built in Labrador West will reflect the ongoing health needs of the people in that region. Well, people in Labrador West have been lobbying for years to get better services for sexual assault victims, such as a nurse practitioner to serve as part-time sexual assault nurse examiner. As well, women's health is a whole area of service that needs improvement in Labrador West.

My question for the minister is: Will the new health care facility meet those needs in Labrador West and include much needed services for sexual assault victims and women in high-risk pregnancies?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, as I said in the House yesterday, we are, yes, embarking on the construction of a new health facility in Labrador West. We have been working diligently with our new member in caucus from Labrador West who has been able to bring to the table a tremendous insight and a better understanding of the issues in Labrador West, and we have been able to incorporate that kind of thinking into the planning for that new centre, I say, Mr. Speaker.

When we move this year to start construction we will then be able to - as I said yesterday, we will be incorporating into that new facility the needs of health programing for that region.

The kinds of things that we have been doing to date, I say, Mr. Speaker, in enhancing health services, community-based programs, particularly in Labrador West, reflect our government's commitment to the ongoing improvement and enhancement of health services throughout our Province.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much.

I think the issues that I am rasing today, and have been raising, have been raised before here in this House by other members for Labrador West and by the women in Labrador West, but I do have another question for the Minister of Health and Community Service.

One of the government's recent promises was to build a long-term care home for seniors in Labrador, specifically Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Currently, there are no seniors residences in the Labrador West area and seniors are housed in the hospital, which is a waste of resources and detrimental to their quality of life and independence.

My question for the minister is: Will a separate facility for the long-term care of seniors in Labrador West be included in the plans for the relocation and building of the Labrador West health centre?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Newfoundland and Labrador has one of the most rapidly aging populations in this entire country. In fact, this year, I say, Mr. Speaker, we now have the highest medium age in the entire country, and in some ten years from now about 20 per cent of the population of this Province will be over the age of sixty-five.

I say, Mr. Speaker, that is why this government has been involved in the last year-and-a-half particularly, very intensely, in developing a strategy for an aging population, and we will be in a position in a very short period of time, I say, Mr. Speaker, to be able to unroll for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador a strategy to respond to the rapidly aging population that we have.

We have made some major efforts in the last couple of years. We have invested significant amounts of money to grow and expand our Home Support Program. We have invested significant amounts of money into our personal care home system in the Province.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister now to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As the member has already acknowledged with the Happy Valley-Goose Bay facility, we have made some major investments in starting construction on I think it is four long-term care homes in this Province, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi on a final supplementary.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

My last question, actually, is for the Minister of Justice.

The Citizens' Representative report released yesterday, or Tuesday, states that Labrador has only one secure holding room for offenders with mental health issues located in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The report calls this unacceptable because it leads to the unnecessary incarceration of women and minors in holding cells if the secure room is not available.

My question for the minister is: In supplying full judicial services to Labrador West, will he work with his counterpart in Health and Community Services to ensure that the new health facility in Labrador West will include a secure room for offenders with complex mental health issues?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, I am certain the member opposite was listening to my earlier answer to the question from the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair but, just in the event that she did not hear it, let me repeat it.

I had indicated at that time we will be proclaiming the new mental health legislation of this Province. We passed a bill in this House in 2006, but this fall we will be proclaiming that act, I say, Mr. Speaker, and in readiness for the proclamation we have been working with each of our health authorities to identify the infrastructure requirements that we have throughout Newfoundland and Labrador to respond to the issues raised in that act.

Once again, let me repeat, between now and then we will be working with the Labrador-Grenfell Authority to identify the infrastructure requirements throughout the Labrador portion of our Province, I say, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, Central Health has just announced that it is reducing some of its obstetric services for the summer months. Beginning this weekend, obstetrical services will be provided on an alternating basis between Gander and Grand Falls-Windsor on weekends for the entire summer. While this system has been used in the past, what is unusual this year is the period of time.

I ask the minister: Does he still consider the shortage of health care professionals to be a challenge, or is he now willing to admit what patients and doctors are telling him? These shortages are affecting services, and the system is in crisis.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, what is really important, if you listen to the member's question, what he did acknowledge was: inasmuch as this has happened in the past. Because that is key, that this has happened in the past. It happened on their watch, Mr. Speaker. This is not an unusual event.

What he is now trying to suggest is that the period of time, this time, is a little bit longer so therefore it is something unique and different to this year, or unique and different to this government. I say, Mr. Speaker, this is a practice that has happened in Central Newfoundland for a number of years. It has happened on a number of occasions.

Right now, today, we have two obstetrician gynecologists in Grand Falls-Windsor and two in Gander. Throughout the summer months, this year, as in past years when members opposite sat in government, in order to facilitate the vacation periods of those obstetricians we have been able to -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the minister to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The health system has responded this year as it has responded in previous years, many years in the past, I say, Mr. Speaker, to accommodate those -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. BALL: Mr. Speaker, I did acknowledge the fact that it has happened in the past but I would like it to be acknowledged, that this is unusual and it is for an extended period of time. That is all I mentioned. We have confirmation that in order to allow obstetricans or gynecologists to take their vacations there will be service reductions for the extended period in Central this year.

Can he tell us what extent the shortage of health care professionals is having on the impact of the delivery of other health care services this summer?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, what is important here - and I would not want the member opposite, or the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to assume that the member opposite is suggesting that there will be an impact on the quality of service being provided in Central Newfoundland this year.

Any individual today who lives in Central Newfoundland and Labrador, who is expecting to deliver a child sometime during the summer, should assume, Mr. Speaker, that the quality of service that they get will be no different in July and August than it was yesterday and back in February, I say, Mr. Speaker. We have, in Central Newfoundland, two health facilities in particular who provide top-notch obstetrical services to the residents of that region of the Province. If an individual today delivers a baby in Grand Falls-Windsor, or they deliver a baby in Gander, there is no difference in the quality of care, I say, Mr. Speaker. To suggest that in Central Newfoundland during this summer -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To suggest some time this summer, that anybody delivering a baby in Central Newfoundland is somehow going to get substandard care, is irresponsible to suggest, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair recognizes the hon. the Member for Humber Valley.

MR. BALL: Being a patient in the back of an ambulance, I would not want to assume that this service is going to be available, I would like to know for sure that it is.

Mr. Speaker, other health boards in this Province are experiencing severe shortages of health care professionals as well. These shortages are already causing problems.

I ask the minister: Is he aware of similar extended reductions of services in other boards around this Province over the summer months? Is this crisis restricted to the Central region or is it Province-wide?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: That is a long question, Mr. Speaker, and a lot of information required.

To suggest that we are in crisis, no we are not. To ask the question, are we doing anything in any other health facility in this Province this summer, what is happening in health care this summer in Newfoundland and Labrador is the same that happened last year, the same that happened in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, an annual event I say, Mr. Speaker. Every single year since we were in government and members opposite were in government, every single year the health system makes an adjustment in the level of services in the summer months. It does a couple of things. Anybody requiring elective surgery do not want to have their surgery in July and August, I say, Mr. Speaker. Individual patients make choices on elective procedures.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to complete his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What is important to realize, I think, is that the quality of care being provided by health providers in this Province is second to none, regardless of when they provide it, whether it is July or August, or January or February.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, government recently announced that they would be increasing student assistant hours by a measly 4 per cent. Parents have written me to say that this is simply not enough and the needs of many students will go unaddressed. They are telling me that allotments should be made on the basis of needs which exist and this expenditure should be treated as an essential cost to education delivery.

I ask the minister: When is she and the department going to realize that special needs students have an equal right to an education in this Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to note, since 2003 the budget for student assistants has been increasing, as the number of students who require assistance has been decreasing.

Mr. Speaker, we have not reduced the number of student assistant hours for this coming year, and over the last couple of years there have been 1,500 students less using student assistants, plus a 4 per cent increase.

Mr. Speaker, what we have been doing is far more than what the Opposition did when they were in government and we will continue to make sure that the special needs of students are being met.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, it seems like everything is blamed on the former Administration. Maybe this one is, too. Maybe this question is, too.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, another problem in our schools is student safety and bullying. An incident which recently happened in Holy Trinity Elementary in Torbay, involving elementary students being harassed by two junior high school students, one of whom had a knife - the incident was serious enough that the principal locked the school doors and the police were called.

I ask the minister: Given the incidents which happened earlier this year, not under the former Administration, and this latest incident in Torbay, will the department be taking any additional measures to ensure students are safe in the schools around this Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, this government has been instrumental in bringing in safe and caring schools policy. Mr. Speaker, there are incidents and there are times when students act inappropriately, but when that type of behaviour goes beyond inappropriate or bullying and goes into criminal behaviour, at any point when that happens, the police will be called and people will be held accountable for their behaviour.

Mr. Speaker, it was just yesterday that I was at Gander Academy, and one thing that we are doing in schools, instead of always focusing on the negatives - because we have some very good students in Newfoundland and Labrador - we are actually in the process of rewarding what we call positive behaviour. Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, we gave out 200 certificates for students who are in this program.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: The program is: You got caught caring. Mr. Speaker, we need to continue to reinforce that behaviour.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the minister to complete her answer.

MS BURKE: As I said, anytime behaviour or bullying goes into criminal activity, those individuals will be held accountable.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Transportation and Works.

Williams Harbour is a community on the Labrador South Coast that is cut off from the mainland by a dangerous water crossing. People attempting to get off the island in the winter to access medical services and other provisions have to cross over saltwater ice, putting their lives in danger.

Today I read in the House of Assembly a statement about a young man named Wayne Russell who just received a bravery award for rescuing his friend who went through the ice while trying to get out of his home community. Mr. Speaker, that community was slated to be connected to the Trans-Labrador Highway, but the project was cancelled by the government opposite when they came to power in 2003.

I ask the minister today, if his government will agree that this road has to be built to Williams Harbour and that they should be connected to the Trans-Labrador Highway, and will they commit to do it, as a government?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we have been working with the community of Williams Harbour. We have provided them with lower fares on the ferry services, the Challenge One. We have provided helicopter services when those types of services to the mainland were not available.

I will say, Mr. Speaker, we have no plans at this time. Our concentration to connect Williams Harbour community - our concentration right now is on Phase I, II and III of the Trans-Labrador Highway and to continue the work there. We have no plans at this particular time, Mr. Speaker, to build a road to Williams Harbour.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member has time for a very brief supplementary.

The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In light of that, I would like to encourage the Premier, at least, to reconsider it as a life and safety issue.

My next question, Mr. Speaker, is regarding the communities of Williams Harbour, Norman Bay and Black Tickle. They are all isolated from the Trans-Labrador Highway but they do have local gravel roads in their communities. These roads are in a deplorable condition. They have no crushed stone left on them and they are eroded to the bedrock. There has been no money invested in the last four years by the government opposite.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister today, if he will guarantee to upgrade those roads in those isolated, rural communities this summer because it is badly needed?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HICKEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent unprecedented money, even in the member's district. This year we will spend $1.5 million in road improvements, some of the biggest expenditure that district has seen in some time. We have also invested $1.4 million in the new depot at Chateau Bay. We put seven new employees in the member's district.

I will say, for those particular communities, I will take the member's request under consideration and we will evaluate that to see if there is something we can do in that regard.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allocated for Question Period has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Tabling of Documents

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in accordance with government's commitment to transparency and accountability, I have two annual reports to table before this House today.

I am pleased to submit the 2005-2006 Annual Report for the Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development. This report addresses the department's activities and outcomes from April 1, 2005 to March 31, 2006.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, I am also tabling the 2005-2006 Annual Report of the Business Investment Corporation, a Crown corporation which reports to the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further tabling of documents?

Notices of Motion.

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bellevue is standing. The Chair recognizes him on a petition.

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today, again - the petitions are coming in fast and furious - in relation to the Burin Peninsula Highway, the bad condition of the Burin Peninsula Highway, and the situation that exists on the section of the Terrenceville Road.

As a matter of fact, to impress on Members of the House of Assembly, I have a petition here signed by all of the school children who are concerned about the section of the road that is going down over the hill in Terrenceville where the school bus has to go on the opposite side of the road so it will not tip over.

I asked the Minister of Education, in Question Period today, not only are they not getting a new school in the community, which the school board had promised - and the school board said it is a number one priority in the whole district. Believe it or not, the Terrenceville school was put as a number one priority in the whole district, and all of a sudden we hear that Torbay is getting their school. I guess that is what it means to be in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. You cannot even get roads done within the community.

The minister is well aware of this section of the road. It is very treacherous. I hope that nothing will happen this winter. A school bus with five-year-olds leaving English Harbour East and Grand Le Pierre travelling over this treacherous road, with all of the money they are saying that they are spending on road construction - which is inaccurate. There is nothing further from the truth in terms of, they announce a lot of money but they never, ever spend it, according to the report that was released recently talking about $60 million and $70 million of roadwork with only $36 million spent in one particular year when they announced $60 million.

The other section of the road that I am talking about is the Burin Peninsula Highway, one of the main highways in Newfoundland and Labrador that connects one of the main regions of this Province, the Burin Peninsula, the road from Goobies to Swift Current. They talk about the previous government, but there has not been any money spent on the Burin Peninsula Highway since this government got elected.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. BARRETT: The road between Marystown and Swift Current was done under the previous Liberal Administration. They stopped it in Swift Current and there hasn't been any money.

When I was Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, the last piece of road that was done was around the North Harbour area. The reason it was done was to put in a passing lane, a turning lane there, because the problem is, when the school buses come out of North Harbour, when it is foggy you cannot see the school bus. The same situation exists around the Garden Cove intersection, Mr. Minister. The same situation exists, an accident about to happen with the school buses.

As you know, it is an area where we have a lot of fog, and there is no turning lane in that particular part of the road.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been granted.

MR. BARRETT: I call on the government, Mr. Speaker, to immediately invest some money on the Burin Peninsula and do what is necessary with the roads.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a petition to present on behalf of residents of my district regarding cellphone coverage.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of these petitions, because each community had circulated, I think, their own petition. So, each time they come in, they are coming in separately.

Basically, what this petition is asking government to do is to recognize that there is an issue with regard to no cellphone coverage in areas like this, and this would be the area extending from L'Anse-au-Loup up to Cartwright in particular.

Mr. Speaker, these areas do not have cellphone access but yet, as you know, there are large distances to travel, a lot of it over gravel road, a lot of it in serious conditions, especially during the winter months. Mr. Speaker, these people feel that, without adequate communication devices, often they are travelling and putting their lives at risk in many situations.

Mr. Speaker, I did ask a question of the minister in the House of Assembly yesterday in terms of government partnering with the private sector to ensure that cellphone service is provided to regions of the Province like this, simply because these communication companies do not see it as a viable investment or profitable investment for them at this particular time. Therefore, they would be looking for partnership in terms of government funding.

What the minister did tell me yesterday is that he certainly agreed with the point that I was trying to make, and also indicated to me that the officials in his department had been instructed to carry out an evaluation of the cost of putting cellphone services in regions such as those in Labrador, and to try and identify what options would be available for government in terms of having those services provided.

Mr. Speaker, I can only say to the minister, I hope that you review will be concluded shortly. Apparently he indicated to me yesterday that it was ongoing for the past year, so hopefully it will be concluded very shortly, and I hope that, in conclusion of their evaluation, they will make available monies to invest in cellphone coverage in areas like the district that I represent.

Obviously, if this was not a huge concern for the people in that area they would not be petitioning the House of Assembly and the government to consider looking at this particular option.

I think, Mr. Speaker, it is a necessity, and I am sure it is not only in my district and in regions of Labrador. I am sure there are some areas on the Island as well that may be impacted by a lack of cellphone coverage or improper communication devices while travelling on certain sections of road that could be considered a safety risk.

Mr. Speaker, I can only say that, while I am pleased that the government is evaluating this, I hope the evaluation will be concluded in very short order and that they will move immediately to make available financing to deal with situations like this.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MS FOOTE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I stand in support of a petition from the people in the District of Bellevue and for all people on the Burin Peninsula who, in fact, have to drive through that section of the Burin Peninsula Highway that takes them through Swift Current, and any of them, in fact, who may even go down to visit the beautiful community of Terrenceville. It happens to be one of the nicest communities, in fact, in the Province.

As my colleague from Bellevue said, there is another aspect to this and, of course, that is the dangerous conditions of the road, especially for our school students who have to travel by bus. I can tell you that, having driven to Terrenceville, with the slope on the road and the condition of the road, it is indeed dangerous. I think anyone who had an opportunity to travel that road would have to agree that something really does need to be done with that road.

I would encourage the Minister of Transportation and Works to take it upon himself to actually go there and see the circumstances under which these children on the buses have to travel and, as well, anyone in the communities around that area.

When you drive through Swift Current, in particular, and leaving Swift Current and going further on the Burin Peninsula, the condition of the road is such that even though there is a speed limit that you can, in fact, travel to, the issue here is one that it is in your best interest not to for safety reasons.

Again, I listened to the government talk about how much money they are spending on roads and it is hard to believe, Mr. Speaker, when you travel throughout the Province, that what they are saying is, in fact, real, because there is no evidence of it certainly in some areas of the Province, certainly in the Burin Peninsula. I can tell you again that in areas in my district, there are some areas that really - how they can ignore the conditions of the road, I do not understand.

Of course, here we are now again with a petition from the people in Terrenceville and Swift Current, and people on Old Mill Road and Arnold's Cove, Black River. They are all asking for government to acknowledge that there is a serious issue here, to in fact put their money where their mouth is. If you are going to stand up and talk about how much money you are putting into roads in this Province, well, here is a prime example of where you can do some good; where you can, indeed, make a difference. Yet, we see the way it is going today with no one acknowledging that it is a serious issue, at least no one in government, and we stand here and present petitions on behalf of the individuals who live in the area, who took it upon themselves to come up with this petition because they are trying to reach the ears of government. Hopefully, if we present enough petitions on this, you will listen. You will acknowledge that there is a serious issue here, instead of having people live under these circumstances, having to travel on the roads, and in fact having to take their lives in their hands sometimes when they do that.

We all know the weather conditions in this Province is such that you can have four seasons in one day, and if you are travelling over these roads and it is raining, I can tell you, it is a dangerous situation. Any part of the -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's allotted time has expired.

MS FOOTE: Just time to clue up, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been requested.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave is granted.

MS FOOTE: Mr. Speaker, again, I am imploring the government to acknowledge that we have a serious issue here and to go and see firsthand what the conditions are, and I am sure once they have had a chance to do that, they would have to acknowledge that something needs to be done here, and that something being to improve the road conditions in that area of the Province.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Member for Carbonear-Harbour Grace.

MR. SWEENEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present this petition on behalf of the undersigned members.

The prayer of the petition basically goes:

WHEREAS the residents of Thicket Road amalgamated in good faith with the Town of Harbour Grace; and

WHEREAS the Town of Harbour Grace made a commitment as per the amalgamation agreement that the residents of Thicket Road would have good drinking water; and

WHEREAS the residents of Thicket Road and Harbour Grace have come together in one united community;

WHEREUPON we the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House to urge government to take immediate action to ensure that the residents of Thicket Road have good drinking water.

Mr. Speaker, it is a serious issue in the area called the Thicket. The residents up there have, for years, been without proper water. The situation itself is growing worse. Wells are going dry. The people up there have no access to water for even doing dishes or for flushing their toilets. They are asking that the town take responsibility as per the agreement of the amalgamation and the town tells them that they cannot afford to do it, and I know they cannot afford to do it because of the continuous cuts in the Municipal Operating Grants that has taken place to a lot of these towns in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. The tax base is not there to find new funds. As a result of that, things like this are happening. Communities are doing without the essentials of life, and drinking water is one of the essentials of life. When we take that away from people, whoever is to blame, I think it is an unconscionable act.

The people who have signed this petition - I might add, I think almost everybody in the Thicket have signed this petition. So, it is not an isolated case of two or three people complaining, or two or three people doing without, it is a number of people who have no access to water. In this particular case, it is part of a community. It is the full community, actually, of the Thicket. A part of the Town of Harbour Grace, now that it is amalgamated.

The people are just not satisfied. They are growing intolerably impatient with the indifference that is being presented to them. I cannot help but think how any of us would react if we were to get up tomorrow morning to the same old situation of no water. Having to go somewhere with buckets to bring water home to put on your stove to boil and make tea or make cereal for your children in the morning. I think that day is long gone. This is 2007, Mr. Speaker, and the government should take action and provide some assistance to the town to enable them to provide water to this group of people in the Thicket.

Mr. Speaker, I have other communities in my area. I have a section of Freshwater who have arsenic in their wells. The impact that this government is having -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allocated to the hon. member has expired.

MR. SWEENEY: By leave to conclude, Mr. Speaker?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave has been granted.

MR. SWEENEY: The impact, Mr. Speaker, that this government is having on the rural parts of this Province is becoming intolerable. People are suffering and they need things as precious as water. I do not think anybody out there in rural Newfoundland, or any other part of this Province, should be going without water.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for your time this afternoon.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

Orders of the Day.

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

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave on a point of order.

MR. BUTLER: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Yesterday, when I stood in my place to make a member's statement with regards to the tremendous rescue that took place off the coast of our Province, with regards to the Nautical Legacy, I inadvertently made an omission and I would like to be given the permission to pay tribute to the DFO surveillance plane. They were the first people who were on the scene, took the videos and guided the Squadron 303 Search and Rescue people to the scene.

I met those people during the church service in Port de Grave, but I failed to mention them yesterday. I know it has been mentioned in the media, on a couple of occasions, that those people were not recognized. I want to apologize for that, sir, and say congratulations to those people because they made a tremendous impact in the tremendous rescue that took place at sea.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The member would know, there is no point of order, but I do believe that his purpose has been achieved.

Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not know if I should be so presumptions as to say it is for the last time, but anyway, I am going to move Motion 3, that this House not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. today, Thursday, June 14.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is pursuant to Standing Order 11, that this House not adjourn today, Thursday, June 14, at 5:30 o'clock.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

Motion carried.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Motion 4, Mr. Speaker, pursuant to - this is really just in case. This is really stretching the just in case, I hope - that pursuant to Standing Order 11, that this House not adjourn at 10:00 p.m. today, Thursday, June 14.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is pursuant to Standing Order 11, that this House not adjourn today, Thursday, June 14, at 10:00 p.m.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

Motion carried.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to call Order 4, second reading of a bill, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour. (Bill 33)

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour, be now read a second time.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour." (Bill 33)

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to be here today, to stand in my place to introduce second reading of what is referred to as Bill 33.

The long title, Mr. Speaker, is, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour.

The short title of the legislation, Mr. Speaker, is, the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act.

Mr. Speaker, I am a believer that politics is a noble calling. I entered political life at the urging of my father, who served the people of Western Newfoundland as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons in Ottawa. He was elected back in 1968 and he was re-elected on two subsequent occasions. Each time he was re-elected, he was re-elected with a higher majority than when he first appeared on the scene. What I always said to him was that he was one of the few politicians I knew who left politics with a better reputation than when he first entered politics.

I am proud of that heritage, Mr. Speaker, and I am proud of the legacy that he passed on to me. He always urged me to consider spending some part of my life in the public service of this Province or this country, and I felt I had let the opportunity pass. I always felt that my first responsibility was to my family and to my children; therefore, it was never convenient for me to enter public life.

Finally, when the current Premier took over the leadership of the PC Party, I had an association with the Premier that went back to our time in law school many years ago. I stayed in contact with him over the years and we maintained an association in the PC Party. We practiced law. We were involved, as I say, in the PC Party, and we were also involved in a number of business interests together. I always encouraged him to, at some point in his life, enter public service because he was a man of independence, a man of brilliance, and I said a person like that is what this Province needs. It needs somebody truly independent to ensure that the interests of this Province are protect, who will stand for the interests of this Province and will not be undermined by any offerings or any favours that might be granted by people in Ottawa or business interests, but would be truly independent and would truly stand for the interests of the people of this Province.

I was pleased to have the opportunity to follow the Premier and the Members of the House of Assembly here into public life. I want to say to the people of this Province who may be watching today that, while there have been very unfortunate allegations made over the past number of years, I firmly believe that the vast number of MHAs who offer themselves for service in this Province are honourable, are sincere, are capable, and are dedicated individuals.

I can tell you that I have discovered that the system here was seriously flawed, but I can assure the people of this Province that the vast majority of my colleagues in this House of Assembly are decent individuals who are committed to the public service of their Province, of their country and of their community. I think the people of Newfoundland can take comfort in that.

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, there have been problems. There have been problems that we have discovered here in the public Assembly. I may not going to mention them all, but I will refer to some.

The first one appears to have been the removal of the Auditor General from auditing the books of this House, of this very House. Coming out of that was the knowledge that was disclosed by Chief Justice Green, at least to me - that was the first I heard of it - was that audits for certain years had not been performed.

I think the argument that was made when the Auditor General was removed from the House of Assembly - and I was not here at the time so I am going on knowledge of others - was that, because the House of Assembly was truly independent, it was necessary for an independent auditor; and, because the Auditor General is an Officer of the House of Assembly, is paid by the House of Assembly, and gets his or her resources from the House of Assembly, the argument was made that it may have been more appropriate to get an independent auditor from an outside firm to come and audit the books of the House of Assembly.

Unfortunately, we discovered, Mr. Speaker, that the audit, for two years, was not performed, in spite of a responsibility on this House, a statutory duty that we had, to ensure that audit was done.

Secondly, there are audits done by the Auditor General and he has indicated allegations that overpayments were made. That raises the question: How can overpayments be made to members when we are all aware that we have a certain limit for each district depending on the constituency that you represent? How could members seek an overpayment?

Then, again, why were there not controls in this House of Assembly, why were there not controls in the financial end of the House of Assembly, that would ensure that such overpayments could not take place?

I think, as a new MHA coming in after the last election, the new MHAs were ensured that procedures were in place and that people were in place to ensure that we did not make mistakes, and to ensure that if we did send in the wrong form, or we did not fill the form in properly, or a wrong receipt was sent, that there were procedures in place to ensure that we were protected. We now know that was not the case, and the question is: Why not?

We know about the purchase of goods, such as magnets and rings and pins. We do not know where they are. We do not know who benefitted from them. We do not know why certain MHAs received them and others did not. We do not know where the material is. We do not know where the receiving slips are. We do not know if anybody checked to see if the goods that were ordered were actually received. The question that the people of this Province have is: Why not?

There are also double-billings. Now, we can certainly understand how the double-billings took place, because there were so many different pieces of paper that could be used to back up a claim for reimbursement of expenses. The problem, of course, is that some of these different receipts were sent in more than once.

I do not believe that it was done by anyone with the intent to defraud. I do not believe that at all. I think it was because of inadvertence, it was because of not having up-to-date records, and it was because the necessary procedures were not in place to ensure that this did not happen. Internal auditors - there were no internal auditors here to help the officials to check to make sure that these mistakes would not happen.

Of course, there is the payment of the $2,500 plus HST which has embarrassed all of us expect for two members of this House. Why this decision was made, we still do not know. The reasons given to some of us, when we first heard about the reason for the payment, was not the reason we were told when this payment became well known in the public. Why did that happen? Why were the minutes vague? Who told the officials in the House of Assembly to make the minutes vague? I know of no one in this House who has done that. These are answers that the people require.

Why, Mr. Speaker, are there written rules that do not apply to some of us? Why was I told, as a new MHA, that the rules for MHAs do not apply to me because I am a minister? Yet, why were there other rules that were unwritten that would apply to me?

None of this made any sense, Mr. Speaker, and it had to be changed. Unfortunately, we did not change it ourselves. I have not read all of Mr. Justice Green's report. It is quite a lengthy report of 1,300 pages, but I am sure that the answers to some of these questions are there, or many of these questions are there.

Mr. Speaker, at the end of Judge Green's report - I would like to say that I have read most of it. I have not read all of it, it is pretty lengthy, but at the end of the report when he talks about renewal - his team consisted of the hon. J. Derek Green, the Chief Justice of the Trial Division of Newfoundland and Labrador. He was assisted by Mr. John Dawson, LL.B. He was assisted by Dr. Christopher Dunn, a political advisor. I believe Dr. Dunn is a political scientist at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He was further assisted by Gail Hamilton, a fellow of the Chartered Accountants of Newfoundland and Labrador, who is an Audit Advisor. He was assisted by Mr. David Norris, M.B.A as a Public Policy Advisor. Mr. Norris is a former Deputy Minister of Finance of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and also by Beth Whalen, LL.B, an executive secretary.

At the end of his report, the 1,300 pages, together with an executive summary plus appendices, the last chapter, Chapter 13, is called Renewal. He has made recommendations throughout the report to allow us to move forward; to allow us to put behind us this unfortunate chapter in our history, because that is the purpose of the commission. The purpose of the commission, like the Green report, like the Royal Commission that has been announced to deal with the testing, HR and PR testing, is to find out what went wrong. To find out what the facts were, to find out the causes of what went wrong and then to make recommendations to us to bring forward legislation to try to make sure that those problems are corrected and do not happen again. That is the whole objective. We have the benefit of this report, which I think will be a model for Houses of Assembly and Legislatures throughout the world as a way that Members of Parliament and Members of Legislatures should conduct themselves.

Mr. Speaker, the purpose - I am sorry. Recommendation number eighty, contained in Chapter 13, is to bring forward a "...draft bill, styled the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act..." and this is the legislation that is before this House today.

The judge recommended that this bill "...should be presented to the House of Assembly as soon as possible for debate and, if thought advisable, enactment." That is what we are doing here today.

He further recommended that once this bill comes into force, into law, that his draft set of rules - which he has also included in his report entitled the Members' Resources and Allowances Rules - should be presented forthwith to what was formally known as the Internal Economy Commission and what will now be known as the House of Assembly Management Commission, as reconstituted under the new legislation, for adoption. Under the legislation, it is the House of Assembly through its House of Assembly Management Commission, that will make the rules dealing with how members operate pursuant to the legislation. I will have more to say about this in a few minutes.

Judge Green also recommended that sufficient resources be given to the House of Assembly and to the new Management Commission to enable the implementation of the new statutory and the new regulatory regime so that it can be effected in a timely and efficient manner.

I should say, I think that one of the problems that the Internal Economy Commission had in the past was a fact that it lacked the resources to do a number of the things that it had to do. Because we operate under a system, Mr. Speaker, where we separate the powers of the judiciary and the executive and the Legislature. The job of the Legislature is to make laws. The job of the executive is to implement those laws and the job of the judiciary, of course, is to adjudicate with respect to disputes over those laws. But, it is important that the House of Assembly, it is important that the executive and, of course, it is important that the judiciary have the resources they need to carry out the constitutional functions and the legal functions that they have to carry out.

Judge Green also recommends that "Upon the coming into force of the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act..." the new House of Assembly Management Commission "...should proceed to cause the appointment of the audit committee..." - and that is a new committee that will now exist in this House. Furthermore, in accordance with section 35 of the act, that the House of Assembly should proceed with the adoption of a new code for conduct of all members.

Mr. Speaker, this bill, Bill 33, is the first step in Judge Green's recommendation for renewal. The purposes of the bill are set out in section 3. "The purposes of this Act is to (a) establish an administrative framework for the House of Assembly that is transparent and accountable." The Internal Economy Commission that previously existed did represent an administrative framework of the House, but Judge Green found fault with this, the fact that it was not open and transparent and accountable enough.

Secondly, the second purpose is to "place responsibility with individual members to conduct their public and private affairs so as to promote public confidence in the integrity of each member, while maintaining the dignity and the independence of the House of Assembly."

Thirdly, the Judge recommended that the purpose of the legislation was to promote the equitable treatment of every Member of the House of Assembly, regardless of what party they represent.

Fourthly, to establish clear rules with respect to salary, clear rules with respect to allowances and resources, clear rules for members and to provide for a mandatory review of these rules at regular intervals, and the review also to take place in public.

Another purpose of the legislation is, "provide for clear and timely disclosure in relation to operations of the House of Assembly and statutory offices, including members' salaries, pensions, allowances, resources and severance payments, that is consistent with the public interest".

Also, "create an environment for members in which full-time devotion to one's duties is encouraged". Although I have to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that I believe that all members in this House of Assembly do devote their full time to looking after the interests of their districts and their constituents.

The last purpose as set out in section 3 is, "establish standards of conduct for members and for those charged with the responsibility of administration of operations of the House of Assembly service and the statutory offices".

So, that is the purpose of the legislation.

I note, with interest, that the Explanatory Note on the inside cover of this bill says, "The purpose of this Bill is set out in the Long Title." Indeed, it is, but I believe section 3, the purpose section, is very helpful to telling us what this legislation intends to do.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to refer members to Part III of the legislation, which deals initially with the House of Assembly Management Commission. As I said earlier, the affairs of the House of Assembly have been represented by a commission called the Internal Economy Commission, and that Internal Economy Commission is continued but with a new name and with new membership. The new name is the House of Assembly Management Commission. The membership will be chaired by the Speaker or, in his or her absence, the Deputy Speaker. The Clerk of this House of Assembly will act as the secretary, but shall not have a vote. The Government House Leader and the Opposition House Leader will sit on the commission. Two members of the government caucus will sit on the commission now, and that is a change. One shall be a member of the Executive Council, that is the Cabinet, and one shall not be. One member of the Official Opposition caucus shall also serve on the commission, and one member, if any, from a third party that is a registered political party. So now the third party in this House, at least the third party up to now, I should say, will now be represented on the Internal Economy Commission. I am sure that all members of this House feel that is appropriate.

Mr. Speaker, all meetings of the commission will now be open to the public, except for personnel matters, except for legal matters, except for matters protected by privacy and data protection, and except for Budget deliberations. The substance of all decisions of the commission must be recorded, and clearly recorded, in the minutes and placed on a Web site, placed on the House of Assembly's Web site.

That will now make the proceedings of the Internal Economy Commission more transparent, more open and more accountable.

The commission has a number of duties. The commission is there to look after, and to be responsible for, the operation of this House of Assembly.

Section 20 sets out the duties and the responsibilities of the commission. The commission is responsible for the financial stewardship of all public money that may be voted for use in the House of Assembly.

The commission, in particular, is required, in 20.(1) (e), to "make and to keep current rules respecting the proper administration of allowances for members and reimbursement and payment of their expenditures in implementation of subsection 11(2) of..." the legislation, which I will refer to shortly.

There is an interesting clause here, Mr. Speaker, in 20.(3) which says, "...the financial and management policies of the government shall apply to the House of Assembly and statutory offices except to the extent that they may be modified by directive of the commission."

That ensures that there is a set of rules in effect. If the House of Assembly Management Commission fails to make rules in a certain area, the rules of the government shall apply until modified and amended by a director from the commission.

It is also important to note, Mr. Speaker, that a change shall not be made in the level of amounts of allowances and resources provided to the members of this House except in accordance with a rule that has been made by the Management Commission, and that rule shall not be effective, Mr. Speaker - and this is extremely interesting - the rule that will govern the operation of those of us in the House of Assembly, a particular rule, will not be effective unless that rule is first brought before this House of Assembly and a resolution adopting it by this House of Assembly has, in fact, been passed.

That will make these rules certainly transparent and open to the people of the Province.

Mr. Speaker, the Management Commission of the House of Assembly will be aided by, for the first time in our history, by an audit committee. The audit committee shall consist of two members chosen by the commission: one of whom shall not be a member of the government party, and the two other members of the commission shall be chosen by the Chief Justice of Newfoundland and Labrador. These will be people who are residents of the Province but who have a demonstrated knowledge and experience in financial matters and are suitable to represent the public interests.

That will bring to the commission an expertise in financial matters, an expertise in accountability, an expertise in internal controls and audits, that previously was not necessarily available.

Mr. Speaker, I will now refer to Part II of the act. The act is divided into seven parts. Part I deals with the composition of the House of Assembly, its officers, the oaths or affirmations that they take. Part III that I dealt with is the House of Assembly Management Commission. Part II deals with payments to members. Part IV deals with the House of Assembly's operations. Part V deals with ethics and accountability. Part VI deals with whistle-blower legislation, disclosure of public interest. Part VII deals again with rules, giving the commission the authority to make rules. Part VIII is a consequential amendments section, which repeals the House of Assembly Act. I am sorry, it repeals the Internal Economy Commission Act and other relevant legislation which was replaced by this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I will just refer briefly to Part II of the act which talks about payments to members. This clearly sets out in legislation what the salary of a Member of the House of Assembly is going to be. That was always a difficult question. A Member of the House of Assembly, what were they paid? You had to look at a number of different areas, but now the salaries paid to the MHAs are set out in the legislation. The salaries paid to the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, the Deputy Chair of Committees, are all clearly set out in the legislation. That means, Mr. Speaker, that if there is going to be a change it has to come into this House, it has to be debated in this House before the cameras and in full sight of the people of this Province. Any changes in salary will have to be justified to the people of this Province. Mr. Speaker, I know we all agree that is a good thing.

Mr. Speaker, members are required to attend all sittings, and their pay will be deducted by $200 a day if they do not appear, unless they can provide a very valid reason. There are exceptions, of course, for ministers and so on.

No adjustment can take place to those salaries, no adjustment can take place in any additional non-accountable allowance. An additional non-accountable allowance cannot be created except in response to a member's compensation review and except in response to an amendment of a bill in the House with the votes of first, second and third reading taking place on three consecutive days.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation -

AN HON. MEMBER: Wonderful legislation.

MR. T. MARSHALL: This wonderful piece of legislation has been introduced, has been recommended by the Green report, Chief Justice Green, and I think it is important that this is a first step in the renewal, to renew public confidence in the institution of this House of Assembly and in the Members of the House of Assembly who, as I indicated earlier, the majority of which are dedicated to their Province, they are dedicated to their communities, they are dedicated to this House of Assembly and this legislation will help them to perform their duties and perform their services in a transparent and accountable manner and in the public interest to the people of this Province.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I will move second reading of this legislation.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate an opportunity to have a few words with respect to Bill 33. The end product, I should say, or one of the end products of the report that has been filed by Chief Justice Green and his committee, called Rebuilding Confidence, which was made public in this Province last Thursday. This, of course, will set the groundwork and the foundation as to how the House of Assembly, the Members of the House of Assembly and the staff and so on and the financial procedures associated with the House of Assembly will be operated on a go-forward basis.

I would like to begin by thanking Judge Green and his committee for their extensive - in fact, exhaustive, informative and far-reaching report. It is a job well done. I am very pleased as well to see that the committee took time to meet with anyone or any group that wanted to have input into this matter. He just did not go do, of his own volition, what he felt he wanted to do. He was very courteous. He made sure that the committee made itself available to anybody, particularly the MHAs and the various caucuses who wanted to have any input in any way whatsoever into his committee.

There is no doubt, of course, that we need to have a good foundation. We need to have good rules, and Judge Green, true to form, of course, has made it very detailed, has made it very comprehensive for that very reason. That in the future everything will be absolutely open, transparent and, most importantly I believe, accountable. There will be accountability here - it is fine to have a system, but there is no point in a system that you cannot account for it and you cannot let the people know and the public - particularly in this case, where we are all servants of the public - know what you are doing, how you are doing it, what are the rules you play by, and make sure that you do play it by the rules. That is what this will do on a go-forward basis.

I would also like to take this opportunity, not only to thank the Chief Justice for what is culminated in Bill 33, but to see some of the things that were done before the report even came out and was even made public, because I think the IEC has, in and of its own volition, taken some proper directions. The former Minister of Health, the Member for Topsail, was on the IEC since the Administration changed in 2003, as was myself and the current Minister of Finance has been a member of it, and the Government House Leader. I have seen some pretty extensive changes in that short time that were taken, even without the direction of Chief Justice Green, and that was good to see.

For example, the staffing arrangements are quite different. There are, I would now believe, more staff, more efficient operations in the sense that you are not shorthanded. There is not one person or two people who are entrusted with doing everything. There are more people there to do the work that needs to be done from a staffing perspective.

Also, the financial checks and balances that are needed. They are far more comprehensive now than they ever were before, and will be even more so now once Bill 33 becomes law and the controls are there. I think the Speaker and his staff need to be commended for doing that. They took a lot of self direction in that regard. Of course, anything they have done will be complemented by what Chief Justice Green has recommended.

The IEC, I also take pleasure in being a part of it. In fact, I moved the motion in the IEC - which, I see, Chief Justice Green has included in his report - some weeks ago that the IEC meetings should be public. If the media want to come in, if any citizen of this Province or world wants to come into an IEC meeting and see what is going on and know what the discussions are, know what the issues are, hear the arguments and the rationale as to why you go in one direction or another, the public now will be able to do that. That was very good to see. That recommendation, again, has been adopted by Commissioner Green as well - and everything will be transcribed.

The Minister of Finance raised the issue of minutes, they probably were more vague than they ought to have been and did not convey the proper meanings or ideas and reflect the discussions even. I can say, again of my own experience in the last two or three years on the IEC, that they are certainly a lot more comprehensive now. Members insist, of course, if you say something and you want it recorded, it gets records. That is good to see, so that not only today but tomorrow, anytime that anyone wants to go back and understand why a decision was made, it will be properly reflected in those minutes. Now, of course, you still have to respect privacy rights. People have privacy rights in this Province and in this county, that, of course, if you are discussing an issue, you sometimes cannot discuss a person's name openly. It would not be appropriate to do that, but that does not take away from the need to still have the proper due diligence done when it comes to discussing the issues. You can discuss the issues, record it properly, have the accountability properly without, at the same time, compromising anybody's privacy rights. So, that will be done.

It is good to see as well - and again, propose that everything an MHA claims for, should be and will be posted on-line. If you are spending public taxpayers' money and you are going to spend it, why not put it on-line? If I am going to be, for example, in my own district travelling from Port aux Basques to Burgeo, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what the kilometres are and to know what the milage rate is that is appropriate. If I have to stay down there over night or whatever and you charge a hotel, everybody knows where you stay and submit a bill to properly claim for that. What is the problem if everybody in this Province or world knows that I stayed at Gillet's Motel for a night and paid whatever the fee was, as long as I documented it and they know that? It came out of public funds. They ought to have a right to know. So, it is good to see that is going to be in there as well, which was proposed by the Opposition again, and Chief Justice Green has taken that into his recommendations.

It is good to see the access to information act is going to apply. Before, the House of Assembly operated as a power unto itself. That was one of the problems, it was separated from normal controls and financial controls and checks and balances. In future, if anybody wants to get access to the information, the law of access to freedom and freedom of information will be applicable to the House of Assembly, the same as it is to anybody else and any other department of government, and so it should be. I see Chief Justice Green has accepted that recommendation as well, and put it into his report.

Now, there is no doubt, that even though this House of Assembly - I do not think there is going to be any opposition from anybody as to the passing of this piece of legislation today, nor should it be, nor should there be any opposition to the passing of it. I do not think anybody in this House, or outside of this House, has any problem with what Chief Justice Green has recommended and feels that it is necessary.

There is no doubt, as well, that albeit, Bill 33 will pass and become law today, or in the near future. There is no doubt, as well, that there is still certain little tweaking, shall we say, that has to be done in terms of implementation. There are some things that must need to be done. I understand, again, there has been a good rapport with Chief Justice Green in arriving at that decision in terms of implementation, and so it should be. It is good to see. I understand he met, as recently as this morning, with some representatives of all three caucuses represented in this House and answered any questions and concerns they had and so on. So, it is good to see that rapport continues, albeit he has submitted his report, and whatever needs to be done will be done, must be done and it will be done in such a way that it is proper and that, no doubt, there will not be anything done that does not meet with the approval and consent of Chief Justice Green and his committee. It is good to see that we have reached this point.

We, certainly, in the Official Opposition will be voting in favour of Bill 33. Probably one of the toughest things for anybody to do, no matter what job or line of work you are in, is to police yourself, and that is exactly what was missing here. It became quite obvious with some of the revelations that came into being in the past year or so that the policing with respect to the House of Assembly matters and MHAs was not sufficient. For that reason we needed Chief Justice Green's commission into this matter, and his recommendations that he has brought forward.

We, Mr. Speaker, will be voting in favour of this bill. We realize that it is going to take a little bit of time in terms of implementation of some things, but principally most everything, shall we say, the pith and substance of what the Chief Justice has recommended is here.

I understand, in fact, that even the rules piece that he recommended, we will be seeing an amendment come forward here today so that even the rules that he suggested, the very detailed, specific rules as to what you can and cannot do, and how you record it and so on, that will be introduced here today as well as part of this bill, a schedule to this bill, and so it should be.

I can say to the Government House Leader right now that, on the understanding that amendment is coming forward, we will certainly be in favour of that. As far as we can see there will not be any need for detailed discussions or whatever in Committee with respect to enforcing and having those rules become a part of this bill as well.

It is a good first step. It is a big step. It is a major step. It is necessary.

In conclusion, I can just say that we over here will unanimously be supporting this piece of legislation as well.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased to stand today and to speak, obviously, in favour of this bill. I would like to add my own word of thanks to Chief Justice Green and to all of those who worked with him in his role as commissioner, for the tremendous work that they did for this detailed comprehensive report of, I think, 1,300 pages, and for even going to the nth degree of putting together draft legislation and draft rules and regulations to accompany the legislation.

I think that was much more than any of us expected when Chief Justice Green was given the task that he was given, but I am sure all of my colleagues in the House would agree with me that I think he has done a tremendous service to the House of Assembly and to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador by taking the time to do what he did.

We have all had time to go through the draft legislation, the draft regulations and the report. We have had it in our hands - well, as MHAs, we have had it in our hands for a week. I will not profess to have read every word of the report yet. I am still making my way through the report. I have read most of it, but I have read every word of the legislation. I have read the recommendations, and I have read through the draft regulations. I have to say that I feel very confident that what the Chief Justice has put together is going to go about setting us on a good path as parliamentarians in this Province.

When I got elected, which was only the fall of 2006, the House was already dealing with the issue that made this piece of work something that had to be done. The report on overspending by Members of the House of Assembly had come down in June 2006 and I had already, at that point, made my decision, as a future politician, that I was going to run for a seat in the House because I had become Leader of the New Democratic Party. I have to say, my heart sunk somewhat when this issue came to light in June 2006 and I thought, what have I gotten myself into? I will be quite honest.

Then, when I did become elected as an MHA and went through my orientation when I first came into the House, I was even more dismayed when I realized, to put it in layperson's language, how loosely the administration of the House was conducted. When I went through my orientation, I expected to get things on paper, especially things around finances and administration. At that point, I think there finally was a Minute that was produced that could show me what the decisions were with regard to the money that I was going to get, but I did not even feel confident with knowing where it came from, and why I was getting what I was getting.

I think we all acknowledge, and if we read Justice Green's report he says the same thing, that over the years the House, in some ways, had slipped into, I guess, again, to put it in layperson's language, sloppy administration. It was a systemic problem, a serious systemic problem. As with all systemic problems, individuals get caught up in the systemic mess and things happen simply because the system is now operating in a certain way. That is not an excuse, for anybody who is listening from the public, that is not an excuse for me to say that. That is to say that very often with systemic problems and with systemic issues, you can't at any one time start blaming individuals for the way things are. You have to recognize the whole system has to change.

This is the wonderful task that the Chief Justice took on, and the service that he has rendered to the House of Assembly and to the people of this Province is that he has created for us the structure and the framework that will give us systemic change, that will make things change radically in the House of Assembly. That really does make me feel good, as a member of the House of Assembly and as somebody, along with my colleagues, who wants everything in this House to be aboveboard, who wants everything in this House to be open and transparent. I want everything that I do to show accountability to the people who elected me and to the people of the Province, whether they elected me or not. I think that is what we all want in this House of Assembly. This is what Chief Justice Green is now giving us the opportunity to do.

There is a bit of an irony, and I think we should acknowledge it, that one of the things Chief Justice Green mentions in his report is the fact that sometimes legislation may get passed very quickly in the House, and sometimes quick passage of legislation can lead to things happening inadvertently, decisions getting made and after the fact recognizing, oh, yeah, well maybe we weren't on top of that when the decision was made. I have seen some of that in going through some records with regard to the House.

Here we are today passing, what may seem to the public to be rather quickly, the new legislation with regard to the House of Assembly. I think what we are all recognizing here today - and this is what I would like the public to understand from my perspective - having read carefully what Chief Justice Green and his team have put together, is that we have a piece of legislation that is very demanding. We have draft regulations that are going to be appended as a schedule to this piece of legislation, and these regulations are very demanding. The difference between this bill and this set of regulations that is in front of us this afternoon is that none of us in this House of Assembly, none of the ministers, none of the departments, not one person in this House, has had responsibility for putting this piece of legislation together. It has been put together by the commission. I think by our being able today to say that we can stand and support this legislation, and accept the schedule that is going to be attached to the legislation, what we are saying is that we recognize the ultimate third-party objectivity of the commission in putting the legislation and the draft regulations together.

For anybody who has had a chance, other than us, to go through the legislation and the regulations and read it carefully, I think everybody out there who is watching us, and everybody in here, will have to agree that nothing, no stone was left unturned by Chief Justice Green and his team. I think that is what has impressed me. That is why I can stand here confidently before the people of the Province and say that I think when we pass this piece of legislation, when we accept the regulations that go with it, and the process that will be put in place, we are creating something that could become a model for other legislation across Canada.

From here on in, every time there is a discussion of the House of Assembly with regard to our finances, anybody in the Province will be able to listen to what is being said and to understand why a decision is being made. No matter what we have to say with regard to finances, with regard to how we get reimbursed with regard to the expenditures, the expenses that we have to expend, and why we need to be reimbursed for that, all of that will be wide open.

That will do a couple of things, of course. In purely human terms we will make sure that we are not going to be wanting anything, or doing anything, or saying anything, that would cause us embarrassment. In pure human terms, we are not going to want that as MHAs. On a higher, ethical level it means that we are willing to have everything that we say and think, almost, be out there for public scrutiny.

I think we all should be proud of the fact that we wanted this type of report. We should be proud of the fact that we wanted the process to happen. There was nobody in this House who did not think that we should have a public inquiry. We all realized that had to happen, that there was nothing else that could be called for after last June but a public inquiry. I think the fact that each of the three parties in the House, and every individual in the House, believed that is proof to people out there that, when it comes right down to it, we are people who want what is good and what is right.

I do not think we will ever be able to - I don't know how to put it. We can apologize. Those who have been part of the system can apologize to the public that things went the way that they went and that we came to the systemic mess that we came to, but we did, and all we can do now is move forward. With this tremendous piece of legislation we will be able to move forward and I feel very, very confident about that as a member of this House.

One of the things that I have done, I do not know if anybody else bothered to do it, and I have not done it completely, but I have compared the draft legislation with the legislation that has been presented to us in the House to see if what we are passing is exactly the same as what Chief Justice Green recommended.

I have made it through, I think there are a few pages I have not managed to finish, but, for my sake, I am happy to report, if it means anything to anybody else, that if there are any changes -there are some word changes, but the changes that I have found are only clarifications, examples where the phrase that was used in the draft may not have been quite clear enough or was not quite accurate and that the new draft has just clarified. In some cases, one sentence being broken up into two, just to say - the public out there is looking for this.

As a matter of fact, one of the newspapers, in an editorial, I think it was, said, when the report came out, that they will be looking at the new legislation and going through it word for word, comparing it with the draft that Chief Justice Green put forward, and they will be wanting to see if we are passing exactly what Chief Justice Green intends us to pass.

I am very happy to say that I can stand here confidently today, as an MHA, and say to ourselves and to say to the public who are watching us, and to those who will be reporting on us, that, in my opinion, there is absolutely no intent from Chief Justice Green's draft legislation that has been changed in the legislation that is on this Table. I feel absolutely confident of that, and I feel very good about it

I think people need to have that assurance. They need to know that, and if there are media outlets out there who are going to do what I did and they come up with something different I will be very, very surprised; because, as I said, the edits that were made were edits - in one case, in actual fact, corrections to what was in Chief Justice Green's draft legislation.

There is one place in his legislation where twice the wrong number is used in referring to a previous section, and the new legislation corrects that and makes sure that the correct section is being referred to.

So, the Department of Finance, in putting together the new legislation, certainly went through every word of the draft legislation to make sure that it was absolutely correct and understandable and clear, and I think we should be very, very proud of that.

There are a couple of things that I would like to talk about, because I think it is something that is going to cause confusion for people initially. I do not know if confusion is the word - maybe disappointment - but I do want to talk about it as an MHA.

One is the fact that MHAs will no longer be able to use constituency allowance to make charitable donations, as MHAs, from that constituency allowance. There are adjustments made to the constituency allowances, I think, recognizing that, and I think it is extremely important that those adjustments were made.

Now, people have become used to MHAs making those charitable donations. As a matter of fact, and I do not mind saying this, I actually have had somebody who asked me for a donation and I was not prepared, either if I were allowed as an MHA, because I did not think it was appropriate to make a donation, or even as an individual to make the donation, not to that particular cause. Because the money was coming out of my own pocket, I think carefully about the money that I donate. The person actually said to me that the person was extremely disappointed, that person had voted for me in my by-election and would not vote for me again.

I had to say to that person: Well, that is the way it is. You do not understand why I will not donate to this cause. I am sorry. That is the way it goes.

Some of us may have to go through that. People out there are asking us to be accountable, so now they must understand that part of that accountability is, we just do not do this any more. If somebody comes to me now with a request or comes to anybody else with a request, I can make that donation as an individual, as Lorraine Michael; not Lorraine Michael MHA, not Lorraine Michael, Leader of the NDP, but Lorraine Michael, and there can be no public recognition that I, as MHA or I, as Leader of the NDP, made that donation. You know, people should be happy about that. They should not beat us up because of it. They are going to have to accept the fact that we have to make decisions about how we spend our money. Therefore, we are not going to be able to donate to every single cause because we are going to be paying out of our own pockets. While the donations that were being made before from the constituency allowances were worthwhile donations, that is not the issue. MHAs were permitted - and what they did was not illegal. They were permitted to make those donations and the donations went to good causes, but that is not going to happen anymore. People need to understand that and need to understand the reasoning behind it, and I hope that they will. It makes all the sense in the world.

Now, one of the things that MHAs used the constituency allowance for, I think, were sometimes for things that government programs should be covering, but because government programs were not comprehensive enough, MHAs were helping out people. Helping out people with medical travel, for example; helping out family members who needed to travel. I know of MHAs who have done that, using constituency allowance. On one level that is not a bad thing, but on another level it begs the question: Is the program for medical travel adequate enough? Why should an MHA have to come up with money for that? Why should an MHA have to come up with money for a hungry family? Our Income Assistance Program should be meeting the needs of a hungry family.

I think this is a moment for us to think about: What was it that some of the constituency allowances were being used for, and was it appropriate? If it was not, why wasn't it? If it is because the constituency allowances sometimes were being used to make up for deficiencies in our own government programs, then it becomes a fact of saying: Well, what is it that the money was going towards and what now in government can replace that? So, money going towards, for example, sports teams to go somewhere. Well, if we do not have enough money in our government programs to help sports teams, maybe that is what we need to look at. So, this is going to change a whole lot of things in terms of the relationship between MHAs and their constituents, but I think in a good way.

I ask all of those out there who are watching us, the people in our Province, when they know and they hear we have passed this legislation, when they hear that there are new regulations, I hope that they will understand when some of the decisions not only impact us as MHAs, but the decisions also impact them, and that they understand the impact, why it is happening and why the changes are in place.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I will draw my comments to a close. There is just one other thing I would like to comment on before I do that. I am so pleased that the report recommends and the legislation demands compliance audits.

For the sake of those watching who may not know the term compliance audits, it means an audit that is done of the spending which shows that money is being spent on what it is supposed to be spent on. It is not how much is spent, but is the spending of money complying to all the rules and regulations? You can take a spreadsheet and you can do a financial audit and look at money that is going out and money that is coming in and make sure that all the receipts are there, et cetera, and you can say: Oh, that looks good, everything is in good shape. But, you also need to ask: Well, was that person supposed to spend $40,000? The person may have spent $40,000, all the receipts are there and everything looks okay, but if I was not supposed to spend $40,000, then there is something wrong. So that is what the compliance audit does. This is something that has been missing. Not only did we have periods of time when there were not even financial audits done, but we did not have compliance audits being done. Compliance audits are what is going to keep everything above board and honest and operating correctly. I am very pleased that every - I think the recommendation is and the legislation says, that throughout every General Assembly there will be at least one compliance audit done. That will be extremely important in helping with keeping things accountable and transparent.

I do thank the Speaker for the opportunity to speak to this legislation. I am very proud of what we are doing here in our Province. I look forward to voting a big, aye for this legislation, along with the schedule of regulations that will be attached to it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS E. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am pleased to be able to say a few words about Bill 33.

As we all know, Bill 33 was the result of Chief Justice Derek Green's review of the constituency allowances and other matters, Mr. Speaker. We all know that Chief Justice Green, the Commission, was appointed after there were a number of irregularities detected with regard to the financial activities of the House of Assembly which went back over a number of years.

I would like to make probably one personal observation here, Mr. Speaker, and that is that when the Auditor General was removed from the House of Assembly back in 2000 I never could have looked forward to and anticipated that I would be a member of the House of Assembly that would be enacting new legislation to correct some of the wrongs that have been made in the past. Mr. Speaker, I am very, very pleased to be able to stand here today and speak to this legislation.

The legislation, Mr. Speaker, does a number of things. As some of the other members in the House of Assembly have already indicated, it results in new rules for members of the House of Assembly. There is also new legislation governing the activities of the House of Assembly.

Something that is probably of interest to many members of the public, is that it establishes the salaries of the members of the House of Assembly, so, of course, everybody in the public can see exactly what the salaries are. We will be able to track them when they are changed.

It also provides detailed rules that govern the provision of allowances to members of the House of Assembly.

In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, probably the most important aspect of the new legislation is that it provides transparency, openness and accountability to the House of Assembly, and probably for the first time ever.

Mr. Speaker, I did see Chief Justice Green this morning and didn't have the opportunity to thank him and the other members of the Commission for the work they have done, but I would like to thank them here now while I am speaking.

I have had an opportunity to go through the report, the appendices, the legislation and the rules. The one thing that strikes me, Mr. Speaker, regarding the work of the Commission is the amount of detail. If you go through the legislation, for example, the legislation is extremely, extremely detailed. I think that one of the reasons why it is there in such detail is that there is some support there to ensure that we don't stray from our legislation and our rules in the future.

I will not repeat some of the comments that some of the other Members of the House of Assembly spoke to, but there are a number of areas in the legislation which are of specific interest to me and which I would like to refer to, Mr. Speaker. I would like to mention those few areas and then I will give somebody else an opportunity to speak.

The first point I would like to talk about, Mr. Speaker, is the new House of Assembly Management Commission. The legislation provides a lot of detail with regard to the new committee, how it is going to function, who is going to be on the committee, Mr. Speaker. As I said, the legislation is very detailed. The composition is very detailed. It indicates who is going to serve. It indicates that the meetings will be very open. There are minutes going to be tabled in the House of Assembly. We are going to get past the past practices of the meetings being held behind closed doors where people are not aware of what is happening, so there will be quite a bit of openness with regard to this new committee.

The audit regime is of special interest to me, Mr. Speaker, because of my previous role as Auditor General. Of course, now the legislation is very strict with regard to the number of audits that are going to be done. Before I get into the details of the audit sections in the legislation, Mr. Speaker, I think that the public out there, and all Members of the House of Assembly, can rest assured that there will be sufficient audit activity ongoing with regard to what is happening within the House of Assembly.

There are a number of strict requirements. There is a provision there for the Auditor General to carry out audits. There is also provision there for private sector auditors, but it contemplates a number of audits and it also contemplates a number of different kind of audits. There is provision there for financial statement audits. There is a requirement there for compliance audit, and I know that the Leader of the NDP Party did indicate that there will be a compliance audit, that there will be a requirement that there has to be at least one compliance audit for every session of the House of Assembly.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, in addition to all of the prescribed requirements that audits be carried out, Mr. Speaker, there is also provision in there that the Auditor General can take it upon himself or herself, whenever they wish, to carry out additional audits.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

MS E. MARSHALL: The Auditor General plays a very significant role in this legislation, but I do not want to forget another important position, and that is the position of Comptroller General. Many of us are not intimately familiar with that position, but effectively what the Comptroller General does, Mr Speaker, that person is responsible for making payments out of the Treasury.

I know that when the legislation was amended a number of years ago it disallowed the Comptroller General access to documents that he or she would require in order to ensure that the disbursements of public money were valid disbursements.

There is a section now in the new legislation which indicates that the Comptroller General will now have access to the documents that he or she requires before they effectively make the cheque out and release the cheque.

One of the other new areas of the new legislation, Mr. Speaker, is that it requires that there be an audit committee of the House of Assembly. This is something I do not recall seeing in any other legislation governing Houses of Assembly across the country, but it now requires that there be an audit committee put in place for the operations of the House of Assembly. The legislation is also very prescriptive in that it indicates who is going to sit on the audit committee.

One of the interesting things is that the audit committee is going to have four members, but two of those members are going to be lay people. I think, Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent idea because it opens up the House of Assembly, really, to representatives of the general public.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, with regard to the new audit committee, the roles and responsibilities are defined in detail. It indicates how often they have to meet. I believe, Mr. Speaker, it is four times a year. It has to report regularly to the commission. Probably the most striking thing about the audit committee, Mr. Speaker, is that its report, its advice and its recommendations, while they have to go forward to the Internal Economy Management Commission, it also has to be made public so that all members of the public are aware of what the audit committee feels about what is going on within the House of Assembly.

The information on salaries, which I briefly mentioned earlier, is that the salary of all the MHAs is now set in legislation, so the dollar amount is there. In order for the salary to change, the legislation will have to change.

In addition to the salary of MHAs being set in legislation, if there are members - there are Members in the House of Assembly who hold additional responsibilities, like the Opposition House Leader, the Government House Leader, the Chair of Public Accounts. I think, Mr. Speaker, there are probably maybe about a dozen different positions. The additional stipend that is provided to those members for carrying out those roles, those amounts are also prescribed in legislation. If those amounts are changed, especially if they are increased, it requires a change in the legislation, Mr. Speaker.

One of the interesting things about changes in the legislation, Mr. Speaker, is that if we were to go back and change, for example, the salary, the dollar of the salaries or the stipends, that this cannot all be done in one day. I believe that was done in the past, where there were changes made in one day and there was not adequate public disclosure. Now it requires that first reading, second reading and third reading all have to happen on different days. This provides a greater opportunity for public disclosure, and I think that is an excellent idea.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, the new detailed rules were also prescribed by Justice Green. These are laid out in the report and these also have been tabled here today in the House of Assembly. Really, that is a starting point for the Members of the House of Assembly and for the Internal Economy Management Commission, that these are starting rules. Of course, the commission, if they follow a certain process they may change the rules, but the approval process is something that has to be very open and it has to be made public. Also, any changes in the rules, which are made by the commission, have to come forward to the House of Assembly in a public forum for ratification.

Mr. Speaker, I will just sum up now and give somebody else an opportunity to speak.. Basically, what we have is new legislation, we have new rules, but, really, Mr. Speaker, this is a first step. So, it is an opportunity for us now to put the past behind us. It is a new first step and there is a new structure in place. We have a lot of work ahead of us. For example, we need a new code of conduct. There is provision in the legislation for a code of conduct for Members of the House of Assembly. This code of conduct has yet to be developed. A lot of the information that is required to be made public - at the present time there are not adequate systems and procedures in place, and this will have to be developed over the coming months.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, it is a fresh start. With this legislation, I truly feel that the House of Assembly will become more open, more transparent, and more accountable.

For myself, Mr. Speaker, on a personal note, I am very, very pleased to be sitting in this House of Assembly when this legislation is being enacted and I am looking forward to participating over the coming months to ensure that it is fully implemented.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am rising to have a few words on this bill, Bill 33. This is a bill, of course, as already been indicated, that looks at the standards of conduct for elected members and the ethical and accountable behaviour of those particular members.

Mr. Speaker, this is the act by which everyone of us, as MHAs in Newfoundland and Labrador, will govern ourselves in terms of carrying out the business as a Member of the House of Assembly, within our districts and outside of our districts.

Mr. Speaker, this particular piece of work is very thorough. It is quite obvious that Chief Justice Derek Green, in undertaking the work that he was asked to do, he did so, not only with tremendous diligence but also with tremendous detail as he looked at each and every aspect of the travel, of the allowances, of the job descriptions, of everything that was required of an MHA to do their duty to their constituents and to the House of Assembly. In doing so, he not only gave us a framework in terms of the legislation by which we would govern ourselves in accordance, but he also outlined many of the rules and regulations that should be attached to this framework that would comprise the real policy and the real rules under which each of us would operate as a member of the Legislature.

Bill 33, of course, evolved in Newfoundland and Labrador as a result of a number of events that have taken place over the past year. Some of those events, rather unfortunate, are still under investigation and we are all quite aware of that. There are many other events that were being triggered as a part of that investigation which have somewhat been resolved.

Mr. Speaker, as part of this particular bill, one of the things that is being looked at here is setting up, not only a code of conduct and ethics for Members of the House of Assembly to ensure that we not only say there is openness and transparency and accountability, but it is to ensure that, indeed, that is the case. As this code of conduct and ethics for members passes through the House of Assembly and is enacted into law, we will certainly never have doubts in terms of what we are eligible to do or not eligible to do in the future.

I guess myself, like many other members, got elected to the Legislature and came to work here and was given an orientation as to what was required, what the procedures of the House of Assembly would be and, very basically, what your constituency allowance was and what you could do under that allowance. Mr. Speaker, that was as much of an orientation as I ever received in this place. While there were rules, I guess, and regulations under which we governed ourselves, those rules and regulations were very broad and often open to interpretation. One of the things that we were told was to seek guidance from individuals who were officers of the House of Assembly, and we did seek that guidance, Mr. Speaker. Whether that guidance was inappropriate in the eyes of the public or not, it was the guidance that we were given, and it was the guidance under which we operated as members of this Legislature.

Mr. Speaker, in the future there will be a somewhat different process. It is quite obvious that the Speaker of the House of Assembly will assume more of a dominant role in terms of ensuring that the conduct and ethics of members are met, and the requirements by which we have to live are met. That responsibility will fall, to a certain degree, to the Speaker of the Assembly as well.

Mr. Speaker, there will also be a new management board set up. This management board, while it operates under a different name, is very reflective of the work that was done by the Internal Economy Commission of the House of Assembly. I want to just talk about a couple of examples for a minute. It was under the Internal Economy Commission of the House of Assembly, of which the previous speaker, the Member for Topsail, was a member, that they had approved a rate or per diem to MHAs of $2,800, if everybody will recall. That money was approved through the legislative body, through the IEC, and members took that money. Whether you took it believing you should have it or not have it, it was allowable and it was paid out. Mr. Speaker, later, after being reported by the Auditor General, members were required to repay that money. Even though it was approved under the Internal Economy Commission and it was considered to be an allowable payment to members, members were asked to repay it. Now, to my knowledge, all members of the House of Assembly would have now paid their $2,800. If not, I would advise you to pay it before the Auditor General reports on the House of Assembly again, unless you want to have yourself appear in th Auditor General's report.

Mr. Speaker, that was the process and I hope that under the new management regime that Justice Derek Green has outlined that we will not find ourselves in positions like that again. Hopefully we can trust that when the new management commission makes decisions regarding MHAs and sets rules and policies as per expenditure, and when we live by those rules and policies, that we will not, Mr. Speaker, be persecuted because of it. That is a concern for me, because if there is a process in place, whatever that process may be, I am prepared to follow it, but I want to make sure that in following it I am doing the appropriate thing, and later won't be rapped on the knuckles for following the rules and regulations that have been outlined.

Mr. Speaker, we have seen incidents like that, that have happened, and that is the reason we have this Commission today; also so that we have tighter controls in terms of how our allowance expenditures are carried out, to ensure that we do not have mistakes like double billing which was an incident that was raised with regard to members in the House of Assembly. It is easy to make mistakes. It is easy to have an incorrection or an error in a claim. When you have no one watching that process and having an accountability mechanism in place in that process, it is very easy to have those legitimate errors. I think that any persons who were affected have since rectified those problems and settled their differences in terms of whatever that result was with the House of Assembly. There may be other incidents in the past. We are not all perfect. We are just human beings and often times we will make mistakes as well.

I think that having those accountability measures in place is going to be not only of greater comfort to the public but I think it is going to be of greater comfort to all of us as MHAs as well, so that when we carry out the work in our districts and do our work as members of the House of Assembly, we are doing it knowing that there is not only openness and transparency but there is full accountability, not only by ourselves but by others who are charged with that responsibility as well. I think that gives all of us a greater deal of comfort, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, let's talk about the ethics piece for just a moment, because there are a number of things in this bill that speak to the conduct of members and the ethics of members. One of the things that the Chief Justice is recommending is that there be no more donations given out by MHAs, and despite what I wrote in my survey, Mr. Speaker, that I wanted to continue to give donations - I will admit it - I am prepared to live by the recommendations that the Chief Justice have laid out for us. I understand his rationale behind it, I understanding his reasoning behind it and I am more than willing to accept that, as I have told him personally myself.

Mr. Speaker, this is were I have a problem. Even though we are not permitted to give donations as part of our MHA constituency allowances, that extends to our own personal funds as well. This morning, in a briefing with the commissioner, with the Chief Justice, I asked for clarification on that, because if I walk into a fundraising event in my district that I am invited to as the MHA for that district I am not permitted to, out of my own pocket, make a donation. I am not permitted. I am not permitted to make any donation out of my own pocket in which it could be perceived that it is coming from me as the MHA for the district.

Mr. Speaker, that is an important rule that members should be aware of because it is very easily - and I know, because every member here is not unlike I am. You go to functions in your district, you attend every possible function that you can as the MHA, and oftentimes they are going to come up to you, as the member, and say: Would you like to contribute to this or contribute to that. We have to be very careful that we are not being perceived as contributing as a member for that particular district.

Mr. Speaker, this is where I have the problem under that conduct and ethics rule. I want to indicate this, because I did indicate this to the Chief Justice this morning. If a minister of the Crown, however, walks into a festival in this Province, or walks into an event in this Province, even if it is in their own district, a Minister of the Crown is still permitted to make that donation on behalf of the government. It is government money, but as the member for the district and a minister of the Crown, they are still going to be handing out money. For example, is it fair that if the Minister of Tourism has a grant to give out to a district in Conception Bay, to a function, and he cannot make it that he says to the Member for Conception Bay, you can present the cheque on behalf of government? Is that ethical? I asked the Chief Justice this, because in my mind it is not ethical. If we have to follow a code of ethics as members of the House of Assembly, it should apply to monies of the Crown being passed out by ministers to MHAs to have presented as well.

The Chief Justice, although he indicated it was outside of the realm which he could report on, he did indicate that maybe the government might want to consider a code of ethics for their Cabinet ministers when it comes to that kind of stuff. They said, if, for example, the Minister of Fisheries is giving a fisheries grant to the district of Bonavista North and he says to the Member for Bonavista North, you can take this cheque and pass it out at this function in your district, is that ethical? Well in the minds of most people, it is unethical and it should not be done.

Unless it is going to apply to all members of the House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker, so that even in the Opposition members will be given an opportunity to do that, then it should apply to none. That is a concern that I have, because if we are going to do this fairly and it is going to be open and equitable to all members then that needs to be clarified. That can be clarified by the government, I say, in terms of what they require in that particular process.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of other issues that I want to speak to, and I think Judge Green has definitely left open a number of options for us, because if you read in his report that he submitted, under section 10.35, he indicated very strongly, Mr. Speaker, that all of the recommendations he is outlining in the rules and regulatory piece may not be sufficient or well suited to every single district. For example, I looked at my colleague's district, the Member for The Straits & White Bay North, and in the travel budget that was being suggested for that member I can certainly agree with him that it is not adequate for him to do his work as a Member of the House of Assembly. Those kinds of issues, Justice Green said will be open to review by the Commission that will be established as part of the House of Assembly, and individually we should make our cases to that Commission if we have problems with things like the number of trips that we can make to our district or if we have any problems with the things that are allocated in terms of inter-provincial travel.

Mr. Speaker, in his report, under section 10.35, he did indicate - and this is what he said: Where a strong case can be made in respect of individual districts that an amount is not adequate or is based on wrong assumptions it would be open to the Commission on application by a member to amend the amounts according in accordance with procedures governing its operation. Mr. Speaker, while the Chief Justice in his deliberations and his work has given us a tremendous framework to work with, some very good rules and regulations in terms to attach to that, he has also recognized the fact that every member's district is different and every member has a different travel mode and a different expense when it comes to serving their constituents. In recognizing that, he has certainly left it open for the Commission to consider those particular issues that need to be considered, as long, I say, Mr. Speaker, as it is done in an open and transparent way, and as long as all of those changes are then brought to the House of Assembly, Mr. Speaker, in order to be ratified and changed. I do not think any of us have a problem with that.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to say much else, but I want to thank Chief Justice Derek Green and his staff for the thorough piece of work that they have done on our behalf, and I want to say that I think this process will not only restore the confidence of the public in terms of the work that we do, and how we manage our expenditures, but it will also provide for us, in fact, I would think, even a more efficient way ourselves in carrying out the work and responsibilities of our jobs.

There are no recommendations that I see in here that cause impediments to members as long as we can adjust some of the travel portions in terms of distance, kilometres, and things like that, but there is really no intention here to impact or impede members in doing their work. In fact, what it gives us is good guiding principles which we can follow in order to carry out those responsibilities.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that we are able to debate this bill in the House of Assembly today, and I look forward to the new commission being in place and carrying forward with this legislation.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board speaks now he will close debate on Bill 33 at second reading.

The hon. the Minister of Finance.

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

I thank the hon. members for taking part in this very important debate for the people of this Province.

Mr. Speaker, nothing is more important than ensuring that the public have confidence and faith in those who are elected to represent them. The legislation here today will go a long way in restoring public confidence in the system that we have.

The system, as it existed prior to our government bringing the Auditor General back, was seriously flawed. It lacked controls. It lacked necessary process to ensure accountability and openness.

The report by Chief Justice Green and his committee is an accumulation of many months of intense work. The result is a comprehensive piece of work that will usher in a new era of responsibility, a new era of accountability, in this House of Assembly.

The report will serve as the basis for new rules and new regulations that will govern the conduct of Members of the House of Assembly on a go-forward basis, and these new rules will be effective October 9, 2007. Our caucus proudly accepts and endorses this report.

The new legislation will change our system so that it will become a model for other jurisdictions. None of us, I believe, could ever possibly have imagined, when Premier Williams brought the Auditor General back, what would be the result of that. None of us expected the revelations that would could out of that. Regardless of the negativity, I think this is one of the most important initiatives of the Williams' government. One of the most important initiatives that they ever undertook was the reinstatement of the Auditor General.

We did attempt to clean up the system in the House of Assembly. Admittedly, there were many hurdles and some delays, but ultimately we will take great pride, and I think the people of this Province can take pride, in what our government has accomplished here.

The issue of no longer being able to give donations will be problematic and will have a negative effect on many groups who rely on those donations, but we did ask the Chief Justice and his committee to do a thorough review. They have done that, and they have given us a sound and reliable system that will rebuild confidence, and we have to rely on his recommendations in this case.

The moving of MHAs to one salary, and the elimination of the tax-free allowance, is a good move. Everyone should have the same status in terms of paying taxes and it is important for people to realize that, while the gross salary is higher, the tax-free portion is limited so that the net value is essentially the same. The total cost of the implementation is not known, but while we are committed to ensuring that we clean the system, we will do whatever we can to keep costs reasonable. Yet, you cannot put a price on ensuring that we have a credible system that meets the highest standards.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chief Justice Green and his committee. I congratulate them on the work that they have done. Everything that Chief Justice Green has done in his lifetime in this Province has raised the bar of responsibility for the public service of this Province, and he is to be congratulated once again.

Mr. Speaker, I thank him and I look forward to the completion and the ultimate passage of this extremely important piece of legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour, be now read a second time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The Chair notes the motion is carried unanimously.

CLERK: A bill, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour. (Bill 33)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 33 has now been read a second time.

When shall this bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House?

MR. RIDEOUT: Presently, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Presently.

On motion, a bill, "An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently, by leave. (Bill 33)

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the

Whole to consider certain bills.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider certain bills, and that I do now leave the Chair.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

Committee of the Whole

 

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I believe we ought to be ready now for Committee consideration of Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994, and there is a brief amendment to be put forward by the minister.

CHAIR: The Committee is ready to hear debate on Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994.

The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to move the following amendment: That clause 1 of the bill be amended by deleting the proposed section 5.7 and substituting the following: A provision of an agreement referred to in section 5.4 or 5.5 shall not adversely affect a provision of a contract for the supply of power entered into by a person bound by the agreement and a third party that was entered into before the agreement under section 5.4 or 5.5 was entered into or established, or a renewal of that contract.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: It is moved by the hon. Minister of Natural Resources that clause 1 of Bill 32 be amendment. The Chairperson deems that this amendment is in order.

Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the said amendment to clause 1 of Bill 32.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, amendment carried.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt clause 1 as amended?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 as amended carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 and 3.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 and 3 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 2 and 3 carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant-Governor in House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened, as follows:

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The enacting clause is carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The title is carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994 carried with an amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Bill 32, as amended, is carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill with amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, I would like to move Committee consideration of Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour.

At the appropriate time, as we move through Committee, there are a couple of amendments to this bill to give effect to the schedule, among other things, all of which has been discussed with the House Leaders on the other side and agreed to.

CHAIR: The Committee is ready to hear debate on Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour.

A bill, "An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour." (Bill 33)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Clause 1.

Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 1 is carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 42 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 42 inclusive, carry?

The hon. the Member for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I know I spoke in second reading on this bill, but there was an issue that I did want to raise, I did not have an opportunity to then. It is under section 12 of the bill, which talks about remunerations that are paid out to people who serve in various positions in the House of Assembly. For example, Mr. Chairman, it outlines the salary for the leader of -

MR. RIDEOUT: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: Yes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MS JONES: Mr. Chairman, I have just been charged with an unsurmountable task, I must say, as the Government House Leader has to tend to some important government business for a minute, he asked that I continue my comments until his return. So, I will try my best.

Anyway, it talked about the other remunerations for members. As a person who sits as part of some of these committees, I have some concerns about it and I wanted to raise it. For example, it talks about the remunerations paid to members of the Public Accounts Committee in which they outline that the chairperson of that committee should receive $13,123 for the work that they do, along with the vice-chairperson receiving $10,032 for the work that they do, but other members of the committee, in my opinion, will not be remunerated in accordance with the scale that has been outlined for the chairperson and the deputy-chairperson.

Mr. Chairman, as members of the Public Accounts Committee, and I know this because I sat as part of that committee for the past three years, and whether I sit there ever again or not is irrelevant, I still think that it should be fair in terms of how the remunerations are done. I think that members of the committee are tasked with the same responsibilities and the same workloads as the chair and the deputy chair.

As you know, the work of the Public Accounts Committee is to review the reports of the Auditor General, to go through them in detail in terms of what the Auditor General is reporting on, and to research and investigate those issues which come before the Public Accounts Committee. So, it is not just a matter of showing up at a meeting and being there to mark attendance. It is, in fact, a serious responsibility that requires a great deal of ones time in terms of research and preparedness. Mr. Chairman, this is one of the issues that I will certainly be asking the commission to review once it is established.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 2 to 42 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 2 through 42 inclusive carried.

CLERK: Clause 43.

CHAIR: Clause 43.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, I move that clause 43 of the bill is amended by adding immediately after the subclause (4) the following, (4).1, "Where the commission has not appointed an auditor under subsection (2) by the end of the fiscal year, the auditor general shall be the auditor."

CHAIR: It is moved by the hon. Government House Leader that clause 43 be amended. The Chair rules that the amendment is in order.

Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the said amendment to clause 43?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, amendment carried.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt clause 43 as amended?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 43, as amended, is carried.

On motion, clause 43, as amended, carried.

CLERK: Clauses 44 to 71 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 44 to 71 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 44 through 71 inclusive carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to move that the bill be amended by adding immediately after clause 71 the following: 71.1.(1) "The rules contained in the Schedule shall be treated for all purposes as if they had been made by the commission under section 64 and, to the extent necessary, to have been adopted by the House of Assembly under subsection 20(7)."

Also, subsection (2) "Notwithstanding subsection (1), the rules contained in the Schedule may be dealt with by the commission under section 64 as if they had been made by the commission."

CHAIR: It is moved by the hon. Government House Leader that clause 71 be amended. The Chair rules that the amendment as put forward by the hon. Government House Leader to clause 71 is in order.

Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the said amendment to clause 71?

All those in favour, ‘Aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

Motion amendment, carried.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt clause 71 as amended?

All those in favour, ‘Aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 71, as amended, is carried.

On motion, clause 71, as amended, carried.

CLERK: Clause 72.

CHAIR: Clause 72.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I move subclause 72(2) of the bill be amended by adding immediately after paragraph (b) the following: (c) "The Schedule comes into force on October 9, 2007."

CHAIR: It is moved by the hon. Government House Leader that clause 72 be amended. The Chair rules that the amendment as put forward by the Government House Leader is in order.

Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the said amendment to clause 72?

All those in favour, ‘Aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion amendment, carried.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt clause 72 as amended?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Clause 72, as amended, is carried.

On motion, clause 72, as amended, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Finally, I move that the bill is amended by adding immediately after clause 72 the following: "Schedule."

CHAIR: It is moved by the hon. Government House Leader that an addition be added after clause 72 be known as the schedule. The Chair rules that this amendment is in order.

Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the schedule as put forward by the hon. Government House Leader?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

On motion, amendment carried.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the schedule as put forward by the hon. Government House Leader?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The schedule is carried.

On motion, schedule carried.

CLERK: Be it enacted by the Lieutenant Governor and House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened as follows.

CHAIR: Shall the enacting clause carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The enacting clause is carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

The title is carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour, carried with amendment?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Bill 33, as amended, is carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill with amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

CHAIR: The motion is that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, ‘nay'.

Carried.

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

MR. SPEAKER (Hodder): Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Bonavista South and Deputy Speaker.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report Bill 33 and Bill 32 both carried with amendment, and ask leave to sit again.

CHAIR: The Chairperson of the Committee of the Whole reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994, passed with an amendment.

When shall this report be received?

MR. RIDEOUT: Now, Mr. Speaker.

On motion, report received and adopted.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said amendment be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that the amendment be read a first time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

CLERK: First reading of amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said amendment be now read a second time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that the amendment be now read a second time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: Second reading of amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994, be read a third time?

MR. RIDEOUT: Presently, by leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Presently, by leave.

On motion, amendment read a first and second time, bill ordered read a third time presently, by leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chairperson of the Committee of the Whole reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour, passed with some amendments.

When shall this report be received?

MR. RIDEOUT: Now, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, report received and adopted.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said amendments be read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that the amendments be read a first time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: First reading of amendments.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said amendments be now read a second time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that the said amendments be read a second time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: Second reading of amendments.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour, be read a third time?

MR. RIDEOUT: Presently, by leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Presently, by leave.

On motion, amendments read a first and second time, bill ordered read a third time presently, by leave.

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I would like to move third reading of Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994, be now read a third time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that Bill 32 be read a third time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994. (Bill 32)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994, has now been read a third time and it is ordered that the bill do pass and its title be as on the Order Paper.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994," read a third time, ordered passed and its title be as on the Order Paper. (Bill 32)

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I move third reading of Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour, be now read a third time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion that Bill 33 be read a third time?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

CLERK: A bill, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour. (Bill 33)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 33, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour, has now been read a third time and it is ordered that the bill do pass and its title be as on the Order Paper.

On motion, a bill, "An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour, read a third time, ordered passed and its title be as on the Order Paper. (Bill 33)

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

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I have to ask some guidance from the Table. We just finished third reading of Bill 32, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1991, and I have been referring to it as that all day, and other days. I understand that the bill itself says the Electrical Power Control Act, 1994. That was just pointed out to me, so it looks as if there is a typo perhaps on the Order Paper or maybe it was put on the Order Paper wrong. If we could get some advise as to what it is supposed to be, 1991 or 1994, then I would -

AN HON. MEMBER: Sit tonight.

MR. RIDEOUT: We will have to sit tonight.

I think we could agree to have whichever the appropriate year is, 1991 or 1994.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair acknowledges that agreement has been reached by the House leadership that after the research has been completed the appropriate year will be placed in the record and that the record of Hansard will be appropriately adjusted thereto.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, I don't know if His Honour has arrived but that would be the next order of business if he has. If he hasn't we can recess for a few minutes while we are waiting for him.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair will call a brief recess until we are sure that His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, has arrived. We do expect him momentarily.

The House is in recess.

Recess

 

SERGEANT-AT-ARMS: His Honour the Lieutenant Governor has arrived.

[His Honour the Lieutenant Governor takes the Chair]

SERGEANT-AT-ARMS: It is the wish of His Honour the Lieutenant Governor that all present please be seated.

MR. SPEAKER: May it please Your Honour, the General Assembly of the Province has at its present Session passed certain bills, to which, in the name and on behalf of the General Assembly I respectfully request Your Honour's assent.

CLERK: A bill, "An Act To Amend The Student Financial Assistance Act." (Bill 13)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Retail Sales Tax Act." (Bill 20)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act, 2000 No 2." (Bill 10)

A bill, "An Act Respecting The Transfer Of Securities." (Bill 12)

A bill, "An Act Respecting Trust And Loan Corporations." (Bill 17)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Private Investigation And Security Services Act." (Bill 18)

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Act, 1992." (Bill 19)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Taxation Of Utilities and Cable Television Companies Act. (Bill 22)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Commissioners For Oaths Act. (Bill 26)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Historic Resources Act. (Bill 30)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Liquor Control Act. (Bill 14)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Schools Act, 1997 (Bill 24)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Municipalities Act, 1999 (Bill 29)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act, 2000 (Bill 3)

A bill, An Act Respecting Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro Electric Corporation. (Bill 27)

A bill, An Act To Establish An Energy Corporation For The Province. (Bill 28)

A bill, An Act Respecting The Sustainable Development Of Natural Resources In The Province. (Bill 25)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Elections Act, 1991. (Bill 21)

A bill, An Act to Amend The Highway Traffic Act. (Bill 23)

A bill, An Act Respecting Safer Communities And Neighbourhoods. (Bill 9)

A bill, An Act Respecting FPI Limited. (Bill 1)

A bill, An Act To Hold The Government Harmless In The Disposition of FPI Limited. (Bill 31)

A bill, An Act To Amend The Electrical Power Control Act, 1994. (Bill 32)

A bill, An Act Respecting The Effective Administration Of The House Of Assembly, The Standards Of Conduct Of Elected Members, And Their Ethical And Accountable Behaviour. (Bill 33)

HIS HONOUR THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR: In Her Majesty's Name, I assent to these bills.

Mr. Speaker, this in all likelihood will be the last time I appear in this Chamber in this office, and I hasten to assure anybody who is interested in any official capacity. Let me make two points. The first is to wish all of you well. There will be a democratic consultation event I assume between now and the next time the House meets. It is not for me to decide but that is what I understand.

I wish all of you who are standing for reelection the success you desire and those who are standing down at this stage, thank you for your service to the House and the Province.

For my own part, let me say how much I have enjoyed my association with this House in this role as I did in my previous roles.

Enough said, Mr. Speaker. Back to you.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor leaves the Chamber.

Mr. Speaker returns to the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are pretty close, of course, to bringing the Forty-Fifth General Assembly to an end. As commented by the Lieutenant Governor, there will be a democratic consultation between now and the next sitting. He always had a flair for words, that gentleman.

I would just like to say, on behalf of the Official Opposition - as everyone is aware, I guess, the Leader of the Opposition could not be here for the past few days. There has been a death in the family, so he could not be here himself.

I would just like to say in closing this Session, best wishes to all of our members on both sides of the House who are retiring. I wish all of you good health and happiness in your retirement.

I would also like to thank the Speaker, the Table Officers, the Pages, the Sergeant-at-Arms, and everyone associated with the House staff for their kind help and assistance during this Session.

I would also like to make a special thanks to the Government House Leader for the excellent cooperation, Sir, and the fairness we have had in preparing -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: - and conducting the business of this House on a daily basis. I have found you, Sir, to be a perfect gentleman and a man of your word. I wish you all the best as well.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PARSONS: In conclusion, in my final comment, Mr. Speaker, I would like to wish all the best to those who have offered themselves, or will be offering themselves, for re-election in the fall. Not too much luck, of course, to some government members.

In any case, I would like to thank the Speaker for the opportunity to have been here in the capacity of Opposition House Leader. I certainly look forward to being back here in future sessions as well.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

It is a bit of an historic moment for me, my first time coming to the end of a General Assembly. It has been quite an honour being here over the past months that we have been together, working together.

On behalf of myself, I thank all of you for the warmth that I felt in the House, for the support that I received from colleagues on both sides of the House. This is the first time I have had a chance to do this, so I want to thank all of you for the tremendous support I felt from everybody on the death of my mother in March. I felt real understanding from the House, and support, and I really appreciate that. It is something, I think, that this House is good at.

I thank the Speaker for the wonderful job that he does. I thank the House Leader. I think that he has shown great leadership and led us through it very well during the past, believe it or not, eight weeks, I think, is it?, since the Speech from the Throne. We are ending our eighth week. I want to thank all of the staff for their tremendous support as well.

I think maybe I benefitted, and I am sure my other colleagues who have been elected in by-elections this year probably did, too, we have benefitted from errors from the past, and I felt that the staff of the House of Assembly did everything to make sure that I fully understood the rules of the House and understood how I should operate as the leader of a party and as an MHA, so I thank them all for that.

I also would like to recognize the leader - not the leader, the House -

AN HON. MEMBER: Opposition House Leader.

MS MICHAEL: The Opposition House Leader - we all get that term mixed up - for his support as well, especially in this session where I sat alone.

I thank you all again. I wish all of us well as we prepare for October 9. You all know what I want. I want to be back here with more people with me, and I am going to work very hard to make that happen.

I also wish well to those who have chosen not to run again. I hope that all the wishes that you have for your future all happen.

Have a good summer. I am sure we will bump into each other on that trail that we are all going to be on.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment motion, I would like to take the opportunity, along with my colleagues who have already spoken, to thank yourself, Sir, and all of the staff of the House: the Clerk, the Table Officers, the Pages, the Sergeant-at-Arms, the Commissionaires, the policeman who is here from time to time to take care of matters if the Sergeant-at-Arms cannot, and everybody for their help during this particular session.

For a spring session of the House, this has been a very busy session. It has been a relatively long session. Actually, this is the twenty-ninth parliamentary day. If you factor in the long hours that we sat in Committee doing the Budget, or others members did on both sides of the House, the long hours that we sat in terms of debating the Budget in the House, and other House matters, then there are certainly hundreds of hours in those twenty-nine parliamentary days in about eight weeks that have been spent, and it is quite a long session for the last session of the House before a general election, if you look back at the history of this place over the past several last sessions leading up to an election.

I want to take the opportunity as well to thank my colleagues on both sides of the House. This has been my first session as House Leader for the government, Government House Leader. It has been certainly a learning experience.

I want to thank my colleague, the Opposition House Leader, and the leader of the third party. It has been a pleasure dealing with both of you. I must say, any time we had an arrangement, the arrangement was always kept.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: I know that is very, very difficult for the government to do, and I know it is more difficult for the Opposition, because I have been there and I know that sometimes Opposition House Leaders have great difficulty, as do all House Leaders, I suppose, on either side of the House, keeping their own charges from time to time in line so that the agreements that you have made and the promises that you have given are kept at the end of the day, but it has been a great experience. My two colleagues have been tremendous to deal with, and I thank you very, very sincerely.

I want to take the opportunity as well to wish those who are not planning to put their name on the ballot in the next election every success. I know you all spoke eloquently yesterday. As you know, I was off engaged in another democratic process yesterday, which, thank goodness, worked out okay, so I will have an opportunity to put my name on the ballot again in October.

For those who do not plan to run, I certainly want to thank you, as well, on behalf of the government and the people of the Province, really, for your service. Public service is, I think, a noble calling. Despite the slings and arrows from time to time that go with it, there is no more noble profession and endeavour than serving the public in elected office. So, all of us should keep that in mind I think when times are tough especially.

I do not know, I am hoping to be back here in the next Parliament. I know I am going to be long in the tooth because there is going to be nobody around from close to the 1975 election. I will be the only one. There will be nobody around from 1989 anymore. I think everybody from 1989 will be gone. The last class that came in here would have been, what?

AN HON. MEMBER: 1993.

MR. RIDEOUT: The class of 1993. So, I do not know Premier, perhaps we should forget about what happened yesterday.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: In any event, it will continue to be a learning experience.

I want to wish all those who are seeking re-election every success - I cannot pick it out. Anyway -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: I guess I have just lost all of the titles that I hold. I have just blown everyone of them.

Anyway, like I said, I want to take the opportunity to wish those who are seeking re-election on both sides of the House every success. At the end of the process, of course, the electorate is always right. The electorate never makes a wrong decision and we all have to live by that.

You, Mr. Speaker, having been here for quite a long time, will be taking leave sometime between now and when this House meets again. It has certainly been a pleasure working with you, and your wise and sage advice has been very, very helpful to me, not only as Government House Leader but in the years that I have been here both in Opposition and on the government side with you. I want to take the opportunity - as I did at your sort of retirement function, I guess, a few weeks ago - to wish you and Mrs. Hodder the very best. I am sure you will find something to entertain you as the weeks and months go by.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. RIDEOUT: Finally, at the good graces of the electorate, I look forward to seeing those of us who will be returned on October 9.

So, with that, Mr. Speaker, I move that the House on its rising do adjourn to the call of the Chair and that this House now adjourn.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Before I put the question, I want to thank all hon. members. Not to repeat anything I said yesterday but there is one group of people that I would really like to thank on behalf of all of us, and that is the wonderful television audience throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, especially the seniors who watch this program faithfully. Some of them who let me know from time to time when things do not go the way they should. Already today, I have had two telephone calls from people who watch the program. There is an interaction that occurs between the Speaker's office and some of the listening people throughout the Province. To all of these people who listen everyday, on behalf of all of us, to them I say a sincere thank you, and I would like for you to show your appreciation to the television audience.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: To all of my colleagues, having been here for four terms, it is a very special place, it is a very special honour, it is a very special privilege, and just to let you know that one of the very first things I am going to do is try to activate the association for retired parliamentarians in this Province.

There is a national body meeting here in this Province in July. It is primarily the association that focuses in Ottawa. There is an association for retired parliamentarians. In our Province, we have not been able to get that group activated. I think there is talent out there that both sides of the House could use from time to time. I do hope that my colleagues who announced their retirement will be among the very first people who will say yes, that is worth doing. We look forward to getting some support from the House. Perhaps if we get the association formed, we might even get some funding because it is worth doing. The last thing I do here is, I am looking for funding.

I want to thank you all for all of your kindness, for your kindness to my family, for the kindness to each other.

With that, I put the question, the motion is that this House do now stand adjourned at the call of the Chair.

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay'.

The motion is carried.

This House now stands adjourned.

On motion, the House adjourned to the call of the Chair.