June 3, 2008              HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS                Vol. XLVI   No. 37


The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Today we welcome the following members' statements: the hon. the Member for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune; the hon. the Member for the District of Mount Pearl North; the hon. the Member for the District of Ferryland; the hon. the Member for the District of Bellevue; and, the hon. the Member for the District of Placentia & St. Mary's.

The hon. the Member for the District of Fortune Bay-Cape la Hune.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS PERRY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to extend my sincere congratulations to the St. Alban's and the Milltown-Head of Bay d'Espoir Fire Departments for the tremendous success of their annual telethons.

These telethons are instrumental for raising funds to purchase necessary equipment and to help ensure that the volunteer firefighters return to their families safe and sound.

We are all so very thankful for the dedication of our firefighters, and extremely proud of the support shown by the communities. The generous donations received show how much residents recognize the important role that volunteer fire departments play in keeping our communities safe.

The professionalism and enthusiasm of all volunteers involved in the telethons is highly commendable, and the contributions of the entertainers and the persons who were interviewed offered much to the resounding success of the telethons, with each one raising over $12,000.

The co-operative effort of emergency services in the entire area to enhance the region's firefighting capabilities is very much appreciated by our residents and commercial sectors.

Both departments are committed to the health and safety of their firefighters. It is vitally important that, when our volunteers respond to an emergency, they are properly equipped to handle any situation, and these telethons, along with supports from the Department of Municipal Affairs, help them to do just that.

I would also like to join the St. Alban's Fire and Rescue Department in thanking CHCM Marystown for their excellent promotion of the telethon, which helped contribute to its great success.

On behalf of the St. Alban's and Milltown-Head of Bay d'Espoir Fire Departments, I ask all members to join me in extending congratulations and a big thank you to the public and business community for their generous support, and to the fire departments, along with Fire Chiefs Frank Collier and Fred Kearley, for a fundraising effort extremely well done.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Mount Pearl North.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to recognize the City of Mount Pearl on hosting the Focus on Youth Awards recently held to honour youth in our community.

Mr. Speaker, the City of Mount Pearl Focus on Youth Awards recognizes youth in many different categories. I would like to congratulate all of the nominees and the winners of these awards. In particular, I extend congratulations to the following recipients: Female Athlete of the Year, Laura Murray; Male Athlete of the Year, David Forbes; Team of the Year, Mount Pearl Synchro Club Tier 3 Team; Adult Volunteer of the Year for Sports, Maureen Au; Youth Volunteer of the Year, Meghan Kerrivan; Female Youth of the Year, Megan Drodge; Male Youth of the Year, Adam Sheppard; In Service Youth of the Year, Rebecca Mercer; Group of the Year, Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron 807; Visual Performing Arts, Karissa Vokey; Performing Arts, Individual of the Year, Megan Barnes; Adult Volunteer of the Year, Sandra Mercer.

Finally, there was a three-way tie for the Performing Arts Group category: O'Donel High Jazz Band, Mount Pearl Senior High Drama Club, and the Mount Pearl Show Choir.

I would like to commend all of the nominees and winners on their hard work in sport and volunteerism, and community activities. Being recognized by your community is a significant achievement in itself. All of these individuals and teams have been acknowledged for their tremendous contribution to their community.

I would also like to recognize and congratulate the City of Mount Pearl on a very successful event.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members of this House to join me in congratulating the nominees and winners, as well as the City of Mount Pearl, on a fantastic Focus on Youth Awards ceremony this year.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. HUTCHINGS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to congratulate two youth from my district, Samantha Kavanagh of Calvert and Brandi O'Keefe of Ferryland, on being awarded the Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award of Achievement, one of the most prestigious youth awards for young Canadians.

The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Canadians Challenge is an exciting self-development program available to all young people, equipping them with life skills to make a difference to themselves, their communities and their country. The program now reaches over 108 countries, motivating young people to undertake a variety of volunteer and challenging activities.

The Award Program has three levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold. As the recipient of the Silver Award, Samantha and Brandi had to be entered in the program for a minimum of six months, completed forty-five hours of community service, participated in forty hours of physical recreation over a twenty-week period, and participated in an adventurous journey of three days and two nights.

As these activities must be undertaken in your spare time, being the recipient of such an award speaks very highly of Samantha's and Brandi's character, perseverance, commitment and leadership qualities. It is indeed a recognition of their initiative and the support of those around them that they committed to and met the requirements for the award.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members of this House to join with me in congratulating Samantha and Brandi on receiving this prestigious award.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. PEACH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise here in this great hon. House today to bring congratulations to five well-deserving young constituents of the great District of Bellevue: Rebecca Higdon, Cody Clark, Ashley George, Erin Kelly and Alyssa Power, for winning awards and honourable mentions at the Avalon Regional Historica Fair on May 3, 2008.

Cody Clarke represented Crescent Collegiate High School of Blaketown, and received the Hudson Bay Company Explorer Award for his project entitled, "They Called Me Trapper: Mattie Mitchell".

Rebecca Higdon and Ashley George represented Woodland Elementary School of Dildo. Both girls received awards. Rebecca received the Laurier LaPierre Award for her project entitled, "Midwifery in Newfoundland", and Ashley received the NLTA Marconi Branch Award for a focus on education in Newfoundland and Labrador for her project entitled, "Nonia."

Erin Kelly and Alyssa Power received honourable mentions for their joint project entitled, "The Beothuk". Erin and Alyssa were representing Holy Family Elementary School of Chapel Arm.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that this House join me in extending congratulations to Cody Clarke, Rebecca Higdon, Erin Kelly, Alyssa Power and Ashley George for their outstanding accomplishments at the 2008 Avalon Regional Historica Fair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this hon. House to pay tribute to a great lady and an outstanding citizen of Freshwater, Placentia Bay, Catherine (Kit) McGrath.

Kit McGrath was the Director of Nursing at the former Placentia Cottage Hospital for twenty-eight years, from 1955-1983. Not only was she the head nurse, but she was the heart and soul of the Placentia Hospital and health care system. Physicians came and went over the years, and there were some who built great reputations there, making major contributions to the health care of the residents of Placentia Bay and the Cape Shore, but the one constant throughout those years was Kit McGrath. Her compassion, her dedication and skill in patient care has left a legacy that will live on well into the future in Placentia Bay.

Kit McGrath was recognized for her tremendous contribution to the people of the region in 1983 when she was named Placentia Citizen of the Year.

Mr. Speaker, Kit McGrath passed away last week and the love and esteem in which she was held was evident in the tremendous numbers who attended her wake and funeral. It was a display of respect reserved for special people.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members to join with me in offering our sincere gratitude for the life of Kit McGrath and in extending condolences to her family.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statements by ministers.

Statements by Ministers

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this House today to recognize June as Seniors Month in Newfoundland and Labrador and to acknowledge the value and the contributions of seniors across our Province.

This month is an important time to recognize that seniors of all ages and diversity are important members of our society. The contributions of seniors have helped, and continue to help, shape our Province, our country and society as a whole. Their collective experiences, wisdom and knowledge is a precious resource which deserves great respect.

As the minister responsible for seniors, I believe that our gratitude and respect for seniors should be shown throughout the year, not just the month of June. That is why we have made significant investments in initiatives which benefit seniors and help them have a quality of life and live as independently as possible.

Mr. Speaker, in the last two budgets we have significantly expanded the seniors' benefits for both single and married seniors, benefiting over 37,000 seniors. Our expansions have increased the budget for this program by 250 per cent since 2003 bringing it to a total of $26.8 million annually.

Budget 2008 also provides some $15 million for a Long Term care and Community Services Strategy including an increase in home support service levels, additional client subsidies for personal care homes and funding to exempt RRSPs from the financial assessment process for clients receiving home support.

It is our government's vision to have a supportive, age-friendly Province where seniors can make a contribution to their communities, and in turn, our communities support senior residents. We all want the best quality of life for our families, our friends and ourselves, and through our healthy aging policy framework we are building the foundation to achieve this.

As outlined as action items in the framework we are in the process of developing a campaign targeting abuse against older persons, which we will be unveiling later this month; a campaign to promote positive images of aging. A new seniors' recognition awards program will be launched later this year.

Mr. Speaker, this collective package of measures, in addition to our significant cuts in taxes and fees and our enhancements to our Provincial Drug Program, puts more money back into the hands of seniors, helps to enhance the quality of their life and shows them our gratitude for all that they have done and continue to do for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Speaker, seniors in this Province not only need to be recognized in the month of June as Seniors' Month, but they should be recognized on an annual basis, and so should the issues and the concerns that they raise in our society. In Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, there are 70,000 seniors or more who live in this Province and 50 per cent of them live on an income that is less than $15,000 a year.

Mr. Speaker, we continue to hear the plight of seniors throughout the Province, even in this Assembly. Only a week ago I raised the issue of a gentleman by the name of Mr. Fillier, who was trying to access medication for liver disease, a rare disease that he suffers, in this Province. Mr. Speaker, his medications ran out yesterday, but as a result of the profile of his issue within the Province there was a beneficiary who came forward and did donate for a full month's supply of medication for this gentleman. That is not the kind of issues that our seniors should have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. They should have access to medical treatments that they require.

What about the case of the Connors family, who have become the face of home care for seniors all across this Province, people who needed access to home care services at a time when they were most medically challenged within their lives? Because they could not afford it, they had to go without it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to conclude her response.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask for a minute to clue up my comments, please.

Mr. Speaker, these are the faces of seniors every day in Newfoundland and Labrador who are challenged when it comes to medical conditions and medical treatments. I ask government, that in recognizing Seniors' Month you recognize those serious issues and take action to address them.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.

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

I thank the minister for the advance copy of his statement.

Yes, of course I recognize the things that government has done, but, Mr. Speaker, I really beg to differ with the minister when he says that he is committed, that is why we have made significant investments in initiatives which will help seniors live as independently as possible. That is only for some. We have too many seniors who cannot live as independently because of the needs testing that is done with regard to the needs around home care.

Once more I am asking the minister, as he looks at the financial assessment, what we are calling for, what I am calling for, is an end to financial assessment and that home care is available for people based on need. If they need home care, they get assessed for how much home care they need and that is what they get.

It is not enough to say half of seniors are being covered, or some are being covered. The program is geared to creating cracks that seniors are falling into, and that goes both for the drug card program as well as home care.

I cannot impress upon the minister enough how much this has to be dealt with immediately. We have to stop seniors living in poverty and begging for their needs to be met.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers.

The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as Minister of Environment and Conservation, I am especially pleased today to announce that June 1-7 is Environment Week. This is a time to reflect on the importance of our Province's environment and to demonstrate that we care about protecting our natural heritage.

Taking Action for our Environment is the theme for this year's Environment Week. It is a reminder to everybody that we must work together and take an active role to ensure Newfoundland and Labrador's environment is clean and healthy for all of us to enjoy, especially our children and grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, we are extremely fortunate to have clean air and easy access to nature with our abundance of forests, wildlife, rivers and ponds.

To kick off Environment Week, yesterday, the nineteenth annual Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Awards Ceremony was held at the Battery Hotel here in St. John's. The environmental awards recognize individuals, groups and organizations making an exceptional effort to protect and enhance the environment and quality of life in the Province. Environmental Awards were presented in five categories along with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce this year's winners: Individual Category, Mike Manning; School Category, Holy Spirit High School in Conception Bay South; Community Group/Organization Category, the Kelligrews Ecological Enhancement Program, known as KEEP; Municipality Category, the Town of Appleton; and Honourable Mention was given to the Town of Glenburnie-Birchy Head-Shoal Brook.

Mr. Speaker, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Dr. John Gibson. Dr. Gibson is an individual who has dedicated himself to environmental stewardship and has made a significant contribution over his lifetime in the name of environmental protection and sustainability. Dr. Gibson has been a leading and inspiring advocate for the protection and promotion of our Province's watersheds. Much of his professional career has been committed to fisheries research, and in his personal life he has been involved in numerous organizations that focus on ecology and conservation issues.

The initiative, dedication and hard work that these individuals, communities, schools and organizations have put into caring for our environment is a reason to celebrate their accomplishments and encourage others to participate in their community environmental initiatives.

This week, my department has planned events around environment week for government employees, and I encourage as many employees to take part in some of the presentations taking place on topics such as: climate change, waste reduction and curbside recycling. The schedule of events has been posted to the Public Service Network news link.

I ask all hon. members to give a round of applause to this year's Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Award winners.

Mr. Speaker, I also ask all hon. members here today to take their time to do their part this week and every week. Reduce energy use at home and work, carpool or walk, and please consider the environment when making purchases.

Every one of us can make a difference, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement, and to say we in the Official Opposition want to congratulate all those involved in Environmental Week, and to say congratulations to all those in the various categories: the individual, the school, the community, the municipality and hon. mentions, those who received awards at the nineteenth annual awards presentation recently, Mr. Speaker.

I have to say that when someone in your district wins such an award – I remember when a group in my area, GAIA, at Ascension Collegiate, won a similar award just a few years ago, and how proud they were for the work that they were doing to help the environment.

Mr. Speaker, as the minister stated, I think we all should do more to help protect our environment. I know I enjoy the great outdoors all summer long, being an avid camper, and I want to say to the minister that it is heart-sickening when you drive around our Province and go to many of our side roads, to see the waste that has been discarded in the forest and the side roads, that many people do not have respect for the great environment.

Mr. Speaker, all too often we also hear so much about the tremendous amount of waste that we have today, the e-waste and so on, and hopefully over the coming months and years we will be able to take care of all those problems, Mr. Speaker. I know in my area, one of the things that started just out of the blue is carpooling.

On the Veterans' Memorial Highway, at the intersection of Country Road, people used to park there. I am sure the hon. Member for Harbour Main knows what I am referring to. Right now there are about 100 vehicles that park there on a daily basis and commute back and forth to St. John's. I have met with the minister and her officials, and they are hopefully going to do some work to expand that area so that more people can park there.

I just want to commend the minister for taking time to do that, and each and every one of us should do our part, Mr. Speaker, to protect our environment and make it a better place for our children and our grandchildren.

In closing, I want to thank all those who take part in Environment Week each and every year.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

I thank the minister for the advance copy of her statement, and I am very pleased to join with her in congratulating the winners of the various awards this year.

I hope everybody will understand if I particularly mention the Lifetime Achievement Award of Dr. John Gibson, who is a member of my constituency. The minister has mentioned him, so I will not make a separate member's statement with regard to him, but I do want to recognize the tremendous work that Dr. Gibson has done over the years and in his lifetime.

Mike Manning, of course, is known so well for his work with regard to Pippy Park, and also his involvement in Tidy Towns. He has been a real leader in Tidy Towns, which is a very important piece of environmental concern as well.

The thing that I do want to point out to the minister once again is, when she talks about reducing energy at home, which is so important to our environment, I look forward to hearing down the road, hopefully in the near future, Minister, maybe by the fall, some real plans of our government with regard to helping with energy efficiency in residences and in companies as well.

We heard the minister on the radio this morning throw out a challenge to companies when it comes to Environment Week, saying that she would like to see companies, corporations and businesses become involved, as well, in the kind of competition that is here.

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

I ask the hon. the member to conclude her response.

MS MICHAEL: I shall, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the minister, I think that was a really good point that you made in the media this morning and I hope businesses take up your challenge.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers.

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, oil prices have been steadily increasing over the past couple of years. Under the current Hibernia royalty regime, once that project reaches payout the Province's share of royalty revenues will skyrocket to 30 per cent.

I ask the Premier today: With the increased price of oil, will this project reach payout sooner than originally forecast? If so, when does government believe that this will happen?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, when oil prices are high, dates are moved forward. You cannot always pin it down to an exact date, though, Mr. Speaker, because it depends on what other costs the project might incur.

We have seen some examples in the last couple of years when rigs have had to be taken off locations or the FPSO has had to be shut down for some reason or another, because those costs then have to go back in and be recovered before we get the payout. Is it general principle, Mr. Speaker, absolutely. As oil prices stay high, the quicker we will get the payout.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Maybe the minister could give us an indication, then, of when they are forecasting a payout right now on the Hibernia project.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in terms of the Hibernia piece, we are expecting payout in the next year or so. On the other projects, Mr. Speaker, I will have to get that information and table it here in the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are currently in the process of debating Bill 35 in the House of Assembly and one of the projects currently under review and could be impacted by this legislation is the Hibernia South project.

I ask the Premier or the minister today: what is the status of the Hibernia South discussions and when can we see some public statements with regard to that project?

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

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, discussions are always ongoing with our partners with regard to development of projects in our basins around Newfoundland and Labrador, and discussions are being held. We talk about what is happening with Hibernia South and what we would like to see happening with Hibernia South with our partners all the time.

In terms of an application process to come forward to develop Hibernia South, that ball is in the hands of the partners. They will have to come forward with an application to the CNLOPB and once they have done their analysis and make a recommendation, then it comes to me as minister and the federal minister to say yea or nay to that application.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Maybe the minister could tell us, then, if there are any established timeframes around that particular process or if there is any indication that the companies will be coming forward in the relatively short period of time.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In meetings that the Premier and I have had with all of the partners in Hibernia South, they are very anxious to see development in that field and they are working hard to gather the information that they need and we need to ensure that goes ahead in a proper manner. They are working hard on gathering that information. They have not indicated to us any firm timeline as to when they will be coming forward with an application.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, the Hebron project will also be impacted by the passing of Bill 35 in the House of Assembly. Earlier this session we did ask for a status update on Hebron and we were told at that time we could possibly see something happening as early as June.

I ask the minister today: What is the status of the negotiations on Hebron and when can the people of the Province expect to see some kind of deal being proposed or finalized around this particular development?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Hebron negotiations are ongoing and there has been a great deal of activity and a great deal of concentration by my department and the Energy Corp. in bringing those negotiations to a conclusion. We are very hopeful that that will be done this month, but the biggest consideration for us is that it be done properly and in the best interests of the Province.

We are looking forward to the announcement and we are going to do it as soon as we get the good news to share with the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When the Premier and his colleagues were in Opposition they asked for a full and open debate in the House of Assembly on projects like the Voisey's Project which was granted.

I ask the Premier today: Will he commit to a similar debate on the Hebron project to ensure that the people of the Province have all of the information and have an opportunity to have their voices engaged in debate in the Legislature?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When we were engaged in those debates you have to remember the circumstances, we were dealing with a government that was there basically on leave. We were dealing with an unelected Premier, a Premier who did not have the mandate of the people, who was proceeding with major projects in this Province like the Voisey's Bay project when he predecessor had campaigned on the basis that not a single spoonful of ore was going to leave the Province. So we were very, very concerned about the details of that.

As well, on the Lower Churchill, the Lower Churchill was a really interesting situation because in the Lower Churchill project we were, through questions, made aware over the course of time that, in fact, this was a deal that was going to extend beyond the Upper Churchill. So it was basically going to compromise our ability to obtain redress on the Upper Churchill. There was no redress on the Upper Churchill. The project management, the project marketing, the project financing was going to be actually done by Quebec, financing was going to be marked up and we were going to be able to recall our own power, but we would have to recall it at more than what we sold it to Quebec for in the first place.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

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

PREMIER WILLIAMS: If, in fact, at the end of the day there was an overrun, I think, if I remember correctly, of 10 per cent, which might have been probably a half a billion dollars, we would have lost the project completely. We were afraid what they were going to do with it and we were trying to protect them from themselves.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, it doesn't matter to me if they were on lease, on rent, on loan, on term, I say to you, Mr. Premier, but the reality is that there was a request for a full debate around those projects by the member opposite, the current Premier of the day. We are asking, Mr. Speaker, that if there is a deal on Hebron that it be brought to the House of Assembly for a full debate.

I ask the Premier today, if he is prepared to do that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the Memorandum of Understanding has already been presented to the House. The people of the Province know the basis of the agreement. That basic framework will not change. The details are now being worked out by officials, and as the minister said we hope to have that done by the end of June. From our perspective there is no need beyond that.

We have the best that money can buy, the best advice that we could get. We have the best people hired with Hydro. We have the best people within government, within the minister's department and the minister herself working on this. We are quite confident that we have achieved the best possible alternative.

You know, unlike the concern that I had - I remember quite vividly when I was on the other side of the House and I looked over during the Lower Churchill questions and asked a question, actually, of the current House Leader who was the only solicitor, the only lawyer, the only person on the other side who had any legal training, and I asked him: have you read the draft agreement for the Lower Churchill? If I remember correctly his answer-

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier to conclude his answer.

PREMIER WILLIAMS: His answer was: I will read after it is signed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, absolutely ridiculous! What I will tell the Premier is that my colleague certainly read Bill 35 and he read it thoroughly, and as a result of it we can see some strengthening of that legislation.

Mr. Speaker, up to 200 workers at the Come By Chance refinery have been impacted by a company decision to contract out work. They have been on the picket line for a couple of weeks protesting that particular decision.

I ask the minister today: have you had any discussions with the company to find out why they made the decision that they have, to contract out the services as opposed to rehiring people who have been in their company, some of them up to ten, fifteen and twenty years?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I have had conversation with the company. As a matter of fact I had a meeting with the principals of the company, of Harvest Energy as well as the local management of the refinery, to discuss the reasons why they are going to do contracting out rather than doing the work in-house as they have been doing for a number of years. We have very little influence other than moral suasion. I took the time to make sure that they fully understood the social impact and the economic impact that would have on the surrounding communities. I did all that I could, Mr. Speaker, to encourage them to have another look at this and to take another direction.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, maybe the minister can tell me then if the company's decision to do this is to achieve greater financial efficiency within the company or other efficiencies that they are looking for.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The reason that the company offered to me was this was not in their main line of work, that they had been doing this work in-house themselves for a number of years and had found, on review, that they were not very good at doing it. Better efficiencies were to be found by contracting the work out, as well as the work would be of a higher quality because they would be asking people who had an expertise in that area to come in and do the work.

We have been paying quite a bit of attention to this issue, as I said, Mr. Speaker. The member, the MHA for Bellevue, has almost a daily conversation with me with regard to this matter. He is engaged with the communities, he is engaged with the company and he is engaged with the union. We are doing the best that we can do, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that the company fully understands the views of the communities.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have also been in contact with some of the union members, but in particular some of the communities that are impacted.

I would like to ask you, minister: have you done any analysis on what the job loss at that particular refinery is going to mean for communities in the local area, and what the loss of economic impact will be to those particular residents and communities?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

According to the company, there will be about eighty people affected. It is hard to get the numbers any more definitive than that because it depends on what else happens inside the refinery this year with regard to vacation, holidays, sick leave and so on.

We also know that a lot of the people who were engaged in this work, it was part of seasonal work that they completed, not only here in Newfoundland and Labrador but in other parts of Canada as well. It formed a part of their annual income, an important part to them, no doubt, Mr. Speaker, and any loss of direct work in the community has a significant impact.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, this morning on the front page of the Telegram, the headline read: autism is on the rise In Newfoundland and Labrador. This was the result of a study that was done by Queen's University.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister today: what plan of action is being taken by his department to address the growing crisis of health concerns for children of autism in this Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, not to take away from the significance of the question, but I would ask her to read the other part of the front page, which talked about the successful recruitment of pathologists.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, as the story indicated, there has been a recent prevalence study done by Queen's University in partnership with the Province, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Community Services, and that study has not yet been released. What it indicated, which is what I indicated in the paper yesterday, is that there is a higher instance of autism in this Province than in some other provinces in the country. We are going to use that information, together with the insights we have gained ourselves from working with individuals with autism over the last couple of years, both in our education system and in our health system, to map out a future direction for providing services to people with autism in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I say to the minister, the positive headline for pathologists in this Province has no doubt been the result of the profile that we gave the issue as well, Minister, in this Legislature every single day before we dragged the government, kicking and screaming, into a room with pathologists to even understand what the issue was all about, Mr. Speaker. Anyway, we did not –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We did speak to health professionals at the Janeway hospital who have explained to us that the numbers of children with autism in this Province have increased. In 2006 we had about 74 children that were diagnosed. Those numbers jumped to 114 in 2007 and they expect the numbers to increase again in 2008.

MR. SPEAKER: I ask the hon. member to pose her question.

MS JONES: Yes, I will, Mr. Speaker.

We have also, Mr. Speaker, been told by the people at the Janeway, that there is only one developmental psychologist to assess these children.

I ask the Minister of Health: has your department looked at adding a different position or another position of a psychologist there, to help deal with the increasing numbers of children with autism in the Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Mr. Speaker, the short answer to the member's question is, yes, we have looked at what kinds of resources are necessary to provide for people with autism.

Let me elaborate a little bit, Mr. Speaker, on what we have actually done. What we have done this year in working with not only the Janeway but with the Autism Society who provide tremendous supports for people with autism in the Province, we have increased their funding level this year by, I think it is, about $250,000 over and above what we have provided in past years. We will continue to work with that society and their many chapters throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, and we will continue to work with the Janeway to ensure that they have the necessary resources to respond to – well in the Janeway's case it is children with autism.

The Department of Education, as well - children with autism in our education system will be well served through the resources that this Budget has delivered to the Department of Education.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Collectively, ourselves at Health and Community Services, our Regional Health Authorities, the Department of Education and the Autism Society, we will work in the best interests of everybody (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Seven years ago, an individual with a grandchild affected by autism took their case to the Supreme Court when he was placed on a waiting list for ABA Therapy. Now, we are one of only two provinces in Canada to have a zero wait time, and, Mr. Speaker, that is something to be very proud of.

I ask the minister today: Given the success of that particular program for children under the age of six, will your department now commit to extending resources to a full-time ABA Therapy program beyond the age of six for those children who are impacted?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: The member indicated that she had read the Telegram today, she must have read the rest of the story that said that I have had discussions already with my colleague, the Minister of Education, to look at the ABA program. As she would be very much aware, the ABA program now provides services to children from the time of the diagnosis until they start school and then the education system provides programs and services augmented with what is provided by Health and Community Services. The minister and I have agreed that we need to sit down and have a discussion around the ABA program, the supports that are provided to autism, both in the education system and in Health and Community Services.

As I say many times in this House, Mr. Speaker, our interest as a government, not just with people with autism but with the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, is to ensure that we have a health system that responds to the changing needs of our population and has a view of enhancing the quality of life that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have, and that is what we will do for people living with autism in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Actually, my next question is for the Minister of Education.

We know that special education teachers receive some very limited training in terms of dealing with children of autism, but we are concerned about the level of professional development which teachers and special assistants receive.

I ask the minister: Is she looking at or prepared to look at a training program to be applied to those individuals within the school system to help deal with these children of autism?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, as the Leader of the Opposition would know, certainly we have spent a considerable amount of time in the last couple of years to review the ISSP process that we have in the schools that deals with students who have special needs.

Mr. Speaker, we had a Province-wide consultation done. We had a report submitted to government which had seventy-five recommendations, of which we accepted seventy of the recommendations.

Some of the recommendations we are able to implement immediately. Others need ongoing review and analysis within the department so we can move ahead with a plan of action, but we do plan to move ahead with seventy of the recommendations, and falling under that umbrella would be any child in the school system who has special needs, including children who may be diagnosed with autism.

Mr. Speaker, we are very concerned about the special needs of the students, and as we move forward with the full implementation of the ISSP report we should be able to see improved services in the schools.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Media reports have confirmed that the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary have launched an internal probe into their Corner Brook operations, using the Criminal Investigation Branch of the OPP.

I am wondering if the Minister of Justice might be able to provide the House with any information as to the nature of this complaint, and what would warrant bringing in the OPP to investigate.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I can confirm for the Opposition House Leader that there is an investigation ongoing. It is my understanding that Chief Joe Browne will be conducting a news conference this afternoon, at which he will confirm in further detail the nature of the investigation, and at this point what I will say is that this matter, and matters of this nature, are taken very seriously by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and steps have taken already by the Chief to address the situation that has arisen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you. I appreciate the minister's candid answer.

Minister, we will be certainly staying tuned for the outcome of the press conference this afternoon, but I am wondering if you would be in a position to advise the House and the people, at this time, in addition to the leadership issue that is being investigated, are there any external issues surrounding this investigation – non-internal - that might be involved?

There was an indication, as well, there would be a report compiled by the OPP. I am wondering: Would you be agreeable, once you receive that report, to having it released?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There are issues ongoing right now in relation to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, as have been reported recently in the media. In terms of the issue that the hon. member is referring to, obviously if there is a report prepared by the OPP and reviewed by the Department of Justice we will have to see where that is going.

If there is a criminal charge or charges that come out of any of these investigations then, Mr. Speaker, obviously that matter will have to be dealt in the normal course of events.

In terms of an internal investigation, that will be dealt with by Chief Browne. That is not something that would normally come to the Minister of Justice's attention because these are internal operational matters that will be dealt with by the Chief.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am not sure whether the Minister of Health and Community Services or the Minister of Justice would be best situated to handle this.

Again, I asked questions yesterday related to mental health services in the Provinces, principally HMP. We have also had information relayed to us that a teenage girl having some mental issues was placed in the Whitbourne Youth Centre, and she was there for a thirty-day psychiatric assessment and actually never did get the assessment.

I am wondering if the minister, whoever is most appropriate, could tell us: What are the wait times right now in Whitbourne when it comes to psychiatric assessments, and is there a backup? - Because there certainly seems to be.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the hon. member for his question.

The issue of medical treatment or psychiatric facilities or treatment at the Whitbourne Youth Centre first arose, Mr. Speaker, during what I will refer to as a strip-search investigation earlier this year.

We are certainly aware of the issues that have to be examined, and the member opposite raises a very good issue. It is an issue that I am going to have explored, Mr. Speaker.

As for wait times, I am not exactly certain of that. If I had more time, Mr. Speaker, I could go into detail in terms of the policies at the Whitbourne Youth Centre, how it is being utilized and how it is relates to the facility both at the Janeway hospital and the St. John's detention centre.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Back in April we brought attention to the fact that the women's correctional facility - in Clarenville, that is - was not providing adequate mental health services to the inmates there.

I ask the Minister of Justice: Where is your department in terms of implementing the recommendations that the Office of the Citizens' Representative provided quite some time ago regarding mental health for female offenders?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. KENNEDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do not know if the report that the Opposition House Leader is referring to is the one that deals specifically with the Labrador situation, but the Labrador situation is being addressed in this year's Budget by the examining of the building of a facility in Labrador that would deal with people with mental health issues, youth and female offenders.

In relation to, specifically, the Clarenville situation, Mr. Speaker, we have commissioned – and the member rightly pointed out yesterday that the Terms of Reference of the prison review are broad, but we made them broad specifically so that we could look at issues as they arose. It is my understanding that Ms Poirier, Mr. Brown, that they will be looking at the other institutes in this Province and will specifically be looking at the issue in relation to the female offenders in Clarenville.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

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

At the cost of being frustrated, I am going to put more questions to the Minister of Health and Community Services today in the line of the questions I asked yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, at present, the Medical Transportation Assistance Program does not cover cost for patients who stay with a relative or friend. Staying with a relative or friend in a familiar environment while receiving treatment could actually help in their recovery and with their well-being, but it can be an added cost for relatives and friends, especially because very often patients' nutritional needs can change while they are receiving treatment and may be very different from a family's usual meals.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: Will your government reinstate the meal per diems and increase the monthly cap to reflect the true financial burden in the Medical Transportation Assistance Program?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I should first, I guess, apologize for the member's frustration. It is not my intent at all. As I stand in the House each day and attempt to answer questions the best way I can, it is not my intent to create frustration, but maybe the member may want to ask clearer questions, or be a little more content with my answers, though I accept her questions on their face.

Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday, in the last two years we have made significant improvements in our medical transportation system. We have, in fact, increased the limits for accommodations. We have, in fact, increased the limits for the meals. We have, in fact, increased the deductible that is available. In fact, we have increased the amount, the portion that we will share in after the deductible, Mr. Speaker.

As I said yesterday, this program, together with others, will be a part of the annual evaluation that we do of programs and services in preparation for next year's budget -

MR. SPEAKER: I ask the hon. minister to conclude his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

- and the suggestions that the member has made, together with many from colleagues on this side of the House and on the other side, Mr. Speaker, we will incorporate all of those –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

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

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

Of course the minister knows that my questions are usually quite clear. He also knows that the cost of staying with relatives and friends is not covered, but I am glad to know that he is at least going to take it under advisement as he does the current evaluation that is going on.

Mr. Speaker, patients are occasionally referred outside the Province for testing that is not available in a timely manner in the Province due to the length of the waitlist. Mr. Speaker, we have been contacted by patients regarding situations where the Medical Transportation Assistance Program would not subsidize the cost of the trip, even through the doctor has referred the patient for testing outside the Province.

I ask the Minister: Will this government cover the cost of trips for testing outside the Province if the physician deems there is an urgent need and it cannot be done in the Province?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: There is a caveat that the member has placed in her question which is a valid one, which is if the service is not available in the Province. On occasion, there are individuals who may want to leave the Province to avail of a service, and in fact there has been a recent example where an individual – and they may be the example the member is referring too - a recent example where there was an individual referred outside the Province for a service that was available in Newfoundland and Labrador, albeit there might have been a waiting list different in this Province than there would have been in Ontario, but the person chose to leave and go to Ontario for the examination.

In those sorts of circumstances, Mr. Speaker, the medical transportation system was never designed to accommodate that kind of a circumstance, but clearly if the service is not available in the Province, like the recent radiation treatment, for example - I think there are 130-odd patients we sent out to Ontario for radiation treatment because the service was not available in the Province.

MR. SPEAKER: I ask the hon. minister to conclude his answer.

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A few years back there were a number of cardiac patients who went out of Newfoundland and Labrador, again to Ontario, because we could not accommodate all of the workload in the Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for question and answers has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Special Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Tabling of Documents

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

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

Pursuant to Section 26.(5)(a) of the Financial Administration Act, I am tabling six Orders in Council relating to funding pre-commitments for the 2008-2009 to the 2013-2014 fiscal years.

MR. SPEAKER: Further tabling of documents.

Notices of Motion.

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given

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

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yesterday in Question Period the Leader of the Opposition asked the question with regard to Island Aggregates, as to the length of our contract with Island Aggregates and the amount of money that had been disbursed under our limestone program.

Mr. Speaker, we had a five-year contract with Island Aggregates beginning in 2006. That contract is now lapsed. We paid money to Island Aggregates only as it was invoiced, so they do not have any money belonging to us, Mr. Speaker. In fact, we probably owe them some money.

MR. SPEAKER: Further answers to questions for which notice has been given.

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for District of Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.

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

I am pleased to stand once more and speak to the petition with regard to the 911 service in the Province, a petition that I have indicated before has been signed by over 50,000 people.

While I do know that the minister responsible is committed to the issue of 911, I do believe it is important to keep this discussion alive, especially since we do know that, beginning two days ago on June 1st, 911 has begun in Labrador West and it has begun there because of cooperation among the Labrador City and Wabush municipalities and the mining companies in the region, the Iron Ore Company of Canada and Wabush Mines, as well as the Provincial Government. I think it is important to note that the mayors in Labrador West recognize number one that this is an extremely expensive service that not all municipalities can carry, even with partners in the service with them and the need for this to be a Province-wide service that government is in charge of.

Just to point out, that this discussion is alive and well and that people in the Province are watching, municipalities as well as organizations and individuals – I continue to get phone calls about this issue, and once again I encourage the minister in the work that is going on inside of his department. I look forward, in the not-too-distant future, at least to receive a report from the minister explaining where things are, how things are going with the planning for a 911 in the Province.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions.

Orders of the Day.

Orders of the Day

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move from the Order Paper Motion 1, pursuant to Standing Order 11, that the House not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. on today, Tuesday, June 3, 2008; and further, I move Motion 2, pursuant to Standing Order 11, that the House not adjourn at 10:00 p.m. on today, Tuesday, June 3, 2008.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do not adjourn at 5:30 of the clock today, being Tuesday, June 3.

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that this House do not adjourn at 10 o'clock today, Tuesday, June 3.

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I call Order 5, second reading of a bill, An Act To Amend The Energy Corporation Act, Bill 35.

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 35 is now in debate in second reading.

The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: I am closing debate.

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

I would ask direction again before I again interrupt the minister. Are we going to follow the Standing Orders, I say to the hon. Government House Leader, or revert back to what we have been doing the past two days?

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that for the past two Parliamentary days we did not follow the rules of debate for second reading, however when the minister speaks at this time she will close second reading.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. the Minister of Natural Resources speaks now she will close the debate on second reading of Bill 35, An Act To Amend The Energy Corporation Act.

The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a really interesting week as we discussed Bill 35, An Act To Amend The Energy Corporation Act.

This is a significant piece of legislation for our government and for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker, certainly the most significant piece of information that we have brought forward in our time as a government.

It is a wonderful opportunity here, and a new road that we are going down, in which we are going to establish our own Energy Corporation, where we move along the path to becoming masters in our own house, that we sit at tables and make decisions with regard to our resource development in the best interests of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador; and Bill 35, Mr. Speaker, is a mechanism to allow us to do that.

We suspended the rules here in the House this week, Mr. Speaker, to allow a full and open discussion of this legislation so that especially the opposition had ample opportunity to lay their perspective on the table, to raise concerns and to have questions answered.

Outside of this Legislature, Mr. Speaker, we also took the time to meet with our colleagues opposite, again to discuss issues that they had around this piece of legislation, and made amendments that we will discuss in Committee to address a number of the concerns that they brought forward.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is a piece of work that we are very proud of, as a government; again, a new path being forged, a new day for Newfoundland and Labrador in resource development.

With those remarks, Mr. Speaker, I move the closure of second reading of Bill 35 and look forward to our discussion in Committee.

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 35, An Act To Amend The Energy Corporation Act, 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: A bill, An Act To Amend The Energy Corporation Act. (Bill 35)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 35 has now been read a second time.

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

MS BURKE: Now, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, a bill, "An Act To Amend The Energy Corporation Act," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently, by leave. (Bill 35)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bill 35.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bill 35, 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 (Collins): Order, please!

Before we debate Bill 35, there was a point of order raised by the hon. Opposition House Leader on May 29. He raised a point of order to inquire whether it was permissible to read from a BlackBerry while speaking in debate. The House Leader said that he had observed the hon. the Minister of Justice using his BlackBerry in this way.

Our Standing Orders are silent on the use of electronic devices in the Chamber. This is a question that the Standing Orders Committee might consider. In the meantime, I believe the Speaker had discussed this informally with some members and advised them that it is permissible to use a BlackBerry provided they are silent and, further, that they should not use them as a speaking aid in debate.

We are now ready to commence debate on Bill 35.

The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Now that we are in Committee, Mr. Chair, I am going to introduce six amendments to Bill 35. These are being circulated, I understand, at this moment in the House.

These amendments, several of them, are related to process in terms of making sure that the intent of the bill is clearly understood and there is no ambiguity about what it is we are trying to achieve in several of the sections of the bill.

Several of the other amendments that are being brought forward at this time, Mr. Chair, are a result of discussions held with our colleagues opposite during the last several days, and concerns that they have raised.

What we are trying to achieve in this bill, Mr. Chair, is to ensure that the Energy Corporation has the tools it needs to operate effectively in the commercial world. At the same time, Mr. Chair, we acknowledge that we are dealing with a hybrid here; because Energy Corp. is a Crown corporation, it is owned by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, so it is a fine balancing act that we have had to do in this piece of legislation to ensure that the Energy Corp. is able to function properly in the business world and do the work that it needs to do on behalf of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador to be able to engage in business activities where there is a great deal of commercially sensitive information that partners and third parties would be very concerned about in terms of sharing with our Energy Corp., and their requirement that, that information be protected, that it not be widely shared, because it could have a significant impact on their business activities.

That is also true, Mr. Chair, not only for third parties or other companies that we might be dealing with, but, for example, in our transactions, in what we are trying to achieve in the development of the Lower Churchill and the sell of power either from the Lower Churchill or from our Energy Corp., what we are doing in terms of R&D, Mr. Chair, in ensuring that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are facilitating that kind of research and development. We have to ensure that we protect that information in a way that sees the people of the Province get the primary benefit from that. It is a fine balance that we are trying to strike in this bill, and some of the amendments speak to that.

Again, how do we deal with tendering? How do we ensure that there is a lively and open, competitive, function in our Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries so that the people who want to do work on behalf of the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries have fair and open access, that everybody understands what the rules are, and the guiding principles for doing this kind of activity?

These are the kinds of things that we have addressed in these six amendments that we have brought forward, Mr. Chair, and I look forward to further discussion on all of the elements of these amendments as we move through Committee.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I would like to say it is pleasing, I guess, to see that we have moved from second reading stage into Committee stage of this bill. For those, of course, who might be wondering what that is all about, there are usually three or four stages to a bill, one being first reading, then second reading, which is pretty general in nature, and Committee stage, which gets into the specifics, and then, of course, the third and final stage in terms of the Legislature.

We have reached the stage now where we are in Committee and the rules require or allow that each side now, or each speaker who gets up, not necessarily side to side, but that is usually what happens, will have ten minutes each to address the matters, and we will usually stick to the specifics of the bill, clause-by-clause, rather than being of a generic nature. I think it warrants some bearing in the first instance to explain to the public what has happened in the last couple of days.

We started our debate on this Bill 35 back last Thursday. In fact, we worked Thursday afternoon on it, we worked Thursday night on it, and over the weekend on it, because it is a very substantial and important piece of legislation, as the minister says. We incorporated the Energy Corp. piece and brought an act into this Legislature last year called Bill 28, which created it, and we are back here now this year amending that Bill 28 by Bill 35 to allow certain other things to happen.

We in the Opposition certainly feel as well that what they are now tacking on to the Energy Corp, or taking away or adding to the Energy Corp. is, in and of itself, very, very substantial.

First of all, in terms of the process, we outlined, as an Opposition, last week what we felt in second reading were some serious issues that were remaining in Bill 35. The government had an option. They could have said we can debate this until the cows come home, pursuant to the rules or whatever, or we could say, look, let's suspend the rules; this is important enough that each side needs an opportunity to comment, to listen, and to respond accordingly.

That is what we agreed to do last Thursday. I am very pleased that, after laying a lot of these issues on the table last Thursday, in the afternoon and in the evening, the minister and her staff took it under advisement and over the weekend and so on came back and said, okay, we listened to you and there are some issues here that we are prepared to look at. In fact, there were six amendments that the minister had, and she gave them to us.

In fact, there were a lot of extensive meetings, I would add, outside the House, that just did not happen here in the House. The reason we did that wasn't so the public would not be aware of what was going on, but it makes it a lot easier sometimes across a table when you have the personnel involved to discuss things, throw it out, tear it apart, get into the A's through Z's and figure out what does this mean, what do you mean by this, and so on. That candid conversation back and forth, and dialogue, helps sometimes resolve issues, and sometimes we might identify that you do not have a problem after all, where you thought you had a problem. That was the process that was used outside the House.

The government made not only the minister available - was she available - but officials of her department, legal counsel from the Department of Justice, representatives from the Energy Corp. itself, all members of the Opposition were invited to attend, and our research staff, so it was a very comprehensive, shall we say, open dialogue process.

We thank the government for doing that, by the way, because I think it is in everybody's best interest. We did not get bogged down in the technicalities of amendment after amendment to try to get this through just to get extra speaking time, which would have been the case because the Opposition, in limited numbers, of course, only have certain opportunities to speak, so we thank the government and the minister for that process that was followed.

We are back here today and the minister has tabled some amendments, I do believe, that government were prepared to live with, shall we say. We do not necessarily agree, still, with everything that is in those amendments, but we would concede that it has gone some way to alleviate and remove the concerns that the Opposition had. We raised them; they came back and responded. Some of them go all the way to answering the concerns that the Opposition members had; some of them go part ways to operating.

By the way, the government has their positions, the same as we have our positions, as to why they could not go a certain distance, and we feel that sometimes, okay, maybe you did not go far enough, but that is the nature of negotiations and discussions back and forth. At the end of the day, suffice it to say that after all the deliberations we have a package of six amendments coming from the government that they are prepared to amendment Bill 35 in these ways.

As the debate goes on in Committee, and back and forth, of course, we will take an opportunity to say why we agree with them, that the government are putting forth. We will also take an opportunity to say why we disagree with them, that they did not go far enough.

I am sure the minister, as we did in our meetings, will explain why that is as far as she could go and that is as far as the government could go, et cetera. That will be the nature, I would think, of our discussions back and forth in the House. We will not belabour points. I do not intend to get repetitive about it, but that is the process that we intend to follow. As we go through each clause of the bill we would like to have an opportunity to say why we think it is right or wrong, and so on.

At the end of the day we will be proposing, and I would now, in fact, table – there was one amendment that we wanted, that the government said they could not agree to, and we will be tabling this as well here now at this stage, in Committee stage, and ask for consideration when that clause comes up in the bill for debate. That is with respect to clause 4 of the bill, talking about the sale of subsidiaries. That was one issue that we could not agree on, and we all have our reasons why we could or we could not, and that will come out as we get more fully into that debate.

That is all I want to say at the present time. I am sure there are other members who want to have some opening comments as well in regard to the debate, and how we got here. I would say, probably suffice it to say, that after all of the discussions and the debate that we have had so far, probably all of us will leave here at the end of the day, when the vote is done, wondering if we did the right thing; because some things we find about Bill 35 are good, and we can appreciate where you have to go. We do not know if it is the right way to go, necessarily, but we can appreciate, at least, and comprehend why you want to go there.

The balance that we felt, from day one, the government needed to strike here, at the end of the day, will determine whether we vote for or against Bill 35.

I just want it to be very clear that if, at the end of the day, Opposition members - some may vote for it, some may vote against it, that is each individual Opposition member's call, but at the end of the day - if we vote against Bill 35, it is not because we did not appreciate the government's efforts to make it palatable to us, and that we do not appreciate the government's openness and being co-operative and providing us with an opportunity to at least have a full and complete debate on this issue. I want to make that quite clear.

At the end of the day it comes down to the balance, we feel, of what it is government is trying to accomplish in allowing the Energy Corp. to be functional as any other business and player in the industry - whether that be whatever piece of the energy industry that it might be, offshore, or Lower Churchill, or wind energy, or whatever - versus the public's right to know what is happening, when should they be informed, and the public's right to have some say in when it is done.

That is basically how we see it lining up over here, I believe, as an Opposition. That is the balance that is trying to be struck. The government, at the end of the day, no doubt, feel they struck the right balance, and we will have to make that decision at the end of debate because I certainly have not closed off my head one way or another yet. I am torn right now, because I did hear good arguments both ways, and that will be my conscience, I guess, that has to live with that at the end of the day.

That is all I have to say at this point. I would like to table the amendment, and I look forward to the debate as we go clause-by-clause.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do recognize when it is a Chair at the Table it is very hard for the Chair to see me when I stand. I am right in the line of the head in front of you. Thank you for your recognition.

I would like to make opening statements first, as well.

I was very pleased with the process that we have been going through since last Thursday. I think it is something for us to think about as we continue working together in this House of Assembly, because what we went through, I think, is extremely important.

It is not that when a department, no matter which department it is, is putting a bill together that the department is not using tremendous expertise. The departments have expertise, and in the case of this particular bill, Bill 35, the Natural Resources Department has shown us that not only do they have wonderful expertise within the department but that they knew where to go to get expertise, both within our own country as well as internationally, to deal with this bill, because the bill is an extremely important bill and a complicated bill and, as I mentioned in the House yesterday, very complex.

It is not that members of the House in opposition do not trust the department or trust the expertise inside any department, it is that we all have a responsibility, number one, to understand any bill that we are passing in the House, and number two, we have a responsibility to understand it for the people of the Province, and through our discussion in the House, to help them understand the bill as well. The discussions that we have, the questions that we ask, the back and forth that goes on is extremely important for the sake of the public interest and the public good of the Province.

Because of what we have been through, and for me, in my short history in the House which is only about a year and a half - so this is what, my third or fourth session in the House. What we have been through has been fairly unique. There have been times over the last year and a half where I have gone to ministers and changes have happened in a piece of legislation because of issues raised, and I have been pleased with that.

This was much more complex and much more involved, the process that we have been through, and I think it is important for the public in general to understand what we went through, that when we had meetings outside the House, they were technical meetings in which we were able to really get at what was behind the language of the bill, and if we had questions around it, what the technical reasons were for why it was there, and if we wanted changes to see technically could changes happen. There was a lot of push and pull and a lot of discussion that was extremely important.

For me, I think it is something that we should really pay attention to and that we should think about as we move on after this whole piece of work is over, because it is something that I have been raising in the House over and over, and I would like to raise it once more because of this experience. That is, what we did in the name of second reading, in a situation in which we had said, we will do this discussion without the usual rules hampering us. What we did is what I think committee work is all about. It is equivalent to what happens in other jurisdictions, both in Ottawa and in other provincial jurisdictions, where draft bills come to committee first. Draft bills, after second reading, can be discussed and even before first reading, draft bills, a committee can get them and you can sit and talk together in committee about what this bill means.

The committee, the parliamentary committee, can call in witnesses, so the equivalent of what we did, for example, as the Opposition with the Minister of Natural Resources and her staff over the last couple of days, sitting down with people with expertise, going through the legislation, trying to see if changes can be made to meet everybody's needs, that kind of process can happen in committee, and that kind of process can be an open process that anybody can follow if they would like to follow.

I really do think it is something for us to think about in the House, how we work, and that this model with Bill 35, or this experience that it could become a model, that we could see that we all have the same interest when we are in the House, and that is the public good and the public interest. That is why we were willing to work as long and hard as we have worked over the last days in doing this bill, just like the Department of Natural Resources and the Minister were willing, to make sure we have as good a bill as possible through the, I am sure, thousands of hours of work that have gone into putting this bill together; and I do not think I am exaggerating.

I am emphasizing that first because I think it is really important for people to understand the process and I think that we have come a long way in that process, that we really have come to consensus on some important points. There was give and take on all sides, but it was a serious give and take because it had to be a give and take where you knew that you were not doing any damage to the bill and the intent of the bill. That was the challenge on all sides, was give and take without doing damage to the bill because a compromise that does harm is not compromise. That is not what compromise is about. Compromise means everybody being satisfied that what you have is meeting all needs.

We are not finished the process yet, and that is what I am recognizing. We had a meeting as early as one o'clock this afternoon before we came into the House. This process has been intense and there were things that we had discussed then and have been tabled through the amendments that the minister has tabled, that we still have to do more thinking about. That is what being in committee now is all about, allowing us to think more deeply about the amendments and are they really meeting the needs of everybody. I think there will be more questions and a bit more pushing on some things here as we continue the discussion.

I think it has been said, maybe by the minister and Opposition House Leader as well, but I also will repeat it, because I think it is good for the public to think clearly about what it is we are dealing with. We are working with a bill that is dealing with the creation of our Energy Corporation and the legislation that will cover, not just the Energy Corporation but any subsidiary that already exists or will exist under this Energy Corporation.

 

We do have to allow the Energy Corporation to operate as a business. It has to be free to operate as a business and it has to do that in the context of a very complex industry, an industry no part of which is not international. That is the reality. There are some industries that you can get into them and while there may be some global impacts they are not major, but when we are talking about oil and gas we are talking about nothing less then a completely international industry. The issues are not small, the issues are complex.

I will be speaking again. I need a little while to go over a couple of the things that we have been talking about today. I think there are a couple of points that I do want to raise.

In general, I like the work that we have done and I certainly do appreciate the work of the minister and all of her people. We will see; I am hoping that we would be able to pass this bill unanimously in this House, because it is an extremely important bill, but we have to make sure that what we are passing will totally protect the people in this Province while, at the same time, establishing a first-class corporation and system of corporations.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will leave my comments at that for the moment.

CHAIR: Order please!

We will now call the clauses of Bill 35.

A bill, "An Act To Amend The Energy Corporation Act." (Bill 35)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, I think, in the haste to start calling the clauses of the bill, the Minister of Natural Resources was going to speak to some of the amendments that we have.

CHAIR: I perfectly understand the question, but there are no amendments to clause 1. The first amendments are to clause 2.

MS BURKE: Yes.

CHAIR: We have called clause 1. Now we will go to clause 2.

We will lead the amendments one by one through clause 2.

CLERK: Clause 2.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

"Clause 2 of the Bill is amended by adding immediately after the proposed paragraph 5.2(1)(b) the following: (c) a report of each subsidiary giving an account of its activities during the immediately preceding financial year and including information that it believes may be of public interest relating to its activities but the report shall not be required to include commercially sensitive information."

Mr. Chair, this amendment, while we are providing a number of mechanisms in this bill to ensure that the subsidiaries and the Energy Corp. are providing information to its shareholder, which is the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, a lot of that information initially would have been bound up in consolidated annual reports, consolidated financial reports and so on, Mr. Chairman.

It was pointed out that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador might have an interest in what the subsidiaries are doing around their specific mandate. They might be interested in knowing what is happening in wind development, here in the Province, or something around oil and gas that they would not have been able to draw out in any kind of detail from the annual consolidated report. So, in response to that concern that has been raised, we are proposing this amendment, Mr. Chair, which has the subsidiaries give a very specific report about their activities during the preceding year. The only caveat again, Mr. Chair, the overriding concern through all of this legislation, is that we not release commercially sensitive information.

We do acknowledge the concern raised by our colleagues opposite, and that was the impetus for drafting this amendment, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, speaking to the first amendment.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are dealing here with Clause 2. Just a comment, by the way; I realize we passed clause 1 here, but it all ties together under the act, and that is the principal purpose of Bill 35, of course, under clause 1 was to outline what is commercially sensitive information so that we do not lose the principal focus here of what we are dealing with.

The concern here was that the Energy Corp., or subsidiaries that it might establish, would be going off and doing business with people involved in the energy industry – it could be any sector - and the concern was, what if these third parties were dealing with the Energy Corp., providing them with information that might be technological information, it might be commercially sensitive, it might be patented information – it could be anything - it could be drill processes that you might be using in mining or under offshore oil projects and so on. So the third party company, such as the Exxons of the world, did not feel comfortable, I understand, dealing with the Energy Corp. or with any subsidiaries they might establish, knowing, or not knowing, what might happen to that information in due course.

The only option around it, if you do not have legislative protection, I guess, was to negotiate confidentiality agreements to protect yourselves, and that becomes time-consuming and complex. Now, if the government obviously decided here that – because I am assuming that these confidentiality agreements are done all over the world. I mean, whether you are Microsoft who wants to buy Yahoo for $50 billion, or you are Exxon dealing with Norsk Hydro in the Norway offshore, or in the Mexico offshore industry, these companies standardly always do use confidentiality agreements, as I understand it, so it is not a case that it cannot be done. It is a case of the Energy Corp. wants the flexibility, I guess, to be able to move quickly without necessarily tying up months and months or years and years in negotiating the confidentiality agreements. So, it is not a case that it cannot be done; it is a case of the government wanting to give the flexibility to the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries by saying: We are going to get around that problem by saying this will be commercially sensitive information and it is protected. Because there are two things, and we will get into this later, there are certain things that the Energy Corp. – and this is under clause 2, later on, when it says certain circumstances when the Energy Corporation may refuse to disclose the information and there are certain times when they shall refuse to disclose the information.

They may refuse to do it under the act – commercially sensitive information of the corporation or a subsidiary - they may or may not, it depends on what the CEO decides, but in the case of any information they got from a third party such as an Exxon, for example, they shall not disclose it, under no circumstances, as I understand it. The CEO of the Energy Corp. or any subsidiary is prohibited from disclosing it once this goes through.

The problem, of course, we had is that under clause 1 – just to go back now – clause 1 is so broad, we feel, that anything and everything will be decided at the whim of one individual, that being the CEO of the Energy Corp, as to what is commercially sensitive. The question we raised last Thursday, when we first discussed this, was: Did it need to be so broad? - Because we are entrusting it to one individual.

Now, I realize that maybe nobody in government can decide in that type of industry what is or is not commercially sensitive. Maybe you have to go outside. Maybe the right person to go to is, in fact, the CEO of the Energy Corp., because I would assume that person has expertise and a level of knowledge in dealing with that in the industry, and he or she would know what is or is not commercial sensitive.

Our concern is that it is just carte blanche here. Once the law goes through here, there will not be any consideration about what is or what is not. There will not be any more of even a government saying what is or is not, technically, let alone the House of Assembly or the people or anybody else asking what is commercially sensitive. It will be left to one individual, and that will be the CEO of the Energy Corp.; and, just in case they missed anything when they defined it, they put in a subclause (viii) in the bill, which says, "commercial information of a kind similar to that referred to in (i) to (vii);" above.

So, there is no question that the definition of commercially sensitive information, not only is it broad here; it is as broad as one individual wants it to be. Of course, government was not prepared – we raised the concerns last week and asked were there any kind of limitations or controls that you might add, because it might be something that somebody might feel should be in the public domain but it will never, ever, reach there is the CEO decides that it is never going to get there.

Those were our first concerns under number one; but, of course, government, for their reasons, explained to us, in the meetings as well, they are not prepared to go there, they are not going to mend the definition that they have outlined here of commercially sensitive information.

The rest of this bill, after that, basically deals with circumstances of how the government or Energy Corp. or its subsidiaries will or will not report things to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, the Cabinet, or to the House or to the public. That is where we get into reporting requirements, where not only the House or the Cabinet and the public, but now that we have made this law on commercially sensitive information, what access if any should the Auditor General have to it, or can he make of it? What access should the Citizens' Representative have to it, or should not have to it? What information should the Privacy Commissioner have to that information? That is where the rest of these clauses come in, and there are certain prohibitions put in place after against these other government agencies that we have, Auditor General, Privacy Commissioner and Citizens' Representative and so on.

Moving on to number two: this is where a lot of the amendments go. We thought these restrictions were so broad, and some of them were dangerous in the sense that we felt government did not allow itself an escape hatch if they wanted it in certain cases, and that it was going a bit too far. That is where we get to the first one here, which the government now has proposed this first amendment to Clause 2(5.2). If you look at it, there are two subsections where they talk about reporting. On first reading, it says that the corporation and its subsidiaries would provide an audited consolidated financial statement of the corporation setting out the assets and liabilities for the end of the immediately preceding financial year, and the results of its operations. In (b) it talked about a report by the board giving an account of the activities of the corporation. Nowhere in that subsection did it talk about a financial statement of a subsidiary, nor did it talk about a report of the board of the subsidiary.

The way it was explained to us, that this was structured, is that you have government who is the shareholder, you have the Energy Corp. which we established here last year under Bill 28, and the Energy Corp. under that bill, that Law 28, will create a number of subsidiaries. They might have A, for example, that is going to be the Lower Churchill Project, they might have B that is going to be Hebron, they might have C that is going to be the Ramea wind project or they might have D that is going to be the White Rose Expansion. So, there could potentially be fifteen or twenty different subsidiaries.

The concern we had, from a reporting point of view, is, if it is only the corporation that is ever required to give a consolidated financial statement, and only the corporation that is required to give an annual report, how would anybody ever know, even the government, what different subsidiaries were doing? What was their financial statement in any given year? What were their activities in any given year? That was the nature of the proposal that we made. We said, we think there ought to be some public disclosure or revelation as to what these companies do.

The government's explanation to us, on first blush when we first met, was that their concern – and we bought into this, by the way, we did not disagree with the concern that they had. By the way, it says audited consolidated financial statement, so the financial statement for each year that the Energy Corp. would provide, it may well have all of the information of itself plus the financial information from everyone of its subsidiaries, but it all got consolidated in a financial statement for the Energy Corp. Anyone, of course, who went to look and find out what subsidiary A did, number one, there was no financial statement, number two, there was no board report, and number three, you had to go up and find it in amongst this consolidated statement.

As was explained to us by the current head, I understand, Mr. Martin of the Energy Corp., the problem he had with that is, again if you get down to the nitty-gritty details of the financial statements of corporation A and you combine that with what is going on in the statements of the corporation, somebody out there who might be a competitor of yours, like an Exxon who you are trying to negotiate with or whatever, might find out very relevant information, put it together and use that information to your disadvantage.

We have no problem accepting that –

CHAIR: Order please!


I remind the hon. member that his speaking time has expired.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you.

I can sit down and come back again, not a problem.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, speaking to the first amendment.

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


I will pick up from there. I am not speaking to what the Opposition House Leader was saying but I am sure it is going to dovetail and he is probably going to want to stand up again when I finish on this amendment.

I think it is important to point out for the listening public, that this amendment was particularly needed, as was explained to us by the minister and her people, especially in the case of a subsidiary that, at any one moment, might only have one activity, and that if the report of the subsidiary that has only one activity were, for example, to reveal its full financial statement it would be very easy for competition to figure out information that would be commercially sensitive information.

The discussion that we had, particularly from the perspective of the ministry side, was the concern about protecting the individual subsidiary, that if it were involved in only one activity would be giving away an awful lot of its information, if it gave a full report without any restrictions whatsoever. The discussion, the going back and forth that was called for, was around that point which was an extremely important point. That is why, when this amendment was presented today, which calls for a report which the original bill did not do - the original bill did not call for a report of the subsidiary. This one calls for the report of a subsidiary, and the report would be an account of activities, and an account of activities during a preceding year would tell what it is doing but not give away the information that would actually show how it is doing, what it is doing or the commercially sensitive information. I think that is really important. That is why having clause 1 in the bill is so important, as has already been pointed out, that we need to understand what commercially sensitive information is and why that always has to be a consideration.

We see then, in his amendment, an amendment that meets the needs of both sides, that the subsidiaries are reporting but the subsidiaries are also being protected. As I said, it is particularly important for a subsidiary that would have a single activity and would be giving a lot of information away if it did a full financial report in its annual report.

I think, though, we should also point out, in speaking to the amendment, putting it in the context of the original bill which I think is important, that this amendment is part of section 5.2 (1), which goes on into subsection (2) to talk about where the reports go. I think that again is important for people to know, that what happens is the corporation and subsidiaries give their reports to the minister. The minister can determine if those reports are satisfactory or if more information is needed. The minister can give that information back to the corporations and to subsidiaries. More information could be required and if it is, it will be given.

What is very important is that the report just does not go to the minister, the minister then has to present the report to the House of Assembly. All of the reports that come, both from the corporation and the subsidiaries, have to come to the House of Assembly, and the bill, the original bill, also indicates that the reports will also be made public by other effective means including electronically. That would mean that it would be on the Web site of the department, I would imagine, once it is made public.

So we have, I think, with regard to this amendment, managed to get an amendment which meets the need of subsidiaries being accountable, and being accountable not just to the Energy Corporation but also straight through to the House of Assembly, with regard to the report and its activities.

For me, personally, this amendment is a good one. It is an amendment that meets concerns that were expressed both here in the House and also in the meetings that took place outside of the House.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just to continue my few comments on this first amendment here, again, we feel that it is appropriate to have this subsection (c) added because at least now there will be a report.

I would like to get on the record, as well, what our concerns were still about this. This is not as far as the Opposition had asked to go, but it is far as the government was prepared to go. Again, the reasons they explained was because of the commercially sensitive nature of having financial data being put in a way of a public report that competitors might use against us.

I just want to be clear on the record that, albeit we appreciate the amendment that is being made, it did not go as far as we wanted. We thought you could achieve a balance by still having some financial information without compromising the commercial sensitivity of that information, and let people know what the subsidiaries were doing. That is the whole point about all of this, by the way. People might be saying, well, what is the need to know?

The reason they need to know is because if the government, through the Energy Corp., is going to be having whatever, five or ten different subsidiaries involved in different projects, we just feel as a matter of public principle and public interest that the public ought to have some way of knowing what is going on in these corporations. I mean, if you are a publicly-traded corporation there are certain things you are required to do. Likewise, we feel if you have a public enterprise - for example, the government - involved in certain activities, well, it is only right and proper that the government give some kind of report to the people.

It strengthens it a bit in terms of a report. At least we will get some idea, according to this, of the activities of the preceding financial year. It did not go near as far as we had hoped that it might go, but we do appreciate the sensitivities of why they say they cannot go any further.

Hopefully, the report that the minister ultimately - under that subsection 5.2(3) - tables in the House, puts on the Web, or whatever else, will be of sufficient detail to allow the people of the Province to know what is going on in these various corporations and that it is not all hidden. Because, no disrespect, we have had some problems sometimes, as an Opposition, and the people of the Province, trying to find out what is going on, notwithstanding our Transparency and Accountability Act. We have had to sort of pry teeth sometimes, and the ATIPP Act, of course, has not been exactly helpful in some instances when they do not want to put something out there.

The concern is there, but those are all of the comments that we have with respect to that particular amendment.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources, speaking to the first amendment.

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Chairman, the next element of clause 2.

CHAIR: We will vote on the first amendment, first, before we proceed to the second amendment.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) they are all on clause 2.

CHAIR: But they are all separate amendments.

"Clause 2 of the Bill is amended by deleting the word "and" at the end of the proposed paragraph 5.2(1)(a), by deleting the period at the end of the proposed paragraph 5.2(1)(b) and substituting a semi-colon and the word "and" and by adding immediately after the proposed paragraph 5.2(1)(b) the following:", which is an amendment - paragraph (c).

All those in favour of the first amendment as proposed by the Minister of Natural Resources, please indicate by saying ‘aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, please say 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, first amendment carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The next amendment is to amend clause 2 of the bill by deleting the proposed section 5.3 and substituting the following: The report required under section 5.2 shall be consistent in form and content with annual reports prepared by publicly traded companies.

Mr. Chair, this amendment speaks to, again, reporting mechanisms for the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries. In the act, when we talked about the form and content of reports, we made reference to the Securities Act, which gave rise to some confusion.

The Securities Act is an act in its own right and stands on its own merit and applies. The conditions of the act will apply or will not apply to the Energy Corp. or its subsidiaries depending on the legislation that is contained therein. Our major concern was ensuring that there was a reporting mechanism for Energy Corp. that was of a certain standard and was acceptable in the business world as well as would be acceptable and understandable to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Chair, in this amendment we have deleted any references to the Securities Act and amended Bill 35 to read that our reporting would be consistent in form and content with annual reports prepared by publicly traded companies.

These companies have a responsibility to report to their shareholders. We have a responsibility to report to our shareholders, the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries do, and we think that this amendment meets that criterion.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The concerns, for the record again, originally expressed in 5.3 says, "The report required under section 5.2 shall be consistent in form and content with annual reports that would be required of the corporation if the corporation was a reporting issuer under the Securities Act…".

That piece we did not have any problem with; because, if you are under the Securities Act and you are operating under the Securities Act, and the Securities Act requires that you do certain things in your reporting, we said, well, why would the Energy Corp. be any different? They should comply with any other public company, or any company that might be required to comply with the Securities Act.

The concern came with the caveat that was placed on the end which said, "…subject to the exceptions to these requirements that the minister may approve." So, our simple question was - and this came out in the meetings, by the way - if your intent is that the Energy Corp. will comply with the Securities Act, why do you need to have the caveat there saying that it is subject to the approval of the minister? Anyway, government looked at it and said, really, it was confusing and that there was no need of it, and that was not their intent. They have agreed to delete that, subject to the exceptions to these requirements the minister may approve. We had no problem with that particular amendment.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to speak to a couple of the amendments that have been put forward, and I know now you are on amendment 2, is it?

CHAIR: I remind the hon. Opposition Leader that we are now speaking to amendment 2 only.

MS JONES: Number 2. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to say, first of all, that a number of the amendments that have been put forward - and I did not make any general comments at the beginning, simply because I had to step outside for a minute. What I wanted to say, Mr. Chair, is that a number of the amendments that are being dealt with here today, that are being proposed by government, no doubt are being done so to strengthen this particular piece of legislation, and to ensure that once this Energy Corporation is established, there can be greater securities built around it in terms of public interest being protected.

Mr. Chair, we had proposed, initially, a number of amendments to the bill that we wanted to see enclosed, and most of those have certainly been met or addressed by government in their own amendments that they proposed and through the negotiation of different wording that would be all-encompassing within the bill. However, there are certain aspects that we still feel would give greater clarity and strength to the bill, and I guess we will debate, as time goes on, whether it is necessary or unnecessary, as we get into that particular aspect of it.

Mr. Chair, I know that you have already dealt with clause 2, but I just want to say that the purpose of having that there was to ensure that the reporting mechanisms of subsidiary companies were also being done in a transparent way, and not just that of the Energy Corporation. While there was different legislation and acts under which the Energy Corporation would have to produce annual reports and annual returns, there was nothing that guaranteed that subsidiary companies – and that would be companies like Hebron-Ben Nevis, particular auspices of the Energy Corp., or the Lower Churchill or the Ramea Wind Project or the Hibernia South Project, which are all four that we would be aware of to a certain degree within the Province, or have at least heard that government is having discussions about. It would be to ensure that each of these subsidiaries, as well, would produce annual reports and that those annual reports, Mr. Chair, would account for the activities of that subsidiary through the course of the entire year, of that particular financial year. It would also include information that they believe to be of interest to the public. That is very important, because oftentimes when you have corporations or companies like this that are set up and established, it is not until something major happens within that corporation that hits the media and makes the headline news, that people – until then, people usually do not know or have an everyday grasp on what is going on.

Mr. Chair, notwithstanding the fact that there would be no controversy whatsoever that would have to make those headlines, there would still be a disclosure process in which both the positive aspects of the corporation, in terms of gains and investments and profits, Mr. Speaker, might be reported, and also any significant challenges that they may have faced as a subsidiary over that period of time. That was one of the particular pieces that we had wanted added.

We also wanted to add that they would have to table their financial statements for each subsidiary, but after further clarification from the minister and her officials and also from Hydro, we had a better understanding of the sensitivities that would be around disclosure of information of that nature and we fully came to understand that their reasoning for not providing it would be very much in terms of upholding the commercially sensitive information clause that would be contained within this particular piece of legislation. Mr. Chair, that was the reason we had asked government to add further clarity and to strengthen that particular clause, and while it is a compromise, we certainly believe that it is necessary.

Mr. Chair, under clause 2 (5.3), in which they omitted the Securities Act, I think my colleague has already spoken to that and indicated that within the legislation it did not provide any further clarity or was not providing for any necessity within the legislation, and therefore I think it needed to be taken out.

I am assuming we have not gotten to the debate on clause 2(3) in the amendments yet, and I will reserve my comments on that until then.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just a brief comment, to be on record with regard to the various amendments. I think that is an important thing for us to do.

The amendment that we are looking at here, the second amendment, basically, to put it bluntly, is a nice, clean, straightforward statement of what needs to happen. That was the only concern that was raised in the discussions that were held outside of the House with regard to the section, section 5.2 that was being replaced. This is straight forward. I think anybody in the Province should be aware of the fact, or not be aware of it but be satisfied with the fact that the annual reports that are prepared by publicly traded companies are absolutely quite intense and quite comprehensive and cover every aspect of a company that could be covered.

Knowing that these annual reports will be done by the corporation and subsidiaries is extremely important. Well, the corporation's subsidiaries are different, but by the corporation should make everybody satisfied. I think the language is clear and cannot be misunderstood.

Thank you, very much.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the second amendment to clause 2 as proposed by the Minister of Natural Resources?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

The second amendment is carried.

On motion, second amendment carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Our third amendment, "Clause 2 of the bill is amended by deleting the proposed subparagraph 5.4 (1)(d)(i) and substituting the following: (i) is treated consistently in a confidential manner by the third party, or"

Mr. Chair, this amendment results as a housekeeping error in fact, Mr. Chair, something that happened in the translation, in the drafting of the bill from what our intent was to what actually ended up in the bill. Basically, in terms of identifying confidential information, what the bill speaks to is that any third party, any company that Energy Corp. is involved with or one of its subsidiaries is involved with, that if that third party provides us with information that they hold confidential than the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries will hold confidential as well, Mr. Chair.

To give you an example of that, Mr. Chair, what that means: you know, when we are negotiating, for example, the Hebron agreement, one of the reasons we needed a very thorough and a very strict confidentiality agreement was because one of the requirements we needed in terms of the negotiation was to go into what is called the data room of ExxonMobil. That is where they hold all of their information with regard to their seismology, in terms of the price of oil, in terms of – just tons and tons and tons of very commercially sensitive information that if it were leaked in any kind of a way or made available to their competitors would have significant impact on the company. Mr. Chair, when we are engaged in that kind of activity, when third parties are providing us with very, very sensitive information that they have always held confidentially, then what we are saying in this bill is that we will also hold it as confidential information.

When the bill originally came down we had this piece not only applying to the third party but we had it applying to the Corporation and to the subsidiaries. What the original bill says is that anything that the Energy Corp. holds confidential, anything that the subsidiaries deem confidential and hold confidential, it is treated in the same way as this third party, and that is far to broad, Mr. Chair. That was never our intention.

We have defined very clearly in this bill what kinds of information we want held confidential. The amendment reflects here clearly, Mr. Chair, the intent when we drafted the bill but got mixed up in the translation.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This was one of the issues that I raised in the debate on Thursday in the House of Assembly, because what it does pertain to is it falls under the section the look at the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Although there are clauses within this bill that restrict the kind of information that can be released through any process whatsoever, as it is deemed to be commercially sensitive information, there are additional clauses which speak to the Access of Information by authorities of the Province, Mr. Chair, such as those provided for under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Mr. Chair, under this particular Act, basically what it was saying is that the Chief Executive Office of the Corporation or subsidiary or the head of another public body may refuse to disclose an applicant under the Act, commercially sensitive information, which we understand. They may also refuse to disclose an applicant under the act, commercially sensitive information as it relates to a third party, which we have no problem with.

Mr. Chair, it went on to also say that, information similar to the information requested to be disclosed treated consistently in a confidential manner by the Corporation, the subsidiary or the third party. We had a problem with that because it goes beyond the real definition that would have been outlined at the initial clause 1 of this bill defining commercially sensitive information. It would have taken in just about anything that the corporation or the subsidiary felt that they did not want to have released to the public, and we thought that was giving too much authority. I understand from the minister that was never the intention in the first place to have it stated in the bill, and now that has been removed. This was the position that we took on Thursday of last week when we noted it in the legislation.

Mr. Chairman, as I said in the beginning, we have no problem with third parties who deal with the government. No matter what company that may be, in whatever sector, whether it be in the oil industry or in the wind power or solar panel industry, Mr. Chairman, it does not make any difference whatsoever, that they would have that autonomy to say to the corporation that as a third party, although this may not be commercially sensitive to the deal, it is sensitive to our organization or our corporation, and therefore we would not want to have this information released in any way to the public.

That guarantee is provided for within the legislation, but certainly not a privilege that should extend to any other aspect of the corporation or the subsidiary, because to do so, Mr. Chair, would allow them to exempt any information that we may want to request. We could have actual annual reports that would have nothing only the title in them. We have had that in a request under Freedom of Information, for information from the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs on the Mealy Mountain Park area. I have received a full briefing note with nothing on it only the title. Everything else was blacked out on that particular briefing note, Mr. Chairman. The only thing it had was the name of the minister's department, it had the title of the bill which was Mealy Mountain Park area, and every single other piece of it was blacked out, Mr. Chair, even the commas, even the indentation that was in it. Everything was black, Mr. Chairman. It was like a black piece of paper.

I know, that when I looked at this bill I said, well, this could be another repeat of trying to get a briefing note out of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. It could be the same kind of process whereby the only thing you would get at the end of the day would be the title on the annual report but it would have nothing in it.

We were very cognizant of that clause in the legislation and we wanted to make sure, Mr. Chair, that while third parties would be able to negotiate with the Energy Corporation or with any government on any deal, that they would be able to do so in good faith, knowing that the information that they present, whether it be commercially sensitive or just corporately sensitive, could be protected under the legislation. It was important that they would be able to be given those assurances, because we know, Mr. Chair, that it is a highly competitive society. We do not need to have any kind of legislation to tell us that. We already know that. We know that every time an oil company or a hydro development company or any stakeholders within those industries enter into a negotiation it is always a very highly competitive negotiation in that particular industrial sector. Therefore, they need to ensure that they have complete and strict regulations around any information that they are going to provide, and so we had no problem leaving that particular clause in there.

The other clause, Mr. Chair, within the bill, which is the next piece that says, it is customarily not provided to competitors by the corporation, the subsidiary, or the third party. We did not enter into any negotiation with the minister on this particular piece of the Act, Mr. Chair, because we certainly felt section (d)(i) took precedence over (d)(ii), but at the same time, if you look at (d)(ii) and you see, customarily not provided to competitors, well that includes just about anything, Mr. Chair; just about anything.

There is still an override protection in here for the Corporation and its subsidiaries, because, first of all, if I operate a grocery store, everything I do, including the hours that I post or the mark-up I have on a product, is customarily sensitive to my competitors. That is a very broad ranging piece within itself. We felt a need to tighten the legislation a little bit around the terminology that was being used under section 5.4(1)(d), and we felt that the best way to achieve that, Mr. Chair, was to have the amendments to section 5.4(d)(i), and that is indeed the amendment that has been introduced here and we certainly would support that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.

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

Just to take a couple of moments, actually. As the minister outlined, and I think we all accepted that what the minister outlined both here in the House as well as when we were meeting outside of the House, the amendment that is put in here is an amendment that is a housekeeping amendment; because, in actual fact, it went against everything else that was in the bill. It did not fit the spirit of the bill, so it did go against everything else that was in the bill.

I think there is a little lesson for us to be learned here: no matter how many eyes read something, and how many people work on something, you can still get a piece of a bill, for example, that can pass right through to this stage and be something that should not be there, and be something that was not meant by the writers. So, again, another reason for as many people as possible, as many parties as possible, being involved in the reading of a piece of legislation before we pass it.

When it is there, it can be there for a while before somebody may pick up the fact that it should not have been there. That could have been the case, actually, with this particular clause that was amended.

I will make much ado about nothing. I am glad it is amended, I am glad we picked it up, but again, as I said, there is a little lesson to be learned from that.

Thank you very much.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the third amendment to clause 2 as moved by the Minister of Natural Resources?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, third amendment carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The next amendment is, "Clause 2 of the Bill is amended by deleting the proposed subsection 5.4(3) and substituting the following: (3) Where a person appeals, (a) under subsection 60(1) of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, from a decision under subsection (1); or (b) under subsection 43(3) of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, from a refusal by a chief executive officer under subsection (1) to disclose information, paragraph 62(3)(a) and section 63 of that Act apply to that appeal as if Part III of that Act included the grounds for the refusal to disclose the information set out in subsection (1) of this Act."

Mr. Chair, the first part of this is housekeeping, as well as the previous amendment that we just discussed. With all respect to my colleagues opposite, the department picked up the errors and we gave notice on Thursday that we would be introducing amendments to correct the error that we just talked about in the previous amendment and the first part of this piece, because the appeal is not from the decision of the commissioner under ATIPPA; the appeal is from the decision of the CEO, so that was a misprint in the bill. The appeal under ATIPPA always comes from the decision of the CEO not to release commercially sensitive information, not from the commissioner.

The second piece of the information is in response to concerns raised by our colleagues opposite in ensuring that any judge in the Trial Division - he or she - is not hamstrung in terms of an appeal that might go to them in terms of what they can disclose.

When the CEO refuses, for commercial reasons, to release information then the person requesting the information has the right to appeal to the Trial Division. Mr. Chair, the judge will hear the arguments put forward by both sides. If he or she determines that the information is commercially sensitive and can have a negative impact on the Corp. or one of its subsidiaries, then the judge will not release that information; but if, in his or her judgement, the information is not commercially sensitive then that information can be released.

This is exactly how ATIPPA applies to other appeals that go through that process, Mr. Chair, and we do not have any expectation that appeals under ATIPPA would be, as far as the Trial Division is concerned, treated any differently.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just in reply to the minister's comments and again just in a general nature because we are still under this section 5.4, the concern that originated here, of course, the way the scheme is laid out right now, is that the CEO of the Energy Corp. will decide what is or is not commercially sensitive. As we have already said, he has a pretty broad definition under subsection 1 as to what that is. Some of it he may or may not disclose. If it is from a third party, he shall not disclose. So, it depends on what he classifies as CSI, I call it, commercially sensitive information, and depending on who provided the information, whether he may or shall disclose it.

Then we got into, as I say, the other people in the Province, or other officers in the Province, shall we say, the Auditor General or trial judge or a commissioner, who might want to get involved in that information as well, or come across it for some reason and wonder what they could do with it.

The process was, we feel that the legislation as originally drafted stymied, first of all, the Privacy Commissioner; because if there was a request, say, by the Opposition under the Access to Information Act, and the Privacy Commissioner looked at it and said, well, I do not believe that this is commercially sensitive information, we would have a dispute, I would think, then between the commissioner who said it was, the CEO of the Energy Corp. who says it is commercially sensitive information, and under normal circumstances under the ATTIP Act the commissioner would make a recommendation in that the information should be disclosed, but here we have a different little process being inserted as well and it says, if that happens, there is another step that gets injected here. The CEO, in that case, certifies - in an affidavit, I would think - the wording is on receipt of the chief executive officer certification, that he or she has refused to disclose for the reasons set out in subsection 1.

The decision of the CEO has to be confirmed by the board, then, and in that case it is deemed to be CSI or commercially sensitive information for sure and it is not disclosed. Then the question is, what happens after that decision by the CEO? Then we get into the second piece of this: Well, okay, you still never got the information you wanted, because of that. Where can you go, if anywhere, under ATTIP now?

There were two things that you had to look at, as to where you can go, and the first amendment we are dealing with here now had a reference to two and, I agree with the minister, it was simply a housekeeping matter. It was not a case of the commissioner appealing a decision of the commissioner. It was a commissioner making an appeal of the decision of the CEO. So, they have had to put in subclause 1 as opposed to subclause 2. So, that was simply strictly a housekeeping matter, not an issue.

The second part was more important because, the way it was worded, it seemed, if you got through that process under the ATTIP, you would normally have a right of appeal to the Trial Division, to a trial judge of the Trial Division of the Supreme Court. We felt the way that it is originally worded there is that, that could not happen, that the trial judge was being froze out, and that was where the concern arose, because there are different parts in the ATTIP legislation, Part II and Part III, and Part III deals with certain information - and I look forward to the minister, at the end of my comments, if she might, confirming that my understanding is the same as hers in this regard as to what we discussed - Part III of ATTIP currently outlines certainly information, that if the Trial Judge is looking at it, he must meet a certain test in order to order that that information be released. What we are doing here, is we are saying, in addition to all the items that are currently under Part 3, there is now going to be commercially sensitive information, which is all defined in this Bill 35. When the judge looks now, if it gets to that stage and a judge looks at it, he must satisfy a bunch of tests, one of which now is going to be commercially sensitive information.

It is my understanding – and this is the piece I would like the minister to confirm, because based on our comments in our meetings outside the House and from legal counsel and from the minister, is that there is no intent here to stop the Trial Judge from doing that test, number one. It is to just make sure that he is aware he must take that into consideration, commercially sensitive information. If the Trial Judge, after applying the test, decides that it is not commercially sensitive information, the Trial Judge can order it to be disclosed. That is the important piece that the opposition members were concerned about, and the way that it was formerly worded.

They acknowledge as well, by the way, even though everybody wrapped their heads around this overnight, there is still some difficulty as to how they would approach this and whether what we now have as an amendment is any different than what was there originally. That was the intent, and is the intent, of this particular amendment and that portion of the bill, so that if the Trial Judge, as long as he applies the test properly, including the CSI piece, if he decides and resolves in his head that it is not commercially sensitive information, he can still order it to be disclosed. That was the concern that we had.

That is the only comment we would have in regard to that amendment, and again I would appreciate if the minister can confirm that that is your understanding as well.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I believe I did confirm that in my opening remarks around this amendment.

There is not much point appealing to the Trial Division and to a judge if we tie his hands in terms of what he can release. The test is there and it has to be applied. If at the end of the day the judge decides that it is not commercially sensitive information, as determined by the test we have laid out in this legislation, then the information can be released.

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

MS MICHAEL: Since I have been putting myself on the record with the others, I will put myself on the record now, Mr. Chair, thank you very much, just to say I am totally satisfied with this particular amendment.

Everybody just wanted assurance that nobody's hands were tied, and I think the clarity of the amendment makes sure that does not happen.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt amendment 4 to clause 2 as proposed and moved by the Minister of Natural Resources?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, amendment 4 to clause 2 carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The next amendment, "clause 2 of the Bill is amended by deleting the proposed section 5.5 and substituting the following: 5.5(1) Where, (a) during the course of an audit; (b) as a result of a review of an audit report prepared by another auditor; or (c) as a result of an internal audit procedure, the auditor general becomes aware of an improper retention or misappropriation of funds by a director, officer, employee or agent of the corporation or a subsidiary, or of another activity that may constitute an offence under the Criminal Code or an Act of the province or of Canada, the auditor general shall, where the report includes commercially sensitive information, notwithstanding the Auditor General Act, provide the report to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council in confidence.

"(2) In addition the report required under subsection (1), the auditor general shall immediately provide a report to the House of Assembly that includes a general description, excluding commercially sensitive information, of the activity that is the subject of the report under subsection (1) and the dates on which those activities were reported to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.

"(3) Section 19.1 of the House of Assembly Act applies to a report under subsection (2) as if it were a report of an officer of the House of Assembly."

Mr. Chairman, as we have said before in debate here, the Auditor General has access to all information with regard to the Energy Corp. and to its subsidiaries. The only restrictions that apply to the Auditor General are with regard to commercially sensitive information. In the course of his or her review of the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries, if the Auditor General becomes aware of any wrongdoing or misappropriation of funds that immediately a report is made to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. This clause here, Mr. Chair, requires then that the Auditor General also make a report immediately to the House with some constraints around commercially sensitive information.

Mr. Chairman, in terms of what we are proposing here, this piece of this legislation we lifted almost directly from Chief Justice Green's report in terms of the conduct of MHAs and officers of the House.

Initially, what was proposed originally in the Act are exactly the same requirements that the Auditor General has with reporting misappropriation of funds or wrongdoing by Members of the Legislature. That is what we proposed. Now, Mr. Chair, we are going a step higher with this piece, we are raising the bar a little higher, so instead of waiting to make his or her annual report, the Auditor General will now make a report immediately to the House. This is addressing concerns again that were raised by members opposite that we not wait for the annual report of the Auditor General but that the capacity be within the bill that they be able to report immediately.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Right off the top we can say that we certainly do not have an issue with this particular amendment 5.5. The reason it came to light is, we would suggest that the people of the Province are very sensitive given what happened in the case of MHAs as to what could or could not be disclosed by him and what his authorities were when it came to doing investigations, what information he would have access to and how he could report upon it. That is, of course, what led to Chief Justice Green making his report.

The way it was originally worded, we felt that it did not go far enough in allowing the Auditor General the authority and the tools that he needed in order to be totally open and transparent and do the job that he needs to do as an independent officer of the House and of the government, to do it properly. Particularly, when it came to criminal investigations, there was a concern - and there was some discussion last week and the Minister of Justice was saying that the Auditor General does not decide if a crime is being committed. Well, we agree with that. It is not the role of the Auditor General to decide whether there has been a crime.

What we were saying is that if the Auditor General finds information that might cause him to believe that there has been a misappropriation of funds that might constitute an offence under the Criminal Code, then he should have a right to do certain things. What he does have a right to do under the House of Assembly, for example - if he comes across that information he does a couple of things. Right now he reports it the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, which is the Cabinet and he reports it immediately to the Speaker and to the House. There are a whole pile of people actually that he reports it to. I believe the leaders of the parties and so on actually get access to the information as well.

The question became: Why, if there was that type of possible criminal activity in the Energy Corp or in a subsidiary, wouldn't we do the same thing there? That is different than just necessarily commercially sensitive information. That is another issue. You are talking about a potential criminal activity.

That was the purpose and that was where our heads were when we talked about him having access to certain information. We agree here that, under this, he is not going to be able to divulge any information - the Auditor General - that is of a commercially sensitive nature, but if that information implies or leads him to believe there is information there that there has been an offence, he still reserves now, under this amendment, all of his rights to go and report it to certain people. Where he reports it now will be to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, but he also will report it to the House of Assembly; because, under the first draft of this Bill 35, he only reported it to the House of Assembly by way of an annual report.

It was the Leader of the NDP, I do believe, who raised the issue last Thursday about the immediacy of the report, number one, and to whom it should be raised as well. That was the tenor of this objection here, and subsection 2 of the amendment is what we call, I guess, the Green standard, to put it politely, and that is where, as the minister says, they virtually lifted the wording from the Green report as it applies to MHAs and put it in here.

That is the rationale as to why we suggested it. We appreciate the fact that the government has, in fact, put this in here. The only comment I would make in regard to this section about the Auditor General is, we started this process last week when Bill 35 was coming - and I had some indication, of course, as House Leaders talk and whatever, and you discuss the legislative agenda - we had some indication for possibly three or four weeks from the former House Leader that we might be seeing some kind of bill on an energy bill. He did not give any details, nor should he, nor could he, but in just trying to plan out your future as to where we might be going in terms of legislation and how long the House might be open and stuff, the general comment was made, we might be seeing something on energy issues. It was as general as that. Lo and behold, we ended up with two bills, 35 and 36, and I guess the government could not bring them in until they were ready to bring them in.

The anticipation was that the House might have closed last week, possibly, if that information had not come along and government was not ready to pursue it. I am assuming the reason that government wants it done in this session is because, as indicated by the officials, of the difficulties they encountered in negotiating a confidentiality agreement on Hebron in terms of the time that it took. The hope is that, I guess, based on the minister's answers in Question Period today, we are going to see something on Hebron this month. If you put all that together, I think the legitimate conclusion or a reasonable conclusion would be that government wants to have 35 and 36 out of the way so that they can give the comfort that they need to ExxonMobil, or whoever they are negotiating with – all the parties they are negotiating with - in terms of the Hebron deal, so that can be done this month.

We appreciate that. We do not think the government tried to slip it under the carpet and get it in here because they just wanted to put it on the tail end and thought that we, as Opposition members, wanted to go home so bad that we were not going to stay here and debate it. That certainly did not happen. Anyway, it is there and we are dealing with it.

Back to the point on the AG, I asked a question in the briefing session, the technical briefing they call it, which is a process whereby the minister is wanting everybody - the media, the Opposition, whomever was of interest - to understand what this was about from a technical point of view, officials of her department and of Energy Corp. were made available so that we could sit down, and they would say here is what this is about. We could ask any questions that we wanted to help us prepare for the debate that started last Thursday. We had that technical briefing last Thursday morning, I do believe, and I believe the media got one the same day.

I asked Mr. Martin of the Energy Corp. at that time if there had been any consultation with the Auditor General, because there are three bodies in here: the Privacy Commissioner, the Auditor General, the Citizens' Rep. Different people are impacted in what they can and cannot do by this Bill 35.

I thought it was a legitimate question to ask, because when you start talking about what is the purpose of Bill 35, and we have had that explanation, it is basically to allow Energy Corp. to have the flexibility to do what they need to do in the energy industry, they wanted to design – it seems to me a group of business persons - for example, the officials at Energy Corp. – the way I saw it coming out of the technical briefing almost was like Energy Corp. came and said: We have sized up all of the tools that we need to do to be able to operate in the industry as quickly, as smoothly, as efficiently, as any other business. In order to do that, we need certain things to exist, or we need certain things not to apply, and they sat down and said here is what we need to do. For example, we got into the Public Tender Act - it slows us down. We do not want confidential information getting out because that causes a big concern with third parties in particular. We cannot do that, so we have to find someway around that. We do not want the Privacy Commissioner coming in because, again, that might get the confidential information out through that door, which we have to prevent. We do not want the Auditor General necessarily, accidentally or otherwise, putting out confidential information. We do not want the Citizens' Rep. putting it out. They had a shopping list that the business world needed to operate properly. That is, I would think, the genesis of how that probably took place. They took it back to Justice, I would think, and Natural Resources, and said: These are the tools that we need. Can you draft a piece of legislation that puts us where we need to go?

No problem with that analysis, but my question of Mr. Martin at the time was: Well, if that is what you are trying to do, is design something, a system, a format, a process, whereby you have that flexibility and you have that competitive, if not edge, at least equivalent competition ability in the marketplace, why wouldn't you consult with the people that your legislation is impacting to see how you could do that in such a way so as to get what you want but not to hamstring them?

I thought that was a legitimate question, because if you are going to be putting things in the bill that is going to impact the Auditor General, impact the Privacy Commissioner, impact the Citizens' Rep., why wouldn't you simply – if you are going to consult with all of these people, for example, lawyers inside of government, lawyers outside of government, some of the, no doubt, top corporate, commercial, real estate – not real estate - yeah, maybe even real estate – but top corporate and commercial lawyers, probably in the country and outside, and you canvassed all these other jurisdictions to find out what the best business model would be, why wouldn't you, as part of this process, simply because of openness again and transparency, have consulted with these people? The answer was, they had not.

When you ask somebody that, of course, well, why didn't you? – and they do not have an answer for you, that leaves one, sometimes, to get suspicious and say, well, why wouldn't you? If you are looking for the best model, why wouldn't you? Not that there is anything mischievous or devious about it, but it was an obvious oversight that they had not consulted with these people.

We felt, by the way, this amendment - we do not even know now if this is the best way to handle the AG piece. We do not have the access and the resources to determine what are the best industry models. We have to rely, in a lot of cases, upon what the minister tells us, or what our legal counsel tells us, what Mr. Martin tells us. We do not have, simply, the resources, and in some cases I guess we do not have the brains to figure it all out, so we can only rely on what we have and use our best judgement and our common sense, but I would have thought that would have been an obvious one.

We might never have needed this amendment if that process had been followed, but –

CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his speaking time has expired.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, this is an amendment that is very important in this particular piece of legislation, because in this Province people would be very aware – especially in the last year – of the important role that the Auditor General plays within government itself, not just in holding accountable departments and those who make up those departments, and oversee the expenditures of government, but also to call into question and make accountable decision makers of this Legislature, people like ourselves who, each and every day, make decisions on behalf of the people of this Province in terms of expenditure and where these monies go.

Mr. Chair, this particular corporation is just an extension, an arm's-length corporation. While they may be set up independently of government, ruled independently of government through a board of directors and through subsidiary companies, they also have an obligation of public accountability to the people of the Province because they, in turn, as well, will mortgage and invest on behalf of the people of this Province our monies and future monies of other generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Already, Mr. Chair, we have outlined in this House of Assembly there is a major public accountability of spending that must go on even though the corporation may operate independently, but we have given government guarantees for this particular corporation to borrow up to $600 million in capital for investment. We have also given over to them a substantial amount of surplus in the last Budget, surpluses that exceeded over $300 million. They should not be any exception, Mr. Chair, in terms of public accountability of funds.

The way the act was written as it related to the Auditor General is, it did neuter a lot of the responsibilities of the AG that we would have normally seen in practice in legislation within the Province. In fact, Mr. Chair, I have been looking at, reviewing and studying legislation in this House of Assembly for a very long time now, and in most pieces of legislation there are normal protocols or normal process which are outlined in terms of openness and accountability and transparency.

When I looked at this particular bill, I realized very quickly that there were problems in terms of the reporting mechanisms, not only those provided for through the Citizens' Representative or through the Privacy Commissioner but also through the Auditor General.

While, Mr. Chair, under the current legislation that governs people like the Citizens' Representative, they may be restricted in terms of giving out confidential information, those same restrictions do not always apply to the Auditor General. The Auditor General has a different act which gives him very broad responsibilities and gives him a tremendous amount of leeway in terms of the reporting mechanisms that he can use. That means reporting to the House of Assembly and therefore reporting to the public on all things that he looks at and reviews within his capacity as the Auditor General for the Province; but, Mr. Chair, his restriction lies in the case of criminal activity, and that means that there is a process in place under new legislation now in the House of Assembly, which we refer to as Green recommendations, and that provides for a process for the Auditor General in which criminal activity must be reported if it is suspected.

In this particular legislation there were no protocols or provisions even made for that, and we were concerned by that because, even though the Auditor General would have access to all the information in conducting an audit within the corporation or its subsidiaries, he was restricted by the decision of the CEO on what he could actually make public. So, if the CEO deemed that something was sensitive or commercially sensitive, then the Auditor could not make that public. However, Mr. Chair, maybe that activity might have been suspected to be criminal in some manner, shape or form, then the Auditor General needed to have a mechanism whereby he could not let the buck stop there but there needed to be a mechanism whereby there could be further reporting.

We asked the government to consider that, last Thursday in debate, and in fact we spoke in great length on it in the House of Assembly, the need to have that particular piece amended to give strength to the legislation. As it is now, Mr. Chair, despite the fact that some members over there felt it was not necessary, and I remember quite specifically the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General speaking to that section of the bill, and I cannot get the transcript of what he said because he actually said it in an evening session and we do not have those transcripts until into the summer, but if I recall, Mr. Chair, his comments were around the fact: Who is the Auditor General to decide if somebody has committed a crime here?

Well, Mr. Chair, who is the Cabinet and the Lieutenant-Governor in Council to decide who has committed a crime here? It is not their responsibility, and that is not what we were asking. What we were asking was that the Auditor General, if he suspects that there is activity that could be criminal in nature, then he would have a mechanism of public reporting to ensure that the accountability was taken for that particular situation - a very, very different thing - and that is what the government is doing here. They are amending the legislation to give to the Auditor General a process by which he can, if he finds or deems to find that something may be criminal in nature or warrants further investigation by authorities, then there is a mechanism now by which that can be dealt with.

Mr. Chair, that is only appropriate. We have been through a process ourselves in this House of Assembly where activity went on without proper reporting mechanisms, without proper auditing being done, that took five years, six years and seven years later before it actually was picked up on within the processes that were in place. So there needed to be a change made to the process we used ourselves to ensure greater accountability. Well, that should not be watered down in any way for any other corporation or any other entity of government. Those accountability measures need to be put in place, and the appropriate person to ensure that those sections are done and being met is the Auditor General.

Mr. Chair, under this section of the act the CEO of the Hydro Corporation is given a tremendous amount in power. Any time a CEO can look at an Auditor General, after doing an audit on their particular corp., and say we do not want this information to be released, that gives them a tremendous amount of power - power in which they can, if they want, have information that could be important to the public interest withdrawn or non-disclosed in certain ways.

If you are going to give that kind of authority to a CEO to be able to manage things in that way, then the very least that you could do is build in safeguards for wrongdoing within the system. That is all we were asking for, and that is being granted under this particular amendment.

While we feel that there should have been, or could have been, more powers granted to the Auditor General, it does meet with the amendment that we were proposing ourselves. In fact, it falls very much in line with exactly what we were proposing, maybe some different wording or terminology put around it, but very similar and it certainly can accomplish the same purpose.

We would certainly support that amendment and want to acknowledge the fact that government did think this through a little bit further and realize that there needed to be a mechanism for this. If you are going to have some level of openness and accountability for public money within an independent corporation run arm's-length by independent officials of government, then there needs to be something provided for in cases where there may be suspected misappropriation or misuse of public funds, or funds within the corporation, in any way, shape or form.

Mr. Chair, we would certainly have no problem with ensuring that this amendment is added to the bill.

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

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

Again, I am glad to be able to speak to the amendments to Bill 35. We have an ongoing tension in this discussion and in the process that we are going through, and that is the tension between everybody's concern, both government's and Opposition's concern for openness, transparency and accountability, and how one assures that when dealing with a Crown Corporation, and a Crown corporation that is out there in the business world doing its work - because the reality of a Crown corporation, whether it is the Energy Corporation itself or subsidiaries, that they are under the Crown. That is exactly what Crown corporation means. As Crown corporations, whether they are agents of the Crown or not, they are there, they belong to the people and they should be accountable to the people. How does one hold them accountable, while at the same time knowing that they are out there in a business world that they are trying to work in?

Certainly, clause 1 of the bill gets at that with the definition of commercially sensitive information, but there is more to the issue than the commercially sensitive information. That was why this amendment, or the section of the bill that this amendment is an amendment of, was so important, because there are certain things that we have here in this House that we have to protect, and one of them, of course, is the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. That has to be protected and everything in it has to be protected. It holds principles that are absolutely important to the House.

Another one is the Auditor General Act and the role of the Auditor General. These are things that are sacred to this House of Assembly. These are processes, these are pieces of legislation, that are essential to assuring that the people to whom we are accountable, the public, the voters of Newfoundland and Labrador are being protected by everything that goes on within the House of Assembly itself or under the Crown. That is the tension that we have. How can we assure that all of the processes that protect the people of this Province, that protect what happens under the Crown, also apply to the Energy Corporation and its subsidiaries? That is the discussion, that is the tension.

That is why it was very important that when we read the original bill, which said that the Auditor General, after identifying improper retention or misappropriation of funds by a director, officer, employee or agent of the corporation or a subsidiary, would provide a report to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council in confidence and make the existence of the report known to the House of Assembly by reference in his or her annual report to the House of Assembly - as I pointed out when I spoke to this bill originally in second reading, I was concerned about the lack of immediacy of getting the report to the House of Assembly. That is why it is so important that, in this amendment, we now have the Auditor General immediately providing a report to the House of Assembly, which includes a general description, excluding the commercially sensitive information of the activity that is subject to his or her report and that has been made to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council in confidence.

This amendment, I think, does assure the thing that is at the basis of our responsibility, that the public of this Province will be informed of what is going on through the usual process which is the tabling of the information here in the House of Assembly. That is how the public learns anything that has to do with the Crown, through tabling here in the House of Assembly. We now assure that our accountability to the public is assured. We, I think, are showing that we believe in the transparency, openness and accountability that we say we stand for by now having this amendment.

Just to put on record, Mr. Chair, that I am very pleased that this amendment has been made and that we have been able to, in this case, take care of that tension between the needs that we have here in this House and the needs of the corporation and subsidiaries.

Thank you.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the fifth amendment to Clause 2 as proposed by the Minister of Natural Resources?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, the fifth amendment to Clause 2 carried.

CHAIR: Committee has now approved five amendments to Clause 2.

Is it the pleasure of the Committee to adopt Clause 2 as amended?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 2, as amended, carried.

CLERK: Clause 3.

CHAIR: Shall Clause 3 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 3 carried.

CLERK: Clause 4.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: It can get confusing sometimes with all of these clauses and sub clauses.

I believe, under this particular Clause 4, Mr. Chairman, we would be dealing with the Opposition amendment that would be put forward, and we put it forth as subsection 9.

In fact the Clause 3 that we just voted would be repealed. That particular section, subsection 14(3), was repealed but then we turned around and incorporated it again, word for word, in the new 14.1(1). Albeit we took it out in one place, we put it right back in, in another place.

My comments under this particular section would be related to our clause 9, or amendment. What we are suggesting here - and the question became: what happens if the government or the corporation sets up one or more subsidiaries? For example, say subsidiary A - and that is going to be the Lower Churchill Corporation, just as an example. There could be fifteen or twenty different corporations or subsidiaries. The question becomes: if that subsidiary were to decide down the road sometime that they wanted to sell - because you have to realize the government is the shareholder, which is the people, of the shares in the corporation and the corporation is going to have any number of subsidiaries. As I understand it, the board of the subsidiary will be appointed by the corporation, and the shareholders of the subsidiary will be the corporation. The question becomes: what if ten years out when you have the Lower Churchill developed, what if the shareholders, the board of subsidiary A, the Lower Churchill, decides that they want to sell? How would that information ever become known to the public of this Province prior to it being done? That was the principle concern.

We know in this Province, before when we had a major asset, a corporation, that a prior government back with Premier Wells decided to sell, that being Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, anybody who was around at the time certainly knows the debate that that potential sale of Newfoundland Hydro generated in this Province. I believe there was extended sittings of the House, the galleries were packed, and there was everybody and anybody who had an opinion on Open Line shows and letters to the editor and media commentary who were very upset that this might be going to happen. At least in that case it all got a public hearing.

It was dealt with in the House and there was debate back and forth. I do remember that there was one member, used to be the Member for, I believe, the District that the Minister of Natural Resources now holds, Virginia Waters. That member was a member of the government at the time. As I recall, he became very upset, Mr. Noel. Even though he was a member of the government, no way was he having any part of the disposal of Newfoundland Hydro. He made that known and I believe he spoke in the House on it and he made it known to his Premier of the day and everybody else, and it was public.

There is an example of what happens if a major asset might be sold. How this is currently worded, there is no way we would ever know beforehand, folks. We have had this discussion with the legal counsel. We have had it with the legal counsel from the Department of Justice which talked with us in the last few days. We have had this discussion with the legal counsel who represents the Energy Corp. We have had this discussion with the minister and her officials. The question we asked was quite simple. What assurance can you give to the Opposition that if ever a subsidiary A were to be sold that the public would know about it before it was done? Now that is a pretty common sense question. I do not think there is anything wrong with asking that question.

The reason we asked it, of course, we have a history, besides Hydro - in the case of Hydro it could not happen, it did not happen, it came to this House. In the case of FPI, which we went through here, I do believe in 2006, a major asset belonging to the state, a lot of people had a vested interest in it, but yet it became a source of debate in the House. Questions were asked in Question Period about what is going on here. Again, the Open Line shows – but there was a forum and the right forum, I would think, when you are having these discussions about the disposal of a public asset is in the people's House. So, we have had that history of what happened in Hydro and what happened in FPI.

Nobody who we have talked to in the last three or four days – the legal counsel, as I said, for the Department of Justice who is advising natural resources, the legal counsel for the Energy Corp., nobody can give the assurance that you could not sell a subsidiary that is under this Energy Corp. and there is no obligation whatsoever that the people ever have to know about it until it is done. That causes grave concern over here.

By the way, this is the amendment that we put forward that the government would not accept. That is the reason for putting it forward, is we felt that the balance the government is trying to achieve between allowing the Energy Corp. to do what it needs to do to be competitive and flexible, we also have the public need. In fact, we feel it a government responsibility, so that if you are ever going to sell one of these assets that was started from government funding, started from the taxpayers' dollar – because that is, by the way, where this money is going to generate from. We set up an Energy Corp. last year, we allowed it to borrow up to $600 million, we have put over $3 million into it this year in the Budget, so much of which is done to fix, or shall we say balance, the debt-equity ratio in Hydro, which is a subsidiary of the corp., and over $200 million which has been put in so that the government can pursue its plans to buy equity shares in things like Hebron, White Rose, et cetera.

We know there is a substantial investment made already in this Budget. We do not know what the future brings in terms of if there is a guarantee for $1 billion on the Lower Churchill. We do not know if the government is going to get into ten more offshore projects that are going to require another $200 million or $500 million. All we are saying is, if you use the people's money, as a Cabinet, to pursue that investment of those equities, and it goes to the Energy Corp. and then the Energy Corp. sets up these different subsidiaries to do that, there has to be some way – because it is public funds – to assure the public, that if you ever sell them they should have some input into the sale.

As the Premier says – and we can get into the politics of Voisey's Bay and say we did not have an adequate debate, or the Voisey's Bay deal was full of holes or not full of holes, and ramp ways, but the bottom line was, folks, the Statement of Principles for Voisey Bay, before it got finalized, came to this House and everybody had a debate on it. I was here. Everybody who was here in that session had an opportunity to stand up, aside from the leaders, and say their piece about what they thought was good or bad about Voisey's Bay. It got a public hearing. That was good.

Now, on the Lower Churchill, again you can row about the goodness or the badness of the deal, but the bottom line was that the Lower Churchill became a subject of controversy in this House. There were successive Question Periods where questions were asked.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: Well, whether they were answered or not, I say to the minister, the fact is we had a forum where, before a deal was done it was brought to this House, and anybody in this House could ask questions about it. That is aside from whether the deal is good or bad.

We are talking about here, that there was a forum to do it in. Under this legislation, folks, there is no guaranteed forum ever to discuss, debate, the merits of a deal to sell the assets of either of these subsidiaries that might be established by the government, none whatsoever.

What we had proposed, by the way - just so we all know what we are talking about – in an amendment, we had said that there should be a subclause 9 put in here that should say the sale, the lease, the exchange or otherwise disposal of all or substantially all of a subsidiary or a substantial asset of a subsidiary shall be approved by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, the Cabinet, and the House of Assembly.

That does not do anything to detract whatsoever from the Cabinet's authority to sanction a deal, for the Energy Corp. to make the deal, the government to debate it in Cabinet, the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, and say the deal is a good deal –

CHAIR: Order please!

I would like to remind the hon. member that his speaking time has expired.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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

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

I guess, with this discussion around section 14.1 of Bill 35, including the amendment that has been submitted by the Official Opposition, we are into something that is at the very heart, I think, of what we are dealing with in the whole setting up of the Energy Corporation, and the amendments that we are dealing with around that setting up of the Energy Corporation.

I have to say that I am finding this a pretty complex thing to deal with, not because I do not understand it. I understand very well the tension that is here, and it is the tension I referred to earlier, but here we are at the heart of it, the tension between having these subsidiaries as part of the Energy Corporation and having them as subsidiary corporations that are part of the Crown and yet not holding the Crown liable for anything that might happen inside those corporations, especially when it comes to money and the financial liability that the Crown could have to deal with.

It is a pretty serious issue, and I have to say that the time that we have given to it, while it may seem intense, and it has been intense, it really is a short period of time and I definitely do not have the resources to go out and get other opinions around how this may work.

I understand the liability issue, and I guess the risk that we are being faced with when looking at the role of the subsidiaries is: What is the risk we go with? Do we take the risk of pointing too much to the Crown, to the government, in terms of its role over the subsidiaries? To take that risk and run the risk of maybe down the road at some point, the government becoming liable for something that happens within the business of one of the subsidiaries, or we take the risk of somewhere down the road, a subsidiary making a decision to dispose of major assets of the company and, in that sense, run away with the benefit of government money, because anything – the setting up of all of these subsidiaries is there because of the support of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

At this point, Mr. Chair, I have to say, I do not know the answer to that question and I am still struggling with it, because it is a serious one. I am not sure which way to go. Who would have thought, just a few short years ago, that FPI would no longer exist in this Province? It does not. Who would have thought that would have happened? Yet, we slowly got to the point where that did happen in this Province, and isn't that a potential with the subsidiaries? This is what I am dealing with. So, it is very difficult – it is a quandary.

I know that the legal experts inside the Department of Natural Resources have told us that they really do not think there is anything else that can be done to protect. I am being asked, as are other members in the House, as are the public, we are being asked to trust that what they are saying is the best way to go, that we are being asked to trust that - we have been told by them that they went far and wide in getting opinions on which way to go, and that they had different opinions, different proposals were made to them, but, as far as they can see, what they have come up with in terms of the role of the subsidiaries and how the subsidiaries operate, that is the best, but it is not the only way that was presented to them.

I do not know the other things that were presented. I do not have that information. So, the quandary for me is, you know - and I certainly hope we are not voting on this act right away because I do not know how to vote right now because this is pretty tricky stuff. I really do think that we have to think about the potential in ten or fifteen years.

You know, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is now, under the new act, a subsidiary of the Energy Corporation. Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, our sacred Crown corporation, is now a subsidiary and is losing a status that it had by being a subsidiary of the new Energy Corporation.

If the Lower Churchill becomes developed and a subsidiary corporation is set up specifically to develop the Lower Churchill then that will become a subsidiary. Churchill Falls is a subsidiary. So, we have current major corporations, too, and the potential of many others becoming subsidiaries and being a step away from to whom they are accountable, because they are accountable to the Energy Corporation and yes, the board of the Energy Corporation will be appointed by government, but the Energy Corporation in terms of where discussions happen with the subsidiary, that is where it stops, at the Energy Corporation. So, we are going to be asked to trust, as a people, that the board of directors of the Energy Corporation will always make the decisions that the government of this Province may want them to make, that we are going to have to trust that will happen.

I am not happy with this. I am not happy with the fact that we have not received a no-risk answer. Now maybe there is no no-risk answer, but we have not received one and I did not hear any possibilities of a no-risk answer in the discussions that we have been having. So, this is very, very problematic for me and I think it will be problematic for a lot of people out there listening to us, that we cannot say to them that definitely, without any doubt, there is no risk of us losing those subsidiaries down the road, that there is no risk of that. I think that is a risk that I am not sure is worth taking.

As I said, who would have thought five, six, seven years ago that we would no longer have FPI? That was sort of a jewel in the crown for us when it was formed, and it is no longer there. I cannot forget that. That is there for me right now, today, and this is what I have been sort of chewing on for the last couple of days and especially today.

I put that out there at the moment. I would like us to consider more, and I would like to hear more discussion from all sides with regard to the amendment that is being suggested by the Official Opposition. The discussion we had to date was in meetings outside of the House of Assembly and I would like to hear more with regard to the possibility of this amendment becoming part of the bill as we continue on in Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I certainly wanted to speak to the amendment that was just proposed by my colleague, the Member for Burgeo & LaPoile.

I am not sure if the amendment was read into the record, but I want to do that, and it is to be added to clause 4 of the bill and amended by adding, immediately after the proposed section 14.1(8) the following, which would be number (9): the sale, lease, exchange or otherwise disposal of all or substantially all of a subsidiary or a substantial asset of a subsidiary, shall be approved by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council and the House of Assembly.

Mr. Chair, really, part of this is already addressed within the legislation, and that is that the sale or disposal of an asset or an equity within a subsidiary does have to have the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, and that is outlined within certain aspects of the bill; but, Mr. Chair, what they do not have to have is any kind of public disclosure or public debate. Basically what that means, even though they have to seek the consent of the corporation, meaning the Energy Corp., and even though they have to have consent of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, they do not, Mr. Chair, have to disclose any information with regard to the sale of an asset or equity shares within a subsidiary of the Energy Corp. until after it is done, until such time when they would table their financial reports at the end of the year, or their annual reports at the end of the year. Then that kind of disclosure could be made. So it becomes a disclosure that happens after the fact as opposed to during the course of something transcending within the corporation or changing within the corporation.

Mr. Chair, we have had a number of discussions with the minister and with her officials regarding this particular amendment. They have looked at any number of ways in which they may have been able to address the issue that we were raising under a piece of legislation; but, at the end of the day, on the advice of legal counsel, was advised to make the amendments or to accept this particular amendment. I am sure the minister will provide government's rationalization for taking that particular advice.

Let me just say that our reasoning is because we feel that there needs to be a public disclosure process. Whenever governments go out and decide to invest money or to purchase equity shares, which is going to be a new concept for government under this particular corporation, purchasing equity shares into a company, into any kind of a business, whether that business be in the offshore oil and gas industry, or whether it be in the Hydro development industry, or whether it be in making widgets, I believe was what the minister used last week, anyway, that aspect of it does not matter.

The reality is they are purchasing and attaining and acquiring equity and, in essence, assets of the corporation. When they do so, there need to be some assurances to the public that those particular assets or that particular amount of equity is not going to just be off-loaded somewhere throughout the process without public disclosure.

I know that there has to be an element of trust me in all of this kind of activity, and it is not to undermine the government opposite, or the minister who is introducing this, but it is to ensure for the greater protections on a go-forward basis, no matter who sits in the seats, who occupies the inner circle of government, or who runs the Hydro corporation, and that is where we are coming from. We understand that government wants to set up this new subsidiary corporation as a non-Crown agent, and with that comes a certain amount of arm's-length autonomy that they must allow for.

Mr. Chair, the whole purpose that government is explaining to us for them to have these subsidiaries designated as a non-Crown agent is to reduce the liabilities that may be incurred by the people of the Province, and we can certainly understand that. That is the only reason that we have been so co-operative throughout this entire process, because we also realize that, as a government-owned or a government arm's-length administered Energy Corporation, if they are going to play ball with the big guys in the business world then they need to have the same kind of space and autonomy to be able to do so.

Mr. Chair, let me correct that by saying big boys and smart women, before the Minister for the Status of Women gets up on a point of order, but my point is the same, and that is: if they are going to do business in that kind of realm, then they need to have some authority and autonomy to do it.

We have been very sensitive to that, very sensitive to it, and that is the reason why we have allowed government to tiptoe around a lot of the different acts and a lot of the different precautionary security measures that go into play in determining accountability and transparency within government agencies and departments, and we have allowed free rein – free rein in a lot of this legislation - for government to accomplish that particular aspect of their mandate, but designating these subsidiaries as non-Crown agents, if done appropriately, may very well stand up to the test of time and reduce liabilities to the people of the Province, if ever there is a case where liabilities need to be considered.

Hopefully, Mr. Chair, we will never have a situation in this Province where we will have that kind of catastrophic loss or those kinds of damages to have to look at or to have to contemplate. Anyway, if at such time we do, we understand where they are coming from.

We know that they want to make the risk as compact as they possibly can, and we also know that they want to reduce the amount of risk or burden that people may be taking each and every time that one of these subsidiaries goes out and invests in a different company or in a different part of the Energy Corp.; but, having said that, Mr. Chair, there is still no guarantee and no transparency for the people of the Province when it comes to the liability that could occur with the sale of an asset that they own, and this is where we are having some problems.

Absolutely, no doubt, almost all the other pieces to this bill we could reach a consensus on and we could come to a place where we could agree upon the terminology to be able to give some greater assurance and some greater meaning and purpose to the bill in terms of accountability. This is one of the areas where we have not been able to come to something conclusive in terms of addressing this. It is a real concern and you do not have to go very far in this Province to find out the kind of concern that it does raise.

If you go back to the privatization issue around Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, it was under a different Administration but a government at the time that had complete confidence of the people of the Province to govern, but, Mr. Chair, if they did not have to, under the Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro Act, come to this House of Assembly to have amendments made to the Act to privatize that corporation it may have been a private corporation today. It may very well have been a private corporation today, but because the legislation safeguarded against, the only way that particular asset of government could be sold off in any way, part or fully, was through an amendment through the Act of the Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro legislation within the House of Assembly. Therefore it did not happen, because public opinion, Mr. Chair, at the end of the day determined what was best. The government of the day was receptive to that and at the end of it decided to withdraw or pull back on that particular visionary piece that they had seen and were prepared to do.

Mr. Speaker, who is to say that ten years from now there will not be another government in this Province that might want to go in and say, well, you know that was a good investment, made to buy into 4.9 per cent shares in the Hebron project back in 2008 or 2009 in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we have our money back on our investment now, we have an opportunity to sell this off now and to make billions of dollars, make billions of dollars for the people of the Province, and we have decided that we are getting out of the oil business and we are going to sell off these particular assets or those particular equity shares within that corporation.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member her speaking time has expired.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am sure I will have opportunity to speak again in a few minutes.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, just a few words with regard to this amendment. Anybody who is listening to the debate that is taking place in the House this afternoon will have certainly concluded by this point in time that the government is not supporting this amendment.

Mr. Chair, the first thing I would like to point out, so that there is no misunderstanding at all: Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, while it is a subsidiary of the Energy Corp., has its own Act, is governed by that Act and has all of the protections of that Act. This legislation that we are introducing into the House that we did originally with the first piece of legislation setting up the corporation, and the subsequent piece of legislation, does not impact in any kind of a way on Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro because of the fact that it has its own Act and it is governed by this Act.

Mr. Chairman, as referenced in previous remarks, we have spent a great deal of time over the last few days discussing this issue, and discussing the issue of transparency. We always apply the asset test, what happens beyond this government. We have certainly been here for a good time, let me say. We started off a bit rough, but the last four-and-one-half years to five years have seen tremendous movement, improvement, transition in this Province and it has been a rare privilege to be part of it all.

I cannot speak for my colleagues all around me, but I will guarantee you that I have no intention of being around here fifteen years from now regardless of what my constituents might say about that. They might want to give me the royal flick any time, but, by my own choice, I do not intend to be around in this House for many, many years. I am going to pick up the pieces of the life that I had to set aside before coming to the House. While I am delighted to be here, and delighted to be engaged in this kind of work, privileged to be the minister who brings in the legislation on setting up the Energy Corporation, we also have to think about what happens when we are not here, what happens with the dreadful scenario that we talked about in Question Period on Thursday and on Monday? What if it were to come to fruition? We need to protect the Energy Corp. from that. Our overall concern always has to be the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and how do we do this in their best interest, while at the same time protecting them.

Mr. Chairman, that is the issue that we have had to wrestle with, and we have gotten legal expertise from within government itself. We have gone outside of government here in the Province, in the country, and we have gone internationally to look at how state owned companies are set up. How do they protect the interests of the people they serve and how can they function in a commercial world with all the protection that they require, not only for the company to succeed but how do they protect the people who own that company? It is that balance, always, that we have to achieve. It is taking the company arm's-length from government and giving them the ability to function properly, but at the same time assuring that they are not too close to government, that government's hand is not always reaching down and controlling what goes on in the corporation, because once you do that, once you take the authority, once you keep the ability to be able to reach in and make intimate decisions about what is happening in the company, then with that also comes responsibility and liability. We have gone to the best advice that we could find, that we could identify, in the world, around these pieces, and it is on that advice that we structured the company in the way that we did.

Mr. Chairman, in terms of making information available to the people of the Province, first of all, a subsidiary cannot sell all or substantially all of its assets without permission from its parent company, which is the Energy Corporation. The Corporations Act applies, without any legislation from us that would prevent them from doing that. We also ensure that the subsidiaries have to go to the parent company for permission to sell all or substantially all of their assets.

Mr. Chairman, the Energy Corp. is directly controlled by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador in that the government of Newfoundland and Labrador appoints its board of directors and the boards of directors of the subsidiaries are made up by representation from the parent company's board as well as a number of independent board members.

Mr. Chairman, there is a level of scrutiny at the subsidiary level, at the Energy Corp. level, as well as with the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. In concert with that, Mr. Speaker, we also have annual consolidated reports where the company talks about its activities and what it has done in the past year. We have annual consolidated financial reports, where that information is laid open to the people of the Province. Mr. Speaker, we also have an annual general meeting where the people of the Province get to come in and question the directors of the company directly, asking them to explain what has gone on, also to ask them in terms of what their plans are for the future.

As I have said in debate also, the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries still fall under the Transparency and Accountability Act, which means at the beginning of each year they have to table their business plans with government so we know what they are going to do. They have to lay that out in their business plan.

Mr. Chair, on any number of levels, we have put backstops in to ensure that there is accountability, that there is transparency, and that there are things that cannot happen under the table here. At the same time, while ensuring that this Legislature and that the people of the Province have access to information, we are also moving these non-Crown agents away from government and allowing them to function in a way that works well in terms of doing their business activities on behalf of the people of the Province, but also takes us away from interference and hands-on in terms of the function of the company, and protects the people of the Province from liability. That is a big issue. We have to set this up in such a way that we balance those two things. It is a bit of a tightrope walk and we have been through that whole discussion a number of times since we have introduced this bill into the House.

It is a public accountability piece that we acknowledge and we think we have addressed in this bill in terms of ensuring that information gets to the Legislature, gets to the people of the Province, so that everybody understands what is going on and that the assets cannot be stripped away from Ener Co, who holds them on behalf of the people of the Province. It cannot happen. The legislation protects that from happening.

At the same time, Mr. Chair, in ensuring that piece is taking place, we are balancing, we are countering, that in terms of liability, in ensuring that we are not overexposing the people of the Province to liability for any circumstance that might occur within the subsidiaries.

Given that fine balance that we think we have achieved, it has been acknowledged by the best advice that we could get that this is the proper way to do it. We feel we addressed this in the act; so, as a result, we will not be supporting this amendment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to finish the comments that I was making on this particular amendment.

I know that the minister and her officials did get information and advice from many legal counsels, from what I understand, and in order to maintain the autonomy as a non-Crown agent it was important that there be as little links as possible between government control and ownership of the corporation and its subsidiaries. That is entirely fine for government to want to go down that road and accept that advice to try and reduce the liabilities that can be provided to the people of the Province, but there are other ways to mitigate the liabilities in the case of some disaster or some other loss within the corporations, and that is through insurance policies that people would take out, through guarantees and protections that would be built around financial investments. So, there are other ways of ensuring that there is some level of liability to the people of the Province.

Mr. Chair, even when you look at that, even when you look at the fact that there can be insurances and there can be guarantees around different investments and projects in terms of reducing the amount of liability to the people of the Province, government still sees fit to look at having additional liabilities or guarantees, and we have no problem with that. We have no problem with that, but we have to make a decision as well, and that is to balance out the importance and the protections that are going to be given with this particular clause against what the real liability could be to the people of the Province if there was a dismantling or selling off of assets within the corporation or a subsidiary that was not being publicly disclosed.

That is where we are as well in trying to put our head around which is going to hold the most weight at the end of the day for the people in the Province. Mr. Chair, we have no guarantee that in the case of a liability that either of these subsidiaries would be held up in court and looked at as being independent and as a non-agent of government and therefore not held accountable or held to the liabilities of any particular loss or damages. We have no guarantee of that. It is a safety precaution, it is one that government sees necessary, it is road that they want to go down, and that is entirely fine. What we are saying, Mr. Chair, in addition to going down that road, we want to also ensure that there is a public disclosure process and public knowledge of any particular piece of these companies or subsidiaries if they are to be sold, if they are to be leased, if they are to be liquidated in any way, shape or form, and that is a legitimate request.

The minister says that these corporations will have to submit annual reports as per the amendment that she introduced in clause 1 today, and I realize that, but those annual reports come after the financial year, at the end of the year, after the fact, and that is the problem. They are coming after an action has been taken with regard to the transfer, sale or disposal of assets.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, the minister refers to the safety precaution of submitting a business plan. We realize that. We have business plans come to the House of Assembly almost on a weekly basis for every department of government, every different committee, every agency, from Newfoundland and Labrador Housing to the Child Advocate's Office, in terms of what they are going to do over the next year. I am very familiar with the content that is contained within those business plans. I also know that business plans are subject to change.

We have a good example of that going on in our Province right now, today. Today, out in Come by Chance, that particular company renegotiated a contract with its union members in December 2007, not even six months ago, and when they renegotiated none of these people knew that they were going to have their jobs gone today. Nobody knew that the company was going to be contracting out today. That came five months after they renegotiated their contract, a contract which would give you insight into the business activity of the corporation over the next twelve months.

Well, Mr. Chairman, not even six months past that and we have a situation in Come by Chance where we know for a fact there are eighty-six people who are out of a job but it could be up to 200 out of a job; 200 people who, five months ago, when they were sitting at a negotiating table with this company, thought their jobs were secure. Today, they are finding out that the company does not want to be in that business now; we want to go to a contracting-out process.

Look at how quickly things can change within corporations. That is the point we are trying to make. It is okay to say there is going to be a business plan submitted, and this will tell you what the activity of the company is going to be over the next twelve months, but all of that activity is subject to change at any given point throughout that particular year. There is nothing here that says, oh, you cannot your direction without telling us.

That is what we are trying to say. That is the point we are trying to make. Whether we would have gotten to that point with the amendment that we are proposing or with a counter-amendment from government, we were prepared to go there. We were open to allow them to look at a counter-amendment where they could achieve the same thing within the legislation. Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, there could not be any agreement reached around it.

Mr. Chairman, we need to ensure that the liabilities of the people of the Province are protected as well when you are talking about administering their investments as part of this corporation, because there is a liability to the people of the Province as well, if there are shares or equities or assets of that corporation that are sold off, that could have brought value to the people of the Province over an extended period of time. If that was to happen, that in itself would pose a liability to the people here, so it depends on how you want to measure this.

There is tremendous merit in the point that government makes but there is also tremendous merit in the fact that this corporation will have an open-ended door, Mr. Chairman, an open door policy whereby they themselves, as CEOs, as a corporate body within a subsidiary, can decide that they want to sell off assets, or, Mr. Chairman, sell off equity shares in any particular aspect of the corporation. They can do so just with the permission of the CEO and the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.

We have seen many public corporations that have come before the floor of the House for debate. Most recently it was FPI, Fishery Products International, when they decided to sell off their company, sell it off into three different divisions, one of the largest land-based divisions going to Ocean Choice Industries here in the Province, Mr. Chairman, whereas other interests within the company were being sold overseas to companies in Europe and also in the United States, being turned over to part of their division in the United States. It did not happen without coming to the House of Assembly, and even though there might have been one, two or ten members in the House that did not agree with that particular sale of an asset, you were not able to stop it because government had the majority, and if government said that we are going to sell this or we are going to do this, then they could stand and vote to have it done, but they would be doing it in a very public way. They would be accountable for their actions and accountable for rationalizing their decisions.

Mr. Chairman, it was still an opportunity for the people in the Province to have their say on whether they thought Fishery Products International should be dismantled and sold off in part or in three different parts as a corporation. While it could not be stopped, it still became an issue of public concern, and maybe if people felt strongly enough about it, maybe it would have been stopped. Maybe the pressures would have come to bear on the government that could have changed the direction that particular project was going to take or that particular sale was going to take.

Under this particular legislation, legislation, Mr. Chairman, that will set up and designate subsidiary companies in this Province to do everything from buy-in to big oil development projects to develop large-scale hydro projects like those on the Churchill River, looking at things like wind development farms across the Province – these are big investment projects, Mr. Chairman, and they come with a tremendous amount of liability for the people of the Province every time they invest their money. We need to ensure that the assurances are there on all aspects of it, Mr. Chairman, but most of all, that there is public disclosure if there is to be a sale or liquidation of any aspects of these particular companies.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate an opportunity to have a few more words on this amendment we have put forward here.

The amendment that we have suggested, of course, is that if any of the subsidiaries in future where ever to dispose of all or substantially all of their assets, they would need the approval of the Cabinet, the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, and the House of Assembly. For those who might think that we proposed that amendment to be obstructionist, nothing could be further from the truth.

This issue needs to be debated. In fact, I feel about this bill – in the nine or ten years I have been here, all the legislation comes and goes and they are pretty easy to deal with. You come down on one side or the other fairly easily. You size up the facts, what they are trying to accomplish, and some of it is housekeeping but some of it is pretty substantive.

This one is definitely substantive, and that is probably why it is so problematic. At the end of the day, all forty-eight people will exercise their right to vote, listen to all of the information, and they will vote, I would think, with their conscience, based on the information level they have, what they accept as being fair and reasonable and proper, and that is the purpose of the debate.

We are not being obstructionist about it. We feel this is a very legitimate concern that needs to be considered.

By the way, just to respond to some of the comments that the minister made in terms of justifying why government cannot support this amendment, I would make a few comments. For example, the whole argument and the whole purpose of this amendment is so that the subsidiary does not dispose of its assets, or substantially all of its assets, without some kind of public knowledge about it. That is the purpose of this, so that there has to be approval given by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council and approval given by the House of Assembly. Now, I would think that is not an issue, in terms of getting it passed ultimately, because the Cabinet is part of the House of Assembly, the Cabinet is obviously the government. The government has the numbers, and at the end of the day, the House of Assembly will pass it.

It is like passing this bill. We can disagree all we want with it, but it is going to get passed. The issue is public disclosure and that is the whole point. There is no provision right now under the Energy Corp. or under this bill which will amend it which ever allows a situation whereby a substantial sale of the assets of a subsidiary ever see the light of day until after it is done. That is what is wrong about this. It is never revealed publicly until it is done, nowhere, and the legal counsel for justice, the legal counsel for the Energy Corp, could not give us that assurance. If they could, we said, show us; no problem if it is there. That is all this is about and that causes a great concern.

The minister says, but they file an annual report. They have an AGM and they are subject to the Transparency Act. Well, I would like to deal with each one of those in turn. Use my example again of subsidiary A which is the Lower Churchill and ten years out the subsidiary decides to sell it, which they can do under this law. The Board of Directors of the subsidiary decide to sell it and the corporation would sanction it. The Lieutenant Governor in Council can approve it and nobody ever the wiser until it is done.

What is the point of putting it in an annual general meeting if the annual general meeting occurs after the deal is done and after it is sold? What is the point of saying, there will be an annual report filed in the House of Assembly reporting upon it, if that annual report is filed after the deal is done?

The Transparency Act, for example - we had this one put to us. They said, okay, we probably agree with you on the annual report stuff, but the Transparency Act covers it, because under the Transparency Act all of these bodies will have to file a business plan for the forthcoming year saying what they are going to do. Obviously, if they are going to dispose of the assets they would have had to put it in their business plan. I do not have to look too far to see, what if I file my business plan today, which was up-front and legitimate under the Transparency Act, but yet I had no plan today to sell it, but six months out I decide to sell it. Again it is out the door, the door is closed, so neither the Transparency Act, the annual general meeting or the annual report gives any level of comfort that it is ever going to see the light of day and be examined until after the deal is done.

As the minister said, we are not only talking about the people on watch now, we are talking about the people who are going to be on watch five years out, ten years out, twenty years out. What happens then, when it is a different group of people who might feel differently about those things, and it gets done and there is still no public disclosure?

Hydro by the way, which I agree has its own Act and its own legislation, has nothing to do with if subsidiary A decides to sell. It has nothing to do with Hydro. Hydro is going to be a subsidiary as well. Every different subsidiary is different. Each and every one of them can decide to sell off an asset if they want.

By the way, it is not only about selling. There is some underlying theme here that, by asking to have this amendment put in, there is some suggestion that there might be some conspiracy, there might be something nefarious happening by the board of the subsidiary to sell, say, the Lower Churchill and whatever. That is not the point. What if it is the best deal in the world? It does not have to be a bad deal. It does not have to be a negative deal. It could be the best deal in the world. What if the board of subsidiary A, the Lower Churchill, for example, says, we just struck a deal to sell for $10 billion - and every market analyst, everybody in the world, comes and says that is a good deal for the Province? It may be the best deal, but the people would never know about it until after.

That is the whole point; whether it is a good deal or a bad deal, it is a safeguard to ensure that there is a vetting process, an assessment process, an analysis process, done under the cold light of day by anybody who is a member of this public in this Province. Do not tell them after that we made the best deal possible for you. Let them have an opportunity to see if it is the best deal possible.

I do not understand how government – I can see, it is not that they do not accept the logic of that. I believe the minister and the legal counsel when they say: It is not that we disagree with what you are saying. It is not that we do not agree that there should be discussion and analysis, but the only reason we have been given so far, why we cannot put this amendment in there - the absolute, only reason why - is because government is trying to establish that these subsidiaries will be non-agents of government.

That might sound pretty complex, that in order to have these subsidiaries be non-agents of government - in other words, they are not associated with government, and anything that they do they are separate, and any liabilities that they might incur cannot be brought back on the people - we have to create that distance in these subsidiaries. That is what government is saying, and that is their justification for structuring this the way that it is.

Their logic was: if we accept your recommendation and your amendment, we lose that agency piece - because we are trying to set it up so that they are not agents. We are trying to set it up so that the subsidiaries are not agents of the government; they are subsidiaries of the corporation. In fact, they expressly say that: A subsidiary is not an agent of the Crown unless it is designated as such.

That is what they want to achieve, non-agency. Therefore, if they accepted our amendment they could not argue that any more because they would say: How can we argue that we are a non-agent if the people are a shareholder of the corp. and the corp. is the shareholder of the subsidiary, and we have to come back to the House for approval? They would say: The courts will see through that and say that is a sham. Even though you said you are not an agent, you are in fact an agent because you required that it come back to the House.

People might wonder why you would want them to be a non-agent. There are good reasons for that, I would think, and I have been told a couple. For example, what if, in the course of doing one of these subsidiaries - which is, say, the Hebron-Ben Nevis - what happens if there is a catastrophic environmental catastrophe in regard to subsidiary B, which is going to be Hebron, we will say, and we spilled, like the Exxon Valdez, X millions of barrels of oil into the ocean and there is a catastrophic environmental concern?

The government is saying just because subsidiary B who ran that project, because that environmental catastrophe happened, we do not want to strap the people of this Province with probably a huge liability bill for that. What if the bills totalled $10 billion? If you are an agent, the government is going to get tabbed with that. The government is saying, rightly, we do not want to hook the people of the Province for that liability. How do we get around it? We say the subsidiary is a non-agent.

Now it might not work, folks.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that his speaking time has expired.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will come back and finish my comments here on this issue right after.

Thank you.

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

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am looking, as we all are, at the subsidiaries. I am thinking about everything that is being said, and one of the things, of course, that strikes me - and this may come out as sounding very, very simplistic, but I am not a lawyer so I will be putting it as a layperson, and if somebody can set me right on it that will be fine - agent of the Crown or not, the subsidiaries are under the Energy Corporation and the Energy Corporation is accountable to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. So there is a direct line from the subsidiaries to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council whether or not the subsidiaries are an agent of the Crown. That is the reality, that there is a direct line.

So, if somebody wanted to test the whole issue of liability of the government with regard to a subsidiary, it is going to happen. It is going to happen anyway. It will happen. I guess what the government is saying is: Well, we want to be sure there is as little as possible there that connects us to the subsidiary so that we will not be held liable.

What the government is saying with regard to the subsidiaries, in my books right now, I am thinking it would not assure that the government would not be found liable if it went into court. There is nothing to assure that. Whether or not the subsidiary would, for example, its business was called onto the floor and was discussed on the floor of the House, whether or not that happens, the potential for a legal case around liability of the government, if it came to that, with a subsidiary, is still going to be there. The potential is still there and government would have to fight that one in any case.

The main reason that has been given to us with regard to the subsidiaries, the main reason that has been given why, for example, the amendment that is being brought forward by the Official Opposition, why that amendment cannot work, is not an answer for me. It just is not an answer because – yes, it may add a little bit more because of the discussion happening in the House, but the Energy Corporation is accountable to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council anyway, so any of its relationships to the subsidiary is giving a direct line to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council.

If the minister wants to stand and speak to that, and make it less simplistic than I am making it, I would be happy to have her do that; but, to me, the direct line is there anyway. Whether or not you have two direct lines or one direct line, you still have a direct line.

It is not a satisfactory answer for me and I just can only repeat what I have been saying, that I am not satisfied that we do have enough protection here with regard to the subsidiaries acting independently down the road. Obviously we are talking down the road, it is not something that is going to happen tomorrow or next year. It is something that would happen down the road if it ever happened. I am not sure that we have the protection. Just having the Corporations Act is not enough. Having public AGMs is not enough. Making reports to the House of Assembly or to the Energy Corporation, in the case of a subsidiaries, is not enough. Yes, these are all things that help with accountability but would they actually stop the kind of sale that the amendment, the amendment of the Official Opposition, is putting forward? Not necessarily. Not necessarily at all.

Saying that, I am not hearing anything that is satisfying me with regard to the liability issue, that that is enough to stop us from having the subsidiaries be held accountable publicly. I do not know how we can be asking the people of this Province to just trust the system. You know, I heard the minister say that what was outlined in the amendment from the Official Opposition, it just could not happen, that could not happen. It could not happen, that a subsidiary could get away with selling all or substantially all of a subsidiary or a substantial asset of a subsidiary. Well, yes, it could happen. There is nothing to stop that from happening. It could happen.

We have to be careful when we say something cannot happen. You know they said that about the Ocean Ranger, it could never go down in the ocean, they said it about the Titanic, and we know what happened to both of those. It can happen. I am not saying it will happen. Accountability to the people, public discussion: if a subsidiary were going to remove itself this is absolutely essential. I think this is very focused. It is not saying that everything that the subsidiary does should come to the floor of the House. That is not what it is saying. It is only saying that in the case of sale, lease, exchange or otherwise disposal of all or substantially all of the subsidiary or a substantial asset of subsidiary, that shall be approved. That is all. It is not saying that everything the subsidiary does has to come to the floor of this House. That is not what it is saying.

It is saying, this very particular situation which has to do with the maintaining of the ownership of this subsidiary, the accountability of this subsidiary under the Energy Corp, in that case, so that we would not face a loss of assets of the Province - because even though the Province does not own the assets of the subsidiary it will have put money in initially. There will be investment money going into all of this from the government. Now, we know there are going to be financiers other than government, but government will be investing as well. To keep us from losing out, all we are saying, all that this is saying, this amendment, is that in this one particular case, the subsidiary has to come to the House of Assembly, and I think that that is essential. I think that it has to be there. I think that we have to see that these subsidiaries are not off there on their own, just doing whatever they want to do.

With the most important thing, which is the maintenance of the subsidiary, to make sure that the subsidiary and its assets maintain themselves under the Energy Corporation, then I think an amendment like the one that the official Opposition has put forward is essential to this bill, to give us that protection.

That is where I stand at the moment, Mr. Chair, and I am looking forward to further discussion as the evening goes on.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, it being just past five-thirty now by the clock, I move that we adjourn debate until 7:00 p.m. this evening, recess the House until that time.

CHAIR: The House now stands recessed until 7 o'clock.

 


June 3, 2008             HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS              Vol. XLVI   No. 37A


The House resumed sitting at 7:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIR (Collins): Order, please!

Committee is now back in session.

We are debating Bill 35. When the House recessed we were debating the amendments put forth by Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to clause 4.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before we broke for dinner, we were discussing an amendment that had been forward by my colleague, the Member for Burgeo-LaPoile. The amendment dealt with a section of the Act that would pertain directly to subsidiary companies within the Energy Corporation. Basically, what we had been looking for is an amendment in which the sale, lease, exchange, or otherwise disposal of all or substantially all of a subsidiary or a substantial asset of a subsidiary, shall be approved by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council and the House of Assembly.

I guess the Act goes a certain distance in meeting this, in that it does have to be approved by the Cabinet before there can be any major sale of an asset or disposal of an asset within the subsidiaries of a corporation. However, Mr. Chair, there is no mechanism for public disclosure and for the people of the Province to have some knowledge of what may be transpiring within a subsidiary of the corporation until after the fact, after it actually happens. This is the reason why we have had discussions with the government, Mr. Chair, primarily with the minister and her officials, around whether there could be some provision within the Act to allow for this, so that we would not have a circumstance at any time whereby the CEO of a subsidiary corporation, through the consent of the head of the Energy Corporation, would be able to go out and make a major transaction, such as the sale, lease or disposal of assets or equity shares within a subsidiary division, without somebody within the public having some knowledge of it. We felt that that was a very critical piece to this, in terms of having an open and accountable piece of legislation.

Now, Mr. Chair, we also realize that government, within itself, has decided that this new corporation and its subsidiaries would be set up as a non-Crown agent of government, and therefore, in order for them to meet the definition of a non-Crown agent there are certain things that must be specified within the legislation, or at least exempt from the legislation, I should say, in order for them to meet that objective. That objective would be to ensure that in the eyes of the courts if there ever was a dispute or if there ever was a disaster or any particular event that would contribute to liabilities on behalf of the corporation and therefore on behalf of the people of the Province, then those liabilities would be mitigated to the greatest extent possible by establishing it in this way. Also, in establishing it in this particular manner, it enshrouds it in a form of secrecy that is not necessarily precedented in terms of public Crown agencies or any entity of government.

I guess what we have been trying to do is trying to strike some kind of a balance whereby there could be a level of public disclosure and that there could be inputs and views sought from the public prior to any particular finality of an agreement with regard to the sale of assets and equity. Unfortunately, through the consultation that government had, they were unable to secure a clause for the bill that they were comfortable with, but notwithstanding that we still feel that there is a liability to the people of the Province as well. The liability is that they are entrusting, through this legislation, a great deal of authority and autonomy to a corporation to manage and invest money on behalf of the people of the Province. With that comes a liability, if that particular investment or collective investments are taken and sold off or gotten rid of in one way, shape or form then that would, in itself, leave with the people of the Province a certain amount of liability as well.

Mr Chair, we understand that when government was crafting this particular legislation that they did so trying to meet and fall within the specifications of what would outline a corporation of that magnitude and structure that could compete, negotiate and deal in the real business corporate sector that they find themselves in and want to move into. At the same time, we have to ensure, as well, as an Opposition, that this particular legislation will not only suffice to meet the needs of the business community or their partners or of the people who will run the corporation or of the government of the day. We have to ensure that the legislation meets the specifications that go beyond that, that it is true and tested in the eyes and the minds of the public in terms of knowing and having access to what can go on within that corporation.

Mr. Chair, that is the primary reason why we bring forward this particular amendment. As I said today, we have seen a number of examples in this Province whereby we would have had corporations whose structures would have changed, whose assets would have been sold off, Mr. Chair, if there had not been provisions that allowed it to have to come to the House of Assembly.

We talked about Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, and I know that the minister said in her remarks afterwards that Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro is a separate subsidiary and a subsidiary company of the Energy Corporation that will have onto it, it's own act. We fully agree and fully understand and we fully accept all of that, Mr. Chair, but notwithstanding that there was a time in this Province that if that Act had not been there, maybe the structure of that corporation would be very different today than what it is. Maybe it would have been privatized and it would have been done so without knowledge of the people of the Province and they would not have been able to launch the kind of public lobby and public campaign that they did in a very aggressive way, in order to bring a message to the government of the day that they did not want that to happen and this was something that they could not support.

Well, Mr. Chair, all we are saying is that if government, by it's own decisions, goes out and invests the people's money in this Province into purchasing equity shares in any oil company or any oil project, as they talk about doing in the Hebron project, well then there should be some disclosures for the people of the Province; that if at some point that subsidiary of the Hebron corporation, if we ever have one or ever see one, if that subsidiary ever decided that they wanted to go out and sell off this 4 per cent or 4.9 per cent or half of that to some other company, to some other corporate interest or one of their partners, well then the people should have some say in that matter. It does not mean it is a good thing or a bad thing. It does not mean that at all. It just means that there should be disclosure around it, and as it is right now there would not be.

The only disclosure that would take place would be at the end of the year when there was an annual report tabled. If the company chose to they would outline, providing that there are not sensitivities around it, I think was the word they used, the CSI, providing that it is not sensitive information within the corporation, commercially sensitive information, then they would outline it in their annual report. If they did that, Mr. Chair, it would be after the fact, it would be at the end of the financial year when they were actually tabling that report. It would still have, I suppose, some bearing in terms of providing it for public information but it would certainly not be open to having any kind of public debate or public input that could probably change the course of that action, and that is where our concern is.

We have outlined this a number of times and the reason that we want to propose this amendment and the reason we think it is important that, even if it is not in the way that we have written it here as an amendment, it is important to have it within the legislation in some context of some sort so that we do not end up with a situation on our hands where the people's money is going to be invested to purchase equity, to establish companies, to develop projects and then at some point down the road some other beneficiary will see the rewards of that and the people of the Province would not be aware of it. That is our only concern.

We were very open in saying, however you get there it will be fine with us, we are just prepared to look at any options that you can provide for us to be able to do that, to ensure that there is some level of accountability before an actual transaction like that that would occur and we are not talking about every day, day to day things that would happen. We are talking about things that would be coined as substantial or substantially all of the assets or equity that would be attained within that particular subsidiary. It is a very different picture, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that her speaking time has expired.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate an opportunity again to have a few words on this Bill 35.

The last time I spoke, earlier this afternoon, I started on this thing about the reason why the government told us that: we cannot accept this amendment. The basic piece is that they are setting up the Corp and the subsidiaries that they have set up. Government is also a part of that in order to minimize, shall we say, any liabilities that the Province or the people of the Province might subsequently end up with. Part of the strategy here, as I understand it, is to have what they call non-agency corporations, and they have specifically stated that in subparagraph (5) of this particular 14.1. The reason being, of course: the government are saying, if you have a subsidiary, for example, A, as I said today an offshore oil company, the Hebron-Ben Nevis deal maybe, and what if there is a catastrophic environmental concern and a $10 billion tax bill attached to it? The Province is trying to insulate the people from any liability for those types of liabilities, is what we understand.

When they tried to design the model of what was the best model to use here – the government has come up with the one here about non-agency corporations or subsidiaries. They said that was the best model that they could find. There are, of course, other models that could be used. For example, I raised the question of: well, if you are concerned about liabilities – and for the record, by the way, the reason we are going down this liability road is because if government never did take an equity stake in these projects there probably never would be a liability issue. But the government has decided, and that is its prerogative, that they want to take equity stakes in various energy businesses in the future, possibly. In fact, it is already announced in the Hebron-Ben Nevis deal and I believe the White Rose, that there will be stakes in that by the government.

Once you do that, and you make that decision to go down that equity road, there are potential liabilities that you might incur down the road. I guess, what government is trying to do is insulate itself and the Province and the people, likewise, from any potential liabilities that might happen. They went on to say: what is the best model that we can use to possibly insulate ourselves from such liabilities? They have come up with this one; distance ourselves from those subsidiaries. In other words, have a major corp. which would have a subsidiary, but we do not want to be, and we will say in the legislation that that subsidiary is not an agent of the Crown. Lots of times governments do say it is a Crown agency. It says right in there explicitly, this shall be a Crown agency or Crown Corporation. In this case they have chosen to say, those subsidiaries will not be Crown agencies. They have taken it and said that.

The question becomes, of course, whether the courts will ever accept that or not. That is one question and that will only be tested, I would think, with time. Over the course of time that will be tested. For example, even though the Act says it, if somebody is damaged out here, say all of the fishermen on the East Coast are damaged because of a major economic catastrophe as a result of the Hebron, we will call it, subsidiary A corporation, surely God, all of the fishermen or the FFAW potentially could end up suing the Province saying: you destroyed all of our fishing industry as part of that so we want a claim.

Government is trying to insulate itself from law suits of that type, but that is not to prevent the FFAW, in that example, from suing the subsidiary and suing the Energy Corp. and suing the government. They can still name them. They can still drag the government into court. It will be for some judge to decide later on whether or not the liability will attach. Government is trying to set it up in such a way that they will have the strongest case possible, as I understand it, to say that we cannot be sued because they are not an agent of ours.

The question we asked was: was there any way to achieve or minimize the liability without necessarily saying that they are a non-Crown agency. The gentleman, I believe it was the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, indicated that there were other ways of doing it. One, for example, would be, you try to minimize you risk by having insurance. You simply buy insurance, and that is probably what any reasonable corporation would do anyway. I would assume the subsidiary will be buying insurance as a part of minimizing its risk, and likewise, the government could have, in addition to the subsidiary, bought insurance if they wanted to, to minimize their risk. That is one way of doing it.

The other way - we ask about the privative clause. All that means, as I understand – it is a big fancy legal term – but what I understand from a privative clause, what it means, is it is like we did in Bill 36. For example, we passed Bill 36 here yesterday through committee stage. Third reading, I am not sure of.

MS BURKE: Not yet.

MR. PARSONS: Not yet, it is coming. Anyway, it has gone through the stages here. Part of that Bill 36 which dealt with the Lower Churchill catchment basin and so on, there was a clause in there saying, we are extinguishing all of the rights that anybody might have to that area and its tributaries, but also you shall not be able to sue the government because we extinguish it, and you will not be able to recover any compensation. Now, that is a privative clause.

The question we asked was: well, why couldn't you get to where you needed to go, in terms of minimizing your liabilities, by simply putting in a privative clause. If that is the case, if you could do that, which we have done - we did it, I believe, in the FPI case, we did it in the Bill 36 case. Our question was: well, why can we not do that here, rather than trying to create – some people would suggest artificially create - this non-agency piece? Because, look what we sacrificed by doing the non-agency piece. We have sacrificed the public disclosure piece.

It is not that we do not accept the government's and the minister's rationale, by the way. The rationale was, that if we accept the Opposition amendment about reporting back to the LG and getting the approval of the LG in the House, which is the piece that causes the problem, that might take away the argument that we have nothing to do with them, that they are a non-agent of ours.

We have no problem agreeing with the logic that is being used, and that is the rationale, because you have said they shall be separate and apart, non-agents. Therefore, you cannot do anything later on in the bill which reverses that or gives the impression that you are changing that, because that might, again, attract liability to you. It is not that we disagree with what you are trying to accomplish. We do not necessarily think it is the best model. Maybe a combination of things, such as the privative clause and the insurance itself, would have done it, and you would not need to compromise what we feel is now compromising the public need and right to know.

It is not that we disagree with what government is doing in a sense of how you are setting this up. Yes, they had great advice. They had advice from their lawyers within, and they had advice from some of the top corporate commercial lawyers in the Province, probably in the world, so it is not that we do not understand. I think we have an appreciation of why the model is being structured the way it is, but at the end of the day it is going to be a court who decides whether that was successfully done by way of legislation. You are still going to need, we would suggest, the insurance piece, and we think, as a safety value as well, there should have been a privative piece in there anyway, if only for protection.

Government should have had a privative clause here saying, even though it is a non-agent, notwithstanding that we have said this here, we still think for protection we should have had a privative clause. That way we have an extra tool in our arsenal if you end up in court, so that if the courts say: Ha, we see through this subsection (5) and subsection (6), what you have done trying to get rid of this liability - we understand that. We see what you did there; but, sorry, it did not work. So that one gets crossed out in the courts. Then at least we would have a second quiver in our bow and arrow pouch and we could say: Whoa, even if that one is knocked out, we can still rely upon our privative clause.

All we made the suggestions for is to find some way, if you are going to use that model - we do not think the model that was used covers it off sufficiently or as protectively as it should have done. Conversely to all that, and in opposition to all that, we said earlier, we appreciate the government desire and the corporation need to have flexibility, to be competitive in the markets that they are going to deal in, and to minimize the liabilities, but all of that is being put up against the public's right and need to know. All we are saying is that at the end of the day we have to make a decision. Morally, I do not think it is proper to make these massive decisions. We cannot say on the one hand, no more giveaways, everything will be done right. That is all a matter of negotiation, obviously. It depends on who is doing the negotiations at the table, no doubt. Each and every individual deal is going to determine that.

You may do a deal on Hebron that people say is a fantastic deal. You may do a deal two years out on some other matter, and if it saw the light of day where people could have a chance to openly, honestly, reasonably assess it and evaluate it, they might say: Whoa, we do not think that is as good.

Now, maybe there is a reason why it is not as good as Hebron was, but right now that is never going to be possible under the current situation. That is what causes the concern here, that we have gone down a path and we feel that it is not protective enough in itself, in terms of the model you have chosen; and, secondly, it overrides the public's right to know.

It is not about this government. It is not about this Lieutenant-Governor in Council, because this law is going to stand for whatever Lieutenant-Governor in Council. If Premier Williams is not around in ten years' time, if somebody else is on watch and they get hooked on this thing and this happens, what if you get somebody there - we had reference in Question Period one day to: What if John Efford and Danny Dumaresque were in charge? Something might go terribly wrong.

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. PARSONS: Well, if that is the situation the Premier wants to use, fine, but –

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's speaking time has expired.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will be back.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill–Quidi Vidi.

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

I think I have a couple of more things that I would like to say, a couple of more questions. I was happy to have the supper break because I did need to sit and think a bit, but I still do not have answers to the questions that I have been raising, not for myself.

It seems to me that one of the things that we are doing and that government wants to do, which is good, is, through the Energy Corporation, to: one, control our future and our destiny, both as a government and as a Province, and to benefit from energy development. Both of those goals are good goals, but that is why I am confused, especially the first one with regard to controlling our future and our destiny.

What confuses me is around the subsidiaries. I cannot see how we have a foolproof way of controlling what might happen down the road with the subsidiaries. I just do not see it. I have looked at the mechanisms that are in place in the bill and that the minister has referred to, but there is no foolproof, sure way that we could absolutely say we can make sure that the subsidiaries never, ever, sell off the assets and the Province be left without a particular subsidiary. There is no way we can say that, just as there is no way, and I have said this earlier, there is no way we can say that there is no way that the government could be found liable for the subsidiaries even under the regime that is being proposed. We cannot say that either.

The more I think about it, the more I know I am certain that I just cannot accept the direction that this has gone in. I had hoped, when we first started the process, that perhaps we could come to a point where we would agree on everything, but this one, as I said earlier today, for me, is a real stumbling block. I just cannot get beyond it, and I have spoken with others. We have spoken inside my caucus, which really means my staff and I and other members of our party, and we are all in agreement that we just do not understand going in this direction, that the explanation around the liability is just not enough; because, to me, the liability is there anyway. It is there anyway, and we cannot say that either one is not there; they are both there. That is how I see it. Unless the minister can come up with something new to convince me, I cannot change my mind on it.

MS DUNDERDALE: What is (inaudible)?

MS MICHAEL: The minister said, for example, Mr. Chair, that the mechanisms for reporting are safeguards. The annual general meeting, the annual report, being under the Corporations Act, these are all ways to give some kind of reporting but it is not necessarily a way to stop a subsidiary. If it wanted to, it would find its way to sell off assets, if it wanted to. It would.

The other point that I made earlier, and I want to make it again, is the fact that the subsidiary is under the Energy Corp., and the Energy Corp. is under the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, makes a direct line anyway and that will also be part of liability.

MS DUNDERDALE: It does not.

MS MICHAEL: Well, I have not had it explained to me to show me that is does not, and I would need to have it explained to me to show me that is does not. There is no sure proof thing here on either side, so I am unconvinced and I have not heard anything new today to change my mind on that.

I have nothing else to say, Mr. Chair, I have said it all, and unless I hear something different then there will not be anything else for me to say. I am really sorry, but that is where it stands at the moment.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are not going to belabour this unnecessarily either. Each time I have spoken on this in committee, on this particular amendment, three times, I think we raised some valid points. Like I said, we are under no illusion that our amendment is going to be accepted, but for fear that somebody might think we had not read it or whatever, and commented on it, that is why we wanted to make our points for the record.

Again, the first time we talked about the non-disclosure to the public. Nobody who we checked with, including the government lawyers in Justice nor the lawyer who attended from the corporation, nobody could give an assurance that any asset of any subsidiary that would be sold, that it would ever have to come to the public attention. That assurance was never there, and I think that is what the Leader of the NDP is alluding to as well. We just wanted some assurance that, if it was going to be sold, the public would know about it before the fact rather than after the fact. That is the big concern here.

It is fine to rule and govern in the right interests of the people of the Province, but the people have a right to be told, before you do massive resource deals, what you are doing, just out of respect for telling them. Not that they are going to agree with it, not that you are going to get oppositions up agreeing with you, because obviously they probably will not, but just the principle of the thing, that they ought to know. That is all we are coming from here. That was the first point you made.

Again, we think, and as I just suggested, the model that they have chosen here does not put all the tools in there, even if you are going down that road, in terms of the privative clause and so on, for protections for the government should the non-agency piece work or not work. If the courts say it does not work we are back into the liability piece again, and what have we sacrificed in order to try to gain the liability issue? We have sacrificed again the people's right to know. I do not see anything wrong with that, trying to accomplish that. If you can accomplish both of it together, everybody is happy, everybody is winners, but right now there is a big potential loser and that is the people if they do not know. That has to do with whether it is a good deal or a bad deal. That is all we are saying.

The final thing, again, I will just point out, under Bill 28, which created the Energy Corporation, it talks in clause 19 about the government could make loans to anybody that they deal with. The Crown can unconditionally guarantee both as to principal and interest, including interest on overdue interest, premium and sinking fund, loans authorized under section 18.

That is anything that the government wants to do, for example, to help out the initiative that the corporation is undertaking. That clause, clause 19 in the original energy bill, talks about those loans. There is nothing wrong with that. If the government decides they want to bankroll the Energy Corp. into doing something, fine and dandy. They are the main shareholder of the Energy Corp., a great thing. We have already authorized in the act that they can borrow $600 million themselves. We have already pumped, in this year's Budget, over $300 million into it. So, it is not a question that the government, under section 19, would have the right to loan money, make loans and whatever to the corporation.

Now, if you compare what is in this bill we are dealing with now, Bill 35, it says - and we will come to this later on, but it still ties into this piece here of the non-agency - under section 6 on this bill right here, Bill 35, it says, section 19 of the main act will be amended such that after the word corporation we are also going to put in, now, or subsidiary.

Now, how can you maintain on the one hand that we are trying to keep the subsidiaries arm's-length, distanced from the government, non-agents, so that we do not face the liability issue, when in the very same act, Bill 35, we are amending clause 19 and putting in subsidiary.

Surely, if in Bill 35, which we are doing here, we are putting in the word that government is undertaking to be able to loan, guarantee any activity of a subsidiary, within the same piece of legislation that we are trying to create the model of non-agency and distancing ourselves at arm's-length, we just turned around in the next clause 6 and tied ourselves right back in by saying we are going to add subsidiaries to it.

Surely, anybody, any court who looks at this is going to say: Just a minute. In clause 5 of Bill 35 you are saying you are distanced, you have nothing to do with them, they are a Crown agent, and they are a non-agent. Then you turn around over here and you say that you can make loans to them, and guarantee the loans.

Now, who in the world is going to believe that they are arm's-length if you have already set it up that you can do this for them? Those are the kinds of concerns that we have. It is fine to pursue the model. We think you had some, obviously, very good advice, but we just think it is some tweaking that was required here, that you could have had a better model, could have added these few things, like privative clause, not walked into what I think here is – again, I am only a lay person when it comes to corporate law. I don't know much about it. Never did, and he certainly never did any along the lines that this Premier has done, in terms of big financing deals and corporate bargains – don't claim to be – but a lay person reading this, looks at it, and says: How can you possibly be non-arm's-length and then put in a clause like you have here, putting subsidiaries in as people you are going to give loans to.

Any court is going to look at that, I would suggest, and say automatically, you have just tied your hands again. You have just yanked the very subsidiaries that you wanted to be non-agents right back into your bailiwick.

That is where we are sort of lost. You have a model. It is not complete; it is not all the safeguards that government ought to have here. What is wrong with having a privative clause there to strengthen it, in case you need it? That is not there, and we think you destroyed the whole non-agency argument yourself by making some of these subsequent amendments here.

Overall, the arching piece that is missing here is that, in the interest of trying to get the flexibility, the competiveness, and get rid of the liabilities – which are all admirable goals – we have compromised the people's right and their need to know.

That is all I have to say, personally, on this issue about our amendment.

Thank you.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe we could ask the minister to clarify section 6 of Bill 35, because it does refer to section 19 of the act and it is contradictory in terms of what you are trying to accomplish under the liabilities piece, or the non-Crown agent piece. We have not had an explanation of it, and maybe we could get one now before we move on.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair

As I have said a number of times in this debate, and we had a discussion about this earlier today in our meeting before we came into the House, we have taken the best corporate advice available to us in terms of how to set this corporation up in a way that provides for accountability and transparency but at the same time limits liability.

Yes, Mr. Chair, there is a direct line between the Energy Corp. and the Lieutenant-Governor in Council representing the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are the shareholders and there is a direct line, but there is not a direct line between non-Crown agents and government.

The non-Crown agents report to the Energy Corp., and only to the Energy Corp. They do not report directly to government. The more that you draw a line from government directly to the non-Crown agents then you have a path that is identifiable and you cannot claim, then, that they are operating independently of government; however, Mr. Chair, there is a mechanism where we can provide funding, a loan guarantee or a loan, to a subsidiary. There is a mechanism that does that in law but still protects us and protects the amount of liability that government is exposed to.

We have legal advice on that. We have legal opinion on that, so that is why we have gone with this structure. It is set up in that very specific way to limit that liability, that exposure by government. That is why they are set up as non-Crowns, and the more we step out of that relationship of us to the Energy Corp. to non-Crowns - that is the way that this thing operates - the more we step out of that design and start to interact directly with the subsidiaries opens up a great area of risk for the people of the Province. That is why it was designed - the best advice we could find. It is the way that publicly traded companies are designed, that protect the parent company from liability in terms of the subsidiaries. This is common practice done all over the world.

CHAIR: Are we ready for the question on the –

MS MICHAEL: Excuse me, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: I am sorry.

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

MS MICHAEL: I just want to make one point and maybe ask the minister to clarify.

It seems to me that in actual fact the line is unbroken because the line goes to the corp. and the corp. goes to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council. Both sections 6 and 7 of Bill 35 - not just 6 but 7 as well - which talks about section 25 of the original act, does the same thing that 6 does when it says: Subject to the prior approval of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, the Minister of Finance acting on behalf of the Crown may guarantee the performance by the corporation or subsidiaries of an obligation of the corporation or subsidiary contracted by it with a person (a) to pay money or an installment; or (b) to perform, fulfil or observe a covenant obligation or provision of an agreement, deed, bond, promissory note or other document or instrument.

You have made connections there in both numbers 6 and 7, and even in the reporting, the audit reporting that the corporation does, and we did not change this, while a section was added to allow for the subsidiaries to do its own report of activities, the corporation is where the financial reporting is going to be done under the consolidated financial statement. So, as the corporation reports itself to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, it is reporting on subsidiaries. For me, that creates a direct line.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Chairman, with the greatest respect to the legal expertise that the Leader of the NDP might have, all I can say to her is, we have had the best corporate legal advice who are aware of every element of this bill, every element of the structure, go over this with a fine-tooth comb. We have had not only our internal people do that. We have had law firms in Canada do that. We have had international law firms do that.

The structure that is there, we are aware of all of those relationships, but in terms of how subsidiaries are structured, not only in terms of this piece where we have a hybrid of a Crown corporation as well as subsidiaries that are non-Crown agents, but also in terms of privately held companies. Fortis would be a real good example, someone we are familiar with, and how that corporation is structured to protect the parent company from liability in terms of the subsidiary and yet to have influence on what the subsidiary does.

In this case, we have a step beyond that, in where the government is the shareholder that owns the parent company, the Energy Corp. is responsible for the activities of the subsidiaries, not the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. In law there is not, through the structure of government, Energy Corp., subsidiary, a direct line from government to the subsidiaries. In corporate law there isn't.

Mr. Chair, I cannot give any clearer explanation than we have done today. In our meetings we have had two lawyers who have participated in meetings we have had with our colleagues opposite, who went through this today and explained it as clearly as we know how to put it. There is not much more that I can add to it at this point.

CHAIR: Are we ready for the question on the amendment to clause 4 as proposed by Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

The amendment is defeated.

On motion, amendment defeated.

CHAIR: Shall clause 4 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 4 carried.

CLERK: Clause 5.

CHAIR: Clause 5.

The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is our final amendment to Bill 35:

"6. Clause 5 of the Bill is amended by renumbering the proposed section 17.1 as subsection (1) of section 17.1 and by adding immediately after subsection (1) the following:

"(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the Lieutenant-Governor in Council may declare that a subsidiary is subject to the Public Tender Act and in that event the Act applies to the subsidiary.

"(3) Subject to the prior approval of the Lieutenant-Governor in Council, the corporation shall develop and adopt procurement principles that follow best industry practices for procurement and contracting, including transparent supplier development, monitoring and reporting and those principles shall apply to the corporation and its subsidiaries.

"(4) The corporation and its subsidiaries shall report to the minister on their procurement activities and shall include a summary of contracts entered into and the identities of suppliers to whom the contracts have been awarded every 6 months.

"(5) A summary of the procurement principles adopted under subsection (3) and the reports required under subsection (4) shall be made public by the minister by

"(a) presenting them to the House of Assembly; and

"(b) other effective means, including electronically.

"(6) Section 19.1 of the House of Assembly Act applies to a summary required under subsection (5) as if the summary were a report of an officer of the House of Assembly."

Mr. Chair, in our debate, especially in second reading of this bill, I outlined in some detail why the Public Tender Act does not work for the work of the Energy Corporation and its subsidiaries.

This Energy Corporation, Mr. Chair, will be undertaking, on behalf of the people of the Province, megaprojects, such as development of the Lower Churchill, the development of big wind, research and development for the people of the Province, and oil and gas development. These will be all very significant proposals under which many considerations have to be undertaken. While price is always an important consideration when you are contracting work, in these kinds of huge projects, Mr. Chair, it cannot be the primary consideration. What the Energy Corp. needs to look at is value overall.

If we are going to engage a company that is going to be the major contractor on the building of the Lower Churchill, for example, then we need to look at more than the lowest bidder. We need to look, for example, at somebody who has experience in doing this work, who has the expertise, who has had recent involvement in this kind of work.

We need to be able to consider adjacency so that the people who live nearest the resource start to get the greatest value from that resource even at the development stage. We need to be able to consider benefits agreements that we negotiate, for example, with Aboriginal people who have a right to participate in the economic benefits of these developments.

Mr. Chairman, rather than spend hours or weeks or months of our time trying to circumvent the Public Tender Act or jiggle around the Public Tender Act because it does not work for us, and be looking for exemptions and all of these kinds of things, we want a much more direct, straightforward, transparent way of doing this work.

We know that the Public Tender Act will not work for us in the majority of these circumstances, but at the same time we understand, when our colleagues raised the issue of transparency and accountability, that we needed to do more than just exempt the corporation from the Public Tender Act. Thus this amendment, Mr. Chairman, which talks to a Statement of Principles that will be developed by the Energy Corp. and approved by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council which will outline best practices, accept the best practices around the world in terms of procurement principles, contracting and transparent supply or development, monitoring and reporting. These principles shall apply to the Energy Corp. as well as to all of its subsidiaries.

We also need a reporting mechanism, again drawn to our attention by our colleagues opposite, so that the people of the Province know who are winning the Request for Proposals and winning the right to do this work, so we have addressed that in terms of our amendment. There will be a reporting mechanism here saying who got the work, the type of work that has been awarded, who has it, and that information will be tabled here in the House every six months.

The Public Tender Act, Mr. Chairman, is very important to this government. As a matter of fact, while our friends opposite in the Liberal Opposition, when they formed the government and all three of them sat in the former government, the Public Tender Act did not apply to Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. Four years ago, when we took government, we felt strongly enough about the Public Tender Act that we made Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro subject to that act, and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro remains subject to the Public Tender Act; because, in terms of the scope of its work, the kind of work that Hydro does, the Public Tender Act makes all kinds of sense.

Our colleagues opposite raised the question: Well, right now you are only contemplating wind development, Lower Churchill development, and big, big projects, but maybe ten or fifteen years down the road you might be doing another activity in a subsidiary that the Public Tender Act would make all kinds of sense to be applied to.

We acknowledge that we do not have a crystal ball, and that indeed might happen. We have made a provision in this amendment that should that happen, then there is a mechanism to have the Public Tender Act apply to that subsidiary.

Mr. Chair, in terms of what we are trying to achieve here, many suggestions have been offered up over the last few days about how we could work or massage the Public Tender Act, or amend the Public Tender Act, to work for the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries. We have seriously and honestly examined every one of them, and it does not work, Mr. Chair, it just does not work for us. We would have the Cabinet bogged down; we would have different agencies within government, like Government Purchasing Agency, absolutely bogged down, because we would have to come for hundreds and hundreds of exemptions, just in a project like the Lower Churchill.

So to say that the Public Tender Act can apply and then spend all that time and energy trying to get around the elements in the Public Tender Act that do not work for us and stymie this kind of development and slow it down, and cost it more money – and it does not work for the people who live near the resource. It does not work for the people that we have IBAs with.

It is much more straightforward and honest for us to state what is obviously true and right from our research, and the work that we have done, and to state quite clearly it does not work, why it does not work, but at the same time acknowledging that there has to be accountability, there has to be transparency, there has to be competitiveness. How do we address that so that the people of the Province have some assurance that they know what is going on, and the people who are involved in supply and service in this Province know what the terms and conditions under which they can apply for contractual work within these projects, and how the people of the Province can come to know and understand who is doing the work and what contracts are being let and who those people are so we are protected – cronyism was one of the fears that was raised. So we have addressed it, Mr. Chair, in the amendments that we have put forward.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Of course, this is a very important aspect of this bill as well, because not only are you dealing with one project or one corporation, but you are dealing with some very large industrial development projects in this Province in which the companies out there, all over Newfoundland and Labrador, are going to be very dependent upon for contracts and for work in order to further their own companies, their own business and actions within the working community in Newfoundland and Labrador.

So, Mr. Chair, we were very cognizant of the fact that the original bill that was tabled in the House of Assembly on Bill 35, basically said that the Public Tender Act does not apply to the corporation or subsidiary, and that was the end of it. There was no particular procurement regulation built into it as a precautionary piece and there was no reporting mechanism built in, and that was the point that we had raised last week.

Our concern was a couple of things. One, we needed to ensure there was going to be an open and transparent process of soliciting contractors and that it would be an element of competitiveness there so that companies that wanted work would have an opportunity to compete for that work. That was one very critical element that we found needed to be contained within the bill.

The other piece that we felt was very important was the aspect that dealt with a public reporting mechanism because even if you do not follow the Public Tender Act, there should be a way in which - if I am going to let $1 million in contracts next month or $1 billion in contracts over the course of the next twelve months, then I should at least be disclosing to someone who I am letting those contracts to, who these companies are, what kind of companies they are and how much of the percentage of the business that they are getting in terms of a dollar value.

So, Mr. Chair, we did have concerns. We raised those concerns with government and with the minister and had an opportunity to discuss with the officials and the legal counsel of government as to how we could put forward some amendments that would strengthen this particular legislation and leave it more open and transparent to people in the Province who would be doing business with the corporation. They were receptive to looking at some amendments, and those are the amendments that they brought forward this evening. Does it go far enough? I guess that is a piece that is up for debate.

We have not insisted at any point that they follow the Public Tender Act. We, however, did indicate to them that there were sections of the act in which they could consider exemptions if they needed to, as an out, I guess, in terms of allocating a contract in a timely manner or being able to do it in the case of an emergency and so on. Those outs are there, but we also looked at other options that we could propose to them. We did that because of the fact that we had an understanding of the type of work that this corporation would be doing and the scale of the contracts they would be letting, not just on a monthly basis but on a daily basis. We realized that they were time sensitive. Oftentimes, we also realized that many of these industrial development projects, if they have to go through a public tendering process it does cost money for them as they lose time, they lose opportunity to deal with certain problems, and therefore there is a cost factor included.

Also, Mr. Chair, the issues around adjacency, because we have seen in the past large scale contracts - in fact, with this government only a year ago, where they tendered for work on the west coast of Newfoundland. Today, we have companies from Quebec doing some of the largest public contracts ever let by the government opposite. In fact, $50 million contracts that were let by the government opposite went to Quebec-based companies with no provisions built in to the tendering act for adjacency.

Today, we have a company out in Deer Lake that is going out of business and laying off 150 workers while there is a company from Quebec that has a contract that this government has given them to do work. Do we want to see that in the future? Of course we don't. Of course we don't if there is a way to get around it. Now, I firmly believe there was a way around it in the tendering act, that they did not necessarily have to go to the lowest bidder. We have seen many contracts let in the Province that did not necessarily go to the lowest bidder but, however, went to a bidder that met other specifications as per that act. It was not in violation, I say to hon. members, but in fact it was within the guidelines and the provisions which were allowed for under that legislation.

Mr. Chair, let me say this. That adding this particular section does strengthen the actual bill and it does give greater transparency to the tendering of contracts within the Province. Basically, it will be set up like other corporations. For example, like Voisey's Bay Nickel Corporation is set up, like ExxonMobil is set up to do work in the Province, in which they set up procurement contracts. They have a list of companies which can procure those services to them when they need them on a short-term basis or a long-term basis, and they can solicit them based on that. They have an opportunity to examine who out there in the Province can provide this service, can provide these supplies, and therefore they would be eligible and up for consideration in any of the procurement work or soliciting of contracts that they would require. They can be tendered on a moment's notice.

We also know, Mr. Chair, that with the oil companies in the Province – companies like Exxon, whereby they do go out to invitational tenders for the procurement of work on many occasions and on times when they just sole source contracts, they also file some kind of a public, in a public way, the fact that they did sole source a contract with a specific company, and they do that through the CNLOPB.

So, there is a public accountability level and a public disclosure level, even within those corporations. We felt that, why should the Energy Corp. and its subsidiaries be exempt? They should not be exempt. Therefore, Mr. Chair, we felt it was necessary to have this particular process put in place, but inasmuch as that was necessary, it was also necessary to have a public mechanism by which they would report back. That is built now into the legislation in a proposed amendment.

We asked for this on Thursday because we felt that no company, not even the Energy Corp. with all the authority that has been given to that corporation through the CEO in this legislation or its subsidiaries, should be able to go out and procure or sole source contracts from any company in this Province and not disclose it. Because as I said, Mr. Chair, if I am going to build – I think the example I used back last week was if I was going to build a transmission line for the Lower Churchill through Labrador and my good friend owned a company which I could give that contract to, well then, I could sole source that contract to that individual no matter the amount, millions or billions of dollars, and I would have to disclose it to no one. That is not an appropriate way for any company that is arm's-length or not from government that is spending the taxpayers' money to operate. Therefore, there needed to be a level of accountability. Under this particular legislation that reporting mechanism is built in. It does say that a summary of the procurement principles adopted will be reported to the House and made public by the minister, to both the House of Assembly and electronically.

Mr. Chair, Section 19.1 of the House of Assembly Act does apply to a summary required under subsection 5 as a summary where a report of an Officer of the House of Assembly. Basically, what that means is very similar to the Public Tender Act. It would have to be tabled in the House of Assembly, subsequent to being received by the minister, in terms of where the contracts are let, what companies are getting them and what the actual amount of those contracts are. We felt that in the original bill that government had introduced in the House, it was very lacking in terms of the Public Tender Act, and basically, the only thing that it did say is that the Public Tender Act would not be followed.

The other thing that I wanted to point out here is that in the amendments to the amendments that have been introduced here, what they are also saying is that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council may declare that a subsidiary is subject to the Public Tender Act, and in that event, the act applies to the subsidiary. Basically, they reserve the right, as a Cabinet, although none of these companies are going to initially have to follow the Public Tender Act, they will have to develop procurement principles, they will have to follow them, and they will have to table in the House of Assembly public disclosure of who gets the contracts.

Mr. Chair, now the Cabinet also reserves the right to actually say to any subsidiary, at any time, that they want you to follow the Public Tender Act. We would have preferred if it would have been the other way around, that the minister would have had to ask that they be exempt as opposed to saying that they follow, but at the same rate, I guess it accomplishes the same thing at the end of the day. So, that is the other addition that is being added to this particular amendment.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The member's speaking time has expired.

MS JONES: Just, by leave, to clue up, Mr. Chair?

CHAIR: Does the member have leave to clue up?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

CHAIR: Leave to clue up.

MS JONES: Mr. Chair, basically what it is saying is that the minister does reserve the right to be able to do that if, at such time, they want any of these subsidiaries to follow the tendering act. So, that now is built into the legislation. It is a huge jump from where they were a few days ago, not quite as far as we would have liked to have taken it, but certainly a clause that we are prepared to support at this stage because we do see it as strengthening the legislation in a major way.

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

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

I am glad to stand and speak to the final amendment that has been brought forward by the minister. This amendment was extremely important for me.

When I first read Bill 35 and read section 17.1, the Public Tender Act does not apply to the corporation or a subsidiary, it really bothered me. I did do quite a study of the Public Tender Act and worked with others to try to see how this could be made to work and did find clauses within the Act that I thought could, in actual fact, be made to work. When we had the discussions that we had with the minister and officials from the Natural Resources Department, I was at least satisfied that the complications of working within the Public Tender Act would be many and that it might even have required changing things within the Public Tender Act. Certainly, new regulations would have to have been written.

I think what satisfied me when I saw this amendment – I was quite pleased when I saw the amendment – was that the amendment had within it probably the kinds of things that regulations would have had within it if new regulations had been written to help the Public Tender Act apply to the new Energy Corporation. Yesterday, or maybe today – yes, our meeting today with officials from the department and with the minister - the comment was made that, well, what is written out here in the amendment would have happened anyway. The point I made to that comment was that you cannot take anything for granted. To put in a statement that was in Bill 35 just saying that the Public Tender Act does not apply and then not bother to put in anything that would say what would apply, to me did not make sense, because it is so important to show that the Energy Corporation and the subsidiaries are accountable for their procurement practices. That was what bothered me. By saying the Public Tender Act did not apply, you were removing a sense of accountability with regard to procurement practices. That was the major concern.

When I read the new amendment that was tabled today I am satisfied to see that the corporation shall develop and adopt procurement principles that follow best industry practices for procurement and contracting, including transparent supplier development, monitoring and reporting, and those principles shall apply to the corporation and its subsidiaries. It is important to have that there because now we have no doubt about what the government is going to expect of the corporation and the subsidiaries and we have no doubt about what the corporation and the subsidiaries are going to have to do. The fact that the corporation and subsidiaries will report to the minister on their procurement activities, and that they shall include summaries of contracts entered into and the identities of suppliers to whom the contracts have been awards, and that they have to do that every six months, is extremely important, so that even though they are not part of the Public Tender Act they are following a process that we in the House are used to.

For example, under the Public Tender Act, when companies get exemptions we get reports here in the House of Assembly of those exemptions, that the companies that are under the Public Tender Act are accountable to the House of Assembly and the department is accountable to the House of Assembly for exemptions that are given under the Public Tender Act.

That spirit of reporting to the House of Assembly, of accountability to the House of Assembly, is in this amendment, and that is what I saw missing in the bill. By putting in, the Public Tender Act does not apply, there was nothing that showed how the company, the corporation and the subsidiaries were going to be accountable.

I also like the fact that the summaries, in being presented, are being presented to the minister. That is the public nature, because the minister then brings them to the House, so that they are not secretive, they are wide open. Why shouldn't they be? That is the question: Why shouldn't they be.

I fully understand why the corporation and subsidiaries would find it difficult to go through the tendering process, for example. That is why I was trying to find, within the Act, how that might be circumvented. Certainly, section 3.2(j) in the Public Tender Act would have allowed another way of doing it, but I understand that it still would have been complicated for the corporation and subsidiaries to get into requests for proposals; and I can buy that.

I think that the amendment that is here is in the spirit of what my concerns were, that what we have now in this amendment is a strong sense of accountability, it is an open process and it is transparent. All of the information with regard to procurement and contracting is going to be covered. The summary reports will give the information, and it will be public information for everybody.

I am very happy to support this amendment to the bill. I think it gives a protection that we needed, and it give us, as I said, a way in assuring that the procurement practices and contracting practices of the corporation and the subsidiaries will always be open to the scrutiny both of the House of Assembly and the people of the Province.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate an opportunity to have a few comments on this amendment.

I believe this is the sixth one today that we are dealing with concerning the public tendering. It is a very sensitive subject, but I would like to say first off that, make no mistake about it the government, since last Thursday, has listened, because we would not be dealing with this sixth amendment if the government was not open and understanding that what was initially there –

AN HON. MEMBER: Open and transparent.

MR. PARSONS: Let me finish my comments. God forbid, I would want anyone to think I was finished my comments.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. PARSONS: Words are so important.

When we started out this debate on the section that we are talking about now, anybody who read Bill 35 right off has to remember where is started from. I believe we used the work draconian back last Thursday and some people were ready to snap us and whatever else, but that was the word. The reason was because it was a one-liner in Bill 35 and that one-liner said: The Public Tender Act does not apply to the corporation or a subsidiary.

Right on the surface, that is a pretty strong statement: shall not apply to the corporation or the subsidiary. The Public Tender Act, regardless of what people might think of it or when they want it or when they do not want it, the Public Tender Act has been with us for many, many years for a very good reason. Contrary to what the minister said about having the Public Tender Act apply would slow things down, were some of her words, cost more and we would be trying to find ways around it, that is not the intent of why we had the Public Tender Act in the first place. We got the Public Tender Act because everybody wanted to be on a level playing field, everybody wanted to know that if we are spending public money there would be a process to go through, there would be public advertisements involved, the bidding would go in, and hopefully at the end of the day you would get the best bang for your buck. Now, government always had a right in any of it's tendering to put in things like specifications. So, do not sell me a bunch of apples if I am looking for oranges, they do not fit. That is not what you tendered on.

There are all kinds of outs that already exist in the Public Tender Act, but we cannot just wave it off, it is not a valid piece of legislation, what we are doing here. Let's not forget that it is very valuable. We all know from very short-term experience the furor and the uproar that sometimes happen if it is not followed.

We do not need to look back very far. For example, take the Bull Arm case. We went through this House in the last couple of years - we had a case where the Public Tender Act did apply and we had some official in a Crown Corporation who did not comply with the Public Tender Act. That is where the law had applied. That official decided that they weren't going to abide by it and the official ended up losing her job. That is a case where it did apply.

When you see those kinds of circumstances happening you say: if that is what happens when it does apply, what might possibly happen if by law it does not apply? Just look at the converse of that. There is an element, we see in that example, of, even when people have the best of intentions, depending on who you have in charge of the company, whether it be the corporation or a subsidiary, some things might happen that you might not want. That is why the Public Tender Act was invented and created. We cannot overlook the significance of having it.

Government themselves saw the significance of having it, I say to the minister, because they wanted it to apply to Hydro. Government obviously saw the importance of having a Public Tender Act, otherwise they would not let it apply. But all of a sudden somebody comes along from Energy Corp. and says: we need a model to let us be competitive and flexible, so what are the best things we do need and what are the things we do not need? One of the things we do not need, because it ties an arm behind our back possibly, is the Public Tender Act. What is the easy solution? Chop, chop, the Public Tender Act does not apply. That is the easy solution and that is why it ended up in here in the first instance.

We have other instances in our recent history where public tendering, or the lack of public tendering, became an issue. We had $15 million sunk into the fibre optic deal without a public tender, because there was again an exception permitted under the Public Tender Act where, for the purposes of economic development, or if a minister deems that it is not necessary to apply, under certain circumstances they can exempt it.

If the Public Tender Act was originally intended, as it was, to be a law of general application, why are we taking it out of application to the corporation and the subsidiaries? It raises that big question. Why would we just give them carte blanche out? Anyway, the government saw and agreed that, what we will do then, because maybe there might be some circumstances where rather than the corporation and every subsidiary automatically not being covered by the Public Tender Act, maybe what we will do is change it. They put in this clause which gives them the right to designate a corporation subject to the Public Tender Act.

By the way, in our discussions outside the House with the legal counsel and the minister, before we came in here and were discussing this, the question came up: Why would you say, as you are saying in this amendment, that the Lieutenant-Governor in Council may make the Public Tender Act apply? In other words, it is not going to apply to any subsidiary, but the Lieutenant-Governor in Council reserves the right to make it apply. We posed the question: Why wouldn't you do the converse of that? Why wouldn't you make it apply by law, but if the Lieutenant-Governor in Council wanted to they could exempt it? That way the Public Tender Act remains a law of general application. Yet, if they, in the case of subsidiary A or P, want to exempt that particular subsidiary, they could do so.

What happens now is, if the Energy Corp goes off and creates fifteen subsidiaries, the Public Tender Act does not apply unless the Lieutenant-Governor in Council says it does. We are saying, rather than have the possibility of something happening and a racket happening where public tendering does not apply, why wouldn't you have it apply, but if the Lieutenant-Governor in Council wants to give a break to corporation A, subsidiary A, why wouldn't you just say you are exempted? Simple case!


Mr. Martin, for example, says we are going to put the Lower Churchill into subsidiary B. We will need to do some massive projects, we need to get away from all of the time constraints that might be imposed by the Public Tender Act, so we need an exemption. The Cabinet says: Fine, thank you very much, we got your letter, you are exempted;, no problem. Whenever the corporation wanted exemption they simply asked for. Surely these major deals, these mega deals, do not happen overnight. There are lots of negotiations that go on. If Mr. Martin knows that as a part of this project we have to do such and such and we are going to need exemption, surely it is part of the process, they can come to government early on in the process and say: Give us the exemption for that corporation. That is not a big issue, I would not think. Yet, we preserve the sanctity and the general application of the Public Tender Act. We never were given a good reason by the way, why you could not do it that way.

We agree that they have taken it from saying, it shall not apply to the corporation or the subsidiary, thank you very much. We are going to live with it, but we cannot point out that we are in love with it. I guess it is a case of you get something or you get nothing. That is what it narrows down to. That was the rationale of why we thought it did not go far enough, because it is fraught with problems and difficulties if you do not. You might accomplish the flexibility that you want, but you open yourself up for a whole pile of problems.

For example, we posed a question to Mr. Martin in the meetings. We said: What if you have this subsidiary that is dealing with one of the offshore projects, for example – so you have that - and you know there is going to be some massive capital expenditures and so on, under that project? He is not going to be in the day-to-day control of that subsidiary; he is going to be the CEO of a big corp. So, who makes all the purchasing decisions under that subsidiary? What if there were a lot of favouritism going on? Who would ever control it? He is not going to see all of that stuff. It is not all going to be major purchases. There are going to be millions and billions of dollars spent on some of these projects, but yet there is no protection if you do not designate it under the Public Tender Act, other than rely upon certain officials, and is Mr. Martin going to be able to have day-to-day hands-on, on all of this stuff?

Where is the flexibility there? You have flexibility to do it, but you have no accountability – none - if you take out the Public Tender Act, because we already decided, we dealt with it here earlier today –

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's speaking time has expired.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Certainly, just to conclude the comments that I was making before my ten minutes ran out the last time, and to finish up on this particular aspect of the bill, and we are dealing with the aspect that pertains to the Public Tender Act, as I said before, originally in the legislation it did not allow for any provisions for tendering or procurement of services. As my colleague just pointed out, this was an issue of major concern for us, and one that we felt needed to have some changes built within it.

I think my colleague talked about an example of the Bull Arm Corporation, where there was a public tendering provision in place, and they were supposed to follow the Public Tender Act, and even in that case they did not do so.

Oftentimes we can, Mr. Chair, put the legislation in place but it does not always mean that you are going to get them to meet the full assurances. So we felt that it was necessary that there would be some provision built within this legislation to ensure that any corporation, or any aspect of the corporation, through its subsidiaries, would have a measure of accountability in initiating these contracts.

For example, if you are dealing with the Hebron subsidiary, maybe it will not be that big of an impact because a lot of the contracting will be done through the major shareholders or owners of the corporation of that development, and that would be through the oil companies. Maybe the subsidiary of the Energy Corp. may not have a major responsibility in soliciting or procuring contracts for that project, but if you look at a project like the Lower Churchill Project in particular, an initiative which government says we are going to go it alone, we will not be looking at private sector partnerships or private sector interests, we do not need guarantees of money from the federal government, we do not need any co-operation from Quebec, we do not need anything, we are going to go it alone, we are going to do this, this is going to be a subsidiary of the Energy Corp., well, then it is a different ball game. Then it is one company that is sole sourcing or solely responsible for sourcing contracts to do that particular work, and whether that be under the environmental aspect of the company - because, as you know, if you were to look at the Lower Churchill Project, for instance, there is going to be a major amount of environmental work that is required. A lot of it is already ongoing and has been contracted to companies, but there is still going to be a major piece of it that will have to be done.

Mr. Chairman, at least this way the company, the subsidiary, or whoever this CEO is, will not just say that we are going to go out and give all of the environmental work to one company that might have an Aboriginal partnership, and justify it that way, or give it all to one company who has the best reputation in North America for doing this, or give it to one particular company for some other distinct reason, but at least now there will be an opportunity for a number of these environmental companies to go on a list where they would be eligible to be sourced by government through their tendering process - that would be a procurement tendering process - and then they would be able to be allocated a contract.

Again, Mr. Chairman, referring to the Lower Churchill Project as one of the subsidiaries, they are also going to be out there if we ever get to the phase of developing that particular project. There is going to be a lot of money involved, billions of dollars - not millions of dollars, but billions of dollars - in contracts that will be let to different companies, I am sure, not just in Newfoundland and Labrador. Because oftentimes when you get into industrial projects like this you have to go look for expertise elsewhere, not because you do not want to give out those particular contracts in the Province but maybe the expertise may not be here; they may not be locally based. So, it depends. Wherever possible we would always advocate that there be a component of adjacency for companies, whether that be in Labrador, in the case of the Lower Churchill development, or in the Province as a whole.

Having said that, Mr. Chair, they will be investing a lot of money to develop a project of this nature, and in order to do that they will be contracting services. We just wanted to ensure that there was going to be, one, a competitive aspect to this so that there could be more than just one company competing for the work, but we also wanted to have provisions built in here where different companies can compete, and compete in terms of being able to show that they are able to provide that service, whether that be, as I said, sticking poles for a transmission line, or whether it be installing some kind of high-tech equipment that will be required to run a hydro production plant of some sort. Maybe there are ten companies that could do that job. Well, at least now those ten companies will have an opportunity to be looked at under different criteria to be added to a list of which they could be solicited for work. They will have an opportunity, Mr. Chair, to be able to at least have a competitive advantage.

Also, it allows for the provision for disclosure under that; because we really firmly believe that no company, no matter who they are, whether it be the Lower Churchill Project, the Ramea wind project, whether it be something to do with solar developed energy, whether it has to do hydro power, whether it has to do with oil and gas, it does not matter. Maybe the government is even going to go into the mining industry within those subsidiaries before it is all over - I have no idea – but, notwithstanding any of that, Mr. Chair, we needed to ensure that no one inside of this corporation, no one CEO within a subsidiary, was going to have full autonomy to go out and contract work to whomever they want to contract it to, for however much they wanted to contract out to, and report to no one with regard to that, because that is wrong. That does not demonstrate openness or transparency.

What this legislation really is doing is allowing for that to happen, and allowing for those particular contracts to be reported back to the House of Assembly right now just as we do under exemptions under the Public Tender Act for contracts that the government is letting in the Province, so that we can actually see and the public can see - not just us, but the public can see - in a very open way, where these companies are, who they are, and the kind of contracts that they are being given.

Of course, if there is something there that raises a suspicious air with anyone, then they have an opportunity to ask the questions, to take it up in terms of finding out the answers and the direction under which the company is going, to be able to sort through some of these things.

Mr. Chair, we feel that this was probably one of the major changes that government made in this legislation, and we know that there have been several. As I already said, we went through a number of them already – everything from the reporting mechanisms that will be taken, to more autonomy for the Auditor General, to clarifying appeal processes as it relates to the Privacy Commissioner, and so on – but I certainly feel that this particular piece is one of the more open pieces that they have allowed for in the legislation that was not there in the beginning. Notwithstanding that, Mr. Chair, we still feel, as I have said in my previous comments, that there are other areas where we would have liked to have seen government go.

We would have like to have seen a greater level of accountability and more openness and competitiveness for companies, but at least this is taking it quite a step further than where it was. I am sure that they are still going to be open to public scrutiny, and I am sure that even though this is in there it may not sit well with all of the companies and corporations out there that want to do business with these subsidiaries, but having said that, Mr. Chair, it is more of a public process than was allowed for before.

Mr. Chair, we also know that this particular industry and any kind of industrial activity is very time sensitive - that is the word the minister likes to use – in terms of soliciting contracts, and oftentimes, Mr. Chair, if you do not have that kind of procurement base to draw upon then, in fact, you can lose money sometimes, and that always has to be a consideration when you negotiate a deal and you have targets to meet, and those targets are not just time-sensitive targets but expenditure-sensitive targets as well, and you have to stay within a certain fiscal regime.

We have tried to be somewhat understanding of all of that, and somewhat flexible, Mr. Chair, in allowing the government to accomplish those goals and to meet those targets, but at the same time maintain a level of public accountability through their tendering process.

CHAIR: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to make a few final comments on this particular amendment, and probably on the whole bill, because this is the last amendment, we have a couple of other things left but I think we have already commented on those, that being how clause 6 and clause 7 might also take away from, shall we say, the corporate distancing that the government is trying to achieve here. We already dealt with that under the former amendment that we just dealt with, so I might not have to come back to that.

The point we are making here is that we are appreciative of the fact that the government moved somewhat from where they were, but it still did not take us to where you need to go in terms of protection and openness and so on. It is all about if anything happens - and we found out today, for example, that once the Public Tender Act is out, add to that the definition of what is commercially sensitive information in this bill, and the people of this Province, anybody who deals with government, any citizen of this Province, could find themselves never knowing about it, never knowing about anything, never knowing if you had a problem, never knowing if something was done right. That is the whole problem, you never know because it is covered in the bowels of the corporation and in the bowels of the subsidiaries and in the bowels of the government and there was never any disclosure.

The Leader of the Opposition pointed out today, when it comes to disclosure, what you get sometimes. It is fine to say if you are getting a report, but the example she referred to was about a briefing note from the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. Now, this is a two-page briefing note from the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, and the only thing that it says is that it is a briefing note from the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. Now, that makes good sense when it comes to – and they say we are open; we gave you what you asked for. You wanted a briefing note; we gave you a briefing note. Now, that is the kind of fears that you could have in the future.

Anyway, I am not going to belabour the point. I just want to sum up the comments that I have to make by saying the debate that we have had since last Thursday, while wide-ranging in the sense that we discussed every single clause of Bill 35, and how they impact upon Bill 28, the energy piece, at the same time we were very focused in how we did it. We waived the rules of the House that you would normally function under so that we could expedite things and everybody have their say. Thursday was a very broad-ranging debate to get the issues on the table. We spent all day Monday getting into the specifics and proposing amendments and discussing them, not only here in the House, and debating them, but also with officials of the Energy Corp. and the government.

Of course, we are here today, and we have been very specific today here in Committee dealing with each and every one of these clauses and each and every one of these amendments. I think we have made, as an Opposition, some constructive suggestions, as evidenced by the government's acceptance of some of these amendments. There is others that we made that the government would not accept, and that is their right to do, of course. I have to say this, too: Even when they did not accept it, they gave us reasons why they did not.

We did not always buy into their arguments of why they did not go with it, either. That is why, of course, when it comes down to the ultimate vote, everybody will vote with their conscience.

I do not mean to be melodramatic or anything else, either, but history will tell whether the government and the House of Assembly achieved what was desired or intended by this Bill 35. History will decide that, whether we achieved that, or, down the road, whether the act is weakened by court interpretations and court cases that could happen over the years. We will find that out - history will prove that to us - or whether, in the interest of trying to get the corporations and the subsidiaries to be non-agents of the government in the goal of searching for this non-liability piece, we will have compromised the right and the need of the people to know. Only history is going to prove that.

We spent forty years since the Upper Churchill, forty years, saying that we never got it right, and virtually everybody is unanimous in that feeling that we never got it right back then. I don't think there is anybody who wouldn't agree that we didn't get it right, but notwithstanding - and, for the record, this is my own purpose of wanting to put this on the record – notwithstanding what may have seemed to be that we were just being disagreeable in the amendments that we put forward, we were not being disagreeable and disagree with government for the sake of disagreeing. I think we have given very clear, rational explanations as to why we disagreed, and that is the democratic system. At the end of the day, we sometimes have to come down to agreeing to disagree. Notwithstanding that - I would suggest it is not negativity - we have had a good, constructive debate here in the course of the last three or four days on this, and at the end of the day, notwithstanding this, I hope that Bill 35, in conjunction with Bill 28, the original creator of the Energy Corp., I hope at the end of the day, in forty years' time, we are all looking back and saying that it was a successful model and that everything worked.

That is the positive piece of me; I hope it would have worked. Unfortunately, I do not think in some instances we went far enough. Regardless of – we will not be here but, like I say, none of us were here in 1968 either, or in 1969, but somebody is going to be here and somebody is going to be getting out the old transcripts of Hansard in forty years' time and saying who said what, when, and who voted how.

At the end of the day, that is why it all comes down. We all get as informed as we can, we ask the questions that we need to ask, we get the answers back and we decide whether they are the answers we can live with, and then we cast our vote accordingly.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment to clause 5 as moved by the hon. Minister of Natural Resources?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

The amendment is carried.

On motion, amendment carried.

CHAIR: Does clause 5 carry, as amended?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 5, as amended, carried.

CLERK: Clauses 6 to 8 inclusive.

CHAIR: Clauses 6 to 8 inclusive.

Shall these carry?

All those in favour, ‘aye'.

MS JONES: Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: I am sorry.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just a few words with regard to section 6 and section 7; it has been raised earlier in the debate, on another clause of the bill, by my colleague and also by the Leader of the NDP.

Mr. Chair, this particular section 6, and it refers to section 19 of the original bill, which is Bill 28 that set up the Energy Corporation, it says that section 19 of the act is amended by adding immediately after the word corporation, where it twice occurs, the words or a subsidiary.

The reason that I want to raise this, Mr. Chair, is because again it ties into the premise of government trying to set up and legislate an arm's-length corporation of government through the Energy Corp., through its subsidiaries. By amending section 19 to include or a subsidiary basically ties together, once again, government and the corporation. This is one of the pieces, and unfortunately it was rather late in the evening before we discovered it. I admit to the minister that, if we had picked up on this particular clause earlier, we would have asked for further clarification from your officials and the legal counsel. So we were later, Mr. Chair, in terms of identifying the tie-in here to the corporation and to government.

I guess, for us, we wanted to indicate for the record that, while it is in there, it does not necessarily make sense to us in terms of the fact that this gives power to the government to act when it comes to loans and guarantees and funds of these subsidiaries of the corporation, and it brings the two together, Mr. Chair, which is unusual, because the entire discussion that we have had over the last couple of days with the minister and her officials has been on how you can remove different auspices of the corporation so that it is more arm's-length from government.

While the minister did provide some explanation, we still felt that it was not rationalized in terms of why it would be in there, and why they would have seen fit to include it. Unfortunately, if we had picked up on it a little earlier we could have probably gotten a more detailed explanation, which probably would have justified it a little bit more so than we have right now.

Mr. Chair, because these are probably the final comments that I will make on this legislation, one of the things that I want to say, first of all, I want to say to the minister, because I have found that she has been very co-operative, not only in providing information around this legislation but also providing knowledge and expertise that she has within her department and within government as well to clarify certain aspects of this particular bill.

Mr. Chair, we deal with a lot of legislation in this House of Assembly, and oftentimes it is important legislation, but very seldom is it groundbreaking legislation in terms of establishing a complete new entity or a complete new corporate structure, as we are in this particular case, and then later bringing amendments forward in it. I think it is important, and that is what the House of Assembly is meant to do; it is meant to have full debate around different bills and legislation, and what is contained in it, but it is also meant for people to offer criticisms that are constructive and that can be of some benefit to government or to someone else in providing further strengthening in any piece of legislation.

Mr. Chair, that is what we have attempted to do, but obviously we would have never accomplished that goal if we did not have the co-operation of the government and of the minister to do so. We certainly want to recognize that and to say that we hope that while we were able to add to this legislation and provide some safeguards into it, we did not get everything that we wanted. We did not get the full security clauses around the subsidiaries that we would have hoped to have had. Mr. Chair, because of that reason I guess we will probably not support the bill within its entirety; but, having said that, we do want to say that there are a lot of clauses in here that we do support and that we feel that government is doing the right thing in establishing some of the mechanisms around this corporation that they have, and to say to the government opposite, and to the minister, that we hope that this corporation will thrive, and we hope that the investments that they make will be done in good faith, and I am sure they will, but they will also provide a level of financial security for the people of the Province in the long term, that they will continue to be generators to the economy of the Province, and that each of these subsidiaries, and the people who are entrusted with them will take the job that they are given and do it to the best of their ability to ensure that it is successful.

We have never been against the model that government is establishing here, although it is new, although it is groundbreaking in many ways, but I think it is always important, when you do this, that you do so knowing and understanding all the different mechanisms of it and providing for any safeguard measures that you will require down the road.

Mr. Chair, I think that we have been able to cover a lot of ground as it relates to this bill, and we were pleased to be able to have an opportunity to debate it fully and openly in the House of Assembly, and again to say that we would have never been able to accomplish the things that we have in making changes in this bill if we did not have the co-operation of the government, and I certainly wanted to recognize that.

Thank you.

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

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

I have to say that I was a little surprised myself tonight when I had my eyes opened with regard to section 6 and section 7 of the bill. I think it goes to show that, as I said earlier, no matter how often you read something, you still realize that you have not seen it all. Also, the fact that there are so many pieces in the bill, and we were working so intently on some of the others, that section 6 and section 7 eluded me.

I think section 6 and section 7 are extremely important because section 6 and section 7, as I said earlier, do have to do with two parts of the bill which actually tie the subsidiaries rather strongly, I think, to the government, because in both cases you have the Minister of Finance being responsible for activities with regard to the subsidiaries and with regard to finances. So, for me, this is something that shows an inconsistency in what the government has said with regard to the liability, on one hand, when it came to the subsidiaries, and there having to be public disclosure with regard to the subsidiaries, and then, secondly, on the other hand, these two amendments which really tie the subsidiaries to the government through the Minister of Finance, so I find an inconsistency. I will say that and leave it because at this late date there is no more discussion on that to be had, I don't think.

I, too, though, want to say a very sincere thank you to the Minister of Natural Resources for the leadership that she has given in the discussion on this bill. We have to accept that the nature of the House is that we may not agree on everything. I do agree with the majority of what has been done and what has been presented, and what we have worked on. I believe, because of the process –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

I ask for the members' co-operation. I cannot hear the speaker.

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

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

I do believe that, because of the process we have gone through, we do have a better piece of legislation. I believe the bill now has in it some things that were very important that needed to be spelled out, especially the issues around procurement, but all of the amendments that have been approved here tonight in Committee – we have yet to approve those – but the amendments that were approved in Committee, I think, are all clarifying what the intent of Bill 35 is.

Even if we all cannot agree completely on the whole bill when the time comes, it is not lost because not everybody agrees on the whole bill. The government is going to pass the bill; we know that. I see limitations in it, and that disturbs me a bit, the biggest limitation being the one that I have already spoken to, but I also see a lot of good things in the bill.

Once again, I commend the minister on the work that her department has done, and I thank her for the leadership that she offered in the process that we have been through.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


Just one short remark with regard to the issue just raised by my colleagues opposite, with regard to government offering a loan guarantee, and their interpretation that that somehow provides a direct link between government and the subsidiary, and in some way makes the government liable for the activities of the subsidiary.


I would just like to point out, Mr. Chair, that government offers any number of loan guarantees to businesses all over this Province - in aquaculture, for example, in fishing vessels and so on - that does not make us liable for the debts of the companies. We have assurance again from our legal teams that, even though we are the shareholder, that does not in any way make us liable for the debts and liabilities incurred by the subsidiary.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CLERK: Clauses 6 to 8 inclusive.

CHAIR: Shall clauses 6 to 8 inclusive carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 6 to 8 inclusive, 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'.

Carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act To Amend The Energy Corporation Act.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the bill carried with amendments?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

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

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: I move, Mr. Chair, that the Committee rise and report Bill 35.

CHAIR: The motion is that the Committee rise and report Bill 35.

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 (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

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

MR. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole has considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report Bill 35 carried with some amendments.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair of the Committee of the Whole reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and have directed him to report Bill 35 with some amendments.

When shall the report be received?

MS BURKE: Now, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, report received and adopted.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I call from the Order Paper, number four, second reading of a bill, An Act Respecting Registered Nurses. (Bill 3).

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 3, An Act Respecting Registered Nurses shall now be read a second time.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act Respecting Registered Nurses". (Bill 3)

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

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As the Government House Leader has indicated, this is a bill looking at the registered nurses in the Province. There is already legislation on the books governing registration of nurses in the Province. Bill 3 replaces a part of the bill, and when enacted will repeal the existing legislation.

The Province now and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador are enhancing, fundamentally through this bill, the governance model for the nursing profession, and through this legislation will bring about the appropriate amendments. The Act in some respects is consistent with some things we have done with other legislation, in some respects it is housekeeping legislation and in more respects there are some significant new additions to this legislation that did not exist before.

The Act now contains new disciplinary procedures and governance structures which place a greater accountability on the part of nurses and the nurse practitioner profession by requiring a disciplinary process that is open and transparent. This means that allegations of misconduct are dealt with in an appropriate manner, Mr. Speaker, all with a view of providing public protection.

As I said a moment ago, this is consistent with things we have done with other legislation. It is very similar to what we have done with massage therapists, veterinarian medicine, the practice of pharmacy medicine and physiotherapy, all disciplines that have a governance model in place to govern their profession. They deal with licensing procedures and they deal with the whole issue of discipline dealing with misconduct.

Mr. Speaker, enhancing the regulation of the nursing profession and other health related professions is necessary, as I said a moment ago, to protect the public interest. Given the services that these individuals provide it is always in the best interests of the public to ensure that the legislative framework that governs their profession provides an appropriate element of protection through creating an ability for individuals to report misconduct and creating a mechanism to ensure that there is a licensing procedure in place to only ensure that those individuals who have the appropriate credentials are licensed to practice in the Province.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, the Act requires nurses or nurse practitioners who observe any misconduct of one of their colleagues - there is now a legislative requirement that they report that to the director of the review board. The Act also takes some very progressive measures to look at how individuals are treated when they report such misconduct.

Mr. Speaker, fundamentally, the reason for bringing about this change deals with the issue of accountability. Through this particular legislation we are strengthening the mandatory requirements in the old legislation requiring mandatory annual reporting to the minister. The minister appoints lay representatives to sit on the board to ensure that there is an appropriate structure for a discipline committee to ensure that there is representation, both from within the profession but also from the community, I say, Mr. Speaker.

Some of the things I just referred to are things that were addressed in some respects in the old legislation, but have now been strengthened in this new bill. One of the other big pieces of this, Mr. Speaker: you may recall back several years ago when the last amendments were made to this particular piece of legislation, the introduction into the nursing profession or the role of the nurse practitioners back about ten years ago, when that happened initially there were a number of concerns being expressed by other disciplines, the medical community particularly and the pharmacy community, around how the nurse practitioner and the nurse specialist would evolve, how they would be regulated and their scope of practice. There was a fear at that time that things may change, that those disciplines may not necessarily concur with. The old legislation governing nurses in the Province did not give the ARNNL the full responsibility to licence and regulate the practice of nurse practitioners.

You may recall, Mr. Speaker, back in, I think it was early 2000-2001 when the last amendments were made to the current legislation that exists prior to the introduction of this bill, when the nurse specialist was introduced in the system. There was a mechanism put in place, at that time, to ensure that the minister had the responsibility to appoint a committee, a nurse-practitioner consultative and approval committee. There was this ministerial committee that was made up of people from the nursing profession. Some were nurse-practitioners and some may not be. There were people representing the medical community and people from the lay community, people who were not attached to either one of these disciplines. They made up a committee that provided advice directly to the minister, with respect to the scope of practice for the nurse practitioners, which was a bit of an odd circumstance, I say, Mr. Speaker.

What you had was the ARNNL, through legislation, given the legislative authority to register nurse practitioners and nurse specialists. They had the authority to set out the regulations governing their practice, and they dealt with issues around discipline and things such as that. Yet there was this ministerial committee set up that was given a mandate to develop a scope of practice for nurse practitioners and advise the minister accordingly, and any necessary regulations would be amended appropriately.

What this legislation will do, Mr. Speaker: with this legislation passed and enacted, it will finally give the ARNNL the full authority, through legislation, to govern the practice of nurse practitioners and nurse specialists, which will be a welcome addition to the legislation.

The ARNNL has been looking forward to this House passing this legislation for some time, I say, Mr. Speaker. It was developed in consultation with the key stakeholders in the Province, and through their participation helped draft the language here.

When we look at section 37, in particular, of this legislation, it deals very specifically with the practice of nurse practitioners. Inasmuch as I said a minute ago that there are two elements of this, one is somewhat housekeeping, in some respects. It brings this legislation governing nurses in the Province in line with all of the other health disciplines that we have seen changes made to their legislation in this House in previous sessions. The additional piece added here, which is new, I say, Mr. Speaker, is the expanded responsibility and the sole responsibility given to the ARNNL through this legislation to govern the practice of nurse practitioners and nurse specialists in the Province.

Mr. Speaker, with that I conclude my comments on Bill 3. I would be only to glad, as we continue the debate on this, to answer any questions any members of the Opposition might have.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am certainly pleased to speak to Bill 3 which is An Act Respecting Registered Nurses in the Province.

The timeliness of this particular legislation is very appropriate because this week the Association of Registered Nurses of Newfoundland and Labrador are holding their Annual General Meeting right here in St. John's, and I am sure that at their AGM they will be anticipating this particular legislation, Mr. Speaker.

I know that over the course of the last few months the minister and his department have had a number of consultations with their organization and with people who are members of the registered nursing profession in the Province to compile this particular piece of legislation in this bill to come to the House of Assembly.

We have had an opportunity, as well, to consult with them and certainly have gotten their assurances, that most of the things they wanted to have addressed as a professional organization are included within the particular legislation.

Mr. Speaker, most of the issues they have raised center around professional conduct of registered nurses within the Province, in terms of what the mechanisms would be for reporting misconduct of nurses within the workplace, or their colleagues, and it outlines the full process through which that can be done and handled.

The legislation is very similar, if not identical, to that which we have passed in the House of Assembly for other professional organizations in the Province as well. Over the course of the last two to three years there have been ongoing amendments to legislation to allow for new provisions around the conduct and the reporting of misconduct and the organizational structure and for different committees and boards to be outlined within legislation for all of these professional groups. Mr. Speaker, what is in this legislation falls within those same parameters.

Mr. Speaker, nurse practitioners and the rules that are contained within certain sections of this bill that deal directly with nurse practitioners in this Province are welcomed as well. I think that nurse practitioners, being a relatively new concept in the last decade to the nursing profession in Newfoundland and Labrador, are certainly people who have held themselves at a different level of practice within the clinical community of providing nursing services, and we have seen that all around the Province. Mr. Speaker, I see it everyday in my own district, where almost every single one of the eight clinics now that are along the Coast of Labrador, or make up my district anyway, are run by nurse practitioners; if not run by nurse practitioners, they are staffed by nurse practitioners. The reason for that is because they have a level and scope of practice that goes beyond the ordinary nursing profession and they are able to deal with situations, Mr. Speaker, that are more severe in nature. They are able to respond, oftentimes, with a different scope of medical skills than would often be provided by an ordinary registered nurse or within that particular profession. That would be the reason, and I have had the opportunity to not only bear witness to their practice but also to be a patient of their practice. I know, Mr. Speaker, that they do a very good job, in fact an excellent job, in the delivery of those services.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that oftentimes when you choose to work in a remote environment like that where you are separated from the set of work skills of colleagues and other professionals in the field, such as specialists and doctors, and often do not have access to a high level of technology to do your work, that you need to be able to depend upon and have a comfort level in the very skills that you carry; and these individuals certainly do.

Mr. Speaker, I speak now of remote areas in which nurse practitioners play a very important role, but they also play a role in our larger centres as well. I happen to know a number of nurse practitioners who work in hospitals right from Labrador City to St. John's within the health care sector. They perform in different capacities, whether it be in a specialist position working in some kind of a dialysis unit or in a cancer treatment area or whether they be doing women's health within a certain section of the hospital, but they play a valuable role in reducing the wait times of patients within the larger centres in our hospitals.

Even now, if you go into the Health Sciences Centre there is a nurse practitioner that does triage in Emergency for patients that are walking in, so you do not necessarily have to just wait to see a doctor immediately. That nurse practitioner can, within their scope of practice, do some of the things that happen and result in emergency cases within the emergency department in our major hospitals.

We have been able to see the presence that they have right across the Province in terms of health care delivery. We understand the scope of their practice and that it does fall somewhere between a registered nurse and that of a physician within the system. Mr. Speaker, I still think that there is more room for nurse practitioners and a greater role that they can play because of the level of expertise that they have. I think that there needs to be more effort on behalf of health boards in the Province to include them and to add them to their major component of staffing, because I feel that there is a lot of work they can do that will take pressure off the health care system and oftentimes take pressure off the physicians themselves.

So I see a greater role and I have to say, of the knowledge that I have of those individuals – and I say women because all the ones that I have dealt with, with the exception of in Labrador in remote clinics, have been women, but we do have men as well. I know that in the case of some of these nurse practitioners who deliver services around women's health, it has been very effective because they have created a level of awareness in the community around the programs – and whether that be around cervical cancer, around breast cancer, around the importance of having regular screening and testing done.

I look at places like in Labrador West, for instance – of which the Member for Labrador West would be well aware – where they have an individual who is a nurse practitioner who does that kind of scope of work around women's health. If you look at statistics, you will see that in the Labrador West region there is more awareness around those programs than probably there is in most other regions of the Province because of the public awareness campaign. In addition to that, their statistics are very high.

The number of women who are going in to have breast screening done and cervical screening done are higher than they are in the average areas within the Province. So I think that, in itself, is indicative of the fact that you have a committed individual or a committed person within a corporation or within a hospital who is providing that particular service. So, Mr. Speaker, I think there are many models and many examples that can be looked upon in terms of the work that they do and the vital role that they play, and I think that there is a larger role for them.

Mr. Speaker, the nursing profession in this Province has been anything but silent, I would say, in the past year in particular, not that they have ever been silent in our history. They have always been a group of individuals who have had to work hard to try and attain a level of working conditions and pay equity that they have wanted. It has been probably an historical virtue that they have had as a union over the years, but in this Province we have over 5,000 people who work in the nursing profession. In fact, in many of our hospitals we soon realize that their vacancies cause us many problems in terms of the services that we need and depend upon.

We know, Mr. Speaker, in fact, right now, that there are vacancies right across the Province in the nursing profession. Many hospitals are recruiting people and needing people, especially this time of the year where nurses want to take holidays and have vacation time with their families. We saw nurses protesting just a short time ago down in Bonavista, where they were having lunchtime rallies and protests to draw attention to the fact that they had a shortage and they wanted to take leave over the summer for vacation and so on, but in order to do so, it would be very difficult because of the fact that they did not have a full complement of staff. In order for them to get the leave, then services would have to be shut down to the public.

We have seen other cases right here in St. John's with the diabetes program. One case where we had a physician who was leaving, which was very difficult to say the least, and probably we could get an update at some time in the future where that situation is. We also had a situation where two diabetes clinics, one that was operated out of the health care corporation facility itself and the other one, which was an independent clinic in the city that was still part of the corporation just outside of the actual parameters of the facility. Also, a case where a diabetes nurse was retiring and that position had not been filled, and as a result, the pump program for adults in the Province was being suspended until September because there was no one to deliver that service to adults who had diabetes, who wanted to go on the pump over that period of time. So these are real examples of how nursing shortages can impact the health care system.

As of today, Mr. Speaker, in the fourth quarter of this year, which was from October to December, 2007, there was an increase of 313 postings for nurses within the health care corporation itself. That means that prior to that there were sixty-three external recruitments. That would bring it to over 400 recruitment postings that were ongoing within the Eastern Health Corporation alone. That is the reason why we have seen incidents within our health care system where we have had things like surgeries being cancelled because they were not able to have enough ICU beds to handle the amount of people; cases where patients were not being admitted in the hospital or where beds were not being provided.

We had cases at one point where we had calls two days in a row where there were twelve patients, for the second night in a row, sleeping on stretchers in emergencies over at the Health Sciences because there was not enough staff or beds to be able to accommodate them. These are all cases where, whenever there is a shortage of nurses within the system, people themselves are going to feel the crunch of that vacancy because the services provided in the public and the services being provided to patients will not be there.


Mr. Speaker, we realize there is a need to have more nurses within our system. I guess there are a number of factors which contribute to the shortage. We do not just claim that it is a shortage in Newfoundland and Labrador. I sat with many of my colleagues, in fact shared the table with the Minister of Health during a breakfast that the nurses held a few weeks ago over at the Fluvarium. Mr. Speaker, it was very clear to me that this problem is not insular to Newfoundland and Labrador, but rather it is a problem that exists right across the country, that nursing shortages has become a North American phenomenon at this stage and that it is experienced all around North America in terms of trying to be able to recruit nurses to fill those positions. Recognizing the global competitiveness in which you have to operate is all the more reason to ensure that proper benefits are put in place; proper working conditions are adhered to and afforded to individuals that you want to recruit and retain within the profession.

Even again today, I got e-mails, as I am sure other members did, from nurses whom - in fact, Mr. Speaker, they were e-mailing on a daily basis. Now it has become more of a weekly basis, but still, we are getting e-mails from them outlining what some of the things are that they are facing everyday in their own work environment.

Mr. Speaker, we realize there are a number of things that have contributed to them, and whether it is a reduced number of students being pipelined into the nursing school or the number that is coming out being pipelined outside of the Province to work is a part of it. A decline in the registered nurse's earnings relative to other career options has become an aspect as well. The fact that nurses in this Province is percentages below the rest of Canada and, in fact, 18 per cent below their counterparts in Nova Scotia. Bringing them up the 18 per cent will certainly help, but we recognize that there is also a vacancy rate in Nova Scotia of up to 500 nurses right now, which they are trying to recruit.

Mr. Speaker, again I say, that in knowing this, in knowing that it is a global trend and a global problem that exists at least within North America, it has to make us all the more prudent in dealing with the issue and ensuring that we have proper and appropriate benefits, that we can compete in that kind of competitiveness to ensure we recruit the nurses that we need in order to maintain a certain level of health care within the Province.

We certainly would encourage government to continue to look at retention strategies and recruitment strategies that can add to this. We know there have been things with regard to scholarships for nurses, we know there have been grants that have been given out, and we know there have been reclassifications in the past. All of those things will continue to be necessary components of a recruitment and retention strategy, but at the same time, you just cannot allow it to stop there. There has to be other ways to look at it. We know, like in New Brunswick, for example, where they looked at how they could maintain senior nurses from retiring early to give them shorter workloads and shorter work times.

Mr. Speaker, I have thirty-seven minutes left yet, so I will continue on. I know the minister is enjoying my talk here and nodding, as I go along, in accordance.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, although there have been things done with regard to loan repayment, with regard to scholarships, with regard to further training and reclassification, you just cannot stop there. You have to continue to look for other ways to add to the recruitment and retention piece if you are going to be able to maintain the number of nurses that we need within the system.

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, in New Brunswick, one of the things they did was allow senior nurses to reduce their workload and their work hours without jeopardizing their pension and their pension benefits that they had in place so that they would not exit the system earlier, because we know that nursing is one of the professions, probably more so than any other, where about half of the people in the profession leave it before the age of sixty-five. In fact, quite a few nurses retire between the ages of fifty and fifty-five.

So, Mr. Speaker, that might be an incentive initiative that the government in this Province could look at, because we do know in discussions with the nurses' union that one of the issues they are faced with, with regard to reduction in workforce, is the number of nurses who are retiring within the system. If there is a way we can counteract that and keep them there, it is probably going to be as effective as recruiting another nurse on a permanent basis. Those are the kinds of things that we would encourage government to continue to look at.

I am not going to go on for much longer, although I know I have a half-hour left that I could speak with regard to this bill. Just to say, Mr. Speaker, that there isn't really anything in the legislation that has caused us any concern. I know there has been some great efforts taken by the minister and his department to consult with nurses in the Province and with the Association of Registered Nurses of Newfoundland to ensure that the issues they had were being addressed and that it does allow for the proper regulations and legislation around professional conduct within the profession, and it does outline specific legislation for nurse practitioners in the Province.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to always note that nurses are a very critical part of our health care sector and that without them we would have a tremendous amount of gaps and inefficiencies within the health care system. I think anyone who has been a patient of a hospital, or any facility within this Province, would grow to realize and understand the critical role that they play. Therefore, they should have the autonomy to be able to make decisions that govern their own profession, to a certain extent, and especially to lay out the kind of professional conduct that is required within that profession.

On that note, Mr. Speaker, that would conclude my comments.

Thank you.

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

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

I do not think I have thirty-four minutes though, the clock will change I am sure.

AN HON. MEMBER: Take it.

MS MICHAEL: Take it. I don't think so. I am sure the minister does not need to hear me for thirty-five minutes either. However, you will get what I give you.

I am very pleased to speak to this bill. We have been sitting with it now since March 13, I think, so I think it is timely that we are looking at it tonight. I was concerned that we might not deal with it, and I knew it was something that was extremely important to the Association of Registered Nurses of Newfoundland and Labrador. I think they would have been very disturbed, actually, if we had not dealt with this piece of legislation before we close this session of the House. I am very pleased it is here on the table tonight and that the association will know we finally are giving them, I think, the respect that they deserve. They have needed their act to be updated for a long time, and that is what this piece of legislation does. This bill is bringing them into this century. There are some things in here that are extremely important for them as they move ahead.

I am going to start with the whole issue of the nurse practitioner because this is an area where, for us, it is relatively new. However, it is not as new in other parts of the world, and even in Canada. We have had a number of studies done in Canada with regard to nurse practitioners and, in actual fact, the earliest, or not the earliest, I suppose - there was some before that - but the significant research started back in the early 1970s. There was a study in 1971 and 1972 which is extremely important because it looked at a practice in Burlington, Ontario, where two family doctors who were just completely swamped decided to bring nurse practitioners in. They had office nurses, and they decided to get them involved more in the practice and not just sort of assisting the doctors. They got additional education and they started them as nurse practitioners.

I think what is really important about that study is that the nurse practitioners in that office back in 1971 and 1972 took over 67 per cent of the patient visits in that office. What that did - and there are many, many studies I could report on, and so many studies that were done on this issue, but what happened was - because of nurse practitioners taking over such a heavy load of the patients coming into the practice, the doctors were freed up to deal with the more serious cases that only the doctors could deal with.

This kind of study has been done in Canada; it has also been done in England. There is one in England that is really fascinating, because 86 per cent of patients in a family practice were managed by a nurse practitioner without even ever having to see the doctor, because the nurse practitioner was able to deal with so many of the cases that they did not even need to go on and see the doctor. Only 21 per cent of the nurses' patients had to see the doctor, so we can see the benefit of nurse practitioners.

We are behind it here in Newfoundland and Labrador. While we have had some individuals who have been practicing, overall, in terms of being a full program, we are a couple of decades behind what has been happening in other parts of the country. So it is very important that the new legislation gives the association the responsibility for setting up a standards committee, and that this standards committee will put in place standards for nurse practitioners here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The standards will prescribe the forms of energy that a nurse practitioner may order, and prescribing the purpose for which and the circumstances in which the form of energy may be applied, prescribing the laboratory and other tests that a nurse practitioner may prescribe, and designating the drugs that a nurse practitioner may prescribe and the circumstances under which the drugs may be prescribed. This is extremely important.

In this profession, we have underestimated the ability of the people who are nurses. For so long and for too long they were just seen as assisting doctors, whereas in their own right there was a job, there was a profession and a role that was quite different from that of doctors. In actual fact, the role and the job description of nurse practitioners is different from other jobs that registered nurses do. It is a particular job in and of itself.

In some places, in Ontario in particular, they have gotten to the point where nurse practitioners are starting to have their own practices. I think that is extremely important, that they are not just in an office with a doctor and sort of there complementing the doctor's work. Nurse practitioners in Ontario now have the authority to practice on their own, with their own practices. This is extremely important and I sort of – well, I do feel that with this new piece of legislation, with this new bill, that we are helping the registered nurses in this Province become even more professional than they have ever been, and to move into who we are now in this country, and to move into the year of 2008 jumping ahead pretty quickly. That is what I would anticipate, that with this legislation and with the association now being able to set standards, and the association involved more directly into the sort of creation of nurse practitioners, I see us moving ahead fairly quickly, I would say, once this bill is in place, because I am sure that the association is definitely waiting for the ability to do what this legislation will allow them to do.

We all know, and I am not going to take too much time going through what we talk about here day after day both in Question Period and in debates with regard to what is going on with regard to nurses in our Province and in the country. We know the statistics. We know the issues.

The one point that I want to make is that we cannot control what is happening in other parts of the country but we can control what is happening here. We can improve the situation here, if we put our minds to it. Just as there are roles for nurse practitioners that would keep nurses here in the Province with even more exciting ways in which to do their work, there are other things that are going on in the country - for example, in Manitoba – that maybe could work here, too, if we looked at what is going on with regard to getting people in their own communities involved in health care, educating people within their own communities, and the creation of clinics around the Province. We have a small number of them, but the more clinics we have, the more public clinics we have under the regional authorities, the more we could see to the education of people within their own communities, wanting to stay there and become involved in the health care in their own communities.

There are a lot of imaginative things that we can be doing that will help not only recruit nurses and others in health care but will also help them stay here, because they will want to stay working in their communities.

We know that – we go through the whole list, we all know the list – we have to have better wages. The wages have to go up. We have to have better working conditions, and part of that is more permanent positions. We are slowly moving in that direction, not fast enough. We have to increase the number of nurses who are graduating. We have to bring that number up. All of these things have to happen. We have to increase permanent positions, so that we cut down on callbacks and overtime. There is so much that has to be done, and we have to keep moving in that direction, and the faster we move, the better.

I am glad of the opportunity to speak again to the issue. The minister has heard us here in the opposition, in both parties, speak to him over and over about the issues. He knows what they are, but we have to keep speaking to them. The nurses are speaking to them; they expect us to speak to them. We have to keep at it, because we do have to improve, and we are not going to improve unless we start making changes a little bit more quickly. Certainly, becoming more competitive with regard to keeping our nurses here, not just recruiting them initially but improving their wages and working conditions so that they will stay, is more than important; it is urgent.

We really have to take seriously the high percentage of our new recruits who are leaving the Province. We have to do something to keep them here. We have to do something to deal with the replacement as well - and that is why keeping recruits here is so important - the replacement of the high number of nurses who are going to be leaving the profession in the next ten years because of retirement.

We also have to protect those who retire and then do not retire because they are needed so much where they work that they end up being on callback. I spoke to one the other day and she said she really wanted to retire and, where she was retiring from – she is living in a rural area - they said: You can't; we want you to stay. When she said: No, I am definitely going - then it was: Well, you have to be on callback. She said: You have to at least give me a couple of months; I have to rest for a couple of months before I will do that. So, she will end up doing callback.

The issues are numerous, and we have to deal with them. This legislation that we are speaking to tonight is a way of moving ahead. The way in which the minister worked with the association is the way in which I would recommend that he must continue to work, both with the association and with other associations as well of professional health care workers in this Province, and as well with the union. We have to work in co-operation. They really know what needs to happen inside the system - they really do - and that is who we need to listen to. That is who government needs to listen to. Those who are working inside the system are the ones who have the answers, so they have to be involved in a regular way, continually, in helping solve the problems that are going on in our health care system in the Province.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

If the hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services speaks now he will close the debate on second reading of Bill 3.

The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the members opposite for their brief comments on Bill 3.

As I said in the beginning, this is a significant piece of legislation for the people who are in the practice of nursing in this Province. It is a significant piece of legislation for the regulatory body, the ARNN, and, as I said earlier as well, it speaks to a couple of very significant housekeeping types of issues but it also speaks to the issues around the future for nurse practitioners in the Province.

There is one comment that I would make to the two hon. members opposite who made some comment around the issue of the practice of nurse practitioners in the Province. One of the things that we need to try to recognize, I think, Mr. Speaker, is that nurse practitioners are not a substitute for physicians. Nurse practitioners have a significant role to play. They have advanced training, they have specialized skills, and within the nursing profession they have done some advanced training, so there is a significant role for them to play within a setting where there is an abundance of physicians or where there are very few physicians, Mr. Speaker. So the supply of physicians and the practice of nursing and the role of nurse practitioners are not related. As we look at advancing the profession and we look at, as a government – because we have made some significant commitments in our tenure to enhance the role of nurse practitioners, the number of new ones we had in this year's budget, last year's budget. The capacity to train more nurse practitioners is something that, as a government, we focused on and it has never been done in the context of we need a substitution for physicians.

I remind members of the House, that as we talk about nurse practitioners and their role, to ensure that we do not talk about them as a replacement because that is not their intent, that is not their role, and that is not the contribution they make. So I just wanted – that was a comment I thought bore some repeating because it is something that, as I listened to some of the comments, I was starting to get an impression that that might have been the view. I wanted to make sure that people listening to this debate and discussion tonight did not think that was our belief or that was a reflection of what we thought the role of a nurse practitioner to be.

With those few comments, Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. members opposite for their contribution to the debate on this bill and we look forward to any questions you might have in third reading. I would be only too glad to answer them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 3, An Act Respecting Registered Nurses, 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: An Act Respecting Registered Nurses. (Bill 3)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 3 has now been read a second time.

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

MS BURKE: Now.

MR. SPEAKER: Now.

On motion, a bill, "An Act Respecting Registered Nurses," read a second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House presently, by leave. (Bill 3)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bill 3.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole to consider Bill 3 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.

CHAIR (Collins): The Committee of the Whole is now ready to debate Bill 3.

A bill, "An Act Respecting Registered Nurses." (Bill 3)

CLERK: Clause 1.

CHAIR: Shall Clause 1 carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clause 1 carried.

CLERK: Clauses 2 to 43 inclusive.

CHAIR: Clauses 2 to 43 inclusive.

Shall these carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, clauses 2 through 43 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'.

Carried.

On motion, enacting clause carried.

CLERK: An Act Respecting Registered Nurses.

CHAIR: Shall the title carry?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

On motion, title carried.

CHAIR: Shall I report the bill carried without amendment?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

CHAIR: All those against, 'nay'.

Carried.

Motion, that the Committee report having passed the bill without amendment, carried.

CHAIR: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee rise and report Bill 3.

CHAIR: The motion is that the Committee rise and report Bill 3.

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 (Fitzgerald): The hon. the Member for Placentia & St. Mary's.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of the Whole have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report Bill 3 carried without amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair of the Committee of the Whole reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and has directed him to report Bill 3 carried without amendment.


What shall the report be received?

MS BURKE: Today.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the said bill be read a third time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, report received and adopted, bill ordered read a third time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to call, from the Order Paper, number 3. Third reading of a bill, An Act To Enable The Issuance Of Water Rights To The Energy Corporation Of Newfoundland And Labrador For The Lower Churchill River. (Bill 36)

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that Bill 36 be now read a third time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt a motion that Bill 36 be now 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 Enable The Issuance Of Water Rights To The Energy Corporation Of Newfoundland And Labrador For The Lower Churchill River. (Bill 36)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 36 is now 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 Enable The Issuance Of Water Rights To The Energy Corporation Of Newfoundland And Labrador For The Lower Churchill River," read a third time, ordered passed and its title be as on the Order Paper. (Bill 36)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to return to Order 5, Bill 35. I would like to move that the amendments for Bill 35 be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said amendments to Bill 35 be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

CLERK: First reading of amendments. (Bill 35)

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move that the amendments be now read a second time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the said amendments to Bill 35 be now read a second time.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

The motion is carried.

CLERK: Second reading of amendments. (Bill 35)

MR. SPEAKER: When shall Bill 35 be read a third time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, amendments read a first and second time. Bill ordered read a third time on tomorrow.

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

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that this House do now adjourn?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

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

This House is now adjourned until 2:00 p.m. tomorrow being Wednesday.

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