March 13, 2014 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLVII No. 2
MR. SPEAKER (Wiseman):
Order, please!
Admit strangers.
Before we start today, I
would like to welcome back three of our Pages from the last session: Michael;
and we have Fatima, who is back with us as well; and we have Morgan, who is also
back with us. I want to introduce
our new Page for this session, Ms Andrea Tapper.
Welcome, Andrea.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
You would have noticed yesterday in
the Chamber, and again today, we have our new Sergeant-at-Arms with us as of
yesterday, and a little later today there will be a motion introduced in the
House to formalize the appointment: Mr. Wayne Harnum.
Welcome, Sir.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
Statements by Members
MR. SPEAKER:
Today we will have members'
statements from the Member for the District of St. John's East; the Member for
the District of St. John's South; the Member for the District of Burgeo La
Poile; the Member for the District of Lake Melville; the Member for the District
of Bellevue; and the Member for the District of Fortune Bay Cape La Hune.
You would have probably
noticed a visitor in our Speaker's gallery today, the recently appointed Chief
of the RNC, who will be more formally introduced in a few moments.
The Member for the
District of St. John's East.
MR. MURPHY:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in this House
today to honour a woman who, with dignity and humour, became an unlikely leader
in the field of HIV/AIDS education and gay rights.
For her leadership in the
face of personal tragedy, Sara Rita Sexton was selected for induction into the
Order of Newfoundland and Labrador this year.
Her many admirers - and I include myself in that number, Mr. Speaker -
could not have been more pleased.
Sara was the mother of
one of the most popular entertainers this Province has ever produced, Tommy
Sexton, whose life was cut tragically short at age thirty-six by AIDS in
December of 1993.
Since then, Sara and the
rest of the Sexton family have worked tirelessly to educate the public about HIV
and AIDS, and to help those who are affected, including spearheading the
construction of the Tommy Sexton Centre.
The support continues for Sara's ninetieth birthday last year, she
requested no gifts for herself, but donations for the centre, raising $4,000 on
that occasion.
Sara Sexton's compassion
and common sense continue to inspire us all.
I ask all hon. members to join me in congratulating her on her induction
in the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
South.
MR. OSBORNE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, last month
there was a fire at Maplewood Apartments on Shaw Street, in St. John's South.
There were five residents
sent to hospital but later released.
All other residents got out safely.
There were no fatalities, thank God.
I am very thankful that the fire was late afternoon and not in the middle of the
night or things may have been very different.
I would like to recognize
the people who helped make sure everything went as well as it did that night:
the St. John's Regional Fire Department, the paramedics who responded,
the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Mayor and City of St. John's, the Royal
Newfoundland Constabulary, the staff from Advanced Education and Skills, and the
staff of the building, as well as others.
Everyone worked well
together, and they have to be commended for how smoothly everything went.
As the Premier will recall, I contacted him early that evening to ensure
that people had somewhere to stay that night.
He and the minister responsible responded and I thank them for that.
I would like to recognize
and thank everyone who was involved.
Thank you, from myself
and from all of the residents at Maplewood Manor.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo La
Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise today to pay
tribute to the late Dr. Richard Ernest Taor.
Dr. Taor stated his
medical career in London, and emigrated to Port aux Basques in 1977.
In London, Dr. Taor
worked primarily as a surgeon but when he came to Port aux Basques he did
whatever was required of him, from delivering babies and emergency C-sections to
general checkups.
He had an extremely busy
practice and once said he had delivered between 1,000 and 1,500 babies.
He was always quick to praise the nurses and staff he worked with.
He served his patients of the Southwest Coast with compassion and
devotion until his retirement in 2011.
After retirement, Dr.
Taor had no desire to leave Port aux Basques, where he was welcomed from his
first day on the job. He said: We
go places and visit, but this is home.
Dr. Taor will be deeply
missed by his wife, Magda, their two children, Fiona and Christopher, their
partners, his siblings, William, Lesley, and Helen, his extended family, as well
as a wide circle of friends, associates, and physicians.
Mr. Speaker, I ask all
members of this House to join with me in paying tribute to the late Richard
Taor, a true credit to his family and community, and to extend condolences to
his family on their loss.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Lake
Melville.
MR. RUSSELL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise today to recognize
the life and spirit of Ms. Loretta Saunders.
I would like to recognize
the determination of this young woman.
Growing up as a woman of Inuit heritage she saw first-hand the struggles
of her people. While most feel the
need to ignore and just live their lives, Loretta wanted to help.
She pursued a degree that
would give her the ability to help others, which led her to begin writing a
thesis on missing and murdered Aboriginal women.
When she was finished this degree, she had plans to become a lawyer and
do what we could only imagine now to help the people of her community, if not
the people of the country.
She, like most
Labradorians, looked to help others in their community so they too could be
become stronger. Loretta was someone
who dreamed big, worked hard, and was a person everyone adored.
These things she learned from being raised in a close-knit family of
eight siblings.
If any solace can be
taken from her tragic passing, it is the fact that she was able to put a
national spotlight on the issues she worked passionately to address.
I ask all hon. members of
this House to join me in remembering the life and spirit of Loretta Saunders.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District
of Bellevue.
MR. PEACH:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in this hon. House
today to recognize a student of Crescent Collegiate in Blaketown, on winning a
scholarship for academics.
Brandon Thorne of New
Harbour is the son of Christine and Brian Throne and has two siblings.
He is now attending Memorial University and is the only recipient of the
Ronald K. Kennedy Scholarship. This
scholarship recognizes the excellence in post-secondary studies and is given to
the student who completes two years of a degree or diploma program with
scholastic achievement, displays potential, and possesses exceptional qualities
of character and economic need. The
scholarship was for $1,200.
I ask all members to join
me in congratulating Brandon on his accomplishment and wish him all the best in
his future.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District
of Fortune Bay Cape La Hune.
MS PERRY:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in this hon. House
today to deliver accolades to some special volunteers from the Town of Harbour
Breton. The Citizen of the Year was
held recently at the Lions Club and I had the honour of attending.
The nominees for 2013 were George Strickland, Margaret Day, Hilda
Strickland, Sean Johnston, Elizabeth Taylor, Lorne Bond Jr., and Sheila Mercer
all very deserving candidates. This
high community honour was awarded to Mrs. Sheila Mercer.
This exceptional lady's
official role is Treasurer-Secretary of the Connaigre Peninsula Cancer Support
Group, but all can attest that she goes far beyond this title and lends her
talents to many causes. Nominated by
the Local Cancer Group for her dedication as an ACW member for thirty-four
years, and St. Bartholomew's Church member for forty-four years, Sheila has
delighted audiences in various ACW concerts and fundraisers with her acting
skills and infectious sense of humour.
Sheila is well known for her care and compassion and, on behalf of
residents, I thank her for the many donations of cakes and cookies for the sick
or bereaved.
I ask all members of this
hon. House to join me in thanking all of the nominees and Mrs. Mercer for their
outstanding community service and volunteerism.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Statements by Ministers.
Statements by Ministers
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Education.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. JACKMAN:
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to
recognize the outstanding performance of figure skater and Marystown native,
Kaetlyn Osmond, who served as an inspiration for thousands of students
throughout Newfoundland and Labrador during the Winter Olympics in Sochi,
Russia.
During the games, the
Department of Education, in partnership with the Department of Tourism, Culture
and Recreation, established a Web page, Follow Kaetlyn's Journey, where all
residents were able to learn more about Kaetlyn and her path to the Olympics.
The Web page included photos, recent events, as well as various teaching
resources to help schools capitalize on the learning opportunities made possible
through the Olympic Games.
Our schools did take
advantage of those learning opportunities, Mr. Speaker.
There were countless photos posted to social media, demonstrating how
students were participating in the Olympic experience.
One school held their own Olympic opening ceremonies, wore the
traditional dress of various countries, and learned about their cultures.
Others participated in Olympic-themed arts, crafts, and sporting events.
I had the pleasure of
visiting St. Thomas Aquinas in Port au Port in mid-February, and saw first-hand
how that school had used an Olympic-themed banner, running through the main
hallway, to update Kaetlyn's progress and the progress of other Canadian
athletes. They also integrated the
Olympic theme into their mathematics and language arts classes in ways that
clearly engaged students in a new and exciting way.
Meanwhile, students and
staff throughout the Province were encouraged to use interactive whiteboards,
and other advanced technologies, to watch Kaetlyn's performance during the final
ladies free skate program on February 20.
Mr. Speaker, with more than 4,000 interactive whiteboards placed in K-12
schools in recent years, along with other technological advancements, students
could witness local sports history taking place, in real time, right from their
classrooms.
Mr. Speaker, I invite my
colleagues in this House to congratulate teachers throughout the Province for
the many innovative ways in which they integrated the 2014 Winter Olympics into
the curriculum and, of course, to congratulate Kaetlyn Osmond, Canada's national
figure skating women's champion and Olympic silver medalist in the team
competition in Sochi. She is a
remarkable talent; a remarkable young women, a true class act in every sense,
and we wish her every success in the future.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
North.
MR. KIRBY:
Thanks to the minister for an
advance copy of his statement.
Like many Newfoundlanders
and Labradorians, my family watched on with excited anticipation as Kaetlyn
Osmond competed in Sochi. Since she
has burst onto the international figure skating scene, Kaetlyn has made the
people of Marystown, and indeed all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, proud. Her
example of excellence is one that all Canadians, young and old alike, can look
for example from. She has displayed
exemplary grace, poise, and professionalism throughout her career so far in that
sport.
Whether it is in sports,
the arts, business, or other areas, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians continue to
stand out on the international stage and it is our teachers who we rely on to
educate, prepare, and nurture excellence in the coming generations of Olympians
and world-class leaders.
So we congratulate
Kaetlyn Osmond on her amazing accomplishments and her achievements, and we also
thank our teachers who play such an important role in our lives and inspire our
children to reach excellence, just like Kaetlyn does.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Third
Party.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I am delighted to join
with the minister and my colleague in congratulating Kaetlyn Osmond in her
achievements. I have been very
lucky, actually, to have seen her skating live three times now, and was there
when she first got the bronze medal in the national championships and then her
gold. So I have a real personal
thing with Kaetlyn. I have to say,
from the first minute I saw her I knew this was an exceptional person.
I do applaud everything that has happened for her and especially in the
Olympics.
It was wonderful at the
Newfoundland and Labrador Winter Games opening, and the Speaker was there, of
course, and the Premier, as well, to see the video of Kaetlyn speaking to all of
the young athletes in Clarenville that night and to see the smiles on their
faces as her face lit up the whole of the arena.
It was wonderful to see her being used as a role model for the other
young people.
I do encourage the
government, in recognizing that and recognizing how important it is for our
students to have healthy lifestyles, our young people to be active, that we put
more resources into sports and physical activities, both in the schools and the
wider community. We have the proof of
what it can do for us. To see the
stadium at the Winter Games, in particular, filled with all these healthy
looking students, these healthy looking young people, and then having Kaetlyn as
their role model, it really does behoove us to look at putting more resources
into these activities.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Tourism,
Culture and Recreation.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. FRENCH:
Mr. Speaker, for thirty-eight years,
the Newfoundland and Labrador Games Program has encouraged participation in
sport and the pursuit of excellence.
As the largest multisport event for youth in the Province, it brings together
athletes eleven to eighteen years of age to compete for the Premier's Cup.
The event is made possible through a collaborative effort of the
provincial government, SportNL, a host committee, and provincial sport
organizations.
The 2014 Winter Games
were held in Clarenville from March 1 to March 9 and drew 1,400 athletes,
coaches, and staff from eight regions of the Province and St. Pierre and
Miquelon. The participants competed
in eleven sports such as alpine skiing, basketball, cross-country skiing, figure
skating, gymnastics, and hockey. Our
government invested more than $500,000 in the 2014 games to offset operating
costs and assist with travel expenses.
The games ended with
Labrador leading the medal count at twenty-two, while the Western Region had the
highest number of gold medals at thirteen.
The Premier's Cup, awarded to the region accumulating the highest number
of points, was presented to the Western team.
Both the SportNL Trophy for the team showing the most improvement from
one games to the next, and the Lieutenant Governor's Award celebrating
sportsmanship and spirit, were presented to the host team of Clarenville, which
was done by His Honour, the Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, these games
promote the achievements of some of our Province's top young athletes, and play
a significant role in our efforts to achieve an active and healthy population.
They also contribute to the development of sport and create opportunities
for our aspiring athletes. These
objectives would not be realized without the many coaches, managers, volunteers,
and parents committed to ensure the Newfoundland and Labrador Games are always a
success for everyone involved. Their
time, knowledge, and skills are an essential part of these young athletes'
achievements.
I would like to
congratulate the Town of Clarenville and the host committee who truly
demonstrated their ability to host large-scale sporting events.
Some of their most notable accomplishments were the provision of
nutritionist-approved food options for the athletes, and the creation of a
world-class giant slalom course that could rival Olympic venues.
Mr. Speaker, participants
in the Newfoundland and Labrador Games attain a level of excellence because of
their passion for sport, tireless hours of hard work, and a determination to be
the best at their respective sport.
I encourage all athletes to take their perseverance a step further, as they
prepare for the next Summer Games which will be held in Conception Bay South in
2016.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District
of Bay of Islands.
MR. JOYCE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the minister for
an advance copy of the statement. I
want to congratulate all members, the Premier, the minister, yourself, Mr.
Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, the Member for Mount Pearl South who was
out there, and I am sure other members here also who support the athletes out in
Clarenville.
Mr. Speaker, if I could
just sidetrack for a second, they said it was on for thirty-eight years.
One of the first events I went to as a boxer was the Canada-Newfoundland
Winter Games out in Gander, back a number of years.
Mr. Speaker, that was an experience that I had for many years later.
Congratulations to the
government for supporting these games, for supporting the athletes; Labrador,
for getting their awards; Clarenville, for the most spirit award, Mr. Speaker.
Also, I have to congratulate the athletes from the West Coast for getting
their award.
To them, the awards are
just something different meeting friends, meeting families, and making new
friends is what it is all about.
People who have been in the sports, they know what it is like to win but they
know what it is like to strive. They
have to work hard, they have to work together, they have to have a healthy
lifestyle, and this is what the Winter Games is all about.
A lot of these athletes
will never move on like Kaetlyn Osmond, but a lot of these athletes here will
make new friends, will learn how to achieve things at life because of hard work
and dedication. To everybody who
supported the Town of Clarenville, Mr. Speaker, I understand you were there a
lot helping out in the beginning, so congratulations to everybody who
participated in this to make this a success.
They are definitely our future.
As the Premier mentioned yesterday in the Throne Speech, the future is
bright with these athletes that went to Clarenville in the Newfoundland and
Labrador Winter Games.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the minister for
an advance copy of his statement.
Congratulations to the participants and organizers for a very successful
Newfoundland and Labrador Winter Games in Clarenville.
The Member for Signal
Hill Quidi Vidi had the pleasure of attending the opening ceremonies and she
said the extent of the expertise and professionalism of the local people was so
evident in the incredible, fantastic opening.
The games play a very
important role in achieving an active and healthy youth population, and these
activities carry on into their adult lives.
Government's investment is important, crucial, and vital.
We need greater investment in physical education in schools, more
physical education classes, beginning in their early grades and on up through
high school. It is both a way to
increase our numbers of excellent athletes and healthy lifestyles.
Early experience with team sports also helps youth to become team players
as adults and more involved in their communities.
Bravo and congratulations
to Clarenville; bravo to volunteers and the athletes.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in
the House today to recognize the outstanding achievements of retired Royal
Newfoundland Constabulary Chief of Police, Robert P. Johnston, and to also
welcome our new Chief, William Janes, to the job.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Mr. Speaker, as most of us would
know, there is no higher rank that one can achieve at the Royal Newfoundland
Constabulary than the Chief of Police, and Chief Johnston served admirably in
this capacity after taking on the role in May, 2010.
Upon his retirement, he
was a thirty-four year veteran of the RNC with the majority of his career being
spent in the Criminal Investigation Division, Criminal Intelligence, Major
Crime, and Sexual Offence Units.
Chief Johnston is a recipient of the thirty-year Police Exemplary Service Medal
and the Queen's Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals.
In 2012 he was appointed to the Order of Merit in the Officers' Category.
Shortly after the official opening of the RNC headquarters at Fort
Townshend last month, Chief Johnston announced his well-earned retirement from
the police service.
Chief Robert Johnston has
been an exemplary police officer and an outstanding role model for all those who
worked with him. Under his guidance,
we saw many positive developments in the structure of the RNC including new
specialized units in the Criminal Investigation Division, the prioritizing of
training for officers, and a focus on best practices in terms of scientific and
investigative techniques. We also
saw, Mr. Speaker, more women encouraged and supported in becoming police
officers at the RNC.
On behalf of the
residents of Newfoundland and Labrador, I would like to thank Chief Johnston for
his valuable contribution to policing in the Province.
He has made the RNC a better police service and has made our communities
safer places in which to live.
Mr. Speaker, I would also
like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the twenty-first RNC chief of police
who was officially appointed by the Premier on February 28.
I would like to take this opportunity to officially introduce Chief Bill
Janes to this hon. House. Bill joins
us here in the gallery today.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Chief Janes, Mr. Speaker, has been a
member of the RNC for almost thirty years and most recently served as the deputy
chief in charge of criminal operations.
He has played a significant leadership role in helping the RNC become one
of Canada's leading law enforcement agencies, and as we have already seen in the
last week or so since his inauguration, he will persist in the pursuit of
policing excellence. The provincial
government is committed to ensuring safe and secure communities in which to
raise our families, and looks forward to collaborating with Chief Janes on
future policing initiatives.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District
of St. Barbe.
MR. BENNETT:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the minister for
an advance copy of his statement. I,
too, join with him in congratulating Chief Johnston on an outstanding career and
welcoming Chief Janes on the continuation of what is very obviously an
outstanding career. We have many
fine officers in the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.
We have extended the reach and the scope of the RNC over the last
generation so it is pretty much Province-wide.
Mr. Speaker, however, the
RNC needs more than platitudes and more than words.
The police can arrest offenders but they have no ability to incarcerate
or to try and convict and to punish.
This government has fallen down on the job.
The biggest backtracks
that this government did is to do away with the domestic violence court.
This domestic violence court increased the number of people requiring it
by 300 per cent in four years and then they did away with it.
Mr. Speaker, I would hope that since the domestic violence court was the
brainchild of the current Premier when he was the Minister of Finance, I hope he
would add to the litany of backtracks in the Throne Speech, add this one,
reverse the position, and give us back the domestic violence court so people do
not have to protest at the Confederation Building for their right to justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the minister for
an advance copy of his statement. I,
too, would like to thank Chief Johnston for his many years of service to the
people of the Province. He oversaw
many positive and crucial changes to the RNC during his time as chief,
especially an increase in the recruitment of women.
He fostered a better understanding of the dynamics and complexities of
family violence. He saw the
importance of and encouraged officers to refer cases to the Family Violence
Intervention Court to keep women and children safer.
He worked closely with women's groups in the community, respecting and
really listening to their expertise and experience.
The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are grateful for his dedicated
service.
Bravo, Robert Johnston.
Enjoy civilian life. You have
earned it.
Welcome, new Chief Bill
Janes. I look forward to working
with you. You have already been a
crucial part of the wonderful changes to the RNC.
We hope you enjoy your service.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Oral Questions.
Oral Questions
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The people of Virginia
Waters have been without representation in this House since the former Premier
resigned. The by-election can be
called at the wish of the Premier, but he has not done so yet.
I ask the Premier: Why
have you delayed calling this by-election?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER MARSHALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Obviously, there are a
lot of things that go on the desk of the new Premier and it takes time to get
through them all, but I can assure the hon. member and the people of Virginia
Waters that they will have a by-election to elect a member to sit in this House
very soon.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We have heard very soon
many times from this government.
This government has had
an awakening of sorts and now they say they will review Bill 29.
This is the same bill they claimed was the proper balance and preserves
the right to know while protecting privacy and personal information.
This government previously defended Bill 29 and now they are committing
to a review.
I ask the Premier: Are we
to believe that the Cabinet was powerless to take a stand on Bill 29 while the
former Premier held office?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER MARSHALL:
Mr. Speaker, this government proclaimed the Access to Information and Protection
of Privacy legislation, which had been legislated by our friends opposite, but
they did not proclaim it and did not have to live under it.
We did. We brought the
Auditor General back into this House of Assembly.
We passed the Transparency and Accountability legislation as well.
With Bill 29, obviously
the leading commentators in the country, the Centre for Law and Democracy, have
commented on the fact that they consider we have the third-best legislation in
the country, but the people of the Province have expressed some concerns, some
real concerns, so let us find out.
It is not about Bill 29.
It is about our Freedom of Information legislation, our Access to
Information legislation, and privacy legislation, not just the amendments but
all of the legislation. That all
needs to be looked at. An
independent, impartial committee will look at it and tell us whether our law is
good enough or not.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Well, none of the
comments we heard from the groups that were mentioned by the Premier that was
nothing new. These comments were all
in place and they were discussed publicly when the former Premier was here.
My question: Why did the Cabinet not respond then?
Mr. Speaker, the new
Premier announced the review of Bill 29.
When he did this he said government would establish an independent review
committee in the coming days, and more details on the consultation process would
be available in the coming weeks.
Now, that was six weeks ago.
So I ask the Premier:
When will you make the details of this review public?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Municipal
Affairs.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This review of our Access
to Information and Protection of Privacy legislation is very important to this
government and it is very important to the people of the Province.
We want to ensure in appointing the independent committee to lead this
process that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have full confidence in
those we appoint.
We need people with, for
instance, a journalism background, with a legal background, and with expertise
or experience working with our ATIPP legislation.
We are making sure we get the right mix of people.
We are going to give them all the time and resources they need to do the
work, and I will be making an announcement regarding that committee in the days
ahead.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
MR. BALL:
We will have a by-election very
soon; we will have a review in the days ahead.
Mr. Speaker, it is not
just me who wants Bill 29 repealed.
In a recent poll conducted by CRA, 70 per cent of the population of Newfoundland
and Labrador believe that Bill 29 should be repealed.
So I ask the Premier: Why
are you not listening to the people of our Province and repealing Bill 29?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Municipal
Affairs.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
Mr. Speaker, from the day he was
sworn in to yesterday's Throne Speech, each and every day, this Premier
demonstrates that we are listening to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
We have heard from countless people
that it is not as simple as repealing Bill 29.
Our own Information and Privacy Commissioner has said that would be an
unnecessary step. I have seen blog
posts that have suggested similarly.
It is our view that it is not just about looking at the amendments that were
made in 2012; it is about looking at the whole legislation.
We are so committed to
getting it right that we are advancing this review.
We are doing it a year earlier than what is required under legislation,
and we are going to look at the whole thing, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Mr. Speaker, teachers in our
Province have been without a contract for almost two years, and we have been
told that this government is not taking this new contract seriously.
Almost two years at the table and this government has not allowed a
conversation about monetary issues to enter into the negotiations.
Now, that is called bad faith negotiations.
So I ask the Premier:
When you finally get back to the table with our teachers, will you commit to
serious negotiations so teachers can focus on their primary responsibility:
educating our students?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Finance and
President of Treasury Board.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MS JOHNSON:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Government is certainly
committed to the bargaining process.
Tentative dates were set for the week of March 31.
I did have a meeting with Mr. Dinn in the last few days.
I was pleased to see that they too are committed to continuing
negotiations, Mr. Speaker.
We certainly value our
teachers. We are optimistic that we
will reach an agreement, as we have reached an agreement with 23,000 other union
members. We have reached agreements
with NAPE, CUPE, AAHP, and, in the last few days only, we reached agreements
with the correctional officers and the Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation
Commission. So, we are committed to
collective agreements.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Mr. Speaker, the commitment has been
two years. So, letting our teachers
go almost two years without a contract is really insulting to the professionals,
and they were working tirelessly every day to educate our children.
Government's negotiating team has not been given the mandate to make
these decisions.
I ask the Premier: If you
are truly listening to people, why did our teachers have to resort to a public
relations campaign to get the negotiations back on track?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Finance and
President of Treasury Board.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MS JOHNSON:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as I said,
tentative dates were set for the week of March 31.
I did meet with Mr. Dinn and I was pleased to hear that he is committed
to continuing with those dates.
Dates were never off for us; there is a clear mandate to negotiate, we do value
our teachers, and we hope that everybody gets back to the bargaining table so we
can have a deal with teachers because we certainly value what they do for our
children.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
On the eve of the 2007
election this government promised whistle-blower legislation, but they never
acted. Last year during Estimates,
the Minister of Justice stated that no government resources or funding had been
allocated to whistle-blower legislation during this fiscal year.
I ask the Premier: If it
is true that no resources were allocated, how are you able to make this
commitment now? Wouldn't you need to
allocate resources to prepare this legislation?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER MARSHALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, this
government made a commitment to the people of the Province that it would bring
in whistle-blower legislation, so we are now going to do exactly what we said we
were going to do. We made a
commitment to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
We are going to honour that commitment by bringing it forward into this
House and hopefully, with the co-operation of members opposite, pass
whistle-blower legislation to protect employees in the public service in
Newfoundland and Labrador.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Well, we send birthday
cards to celebrate events; we will give that piece of legislation a seventh
birthday card.
Government announced
whistle-blower legislation, Bill 1, and yesterday would not provide the text on
the proposed bill. We have seen this
from the government before. They
introduced procurement of the public bodies as Bill 1 in 2012, but they never
provided the text and they let it die on the Order Paper.
I ask the Premier: When
we will get the text of the whistle-blower legislation?
By the way, whatever happened to that old Bill 1?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, from a
procedural perspective there is nothing unusual about giving notice of motion on
a particular piece of legislation in this House; we do it all the time.
The members opposite would know, of course, that we provide text to the
House and we provide text to members opposite when we do first reading.
We provide briefings and there is a whole procedure that we follow for
every single bill we bring before this House.
I remind the member that they would know because they participate in that
process.
I can confirm for the
member that bill will be coming forward in the very near future in this session
of the House. We will lay it before
the people and we will hear what the members opposite have to say and whether or
not they support a real good piece of legislation that this Premier is going to
bring forward for the people of the Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official
Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Let's go back to Bill 1
in 2012, the procurement by public bodies.
Whatever happened to that piece of legislation that we never did see the
text for?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Service
Newfoundland and Labrador.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. CRUMMELL:
Mr. Speaker, we are getting very
close now to bringing it to the floor of the House.
We just went through a special strategic procurement project.
We had some great learning in that project.
We invested $4 million; it resulted in $20 million in savings.
We used RFPs in that process to maximize savings for the people of the
Province.
Mr. Speaker, what we will
be doing in the next little while, we will be incorporating some of these
learnings into the new legislation.
That will take a little bit more time, but I will be happy to bring it to the
floor of the House when it is ready.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo La
Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the Speech
from the Throne there was a commitment to an open government initiative which
was supposed to share information and data freely.
If government is so
interested in being open and accountable then I ask the minister: Will you now
reveal how much was spent on marketing and advertising in the last two years,
instead of charging $1,600 and taking almost four weeks to get the answers?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Municipal
Affairs.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In recent media reports,
I was quite clear that this is a request that we looked at in some detail.
It was not as simple as pulling a number and providing it to the members
opposite. There was considerable
work involved in considering the thirteen requests that were made.
It is important to note,
Mr. Speaker, that in most cases over the last year when there has been an access
request filed, fees have not been warranted and fees have not been collected.
It is in rare cases where there is extensive work required that fees are
required to be paid. That is the
case in this particular instance, and we have provided a full explanation to the
member opposite.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo La
Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Mr. Speaker, I guess the open
government initiative is something else that will be coming soon because it is
certainly not here yet.
A truly open and
transparent government will be proactive in disclosing the information; instead,
government is charging hundreds and thousands of dollars for basic budgetary
line items. The marketing and
advertising is not the only outrageous request.
We have asked through ATIPPA for copies of aquaculture monitoring reports
and we were told it would cost over $19,000.
I ask the minister: Is
this an indication of open and transparent?
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The hon. the Minister of
Municipal Affairs.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
Mr. Speaker, we take all access
requests very seriously and many of them do come from the members opposite.
We recognize that access to information is important to members opposite
in order to be able to do the important work that they do.
In the fiscal year
2012-2013, of the 285 general requests we received for information, twenty-three
involved fee estimates, and there were only in ten instances, I believe, where
fees were actually charged. It is
very rare that fees are required; but when the requests are extensive and when
they are exceptional, there is a process in place for that.
Mr. Speaker, we try to
provide whatever information we can, in whatever form we can, and our open
government initiative which we will also launch in the days ahead, I say to the
Leader of the Opposition, it will mean that even more information than ever
before is available to the public.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
South.
MR. OSBORNE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Both the Auditor General
and a bridge inspection report, obtained through ATIPP, which is already two
years old, confirms that 93 per cent more bridges are considered to be in poor
condition today than there were a decade ago.
I ask the Minister of
Transportation and Works: Why has your government comprised the safety of our
travelling public by allowing bridges to fall in such disrepair?
A government navigating such troubled waters should not be ignoring
bridges, I say.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of
Transportation and Works.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. MCGRATH:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, first and
foremost, I would like to tell the member opposite that this government
certainly does not ignore the bridges in the Province.
What he
is failing to state is that although there are 152 bridges that are still in
that repair or disrepair right now, there have also been bridges added to the
inventory. This government, over the
past ten years, has put millions of dollars into the restructure and new
development of bridges. We will
continue to do that, as we see, as part of our road and bridge program.
We do them in moderation.
What I think is
very important, Mr. Speaker, when a bridge is rated as in poor condition, it is
still very useful. When it says that
it cannot be used, then we will close the bridge.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
South.
MR. OSBORNE:
Mr. Speaker, here is one bridge that
was ignored by government: Southwest Bridge, near Port Blandford.
In fact, this particular bridge was listed as in fair condition two years
ago, but today it requires major repairs.
How many more
of our bridges that were considered to be in fair condition, two years ago, have
fallen in to that type of disrepair today?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of
Transportation and Works.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. MCGRATH:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker,
the bridge that the member opposite just mentioned, Southwest Bridge, has
certainly not been ignored. The day
of the accident on the Southwest Bridge, I happened to be on the Trans-Canada
Highway and I drove that particular bridge near Port Blandford.
I drove over the bridge and I actually stopped to make sure that the
proper signage was up.
This has been
an incredibly cold, harsh winter, as many have referred to it as an
old-fashioned winter. Not long ago
in the media, I did a story on potholes.
What you have on the surface of the Southwest branch bridge is that a lot
of the top surface, the asphalt on the top, has lifted and caused a lot of
potholes on the bridge. We are
monitoring it very closely, and we will repair it when weather permits.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
South.
MR. OSBORNE:
Mr. Speaker, the Mayor of Port
Blandford has stated publicly that the bridge is in the worst condition he has
ever seen. It is a narrow bridge to
begin with. With the lack of snow
clearing on that bridge, it is even more narrow.
With the potholes on that bridge, there has been a number of near
accidents on that particular bridge, Mr. Speaker.
There is
signage put up by the Department of Transportation warning people to slow down.
The bridge has been ignored.
I ask the minister why.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of
Transportation and Works.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. MCGRATH:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker,
once again I will tell the member opposite that the bridge has not been ignored;
we are very aware of the condition of the bridge.
It is a narrow bridge. As I
stated, this has been a very different winter that we have had this year.
I counted the
signs on each side of that bridge.
There are seven signs on each side as you approach the bridge.
So, sufficient signage is more than up.
We have decreased the speed limit approaching the bridge to fifty
kilometres an hour. We have the
proper signage up and, as soon as weather permits, we will be out to do repairs
on it. I am not sure unless the
member opposite has a magic way of putting down asphalt in the middle of the
winter, then I would appreciate it if he would let me know it and perhaps I
could do it now.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits
White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister of
Health has failed to establish midwifery as a self-regulated profession as
required by the Health Professions Act of 2010.
Three nurses with midwifery qualifications had continued to deliver
babies independently at St. Anthony hospital but now will require a physician
present.
I ask the
minister: Why are you adding to the ballooning health care budget by diminishing
the role of nurse midwives in a publicly funded system?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Health and
Community Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MS SULLIVAN:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we
certainly value and appreciate the work done by midwives.
In fact, that is why we started out to do the study and hired two
professionals to report to us. I am
happy to say that report came to us in December.
We are moving forward with the regulations and will implement in a
schedule that actually was provided to us by them.
In actual fact, we hope to be able to move that schedule a little faster.
With regard to
the St. Anthony area, Mr. Speaker, that issue came about as a result of an
insurer who came forward and said that the company itself was not willing to
insure because this particular service is not regulated at this point in time.
As a result, we had to be concerned for the safety of our patients.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits
White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It goes back to
show government's failure to implement regulations is causing this problem.
The minister in her midwifery announcement has focused on privatization
in health care. This government's
approach will only serve those who can afford midwives in a private setting
giving access within a year.
I ask the
minister: Why are you working to remove nurse midwives from a public system with
hopes to bring them back in five to seven years?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Health and
Community Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MS SULLIVAN:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker,
government is working to ensure that midwives, in fact, can practice within
Newfoundland and Labrador. That has
been our intention from the very beginning.
When insurance companies come forward and say that they can no longer
cover the particular people who are operating in that particular business then
we have no choice, for the safety of the clients and the safety of the
employees.
Mr. Speaker,
the time frame that the member opposite has put out is not quite right.
We are saying that within one year we hope that the regulations will be
in place and that our private midwives will be able to continue to practice.
We are moving forward to ensure that others can practice as quickly as
possible as well.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District
of St. Barbe.
MR. BENNETT:
Mr. Speaker, five years ago the
former Minister of Justice, now Premier, committed to establishing a Family
Violence Intervention Court. An
evaluation after twelve months noted positive outcomes and recommended expanding
the court's mandate to include all-risk levels.
I ask the
Minister of Justice: Why would he eliminate a program deemed by his own
consultant as positive and needing expansion?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We take the
whole issue of violence in the Province very seriously.
That is why if you take some time to look back at our investments in
justice over the last number of years, the budget has increased dramatically.
I say to the
member opposite, we recognize the issue of the family violence court and we
recognize the words that we are hearing from the public; but I will remind the
member opposite, when it was brought in, it was brought in as a pilot
initiative. By the very definition
of pilot, it is something that you bring in to try.
At some point in time, you make a determination whether you leave it in
the budget on a permanent, ongoing basis or whether you remove it from the
budget and simply move on to something else.
The fact that
we have chosen not to renew the pilot of the Family Violence Intervention Court
does not lessen our support for family violence and our willingness to do other
things to make sure that we combat that issue.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. Barbe.
MR. BENNETT:
Mr. Speaker, the one-year pilot
clearly worked because the government kept it going for four more years and had
a 300 per cent increase in the number of people agreeing to participate.
Having
abandoned the family violence court, yesterday's Throne Speech mentioned Phase 2
of the Violence Prevention Initiative.
I guess if you quit Phase 1, you can go on to Phase 2.
Domestic
violence is cyclical; most abusers recall their first violent memory as
intervening to protect their mother from her abusive partner.
I ask the
minister: Aside from the moral imperative, can't he recognize that mandating
offender programs to prevent children from witnessing more violence will save
the system millions of dollars down the road?
Doesn't he understand the impacts on these children are lifelong?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Mr. Speaker, any time a government
brings in initiatives, there are often times where you bring a whole host of
activities and events that you put into the budget on a pilot basis or a
one-time basis. The Violence Prevention Initiative is no different than that.
It is an initiative that we brought in, a number of things have run their
course, and they have achieved their objectives.
We will move forward into Phase 2.
Some things we will renew; some things we will do differently.
Mr. Speaker, I
say to the member opposite, this government recognizes very clearly the
seriousness of the issues facing children in this Province.
That is why this government brought in the Department of Child, Youth and
Family Services, I say to the member opposite.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Third
Party.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In January,
thousands of people were left in the dark and the recent threat of more
blackouts has shown that we have a serious electricity supply program.
Residential energy conservation programs would help cut electricity
demands.
So I ask the
Premier: Is his government prepared to commit to establishing such programs
instead of forcing the people of the Province to endure rolling blackouts in a
crisis?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER MARSHALL:
I thank the Leader of the Third
Party for her question, and you are right.
The whole issue of supply is the reason why we have to ensure that we
complete the Muskrat Falls Project, to ensure certainty of supply for the people
of the Province in the future.
We know coming
out of the blackout that the PUB has announced it was going to do a short-term
reliability review, and then they subsequently announced they are going to
extend that review to look at the Muskrat Falls interconnection and beyond.
We support that. That is a
very good thing. Nalcor and the
government would certainly support the PUB and provide any assistance it can.
Given the fact
that we are going to interconnect to the North American continent for the first
time in history, that is a major game changer.
So our government will also be conducting a review.
We are going to look at the management, the operation, and the regulation
of the whole industry that will inform future regulation and legislation as we
go forward after total interconnection.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. Leader of the Third Party.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I ask the
Premier: We are living in the present, not in the future, so why won't
government demand that Nalcor focus on energy conservation and put real programs
in place?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Natural
Resources.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. DALLEY:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
A full part of
our extensive utility review, looking forward to the future and what Muskrat
Falls will bring to this Province, Mr. Speaker, built within that, obviously,
and a lot of discussions around the Province, is around conservation as well.
We always echo the message, the importance of conservation, particularly
around the events of January 2 to January 8, and recent calls again for
conservation. I think it highlights
the importance of conservation with the people of the Province.
There are a
number of programs, Mr. Speaker, that we continue to talk about and work on
within government, but as well from the federal government, as well as my
department, the Climate Change Office, issues around investments in
efficiencies, home repair programs, and so on all support opportunities for
conservation. We will continue to
support that effort throughout government.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Third
Party.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I point out to
the minister that they cut their Residential Energy Efficiency Program in half
from 1,000 to 500 homes.
I ask the
Premier, in his Throne Speech yesterday, vague references were made to
implementing long overdue corporate oversight on the Muskrat Falls Project.
So I ask the
Premier: Doesn't the report of the independent engineer already perform this
function?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER MARSHALL:
Mr. Speaker, the report of the
independent engineer, which was asked for originally by the federal government
and their lenders, will also be made available to Nalcor and to the provincial
government to help us in the oversight process.
It will be certainly an added benefit.
In addition,
Nalcor has their own audit committee, they have their internal auditors, and
they have their external auditors who provide independent audit and independent
financial statements. They have
annual reports and an annual general meeting.
They filed an annual transparency and accountability report.
The CEO updates the Cabinet.
They have their internal lawyers and their external lawyers.
They have their financial advisors.
The Auditor General can go in there any time he wants.
It is a big project, it is owned by the people, (inaudible)
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Mr. Speaker, the Family Violence
Intervention Court was working at full capacity treating forty-four families.
The Department of Health promotes prevention programs but when someone is
sick they still get treatment. The
Minister of Justice said he is focusing on prevention of family violence yet he
has cut one of the most effective treatment programs that protect victims of
family violence.
I ask the
minister: How does this make sense?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I have
acknowledged any number of occasions in this House today, and previous days, the
family violence court was a pilot initiative brought in by our government.
From time to time government has had to make decisions about whether you
continue with pilot initiatives or whether in fact you move on and you focus on
other priorities.
The fact of the
matter is I have never, ever said that I did not see or acknowledge the merit
expressed by people who have gone through that family violence court.
The fact is that twenty-one people only availed of that court service the
last year it fully operated, and only in St. John's.
It was not available to people in the Labrador part of the Province; it
was not available to Central or the West Coast people, Mr. Speaker.
We continue to
offer services through Adult Corrections and through Victims Services, and we
continue to invest in positions like the family violence coordinator with the
RNC and positions (inaudible)
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Mr. Speaker, neither the former nor
the current Minister Responsible for the Status of Women said a peep in defence
of the Family Violence Intervention Court, even though women's groups and
anti-violence groups have begged government to reinstate the court.
Mr. Speaker, I
ask the Minister of Finance: Will she stand up for the women and children,
victims of family violence, and ask the Minister of Justice to reinstate this
court? Put it back in this Budget.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Environment
and Conservation.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MS SHEA:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker,
one initiative that this government has had as a hallmark for many years is our
Violence Prevention Initiative. We
are committed to our Violence Prevention Initiative and we understand that we
need to work with our community stakeholders in order to truly prevent violence
in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Speaker, we
provide funding to our eight regional coordinating committees.
They work with the people in their local communities and they look at
initiatives to help reduce violence in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Speaker,
this government understands that no one initiative will do what it takes to
reduce violence to the levels that it should be at in this Province.
One thing this government has done is it has recognized that we need to
partner with our communities to ensure that all people in this Province live in
a respectful environment.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The time for Question Period has
expired.
The hon. the
Opposition House Leader.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Mr. Speaker, during Question Period
in response to my second question the Minister of Municipal Affairs clearly
referred to a document in answering that question, so I would ask that he table
those documents, please.
MR. SPEAKER:
I would like to address the issue of
tabling of documents for a moment. I
think your operative word was refer.
The minister is obligated to table a document that he reads from, but a minister
is not obligated to table a document that is just referenced and he may have
made some notes of. As I was
witnessing the minister as he was speaking, he did have a piece of paper with
him but he was actually using the notes as a point of reference.
He was not actually referring to the document.
Presenting
Reports by Standing and Select Committees.
Tabling of
Documents.
Notices of
Motion.
Notices of Motion
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice.
MR. KING:
Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, on
behalf of the Striking Committee of the House of Assembly and in accordance with
Standing Order 65 (1), I give notice that I will move that this hon. House
approve changes to the membership of the Public Accounts Committee as follows:
that the Member for Conception Bay East be replaced by the Member for
Fortune Bay Cape La Hune; and that the Member for The Straits White Bay
North be replaced by the Member for St. John's East.
MR. SPEAKER:
Further notices of motion?
The hon. the
Minister of Justice.
MR. KING:
Thank you, once again.
Mr. Speaker, I
give notice that I will ask leave to introduce the following resolution to the
House:
BE IT RESOLVED
by the House of Assembly as follows:
WHEREAS section
7 of the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act
provides that the Sergeant-At-Arms of the House of Assembly is to be appointed
by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council on a nomination of the House of Assembly;
NOW THEREFORE
BE IT RESOLVED that Mr. Wayne L. Harnum be nominated for appointment as the
Sergeant-At-Arms of the House of Assembly.
MR. SPEAKER:
Answers to Questions for which
Notice has been Given.
Petitions.
Petitions
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's
North.
MR. KIRBY:
Thank
you, Mr. Speaker.
To the hon.
House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament
assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and
Labrador humbly sheweth:
WHEREAS
provincial funding and support for an arm's-length advocacy group is needed in
order to promote, protect, and ensure full citizenship rights for
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians with disabilities; and
WHEREAS the
Coalition of Persons with Disabilities has advocated for persons with
disabilities in Newfoundland and Labrador for nearly thirty-five years; and
WHEREAS people
with disabilities across the Province rely on COD-NL to navigate and access
support services, educate the public, and provide outreach; and
WHEREAS
long-term sustainable funding for COD-NL should be a key building block in the
Province's strategy for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities; and
WHEREAS federal
and provincial funding cuts continue to threaten COD-NL's capacity to provide
important advocacy, public education, and outreach activities;
WHEREUPON the
undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly
to urge government to reinstate the funding cut from the Coalition of Persons
with Disabilities-Newfoundland and Labrador in 2013 and provide a long-term
sustainable funding arrangement for COD-NL.
As in duty
bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker,
these petitions have been signed by people across the Province.
I remember shortly after I was elected in 2011, I attended an annual
general meeting of the Coalition of Persons with Disabilities.
I still have the program for that meeting which contained a full-page
greeting from the then Premier at the time.
There was a full-page greeting from the Minister Responsible for the
Status of Persons with Disabilities at the time.
There was a full-page advertisement and greetings from the Member of the
House of Assembly for the District of St. John's West basically lauding COD-NL,
recognizing their important contribution to the Province and the important role
that they play in Newfoundland and Labrador.
A short time
later it was decided by this government to cut funding for COD-NL which more or
less threw them into a crisis situation.
A number of Members of the House of Assembly and community leaders in the
city and from outside the City of St. John's attended a meeting that was held to
try to figure out how they would move forward.
Thankfully, due to the hard work of individuals such as the Deputy Mayor
of St. John's Mr. Ron Ellsworth and others, they managed to find alternate
space. They were effectively kicked
out of their space. They could not
afford to continue to be in that space.
We make
mistakes and governments make mistakes, Mr. Speaker.
In the Throne Speech yesterday there were a lot of admissions of mistakes
made so this was a mistake.
MR. SPEAKER (Verge):
Order, please!
I remind the
member his time for speaking has expired.
MR. KIRBY:
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Signal Hill
Quidi Vidi.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
To the hon.
House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament
assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:
WHEREAS
following the 2009 inquiry into helicopter safety, Commissioner Robert Wells
recommended no night flights take place in the Province's offshore; and
WHEREAS flying
at night increases the risk offshore workers are exposed to; and
WHEREAS the
Tory government has refused to take a strong stance on the issue of night
flights; and
WHEREAS
workers' safety should be a higher priority than corporate profits;
WHEREUPON the
undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly
to urge government to formally notify the C-NLOPB of its position regarding a
ban on night flights, urging them to reject requests from offshore operators for
a return to night flights in the Province's offshore, while encouraging them to
develop a safer alternative for workers.
As in duty
bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
I am pleased to
be able to stand and speak to this petition today, Mr. Speaker yesterday, of
course, being the fifth anniversary of the tragic loss of lives on the Cougar
helicopter in our offshore. Expert
testimony at the 2010 Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry stated that the
survival rate for a nighttime helicopter crash offshore is 30 per cent, as
opposed to 70 per cent in daylight.
We know that the crash that happened five years ago did happen in daylight.
The concern of
workers is what would have happened if that crash had happened at night.
Obviously, Commissioner Wells listened to that testimony very carefully.
We know from the testimony that the chances of anyone having survived
we were lucky enough that we had one survivor.
The chances of even having that one survivor would have been wiped out
most likely if the flight had been at night.
Commissioner
Wells listened to this testimony. He
also investigated. He just did not
listen to one piece of testimony. A
lot of investigation was done into the whole issue of night flights.
He recommended that night flights end.
We know that
right now they are not happening. We
do know that some people within the industry are still looking at it as a
possibility. We also know that some
major unions such as Unifor are saying that they do not support night flights.
Especially as we go further into the deep with regard to exploration, we
have to be more and more concerned about the lives of our workers.
As petitions of
this nature come to me, I will continue to stand in this House and raise the
concern of workers, of their families, people like the families of the dead
workers from the Cougar helicopter five years ago
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
I remind the
member her speaking time has expired.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo La
Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have a
petition to the hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and
Labrador in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned humbly
sheweth:
WHEREAS
residents of the Southwest Coast must travel the Trans-Canada Highway between
Channel-Port aux Basques and Corner Brook for work, medical, educational, and
social reasons; and
WHEREAS Marine
Atlantic ferries dock in Channel-Port aux Basques at various hours on a daily
basis resulting in extremely high volumes of commercial and residential
travellers using this section of the TCH; and
WHEREAS the
world-renowned Wreckhouse area is situate along this section of the TCH; and
WHEREAS the
Government of Newfoundland and Labrador initiated a twenty-four hour snow
clearing pilot project in 2008 that excluded the section of the TCH from
Channel-Port aux Basques to Stephenville;
WHEREUPON the
undersigned, you petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly to
urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to include the section of the
TCH from Channel-Port aux Basques to Stephenville in the twenty-four hour snow
clearing project.
As in duty
bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker,
this is obviously not the first time I have entered this petition.
I have entered it, and entered it, and entered it again.
Unfortunately the Department of Transportation and Works does not seem to
agree with what I am saying. That is
fair ball; they have a position they want to put forward.
The problem I
have is that I have put forward questions, questioning the methodology used by
the department in coming up with this decision, and I am not getting the answers
back that I need. That is the
problem I hear: The methodology, the ways that they are making these decisions,
are flawed.
I have people
from La Poile to Rose Blanche, right on up to Stephenville, who are signing
these petitions and they want to hear government come out and give them a
reasonable answer on this, but they are not.
Again, to quote the minister, this was an old-fashioned winter.
It was one of the worst winters we have had.
More than ever we had the need for twenty-four hour snow clearing that we
should have had.
Again, I am
asking for information. We know this
open government thing is going to take a little while.
Now the latest information I have is that I will get the facts on March
31 again, towards the end of the winter; a good way to push this off in to the
next session. It is a good way to
delay giving us the service that we need and we should have.
Like most things, this government waits until something happens before
they react; reaction rather than proactive.
I will keep
entering these I have a suitcase full here that I will bring in every day.
I will keep putting them forward until the government comes to their
senses.
Thank you, Mr.
Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The hon. the
Member for St. John's Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
To the hon.
House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament
assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland and
Labrador humbly sheweth:
WHEREAS the
Family Violence Intervention Court provided a comprehensive approach to domestic
violence in a court setting that fully understood and dealt with the complex
issues of domestic violence; and
WHEREAS
domestic violence continues to be one of the most serious issues facing our
Province today and the cost of the impact of domestic violence is great both
economically and in human suffering; and
WHEREAS the
Family Violence Intervention Court was welcomed and endorsed by all aspects of
the justice system including the police, the courts, prosecutors, defence
counsel, Child, Youth and Family Services, as well as victims, offenders,
community agencies, and women's groups; and
WHEREAS the
recidivism rate for offenders going through the court was 10 per cent compared
to 40 per cent for those who did not; and
WHEREAS the
budget for the court was only 0.2 per cent of the entire budget of the
Department of Justice;
WHEREUPON the
undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly
to urge government to reinstate the Family Violence Intervention Court.
As in duty
bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker, I
have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of signatures here today.
I still have hundreds of signatures up in my office.
There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of postcards that people
across the Province have sent to both the Premier and the Minister of Justice
asking for the same thing.
Mr. Speaker, we
have not heard one credible reason for cutting the court.
The irony that we hear is that the Minister of Justice has stood up and
talked about how effective the court was, that it was a good program.
He said it fulfilled its mandate, but now he is saying we are going to
take it away from St. John's because nobody else in the Province has it.
Mr. Speaker,
that makes no sense whatsoever. As a
matter of fact, what people in the anti-violence community are saying is expand
it to the Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MS ROGERS:
Expand it and serve all of the
people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
This was a
concrete program. This government
spent a lot of money and did a lot of research to make sure this court was the
best it could possibly be. As matter
of fact, Nova Scotia modelled their court on this court.
So perhaps we can ask the government to go to Nova Scotia and model their
court, to model a new court here in the Province on the one that Nova Scotia
has, because Nova Scotia modelled it on our court.
There is no reason for this explanation at all.
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
I remind the
member her time for speaking has expired.
MS ROGERS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Cartwright
L'Anse at Clair.
MS DEMPSTER:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
To the hon.
House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament
assembled, the petition of the undersigned humbly sheweth:
WHEREAS seniors
have to travel outside of Cartwright L'Anse au Clair to attend appointments
with specialists; and
WHEREAS seniors
are waiting long periods of time to get reimbursed for their expenses through
the medical transportation program; and
WHEREAS the
medical transportation program does not cover all incurred expenses, for
example, ground transportation less than 2,500 kilometres per year;
WHEREUPON the
undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House of Assembly
to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to improve the medical
transportation program so that all expenses are covered and reimbursed in a more
timely manner.
As in duty
bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker, I
stood a number of times last fall to talk about the importance of changes with
the medical transportation program, and what makes no sense to me and many
people, especially in the District of Cartwright L'Anse au Clair that I
represent, is we are asking the minister to look at a program not to give us
more money, but to start spending it smarter.
They will
prepay 50 per cent of an air ticket, yet will not give you anything for driving
for the first 2,500 kilometres. So
what this program is actually doing is asking people to incur more expense by
flying. The other thing is, if you
stay in a registered accommodation you will be reimbursed, but if you stay in
private you get nothing. People who
come in here for treatments of various forms that need the support of being with
family are choosing not to because they cannot get anything to give that family
member.
The Minister of
Transportation said this was an old-fashioned year, and I can tell you, Mr.
Speaker, that our people who are travelling for medical reasons are certainly
incurring an unprecedented amount of money this year.
We have the Bond, as I stand here, once again forty-eight kilometres outside of
Corner Brook, and in case you do not know she is stuck in the ice again and has
lost the support. We have people
going out for medical appointments who are spending eight, ten, and twelve days
waiting on the ferry, along with a host of other problems.
So I ask the minister to sit down and look at this program.
Also, every
time I am in the district people are telling me: I am submitting claims in
January and I am not getting reimbursed until June.
Many of the people using the program cannot afford to wait six months,
especially if they are travelling monthly.
All of the people in rural communities, as you know, are travelling
outside the region for those specialized programs.
I say if we
have the program here, let us make it effective.
It is not good enough just to say we have a medical transportation
program that was brought in by a Liberal government in 1998; we have to make the
enhancements, and many of the improvements can be made without incurring extra
costs. So I would love to see you
sit down and take a look, and I would be happy to have discussion.
Thank you for
the opportunity.
MR. SPEAKER:
Orders of the Day.
Orders of the Day
MR. KING:
This time I call from the Order
Paper, Motion 1, for the hon. Minister of Finance and President of Treasury
Board to move that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on
Supply to consider certain resolutions for the granting of Interim Supply to Her
Majesty. (Bill 2)
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Finance.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MS JOHNSON:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am pleased to
rise today to begin debate in Interim Supply.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MS JOHNSON:
The message first?
Sorry, Mr.
Speaker.
I wish to
inform the House that I have received a message from His Honour the Lieutenant
Governor.
MR. SPEAKER:
All rise.
The letter
states:
As
Administrator of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, I transmit a request
to appropriate sums required for the Public Service of the Province for the year
ending 31 March 2015, by way of Interim Supply, and in accordance with the
provisions of section 54 and 90 of the Constitution Act, 1867, I recommend this
request to the House of Assembly.
Sgd.:
________________________________
Administrator
Justice J. Derek Green
The hon. the
Minister of Finance.
MS JOHNSON:
Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the
Minister of Justice, that the message together with a bill be referred to the
Committee of Supply.
MR. SPEAKER:
The motion is that the message
together with a bill be referred to the Committee of Supply and that I do now
leave the Chair.
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'.
Carried.
On motion, that
the House resolve itself into a Committee of Supply, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.
Committee of the Whole
CHAIR (Littlejohn):
Order, please!
We are
considering Bill 2, an act for granting to Her Majesty Interim Supply.
Resolution
That it is
expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the granting to Her Majesty for
defraying certain expenses of the public service for the financial year ending
March 31, 2015, the sum of $2,829,892,500.
CHAIR:
Shall the resolution carry?
The hon. the
Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.
MS JOHNSON:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, I am
pleased now to rise in this House today to begin debate in Interim Supply.
I will begin by providing a few introductory comments about Interim
Supply and then I would like to go into just giving a highlight to our listeners
about the economy, about how our taxpayers' dollars are spent, and where the
revenues come from.
Mr. Chair, as
we all know the Interim Supply bill is required to be passed by the House of
Assembly during the spring sitting in order to allow for ongoing and routine
operations during the period while Budget 2014 is being introduced, being
debated, and then eventually approved by the Legislature.
When we bring in the Budget we will be seeking approval for funding to
spend for the entire fiscal year, but it takes time to allow for debate and
approval of the Budget.
During the
interim period it is necessary to provide funding to the government to pay its
bills which is the purpose of Interim Supply.
Mr. Chair, we are seeking approval in Interim Supply for a sum of
approximately $2.8 billion. This
will provide departments and public bodies with sufficient cash flow dollars to
manage expenditures from the period of April 1, 2014 to June 30, 2014, which is
the first quarter of the fiscal year.
Interim Supply
is basically intended to provide for the continuation of ongoing government
programs and projects. Included in
the 2014 Interim Supply bill are ongoing housekeeping expenditures including
funding for seven pay periods, and ongoing project and funding requirements
applicable to the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
The legislation
will need to be passed and receive Royal Assent by March 25, 2014 in order to
allow for sufficient time to meet payroll expenses like Income Support, spending
on roads, those types of things, and other expenditures effective April 1, 2014.
That is a
little bit about what Interim Supply is and why we need it by that particular
date, March 25. I would now like to
talk a little bit about our economy and how well the economy is doing and I
would like to begin by talking about pre-Budget consultations, Mr. Chair.
Today, I would like to talk about the priorities our government has set
and how these priorities are what we believe are priorities for the people of
our Province of course, priorities such as health care, education, new
infrastructure, supporting the things that people feel are important.
I would like to
start by talking about the pre-Budget consultations themselves.
As most of you are aware, the Department of Finance engages in pre-Budget
consultations throughout the Province.
This year we had twelve sessions in eleven locations across the Province
and there was an excellent turnout, I have to say.
We made it a little different this year and made it a little more
interactive in that we utilized our polling technology and asked people around
the Province what they thought, how they would do a Budget, and the feedback was
very helpful and feedback that we will use when we are making our Budget 2014
deliberations.
In addition to
the sessions that I attended personally, some of my colleagues also had the
opportunity to hear first-hand from people in their communities about the
priorities that are important to them.
As I said it was really good to hear first-hand about the good work that
organizations are doing.
To participate
in a process like pre-Budget consultations is very important because as our
Premier said on the day that he was sworn in, we want to hear from people.
We want them to tell us when are doing something good and also when we
are not, and we want to hear their ideas on how we can improve things.
Because no matter how good you do something, it can always be done
better.
I would like to
say a thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in pre-Budget
consultations this year, including some of my colleagues on the other side of
the House. We appreciate the input
and we have considered it in putting together the Budget for this year and we
are finalizing that process now.
Some of the
messages I delivered at the pre-Budget consultations I would also like to
deliver here today, because I think it is important to provide these facts as we
get closer to Budget 2014. As we
outlined in last year's Budget and again in the fall financial update, our
Province is facing a deficit for 2014.
This means that difficult decisions will have to be made in order to
effectively manage our spending while maintaining the programs and services that
are most important to people.
As you may
recall last year during Budget 2013, we outlined Year 1 of our 10-Year
Sustainability Plan. The plan sets out specific goals to ensure continued sound
fiscal management over the long-term, including the elimination of deficits and
a return to a surplus budget in three years.
These are the goals that we are working hard to achieve and include a
return to surplus in the 2015-2016 fiscal year.
There are
twelve key focus areas of our 10-Year Sustainability Plan and I would just like
to go down through them to show where government is focusing its efforts.
First, is to
eliminate deficits and return to a surplus budget in 2015-2016 and to maintain a
strong fiscal position as we go forward.
We have committed to a health care operational review; a post-secondary
education review; pension and post-retirement liabilities reform; debt
reduction; public service salaries and benefits; spend analysis-procurement
reform which, of course, is ongoing; priority setting-strategic infrastructure
practices; equity investments, economic diversification and innovation; a
competitive tax environment; sustainable expenditures; and we committed to
consult with municipalities and local government.
Mr. Chair, one
of the most important issues facing our government and facing the people of the
Province is pension and post-retirement liabilities reform, which I will discuss
a little later, either in my seven minutes that remain or later on in the next
couple of days as we debate Interim Supply.
I now would
like to provide an update on our fiscal position and the economy.
Our story of economic growth over the last decade, as was said in the
Throne Speech, is one of which only others can dream.
The growth in our economy has helped the Province build a strong
financial foundation which has contributed to surpluses in the six of the past
ten years and has resulted in our government not having to borrow money for
operational or capital purposes since 2004.
Since 2005-2006, we have generated surpluses of approximately $5.6
billion, Mr. Chair.
Our goal is to
ensure the long-term sustainability of our programs and services.
In order to achieve this we have built new schools, we are investing in
new health care and acute care centres, we are improving the Province's roads,
we have lowered tax rates, we have repaid debt, and we continue to invest to
encourage job creation.
Our priority is
to grow the economy further, to continue to invest in areas that matter most to
the people of the Province, and to make prudent financial decisions to protect
the gains that we have made.
During the fall
financial update we advised the public that the 2013-2014 deficit is expected to
be $113 million less than forecast on Budget Day 2013 and was expected to be
$450.6 million. This is due to
lower-than-anticipated expenses from Budget Day to what was projected at
mid-year. We had a $207 million
decline in spending and that was offset by a projected $94.4 million decline in
revenue, giving us the $113 million difference.
The decline in
total revenue between what was forecasted on Budget Day and up to mid-year is
primarily due to three areas, one being lower offshore royalties.
As you know, Terra Nova was shut down this past year and we projected
this shutdown to be for about twenty-four days.
However, the actual shutdown ended up being seventy-five days, which had
an impact on our royalties.
Corporate income tax was down as a result of decreased oil royalties and there
were decreases in mining tax.
Offsetting
these declines are increases in Canada Social Transfer and Canada Health
Transfer as a result of federal government re-estimates of our population.
As well, higher personal income for prior years is reflected in higher
personal income tax revenue. Of
course, these numbers will be updated as part of Budget 2014.
That was the
revenue side of where the money comes from.
Now I would like to briefly speak about expenses and how we wisely spend
that money.
Spending in the
social sector accounts for approximately 55 per cent of total expenses, with
almost 36 per cent allocated to Health and Community Services and 10 per cent to
Education. Here is some really
interesting information, Mr. Chair, and it really outlines our approach to how
we value education, health care, and other sectors in the social side.
In 2003-2004,
in K-12 education alone the provincial government spent $7,183 per student in
the Province. That amount increased
each year and as of last year, 2013-2014, that spending went from $7,183 to
$12,571 per student in the K-12 system.
Mr. Chair, in
2003-2004, approximately $150 million was invested in infrastructure.
We hear the members opposite today asking about infrastructure and where
we have been putting our money.
Well, let me tell them how we have been spending that money.
The investment of $154 million has increased to $687 million in
2012-2013. That is an increase
very important of 346 per cent in infrastructure since we have come into
power. The Auditor General noted
that government has made significant progress in replacing the Province's aging
infrastructure by investing approximately $3.6 billion since coming in to power
in 2003-2004.
Mr. Chair, in
terms of where our revenues come from, over 28 per cent of revenues comes from
offshore royalties. As we all know
that is very volatile and it is also a non-renewable resource.
In addition, a significant portion of corporate income and personal
income tax revenue can also be attributed to the activity in the offshore.
When we were preparing Budget 2013, we estimated the impact on revenues
for a change in the price of oil and the exchange rate.
While the average price of oil for 2013-2014 is estimated to be about
$108 US per barrel, where we should end up for the average for the year, that is
higher than the average budgeted price of $105 US per barrel, but this has been
offset by lower oil production as mentioned earlier.
Just to give
you some information around the sensitivity of the price of oil and the exchange
rate, every $1 change in the price of a barrel of oil has a $26 million impact
on revenue. Similarly a one-cent
change in the exchange rate impacts revenue by $27 million. You can see how
volatile this is.
The Leader of
the Opposition yesterday in his response to the Speech from the Throne suggested
that because these numbers are volatile we should take them out of the equation
when doing budgeting. Well, Mr.
Chair, I went back and had a look last night and if that is their approach to
budgeting then we are in for some serious areas of concern.
With so much spending in our health care, 55 per cent in our social
sector, I would certainly like to know how the Leader of the Opposition would
budget and what he would ultimately have to cut.
There is no way you can take 28 per cent of our revenues and then budget
on the remaining.
Mr. Chair, net
debt has declined from a high of $11.9 billion in 2004-2005
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible).
MS JOHNSON:
If you are questioning those words,
I have Hansard here. We can
certainly highlight what he had said in terms of how he would budget.
Net debt has
declined from a high of $11.9 billion in 2004-2005 to $7.8 billion in 2011-2012,
a decline of 35 per cent. Net debt
as of March 31, 2014 is projected to be $9.1 billion and this is $396 million
lower than the 2013 estimates. The
Auditor General has noted that this is a significant issue.
With twenty-two
seconds left, Mr. Chair, I will leave it there, just to say that government is
committed to reducing our net debt per capita to the all-province average within
ten years. Our 10-Year
Sustainability Plan is something that we announced last year.
We are committed to getting back to surpluses.
I will leave it to other members to have their say on Interim Supply.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl South.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. LANE:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, it
is a pleasure to stand here in this hon. House and say a few words.
I can assure everybody that I have a lot to say.
I will take every opportunity I can to speak on behalf of the people of
my district.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. LANE:
First of all, Mr. Chair, I want to
take the opportunity just to welcome everybody back on all sides of the House.
I am sure we are going to have a lot of opportunity as I said to debate
the issues. I certainly look forward
to it.
Mr. Chair,
before I get into some of the comments I did want to make around Interim Supply,
I did want to just raise the issue it was raised yesterday.
Of course, yesterday was the anniversary of the Cougar 491 crash.
There was a memorial service yesterday evening.
There were a number of members from this side of the House, from the
Third Party, and there were a number of government members present as well.
It was a very touching service to say the least.
Mr. Chair, when
you think about what happened there, when you look at the families who were
there still in mourning at that event yesterday evening, I think it says to all
of us that offshore safety is something we all need to strive for.
It certainly needs to transcend any partisan politics.
I believe that as members of this hon. House we all have to work together
to ensure that we can improve the offshore safety for the people of Newfoundland
and Labrador.
We know there
are a number of issues surrounding offshore safety.
We know there were four recommendations made by the Transportation Safety
Board, of which only two were implemented.
We know we have a need. I
think all parties have agreed there is a need for an independent safety
regulator. We all, I think, also
agree that we need to see improvements to search and rescue.
It is incumbent
upon all of us. If there was ever an
issue where all parties should come together in this hon. House to lobby the
federal government, to utilize our MPs, to utilize our Senators, and to utilize
everybody involved in the offshore, it is certainly this issue.
I encourage all members to do that.
Mr. Chair, as
we know, since the last sitting of the House of Assembly some things have
changed and I have moved over into a new role.
My role, which I will be pursuing in this sitting of the House, will be
as the Critic for Service Newfoundland and Labrador.
I certainly plan on conducting myself in a professional manner; that
being said, there will be questions that have to be asked.
There will be petitions presented, there will be commentary made, and I
will be holding the Minister of Service NL's feet to the fire when it comes to
issues as it relates to that particular department.
I certainly look forward to doing just that.
Mr. Chair, the
other point I want to make is that certainly in my role in the Official
Opposition I have a responsibility and a job to do over here, the same as I had
a job to do on the other side and other members do.
They are bringing forward government's position; we have to bring forward
the opposing side. We have to
question things that government is doing.
That being
said, as I have heard my colleague the Member for Burgeo La Poile say on a
number of occasions, and the Member for Bay of Islands, when government does
good things it is also important we acknowledge that.
I certainly intend to acknowledge when government does good things, not
simply criticizing for the sake of criticizing.
Mr. Chair, the
first thing I just want to acknowledge the government for is to say that, at
least as a first step, they are talking about doing a review of Bill 29.
I am glad they are doing that.
It is certainly an issue I raised when I was on the other side.
Unfortunately, there was no action taken at that particular time.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
CHAIR:
Order, please!
MR. LANE:
Anyway, Mr. Chair, that is something
I did and I actually have the e-mails to prove it.
I will table that at another time.
As I said, I am very glad to see that is going to happen and it is
certainly one of the key reasons I am over on this side of the House now, but I
am glad they are doing it.
Now, I think a
lot of people would say, Mr. Chair, that
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. LANE:
Yes, we are hearing all the heckling
over here now.
Let me say
this, Mr. Chair, before I go any further.
My intention here, as I said, is to operate in a respectful manner, but I
am also going to say that I am not going to be bullied.
We talk about our children standing up to bullies and I am not going to
be bullied by anybody across this side of the House, not a soul.
It is not going to happen. If
there are going to be attempts to bully me, then I will be calling out the
members who are doing the bullying and I will let the people know.
Anyway, Mr.
Chair, as I said, I think that Bill 29, as has been said on this side, perhaps
should be simply repealed and then start from scratch, but if the route they are
going to take is to do a review it is better than nothing.
I am glad to see they are going to and I applaud them for it.
I applaud them for doing it.
Mr. Chair,
another thing I want to acknowledge is the whistle-blower legislation.
Again, I think this is a good move.
Now, it may have taken a number of years for it to happen, but at least
they are doing it now. I will
certainly support that as well and I am glad to see they are doing that.
Mr. Chair,
in terms of Mount Pearl and I would say to the Member for Cape St. Francis who
is over there now and he is going to start his little rant and his little bit of
bullying, well, he will have an opportunity to speak and I encourage him to do
it.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
CHAIR:
Order, please!
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
CHAIR:
Order, please!
The hon. the
Member for Mount Pearl South.
MR. LANE:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As I said, Mr.
Chair, when investments are made certainly in my district in Mount Pearl I will
recognize that as well. When I see
investments in roads and infrastructure, when I see investments in recreation,
when our seniors' group receive some grants, and our sports groups, I will
acknowledge that and I think it is all a good thing.
I certainly support that and Mount Pearl certainly deserves its fair
share for sure.
Mr. Chair, that
all being said in terms of acknowledging the good things, I think it is also
important to note that as an Opposition we have issues we have to bring forward.
Everything is not rosy.
Everything is not perfect. That is
certainly true. There will be a
number of issues that I intend on raising in this sitting of the House of
Assembly.
We have issues
around, for example, the school reorganization in the City of Mount Pearl, which
was very necessary. There is no
doubt about it. It is necessary and
it has been a number of years where it was supposed to happen and did not
happen, and it was two or three years of delays for whatever reason.
It is finally happening and that is a good thing.
That being said
there are a lot of parents in the City of Mount Pearl, particularly parents in
St. Peter's Elementary and Newtown Elementary, who have serious concerns about
what is being proposed. There are
certainly parents, teachers, and so on in Mount Pearl Senior High and Mount
Pearl Intermediate who have serious concerns about the position that is being
brought forth by the board. That is
something I am going to be watching.
It is something I am going to be speaking to and participating in.
I have been and I will continue to do so.
Mr. Chair,
supportive employment is another issue.
I was very pleased to see, by the way I have been working on an issue
with Visions Employment in Mount Pearl for the last two or two-and-a-half years.
We have had meetings. We have
brought proposals forward to the minister.
I have talked to the minister about it where they have a number of
people, a number of clients, who want to work.
These are people who have disabilities.
They have employers who are willing to take them, but there was no
government funding.
I am very
pleased, and I am going to acknowledge again that it was interesting.
There was a meeting this week between Visions.
They wanted to meet with the minister and the MHAs for the area, which I
was one, to try to bring this to a head because they have so many people waiting
and no funding. I was very pleased
to find out that in advance of the Budget, they were promised an additional
$150,000. I think it is just a great
example of when you have MHAs such as myself and such as the Member for Mount
Pearl North, credit to him. We
worked together and we got some funding.
I am glad that I was able to be a part of that and that $150,000, for
sure.
That being
said, though, that will cover twelve clients.
They have a waiting list of thirty-five clients.
So that means there are still twenty-three people who want to go to work
who cannot go to work. That is with
Visions. I am not sure what the
story is with Avalon. I know that
Vera Perlin had similar concerns and issues with their supportive employment
program. I hope there is money there
for them as well.
Mr. Chair, as I
said, there is a whole host of issues.
Certainly, the proposed waste transfer site in the Whitbourne area is an
issue, and there are a number of people in the Peak Pond area who never received
the proper consultation, certainly in their view, and were not even notified of
the environmental assessment that was taking place, who are very concerned.
A number of those people are actually constituents of mine in the
District of Mount Pearl South. I
have been working on their behalf and certainly hoping that they are going to
have that public consultation, have their input, so they can get their concerns
brought forward.
Mr. Chair,
there are a number of occupational health and safety issues.
Certainly, as part of my role, Service NL, there are a number of issues
around occupational health and safety.
There are a number of issues which will be coming forth as a result of
the workers' compensation review, and we all know if you ask the recipients of
that program and if you ask the employers and so on, I think there are concerns
on all sides around workers' compensation.
I am going to have a lot of questions around that review and what they
plan on implementing when changes will be made.
Certainly,
another one, Mr. Chair, that I would have concerns about, I would want to raise
issues about would be the lack of enforcement in blue zones.
That was certainly a piece of legislation which was passed two years ago
now, and two years later, as you drive around the city, you will see that there
are all kinds of non-compliance issues.
Not only around the city in terms of commercial establishments, but
around other areas of the Province.
I noted it when I was in Clarenville and I noted it in Whitbourne, in CBS and so
on, and even government-owned facilities are not even in compliance with its own
blue zone legislation. I certainly
will be having a lot of say about that.
I also have
concerns and questions, Mr. Chair, as it relates to the reliability of our
current electrical system. We all
know about DarkNL and I believe I heard in the Throne Speech what was called
disruptions which were particularly significant.
Some people might call it a crisis or not a crisis.
Anyway, Mr. Chair, I think we all have concerns about what went on there,
about the reliability, and we are certainly going to be waiting to see what
comes back when that report is done on that.
We are all looking forward to that one for sure.
I know I had a number of people who I spoke to, people in my district,
friends and family members from around the Province who, for them, it was
definitely a significant event; it was definitely a crisis for a lot of them.
We have issues
around moose-vehicle collisions, Mr. Chair, that we need to talk about here in
this House of Assembly. We have the
need for bicycle helmet legislation; that is another issue that we want to bring
forward.
Another one
that comes to mind, Mr. Chair, we have significant concerns around the
administration of the Public Tender Act.
That is something that falls again under my critic area; it falls under
the Department of Service NL. There
are a number of issues around that Public Tender Act and around all of the
exemptions that are being given to people to avoid following that act.
We have concerns about that.
There are
issues around automobile insurance, and there are issues around the availability
of affordable housing. I see I am
starting to run down here, Mr. Chair.
There are a whole host of issues which need to be brought forward, and I
certainly intend on doing it. Let me
just finish off by saying although I am sitting over here now instead of over
there, it is really not where you sit; it is where you stand.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
The hon. the Minister of Education.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. JACKMAN:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The member
ended off by talking about it is not where you sit; it is where you stand.
It has been interesting. It
is good to get back into the House of Assembly again.
I have to say it always surprises me when you leave here at the end of a
session, you do not know how things are going to change when you come back into
the House. This time the House, the
structure of the House and where people are sitting has changed drastically.
Mr. Chair, that
is democracy. It is a great thing
that we do have democracy, that people can make their decisions.
When the election rolls around then it is the voter who will speak.
Then we will see if people have made the right decisions or not.
It is an honour
for me to get up and speak here today as Minister of Education.
I was listening to the Minister of Finance who talked to our allocation
that we have given per student and how that has increased over the past number
of years. I was interested yesterday
in hearing the speeches from the Members for Port de Grave and for Port au Port.
In both of their addresses they spoke to students, they spoke about
students and how important the future of the Province is.
Students are the ones who are going to lead the Province.
They are the ones who are going to establish the direction of the
Province in the future. Our
investment in education is very, very important.
I would just
like to take us through where we are.
I am the minister for kindergarten to Grade 12 and also the minister
responsible for the education component from zero up to the time that students
enter kindergarten. A few years back
we launched a program that is called Learning from the Start.
The reason we did this and if people listen to some of my answers to some
of the questions in Question Period last year and through addresses such as
this, they heard me speak about the importance of investing early.
Anybody in the
research field in developmental research, in early brain development research,
will tell you that intervention at these very early years is critical.
Anyone who has been around a young child, all they have to do is take a
look at how much a child advances from the time they are born until they are
about three years old. They pick up
language. Children will learn more
words in their first three to four to five years of life than they will at any
other period in their entire life.
Our investment
and support for young children in that early age is critical. As such, we rolled
out a campaign. We had the Power of
Play campaign that emphasized the importance of play.
I think at earlier years, I am talking twenty years ago, people just saw
play as something that children did.
They just went outdoors, they played around, that was it, and nothing more than
that to it, without the true understanding of the learning that was actually
taking place in those encounters.
It is probably
more important now than ever because now, with the advance of technology, we
have children who are not engaging in play in the way that they used to and the
lessons are not being learned there that would have; therefore, we have to go
and we have to encourage parents to put their children in situations where they
can play.
We had Play and
Learn Week (inaudible) resources and one of the things that we developed, that
we have gotten good responses on, is around the early learning kits.
We developed these kits with suggested activities for parents around
reading and engaging their children and we have put them out there for children
who are of two, four, and six months of age.
As they go into the clinic for their health checks, these kits are passed
out to them.
The twelve- and
eighteen-month-old kits are now being piloted and the kits for months twenty-six
and thirty-six are being developed.
This early learning intervention, at the end of the third year, will amount we
put in I think it is $4.3 million or $4.5 million over the course.
We look to see now if we can continue that.
It is being received rather positively.
Mr. Chair, I am
looking at the clock. I get ten
minutes to speak and I am down to four minutes and thirty-six seconds so I
better skitter. I can stand up here
for an hour and speak to all of the initiatives that we have done and the
investments that we put in education.
I just want to
highlight some of the investments, in particular in infrastructure.
I will challenge anyone to go and look to see what government has
invested more in educational infrastructure in terms of schools and upgrades to
schools than this government has. If
people could go back into Hansard, I was speaking last year about the
forty-some-odd projects that we have underway.
Well, Mr.
Chair, in preparation for this I can now add to that.
We have fifty-six major infrastructure projects happening in our schools.
We have thirteen new schools that have been built.
We have eight more new schools under construction.
We have twenty-six major extensions and renovation projects underway.
We have nine additional extension, renovation, and rebuild projects that
are underway or in planning. There
are fifty-six major school infrastructure pieces happening in the Province.
Mr. Chair, I
have to say this; I have been in this portfolio now for over two years.
One of the things I am committed to doing, and I have done, is to travel
to the schools. Go to the schools
and see the infrastructure that we have in place.
I am willing to bet we can put it up against anywhere in the world.
That infrastructure is housing students and teachers who are committed to
the education of this Province.
I have said
this before; the student of today is far more advanced than the student I
believe I was. The reason is they
are more global, they are more knowledgeable, they understand the world more,
and they understand compassion for their fellow student.
Go and speak to them. I have
gone across this Province from Labrador to the schools in St. John's and across
the Island and I have spoken to many student councils just to get their input
into it.
I think
oftentimes we, as politicians and the adult community, will make decisions and
we sometimes include the students, but not to the extent that they should be.
Go and sit down with these student leaders and listen to their
perspective. I have to tell you it
has been an enlightening experience, but more importantly, as Minister of
Education, it has been a rewarding experience.
As I have said from the outset, the future of our Province is in our
students, and I feel assured that our Province is in good hands.
It takes that
commitment and it does take dollars, there is no doubt about it.
You will hear over the next number of weeks in this sitting members
across the way will get up and challenge us on what investments have been made
and what others should be made in education.
There will be things we will continue to invest in, but I would ask
anybody in this House and I would ask anybody in this Province to take a look at
our track record and our investment in education.
I will say that it is second to none that we have ever had in this
Province. I say that with all
genuineness and I put aside all the politics of it.
Our investment in education has been second to none.
Mr. Chair, I
know my time has ended but I certainly hope that I have the opportunity to get
up and speak on education initiatives again.
Thank you very
much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
The hon. the Member for St. John's North.
MR. KIRBY:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is a
privilege for me to be back in my seat again in the House of Assembly to speak
on behalf of my constituents in St. John's North.
It was great to have a break to be able to spend more time with the
families. I know people who are in
from out of town from rural districts and districts from around Newfoundland and
Labrador who make great sacrifices to come and sit in the House of Assembly and
be away from their families for extended periods of time to do your jobs here.
I guess you pays your money and you takes your chances, as the saying
goes.
Yesterday as I
was listening to the Throne Speech, I was reminded of when I was growing up.
My parents were small-business people and they had a convenience store.
They had a number of other enterprises, but they had a convenience store.
There were always a lot of deliveries at the convenience store.
There were always a lot of wholesalers showing up.
I always remember when I was a child, that sound of the trucks backing
up, beep, beep, beep.
Yesterday when
I was listening to the Throne Speech I was taken back to my childhood days
working at my parent's store. As the
Throne Speech was being read all I could hear was beep, beep, beep, the sound of
government backing up, whether backing up on Bill 29, backing up on oversight on
Muskrat Falls, backing up on whistle-blower legislation, or backing up on the
adult literacy strategy, and on and on and on.
Beep, beep, beep, the sound of government backing up.
That was one of the things that I wanted to mention.
In all
seriousness, however, Mr. Chair, yesterday the Throne Speech said, By sharing
more fairly the benefits of our newfound prosperity, we can continue to achieve
a more equitable balance of opportunities for our people, whatever their
particular needs. It also went on
to say, We will continue advancing the Strategy for the Inclusion of Persons
with Disabilities.
As I mentioned
during petitions today, it was not very long ago that this government yanked
funding, cut funding, for the Coalition of Persons with Disabilities in this
Province and basically pushed that organization really to the edge.
We are really lucky that they are still around and able to do the job
they are doing for persons with disabilities in this Province, despite what this
government decided to do last year when it cut a lot of funding including
funding for the Coalition of Persons with Disabilities.
The hon.
Minister of Education just spoke for a while about investments in education.
Again in the Throne Speech yesterday it talked about it was sort of lip
service really, Mr. Chair the government will continue to make investments in
the province's K-12 schools
. That
is a relatively meaningless statement.
There is no detail, no meat on the bones there.
Maybe we will hear a little bit more about that.
I know when the
Minister of Finance was up, she was talking about how per capita or per-student
expenditures have increased in education.
Of course, that is not very difficult when enrolment has declined by
something like 17,000 students or so since 2004.
Of course, the amount per student is increasing because that is
increasing, if by nothing else, by attrition.
You cannot just throw infrastructure investments in on top of all of
that.
Now speaking of
infrastructure, the minister is talking about building new schools.
Well, one thing that this government has really capitalized on, has
cornered the market on to in some extent, is building schools too small.
Ask my colleague, the Member for Carbonear Harbour Grace, where they
built a new school and the next day they had to roll in with the modulars, with
the portables, and put them in the parking lot so they would have enough room
for all the students.
Go out to
Torbay, I say to the Member for Cape St. Francis, the same thing there.
Out in Paradise they are wondering when they are going to start building
the new school. Portugal Cove St.
Phillips, the same thing: when is this government going to come to life and get
to work on all of that?
Yes, there have
been investments in education because that is one of the primary roles of
government: to ensure that educational programs and services are provided; to
ensure that our children have the same, if not better opportunities, than we had
when we went to school. I think that
is really important.
The minister is
talking about investments in education.
Well, more or less year after year, to some degree, we have seen teacher
cuts, last year we saw teacher cuts, resource cuts, and kindergarten to Grade 12
system cuts. That is what we have
seen. Government assumes that it can
maintain the status quo and that children will not suffer the consequences of
that. That is not the case.
Government
introduced an inclusion strategy a number of years ago, an unfunded inclusion
strategy, expects teachers and administrators and other school staff to do more
with less and that cannot be done; that is unreasonable.
Also last year,
government decided to consolidate the four English language school boards into
one and increase the administrative burden on principals, on assistant
principals, on teachers, on administrators, on all staff at our schools; and, of
course, that increases the burden and the pressure on parents and their kids
unacceptable.
It was
interesting to hear yesterday this newfound attachment to openness.
As I was listening to the sound of the government backing up, beep, beep,
beep, and listening to this newfound attachment to openness, I could not help
but think about the way those decisions were made last year to amalgamate those
four schools boards into one or, in other words, to cut three school boards
altogether.
I was reminded
of an article that I read in The
Gander Beacon last summer, and the
Minister of Education, and his colleague, the Member for Gander district, made a
trip out there and met with a number of groups.
They had a meeting with the local Chamber of commerce, I understand.
This article called that lip service.
The past President of the Chamber of Commerce called it a meeting with
not a lot of substance; that is what was said.
I will read the
quote; this is very interesting.
This is what the past President of the Chamber of Commerce said about the member
for the area and the minister when they went out: They never gave us any details
of a plan on how this would develop.
In other words, how the Nova Central School District would more or less be
demolished and amalgamated into the English School District.
He said: That is the biggest issue everybody has with the process.
They never gave them any details.
They could not show any type of document.
In fact, they could not even answer if there was a document.
They could not prove there was a document.
There was no documentation provided to provide a rationale for the
collapse of all these school districts into one.
A lot has been
said about that and other things that were done by this government last year in
terms of education funding. There
was one person who was a parent of a child at Swift Current Academy and said
that she basically was worried about the future of small schools, of rural
schools, across Newfoundland and Labrador with one large board headquartered
here in the City of St. John's.
As I have said
time and time again, the issues in downtown St. John's, or in my district in St.
John's North, the issues in St. Andrew's Elementary, in Larkhall Academy, at
Leary's Brook Junior High, at Prince of Wales Collegiate, at Beachy Cove
Elementary, are very different than the issues outside the overpass, across the
vast expanse of Newfoundland and Labrador.
There is a lot
that we could talk about in terms of the cuts that were made to teachers, cuts
to specialist teachers in intermediate schools, cuts to needs-based teaching
units, cuts to school administrators.
School administrators came out very clearly and said with all of the
mergers, all the amalgamations, all that extra work that is just heaped on and
heaped on and heaped on the backs of administrators when you put administrators
in and then you take them out, the whole system suffers.
The President
of the NLTA said: Regressive education cuts will only have negative effects on
students. That is some of what has
gone on in the last year and I will have plenty more to say, but I really
appreciate this opportunity to speak.
Thank you very
much, Mr. Chair.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
The hon. the Minister of Education.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. JACKMAN:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I do not
usually get up two times in a row, but I could not avoid it after this one.
Mr. Chair, I have said I have never gotten nasty at this, I do not
believe in it, but I am going to make a little lighthearted one.
I came into the House yesterday, and we talk about people backing up I
was almost tempted to say to a couple of the new Liberals: I wonder what
happened to their bright orange ties.
I saw their bright blue ties around Christmas at one of our events and
now they are bright red. Somebody
said to me: Do you remember when these mood rings were on the go?
I wonder if they have mood ties; that is what I think they must have
mood ties; that is what it is.
Anyway, Mr.
Chair, I want to refute some of what the Member for St. John's North had to say.
First, he needs to get some of his facts right.
He said there has been a decrease of 17,000 students.
Actually, it is not; it is 14,200.
I just do not get his logic; he says by attrition the dollars go down.
Mr. Chair, you think that if it was by attrition, you would lower your
dollar as the population goes down.
The reality is that despite a 17.5 per cent decline, we have increased the
budget by 42 per cent. That is
phenomenal.
Mr. Chair, our
per pupil investment I will just get the Member for St. John's North to listen
carefully has gone from $7,400 to $12,500.
We are getting up close on doubling it.
Mr. Chair, he
spoke about some of the schools that he referenced.
I do not know if he has been outside the St. John's area.
He goes down to the Burin Peninsula every now and then, I know that.
I do not think he has actually been in many of the schools in the rural
parts of our Province; I really, really do not.
I follow him on Twitter. It
seems like he tweets a fair bit from some of the schools that are in his
immediate area.
Mr. Chair, as
minister, I pride myself on going from schools in Labrador, up to the Northern
parts of our Province, and right to the Southern parts of our Province.
I can tell you that the investments we are making in education are making
a huge difference in the education of our students and the day-to-day lives of
students and teachers. I can tell
you that.
I have to go
and find a few notes to relay to him about the board consolidation.
I have to tell you one thing, Mr. Chair, I do not know if his phone is
any different from mine, but I am not getting a host of calls that says our
decision in reorganizing the school board was a wrong decision.
We are saying that at the end of the day we are looking at saving about
$12 million. If it comes in at that
number, a bit higher or a bit lower, I think it was the right way to go.
Our population,
as I have said, since the last reorganization has dropped by 14,200 students,
17.5 per cent. You are looking
towards getting up on a 20 per cent reduction in students, and you never assess
whether it is the right way to go to reorganize?
Well, we took a look at it, Mr. Chair, and we decided that it was indeed
time to take a look at it.
Five million
dollars of that savings, Mr. Chair, is from the reduction of what I will call
the upper executive, the senior executive positions and the finance positions
from the collapse of the previous boards to one English board.
That is what that dollar figure is realized at.
We have to ask
ourselves; with some 67,000 students we had sixty trustees.
If you look at other jurisdictions, the representation that we had in
this Province was offside with what a lot of others had.
It was time for us to take a look at it.
We said that we would not change the impact on front-line services.
I said this so
many times in the House last session; we did not change the class cap sizes.
We still have the best student-teacher ratio of all the provinces in
Canada. Our average class size now
is eighteen students to one teacher, the best student-teacher ratio in all of
the provinces in Canada. We made no
changes to the special education model.
We had no changes to the way that we provide direct services to students
with special needs. As much as the
member and as often as the member gets up and says that, and I repeat that it is
not, he continues to do so. As I
have said, we have not changed the class caps for Kindergarten to Grade 9.
Mr. Chair, if
you look at our investment in education, I will say as I get up and I said it
before, there is no government who has given the commitment to education that
this government has. I am going to
speak a little more about our investment in infrastructure because I want to let
the Member for St. John's North know that our investment in infrastructure is
not only in the St. John's area.
This is one I have to speak to; he mentioned that our schools are not being
built big enough. He obviously has
not done much research into what is important in education.
I would ask the
Member for St. John's North to listen attentively just for one minute so that I
can point this fact out to him. One
of the most important things in education is that the teacher and the entire
school be able to connect with the students.
Once you get over a certain number, then you can lose that personal
connection.
Mr. Chair, we
have decided that the school for K-6 should be in that 600 student range.
We could have built a school that could have taken students in Paradise.
Let me ask him: Does he want us to build an elementary school that houses
1,500 students? You can do it.
It would be cheaper than building two separate buildings, but educational
research will tell you that is not the way to go.
That contact in those early ages with that 500 to 600 student population
is what is important.
Mr. Chair, he
obviously may know about the university system because he taught there, but I
can tell you that a lot of his comments indicate to me that he does not know
quite as much about what happens in the K-12 system, what happens
MR. KIRBY:
A point of order.
CHAIR:
A point of order.
The hon. the
Member for St. John's North.
MR. KIRBY:
I just want to point out to the
minister, children are going to schools in the parking lots in modulars because
the school is not big enough.
CHAIR:
There is no point of order.
The hon. the
Minister of Education.
MR. JACKMAN:
Mr. Chair, no point of order, but a
good point. I would ask him he
apparently is driven by one of these modulars.
I bet you his vision of a temporary classroom I bet you he walked
through those old plywood buildings they used to have at Memorial where you
could walk up the corridor and you could feel the plywood bending under your
feet and it was going thump, thump.
You were not sure if you were going to go down through it or if you were going
to make it down the other end of the corridor.
These modular
classrooms we are putting in today are state of the art.
As a matter of fact, when we get some teachers in some of them they
almost prefer to stay there as to have to move out of that into one of the
regular classrooms. These classrooms
are not second class, Mr. Chair.
Again I say I am not quite certain if the Member for St. John's North
understands the K-12 system or the zero to three and the zero to six learning as
much as he does at the university level.
I know I only
have a few seconds left. I will clue
up with this again: there is no government in the history of this Province that
have invested in the K-12 system and the early years from zero until they enter
school as this government has. I
will stand on that. I have said it
time and time again and I will continue to say it.
As minister for the Province I truly, truly believe it.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
The hon. the Member for St. John's East.
MR. MURPHY:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
MR. JACKMAN:
Now we are going to hear from
somebody who knows something about education.
MR. MURPHY:
Absolutely.
Mr. Chair, I
would like to thank the constituents of St. John's East as well for allowing me
to stand in my place and speak on their behalf.
At the same time it is a pleasure to be back in the House again and be
working hand in hand with my cohorts from the other districts around the
Province. I hope they had a good
rest but it is time to get down to hard work.
I think that this next session of the House is going to be a very heady
session of the House, heated at some particular times.
No doubt the Province hopefully will come out in the better for it.
Mr. Chair, in
hearing the Speech from the Throne yesterday and in going over the Speech from
the Throne yesterday, there were a couple of things that were really quite
evident in what government's program for the next year is going to be
presenting. To me, it was cloudy
with a chance of hope.
I was reminded
of that, actually, when I was sitting down watching the
Rick Mercer Report this week, when Rick Mercer said the line: cloudy
with a chance of hope. What the
whole skit entailed was Rick Mercer looking at the weather forecast and, again,
accusing or pointing the finger at Environment Canada when Environment Canada
was saying that next week, seven days down the road it was going to be a chance
of plus one degree. Believe you and
me, Mr. Chair, it is awfully nice to see the temperature rise that one degree
after seeing the cold winter that we have had.
We have had a
very cold last couple of months when it comes to governance in this Province
over the last little while. That is
what I mean when I am talking about cloudy with a chance of hope, because again,
to me, what the Speech from the Throne is actually representing is kicking that
can down the road again. They are
telling us that down the road again there is a chance of hope.
Well, Mr.
Chair, we have gone on long enough in hearing that.
Particularly as I have been a Member of the House of Assembly since
October 2011 that is what I have been hearing: kicking the can down the road.
One of the most prime examples that I have heard happens to be with
municipal funding. That is where I
will start right now when it comes to municipal funding.
What we have heard from the Speech from the Throne and from the
announcements from the various ministers over the last little while is kicking
the can down the road, when they are talking about a municipal funding formula.
Nearest as I
can research it and nearest as what my researchers can find, we have heard it
from government for approximately the past thirty-odd years, kicking the can
down the road in the pursuit of a municipal funding formula.
I have gone back as far as the 1980s for it. It was Churence Rogers, I
think just last week, and I think that he referred to it from governments way
back when he said that they have not been updated or applied since the
mid-1980s, for example, when it came to Municipal Operating Grants.
There is a
problem here when it comes to funding.
Do you know what, Mr. Chair?
It is the taxpayer who is getting caught in the middle here.
It is the taxpayer who has to end up paying the piper at the end.
That is what the residents of St. John's East are telling me.
At the same
time, we want to hear government.
Government comes out and they keep saying, for example just to give the Chair
an example of what I am talking about, we keep talking about wanting to keep
seniors in their own homes. How many
times have we heard that? It is both
a health care thing in keeping people home for as long as possible so that we do
not have to deal with them in the health care system.
Government at the same time has failed in its initiative to find that
successful Municipal Operating Grant formula or the municipal funding formulas
at the same time.
It has hit my
district pretty hard and it is probably going to hit my district pretty hard
again in the future. When it comes
to, for example, just the suggestion then the alarm bells start going on the
part of government, when I hear the City of St. John's say, when I hear the
representatives of my city saying that we want to hear government start to pay
for its buildings, its services that the city is supplying to provincial
government buildings.
Let's look at
St. John's East. Let's look at what
happened in the last provincial budget, Mr. Chair.
What we saw was a lot of municipalities being hit when government ordered
the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation, for example, to pull all of
its grants. That worked out to be
about $10,000 I think it was per store.
I think the City of St. John's alone, when that was pulled from the
Budget as a cost-saving measure about $190,000 I think it was.
The City of Mount Pearl lost a lot.
Corner Brook I think lost $80,000 in funding, and that funding was not
replaced. That is one example.
When it comes
to government buildings in my own district, the new Registry of Deeds down there
at 55 Elizabeth Avenue, government moved in down there.
It does not pay any taxes.
Before, where Child Youth and Family Services are now, right there on the corner
of Elizabeth Avenue and Portugal Cove Road, it used to be owned by Johnson
Insurance. Now Johnson Insurance is
a good corporate citizen, but they were paying municipal taxes to the City of
St. John's that building was, the property taxes.
A couple of different levels of taxes actually.
You go around
the corner to the corner of Argyle and Portugal Cove Road.
It was owned by Johnson Insurance, another building owned by Johnson that
was paying corporate taxes to government, yes, but paying municipal taxes for
the properties that it owned. It is
now owned by government and Transportation and Works down there at the corner of
Argyle and Portugal Cove Road.
Those taxes are
not being paid by government to the city in lost fees and services.
This is where I am talking about where the taxpayers are now at risk.
If we have these government buildings that are not paying taxes for
services that they are receiving yes, guaranteed they do pass over some money
back to the city when it comes to Municipal Operating Grants but they are not
paying taxes on these particular facilities.
What we find is
the taxpayer is going to end up being squeezed if the city is going to have a
shortfall in revenue. That is where
the problem lies and that is what I have heard from my own constituents.
That is why government should be addressing a full proof way of funding
for municipalities. Again, the
taxpayer is caught in the middle.
The old
Municipal Operating Grant system was based on population.
Yes, the City of St. John's is growing as probably the City of Mount
Pearl and other municipalities also have the initiative to show growth.
There was some population loss of course in the 1990s and 2000s, so that
was a little bit unsteady. The
amounts have been so different over the years when it comes to funding for
Municipal Operating Grants. They
have been a little bit erratic when it comes to that, so government needs to
find something that is steady, and working with the various municipalities, in
particular Municipalities NL, Newfoundland and Labrador, and help work towards
that system.
Since I have
been elected we have heard this a multitude of times.
I heard it in October 2011 during the general election.
I heard it in March 2012 when it came to the provincial Budget.
I heard it again in March-April of 2013 when it came to the provincial
Budget, and I am going to hear it again in the next Budget.
What do I read in the Throne Speech?
Kick the can down the road because the Municipal Operating Grant and
municipal funding is not going to be ready until the 2015-2016 Budget.
We have to wait.
Mr. Chair, I
will come back and I will talk to that again at a future time.
Just a quick word on what else I did not see in Throne Speech and a very
quick word at that because I see my time is running out.
I did not see a single reference in there to environment and
conservation, which disturbed me. I
know that while government wants to be progressive in its development of
business, I did not see anything that came to the most alarming environmental
concerns that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador tell me about, and that I
get e-mails about all the time.
Particularly, I
did not hear anything about the WERAC Committee that was so important the last
time that they actually met with the Minister of Environment and Conservation.
It was some time back when the former Member for St. John's South used to
be Environment Minister. That was
back in 2006. It has been a long
time. It is time to appoint a new
board so that we can look after our environment in the Province.
The other thing
that I did not hear in the Throne Speech was about the whole issue of fracking
and where we are going to be going with it in the Province when it comes to
that. Not a word out of the
government in the Throne Speech as to where it stands on its own internal
review, what they have been finding, when they are going to be opening up this
review to outside consultations and indeed to more scientific studies with
regard to what is going to be happening in fracking.
Mr. Chair, I
will leave it at that. I will pass
the floor over to somebody else. My
time is up. It will be a pleasure to
stand again and stand in my place to speak on behalf of my constituents.
Thank you very
much.
CHAIR:
The hon. the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. O'BRIEN:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I stand in my
place today with pride, to be honest with you.
I am going to talk a little bit about, number one, my department but
particularly who work in my department, and especially how proud I am in regard
to the services that they deliver to the people of the Province.
In three-quarters of my department it is mostly the vulnerable people of
our society who we service, Mr. Chair.
I just have to
reference as well before I get into exactly what I want to talk about, I hear
sometimes in this House that we do not do things, or the impression is left that
we are not trying to do things and we have not had any kind of an impact in
regard to the most vulnerable people in our Province which includes our seniors,
Mr. Chair. My staff at Advanced
Education and Skills, the various divisions of Advanced Education and Skills
work tirelessly every day, long hours, to address the needs of the people of the
Province when they are in need.
The Member for
St. John's East referenced today in regard to a member's statement the seniors
who were affected by a fire at Maplewood Apartments.
AN HON. MEMBER:
St. John's South.
MR. O'BRIEN:
St. John's South; I am sorry.
I got the call over in Corner Brook and the Premier had a call from the
member yes, he did. When the
Premier gave me a shout and when I had a call back to the member, my staff were
well into the plan in regard to addressing the needs of those seniors.
They were way ahead of the curve.
As soon as the
fire happened, we go into action. We
wait, we make contact, and we let the first responders do what they have to do.
Then my staff goes to work in regard to addressing the needs.
In this case here senior citizens were out of their homes; they had
nowhere to go. Very few of them had
family members who could take care of them.
We took them and we took care of them.
They went into various hotels across the city and we serviced them.
As a matter of
fact there were relationships built between those senior citizens and my staff.
At times I have heard that my staff actually embraced them, to comfort
them. I thank my staff for that; I
absolutely do. It makes me proud to
be a Member of the House of Assembly, makes me proud to be the MHA for Gander,
but also makes me proud to be the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills.
As a matter of
fact, there was an issue over in Corner Brook as well, and we responded
instantly in regard to the displacement of several people in a boarding-type
house who had to be displaced and we took care of them, without question.
So, it concerns
me at times when the questions come and the impression is left that government,
the people, the public servants, do not respond to the needs of the people,
especially our most vulnerable because we do.
Can we eradicate poverty in one swoop?
Absolutely not. Why did we
invest across all government departments $149 million, just about, annually in
various things that help the most vulnerable of our Province?
It is because we care about the most vulnerable of our Province.
We introduced
the Poverty Reduction Strategy back in 2006, and now I can safely say that
according to the stats that are accumulated on the national side, we have
removed 36,000 people, approximately, from poverty.
They no longer live in poverty in this Province, according to the methods
that they use to measure those facts.
Have we still
got people who need help?
Absolutely, we do. I wish at times
that we are not governed by a dollar, that we can do anything and everything
that might come into our minds to help those people, but that is just not
reality as well. So we have to make
some decisions in regard to how we help those people, when we help those people,
and how far we can go.
Again, the
staff of Advanced Education and Skills but not only that, let us move off the
most vulnerable people and the services we provide.
Not that long ago, only a few weeks ago, Cliffs Natural Resources made a
decision for various reasons, economic reasons, financial reasons, to idle the
mind up in Wabush.
The Premier and
the Minister of Natural Resources went into Wabush right away to see and comfort
the people. I got a call from the
Premier and said: Listen, what is happening?
What can you do? Again, my
action plan went into place and myself and two other ministers, along with the
MHA and the Minister of Transportation and Works, were in there within a week.
I am happy to
report that actually the first training session for those displaced workers was
started this week. We are on the
ground continually there addressing the issues, trying to solve the issues for
those particular displaced workers.
Trying to make sure that we transition them into other jobs, skill them up for
other jobs, whatever we can do, and keep them in that region.
It is really important that we keep the people in their various regions
for various reasons.
If we were to
lose that skilled workforce out of Lab West, well then we will have issues
getting that workforce back again.
My staff went way beyond that forty hours a week to address the needs of those
particular people, both in Lab West Maplewood apartments and over in Corner
Brook, and I thank them for that here today.
As well, I was
listening carefully yesterday in regard to post-secondary education.
We have done more than any government in the past with regard to
supporting our students, students at MUN, students at the Marine Institute,
students at CNA college, with tuition freezes and various other things with
regard to moving loans to grants and so on and so forth.
Another item
that people forget about with regard to our students here and I am not saying
that we cannot do more and we will not do more, but I just want to outline a
couple of things. We have the lowest
rate for residents in Canada.
Somewhere we are 60-odd per cent lower than what a student will pay in, say,
Nova Scotia, Dalhousie, or in the University of Ontario or the University of
Ottawa or out in Alberta. We are
actually 60-odd per cent and I know of one I cannot quote it exactly, what
that university is, but we are below everybody else.
That is a huge
cost to students, huge cost in regard to their accommodations and where they are
going to stay and we have built a new residence down at Memorial that are
being occupied right now. It is not
just the tuition freezes that we have had in place since we took government, but
it is those kinds of things that we have done.
As the Premier referenced today, we opened up the new residence over in
Grenfell last week, a beautiful facility.
These are the kinds of things we have done over the last several years
and we will continue to do so, but we do it in a fiscally responsible manner.
You just cannot
get up in the House of Assembly or go into the Cabinet room in regard to the
Budget process and decide we are just going to do it all.
You cannot just do it all; that is not reality.
It is absolutely not reality.
That is not the way it works and I think the hon. members across the House know
that, as well. They have to ask
their questions, but I just wanted to clarify a number of things.
We are working
right now, and we are pretty close to it, in regard to our Population Growth
Strategy. We did our consultations
across the Province in October and that strategy is just about ready, within the
next weeks or so. It is very
important to this Province in regard to our aging population.
That is something that I will get up in my place in the House at a later
date. I am running out of time here
and I want to have a little chat about that with regard to the Population Growth
Strategy and the immigration strategy we have in our Province.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
The hon. the Member for the Bay of Islands.
MR. JOYCE:
Just on a point of order, Mr. Chair.
To the minister
and his staff, I do recognize the staff in Corner Brook and the hard work they
did with the residents in Humber Road when they helped move them.
So we do recognize the staff in the department and the hard work they do.
CHAIR:
There is no point of order.
The hon. the
Member for St. John's North.
MR. KIRBY:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just wanted
to get up and respond to some of the things that the Minister of Education had
to say when he was on his feet. He
is quite right; it is 14,000 and 17 per cent.
I believe I had the numbers reversed.
As I said, we
all make mistakes and as the government admitted yesterday, it has made many
mistakes. That is why we heard the
sound of beep, beep, beep, backing up throughout the Throne Speech, Mr. Chair.
There is a whole book full of mistakes in fact, I say a whole book full
of mistakes that was read from yesterday.
The minister
said he has been out to schools all over the Province, and I envy him because
that is a great opportunity he has to go out and see on the ground the impact of
the lack of resources and the lack of supports we have for our teachers, our
educators, our students, administrators, and school staff.
It is a great opportunity to go see the direct impact of the cuts made
last year and other problems in our schools.
Hopefully, he will act on the things that he sees.
He said he was
up to the Northern Peninsula. I do
not know if he went to St. Lunaire-Griquet because they recently closed the
school up there, Bayview Collegiate.
I am not sure if he dropped by that school but it is no longer open and now
those kids are all being bused, and really against the wishes of a good number
of parents, to St. Anthony in inclement weather in the winter.
They do not have balmy tropical weather on the tip of the Great Northern
Peninsula. It can be quite difficult
driving conditions and quite a long commute to school for kids.
He was talking
about these modulars and how they are state-of-the-art modulars.
Well, in the Goulds, Paradise, and Mount Pearl system they are now trying
to deal with government's lack of planning for population growth and demographic
changes here on the Northeast Avalon.
They are grappling with that in the city now and in the periphery.
In Goulds, in Paradise, and in Mount Pearl they are reconfiguring a lot
of the schools out there as a result of that.
It is creating no end of problems.
We have
elementary school kids now who are going to be going to junior highs.
We have junior high students who are going to be put in senior high class
schools. There is not a whole lot of
communication about the impacts that is going to have on the curriculum where
you are taking children who are in the junior high school system, a non-credit
based system, and putting them in a credit-based environment.
There are a lot of challenges associated with that.
There are a lot
of challenges associated with having schools that are K-3, Grades 4-6, Grades
7-9, and Levels I-III. It is hard to
build a school community when every other year you are going to a different
school. It is hard to keep siblings
together. Moms and dads like it when
their kids are close in age for them to be able to go to school together.
They like to be able to drop them off at the same school in the morning,
especially when you have two working parents.
It makes things a lot less difficult.
In terms of
those modulars, the parents at St. Peter's Elementary would like to have one of
those state-of-the-art modular gymnasiums, Mr. Chair, because they need one at
St. Peter's. They would like to have
a state-of-the-art modular resource room.
They need one because they are losing it at St. Peter's Elementary.
They would like to have a state-of-the-art modular music room because
they need one at St. Peter's Elementary.
We talk about
the size of schools and not being big enough.
In some schools, the minister has to admit, kids are jammed in there.
They are eating their lunch at their desks; they are doing phys. ed. in
the cafeteria. All is not well.
There are a lot of problems and a lot of them are associated with space
and failure to plan for demographic changes over time.
Then in other
communities we have schools that are closed.
It would be nice for the minister to be so generous as to table an
inventory; a list of all of those idling closed schools across Newfoundland and
Labrador in rural communities, because there are lots of them.
The lights are on, the heat is on, the power is hooked up in the middle
of the winter, and somebody is paying for that.
Somebody is paying for that when the light is on because sometimes the
energy warehouse is empty. We all
experienced that this winter.
There are all
sorts of problems. The pipes
freeze-up, then the power is out, and then they put it all back on.
Who takes care of all of that?
There are communities in rural Newfoundland and Labrador who would like
to be able to access these buildings.
Some of them would actually like to buy them.
If the
Newfoundland and Labrador English School District is not planning on using these
for educational purposes, then God knows we can use them for community purposes,
for economic development rather than have them there, like I said, all year
long, lights on and heat on.
Businesses in those communities wanting to get space, communities wanting
recreation space, and here are idling schools up the road using up power and
electricity at a cost to the taxpayer and no one knows when they are going to be
available for use.
Back to what I
was saying earlier about the lack of consultation and openness with respect to
the shutdown of those three school districts, when the Member for Gander
district, the Minister of Education, went out to Gander there last summer and
they had this meeting that was referred to as not having a lot of substance with
the area Chamber of Commerce, they were talking about the decision to
consolidate these school districts.
I know the minister has said he is not getting a lot of complaints, but people
ought to question because certainly we were promised that this was being done
for the sake of student achievement.
I would like to see the evidence that has changed in the last number of months
since we have consolidated to this school district.
He made all sorts of promises otherwise and we have not seen a whole lot
of evidence to that effect.
The person who
was interviewed for this story said, From my perspective, this whole decision
lays with the Minister (of Education)
there's been no background, there's been
no research... he (Minister Jackman) did say there was research done with
Halifax Regional Municipality and Durnham Regional Municipality (in Ontario).
He said: I cannot understand why they would look at a municipal setting
and not a rural setting like Manitoba, like Saskatchewan, or something like
that.
He went on to
talk about the impact then, the economic impact, of the school district
consolidation, somewhere in the order of forty-odd layoffs.
Of course, in communities, that has a significant impact.
There is a ripple effect through the economy.
From the
Chamber of Commerce perspective, in the Gander and Area Chamber of Commerce,
they said: We think the economic impact is going to be huge, about $2.3 million
in terms salary losses. Of course,
we have not seen any savings of money, so that is really just shifted somewhere
else. I mean, that is really a
consolidation of another kind: the consolidation of government services,
government operation, closer to the minister's office here in St. John's.
The other thing
he said: The government is not seeing the whole picture of this going down the
road. What is going to be the
long-term impact of that? That is
just from an economic perspective; that is not from an educational perspective.
Then, on top of
that, you have to consider last year the cuts in the budget, cuts to specialist
teachers in intermediate schools. As
of September last year, there was only one specialist teacher for every 150
students, instead of one for every 125. Those
are important jobs. Those are
teachers who teach music, teachers who teach fine arts, teachers who teach
physical education.
There was a
news story that was the top of the news there just recently, last week I know
the Minister of Health and Community Services knows what I am talking about
obesity, an epidemic almost in this Province.
These are serious, serious issues and here we are cutting back specialist
teachers in the area of physical education.
Again, we have kids in schools doing gym class in the cafeteria.
Of course, cafeterias, even if they are in these state-of-the-art modular
classrooms that they have to back up and put into the parking lots a couple of
days after they build a new school like they did in my colleague, the Member for
Carbonear Harbour Grace's district, even if they are in those state-of-the-art
modulars cafeterias were not made for gym.
While the kids
are doing gym in the cafeteria, the other kids that are supposed to be having
their lunch in the cafeteria are eating it at their desks and it causes serious
problems with respect to cleanliness and hygiene and so on in schools.
CHAIR (Verge):
Order, please!
I remind the
member that his time for speaking has expired.
MR. KIRBY:
There is a whole lot to this and I
will have a lot more to say later.
Thank you.
CHAIR: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. MCGRATH:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It certainly is
a pleasure to stand here in the House today and talk to Interim Supply.
It is good to be back in the House so we can do some debating.
I want to talk a little bit about my district, Wabush, what has happened
in the last recent months. There has
been quite a bit of changes in Wabush there.
I certainly have to compliment government, not because I am a member of
the government, but on the fast reaction that we had when government found out
on a Tuesday afternoon that Wabush Mines was going into an idling mode.
That meant that approximately 400 people were automatically out of work.
What
Cleveland-Cliffs did rather than give a twelve-week notice, which is in
legislation they had to give a twelve-week notice to the employees that they
were going into an idling mode Cleveland decided to give all of the employee
twelve weeks pay in lieu of notice.
You went to work that evening and as a matter of fact that evening at 4:00
o'clock if you were not at work and you were scheduled to go to work, you were
told stay home for the rest of the week and then we will let you know what is
happening.
The word
devastation was used quite a bit. I
used it myself when it came to the employees of Wabush Mines.
It was devastating to watch in a community that was very vibrant, all of
a sudden there is no smoke coming out of those stacks.
When government found out at 4:00 o'clock that afternoon, the Premier
called me and he said: What do we need to do?
I said: Premier, I would like to have you in on the ground.
Myself and Minister Dalley, the Minister of Natural Resources, were going
in anyway. Immediately the Premier
said: Let's make the arrangements.
The quick reaction that government had did not go unnoticed in my district.
Myself, the
Minister of Natural Resources, and the Premier were there the next day.
We met with the union representatives, we met with both municipalities,
and we met with the company. The
Premier listened to the people, he listened to the municipalities, and he
listened to company. He came out and
he reassured everybody that within a week there would be a full team in on the
ground.
The Minister of
Advanced Education and Skills was put in charge of that team.
I have to thank the minister for his promptness.
Within six days there were four ministers and a full team of senior
officials who went in and immediately set up a program to start what is
happening on a daily basis now. As
you heard the Minister of Advanced Education and Skills allude to earlier when
he spoke that there are extra programs.
There are all kinds of programs started now to assist the people on
bridging through this gap that we are going through there.
I have to
compliment government on how fast they have reacted.
I would also like to take this opportunity to compliment the unions.
The union president of local 6285, I have a very good relationship with
him, with his executive. I talk to
him almost on a daily basis, we work very closely together, and he is doing a
phenomenal job just keeping things calm in the community.
He is getting answers for the people.
People are getting into programs.
He is out job researching.
There are job fairs happening in the community now, not just for the displaced
workers with Wabush Mines or Cleveland-Cliffs but for all of the displaced
workers, because you have 400 employees at Wabush Mines that would be displaced,
but that affects about 1,100 people who would be affected in jobs.
I am really
pleased with the work that the union is doing, and the union and government
working together. Also, there is a
new young mayor in Wabush, and that mayor has certainly dug his feet in.
He is doing a very good job keeping his municipality at a very calm,
steady pace that things are happening, and working again closely with government
and working with the unions.
So, out of all
of the negativity that we have seen, we are also seeing some silver linings; we
are seeing some positive things.
Things that I have wanted in my district for a long time, through different
programs now, especially through the Advanced Education and Skills, that we are
trying to expedite different programs in the community in the College of the
North Atlantic, there are new programs.
Getting the blocks done normally, there is a space between doing one
block and then you have to have so many hours to go into the next block.
So, Advanced
Education and Skills, through the college, is really working with the displaced
employees to try to get them into their Red Seal programs, and it is working
well. We have the other companies
within the municipality the Iron Ore Company of Canada, for example, has had a
job fair there; Nalcor is having a job fair this coming week in the community.
Of course, the announcement of the third transmission line, the timing of
that was very good.
I have to
comment that a lot of people, the naysayers, I will say, were saying that the
reason the third transmission line was announced when it was, was to try and
sort of blanket the issue that was happening with Wabush Mines.
There is nothing further from the truth.
This government was negotiating to make sure that we did not end up with
a deal like we had in 1969 with the Upper Churchill.
We wanted to make sure that corporate tax dollars stayed within the
Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and that is exactly what we achieved.
I remember sitting with the Premier when we finally got the go-ahead that
the deal was done, sitting down in a room in Wabush at 10:30 that night.
That is when we got the word that we could move on that.
I was really
pleased that happened. That will
also create more jobs in the district.
In Labrador as a whole, this government for the last ten years and I
have only got about three minutes left so I certainly cannot get into depth.
In every portfolio in this government there have been investments in
Labrador.
One of the
things that we have done was the Northern Strategic Plan which was put together
in 2007. At the time it was put
together it had 145 commitments and it allocated $250 million.
To date, we have over 244 commitments in that Northern Strategic Plan and
we have invested over $870 million.
I think that is a great investment into the Labrador region.
Recently, I was
at the Combined Councils of Labrador on the South Coast of Labrador.
It reminds me of the medical attention that is being put into Labrador.
I guess I had the displeasure - not the pleasure - of having to spend my
Saturday at the clinic there. I have
to say when you are on the South Coast of Labrador sometimes you hear we do
not have this, we do not have that, and the medical is missing this and it is
missing that. I will tell you when I
went to the clinic in Forteau I received very professional and very good
service.
The Member for
Cartwright L'Anse au Clair can certainly pass that on to the medical staff
there. They are a very professional
staff and they have what they need.
It is a beautiful clinic in the area there.
Those are the investments that this government have made.
That is one example. I had to
spend my Saturday there and I was shocked.
One of the things I had to have done was a chest X-ray.
I had the results of the chest X-ray within ten minutes.
When you hear
that of these remote areas and they do not have the medical services, I can
guarantee you the service I received was second to none.
I was very pleased. More
pleased I did not have to spend the night in a hospital, which was the original
thing that they told me. The service
that I received and the technology today allowed them to get the job done so I
did not have to be admitted into the hospital there.
I think one of
the other big things because I only have a minute left and I want to touch on
it. I know I will get other
opportunities to stand up and talk about some of the things.
It is really exciting. For
many years now the Trans-Labrador Highway is being built, it is one of the
largest pieces of road infrastructure that this government has taken on.
It is over 1,100 kilometres of not resurfacing a road or not fixing a
road, it is actually building 1,100 kilometres of highway.
This summer -
there is sixty kilometres left from Labrador West and Happy Valley Goose Bay.
I spoke with the Member for Lake Melville last night and I said to him, I
would love for the both of us, with both of our districts coming together with
that pavement, that both of us are going to be there that day to make sure that
we are there when that last inch of pavement is laid.
That is a milestone.
I am running
out of time. I will get an
opportunity to stand up again. I do
not mind patting this government on the back because I know we are doing very
good things and we will continue to with that.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
Order, please!
The hon. the
Member for St. John's Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I am very happy
to stand and to speak today. I am
very happy that the House is open and that we all have this opportunity to be
together as people who have been elected by the people of Newfoundland and
Labrador to speak on their behalf, to be their voices.
I know that many of us have done a lot of work in our districts in
between when the House was last open and yesterday.
Mr. Chair, I
have had the privilege of listening, really listening, listening with the
intention of hearing, listening to people in my district, listening to community
groups in my district, community groups that are doing incredible work sometimes
under the most difficult of circumstances because of the load of work that they
have to do, the minimum funding that they have but doing incredible work, being
experts in their areas. I assume
that people will say oh my God, here she goes again, she is going to talk about
the Family Violence Intervention Court.
You know it is what I have to do.
I feel that I have a moral obligation to stand today and to speak about
the Family Violence Intervention Court because it is such an important court and
it did such important work.
The wonderful
thing about the Family Violence Intervention Court is that this current
government under the leadership of the current Premier was actually the
Minister of Justice when the Family Violence intervention Court was instated.
Before the court was actually put on line there was a lot of money, a lot
of energy, and a lot of work undertaken to ensure that this was best practice.
There was a lot of research that was done.
The court was built on a foundation of expertise.
It was not something that was whipped up out of nothing.
There were a lot of community groups, women's groups and experts in the
area who were not only consulted they were actually involved in the design of
the court. The court was a jewel in
our crown in terms of the justice services that were provided by this
government. It worked; it did what
it was supposed to do. Even our
current Minister of Justice has said that the court did what it was supposed to
do. He had no problem with that.
I do not think
anybody has given us a good explanation as to why the court was cut except the
Minister of Justice did say it only served St. John's.
I do not think that is a reason to cut the court.
The court was doing well; there was an internal review that was
undertaken that showed the court was doing well.
There were some areas where some improvement could be made, which is
great, that is what reviews are for.
I have asked a number of times for the Minister of Justice to release that
review and he says no, that it is Cabinet secrecy, Cabinet confidentiality.
That also makes no sense to me at all.
This is a public program that was paid for by public money, serving the
public. This is not about Cabinet
confidentiality, this report; the internal review of the court should be
released.
One of the
things about the court is it was a pilot project for a year, and then it was
renewed and renewed and renewed, and there were recommendations from Women's
Policy. There were recommendations
from the Department of Justice that the court be actually a permanent project
and that the funding was coming from justice, it was no longer a pilot project.
The unique
characteristic of the court was that an offender similar to drug courts which
we see all across the country, in order for an offender to be able to take part
in the Family Violence Intervention Court the offender had to plead guilty, had
to take responsibility for his or her, but in most cases it was his, actions.
He had to be able to stand up in a courtroom and say yes, this is what I
did, I take full responsibility and I am willing to change, and by willing to
change means that he would go to therapy and rehabilitation programs.
It was an ideal situation.
Particularly there were a lot of young families who used this court.
The reason they used this court is because they wanted to be able to stay
together.
It is not just
any offender who could go to this court, there was a risk assessor.
The risk assessor would meet with the family, meet with the spouse, the
partner who was the victim separately, and would meet with the offender and
assess whether or not this person would be an ideal candidate for the
rehabilitation and treatment programs and to ensure that the woman and the
children would be safe. The goal was
to be able to keep the family together, if that is what they all wanted, and to
assess whether or not that was a possibility, whether they were ideal candidates
for the courts.
The other
research showed that any intervention in domestic violence is most effective
when it happens as close as possible to the time of offence.
What we see in the regular court system is that it is often up to a year
before an offender goes to court.
Then if the offender is mandated to treatment, that does not happen until a year
after the offence has taken place.
We all know that does not make sense.
Who can really remember exactly what they did a year ago?
What happens then is that a lot of victims want to drop charges.
It was an ideal
situation and it really worked. In
order for it to work the police had to refer victims to this court, so it took a
long time for the police to trust this new court.
Also, because the offenders had to plead guilty, it took a long time for
defence lawyers. What defence lawyer
on the face of the earth wants their clients to plead guilty?
Nobody wants their clients to plead guilty so it took a while for defence
lawyers to buy in. It took a while
for the police to buy in; it took a while for defence lawyers to buy in.
Also, it took a while for offenders to buy in.
As well, we
know that women and children have not really had an easy ride in the justice
system. We know that they have not
been treated really well in the justice system.
It took a while for victims as well to believe, to trust this court that
they would be protected. We know
that family violence often is very cyclical.
It took a while for everybody to buy in but, Mr. Chair, buy in they did.
Finally,
defence lawyers were trusting the court, victims were trusting the court, police
were trusting the court, and we saw an increase in the number of referrals to
the Family Violence Intervention Court.
Now is not the time to stop it.
As a matter of fact it is quite the opposite, now is the time to
encourage it, to support it and to expand it so that families of Newfoundland
and Labrador could avail of the services of this court.
This court was
about healing; it was about true justice, it was about rehabilitation, which is
what we want from our justice system.
We do not want to lock up people, we want people to rehabilitate.
That is what this court did.
The stats
proved it. The recidivism rate for
offenders was 10 per cent. Only 10
per cent of offenders reoffended.
That is significant. That is
incredibly significant. There has
never been any hope before about violent offenders in domestic violence really
rehabilitating, so it was working.
The interesting thing about this program is that it was collaborative.
A few months
ago a participant in Youth Parliament presented a private member's resolution to
restore the Family Violence Intervention Court.
Do you know what happened?
Within twenty minutes every single participant in the Youth Parliament voted to
reinstate the Family Violence Intervention Court.
Perhaps it is the youth who are going to lead us in the future.
Perhaps it is the youth who understand this better.
Mr. Chair, I
challenge every single member across the floor to have the courage to stand up
and support the reinstatement of this court.
This court is about saving, it is about protecting the women and children
in your district. In each and every
one of their districts, Mr. Chair, there are victims of family violence because
we know we have among the highest rate in the country.
We have among the highest rate of family violence in the country.
I challenge my
colleagues across the floor to have the courage and the commitment to stand up
for this court, to ask their government to reinstate the Family Violence
Intervention Court. At times it is
about saving money and it could be very well about saving lives as well.
I am not being overly dramatic here, Mr. Chair, we know, everybody on the
other side knows that it is the right thing to do.
It is no longer a political issue.
This is not a political issue.
This is about doing the right thing.
I invite you all to do the right thing.
CHAIR:
Order, please!
MS ROGERS:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation and the
Minister Responsible for Innovation, Business and Rural Development.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. FRENCH:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Like I have
said in this House many times, I used to display a big calculator here one time
that I still have over in the office.
I am soon going to have to bring it back because every time I see the
Third Party up speaking all I can think about is money and the amount of money
that they would spend. They never
talk about the fiscal side, some of the fiscal realities you have to face.
It is very easy
to be everything to everybody, Mr. Chair, but there will come a time when you
have pay the bottom line. There is
only so long you can buy the groceries on your Visa before it backs up and
stops. That is something the Third
Party always forgets about. That is
why every now and then in jest and for fun I break out this big calculator, but
there is a serious point to that. We
only have to look at what happened in Ontario a number of years ago.
The NDP was in charge of things and they just about bankrupt Ontario, one
of the most well-to-do places in the country.
I can give you
example; I remember in the last election there was an issue, and the NDP were
gaining a little bit of momentum.
They were throwing around jugglers, going around handing out oranges and cans of
orange drink, and it was Orange Crush.
It was love, hope, and I believe faith was their other word.
They were doing
very well and they were starting to bleep on the polling.
All of a sudden somebody in Lab West, where my friend and colleague is
elected today that was a fairly close race at one point in the early going.
Someone said, where are the NDP getting all the money?
Lab West is a union town. There are a lot of hard working people in Lab
West.
All of sudden
someone said, where are they getting all the money?
Someone said, let's read the NDP's book, their orange book, or whatever
they want to call it the love, hope, and faith book.
They read the book, and somewhere in the fine print, right down in the
back was we are going to increase taxes.
That is how we are going pay for everything; we are going to increase
taxes. The people of Lab West are
hardworking, they are earning good money.
They started to think about that for a minute.
It is alright
to promise the moon, but somebody has to pay for it.
That is what happens with the NDP.
When you read the fine print in their policy and their dreams, then you
quickly find out that they do it on the backs of every person in this Province
by increasing taxes. That is how
they pay for the promises that they make, they have no other choice.
They can be everything to everybody, as long as you take money from
people. That is their policy and
that is their platform.
Mr. Chair, I
wanted to talk about a couple of things, a couple of events actually that I have
been to in the last few weeks, and some of the good things that are happening in
this Province that I am proud to say our government played a significant role
in, as well as members on this side of the House played a significant role in.
It is good things happening in this Province that sometimes we probably
do not talk about enough.
The first area
I would like to talk about is sports.
We just saw the 2014 Newfoundland and Labrador Winter Games in
Clarenville. I have to say, it is
the twentieth anniversary. Twenty
years ago they hosted the winter games, and twenty years before that it was
Carbonear Harbour Grace which did a great job as well.
The twentieth anniversary for CBS will be 2016.
Three of those games were announced together.
Just let me
say, Mr. Chair, if I could, that I have been to several games, and I have been
to the ones in my own community. I
am telling you, Clarenville has raised the bar to a new level.
For anybody now to host the games, the people of Clarenville have really
shown the rest of the Province how it should be done.
There were
1,400 athletes, coaches, and about 500 volunteers.
They had a host committee that was phenomenal.
I went out there and I spent a couple of days out there, presented some
medals, and watched some sports.
Being a sports fan, of course, that was not too hard a task.
I walked around and you run into different people within the sporting
community. Everybody to an
individual came up and told me how well the games were going.
I remember one
of the people came up to me in particular and talked about the food.
Now, Mr. Chair, these people who are working in these kitchens and
catering to 800 people a day, with all due respect, when you are serving 800
people, anybody who has cooked anything, if you made Kraft Dinner, you know that
if you have to make it for 800 there is a good chance the people at the end of
the line are not going to get it as good as the people at the front of the line.
The reality of it is they praised up the food.
I said to the organizers after, when people are coming up complimenting
the food at this kind of an event, then obviously it was a well-run event and it
was very well orchestrated.
Government
helped the group. I think it was
about $500,000 that this government injected into the games.
It is one of the areas as a government we have continued to grow and
grow. When we first formed
government, Mr. Chair, the budget of the sports department or the recreation
department in this Province was $1.3 million.
Today that stands at $7.7 million, a significant increase in the sports
community and one of the things that we have tried to protect because we realize
how important it is for us to have our kids involved in sport.
I have read
articles on this. The people who
have been involved in sport and recreation, many of them, men and women, have
gone on to achieve much greater things in life.
They become good citizens, they learn value, and they learn how to win
and lose to lose and win. It is
not always an easy thing to handle sometimes, someone who has been on both sides
of the coin. It does make you a
stronger individual. The people who
you meet and the leadership that follows with that certainly help our young
people.
Then we have
just from a health and wellness piece.
I know myself and the Minister of Health here, the Member for Grand
Falls-Windsor Buchans, both our departments have actually partnered on the
seniors' recreation grants, which we have just seen released now: $400,000 to
seniors' groups all across this Province.
It is great to see. It is a
significant investment in seniors' recreation throughout the Province.
Mr. Chair, I
think it is about $600,000 we have invested recently throughout the year that
goes to small communities. Some of
the larger communities obviously have recreation directors and so on, but some
of the smaller ones struggle with that.
Places or communities that have under 8,000 people can also qualify for a
recreation grant. Then we have of
course our recreation capital grants, which are broken out through all regions
of the Province, are shared throughout the Province, and pay great dividends.
I have seen the letters. I
have received the letters of people who have used them towards playgrounds, ball
fields, fences, hockey nets, and the list goes on and on.
I have to say I
am delighted with the games in Clarenville.
They have certainly set the bar for us in Conception Bay South in 2016.
I have every reason to believe that we can compete and we will do our
best to do just as good a job as they did in Clarenville.
I take my hat off to them, and especially the host committee because
having my family being involved in previous games I know the amount of hours
that this takes for individuals, taking away from their families and their
regular lives to create an atmosphere for our kids to enjoy a sporting event.
Again, I take my hat off to it.
As a
government, I am certainly proud we could play a role.
I think we gave them about $200,000 for the operations of the games.
We gave them another $150,000 for the transportation for the games and
then there were other things that were all sent.
I have to also,
Mr. Chair, mention the Speaker of the House.
He is not allowed to be political and certainly he is not political here
in this venue or outside this venue, but I want to tell you the games in
Clarenville would not have happened without him.
The reason I say that is because I was minister of sport before they
became announced and obviously I wanted them in Conception Bay South.
The Member for Carbonear Harbour Grace at the time wanted the games, I
wanted the games in Conception Bay South, and everybody wanted the games, so we
had to make some tough decisions.
The Member for Trinity North was certainly advocating strongly, to put it
mildly, for his group.
As well, then
he went on to look after the venues.
He went to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the Member for Gander at the time
actually, and the Member for Gander made it happen for him and helped him along
with some of the venues. Of course,
then he went to recreation as well and we did our thing for him.
He has been an advocate for his area, for Trinity North, and I want to
take my hat off to him. As I said to
him throughout, you could not beat the smile off his face because it was such a
great thing for community.
We think about
it from a sporting event, but obviously from a community event it certainly
brings your community together like nothing else.
As well, I certainly want to take my hat off to the mayor and council who
also played a significant role and used some of their money to help sport.
Sport is one of these things, Mr. Chair, that if you are not dedicated to
it, it is very easy to knock it off the ledger when you are trying to balance
the books. To lead a balanced
lifestyle you have to have a bit of everything obviously, and sometimes sport
and rec takes the back seat in a lot of communities in this Province because it
is an easy thing to say no to. I am
delighted to see that Clarenville is certainly not one of these places.
Our government
does not believe in that either.
Like I said, we have taken it from a $1.3 million budget to a $7.7 million
budget and I am certainly proud of that.
I want to thank
you for the time to speak about sport here today.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
CHAIR:
Order, please!
I recognize the
hon. the Member for Cartwright L'Anse au Clair.
MS DEMPSTER:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is nice to
be back in the House for my second sitting.
We are hearing lots today. My
colleague was mentioning the Speech from the Throne.
I felt like walking in today with two big Labrador flags and saying here
we are, we are a Big Land, and we are half of the Province.
As I was
listening yesterday to the Speech from the Throne I heard reference to Labrador
twice, a couple of times regarding Muskrat Falls.
Every day when I am back in my district people remind me of all of the
things that we are not getting from Muskrat Falls.
The other thing I heard in the Speech from the Throne was about the third
line going to Labrador West and how that is going to help sustain the pulp and
paper mill in Corner Brook.
Labrador is a
beautiful part of this Province. We
certainly contribute, we feel, more than our fair share through projects like
IOC, Voisey's Bay, and soon we are going to have the power flowing from Muskrat
Falls. The thing is, Mr. Chair, we
have never asked. Sometimes people
say you are always whining about this and that, and they make you feel like you
need a little bit of cheese to go with your whine.
In actuality, we have been trying to catch up and trying to catch up.
There is no comparison. Yes,
it costs more to do business in Labrador, but sometimes to have true equity you
have to have the unequal treatment of equals.
The year
started, and it was a tough one for us so far.
While most of the people on the Island were dealing with DarkNL, we
started with big ferry woes. Yes,
the minister said it is an old-time year; we have lots of ice and we know the
ice is four feet thick. However,
there are a lot of things that can be done to improve that situation.
I know
sometimes in social media people will jump on and say Labrador is talking about
the poor ferry service again, but here is what happened.
We moved off a little island because we could not get good ferry service.
We could not get all of the services that we needed where we were in a
rural remote area.
Mr. Chair, the
thing is this ferry to Labrador is not to one small community.
We have a population of about 30,000 people in Labrador.
We do not have a road on the North Coast.
This ferry serves about 25,000 people in Labrador and that is why.
When the ferry cannot move because of ice conditions, why were there no
alternatives that were offered to the people?
I have been
talking about the medical transportation program.
We have got a lot of seniors in the area who depend on that.
So, we have a lot of people travelling on that ferry, who get into Corner
Brook for what they think is going to be two or three nights and it has been
turning into seven, eight, and nine nights, because of the conditions of the
ice.
We have a
school being built in Charlottetown and like my colleagues, I do not mind
giving credit where credit is due. I
worked closely with the Minister of Education on that, and we really did not
have to build the case, the case was there, the school was full of mould, the
kids were sick. I am very thankful
that the Minister of Education did something to help us, because our school
board certainly was not at that time.
Now, a couple
of days ago, because of the ferry situation, I was told by the inspector they
may have to shut down the school project.
Here we have kids who are stuffed in a little room, it is a clean, dry
environment, it is good for learning in, but it is not a school environment when
you have a high school shoved in a little room doing CDLI.
Most of the time this year my daughter wants to stay home.
She is doing a heavy course load and she cannot focus.
That is just
another one of the barriers that we are dealing with, and talk about poor vision
and poor planning. It is really,
really disheartening when we think of all the ferry woes that we have had this
year, and all of what it is costing us, why have we not begun the planning to go
under the ice? We have got a subsea
cable that is going across the Strait of Belle Isle that is going to cost over a
billion dollars, and we have got over 900 tunnels in Norway.
The engineers
in Norway are saying: What is wrong? There is not one tunnel in the Province of
Newfoundland and Labrador. When
Route 138 is connected, we are going to be so far behind and we are going to
miss the boat. What a waste of
money. With that subsea cable going
across, it could have gone through a tunnel and the millions and millions of
dollars that is spent on a very unreliable ferry service each year could
certainly be dealt with.
The ferry woes
have cost residential and commercial traffic.
I have business owners calling me saying there are no fruits, there are
no vegetables, and there is no milk in the store.
Just imagine, here we are, my colleague from Burgeo La Poile was
talking about the high cost of health in the Province and the forty cents on
every dollar that we are spending in the Budget, yet the people in my area right
now are prohibited from even eating healthy because the supplies are not there.
I am going to
touch on a number of different issues, but it is very sad that we did not have
the planning and we did not have the vision of this government to bring all that
together. Then we have the
deplorable conditions of our roads
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible).
MS DEMPSTER:
It is 5:00 o'clock now?
Well, it looks like I am going to have to pick up the rest of my issues
for Cartwright L'Anse au Clair next week because we have something else that
is coming down that I will speak to shortly.
Thank you.
CHAIR:
The hon. the Member for Exploits.
MR. FORSEY:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate
the opportunity to have a few words this afternoon on the Supply bill.
A lot of the members in the House here are standing up and talking about
different things. I am sure the
people out there are saying: What are they talking about today?
When we debate
a money bill, we can basically talk about anything within government.
That is why you will hear different stories.
Some of it has to do with district issues; some of it has to do with
provincial issues, Mr. Chair. It is
always a pleasure to get up and speak in the House, especially when members like
myself on the government side see what this government is doing and all the good
things that we are doing in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
We want to continue doing these wonderful things.
Mr. Chair, just
this fiscal year alone more than $20 million has been approved under the IBRD
programs for regional and business development initiatives.
I do not think there is going to be enough time this afternoon to talk
about the Regional Development Fund through IBRD that this government has
brought in and the investments we have made in rural areas.
That is where a lot of our focus is, on rural areas.
In order to have vibrant and sustainable communities, we need to build
capacity. That is what we are doing
as a government. It is being
appreciated by a lot of people out there, especially the ones who take control
of their community. They want to
work together and collaborate together with the different organizations, and
then work with government. They can
see the rewards for their efforts.
Just this past
week I had the pleasure of joining the Minister of Justice and the MHA for Grand
Bank in St. Lawrence on Monday. We
had a great investment there with the Heritage Run Tourism Association.
That amount of money was $101,000 announced on Monday to improve access
to Chambers Cove Trail Network. We
all know the story of the USS Truxtun
and USS Pollux shipwrecks and the story of the rescue that took place
there. They are building from that,
Mr. Chair, and they have hundreds of visitors there every year.
Of course, we know where tourism is going in this Province and the type
of industry that we are building.
On Tuesday, I
had the privilege of attending another announcement with the MHA for Grand Bank
in Fortune actually. That
announcement was $177,000 for a new ferry terminal extension in Fortune, Mr.
Chair. Again, another rural area of
our wonderful Province and the mayor and the councillors and the port authority
are all working hard down there to build capacity, to build industry, to make
the communities economically viable.
That is what we are doing as a government, and we intend to work with the
communities in the rural areas and we intend to build on that in order to keep
doing this good work that we are doing, and there is going to be more.
I do not know
if I have time, Mr. Chair; I know there are so many people who want to speak.
I would just like to touch on a couple of investments, and it is only
just a few compared to what this government has done, Mr. Chair.
In January, $279,000 to Alpine Development Alliance Corporation in
Clarenville to support the resort infrastructure there; the Barber Living
Heritage Village, $115,000 in Cape Freels; $250,000, Goodfellow in Deer Lake
that is, of course, the district of the Leader of the Official Opposition for
a pressure treated wood facility, and these announcements were made back
recently; $457,000 to Conception Bay South for the T'Railway; and another
$147,000 to the marina project in Glovertown.
Mr. Chair, this
is called strengthening rural communities through sound investment.
IBRD, in case some people are not aware of it, has twenty-two regional
and field offices throughout the Province to help continue capacity building and
support ongoing development with the many community partners.
We certainly want to continue these investments in rural areas.
Mr. Chair, that
is what we talk about as our government is creating opportunities for
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. I
thank you very much for the opportunity and hopefully I will get another chance.
Thank you.
CHAIR:
Order, please!
The hon. the
Minister of Environment and Conservation.
MS SHEA:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, it
is an honour to be able to speak in the House of Assembly this afternoon.
I want to speak about an issue that affects everyone in this Province,
and it is certainly something that is important to all of the parties that sit
in the House as well.
Mr. Chair, some
issues should never be politicized.
Some issues permeate the policies of every party and the platform for each and
every party is the same. The public
policy becomes a no-brainer and we look at a coin that only has one side.
Mr. Chair, one
of these issues is violence against women.
No matter what political party you represent, and no matter what
Legislature you sit in this country or if you are in Parliament, you will not
put forward a platform that does not support issues or measures to reduce
violence against women. It is an
issue that we have had in our society for many, many years and it is an issue
that we continue to have in our society.
Many times you would think that we are in 2014 and this does not happen
anymore, but it does and we hear about these issues every single day.
The ones that get the most media attention are the most violent instances
of all when we hear of a murder.
We have too
many women who lose their lives in this Province every single year at the hands
of an intimate partner, Mr. Chair.
We need to address these issues. One
of the things we have done as a government for the last number of years since we
have been in government is the Violence Prevention Initiative.
We talk about it all the time.
I am going to take some time today to explain it in a little bit more
detail as to why it is so important.
Earlier today,
we heard the Member for Lake Melville give his member's statement to talk about
Loretta Saunders. We are all very
acutely aware of the plight of Loretta Saunders and what has happened.
There is no one in this Province who was not taken aback when we heard
her story. When we knew this young
woman was missing we all hoped that maybe she would show up again in a day or
two. Then, when that did not happen,
everyone started to think that maybe something more sinister has happened here.
Then, as a country we were gripped with sadness and outrage when we heard
what had happened to Loretta Saunders.
Loretta
Saunders was a young woman who was from Newfoundland and Labrador.
She was an Aboriginal woman and she was studying.
Her area of study was to look at missing and murdered Aboriginal women.
There is no way that this woman could ever have foreshadowed that her
life would represent her study and her research.
Her death
brought out calls for an inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women.
It did not start the call for an inquiry it sparked it again because this
request had been on the table for quite some time.
We need to listen when we hear our Aboriginal women speak.
Aboriginal women experience violence at a higher rate than other women in
our country. They know what they are
talking about. They see it, and they
have lived with it. Many of them who
we have to listen to who present these issues have been victims themselves.
We have to take what they are saying extremely seriously, Mr. Chair.
As I prepared
for the House of Assembly today I anticipated there would be a question in
Question Period about a call for an inquiry, so I was prepared.
I have with me and I am willing to share it with all Members of the House
of Assembly. Back in 2013 our then
Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Aboriginal Affairs wrote a letter to
support a national inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women.
Our position has never changed on that.
I also have
with me a copy of a news story where our former Premier was quoted as saying
there is support for a national inquiry.
We acknowledge that our position has never changed on that.
It is something that we stood by over a year ago and we continue to stand
by that today, Mr. Chair.
Our Violence
Prevention Initiative is one that looks at several different priority areas.
We look at increasing awareness and attitudinal change.
This is extremely important.
I want to go through these principles again, our priority areas: we want to
increase awareness and attitudinal change; we want to increase community
participation; we want to improve legislation, policy, programs, services,
information, and facilities; we want to support Aboriginal women and children;
and we want to enhance research and development and improve leadership,
co-ordination and accountability.
Violence takes
many forms. We often hear of
spiritual, cultural violence, sexual, emotional, psychological, and physical
violence. Mr. Chair, all these forms
of violence typically take place before the physical violence.
Before a woman reports physical violence she has probably experienced
violence many, many times and in various forms.
We identified
Aboriginal women in our Violence Prevention Initiative as a vulnerable
population. We have had specific
programs and funding dedicated directly to Aboriginal women.
We have grants that go to organizations that support violence prevention
initiatives for Aboriginal women. I
am sure I will have an opportunity to talk about that again, Mr. Chair.
We often have
the debate of how do we best position our finances when we deal with family
violence issues? Our Violence
Prevention Initiative reminds me oftentimes of campaigns about drinking and
driving. It is not going to help the
situation if we increase the fines for impaired driving or we put people in jail
longer. What is really, truly going
to impact impaired driving is if people do not drink and drive.
If we can get at awareness and we can at attitudes and we change people's
behaviour, we then help prevent others from getting hurt.
That is exactly what our Violence Prevention Initiative focusses on.
When we have to
deal with limited finances we have to make a decision as government, do we put
it in Family Violence Court and then we deal with people and there have already
been assaults? Or do we continue to
focus on prevention to ensure that we have a population of young people who
understand the roots of violence, who understand to work with their community
and the services that are available?
Mr. Chair, these are very difficult decisions that you are faced with sometimes,
but attitudinal change, awareness, working together, spreading the message and
ensuring that people are safe in our communities is extremely important.
Not everyone in
this House may agree with that, Mr. Chair, but if we are going to have long-term
changes for any population, and in particular Aboriginal women who suffer more
than the women in other segments of our society, we have to be serious and we
have to have the appropriate services available.
We have to make sure that we have populations and generations of people
who do not have to experience the same level of abuse that our foremothers have
experienced.
Mr. Chair,
after consultation with the other parties, government will be moving an
all-party resolution to ask for a national inquiry on missing and murdered
Aboriginal women. This is something
that is extremely important to the women of Canada, the women of Newfoundland
and Labrador, and in particular, our Aboriginal women.
It has been a
commitment of this government since our VPI, to provide funding to address
issues of violence prevention for Aboriginal women.
We have taken a stand on our position for a national inquiry.
That has not changed, but we would like to reinforce that in the House of
Assembly. I anticipate we will be
moving that resolution sometime next week, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
CHAIR:
Order, please!
The hon. the
Member for Cartwright L'Anse au Clair.
MS DEMPSTER:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As the
Opposition Critic for the Status of Women, I am very pleased to hear that the
members opposite will be supporting the call for a national inquiry.
It has been about two weeks ago now, March 1, actually, that I put out a
press release calling for a national inquiry.
I know back in July, shortly after I was elected, there was a call for a
national inquiry by the Native Women's Association of Canada at a premiers'
forum. At that time, all of the
premiers across the country, the provinces, and the Territories, everybody was
in support of this; everybody understood the magnitude and the seriousness of
this issue.
Every time I
have had an opportunity to speak about violence against women in general, I have
certainly been on my feet. I have
done that at events like Take Back The Night because, I believe, as mothers and
daughters, we all have aunts and sisters, it is very, very sad that we continue
to talk about violence against women in 2014.
We need to draw particular attention to the huge issue of violence
against Aboriginal women, Aboriginal women who are five times more likely to be
victims of violent attacks than non-Aboriginal women.
There certainly
is a need for a national inquiry.
The tragic death of twenty-six-year-old Loretta Saunders, I said from the
beginning, for two weeks now, it should serve as the catalyst to launch a
national inquiry. Over the past two
weeks I was happy to be invited into the NTV studio.
I was on On the Go with Ted Blades, I maybe had several calls to VOCM,
and I have certainly done my part.
Friday night in Goose Bay, when I visited the funeral home and I talked with
Loretta's family, her parents, and her sisters, they were pleased with the
attention that this was getting.
Any time that
someone loses a child is permanently life changing.
You live with it; you carry it.
When you lose someone through a violent act the way we have lost Loretta,
the only thing that will bring solace to the family is to know that something
positive can come of that.
Sometimes I
believe in our society we stereotype because the numbers of Aboriginal women
being violently attacked, who are murdered or go missing, we can stereotype and
look at them through a certain lens.
I actually had the somber, solemn experience of viewing Loretta and I thought
here is a beautiful young woman who was really going to make her mark.
She was going to make a difference in Labrador.
The very fact
that she was doing her thesis on missing and murdered Aboriginal women, Loretta
knew herself that this was a huge issue.
As I talked to her sister, Delilah, she said:
We are going to finish our sister's thesis; we are going to make it
matter that she lived and that she died.
I am really,
really happy here this afternoon to see that we are going to do the same thing
that the Province of Nova Scotia has done.
My colleague and good friend, Yvonne Jones, the MP from my district, is
certainly onside and she was a part of a movement on Parliament Hill.
She shared a portion of On the Go radio with me, talking about the need
for a national inquiry.
We have heard
Trudeau speaking out about the same thing.
Then we heard Minister MacKay come out and talk about we do not need an
inquiry; now is the time for action.
Mr. Chair, we need a national inquiry to provide the necessary steps and give us
the knowledge that we need on moving forward to help us better determine how we
can begin to fix this and how we can begin to reverse this negative trend.
Right now we
know there are at least 800 cases of missing and murdered women.
It is startling, the findings.
I am just thinking of Maryanne Pearce, an Ottawa-based researcher.
She has been developing a database and I think she has 824 right now in
that database. Clearly, we can see
that we have a need for an independent national inquiry to examine why
Aboriginal women are so disproportionately represented in cases of missing and
murdered women.
I am just
pleased to be able to add my voice in support as a member of an Inuit Metis
group myself, the NunatuKavut Community Council.
I have a daughter who is also a member of that group.
I believe we need to work together to counteract this negative trend,
these young lives cut down too soon who did not get a chance to go out, to
contribute and leave their mark in society.
We know that
back in July there was a parliamentary committee that was struck, but that was
released on March 7 and it was completely dismissed by Aboriginal groups as not
being good enough. It is time for us
to start listening to these young women and these girls when they are asking for
help, saying what is out there right now is not good enough.
I think because of the staggering numbers we are seeing violence against
Aboriginal women and the fact that it is an issue all across Canada, a national
approach is certainly what is needed here.
I look forward
to seeing and hearing further on this.
Let us hope that federally we can get this government to see the need for
something of this magnitude.
Thank you.
CHAIR:
Order, please!
The hon. the
Leader of the Third Party.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I am very happy
this afternoon to rise and speak to this notice of motion by the Minister
Responsible for the Status of Women.
I am very happy that all three parties will be positively looking at the
resolution when it comes to the floor and wanting to vote for it.
I had myself
put out a release, and my caucus backed me in that, with regard to the need for
us to do this. I knew the other
parties would agree with the need for us to stand in solidarity and to show the
solidarity in this House with regard to concern around violence against women,
but particularly violence against Aboriginal women.
I do not need to repeat the statistics that have been already quoted by
my sister colleagues in the House, but we all know that Loretta Saunders' death
tragic death brought things to a new head for us here in this Province.
It has not been as big an issue for us as it has been in some other parts
of the country, and I am aware of that.
It is
interesting that it was only last month that finally there was special memorial
service here in St. John's with regard to murdered and missing women.
For those of us who were there, it was a chilling experience because the
list of women's names went back to the mid-nineteenth century, women who had
been murdered, and many of us I think were there at that service.
To hear the names of the women who had been murdered, or who were missing
and presumed murdered going back I think the earliest was 1850-something or
1870. I cannot quite remember.
We had this list of names with a description of how each woman had been
murdered. In some cases, it was a
family member who read out the description of the murder and it was quite
chilling.
One of the
things that really was chilling that I remember was there was one small
community on the North Coast of Labrador when in a period of about fifteen years
two young women had been murdered by their partners in a community of only a few
hundred people. That is what is
happening, and very often it does not get talked about; it does not even get
seen or get heard. Really, the cases
that have most been seen in the Province are the ones where there has been a
court case.
One of the
things I realized at the memorial service last month here in St. John's was that
when there has been a murder and a suicide, for example which happens quite
frequently as well where the male partner murders the woman and then commits
suicide that does not go into court.
It does not really hit the papers in the same way as it does if a woman
gets murdered and then there is a court case.
There is much
more going on than we realize. This
is why I think it is good that we are standing for a national inquiry,
throughout the country, especially where the percentage of Aboriginal people in
a Province is larger than in our Province, the numbers of Aboriginal women who
are missing, presumed dead, or have been proven to have been murdered is just
unacceptable.
The statistic
that my colleague from Cartwright L'Anse au Clair quoted is a national
statistic but in some places where there is a concentration of Aboriginal
population, that ratio of five times more would be much higher because of the
concentration. We know of provinces
like in BC and Manitoba in particular where the ratio would be even higher than
five times more than non-Aboriginal women.
For us to do
this is extremely important. I think
the federal government, which is resisting the call for an inquiry, needs to
have more provinces do what we are doing.
Nova Scotia has led the way.
That is sort of what inspired me to say we should be doing the same, and to
write a letter to the Premier and copy to the Leader of the Official Opposition
to say let us do the same knowing that we would do it.
I really did know we would do it because it is the right thing to do.
I do hope that
our taking this on and our federal party as well has the same stance just as the
Member for Cartwright L'Anse au Clair mentioned with regard to her federal
counterparts. I think we need to
give a strong message to the Prime Minister of the country that this inquiry is
essential. What has to be looked at
and what they seem to be rejecting is that it is not just proving whether or not
somebody was murdered, it is looking at why the system is not dealing in fair
justice around what is going on.
What is wrong in our system both with regard to why the murders are happening,
which is one issue, but then how is the issue dealt with by our system?
I think that a
lot of us have enough knowledge to know that there is a terrible inequality with
regard to the way the murder of Aboriginal women is treated when compared to
murders of non-Aboriginal women. We
are doing the right thing. I am
proud to be part of the Assembly as we do this.
I look forward
to the resolution that is going to come to the floor.
I do encourage the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, and I
encourage the Premier to engage the Aboriginal women in the Province because
we do have organized Aboriginal women in the Province in the drafting of the
resolution.
Thank you very
much, Mr. Chair.
CHAIR:
The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Given the time
of day we have exhausted debate for today I think.
At this point in time I would move, seconded by the Minister of
Environment and Conservation that the House do now adjourn to next week.
CHAIR:
Order please!
The hon. the
Government House Leader, you need to rise the Committee and report progress
first.
MR. KING:
I can do that too.
CHAIR:
That motion will be in order.
MR. KING:
As I was saying, Mr. Chair, I move
that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again next week.
CHAIR:
The motion is that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to
sit again.
All those in
favour, aye'.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Aye.
CHAIR:
All those against, nay'.
Carried.
On motion, that
the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, Mr. Speaker
returned to the Chair.
MR. SPEAKER (Wiseman):
Order,
please!
The hon. the
Member for the District of Lewisporte.
MR. VERGE:
Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Supply
have considered the matters to them referred and have directed me to report
progress and ask leave to sit again.
MR. SPEAKER:
The Chair of Committee of Supply
reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred and have
directed him to report progress and ask leave to sit again.
When shall the
Committee sit again?
MR. KING:
Tomorrow.
MR. SPEAKER:
On tomorrow.
On motion,
report received and adopted.
Committee
ordered to sit again on tomorrow.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Government House
Leader.
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the
quick opportunity to speak again this afternoon.
At this time, I
move, seconded by the Minister of Education, that the House do now adjourn.
MR. SPEAKER:
It has been moved and seconded that
this House do now adjourn.
All those in
favour, aye'.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Aye.
MR. SPEAKER:
All those against, nay'.
Motion carried.
This House
stands adjourned until Tuesday.
Monday is a holiday so we will sit at Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.
On motion, the
House at its rising adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.