May
21, 2015
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS
Vol. XLVII No. 18
The House met at 1:30 p.m.
MR. SPEAKER (Verge):
Order, please!
Admit strangers.
I am pleased to welcome to the public gallery today
members of the Seniors Club from the Long Pond Salvation Army Corps in
Conception Bay South.
Welcome to the House of Assembly.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
We also have several members of the Child and Youth Care Association of
Newfoundland and Labrador. They
are: Rick Kelly, Jamie Lundrigan, Natalie Bursey, Jackie Kelly, Tina Krol,
Jennifer Kettle, and Lori Leonard.
Welcome to the House of Assembly.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Finally, in the public gallery today we have Mr. Ross Tansley, who is a
Reservist with the Canadian Forces.
Welcome, Sir, to the House of Assembly.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Thank you for your service, Sir.
Statements by Members
MR. SPEAKER:
Today we have members' statements from the members representing the
Districts of St. John's South, Conception Bay South, Cape St. Francis,
Bellevue, Fortune Bay – Cape La Hune, and Baie Verte – Springdale.
The hon. the Member for the District of St. John's
South.
MR. OSBORNE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Selam Measho was reunited with her mother Genet Abraham
after four years. She was
kidnapped when she left a refugee camp in Libya to sell bread at the market.
Her family made it to Canada in 2013.
Due to the efforts of a community of people, Selam was
located in a town two hours outside of Amsterdam.
I stand today to recognize those involved in helping reunite her with
her family.
I would like to recognize Susan Glynn and Denise Dunne
who first brought this issue to my attention; Lisa Snow from Gerry Byrne's
office who got the ball moving with Immigration Canada; and Mrs. Williams
from Mount Pearl who contacted the Red Cross and got posters posted in
Germany and in Holland. I would
like to thank all members of the community who played an active role in
reuniting Selam with her family.
Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members of the House to
join with me in welcoming Selam to Newfoundland and Labrador.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District of Conception Bay South.
MR. HILLIER:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It is my pleasure to stand in this hon. House today and
recognize the diversity and strength of the faith community in the Town of
Conception Bay South. The
strength of this group manifests itself in the Conception Bay South
Ministerial Association, a group of clergy who work co-operatively with the
town for the betterment of all its residents.
Today, I would like to recognize one specific project
between the church community and our town.
In the past, the Long Pond Salvation Army Corps has provided support
during local emergencies.
However, the town does not have the ability to provide heated space for
residents in case of prolonged emergencies.
In co-operation with the town, the Salvation Army Corps
has offered its church and hall as a warm space.
The town has committed to the necessary electrical infrastructure,
including an industrial generator.
If power goes for an extended period of time, the generator will
simply be switched on and any residents of the town who find themselves in a
position of need will have a warm place to go for the duration of the
emergency.
Please join me in recognizing this co-operative
initiative and all the great work that all the faith communities perform
throughout our Province.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District of Cape St. Francis.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. K. PARSONS:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in this hon. House to recognize the good people
from the community of Pouch Cove.
In 2000, the Pouch Cove Volunteer Fire Department needed a new fire
truck at a cost of $225,000. A
cost-sharing arrangement was made between the provincial government
contributing 50 per cent; the Town of Pouch Cove, 25 per cent; and the fire
department, 25 per cent.
To assist the fire hall with their share of the cost,
the late firefighter Willis Butt and his brother, Tom Butt, decided that by
collecting recyclables they could help with the expenses.
In 2001 they started the initiative, and the idea quickly grew as the
fire hall decided to collect recyclables also.
In addition, they collect twice a year – once in May,
and once in September. Since its
inception in 2001, the Butt brothers have collected a value of $14,315.15,
and the fire hall has collected $58,710.39, a total of $73,025.54 in
collecting recyclables. Since
his brother's passing, Tom Butt, along with the fire department, still
continues to collect recyclables.
I ask all hon. members to join with me in
congratulating the two brothers and the Towns of Pouch Cove and Bauline for
supporting their fire department.
Thank you very much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District of Bellevue.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. PEACH:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in this hon. House today to recognize Mr. George
Monk who celebrated his 104th birthday on May 17, 2015.
This is such a remarkable milestone.
Through 104 years of memories and 104 years of life, Mr. Monk has
done more than most of us can dream of.
George grew up in Monkstown where he married and raised
a family.
It is almost impossible to grasp the tremendous changes
that occurred in our world since George's birth in 1911.
He began working with his father in a sawmill at a very
early age and eventually opened a small convenience store in Monkstown.
He continued to work both jobs until he turned sixty.
Upon retirement he and his wife moved to Clarenville.
George now resides in a retirement home in Clarenville
and is well loved by all the residents.
He is enjoying good health, wonderful memories, and doing everything
for himself. He is a man to be
admired.
Mr. Speaker, I ask all the members of this House to
join me in congratulating and celebrating George Monk's longevity on the
occasion of his 104th birthday.
I wish him all the best in the future.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Indeed, congratulations to Mr. Monk of Monkstown, 104 is a great age.
The hon. the Member for the District of Fortune Bay –
Cape La Hune.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MS PERRY:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise in this hon. House today to deliver accolades to
the Coast of Bays' talented participants in the fiftieth Central
Newfoundland Kiwanis Music Festival.
Thank you to our music instructors, Valerie Coombs and Brenda Jeddore
for their hard work and dedication with over 280 exceptionally talented
performers.
Congratulations to Damien Hibbs for his Adjudicator's
Award for Solo Speech and the Bay d'Espoir Academy Choir for their
Adjudicator's Award for Choirs.
The Best Vocal Ensemble went to the Bay d'Espoir Triple Trio and the Best
Choral Group was awarded to the Se't A'Newey Performance Choir.
Jessica Willcott won the Award for Traditional Folk Song.
It is an honour for me to extend congratulations to all
the performers, too numerous to list, who shone at the festival.
From singing to playing piano, to solo speeches our students
excelled, placing first, second and third in various categories.
I ask all members of this hon. House to join me, along
with classmates, teachers, and community residents in extending
congratulations to all participants for their excellent performances.
We hope you continue participating in many more music festivals.
Thank you for sharing your amazing gift of music.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for the District of Baie Verte – Springdale.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. POLLARD:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
On May 8, my wife and I had the honour to attend the
graduation ceremonies of Valmont Academy of King's Point and on May 15, we
attended the graduation ceremonies of Indian River High School of
Springdale. All forty-six grads
looked as bright as a button and as sharp as a tack as they donned their
beautiful wardrobes.
Denika Squires of Valmont Academy and Christian Pelley
of Indian River High delivered excellent valedictory speeches, offering many
thanks to all who helped them out over the years and offering nuggets of
wisdom for their classmates to consider.
My wife and I were really impressed with the calibre of
speeches and the well-organized ceremonies.
It is evident that school and community spirit abounds here.
Both school staffs are to be applauded for their
commitment to excellence in student achievement.
Both go the extra mile to see their students excel in all aspects of
school life.
In addition, the parents from all communities are to be
commended for their unwavering support.
Their numerous hours of volunteer work in support of the schools is
simply amazing.
I respectfully ask all colleagues to offer
congratulations to the exceptional graduating classes of Valmont Academy and
Indian River High.
Thank you very much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Statements by Ministers.
Statements by Ministers
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. CRUMMELL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House to note that
Service NL has received the Best Practices in Employee Support award from
the Canadian Forces Liaison Council.
The award was presented to the department in recognition of its
support for Ross Tansley's participation in the Canadian Forces Army
Reserve.
Mr. Tansley is a senior examiner in the Financial
Services Regulation division of Service NL who has served the Canadian
Forces Army Reserve for more than eleven years.
In the course of his service, he was a Platoon Commander for the
Domestic Response Company for Newfoundland during the Hurricane Igor relief
effort. He has also readied
himself for a variety of scenarios by continuously engaging in training
exercises throughout his career in places like Fort Pickett, Virginia, and
Gagetown, New Brunswick. The
provincial government has been proud to support Mr. Tansley's efforts, and
as he is in the gallery today, I would like to take a moment to recognize
him.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to note that this is not the
first time a provincial government department has won this award from the
Canadian Forces Liaison Council.
On March 9, 2011, the former Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural
Development was similarly recognized for supporting an employee's
participation in reserve activity.
The recognition our government has received in this regard can be
attributed to the Reservist Leave Policy we established in 2010, which
provides employment protection and benefits to employees who are members of
the reserves, and who request to take special leave for reserve service.
Mr. Speaker, Ross Tansley is representative of the
great people we have working in the public service in this Province, and the
Reservist Leave Policy is a great example of how our government supports
them. I thank Mr. Tansley and
all public employees who commit their time to serving their county in the
Canadian Forces Reserves. Your
efforts are deeply appreciated.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl South.
MR. LANE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the minister for an advance copy of his
statement. Certainly we, in the
Official Opposition, want to also extend our congratulations to the
department for receiving the Best Practices in Employee Support award from
the Canadian Forces Liaison Council.
We are very supportive of the Reservist Leave Policy that we have
here with the provincial government.
Mr. Speaker, we have seen a long list of
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who have served our Province and served our
country very proudly, whether it be in the regular forces or whether it be
in the reserves. We certainly
want to commend Mr. Tansley and all the other Newfoundlanders and
Labradorians for putting their hand up and serving our country.
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 thank Ross Tansley
for his valuable service to our community.
Reservists play a vital role on so many levels.
It is imperative that they are supported when they need to leave
their jobs temporarily for service in the reserves.
The Reservist Leave Policy was a major step government
finally took, following the lead of other provincial and federal
governments. These laws and
policies allow reservists to keep their positions and their seniority.
Before they were implemented, reservists would find that their
employers would refuse to commit to rehiring them.
It also maintains benefits such as health plans that are important to
reservists' families.
Congratulations once again to Service NL, and bravo Mr.
Ross Tansley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Child, Youth and Family Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. S. COLLINS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I stand today to recognize the Child and Youth Care
Association of Newfoundland and Labrador's annual conference currently
taking place at the Holiday Inn in St. John's.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the conference, and I was
delighted to address the delegates this morning and congratulate the
association on ten years of advocating for children and youth in our
Province. Each year, these
individuals come together to exchange ideas on how to best serve the
children, youth, and families of this Province who require their service.
Child and youth care workers are employed in a diverse
range of roles, programs, and organizations.
Mr. Speaker, throughout our Province, an estimated 600 child and
youth care workers can be found in groups homes, family support programs,
community centres, outreach programs, youth treatment programs, day
treatment, family-based care, youth corrections facilities, hospitals, and
schools. The Child and Youth
Care Association of Newfoundland and Labrador provides training and
education opportunities for child and youth care workers, and advocates for
standards of practice.
The theme for this year's conference,
Caring in Context, focuses on the
many facets of providing care and support.
It reflects the diverse nature of the provision of care, from the
support needed for those who experience severe trauma to the development of
supervisory skills. A number of
renowned speakers are also participating in the conference including
Lorraine Fox with the University of California, Davis, and the San Diego
State University Foundation, and Connie Pike of the Coalition Against
Violence.
Mr. Speaker, our government remains committed to moving
forward in enhancing the lives of young people in a variety of ways:
addressing poverty, violence, and mental health issues; enhancing education;
working more collaboratively with Aboriginal communities; and enhancing
health care and wellness. An
investment of $475,000 in Budget 2015 allows for the creation of six new
Child, Youth and Family Services front-line positions in Labrador, allowing
our government to meet the commitment of a 1 to 20 ratio for social workers
to caseload on a provincial level.
We recognize we still have challenges in many of our remote
communities and we will continue to focus on improving caseloads in these
areas.
It is important that we work collaboratively with
organizations such as the Child and Youth Care Association of Newfoundland
and Labrador, as we continue to ensure the safety and well-being of children
and youth in our Province. Mr.
Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to once again congratulate the
Child and Youth Care Association of Newfoundland and Labrador on ten years
of providing much needed support to our most vulnerable children and youth.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the minister for an advance copy of his
statement. Conferences are a
tremendous opportunity for like-minded professionals to come together, share
better practices, and rejuvenate one another in what can be very fatiguing
work.
Child and youth care workers work with children and
youth with complex needs. Many
of these children have experienced trauma and we know the far-reaching
effects of these lived experiences such as mental health issues, substance
abuse, poverty, homelessness, and sexual exploitation.
I noticed approaches such as trauma-informed care and
mindfulness being presented at the conference, and it is very beneficial for
workers to come together and share approaches as they help children grow
into healthy and happy adults.
The minister also mentioned again the issues of
violence and poverty, and it brings to mind the sexual exploitation report
that government commissioned and then hid.
I know the department is trying to move forward and I commend that,
but one way to do that is to acknowledge the harsh realities that exist out
there, even in this Province.
The Child and Youth Care Association of Newfoundland
and Labrador was formed in 1990, and on behalf of our caucus I would like to
congratulate them on their twenty-fifth anniversary and their tenth
conference.
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.
Congratulations to child and youth care workers in
Newfoundland and Labrador, unsung heroes for all their hard work with
children and youth and their families.
I know how difficult but valuable this work is.
I too was once a child and youth care worker.
I applaud government for committing to achieve a
caseload ratio of one social worker to twenty children, even in remote
communities. I hope by working
with Aboriginal organizations it will result in more Aboriginal social
workers in the system. Their
expertise is crucial. Many of
the situations of children at risk in our Province have roots in parental
poverty and lack of support, including safe, affordable housing and lack of
mental health services for early intervention.
Government must put more resources into families so
fewer children will be taken into their care.
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
I remind the member her speaking time has expired.
MS ROGERS:
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Office of Public Engagement.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I rise today in this hon. House to acknowledge the
recipients of the 2015 URock Volunteer Awards.
I was pleased to be joined by the Premier, my hon. colleagues, and
members opposite last Thursday night as we honoured this year's award
recipients at a special event in Mount Pearl.
The URock Volunteer Awards were established in 2010 to
celebrate the remarkable ways youth are giving back to their communities.
Along with the people who attended the event at the Glacier in
person, the event was livestreamed on our NLYouth.ca website and viewed
hundreds of times.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to
acknowledge the recipients of the 2015 URock Volunteer Awards, some of whom
are with us in the gallery today.
They are: Courtney Jones of Torbay; Meagan Sampson from Stephenville;
Nitish Bhatt from St. John's; Brittany Tibbo from Holyrood; Mackenzie Dove
from Clarenville; Megan Glover from Bay Bulls; Mallory Basha from Corner
Brook; and the Youth Leadership Council, a program of Choices for Youth,
which is an organization that works to empower at-risk and homeless youth in
St. John's.
The event was hosted by Mike Fardy, and featured live
performances by Jenna Maloney, Stompbox, and City on the Coast as well as
community booths from volunteer organizations.
Award recipients each received an electric guitar, customized by
students of the graphic design program at College of the North Atlantic, to
celebrate the innovative ways young people volunteer.
The following morning, to explore the potential of their prize, award
winners were given a guitar lesson by local musician, Steve Maloney.
Mr. Speaker, from raising funds for the Terry Fox
Foundation, organizing Christmas food hampers, caring for animals,
encouraging child literacy, and preparing meals through school breakfast
clubs, youth are finding innovative solutions and giving back to their
communities. The URock Volunteer
Awards celebrate those efforts and help to remind us that youth are
continuously effecting change by looking outside themselves and challenging
the status quo.
I ask all members of this House to join me in
congratulating the 2015 URock Volunteer Award winners.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement.
It is clear that youth of our Province are accomplishing remarkable
feats; many of them are going unnoticed.
On behalf of the Official Opposition, we commend these youth and
youth organizations for being recognized for the great work they do to
advance their community.
I have worked with some of these youth as part of
economic development networks and the emerging leaders team.
As a youth myself, and MHA for the Official Opposition responsible
for youth engagement, I brought critical issues to the House raising this
government's abandoned Youth Retention and Attraction Strategy, the cut
programs, and promises associated with it.
I questioned and called for the reinstatement of the Youth Advisory
Committee.
Although the electric guitars are nice, the $3,000
price tag may have more of an impact if youth are given the choice for maybe
a charitable grant or a scholarship to help further education or
development.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I too thank the minister for the advance copy of his
statement. Certainly,
encouraging young people to volunteer is an extremely important thing to do.
I am happy to congratulate the winners here today and also want to
congratulate all young people in the Province who volunteer in the
community. For every award
winner there are a hundred unsung heroes, and I know the award winners of
today realize that. My wishes
and my caucus best wishes to all of them.
Today's youth volunteer is tomorrow's adult volunteer,
as giving back to the community is a hard habit to break.
It is a good one.
Volunteer organizations work on shoestring budgets, I remind the minister,
and need all the help and encouragement they can get, both with awards and
more tangible supports.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Further statements by ministers?
Oral Questions.
Oral Questions
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Last Tuesday, the Premier contradicted the minister of
culture on the Gallipoli caribou memorial.
Then on Wednesday, he contradicted the Minister of Advanced Education
and Skills on Memorial's tuition.
Yesterday, he contradicted the Minister of Fisheries on the OCI
agreement in Fortune.
I ask the Premier: Why are you saying that OCI has
lived up to their agreement in Fortune when this is clearly not the case?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER DAVIS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
What I referenced yesterday was that OCI had made a
commitment to obtain another vessel – they have lived up to that commitment.
They made a commitment to make improvements and investments in the
plant in Fortune. Their
anticipation was a million-dollar investment, Mr. Speaker.
It was almost $2 million of investment that they made in Fortune.
What I am saying is that OCI is committed to trying to
make this work. They have made
their efforts to make it work.
Their actions have spoken loudly to the commitment to the people of Fortune.
They have provided valuable employment to the people in Fortune, and
they will continue to do so this year.
We believe, based on the information in the catches
that are occurring right now, that the plant will be open and operational in
early June.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The plant in Fortune sits idle today while government
continues to allow OCI to breach the 2012 agreement and, on top of that,
government has allowed OCI to ship out unprocessed cod last year.
The Premier says that the OCI agreement in Fortune has nothing to do
with cod.
I ask the Premier: If that is true, why does your 2012
press release say that cod is part of the agreement?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER DAVIS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The agreement with OCI was a plan for the future.
The exemptions are separate from that agreement, and I can tell you
why. There were numerous
exemptions that were talked about this House yesterday and talked about
publicly. A very small amount, a
relatively small amount, of the cod was actually shipped out last year.
Shipping out cod is about providing opportunity to find
new markets, new mechanisms to build industry and build business in
Newfoundland and Labrador, because we know we need to find a way to build
the industry of the fishery of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Speaker, this is about the best interests of those,
especially in rural parts of our Province, who rely on the fisheries,
communities who rely on the fisheries, FFAW who want to represent their
harvesters and their plant workers, and we are here working with all of
those stakeholders.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Well, my comment to the Premier was about his comments
that he made in this House and to the people of this Province and the people
of Fortune and that area just yesterday when he said this agreement back in
2012 has nothing to do with cod.
I ask the Premier: Do you stand by the comments that
you made yesterday?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER DAVIS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can tell the member opposite that their vision is
about cod; their vision is about sustainability in the long term.
The agreement was about trying to find a way to process yellowtail
here in the Province. What has
happened in the catches this year is that what they have seen during the
winter – they saw last year in the winter – is that the catch was smaller
than was anticipated. In their
business plan, they had anticipated a certain size of the catch that will
allow a certain level of production in their plant.
If that catch is not there and they are not achieving the catch and
the goal that they require, it makes it difficult to process what they are
not catching.
We have an option here.
We work with the company, we work with the community, we work with
the union, we work with the workers, Mr. Speaker, we work with the town to
ensure that work is provided in Fortune; or we say to OCI, thirty-two weeks
or nothing. Because we know what
OCI will do. They will pack up
and leave, Mr. Speaker, and we do not want that.
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Well, part of entering into an agreement is that
someone needs to keep companies and people who invest in the Province
accountable to the agreements that they sign.
In 2012, OCI clearly signed an agreement with your government – and
it says this, that cod production will begin in January 2013, with
approximately sixty jobs being created.
So what has changed since that agreement was signed, I
say to the Premier? Do you stand
by the comments that you made yesterday?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER DAVIS:
Mr. Speaker, I will tell this House what I stand by.
I stand by working with the people of Fortune to ensure they have the
best opportunity in the fishery for those people who rely on processing jobs
in Fortune.
That is what we stand by over here.
We stand by the willingness to work with industry and business in
this Province – no matter where it is – to create jobs and create
opportunities for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
We stand by the growth of the fishery, Mr. Speaker.
We stand by giving them a chance to make a go of it in small
harbours, and small ports, and small towns.
That is what we stand by over here.
We stand by those people, and we want a fishery that is going to be
sustainable for the long term.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can tell you one place that this Premier is not
standing by the people – that is in Fortune, because there is no fish
processing line at that plant today, I say, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. BALL:
Mr. Speaker, it has been reported that the government cuts to Memorial
University in Budget 2015 will be much higher than originally suggested.
We understand that a $20.9 million pension payment has been deferred.
So I ask the Premier: Can you confirm that this pension
payment was deferred?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice and Public Safety.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, I can confirm a number of things relative to
Memorial University and the pension plan.
Since 2005, we have been working with memorial to invest in the
pension plan – that is part of legislative requirements – to the tune of
about $129 million. As part of
Budget 2015, we have worked with the university to try to find some savings
in a number of areas, and one of the areas that we have targeted is the
pension plan, Mr. Speaker.
As I am sure the member opposite has heard from
representatives of the university, they recognize that they have a
responsibility – it is a pension plan that belongs to their members, not to
the people of the Province, the general public, and they recognize they have
to find a solution to that, and they are committed to try and find that
solution.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Well, in September, the former Premier reached an
agreement with the Public Service Pension Plan Reform and it was called a
sustainable solution. Last
month, we saw the government reach an agreement with the Teachers' Pension
Plan, but now, they are deferring payments from the Memorial Pension Plan.
How can you say that this is a sustainable solution by
kicking this payment down the road for the next generation?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice and Public Safety.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Mr. Speaker, we are very proud of the agreement we reached on the Public
Service Pension Plan, and we are very proud of the agreement we reached on
the Teachers' Pension Plan, because it shows the leadership of our Premier
and this government and our commitment to the public service employees.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
We also recognize, Mr. Speaker, that members of the pension plan at Memorial
University are not part of the public service nor the teacher pension plan.
We have been talking to them.
They recognize they have ownership of that particular problem.
They recognize and thank government for the tremendous investment we
made over the last ten years to try and sustain that plan, but they also
recognize they have to get the deficit in order for the long-term viability
of the plan, and that is what they are working towards.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would suggest to the minister, this not about saving
if you are actually deferring a payment that will have to be made.
I ask the Premier: Was there any discussion with your
government with the Board of Regents or with Memorial University on this
deferred payment?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice and Public Safety.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Mr. Speaker, we have had significant discussions with Memorial University on
this particular issue, just like we did with the teacher plan, with members
of the Teachers' Union and with the Public Service Pension Plan with NAPE,
and we will continue to have those discussions.
I say to the member opposite, this is not about kicking
the problem down the road. It is
about taking the challenges head on this year and recognizing that there is
a $20 million problem to solve.
If we wanted to play politics, we could simply pay the money this year, get
through an election, and then break the news to them that there is a $20
million problem.
This Premier has taken the leadership to make the right
decisions today because it has to be made.
We are telling Memorial that we have to find a solution to the
problem. We will work with them
but they have to be a partner in that problem, and we have to start at it
today.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We know the process here about the pension plan reform.
This was an actuaries report and there was $20.9 million that they
were expected to pay this year.
I ask the minister: Was this a suggestion by your
government to defer this pension plan payment?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice and Public Safety.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Mr. Speaker, the member opposite would well know, any decisions that were
made as part of a Budget that has been tabled here by the Minister of
Finance would be decisions of this government, but what I can say to the
member opposite is that we have had significant discussions about all
aspects of our Budget as it pertains to Memorial University.
Over many days, we have had officials in.
Over a period of weeks, perhaps even over a period of months, I do
not recall, but I participated in most of those meeting, Mr. Speaker.
I can tell you there were significant discussions about trying to
right-size the budget of Memorial in the context of the Budget challenges
the Province faced, and right-size the pension liability over there,
recognizing we could not continue to sustain a deficit pension problem, Mr.
Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Well, it is difficult to right-size a liability, I say
to the minister. A liability is
a liability, it is tough to right-size that.
This government announced the construction of a
long-term care facility in Pleasantville in 2008.
That is seven years ago, Mr. Speaker.
It finally opened last September.
Government had seven years to develop and implement a human resources
plan for that facility but they are currently short twenty-six staff.
Because of that, we now have thirty beds that are still not open.
I ask the Premier: Why haven't you been able to fill
these positons and open the long-term care beds?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
Mr. Speaker, patient safety is a top priority.
We are not going to open beds unless we have sufficient staff in
place to do so. That is the
expectation I have of Eastern Health.
We are constantly recruiting LPNs and PCAs as well.
We have recruited many, but there has also been attrition, which is a
major challenge we are dealing with throughout the health system.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. KENT:
There are many initiatives being undertaken to recruit and retain staff.
We are working with the Centre for Nursing Studies.
We are working with Advanced Education and Skills.
We are working with the College of the North Atlantic.
We have been recruiting internationally.
We have many other efforts, including bursaries and other incentives
in order to retain and attract staff.
We will continue those efforts, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Leader of the Official Opposition.
MR. BALL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In all fairness, seven years to construct the facility
and you did not have time to recruit people, put people in place for when
the doors opened. Mr. Speaker,
that is just not good enough for the people of this Province.
Government is having a hard time finding workers at the facility
because simply they did not plan during the construction period.
Now we understand they are running the facility on overtime to fill
the staffing vacancies.
I ask the Premier: You knew this issue was coming for
years, why didn't you plan before you opened the facility?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
Mr. Speaker, the St. John's long-term care facility loses, on average, five
employees a month due to turnover.
We are talking about a facility that has 545 employees.
There are many efforts being made to recruit and retain staff.
To deal with this current situation, we have also opened fifteen
additional beds at Chancellor Park.
We are constantly monitoring the wait-list.
We are constantly working on the long-term care bed supply and we
also have a detailed human-resources plan being developed to address some of
the longer-term staffing needs.
That human resource plan, that workforce plan, will be unveiled in the weeks
ahead, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Mr. Speaker, when a child or youth is in the continuous custody of CYS, CYF
is the sole guardian. They have
the right to make all decisions regarding the child, including decisions
around medical treatment and where they live.
At sixteen, a youth can sign out of continuous custody, but
government policy states that they cannot sign back in.
I ask the minister: Will you change this policy so
youth who realize they have made a mistake about a critical life decision
can have their continuous custody reinstated; doesn't everybody have a
second chance?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Child, Youth and Family Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. S. COLLINS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can say to the member across the way, I give him an
unequivocal word that that is not the case.
Any youth who signs out of care can come back in with a youth
services agreement.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I have spoken on this quite a few
times here in the House of Assembly.
A youth services agreement is a voluntary service; but again, if a
youth comes out of the system, they are more than welcome to come back in.
I will make sure there are no barriers whatsoever.
If a youth wants to enter back into the system with youth services
agreement, we are going to be there for them, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about vulnerable youth with complex needs.
They very well may voluntarily choose to sign out of care, but they
are being told – and we can confirm this – that they cannot sign back in.
This is an unnecessarily harsh policy.
I ask the minister: Can you confirm that there are no
barriers whatsoever – we are being told there are; can you confirm that
there are none?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Child, Youth and Family Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. S. COLLINS:
Mr. Speaker, I can confirm again unequivocally that if a youth checks out of
service, if you will, they can come back and sign back on with a voluntary
youth services agreement, I can assure you.
Again, it gives me an opportunity to talk a little bit
about the enhancements that we have made to that since 2011 since changing
the legislation – the changes we have made to that legislation to be able to
enhance it and services that we are able to provide.
If given the opportunity, I would like to be able to talk a little
bit about the umbrella of services that are available now to youth.
If they come out of that system, I can guarantee you,
Mr. Speaker, I can guarantee the member across the way, they are eligible to
come back in with youth services agreement.
It is there, and again, I will do everything I can as minister in our
department to support that youth.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl South.
MR. LANE:
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister Responsible for Workplace, Health Safety
and Compensation Commission said he had not heard from the Marystown
Shipyard Families Alliance since April.
They replied to him at 7:39 this morning.
They were clear that making another trip to St. John's at their own
expense was not possible and one of the Co-Chairs is ill and unable to
travel. Despite these obstacles,
they keep trying to get this government's attention.
I ask the minister: Will you show some compassion for
these families and clear your schedule for a one-day trip to Marystown?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Workplace Health, Safety and
Compensation Commission.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. S. COLLINS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can confirm I did receive that email this morning and
I can confirm I intend on replying to it.
As I had said earlier, I responded to the initial email back on April
15. I was quite clear that I
would meet with the group in St. John's, given the fact that I am in the
House and performing duties in here.
I can meet with them in the morning, afternoon, evening, whatever
works best for them. If they are
not able to come in here, certainly once the House closes and we have some
time, I would be more than happy to go out there.
For the member to grandstand and say not compassionate
is completely foolish. Let's get
down to the facts. Let's leave
the politics out of it. That is
what I want to do.
When I sit down I want to sit down with the two ladies
who emailed me. I do not need
the member across the way advocating on their behalf.
I am quite happy to hear their concerns because they are important,
and I plan to hear them very soon.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl South.
MR. LANE:
Mr. Speaker, I will let the people of Marystown decide who is being foolish
and who is not.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister said he would meet,
as he just said, with the families alliance at any time, morning, noon, or
night, as long as the House was closed and it did not interfere with his
weekends. Well, Friday, May 29,
is a weekday. The House is
closed and he has to pass by the turnoff to Marystown to get to his
district.
I ask the minister: Will you meet with the alliance at
the Marystown Hotel at 2:00 p.m. next Friday?
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Workplace Health, Safety and
Compensation Commission.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. S. COLLINS:
Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not need the member across the way setting my
schedule. I can assure you, as I
can assure the good folks in Marystown and particularly this alliance – I
can assure them I am certainly willing to meet with them.
Again, I am not sure why this is even here and why we
are making politics of it. I
know the member inserts himself in this each and every time he can for
grandstanding purposes. I do not
set your schedule when you go and charge off to the taxpayers when you
attend a dinner at the Good Shepherd.
You do not set my schedule, and I will meet with the members.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl South.
MR. LANE:
Mr. Speaker, as the minister indicates that he only performs his ministerial
duties four days a week with Fridays and weekends off, I ask the Premier:
Will you direct the minister to meet with the families alliance in
Marystown, or will you do it yourself?
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The hon. the Minister of Child, Youth and Family
Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. S. COLLINS:
Mr. Speaker, while the member across the way does not understand what
ministerial duties require and being a rural MHA and a person with a young
family, I certainly balance all of those quite well.
I can assure you my constituents are very happy.
The people I represent in my department are very happy.
I have committed to him and I have said – I do not know
why we are speaking about this now – I have committed to meet with the
group. I will do so at the
earliest possible opportunity to do so.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have another question for the minister.
I just came into some information relating to the questions and I
felt it pertinent to get it out now.
I have been told that the minister talked about a youth
services agreement that a young can sign back into, but my question was
about continuous custody, which they cannot sign back into, which makes CYFS
their guardian. They cannot sign
back into that.
I ask the minister again: Can you confirm in this House
that this is indeed the case?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Child, Youth and Family Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. S. COLLINS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am happy to say that we have actually extended that
continuous custody from the age of sixteen to eighteen.
By its very nature and by the very name, it is continuous custody.
So if you were in that as a child, you would progress on through and
after the age of sixteen, you would be allowed to stay within that service.
If you check yourself out voluntarily, you may again,
as I had stated earlier, you may voluntarily re-enter the program again with
the youth services agreement.
I am not sure how much clearer I can be, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile.
MR. A. PARSONS:
Mr. Speaker, you can sign out voluntarily of continuous custody, but you
cannot sign back into continuous custody.
You cannot do that.
Again, I ask the minister: Are you saying to this House
that is that case? You said the
youth services agreement, but continuous custody is the question here.
I ask you again. There is
a difference.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Child, Youth and Family Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. S. COLLINS:
There absolutely is a difference, Mr. Speaker, and he just elaborated – he
just answered his own question, continuous custody.
You are in the program as a child.
You transition over after the age of sixteen.
You are in continuous custody.
There is no break in service.
If you voluntarily check yourself out of that
continuous custody, you are able – as I had said, no barriers – to re-enter
again under the youth services agreement.
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible).
MR. S. COLLINS:
If the member would allow me to finish, I am happy to stand on my feet and
answer his question another ten times because I would like to be able to
talk about the enhancements we made back in 2011 and how that is serving the
youth of the Province.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
Mr. Speaker, the minister tabled overinflated forestry job numbers in the
House. Given that your own
government department stated in 2008, before paper mill and saw mill shut
downs, there were only 300 value-added forestry jobs.
I ask the minister: Why are you inaccurately stating
there are more than 1,000 direct value-added jobs today?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. GRANTER:
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure of the line of questioning, whether he is
questioning the good people at my department or not who work through the
numbers as he requested.
The pulp and paper sector – as the numbers were
presented here in the House of Assembly – direct 534, indirect and induced
534; sawmilling, 210; value-added, 1,075; harvesting, 720, with indirect and
induced at 720, for a total of 2,539; plus the additional 450 government
employees who work in the forest sector in the Province, Mr. Speaker, adds
up to the total presented in the House.
Thank you very much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
Three thousand indirect and induced jobs are five times the number as what
government purported in 2008.
Mr. Speaker, in April, 2013, Dr. Wade Locke delivered a
presentation on resources and Newfoundland and Labrador's future at Grenfell
Campus. Dr. Locke's job numbers
for forestry, logging, and paper manufacturing state more than a 2,000 job
loss since 2005, with just over 1,000 direct jobs in 2012.
This more accurately reflects today's direct employment.
I ask the minister: Is your government endorsed
economist, Dr. Wade Locke, wrong on his numbers or are you?
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Forestry and
Agrifoods Agency.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. GRANTER:
Mr. Speaker, I am not going to stand in this House and criticize or evaluate
the good work of either people inside government or anyone on the outside of
government, whether you are a public servant or not.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. GRANTER:
Mr. Speaker, I find it absolutely appalling that a member opposite would
actually criticize either people inside government or people outside
government. I genuinely
presented the numbers that were presented to me through my department with
regard to the number of people directly, indirectly, and induced, Mr.
Speaker, in the forestry industry of Newfoundland and Labrador.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's South.
MR. OSBORNE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Picture our award winning tourism ads, Mr. Speaker,
pristine fields of dandelions, large icebergs, and clothes hanging on the
clothesline, a positive image to the people of the world.
Mr. Speaker, picture this, miles of debris, large household items in
ditches, garbage blowing in the wind, all on the route from the airport.
Last year, Transportation and Works cleaned up the Outer Ring Road on
June 29 while thousands of visitors were arriving at the airport.
I ask the minister: Will you commit to an earlier
cleanup of the Outer Ring Road this year so our visitors' first impression
is the same positive impression they see from our tourism ads?
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. BRAZIL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The hon. member must have listened to the two
interviews I gave this morning.
One with Cecil Hare at CBS, and one with VOCM, where I noted and outlined
that the cleanup for the Outer Ring Road will proceed this year on Sunday,
June 14. The posted signs will
go up in the next number of days telling people.
We will be doing our public announcements, Mr. Speaker.
We have to mobilize almost forty staff.
This is a cost to the taxpayers, but a valuable cost, to show that we
have a clean, viable Province here and at the Outer Ring Road.
We are also working very closely with the City of St.
John's to ensure that we eliminate this type of debris being on our
highways, Mr. Speaker. Phase I
will happen on June 14, ahead of the time frame, and the following will
happen a couple of weeks later.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The hon. the Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Staffing is so tight at the St. John's Long-Term Care
Facility that annual leave for staff may be denied over the summer.
There are not enough temporary call-in staff available to fill
positions.
I ask the Premier: What is government's plan to deal
with this current situation?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Justice and Public Safety.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As the member opposite would know, staffing is always a
challenge summertime in any government department whether it is education,
health, or within the Confederation Building here or otherwise.
We are committed, as we always are, to work with our Department of
Human Resources, through all departments, particularly with Eastern Health,
to make sure we do our best to accommodate employees and ensure vacation
time is provided, but at the same time that important positions are always
staffed appropriately.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
We know we have a complex situation over there.
It is already understaffed, beds are closed, there is a waiting time
and now the staff are not going to get a summer break.
Mr. Speaker, in Estimates the minister noted new staff
are being recruited but he also said existing staff are leaving at such a
rate that they cannot open a new ward.
I ask the Premier: Why are staff leaving the St. John's
Long-Term Care Facility?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Health and Community Services.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KENT:
Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier today in Question Period, attrition is a
reality throughout the public service.
It is a reality in any organization.
The St. John's Long-Term Care Facility loses on average five
employees a month due to staff turnover.
We are talking about a facility with 545 positions.
That said, Mr. Speaker, we are constantly working to
recruit and retain the staff we need, particularly licensed practical nurses
and personal care attendants. We
have solid human resource plans in place.
We have opened up additional beds at Chancellor Park, and we know the
member opposite does not support that.
We are undertaking a number of other initiatives as well, Mr.
Speaker, including international recruitment.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Mr. Speaker, this morning I attended a meeting with housing advocates who
desperately need housing for supportive housing projects.
They would know how to use the assets of Newfoundland and Labrador
Housing to address some of our growing housing crisis.
I ask the minister: Has he consulted with
municipalities, housing advocates, seniors groups, community groups working
with homelessness, or even considered the recommendations of the OrgCode
report before deciding to sell Newfoundland and Labrador Housing assets?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER DAVIS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I can tell the member opposite and Members of the House
of Assembly, that Newfoundland and Labrador Housing actually does a
considerable amount of consultation in partnership with community groups and
organizations, Mr. Speaker. They
have a very strong network that they work with throughout Newfoundland and
Labrador.
They partner with members of industry and business who
have a desire to make improvements to housing opportunities throughout
Newfoundland and Labrador. They
also regularly consult with the on-the-ground organizations that are very
close, and housing is very important to them, Mr. Speaker.
They do a good job, Mr. Speaker, over at Newfoundland
and Labrador Housing. We are
proud of the work they do. They
continue to do good work and provide good opportunities for Newfoundlanders
and Labradorians.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Mr. Speaker, that is not what I am hearing from the groups regarding
consultation of the sale of assets belonging to Newfoundland and Labrador
Housing.
I ask the minister: Why would he sell Newfoundland and
Labrador Housing assets that belong to the people before he even has a
comprehensive provincial housing strategy or plan?
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Premier.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
PREMIER DAVIS:
Mr. Speaker, there are a number of projects and plans that Newfoundland and
Labrador Housing are engaged with at any given time.
They are very broad. They
vary greatly throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and they have different
opportunities and different programs and services.
They have some that are about land assembly, land
development, land development opportunities to partner with private
business. Mr. Speaker, they also
partner with private business in the development and growth of housing that
is affordable for those who need those types of housing.
So they have a broad range.
They have a strong network with community groups and
organizations throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.
I know for a fact they talk to those groups on a regular basis.
They engage with them on a regular basis, Mr. Speaker, and they do
that throughout the Province.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The time for Question Period has expired.
Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.
Tabling of Documents.
Notices of Motion.
Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.
Petitions.
Petitions
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
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 government has a responsibility to ensure that
Internet access is broadly available so people have the right to access the
Internet in order to exercise and enjoy the rights to freedom of expression
and opinion, and other fundamental human rights; and
WHEREAS the Town of Goose Cove still remains without
broadband services; and
WHEREAS residents rely on Internet services for
education, business, communication, and social activity; and
WHEREAS wireless and wired technologies exist to
provide broadband service to rural communities to replace slower dial-up
service;
We, the undersigned, petition the House of Assembly to
urge government to assist providers to ensure the Town of Goose Cove is a
recipient of broadband Internet services in Newfoundland and Labrador.
As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker, this petition is signed by all residents
of Goose Cove. It is an
important matter for them, and something that, when it comes to the
internet, I have been speaking with providers.
They are very interested in providing the service, but there are cost
barriers to making sure of the infrastructure.
So I would hope that in the broadband program, the
money that is carried over, that should a positive proposal be put forward
and we can lever the right partnerships, we can get this done for the people
of Goose Cove – that is just a few kilometres outside of the Town of St.
Anthony – to build a stronger region when it comes to new business
opportunities and economic development, and housing starts and growth in
that town.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. MITCHELMORE:
Also making the opportunity for municipalities to do the work in business.
We see more things are going online all the time when it comes to the
services and being able to commute and share what a municipality is doing
with its residents.
We have seen where this government has provided funding
to various communities across the Province – and there are still well over
100 communities without broadband internet.
This is a town, a town that is incorporated, that is not an
exponential cost, it should be provided –
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. MITCHELMORE:
– to the eighty-four households of Goose Cove so we can see opportunities
and give people equal opportunity and access to important telecommunications
services that are needed, that are needed to build a prosperous economy and
community.
So, Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time I have
presented this petition, and I am sure it will not be the last time.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi.
MS MICHAEL:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
To the House of Assembly of the Province of
Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled, the petition of the
undersigned residents humbly sheweth:
WHEREAS privatized nursing homes lower operating costs
by paying lower wages, de-unionizing, laying people off, and cutting staff
in these facilities; and
WHEREAS studies have established that for-profit
nursing homes are associated with lower quality of services and poorer
resident health outcomes, including an increased risk of hospitalization;
and
WHEREAS Auditors General of the Provinces of Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ontario have reported that P3s cost taxpayers
more;
WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly
pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge government to immediately
stop the privatization of long-term care.
As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand and represent the
voices of people from Grand Falls, Port au Port, Port Leamington, Botwood,
other places here – Bishop's Falls, Grand Falls again, Springdale, Birchy
Bay, people in the Province who are quite concerned about the new direction
that this government is going in with regard to long-term care.
What is very disturbing is that this government seems
to be ignoring what has happened in other parts of Canada when long-term
care has become part of public-private partnerships.
A lovely word that “partnerships,” it makes it sound very nice and
something very good to do, but we know that every P3 hospital in Ontario has
experienced huge cost overruns and all the financial information has been
hidden from the public. In North
Bay in Sault Ste. Marie, the hospitals have more than doubled in capital
costs alone, these P3 hospitals.
The rumors in Niagara are that the hospital cost has
increased dramatically, though nothing is public yet, and this word comes
from a report that has been done.
Mr. Speaker, the experiences out there in this country,
and in Europe and in the UK, are showing us that P3s cost more money.
They do not give the same level of services.
They create fewer staff because the bottom line for P3s is making a
profit, and we cannot have profit making being done on the backs of our
people who need long-term care.
The people who are signing these petitions and sending
them in to me know what they are talking about, because they know what is
happening in other parts of the country.
They are asking this government to pay attention and to not take the
direction that is being talked about by them, a direction that is talked
about by their Premier and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of
Health.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Burgeo – La Poile, standing on a point of order?
MR. A. PARSONS:
Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Prior to the petition that was just –
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. A. PARSONS:
Prior to the petition that was just read there was some back and forth
between the sides and a comment was made by the Member for Terra Nova that
there were bigots on the other side, and that the other side should get
their bigots in order. Now, I believe
there was a ruling made in this House on Tuesday and yesterday about
unparliamentary language, and I would say that such language, according to
Bosc and O'Brien page 618, is offensive, provocative, and insulting.
I would ask the member to withdraw the commentary, to
apologize, and to refrain from such comments in this House.
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The Speaker did not hear such commentary.
I will take time over the next day or so to look at Hansard, to
review the webcast, and to see if there is any evidence to back up the
member's claim.
Further petitions?
The hon. the Member for Cartwright – L'Anse au 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 most communities in the District of Cartwright
– L'Anse au Clair do not have adequate broadband service; and
WHEREAS residents, businesses, students, nurses, and
teachers rely heavily on the Internet to conduct their work and cannot
afford to wait until 2016 or later to access a potential plan in partnership
with the Muskrat Falls development; and
WHEREAS there are a number of world-class tourism sites
in the region, including UNESCO site at Red Bay, Battle Harbour Historic
Site, and the Mealy Mountains National Park;
WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly
pray and call upon the House of Assembly –
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MS DEMPSTER:
– to urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to work with the
appropriate agencies –
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MS DEMPSTER:
– to provide adequate broadband services to communities along the Labrador
Coast.
As in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.
Mr. Speaker, many times I have stood on my feet and
brought forward petitions on broadband issues on behalf of the District of
Cartwright – L'Anse au Clair and every day I get new emails.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MS DEMPSTER:
Every day I get new emails of frustration with the broadband issues that is
crippling tourism in the district, that is crippling business use in the
district, and that is absolutely almost of no use to the people who reside
in the area, Mr. Speaker. In the
Labrador Straits we have seen recent improvements, but down in Southeast it
continues to be atrocious.
The town of St. Lewis, Mr. Speaker, told me this
morning in an email their speed was 0.06.
Even the service provider said a bare minimum should be 0.79.
The Town of St. Lewis said it took a half a day to download emails.
I understand their frustration because when I am home in the
district, most of the time I cannot even access my own email.
I would not dream of trying to download or do work, Mr. Speaker.
This is a very serious problem for the region.
It is a problem for tourism.
It is a problem for businesses that cannot even use a basic Interac
machine, Mr. Speaker. It is a
problem for the professionals there who are trying to further and advance
their education through online courses and things like that.
Mr. Speaker, a bare minimum for high-speed Internet
should be 1.5 megabytes per second is my understanding.
We are nowhere near that in the area.
I understand that there is a new updated proposal with new figures
that the provider has submitted to the provincial government.
Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the Province to work
with the feds and the service provider to try and bring the residents in
southeast, in those five or six communities, up to where they need to be
with the rest of the Province.
In this technological age of 2015, we should not be stuck where we cannot
even send and receive a basic email.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.
MR. HILLIER:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
A petition 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 Town of Conception Bay South is the second
largest municipality in the Province with a population of approximately
26,000 people; and
WHEREAS recent dangerous incidents on community streets
have highlighted concerns of high speed and inadequate traffic control in
Conception Bay South; and
WHEREAS residents, organized groups and the town
continue to raise awareness about pedestrian safety along main streets and
the lack of police presence in Conception Bay South;
We the undersigned, petition the House of Assembly to
urge government to review the level of policing in Conception Bay South with
an objective of increasing policing services and improving public safety for
residents.
Mr. Speaker, I have brought this petition forward on
several occasions. I would first
like to point out I am not criticizing in any way the work that the RNC
currently do in the Town of Conception Bay South.
They approach their jobs in a very professional manner.
I feel the issue here is tied more to the degree of policing,
perception of residents, and the visibility of police in the community.
Mr. Speaker, this petition came about from two points
of focus. First of all, there is
a major concern in the district regarding speeding and dangerous driving.
Route 60 and the Foxtrap Access Road are provincial highways, major
highways running through the town.
On those highways we have eight schools with students walking 1.6
kilometres on each of those highways, to each of those eight schools.
Recently, Mayor McDonald also expressed concerns about
safety on the Conception Bay South Bypass Road as a result of several
accidents over a couple of week period.
This is not only a concern on major highways.
It is also a concern on residential streets.
Our deputy mayor recently said speeding and dangerous driving are
currently the biggest issues we have to deal with in our town.
Mr. Speaker, recently a Facebook group has come forward
expressing concerns about this.
I dealt with it as a ward councillor.
I dealt with it in the area of the Minister of Justice's street.
He is certainly aware of it.
Mr. Speaker, at one point in time the RNC had a
neighbourhood policing office in the Town of Conception Bay South.
This has been phased out since 2013 and has not been replaced.
The Minister of Justice will tell us that the model of
neighborhood policing is no longer the model of the RNC and that the RNC are
now basing their policing as an intelligence-based policing.
This may well be the case, Mr. Speaker, but residents are clearly
concerned that they do not see a regular police presence in their
neighborhoods.
Thank you very much.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. George's – Stephenville East.
MR. REID:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have a petition to present on health care in the
Heatherton to Highlands area.
The petition reads: To the hon. House of Assembly of
the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Parliament assembled, the
petition of the undersigned humbly sheweth:
WHEREAS there has not been a permanent doctor at the
clinic in Jeffrey's for almost a year; and
WHEREAS the absence of a permanent doctor is seriously
compromising the health care of people who live in the Heatherton to
Highlands area and causing them undue hardship; and
WHEREAS the absence of a doctor or nurse practitioner
in the area leaves seniors without a consistency and quality of care which
is necessary for their continued good health;
WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly
pray and call upon the House of Assembly to urge the Government of
Newfoundland and Labrador to take action which will result in a permanent
doctor or other arrangements to improve the health care services in the
Heatherton to Highlands area.
Mr. Speaker, this is a petition I presented to this
House a number of times before.
I continue to receive petitions and I will continue to present them to this
House until this situation is looked after because it is a very serious
situation when people in an area do not have access to the basic services of
a doctor or nurse practitioner.
The primary care is not just there, Mr. Speaker, in
these communities. It causes all
kinds of problems. People have
trouble getting to see a doctor.
They have to travel long distances to get in to see a doctor.
They have to wait in emergency rooms, usually all day.
They do not have a consistency of care.
They have locums who visit the community every couple of weeks or so
for a few days. They do not have
a consistency of care, which is necessary for good health.
The doctors they are seeing do not know their history, so they are
not giving them the type of care people deserve.
I am disappointed a doctor or nurse practitioner has
not been found for this clinic in Jeffrey's.
The petition says the situation has gone on for over a year, but it
is my understanding a doctor has not been there for about a year-and-a-half
now, Mr. Speaker.
A similar situation exists in St. George's as well.
The doctor has been gone there for about half a year now.
It causes problems throughout the system, not just to the people in
those areas but also to people who have emergencies who are going to the
hospital in Stephenville. They
cannot get in. They have to wait
longer times because they have people – thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the time
to present this petition.
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER:
Orders of the Day.
Orders of the Day
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
First of all, I move, seconded by the Minister of
Fisheries and Aquaculture, Motion 7, pursuant to Standing Order 11 that the
House will not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. today, Thursday, May 21, 2015.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. KING:
I further move, Mr. Speaker, seconded by the Minister of Fisheries and
Aquaculture, Motion 8, pursuant to Standing Order 11 that the House not
adjourn at 10:00 p.m. today, Thursday, May 21, 2015.
MR. SPEAKER:
The motion is that this House not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. today and furthermore
that the House not adjourn at 10:00 p.m.
All those in favour, 'aye.'
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Aye.
MR. SPEAKER:
All those against, 'nay.'
The motion is carried.
The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
At this time I would like to call Motion 1, that the
House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government, the Budget
Speech.
MR. SPEAKER:
Resuming debate on the Budget Speech, the amendment.
The hon. the Member for Humber East.
MR. FLYNN:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The last time I stood here I talked about the broken
promises, I guess, of the people of the Corner Brook area.
I may get an opportunity the next time I stand here to speak to that,
but today I would like to speak to the House on my critic role, which is
tourism. I feel I have some
knowledge of that, having served in the industry for nearly forty years.
As we get into July, it will be forty years since I entered the
tourism industry and I feel I have some sense of where this industry has
gone.
Again, having served as President of Hospitality
Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Cruise Association for a number of years,
I have certainly seen some very positive activity within the industry.
I congratulate, not only this government on that growth, but
governments past because we have come a long way to the industry.
Being from the West Coast, I always felt – and my
decision to move there, one of the main reasons why we went there is that we
had actually four seasons, unlike many other areas of the Province.
I was very happy with that and I think we have some great product.
When I look at Marble Mountain and the opportunities that we have
there, when I look at Gros Morne and the opportunities we have there –
although it would not hurt for some of the mainland companies to actually
get our geography straight, but that is an issue that we raised earlier this
week.
I think why I stand here today and talk about why
tourism matters; tourism spending in Newfoundland is a $1.1 billion industry
which is spread out right across the Province annually.
This is particularly important to rural parts of the Province.
Because of the lack of opportunities, this is one of the brighter
signs that we have.
Currently, tourism supports 8 per cent of the
provincial jobs. The demand is
actually outpacing the supply.
There are more than 2,400 tourism businesses located right throughout the
Province. Representing 83 per
cent of these businesses are small- and medium-sized businesses.
In recent years, job growth in tourism has outpaced job
growth in Newfoundland and Labrador overall with a 41 per cent growth in
average hourly compensation in the tourism occupation since 2008.
There is no doubt tourism helps preserve Newfoundland and Labrador's
unique culture, heritage, and indeed history.
Equally as important, it helps grow the economic opportunities of our
rural communities.
Now, I have to congratulate the industry and
government. We heard all of the
comments over the past week about all of the negative things the government
has done. Well, I want to
congratulate them on a number of opportunities throughout this speech,
because I think they are worth bringing up.
When the government looked at Vision 2020 and where
industry and government would like to see this industry go and where it
would like to be by the year 2020, that was an important part of the
planning for the growth of the tourism industry.
I think it is worthwhile to point out that there were three prime
focuses in that growth: one was the tourism strategy for the Province
overall; the other one of course, which is very important, access to the
Province and the transportation challenges that we have; and, indeed some of
the regulatory issues that we have within the industry.
I would like to briefly touch on two of those as we go
through. I think I have already
spoke about and complimented government to have the vision – and industry,
because we are there with the people.
I would like to touch on two important areas: the access and
transportation and regulatory.
There are a number of key focus areas that we have got to concentrate on in
access and transportation and the regulatory issues.
I will get into them as I hit onto each one.
I would also like to compliment the industry, who has
had a tourism marketing council, along with government, and the great ads
that they have taken across this country and promoted what I believe is the
best Province in Canada. Even
with the challenges we face today, Mr. Speaker, these are great
opportunities to promote this Province.
There are things that actually work here in the Province.
I would truly like to congratulate the staff, many of them who have
been my friends over the past forty years and have given me advice.
They have done a great job.
So, as we get out across the Province, it would be
nice, I will admit, to see more of my area promoted in these ads – but we
will give it time, and hopefully people will speak up, see the value of all
the product that is indeed on the West Coast, and particularly in Humber
East.
I would like to congratulate the business sector for
all of the investments that they have made over the years into the tourism
industry. They have stepped up
to the plate, and over the past fifteen years we have seen the service level
of this industry grow substantially, and the number of star ratings for
hotels as we go across the Province, have generally increased by 50 per
cent. So something is working.
Then when we see the advertising budget for the
Province for this year, the money is put back to the 2013 levels that were
promised by government. So $15
million is what the advertising budget is.
So I guess now I will take on my role as critic, because it is
important to point out while that increase was great, and you did promise
industry that, and it is nice to have some direction where to go, I think it
is important to point out that we are still below 2013 level – because
basically the rate of inflation has cut into that budget by about $1 million
since its inception. In actual
fact, we are still working with less money in 2015 than we had in 2013.
The last numbers that I saw – and I will round these
figures off here – we have basically put $15 million into our advertising
budget; this is an investment for a rate of return.
The Province is actually bringing back, as a result of that $15
million investment, about $140 million in taxes.
That is significant, so we should never look at cutting that budget
back because it is a great return on investment, and I am sure if the
Province could only invest in other infrastructures and other projects like
that we would not be in the position we are today.
Indeed, it is nice to see that budget brought back to its 2013
levels, but we are still weak on the amount of money that we have there
compared to other provinces.
Mr. Speaker, today, just before coming into the House,
we have another letter from the outfitters.
I think that is important to point that out here today because
government got to have an understanding of the tourism industry and, for
that matter, any industry.
Because before we can make policies that actually affect industry, it is
important that we consult with them, that we plan ahead; but obviously, with
the rate increase this year of the big game licences, this has been probably
the most significant negative effect – I know it was important to raise
money for the Budget, but we cannot jeopardize the 500 or 600 jobs that are
there in the big game industry because of the greed of government.
Really, I wonder sometimes if the left hand knew what
the right hand was doing when they were actually raising this tax on the
operators throughout the Province.
A 50 per cent increase is hard for any small business to be able to
absorb. Contrary to what the
minister has said, that means your salary for that year.
So we are expecting some of these owners not to have an income for
that year because of errors that I believe this government has made by
raising that fee so much. I
would be happy to share with the minister some of the letters we have had
come in about the negative effect this is having on their industry.
Unfortunately, and I know we have debated this a number
of times, when I go out in 2014 and sell my packages, I cannot foresee that
there is going to be a 50 per cent increase by government in the charge they
are making to the industry people.
So they have no way now of collecting that money.
They are not big corporations.
They cannot absorb that kind of hit in their pocket.
I am basically saying to the minister, reconsider the
action you have taken because this is certainly one area that will be a
detriment to the outfitting industry in this Province.
I am afraid that not all businesses are going to be able to survive
what I call a reckless, unannounced, with no consultation, increases into
this area. Really, it shows not
strong leadership, but it really shows the lack of leadership this
government had in doing that.
Now I am going to refer to another, what I call,
blunder. Again, not showing
strong leadership. You had a
provincial booklet that went out to the public with 30 per cent of the
businesses left out. Mr.
Speaker, surely someone must have realized that we cannot send out booklets
with 30 per cent and 40 per cent of businesses not listed.
Someone should have recognized there was something wrong when that
happened.
Having been a small operator for nearly forty years, as
I said earlier, when I am into January and February and March, I am
wondering how I am going to pay the bills and make it to the summer season.
As a result, as operator I might have been mopping the floor.
Guess what? I might have
been in the kitchen cooking and I might have had to clean the toilets.
Yet, we have to pay these bills.
These are just part of the job description of a small business in
rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and probably in Canada, but I will not
profess to speak about the rest of Canada because I do not know.
While the operator is at fault to some degree,
sometimes we have to say, do you know what?
We have to go back and check this again because there is something
wrong. In this case, there is
definitely something wrong when you had 30 per cent of the businesses left
out of the provincial travel guide.
It is jeopardizing the tourism product in the Province and it is also
jeopardizing the tourism businesses in this Province.
Many parts of this Province, Mr. Speaker, particularly
the rural parts of the Province, have a short season and trying to recover
from being left out the travel guide, it is absolutely ridiculous.
I really find it hard to comprehend that government could not catch
that before these booklets went out.
I know my time is running out and I am not going to
have time to go through all the notes I had here, but I would like to
briefly touch on the Marine Atlantic issue, Mr. Speaker, because since 2002
we have seen these numbers drop by 35 per cent.
This is important for the people of the West Coast.
It demonstrates, if you look at the occupancy rates on the West Coast
because they are seeing significant – well, they are seeing decreases in the
numbers over the years.
Marine Atlantic plays a vital role to the development
of the tourism industry. What is
our strategy? This is where I
would like to refer back to government's committee and industry's committee
when they spoke on the access to information.
I am just going to read a passage out of this.
“Access and transportation continues to be a major
strategic priority for the growth of the tourism industry.
Travel to, from, and around the province, whether by sea, air, or
road is often inhibited by issues of affordability, capacity, infrastructure
and quality. Newfoundland and
Labrador's tourism industry depends on an accessible, affordable and
reliable transportation system in order to grow and government must
establish a comprehensive multi-modal transportation strategy that will
ensure a reliable, affordable and efficient system that can meet the
evolving needs of the users.”
Some key areas where they suggested we focus is
obviously a strategy for Marine Atlantic.
Mr. Speaker, we do not have a strategy for Marine Atlantic.
We had two letters in the past year, according to the minister –
maybe it was three, I stand to be corrected.
We have two letters that have been sent to Ottawa.
That is not a great strategy when you are dealing with one of the key
pieces of infrastructure, not only to get tourists to this Province but,
indeed, the economic growth of the Province.
We do not have a relationship with Ottawa that we can
actually do anything about it.
We have turned our back to Ottawa.
Really, Mr. Speaker, in such a key area, this Province should be
discussing with Ottawa these very, very important issues.
It is fine to point your finger at their federal
counterparts but we have to show, in my opinion, what we are doing in
return. Two letters, in my view,
just does not cut it. Having
tourism businesses on the West Coast, talking to operators on the West
Coast, it is really disturbing to see there is such beauty, there is so much
nature there, and to see these opportunities being missed by a lack of
co-operation with the federal government.
The other issue I wanted to raise – we have, over the
past number of years, cut the officers across the Province.
I would just like to read from, again, the industry and government
paper on this because I think it is important.
This is in the regulatory issue here.
“Small and medium-sized businesses are not only the
backbone of the tourism industry, but also the backbone of the economy.
As such, it is essential that the federal, provincial and municipal
regulatory requirements and processes are flexible, straightforward and
eliminate unnecessary red tape in order to facilitate business growth and
development. For businesses to
successfully operate in a supportive and innovative environment, a concerted
effort must be made to ensure legislation is effective and enforced.”
It says three key areas that we have to concentrate on,
and I am going to read all three of them out.
“Ensure Room Levies are industry led, focused and managed.”
Of course, Mr. Speaker, with a 2 per cent raise now that this
government has decided to introduce, to expect a room levy at this point in
time would be ludicrous, and obviously it cannot be done.
My time is running out here, so I am going to get to
the other one. This one is an
important one, and I am going to be taking this up a little bit later.
“Ensure equal-playing field through the enforcement of the Tourism
Establishment Act and Regulations, specifically targeting unlicensed
accommodations throughout the province.”
The third one is to protect our natural resources.
These are all key pieces of material that we as a
Province, and I think as this provincial government, has failed to act upon.
They have been sitting on it and I could go on to others, including
the tourism signage across our highway and so on.
There are lots of areas where I can give credit, but I think it is
important to point out what has not been done, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER (Littlejohn):
The hon. the Minister of Environment and Conservation.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. CRUMMELL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the Budget
debate here this afternoon. The
Member for Humber East spoke a little bit about tourism.
I am going to respond to that before I get into my notes.
It has some relativity to my Department of Environment and
Conservation. He talked a little
bit about the outfitters and the fees.
So let me just speak to that just to clear the air.
Mr. Speaker, I actually as a young man worked for a
couple of years in an outfitting camp.
I have some knowledge about how these camps operate.
I certainly did not work on it from the business side of the
operation, but did certainly understand and have huge empathy and
understanding of what happens in these camps on a day-to-day basis.
I spent two full summers on a salmon river and I
understand some of the challenges that outfitters face when you are trying
to bring in from the mainland, trying to provide a product that you can sell
and book in advance. So I
totally get it; I totally understand that.
I have spoken to the outfitter organizations and individuals in the
last little while and I understand their concerns about the fee increases.
Mr. Speaker, when we look at the fiscal realities of
where we find ourselves right now – and I will get into that a bit further
about why we are here right now with our fiscal reality – we have to find
ways to face that and deal with that.
To be responsible, we have to do it in responsible ways.
Mr. Speaker, nobody likes to increase fees.
Nobody likes to do that, but we looked at fees across the board.
Every Newfoundlander and Labradorian has seen some kind of impact on
their lives to a degree, whether it is Motor Vehicle Registration, which I
am responsible for with Service NL, or increases in your fishing licence, or
small game licence, or your moose licences.
People have been impacted in the Province as well.
Mr. Speaker, when you look at when we are talking about
outfitters and increasing those fees by 50 per cent, yes, it seems to be a
little bit much. When we looked
at other jurisdictions and we looked at what was being charged in other
jurisdictions for people who are not from here, who come from away to come
and hunt a resource that we spend millions of dollars a year to maintain, to
enhance, to make sure that it is sustainable, we think it was only fair that
we could get those fees up to a level that is comparable to other
jurisdictions.
Even then, Mr. Speaker, there is no way we will ever be
able to the recoup the investments that we make into that.
It is investments that we make on behalf of the people of the
Province to make sure that outfitters do have a product, they do have a
resource that they can sell, and a product they can sell to people who come
from away.
Mr. Speaker, I spoke to the outfitting operators a
little while ago; I committed to them that we would try to find a way to
help them with this new burden.
There are ways that they can pass these fees on.
Some outfitters – if you go online – they will charge their set rates
for the run of a week, or a four or five-day hunt that are set rates, with
licence fees separate from that.
So you would have a separate fee over here and if that fee changes well,
that is what you paid. It says
right on your licence when you buy it from the government, it is right
there.
Those outfitters will not be impacted, but the majority
of outfitters do have that all-inclusive package.
I recognize that and I do get that, and they do sell packages in
advance. How do outfitters
respond to changes in the economy, changes to their business?
They have a business model that obviously has some flexibility to
find efficiencies and how they operate or to pick it up in the following
year.
For instance, Mr. Speaker, if the cost of labour goes
up, or the cost of fuel goes up, or the cost of insurance goes up and they
have already got their packages pre-sold, well, obviously there is going to
be an impact in their business.
Being a businessman myself, in my former life, what you would do is find a
way to pick it up the next year.
So if you have a few dollars that are lost this year, you would find a way
to pick it up next year.
What we have achieved and what we have done, Mr.
Speaker, is talked to the Outfitters Association of Newfoundland and
Labrador and we came to terms – this is just out there now; we just sent a
letter earlier this week – and we are going to allow them to pay for the
licences that they secure from Wildlife and Conservation, that they secure
from us, pay them in 2016. By
January 31, 2016, they will be able to pay for the licences.
Mr. Speaker, they can now start selling their packages today for
2016-2017 going forward and they can raise their rates to a level where they
can recoup what the rate increases were for this year and years going
forward and, in fact, find ways to put more money in their pocket.
Most of these hunts, Mr. Speaker, when you look at
moose and the rate – a moose hunt now is about $500; I do not have the
figures here in front of me for a fee from us.
They charge up to between $4,000, $7,000, $8,000, $9,000 and $10,000
for a five, six, or seven-day hunt.
It depends on what kind of hunt it is going to be.
If it is remote and you have to fly in, if you are using a helicopter
and you have to get there, success rates of the camp, different elements of
the experience, you can charge up to $7,000, $8,000, $9,000 or $10,000.
Well, if you charge a 5 per cent fee, you can pick up
that $175, which is double the fee on top of what you are paying there now
for the moose alone, in one year and even more so, Mr. Speaker.
So what we are offering here is something, I think, is palatable.
I think it is something that the outfitters of Newfoundland and
Labrador will receive very warmly.
When you look at caribou, the caribou licences now are
gone up to around $700 – gone up 50 per cent.
Newfoundland, insular Newfoundland, is the only place in North
America, and perhaps the world, where you can hunt caribou.
Caribou here are trophy caribou.
They are charging anywhere from $6,000 and $7,000 and $8,000 up to
$10,000 and $12,000 for a hunt for caribou.
It is a valuable resource.
Almost 50 per cent of the licences that we give out for caribou are
given out to the outfitting industry.
So Newfoundlanders and Labradorians only get access to half the
resource that we are able to harvest.
So, Mr. Speaker, we have been taking outfitters concerns into
perspective, into consideration when we are making these decisions.
So, again, Mr. Speaker, there are ways that outfitters
can recoup those monies. Just
like any other business has to recoup their monies when they see fee
increases or insurance goes up, or the cost of labour goes up or the cost of
fuel goes up, or the cost of food goes up.
I think we have been very responsible.
Certainly, what I have committed to do with the
outfitters association is to keep the lines of communication open, to meet
on a more regular basis to better understand their industry and their wants
and needs, because they are the experts.
We totally get that. We
want to be partners with them.
We want to continue to make sure the resource is sustainable, the resource
they are offering to people that come from away.
It is an important piece of business for our Province.
Mr. Speaker, the commitment is there.
We will continue to work hard to make sure that the outfitters of the
Province are viable, that there is a resource there they can access, and
that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will support them in every way they
can.
I just want to talk a little bit about the Budget and
where we are today. I hear on
the other side on many occasions, they talk about what happened to the
money, what happened to the oil money.
I have talked to several people about that because it does resonate
out there. People have a
legitimate right to ask that question.
It is money that goes into this Province from the offshore and
royalties and other benefits as well.
We have seen significant economic growth over the last ten years and
significant dollars come into the coffers here, Mr. Speaker.
The money that we got out of the oil patch was
investments that were made right here in this Province.
We did not take that money and just throw it away.
We invested in many things, and you could add it up pretty quickly
where the money went.
Just a few buckets that I can mention here now will
attribute for a vast majority of the revenues that we took from the
offshore. We spent over $6
billion in infrastructure in this Province in the last ten years.
Almost $6.6 billion, I think if the numbers are correct.
New and renovated schools, new health care facilities, upgraded road
infrastructure, and new and enhanced municipal infrastructure.
In my district alone, we have a new high school.
It is a $40 million high school that is going to open up this
September. Mr. Speaker, it is a
significant investment in my district.
It is long in coming.
The Convention Centre here in the city is another $30
million. You look around this
Province or you look around this city, which I am a member who represents
the west end of St. John's; it is incredible what we have seen in the city
from investments made by this government.
We are talking about $6 billion there.
When you look at other ways we have used that money,
Mr. Speaker, we decreased taxes, we decreased fees up to – the accumulative
effect over the last ten years is $3 billion; $3 billion that is in the
pockets of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that they spent to continue to
grow this economy, that they continue to create jobs if they are small
business people, and that is $3 billion.
Right there, that is $9.6 billion that we are talking and counting,
and counting.
Mr. Speaker, when we look at what we paid down on our
debt. We paid $3.4 billion down
on our debt. We did that four
years ago; five years ago, I believe it was.
We are up to $12 billion, almost $13 billion in that math alone.
We are at $13 billion before we start talking about other investments
we made in this Province, Mr. Speaker.
If we look at the public service, if we look at the
people of the Province, the people who work for the people of the Province,
people who do the work day in and day out, the cumulative effect over the
last ten years, a 30 per cent salary increase.
We have hired on more people, absolutely.
We hear it when we hear the Opposition say perhaps we have too many
people working for government. I
am not ready to go there yet and talk about and debate that, but here we
are.
Mr. Speaker, if you add up the money, 60 per cent of
all the money that government spends is on salaries.
If you look at the cumulative effect of 30 per cent salary increases
and the people we just hired, we are up to $2 billion or $3 billion there.
We are up to like $16 billion, $17 billion in four buckets that I
just talked about. Where did the
oil money go? Mr. Speaker, it is
right there in front of us.
When the Opposition say we have wasted that money, Mr.
Speaker, nothing is further from the truth.
We have made smart investments.
We invested in the people of the Province.
We invested in our public service.
We expanded our programs, we expanded our services.
We invested in education and health care.
We invested in aquaculture, Mr. Speaker.
There are so many other areas we invested money, and we did it very
wisely. We have helped to
diversify this economy, and we have also invested in Nalcor.
Let's talk about Nalcor just for a minute.
Nalcor, the Opposition over there, they make it like they are the
big, bad guys; they are the big, bad boogeymen or something.
They are something we should be ashamed of, something that should not
exist.
Mr. Speaker, the people of the Province own that
company. It is the people's
energy company. This company is
something we are investing in that is going to pay us back for generations
to come, for years and years to come through Muskrat Falls.
Yes, we spent money out of revenues from oil to invest in Muskrat
Falls. We took that money and not
only invested in Muskrat Falls, we invested in oil and gas projects, but a
large amount of that money did go into Muskrat Falls, Mr. Speaker.
Nalcor is going to be self-sufficient by 2017.
What is that going to mean for the people of the Province?
In 2017, they are going to start paying money back in.
They are going to pay off the $3 billion that was going to be
invested into that company by oil money, by money that we have borrowed.
That money is going to be paid off by 2025.
So, by 2025 we are going to pay off that $3 billion.
Every year after that there is going to be a minimum of a
billion-plus dollars that is going to go into the coffers of this
government, of the people of the Province, of the companies they own.
We will make a decision on how that money is going to be spent.
We will make a decision on roads and health care and education and
Memorial University, and maybe that day will come when we will have free
tuition and the place that we would like to get to.
Nalcor is going to be a big piece of that.
It is a visionary piece of what we have done as a government.
For anybody to stand up and say that is a waste of money, Mr.
Speaker, they are talking through their hat.
They are not speaking the truth.
They do not understand how it works.
Mr. Speaker, by 2041, we are going to take over
Churchill Falls – us, the people of the Province.
Surely, we should own that resource right now fully.
So, over a billion dollars a year Quebec Hydro is getting from
Churchill Falls. By 2041, that
number is probably going to be, what, $2 billion, $3 billion a year?
Mr. Speaker, 2041, my children – I am fifty-two now.
My two oldest daughters are going to be the same age as I am right
now, the same age as I am. They
are going to be fifty-two years old when we take that over.
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible).
MR. CRUMMELL:
Yes, and I am fifty-two. I feel
like I am thirty-two, I feel like I am forty-two.
I feel like I still have a long time to live yet.
I am going to have grandchildren, hopefully, by then.
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible).
MR. CRUMMELL:
Okay, I am not quite thirty-two or forty-two.
Mr. Speaker, the point being, it is in their lifetime
that they are going to see this.
We are going to have billions of dollars coming in from hydroelectricity
resources. We have diversified
our economy by bringing revenue from other streams.
Nalcor is going to do that.
That is exactly what Nalcor is going to do.
That is exactly what Hydro is going to do.
We have the Upper Churchill, we have the Lower
Churchill, and we have Gull Island.
Mr. Speaker, we would be crazy not to invest in that in the next five
to ten years when we get ourselves in a better spot, when oil prices go back
up again. We need to go there.
It is one of the last green energy reserves in North America.
North America is hungry for green energy, hungry as can be.
Mr. Speaker, if we can get to that point into our
future where we have Churchill Falls, we have Muskrat Falls, and we have
Gull Island humming along creating revenue for the people of the Province,
we are still going to be out there investing into the oil.
The oil business is not ending tomorrow or the next day.
We are finding new reserves all the time.
Listen, a hundred years from now, I mean yes, things
are changing. Fossil fuels, we
are going to be burning less and less as time goes on.
The population of the world is expanding.
The need for fossil fuels is not going to go away in the next hundred
years, Mr. Speaker, and that is a fact of reality.
It is still going to be needed.
We are still going to invest into exploration.
We are still going to invest into extraction.
Mr. Speaker, natural gas, where is that going to be ten years from
now? Eventually we are going to
get to a point where we are going to be able to monetize that.
Eventually we are going to get to the point that we are going to be
able to make money off that.
The oil companies and the gas companies that are the
experts in this field, Mr. Speaker, are going to reach that point and they
are going to do the business case that says now is the time to extract that
natural gas off our shores and monetize it.
That day will happen; I am sure of that.
It probably will happen in my lifetime and I hope it does, but do you
know what? It will surely happen
in my daughter's and my son's lifetime, and their children's lifetime.
We are a natural energy warehouse.
It is what we are, Newfoundland and Labrador.
We have our fishery, we have our timber, we have our natural
resources, and we have our environment that tourists like to come and see
and enjoy. We have all that.
So the diversification of our economy is important, Mr. Speaker, but
our ground root revenue stream is going to be natural resources I think
forever and a day. That is not
going to change. We are a small
population in the Northeast Atlantic that has resources that are still yet
to be found. Mining is going to
play a big role as well.
So Nalcor, again, is not the big bogeyman.
Nalcor should be a big brother to us.
We should be making sure that the company has all the resources it
needs to be as successful as it can be because, Mr. Speaker, that is the
answer to our future. What we
are doing there is exactly visionary.
That is what you call visionary.
So the people out there who are saying it should not
happen, Muskrat Falls should not happen, well, what would you have done?
How would you replace Holyrood?
We know what Holyrood is right now.
We are still trying to keep that going.
Mr. Speaker, I think Nalcor will do a good job in keeping that
operating for the next four years until we decommission Holyrood, but we
could not continue to burn fossil fuels when we have this resource up there.
Yes, it costs a lot of money upfront, but it is going to pay
dividends into the future, Mr. Speaker, pay dividends for the people of this
Province into the future for generations to come.
It is a beautiful thing, Mr. Speaker, when you look at
it. There are people in North
America who are envious of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
We can stand on our own two feet.
Right now, we are in a little tough spot, and that is all it is.
It happens in people's lives.
It happens with provinces, it happens with countries, and it is short
term. We are in a good spot
overall.
The future has never been brighter for this Province.
Anything that you see here happening now and the money we have to
borrow and the place to get to that we can pay off our deficit, that day is
going to happen, Mr. Speaker.
The fundamentals are in place for Newfoundland and Labrador to grow, to be
the place it can be, to grow our culture, to grow our people, to grow our
children.
Mr. Speaker, I will not stand for too much longer; I
just want to just call out the good things that are happening.
The doom and gloom that I hear, it is all politics – and politics is
important. We need to have that
back and forth. We need to
challenge what ideas are out there.
I firmly believe that the ideas that have been hatched
on this side of the House, that have been nurtured and brought forward, are
good things for the people of the Province.
We have more ideas and we have more visions of what we can be going
forward. I believe we have the
balance that it takes and we have the people that it takes to carry us into
the next four or five years, Mr. Speaker, and I certainly look forward to
the election this fall because it is going to be interesting.
There is going to be a lot of conversation about what
we should and should not be doing, and we need that in a democracy.
We need to have that conversation.
I look forward to hearing what the Opposition have to say, both
Opposition parties. Because do
you know what, Mr. Speaker? They
add value to who we are as a people, everybody in this Province.
By challenging what we are doing is a good thing – it is a good
thing.
The NDP play a critical role within our government,
within our Province; they play a very important role.
They make sure that we have a social conscience, and I believe
everybody over here does have a social conscience.
They do a very good job of that and they do a good job every day, day
in and day out. They do not play
too much politics, Mr. Speaker.
Anyway, what I will say in the end is I am happy to
stand here today and just talk a little bit about our future, where we are
going to, where we came from – and again, the future is great.
I think my children are going to be in a better place, I am in a
better place than my father was, and my father was in a better place than
his father was, and that is what I truly do believe.
Mr. Speaker, thank you very much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's North.
MR. KIRBY:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It is a pleasure to rise again and contribute a little
more to the Budget debate. I
wanted to participate in the private member's debate yesterday and I did not
have an opportunity because we ran out of time.
The motion yesterday was dealing with getting rid of government
waste. I just want to make a
couple of comments.
The Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi said yesterday
that motion that the Member for St. George's – Stephenville East made was a
waste of time. I would never
make that observation on anybody else's work here in the House of Assembly,
and I patently disagree that was a waste of time because I think any debate
that deals with getting rid of government waste is a good use of our time.
That is not a surprise because the member also made the
same comment about it being a waste of time when we were debating whether or
not we should cut the fat and get rid of the parliamentary secretary
positions. Those exact words
were used; this was a waste of time.
Of course, that also was not a waste of time.
She also talked about how all the Members of the House
of Assembly voted against their private member's motion on the minimum wage
that they had last spring. I
spoke on that private member's motion that day, Mr. Speaker, and I will
remind Members of the House of Assembly that, as I said, I grew up in a
family of small business people.
My mother worked for thirty-seven years in a general store that my parents
owned in Lord's Cove, and my mother is permanently disabled from standing on
her feet behind a counter for thirty-seven years.
I know something about how hard small business people work.
While all Members of this House of Assembly, I believe,
accepted the recommendations of the Minimum Wage Review Panel, government
has not enacted those recommendations.
The Liberal Opposition supported the recommendations of the Minimum
Wage Review Panel. The Minimum
Wage Review Panel, in addition to recommending a schedule of increases to
the minimum wage, talked about how important it is to give six months'
notice to small business so you do not, basically, screw up their business,
for lack of a better term.
The motion that was put forward on the minimum wage by
NDP – and if you repeat a fallacy over and over again that does not make it
fact. The reason why I voted
against that motion is because it had absolutely no consideration for small
business. They wanted an
immediate increase retroactive back to 2010, no notice, basically, to small
business. I do not support that
still, and I know small business people do not support that still.
I just wanted to get that clarified.
Sometimes there are private members' motions in the
House of Assembly and the party caucuses vote certain ways and I do not like
it. I do not call it a waste of
time. I recall back in November
of 2013 the government put forward a motion supporting an increase in the
Low-Income Seniors' Benefit.
Everybody except for the NDP members voted against the low-income tax
benefit for seniors. I did not
like that. I did not call it a
waste of time, but I think it is indicative of where it is the NDP wants to
take the Province.
In addition to basically increasing taxes or at least
not decreasing taxes on poor seniors in the Province, the former Leader of
the NDP always talks about how she wants to increase income taxes on the
rich people of the Province. I
always wonder where all these rich people are because I do not know who they
are. I do not know a whole lot
of rich people in this Province.
Of course she is talking about people like the
tradespeople who work for IOC in the Member for Labrador West's district.
Those are the rich people she wants to increase personal income taxes
on, people who have decent jobs.
People like health care providers, or PCAs, or LPNs, or RNs, or pharmacists,
or lab techs, those are the rich people the NDP wants to increase taxes on.
People like public sector workers of all sorts.
All the people who are lucky enough to get a good job working
offshore, those are the rich people the NDP wants to increase taxes on.
So do not tell me about somehow we do not understand how to properly
manage an economy. I have far
more confidence in the Leader of the Liberal Party –
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KIRBY:
– the Member for –
AN HON. MEMBER:
Humber Valley.
MR. KIRBY:
– Humber Valley, I apologize, than I do in anybody on that side.
In the last provincial election the great idea that the former leader
came up with herself, as far as I know, was to impose a 3 per cent surtax on
oil companies. It was all
researched out and they knew exactly how it was going to – and it turns out
it was not researched at all. It
was in complete contravention of all of the agreements that we have on
Hibernia, on Hebron, and on White Rose, the whole nine yards.
It was in contravention of all of that.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. KIRBY:
Then when David Cochrane asked on CBC how are you going to deal with that
because it is completely in contravention of all those agreements, she said
basically she would come into the House of Assembly, if they were the
government, and tear up those contracts and basically destroy all the hard
work that everybody has done building the oil industry in this Province by
showing that they cannot have faith in a government in this Province.
I will take no advice from people who think that way, thank you very
much.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KIRBY:
I just wanted to set the record straight on that.
Now back to the Budget debate itself which I said the other day
should have been titled: lost opportunity and misplaced priorities.
The member got up that time, I think he is the Minister of Service
NL, is he, the Member for St. John's West?
I do not know the number of times that people have changed
ministerial responsibilities over there.
It is hard to keep track of it.
There are some people over there who have been a minister of about
ten different things probably since 2011, or maybe even more than that.
The poor Minister of Natural Resources, he is also now
the Minister of Education. We
have the Minister Responsible for Seniors and a whole wack of other things.
He has Newfoundland and Labrador Housing.
He has AES. It is really
hard to keep track, but he talked about doom and gloom and so on, but it is
not doom and gloom. It is
important for the Opposition to point out the shortcoming of government.
That is what the private member's motion was about
yesterday. It was not a waste of
time. Nobody who stands up in
this House of Assembly and represents their constituents well and discusses
the issues, whether I agree with it or not, is wasting anyone's time.
We are here for a reason: to debate.
If you do not like the debate, if you do not have time in your busy
schedule to be here in the House of Assembly, then go somewhere else and do
not worry about wasting time.
An example of a lost opportunity, remember the vessel
replacement strategy. I remember
I heard at one point ministers in this government saying they were going to
build up to ten ferries in this Province.
Where are they building ferries at now?
In Romania. The ferries
that were supposed to be built in the Member for Terra Nova's district, in
the Member for Burin – Placenta West's district, and other places around
this Island, those ferries were supposed to be built here and now they are
building them – there is a Northern European; where is the company from?
Is it Norway, a Norwegian company?
AN HON. MEMBER:
Netherlands.
MR. KIRBY:
There is a company from the Netherlands, a Dutch company building our
ferries in Romania. We do not
know – the minister has not been able to tell us yet whether or not we are
going to be penalized by the federal government for doing that.
In Nova Scotia, meanwhile, they are building a whole
fleet of vessels for the Canadian military.
There are all sorts of opportunities.
As I said in the House before, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians built
ships for years –
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.
MR. BRAZIL:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
On a point of order, I want to clarify about us
building boats in Newfoundland and Labrador.
No shipyard in Newfoundland and Labrador bid on the eighty-metre
vessels that are being built in the Netherlands.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
There is no point of order.
The hon. the Member for St. John's North.
MR. KIRBY:
This minister should also have the responsibility for making excuses for the
government added to his portfolio, I say, Mr. Speaker.
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have built ships for
hundreds and hundreds of years and we could do it for hundreds more, but
what you have to do is work with industry.
Government's responsibility is not to create jobs; government's
responsibility is to create an environment where business, industry, is able
to create good jobs for people, like the Liberal Party did in the oil
industry in this Province when the Liberal Party was last in power.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KIRBY:
Then speaking of fabrication in the offshore, what happened to the third
Hebron module, remember that? Think
about this, all of the spinoffs – you can say well, we took a cheque from
the oil companies because we were not able to get them to do what they
agreed that they would do in this Province and build that third module here.
We have given up so much – it is not about getting a cheque.
How much is it worth, all the spinoff industry in this Province, if
we had the third module being built here and other fabrication, more
fabrication going on for the offshore than we already do, we would have more
spinoffs from that. There would
be workforce development, there would be labour force development, there
would be all kinds of opportunities for training for apprentices, there is
no question about that, thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of
opportunity for apprentices who are looking to get their tickets, and that
has all been washed away.
All the technology transfer that happens when industry
works in our Province and brings ideas in and brings expertise in, and there
is a lot of residual expertise and technology transfer that is left behind
after those projects are done.
We have lost an awful lot because this government cannot work with the
industry to get them to keep the commitments that they have more or less
signed on.
Then there is the fluorspar mine in St. Lawrence, which
is in limbo – and it is funny; I remember, just before the last provincial
election, my father and I are always having a racket about politics.
Like probably lots of members here, you sit down and you have a good
racket about politics; you have a good conversation.
My father and I have great debates about it.
We were out shearing sheep out by my father's barn in Lord's Cove and
he said they are going to open the fluorspar mine now.
I said: Don't be so foolish, they are going to open the fluorspar
mine. Every election the
government says they are going to open the fluorspar mine, and what happened
after that? It is all in limbo.
There was going to be colleges and training and oh, the
stuff that they were going to do in St. Lawrence.
Well, we have assurances that something eventually – wait until the
election now, Mr. Speaker, this will be the kicker.
You wait until the election.
We are going to hear more about that during the election.
There will be ribbons cut somewhere I would say, but there were
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jobs promised.
There were 200 jobs and we are far from 200 jobs in any case.
I do not like to pick on the Member for Grand Bank
because I know he is trying to do the best that he can, but how can you work
with that, Mr. Speaker? You
cannot work with that. I mean,
it is shocking.
Then you look at the forest industry; my colleague, the
Member for The Straits – White Bay North, again questioned the minister
responsible on this today, basically the padding of the statistics around
employment in the forest industry.
Dr. Wade Locke, who this government has put out there time and time
again to support their borrowing, their overspending, and so on and so
forth, he has actually come out and said that more or less they are off the
mark when it comes to that.
It is not only that, under this government's watch – I
just finished reading a book about Joey Smallwood's life and Smallwood – it
is almost a sin to read; it would make you sad because he was always
searching for another mill in this Province.
Right now, we have the one; two of them are gone.
On this government's watch, we lost two mills and all of those people
now are basically working out of Province.
They preferred to let that slip away.
They should have worked harder with the industry.
They should have worked harder with the union and tried to come to
some arrangement where we could have preserved those mills for this
Province.
Then the fibre is basically inaccessible now.
The mills cannot get product to do sort of domestic work, if you
will, creating lumber and so on domestically.
The Roddickton pellet plant is still not materialized.
They put a big investment into that and we are still far from that.
People are trying to access this fibre resource and cannot access it.
There you go, there is another lost opportunity.
Then the fishery – and it makes me so sad to even talk
about this because both of grandfathers were trap skiff skippers out of
Lord's Cove. When they were not
working in the mine in St. Lawrence – which eventually killed the both of
them – they were fishermen. The
plant in Lord's Cove, they basically used to employ several hundred people
and now it does not even employ several handfuls of people.
There are all sorts of schemes that have been bandied
about but there have been so many fish plants close: Hant's Harbour,
Salvage, Jackson's Arm, Port Union, Black Tickle, St. Lewis, Marystown and
Burin. The other day –
AN HON. MEMBER:
Port Union.
MR. KIRBY:
Port Union.
You have to look at the news – this whole business
about the government is allowing now all these exemptions – we found out,
thank God – to take raw products out of the Province for processing
elsewhere, what have you, and we have shut down all of these plants.
The Burin plant used to be like a crown jewel.
It was a place where they actually did some decent secondary
processing and we were all very proud of it.
Now, that is also gone.
That really shook people when that happened.
In Fortune, the government made concessions to OCI.
I heard the Premier say – I do not know if it was yesterday.
One day the week he said that was all to deal with yellowtail, but it
was 75 per cent on the yellowtail and 100 per cent on the red fish.
They have yet to live up to that agreement.
I heard a woman, Karen Caines, in the news there again
today talking about the need to get something done there for the people of
Fortune. It is a big problem.
So that is another huge lost opportunity.
Our industry, the fishing industry is the reason why we
are all here today. The vast
majority of our ancestors came here 500-odd years ago to prosecute that
fishery, in particular. Probably
not my colleague's ancestors – the Member for Torngat Mountains – but they
also, for thousands of years, prosecuted our fishery.
Now it is a shadow of what it used to be and it is deeply saddening
to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
That has to be said. A
major lost opportunity.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. KIRBY:
Another area that we have lost opportunity in is in tourism.
There are all sorts of statistics you can go to.
The government cherry-picks the statistics that they want to get out
there. If you want to tell the
full story, you can find big holes in their argument.
One of the things they did there a while back, a couple
of years ago, were those ads that everybody talks about.
All the crowd on the mainland, anybody who is lucky enough to see
them, people talk about how great those ads are.
They are shared on social media wildly when a new one comes out.
The government decided to cut that.
I mean that was something that was hugely successful.
They could not cut the Parliamentary Secretaries, but they had no
problem cutting into the tourism advertising budget.
So another huge blunder, mismanagement of the highest order.
Look at what they are doing now to outfitters.
It is just completely ridiculous what they are doing to outfitters on
the Great Northern Peninsula, increasing licences.
No discussion, no consultation.
This is the open government with the open minister, the open website,
and so on.
They did not consult with the outfitters about this.
They are all up in arms.
Their costs have skyrocketed. A
lot of them do not know how they are going to manage to stay in the business
because of what government has decided to do.
Big game hunting and fishing in this Province is
something that has attracted everybody from the first President George Bush
to average Americans who just come here to sport fish and to engage in
hunting. Often, at the same
time, they spend a lot of money here.
It is good for the economy.
It is certainly good for the Great Northern Peninsula, and to go
ahead and do that is very damaging.
It sends a very negative message to small business people who are
trying to carve out an existence in the tourism industry.
Those are just a few things.
I have a whole pile of stuff, hopefully I will have lots more time to
talk about it, but that is just a few examples of lost opportunity.
Instead of moving forward with economic diversification, as the
Leader of the Liberal Party, the Official Opposition has said, this
government talks about business attraction and does very little with it –
very, very little with it.
It has made decisions to the detriment, like the
outfitters, the IT industry here.
One example comes to mind, where they have made decisions that are to
the detriment of small- and medium-sized businesses in this Province.
They talk about building this billion-dollar or multi-billion dollar
ocean technology industry and there is the odd announcement but there is
really nothing comprehensive coming from government on that.
We are not hearing anything comprehensive.
So, basically, this is a failed economic record.
That is part of the reason why we are in the mess we
are in, because we are in a mess.
We are in a recession. It
does not get a whole lot worse than this economically.
What sort of message does that send to young people who want to stay
in this Province, who want to stay here?
They want to raise their families here.
What sort of message does that send?
It is a very negative one.
That is why, I say to the member, that is why, I say to
the Minister of Natural Resources, when I go to the grocery store, when I go
to the corner store, when I go around my district, people say they cannot
vote for this government again.
It is as simple as that. People
say I voted PC all my life, I am not voting for the PCs ever again.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. member's time has expired.
MR. KIRBY:
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Attorney General.
MR. F. COLLINS:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It is a pleasure again today, Mr. Speaker, to address a
few words to Budget 2015, and as always, following in the tradition of other
speakers, a pleasure to represent the good constituents of Placentia – St
Mary's.
The District of Placentia – St. Mary's is probably one
of the most diverse districts in the Province, certainly geographically.
It has a number of different geographic components to it.
I mentioned these before, forty communities and 540 kilometres of
road.
The biggest community would be Placentia, of course.
Whitbourne is also a fairly big growth centre.
It is a diverse district.
It has the components of St. Mary's Bay.
It has a component of the Cape Shore.
The Placentia region itself, and the Whitbourne region – all separate
regions. It is definitely a
challenge, Mr. Speaker, to have presence in all the district, but always a
great district to represent, and certainly it has been a pleasure for me to
do so.
I would like today, Mr. Speaker, before I begin my
comments, to express some congratulations to the Member for Cape St.
Francis, who had an excellent fundraiser last night out in his district with
300 people.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. F. COLLINS:
Very encouraging, and a great night, and congratulations.
Kudos to the Member for Cape St. Francis for a very good night.
Mr. Speaker, when I spoke last on the Budget I was
speaking to the sub-amendment, and I think now I am speaking to the
amendment, as far as I know. So
later on we will get a chance to speak to the Budget itself, but now we
speak to the amendment. It gives
everybody an opportunity to speak a number of times on this Budget, and that
is something we always look forward to doing.
When I last spoke, Mr. Speaker, about this Budget, I
talked about the five-year plan that the Finance Minister had put forth in
Budget 2015, and how that plan was a balanced, measured plan to take us
through the fiscal times, hard times of the next five years and bring us to
surplus in five years. The key
words in there were balanced, balanced plan, and a measured plan, and it
bears repeating.
That is the plan this government has for the next five
years, because that five-year fiscal plan says what we are all about for the
next five years, where we are going.
It is very clear, very detailed, and very concise.
It has targets to it, ones that we are pretty confident we can
implement, and ones that sit well with the public of the Province.
Mr. Speaker, there were a number of different options
open to us, of course, and these have been beaten around by different
sections of the public, and by the people in this House.
Taxes; increasing taxes being one of them.
There are some people who thought we should have increased taxes more
than we did. People said you
cannot have government without paying taxes.
Other people thought, of course, we should not have introduced any
taxes at all.
There were others who thought we should reduce programs
a lot more than we did, and reduce the civil service a lot more than we did.
There were some people who suggested we should not touch that area at
all, and there is the other component, borrowing.
Some people said we should not be borrowing at all, and some people
said we should be borrowing more.
So these were the sorts of conversations that led up to this Budget.
Mr. Speaker, we put together a plan that we thought had
the least impact on the economy and gets us through the next five years.
We recognize the economy has slowed somewhat and that we had to put a
plan in place to deal with that.
The public expects no less. The
public expected a responsible response from this government, and that is
what this government has done. I
think that response sits well with the public, contrary to what we might
hear from the other side.
Mr. Speaker, there is no hue and cry from the public
with respect to this Budget. I
do not hear it, and it has nothing to do with my hearing abilities.
I had one call from my district about HST, but I have not heard
anything from my district about borrowing, about cutting the civil service.
Except every now and then you get people who say you should cut it
more, but we did not want to do that.
So the response has been pretty good.
Our attrition plan, for example – we have cut into the
civil service by an attrition plan.
That is received very favourably, both within the civil service and
outside. There is no big outcry
to it. You do not hear anybody
going around in this Confederation Building with their heads hung down
because of what is happening to the civil service.
We brought in an attrition plan which the civil service is very happy
with. We could have cut a lot
more, but we did not want to impact the economy.
Mr. Speaker, the people on the other side will continue
to say we are cutting 1,400 to 1,600 jobs, as if it is happening right now.
Well, the Member for St. John's North made a statement that is very
true. If you keep repeating the
same fallacy over and over people accept it as a fact.
These guys over there are noted for that.
If you keep repeating the same fallacy over and over, then people
accept it is a fact. We are
cutting 1,400 to 1,600 jobs by attrition over five years.
I think most people are very happy with that.
We did not cut deeper, as some people suggested, and no
layoffs. Mr. Speaker, by doing
it that way we are keeping our young and our brightest people.
When ten people leave by attrition, we hire ten people back.
We are hiring the young, the brightest, and the best.
That is the whole benefit of this arrangement.
We are not getting rid of our best.
We are keeping our best and hiring more.
There is no outcry out there about that.
I do not hear it.
Mr. Speaker, what about the tax increase, a 2 per cent
increase in HST? Well, there was
some pushback on that. Nobody
likes taxes. There are two
things in life that you cannot go without, taxes and death.
Nobody likes taxes.
Mr. Speaker, I got one call in my district about the
HST increase, one call. Once we
explained the HST, then that person was very satisfied.
People are saying you are cutting on the backs of the poor people, of
the vulnerable, of the low income, and that is not the case.
Because we have raised the threshold for the tax credit, doubling the
number of people who benefit from the tax credit.
We have raised the tax credit to $300; $60 per person as well in
addition to that.
I read an article that said some people will be better
off because of the tax credit than they are now.
You get this report from the other side that we are making it tough
on low-income earners, but, in fact, that is not the case.
This whole business about being a job killer and an economy killer,
the statistics show it is has a 1 per cent effect on the economy.
Mr. Speaker, with the extra levels of income tax, the
hon. the Member for St. John's North mentioned a few minutes ago, about
taxing the rich. We have created
two new levels of income tax on higher income earners in order to bring it
in line with the rest of Canada.
Out of all of that, after the taxing, the HST credit, and with the high
thresholds for HST and for personal income, we have people in the Province
who pay no provincial income tax because the threshold is so high.
Mr. Speaker, with all of that put together, we have put
$2 billion back into the pockets of people in this Province in income tax;
$2 billion. If we had not done
that, we certainly would not have the billion-dollar deficit today.
In terms of figures and statistics, we would be much better off today
if we had not done that. If that
is squandering money, if that is wasting money, well, we wasted money by
lowering income tax levels and putting $2 billion in taxpayers' pockets.
These are the sort of facts, if you repeat the fallacy several time,
it is interpreted as fact by some people.
Not to mention our Poverty Reduction Strategy; which
makes us the envy of the country.
Putting these things together, no one can say we have not treated
low-income earners fairly in this Province.
No one can say that.
There has been no outcry about the tax situation.
There was an initial pushback.
Once the explanation gets out there, you do not hear it today.
As I said, I got one call.
I do not know about others on this side of the House but I doubt –
you could count on one hand the number of calls each person will get.
The other side would not tell you that.
Once explained of how it works, people understand it very well.
Mr. Speaker, with respect to borrowing, the other part
of our plan. From 1987 to 2003,
this Province borrowed almost $7 billion.
From 2004 to 2015, to the present time, this government has borrowed
$2.10 billion, less than half.
Mr. Speaker, our borrowing is certainly inline, and as
a result of our borrowing we are able to invest in infrastructure and
program growth. We have to do
that in order to sustain the economy.
We do not want to impact the economy by cutting and not investing.
There is no outcry to that. I
do not hear a lot of people in my district calling me about borrowing.
Another important part of our Budget was the private
partnerships arrangement for long-term care.
I think most people in the Province accepted that very well.
It showed thinking outside the box.
To build 360 long-term care beds in this Province, Mr. Speaker, would
cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
By doing it this way, it will cost nothing upfront.
It will be able to provide 360 long-term care beds in this Province.
Now, Mr. Speaker, how people cannot get to that – when
I heard the Member for Burgeo – La Poile saying the other day, he was
complaining because people in his part of the district, Port aux Basques,
could not get a bed in the Corner Brook hospital.
I think it was twenty beds in the Corner Brook hospital occupied by
long-term care people waiting for beds.
Acute beds occupied by long-term care people.
He was upset because his constituent could not get a bed in the
Corner Brook hospital. Well, one
of the reasons he could not get a bed in the Corner Brook hospital is
because it is occupied by long-term care people, yet he is against private
partnerships.
The Member for St. John's North mentioned the other day
he had some family concerns and had to use the health care facilities, and
was amazed to see people on stretchers in the corridor and so on, but he did
not say upstairs there were people occupying beds that should be in a
long-term care facility. Yet
they are against this proposal to build 360 long-term beds.
The Member for Bay of Islands, if I remember correctly, said he would
reverse that private partnership deal, to the union members out in front of
this building.
Mr. Speaker, the people approve of that program.
You do not hear any kickback from the people on that.
The unions certainly want to beat their chest on something like that
and understandably so, that is their role.
They engage in spending hundreds of thousands – I do not know how
much money they spent, but certainly thousands of dollars on an ad campaign
on TV saying government is going to privatize everything.
It did not resonate, nobody watched it, nobody listened to it because
people are aware of the fact they have to think outside the box to try to
get things done.
The previous speaker on our side, the Minister of
Environment and Conservation, spoke about Nalcor.
There is considerable criticism of Nalcor.
I will speak to Nalcor again in a few minutes if I can get a chance
but Nalcor is our plan for the future, part of it.
It is an investment. It
is the future of this Province.
By 2025 it will return $1 billion in investments to this Province.
That is our future. We
have to invest upfront. You do
not make money if you do not invest money.
It is a criticism that is unfounded, but there is no
public outcry on that. A few
people complained about it but when the polls were sent around earlier, 65
per cent of the Province approved Muskrat Falls.
Mr. Speaker, I did not want to rehash what I said the
last time around but that is our plan.
Our plan, as I said before, is balance and measure, and we will stack
it up against the Liberal plan, when they get one.
We will stack it up in the polls.
It is clear, it is concise, it has targets, and we will certainly go
behind it.
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have called for an early
election. The Opposition Leader
has repeatedly called for an early election, sooner rather than later.
Now we discover that while they were making those calls for an
earlier election, they did not have an economic plan to go with it.
They are only making one now.
They are only putting one together now.
We must have frightened them, Mr. Speaker.
We must have lit a fire under them.
Now all of a sudden it is hey, let's back up here, guys.
There might be an election called; we do not have a plan, so let's go
get one. Here we are calling for
an early election but if an election were called today, we might get caught
with our proverbial drawers down.
I do not know if that is unparliamentary or not, Mr. Speaker.
If it is, I withdraw it.
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible) of your pants.
MR. F. COLLINS:
Yes, they would be caught with their pants down anyway.
The Liberals said hang on guys, there may be an election called.
If there is one going to be called, we do not have a plan yet.
They called a big news conference last week; we have to get a plan.
They filled the room with twenty-five people and called it a big
economic plan.
They say they will have it ready.
They are going to have it ready.
I get it. You will not
come out with it soon but you are going to have it ready.
They are not going to go to the polls without one.
They will have it ready hopefully.
We will stack up ours against it, whatever it is.
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk for a few minutes about
some of the initiatives of this Budget as well.
Besides the 360 long-term care beds that were already mentioned, the
new municipal fiscal framework that the Minister of Municipal and
Intergovernmental Affairs came out with is well received.
My mayors and councils in my district are absolutely delighted with
it. Mr. Speaker, $600,000 going
into municipalities in my district, new money, and certainly they are all
very pleased with that. The
amount is $20,000 in some small communities, but to a small community
$20,000 in new money is a lot of money.
They are very happy with that.
Mr. Speaker, we put $660 million this year into
infrastructure and we have to do that.
Our economy is slowing and we have to do our part to make sure we
sustain that economy. We are
going to do that. I do not know
what planet the Member for St. John's North is living in.
He said we are so bad in this Province now it cannot get any worse.
It does not get any worse than this.
I do not know what planet he is on.
What about the pension reform this government has gone through?
Where would our deficit be today and in the next ten years if he did
not do the pension reform?
Mr. Speaker, my time is running short so I have to cut
some of the stuff I wanted to say here.
I am sure I will get a chance to speak again when the next time comes
around.
What the Liberals have done now, they have seen that
there is no great outcry out there to the Budget so they have come with a
different direction. Now they go
back and they accuse us of squandering money.
That is the only thing they can go with.
They do not have plans of their own so they are going to accuse us of
squandering money.
Kudos to the Leader of the NDP or the Member of Signal
Hill – Quidi Vidi who sat down yesterday after just speaking for five or ten
minutes because the private member's motion was a waste of time she said –
kudos to her; kudos, because it was.
The Member for St. John's North criticized the Member
for Signal Hill –Quidi Vidi for her election platform she used in the last
election, an election platform that he campaigned on.
He was an NDP member then; he campaigned on that.
He campaigned on that and now he is criticizing her for it – oh, the
beauty of it all, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, my time is up; I will leave it at that.
I will have another opportunity to come back and say some other
things about the Budget.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for St. John's Centre.
MS ROGERS:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I am happy to stand again and to speak to this Budget.
When I last spoke I identified how important the macroeconomics is in
our Province. We are in a
recession, our Minister of Finance has finally acknowledged that we are, and
so there are a lot of things to tend to looking at the overall economic
health of our Province and what is at stake in the future, where we are
going in the future.
Again, what I would like to do is just kind of drill
down a little bit and look at what is actually happening, what is affecting
with our macroeconomic situation, how is it affecting the lives of our
people. Because that is what
this is all about; this is about the lives of our people.
Our Province is about our people.
With our people, we exploit our resources, we use our resources, we
look at ways to increase revenue, we look at ways of increasing prosperity
so that nobody is left behind; but what I would like to do now is look at
the issue of housing. Mr.
Speaker, we know how important the issue of housing is.
It is important because the Canadian Medical Association, which is
comprised of doctors all over the country, two years ago they released a
report saying how affordable, safe, adequate housing is one of the key
social determinants of health.
I want to talk about this because we know that we are
in a housing crisis. There are
no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Last week, the All-Party Committee on Mental Health and Addictions met and
heard from community groups, from service providers, from individuals and
families in Corner Brook and around that area.
Without exception, Mr. Speaker, we heard from psychiatrists, we heard
from social workers, we heard from managers, we heard from counsellors, we
heard from individual people who are suffering complex needs, we heard from
families who have adult children with severe, persistent, chronic mental
health issues – without an exception, everybody talked about the issue of
housing.
We heard from the assistant superintendent of the
correctional facility in Stephenville.
He talked about housing, so we know that housing is at the crux of
whether or not people can get well.
We know that housing is at the crux of whether or not people can
work. If you do not have a place
to live, how can you work? How
can you get on with your life?
If you do not have a place to live – I remember Dr. Ladha, our chief
forensic psychiatrist, probably one of the most senior psychiatrists and
most experienced psychiatrist in the whole Province, has said at times:
There is almost nothing I can do to help people get well if they do not have
a place to live.
I heard not so long ago from small business owners,
particularly in the tourist industry up along the Northern Peninsula, who
said that they are having a hard time getting workers because there is no
place for their workers to live, particularly if people are working minimum
wage jobs. You cannot get a
decent place simply to lay your head for under $800 a month, plus utilities.
People who are on Income Support, there is no way they can afford
that. People with minimum wage,
there is no way that can support that.
The other thing that I heard from was in Labrador, from
the correctional institute in Labrador, how security guards cannot get time
off and they are working overtime.
It is the only way that they can get the coverage in the correctional
facility. They cannot get relief
workers because housing is too expensive.
Then, we have the revolving door – you know, when we
looked at the policy years ago of releasing people from institutions and out
into the community, particularly people with severe and persistent mental
health issue, it was a good policy, open up those doors, people can go back
into the community. When we
looked at the closure of places like Exon House as well, people with
disabilities, a number of different kinds of disabilities, but the proper
resources were not put in place.
So what we have is unrealistically high proportion of
people with persistent mental health and addictions issues in our prisons.
We have people in our psychiatric hospitals because they do not have
a decent place to live. Often
that is one of the factors.
It is so interesting, again, to hear correctional
officers from all across the Province who are working in our correctional
facilities saying one of the key problems for releasing people back in the
community is that they do not have a decent place to live.
So then what we see happen is they may end up in a horrendous
boarding house.
I have been to some of these boarding housing.
A number of these boarding houses are in my District of St. John's
Centre, so I am happy to speak about these issues because I know that they
affect the lives of the good people of St. Johns' Centre.
Boarding houses where people are paying $600 for a room, plus
utilities, and maybe there is one bathroom for eight men in one house.
It is horrendous. They
are awful places.
If you have social problems, if you have addiction
problems, if you are persistent mental health problems, it is a horrible way
to live. You are housed maybe
with other people who are drug users, who have problems with alcoholism.
You just got out of jail.
You are clean. You do not want
to have any trouble with that, but you are surrounded by that.
So then what we have is the constant circle of people not being able
to get well. What happens is it
costs us way more money.
We know – the research has been done – that it costs
more money to not house people properly than it does if they end up back in
the Waterford or if they end up back in Her Majesty's Penitentiary, which is
thousands of dollars a day in the Waterford and close to that in the
Penitentiary, let alone the whole issue of human suffering.
It is has been interesting the research that has been
done around if you have good, affordable housing – and we are talking about
pretty modest housing – and supportive services at hand, that the success
rate of people being able to rehabilitate themselves is exponential compared
to if you do not have these services.
Now, I have stood up in this House, I do not know how
many times, to talk about the issue of housing.
Sometimes I have been really hard on government, really, really hard
on government; but the other thing that we have to take into consideration
is that the federal government has fallen down on its responsibility.
It has fallen down on its responsibility around the issue of housing.
Now, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities put out
a paper today, and it is very interesting.
Their paper that they put out today is all about housing.
One of the things that they said in their report: “Affordable housing
is increasingly out of reach for many Canadians.”
I remember when I was first elected, Mr. Speaker, what
I would do is talk about the housing for a lot of people who had persistent
problems and complex needs in my district, but also, I am getting up and
talking about the issue of seniors.
Again, we have the fastest-growing population shift of seniors in the
whole country, and among those seniors we have the highest percentage of
seniors on OAS and GIS, and a good percentage of those are elderly women.
That means they are living on $1,100 a month.
So again, I know I have said this a number of times in
the House, if you are living on $1,100 a month and you have to rent an
apartment, you are looking at at least $800 a month, plus heat and light on
top of that. That will bring you
up to $1,000 a month. That is
before you have phone and cable.
That is before you have food – there is no money left for food, there is no
money left for transportation, there is no money left for your copay for
your drugs, there is no money left for clothing, and there is no money left
to get your hair cut or to buy your granddaughter a graduation card or a
graduation present. We will have
the highest number of seniors living in poverty.
That is not what we want.
I know that there is not a single person here in this House who wants to see
that happen.
I have also been talking about the challenge for our
young working families who want to buy a house.
We know how important it is to buy a house.
If you can afford it, if you can afford the down payment, if you can
afford the legal closing cost – because what is happening is that you are
building up equity and you are building up net worth for your family.
Now, we know that is increasingly getting out of the reach of young
working families. Because aside
from their mortgage payments, they have their car payments, they have their
student loans, and they have those huge child care costs – at least $1,000
per month per child. If you have
two kids, you are looking at a minimum of $2,000 a month.
Some people say they cannot afford to work, or they cannot afford to
have children. We know we want
our young working families to have children.
There is not a person in this House who does not.
It is not enough for me simply to be hard on our own
provincial government, although there is a lot to be said because we have
never, in the history of this Province we have never had a comprehensive
housing strategy or housing plan.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER (Cross):
Order, please!
MS ROGERS:
We have some social housing, that is Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, but
not a comprehensive housing policy or strategy that looks at, okay, what
happens when there is a big resource development project in a certain area
and they move in, and then the price of housing goes up?
We have heard about it in Clarenville.
I have spoken with a number of people in Clarenville who lost their
apartments because of the boom in industry out in that area.
That people can raise the rent three times what their past tenant was
paying.
I remember going up to Labrador, and it was very ironic
that I was meeting with the Housing and Homelessness Network in Labrador,
and the Housing and Homelessness worker had just received a notice from her
landlord doubling her rent. So
she was going to be homeless.
That was a person who was trying to help people find housing in Labrador.
She was going to be homeless.
So it is kind of interesting.
What do we need to do?
Well, the federal government, again in this report by the Federation
of Canadian Municipalities said, “The 2015 federal budget did little to
mitigate this looming crisis as no new dollars have been committed to
address the $1 billion declining federal investment in social housing over
the next five years.”
We know what has happened is that the federal
government has abandoned the provinces.
The federal government had a huge role to play in affordable housing,
and also providing money to keep our social housing stock in shape.
So they have abandoned that.
We need our own government to take leadership, to lobby
the federal government to come back to the table because we need a federal
housing strategy. Our housing
advocates are saying it; our community groups are saying it.
The problem is so bad we can no longer solve it on our own on the
provincial level. We cannot
solve it on our own on the municipal level, and we know the private market
is not taking care of the housing crisis.
As a matter of fact, what we see is that is part of the
problem. Part of the problem is
the huge, booming economic projects which are fantastic – they are fantastic
– but how do we make sure that people do not get steamrolled, that they do
not get run over by these projects.
That is what is at play here.
“ … Canada's most vulnerable citizens, one third of
whom are elderly, face increased housing costs and growing waitlists for
affordable housing in municipalities from coast to coast to coast.”
It is not just happening here in Newfoundland and Labrador, but, boy,
do we have a problem here in Newfoundland and Labrador.
I was approached by a young man in my district who was
living in a boarding house. He
had been in and out of prison.
He had a tough life, but he got clean in prison and he was ready to move on.
He wanted to work. He was
going back to school. He was
living in a boarding house that was deplorable, but it was all that he could
afford.
He said in the basement of the boarding house he was
living in was a man with severe mental illness issues.
He said it was so cold in that basement in the winter that the man
who lived in the basement, who was so vulnerable, had to wear a coat, a hat,
a scarf, and mitts.
Do you know what, Mr. Speaker?
Let me tell you about these boarding houses.
Do you know who pays for the boarding houses?
The taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador, because a lot of people
who are in these boarding houses, often through no fault of their own –
sometimes through fault of their own, but for the most part not – are on
Income Support. So Income
Support is our tax dollars as safety nets.
As a taxpayer, I fully support that.
The rent for these folks living in these deplorable, deplorable
conditions is paid for by our tax dollars.
Do you know where that money goes?
It goes right into the pocket of slum landlords.
One of the things is that almost three years ago, Mr.
Speaker, I presented at the Residential Tenancies review, a consultation
where Service NL said we are going to review the Residential Tenancies Act
because it has not been looked at since the year 2000.
I went out and made representation about some of the deplorable
situations that people find themselves in, and they have no recourse.
I talked about the fact that rents could be hiked by the whim of a
landlord and you could become homeless.
How many seniors, women living alone, were told by
their landlord, I am raising your rent?
Maybe they are raising the rent by twofold or maybe they are raising
the rent by $300 a month, which means that senior becomes homeless.
They cannot afford that rent because their income is not going up by
that much. They are already
living on the edge of poverty, or actually right in poverty.
In good faith, Mr. Speaker, I went to those
consultations. I wrote a submission,
I presented it. I also sat for
hours and listened to the stories of other people.
I also listened to suggestions by housing advocates almost three
years ago, and we have seen neither hide nor hair of that Residential
Tenancies Act. We have not seen
it; we have not heard a word. It
is almost three years.
Mr. Speaker, what could possibly be taking so long?
It is our seniors; we know we have a tsunami of seniors coming.
Our seniors are not a deficit.
Our seniors are not a problem.
Our seniors, as they age and become more and more financially poor,
they face incredible challenges, incredible problems, particularly around
the issue of housing.
Mr. Baxter Hookey, again, who often calls my office,
who often calls into the Open Line shows, talks about the desperate need for
affordable housing for seniors in the Port Rexton area.
That need exists in St. John's, that need exists on the Northern
Peninsula, and it exists in Labrador.
If we do not find ways to ensure there is adequate,
affordable, safe housing for our seniors, there is no way we can build the
number of long-term care beds they will need.
If we do not provide, if we do not plan for affordable housing for
seniors, we are going to feel the extent of the cost of that through the
need for more long-term care beds.
These are seniors who could live in their houses if there was proper
housing and proper support services.
Mr. Speaker, I spoke and heard from parents who have
adult children with mental health needs, or adult children who have Autism,
severe on the Autism spectrum, and these parents are telling me, I do not
know what is going to happen to my son or my daughter who cannot take care
of themselves. They say, when we
age, who is going to take care of them?
Where are they going to live?
The problem we have, Mr. Speaker, is that there has no
plan for that. There has been no
plan to take care of our seniors, to take care of people with complex needs.
When their parents die and they need to be living out on their own,
there is no place for them.
Mr. Speaker, I raised it in the House again today that
Newfoundland and Labrador Housing has assets – they must not sell their
assets right now until there is a full consultation with community groups –
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
I remind the member her time is expired.
MS ROGERS:
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. GRANTER:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am glad to take the opportunity to spend the next
twenty minutes on my feet to discuss these Budget items, Mr. Speaker.
You never know when you come to the House of Assembly on any given
day, when you are called upon to speak, what might come across your table
and what might come across your plate.
I have always said that I was the kind of person who would look at
all sides and try to negotiate and find solutions.
That is the way I was in my former life, and that is the way I
continue to be as I act in the position of Minister of Fisheries and
Aquaculture, and the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency.
This afternoon I stand and really have to challenge the
federal government on some news that has come across my table this
afternoon. Just a couple of
hours ago we received the fisheries management plan for the Atlantic halibut
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans
today announced the total allowable catch for the Atlantic halibut in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization Divisions
4RST.
The sharing formula stabilized in 2013 will be used to
distribute the first 864 tons, and the remaining 172.8 tons will be shared
equally between the eight regional inshore fixed-gear fleets, currently
involved in a directed Atlantic halibut fishery in 4RST, Mr. Speaker.
On the surface that sounds like good news, but when you dig a little
deeper it is not quite the good news that we were expecting.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to go back and spend the first
bit of my time talking a little bit about the halibut fishery on the West
Coast of the Province – and I know it affects the Member for Bay of Islands,
and other members from the other side, and obviously, it affects fishers in
the area, which I represent as well.
So, when I go through this, I will also then jump back to Forestry
and Agrifoods and then clue up on some of the fisheries issues.
Mr. Speaker, just for background purposes, in 2007, the
federal DFO established a stabilized sharing arrangement for the inshore
fixed-gear sector for 4RST, the Atlantic halibut, based on historical
participation in the fishery, and the Newfoundland inshore fixed-gear fleet
received a share of 32 per cent out of that allocation.
Despite this sharing arrangement, from 2009 to 2011 several quota
allocations for the Atlantic halibut were split equally amongst the inshore
fixed-gear fleets in the Gulf, rather than in accordance with the sharing
arrangement established back in 2007.
The Province asked DFO to reverse these decisions since they did not
reflect the established sharing arrangement or the historical participation
in the fishery of which the West Coast fish harvesters were involved.
There was an external review that took place by Ernest
Young in 2012 and confirmed that the sharing arrangements established in
2007 followed the DFO federal policy and was consistent with sharing
arrangements established for the other groundfish fisheries in Atlantic
Canada. Following that review,
DFO announced that the shares for the Atlantic halibut had been stabilized
at 2013 levels, which resulted in a reduced share for Newfoundland and
Labrador inshore fixed-gear fleet from 32 per cent to 29 per cent, Mr.
Speaker.
Today, just an hour or two before I came to the House
of Assembly, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced that
the 2015-2016 total allowable catch for that area 4RSD, Atlantic halibut,
has been increased from 864 tons to 1,037 tons and the science is there to
actually show that, so that is good news.
However, Mr. Speaker, DFO also announced that the
increase of 173 tons – that is the extra allocation for this year – will be
split equally amongst the inshore fixed-gear fleets rather than in
accordance with the stabilized sharing arrangement.
For those who are familiar, there are eight zones, and the zones
include the Gulf of New Brunswick; the Gulf of Nova Scotia; the Gulf of
Prince Edward Island; Western Newfoundland, which is the one I am very
concerned about; Quebec North Shore; the Gaspé Peninsula; the Magdalen
Islands; and Scotia Fundy.
Mr. Speaker, just over an hour ago the FFAW – we have
been in contact with the FFAW – held a press conference here in the city as
well talking about this particular allocation and the announcement that was
made by the federal minister.
Basically, just reading from their press release, the federal Department of
Fisheries and Oceans announced today that it would no longer honour the
long-standing, stable sharing arrangement on the Gulf of St. Lawrence
halibut quota. They go on to
say: The 2015 sharing arrangement will result in the Newfoundland and
Labrador's share being reduced to 24 per cent, a 7.5 per cent reduction in
that particular share.
It follows the decision made by the government where
harvesters on the south coast, 3Ps harvesters – the provincial government
advocated for a 14 per cent increase and we ended up with a 7 per cent
increase for 3Ps halibut fishers this year.
They were not given the consideration for their historic share of
that particular halibut catch, of that particular quota this year, Mr.
Speaker.
The FFAW press release goes on to say, “The reduction
in the share of halibut to NL is an attack on the viability of enterprises
that are most in need. West
coast harvesters have some of the lowest earning opportunities from the
fisheries and are heavily dependent upon the Atlantic Halibut.
On the south coast, harvesters in 3Ps hoped to supplement a difficult
crab fishery” – we know the difficulty this year with that particular
species – “with an improved halibut catch.
Fishers from both coasts received the same disrespect from the
federal government.”
Again, just a few second ago, science supported a 14
per cent increase in the 3Ps halibut and ended up at the end with the 7 per
cent increase, Mr. Speaker. As
Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture for the Province it is totally
unacceptable to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, totally
unacceptable to me as the Fisheries Minister, that Minister Shea today is
not respecting the established arrangement of the Atlantic halibut in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence and continues to erode Newfoundland halibut fleet's
share. She has basically taken
halibut away from Newfoundland inshore harvesters and provided it to
harvesters in the Maritime Provinces.
It is strictly, I believe, a political decision as the
existing sharing arrangement was based on historical landings and was
confirmed through an external review, the one I just spoke to.
The largest beneficiary of the decision today is the fleet from
Prince Edward Island. The extra
allocation, following the traditional way it was allocated, would have given
fifty extra tons to West Coast harvesters and we end up with twenty-one tons
of that allocation today. So it
is absolutely unacceptable.
Mr. Speaker, what is interesting when we look at that
and the point that I am trying to get to is that Minister Shea and the
federal department has not decided on an alternative to LIFO – and we have
been talking about that for the last number of months – in the shrimp
fishery, yet ignores the principles of our own department regarding
stabilizing sharing arrangements when dealing with the halibut in the Gulf
of St. Lawrence.
I want to go on record here today in the House – it is
not what I want to speak on, but I want to go on record and say to the
people of the Province and to the fishers on the West Coast who fish in the
halibut zone that it is absolutely not acceptable.
I have not spoken directly yet to the FFAW, but they had a press
conference in the last hour or so.
I support the efforts of the FFAW with regard to this particular
cause.
The federal minister has repeatedly made decisions to
the detriment of 3Ps fishers as I spoke about earlier, the halibut
harvesters on the South Coast, and now is continuing that trend in the Gulf
of St. Lawrence.
I requested a conference call with the federal minister
before I came to the House this afternoon.
I put a call in to her office.
She was not available at this particular time.
She is out of her office, but I will still put that in.
I have drafted a letter to be sent of this afternoon to illustrate
and to say to her and to demand to her that what was announced today is
unacceptable to the harvesters on the West Coast, unacceptable to the people
of Newfoundland and Labrador. It
is time for her to go back to reverse that decision that was made today, Mr.
Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, it is another example, I believe, of how
Newfoundland and Labrador in this particular case, is not treated the proper
way in the federation and it is unacceptable, as I said before.
It is shocking, it is appalling, and that decision is absolutely
wrong today.
Mr. Speaker, with that aside, I want to have a look at
some other aspects of the department that I am absolutely responsible for.
I stood on the floor here a week or two ago and spoke with regard to
forestry and agrifoods. There
were some things in forestry and agrifoods that I did not get an opportunity
to speak to. I want to speak to
the forestry and agrifoods aspect this afternoon, and then get back in my
last remaining minutes this afternoon to go back and speak to the fishery.
I want to jump to forestry and agrifoods at this point in time.
Budget 2015, Mr. Speaker, will provide $12 million to
the Growing Forward 2 program, the Agriculture and Agrifoods Development
Fund, Provincial Agrifoods Assistance Program, land consolidation,
Agricultural Research and Development Program, and Agricultural Limestone
Program.
Growing Forward 2, it is a $37 million agreement with
the vision for a profitable and innovative agriculture, agrifoods and
agri-based products. It provides
financial investment through three program areas to address the unique
challenges and opportunities facing our agriculture and agrifoods sector.
Growing Forward 2 is built on partnerships.
Farmers and producers utilize this program to further enhance their
entrepreneurial spirit to be creative and innovative, and to help drive
economic growth in the Province in the agrifoods and agriculture industry.
Some examples of the Growing Forward 2 program – and
some I know very, very well – Pure Holsteins Limited in Little Rapids on the
West Coast has a new state-of-the-art milk production system because of the
Growing Forward 2 program, Mr. Speaker.
It has the first robotic milking system in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Already this innovative project has resulted in an 18 per cent
increase of milk production in the Province.
Lester's Farm Market Incorporated here in St. John's
has a new harvester that improves crop harvesting speed and efficiency, Mr.
Speaker. Our investment will
enable the farm to be more competitive and allow them to increase their
acreage.
Growing Forward 2 continues to invest in Agriculture in
the Classroom activities – and I spoke about this one last week – including
the Little Green Thumb's program which is being offered in many classrooms
this year, Mr. Speaker. The
Agriculture and Agrifoods Development Fund provides $2.5 million annually to
encourage the development, diversification, and expansion of large-scale
agriculture projects in either the primary or secondary processing in the
agrifoods and agriculture industries.
Another program that we support in this Budget through
our department is the Provincial Agrifoods Assistance Program that provides
$2.25 million per year for secondary processing activities which will
improve the economic viability of the agriculture and agrifoods industry.
Mr. Speaker, $2.2 million in the Land Consolidation Program.
It provides an opportunity to non-farmland owners and retiring
farmers to sell granted land to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
These programs are widely utilized.
They have had good take up on those.
It is extremely valuable to the growth and future development of the
agriculture industry. We all
know how important the agriculture industry is and the food security in the
Province, and that we need to move the agriculture and agrifoods industry
forward this year and in the years to come.
A strong research and development program is necessary
to answer the questions, Mr. Speaker, that will lead to advancements for the
agriculture industry. Our
research projects involve the testing and creation of production systems for
cereal grains, corn, and soy beans.
We also have an extensive research program evaluating new potato
varieties and crop rotation systems, which will all aid the industry.
We have an extensive fruit crop research program looking at the
creation of commercial production of crops, such as blueberries,
partridgeberries, cranberries and wine grapes.
I could go on and on speaking about the forestry and
agrifoods industries here in the Province, but I want to take the last seven
minutes or so that I have to flip back again and talk a little bit about the
fishery, despite the announcement today.
Again, I have always said from the onset that I have always been the
kind of person who would always, in a difficult situation, try to find a
solution and try to find an answer.
I, again, appeal to the federal minister to go back and look at the
decision that was made today, which would negatively impact the halibut
fishers on the West Coast of the Province, Mr. Speaker.
Speaking about the fishery, it is an absolutely vital
part to our economy of Newfoundland and Labrador.
It has sustained us for hundreds of years, Mr. Speaker, and it will
sustain us into the future. It
is absolutely a critical part of the economy of the Province of Newfoundland
and Labrador.
We believe that on this side of the House, and I know
the Opposition parties believe that as well.
There is no living Newfoundlander or Labradorian who would say that
the fishery is not important.
The fishery is absolutely critical to the economy of Newfoundland and
Labrador, and both sides of the House, and all Newfoundlanders and
Labradorians believe that.
There are challenges in the fishery.
We have faced challenges for the last hundreds of years.
We will continue to face challenges, but it is important that we work
together. Union, governments,
industry, in-shore, off-shore, it is important that we all work together to
find a solution that is absolutely necessary to drive the rural parts of the
Province, and not only rural parts of the Province, as we saw with the
protest (inaudible) out in Gander, which was led by the FFAW back this past
spring. The impact that the
fishery has on the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador, not only in rural
parts of the Province, but in towns like Gander, Corner Brook, St. John's,
and Clarenville, and all these other parts of the Province as well.
The seafood industry has an annual value of
approximately $1 billion. It was
a little less last year, Mr. Speaker.
Our government intends to continue its support to the growth and
sustainability for generations to come.
It is the moral, the right, and the responsible thing for us to do as
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, no matter what political party you
represent. This can be achieved
through investments in fisheries science and innovative research, as well as
partnerships with industry stakeholders from harvesting, processing, and
aquaculture sectors of our Province's seafood industry to plan for the
future.
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to partnership with
industry, in December of last year our government announced Newfoundland and
Labrador Sustainable Aquaculture Strategy 2014.
The strategy is focused on achieving gains in three particular areas:
enhancing sustainable management practices, growing capacity within the
industry, and promoting research and development.
We have grown the industry in a very short period of
time from – I will use rough numbers – $10 million to roughly, I believe,
$195 million or $197 million. I
do not have the numbers in front of me, but from $10 million over a period
of about ten years to nearly $200 million, Mr. Speaker.
The strategy was developed using feedback received from
more than 120 participants who engaged in aquaculture consultations that
took place in November and December of 2013.
We went out around the Province and had participants.
They included representatives from industry, academia,
non-governmental organizations, Aboriginal organizations, and municipalities
from throughout all of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Speaker, the strategy also updates the provincial
government's approach to capacity building by committing to help industry
players enhance communications with the public, secure and develop human
resources for the aquaculture industry, and pursue international market
opportunities. We know now that
nearly 50 per cent of the wild fisheries of the world are trying to provide
for the ever-growing population of the people on this earth.
The wild fisheries are not able or are not keeping up
with the demand for protein from the ocean.
In aquaculture, some numbers show 47 per cent, 48 per cent, and some
numbers show nearly 50 per cent.
It is nearly a split between the wild fisheries of the world and aquaculture
fisheries of the world.
Through investments in fisheries, Mr. Speaker, science,
and innovative research, our government is securing world-class knowledge to
move our fishery successfully into the future.
Newfoundland and Labrador is the only Province in the country to
solely fund its own offshore fisheries research initiatives with more than a
$15 million investment in the Marine Institute's Centre for Fisheries
Ecosystems Research since 2010.
That is often known as CFER, the acronym – sorry, the Centre for Fisheries
Ecosystems Research in Newfoundland and Labrador.
CFER is the largest university-based seagoing fisheries
research facility in North America, Mr. Speaker.
Budget 2015 includes $2.6 million to continue support for world-class
fishery science at that particular centre, and I have had the opportunity to
visit and have discussions. It
is amazing what kind of research is taking place there.
Research and development is what will sustain a
fishery. Research and
development is what will sustain any industry.
I am proud to say, and the Government of Newfoundland is proud to say
that this is the world leading fisheries research centre, and we have it
right here on our own doorstep in Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Speaker,
and we are proud to support that particular centre.
Mr. Speaker, an example of the funding in action will
be the $100,000 we committed to help the FFAW and the Centre for Fisheries
Ecosystems Research at the Marine Institute to continue a study of Atlantic
halibut. It is pretty
coincidental, that we looked at studies of Atlantic halibut and find out
today, as I speak to this particular topic, that the quota was shared
differently than it should have been shared, Mr. Speaker.
Again, $100,000 we committed to help the FFAW and the
Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research at the Marine Institute to continue
a study of Atlantic halibut in the Gulf of Lawrence, to conduct satellite
and traditional tagging of halibut to determine migratory patterns, spawning
areas, and so on, Mr. Speaker.
This research allows us to study the marine environment off our coast to
prepare our industry for changing stocks based on science.
Mr. Speaker, I can go on, but I only have a minute
left. I just want to go back
into the Budget document and look at our contributions in Newfoundland and
Labrador – the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador contributions to the
wild fishery and contributions to the aquaculture in Budget 2015 and 2016,
in my last forty-five seconds.
There is $6.5 million out of the Budget which goes
towards the wild fishery, Mr. Speaker, a $4 million investment in
aquaculture. The Centre for
Fisheries Ecosystems Research is $2.6 million; Canadian Centre for Fisheries
Innovation, CCFI, $1 million; Fisheries Technology and New Opportunities
Program, $1 million; Fish Plant Worker Employment Support Program, $750,000;
Seafood Development Program, core program funding, $525,000; fisheries
science and cod recovery, $300,000; enhanced seafood marketing, $200,000;
coastal and oceans management program, core program funding, $150,000 – for
$6.5 million.
In my last ten seconds; aquaculture capital equity
program, this is money for aquaculture, $2.8 million; aquaculture for a
wharf in Milltown, $975,000; and the oceanographic research, new money, Mr.
Speaker, $240,000 for a total of $4 million.
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. GRANTER:
There is $6.5 million for the wild fishery, and $4 million for aquaculture.
MR. SPEAKER:
Minister, your time has expired.
MR. GRANTER:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to the non-confidence
motion of the Budget, because I certainly have no confidence in this current
Budget or in the government. I
painted that out the last time I spoke when I clearly identified the
Liberals as good financial managers, sound financial managers of the
economy, and I highlighted how the Conservatives, both federally and
provincially, are bad financial managers of the economy.
It is basically Tory economics, as I said before.
It consists of bloated spending and diminished revenue sources, a
perfect fiscal storm of fiscal imprudence.
A Tory economic policy does not extend much beyond trying to sell the
finite resource of fossil fuels.
I am glad the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture
stood up and spoke just before I did, because he really highlighted the
value of what this government, when it comes to investment into wild fishery
– what government touts the fishery as being a billion-dollar industry.
Only $6.5 million, he just said, will go into the wild fishery from
an $8 billion budget; $8 billion-plus and only $6.5 million will go into the
wild fishery; $4 million for aquaculture, $2.8 million for CFER, and another
$1 million for research.
I echo the concerns the minister will have when it
comes to halibut quotas and when it comes to quota allocations that
adversely impact fishers. I
think the minister needs to take more steps and make sure he gets that
meeting with Minister Shea and goes to Ottawa, if he is as concerned as he
says he is on this matter, because we need that to happen.
We do.
The last time, when it came to LIFO, the FFAW got a
meeting prior to the all-party committee and the Minister of Fisheries when
it came to a very important matter of LIFO.
I want to see proactivity when it comes to the fishery, not
reactivity. We are certainly
seeing that from this government on the other side.
We have seen fish plant after fish plant close.
We have seen job loss after job loss in the fishery.
We have seen a lot of negativity.
The Minister of Fisheries got up and boasted about the
spending, the $15 million in research that was done by CFER, saying: We are
the only Province to fund 100 per cent fisheries research.
The minister knows this as well, that it is the federal government's
responsibility to do fisheries research.
What the government is doing is they are saying, well,
we will do the work of the federal government.
We will do that responsibility.
We cannot get them to live up to the agreement of the terms of union,
so we will do it ourselves. We
will spend $15 million of taxpayers' money here that is not going to be
invested into the wild fishery now, that is not going to be invested in
other alternatives. That is
going into research that should be funded by the federal government.
This is another situation when the Prime Minister of
the country says we are willing to look at joint management of the fishery.
What has this Province done when it comes to securing joint
management? Nothing.
There is no commitment on the fish fund.
We sat in Estimates actually last night, and we went
three hours. I had more
questions for the Minister of Fisheries, but there was no agreement to carry
the meeting further than the three hours.
Shut down the debate, shut down the time.
When it comes to asking questions in Estimates, that ended.
Now I have the opportunity.
As the minister said, you have other avenues.
So I am using my time here today to do that.
MR. GRANTER:
A point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, on a point of order.
MR. GRANTER:
It is the first time in four years I stood on my feet to go to a point of
order, Mr. Speaker.
Last night, Mr. Speaker, I did not use a preamble.
His colleague did not use a preamble which gave him an extra half an
hour.
MR. SPEAKER:
There is no point of order.
MR. GRANTER:
He did not stick to the lines in the Budget, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
There is no point of order.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the minister to go back and review the audio.
The questions I asked were related to the line items of the Budget.
The fishery is a very, very important topic that
requires certainly more than three hours of debate.
For the minister to not even have a preamble for his own department,
I say that is shameful.
MR. GRANTER:
A point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, on a point of order.
MR. GRANTER:
Yes, indeed. I will challenge the
member opposite to go back and review what he said last night, Mr. Speaker,
and come to the House and say that he stuck to the Budget lines.
MR. SPEAKER:
There is no point of order.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
The hon. the Member for The Straits – White Bay North.
MR. MITCHELMORE:
The questions that I asked, Mr. Speaker, were budgetary in nature and
related to fiscal items, not policy items.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
MR. MITCHELMORE:
There is no current MOU, which was confirmed by the Minister of Fisheries
last night under CETA. So that
means there is no agreement on the fish fund up to $400 million.
On the co-operation on research, it is not there.
They are doing this research but they are saying, well, it is
publicly available. So he really
confirmed that the dollars that were invested, we are not getting anything
in return from the federal government in terms of the research that Dr.
George Rose is doing.
There is limited compliance when it comes to many
cases. There are actually bad
contracts that are written, or many loopholes it seems in them when it comes
to things like Fortune. As the
minister is saying one thing one day, the Premier is saying another thing
another day. Now they are going
back and changing.
It is a lot of flip-flopping when it comes to what is
actually there in the fisheries item.
We are really seeing problems when it comes to the management of our
fishery. This comes to my next
issue, PC math. PC math and Tory
economics, they are two things.
The Minister of Fisheries is also the Minister
Responsible for the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency.
When I got up in the House for the last three days in the House of
Assembly, I have asked the minister to come clean on the forestry jobs here
in this Province. Members
opposite, in this budgetary debate, have touted and said that there are
5,500 jobs in forestry and it is worth $250 million.
Well, the minister tabled a document, after repeated
questions, saying that the 2014 employment and value for the industry in
pulp and paper, sawmilling, value-added harvesting, direct employment
totalled 2,539 jobs. That is the
direct employment, then indirect and induced, the same number, the exact
same numbers. So if somebody is
harvesting a log then there is an equivalent job associated somewhere out
there in the economy to that. We
do not know what it is, and the minister will not explain or will not
provide the House these calculations, because they have been asked for.
Then it states that there are 450 government employees associated
with these 2,500 direct jobs.
I want to go back to government's line because we need
to go and look at the economy where it was under this government.
In 2008, they commissioned a report that they accepted as the
Newfoundland and Labrador forest sector strategy.
The final report is readily available for the public.
So what it said for sawmill operators, value-added pulp and paper,
woodland operations – this is when Abitibi was still operating.
We had another pulp and paper mill.
We had more sawmills operating.
We did not have the job losses that we have today, even Corner Brook
Pulp and Paper, Kruger, had more employees at that time in 2008.
Let's put this out there; in 2008 the total value of
all the jobs was 2,358 to 2,413.
They also stated that 40 per cent of all those jobs are seasonal.
It pointed out when we count all of the indirect jobs, government's
own report, it said all the indirect workers, namely casual workers or
seasonal workers and all other workers in associated industries, whether it
is somebody who is driving a truck or whatever the case would be with the
value chain of forestry, they said the total number of jobs – this is when
Abitibi was still operating, other sawmills were operating, Holson Forest
Products had a lot more employees than the two that they have today.
We look at that number, that number back in 2008 was
3,000 people, direct and indirect – 3,000 people in 2008 when we had another
mill, we had multiple sawmills, we had a lot of other things happening in
the economy in 2008, and there was only 3,000 jobs then.
How is it that the minister is able to claim that there
are 5,500 jobs in forestry when back in 2008, when there was much more
happening in the industry, there was like half that number of jobs?
It does not make any sense.
That is PC math. If we
look at PC math, that same number in 2008, just looking at the value-added
jobs, it said that there was 300 – 300 value-added jobs.
What did the minister table in the House?
He said the value-added jobs were 1,075.
Well, that has a lot of explaining to do, that there is that much
growth, that there are 775 jobs created that are value added.
Not only that because if I take his number ratio to ratio, if there
were 300 value-added jobs, then he would say that there was the equivalent
value – because he is saying that in indirect and induced, there is another
1,075 jobs associated with these people who are working in value added.
There are 2,150 jobs that the minister is saying in
2014, value added. So if I take
his PC math and in 2008 there were 300 jobs associated with value added, so
there would be an equivalent 300 jobs for the indirect.
That would make 600. The
minister is saying that in value added they increased by over 1,500 jobs
when the forestry is in economic decline, in downturn – the forestry
economic diversification fund, the Auditor General slammed it when it comes
to the investments and the jobs that were supposed to be created by this
government under that fund; it just was not there.
There was not good management and a real failure.
The people of the Province are not fooled by the Budget
here and the numbers that are there and the associated numbers in The
Economy; they know, as well, as I do the PC math.
If we look at the GDP and Employment by Industry, page
1 of the government's own document, The Economy, what does it say?
Goods-Producing Sector: Agriculture, Forestry & Logging, the
projected value for GDP, in millions, was $177 million.
The employment in person years: 2,200.
Now this is counting agriculture as well.
The percentage of people employed, all of the employment, is 0.9 per
cent. That is for agriculture,
forestry and logging, yet the member got up yesterday for Exploits – and I
would like to see somebody speak up for the forest industry on that side; we
have not seen – we have had Members for Grand Falls-Windsor, Buchans, Grand
Falls-Windsor – Green Bay South, Exploits who is the Parliamentary
Secretary, the minister, and nobody is actually talking about the forestry
and the real challenges that are associated with it – and the jobs.
Dr. Wade Locke, government's own endorsed economist when it comes to
the Muskrat Falls Project and the reason why this Muskrat Falls Project
should go ahead – but not if it reaches over $8 billion, he said.
If it goes past $8 billion, it is just not economically viable. So,
the project right now is pegged at $7.99 billion.
Interesting PC math, isn't i?
When it comes to Dr. Locke's report, when he went to
Grenfell, which is the minister's own district there is in Grenfell in
Corner Brook, he said in 2013 when he gave his presentation, that there is
only about 1,100 jobs that are directly associated with forestry.
He talks about this, and he talks about the resource sector.
So we see that under the last twelve years of the Tory government
that they have lost jobs and jobs and jobs when it comes to the
non-renewable sector.
When it comes to forestry, when it comes to fishery,
the jobs are in decline. The
only focus on that side of the House has been on finite fossil fuels, just
like the Harper government. They
have been focused on non-renewable resources.
It is incredible. So I
hope the minister will get in the House and come up and explain the numbers
associated with the job.
If we look at what is happening in the economy here,
government has been focused on these large megaprojects – well, there is a
fiscal cliff when it comes to megaprojects, because the sad thing is and the
reality is that after the Muskrat Falls Project is built, all those jobs,
those 3,000-plus jobs, they are gone.
They said there are 120 jobs that will be associated with running the
project after the fact, after 2017 or 2018.
So jobs are gone after that.
How are they going to be replaced in the economy?
I do not see this in their Budget; I do not see this in their fiscal
plan, in their economic plan that they are putting forward.
They are saying: Where is the Liberal plan?
They need to look at their own plan that they put forward, and the
people of the Province are going to judge them on their record and they are
going to judge them on their current plan that is put forward.
The job creation is not there, year over year.
If we look at the housing starts, they are going down.
That impacts forestry.
That impacts the sawmills. It
impacts people in rural districts.
It impacts people in your district, Mr. Speaker; it certainly does.
When we look at all of these opportunities – this government has
created the perfect fiscal storm when it comes to the borrowing aspect
because the Attorney General got up and he said, well, the people in his
district, they do not mind borrowing.
They will borrow and borrow and borrow.
Well, this government has borrowed.
They have borrowed a lot, because total public sector debt under this
government has gone up to $12.2 billion.
That is where it is at.
It is more now in 2015 than what it was when they started.
They had $18 billion in oil royalties, more this year, and Atlantic
Accord money. I mean, this is
preposterous for the people of the Province to be able to get up and say
they endorse this record, they endorse this – the members on the opposite
side should look at what we are saying here and should vote down this
Budget.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. MITCHELMORE:
They should bring down the Budget, bring down the government, and have an
election so that we can restore order to the people of the Province in
Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Attorney General talked about the Budget through
the attrition part and talked about the no layoffs.
Just before the Budget was announced, the Acting Minister of
Education got up and he announced 77.5 teaching units gone.
Now, those units gone will be upwards of 150 employees.
Those are people who have jobs all over the Province in Newfoundland
and Labrador. I guess the
Attorney General in his district and in his area they have no schools that
are impacted, no teachers who received those layoffs.
It is very, very frustrating to see.
I go back to looking at what my colleague, the Member
for Virginia Waters, has talked about: the lack of project management and
poor planning by this government.
You only have to look at things like the Placentia lift bridge.
The reason why – they put a tender out and said the tender was too
high, so we are going to retender and we are going to save money.
They did not save money on that when they retendered.
If they did the work, when it was brought forward under the tender,
they would have saved money; but going forward, even with the lower tender,
they had to do an excessive amount of repairs, it delayed, and it had
impacts to the economy and on business for a longer period of time and now
there is more money – the capital projects that cost us $55 million.
I say the timelines and poor planning and not being
able to bring projects in on line, on time, or on budget is a track record
of this government. It is a
hallmark of that government. It
is actually part of the PC math that they have.
They put out a tender or they put out a project and they announce it
at a certain value, and then it goes up and up and up in cost.
I remember the $7.25 million wooden hospital that they
built in Flower's Cove. That was
supposed to be $7.25 million.
That is what the contract was awarded for, but at the end of the day it came
in at over $9 million. That is
an escalation when it comes to capital projects –
AN HON. MEMBER:
What was the original price?
MR. MITCHELMORE:
It was $7.25 million that the contract was for and now it is close to $10
million – right in my district, way over budget.
The same thing when it came to looking at schools, over
budget; they opened schools and did not have the water supply fixed – poor
planning. When it comes to
looking a long-term care facility here in the Province, you see that it is
not staffed. Yet they cut the
LPN program out of the St. Anthony College of the North Atlantic that
trained dozens of LPNs successfully that are employed, and they could have
continued training there in St. Anthony or at some of the other small
campuses. They had the
infrastructure in place, but they decided that they would cut it and now you
see where you have an employment mess when it comes to managing, which is
going to cost the health care budget more and more and more.
I could stand up here all day and talk about PC math,
the Tory record, all the bad budgeting, and all of the problems and holes
that are currently in the Budget, and I will, every opportunity that I get
up to speak, use social media, speak to my constituents, travel across the
Province, and set the record straight that PC math is wrong.
It is no wonder they are going back and reviewing the math curriculum
because they need to review their own math, and this Budget is a failure to
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
I have no confidence, and I will be voting for this
amendment to bring down the government.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
The hon. the Member for Labrador West.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. MCGRATH:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It is a lively crowd here this evening.
It is a pleasure to stand here again this evening and talk on the
Budget.
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
I believe the hon. member has already spoken to the
amendment.
Further speakers?
The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It is an opportunity for me to have a few more words on
an amendment, an amendment that obviously comes up every year.
It is a way of, I suppose, giving everyone an opportunity to get on
their feet, not only to get on their feet but just talk about anything that
they want to talk about.
Following the speaker ahead of me, I must say, it was
intriguing to hear him talk about some type of math and numbers and that
sort of thing. I could get up
here, I suppose, and add up a lot of things that we as a government have
done that I am very, very proud of, including some things in your district,
I say to the hon. member.
I remember, I think it was in about 2001, going up into
that particular district and being absolutely appalled at the state of that
particular district. It was
appalling. It was absolutely
appalling. Roads absolutely in
disrepair and, to add insult to injury, it was a district that was
represented by a former Premier.
I could not believe – and not only that, driving up the Northern Peninsula
back in I think 2000 or 2001 the road going up the Northern Peninsula, I
tell you, you had to navigate around potholes, road upheaval and that sort
of thing; but we met the challenge in 2003.
We met the challenges that were proposed to us as a government with
regard to trying to bring this Province back from the absolute brink.
AN HON. MEMBER:
The abyss.
MR. HEDDERSON:
The abyss is what I would call it, yes.
I do not know what kind of math we used but if it was
PC math that got us to where we are today, I say we should continue it.
Absolutely, continue it.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON:
I tell you right now that we had the foresight to realize that we had to
choose priorities and one of the priorities was indeed the Northern
Peninsula, the length of the Northern Peninsula.
Because we knew that eventually with some luck and a lot of money
that the Trans-Labrador Highway would be opened and the plan was – what
would be the sense of opening up the Trans-Labrador Highway when you had the
Northern Peninsula that was in disrepair?
We laid the groundwork, starting in 2003, to try to make sure that we
had that highway going up the Northern Peninsula.
To hear a member who is representing that district get up and say
that we did absolutely nothing in his district and to talk about a wooden –
did you hear him talk about a wooden structure, a wooden hospital?
Well, I tell you, it was that or nothing, because that
was one of the decisions we had to make with the cost of it there.
I would think that whether it is wooden, or whether it is stone, or
whether it is a tent, people are getting the services out of that building
that they absolutely need. How
could a member get up and say: Oh, my God, what a mistake was made.
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON:
Yes, but it was built out of wood, and he is the champion for forestry.
Absolutely, but the only problem is that it is not heated with
seashells.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON:
If it was heated with seashells, he would not say a word, not a word.
If I could say collecting seashells by the seashore – I cannot do
that. I am sorry.
Obviously, the people of this Province are not duped
into believing that this government did not haul his Province back from the
brink. I am a testament, and I
can give testimonials about the state of this Province back in 2003.
Make no doubt about it, it costs money.
It costs a lot of money, and it is not finished yet.
I appreciate members on the opposite side getting up,
but guess what they are saying?
This is not done and that is not done and that is not, and I can agree with
them. Because you cannot, in ten
years, bring back this Province from where it was.
It is absolutely impossible.
The neglect, I would say neglect not only from the previous
Administration, but the previous, previous Administration which happened to
be a Tory one.
I said it the other day, there is no government that
can do everything for everybody.
The needs are just too great, and priorities have to be made.
That is what this Budget is all about.
How we got here or why we got here or how we are here is immaterial
to me right now, because I want to make sure, standing here in this House,
that I have some input to what goes into that Budget.
Is it everything I wanted?
Absolutely not, but I am around here long enough to realize that you
have to make hard decisions when you are in government.
The Member for St. John's North talked about the other
day: Oh, when I was over in Opposition I was told more teachers, more this,
and more that. You are right,
and I did. I could not
understand – you must have a lot of time on your hands to go back over
Hansard and what I said back in – I was honoured, as a matter of fact.
I sat there and said: what kind of a
fool would go back and look at what I said back in Opposition?
What kind of a fool would do that?
I do not know.
MR. SPEAKER (Verge):
Order, please!
MR. HEDDERSON:
Oh, I am sorry, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER:
Order, please!
I remind the member the use of the word fool in that
context is unparliamentary and I ask him to withdraw it.
MR. HEDDERSON:
I certainly will withdraw. I
would not want to, in any way, Mr. Speaker – it was just like a slip of the
tongue I suppose, a Freudian slip maybe.
I will endeavour, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that I do not have those
slips of the tongue, unless I want to get out of here.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON:
Looking at the time and that sort of thing, I do not think I want to die on
that hill today.
To the Member for St. John's North, it was just a
figure of speech and I certainly will withdraw it.
I will say to the member, you do not have much to do if you are going
back over what I said.
It is interesting, because a day later the same member
gets up and I was kind of surprised because I know he was elected as an NDP
and then he was saying to the leader, or alluding to the Leader of the NDP,
all of that is hogwash, all that stuff that you believe in.
AN HON. MEMBER:
He saw the light.
MR. HEDDERSON:
I do not know about seeing the light but that is a change in ideology
overnight, because obviously there are great differences, as the Leader of
the Third Party, between that party and that party.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON:
I went up from Opposition to government, and I think he can excuse me for
being passionate in Opposition, but for someone to stand up and say, look at
him, he was over in Opposition and said all this, but when he got over in
government he kind of just went along with everything.
I did not change my ideology.
I stuck to the principles and I stuck to this party because I believe
in the party, and the people who elected me obviously believe in the party
and where we are.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON:
I say, Mr. Speaker, when we get up and talk about the Budget, thank heavens
that we can, but to get back to where I was before I sort of went off on a
tangent.
I have seen a Province that has come out of a very
non-productive time into a time where we find ourselves to be, and where we
are is like where we want to be, in a sense, because I still believe in the
people of this Province. I still
believe in where we are as a government.
I am looking forward to an election that is going to ask the people
of this Province to choose, and I have not counted that out yet.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. HEDDERSON:
If I keep hearing the rhetoric that is coming from that side, who knows?
Because I tell you, it is hard to take guys and gal.
It is hard to take.
When you go up to the Northern Peninsula in 2003 and
you see the mess – and not only in the Northern Peninsula.
I will not even put it there – and
without blame, because obviously, Newfoundland and Labrador has had
difficulties in trying to deal with the situation of having boom and bust.
We are at the mercy because everyone talks about commodities and that
sort of thing. We are always at
the mercy of what goes on outside of our borders and that is so unfortunate.
Again, to have a member get up and talk about, well,
you are not even into non-renewable energy.
All you are doing is taking oil out and hydrocarbons and that sort of
thing. My God, what is water?
You can do what you like with water.
I am not a physicist or anything, but you can do what you like with
water, but guess what? The
amount of water on the earth remains constant.
Now I suppose you can split it and that sort of thing, right.
I give credit where credit is due.
Joseph R. Smallwood, our first Premier, had it right.
He had it right. What I
do not understand is why his legacy is not recognized by a Liberal Party.
He said that we would create a situation where we would have three
power plants on the mighty Churchill that would allow us, as Newfoundlanders
and Labradorians, prosperity for ever and a day.
Now, that is where it started from.
It was with Joe Smallwood.
It was not with any of the Premiers that – and every Premier after
Joe Smallwood, Tory or Liberal, were determined to get to the second or the
third phase of that development.
Who was it?
I think the last Liberal Premier, Premier Tobin, $1 million to go up and
announce that. We are going to
do it. It did not happen.
Premier Grimes was right on the verge of signing it off, knowing that
he was up against it and he had to come up with something – but guess what?
Thank heavens – he had the brochures done up, everything was done up
ready to go, and guess what the bottom line was?
If we ever overran or anything like that, guess what?
Guess who it went back to?
It went back to Quebec.
So, thank heavens it did not happen – and finally, we
got the breakthrough that we needed, environmental assessments, and so on
and so forth. Not only did we do
the environmental assessment, because we are forward thinking – if you are
going to go through an environmental assessment, guess what?
Include two possible projects.
So we are way ahead – yes, two.
Now, that is PC math, two.
That is not Liberal math, two.
Three plants on one river with an environmental assessment – two.
So what it means now, because we have that
environmental assessment done – I could use other fingers too, but I better
be careful about that. I think I
should put my hands behind my back.
To get back to what I said, we have the environmental
assessment done for Gull Island.
People might say, well, yes, okay – that would cut off dollars and time.
It is only a matter of time.
Once the people of this Province in 2017 see the success that Muskrat
Falls will be, I think and I believe – regardless of who is in government,
regardless of who is in government – that the Gull Island will go ahead.
Gull Island is the key – Gull Island is not to make
sure that we are an independent system.
It is not to make sure that we are getting the domestic energy that
we need. What Gull Island is, is
the money-maker. That is the one
that is going to get us way over the top.
We also have to take into account that our oil reserves – and there
is more out there and they are going to come on stream and that sort of
thing, but who in heaven's name wants to have that rollercoaster ride of
commodity pricing? We do not want it.
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON:
Exactly; someone is getting my math.
As a matter of fact, I just saw a light go on over there which is
good. That is good.
AN HON. MEMBER:
(Inaudible).
MR. HEDDERSON:
That is right. I am glad that we
got that one.
Like when you are teaching sometimes and the student
gets what you think and the light bulb goes on, I just saw that in the
Member for St. John's North, and I am so pleased.
If nothing else today, the bulb went on and he understands renewable
and non-renewable. Wow, that is
a teacher's delight. Thank you
again for that teaching moment.
Oh my God!
Again, Mr. Speaker, all jokes aside, I believe in the
plan that we have in place with regard to our development of Muskrat Falls,
the hope that we can get to Gull Island and really take advantage of what I
consider to be one of the biggest reservoirs of energy that we have in the
world; a reservoir, by the way, that we would never be gotten in this day
and age – never, ever.
Fortunately for us that it is there, it is a reality; but to try to get that
now through environmental assessment and everything, you would not even come
close. It is there, it is
developed, and it is energy that is just waiting.
Of course, I always mention that 2041 date.
That is so, so important. We
have to keep that in front of us because when you go and work backwards from
2041, many of us will not be around – we all know that.
If we are, we probably will not know we are around.
I have a chance of being there.
I am going to be in my eighties, but I would love – I know my
grandchild, hopefully, will be there and maybe her children might be around,
but that is a legacy that I would love to see.
That would fulfill the dream of our first Premier.
It is not very often you get me up speaking about Liberal Premiers,
but I understand where he was and I also understand – someone said, oh,
well, all of those jobs, they are going to be gone; but I will tell you what
will not be gone is the expertise that these, and especially young people,
are going to get.
I remember – just a little story – a next-door
neighbour, a Grade 11 student, graduated from Grade 11 but he went
immediately to Churchill Falls.
He got a job as a labourer, worked, and when he came back – because I
remember him coming back on the very day.
He drove up in a 1964 Mustang, a blue one.
Here is a Grade 11 student, he was only about eighteen at the time,
nineteen – and that gentleman, by the way, went on and he worked with the
surveyors, and to this very day he has made a career in surveying.
How many more? There are
still people, tradespeople in my district, that their first job was
Churchill Falls. They have built
bridges, they have built buildings, and they have done everything.
To think that a project is wasted because once it
stops, the 2,000 people who worked on it are gone – and guess what?
They are moving on somewhere else.
If you think about it, just think how prepared we are going to be for
Gull Island. They are going to
move from Muskrat Falls and onwards to Gull Island.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I thank you very much for your
guidance today and your patience, and I would say that it is getting that
time and I am looking at the House Leader so I guess I will sit down.
I am glad it is not 5:30 p.m. or I would be in trouble.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER:
Further speakers?
The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. KING:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Given the hour of the day and it is Thursday, I move,
seconded by the Member for Burgeo – La Poile, that the House do now adjourn.
MR. SPEAKER:
The motion is that this House do now adjourn.
All those in favour, 'aye.'
SOME HON. MEMBERS:
Aye.
MR. SPEAKER:
All those against, 'nay.'
Carried.
This House stands adjourned until Monday at 1:30
o'clock.
On motion, the House at its rising adjourned until
tomorrow, Monday, at 1:30 p.m.