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The House met at 10 a.m.

SPEAKER (Bennett): Order, please!

Admit visitors.

Government Business

SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

L. DEMPSTER: Thank you, Speaker.

I call from the Order Paper, Motion 1, budget debate.

SPEAKER: We will now be debating the subamendment of the budget.

The hon. the Member for Exploits.

P. FORSEY: Thank you, Speaker.

Again, it's a pleasure to get up and speak on the subamendment of the budget. It's always nice to get up and represent the people who elected me and put me here. Last night, of course, I sat here and I listened to a great deal of the debate. There was a lot of issues brought up, a lot of concerns by the different MHAs.

Health care, of course, was one of the big ones that I did hear and there's no difference, I guess, in my district. Again, I will bring up the health care issues. I suppose I'll start with that one. In 2016, the Liberals stripped the 24-hour emergency service out of the Dr. Hugh Twomey Health Care Centre.

Since then, there has been two promises made, two different elections, two different premiers, still Liberal government and nothing has happened. That decision in 2016 was nothing primary, only a government decision. Nobody else's decision. Staff was there, people were there and the facility is there. Actually, prior to 2014, in a previous administration, there was over $4 million spent on that hospital to do up the blood clinic, the lab, everything was done. The facility itself, I think, there was roof repair. All of that stuff was done to have a great facility there. They stripped the 24-hour service in 2016, and it still remains a big issue today.

Of course, doctors in the region – we spoke about it yesterday – Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans where the Central Newfoundland Regional Health Centre is to, we're lacking in doctors. The emergency unit up here stressed, overwhelmed; 24-hour emergency service at the Dr. Hugh Twomey Health Care Centre gone.

We need to streamline that, as I said before. In 2019 the first election, what did the one of the former premiers say? We're going to reinstate the 24-hour emergency service. That went a couple of years. Never happened. 2021, same thing. New premier, new candidate, they promised we're going to reinstate 24-hour emergency service. Not my words, that's theirs. They came out and said it. Everybody knows it. Still not happening.

Actually, the Liberal candidate at the time who made the promise, where's he to? I've heard this brought up a couple of times last night: Where's he to? The 2021 campaign, Premier's office, Grand Falls-Windsor, failed Liberal candidate, okay, we'll give you a job in Grand Falls-Windsor in the Premier's office.

Yet, we still can't get our 24-hour emergency service.

AN HON. MEMBER: Decisions (inaudible).

P. FORSEY: Decisions that they make, yes. And to see that they could put someone, open up that office in the Premier's office in there.

At the time, 2019, Central East, Central West, I'll call it, seven MHAs, basically. At the time in 2019 we had five Liberal MHAs and two PC MHAs got elected. And the two PC MHAs, I must say, we were doing fine. We were talking to the constituents, doing work. We didn't ask for the Premier's office in Grand Falls-Windsor. We didn't want it. Nobody consulted us.

So I'm left to believe why that decision was made. I wasn't consulted. I didn't need any help in there. I don't think the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans needed any help in there. As far as I know, he wasn't asked.

The only thing I can see is out of the candidates that got elected on the Liberal side, they needed some help. Or the Premier at the time didn't have confidence in them – something there, something happened. I don't know why. It had to be one of it. We didn't need any help. Yet, they could put a failed Liberal candidate at the Premier's office in Grand Falls-Windsor.

I'm hoping now that we have a new Premier he will see fit to say that I don't need any help in Exploits. I'm sure the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans doesn't need any help in his district. We can work fine with the constituents.

Anyway, to see that they can find funding for that kind of stuff to support their Liberal friends is ridiculous. It's bad decisions, totally bad decisions. It really is.

I've talked to people at the Exploits Community Employment Corporation, they've been there for years. I know this money comes through transfer funds through the federal government. I know it does, and it's employment money for people with disabilities to put them to work. Last year that was cut. Nobody is advocating for them – nobody – through the federal government to get this funding put back in place.

Now, that's funding that puts people with intellectual disabilities to work in different areas, different places and they work well in society. They love their jobs. They feel great that they're part of the community, community based. They feel great that they're doing something. They have initiative in the morning to get up and go to work, and we have lots of it out there. We have a lot of people out there in those predicaments that need that sort of help.

Was there anything extra in this budget for those people? No, nothing there extra for those people. I think they had it up to somewhere around $2 million, I think, somewhere in that area that they were employing people with those disabilities. Great to have the funding for them, great initiative, great project, great way to have people employed.

Now they're just barely hanging on; only working, probably, three months at a time or whatnot; just getting enough to even keep the offices open when those people worked with those individuals with disabilities. So where are they left to now? Probably some of them have enough work that they've got EI, I guess. After their EI is finished, where are they to then? What happens to them then? More than likely on our own assistance. That's basically where they are going to end up to when they are good, productive people of our society and they're left out, fell between the cracks because of government's decisions.

When I see that government's decisions can employ a failed Liberal candidate, Liberal friend in an office in Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans in Grand Falls-Windsor, not on.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. FORSEY: Put that money where it should be. I know the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans said a quarter million dollars, and we've all said a quarter million dollars. And yes, there are lots of places we can spend it. I know we can say a quarter million dollars for the hospice, which the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans mentioned yesterday. I know we can say a quarter million dollars for that.

I know I could say I take the quarter million dollars and give it to the Exploits Community Employment Corporation. I know I could say take that quarter million dollars and give it to some organizations. Take that quarter million dollars and let's invest in some of our roads or food banks. There's lots of areas that we could spend that quarter million dollars a year. Lots of ways – summer students, again.

But to see that it's there to support a Liberal candidate that was out making promises in the last election, and they're willing to support that. I mean like I said, the government side, they're willing to support it. The office is still there. We have another new Premier; the office is still there. And there's lots of places that we could spend that quarter million dollars. Not saying we don't want a lot more. Yes, I mean I just mentioned a few places. No trouble to get rid of a quarter million dollars. It's pretty simple, pretty easy.

To see those people at the Exploits Community Employment Corporation falling through the cracks, it's terrible – it's terrible. Their mothers and fathers they call me. I've gotten the calls. Pleaman, what am I going to do? Johnny loved his job down at the drug store, loved his job over at the shoe store, loved his job doing the construction. Now he has no job. Where he could do that job and the people around him loved him. They really did. They loved what he was doing. He interacted with the community. He felt like he was contributing to society, but there's no funding.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

P. FORSEY: Anyway, they all want to say something about it, so they can get up and talk about it all they like what they're going to do. They can tell me what they're going to do when they get the chance.

But when they said some of them are still working, so is the member in the office in Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans. He's still working as well, and not coming out of it, either.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. FORSEY: Anyway, that's one of the issues I hear, but if they want to get up and explain that situation, they can. If one of them would get up and have something to say about it, I don't mind. I'm sure the crowd at the Exploits Community Employment Corporation would love to know what you got to say about it. I'm sure they would like to know, really.

Then we hear of closures and diversions in health care. They say they're doing marvellous work with health care. We're still hearing closures and diversions every week. Closures and diversions on the Connaigre Peninsula, Baie Verte, Lewisporte, Kittiwake, all those areas still being left without physicians, still being left without those services.

So the 24-hour emergency service and the way the government has used the fundings where they cut and then put it somewhere else and the type of spending that they're doing, the people in my district see it easy enough. They really do. They see it and they feel it. Those are things that need to be done, more constructive decisions at government's expenditures. We certainly need more constructive decisions.

I'll go to our volunteer sector. I got a few minutes left, so I'll talk about our volunteer sector. Our volunteer sectors in our society, especially in the Exploits District, make up for community projects, community benefits. They're amazing for what they do for our communities. They really, really are, all of the community sectors.

The volunteer fire departments are what we depend on. We have no career firefighters in the Exploits District, but we have all volunteers. We depend on them every day and I think somebody here mentioned it yesterday that they're first responders now. They need the equipment and the tools to be able to be first responders. Because what they're responding to these days, accidents and medical calls – they're even the first call now for a medical call, not ambulances anymore.

I spoke about it through a petition here earlier this year. They needed some of their fire equipment – all declined. All of the small fire departments all being declined when the government is relying on those people for their services every single day and they're low on equipment. They're low on equipment and telling me, b'y, can you check on my application or we got declined on our application, we don't have our breathing apparatus. We don't have our tanks. You know, we need this. To see those people left out when we rely on them every single day – now don't tell me it's not happening. I had the letters; I had them through a petition and brought it up.

It is happening, so we need to put the funding where it should be. There's another spot right there. A million dollars for four years after $250,000 from the Premier's office in Grand Falls-Windsor – a million dollars, man, if you gave a million dollars and that's where it went, through some apparatuses for those volunteer fire departments, sure they'd be all done now. They'd be all done; they'd be all looked after, rather than throw it away up in the Premier's office – wow.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

P. FORSEY: I did say four or five times but it needs to be repeated.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

P. FORSEY: It needs to be repeated, but I'm glad I finally got your attention. I'm glad I finally go your attention.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

P. FORSEY: There you go, somebody else got to say.

You look at the websites every day, there's virtual care – virtual care is what they call it now. Virtual care is actually what they call it now. You get the virtual care; they don't even tell –

E. LOVELESS: (Inaudible) said diversions on the Connaigre Peninsula; that is a lie.

SPEAKER: Order, please!

P. FORSEY: What was that word?

SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the Member to retract that please. I clearly heard it.

E. LOVELESS: I will do the honourable thing and get on my feet and I'll apologize for that comment.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

The hon. the Member for Exploits.

P. FORSEY: Anyway, Speaker, I see my time will soon be up, and I know they're eager over there to speak. I can tell this morning that they can't wait to go. So I think that we're going to have to go and vote on our budget. I heard the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands last night bring up a good point actually. I mean to say he mentioned of the $400 million that was in the budget last night, the way it was put in the budget, he's having doubts about voting for the budget and –

P. LANE: No doubt.

P. FORSEY: No doubt, apparently. He says he's not voting for it.

As a matter of fact, the way he spoke about it last night, it got me convinced. It got me convinced of not voting for the budget. You know, I had second thoughts. I was right on the borderline of whether I was going to vote for the budget or not, but the way that Member spoke last night and proved that –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. FORSEY: – you know, that's what's happening, this type of situation in the budget, I'm convinced as well. I think now I'm finally convinced. I think my mind is made up.

So other than that, Speaker, there are lots of things that I could bring up in my district but –

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) leave.

P. FORSEY: Actually, I think there's somebody mentioning leave. I'll take the leave. I don't care. I could stay here all day. I actually could stay here all day, but one thing I would like to bring up, Speaker, is the fishing of course.

I do have a small community in my district – actually, it's where I'm from and very proud of it. The community of Leading Tickles are the only fishing licences that I have in my district. Their fishing season is on and I'm glad the season went ahead this year without too many disruptions, because fishing is what they do. Fishing is what they love, fishing makes their community and when they get up in the morning, that's what they want to do is go fishing. So I'm glad that they're back on the water this year without too much disruption.

I do wish them a very successful and safe season, and I'm looking forward to talking to them every time I go down.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. FORSEY: Good luck with the fishing season and continue what you do.

Other than that, Speaker, I got a few seconds left, but I'll just take my seat now and let somebody else take a turn at their speaking privileges. It looks like they can't wait. There are two or three of them that can't wait there now to get up, so I'm going to let them get up.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure.

E. LOVELESS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I didn't plan to take any time to have anything to say this morning, but I think it's the responsibility of all of us in terms of when we speak and when things are said that are not correct and not factual, then they should be pointed out and it should be corrected.

I would like to know where the Member for Exploits got his information – please table it and provide it – that down on the Connaigre Peninsula, there are closures and there are diversions. His exact words, but that is not true. It's not factual.

I would like to know where his source of information is, and I say that because the people in the Connaigre Peninsula went through a very difficult time when there were diversions on the go. He knows it; we all know it. So I have a responsibility on behalf of my constituents this morning because somebody may be listening to that and think, oh, there are more diversions and closures now. What closures? There are no closures.

If anything, we got a good situation in the Connaigre Peninsula hospital down in Harbour Breton and in St. Alban's and in all the other clinics. What he said is not true, so I think he should do the honourable thing and go back and do his research and come back and report to this House what is correct.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Government Modernization and Service Delivery.

S. STOODLEY: Thank you, Speaker.

I just wanted to also correct the record. In my previous capacity as minister of Immigration, Population Growth and Skills, I did oversee the Supported Employment program. The Member this morning has been talking about that program, so I wanted to correct for the record what's going on with the program. We did talk about that extensively in Estimates, so I would encourage anyone who's interested to go back and review the Estimates records for that as well.

The Supported Employment underwent a review, Speaker. We've extended all of the contracts for the Supported Employment agencies until the end of July, and then new contracts will be starting August 1.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: Order, please!

S. STOODLEY: I just also want to say, the government is not the employer here, but also, the amount of funding is being maintained for all Supported Employment organizations. There is no funding being cut. Every participant is being grandfathered in and we're making changes to make sure that the spirit of the program is maintained, because in not all instances was, necessarily, the spirit of the program in place and I guess in the contract, so we are making sure that all the contracts align with the spirit of the program.

There were also areas where there was budget in other areas that was not being utilized. We want to make sure that all the available budget goes towards giving clients who need it employment and job trainers and putting it towards helping people get to work and get back to work.

I fully disagree with the statements of the Member. All the funding has been maintained. No one should be without employment and government is not the employer. The Supported Employment agencies are the employer. If there is anything going on outside of what I've described, please let myself and the current minister know and we'd be happy to have the team to look into it.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia West - Bellevue.

J. DWYER: Thank you, Speaker.

It's always a great honour to stand in this House and represent the people of Placentia West - Bellevue. I'm so proud to represent them. But I want to start today by wishing probably the most compassionate, hard-working, honest and faithful to their job people and say happy Nurses Week.

I think it deserves a round of applause actually.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. DWYER: We heard from the new Premier yesterday, and it was actually nice of him to stand in his place and talk about the budget because it was the first time I heard a Premier talk about the budget in a long time. He had a lot of things to say and carrying on with the mandate that he inherited, and that's talking about our health care and filling those gaps in the health care.

We couldn't be happier to make sure that that happens as well because it's so important to each and every person, but not only that, to our doctors and nurses and administrators that work in our health care system that really need that support at this time. Like I said, with the recruitment and retention, if we can get those programs to be robust, I think it will make a big difference. You know, we have a minister now that has a former health care background, so just yesterday we started working on a very important project together as well.

So, again, there are good things about what we're doing here but the gaps in the system, I guess, are the big issue. We understand that it takes time, but the thing about it is, we've already utilized a lot of time that never did bear any fruit. I think the thing is, when we recreate health care from our Health Accord, we have to understand it's not a lens of how it affects you as an individual. It's a lens that we need to look at of how it affects the people of the province that so readily need it on a daily basis.

I think it's important that the communication from our hospitals to our patients is more robust, I guess, kind of thing and making sure that there are no missed appointments or there are no gaps in the system, I guess.

I got an 86-year-old man now that doesn't have a family doctor and there is no nurse practitioner near where he is, and he's unable to get that note to go and say that he can keep his licence. With that being said, I want to make a shout-out to my old buddy Eric Courtney. I'm sure he's watching in Arnold's Cove. He's at the Golden Years Manor. He is 96 years old – he just turned 96, actually, two days ago – and he actually has his licence.

He's still allowed to drive around Arnold's Cove. I don't think he's out on the highway or anything, but in the meantime, he has a smile that goes for days. It's a new lease on life for him because he really has always driven. It gives him an opportunity to go to the grocery store and all that stuff whenever he wants.

Like I said, that's the kinds of things I focus on and that's what I think that my job is as the MHA for Placentia West - Bellevue, to make people's lives better where I can. That's the whole reason why I always say that through hard work and communication we can accomplish a lot of things. That's where I come to and in saying that, I also give a big shout-out to Wayne Follett and Joe Mercer in Newfoundland and Labrador Housing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. DWYER: Absolutely two gems that I tell you – I would say their best attribute is that they listen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: They care.

J. DWYER: And that's why they listen, because they care.

Do you know what? I've never had a rebuttal or anything like that. I've met with those guys and the ministers, and just to know that any minister that comes into Housing does not have to micromanage them, I can tell you that right now. They know what they're at. I think they're the ones that are helping us with filling some gaps. We're not there yet but, with people like Wayne Follett and Joe Mercer, I think that we're going to get there. That's the thing, it's the internal people that are in our public service that do so much great work, like our nurses.

This being Nurses' Week, the whole point is that we're all in this together. We all have a job to do. Nobody has a silver bullet and nobody is an expert in everything. That's the point I want to make. If you know how to listen, you can become an expert in everything, but if you think you're an expert in everything, then keep running your mouth and you'll have a sidewalk to walk on real soon.

When I listened to the Premier speak, he was talking about a laser focus on rural Newfoundland. I think the laser must be still warming up because there's no focus on rural Newfoundland, not in my district anyway. My district goes from Marystown to Long Harbour and all places in between. Everything is off a branch and everything is – let's take English Harbour East. It's 32 kilometres from the highway but it's also 45 kilometres by the time you get down to English Harbour East from Goobies, so there's a distance. They're right in the middle with Terrenceville and Grand le Pierre.

It's a really different area for the simple fact that they're equidistant between Marystown and Clarenville, but the other odd part about my district being so large is that we don't actually have a physical hospital in our district. I do depend on the Burin Peninsula Health Care Centre, which I support tremendously; the G.B. Cross and Discovery Health Care, that I support tremendously; and Whitbourne, as well. I was honoured to go out there to their rally and help save the services for the Whitbourne hospital, which was very important, not only for the people that are employed there that are from my district, but the people that would present and the people that would have any issues while they're on their way to St. John's to get help – and Carbonear helps a lot as well.

The thing is, in saying that we're all in this together, there should be never a personal lens put on it when somebody's asking for help. You can't take it personal and you just have to help them. I mean, whether you agree or not with what they need help with is fine. Just because it doesn't fit into how you see your life doesn't mean that you can't help somebody with what they see as good in their life.

There's a few things I'd like to point out that, I guess – we don't want to say that anybody's derelict in their duty but there are things that have happened that I've been working on for literally years. Actually, come Friday for all the people that came in in 2019, it'll be our sixth anniversary of sitting in these seats and representing the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. I think we're all proud of that. So like I said, we all come in here together, but we all have different things for our districts that we have to focus on because not all things are equal and not all funding that comes to each district is equal.

I'll just talk about a couple of things actually. One thing outside of my district, I have a young girl – something I'm working with the new minister on. Hopefully, we can get there because it's kind of been one of these cans that has been kicked down the road with no real solution. I've brought a solution, and I'm hoping that we can look at it as a one-off or a unique piece.

This young lady has some issues with epilepsy and mental health issues. She's an adult and she's out on her own. She's already approved for 70 hours; they have a worker that comes in and does 40 hours and does a great job. She's been there for three years, but when somebody else comes in to work the 30 hours, I guess when they see an episode or anything like that it kind of scares them. They move away from it and the father is always left to look after his own daughter, but he's also a retired teacher that we could probably use in the teaching field. He's not able to apply for a job, even as a substitute, because he doesn't know what days his daughter will need him. If somebody up and quits or somebody doesn't show up for the shift, they're not replaced right away so he has to automatically do that.

We know that this is a real solution to this gap and, in this instance, I think it would only make sense because the father has to do the training, actually, for the new people that are coming in if they take the other 30 hours even. He's more than done his part, but I think that's the solution: just let him get paid the 30 hours because (a) he's not able to go back to work, and (b) he's filling a gap that, right now, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services can't fill. So I think this young lady is more than deserving of getting these hours filled because bringing on somebody new is a little bit strange for this young lady as well.

Again, this is somebody that I'm dealing with from outside my district. I'm not here to call anybody out or anything like that, it's just that this family had been told by other family members and past relationships that if you want it done, call Jeff Dwyer. He'll help you out. He'll certainly call you back. I think that was their issue, they weren't getting called back from their own MHA once they reached out, but I've got nothing to say about that. Those people can do their job the way they want to do their job.

We've still got diesel on the ground down in Swift Current; we've got a Department of Environment. I find it really weird or funny we all talk about environment and how it's our job to take care of the environment and, you know, if you saw a fellow throw a chip bag out the window, b'y, you might take his licence plate down. That's how we're after being groomed to this point, do you know what I mean?

But when we spill diesel, if you don't have insurance, don't worry about it. The environment will take care of itself. Unbelievable; what an attitude. I could not believe it. The way this has been handled is derelict of duty, and I will say that for the simple fact, let's clean it up and let's go after the administration and the insurance and whatever needs to happen after the fact, but let's clean up this diesel – 700 litres of diesel.

A lady has a hobby farm next to it. You know, she's trying to grow some root vegetables for her father that lives on the other side between the two houses. It's just unbelievable that we'd be here today talking about – this happened back in, like, February or early March. I can't believe it. We're still here today talking that people are not calling them or people are not talking to the people of Swift Current.

Isn't it our responsibility in an emergency situation to go out and clean that up and the go after the cost later if we've got to recoup cost? It's the environment. Apparently, only if you can pay for the environment then we're worried about it. I guess that's what this whole transition to an economy means and all this kind of stuff. So when we beat the drum about the environment, let's make sure that we're not just doing it for our own self worth. I say to the former minister of Environment, you can get up and explain why you didn't want to talk to the people of Swift Current whenever you're ready.

About six years ago we came in, when they did the Health Accord, we, in Arnold's Cove, were losing a doctor that had stuck around for over 50 years, Dr. Geoffrey Fowlow, and I tip my hat to him. He's retired now but he still has some patients I think that he is helping out and still going to the homes and stuff like that. He's a great guy, actually. He's a big part of our community in Arnold's Cove. He's a wealth of knowledge and I appreciate talking to him all the time.

Again, we started about five or six years ago on this Arnold's Cove clinic because we understood that we were going to be a spoke to take away some of the pressure off G.B. Cross in Clarenville and the Newhook centre in Whitbourne. We have an area there where we have an aging community, but it's also a very industrial area and it could really use a clinic.

You know, at this point we're not even really looking for a doctor; we're looking for a nurse practitioner that can work there. Like I said, through COVID and all this kind of stuff, the jigs and the reels, it's not exactly anybody's fault but I think this is a fault that needs to move forward now in short order so we can really break ground this year, get the clinic built and then get it staffed with a nurse practitioner or a doctor.

To the people of Arnold's Cove, we're almost there. I know it's taken some time and it's been unfortunate, but we're going to get there. We are going to get there, and I'll stick with this until we get there because it's the volition of the town, it's the volition of the area and as long as it's their volition, it's my volition as well. I know that it will be a great help to take the pressure off G.B. Cross in Clarenville, that's already overwhelmed.

In my last four minutes, I guess I'd like to touch on the roads because having a large district, it's very important that people are able to come and go as they please. When we talk about roads, it's a whole trickle effect because, you can do whatever you want with the roads, if the brush is still there, it's not much sense. If you don't have any shoulders on the roads, people can't even walk. There are a lot of different things and, I mean, like I said, everything in my district is off a branch.

You have poor old Rushoon and Baine Harbour that have a school down there and a cow path for a road. I've asked many times, even if we can get a bit of cold patch or something just to try and fill in these gaps, and to no avail. It's unbelievable. We get invited in to give our priorities. I have 36 towns and 8 LSDs and 4 unincorporated areas, 16 fire departments and I get to bring in three priorities. Is that to tell my district that I didn't care about the other 42 entities?

I'm thinking so because the three priorities that I laid on the table are very rough areas and, to me, the reason why these areas are so rough is because we have five depots in my district and three of those shut down in the summer time for whatever reason. That really hasn't been explained yet either, but when you have a large district like that, it bodes well that maybe it's not that we have to close down the same three every time. Maybe there's a couple that could stay open so that they can work on those areas that they are supposed to oversee; because, when it goes down to two, and that's not to take away anything from the people that work in our depots that are still open, it's just the fact that they're overwhelmed and they have, probably, too big of an area to cover for the amount of time that they have.

All I ask is, when we sit down and you ask for my priorities and they're not fulfilled or they're not even on the order sheet, was it a waste of time? I guess, really, if I'm not being listened to. That's the whole point, that's what I'm coming back to, you're only going to be as focused as good as you're listening because we all don't have the silver bullet. If you're not listening to people and how they see their lives and how they want to live their lives and live their best life, then I think we're missing the boat on really representing the people with the utmost respect and integrity that we should be doing here in this House.

Like I said, I do get a lot of calls from all over the province and I work with ministers and ADMs and EAs all the time to make sure that those people are looked after. What I always remind anybody that I work with is let's work on this together for somebody else. I'm not looking for a pat on the back. I'm not looking for anything. If the people want me to continue as their MHA I certainly will, but the thing is, when we're all in this together, people know that they can approach me, and I'll call them back.

I think that's the integrity that I bring to the table and the respect that I have for the people that have given me this opportunity to be their voice in the House of Assembly. On that note, I know my time is running out. I want to say thank you to all the people that do work with me on behalf of my constituents in Placentia West - Bellevue, and I really want to say I hope all our nurses stay safe and have a great Nurses' Week.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cape St. Francis.

J. WALL: Thank you, Speaker.

It's always an honour to stand and represent the good people of my district and, of course, the pleasure today to speak this morning to the subamendment to Budget 2025.

Speaker, last night here in the House of Assembly, I do know it may have gotten heated at times. I commend you on the job you're doing, Speaker, but at one point the Premier did stand and, in the midst of debate, said: On this side of the House we care. I wrote it down when the Premier said it, I know several of my colleagues did the same, but it wasn't until driving home last night and I received two messages from constituents who were watching last night saying that it insinuated that we didn't care.

Now with all due respect to the hon. Premier, I know, again in debate, when things are said and it may not be thought through fully but I know that the 40 Members of this House care. I know in His Majesty's Official Opposition we care. Everyone cares in this House of Assembly. I just wanted to say that for the benefit of the two that did reach out to me who were watching the House last evening. I fully understand in the heat of debate things are said that may not be fully thought through, and, Speaker, I know again, with you in your position as well, that you do care.

So I just want to make that known for the people that did reach out to me, there are times heated debate does bring out these comments.

Speaker, last night here in the House, my colleague from Torngat Mountains spoke about food security and she spoke about the methods that families come together in her district when they are looking for affordable ways for food orders that come into her district. I realized, after speaking with her, the compounded challenges that constituents in her district face when it comes to food security and how that impacts her job as an MHA in helping her constituents in the best way she can.

Yesterday, also in the House, the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board stood when my colleague, I believe from Bonavista, spoke about food bank usage. I can be corrected, Speaker, but I do believe that the minister was referring to numbers coming down here in the province with respect to food bank usage. I'm not quite sure of the data she was using, but the message she was trying to convey to this House was that food bank usage was coming down in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Speaker, in my beautiful District of Cape St. Francis, I know that the food bank usage has increased dramatically. In my former role as an elected municipal official, I began working with the food bank. I continue to do what I can to support the Northeast Avalon Food Bank in the Town of Torbay, which services all of my district and a portion of the neighbouring district. As I said, food bank usage has increased over the last number of years.

A significant portion of food bank clients are children. Approximately one in three food bank clients are under the age of 18. So when you look at a single-parent family, albeit a mother or father with young children, I've spoken to several of them and they reached out as to how do we begin the process of receiving from the food bank.

When you look at it, Speaker, it takes a great deal of courage for an individual to speak up and to ask for help. I'm always, as my colleague from Placentia West - Bellevue just said, at the ready to give help and to be available, but it is becoming more and more prominent in my district. I'm sure we have other districts in this hon. House that are feeling the same.

Speaker, I went to just look for some information and HungerCount 2024 did some stats in that year, and they reached out to a total of 62 food banks across our beautiful province here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Those numbers state that 15,425 visits to our food banks, these 62 in particular, were in the course of one year, with one-third being children involved in the food bank usage. In their numbers, the visits increased by 12 per cent over 2023. I fully appreciate the stats that the Deputy Premier said yesterday with respect to food bank usage, but it's not matching what I'm reading and what I'm experiencing with my boots on the ground in my district.

To further continue on with that, Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest percentage of seniors accessing food banks in Canada, in our country. Newfoundland and Labrador seniors had the highest percentage accessing food banks nationwide. That, as I've spoken to in this House many times over the last four years, is a product of the high cost of living, and of course, wages not matching or keeping up with that.

Speaker, in addition to all of that, Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest percentage of homeowners accessing food banks. The highest percentage of homeowners in Canada are in Newfoundland and Labrador accessing food banks.

Now, one of my colleagues from across the way has said many times over this sitting of the House that numbers don't lie. Well, Speaker, numbers do not lie. When it comes to food bank usage, it is steadily increasing. That is alarming to me when I look at people who once supported the food bank, donated to the food bank, volunteered their time and their effort there are now users of the Northeast Avalon Foodbank in Torbay in my district. Speaker, that is very concerning when it comes to food security and moreover when we have children and seniors who are a part of that.

I would like to just give a shout-out to the new board of directors who are now operating the food bank in Torbay, as I said, the Northeast Avalon Food Bank. In December of 2024 a new board of directors came on, and I'd just like to share with this hon. House and the people of our province the individuals who are now operating that food bank: president, Crystal Murphy; vice-president, Cassie Manning-Dyke; the treasurer is Corrina Martin; the secretary is Emma; and director, Tera McDonald.

Now, Speaker, I do know that this group is enthusiastic. They are a solid team and very excited to help the people of my district and to carry on the future endeavours towards community care when it comes to accessible food and to helping out seniors and low-income families in our district.

I know I might get a ribbon for this one, or not, but my wife always tells me I shouldn't be naming names or making lists. From the top of my head, over the years, the people that provide great support for my district and the neighbouring District of Conception Bay East - Bell Island to the Northeast Avalon Food Bank – and I just want to share with you some of the people, organizations and groups that are always on the ready. They're always there to help and to provide assistance to those who are in need.

Speaker, we have the Lions Clubs in my district, Torbay Community Garden, the Canadian postal workers, the sports teams at Holy Trinity High in Torbay, students from St. Francis of Assisi in Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove, local businesses, annual memorial softball tournaments that all funds go to the operation of the food bank, the Northeast Eagles Minor Hockey team, the various church fundraisers, Torbay Folk Arts Council, Music for Young Children and the many personal family donations.

The five municipalities, I'm very proud to say, all support, and the municipality of Portugal Cove-St. Philip's in the neighbouring District of Conception Bay East - Bell Island does as well. The Torbay Harbour Authority, the Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Development Association, the Knights of Columbus and the dozens and dozens of anonymous supporters; I'd like to publicly thank all of them and, of course, those I have missed because I'm sure I've missed some, Speaker, but they're always there to provide assistance for those who are in need.

Unfortunately, with today's cost of living, with what the people of the province are faced – I believe my colleague from Exploits said earlier that it wasn't in the budget to help offset the difficulties the people of the province are facing. These individuals, these groups, these not-for-profit organizations, they all help out and I'd like to publicly thank them for what they do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. WALL: Speaker, I want share with you now, a couple from Pouch Cove, Tony and Mary Palmer. Two individuals with a family who looked at what they could do to help others. I know I had the conversation with the Minister of Municipal Affairs in his former role with CSSD, but Tony and Mary began the food pantry in the Town of Pouch Cove. For my hon. colleagues in this House who are always attentively listening, and I thank them for that, the pantry redirects surplus food just prior to being out of date from the different box stores, from grocery stores and what have you.

They have a process of going to these establishments, picking up the food in a safe manner, bringing them back to the Town of Pouch Cove and dispersing this food to families, to hundreds of constituents in my district. I've seen first-hand the positive effects that Tony and Mary Palmer are having on many demographics in my district. Anyone can come to the pantry regardless of age and regardless of income. I've seen students. I've seen seniors. I've seen working families. I've seen those on income support. I've seen all demographics access this food pantry and no one is turned away.

I can tell you, by speaking with some of the people who are accessing the pantry in Pouch Cove, some who cannot afford to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, some who cannot afford to purchase milk, this is reality. This is what some people are facing in my district, and I know this is not a one-off. We have 40 districts in this House and I do know that many districts are facing the same and, Speaker, I'd just like to share with you some numbers.

From retail stores from June to December of 2024, there were 51 food rescues. It was an average value of $3,500 per rescue. That's just under $180,000 of food that was rescued from going to the landfill. Again, it's just prior to being out of date and the food is still good. So approximately $180,000 worth in value, 65,000 kilograms of food. That was just from June to December of 2024. I cannot comprehend the number of meals that 65,000 kilograms of food can produce, but I do know the smiles on the faces of the people who access the food pantry on a weekly basis that Tony and Mary set up.

Thanks to the Town of Pouch Cove for providing space, the municipal building that they operate out of two days a week to provide these food rescues to the individuals. I see the positive effect it has on the single mother with two young children who can't afford to buy yogurt, fruit cups and various things for their lunches. I've spoken to seniors who, for the first time in a long time, had fresh fruits and vegetables in their fridge. I've spoken to the working class who are between jobs for whatever reason and the difference that it makes to their household all to the thanks of Tony and Mary Palmer and the food pantry in Pouch Cove.

Speaker, just some more numbers I'd like to share with you. The food rescues from Second Harvest in 2023 was $37,000 in value and in 2024 was $32,000 in value. All of this makes a big difference. That's not going to the landfill and it is supporting our residents, so I would like to thank Tony and Mary Palmer for all that they do.

I can tell you they're feeling the pinch out of pocket when it comes to the price of fuel. For example, they're travelling from Pouch Cove to Costco twice a week, or to Dominion or Sobeys or whatever, and this is impacting their pocketbook with respect to paying for fuel in their vehicle to do this, and they're doing it all out of the goodness of their hearts. I'd like to thank them for what they do, what they're going to continue to do and I'll support them wherever I can as they continue to support my constituents.

Speaker, in the few minutes I have left, I do want to touch on Transportation and Infrastructure. I know the minister is always listening when it comes to Transportation and Infrastructure. Over the last number of years I've worked with three Ministers of Transportation and Infrastructure and, shortly ago, I presented a petition to this House with respect to roadwork.

First and foremost, I'm very appreciative of the roadwork that was approved for my district for 2025-2026. I've said that to the minister and I'll say it publicly. I look forward to that work being started very soon to make a difference to the people travelling through my district. I did present a petition on roadwork in this hon. House, and in that included the need of grading in my district. I asked a question with respect to the horrible shoulders that are on Route 20 and 21. I've taken many pictures; I've sent them to the department. In places you have a drop of six, seven or eight inches off the side of the pavement. If you go off that you know what's going to happen? You're going to damage your vehicle. You're going to have an accident.

I did ask the question; the minister of the day said that he would get back to me. I checked with my CA and we did not receive anything from the minister with respect to the last time that grading was done in the District of Cape St. Francis on Route 20 and 21. I would like just to remind the minister, if that information could be received and the need for grading to be done in the district.

I do know that throughout the province there is much that needs to be done. My colleague from Exploits spoke about brush cutting. With respect to grading in my district and to correct the horrible shoulders on Route 20 and 21, it is something that's necessary. It's a safety concern. I've spoken to people who, unfortunately, went off the shoulder, dropped and damaged tires and rims, ball joints and front ends. So if we could get that or if the minister could provide that information and hopefully get a grader in the district to get some work done, it would be very much appreciated.

In my last couple of minutes, Speaker, I do want to touch on housing, and I know I spoke about housing just a couple of days ago but I want to speak on it again with respect to the information we received in Estimates and the further work that needs to be done.

My colleague from Placentia West - Bellevue earlier this morning mentioned two particular staff. I hate to single out staff, but these two individuals, Wayne Follett and Joe Mercer, are doing tremendous work and I would like to publicly thank them. I know the minister is nodding in agreement with respect to the work that they do. They are available whenever we call. They are always willing and ready to help and they have assisted me and my constituents many times over the last four years.

I'd just like to publicly say thank you to Wayne Follett and Joe Mercer for what they do and, of course, to all the staff within Newfoundland and Labrador Housing. It is a challenge and I admit that. It's not an easy task with respect to Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, but there are many people that do need help. With over 2,500 people on a wait-list for housing, the more that we can do, the more that government can do, with respect to getting available housing back up and running for the people of this province who are in need.

Of those numbers, Speaker – out of 2,500 – we have about 430 who are listed as homeless, who don't have anywhere to lay their head. I know at night, when my head is on the pillow, that does concern me. It does keep me awake. Speaker, I do know that – you're nodding as well – it is one that does bother me when it comes to that. So with respect to Housing, whatever we can do with respect to getting more housing available, more housing built, more housing refurbished to get people back into, it is only the correct thing to do.

Speaker, I appreciate your time, I appreciate the attention of Members opposite, and I always thank the people of the District of Cape St. Francis for putting me in this role. It is a tremendous role. It's one I don't take lightly. It's always an honour to stand and represent my district, and I will have a chance to speak again, Speaker.

SPEAKER (Trimper): Thank you to the hon. the Member for the beautiful District of Cape St. Francis.

The hon. the Member for Topsail - Paradise.

P. DINN: Thank you, Speaker.

It's always a pleasure to rise in this House and speak on behalf of the wonderful residents of Topsail - Paradise. We're talking about the budget subamendment, talking about the budget and what's in it and what's not in it. That's what we look at; we look at the whole picture. Although before I go on, I do want to congratulate the new Premier on being elected. I haven't had the chance to say that publicly, so congratulations to him, and I also want to congratulate Jacob Lewis last night.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. DINN: What a very proud moment for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

P. DINN: Oh, I will be there. You won't know what my talent is, but I will be there.

In any case, just to talk about the Premier rose yesterday and spoke about the health care and talked about it being a primary focus – and it should be – and talked about health care being available for all and listed off some things that were in the budget. I look at it, and I know there's a balancing act between funding and priorities, but I think we all agree health care should be a priority. I thought of things that I would like to see in the budget.

I hear from seniors in particular, but others who are on a drug program, and a particular drug works for them but is not covered and they can't afford to buy it. So I think we need to do a closer look at that because it's not a lot that are in those cases – sorry we can't fund this drug, but you have to use the one that's not working. So that's something we need to be looking at.

Long-term care continues to be a huge issue, continues to be a huge issue for seniors, and in particular, seniors who are couples and cannot be put together in an institution on their final years. We do need to do more there. I know there was a report done on it, but more action, certainly, is required there.

We're all very familiar with our demographics. We're an aging population. I believe we're the oldest population in Canada, so many challenges come along with that. One being dementia care. I know there has been a document put out on dementia care, but we still have huge numbers of individuals and families dealing with dementia, and it's not pretty. It really isn't. It may be because we are living longer, but one thing – and I'm hoping and I think I got the cue that government is going to do something about this. It's not going to be soon, but they promised to do something about it and that was the shingles vaccine, which has been proven to reduce the cases of dementia by somewhere around 20 per cent.

That's something that saves us money in the long run. I said the other day, looking at a report, that dementia care in Canada costs over $40 million a year for various forms of care that someone suffering from dementia deals with. That would be a true investment.

Of course, I've always spoke about the continuous glucose monitoring devices. I won't say much more about them. I will get up again and talk to it, but that is an investment that we're not seeing in the budget that would save us, according to the Canadian Diabetes Association, upwards to $100 million per year. Those are investments in our residents and in our health care that actually save us money.

I also look at things that are time sensitive. I've got up in this House many, many times and advocated for IVF treatment here in this province. The Liberal government, during their AGM in 2016, spoke to doing that; five years ago, on the campaign trail, the past premier spoke to doing that, and we're not there. We know that it's been promised now for another year out.

For young families and young mothers or women out there who want to start a family, those six years now gone are lost years and some of them may not be able to conceive now. We talk about a demographic where our population is declining and people want to have families, start them here in the province and stay here in the province, then funding IVF is a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned there.

Mental health: I've risen here in the House many times talking about long-term continuity of care for mental health, those struggling with mental health. There's a wonderful building been built. On all accounts it's a wonderful, bright building and people that have entered the building speak highly of it. But we still need to come up with the programs and the staff that can provide individuals struggling with those challenges to have long-term continuity of care.

Speaking to that, you talk about our education system. We know the huge increase in violence in our schools, and it continues and continues and continues. The NLTA spoke to, in a recent report, that it's almost a 30 per cent increase, just shy of a 30 per cent increase in reported violence actions in schools. That ties into mental health because 70 per cent of mental health issues occur in childhood and adolescence. So we need to come up with more preventative measures that help young children struggling with mental health. And, hopefully, would be one measure to curbing violence in our schools.

I don't mention it much, but I will mention it here. The buzzword for us all is Muskrat Falls. I know the Premier spoke to that yesterday as well. I know when that was brought to this House – it must be four or five years ago now, the report – I actually stood up and I spoke on that. I looked at it: a misguided project. I said that word's not even strong enough for it. I remember the Member for Gander who was right across from me actually applauded me for that comment.

But I'm speaking truthfully to that. The project itself, as a hydro-producing facility, is a good project, no doubt. We need electricity. How it was managed, how it came to be, how the cost overruns occurred is totally unacceptable. And we certainly don't want to see that again.

Similar to the Churchill Falls agreement, signed back in, I think it was '67 – I stand to be corrected – we don't want to see that again. Just think of where we would be if we had a good deal back in '67. Just think of where we would be if we didn't have a mismanaged Muskrat Falls program. They have both held us back.

When we look at the discussion around the current hydro project and the MOU, we want to be ultra, ultra sure that what's being done, what's being proposed is the best deal for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That's what we want.

I listened to the Premier, yesterday, reading quotes from the report. I don't think any of us can argue the report. It was a well-done report, and you have to learn from that I think was the words the Premier said. But when I look at it, the number one recommendation in that report – and I'll read it out – "The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador should never undertake, on its own or through one of its Crown corporations or agencies, the planning, approval or construction of any large project (meaning a project with a budget of $50 million or more) without: a. Engaging independent external experts to provide a robust review, assessment and analysis of the project."

The number one recommendation in that report, and I know everyone on this side of the House would love to see that recommendation followed through on because that gives us the certainty, or as close to the certainty that we can have. You know, you talk about independents, people who are not influenced or controlled by the project or those who are doing the project. This is a huge piece of our future, this project, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to have the best for this province.

I note actually the Premier spoke yesterday and called it a good project, and I know throughout the discussion we had on it, the debate we had on it, no one mentioned the best, only for afterwards in the press one of the panel actually said it. We want to be sure from an independent point of view, that MOU and a potential agreement will give us the best.

So there's no disputing that, and that's where we stand on it. That's, at least, where I stand on it. I couldn't vote against it because maybe it is the best. No one has told me that. I couldn't vote for it because, again, no one said it was the best deal, no one that was independent as per the first recommendation of the Muskrat Falls inquiry.    Why spend money on reports – and that was a much-needed report – if we're not going to take heed of the recommendations that are contained therein?

I also want to just touch base on the Education Accord. January 2024, we were promised an Education Accord. We were promised an Education Accord that was going to solve all the problems in education. That was promised for – well, I believe it was New Year's Eve – December 31, 2024. As we all know, that didn't happen. A month or two later, a report was tabled but it was an interim report, which, as I said a year ago, is going to be a rehash of all the reports we have, and a good portion of that was. It was really a rehash of what the previous report said, as well as What We Heard, but stay tuned because two months ago we were supposed to get the actual report and we're still waiting on that. 

My colleague spoke about food security and people using the food banks and the community pantries. Just last week, I attended a food drive up in CBS. My colleague for Harbour Main and my colleague for CBS are very much aware of Louise and Bernie Mercer. They have a program they call it S.O.A.R. – S - O - A - R – Spirit of Alex and Riley. They lost both their children, I think one at nine and one at 15, to a rare brain cancer – both of them lost to that. I can't imagine that. I can't imagine how hard that is on a family; both of their children at young ages.

They wanted to give back to the community so they've held these food drives. They also have a Christmas toy drive but they hold this food drive every year. The community really is huge in contributing to it. The Salvation Army up there provides their venue for storage for food, and huge, huge stacks of food. Every year I go there I speak to the food bank, because it goes to the Paradise-CBS food bank, and every year I'm told this amount of food would last three weeks, then, this amount is going to last two weeks, so the amount of food is not going as far as it normally did because there's a greater need. There is a greater usage for those food banks.

What does that say about society here? What does that say about our government? What does it say about us dealing with the most vulnerable out there? As I said earlier, our seniors, who are in need of life-altering or life-saving drugs and treatment, can't get it. Children – families who can't put food on the table. We should be embarrassed. We really should be embarrassed that we allow this to happen.

You know, having kids go to school who are hungry doesn't do us any justice. Our children are our most valuable resource and they should be treated as such. We should give them every opportunity to succeed. I know we have a new Minister of Education. I will give him credit because he did reach out already, and we're going to hopefully have a get together and chat about some of the issues in education and, particularly, in Paradise so I can talk about that on another note.

I do want to just briefly talk about the roads. Route 60 running through Topsail in the district has been in a terrible state of disrepair for many, many years. I've had the opportunity to actually meet with the many, many different ministers over the years, all very cordial and having a chat and all very committed to doing something about it.

I guess this is the first year that we've actually seen that road on a list. This section of road that's been covered does not quite cover what needs to be done. I've reached out to – well, I'll have to reach out to the newer minister now because I reached out to the most recent one and have a discussion on how far we can get that road to go. It's a heavily travelled piece of road. We've seen people get injured because there are not a lot of places to walk there. It's a very eroded shoulder to that road and something needs to be done.

It's not a well-lit piece of road going through there. Again, lots of traffic goes through there. There's a soccer field. There's a beach. There are a lot of other amenities down there that people go to access on a daily basis. Of course, we're going to have – it may not be fixed in time for that – Canada Summer Games events down there as well so that road will be well travelled and, this time of year, we see, well, some will call them potholes and some will call them craters. Call them what you want but they're dangerous for traffic going down there and damage cars and vehicles.

I think the new minister was the minister before who I spoke to, so I hope to sit with him and determine exactly where that segment of road is going to go and, hopefully, we can extend it a little bit to cover the most serious areas that need repair. I'll be up again to speak a little bit more but thank you for your time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Speaker.

It's an honour to stand here on behalf of the constituents of the District of Harbour Main and speak on the budget, specifically with respect to the sub amendment.

Speaker, I had the opportunity yesterday to hear the Premier speak about the budget. First of all, his introduction was very interesting I thought. He talked about the money that has been spent on the budget. For example, he referenced the budget includes money for health care, money for the vulnerable and so on and so forth. He referenced the $10 billion that is involved here with respect to the budget.

When he got into his speech, he stated when he was in his law practice he practised defence law for most of his years and that that gave him the opportunity to listen and hear the arguments of the case first from others and then to poke holes in some of those cases. Well I too am a lawyer and had the opportunity to practice for pretty much most of my legal career as a defence lawyer so now I will get the opportunity to assess some of the points that he made yesterday, some of his arguments, and I think, perhaps, poke some holes in some of his points that he presented.

One of the things that he seemed to be intent on, Speaker, was talking about the importance of the facts. I, as a lawyer, believe that facts are everything. That's how we are trained is to look at the facts, not opinions, but facts. In fact, he said let's stick to the facts, so I'm going to do that in the next 20 minutes. I'll talk about some facts that I think the government here has to be reminded of.

First of all, with respect to Budget 2025 – now this is my opinion – it shows that this government are not good stewards of taxpayers' money. What I am basing that opinion on are some of the facts. Let's look at the facts, the massive debt. Let's look at the fact of the record borrowing this government has engaged in, the record spending, and in my opinion, that would be very irresponsible spending which indicates poor fiscal management of taxpayers' money. I would argue, Speaker, that the road to prosperity cannot be achieved through reckless spending that we have seen this government, in the last 10 years, engage in.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: When we look at this budget document, I'll look at some of the facts. This budget is a recycled document, I would argue. Why is that a recycled document? It is filled with Liberal reannouncements – announcements over announcements, and I will point to the Justice Department as evidence and let's stick to the facts, as the Premier stated. When we look at the Budget Speech and what was argued and what was presented there, that $20 million over two years bolsters new public safety initiatives, well, guess what, Speaker? That $20 million, that was announced actually back in November 6, 2024. The same thing with reference to the $40 million that was added over the last five years. That, too, was referenced in the announcement back in November of 2024.

I can go on and on. When we talk about the Joint Task Force Unit – the RNC and RCMP – that was part of the $20-million investment announcement. Well, that, too, is a reannouncement, part of a recycled document. That announcement was made way back in November 2024. The same with the $180 million annually of Policing Services Newfoundland and Labrador. That, again, was referenced on November 6, 2024.

This continues on and on. When we look at November 6, 2024, starting in '26-'27 there would be an additional 19 police officers. Yet we know – and this was ignored by the government – that the National Police Federation had requested, I believe it was 24 officers. That was ignored. The RCMP out in Harbour Grace area, they had requested police officers. Again, last year and this year, that was ignored in this budget.

So, Speaker, when we're looking at this budget, it's recycled. It contains Liberal reannouncements, more debt and really, I would argue, it's just simply more of the same of what we've seen in the past 10 years by this government.

Now, when I look at what the Premier had stated, yesterday, in his speech, he stated that we will get things right. When he talked, my colleague from Cape St. Francis indicated about this nonsense about them caring on that side of the House, insinuating that we don't care. I'm very surprised that our new Premier is starting off with that kind of rhetoric because that's all it is, Speaker, it's rhetoric.

On this side of the House, yes, we care as well, but I would argue, as my colleague from Cape St. Francis said, we all are in this because we care. We are here because we represent the people of this province. We believe in what we're doing to try to improve the lives of the people that we represent.

For the Premier to insinuate that, I mean that is just very disappointing. He has to do better than that as the new Premier of our province. This has to be about building bridges, not walls, and that kind of statement reduces that to dividing us as a people. I would even go as far to say that the population and the people that we represent are sick of that. They're sick of that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: That kind of divisiveness that's going on.

We have to be in a spirit in a time of hope and at a time where we are coming together. We have many external challenges facing us in the world today, south of the border, and even within our own communities in terms of issues that are happening as related to crime and people struggling to make ends meet. So this is a time when we have to be together. We have to join one another and try to support the good initiatives, and I, for one, when I see that there are positive things that are done by the government, we have to support that. That is what the people want to see from us.

When we see that government is putting forth policies that are good, then we will support them, and we will commend them. Like, for example, the sugar tax.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: Finally, they have agreed to scrap the sugar tax. I spoke before the Easter break saying we need to scrap the sugar tax. Well, fortunately, the position of the Opposition Party has now been adopted by the government, and we're happy about that. That is good.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: And we commend the government for doing that. The same thing with the carbon tax, the same kind of approach there. We advocated always for the axing of the carbon tax.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: Now we have seen government adopting that policy of ours. So we're happy about that. That is a good thing. We stand with you on that and that's what the people that we represent want to see from us. They want to see that co-operation and that collaboration. But make no mistake about it, when we see you doing something wrong, we will be the first to announce that to the public what you're doing. That is our responsibility.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: I hear this often, this indignation from the government because we are asking questions in Question Period and well, that's a good question or that's a bad question. Every question we ask on behalf of the people we represent are good questions. They're legitimate questions. It's not for you to say what is good or not.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: We represent the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and we will not be intimidated or challenged by you that we are not permitted or given the permission to ask these legitimate questions.

So, Speaker, this is what we're about. We believe that this is time for us to have a change of attitude here. I mean, we have an important role in this parliamentary system as Opposition Members. We cannot and should not be expected to apologize because we ask tough questions, or it may hurt a minister's feelings because these are tough questions. As a minister, you are in a very important position and if you're not able to take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: Speaker, this is important for us as Members of the House of Assembly to say that we have a responsibility to represent the people that elected us. Now, every time we get up here and question the government or challenge them on something they do, they basically look at what we say and try to twist it and try to make it out to be something that it's not.

That's not what collaboration is. That is not what co-operation is. That is not working together for the purpose or for the people that we represent. I would say that to suggest otherwise is disingenuous of this government.

When we look at the responsibility of Members of the House of Assembly, we have to bring forward issues that matter. When I look at this budget, this budget is about choices and, yes, the Premier got up yesterday and he talked about the money, the $10 billion. There's no question that there was incredible spending in this budget, but our position is, that spending, that money has to be allocated properly.

The Liberals and this government had a chance to make smart choices in this budget that would make life better for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians at a time when so many of them are struggling. But I would argue that they failed to do so and I'm going to talk to you a bit about policing and the justice system.

As I indicated earlier, the budget ignored the recommendations of the National Police Federation. They asked for 25 more police officers in the province. Why is that important? Well, we should know, as this is National Police Week, this is a very important week for us because, right now, this week, we are showcasing and highlighting the important work that our police officers do.

The RNC, Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, these officers are there every day, seven days a week, 24-7, 365 and they are here to represent us and to protect us in the community, yet we know that many communities have been left without the resources that they need. Many communities do not have the policing that they need at a time when they are experiencing more crime. The rise in the illicit drug trade is very worrisome and yet they don't have the resources that they need.

Now when I look at that, Speaker, I'm going to address one of the – recently we heard and I think this is very important to mention, last week, enough lethal drugs were seized in St. John's to wipe out an entire metro region. That's the headline that we're seeing in our media. That was on last Wednesday on a VOCM article, and then CBC referenced an article: Fentanyl seized in N.L.'s largest-ever bust enough to kill half the province.

Speaker, this is definitely a crisis. There's no question about this. The largest fentanyl seizure in the history of the province; 500 grams of fentanyl were seized. This drug trafficking bust has to be of major, major, major concern to everyone involved in any type of policing policy decision-making. Why is this so serious? This was 15 times larger than in any of the province's history. This is the largest fentanyl seizure to date and we're told that 2 milligrams of that fentanyl can be considered a lethal dose. We have our young people out in our towns and communities that are exposed to this.

We have a very serious, serious issue and yet, we do not see the level of police resources that we need. I don't know what it's going to take. Thankfully, the RNC were able to execute this drug bust but how many more drugs are out in our community? How many more that are slipping through the cracks? The RCMP and RNC need resources urgently. We see this happening; it's very serious. I think we need to also invest further in our education system so that our young people in school are really exposed to the risk of drugs in our society. I think we need to focus more on that, as well.

Speaker, when we look at calls for service for the RCMP and RNC, they can't keep up. What does this mean? This means that they cannot deal with the calls for service; that means that they're not able to really do the proactive policing, the crime prevention strategies that are necessary and the surveillance. Imagine what they would be able to do if they had the resources to do it, if we empowered them with the resources to do the crime prevention, to do the surveillance, to get out there in the towns and communities to provide that police presence.

It is not happening, Speaker. It is not happening. We need to see proactive crime prevention. We need to see more investment for our police officers. They require proper resourcing to make our community safe and it is my position that Budget 2025 failed abysmally in that regard.

Speaker, as well when we're looking at the drug crisis right now, we see that there are insufficient addictions treatment options in the province generally, which is driving drug-related crime. I've had the opportunity to speak to many police officers, and they have said to me that they're not able to really target the prolific offenders. They're saying as well that most of the crime that we're seeing, especially in rural area, is related to drugs; it is directly connected with the drug trade and the drug trafficking that's going on.

We need to see more attention to that. We need to see a focus, a priority by this government, on this matter. Otherwise, I think we're going to be in serious trouble when it comes to – we are right now as far as the drug addiction issue is in play.

On that note, I will conclude, Speaker. I thank you for the opportunity to allow me to speak on the budget and I look forward to speaking again.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay.

L. PADDOCK: Speaker, it is a privilege to be able to get up here this morning and talk on the budget subamendment, which denotes the neglect across rural Newfoundland; across our residents, businesses and communities.

As an MHA for Baie Verte - Green Bay, a rural district, I will highlight some examples, but I will also highlight across in representing Central Newfoundland and in supporting my fellow colleagues from that area as well. Also, some impacts that are truly across our entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador. So where do I want to start? I want to start first with health care and come back to last night and an issue that my colleague from Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans highlighted, and that was the Lionel Kelland Hospice.

That Lionel Kelland Hospice, as was so passionately highlighted last night, was a grassroots effort. Fundraising for that occurred across all of Central Newfoundland. It's a hospice that's in Grand Falls but the fundraising, the drive and the vision for all of that captivated all of Central Newfoundland because it was a need that was lacking and it was a desire to do what is right for our seniors in the last days of their life, and for their families as well.

A significant fundraising effort was undertaken and, as the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans highlighted last night, over a million dollars was raised.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: Like he said, some of that was small, $1, $2 or $5, and then also some significant donations from businesses across the area because they saw the need. They saw the void.

Once that hospice was ready to open, lo and behold, photo op, and the Liberals swoop in for that photo op. This year, with the budget, we have a situation where that hospice now needs a little bit recurring bridge funding to continue to provide an ongoing capability, not just for Central Newfoundland, but all of the province. So let me explain.

That hospice is an opportunity for those within palliative care to die with dignity and to give their families some comfort and support and wraparound services as they do that. I have witnessed that myself, that story, from a number of residents within my own communities in my district. They spoke of the impact of having that hospice there and what it meant to them, what it meant to their families and what it meant to their friends.

I commend the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans for so passionately highlighting that last night.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: A little bit of funding now would take pressure off, not just the Grand Falls regional hospital, but the two regional outlets that I have in my area, Springdale and Baie Verte, but also across the province. We're getting those in palliative care, not just from across Central Newfoundland, but all over the province. This is simply the right thing to do. This is about having dignity. This is about having compassion. This is about doing the right thing for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that helped build this province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: I believe the Premier hoisted in that impact last night when it was highlighted by the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans. I somewhat expected to come in here this morning and hear or see a press release that the funding was going to be there. Unfortunately, that did not occur.

Then, this morning, I listened to my colleague from Exploits who further reiterated the issue with Lionel Kelland and then also tied it to the Liberal office in Grand Falls-Windsor. Budgeting is about choices and, as the Member for Exploits highlighted, we have an opportunity here with regard to an opportunity cost. We could do a little bit of cost containment on that office – that unnecessary office – in Grand Falls-Windsor and support something that is providing a vital level of support, taking pressure off hospitals right across the province.

So I was thinking about this as the Member for Exploits was speaking, a lot with regard to budgeting is about public engagement. We saw an example of that last night when the Member for Bonavista gave us a couple of polls for here in the House. I wrote up a couple of poll questions too, that I hope are not just for this House but also for the greater public to potentially engage with as well.

The first of those polls would be: Should the taxpayer fund a Liberal office in Grand Falls-Windsor? Now, I fundamentally believe that the resounding response to that would be no.

Further to that, and that would be like I said previously, that is about cost containment, and as we seen with the budget, we have significant cost containment to undertake. The other one with that is, as was highlighted last night and highlighted again this morning, budgeting is about choices.

The second poll would be: Should the Liberal office in Grand Falls-Windsor be closed and the funds diverted to the Lionel Kelland Hospice?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: A simple choice. Let us do what is right, not just for Central Newfoundland, but for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: I would hope that the greater public listening to that would help to make that a question of the day.

The next item I would like to speak on is road safety. Road safety is a significant issue across most of the areas in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and road safety is not just about pavement. It encompasses line painting, signage, guardrails, shouldering and, most notably, as was highlighted last night by the Member for Fogo Island - Cape Freels, brush cutting. Brush cutting is a huge issue, and I'll touch on some examples in my district.

But we have opportunity here to do what is right for a lot of our secondary routes in the province. Signage: Why can't we give a little bit of funding allocation to the depots, if they see something that needs to be fixed, let them get on with it and fix it? That is centralized. It is not working for those depots. They want to fix it. In fact, those public servants are the ones getting beaten down because those signs are in disrepair.

The other is guardrails. You know, as I previously highlighted, we're bringing in a lot of posts from Nova Scotia, driving up the cost. We have an opportunity here to leverage Newfoundland companies with regard to supplying those posts. For a tourist coming in and looking at that combination of very poor signage – some signage you can't even see, as I highlighted last summer – guardrails, lack of shouldering, a lot of them you see after they'll post on Facebook: That small community was a great place to visit, but I warn you in going there because of the road. That is simply unsatisfactory for the residents of those communities.

My colleague from Fogo Island - Cape Freels gave the example of driving to Hare Bay and the road was like driving through a tunnel – no chance to react if you see a moose. I was reminded this morning when I picked up the Moose Hide Campaign and a tenet that was highlighted on that about having a responsibility to protect women and children in your life. In my district, and this is the same across rural Newfoundland and Labrador, we have a lot of mothers that are driving their children for a variety of reasons: doctor's appointments, school sports. Our roadways are our lifelines and those secondary routes require significant attention.

In my district, I think of Route 410, that's the Baie Verte Highway, serving 19 communities. We've had multiple moose accidents over the past couple of years. Routes 411, 413, 417, 418 and 419, all of those highways require brush cutting, and coming then to the Green Bay side, Routes 380, 381, 391 and 392. This was talked about before from my colleague for Placentia West - Bellevue, it's about having a roads plan. It shouldn't be that this goes into a void and you're waiting for an answer, we need a legitimate five-year plan – no politics – covering both pavement and road safety, including brush cutting.

Brush cutting right now across my district is a significant issue. We have to give our residents, our motorists, our visitors to these towns, tourists, the capacity to be able to react in a sufficient manner. That requires additional brush cutting.

The Premier spoke last night about, for rural Newfoundland, he would have your back. Now, I know a couple of routes in rural Newfoundland in my area, Route 413, where, if you're driving on them, you're clicking brush. You're actually clicking brush as you drive by. So I respectfully, then, ask the government: Let's take the effort to clear the brush off the back of the residents that drive along those highways.

Now I'll come back to health care within my district. A number of residents have approached me and they highlighted that it was only a couple decades ago that we had front-line access as doctors would come from Grand Falls and see us on a weekly basis. It was set up for the clinics in Robert's Arm, Triton and La Scie; they've lost all that.

The Premier last night spoke about public access to health care. Let me say this: Right now, the plan is to have these collaborative clinics and you'd have one in Grand Falls-Windsor. That does not work for residents of Westport, Purbeck's Cove, Wild Cove, Coachman's Cove, Harbour Round, Miles Cove, Long Island or Brighton. We have to make it easier for the residents of those communities to be able to access front-line care.

The model that we have been advocating and the model that works across Northern Canada is a nurse practitioner. Can you imagine if a nurse practitioner would be able to provide front-line access in a number of those smaller communities?

We would take pressure off Baie Verte, we would take pressure off Springdale and, ultimately, we would take pressure off Grand Falls-Windsor and by doing so, we would probably retain more doctors and nurses as well because they wouldn't be so overwhelmed. As I highlighted, that is a model that works across Northern Canada with the nursing stations. It's a model with regard to front-line care that we used when I was serving in the military, as well, with medics. It is a proven model, and it's a model that needs to be now leveraged.

A year ago, when we were on the campaign trail with regard to the by-election in Baie Verte - Green Bay, there was a significant promise made with regards to health care in my district. That was in regard to the clinic in La Scie and the clinic is Triton.

Now, I queried in November, again, because nothing was happening with regard to those two clinics, and the answer that we got at that time: It's being worked on. Here we are now a full year later, how long does it take to implement a promise and why would you make a promise if you're not going to keep it?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: So these types of promises just being trolled out willy-nilly is not doing any of us in this House any favours. That's why a lot of the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador become cynical to politicians. If you do that, I think you become morally bankrupt. When we make a promise, any of us here in this House, there's an expectation and a duty that that promise will be honoured.

So I respectfully ask that the promises that were made last May with regard to the two clinics, one for La Scie and one for Triton, in addition to promises that were made for roadwork along Route 392 and 391 be honoured. It's your duty.

Thank you so much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER (Bennett): The hon. the Government House Leader.

L. DEMPSTER: Thank you, Speaker.

I moved, seconded by the Deputy Government House Leader, that this House do now stand in recess until 2 p.m.

SPEAKER: This House do stand in recess until 2 p.m. this afternoon.

Recess

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

SPEAKER (Bennett): Order, please!

Admit visitors.

Before we begin this afternoon, in the Speaker's gallery, I'd like to welcome would like to welcome Eileen Pendergast, wife of the late fire chief, Jim Pendergast, along with family members, friends and coworkers of the Wabana fire department.

Welcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Also, I'd like to take a moment to advise that Members of the House of Assembly are participating in the annual Moose Hide Campaign and showing their support by wearing the moose hide pin. This year marks the eighth consecutive year that our Legislature has participated in this event. Special thanks to Inuk Elder, Emma Reelis, who led us in reflection and prayer earlier today.

The Moose Hide Campaign is a grassroots movement of Canadians, committed to protecting women and children and speaking out against gender-based and domestic violence, grounded in the Indigenous ceremony of traditional ways of learning and healing.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay.

L. PADDOCK: Speaker, I respectfully retract my comments and questions from yesterday afternoon.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: I do thank the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay for withdrawing your comments from yesterday, but I would also like to take an opportunity to remind all Members of the importance of maintaining decorum in the hon. House.

Our Standing Orders are rules agreed on by this House. They are orders which allow us to conduct order and decorum in this House. Standing Order 49 states: No Member shall use offensive words against any other Member of the House.

While the privilege of freedom of speech comes with responsibility for all Members to act within the Standing Orders and by doing so uphold the dignity of this institution, all hon. Members know, as stated in Bosc and Gagnon, chapter 13, "The proceedings of the House are based on a long-standing tradition of respect for the integrity of all Members." While I respect that debate can get heated and Members passionately speak on issues, I want to remind all Members to be respectful to one another, and also to this institution.

I just want to acknowledge that there is another point of order that has been brought forward, and I will be ruling on that one very soon, too.

The hon. the Minister of Seniors.

J. ABBOTT: Speaker, in the same spirit, I wish to withdraw my comment the other day when I was responding to a question from the Leader of the Third Party. I used the word misleading, and I wish to withdraw that and to thank you for your indulgence.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Thank you, Minister of Seniors.

Statements by Members

SPEAKER: Today, we'll hear statements by the hon. Members for the Districts of Torngat Mountains, Conception Bay South, Exploits, Ferryland, Fogo Island - Cape Freels and, with leave, Harbour Grace - Port de Grave, Mount Pearl North and Conception Bay East - Bell Island.

The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

L. EVANS: Thank you, Speaker.

Nain's Julius Dicker leads with his heart. His strength and courage come from a place of caring. Everybody respects and loves him. Julius, known to many as Joe, is a true advocate, always standing up for the people of Nain and the Labrador Inuit.

First elected vice-president of the Labrador Inuit Association, LIA, in 1986, he served two terms until 1995. In 1987, he stepped up as acting president, and again in 1994. During his terms, a young Joe showed honesty and integrity, instilling a belief that you could trust him to help. I was fortunate to know Joe during this time. He has been a role model for me.

Nainimiut understand Joe was the right person to lead their community into the future. They elected him, in 2014, as AngajukKâk of Nain, again in 2018 and 2022. With a year left in his term, Joe recently stepped down for medical reasons.

I asked the other Inuit Community Government, AngajukKâk, for a few words. They spoke of his commitment to Nain, how he always calls asking how their community is doing, do they need anything, but their first words to me were about Joe's lifelong commitment and love for his wife and his family.

So please join me in thanking Joe for his contribution to his people and a return to good health.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, I would like to extend congratulations to the CBS Kiwanis Minor Baseball Association for being selected as a recipient of the Jays Care Foundation Field of Dreams grant for 2025, which is in excess of $100,000.

On May 4, Sportsnet's Blue Jay Central announced that the Jays Care Foundation, the charitable arm of the Toronto Blue Jays, has committed to over $1.5 million in infrastructure investments to build and refurbish baseball diamonds in communities across Canada and through its Field of Dreams program.

The Jim Crosbie Field, home to the CBS Kiwanis Minor Baseball located in Conception Bay South, is one of 15 organizations in Canada chosen to receive this funding. The Jays Care Field of Dreams project aims to create safe and inclusive spaces, enhance and refurbish local baseball diamonds and promote the growth of the game of baseball throughout Canada. This initiative will transform Jim Crosbie Field and Stoney Hill Park into an inclusive baseball hub for the Town of Conception Bay South.

I ask all hon. Members to join me in congratulating the CBS Kiwanis Minor Baseball Association, the athletes, coaches and everyone involved in this process. The funding will make a huge difference to both the baseball community and the Town of Conception Bay South. Well done!

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Exploits.

P. FORSEY: Thank you, Speaker.

Today, I would like to recognize Kyle Morgan of Bishop's Falls, born on November 23, 1999. At two days old, he was transported from Grand Falls-Windsor to the Janeway, then to the IWK hospital in Halifax to undergo an 8½ hour open-heart surgery. Kyle was diagnosed with DiGeorge syndrome, which is a rare genetic disorder.

At age seven, he started playing the accordion, and he is considered one of the best in Newfoundland and Labrador. Now at age 26, he has entertained many people throughout our region with his impersonation of Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix. He had, also, the opportunity of performing with well-known talents such as Buddy Wasisname. He is a man of multiple musical talents.

Speaker, I would like for all Members of the House of Assembly to join me in recognizing Kyle for his continued entertainment and success in future endeavours.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

L. O'DRISCOLL: Thank you, Speaker.

I rise in this house today to congratulate Sowing Seeds – Growing Community. In the spring of 2024, Goulds Recreation, Goulds Lions Club, Kilbride to Ferryland Family Resource Coalition, St. Kevin's Food Bank, St. Kevin's Roman Catholic Church, St. Paul's Anglican Church and Amy Williams, an Ocean Wise alumna began a shared vision of providing produce for those in need and promote food sustainability.

During the summer and fall of 2024, Sowing Seeds – Growing Community distributed: St. Kevin's Community Food Bank, 1,900 pounds of potatoes, carrots and turnips, plus peppers, lettuce, tomato and zucchini; The Gathering Place, 550 pounds of carrots and turnips; Choices for Youth, 150 pounds of potatoes plus one crate of carrots; Community Food Sharing Association, 800 pounds of potatoes, plus four crates of small potato, carrots and turnips. This produce will be a part of over 10,000 meals for less fortunate in our local communities.

This project was funded by the Goulds Lions Club, the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador Community Garden Programs and the Anglican Foundation of Canada. The land was provided by the Anglican Diocese of Newfoundland and Labrador, and tractor and ploughing services were provided by Mr. Bobby Searle.

Congratulations, and may 2025 be an even more prosperous season.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fogo Island - Cape Freels.

J. MCKENNA: Thank you, Speaker.

I rise today to acknowledge the contribution made by the Robbins family in Lumsden. The Robbins family's presence in Lumsden dates back several generations. James Robbins was born in 1878 in Cat Harbour and later moved to Lumsden North.

James was a pivotal figure in the community, and his legacy continues. His entrepreneurial spirit was strong, and it has followed through the family lineage. This is evident in many businesses the family has started, grown and seen flourish over the years.

For three generations, the family had operated businesses as varied as a salmon cannery, a cod liver oil business, a grocery store and a trucking business. The grocery store and trucking business are still in operation today and continue to grow and prosper, providing much-needed work for the people in the area.

The newest venture, Kev's Corner, a small restaurant where you can enjoy a delicious meal and enjoy the local history through the pictures on the walls.

Both Robbins' Clover Farm and Robbins Trucking Ltd exemplify the vital role family-owned businesses play in sustaining and enriching the fabric of small rural communities like Lumsden. Their dedication to service and community ensures that they remain cherished pillars in the region.

Thank you for your contribution and years of service to the residents of Lumsden and surrounding areas.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Grace - Port de Grave with leave.

Does the Member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Leave.

SPEAKER: Leave is granted.

P. PARSONS: Thank you, Speaker.

I rise today to proudly recognize my friend and constituent Jacob Lewis of Butlerville. Jacob has quickly become a household name across our great province and those who have been tuning in to this season's episodes of Canada's Got Talent.

Jacob is an oil and gas worker in Newfoundland's offshore but with a wife and two young boys at home in Bay Roberts, Jacob decided it was time for a career change for him to be closer to his twin boys, Luke and Levi, and his wife Sam. His journey started when he surprised his wife by entering the contest to try out for the show this past October. Little did they know, he would go all the way winning the hearts of celebrity judge superstar, Shania Twain, and the many friends and fans who tuned in to watch his musical performances.

Jacob has always been a genuine and humble person. He loves his family. He's a great hockey player as well; he played for the Conception Bay CeeBees senior hockey. It was his performance of Tina Turner's hit, Simply the Best, that scored his biggest goal, the grand prize of a $1 million just last evening on the season finale.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who took the time to vote to support Jacob on this exciting journey. A big congratulations to him and his family.

Jacob, you're simply the best.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl North with leave.

Does the Member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Leave.

SPEAKER: Leave is granted.

L. STOYLES: Thank you, Speaker.

Our city is full of remarkable youth, and Courtney Abbott and Eamon Fogwill are two shining examples.

As Mount Pearl's Youth of the Year, they represent the young people of our community with respect, dedication and commitment. They have attended city events such as Frosty Festival, City Days, dances, socials events and so many other things. They just don't attend events, they roll up their sleeves and make a difference. They are both graduates of O'Donel High School and have both just completed their first year at Memorial University. They were both featured in this week's issue of The Pearl newspaper.

Courtney and Eamon, thank you for what you have done. You have been outstanding ambassadors for Mount Pearl youth and I am so proud of you both. I have no doubt you will continue to do incredible things in our community. Our future is brighter with leaders like you.

The next Focus on Youth Awards will take place tonight, Wednesday, May 14, and while we will welcome two new Youth of the Year, we will always be grateful for the impact that you both have made on our community.

Speaker, I ask all Members to join me in wishing them both success in their future.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay East - Bell Island with leave.

Does the Member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Leave.

SPEAKER: Leave is granted.

F. HUTTON: Speaker, I rise today in this hon. House, with a heavy heart but immense pride to honour the life and legacy of a remarkable Newfoundlander and Labradorian, Fire Chief Jim Pendergast of Bell Island.

Chief Pendergast dedicated an incredible 50 years of service to the Wabana Volunteer Fire Department.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

F. HUTTON: For 27 of those remarkable years, Speaker, he served as the chief.

Jim also worked for the Town of Wabana for an incredible 52 years. He worked right up until last Thursday, the day before he passed away. Throughout his decades of service, Chief Pendergast was a leader, a mentor to fellow firefighters, a source of strength and comfort to families in times of crisis and a true pillar of the Wabana community.

A few months ago, Speaker, I was honoured to present Chief Pendergast with a 75th Anniversary of Confederation Medal. It was a private ceremony in his house with just a few members of his family and one other firefighter; he was not one for fanfare. He didn't want all the credit but he certainly deserved it. His legacy is forever etched in the hearts of those he helped, protected and inspired. Bell Island has lost a hero, and Newfoundland and Labrador has lost one of its finest public servants.

On behalf of this hon. House, I extend our deepest condolences to the Pendergast family: his wife of 52 years, Eileen, who his here; his children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren and some of the members of the Wabana Volunteer Fire Department. May he rest in peace.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

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

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Speaker.

I rise today to acknowledge National Nursing Week and all nurses in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

K. HOWELL: The theme of National Nursing Week 2025 is The Power of Nurses to Transform Health.

Our government is transforming health care based on the recommendations of the Health Accord NL and we value the role that registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and nurse practitioners are playing in that transformation. It's why we continue to make significant investments to improve the work environment and work-life balance for all nurses in our province.

Our actions include significant investments for recruitment and retention, child care spaces to meet the needs of health care shift workers, long service pay and retention bonuses for registered nurses, increased scope of practice for nurse practitioners and additional spaces for licensed practical nurse and registered nurse programs at post-secondary institutions. Our investments have led to a reduction in vacancies for registered nurses and nurse practitioners from over 700 in 2023 to below 400 in 2025.

In addition, more than 90 per cent of this year's graduates have accepted full-time work in our province, but we're not done yet. We do recognize there is still much work to be done and we'll continue to work on future incentives to show our appreciation for all nurses in the province.

I ask all hon. Members to show their appreciation for the nurses in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Speaker.

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

Speaker, it's an honour this week to celebrate the hard work of the thousands of nurses across the province. We find the theme of this year's Nursing Week to be ironic, though.

The Official Opposition, like many others in the field, have been vocal for years about the ability of nurse practitioners to transform health in our province. More than 100,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are without a family doctor and many are forced to pay out of pocket for primary care, yet this government refused to take advantage of a commonsensical direction towards fixing the crisis.

In the meantime, we learn that they continue to spend more than $100 million on travel nurses, despite reducing their use, all while refusing to hire local nurses seeking to return to the workforce. Speaker, we appreciate the work of our province's nurses, and we implore this government to reflect this week on their approach towards this vital health care role.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker.

I thank the minister for an advance copy of this statement, and I also thank her for her service as a nurse. I want to thank all the nurses of Newfoundland and Labrador, especially those in Labrador West.

While the government boasts recruitment incentives, actual spending on travel nurses is higher than ever. We'd like to make some suggestions on a few incentives that would go a long way to make nurses feel more appreciated. Start by recruiting nurses after their first year of education; start paying for their work terms; set up an independent health sector council; and, most importantly, listen to workers, listen to the nurses. They have the solutions to help reduce burnout and listen to what they have to say because they're the ones who are on the floor.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Seniors.

J. ABBOTT: Thank you, Speaker.

I rise today to recognize June as Seniors' Month.

Seniors' Month provides the opportunity to encourage seniors to stay active, connected and engaged within their community and to acknowledge how they enrich Newfoundland and Labrador.

Over the last two years, our government has made significant investment in the health and well-being of our seniors.

Budget 2025 includes funding to ensure supports and services are available to seniors to enable them to age at home, including initiatives under the Seniors' Health and Well-Being Plan.

We are also continuing to invest in our Targeted Basic Income pilot for eligible people aged 60 to 64.

These initiatives are in addition to other programs that support healthy aging, including the Seniors' Social Inclusion Initiative, Age-Friendly Newfoundland and Labrador Communities Program, the Community Transportation Program and the Seniors' Benefit, which Budget 2025 commits to indexing to the consumer price index.

We have recently released two guides for seniors in our province: Bridging Generations: A guide to Intergenerational Programs in Newfoundland and Labrador and, secondly, Guide to Provincial Government Programs and Services for Seniors. Both are available online and in print format.

Our government is committed to fostering inclusive, age- and dementia-friendly communities to ensure seniors remain active members of their communities, maintain their independence and age with dignity.

Speaker, I encouraged everyone to honour and celebrate our province's seniors and older adults for the important contributions that they make and continue to make to our province.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista.

C. PARDY: Thank you, Speaker.

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

Seniors' Month is a time for us to recognize and celebrate the invaluable contributions of seniors to our communities in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, recent statistics are alarming. A recent report indicates that food insecurity among seniors has risen to 18 per cent, up from 12.2 per cent in 2023. This underscores the urgent need for our government to enhance support system.

The Office of the Seniors' Advocate, April 2025, publication, An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure, states falls are the cause of 85 per cent of seniors' injury-related hospitalizations and 95 per cent of hip fractures; 81 per cent of all hospital admissions for seniors were caused by falls, many of which could have been prevented.

We owe it to our seniors to do better. As they have paved the way for our community's growth and deserve to live with dignity and respect, let's unite in efforts to honour and support our seniors throughout the year, not just this month.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker.

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

We call upon this government to make the incentives for seniors more accessible. The Target Basic Income program needs to be expanded beyond its very narrow criteria to capture more people between the ages of 60 and 64, living in need. Improve the application process for the Aging Well at Home Grant so more people can access it. Finaly, raise the very low income cut-off for the Home Modification Program and other similar programs so more seniors in this province can avail of these very important programs.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Are there any further statements by ministers?

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

T. WAKEHAM: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, there's a new food insecurity statistic report out for Newfoundland and Labrador and it is alarming. The new data shows that over 30 per cent of households in this province are food insecure – over 30 per cent.

After 10 years of this Liberal government, I ask the Premier, why are nearly one in three families still struggling to put food on the table?

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

S. COADY: Thank you very much, Speaker.

This is a very important conversation and topic. I think that all of us in this House of Assembly recognize that there are people who are struggling in our communities and we're doing our utmost to provide supports and assistance and changes to ensure that they are supported and recognized.

I will say that we have made big strides in affordability in this province. Speaker, $750 million we put back into people's pockets. We've increased the Seniors' Benefit. We've increased the Income Supplement. We've increased funding for income support. We've increased funding for disabilities.

Speaker, I'm happy to speak more about some of the supports that we are providing, but it is a very important that everyone in this House recognize how important this is.

SPEAKER: The minister's time is expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

T. WAKEHAM: Speaker, the stats don't lie. Obviously, we still have a significant problem right here in Newfoundland and Labrador. According to Stats Canada, that 30 per cent is 158,000 people in our province who are struggling – more than one-third – and 33.9 per cent of children live in food-insecure homes.

So I ask the Premier: Will you provide the Newfoundland and Labrador Child Benefit to more low-income families?

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

S. COADY: Thank you very much, Speaker.

We have, indeed, increased the Child Benefit in this province. The Member opposite will recognize that that was done, I believe, in last year's budget, if memory serves me. In last year's budget, we increased that. We also increased the amount of money that we give to support children who are food insecure and that was a program that we put in place, again, last year.

There's a tremendous amount that we're doing to address poverty. The amount of support and assistance is continuing to increase. I know that we still see that there are people struggling and that's why we're continuously addressing this very serious issue.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

T. WAKEHAM: Speaker, one of the challenges is we have lots of programs but oftentimes we don't bother to look at thresholds. I know for a fact that many of the programs we offer, the thresholds have not been changed in 10 years. If you take a look at that, maybe so many people wouldn't be left behind when it comes to some of the programs that we're already offering.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: Your colleague said during his leadership campaign, "obviously current financial support programs are not sufficient for our seniors, so more needs to be done." That's what one of the candidates for the Liberal leadership said.

So I ask the Premier: Will you fix your budget and increase the Seniors' Benefit by the 20 per cent as recommended by the Seniors' Advocate?

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

S. COADY: Thank you very much, Speaker.

As members in this House do recognize, we have increased the Seniors' Benefit by 15 per cent and now we are indexing the threshold, as well as the benefit. That's a huge step. It's very expensive for this government. The Members opposite were lecturing me this morning; I'm being fiscally responsible and that is fiscally responsible.

I will say to the Member opposite, we are continuing to work on how we can support seniors. That's why we have a Department of Seniors. I will also say, last year, we brought in a seniors' well-being program that supports our seniors to stay in their homes. I will say to the Member opposite that there is a full review being undertaken on thresholds.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

T. WAKEHAM: Thank you, Speaker.

The $46 increase that the Liberals have added to the Seniors' Benefit – $46 – won't even cover the cost of one nurse practitioner visit for a senior in this province who have to pay to see a nurse practitioner.

I ask the Premier: Do you have any idea of how many people are paying out of pocket to see a nurse practitioner in this province?

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

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Speaker.

That's not a number that I have readily available at this moment, but I can certainly get it. If there's a way that we can improve health care access in this province, we're certainly interested and open to that conversation.

I know that the Nurse Practitioner Association here in Newfoundland and Labrador is very keen on their role of advocacy for moving the profession forward. I haven't had the chance to meet with them this week but look forward to doing so next week. I'm certain that that will be one of their key priorities to address. We're willing to work with them and continue those conversations to build a plan that meets the needs of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and best accesses the immense scope of practice that the nurse practitioners in Newfoundland and Labrador do have.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

T. WAKEHAM: Speaker, I can tell you how many are actually having to pay out of pocket to see a nurse practitioner in this province. Too many, it's as simple as that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: Too many, because one is too many and instead of getting an answer on something they are going to do, we simply get more and more talk and more and more words. What we need, and what the seniors in our province are looking for, is action to be taken.

So again, most of the people that are actually going to see and pay to see nurse practitioners are seniors. I ask the Premier, again, when will the people of our province be reimbursed for paying out of pocket to see a nurse practitioner?

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

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Speaker.

As we look at the plan for nurse practitioners in Newfoundland and Labrador, it's certainly something that we're interested in developing and building upon, as I mentioned in my previous answer.

They have the most extensive scope of practice here in Newfoundland and Labrador, and I know that they are keen and they are interested in becoming a greater part of the solution to access to primary care here in the province. So I would tell folks to stay tuned because we certainly are looking forward to those conversations in the upcoming week and building a plan with the Nurse Practitioners Association as we move forward.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay.

L. PADDOCK: Speaker, if Newfoundland and Labrador were like other provinces who are still deliberating on how to account for their tobacco settlement revenue, then what would be the deficit for this fiscal year?

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

S. COADY: Thank you very much, Speaker.

I know the Member opposite certainly properly acknowledged that he overstepped and over torqued his characterization of the revenue recognition yesterday. He is a professional accountant, so he would know under the public sector accounting standards as to when we have to trigger revenue recognition, and that's when the payment terms are finalized. We understand from legal that they will be finalized shortly.

I can table how many times we've spoken about this in debate, in Estimates and in the technical briefing at the budget time. I will say to the Member opposite, decisions are budgeted based on what you have before you at the time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay.

L. PADDOCK: Speaker, just let me rephrase that question so we can possibly get a number.

If the tobacco settlement revenue is not included, what would be the deficit for this fiscal year?

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

S. COADY: Thank you very much.

Speaker, I will repeat what I said. You make your decisions based on the information that you have: what revenue you have, what expenses you have, what programs and services you would like to introduce. We did introduce a number of things, brand new things, in this budget including, for example, 400 new teachers – or more than that – 400 educators. We put more money into health care. We put more money into a number of programs and services, including economic development.

I am sure the Members opposite really responded well when they knew that we were going to have more educators in this province. I know the Members opposite responded well on ambulatory care and money for the health care system.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay.

L. PADDOCK: Speaker, since I can't get a straight-up answer on that deficit question, let me just move along and rephrase things in a different manner.

This year's budget includes $520 million in revenue from the tobacco settlement. So I ask the minister: How much of that will actually be received, in hand, this fiscal year?

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

S. COADY: Thank you.

The payment terms are still being finalized, Speaker. We do have the results of the court case now.

I want to put this in perspective: March 9 was the court date; they awarded $32.5 billion. Newfoundland and Labrador's share of that $32.5 billion is $520 million, of which we have to pay legal fees and, as the Member opposite knows, yesterday in Estimates we talked about what the legal fees cost out of that $520 million. If memory serves, it was $130 million. So $390 million is what we are receiving in revenue, what we can book in revenue in this particular fiscal year.

That is the public accounting standard that we're following. I can say it's a professional judgment by the accountants.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: Speaker, last Friday the minister's department announced inclusion grants for families and organizations to hire support workers so children with disabilities can attend summer camps. But families of autistic children are telling us their kids need extra supervision, help with eating and bathroom support.

How does offering up to $1,000 for the entire summer even come close to real inclusion, Speaker?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Families and Affordability, and Responsible for the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

J. KORAB: Speaker, I appreciate the question. If I could get it repeated – this cut out about halfway through your question. Sorry, if I could get that question again?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: Speaker, last Friday the minister's department announced inclusion grants for families and organizations to hire support workers so children with disabilities can attend summer camps. But families of autistic children are telling us their kids need extra supervision, help with eating and bathroom support.

But how does offering up to $1,000 for the entire summer even come close to real inclusion?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Families and Affordability, and Responsible for the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

J. KORAB: Speaker, I thank the Member opposite for the question.

So the program is in place for the summer camps for $1,000. There's also a $5,000 grant there for organizations that can apply to have instructors and people there to support this. We're always willing to work with persons with disabilities. We're always willing to work with organizations out there.

I'm happy to take that question back, review with staff, and come back later with an answer.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: Yes, Speaker, we need an answer, because these summer camp spaces claim to be inclusive, but many children are falling through the cracks.

Speaker, $1,000 over an eight-week camp works out to just $3.12 an hour for a support worker.

Who does the minister honestly expect to work for that wage, and how is that respectful of the needs of children with disabilities?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Families and Affordability, and Responsible for the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

J. KORAB: Thank you, Speaker.

I thank the Member opposite for the same question. And it's the same answer. It's there's a thousand dollars there for these summer grants for these summer programs. We're happy to take this back; we're happy to review.

I'm three days into this job. I want to help the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, persons with disabilities and all people. We're committed to that and we'll be committed moving forward.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.

H. CONWAY OTTENHEIMER: Speaker, three days into the job, that's no excuse. He's expected to be up to par on the responsibilities of this department.

Speaker, the department is offering up to $5,000 to organizations to hire inclusion workers but, as one non-profit told me, at $16 an hour minimum wage, we'd lose money just trying to be inclusive.

The minister can still give an opinion without having to go back to the department. Surely, you think – is this acceptable? Do you not see how children are falling through the cracks?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister Responsible for the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

J. KORAB: Again, appreciate the question, Speaker, from the Member opposite.

People identifying with disabilities in this province are very important to my department, the Department of Families and Affordability, and Persons with Disabilities, as well as this government.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

J. KORAB: You'll get a chance to speak later, maybe.

We're very committed to this. It's something we'll commit to going forward. Again, I'm happy to take this back and look at it. That's my job as the minister for this department and that's what I'll do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Topsail - Paradise.

P. DINN: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, on May 8, there was another shocking violent incident in our schools. A student attempted to set another student on fire. Speaker, we continue to see numerous violent attacks, weapons and issues in our schools.

What specifically has the Liberal government done in light of this latest incident?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

B. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the hon. member for the question.

I take this very seriously. In my previous role as Minister of Justice and Public Safety, I was working very closely with the chair and the former chair. Now me, as the School Safety Coalition chair, we're working very closely with the many stakeholders who are involved in that. At that table is, obviously, the Minister of Justice, the RNC, the RCMP, administrators and NLTA.

They're working towards that. We've allotted, as we've said many times through the Minister of Finance and others, some $20 million in the budget for additional educators and resource people. This past year, we've doubled the number of newly introduced student services teaching and learning assistants. Those individuals help with areas within that school process.

Let me be very clear, any violence in the schools is not acceptable. We want to make sure that we're doing everything we possibly can as a government. We're going to continue to do that. We're committed to it and I'm committed to it.

SPEAKER: The minister's time has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Topsail - Paradise.

P. DINN: Thank you, Speaker.

Announcing 400 positions is cold comfort to a child who was almost set ablaze – think about it. NLTA has also said violence in our schools has increased almost 30 per cent.

At least the Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services are increasing security measures in their hospitals. Speaker, why can Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services be proactive while this Liberal government are paralyzed with inaction when it comes to our school system?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

B. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the hon. Member for the question.

Experiences that happen within our school system, and I've heard this many times by the former minister, reflect societal issues that we're facing in our communities, not just here in Newfoundland and Labrador, not just here in Canada, but right across the globe.

We're working very closely together with the RNC and the RCMP, as well as other educators and opportunities with the NLTA. I sat there next to the president of the NLTA at our last meeting and we had very frank conversations about things we can try to do. Putting resources in is what we're trying to do. I, just like the previous minister, do not want to see us having metal detectors at the start of school – walking through those.

What we'd like to do is try to work within the community to try to make it safer. All of us have a role in having a secure school community. That's what we're going to continue to do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Topsail - Paradise.

P. DINN: Speaker, what I'd like to see is a decrease in violent acts to zero. That's what I would like to see.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. DINN: You should not have to be afraid to go to school – should not have to be afraid to go to school.

Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Service, since amalgamation, say: they've increased security measures across the province and are looking for ways to take it further.

Since the Liberals amalgamated the school boards, can the minister point to a single security improvement to make our schools safer?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

B. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On this, I can agree with the hon. Member. Very nice when we agree on something. Right off the start he said, one activity of violence in the school is one too many, and I agree with that statement. All of us in this House of Assembly, all 40 of us, regardless of stripe and regardless of the location where we are, want our school community to be safe.

That's what we're trying to do on this side. Obviously, I know that the Opposition are over here trying to do the same thing from their perspective; I appreciate that. That's why they're asking questions. We have increased the number of student assistants. That's a tangible asset that we've done. There are other things we're working on. We're continually focused, with this coalition, to find solutions that are not just distant in the future, things that we can tangibly action today. We're looking at those options.

As I said, they're a reflection of the community we're in. We're working very hard with the Justice Department on this as well.

SPEAKER: The minister's time is expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Topsail - Paradise.

P. DINN: Thank you, Speaker.

They talk about the money, the $20 million gone towards 400 teaching units. The minister mentioned the other day that 245 of those would be teachers. If you do the math, 245 teachers would use up almost $18 million.

I'd like the minister to provide to this House exactly where that money is going. How many teachers? How many teachers' assistants are being hired?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

B. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don't readily have the numbers in front of me, but I can get them. I think the hon. Member is right in saying that there are, roughly, in the 170-ish range of assistants that will be involved in that and then there will be a portion of those that will be educators. Obviously, we're working as hard as we can to find where the needs are going to be placed for those things. That's why we're working as a department.

We all agree in this House of Assembly, and many people outside the House of Assembly I'm sure, that violence is not acceptable in any part of our community, let alone our schools. Everyone should feel safe going to our school communities. I know I want that for my kids that are in the school system and for every one of the kids that are in this school system as well. Whether they're our own kids, grandchildren or whatever, we want them to be safe and feel safe so they can have a great learning environment.

SPEAKER: The minister's time is expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista.

C. PARDY: Speaker, allow me to quote Food First NL. "The province is in the middle of rolling out a school meal program for all Pre-K to Grade 9 students. This is a huge first step, but the program should be expanded to students up to Grade 12…."

I ask the minister: Will you implement a school meal program for all K-to-12 students in the province's school system?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

B. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the hon. Member for the question.

That's, obviously, a goal we always have. We always want to continually expand services for our young people there, whether it be – you know, as I've heard many times before, you cannot learn with an empty belly. It's important that we feed as many children as we can; especially, considering that we do have some food insecurity numbers in this province that we're all working and wrestling to try to get down.

That's what we do in our school system. It's an opportunity for us to expand the program where we can. Find opportunities for us to continue to improve that program in every school in this province, is what my ultimate goal would like to be.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista.

C. PARDY: In the answer to a similar question earlier, the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board stated that we are doing our best. How do we know that the best is good enough?

Stats Canada report 2024 states: Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest rate of childhood food insecurity. Food First NL also called for a targeted income support for families with children reporting or experiencing food insecurity.

How does the Minister of Families and Affordability respond to this suggestion?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Families and Affordability, and Responsible for the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

J. KORAB: Thank you, Speaker, and I thank the Member opposite for the question.

In 2023, part of this would be addressed through our poverty reduction program. We announced $42 million in the last budget for the Income Support Program and final enhancements will come in 2025.

We reviewed the Income Support Program; there are going to be significant improvements here. We removed the variation rates based on the elimination of age, which will lower the rates; regardless of who you live with, boarders will get the same rate and there will be no clawbacks on people receiving disability benefits.

In terms of your question, it's a valid one. I'm happy to take it back to the department, meet with stakeholders. Again, we're going to do what we can for the people here of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fogo Island - Cape Freels.

J. MCKENNA: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, last year during the by-election the Premier visited Change Islands and announced that two doctors from Fogo Island were ready to provide care on rotation, promising improved access to health care services and virtual care. Now we learn those doctors have refused to return to unreliable Internet, making virtual care impossible.

Why did the government fail to provide the basic infrastructure needed to support health care delivery on Change Islands?

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

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Speaker.

As we know, there are significant challenges in recruiting health professionals to many of our rural areas. We make every endeavour to support them in the workplaces that they have and we'll continue to do that. The issue that the Member identified is certainly something that we're aware of. There are gaps in the Internet and cell service across this province, but it has been recognized and there are efforts under way on behalf of this government to address many of those gaps and issues.

This one, in particular, is something that the Department of Health will be working closely with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure on to ensure that the best possible services are available in our health centres and that we have the most appropriate tools and resources for our physicians or nurses or whomever is providing care in our facilities.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, diabetes and pre-diabetes impacts one in three people in this province – the highest rate in Canada. The revenue from the sugar tax went towards the glucose monitoring program and now Diabetes Canada is wondering how government will support those with diabetes with the loss of this revenue.

Well, we have an idea. We ask the Premier: Will you finally sign on to the federal pharmacare program which includes funding for medications, glucose monitoring and test strips?

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

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Speaker.

I would just like to inform this House that there will be no impact on programs or services delivered in the Department of Health as a result of the elimination of the sugar-sweetened beverage tax.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

K. HOWELL: We will continue to support individuals in this province who need continuous glucose monitoring, and we'll also continue to build on the plan that we've already presented.

The Member opposite referenced pharmacare; it was a pleasure yesterday to see that there's a new federal minister implemented, and we'll reach out on that measure. We know that pharmacare is something that will benefit individuals all across this country and Newfoundland and Labrador will not be left behind. So we're certainly looking forward to that conversation and moving that file forward.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, New Democrats believe that every student should be able to have a nutritious lunch. The revenue from the sugar tax went to supplementing the program for the school lunch program.

Surely the Premier is not going to reduce funding for that program, so I'll ask will he commit to funding the program, but also expanding the program to make sure that all students in Newfoundland and Labrador will be covered under that program?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

B. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm very happy to stand and say that will not be impacted at all, even in such a way to say, even in my own family, on Tuesday past, my daughter started the school lunch program and pay what you can. Six thousand students were introduced to that program and prepared healthy meals. It's a great opportunity for us to teach students in our school system to eat healthy which will, in turn, trickle through and follow them through their whole lives.

I'm very excited about that. I'm looking forward to further expansion that we can make in those programs. When I get into this department a little bit deeper, we're going to get as far as we possibly can when it comes to reaching our children and giving them the best opportunity for success.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, the Premier said that repealing the sugar tax was because he understands the burden of cost-of-living crisis put on residents, but people have to heat their homes, they can't choose to heat their homes.

So I ask the Premier: Will he remove the HST from home heating so that all Newfoundland and Labradorians get the benefit of reduction in cost of living?

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

S. COADY: Thank you very much, Speaker.

A very important topic. The Member knows that we have included in this year's budget – that I'm hoping he's going to support – the home heat rebate. That will continue, Speaker, with this budget. I would also say to the Member opposite, he does understand that HST is under the control of the federal government.

What we have done is mitigate rates because of the impact of Muskrat Falls, that's costing a substantive, hundreds of millions of dollars a year, Speaker, and we're going to continue to support the people of the province with the home heat rebate as well as rate mitigation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands.

E. JOYCE: Mr. Speaker, as we know, there was almost a tragedy out in Cedar Cove. Right now, they're trying to get the oil off the ship, the Baltic III. Right now, they're going to build a road out to the Baltic III. The former minister ensured that the road from Bottle Cove Road would be brought to standard because of the traffic in the area, until water and sewer is done.

I ask the minister: Because of the heavy loads of the dump trucks, the flatbeds with the armor stone, would the minister right now commit to extra resources and staff? The road is treacherous and it's unsafe because of the heavy traffic. I went out there last Friday myself and it is dangerous right now for school buses and for kids to walk on.

So I ask the minister: Would he commit to that, please?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure.

E. LOVELESS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the member for the question.

On his request, I do go back to staff and I've asked the staff to come back with an assessment of what work needs to be done there. I recognize that was a commitment by the previous minister and I'll commit to that as well, but I need to know what exactly needs to be done. I've asked staff to do that.

Once that comes back, I'll certainly present you with the options of what needs to be done there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands.

E. JOYCE: The second part of the Baltic III disaster right now is there is a four-kilometre road that needs to be built to the ship. The former minister ensured that the permit was given in a timely manner and they're starting to build the road with the rocks. The concern that the towns have and the people there is, will the environment be put back to its natural state when it's done, when this big company moves out?

I ask the Minister of Environment: Will you commit now that the grounds and the trail which they're using right now for the ATVs and the road that's going to be built, will that be brought back to its original state, to the best possible state it can be after construction of this road and the Baltic III has been removed from Cedar Cove?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

S. REID: Thank you to the Member opposite for the question on this very important matter.

It's important to note here that the Canadian Coast Guard is the lead regulatory agency in response in this operation. The request that the Member is asking about in his question, on the face of it, doesn't seem to be unreasonable expectation that that would be case.

The road to Lark Harbour, there was some questions about environment, whether an environmental assessment was required to do work on that road, and it has been released from any environmental assessment.

SPEAKER: Order, please!

The minister's time has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The time for Oral Questions has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling of Documents.

Tabling of Documents

SPEAKER: Does the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands have leave to table a document?

AN HON. MEMBER: Leave.

SPEAKER: Leave is granted.

The hon. the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands.

E. JOYCE: Last night, Mr. Speaker, there was a discussion here with myself and the Member for Corner Brook about my commitment to the hospital in Corner Brook concerning the radiation unit and the laundry services.

I'm going to table, first of all, two letters; one from the former premier in 2014 who committed to the PET scanner in Corner Brook and the second letter is the news article where the premier was interviewed and he said that he was not involved in any way of removing or delaying the PET scanner from the original design of the hospital.

So I just want to table that one letter – and that was already tabled, I say to the hon. House. The second letter that I'm going to table is when I said last night that I was part of –

SPEAKER: I remind the Member that we only have one minute and 30 seconds left.

E. JOYCE: Yes – taking out the laundry services. I'm going to table a letter here where the minister of Health at the time stated that the decision was made on July 6. I was not in Cabinet for three months prior to that. I had no participation in taking out the laundry services. The minister says that in the letter when I wrote back and said I wasn't in Cabinet.

I just want to table these documents.

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER: Any further tabling of documents?

The hon. the Minister of Jobs, Immigration and Growth. You have one minute, Sir?

G. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to table official documents of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador that reply to an access to information request for the record and is correspondence document 2021-04134-002, dated September 20,2021, in which the documents provide clear evidence, documentary evidence that, at the time, there were decisions that were taken in 2016 and 2017 that the government of the day had taken the decision not to include a PET scanner within the new hospital facility, that there would be shelled-in space for a new facility, that out-of-the-scope elements of the project also included, at that time, laundry facilities and that the efforts were continuing for radiation.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SPEAKER: Thank you. 

Orders of the Day

Private Members' Day

SPEAKER: This being Wednesday, I call upon the Member for Labrador West to bring forward his private Member's resolution.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, I give the following private Member's motion, which will be seconded by the hon. Member for Humber - Bay of Islands:

WHEREAS Labrador is an integral part of this province; and

WHEREAS geography dictates that Labradorians must rely on air travel for many non-tourism reasons such as education, bereavement leave, visiting sick loved ones, or medical treatments not covered under MTAP; and

WHEREAS the cost of travel to and from Labrador is prohibitively expensive; and

WHEREAS the cost of living in Labrador is already far higher than the rest of the province and these extra travel fees create an added burden on people's household budgets; and

WHEREAS the differential in travel costs between people on the Island and those in Labrador puts the latter at a disadvantage; and

WHEREAS Labrador is a strong economic driver of this province and justice therefore demands that Labradorians should not experience any additional hardship solely based on their geography;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that this hon. House calls upon the government to work with Indigenous partners, businesses and the federal government to implement a plan to reduce costs and increase the availability of air travel to and from and within Labrador.

I want to bring this forward because as someone who lives in Labrador I have experienced this first-hand and also someone who has experienced the steadily increase of costs for travel. I lived in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. I went to college in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. I would regularly, as a college student, be able to afford to easily travel between Happy Valley-Goose Bay and St. John's regularly – airfare. But as time went on, as airlines, I guess, got bought up and folded into each other and competition completely drained out of the region, I noticed very quickly how the cost of travel went up. Over the last number of years, it's gotten significantly more expensive.

Since taking on this role of being the MHA and speaking with my constituents and other Labradorians, it has really become a more hardened burden on Labradorians to travel. We hear it all from people who are having to go out to St. John's for a sick loved one, to go out for bereavement, those travelling for work or school or anything that's in between, anything that's not covered by MTAP. It got extensively expensive very quickly and now that we see that more seniors are having to travel because of less and less services that are available in Labrador, a lot of them are having to travel out as well and we're also hearing about that.

Labradorians have been trying to find a forward, but we keep hitting roadblocks. Travel still hasn't come down. We're still seeing between $1,200, $1,300 and, some cases, I've known people paying individually up to $1,500, $1,600 for a single return trip from St. John's here to Labrador back.

This is really causing a negative impact not only on Labradorian's budgets, but also on business and on opportunity, and we're seeing it. We've seen it back in sporting events. Just this past, three weeks, four weeks ago now, my father curled in the men's seniors provincials. Only two teams were able to participate in the men's seniors curling because the cost of travel is so expensive to Labrador that no other seniors curling team would come to Lab West because of the cost.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

J. BROWN: Yes, the hon. Member for St. John's East - Quidi Vidi was there, and he did cheer on my dad, so thank you for that; but, at the end of the day, no other teams showed up to participate. There was a team from Lab City and a team from Wabush, and that was the entire of the provincial men's curling championships, and it was very unfortunate that no other team wanted to participate because of the cost to try to get to Labrador.

Now, that's just one real at-home example, but if you talk to the people that actually live in Labrador, those who want to do it, it really also has a silo impact. It's brought up when we are trying to recruit people to come to Labrador West to work in professional settings, people that work in government jobs or health care jobs or anything like that. It's always, the cost to get up there and back and forth, and if I move up there, I'll never see my family; I'll never be able to get out of here because it's just going to be so cost prohibitive.

It's having a very serious negative impact on the social fabric as well. It creates a sense of unnecessary isolation. I understand, yes, we have a highway, but a lot of people don't want to drive. They want to be like any other place in this province, to be able to go the airport, get on a plane and travel somewhere.

Now, the strange part about all of this is, though, that's just to travel to St. John's, but if I wanted to fly from Lab City to Montreal and return, it's $500. And why is that? Well, that's because the Quebec government implemented a travel program in their province to help boost travel into remote areas. Because we are a regional airport in Labrador West, a federal regional airport, we also encompass the beautiful community of Fermont, Quebec. Because our airport happens to be on our side, but we service that community, we got lumped into that program. So Labradorians in Labrador West have no problems becoming integrated into the part of Quebec because we can travel around Quebec for $500. So it just goes to show that when there's will there is a way, there's an opportunity to do that.

I understand that we are subsidizing a profitable airline with that $500, but there has to be somewhere where we have to come down and say enough is enough when it comes to being cost prohibitive, but also the ability to actually have access to travel. It's having a very serious negative impact. And the strange thing, again, is I could travel Quebec easier than I can travel in my own province, and that's a serious problem that we have to take back and go, well, I can go to Montreal for $500, subsidized by the Quebec government, but I can't travel to St. John's and actually get services that are required from my own government.

So this is where the people of Labrador West and the people of the rest of Labrador have grown their frustrations on how we can be more integrated, and that's why we're calling upon the provincial government to have a plan, to work with the federal counterparts, work in Indigenous governments, work with business, work with those individuals to try and come to a reasonable solution on how we're going to deal with this situation, because it's gouging at it's highest in my opinion of it.

We should not be negatively impacted because we choose to continue to live in Labrador. We are Labradorians, that is our home. We're not going to leave. We're not going to move out of there. We're always going to be there. This is where we built our lives and our livelihood. This is where generations of our family have lived. The negative impact that this is having on us is really causing a lot of concern and a growing sense of why – why are we so negatively impacted? Why can't we have what everyone else has? Why can't be an integrated part of the province instead of a subsect? Because right now, we are two distinct societies, but we don't feel like we belong. We don't feel like we are a part.

So this is where we really think this is, I guess, a wedge issue of where we can try to find a solution and, at the end of the day, it will benefit all of us. Because Labrador right now is starting to become a topic again of industrial growth and prosperity. We have great resources in mining from rare earth minerals to iron ore to cobalt, nickel and everything in between. If you can think of it, it's somewhere in the ground in Labrador. We also have the massive hydroelectric complex that is the Churchill River. We have opportunities galore but if we're not an integrated part of this province where people can reasonably and easily travel around this province, then what's it all for?

We want to feel a part of this province. We want to be able to become integrated and make sure that we can easily travel our province. We do not want to feel like a second-class or third-class citizen. Just because we live in Labrador doesn't mean we should go without.

There is an expectation of service, there's an expectation of being integrated and we shouldn't have to beg. We shouldn't have to get down on our hands and knees and say, please, please, help us. We shouldn't have to do that. It should be a reasonable expectation that when this problem rose its head many years ago, about the increase of travel, it should have been looked at then.

I think, right now, is asking the provincial government to do the right thing, to work on a reasonable solution – and, yes, we have to go and drag our federal counterparts in on this and if we have to drag them by the ear, then we'll have to drag them by the ear because they also have a very key role to play. They are the regulator. They are the ones who are supposed to be watching this industry. They're the ones who are supposed to be looking at what airfares are. They're the ones who are supposed to do that.

So clearly, they were derelict in their duty as well, but we have to remind them that Canada is a large country and the majority of Canada is a remote country. Just like Labrador, they have a lot of northern places as well that they are responsible for, and the expectation is that what they do here could also help the rest of the country as well.

Once again, with my final minute, I call upon my colleagues here to look at this and remember that Labrador is a part of this province. We shouldn't have to beg for services.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Lake Melville.

P. TRIMPER: Thank you, Speaker.

This is one of those times in this Legislature when you will see, despite the party affiliations that exist currently in Labrador, a lot of very similar types of comments and agreements. So I thank my colleague from Labrador West for bringing this PMR forward. The way he's worded it is in such a way that I can certainly live with and would be more than pleased to support it.

I have a just a couple of little background comments. I just want to provide a little bit of context for folks and just by way of some recent events and then some past events. Just a few days ago, I had the honour, I think it was the 2nd of May, to speak at a tournament organized by the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, a hockey tournament. Do you know what? This is the province's largest high school hockey tournament. It has been running for nine years. This year, for the first time, of the 16 boy teams and girl teams that were there from these different high schools, we had a team from Labrador.

It was a massive fundraising effort from the Mealy Mountain Hawks, but they were there. Their parents were there, very proud, and I was very proud as the MHA to be there to speak to that. It helps to underline the frustration of raising funds for travel. Even though I've seen our government increase funds, there's still so much more that needs to be done.

That's on sports. Another aspect is – I'm always thinking about youth and future generations – arts and culture programs. People involved in dance and choir and acting and so on, those young people also do not have an adequate opportunity to even travel within the province, to the Island, to avail of all that experience and exposure.

Perhaps, the most serious has been one that has plagued my office over the last 10 years, but also one that I've certainly welcomed – and I have to mention her name, Bonnie Learning. I call her the SACA, the super awesome constituency assistant, because 50 per cent, I would estimate, that we do in our office relates to the Medical Transportation Assistance Program. No one knows this program better than Bonnie because, folks, when they come to us, they're seeking medical assistance that is provided outside of Labrador. While we do have a good hospital in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, there are so many services, so many other specialist-type appointments that are required either in Corner Brook, typically, but most often it's in St. John's.

Travel out, with the minister responsible for the MTAP program, we have seen advancements and I will say that I'm looking forward to seeing more, certainly making suggestions to the floor. Despite those advancements, we still encounter, in our office, people who will cancel their appointments. They cannot afford to go out for the medical appointments; a very serious matter when you're dealing with life-threatening health issues and so on.

I've got a litany, unfortunately, of very serious stories, bringing them forward, trying to see what we can do to support them. We're doing our best and we are making progress. I'm hoping that, at some point, we'll be able to finally resolve this. Ideally, we'd like to all those services provided in Labrador. The numbers, our population doesn't necessarily always justify it, although I have seen some programs where we could do that.

I don't want to digress too much in health care because I want to focus more broadly on what the issue is. I have seen in my, now it's almost four decades, of working and travelling, living throughout Labrador, an escalation of the cost of traveling to that area and a deterioration, unfortunately, in the number of options and then the quality of service that one enjoys on a flight.

I can remember my first time to Labrador was in the summer of '87. I was on a 737. I had a hot, cooked breakfast from here to Deer Lake. Then we offloaded, onloaded and then another hot, cooked meal by the time I landed in Goose Bay. I don't recall the price, but I remember the service and the options that were available to us.

This came at a time when we were also seeing, finally, a slowdown in the construction activity that was going on at Muskrat Falls. During that particular project – and I'm speaking, specifically, about CYYR, our airport in Goose Bay – we saw quite a dramatic decline in ridership. During the construction period, where there tended to be a lack of charters, we saw a lot more workers travelling to and from the Island and elsewhere to work on that project. At one point, it had a huge workforce there and the riding public could join those flights, along with contract employees, and avail of more options, a much more affordable flight.

I'm bringing this point forward because I see it potentially as an opportunity for hopefully going forward. As we talk about the Churchill River MOU and getting this in place and so on and work at Gull Island, I'm going to be advocating for a serious look at this issue of charters and I feel that they are definitely affecting our ridership and certainly the affordability. From an airline perspective, at the end of the day, we need these businesses to survive and run an operation not at a cost.

I'm not going to get into airline bashing at all. While we do have just primarily the one airline that's functioning, Provincial Airlines, in Labrador, I can tell you that if we didn't have them, we'd really be struggling.

So the question that I've been advocating for now almost a year since this issue really started to boil over, has been to have a third party, some way to do an evaluation and actually have a transparent look at what does it cost to operate an airline running to and from places like Deer Lake or St. John's to Goose Bay or to Wabush. And then, for my colleague, from Torngat Mountains, and then on into the North Coast of Labrador.

I'd like to see that evaluation. I'm aware there's been work ongoing. I'm also aware the minister's going to be speaking here soon. I'm glad and I welcome the new minister that's in this portfolio. Certainly, already been speaking with the new administration that's around me, bringing them up to speed on some of the suggestions and ideas that could come forward.

I'm going to compliment my colleague again from Labrador West on his final line, and that is on involving the various stakeholder groups from the different levels of government. Happy Valley-Goose Bay actually has six different levels of government based in that area. Two chambers of commerce, Lab West, our airport authority, there's a lot of wisdom there in terms of the demographics, what we need economically and so on.

What I would like to see, and I'd welcome to the table, is the technical expertise and get the folks with the technical expertise in the room who could really speak about air rates, subsidies, other aspects and strategies that could be used to address this very serious, pressing problem.

So many times when I'm in sort of a stakeholder group, it's a lot of venting. And I understand, because I'm doing a lot of it myself, because I feel that every day. But I feel what's missing often is to get the technical folks who really understand what is happening across Canada right now, what's working, what's not working, and bring that to the table.

So I felt, Sir, that your closing comment was particularly relevant. I feel that could be a good addition to the dialogue. I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the discussion here today and I'm looking for good support on this.

I know that with our new administration, with our new Premier, Goose Bay Airport Corporation reached out immediately for discussion and dialogue and with the relevant ministers, the MHAs from Labrador and so on. So we'll do our best to engage in a constructive dialogue, making sure that everyone is bringing something to the table. Yes, they'll be the frustration of the region, but I also welcome the technical input and let's see what we can do.

A final thought is that when you're talking about northern routes in Canada and certainly in Labrador, we have not seen the recovery in ridership. I notice that Mr. Hogan this morning from the St. John's Airport Authority spoke about how ridership is now out of the St. John's airport back to pre-pandemic levels, and well done and congratulations to them. That has not happened in our northern routes. I think that's part of our problem and I would also suggest that across Canada this is also an issue that we need to think about.

So let's get to the bottom of it. I welcome the PMR and I welcome the dialogue that's going to come here today.

Thank you, Speaker.

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands.

E. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm going to stand and have a few words on this, as I seconded the motion and feel strong that there should be something done for the people in Labrador. Just to give you a bit of background, I never lived in Labrador. I'm not as familiar with some issues in Labrador as certain people here, I'll admit that, but I did have family living in Labrador and I spent a lot of time in Labrador.

With my time in Labrador, and I'll just go back with a bit of history, in 2015, when there was a realignment of districts in this province, one of the big pushes was to eliminate the seat in Labrador. I know that because I was the one who was the lead for our Opposition at the time. I fought very hard within our own caucus and with the government at the time to keep four seats because of the geographical area in Labrador and the challenges that people in Labrador face with it and what the MHAs have to face in trying to treat their constituents with decency, time and respect to be in the community.

Back then, I got a great lesson in Labrador of the trials and tribulations of living in Labrador. I'm glad that it stayed as four seats, to give everybody an opportunity to be represented on a fair and equitable basis.

This here is something that, again, the full details are not even out and this more or less started their discussion on for Labrador. This is tourism for St. John's, Gander and Deer Lake. So the issue I can't get the answer to is who's paying the extra amount if PAL airlines don't make it and how much if they don't make a profit? How much? That's the question.

Here we are debating a private Member's motion to help out Labrador, and Labrador should be included, but we don't know the cost for Newfoundland and Labrador. What is the ceiling of the profit that they can make? Is it trips, number of people, or is it just for a period of time we should make this amount of profit?

So we are, as a government here, giving subsidies for tourism, and no one knows the amount. You can see why people in Labrador, all the entities in Labrador, are saying well, you're giving almost a blank cheque to PAL because we don't know, yet you're forgetting the Labrador part of it.

I heard the Member for Lab West say how easy it is to fly on to Atlantic Canada and within, and I know that. I have a family member who works up there, and it's cheaper for them to fly on to Halifax than it is to fly to Deer Lake – much cheaper.

This is the concern that a lot of people have who want to come to the Island, and I'll just give you a good example of some of the concerns that I've been hearing. I brought this up last night in the debate that I had that was about the cataract surgeries. Cataract surgeries now are being done at Apex. Most of the people right now getting cataracts in Labrador go to Apex in Corner Brook. If they're not aware of the subsidy or if they're over a certain amount, they have to pay their full airfare cost to come to get surgery. This is the concern that I have, and I know it because I hear it personally, is why I feel strongly that the provincial and federal government must do something with air travel.

I know of cases, and again because I do have family in the Straits of Labrador and up in Goose Bay, I know people who drive up to go to an appointment and the weather is too bad. They have to turn around, or the boat is not crossing. They miss the appointment; they have to go back.

This is why we need something done here to help out people who want to fly, and the flight and the travel is expensive. It is expensive. I heard the Member for Lab West talking about how people in Labrador shouldn't have to beg. They shouldn't have to be in this House Assembly now; we should be in this House of Assembly and say well, we should be standing up for Labrador. Why this wasn't done to include Labrador is beyond me.

It's almost like throwing a piece of red meat to somebody and saying that, okay, we're just going to give you something to eat. The dogs over here are getting nothing. We're talking about the people in Labrador. We're talking about an area, a major contribution to this province, yet here it's almost like saying we're going to exclude Labrador. We're just going to take the tourists from St. John's, Gander, Deer Lake, and Labrador is still struggling to get the airfare rates down.

I can see why people are upset. I can honestly see why people are upset in Labrador. I make no bones about it. I would be too if I lived in Labrador. I would be too seeing the province, here, giving people luxury tourism. No doubt, there are a lot of people who love to travel. It may help the economy. I'm not sure how big it's going to be, if people want to fly from St. John's to Gander. I think a lot of people may think about it and say, okay, it may be a bit cheaper to drive. They'll spend the $40 in gas than fly out, and that's the question. How many seats do you need to fill before you make a profit? Who's going to get on a plane in Gander, pay $300, $400, come to Corner Brook, 3½ drive, probably spend an extra $300, $400, $500?

So even the concept of it is not fully thought out and excluding Labrador – I can see why the people in Labrador and all the entities in Labrador are saying, why are you treating us like this? I can honestly see it. For the Member for Lab West to bring this up as a concern of the people and take this stand for the people of Labrador, I support you on that. This is why I second this motion.

I know the struggles in Labrador. I knew the struggles in 2015 when I fought so hard to make sure Labrador had four seats when there are people who want to cut down an extra seat in Labrador and put it in Newfoundland and Labrador. I said, no, that's wrong, just on geography – that's wrong.

So that's the concerns that I have with this here, not knowing the program, not knowing how much subsidy is in the program to people to travel for tourism, for going out – and we all know there are a lot if people in Newfoundland and Labrador, right now, can't afford luxury. We know that. We discuss this in this House. We know.

So here, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is giving a subsidy to people to travel for tourism, to have their little holiday, yet people in Labrador are left out. There's something fundamentally wrong and whoever the minister, I guess it's the Minister of Tourism, if he can explain what is the seat capacity for PAL Airlines to make a profit before the government has to pay the bill for that. That's something we don't know. We just don't know that. We don't know how much it's going to cost to subsidize this program. That's a very important issue that I'd like for the minister, if he has the amounts and if he has the – I don't know if it's the number seats. Is it the number of trips? That's something that hasn't been put out.

So I'll just close with that, Mr. Speaker, and urge the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to work with the federal government to find some way to give the people in Labrador a fair and equitable subsidy, or work with the airlines to ensure that they're being treated fairly and not, like the Member for Lab West said, have to come begging to try to get something done. They should not have to do it. The people in Labrador have a lot of pride. They contribute a lot to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. They should be treated just like the people here in this province, because I know the great people that they are and I know the great struggles that they have.

We should all work together. I thank the Member for Lab West, again, for bringing this forward. I'm sure we're going to get a lot of support on this.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation.

F. HUTTON: Speaker, thank you for the opportunity, and I thank Members for allowing me to speak today to this private Member's resolution. I thank the Member, as well, from Labrador West for putting it forward.

Mr. Speaker, obviously, I've been in this role for just a couple of days, but I've been part of government for just over a year and have lived in this province for my entire life, with the exception of a couple of years that I was away studying, and have had a career here, basically, covering the entire Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and speaking to people from all over this very large province.

I will say that it's always an honour to stand and speak on behalf of the residents that I represent in Conception Bay East - Bell Island, which includes the communities of Paradise, Bell Island and, of course, my home community of Portugal Cove-St. Philip's; but as a minister, previously in Housing and Transportation and Infrastructure and now Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation, it's a pleasure to speak on behalf of the issues that are facing all people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

It is not lost on me that when we leave here this evening, or on any given day when we leave our offices here at the Confederation Building, as the MHA for Conception Bay East - Bell Island, I can be in my home in my living room or at my dining room table within about 15 minutes. I have remarked to multiple people, including Members opposite and on this side, how challenging – and I've questioned it – it must be, because I know this is a challenging job for anyone, no matter where you're sitting in the Legislature, that if you represent an area of Labrador or if you represent somewhere on the Northern Peninsula, the West Coast, the Southwest Coast, the Connaigre, the Bonavista Peninsula, anywhere that takes several hours to get to either by driving or by flight, that it adds that extra layer of complication to your job, to get back and forth.

So I see it, and I know that with my own colleagues in caucus but others as well that I see in the hallways how difficult it is to balance the family time and the amount of time that is spent in airports or on the road driving to and from your constituencies so that you can do the work for the people who you represent.

I want to just take a very brief moment, Speaker, to highlight the two colleagues who I work the closest with obviously, who represent areas of Labrador from Cartwright- L'Anse au Clair and from Lake Melville. We were in this House this morning, you and I and some others who were in the room for the Moose Hide Campaign, which we are wearing our moose hide badges today, brought to us by the Member for Lake Melville, I think it was eight years ago, a very passionate Member of the House of Assembly, very passionate on behalf of his constituents and the people he represents, constantly advocating for people in Labrador. Similarly for the Member for Cartwright- L'Anse au Clair and I will say as well, Mr. Speaker, to the Members opposite, the Member who presented this private Member's resolution, from Lab West and as well from Torngat Mountains, the MHA for that district as well, they are very passionate, as everybody in this House is, about their own district.

But there seems to be that extra little bit of push from the MHAs from Labrador who want to make sure that because of where they are located geographically, they want to make sure that people get a fair shake. Mr. Speaker, because the MHA for Lake Melville, I guess, perhaps this is his last session as he has announced, I just want to thank him for the advocacy work that he has done on behalf of the people of Labrador, the people he represents.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

F. HUTTON: He and the other MHAs from Labrador and all MHAs, but we're speaking specifically about a matter related to Labrador today, are extremely passionate about wanting to make sure that people who live in that part of our province are treated with the respect that they feel they need.

As I say, I have only been in this position for a couple of days, but it was the first email that I received, from the head of the Goose Bay Airport Corporation. Mr. Goudie sent an email to a couple of the Labrador MHAs and myself requesting a meeting. We had actually planned to try to meet next week, but I think we're going to be sitting for another little while, so as soon as we can get there to have a meeting to discuss more solutions that are potentially agreeable upon.

You know, we also need to have conversations with the federal government. The Member who just spoke a couple of moments ago referenced the need to have those conversations, and we do. The airline industry is heavily regulated by the federal government. We need to make sure that they're at the table. They have a role to play in this, as does the provincial government, as do the stakeholders in Labrador. The folks who are going to be impacted, they need to have a say in what we do as we move forward.

So I just wanted to reiterate that I am very aware of the obstacles, if you want to call them that, that face the people of Labrador. Four years ago, a family member, my own daughter, moved to Lab West to pursue a relationship. She is now married. When they came down in March to get married, they wanted to drive from Lab West. They lived there, they wanted to drive down and have the wedding in our home and they wanted to take their dogs, so they had to drive. It took them almost six full days to get here because of the ice in Strait at the time. They were stuck. They had to have the added cost of extra nights in a hotel room, waiting in Blanc-Sablon, in that area, before they could get across.

Getting home, thankfully, was a little bit easier after the very tiring journey to get here, but since my very close family member has moved to Labrador, even though I had been aware of the situation with airline costs and the costs of travelling to and from that part of the province to this part of the province, it became more acutely aware. If we want to go visit them, if they plan to grow their family and we want to be part of that as well, that it is very expensive to do so, and for them to come here.

I mean, I just want to make sure that everybody knows that this is not just something I am reading about. I know about it because we think about our visits with our family members at all times and how we're going to plan them and how we're going to pay for them when the costs are that expensive. So I am aware of that. I think the first thing that I would like to say related to anything that we do from this point forward is that anyone who has worked with me in the past, not just in my government role, in elected office or working with Premier Furey, prior to that, or in my days in media, knows that I'm open to taking calls from whoever wants to reach out to me.

I think most Members in this House of Assembly have my personal cellphone number or my government phone or my email. I think working with these stakeholders and, as the Member opposite mentioned just a moment ago, the federal government and the role they have to play, all Members of this House, especially the Members from Labrador who are impacted and the people that they represent, they need to be at the table and the stakeholders in Labrador.

I was just listening to the Member for Lab West when he was reading from his private Member's resolution, and he talked about Labrador being a strong economic driver of this province and justice, therefore, demands that Labradorians should not experience any added economic hardship solely on the basis of geography. Nobody needs to tell anyone in this House of Assembly how vast this province is, how big it is, how difficult it is to service with health care, education, roads, transportation, all the services that people all over Newfoundland and Labrador require and deserve.

His private Member's resolution talks about the hon. House calls on the government to work with Indigenous partners, businesses, and the federal government to implement a plan that reduces costs and increases the accessibility of air travel to, from and within Labrador. That is why I support this resolution as well and think that it is something that we need to spend some more time talking about to find the solutions that are going to ease the burdens that are on folks from Labrador who are trying to get to this part of the province or any other part of the province, wherever they need to go for whatever reason it be.

We have MTAP, which has been increased in funding over the last couple of years, but beyond that, people who need to travel for any other situation that they may want to get, either from some part of Labrador down to the island portion of the province, or the other way, that there can be some ease there.

So my commitment today to this House of Assembly and, more specifically, to the Member for Labrador West who brought forward this private Member's resolution is that I'm willing to talk with you and anyone who will want to speak to me or listen to what we have to say so that we can achieve that goal.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

L. PARROTT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Always on honour to speak, and even a greater honour here today because I am a Labradorian. I'm from Labrador West, born and raised, seen the boom and the bust and understand what's going on up there now.

Labrador is different wherever you go. My time with search and rescue, I travelled the coast extensively and other places. At that time, and even still, search and rescue carries out missions that they shouldn't have to do, quite frankly, it's not a part of their mandate, but they do respond because of the lack of services that Labrador has when it comes to medevac and different things that happen up there.

A cultural mosaic, a melting pot, there's all kinds of words we can use, and the Minister of Tourism summed it up when he said his daughter moved up there. So there's no community, I wouldn't think, in Newfoundland that doesn't have family in Labrador. There's someone from everywhere up there, whether it's the original settlers and Indigenous people or people who moved there for mining, to support the military base or Churchill Falls, it's full of people from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Goose Bay faces different challenges than the South Coast and Labrador West, and I'll highlight a couple of things from Labrador West. Labrador West, as an example, now, people choose not to travel to Newfoundland because of the subsidy that the Quebec government gives. So you can travel out of Labrador West and go to Quebec. You don't have to be a Quebec resident, as long as you're flying into Quebec, it's $500. My mom lives in Labrador West. It's cheaper for her to fly to Montreal and go visit my brother and then get on a plane from Ottawa and fly to Newfoundland and fly back to Ottawa and get a plane out of Montreal back into Wabush. To say that's ridiculous is an understatement. It's beyond ridiculous.

Now, what was spurned by this $15-million announcement was phenomenal for me to see on Facebook. There's one guy, Neal Pike, I believe his name was. He put a post up, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of shares and it's just about separation and that spurned it on. I'm certain people from Labrador don't want to separate but the reality of it is, it's how adamant they are about how they're treated.

I do believe that Labradorians are not treated the same as Newfoundlanders in certain aspects and airfare is one example. Here's a great example. So you had federally regulated airport where fly-in/fly-out jets were coming in out of Quebec with no firefighters. Transport Canada standards clearly say that you cannot land at an airport with that many passengers, that large of a vessel, without firefighters. They told the Wabush fire department, Lab City fire department that they were dependent on doing it. With a railbed that crosses it, if there was a train coming, there's no service. These planes were coming in and out all of the time.

FIFO, fly in, fly out, has affected Goose Bay, Labrador West extensively and it's given one airline a monopoly. Now, when I was young and I'm sure lots of people if they've ever travelled up there would understand, Air Canada, at the time, Canadian Airlines, Air Borealis – there were four or five different planes that were flying in there all of the time. There were options.

So here's where I think government needs to go and needs to start thinking and they need to do it now. It's what we don't do and haven't done as a government. We've been reactive with everything. We need to be proactive and here's why.

There are multiple projects in Labrador West that are going to happen. We all know that. Search Minerals hopefully, again; all kinds of different things going on the South Coast for expansion; the Gull Island Project, hopefully. I have said it here 1,000 times, I hope the MOU is as solid as it gets and everything goes ahead. I'm not convinced that it is, but I hope it does. But we need to find a way to materialize on all that to ensure that, as more people are flying in and flying out, that there's better air access, that it doesn't restrict residents who live up there.

Not only that, but we need to ensure that the people who are given the option to fly in and out of Labrador to go to work are Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that live here on the Island portion. We can't have access to Labrador inhibit our ability to hire people to go to work on these projects and grow population. I mean, we should be utilizing all of this to grow the population everywhere in Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't think we look at it.

The Member for Labrador West speaks eloquently, I know he fights for it. Just a few weeks ago, and I have no problem saying it, between the previous Tourism minister and the new Premier and the previous premier, I had multiple phone calls – multiple, multiple phone calls – fighting for residents of Labrador to come out here, young boys and girls, and play hockey. They were restricted. There was a solution found but I can tell you, in my six years here, I did more legwork on that than I did a lot of bigger files that I did a lot of work on.

It was incredible how hard we had to work to get Provincial Airlines to come on board and make it happen. Now, I'm not blaming it on Provincial Airlines. I believe it was an oversight by Hockey NL and a scheduling issue. It got figured out, but here's the bigger issue with that. We subsidize Provincial Airlines for $1,500 a player to charter that plane for kids to come out here and play hockey, and their parents flew out on commercial tickets for $800, so how much work went into government subsidizing these young boys and girls to come play hockey?

It's ridiculous when you think about it, right? They were charging double and that is, by definition, gouging. By definition, I mean, that is gouging. If I could book a ticket to fly out for half the price and government was subsidizing the airline to do it there's a big issue and it needs to be addressed.

The other thing that is going to be, I would hope, astronomical, phenomenal, one of the greatest opportunities for the province and a bigger opportunity for Labrador is Goose Bay Airport, YYR, I believe? Yeah, YYR should boom in the next couple of years. We should see a high-level presence of military coming back. We should be looking for ways to take advantage of the gateway to the North. We all know the things that are coming there and that in itself is going to create more problems.

We talk about, and my colleague – I was going to say her name, but I'm not allowed to say her name – from Torngat Mountains always talks about air access from the Coast. I mean, it is deplorable; there's no question. When I spent time travelling the Coast, the whole idea of getting a flight to the Coast, accessibility, even most of them are flying VFR. So that means it's visual, they can't land at night and there are all kinds of different things that happen there. It creates bigger problems in the airports. I don't believe that Labrador has been granted the same opportunities as other areas when it comes to air travel.

I was listening to the Minister of Tourism speak and he didn't say it, he just talked about opportunity and different things, and he's right. We have to create opportunity everywhere for tourism and for this province, but this private Members' resolution isn't about tourism. This private Members' resolution was spurred on by a tourism announcement but it's not about tourism. The example I'll give is, I would think that if you live in Newfoundland and Labrador, you've seen more advertisements and more money spent on – the money portion is probably not right but it feels that way to me because I see it all the time based on where I live – Legendary Coasts and Saint-Pierre than we do on Labrador.

We spend more on sending people a few kilometres across the pond to France – and it is France, make no mistake about it – than we do encouraging people to travel within our own province. I don't know if anyone here has ever been to Battle Harbour or gone to Lab City and, I'll say it, as much as people hear me talking about Quebec all the time, go to Fermont and go to Churchill Falls and see how phenomenal that facility is, go to Goose Bay. Labrador is beautiful. The Coast of Labrador is untouched. When you go there, I tell you, there's only one thing I can compare it to, it's like going to the Grand Canyon. The first time I went to the Grand Canyon my exact words were: It's like going to a different planet. The beauty and the rawness and the ruggedness is second to nowhere in the world and I don't feel that we take advantage of it.

The whole idea that we don't subsidize the travel – and we talk about MTAP all the time, but again this isn't about MTAP. Ironically, contrary to what people think, even in Labrador West where everyone makes a great salary or in Goose Bay, there's poverty up there and people can't afford to take advantage of MTAP in a lot of instances. They can't afford a plane ticket. It's really outrageous what people pay and, if you have to travel on short notice, forget about it, the availability of a flight or the cost is even more restrictive.

I can see my time is running out but there are a couple of things and the first thing is, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever supporting this bill. I think it could go further; I really do. I believe that there needs to be a lot of legwork done in order to try and expand air travel into Labrador. The population up there hasn't changed. As a matter of fact, I would argue with the amount of fly-in, fly-out and the projects that are coming up, there's probably more of a demand for air travel now than there ever was, but we have one company with a monopoly on it.

The other thing is that the Member for Labrador West made a comment about the airport in Lab City. The airport's not in Lab City, it's Wabush and that's where I'm from and I'm proud to say it.

Anyhow, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER (Trimper): Thank you.

I now recognize the Minister of Labrador Affairs.

L. DEMPSTER: Thank you, Speaker.

As I'm looking at two gentlemen across the way, of the 40 seats, they're the only two that have been here longer than me. I believe I am the longest serving Member on this side of the House, just about 12 years in now. I've sat through a lot of different debate, Speaker, in the fall sitting and the spring sitting of the House. It is unfortunate that a debate has come on this very important topic, but it is also a bit refreshing to sit in the House and spend an entire afternoon where people from the three parties and an independent Member are standing and talking about Labrador.

I'm happy that it was elevated to this issue, the very important matter. I want to thank the Member for Lab West. It was already said today that he does an incredibly great job advocating for the people that he represents, and I can certainly attest to that. I want to thank him for bringing this very important private Member's motion forward.

Throughout the ebb and flow of the debate this afternoon, people here in this House are also getting a little bit of an education into how vast Labrador is. When I leave and I travel back to my riding on the South Coast of Labrador, it is a nine-hour travel day for me. I don't get to do it every weekend anymore but, pretty much, I go every second weekend if I can, mostly because of flight restrictions. When I started, I had flight options six days a week out of Blanc-Sablon and, after COVID, that never rebounded past three days a week.

Usually, I take the three-hour flight into Goose Bay and then I do the 420-kilometre drive to the coast. If I have an event in Cartwright, that adds another 410 kilometres either way. So it's not uncommon to fly six hours and to drive 840 or 1,100 kilometres in weekend. That is life for us in Labrador. We do have the highway, Speaker, I won't say finished because I'm looking at my colleague for Torngat. We say that we've completed border to border from Lab West to L'Anse au Clair in the south, a beautiful 1,100-kilometre stretch.

We still have work to do. We still have communities that are isolated like my community was when I grew up, Speaker, but because of the vastness of Labrador, because Labrador is roughly 2½ times the size of the Island, there is still a need for air travel. It is still absolutely essential. If you were born and raised and grew up in Labrador, and even today as an adult, even today as a minister sitting in the provincial government, you feel like a lot of times that the people around you don't understand the challenges that we face, that we live with, that we deal with on a daily basis. Oftentimes, I appreciate the folks on my team to take the time to listen and work with me to try and find solutions to the various challenges.

Speaker, I've got to watch the clock here. I don't want to run out of time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Seven minutes.

L. DEMPSTER: Thank you.

So, Speaker, regarding the airfare, I look back to when I started representing Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair and the airfare has more than doubled. We've really seen across Canada where costs have no doubt gone up, averaging around 9 per cent. If you look to Labrador to our main airport, we saw that Goose Bay went up, I think, 33, 34 per cent; 47 per cent in Wabush. It's been said here this afternoon that there are multiple layers of government that need to come together to help find a solution to this. I believe that the federal government has a role to play.

On Mother's Day, on Sunday morning, I was dealing with people around the Wabush airport, folks trying to get back home for Mother's Day. They were deplaned in Deer Lake because of the snowstorm and in here it was quite nice and sunny and, again, it just reminds us how vast the province is. I was reminded that $750 is the Transport Canada landing fee. No doubt that adds to the cost.

I do believe, Speaker, that the time has come for the province – we have a role to play. I stand here and I say that and the Member for Lab West certainly knows where my thoughts have been on this for some time. I know the hardship. When we look at who do we want to help, I think businesses travelling back, for the most part do okay.

I want to speak about medical transportation because it is the topic that gets discussed a lot. In Budget 2023,that provincial program came under me. At that time, Labradorians used the program 5½ times more than anyone else in the province. Now, three years later, since the program has been with us, we have doubled the amount of money. The need is great. The need is growing. Every year I have no issue going back to Treasury Board and looking for more money. We've doubled the program and we are now using the program 8.9 times more than the rest of the province. We introduced a voucher program.

I'm sharing this because that is a part of our affordability measures to help people who have to travel out of Labrador to access specialized services. I want to say to the Member for Lab West, my last data that I saw, 73 per cent came from Lab West. It makes sense when you look at our geography and we don't have specialists in Labrador, folks have to travel out.

Also, Speaker, the Sport Travel Subsidy for athletes travelling out of Labrador, that's now almost a $1 million. Year over year, I'm pushing, pushing for enhancements to that program. Last year we added another $100,000 to the program. Recently, for the North Coast, for the six communities in Nunatsiavut and in Natuashish, we now cover 100 per cent of the airfare for those athletes to get to Goose Bay, so that we level the playing field, no pun intended.

Because, folks, if you're from the South Coast from where I live and you're driving to Goose Bay to the airport, you do get your mileage rate covered, but folks coming from the North Coast were at a disadvantage. So then we pay 75 per cent of the airfare for those students 18 and under, and I think there are 14 different sport programs that are covered there.

Speaker, we do that because the cost of the airfare is so high. Things that weigh on me, things that can keep me awake at night is, what about Nan, who paid for four years to help her grandson, see him walk across the stage and convocate because she paid so much for his degree? She wants to be there, but it's so cost prohibitive. What about the young lady whose mom or dad is in here in palliative, and they want to be with them in their final hours? Those are real life stories, and those are the stories that if you represent Labrador, we get all the time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Three minutes.

L. DEMPSTER: I have a timekeeper behind me and he's doing a great job.

I want to say that we've been at this for months and months, and I want to really give a big shout-out to GBAC, the Goose Bay Airport Corporation. They've done an incredible job with leading some great work on this and getting some great stats for us. I know Goose Bay Airport Corporation, Dean Clarke – the chair – and Rex Goudie, they have been working also with the chambers in Goose Bay, an incredible chamber in Labrador North. I think they're on par with any other chamber across the country, and the chamber in Lab West doing a great job.

So a couple of things that I know that GBAC have gotten some money from TCAR to look at some new route development. That's really important. What are some areas right now that are underserved that we could entice new airlines in?

The other issue is the affordability. Much of the focus this afternoon has been around affordability. That's important. I'm delighted with a new Premier and a new Minister of Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation there seems to be a collective willingness in the air to sit down to meet to start the conversation with the folks in Labrador, with the leadership to see what we can offer. Maybe some semblance, Speaker, of a Quebec program, obviously with some parameters around it to limit financial exposure too much to the province, but I believe there's something we can do there.

Does that mean that each flight that comes out, there's maybe two excursion fares on that flight that's coming out of Labrador, where if you know two weeks ahead that you're going to travel, you book ahead and you get a lower rate? So there has been, over the last year in particular, with one airline now in Labrador, an air access issue. Really difficult to even get a seat. I had people and someone passed away in their family on a Monday or Tuesday and couldn't get a flight until Saturday – really difficult stories. The access issue, the flights with the one airline, seems to have come along and there has been progress there, but we certainly still have to look at the affordability issue. We have to look at what opportunity we can bring with new routes.

Speaker, Labrador is so resource rich, world-class assets. We discuss it in this House all the time; recently in January, four days discussing the MOU and now moving toward definite agreements, a quarter of a trillion dollars in totality for that project and yet, if you live there, your experience can be very difficult than the person who is hopping on that flight where everything is paid to go and come.

We're just asking for some consideration here. I'm quite happy to support the PMR. I want to thank my colleague. I also want to thank the MHA for Lake Melville. I want to thank the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands who lives in Corner Brook but lots of family in Goose Bay and speaking on behalf of Labradorians. I want to thank the new Minister of Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation. I want to thank the man who's always proud to say he's from Wabush. I believe right now he represents Terra Nova.

SPEAKER: Minister, your time has expired.

Thank you.

L. DEMPSTER: Thank you all for supporting –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: I now recognize the Member for Torngat Mountains.

L. EVANS: Thank you, Speaker.

I'm pleased to have this opportunity to speak on this motion. My colleague from Lab West who brought forward this motion, what's difficult for us is the fact that we have to bring forward this motion. What's especially difficult for me, Speaker, is to sit here and listen to the nice words coming across the way. Nice words. Really nice words. Beautiful words.

They talk about finding solutions but they have to find words now to talk about solutions because they come up with $15 million. I've been told – I've been corrected – it's not all $15 million that's going into subsidizing the air travel. It's going in for tourism. It's going in for all the things that goes along with promoting this intra-provincial loop that's only on the Island.

It's upsetting because they're speaking as if they're trying to advocate for us but if they were properly advocating for us, we wouldn't have to try to compete with tourism when we're begging for essential travel. We shouldn't have to point to Quebec as how to do it right. It's shameful for a government to have its Opposition point to Quebec and say Quebec knows how to do things. Quebec knows how to look after its residents in rural parts of the province and the remote parts of the province. Quebec knows how to do it.

It's difficult when my colleague from Terra Nova, born and raised in Wabush or lived in Wabush, talks about comments he hears from his friends in Labrador about separation. I have to tell you not only do I hear it; I feel it. Ten years in with this Liberal government and I tell you right now, in this House of Assembly witnessing six years as an MHA, I think Labradorians are on to something. If this government continues to have power and continues to look after their bloody tourists more than the people in Northern Labrador, Lab West, Central Labrador and Southern Labrador – it's difficult.

For me, I didn't know what direction I was going to go in, I didn't know what I was going to say when I stood up because I have so much to say. One of the things I talked about is rubbing salt in the wounds of Labradorians. This actual subsidy – because that's what it is. They tried to correct me and say, oh no, it's only if Provincial Airlines loses money that we're going to have to step in but my colleague over there from Humber - Bay of Islands, he said we don't even know how much this could cost, subsidizing the only airline in the province, the monopoly.

I better be careful, Speaker, even though I'm a woman, if I raise my voice I might be accused of intimidating or bullying. So I have to be careful when the passion in me, when I see how Labradorians are being treated, does come up it does raise your voice. It's difficult; rubbing the salt in the wounds.

The letter that I wrote to the Premier – now I don't know if this current Minister of Tourism has been copied on it because when I originally wrote the letter there was another minister of Tourism in there, but I guess this Minister of Tourism doesn't have to take any responsibility for this decision. I talk a lot about the revolving door of ministers. In trying to talk to a Minister of CSSD, do you know how many ministers I've had to deal with? I have to go in.

I, actually, don't think I met with the last minister because when I go in and start over – especially if I'm talking about stuff like CSSD, children in care or if I'm talking about hunger or I'm talking about the inability to heat your house. The one thing I do that they can't say they haven't heard is talk about things in the House of Assembly. I bring forward my petitions. I had a petition for airline subsidy for Northern Labrador. I talked about the difficulties we have in trying to travel, the cost and what it does to our mental health. I'm not even talking about patient travel and the physical health.

For me, Speaker, it's difficult with the revolving door. I've got to say after being elected as an MHA, in this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a brilliant political strategy to not be accountable for your inaction by quickly and every so often revolving the door of ministers. In actual fact, we're kind of doing it with the premier's too, aren't we? Seriously?

At the end of the day they could be in power for 10 years, but they don't have to take any accountability – oh, that was before my time, before I became minister. Oh, I'm elected premier, but that was before my time. It's difficult, Speaker. It's really difficult. Actually, the letter I wrote to the Premier, this current Premier, the subject is $15 million subsidy erodes Labradorians sense of place and belonging in our province. That's my words and that came from my heart. It's difficult.

Now, I would actually like to talk to you about tourism. Last June, when I was in Nain, I used to get up extra early, around 5:30, and walk down past the airstrip. The airstrip is, actually, almost in Nain. It's about a six-to-seven-minute walk with my rod. Sometimes my niece was in Nain and we'd go together and a couple of the people she worked with and we would just go down by the airstrip and we'd cast our lines out and the char would be coming in. There was one morning I was down there myself; it was a beautiful, beautiful day in June and you could hear it. If you aren't from Nain or Northern Labrador, you may not recognize the sound, but that was whales breaching.

This winter I'm driving through Nain, right in the middle of the community what do you see: partridges – ptarmigan, some people may call them. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet and go around Nain with a professional women's hockey player. When we were driving through, a rabbit cut right across the road. You don't even have to go outside our communities to see wildlife. You don't even have to go outside of our communities to catch char, to see char. We have the polar bears there. We have to actually drive the polar bears away because we're afraid they might eat our residents. Now with the tourism, it's far game – just a joke, just a joke. I don't want anyone to rise on a point of order or say that I'm harassing anyone.

The thing about Labrador is we're very lucky to have the natural environment. We're very lucky to have all these things and for us in Northern Labrador, we rely on a lot of the wildlife for food. Do you want to know something? Tourists would come to Northern Labrador if they could afford to fly. They would come up and they would enjoy it. They would look at the way we hunt, the way we fish. Tourists will never get the opportunity to come up and see our natural environment.

I tell you now a little joke; it's about a tourist. I was playing softball here in St. John's, the coach was there and he was trying to learn stuff about Labrador. Actually, we were in the bar. I was of age; I was 18. Is 18 legal? No. I was 19.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

L. EVANS: I was 19, Speaker, and I just want to finish this, and I'll ask for leave if my time runs out. I was there and he wanted to know about Labrador. He was really interested in Labrador because the girls were always telling him about my stories, about bears, whales and hunting.

When I was 14, it was the first time I went North caribou hunting with my father. He was asking me questions. He said: Lela, do you get many tourists up there? I'm sitting there and I say, not a whole lot. I said: It's very, very expensive because they have to fly. I said: No, actually it's very expensive because they can't afford to fly, so they have to come by boat. He furrowed in his brow and he said, what? I said: Yeah, it's too expensive for the tourists to come up there. We get very few because it's so expensive to fly; they have to come by boat. He said: Turrs. I said: What? He was asking me about turrs, too expensive to fly.

Anyway, that's my joke.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Thank you to the Member for Torngat Mountains.

I know recognize the Minister for Health and Community Services.

K. HOWELL: Thank you, Speaker.

It's indeed a pleasure again to stand in this House on behalf of the residents of St. Barbe - L'Anse aux Meadows and always appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak on their behalf. I know that the PMR today is in reference to airfare in Labrador but there's a very close correlation to most of Labrador access to airports in Labrador and the airport in my district, in St. Anthony. And we recognize that there are challenges getting to and from the Northern Peninsula as well as to Labrador.

The reliability and the price of airfare to and from my district is often a challenge. I was just actually looking up the price of airfare to return to my district this weekend at the close of the House and it's $1,087 to return to and from St. Anthony on this weekend.

So I can appreciate some of the frustrations that come with trying to get to and from Labrador, especially in instances that have been mentioned in terms of bereavement or medical appointments. I did appreciate and certainly pleased to see the increase that had been made to the Medical Transportation Assistance Program. I would like to give the Minister of Labrador Affairs credit and tell her how thankful I am that she often remembers the challenges that are present on the Great Northern Peninsula as they relate similarly to the issues that come out of her district in Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair.

The work that's been done on the Medical Transportation Assistance Program has certainly been beneficial to the residents of my district who often have to travel to and from St. John's for medical appointments. The $1,000 upfront voucher for airfare, it's a gamechanger for a lot of residents who haven't had the ability to pay out of pocket for these flights.

I certainly do appreciate the things that have been happening, and I know that there are times when it's just impossible to fly and the weather plays a huge role. We often joke about a point last winter where the road was blocked for a number of days, the ferry was stuck in the ice and the plane didn't leave the airport for seven days straight. So we were just as remote and isolated at that point in time as we could be, but luckily the fog lifted, the plow showed up and the plane did get in the air eventually.

But in speaking, again, to the difficulties that people endure as they try to move across this province for whatever reason, I certainly do recognize that there's a piece involved in tourism. We know that there's opportunities for people to travel all across Newfoundland and Labrador. I haven't had the opportunity to do much touring of Labrador, but I certainly do look forward to the chance to get up to the Big Land, and appreciate the invite from the Member for Lab West. We will certainly take him up on the opportunity, but I do appreciate the difficulties that come with getting to and from because it's certainly complex when you're trying to balance a schedule and you have appointments and there are different aspects of your travel that you have to consider.

It's a pleasure today to stand and support this PMR as we commit as a government to continuing to work with the folks in the Big Land, to advance that part of the province, recognizing the value that they bring to Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Thank you, Minister.

I now call on the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay.

L. PADDOCK: Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to get up and speak on this PMR, given that I have family and friends and a cross-section of them, living and working in Labrador at Vale, IOC and I also, during my military career, had the opportunity to serve with a number of Labradorians.

I'm going to discuss several things here and I'll break it out across strategic, national and then at a tactical level and I'll talk directly to the residents of Labrador.

First at a strategic level, I'll highlight the first caveat that's in the PMR. Labrador is an integral part of the province, and clearly it is. We fully recognize that here in the PC caucus and actually during the hydro MOU, we reiterated that when Hydro-Quebec was trying to change the boundaries of the Province of Quebec. I would encourage the current government to continue to push back against Hydro-Quebec on any of those boundaries. Labrador is and will always be Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: Secondly, strategic is the second caveat that's there is with regard to our geography. I don't think it's fully recognized across the entire province that our geography is a comparative advantage on a number of strategic elements.

Let me start first, it is a strategic advantage because it is on the eastern front of Canada with regard to engaging potentially anything coming from the North Atlantic.

Now, I found it quite surprising when the government roles were redone that the minister responsible for military affairs was dropped. So who is now conducting that, I don't know, but that's a missed opportunity because now Canada is looking to expand engagement with NATO, expand GDP and we need to be there demanding the share for Newfoundland and Labrador, and in particular for Labrador, with regard to investment. There's an opportunity there to bring back low-level flying to an expanded degree and, also, potentially having some additional aircraft, as was highlighted by the Member for Terra Nova, stationed out of Goose Bay. We can only do that if we are in the game, and we must be in the game.

The other point that I'd like to highlight with regard to the strategic side is, as the MHA for Terra Nova noted, Goose Bay is the gateway to the Arctic. The former administration, the PC administration, had Arctic Opportunities that were promoting Goose Bay as the gateway to the Arctic. That was cancelled by the current government. Now we see places like Halifax that are promoting themselves as the gateway to the Arctic. We need to be continuously promoting Goose Bay and that is only going to be done if we are serious about it.

Finally, as we continuously see with regard to strategic and as we highlighted in a previous PMR, SAR, Search and Rescue. There's an opportunity to reinvest in assets for Labrador, particularly as we get the fish biomass moving north, we're going to continue to need it. Also, with regard to mining opportunities happening in the Arctic and then, potentially, with expanded opening of the Northwest Passage, SAR is going to be needed. We need to demand the same for Labrador.

At a national level, I'm going to talk about a couple of things: mining and tourism. Those are significant GDP drivers, not just for the province, but for all of Canada, IOC, Vale. There needs to be a little bit more given back to Labrador from both levels of government. As was highlighted here by my colleagues from Torngat Mountains and Terra Nova, there is significant tourism opportunities for Labrador that's really being under presented. In the US, I think a number of you will note the Hoover Dam and how people go there, just to get their picture taken on the Hoover Dam. That same can be done for the assets that we have in Labrador with Churchill Falls.

I see sporadic advertisements for the Battle Harbour Historic Trust, but very limited with regard to promoting Southern Labrador and the number of icebergs that sail past there. We also have, in Torngat Mountains, a new national park and it's an opportunity to drive that home. The MHA for Torngat can correct me if I get the name wrong but that national park is known as Akami-Uapishk^u -KakKasuak-Mealy Mountains National Park Reserve. We need to have that park promoted in the same way as the other national parks in Canada are promoted with regard to tourism.

Now, what's important with all of this is the tactical level, it's the co-front, it's the Labradorians who are living in all those communities. A number of them are rangers, providing front-line, daily support for all of Canada, and they are challenged. They are challenged and they are seeking to be treated in a fair and equitable manner, not just as all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, but as all Canadians.

An airline for a lot of the remote communities in Labrador is their highway, is their sea route. That airline is their means of getting in and out. That has to be better hoisted in across the province. That is their means of getting out for education, bereavement leave, visiting sick loved ones, medical treatments and coverage under MTAP as was actually highlighted by government. We have to ensure that the people in those communities, the Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in those communities, are treated in an equitable manner.

So there was talk here from the government side of $500 for home heating. Well, $500 in St. John's for home heating is not going to get you the same amount of fuel in Labrador. Again, when we look at policies it's about being equitable to understanding the geography, equitable to understanding the cost that the local residents in those communities are incurring.

And Labradorians deserve that, given the amount of GDP that they are generating for the province. That amount of GDP has an opportunity to notably increase across mining, fishing, tourism and the like. But it will not happen if some of the labour is not there and is not treated in a manner that is both equitable and fair.

Thank you so much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Thank you.

I now call the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands.

P. LANE: Thank you, Speaker.

I'm just going to take a couple of moments to support the spirit and intent of this motion. I will say, first of all, I honestly can't say I have a real connection to Labrador. To the best of my knowledge I don't have any family in Labrador. I've only been there once in my life, and that was for maybe a couple of hours, whatever, I went for a meeting. I flew from St. Anthony to Quebec, Blanc-Sablon and went to L'Anse au Clair for a meeting and got on the plane and flew back. That was my only time in Labrador, I will admit.

But, for me, the issue is about fairness. I don't know if we'll ever get to the point of total equity with some of this stuff. Whether it be Labrador, whether it be certain parts of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, there is a reality of when you are in some of the larger urban centres and the capital region and so on and that's where the businesses go and so on, that's where a lot of the services end up being, that's not a Newfoundland thing, it's just the way it is everywhere.

But there certainly has to be a level of fairness. Now I will say, we're talking about air travel, I will say that I guess the jury is out on this announcement for PAL to go to Gander and Deer Lake and back to St. John's or what have you. To be honest with you, I'll be surprised if we don't end up subsidizing that. I'll be very surprised because, unless you're someone who might do that anyway for perhaps business purposes – and I guess back in my private life, the same time that I had gone for that one trip to Labrador; a couple of times I would have used PAL or so on to go to fly into Deer Lake because they had to do some business in Corner Brook or whatever the case might be. I don't know, as a resident of Mount Pearl, that I'm going to say, well, I'd like to go to Gander for the weekend. I think I'm going to go pay 500 bucks now or whatever.

It's a reduced rate. I don't know what the amount is but I imagine, based on what the rates normally are, even with a subsidy it's still not going to be cheap. I'd say $500 or $600 to go to Gander for the week when I can get aboard my car and drive there in 2½ hours. I'm probably not going to do it even for Deer Lake either. I'll just drive to Deer Lake if I'm going to go to Corner Brook or I'm going to go to Gros Morne or whatever the case might be. Because, if you go to Deer Lake, the next thing you have to do is get a rental car, for one thing. It's not just your flight. Now it's your flight, the rental car and so on.

I kind of believe that this whole announcement is going to do little to nothing for tourism. It's not bringing in new dollars. It's not like we were offering some incentive for someone from Halifax or Toronto or wherever the case to come to Newfoundland and drop new tourist dollars in the province. We're only recycling our own money, if there is any recycling. I'll try to be somewhat optimistic but, at the end of the day, I think it's going to be a flop. That's just my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think it's a good expenditure of $15 million.

Just my opinion, of course, and I think that that money would have been much better spent – you know, when we talk about priorities, we talked about the $250,000 in Grand Falls in the Premier's office, when it could go to the Lionel Kelland Hospice. To make that same comparison, I think, rather than spend $15 million on this initiative, we'd be better off putting $15 million in MTAP so somebody that needs to travel to St. John's for medical reasons, sometimes life-saving medical reasons, and so on, and particularly people from Labrador that have to endure the significant costs, I think from a priority point of view, we'd be better off putting our money there, not putting the money into this silly initiative that I really don't think is going to go anywhere.

The reality of it is that we all know the cost to get people to and from Labrador and the cost to get goods to and from Labrador. I hear my colleague from Torngat all of the time talking about the cost of food. I mean, it's just insane amounts of – I don't know how people can survive on the cost they have to pay for stuff, to be honest with you. Those programs are much more important to the people that we represent and, even though I might be representative of the urban region, the reality of it is we're all here collectively to represent the province and Labrador is a big part of that province and Labrador is a great contributor to that province.

There are literally billions of dollars coming into the coffers of the provincial government from Labrador. If you think about all of the mining and you think about the hydro and so on over the years, and the other projects that are on the horizon, all coming from the Big Land. We take, we take, we take and yet, you have people living adjacent to these big projects that are bringing big dollars to this province and they're not, necessarily, seeing the benefits, from a fairness point of view, arguably, that they should.

So I am 100 per cent in favour of this motion of trying to find ways that we could help reduce the cost of travel for people in Labrador; particularly, I will say, as a priority – for me, at least – would be for essential travel and medical travel. I think if somebody lives in Labrador and they need to avail of medical services that are not available there, then, as a citizen of this province, we have an obligation to be able to get them there at a reasonable cost.

I also feel we have kids that are in Labrador and they're participating in sports and so on, they should not be the only children in this province that can't travel to tournaments because of exorbitant costs. It's not right. It does not pass the test of fairness. So I would say, from a priority point of view, issues around travel like that for kids and for school, for educational purposes, for medical reasons, that should definitely be a priority issue. I think that if we're gong to put any kind of money into travel, rather than wasting it on this particular initiative, we'd have been better off if we had put it there.

Now with that said, there could be some opportunity, perhaps if we end up with some definitive agreements and if, as a result of that, we have all this activity at the Churchill River that's being talked about and all of the people that would be flying in and flying out of Labrador. I know my colleague from Labrador West, he wants them to fly in, he doesn't want them to fly out, I get that too but the reality of it is that there's going to be a lot of fly-in, fly-out.

Also with mines and so on, opportunities there for industrial expansion, perhaps with those projects and so on and with that activity, it's obviously going to require more flights to be going in and out of Labrador. Maybe that's the opportunity for the government, at that point in time, to be able to reach out to the carriers to find a way that we can kind of tag on to that. Tag on to that, tag on to the business travel and the travel associated to those projects so that regular residents who are not associated to those projects, whether it be expanding the flights, larger planes or whatever the case might be, get some affordable seats within those flights. That might be an opportunity to look at.

I think we need to look at every opportunity we can and leave no stone unturned to find reasonable ways to make life more affordable for our fellow citizens in Labrador. I don't think any Member in this House of Assembly, looking at it from a fairness point of view, would be against doing just that. Bearing in mind that there are realities around affordability for everybody, including all the citizens of this province, so we would have to be perhaps sometimes a little creative. At the same time we have to recognize the overall cost, but we also have to recognize the challenges that the people from Labrador face on a daily basis and also recognize the great contribution they make to this province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

CHAIR: Thank you to the Member.

I now call on the hon. the Member for Placentia West - Bellevue.

J. DWYER: Thank you very much, Speaker.

I'm just going to take a couple of minutes. I'm sure everybody is wondering why a little old fellow from Marystown is going to stand up and talk about Labrador, but I have many ties to Labrador. Actually, my mom is from Jean de Baie, Bernadette Coady at the time, and my dad is from Bell Island, Dennis Dwyer. They met in Wabush, so here I am. I guess I'm part of the Big Land as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is why it's more expensive now.

J. DWYER: That's why it's more expensive now, because they want to keep me out of it.

What I will say is that when I first came into the House of Assembly and I very attentively listened to my colleague from Torngat Mountains, something that stuck with me for the whole six years has been the story that she said about a can of Campbell's tomato soup costing $8 that we go down to Pipers and get two for a buck. Well, not two for a buck anymore, I suppose. At the time, it was. In the meantime, just imagine paying $8 for a can of Campbell soup that everybody else on the Island portion of the province get for a dollar or whatever.

She also spoke about when the boat stopped, about food and having to pay $48 for a pack of four pork chops and then, you reach into the freezer and they're half freezer burnt. Those are the things that have sat with me for this whole time. The reason why I wanted to speak on this is because I have had some dealings with the people in Labrador that have reached out to me. Because they have family ties to people in my district or anything, they just reached out to me for some help.

We had an issue about medical travel and somebody getting bumped on a Wednesday. They were scheduled in for the Thursday, the snow came in and they couldn't go. Then, Friday there was something else but, on Friday afternoon, when I got the call, the first thing I did was reach out to the minister at the time, who is currently our Premier. To make the long story short, because I'm going to try and give somebody else an opportunity, he really filled my heart the day – I think it was a Sunday afternoon – that he called me and he said, wheels up. It saved that lady's life.

When I think about the $1,000 that we offer for people doing medical travel in Labrador, I often think about follow-up appointments and all this kind of stuff. We talk of doing virtual care where we know that the Internet is not great and stuff like that, so it's the infrastructure and it's the things that we're missing. I will say that I honestly think that the Labrador portion in our province would look a hell of a lot different if we had to get a lot better deal in 1969. That's the reason why I think that getting a better deal for the people in Newfoundland and Labrador, in this new negotiation, is paramount.

It's not about giveaways. It's not about not taking on mitigated risk. It's about making sure that the resources of this province are a benefit to the people of this province, from the tip of Labrador to the south of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. DWYER: We always say that we can walk and chew bubble gum. I hear this from the other side lots: We can walk and chew bubble gum. I'm the shadow Cabinet minister for Tourism and I feel that the subsidy was warranted when I first heard it but then when I hear about the complaints of where it leaves Labrador behind, I just think that automatically, as a government, we should probably even take some money out of the beautiful Future Fund and look into matching what we're doing for tourism. I think that would be very responsible.

Vale has a smelter in my district in Long Harbour. They very much rely on getting in and out of Labrador with their employees and stuff. It's very difficult at times, but the thing is that they know that Labrador has so much to offer, they've done even further exploration and are going to have a more long life for their product. So we can walk and chew bubble gum the same time. We can get people down from Labrador if they need medical travel, but we can also get people to Labrador and around the province that are coming for tourism.

My colleague from Baie Verte - Green Bay alluded to the Hoover Dam and how beautiful it is. I agree, I'm sure. I haven't stepped foot in Labrador but I am going to do it within the next 12 months. Actually, I have a friend that's down here from Labrador now that's visiting his mom and dad in Jean de Baie and he'll actually be coming into the House of Assembly tomorrow to see proceedings. So I look forward to that.

But my comment to my friend, my colleague from Baie Verte - Green Bay, is that I want to remind everybody that the Hoover Dam in the United States of America is stylized by the dam that's in Davis Cove in Monkstown in my district. If you want to go see the Hoover Dam, just let me know and we'll arrange a trip, for you to go to Monkstown, Davis Cove.

Thank you very much, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Seniors.

J. ABBOTT: Thank you, Speaker.

I certainly appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate this afternoon on the private Member's resolution brought forward by the Member for Labrador West. I certainly appreciate the resolution and how it is worded and how it is structured. I think it's fair to say we can all agree with both the sentiments expressed within it and the intent here, which is really to have this House of Assembly join together and hopefully we'll continue to do that in looking at issues that resonate right across the province and, in this case, making sure it resonates well and loud and clear in Labrador.

The first cause says: "WHEREAS Labrador is an integral part of this province." That's easy to say, but as the Member from Labrador West expressed when he was speaking, do the people of Labrador feel that they are integral to this province? Are they being seen and heard by the Island part of the province as integral?

The answer should be yes but if people are feeling that there's a void, that there is a distance – and I've been in Labrador many times and when I hear expressions about St. John's and me growing up in St. John's, it's like they're talking two different worlds. I think it's fair to say that from the Island side and the further you are removed from Labrador, you don't appreciate these sentiments, but we need to. We need to be making sure we hear loud and clear the call for support, not only when it comes to air travel and trying to figure out a way how we reduce the cost to the individual traveller, but also when it comes to social development issues whether it's housing, health care, education, when it comes to transportation and, certainly, when it comes to economic development.

We had a very large discussion and debate here in January when we talked and discussed the MOU with Quebec Hydro and the future development of the Churchill River. It, again, was expressed loud and clear that this development, when it proceeds, has to make sure it takes the interests of the people of Labrador first and foremost in making sure that that project is developed with their interests first in mind whether it's the Indigenous communities, whether it's the settler communities, whether it's the mining communities, whether it's the Goose Bay communities, whomever, that they are seen as being significant beneficiaries of these new developments.

So that speaks to our ability with new revenues coming forward to address the gaps in services in Labrador. I know the Premier has spoken on that publicly. I have in the recent leadership campaign to make sure that Labrador is finally, in this regard, getting its just rewards from the very broad economic development activities that have taken place in Labrador.

I think the Member for Labrador West said the mine is 70 years old? Am I right in that?

J. BROWN: It's 71.

J. ABBOTT: It's 71.

I know my father-in-law, when he was around, had lots of stories because he was up there back in the '50s working on the railway getting the mines open and what have you. He had lots of stories to relay to me and it certainly opened my eyes to the pioneering aspect of that countryside. If we read any of the literature coming out of Labrador, the Minister of Labrador Affairs and her grandfather's writings about Charlottetown and the opening of the communities on the South Coast, it's all very interesting and quite different from the development activities here on the Island over the years.

So what is it we can do here to make sure that in one small way, but a significant way, we can bring the Island and Labrador closer together? I know from conversations, and I think some Members expressed it here themselves, the number of people on the Island who have not been to Labrador, and what an opportunity missed. I would encourage anybody in this House, anybody that's listening, if they can find a way to Labrador, please, please try to do that, whether you drive, fly or take a boat.

It is a magnificent piece of – as Donald Trump would say – real estate. It is absolutely beautiful on every turn, every corner, every harbour and every lake. When you do fly, you do get to see how immense the territory is, how beautiful it is and, obviously, how rich it is in resources; particularly, it's human resources whether it's the Inuit, the Innu and everybody else that had settled there and have lived there and made their way to have families and, obviously, grow their communities and their economy.

Many of us on the Island have missed out and continue to miss out on that and vice versa. Obviously, I want to make sure that the folks in Labrador get to come to my communities, my city, my district to see how we live and thrive in this part of the province. The only way we can do that is by transportation and allowing people to travel at a very reasonable cost. So I know speaking on this side, speaking with the Minister of TCAR, the Minister of Labrador Affairs and others, that we are going to make every effort to live up to this resolution so that we can find a path forward and so that the cost of air travel between Labrador and the Island is feasible and affordable for those who need to travel and want to travel between the Island and Labrador.

I know there are a lot of words, obviously, that have been expressed here this afternoon, but I'm hopeful that people in Labrador who are paying attention to this, which I suspect will be significant, hear what we are committing to as a House of Assembly and that the government is supportive of this resolution.

I want to commend the Member for Labrador West. As he commented, I happened to be in Lab City when he talked about the curling bonspiel. It just drove home the point that they have a provincial bonspiel but the teams from the Island could not get there – why – because of cost. That's just one small example, but I think it speaks volumes. Now, he was a very gracious host. I got to meet his family and we did have a refreshment as well at his cost. So I do appreciate that and I will be back.

Speaker, I just want to say thank you to the Member for bringing this forward, thank you to my colleagues on this side of the House for being supportive as well as the Opposition. This augments well for finding a solution in the very, very near future so, with that, I will be supporting the resolution.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Thank you.

Seeing no other speakers, if the Member for Labrador West speaks now, he'll close debate.

The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker, and I want to thank all my hon. colleagues for supporting my private Member's resolution.

It's great to hear perspectives from all corners of the province and their thoughts and feelings on Labrador. It's good to know that we are in the positive thoughts and feelings of all that, because it's glad to know that we have the support of the House to move forward, bring some connectivity and make sure that we are all treated fairly and equitably and we are able to do this together.

I want to thank my hon. colleague from Lake Melville for his support. Me and him have had many conversations about this topic, and I think from the beginning we were always on the same page of where we could go with this. I want to thank the hon. Minister of Labrador Affairs for her comments and, the same thing, we've had many conversations about this. I'm glad that she is supportive of this motion.

My hon. colleague from Terra Nova: Yes, he is correct; the airport is in Wabush. My mistake, and I'm sure I will hear from him about that. No, his comments were great and I appreciate his perspective, especially his many travels and seeing different parts of the world, that actually helps bring some perspective to this.

My hon. colleague from Torngat Mountains, we've had many conversations about this over the years. I want to thank her for the support but also, to contribute to her comments and her perspective, we're isolated in Labrador West but, really, there's a whole other level there on the North coast that needs to be worked out and I appreciate her continued fight for that.

I want to thank my hon. colleague, the Minister of TCAR, for his perspective, and you're one of us now. Your daughter is up there, you have to fly back and forth, you're one of us now so you'll understand the trials and tribulations of flying into Labrador. I appreciate your comments and I want to thank you for your support to work with us to make sure that this happens.

I want to thank my seconder here, the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands. I appreciate your comments and thank you for your perspective. It's great to know that you've always had Labrador in your mind, even back at that time and it's appreciated that we have your support now. Also my hon. colleague from Mount Pearl - Southlands. I get to visit your district a lot; I think you have to come up for a visit now. It's your turn.

I want to thank the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay for his comments and his perspective. It's great to know that you think about us and you support the idea that we all have to be unified and connected so thank you so much. On your perspective on the opening up the north and how that's going to effect things, you're absolutely right.

I want to thank the hon. Minister of Seniors. It was great to have you up for a visit. It's great that you got to see and understand and hear the perspective. I know that the time during the leadership run, you drove in and you travelled a lot and you got to see a bit around. I guess you really, truly had to understand how it is to get around but, also, I remember you talked about how you drove from Goose Bay to Lab City that time and how that changed things for you. It's great that you understand and your commitment, to hear. We will hold you to it but I want to thank you for your support because this is a very serious topic for Labradorians. We really do want to try to build unity, try to build a relationship but also try to make sure that people can freely travel around this province without such an undue burden. It's very important.

Lastly, I want to thank my colleague from Bellevue – I got to get that right.

J. DWYER: Placentia West - Bellevue.

J. BROWN: Placentia West - Bellevue. All right, perfect. I had it backwards there.

I want to thank you. I did not realize that your parents met in Wabush so good for you. Maybe you're secretly one of us at heart.

J. DWYER: Yeah, a 16th.

J. BROWN: A 16th, but no, it's good. It's a very common story. I believe there are a few Members here that have connections to Labrador in some way, and I think that's what brings us all together. When Labrador was developing and stuff, so many people travel up there come and gone over the years but it means so many people grew an appreciation of the land, appreciation of the place that me and my four other colleagues here call home. It's a very special place.

Many of the Members that have been to Labrador have mentioned that when you fly over and you just see it all from above, you just know how vast it is, how beautiful it is and it's like no other place in the world. I think myself and my hon. other Labradorian colleagues here, including the Member for Terra Nova who actually flew over Labrador, have been in different places that no one in this House of Assembly could ever image they've ever been to. There are places that are so remote, you're so far away from everything but you have an appreciation of the land and how beautiful Labrador is; how important it is and that is deep, deep in the soul of every Labradorian.

That's why, when we talk about issues that are important to us, like air travel, about connectivity and about being a part of the province, it's very personal for us. We appreciate our home, but we don't want anything to happen to our home. We don't want to be separated from our home. It means so much so deeply to us. That's why I really appreciate that the hon. House and, it seems, everyone is in favour of this motion to move forward to actually bring this to attention, to get connectivity, to make travel affordable and to make sure that we can stay connected and make sure that we can continue to grow our population, protect our residents and make sure that we can share Labrador with other people but, also, we can move about easier, freely and we don't have such undue burden onto us, because I think we should bring a little bit of Labrador to everybody.

So I want to thank the hon. House, thank my colleagues and I really appreciate that we are going to move forward on this. It sounds like unanimous consent of this so thank you.

Speaker, thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Is the House ready for the question?

All those in favour of the private Member's motion presented by the hon. the Member for Labrador West.

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay.'

Motion carried.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

L. DEMPSTER: Speaker, I move that this House do now stand in recess until 5:30.

The House resumed at 5:30 p.m.

SPEAKER (Bennett): Are the House Leaders ready?

Order, please!

Admit visitors.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

L. DEMPSTER: Speaker, I call from the Order Paper, Motion 1, budget debate.

SPEAKER: Okay.

We are now debating the subamendment of the Budget Speech.

The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

B. PETTEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A bit of technical issues there and I got a colleague who’s going around in crutches so you kind of got to move aside to those people, hey?

Speaker, it gives me great delight tonight to stand, and this is my final opportunity to speak on this year’s budget. This is actually probably our final time to speak about the budget; a new election will be a new group of people in there, or some new and some old, the next time a budget is debated in this House, so it’s kind of one of them moments that I thought about this week actually. It does make you reflect. I think most times I stand there and I speak, I always refer to it, you have them moments of reflection. It’s been 10 years for me and I know a lot of Members opposite – I know the Minister of Finance, we got elected the same time.

There have been a lot of budgets and a lot of debates, and every budget cycle that goes by – and the last couple of days I’ve had the opportunity to listen to a lot of debate. It’s pretty interesting, this is probably the only one other time in the run of the year in the cycle of the House that people get that free-will opportunity to talk about things that matter to them and to people in their districts and the people in the province or even their own personal interests. In between that, you hear lots of personal stories and some humorous, some are quite funny. A lot are quite funny actually.

Now, some not so funny but that’s all part of it then. There are times, you know, and sometimes in the debate and during the Question Period, temperatures rise. Sometimes in there it gets pretty tense and there are other times that there are moments of levity and everything is very calm. We see that often and over the years. We see it, but I’ve always said it’s a very important part because it’s about passion. Everyone has passion.

Every single Member in this House has their own passion, their own desires, their own drive. We don’t always agree but it’s always something that I’ve always respected and it’s always something, no matter where I am down life’s road and none of us are no longer in the – we’re in retirement or off to whatever we’re doing – I think that’s something that you’ll always reflect on, because that’s always something I reflected on.

I think it’s very important that everyone that comes in to this House of Assembly, they come in with the right reasons. They come in and they do it for the right reasons. We may not always agree with the decision, but I think it’s very important to highlight that everyone elected, when you put your name on a ballot, I really think you come in to make a difference for your community and for the people of the province. Ultimately, the jury will decide. The public will decide down life’s road, but I do believe every one of us come in with the right intentions or the right things at heart and we do our best to make a difference to the people Newfoundland and Labrador.

I think we all keep that in mind. It’s something I’d like to remind, and I think we all should take great pride in it, every one of us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

B. PETTEN: When the next election comes, whoever comes back, whoever goes on, I think that that’s something we should acknowledge.

I know the former premier, no doubt people out there and people in here know that me and him never seen eye to eye on a lot of things, but we did see eye to eye on a lot of other things. Upon leaving, his final day I had a personal exchange with him. It was kind of that tone; it was respect for each other and the jobs you have to do. I have a difficult job in my role and he, obviously, in his role.

We acknowledged that and I think that was one of them moments again that it’s important to recognize that. I know one time – I believe he said it to me: It’s a small group; there are only 40 of us and you’re representing an entire province. So it’s a small club and beneath it all, I do believe there’s a level of respect. Sometimes we have our moments and they’re – the Member for Harbour Grace - Port de Grave is grinning. We do have our moments but I think that, at the end of the day, we try our best.

Speaker, in my time, there are a couple of things I think are important to bring up and, firstly, in my district that I’m very proud to represent. There are a couple of things: I asked yesterday, actually, there’s an urgent care centre required. It’s not needed, it’s required for Conception Bay South. You’ve got a district that’s nearing 30,000 people, some are in my colleague for Harbour Main’s District and some are in my colleague for Topsail - Paradise District.

We have no health care service in Conception Bay South outside of paid blood services. I’ve said this for years in this House and I understand that you wait your turn. Again, 10 years in and I’ve been asking for it for years. It’s been promised. Ministers previous have said, we’re doing it. I know the Health Accord, Dr. Parfrey and Sister Davis acknowledged that it’s needed and, I think in the plans down in previous years, it was always in the works. It was always something that was discussed as needed.

You don’t have no public transit. You’re a 30-minute away drive. You’re in the vicinity of 30 to 40 kilometres away. You can’t walk. You can’t afford a taxi. If you haven’t got family, which a lot of people around it’s not family base anymore, and you’ve got no public transit, how do you get to the health service when you have no other services available? You’ve got family doctors around if you’re lucky to get one. I mean, I’ve got one. I made an appointment recently in April, early April, and I think I don’t get the virtual appointment until late June. That’s virtual, a phone call. I got to wait almost three months for a phone call.

So I know in the scheme of things, I don’t think I have a doctor. She’s a wonderful doctor, but if I’ve got to wait three months for a phone call, I don’t have a doctor. I should be added to that list, and I’ve always questioned that list. Me and the former minister, the current Minister of Health, in essence, this year we had that kind of debate to and fro. The current Minister of Justice now, he stated he wasn’t going to argue with the NLMA numbers – I know he was the former president of the NLMA – and how they recognized the family doctor shortages.

We keep saying 165,000; I think government says it’s 50,000 to 70,000. I’m not sure of that number, that moves. The Premier when he was minister of Health, I think he was stuck on 60,000. That doesn’t mean you have a doctor, that means you’re rostered to an urgent care centre. That does not mean you have a doctor and in Estimates, me and the Minister of Justice, who was the minister of Health at the time, agreed on that. You could go in, you could access one of the professionals in that clinic but that doesn’t mean you have access to that doctor. There are staffing issues. There are various issues. It could be to a physiotherapist. It could be to a pharmacist. You don’t have a doctor necessarily, but they’re removing those numbers from the 165,000.

I repeat, again, we have got a serious issue in this province. It’s 165,000 people without a family doctor. You can look at this as a politics question or whatever. I mean, the Liberal administration has been there for 10 years; that is the crux of the problem with our health care system. We can look at the wait time for MRIs, cardiac care, we have pediatrics, surgeries – the list of all the services in health is gone – we have nursing issues and that.

Family doctor shortage, access to primary health care, is, in my opinion and I don’t think anyone can dispute it, the number one issue that’s driving our health care concerns in this province. People can’t get in to see a family doctor for primary health care, they backlog emergency rooms and, not only that, it’s more complex. There’s more snowball effect. They get sick. They have health issues. They’re not going out to the emergency room. I’ve heard it from my own mother: I’m not going out waiting there for 12 or 14 hours, or 20 hours; I’m not going doing it.

Is anyone tracking how many people actually don’t make it? How many people get that indigestion and that discomfort around their throat, their breathing is bad and they think, oh, I’m getting the flu. You go to bed – we’re not tracking that. I’m not fear mongering; I’m being really realistic about this. We’re not tracking it. I’ve heard stories and I think most Members in this House have people they know or friends that have done that.

I know personal stories of people who have done that, their wives or their husband or whatever were saying: Go to the doctor; we got to get you to the hospital – I’m not going out to the emergency room tonight. I’m going to be out there all night. I’m going to wait. They waited and they’re no longer with us; that’s true. I have colleagues here, I look around, I think most people can attest they can hear the similar story, but that’s not a Liberals or a PCs or anything problem. That’s a fundamental problem with the system where you have to acknowledge that it’s a serious problem.

Right now, the Liberal government are in power, it’s your problem. I mean, if it changes tomorrow and the PCs are in government, it’s our problem. It’s how you deal with that problem. We continue on with that number and we never seem to be able to find the solution to knock it down.

Again, everyone says the Health Accord is a wonderful document. This past week, I was at an event, there was a couple of town councillors, and they were having a conversation. They were praising the Health Accord. I was, very good, and I was sitting there and I was listening – and I mean I know they don’t support the party I’m with, but that was fine. We had a great conversation, but they kept praising the Health Accord. I said: Okay, well, fine, we’re going to agree the Health Accord’s a wonderful document, but what about implementation? Well, that’s the issue. I said: Well, exactly.

So if we don’t keep speaking about that issue, the implementation, is it a good document? It’s only as good as what the results are. Right now, the Health Accord is not doing what it’s intended to do. It’s all well intentioned, I’ll be the first to say. The former minister – he’s the current MP now for St. John’s – former Minister Osborne. I can say his name I guess –

AN HON. MEMBER: Cape Spear.

B. PETTEN: Cape Spear.

I mean when he was Minister of Health, we had this debate many times. I kind of lost my train of thought there on that one, but we had that debate. It goes right back to when we had the discussion over that issue.

Mr. Speaker, the further we go along, as time goes on and we don’t deal with these issues, this will continue, and I mean continue to spiral because we have this family doctor shortage, and that will, in the end of the day, cause a bigger problem.

To go back to Minister Osborne, the point was – I knew it was a minute issue, but it was an important one at the time. They made an announcement back about the emergency rooms. It was a big plan; he had a news conference. Being the critic, I was there, and I listened in on it. It was announcing these big changes to ER, going to improve everything in ER. That came across good.

I go down that same day, and I visit my mom. B’y, they got the emergency room situation fixed up. I said very good, how do you figure that? Well, I just listened to the news, and they were on, they got it all fixed. There are no more backlogs. I quietly had to look at my mother and said that’s not actually going to happen today or tomorrow. It’s years out. I think the minister at the time said it was five to six years before you’d see any improvements in that.

Now that’s an implementation thing. I know it can’t happen immediately. I get all that, but that’s a core problem. So you’re going to fix up the emergency rooms to make it more comfortable for massive amounts of people. That’s fine, you have to do improvements to the emergency room, but until you deal with the family doctor shortage, you’ll need emergency rooms the size of the Confederation Building because all you’re doing is making a bigger space.

We have ambassadors down there. Something else that I advocated for – I don’t know if that it had anything to do with them coming there, but I thought we were losing empathy in our health care system. I spoke publicly on it and I showed pictures about it. People down in the waiting rooms, lying in the chairs. Seniors, 80- and 90-year-olds are all brought in an ambulance, put out in a steel wheelchair, lying down with a blanket under their head in the waiting room for 12 to 14 hours. Okay, they’re triaged and they’re not considered to be urgent. But my God, where does society go when you can’t give that person a comfortable chair to lie in and give them a pillow, give them a blanket? They are our seniors.

Now I will say – I’ll use my mother again as an example because it’s a good speaking point when it comes to health care. She did go to the hospital there recently and she did get brought in and it was much better service. The ambulatory care centre, that seems to be something to – I’ll give credit. Walked in, it was quickly done; it was very organized. They had an ambassador there. They called me at home. I quickly went up to the hospital. They called when we were there. Like, it was really good.

So, I mean, I’m not being critical. The emergency room was full, but the service that way – so that’s an improvement. But that’s one of many improvements needed. All the while, that 165,000, plus the people who supposedly have a family doctor, we could be looking at 200,000, the list continues to grow.

At the end of the day, we hear the government opposite are constantly praising themselves and the improvements they made in health care and where we’re heading to with health care and how great everything is in health care. When I hear those comments, I question what health care system are they going to? They can’t be going to the same one we all are. They can’t be in the same hospitals we’re seeing around.

That’s the problem, and sometimes there’s acknowledgement of your problem, acceptance that you have a problem, and dealing with it head on instead of trying to, I guess, be political and try to hide behind platitudes, words, news releases, promises, because at the end of the day, our society is struggling. The health care crisis – I’ll say it again – you can bring out all the issues you want when you go on an election campaign. I will guarantee you when you go knocking door to door in the next election, health care will be the number one issue, right alongside the cost of living. Right now, I think safe communities, crime in our communities is high up there, too,

But, mark my words, health care will dominate the conversation. It dominates the conversation at Tim Horton’s, it dominates the conversation at Sobeys, and it will dominate the conversation anywhere you go, any water cooler talk, if it’s not them sick, it’s someone belonging to them or they heard this or they read this, it dominates.

Like the saying goes, I’ve always said it and I’ve heard it said and it was learned as a child, if you don’t have your health, you got nothing. You can have all the money in the world. You can have all of everything around you. You can have everything in the world. If you don’t have your health, you have nothing. That’s a statement I’ve always lived by and I’ve always believed because I know a lot of people that had supposedly everything going for them and they were sick. Guess what? That’s not a good life. You can have everything else around you.

So that’s why I always believed and (inaudible) – as being the Health critic, I’ve listened to a lot of health concerns every day and it takes its toll sometimes because you listen to really personal stories and they’re sad. But we have to continue to fight. As an Opposition, I really believe our role is more important than ever. It’s always an important role. In these times when you’ve got challenging issues facing you, a strong Opposition to keep government to account no matter what party is on this side of the House, it's fundamental to democracy in our province and our country. Anyone ever diminish the importance of having a strong Opposition and questioning what government does, they don’t have a great understanding of our democracy.

A great example of that – this week, several days ago, this lady reached out to me about the shingles vaccine. Why are you whining and complaining about the shingles vaccine? Anyway, I went on down and she said, why didn’t you cover it when you were in government? I said, very good. So I did a lot of research. I looked around and I said, the Shingrix only came into play in 2017. There was another one, Zostavax – someone can probably correct me. The Minister of Justice might be able to correct me. There’s another name on one that come out and I think it was licensed in 2006.

In my own wisdom, I was thinking, well, vaccines don’t become available widespread for governments to cover. It probably took time for it to establish itself, maybe in a cost feature, but it wasn’t a big demand for people looking for vaccines for shingles back in 2006. At least my memory doesn’t serve me right. It was only in the last 10 years. Anyway, when I responded back, we got into this back and forth and it was like, but what do you expect from me? We have to ask government.

Back in 2006, I wasn’t there, but right now we think it’s a great idea. We’re not disagreeing with the government. Actually, we lobbied for more. We said 65 and over for everyone to be covered. The government announced 65 to 70 and over 70 if you’re immunocompromised. Now, I know the current Premier who has come out and said he wants to give it to everyone 50 and over. We never said that’s bad. I don’t think anyone went on record here. We want to know when. I think our leader asked are you including that funding in the budget to bring it on now.

The point I’m making is we’re actually on the same page. We want what’s best for people. We want what’s best for the seniors. We came up with the idea. We questioned why didn’t government go far enough. This lady, in particular, took great exception to us challenging government when we didn’t do it when we were in government. I mean, respectfully, we debated. We didn’t agree. I tried to be as frank with her and being honest but, I mean, that’s what you deal with.

Sometimes you have to sit back yourself and think about what you’re doing. It comes down to the point, I said, we have a job to do. It’s not always easy but this one here wasn’t hard. We never complained because government are going to cover the shingles vaccine. I spoke right away after the former minister did. I thought it was great. I think we should go further. That’s all. What’s wrong with that?

That’s an easy one. We challenge our government. We argue, as Opposition, on much more divided issues. These are ones we’re together. I think out there in society, people don’t understand your role. It’s a very important role. It’s one we have to do and it’s a challenge sometimes because sometimes people may accuse you, you’re being negative. I hear that, too. Being negative is not accurate either.

Unfortunately, that comes with this role. I’ve talked to someone who served several years in Opposition – a few with me, actually, without saying who it was – and they said it started to drag them down because they felt that they were constantly having to be the devil’s advocate. You always had to play that role.

But that is our role. It’s His Royal Majesty’s Opposition; it’s to oppose. Not to oppose for the sake of opposing; it’s to challenge government. But by challenging government, you’re opposing their decision is what it’s like. You’re questioning their decisions; you’re not agreeing with it. You want something to go further, or you don’t like this idea or what about this idea, that’s the spirit of debate. That’s what this House is intended for. That’s what we’re all elected to do. That’s what we’re brought in here for.

People in my district, and I’m sure every other district in the province, they know our role. They like the fact that you speak up for your district; they like that fact that you speak up for seniors. Government gets credit for delivering to seniors, delivering to their districts, delivering to the people. That’s the way it works out. How we get there – that’s what I started off by when I started off my comments 20 minutes back – is we don’t always agree. But, at the end of the day, that’s where we’re all coming to.

You go around, you can fight about everything, we’ll disagree – and as you can tell, most of my speech was on health care. We’re not on the same page with the government on health care. But we want the same results. We’ve just got different ideas on how to get there. We don’t think these things are working; we see it in a different way. There are certain things we might try the same way, and there are certain things we may fail at. But if we don’t try, we’ll never know.

If we go in government next year, or next month, or whenever, the people on this side of the House will have to do the same thing to us, and it’s a very important thing to be done, and it needs to be done. If I’m sitting over there, I expect to be challenged; we should be challenged. It’s a part of the role we’re elected to do, and it’s part of the role that I take very seriously.

But it’s challenging, and no, it’s not always easy. I know some people might think it’s easy on our side; it’s not always easy over here. A lot of preparation goes into sitting on this side of the House. A lot of preparation, a lot of work, and there’s a lot of stress and a lot of expectations, and you’re struggling to meet those expectations.

We all have districts, no difference than anyone in this House, and every district has got their issues, and we’ve got to try to find solutions to them. All we can do is stand up for the people who elected us like everyone in this House does.

On that note, Speaker, as I sit down, I wish everyone all the best in the future elections and onward.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

T. WAKEHAM: Thank you, Speaker.

Oh, they give me lots of time.

I’m going to stand here first and thank, once again, the residents of the District of Stephenville - Port au Port for putting their confidence in me to come here to the House of Assembly to represent them and the issues they bring forward and issues of concern to them in our district. I’m very humble and proud to be able to do that.

Of course, like every other district in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, we have a lot of the same issues that we’ve heard lots of discussions around. That being around the roads and the condition of our roads. Route 460, it’s in terrible shape and there is nothing in the budget that will help improve that this year.

Wheelers Road, a one-kilometre stretch in the community of Noels Pond, owned and repaired, I should say, by the Department of Transportation, right now, I don’t know when the last time a grader was even down there. It’s a dirt road. It used to be a paved road, but I think what’s left of the pavement down there, it’s probably more dirt than pavement.

So again, those are some of the things that we’ve identified, things that ought to be done. We all recognize that we have lots of roads in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and lots of roads that need repair. That’s why I’m so adamant that we ought to be putting out a plan that is detailed and people can actually see when their roads will be done. Not simply waiting year after year after year.

One of the things I want to start off with, though, as I stand here, before I get into the main crux of the budget, is I want to celebrate. It was great to talk about Canada’s Got Talent, but as anybody who watched that show or watched the results last night – and it was spoken about earlier today, Newfoundland and Labrador’s got talent – I want to give a special shout-out to Jacob Lewis from Butlerville.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: Not only on behalf of myself and the PC caucus, but on behalf of all Newfoundland and Labrador. What a tremendous achievement for that young man and his family. I can only imagine the sacrifices that he went through and the effort that it took to be able to get to that level.

For those of us that follow those shows, it was tremendous to watch him as he went through each session. Quite the success, and he has made our province once again a very proud place and a very proud people, and I think there isn’t a single soul in Newfoundland and Labrador that wouldn’t be shouting out to him. So I’m glad to be able to offer my congratulations as well.

Speaker, we are in a budget debate. As part of that budget debate, we’ve had lots of interesting conversations, lots of interesting questions, lots of discussion around Estimates and numbers. I always think it’s important to try and understand again – and there are still questions on some of the numbers. I want to start off, of course, with something that has been raised yesterday in terms of what we include or don’t include in budget numbers.

We all agree – I mean, the Minister of Finance is not wrong. Every province in Canada and territory, I would think, follows generally accepted accounting principles and there are standards which we use when we recognize revenue, when we record revenue, when we record expenses. Those are standards that all accounting firms and everyone else uses to prepare their financial statements and ensure that they are accurate and up to speed.

Unfortunately, in one case or, for whatever reason – we still don’t know – we have chosen as a Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to be different than every other province in Canada when it comes to how we record potential revenue that we will get some time down the road from this tobacco settlement. We’ve decided to record that revenue in this year’s budget. Every other province in Canada has taken a different approach apparently and are waiting to record – some are recording the amounts they receive this year; others are still trying to figure out exactly how they will record it.

Why do I bring this up again? Because I think it’s very important when it comes to perception of where we are and what it really means. When I went through the Budget Speech and I listened to the line in there that said: “Our deficit has decreased from $1.5 billion in 2020-21 to $373 million estimated in 2025-26, which represents three per cent of revenues.”

Now, there was no asterisk here or anything or following sentence to say that included in the revenue, in this year’s budget, was $500 million in revenue that we hope to get or will get some time down the road. There’s no reference to that, in that comment.

If I’m standing here or people at home are following along, they’ll say, well, we only have a $372-million deficit. But as my colleague asked in the House again today, if the $500 million from the tobacco settlement, which you will get down the road, wasn’t put in this year’s budget, what would the deficit be?

I thought that was a legitimate question because we’ve decided to include revenue that we will get in the future, in this year’s numbers. It’s not to be negative, but I don’t think we’ve ever got the answer why. I know we’ve got lots of answers around, we got to do it, or we’re required to do it and all that. I understand all the general accepted accounting principles. As I said, I think every province in Canada has to follow them, but for some reason, we have a different standard, or we’ve decided to do it differently, and so it creates this perception that we’re putting in revenue that we have not yet received or will not receive until some future time down the road.

I know that we’ve done it in the past under the Atlantic Accord, where the federal government has guaranteed revenue, and I think there’s a little different circumstance. I remember back at that time that it was clearly explained, clearly outlined about exactly what we were going to be doing with that $2 billion that was clearly outlined, but in this particular case, this $500 million was not clearly identified. It wasn’t clearly identified.

It wasn’t in the Budget Speech. As a matter of fact, you almost have to go through the budget Estimates and find a line item under fines in small print in here to see where the number of fines collected has gone up significantly. If you look at the comparison of what was there last year and what was there this year estimated for revenue, you’ll come up with exactly that same number $532 million whatever it is.

So can they say it’s there? Sure, it’s there, but without somebody having to go through and dig out and ask about it, there was absolutely no mention in the budget itself, in the Budget Speech, nor here as an asterisk in the budget document itself to highlight, put a little note by it to say this includes. None of that was there. The perception by everybody was, the deficit is $372 million. Technically accurate, but again, perception, and without telling people that it included that $500 million.

Again, the question, if that $500 million was not recorded as revenue, would we have a $372 million deficit? I think the answer is obvious. No. The deficit would be much higher. So that’s part of the challenge we have with this budget. Part of the whole challenge of what we’re looking at in terms of numbers.

That, to me, is simply – yes, I understand all the accounting regulations. I understand all that, but I also understand the need to be open and transparent, and I also understand the need that if we’re going to do that, then people should know exactly what’s in there without having to go and dig and try to go through an Estimates process or anything else.

Why? That’s the question: Why? Why is it in there? Now, we could get all kinds of reasons why and speculate. We’ve heard from other experts. We’ve heard from people in the media stories, their speculation around, sounds like it’s there because of an election. That’s been out there in the media. But the fact of the matter is it is there. It is recorded differently than any other province in the country. We stand alone when it comes to those types of issues. So, again, I ask, why?

Now, the other one that I want to talk about is the actual contingency fund that we know has been put in the budget to deal with the potential of tariffs. Again, when we ask questions about whether or not the $200-million contingency fund was part of the deficit number, or why wasn’t it included in the deficit, the minister provided us with an answer and said this is not how we record the contingency fund. Last year in the Estimates, there was a $22-million contingency fund, and this year it’s $200 million. We know why, because we’re setting aside for the tariffs. So those numbers are in the book, but they’re not included in the deficit number.

However, once we start to spend that money, what happens? Where does the expense get recorded then? Once we start to spend the $200,000, where does that expense go? Does it become part of the rest of our expenses? Because that’s part of what’s happening here. We’ve got a $200-million contingency fund. We all recognize why. We hope we never have to use it.

But, at the end of the day, once that $200 million starts to be spent, where are the expenses recorded? Where are they reflected? Do they get reflected in our general revenue and expense? When they become expense, does that then have an impact on our bottom line?

That’s another question that perhaps we’ll ask for another day. But those are our reasons why some of this in the budget, we’ve had great discussion on, but we still don’t know why we treated the revenue from the tobacco settlement differently than every other province in Canada. I think we can all pretty well do the math and figure out that if we didn’t have it in there, our deficit would be significantly higher. So those are the things.

But that’s a perception we were left with, and that’s not something that we ought to be doing. I think simply explaining it better, perhaps an asterisk or two around why the revenue is there, highlighting it and we wouldn’t be asking those questions, but we do. We have asked, and I think those were great questions that needed to be asked. I still don’t know, as I stand here tonight, why it was included. I have to speculate, but I still don’t know why it was included.

Then we want to get into some of the other issues when we talk about transparency and accountability and what’s happening in our province. We go back to some of the deals that have happened that we’ve seen because of lack of planning and expenditure. Why are we spending more and getting less? I would argue it’s simply because there have been no plans in place for many of the things that have happened.

We have talked on many occasions about the comfort inn and the significant costs of running a program and taking a lease for three years at $7 million a year for a hotel that was on the books for $4 million. Why was that decision made? It was made as a reaction, because we did not have a plan to deal with affordable housing in this city. So the government reacted; reacted by taking an unsolicited offer right to the premier’s office, no tendering, no requests for proposals, no nothing. Somebody knew somebody and a deal was done. The next thing you know, our province is on the hook for $21 million, plus the operating costs associated with it.

I know of at least two other operators here in the city, hotel owners, who told me that they would have loved to have an opportunity to bid if we were going down that road. If that was the road the government was choosing to go down, to lease hotel properties, they would have loved to have an opportunity to bid on that type of a contract. They never got that opportunity. The openness, the transparency, the accountability was not there and, as a result of that, we wound up paying more than perhaps we should.

We’ve talked a lot about travel nurses in this province, and I am familiar with the use of travel nurses. We use them at Lab-Grenfell Health, but we didn’t pay the exorbitant rates that are currently paying. When we did use them, we made sure the first people we called was the Nurses’ Union, to work with them on ensuring how we could take advantage of nurses from our own province who were willing to travel to Labrador to do locums for us.

But how did we as a Province of Newfoundland and Labrador wind up with what people called the highest cost of travel nurses in the entire country in terms of the contracts? We all know how it started. It started with a call to the Premier’s office. It didn’t start with a request for proposals. The first contracts for travel nurses came as a result of a call to the Premier’s office. No openness, no transparency, no accountability.

Then I go and I think about some of the other challenges we’ve had with land purchases and we think about Kenmount Terrace and the great deals we’ve been able to execute on land where we turn around and sell Crown lands at a discount price and then, later on, turn around and buy it back for three and four and five times more than we sold it for.

We look at the cost and comparisons of other lands in that same area that were available for sale at the time of this purchase. Prices for those lots are much, much lower, but was this a request for proposals for land for development? No. This was a deal that was done without accountability, without transparency and a deal, I might add, of a perception left again by a photo opportunity that, somehow or other, this new development, this new regional hospital, this new St. Clare’s would somehow or other be built on the site of the land that was being donated. Because that’s all we talked about in this opportunity was 10 acres of land being donated to build a new St. Clare’s.

It was only after, when it was dug a little deeper, as we investigated more, that you find out they needed to purchase significantly more acres and acres of land at a significant cost to taxpayers of this province. These are the type of deals that make people question why – why? Where is the accountability? Where’s the transparency?

We’ve all dealt with that; we’ve all raised lots of questions on that whole plan. Then we go and we start and the next thing you know, we’re selling land on Snow’s Lane. Land that we had purchased at a price per acre, and then held, and then suddenly it was being sold for much less than we had bought it for. Much less than the public purse had bought it for.

But what’s really important about Snow’s Lane, there are lots of questions still to be asked. Speaker, we’ve been told that there are at least three times that the developer in question came to a minister in Transportation and Works to buy the property on Snow’s Lane, and at least two different ministers of Transportation and Works turned it down. It was only after the third minister of Transportation got involved that this deal actually went through.

We’ve also been told again, was there something else happening here? Was there a direct link between the developer and some other Members opposite that had influence over this decision being made on Snow’s Lane? I don’t know, and that’s why I’m not throwing out any names. Because I don’t know. I can only tell you what’s out there, but we intend to find out. I think the people of Newfoundland and Labrador really need to know what went down on Snow’s Lane.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: We will continue to ask the questions and continue to do the necessary things to get to this. We need to find out. People of the province deserve an answer, and we will continue to search for that.

I’d also like to take some time, of course, to talk about what’s happening to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador when it comes to access to health care. While we can stand in here and talk about all the great things we’re doing, there are too many people being left behind. While they may be individual stories that we continue to tell, they are individual stories that add up. They are a reflection of what’s happening generally right across the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. And all of us on this side of the House, and I’m sure on the opposite side of the House, have heard those stories.

Stories of people who have been denied access to timely health care. Stories of people who have left emergency departments and walked away because of wait times. People who have talked about their family members being significantly impacted because the procedures, the tests that they needed to get done weren’t available on a timely basis and as a result, unfortunately, their health deteriorated, and in some cases, they’re no longer with us.

We often think, and every time you hear one of those stories, you cannot help but be moved by the fact of how does this happen in a great province like Newfoundland and Labrador where we’ve already, in the budget, talked about the increased expenditure that we’ve provided to health. There’s no doubt, there is increased expenditure, but then we find out, nationally, when we get the reports, that we have the worst health care system in the country. That’s not my number. That’s not me saying that. That’s national organizations saying that.

I think there’s a disconnect between what we’re doing and what we think we’re doing and the services that people are actually receiving. It needs to be fixed, and we intend to fix it on this side of the House, and after the next election, we will.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: There are so many stories, and they’re very heartbreaking. I have one now – and I have reached out to the department about it for the last couple of weeks, and I will not share the photo, but this gentleman lost his nose to cancer, and he needs it replaced.

He’s been told that it’s cosmetic. He needs to go out of province, and he’s been told that it’s cosmetic. If I shared this photo with you – I have shared it with some in the department. This man doesn’t want to go outside anymore. He went out one day and he forgot to put his mask on. A young kid was staring at him, and he had to turn away and go home.

So from a mental health perspective, from a physical health perspective, he didn’t ask for this. He didn’t ask to get cancer. He didn’t ask to have his nose removed, but it has happened. Now he needs our health system to help him, and we put up roadblocks. Instead of finding ways of finding solutions, we put up roadblocks.

There are so many other stories. The young man in my district, with burns to his body but thank God at the time, not to his vital organs, but he needed to be transported to St. John’s, to the burn unit. But he wasn’t an emergency, therefore he couldn’t go by air ambulance. He wasn’t a medical emergency.

They waited three or four days in the hope that maybe the air ambulance would get an opportunity to come out and pick him up. They never got that opportunity. So what did they do with young man? They put him in the back of a road ambulance for nine hours, significant burns to his body, with a nurse in the back administering him morphine to deal with his pain. That is not what our health care system should be.

These are the stories of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and they’re in the Northern Peninsula, they’re in Labrador, they’re in Marystown and Grand Bank, the Burin Peninsula, the Bonavista Peninsula, the Avalon Peninsula. They’re all over Newfoundland and Labrador. But we have to find a way to do better. That’s the thing and when we talk about numbers and how many people are rostered and not rostered, facts are facts. People still can’t get in to see a family doctor. People are still paying to see a nurse practitioner. I talked about that today.

For too long, there have been too many excuses about why we can’t fund a nurse practitioner. We’ve had Health ministers who have stood up here and refused, refused the thought of allowing nurse practitioners to bill MCP. I don’t care where they bill. I don’t care if it’s MCP or anywhere else. The bottom line is seniors of Newfoundland and Labrador and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador should not have to pay to see a nurse practitioner and we will make sure it happens.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: There are so many things that are happening right now in our province and that’s what we’re talking about, that was health care. I could speak, as my colleague said, on health care for another hour, for two or three, example after example after example, because everyone in this House has those examples. Then we talk about cost of living and today, even the food insecurity report that came out, that talked about the seriousness of what’s happening here.

We have a Seniors’ Advocate who recommended that the Seniors’ Benefit should be indexed and yes, the government indexed the Seniors’ Benefit, but she also recommended that a 20 per cent increase was needed to make them whole. That didn’t happen. That didn’t happen in this budget. It should have happened.

As I said earlier today, $46 a year annual increase in the income support won’t pay for one visit to a nurse practitioner. So no, we can do better and we ought to be doing better when it comes to helping people across the province.

We stood in this House on this side of the House when this government introduced carbon tax to Newfoundland and Labrador. We stood here and opposed it then. We stood and opposed it when they all stood and said we vote to increase the carbon tax. We stood and opposed that increase. We opposed it, opposed it until finally the carbon tax was opposed by everyone. Then finally the carbon tax now, or at least temporarily, it’s gone, which is a good thing.

Three years ago, four years ago, they stood on that side of the House proud to introduce a sugar tax – a sugar tax to modify people’s behaviour. I will never get those words out of my head that were spoken that day. We are going to modify people’s behaviour, and if we never collect a cent, we will know we have been successful.

That was the principles of the sugar tax implementation. That was what was going to happen. We all know what happened. A budget of $6 million at the beginning of the year when it was first introduced quickly turned into $9 million and has grown up to $12 million, I think is the budget that’s in these numbers right now, that obviously will have to be changed.

Are we happy that the sugar tax is gone? Yes, we are.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: Because it was a poorly designed strategy right from day one. We have said if you want to reduce the sugar consumption of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, educate them, not tax them. That’s exactly what needs to happen.

We absolutely have a problem. We have a big diabetes population in our province, and we need to do more for them. My colleague from Topsail has spoken many times about the challenges in insulin pumps and everything else. That’s what we have to be doing. We have to be helping people.

If we invest in some of the things that my colleague called for, we would actually save money.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: We would actually save money.

But no, because I guess we talked about it, it wasn’t good. But now that it’s gone, now the next step is when will it actually be gone?

We have an announcement that it’s gone, or it will be going. But when will people stop paying it? Maybe in the next few days or the next week we’ll find out the plan. Will there be legislation introduced next week to eliminate the sugar tax? We look forward to it.

But it has to be gone – completely gone. That’s what we want. We want to see that action taken, because these are things that are hurting people, and we know people are hurting in our communities because we hear it every single day. We all know about the high cost of groceries and everything else, but we have to make sure that when we do reduce taxes, like the carbon tax, how do we make sure that those savings get passed on down to the consumer, down to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? I think all of us have a responsibility to make sure that companies don’t simply turn around and absorb it and we wound up having to pay. People are still, though, getting the breaks that they deserve to get.

Safer communities: We’ve heard lots of stories about safer communities and the need. We’ve heard lots of stories about the increased violent crime in our communities. People in Newfoundland and Labrador, in small parts of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, have never seen the type of crime in their communities before and they’re concerned about it. So, yeah, we need to make sure.

Safer communities is not just about the crime. It’s about making sure that our schools are safe to go to, that people can send their kids to school knowing that they won’t be physically abused or verbally abused, that when they send their kids to school, the programs are there, the staff are there, the resources are there to take care of the kids so that inclusive is not simply just a word, it’s an action, and we can all be proud of it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: Safer communities is about roads; safe roads to drive on in your communities, because a lot of people have talked about the conditions of the roads. Then we’ve also heard about the need for additional brush cutting. Yes, there is brush cutting being done. We acknowledge that. But we also know we need a long-term plan and a long-term vision so that we continue to take care of that.

So these are the type of things that are out there that are important that need to be addressed. But I keep saying, and I’ll keep saying it now, we get elected to represent the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and I will say that every policy decision we make should start with the first question: How will this impact the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? And let us all use that as the basis of how we make our decisions.

I will take my seat, Speaker, because I will get another opportunity later this evening.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Seeing no other speakers, I’ll put the question to the floor.

We will now vote on the subamendment of non-confidence.

All those in favour of the subamendment, ‘aye.’

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against the subamendment, ‘nay.’

The subamendment is defeated.

On motion, subamendment defeated.

SPEAKER: We will now move into the amendment.

Back when we first discussed the amendment there, we omitted that the Member for Labrador West still had time on the clock, so we’ll let him speak first. He had 11 minutes on the clock.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker.

I guess this my last opportunity to speak to the budget and I just want to take this opportunity to thank the people of Labrador West who have elected me, put me here to speak on their behalf to bring issues from Labrador to the floor of the House and to remind them that we are a community that are facing challenges in unique ways that also needs to be looked at.

Once again, we talk about seniors’ housing. We talk about housing. We talk about electricity. We talked about getting people to come up and to work, recruitment and retention, education and it’s these things that are accumulated into a region that’s unique like Labrador West where challenges are different. Yet, in one sense, you see all this productivity. You see these mines. You see all this economic opportunity generated, but you have so many people left behind at the same time, facing unique challenges of trying to get resources and people in place.

I had an interesting call during the break of a lady who was recruited to go up there. She’s lucky enough that they found a place to live but now is facing the challenges of getting a daycare spot for their little one. She might have to turn down the job she was recruited for because now she can't find child care. Her spouse got a job in the mining industry. They were recruited for a position up there and now they’re saying, well, I can't find child care. Those are unique challenges that keep putting – we think we’re a step ahead but then we ended up getting knocked back two more steps.

We continue to remind that it’s a challenge for recruitment and retention, but it’s uniquely challenging in places like Lab West. The reason is not that we don’t have physical space for child care. It’s we don’t have human capacity to deliver child care. Once again, these individuals in the service industry, industries like child care, and they’re having to compete with mine wages.

I always say there are more teachers working on haul trucks than there are actually teachers working in the schools in Lab West. There are more nurses out in the mines than there are nurses in the hospital because they are recruited away at $130,000, $140,000 a year pay wages. How can you compete with that? How do you compete with something like that?

These are the unique challenges that we face in Labrador West. These unique challenges that we have to overcome. Once again, we look to the government to help us with that, to help us move forward, because for every time you help us, we help the province’s GDP. We help significantly increase the output. Then we can significantly increase the amount of money going into the province to help provide services to other parts of the province.

Every time you help us, we help you twofold, and that’s why we keep saying that it’s important that we try to find ways to get houses built, it’s important to find ways to get recruitment and retention and it’s important that we try to help out that way.

Once again, we look at the vacancy of positions. In Estimates, we talked about the vacancy of OHS officers, and they’re going through a process now of trying to get these individuals hired up. I was told that one of them was a local person, so they already have somewhere to live. At least it’s a step forward. But at the end of the day, we still have other roles to fill and these have to come from people that have to move up to the community, and we have to try to find them a place to live and we have to try to find them a place to call home.

We find these unique challenges of trying to get affordable places built and try to get them to come up and fill the roles so they can help us. We have a vast amount of opportunity in other industry. I would bring up, you know, about new projects and things like that, and it’s important to make sure that community benefits agreements are here to make sure this work is local, make sure that it hires local, but also manage to ensure that it doesn’t use elements that could harm the community in other ways.

We want to make sure that we build these projects, they maximize the benefit to the community, and to make sure that they actually carry out and fulfill the benefits agreements and it’s adhered to, and make sure that there are people there watching to make sure. Because, at the end of the day, those benefit agreements and stuff are in there and their place is to make sure that those people that are there benefit locally.

I want to make sure that these projects go off. I know that there are other opportunities. Now we have Kami coming down the pipe. The province has set out an RFP to find someone to look at the Julienne Lake deposit, which is another great opportunity. That’s a very good ore body in the region. I believe it’s somewhere between 25- to 30- year mine life. That could significantly increase the areas productivity, but at the same time it’s also a very sought-after type of iron ore that people would be climbing over each other to get at it when it’s on the market, because this is what the world is looking for right now. It’s high-purity, high-grade iron ore as smelters and furnaces transition to electric arc.

This is where, once again, when these kinds of projects come forward, it’s to make sure that it adheres to a benefits agreement that, one, makes sure that it’s local people that get hired, and two, it maximized the benefit to the region in ways that we live there, we’re adjacent and we have to make sure that we benefit to it.

It's also when we look at these projects, they do come with a negative impact. It’s like a double-edged sword in the sense that prosperity and everything do come along, but you also have societal issues and stuff that also presents itself. Many times in the past with these projects, we’ve seen an increase in substance abuse, domestic violence. These things happen. This happened the last time we went through a big upswing, and we were caught off guard. We don’t want to be caught off guard anymore.

Once again, we look to make sure that the services and stuff are available in our community; make sure that we have health care workers and mental health care workers and stuff in the community as well; make sure that we have been able to recruit and retain those individuals into the community as well. When these projects go ahead and when we see these big upturns and we see all these people coming into the community from outside, that we have the supports around to make sure that things go well and make sure that we’re not caught off guard again. We were caught off guard in 2014 with a lot of these issues and housing issues and all of these things, and we want to make sure we never get caught off our guard again.

We’ve learned our lessons. We’ve taken them. We’ve documented it, and we know that we don’t want to go down that path. That’s why, in 2019, I kept saying we need to make sure we get housing built, make sure that we have low-income housing built, make sure we have seniors’ housing built because these projects were slowly working their way down through the pipe that we wanted to make sure that we had everything in place, all our i’s dotted and our t’s crossed to make sure that these things don’t happen again.

Once again, we’re asking, we make sure we get housing built, to make sure that we have the available housing for workers coming in, but also make sure we have housing available to those who have to come in to fill positions in health care and in education and government services and the service industry so that way we can make sure that we can get to where we need to be. We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past. We want to make sure that we go forward and benefit us locally, but also, when we benefit, the province benefits twofold. Anything that we get help with, it helps twofold, and we want to make sure that we can continue to prosper, to grow and to live as a community.

I’m here, my kids are there, my grandfather was there and my dad is still there. You know, we’ve lived in this community for four generations, and I want to live in this community and continue to go there. Hopefully, my children can raise their families there and keep moving and growing together. I have roots there. I don’t plan to go anywhere.

As of right now, me and my spouse continue to say we’re not going anywhere. We have no prospect to move out of Labrador West. We have no desire to go and live anywhere else. We’ve got our family there. My wife’s family has moved there over the years. We want to continue to make sure that our home is there for the future, for us and all those who live there.

This is why we keep saying it’s important to have housing, it’s important to have services, it’s important to make sure that those things are available, and we can do it in a way that’s responsible. At the same time, we’re doing well, and anything that helps us helps the province as a whole.

We want to continue to recruit people to come to Labrador West. We want to continue to make sure that there are people interested in coming in there, and we want to make sure that it’s a community that people are attracted to, to come start a family and do that. Even if they come for the short term or the long term, we want to make sure that there is a community there that is welcoming, that is available, and to make sure that it has the services available to those who need it.

As my time winds down, I, once again, want to thank the constituents of Labrador West, the people of Labrador West who’ve entrusted me here. But I also want to thank them for putting their trust in me, and to continue to show that it’s my home. I absolutely adore it. I love it. I can’t imagine another place to live other than Labrador. Once again, we talked about the ability –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: Order, please!

The level of chatter is getting a bit too loud. I can’t hear the Member speaking.

J. BROWN: Thank you, Speaker.

In my closing remarks, I just want to say it’s great that the House supported my PMR earlier today and I want to thank them again for that. But also, it brings me great joy knowing that people have an admiration for Labrador just as much as I do, and I want to thank everybody here.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

L. EVANS: Thank you, Speaker.

Normally I spend a lot of time talking on my district when I get the opportunity, and I speak a lot for Labrador. I guess, Speaker –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: One second.

Order, please!

I ask the Members to keep it down a bit. It’s very difficult to hear the Member speak. She’s not that far away and I can hardly hear her.

The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

L. EVANS: Thank you, Speaker.

Actually, I will speak to issues in my district. My constituents elected me to do that. I’m also going to speak on issues relating to Labrador because what we see for Labrador, and especially my district, is gaps.

One thing I just wanted to comment on is our leader from Stephenville - Port au Port was speaking earlier and he talked about nurse practitioners and about the lack of doctors’ availability and for people to be able to access health care, and the hardship comes in with people who can’t afford to pay out of pocket to see a nurse practitioner.

When you look at that, l was sitting there thinking we should be asking, why would anyone want to pay to see a nurse practitioner? The answer is right now in the province, a lot of people don’t have access to health care. So therefore, if they want reliable health care, they have to pay out of pocket for a nurse practitioner.

Our leader said it’s not really the point of who gets paid, whether it’s MCP or some other entity that gets paid. Right now, we have people who are dying because they can’t access timely health care. I know that’s happening in my district for other reasons. But the people in Newfoundland and Labrador really needs to ask – and here we are, Budget 2025 – why are people dying of diseases that are curable? Why are people dying when they could have gotten help? It’s a sad fact.

Then when you look at the cost to pay that nurse practitioner, because that’s your only avenue to actually getting timely health care, we see now the times posted at emerge to be up over 20 hours. We talked about that. So it’s important.

If the people of the province were listening to us debate budget, they need to be questioning, why are we bringing forward these arguments? Why are we raising these points? Ten years into a Liberal government – 10 years – with a revolving door of ministers, revolving door of premiers and there’s no accountability – none. You just have to go back through Hansard. You just have to watch the videos of the House of Assembly to see the lack of accountability.

Also, the carbon tax was raised by our leader from Stephenville - Port au Port. In my district, the problem with the carbon tax was that we need that fuel to secure food, really. It’s not about driving around. With us, the cost of food – and I raised it many times; I have my petitions here. I’m in Hansard speaking over and over again about the cost of food. We pay that carbon tax.

Now, what really bothers me is the environmentalist – used to be a big fan of David Suzuki. I was even ashamed to drive my truck but being a person from Labrador, you always have a need for a truck, especially when you have so many people out here, the students in need of help moving and you’re driving back and forth to Labrador.

But, at the end of the day, the carbon tax in my district, when people want to go in a speedboat to hunt and gather, whether they’re hunting ducks, hunting geese, fishing, gathering berries for food, they have to go down to the gas station and the only means that they have to go out in boat or to go on snowmobile, Ski-Doo is to pump gas into that jerry can and take it down and fill up their tank.

Speaker, I’d support a carbon tax if my people, who needed to access food, had another option, an alternative way to get around. If there was an electric or renewable means for them to drive their speedboat, to drive their Ski-Doo, to be able to go around, I would support taxing because then what it is, the tax influences your choice.

The problem in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, and actually in urban as well, most people don’t have an option. That’s the big point. We don’t support pollution. We don’t support global warming. We don’t support any of that but, at the end of the day, when people’s lives are impacted, their ability to travel, their ability to do things are impacted, yet they have no alternative, that’s the problem with the carbon tax.

I wasn’t going to say all that because it’s cutting into my time speaking on the budget. The point I wanted to make was, when was it removed by a Liberal government? When did the Liberals remove the carbon tax? Election time – election time, election time, election time. We knew the election was coming. In the leader’s debate, going to remove the carbon tax, we heard Carney.

Now, this sugar tax, Speaker, it didn’t change peoples’ way of consuming beverages. It didn’t. If we did, there would be no tax. There would be nothing in the coffers. That’s the point our leader from Stephenville - Port au Port was making. It just taxed people who wanted to have a drink that had sugar in it. There was also no tax on the chemicals for sugar substitutes that are just as harmful – none of that. At the end of the day, when was that sugar tax promised to be removed? We’re going into election time.

So with the Liberals, when they remove a tax or change something, they don’t do it in the height of their term. No, they will bring stuff in that is unpopular in the height of their term, or when they got a few years left. But when it comes election time, that’s when they cave. That is when they actually change things.

Do you know something, that’s bad government. That’s a bad way to govern, Speaker, I have to say.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

L. EVANS: Yup, we really should be. There should be an election every year if that’s the case.

Now for me with my time left, I want to focus on my district. One of the problems I run into is when I’m asking for things, you know? They’re not luxury items; it’s basically being able to get out to see the doctor because you might have cancer, get out to see the doctor because you’ve got cardiac disease or high blood pressure. There’s something wrong. You need to go out and be properly diagnosed or you might have to go out for testing. You might have to go out for treatment that’s already been diagnosed or you might need to get out because you’ve been misdiagnosed.

In my district, I’m there to ask for things to draw awareness to gaps. Things that are critical to our well-being, like access to health care. I raise it. I raise it through my petitions, I raise it in Question Period and the revolving door of ministers, they can’t use that as an excuse, that they didn’t hear of it, because I raise it here in the House of Assembly where they’re sitting.

AN HON. MEMBER: Several times, yup.

L. EVANS: Yup, over and over again.

The access to health care, access to timely and adequate health care for my district, I’m on record every sitting of the week sometimes and I read that petition. I remember in the fall I was reading access to health care every chance I got. I didn’t always get an opportunity to stand with my petitions, but I want to thank the Member for Bonavista. He certainly helped try to get my petitions in.

Speaker, the thing with me and the problem I run into as the MHA for Torngat Mountains, is people look and say: Oh, that’s costly. That’s going to cost a lot of money. Look what she’s asking. She’s asking for everything.

The reason why that happens is because of decades of neglect for my district – decades. Decades since Confederation, we’ve been overlooked. It’s not like we couldn’t manage or look after our infrastructure. We didn’t mishandle it. We didn’t abuse it. Basically, it’s not in repair and disrepair. We never, ever had it. Services – it’s not like we neglect our services or we can’t run our services, we never had them. So for me it’s very, very difficult.

I want to thank the people in my district who voted for me the first time in 2019, because that is when I got elected. I remember going to the doors in the communities in my district and they were going to vote for the Liberal again. The problem I ran into at the door is they would tell me all this stuff that they talked to him about, they asked for and he never helped them with. All the things he didn’t do, but yet, they were still thinking about voting for him.

All I said, because I couldn’t say anything negative about him because he was my cousin –

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that a fact?

L. EVANS: Funny, not funny, yeah.

I wasn’t saying anything about the Liberal Party. Do you want to know why? Because I was one of the biggest Liberals. It was like cheer for Montreal. My mom cheers for Montreal. We all cheer for Montreal in our house. No one was allowed in the house when Montreal was playing.

In actual fact, there was one woman, a younger woman, that was one of my mom’s best friends – her name was Elizabeth Nochasak. She has passed away now and she’ll be in Hansard; I wish she could know that.

Elizabeth Nochasak was the only person allowed in our house that cheered for another team. She cheered for Boston.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. EVANS: She was quite loud about it because, at the end of the day, it’s our hockey teams right? We’re Canadian. Someone cheers for Montreal. Somebody cheers for Toronto. My brother now is watching the playoffs; Montreal’s out but he’s not going to cheer for Toronto – he’s not.

But, Speaker, the seriousness of this really is, I say to people now this is not a hockey game. Who you vote for cannot be like cheering for a hockey game. At the end of the day, if your team – if poor old Toronto, they used to never make the playoffs and when they got into the playoffs they couldn’t advance, do you know what I mean? It was heartbreak every year. It was heartbreak every year. I have to say, Speaker, at the end of the day, it was just a bit of fun.

It was just a bit of fun that night when they got put out over and over again, poor old Toronto. It was heartbreak. My uncle is one of them. I hope they advance. I hope they win the Stanley Cup because people can have some joy since 1967. Since 1967, never won the Stanley Cup.

AN HON. MEMBER: Speak to relevance.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. EVANS: Speaker, it’s really good for us to joke and I do miss joking, I do. That’s one of the things – people say what’s your biggest regret being an MHA? I don’t get to joke anymore. I actually have very little fun – except in in caucus, we do have fun. I have trouble sleeping, I really do. Do you know what I mean? Like that’s my reality now.

It’s nice to have a little bit of fun. It’s nice to poke fun at the Toronto Maple Leafs, but, Speaker, at the end of the day, I say to people, with politics, you have to choose to support somebody that’s going to try to do something and that will actually make the case for your needs. I’m not talking about luxury items. I refer to back one time when one of the MHAs on this side was talking about driving and the potholes were so bad he was spilling his coffee.

AN HON. MEMBER: He needs a sippy cup.

L. EVANS: Right.

AN HON. MEMBER: He had to wear a helmet.

L. EVAN: Yeah.

We don’t even have the roads with pavement; we have potholes. We did have a laugh about that, but at the end of the day, I’ve got to say, after 10 years of inaction.

When they’re over there saying nice things – we had a private Member’s motion this morning about the transportation, about the air subsidy and, basically, trying to get the needs of Labrador’s air transportation addressed. Speaker, on that side is the government that brought in that travel subsidy of $15 million that’s going to support tourism travel on the Island only, excluding Labrador; do you know what I mean?

That, for me, is difficult. It is difficult. Speaker, I say across and I heard really nice words. Actually, it sounded like they thought that something should be done, some action should be taken, meet with the federal government, this and that and whatever stuff and, Speaker, do you know something? I should have smiled and been very gracious, I should have nice words; but after six years, 2019 being elected, and hearing nothing but nice words for my district and for Labrador, it’s really hard to smile. It really is.

When tourists’ ability to travel on the Island portion of the province is more important than residents up in Labrador trying for assisted travel, it really, really shows what this government is about. It’s hard to be nice.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. EVANS: I said this morning when I talked about it, my subject heading to the Premier and the appropriate ministers as well, it erodes Labradorians sense of place and belonging in our province. I was kind of mad and I talked about separation. But do you want to know something? It’s really, really difficult when you have a government over there that’s excluding you.

I remember, in actual fact, it wasn’t that long ago when every district in Labrador was red – every district. Now, for us, I hope people take away from my messaging that we need to vote in good MHAs.

The other thing that really, really upsets me, Speaker, is when people try to say on this side that we would erode people’s rights, that we would cut supports for seniors, that we would take away the rights of people, that it would take away the rights of women to manage their lives, plan their pregnancies, to be able to control their lives, to be able to work, to be able to compete in a competitive work environment or stay home.

It really, really bothers me when people try to say we would erode people’s rights. Because, on this side of the House, Speaker – and I could probably even include the independents with this, is that every single person here wants to make sure that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have quality of life, have ownership over their lives. Whether they’re a senior and they have to choose between paying a light bill, buying food, being able to travel and visit their friends across town, whether it’s a mother trying to raise her children and work in the workplace, or whether it’s a person who’s deciding now am I going to have my baby in the next two years or am I going to put it off for five or seven years. What’s best for me and my mental health, my quality of life?

In actual fact, people know the difference, but it’s really difficult when you have people in the House of Assembly saying things, the rhetoric. We’re a long way away from the United States. But at the end of the day, people need to elect good people. Look at me, where am I sitting? I’m sitting on this side of the House. Who am I? Five-foot, little, old woman from Northern Labrador. Both parents are survivors – that’s the word we use now, residential school. My grandmother was orphaned. At a young age, she went into residential school and couldn’t speak a word of English.

But she got past that. She raised her family. One of the things that my grandmother always said was, thank God for Confederation. Because she was widowed with young children and the widowers’ pension kept her family together.

So, Speaker, at the end of the day –

SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Member’s time has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

L. O’DRISCOLL: Thank you, Speaker.

It’s certainly a pleasure to get up again and represent the District of Ferryland. I thank the people for putting me in here, as I do every other time. I have a few topics I have to touch on tonight, that I’m going to try to touch on. Hopefully don’t get sidetracked, but I will start with health care. That seems to be the topic, most times along the way here when we’re here talking, it would be health care, cost of living. They’re certainly the two big items for sure.

We’ve been talking about health care and what’s going on in the hospitals. I’ve certainly spoke about it many times and so has every other Member here on this side for sure. What happens when you go in there, the delays when you go in there. We keep saying we’re doing recruitment. We’re getting doctors. We’re trying for nurses. Seems to be an operational issue to me. Somewhere along the way it’s an operational issue.

I have a letter here from a constituent that he’s daughter is now in Alberta – and I’m going to read a part of it; I’m not going to read it all. She’s looking to go to work as a nurse. She said: I’m writing to express my concerns about the significant delays in hiring nurses in St. John’s. Despite the well-documented staffing shortages within Eastern Health, while the news is full of reports of highlighting the urgent need for health care workers, many qualified nurses who have applied for positions have been waiting for months without even receiving a call back.

I read this out before – this was sent to me. No one ever asked where’s she to or we’re looking for nurses. Operational – no one ever called her; no one ever asked her. Now she’s gone to work. She’s up in Alberta.

My daughter is currently living in Alberta, would love to relocate back home to Newfoundland and Labrador and has applied for multiple nursing positions posted by Eastern Health; however, she has yet to receive a response from any of them.

I wouldn’t expect the minister is going to call her, obviously. I mean, there are people that they applied to. She hasn’t received a response back. To me, that would tell you there’s something wrong operationally, that she’s not getting the call back. We’re sitting here talking about nurses and doctors and talking about recruitment, and she hasn’t gotten a call.

Now what is the problem? I mean, it’s written right here. She’s a Newfoundlander trained in Newfoundland, licensed in Newfoundland, even a former employee of Eastern Health. Despite her qualifications and experience, she cannot seem to get an opportunity to return home and contribute to the health care system in our province.

Eastern Health has numerous job postings, some dating back to October ’24, many of which are offering signing bonuses and relocation assistance. However, the slow hiring process seems to contradict the urgency of the reported staffing crisis. If there’s such a critical need for nurses, why are qualified applicants struggling to even receive a response?

That’s an example. We can only tell you what we’re hearing on our side. I told the gentleman – this was the dad of this girl – I would read that out in the House of Assembly. I am not using any names. I told him I would read it out because it’s important for the government to hear the issue.

Now, how do we react to it? How are we going to solve it? That’s just one issue that I wanted to bring forward that would be operational in the health care system.

I would talk about Opposition. Our job in here is to come in and bring issues, and we do a real good job of that bringing issues to the floor of the House of Assembly. We debate back and forth. We certainly have, lots of times, where we’ll be bantering back and forth, and it does get heated no question about it. Over the last few years, I mean, some of the stuff that we have done in here being a strong Opposition, one is the eight cents off the fuel. I think that happened two or three years ago – rolled over last year and rolled over this year. That wouldn’t happen without the Opposition over here. We wouldn’t leave until we got it, and we ended up getting the eight cents off if anybody can remember.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. O’DRISCOLL: Sugar tax been in there for two or three years, probably a couple years now on sugar tax, and we’ve been beating on that and haven’t let it go. Good Opposition is on it. We have not stopped, everybody has spoken about it, and now they’re going to remove it. Hopefully it gets removed in this budget, but we’ll see. That is something a good Opposition does, right there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. O’DRISCOLL: We had the shingles vaccine. We were doing a private Member’s resolution, all of a sudden, the government is coming out just to bust the bubble on it, on the day we were doing it, they come out and they announced they’re going to have it over 65, up to 70 and people that are immune compromised over 70.

Now, all of a sudden, it’s going to be anyone that’s 50 and over, which is great. We don’t have any issue with it, but that comes from a strong Opposition pushing the subject and pushing it and pushing it and pushing until they see it makes sense what we’re saying. That’s what happened with the shingles vaccine, no question. I mean, we pushed it, and it makes sense, and good on the government for doing it. Good on the government for doing it, but you know what? We put up the Opposition right away, and we got that change because a strong Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. O’DRISCOLL: We all talk about transparency. I can just go down and name a few and I’m not going to – sometimes I don’t want to do that, but this is just some of the stuff that happened in the last six years. It gets frustrating to be truthful.

We’re dealing with the comfort inn, Snow’s Lane, Kenmount Crossing, the Rothchild’s report and the first one when I got in here – we had no idea when we first got in here – the Privacy Commissioner. That was the first one; the big one that we came in here. We had a minority government at the time, they tried to push through the second ranked person. We didn’t want that to happen. They did the rating and there were four people that evaluated who they were and did interviews. We thought they should pick the first one and that’s what ended up happening with the minority government, because they knew they would look bad if they voted against it and that’s what happened. We made that happen with the Privacy Commissioner. That’s when it started.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. O’DRISCOLL: I’ll move on to some other stuff. I did hear the Member for Torngat Mountains this morning, it’s a frustration level and we all feel it here as well. Since I started in here six years ago, we’ve had six Transportation and Infrastructure ministers. We’re here six years and we’ve had six. I’m going to name them – I’m not going to say their names, I’m going to name their districts. The first one when I came in here was Carbonear - Trinity - Bay de Verde; then it was the minister from Fogo Island - Cape Freels, a real good minister, real good person. I have to say, he was a great person. I have nothing but good to say about him.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. O’DRISCOLL: We all have a story to tell for sure. He was such a lively – I can only remember the blizzards out in the corridor that day, everybody can remember that day; it was such a good day.

The minister from Fortune Bay - Cape La Hune.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. O’DRISCOLL: The minister from St. John’s East - Quidi Vidi; the Member from Conception Bay East - Bell Island; and the minister from Fortune Bay - Cape La Hune, again. I guess he didn’t get finished what you started the first time so they had to bring you back.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. O’DRISCOLL: Just in the frustration part, and I see that from the Member for Torngat Mountains, I’ve been at this for six years and so have everybody over here, except some people have been here a bit longer. We’ve been trying to get some roadwork completed, some brush cutting completed, I’m going to say bridges completed, equipment for the depots. We’ve certainly been trying and we’ve been at it.

We speak to a minister; you change the minister and then, all of a sudden, we have to start all over again. I do believe the MHA for Torngat Mountains, I believe you do it to make us start all over again, because it’s so frustrating.

So now when I spoke to a minister yesterday, we had a good conversation, I asked him: Who’s your EA now? Did she go with you? We’ve got to learn that all over again and then make sure that we’re getting the – I spoke with Crown Lands. The person called me this evening wondering if I did speak to the minister and if he had spoken to the new minister regarding his Crown lands application, that’s the issue that’s going on. That’s been ongoing for months. I certainly spoke to the minister and he’s been good on that subject. Now he just wants me to make sure that he’s passing it on to the next minister, where it sits because we still haven’t got it solved. It’s in the process of getting it solved but it’s not done.

That’s because we’ve had to change ministers. We have to go through all this work again and getting all the information and your EA numbers – your numbers haven’t changed, but you know sometimes you send out a text, you’re in dire need to get that information right away, we’re not sure who your EA is.

B. PETTEN: The minister doesn’t know which department they’re in.

L. O’DRISCOLL: And I would say from the last Cabinet shuffle you had, that no –

B. PETTEN: The minister doesn’t know which department they’re in.

L. O’DRISCOLL: Yeah, for sure.

You know, we’re not sure who your EAs are, that’s certainly a big one, and our CAs are trying to call your people to get some work solved and get some stuff completed, but they have to go through the whole rigmarole to finding that out.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER (Trimper): Order, please!

L. O’DRISCOLL: So the last time the Cabinet was shuffled, we haven’t received from the government a full list of names from the previous shuffle now and your EAs. Now, we get them over a period of time. He got one, I’ll ask that MHA there, I’ll ask him if you’ve got a number for – who’s his EA now or who’s her EA. So that’s important to have and, I’ll just say, they did a Cabinet shuffle again, how long before we have all the numbers?

That’s just something that comes up as time consuming. It’s very annoying that you have to go – same thing in Health, four different ministers in Health. We have a new one now that’s started three or four days, and for some issues you have to start all over again. I met with two ministers yesterday or the day before, and same thing, I’ve got to start all over.

I just want to give them the story and giving you the story, personally, is what makes it happen a little faster, if there’s any way to make it happen. It’s just something that we’ve been trying to do.

I’ll get back to some other good stuff going on in the district, but before I go any further, before I forget, I’ve got to wish my CA – tomorrow’s her birthday and I have to wish her a happy birthday today.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. O’DRISCOLL: For the record, it’s the same one, yes. I will say I would be lost without her; she does a great job, I got to say, and I want to wish her happy birthday.

I will touch on cellphone coverage; everybody has brought that up. I drive up and down my district. I can start from where I drive to go to St. Shott’s and how many times I lose cellphone coverage. I leave Bay Bulls, lose it in Tors Cove, pick it up in Cape Broyle, lose it on top of Calvert hill, lose it in Ferryland, pick it up again in Fermeuse, you don’t get it at all in Aquaforte. You go through Renews, you lose it on the stretch going to Cappahayden, then you lose it going from Portugal Cove South to Biscay Bay, there are areas. Cellphone coverage is just so bad in my district.

You’re trying to go to a meeting and you have calls that you make. How many MHAs in here are making calls while you’re driving? We all do it. Everyone does it. You’re driving along, you have your Bluetooth on and you’re making calls. There’s no one here who won’t be able to shake their heads and say no, I’m not doing that, because that’s happening every time you leave here. You’re on the phone or you’re trying to get stuff done.

But when you’re driving in districts like I got and the cellphone coverage is so bad, the first thing you say when you speak to them is: I may lose you, but I’ll call you when I get to another spot, or you’ve got to haul in. You’re going to a meeting. If you have to drive an hour and a half to Trepassey, you haul in and say, well, I’ve got five minutes; if not, I’ve got to get going. If not, I’m going to be late for my meeting, and that’s just the way it is.

So, you know, that should be improved. Why is it this day and age, everybody, all your kids and grandkids or whatever it is, pay $100 each per cellphone, I would think. If you’re not, you’re not on a package. You’re paying $100 per cellphone, I’m paying in my household $200 a month for two phones, and that’s every household or anyone who got a cellphone. That is definitely happening, no question; definitely happening, $100. I don’t know if anyone could tell me any different. Maybe you might get it for $70 or $80, but it would be very unlikely you will.

You’re spending $100 per cellphone and that’s one house, I’m paying $200. Think about all the houses that are in Newfoundland and Labrador and you tell me that Bell Aliant is going to tell us, well, we’re not going to put a tower here or we’re going to pull out of Labrador. The money that they’re making off these phones and they can’t put in the infrastructure to do it. We should be pounding on their door to get this stuff done. We should be pounding on the door. It’s not done.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: They just pulled out of Labrador?

L. O’DRISCOLL: Yeah, they just pulled out of Labrador. Yes, they did.

I’ll do Education, because I was in a class last week, as I said, but some of the classrooms that I was in last week, they had 25 or 26 students per class, which is pretty good. Next year, because the classes are combining or merging, they’re going to lose one class of Grade 4s and the classes are now going to be upwards of 30.

Now who decided all that? After having three Grade 3 classes of 25; next year they’re going to cut out one class of Grade 4s and they’re going to merge them into two. Now I don’t know the wisdom in all that or where that comes from, but it makes no sense. It makes no sense at all. But it is happening.

They have concerns. I said: Well, you’re going to have to go speaking to them. You’re going to have to your reps and whoever you’re dealing with and the school boards. It’s unbelievable, what they’re doing – it’s unbelievable.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

L. O’DRISCOLL: No, that’s right.

It’s happening in the school, and I would say the schools in my – well, let’s go back to schools for a second. Don’t want to go down that road, but go back to schools. When I first got in here, up in Mobile they had a school that was ready to be signed off, the election was called and didn’t get cancelled. The Liberals came in and cancelled the school.

That have one over in Port de Grave. They got one in Labrador. They got one Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s. So all that stuff went on, yes, it all went on. That school was gone. They all got the schools. Kenmount Terrace is getting one. Hopefully Paradise is going to get one, yeah.

Good they are, I’m glad for them, but it’s funny they can cancel the ones in the District of Ferryland. The school is overrun in St. Bernard’s. I’ll tell you what the problem is. The Grade 5s and 6s that were in elementary school are moving up to the high school right now. That’s where they’re located now. They have a separate section on that school. That’s eventually going to be overrun. Again, it’s going to happen.

But no, they all get their schools. They’re all in Liberal districts, every one of them. Sad, really, it’s sad. When you’re looking at doing things right, that’s sad – totally sad.

I will say that the summer students came out and this year we did have a bit of say in what was happening. I thank the former minister for that. We did get a say. This year we had $70,000, I think. Everybody had – well, on this side everybody had $70,000, I don’t know about the other side.

I don’t know what they gave out last year. I did put in a request, but I didn’t receive it back to what they gave out last year in my district. Just wanted to be sure if somebody did get one or didn’t get one or if it’s recreation groups.

In my area, I had a request for $350,000 worth of students. I’m sure that a lot of districts had the same or pretty close. Some people had more. I think one person had $700,000. Imagine, $700,000. Out of that $70,000 I have 36 different organizations that we have to try to fill these student positions. Obviously, everybody didn’t get a student. That just didn’t happen. Me, personally, I try to take care of not-for-profits and then what happens after that. They’re recreation groups, not-for-profits, whatever they’re doing.

The Members’ statement I did today on Goulds there that they could use a student in there as a not-for-profit to be growing vegetables and help them through the summer. Whether it be 20 hours a week that goes in and helps them. It’s all a help.

I had a person last year, and I will say that the former minister, after giving out all the jobs this, lady didn’t get one and she did get a summer student after. So that stuff does happen, but there is such a request out there for summer students that it’s incredible.

With federal making cuts, it makes it even harder on us here because you get bigger demands. Now, someone called me today. They didn’t get any federal students; $25,000 or $30,000 and never had their name in to me to get any students. Now, what do I do?

I’m certainly going to go back to the minister and see if there’s anything left that they’d be able to help out with this group. It’s a recreation group. It’s not somebody that owns a company looking for a student to go to work; these are a recreation groups that they’re running softball programs during the summer with kids that go down there. It’d be after school – well, it won’t be after-school programs, but they’re summer programs that they go down and if it’s rainy days, they’re in the building doing arts. If not, they’re out playing soccer or softball or doing hiking around the community.

I think she said there was 60 kids that were in that last year. So they need four or five students, and they just don’t have it. I don’t have it to give to them. They didn’t apply so that was the rule. I am going to check it. That’s some of the stuff that we’re up against on the Opposition and I’m sure on the government side too. It’s just not a bottomless pit, I’m sure, but we try to make the best and do the best we can for what we get handed, for sure.

Again, I’ll go on to TI. I’ve only got two minutes left and I wanted to spend a lot more time on TI because he’s my favourite minister, for sure. There’s no question. In my district, I have some brush cutting that I’ve asked – again, I had to go back. I sent him an email yesterday with seven different projects that we’re working on and one is a start on brush cutting.

AN HON. MEMBER: Seven?

L. O’DRISCOLL: Yes, seven now. Imagine, there a long time, too. Hopefully, we’re going to get some of them solved and some of them are not too bad, but I think we could work on getting them done. Brush cutting is one. I know we had a contract this year that brush cutting was started up there. The company took the equipment and left, and I sent a few emails. They’re supposed to be back this week. As of yesterday, they weren’t there.

E. LOVELESS: We got to get them back.

L. O’DRISCOLL: I’ve been after your department to get them back. So that’s what I’m waiting on, waiting to get them back there. Hopefully when they get back there, we’ll get a contract for some more brush cutting in the district because there’s a lot more.

I will say driving home last night, about 10:30, going through just past Big Pond, going to Middle Pond, I saw a vehicle stopped in the middle of the road, lights flashing. There was a car in front of me. They just kept on going. They slowed down, but they kept on going. When I stopped, put down the window and said, are you okay? She said: Yes, I just missed a moose.

Now, she was terrified. I said: Well, there’s a car coming the other way. Leave your emergencies on but you had better move off the middle of the road. She had such a fright, she just stayed there. But brush cutting is important. In that area, it gave her a chance, and I would say when I drove home last night, the area I drove was good. No problem to see in that area but it’s still dark and whatever. That’s going to happen.

There’s more brush cutting needed in the district and hopefully speaking to the minister, he hears me and we’ll be able to get some more brush cutting. Everybody put in a list last year and hopefully we’ll be able to get some more brush cutting in the district.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Thank you.

I now call on the Member for Topsail - Paradise.

P. DINN: Thank you, Speaker.

I just want to briefly talk about – and I’ve done it before – the positions we all hold, all 40 of us as MHAs. What we do, I guess, the main role of us is to serve the people who have elected us, especially those in our district and as the whole province. Despite what some people outside would seem to say, it’s not an easy job. At times, it can wear on you.

Some of my colleagues touched on it already, on some of the issues: not being able to sleep, thinking about this, thinking about that, and it’s true. I think, at the heart of it, we’re all here to serve the people. Different approaches but we should be here – and I don’t have any doubt that we’re not – to serve the people. MHAs, we’re a last resort. The people who call us are those who have gone everywhere and cannot get the answer they’re looking for or cannot get an answer, so we’re the last resort.

I made a comment a little while back. The Member for Fortune Bay- Cape La Hune and the Member for Harbour Grace - Port de Grave called me out on it. I totally understand where they were coming from, because I certainly didn’t explain myself as well as I should have. We all have outstanding CAs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. DINN: We all have outstanding CAs, and I want to make that clear. But the little difference I was trying to make is – well, every one of you are ministers now, but you all have staff. You all have multiple staff under you that can do the job of either writing letters for you or whatever. I was one of those staff at one point. But I know on our side, a district office with that one individual takes a lot, a lot of calls on a very, very wide range of issues. I don’t know what we would do with our CAs, on both sides.

But it can bring you down. Every now and then, when you can find a solution and help someone, that recharges your batteries and away you go.

So when we look at the budget, it’s a lot like a Christmas wish list for people out there who come to you and say I want this, I’d like to see this, I’d like to see that. Like any household, we can only afford this, or we can only afford that, but you can’t have it all. At some point in time, you have to prioritize. Okay, what is it that we need the most?

When I look at this budget, and I listened to the Premier the other night talk about what they’ve done here, here, here and here, I started thinking of an old story I used to read on Johnny Appleseed. Johnny Appleseed was a character who went around the country spreading seeds. Here, there, wherever. Some of those seeds would take, some of those seeds would be eaten by birds and some of those seeds would grow into a fine apple tree. I look at the budget as doing that more than focusing on some of the major issues and fixing them.

The past premier talked about the budget and said this is not an aggressive budget. That was his words. It is not an aggressive budget, and in the same sentence he talked about caretaker. Now I’m not sure if he was talking about he was in the caretaker mode or the budget was in the caretaker mode, but the point being, not an aggressive budget.

We have these issues out there, and I’ve talked to many earlier, different things that the people want, and trying to prioritize those greater needs because you can’t be everything to everyone, you can’t. Very basic, but there are some things, health care. Health care is a prime area. The Premier said it, our leader said it and Member for CBS said it. Health care is prime. If you don’t have your health, what do you have? There’s lots that can be done in health care.

When I look at the budget, again, there’s a lot of announcements and there’s a lot of reannouncements. It’s a lot of some of the same stuff, the same money being forward ahead. You get the impression – you lose the confidence that is there a plan here? Is there a plan? Now yes, there may be, no, there may be – it’s not evident.

You look at the Health Accord. She talked about a human resource plan for health. We haven’t seen it yet – we haven’t seen it yet. We hear about they’ve recruited so many doctors or so many nurses. We never hear the other end of the equation, how many left. But how does that fit into your plan, that you’re supposed to have? We have not seen that plan.

It’s the same for education. Where’s the plan for education? I ask questions today. Yes, we’re going to hire 400 educators and TLAs for $20 million. Well, where are they going? How did you come up with that figure?

The new Minister of Education said earlier the week, oh, 245 of them are going to be teachers. Do the math, take the average salary of a teacher and those 245 are going to use up almost $18 million. So out of that other two-point-so million, you’re going to hire another, I think the minister said, 170 TLAs. Now I know, from PISA scores, they tell us that we’re doing poorly in math here in this province, in education.

I would have to say the same about the math that’s used for that $20 million. Because you just cannot hire 240 teachers and the remainder in TLAs for $20 million, unless they’re all being hired for two or three hours here – I don’t know. So we’d like to see the plan for that. Again, it’s all in the details.

Education, we have all agreed, we are looking at our most valuable resource in this province, and that is our youth. Those are the people we need to keep in school. We have an Education Accord; January of 2024 it was announced. We’re going to have an accord, it’ll answer all our questions. I believe the press release from the department said it would be released on New Year’s Eve, or by New Year’s Eve, the end of 2024.

Of course, I responded to that media at that time and said, well, I listed off eight or nine reports: the absenteeism report; the premier’s report back in 2017 that said now is the time to act; teacher retention; the post-COVID report; and the reports go on and on. I know that at that point I said, what you’re going to produce will be mainly a rehash of these reports that sat on shelves.

So come January, what do we see? They release a report but it’s not the report. It’s an interim report, which was essentially a What We Heard document and what reports we already had. That was essentially the content of the Education Accord report and promised, the main report we would have by the end of March. Not next March but this past March. So we’re two months in now waiting on that report.

That goes back to these announcements and reannouncements. What confidence can anyone have in this government when there are announcements after reannouncements and nothing is done? IVF, promised five years ago; haven’t seen it. Now it’s kicked down the road for another year. We have families, young women out there who want to start families in this province and want to stay in this province and contribute to our demographics and our population.

Think of that young woman five years ago, we’re getting an IVF clinic. Six years later, nothing. Time doesn’t wait for these individuals. It’s a heartbreak and people have come up to me because I’ve advocated on it. Parents of children who want to have families and say, can you keep doing this for us? Can you keep advocating for us?

We’re only one of two provinces in the country that don’t have it. PEI is the other. They can drive across Confederation Bridge, which down the road is probably going to be free. It’s going to free to go across that bridge.

We talk about a population growth. We’ve had a population growth mainly due to immigration. We don’t dispute that because I guarantee you every province in this country will need or does need immigrants. But what are we doing for those at home, those who want to start a family? We should be doing all we can. What are we doing for housing for everyone who are coming in here? We need to do more there.

What are we doing about our classroom sizes and the complexities in our classrooms when you have children who are coming in who need English as a Second Language training? What are we doing? What are we doing for those professionals that come from away and bring their family? What are we doing for the family, the spouse to find work and to stay here?

Most immigrants that come to this province, at the five-year point in time, a good portion of them are no longer here – fact. They may be here this year, next year, the year after, but by the time you hit year five, a good proportion are gone. They’ve gone to MTV: Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. We have groups like the Association for New Canadians who do a fantastic job, and we have to build those welcoming communities, and we have to be able to provide them with the basics, no different than we need to provide our own grown Newfoundlanders and Labradorians here with the basics as well.

We talked about food banks. I talked earlier about SOAR, the Spirit of Alex and Riley, and the food drive they did. They also do a toy drive. They collect barrels of toys every Christmas to give to those families who have nothing and nothing to look forward to.

That’s where the people part comes in play. We have our different views. We have our different approaches, but we should never lose sight of what the end goal is, and that is to make our province the best for any resident, from here or away, to stay.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. DINN: We have to set them up to succeed and not fail, and we have offered solutions. You know, I’ve talked many times about the continuous glucose monitoring devices, and how much that would save – $100 million a year and taking the strain off our health care system.

We just learned with the shingles vaccine, a report that it would reduce dementia by 20 per cent – 20 per cent. What a cost taken off our health care system. Speaker, $2 billion is the cost of dementia in Canada. That’s huge. These are investments. These are investments that not only have a return financially, but residents of our province can live the life they want to live. Better quality of life; less chance of strokes; less chance of heart attacks; less chance of kidney failure requiring dialysis; 70 per cent less of non-traumatic amputations; and the leading cause of blindness.

If that’s not a common-sense investment, they’d better change the definition of it in the dictionary, because it is so much a common-sense approach to saving some money here that they can reinvest as well as helping those who need it the most.

I do want to take the last – I’ve got a few minutes yet. I do want to talk about our volunteers. You know, like I said, I mentioned Louise and Bernie Mercer and I have to say, where would we be without our volunteers? Priceless – we could not afford them. All the Lions Clubs, the Kin Clubs, the church clubs, the CLB, you name them, there are so many of them out there that do so much for our communities. We need to ensure that they get the supports they need.

I can’t sit down without also speaking to something near and dear to my heart which I’ve advocated for, for almost 12 years now, and that’s a high school and intermediate school in Paradise. Something back in 2013 when I became deputy mayor of Paradise that we were able to get in the budget. That was a previous PC budget in 2015.

We know when the Liberal government came in, it was deferred indefinitely. The high school and the other one were deferred a couple of years. We hit COVID and all that delayed it, but here we are now and able to form a parents’ committee to help advocate for this, and they’ve been fantastic. They’ve been fantastic in getting the message out that we need a high school in Paradise. Government has come on board and announced the high school and, very recently, the location of the high school.

The location of the high school has caused some concern for residents of Paradise, in particular the committee. Because all along the residents were told that there would be a high school to accommodate all high school students in Paradise without negatively affecting the neighbouring high schools. That was said.

But at the announcement of the location for the high school, it was said the high school would accommodate 600 to 700 students from the previous minister. That does not cover all the high school students in Paradise. You would need a school to accommodate at least 900 students. That’s what you would need.

In Estimates, I asked a question of the minister then, the past minister, and I’m waiting to get the Hansard back because when I brought the issue up to her in Estimates, I’m not clear on what she said. I will tell you, and this is where the clarity comes in, she said something to the effect that I may have misspoke.

I don’t know if she misspoke in the media release, for 600 to 700 students, or she misspoke in the school being able to accommodate all Paradise high school students. So I’ll be looking for the clarification there because that has caused a bit of angst amongst the individuals. Again, I was going to approach the – well, she’s not the minister of Education anymore.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

P. DINN: Yes, I did not approach her because I wanted to make sure I got the written Hansard to be sure of what exactly was said because you may have given me the answer I wanted as opposed to the one I didn’t want. So judging from the comments coming from over there across – and I don’t want to misspeak – but it seems that the high school will accommodate all high school students in Paradise and not negatively affect the neighbouring high schools. I’m glad I got clarity on that tonight in my last two seconds.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Thank you.

I now call on the Member for the beautiful District of Cape St. Francis.

J. WALL: Thank you, Speaker.

SPEAKER: In honour of our friend.

J. WALL: In honour of our friend.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. WALL: I appreciate that.

Speaker, it is always a pleasure to stand in this hon. House and speak on behalf of my constituents in Cape St. Francis, and at this late hour, have the opportunity to speak again today to Budget 2025.

Speaker, it was spoken a lot here today from my colleagues about choices, and I promised my colleague from Harbour Main I’m not going to get into a couple of verses from George Jones when it comes to that. Actually, Speaker, the Government House Leader said earlier tonight that I should follow in the footsteps of Jacob Lewis, but I don’t think I will. I think I’ll stay where I’m to. I enjoy the position –

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you want to start a band?

J. WALL: Start a band.

Speaker, this budget is about choices. Government did have the opportunity, did have the chance to make the choices in this budget that would make lives better, enhance the lives for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and especially at a time when we have so many people struggling. This budget contains lots when we’re looking at spending, with respect to borrowing, but when you’re looking at the little planning, or bold ideas to help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians during this frustrating time of uncertainty.

I do know earlier today my colleague from Exploits spoke about the Dr. Hugh Twomey ER in Botwood, and that was a choice for this particular government. I listened to my colleague from Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans with respect to the Premier’s office in Grand Falls-Windsor, and that was a choice of government. I listened to my colleague from Stephenville - Port au Port, when he spoke about predominantly seniors paying out of pocket for the ability to see a nurse practitioner. Again, that is a choice of government not to cover the cost of paying for nurse practitioners.

We spoke at length with respect to the shingles vaccine and how that was a choice of government. Following our PMR that we presented on that particular day, we now know of course with respect to the sugar tax – that was a choice that this government brought in at the time; I believe it was three years ago, and now we know that it’s being removed. When? We don’t know, but we were told that it’s going to be removed. We’ve spoken many times over the course of this sitting of the House with respect to services being eroded in rural health care.

Now, Speaker, there are many, many areas that this budget does not address for the people of the province. I do know that my colleague for Harbour Main spoke about it several times with respect to the budget not addressing the need for more mobile mental health crisis response teams here in the province. Now I do know that Budget 2024 did promise the new teams. It was 2024, which, a year later, are still not up and running.

When you look at choices, those are choices that this government is making. I do know, having the privilege of sitting on the All-Party Committee for Mental Health and Addictions, the importance of those mobile health crisis response teams and the difference that they would make to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians on a daily basis. Again, Speaker, that was a choice.

Another choice that this government ignored – and again, my colleague from Harbour Main spoke on it earlier today – are the recommendations of the National Police Federation. The National Police Federation called for 25 more RCMP officers in our province.

Speaker, I live in an area of this province where it’s serviced by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, but I do know working with the Northeast Avalon Joint Council, having been a member of that and now sitting in as MHA, the great importance that RCMP members provide to the areas that they serve. I commend them for the work that they do. But when the National Police Federation calls for 25 more officers in our province and those 25 officers are not there, that does provide a gap in service and response to the people of our province. That was a choice by this government when we are looking at choices of what’s in the budget and what’s not.

In addition to that government failed to fill – and I stand to be corrected if any Members opposite want to correct me, but I firmly believe that government failed to fill 100 police vacancies in addition to the hiring of the 25 more RCMP officers.

Speaker, when you add all that up and you look at the difference it makes to response time, the difference that it makes to operational patrols on our highways and when you look at the effect it has on addressing crime and making our communities safer, that is huge. It is huge when you have 25 less RCMP that should be there and 100 vacancies throughout our province and, if I’m not mistaken, that is with both police forces.

It is no surprise to the people of our province, and especially to the Members of this hon. House, that the crime rate has increased over the past number of years in our beautiful province. I’m only 51 years old and I remember living home as a boy, our doors were not locked.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

J. WALL: Speaker, the Member opposite said I looks older than that. Well, do you know what? I remember at a time when we didn’t lock our doors, when keys were left in vehicles and, again, that’s not too long ago. But I can certainly tell you, Speaker, that is not the case now when people lock their car doors, they lock their houses while they’re in their homes in the daytime. Because property crime, violent crime, drug-related offences throughout our province have increased.

When you look at it, Speaker, the crime has increased and the severity of the crime has increased. We have an increase in crime, we have an increase in our population, no doubt, in our province, but the number of police officers have not increased. That is, again, a choice that was made by this government that is not in the budget that does affect the province as a whole.

Speaker, when we have communities that don’t have the appropriate number of police officers, it’s a simple fact, we’re going to experience more crime and the residents of our province, many of whom are seniors who are feeling this – and we, collectively, I’m sure in all our districts we hear the same thing – they feel unsafe. They simply feel unsafe and that is truly unacceptable.

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have a very extremely important role to play in our province. They certainly help protect the people of our province on a daily basis.

As I said earlier, my colleague from Harbour Main has spoken many times in this hon. House, spoken extensively with respect to debate and petitions for the need for additional officers throughout our province. I don’t think anyone here in this hon. House will oppose that with respect to the need of additional officers.

Speaker, we can only look at what these brave men and women face every day. When we look at what they deal with, what they have to face, there are many factors contributing to the rise in crime in our province. Again, it comes full circle.

When we look at homelessness – and I spoke previously to this budget, yesterday, with respect to homelessness – we have 2,535 people on the wait-list for Newfoundland and Labrador Housing. Out of that 2,535, we have 430 – if I can remember them correctly – who are homeless.

So if we have homelessness in our province, we have food insecurity – I spoke about that as well, Speaker, with respect to food insecurity. When we look at both of those, that leads into a deteriorating mental health and wellness of our residents.

When we look at the calls that both police forces in our province face, dealing with mental health and wellness calls, they have certainly increased. We’re seeing that through both police forces and we’re seeing that through our ambulatory services, our emergency response. There’s definitely a connection between mental health and wellness and crime and homelessness and food insecurity. It’s all related; it all comes full circle.

Speaker, we look at and we see in the media each day about the repeat offenders and the impact these repeat offenders are having on our province. As one of my colleagues said, it’s like a revolving door. Again, when you look at a catch-and-release program, that affects the mental health and well-being, it affects our security in our homes, it affects how we feel safe simply in our communities.

I go back to a comment my colleague from Harbour Main made earlier with respect to drugs in our communities and in our province, and it was only last week – I believe it was May 7, a week ago today –with respect to the largest seizure of fentanyl here in our province’s history. Just imagine, in our province’s history, it was the largest seizure of fentanyl, that could be devastating had it got into the hands and, of course, out into the streets and to the public.

It’s unbelievable when you consider what could have happened. Again, congratulations to the police officers with respect to dealing with that. Had there been more officers, had all vacancies been filled, probably wouldn’t have got to that point. We would have possibly caught more people, who knows? But it comes full circle back, Speaker, and I want to tie it back into the choices that are being made by this government and what’s in this budget.

I know my colleague from Topsail - Paradise said earlier today that there are good things in this budget. We are not disputing that. There are good things in this budget. But the things that are not in this budget is how we deal with it all and how it affects the people of the province.

So, Speaker, we have many factors that impact our communities and the people of our communities. We have many people – I’m hearing about it on a regular basis – residents who are expressing anxiety about the level of crime we have, not feeling safe in their homes, and I go back to my district. Back in the fall, there was a rash of break-ins and police couldn’t keep ahead of it, breaking into homes, breaking into businesses, into sheds and garages and places of employment. They just could not keep ahead of it.

I do know that there’s a major strain on our police resources. I go back to being mayor of Pouch Cove, when we met regularly with the other mayors on the Northeast Avalon, and the operational patrol services, we looked for increases there. Because simple traffic stops, Speaker, make a big difference when you’re dealing with crime, when you’re dealing with drugs. It all comes full circle. Had we had more officers on the road, patrolling our streets, it would make a huge difference as a whole with respect to safer communities and the seizure of drugs and what have you. In addition to fines with respect to speeding and motor vehicles and what have you.

Speaker, when we look at this as a whole, the budget does not address the need for more mobile crisis response teams. It ignored the recommendations of the National Police Federation with respect to the 25 additional officers. We are dealing with a housing crisis, again, which perpetuates crime. If someone doesn’t have a place to live and they don’t have a proper place to call home, it only leads to crime. We have those experiencing homelessness.

All of this in relation to the high cost of living and the declining mental health and wellness of our residents leads us to believe that we need more Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and more RCMP officers, and that does make a difference as a whole to our collective well-being here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Speaker, it was mentioned earlier today that this is Police Week, and I know I speak on behalf of all 40 members of this hon. House when we salute all police officers who each and every day risk harm to themselves to keep the public safe. As MHA for Cape St. Francis, I thank them publicly. Speaker, I have many friends within the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. I have family members in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and we all hear through the media what they face on a regular basis, the harm that they’re put themselves in to keep us safe, and it does – it’s very alarming when just based on the job that they have to do first and foremost, let alone if they’re working with less staff than what they should have.

So if there’s one thing with respect to the Premier and the Minister of Finance, as they listen to us here in His Majesty’s Official Opposition, as my colleague from Conception Bay South said earlier, we bring these issues and concerns to the floor of the House, is to make the right choice when it comes to our Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, our RCMP, and have the numbers that we should have here in the province.

Both forces do an awesome, awesome job with respect to keeping the people of our province safe, to keep what we have in good order, and we just want them to feel safe in their workplace with respect to doing their job on a daily basis. So if there’s one thing I wish the Premier and the Finance Minister to take away from that is for smart choices when it comes to our emergency response.

Speaker, I just want to say, because this is going to be the last opportunity I’ll have to speak to the budget – and I do know that my colleague from Ferryland said earlier with respect to a change in ministers and a change in staff, that can be frustrating. No doubt, it can be frustrating, when you’re looking at dealing with your constituents, the issues that they bring forward, and reaching out to the appropriate people.

It does come down to having good working relationships on both sides of this House. It comes down to having respect for Members of this hon. House. I pride myself on that, with respect to showing respect, to having good working relationships. We are here for the betterment of our constituents.

I know, as I come to work when this House is open and we’re here, I do show that. I appreciate when respect is shown. But I also want to make known that when we stand in our places and we bring these concerns to this House, that respect shown here is also appreciated. I do appreciate that.

So, Speaker, I just want to say thank you for the good working relationships that I have with the ministers, and of course their staff. It goes a long way when we are helping our constituents in the best way we can.

My colleague from Topsail - Paradise said earlier we don’t know what kind of calls we’re going to get on a daily basis. Our CAs, God love them; we don’t know where we’d be without them. We’ve had that conversation before, Speaker, and I want to give a shout-out to my CA, Barb, who does a wonderful job of keeping me in line and it’s a full-time job.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. WALL: So I can certainly tell you that.

AN HON. MEMBER: With overtime.

J. WALL: With overtime.

Speaker, I thank you for your attention, it’s always a pleasure to speak in this hon. House, and I always appreciate the attention of the Members opposite.

Thank you kindly, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER (Bennett): The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay.

L. PADDOCK: Thank you, Speaker.

It’s a pleasure this evening to be able to get up and speak to the budget amendment, an amendment that was brought in a month ago. If I remember correctly, that amendment was related to nurse practitioners.

So I’m going to speak this evening and highlight some issues across my district, Baie Verte - Green Bay, but also pick up some stuff since I’m, I believe, the last speaker for the PC caucus with regard to the amendment, in my role as Finance critic as well.

Let me start first on the point of nurse practitioners. Speaker, we are in a health care crisis. There’s a model out there and that model of leveraging nurse practitioners is proven. It’s proven across Northern Canada, other jurisdictions. If we look at where our numbers are going, they’re continuing to get worse. I think we only have to go out and engage the citizens across our individual districts and they will tell those stories. In fact, we’ve been bringing those stories to the floor of the House of Assembly, especially during Question Period.

What can we do with nurse practitioners? Well, the Leader of the Official Opposition talked about providing them the capacity to bill MCP. We need to be able to take pressure off the system. In my area, as I highlighted earlier today, if we were leveraging nurse practitioners, we would take pressure off Baie Verte - Springdale, which in turn would take considerable pressure off Central Newfoundland, the hospital in Grand Falls-Windsor and then, by default, across the entire health care system in the province.

Then I would also say, we need to look at how we grow the inventory of nurse practitioners within the province. We have a number of nursing students that want to go that route. They want a career here in Newfoundland and Labrador. They’re not looking to go to Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, Newfoundland being just a pitstop. No, they want a career here in Newfoundland and Labrador in the health field. I think it behooves government to set the conditions to help them achieve that. Then, in so doing, we would take considerable pressure off the entire health care system in the province.

Now, the current government has no intent, it seems, in doing that, but when we form government, that will be done.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: The next point I’d like to talk about is the $200 million in contingency. We’re now a month and a half into the fiscal year and still no plan, still no idea of how that contingency is going to be used or if it’s going to be used.

Let me highlight a couple of things with that contingency. What was highlighted, I guess, a month ago, was that it was for addressing impacts on businesses related to tariffs. Let me highlight a couple of examples. We’ve had some of our fishing industry, particularly shrimp – shrimp has faced significant tariffs from China. What level of support are we looking to provide to them?

We’ve also had a number of businesses – anybody that’s tied to the auto sector, and I’ll give you a case in point. There’s a plant in Point Leamington, in Exploits, and then there’s a plant in my district as well in Springdale: Superior Glove. Superior Glove had to pull back staffing to address the pullback that’s happening in the auto sector. That is tariff related. Is there going to be any support there for them?

These are legitimate questions. If you say you have a contingency fund related to tariffs, then please, give some indication of how that’s going to be used across the businesses here in the province. If you’re not, then sobeit.

From my accounting, I would expect now, based on what the Premier has highlighted in the past couple of days, that we’re going to need about $20 million of that contingency right now. One, to address the elimination of the sugar tax – that’s a smart move – and the other $4.5 million to address shingles vaccine for those over 50. My numbers there is approximate based on what the Province of Nova Scotia is incurring.

Again, it would be useful, in the name of transparency, to provide some clarity of how that funding for those two line items, sugar tax and the shingles vaccine, is going to be executed within the budget.

I’d like to speak about a percolating issue within my district. That is the school, and I’m very thankful for that school. That’s in Pilley’s Island: Dorset Collegiate. That’s the redevelopment of Dorset Collegiate. That’s going to collapse, essentially, the school in Robert’s Arm, the junior school, and the same with the junior school in Triton. So it’s going to be a K to 12 for all of Green Bay South, in Pilley’s Island.

The issue there, and as the Town of Pilley’s Island has sent to the Minister of Transportation and Works and to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, we now have a water supply issue in the Town of Pilley’s Island. So it behooves now government to ensure that the baseline infrastructure is there – meaning from water and sewer – to be able to support that redevelopment of that school. It's a good plan, the redevelopment, but we must ensure that the water supply is adequate for it.

Now, over the next few minutes I’ll quickly highlight some of the business, commercial and industry-related interests across my district, and some economic driver impacts on them. So first let’s talk about three of our mega-renewable projects. Fishing: So fishing in my area, we’ve got both fish harvesters, plant workers; we also have aquaculture.

A key concern in my area – and which should be for the entire province, because this is an opportunity to mitigate our end-year deficit – is the lack of a mackerel fishery. There’s absolutely no reason to not have a mackerel fishery. So I would encourage the new Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture to engage with their federal counterpart, who’s a Newfoundlander as well, to ensure that we can get a mackerel fishery in place.

The second point is with regard to northern cod. The northern cod, as we’ve seen for the cod showing up in crab pots along both 3K and 3L, northern cod is back in significant numbers, and we need an allocation of that for our inshore fishery. That’s again an opportunity for that fishery to help mitigate the financial impact on the province. So I would again encourage the minister to be writing her federal counterpart for that.

Now, when we talk about fishery, there’s one thing this time of year that a number of people start to consider and that is the food fishery and the dates for it. A number of Newfoundlanders that live away, I say they’re Newfoundlanders even though they’re living in another province because for them they will always be Newfoundlanders, they look to book their vacation based on the dates of that food fishery.

Again, every year we’re in this time frame of when the dates are going to be announced. We need to do what is right for our tourism industry. We need to do what is right for our residents to ensure that the food fishery is there and is both fair and equitable for Newfoundland and Labrador compared to the rest of Atlantic Canada.

Forestry in my district is significant with a lot of operations supporting Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, smaller sawmills and some small sawmill operations supporting lumber activities. I have one sawmill in my district that’s looking for a small increase. The reason they are looking for that small increase is to support the mining industry. If they are unable to do that, then the mine down on the Baie Verte Peninsula is going to have to import that from outside the province. Does that make sense? Does that really make sense? We have an opportunity here to expand rural Newfoundland labour. We have an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas. We have an opportunity to increase revenue to the province in two capacities: fee from timber and also with regards to both corporate revenue through their expansion.

Let’s do what is right. This reduced the cost impact on that mine and will also expand rural economic development.

Agriculture in my area, now, we’re starting to see the expansion of hydroponics. I think that’s an opportunity for the entire province to get behind because it’s an opportunity to lower and expand food production in the province but also lower the cost of food stuff for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

The one thing that we keep coming back to in agriculture, in my area and really across all of Central Newfoundland, is the opportunity to have a federally regulated slaughterhouse. Now my colleague from Exploits put a press release out on that and went into detail about the need and the impact of doing it, so why government won’t do it simply makes no sense. We have an opportunity to take control of our destiny with regard to food production and lower the meat cost on many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Tourism is a potential renewable megaproject in my area as well. As I highlighted this afternoon, one of the impacts with that is roads. We need a five-year road plan. Last May, there was a promise: two kilometres in Rattling Brook, 3.5 in Coachman’s Cove, two kilometres in Harry’s Harbour. Probably the former minister of Transportation and Infrastructure can remember helping to make those promises. It would be nice if they were actually honoured.

I’ll come now to one that’s not a renewable megaproject but it’s on the verge of being a massive megaproject in all of Central Newfoundland and Labrador and that is mining. Again, with mining we have the challenge of roads. I know in my area, the Town of Baie Verte, Ming’s Bight, King’s Point, Springdale have sent letters specifically asking what they need in the short term to be able to expedite on those mining opportunities.

As we expand the mining in my area, but across Central Newfoundland and Labrador, there are two intersections that are of significant risk and I’ve highlighted those to Transportation and Infrastructure. Those two intersections are the intersection at 390, I’ve sent multiple emails and the last email I sent, I went and pulled the stats from the RCMP going back three years. That would shock you. Now those stats and stuff I’ll probably bring to the floor of the House very soon. We have to do what is right for the residents there. The communities are asking for it, the residents are asking for it, the first responders are asking for it, at a minimum reduce the speed.

Then down at the intersection of 410, 414, Baie Verte Highway going to La Scie, a significant right-hand turn with the increase in ore traffic, it is an accident waiting to happen. All we’re asking for is a little bit of lighting and a little bit of guardrail. Let’s do what is right for those residents.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PADDOCK: I’m going to keep on track of all of these intersections over the next while and I pray to God that there is no accident.

Now to close, I’d like to close on my role as Finance critic. As Finance critic, we’re back and forth on data and how we view where we are with regards to financial health. The Fraser Institute ranked the Newfoundland and Labrador government last based on three factors: government spending, taxes, debt and deficits. They used a quantitative process. Newfoundland and Labrador, under this Liberal government, ranked last overall, last in taxes and second last in deficits and debt.

I know the Minister of Finance is using other statistics, but I’ll come back to what I think is the most important one to close off here tonight. That is from the Auditor General of this province. These are not my words. These are her words and let me read it into the record here tonight: “Financial Health of the Province. There is no single indicator which provides a complete picture of financial health. Net debt is a key indicator of sustainability.” This is going back to last year. “As part of Budget 2024, government announced borrowing requirements for the 2024-25 fiscal year would be another $2.8 billion,” – and some of you say, yes, that’s billion with a B – “for a net debt level of almost $18 billion. It appears government is again planning to spend beyond its current means, relying on borrowing to fund provincial services.”

This current year, as we know, the loan demand that they’re looking at is $4.1 billion and it actually could be higher depending on how we properly or if we properly account for that tackle sediment funding.

This is, again, from the Office of the Auditor General: “If the net debt grows faster than the population or the economy, it could signal future challenges in repaying debt. The province should consider the various indicators of financial health and potential risks when planning its current capital spending.” Clearly that is not the case, if we are borrowing now $4.1 billion.

“The province should also plan to be come less exposed to the increased cost of borrowing through conscious strategies to reduce its debt.” Folks, this was from the Auditor General.

So, as we close here tonight, I want to leave you with the four tenets of good governance. Those four tenets of good governance are: transparency – that was highlighted tonight by the MHA for Stephenville - Port au Port; accountability – and that was highlighted across a number of MHAs over the past few days, and I believe the MHA for Mount Pearl - Southlands gave an extensive list with regard to a lack of accountability; openness – I think I’ll come back to the example that was highlighted by the MHA for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans. Rushing for a photo op and then not being there to fund an ongoing demand for the province with the Lionel Kelland Hospice. The last one, effectiveness, and I challenge the stats –

SPEAKER: The Member’s time has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Seeing no other speakers, we will now vote on the non-confidence amendment.

All those in favour of the non-confidence amendment?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

SPEAKER: Defeated.

On motion, amendment defeated.

SPEAKER: We will now move into the main motion.

The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

L. EVANS: Thank you, Speaker.

This is my first opportunity to speak on the main motion – my only opportunity. Speaker, I spoke earlier on the amendments relating to the budget, and it’s really, really important for us to realize what’s being debated. It’s about finances for services. Finances for infrastructure across the province. It’s about monies being made available for our seniors. It’s about monies being made available for our children, access to education, all of those things.

Speaker, in my district, because as the MHA of Torngat Mountains I have to speak on the budget for my district, since I got elected in in 2019, I’ve been raising many issues regarding the lack of access to services. In 2019, my focus was on the freight boat. The boat that actually came from Lewisporte, the Speaker’s district, brought a lot of materials, a lot of food from the Island up into Northern Labrador into my communities. This was an economic way to move food.

Now, Speaker, when I raised the issue of this Liberal government –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: Order, please!

It’s getting difficult to hear the Member speaking, please.

The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

L. EVANS: Speaker, when I first got elected in 2019, one of the things my constituents wanted to do was talk about and try to get the freight boat from the port of Lewisporte put back on. When I talked about the access to that service, the marine shipping service from Lewisporte up into my district, I talked a lot about access to food and food insecurity.

Also, it wasn’t only about access to food and food security. It was about building materials. Since 2019, we’ve seen a huge increase in the cost of building new houses and repairing houses, and we suffer the consequences of that. Because, in actual fact, it wasn’t like we had adequate housing, Speaker. It wasn’t like we had access to adequate housing or that we were able to put our houses in good repair. In actual fact, we were struggling back then because we didn’t actually have access to a lot of the services and infrastructure.

Now, one of the things that I did raise when I talked about food insecurity and the removal of that freight boat, I talked about the cost of getting the food up into the stores, What a lot of the residents do, Speaker, is they used to order food from your district, from the Co-op in Lewisporte. They used to order bulk food shipments, and they also ordered from Atlantic Wholesalers in – what is he minister of now?

AN HON. MEMBER: Who?

L. EVANS: Crocker. Sorry, Speaker, with the revolving door of the ministers, I can’t –

AN HON. MEMBER: Industry, Energy and Technology.

L. EVANS: Industry, Energy and Technology. Back when I got elected, I think for a while there it was minister of Transportation, but in terms of hats, you have many, many hats, Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shuffling the deck.

L. EVANS: Shuffling the deck.

Access to services, access to food, access to building materials, access to speed boats – in actual fact, back in, I think it was 2019, when they removed the freight boat, we had trouble getting a lot of supplies up to the North Coast. I had a constituent who actually purchased a boat and trailer on the Island. I think it might have been in your district, Speaker, Lewisporte. It was a brand new Coastal Vokey, with trailer and the engine. We’re looking at $60,000 probably for a Coastal Vokey, brand new trailer, and I think it was probably 150 outboard on her, so about $60,000.

This young man had been working and saving for a couple of years. He was working in Voisey’s, and this was his dream boat. Now, he had planned to order the boat and have them drop it off to the ferry in Lewisporte and be put on the ferry on freight boat and brought up to my district. But it was going to cost probably about another $5,000 to get that boat from Lewisporte region up into my district.

What they did is they drove down and they actually bought a pickup truck, a used pick-up truck, picked up the boat and trailer, drove it back up and then they sold the second-hand pickup truck. That was a really good way of being able to get that boat and motor up into my district.

Speaker, not everybody can do that – not everybody can do that. Now, what’s happening is we are forced to deal with the businesses in Goose Bay. What have we witnessed over the last six years? Gouging. We witnessed the cost of food go up in the stores in Goose Bay and supplies in Goose Bay. We witnessed the cost of speed boats, engines, Ski-Doos, everything go up.

Also, another thing, when you purchase a snowmobile, if you bought it through Lewisporte, if you bought it down around Corner Brook or if you bought it anywhere on the Island from a dealer, they would throw in things. They would throw in the box, probably the axe, extra belts. All these accessories that go with the snowmobile. You could actually get accessories thrown in. In Goose Bay, you don’t get that. In actual fact, it costs more.

I remember when he was minister of Transportation at the time – he is Minister of Industry, Energy and Technology?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, IET.

L. EVANS: Yes.

I remember him being scrummed, and he went out and he said to the press – and I’m paraphrasing now – in actual fact, getting something shipped from Goose Bay to the North Coast, the cost has gone down. I think if you were going to get a snowmobile shipped from Goose Bay to the Coast, it was going to be a cost about $40 cheaper, I think. We’d have to go back and check exactly what he said.

So I went out to the media and on behalf of the constituents in my district I said yes, when you purchase a new snowmobile in Goose Bay and you get it shipped to the Coast, you may save $40. But if you bought it down in Lewisporte, or on the Avalon Peninsula, you’d save a minimum of $5,000, and you’d get the accessories, extra things. So really, where’s the deal? It’s lost.

Now, Speaker, people may say, well, Lela, you know they removed that boat, all of Labrador lost that boat. But at the end of the day, I was told by the minister of Transportation at the time, the deputy minister of Labrador Affairs at the time, in a meeting – I think it was on the eighth floor, I’m not quite sure, in the boardroom – I was told the reason why the marine freight service from the Island to my district was taken off was because the Trans-Labrador Highway was nearing completion. That’s the reason I was given. That was the valid reason. How many times did I say that? I said that here in the House of Assembly many times. But this is budget talk; this is about how you spend the money.

I was told that. Do you want to know what the problem with that reason is? And I said it – and do you know something? I was being kind of saucy when I said it. The first thing I said was, oh, that’s the reason why. But the problem with that reason is, when I look out, when I go down to North West River, the closest community to my district, and I look out towards Postville, the community of Postville, and I look out towards the community of Rigolet, I don’t see no Trans-Labrador Highway – I don’t see no Trans-Labrador Highway.

So how can you say the reason why that freight service was taken off, and then a little bit later, I think it was in the spring when the minister of Labrador and Indigenous Affairs I think at the time was talking about the Trans-Labrador Highway was nearing completion, we were going to be paving the last so many kilometres. Now that was dragged on a couple of years, actually. But the Trans-Labrador Highway was nearing completion.

That sent a strong message to me and the people in my district, from a minister that’s a resident of Labrador saying the Trans-Labrador Highway was being completed. It’s not completed unless our communities are connected, or were we never going to get the option of getting those communities connected?

Now, for me, the problem with that was we didn’t get the benefit of the Trans-Labrador Highway. They took off the freight boat. So we had hardship. We saw the price of our food go up. We saw the price of our construction materials go up. We saw the price of our household goods up. In actual fact, for repairing our houses, getting things in like a washer, a dryer, a hot water tank, things you take for granted, all of those things became harder for us.

Are those luxury items? Having a hot water tank in your house, is that a luxury item? If you have four young kids, is a washing machine a luxury? No, it’s not.

The problem for us, Speaker, is our quality of life went down in our communities. Our cost of living went up artificially because that wasn’t about inflation, that was about this Liberal government taking off a vital service for the residents in my district. That’s when I first got elected in 2019. I got easily elected in the next election. What was it, 87 per cent, 89 per cent of the vote? Now, mind you, we only had I think it was 400 people could actually get their ballots mailed, received their ballots in the mail and sent back.

That’s another thing, access to Canada Post, the postal service. But, Speaker, at the end of the day this is about this government taking away services for Northern Labrador. Yet, we can talk about reconciliation. The first premier that was sitting across from me in 2019, the Liberal premier that was a part of the government that took away this service, always was very open to talk about services to Indigenous people, about how important it was to include Indigenous people when it came to the Liberal government.

The next premier that got elected, same Liberal government, the last 10 years, talked about the same thing. Oh, he even went further than that. We’re going to put paintings up in the Confederation Building. Now, I was there for most of them when I could get out from my district. It was very, very important for me to be there to acknowledge the value of Indigenous artwork and about documenting and putting up there in beautiful artwork, very creative, about the culture and the history. Because you tell stories by artwork. You tell stories through carving. You preserve your history and your traditions and a lot of your knowledge goes into artwork and carvings.

I’m not against that, but I said in this House of Assembly many times, you can’t eat it when you’re hungry. You can’t feed it to your children when they’ve got to go to school hungry. You can’t heat your house with it when your grandmother is there in the house with you, your mother, your elderly father is there in the house with you.

Now, speaking of can’t heat your house with artwork, the price of fuel, stove oil is so expensive. The price of electricity is so expensive. My petitions say that. Every minister, every government Member over there has heard about the price of electricity in my district, about the price of oil, over $1,000 more to fill up your tank.

Can you heat your house with artwork or carvings or beautiful things, statues out there in the Confederation Building? No, you can’t but I tell you, I’ve been told about families who went down to the clothes donations and filled up garbage bags of clothes and brought home to their house and put that in the stove to try to heat their house. I have heard of families burning things. Do you know what I mean? Burning things to try to heat their house.

I thought we had moved past that. I thought we had moved on but, recently, when the cost of oil went through the roof and it cost $1,000 more to fill up your tank outside your house, that little 1,000-litre tank over by your house, than on the Avalon, over $1,000 more – it’s about $2,000 to fill up that tank and that may last a month or it may last two weeks in the coldest months of the winter.

Where does that money come from if you don’t have it? It doesn’t mean you can borrow the money, because some people can't borrow money, Speaker. People can’t afford to pay it back. So how do you heat your house? You partially heat your house. You heat your house when the kids are home. At night, the furnace is turned off. In the morning, you might heat it again or if you’re lucky enough that you’ve got somebody who’s got a snowmobile and you can haul wood, you might be able to have some wood to burn.

Speaker, these are very important things for me. These are issues. It’s about erosion of services. It’s about basically not helping be able to actually keep your house warm.

I have constituents messaging where they have to move out of their house in Nain, but they have nowhere to go. We still have the problems with repairs to the Newfoundland and Labrador houses because there’s been no real comprehensive plan developed and implemented that I’ve been asking for, for six years.

I’m trying not to give them a hard time because they are acknowledging it’s a problem that houses are sitting vacant in Nain, and now we have people who have overcrowding, are couch surfing, homelessness. We have people who are in situations that make them very vulnerable, but at the end of the day, Speaker, for me, I can stand up here and talk about anything and then compare it to my district.

I remember – I think I may have mentioned this – I was on the radio one time being interviewed, and it sounds saucy. In this case, I wasn’t trying to be saucy. I said, pick a topic, pick anything. Pick any kind of service, any kind of support, anything about households or communities, pick something, and I’ll show you that there’s inequity and inequality built in for my district.

For me, it’s really, really difficult because of the situations I deal with. When I deal with vulnerable children, I deal with vulnerable women and I deal with vulnerable elders. What makes them so vulnerable? Access to somewhere to live, somewhere that’s warm; access to food, access to clothing. These are the things we take for granted, and you’d think we would be past that when it comes to budget items, but, Speaker, at the end of the day, that’s why I’m here with my petitions.

I actually got, I think it’s seven new petitions, but I haven’t introduced them. I may next week, but at the end of the day, I like going back and saying, where’s our access to adequate health care? Where’s our access to mental health? Where’s our access to housing? Where’s our access to be able to heat our houses? That’s the focus right now because at the end of the day, if you don’t have your health, what do you have?

I’ll pick something now, hold on. Let’s just talk about the intergenerational trauma, and we’ll talk about domestic violence. We’ll talk about addictions. We’ll talk about vulnerable populations. Because do you want to know something? They’re all tied together.

This morning, we did have the moosehide campaign. I realized I changed my jacket, changed my shirt because I didn’t want to be on TV three different times talking about the same thing with same shirt on, so I changed my shirt.

When I clip it and post it, it could be next couple of days. But the moosehide campaign, talk about incarceration, we talk about abuse. We talk about not living up to services that should be provided for people. The failures of this. I’ve actually got one of these in my truck. I’ve got one of these in my house. I could rhyme them off.

But at the end of the day, Speaker, inaction. Beautiful words, but inaction. That’s what this Liberal government means to me.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands.

E. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m just going to stand on the last speech for me for the budget. A lot of times, and I’ve been around long enough with the budget, it do get a bit feisty sometimes. It do. I’ve been Opposition also and we’ve got different ideas than what should be done, and it’s very hard to do everything for everybody no matter who’s in government, I can assure you of that.

A lot of the times when you’re in the Opposition, you’ve got new ideas, you’ve got new rationale for how you do things, and sometimes then when you get in government, it’s not practical, so no matter who’s in government, it’s difficult, I can assure you of that. In Opposition, this is where we come up with the new ideas, and this is what democracy is all about. This is democracy, to be able to stand up and pass on your ideas that you hear from your constituents and do it in a way that some ideas are good, some can be implemented and some can’t.

So I’m going to go through the biggest concerns that I hear out in the District of Humber - Bay of Islands, Corner Brook, and Western Newfoundland: health care. Health care is the number one issue, health care by far. I can, right now, on my phone itself, give 20 examples of the emergency department in Corner Brook. A lot of the information that you can pass on to people is never passed out to give them so people can ease their mind. I’ll give you a good example, is the radiation.

Like, if every two or three months they’d be given update if there’s anything new with the radiation oncologist, so if there’s anybody coming or if there’s anybody here that we can recruit or anybody, but there is just silence. When there’s silence, people just start thinking there’s nothing being done. I understand and I know the cancer care team in Corner Brook. I know they’re working hard. I know they’re working very, very hard but if you don’t pass on the information, from a political side, everybody’s mind starts thinking very differently.

They start thinking that no one is doing anything, when actually they are people working hard at it. When you become government, you don’t want to stand up and walk into a crowd or walk into the media and give an update when there’s really no update to give, but you don’t realize you’re giving assurances to people that you are working on it. When you are working on it, people say, okay, they’re trying. People are trying, there’s some hope. When you just shut down the people, just shut it down and you don’t want to go out and give any update, even if it’s not that positive, at least you could give them the assurances that you are working on it, because the staff are working on it and the staff can’t speak like politicians can. I know the Minister of Health is well aware of that.

I know people who make announcements, you have to make the announcements, not the staff. That’s the same way it should be with health care. You can’t ask the staff who are working hard, who are doing their best, they can’t go out and make the announcements. So a lot of the times in government when you don’t give information, you lose a lot of credibility and it’s better to let people know upfront.

The second thing is the PET scanner. I understand that there is money now, going to go out and buy a PET scanner, money put forward, but we should start planning now to look for people to run the PET scanner. We should start now. It’s going to take, I would say, three years to get it accredited and we need to start now.

I really feel that was one of the problems with the radiation unit and the radiation oncologist, we never started recruiting back when we should of in 2020-2021. I understand that there’s a global demand for radiation oncologists, I understand that, but we should have started recruiting.

Here’s an example now with the PET scanner that we should start recruiting now. In two to three years time, hopefully we’ll have somebody or have someone beforehand that we can have the PET scanner up and running in Corner Brook. But when you don’t give updates to people and when you don’t want to explain that we haven’t got one but we’re working hard and here’s the steps we’re doing, it does show people that politicians are engaged.

I urge the government and I urge the new Minister of Health to do that. Send out and have a media scrum and explain what the department is doing. Because I can assure you if you go out in the streets in Corner Brook and if you ask what the politicians are doing, the minister is doing to get a radiation oncologist, they’ll say nothing – nothing. They forgot us. That’s what they’ll say. Trust me on that.

I’m trying to help the government here, because if I’m helping the government in such a way that you’re going to give positive information to the people who are at least going to have their minds relieved saying that they are working on it, it’s going to help. It will help people. It would bring a better light to the people who are in charge.

But just by staying in St. John’s and not saying anything about any issue whatsoever when you have the opportunity to meet the people, meet the council and explain with the media that we are working on it, it’s just not happening – it’s just not happening. I’d love to see updates on the health care, but we just don’t get them. For some reason is that if you can’t say something that you knew 100 per cent that you’re going to get done that’s going to get good media attention, you won’t saying anything. It’s wrong.

I remember Clyde Wells had a meeting with a bunch of fishermen and Clyde Wells was going to get a good roasting. He was going to get it. We had the Lions Club in Curling. He walked in and by the time he finished people said, my God, we never got anything but what a man to stand up for hours and take our questions and work on it. And walk out and shake his hand and just say, well, Mr. Wells, why would you stand and take it? He said: Because you voted me in. I’m your representative. You just can’t come in good times; you have to come in bad times also. I always remember that meeting. I remember the meeting.

This is so true. I remember going to public meetings. I remember one in Irishtown-Summerside when they were amalgamating the two towns and Joe Loder – good friend of mine – he was the mayor, wanted me to do something. I said not a chance, wouldn’t do it. I was young then and I went to the meeting, I went over, 250 people. What they wanted me to do was they built a fake casket, wanted me to get in the casket because it was the death of their community. I was going to be eaten alive.

But I guarantee you one thing, when I sat down with all the people and at least took all the questions and all the answers, everybody respected me. They might not have agreed with what I said, but respected you.

So this is something for governments to learn. You should learn that. If you’re going to be the government, you have to govern. You’re leaders. If you don’t give regular updates, people are just going to say well, they don’t care about our area. They don’t care about people in the West Coast. I can assure you that is the sentiment. That is the sentiment on the West Coast.

I look at the long-term care beds – and everybody knows that I was over with the Liberals; I’m independent now. But everybody who I dealt with on the Liberal side can say that I dealt with them honestly and fairly. There is no one over there that I actually ever made a deal with or worked with that they came back and said, b’y, Eddie Joyce wasn’t honest on that. No one – absolutely no one.

So this is why it concerns me. When the hospital was going to be open, I went to two or three ministers and people, and said, you’re going to have a problem with acute-care beds. You’re going to have a problem. And they did have the problem.

I wasn’t trying to be political because of people’s health; I was trying to help the people who were coming from the long-term care, who were in acute-care beds at Western Memorial Regional Hospital, to come over. I was actually warning people on this. I was pleading with them, let’s do something, because it was in –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask Members to lower the volume of conversations, it’s hard to hear the Member speak.

E. JOYCE: That’s just Members saying I agree with you, what you’re saying is right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

E. JOYCE: I thank people for that.

But that’s the kind of things – and I can look at ministers now that I dealt with, and we got positive things done. A lot of times when you come quietly to say here’s an issue that we should resolve because it’s going to become major, I’m doing it on the behalf of people. I don’t need no headlines; I don’t need no media attention. But I want results. This was another one, with the long-term care beds. We all knew that that was going to be an incident and crisis. We knew it. Government were told. A year or a year and a half before, government were told, but look what happened.

Now the problem with that, the problem with not listening and not dealing with the problem upfront, is that now we’ve got the lineups out in the emergency departments. People who should go up in the acute-care beds can’t get up there because there are long-term care patients. That’s the end result of not working with other Members, and also looking at issues that can come up in the future. It’s causing major concerns.

Does anybody ever speak to the doctors and nurses out there? It’s a major concern, and just the sequence of that is that they’re going to build 45 beds in the old Western Memorial Regional Hospital and you can’t get an update. You actually can’t get an update. There are 45 beds supposed to be four months ago, three months ago, it was supposed to be starting construction but there’s no regular updates to give people the assurance that things are moving along.

It’s not hard for the minister or the Member for Corner Brook or the Member for St. George’s - Humber to go out and give an update on it. You give an update so at least then people say this is moving along and they can say, yes, government are working on this. They can say we go to emergency now, we might be able to get an acute-care bed if we need be.

I’m trying to give government a bit of advice here, because the advice that I’m giving you will help a lot of people. It will help a lot of people. I don’t want to be involved with it, not one bit. Don’t want to be, do not want to be in the spotlight on it and take credit for it, I just want it done, and it’s easy to do. I know the government knows it’s easy to do but someone has to have the courage to start doing it. You have to have the courage to realize, even though you haven’t got great news and positive news, people will respect you if you give them the news and keep them informed. People will respect that, and that’s what I’ve been saying to government ever since 2019.

I know there are ministers over there know that you can call me and say, can you do this? I said not a problem. If it’s going to help people out, count me in. I’ve done it on numerous occasions. I know there are a lot of ministers came out and I know the minister for Housing, he came out and sat down with the town council of York Harbour-Lark Harbour, it was a great meeting.

When I extend an olive branch and say if you want to come out and find out for sure what’s happening in your department in the Corner Brook, in the Bay of Islands area, I’ll bring you around. I would actually bring you around, set everything up for you, so you can get informed of what’s happening.

I’ve been around probably a bit too long, but this idea of us and them, don’t work. Us and them don’t work. It’s all right to banter here in this House of Assembly because we have different ideas. I’ll give you a good example. Kevin O’Brien used to the Member for Gander, minister of Municipal Affairs from Gander. Kevin O’Brien was putting a fire truck into Cox’s Cove. 

Now, I had Kevin O’Brien hounded to get the fire truck. Kevin O’Brien was putting in the fire truck. Kevin O’Brien sent out a memo to me. He said: Eddie, we’re having a fire truck this Saturday. I wrote him back, I said, Kevin, b’y, I can’t make it. I’ll be away and plane is already booked. I’m gone for about two weeks. He said: When are you back? I told him and he said the memo is going out in one hour, that’s the day we’re having the fire truck.

Kevin O’Brien came out, and me and Kevin O’Brien went and delivered the fire truck to Cox’s Cove. He didn’t have to do that, but that’s the kind of things – and I know some of the PC Members when I happened to be minister for 2½, three years, I used to call them up to the office. Might be down here, might be shouting and going at each other, come up the office. Okay, here’s the Municipal Affairs money you got; here’s what’s ranked. What do you want to put? And after the first time, they realized, that’s the way you operate.

You tell me where you want it, everyone’s ranked, and they pick up the phone and start phoning mayors. Now we might get down to the House and people get the idea we dislike each other. We never did – never did.

That’s what’s lost in this House of Assembly. That’s what’s lost is being able to sit down and work with each other. Put our differences aside, put the red colours aside, put the blue colours aside, get things done, but you have to have debate and exchanges here in this House of Assembly. That’s one thing that has been missing in this House of Assembly.

I know a lot of times that what happens if we don’t get along, if we don’t trust each other to do some things for each others’ districts, what happens? It becomes so much friction, and who loses? Our constituents. That is who loses. I can assure you, on many occasions, we don’t realize because we’re bantering back and forth, and we’re going back and forth on issues to each other, but we can’t get together to work out a lot of issues, and it’s the people who we represent suffer.

I go again to the Minister of Health and others. Three years ago, there was an announcement of the Family Care Team in Corner Brook. Not done – not done. There’s no Family Care Team in Corner Brook. So I say to the minister, if there’s going to be no Family Care Team, come out and have a meeting and say why we can’t have a Family Care Team. Come out and say we can’t find the expert people, can’t find the doctors, we haven’t got enough personnel.

If we do that, people would understand that you’re still working on it, but the idea, every time you hear about the Family Care Team, it’s just non-existent. It’s better to inform people about why there’s no Family Care Team rather than run and hide because there’s no Family Care Team. That is an issue out in Corner Brook.

I know, and I said it before and I say it again, when you have people standing up to see Dr. Ennis, 6 in the morning, middle of winter, raining because they have to get in to see him because there’s no family doctors. When this government – and I’m hoping someone’s going to make the announcement, I’m hoping. I said it, and I don’t care who hears it, I’m hoping either there’s going to be – and I’ve been after both sides because this is going to help, to make the announcement that the nurse practitioners can bill MCP.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

E. JOYCE: I don’t know who’s going to do it, but I can tell you, I’m lobbying from the PC Party right to the Liberal Party that that should be done. It’s an easy fix and then the former minister of Health, when he was talking about we can’t do it with the Canada Health Act, I held up the documents, 63 in Alberta – 63 in Alberta. We can do it. Just that alone would help so many people and, for some reason, I don’t know what the reason is, the money is there.

The nurse practitioners are not going to take away from the public health care system because they’re doing it in the nighttime and the weekends. They hate billing people who can’t afford it. They call some seniors who can’t afford to come back to get their blood work, come back and get it anyway, no charge. That’s the people that I know, nurse practitioners.

I ask anybody in this House, the Minister of Health to the Premier to the Leader of the Opposition, I’m begging you, get it done – get it done. I’ll sit by your side. If you think that would help, I’ll sit by anybody’s side who’s going to do that and say this is a great idea. When you see seniors who can’t go back for their blood work, try it – try to tell a senior. You go ahead and try to tell a senior and all of a sudden, the government doesn’t see this anymore, but I see it because I know the people. If anybody wants to try and tell the senior you can’t get your blood work by the way because government is not going to let you be billed, it’s wrong. It’s fundamentally wrong. The money is there. The expertise is there. The need is there but for some ungodly reason we won’t let it happen.

No one could ever give me a rationale. There is nobody who could give me a rationale of why government can’t do it. Until then, every opportunity I get I will bring that up in the House of Assembly on behalf of the residents who haven’t got a family doctor, who can’t get in to see Dr. Ennis, who can't afford to go see a nurse practitioner, yet we’re here, 40 of us, and we can’t agree to do that.

This is one of the things I hate when government gets in, they’re in there too long and they forget the needs of the common people. This is just one of them right here.

Another thing, I wrote the former minister of Health. I don’t know what happened to him. I will just give you an example. People know that PCAs, personal care attendants, we’re looking for people –

SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Member’s time has expired.

E. JOYCE: Thank you very much.

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

SPEAKER: Sorry, Terra Nova.

The hon. the Member for Terra Nova. It’s past my bedtime.

L. PARROTT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Always a pleasure to talk in the House of Assembly and certainly on the budget.

Speaker, last night, the Premier came in after I spoke and he, I guess, felt inclined to correct me on a few things. He started off his speech by saying, I practised law for a long time and I was a defence counsel for most of those years and the good thing about being a defence counsel is you get to hear the other arguments first and then poke holes in their cases.

Speaker, I am not a lawyer, but I’m not a fool either and I work hard and I listen in this House and I do what’s best for the people I represent and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: What I don’t do well is listen to double speak or have things put out that necessarily aren’t factual or that omit some of the things that have been put out there.

I was talking about Muskrat Falls. He went on to say, we would have more money if we didn’t have to mitigate rates. Do you know what? I agree with him 100 per cent, absolutely. My statement was simply around the failed execution of a project over a long period of time and the cost overruns associated with it, the necessity of power for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and how Muskrat Falls is now an operating asset that this province owns and it helps us get to the next stage with anything we do. It helps us be green, but it doesn’t matter.

When I say double speak, this is what I mean. I hear the Liberals talk about the importance of a green future and then they dismiss Muskrat Falls. I hear them talk about the importance of poverty reduction and environmental stuff, and we understand that most of the houses under Newfoundland and Labrador Housing don’t have heat pumps in them, the lowest income people in the province.

I’ll also go somewhere else when we’re talking about money. The Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands, last night, highlighted a bunch of things. This is either a calamity of bad decisions, good decisions executed wrongly or changed minds. The mental health facility given to a bidder $42 million higher than the next closest bidder; Snow’s Lane; Carla Foote – this is all since 2019 when I came in here – Gordon McIntosh; a flip-flop on the sugar tax; a flip-flop on the carbon tax. Oh, there are more flip-flops. Wait, I’ll come back to them.

Canopy Growth on Plank Road; the travel nurse scandal; the MUN report; the Greene report; the Rothschild report – $5 million put on a shelf; 106 Airport Road, comfort inn, call it what you want; soccer sponsorship; methylmercury; Newfoundland Housing units reported to us that there is a much larger amount of Newfoundland Housing units that were ready. When we found out, I believe the number was eight or 11 or it was much less. Personal care home audit; marine protected areas; the shingles vaccine flip-flop; Kenmount Crossing; Information and Privacy Commissioner; staff renting out houses without contracts to nurses and doctors.

One other thing I’ll say about money. We would have a whole lot more money and we wouldn’t be worried about the cost of Muskrat Falls, it would’ve been looked after the right way, had we had been getting paid for Churchill Falls since 1969.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: The Premier then went on to say – and this is his words, not mine – he said they – referring to us – and it wasn’t us. Because I can tell you, I wasn’t here. I was out building Hebron when all this went down. And nobody on this side was here. He said they projected oil prices for 50 years – 50 years. He repeated it twice. Then he said when they did that, the government of the day failed in its duties to ensure that the best interests of the province’s residents were safeguarded.

So I’ll ask a question, it’s a simple question, we saw yesterday a tobacco settlement being projected out over 30 years – 30 years. It’s not 50, but it’s 30, and it’s acceptable and it’s in our budget and it’s misleading. That’s the first one.

Now we’ll go to the MOU. How long is the MOU for? I think everybody in this room knows, 50 years. How do we project that?

AN HON. MEMBER: Fifty-one.

L. PARROTT: Fifty-one, we’ll say 51, but wait, it’s not 51. That’s another part of the misleading, because when they did their announcement they said it was 51 years and then we picked up on the fact that the Gull Island contract was separate and it got brought out longer. So they’re projecting prices out over maybe as much as 75 or 80 years.

But when the PC government of the day, prior to Muskrat Falls, projected oil prices – and I can guarantee you, they probably had all the same information as the current sitting Finance Minister has with the tobacco companies and the negotiating team has with electricity rates. No different, they consulted.

So now they’re doing the same thing. But when we did it, it was a dereliction of duties and we were neglecting the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. But they can do it and it’s okay. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Then the Premier went on to say I can have people chirp at me and their facts, they think, might be true but we all know you’re entitled to opinions. You’re not entitled to your own facts. I think I touched a nerve because there is a lot of chirping this evening. To be honest with you, I just wanted to come in and read a document that’s public record and, unfortunately, cost the taxpayers $23 million. That public record is called Muskrat Falls – A Misguided Project.

Do you know what the Premier didn’t say? The Premier didn’t say he worked on this file for its entire duration. He didn’t say how much he billed out, and I won’t bring that up in here but it’s easy enough for people to go see, a substantial amount. So if somebody should know about this, it’s the Premier. He went on to talk about Supreme Court Justice LeBlanc’s integrity and how important of an individual he is in this province, and I agree 100 per cent. Guess what they did during the MOU? They dismissed his recommendations.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: This book was released; this report was released in 2020 and the recommendations have not been implemented. And, not only that, the current Premier, chose to sit there during MOU negotiations which, for the record, last night when he talked about transparency and said we had 40 Members in the House, we had 40 Members in this House debating it. This Liberal government brought you that. No, they didn’t, Mr. Speaker. It was a calamity of this leader right here, real leadership, writing letters demanding that we come to this and debate it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: Now, if we want to talk about transparency – the most transparent government in the history, we can see right through them. We know exactly what’s going on.

The LeBlanc report clearly said – and this is the catchiest part because you’ve got to think, this is the Premier, this is the man who wants to lead this province, cherry-picked facts out of the LeBlanc report during the MOU debate. He picked and chose what he wanted to read and say and say what we should do.

It clearly says in Key Recommendations: “1. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador should never undertake, on its own or through one of its Crown corporations or agencies, the planning, approval” and construction – sorry, it doesn’t say “and.” That would change things. It says: “or construction” – planning is one thing; approval is another thing; construction is another thing – “of any large project (meaning a project with a budget of $50 million or more) without: a. Engaging independent external experts to provide robust review, assessment and analysis of the project.”

They were not going to do that until it was demanded in this House, and guess who they hired? They hired his boss while he sat on the Muskrat Falls inquiry. Think about that. Dennis Browne – and I’m not saying that Mr. Browne isn’t capable or able to do this, but his boss is who’s appointed to oversee these negotiations. It’s as clear as mud. That’s fact. He can have his opinions and I can have my opinions, but facts are facts and to quote people on the other side, facts matter, and I just clearly painted a picture of real facts that they are omitting.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: He went to say: “The Public Utilities Board should review the proposed business case, reliability, cost and schedule of any large project that could potentially impact Newfoundland and Labrador –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: Order, please!

L. PARROTT: – electricity ratepayers. Following this review, the Public Utilities Board should report its findings to the government and the public.”

Mr. Speaker, right now, the man that helped create this report, who’s now the Premier, is throwing this in the garbage or putting it on a shelf with the rest of the reports that we’ve seen in the last 10 years where nothing has been implemented.

If we want to talk about the budget and people want to know where I’m voting, I’m not voting for the budget and I am not voting for the budget because I have absolutely no reason to trust anything that I hear. We know for a fact that the Premier has an issue with projections going out over 50 years. Churchill Falls MOU, as much as 80 years. But it’s okay when they do it. It’s perfect when they do it.

They seem to forget that their time machine stops in all the same places all the time. Whenever it’s good for them, they just get in the hot tub time machine and go back in time and they try to erase everyone’s memory and move forward. It’s not quite that simple. The reality of it is that people can see what is going on.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: Now the Premier came in here last night and he was bent on proving everything I said was wrong. I have no problem saying I made a comment that they had an opportunity to stop this project in 2015. Mr. Browne, clearly says in this, that they didn’t. But I will say this, they had an opportunity to stop the project. I didn’t say it would cost millions of dollars. I know what it would cost. I was a part of it. I know how it ran. I know the decisions that were made during construction when we brought in helicranes to erect power towers in the middle of the winter through the mountains, digging down through 18 feet of snow in a mad rush to go nowhere. We were three or four years away from commissioning and they knew where we were. They knew exactly where we were.

So when it comes to facts, sometimes the facts have to come from both sides. I think what I just spoke was absolute factual and, at the end of the day, this Premier should come into this House and apologize to the people for the things he said last night because he omitted the facts. The facts are this is not necessarily a good deal, and everybody in this House wants it to be a good deal. We all want it to be a good deal.

There’s nobody in this House who doesn’t want that MOU to be the absolute best thing for the men and women of this province, but we don’t know with any certainty whatsoever – I don’t believe for one second when we’ve got statistics coming from a 10-year-old plan that they bring in and they announce to the public without ever giving a technical briefing to the Opposition and they launch their video campaign the same day, tell me what it is. It was an election year kick-off. It was farewell to the Premier. It was his legacy, and that’s what it is.

And all we’ve heard about Muskrat Falls is the exact same thing about our former premier, and I can guarantee you this is no different. This is trying to push things through to undermine – they don’t want any public people being involved with this. Mr. Browne is leading the thing. We were told March 31 he’d be in here to report to the House. He never reported to the House. The report is online, and there’s nothing in it – there’s nothing in it. So here we are.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have seven minutes left, and I’m going to talk about my constituents and my riding. I think everybody here goes through the same things, and I know it, and I’ve said it here before. If the Members opposite aren’t getting the phone calls from their constituents, they’re either not answering their phones or they’re not listening. I believe they’re answering their phones and they’re listening.

At the end of the day, we’re all hearing the same things. Whether it’s health care or poverty or road conditions or education, everything is gone upside down; but I’ll tell you what, all of the issues we have are not because of COVID, and they’re certainly not because of Muskrat Falls. They are not. It has been mismanaged, and we just listened to a list of opportunities where we had to save money or make different decisions, and we didn’t do it.

If we want to come in here and say we’re going to be transparent and make the right decisions, then we have to do it collaboratively. Instead, we’re buying and selling land, and doing all these underhanded things, and oh, there’s nothing to see here, folks. Move on. Everything is okay. Dum-de-dum, everything is good. It’s not all good. It is not all good.

If you come out to my riding and go to the hospital and you look at what’s going on out there, it’s atrocious. Now, the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure today was talking about hospitals down in his district. If hospitals are the way he says down in his district, I envy him because I don’t deal with it. I sat here yesterday –

E. LOVELESS: What was it I said?

L. PARROTT: You said you had a great situation, that people were happy and they were getting the care they needed. That’s exactly – I’m paraphrasing you, but you said –

SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the Member to address the Chair.

L. PARROTT: I’m giving you credit, maybe you should take it.

Wherever you go in this province, no matter where it is, people are suffering through the same issues. Everywhere you go. The order of magnitude that people deal with it is entirely different everywhere you go.

When we come in this House, I think everyone comes in here with the exact right intent. We all come in here to help our constituents; we all come in here to try and make this place better. We all ran on those principles, I know we all believe in those principles, and I know it’s exactly why we’re all here. When we ask questions in this House, it’s because questions need to be asked. Those questions need to be asked to get to the bottom of things. Imagine if there were no questions asked on Canopy Growth or Snow’s Lane, or no questions asked on the MOU or no questions asked on any of the things that questions are asked on in here.

The problem is very simple. The problem is sometimes the questions aren’t welcome, but very seldom do we get the answers. They sit over there and they can’t wait to come back on a rebuttal to a preamble, but the questions get ignored, and a lot of those times they’re very important questions. You would think that a Minister of the Crown would want to address those questions, especially if they’re not wrong. If a question is asked, and they know that they’re doing it right, then why not answer it – why not answer it?

So the Connaigre Peninsula, just because I was trying to be nice earlier, but the Connaigre Peninsula had a closure in August of 2024. That’s not that long ago. March 28, March 21, January 30, January 15 – this is all on NLHS.

E. LOVELESS: Closure of what?

L. PARROTT: Temporary closure emergency service, virtual ER, at the Connaigre Peninsula Health. Temporary closure emergency service, Connaigre Health Peninsula. All on NLHS. You can go on and look at it. So either they’re wrong –

E. LOVELESS: It’s not closures if virtual care is being provided.

L. PARROTT: Oh, okay, there you go. We got it now – we got it now. It’s all good now. It’s fixed. Clear as mud. That’s what you said earlier. Perhaps everybody should read Hansard from time to time.

Speaker, the future of this province lies inside of this House, it really does. The issues that we face are tremendous. Everybody knows it. It’s tremendous. Like I said earlier, whether it’s the deficit or people that are hungry or homelessness, all of those things are so huge. We come in and pick and choose our numbers.

I said the other day, we talk about how great our employment rates are. We don’t ever consider the fact that 22,000 or 23,000 of those people work in Alberta. We don’t ever tell the truth about things. We come in and we brag about how many doctors we’ve hired, but we can never tell anyone how many have left. We come in and we tell people how many nurses we’ve hired, but guess what? The offers are out there, but most of them aren’t working.

Why can’t we just come in here and be truthful? Why can’t we just come in here and put the facts on the table? Put the facts on the table.

SPEAKER: (Inaudible.)

L. PARROTT: If someone wants to stand on a point of order, they’re more than welcome to.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why can’t we –

L. PARROTT: Yeah, I said we.

SPEAKER: I said you are treading it close. Move on.

L. PARROTT: I am not accusing anyone of anything. What I am saying is that the Members of this House have a responsibility to the people that put them here, and being truthful is part of that. Very simple.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: We talk about health care, and if you’ve spent any time inside of health care, I will be the first one to say, once you get inside of health care we have a tremendous system.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: We have a group of people that work in this province that are beyond incredible, and Nurses’ Week it’s important to say that. But they’re strained, they’re broken. I’ll tell you, there are two things that we don’t consider.

When we have a Health Minister that’s more concerned about care than health or health than care and doesn’t realize that that’s two words that combine together, that includes the people that work in the system and the people that need the services that are delivered, we will never succeed. That is what has happened here time and time again.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll take my place.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

T. WAKEHAM: Speaker, I’m going to get an opportunity to stand again and talk about a budget and talk about a debate. But I want to, firstly, congratulate this team that I have right here. We just heard from one of them because we will stand for Newfoundland and Labrador, and I will now thank every single one of them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: They have all taken the time to speak on this debate at every opportunity that they’ve had to get up and speak. They’ve talked about their districts. They’ve talked about the province and they’ve talked about individuals in Newfoundland and Labrador that are being impacted, that have been impacted, that are struggling with the cost of living, that are struggling with access to health care and are worried about the safety in their communities. Every one of these people here in my caucus and other Members on this side have stood and talked about the challenges that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are facing, and they are indeed facing challenges.

So I just wanted to say publicly to everyone in Newfoundland and Labrador: We got your back and after this next election, we’ll be there to support you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: On that note, I will stand here right now in response to the Member for Humber - Bay of Islands who asked me and others to commit so that no person, no patient in Newfoundland and Labrador should have to pay to see a nurse practitioner, and I will guarantee you, Sir, that a PC government will ensure that no patient (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: We’ll make that announcement at the end of the week. That is something that we have talked about and lobbied for and talked about and talked about. The Member for Humber - Bay of Islands has brought it up on several occasions and he’s also brought up the conditions in the new hospital in Corner Brook. I am part of that Western region. Corner Brook is our regional hospital and when you build a brand-new hospital and all of a sudden it’s full the day it’s open, the people are in the corridors and this government’s solution, the former Minister of Health, the Premier of the province, their solution for the overcapacity of this brand new hospital was to tell seniors to double up in their long-term care beds.

That was the solution that was offered. That was the solution that was put in a press release. That’s not good enough, and it was only because of the efforts of the people on this side of the House that said no, that’s not acceptable. That’s not acceptable. We won’t tolerate that. Something better needs to be done and, finally, there is something being done and the old hospital is now being used.

So, yes, that’s being done. It should have been done right from the beginning, but that all goes back to planning because if you think about planning, how important planning is, let’s talk about the new long-term care facility that was built on the site of the new hospital.

If you go and talk about it or look in the Department of Health and go through their forecast of what the number of long-term care beds were projected to be in ’25-’26 for the Corner Brook region, you will see a significant more number projected than what is actually there in that new long-term care facility. Maybe if that had been built larger, maybe they could have accommodated more of those patients. They knew when they built the new hospital that there was no alternate level of care unit in it, yet there was an alternate level of care unit in the old hospital.

Where was the planning to make sure that those patients, when it was ready to open up that, actually, there was somewhere for them to go? When I think about the new hospital and oncology services for all of us that live in Western Newfoundland who still have to pack up and come to St. John's to see an oncologist, even though there’s a brand-new facility right there in Corner Brook that has the ability, has the equipment to be able to provide that service but we have no oncologist.