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April 26, 2023 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. L No. 27

The House met at 10 a.m.

SPEAKER (Bennett): Order, please!

Before we begin, I'd like to welcome to the public gallery students from Heritage Collegiate.

Welcome this morning.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Government Business

SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

J. HOGAN: Speaker, I call from the Order Paper, Motion 7.

Speaker, I move, seconded by the Deputy Government House Leader, that notwithstanding Standing Order 63, this House shall not proceed with Private Members' Day on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, but shall instead meet at 2 p.m. on that day for Routine Proceedings and the conduct of Government Business.

SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay.'

Motion carried.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

J. HOGAN: Speaker, I call from the Order Paper, Motion 8.

SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

J. HOGAN: Speaker, I move, seconded by the Deputy Government House Leader, that pursuant to Standing Order 11(1) that this House not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 27, 2023.

SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

All those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay.'

Motion carried.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

J. HOGAN: Speaker, I call from the Order Paper, Motion 1.

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

L. PARROTT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Welcome to the students from Heritage Collegiate. Not my district, but right along side. Welcome to the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. PARROTT: Mr. Speaker, we're debating the budget today and obviously there's lots of concern from both sides about the budget and I hear the other side talk about what we're not voting for.

We always talk about what we do as a government and how we move things forward. The reality of it is there are lots of good things that happen. This government does some things right, there's no question. But it's the repercussions of what happens from when things are done wrong.

One of the examples of that is we hear very boastfully about $10 daycare and it's great. There are loads of people out there who cannot afford to put their children in daycare. Zero question about it. The problem is the repercussions that have come as a result of $10 daycare being implemented with no plan.

Just the other night I had a conversation with a daycare provider who owns not one daycare, not two, not three, not four, but a multitude of daycares. They had major concerns with $10 daycare and what it has done to her business, what it has done to the children inside of that business, specifically children with disabilities.

I guess my issue with the budget comes back to the same thing with the $10 daycare. We can implement all kinds of things; we can do all kinds of things that are really good. But it's the little things that we don't plan for. We all know when you throw a rock in the water it creates ripples. Well, those ripples have an effect on a lot of different things. It's a lot of what this budget is doing.

My colleague for Harbour Main said yesterday something very similar. We don't look at the big picture. The big picture is what we need to look at. All things in this province are not equal. So while $10 daycare in St. John's offers great opportunity to a lot people, it's caused issues certainly with autistic children and other children with special needs, it's had that effect in rural Newfoundland, too. But in rural Newfoundland a lot of daycare providers, they don't have the facilities or the ability to come under this type of daycare structure and it needs to be looked at.

The reality of it is this is not going to work everywhere the same way, much like everything we do. We look at this province as a whole and we have a solution where we think one size fits all. But one size doesn't fit all in this province. We have a big divide between urban and rural Newfoundland.

Mr. Speaker, the budget certainly offers some things, but I'll also say something that we've heard from everyone here: seniors. I find it hard to believe that whether you're a government Member in St. John's or the Northern Peninsula or you're an Opposition Member in Terra Nova or Bonavista that people aren't hearing from seniors.

Seniors in this province, along with a lot of other people that I would say are making decent money, are struggling. When you go out and you talk to a senior or you're in a grocery store and you watch a senior pick up fruit or vegetables, they look at the price and they put it back down. Or they go to the checkout and at the checkout when the grocery clerk says this costs $9, they look at it and they say $9, I only paid four something for this two weeks ago. That's the reality. Things have doubled quickly, some of these things.

Some of that is driven be season, obviously. Vegetables and fruits grow and they're shipped in from different places and there are different costs associated with it, but there's nobody in this room who can debate that the cost of living has grown exponentially. Who has that affected the most?

Well, obviously, it's the lower income people. We talk about the supplement that's been given to seniors and all the money, the $500 million, it all sounds great, but it's not money that's going directly into their pockets all the time. Some of it does, but it's a band-aid solution. The $500 one-time cheque is a band-aid solution. Five hundred dollars gets you groceries for two or three weeks. It gets you a portion of a tank of oil. It gets you, maybe, insurance on your house. It gets you a lot of little things but only once. Once in a 12-month cycle and seniors need more support.

When you talk about 19 cents a day, 19 cents a day – that's what it equals. If anyone can look at me or if you can look yourself in the mirror and say, that's great; that's good for the seniors. I don't believe it not for a second. Nineteen cents gets you nothing. Nineteen cents is an insult. Nineteen cents is – especially in these times when we're going to be implementing a new carbon tax.

This government says it's not their tax, it's a federal tax, but last May they were all in on it. Last May, they supported it. Last May, every single Member on that side of the House, every single one voted for the carbon tax. Every single one of them supported it. Every single one supported the carbon tax, but now it's not their idea. It's not their tax.

While they boasted and bragged about a made-right-here-in-Newfoundland solution for carbon tax. It's not a made-right-here solution. As a matter of fact, when it cuts in, I would argue that we're going to have seniors and low-income families in this province most likely have to move out of their houses. Then we talk about the solution for some of this, when we talk about the solution for carbon we say well, we're going to put heat pumps in your house. I don't know if anyone here has gone out and tried to go through that process, but we deal with people on a daily basis who have tried to go through that process.

So the first thing they think is that the process is going to allow them to instantly put a heat pump in their house. It's simply not true. The first thing they have to do is bring an electrical contractor to see if they can get it. If you're in rural Newfoundland, there's a very high probability you don't have a 200-amp service and, if you do, you probably are utilizing every bit of your breakers and you don't have enough room to put one in. That's the first thing.

The second thing is a lot of the people only have 100-amp service. If you have 100-amp service, you simply can't get a heat pump. So now you're looking at a $15,000 to $20,000 bill just to upgrade your electrical service. So the solution to the $15,000 or $20,000 bill, prior to buying a $7,000 heat pump, is a $5,000 government grant.

I'm not a mathematician, but I'll use the lower number, $15,000. Fifteen plus seven is 22; $22,000. You go spend $22,000 and we'll give you $5,000 to put a heat pump in. Now, you're saying this to people who can't afford to put gas in their car, who can't afford to put insurance on their vehicle, who can't afford to go to the grocery store, who already can't afford to heat their house. The suggestion is that they need to come up with all of this money upfront in order to get $5,000 back. So a 25 per cent rebate, if you're in that kind of a situation in rural Newfoundland.

This is why I constantly say all things aren't equal. These grants are great, but the divide between rural and urban Newfoundland is massive.

We all know – we've got houses in this province. It's like the no tax on home insurance. It sounds great. It really sounds great. I made a comment here how it helps out the rich. Do you know what? When you think about it, you go to rural Newfoundland and you look at communities that don't have firefighting services, don't have fire hydrants, they don't live close enough to a firefighting service and they just can't get insurance. They're not allowed to get insurance. So they're getting a tax break on something that they can't even buy.

If you're living in rural Newfoundland, rural Newfoundland is different. If you look at the busing solution that we gave to low-income people here, all you've got to do is listen to the radio this morning to see how well that's working. The GoBus is leaving people with disabilities behind; people who have to go to medical appointments are being left behind. What caused that? I wonder is it another ripple by an ill-thought service? Maybe, just maybe.

But you think about what happens to someone in rural Newfoundland. I don't know the last time any of the government Members went out around the bay. If they're not from out there and they had a look at the metro service that's out there or the train service, or subway service or any of the other transportation services that are there for rural Newfoundland, I can tell you, we can't even get planes into Newfoundland. Think about that. We can't get flights in and out of Newfoundland and we're saying that rural Newfoundland has the ability to utilize that kind of stuff. They just simply don't. It isn't there. So now we're giving a service to urban and we're forgetting rural.

Well, I'll tell you, I've got people on disability that would love to get the value of that GoBus ticket for a month; $72 would make a big change for some of those people – a big change. When they've got to go to one appointment, $72, if you think about it – so now we have agreed as a government that we're going to subsidize a portion of the province and forget about the rest. Well, I'll tell you, the people that live in rural Newfoundland could certainly use that money. They could certainly use that ability and they don't have the ability to get on these buses and utilize this service.

This is just another example of a decision that's made that doesn't look at the big picture, and those decisions are the reason I can't support this budget.

I'm supporting what's not in the budget. It's not about what's in the budget; it's about what's left out of the budget. I don't think anyone here can argue that. The things that are left out of this budget are massive. Some of the things in the budget create bigger problems than they solve, and why? Well, I think we could argue quite simply a big part of that is because there's no plan.

Doctors, there's no plan – sorry, I get it. Doctors, nurses, hospitals – we can go anywhere in the province right now, anywhere, and we can find ERs that have been closed. What we've said here lots, it's a huge issue for the province and the reality of it is we are closing ER doors when there are qualified people behind those doors who could triage patients. I'll go back to the gentleman in Bonavista. We had a man in Bonavista who passed away. I pass along my condolences to the family. I would stand on my feet here today and say it's absolutely unacceptable and I would say it's a failure of government. There is no question about it.

When you think about ERs and the ability to triage, all you have to do is look at an accident on the highway, you look at a firefighter responding to something, you look at a first-aider, you look at an ambulance attendant, the very first thing they do is triage. If the hospital ER doors were open and we had people in behind them who could triage patients, they could quite simply either send them home and tell them to wait it out. They could tell them we need to get an ambulance for you and send you to the next closest hospital.

But for someone to go knock on the door of a hospital while there are nurses and doctors in behind and be told to go home and call an ambulance on their own steam, it is absolutely a failure of government and there are ways that we can address it. And guess what? We haven't addressed it, and we haven't addressed it out of fear, I guess. Fear of liability, perhaps.

But the reality of the whole situation is that instead of making small steps to fix little things that affect rural Newfoundland, we decide we'll just close that off for a little while. They can leave Bonavista and drive to Clarenville; it's an hour and a half. They don't understand what it does to the ER in Clarenville. They don't understand what happens if you close down an ER in Central Newfoundland, what happens to the emergency rooms in Gander or Grand Falls. It's pretty simple what happens; they fill up beyond capacity. They put patients in the halls. Those patients lie on gurneys for 10, 15, sometimes up to two weeks, 10, 15 days. Think about that.

I've had people in the hall of a hospital for two weeks. We've had people die on gurneys in ER hallways. Think about that. I don't know how we're okay with it. You know, we can blame that on a shortage of doctors, shortage of nurses, overworked, all kinds of different things. But the reality of it is the former Health minister was the former president of the NLMA. He talked about this 10 years ago. This problem didn't happen overnight. In 2015, when this government was elected, they knew this problem existed. They had eight years to address it and now, all of a sudden, it's a priority.

We've got a Premier who said he ran on this. Well, he shouldn't have ran on it because, for the six years prior, this government ran away from it, when they should have been running towards it. Everybody knows that our previous Health minister knew the problems. He knew the problems; he spoke about them openly as the president of the NLMA, lots of times.

You can go back. Don't believe me; don't take my word for it. Go back and read the quotes. The quotes are all out there; he talked about it extensively. But from 2015 onward, under this Liberal government's watch, it was ignored. So, now, COVID comes along. What do we do? We've got another excuse here, folks. We're going to blame it on COVID. These results or these issues were long before COVID came.

Carbon tax: We talk about the introduction of this new carbon tax and how it's going to help things and we all know that we need a greener tomorrow. There's zero question. Zero question that we need to have a just transition from carbons to green fuels – zero question. But we also need to know the repercussions and we need a government that's open, honest and transparent and talks about what it's going to look like. So I'll give you an example: electric vehicles for everyone. Well, if we all got electric vehicles tomorrow, guess what? We wouldn't be able to charge them.

We wouldn't be able to go where we got to go. We understand that and charging stations are coming in. It's being done, slowly.

But the one thing that concerns me the most about this is what the actual cost is going to be, because nobody has ever discussed that. Nobody has ever discussed what the real cost of electrification of vehicles is going to be. I say that from a municipal standpoint. If you think about how municipalities in this province sustain and work, they operate under multi-year capital works programs and a lot of that money comes directly from gas tax money.

So what happens as gas tax money goes down? It's a great question; nobody can answer it. But gas tax money will slowly decrease as we electrify our vehicles. So what do municipalities do then? Do they make do with less or do we charge more for electric charging or electric vehicles? It's going to be one or the other. I can tell you right now, there are lots of people in this room who've been on municipalities as mayors or as councillors; they know how much a municipality struggles to make ends meet from year to year.

So what happens? I'll tell you what happens. Electric cars will come in no different than natural gas in Ontario. When the big boom came, it came in cheap, it was a big thing and they had to increase the price. So people will end up with electric vehicles, paying as much or more for fuel to charge them, or they'll pay an astronomical tax on the purchase of a vehicle in order to subsidize the gas tax. These municipalities cannot exist without the gas tax. If you think about this province, you think about over 180 municipalities and LSDs on boil water orders. Again, I see nowhere in this budget where it addresses that.

How can you make the biggest impact on this province? You want to give people healthy choices. I hear this government talk about healthy choices all the time, so we're going to put a tax on sugary drinks, but we're not going to help people get clean water to drink.

As a matter of fact, if you have to go buy bottled water, you're going to tax that also. Imagine, paying taxes on bottled water. Tell me how that makes sense, when you go out to rural Newfoundland and people don't have access – they have zero access, 180-something communities have no access to potable water and if they want it, they have to go to the grocery store and buy it and they have to pay tax on it. That is not a healthy choice. Absolutely unbelievable that we would tax water.

At the end of the day, we had lots of opportunity, if you talk about sugar tax and what is does and what it's supposed to achieve. It isn't working, it's proven; it's not going to work, it's proven. Yet we continue to do it. We have different options. That is the problem. Again, the ripple effect.

Now, there are people over there that are rumbling and mumbling that there's no such thing as tax on water. I would say go to the store and buy a bottle of water and come back with your bill and tell me that you don't pay tax on water. Unbelievable that I could hear a Minister of the Crown say there's no tax on water. There is tax on water. Absolutely, 100 per cent, there is tax on water.

Not only is there tax but you pay a bottle tax, too, on top of that. So you pay for the bottle and you get taxed. HST on water, absolutely.

Now go talk to a senior that lives out in Charlottetown who has no water because they're locked in by a national park. There have been meetings requested with ministers here for three years and we haven't gotten the meetings – three years. Guess what? They pay tax on water. They pay tax on water, every ounce of water they drink. Every time they go to the grocery store, they pay tax on water. Not cool.

AN HON. MEMBER: And tax on fuel to get to the grocery store.

L. PARROTT: Yes.

Not only do they pay tax on their water but they pay tax on their gasoline so they can get to the grocery store.

MTAP, I have to give a shout-out to the Member for Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair. Last week, we had an issue with a patient on MTAP. We have issues, I would argue, on a daily basis with MTAP. Last week, after the announcement that MTAP was being changed and it was going under a different portfolio, when we made a call, we got a resolution almost instantly. I was shocked, surprised and delighted.

Now I will also say MTAP has a long way to go. Nowhere in this province should you have to pay more for health care because you live in rural Newfoundland. Again, a great example of how we miss the divide between rural and urban. This budget does that very clearly. We need to understand that if you live outside of the metro area, if you live outside of Corner Brook, Gander, Clarenville, the larger centres, it costs you more to be sick. We need to find a way to solve that.

Now MTAP is a great step towards it, but I'm telling you if you live in rural Newfoundland and you have to go to an appointment and you don't have money in your pocket, a lot of times people can't go. The reality of it is there are lots of people in this province who cannot afford to fill their gas tanks up to go to a medical appointment and under no situation should that be acceptable – under no situation.

Now, add on top of that the people who live in Bonavista, as an example, who have to drive to Clarenville to go to an emergency room. They don't even qualify for MTAP. It's just not there. If you don't have a preapproved appointment, you can't get MTAP. So what do we do for those people? Well, I tell you what, some of them sit home. Some of them can't afford to go. Some of them sit home and they're sick and they got no way out. Others go, but what do they sacrifice? What do they do without? I'll tell you what they do without: heat, food and other essentials of life.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands.

P. LANE: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, I'm going to, I guess, try to stick to the actual subamendment that was put in there. Without reading it, the gist of the subamendment, as I would read it, is that we as a province are letting the federal government off the hook. I think that's sort of the gist of it, when it comes to transfers, as it relates to health and other transfers from Ottawa, the feds are getting off the hook.

I hear a lot of Members, certainly over on this side, because I haven't heard a sound from the other side, a little bit of heckling every now and then but nobody wants to speak to the budget, but I've heard a lot of my colleagues over on this side of the House concentrate very heavily on seniors. I think that's because, quite frankly, we hear a lot from seniors.

I know I hear a lot from seniors and, let's face it, seniors are near and dear to our hearts because we're talking about our moms, our dads, our grandmothers, our grandfathers. That's who we're talking about. Seniors is not this fictitious entity that is out there. They're our family, our friends and they're near and dear to all of our hearts. Very important that we do all we can to support them in their – quote, unquote – golden years.

Now, just like every other group in society, every subset of the population if you will, you cannot simply bunch all seniors into one group. It is not a one size fits all; you cannot take a cookie-cutter approach. We know there are seniors citizens in this province that are doing quite well. We have senior citizens who are millionaires, multi-millionaires. We have seniors that have been very successful in business or other private life.

We have seniors who, they may not be rich, but they're doing quite well. Seniors who were fortunate enough in their working life to have the ability to put away money for retirement. Seniors who worked, perhaps whether it be for a private company or in public service, who have a pension that they can rely on. Certainly we know when all these Members here in this House of Assembly – although I would say for a lot of the newer Members it has certainly been watered down, no doubt about that, but certainly for a lot of Members in the House when we retire, we'll have a decent pension. We'll have a decent pension to be able to rely on.

So you cannot compare that situation to many seniors who we have in our province who are simply on that fixed income of OAS and CPP. That's the only income a lot of seniors in this province have: OAS, CPP and maybe supplement. We all know what that amounts to, somewhere in the range of $17,000 or $18,000 a year, whatever it is, less than $20,000 a year.

I look at the pandemic and the CERB money that came out to everybody, almost every chick and child – so the expression goes – got $2,000 a month. Some people probably got it and they shouldn't have gotten it and a lot of people are having to pay it back, but the bottom line is that anybody who qualified would have been entitled to $2,000 a month, including seniors and so on, if they were working of course.

So, to my mind, when the federal government came out with that amount, they kind of established that somebody would have had to sit down and say how much – because we were in a pandemic and it was an emergency situation, but the federal government certainly could not afford to give everybody a lavish lifestyle.

So it came down to, I would assume, what is the core basic amount to give somebody during this pandemic, because they cannot work, in order for them to be able to survive to pay the bills and so on. That amount was $2,000 a month. That's what the federal government chose. I didn't choose it. Nobody in this House of Assembly chose it but somebody up in Ottawa, in their wisdom, decided $2,000 a month is the base. That's the benchmark that we have to give everybody in order for them to survive.

I would suggest that seeing as how they came up with this benchmark, then why is it okay for a senior on OAS and CPP, how are they expected to live? Now that the pandemic is over, why is it that they can live on less than $2,000 a month? Substantially less than $2,000 a month. How do you square that circle? When you hear Members in this House of Assembly talking about the needs of seniors, those needs are very real.

When we hear stories – we've all heard them – of seniors who cannot afford their medication, seniors who are taking a pill, as an example, and cutting it in half and taking half of what they're supposed to do – instead of taking a pill every day, they're taking a half a pill a day because they cannot afford their medication.

We hear of seniors who can't afford to eat. They can't afford to eat properly. Seniors going to food banks. Go over to St. Vincent de Paul. This is nothing; we all know this. In everybody's district, we all have food banks and so on. I'm assuming that every Member have their finger on the pulse of what's going on in their district and they would have visited their local food banks, they know who's running them and they're getting the information first-hand. I know I am. I know my colleague from Mount Pearl North, we're very involved in the food banks and food programs in Mount Pearl. I'm sure every other Member is as well.

So I know that this is nothing new. Everybody knows there are a lot of seniors that are struggling that are going to food banks and seniors that are not getting their medications. You know, you talk about the social determinants of health and you look at the need for seniors to be able to get out.

There are seniors who literally can't afford to go out, say, if there was a seniors program, they can't afford – they try to keep it as cheap as possible, like $5 for a game of cards for the afternoon, very inexpensive, but there are seniors who just can't afford that $5 or they can't afford the $5 plus a taxi to get from their house to the seniors' centre and back. Now $5 is probably $25 or $30 when you factor in the taxi.

That's their only little bit of socialization. We know that a lot of seniors when they get up at a certain age the reality of it is, in many cases, one of the spouses passes away. Usually it's the man – not always, but that's normally the way, statistically. If you were to go to a seniors' group, you'd see it's predominantly female. There are some males there, but that's just the reality.

A lot cases, that's their only bit of socialization if there's a program or so on where they can go and meet with other seniors, have a cup of tea, have a game of cards or whatever. But there are a lot of them who cannot afford to even do that.

We all know this is real. Now, the question is, what do we do about it? How do we assist those seniors to make life more affordable? I know we have a seniors' supplement and we did have a 5 per cent increase. Now we can argue it wasn't enough. I think my colleague for Terra Nova said 17 cents a day or 19 cents a day or whatever the amount was that he said. It's not a lot of money. But I want to come back and circle back to this subamendment which talks about the federal government.

While we're sitting in this House of Assembly arguing with each other about you're not doing enough for seniors and we're doing lots for seniors; if you don't vote for this budget, that means you're voting against the supplement. Oh, I'm not voting against it; I am voting against this budget because you're not doing enough for seniors. You should do this and you should do that and you should do something else.

Listen, anything we can do for seniors I'm there and I know every Member is. But the reality of it is that when it comes to the cost of living and seniors' ability to live, that's what the federal government is there for. That's why we have OAS and CPP. Just think about it. We're putting, I'm going to say, $2,000 a year. It might be a little less, a little more, but somewhere in that range into the seniors' supplement. I think it's around $2,000 a year. That $2,000 a year that we're taking of our provincial tax dollars to give to seniors – and I'm not against helping them. Don't get me wrong; I'm not.

But that $2,000 should be added to the OAS. That's the federal government who should be paying for that.

We're taking money away from health care and we're taking money away from education and roads and everything else to try to help seniors. Now the pressure is on to try to help them more because of the cost of living and the federal government are getting off scot-free.

That's where the argument is to. That's where we should collectively – in my opinion, collectively, we need to be going and the Premier needs to be meeting with the other premiers and so on. I'm sure this is not a Newfoundland problem. It's the same amount right across the board. The federal government is not providing enough income to seniors to be able to live, to survive, and certainly not to live comfortably. I would argue not to survive.

Certainly the lower income ones, the seniors who all they have is OAS and CPP, the federal government, as I said, determined we needed $2,000 per month on the CERB payments to survive, but a senior right now on OAS and CPP are expected to live on far less than that.

We're arguing with each other over how we make up the difference through our provincial dollars that are scarce, and instead of bringing the fight to Ottawa to say you need to do more for seniors, you need to increase the OAS and/or the CPP and/or the supplement to bring seniors, the basic seniors, to bring them up to a level that they can live a dignified life and that they can afford to eat, heat their homes and get their medications.

Now, are there things that we can still be doing? We have programs for home repairs and all that. That's all good. We have programs for our seniors to make their home more accessible. I definitely support that. There are other medical programs and different things we have to support seniors, drug cards and so on. We're doing all that and I support it and I know every Member supports it.

But when it comes to the basic income for a senior to be able to live – and again, I'm not talking about every senior. I'm not talking about some senior who's a millionaire who's got a condo down in Florida and a big boat in their garden and quads and cabins and all that. I'm not talking about them.

But the senior who is only entitled, the only income they get is their bit of OAS and CPP, surely goodness, there has to be a way that the federal government can separate that group from the group who have other income and say every senior needs at least $2,000 a month, the same as everyone needed in COVID, and to change the rates on OAS and/or CPP to reflect that. I think, collectively, all Members of this House of Assembly, we need to be lobbying Ottawa. We have seven MPs; we need to be talking to them about bringing that to Parliament.

The Premier needs to be talking to the other premiers. The Premier talks about his great relationship with Ottawa, with the prime minister. I can remember the former Premier Ball was talking about his Sunday morning chats with Judy Foote when she was minister; I can remember that. Every Sunday morning, we have our Sunday morning chats and we have an in with Ottawa. We've got such a great relationship with Ottawa it's time to start leveraging it. This is one area that we can leverage it.

It's not just this issue. I stuck to this one because seniors are so important to us all, but there are other areas, in my opinion, where the federal government are totalling getting off the hook. We look at what happened with the Atlantic Accord; I'll just use that as an example. Former Premier Williams, at the time, we all remember on the news, we got it, the $2-billion cheque in the airport and so on.

Part of that negotiation, as I recall, which was with Paul Martin, I think at the time, was that there was going to be a period of time – I don't remember whether it was five years or 10 years. It was seven years where we'd be able to collect our oil royalties and it would not impact equalization, because there was a recognition of the uniqueness of our province, of our huge debt, of our huge infrastructure deficit. We have a huge – we all know that. Despite the $1.4 billion or $1.6 billion announced in this budget – which is a good thing; I'm not knocking it – that's not even going to put a dent in the overall picture. We could spend 10 times that. That's how bad our infrastructure is.

But there was a seven-year moratorium and unfortunately, I believe – I'm not trying to rewrite history now; I'm trying to remember it. But I believe it was Harper who came in and quashed that. After a short period of time, he quashed it. I think it might have been one of the casualties of the ABC campaign, and there was no doubt there was casualties associated to the ABC campaign.

As good as we felt about it at the time, to give Ottawa the bird, so to speak, we all felt good about it at the time, but we paid a price for it. We paid a price for it and that was one of the prices we paid was, I think, when Harper quashed that. That would have gave us an opportunity to, sort of, catch up but the reality of it is that nobody ever did go back and recognize that. And even when we look at the more recent equalization discussion, a couple of years ago, with the Trudeau government, they did nothing to fix it either. Status quo, you're getting no equalization.

When you look at the revenues coming into Quebec – I hate to keep using them as the bogeyman, but it is what it is – the revenues coming in and their billions of dollars and they've got tons of money coming in and they're still getting equalization –

AN HON. MEMBER: And a break on the carbon tax.

P. LANE: And the break on the carbon tax, my colleague says, and everything else. Yet, we're still here with huge infrastructure deficits, a $14.7-billion provincial net debt. We got to be careful, too. That's the net debt. That's not including all of the unfunded liability, I don't think. I think our actual debt is a lot higher than that. It's unacceptable.

We look at the health care and all the needs we have in health care. Yes, we've got extra money for health care. So did every other province but, again, I'm only going by memory. I think it was like 20 per cent of what was asked for. Like in terms of the amount that all the provinces asked that we need X amount of extra money for health care, I think we only got like 20 per cent, thereabouts, of that.

So Ottawa fell way short, not just to Newfoundland, but to all provinces when it came to that. Of course, you know, I can go on about Ottawa. I can go on about the carbon tax and the impact that that's going to have on people. They say some people are going to be better off. I'll believe that when I see it. I think that there's going to be people who are going to be worse off. A lot of people are going to be worse off.

Interestingly, I do note the fact that the government says they do not support it. It's a federal tax. But as my colleague from Terra Nova said, the last two or three years they had no problem supporting it when the money was coming into the Newfoundland coffers and they were keeping it. Now that it's going to Ottawa, now we have a problem with it.

Of course, the other one that comes to mind when we're talking Ottawa here is the fishery and the management or should I say the mismanagement of our fisheries over the years and the need for some joint management. The fact that there are things that we see going on as it relates to some of these quotas and fishermen having to go out in unsafe vessels and so on, which is absolutely ridiculous, and Ottawa has let us down there as well.

I guess the reason I am focusing on Ottawa is because this subamendment speaks to the role that the federal government has in our fiscal well-being. There are a number of areas, which I have outlined here, that have definitely had a negative impact on Newfoundland and Labrador. I think we would be so much better off, in many regards, if that was something that we could all agree on, to get together all parties, all Members, to lobby Ottawa to right some of the wrongs as it relates to our province, to some of the money coming into our province, and certainly to benefit our seniors.

Mr. Speaker, I will finish off by welcoming the students from Heritage Collegiate. You have a wonderful Member there representing you and I hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.

L. EVANS: Thank you, Speaker.

I'm just going to talk a little bit on the amendment here. I don't think I actually spoke on the budget yet. It is really hard to actually talk on budget or talk on this amendment when, in actual fact, after being in the House for what – we've been here now for three years, is it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Four.

L. EVANS: We're in four years now and I have to say that it is disheartening and I am not saying anything that I haven't said before.

Yesterday I was listening to my fellow colleague for Harbour Main. She talked about seniors and they can't afford to eat healthy and she listed off a lot of statistics to support what she was saying and you could tell by the passion in her voice that it was very concerning to her. I have a lot of respect for Members of the House that come forward and try to raise issues for people who don't have a voice, that don't have influence. Because the problem with politics is who can buy the influence, either financially or with positioning. People who are considered rock stars got a lot of influence and people who are considered influential business people.

But, at the end of the day, listening to the Member for Harbour Main talk about seniors who can't afford to eat healthy, you know, it is so concerning for me. The reason why it is concerning for me – it is actually really emotional – I have a document here about suicides in Newfoundland and Labrador. So the people we advocate for – our leader actually had a lady here in the House yesterday and she was there. I recognized her because I heard her speak. I heard her speak about the excruciating pain from lack of dental care. I heard people speak about not being able to actually have a night's rest because of pain from the dental care.

Now, we who work in certain industries and in certain positions, a lot of times we're blessed with good health insurance. But later in life a lot of our elders and our seniors don't have access to medical insurance. What happens is people who don't have coverage fall through the cracks.

What's that got to do with suicides? Suicide in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada: a time trend analysis – this is a document talking about suicides. Why is that concerning for me? Why am I always upset when I'm speaking in the House of Assembly? Why am I always trying to downplay my anger in the House of Assembly?

I'll just read from this study; it's actually published. “A 2016 study found that the suicide rate in Labrador was four times higher than the rate in Newfoundland, the island portion of the province.” That's for Labrador, four times higher. We always deal with statistics.

Why would suicides in Labrador be higher? And I know a lot of people, because it doesn't impact them, they don't really care. But for me, I have to care because it's my district; my district is in Labrador.

I want to read again, Speaker, and it is relevant, so I am going to read, but it's relevant to my speech here on the budget and on the amendment: “Prior research found that suicides rates were higher in Labrador than in Newfoundland” – the Island portion – “and up to twenty times higher in Inuit and Innu First Nation communities ….”

Suicides in Inuit and Innu communities are 20 times higher. In my district, I have Natuashish, which is Innu, an Innu community, and I have five Inuit communities. They actually negotiated a land claims agreement. Twenty times higher.

Now, you hear me talk on that petition for fair electricity rates and when I'm talking about that petition I talk about manpower to haul wood to heat your house, about elders not being able to actually haul wood anymore to heat their house, so they go cold because the price of stove oil is too expensive. They can't actually afford to buy oil, let alone have money left over for the day-to-day living such as food, when they have to pay for the high price of stove oil. The price of gasoline, Speaker, is so expensive that a lot of times people actually can't even afford the gasoline to go. Twenty times higher in Labrador. Twenty times higher in Northern Labrador.

Now, what's really, really upsetting and the reason why I read that petition and I talk about the manpower to haul wood, Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro don't want us to use electricity, that's why it's priced out of range, 19 cents a kilowatt hour. Who can afford that?

Suicides: that's supposed to be a sombre, serious topic. Now, I'm reading: “The disparity was largest for females in Nunatsiavut …” – that's my district. So those females are my family, my relatives, my friends, children of my friends.

“The disparity was largest for females in Nunatsiavut, the Inuit region in northern Labrador, who has an age-standardized suicide mortality rate that was 31.5 times … higher than the rate among females in Newfoundland …” – 31.5.

Now, why would women in my district be killing themselves 31.5 times more than on the Island? I came into this House with the expectation that if people understood the inequities we face, the social marginalization we face, something would be done. I'm here four years and nothing has been done.

This is another document, the National Inuit Suicide Prevention Strategy . I have to talk about suicide, because if nothing is done people in my district will continue to kill themselves. I don't mind saying that. I don't mind talking about the hard topics. I talk about sexual assault. I talk about addictions. I talk about suicide. I talk about incarceration. I'm not going to be ashamed to say that the marginalization in my district, the failure for governments since the Joey Smallwood era to actually treat my people fairly, is really, really harmed us. The National Inuit Suicide Prevention Strategy , my God.

You want to talk about acronyms. I think it was actually one of the Indigenous days that was honoured here in the House of Assembly, I got up and I talked about all the acronyms we have for Indigenous people that we identify. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, that's an acronym now: MMIWG. In actual fact, I actually resisted the acronym so Truth and Reconciliation .

Let me read you another acronym now, I'll read it out, National Inuit Suicide Prevention Strategy , NISPS, referred to as the strategy. So until governments actually start treating our people fairly and start actually doing some things that reverse the harms done by colonization, such as residential schools, such as actually having our women go missing and murdered and no one ever actually identified or actually thought it was important enough to address it, we're going to continue to be harmed.

Now, just continuing on from a document, it says here that “The four regions of Inuit Nunangat have called for action to address the elevated rates of suicide among Inuit for decades, yet suicide endures as a leading cause of death among our people, especially young people.”

So the four regions have basically been calling for something to be done. They've actually taken action themselves and created a National Inuit Suicide Prevention Strategy. Of course, that's an acronym, too. But now what they're looking at us having is Inuit-led research to provide leadership for Inuit to try and reverse some of these harms that was done by colonization. What they want are policies that support suicide prevention and focus on the healthy development of children and youth as the basis for a healthy society. That's what we talk about all the time. I hear it in the House of Assembly. Our youth are our future. So that's really important.

“The high rates of suicide … are a symptom of the social and economic inequities that have existed between Inuit Nunangat and most of other regions of Canada since Inuit began to be impacted by colonization ….” They go on to talk about prejudice and social inequities families face – prejudice and social inequities.

So sometimes prejudice can be subtle. Sometimes people who actually are prejudice against Inuit and Innu are not even aware because what they do is they see all the things going on, the addictions, the violence, the assaults, the lack of housing, the poor quality of housing and what they do is they just blame our people instead of looking at the harms that were done to them as children growing up.

I know all about the harms that were done to children growing up in my district, but the thing is I only learned of it recently when their lawsuit was there for residential schools. Most of the people don't talk about it; don't talk about the harms done.

“These inequities make it challenging for people to meet their basic needs and place undue stress on the lives of our people. Inequity in this context refers to unfair, avoidable differences in social and economic status due to cultural or other forms of prejudice, and the failure of governments” – such as the one that I'm actually standing, facing today – “to act to address these differences.”

So what's the solution? “Creating equity for Inuit means eliminating unfair and avoidable differences in areas such as housing, education, and access to health care in ways that validate our language, culture and identity.”

I talk a lot about housing. We had the federal advocate for housing come up to Nunatsiavut, into our largest community of Nain, and go around and look at the housing and she said that it was abominable. In actual fact, she told a reporter that she still has nightmares about it. So imagine now if you went up and you came back and you had nightmares? How bad must the conditions be?

So what's the problem with having such bad housing conditions that the federal advocate for housing has nightmares? What's the problem with that? Because housing is where people live. It's where you raise your children to grow up to be your next generation, to be your adults. And if you don't have a safe, good, warm house to raise your children in, you're repeating the next generation of intergenerational trauma. You really, really are, and we're going to continue to have more reports on suicide.

In my district, 20 times the rate – 31.5 for women in Nunatsiavut compared to women on the Island. Yet, I should be pleased that we're giving token amounts of funding so that our Indigenous women can hold gatherings and go to conferences. At the end of the day, when you want to invest in solutions and equity, you have to address the housing problems; you have to address food insecurity.

Don't get me talking about food insecurity. Food insecurity always raises the issue of the freight boat that was taken off from the Island. Why is that so important to me? It got me elected. Little did I know when I walked into here, what I was walking into. No wonder they took it off and the rationale they said to me: Well, Lela, that was always the agreement. When the Trans-Labrador Highway was nearing completion, we're going to take off that freight boat from the Island. And the cost of the food is then just going to skyrocket. Oh, wait a minute; they didn't say that, but we knew that.

Then when they took off that freight boat from the Island, the Nunatsiavut Government actually accused this government – it is still the same government – of violating their land claims agreement because they failed to consult.

Then when they made the decision, took off the boat, awarded the contract for – what was it – 15 years for to a business person, then they went around to the communities in the spring. It is not consultation if you tell them what you've done. That is not consultation – that is not consultation. Food insecurity is really, really impacting the mental health of people in my region, and that is why we have these reports on suicide and you can't get anymore extreme than suicide.

Do you want to know something? It is not just the youth that are killing themselves; it is not just the adults; we've got seniors committing suicide. The suicide rate for women in my district is 31.5 per cent higher than on the Island. That is why I talk – I don't want to stand up here; I haven't spoken on the budget yet because it actually sickens me to stand up and talk on deaf ears.

We have all the agendas. Everybody has their own agenda but, at the end of the day, I have to try and find a way so that the quality of life for the Innu and the Inuit improves so that we don't have people harmed day to day, every day.

Housing is an issue. Education – don't get me started on education. In 2021, in September, the kids went to school all happy, only to be told that oh, the CDLI courses now, the ones that you're doing so you can actually get the courses you need to go on to post-secondary – because they're not offered in the school; you have to do them online – is going to be on the Newfoundland time zone only. So what happens is – this was in 2021 – they're doing the in class. The teacher says okay, it's time for you to go now. You have to actually get up halfway through your class and leave that and go online.

Then when you come back from being online, you go into your classroom, the other kids have already got a half an hour lecture time done. That is so unfair.

But it was normal. It was considered that was acceptable. That was just collateral damage. The people in my district were collateral damage for the convenience of the people on the Island, the students. Over in Lab West, they didn't actually have the problem because they had the teachers to be able to deliver those courses.

When you look at it, what's the problem with that? Access to post-secondary, being on a level playing field. People in my district, including our youth, including our people that want to go on to become our future leaders, don't have a level playing field. It went on for the whole year. Then, last year in 2022, going in again all happy, new year, new beginning, going into the school year – in Nain, our largest Inuit community, all the students there in high school, their teachers were taken from them.

They were there at the beginning of the school year but they were taken and put in junior high, to teach the junior high and the elementary students and they were all forced to go on and do their courses online.

What's the problem with that? I'll tell you what the problem with that is: Our Internet is so slow. So slow that they were getting bumped off. It was really frustrating, people wanting to switch down to the general program and what that is, is it's basically putting up barriers for our people to get adequate access to education – barriers.

SPEAKER (Warr): Order, please!

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

L. EVANS: Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Stephenville - Port au Port.

T. WAKEHAM: Thank you, Speaker.

Before I start, I want to take the opportunity to again thank the people of Stephenville - Port au Port District who have given me the honour of representing them in the House of Assembly. It's something that I really take a lot of pride in and look forward to continuing to do so.

I'd also like to add my welcome to the students of Heritage Collegiate of Lethbridge.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: While today you are in the gallery, I look forward to the day when some of you will be sitting in these seats and doing exactly what we're doing today.

Speaker, the budget this year is a significant amount of money being spent: $9.8 billion. That's a huge amount of money. Yet, if you look at some of the challenges facing our province, when we talk about cost of living, when we talk about access to primary health care, affordability to continue to stay in this province, the question that gets asked is: Are we making the right investments?

While we are spending a significant amount of money, are we really targeting the people who need that extra help? There are a lot of initiatives in this book that I would argue are measures, but what we really need is a strategy. We had a poverty reduction strategy; we had a very good poverty reduction strategy. As a matter of fact, it was considered to be one of the best in the country. But it was put aside. I believe it's time to start really thinking about this in a much bigger, broader way than simply talking about measures and one-time measures.

We're spending the money; we don't need to spend more money. What we need to do is make sure that we target that investment to help the people who truly need our help in the province.

The Premier recently in an interview on the news talked about or promised to revisit the funding of Memorial University, their funding levels. Now, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. One of the challenges that happened in last year's budget, the freeze on tuition, was eliminated. It was going to be increased over the next five years.

That has had a significant impact on the students at Memorial University and also on the fact that enrolment went down by 19 per cent. So it's having an impact, not only on the university, but on our whole community and on our province.

I would think that value of education is one of our top priorities as a government, as an Opposition, as a province. Providing education that is affordable to our people, to our students is something that we should continue to do. It wasn't that long ago that a $500 infrastructure increase was added to costs at Memorial University and this $500, the students couldn't even claim it on their income tax, but it was added to their fees. There was course fees, maintenance fees.

So today I stand in this House of Assembly, and my colleague from Conception Bay South, yesterday, spoke about it in the media. He has asked for and talked about the government freezing tuition fees until the Auditor General completes her review. I stand here today to support that. I call upon the Finance Minister or the Premier to stand in this House and commit to freezing tuition fees at Memorial University until such time as the Auditor General can complete her review.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

T. WAKEHAM: One of the other questions that was asked about yesterday in relation to the budget is housing. We all know, and my colleague from Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans brought up the issue about the significant increase in the numbers of people looking for housing in our province; a 55 per cent increase in the number of people now looking for housing in our province. While the budget includes money for new units. There is still 290, almost 300 units in our province, right now, that are unoccupied. Two hundred and ninety units owned by Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, owned by the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador that are unfit to live in.

Imagine if you were a property owner in any community in this province and you had a house in that community that was unfit to live in, that town council or that city would be after you to repair it. So imagine that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador with 290 units that cannot be occupied. Are we the biggest slum landlord in the province? Because that's what it feels like.

So my question to the minister is: Will you commit to ensuring that all 290 units in the province will be repaired in this fiscal year and will be occupied before the end of the year? Because those units already exist. It's a great initiative to build more, but we have 290 units right now in our system that could be put to use, but because they are not fit to occupy, they remain vacant. So, again, that's a commitment.

Part of the problem or challenge with that may be the fact – as we heard – that there is a 20 per cent vacancy in staff at Newfoundland and Labrador Housing. Government at one time was an employer of choice. People wanted to work in government departments in places like Newfoundland and Labrador Housing and others. So, again, is the minister prepared to commit to filling those vacancies, to doing what's necessary so that the people who do the work at Newfoundland and Labrador Housing can get on with their jobs and can get these units repaired and we can get those units up and people in them? Because that's extremely important.

I know out my way, we have challenges with recruitment of staff sometimes in maintenance departments in Transportation. So we have challenges that we need addressed. We have positions but we do not have them filled. So we really have to concentrate on how do we fill those positions? Because we've all heard the stories, especially in the winter, when a grader goes down or a flyer goes down and there's nobody there to repair it or we're short on mechanics. So the opportunities are there, what we have to do is find a way to fill those positions. I think that's got to be part of the process of what we're about to do today.

Again, think about 290 units that can be occupied, if they were repaired and how do we get those 290 units repaired because that is a significant amount and a significant investment. So I would just like to know, if the money is there that will repair these units this year, they can be occupied and people can be living in them. That is a significant investment.

Speaker, I want to take a few minutes to follow up on another issue. Yesterday, my colleague from Harbour Main spoke very passionately in this House of Assembly about violence against women, about homelessness. My colleague from Torngat Mountains just gave a very passionate speech about what's happening in her district and these are very, very serious issues that should impact all of us and we should all be there to do something about it.

I want to read out a message I received recently and make some comments on it because it comes from a different angle, I suspect, or approach. This person said to me – and I quote – we have a homelessness issue. The current government is paying for these individuals to stay in local hotels. I know this because the hotel, at which I'm employed, is steady taking people in as an emergency shelter. We have several rooms designated for them. Although I'm grateful that we are able to provide this service and keep these individuals off the street, I am also concerned that we are not equipped nor qualified to deal with some of these people.

We have taken women and children in who have left relationships due to domestic violence. We have had individuals in with severe mental health and addiction issues. The safety concern is that we are a hotel. We are not counsellors. We are not a shelter. We cannot and do not provide any safety or protection for these people. There is nothing stopping an ex-partner, for example, from coming into the hotel and harming these women. We can't help those who have serious mental health and addiction issues and have meltdowns or psychotic episodes. It's a very dangerous situation for us as well as the clients we are providing shelter for.

So that is a very serious concern raised by a worker in a hotel who is dealing with this issue every day. So, to me, it highlights the significant importance that we have to find ways to do things differently. We have to find a way to respond to this message. Because this is a call raising a legitimate concern about the people who are homeless and also about the people who are trying to provide that hotel room and that care for them.

The services are not there, and that's what this message is all about. How do we fix this? How do we address this? That is part of what all of this is about. How do we address this particular issue to ensure these women who are running away from domestic violence have a safe place to go to and that simply putting someone in a hotel takes them off the street, but are we really providing a service? That's the message that I see here. That's the message that's being delivered.

Like I said a few minutes ago, the budget, $9.8 billion, is a huge amount of money. Yet today, we've heard speaker after speaker talk about the impacts on affordability of people of our province. We've heard the measures, how effective those measures are and the actual total amount of money. My colleague alluded to 19 cents a day.

These are why measures aren't just good enough. You need a strategy. The whole principle of income support and poverty is not a simple discussion. It is a complete discussion and we need a complete review of the Income Support program and all of the other programs that are put in place to help people of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We have a lot of great programs, but have the levels kept up with the rate of inflation? Are people left behind because their income is slightly above the threshold? We need to review all of those. We need to review those thresholds. These are the type of things that need to be happening. We need a complete review.

While measures are welcome, they are not the solution. The solution is a real strategy; a strategy that deals with people; a strategy like we had before; a strategy that will get people back to work, that will help people afford to live here. We cannot afford to have people leave Newfoundland and Labrador. We need to keep them here. We need to keep our youth here. We need to make sure that their education is affordable so that they can continue to work and stay here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

We need to keep our seniors in their own homes so they don't have to leave, so they can afford to stay there and even when a partner dies – and this has happened many times – you'll find a situation where two seniors are living in their own home and they're managing to stay there because they both have an income. But when one partner dies, all of a sudden the income is cut in half and now the expenses start to pile up and they can't afford it.

We've talked about a program – we want people to stay at home as long as they can before they go into a nursing home or a personal care home. Yet, while we have home care programs to do that, in many, many parts of our province we have no home care workers. Part of that goes back to how we compensate and how we train, because right now working in home care is considered a job; it is not considered a career. People are not lining up to take a career in home care supports. Think about that.

We've made some changes to look after our young with the program and the increase in funding for early child educators. But if you think about the fact that our most vulnerable, whether it is our young babies, our young kids before school or whether it is our seniors who want to live in their own homes, we have a responsibility to make sure that we provide adequate funding to allow people to choose careers. Because that is a career; that is a great responsibility.

When you're a home care worker, you're looking after some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We need to make sure they have the proper training and we need to make sure that they have the proper qualifications and dollar value associated with that job so that it doesn't become a job; it becomes a career. That is how we will keep people in their homes longer if we are able to find a way so that home care is a career choice. That early child educator is a career choice. Those are things that need to happen.

If you want to really understand that, go talk to some of the people that provide those services. Go have a conversation with a home care worker or with an early child educator and ask them what could we be doing better. How could we change what we're doing? That's the type of discussion that we need to have because then maybe we could allow that to happen.

I know in my district, and I'm sure in other Members' districts, there are lots of people who have been approved for – quote – home care, but have no access to it. It's the same issue that we see in child care. So we need to do better. Those are the type of things that we can talk about. Lots of times when we talk about access or we talk about affordability, we try to say it's a national issue. We have our own $9.8 billion that we're spending as a province. That's our budget: $9.8 billion.

So we have to find a way. We have to find a way to look after the people who built this province. We have to find a way to look after the youth to keep them here in this province, to give them quality education so they can in turn come here one day, as I said to the group above, and sit here in the House of Assembly and represent districts all over this great province of ours.

Speaker, we just have to do it better. I would argue that we must do better, we can do better and we will do better.

Thank you.

SPEAKER: The Minister of Children, Seniors and Social Development.

J. ABBOTT: Speaker, I just wanted to ask if the Member who just spoke could table the document that he read from. The points that the author made, I would like to have them on the record so that I could respond as well.

SPEAKER: Thank you.

The Member for Bonavista.

C. PARDY: Thank you, Speaker.

It gives me great pleasure to speak here this morning in this hon. House and in front of the students of which I spoke with on December 15, the students of Heritage Collegiate high school in Lethbridge. This is Ms. Dooley's social studies class.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: It's too bad I can't get a visual. If they were on this side, I could get a visual of them, but I know they look good. I know that.

I wanted to give you a little bit of history or a little bit of background on Heritage Collegiate. I think the Minister of Industry, Energy and Technology may be most interested in the fact that I believe and would contend – and while I don't have data to present – that the beginning of robotics would have occurred at Heritage Collegiate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: I know it certainly did in the District of Bonavista and the Clarenville area because eventually in Clarenville, we introduced a robotics program. I know that the teacher moved from Heritage Collegiate up to Clarenville and the gist of that was that he would then start the robotics. How significant was the robotics program that they started? Well, we have now in Clarenville, which was SubC and some of the people who worked at SubC have got experiences and in their schooling that they have the robotics program that began at Heritage Collegiate.

Another thing that the House should be aware of, once we're talking technology, is one of the students from Heritage Collegiate moved on to be very successful in business. He started a business with two other colleagues and his name was – wait for it – Jamie King.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: Jamie King and two others started Verafin. Jamie came from Heritage Collegiate. His father was the principal of the school in L. R. Ash before Heritage of which I started teaching. I would say, Jamie has gone on to be very successful and now doing well as his company was bought out by NASDAQ. H e is now gainfully employed with NASDAQ.

I would say Heritage Collegiate here today has got a lot of background and I celebrate the success of the school today and as it was years ago.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: For the benefit of the class, we are debating the budget. Everyone who stands on their feet here in this House today, it's to talk about the budget.

I'm going to have another go at telling the government where they can increase their revenue in order to provide the programs that every one of us wishes to respond. But before I do that, I just want to recognize and state one event that occurred in the District of Bonavista recently.

On March 6, the fire department in Port Rexton responded to a fire call. As happens, those who are able to get a minimum number to respond, they headed to the fire. They started to put the flames out in the home. Other firefighters were coming on the scene. There was radio contact to let them know what they needed to do to suit up.

One firefighter, Steven Kew, responded. The chief told him to bunker up and get on the other side of the fire truck. The fire chief tells the story that eventually it was one of the neighbours who came over and tapped him on the shoulder and said someone was lying on the ground on the other side of the fire truck.

The fire chief immediately secured the hose and went around to the other side of the fire truck where he found Steven Kew. He was in cardiac distress. His colour said it all. He went through the process of making sure that he wasn't breathing, no pulse.

The moral of the story would be that those firefighters provided CPR, but it was only through the AED that was available that the fire department had and after four shocks, today he may be watching from his home in Champney's and doing well.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: But without that AED, it wouldn't have happened. Those firefighters, the ones that saved his life and responded, will be here on May 23 for a Member's statement. They will be in the gallery. So I do look forward to that.

Now, everyone is interested and saying what is he talking about increasing the revenue for the provincial coffers? I don't want to jump right into it; I want to create a little bit of suspense.

On April 17, I had the privilege of presenting at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. The topic of the committee at Fisheries and Oceans was seal predation. I guess there might have been addresses that I may have had in the House previously that I was invited to present.

Anyway, my hon. Member and my friend from Mount Pearl - Southlands had referenced the fishery earlier and he talked about joint management.

On October 19, 40 Members in the House of Assembly stood united in that we wanted to see a greater emphasis on good science in order to better predict our stocks and to make sure that our ecosystem was in fine order to supply or support a fishing industry – all 40 of us. Joint management says that we've got a seat at the table. Any decision about the fishery, we've got a seat at the table. So there are no more surprises; therefore, us being there. I would suggest that that would be something that we ought to do.

Here is the math. Our fishing industry, generally, brings in between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion a year. Last year, the snow crab, and the year before, the markets indicated that it was of high value; that's when we hit $1.6 billion. We've said in this House before that if you rest on only harvesting one species in order to get your income, sometimes you're going to find that that species is not available or the market is not friendly towards your price that you're seeking. That is the time we find ourselves in now.

Everyone in the House would know that our total commercial fishery, inshore and offshore, we harvest 186,000 metric tons, a variety of species –

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

C. PARDY: Not seals, but a variety of other fish species that we get our income on. So keep that in mind: 186,000 metric tons gives our province and our revenue $1.6 billion at peak time when snow crab is good.

The Minister of Immigration, Population Growth and Skills had shared a video of seals that was taken recently off the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland. He showed a picture that it was miles and miles and miles of seals that were covering and littering the ice. Nobody objects to seals. The only thing we agree with is that there's got to be a balance in the ecosystem.

If we took 10 million wolves and put them on the Island of Newfoundland and Labrador and they were running rampant predation and on farmers' fields, what would we do about it? I think we would address it. We'd make sure that we'd have that number reduced so that it is a friendly part of our ecosystem that other species could flourish and other things could happen. Our Department of Fisheries and Oceans would state – so keep in mind 186,000 metric tons equates to 1.6 billion when the snow crab is good and in a good market.

They predict – DFO – that the seals on the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, stretching from the bottom of Labrador down to the Avalon Peninsula, all along the East Coast, they consume 3.2 million metric tons per year. Our commercial fishery that provides a livelihood for Newfoundland and Labrador, rural Newfoundland, 186,000 metric tons. Predation, with over 10 million seals out there, 3.2 million metric tons; over 12 times the value of our commercial fishery.

So when we, on this side, would say we think that if we had checks and balances that the ecosystem wasn't out of whack with the predation of seals, we ought to be able to see our commercial harvest of fish increased. We would know that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, when they take their vessels out to the waters, will know that there are fish out there to catch.

Pelagic fish, like capelin, mackerel, herring, they are what seals eat most. DFO would suggest about 50 per cent of their appetite or their desire is the pelagic fish. Now, I was going to ask you to sit down because this number here is rather startling, but we are sitting. Harp seals alone – not the other species of seals, but harp seals alone – will eat, in one year, one million metric tons of capelin. Everyone says that capelin is the basis and the genesis of our fishery. Other species need capelin, the forage fish, in order to survive. They need it. We've got seals, harp seals in particular, DFO would state, eat one million metric tons.

So the question would be: What are we doing about that? What are we doing to address it, if even DFO is saying show us the news release where we've got action on the imbalance in our ecosystem? I would say, there is no release – no plan, no release.

My hon. colleague from Cape St. Francis mentioned yesterday that he had raised in the House several times about the Municipal Operating Grant. He was pleased to see it in the budget. It's true; he spoke about it a couple of times. Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans, my hon. Member was talking about the hospice care and he had mentioned that many times. My hon. friend from Topsail - Paradise, glucose monitors, numerous times. Are they pleased to see it in the budget? Yes. I felt a little dismayed yesterday because I said, well, of the times we all spoke about the fishery, was there anything in the budget on the fishery? Nothing different than what it was last year.

I can't speak beyond 2019, but the fishery, there is no plan that we have. There are things that we could be doing. I would say the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, when we were debating the collective bargaining act, he had stated, according to Hansard – which I concur with them – when he's referencing what the income is as a result of the fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador, he stated what it was. He said: We want that to double or triple in the next number of years and anything we can do to support that, we're going to try our best to.

Now, I would say, what your efforts are, we should try. T he Minister of Fisheries quoted, in the

article on February 23, the last paragraph of the Navigator magazine: The Premier asked me where I'd like to see the fishery in 20 years. In 20 years, I'd like to see it as strong as it is today.

Now, if you think that's the direction of which we, as a province, ought to be, I would concur with the Minister of Environment and Climate Change that it ought to be higher. We want it to be higher. It ought to be higher. In 20 years' time, it ought to be $5 billion, $6 billion, $7 billion.

Before I conclude, I think I'll get another time –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: Order, please!

I'm only interested in hearing the Member for Bonavista.

C. PARDY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Let me give some quotas. I've done this before but these are the latest ones. Think of where we are within the fishery, and I won't give you a species that we don't consume or fish very much. Norway, a northern country, Atlantic cod: 708,480 metric tons; Iceland: 180,000 metric tons; Newfoundland and Labrador: 13,000 metric tons. No plan, no news release. No plan and here it is.

Haddock: 180,000 metric tons in Norway and 33,000 metric tons in Iceland. We have it as a bycatch of less than 1,000. You got to be less than 1,000 metric tons for haddock.

Mackerel: 298,000 metric tons in Norway and 140,000 metric tons in Iceland. In Newfoundland and Labrador, we are under a moratorium; you're not allowed to catch mackerel.

Then comes capelin. We know that harp seals, according to DFO, take one million metric tons a year – one million metric tons. Capelin in Norway: 70,000 metric tons. They share their quota with Russia. Iceland: 200,000 metric tons; Newfoundland and Labrador: 24,758 metric tons.

The last one I'll share is herring. Herring in Norway: 454,000 metric tons; 68,000 metric tons: Iceland; Newfoundland and Labrador: 20,000 metric tons.

I would say to you, the Member for Stephenville - Port au Port had cited before, that what Glenn Blackwood said was that our fishery is our only true renewable megaproject, and he's right. But when we look back at the industry and find out on sealing that we haven't had a news release since Minister Crocker, I think, was minister back in 2016. We've been silent. There's been nothing. All while our species that we fish commercially is being eaten by predation. Not being harvested to support rural Newfoundland in their fishing communities, but only on the diets of seals.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

E. JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A great speech, I say to the Member. I know the Member mentioned about the AEDs that saved a firefighter's life. I know back in Municipal Affairs back in 2015, 2016, 2017, the AEDs that saved a firefighter's life, at the end of it, the special assistance, we used to put $100,000 a year aside to buy 30 AEDs to give out around the province. I encourage the government to continue on with that program which was stopped in 2019, because it does save lives, it does save lives.

Mr. Speaker, I'm going to stand here today and speak for a second. You want to talk about why you need Opposition, why you need people with a bit of history. I look at the press release this weekend about Grieg moving the processing of the farmed salmon to Bay de Verde.

I'm going to read the press release that was put out. I was part of it then and I know the mayor. You fought hard I say to the Member; you were the mayor. I know you're upset about this; you have to be. I know you are because I know how much you care about your town. I'm going to read it: “Today in Marystown, representatives from Grieg NL officially launched the company's $250 million aquaculture project ….” Here's the part, too, Mr. Speaker: “… and processing facilities ….” This was the whole concept for that whole area to prosper through this.

I'll just read down through the press release: “… with environmental conditions, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will provide repayable financial assistance to support the development, totalling up to $30 million, through the Aquaculture Capital Equity Program. Provincial funding will complement a $10 million repayable federal investment through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency's Business Development Program.”

I just wanted to read a few quotes from the members at the time. Churence Rogers, the MP: “… will strengthen the communities on the Burin Peninsula around Placentia Bay, spur economic growth and support the creation of hundreds of good, well-paying jobs.”

I have Carol Anne Haley, the former Member for Burin - Grand Bank: “These kinds of new developments are exactly what we need to reinvigorate our rural communities and create spin off benefits for the processing sector.”

So when you wonder why you need Opposition and when you wonder why you need them to raise the issues, this is a prime example. This money was put in for the Burin Peninsula to create these jobs. Now we know that they even did work on the processing facility in St. Lawrence. They even did work on the processing facility. Now the processing is being taken from St. Lawrence and going to Bay de Verde with the government funding, with the commitment, signed agreement that the processing would be done in St. Lawrence. So this is why you need Opposition.

P. PIKE: (Inaudible.)

E. JOYCE: What?

P. PIKE: How does that impact Marbase?

E. JOYCE: How do that impact Marbase?

I say to the Member for Burin - Grand Bank, I know you're fighting for it. I know because I sat in on meetings with you back then when this was going ahead. This is a blow to the Burin Peninsula. This is a blow and this is why you need to keep government accountable. This is why you need to say okay, you made a commitment to these people, I was part of that commitment. I was down and met with that group and now the commitment is broken. It's wrong.

So where the government put in this money to create this economic development for the Burin Peninsula, now it's not done. What else can the government just make a commitment to and walk away? This is why you need to keep government accountable. This is exactly why you need to do that.

So I'll get off on that now, but I just wanted to have a little

preamble on that, Mr. Speaker, because I could tell you one thing, and I'm probably on the other end of it, too, if that ever happened in the Humber - Bay of Islands, I'd be the first one standing up and saying no, it's not going to happen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

E. JOYCE: It doesn't matter to me because they are the people that elected me. They're the people that I've got to go home and see every weekend. They're the people that stop me by my door and have a chat every day. They're the people who need to pay their light bills. They need to pay their grocery bills. They need to pay their mortgage. They are the people that I will stand up for and I've made a habit of that all my life.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

E. JOYCE: I'm just going to talk about a few of the things that I know my colleague from Mount Pearl – Southlands mentioned before, about seniors. Last Friday, I had the great pleasure of attending the Salvation Army volunteer dinner to recognize volunteers that help out the Salvation Army. A lot of those people, Mr. Speaker, will help with the food banks. They serve the meals. These are local people, very concerned about their fellow man. They come and freely give their time because they see the most vulnerable.

When you hear the stories about the increase of the food bank, when you hear stories about now they've got to try to expand or have a second dinner, you know that there's something missing in our programs for people. There's something missing.

I'm not going to start pointing fingers at anybody, but I'm just raising this point that when you hear from the common people who are serving the people who are most vulnerable and they're telling you that we have a problem, there's a problem. How do we solve the problem? Giving $500 to people who are making $100,000 ain't going to work. It just ain't going to work.

We need to come up with a targeted program that could help the most vulnerable people. It is an issue and we can stand here in this House and whoever wants to stand up and say we gave this, we gave that, we put this into it or we put this money for seniors. Yet, somehow we're missing the most vulnerable people of this province. If anybody was at that dinner with me – and it was a pleasure to be there, to speak at the volunteer dinner – you would hear the stories. You would actually hear their stories.

Do I think that we can take every person who is vulnerable and say, okay, we can find a way? No, but I think we must find some type of program that can help the most vulnerable. If anybody thinks that is not real, anybody over on the opposite side thinks it's not real, it's time for you to get outside your little bubble. It's really time to get outside the bubble, because I can tell you there are a lot of vulnerable people.

The Member responsible for Housing, the Minister of CSSD, I got to give him credit. He does respond and he does work at things, trying to get things moving. I brought up to him before about the emergency units in Corner Brook that need to be done and we got it open again for another year. I have to recognize that. That's the good work.

I know there are 60 units up in the Corner Brook area that needs repairs. We could put in 60 families. I know it's on your list now. I've written you and it's on the list. But those are the kinds of things – I'm not bringing this to your attention to say, okay, let's get brownie points or let's say pound the government. You bring it to the minister's attention. The minister solves it, works with the local people on the ground to get – that's the way it should be. I give the minister full credit for that because you did save a lot of vulnerable people from sleeping on the streets. You did, and that's what we should do.

So when you're in Opposition and you bring things up, it's not because you want to say I want a good crack at the government or try to embarrass the government. It's not. It's to help the people you represent. This is a prime example, and I know there are a few others over there also, that when you bring issues, they try to solve them and it's never heard. Yet, the people that reap the benefit are the most vulnerable when the results are done. That's the way it should be, Mr. Speaker.

I give full credit to a few ministers over there that work that way. The Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, I know we're working on something for Lark Harbour. Can I guarantee it's going to be done? No. But the minister, when I brought it to his attention, he said we'll look into it. There's one place in the whole Bay of Islands that haven't even got water. An application went in, looking for, as the number one priority that I put in for the whole district – and I know the town council met with the MP and I know that we'll work something out for that. We'll work something out.

We may not get the full amount, the $3 million, to do the whole water and sewer project, but we need something to encourage the people.

The minister made no commitments, but the only commitment he made was that he'll look into it and see what he could do. But that's the way it should be. That's why it should be, that we work together.

I brought up cataracts on many occasions, and people I know have presented petitions upon petitions. I was in the media, Open Line . They put in 500 cataracts for Western Newfoundland and what happened then is the minister started negotiations with the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association to try and make this on a go-forward basis. I don't know what's going to happen to that. It should be done. Every year, the aging population, the demographics will suffice that we need the 500 extra per year, on a go-forward basis.

We hear, well, you've got to vote for the budget. But how could I vote for a budget that right now we say yeah, here are 500, and if it's not on a go-forward basis, I'll be back here next year saying there's another wait-list? The wait-list has doubled again. So these are the kind of things that we need resolved. This is the type of issue that I shouldn't be on a regular basis before this was done in this House, on Open Line – I thank Paddy Daly for giving me the time – in the media, presenting petitions on something for people's safety. It shouldn't be done. I should not have to be doing that. Then at a click of the fingers, 3,000 for St. John's.

So this is the kind of thing that I say to the government that you always ask well, what are your ideas? What are your options? When you give them options, it's almost like they can't work. But eventually, after pressure, it does work. These are the kind of things that we and the Members here – and the hon. Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands, we speak a lot on the issues that we've got to raise, is that this is the kind that we've got to raise for government. Just don't take it and push it aside because the people we're representing are real people. They have struggles; they have concerns.

I heard the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board say okay, give us some ideas. I've brought up ideas in this House and I'll bring up another one, Mr. Speaker. I'll bring it up and I could even –

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

E. JOYCE: News article.

Nurse practitioners in Corner Brook – now, the Member for Corner Brook and I know the Member for St. George's - Humber, he's getting the same calls because I'm getting them too from your district and you're probably getting them for my district, too. This is not a knock on family doctors. Now, this is all across. This is not a political thing because we've got them in all of our districts, people without a family doctor.

Nurse practitioners: If we would allow them to bill the MCP, it would take some load off the emergency departments at our hospitals. When I heard the minister say here that he has no plans to pay for care by private nurse practitioners, that means he can do it. Then why can't he do it? Because he doesn't have the political will to do it. There are three in Corner Brook setting up. Here's the article; I don't know who seen it. I'm sure that it was on CBC. I spoke to them again yesterday on this here. If you want to talk about how we can help the most vulnerable: nurse practitioners. It's so simple. It is actually doable. It is actually doable.

So when we stand up and we say there are people calling us who haven't got a family doctor and when you hear about – I'll tell you cases that I hear about the emergency department. One person went in for 14 hours, his wife, had to leave; couldn't get in. Came back the next night, another 14 hours. Do you know what he did? Flew to Toronto because he couldn't get in to emergency. Got a referral, go to Toronto; couldn't get in.

How many stories do we hear, especially in Western Newfoundland, about the emergency departments? It's not the staffs fault; they're just overburdened. I mean, when you need a prescription, just for simple blood work that you have to do every year, you have to go to the emergency department to get it.

If anybody was on thyroid, which is a lifetime thing, thyroid, people bring it to my attention, a lifelong thing. Every year you just need a prescription from the doctor. You have to go to emergency to get it.

If you want a driver's licence done, a senior needs a driver's licence and here it is an opportunity for a government to make a difference.

So when the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board stands up and says: What would you do? How would you help out? Here it is: nurse practitioners. They're not asking. Government can even help, if they want help to set up an office, Mr. Speaker, they can even set up, but all they're asking is to be able bill MCP.

Do you know how many calls I get from seniors, mainly seniors, who are desperate? They get an appointment with the nurse practitioners, then they realize they have to dish over $65, $70 out of their own pocket, and we're talking about free health care in this province. We have a way to solve it and we won't solve it.

This to me, it's almost like the cataracts; you have to fight for two or three years for people to get back their eyesight. This is almost getting that feeling that you have to grab hold of this.

When you speak to the nurse practitioners, when you speak to the seniors, when you speak to the people who can't get into the emergency because of the overcrowding at the emergency department, and here we can help out and we're not doing it. We're just not doing it.

I don't know of a person in this House who haven't received a call about a family doctor. I don't know of a person in this House who never received a call.

P. LANE: Tons.

E. JOYCE: The Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands says tons. But why don't we look at that? Why don't we look at nurse practitioners? Why don't we find a way to make this work? Why don't we find a way?

This is something that we can get done. I say to the Minister of Health and Community Services: this can be done. This would alleviate a lot of concerns, a lot of health visits to the emergency departments. It would help all districts. I know in Western Newfoundland, it would help all districts. I know the Member for Corner Brook, same thing; it would help his district. St. George's - Humber, it would help his district, up Massey Drive, Pasadena area, that would definitely help his area also.

So here is an opportunity with the nurse practitioners that we can get this done because all we've got to do is let them bill MCP, which the minister, from his comments, can do it. He can do it.

I'm asking the minister to reconsider your decision of not allowing the nurse practitioners to bill MCP. It says here, the headlines from the CBC: Newfoundland has no plans to pay for care by private nurse practitioners.

Mr. Speaker, if the minister is saying we're not going to pay private nurse practitioners, why don't we find some way to get them under Western Health and put them out in the community? Let Western health pay the extra remuneration that they would need and then we can pay them that way, if that's the issue.

But when you're a private nurse, as CBC is reporting, and you're out as a nurse practitioner, you're a civil servant who is doing a duty to the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. There has got to be a way that we can settle up in this day and age that a nurse practitioner – they're doing it across Canada, they're doing it in other places, so why can't we do it here? It's just like –

P. LANE: They're doing it for doctors.

E. JOYCE: We're doing it for doctors, the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands says doctors are all private businesses. The family doctors –

P. LANE: Hiring private nurses in the health care in the hospitals.

E. JOYCE: Private nurses in the health care in the hospitals. So it can be done. It can be done. We just need to find a way.

I'd be the first one to come out, if the minister does it and the government does it and allow nurse practitioners to bill MCP, I'll be the first one out singing their praises saying we just helped them, a lot of people, thousands and thousands of people; thousands and thousands of people who we could help just by that move.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Thank you.

Further speakers?

The hon. the Member for Placentia West - Bellevue.

J. DWYER: Thank you, Speaker.

It's always an honour to rise in this hon. House to speak on behalf of the people of Placentia West - Bellevue.

The first thing I'd like to mention, I guess, I'd like to start off on a very positive note and acknowledge last week as National Volunteer Week: Volunteering Weaves Us Together is the theme. It's very true because none of our towns are able to do anything without the kindness and the openness of our volunteers.

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend a volunteer appreciation night in Marystown. It was run quite well. It was nice to see a really big turnout I got to say. It was so important to a town the size of Marystown for the simple fact that it's the hub of the Burin Peninsula. It's where all the economic growth and everything is probably going to be seen first. What we're doing now is we're kind of doing our own regionalization type of thing where we kind of feel now on the Burin Peninsula that we are all as one. I work closely with my colleague, the MHA for Burin - Grand Bank, on many initiatives, including health care and the economy.

Like I said, it's about working together, it's about what we can do to let our residents peacefully enjoy our beautiful Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and to be able to go out and acknowledge and rise up in gratefulness to our volunteers which are second to none. I would recommend that it's done by everybody because they are the backbone of our whole economic system, to be quite honest, to see the different organizations and individuals who volunteer.

As a volunteer, the true meaning of volunteering is that you're giving up a piece of your life that you're not even looking for recognition for. When you have something like a volunteer night, it's so heartwarming to be able to say thank you to these people who put in countless hours.

But the other thing that I brought up in my address to the room that night was that I want people throughout the province to realize that our municipal governments, our mayors and councillors, these are volunteers as well. I don't think that they get really the respect, I guess, that they deserve.

I'm not saying they don't get any respect; don't get me wrong. There's lots of respect and stuff like that, but to give up your time and to still hold down another job in order to do this just shows the measure of a person, I guess, kind of thing to put their community first, if that's done in a tasteful way.

But I would always say, for all measures, we need to be very grateful for our municipal councils. I am very grateful for all municipal councils in my district. I have 36 towns, including LSDs. I have some unincorporated areas that have rec committees and stuff like that, but it's about working with them. Anything that I bring forward on behalf of a municipality, an LSD, a rec committee or any organization, it's generated from them.

The reason why I don't mind bringing it forward, whether I agree with what I'm fighting for with them – whether I agree with it or not, it's not a personal decision and I'm not here to judge anybody. I'm here to support the people of Placentia West - Bellevue and give them an opportunity to have an attachment to their government and the government services. That's the whole point, and that's what we're all here to do.

That's why I keep stressing the fact that we have 40 Members in this hon. House that need to look after 530,000. That's where our heads need to be. It's not about who's right and who's wrong. It's the reds or the blues or the oranges that done this. That's not the point. We all have a job to do. But we must do it in a cohesive, respectful and integral way. That's how the work is going to get done. That's what I always stress to my municipal councils because sometimes there are going to be disagreements and stuff like that, but that's healthy. We're supposed to disagree. Nobody comes up with an idea and we run to fruition with it, without it being adjusted or meandered in some way.

So that's what I'm trying to say that when we elect these municipal officials, we have to show them the respect that they stepped up because, otherwise, I would expect the person that's complaining to step up the next time, just to see everything that goes into volunteering. Yeah, there's a small tax break and stuff like that but I mean, at the end of the day, when we look at the cost of living, there's a lot more coming out of our pockets, just getting the meetings than this little stipend would equate to not having any out-of-pocket costs.

I'm very pleased to see that the budget increased the Municipal Operating Grants. It's been needed for quite some time. To do $3 million this year and $3 million next year brings them to the $28 million that they requested.

As my colleague from Terra Nova alluded to, as we move to electrification of our vehicles and our homes, we have to ask the question: Do we have the capacity to supply that power and what does that look like for people from urban as opposed to rural? Because when we look at that and we know that there was an uptake of less than 0.5 per cent, then what we are saying is that not even the rich people can afford this program. Not even the 1 per cent has picked up on this program. So, to me, there are other ways that we can find incentives to make our communities and our residents better.

To see the Municipal Operating Grant go up is great, but at what point are Municipal Operating Grants not going to be available if they're based on the gas tax? That's the whole point. We need to move forward and understand this.

There's no sense of us being reactive to that when it's in our face and we have no other choice but to deal with it. Let's be proactive today and consequently in future budgets, so that we mitigate against this that's going to happen in the future, because that's what our government is telling us is that we need to go towards this greener economy. I agree with that. I don't want this planet to be left in worse shape than when I showed up, but in my 53 years I've seen a fair bit of changes, we'll say.

One of the big ones is wearing seat belts. When we were growing up, nobody even considered wearing seat belts. We had a wagon and you'd call getting out in the very back back, we used to call it. We could go out there; you could take a pillow and stuff like that or whatever. You could almost make a little camp out of it. They had to make it up, put the luggage all around and make sure that there's a spot back there for somebody.

Again, times change and there's no problem with that. But the one thing that we guarantee in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador going forward is that we have to be open to change. We can't be reactive. We need to be proactive. We have to see these changes coming and we have to mitigate against them long before they become an issue or a problem.

A couple of consequences, just look at our doctor situation. Another consequence is look at our nursing situation. Another consequence is look at our teaching assistant situation. Another situation is about our home care workers. Another situation is about our ECEs. I don't think I need to go on any further.

Speaker, what I am trying to say is that we can have as many budgets as we want and $9.8 billion is not the budget that I voted for back in 2019; at that point in time, I think it was $6.8 billion. So to be at $9.8 billion now seems to be that we're throwing money at stuff, but are we putting it in the right areas or are we just putting Band-Aids on big, open wounds? That seems to be the problem. We have to stop being reactive; we need to be proactive.

Just to stay with our Volunteer Week, I want to do a big-shout out to Long Harbour-Mount Arlington Heights. I was just there this past Saturday and I was able to go to their volunteer appreciation night and give out some awards. We honoured our fire and emergency services people there. I had three people there that were there for 40 years. Volunteered for 40 years on their fire department in their home community. Unfortunately I didn't have a certificate or an arm bar or anything to give them that night because on our application for fire and emergency services the last box to be checked off is 35 years. So I guess we're not expecting people to go beyond that 35 years.

I have Bill Hurley over in Norman's Cove-Long Cove, 50 years of service with his fire department. Cecil Warren, same thing, he is teetering up around 40 or 45 years, I think, himself. I'm not sure if I gave Cecil a few extra years that time or not, but I'm sure he is going to let me know. But I appreciate these people. I have Melvin Peach in Arnold's Cove, another fellow with 50 years.

So I would say to Fire and Emergency Services that while we do have a minute few, let's see if we can expand the reward program to acknowledge these people that are more than 35 years and that might be an opportunity to show our appreciation in a real way.

One thing that I talked about during my address in both volunteer nights was how appreciative we should be of our fire and emergency services that we have in our communities. Not every community is that fortunate.

Trying to move around a few assets, I'm the type of fellow that tries to get three nickels out of every dime, but in working with the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, I'm hoping that this year we're going to get more than two bunker suits for 16 fire departments. Like I said, we're working together and he understands the needs and stuff like that. Those needs are not unique to Placentia West - Bellevue and I understand that.

But the thing that we need to realize is that where I have 36 towns and not every town can have a fire department, some are paying that one-third more in insurance because they're not within 13 kilometres of a fire department. We have mutual aid agreements where towns are covered off by certain fire departments.

One of the things that we seem to lose track of is that these people are volunteers. I have one paid chief in Marystown; a great guy, very knowledgeable, lives, eats, breathes – everything – sleeps fire and emergency services, right after his family. His family comes first and I expect that. That's what shows how much integrity that man has.

We're going into wind farms and stuff like that. He had EverWind Fuels and some of the partners there that are looking at – got applications in for starting wind farms and that were doing a training session down in Texas. Chief Bolt went to that and done the training. I will assure you that he's going to bring that back. He's not going to keep that training to himself; he's going to impart that on his membership. His membership trusts him and I'll be quite honest, he's worth trusting. His heart is in the right place; he's a community-minded person.

I have to be honest, for all intents and purposes, I almost hope he's not listening because he's liable to keep asking for stuff now that he knows that I like him. He's genuinely a good guy and that's the reason that we have the membership that we have.

I'll tell you right now, he's got awful big boots to fill when he's following up behind Alex Coady and Gerard Kelly, I can tell you that right now. These are great men, they were great fire chiefs in our town, but they were the last of the volunteer fire chiefs. I assure you the fire and emergency services memberships are all volunteers and I support them unequivocally.

I've told people I've volunteered all my life. I'm probably one of the only people that can say that I started volunteering before I was born, for the simple fact that I was in my mom's belly when they started the Family Aid in Marystown. I alluded to that the other day in a previous address to the House and I'm proud of that. I went on and volunteered all my life with many different organizations.

But when you represent volunteer firefighters, I take a step back from understanding any volunteering that I've done and I've done a lot, I'll be honest. From coaching hockey and soccer to helping make cold plates and distribute hampers during Christmas. I've done lots of volunteering, but to be a volunteer firefighter just shows a whole different level. I think that they get the respect and I think they deserve that respect that they get from all the communities.

The Baine Harbour fire department, for instance, they're down there and I've worked with them to get a new fire hall. They had a fairly new fire truck but they used to have to haul it out in order to put on their bunker gear. They had to haul out the fire truck so that they have enough room to put on their bunker gear to get on the truck to go to a fire.

Then we have a service vehicle that, unfortunately, I think its best days are behind him, we'll say, Speaker. We're talking about upwards of 350,000 to 400,000 kilometres on this service vehicle. When it went to go into – actually, it made a call into the Burin - Grand Bank District because they were going to a call down in the Bay L'Argent area which is part of the Burin - Grand Bank District. So that really makes it a regional fire department. If we're looking for money, then it can probably come from both districts.

The truck broke down on the way. So what did that do for the people that were in an emergent situation where they needed the fire department? It was a big delay. Fortunately, they did get there on time and there were no fatalities or a big loss or anything like that and they managed to get through it. But their request to me that night – and I mean 11 or 12 that night – was calling me to say: Jeff, this is not good enough. Sorry, Speaker, I shouldn't have used my own name.

But I'm there to support them. They deserve so much more respect. But when you see a little fellow – I did a Member's statement on little Jay that raised the money for the fire department in Baine Harbour. When we got a nine-year-old that's been raising money since he was six to help out his fire department, well, I'm going to say he's already a man because I'll tell you right now, there's nobody with a bigger heart than that. He's taught me a lot in just knowing that he's out there making all this effort.

It's so important to see and we can learn a lot from that, because out of the mouths of babes is a lot of innocence. When you sit and you talk to this young man, his heart is in the right place. You know what; I'm not going to lie to you. I've got a feeling this is a young man that could end up being a fire chief in the very department that he's currently helping. That young man is from Boat Harbour and the fire department is in Baine Harbour.

Baine Harbour covers off all those communities. They have an aid agreement to help all those communities – Parkers Cove, Boat Harbour, Brookside – and they do a great job of it, but they're also responsible for the highway. So if there's an motor vehicle accident on the highway, they're getting that call. Marystown ends up being the secondary and helping them out, but Marystown is also secondary to Burin, Winterland and all these other ones in the region. So it's a big trickle-down effect in making sure they they've got the right equipment and the right training so that they're safe and on the job,

With that being said, we just took away NL911 where I've got an unincorporated area, we'll say, in my district called Arnold's Cove Station. It was the hub of economics at one time, but now it's just a small little village. We were very close to having numbers on those houses so that they could be responded to through NL911. When it got moved into core government, that was one of the problems that was hiccupped in the plan. That all fell to the wayside.

So I'm going to pick up those pieces and I'm still going to try and get addresses on those houses so that we can get fire and emergency services down to them. It's about working with people. It's about working together. It's about making sure we are doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Not because there are eyes on us, not because we want to satiate people, but we do the right thing because it's the right thing to do.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Children, Seniors and Social Development.

J. ABBOTT: Thank you, Speaker.

I just want to get a few words in before lunch. First and foremost, I want to thank the Minister of Finance for her budget, but more importantly, just in three short years she has brought us from the brink of financial disaster to budget surpluses. That wasn't done without a lot of hard work, a lot of focus and a lot of discipline. I appreciate everything she's done for us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. ABBOTT: The other thing the Minister of Finance does quite well – and I can attest to that, given what's in the budget for housing – is she listens to her caucus Members, she listens to the stakeholders and she does listen to the Opposition because even they've acknowledged she's listening. So thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. ABBOTT: The budget achieves the right balance and I think that's something we need to also consider.

One thing I just wanted to bring to folks attention, in the Budget Speech itself, there are eight pages devoted to the social determinants of health. That is something that previous budgets, whether it's in this jurisdiction or across the country or elsewhere, has never done. If you look through and read through the language that's used, the funding that's committed, we are spending 68 per cent of our budget in social sector departments, of which mine is a beneficiary. The Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation is a beneficiary.

We are spending the largest provincial investment in housing in this province through this budget, and that is something to be commended. We will see the benefits of that spending in very short order.

For example, there is $70 million that's going towards affordable housing. We will see, over the next two to three years, an additional 850 affordable housing units in this province and that will be at a minimum. We're hoping through the process, working with the private sector, we can leverage further investment and we will see more than that allocation actually being constructed and people being housed.

We are spending $25 million for people who are at risk of homelessness or intimate partner violence. That includes emergency shelters, transition homes and the Supportive Living Program. I know the Member for Stephenville - Port au Port talked and referenced some correspondence he had received. We've asked that be tabled because we are speaking specifically to those issues. We want to make sure that no individual has to sleep on the street, and today that is true. Do we have all the right supportive units in place? No, but we are working towards that.

But if we don't, we'll make sure that there is a hotel room available right across the province wherever it is needed. I, for one, do not want to see any tent cities in this province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. ABBOTT: We are spending $17 million towards maintaining and modernizing our provincial social housing portfolio right across the province. We have over 5,500 units in the province. We are the biggest landlord in the province. We have, as referenced yesterday –

SPEAKER: Order, please!

This being Wednesday, as per paragraph 9(1)(

b) of the Standing Orders – are you going to adjourn debate and resume after?

J. ABBOTT: Yes.

SPEAKER: You will?

J. ABBOTT: Yes, Sir.

SPEAKER: Okay, you call for the motion for recess.

J. ABBOTT: I so move.

SPEAKER: This House do stand recessed until 2 this afternoon.

Recess

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

SPEAKER (Bennett): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Welcome, guests. In the public gallery today, I would like to welcome Marion McCarthy who is being recognized in a Member's statement this afternoon. Marion is joined by her colleagues from the Town of Flatrock.

Welcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Members

SPEAKER: Today we will hear statements by the hon. Members for Districts of Baie Verte - Green Bay, Bonavista, Burin - Grand Bank, Terra Nova and Cape St. Francis.

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

B. WARR: Speaker, I rise to highlight Samantha's Saltwater Joys Museum in Fleur de Lys.

The museum and cafe pays a tribute of gratitude for the genuine kindness received during a time of deep grief. A not-for-profit venture of Millie Walsh to honour her daughter.

Samantha had a heart of gold and loved to sing “Saltwater Joys.” I was born down by the water and its here I'm going to stay. After receiving a warm welcome, visitors express a feeling of peace and happiness and often plan their return before departure.

While visiting Fleur de Lys, one may also be interested in the hiking trails, including the Fleur de Lys lookout trail and the Ocean View Trail; Shelley's Island, a site of French migratory fishery; and the Dorset Soapstone Quarry. Although a point of interest since 1915, it holds archaeological evidence of prehistoric mining by more than one prehistoric group of soapstone carvings.

I invite all my Members to visit Sam's Place for a relaxing spot of tea, following your adventurous tours through this rather historic region of our province.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista.

C. PARDY: Thank you, Speaker.

Wilmore Coole was born in Newman's Cove on November 15, 1935, and just recently celebrated his 87th birthday. Born in a two-story house where the current fire department and community hall stands, he has spent his whole life in Newman's Cove, Bonavista Bay, where he gave years of service to his community.

Wilmore worked on Skipper John Blackmore's cargo vessel, the MV Newfoundlander . But when home and back on land, he dedicated his efforts to the community's fire department and the Local Service District. Three years ago, Wilmore received his 25-year pin, acknowledging a quarter of a century serving the area's fire department and recently attended the Five Coves Fire Department ball on Saturday, March the 18, with his wife Cora.

Wilmore was also the point person in looking after Newman's Cove water system during this time, maintaining the system to assure that the residents had running water. This was no easy task as the system was an aging one and the community struggles even today with modernizing its infrastructure.

I ask the Members of the 50th House of Assembly to join me in celebrating the volunteerism of Wilmore Coole of Newman's Cove in supporting his community and area.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Grand Bank.

P. PIKE: Speaker, the contribution that RCMP officers make to rural Newfoundland is so valuable to our communities.

Derm Roul and his wife Stephanie now call Burin thei