PROVINCE OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY Volume 1 Number 48 5th Session 34th. General Assembly VERBATIM REPORT TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1971 SPEAKER: THE HONOURABLE GEORGE W. CLARKE

May 11, 1971. Tape 592. The House met at 11:00 a.m, Mr, Speaker in the Chair. Page 1, Morning Session. MR.W.MARSHALL: Hr. Speaker, before the House commences with its ordinary business I want to rise on a matter of personal privilege, a matter of privilege of the House. The matter involved is this: I w~s surprised this morning to pick up a copy of the.Newfoundland Gazette,• the edition of May 4, 1971, in which the Commission of Gordon M. Stirling is contained on the first page of same.

The Commissioner is constrained to eri.ouire into the following matter, (quote): "A statement made in Our House ~f Assembly on the 15th. day of April, 1971, by Mr. William Marshall, a member of Our House of Assembly, in respect of the sale of land in St. John's by Lundringan's Limited and/or Mr. Arthur R. Lundrigan.to Hotel Buildings Limited,for use in connection with the erection of Holiday Inn; and any other matters connected therewith." Now, 'Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the issue of privilege and the matter of privilege is this:

(1) Let it be understood and let it be abundantly clear that I, my statements are not a matter, the statements that I have made in this House are not a matter to be examined. What was to be examined, as indicated by the Hon. the Premier.was whether or not the facts which I recorded in this statement were true or not, whether or not exorbitant profits were made with respect to the land transaction out there, why expropriation proceedings were not used etc.

I think it is a rather unusual time in British Parliamentary system when a Royal Commission will be commissioned for the purpose of enquiring into a statement of a member of the House of Assembly or any House for that matter. Let me say at once, and right now, that I am convinced of the facts which I have brought out,as to the truth of them,but I do object, and I think it is a matter of invasion of the privilege of the member of the House of Assembly and of the House itself for a Commission to be framed in such insolent and unworthy terms such as this. This is insulting, 3205

May 11. 1971. Tape 592. Page 2. Morning Session. it degrades the House and it is mMt unnecessary •. The terms of this Commission should be entirely different and should set forth,instead of a state~ent made by a member of the House, Mr. Stirling should have been asked to enquire into the facts and set forth the facts as to whether any exorbitant profits were made. MR.CROSilIE: In connection with that statement on the point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, the point of privilege raised by the hon. member for St. John's East is obviously quite correct. The investigation that Mr.

Stirling is supposed to make is not into statements made in this House by the hon. member. It is to enquire into the sale of land at'the particular price it was sold and · the circumstances surrounding the sale of land and as to whether or not too great a price was paid for the land and all the circumstances in connection with the sale. It was never understood by this House and never stated by the Government that the purpose of this investigation was to investigate the statements made by the member for St John's East.

I have never heard of a Royal Commission or a Co11111tission of Enquiry having such terms of reference. Mr. Marshall could certainly be called by the C0111Dissioner,as a witness to outline the facts that he outlined in the House. But his statements are not as - the statements of the hon. member are not at issue in this enquiry. The enquiry is to ascertain whether or not too great a price was paid by the Government Agency for this land and as to whether or not this land should be expropriated. Therefore Mr. Speaker, the Government should reframe the terms of that Commission of Enquiry.

MR.SPEAilR: I understand the point of privilege which the hon. member for St. John's East has raised. l do not know how the House would choose to deal with this. It appears to me as a genuine point of privilege which the hon. member has raised and it remains now for the House to decide what steps will be taken in response to his raising this point of privilege. I have not had an opportunity - I wish the hon. member 3206 ' -

May 11, 1971. Tape -'92 Pap:e 3 Momin~ Session. had brought this to my attention, so that I could read it. Possibly he ' could not do it earlier, but it was only just a few minutes ago I saw it. From what he has already said, I can understand that there is a genuine point of privilege. MR CROSBIE: Could we leave it? Perhaps the hon. Minister of Justice would agree we could look into the matter and then there may not be any motion necessary. If the Minister would undertake to do that?

MR.SPEAKER: Is it agreed that we just let the matter stand in abeyance until such time as the Ron. the Attorney General had had the chance or the House has had the chance to look into the matter further. Presenting Petitions: HON.J.R.SHALLWOOD(Premier): Mr. Speaker, I beg lea¥e to present a petition from some 144 electors from Tors Cove,in the District of Ferryland. The prayer of the petitioners is that early attention be paid to the secondary road in that area, rhe road known as "The Long Run." "The Long Run" Mr. Speaker, is very well known to travellers in this Province.

The petition declares that the road is in very poor condition. In fact they say that it is in a hazardous condition for motor traffic passing over it. The petitioners say that the "Long Run" is used more by the residents than any other road is used in that part of the Southern Shore, that is to say in the neighbour- hood of Tors Cove. The grader• they say, has been on it•, hut they do not think much of the grading because grading of something that is not there is "Love's Labour Lost,"(those are not their words but their meaning). They say it is useless to grade where there is nothing to grade.

They wind up their petition by saying that,as they are not presently represented in the House of Assembly by an elected member of this House, · their elected member having tendered his resignation to accept the position of chairman of the Salt Codfish Marketing Corporation or Board, they have addressed the petition to me,with the request that I should lay it on the Table of this House• wltich I do gladly, in the ~trong hope that my colleague, 3207

·.J May 11, 1971. Tape 592. Page 4. Morning Session. the Minister of Highways, who is not in the Chamber at the moment but who doubtless is within the sound of my voice, will give it his earnest and early attention. I beg leave that this petition be laid on the Table of . the House and referred to the department to which it relates. HR.HURPHY: ~r. Speaker, I have great pleasure in supporting the r-etition because I think,as has been pointed out,this district has been without a member for over a year now.

I have had occasion to visit this district several times and road conditions of course are one of the big problems to contend with on the Southern Shore. The point was brought to me that, as they had no member,what should they do? I suggested that the Prernie~ who is always ready.willing and able to take over any post 1 that he shoule be the one to be contacted and perhaps,with his influence, which we all know he has on the other side of the House, something may be done.

With reference to this particular road,a grader is on it but when a grader gets to rock bot to& ,how much farther down do you go :z So, I have very much pleasure, as I said Sir, in supporting this petition and would urge the Minister of Highways, who is now in his seat, to take some action on this,as other parts of the area that the road conditions are really deplorable. MR.BARBOUR: Mr. Speaker, I recall a few years ago,when I accompanied an hon. member1 who was then in the Parliament at Ottawa, . on a political meeting. I was asked to speak. After the meeting closed the hon. member said: ''Mr.

Barbour, I am the candidate and not you," which indicated, because of my interest in the fishermen of that area, the people just simply flecked around me and directed their questions to me and not to the candidate for a certain party. I also remember - not the Liberal Party - I also recall,Sir, when I was fighting vigorously,hard to help the fishermen of Newfoundland and Labrador. Tors Cove was one of the fir$t places that sent me loyal support,in the form of a telegram. Therefore, I .ould be very,very mean, I would be very,very remiss if I did not support 3208

May 11, 1971. Tape 592. Page 5. Morning Session. the petition so ably presented by the Premier of this Province. I endorse the petition. ORDERS OF THE DAY: r.OMMITTEE OF SUPPLY: M~. Chairman: Page 30, Item 8. Mines, Agriculture & Resources: Shall 801-01 carry. MR.CALLAHAN: Mr. Chairman, if I could just lay on the Table of the cor.unittee, as I told the committee, last night, I would do, the reorganization of the Division of Agriculture and Food. MR.NOEL: Shall 801-01 carry? 02-01,-02,-03 carried. Shall 802-01 carry? 02-01, -02, -08 carried. Shall 811-01 carry? :-ffi.MARSHALL: On Wildlife.

There is a matter that I would like to raise with the MinisterJto ask him a question. Wildlife in the Province itself, what programmes have been instituted over the past year or two or three years, three or four years,to introduce into the Province all -kinds of wild birds and game animals; to introduce wildlife into the Province itself? I understand that the Minister had adopted and cherished a programme for the introduction of different species of wildlife etc. I am just wondering how successful that has been. MR.CALLAHAN: Generally, Mr. Chairman, the introduction has been in the area of game birds and buffalo.

I think the committee is aware of the fact that the buffalo experiments for a time looked as if it would end in failure. There is some hope now that perhaps the animals are adapting to their new environment and we may recover some value in that prograume,but there have not been any new introduction in the past couple of years. We are much more concerned in fact with managing the game resources we now have. We also have some concern about being too.hasty on introductions that might in fact compete for food sources, also perhaps have some parasitology result or some other incompatibility would exi 9t 3209

May 11, 1971. Tape 592. Page 6. Morning Session. For example: It has been su~gested we should introduce white-tailed deer. Our biologists tell me that these animals have in their blood­ streams a parasite which is not harmful to them but would be extremely harmful,for example, to moose. So, it is a question of biological consideration and also a question of managing what we have at this point rather than just going off and introducing a wider range of species that we probably could not control, MR. COLLINS: Mr. Chairman, before we get away from this article, just a couple of questions for the Minister.

I have received a great number of complaints from hunters in the Gambo - Terra Nova - Rattling Brook area,(which is a management area, as the Minister knows) 1 The basis tor the complaint seems to be that hunters are having difficulty manoeuvring over the woods roads. A great many areas have bridges and culverts washed out, because the paper companies have abandoned the areas from a point of view of cutting timber .they have also given up their work in terms of maintenance of the roads.

Now, if we are going to continue to classify those areas as management areas for hunting moose and caribou, moose in particular, and issue licenses for them, then I think that the Province,possibly in cooperation with the woods companies,have the responsibility to,not to pave the roads or grade them every day but certainly make them passable for cars and pick-ups etc. I have also received a great number of complaints with regard to licensing. There are a lot of people around Central Newfoundland who find,this year especially,that t~~y have been unsuccessful in obtaining licenses.

I remember when the management areas were first set up,a few years ago, ~here werelalways a certain t111mber of licenses available in the area. Fo~ instance~ one could go to the store or to the Mines, Agriculture & Resources Office in Gander and pick up licenses for the Gander area. Likewise there was an outlet in Rattling Brook area and Millertown. people have to make their application to St. John's. competition with Now, we find that Of course,being in 3210

May l I, 1971 Tape 593 (morning) PK - 1 ~,R. COLLINS~ all of Newfoundland, I do not know how the officials decide who gets a licence. I have been told that it is on a first come·, first served basis. I believe we are going ·to have to · come up with a better system 1 because more and more people are applying for licences every year. More and more people are coming in from the Mainland and from the States. I believe that the minister is going to have a very careful look at this, possibly increase the number of licence, if the inventory of the department show that this can be done.

If not: 1then we are going to have to come up with a system whereby everybody across Newfoundland,from Port aux Basques to St. John's,gets an equal chance. ' Now I mentioned in the House before the method used with an initial . licence for the caribou herd on the Avalon Peninsula,whereby all of the hunting of that herd was confined to residents of St. John's and the Avalon Peninsula, including or excluding. all the rest of the people of the Province.

That in my opinion is discriminatory, and should never happen again, because people from outside have the same right to come in here and hunt as people from this particular area have to go to Central Newfoundland or Western Newfoundland to hunt. Would the min"ister please indicate to the Committee what he has got in mind for repairs of bridges and roads and a more equitable licensing system? MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, Hr. Chairman, I would be very pleased to do that.

On the road matter;last fall _ we appointed,in the Newfoundland Forest ServiceJ a professional forester to be director of access road administration, in order to have some correlation and some co-ordination of access roads construction and maintenance. This was designed to lead up to the assumption of responsibility,under the new forestry pro~ramme that is reconunended by the Royal Commission,of all the forests and other access roads and resource access roads in the Province.

I do not think it shows, I was just looking in Wildlife votes, I think in fact, it shows in the Forestry votes a very large amount of money on access roads, and included in that is, I believe, an amount of $150,000 for repairs and maintenance and upr,radin~ of roads used principally for hunting purposes. So I think the matter to which 3211

Hay lf} 1971 Tape 593 (night) PK - 2 MR. CALLAl1i'Jl: the hon. member refers will be looked after, but it will probably be done more through Forestry than through ~ildlife, because Forestry has the set up and the people and the equipment,and our particular forester,uho is Director of ~Ccess Road Administration,convenes a departmental committee which will be from now on responsible for access roads,to ensure that they serve more than one purpose where that is possible to do. They may serve several purposes.

It would be quite silly to build two roads,say ten miles apart, or to be maintaining a road ten miles from another road being built, when one perhaps stretch of road could take care of several purposes. On the matter of licensing we have had a very thorough look at it. I alrt'° surprised. I had thought I had send the hon. member a breakdown of the licensing distributions of the Gambo Management ~rea, which shol•~ed that in excess of half of the licences distributed in that area went to residents of that particular area.

I think the total was 630 licences, something in that order,and more than half had gone to residents of the immediate area,meaninjl; Gander, Glenwood, and the commun~a:ies around, between say Gambo and Appleton. HR. COLLINS: The first half went to the i111111ediate area, and about half of them went to the surrounding area Bonavista nay, Norte Dame Bay. MR. CALLAHAN: Well the area surrounding that management area. I think, the hon. the member for Gander will recall he was present when I was,at a meeting of the Gander Rod and Gun Club,to deal with the snow machine question, to talk about regulations.

This same question he has raised was raised there,and I have send the Gander Rod,. and Gun Club a complete breakdown of the licensing and I had thought we had sent the hon. member a copy. If I have not,it is an oversight and I will see that it is done. But, it was a pre~ty respectable breakdown,in my opinion, and indicated that certainly the residents of the immediate area had been well served. On the procedure for licensing; it has been tightened up for many good reasons, Mr. Chairman • .

What happens is that,as licence applications come in they do not come directly to the ~ildlife ~ervice or to the Department of 3212

May 11 1971 I Tape 593 (night) PK - 3 MR. CALLAHAN: Mines, Agriculture and Resources, !hey are received,in the frist instanc? by the Central Cashier of the Department of Finance. There as they arrive, they are time stamped and dated, then we take them in order.on a first come first served basif,based upon the time and date stamping. We have looked at all the possibilities of improving that system and, frankly, I cannot see ho-~ it can be improved, given the need for efficiency and given also the need for control, hecause you have to have some pretty stringent controls. -rhere are lar~e amounts of money involved.

He think, it should be done through the Department of Finance and throup.h the Central Cashier,and that is the advice we get, both from the Department of Finance and from the Auditor General's Department. So we are not happy about having people selling licences, you know,all over the place or in locations around the Province, because the central control of the money is not easily obtained. We find,on checking the postal stamps, that appl:f cations for licences almost invariably arrive here within t,-:enty-four to forty-eight hours.

I think the record, as we reviewed the distribution in management areas, the record of distribution is, I think, very good,in terms of the numbers of licences going to people in the mana~ernent areas or living near the management areas,in relation to those from the rest of the Province. The suspicion is that half go to the Bonavista Bay area, half go to St. John's,1'hat is far from correct. I checked the other day and I think about forty or forty-five of the 600 licences or 700 licences for that area actually went to St.

John's residents, which is, I think, around eight or nine percent, which is not a very big total. So we reviewed it carefully, ?-tr. Chainnan, and we think it is at r;ood a system as we can devise, unless we were to actually set up very expensive licensing and financial control offices around the Province, and we think that that would not be good either from an economic or from a control point of view. On the Avalon caribou herd, as I think I have indicated to the Fouse before, we are extremely proud of the result of the management pro~ramme there.

But it would not have been able to be done without the co-operation 3213

May 11, 1971 Tape 593 (aoming) Pk - 4 MR. CALLAHAN: of the people who live all around that area. Now, I think it would be quite unrealistic to att11111pt to diatribbte those 120 licences, which was the allocation thi• year •and it has grown over five years from forty .. on a sustained deal bases, which indicates to me a first class management programme. It would be pretty unrealistic to try to distribute 120 licences all over the Province.

I do not think it would mean very much, O'n the other hand,there is no difficulty with caribou populations in the rest of the Province, and we have much less in the way of demand for caribou licences,at the moment, than we have for moose. On the other hand,the caribou population is growing relatively much faster than the moose population.

So the point really is that residents of other parts of the Province than the Avalon Peninsula are not being treated discriminately or with discrimination in terms of their ability to get a moose licence or a· caribou licence or to have access to a good chance to obtain a caribou, because of the population and because there are some 1200 licences available to 500,000 people,whereas, in the case of the Avalon herd, it 1.a 120,000 to about - half the population of the Province. Really, I think, on all counts.it is not a bad situation.

Now, I will · see that the ,hon. member gets the breakdown for the Gamba Management Area. While I am on my feet, Mr. Chairman, and this may add a little more fuel to the argument of the hon. the member for Gander, I want to say that the special caribou hunting season for Burnett Island, which is restricted to residents generally of the Burnin Peninsula, Forttme Bay area,has been outlined i~ terms of dates, The season will rtm from September 201 to October 9. .

Uembers from that area wish to note that. 'there will be sixty licences issued and they will,as I have said, · residents of the Burin Peninsula/F~rtune Bay area. be available only to The same principle applies to the Island~ adjacent to that area of the Province. Again, it is a matter of co-operation. !he people in that area could quite easily be out,by boat,poaching ~hese animals~but they are co-operating with us. 'l'he policy establiahed some years ago was that,within 3214

May 11, 1971 Tape 593 (mo~ing) PK - 5 MR. CALLAHAN: that kind of situation where we required a good deal of public support and co-operation, we would reciprocate in a limited licensing situation by making the li~ences only available to residents of adjacent c011111unities. The licences in this case will be awarded as a result of a public draw, to be held ?-~ay 28, , at 3:00 P.H., in the Harystown Shopping Centre. Applications must be.received by the Wildlife Service by Hay 26. Now there has already ,peen some general notice of ti1is, so I think there will be no problem with people being aware of it.

A:i HON. !!EMBER: Inaudible. MR. CAI.J.AHAN: By ,·lay 26 the licences should be in, and the draw will be :Clay 2~. HR. EARLE: :Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt the minister there on that? MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, Mr. Chairman. MR. EARLE: I would like to make a point,before I forget. This is fine for a

section of Fortune Bay, but the people on the other side of the bay have no opportunity ;whatsoever to get across to the Shopping }!all. MR. lIICY.:'!AN: They do not have to be there. MR. CALI.AP.AN: They do not have to be there. MR. EARLF.: They can get someone to do it for them. MR. CAT.LAHAN: Oh, well their names will simply be drawn. ?!R. EARLE: I see. MR. CALLAHA."i: Let me say this. Mr.

Chairman. thirty-six licences will be issued to residents of the Burin ~eninsula and the other twenty-four to re~idents of the Grand La Pierre - Harbour Breton Coast of Fortune Bay He111ade this break<:.OWO on basis of ratio to population. All applicants must be eir,hteen years of age or over and,as we do in the case of the Avalon herd. when they come to pickup there licences they mt1st be able to show proof of age and elip.ibility to hold a hunting licence, which will include, of course, some proof of residence. MR. mWPI:Y: You do not have to be .card carrying Liberal. MR. CALLAiu\N: No. 3215

May 11, 1971 Tape 593 (morning) PK - 6 MR. HICKMAfl: From Grand La Pierre to where? MR. CALLAHAN: That is not a requirement, ?Ir. Chairman. There is other information here which will go out to the media. AN RON. ME!-!BER: Inaudible. MR. CALLAHAN: I have not gotten down that far, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it will. A draw will be conducted to determine which hunters will be allowed to take doe or stag caribou. MR. COI.LINS: Hhat is the point in saying that you can take caribou from September 20 and October 9/ HR. CALLAHAM: I am not a biologist and I •••• , Mr. Chairman. MR.

COLLINS: There is no need . for a throphy, But I am sure the people on Burin Peninsula or Fortune Bay are not interested in trophies, they , are interested in the meat. MR. CALLAHAN: Well, this - MR. COLLINS: A stag caribou is not fit to eat. MR. CALLAHAN: This is a good question. I can ·get the information, I am not a big game hunters and I am not a biologist, Mr. Chairman. MR. COLLINS! Inaudible, }tR. CALLAHAN: I will inquire about that. There is other information here, but it will be made available through the media. MR. HUR.PHY: Ur.

Chairman, with r,eference to the point as raised by my hon. colleague here, that is personal licences for shooting moose: I am wondering how did the professional guide fit in now?. I had correspondence fr0111 Badger, where this chap.and there was quite a number, I was amazed actually the number df people who come in for moose hunting. I think he had s0111ething like five working with him and he had his camp set up in various areas in the }tillertown, Buchan's junction. According to him, I do not know if I got the story actually right, because I was only chatting for five minutes with him, there was a group there.

But, apparently 1 he was treated I think the same as an indi~idual, this is what I inferred from him. Is there any special provision for.like the tourist who come in or a hunter comes in from the Mainland or from the States, and these guides,! 3216

May 11, 1971 tape 593 (morning) PK - 7 MR. MURPHY: would imaiine they are registered. I presume they have to be, because I believe their facilities a··e inspected so •on and so forth. Is there any special provision made for these people who argue that they bring a lot of money in from outside, without prejudice,of course.to th~ local resident. I am just wondering if the minister would give us some idea of just how these boys would operate, perhaps he might have twenty people say booked, and they are booked some months in advance,to come in. How are they treated to a share of licences? MR. CALLAI!AN: Well, Mr.

Chairman, we try to maintain a balance between residents and non-reaidents,to begin with. At the moment we have not felt the need to establish a ratio in respect ofi moose,because moose are not the prime animal soup.ht by visiting hunters, they want to go ior caribou. In the case of caribou, we have established a ratio of sixty percent residents and forty percent non-residents.

Last year the House may recall,when it appaa~ed that the non-residents proportion was rising faster than the resident requirement, we stoppe~ selling licences for non-resident purposes and announced the fact and told resident~ if they wanted a licence they had another extra two or three veeks. As it happened they did not pick them up, so we then sold off any remaining licences to non-residents on ·the basis of applications on hand. We try to maintain that ratio on caribou.

So far as both caribou and moose are concemed,the procedure is that the out­ fitters or caterers advertise their facilities,generally in"Pield and Streams," "Sports and Field" and various publications mailed to the United States, People see the advertisements, they apply to the hunter or the~caterer and the caterer then advises them as to requirements. They send in the money. They send them the application form to fill out.and then be applies for as many licences as he thinks he will need. HR. MURPHY: They are applied for perhaps in the name of the hunter himself.

He cannot procure ten or fifteen or twenty sayt MR. CALLAllAN: No, it has to be done personally by the hunter, 14e fills out the application, he sends his money and it is brought to ill, by the caterer,in his behalf. The licence has to be issued to the individual and it is not 3217

May 11. 1971 Tape 593 (Morning) PK-8 MR CALLAHAN: transferable. Otherwise you could have bootlegging and goodness knows what is going on. There are some hunteres who apply directly to us, and we -try to steer them back to the caterer •• That is difficult for us because we do not want to be picking and choosing among caterers. When this does happen, if they express the desire as to where they wish to ~o, then we try to deal with the caterer, try to see that some caterer,who perhaps is not up to potential, do~• - not get the chance to get that hunter. It is a bit of an unfair situation. As the hon.

Leader of the Opposition said, MR. Chairman, the facilities come under the Tourist .Bureay and we only are responsible, really, for providing the basic wildlife harvest fot the Tourist lndusty. SoJas we are doing in other areas of Government, we are trying now to better co-ordinate this activity so that. perhaps the Tourist Development Office may in fact wind up dealing directly with the outfitters. in other words, we will tell Tourist Division how many licences there are and they then will deal with the caterers for distribution purposes. There have been some problems with people applying late.

There was one man applied late this year,looking for twenty-one licences and he could not get one. Well, we went back and explained the situation and suggested that he could get them in Labrador and he was very happy. So we got them in Labrador for him. But it is a valuable industry and we try to acconnnodate it, always keeping in mind that our resident hunters have some rights too. HR. EARLF.: ?tr. Chairman, on the protection of the industry, I would like the .,, minister to tell the House what, if anything,they are doing about the snowmobile or ski-doo menace?

I understand that these infernal machines frighten the living daylights out of all game. They are growing in vast numbers, Everybody seems to have one or two of them in their backyard·and operating, and they are ranging so far afield there is hardly a nook or cranny of the whole Province but is accessable to these particular nachines. Has there been any attempt to limit their operations, to keer them out of areas or restrict the num~ers or anythin[! of this sort, or is it just wide open? ?-TR. C?.O~!HE: last year? Are they being licensed yet? What about the ler,islation we passed ~?.1 R

May 11, 1971 Tape 593 (night) PK - 9 MR. CALLATIAH: Yes. Hr. Chairman, there was legislation passed last session and;as hon. members will recall, I said at that till!e, because it was a controversial matter and it was a pretty wide ranging debate, I said that before we brought rer,ulations we would try to ascertain,through one way or another. There was a suggestion,maybe of the Committee of the House, and other suggestions were made; what the feelings of the public were?

Well, I have been trying to do that and I have been going around and h_~binr _ some public meetings, public oeetings called by or sponsored by Rod and Gun Clu~ I have been able to find time to do this in Corner Brook, Gander and Crand Falls. I have to do some more along this line,to try to get down to some c01111:non sense approach. !ot to licensing, I think that is not a major problem,Eveeybody agrees that there must be a form of licensing and registrationr but a common sense approach to regulation.

The -hon. member said the numbers of these machines have increased tremendously, there are, I suggest, about 1 no less than 10,000 of them. They can range 3219

Morning Session - MRW May 11, 1971 MR. CALLAHAN. Tape no. 594 Page 1 at the moment virtually anywhere. To really keep tabs on them, you need another 10,000 machines,with officials on them chasing them around. So that ia not a very practical approach. I think. we are getting down to ·_ we have been able to distil most of the suggestions made,down to a fairly reasonable basis for regulations, for regulatory control which; among other things, wiU, I believe, include in the regulations 1when they are finally drafted, will include the setting astde ef particular wildlife areas, which will be barred.

In other words, you just cannot go into these areas without a permit. The permit must be obtained 1 and if somebody is in there without a permit, then obviously he is breaking the law. The other thing we want to do. is to (we are working on this) establish a

schedule of the abandoned woods roads and also to perhaps set up across~country trails. Because I think. the answer is not simply to bar the machines. I do not think there is any future in that. They are going to be here. They are going to stav. In our context, long winters, winter recreation ie an extremely ~mportant facet of life. So we do .not want to i1111>ede people's en1oyment of this new form of recreation. We do' think that there are controls to be established. What we have to do is to provide alternatives. So we have su2gested the use of the unplowed but normally used roads in Provincial Park.

We will be suggesting cross-country trails , abandoned roads, perhaps the use of some of the community pastures, wide~open areas that can safely be used if there is enough snow to cover them. That will be regulated according to weather conditions. Generally sreaking, it will provide people with safe places to go and at the . . ... , .... ~ ,, . -~--.. same time enable the establishment o·f· restricted areas, therefore the protection -~ of wildlife, where these vehicles would not go except with a special permit. MR. WILLIAM R. SMALLWOOD: Mr.

Chairman, this past weekend, accompanied by my son, I was up in the area bounded by the Trans-Canada Highway, the Salmonier Line and road down through Markland. As a matter of fact, I go up into that area quite often, almost every weekend, summer, winter and spring. While· up there l heard what I thought to be a small outboard motor. It seemed to start up and died out in about thirty seconds. About five minutes later, I heard it again. The third time l heard 3220

May 11, 1971 tape no. 594 Page 2 Kr. Smallwood (W.R.): it, I realized it was not an outboard -,tor and that it had to be a ruffed grouse. So knowi-n~ that it was in the vicinity, I listened again and walked towards the sound and then suddenly I came upon it,malting the dr'Ulllllling sound. Now I had seen that on the Canadian Wildlife Advertisement,on television. I have never actually seen it happen before. It was quite a sight,I must say. I wonder would the minister tell - a ruffed grouse making the drumming sound.

In other words, first of all it sticks its tail feathers up and then it starts beating ita wings against its body and it makes a sound almost exactly like an outboard _,tor. It was the first time that I ever actually aaw -:hat in realitv .,escept · on television. I wonder would the minister tell us what success there has been with the introduction of the ruffed grouse in Newfoundland~ I understand that they were introduced several years ago in different parts of the Avalon and the mainland part of it. Now in the last several years, I have seen ruffed grouse in the summer and winter.

But actually this is the first time that I have actually seen them doing thi-drwaing. I wonder, Sir, if the minister could tell us what success, actually, there baa been ~th the introduction of them on the Avalon and over what areas they have spread? HR. CALLAHAN: it. I do not have the precise answer, Kr. Chairman, but I will get Ml. P. J • LEWIS: Mr.

Chairman, on this vote ,before it passes and specifically for the purpose of c011111ending the authorities insofar as the Avalon caribou herd is concerned; When this Govemment first came into office,many years ago ·- now, the carbiou herd on the Avalon was aecimated In fact it was down to aomething like 250 head. That herd had exiated there for many years and had been a a~urce of subaiatanc•~o a limited extent,and also a great source of hunting aport.

But it had become neglected and a great deal of depredation had taken place, _w~th the resultthat, as I said, that hen• had become almost , decimated, Thia Covernaent,under the direction of the predecessor '; of my hon. friend · here,. took a aerious look at the area and the herd. He aiisted the services of one man 3221

May 11,1971 Mr. Lewis Tape no. 594 P•ge 3 in particular to whom I have great pleasure in paying tribute. His name is Michael Nolan an~ he is the one ~ who,acting under the direction fo the Wildlife Division, has been responsible very largely for bringing the caribou ·- herd up to what it now is. At its last count, in October of last year, there was something over 1,000 head. It is now 1,200. The actual position is that it has reached the stage, I believe, where it has out·-grown in numbers the pasture facilities that are available on that area.

But there is one particular feature about it which should be worthy of note.and it is this: The herd on the mainland area of the Island, _ as the committee knows, became subject to a sort of a pestilential disease some years ago,which had the effect, I understand, of reducing the herd. But that never did reach the Avalon herd. They were immune from it,partly, I think, because of the fact that• keen watch was kept upon the lynx population,which I believe baa been isolated as· the reason for this epidemic in the caribou .herd.

Now within recent years, the last two,I believe, the area has been opened to a limited number of licences. I believe it is fifty. I am not sure. I would urge upon the minister and his responsible officers to watch that sitution and watch it keenly, because that herd.which has been developed to the extent that it has now reached,is due, as I said, largely to dedication and very faithful service. It should not be allowed to be over-hunted,which can happen unless the area is adequately patrolled. As you know, Mr.

Chairman, a. .· wilderness area was constituted over a certain portion of the Avalon.between the Trans Canada and back towards Trepassey,two or three years ago. That. too. has had a salutary effect in maintaining and preserving this herd. l have a very special,personal interest in those _animals. I would admonish the ainister and reque11t most respectfully to see to it that that herd is passed on by him to his successors, preserved insofar as possible for the benefit of the future generations who will be able to take advantage cf the natural reaources of the Avalon Peninsula in that regard. HR.

CROSBIE: I certainly agree with what the previous speaker said, Mr. Chairman. 3222

May 11, 1971 Tape no. 594 Page 4 Mr. Crosbie. There was a most interesting televsion programme ( I forget how many months ago now) on the Avalon Caribou .Herd. I am sure the minister saw it. I do not know who •• MR. CALLAHAN: It was CBC. MR. CROSBIE: CBC was it? It was an excellent programme on the Avalon Caribou Herd. It was with the co-operation and assistance of the minister. The only thing we did not see was the minister out with the animals. There was no political connotation on the programme at all. It was strictly an animal show. The hon. member for Green B~y was mentioning ruffed grouse a few minutes ago.

There are going to be a lot of ruffed politicians when the election is over. You will see them all with their wings flapping in the next few months. I only have a few words to say on this,Mr. Chairman. I am waiting until I get to the hon. Ministerjpf Social Services and Rehabilitation✓ estimates. What amazes me, Mr.

Chairman, flying over Central Newfoundland~when I say Central Newfoundland, when you take the plane and go down past Swift Current, in behind Terrenceville and across country to Kaegudeck Lake and then on through that way_ "n a fine day like today, what amazes me in the fall is how few animals you see. I have done a lot of flying in that way and the number of caribou that we saw last year,just flying around ~coking for them,was amazingly small. You can fly two or three hours and perhaps oniy see at the best one or two moose. The most caribou we saw was coming out. We saw one herd of eight or nine.

I wonder if the minister could give us the figures on the moose and caribou populat1nn, the latest figures, because it seems that certainly in that area it is quite noticeable, I think, that -there has been a decline in the number of moose and caribou in the last six, eight or ten years. I wonder what the minister might have to say on that1 In addition, Mr. Chairman, I feel that the minister better establish his zones before the snow falls next year. The minister should have certain 3223

May 11, 1971 Tape no. 594 Page 5 Kr. Crosbie. sonea on which no one can go with a snowmobile or even before the snow comes where nobody can go with an amphicat and these other machines. It is not only the snowmobiles that are causing the trouble. You can get other machines now,and an amphicat is one of them,that will travel over bog and muskeg across You can go right~this Island on them pre1tv well.even without any snow down.

ThosP. kinds of lllachines should be licenced too and have to get permits to go into certain areas, If the minister does not start thAt, my guess would be that in two or three .years the best areas in this country,for moose, caribou, ducks and the like,are going to be completelv shot out. So that these management areaa,where you can only go when you got a permit to go for a certain period of time, that should definitely be instituted before next winter. The situation now is, Mr.

Chairman, that when you fly anywhere, if you leave anv aiq,olton a float plane to fly into the interior, you must report where you are going.and your-destination. The same thin~ is going to have to be made true in connection ~th these zones,that the mi•ister mentioned that his department are going to start. If thAt is not done, the few people who have these machines and who are avid hunters are gabg to have killed out the animal resources of this Province and the duck resources.

I have talked to people,and the number of ani111,11ls they have \ag~ed and the number of birds they have taloen · in this Province, within the last year or so, Mr. Chairman, is just amazing. They go in on amphicats. • They fly in. They go in on snowmobiles, If the minister does not get them under control, if the Government do not, it will be only three, four or five years before we will have very little to shoot at here in Newfoundland. I am sure the minister is aware of how serious this is. Could he tell the House whether he plans to have these control areas?

Are they likely to be instituted before next winter and also could he give us some idea of what the moose and caribou population now is? MR. CALLAHAN: Yes, Mr, Chairman, we do plan to implement programmes for next winter, The Howse or the committee will recal4the le~islation to which reference was made earlier this morning, actually does not refer only to snowmobiles but refers to all terrain vehicles and we mean all terrain vehicles. Everything from 3224

•1 11, 1971 Tape no. 594 Page 6 Hr. Cailahan snow machines to the rubber tired tYP!~ and even the small hover craft, pe.rsonal hover crafts, which are being produced now in some numbers. That will be done and it will be done before the next coming season or next winter. On the matter of population , the moose population at the momeat., Mr. Chairman, iR calculated or at least was before the season or the last season. at appreximately 42,000 animals>which is very respec~able in terms of total population. The pressure on the moose population is increasing. There were in the past ~ear nearly 20,000 licences.

We are looking at the situation very closely to see whether any restriction oi ceiling on licencing needs to be imposed. We amnot sure it does. The legal kill is something leH than perhaps twenty-five per cent of the population. The biologists tell me that that is a pretty safe level for sustained yield.or sustained harvest. MR. MURPHY: What is the ratio of success? MR. CALLAHAN:· The ratio of success, Hr. Chairman, I am not sure of the present year because we do not have all the returns calculated. But the ratio of success in the previous season,l believe was in the order of sixty-eight per cent.

That was the highest of any area in North America,other than the Yukon. So it is extremely high. WJ\at we do not know, of course, Hr. Chairman, is the illegal kin We know the legal kill. We know that it is in the range of about 10 0 000,which I have said is less than twenty-five per cent. That is still a safe level. But we do not want to over-look the possibility that a census could be wrong or you could have a disease problem or something could happen.

So we are trying to look ahead to two. three. four or five years.to what the pressure im.pace might be,in order to determine whether we can keep the actual harvest within those limits. The caribou population is the highest it has ever been in our history. Hy own opinion - we have done this past fall, over a period of three months, what we call the five year census,which is a complete censua of the Island. This is not referring to Labrador, because we have a special problem. But using a grid system and using helicopters and small 3225

May 11, 1971 Tape no. 594 Page 7 Mr. Callahan. fixed.-.Jing aircraft in an intensive po\,·.alation census, we estimate .the population between 14,000 and 16,000 animals •. This is the highest recorded population in the Island. It certainly puts - well, thrse census have been going on for fifteen, eighteen years. The census have never shown this kind of population increase. So the population,we know,is increasing. We know what the estimates have been in the previous five year cenaus. ·. and in the intermediate ones. We are able to say definitively, Mr. Chairman,that the population is healthy and is increasing.

I think this lays to rest the fears that have been expressed,over a period of years.of the Trans-Canada Highway, about the Bay d'Espoir power development and all kinds of other development that were said to have been endangering the caribou population. ln fact the population,the biologists tell me,is healthy and higher than there records have ever shown it to be. Now. when I say that I want to add this,Mr. Chairman,that that does not •an that immediately we have to entertain increasing the number of licences. It does not mean that. My own convinction is 3226

May 11th. 1971 Tape 595(Morning). JM - 1 MR. CALLAHAN: and I think it is shared by our officials,that we have a far better future in terms of big game animal,in caribou and in moose. We have far more in the way of peat land and barren land where caribou can thrive and live and feed and exist than we have of forest land for a major expansion of moose population,and forest land is being continually used for other uses. So you are removing the potential or s0111e of it from the growth of the moose population every time you cut a tree.

My own feeling is that the caribou have far more room to expand and far better conditions to expand in population than moose. Thi point is that if we keep the lid off, if we keep present licensing at about the present level that, of course, gives us a much broader springboa~, in terms of population,for a much more rapid increase in the numbers of aniuls in the population generally,and that is the programme, the attitude, the policy that we have adopted.

If the increase in caribou continues as it has been doing,with no real or significant expansion in the numbers of licenses, then we can look for very, very large growth there. This is the animal that reall11• important to the tourist sector of hunting, the visitor hunters . I think we will develop there a very, very valuable resource to this Province. But so far as the populations are concemed,they are healthy.

The caribou are growing, the 1110ose are in good shape,populatiotl'.dse ,and I can say that we have at the moment no significant wildlife problem such as the one to which the hon. senior member for Harbour Main referred to some years ago, which was not a significant disease problem but rather was the case of an over expansion of the lynx population,with widespread attacks on caribou calves,which thereby developed septicemia and were dying in fact of blood poiaioning. The answer to that was to take down,with the bounty system.the lynx population.

This was done and it is, I think I can safely say, under control and bas been ever since. But we are,I can tell the C0111111ittee, watching it 3227

May 11th, 1971 Tape 595(Morning) JM - 2 MR. CALLAHAN: very carefully. MR. WORNELL: Mr. Chairman, before the hon. Minister gets off the subject of moose and caribou;·! was wondering if there were any plans for keeping moose off highways, that is in the much travelled part of the highwayl AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible). MR. WRNELL: Oh, we know that, Mr. Chairman. They are becoming, as I said before, hazardous to traffic and I am just wondering if we could keep them from the more populated areas, you know from the cities or towns. MR.

CALLAHAN: Well, there is being operated by the Newfoundland Safety Council a defensive driving school and we are thinking about enrolling some of our moose in that school and perhaps that will show the result the hon. member desires. MR. WINSOR: Well, before the Minister passes this item, I was going to direct one or two questions to the hon. Minister before he passes this item: If he will give serious consideration to the licensing of .or,before he does, the licensing of snowmobiles,would he give special consideration to Labrador, especially the district of Labrador North?

As the Minister knows,the dog team has just about disappeared in Labrador and the only means of transportation now,after the fall freeze up.is by snowmobiles and it is very essential to their way of life. I am sure the hon. Minister does not need me to tell him that the deer and the caribou are the only source of fresh meat to many of the people living in Labrador and, Sir, before he brings in any strict regulations as to the operations of snowmobiles,I trust he will give this matter very serious thought. Then there is another question, Sir.

Year after year I get inquiries as to permits to hunt on the Mealey Mountains, Has the Minister any information whether that herd is increasing or decreasing? The other one, is there any account of what happened to the caribou that went ;o Labrador a few years ago? 1 think they were landed at Port Hope Simpson. Are they surviving? Are they 3228

May 11th, 1971 Tape 595(Moming) JM - 3 MR. WI~SOR: increasing or has the Minister any information regarding that herd? MR. CALLAHAN: Mr. Chairman, I can give the hon. the member for Labrador North some inforr.iation. He do have some preliminary senses data on caribou in Central, Eastern Mealey Mountains and Red Wine Mountains area,and the reports indicate generally low density of population.

There is some indication that the herd in flll!':KPA:k-v Mountains is increasing and this has been tough it has beer t~ugh foT tlif ·· hon. the me111ber and it has been tough for me because we have had petitions and requests,every year for the past three years,while I have been there 1to allow hunting,and we have had to regretfully say no,in order to try to build up the population. Heavy hunting in the Red Wine- Mountain area has reduced it to a point where closed season is absolutely imperative.

We think it is possible, if not next year then certainly the year after, we may be able to have a harvest,if we keep the situation stable.But if we allow the population to get below the point where it can regenerate,then. Mr. Chairman, ,obviously there will not be any caribou herd left. It is as simple as that. Now it has been very difficult to get a qualified wildlif~ biologist to go to Labrador and to live there,but about a year and one half ago we did get a good young man wbo,in my opinion, is doing a very good job for us and for the first time we are getting accurate information.

Prior to that time>we could not get accurate information because we could not get a resident biologist.But we do have one now and I think we are in a position (

a) to better understand what the position is and (

b) consequently to be able better to manage the re~ource as it stands and to plan its resuscitation. In Labrador West the moose population seems to be on the increase. It is possible that with a good calf crop this spring we may have a 1 limited season on stags,only next year. Now the question of snowmobiles,! have a meeting planned,as soon as I can find the time,on the Labrador Coast and one in Western Labrador~to take about regulations. From the beginning we hav~ stipulated and I think the Act bears this out~that we would look at the 3229

May 11th, 1971 Tape 595(Morning) JM - 4 MR. CALLAHAN : problem regionally certainly as far as Labrador was concerned,because I think we need to treat the problem differently in that area. MR. RICKMAN: Just one word, Mr. Chairman. I would like to deal primarily with the experimentation that has gone on on Brunette Island. The hon. Minister indicated that the buffalo experiment may now be showing _(! think he used the word, "may,")some signs of success.

I would appreciate it if he would indicate to the Committee, to refresh our memoriesJand I have forgetten, the number of buffalo landed on Brunette, the number of buffalo there now, how many calves have been produced on Brunette Island, buffalo calves since the experiment was started? Personally I think that Brunette Island has a great future as a game sanctuary and an area to carry out this type of experimenting and introduction of wildlife 1nro the Province. It is a large island with a fair amount of growth on it. No -one lives there anymore and it is not that easily accessible either.

There is not a ~ood harbour there and you can only get in on certain days. I would hope that other species will be introduced and tried on Brunette Island first. But with respect to the hunting of caribou-on Brunette Island, that is the sort of decision that can arouse a great deal of controversary and a great deal of passion amongst, depending on whether you are a hunter or a member of the SPCA.

Two years ago or three years ago limited hunting was permitted on Brunette Island. ff.ow I have to confess that I never shot a moose or a caribou in my life and I do not propose ever trying,but I found myself on an open-line programme once 1in Grand Bank,right after this season had closed.

I was totally unaware of it and I did not know what the issue was and particularily the clergy were really up tight over the method that had been followed in hunting on the Island,because they suggested to me that it was, and I had to agree with them because what they said was correct, that it was a pretty cruel way to go about it, Apparently you walked ashore out of a J230 •

May 11th, 1971 Tape 595(Moming) JM - 5 HR. HICKMAN: boat and the area is rather confined and you saw a.caribou and you took a shot at it and if you missed it or wounded it,go on and look for another. MR. CALLAHAN: No way. MR. HICKMAN: This is what I was told. Now the hon. Minister,! think, said last year that there was not that much evidence of wounding.But what I do suggest to the hon. Minister is to allay the justifabl£ fears of the people of that area,that during the limited time that this sanctuary is open for hunting that there be very, very rigid control. If the hon.

Minister had five or six or seven inspectors there the last time,then I recommend that he double that n1.1111ber this time. Mind you it occurs to me that it is a contradiction in itself to have a sanctuary for wildlife or game and then open . it up to hunting periods. I do not know if it is or not,but it seems to me that the poor caribou does not stand much of a chance on an island when that island is invaded by a bunch of hunters with 222's or whatever they use. Well, I do not know what they use to shoot them with but I can tell you they have very, very limited area to roam. Now the other question, as the hon.

Minister knows, a point that aroused the discontent of people on the South Coast was with respect to the issuance of the licences. I do not know if there is an alternative formula but there was one suggested but,as I understand it,all the licences are thrown into a pot. They will be drawn at Marystown this time, thirty-six for the Burin Peninsula.

Well, what happened the last time was that residents of certain towns were completely excluded in the sense that you have 4,000 people in Grand Bank, well you are going to get a much larger number of applications for licences than you will from Lamaline . and even larger towns,such as Burin, found that there were no hunters at all from that area; no licences drawn. The su~gestion that was made at that time was that the licences be allocated to the various towns on the Peninsula on a population basis. MR. CALLAHAN: There are not enough licences. MR.

HICKMAN: You have thirty-six licences;so you say two for Point May, five 3231

May 11th, 1971 Tape 595(Moming) JM - 6 MR. HICKMAN: for Grand Bank, five for Burin, five for Maeystown.- MR. CALI.AHA.~: You cannot do that. You would have murder., you know. MR. HICKMAN: Well, I am only passing on to the hon. Minister that there was close to murder down there the last time over the present system that was used. Obviously that system was not satisfactory to those who go in for that sort of sport. You know you would have three from the one family 1 out of Grand Bank huntin~.and nobody from Burin - maybe it is the luck of the draw.

Maybe things will turn about the next time and other areas will be included and larger centres excluded by the draw. But I am only warning the Minister that-if the same policy is followed this time as was followed the last time, he is going to be in for complaints and criticism from those who partake in this sport that may or may not be very delightful. I think too that the comment from the hon. member for Gander,as to the date or dates of this hunt period,is very relevant.

His suggestion is that if those who are going to hunt on Brunette Island are simply interested in getting a pair of antlers,then there is nothing wrong with the date suggested. But apparently if they want to use the meat, to eat the meat,then the period September 20 to October 9 is in the rutting season. MR. CALLAHAN: Is it? I do not know. MR. HICKMAN: I do not know anything about rutting but anyway I am prepared to take the hon.

Minister's word fo~ it.But if this is the rutting season.then I am told that the meat is not edible and also that the animals are not as friendly as they usually are and again,in a confined area,it may create dangers ., that are unnecessary. I am sure that a change of date from the 9th of October to the 15th is not going to put anyone out. 1f that is so, I do not know but the expert in this Hoµse on hunting is the hon. member for Gander and if he says that they are in heat 6n September 20,I think that we should take his word for it.

I would ask the Minister to take another look or ask his biologist if that is so and,if it is so,to give consideration to changing these dates. 3232

May 11th, 1971 Tape 595(Morning) JM - 7 MR. HICKMAN: Ras the hon. Minister thought of, you know, to make that little activity over on Brunette Island more of a challange than it is now and to give the caribou a fi~hting chance,of limiting it to bows and arrows or archery as they do in some Provinces? HR. CALLAHAN: I have thought of it,but I doubt if the hon. gentleman's temporary constituents would really go for it. MR. RICKMAN: Not temporary and I do not know if they will go for it or not, but at least it will give the caribou a fighting chance. They -certainly do not have a fighting chance now.

At least~so I am told that it is like V-E Day.when they step out of the boats the guns start blazing and,bearing in . ~-. mind that these animals have been sor~ ·of, left unmolested between times and they do not have the same fear of hunters as you would find in Central Newfoundland and they are not even equipped to handle traffic like the moose that the hon. member for Hermitage is referring to. MR. EARLE: Mr Chairman, if you will permit me perhaps I can help you out. My hon. friend here, in my neighbouring constituency,is showing an awful lot of ignorance about hunting.

I hate to contradict him but he is speaking about my revered constituents on Brunette Island,so I have to come to their defence, the buffalo of that particular area. _ MR. CROSBIE: He got ten votes from Brunette Island last time. HR. EARLE: Actually Brunette Island is not like Chain Rock. It is not a small island by any means. You do not just step ashore and all the caribou are jammed up on the cliffs waiting to be shot. This is quite a large area and1 just to relate an experience of a doctor who in my area went . out.

He vas a small chap, a Philippino of very short stature,and he vent out to shoat ;caribou on that island and after two or three days out there he had walked so far and disappeared into so many bog holes that I practically lost a doctor,, and I think that the caribou came out best on t\lat particular encounter. Another instance on that island, it is not so easy to get the animals 3233

May 11th, 1971 Tape 595(Morning) JM - 8 MR. EARLE: as it ia indicated. I had one old friend of mine, a great supporter of mine in the area who is now seventy years old 1and he was delighted because he was very successful in getting a large male animal and my conunent to him was that it must be great encouragement to the Premier,because there is a lot of people around, apparently,of seventy years old,who can still shoot a lot of bull. MR. COLLINS: Mr. Chairman, possibly the Minister might be able to respond to this as well.

With regard to non-resident hunters; I suppose their main reason for issuing licences to non-residents to come into the Province and hunt is the benefits to be derived from dollars which are spread around to gas stations, restaurants and hotels etc. I am not talking about the outfitters.

There are a lot of people coming in from the mainland 1especially_ cross the ferry to Port aux Basques, station wagoo~, to one of the management areas, possibly arrive in the evening, make a kill the following morning and because of the good weather in September and October take off again for New··Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Ontario wherever it might be,without spending any money at all in the Province. Now one of the problems, I understand, is that there seems to be a lack of cold storage facilities;for those hunters to protect their carcasses.

Has the Minister ever thought about this and looked around to see where cold storage facilities might be made available? For instance, in Bishops Falls, which is in Gander district,the co-operative complex there might be able to accomodate some of those hunters. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that a lot of those people cornin~ in would stay for a few days or possibly a week and drive -~ down around the Coast and different places and leave a few dollars

whereas now 'fire find they come in and if they are lucky and make a quick kill:then they are gone back home just as quick as they can get out of here. MR. CALLAHAN: Well, of course, there are quite a number who want that exact situation to happen. They want to get in today and get their animal and get out tomorrow,because it does not cost them to get a thousand pounds of 3234

May 11th, 1971 Tape 595(Moming) JH - 9 MR. CALLAR.AN: meat. There ar.e a fair n-1,er who come in trailors and do not spend any money even though they stay a week because they bring their ow food and everything with them and all they have to pay for then 1s the guide. So there are variations. But on the point, Mr. Chai'tman,. certainly as we develop,as we intend to do, new control temperature facilittes,tbese will be available to sccommodate the people to wbO!ll the hon. gentleman srefers~ On the matter of 3235

1 II May -llJ,1 19711 Tape 5961 Page 1 -- apb Morning. 1'IR. CALLAHAN Brunette Island again: What we are talking about Mr. Chairman, is a liMited range. It is an island, and it can support a given number of animals. If you do not control the population and:there is : only one way to do it, then the population will outgown the range. You will .have disease~ you will have malnutrition, and nature will take its toll. There is only one way, you have to have . a controlled harvest.

As the hon. the member for Fortune has said, Brunette Island is not like Chain Rock , it is soemthing in the order of twenty-four square miles,which is a fair bit of territory. It is. I think seven or eight miles oy about four miles at the widest point. _It is not a small place. What we do in fact i~J we take a limited number of hunters in there. ·We have our people there, and the hunt is strictly controlled so that the desired number of male and female animals ar~ taken, as I said, in order to protect the regeneration of the population, or the maintenance of the population. It has to be done,Mr.

Chairman, otherwise, as I have said, the animals will outgrow the range and they will become subject to diet problems, malnutrition and disease problems, and that would be a pretty t~~ible situation to contemplate. MR. MURPHY: Would the hon. minister tell us, did we ever install these little transistors we were planning? Was that not suggested? MR. CALLAHAN: I thiok somebody ~uggested that to scare us at one time, ' to keep them happy or something. We never proposed it, to my knowledge. MR. MURPHY: No, this was a signal whereby they could be - the hon. Mr. Lane I think it was ••• . ., MR.

CALLAHAN: Well, it has been discussed by .wildlife managers. I do not think we have really ever contemplated it. Anyway, that is the position with the caribou and the buffalo,Mr. Chairman. I think we have ten animals of which either six or seven are native born,shall we say. We started with twenty-six, we lost two. Two died, one enroute and one by drowning, it went over the side of the boat when they were brought in six years ago. The population has been fluctuating, but the ten we have now ~236

II Hay •• 1971, Tape 596, Page 2 -- apb Morning. appear to be the healthiest animals we had yet. It is possible, if they survive on their own~as they must do, that out of those ten we will get a population. Do not forget that when moose were introduced to this island,in I think 1897, seven animals were introduced. Two of them died and the ,.42,000 we hav~ today, despite the harvest over those seventy years> came from those five animals introduced at that point. So there is still hope. MR. HIC~·1AN: What was planned in the beginning when the caribou were put on Brunette Island .!

If the herd grew, were some of the animals to be taken off the island and then turned loose on the mainland? ~lR. CALLAHAN: Of course.,Mr. Chairman, but they must adapt to the environment. This is a new environment for them, and until they can show that they can adapt and survive and create a population that can be transplanted,we have to continue on what still is an experiment. MR. HICIO!AN: This has to be proven yet? MR. CALLAHAN: That is right. .• MR. ?-rARSHALL: There is one more question,Mr.

Chairman, I want to ask the minister:·!!ttra assistance on t?e salaries, with respect to the salaries there in -01, extra assistance is down considerably from what it had been in previous years. Extra assistance and overt:l.me,$34,783.000. I do not have last year's, but the year before that it was $59 thousand and the year before that $59 thousand. MR. CALLAHAN: MR. MARSHALL: it is page 34. What subhead is that? 811-01 on ~ildlife.

If you are looking in your other book . ., I notice that the extra assistance, the provision for extra assistance and overtime,both in the Wildlife and Forestry Division to which we will come in a moment,is considerably less than it had been. I do not have the figures for last year here, but in '69 - '70 and '68 - '69. I am just wondering, has there been any curtailment of programme and why the assistance is down so t:1Uch,. as appreciably as it is, down below that which

I/ May W, 1971, Tape 596, Page 3 -- apb Morning. it was two years ago or three years ago1 I am referring to extra assistance and overtime. MR. CALLAHAN: I am not sure of the answer 1 Mr. Chariman, I will get it and come back to it. MR. MURPUY: Mr. Chairman, 03-02, if I may just revert back for a moment. I notice in '70 - '71, it was $25 thousand and this year it is only $3 thousand. I was just wondering,why the great cut in equipment .and what that equipment would be? MR. CALLAHAN: I think this is a case,Mr.

Chairman, where we purchased a number of new motor vehicles, snow machines, camping equipment, cooking equipment and normal motor vehicles last year. We do not therefore need to purchase this year. MR. COLLINS: Before we pass -03, the Federal Department of Fisheries~as the minister knows, and as the comnittee knows.of course, is responsible for enforcing regulations with regard to salmon and trout. The Provincial jurisdiction of course is in wildlife. During the past number of years, the Federal Government have taken on a small number of guardians during the summer months.

I think they employ those people from May, the 1st of May until around the end of September,approximately. There is certainly a great need for that and for more of them • . MR. CALLAHAN: They are river wardens. MR. COLLINS: River wardens, river guardians. Now, there is also a need for further protection in terms of wildlife officials, moose and caribou etc. in the fall of the year and in -, the winter months, especially now since we are going to have a lot of snowmobiles on the barrens and in the woods in the winter.

Has the minister ever given any consideration to arranging something with the Federal Governznent whereby the levels can cooperate, and those people who are taken on as guardians in the summer by .the Federal Government and laid off in S~ptember, can we not keep those people on doing Provincial work durin~ the winter months?

II May M, 1971, Tape 596, Page 4 -- apb Morning. I believe this is something which should be looked into very carefully, because the men who are taken On for two or three months with the Federal Government, the jobs are hardly worth doing. The wa~es are mall and the term of employment is relatively short, The same thing applies almost with the Provincial need in terms of wildlife officers during the winter months. Has the minister ever thought about this and does he plan to do somethin~ about it?

To cooperate with the Federal Govemment and keep those people on a full-time basis 1 fisheries officers in the sU1!1l!ler, wildlife officers in the winterf HR. CALLAHAN: Yes, it has been considered. A number of things have been considered,?1r. Chairman, including the possibility of perhaps the Province taking over the river warden service entirely so as to even better accomplish what the hon. menber suggests. because, there are problems. One that quickly springs to nind is the difference in salary.for example, I think the river wardens would probably do much better with the Federal than they would do with us. MR.

COLLINS: The full-time officers would. The guardians make very little money, about three hundred dollars a month 1I suppose. MR. CALLAHAN: I think they probably would do a little better than they would do on a casual basis with us now1 if they were wildlife officers, technicians, that kind of thing. tn any event, we have looked at it from t:lme to time. The principal concern we have right now is that we do not have enough river wardens. We have asked for an additional ninety-two to be appointed. The last time I chected was yesterday.

I spoke with the ·, office of the Federal Minister to see how far the thing had gott~n and I was hoping to get an answer today. There was a sizeable reduction two years ago,in the number of river wardens.and we want to see it not only restored but it needs to be increased. I will certainly take it up again with the wild life service, ,he hon. gentle~an's suggestion. MR. MURPHY. Mr. Chairman, while we are on that, and in view of the ~any 3239

May 11. 1971, Tape 596, Page 5 -- apb Morning, comments you hear of polluting the picnic sites and this type of thing, has that river warden,as such,any authority to bring to book actuaily , people who cont;inuously throw beer bottles, empty cans and this type of thing into the rivers? Has he that within the scope of his authority? MR. CALLAHAN: I understand they have,as officers under the Canada Fisheries Act which prohibits the introduction of foreign or harmful substances into waters. I wuld say1 yes,they have, Mr. Chairman. MR.

RICK?-'Ai~: Has the minister given any thought to recommending legislation prohibiting the use of nonreturnable bottles? I think the Minister of Highways has an even more serious problem with that than·the Minister in charge of Wildlife. Alberta has introduced legislation and the reports seem to be that the effect was very salutary. For some reason, even though you only get two cents back on a bottle, more people are inclined to hang on to them. Obviously they are not going to hang on to.the nonreturnables. If they are out . in the country they just pile them anywhere.

The countryside is being littered with nonreturnable bottles and cans, that is obvious. Whether legislation prohibiting the use of nonreturnable bottles would have the effect here that it has had in at least Alberta, and there maybe other Provinces that have introduced legislation- anywhere it has been introduced,! am told, the results have been very favourable. It seems to me that any legislation that will curb or reduce the nonreturnable bottles we find around the countryside now would be most desirable at ·this time. MR. CALLAHAN: Mr.

Chairman, this is not really the place I suppose to be discussing this, but we can deal with it when we get to Cleaner Water and Soil Authority,which is preparing some draft policies and regulations • . Generally speaking, we have no intention to bring in legislation. The reasons are I think threefold, In the first instance, the whole container and package industry has to be looked at. I think soft drink beverage containers are only one sDall part of a much larger problem. The second thing is . that that industry in this Province.land I think there are six or seven hundred people employed in it, in the S240

May 11, 1971, Tape 596, Page 6 -- apb bottling induatry) ia J,overned almot abolutely by the trend and by the pace of containers manufactured in other Provinces. We would not be in much of a poition to ban these containers,except by closing out our bottlin~ plants or1 by law,closing ther.t down. ~!R. HICK?-IAN: (Inaudible) ~. CALLAHAN: We are getting into nonreturnable bottles and containers. If these are what the industry is using, these are what must be used.

Unless there vaa a national agreement or an inter-provincial agreement to ban them we would effect really nothing. we could ban them, But then our bottling industry would be in the position of not being able to use the containers that are massed produced at the most economic cost. That I think would be harmful to the industry and to a lot of jobs here. That is• an aspect of it. So far as legislatint an increase in price to compensate is concerned, 1 have S0111e doubts. I have looked at the situation,particularly in British Columbia where they have tried it.

It is not working very well. that ie probably one of the two Provinces, with Ontario,where it should because it is poasible,with mass use,to have a recycling collection and recyclinJ industrJ. If the moat populaced Provinces and the Provinces with the highest consumption are not having success, l have 1reat doubt about our own.

I think it has to be more of an educatiol! process, are now getting from time to time, I saw another one last week, private citizens who are attacking the litter problem by going out when they find some garbage dumped on the street, in the road or wherever, and actually going through it, identifying it. and laying the information and complaint with the police. There was another conviction last week,in Central Newfoundland. I think the public climate in respect of this sort of thing is improving tremendously, l think that is where the final answer will be. MR. CROSBIE: Mr.

Chairman, I think what the 111inister says is very sensible. After all, one of the creat litter problems here in Newfoundland is the nonreturnable 1110tor vehicle. The country•ide is littered up with car wrecks 3241

May 11, 1971, Tape 596, Page 7 -- apb Morning. everywhere. What are you going to do, forbid the manufacturers to produce disposable motor vehicles? It is part of the same problem and bottles are only a small part of that problem. It cannot be solved by just legislating that you cannot use nondisposable bottles. I think what the minister has said is right. He is to be commended for his stand. ?·,otion, clause 03 carried. MR. CROSBIE: Mr. Chairman, (06), last year the minister was going to table a list of the guests. 'MR. CALLAHAN: I will make a note of that,Mr. Chairman.

We did not have very many guests last year or this year. As the C011'111ittee will see• we have reduced the vote and.in fact, only use the place on demand. HR. MURPHY: $2 thousand dollars. MR. CALLAHAN: No, I think hon. members will find that the vote is down,I believe from $10 thousand the year before. MR. CROSBIE: Right. MR. CALLAHAN: •• What we are looking at in the 6,100 is the revised. MR. CROSBIE: It was $20,600.00 MR. CALLAHAN: It used to be $20 thousand. We brought it to $10 thousand and ) • this year only $8 thousand. We use the place only on demand.

It does not make my friend from Gander very happy, because. there were always two or three or four jobs there. It is a matter"! think of some stringency. I will try to get the information. I think there were very few of these ••• MR. CROSBIE: The minister was going to give us a list last year. He forgot and in all the pressure of business,we forgot. MR. CROSBIE: like that? MR. CALLAHAN: Motion, 06, carried. Consumable supplies. Is that liquor for the cabin or something No that is ••• MR.

SMALLWOD (J.R.): When I invite the Premier of Ontario to come down and occupy the Government's cabin, he comes with two or three of his ministers and spend~ three, four, or five days there,as guests of Newfoundland. !'i'e 3242

May 11, 1971, Tape 596, Page 8 -- apb Morning. provide the food and the refreslunent. },IR. CROSBIE: I am all for that, but that is what this is for. MR. CALLAHAN: No it is not, Mr. Chairman. MR. S?fALLWOOD: Well, it should be,if it is not. MR. CALLAHAN: This subhead is for providing tags and seals and things to put on visiting PreJ!liers, and moose and caribou. MR.. SMALLWOOD: We have had at least four premiers there and a lot of ministers from different Governments across Canada and in England. It has done us a lot of good. MR. CALLAHAN: This vote,Mr.

Chairman,really is for supplies required, licensing, for tagging game, game taken and game being managed and that type of thing. I might say that there will be 1I think,an additional cost this year. We do not know what it will be yet for the new licensing system. I am thinking of the new family fishing license. We are going to start issuing as the law provides and has for years, badges so that it will be much easier for river wardens to operate. They see a man with a badge,with a nmnber on it, and they know. They do not have to pull them off the river anyaore nor ·waste time, they just go on.

I think also, because with the family license the youngsters will have a badge, I think we will probably build up some interest and feeling for resources among young people. We also will carry it through into the big game and small game licensing so that we will eliminate,I think,a lot of the problems we now have.where wardens do not know and nobody knows if the next fellow to you really is hunting legally. If a legal hunter has a badge on his back, there is no question that he ls there about his rightful business. This is a new thing and it will cost some money that we cannot foresee at the moment.

We do not know yet what the cost will be. MR. MYRDEN: This information and education shows a big increase. Will this be running into the Tourist Development Departl'lent? MR. CALLAHAN: Oh yes, this ties in, 'Mr. Chairman, with tl,e wildlife park. We are hoping to do much more this year in terms of wildlife, static wildlife 3243

May 11, 1971, Tape 596, Page 9 -- apb Morning. displays. In other words, of obtaining good animals and having them preserved by taxidermists, and gotten ready for static displays in various places. One of my hopes is, and we discuss things like this from time to time in the Goverm:ient. The hon. the Minister of Provincial Affairs and I have been talking about the possibility of acquiring sufficiently good­ displays to perhaps put together a good natural history museum.

There are some tremendous natural history museums around the country, and we both have been looking at them~ when we get a chance to travel, for example to Alberta,where they have this beautiful display. Perhaps if we can get enough good animals together and well mounted, and well preserved, this could be the basis for a good natural history display of indigenous Newfoundland wildlife. The vote is to intensify the effort in that department. MR. CROSBIE: park. HR. CALLAHAN: Where is this park goinr while you are on that? This wildlife Mr. Chairman, I think the first one will probably be in the area of Butter Pot.

We have been-looking at ·it for some years and it offers a number of attractions that are iDportant to the kind of park we want to design. It is one where animals are not,so far as it is possible to avoid it, penned up 1 •here you have a good lookout area looking down on a water body and a variety in habitat, wh~re people will perhaps take a chance and maybe looking through binoculars and see these animals. They will see them in their wild and natural environment ••• 3244

.. May 11, 1971 Tape 597(mominr.) MR. CALLAHAN: and not hemmed up behind a wire fence, which we think is not a very satisfactory or educational p~ ition. MR. CHAIRHAN: Shall Item 11 carry? Carried. MR. EARLF.: Fish Farming (13), this farming, Mr. Chairman, I wonder what the minister's intentions are, is it to be encouragement of'private operators or a public thinrf Are · there many people showing an interest in it? I wonder if this is going to be a private effort or a public effort? Are there private operators interested in going into fish farming now on a commerical bases?

In certain areas of Canada and the States it has been a pretty successful operation, from a business standpoint, I am wondering how the Government propose going about encouraging it. It is something which I think is a very good scheme, if it can be developed properly. Perhaps caution might be given the minister that in introducing species of fish into the lakes and ponds, that they will bring in something which is contiguous or similar to our <nm fish,because a lot of the stuff that is put in lakes away and is fed to the populace afterwards is felt~ of .very doubt~ul qualiti, ·es far as consumption is concerned.

Our own fish are of a class of their own. I am wondering if the stocks of our own fish can be built up, so that we will have something which is particularly individualistic,as far as Newfoundland is concerned, •9t say a fish . I think of, which is so predominant in Ontario, the bass, which has tak~n over many lakes up there• From a sportsman's standpoint it is an actual waste of time catching them, they are just like hooking up a rock. From a consumption standpoint they are even worse, because they are tasteless.

If the Government goes into stockin~ lakes, I trust that they will have good advice on the types and species that they introduce, Pith particular stress on what we already have here and the building up of our own stocks of native trout and so on. UR. CROSBIE: Can we get a r,ood fish that tastes like good steak? HR. CAU..,\I:/\1!..:_ ~low maybe w~ have them hanburr,!r, Hr. Chairman, It night turn out that way. ;;245

May 11, 1971 Tape 597 (morning) PK - 2 MR. CHAIR!-'}11: This vote is to provide for the studies which are being done by the firm of Hildebrand and Young of Winnipeg, Last fall 1 at a meetipg of Forestry Hinisters in Winnipeg, the ministers there, three or four of us I think,the last evenin~ were invited to dinner by the Federal Minister, the hon. Jack Davis. The usual·• routine in Winnipeg, as I am sure Your Honour knows, for guests and visitors, is to present them with a plate of Winnipeg gold eye. I will not dispara~e publicly, }!r.

Chairman, personally I would much prefer a good feed of cod tongues, some fishes eyes or something ,. But, in any event, it was not Winnipeg gold eye that we were presented with, the chef brought in a big platter of rainbow trout. We discovered that these were trout which as ~ne and a-half inch fingerlings had been introduced into~ really_,.mudholes on the praries the previous May and taken out by commerical harvest,by sweeping the pond clean out in October,and they had grown to an average of fourteen inches to sixteen inches and they were very beautiful fish, beautiful to look at and beautiful to eat.

The firm that advised the Manitoba Government on this introduction of fish farming into that Province are Hildebrand and Young. I was no sooner back when,I assumed by coincidence, Mr. Chairman, the firm approached the Government with a proposal that they would do some studies for us. Now the studies have to involve a wide range including, as my hon. friend from Fortune mentioned, the type of types of fish that should be introduced.

We do not want to bring in types that are not compatible with our own native species, because there might be competition for food or there might be, in fact, it could develop that the introduce species could be cannibalistic of our own and,in fact, wipe out our own species. So we have to be careful with that. We have to know the answers to questions about mineral content and solidity of waters, about averar,e temperatures, about natural foods in the waters. On the praries they have a great abundance of fresh water shrimp, so there is no problem with feeding.

But, if we had to support a fish farming industry,inland fish farming industry, with artifical feedin~, I think, it would be completely uneconomic, So we have to know what the food sources are, what the solidity and mineralogy • 3246

May 11, 1971 Tape 597 (morning) PK - 3 MR. CALLAHAN: of waters are, ~hat the temperature situation is. There are a lot of questions to be answered be" .:,re we can . really launch int;o this thing and this is what the studies are for. Now, we would hope to establish that there is good economic opportunities so there would be private investment. We do not intent to get into this on a public bases, for commerical purposes. But . we have discussed with the consultants the matter of restocking of ponds and streams for sports and public purposes as well.

They are looking at this aspect, because it is useful for them to do that in the course of their investigation. How it will come out we do not know, hut, it has become a very, very large and labour intensive industry elsewhere. If we can do it here, Mr. ChAirman, we shouJ.d. The vote for which we are asking,under 03-13, is to enable the studies to be adequately carried out. l~.R. SMALLWOOD: Before this vote carries I would like to add a word about fish farming because,in company with the Hinister of F.conomic Development, who is not in his place at the moment, I visited some fish farms in Romania a few weeks ago.

The Romania Ambassador to Canada has been in that office about six months. MR. CROSnIE: Red fish! Mlh-BMAl,l:,WOOD: He retired about six months ago from the Cabinet of Romania to accept the present office. Now when he was ?-!inister in the Romania Government>for ten or twelve years, he was Hinister of Food Industries, everything having to do with food and he is the one ,mo introduced fish farming into R0t:1ania. The Hinister of Economic Development and I agreed that it was one of the most _fascinatirg things we had ·ever seen in our lives.

We could not understancl and still do not understand why this could not be done here in Newfoundland. They are taking, I think it is $50,000 an acre of fish out of these fish farms. $50,000 per acre. There is incomparably less work in cultivating an acre of water than there is cultivatin~ an acre of land. The acre of land that would yield $50,000 would be quite an acre and it would he quite a crop ~247

May 11, 1971 Tape 597 (morning) PK - 4 MR. SMALLl-!OOD: indeed. nut crops of water are yielding that much. They package the fish and ship it all over the world. I dare say you could go down in a supermarket in St. John's at this moment and find frozen trout, beautifully packaged in lithographed packages, grown and packaged in Romania, and if not in Romania, then in Deumark, and if not Denmark, perhaps Holland. But this fish farming thing has spread around the world.

Because of course to feed the world,with 3 billion people now - 3,000 million people, it has come up1 in my own conscious notice, from 2 billion to 3 billion. It has increased l billion, 1,000 million peopl~. The task of feeding them is obviously a terrible one and it is going to become much more terrible. Well, if you can raise large bodies of fish in farms and actually farm fish, it is a tremendous thing to do. ;, The frist one we visted in Romania had a stream running, oh, they had dug a ditch, a straight ditch, it was about four feet, five feet wide and it was about three,feet deep.

Just a square ditch, and the water had been diverted from a river to come along this ditch. Now the ditch was inland, it was a little ·higher, maybe three feet higher than the water in the ponds that were fed by this ditch. The water comes along the ditch and at right angles to the ditch are these ponds. The ponds are fifty, siKty feet wide and about 300 feet long, They are about eight or ten feet deep. They are gouged ' out with bulldozers. They are parallel and they are separated one from the other by about thirty feet of nice grassland, land that has been grassed over. So it looks attractive too.

The water comes down and it flows into each of these ponds and drops about three feet in so doing and helps to aerate the water. At the foot of each pond there is an outlet of water. So the water is continually coming in and going out, but of course, where it goes out it is screened, so the fish cannot escape. They feed these fish almost as you would feed, in the old times, you would feed a barnyard full of hens. The farm wife would come up and throw grain or scratch and the hens will come running to get it. Well the fish come running to get it.

It is amazing.when they throw the food into the water,to see the mad rush of fish and you discover that that pond is absolutely alive with fish, They grow 3248

May 11, 1971 Tape 597 (morning) PK - 5 MR. l:-MALLl-!00D: rapidly. They gain enormous weight very quickly and harvestin~ them of course is easy, you just dip down great dip nets. ,"11th dip nets at the end of a pole, you just dip out the fish. You just dip them out, and you process them. The last two or three ponds down were for the breeders. You keep the breeders, you pick out the breeders and you put them in a pond to themselves.

That pond do~m there is where they live and the eggs are removed from the fish and there is a building immediately beside all this where the eggs are put into a series of vats,with running water,. running continually, running through and kept at the right temperature. These fingerlings come out tiny little things, not as big as your little finger, or anythin~ like it. They are kept there to a certain age, then they are put in these ponds. That is all there is to it. It is as simple as falling off a log, enormously profitable. I do not think that as yet that it is going to be a simple matter just stocking ponds.

I think it is going to have to be done in the way it is done in F.urope. That you ~ouge out your own ponds. You attain complete man control over the whole operation. With that done, if it is practical to do that in Romania and in other countries of Europe, why would itH.not be practical to do it here? Because the market for that trout is staggering. The market is all around the world. I think, they get something like $1.20 a pound. While we are at it, Mr.

Chairman, we discovered,to our absolute astonishment, in Romania that they are shipping by air from Romania, which remember is as far east as you can get in Europe, the next stop is the Soviet Union, from Romania by air they are shipping tomatoe.s to ?iontreal and Toronto. They are growing tomatoes · in greenhouses in Romania and shipping them by air cargo to Montreal,millions of dollars worth, which makes you wonder, if they can do that in Romania, could they do it here by any chance? Might there be a way? AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible. ?!R.

S!-fALLWOOD: :fight there be a way of our supplying Hontreal and Toronto, rather than Romania.with the tomatoes and trout? MR. CHAIR~L\N: It now being 1:00 P.H. I do leave the Chair until 3:00 P.H. 3~49

PROVINCE OF NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY Volume 1 Number49 5th Session 34th. General Assembly VERBATIM REPORT TUESDAY; MAY 11, 1971 SPE.AKER: THE HONOURABLE GEORGE

W) CLARKE

May ll, 1971 Tape no, 598 Page 2 Mr. Crosbie. It is almost like a gully. In one you will see them raising ducks, a tremendous number of ducks. In adjoining ponds they are raising fish, fish farming. I understand,Mr. Chairman that eyery two or three months they rotate the ducks from one pond on to the fish pond, and the fish from the fish pond Ol:) to the duck pond. One of the reasons for this is that the ducks and the fish each USC as food the droppings of the other.

I thought it was quite humourous too,but this apparently is a fact that they rotate the ducks and fish because they complement one another and provide food for one another. So, Mr. Chairman, there are endless possibilities in all these enterprises. One of the main staples of good, of course, in Hong Kong,is duck and the other is fish. Here in Newfoundland. we think that we are a fish country. We will never have a twelve-course fish dinner,as you can have it in Hong Kong. I am sure that the Premier has been to the floating restaurants in Aberdeen where you can have twelve courses •• MR.

SMALLWOOD: The restaurant is not in Hong Kong. It is in Aberdeen. MR. CROSBIE: That is what I just said, the floating restaurants of Aberdeen. i think -.:hat I have trod in the footsteps of the Premier in the floating fish restaurants of Aberdeen,where Mr. Chairman, you can go down and pick your own, fish out. They are all swimming around in the tank by the side of this great .• MR. SMALLWOOD: MR. CROSBIE: MR. SMALLWOOD: MR. CROSBIE: You can do it in Montreal, You can do it in New York. Yes, but there is a much greater variety in Hong Kong. More fun doing it in Hong Kong, in Aberdeen.

Yes there is a lot to do there. I was not travelling stag, however. There all the fish .are swimming around. We had parrot fish, Your Honour.­ parrot fish, which are coloured red, white and yellow. These fish were in the opposition in Hong Kong, they were pretty quickly in the pot. We could have the fish three ways: You could have fish soup, parrot fish, the head of the parrot fish, a great delicacy and, of course, the body of the parrot fish,fried up. So we have a lot to learn from the Orient. I am delighted.

In fact, I am recommendlng - I do not believe the minister was to Hong Kong on the most recent visit of the Premier there last fall. I think it was the Minister of Economic Development and the Minister of 3251

May 11, 1971, Tape no. 598 Page 3 ... Mr! Crosbie. Health. But the Mi-nister of Mines, Agriculture and Resources might include a trip to Hong Kong on his itinerary ~or this year, if he can squeeze it in. He is doubtless· going to Romania to check the fish farming there. He has already been out West, He might take in Hong Kong. If he wants somebody to guide him around and show him where the best fish and ducks are, if tha hon. the Premier is not available, I might be prepared to go, if my expenses are covered, But quite seriously, Mr.

Chairman, I think that this has great possibilities, Perhaps our climate does not lend itself to it, I do not know. That is what the minister ; is having looked at now. This could very well be $100,000 very well spent on developing a new industry for this Province. I think it is a promising sign. I am heartly in favour of it. MR. MARSHALL: Hr. Chairman, on 812-01, before we carry this amount, there are a few comments that I would like to _~~~~l~~~ti~u~~~!J~~bnut -~h,.:_,_?bservations made by the minister ··last night with respect to the forestry resources of this Province.

I must say that I was disappointed that he did not deal in much· greaterdepth with the report of th~ Royal Commission on Forestry, Hopefully, he will be going into it more when we come to discuss this particular heading. There are certain recommendations and certain vital recommendations that were made by this Commission with resoect to policy and legislation to be adopted in the Province for the purpose of furthering the forest industry.

Now one of the things with respect to this commission that is not really in its favour is the fact that originally (This is the same thing that applies to the Brain Commission on Health as well) a position was taken and that position was: That it was recommended that the Gvvernaant,in the Interim Report to the hon. the Premier, the commissionier recommended that the Government acquire all of thP forest lands of the Province. Subsequently this recommendation was revised. I think the subsequent recommendation is the best one.

There is no need or there would appear to be no need to acquire the lands in question in ordeT to control or to exercise some 3252

May 11, 1971 Tape no. 598 Page 4 Mr. Marshall degree of control, management and planning by the Government in the management of the forestry resources. It is to be remembered that the paper companies have put in an awful lot, certainly, into the pulp and paper industry of this Province.

But their concession is the concession of having the exclusive right to cut timber. 'Our duty or the Government's duty is to see that the forestry resources that have been granted under licence, as well as the Crown Lands, are utilized to the greatest possible extent so that the greatest possible number of jobs can be obtained from theqi. There is nothing wrong - there is nothing wrong with Government bringing in policies to this effect.

Now the establishment of the Forest Development Corporation, I understand, is going to be used or is allegedly going to be used for the purpose of bringing such policies end such approaches into effect, However, I would hope that this Forest Development Corporation is not going to be used purely and simply for the purpose of sweeping under the table for another period of time certain problems via the Government, the paper companies and the forestry industry of this Province, which ought really to have been tackled a long, long time ago.

I speak particularly of making arrangements with respect to the collection of a fire and insect protection tax that has been recoll'D!lended by the Co111111ission, Now we have had, as everybody knows, we have had a great attack upon our forestry resources,by the hemlock looper and the woolly aphid that the Government ' have been wrestling with for a period of time. It certainly ha& done a crediile job with respect to the control of this particular problem in our forestry resources.

However, it is quite evident that the companies which are to gain most (I know this may be a hard time to look into it, because of the depression in the pulp and paper industry) with respect to our forestry resources are the ones that should lend a greater financjal support, I believe, to the insect control and the forest-fire protection control of the Province. I would like to know,in view of the recommendations made by this Royal Conunission, I would like to know particularly what Government propose to do with respect to this. There is also the factor of the building of forest 3253

May 11, 1971 Tape no. 598 Page 5 Mr. Mnrshall access roads,which the Commission recommends and which has been spoken of time and time and time again .by persons, individuals and groups who have examined the forestry policy of this Government. It is most necessary that the small sawmill industry or the sawmill industry itself be fortified by Government assistance. This can only be done through co-operation of the Government, the paper companies, particularly in view of the large concessions and leases that have been given to the paper companies themselves.

Then again, there are the problems of collection of stumpage. Generally speaking, generally speaking, the over-all control(authorize log marking for indentification, as another recommendation) and direction of the forestry resources as such, from the point of view of conserva~ion and from the point of view of enhancing and increasing the yield that can be obtained through out forest products, has to be undertaken by the Government itself. I believe it is or there is a different system definitely and a different approach than has been taken in the Province of Nova Scotia.

But in this Province, I think the time has come to look to much closer control by the Government of the forestry resources, right to the point of telling the paper companies, even though they do have title to land,of bringing in regulations respecting the Government, directing as to where the cutting should take place and the type of yield that should be expected per acre or per hundred acre or whatever unit may be used in this particular area.

But certainly, I should like to know, and I think that it is time for this Committee to be informed exactly what the position of the Government is with respect to this Royal Commission on Forestry. It has been said - I do not think anyone will agree that a lot of the recommendations of this Commission really constitute a regurgiation of observations that have been made time.,and time and time again,by other bodies such as the Royal CoDDllission on Economic Prospects and other groups as well.

But the point of the matter is that this Commission is really a culmination of observations showing a deficiency in the proper utfl.ization of our forestry natural resources. 3254

May 11, 1971 Tape no. 598 Page 6 Mr. Marshall. I should like, as I say, the minister now to address himself to this Commission And to tell us exactly what is planned1 I would also like to know what funds are going to be available for this Forestry Development Corporation? It is most necessary, of course, that·adequate and ample funds be provided in order for this " to be a viable organ that is going to do any kind of job at all.

Generally speaking, as I say, I should like an assurance to the fact that this Forestry Development Corporation is not going to be used for the purpose of postponing any longer the direct action by Government in further assuring or ensuring that we have a more comprehensive yield 1 in that we are getting the most out of our forestry resources in this Province. MR. CALLAHAN: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say very briefly what the position is. The position is that the Government accept the recommendations or the report and recommendations of the Royal Commission.

Negotiations have been underway for some months with the various private owners or lessors of forest lands, in order to get the Commercial Forest Corporation ;which is the proper name, established. I Rm not sure that it will require any great funding because it is designed to , do pretty well what the hon. gentleman has suggested should be done; namely, to co-ordinate the commercial operation in order to get the best use out of the forests.

So far as over•all direction and rcontrol are concerned, thev will be vested not in the commercial corporation but in the Newfoundland Forest Servir.e,as recommended by the Commission. On the matter of protection costs, protection taxation, we also have been negotiating on this matter to bring in all those who should properly contribute. Right now, only two paper companies Amthe Government are contributing. So we are working on thRt and I think we will have some~results fairly soon.

On access roads, I can only say that the access road programme over the years has been designed to open up the maximum forest areas for maximum participation and employment. I indicated to the House last year and I can prettv well repeat it again now.that our access road programme,which is designed to enable small-operators to operate, rebuild. completely the road, no cost to the small operator. We do snow clearing and maintenance on those same ,.-roads. This is the most important assistance they could have.

Last year, I can tell the committee that there were so~c 3,000 men employed in small operations,which would not have occurred had these access roads not been built up 3255

Page 7 May 11, 1971 Tape no, 598 Mr. Callahan. There is nothing I can quarrel with from what the hon. gentleman has said. We, to one degree or another,in each case, in fact, are proceeding along these lines, MR. CALLAHAN : MR. CROSBIE: On the matter of stumpage, this is another ••• Go ahead •• MR. CALLAlLt..N: I was just going to say that this is another aspect of the consideration that is now going on, It is going to be difficult to ch~rge stumpage, as stumpage 1 to those who are protected from such taxation, Mr. Chairman. We are not expropriating.

We are not purchasing the forests that certain people own, We are inviting them voluntarily to vest the control of their limits in the commercial corporation which thP Government will control; So far as Crown Lands are concerned, there will have to be some adjustment in order to provide for stumpage from Crown Lands. It is now collected, in fact, from anybody who uses Crown Lands. This is simply a mechanical or a practical thing that has to be ironed out. There is no problem with the philosophy or the ~overnment's approach to it.

We think that stumpage should be charged on Crown L~nds .but,where there is prviate ownership, I do not know how you do that, MR. CROSBIE: Mr. Chairman, there were some problems that the minister might give us some answers to in connection with forestry. One of the disappointing things I thought,with the report, Mr. Chairman, .of _the Royal Commission on Forestry, the one that,whose report was tabled here about two months were: Its failure,as I remember it ( I have only had time to look it over once) to deal at all with the question of the wood resources of Labrador.

I think the minister can confirm that those wood resources were not . dealt with at all, That Royal Commission completely failed to discuss what must obviously be a very important question in connection with a possible mill at Coine-by-Chance and that is, Mr, Chairman, the availability of ~ood on the Island of Newfoundland, whether there is sufficient wood on the Island ,f Newfoundland to keep in production another pulp and paper mill at Come-by-Chance. '. do not believe that the Royal Commission on Forestry, which was chaired by Mr. Rosseau 3256

May 11, 1971 Tape no, 598 Page 8 Mr. Crosbie and sat for three years I gave any opinion on that question at ·.all, which to me is completely inexplicable. ' How, Mr. Chairman, there was a report done by Forestal Forestry and Engineering Limited, a subsidiary of the B,K. Sandwell Company of British Columbia 1 on the third mill at Come-by-Chance and on the question of whether or not there was sufficient wood on the Island of Newfoundland to supply the proposed third mill at Come-by-Chance. There was an interim report delivered,when I was still a member. of the Cabinet in 1968.

In answer to a questton asked here, I believe the Premier said that there had never been a final report received, which is most preculiar. But that interim report stated that there was not sufficient wood on the Island of Newfoundland,of the proper age classification to supply wood, sufficient wood to the proposed mill at Come-by-Chance. From the year one of the start of operation of that mill at Come-by-Chance, the one proposed for Come-by-Chance, they woull have to ·sh:lp t~ that ~ill. a't_C.ome::by---Chance 0 wood fr~m > the Mainland of Labrador, I forget now what the amount of wood was.

I think it was something like 100,000 cords a year - 100,000 cords a year would have to be brought from , 3257

ltay 11, 1971 Tape 599 (afternoon) PK - 1 ~'1~. C:P-OSHII(: Lahrador to that mill he.re in Hewfoundland. Well the question that arises from that, Hr. Chainnan, is ,obviously,can you economically bring wood, 100,000 cords a year~from Labrador to the mill site at Come-by-Chance and what is the extra expense p;oing to be compared to wood cut on the Island of Newfoundland and delivered to the site? Now do not forget, Hr.

Chainnan, that the Government have agreed with Newfoundland Pulp and Che1'.1ical, Limited that the Government will subsidize the difference in cost between brinp,ing wood to Come-by-Chance from Labrador and bringing wood to Come-by-Chance from the Island of Newfoundland, That,if there is a difference of cost, surely there must be 7 (And there are various estimates of what it might be, $5 or $10 a cord)that the Government of Newfoundland are going to subsidize that difference, the people of Newfoundland are.

Last year 1 when I raised that question in the House, when the legislation was being introduced here to extend the agreement, to give Hr. Shaheen more time ' , to extend the time in which he is to get a plant operating at Come-by­ Chance :' I raised this question~ the hon, the Premier said in the House,without anything to back it up at all', that it would be cheaper to get wood from Labrador and, transport it to Newfoundland, it would be cheaper than getting that wood on the Island of Newfoundland." Now, Mr. Chainnan, that is .something that can only be accepted if there is some proper proof of it.

The Premier gave no proof at all of that. He init1.mated that this was the result of the work that John C. Doyle hacl been doing in the Melville/Goose Bay area. So I think the minister should explain to the House or table in the llouse or tell the House what studies have been done and by whomJthat wood can be delivered to site at Come-by-Chance from Labrador more cheaply than it can be gotten on the Island. Or if there has been no studies done on it, when are there going to be some studies done on it?

Because, if that is not the case and if the mill goes ahead at Come-by-Chance, it is going to involve the people of this Province in a heavy additional y~rly expens~. The answer tabled by the Premier,to a question here earlier in this scssion,is that the new estimate of the cost of transporting wood from Labrador., 3258

l!ay 11, 1971 Tape 599 (afternoon) pk - 2 : ii~ ._ (TO~f,"!_E: from tl,e Mel ville area to Stephenville, is $5. 50 per cord. The Prc1115-er intimate-cl that lfr. Doyle 'has entered ir.to some kind of an arrf'f'i nent vi th ship owners that they will carry lors fror.i the Goose 13ay area to Stf'phcnvillc at a cost to him of $5,SO per corcl. Well that is a considerably hip,h ens t, Hr. Chairman, than ,:as outlined in the original feasibility study on the Doyle mill. The study,done by E. and H. Cowan, showed a cost of $3.30 per cunit to transport 1,•ood chips fror.1 the Goose nay/ Mclvil le area to Stephenville.

I think a cunit is a larger 0easurement than a cord. One and one-sixth of a cord,roughly, is it not? ~IR. Ci\LI.Al'.11.N: iine and one-third. MR. CROSHTE: One and one-third. So that a price of $5.50 per cord is approaching nearly double the price of $3.30 per cunit. That has not been explained satisfactory to the House. After all, if there is to be half a million cords of wood a year that have to be delivered from Helville to Stephenville to keep the fourth mill operating- MR._CALLAIIAN: I thought we were on Forestry. HR. CIWSf,IE: We are on Forestry. Jm. CALLAHAM: Page 31, ber,inninp, with (1) • Mn.

CROSBIE: to keep the fourth mill operating at Stephenville. There are . 500,000 cords -~a year and the price increases $2.00 a cord,that is an extra $1 million in operating costs. That certainly.has an effect on its feasibility. This is the time for ,us to get some accurate infonnation from the minister on these costs of transportation, on the cost of cuttinp, wood in Labrador, as they affect both the mill at Stephenville and the one at Come-by-Chance. MR. SMALLWOOD: Mr.

Chair-man, it is no more relevant to discuss the cost of the woorl for the mill at Stephenville under this headin~ than it is to discuss the cost of wood at Corner Brook, the cost of wood in the mill at Grand Falls or the proposed mill at Come-hy-Chance. It is the economics of paper m111s, is it? Th:ls headinf!,? MR,:__C!Q.~: On that point of order, ~r. Chairman, we are discussinf!. the forests of Newfoundlanrl, the forestry policy for Labrador, how those foreS t s can be develo-ped. There is nothinp: more central than the question of transport 3259

?lay 11, 1971 Tape 599 (afternoon) PK - 3 '.·IR. CALL/\HM:: Why is it that every time anyone is on an important rofnt the hon. the Preir.d.er has to be up saying it is not relevant. Now I will continue. HR. CllAIPJIAN: All I can say is that the rule is, according Beauchesne; that under the heading of Generai Administration in the Estimates, general remarks may be made. Under the other headinp;s, remarks must be strickly relevent to the item being discussed,and the word is "strickly'relevant.

I think going into - the econornics of transportation of pulp wood, which is really outside the preview altogether, I suppose, of Government,that the member is out of order on that point. KR. CROS131E: Hr, Chairman, this department comprises 1.orestry, Mining, Wildlife and so on. So rather than discussing all these matters on the first iteM jn the estit11ates, the minister's officeJsalaries, we agreed that it would he a lot clearer if we discussed these various things under their own headings. Now I am just addressing myself to forestry - we started forests, _salaries. Im.

CtiAHJIJ\;,: The Chair has no objection to a discussion on Forestry, but, I do think that to get into the talk of transporting pulp wood is really not a matter for these estimates at all. HR. c1:o~nIE: }~r. Chairman, with all due deference, we are discussing the forest ancl how they are going tc1 be utilized. ~low how can we discuss the forests of Labrador without discussing the problems of using the wood in Labrador? I am discussing now the woods, our forest resource in Labrador, and how it can be utilized. One of the problc~s in that connection is the cost of transportation.

Because the wood apparently cannot be manufactured up at Labrador itself,because ofthe climatic conditions or whatever it is, it has got to be transported in its raw form out to the Island of I/ewfoundland. How are we r,oin~ to develop these forests, if the transportation costs are_ as I hclieve they are! !IR. Clll,IJ~!AN: The hon. member apparently or seems feel that there must be an opportunity given to discuss these matters. That may or may not be 3260

?lay 11, 1971 Tape 599 (afternoon) PK - 4 HR . CllATRPAN: the cnse. Hut at the present time the duty of this committe e is to consider these particular estimates. This does not give the occas t on for a wide-ranging debate on the application of our forest and all of this kind of matter. MR. CROSI\IE: Hr. Chairman, we just had a wide-ranging debate,discussing the ncpartment of Education, as to the first item on educational policy. The one I am discussing now is forest policy, under the heading Forest,Salaries.

But, if the Chairman does not want to, I can wait until we r,et down to Forest Conservation and Development or Forest tnventory. It makes no difference to me. So I want to stick to forest policy. If the Chairnan does not want that I will bring it up again down further. The Report of the Royal Commission on Forestry, the minister discussed that, The member for St. John's East has discussed it. I am surprised that that report did not discuss the problem in developing our forests up in Labrador. This should also be the time, Mr.

Chairman, that the minister should explain to the House what he meant when he replied to Question No. 24. The minister said that, during 1970; 75,343 cords of wood had been cut at Lake Melville by Javelin Forest Products Limited. And that the amount accessed , that is accessed 1one would assume,to be paid the Government,was $42,156 of which Javelin Forest Products,Limited had paid the Government $~892. The minister went on to say that . there was a difference of opinion, between the Government of Newfoundland and the Government of Canada,over who ·; should receive the amount as assessed $42,156.00. Now, Mr.

Chairman, that requires some explanation. I cannot see how the Government of Canada has any claim at all to stumpage or any charge in connection with the woods of Labrador. Surely these woods in Labrador are owned by the Government of Newfoundland. If there is any money to be paid by Javelin,in connection with the use of those woods, it has to be paid to our Government. So the minister should explain what he meant by that. And also the discreptancy in the figures.

In Question No. 480,answered by the hon. the Premier, it was said that in answer to a question;how much wood had been cut up in Melville since January 1, 1969 - what volume had been cut and shipped in the form of loes 3261

;;ay 11., 1971 Tape 599 (afternoon) PK - 5 :m. CROSBIE: or pulp "'oo<l? The answer was 21,073 corcls. That is for the two year period from Janu.,ry 1,1969. Now there appears to be a discreptancy hetuccn the Answer to ()uestion no. 2lf and t!·,e answer to ()uestion No. 480, except therl! maybe a difference of 54,000 cords not shippeci.could the minister explain that ,~en he replies! One question says that 75,000 cords cut during 1970 and in another question says in two years 21,000 shipped. Could the minister clarify that? And also this point about the Royalities? Mr.

Chairr1an, there is also a question the minister should explain, the ;,,:eFfoundl.1nd Forest Products,Lim:i'.tecl, as the minister knows, have established a sal:mill , a new Modern up-to-date sawmill at tlawkes Bay and ci1ey have established one in the Stephenville area. As far as one can judge from the press, Hr. Chairr:1an, during the last past year\ both of those mills have not been operating, or at least opcratinr, for only a very small part of the time. I uonder, could the minister tell the House what the problem,.seel!ls to he? Jloth those l!lills, '.!r.

Chairman, which consume our wood, our forest, h:1ve entered into agreements with the Government, whereby the Government is st11,siclizing thc, cost of electric power for the two mills. The l!inister of Economic DeveJ,opmen t knows that he has listed them as among the seven who are gettini:- sul1sidized pouer. The taxpayer is paying the difference in cost between some figure which has not been revealed and what it costs the Power Comr:dssion to deliver it. Since both of those mills are suppose to be the latest types and modernized and automated and the rest of it, and large enough to be efficie