December

4, 2008

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLVI No. 45

The House met at 1:30 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Today the House of Assembly would like to extend a warm welcome to Dr. Paul O'Brien,

Registrar of the Newfoundland and Labrador Dental Licensing Board.

Welcome to the House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER: The following members' statements will be heard: the hon.

the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi; the hon. the Member for

the District of Bay of Islands; the hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo

& LaPoile; the hon. the Member for the District of Port au Port; the hon.

the Member for the District of Port de Grave; and, the hon. the Member for the

District of Bellevue.

The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

It gives me great pleasure today to stand in the House and recognize one of

our many wonderful artists in Newfoundland and Labrador actor, Nicole

Rousseau.

Last night at the Resource Centre for the Arts Christmas Social, Nicole won

the 2008 Rhonda Payne Theatre Award.

Nicole was born and raised in St. John's and lives in Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi. She is a graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts Theatre Program at

Memorial, and won the President's Gold Medal for Academic Excellence in 1999.

Nicole has worked with a number of local theatre companies, including the

Open Actors Studio, Redwatch Theatre, She Said Yes!, c2c Theatre, and Artistic

Fraud.

She has been a drama instructor, festival adjudicator, and workshop leader at

schools across the Province, most recently at the Anna Templeton Centre in St.

John's.

She has just joined the Board of Directors for c2c Theatre, and is the

current Artistic Associate for the Resource Centre for the Arts Theatre Company.

Nicole has almost finished her first full-length script, in collaboration

with actor-writer Rory Lambert, about the Knights of Columbus fire, called One

Last Dance , which will see its first public reading in December 2008.

The Rhonda Payne Theatre Award is administered by the Newfoundland and

Labrador Arts Council and is an example of the great work that the Arts Council

does in supporting artists in the Province.

I ask the House to join with me in congratulating Nicole on winning this very

prestigious award and wish her luck in the future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Bay of Islands.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LODER: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this great House today to recognize a

long-time advocate and volunteer, Mr. Israel Hann of Mount Moriah.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Hann is a long-time advocate for countless issues such as,

seniors' rights, a long-term care facility in Corner Brook, and health care

concerns. Mr. Hann's volunteer work goes back to the 1960s.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Hann's past achievements were recognized recently by his

peers, and he was presented with the Good Samaritan Award by Mrs. Minnie Vallis,

another volunteer and activist, on behalf of the Golden Meadows 50+ Club.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all members to recognize this fine gentleman as he brings

seniors' concerns to the forefront.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Burgeo &

LaPoile.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It gives me great pleasure today to rise and congratulate Mrs. Dinah Stewart

Matthews Cossar on the recent celebration of her one-hundred-and-third birthday.

I do believe that Mrs. Cossar is the oldest living constituent in my District of

Burgeo & LaPoile.

Mrs. Cossar was born in Burgeo in 1905 and is the only surviving member of

the Stewart family of three brothers and one sister. In 1923 she married Captain

Archibald Matthews and they had five daughters and one son, of which her eldest

daughter and only son are deceased.

Captain Matthews was lost at sea during World War II. She remarried in 1959

to Lott Cossar, a businessman, also of Burgeo. Mr. and Mrs. Cossar moved to

Corner Brook where they resided until Mr. Cossar passed away in 1994. From there

she moved to Silverwood Manor in Stephenville, and in 2005 she moved to the

long-term care facility at the Dr. Charles L. LeGrow Health Centre in Port aux

Basques.

Mrs. Cossar continues to live in relatively good health, and I am told she is

a very strong and opinionated lady. She has twenty-three grandchildren,

forty-one great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. Her first

grandchild, a granddaughter, sits with us in the House of Assembly today. I am

referring, of course, to the hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs and the Member

for Conception Bay East-Bell Island.

Mr. Speaker, the minister and I ask all members of this House to join with us

in extending a happy one-hundred-and-third birthday to her grandmother and my

oldest constituent, Dinah Stewart Matthews Cossar. All the best to Mrs. Cossar

and her family.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Port au Port.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. CORNECT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, on October 4 of this year, I had the privilege to attend the

twenty-fifth anniversary dinner of the Stephenville-Kippens-Port au Port Search

and Rescue.

I am extremely happy to stand here today in this hon. House of Assembly to

recognize and congratulate a fine organization of women and men on twenty-five

years of service and dedication to our communities.

The Stephenville-Kippens-Port au Port Search and Rescue Unit is made up of

outright generous volunteers. People who volunteer in such a role as search and

rescue are individuals who care about people and their communities, and they

wish to make it a safer and better place for all of us. Their service is a real

gift to everyone.

The assistance they provide to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the

community is a valuable asset. In fact, it was so evident as they were involved

during the 2005 flood of Stephenville and they, Mr. Speaker, I must say,

provided a professional and invaluable service.

So Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. members of this hon. House to join with me in

congratulating and thanking all those who have volunteered with the

Stephenville-Kippens-Port au Port Search and Rescue Unit over the past

twenty-five years, and encourage them to keep on doing what they do so well.

Their commitment is sincerely appreciated and admired.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Mr. Speaker, December 2008, will mark ten years since Ms

Gloria Morgan of Port de Grave started walking for the Crohn's and Colitis

Foundation of Canada.

Gloria's son Lloyd, who was just eighteen, was killed instantly while

travelling to St. John's over Veterans Memorial Highway. The previous year, he

underwent surgery to treat ulcerative colitis after being diagnosed with the

disease in 1997.

Since this tragedy, Mrs. Morgan has raised $20,000 for the Crohn's and

Colitis Foundation of Canada and recently joined six other national winners in

the foundation's Gutsiest Canadian Award.

Three generations of Morgans take

part in the annual national walk,

Heel-N-Wheel-A-Thon, which is sponsored in the local area by the Trinity

Conception

chapter of the foundation.

I ask all hon. members to join me in extending congratulations to Ms Gloria

Morgan as she continues to support this very worthy cause.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Bellevue.

MR. PEACH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask that this great hon. House join me today in honouring the Town of Come

by Chance for their great efforts in the act of remembrance on November 11,

This past November, I had the opportunity to share in the rededication of a

monument at the Town of Come By Chance for Private Alexander Gilbert.

Mr. Speaker, at the age of twenty-one, on March 2, 1917 in France, Private

Gilbert gave the supreme sacrifice in the war that was to end all wars.

Private Gilbert was the only soldier of the Town of Come By Chance to serve

in World War I. His family was resettled from Coopers Cove, where the monument

was initially erected. It lay in a very heavily wooded area until a couple of

years ago one of the elderly members of the family remembered the location. A

search was then launched by the family and the monument was found and then

relocated to the Town of Come By Chance.

The relocation of this monument and composition of the story boards allows

easy access to the people of this town, in turn giving Private Gilbert the

tribute which he deserves.

I ask that this great hon. House join me in remembering those soldiers, like

Private Gilbert, who sacrificed themselves for our freedom.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Statement by ministers.

Statements by Ministers

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources and Deputy

Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to recognize December 6, this coming Saturday, as the National

Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Established in 1991 by the federal government, this day honours the

anniversary of the death of fourteen young women who were shot and killed on

December 6, 1989 at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique.

Mr. Speaker, these women were targeted simply because they were women and

they had chosen to study engineering, a field traditionally dominated by men.

The purple ribbons that have been placed on your desks today are an important

symbol of remembrance to women everywhere who have lost their lives to violence.

Let this ribbon also symbolize the work that is being done in our Province to

prevent violence against women.

Mr. Speaker, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary reports that 51 per cent of

the 5,000 violent crimes committed in their jurisdiction in the last two years

are related to severe violence against women. This is astounding, especially

since the majority of violent crimes against women go unreported.

Mr. Speaker, the statistics speak for themselves. Between 2000 and 2008,

twenty-two women have been killed in this Province, three of them this year, in

family violence situations.

We can stop this violence, but we have to continue to work together and make

violence against women unacceptable in every home and community. That is what we

are trying to achieve through our six-year, $9.2 million Violence Prevention

Initiative, which is now in its third year.

As decision makers, Mr. Speaker, we have a crucial role to play in offering a

sense of hope to women who live in fear. By continuing our work towards the

elimination of violence, we can help these women to live freely and peacefully.

Mr. Speaker, as a memorial to the fourteen young women who were killed on

December 6, nineteen years ago, and to all those who have lost their lives to

violence, the flags outside the Confederation Building will be flown at

half-staff on Saturday.

As a reminder to us all, I want to read out the names of those fourteen women

into the record of the House of Assembly: Genevieve Bergeron, Helene Colgan,

Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick,

Barbara Maria Klucznik, Maryse Laganiere, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay,

Sonia Pelletier, Michele Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte.

I encourage all members and residents of the Province to reflect on the need

for all of us to join the fight towards the elimination of violence towards

women.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I certainly want to thank the minister for a copy of her statement today.

Mr. Speaker, I want to join with the minister, and with her government, in

recognizing December 6 as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence

Against Women in our society.

Mr. Speaker, the violence against fourteen women that occurred in our country

in 1991 will always be a black hole in the hearts of women and men in this

country. I think any time that we see violence against women just because of our

gender and because we are women is really unacceptable, and it is also a

responsibility of all of us to ensure that we make those change.

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the minister's statement and she

talked about the statistics from the RNC and that still 50 per cent of the

violent crimes that are being reported in this Province are crimes against

women.

Just recently I was reading an

article in The Telegram , I think it

was, a statement that was made by Sergeant Noel of the RCMP, in which he

outlined that the number of cases against family violence in this Province are

on the rise. Already in November we had reached the same statistics as we did

the year before, and that, as well, is unacceptable.

I think that if violence prevention initiatives like the one that government

has launched is helping to combat that, well, we need to continue with it. We

also need to look at why these statistics are continuing to climb, and what

needs to happen to ensure that family violence is being reduced as well.

I am aware that there are still over 800 cases of violence against women

reported in the Province this year. Last year there were over 1,000 cases

reported. Those numbers are still way too high. I think our responsibility is

not only to educate society, provide programs that deal with prevention, but we

also need to provide safe houses and shelters for these women and their children

and for families in general. We need to ensure that there is always somewhere

where they can leave a home of fear and violence and be able to seek the

services and the counselling and the safe havens that they require. I think that

is our job in this Legislature, to ensure that those programs and services are

available to them.

Mr. Speaker, we certainly support the initiative that the government has

launched around violence in this Province, and we will continue to support it,

knowing that it is reaching out to those who need it and it is giving them a

safe haven in times when they have very little else to depend upon.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for her statement and for the way in which she read her

statement. I think it is good that every year we do say the names of these

women, to remind us of the horror that goes on for women.

The statistics that the minister presented today are very nerve-shattering,

actually. The 51 per cent of the 5,000 violent crimes are related to severe

violence against women. Over three women every year are murdered by partners.

This has to shock and horrify us, and I think we have to do even much, much,

more than we are doing.

I think the more that we can do with the justice system in helping protect

these women, the more that we can do through our social services system to help

women economically - because economics plays a role, sometimes, that keeps them

in violent situations - the more that we can do with offering safe places for

women and their children to go to, the more that we can do the better, and I do

not think money should be an issue.

We have to stop this. We have to stop women being brutally assaulted and

murdered to the degree that they are. I did this the other day, when talking

about another statement by the minister, but I want to say it again today: I

really would urge all members of this august House to get the book by Brian

Vallee, War on Women , and to read that book in tribute to the deaths of

these women who we have named here today, and every woman who has died in

Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers.

The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to invite all hon. members, their

families and the general public, to a wonderful annual festive event, the

provincial government's twenty-second annual Christmas Lights Across Canada

ceremony this evening. The event begins at 6:15 p.m. in the lobby of the East

Block of Confederation Building.

We are once again joining provinces across the country in this event which

will see hundreds of thousands of lights sparkle from coast to coast. One of the

goals of Christmas Lights Across Canada, organized by the National Capital

Commission, is to be a symbolic link between Ottawa and Canada's provinces and

territories. Of course, being the most easterly Province in Canada, Newfoundland

and Labrador will kick off the festivities and illuminate the Prince Phillip

Parkway from the Memorial University campus to right here at Confederation Hill.

This year, our display contains approximately 60,000 lights, six billboards

depicting Christmas scenes, and thirteen trees adorned with white lights

symbolizing our thirteen provinces and territories. The main tree on the steps

of Confederation Building, the lights along Prince Phillip Parkway and on the

Confederation Building itself, are all LED lights as we strive to be as

environmentally-friendly as possible.

Mr. Speaker, this year I will be joined by the hon. Premier for the lighting

ceremony. We will also hear from the Paradise Elementary Grade 5 Choir and the

Royal Newfoundland Regiment Band, who will help create a festive mood during the

ceremony. Our Master of Ceremonies this year is Erin Sulley of CBC Television's

Living Newfoundland and Labrador .

Let me once again encourage everyone to join us this evening for this annual

holiday tradition.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement, and to say

that the Official Opposition would also call upon the general public, as well as

members of this hon. House, to join the minister and the Premier for the

twenty-second annual Christmas Lights Across Canada celebrations.

Mr. Speaker, it is also good to know that this is another initiative of the

government, when it comes to being as environmentally friendly as possible, to

know that all the lights that are going to be lit here this evening are LED

lights.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure we will be well entertained by the Paradise Elementary

Choir and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment Band, and soon, hopefully - depending

upon the hon. Government House Leader - we will all be returning to our

constituencies to spend the Christmas season with our families and friends and

constituents, and I call upon all hon. members that this year we will all keep

the true meaning of Christmas as we socialize with our families and friends.

We look forward to this evening's event, and hopefully there will be

thousands coming out on our Confederation Hill to take

part in this festive

season.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal HillQuidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the minister for the advance copy of his statement and say to him

that I am glad to see that he sets off sparks both outside this august Assembly

as well as inside the august Assembly.

[Laughter]

MS MICHAEL: This is a very nice ceremony to have, and I am always glad to

see children's choirs involved in these ceremonies as well. Unfortunately,

this evening, because of other sparks that are happening in our country, I have

to be at an event that will keep me away from this one, but my spirit is there

as we start the Christmas season here with the lighting of the lights, and I

thank the minister for his statement.

MR. SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers.

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this morning brought more news of the effects of the global

economic slide, the effects of it on this Province. AbitibiBowater announced

that, after 100 years of operation, the pulp and paper mill in Grand

Falls-Windsor will close.

This mill is why people settled in Grand Falls-Windsor in the first place,

and for the last two weeks we have stood in this House and we have been asking

the Minister of Natural Resources what the status of the AbitibiBowater mill has

been. We have not gotten a response on anything, other than in the economy

everything is steady as she goes.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister today when she was notified

that this closure was coming for AbitibiBowater in Grand Falls, and that the

1,400 mill workers and forestry-related workers in Central Newfoundland would be

out of a job.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is indeed a dark day in Grand Falls-Windsor and the surrounding eighteen

communities that depended on that mill over the last 100 years for their

livelihood.

We have been engaged with this company and with the mill union in Grand

Falls-Windsor over the last number of years, Mr. Speaker, as we worked through

the downturn in this industry and the impact that was being felt here in

Newfoundland and Labrador.

Everyone in this Province knew that we were waiting for a decision from

AbitibiBowater on the future of the mill. They told us that would come before

the end of December.

This morning, when we picked up The Globe and Mail , we saw that there

was a prediction that the mill closure would be announced today. The Premier got

a phone call at 9:30 from David Paterson, the CEO. I got a call, following that,

from Mr. Pierre Rougeau. We found out this morning at 9:30 and 10:15

respectively, Mr. Speaker.

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievably that in this time of economic

crisis and I said it yesterday that the minister sits in her office and

waits for the phone to ring every morning to find out what industry is closing

today, and how many jobs people are going to lose. It happened with the IOC

announcement, it happened with the Wabush announcement, and today we are hearing

it just happened with the Grand Falls-Windsor announcement.

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the minister this, because in the course of the

last year that she talks about that she has been on top of this file, we have

not heard anything in the public about the details that government has laid on

the table. We have heard them talk about the executives of the company, talk

about the company themselves, but we have not heard the details of what

government proposed and offered to try and allow for the continuation of this

pulp and paper mill in the Province.

Why don't you tell us that today?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, I respectfully suggest that the Leader of the

Opposition watch or listen to the news, because our involvement in Grand

Falls-Windsor has been very public.

Mr. Speaker, into that operation goes, every year, $12 million worth of

energy from the Exploits River; $6 million that subsidizes the mill in its

operation, and $6 million they make in profit from power purchase agreements

with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro.

On top of that, Mr. Speaker, the government has invested a further $11

million over the last three years in support to the company during this

difficult financial downturn. On top of that Mr. Speaker, we have come back to

the company on a number of occasions and said: Can we enter into a discussion

with regard to repatriation of your chartered lands which will put significant

money in your hands for reinvestment in the mill in Corner Brook? That is what

we have done in the last four years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Right now, this announcement is little comfort for the people in Grand

Falls-Windsor. People are going to want to know, minister, what this government

has placed on the table. This is the second pulp and paper mill that has closed

under your Administration in Newfoundland and Labrador. You have had a year

working with this company. You know what the result is today, so surely you

would have had some kind of effective and comprehensive plan in place that you

can roll out to be able to support the local economy and those people that are

affected.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the two-and-a-half years that I have been in this portfolio, Mr. Speaker,

I have met, on a regular basis, with the union of the mill in Grand

Falls-Windsor, I have met on a number of occasions with the Mayor of Grand

Falls-Windsor, as well as the mayors of the surrounding communities; with

representation from the Regional Economical Development Board, the Chamber of

Commerce. The three MHAs for the area have been engaged on a regular basis with

all of these same people. The people of Grand Falls-Windsor understand what we

have been trying to achieve. They understand what is on the table. They

understand what has been asked of us and how we have risen to the occasion. We

have tried to mitigate any of the challenges that the company has put our way.

This is beyond our control, Mr. Speaker. We wanted Abititi Bowater to have a

good future in Central Newfoundland, another 100 years. The company's mindset

was not in the same place, and thus we have arrived at this place today.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is not about who creates the problems, it is about who is elected to lead

and find the solutions in times of crisis, I say to you, minister.

When Stephenville mill closed, the 300 workers had the option of looking to

Alberta for employment. Today, the 160 workers coming out of Wabush and the more

than 400 direct employees coming out of the Grand Falls Bowater's mill in

Grand Falls do not have the option to go to Western Canada to find those

lucrative jobs in Alberta.

What is the solution for your government to ensure that these families and

these workers have an opportunity for retraining, for adjustment and to be able

to sustain the economies of their communities along with their families?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, as we have worked with the people most

directly affected by this news today, they have been very clear as to what their

expectation is of this government. I think that they can speak more powerfully

than anybody else that they are pleased with the way that they have been treated

and supported and communicated with.

We have made a commitment to continue to walk that journey with them and to

do everything that we can to support them and to support their communities. We

have a task force in place, Mr. Speaker, it has been in place for over three

months, to deal with any potential fallout of the decision making around Grand

Falls-Windsor.

Mr. Speaker, I will say this much, the one thing that the union has been

adamant about is that we do something to correct the wrong that was done in Star

Lake negotiation under the former Administration, that we will not give away

resources that Abitibi-Bowater cannot continue to earn money without

operating a mill here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is also for the Minister of Natural Resources.

The last few months we have seen a pattern develop. Abitibi-Bowater announces

a capacity review; then they close Grand Falls-Windsor. Wabush Mines announces

their capital expenditure review; they lay off 160 workers, slash 40 per cent

capacity and halt their $100 million maintenance upgrade. IOC announces a

capital review; then they halt their $800 million expansion. Now Chevron

Corporation announced yesterday or, on Monday that they are delaying the

release of their capital spending program to the end of January.

I ask the minister: As a partner in the Hebron project, what information do

you have, or has it been provided to you by the other partners, on changes in

spending or in timelines with regard to the Hebron project?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I encourage the Opposition House Leader to review Hansard, because I answered

this question the week before last. I met with the vice-president for the

Americas of Exxon-Mobil last month. We had a long conversation about the Hebron

project, the Hebron agreement, and the go-forward plans.

Mr. Speaker, there are no adjustments or realignments of planning that is

taking place. The project is proceeding as it was designed to do. We will see

the opening of the project office here in St. John's early in the New Year,

and Exxon-Mobil, who will be the operator for the Hebron project, does not

foresee any challenges at this particular time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We also learned today that Vale Inco will be shutting down the Voisey's Bay

Mine next July for a one month period. We have spoken to the company and they

have advised that there will be no layoffs and no impact on the Long Harbour

hydromet facility.

I ask the minister: Does government know what the financial impact of this

decision will be, what it will have on the Province's coffers, and has this

been factored into the much promised fiscal update that we are supposed to be

getting?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I happened to be in Voisey's Bay just a month ago, and I am happy to report

that I met with principles of Vale Inco this morning.

Mr. Speaker, the way that the shut down in July is going to be handled,

everyone who works in Voisey's Bay is on a two-week rotation. So, two weeks of

July will be used as that rotation piece and then everyone will be asked to take

two weeks holidays. So there is not expected to be a financial impact, Mr.

Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Last week, IOC announced a one month shut down of their operations in 2009,

as well as the delay in their Phase I and Phase II expansion plans. The company

has stated that this would not impact their permanent employees but will have an

impact on temporary employees and students.

I ask the minister: Does government know what the financial impact will be of

this shut down?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS DUNDERDALE: Mr. Speaker, no, we do not know what the financial impact

on part-time employees or potential employees of IOC would be at this point in

time. I gave an undertaking here in the House that I would ask IOC to provide

that kind of information, but they are busy, Mr. Speaker, at the present time in

trying to manage their way through the current worldwide crisis that is

affecting all commodity markets as outlined by the speaker in his question.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Suspicions are, and have been for some time, that government is in deep

denial over the state of the economy. This has been confirmed by some of the

responses to questions that we have asked in this House. It is pretty clear that

government is perfectly content to sleepwalk through this economic disaster.

Mr. Speaker, Stephen Harper was quoted as saying some time ago, that he

thought the fundamentals are sound, and that is the kind of stuff we hear from

this government, i.e. everything is stable, steady as she goes, and so on. Well,

the facts indicate otherwise. It is time for decisive action, Mr. Speaker.

I would ask the Premier: Premier, rather than simply responding when someone

calls to government with an issue, would you be prepared to chair an all-party

summit on the economy, bring together, Mr. Speaker

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. KELVIN PARSONS: - the business interest of this Province, the labour

interests of the Province, the community leaders in this Province, so that there

can be a discussion - the more heads there are the better - and hopefully you

can map out together some strategy for this impending crisis?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I chair a committee on our economy and

that is the Cabinet of this government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: That Cabinet has met four times, I think, in the last

four days. We had a meeting scheduled this morning which we cancelled because of

the Abitibi situation.

It seems to be lost on the hon. member opposite that General Motors and Ford

and Chrysler are in trouble, three of the biggest American corporations, three

of the bigger corporations in the world. They are looking for a $28 billion

bailout. The American government has already put $700 billion in. I watched CNN

last night. One of the accounts basically said that the money is being spent so

fast and doled out so fast that nobody is keeping account of it, and they don't

know where it is going.

This government is going to ask responsibly, and we are stepping up. It just

galls me to listen to the Leader of the Opposition talk about what this minister

is not doing. She is working around the clock. She is meeting with everybody

concerned. She is meeting with the corporations. Ask the people of Grand Falls

what they think of what we have done on this particular issue with Abitibi. The

union will tell you we were there for them, the community will tell you we were

there for them, the members will tell you that we were there for them,

everybody, and the company will tell you that we were there in discussions with

them.

You stand up and imply that we are just not doing anything. Nothing is

further from the truth. This is not a Liberal Government, this is a PC

Government.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Premier knows that there are more industries shutdown in this Province

since he has been the Premier than were ever started, and record will show that,

Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, to switch gears: There is an increasing concern and discussion

regarding the future of waste management and waste management projects in our

Province. The current strategy of waste management sites is placing a financial

burden of a lot of towns in this Province, especially the towns that are using

the Robin Hood Bay site.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister today: What is the status of the Greater

Avalon Regional Waste Management Program, and are communities continuing to

participate?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS WHALEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This government is committed to the Waste Management Strategy, and we are

investing over $200 million into that strategy. We have just put $40 million

into the facility of Robin Hood Bay, and we have a committee that is working to

bring about this waste management on the Northeast Avalon.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Towns such as Holyrood, who were disposing of its own waste, were doing so

and earning a royalty on it by doing so for other towns, of up to $160,000 a

year in surplus in their budget; but now, because now they have to take their

garbage to Robin Hood Bay, they are running a deficit and will run a deficit

again this year.

I ask the minister: What is government doing to offset the increased cost to

these municipalities that are now having to truck their garbage for a number of

kilometres and pay high tipping fees to dispose of it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows that we cannot have a dump in

every community in this Province. This government is committed to closing down

incinerators in this Province and having the proper waste management facilities.

All of the communities know full well that it is time now to modernize those

types of facilities, and they are working towards that to do just that.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, it is not good enough for government to have a

Waste Management Strategy that tells municipalities you have to now truck your

garbage so many kilometres, in some cases hundreds of kilometres, you have to

pay tipping fees that are doubling by the year, like we are seeing in Robin Hood

Bay, and provide no supports and leave them on their own to do it.

I ask you, Minister: Is your department or the MMSB going to provide any

assistance (inaudible)?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, for my hon. colleague there, I have just repeated

that this government has been committed to waste management in this Province. It

is time now that we come ahead in the modern it is a type of strategy that

has had to take a $200 million investment to bring this Waste Management

Strategy to modernize facilities across the Province, and there are committees

of members from various municipalities serving on the boards to do just that.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say to the hon. member that this government her

prior government brought in this strategy - we are the ones implementing it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

May I remind the minister she is the government. You have been the government

for five years. You make the decisions in this Province, Mr. Speaker. You make

the laws in this Province - not over here! Not over here - and this was a law

they made!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, while the government is forcing towns to truck their garbage

hundreds of kilometres, pay high tipping fees, and giving them no subsidies,

they are also allowing the MMSB to sit on $11 million in their bank account.

Minister, why not use that money to implement recycling programs in these

towns so they will have less garbage to truck and less garbage to dump?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Acting Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would advise the Leader of the Opposition to just keep an eye on what is

going to be happening with the Waste Management Strategy in this Province.

I can guarantee you, Mr. Speaker, that at the end of the day this government

will bring waste management a darn lot further than they ever brought it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: And, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that at the end of this

strategy there will not be 250 dumps left in this Province. I just ask her to

stay tuned and see what the result will be. We will have a Waste Management

Strategy in this Province that will be comparable to anything else in this

country, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is having great difficulty in hearing questions asked and answers

given. It causes concern, not only to the person asking the question but to the

minister trying to answer the question.

I ask members for their co-operation.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I suggest that the minister needs to get a move on if he is going to get all

these things done that he speaks of today.

Mr. Speaker, what we have seen from the MMSB is glossy advertising and

educational campaigns that tell how to recycle, what to recycle, what we can

recycle, but it does not provide for the programs in the Province.

I ask you, Minister: When are you going to step up, and start using that

money to provide for appropriate recycling programs in Newfoundland and

Labrador?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Acting Minister of Environment and Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Maybe, Mr. Speaker, it is time that we give them a glossy

education about what waste management is all about.

If she wants to talk about programs, go and speak to the schools. For every

recycled dollar that the schools bring and circulate, they receive an equal

dollar. It is no good to tell me that the education campaign has not worked. If

I say to people: Get to Half, what does it mean? - Practically everybody in the

Province knows exactly what that means.

Mr. Speaker, the MMSB does not provide operational costs. That has been asked

about in the media. That is going to be sustained by the community. What we are

talking about here, the MMSB, the Waste Management Strategy, will invest in the

infrastructure. That is what the $200 million is about.

I would ask anybody to take a look at Robin Hood Bay, where it is today

compared to where it was two or three years ago. Speak to the people and see the

advancements that have been made out there; and in another couple of years, Mr.

Speaker, there will be something out there that will not look like anything as

it was in the past. It will be an engineered landfill site, not a dump, Mr.

Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Mr. Speaker, I say to the minister, the people in Holyrood are

looking at Robin Hood Bay. Last year they looked at it for $23 a load when they

dumped; this year they are looking at it at $50 a load when they dump, I say to

you, Minister.

I am glad to hear the programs in the schools are working because it was an

initiative of the Liberal government that started the program in the schools on

the recycling, Mr. Speaker.

Let me ask the minister this. He is the government. Just because the MMSB

does not have a mandate today, he claims, to provide for recycling programs in

the Province, there is no reason why they cannot have that mandate.

I ask you, Minister: Will you bring forward a change to see the $11 million

that is sitting in a bank account in this Province put to good use to clean up

our environment and put good recycling programs in place?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Acting Minister of Environment and

Conservation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you exactly what all of the money

of the MMSB is being used for, and I do not know what the mandate will be in the

future. That remains to be seen.

I can tell you one thing: the money is not sitting idly. Go to Central

Newfoundland and ask the Central Waste Management Strategy what they have done.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: There was $500,000 allocated to them just a short while ago.

Fourteen of the dump sites that have been closed out and recapped, so on and so

forth, the money from the MMSB has gone to that. It goes to education. It goes

to recycling, the school program I regret that I mentioned that now, Mr.

Speaker -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. JACKMAN: - seeing that it was an initiative of theirs. But I can tell

you, Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day this government will go on record as

being much more progressive than the people opposite.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

The hon. the Member for the District of Signal HillQuidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as has already been pointed out in our Question Period today,

today we had more announcements, one in particular with regard to Grand

Falls-Windsor, that are very serious and that will affect the workers in our

Province and potentially, the Province's own fiscal situation. Mr. Speaker,

the people of this Province deserve answers from this government on what it is

going to do to protect them in this time of economic downturn.

So I ask the Premier: What economic stimulus programs does your government

have, and what are you developing to deal with the loss of jobs in the natural

resource sector in this Province and the potential of workers returning to this

Province without jobs because of the slowdown in natural resource activities

elsewhere in Canada?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, there are significant projects that are

still going ahead. There is the Hebron project, of course, which is on stream;

there is the hydromet project, of course, which is still on stream; the Lower

Churchill is moving forward very favourably.

As a matter of fact, on the Lower Churchill, what we will be doing is

attempting to draw into some of the green infrastructure money, the rapid,

accelerated infrastructure money that is going to come from the federal

government.

I have a meeting of the Atlantic premiers now on Sunday and Monday in

Summerside, Prince Edward Island, so we will be looking at that.

As well, it should not be lost on hon. members as well, that we have a very

generous wage package out right now to public sector workers. We are offering a

compounded amount of 21.5 per cent to our public service employees, and I am

really at a loss to understand why they are looking this gift horse in the mouth

and not taking it because we have indicated that we can hold this until we get

to the Christmas period, but going into next year, we are not certain as a

government whether we will be able to maintain the obligation of a 21.5 per cent

raise hike. So we are doing everything we can and.

In addition, I have also asked for an update on our infrastructure program.

Infrastructure projects that we have on the hopper right now are calculated at

approximately

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

I ask the hon. Premier to conclude his answer.

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

- calculated at approximately $3.5 billion to $4 billion. So we are taking

any of our surplus money, we are putting it into our workers and we are putting

it into capital infrastructure and creating jobs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do appreciate the large projects that are on the books, these long-term

projects. I cannot deny these. I know that they are there, I know they are being

worked on, but there are many people who right now in the present are not going

to benefit from what is happening, especially because of the shutdowns that we

are talking about and many people are going to be suffering because of the

economic crisis that we are in.

So I ask the Premier: What concrete steps is your government taking and what

can we expect to see in the economic report that we are going to get to mitigate

the negative effects of the current economic crisis as it unfolds in our

Province, not what is going to happen in ten years time but what you are going

to do now?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WILLIAMS: The effects of the economic crisis are really starting

to trickle down to us now, as we have seen really with regard to commodities;

with iron ore and steel, with nickel, with oil and gas, in the pulp and paper

industry. That is obviously having an effect, and the most direct effects right

now have been to the workers, of course at Wabush, and as well, now our workers

in Grand Falls through Abitibi.

So we do have a task force set up, which the minister just talked about

before. It is three months in the works right now, which is up and running, and

is ready to hit the ground running again tomorrow. That will be going into

Central Newfoundland, working with the community, working with the union,

working with people in the communities to decide on what they think are the best

things for that particular area.

As well, we will continue to spend. We do not intend to pull back on our

spending. We are just trying, as we look out two, three or four years, we have

to look at where our deficits are going but we are going to continue to infuse

spending into the economy to make sure that the people get the benefit.

We are, as I have said before, in a very good, financial position. Now, that

position unilaterally drops as every province gets hit harder and harder by the

world economy.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. Premier to conclude his answer.

PREMIER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

But we will be at the top of that heap, or very close to the top of that

heap. So as a result of our surplus this year, which the minister will be

discussing in the very near future regarding the economic update, we can give an

assurance to the people of this Province that we will be spending that money in

their best interests.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time allotted for questions and answers has expired.

Presenting reports by standing and select committees.

Tabling of documents.

Tabling of Documents

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Natural Resources and Deputy

Premier.

MS DUNDERDALE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Today I table the Report of Mineral Licenses, Mining Leases and Surface

Leases for 2007-2008 for the Department of Natural Resources.

MR. SPEAKER: Further tabling of documents?

Notices of motions.

Notices of Motion

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On behalf of the Minister of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, I give

notice that I will ask leave to introduce a bill entitled,

An Act To Establish

The Newfoundland and Labrador Research and Development Council. (Bill 70)

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motions?

The hon. the Minister of Government Services.

MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will ask leave to

introduce a bill entitled,

An Act Respecting Chartered Accounts. (Bill 69)

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motion?

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, under Standing Order 11, I

shall move that the House not adjourn at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, December 8, 2008.

I further give notice that, under Standing Order 11, I shall move that the

House not adjourn at 10:00 p.m. on Monday, December 8, 2008.

MR. SPEAKER: Further notices of motion?

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given.

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am very happy today to be able to present the petition that I have here on

my desk, which is from the undersigned residents, Canadian Cancer Society,

Newfoundland and Labrador Division, who humbly sheweth;

WHEREAS Newfoundland and Labrador is currently lacking adequate financial

support for its residents who must travel to avail of cancer care service; and

WHEREAS changes should be made in order to lessen the financial cancer

diagnosis, particularly at a time that is stressful and complicated for cancer

patients and their families;

WHEREUPON we the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the

House of Assembly to urge government to reimburse gas/mileage for the use of

personal vehicles; add meal per diems for those staying with family and friends,

and increased overall rates to reflect the true financial burden; include

coverage for those taking

part in clinical trials; wave the $400 deductible

faced by those who live on the island portion of the Province; increase

reimbursement of eligible costs from 50 per cent to 80 per cent; and

As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. Dated: December 4, 2008.

And as my colleagues can see, the Cancer Society has gathered thousands of

signatures of people from everywhere in this Province who stand behind this

petition, some thousands of which I will be passing on today to the Clerk.

This is a very serious issue - I am sure we all realize that it is - and I

would like to point out that in the light of what we have happening around the

Province today, with shutdowns up in Labrador, and with the loss of the mill in

Grand Falls-Windsor, although that will not happen until July, the impact starts

now financially on people, because they know in July the jobs are going to be

gone so they automatically have to look at what savings they have, how they can

hold on to money, how they can prepare. You might even have workers who are

starting to look elsewhere for work. The impact starts right away, once they

know the jobs are gone. With all of that happening, right off the bat we know

that there probably could be some hundreds of families who have illnesses in

their families not just the workers, the workers' family as well - that

require travel for medical help, medical assistance and medical care. We can

assume that there will be a large number of those people affected who also will

have to travel.

That is just one example of how what is happening economically in the

Province is going to increase the burden on people in the Province, so the

issues around the cost of medical travel are going to increase as well because

we are going to have more people for whom it is going to be a tremendous burden

to have to pay for their travel the way they are now paying for it.

There are so many things that I can say to this issue, and I will be

presenting petitions more than once on this issue so I will not try to cover

everything today. I do not see time being counted but I have three minutes, I

think. You will have to tell me, Mr. Speaker, when my time is up.

MR. SPEAKER: I advise the hon. member that her time for speaking on the

petition has lapsed. If the member would like to clue up, I am sure that leave

would be granted to make a conclusion to your comments.

MS MICHAEL: I will clue up now.

One point that I would like to make is that the Canadian Cancer Society has

put together a very important chart that is provincial, territorial and

national, with regard to the medical travel assistance programs. This chart

shows that in some areas we do very well; in other areas we are not doing so

well. I will not give details of this chart today, Mr. Speaker, but I will at

another time, speaking to this petition, present some of the information from

this chart.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions?

The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Unfortunately, I do not have a pile of petitions like my hon. colleague - I

do not bring them all to the House - but, Mr. Speaker, I am beginning to feel a

little bit bad today so I am going to present two at a time now. I will present

two at a time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand and present a petition again today on

behalf of the residents of Shearstown, Makinsons, Clarke's Beach and

Carbonear, from the areas that I represent and other honourable members

represent, to ask government to look at the possibility, again, for a long-term

care facility for the Carbonear area.

The facilities that are in Carbonear now - everyone knows this; the hon.

member knows as well - those facilities have outlived their life expectancy and

even the professionals that work there know that we need a new facility in the

area.

This government, in 2007, admitted that it is a requirement for the area, and

this year, I guess, why the petitions started flowing is because we heard

government announce that there would be $1 million to look at the possibility of

two long-term care facilities for the St. John's area. They are saying: Why

can't we have one of those?

We know that it all can't be done the one time, and we are very pleased to

know that there were five or six other facilities built around this Province.

Carbonear and St. John's were at the top of the list, and we know now there

have been facilities for Corner Brook, Clarenville, Happy Valley-Goose Bay and

Lewisporte, and that is all good. There is nothing wrong with that, Mr. Speaker,

but we are saying that we are the Conception Bay North area which takes in

Trinity South as well, and the people are asking government to reconsider their

decision last year not to provide the $1 million for this project to proceed,

and hopefully this year we will hear an announcement.

I call upon my hon. colleagues from the adjacent communities to stand behind

their constituents, bring their issues forward, so that a long-term care

facility will become a reality in the Conception Bay North area.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Further petitions.

Orders of the day.

Orders of the Day

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I call from our Order Paper Motion 2.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Justice and Attorney

General, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled,

An Act To Amend The

Provincial Court Act, 1991 No. 2, Bill 50; and

I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Minister of

Justice and Attorney General shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An

Act To Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991No. 2, Bill 50, and that the said

bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the minister shall have leave to

introduce Bill 50, and that the said bill be now read a first time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Justice and Attorney General to introduce a

bill, "An Act To Amend The Provincial Court Act, 1991 No. 2, carried. (Bill

50)

CLERK (MacKenzie): A bill, "An Act To Amend The Provincial Court

Act, 1991 No. 2." (Bill 50)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 50 has now been read a first time.

When shall Bill 50 be read a second time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 50 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. Minister of Tourism,

Culture and Recreation, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled,

An Act To

Amend The Management Of Information Act, Bill 63; and I further move that the

said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Minister of

Tourism, Culture and Recreation shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled,

An Act To Amend The Management Of Information Act, Bill 63, and that the said

bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that Bill 63 be now read a first time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation to introduce

a bill, "An Act To Amend The Management Of Information Act," carried.

(Bill 63)

CLERK: A bill,

An Act To Amend The Management Of Information Act. (Bill

63)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 63 has now been read a first time.

When shall Bill 63 be read a second time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 63 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. the Minister of

Tourism, Culture and Recreation, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled, An

Act To Amend The Rooms Act. (Bill 64)

I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Minister of

Tourism, Culture and Recreation shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled,

An Act To Amend The Rooms Act, Bill 64, and that the said bill be now read a

first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. minister shall have leave to

introduce Bill 64 and that this bill be now read a first time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

Motion, the hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation to introduce

a bill, "An Act To Amend The Rooms Act," carried. (Bill 64)

CLERK: A bill,

An Act To Amend The Rooms Act. (Bill 64)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 64 has now been read a first time.

When shall Bill 64 be read a second time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 64 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. the Minister of

Transportation and Works, to ask leave to introduce a bill entitled,

An Act To

Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration Act No.

2. (Bill 68)

I further move that the said bill be now read a first time.

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that the hon. the Government House

Leader shall have leave to introduce a bill entitled, An

Act To Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration

Act No. 2, Bill 68, and that this bill be now read a first time.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the minister shall have leave to

introduce Bill 68 and that the said bill be now read a first time?

All those in favour, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against, 'nay'.

The motion is carried.

Motion, the hon. the Government House Leader to introduce a bill, "An

Act To Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability, Integrity And Administration

Act No. 2," carried. (Bill 68)

CLERK: A bill,

An Act To Amend The House Of Assembly Accountability,

Integrity And Administration Act No. 2. (Bill 68)

MR. SPEAKER: Bill 68 has now been read a first time.

When shall the said bill be read a second time?

MS BURKE: Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Tomorrow.

On motion, Bill 68 read a first time, ordered read a second time on tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

MS BURKE: Mr. Speaker, Order 17, second reading of a bill,

An Act To

Repeal The Homes For Special Care Act. (Bill 55)

MR. SPEAKER: It is moved and seconded that Bill 55,

An Act To Repeal The

Homes For Special Care Act, be now read a second time.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Repeal The Homes For

Special Care Act." (Bill 55)

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

MR. WISEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It has been moved and seconded by my colleague, the Minister of Finance and

President of Treasury Board, that Bill 55 it is a Homes For Special Care

Act. This is a revoking of a particular piece of legislation that was in place

since 1973. Since that time new legislation has been brought in place to deal

special homes such as these.

When this act was enacted back in 1973, it was applicable to three particular

facilities in the Province, I say, Mr. Speaker. One was the Hoyles Home here in

St. John's, the other was the Harbour Lodge in Carbonear, and the other one

was a children's home here in St. John's. Now, since that time we have

created regional health authorities, both the current structure of the regional

health authorities which is governed by the Regional Health Authorities Act, and

prior to that, health facilities and health programs in the Province were

governed by the Hospitals Act.

Mr. Speaker, this particular piece of legislation here that we are talking

about today was a piece of legislation that, yes, was relevant in 1973 when we

operated these three particular homes for children. Since that time, these homes

have well Hoyles is still in existence and Harbour Lodge is still in

existence but their roles have changed significantly, and the children's home

here in St. John's is no longer in existence.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a relatively routine piece of legislation that sets

out a process to repeal an old and outdated piece of legislation that no longer

has any application for the care and provision of services to the children who

would have been cared for in those three particular facilities back in 1973.

Mr. Speaker, as I said a moment ago, this is not a very significant piece of

legislation relative to today's terms, but one of the things I would point

out, is in as much as these three facilities, two of which are still standing,

the other one has since been eliminated, the population that was served by those

three homes at that particular time and they did provide a valuable service

at that particular point in time but since that time the children of this

Province are being cared for through a variety of other programs, through one of

our four regional health authorities, or supported by programs through HRLE.

Those individual children who would have been provided with care and support in

those three homes back then are now being provided supports and services through

a long-term care and community support services strategy.

Members in this House will recall that in response to numerous questions over

the last four or five months, I have indicated clearly our government's

strategy development process that has been focusing on a comprehensive review of

all our community supports, all our long-term care supports. Some of the same

children who were cared for in these three homes back in 1973 and the years that

followed that, are now receiving supports and services under one of those

particular health authorities and through our long-term care and supportive

services programs.

Mr. Speaker, I am only too glad, as we move into the committee stage, if

there are some very specific questions around this particular bill, I will be

only too glad to answer them but, I say, Mr. Speaker, this is a relatively

routine process, taking out of play a piece of legislation that no longer has

any application because the children being served and were dealt with under this

legislation are now being dealt with under the Regional Health Authorities Act.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I certainly want to speak to Bill 55.

Mr. Speaker, obviously this legislation was put in place at a time in our

history when we were dealing with serious problems around foster care and

providing for safe homes for children in the Province, whether that be on a

temporary or on an extended basis.

Mr. Speaker, what is unfortunate is that while we stand here repealing the

act that would have designated special homes and special care for people who

were either in a foster care situation or adults that were suffering from other

kinds of illnesses or inflictions that needed special care, we are still in the

position today in this Province where we have growing numbers of children who

are being taken into foster care.

In fact, back earlier this year we were

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: No, I know. I said it was special care homes for adults who had

inflictions or other disabilities that were the minister is trying to change

the vamp of my speech but it will not work today, Mr. Speaker, because when you

are dealing with special care homes, you are dealing with homes that provide for

a safe haven and care for all people in our society. I am saying to the

minister, he may have missed the first part of my speech, but what I am saying

to him is that at a time when these kinds of facilities were warranted to be

able to care for people who suffered from illnesses and disabilities within our

society, over a course of time we have either been better, Mr. Speaker, at

providing for these individuals in their own homes and in their own families, or

providing better treatment for them in communities, enabling them to become more

self-confident and self-assertive in taking care of their own needs, with the

support of aids and individuals.

Mr. Speaker, this has allowed a lot of people in our society to live more

independently, and I know a number of these people who today live very

differently than they would have thirty years ago in this Province. Today they

have independent living arrangements, where they have their own apartments,

where they have people who help them with daily chores, and help them with their

personal things that they need to do to care for themselves, and it is a much

better way. It is a much better way for these people because it instills

confidence in them and it gives them a sense of independence that, years ago,

under the older system, they did not have the opportunity to do. I am not saying

that all things were bad under that system. I am saying that it was done in

response to the need at the time, and it allowed for individuals to live

together in a group home setting or in a special home setting where they could

get care that ordinarily they would not be able to get anywhere else.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to providing for special care for people in our

Province, it is still a challenge for us. Even today in this Province we have

over 700 children in foster care, and we have only 400 homes that are able to

take those children. That leaves us with a very difficult situation, because

today we are seeing children who are taken into custody and awarded to the

state, being put up in hotels, being put up in housekeeping units, in apartment

facilities; but, Mr. Speaker, there is no other option in the absence of having

proper foster care and proper foster families.

At least we have the ability to know that these children, while they are

being put up in hotels or in apartments, that they are being provided a safe

haven, that they have a roof over their head, that they have food; but, Mr.

Speaker, I have to question, to a certain degree, whether they have the proper

programs, the proper services and the proper individuals trained to care for

them. That is a debate for another day, but it is certainly one that I have done

a lot of work on, and I have taken an extensive look at, and I am sure that we

will see a debate on it in the House of Assembly in the weeks and months ahead.

Mr. Speaker, today in this Province, while we have 700 foster children in

care and awarded to the state, we have only 400 foster families. I want to

encourage people in this Province to become a foster family, to open up your

home and open up your hearts to some of these children - children who need, even

for a short time, Mr. Speaker, a family to go to, the nurturing and the caring

of being in a family unit, of being in a home. I am sure there are lots of

families out there in this Province that have the capacity and have the

nurturing ability to open their homes to a lot of these children.

Mr. Speaker, since the Zachary Turner inquiry occurred and was completed back

in October 2006 - and I remember it well, Mr. Speaker, because I was just

leaving the Province on vacation when the Turner Report came out, and I actually

took it with me and spent the two weeks reading that report, only because I

could not put it down. In that report, it identified a lot of the gaps that

existed within our system and it cautioned a lot of the people who work within

our bureaucracy, especially in child, health and family services, that you take

nothing for granted.

As a result of the Turner Report we have seen an increase in the number of

cases that are being reported to Eastern Health and, in essence, to all the

health boards in the Province. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, not just the

effect it has had in this Province but I remember seeing a report that was on

CBC I don't know if it was the fifth estate or some other report -

back in February of this year, in which they talked about the Zachary Turner

case but they also talked about other inquiries that were done into deaths in

provinces across Canada. As a result of it, it has caused people who work in

health and community services and child services to be much more cautious, and

we are seeing more cases being reported right across Canada and particularly in

our own Province.

Mr. Speaker, about a quarter of the children in Labrador's two Innu

communities in particular are in some form of protective custody. I talked about

this last year in the House of Assembly when we realized that more than 200

children were in the child welfare system, and there were another 100 children

that were being watched by the system, that could be removed at any time,

according to the elders in the community who spoke out against this publicly.

Mr. Speaker, these are alarming numbers; because, when you have about 800

children or residents living in the two Innu communities in our Province under

the age of eighteen and you realize that at least one-quarter or more of them

are either in custody or being watched by the state, it should cause governments

and ministries to wake up to what the real problems are in these communities.

These are communities where families need healing, where investments have to be

made in healing the community and the family and not just taking the child and

putting them into foster care. That is one component of it. Allowing for the

protection of services for the child is one component, but we need to also

ensure that we provide for proper facilities and treatments within these

communities.

Mr. Speaker, I am very familiar with the culture of the Innu people, and I

know that the treatment centre that they set up a couple of years ago on the

Churchill Road is having a magnificent impact on that community for those

families. It is a centre where parents take their children and they go to the

centre, and they get the services and they get the healing and they get the

expertise of those that are there, so that the whole family has the opportunity

for treatment and therefore they are able to maintain their family unit. They

have had a lot of success from that program.

That was something that was instituted by the Innu people themselves. They

were the brainchild behind this, and it was the leaders in their community that

pushed to have this done. It is effective and it is working, but we need to see

more of it. We need to see a lot more of it, Mr. Speaker, and we need to ensure

that the children we are placing into foster care have the opportunity to bridge

the culture with their community, and that they are not always I remember

one of the Innu elders saying to me that she was very concerned that a lot of

the Innu children were being sent outside of their community and outside of

Labrador. In fact, I think the last number was that there were 100 Innu children

in foster care who were now living outside of Labrador. That was a concern to

the elders in the community, and a primary concern to the elder that I had

talked to. They want to see their children safe, but they also want to see them

in their community and in their culture and having the opportunity to be able to

grow up in that environment. That means we need to put more energy and more

effort into healing the communities and into healing the families.

Mr. Speaker, today there are twenty-seven children from this Province who are

in foster care outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. In fact, almost all of

those children are from Labrador. I have had an opportunity to meet with the

foster care agencies in Ontario that house those children and they are in what

they call therapeutic foster homes. We have none of those homes in the Province

of Newfoundland and Labrador, but for a number of years we have been sending our

children to those homes in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, the boards that I met with and the individuals that are

involved, there is no doubt, they provide a good service. It is not the service

that is even being questioned by me, but what is being questioned is why we do

not have these therapeutic foster homes here in our own Province. Why are we

having to send our children in Labrador to Ontario for treatment and away from

their families, away from the community and the Province that they are somewhat

familiar with, to be able to seek the service that they need?

I think it can be provided in this Province very easily, because what I

understood from the people who run the therapeutic foster homes in Ontario is

that a lot of these homes are in the outskirts, the suburbs of the Province.

They are not in the main cities. They are in the suburbs. These children live

with families who have some training and ability to deal with extensive cases.

Some of these children may have addictions problems, some may have come from an

abusive home or an abusive family and they need to have proper counselling and

services. Some of these children may have been in trouble with the law and they

need to have those kinds of services, and they are getting those services. They

are not necessarily getting all of that in the family they are living with, but

they are getting it as part of the services of a therapeutic foster home.

Mr. Speaker, there is no reason that we cannot have those facilities in

Newfoundland and Labrador. We pay to send them out, and so we should, but the

amount of money we are paying we could be doing it at home. So it is not a

financial consideration for government. It is a matter of making the effort to

put the proper services in place right here in Newfoundland and Labrador so that

these children have the opportunity to be able to do that.

When it comes to providing care for people in our society, obviously, the

responsibility of it falls to the greatest extent to the government. I know and

understand that oftentimes the ministry and the department are challenged in

terms of the amount of service that needs to be provided, the quality of the

service that needs to be provided. Oftentimes, we hear we do not have the

numbers to warrant it, we do not have the cases to support it. Mr. Speaker,

sometimes those arguments bear merit and sometimes they do not. We were dealing

with a case in this Province today, a situation not unlike would have been dealt

with back in the 1970s, when the answer at that time would have been these

homes, those support homes that we are repealing the act for today.

Today, Mr. Speaker, we have another problem. It is a problem in servicing our

mentally ill youth in this Province. We have, in Newfoundland and Labrador,

increasing and alarming rates of suicide attempts being reported by young

people, people under the age of eighteen. We also have a number of cases where

our youth are being hospitalized at the Janeway but are not receiving what they

call intensive treatment programs for the illnesses that they have. This has

become a major concern for parents in this Province. So far, government has been

addressing the problem over the last number of years by sending these young

people outside of Newfoundland and Labrador to get treatment. Again, I think

there needs to be solutions found at home. What is sad about all of that is that

there is a report that was done back in 2003, submitted in December of that year

to the ministry, which recommended at that time that there be a treatment

facility for youth in this Province who were suicidal and needed to have proper

treatment and proper programs.

Mr. Speaker, that report has sat in the Department of Health and Community

Services for the last five years, through three successive ministers and

administrations and has not been dealt with. That is unfortunate. It is more

than unfortunate, it is absolutely sad. It is sadder for those young people who

have spent the last number of years in and out of the Janeway hospital crying

out for psychiatric services, intense treatments and programs to help them deal

with their suicide problem and their mentally ill problem. In addition to that,

we have growing numbers of young people that are dealing with emotional

disorders in the Province, who also have been crying out for help and looking

for special treatments and facilities to be able to handle that.

Mr. Speaker, we certainly want to encourage government to go down a path of

taking some real action and dealing with these problems that our mentally ill

and emotionally challenged young people are dealing with. We want them to go

down the path of putting in place the appropriate treatment programs right here

in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I have had people look at me and say: Oh, we do not want another Exon House.

We do not want another home like we are talking about today in Bill 55. But, Mr.

Speaker, it is not about brick and mortar. It is never about brick and mortar.

Brick and mortar is just a roof under which everything falls. It is all about

programs. It is all about treatment. It is all about services, and whether that

happens in a wing of a hospital, whether that happens in a separate building,

whether that requires a new facility, to me that is not the relevant piece to

this. The relevant piece to this is that there needs to be something done, more

than what we have seen in the past, and I want to encourage the minister, and

encourage his government to go down the path of looking at different programs

and services for young people who suffer from mental illness in this Province.

Do not look at it as being brick and mortar; do not look at it as being

institutional services. Look at it in the context of treatment and what

treatments are required.

When I look at institutionalizing, I see what is happening at the Janeway

right now where some of these children have been in lockdown units of the

Janeway for up to three and four months and have not seen the light of day. To

me, that is institutional care. Only getting the services of a psychiatrist for

an hour out of a week, to me, is not a treatment program. These children have to

be watched hourly, daily, minute-by-minute. In fact, Mr. Speaker, there are

cases in which they cannot be left alone.

That is the seriousness of the problem that we deal with, and that problem

will not go away unless there is some form of intervention to deal with it, some

form of treatment. The answer right now today, unfortunately, outside of

lockdown mode in the Janeway to protect them from themselves, the only other

option is to send them outside of our Province, away from their families, away

from their parents and their siblings and their friends, to be able to get that

treatment. Some will go, but not all will go. Not all will go, because they

suffer from illnesses that do not often give them the kind of confidence and

encouragement that they need to be able to take on something like that.

I know of cases, Mr. Speaker, where parents have quit their jobs. They have

had to leave their jobs to stay at home to care for their teenage daughter who

was ill and needed to be there with them on a daily basis. You can do that for a

shorter period of time but you cannot do it for a long period of time. It is not

something that is sustainable over a long period of time. It is not healthy for

the family and it is not healthy for the other children that are in this family,

so something more needs to happen.

Mr. Speaker, I can only hope that now that the minister has the report and

has assigned some officials in the department to look at the recommendations in

this report, that we can very quickly see government shape out a strategy and a

plan that will provide for the treatment and the services for these young people

in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, when I looked at the statistics that the RCMP had put out, they

were documenting then about 1,300 calls from young people in the Province, of

which most of them were suicidal calls. That was last year alone. Now, think

about it like this: the RCMP services the rural areas of this Province. The RNC

services the St. John's and a lot of the Eastern Avalon area, they service the

Corner Brook area and they service Labrador West. The stats that the RCMP quotes

are for the jurisdiction in which they serve, and that jurisdiction, Mr.

Speaker, takes in the rest of the areas of the Province: the Clarenville area,

the Grand Falls area, the Stephenville area, Port aux Basques, Goose Bay, and

the smaller, more rural areas in between. So, really, you are talking about half

the population of the Province that would be serviced by the RCMP, and if they

are reporting numbers of 1,300 calls from youth, of which most were related to

suicide, that should tell us that is only about half of the number of people

that are actually calling in. We could not get firm statistics in the St. John's

and the Corner Brook areas because the hospitals do not record the intake

numbers.

So, Mr. Speaker, when you are dealing with suicide numbers in the St. John's

area, the RNC would not have that kind of data. They may have some numbers, and

they may have even had several hundred cases, but a lot of the people in this

area would go directly to an emergency room or would go directly to another

facility or to some other form of help or assistance.

The numbers and the data were not readily available in the same way, but

those numbers in themselves tell us that there is a problem. Then again, we do

not need those numbers; we just need to go out and talk to people who suffer

from this, families that are dealing with it, and you get a very clear picture

of the seriousness of this problem and realize that it is not something that can

be ignored any longer. We have reached a point where government needs to take

this in hand and seriously do something to try and help it.

Mr. Speaker, I talked today about a number of issues. Of course, when you

talk about homes for special care you certainly have to talk about home care in

this Province; there is no doubt about that. Mr. Speaker, I touched

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) great latitude.

MS JONES: Yes, it is great latitude, I say to the minister, to talk about

a number of these issues that warrant some profile and some consideration.

Mr. Speaker, no doubt, homes for special care can translate into a number of

things. I talked about foster care and the number of children in this Province,

700 children today, in foster care; yet, only 400 foster care families available

to take them. I talked about therapeutic care for our young people who are

outside the Province, and I talked about the need for treatment for mental

health, young people suffering from mental heath services.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about home care because home care is one of

the issues in this Province that has yet to be able to sort itself out. The

problems that complicate home care are various and they range from the services

that are being provided in the home, and the eligibility for those services,

right down to those who provide the service, those workers in the system.

Mr. Speaker, 64 per cent of the people in this Province who receive home care

are over the age of sixty-five. We already know that couples over the age of

sixty-five are asked to contribute heavily in order to access home care

services. This was an issue that we raised in the House of Assembly last year.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, we had a tremendous amount of support from seniors around

this Province when we were raising this issue, simply because of the co-pay

system that exists. Mr. Speaker, the co-pay system is not conducive to allowing

for the appropriate services for people who are senior citizens in this Province

and require home care.

Mr. Speaker, today we are talking about repealing

an act for special care

homes: homes that were set up where groups of people could go into those homes

and get specific care that they needed, whether it was because they were just

elderly or whether it was because they suffered from certain disabilities or

certain illnesses. Today, Mr. Speaker, we are allowing for a system where people

who need home care can get it right in their own homes; but, in order for them

to stay in their homes and access this care, they need to have support and

supplements from the government.

Mr. Speaker, the government sets a benchmark for those who are eligible for

home care services. People have to be able to meet that benchmark in order to

qualify for any kind of subsidies. Once they reach that benchmark they are asked

to contribute under what is called a co-pay system.

We heard of cases, Mr. Speaker, where seniors in this Province were asked to

contribute half of their income in order to access appropriate home care

services. These are individuals, couples, two people in a home, who are earning

less than $30,000 a year as their total annual income, but in order to stay in

their home, in order to live there and provide for the care they needed, they

needed home care services. In order to access those home care services

government was saying, you need to contribute at least $12,000 to $15,000

annually towards that cost. That was half of their income. That was leaving

these two elderly people in their own home to pay for their heat and their light

and their groceries and their medication and their transportation with less than

half their income. That is not acceptable, Mr. Speaker.

You are asking these individuals to live way below the poverty line. Yet, we

have strategies in this Province to combat poverty, to help people up out of

poverty, to help families, to help the elderly, to help our children who are

living in poverty in this Province. Then we design programs to assist them and

help them that push them right back into the situation, that push them down into

poverty, that don't allow them to meet their monthly expenditures and be able

to maintain home care services.

Mr. Speaker, if someone doesn't see that there is something wrong with

that, then they should not be in this House. We come here to represent the needs

of minorities, to ensure that there is fairness in our system and fairness for

all people. That, Mr. Speaker, is not fairness. It is not fairness when there

are two senior citizens out there in Bonavista or in Trinity or in Benoit's

Cove or in Cartwright or anywhere in this Province who have to give up half

their income to the government in order to access home care services so that

they can stay in their own homes and not have to be put into an institution or a

long-term care facility.

Get this, Mr. Speaker! Get this! We charge them for home care. They stay in

their own home, we charge them to give them the care, but they come into a

long-term care facility and we subsidize them twice that amount, I would say,

twice that amount. It is at least $3,000 or $3,500 a month now. The minister can

tell me - I am sure he knows it off the top of his head - but it must be at

least $3,000 a month now to keep an elderly person in a long-term care facility.

Mr. Speaker, that being the case, to keep two elderly people in a long-term

care facility is double that. So, we charge them to get home care services in

their own home, we charge them, forcing them to live below the poverty wages,

less than standard wages in our society, running their homes and their

households on $12,700-and-some-odd a month, Mr. Speaker. We do that asking them

to cover their heat costs and their light costs and their food costs and their

medical costs and their transportation costs, on less than $13,000 a year or

something.

Then, if they will not do that, their only other option is to go into a

long-term care facility. When they go into a long-term care facility, Mr.

Speaker, it costs the government money. It costs the government a lot more

money. In fact, I am quoting $3,000 a person and I am thinking that I might be a

little bit off. It is probably $2,600 or $2,500 a person, is it, Minister?

MR. WISEMAN: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: Oh, it is higher than $3,000. I am being much too generous,

apparently. The cost of keeping a person in a long-term care facility, we know,

is over $3,000 a month. That would be in the range of $6,000.

Is that the desired position that we want to be pushing people, our elderly

people, into? I don't think so. If they are able to care for themselves in

their own home with certain supports and certain home care supports, then that

is the route that we should be going.

Mr. Speaker, we are in a Province today where the numbers of elderly people

are increasing. Our statistics are showing, Mr. Speaker, that we will have a

great deal more people depending upon long-term care services and home care

services in this Province over the next ten years than we do today.

Mr. Speaker, today we have almost 69,000 seniors in our population base, and

one-third of our population is over the age fifty. I am quoting this now from

Statistics Canada from 2006. What they are saying is that by 2016 seniors will

represent almost 20 per cent of the Province's population. By 2026 they will

represent 27 per cent of the total population of the Province.

These are alarming increases in terms of the number of seniors that will

become dependent upon supports in our system, so we really need to put our head

around this. Government needs to start looking at how they can change the

financial assessment tools that are used to determine whether seniors get home

care or whether they do not.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, seniors that I know and talk to, most of them

want to live independently in their own homes for as long as they possibly can.

They do not want to have to go into a long-term care facility. That, to them, is

a last resort. That is their last option. If we are not going to provide them

with home care supports so that once they have serious operations and come out

of the hospital there is care for them when their spouse cannot do it, if we do

not provide for the proper home care supports, they will be forced into

long-term care facilities.

In fact, I see it in my notes here now that the cost for a person to live in

a long-term care facility is $4,200 a month. I was quoting $3,000. It is

actually $4,200.

MR. WISEMAN: You are still off.

MS JONES: The minister says I am still off. It must be higher, is it? It

must still be higher.

Of course, these would have been stats, I say to the minister, that would

have been in 2007.

MR. WISEMAN: (Inaudible) research (inaudible).

MS JONES: If I had some money to update my research from last year I

would have gotten the number accurate right from the beginning; but, Mr.

Speaker, as the minister knows, the government did cut and did not support a

motion to give extra research dollars to the Opposition office, so please

forgive me if I am a couple of hundred dollars off in what it costs to keep a

senior citizen in a home in this Province today.

The numbers that I have here tell me that it is $4,200 a month, and the

minister says it is even more than that. I guess my argument is: Why not change

the financial tools that we are using to assess who is eligible for home care in

this Province, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that more people get to stay in their own

homes, get to have appropriate care in their own homes, and get to live above

the poverty level? That is very important. That is very important, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, home care, in my opinion, is one of the best programs that we

have going in this Province but it needs some work. Not only do we need to

change the financial tools so that people who are over the age of sixty-five can

access more supports and be able to maintain their income and not be forced to

live in poverty, but we also need to look at those tools that we are using to

assess people who are under the age of sixty-five, who are not senior citizens

in our society: people who suffer from disabilities, who, a few years ago, back

in 1973 when this legislation was coming in, would have been put in these

special care homes. Well today, Mr. Speaker, those individuals are living

independently in their own homes, but we need to ensure that they have proper

supports as well.

Mr. Speaker, I got introduced to some really sad stories back about a year

ago, of people in this Province who live with disabilities, who live

independently, and the lack of supports that are out there in the system for

them.

Mr. Speaker, we think that the government has a responsibility to ensure that

this group of people, as well, are assessed appropriately, and that the proper

supports are being provided for them so that they, too, can have a quality of

life and be able to participate in the community in the way that they want.

I can tell you that some of the people I have dealt with, who are in our

system, who suffer from disabilities, are some of the brightest people I have

ever met. They are well-educated, they have gone to university, they have gone

to post-secondary, they have a lot to contribute in our community and in our

Province, but they have physical needs that have to be met, they have services

that are required, and it is our responsibility to ensure that they get those

and they get them adequately.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of pieces to this that we could talk about,

and I could go into the exact cost of what it is costing the people in the

Province today to be able to live, but I am going to try and restrict my

comments there. Before I do, I want to talk about the home care workers

themselves.

Mr. Speaker, in this Province we have between 5,000 and 6,000 people who work

as home care workers. They are individuals who go into private homes everyday to

provide health care and home making services to our seniors and to our people

with disabilities. Mr. Speaker, we know that there is a shortage of home care

workers in this Province; we also know that there is a shortage of home care

workers right across the country. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Fifth Estate

ran a program a little while ago on the people from the West Coast of

Newfoundland, from down in my colleague's district in Burgeo & LaPoile,

who were travelling across the Gulf into Nova Scotia and providing home care

services to individuals in Nova Scotia. They were working, Mr. Speaker, a month

on and month off providing this service, and it seemed to be a good fit for most

of them.

In this Province we have between 5,000 and 6,000 people who everyday get up

and provide a service as a home care worker in this Province. Mr. Speaker, they

have been through a tremendous amount of challenges over the years because their

job is not easy. There job is not easy! They are serving people in this Province

and providing a valuable service to those who cannot provide it to themselves.

That means that it is a physically intensive job sometimes. It is a job that

requires a lot of concentration when you are dealing with medications, you are

dealing with severe illnesses and injuries and disabilities. These people need

to be very nurturing people, and they are. They provide not just the service,

Mr. Speaker, but they provide oftentimes the emotional stability that is

required in the relationship. They require supports. They supply love and

nurturing and caring to all of these individuals.

Mr. Speaker, home care workers for a number of years have been challenging

government because they either all work directly for the individuals or they

work for an agency. They certainly feel that they are not being paid

appropriately. They do not get the kind of benefits that they should be getting,

and I tend to agree with them. Mr. Speaker, I think they thought that when they

went out and started the movement of unionizing home care workers in the

Province that they would actually see some significant changes in their status,

that they would actually get better pay, better standards of work, better

benefits for the work that they do, but unfortunately those things have not

materialized for them.

I say to government today, that home care is a much better option for the

individuals involved and it is a much better financial option for government, so

if it means that you have to provide a little bit more subsidy to the

individuals that require the service, so be it. It also means that if you need

to pay a little bit more to get that care provided in the home, then you need to

look at that and you need to look at it seriously.

I know that governments never want to walk into a situation where they become

the employer of 5,000 or 6,000 home care workers in this Province. Mr. Speaker,

the reality is this: it is a service that we require. They are doing this

service on behalf of the government and the people of the Province. If these

home care workers were not out there providing the service in the homes to those

who need it, government would never be able to keep up with the infrastructure

required to provide for long-term care services. Whether you take the

responsibility on directly or indirectly, it is your responsibility at the end

of the day.

Mr. Speaker, I think that government needs to seriously look at what kind of

package can be put out there for home care workers to provide for the additional

incentives and benefits that they are asking for, because the shortage of home

care workers in this province means more demand is being put on long-term care

facilities, and government knows that they cannot invest and build fast enough

the infrastructure to keep up with what the need is going to be. Right now, they

talk about the long-term care facility that is going out in Corner Brook. Well,

Mr. Speaker, that was a commitment that was made when we were in government, a

commitment that we were prepared to act on; absolutely, no doubt.

The minister knows that we had a study done of all the long-term care needs

in the Province. We had just identified what those needs were, Mr. Speaker, when

the government changed. One of those needs happened to be in Carbonear. One of

those needs happened to be in Clarenville. One of those needs happened to be in

Goose Bay. I remember it well, I say to the minister. I have read a lot of

reports and documents in the days I have been in this House. I might not

remember the absolute numbers in every one but there is a lot of important

information I do remember; and that I do remember.

Mr. Speaker, you are talking five years ago, and in five years, even with the

continuous commitment of the government opposite, it still takes a long time and

a lot of investment I am pointing that out because I want you to understand that

if we continue to have a shortage of home care workers in the Province because

we do not pay them appropriately and give them appropriate benefit packages, and

if we do not provide for the necessary financial assessment tools and criteria

to ensure that people can access the service and live in their homes ,we are

going to find ourselves in a situation where the numbers of people trying to get

into long-term care facilities in this Province will be out of hand and

government will not be able to address the need. You need to understand that

because it is going to take several years. Even to act on the commitment that is

there now to build no long-term care facilities in St. John's, in Corner Brook

and in Goose Bay, it is going to take time for that infrastructure to be in

place and for those beds to be open.

The other thing you need to know, Mr. Speaker, is that in replacing those

long-term care facilities I just mentioned we are not necessarily adding a lot

of new capacity. The minister will acknowledge that, I am sure. What we are

doing is replacing infrastructure that has really been around for a long time,

that is worn, that needs to be replaced, that is no longer suitable to be able

to deliver the kind of care that it was intended to.

That happens, Mr. Speaker, with all infrastructure is after a while just like

it happens to all of us after we are around for a long time. Buildings are no

different and after twenty-five or thirty-five years you start seeing the wear

and tear in this infrastructure. The new long-term care facilities that are

being built are not necessarily increasing the capacity in those homes. Really,

what it is doing is allowing for a new facility for those people who already

occupy the beds.

We certainly need to be cognizant of all of those things and we need to

ensure that we put in place a home care program in this Province that is going

to take the pressure off our long-term care institutions, but, Mr. Speaker, at

the same time, give people the tools they need to live independently, to live in

their own homes, to provide for themselves and have the appropriate services to

do so. Sometimes, that becomes very difficult because we see continuous increase

in costs.

Although the price of gasoline has dropped in the Province the price of home

heating fuel has not dropped. My colleague, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi

Vidi, asked a question in the House this week, when were the fuel allowances

going to be issued in the Province to those who are in need, have low income and

seniors who qualify. She asked that question simply because I am sure she has

had a lot of requests from people asking her if she knows when that benefit is

going to be available, and we have had calls as well, because although we have

seen the price of crude go down and the price of gasoline drop, the price of

home heating fuel has not dropped.

There are still escalating costs out there for many of our people who are on

low income and are seniors who require care under the government as part of the

Department of Health and Community Services. We want to ensure that government

is being cognizant of all of this, and if you are going to put programs in place

to assist them, do not offer it to them in one hand and take half their annual

income in the other hand and force them into a situation where they have to live

in poverty. Basically, Mr. Speaker, that is the point that I wanted to make

around that piece of it.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I could certainly go on for a long time on a number of

these issues as they relate to Bill 55, and I think there is another bill, Bill

56 or maybe 57, that is coming up as well. Two of those bills are

interconnected. One allows for the legislation for the home and the act for the

home, the other one allows for the allowances that would have gone along to

support those facilities. So, it is all interconnected and certainly has an

impact in terms of where we go today with the various sectors of our Province in

providing appropriate care to those out there in the system that need it.

I think that government has a lot on its plate right now. They have a lot on

their plate right now in being able to provide for the adequate services for all

of these different groups, whether they be foster children; whether they be

youth who suffer from mental illness; whether it be our Aboriginal children that

are in therapeutic care outside the Province; whether it be our seniors who

require the services of home care; whether it be people that are disabled who

need supports and home care supports; whether it be those who need to access the

services of long-term care facilities. They are all very huge issues and they

are very complex issues. I certainly do not envy the minister, on any given day,

when he is faced with some of the options that might be there in dealing with

this but I always feel there is a better way.

Once you find a problem and you have seen that problem, there is always going

to be a solution. It is sometimes a matter of will in implementing that

solution, sometimes it is a matter of being prepared to take a new direction. I

think what this government needs to do in some of these cases is take new

directions, because a lot of the things that I just asked for is not about

money. It is not about money and if you were to weigh it out at the end of the

day I would think that the financial cost would be the least in the equation. In

fact, I think if some of these things were done a little bit differently we

would actually be saving money. We would actually be saving money. So that is

the challenge that government has to look at and decide if they are prepared to

do things differently to address the needs that have been outlined here, or if

they are prepared to just continue with the status quo.

Mr. Speaker, I will say this, whether it has been in foster care, in

therapeutic foster care, in home care, in long-term care, or with people who

suffer from disabilities, I can say this, that the answers have all been the

same, and that is that we need to have some change. Especially when it comes to

children or youth that suffer from mental illness, it is very obvious that

change is required and a different direction is required.

So, just as the minister repeals this act today, to look at different

directions of special care in this Province, I encourage him to look at some of

the options that people of the Province have asked for and have laid out before

him and his government. We would certainly look forward to seeing some

favourable changes taking place that will enhance the services to these people

within the Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER (T. Osborne): The hon. the Member for the District of Signal

HillQuidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased to have some time today to speak to Bill 55, which of

course is a bill that is repealing

An Act Respecting Homes For Special Care.

The reason I am happy to speak to this bill is because of issues that are

covered in the act that the bill repeals. While the specifics of the act, the

actual homes may no longer exist although I would suggest, as the minister

did, that Hoyles Home still does. While the homes themselves for the most part

do not exist, the issues that the homes and the act dealt with still do. So when

we look at the act that we are repealing, we see that what the act is referring

to was the institution known as the Hoyles Home in St. John's, the Harbour

Lodge in Carbonear and the institution known as the Children's Home on Water

Street West in St. John's. I think the minister referred to all these.

The other group that the act referred to is a general statement which says

other institutions in the Province for the care of persons who, because of age,

need, infirmity, blindness or other incapacity or disability, are unable to

fully care for themselves. That was quite a list there and this act, while it

covered institutions that took care of those needs, people who have those needs,

and these people were both children and adults, the issues relating to people

with needs, these special needs that I have just outlined, both children and

adults, still remain.

Now, we know that when these institutions closed, they closed because the

care that these individuals required now came under a whole new program in

government, and that was community services, where the needs were going to be

met in the community. So, if it was somebody who had a need because of being

elderly, or somebody who had a need because of having some kind of an infirmity,

or what we might now call a disability, whether it was blindness or another

incapacity, and anybody who was unable to fully care for themselves, that we

would try now to take care of these needs in the community.

We do that partially, because now, for example, we have a pretty

sophisticated system, and in that system we assess people and we try to keep

people in the community for as long as we can before they actually go into an

institution. Sometimes that works and sometimes that does not work, so I think

as we repeal the act it is important for us to ask the question: How well are we

now doing what we were doing before under this act in institutions? How well are

we taking care of the people with the needs that are referred to here?

The way our system is now, of course, is that we have

an act now, we have

regulations, actually, that come under our Health and Community Services Act,

and they are regulations for personal care homes. That is called the Personal

Care Home Regulations under the Health and Community Services Act. Under the

personal care home regulations of the Health and Community Services Act, we find

that these regulations cover adults, because it is adults who are in personal

care homes. So that is a distinction between the act that we are repealing and

the regulations under the Health and Community Services Act. We do not now put

children into personal care homes, and that is good. I think that is a real step

forward, but there is a real challenge to our programs because of not having

people in institutions, and it is a challenge that we have to meet. It is not a

challenge, I do not think, from a financial perspective, because there are all

kinds of studies - and my hon. colleague, the Leader of the Official Opposition,

made reference to some of this - that indicate that it is less expensive to have

people in their own home being taken care of in the community than have them in

institutions. I think that those statistics, those studies that have been done,

the information that is out there, cannot be refuted.

The challenge with regard to taking care of people in their own homes is not

a financial issue, so then we have to ask why we cannot do a better job than we

are doing. What I want to do is refer to some of the needs that people have when

they are not in an institution, and how we are taking care of them.

One obvious one, of course, is housing itself; they have to have a place to

live. Very often people who have disabilities, people who have needs, are people

who are on social assistance or receiving disability assistance, and getting

housing to meet their needs is not easy. One of the things that I encounter, for

example, as an MHA here in the City of St. John's, is that we do not have

adequate housing under Newfoundland and Labrador Housing; we do not have

adequate units for people with a disability - the units that have the access

into the apartment, and the apartment is structured in such a way that

wheelchairs and other paraphernalia can be used in the apartments. So, there is

always the problem of waiting to find a place for somebody who has a need.

I know, for example, we recently had, I think, five new units that were

created in St. John's under Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, and they are

located on Froude Avenue - I think it was five that were created there - but

already that is not enough. We need many more units. Whether we are talking

about housing here in St. John's, which is my particular concern, or anywhere

in the Province, I think, with our aging population we are going to have an

increased need with regard to units that will accommodate people with

disabilities. That is a real concern, for example, of people who are dealing

with the aged, people who are dealing with the elderly. The aging network, for

example, of Newfoundland and Labrador indicates, studying information from

Statistics Canada, that of the people over sixty-five in Newfoundland and

Labrador right now many have chronic diseases and 50.9 per cent have arthritis

or rheumatism. Now, that is quite a high number of elderly people who have

arthritis or rheumatism, both of which cause physical disability, difficulty

with walking for sure and mobility. Fifty per cent have high blood pressure and

20 per cent have heart disease.

Now, all of these diseases have physical implications and create needs for

people in the type of housing they live in. One just may be being on one level

so that they don't have to go onto a second level. Others may include having

to use wheelchairs, for example, and walkers and things of that nature, so that

the unit they live in, or the apartment or the house they live in, has to

accommodate those needs.

As I said, because so many people as they age we have a large number also

who are requiring various financial assistance. We need to up the housing that

is there for people with disabilities. It is a real need that we have. It is

something that we are dealing with regularly in my constituency office.

We have just spent, for example, with one person, one man, who is in hospital

he still has a partner and his needs have become greater since his

hospitalization. My constituency assistant has just spent, I think, five weeks

trying to get a place for that person to live. Newfoundland and Labrador Housing

just didn't have an empty unit for somebody with disability. They didn't

have it. They couldn't create it. This couple, with the help of their son, had

to try to find something out there in the community. They eventually, as of this

week, came up with something that now Newfoundland and Labrador Housing say they

will cover. A tremendous amount of time, both on the part of the family and on

the part of my constituency assistant, went into trying to get housing for that

one person. That is multiplied many times over a year. It is one of the issues

that most comes to our office. We get phone calls on all kinds of issues, like

any other constituency office, but the one that we get the highest number of

calls on is housing. Very often - not always, but very often - the housing has

to do with people who have disability needs. If we are going to have people in

the community, living in the community, with disabilities, we have to make sure

that we have adequate services, and one of the adequate services is housing.

Another issue for people living in the community and people with disabilities

of the type that I read out of the act that we are repealing, and there are all

kinds of others, another big need is transportation. Every now and again in the

news we see issues with regard to the transportation program it is not

really a program, but I will put that word on it that we have for

transportation for people who have physical disabilities. Again, it is an

inadequate program. This program in particular is private companies who