May 4,

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLII No. 36

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

On behalf of hon. members I would like to welcome to the

public galleries, ten Level 1 students from the Democracy Class of St.

Catherine's Academy in Mount Carmel accompanied by their teacher Josephine

Davis.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Ministers

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have some comments with respect to the position which the

Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association (NLTA) has communicated to its

members in response to the Department of Education's directive to gather the

records for high school students due to graduate this year.

The NLTA has made it quite clear that they are telling their

members to defy the instructions of the Education department. I am very

disturbed by this turn of events, because the NLTA, in so doing, is making the

high school students a pawn in their dispute with government. To sacrifice the

students in this manner to make a point in collective bargaining is

unconscionable.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. BAKER: It is also completely unacceptable, Mr.

Speaker.

My colleague, the Minister of Education, has taken reasonable

measures to ensure that students' records are placed in the hands of his

officials so that Level 3 high school students are not hampered in their ability

to graduate.

The directive of the NLTA to ignore the Department of

Education's instructions says clearly that the NLTA is not concerned with the

interests of these students. This is very disappointing. Apart from that, Mr.

Speaker, this instruction from the NLTA violates the Schools Act because it

tells teachers to refuse to carry out instructions that they are bound, as

employees of the school boards, to carry out.

There is also another important dimension to this, and it is

as follows: the NLTA has pushed itself to this point by its own doing. The

government made proposals to the NLTA on February 23 to which we have never had

a response. The NLTA has consistently refused to respond to government's

proposals. Furthermore, even in the face of a unanimous Conciliation Board

recommendation that both sides resume negotiations with the help of a mediator -

a recommendation that the NLTA's own nominee on the Board supported -they have

refused to come to the table.

Government has been quite clear in its position: we are

willing to negotiate at any time. We have flexibility in our opening proposals,

as we have demonstrated in our discussions with other unions. But the other

party to these negotiations, the NLTA, must be willing to come to the table to

respond to some of our opening proposals.

The point is, Mr. Speaker, no progress can be made in

negotiation if only one party, the government, is willing to negotiate.

I reiterate, Mr. Speaker: the government is willing to

negotiate to try to find a solution that will avert a strike. We have made that

crystal clear. But we have also had to plan for a strike, because the NLTA is

insisting there will be a strike come May 16. The government would be remiss in

its responsibilities if it did not take reasonable measures to ensure that this

year's high school graduates are taken care of.

To hear the NLTA saying openly that they do not care about

the students is beyond belief, and is completely unacceptable to the government.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I will also say today that the

government will have its bargaining team ready to negotiate this coming Monday.

I am asking the NLTA today to also have their bargaining team ready to negotiate

on Monday.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Menihek.

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If there ever was any doubt in anybody's mind in this

Province about the intent of this government provoking the membership of the

NLTA into a strike position it is affirmed here today. That is exactly what they

are up to.

Mr. Speaker, instead of inciting and using inflammatory tones

such as the minister has done they should be holding out an olive branch and

proposing an offer to the membership of the NLTA and the collective bargaining

unit of the NLTA, the same offer that has been made to the nurse's union, to

CUPE and to NAPE. That is what should be done, Mr. Speaker. Instead of holding

the students of this Province as hostage, as this minister and this government

has done, they should be making those offers to the NLTA so that we can ensure a

sound education and a good future for those students who are now being

discriminated against because the minister knows, Mr. Speaker, that what is

occurring in their proposal with regard to evaluating students this year is not

a creditable alternative to the proposals that should be done.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member for St. John's East

have leave to address the House?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No.

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have some questions for the

Minister of Fisheries. Yesterday in The Evening Telegram there was

somewhat of a good news story related to FPI's success this past year. It was

headlined "Worldwide outlook pays off for FPI." Now, the story is about their

success in rebuilding its operations, and in part that was done through a major

international procurement program for groundfish species. I would like to ask

the minister if he can tell the House, how much of the offshore groundfish

purchased by FPI is processed here in this Province and how much for example, is

processed in the United States, does he know that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, in FPI they have a secondary

processing operation in Danvers, Massachusetts and my understanding is that that

plant is only concerned with secondary processing value, value added, so I can

only assume that all, if not the bulk of the fish to which they referred in the

article yesterday, would have been processed in this Province. A lot of it of

course, is procured outside the Province, Barents Sea cod, Russian cod and so

on, but I would imagine that most of it is done here in this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat startled by the

answer of the minister. I mean most of the processing plants in Newfoundland

aren't even open, so I don't know where the processing would be occurring, but

my understanding is that last year FPI had record-breaking sales of about $600

million and they expect to do even better this year from reading the story; but

my understanding is that a relatively small percentage of the sales, perhaps

less than a quarter, is actually based on FPI's operations in this Province. Is

the minister not aware of that, or does he agree with that, and if so, how does

he square that with what his answer was to my first question?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, the FPI organizations have

acquired the controlling interest in a company known as Clouston Seafood

Marketing, I think they call themselves, and that's a huge marketing company

based I think in Central Canada, and that company markets seafood for a variety

of companies. In fact, I understand that FPI are the marketing agents for a lot

of fish that's processed in the Province. I am just trying to think of a few; in

fact I believe that they market the red fish that's processed by Conpak Seafood

Ltd. for example in Gaultois, and they are the marketing agents for a lot of

Newfoundland companies not only in groundfish but other species as well.

MR. SPEAKER: A further supplementary, the hon. the Leader

of the Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Is Gaultois the FPI operation, or is that

Conpak? I was talking about FPI, and I asked the minister how much of the

processing, percentage wise, was done here in Newfoundland. Now in his first

answer he said: most of it, that's what he said; but my understanding is only

about a quarter is processed here in Newfoundland, so maybe the minister could

try to find out precisely for me because I would like to know, because my

questions are based on the understanding that less than a quarter of it probably

is processed in in Newfoundland. So my question then is - whatever the

percentage is, it certainly is not as high as the minister said in his first

answer, and I think he had better check that. I think it is very little

processed. I want to know if he or the government has initiated any discussions

with FPI and\or with the Federal Government, for example, to see if there are

ways to have more processing done here in Newfoundland and in Labrador rather

than elsewhere.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SIMMS: All of it - preferably all of it.

Have there been any discussions or any initiatives taken by

him, as the minister, or the government, with the FPI people or with the Federal

Government, to see if something could be done to ensure that more of the

processing is done here in Newfoundland, particularly now, at a time when most

of our plants are closed.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I will undertake to get the

information the hon. gentleman wants in terms of the actual amount of fish that

is processed in the Province. We have an ongoing line of communication with the

principals of FPI, and certainly, the Province is endeavouring to have as much

of that fish processed in the Province as possible. But FPI has become a very

complex organization in that they are not only involved in the harvesting and

processing. Through their affiliate, Clouston Marketing, they are the marketers,

they are the marketing agents, for a lot of companies, and I presume in the

entire Atlantic area, but as I said a moment ago, Conpak Seafoods is a

Newfoundland company with several plants, as a matter of fact - a plant in

Clarenville, in Hermitage, in Gaultois, in Twillingate, up until recently in

Rose Blanche, and my understanding is that FPI and its marketing arm,

Clouston's, are the marketing agent for that company as well.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I will try to make it simple for

the minister. He is talking about marketing. I am talking about processing to

create more jobs here in Newfoundland and Labrador. That's the purpose of the

question.

FPI's workforce in the Province has reduced, over the last

couple of years, since the moratorium, down from 6,000 workers to 2,000. Those

4,000 people are on unemployment insurance, they are on fisheries compensation,

or they are on social assistance. That is probably costing the Province about

$15 million to $20 million a year. So the question is: Is it possible to put

that money to much greater effect in a way that puts people to work here in

Newfoundland, and maybe make it most cost-efficient for FPI to ship more of

their finished products from Newfoundland rather than from the United States?

Now, I know that tariffs would be one of the questions, so,

for example, I asked him earlier about initiatives: What initiatives had the

government taken, has the minister taken? Has the minister, for example,

initiated any discussions with the Federal Government to see if they could speed

up the

schedule that is now in place for removal of tariffs on fish products

under the Canada/U.S. Free Trade Agreement? Is that one of the initiatives,

maybe, that he might have thought about?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I will get the information for

the hon. gentleman, maybe a complete breakdown of what their activities are,

where they are acquiring their fish, where they are selling it and at what stage

they are selling it. The establishment of the FPI plant in Danvers,

Massachusetts was done initially to get around the tariff problem. We all know

that under the free trade agreement tariffs are reducing. In fact, I think they

started at 20 per cent and I believe now they are down to about 6 per cent or 7

per cent. I have talked to the principals and Mr. Young of FPI and enquired at

what time we can expect them to maybe phase out their operation in Danvers.

Because once the tariff situation has been corrected then it might well be that

the plant in Danvers, Massachusetts is no longer necessary, once the tariff

problem has been gotten around.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CARTER: I have talked to him about that. That is a

matter that is being looked at, I presume, by the company. That plant in

Danvers, Massachusetts, by the way, is not a big source of employment. I believe

it employs probably a couple of hundred people for a limited period - something

we could certainly use in this Province. Given the fact that they do have a very

substantial operation in Burin for secondary processing, the government would

certainly like to see them shift the operation from Danvers into their Burin

operation.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, it is a struggle but I will

pursue the line of questioning just once more. I think the operation is a little

bit larger in Danvers than the minister is describing but I will stand to be

corrected by him - he should know. I don't believe he is right on that either.

Let me ask him this. People have to wonder out loud whether

the Federal and Provincial Governments are really talking about trying to find

new opportunities to improve economic activity in the fishing industry. You have

to wonder out loud what exactly is going on. Or do we spend all of our time

quibbling over jurisdictional matters or fish aid packages and the fishery of

the future and so on. There is a fishery in existence today. We all know that. I

want to ask the minister - he said, we are doing everything we can to improve

opportunities, in discussions with FPI. The success of FPI proves there are

alternative opportunities for them. Let me ask him this: Is he, the minister,

trying to do anything to capture any of those opportunities for the people of

our Province, to create jobs here? If so, can he give us some idea of what he is

doing?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman can be

assured that we are endeavouring to make sure that FPI is maximizing their

operation here in the Province. I can tell him as well, that we have initiated

meetings with the Federal Government, for example, having to do with the

importation of foreign fish - Barents Sea cod. A lot of that is being done in

the Province.

In fact, this year it is anticipated there will be about

12,000 metric tons of Russian cod or Barents Sea cod processed in this Province.

In fact, FPI is doing it in their plant in Triton. They are also doing it in a

plant in Winterton owned by the Green family and it's being done, to a large

extent as a matter of fact, in Arnold's Cove by National Sea. We would expect

FPI - and other companies by the way - to get more involved in importing other

cod for processing in this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte - White

Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is also for the Minister of Fisheries. Earlier

last week we had discussions during the estimates committee meetings on the

non-commercial license for seals in the Province. I want to ask the Minister of

Fisheries if only bona fide fishermen, that is persons who hold a valid fishing

license, are permitted to hunt seals this year?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Yes, the bona fide fishermen are entitled to

a license and I'm not necessarily agreeing with the conditions that have been

laid down. For example, a crew member on a vessel must serve two years, must be

in the seal harvesting business for two years before that person is entitled to

a full-time sealers license. I quite frankly cannot understand the rationale for

that kind of policy. In fact, it was only yesterday that I had discussions with

a highly placed official of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans complaining

that that regulation, in my view, just doesn't make sense. Most Newfoundlanders

who serve on vessels, certainly they shouldn't have to serve a two year

apprenticeship in order to get a license to kill a seal and that's the way the

regulations read but I can tell you now that I don't necessarily agree with

them.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for

Baie Verte -White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Now Mr. Tobin has made it quite clear that

he intends to reduce the number of fishing licenses by half or more over the

next few years, as the minister knows. As it stands now, fishermen who will

surrender their fishing licenses on the TAGS program, as well as those who gave

up their licenses under NCARP, also lose the right to hunt seals for their own

consumption as well as commercial. Can the minister confirm that and would he

give us a status on it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: That's the matter that we raised not too long

ago actually with the minister. Where people who relinquished their licenses

under the NCARP program - at the same time forfeited their ability to catch

seals. We've asked the minister to address that problem and I expect he will be

doing that.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member

for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Now many people in rural Newfoundland are

accustomed to taking seals for personal consumption, as the minister knows. Now

it appears they may lose that right along with their fishing licenses. There is

a shortage of fish but there is no shortage of seals. I've heard the estimates

have now reached as far as 10 million in the herds. Would the minister support,

again, a licensing system for seals similar to moose and other wild game that

would allow anyone - and that's what I'd like to repeat here today in the House,

Mr. Speaker - anyone to take the limit of four to five bag limit on seals and

would he make that such proposal to his federal counterpart?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I can only assure the House and

the hon. gentleman that I'm prepared to support any initiative that will have

the effect of reducing the seal herds. Let me give the hon. gentlemen in the

House some statistics on where we stand at the present time. There is an

estimated herd of 4 million animals out there -

AN HON. MEMBER: There's more then that.

MR. CARTER: - increasing at the rate of 500 and some odd

thousand per year consuming huge quantities of fish, Mr. Speaker, and certainly

we'll support any attempt, any move on the part of the federal government to

step up the seal harvest, whether that means giving a license to whoever wants

one is another matter but we'll certainly look at that and talk to the minister

about it.

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I have questions as well for the Minister of Fisheries

following up on a question I asked the minister last Thursday on the fisheries

observers program. It had been brought to my attention at that time that there's

a reduction, that all the boats are not being manned with observers in

Newfoundland boats but more so Nova Scotian boats. I am wondering if the

minister is aware that in late March-early April there were approximately

fourteen vessels fishing in the 3O zone and the only two vessels that had

fishery observers on board were the Newfoundland boats The Grand Banker

and The Fermeuse ? That the twelve or thirteen Nova Scotian vessels were

there fishing in the same zone without observers and the Newfoundland boat

The Grand Banker had to get out of the 3O zone because the cod by-catch

exceeded the 5 per cent limit which they were allowed, and the Nova Scotian

vessels were allowed to stay there and fish. We all know they weren't discarding

or not keeping the cod. Is the minister aware of that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I am aware that the observer

program that is sponsored and paid for by the federal government is grossly

inadequate, and we've made that point many times. In fact we've been talking to

the federal government about 100 per cent observer coverage. Unfortunately

they've not seen fit to accede to our request. The matter referred to by the

hon. gentleman concerns of course the changing of the system in Nova Scotia.

Earlier this year I think a new company succeeded in getting awarded the

contract, because the price that they quoted was slightly less than that being

quoted by a Canadian company.

I should tell the House that the contract in the Newfoundland

region does not expire until 1996. I'm only hoping that when the time comes to

renew that contract that the same thing won't happen. I would certainly prefer

to see things continue as they are, where we have a large and very competent

core of observers. In fact I believe there are about seventy-two observers, most

of whom have in some cases college degrees, so they are well trained in the art

of observing. That is something we are supporting, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House

Leader.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I say

to the minister that my information as well is that there are three vessels

owned by Fishery Products International that are out there now fishing,

Newfoundland vessels without observers. That is very disturbing, because the

only conservation measure we have inside the 200-mile limit for foreigners and

domestic vessels is the fisheries observers. If we are going to spend billions

of dollars on compensation for people at the same time as we are talking about a

fishery of the future, then why are we wasting our time talking about it if we

are not putting observers on the vessels that are out there now to monitor what

is going on? That is the point.

I want to ask the minister, and would he undertake to check

out for me - as well I'm told in that same time frame, and I had a discussion

with a crew member this morning, by the way, from the vessel I referred to. I

want the minister if he would to check out through DFO or whoever, the federal

minister, that I'm told that in that time frame on the vessel that this observer

was on that they steamed through approximately one mile of redfish floating on

the water. This crew member said to me this morning: There was only one of two

ways it got there. Either they had that much in the trawl, the trawl broke open,

or they dumped it.

I'm wondering if the minister would take this up with the

Department of Fisheries and Oceans, first of all, to confirm this, and to ask

why there are Nova Scotian vessels, fifty, sixty-five footers, one hundred,

150-footers, and this man as well told me there were two large vessels there,

The Cape York and The Cape Charles , fishing for redfish from Nova

Scotia without an observer in the midst of all that redfish. So I ask the

minister, would he undertake to seek the information and to request of the

federal minister, when you are spending billions of dollars on compensation

trying to keep the people of this Province together and fed, why in the name of

God can you squeeze the penny for a few measly million dollars to man every boat

with an observer so conservation comes first?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I couldn't agree more. If that

is the case, and I have no reason to doubt the hon. gentleman's word, then it is

almost a crime against humanity to engage in that kind of waste. I will

certainly take it up with my federal counterpart and get an explanation, and at

the same time again make representation to him for the need to step up their

observer program and to have 100 per cent coverage rather than just spotty

coverage as is now the case.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Final supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Final supplementary, the hon. the Opposition

House Leader.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Final supplementary to the minister.

While he is doing this and undertaking the information would he as well try to

find out for this House, and the people of this Province, what is happening to

the Fisheries Observer Program in Newfoundland and Labrador. I have heard that

there is a move underfoot by Ottawa to nationalize, to centralize that program

in Ottawa, to be controlled from Ottawa, and that there are serious attempts

under way to restrict and limit the budget for the Fisheries Observer Program.

I am told, by the way, Minister - and I want you to check

this out for me and for everyone else who is interested - that the coverage

levels of observers has gone from about 100 per cent when we were fishing

Northern cod, to 50 per cent, and now, today, less than 30 per cent, and that is

why we are having Newfoundland vessels leaving port - Newfoundland vessels -

without observers. Would he undertake to get that information as well?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Fisheries.

MR. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, I certainly will, and the mere

suggestion that they move that program, the administration of it, to 2,000 or

3,000 miles in Central Canada, inland, to me just would not make sense, and I

hope that the member is wrong in that respect, but I will certainly make the

necessary enquiries and find out what they are up to.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is no Minister of Tourism and Culture. That position

has been vacant for the past two-and-a-half months. The acting Minister of

Tourism and Culture has gone away on vacation for a couple of weeks. The Premier

has been avoiding the House of Assembly lately, and is absent again today, so I

will ask my questions of the acting, acting Minister of Tourism and Culture, who

I believe is the Minister responsible for Employment and Labour Relations.

Will the minister remove the government obstacles in the way

of the Stephenville Festival? number one, write off the approximately $60,000

government debt, which is an impediment to the festival getting working capital

from a bank; number two, reinstate the paltry $35,000 a year tourism grant that

was abruptly cut last year; and number three, forget the foolish recent demand

that the festival have their box office run by government employees, and see box

office revenue paid to St. John's and festival cash flow badly hurt.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don't understand what all the gibberish and nonsense was at

the beginning there. I knew there was a question at the end, but I guess the

hon. the Member for Humber East always feels obligated, in asking a question.

She is the self-appointed and self-anointed now representative for the

Stephenville Festival. She must have assumed that role herself, because I know

of no one involved with the Stephenville Festival who has asked this hon. member

to be their intervenor with the government.

We are meeting with the group, myself and my friend, the hon.

the Member for Stephenville, who has been concerned about this for several years

now, because it is true, there is some accumulated debt which the festival has

run up. The numbers, again, are wrong. Maybe she should check and get her

numbers right. There is some money owed to the Provincial Government, on which

the Provincial Government, through the Department of Tourism and Culture, has

offered ways to have a repayment

schedule spread over several years that would

not be onerous to the festival organizers.

There have been overtures made to the festival organizers to

show them how, in fact, they could apply for some monies under certain

agreements that would probably take care of all of their financial needs in the

short term over the next couple of years, for sure.

One thing about it, Mr. Speaker, is that if the government is

going to respond, we have to have willing partners in terms of the organizers of

the festival. They have not come forward. I don't know where these questions are

coming from. We have been in contact with the festival representatives. They

have not asked these questions of the government - would we do these things. We

are meeting with them on Friday morning to suggest and find out, to see whether

they, themselves, are willing to run a festival and to organize it and keep it

going; if there are certain accommodations that can be made, what kinds of

things do they think would have to happen in order for them to make sure they

can run the festival, not only this year, but over the next twelve, fifteen,

twenty or thirty years, which is what they are trying to do. Because they have a

very real concern about trying to make sure that there is a Stephenville

Festival for the long term.

I am not sure where the basis of the questioning comes from,

or the bit of nonsense that the hon. member got on with at the beginning in

trying to lead into it and trying to suggest, I guess, that there is anything

other than the greatest of interest and concern about this issue by the

Provincial Government.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for

Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A supplementary to the

minister.

If the Member for Stephenville has been concerned for years

government acted on those concerns?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS. VERGE: I would like to ask the minister: How does he

assess the economic and the artistic losses that will result from the

cancellation of the planned 1994 Stephenville Festival program? Is the minister

concerned about the loss of approximately fifty seasonal jobs, or about the

cancellation of a travel generator, to use tourism industry jargon, or about the

loss of sales for Stephenville area service businesses, or about the

cancellation of Newfoundland-produced professional theatre? What is the

minister's assessment of the magnitude of the loss to the Province associated

with the cancellation of the Stephenville Festival productions this summer?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you again, Mr. Speaker.

Just to deal with the first part of the comment made by the

hon. member. I indicated the concern of my friend and colleague, the hon. the

Member for Stephenville. It wasn't in the context of what the hon. member

portrayed because that has not been the problem. The hon. the Member for Humber

East, in putting the question, asks: Has the member for Stephenville or others

been looking at removing government impediments? The problem is, government

impediments don't exist, and it is not because of Provincial Government

impediments that the Stephenville Festival organizing committee decided not to

run the festival this year.

We will meet with the group on Friday, and again check with

them to see what it is that would be required to make sure that they,

themselves, will take on the responsibility of running the festival for another

year. Then we will access whether or not government can meet any, or all of

their requests. They are the organizers. They started the festival. They run the

festival and they have decided that they can't, or don't want to run the

festival this year. They would like to step back for a year and reorganize it so

that they can run the festival again for many years into the future.

Mr. Speaker, it is the whole notion and the tenor of the

question as put by the hon. member, which is totally false, that for some reason

there are some provincially government-imposed impediments that led to this

decision. That is not the case. It was not the case before, and it is not the

case today. It was not the case two days ago when questions were asked, and no

matter how many times she asks the same question, just by asking the question

that cannot become the case because it is not.

MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary, the hon. the Member

for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, a final supplementary to the

minister. The minister obviously does not know what he is talking about. The

only time the minister has even spent in Stephenville was in the penalty box. It

certainly wasn't going to the Stephenville Festival.

I ask again, and I will give the minister a chance to redeem

himself and to apologize for the slurs he made about the volunteers who started

and successfully operated the Stephenville Festival for fifteen seasons, and who

had a sixteenth season planned until the government scuttled it.

Now, won't the minister admit that government's abrupt

cutting in half the $35,000 tourism grant last year dealt a deathblow to the

1994 Stephenville Festival? Won't the minister admit that government's refusal,

despite the promises of the former minister to write off the debt, has prevented

them from getting an operating line of credit with the bank for the operation of

the 1994 season? Won't the minister admit, or perhaps he doesn't even know this,

that the ridiculous recent demand for the festival to turn over their box office

to government employees is impossible for the festival?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, again, the hon. member either

other. I did nothing to slur the people that organized and ran the Stephenville

Festival. As a matter of fact, I thought I complimented them, because they,

themselves, had done a great job for fifteen years, and up to the point in time

that we heard in the media that they had decided, themselves, to cancel out the

1994 festival, we assumed as well that they were running the festival again this

year.

This massive grant that was mentioned again the other day,

Mr. Speaker, I guess I should point out again, that out of an operating budget

annually of almost $400,000, what the government did was take a $35,000 grant

and reduce it to $17,000, so there is $17,000 or $18,000 out of a $400,000

operation that has never, ever shutdown any $400,000 operation anywhere in the

world. Granted, they would rather have the money, just like all the other

agencies or organizations that we cut funding for last year; they would rather

have the money.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, we are very concerned about it. The

hon. member has been working with them for years, and the former minister has

worked with them to try to make arrangements to make sure that they could handle

their debt load, to make sure that they could put in place an operational base

so that they could continue on a more sound financial footing, both this year

and into the future. They, for their own reasons, none of which are reflected in

what the hon. member puts in her questions, none of which have been presented to

government in that vein, they, for their own reasons, have decided to step aside

for a year, reorganize, and try to make sure that there can be a successful

Stephenville Festival for years to come.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister

of Finance and concerns a brief presented to the minister by the City of St.

John's concerning the St. John's Transportation Commission.

Mr. Speaker, the St. John's Transportation Commission

operates the bus service in St. John's and pays to the Provincial Government

some $785,000 in provincial taxes, including about $250,000 in road tax on

diesel fuel, $398,000 in provincial sales tax, $41,000 in license fees for

coaches and a payroll tax of approximately $92,000. I want to know whether the

minister and the government have considered this brief, and is the minister

prepared to give the same kind of exemption to the St. John's Transportation

Commission, as an arm of the City of St. John's, as it does to municipal

governments throughout the Province?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, right on the spur of the moment,

I can't recall the particular brief that the member mentions. I will check into

it and inform the House tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has elapsed.

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burgeo - Bay

d'Espoir.

MR. GILBERT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like today to report on the Social Services Committee

on the Estimates. The committee has reviewed and approved, without amendment,

the estimates of expenditure for the following departments: Social Services,

Education, Health, Environment and Lands, and Justice.

Report received now, ordered debated on tomorrow.

Answers to Questions

For which Notice has been Given

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In response to questions from the Member for St. John's East

Extern yesterday, I promised to look up some information and table it in the

House.

The ministers are covered by the relocation procedures of the

Public Service Commission and I would like to table these procedures; they were

issued pursuant to MC-1092 in 1979.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to present a petition on behalf of 1,542

constituents in the district of Terra Nova. The petition reads as follows:

`To the hon. House of Assembly in Parliament assembled, the

petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland humbly showeth:

Canadians as defined by the Canada Health Act, 1984; and

WHEREAS the provision of nursing home care at Level 2 and 3,

is a responsibility of the Government of Newfoundland; and

WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland conducted a bed study

in 1986 that recommended construction of a fifty-bed nursing home facility to

serve the Clarenville region from Port Blandford to Winter Brook in the west and

Little Harbour to Chance Cove in the east; and

WHEREAS the facilities required by the Clarenville region

have not been constructed, citizens are deprived of access to nursing home

facilities consistent with those available to citizens in other areas of the

Province; and

WHEREAS the 2,100 elderly citizens of a population of 19,000

are denied local chronic services; and

WHEREAS the placement of the chronically ill and elderly

patients in distant facilities far from family and community can be brutal, an

inhumane process;

WHEREFORE the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and

call upon the House of Assembly to instruct the Minister of Health to take

action leading to the construction of a chronic care nursing home facility to

address the needs of the people in the Clarenville region, and in duty bound

your petitioners will ever pray.'

I support this petition because it is very important to my

constituents and those from neighbouring districts. I would like to share with

the hon. House an example of an elderly gentleman who was living in one of the

Level 1 facilities. However, he took ill and had to be hospitalized. It was

deemed necessary to have this gentleman then placed in a Level 3 facility.

However, he had to wait until there was space available for him. Meanwhile,

while he was residing at the home or the hospital, his family members could

visit him daily, and take him out for a day or so, but they were very concerned

that he was going to have to be moved to St. John's and it would make it

impossible for them to see him, except probably only about every two weeks. This

was placing tremendous stress on the family and certainly on the old gentleman,

but I guess divine intervention resolved the matter, because he passed away

before he had to be moved to St. John's.

There are many examples of that sort of stress out there in

rural Newfoundland. With decline in the economy and a lot of people unemployed,

they are concerned that they will not see their loved ones if they are placed in

facilities that are far from their communities.

As well, I realize that there are no dollars allocated for

such a facility in this current Budget, and I realize that the financial

restraints that we are experiencing, I guess, are not favourable to such a move

at this present time. But I would certainly urge the minister to consider this

facility in next year's budget. I certainly support my constituents in their

petition.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Ferryland.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to support

that petition, and I have been stating that for the last several months. It has

been carried in the Clarenville Packet and other areas, and I've stated

it publicly. The Nycum study showed - and I said here yesterday in the House

when it was presented - that that area has the highest incidence rate of elderly

people in this Province. There are more people living in that area and it is a

need in the area.

The minister beat around the bush yesterday and didn't give

any indication of what is happening. One of two things is happening here -

either the residents in the area are getting very upset with their members and

they have to present a petition, or the government is probably planning on

making an announcement now on the homes in the area.

I certainly hope it is the latter, that the government is

ready to make an announcement to the people in this area. Their elderly people

are in dire need. They are scattered all over Newfoundland, and I have the

figures for them in my office and where they are located. They are in nursing

homes from St. John's all over the East Coast of Newfoundland, everywhere, from

Carbonear, and in St. John's and down in Bonavista and everywhere else. They are

all over the place, having the highest incidence rate in the Province. The area

was high on the priority list. The priority list has been ignored and they have

put them where they want to.

I'm not complaining about putting nursing homes in important

areas in this Province, or chronic care facilities, at all, but I think they

have to have some rationale for population in a specific area and a priority for

areas where there has to be a degree of understanding and reason used in

establishing these facilities. I don't think the department has exercised that

in this case. I think the people in the area have a very legitimate beef, the

people in Trinity North, the people in Bellevue district and the people out in

Terra Nova district.

It is a very legitimate concern. The minister hasn't given

indication that anything would be done. The same as he has done with Harbour

Breton: It won't be next year, it may not be the year after, it may not be the

year after that. I think they should have a long-term priority plan for this

Province and they should release that plan to the public. They should let the

public know where they stand in terms of serving the needs of the public

properly and not jumping around and using it as a political mechanism.

I support that, very strongly support it. I hope the people

will get the facility they need in the Clarenville area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health.

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I might say that

there will be no announcement in the immediate future. We don't operate that

way. At least, I don't operate that way. We operate according to a plan and we

announced our plan for building -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

DR. KITCHEN: It is nice to listen to the cackling, just

to sit back and listen to the cackling, sometimes.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) but it is interesting.

DR. KITCHEN: It is interesting, isn't it?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

DR. KITCHEN: I might say that 8,500 names have been

signed to this petition. Can you imagine what the Opposition would do with 8,500

names on a Hydro petition? Members used to get up with three names, and then

three more, and then three more again. Nine names would last them the whole day.

We have 8,500, and I must say to the three members who presented these petitions

yesterday, they showed remarkable restraint. They could have spun this out - and

I suppose they still could, because I'm sure there are another 8,500 people in

the area who would support their petitions.

I want to congratulate members for not taking up the time of

the House on silly, trifling matters, but to present the views of vast numbers

of their constituents. I believe that's how petitions should be presented, not

phoney petitions where several names or with the same handwriting and all that

sort of stuff, but honest to goodness petitions.

I mentioned yesterday, and I will say again that, one of the

problems in the general area of which we are speaking is the lack of organized

home care throughout that whole region, and what we are hoping to do shortly is

to set up in the area, in the eastern region, a regional community health care

board whose responsibility it will be to properly design for the area, an

appropriately funded system of home care and we believe that will be able to

relieve to some extent, to some extent but not to a large extent, the pressure

that's on for adequate care of the sick who are elderly and who will probably

remain sick for some time, because a nursing home is just that.

We are talking about nursing homes and nursing homes are for

extremely sick people who will remain there for the rest of their lives and we

have to be absolutely certain because these are very expensive operations. The

member opposite from Ferryland indicated that the average cost was $30,000, but

it is actually quite a bit more than that. He was forgetting about the capital

cost of putting a building in; we put a building in St. Lawrence not long ago

and I think the figure, I am not actually certain of the total capital cost but

it is probably, let's say, $7 million.

Seven million dollars, thirty residents; $7 million is

$700,000 a year in interest which the Minister of Finance has to come up with

forever, $700,000 and you divide that by thirty residents, which is what is

opened there now, and you come up with a figure of about $25,000, just to pay

the interest on the building, and on top of all that we have to operate it to

feed people, provide nursing services, keep the building clean and all the other

things that are required which comes to the other $30-odd thousand, which makes

a total of $65,000 or $70,000 to provide one bed for one person and that's a lot

of money and if there is some other way we can do it, by putting in home care, I

suggest that home care in many cases is much more appropriate than even

institutional care. It's closer to the family, it's in the community and in many

cases it is much more appropriate and that is the direction of the future; it is

not the sole direction of the future, and we would daily like to be able to put

more nursing homes and to fix up nursing homes where we have them.

I might say that I spoke with another group this morning who

were talking to me about the desperate need that their home has to be renovated

so that they can take in longer-term care and heavier care, level 2 and level 3

- because a lot of these currently existing nursing homes were put up for level

1 nursing care, walk in, ambulatory type care and now nursing homes are not

ambulatory care, they are basically for people who are confined to wheelchairs

and beds for the rest of their lives.

What we have to do is, make sure that that type of person who

cannot be accommodated appropriately perhaps in their home, but they must be

accommodated in nursing homes, that these beds are reserved for them and not for

people who don't really need them and that's been the problem. It is a matter of

setting appropriate priorities and I am very sorry to say that in the past, the

proper priorities were not in place. Nursing homes were built as walk-ins for

people who had ambulatory care, I am sixty-five now they would say, come, I am

going to close up my house and I am going to move in and have a great time with

all the other people of similar age. It was not a nursing home, these were more

like hotels than they were nursing homes, and this transition from the hotel

type situation to a nursing home, where sick people have to be looked after, is

one that we are now in the -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. minister's time has expired.

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member for Menihek wish to

present a petition?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Yes, new petition.

The hon. the Member for Menihek.

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise and

speak to a petition on behalf of numerous residents of my district. Some

twenty-eight people have signed the petition and this petition is a result of a

public meeting held in my district with regard to giving the people of my

district some information with regard to the privatization of Newfoundland and

Labrador Hydro.

From that meeting there was a committee struck of some twenty

people. Some twenty people formed a committee, and they were instrumental in

raising the profile and making the people of Western Labrador, and indeed the

whole Province, more aware of the problems associated with the privatization of

Newfoundland Hydro. The prayer of the petition is:

WHEREFORE your petitioners urge the Government of

Newfoundland and Labrador to stop immediately the privatization of Newfoundland

and Labrador Hydro.

The people in my district are very, very concerned about the

privatization of Hydro because they are the highest per capita users of

electrical energy of any municipality in this Province, and it is largely due to

the climate. As an example, in my district even today people have to plug in

their cars with block heaters and interior heaters overnight. If cars are parked

overnight they must continue to have them plugged in, and here it is the first

week of May, so they consume more energy than anybody else in this Province,

generally speaking, and per capita they consume the highest amount of electrical

energy in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, because of their high consumption they feel that

they are going to be penalized even more. The Premier has already announced that

they are going to have to pay, even without privatization, a 30 to 40 per cent

increase. They are going to be facing a 30, 40, or even 50 per cent increase.

The Premier announced this, and we know how slick the Premier can be sometimes

in how he states things. They don't know if that is going to be 30 or 40 per

cent in the first year and again in the second year, or again in the third and

the fourth and the fifth.

We have had ministers in Cabinet, and want to be ministers

who want to get in Cabinet, suggesting that the people in Western Labrador

should face 500 per cent increases. The Premier himself has suggested that the

people in Western Labrador should be paying - should be paying, he said - an

equal amount as the people in Central Labrador, which is about three times the

amount that we presently pay for electrical energy in Western Labrador. They

know they are going to have to pay more, and we consume more, so we are going to

be hit twice, so to speak.

Now the Minister responsible for Health is a very infamous

person in my district because of his mistreatment of the hospital and the health

care workers in my district.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. A. SNOW: Yes, he is not a very popular fellow.

He made reference to people standing up and presenting a

petition with only a few names. There are only some twenty-eight names on this

but, as I said in the beginning when I started to speak on this petition, my

original petition that was sent to me, the original bulk of these pages that

came in, there were over 1,500 names, and I submitted that one, but these

petitions continue to arrive. They could be supplementary, you could say, and

they are continuing to arrive day after day at my office, and I am pleased to

have the opportunity to stand and speak to the petition because of the concern

that the people who reside in my district want me to express on their behalf,

because they have a lot of concerns about the effects of privatization of Hydro

and how it is going to affect them today and tomorrow, and their children, and

their children's children, because that is the type of effect it is going to be.

It is going to last forever.

When we sell this Crown corporation, you can't take it back.

It's a one-shot deal. You sell it, it's gone. We will never be able to afford to

get it back. We make this mistake, it's going to go down in the annals of

history, I believe, as a similar type of mistake that was made by this same

party, by some of the same individuals, who made the infamous Upper Churchill

deal. This is probably going to be an even more colossal mistake than that was.

That is what the residents of my district are concerned

about. They recognize that it is going to have a negative impact on them. They

have looked at and listened to the Premier in some of his statements, and they

don't believe him.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

MR. A. SNOW: They don't trust him, because they know you

can't trust him.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. A. SNOW: One minute, Mr. Speaker, just to clue up?

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. A. SNOW: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for St. John's East, I think, was up

first.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to support the petition presented by the hon. Member

for Menihek. Even though it has a few names on it, these individuals have the

right to have their petition presented to the House of Assembly, and the right

to have their issues debated before this House. They are a portion of the

overwhelming majority of people of this Province who are opposed to this action

by the government, an action which has been castigated from one end of the

Province to the next, Mr. Speaker, and has now moved from a debate about Hydro

to a debate about democracy.

The Premier stated in the House yesterday his full intention

to go ahead with his plans to privatize Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro. This is

after he gave a commitment to the people of this Province on Province-wide t.v.

that he would not proceed with the privatization of Hydro until a means had been

found to determine the wishes of the people of Newfoundland, and he committed

himself -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please!

It now being 3:00 p.m., I call it Private Members' Day.

Private Members' Day

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker?

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the motion to be debated today

as I advised the Chair and hon. members yesterday is number 6. My friend for St.

George's I think can be persuaded to speak to it.

MR. SPEAKER: Motion 6.

The hon. the Member for St. George's.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

DR. HULAN: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this hon.

Chamber today to begin the debate on this very important resolution, a

resolution that if supported and acted on will effect in a very beneficial way

the economic wealth of the Province and the health and well-being of present day

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and all generations to come.

I'm not going to go through the whole prayer of the

resolution or all the `whereases' but I will simply state the resolution itself:

"BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Assembly endorses the

continuation of efforts of the present administration and the development of a

public policy on food and nutrition."

To begin with, at the December 1989 Growing Together

conference held in Ottawa, Jim White, of Jim White's food group, and the creator

of the President's Choice brand of green food products, predicted that there

would be a revolution in agriculture and food production in the next decade. He

indicated that he thought the markets for food products would be driven in the

future primarily by nutritional forces. At any one time right now there are 22

million North Americans dieting and wanting low fat or no fat foods. They are

also indicating that they want foods produced with fewer pesticides,

insecticides, herbicides, and fewer preservatives, and more wholesome, fresh and

natural food products to be offered in the marketplace. Products like bacon high

in fat, sodium and nitrates, whole milk, and processed foods are likely to go

the way of the carrier pigeon.

Consumer behaviour is also changing dramatically and several

studies recently have outlined the role policy makers should play in promoting

and accommodating new food marketing and consumption. The 1990 report, Action

Towards Healthy Eating, sponsored by the Department of National Health and

Welfare, for example stated that an increased flow of food and nutritional

information, a greater emphasis on dietary advice, and more awareness of

environmental issues, suggests that consumers indeed in Canada are making

significant dietary behavioural changes. Social and lifestyle factors will also

have a tremendous impact on food production and purchasing practices in the

coming years and governments need to set guidelines and encourage the food

industry to make nutrition a primary consideration in the development and

marketing of foods.

Newfoundlanders are showing some evidence of following this

international food consumption trend and of recognizing the links between

nutrition, lifestyle and health, albeit than at a slower pace than elsewhere in

the nation. People's food choices reflect a complex interplay of parental

influence, cultural heritage, formal and informal educational influences, levels

of advertising and economic circumstances. Several of the factors combined to

explain a general lower awareness of the importance of food health and nutrition

in this Province than elsewhere.

Since Confederation, Mr. Speaker, this Province has moved

away from a reliance on staple diet of fish and other subsistence foods which

provided the nutritional requirements for a strenuous outdoor lifestyle to a

dependence on new processed foods marketed internationally through the industry

food supply system. This shift has occurred in only a few decades and it was

assisted by the powerful advertising medium, the television. Improved

communications, particularly since 1960, allowed Newfoundlanders to see how

other North Americans were behaving. Improved transportation and the

consolidation of the food distribution system internationally meant that more

and more of the food fad fashions of the rest of North America could be brought

to this Province.

It is not surprising, Mr. Speaker, that the first

international fast food outlet to be opened in Newfoundland in 1970, set records

in sales within the organization itself, and in less than twenty years, all

major food chain restaurants have established outlets in the capital city, and

across the Province in many cases.

Mr. Speaker, these changes in Newfoundland and Labrador food

consumption patterns have been accomplished by a move towards a more sedentary

lifestyle and a greater emphasis on leisure. More of the population is now

engaged in non-physical work which requires a different kind of basic food

intake than occupations involving physical labour.

In the school system, the inclusion of nutrition and

food-related curriculum content has been less than ideal, to say the least,

resulting in minimal institutional emphasis on nutrition and food. Furthermore,

home economists and community nutrition services were virtually non-existent

over the past couple of decades when the dramatic transition in the food

delivery system occurred.

On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, there is considerable

evidence to suggest that many Newfoundland and Labrador consumers are demanding

that more nutritious and health food products be offered in the retail stores

and in the food service trades. An example of that is the switch to

calorie-reduced foods and a switch from whole milk to 2 per cent, 1 per cent and

even skim milk amongst our population. Consumers are, indeed, more concerned

about all the kinds of foods they eat.

In the commercial food service industries, many of the fast

food chains have established salad bars recently to accompany what has often

been referred to as junk foods or empty calorie foods. They are promoting the

nutritional aspects of foods almost as much as the `convenient' factor.

On the environmental side, Mr. Speaker, the President's

Choice brand of food products is becoming increasingly popular as consumers are

drawing direct links between food quality and environmental considerations.

Foods under such labels as President's Choice are billed as being of a higher

quality nutritionally because either they are made from real food ingredients or

because they contain minimal amounts of preservatives. In addition, the

packaging material is either recycled or the degree of packaging is minimal,

capitalizing on the notion that environmentally friendly food products are also

likely to be better for you.

Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, because Canada is the most wasteful

society in the world, consumers are becoming sensitized to the problems with

waste and this is beginning to affect their food-buying habits. Consumers are

now starting to respond to messages that Styrofoam trays, for example, and

excessive layers of plastic wrap are indeed wasteful.

The move away from certain types of packaging has direct

implications for the preparation, presentation, and quality of foods. Given a

choice, consumers are becoming more likely to select unwrapped foods than

pre-packaged products. The nutritional revolution, which will probably occur in

the food industry within the next decade, and the impact of consumers' concerns

over excess packaging will affect the entire Province, not just St. John's.

Therefore, it is imperative that all who are associated with the agri/aqua food

sector, from the farmer to the fisherman, on to the food service industries be

prepared well in advance and that the development of an appropriate public

policy precede rather than follow this process.

The food selection and lifestyle of Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians appear to have had a detrimental impact on their nutritional and

physical well-being. Diets of deep-fried, heavily salted and fatty meats, sweet

desserts, and highly processed foods of dubious nutritional quality are not

balanced by foods with a high fibre content or by fresh fruit, vegetables, and

dairy products.

Furthermore, it is well-known that the per capita consumption

of fresh fluid milk in this Province is only about half that of the national

average, while the consumption per capita of canned evaporated milk, which is

nutritionally not as sound as fresh fluid milk, exceeds that of all other parts

of the country by a very large margin. Mr. Speaker, these concerns are

compounded when the dietary behaviour of our young people is examined. Bad

habits related to diet are often passed on from the parents and they can be

perpetuated and reinforced, unfortunately, in the school system.

A recent Queens University study of the dietary habits of

school-age children across the country in Grades IV, VII, and X, for example,

showed that nearly half of the young people in this country do not eat a

balanced diet. Approximately 30 per cent of the nine-year-old males do not eat

vegetables every day, if you can believe it, and 20 per cent of the

fifteen-year-olds do not eat breakfast. Two-thirds of the young people have

diets high in fat and one-quarter of them have high sugar diets.

As young people get older, they are less likely to consume

yellow vegetables, fish, beans, and whole grain cereals and breads. Boys,

typically, have a diet higher in fat and sugar than girls. Indeed, young

people's eating habits are nutritionally poor for the nation as a whole;

however, Mr. Speaker, which is alarming, schoolchildren in Newfoundland and

Labrador have the poorest eating habits of any province in Canada. In almost all

categories of diet, nutrition and lifestyle, Newfoundland and Labrador children

came out worse than all other provinces in this country, sometimes by a very

wide margin.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that this Province

has a serious problem, a very serious problem, indeed. The dietary and

nutritional habits of young people in this Province are far from what can be

expected to promote a healthy population. As learning ability has been shown to

be directly related to physical health and nutrition, the problem takes on a

completely different, another dimension, indeed, which has implications for the

Province's education system. Unless, these trends are turned around, Mr.

Speaker, our youth are likely to grow up carrying their bad eating habits with

them, thereby putting themselves at risk for serious dietary and medical

problems later in life.

More alarming still, Mr. Speaker, is the strong chance that

when this generation become parents, they will pass on their poor eating habits

to their children.

Mr. Speaker, treating diet-related chronic diseases such as

osteoporosis, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, yes, Mr. Speaker, and even

some forms of cancer is expensive. At a time when funding for provincial health

services is under tremendous pressure, as we heard already today to some degree,

and recognizing that no society can tolerate an unhealthy population, efforts

must be, they must be made to institute preventative health care. The area of

food, health and nutrition is one that can be addressed, and addressed

immediately, at minimal cost to the Treasury.

It should involve, Mr. Speaker, the co-operative efforts of

nutrition and health care professionals, the education system and food

producers. Farmers and fisherpersons and the health food professionals, food

scientists, nutritionists, dieticians and home economists, are closely linked by

their common interest in meeting society's needs to be fed adequately and by the

delivery of information on the appropriate selection and handling of foods.

However, Mr. Speaker, the Agri-Food system in this Province

is dominated by decision-makers far removed from the primary production of

foods, who are often out of touch with the needs and demands of consumers in any

one localized area. In this Province, the once-strong agricultural production

base providing fresh food supplies to much of the population has deteriorated

drastically since 1949. The population's ability to produce its own subsistence

foods now appears to be over-stated and Newfoundland and Labrador has become,

unfortunately, has become dependent on imported foods as its indigenous

agri-foods processing and marketing industries have been severely, severely

arrested.

The Provincial Government has expressed a firm commitment to

encourage local self-reliance in economic development of the Province and its

constituent regions. Self-reliance, Mr. Speaker, is guided by an underlying

philosophy aimed at helping individuals and their families live full and

productive lives. Implicit, then, in this philosophy, is the goal to develop

regional food security to ensure access by peoples at all times to sufficient

food for active and healthy lives.

Mr. Speaker, the Newfoundland farmers and fisherpersons are

on the front lines in the battle to ensure that families are fed healthful and

nutritious foods. Newfoundland and Labrador probably has the cleanest

environment in North America in which to produce food. As efficient as the North

American food production and distribution system is, there are still perishable

products that lose quality during long-distance transportation to this Island.

In many cases, Newfoundland farmers can indeed grow the same product and

distribute it in retail stores or directly to consumers much faster and with

less handling than food importers can; therefore, local farmers should always be

able to offer products to consumers that are higher in quality, fresher and more

nutritious than imported equivalents.

Mr. Speaker, the freshness and quality of local produce

cannot be surpassed. Slower growing conditions under a cooler climate in this

Province results in the production of superior quality produce and the eating

quality of local fruits and berries, the quality of our vegetables are

unrivalled anywhere in the country. Newfoundland meat producers are also

providing top quality products from natural fed beef and lambs and the highly

professional poultry and egg industries. Other nutritious meats abundantly

available, Mr. Speaker, come from local wild game such as moose, caribou,

rabbits and waterfowl.

With proper management, Newfoundland and Labrador can indeed

sustain healthy wildlife populations for tourists and, at the same time, harvest

as they do in Western Europe, a portion of these highly nutritious foods to

complement our agri-foods industries. It is imperative then, Mr. Speaker, that

government policy assist the Newfoundland and Labrador farm community in

capitalizing on consumers' trends towards purchasing larger portions of fresh

and nutritious produce and meats which are produced locally.

Forging links between the agri-food industries and the food,

health and nutrition service serves to provide regional and individual

self-reliance, allows local producers to diversify and expand the range of foods

they can produce, meets the demands of consumers, and also contributes to the

overall health and population by promoting better dietary habits.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): The hon. the Member for Humber

Valley.

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I welcome the

opportunity to have a few words - and a few it is; politicians speaking for

twenty minutes that is only a few words - on this particular subject.

I say to the Member for St. George's that there are seven

`whereases' in his resolution, and as far as I'm concerned, each and every

`whereas' is just as important as the other. However, one of them does stand

out, the one on the top of the last page of today's routine proceedings:

"WHEREAS food selection and lifestyle of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are

having a detrimental impact on their nutritional and physical well-being."

That, to me, sums up most of the rest of the `whereases.'

However, the last: "BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Assembly endorse the

continuation of efforts of the present administration and the development of a

public policy on food and nutrition."

Now, Mr. Speaker, it would be nothing new for me to say today

that you can bring in all the regulations you like, you can bring in whatever

you like with regards to government, farmers can grow all they like,

pesticide-free, herbicide-free, whichever, disease-free, in any case, but unless

and until individuals are educated to the fact that they should eat good

nutritional foods, and combine with that an excellent exercise program, then it

is not going to work.

People buy by choice. When they walk into a supermarket in

these latter years, people are more health conscious, more conscious of what

they are picking up and putting into their food baskets, they are asking more

questions as to whether foods are pesticide-free, herbicide-free and so on. They

are asking more questions, no doubt about that. But Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians as we know them today - in fact, I was going to suggest, and I

think one of my colleagues mentioned it the other day, that we have a provincial

plant and, in the last couple of years, a provincial bird. I say, we could today

take a poll and a vote in this Province and ask what our provincial dish would

be, and that would be French fries with hamburger meat and gravy.

Mark it down. You go anywhere around this Province today in

fast-food outlets, whether they are - not so much in the McDonald's of the world

because they don't serve that, but that is another story; I will get into that.

But hamburger meat and gravy - what does it contain? What does it do to you? I

don't have to tell you how much sodium is in it, what it is cooked in, what

effects it has on the body. Now granted, it is like everything else - our

forefathers lived on beef and cabbage and salt fish and salt pork -and the salt

pork wasn't cut up in scrunchions, it was put right in the pot with the salt

beef and cabbage, taken out of the pot in big globs of pork, pepper put on that

and eaten, and some of them - well, I say some, but a good many of them, lived

to be ninety, ninety-five and one hundred years old. And, by god, the only

secret I can see, the only way I saw them overcome it, was by hard work, because

they worked. They are not like the society we have today when we go in, and even

if we work for eight hours, those people worked ten, twelve, fifteen, sixteen

hours a day, and that is the only thing I can see that kept them going. If you

put the food that they ate down in the individuals in this Province today, none

of them would get past twenty-five or thirty years of age.

An example the other day in the Globe and Mail of what

I am taking about - they were talking about movie theatres, and if somebody

bought a medium-sized popcorn in a theatre, the type of popcorn you have today,

and they put butter on it, and salt and whatever, they say that one medium

container of popcorn is equivalent to six Big Macs, and the large one is

equivalent to eight Big Macs. That's how much fat and sodium is contained in the

popcorn in the theatre. It is unreal.

As an example of what government can do, imagine if you put

up a sign there saying just that, and saying what the popcorn contained and what

it can do to you. It is unreal what people are eating today, and our young

people today - the analogy I make is this: The government of the day, the people

of the Province, and the producers and processors of milk in this Province,

instituted a school milk program. Why? so that younger children could start

drinking milk at an early age and thereby, as they get older, and as they get

out and become parents themselves, they would make the habit of drinking milk,

then they would pass it along to their children, and so on and on the chain

goes. But that, in conjunction with some of the other rules and regulations, and

some of the other things that are happening today - it is an education program;

it is in the schools. Now we can't on one hand do that, and on the other hand

have a regulation in place whereby - one of my colleagues handed me a note; at

the end of my speech I will probably say what is on it.

In any case, that is a program that is working excellently.

It is an excellent program. It means, last year, I think, an extra million

litres of milk to the producers in the Province. What does it mean in savings to

health care, the Department of Health in this Province? We can't judge that on a

daily basis. We can't judge it on a yearly basis, but I can guarantee members

opposite, and every member in this House, that somewhere down the road each and

every day of the week we are saving dollars, and big dollars, because of what is

happening, just this one example of drinking milk - milk, the most perfect food.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are in a conflict of interest

(inaudible).

MR. WOODFORD: No conflict of interest, and even if I am

in a conflict of interest, I don't mind getting up here and pontificating. Even

if it means they are going to sell an extra million litres next year, it

wouldn't hurt my pocketbook, I can assure you.

I will just continue on with this conflict of interest bit

the minister refers to. Whole milk must contain not less than 3.25 per cent milk

fat and not less than 8.25 per cent milk solids or fat. That is whole milk. I

can go on to low fat milk. I can go on to skim milk. I can go on to chocolate

milk - another myth out there that chocolate milk is no good to you. That is

wrong. I don't have time to go into it. Evaporated skim milk, sweetened

condensed milk, eggnog, cultured buttermilk and so on.

To call a food nutritious, it must contain a nutrient that is

required by the body. Some people are concerned with chocolate milk, for

instance. That is wrong. The only thing that is added to chocolate milk is a

little bit of sugar that is added in the process. There are less carbohydrates

in a glass of chocolate milk than there are in an equal amount of apple juice.

That is proven. The protein and fat in milk slows down the digestion process so

you don't feel hungry, that's one of the examples. I can go on and give other

examples of what - for instance, one 250 millilitre glass of milk contains 129

calories and fifteen essential nutrients. We're talking about nutrition, we're

talking about nutrients, we're talking about one food that can put such a thing

into the body and be life sustaining. Protein; 8.6 grams in the same glass. It

builds and repairs body tissue. Riboflavin; which is Vitamin B2, 25 per cent.

What have we got to do other than that to get that into the body? Vitamin A; 11

per cent, Vitamin D; 44 per cent, Vitamin B1; 8 per cent, Calcium; 29 per cent.

It helps in the formation and maintenance of strong bones and teeth. How much is

that costing the health care system today? How much is that costing the health

care system today just in dental care alone?

If that was made up, this government would be able to put an

exercise program in pretty well every town and community in this Province, I

would say, based on the health care bill alone. Carbohydrates; 12 grams, Vitamin

B; 6.6 per cent, Vitamin B12; 45 per cent, Phosphorus; 22 per cent, Magnesium;

14 per cent and Zinc; 11 per cent. Mr. Speaker, that's fifteen nutrients in a

250 millilitre glass of milk. That's, like I said, one of the most perfect

foods. Mr. Speaker, there's an old saying that you are what you eat. There's an

old saying, it goes back a long time that you are what you eat. I can assure

you, in looking around at some of the - I won't say some of the people in the

House of Assembly, a lot of people around this Province - Mr. Speaker, that

probably suits some people but if not in the House of Assembly, it certainly

applies to a lot of people outside the House of Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, I was never so humble in all my life - I thought

I was doing a big thing. I usually run around 44-50 kilometres a week and I

usually work out a few times a week at a gym, especially here at the Aquarena

when I'm in the city and I was never so humble - in the morning, I like to do it

in the morning's early, around 6:00 or 6:30. I go out around this city, there's

not a soul on the streets, there's no one to be seen anywhere but myself. I have

no worries about bumping into anybody. A blind person could lead the CNIB and

run around this city in the morning. He got no worries about hitting anything

unless he wanders onto the road and hits a car but regards to a sidewalk, you

haven't got a worry about hitting anybody.

Now, what I'm getting at is this; when I talked about

humility and talked about being humble, I figured getting up early in the

morning was a wonderful thing. I was doing a big thing, big deal until I started

over here at the Aquarena. Go over here at 6:15 in the morning, the first three

people I meet, one seventy-one year old lady that's got two laps done around the

course just outside the Aquarena. A sixty-eight year old gentleman who is

waiting in his car for the doors to open. A sixty-three year old gentleman

waiting for the doors to open. Three people lined up ahead of me to go into the

- no, I'm a little bit younger then the sixty-three year old -

AN HON. MEMBER: Sixty-one.

MR. WOODFORD: - but in any case when you walk into that

gym and you look at every machine around there; the nautilus machines, the

stair-masters, the cycles and all the cycling machines and so on, it's unreal

what those people do. They get on one, they do their aerobics or their

cardiovascular and they warm up. Some of them stay there for thirty minutes on

one of the machines and then they go from nautilus to nautilus right around to

the leg curl, the leg extension, right on around to the biceps, triceps, right

around, its unreal. I don't see one person from 6:30 in the morning, until I

leave there at probably 8:00 or 8:30, not one person do I see any younger then

myself. They may be but they certainly don't look any younger then myself in

that gym.

You talk about the day and age of exercise and so on but it

does your heart good. That's not the only three but I say that because those

three start that early. There's a lot of other elderly people who do come in

after and start to participate in an exercise program.

If we don't get the young people today educated, combine two

things, a proper diet and a proper exercise program, you are not going to do one

without the other. Some people may get away with a slim waistline just probably

eating the right foods. Some may get away with a slim waistline and so on and a

fairly good system based on what they eat. Everybody should have some kind of

aerobic or cardiovascular exercise, or doing something to try to get the blood

pumping, to try to get the heart working, and try and get your veins opened up

so that it flows more easily.

There is nothing like an exercise program. It doesn't have to

be much. Everybody I talk to about an exercise program says: We haven't got the

time, I can't afford to do it. You can't afford not to do it. That is what I

tell young people. Twenty minutes. What is twenty minutes a day even, let alone

twenty minutes three times a week, one hour a week, if they wanted to?

Mr. Speaker, one thing I say to members opposite that they

have control over. Last year when the smoking regulations went through the House

of Assembly I said it was a sham, I said it was a bluff, and I stand here today

and say the same thing. What is the point of putting a 50 per cent non-smoking

and smoking area in a restaurant or an eating establishment in this Province

when you can go in - there are absolutely no physical barriers. The 50 per cent

is here for non-smoking, the 50 per cent is there for smoking. There is nothing

as bad as far as I'm concerned than a cigarette. Cigarette smoke, second-hand

smoke, to me is just as bad as the person who is sucking it down in his lungs.

I look and I see the Minister of Social Services there. I

know he is saying: Sit down, will you? Because myself and him sit down every

other morning down at Holiday Inn for a coffee. The minister has his cigarette

and I have my cup of coffee and so on. A few of the other gentleman there - but

it is an example, and he knows. You haven't got to tell the Minister of Social

Services anything about this. It is just a matter of habit and he can't get out

of it. That is one of the examples we have.

Bringing in regulations whereby you have smoking here and

non-smoking there, that is crazy. No physical barrier, the boundary is the edge

of the table where you sit. Government has got control over that and that is one

of the things that I think members opposite should pontificate about and should

take to their colleagues in Cabinet with regards to making some changes.

I just picked up a little pamphlet the other day at a

restaurant here in town. I won't name the restaurant because I would probably be

accused of advertising for them. It says on it: Do yourself a favour, ask for:

(1) 2 per cent, 1 per cent or skimmed milk for drinking and with coffee or tea;

(2) soft margarine; (3) calorie-reduced salad dressings; (4) foods prepared

without rich cream sauces or gravy or served on the side. Plain vegetables,

rice, potatoes or salad as a substitute to French fries. Whole-grain bread

rolls. Broiled, barbecued, roasted, steamed, poached or grilled foods. Skinned

poultry. Fruit salad, frozen yoghurt, or angel food cake. On it goes.

For instance, the potato. I mentioned French fries. The

potato is one of the best things you can eat today with regards to

carbohydrates. What kills the eating of the potato is what we put on it, how we

do it. We can't cook a nice potato and load it up with butter; we can't cook a

nice potato and load it up with sour cream. We can do it, we can eat it, but you

are defeating the purpose.

What is the first thing a Newfoundlander does? He takes a

knife and peels it off, peels the potato. He hasn't got time to cut it up for

French fries; sometimes he just dips her down solid. When he does cut it up I

think it is 60 per cent - make sure before I make a statement on it. Sixty per

cent of the protein, the carbohydrate, in a potato goes out with the peel.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much?

MR. WOODFORD: Sixty per cent, once you peel it.

Members must wonder sometimes, when they go into a place in

town that is popular for potato skins, is Holiday Inns, they serve it lunch time

down there as a pub lunch and so on - potato skins - how good do they taste at

all? They are delicious, and they taste better with a bit of cheese. They taste

better with a bit of salt. They taste twice as good again if you put something

else on them, but if you could only stick to the potato peel, with something

else to wash them down, they are probably three times as good.

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned about some of the fresh

vegetables. We can have all the fresh vegetables we like. Unless we instill in

people the proper formulas, the proper dieting habits and so on, what they

should eat and so on, as far as I am concerned, it is not going to work.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. WOODFORD: If I could have just a few seconds. I am

not going to take other people's time.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. WOODFORD: One of the things I wanted to stress is

that in order for a nutrition food policy, or nutrition policy in this Province,

we have to get into the schools, and this is something that members opposite can

do. Get it into the schools as young as they can. If there is one class in the

schools in this Province, anywhere in this Province, that does not have an

exercise program, then I say to the minister opposite, and I am sure that he

will agree with me, that they should be forced to. They should be forced to have

an exercise program in every classroom in this Province, and tie to that - they

can't do this, I know, tell people what to eat, but at least give them an idea

of what is good and bad and so on.

A good diet tied to a good exercise program, we would cut the

health care problems in this Province, I would submit, probably 50 per cent. Now

it wouldn't help us overnight. The minister's budget wouldn't go down overnight

but, by God I will tell you, over the next number of months and years you would

see some difference in the health care bill in this Province.

Name the fruits and vegetables and so on that we can eat. We

can eat it. We can go on diets, and the best thing to do is eat five or six

different meals a day rather than two meals of 1,200 or 1,500 calories each. Eat

five or six. It burns off faster. You increase your metabolism; and if you take

in protein, what does it do? If you haven't got the proper metabolism there to

burn it off, regardless if you walk, run, sit down or whatever, it is not going

to work anyway. You have to do something to build that up in conjunction with

what you eat.

I say the old adage `you are what you eat', as far as I am

concerned, is exactly what it is, and I say all of us should look around and

take a little bit more time to pay attention to that particular thing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to rise

today and speak in favour of this motion submitted by my hon. colleague from the

District of St. George's.

Nutrition is certainly something that has to be of concern to

us all, and I think today it is certainly a very current topic. Myself, like a

lot of others, I guess, in my age group, it was brought home to me about three

years ago when, as part of a regular routine check up, my doctor determined that

I had elevated cholesterol levels, and subsequent to that became very interested

in looking into the root cause and working with my doctor in looking especially

at the dieting end of it.

The thing that struck me at the time that I do recall was a

statement he made to me that Newfoundlanders in general have elevated levels of

cholesterol. As a matter of fact, I remember he said to me: Your cholesterol

isn't too bad by Newfoundland standards, but by mainland standards it would have

been considered to very high, very high.

AN HON. MEMBER: What was the level?

MR. SMITH: It was 6.7.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SMITH: High normal, but in Newfoundland it is within

an acceptable range, by Newfoundland standards.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SMITH: I am just going by what I was told by my

doctor. I didn't bother to check it out, but what he said to me, is that

Newfoundlanders generally have elevated cholesterol levels, and just a general

statement like that was certainly cause for concern. Since then it has been a

struggle, I must say.

My hon. friend for Humber Valley was referring to `you are

what you eat' and we certainly would not want to pursue that to any great

length. I notice he kept referencing the smoke without then saying anything to

his waistline and opening his jacket and everything else. I am not going to try

to compare waistlines with him today but obviously my battle of the bulge has

been a little more difficult than his has to this point in time.

MR. L. MATTHEWS: You have to get up earlier, boy.

MR. SMITH: My colleague for St. John's North says I have

to get up earlier. The hon. member is saying he does not see too many people

around at 6:30 in the morning. He remarked that sensible people are still in bed

at 6:30 in the morning.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, it is certainly something that all of us

have to take an interest in. I was pleased to see, since I have had the

privilege to sit in this hon. House, and to hear from the Minister of Health

that more attention is being paid to the whole idea of wellness. More and more

today, when you look at publications that are out there, the thinking is that we

need to be concentrating more on keeping our good health as compared to being

faced with the consequences of down the road dealing with the enormous costs of

trying to restore good health once it is lost.

There is no doubt, as has been said by previous speakers

today, a large part of that does deal with the whole education process. Efforts

have been made over the years to try and convince the people of this Province,

and indeed of this nation, of the importance of maintaining proper diets, and

the importance of practising good nutrition. No doubt it is not easy.

The Canada Food Guide, which has been around for some time

now, does offer guidelines for healthy eating, and does offer some very

practical suggestions as to how we may in choosing the foods for our diet may

ensure that we have a balanced diet and thus a better chance of maintaining a

healthy lifestyle. Some of the things they suggest refer to enjoying a variety

of foods, emphasizing cereals, breads, and other grain products, vegetables, and

fruits, choosing low fat dairy products, lean meats and foods prepared with

little or no fat.

As the hon. member opposite mentioned this is certainly, I

think, a big weakness of a lot of us, that our diets do contain an inordinate

amount of fat, and for a lot of us it is not easy to correct. They also suggest

increasing the consumption of foods high in fibre. Of course today many doctors

throughout the world are preaching the benefits of high fibre diets. There are

many claims that have been made with regard to this, and I think there is

certainly sufficient evidence, and sufficient research to support the idea that

we should be paying attention to this.

Achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight by enjoying

regular physical activity and healthy eating, the combination that my hon.

friend opposite mentioned, and limiting salt, alcohol, and caffeine intake.

These are certainly all very important points.

When we speak of nutrition we must give grave attention to

the concerns relative to the young people of our Province. Anyone who is a

parent, especially a parent of a teenager, will certainly be able to relate to

the difficulty of getting people to eat proper diets. If you turn on your TV, on

a regular basis, interspersed with the programming, are ads for various fast

foods, and certainly for young people who do not have the time to sit down and

eat a proper diet it is very easy to get caught up with the idea that the

hamburger is king and the French fries and things of that nature are what most

of our young people exist on and I think what we have to keep in mind is that,

when we are encouraging wellness and healthy lifestyles, these involve in

addition to balanced diets, things like eliminating smoking and I certainly

relate to that, and moderate use of alcohol.

These are all worked together and these are all matters of

concern as we work towards these healthy lifestyles; but I think we should keep

in mind and not lose sight of the fact that we have to accept that the hamburger

can be just as dangerous in terms of your health as can the cigarette, because

fat has certainly been demonstrated, it has clearly been demonstrated now that

an excess of fat in our diet is certainly very, very dangerous for us.

These concerns with nutrition, Mr. Speaker, have to be

started at a very early age and I am not necessarily meaning that from the time

children begin school; as a matter of fact it has been demonstrated and clearly

demonstrated that proper diet for expectant mothers is something that we have to

be looking closely at. In recent years the Department of Health, through their

public health nurses, have been encouraging proper nutrition on the part of

expectant mothers, because it has been demonstrated that it is very important if

mothers are to have healthy babies that they do during their pregnancy practise

proper eating habits, and it continues on through.

The educating generally, of young people of the importance of

nutrition, there has been no doubt as has been mentioned, responsibility for

this has been placed primarily with the schools, and in the main I think we have

to recognize the schools have done a commendable job, but what we have to keep

in mind is that in recent years, and I guess it has been a tradition, that

anything that we want to disseminate, if there is any new program that is coming

down, whether it is to do with nutrition or Aids awareness or whatever it is, it

is always the schools that we go to and give primary responsibility for

delivering these programs.

During the course of my career as an educator, one of the

things that I saw was an increase in the kinds of demands that were made of the

school system. Now there is only so much time, Mr. Speaker, available within the

school day, and there is only so much that teachers within the classroom can

accomplish, and while they do a commendable job, I think it is wrong if we think

we can leave responsibility for this solely to the schools. It has to be the

concern of government generally and certainly of agencies other than the

schools.

Within the schools, we certainly see schools doing an

exceptional job with regards not only to teaching proper eating habits and good

nutritional practices, but most schools in this Province now would have in place

nutrition policies. Within recent years most schools would have developed this

and these will place controls on things that would be available for sale within

the school and let's say it falls within certain guidelines, then they would not

be permitted within the school. As an example, Mr. Speaker, in most primary and

elementary schools in this Province at the present time, pop machines or candy

machines or the availability of chips or things of that nature, it is most

unlikely that they would be found. At least if it's within a school board and

within a school that's current on the thinking with regard to this, and

certainly those that do have these nutritional policies would ensure that these

things are not available within the school.

Also, health care; attention is given to this. Most schools

do have access to public health nurses who visit the school on a regular basis

and are able to address concerns of health, but also, as part of that, is the

emphasis on fitness, the fitness part of wellness. The idea of Phys. Ed.

programs and sports programs in the Primary, Elementary and High Schools, they

are all geared towards teaching our young people who will some day be our

adults, teaching them proper routines and practices in attaining a level of

fitness and introducing them to sports that they can later use in their adult

life as a means of maintaining this level of fitness.

My hon. colleague from St. George's mentioned the fact, and I

think we have to recognize that our young people today, in comparison to

previous generations, do live a type of lifestyle that involves an awful lot of

time sitting in the living room and watching television or playing the Nintendo

Games and unless we are aware of the importance of having this active lifestyle,

and unless parents accept the responsibility of trying to ensure that their

children are involved in activities outside the home, whether it is out just

playing around the yard or whatever, that they do something to keep active.

I am not suggesting that watching t.v. or playing Nintendo

Games in and of themselves are wrong or bad but I guess the point that I am

trying to make is that they should not be taking the place of wholesome,

physical activities which would help to ensure the fitness of the young people

in our Province.

I'm sure we are all aware of some years ago and the study

that was done that compared the fitness level of Canadians generally -

especially they used the comparison with one of the Scandinavian countries. It

was embarrassing how poorly we stacked up against these other countries. As a

result we saw the birth of the Participaction program, which over the

intervening years has certainly I think done an awful lot towards improving the

level of fitness of Canadians, and I would suggest of Newfoundlanders. We still

have a ways to go. I think the hon. member opposite by example is showing the

importance and has referenced the fact that some of our senior citizens who in

later years are still very active, and are demonstrating that by remaining fit

it is still possible to be healthy and to be engaged in these activities late in

life. This as well is something that we have to be concerned with.

Also within our schools, in terms of nutrition, we must

recognize that there have been many important developments in recent years. We

see in the media and we hear about schools that have introduced breakfast and

lunch programs. Geared towards and in recognition of the fact that we do have

within this Province children who come to our schools every day without having

the proper nutrition that is so necessary in order to enable them to come into

the schools and to put in a good day of work and to have a productive day.

Also I think we should recognize the school milk program

which we now have in place. I think we should certainly here as well credit the

efforts of the industry, the producers themselves, who are largely responsible

for having this program in place. I think we have to recognize that. It is

commendable that they have taken this initiative and have taken the lead in

trying to ensure that this program is in place in the Province. I think all of

can draw a great deal of satisfaction from the fact that this is something that

we do have in place.

I remember my years in the school. It always struck me when I

was principal of the school and concerns with nutrition. I remember when I went

to school - and a lot of the hon. members here can relate to what I'm talking

about - back in the days of the cocoa malt. I mean, I went to school - when it

was a small school you had to bring your splits - but even back then, when it

came recess time, I remember the routine was to bring a piece of molasses bread.

You were served a hot cup of cocoa malt. This was a long time ago but I can

still remember those days. It really struck me in my early days in the teaching

profession that despite everything that happened after Confederation, and all

the benefits that had come to this Province, in fact in areas like that, in

terms of providing for the needs of our children within the classroom, we really

hadn't progressed at all. As a matter of fact, the children who I saw twenty

years ago when I was in the classroom teaching, they weren't as well off as I

was. I certainly grew up in an era that was much poorer by comparison than the

era in which they were living.

While the schools have an important role to play - and I

suggest, Mr. Speaker, that they are rising to the challenge and are responding

to the challenges out there - as I said, we cannot rely solely on them. The

other thing we have to keep in mind as well, that as good as teachers may be,

and as good as our schools may be, we cannot forget the influence of the home.

You have the child in the school for four or five hours a day. When that child

goes home the kinds of values that exist within the home, regardless of what you

are teaching, but also the reality of what exists in that home, is important as

well. We can't lose sight of that.

Government certainly, as my hon. friend for St. George's has

suggested, has a role to play in this whole area of educating the people of our

Province to the importance of good nutrition. In connection with that I would

just like to quote from the task force on agri-foods which my hon. colleague

played a major role in producing: There is a need for home economics specialists

to be employed by the agriculture branch to work through their branch's existing

extension service. The main objective for a home economics extension program

within the agriculture branch would be to promote and increase industry and

public awareness of locally-produced foods, to become the primary vehicle for

implementing the policy on food and nutrition to the agriculture sector, and to

become the primary vehicle for promoting sound environmental and food practices

at the household level, avoidance of waste, selective shopping practices,

composting, recycling, energy-conscious and nutritious food preparation methods

- certainly all very valid arguments - and underlying the need for a role and

the function that has to be played by government.

Also, we must be conscious of the fact that we do have within

our Province many families who are living at or below the poverty line. If you

are taking about the near poor, right now they refer to the social comfort line,

but despite the fact that the message may be there and we may be convincing them

of the need for good nutrition, there are many who would argue that they don't

have the resources to go out and secure for themselves and their families the

proper nutrition that they need.

I would just like to quote, if I may, from this publication

of the Fraser Institute on poverty in Canada, 1994, in referencing and in

speaking to the matter of food, and I quote: The basic needs approach attempts

to find the least expensive way of providing good, palatable, nutritionally

balanced food to Canadian families and individuals. Health and Welfare Canada

specifies the energy intakes according to age and gender that are required to

maintain a healthy weight. The Canada Food Guide indicates the balance; that is

the number of servings from within each food group required for good nutrition.

The assumption is that the household seeking good nutrition purchases food at

grocery stores once or twice a week, or more or less, and more or less adheres

to these energy and balance recommendations.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I think it's wrong for us to

assume -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time is not up. The Chair

can't hear the hon. member because there are a number of members speaking here,

engaged in conversation. I wonder if the hon. members could move outside, if

necessary. Let's hear the hon. member in silence.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SMITH: Thank you - just a minute to clue up then, Mr.

Speaker.

There are a number of points I would like to make in

conclusion. First of all, I think we must continue our efforts at educating the

general public; there is no question about that. Through our schools, we must

try to ensure that our children have adequate diets insofar as schools can

ensure that particular thing. Certainly, there is a role they can play, but they

can't operate in isolation, and they can't do it alone. Also, we must work with

our lower income families to assist them in utilizing their limited resources to

ensure they avail of proper nutrition.

One other point, in conclusion, if I may, I really feel that

we should be encouraging more of our people to return to the idea of subsistence

farming. It really bothers me, in the rural areas of the Province that we have

large amounts of good agricultural land that are just going to waste, that are

not doing anything. Because not only can we grow much of the food we need, but

also, as was referenced again by my hon. friend, the Member for Humber Valley -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member has leave.

MR. SMITH: It can be grown organically, therefore

ensuring that we get full nutritional value. So I think another role that

government can be playing here is running a number of seminars throughout the

Province whereby we encourage people on the idea of getting into gardening.

I might say, as a gardener of many years, someone who took

great pride in being self-sufficient in growing vegetables, I don't think we

should lose sight of the fact of the therapeutic value of self-reliance. Thus,

gardening and subsistence farming in this Province will not only contribute to

our physical well-being but I submit to you, it will contribute to our

physiological well-being as a people as well. Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased today to take

part in this debate and

discuss this resolution put forward by the Member for St. George's. It is a

resolution that I find quite interesting. I must commend the Member for St.

George's, the Member for Humber Valley and the Member for Port au Port for what

I consider to be three excellent speeches on what is, to me, a very important

topic about development of a public policy on food and nutrition.

I've really listened very closely to what members have said

and so have most members who have been in the House today. I must say they have

listened to the speakers.

AN HON. MEMBER: They were good speeches.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: They were excellent speeches. But there

are still those, of course, who don't pay much attention or attach much

importance to anything, and they continue to talk and not listen while other

people are discussing what they consider to be important.

There are a number of things, Mr. Speaker, that caught my

attention in the debate about nutrition; diet, cholesterol levels, exercise,

fitness, physical education programs in the schools, all of these things are of

great interest to me, and for good reason. I spent a fair bit of my life working

and trying to improve fitness, developing recreation and sport programs. I have

always been concerned about nutrition and still am. I'm most concerned, I guess,

these days, about my own nutrition and so on than anything else.

MR. ROBERTS: The hon. gentleman has fewer problems than

many of us.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, but it hasn't been easy, I say to

the Government House Leader. It doesn't come easier with each year that passes;

it becomes more and more difficult to continue to do some form of exercise, to

try to feel better, to watch your diet. Someone said, `You are what you eat' - I

guess it was the Member for Humber Valley - and I thought to myself, my god,

I'll soon either turn into a lettuce or a chicken because of, over the last few

months, trying to deal with my cholesterol level, I say to the Member for St.

George's.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Something like that. I was interested in

hearing the Member for Port au Port talk about - I think he said 6.7 being in

the high normal range, I believe he said, and I guess it depends on your doctor.

MR. ROBERTS: Is 6.7 a high normal range?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, that's what he said, which was

interesting. That's cholesterol levels, and I think something like 5.2 - if

you're below 5.2 you're considered to be okay. And a lot of Newfoundlanders have

cholesterol problems.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: No not really. There are other things

that members have to disclose - the Minister of Justice, I know what he's

getting at again now. He's throwing a few barbs at my colleague, the Member for

Humber East about disclosure but she doesn't mind, Mr. Speaker.

MS. VERGE: I can take it.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Maybe the Minister of Justice should get

his checked. Maybe his cholesterol level will be as high as the interest he

makes on all his money and that would certainly be high. He'd be certainly in

the danger zone, Mr. Speaker.

There's one thing I would like to say to the Minister of

Health, and the Minister of Education who I see has left the Chamber. But if

we're really serious about improving the well-being of Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians, if we're as concerned about the cost of our health care and the

escalating health care budgets as we say we are, then we should listen to the

three gentlemen who have spoken already today. We should look at what spending a

few dollars wisely - wise spending of our money for prevention, to educate our

population about the benefits of good nutrition, proper diets, exercise and

fitness. It may take a few years before we see the net result on the budget of

this Province, but I assure you that if we go about it properly and we spend our

money wisely, the reduction in the health care budget for this Province would be

quite significant over a number of years - I really believe that.

Of course, as I've said before, what happens once you get

around the Cabinet table trying to divvy up the few dollars that we have is that

we sort of get short-sighted about it. We don't realize that five or ten years

down the road if we spent those few hundred thousand dollars on education

programs and fitness programs and whatever else, that it may save us this many

million dollars, and it will. I realize the Ministers of Health and Education

and other ministers have a difficult time convincing colleagues and getting a

consensus on the way money should be spent.

It will do two things, of course - it will have our

population feeling a lot better about themselves and being more productive, and

it will improve the financial position of the Province. Because the Minister of

Health won't always be facing the nightmares that he has to face every year, and

throughout the year when emergencies pop up. We know the effects of poor health

and heart disease and lung disease and on it goes, with the pressure and the

cost associated therewith. We talk about it almost every day in this House, the

problems that are out there in our health care system. A lot of it can be

prevented, but government must be willing to spend the money wisely and be

willing to take a chance on spending for prevention.

I want to say to the Member for Port au Port, who talked

about fitness and the physical education programs - a very important aspect of

all of it. What is happening in our schools today and in our school systems

today, I say to the Member for Port au Port, is that we are going backwards, we

are regressing. I will tell you for two reasons why we are going backward. It is

all to do with the financial position the Province finds itself in, restraint

and everything else.

What we are finding in our school systems today with the

physical education programs, number one, is that teachers who are not qualified

to teach physical education are doing the programs, particularly in the lower

grades, the primary and elementary grades. We are finding more and more teachers

each year, by the way, who are being given the responsibility for the physical

education programs.

MR. ROBERTS: Even though they are not qualified.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Even though they are not qualified.

MR. ROBERTS: Why is this?

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Because there are not enough physical

educators in the system, and those qualified physical educators who are in the

system are having to take up other responsibilities like mathematics and french

and all the other stuff they have to fit into whatever. So there are two things

happening.

The other thing that is happening, by the way, is that the

time that those students are getting in the gymnasium or whatever sports

facility for physical education programs, is being reduced. You are getting two

effects. One is less time, and the other is you have people there - and a lot of

those people, by the way, are not comfortable with doing the programs. It is

like asking me to teach nuclear science or physics.

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: What is that?

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Yes, but you know what I'm saying.

That's what is happening. I say this quite sincerely because I know what is

happening. And, you know, I'm not casting blame but I'm just saying really what

is happening out there. Often we pay lip service to a lot of things and we are

really not serious about it.

If we are serious about improving fitness levels of young

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that will have carried over value into later

life, then it certainly has to start in the primary and elementary grades of

school. We need people doing the programs like we need teaching mathematics and

science, where we have a weakness, who are qualified and have a keen interest in

those areas. It is like anything else - and we have to provide adequate time.

That is an area I think we should have a really good look at

if we are serious about what we are talking about today. I think we all are,

especially those of us who are talking about it. I think we are very serious

about it and we care about it, and we want to see something happen.

One thing I want to say, I guess to the Minister of Municipal

and Provincial Affairs: There is a division in government of Community

Recreation, Sport and Fitness which, again, because of the dollar squeeze, has

really been buried. That's what has happened to that division, it has been

buried in that huge department, lost, no importance, no recognition attached to

it.

I can tell you that was a very active and positive division.

I say that because I happened to be Minister of Culture, Recreation and Youth

for four years, or just about four years. I felt so good about that department,

and it was mainly because of that division. Every day we were doing something

positive for somebody, some group, or some community in this Province. Whether

it was a youth group, a sports organization, or whatever, it was a very positive

division, and now it is a shame to see what has happened with the cutbacks, the

squeeze, and everything else, that they have been lost.

Again, a very important aspect of all this, because again if

government is sincere about fitness and proper nutrition, and all of the other

things, you should not be cutting the legs off the very division that should be

out front for the government in educating, implementing, and developing fitness

programs, and on and on it goes. The dollar savings in years to come if we spend

wisely in a couple of those areas would be phenomenal.

The other thing I have to say, Mr. Speaker, is that we have

made great strides and great gains in being conscious about what we eat and what

we do. More and more people today watch what they buy. They look at the amount

of fat. Almost everywhere you go, when you shop in the stores and supermarkets,

people look at the fat content, because of cholesterol and heart problems, and

on and on it goes, and with feeling good, I guess. We have made gains but we are

a long ways from where we want to be.

I was interested to hear the Member for Port au Port say that

he grew vegetables. I thought to myself I hope that is all he grows. Let us hope

he was not into growing anything else that might be in direct contradiction to

his vegetables.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well, you never know. Of course we are

not into growing too much. We are into other things, importing, but not things

we grow. If we could ever get the Burin Peninsula people into growing, I say to

the Member for Port au Port, we would be interested in exporting.

MR. ROBERTS: Exporting to the rest of the Province.

MR. W. MATTHEWS: That's right. The Minister of Justice

has a good understanding and a good handle on how the enterprising people of the

Burin Peninsula might react if we were successful in growing some things that

would compliment already the largest industry on the Burin Peninsula, the

largest revenue maker on the Burin Peninsula which I need not get into.

Mr. Speaker, these are a few remarks I wanted to make on the

resolution which I consider to be very important. I say to the Member for St.

George's I am glad that he has put it on the Order Paper. The former Minister of

Health, the Minister of Education, has returned but I do not know if he has

listened to what has been said today.

MR. DECKER: I do not think we should build greenhouses

and then we all could-

MR. W. MATTHEWS: Well, we could. We could build a lot of

greenhouses, I say to the minister. Here is the minister's response to what I

consider to be a very serious discussion. Here is the Minister of Education that

is involved now in a further squeeze on the education system that is going to

see fewer physical education teach