April 5,

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLI No. 23

The House met at 9:00 a.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Oral Questions

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

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

question for the President of Treasury Board. Could the President of Treasury

Board explain to the House what conditions must exist for a public sector

employee to be eligible for a redundancy pension under existing pension policy?

Specifically, are all employees with the necessary service eligible for

redundancy pensions even if they are able to bump less senior employees in their

bargaining units?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, the collective agreements have

provisions to handle redundancies, layoffs and so on, and these provisions will

be followed. In terms of redundancy pensions the normal conditions apply, that

if a person is past the vested period that person is eligible for a redundancy

pension.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister

know that there are many senior employees in redundant positions who are eager

to take redundancy pensions but are unable to do so because they can bump less

senior employees? Under present conditions I guess the question is, why not make

redundancy or similar early retirement pensions available to all public sector

employees who wish to take them? - of course, those who have met the necessary

service requirements.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have to do what we

are doing in a way that has, first of all, the least possible effect on

individuals involved, but also we have to try and protect the integrity of the

pension plan and protect the taxpayers of the Province. We cannot offer

redundancy pensions to all employees in the public service who wish to leave and

collect a redundancy pension. We are in the process of straightening up the

pension situation, not making it worse. We are in the business of making sure

the pension plans are properly funded for the future, we are not in the business

of destroying the pension plans. The answer is as simple as that.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Grand Bank.

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can appreciate

that no one would want to destroy the pension plan, but in light of what has

happened with the layoffs and so on there is a considerable amount of anxiety.

I would like to ask the Minister is he not concerned that

bumping on the scale that is occurring or will now occur will have a serious

effect on work performance? In particular, is he aware that nurses, many of them

with twenty to twenty-five years experience in one specialty area, are being

forced to bump experienced nurses in another specialty area in which they lack

qualifications and experience? And this is happening as a result of, again,

Budget restraint. A lot of these nurses would prefer to retire, and my question

to the Minister is would he consider allow them to retire? And is he not

concerned about the quality of patient care in these situations? We will have

nurses now bumping into other specialty areas in which they have not trained,

are really not qualified, and have no experience.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, there are about eight or ten

questions there where if we had a Question Period of two hours, I suppose, we

would have adequate time to answer. I will try to be very brief.

We understand that in the process we are going through there

are going to be problems. We are not naive enough to assume there are not going

to be problems. We are doing what we have to do. We recognize there are

problems, and we recognize there may be hardships in the process. All I can say

to the hon. Member is, if bumping is going on in the system so that people who

are not qualified and who are inexperienced are getting the jobs where they need

certain qualifications and experience then the bumping process is not being

applied properly and should be changed. It is as simple as that. The bumping

process really does not allow for people who are unqualified to get into jobs

for which they require specific qualifications. If that is happening then there

is something wrong in the system and I will look into it. I will certainly check

into it and find out if these things are happening. I have to say to the hon.

Member that we recognize that there may be problems in the system. We recognize

that there may be problems developing and we knew from the beginning there would

be. This is not a matter over which we had a great deal of choice, I can assure

the hon. Member, we are doing what had to be done.

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

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

Minister of Education. On March 12th the Minister said, I believe it is almost a

direct quote, at least 330 jobs would be lost in the education system as a

result of the Budget. He mentioned 100 at MUN, 100 in the colleges and

institutes, and 133 teachers' administrators, I believe it was, in the

elementary secondary system. Now, that the Minister has heard a sample of layoff

announcements from a number, at least a fraction, of the thirty-five educational

boards and agencies throughout the Province, I wonder if he would now like to

take the opportunity to perhaps revise the estimate that he made on March 12th?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, to clarify the hon. Member's

comments I did say, I think, about 350 was our best estimate at that time; 133

from kindergarten to X11, approximately 100 from Memorial, 100 from the other

post-secondary institutions, and others from the Department and the boards. I

said an estimate of 350. Mr. Speaker, with respect to teachers we are right on

because we knew the figure in advance, 133, sixty-six of whom would be units

from school board offices and the others would be from the classroom. We did

that to lessen the impact on students in the classroom.

I have said in response to a question from the Member for St.

Mary's - The Capes that our estimate in the post-secondary system was an

underestimate. For a variety of reasons, since we have started to get the final

details yes, the estimate is higher than the 100 we indicated.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much is it short?

DR. WARREN: We are not sure. Mr. Speaker, if the hon.

Members want the information as far as I can recall, at Memorial I think the

figure is closer to 120. But since I got additional information from Memorial a

number of the positions were not filled, so the actual layoffs would perhaps be

100 or even fewer than that. So I think we need to look at the data very

carefully.

We provide global budgeting to the post-secondary

institutions as I indicated in the House before, and they make the decisions. I

think at Memorial we are right on; I think in the colleges we may have

underestimated the impact and I think the latest figure I have for the colleges

would be perhaps 100 from the colleges. I do not know from the two institutes,

we do not have the final figures from Cabot yet.

There were figures released yesterday from Cabot, Mr.

Speaker, which were not, I do not think, officially released. From Marine we

have the figure; I think about twenty-six from Marine. Some of these positions

were vacant as well, and people are being taken care of in other ways. So until

we get the final figures from all the Boards of Governors and from the

Presidents, I hesitate to give more than an estimate, as I did, other than to

say I want to tell the House and the people that we may have underestimated the

numbers which are coming from the colleges and the institutes.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish

the Minister would stop playing games with the people of the Province and give

direct answers to the questions being asked. He is playing little tricks this

morning by talking about `they are not all layoffs.' Well I never did say he was

quoted as saying there would be 333 layoffs; he said there would be 333 job

losses, that is the point. So the reality is that he estimated 200 job losses in

the post-secondary system. That is what he said, correct? Now is he not aware

then that staff reductions already announced by seven of the nine post-secondary

institutions in the Province already total 276, and can he tell us how many

other job losses are going to come from the two remaining institutes?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I want to correct the

misinformation. I have already indicated in the House that at the post-secondary

level we underestimated the number. You should have been in the House when the

hon. Member for St. Mary's - The Capes - or you should have listened when he

asked the question, What about the figures in the post-secondary system? - and I

said, Because we could not project the figures, we had to leave it to the boards

to make decisions and to the presidents. Our estimate was an underestimate, and

perhaps there will be more than 200 in the post-secondary system. I can tell the

hon. Member that I have some figures, position losses: I think Western was about

26; Central 36 - 8 management, 4 support and 24 at the instructor level;

Labrador, my best information is about 7; Eastern 19. If you add these figures

for the four colleges and speculate about Avalon we would probably, yes, have a

larger number in the colleges and the institutes. I do not know the precise

figures, but I will give the House the figures as soon as I have the final

details. I mean, these figures are coming out in the press releases. I have

already said Memorial had 121 I think - 122, forgive me! But, Mr. Speaker, I

have been told by Memorial that a number of the positions which were eliminated

were vacant positions. I will provide the House with all the information, Mr.

Speaker, as I normally do, when I have it.

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: I thank the Minister for that, Mr. Speaker.

That is all we are asking, give us the numbers, straight numbers. Everybody else

in the Province knows what the numbers are, because they hear the press releases

every day. It is amazing the Minister does not have them at his fingertips.

Let me move to another area. The St. John's Roman Catholic

School Board recently laid off 22 janitorial and maintenance workers. I ask the

Minister, did he include these in his estimate of job losses in the education

system and, if so, under which group did he include them, MUN, the colleges and

institutes, or the teachers and administrators category? Also, because surely he

must know by now, it has been a month since the Budget was announced, could he

tell the House how many more support staff workers such as that group,

maintenance workers, will be laid off by the remaining 27 school boards

throughout the Province?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I want to deal with the St.

John's figures in some detail, as I have them. I do not have any estimates for

other boards and it is my understanding that with the St. John's number, the

layoff is higher than anticipated by the board and higher than it is likely to

be by other boards.

Mr. Speaker, in St. John's, the board was faced with the

problem the Government is faced with. Operating with basically the same money as

last year, we froze the operational budgets to school boards at per pupil

grants, and the board had to either borrow money, which they cannot do very

easily - and they try to get a balanced budget - they had to increase fees and

revenues, or they had to exercise fiscal restraint. I am delighted the boards

are taking the request seriously and are doing everything possible to balance

their budgets in these difficult times, and to work with the Government.

As I indicated the other day I do not know how many boards

are going to lay off how many people, if any. But in St. John's I did check the

facts, Mr. Speaker, and they are very interesting. This year the St. John's

board will get from Government a little less in operational monies, because we

pay on a per pupil basis and the enrolments are going down.

The second thing, Mr. Speaker, the St. John's Board looked at

laying off people, closing schools, combining schools, all the options, and one

option they seriously looked at, as a fiscal restraint measure, was to close

schools. They decided against that. They laid off some people.

Mr. Speaker, the third point that I think the public should

know is that the St. John's Board is going to get an estimated 12 per cent

increase in school tax revenues. So this year, 1991-92, the St. John's School

Board, the Roman Catholic School Board -

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

I wanted to point out to the Minister that he is getting into

too much detail in terms of the question asked. I think the question asked was

just what the predictions were with respect to layoffs, and the Minister is

getting into a very detailed answer. I advise Ministers if they think the answer

is too detailed for Question Period they can always take it under advisement for

Answers to Questions for which Notice has been Given or a Ministerial Statement,

but we should not try to monopolize Question Period and take long periods of

time.

MR. SIMMS: On a supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

final supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: My final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I must

admit, that was an extremely good ruling. My final supplementary: can the

Minister give a straight answer for once please, will he now admit, because

surely he must know, he has access to all the information that we have, it is

all public knowledge, it has been announced by boards and everything. Will he

now admit that there will be at least 300, if not more, job losses in the

post-secondary system, not 200 as he suggested, and over 200 most likely in the

elementary and secondary system including layoffs from school boards of

maintenance people and so on, and that therefore the total loss is likely to be

somewhere in the area between 500 and 600 and not the 330 that the Minister said

on March 12th in this legislature? Will he admit that?

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

DR. WARREN: Mr. Speaker, I have admitted in this House

that we underestimated the number of possible layoffs in the post-secondary

system. I have indicated the precise numbers for the colleges that have so far

announced their decisions. I cannot, before the boards of Governors and the

colleges make their final decisions, indicate to this House the exact figures,

but yes, the projections are that 200 was an underestimate and it may be an

underestimate by - of positions - of 100. That may be so. I have indicated this

in the House. It may be so. The actual number of persons laid off however, may

be substantially less than the total number of positions lost.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for

the Premier. The Provincial Human Rights Code, which as the Premier must realize

is

an Act of this Legislature, affirms human rights in areas within Provincial

jurisdiction, and specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in

employment. The Human Rights Code applies to the Government and its agencies the

same as all other employers in the Province and it takes precedence over all

other statutes including Bill 16, the rollback legislation.

I would like to ask the Premier if he would promise now not

to introduce any legislative amendment or new legislation or any other action to

weaken the protections and prohibitions contained in the Human Rights Code,

which the Human Rights Commission or the courts may rule supersede the draconian

and discriminatory measures in Bill 16? Will the Premier make that promise?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Now, Mr. Speaker, to answer that question

is going to take a little bit of time. So I want people to know that it will

take time. And I do not mind taking time. The hon. Member does not mind. Okay.

Mr. Speaker, the Government has no intention of introducing

any measures to diminish in any way our Human Rights Code, no intention

whatsoever. But I want to deal with the last comment in particular about the

draconian measures in the wage restraint bill that discriminates against women.

The hon. Member, with great respect to her, I believe is

totally wrong. She is suggesting that by reason of the Government cancelling

retroactive pay for pay equity we somehow are discriminating against women. What

about all the women they discriminated against by providing for retroactive pay

equity only for those who were in the hospital sector and hydro? Only for those.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

PREMIER WELLS: Well, it appears by their standard, Mr.

Speaker, that it is alright to discriminate if you are not asked not to

discriminate. Well I disagree. We are going to treat everybody on a fair and

balanced basis, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have

a question for the Minister of Justice. He will remember that in order to try to

avoid nineteen layoffs which he announced last week with the Royal Newfoundland

Constabulary, that the officers now will be required to do some shifts without

partners. In addition, all vehicles will be equipped with firearms and all

officers will be issued bulletproof vests. Certainly a new development for the

policing of this Province, in particular with the Royal Newfoundland

Constabulary.

Mr. Speaker, in light of these changes has the Minister

instructed the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers any new guidelines on

how they might apprehend suspects when we have one officer in a car or one

officer on a foot patrol?

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

MR. DICKS: Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, just in answer to

really two questions posed by the hon. Member. First, is that he suggests that

having weapons in police vehicles is a new development. That is inaccurate. The

previous Administration knows, and the hon. Member was a Member of that

Administration, that Constabulary vehicles on each shift have had a number of

vehicles that had weapons locked in the trunk. And those were available - I

think there may have been three or four on a shift.

What we have done as a result of the recent arbitration - it

did not have anything to do with the settlement involved - was to review police

security. And on the basis of some recommendations in the arbitration, one of

which was to provide the officers with bulletproof vests and also to increase

the number of cars that had weapons available but locked in the trunk, that we

should do so. And it is part of our ongoing security assessment both for the

public and the police. It was determined that we should in fact increase the

number of vehicles that had weapons locked in the trunk.

His second point I think was to do with - or perhaps I could

ask the hon. Member what his other point was? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, it is a new development that

all RNC vehicles be equipped with fire arms. That is a new development. It was

never done when we were there so the Minister can say what he wishes. Is the

Minister not concerned that the reduction to one-man patrols, either foot or

vehicle patrols, may pose a significantly new risk on the public and on the

officers themselves?

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

MR. DICKS: Mr. Speaker, the Member's observations are

inflammatory. The police in this Province have always had access to weapons, to

start with, and all that the Member is trying to make a case of is that somehow

because we have increased the number of vehicles that have weapons locked in the

trunk, that that somehow either constitutes a danger to the public or that the

officers are somehow not trained to use them, and that is patently false. I am

surprised the hon. Member would suggest it. We have, down at the constabulary, a

regular officer whose sole duty is devoted to training the officers in how to

use weapons. I may say with some pride, that I can say as an observation on the

constabulary that, that has been a very infrequent recourse of weapons that they

have. On the second part of his first question, which I now recall, was whether

or not we have given any specific instructions for officers who are now going to

be alone in vehicles. It has been the case that it is only the night shift who

have had two persons in the vehicle. Officers are often on patrol and come

across an individual by themselves when they are on the street, so every police

officer, frankly, is trained in how to apprehend suspects, how to carry out an

investigation, and how to deal with the public on an individual basis. We do not

need two officers to handle every type of offence that may be encountered on the

streets of St. John's or elsewhere.

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

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

of Employment and Labour Relations, and it is in connection with the health and

safety -

MR. R. AYLWARD: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had not stood up so I will

go back to the hon. Member for a supplementary.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride on a final supplementary.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the

Minister's answer and I apologize for not being up fast enough. I made no

suggestion that the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officers are incompetent, as

the Minister said, as a matter of fact I hold them in very high esteem, unlike

the Minister, Mr. Speaker.

Is the Minister not aware that only yesterday, or the day

before, his own Minister, his own colleague in Cabinet, the Minister of

Transportation said that we do not now have enough officers to enforce the

snowmobile laws in this Province, yet in the new agreement that you have just

forced on the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary by threatening layoffs, in the new

agreement we are going to lay off seventeen people by the end of this year and

forty positions in the next three years, yet your own Minister says that we do

not have enough people to enforce snowmobile laws at the present time, Mr.

Speaker, and other laws. Does the Minister not see some kind of a contradiction

in this, in laying off people when we do not have enough people to enforce the

laws we presently have?

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

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I did not hear my hon. colleague's comments but I certainly

concur with them and I suspect he did say it, and I suspect what he intended and

what I would support is that we would never have enough police officers in this

Province to accurately and adequately enforce every particular infraction that

would occur, particularly in snowmobile type of infractions, because there are

so many roads in this Province. As you know the laws are very detailed and if

you drive a snow machine across a highway rather than walk it across that is an

offence. Now, if we had 100,000 police persons out there they would not catch

every possible violation of the Snowmobile Act so obviously what my colleague

said makes eminent good sense. The second part of the question is whether or not

the reductions in the constabulary are somehow going to undermine policing in

the Province, but that is not the case. The ratio of police persons at the

constabulary for the number of persons policed is approximately one to 500 to

550 and the RCMP by comparison have one to now 950, so a function of policing is

providing a number of police officers to satisfy the type of crime you encounter

in different parts of the Province. It is my frank view, Mr. Speaker, that the

requirement to have two persons in the car is not going to, in any way,

differentiate the policing in the Province. In fact what I expect to accomplish

as a result of these changes we have negotiated is a much better standard of

policing in the Province, because what we have had over quite a period of time

is an excess amount of overtime caused by police officers having to come back

when they were on night shift, for example, when they were not required to be

there, but we had to have them there because of provisions of the collective

agreement, but not from a policing stand point in order to testify in court and

so on like this. What this will do, Mr. Speaker, is give a much greater level of

policing to the people of the Province. We will be able to deploy our police

forces as and when required and not have to have policemen there, or police

women there, when they are not required solely because the collective agreement

in that case requires it. It is to the eminent credit of the brotherhood and the

management that they came forward with this proposal recognizing the legitimate

policing needs of the Province and negotiated this change which they themselves

recognized as one that is in the best interest of policing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride, on a final

supplementary.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr.

Speaker, is not the Minister aware that sociologists in this Province and police

experts in this Province, expect a rise in the crime rate as the Hibernia

activities increase over the next several years and does he not think, as

Minister responsible for police protection in this Province, that he should be

preparing for such an eventuality in boosting the policing services in this

Province rather than laying off some forty people in the next three years?

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

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I suggest to the hon.

Member that the experts in this Province as to what to anticipate when it comes

to a rise in crime rates are not sociologists, wherever they may be, but rather

police officers and their managers. What I would suggest to the hon. Member is

that we confer on an ongoing basis with both the RCMP and the Constabulary to

determine what the crime rates are, and I receive monthly and sometimes weekly

reports of individual incidents, and keep track of general statistics.

There may be some concern that the nature of policing may

change, the types of offenses may change, but at this point in time there is no

indication and there is no request from the police force that we should increase

the number of police officers we have at our disposal, to be available in the

event that we might have some increased rate of crime. Frankly, it is the

assessment of the police that we have sufficient officers available, but should

the need arise, then certainly the Government is open to the prospect of

increasing police in accordance with any required incidents or any generalised

incidents of a rise in crime.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for

the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations and concerns health and safety

as it relates to the Hibernia project and the fatal accident at Bull Arm, last

week. I want to know whether or not the Minister is aware and is as disturbed as

I am, by the fact that the individual who died, went up on deck at approximately

four in the afternoon, alone, after complaining of illness, and was not

discovered missing until seven o'clock.

His absence was not reported to the authorities until 2:00

a.m. The authorities did not show up until 11:00 a.m. the next morning and a

search was not commenced until four in the following afternoon. Is the Minister

aware of these facts, and is she as disturbed as I am about that, and is she

satisfied that the response by employers and authorities is adequate to the

situation and what is she doing about it?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the hon. Member for

St. John's East, I am not in a position as he well knows, certainly from his

legal background, even if he is very much of a novice in this House, that I

would not be commenting on the case, if indeed there are any irregularities,

those will come forward as time progresses and we will deal with them at that

time. I must say, Mr. Speaker, at this time, we are still not sure if it was a

work related incident or not. The investigation by the way, continues.

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

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, as I understand it, the matter

is being investigated by the Coast Guard Marine Safety and that they take some

lengthy period of time to make their report, perhaps as much as up to six

months. Is the Minister prepared to wait until then, to determine whether or not

the safety procedures are adequate at Bull Arm, or is she prepared to have a

fresh look now, to ensure herself, that things are going on properly there?

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

Labour Relations.

MS. COWAN: On shore, we are treating the Hibernia

project, Mr. Speaker, as a large construction project at this time, and all the

normal rules for workers safety are being practised; at the same time we are

developing a program for when we get into the more sophisticated parts of the

project and that, as I mentioned in the House yesterday, is in second draft now.

We have a complete audit of the site going ahead the week of

April 15th; that is certainly not the first time that my inspectors have been

there but there is another one taking place. As far as the barges are concerned

we are still trying to investigate whether the barges and the tug which were

there - this is still possibly a matter for the Federal Government, but we are

looking into the matter as well. We do not know at this stage whether the

accident was, Mr. Speaker, work related or not.

MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.

Notices of Motion

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on tomorrow I

will ask leave to introduce the following motion: That the debate on Bill 16

shall not be further adjourned with further consideration of any resolution or

resolutions, clause or clauses,

section or sections,

preamble or

preambles,

title or titles, or whatever else might relate to Bill 16 should be the first

business of the House when next called by the House and shall not be further

postponed.

Petitions

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

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition of

residents of the Deer Lake area from people who serve with the Humber Valley

Development Association and who have volunteered to launch a number of the

projects sponsored by the Development Association. The prayer of the petition

is: The petition of the undersigned, the friends of MUN Extension, states that:

WHEREAS MUN Extension has provided and continues to provide

an essential service to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador; and

WHEREAS no other agency is capable of providing that service,

MUN Extension should be reinstated.

Your petitioners respectfully request that the hon. House

take such action as may be necessary to ensure that Memorial University

reinstates its extension service and that it be funded and equipped to provide

the services that it has traditionally provided.

Mr. Speaker, I support the petition. The petitioners have

benefited greatly from the presence of a MUN Extension field worker in Deer

Lake. That field worker has served the whole western region. In particular, the

worker has co-operated with the Humber Valley Development Association and the

President of the Association has been quite outspoken in objecting to the

university and Government decision to extinguish MUN Extension service.

In presenting other petitions, I have mentioned that

co-operatively the Humber Valley Development Association, municipalities in that

area and the MUN Extension field worker have initiated the Humber Valley

Strawberry Festival. It is an annual event which has been designed to boost two

of the main businesses in that area, two businesses with tremendous untapped

potential, and those business are farming and tourism.

Additionally, the field worker based at Deer Lake has been

actively involved with the Pasadena Venture Centre in providing programming to

inspire entrepreneurial activity. For a few years now the Venture Centre has

sponsored a program called Awakening Entrepreneurial Spirit. That program has

involved the production of videos and television production, which on two

occasions has been transmitted by satellite beyond our local area, and indeed,

way beyond the Province. The first telecast was beamed to most of North America

over a period of hours, and the second which took place last fall was linked

with the United Kingdom.

Mr. Speaker, the petitioners state in their prayer that no

other agency is capable of providing the invaluable service of MUN Extension

service. Now defenders of the University-Government decision have said that the

Economic Recovery Commission and its sub-agency, Enterprise Newfoundland and

Labrador have been put in place by the Premier to assume the former function of

MUN Extension service. One of the Economic Recovery Commission advisory board

members made that statement recently to people involved with the Humber Valley

Development Association.

Mr. Speaker, that argument is patently false. Why would

anyone want to replace an agency with a proven record of success and

effectiveness which local people appreciate and cherish with a new empire which

is still mushrooming and has yet to prove itself and which in its early stages

is undermining rural agencies such as rural development associations?

Why would the Government take away MUN Extension Service and

then put in place a new agency, the Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador, with a

huge suite of offices in Corner Brook and an office in Deer Lake? The people in

the area who are doing the nuts and bolts work of developing the economy did not

want that change, they were happy with the way things had been evolving before

and with the integral contribution of the MUN Extension Service field worker.

Lately the Government Ministers have not even been trying to pretend that other

agencies will assume the work of MUN Extension Service. They have given up their

claim that the Economic Recovery Commission, Enterprise Newfoundland, institutes

or colleges, will assume that work.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. Member's time is up.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to rise

in support of the petition presented by the hon. the Member for Humber East.

Once again we have to remind Members opposite, in particular Members of the

Cabinet, of the great importance of MUN Extension to the communities and people

of this Province. They do not seem to realize that despite the comments of the

Minister of Education MUN Extension is not a pass historical vehicle for work

in Newfoundland. We hear some people say that about unions. Unions were alright

in the past but we do not need them now.

Well this Government does not seem to need unions or anybody,

because they are going to legislate everything into existence that suits them

and have closure if they cannot get it through the House fast enough. But that

is just indicative of their attitude. This Government has failed to recognize

that MUN Extension has a continuing role to play in this Province. MUN Extension

which through its outreach facilities, whether they be educative, whether they

be related to the Arts and Culture through MUN Extension Arts, or whether they

be the community development aspects, are still very, very important in a

Province which, as the Premier knows, is still having a functional illiteracy

rate so high that the Premier himself has to participate in advertising to try

and encourage people to participate in programmes.

We know that MUN Extension through its community development

facilities has provided field workers, facilitators, to help people who do not

have access to Government, who do not have access to education, who do not have

access to the University and to the kind of consultants, to the kind of educated

advice they could get. MUN Extension through its field services and its other

outreach facilities has brought to the people of this Province, particularly in

rural areas where communication with each other must be by word of mouth and by

the presence of field workers active in the area, help to get the confidence to

fight for the things they need, to recognize their own abilities, to recognize

that they do have the right and the ability to fight for the things they need to

build their communities: to bring about community development activities, to

bring about rural development, agricultural co-operatives, the kinds of things

that have been going on through MUN Extension for the past thirty years. And

this Government has allowed - and through its policies encouraged - the

destruction of this great service and is not prepared to do anything about it.

As long as the people of Newfoundland keep wishing this House

to hear its petitions to restore MUN Extension, I will be getting on my feet.

And despite the fact that these Members do not want to listen to it - they are

happy to sit around and laugh and joke with one another - I will be getting on

my feet and making speeches to tell this Government that they are wrong and that

they ought to restore MUN Extension. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, the Member raises the same

question that was raised last evening and I will respond in a similar way.

Casting aspersions and comments about the ERC and their involvement in the

development associations throughout the Province I think is a fruitless way to

try to address this problem. In fact, the ERC has been very helpful throughout

the various regions of the Province in working with the development

associations. That is a prime part of their mandate, to see that these

development associations are properly working and addressing the needs of the

various regions, and they are doing just that. Last evening, Mr. Speaker, I gave

an example of how the ERC has been very helpful to my Ministry in that over a

year ago now, in discussions with one of the commissioners, we discussed the

possibilities of developing our cultural industries, and from that flowed a

report which is now available to Government and being examined by Government.

Cultural industries as we know are important - we identified

that, and probably previous Governments identified that but did not do anything

about it - in developing industry throughout the Province. The ERC has played an

important part so far in developing the report, and now will play an important

part in helping us implement that report and see that we cannot do more in the

various regions of the Province in developing our arts, culture, and other

cottage industries which obviously are important.

The Member mentions in her petition the incubator mall in

Pasadena which again points to the fact that we are more than willing, Mr.

Speaker, to work with the development associations, to work with arts and

cultural groups throughout the Province to help fill the void that has been

created by MUN Extension's demise. We have space in Arts and Culture Centres,

and I am just repeating what I said last night, we also have space in incubator

malls, we have space in our industrial parks throughout the Province, and any

way we can help in terms of providing space or assisting with staff, whether it

be staff of the ERC, of the development associations, of local authorities,

community colleges, any way we can help, and heavens knows we have an enormous

number of people outside the St. John's area.

We have decentralized Government, Mr. Speaker, more

dramatically than any Government before. I think we have Government now in

greater numbers and a greater presence in various regions of the Province than

was ever the case before. And I can point to almost every Department of

Government. We have regional offices now focused in every part of the Province,

so that decentralization has taken place. And if we can help by using these

regional offices to help with the arts, culture, and cottage industries in any

way we can to assist the groups who were involved in MUN Extension, Mr. Speaker,

as a Government we will certainly do all we can to encourage our people and our

staff in the various regional offices to provide expertise, assistance, office

space, and whatever else might be available to us. Mr. Speaker, we will

certainly help. Thank you.

Orders of the Day

MR. BAKER: Order 15, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order 15, Bill No. l6, second reading of a

bill, "An Act Respecting Restraint Of Compensation In The Public Sector Of The

Province."

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you, very much, Mr. Speaker.

The hon. the Minister of Treasury Board would like to have

the question today, Mr. Speaker. He would like for us to sit down and be quite,

to keep our mouths shut and let this thing roll by so that there will be no

controversy created by this Bill. He wants us to do the same as he is forcing

his Members on that side to do, to sit there and keep their mouths shut. And

when one of them had enough gumption to stand in this House - I am not sure what

he wanted to do - to either support the six month hoist or make some rational

arguments against the six month hoist, he was told to sit down and shut up. When

the hon. Member for Eagle River tried to do his job in this House yesterday, the

job he was sent here to do, he was told to sit down and shut up, and that is

unfortunate.

Knowing that young, new Member in this House of Assembly, I

would say he would have concern for the public servants of this Province. And

had he still been in his job with the Marine Institute, he would have been

affected by this. He knows personally the hardships this Bill is going to bring

on the public servants of this Province, and I believe he was going to stand in

this House to support our six month hoist.

MR. SIMMS: Just like he did on Meech Lake.

MR. R. AYLWARD: He did it on Meech Lake, and he has shown

in this House that he will stand up to the Premier of this Province, one of the

few over there who has ever stood up to the Premier of this Province. I believe

yesterday, except that the muzzle was put on him, he would have stood up in this

House and told what his former co-workers have to go through because of this

Bill 16.

Mr. Speaker, hopefully, now that the six month hoist

amendment has been dealt with - I was disappointed to see the hon. the Member

for Eagle River stand up and vote for it; but I guess when you have the ambition

to get into Cabinet and when you have the ambition to knife the Minister of

Fisheries in the back one of these days

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

What the Member for Eagle River might do or might not have

done on this bill has no relationship at all to the essence of Bill No. 16. I

would ask the hon. Member, please, to get to the essence of Bill No. 16.

MR. R. AYLWARD: I am sorry if I embarrassed the Member on

the other side, Mr. Speaker. I will leave him alone, because I know it is

embarrassing for him.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. The

Opposition House Leader is shouting all sorts of outrageous comments. I think we

should get something straightened up here. Yesterday, the Opposition House

Leader rose on a point of order to insist that the Member for Eagle River be

totally relevant to the debate, and His Honour, the Speaker who was in the Chair

at the time, agreed with the Opposition House Leader that the debate should be

relevant. At the time I supported the Opposition House Leader in insisting that

the debate on this motion be relevant to the motion, and there was agreement on

both sides. Now all of a sudden, the Opposition House Leader is making

outrageous statements and shouting outrageous comments, as if he disagrees with

Your Honour's ruling that the debate should be relevant.

Mr. Speaker, I would really like to make the point that we

should impose the rule of relevancy, as suggested by the Opposition House

Leader, for the remainder of this debate.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: To the point of order. I do not know what the

Government House Leader is all upset about. Members talk all the time in the

House. I did not rise on a point of order. I made comments, and the reason I

made comments is because we have seen more interruptions in the last two days on

the relevance point than I have seen in this House in the last two years. Now

that is my point. And every time the relevance issue is raised, it is raised

either by the Chair, by somebody on this side, or somebody on that side; but it

is happening much more frequently in the last two days, strangely enough while

we are debating Bill No. 16.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Now I am just a little bit concerned that

there might be something happening here. That is all I am saying, and that is

all I said earlier. I did not rise on a point of order to say anything. The

Government House Leader has raised this point. Everybody knows that according to

Beauchesne the ruling on relevance is very clear. It says, `Relevance is not

easy to define, and in borderline cases, the Member should be given the benefit

of the doubt.' I have never seen Members interrupted as much as they have been

in the last two days on this particular bill. The Member for Kilbride has talked

about Bill No. 16 this morning, and how another Member debated the bill, and

everything else. What the Member for Eagle River did yesterday was get up and

attack the Member for Torngat Mountains, and nothing else. That was the only

point yesterday.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order, just a difference of opinion

between two hon. gentlemen. The point of relevancy remains, and when the Chair

thinks there is a point of relevancy to be made, the Chair will rise to do it.

The hon. the Member for Kilbride.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. When

you make a point on relevancy I certainly will adhere to it. But I will not be

muzzled by the President of Treasury Board. I will not be sat down in this House

of Assembly, I will speaker here and speak my mind as the people in Kilbride

asked me to. There are not enough over there to shut up someone from Kilbride. I

will stand as many times as I want to speak on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, it is almost impossible to be irrelevant on this

bill. This bill affects every department, every Crown corporation, every

division. Everything Government does in this Province, this bill affects. You

could not possibly find some way to be irrelevant on this bill, unless you want

to talk about bathrooms that were put in five or ten years ago. That is the only

way. If I talk about the Agricultural Products Marketing Board of which the

Chairman quit last week and there is no Agricultural Products Marketing Board

now in this Province, that is relevant. Because in this Act, in the

schedule it

says the Agricultural Products Marketing Board. It is mentioned in this Act, so

that would be relevant. But I do not want to waste my time on that stuff.

I want to have a few words on this bill, Mr. Speaker, and the

attitude of the Government. King Clyde has brought down the whip again. He has

told his Government House Leader to bring in closure. These guys must be making

a few points that are hurting now. `We have to get rid of this bill. We have to

get this out of here, the same as we did on six, seven or eight other occasions

in the two years this Government has been governing. Not the most by once or

twice, Mr. Speaker, the most use of closure this Province and this country of

Canada has ever seen in the history of our whole country this Premier is using.

The only ones to use it more was the House of Commons in Ottawa, which used it a

bit more often.

Now Mulroney is supposed to be the worst ever created

according to our Premier, yet our Premier is following step by step in his

tracks. He is doing everything that Brian Mulroney did wrong. He must have read

a book about him before he became Premier so he could make wxactly every mistake

the Prime Minister of Canada made. Our Premier is doing the same things. I

notice the Member for St. John's South is nodding his head in agreement, because

he knows this Premier is making major mistakes. Mr. Speaker, he is one of the

people in this House who probably has the guts - he is not allowed to get up and

say it.

MR. SIMMS: Intestinal fortitude.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Intestinal fortitude, yes. We are not

used to these big words where I come from, Mr. Speaker, we just use regular

language when we talk.

AN HON. MEMBER: And you are not allowed to use that in

the House.

MR. R. AYLWARD: And I am not allowed to say that in here.

There are a lot of things I would like to say that I cannot say in this House,

Mr. Speaker, but I will have to carry on with it.

MR. SIMMS: It would be unconscionable if you used it in

the House.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, I might upset King Clyde if I said

what was really on my mind. But, Mr. Speaker, I think I might upset King Clyde

anyway. You know there is one thing I cannot mention, that the Premier is not in

his seat or is in his seat. That would not be parliamentary so I will not

mention that. I noticed today during Question Period, and yesterday - the

Premier, I would say, is probably one of the people in this House who regularly

attends the House, and even though he is busy he spends a lot of time in his

seat. He is in his seat most of the time, except when he has to look in the

gallery and look into the eyes of the people he is gutting with this bill 16.

The last couple of days he has been extremely uncomfortable in that seat, and

has not sat in that seat as often nor spent as much time in the House as he

ordinarily would when the galleries are bare and nobody seems to be listening.

He does not think the people in the Province will hear what he is doing.

Mr. Speaker, for the last couple of days I noticed that when

he has to look in the galleries and look at the people he has fired by bill 16

and by his Budget, people, who after twenty and thirty years of service he has

put out on the street with very little or nothing - I know one person who would

have been here thirty-three years in May, next month. He is out, put out to

pasture, Mr. Speaker, lost his job and he has a $16,000 pension. That is what he

has, and he has a family of two young children whom he has to support. So this

Premier cannot sit in his seat and look up in the gallery and see that person

looking down at him. He knows he has done immense damage to these people. And

not only to the person he has fired, but to his family and his relatives. He

knows what he has done to the public servants of this Province is not fair, so

he will not sit in his seat while people are in the gallery looking at him. He

would rather hide away. Hide away Clyde, that should be a new song developed one

of these days. We will probably hear it at one of the demonstrations yet. There

used to be a sea shanty one time, `Away haul away.' Well we will say, `Away,

hide away, hide away Clyde.' It certainly suits him.

Mr. Speaker, we have a name on this bill. I can see the

Premier sitting down in his office with his word manufacturers saying, `Now what

kind of a nice name can we put on this bill so that people will not really

understand what it is about?' He had his spin doctors working overtime. No

wonder the Budget for Newfoundland Information Services shot up by some 300 per

cent or 400 per cent in the last two or three years. They are set back in the

little corners of this building, in the alcoves of this building, trying to

figure out other ways to deceive the people of this Province. So they come in

with

an Act, "An Act Respecting Restraint Of Compensation In The Public Sector

Of The Province." Now if somebody read that Act out to me and I was not in here,

I would say, well, that sounds fairly reasonable. I do not see much about that.

What would be in that Act, I wonder? What is the purpose for bringing in such an

Act with a name that does not seem to be hurting too many?

The Act probably should be named - so people could get the

understanding of what is in it - the act to roll back the wages of all public

servants in this Province. That would be more suitable. You could also name it

the act to take away the monetary benefits from public servants in this

Province, especially public servants who work in Labrador who had a study done

into what monetary benefits and what compensation they should have. The study

took some time, and in good faith they signed an agreement which said they would

get certain monetary benefits for working in areas such as Labrador. This bill

will take that away from them and they will not get those benefits.

But most likely what this bill should read is,

an act

respecting the abolishment of pay equity. That will probably be the title on

this bill that will be remembered, as to why this bill is being brought in.

Because pay equity has been scuttled by this bill. Six point five million

dollars supposed to be in last year's Budget disappeared somewhere. I do not

know what happened to it. It went down the drain with his $250 million deficit

which went down the drain somewhere, was wasted.

They say yes, we have some money in our Budget this year for

pay equity again. But, sure, who can believe you? You signed agreements for the

past two years with every public servant in the Province. That meant nothing.

You tore them up, you threw them away. So what good is telling people I have

money in the Budget this year for pay equity? You had it last year, but you did

not spend it. You will have it next year, again because you are not going to

spend it this year. If the Premier gets it in his mind some day when he gets out

of bed and steps on a crumb, or a little stone which fell off his shoe the night

before and it hurts his foot, that is gone next year. Whatever the Premier gets

in his mind when he wakes up in the morning and nobody knows, it is not

rational, there is no planning. there is no foresight, there is no thought gone

into the decision, whatever takes him in the morning when he gets up, that is

gone. So next year, even though the Minister has provided money in his Budget

this year for pay equity, that could be gone; if the Premier has a hard sneeze

in the common room there after he finishes his coffee, that might be gone. So

there is no planning. Now because of this Bill 16, we are going to roll back the

wages of all 35,000, or however many public servants we have in this Province.

And the reason we are given for having to roll back these wages is that this

year, had we not done something - and the Minister of Finance was saying it

again today - we would be $250 million in the hole, more than we were last year,

even though he predicted a $10 million surplus. I forget what is was, but we

were $200 million or whatever it was in the hole and it was total mismanagement

on behalf of the Minister of Finance. But this year we would have been worse. So

we are going to see some leadership from the Government of this Province because

things are so bad. The first thing they do is bring in Bill 16, the first major

piece of labour legislation this Government has brought to this House of

Assembly, the Government which was going to smooth over labour relations in this

Province, because Bob Aylward when he was a Cabinet Minister was a real ogre;

you could not put up with him. He could not get along with labour at all. And we

did have our problems. I will not hide behind that. But I did not do this to

them. I saved their jobs.

I did not lay off 2,000, 3,000 or 3,500. The number seems to

be getting closer to 3,500 every day from what we heard today, and will probably

be more. But as bad as I was and whatever decisions I made, I did not fire

3,000. I froze their wages after their agreements ran out, yes. I did that I

admit, and it had to be done. And it could have been done this time. But the

Minister would have ticked off 35,000 people, and he is hoping to get away with

just ticking off the 2,000, 3,000 or 4,000 he is going to fire and everyone else

will be `happy I have a job left'. That is what they are betting on, Mr.

Speaker, that is what their spin doctors are telling them to do.

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious piece of legislation. As the

Minister of Finance tells us, we are in desperate trouble. So the first one who

is going to show leadership in this Province, because of the trouble we are in,

is the Premier. We will go to the Budget and the Estimates for 1991. In the

Office of the Premier, Mr. Speaker, last year's Estimate was $203,100. We had a

$10 million surplus when he made up that figure. Because we are really having a

rough year this year, obviously, the Premier would show his leadership and there

will be a reduction. What do we see here, Mr. Speaker? $209,200.

AN HON. MEMBER: That is not less.

MR. R. AYLWARD: That is not less than $203,000 last year.

Maybe we were not in such bad shape, Mr. Speaker. The Premier's Office did not

think so.

And what do we have here? We heard yesterday that farmers in

this Province would like to have a school milk program, we have a task force

that recommends we have a school milk program, we have a Minister of Social

Services who wants to have a school lunch program I believe, and he has provided

for some minimum wage labour to help in a couple of schools. What do we have in

the Premier's budget, Mr. Speaker? Last year we had nothing for Allowances and

Assistance, this year we have a $20,000 home lunch program for the Premier -

$20,000 with which the people of this Province are buying groceries to put in

the Premier's house. They did it last year and he did not budget for it; now we

have another $20,000, while we have public servants losing their -

MS. COWAN: That is not true, by the way.

MR. R. AYLWARD: We have public servants losing their

negotiated wages!

The Minister of Labour should be the last to open her mouth

on this bill. It is an insult to the Minister of Labour in this Province. The

Minister of Labour of this Province should never open her mouth. She should hide

outside, because it should never have gotten through Cabinet.

She is the one responsible for the employees of this Province

and she is standing up in this House and saying, `Yes, it is great. Let us do

Bill No. 16 again.' And we will do it again next year, if she has her way. Mr.

Speaker, she is the biggest disappointment to the labour movement this Province

has ever seen. Jerry Dinn had a rough time with labour when I was there, but at

least Jerry Dinn told people up front what he was going to do. And, Mr. Speaker,

he got into a fight over it. This Minister of Labour we have today came in here

to change the world. She came in, Mr. Speaker, on a mandate from the people of

this Province, the labour movement of this Province, got a copy of -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Sprung.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Yes, and I will talk Sprung anytime you

want, Mr. Speaker. I am supposed to be relevant to this bill, so I will talk

labour today.

The labour movement in this Province asked both parties last

election, as they do all the time, `What are you going to do for labour? Mr.

Speaker, here is what the Liberals said: `In recent years, economic development

in Newfoundland and Labrador has been impeded by an unsettled labour climate.'

That is what the Liberals said last year. When the labour movement asked them

what they were going to do, they said, `Economic development has been impeded by

an unsettled labour climate which has resulted largely from the failure of the

Government to recognize the essential role of unions in our society.' That is

what the Liberals told them, Mr. Speaker.

Now, the Liberals certainly have recognized the essential

role of labour in this Province. They went out and negotiated with the nurses; a

special case in this Province, the nurses were. One year ago, next month, the

nurses were a special case. Are they a special case today? They are going to be

basket cases, because there are not enough of them in the hospitals to keep up

with the work they have to do. Mr. Speaker, the nurses have certainly become a

non-special case with this Government.

Here is what the labour movement was told last year when the

Liberals were running: `The record of the Tory Government in dealing with labour

has been dismal. Its adversarial approach has created some of the worst moments

in this Province's trade union history.' Now, this is certainly going to improve

here.

MS. COWAN: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: There she goes again now, the Minister of

Labour who deserted the labour movement of this Province, who deserted the

teachers of this Province who put her here. Here she is, breaking the rules of

this House by shooting off her mouth across the House again. She should learn to

keep her mouth shut. Mr. Speaker, you will not shut me up in this House.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I am up speaking, more guts than you have

got. You are afraid to get off your seat. You would not get up off your seat and

speak. You sit down there like a mope while the people on Bell Island are coming

across like cattle on a boat. They are coming across like cattle on a boat while

you sit there and do not open your mouth, and not talking about Bill 16 or

anything else. Because I have so much to say in this debate I would like to

move, seconded by the Member for Fogo, the following reasoned amendment: that

all the words after the word 'that' be deleted and the following substituted:

therefore, this House declines to give second reading to Bill 16, 'An Act

Respecting The Restraint of Compensation In The Public Sector Of The Province,'

in order to allow additional opportunity to get input and hold discussions with

interested groups, since the Government has publicly said that it will not have

public consideration through Bill 16 through the legislative review process. I

understand this is a debatable motion and if the Speaker would like to take a

moment to research, or I can continue until your ruling is made on the debate of

second reading.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader on a point of order.

MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This amendment is exactly the same as the amendment that was

previously moved and voted on. I think Your Honour will find that it is not in

order to keep bringing back the same amendment time after time, after time. I

wonder if Your Honour could recess for a few moments to check that out?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader on a point of order.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I think the Government House

Leader is misreading whatever parliamentary reference books he is using to raise

this point of order because it clearly says in Beauchesne that there are three

types of amendments that can be moved on second reading that are traditional,

one is the six month hoist which we have dealt with and another is a reasoned

amendment. In fact in the back of Beauchesne it gives you exactly the wording

for the amendment which my colleague has used, and also, of course, you can be

referred to Sir Erskine May's 20th Edition, Page 531, fourth paragraph, which

talks about reasoned amendments and the wordings. You can also refer to a

reasoned amendment recently proposed at the British Columbia Legislature in the

course of a similar debate we are now into. I think Your Honour will find it,

and we certainly have no objection to Your Honour recessing to consider the

matter.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. the President of Treasury Board.

MR. BAKER: Very briefly further to that. I agree with

what the Opposition House Leader is saying, that there are different kinds of

amendments, nobody disputes that. My only point, Mr. Speaker, was that once an

amendment is defeated that the same amendment should not come back in another

form. The hon. Members could make all kinds of other amendments to the

legislation changing clauses, and this kind of thing, but you cannot keep

bringing back exactly the same amendment no matter what the guise and what form

it is in.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I just want to respond to the

point raised by the Government House Leader because, again clearly, the

Government House Leader did not hear the amendment or did not hear the way it

was worded. The amendment that has already been dealt with is: 'six month

hoist', the bill not be read for six months, a very specific amendment.

This particular amendment, the reasoned amendment says: ' the

House declines to give second reading to Bill 16', a totally different amendment

altogether and perfectly acceptable in terms of a reasoned amendment. Anyway, we

will leave it up to Your Honour.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair will recess briefly to get some clarification on

the amendment.

Recess

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair has taken some time to research the amendment put

forward by the hon. Member for Kilbride and according to the reasoned amendment

as outlined in Beauchesne and Erskine May, the amendment seems to fit the

reasoned amendment. I refer hon. Members to 670 of Beauchesne, which says that a

reasoned amendment: ' It is also competent for a Member, who desires to place on

record any special reason for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to

move what is known as a "reasoned amendment". This amendment leaves out all the

words in the main question after the word "That" to add other words. A reasoned

amendment is in the form of a motion and it may fall into one of several

categories, and that goes on to define the other categories and based on the

reasoned amendment, the Chair rules that this motion is in order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. We did

some research on that so I am not surprised at the ruling, so, Mr. Speaker, I

will continue to point out the hypocrisy of this Government and the deception

that the present Premier of this Province pulled on the labour movement of this

Province - and I made a mistake a minute ago when I said that the labour

movement came to the two parties and asked what they would do for us, actually

they came to the three parties, and I correct that as reminded by my colleague

sitting to my right.

But, Mr. Speaker, what the labour movement asked all

political people running in the last election, particularly the Leaders of the

Parties, would be what policies they would bring in to benefit the labour

movement of this Province: that was the general question that the labour

movement asked all the parties, particularly the Leaders.

What did the Liberal Government say they would do? What did

they say in the Liberal Manifesto that was put out during the 1989 campaign?

Campaign 1989 Policy Manual - Liberal For a Real Change - that is what the

campaign manual said.

Here is what the Liberal Party said. The Liberal Government

will be determined to create an atmosphere of realistic co-operation in the

development of labour legislation and in dealing with the public sector unions.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if Bill 16 fits into that category, if cancelling agreed upon,

signed contracts fits into that category, Mr. Speaker, I fail to see where.

The labour movement, during the last election was lied to;

there is no nice way to put it, they were lied to, they were deceived by the

present Premier of this Province; they were told one thing and the Province is

now, with Bill 16, doing the exact opposite of what they were told. Now if there

is some other way to say that is not being lied to, I do not know. But in my

vocabulary, the only word I know how to use is that the labour movement was lied

to during the last election campaign, and they were lied to by the Liberal Party

of this Province and by 'King Clyde,' who has dictated his way into going from

creating a cooperative and realistic labour climate in this Province to a

situation where we have a bill which will roll back public servants' wages,

strip the pay equity agreement that had already been signed even before this

Government got in, it will discriminate against women more than any

discriminations that have been in our recent history, I would say.

Because this Bill 16 is going to be the bill that will be

remembered by women in this Province as much as the bill that gave them the

right to vote years ago. This bill is the one that discriminates particularly

against women. It discriminates against the poor, against people who cannot

afford to be losing their jobs, who cannot afford these rollbacks. It

discriminates against people in Labrador, particularly workers in Labrador, who

signed an agreement for benefits for working in Labrador - under special

circumstances. There was a study done, there was an agreement signed, and this

Bill 16 will rip it away from them, it will take away their benefits.

Not only does Bill 16 take away these benefits it does not

allow them to make it up in the future.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: All wages and benefits are taken away.

Did you read the bill? The Minister of Environment says 'not true.' He is

echoing the words now of the Member for Exploits, 'Not True Grimes,' I think is

his name, 'Not true, not so,' that is his total vocabulary. But the Minister of

Environment now is echoing these words and he has not read the bill, he does not

know what is in it. Obviously he does not know what is in it if he does not know

that his constituents lose in this bill. They do not gain, they do not get their

Labrador benefits they should have this year because they signed an agreement.

They will not get them in five years' time and they will not get them in ten

years' time, because of a clause in this Act that says that you cannot make up

for what you lose in this time.

The bill itself is bad enough. But to put a clause like that

in there, I mean it is ridiculous. Talk about betraying the trade union

movement, that has to be the biggest betrayal. The trade unions are used to hard

knocks, they have gotten their share of hard knocks, and they will come back

with their hard knocks when the time comes. They will give their employer as

much as the employer will give them, except when the employer is the Government

and the Premier of this Province. Because what the Premier of this Province is

not willing to do is take his hard knocks with the unions, he is going to come

in here and change the legislation so they cannot give out the hard knocks that

they would ordinarily do, and rightfully so. Rightfully do too. They should be

able to come back here and if economic times improve, if the Minister of Finance

is taken out of his Department and someone competent is put in there to manage

the money of this Province and to bring in realistic budgets, probably that will

happen some time in the future. The Minister of Finance says that our economy is

going to grow more than anywhere else in Canada.

So what do the unions do ordinarily? If you are in hard times

today you come back in two years time - and I am sure the Member for Exploits

would recognize this being a former head of the Teachers Association. If you get

your knocks this time the next time you come back and give your knocks. That is

what the trade union movement does quite often. If I lose today I will come back

fighting harder tomorrow. But you cannot do that this time, you cannot come back

this time. Because you are not allowed to gain what you lose today, you are not

allowed to make up for this piece of legislation which strips public service

benefits, that is in the law. The only employer in Newfoundland who can do that,

the single only employer in Newfoundland who can do that is the present

Government, the Government of the Province, Mr. Speaker. If Newfoundland

Telephone wanted to do that they could not, if Newfoundland Light and Power

wanted to do that they could not, any of the employers in private industry in

this Province could not do it. Even if Newfoundland Hydro wanted to do it

themselves they could not do it unless the Government of this Province does it

for them. Mr. Speaker, that is not fairness and balance. That is not fair to the

unions. To say that you public servant sector unions, when you come deal with

me, if I do not like what you are doing, if I do not like what you are asking

for, I will put you to arbitration to see if I can get a deal out of that crowd,

to see if I can get an arbitrator in there who is as much right wing as I am. I

will try that first and if that does not work, if the arbitrator comes back and

says the demands by the public sector union that we looked at are very

reasonable, and you yourselves have given one sector a certain increase and now

you are trying to give another sector a different increase, but the arbitrator,

an independent person who looked at that said, the public service unions have

made reasonable demands and this is what I recommend to you, this is what I

would like to bind this Government into giving, Mr. Speaker, this is the

rational independent decision that was made. So the Premier of the Province did

not agree with that one so his second last resort is to bring in Bill 16. Now,

the only chance that the public servants of this Province have after he brings

in Bill 16 is for the two opposition groups - or the one person plus the

official Opposition - would have to debate in this House of Assembly to try to

change the minds of the Government who brought in such a piece of legislation.

That is the last resort. This is the court of last appeal, I guess, you could

call it, for the public sector unions, without them going to the courts and

spending a fortune of money. This is the last shot they have at reason

prevailing before they have to start challenging this legislation. What did the

Premier do in this House, Mr. Speaker? He has limited debate on the Bill. Now,

how can Members opposite put up with that? Even if debate closure was not called

there would be some reason, there would be some way for Members to express their

concerns and there would also be ways for Members opposite to get up and support

it. If you support Bill 16 do not hide away behind it. I supported the wage

freezes and the two and two when I was in Government. I supported it. I got up

and said I supported it and I said why. I did not have to sit in my seat like

sheep with their mouths muzzled. I did not have to do that. I stood up and

supported it because that was the Government and that was what I though was

right. I do not believe the backbenchers in this Government think that this

legislation is right. I really think they do not believe it is right. I am sure

there are a couple of them over there who have doubts about it. I am sure there

are a couple of fair-minded people in the backbenches who have doubts about

whether this is the right approach. Mr. Speaker, the approach is what is in

question. The problem exists. I think everyone knows the problem exists but the

way to solve the problem is what is in question. I think there are many, many

other ways to solve the problem rather than firing 3500 or putting 3500 jobs out

to pasture and eliminate them, and rolling back wages, there are other

approaches. One simple approach that would be very easy: on just a cursory

analysis of the budget of Work, Services and Transportation, Mr. Speaker, to

look at spending items that I say are optional, that you do not really have to

spend all of it, Mr. Speaker, in Works, Services and Transportation on supplies

alone this year, every supply that you need, tires for trucks, every supply, the

Department of Works, Services and Transportation is going to spend $48 million

and change on that. Now, Mr. Speaker, if they decided to reduce that by 1 per

cent, it does not sound like a big lot, 1 per cent, I do not think it would take

away from the great achievements that that Department is going to use this year

in supplies, if you take away 1 per cent of that at an average of a $30,000 cost

to the Government they could save sixteen jobs in just that one subhead in the

Department of Transportation. That is an alternative. That is something that

could have been considered. Purchase services is another fairly optional

expenditure item. It is not like closing hospital beds or keeping hospitals

open. I mean purchase service and the Department of Transportation, certainly

there are necessary purchases that have to be made. But, Mr. Speaker, you are

going to spend $207 million in purchase services this year. If you reduce that

by .1 per cent, by one tenth of one per cent, that certainly cannot inhibit the

operations of the Department of Transportation. That cannot completely demolish

what good they are going to do in purchase services in the Department of

Transportation. For one tenth of one per cent you could save seven $30,000 jobs.

Well, Mr. Speaker, if you are talking security jobs they are cheaper than that,

so you would save more security jobs, but at a cost to Government of $30,000 a

job, by saving one tenth of one per cent of purchase services in transportation

you could have saved seven jobs. Would that not be better than laying off and

firing seven people? Would that not be more acceptable to Members opposite? It

would be more acceptable to me. It would be an alternative that - I know for

sure it would not be for the Minister of Finance. I know it would not be for the

Minister of Finance because he hates public servants. That is why he is doing

it. He has no respect whatsoever for public servants. He is the one who says

public servants do not work enough. He is the professor who taught one hour a

day at the university five days a week and got $60,000 for it. And you say that

public servants do nothing. You taught one hour a day. That is what you worked,

one hour a day. You prepared your classes twenty years ago. You have been doing

the same thing for twenty years so you had no preparation time. One hour a day

and you say that public servants do not do any work. That is the Minister who

wanted to fire public servants.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. R. AYLWARD: I will keep talking, Mr. Speaker. I will

keep talking as long as I can to delay this legislation.

MR. SPEAKER: Order please!

MR. R. AYLWARD: I will talk day in and day out if

necessary. to show the hypocrisy and the deception of this Government.

Mr. Speaker, here is another one. Here is an option that

reasonable people opposite might consider. The Department of Transportation in

purchase of property, furnishings and equipment: now, you might do with an old

desk for another year, you might do with a desk a little while longer. So in

property, in furnishings and equipment the department is going to spend $64

million and change in that department. Now here is an alternative that you could

have used by reducing that by one per cent; a couple of desks you would not buy

or a chair that you would upholster rather than replace, something like that,

one per cent. You would have saved twenty-one jobs. Now I think that was

important, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: For one per cent of Sprung you would not

have saved one $30,000 job. I am saying one per cent of furnishings and

equipment and property. I mean certainly the Department of Transportation will

not come to a halt if they stopped this year spending one per cent on furniture.

I do not think they will come to a complete halt. So if they did that, that is

an option.

Mr. Speaker, in transportation and communications for the

travelling of what public servants we have left in this Province including the

Minister and his staff, for transportation and communications in that Department

we are going to spend $12 million; in that one department, $12 million. If you

reduce that by one per cent and each person did not travel once, out of all the

times they are going to travel, you get more than one per cent. But just by one

per cent, if they reduced it by one per cent they would save three jobs in that

one sub-head.

Mr. Speaker, I have looked at four sub-heads in the

Department of Transportation, just four. I have reduced them an average of .7

per cent. If you took .7 per cent from those four headings - not even a full one

per cent, just .7 per cent of all them you would save forty-seven jobs. Now

certainly the Department of Transportation is not going to close if you take

four sub-heads and reduce them by .7 per cent. I do not think they would. I do

not think you would need this bill here, you would not need to be rolling back

wages, signing agreements and tearing them up if you made some rational

decisions like that. Just four sub-heads for optional spending. You could have

saved forty-seven of the jobs.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: I would agree right now at this minute

that the opposition, if you agreed to take those four sub-heads and reduce them

by .7 per cent and hire on these forty-seven people at $30,000 each, we would

say nothing about it, I would congratulate you for doing it. I would say you are

great people because you know you made the mistake and you reconsidered, like

you were trying to do in the hospital care.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. R. AYLWARD: One per cent, Mr. Speaker, in Purchase

Services - furniture. No salt comes on the furniture or I hope it does not

anyway or you are going to be replacing it pretty quick. There is no salt on

furniture, Mr. Speaker, purchasing property, you do not need to purchase the

salt with the property, Mr. Speaker. If you have to widen the road, purchase

twenty feet wide instead of twenty-five. That is all you have to do. You do not

need the twenty-five feet. The other five feet you do not do anything with

anyway, you push snow on it sometimes. You do not need it all. That is all you

have to do. These are not major changes. These are not going to impair the

health and safety of this Province. These are simple little things that your

Minister of Finance will not do because he hates public servants. That is the

reason, Mr. Speaker, you have thrown away forty-seven, $30,000 a year jobs for

no reason whatsoever. Now if you want to talk about Minister's Offices I can do

that too. One subhead in Minister's Offices would save five, 30,000 jobs. One

part of one subhead, Mr. Speaker, and that is your $8,000 Car Allowance.

Now, Mr. Speaker, during the debate on Interim Supply I

mentioned that because we are told we are in such real trouble this year over

what we knew last year when we did our Budget, Mr. Speaker, that the Premier's

Office will show the leadership and Executive Council will show the leadership

and be the first to cut back, at least the 10 per cent that they said - I

understood everyone is cutting back 10 per cent. Now, Mr. Speaker, out of

thirty-six headings in the Executive Council which includes the Premier and the

President of Treasury Board, you would suggest that out of those thirty-six

subheads they would show the leadership and cut back many of those subheads. Cut

back the ones that affect Ministers. But did they? What did they cut back out of

thirty-six subheads? Nine of the thirty-six subheads.

Last year, Mr. Speaker, when we had a surplus of $10 million

estimated in our Budget the Executive Council cost $13.8 million, that was their

estimates in last year's Budget. Now this year we know we are in a much worse

position. We are not going to have a surplus, we are going to have a $250

million deficit. So what does Executive Council do to show leadership in this

Province? Certainly logic dictates that they will cut back.

Last year, Mr. Speaker, they estimated $13.8 million, this

year they have $14.1 million. That is not a cutback. The public servants in this

Province have their wages rolled back, but the Executive Council, Treasury Board

and the Premier's Office increased their estimates this year which is the worse

year in our history ever over what they did last year and that is not a cutback.

But certainly, Mr. Speaker, if the Premier and the President of Treasury Board

would not cut back, at least the Department of Finance, the Minister, the

Scrooge in the Department of Finance at least had the political smarts to appear

to be showing leadership. In the Department of Finance if you just do a cursory

review of twenty-seven headings, what would you expect out of those twenty-seven

headings in the Department of Finance? I guess you would expect to see at least

half of them cut back. I would expect to see in this bad year that he would try

to cut back all of them, Mr. Speaker. But out of twenty-seven headings in the

Department of Finance, eighteen of them were increased. Nine of them were cut

back, Mr. Speaker. Eighteen of them were increased in the Department of Finance.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Eighteen of them were increased and you

can show that all you like, Mr. Speaker, but I never faced a $10 million surplus

that turned into a $250 million deficit. It never did while I was in there, Mr.

Speaker. The Minister of Finance is the one who mismanaged last year's Budget,

Mr. Speaker. And he tells me that last year we had a $10 million surplus and

this year, Mr. Speaker, because we are in such bad shape, the Department of

Finance will cut back 10 per cent the same as everyone else. Well last year the

Department of Finance estimated that they would spend $43.5 million dollars.

That was in their last year's Budget with a $10 million surplus. So this year we

have a $250 million deficit, so at least 10 per cent cutback for Finance. No,

Mr. Speaker, this year, not $43.5 million does the Department of Finance spend,

it will be spending $49.3 million, a $6 million increase. That does not sound to

be fairness and balance.

Yes, the Minister of Finance should crawl under his desk and

hide. Yes, he should get under there and stay there, because of his incompetence

and bungling of last year's Budget. But the public servants of this Province

have to share the brunt of the mismanagement of this Minister of Finance. The

Minister of Finance who tells us that we have a $250 million deficit facing us

unless we make some major moves and he increases his own Department's

expenditures by $6 million. That does not sound like restraint to me. That does

not sound like cutbacks to me. The public servants who have no choice will have

to suffer the cutbacks. But the Minister of Finance's Department will not suffer

cutbacks, $6 million increase is what the Minister of Finance will suffer in

this Province.

Now, when the public servants of this Province are getting

wage rollbacks and pay equity cancelled and no chance of catching up in the

future, what does Newfoundland Information Services do in this Province?

Newfoundland Information is certainly providing an essential service in this

Province. It has to be the most important - especially in times of cutbacks -

division of any Government Department. It is certainly more important than 450

hospital beds. Has to be. The only conclusion that I can come to is that

Newfoundland Information Service provides such an essential service that it is

more important than hospital beds, than teachers, than public servants, because

Bill 16 puts a clamp to public servants. And the reason I come to that

conclusion, that since this Government took office in 1989 when Newfoundland

Information Services had a budget of $168,000 in 1989, much the same as it was

in 1988. A budget that we brought down and you presented. So we had prepared

$168,000 for Newfoundland Information Services. It was there and it was used but

it was not considered to be the most essential service in the Province.

What happened in 1990? In 1990 Newfoundland Information

Services went from $168,000 to $335,000, budgeted, $335,000 budgeted. That is

more than double in one year. But what did they spend in 1990? They doubled the

budget but in 1990 Newfoundland Information Services spent $513,000. Now what is

hidden away in Newfoundland Information Services that it has to increase by 400

per cent or 500 per cent in a one year span? What has been hidden away in

Newfoundland Information Services that entails an increase from $168,000 in

1989, a one year increase, in a year that we had a deficit, that we finally came

up with a deficit of - what was last year's deficit? - $117 million deficit last

year, but we could increase Information Services from $168,000, budgeted in 1989

to $513,000.

But that is not bad enough. Last year when we were doing our

estimates we had a $10 million surplus. This year Newfoundland Information

Services has become more critical a service. It has improved in its necessity to

operate in this Province, obviously. Hospital beds close, 450 hospital beds are

gone; teachers are fired; public servants are fired, but Newfoundland

Information Services, which I am sure the Minister of Social Services uses every

day and provides a lot of services to the social service's recipients in this

Province, Newfoundland Information Services provides them milk in their school

milk programme. And it provides them their lunch programme for which I

congratulate the Minister for setting up, yes. Newfoundland Information Services

must be doing some of that stuff, because since 1969 you have taken the budget

of that from $168,000 to this years's estimate of $560,900. Is that necessary -

MS. VERGE: Ask him what he did with the money he took

from the single mothers (inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Is that where the money you stole from

the single mothers last year has gone, into Information Services? Is that what

you did with the money you stole from single parents?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, is that where the money

went? Is that where the money went last year which is being effected by the

rollback in Bill 16? Is that where the money is going, into Information

Services? Is that the critical service in this Province? Is that the service in

this Province which rates a higher priority with this Government than social

service recipients? Is that the service in this Province that rates a higher

priority than social services assistance, that they could get a 400 per cent

increase when social service recipients got nothing? Is that the service that

requires a 400 per cent increase when hospitals are closing beds and laying off

nurses? Is that the priority of this Government, Mr. Speaker, who cannot feed

the people in the Province, who have fired 3,500 public servants in this

Province or more?

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. R. AYLWARD: Or more. I am not sure of that yet. Or

more, not less - or more, as confirmed today by the Minister of Education when

he said his estimates were out the door because he did not know half the people

who were going in education.

Now, Mr. Speaker, is this the essential service in this

Province? Can backbenchers in this Government sit there and support as an

essential service Newfoundland Information Services? When Placentia is closing,

when Port aux Basques is losing medical services, when Old Perlican is losing

medical services, when Come by Chance is losing medical services, we have to

increase Newfoundland Information Services by 400 per cent, not a 10 per cent

decrease as we were told by the Minister of Finance - not a 10 per cent

decrease.

Mr. Speaker, the other big waste of money in this Government

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

The hon. Member's time is up.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: By leave. By leave.

AN HON. MEMBER: No leave.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Fogo.

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the few things

we are allowed to do, which has not been cut back in this House, is take

part in

debate. And the debate in which we are now taking

part is the reasoned amendment

put forth by my colleague from Kilbride, in which he is asking that second

reading of this bill not take place.

MR. REID: A point of order, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Carbonear, on a point of order.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I was standing seconds before the

Member for Fogo and the hon. -

AN HON. MEMBER: You were over at the door.

AN HON. MEMBER: He was not!

MR. REID: I was standing seconds before the hon. Member

for Fogo. I noticed the Speaker was not looking in this direction, and I tried

to do everything in my power to get your attention. I guess you assumed no one

on this side was going to speak. I hope I am given the opportunity some time

before twelve o'clock today, Mr. Speaker, to rise in this House and make a

comment on this particular bill.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please

The hon. the Opposition House Leader to the point of order.

MR. SIMMS: To that point of order. I suspect the Member

is right, Mr. Speaker. Your Honour probably assumed nobody was going to speak,

because that is what has been happening in the entire debate on that side. So

the Speaker was probably doing the right thing.

I saw the hon. Member rise, and quite frankly I thought he

was heading out. There is no point of order. Your Honour recognized the Member

for Fogo.

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

MR. SIMMS: It is no big problem, he can get up the next

time.

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

To that point of order, there is really no point of order.

The Chair did not see the hon. Member for Carbonear standing at the time he

recognized the hon. Member for Fogo. However, if the hon. Member for Fogo wishes

to give leave to the hon. Member for Carbonear, that is all right.

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, if it does not cut into my time,

then I have no problem.

MR. SPEAKER: No, it will not cut into your time.

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

MR. REID: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the fact

that with what is going on in the House here at certain times, it is hard to

know in which direction to look when sitting in that particular chair. I have

been called some strange things in my day, but I have never, ever been called a

sheep. The hon. Member who spoke previously looked over at us and called us all

sheep. I am sure some of us, especially some of the Members who sit relatively

close to me, if I owned them as sheep I am certain I would get quite the reward

down at the abattoir if I were to bring them down and have them processed.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Member for St. John's (inaudible)

called you a cow.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a few brief

comments on this particular bill. I listened with interest to my hon. colleague,

my friend from Kilbride, and I can honestly say yes, he has all kinds of

wonderful ideas about what we could do, or what the Minister of Finance could do

as it relates to cutting the Budget further to save jobs. I am not of the

opinion, Mr. Speaker, that the people of this Province want this Government to

put more people back in the public service. When I travel around and listen to

comments from some of my constituents, and I am certainly sure from a lot of

people in the Province it has been said for the longest time, and the previous

Government said and ours, that in a lot of cases the public service is

top-heavy. And I tend to agree that in certain areas of Government services,

yes, the bureaucracy is top-heavy. I do not believe that laying off certain

members of the public sector will have a drastic effect on public services. I do

believe these people who are being laid off should be given every consideration

because of the fact that they are people and they have been working; and I think

Government have to be sympathetic about the fact that they are laying them off,

not necessarily eliminating their positions.

I spoke to a friend of mine just this past week, a very close

friend, who is being laid off from the public service. His comment to me,

basically, was that he was upset over the fact of his being laid off, but he

understood and realized that in the particular place where he worked they were

top-heavy in employees and top-heavy in management for a number of years, and he

congratulated Government for taking the stance they did.

With that said, I do not know where my hon. friends opposite

are getting the figure of 3,500 layoffs. I do not know where that is coming

from. Maybe in a month or two there may be 3,500 -

MR. SIMMS: Job losses.

MR. REID: Job losses.

- when we calculate it all, I suppose, and when I see the

calculations done.

I will just give you a little story. The hospital board in

Carbonear, for example, announced last week that there were going to be 18.5

positions lost at the Carbonear hospital. My sister happened to be one of those

who fitted into the category of that 18.5, and of course she came after me. My

hon. friend from Grand Falls should talk to her, because he might get a few

pointers from her. She came after me, of course, being the good Liberal she is,

and I, being her brother, and she said a few things to me. I told her I thought

there may have been some sort of mistake made and, after the kerfuffle and what

went on in the next couple of days, she called me back two nights later and

said, `Well, yes, I am going to lose my job, but I am still going to be on

practically full-time because there have to be people who fill in for illness

and Workers' Compensation and all kinds of things.' So, it is going to mean that

we are going to lose some people in the system, but those people are going to

find a certain amount of employment even though they are laid off.

MS. VERGE: But other people will not.

MR. REID: Other people will not.

I am amazed that the Opposition will continually talk about

the responsibility of Government to provide employment for people in the

Province. If we were an employment agency, Mr. Speaker, I suppose that is what

our job would be. But I do not look at Government that way, and I did not get

elected two years ago thinking that we were an employment agency. If you go back

to 1972, when the provincial debt was a miserable or a minor or meagre $800

million, and look at our debt today of $6 billion, one would have to wonder how

much of that debt was actually created because of employment, and employment not

for the sake of employment, but employment, in a lot of cases, for the sake of

appeasing some friend or constituent, or some relative, as it relates to a

politician putting a person into a job. That happened in my area, as everybody

knows, and I am certainly sure it happened in everybody's district.

I remember being teaching at the time of the wage freeze, the

zero and zero. I was an active Member of the NTA and I still consider myself a

Member of the NTA, and maybe one of these days I will be back in the classroom.

But I remember what the previous Administration did with their wage freeze some

years ago, for a two year period, and I also remember hearing Government Members

speak to different groups around the Province explaining why the zero and zero

was put in place. Basically they were saying that Government could not afford at

this particular point in time to give teachers or anybody else a raise and they

had no choice because of the economic conditions at the time, and the disparity,

I think the word was back then, in the days when we in Newfoundland were, I

suppose, considered to be have not, as we are have not right now.

I agree, and I agreed back then and I said we are into rough

times, we are into hard times to have to do that. But remember, the previous

Administration did not only do the wage freeze for two years. Immediately after

the wage freeze was lifted, and if I remember correctly, at the time the cost of

living was somewhere around the 6 per cent area, they were gracious enough on

the third year to come back and say well, you are all going to be looked after

now, you teachers and you public servants, we are going to give you a 2 per cent

raise. Remember that? And we took that. What for? Why did we at that particular

time, I wonder, accept the fact that Government had to put a wage freeze on for

two years?

I appreciated the fact back in those days, and I appreciate

the fact right now that we are living in one of the poorest provinces in Canada.

We are having one heck of a time trying to balance our Budget. It is almost

impossible to do. And apparently it is going to be impossible to do in the next

few years. When I hear of cutbacks in Ottawa and I hear about the economic

condition of the rest of the country, in other provinces, New Brunswick, Quebec

and on the West Coast, I wonder and I say well, we in Newfoundland are not the

only ones finding the pinch. And I say to myself when we talk about Ontario and

Quebec and we compare them to the Province of Newfoundland, I think you could

probably squeeze the life out of Quebec and Ontario and it would not hurt them

at all, but if you pinch us we start to bleed.

Mr. Speaker, the whole purpose of the wage freeze or the wage

restraint in Bill 16 is to try to catch up with the debt we have, to try to do

something with the debt we have, so that maybe in a few years time, because we

are doing this sort of thing, we will be able to provide better services to our

people and just maybe hire some people back so that more people can actually

work in the Province and provide taxes and so on.

I know the Opposition have to stand and do the things they do

and say the things they do because that is their job. And the more they say, I

suppose, the more it seems to the public that they are doing their job. And I

can appreciate that. I do not have any problem with Members getting up and

calling the Minister of Finance names and calling the Premier names and so on,

because that is all part and parcel of what they are being paid for. If they

were not doing that, then I guess the people of Newfoundland would say what is

the purpose of having an Opposition in there? Possibly in the next election

there will not be one, as happened in New Brunswick.

The only problem I have is sometimes they become so nasty

they forget they were governing themselves one time, and they forget about the

things they did during the seventeen years they governed. It sort of irritates

me, because the only time it happens, Mr. Speaker, is when the galleries are

full and there are certain people there. Yesterday afternoon the galleries were

full. When the galleries are not full, like today for example, there is very

little said. I suppose that is part of the Opposition's right to advertise, to

elaborate or whatever, and to criticize Government when people are present, even

though I do not really think they are hitting the majority of people in the

Province as it relates to press releases or their comments on TV and radio.

Let us talk for a few minutes about not what my party feels,

but what I feel has gone wrong in Newfoundland for a long, long time. I can talk

about the Sprung greenhouse, I suppose, as we all could, but I guess since 1949

or 1950, Mr. Smallwood was as much to blame as Mr. Moores and Mr. Peckford. For

some reason or other, we in Newfoundland had a habit of creating situations

where millions and millions of dollars were pumped into communities. My hon.

friend for Placentia is going to be upset when I say this, but I will take Long

Harbour as an example. The Government of Newfoundland pumped in millions and

millions of dollars - and Baie Verte is another one. I think I saw the other day

that Baie Verte was into the Government of Newfoundland for something like $45

million. Am I correct? If I am not mistaken, subsidies were paid to Long Harbour

over the years, and I have heard this on a number of occasions. I may be wrong,

my friend for Placentia, but I am going to repeat what I have heard over the

years. With the subsidies that were paid to Long Harbour over the years, if we

had kept all hands who were working home and had not opened Long Harbour, we

could have probably paid them $20,000 or $25,000 a year - to stay home.

MR. HOGAN: (Inaudible).

MR. REID: I made that comment. Long Harbour and Baie

Verte are a prime example of what this Government is faced with today. Are you

telling me that the Government of Newfoundland never put any money into Long

Harbour?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. REID: They never put a cent?

AN HON. MEMBER: A fortune.

MR. REID: I would say it was a fortune. Baie Verte, for

example, $45 million. I have seen where the Government of Newfoundland even

today has to pay back something to the tune of $45 million for Baie Verte. St.

Lawrence is another example. I do not disagree with the Government of

Newfoundland or any Government putting money into a private business to help it

produce jobs, or create jobs and employment in a particular area, but when you

reach a point where you are putting money into a project to keep it open, a

dying concern, I think the Government or somebody has to draw the line and say,

no more. How much is it going to cost us for an environmental cleanup in Long

Harbour? The point I am trying to make, Mr. Speaker, is that I do not believe

this Government or any Government in Newfoundland should be forced to put money

into creating jobs in a certain area and keep maintaining a private business so

that we can maintain jobs for the sake of maintaining jobs.

I think the Sprung Greenhouse was probably a prime example of

that. As I said, the situation as it related to Sprung and Long Harbour and Baie

Verte and all the other places around the Province where we have put millions

and millions of dollars, that has brought us to a point right now where every

year we are liable for millions of dollars. For what? To create employment for a

number of workers for a period of years, so that they can eventually be laid off

and, I suppose, shipped off somewhere to the mainland.

When I look at the money in the Fisheries Department which

has been spent on fish plants in guaranteed loans and outright grants, I wonder

if we would not have been better off taking some of that money, as I said to my

hon. colleague for Placentia a few minutes ago, and letting these people stay

home and paying them their $20,000 or $25,000 a year. A complete waste, as far

as I am concerned, of taxpayer's money.

I may be considered to the right here on these particular

issues, and I am sure there are a number of Members, a number of my colleagues

on this side who would not agree with me, who think we should be pumping

millions of dollars into dying industries like Baie Verte. I tend to disagree

with them. I do not have any problem standing in my place and arguing that

particular point.

Anyway, getting back to the bill. The wage freeze or Bill 16

basically gives the Province the right to hold the line on wage increases in the

public sector for a one year period and I agree with the bill. In fact, if the

economic condition or situation of this Province does not improve in the next

three or four months, I would suggest that the Government go even further and

possibly look at a next year freeze as well. And if that has to happen to

maintain the services we are providing in this Province as it relates to social

services or health or education, I am certainly sure the people of Newfoundland

will accept a rollback rather than see further hospital beds closed in the

Province or further cuts to social services or any of the programmes we are

providing in the Province. I do not have any problem standing today and

supporting my Government on this particular bill.

And, Mr. Speaker, the next time I get up, maybe some of my

hon. friends on this side of the House - I thank you on this side for at having

the decency to listen and be quiet. And maybe some of my colleagues on this side

can give me the same decency the next time I speak. Thank you very much.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My friend from

Carbonear gave me lots of ammunition for a couple of hours speech, I am sure.

The Minister of Social Services, I am quite surprised he did not perked his ears

up that time. Because any time anyone mentions social services in this House he

says, What? Did someone say something about my Department?

Now the Member for Carbonear, notice what he said. He said

that if we continue to have an economic downturn like we are presently

experiencing, we might have to have further cuts in social services. Further

cuts! That is what he said. Now the Minister has constantly said there were no

cuts. I wish he would straighten out the Member for Carbonear and let him know

that there are no cuts in social services, so he will not be out telling the

people of the Province there are cuts in social services.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINSOR: I do not agree. I am only quoting the

Minister. Interestingly enough, he too said we might have to have another year

of rollback.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, I forgot my glasses this morning

and I have great difficulty in seeing across the House. And I cannot read the

hon. Member's lips, so if he wants to say something, I would like him to get in

his place and say it.

Now I want to correct some of the things the Member for

Carbonear said, as well.

AN HON. MEMBER: How can you read your notes if you do not

have your glasses?

MR. WINSOR: Oh, I can see. I can look down. I am

nearsighted. I cannot see far away, but I can manage to see what is on the

paper. I am so glad, by the way, that my colleague from Carbonear did not get in

Cabinet and become the Minister of Development. After his economic prognosis for

this Province, I am glad he did not get in Cabinet. He advocates that we should

never have had a Long Harbour. Now I think what the Member was referring to was

the hydro subsidy that was paid. That, I think, started with the Smallwood

administration and was corrected by the PC administration.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) know about that.

MR. WINSOR: Oh yes I do. I know quite well what I am

talking about. Mr. Barry, your former leader, might have been the Minister of

Energy when the hydro deal for Long Harbour was substantially changed so the

Province would not have to pay as great a subsidy.

He also said that the mines in Baie Verte should have been

shut down, the mines in St. Lawrence should have been shut down.

We should not have given any guaranteed loans to fish plants.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the mining industry he wants to shut down, the fishing

industry he wants to shut down, and I guess he forgot to mention the subsidies,

the grants that we have given to the forest industry in Newfoundland. Now these

are the only three major industries we have and he does not want to subsidize or

he does not want to help any of these. So I do not know what we are going to do

with them. He said that the public out there were in favour of cutbacks.

Now the President of Treasury Board stood in this House last

fall and said it was going to be very difficult. There is not much fat in the

civil service left to trim. These were his exact words and I can find the quote.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if there was not much fat left to trim where does the Member

for Carbonear find that people are out there saying we were top heavy, there

were too many people to get rid of. We believed on this side, and unless the

Member for Carbonear has got some radically different information, the reasons

for the layoffs was a cost saving measure, it was not that there were people not

doing anything, this is new light, new information that has been revealed to us

today that the reasons for the layoffs are not cost saving, it was to trim the

fat from the system. That is what Members clearly said and Hansard will record

that the Member said that it was top heavy.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if we are top heavy in health care, as you

said, and furthermore that the people who were going to be laid off were going

to find their way back into the system then how was that going to effect any

real savings for that department? His sister is one of the 18.5 to be laid off,

but it does not really matter because she is going to be back working full-time,

practically full-time I think he said. Now how is that going to effect any real

savings? Let me tell the Member for Carbonear that there are in excess of 3,000

people out there. And I know in excess, because the figure is changing every

day, as to the number of people who will be severely impacted by the draconian

measures of this Budget.

He also spoke at length about the wage freezes that occurred

in 1985, I think was the year, and I would like to correct the Member for

Conception Bay South, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations who

yesterday said that it was announced at ten o'clock in the morning, I seem to

recall watching television and the former Premier took to the airwaves during a

night session, eight o'clock in the night, I think, when he announced

MS. COWAN: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: There is not a soul listening to you.

MR. WINSOR: Well the Minister of Social Services says

there is not a soul listening. Well he should know that there are not very many

people in this Province who listens to him or this Administration any more

either.

MS. VERGE: He is the $90,000 a year heckler.

MR. WINSOR: He is the $90,000 a year heckler, that is how

we refer to him on this side.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to read into the record again,

because occasionally when some Members on the other side are speaking we have

occasion to go through our notes. Now, Mr. Speaker, -

MR. EFFORD: (Inaudible).

MR. HEWLETT: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: Now, Mr. Speaker, here is what a certain

document says: the record of the Tory Government in dealing with labour has been

dismal. Its adversarial approach has created some of the worst moments in this

Province's trade union history. A Liberal Government will be determined to

create an atmosphere of realistic co-operation in developing labour legislation

and in dealing with public service unions. Well, Mr. Speaker, we got it in

spades what that co-operation is going to be, Bill 16.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if this is going to be the indicator, the

yardstick by which we have to measure this Government in its dealings with the

public sector unions in this Province, then I fear we are in for some tough

times in labour negotiations in this Province. The Liberal policy of fairness

and balance will be the basis of negotiations. This is what was said in 1989. In

1991 we get Bill 16, rolling back wages for at least one year and perhaps more.

In addition to that, there is a condition attached in

section 8 of the bill

which says that Cabinet will have the authority to roll back any adjudication

award that was made during the year of restraint. So in other words, if you fall

behind now you are never going to catch up. There is no provision in this that

says that if the economy should improve you will catch up. It says this is going

to be the law of the Province, that you are never going to catch up for the

years that you have lost.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if we take an average pay increase of 5 per

cent - we will take a modest 5 per cent because we know that the Province gave

out 8 and 10 and other much more substantial raises. If we were to take the

average wage of a person in this Province, it would be $30,000 a year working in

the public sector. At 5 per cent that will amount to $1,500 per year. Now, Mr.

Speaker, that is $1,500 that is gone forever, so if we were to look at the

cumulative effect in the working life of a person then this administration has

robbed thousands and thousands of dollars. Mr. Speaker, the worst news, if the

Member for Carbonear is even close to correct, is that we could be in for

another round of wage restraints next year.

Mr. Speaker, today for the second time in this session the

President of Treasury Board stood in his place in Notices of Motion and gave

notice that the closure rule will be possibly invoked next week.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINSOR: The Minister of Education should not worry

about my colleagues. What he should worry about are the colleagues that he

betrayed at Memorial University when he, on March 8th, had a press announcement

when he said he was going to give them an extra $5 million, and only on Monday

morning to say, 'Oh oh, I made a mistake it is only $140,000. I wrote my press

release two weeks ago before I knew there was a Budget restraint.'

The Minister of Education is a good one to talk about

colleagues. Now the Minister of Social Services is not in his place again, he is

gone back to the Minister of Forestry's seat to start heckling.

AN HON. MEMBER: The roving heckler.

MR. WINSOR: He is the roving heckler. That is a good name

for him. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, this is the second time that closure has been

invoked in this session. We have only been here since March 7th, speaking on the

Budget, and that will not be the only time, I am sure of that, because I think

it has been used five times or six times so far. So I am sure we will see

closure again. The only thing that has not been cut back in this Province is the

Member's right to speak for thirty minutes. Everything else has been cut back or

frozen.

The Member for Placentia, will have lots of chances to get up

and respond and tell us all about the incorrect statements that the Member for

Carbonear said about Long Harbour. We are waiting for him to get in his place in

a while and tell us about the incorrect statement that the Member for Carbonear

made, I think, he was heard to say across the House to