March 17,

1993 HOUSE

OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLI No. 8

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

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

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to clarify any confusion or

misunderstanding that the Leader of the Opposition may be labouring under as a

result of public statements made by me on Tuesday, March 9, 1993. The Opposition

Leader suggested yesterday that my comments represent an admission that there

are three different government positions on fiscal policy - that of the Premier,

the Minister of Finance, and my own.

Nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Speaker. As a

matter of fact, in my address to the Kiwanis Club of Grand Falls - Windsor, I

detailed and fully supported the government's consistently stated position with

respect to our commitment to fiscal responsibility, including an approximate $50

million limit on the current account deficit, an approximate $30 million

reduction in program and operation costs, and an approximate $70 million

reduction in compensation costs.

With respect to the reduction in compensation costs, I stated

that I was hopeful that our objective could be accomplished without a reduction

in take-home pay. I further stated that this was different than what the Premier

and the Minister of Finance had said. I pointed out that there was a difference

in my comments since the Premier and Finance Minister had been saying that our

objectives may have to be met through some combination of reduction in fringe

benefit costs and unpaid leave which could result in less actual take-home pay.

We do not know yet what the final outcome will be, but I am

sure I spoke for everyone on this side of the House when I expressed hope that

we could meet our fiscal objectives without a reduction in take-home pay.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: I regret that my usual honest, forthright

approach to the matter has caused confusion with the Leader of the Opposition

who continually tries to create further confusion. I apologize if my comments

have in any way caused any difficulty for the Premier or my Cabinet colleagues,

but I am assured that such is not the case.

I was not critical of the government as the Leader of the

Opposition further suggested, but rather acknowledged an awareness of the level

of concern existing in the public during a time of some understandable

uncertainty. I also pointed out that I am continuing to encourage my colleagues

in government and the other parties we are dealing with to finalize some

decisions as quickly as possible to remove the uncertainty and provide

definitive positions to react and respond to. It is clearly unacceptable for me

to be discussing publicly what advice I am giving my Cabinet colleagues and I

regret any embarrassment I may have caused by doing so.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the education issues

raised I addressed two matters which we have had and will continue to have

opportunities to discuss in cabinet and caucus namely the Williams Commission

Report and the 2 per cent savings clause. The Government positions put forward

by the Minister of Education and the Premier are fully supported by me, and I

look forward to participating in future discussions aimed at improvement of our

education system. Again, I have no hesitation in offering sincere apologies to

the Premier and my colleague the Minister of Education for any poor choice of

wording on my part that may have led the Leader of the Opposition or the public

generally to any conclusion of lack of support on my behalf. I accept and

support the Government's position without qualification and I rise to make that

clear.

I look forward to continuing to work with the Premier and my

colleagues as the details of much needed and long awaited educational reforms

are developed for the betterment of the youth of our Province.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recall the last time

that the Premier caught the hon. member doing something he should not be doing

he took away his keys, this time he is taking away his credibility.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SIMMS: Let me just say this, Mr. Speaker, the

questions I asked in the Legislature were based on two stories in a credible,

reputable newspaper in the Province and that newspaper and those newspaper

stories were liberally sprinkled with all kinds of direct quotations as to what

the minister had said at those particular speaking functions. The question is:

why would the newspaper want to misrepresent what the minister has said, because

that is what he is saying here in fact, it is not me? Why would the newspaper

say that Grimes has different views than Wells? It is not me, it is the

newspaper that I was referring to and the hon. minister knows that and if he

wants to make that kind of an accusation towards the newspaper than that is

between him and them. I can only tell him this, that I have had occasion over

the last twenty-four hours to speak with some attendees at both of those

meetings and I can assure the hon. House, Mr. Speaker, that their recollection

of events is much closer to that which was related in the newspaper than to the

account given by the hon. minister.

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

asking for leave of the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. SPEAKER: No? Sorry. There is a member saying no, and

the Chair cannot give leave if a member is saying, no.

MR. HARRIS: On a point of order.

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

point of order.

MR. HARRIS: Do I understand it that the hon. members

opposite do not wish me to make any comment on the minister's embarrassing

situation, is that the position of hon. members opposite?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order. The Chair can only be guided by

what hon. members say and in this case he does not have leave.

The hon. the Minister of Justice and Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, a very brief statement and I

apologise to my friend from Humber East, we did not get it through until about

1:30 I should think, but I hope she will acknowledge it, it is a brief

statement, we have not taken her unawares.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to announce the

appointment by the Cabinet of two new provincial court judges. David Edward

Power and Kymil Sharon Howe were appointed upon recommendation of the Judicial

Council. I think there were eighteen applications eligible to fill the two seats

that were vacant that have now been filled.

Miss Howe is a native of Corner Brook, she has been employed

hitherto as a Crown Attorney in Corner Brook, she is a graduate of Memorial

University and the University of New Brunswick Law School, she was called to the

Bar of Newfoundland in December, 1982 and practised originally with the firm of

Monaghan, Seaborn in Corner Brook and since 1990 has been a Crown Attorney in

western Newfoundland.

David Power is a sole practitioner in Gander. He is a native

of St. John's, he graduated from Memorial University and from Dalhousie

University Law School, he was called to the Bar of Newfoundland in 1972, and the

Bar of Nova Scotia in December, 1991. He has of course maintained his practise

in Gander while serving as a member of the bar of Nova Scotia. He has been a

Bencher of the Law Society of Newfoundland since 1986.

Mr. Speaker, the appointments are effective immediately.

These two judges will fill vacancies at Gander and at Goose Bay. The actual

assignments are the responsibility of the Chief Judge of the Court, His Honour,

Judge Luther.

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

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

On behalf of my colleagues in the official Opposition, let me

welcome news of the appointment to the Provincial Court of Kim Howe and David

Power. These are both very well qualified individuals, people who are suited to

holding judicial office. I am particularly pleased that a second woman has been

appointed to the provincial bench. I was about to say Kendra Goulding became our

Province's first woman provincial court judge but that is not quite true. From

what I recall, another woman served briefly as a magistrate or a provincial

court judge several years ago but resigned. But Kendra Goulding has been the

only woman on the provincial bench until today when she has been joined by Kim

Howe.

I am pleased to see that a vacancy in Happy Valley - Goose

Bay is going to be filled. I am concerned about the under-representation of

provincial court judges in Labrador. We, in the Opposition, took strong

exception to the government's decision to move the resident judge out of

Labrador West and to serve Labrador West from Corner Brook. We believe there

should be a resident provincial court judge in Labrador West, perhaps a judge

who also serves Eastern or Coastal Labrador, or Western Newfoundland, as well.

We are concerned about the adequacy of the provincial court service in Central

and Coastal Labrador. All along, there were two resident judges in Happy Valley

- Goose Bay who served the Lake Melville area, as well as the Coast.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the

Premier. Last November, he will recall that I asked him about the progress in

negotiations with Quebec for the development of the Lower Churchill River hydro

system and he said then that there hadn't been any meetings since March 3, 1992.

Could the Premier tell us now if any formal negotiations have resumed since that

date?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker, no formal negotiations

have resumed but if I just left it there it would not be a complete statement of

the situation. The reality is that events other than factors affecting the

negotiations or the positions of the two parties have intervened, most notably

the excess of hydro electric power over the demand for it. Members will be aware

that recently news reports indicated that Ontario Hydro had close, I believe, to

50 per cent capacity beyond their needs. Ontario Hydro recently announced that

it would be laying off some 4,500 people, would be closing one or two of the

nuclear reactors, and would be reducing its power output because it doesn't have

the need for the power that it is capable of generating. Quebec is experiencing

a similar thing and Ontario and Quebec are both competing in the foreign

markets.

So the circumstances, as nearly as we can judge now, and part

of this, at least this opinion, is partly founded on sort of causal, or

off-the-record, non-negotiating discussions, between Hydro Quebec and

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, with a view to assessing the overall

hydroelectric situation. The general view is that the power to be generated at

the Lower Churchill would not now be needed for a few years further down the

road than was originally the view as little as a year or two ago.

So the hydroelectric circumstances have changed. The fact

that there have been no negotiations since March of last year is not, I should

add, a result of any inability of the two parties to continue the negotiation,

or such strong differences between the two parties that it would be pointless to

continue the negotiations - it is as a result of the economy, the recession and

the hydroelectric power situation.

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

supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Trying to listen

carefully to what the Premier has had to say on this issue, I am not quite sure

if he admitted that negotiations have broken off, since there hasn't been a

meeting since last March - and up until that time, I believe the two negotiating

teams had been meeting regularly on a monthly basis. I guess my question is: Are

the negotiations, in fact, then, broken off? Is it fair to say that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: No, I don't think that would be fair to

say, although I would sooner talk to the hydro people specifically before I

would confirm that with certainty. Prior to November 1991 they had been meeting

virtually on a monthly basis. Then there were no meetings between I think it was

November 1991 and March of 1992. I think that that is correct. Between November

and March 1992, as hon. members know, the recession started to have its more

serious impact and those involved in both Hydro Quebec and Newfoundland and

Labrador Hydro, of course, became more fully aware of the impact on their

respective corporations of the lessening in demand for hydro.

The last meeting took place in early March of 1992. There has

not been any reason to continue negotiations since then, because there has been

really a recognition between the parties and sort of more casual conversations.

Members will be aware that representatives from Hydro Quebec

also sit on the CF(L)Co board, so there are discussions amongst officials from

time to time and there is a recognition that the hydroelectric reality in

northeastern North America is such that a continuation of those negotiations is

not a priority at this particular time.

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that these

negotiations are really going nowhere - I mean, that is the long and short of

it, certainly for the last year or so - I would like to ask the Premier: Would

he be prepared to give a full accounting to the people of the Province

concerning the negotiations? And would he be prepared to table in the House

details of the Province's proposal and the Province of Quebec's proposal?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition

can put whatever colour he wants on it. It is not right to say that these

negotiations are going nowhere. The situation is as I described it. Now, if that

is the colour the Leader of the Opposition puts on it, I just people to know

that is his coloration of it.

The second question that he raised is: 'Would I be prepared

to table the details of the negotiations?' No, Mr. Speaker, because the parties'

negotiations are technically still there, and the time is going to come when the

parties are going to continue those negotiations.

When the parties started out, it was agreed that we would not

disclose the positions that the parties were putting to one another until there

had been a conclusion. Now, unless and until such time as the negotiations are

formally broken off, not to be resumed at all, then I would not feel free to put

forward the details of the position.

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

supplementary.

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier

this question: Was there a direct proposal from the Province of Quebec regarding

the financing of the Lower Churchill project and the payment of royalties to the

Government of Newfoundland?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I just indicated that in the

circumstances I considered it would be inappropriate, particularly without the

prior approval of both Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and Hydro Quebec, to

disclose the details of the respective proposals. That being the case, it would

be equally inappropriate to do it through a twenty question process. It doesn't

matter how you do it, it is inappropriate either way.

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Premier again,

and I will do it this way: Did his Minister of Mines and Energy present such a

proposal as I just outlined, to the Cabinet, or to a Planning and Priorities of

Cabinet, and was that proposal not, in fact, supported by the minister and the

Province's negotiating team? Can he confirm that?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is

totally incorrect.

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

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

My questions are for the Premier, and follow questions I

asked him last week about ENL, also known as Employment for Noted Liberals, and

the now infamous $75,000 a year MacKenzie contract.

Last week, the Premier tried to shift the focus to the

technicalities of the old Conflict of Interest Act by saying he would ask his

Minister of Justice, a man who knows something about conflict of interest,

whether the MacKenzie contract breached the precise requirements of the act for

Cabinet approval.

I ask the Premier now: Is it not true that your 1989

provincial campaign manager, Fraser Lush, now your central Newfoundland

Vice-President of ENL, took work away from a member of the corporation's staff -

an individual who was already on the public payroll - and then contracted it out

at the rate of $75,000 a year to Bill MacKenzie, shortly after Mr. MacKenzie

left the office of the minister nominally in charge of ENL, and days after he

set up a consulting business? In other words, is it not true that this was a

calculated, deliberate act of partisan patronage involving a colossal waste of

taxpayers' money?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: To the best of my knowledge at this

moment, what you have just heard from the hon. member is a total, complete

fabrication. I will reaffirm and make sure that my understanding of it is

accurate, but my understanding of it would indicate that is just a complete

fabrication. There is no merit whatsoever in it.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber East, on a

supplementary.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Why is the Premier pretending that he doesn't know what is

going on with ENL? Why won't the Premier admit that he designed this corporation

to operate outside the ambit of the Public Service Commission? - that he

appointed his key campaign workers, Fraser Lush, Keith Payne and other Liberal

hacks, to key positions with the corporation? - that he has allowed ENL to

operate without acceptable procedures or controls? And now, he hears from the

Auditor General that in its first two years of operation, up to last March,

which is a year ago, ENL ran up something like $70 million in doubtful loans.

Why doesn't he admit that he, himself, has been part and parcel of this scandal?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, it is one thing for a member

to put forward propositions that she may have heard from somebody else and ask a

government minister whether or not it is true - but for a member to make the

kinds of statements that the hon. member has just made, when such an hon.

member, if there is a modicum of intelligence there at all, must know that there

is no truth in anything that she just put forward.

Let me just state for a moment very clearly: Enterprise

Newfoundland and Labrador was the successor corporation to Newfoundland and

Labrador Development Corporation, a Crown corporation created by the former

government that provided for its own appointment of officials as a Crown

corporation and didn't function under the Public Service Commission. Now, why

does she stand in the House and say that I personally - as though I had the

right to do it - could exempt Enterprise Newfoundland and Labrador from the

ambit of the Public Service Commission? I mean, surely, the hon. member has more

concern about her own credibility and her own personal integrity than to put

forward propositions like that.

Then the second proposition, if I heard her correctly, is

that she said that since it has been created, it has run up $70 million worth of

bad debts.

MR. ROBERTS: That's the Auditor General's figure.

PREMIER WELLS: That's the Auditor General's figure. Now,

Mr. Speaker, let me tell hon. members where the outstanding investment has come

from. From NLDC, the corporation created and run by the former government, $34

million of the $70 million was NLDC, $34 million - before this government ever

had anything to do with it. So now she stands in the House and says this

government created these bad debts. Another $16.2 million was RAND, the Rural,

Agricultural and Northern Development, all the agency created by the former

government, all of it done at that time. A 57 per cent NLDC - fifty-seven,

forty-six, that doesn't work out quite right.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER WELLS: The next amount, Enterprise Newfoundland

and Labrador, is $20 million. Mr. Speaker, that is the total indebtedness. Of

the total indebtedness, the original $34 million from NLDC, $19.5 million is bad

debts. Fifty-seven per cent of the bad debts was as a result of the way the

former government ran the corporation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

PREMIER WELLS: That is the way they did it. Mr. Speaker,

another $16 million of the indebtedness, $7.5 million of that is bad debts -

that is RAND. That's another 46 per cent of the total bad debt. In recent years

there has been a problem with $2.6 million of it. That is 13 per cent of the

total bad debts. Now, Mr. Speaker, we know what credibility statements coming

from the hon. member deserve. None.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I want to remind hon. members again as to what question

period is all about. I remind hon. members that sometimes when the question is

loaded, with all kinds of extraneous remarks, it makes it difficult for the

Chair then to decide when the minister has answered satisfactorily. Because he

starts dealing with the remarks that are outside the question. So I ask hon.

members to please keep that in mind. Talking about a question, it must be

question, not an expression of an opinion, representation, argumentation nor

debate. When we get into that then the answer is going to be similar.

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Mr. Speaker, is the Premier saying that he

personally agrees with the award of the $75,000 a year contract to Bill

MacKenzie, the former political aide to the minister nominally in charge, the

Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and if so, will the Premier explain

why that was a wise use of taxpayers money and will the Premier table the

content?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I have told the House, I

think it was on Friday, that I had no personal knowledge of it. I did not know

the thing existed until I heard it raised in the House but I have asked to have

the matter checked. I asked the minister responsible to provide the information

that he has and I have asked the Minister of Justice to determine whether or not

it contravenes the conflict of interest rule, and if it does contravene the

conflict of interest rules it cannot stand. The contract must fall and I will

see that it does fall, if it contravenes but I am not prepared to jump to the

conclusion that it does, merely because the member's Opposite want that

conclusion to be reached. I expect the minister will have it for me very

shortly.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Why will the Premier

not own up to his responsibility in this sorted affair? This matter came to the

attention of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, the Premier included, through the

public news media two months ago. Why will the Premier not stand here today and

own up to his

part in this dirty deal?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the fact that the hon. member

has no concern about the quality or reliability of her comments in this House

reflects rather badly on her, more than it does on the government. Let me say

that I heard mention of this thing for the first time here in the House, I

believe it was on Friday. I have asked to have the matter completely

investigated and I will advise the House. I expect, within a day or two, I will

have the reply from the minister, and as soon as I do, I will inform the House.

If the contract is appropriate it will stand. If there is anything inappropriate

about it, we will not do as the former government has done, and allow it to

stand anyway.

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

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

a question for the Premier, also. I suppose, in this Province, even the slowest

amongst us would realize that we are under a very severe restraint program, and

I guess, the public servants, the nurses, teachers, all of those, would realize

even more than anyone, what a restraint period we are under, because they are

getting their pockets picked every day, Mr. Speaker. We have, and have had for

awhile, examples of the Premier and his Cabinet being exempt from this restraint

period. Mr. Speaker, we have $800,000 spent on offices, the Premier's offices,

which is extravagant in these times, $600 for doorknobs, $800 for chairs for the

office, Mr. Speaker. They spent $800,000 on an agricultural task force to try to

find a candidate for St. George's, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to get on with the question.

MR. R. AYLWARD: They had fourteen or so media specialists

hired on by the government throughout the system that is costing a fortune.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member knows he is not supposed to make a speech. A

brief

preamble is allowed and I think the hon. member has stretched the

definition of a brief

preamble. I ask him to get on with the question, please.

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

my brief

preamble. Now, for the question to the Premier: Would the Premier do

his best to find out which of his ministers purchased an $800 briefcase and had

it charged to the taxpayers of this Province? The briefcase was purchased in

Toronto within the past couple of months. It was purchased in a specialty store,

in Toronto and the expense claim has been processed by the department. Would the

Premier look into that and report back to this House as soon as he can, about an

$800 briefcase?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raised a

number of other things besides the briefcase. I have been diligently looking for

the $600 doorknob. Every doorknob in my office was in my office - every doorknob

that has been in my office since I have been there, was in my office the day I

took over from Mr. Rideout. Now, when I find that $600 doorknob, I am going to

ask Mr. Rideout to account for it, just so the people of this Province will know

the depths to which the hon. members will think. Because they have nothing

positive to offer, so they fabricate the big lie and throw it out there, knowing

that there are some who are willing to believe anything at all.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I will enquire as to who, if anybody,

purchased a briefcase and what the facts and circumstances are, and I will

advise the House.

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

MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a question for the minister responsible for Works,

Services and Transportation. The minister is probably aware that the hostel, a

part of the West Coast sporting centre in Stephenville, has been closed since

February. The facility, an integral part of athletic and sporting development on

the West Coast, is owned by the minister's department. It has been closed since

February. Will the minister now take action to have that hostel re-opened?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, for several days now, if not for over a week,

the Member for Stephenville has been calling this matter to my attention and

requesting action on it. The matter is being reviewed by the department and

appropriate action will be taken, all at the initiative of the Member for

Stephenville, Mr. Speaker, and no thanks to the Member for Fogo.

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

supplementary.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Fogo.

MR. WINSOR: I remind the minister that enquiries to the

minister's office do not open the hostel, Mr. Speaker. We have been informed

that it is not going to be opened in this fiscal year and it is not a priority

for the 1993 fiscal year. It has been closed since February. I ask the minister

again: Is he going to now take the necessary action so that scheduled sporting

events can continue on the West Coast and Stephenville using the hostel, as has

always been done in the past?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I indicated to the Member for Stephenville, Mr. Speaker,

this matter is under review and appropriate action will be taken. I am in

constant contact with the member most affected, the Member for Stephenville. He

persistently inquires about this particular matter and I am sure, between the

two of us, we will find a satisfactory resolution, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, the minister should give up

playing politics and allow the people to play sports.

Mr. Speaker, the minister is aware, the estimated cost of

repairing this facility is $14,000 or less. Why doesn't the minister do the

right thing and immediately issue instructions to people at his department, to

have the pipes and the related work corrected so this facility can open and put

it on a priority list instead of putting it on an inactive list for 1993-1994?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation.

MR. GOVER: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, this matter is

being reviewed and a matter that is being reviewed is a priority matter. We have

to assess the needs of this particular facility in relation to the needs of the

other facilities which require renovations and repair but, as I indicated, Mr.

Speaker, with the strong urging from the Member for Stephenville, hopefully some

resolution can be found to this particular matter.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia

West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, (inaudible) Social Services.

Mr. Speaker, in 1988, the budget for people on social

assistance was $104 million dollars. According to the Auditor General's

statement, in 1991, the numbers of people on social assistance had caused the

budget in this Province to grow from $104 million in 1988 to $195 million. Let

me ask the minister: Can he tell me if there has been an increase or a decrease

in 1992, as it relates to that $195 million for 1991?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, the amount to be expended this

year, at the end of this fiscal year, should approximate $170 million and that

would be in all categories of social assistance in the department. If his

figures are correct and I assume they are, that would be a decrease from 1989, I

believe you quoted.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia

West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, let me put this to the minister

then. In 1988, there were approximately 16,000 people directly on social

assistance - families. How many people would be on it in 1992?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, we now have approaching 31,000,

something like 30,600 cases per se, people involved in those cases of course,

the cases vary from one person to as many as five or six people. The total

persons involved, if you like, receiving assistance, families and single

persons, would be approximately 66,000 or 67,000 people. Now, I would caution

the hon. member that that includes all categories of social assistance, people

who are mentally and physically disadvantaged, all categories are included in

that caseload and it is not all people who are receiving monetary assistance per

se and able-bodied. That is a small portion, if you like, a smaller percentage

of the 30,000 caseload.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia

West, on a supplementary.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the minister that

the proportion would be the same in 1992 as it would have been in 1988 which has

seen double the numbers of people on the caseload of the minister's department.

Most of that is the direct responsibility of no economic policy by this

administration.

Yesterday, my question to the minister was dealing with the

way government is clawing back from the people on social assistance in poor

times. Let me ask the minister this, in view of the fact that this government

has asked for and received approval from the Federal Government, not to pay on

the overpayment they received, let me ask the minister if he will do the

honourable thing and award the same type of a repayment program to the people on

social assistance as the Federal Government has given to this Province on their

overpayment? The minister cannot be part of a government with a double standard

and the people of this Province who are on social assistance cannot afford to

pay. I ask the minister, will he do it?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is obviously

grasping for questions because it is identical to the question he asked me

yesterday. The answer is the same, Mr. Speaker, that if overpayments are due and

payable to the government, to the Department of Social Services, if an

overpayment has been caused by way of an error, an advance, or whatever it

happens to be, it has to be repaid.

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

for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, as does the Provincial Government

have to pay back their overpayment to the Federal Government when they can do

it. Let me ask the minister: Why is he part of a double standard? Why the double

standard? Why, in poor economic times, does the Province not have to pay back

their overpayment, at the same time, without any increase for the people on

social assistance? Why is the government dragging money from them when all they

have on the stove is a drop of water in a kettle? That is what they have in

their homes.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. GULLAGE: Mr. Speaker, I have heard nonsense before in

this House but we are hearing the heights of it today. Mr. Speaker, we help

people, from time to time, to bridge a period when they are waiting to go on

unemployment or workers' compensation. We have helped people with the

moratorium. Until the moratorium package was announced, we helped people in that

transition period, as well. Mr. Speaker, we are very reasonable. These

overpayments and these extra payments, these transition payments that from time

to time we do help people with - we are very reasonable in setting up repayment

schedules, as reasonable as you can possibly be, and the cases are looked at on

an individual basis. We are as reasonable as we can possibly be, but we have to

insist in fairness to the large caseloads we have, in all fairness to the people

overall receiving benefits from us, that overpayments have to be repaid.

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

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

One of the great tragedies evident in the unemployment statistics released by

Statistics Canada as of last Friday, is the fact that 31 per cent of young

people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four are unemployed. Those are the

official figures but the real figures are actually higher. May I ask the Premier

what the one in three young people in Newfoundland who are unemployed can expect

to receive in the way of positive news in this government's Budget tomorrow?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: The hon. member, like all other people in

the Province, will have to wait until tomorrow when the minister delivers his

Budget, then they will know.

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

time for a short supplementary.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, if the Premier wants to go on a

crusade across this country, why does he not go on a crusade to support a jobs

plan for young people in Newfoundland and all across Canada? Why does he not

support such a plan, such as the New Democratic Party has proposed federally?

Why does he not go on a crusade for that? Instead of some pre-electioneering on

the fishery, why does he not crusade on the employment needs of Newfoundlanders

and Labradorians?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the difference between the

hon. member and myself is that I have the honesty to tell the people of this

Province that no government - this government or any other - can shield the

people of this Province from the consequences of a national, and indeed

international, economic recession.

If you look at that great NDP government, they announced

today that they are going to lay off 18,000 people. Was that the number I

heard?... some massive number. They just laid off 4,500 in NDP Ontario. In NDP

Ontario they laid off 4,500 in Ontario Hydro alone. Forty-five hundred are going

to be laid off in Ontario Hydro alone over the next while.

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Ontario indicated today - I

heard interviews with Premier Rae indicating that over the next four to five

years there would be substantial layoffs in the public service of Ontario. Now,

Mr. Speaker, great, wealthy - relative to Newfoundland - prosperous Ontario

cannot shield its people from the effects - the devastative effects - of the

national and international recession.

It is dishonest for any member of this House to stand and

suggest that somehow the government of this poor Province can do it

nevertheless. It is utterly unrealistic and misleading, Mr. Speaker.

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

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

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table six copies

of a special warrant under the requirements of the Financial Administration Act.

This special warrant totals $21,800,000. Seventeen thousand, three hundred of it

is for additional funding to reflect the caseload increase for social services,

a $3.5 million amount for home support services, and $1 million for youth

corrections additional funding to reflect the overcapacity of the Whitbourne

Youth Centre. So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to table these special warrants.

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

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

of order.

MR. R. AYLWARD: The hon. minister read out a $17,000

special warrant for social services. There must be something wrong with that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Seventeen million.

MR. R. AYLWARD: Million you meant, but you said thousand.

MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table the

First Annual Report of the Advisory Council on the Economy. That is the council

that replaced the economic council that was structured - the separate economic

council that was structured - by the former government and the economic recovery

advisory board. We consolidated them last year and this is the first annual

report. In doing so I want to express, on behalf of the government, to Mr.

Harold Lundrigan, the Chairman, and Mr. G. C. Eaton, the Vice-Chairman, and all

the members of that advisory council, the sincere appreciation of the

government, and I am confident the people of this Province, for their

volunteering their services in this way.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

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

Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of the

Statutes and Subordinate Legislation Act, I am required to table in the House

the regulations adopted under that statute since the House last met.

In the interest of sparing hon. members a very large pile of

paper, of which I assume they are already intimately familiar, in pursuit of the

ongoing efforts of my friend, the Minister of Environment and Lands, to conserve

paper I have not provided each member with a copy. The stack of gazettes on the

table in front of the law clerk represents the gazettes that have been passed,

or have been published, since the House last met.

I now table them, discharging my obligation under the

statute, and I would say to hon. members, Mr. Speaker, and to you, that if any

member wishes to have this, I would be delighted to have him or her sent a

complete set and would ask in return only an undertaking that he or she will

read each of them and report fully in due course.

Thank you.

Petitions

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

MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have four petitions here, all on the same subject,

pertaining to education. They are all from different schools in the district of

Humber Valley, and all the teachers are represented by the Deer Lake - St. Barbe

South Integrated School Board.

I will just read the four schools that the petitions

represent: C.L. Sheppard School in Cormack, the Elwood Regional High School in

Deer Lake, the Howley Elementary School in Howley, and the Deer Lake Pentecostal

School.

The prayer of the petitions are pretty well the same. They

represent a total of some fifty-five teachers in the district of Humber Valley,

under the Deer Lake Integrated system and the Deer Lake Pentecostal system:

To the honourable House of Assembly of Newfoundland in

Legislative Session convened, the petition of the undersigned staff of the four

schools involved;

WHEREAS we believe it is unjust to make a select group of

Newfoundland's population who have, through wage restraint, been already

severely sacrificed to the deficit, bear further inordinate portions of the

burden for the provincial deficit; and

WHEREAS we believe further cuts in funding to the education

system can only be detrimental to education, damaging the economy as a whole,

disastrous to our present population and destructive to generations of students

to come;

THEREFORE your petitioners pray that the House of Assembly

and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador take no action that will further

cut the teachers' compensation package or cut the number of teachers employed,

or reduce the programs in our schools.

Mr. Speaker, as I already stated, this represents some

fifty-five teachers in the district and four different schools. The school board

of Deer Lake Integrated system, in my area over the last few years especially,

has been devastated by the actions taken by this administration already. The

Deer Lake Integrated system for instance is short this year some $200,000.

There's no way, even today, that the Deer Lake Integrated system and the St.

Barbe South Integrated system can survive without any extra help. Absolutely

none, let alone any new, further cuts to maintenance or operating pertaining to

the school board.

A number of teachers have written to the minister over the

last couple of months and I'd like to pass on some of the concerns that they

had. I'll read out a few of them for the House and for hon. members opposite. In

the midst of all this, in the midst of all those cuts, the teachers in this

Province have to fulfil the job that they were originally hired to do. That is,

preparing our young people to be self-sufficient, independent, contributing

members of the society to which they belong.

This gets done despite all the cutbacks, despite all the

setbacks, despite wage freezes, despite threatened wage rollbacks, despite

layoffs, despite cuts in substitute days, despite the numerous rumours that

threaten their morale and professionalism. It is done because of the dedication

of teachers, parents and students in this Province. But they keep falling behind

and government insists that the cuts will make it more efficient and produce a

system that will give us greater equity.

Twenty children crowded around a single computer in an

elementary classroom - is that equity? A senior high school with only four

teachers, trying to provide a comprehensive program - is that equity? Numerous

multi-grade classes with no multi-grade curriculum - is that equity? Teachers,

because of declining enrollments, forced to teach outside their area of

expertise, I ask - is that equity? Teachers forced to curtail professional

development activities because of a lack of substitute days - is that equity?

Schools with no guidance services at this time of social upheaval- is that

equity? Schools with no adequate library resources, I ask - is that equity?

Teachers, parents, students, have had enough. Hopefully this

administration opposite tomorrow will take that into consideration when they're

thinking about making cuts to education in this Province and make sure that no

other cuts are made that would be detrimental to the educational system in this

Province. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

my colleague in the presentation of his petition. Here in this Province where

less money is being spent per capita on education than elsewhere across the

country I think it's very important to focus and use the dollars that are

available toward the best means possible. I can't think of any means more

possible than putting funds into education.

This government just recently slashed $20 million from their

budget for 1992-1993. In one specific area of capital expenditure, $2.5 million

(Inaudible) schools have severe problems. They're burdened, in debt, some

boards, and capital expenditures not available to go into education. Some

schools are hoping to join together into a new area and close down some schools

that are very poor in structure. But with a reduction in capital expenditure

they can't achieve that particular end. In order to have a facility that's

conducive to educational learning and proper attainment of their abilities it's

important to have an environment that enhances education, not one that takes

from it.

On the operational side of things, there have been severe

cuts on the operational aspect. Seventeen and a half million dollars achieved

just over the last quarter of this fiscal year. That alone has caused serious

problems within the system itself. Now to look at cutting even a 2 per cent

savings clause that was mentioned, even though that seems for the time being,

and hopefully to be saved, it was indicated a 2 per cent savings clause was put

there to protect teacher jobs.

The 2 per cent savings clause goes far beyond the protection

of jobs. It is the protection of programs in areas that do not have the

population base to be able to offer programs. Resulting in, as my colleague

said, people teaching outside their areas of expertise, four and five subjects

in areas where there are reduced teachers. Areas that they cannot really give

the best possible type of educational opportunities to their kids. I think it is

important that, if areas are going to lose specific teachers, that a plan - and

this Government has not put any plan in place, other than say slash the 2 per

cent or eliminate the 2 per cent to be able to redistribute and put into place

teachers in areas where there is a vital need to be able to maintain some

semblance of a reasonable program for the kids.

This Government has attacked teachers, it is like trying to

operate buses without having bus drivers. You cannot operate schools and offer

programs without teachers. It is very important. One of the first steps is have

someone to provide adequate instruction. You could teach them in a palace with

every possible opportunity there but if you do not have instructors that are

going to be able to convey to them the knowledge that they have garnered over

their training and through their experience, it is going to be very difficult to

have our students rise up to levels and achieve that across this country.

This Government should be more concerned with setting

expectations for students. Having targets of achievement over the next period of

time. They should be concerned with putting in place the mechanisms and so on,

to be able to monitor those expectations and those target levels that they set.

It is also very important that there be resources there also to help these

students achieve to their fullest. This Government has taken away the resources

that are needed in terms of facilities, resources in terms of teachers, and

cutbacks occurring all over the place. Under scrutiny, just the latest one is

getting into pension areas. Increase in premiums just a few years ago and they

are continuing to increase, and now trying to give Government a break from

contributing to a plan where $250 million should have been contributed by

Government into that fund over a period of time.

So, Government has an opportunity in

Section 61, the Schools

Act, this Government, the Government now, to exercise their authority under

Section 61, the Schools Act, that increase costs of transportation and reduced

competitiveness in schools in this Province.

Section 61, empowers the minister

to be able to make decisions pertaining to attendance of kids within a school in

general proximity or across town, whatever the case may be.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Being Wednesday, 3:00 p.m. the Chair has to

call the private members resolution which I understand is the resolution of the

Member for Eagle River.

I will call on the Member for Eagle River to introduce his

resolution.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very pleased

and proud today to stand in this hon. House and put forward a resolution, Mr.

Speaker, that is the most reasonable proposal ever put to the House of Assembly

in this Province to reclaim the fishery for the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: Mr. Speaker, what we are about to debate

here today is the essence of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the essence of our

future and the future of our children in this Province because without a fishery

in this Province and without a management process in place, where we have a

meaningful impact upon it, Mr. Speaker, there is no future and let there be no

people out there thinking otherwise. Over the next number of minutes that I

have, I will outline for all hon. members the basis for joint management of the

fishery. I will also illustrate what the present situation is and the impact

that it has upon the economy of the Province and upon the people who are

unemployed out there in our great Province today.

I should start off, Mr. Speaker, by reading into the record

the resolution has it stands;

WHEREAS most provinces of Canada have management control of

their principal natural resources; and

WHEREAS the fishing industry is of critical importance to the

economic and social well being of Newfoundland and Labrador; and

management control over fish stocks of principal importance to our fishery; and

resources has resulted in near collapse of key stocks and a most uncertain

future for hundreds of coastal communities; and

WHEREAS the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador must

achieve a meaningful voice in the future management of its fish resources; and

WHEREAS the Prime Minister of Canada in June of 1990 agreed

in writing with the principle of joint fisheries management for Newfoundland and

Labrador; and

WHEREAS the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board

provides a model for successful shared management of a natural resource; and

WHEREAS the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans is

proposing reforms that would give all Atlantic Canada Provinces an equal say in

the management of fish resources that are critical to Newfoundland and Labrador;

BE IT RESOLVED that this House hereby endorse the Province's

proposal for a Canada-Newfoundland Fisheries Management Board as an effective

mechanism to achieve rebuilding of fish stocks and long-term stability in the

best interest of the people and fishing industry of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine anybody in this hon. House not

supporting this resolution, but I must say that I believe it is time for the

hon. Leader of the Opposition to say something about the fishery in this hon.

House of Assembly, to say something to the people of this Province about his

views on the fishery and I look forward to hearing his views. Just recently I

noted, Mr. Speaker, that he claimed to be a Crosbie Conservative in one of the

newspapers in the City, so I would hope that he will certainly take this

opportunity to give his opinion on his Crosbie Conservative proposal that is

before the people of this Province today. I believe there are four reasons, Mr.

Speaker, that we must have joint management.

The first is principal natural resource. No other province in

this country has a resource that is so essential to the economy of that province

that it has no say into. Mr. Speaker, can you imagine, if the federal government

owned and managed the oil of Alberta, can you imagine what the Premier of

Alberta would do, considering what they did when we had a national energy

program? Considering what they did, can you imagine if the federal government

was calling out to the premier, Mr. Klein of Alberta every other day, saying to

him that you are only allowed to pump so many barrels of oil a day, you are only

allowed to pay your workers so much each day, and you must give so much to your

neighbouring provinces whether you like it or not? Can you imagine the response

of the people of Alberta, Mr. Speaker, in western Canada?

Can you imagine the response of Prince Edward Island, if we

had Ottawa coming to the farmers of Prince Edward Island, who are so vitally

impacted upon by the potato industry, can you imagine what it would mean if the

federal government were to say to the potato farmers of PEI that you can only

grow so much and after you have grown so much you have to give so much away to

other farmers, to other people in Atlantic Canada and other parts of the

country. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, if the federal government were to say you

have to give 30 per cent or 40 per cent of your prime, farming real estate to

other people in this country so they will have a chance to come in and take the

full benefit of that resource? Obviously, Mr. Speaker, it would be totally

unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, the second reason that we must have joint

management is the impact upon the provincial economy, and a lot of people in

this Province are still yet to understand that the very lifeblood of rural

Newfoundland and Labrador is attached to the fishery. The very lifeblood of 300

and some odd communities along the coast of Labrador and along the northeast

coast of Newfoundland; Bonavista, Conception Bay, Trinity Bay, down St. Mary's

Bay, St. John's is not also excluded from this, every place in this Province is

absolutely dependent upon this resource for their livelihood and some people may

not completely understand that.

I know today we have demands upon our treasury by the

teaching profession, by the hospitals, by the public service of our Province,

but I have to say to them, and I use my own community of L'Anse-au-Clair on the

coast of Labrador as a prime example, without the fishery, without that fish

plant in that community, whether that be a feeding plant to a larger one or

whatever, but unless we have those thirty-five to forty jobs in that small

community there would be no school; there would be no grocery stores; there

would be no motel there that we would be able to have any kind of expected

growth with, so there would be no L'Anse-au-Clair. There would be no community

as we know it, and that is not unlike any other of the three hundred and some

odd communities all across this great Province. You take that keel out of the

boat and obviously she is going to sink. That is a metaphor obviously that is

very real, and people must understand that this is the kind of impact that it

has on our communities.

Mr. Speaker, the third reason that we must have joint

management is that the present system is unacceptable. The present system, as it

has stood now since 1949, gives Ottawa total control over the management of our

fishery. It gives the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans the almighty power to

decide how much fish is going to be given to the international community and how

it is going to be allocated to the people of Atlantic Canada, and indeed to our

own fishermen and plant workers of Newfoundland and Labrador - and that is

absolutely unacceptable, because I can tell you that there is no need for, and

there should not be, an international directorate for fisheries in Ottawa -

there should not be.

The Secretary of State for External Affairs should not be

dictating fisheries policy in this country when it has such an impact upon our

people in Newfoundland and Labrador. It cannot be tolerated that the Minister of

External Affairs of Canada is using fish as a bargaining tool when it goes to

the international community trying to sell our wheat, trying to sell our auto

parts, trying to sell our iron ore, or trying to sell our lumber. That is not

acceptable when it has such an impact upon the people of this Province, and I

can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the people of this Province do not support that

and do not want to see it continue.

Mr. Speaker, apart from the international community and the

travesty of international trade, there is also the problem of how the fish is

allocated within the Canadian community. Most people in this Province do not

understand. Most people in this Province have been fooled. Most people in this

Province have not been told the truth about how the fish is being allocated and

how the system is set up.

I am sure that if you were to ask the general public of this

Province what 2J+3KL, 4Rs, and all of these numbers and letters meant, 5 per

cent of the people would be the most that would be able to tell you what they

mean or what kind of an impact it has upon them and their communities, but that

is the system. These letters and these words are the very essence of how the

fishery is controlled, and what they do is set up a total allowable catch, which

means that there is a certain number of fish in terms of metric tons that can be

caught, and then they go and allocate them to the different users. What they do

there is then give the tacit approval from the state for this company or that

company to go and harvest that fish, bring it to some place and process it.

What we have seen since 1977 is a process that has been put

in place that has not adhered to proper management, and I think particularly

about the proper principles of management. In 1977 when we went to the

International Law of the Sea to say that we should have jurisdiction within the

200-mile limit, we argued for that jurisdiction on the basis of certain

principles, and these principles are long-standing. These principles are

credible. These principles are being applied in other parts of the world. It was

not new that these principles were to be applied, and it certainly wasn't lost

on us when we sought to try and negotiate management control inside the 200-mile

limit. Mr. Speaker, these principles are worthy of recalling because they have

such an impact upon the present system. I'll certainly be illustrating that

later on in the debate.

The first principle upon which international fisheries law is

based is the principle of conservation of the fish stocks. That is the first

principle. That every community must manage its fisheries resources on the basis

that it's going to be a sustainable fishery, that it's going to be there for the

generations to come, and that we are going to harvest it only to the point where

we can have it rebuild and that it can have the kind of benefit year after year

to the people who depend upon it.

The second principle upon which the fish is allocated is the

principle of adjacency. Adjacency. It has not been said enough in this Province

and it's certainly not been repeated enough by our federal counterparts, that

adjacency means that those closest to the resource must get the greatest

benefit.

The third principle upon which it is based is the economic

dependency of coastal communities. That is also a very important principle,

because the economic dependence of coastal communities - if in fact in our

situation now in Labrador, if we had all of our people working in mining on the

coast of Labrador, then yes, there would be a possibility that we could afford

to not have any fish brought in there and harvested because our communities

would be self-sustaining at a difference resource. So that would be a basis to

see that resource go somewhere else.

Obviously nobody in this House needs to be reminded that the

economic dependency of coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador to the

fishery is utmost. It is not 10 per cent, or 20 per cent, it is more like 95 per

cent, with some areas of the Province that do have some opportunities in the

lumber-woods industry, and some dependence and some economic benefit from the

tourism industry. By far and large we are totally dependent upon the fishery.

The fourth principle upon which management is supposed to be

given is the principle of historic use. Historic use means not what happened two

years ago, or ten years ago, or even twenty years ago. Historic use is a

long-standing principle that recognizes the long-standing attachment to the

fishing industry, and it is termed in more like fifty to 100, 200 years ago. So

historic use to Newfoundland is obvious. People settled here for that one and

only reason.

Just a few days ago I was at an appeal hearing for an

individual in Charlottetown, Labrador, for the northern cod program. After

forty-two years in the fishery he was told by Mr. Crosbie: you do not qualify

for the northern cod program. After forty-two years. Because in 1990 he did not

get, for the first time in his forty-two years, ten insurable weeks in the

fishery. That was at the appeal hearing. He was told that he would not qualify.

Of course, his natural response to the appeal board was: why do you think I came

to Charlottetown, Labrador, why do you think I came and brought my family to the

coast of Labrador, if it wasn't for the tremendous fishery on the coast of

Labrador? That's why I stayed here.

It goes back more than five or ten years, it goes back to

four hundred and some odd years that we've been here as a people. These

principles are not to be flippantly dealt with as they have been by the federal

government over the last number of years.

These are very good reasons why we must have joint

management. The principal natural resource we do not have any control over, the

tremendous impact it has upon our provincial economy cannot be understated, and

the present system is unacceptable. These are three reasons why we must have

management control over the fishery but the fourth reason is, Mr. Speaker, we

have got to say today for joint management of the fishery in Newfoundland and

Labrador, is because of the federal minister's proposal for reforming licensing

allocation and sanctions in the Atlantic fishery tabled a week or so ago by the

federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, John Crosbie. This is the reason why

we today have to speak loudly and unified in this Province against the proposal,

Mr. Speaker, because if this is implemented it will be the death knell, it will

be the one thing that will put us in perpetual poverty forever in rural

Newfoundland and Labrador for the communities that live, and there will be many

that will not survive.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. DUMARESQUE: I say, Mr. Speaker, that if this proposal

John Crosbie has proposed is put in place it will mean perpetual poverty for

hundreds of communities in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, the communities that

survive, because other than that you will not have a meaningful say. Mr.

Speaker, I do not stand alone when I say that this proposal should be condemned.

Just two days ago the editorial board of the Evening Telegram cast their opinion

on this proposal. This proposal was thoughtfully considered by the editorial

board and the headline said it all. It said it was an unacceptable proposal. And

for the conservative leaning tenor that oftentimes comes from the editorial

board of the Evening Telegram, the conclusion of that particular editorial, I

think, is very interesting and must be carefully considered by the people of

this Province, and that was this sentence, 'This proposal by Crosbie is

unacceptable and every Newfoundlander should rise up against it.'

Now, these are not words that have just flippantly been put

on paper, these are words that were put there, I am sure, under considerable

thought and I believe they were put there because the editorial board of the

Evening Telegram recognizes how vitally important the fishery is to Newfoundland

and how damning a proposal this is to the future of the fishery in this

Province.

Mr. Speaker, let me say why this is absolutely unacceptable.

I just spent a few minutes outlining how we got the 200 mile limit and the

principles upon which the 200 mile limit was granted and how it is being divided

amongst the user groups within the Canadian community. I mentioned that the

first and primary principle of fisheries management is conservation of the fish

stocks so we will have a fishery for tomorrow. Let me tell you that on Page 9 of

this proposal the principles have been outlined: the allocation principles

written into the legislation would be important in giving focus to board

deliberations. It would be important because the board would have to deal with

how they are going to allocate the fish on the basis of this proposal.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I must remind the hon. member that his time is up.

MR. DUMARESQUE: Mr. Speaker, I would have appreciated a

couple of minutes notice from the table because I did not realize I was getting

that close. Could I just take one minute?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave for a couple

of minutes?

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

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

MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was offering the Member for Eagle River a minute to

conclude what he wanted to conclude. I realize, of course, that he is going to

close debate later on but if he wants a minute to just finish his train of

thought he can. As long as you do not take too long now and you have to keep the

volume down because it is a bit hard on some people's ears.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member has been given a minute or

so.

MR. DUMARESQUE: There is no problem, Mr. Speaker, and I

thank the hon. members for their indulgence.

I just want to say, before other hon. members note it, that

the principles upon which Mr. Crosbie is basing the future of our fishery on, if

you look at the four of them and I will deal with them later in the evening but,

Mr. Speaker, the principle of conservation of the fishery is not even on the

paper. The principle of trying to put in place a program that will see the

fishery on a sustainable basis is not even in the picture and that, Mr. Speaker,

is something that is remiss, has been remiss from any other public document in

this Province and in this fisheries department ever, since 1949. It was always

there and I wanted to say that that is a very, very glaring omission from Mr.

Crosbie's statement. I will have more to say on it later, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.

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

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

It is becoming a familiar topic of debate over the last short

while, Mr. Speaker, and I guess I want to go on the record at the outset as

saying and so it should be, so it should be. Last Wednesday we were here

debating a private members resolution on the fishery, I guess related in a lot

of ways to what we are talking about here. It is about us, in Newfoundland and

Labrador, that are in a crisis situation, as the Member for Port de Grave said

yesterday and many of us have said many times, that we are in a real desperate

situation. Most of our problems, regardless of what people say or how they feel

about the fishery, is fishery related. The economy of Newfoundland and Labrador

is driven, has been driven and will continue to be driven by our most important

industry, that of the fishery. Not that we do not have to put efforts into other

areas. Not that we do not have to attempt to diversify, not that we do not have

to attempt to do other things, but our fishery is in real trouble. I want to say

to the Member for Eagle River, right from the start, that there is not too much

which I can disagree with in what he just finished saying. There is not too much

that I can disagree with because I support, our party supports, the Province of

Newfoundland and Labrador having more say and more input into our most important

industry.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: Now, I do not know what kind of an

individual, what kind of a person you would have to be, that would not want

that.

MR. NOEL: A tory.

MR. MATTHEWS: A tory, no, no because the biggest tory in

Newfoundland and Labrador, tory meaning conservative, I say to the Member for

Pleasantville, happens to be the Premier. The biggest right wing conservative in

Newfoundland and Labrador is, the hon. Clyde K. Wells. I have to say to the

Member for Pleasantville, that he is not too far away from it himself.

MR. NOEL: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, it depends on the situation with you,

it depends on the situation whether you are right or left.

MR. NOEL: I am always right.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, I have to say to the Member for

Pleasantville, Mr. Speaker, of some things that we have seen in the last couple

of weeks, most people in his area think he is never right. Now, he can take that

whatever way he wants but there is a message in that, that there are not to many

people in the District of Pleasantville who think he is right on anything but

having said that -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: My salary?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. MATTHEWS: $8,000 car allowance and all of that stuff.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) polish your shoes every day.

MR. MATTHEWS: Polish my shoes. Members of Caucus bring me

coffee when I flick my fingers but that is what comes with having a bit of

authority, I say to the member but he will never realize that. He will never

know what that is like, I say to the Member for Pleasantville. He will always be

as far back in the benches - soon over here.

AN HON. MEMBER: He is not going to be over here.

MR. MATTHEWS: Of course there will not be much need for -

they will go in the one row, I say to the Member for Pleasantville, by the time

we are finished with them. One time before there were eight, I believe it was.

One time before there were eight of them. I would say there are not going to be

too many more when it all comes about.

Getting back to this important resolution, I want to say to

the Member for Eagle River that I can't disagree with his resolution. Most other

provinces in Canada do have management control of their principal natural

resources, there's no doubt. Now, ours is a bit different. In that (inaudible)

boundary. It swims. Sometimes it is closer to Newfoundland than it is to Nova

Scotia. Other times that same fish is closer to Nova Scotia than it is to

Newfoundland. Then we have the great big problem, Mr. Speaker, when it goes

really close to St. Pierre and Miquelon, and that causes a nightmare for all of

us.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, many times when the fish is very

close to the shores of Newfoundland, there are a lot of boats from Newfoundland

and Labrador a lot closer than the fish. And they are not after the fish, I say

to members. There is no doubt there is a real problem.

Mr. Speaker, we disagreed with the Atlantic agency proposal

since it was first introduced, announced, made public, whatever phrase you want

to put on it, back in 1991. I guess it was November of 1991. We disagreed very

strongly with it. Some people were taken back that we disagreed with it, by the

way. Some people were somewhat taken back that we disagreed with that Atlantic

agency proposal. But, as one member of this Legislature, as one Newfoundlander

and Labradorian, there is no way that I can support any proposal from anyone

that is going to worsen the situation for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. I

cannot accept it, I am not going to accept it, I am going to oppose it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. MATTHEWS: I am going to tell those who propose it

that they are wrong. I have continued to do that as late as this morning, I say

to members opposite. I have done it as late as this morning.

MR. SIMMS: And the Leader has done it.

MR. MATTHEWS: The Leader has done it.

MR. DUMARESQUE: The Leader (inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Oh yes, the Leader is on record, I say to

the Member for Eagle River, for much longer than his Premier is on record on

this issue - and some very specific proposals as to how we think this matter can

be resolved. Because hon. members know that in any kind of a dispute, when you

get people locking horns, two sides are stubborn, no one is willing to give, no

one is willing to negotiate, you don't accomplish too much.

Now, we think that there is a way about this. We really do.

We think there's a way about it. We've told people in authority that we think

that. We've told them that they should immediately - and they should - begin

discussions.

MR. DUMARESQUE: You should be the Leader.

MR. MATTHEWS: No, I should not, we have a good Leader,

who cares a lot more about the fishing industry, I say to the Member for Eagle

River, than does his leader, who only pretends to care about it. It has only

become a popular issue for your leader within the last few weeks.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: I say to you in all sincerity, having been

here longer than some members, who were here with their leader who was then

Leader of the Opposition, and now with him as Premier, that he is singing a

different tune today than he sang for the last four years, a very different

tune, I say to members opposite, when I went toe to toe with the Premier, Mr.

Speaker, in the old Legislature up on the ninth or tenth floor, toe to toe with

him. When that Premier said to me that we could not afford - his very words - we

could not afford, I said to him: Premier, we can not afford to not have more

say, to have more control over our most important industry, because - and you

see it has been borne out, what I said four years ago.

I said: if we had more control over our industry, it wouldn't

be in the state it is in today. If we had healthier fish stocks, a higher total

allowable catch, more fish being brought ashore in Newfoundland and Labrador,

more Newfoundlanders and Labradorians working in our communities, then the

bottom line of this Province would be much better off. And Premier, we then

could afford it very much. That was the argument I used in the old Legislature

and it sounded to me to be very logical.

But how can a person who argued that for so long, who is

saying: What could we do if we had it? What will we do with it? - and now,

suddenly want to rise up and be the saving grace of the Newfoundland fishery?

People are just not going to buy it, I say to members opposite. They are not

going to buy it, it is not going to wash. Because Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians can see through the Plexiglas, they can see through the

transparency of this Premier.

Now, I am not doubting at all the sincerity of the Member for

Eagle River, not one bit, or the Member for St. John's South, or the Member for

Port de Grave, when they express concerns about the fishery in this House and

publicly. I know where they are coming from. I think they are a lot like I am.

Their backgrounds are very similar. They have gone through the hardship, with

their people, of knowing, of seeing their communities decline, seeing people

thrown out of work.

I have said it before, but before I got into politics, I was

wrestling with the possibility of my hometown going down the tube, and I am

still wrestling with it today. I went through it with the restructuring crisis

in the early 1980s. I went through it just a couple of years ago when FPI

announced that they were shutting down the plant. We have a new operator there

now who is trying to do something very different in scallops and (inaudible),

and there is still that uncertainty attached, so we are still going through it

all. I am hopeful it is going to work but, of course, what complicates it now,

in the town that I now live in, is to see that the people there now have not

worked this year and are hoping to get good news by June; but all indications

are that the news is not going to be good for them in Fortune.

Then, of course, across the bay from us we have Harbour

Breton. Go up the coast - Belleoram, Gaultois. Gaultois is still making a go on

a bit of red fish. Ramea has a bit of, I guess, life. All around the Province

you go, and it is all because of our fishery. It is all because of our fishery,

and why should we not have more say over that? How can anyone not agree with

that? Why would anyone propose something that, in my opinion, is more complex

and is only going to muddy it all up more? Why would you propose that? Why would

you do it? If we are going to make it work, if we are going to get it back, then

why would we not try to somewhat simplify it to make it more workable? - not

that everybody can go and do what he likes - no one is proposing that.

I don't think anyone has suggested that the Federal

Government shouldn't continue to provide surveillance or be totally involved or

mostly involved in the scientific arm of it all. No one has ever suggested that.

There are a lot of questions asked about the science, what that has done for us

all, but someone has to have responsibility. But when it comes to what we do in

Newfoundland and Labrador with our amount of the total allowable catch, that

should be left up to us. I think it should. Why should someone else dictate to

where Newfoundland and Labrador's share of the total allowable catch goes? Why

can't we decide that as a people? Just tell us. No one disagrees that the

Federal Government shouldn't set it, with some input from us. Someone has to

make the decision, whether it is 200,000 or 400,000, but if ours is 200,000, let

us decide where it goes and what we do with it in Newfoundland and Labrador.

That is my point.

So why would anyone suggest a five - whatever it is called -

a five-member board - representatives from five provincial governments and the

Federal Government? If you were ever looking for a snarl and a tangle that will

never unravel, I think that is basically what they are proposing, I say to the

Member for Eagle River, and I didn't like it from day one. I take exception to

it, and I still think there can be an arrangement entered into by the Government

of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Federal Government that will do for this

Province what it wants to do in the fishery, and can allow the Federal

Government to maintain the couple of things that they should maintain, I think,

but give us the bulk of the say. I think that can be worked out, I say to the

Member for Eagle River. There is a way around it, but it will never be worked

out if we just go separate ways, not talking to one another and so on.

I want to go on record as saying that I totally support joint

management. I always have. I don' think there is any other route for us to

go,because you are right - if we don' get it, all the doom and gloom you are

forecasting, it is going to be bad enough as it is. I don't know if members

realize just how bad it is with our fish resources. Sometimes I wonder.

Sometimes I wonder if they really realize, but if you follow this as closely as

I have for the last twenty years, I tell you, it is a frightening situation. It

is very, very frightening what is happening out there - and it is not only with

2J+3KL cod. It is in 3Ps. It is all the way along the South Coast and up in the

Gulf, and it is not only with cod, I say to members. The flounder resources are

in serious, serious trouble. The caplin is just about gone, so what is next? I

say to the Member for Fortune - Hermitage, we just talked about Gaultois and

redfish. The most that FPI has processed, in Marystown so far this year, is

redfish. The other catches have been so low. Redfish - it is a struggle to make

a go on redfish. It is not lucrative, there is not a great demand in the

marketplace for it. Most other times companies could sell redfish because they

had the cod and the flounder as leaders in the marketplace. They could say to

people who wanted the cod and flounder so badly, yes, you can have our cod and

flounder but you must take a certain amount of our redfish species. Now, that is

what happened. Redfish was never lucrative, redfish was always borderline.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, it is improving but what I am saying

is that without the cod and flounder as leaders, it is going to be harder to

move the redfish. So, nobody can really hang their hat on a company like FPI

being around too long if the only thing they are going to have to process is

redfish. They won't be around here.

So, that is just how serious the situation is, Mr. Speaker. I

think I am just about out of time. It is to bad I can't speak again after the

member does, because I know he is going to get really fiery, when he knows there

is nobody else coming after him.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. MATTHEWS: No, I didn't.

AN HON. MEMBER: Well, you tried.

MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, I tried but I just couldn't get up for

it.

Mr. Speaker, the final 'Be it resolved that this House

endorse the Province's proposal for Canada-Newfoundland Fisheries Management

Board as an effective mechanism to achieve rebuilding of fish stocks and

long-term stability in the best interest of the people...' Mr. Speaker, who can

have any argument with it? And the one before it, 'Whereas the Federal

Department of Fisheries and Oceans is proposing reforms that would give all

Atlantic Canada Provinces an equal say in the management...' Mr. Speaker, I want

to be very, very clear -

MR. TOBIN: They are joining us.

MR. MATTHEWS: They are joining - yes, well, they are,

they have come full circle really. It is what we have been proposing for a long

time as a party. We weren't successful in getting it, so far they have not been

successful in getting it, but that doesn't matter. We should not get hung up

about who is going to be successful, Mr. Speaker, in getting more say over the

fishery for the people of this Province, because if we don't do it soon and real

soon, as the Member for Port de Grave says, the hardship in the communities in

Newfoundland and Labrador is only starting now, compared to what we are going to

have, if we don't soon get a revitalized fishery. If we don't make the most of

what limited fish resources there are coming to our shores, we are going to have

severe hardship. We have heard the Minister of Social Services tell us what has

happened with his department. We know what is with the cod moratorium package,

we know how many are on UI. Over half the population of the Province is

depending, in some way, on some kind of income support. Is that frightening? It

is very frightening to me. And I say, one way to change the cycle, to start the

change, is for this Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to certainly and most

definitely, have more say over the fishery. That will be a start in the right

direction. I oppose what is being proposed by the Federal Government. I support

more say over that very, very vital industry. I want the member to know that and

I want our members to know it; and, as fisheries critic and one member of this

House, I will continue to fight for that because I believe it is the right way

to go.

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

d'Espoir.

MR. GILBERT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand to support

my colleague from Eagle River and I am going to let him do the general close-out

and take the general overall concerns of the Province, but I would like to just

say one thing, that I heard the Member for Grand Bank, when he got up and talked

about the Premier having changed. Now, I have been here eight years as the

Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir, and the Premier came in some time after that,

but while we were in Opposition, and the only thing I ever heard the Premier say

was that he couldn't support full jurisdiction of the fishery by the Province of

Newfoundland because constitutional control - because we didn't have the assets

to be able to support it. So, I think that there is no change. He said joint

management yesterday, today and forever, and I think the crux of this motion is

joint management. It was brought about now, I suppose, because it is an

unfortunate proposal that Mr. Crosbie put forward and everybody, I think,

agrees, that if it does go into effect, the Province will never have any hope of

ever getting control of our destiny again.

I want to speak today because I represent the district of

Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir which, I suppose, more than any other district in the

Province, has been decimated by the mismanagement of the Federal Government down

through the years. So when I look at the fourth 'whereas' here in my colleague's

those resources has resulted in near collapse of key stocks and a most uncertain

future for hundreds of coastal communities".

When I look at the coastal communities in the district of

Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir - and any of my colleagues who have been there, who would

like to accompany me there - you go into places like Franois, McCallum, Ramea

or Burgeo, and you have a look at it, and you know that their ancestors didn't

settle there to be farmers. They settled there because they were going to fish

and the fish was there on the rocks. Historians have told how they were clinging

to the rocks, and people could go and harvest the sea at their doorstep.

MR. MURPHY: You could throw a basket overboard then.

MR. GILBERT: That's right. This is where the district of

Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir comes from. It has total dependence on the fishery and

there is nothing else that it can do. What I want to try to do is show some of

the examples of the mismanagement that has happened in the district in the

length of time that I have been there.

As I go around, and over the years as I have talked to the

inshore fishermen, they have been frustrated and angry. They are concerned that

nobody seems to be listening to them. The unions haven't been giving them the

attention that they think they should. They realize that there are only 3,000

inshore fishermen in that area from Terrenceville to Port aux Basques, where

there are 14,000 north of Cape St. Mary's. So where you get the majority of the

people this is where people listen.

They have been saying for the last eight years that I have

been there: 'Listen, there is a gradual decline in this fishery along the South

Coast; we are not catching as much fish. The inshore fishermen are not catching

as much fish here now as they did two or three years ago. So, eventually, it is

down to the point - they saw the size of fish go down like, one time the average

fish was forty-three inches, then it was down to thirty-nine, and now it is down

- they saw it go down.

They were saying: 'There's something wrong.' The Federal

Government wasn't looking at it. Nobody was looking at it. They said: 'Look, we

are using five or six times as much gears right now to catch... at first, you

would say two years ago, three years ago, five or six as times as much gear to

catch maybe as much fish as they were catching in 1985. Now, they are using that

much gear and more and they are catching about half what they catching six or

seven years ago. So they say, the first example they saw of mismanagement was

that nobody has listened and looked to the cause. Again, it was the inshore

fishermen who came up with it.

Then they saw another injustice that was done to them in

1991. There was a failure along the Northeast Coast of Newfoundland because of

ice. The next thing, when the DFO opened the fishery last year, they initiated

an $800 gear-up allowance, again to the people north of Cape St. Mary's. But

they had a little caveat onto it this time. They gave that $800 gear-up

allowance to the people in Cape Breton. They said, when I asked the question on

behalf of the fishermen of the coast - I went to DFO and they said: 'There is no

failure along the South Coast. There is a failure in Cape Breton and a failure

north of Cape St. Mary's, but there is no failure along the South Coast. Tell

that to the fishermen who were using five to six times as much gear for half the

fish.

Now, we are into this year and we heard the Northern cod

moratorium announced. And, in July of 1992, Mr. Crosbie and DFO announced that

again there was going to be a closure of the fishery, again north of Cape St.

Mary's. And there is no problem on the South Coast again. There is nothing done

with it. So we are into the situation where we have a failure in the inshore

fishery. And because of the fact that we are closing the Northern cod fishery

now, we are finding that the fish plants are closed in Ramea, and that is the

main reason that the Ramea plant closed. The only reason is that the Northern

cod fishery was closed and the quota that was harvested by FPI and distributed

among the plants, there was a portion of the Northern cod that went in to keep

the Ramea plant open. We have seen the Ramea plant go from a full year's

operation down to nine months, then to six months, then to three months. Now we

are down now to subsistence, to go with the ten weeks.

We saw an interesting thing happened again in the

mismanagement of the fishery when we saw the Federal Department of Fisheries and

a Newfoundland and Nova Scotia company, Seafreez, sign a deal whereby they were

going to open up the Canso plant that had been closed in 1988 by National Sea

because it wasn't economically viable.

The same year we saw that happen, we saw National Sea pay the

Newfoundland Government back $5 million they owed them on this plant in Burgeo.

So, if they closed the plant in Canso because it wasn't economically viable to

operate, and owing the Nova Scotia Government $13 million, it would seem awfully

strange to me that they would come in the same year and pay the Newfoundland

Government the loan of $5 million on the Burgeo plant if it wasn't a viable

plant.

In 1990, all of a sudden, we saw the Seafreez company come

in, they were going to open, and we heard Mr. Crosbie announce he was going to

create 400 jobs in Burgeo, he was going to create another 600 jobs in Canso and

he was going to revitalize those two towns by doing this. This was with a

fishery where we saw the total allowable catch decreasing on the Northeast

Coast. This deal by battering off 20,000 metric tons of fish that was normally

processed in Burgeo was going to be shared between Canso and Burgeo. Canso was

going to be opened and there was going to be fish brought in from the Bering Sea

to be processed in both Canso and Burgeo and everybody was going to be happy.

The only thing about it was, at the time, the Provincial Government said: No,

this will not work. The Fishermen's Union said: No, this will not work. The Fish

Producer's Association said: No, this will not work. But, yet, the Federal

Government, with all the advice that was given by everybody, without any input

from the Province, went ahead and made this deal. Now, I make a prediction to

you here that very shortly, Mr. Crosbie will be making a statement in which he

will say that Seafreez broke every part of that agreement that was put in place,

and that Canso is open but Burgeo is closed. Now, this is again going to be a

sign of the mismanagement that has gone on in this Province. That is a decision

that Mr. Crosbie is going to have to make, and I predict to you that he is going

to make a decision that that agreement was broken.

MR. TOBIN: Who owns Burgeo plant now?

MR. GILBERT: Seafreez.

MR. TOBIN: The Province sold it.

MR. GILBERT: The Province never had it. If you remember,

National Sea, in 1988, came in and paid off the $5 million they owed this

Province on Burgeo while they let Canso close, so that will tell you that the

Burgeo plant was a profitable one in 1988. Now, it is closed up and Canso is

open, so again, it shows that if this Province is going to exist, we must have a

shared management of our fishery so we will have some say in what is happening

to the fish adjacent to our coast.

There is, I suppose, the most blatant example of

mismanagement on the part of the Federal Government and how Mr. Crosbie can,at

this time, announce he is going to set up a board made up of someone from

Quebec, someone from Gasp, someone in New Brunswick, someone in PEI, someone in

Nova Scotia and then someone in Newfoundland to manage the Atlantic fishery, the

same time that he is giving full control of the fishery in BC to a provincial

board from BC. Then we look at, why would you do that? The new entries into the

fishery, into the Gulf - the Newfoundland fishermen who traditionally fished in

the Gulf and the fish that came from Burgeo and Ramea traditionally came out of

the Gulf, and contrary to what my friend from Grand Bank says, the redfish

comprised about 70 per cent of the fish that was processed in Burgeo and Ramea

back in the 1940s when these plants first became offshore plants and frozen fish

plants. They picked up on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks, down in 3L and

3NO, to make up about 25 per cent of what they processed but, traditionally,

they always existed on redfish, turbot and haddock that came out of the Gulf.

Now they were forced out of the gulf by the federal government - another great

decision that was made by the federal government in the management of the

fishery - and they said in the mid-seventies, with the Kirby Report and all

those learned gentlemen who got together and traced what was going to happen in

our fishery, and outlined the future, and they said that there was going to be

this thing called northern cod. By 1987 you are going to be able to harvest

485,000 metric tons of northern cod, so we should start building fish plants so

everybody can get in on this, and we will not give it to the traditional plants

that were involved in the offshore.

The only victims of this mismanagement - the major victims of

this mismanagement - are the people along the south coast, the inshore

fishermen, and the plant operators, because the traditional offshore plants were

Burgeo and Ramea, Grand Bank and Fortune, and Burin. Harbour Breton was a salt

fish plant that came in in the seventies, but up until that time these were the

traditional offshore plants that fished offshore.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GILBERT: Burgeo, Ramea, Gaultois, Grand Bank,

Fortune, and Burin. Harbour Breton came in 1972, I think. It was a fresh fish

plant until that time and it became -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GILBERT: Yes, again in the seventies.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) seventies.

MR. GILBERT: Well they were after the ones that I said,

the south coast ones.

Here is what I am saying, the people who have suffered most

in the fishery are the fishermen and the plant workers along the south coast,

and it is because of mismanagement.

Right now we are talking about what is the fishery of the

future. We have a board set up where a fellow from Gasp is going to be able to

have as much say into what fish we process in Burgeo or Trepassey as the fellow

who is going to be appointed from Newfoundland.

I think, as I have said before, it makes about as much sense

if the federal government set up a board in the Atlantic Provinces to manage

farming and they gave the fellow from Newfoundland as much say in the farming in

PEI as they are giving the fellow from PEI into our fishery right now. It is

about the same sort of sense they are making.

The first thing that we have to look at in joint management

is: Which province is the most dependent on the fishery? So if you were to take

Nova Scotia, it would possibly have the next greatest dependency on the fishery,

but it has a couple of statistics there. The last figures there, the processing

sector in Newfoundland for fish products in 1991 was $198 million. Now this is

one that was put out by the Newfoundland government. The one that came from the

federal government for Nova Scotia, and it says 'food industries', so food

industries in Nova Scotia, processed in Nova Scotia, was $338 million. So that

includes the agriculture. You can talk apples down in the valley and everything

else that is processed in Nova Scotia, so there is $338 million in Nova Scotia,

where there is $200 million in Newfoundland just for fish alone.

You can imagine the dependency of our economy on the fishery

is twice what it is in Nova Scotia. Then you get the new entries into it, the

Gasp, the north shore of Quebec, the New Brunswick and the PEI who have started

to fish in the gulf and have demanded, and have been given, a share of the

fishery that was traditionally ours.

All of it was again mismanagement on the part of the federal

government - a total mismanagement; but when we talk about the fishery of the

future, we hear the federal government saying to the Province: You have the

processing licence. You make the decisions. You play God. Who is going to play

God? And they say: What are we going to do with the fishery of the future?

We have some serious problems there that were caused by the

people around us, the Provinces that were given access to the fish adjacent to

our shores that my colleague from Eagle River talks about, but when we are

talking about the fishery of the future, as my friend from Port de Grave says,

he wants to know what we are going to do about it.

Some of the stuff - we talk about the overfishing, the

foreign overfishing, and let's face it, we are not without sin ourselves. Our

offshore trawlers and our sixty-four footers and things like that have caused

some of the problems, but the thing that really hurts me when I talk about it,

is the one thing that everybody wants to hide their head about - the seals. We

do not hear anybody saying anything at all about the seals. Now, I talked to the

Department of Fisheries, the scientific branch today, and the survey that was

done yesterday, there is a herd of seals right off southern Labrador right now,

that is forty-five miles long and thirty-five miles wide. There is another herd

down off the Grey Islands that are numerous and are spotted, they have not

counted them but they are spread out, and then to the east of Fogo-

AN HON. MEMBER: How big was the herd?

MR. GILBERT: Forty-five miles long and thirty-five miles

wide, down off southern Labrador. Then they talk about another herd that is down

off the Grey Islands between St. Anthony and Fogo, then there is a herd to the

east of Fogo, but another one of the most shattering things that I was told when

I asked the Department of Fisheries today, the scientific branch, what are you

doing about it, do you have an estimate as to how many seals are actually there?

No, we do not, the last one was in 1990 but there was no money made available

this year for any study of the seals, so what we are talking about now is a seal

population that they said went anywhere from 2.5 million to 4 million in 1990,

but now what they are saying - and they also said it on February 28th; they sent

a surveillance flight out which went out from just about - you can say the tip

of the Bonavista Peninsula, if you flew out there, right on the edge of the

Grand Banks and they found that there are seals there that they had never known

were there before, right down to the southern end of 3K, for those people who

have a map, there are seals there, hood seals, that they did not realize and had

never seen there before.

I have talked to fellows who have fished on Fishery Products

International trawlers who were out there in that same area two weeks ago, and

they said as they haul up the trawls the seals are coming up with them, that is

out in 800 fathoms of water and we know those seals are eating fish. Now, just

to get home down to the south coast, I talked to Gerald Courtney from Francois a

couple of days ago. Last week Gerald went out fifteen miles in his 40-ft boat,

he put out ninety gill nets and six tubs of gear, he got 350 pounds of fish and

got ten seals in his nets.

Last year in Francois, there were 1,000 seals caught in the

nets of the fishermen. I was talking to Roy Giles in Ramea when I was there last

week. Roy says that he knows one fellow who got 100 seals in Ramea last spring

in the lump nets. The fishermen on the south coast tell me: look, there was fish

this year until December. The seals started to come in December, now there is no

fish. So that is one of the things that in the management of the fishery, we, as

Newfoundlanders have some say in, we have to look at what the situation really

is and not what some fellow in Ottawa thinks it is and some fellow who says we

cannot talk about the seals because if we do we will get Greenpeace against us.

But I tell you now, Mr. Speaker, if we do not talk about the

seals and if we do not do something about it, no matter who has management of

the fishery, we are not going to have anything to do because there is going to

be no way that we can process because there is going to be no fish left -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: It is an ecological disaster.

MR. GILBERT: - and that is the problem, but when we talk

about where we are going with the fishery -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. GILBERT: Could I have a minute to just clue up?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: Let him clue up.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. GILBERT: The only thing that I say, Mr. Speaker, is,

if we have management of our fishery and we can use the fish that is adjacent to

our coast, not only the cod but the haddock, the turbot, the caplin and the

herring and everything that is there, then look at it on a historical and

traditional basis as to where it is processed, it does not have to be the

disaster people are saying it is, we will have plants open on the south coast

and we will have them open on the northeast coast too.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia

West.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, (inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I talked to the Minister of

Industry, Trade and Technology and I am prepared to give him leave, as long as

it does not come out of my time. I think that is agreeable with both sides of

the House.

MR. FUREY: Mr. Speaker, just let me revert to Answers to

Questions just briefly.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. FUREY: The hon. the Member for Kilbride asked the

question today I believe about an $800 or $850 briefcase, one of the ministers

had purchased.

I just want to clear the air, Mr. Speaker, and notify the

House that in case it was this minister he was talking about, nearly a year ago,

maybe a little under a year ago I did purchase a brief case in Toronto. It was

the third briefcase that I will have had as Minister of Development at that

time.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FUREY: I forget. I think it was $550 plus GST and PST

- whatever that brings it up to.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FUREY: What - $620?

Yes, the first briefcase that was there when I was there as

minister broke. The locks broke. The second one that was purchased -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FUREY: It may well have been, because there were four

ministers that I took over for, so it may have been the Minister of (inaudible).

The second one the handles broke off - the carrying part of

it - so I, in Toronto, carrying sensitive documents, which I do as Minister of

Industry, Trade and Technology, and Cabinet papers, and confidential papers from

business people around the Province and from around the country, I thought it

appropriate to buy a proper briefcase with the proper locks and the proper

portfolio which would fit into it in the event that I had to take things out of

the briefcase.

So, Mr. Speaker, if I am the $800 briefcase man, I suppose I

apologize. I thought it was the right thing to do, to purchase this for $550,

with the GST and the PST and whatever else was involved.

Mr. Speaker, I would assume that would be left there as part

of the next minister's property, or the government property; but to clear the

air, if the Premier deems or warrants it, I am quite prepared to pay for that

and keep it as my property.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia

West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. R. AYLWARD: You could not afford it a year ago. You

can now.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my colleague from

Kilbride and the Minister of Development can continue this tomorrow in Question

Period, but I would like to get into the resolution that was presented today.

I listened with interest to the Member for Burgeo - Bay

d'Espoir as it relates to some of the comments that he had to make regarding the

fisheries.

Mr. Speaker, let me say from the outset that we, as a party,

over the years have always supported joint management of the fisheries. Shared

jurisdiction I think was what we called it - shared jurisdiction.

Having listened to the Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir when

he got up to speak, his first comments were that we, as a Province, could not

have control over the fisheries - that we, as a Province, could not have

jurisdiction over the fisheries. I ask the Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir -

unfortunately he has left - why can we, as a Province, not have jurisdiction

over the fisheries? If we want to have total protection for the fisheries of

this Province there is no better way, I say, than to have total jurisdiction

over the fisheries. That is the only way we will have protection.

Now I listened to what the member had to say, and he talked

about the situation in Burgeo, and no doubt that is a very serious situation

that exists in Burgeo today, and a very serious situation has existed in Burgeo

for a number of years; but what the Member for Burgeo neglected to say today,

and I do not know if it was intentional or not, and I certainly give him the

benefit of the doubt and say that it was not, was that it was the Conservative

government that constructed a plant at Burgeo. My colleague from Mount Pearl is

here today and he was one of the ministers, one of the people, involved over the

years in lending a tremendous amount of support to the Burgeo plant, as Minister

of Finance and as Minister of Development. But it was the Conservative

government in this Province that built that plant that is in Burgeo today, and

all throughout the years, and particularly in the past few years, the

Conservative government paid $1 million a year subsidy program to the plant at

Burgeo. All of a sudden, this government came to power, in which the Member for

Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir was a minister. I ask the question: is this government

today paying a subsidy of $1 million towards the plant in Burgeo? I'd say, Mr.

Speaker, that the answer is a categorical 'no.'

The member also made reference to the deep-sea fishery in

this Province. I can say that while he talked about deep-sea plants and all

that, I can say to the member for Burgeo, and I wish he was in his seat, that

the first deep-sea plant in this Province that did fresh frozen fillets was the

old Fishery Products plant at Burin.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. TOBIN: Burin. The old Fishery Products plant at Burin

was the first, I say to the member. As a matter of fact at that time they

converted two old banking schooners. I believe one was called the Sival and the

other was called... I'm not sure of the name right now. They were old wooden

boats with two spars.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Oh, they were banking schooners. What they did

was they put (inaudible) on them.

AN HON. MEMBER: I always thought the first trawlers were

(Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, no, no. The first trawlers were two

banking schooners that Fishery Products got. One was called the Sival and they

took the equipment off. They put (Inaudible) on them and installed the doors and

they became old side-trawlers. They were old wooden boats. That would have been

back in the 'forties.

AN HON. MEMBER: Because George Penney up in Ramea had

trawlers about '45 or '46 (Inaudible) -

MR. TOBIN: Yes, It would have been back in the 'forties.

I'm not sure when it was but it would have been back in the 'forties. I think it

was probably around 'forty four - anyway, the old Sival was the first one, I

believe. An old fellow by the name of Arch Bridal I think was the first skipper

of her. He's long gone but he was a great trawlerman. As a matter of fact his

daughter works in my office. He was a great trawlerman, Mr. Speaker.

From that Fishery Product's base then became Burin. They went

from the Sival into other trawlers. I guess at that time they were considered

modern trawlers. The Dingo was the other one, the Dingo. That was the name of

the other one. Then they bought trawlers, such as the Zerda, which was a wooden

vessel.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, there's a member opposite and I

certainly won't say his name when I mention the name Dingo. He said - what was

it Steve called the Minister of Education? It wasn't dingo, it was dingbat.

Then Fishery Products got - they were much smaller then - but

there was the old Zerda, she was a wooden boat with two spars. They had the

Clamer that was a wooden boat. They got the Zibet. Zilic I think was another

one. Then they sort of graduated into what were supposed to be bigger boats. The

Zebried, which Curt Mitchell, a great Newfoundlander, one of the best fishing

captains who ever sailed on the Grand Banks, was skipper of the Zebried. He was

skipper of the Zibet I believe before that. He used to be mate with skipper Bob

Moulton for a few years before that as well. He went from the Zebried. Then all

of a sudden two more boats came and they were the cream of the crop. The Zeta

and the Zinia. Then after that there was a whole pile of other boats that were

brought in. In addition to that, back before that, there was the Zebura.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: No, the Zebura. No, that's the old Zebura.

Years ago. She burnt Bunker C. She was the only one they had up there. They had

another one like that as well, I believe. I believe she turned over or

something. Anyway, that's where Fishery Products came from. So as they spread

out and grew, and as the side-trawlers became more involved, there was the

Zebrani and the St. Leonard, and there were other boats that came and went. The

Zebrula came and the Zebrini and the Zeli and the Zarp, all of them

side-trawlers.

Fishery Products then opened up plants in Trepassey and Isle

aux Morts. They were the two plants that Fishery Products had that they landed

trawlers. As a matter of fact, the first trawler captain I believe from Isle aux

Morts was a fellow by the name of Jimmy Chalk. I do not know if the Member for

St. John's South remembers him or not, but Jimmy Chaulk was the first trawler

captain from Isle aux Morts, who landed in Isle aux Morts and the first native

from Trepassey who went skippering a boat was my uncle, Gerry Tobin, he went as

skipper of the Zeta and that was back in the 60s, I would say to the member who

said earlier it was in the 70s, it was in the 60s, and later Fishery Products

got involved in the stern trawlers to harvest the waters because there was so

much fish.

The first stern trawler that Fishery Products had was the

Zeeland, Captain Billy Brushett, the next one was the Zonnemaire with Curt

Mitchell and the Zurich with Jack Moulton and the Zandam with Byron Adams (?).

They were the four that were built in Holland and it was after that, that they

went to Sorel and had the rest of the vessels built, but when those stern

trawlers came -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I would say that the Member for

Bellevue knows precious little about the deep sea fisheries and the south coast

of our Province.

When Fishery Products got these stern trawlers, there was so

much fish on the go at that time that the trawler captain could almost name

where he was going to get his load of fish and come back in. That happened, then

there came down years in the fishery, there were down years. I talked to Curt

Mitchell not long ago and he told me there were a couple years, if he promised

you a feed of codfish he would not be able to get it but at that time, there

were lots of flounder, the same as back in the late 50s there were lots of

haddock.

I remember one time Curt Mitchell landed in Trepassey on the

Zebroid and he left Trepassey one day and the next night he was on his way back

with the Zebroid loaded again right full of haddock, that is how plentiful the

haddock was at that point in time. But when there was no codfish back in the

70s, there were lots of flounder, then there was yellow-tails, but what has

happened is that at that time, there was a concentration on the fish on the

Grand Banks of Newfoundland and I suppose as far north as - well, you know on

the northern edge of the Grand Banks you could always get a trip of fish in the

spring of the year, always, Mr. Speaker, the gullies were full of fish up there,

the biggest kind of steak cod. St. Pierre bank, the same thing, the biggest kind

of codfish, there was no problem at all, not just red fish, always the biggest

kind of codfish, all over down to the east right through the south they could

basically always know when to get a trip of fish.

What happened then, everybody became involved in the

fisheries and there were the plants in Grand Bank that became involved and in

Fortune they were deeply involved, in Burgeo, Ramea, Gaultois and Trepassey,

then out of the blue, there appeared this Michael Kirby, Senator Kirby, who

wrote this great report and if there was any man, one person, responsible for

the destruction of the fishing industry in this country, it has to be Senator

Michael Kirby. He wrote that report and he talked, as the Member for Burgeo -

Bay d' Espoir said earlier, he talked about all the fish was out there, go and

catch the fish, was the message that Mike Kirby sent, and all of a sudden

Fishery Products, even though, and I want to make it clear, they had a plant

down in Port Union at that time, which the Minister of Works, Services and

Transportation now represents, and they were landing boats in Catalina before

the northern cod. Fishery Products landed their boats from Burin, Trepassey and

other places.

As a matter of fact, the first trawler captain to come out of

Catalina was (Inaudible) Abbott, I would say to the members opposite, he was the

first fellow from Catalina to be skipper of the boats. I know the history of

Fishery Products, their trawlers and their captains rather well because I

studied it, I was always extremely interested. But what happened then? Fishery

Products went to Norway and they built a whole pile of boats over in Norway, a

pile of trawlers. I believe the first one they brought over from Norway was

probably the Zamora, (inaudible) Abbott was her skipper, by the way, and the

northern cod was out there to harvest and now there is not a fish to be found.

The question has to be asked, what has happened to the fish and what has

happened to the scientists? When did the scientist, all of a sudden, become so

valuable and deserve so much recognition, is what I have to ask the members

opposite?

Mr. Speaker, the Member for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir made a few

valid points today and I concur with most of what he said, by the way -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: Oh I agree with most of what you said. The

fishing industry is extremely important to my district as well because I

remember the days when Burin was the leader in the deep sea fishery in this

Province. When Burin not only supplied and kept work for the people of the Burin

Peninsula, Burin, Marystown, all of that area, the trawlers also landed in Isle

aux Mort and they landed in Trepassey. The people from Burin landed everywhere

and they provided income and work for thousands upon thousands of men and women

in this Province. That is what the people of Burin did but in 1982, Burin was no

more. The people who started and began harvesting and fishing the most prolific

fishing grounds in the world, were relegated to tie their boats up and ready

them for the junkyard. That is what the old Fishery Products had in mind at that

point in time.

Mr. Speaker, it did not happen because Brian Peckford did not

allow it to happen, as the Premier of the Province. Brian Peckford, the Premier

of the Province at the time, did not allow it to happen, but that was one thing.

There was another group of people that made the provincial government and the

federal government aware that it was not going to happen and that was a group in

Burin led by Lew Bailey and Cathy Dunderdale, that decided that Burin was not

going to close.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TOBIN: I can tell you that if the people of Harbour

Breton, Belleoram and Gaultois, want a voice and experience to ensure them that

their plant does not close, they cannot go wrong with Cathy Dunderdale, I say to

the Member for Burgeo, but that is not the issue that I want to talk about

today. It is not the issue I want to talk about. They were extremely involved

and the Member for St. John's South has been around Fishery Products for a

number of years, knows that the plant in Burin today is like no other fish plant

in this Province or anywhere else. No more do the people go to work the way they

went to work in the tr