Newfoundland and Labrador Hansard — Statements by Ministers; Oral Questions — 15 December 1992 (41st General Assembly, 4th Session, Vol. XLI No. 85)
1992-12-15
Newfoundland and Labrador — Debates (Hansard)
December
15, 1992
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol.
XLI No. 85
The House met at 2:00 p.m.
MR. SPEAKER (Lush): Order, please!
Statements by Ministers
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forestry and
Agriculture.
MR. FLIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the hon. members of the
House of Assembly, that my department in conjunction with my colleague the hon.
Charles Furey, Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology and the Atlantic
Canada Opportunities Agency, have entered into an agreement with Helitactics
Limited valued at $640,000.00, to purchase fire suppression equipment.
Helitactics Limited is a Newfoundland company, which will manufacture this
equipment at its plant in Bishop's Falls.
This contract, Mr. Speaker, is for the purchase of a "State
of the Art" helicopter deployable fire suppression system. This system is
expected to play a vital role in forest fire suppression situations in
Newfoundland and Labrador. The technology is also suited for fighting fires in
municipal or urban areas, which could indeed, be a substantial future market. In
fact, Mr. Speaker, this technology may well have worldwide application.
This high tech equipment, has been developed by Helitactics
Limited, a Newfoundland owned company. By purchasing this system, both levels of
government are assisting in the establishment of this company in the North
American marketplace. In addition, it will provide an opportunity for employment
for an estimated fifteen Newfoundlanders at the start-up-stage of the project.
Mr. Speaker, Helitactics staff have drawn on the advice and
technical assistance of fire suppression experts in my department over the past
year or more in the development of this product. This initiative has paid off
very well, Mr. Speaker, with the development of a unique new fire fighting
technology and a new business for this Province.
As I previously stated, this initiative has been a joint
effort by my department, the Department of Industry, Trade and Technology and
the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and, Mr. Speaker, I might add was
supported and co-ordinated by the Economic Recovery Commission, with funds being
provided under the Strategic Investment and Industrial Development Co-operation
Agreement.
I am confident, Mr. Speaker, that this agreement between
government and Helitactics Limited of Bishop's Falls, will be beneficial not
only to my department and the forest sector of this Province, but it will also
introduce a new industry and new opportunities to all Newfoundlanders.
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Green Bay.
MR. HEWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also thank the
minister for an advance copy of his statement. We on this side can only say that
we are pleased that a new technology has come about for the suppression of
forest fires and that it is being developed and hopefully marketed on a world
scale by a local company. That being the case, Mr. Speaker, there is not much
else I can say. The statement indicates in several places that this is a new
"State of the Art Technology" with export potential, etc., but there is very
little information given as to the exact nature of this fire suppression
equipment or the methodology used by the company concerned. Given the season of
the year we are in, Mr. Speaker, it is probably not appropriate for me to be
overly controversial on this particular matter so all I can say is I am pleased
with the announcement of this system and obviously the details are not to be
opened until Christmas.
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East on a
point of order.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I seek leave to respond to the Ministerial Statement made by
the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.
MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: No leave.
MR. SPEAKER: No leave.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and
Labour Relations.
MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
It gives me great pleasure to stand in the House of Assembly
today to officially announce the completion of another initiative in the area of
regulations were completely revised and gazetted.
Based on recommendations from industry and the disabled
community, we were able to provide these amendments in a manner which gives
detailed guidance to private, small building contractors and individuals, as
well as professional builders and developers.
During the development of these amendments one of our
objectives was to take into account the need to express the requirements in
simple, easy to understand language. Our commitment to effectively assist those
who will use this legislation was utmost in the minds of departmental officials.
The initiative I refer to, not only includes the writing of this document in
clear language, but presents the information in a new 8 1/2" X 11" looseleaf
format - encompassing the act, regulations, technical requirements and
twenty-nine illustrations. I will table a copy for members perusal and encourage
all members to do so.
Mr. Speaker, the document in its new format is effective in
this document in the form of bulletins, where in the opinion of industry and
government alike, an area is found to require further information and/or
explanation.
Mr. Speaker, many times since I became Minister of the
Department of Employment and Labour Relations, I have referenced our commitment
to educating and making people aware of regulations and responsibilities
awareness in this area, as well as occupational health and safety, is a tool of
preference, keeping in mind that the department, at times, is forced to use
other means.
As an example of this and reinforcing this philosophy, early
in the new year officials of the department will be conducting seminars across
the Province to provide information to municipalities and other interested
groups on the availability of the amended act and regulations and how it can
benefit in the planning and construction of new and renovated facilities. In
addition, the department has purchased a number of these bound documents which I
present here today and will be distributing a certain quantity throughout the
Province of Newfoundland and Labrador to different organizations in an effort to
raise initial awareness of the document.
Mr. Speaker, the release of this document is an important
event for the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador with physical disabilities.
They should be aware that their right of access to public facilities is well
recognized by government and the amendments we have made in this area will
I ask the hon. members to join with officials of the
department in informing the public of the availability of the document and
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fogo.
MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is
interesting to note that the minister announces the release of a document
informing contractors in the Province what kind of buildings they have to
complete to be accessible for the handicapped when this government itself has a
court house in Flowers Cove where we saw, last week on television, an individual
having to get out of a wheelchair and propel himself up over the steps using his
hands because it was not accessible, Mr. Speaker, all this does is announces
that it is a document. Mr. Speaker, it is time for the government to put some
action to it and to make all of its own buildings accessible, do not publish a
document, make the buildings accessible, Mr. Speaker.
We saw last week the minister announce that this Province
only could give $6,000 to the Consumer Association for the Disabled and the
lowest other province was something in the range of $50,000. That is the kind of
commitment we want for the disabled, Mr. Speaker. At the same time we welcome
this, Mr. Speaker, and in fact last year the minister announced something
somewhat similar where I think he was going to go throughout the Province making
certain restaurants wheelchair accessible, Mr. Speaker, and I am pleased to
note. I suggested to him, as a matter of fact, that they should put signs along
the roadside indicating which restaurants are wheelchair accessible. I noticed
this past month that, for the first time, a number of them are clearly visible.
It was a good initiative that we, the Opposition, suggested to him and I am
pleased that the minister took our advice and placed these signs.
That document doesn't do very much, Mr. Speaker, if we, the
government, the largest user of public buildings in this Province, do not make
our buildings accessible. It is no good to have regulations that affect the
general population if the government do not accede to the same regulations that
they have put in place.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.
MR. HARRIS: I ask leave to address the statement of the
hon. minister.
MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?
AN HON. MEMBER: No.
AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member does not have leave.
MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: Before proceeding to Oral Questions, on
behalf of hon. members I would like to welcome to the public galleries today,
nine students from John Christian Erharot School in Makkovik, Labrador,
accompanied by their teacher, Debbie Sellars.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.
MR. WOODFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, some reports here lately, especially as of
yesterday, suggest yet another example of rural Newfoundlanders being penalized.
It appears that certain insurance companies in the Province have cancelled
insurance or refused to renew insurance on the homes in Port au Choix, Port
Saunders and Hawkes Bay, on the Great Northern Peninsula.
I would ask the Minister responsible for Consumer Affairs - I
take it, the Minister of Justice - is he aware of the situation and is he
looking into it? Does he intend to take any action to help the people of those
communities maintain insurance coverage on their homes?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice.
MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes, yes, and
yes, within the limits of the powers available to us under the law; but the hon.
gentleman will realize that insurance in this Province is still a matter of free
enterprise and no, there is no way one can make a company sell a policy if it
does not want to do so.
The answer is yes, yes, and yes with that caveat.
MR. WOODFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber Valley, on a
supplementary.
MR. WOODFORD: Can the minister inform the House, since he
has taken action on my first question, whether home owners in those particular
communities - those three communities - will be able to renew their mortgages,
or do they risk having existing mortgages cancelled? Has he checked into that?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice.
MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, a small correction - the hon.
gentleman did not ask me whether I had taken action, he asked me whether I would
take action, and I answered yes to that. I became aware of this, as did the hon.
gentleman, in yesterday's Telegram. That is the source of his information and
that is what I know about it, too.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. ROBERTS: Well, I will say, nothing else has come to
me. If the hon. gentleman has any information beyond what was in yesterday's
Telegram I invite him to let me have it, because it may help to move the matter
forward. But I am telling him what I know. I don't want to mislead him.
He asked about mortgages. Again, mortgage documents, in my
understanding, generally contain covenants that the borrower - mortgagor or
mortgagee, I never could keep it straight - anyway, the one who borrows and has
to pay it back, the home owner.
MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).
MR. ROBERTS: I'm sorry?
MS. VERGE: Poor mortgagor.
MR. ROBERTS: The hon. lady knows more about mortgages
than I do. Obviously, that is the kind of law she was in when she was at the
Bar. It contains those covenants. If the covenants are not honoured then it is a
matter for the lender to address. What I would say to him, Mr. Speaker, is if
the government become aware that there is a problem and become aware that the
law of the Province is inadequate, then we shall be back here asking the House
to change the law. Or if there's something we can do by the exercise of our
administrative powers, we will do that. The problem the hon. gentleman is
raising is a very real one, and we shall address it on that basis.
To be very candid, what I know about this is what I have read
in the newspapers. Two of my colleagues, the gentleman from St. Barbe and the
gentleman from the Strait of Belle Isle, who represent these areas, have told me
they have had several phone calls or messages in the last few days.
AN HON. MEMBER: They didn't return the calls.
MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, it is awfully hard to answer
when people are being rude as well as unintelligible and unintelligent, but let
me carry on. There has obviously been some -
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. ROBERTS: Now we get more rudeness and even less
intelligence.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Order, please!
AN HON. MEMBER: Both of them are being very (inaudible)
in returning their calls.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
I remind hon. members their colleagues have asked a question.
They have thirty minutes in which to get up on supplementaries and shouldn't be
asking questions from their seats, to the extent that it interferes with the
person who is doing the answering.
The hon. the Minister of Justice, continue, please.
MR. ROBERTS: What I will say is that we will look into it
and we will take whatever action is appropriate. I would be delighted to discuss
it with the hon. gentleman. Let me add that we have, in the last few years,
continued the program of providing additional fire fighting equipment in some of
these communities - that may help to address the problem but it may not address
the issue. The problem is one of: How do you make an insurance company sell a
policy in a situation where it does not want to assume the risk?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber Valley.
MR. WOODFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Has the
minister or anybody in his department asked for a full report from the Fire
Commissioner's Office as to whether or not fire protection is adequate in those
communities?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice.
MR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The minister has not. I have no idea whether anybody in my
department has. If he or she has, I have not been told about it. I will take the
hon. gentleman's question as being, in part, a suggestion and see what we can do
about it.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Humber Valley, a
supplementary.
MR. WOODFORD: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker.
Has the minister had any discussions with the insurance
companies involved in this particular situation, or the brokers involved? Is he
aware of any other situations in other communities in the Province where this
action might be taken?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Justice.
MR. ROBERTS: No and no, to the two questions. I am
prepared, as soon as we can get out of the House and I have some time other than
attending to my duties as a member of the House, to do exactly as the hon.
gentleman suggests. There is obviously some kind of problem that requires some
attention by the government. I can assure the hon. gentleman that I shall do
what I can, and I know my colleagues will work with me on this, to do whatever
is right, proper, fair and balanced in the situation.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader, the
member for Grand Bank.
MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Early in the government's mandate, Mr. Speaker, the former
Government House Leader introduced an important reform in the Legislature when
he set up three Legislation Review Committees to provide an opportunity for
legislation to be examined prior to discussion in the House.
I want to ask the Premier: - things were going pretty well
then - has he been persuaded by the current Government House Leader, the
Minister of Justice, to abandon that reform and try to rush legislation into the
House just before Christmas?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker, I haven't. But I should
elaborate and explain. All of the sudden there is this great concern about how
nothing can be done without going to committees, and for forty-odd years since
Confederation we never had a committee. It was this government that put these
committees in place. For the seventeen years that they were there they didn't
think committees were worthwhile. They rushed in and legislation was discussed
and debated. Now, in fairness, this is the place where debate takes place, in
the House of Assembly. So that is fair. What we did was put these committees in
place so that, wherever possible, wherever convenience, and wherever necessary,
there could be a discussion. But, Mr. Speaker, the purpose of these committees
is not to frustrate the will of the majority of the Legislature to deal with
issues that need to be dealt with.
They are talking about the Police Commission and that going
to a committee, for example. That has been discussed publicly for some two
years. It doesn't come as a sudden shock or surprise. So, Mr. Speaker, the issue
is before the House and it has been before the public. The proposal has been
put. I understand there were discussions last night.
The House will, no doubt, continue to debate the issue and
will express its will on it in due course. But no, Mr. Speaker, there has been
no change in policy. The same policy applies. The committees are in place and
they will consider such matters as the House specifically asks them to consider
or such matters as they, of their own volition, choose to consider. But they
can't frustrate the processes of the Legislature or the ability of government to
govern.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That was never anyone's intention, Mr. Speaker, but there
should be more than just appointing, standing in the House, as the former
minister did on June 30, 1989 - I have Hansard here - where he said, in
introducing this reform, that we should never get into the situation where all
of a sudden, because of time constraints or something else, major pieces of
legislation get rushed through the House without adequate discussion both in the
House and in the general public.
Now, I want to ask the Premier: Isn't this exactly what we
are doing here now? Hasn't the government held back major pieces of legislation
until now, just days before Christmas, so that they could hopefully ram it
through the House without the public knowing what is contained in the
legislation? Isn't that what the Premier and the Government House Leader are up
to?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker, that is not the objective
- I can confirm it for hon. members. That this is coming forward with, perhaps,
less notice than it ought to have had, I can't argue against. I would have liked
to have had it out a month or two months ago, perhaps even six months ago.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we are not flawless, we do have some defects. I am
prepared to acknowledge that. Occasionally we do not get everything done in as
good a time as we should get it done. I am quite prepared to admit that. But I
don't think, Mr. Speaker, that there is anything in this bill that necessitates
a delay of it.
If there turns out to be anything terribly incorrect we can,
in short order, correct it. But let's give the process a chance to work, and if
there is something ineffective about it or if, in February or March or April,
somebody comes up with the idea that there is something defective about it, we
can always take steps to correct it, Mr. Speaker. It is not a catastrophic
situation. It is not going to be the end of the world.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader.
MR. MATTHEWS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The world according to whom, I guess, is the question.
Mr. Speaker, there are three pieces of legislation now that
have been tabled within the past few days, legislation, by the way, that the
Premier promised more than three years ago, the Police Complaints Commission,
The Child Welfare Act, which I believe was tabled yesterday, and The Conflict of
Interest Legislation, three significant, substantial pieces of legislation that
we have only received within the last couple of days. We are going to be
expected now, by the government, to ram this through this Legislature before the
Christmas break.
Now, I want to ask the Premier: Does he believe these bills
merit careful scrutiny by the public and by members of the House or does he
concur with the Member for Carbonear when he said in committee last night that
he didn't care how bad the piece of legislation was, he didn't care how bad the
bill was, that it could be fixed up sometime in the future? Is that the attitude
of the government?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the records of this House are
replete with hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of examples where a piece of
legislation that was passed was very quickly changed because it was discovered
to have something that doesn't work as well as something else would in it, and
changes were made.
I don't suggest that is going to be necessary. I disagree
with some of the criticisms coming from the other side. I don't think there is
any merit in it at all, and I haven't heard any significant - there are two or
three things that I think the minister has already agreed should be changed, and
those proposals can be taken into account and the changes made in Committee. I
believe there was already some suggestion to do that. But the basic approach is,
I believe, a sound one, bearing in mind the size of this Province compared to
the size of other provinces, the size of the police force to be managed or to be
the subject of complaints or to have their complaints heard, compared with other
police forces, the numbers of police forces. All of those things dictate that we
can't possibly finance the cost of putting the trappings of an elephant on the
back of a mouse, which this Province is economically.
So it is irrational to be talking about these airy-fairy
ideas of a full-time commission consisting of three people to do all this. Where
are you going to get this? Now, look at what has been in place so far. The
Police Chief has handled all of the complaints. I do not see anything terribly
wrong with the initial complaint going to the Police Chief. If somebody has a
complaint that a constable or a sergeant or a lieutenant or somebody else did
something incorrectly or failed to do something that he or she ought to have
done, the logical place to go is to the Chief of Police and say this was not
done and, presumably, the Chief of Police, if he is any good or if he is
competent, will deal with it effectively but the safety valve is, if the Chief
does not, there is protection for the citizens, and that is what is there, that
is the way the bill is intended to operate. Hon. members opposite are talking as
though we have a police force rife with incompetence and inability and doing
everything wrong. I mean, it is ludicrous to suggest that this bill is being
rushed through for that reason, it is utter nonsense, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fogo.
MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I have a question for
the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Yesterday, in the House, the minister
confirmed that municipalities will be allowed to charge utility companies more
than the 2.5 per cent uniform utility taxes previously announced. However, any
amount over the 2.5 per cent will be charged back to the users in the given
community, a new tax, a consumption tax. The Minister of Finance has announced
that he would be asking Hydro not to increase its rates and the same request
would be made to Newfoundland Light and Power. Isn't this surtax or surcharge
another way of allowing utility companies to increase their rates so as to
maintain their high profits?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fogo.
MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister, Isn't this
new surcharge that is being imposed by the legislation going to allow utility
companies to increase their rates and maintain their already high profits?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: I have not heard anything much more
irrational than that proposition. It is so irrational that it is difficult to
even describe it as such. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. There is no
surcharge. There is no surcharge. The simple fact is this, Mr. Speaker: Some
municipalities, not all, have been imposing this tax at exorbitant rates and
effectively taxing residents in other municipalities, because they have been
forcing the utility to itself pay it and collect the money to do so from
residents of other municipalities. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is as unfair as could
be. Some municipalities - Botwood, Bishop's Falls, Grand Falls, Windsor - are
limited to collecting 1 per cent. Marystown was charging 35 per cent and who was
paying it? - the residents of Bishop's Falls, Windsor, Botwood and so on, whose
councils could not charge above 1 per cent. Mr. Speaker, that irrational, unfair
taxation had to be stopped.
Now, Mr. Speaker, all we have done is this: We said, any
municipality that wants to, can charge this tax but the utility only has to pay
it out of its general revenues and so charge all of the rate-payers in the
Province up to a maximum of 2.5 per cent. If any municipality wants, as
Marystown did, to charge 35 per cent, then the citizens of Marystown, the town
that imposed that additional tax, would pay it, not the rest of the Province. I
cannot imagine any greater example of fairness and balance than that.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fogo.
MR. WINSOR: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The Supreme
Court has already, in the case, I think, of Burin and CBS, ruled that utility
companies were not allowed to levy the surcharge back to the consumers, in fact
they had to pay it back, Mr. Speaker. Why is this proposed legislation going to
protect the corporate giants, Mr. Speaker, including Newfoundland Tel and
Fortis, while at the same time, imposing hardships on the ordinary
Newfoundlander?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, it doesn't protect the
utilities. What it is doing is protecting the people of Port au Port, against
the ravages of the council in Marystown, that is what it is doing. The utilities
get no protection; they can only recover under our law the cost that they incur.
Members opposite, I am sure, the Member for Humber East, I am sure, the Member
for St. John's East, will confirm that under our public utilities legislation,
utilities can only recover the cost that they incur plus a fair return on the
capital that they have invested and if that is not so then let them amend the
law to make sure that it is so. That is the way the system works. It is the same
throughout Canada and, to the best of my knowledge, it is the same throughout
every jurisdiction in North America. That is the simple, straightforward way to
operate.
Now, what is happening here is, the Supreme Court has ruled
that under existing legislation municipalities could not charge that. They found
it offensive to charge to their other customers. So they tried to do it in this
way. What the court said is: You have no authority to do that. If a municipality
wants to levy 100 per cent they can collect it and you have to take it out of
your rates; it is into your cost, you have to take it out of your rates, so you
have to up your rates to other municipalities in order to pay it to the select
handful of municipalities that are charging these excessively high rates.
Mr. Speaker, this government has a concern for all of its
taxpayers in every nook and cranny of the Province. Our fundamental promise when
we ran for election was to provide for fair and balanced treatment of all of our
citizens and taxpayers, and that is exactly what we are doing.
MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Member for
Fogo.
MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the spokesman
for Newfoundland Light and Power for that answer.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister of Municipal
and Provincial Affairs: With the continuous lowering of municipal operating
grants, and now, the uniform tax on utilities, is this not a further downloading
of taxation to municipalities which are already taxed to the limit? How does he
plan to help municipalities adjust? For example, in my district, the town of
Musgrave Harbour will lose $54,000 in 1993 as a result of the utility tax
decrease and MOGs. Mr. Speaker, how do you expect municipalities to be able to
cope?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Municipal and
Provincial Affairs.
MR. HOGAN: I don't know if the Speaker recognised me or
not.
MR. SPEAKER: Yes, I have recognized the hon. minister.
MR. HOGAN: Thank you. My apologies - I couldn't hear you,
Mr. Speaker, with the noise coming from over there.
I would just say to hon. members that the Premier is much
more generous than I am. I wouldn't dignify their stupid questions with an
explanation or an answer as he did.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!
MR. HOGAN: No, we are not downloading on the
municipalities, as is suggested by the hon. member. What we are doing is
permitting the municipalities, as they requested, the ability to apply taxation,
but they will have to apply it in their own communities rather than spread it
Province-wide throughout all the consumers.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.
MR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have a question for the Premier. On November 9, the
Premier, in a Ministerial Statement said, and I quote: "The people of
Sheshatshiu must pay for electricity, just as does any other resident of
Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro has installed a bulk
metering system to record the amount of electricity consumed by users..."
That was on November 9. I understand, Mr. Premier, that
electricity bills have gone out to all consumers in the Province, in fact, over
two weeks ago. I would like to ask the Premier: Have government, through Hydro,
collected any monies from the residents of Sheshatshiu?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: No, Mr. Speaker, government hasn't
collected any money through Hydro. Hydro has collected money from residents of
Sheshatshiu, yes.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.
MR. WARREN: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Could the
Premier advise how much money Hydro has collected, and by what means through
this bulk system was it collected?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, I was
speaking with Hydro officials just yesterday about the issue. They have advised
me the manner in which they have dealt with the problem at the moment. They have
acceded to our request to handle this matter with sensitivity so as not to risk
injury or threat to life of any person inside or outside the community of
Sheshatshiu. They have done that. They haven't responded to provocation with
force or with jurisdiction or with power. They have been quite sensitive and I
am impressed with the way in which Hydro has handled the matter. In terms of the
billing, they have used the discretion that is open to them to submit estimated
bills in unusual circumstances. Hydro has the power to submit bills on the basis
of estimated amounts based on their judgement as to what would have been used.
They have historical records for all of the meters. Some but not all of the
people in Sheshatshiu have continued to pay their bills; it is difficult to
judge whether anybody whose meters have been removed have or have not paid
because the bills have gone out very recently I believe, so there would be no
way of judging it at this point in time.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Torngat Mountains.
MR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A final
supplementary.
In the last few minutes the Premier has talked about his
government's fairness and balance. In our Province, we have I think, I stand to
be corrected, but I think there are five different electricity rates, with the
people on coastal Labrador, the people on Fogo and southcoast who are supplied
by diesel generation, paying the most for electricity rates.
The Premier has advocated fairness and balance. Would the
Premier not think now would be an appropriate time to show his fairness and
balance by having a uniform electricity rate in this Province?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, the total truth, the whole
truth - but what the member put forward is not an accurate statement. The whole
truth is that everybody pays a uniform rate up to a maximum of 700 kilowatts per
month, which is estimated to be sort of the normal or average amount that an
average household would use in a month, so that is uniform. It does not matter
whether it is a diesel area or wherever; if you use 700 or less you pay the same
rate anywhere in this Province, so there is uniformity. Beyond the 700 there is
a differential rate because in the diesel areas where the cost of using it, of
producing the electricity is so much higher, the use for example of electric
heat puts a tremendous demand on higher cost electricity.
Our objective, Mr. Speaker, is to get to the point ultimately
where we can have uniform rates. We think that the bridge was crossed a long
time ago, twenty odd years ago when Corner Brook, which had very low rates, St.
John's which had very low rates had their rates increased, and others were
brought down to have uniform rates in all of the interconnected areas of the
Province, and there were opinions to the contrary at the time and still some of
them exist and that has been changed.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we are committed to the idea of uniform
rates, but fairness and balance require an umbrella. It is an umbrella that
covers everything, and it does not mean necessarily absolute equality; it means
just what it says, fairness and balance.
Is it fair that the people of Labrador connected to the Hydro
system in Labrador, where the cost of generating power is so much less than it
is on the Island part of the Province, where they have so many other higher cost
in terms of transportation and so on, is it fairness and balance that they
should pay absolutely the same rates as in the Island part of the Province?
Perhaps not, Mr. Speaker, perhaps not. Fairness and balance
is an umbrella that encompasses all aspects of it and does not mean absolute
equality, so we have to take a look at the whole situation, Mr. Speaker, and
that is essentially what we are doing.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.
MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, a related question to the
Minister of Finance.
In the minister's Budget, the minister showed under
provincial sources other than taxes, under an item just known as Other Revenue,
an $8 million increase and we are told that that is due primarily from
Newfoundland Hydro, that it comes from water rights or water revenues, water
rent that CF(L)Co pays to Newfoundland Hydro. If that now has to be paid by
Hydro to the Province, would the minister like to tell us how Hydro is going to
pay their bonds and does this not mean an increase in rates for Newfoundland
Hydro?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.
MR. BAKER: No, Mr. Speaker.
On what the hon. gentleman is saying there is no problem in
paying the bonds. I will get a detailed answer for him and get back to him in
the next day or so -
MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).
MR. BAKER: Yes. - but there is no problem in terms of
paying the bonds; there is $7.9 million that can now be, at this point in time,
turned over to the Province.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.
MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I do not know how Hydro can all of a sudden come up with $8
million and it not affect their budget somewhere in the overall financial
credibility of the corporation. I will wait for the minister to give me some
more detailed information. I would appreciate it. Would the minister also like
to tell us, Mr. Speaker, how the $1.5 million increase shown this year for the
Newfoundland Liquor Corporation comes about in view of the fact that the
minister tells the corporation each year how much money they are to raise, and
now all of a sudden we are showing $1.5 million more. That could only indicate,
Mr. Speaker, that either the sales were up and the corporation had budgeted
incorrectly and has brought in increases earlier this year in excess of what
they were going to need to raise the amount the minister had asked for, or the
corporation has been directed to increase fees now. Is that the case, and if so,
will that $1.5 additional relate to $4.5 million next year?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.
MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, the $1.5 million was really
three separate sources. About $500,000, my understanding is, results from some
efficiencies that were brought into the system in terms of not filling positions
and this kind of thing. Some of it were actually cuts that will in fact carry
over into next year. The projection was this year in terms of sales that the
sales in the Province, and this is the basis on which the projections were done
in the Budget, would be down a couple of per cent. In actual fact the sales are
not down a couple of per cent. They are probably down less than half a per cent
from the previous year and therefore, again, about $500,000 is extra money they
feel they have coming in. So, $500,000 in terms of cuts, $500,000 in terms of
savings, and the other $500,000 my understanding is, is some retained earnings
they had previously.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.
MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Anyway you cut it, if the minister told the corporation to
raise $35.5 million last year for this year and they are now raising $37 million
that is an increase of $1.5 million to consumers. If sales are up then prices
should have been dropped instead of increased after the minister's March Budget,
Mr. Speaker. Let me ask the minister this, Mr. Speaker: There is an item in the
Budget, again under an item, Other Provincial Taxes, of a $10 million increase
and the Minister of Health, the former Minister of Finance whose information is
not very reliable, tells us that comes from school tax arrears. Now in March he
budgeted for the takeover of the School Tax Authorities in which case all the
arrears including this so-called $10 million arrears would have been included.
Is this double entry now into the minister's Budget? Are we counting this twice
or is the minister serious in that he is going to collect that $10 million
arrears, much of which is very, very old and probably uncollectible. Or is the
minister cooking the books here?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance.
MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, we were very prudent in our
estimates and we took certain measures in terms of charging a full year tax and
saying if the tax is paid within a certain length of time that the half year
credit will be given and so on. There are certain measures taken to ensure there
would be a good collection rate in terms of the arrears, and we are very prudent
in our estimates. In actual fact there was more collected to that amount in
arrears than we had planned. I am not sure about the exact amount to the tenth
of a million but it was an amount of money that was collected in addition to
what we had expected would be collected.
MR. SPEAKER: Question Period has expired.
MR. TOBIN: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Placentia
West on a point of order.
MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, during Question Period in
response to a question from the Member for Fogo the Premier accused the
Marystown town council of charging 35 per cent to utility companies. I had
reason, at that time, as a result of that, to contact the Marystown office and I
was told by the town manager that their total in terms of property and the
assessed value was 6.3 per cent.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
MR. ROBERTS: All I need to say is that is no more a point
of order than most of the ones the hon. gentleman raises. It is simply a matter
of debate. We will deal with him and with it at the appropriate time when the
municipal utility tax bill comes on for debate.
MS. VERGE: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: Just let the Speaker rule on the first point
of order first. There is no point of order. The member has taken the opportunity
to clarify or elucidate upon a certain point.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Humber East.
MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My point of order is that the government still has not
printed or distributed the utility tax Bill that has been the subject of recent
discussions. This illustrates the points made by the Opposition House Leader
during Question Period that the government has -
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!
The Chair cannot tolerate points of order on whether the
government has gotten out certain Bills - that kind of thing. The House moves
along and it is appropriate for a member to ask a question when we can expect
it, but the Chair cannot allow a debate and can only simply say that there is no
point of order.
Notices of Motion
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Opposition House Leader on a
point of order.
MR. SIMMS: This is just a point of order on Notices of
Motion, Mr. Speaker.
Ordinarily on Monday we would get notice of Private Members'
Resolutions. We did not get it yesterday and we do not have it again today. I am
wondering if the Government House Leader would give notice.
I know that there has been a desire to forego Private
Members' Day tomorrow to do government business but from what has happened in
the last few days I am not sure that is going to transpire. So I am wondering -
just in case we do not get leave tomorrow to forego Private Members' Day - if
the Government House Leader would notify us of what resolution we may be
debating.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.
MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. gentleman.
My understanding is that all groups within the House, having
been consulted, are of one mind to take tomorrow and make it a government day;
but my hon. friend raises a point. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, if it were proper you
could ask at some time today - whatever time you might consider appropriate -
whether members are prepared to forego Private Members' Day, which will take
unanimous consent.
Should that not be the case, two things will happen. We will
debate the motion that stands in the name of my friend from Pleasantville,
because that is the one; and secondly we will be back here next week because
there is no way that we can possibly get through the amount of substantial,
progressive, legislation that is before the House short of that.
I am in the hands of the House, as always, if we want to be
here next week. The only promise I made is that we will get at least half a day
Christmas.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.
MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, the Government House Leader, in
advising the House there was agreement from all groups, is incorrect. I was
consulted by the Government House Leader and advised him that I would have to
take his request under advisement. I have not yet advised the Government House
Leader what my position is on it.
MR. SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Answers to Questions
For which Notice has been Given
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Employment and
Labour Relations.
MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In responding to a question raised yesterday, a matter raised
by the hon. Member for St. Mary's - The Capes, in which both myself and my
colleague, the Minister of Municipal and Provincial Affairs undertook to check
into the matter of fire departments, volunteer fire brigades and workers
compensation.
The question, where fire fighters are protected under the act
while fighting fires or participating in fire drills or fire drill tournaments
and the like, but have been notified that when they are doing other duties such
as fixing up trucks and so on, and enhancing their fire halls, that they have
been told they are not covered; could we check into it and give a clear answer?
In checking into it and having the regulation under the act
checked with the acting chief executive officer at Workers' Compensation, it is
clear that the volunteer fire fighters are covered from the time they leave
their home or place of employment until the time they return, in any duties
responding to a fire call and any related duties with respect to equipment
and/or trucks that have to be repaired as a result of that call are also covered
under that definition; but for other activities such as building the fire halls
themselves on a volunteer capacity, fund-raising or those types of things, they
are clearly not covered, the same as the same types of people are not covered
when they volunteer to help build churches, community halls, service clubs and
so on. When they are engaged in an activity related to the fighting of a fire,
and then the reinstatement and repair of the vehicle and/or equipment as a
result of that, they are covered. At other times they are not covered.
If the member or anyone else would like further
clarification, Mr. Speaker, they can speak with us directly at the office or I
would refer them to the chief executive officer of the Workers' Compensation
Commission.
Orders of the Day
MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, could we please begin with
Motions 3, 4 and 5, and then I'll ask Your Honour to call order 32, which is
Bill 42, the Waste Material Disposal Act (No. 2).
Motion, the hon. the Ministers of Finance and Municipal and
Provincial Affairs to introduce respectively bills, "An Act To Amend The Tobacco
Tax Act (No. 4)," "An Act To Amend The Gasoline Tax Act (No. 3)", and "An Act
Respecting The Taxation Of Utilities," carried. (Bill Nos. 72, 71 and 73).
On motion, Bill Nos. 72, 71, and 73 read a first time,
ordered read a second time on tomorrow.
MR. ROBERTS: Order 32, Bill 42 please, Sir.
MR. SPEAKER: Order 32, Bill 42. Is this the first time
that it's been called? Is it an adjourned debate?
Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Amend The Waste
Material Disposal Act (No. 2)". (Bill No. 42).
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.
PREMIER WELLS: Mr. Speaker, I'm standing today in the
place and stead of the Minister of Environment and Lands. I should advise the
House, partly I suppose because there were some enquiries from the other side
yesterday, as to where the minister was. She hadn't been available for Question
Period for some time.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
PREMIER WELLS: Yes, she's sick. The minister has had two
very severe illnesses in the last year or so. The first one as everybody knows
was a thyroid condition that causes both physical and emotional consequences
that are quite severe, and the minister still has the affects of that thyroid
problem. On top of that she's been advised in the last couple of days that she
now has diabetes that she has to cope with.
So this is where she's been for the last few days. I'm
disclosing this with her permission today because members were enquiring as to
why she wasn't available to speak in the House. I'm not sure that it would have
been sufficient or it would have been accepted just to simply say she was sick.
The minister has been quite ill for some time. I would ask the understanding of
hon. members on both sides of the House in terms of the minister's discharge of
her public responsibilities both as a minister and as a member of this House.
Mr. Speaker, quite apart from the fact that the minister is
ill and unable to do so herself, I would have been quite happy to move this Bill
anyway, because it is a matter that has caused me a great deal of concern for
some time. One of the commitments that this government had that I frankly admit
I feel we've not dealt with adequately is to bring in legislation to better
protect our environment. I am prepared to stand in the House and say that I
don't believe we've moved as expeditiously as we could have, because there are a
number of significant areas in terms of environmental protection that need to be
addressed.
We are very fortunate in this Province. Relatively speaking
we have a pristine and magnificent physical and biological environment. It's our
objective to do everything within our power to keep it that way. In saying that
I've said publicly, and I should probably say in the House - I said publicly on
other occasions - that the pride with which we stand and proclaim our relatively
pristine physical and biological environment is a little misplaced if we are, at
the same time, conveying the implication that it is pristine because we have
been such good, personal caretakers of that environment. Just the opposite is
true, in many instances. In fact, it is probably relatively pristine not because
of the great care and attention we, as 575,000 residents have given it, but
because it is so immense relative to our population, even the bad and
distasteful habits of a great many of the 575,000 of us could not destroy it in
the time that we have been assaulting it.
So, Mr. Speaker, step number one for all of us is to
recognize that our pristine environment is not due to our good habits and our
good management - to recognize why it is that we have a relatively pristine
environment, and commit ourselves anew to giving the environment the priority it
deserves, starting by recognizing that we are not the owners of the land that I
hold title to in my house. I am not really the owner of it. I am only the owner
of it while I am physically occupying it. It is a means of giving me a right to
possess it and operate it. I am a temporary caretaker for generations yet to
come.
That does not matter whether I live on a relatively crowded
street in the Capital City of St. John's or I live in a nice, attractive area in
Cormack, in the Humber Valley. It does not matter where it is - or on the Burin
Peninsula, or on the Great Northern Peninsula or anywhere else in this Province.
Mr. Speaker, we are only temporary custodians - trustees, stewards - of the
physical environment that we occupy.
So all of us must recognize that and dedicate ourselves anew
to taking steps to control our own ways, our own methods of operation, so as not
to cause any offence to that environment that is at all, by any standard of
judgement, avoidable.
Mr. Speaker, government has a major role to play here, not
only in regulating but in educating.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
PREMIER WELLS: One of the things that the former Minister
of Education did - and it was he who sounded out, 'hear, hear!' because he
personally is so committed to that - one of the things that he did was start to
develop a curriculum that will apply from Kindergarten to Grade XII, so that in
every year of primary, elementary and secondary education - in every single year
of it - there will be an element of the curriculum that deals with the
environment and the proper way of handling the environment.
The education process is what will help future generations
deal with the environment, and we are committed to putting that in place. It is
well on the way and I hope, over the next year or two, it will be pretty fully
in place and developed for all school children.
Mr. Speaker, that will sort of take care of those of us who
are presently, say ten years of age and younger; but what about the rest of us
clods who have been fouling the environment for much of our lives without an
adequate sensitivity? Well I believe we have to carry on an education program
thereto, through means of newspaper, through means of public discussion, a
variety of fora in which there can be public discussion and lectures dealing
with the issue, through television and radio, creating a greater awareness of
the sensitivity of the environment.
I just wish we had the money to hire small planes to fly
every resident of this Province over some of our wetlands and look at what we
have done with all terrain vehicles in destroying wetlands that scientists tell
us will take 500 years to repair themselves. Look at what we are doing. It will
not come back in 500 years. I just wish we could show that to our people and
realize what we are doing as we drive helter-skelter, having great fun driving
these all terrain vehicles over the surface and destroying it.
AN HON. MEMBER: You can walk and see it.
PREMIER WELLS: You can walk and see it, as the hon.
Member for Fogo says. It is a shocking, despicable offence to the environment,
and we must take steps to address it without delay. It is going to be a
difficulty, I know, in this Province, because a great number of our people
having used these all terrain vehicles, a great number of them use them for
gathering fire wood and for other useful purposes-
AN HON. MEMBER: We have the highest per capita usage in
North America.
PREMIER WELLS: The highest per capita usage in North
America and we are doing incredible damage to the environment and, a high level
of damage to young people in terms of injury to their bodies and to the point of
death in many cases, so, Mr. Speaker, we have to take steps to address the
question of ATVs, and I am happy to tell the House or take advantage of this
opportunity to tell the House that in the next, we will not get it done now
before Christmas, but in the next sitting after Christmas, we will be
introducing legislation to deal with that as well.
MS. VERGE: (Inaudible), before the elections?
PREMIER WELLS: Oh, I dare say. The hon. member should not
be thinking about an election in the next number of weeks or months. We will not
have been in office four years until the 5th of May and the House first sat I
think, on the 26th or 27th of May and we have five years from that date, and it
will only be four years in late May, so do not get excited about an election
yet. It is too unbalanced at the moment, it is just too unbalanced. I am
concerned about maintaining the democratic process, so I would be very concerned
about going right now, Mr. Speaker.
Now, Mr. Speaker, let's let hon. members deal with this very
serious subject. A little levity is good but if the hon. Member for Humber East
can restrain herself, I would like to deal with a very serious subject without
this kind of banter back and forth across the House.
Mr. Speaker, quite apart from our responsibility to manage
the physical, the biophysical environment in such a manner that we can pass it
on to succeeding generations to come relatively intact, with no damage or abuse
caused by us, quite apart from that responsibility and we have that, I believe
as an absolute responsibility on all mankind and we who are privileged to have
the custody of this Island and the Labrador Peninsula have as great a
responsibility as do any other people anywhere else in the world.
Quite apart from that absolute responsibility, Mr. Speaker,
we have other immediate responsibilities for our own concerns. We should also
protect the environment for the personal enjoyment of all of us who are alive
and living here and using it today. There is nothing that is personally more
offensive than to climb the Blomidon Mountains on the south side of The Bay of
Islands or to climb Gros Morne in the park or to climb the Trout River Table
Lands and see a discarded soft drink bottle or a discarded candy package or
discarded beer container, just thrown into the environment, and you feel good
about being out in this kind of an atmosphere and enjoying its pristineness, its
cleanness and the wholesomeness of it and you feel personally violated when you
see this kind of trash just discarded in the environment. So quite apart from
our responsibility to generations to come, we also have a responsibility to
ourselves and to our fellow citizens to be reasonably disciplined and protect
the environment for the enjoyment of our fellow citizens even if we do not have
enough sense to care about it for our own use and occupation of it. So, Mr.
Speaker, we have a responsibility from that point of view as well.
We also have a responsibility from another point of view, Mr.
Speaker. That same pristine environment, the same opportunity to climb Gros
Morne or to climb the Long Range Mountains on the Great Northern Peninsula or to
hike around the base of Cabot Tower and enjoy the beauty of that scene or to be
in Trinity Bay and sail or hike around and watch the eagles and enjoy the beauty
of nature in that way. Mr. Speaker, there is a tremendous economic value to it
as well as the personal enjoyment we can get and the economic value is, we can
sell that tremendous commodity to tens and hundreds of millions of people in
other parts of the world but we can't do it if we foul it with garbage, if we
foul it with car wrecks, and foul it with a variety of other things. We can't
market it, Mr. Speaker. And it doesn't matter whether it is put there by us or
it is caused by somebody importing it from the United States, or caused by
somebody burning it and causing offence to the environment. If it is to be done,
if we are to use the environment at all, we must use it in an acceptable way,
and if what we are doing is offensive to the environment it should be stopped,
it should be prohibited. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is the policy and approach of
the government, and that is what caused us to seek to address these concerns
that have lain dormant for so long. We have concerns not only with beverage
containers. People automatically think of pop cans and beer cans. That is not
the only thing. Look at all the candy bar wrappers and the gum wrappers. What
are these metalized containers called? Juices come in them.
AN HON. MEMBER: The drink box.
PREMIER WELLS: I know it is a drink box but there is a
name for them - I forget what it is now. They last for generations and
generations. They don't deteriorate - plastics and so on that we are dumping in
the environment. We have to be concerned even about storing the vast quantities
of it that we are doing in places like Robin Hood Bay, that we are doing in
places like Wild Cove out by Corner Brook, and see what we are doing to the
beautiful pristine environment that we have.
Go out and look at Wild Cove in a beautiful
section of the
Bay of Islands. In the inner bay, up between the mountains, there is this
massive dump with smoke billowing up. It is like it was put there in place for
you to get up on the road so you can look down and have a panoramic view of this
dump. We are inviting tourists to come and expect them to enjoy our pristine
environment. We have a lot of mending of our ways to do, Mr. Speaker. None of
the things we can do to the environment is more visually offensive than the
abandonment of automobile wrecks, helter-skelter, thrown over the side of the
road, dropped over an embankment down on a seashore.
Drive in by Kitchuses, or sail in by Kitchuses in Conception
Bay, going into Conception Harbour and look at the car wrecks dumped over the
hill in Kitchuses, hanging on the side of the rocks by the seashore. And we are
going to invite tourists to come and enjoy our pristine environment and expect
them to pay good dollars to do it?
Mr. Speaker, we have to take immediate action to mend our
unacceptable ways of the past and one of the first things we can do is bring in
strict legislation to stop now, and forever after, the abandonment of automobile
wrecks into the environment. That is what this piece of legislation does, Mr.
Speaker.
The legislation proposed will give us the maximum possible
means of identifying the last registered owner, and because we don't know,
necessarily, to whom an individual may have sold it, if the car was not
subsequently licensed - we will not necessarily know it - the last registered
owner is left with the responsibility, for a couple of reasons, one of which is,
it is a reasonable presumption that was the person who abandoned it somewhere.
If it wasn't right where it was found, they abandoned it somewhere, because it
was not re-registered for use by anybody else. Secondly, there is a requirement
that every registered owner of an automobile, who sells an automobile, is
required to report it to the registry. So if a registered owner does not report
it when he sells it and it is subsequently found abandoned in the environment
then, Mr. Speaker, it is a reasonable presumption that responsibility should
rest with that person because that person also had the responsibility to notify
the Registrar of Motor Vehicles that it was sold to somebody else.
AN HON. MEMBER: What about sold for scrap?
PREMIER WELLS: If it is sold for scrap you can do that,
too. Every owner of a registered motor vehicle has an obligation to notify the
Registrar of Motor Vehicles of the disposal of a vehicle. That is the way of
controlling it. Mr. Speaker, there will be a responsibility on all of us who ask
and claim the right to drive an automobile in the environment. It is not a
burdensome responsibility to place on anybody, to notify the Registrar of Motor
Vehicles of how you have disposed of it.
Any owner, Mr. Speaker, who has difficulty or does not know
where to dispose of a vehicle, may contact the Department of Environment and
Lands or the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs and all the help
within our power will be given to help in disposing of it. As a matter of fact,
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to tell hon. members that the Minister of Environment is
at this moment carrying on discussions with a company that proposes to set up a
plant for the purpose of, I am just trying to find the phrase they used to
describe it, I think it is shredding, crushing and shredding of automobiles into
scrap metal for sale into the scrap metal market. It is an interesting
observation, Mr. Speaker, that much of the growth in the steel industry - not
growth, but replacement of old, outdated steel fabrication facilities or steel
manufacturing facilities is the secondary processing of scrap metal.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
PREMIER WELLS: Yes, a great deal of the new technology is
focused on that rather than manufacturing from pellets. So, it is causing an
impact on IOC in Wabush, they cannot sell as many pellets because the new mills
AN HON. MEMBER: Mini-mills.
PREMIER WELLS: - mini-mills they are called, right. The
minister has it right, they are called mini-mills and that is what they do, they
process steel out of wrecks and rejects.
So, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to say that the minister is now
working with a company that proposes to recycle this kind of metal and put a
facility in this Province to do just that. So, there will be a means whereby
municipalities throughout the Province can cause car wrecks to be collected
together in one place and ultimately crushed, picked up and brought to this kind
of facility for ultimate disposal. So, there should be no excuse for ever
abandoning again, in the environment, an automobile wreck in this Province. Mr.
Speaker, the penalties proposed are quite substantial and serious. They are
intended to be substantial and serious because the bill is intended to be
effective. It is intended to prevent this from ever happening again.
Mr. Speaker, the bill also enables government to go back as
far as ten years, from the date of proclamation of this bill when a car wreck is
found somewhere in the environment, if somebody was responsible for not removing
it, because there is a burden on anybody who has abandoned a vehicle in the
past, the burden to remove it is now there. But, Mr. Speaker, we are not making
this a retroactive offense. The offence is continuing to leave it in the
environment. We are not making it an offense for having abandoning it two years
ago. If you now take steps, anytime within six months after implementation of
the bill to remove it from the environment, no action will be taken. Six months
- I think that is a reasonable period of time to remove it from the environment.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) the summer, for six months.
PREMIER WELLS: But it can be for a period of ten years,
yes.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
PREMIER WELLS: Yes, abandoned ten years ago. So anything
that is there now, must also be removed. Anybody in this Province who knows that
in the recent past he has abandoned an automobile in the environment, has a
responsibility to remove it but, Mr. Speaker, the bill will provide a period of
grace to allow it to be done. It doesn't become an offense immediately. It is
intended, Mr. Speaker, to be successful, to achieve the objective of allowing us
to recover the pristine nature of the magnificent environment that this Province
really has. It will allow us, Mr. Speaker, not only to enjoy it ourselves, and
to market it to others, millions, hopefully, who will pay tens-of-millions of
dollars to enjoy that environment, but also to enable each and every one of us,
as temporary custodians of that environment, to pass it on to the rest of the
world as unimpaired as possible.
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure, and I must say
except for the fact that the minister had to be out of the House, really, in
order for me to do this personally - I kind of wish she were out of the House
for another reason - but I am not at all disappointed that she is out of the
House when this bill had to be presented, because I am happy to make the kinds
of comments that I did and have the opportunity to speak so strongly in favour
of this bill myself. I ask hon. members to give it appropriate consideration and
approval. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Harbour Main.
MR. DOYLE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very pleased to
have a few words to say on this bill, as well. It is a very good piece of
legislation, I have to say to the Premier. I find it very difficult to disagree
with anything that he said on this particular bill. At the same time, let me
also wish the minister a speedy recovery and let's hope she is back in the House
very soon.
The bill is long overdue. It should have been brought in
years ago. Years and years ago this bill should have been here before the House.
I do want to commend the minister and the government for having brought in this
piece of legislation. It is very good. Mr. Speakers, as I said, I find it
difficult to disagree with anything the Premier has said on it. I don't believe
there is any greater scourge on the landscape than a car wreck.
I remember when I was Minister of Municipal Affairs,
representatives of a community came to me one day and asked for funding to clean
up car wrecks in the community. Of course, we didn't have a program within the
department to respond to that particular need, but through the deputy minister
and a few more people within the department, I convinced them to make about
$5,000 available to clean up this community of car wrecks. Lo and behold, I went
back to that community one Sunday afternoon about three months ago, and walking
around the community I did a visual check of the community now, three years
later. I found ninety-six car wrecks in the community again.
So the Premier is quite right. We need an education campaign.
We need to get into the schools and tell the children about what is going on,
what a wonderful environment we have here in Newfoundland, and what a wonderful
Province we have. I think I have waged my own campaign over the last fifteen or
twenty years with respect to car wrecks. I don't believe there is possibly any
member here in the House of Assembly who has had more contact with, or who is
better known by the people in the Department of Environment than I am. I think I
have made several hundred calls to the Department of Environment over the last
fifteen or twenty years, reporting people - I have absolutely no reservation in
saying it - reporting people who throw car wrecks around communities.
You would be surprised how they respond in the Department of
Environment. This legislation will give them the power they need to respond -
before, they didn't have that power. Now they will have the power to respond and
be able to go out into these communities and make councils aware and make people
aware of what it is that is here before the House of Assembly today. I sincerely
hope that the press is listening and that the press will cover what is happening
in the House of Assembly today. Because if the people don't know what is going
on, and if they don't know about this bill and the fines that are going to be
imposed on people who abandon car wrecks, then that makes the job of the
environment people so much harder to do.
I have a couple of concerns about the bill that I want to
make the Premier aware of. One, it covers abandoned vehicles but it doesn't
specifically say anything about a vehicle on private property. Now, some people
are of the opinion that if they abandon a vehicle on their own property: 'That
is my property, I have a right to do that,' they think. They don't realize that
they are ruining their own property and ruining mine, as well. So, I would like
to get the Premier's opinion as to whether or not private property is covered
under this bill. It says it covers the abandonment of a vehicle but it doesn't
specifically spell out anything about private property or if an individual has a
right to abandon a vehicle on his own private property. I would like to know if
that is covered in the bill. I have read the bill. It is a short bill, only two
pages, and I don't see anything that would cover that.
The fine to be imposed, a minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of
$5,000: I am just wondering if the fine applies to - say an individual has
fifteen or twenty vehicles on a piece of property. Would that fine apply to each
individual vehicle, or would it apply, say, to the whole pile of 100 vehicles
that are on the property? Because if the fine of $1,000 is applied to an
individual who has, say, 100 vehicles on his property, then from that point of
view, I guess, the fine could be low. But if it were applied to each individual
vehicle, then the fine could be quite adequate, indeed. So if the Premier or
someone could address that particular point, I think that would be worth
addressing.
Again, I support the bill. I can't really add anything to
what the Premier has said. He has said it quite eloquently and everything that
he has said, I agree with one hundred per cent, especially as it applies to the
ATVs, as well. As a matter of fact, I had one, and when I saw the kind of damage
these vehicles are capable of doing to the environment, I got rid of it,
specifically for that reason. Because we have to be responsible in our use of
them.
It is much better to get into the country and walk. That is
where we really see environmental problems occurring. Because you can go - and I
have walked ten to fifteen miles back in the country and you see Coke cans and
all kinds of litter back there. Mr. Speaker, it is a very sensitive environment
that we have out there and I think we have to learn to look after it.
I know, Mr. Speaker, we have a number - two or three people
on this side of the House - who probably want to say a few words about this
bill. Again, I say, there is very little I can add. It is a good piece of
legislation. If somebody could address those two points I would appreciate it.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East.
MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, I can only echo the words of the
Premier in his support for the environment. I think it is a matter on which the
Premier speaks both eloquently and passionately, I must say. I know he is
accused from time to time of not having a certain amount of passion, but he
certainly expressed a passion for the wilderness and for the outdoors of this
Province and it is one that I share.
So I have to speak generally in favour of the legislation
because it attacks at least one problem that I think is an overwhelming one. It
has been an effort by a large number of people, by successive governments, to
try to resolve, and it has been unsuccessful to date. So I support the
legislation.
May I suggest that perhaps something in addition to this can
be done? Because when I see this bill - and I think of this from a point of view
of law enforcement and the efforts that will have to be made to enforce this
legislation - I see in my mind's eye a large number of people being paid to go
out and find these car wrecks, to enforce the legislation, to hire lawyers to
prosecute, to perhaps prosecute people who are the least able to respond to a
fine. Yes, there will be a deterrent, but those who do offend and will be fined
this minimum fine of $1,000, perhaps will not have the money and may end up in
our jails, and we will be paying for their keep. I appreciate the purpose of
deterrence in legislation such as this, and all legislation, but I think there
comes a point when, depending on who you are dealing with, the deterrence of a
fine or even the suspension of a licence may not have any effect whatsoever.
What I want to suggest, is what I suggested, Mr. Speaker,
when an announcement was made by way of Ministerial Statement last year by the
Minister of Environment about this legislation and her intention to deal with
the problem of car wrecks. That in addition to the stick that there be provided
a carrot of some sort. This would involve a scheme, Mr. Speaker, where when each
time a new vehicle is purchased that there be added a deposit of perhaps the
cost of an option. People go buy cars and I brought one recently myself back in
May and there is a whole string of options attached to it, costing a couple of
hundred dollars for this and $200 or $300 dollars for that and these options are
very expensive. They can add thousands of dollars to the cost of a car.
I do not think it is unreasonable for the Province of
Newfoundland to say that there will be a deposit of $250.00, $200.00, I do not
know someone else could work out what would be appropriate. That could be sort
of a revolving fund, Mr. Speaker, because I am told there are some 230,000
vehicles in this Province, maybe more, it seems like an astounding number but I
am told it is true. I do not know how long they last on the average but as each
year goes by there will be another additional number of new cars sold and this
fund will be created and from that fund, Mr. Speaker, could be used an
opportunity to reimburse or to pay people who may go out and collect these cars.
So that a person who might be tempted by economic
circumstances or ignorance or whatever, to throw a car over a cliff or to
abandon it or dispose of it in some unlawful and environmentally unsound way,
would have a bit of a carrot available to return this car or provide this car to
some location such as a car shredding factory or some place like that. All cars
obviously are not going to be abandoned or returned at one time because people
will be using them for five, or six, or ten, or hopefully longer years. So that
fund would be revolving, and in fact not only would it provide an incentive to
people who might be otherwise tempted to abandon a vehicle, it could also
provide a very good incentive to individuals who may otherwise be unemployed and
we have plenty of them around this Province unfortunately, to actually go out
and find some of these cars in the woods and bring them out. If there is a
deposit of a couple of hundred dollars available maybe they will be encouraged
to use their ingenuity and find ways of hauling these vehicles out of abandoned
places, out of our wilderness, even perhaps up over the cliffs if they can make
a few hundred dollars per vehicle by returning them.
So, Mr. Speaker, that is something that I would suggest to
the government and to the Premier and the minister involved, as a way of adding
a further opportunity to clean up the environment and to provide a disincentive
to the removal of wrecks, because who are we talking about here, we are not
talking about people who have a car for two or three years, trade it in or sell
it to somebody else in the newspaper, we are talking about the people at the end
of the line. The people who may be dealing in car parts themselves because that
is the only kind of vehicles that they can afford. These individuals could very
well benefit from an incentive developed like this. You could have some little
small business at the end of the line of the car wreck business that helps to
make it economical to be more careful of the environment and also to recycle
some of these products to the kind of vehicle shredding or scrap vehicle
manufacturing or whatever, it may help make that economical at the last legs of
a car business.
So, I support the legislation but I fear that if we only use
the stick, it may end us costing the enforcement dollars, it may end us costing
the dollars at the other end, the prosecution dollars and it may end us costing
the dollars to keep people in jail who cannot afford to pay the fines, Mr.
Speaker, because they may not have the money to do so. So I appreciate the
concern that the Premier has expressed about the environment and I commend the
government on bringing forth legislation that tries to address the problem but I
suggest that there may well be a better way to not only make it more enforceable
but it would also make it more palatable and also I would suggest, Mr. Speaker,
more workable.
I do have a small concern about the definition of abandoned
vehicle. I suppose I can relate a recent experience of an individual who called
me for some assistance. Because this individual had a bus without an engine that
was on his own land being used as a camper of sorts. It was all done up, it was
all clean, painted up, and looked after. Inside had all the amenities that one
might have in a travel trailer. Not a wreck but an actual camper trailer of some
sort. It wasn't mobile because it didn't have an engine.
MR. TOBIN: (Inaudible)?
MR. HARRIS: Probably didn't have licence plates on it,
Mr. Speaker, but it was used the same way as a person might use a trailer. It
was mobile but not self-motorized. Parked on his own land and used only as a
weekend retreat. The Member for Burin - Placentia West is wondering where the
sewer line is. I suppose they use a chemical toilet like people do with campers.
Nonetheless, it might be considered to be an abandoned
vehicle here, while in fact it has a use. It's not clear here whether it would
or whether it wouldn't. I wouldn't want to see that kind of thing get caught in
the abandoned vehicle situation when in fact it's not abandoned at all. It's
being used as a different form of vehicle.
I checked the Highway Traffic Act to see how clear the
requirements were to let the motor registration division know of your transfer
of vehicle, it is important. I can relate an experience of my own. I had a car
that was several years old which I drove out to Edmonton to go to law school. At
the end of law school, and I was ready to come back to Newfoundland, I feared
that my vehicle would not be able to come back with me, because it had reached
the end of the road. I had the fortune to encounter a vacuum cleaner salesman
several days before I left Edmonton to come back to Newfoundland. He couldn't
sell me a vacuum cleaner but I sold him my car for approximately the same price
as a vacuum cleaner would have cost. He gave me the money and I gave him the
bill of sale.
I came back to Newfoundland only to find out - several weeks
later I had a letter from the Alberta motor registration division which had been
forwarded to me from my Edmonton address saying that my vehicle had been found
abandoned by the side of a river in Edmonton. I had to send them off copies of
my bill of sale to assure them that I didn't own this vehicle. So I was lucky.
It very well was on its last legs. It only lasted about three weeks after I sold
the vehicle. It does emphasize the importance of notifying the motor
registration division of your sale so you don't get caught in a situation where
you're being required to come up with the penalties that are provided for here.
It's a severe penalty. I think it has to be treated as a
severe incident. It seems that no end of education is really working here. I
acknowledge the efforts of the Member for Harbour Main in his work on this issue
over the years. I remember Ken Meeker of CBC running a campaign for a number of
years encouraging high schools to undertake projects to remove car wrecks from
the wilderness and the vicinities around their communities. A very successful
project but one, as the Member for Harbour Main's indicated, doesn't solve the
problem on an ongoing basis.
So I do support the legislation. I would ask only that we be
a little bit more forward-looking and provide perhaps a carrot as well. Provide
a system of incentives for people to in fact make some money at the end of the
line of a car's life by also being able to return that car to an appropriate
place and get back a deposit that might be collected from new vehicle owners
along the way.
Those are my comments, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port au Port.
MR. MURPHY: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South on
a point of order.
MR. MURPHY: Certainly it is not my intent to disagree
with the Chair in any way, shape or form. I just want to refer Your Honour to
our House Leader the other day. In some discussion in debate that was raised by
the Member for Mount Pearl he talked about the tradition of moving from one side
of the House to the other. After the Premier introduced the bill, the hon.
Member for Harbour Main spoke to it and then, of course, the hon. Member for St.
John's East. I know I was on my feet before the hon. Member for St. John's East
sat down.
I just make that comment, Your Honour, not in disagreeing
with the Chair but just to say a few words to address it.
MR. SPEAKER: The Chair can only say that it did not see
the hon. Member for St. John's South. I expect it was because I was not looking
in that direction. Quite obviously if the hon. member was standing then I would
have seen him standing, but I obviously was not looking and I can only recognize
the people that I see standing. A moment ago I saw four or five standing. I
recognized the Member for Port au Port -
MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to tell the
Member for St. John's South -
MR. SPEAKER: - and I shall attempt to look both ways next
time.
MR. HODDER: I should tell the member that I will be very
short. I wanted to speak now because I have to leave for a short while
afterwards and I did want to say something about this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I have watched people become more
environmentally aware over the years. I remember, as a member of this House,
having to, over the years, in one case to actually invite the CBC out to my own
district to film when people were throwing garbage on one of the nicest beaches
in the whole area. You pay political penalties for that sort of thing, but I
think that more and more we are seeing an environmental awareness.
I should start off, Mr. Speaker, by congratulating the
government on this piece of legislation. I believe that education is important
and I believe that this is a good way to go. I personally support stiff fines
for this.
I do have a warning for the government on this particular
matter. I do not think that the government will be able to get away without
spending some money in this particular case.
I just want to talk from my experience. At this present
moment if you were to visit the community of Fox Island River, which I did with
another person and an environmental officer last summer, we counted, in that
community - and this is not the first time this community has tried to clean
itself up - but many of the rural communities, particularly in my district, it
is ribbon development and you have houses stretched along the road. I think in
that community we counted something like fifty car wrecks. That was last summer.
Now some people, on their own, and they had not had local
government previous to this, after that I held a meeting and we got a local
service district there, which was all that the people would accept at that
particular time. At least that was a first step. Since that time some movement
has been made in that community to do things, but the big problem is the fact
that the only possible place to place the cars, or any other garbage in that
particular community - waste in that community - is near one of the most
beautiful rivers in the Province.
The experience that I have had throughout the Port au Port
Peninsula is that every single effort that we have made to clear up car wrecks
has ended up in car graveyards. That is what I call them - just places which
have normally, usually been eyesores and are still there - where people or
councils have moved the cars, but we have not been able to get the people who
collect car wrecks around the Province to come to the - I think they were out
there once, but I can tell hon. members that this is a problem in rural areas.
Apparently it is just not cost-efficient to do it.
My point is that I believe that the government is going to
have to make some accommodation in those areas. If you are going to fine the
people and you are going to require them to pick up their car wrecks, then there
has to be a place to put them. In many areas there are no suitable places. It's
very difficult to find. With our present types of regional waste disposal places
in some cases basically all you're doing is taking them from one place where
they're an eyesore and putting them somewhere else.
So government must keep in mind that these cars have to go
somewhere. If they're depending on private enterprise to do it, private
enterprise hasn't done that yet. I can speak about that and so can all the
councils. It's not always possible to get the person who's collecting the car
wrecks - even though we're told they'll be there next year. I've dealt with the
Department of Environment about this and they know from what I say. So that
government is certainly not going to be able to just say: fine the people and
force them to do this. As well, they're going to have to make accommodations so
that those car wrecks - if they are not picked up by private enterprise - are
going to be dealt with and dealt with in a satisfactory manner.
I should say as well that I do agree with some of the
comments that were made by the Member for St. John's East when he said that
there should be a carrot as well as a stick. Perhaps there should be something
in this as an incentive for people to do it. Most of all, regardless if there
are incentives, regardless of the heavy fines - which I agree with - there are
times when I've seen beautiful areas in my district, I've felt like hanging the
people rather than fining them and incarcerating them.
Regardless of that there must be somewhere - you've got to
figure out what's going to happen to the end product. I don't think that
government can depend on private enterprise wholly and solely for this. I think
there must be some accommodation made for those wrecks once they're collected or
once people start to turn them in.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.
MR. MURPHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to say a few
words also about this particular piece of legislation. Because I think that the
Member for Kilbride would concur that a part of my district - the Shea Heights
area; not only the Shea Heights area but the Member for Kilbride's district,
which goes down through Blackhead and what have you - there is a tremendous
amount of tourists who go out there every year, thousands and thousands. I don't
know why, but for whatever reason Shea Heights was an area that people from all
around St. John's and what have you have dumped cars historically for years.
Now this year through the NIA committee up on Shea Heights we
removed somewhere in the vicinity of 475 car wrecks. Some of them had plates on
them from 1952. Nineteen fifty-two. Just to give you an idea how long these
wrecks had been lying around. It was an horrendous eyesore. Again like I said,
because it's a beautiful area, going out through Blackhead and going up through
Shea Heights and what have you, you get all the panorama of the city and what
have you. It just seems that residents, for whatever reason - not only car
wrecks, we took chesterfield suites, we took you name it. Fridges, stoves,
whatever humans can dispose of was up on Shea Heights. Of course, through the
great hard work and perseverance by this hon. member we've got most of it gone.
Now we continue.
I wanted to say a few words about the hon. Member for St.
John's East's remarks because I don't know how they make any sense at all. We
had the Member for Harbour Main who got to his feet and made sense. Then the
Member for St. John's East gets up and he complains about the amount of the
fine. Then he talks about the education. He says: nothing is working. The only
thing that's working is the Member for St. John's East. So he's contradictory. I
would suggest to him, and I would agree with the Member for Port au Port, that
if we do not have a sufficient deterrent we will never educate the people. When
they get hit and they get hit hard for disposing of old car wrecks, then I would
suggest then and only then will we see that kind of practice end.
The hon. Member for Port au Port should know that there are
some people now in the garbage disposal business of car wrecks and other white
metals who need some support. One of them happens to live in my district and has
a permit now to go to Robin Hood Bay and bring in a piece of equipment at a cost
of somewhere in the vicinity of $600,000 or $700,000. I think the hon. the
Minister of Environment and Lands has just given that individual approval. It
can take a whole car chassis and shred it to the size of about a dime or a
quarter. It is a grinding machine, and not only will it dispose of cars but it
will dispose of stoves, fridges, any metal product unless it is over, I think,
three quarters of an inch, an inch, whatever the case might be. It does not have
that capability, but it will actually shred all of these metals. Anyway, it is a
step in the right direction.
I just want to make some other comments about the all-terrain
vehicles. In the Avalon wilderness area this past Summer for a two week period
there were a group of people who were supported not only by the federal and
provincial government but supported by the Development Corporation. Now, when
you think about the Avalon wilderness area we are talking about an area that is
really protected and they took out 740 bags of garbage. There were 740 bags of
garbage that came out of the Avalon wilderness. Thanks to Mike Nolan this is
where there are now thousands of caribou wandering up there and those caribou
are very, very dependent on the wetlands.
The Member for Burin - Placentia West is very familiar with
that particular area. He spent a lot of time up in that country and he
understands and knows too well that caribou depend on the wetlands for their
Winter food. Now, I think what we need to do here, and I just make a suggestion
to government, is the time has come where these all-terrain vehicles - I saw an
article not long ago, Mr. Speaker, where they are forced to put an inverted
piece of metal on their tires and as they go over the wetlands it leaves a
number, even with the water over it, and any wildlife officer can look, pick off
the number like a license plate number and now we know, because they are
registered we know who owns that all-terrain vehicle and we can take corrective
action.
AN HON. MEMBER: That is not true.
MR. MURPHY: Yes, it is true. Again, we have to be careful
here because there are a lot of Newfoundlanders who use the all-terrain vehicles
to bring firewood and sawlogs, and what have you, out over. In the Wintertime it
is not a problem because they do not hurt the wetlands when they are frozen up,
as do skidoos, but when the thaw comes then it is a serious problem. That is
when a lot of wood is pulled out of the country. It is cut in the Winter and
taken out in the Spring. I say to the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture if we
had designated routes we would only have a small narrow strip down through a
wetland. When I am up in the country a lot I see a lot of young people running
around the bogs and what have you and destroying the wetlands. The Premier said
five years but it is probably more like 5000 years.
AN HON. MEMBER: The Premier said 500 years.
MR. MURPHY: Well, 500 years the Premier said, but I am
saying 5000 because they just will not come back. Especially here in the
wilderness area here on the Avalon we have the largest most southern herd of
caribou in the world. If we are going to bring tourists here these are the kind
of things we have to be telling people. If we are going to change our resource
we are going to have to make sure that the country is clean and there is no
plastic. I was in the country not long ago and found an Old Milwaukee beer can
and that has been there since the beer strike. The member for Grand Bank is
right, you will not find many of those cans down on the Burin Peninsula. There
are not many of those beer cans down on the Burin Peninsula but I am sure there
are other plastic containers down there, Javex and so forth, from the hard
working people on the Burin Peninsula, but they were not much for drinking Old
Milwaukee.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)
MR. MURPHY: No, I am not saying that. I said they would
get out and they use them for mooring buoys and what have you, and they get
loose and so forth and so on. The member knows what I am talking about.
Mr. Speaker, I support the Bill but I would suggest that
every member in this House, irregardless of their partisan stripe, should ensure
that we do not only have
an act, Bill 42, to dispose of old car wrecks. Old car
wrecks are fine and maybe we will go back, as the Member for St. John's East
said, to a system that was put in place by the other Liberal government some
years ago where we collected a small fee from everybody, and the Member for St.
John's East Extern remembers. He was a much matured adult even in those days. He
had to pay his $2 and he knew what it was for.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. MURPHY: The hon. member is right. The reason it did
not go anywhere, it went into general revenue. That is what happened to it, but
it should be a fund that is laid aside to make sure that we look after our
environment. We cannot do enough. It is an area that will give the Newfoundland
people an opportunity to grow in, and I think we all understand that.
All hon. members should support this Bill and continue to
support other bills associated with the removal - not the removal - to discuss
bills that would associate themselves to ensure that Newfoundlanders and
foreigners and tourists do not litter this beautiful Province.
Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Fogo.
MR. WINSOR: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to have a few
words on the Bill.
It is not often I agree with every word the Premier says but
today I have to say that I agreed with just about every word that the Premier
had to say today.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. WINSOR: Mr. Speaker, I want to have a few words on
this Bill because the intent of this Bill is quite good.
AN HON. MEMBER: Why don't you cross the floor?
MR. WINSOR: No, Mr. Speaker, I am not getting ready to
cross.
I want to say to the Premier that a Bill of this type is what
is badly needed, but to go with it the Premier talked about shredding machines
and small mills and so on. What we need in this Province, and we started to do
one - we had one in my district last year, called a metallic waste site.
AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).
MR. WINSOR: The Member for St. John's South should
listen.
AN HON. MEMBER: I am sorry.
MR. WINSOR: What we need to do in this Province, to
accompany this piece of legislation, is to have somewhere to dispose of these
things to get them away.
In the community where I live there is an area that is being
designated as a site for placing car wrecks, and it has become a complete
eyesore because of the location of the place. Until we designate acceptable
sites that are not going to be out in the public view, so your shredders can
come in, or whatever they are called - in fact, in driving back and forth the
last month, I do not know if it is just they are highly efficient, but there has
been a tractor trailer left on the Roaches Line intersection - that clearing
there - for at least the past three weeks -
AN HON. MEMBER: It is not the same one?
MR. WINSOR: It is not the same one. It is a different one
every week, is it? Every Sunday there seems to be another load of car wrecks in
exactly the same spot day after day after day. Whether it is the same one, I was
starting to wonder if it was being used as a waste disposal site.
We have to have a number of sites in this Province that are
designated as metallic waste sites, and these have to be looked after. We cannot
just take car wrecks and throw them off by the side of the road somewhere and
say: Okay, this is a waste site and we are going to let this stay here for six
months or ten months or a year until the crushers come in and load them on a
tractor trailer and take them away, because what we are doing is taking the
eyesore from a community and making a bigger one somewhere else. So until we get
some acceptable sites in this Province, a Bill like this, while fine in intent,
will not accomplish the purpose.
Mr. Speaker, another area - and this legislation does not
address it - the Member for St. John's East referred to it, is the idea that
many Newfoundlanders have had, for a number of years, of taking - school buses
seem to be a particular favourite target - and turning them into campers. They
drive them up into the woods of the Province on the forestry access roads, set
them up on blocks, and use them as a camper for a number of people. (Inaudible)
when this legislation is proclaimed, will these vehicles that are turned into
campers now be declared a car wreck? What happens to them? There are a number of
them there and this legislation doesn't clearly indicate whether or not these
vehicles that are abandoned, if they would be classed as car wrecks.
The other thing the Premier mentioned, and I'm curious about
how he's going to enforce it, is that sites that were previously acceptable.
Because in a number of communities there were sites where you were allowed to
take car wrecks. They used them in the community for a number of years, and all
of a sudden it's not acceptable to do so any more. Are these people liable now
for the wreck that they put there five years ago when it was acceptable and is
not now acceptable? Who's going to clean up the mess that is already there? It
needs to be addressed. We have a number of concerns out there, communities which
have sites that they want to clean up but don't have the money to do so.
With these few remarks I say that it's a good piece of
legislation but we've got to clean up the sites that are presently there. Until
we do that this legislation is no good, Mr. Speaker. It will not serve any
purpose if we don't clean up the sites that we already have out there in the
Province, because we won't (Inaudible) clean up the environment unless we clean
up the sites that we've had for ten, twelve, fifteen or twenty years.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's East
Extern.
MR. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly agree
with this legislation wholeheartedly. I want to point out to the Premier there's
a couple of areas that I'd like for him to perhaps address.
Number one, I'm not like my colleague for Harbour Main. I do
have an all-terrain vehicle. I've seen what destruction they can cause. I want
to say to the Premier, there's quite a number of Newfoundlanders, including my
sons who use those all-terrain vehicles for hauling wood and logs and whatever,
and they utilize it even in cutting Christmas trees. I see it as a disgrace
what's happening to the bog lands. But when the Premier thinks about it, there
are old woods roads out there that were used by our forefathers. There's no
problem on those at all. The restrictions have to be placed on the wetlands.
There's no doubt about it, we'd better do it and do it soon.
The other thing I wanted to say to the Premier is that as far
as the wrecks are concerned, yes, I had nightmares because of when I was mayor
down in that small town we did everything. I went door to door at one time and
asked people if they'd allow us on their property to remove them.
I ask the Premier, how would you resolve this? We had one man
who even put an ad in the paper saying that he'd take wrecks. There were
hundreds on his property and he wouldn't allow us to go near them. We went to
the courts and had a court order and had the police come with us, open the gate,
put in a piece of machinery and two dump trucks, and we hauled all them out of
there. We put them in a dump site that we said some time or other we'd have a
shredder. There was no shredder available. Anyway, we put them up in this old
pit. The next week he was up before court. He had no money. They couldn't do
anything with him. He was on welfare. Ten days after that that place was strewn
with old cars again. What do you do with that type of person?
Like I say, when the Pope was coming down there I wanted to
see that town as clean as possible. I actually went to doors. I couldn't
understand for the life of me a person with a $65,000, $70,000 or $100,000 home,
and around that home would be three or four old car wrecks. The rationale behind
it is just inconceivable.
AN HON. MEMBER: Did the Pope see it?
MR. PARSONS: We did clean it up, but it was costly to the
little community. Small town. Mr. Speaker, yes, I for one look - I think it's
unbelievable. When you see old wrecks - not alone old wrecks, garbage thrown all
over the place, with such a beautiful place to live. It's so disrespectful.
I remember one time I was in with a young fellow, himself and
his father and I were back in the country trouting. I'm telling you I've fished
in a good many areas in this Province. I always remember that boy, that young
man. He was about fifteen. We cooked up a tin of beans or whatever around the
stove, three or four tins, and before we left he went to the fireplace and he
picked up everything that was there and he put it in a bag and he brought it out
of the country and that young man taught me - it sticks in my memory. You know
there are people out there environmentally conscious and the only thing with it,
all of us are not and that is where the problem lies.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I heard the Premier say today and I
listened with intent when he even mentioned about the old garbage disposal areas
that we have now and he mentioned Robin Hood Bay and I would like for the
Premier to address it. For many, many years septic waste was thrown in Robin
Hood Bay, now I did not see at the time, I was influenced too with the
propaganda but I do not see today what that septic waste really did to Robin
Hood Bay. But, Mr. Speaker, what we did, we eliminated Robin Hood Bay. Now the
people were having their septic tanks cleaned out, and there are a lot of them
on the northeast Avalon, at a cost of about $125.00. This is what it would cost
to have your tank pumped out. Mr. Speaker, what happens now is the people are
forced, because Robin Hood Bay will not accept it, we have no other area, they
are forced now to bring it to this plant. The escalation is 400 per cent, from
$125.00 to nearly $500.00. There are people out there who do not have the
$500.00. They have not got it. It is an expense that they just cannot afford.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the Premier that I had a call
and I went and visited an area where a man - he had no resources to pay the
$500.00 and he told me the only thing that he was going to do was he was going
to dig a hole and bucket it out of his tank, which he did, he dug the hole. I am
saying to the Premier, that this time of year, there are still those problems
existing. What they are doing now, to add injury to the environment, is dumping
it indiscreetly on the sides of the roads or whatever. Now, there is no way you
can dig a hole after November in the Province, I do not know what the solution
is. I suggested very strongly not being on the political vein either that some
kind of subsidization should be used for poor people who cannot afford it. But
what I am saying to you, Mr. Speaker and to the Premier, is there has to be a
solution for this type of waste. It is going to be thrown all over the
countryside and we talk about wrecks, we talk about old beer bottles, but I do
not think that there is anything worse. I say to the Premier I hope that he will
address it. Perhaps there is a means, perhaps there is some kind of
subsidization that we could use only to the people that cannot afford to have
their tanks cleaned out. With that, Mr. Speaker, I say it is a real good Bill
and I hope that the Premier can perhaps implement a couple of the suggestions
and I thank you very much.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Port de Grave.
MR. EFFORD: Mr. Speaker, I am only going to take a very
brief moment to address something that has not been addressed by either one of
the speakers this afternoon. Every point most of the speakers made, except for
the Member for St. John's East, have been very valid points. Mr. Speaker, you
can have all the legislation that you have, and it can be all the absolute
correct legislation if there is nobody to enforce it, and this is what we have
to address, the legislation is ideal, it is correct in every form and every
person in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador knows full well how many car
wrecks are being left on properties, adjacent, clear to the visible eye along
highways but the question is who enforces it?
The RCMP driving along the highway will see a car wreck, will
they go in and charge the person, will the town councils in the area charge the
person, will the local service district? So what is the point of legislation
unless there is somebody to enforce it, somebody wearing the badge as the hon.
minister just said, that is correct and if it is left up to just maybe
environmental officers, does environment have enough staff to go out and
legislate? And if you drive out in my district, driving down through Roaches
Line is a prime example of what is happening.
There are three major areas on Roaches Line. One person has
scrapped cars right on the side of the road and it is a mess clear and visible
to the eye and it really looks disgraceful. About a quarter-of-a-mile up the
road, there is a guy who just does not care about anything and he has car wrecks
strewn all over the place. That has been there for quite awhile.
AN HON. MEMBER: Who cleans it up?
MR. EFFORD: Who cleans it up, or who tells the guy he has
to clean it up? Mr. Speaker, that is something that is not addressed in this
piece of legislation, and that is something that must be done. I just bring it
to the attention of the House that it has to be dealt with and this legislation
needs to be deal with immediately. It is not listed here so I mention it, Mr.
Speaker, for the record just to make that a clear point.
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Kilbride.
MR. R. AYLWARD: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
I will not be very long. It seems people are anxious to get
out of here and get on with the legislation, but they should be anxious to do
their job in this House of Assembly, to debate legislation, particularly
legislation that affects our environment. I consider this to be probably the
most important legislation we can be doing in this House of Assembly.
Mr. Speaker, I was only going to take a couple of minutes but
first of all, I want to congratulate the Member for Port de Grave, because that
is the basic issue of this legislation. If you cannot enforce it, you can bring
in all the rules and regulations you have now; we have lots of rules and
regulations on the book, both in our Environmental Act and Highway Traffic act,
that, dissuade or do not allow people to abandon car wrecks in this Province.
The legislation is there today, the problem is enforcement.
We are not enforcing it. This legislation here, does nothing for enforcement,
nothing for extra people on staff with the Department of Environment and Lands.
I will try not to be negative, I will make a suggestion, that all of the
inspectors or the superintendents or all of the highway workers should be given
the proper training and then be allowed to enforce some of these regulations. We
have people going around this Province daily who are involved with the
Department of Works, Services and Transportation or even the wildlife officers,
or even the Department of Finance people, anyone who is an inspector or enforcer
of some regulations in this Province.
We have the bodies but we have to give them the training and
we have to give them the authority to go and do something about it, even if it
is just the authority, if one of those inspectors, whoever it is, working for
any department of government, see someone throw a wreck anywhere, they can at
least take out a ticket, the same as a policeman would if I had parked in the
wrong place, it could be a $50,000 ticket, but a ticket and write out a
summary
conviction or a ticket right there on the spot.
Now we have people in the system who can do it but they have
not authority to do it. I can drive by some of the inspectors for the Department
of Highways tomorrow with a wreck on the back of my car and he will look at me
and turn his head the other way, and I can go wherever I like with that wreck
and discard it. But the thing that really astonishes me, the people who throw
these wrecks in the hardest possible places in the world to bring them, where it
would be easier to bring them to a dump. They have to get them in a car, they
have to get them on the back of a truck somehow, and once you get this thing on
the back of a truck or on something that is movable if it is a car wreck, why
bring it up five miles up an old woods road and throw it off the truck, why not
take it two miles to the dump? I do not understand what the problem is.
At one time the problem was that dumps would not accept it,
so that might be another change we have to make, where all community dumps or
whatever you call them now, waste disposal areas I think, but all the community
dumps have to accept them; that is another regulation. When you have that at the
back of your truck, the old car wreck that comes out of your yard, and you have
it on the back of your truck, it is easier to go to a waste disposal area with
it if they will accept it than it is to go up some woods road and try to push it
off the back of your truck into the woods.
So, Mr. Speaker, there is a problem in that area where people
who wish to dispose of them properly do not know what to do with them or do not
know where to bring them. There is a problem in not having enough enforcement
officers who see people illegally disposing of car wrecks, not being able to
enforce it themselves and I think that we should allow some of our people who
work in the departments now, any inspectors, any enforcement officers we have
working for all our departments now, to be allowed to go and issue some type of
a summons or ticket or warrant for their arrest. I do not know how you would do
it but that is what has to be done.
The fact that we have a good piece of legislation on the
books in this Legislature is nothing. It can be the best legislation in the
world but it will not be worth the paper it is written on unless we decide to
enforce it. Mr. Speaker, if we do not enforce it then it is just as well to
forget it. Car wrecks are a big problem and a nuisance. The Member for Port de
Grave mentioned two sites out in his area, well one site in my area and one in
the area of the Member for St. John's South, look untidy when you pass by. They
seem to be in the middle of the view because they grew there when they started,
but at least it is all in the one place. I will say that for it, the two salvage
operations that are in this northeast Avalon area, or my area at least, one in
Kilbride and one in Shea Heights, at least they get the cars in one area and
every now and then they are taken away, these crush operations come in to do it.
The operator on Shea Heights has been trying desperately to
get some assistance from one or the other of the assisting agencies to set up a
shredding company but he cannot get anywhere with it. I do not know what his
problem is. I have not had a chance to talk to him. I would imagine the Member
for St. John's South has been talking to him. He wants to set up a shredding
operation. That is what we need. We need one in this area and we need several
around. He cannot get off the ground with it. The City of St. John's gave him
some trouble with it for awhile but that is all straightened away now. He has
the experience, but again like many businesses in Newfoundland he does not have
the working capital to get this business in operation. That should be a part of
our legislation, to be able to help people set up the proper disposal facilities
which would be crushers to be stationed around the Province, or it would be a
shredding company. You need one shredding operation in the Province and you need
probably a dozen crushing operations in the Province. You can crush them and
bring them to that shredder and they will dispose of them.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the former Minister of Education
on his job in the classroom on the environment. It is very important. It is also
very important that we continue to educate everyone about environmental issues,
particularly car wrecks. They are hollow words, Mr. Speaker. When you hear what
the Premier said today they ring awful hollow in my ears when I see a company
which wants to bring garbage from the United States into this Province and we do
not have a policy, our government in this Province does not have a policy to
dissuade immediately any acceptance of garbage from outside the Province. This
legislation might be good and what the Premier said about it might be the best
thing in the world but it rings hollow in my ears when we have, not one, but two
different companies looking to dump garbage in our Province. There should be a
policy that we will not accept the garbage, period. What odds about what
regulations are in the books or who you allow to make proposals. Make a policy.
Any government can have a policy that we will not accept garbage from outside
areas. Our environmental regulations can still stand on the books. If our policy
is we will not take garbage from outside our Province, car wrecks or anything
else, that is our policy and we will not have people coming here trying to take
advantage of our desperate need for employment, our desperate need for work for
people in this Province, so that they can dump their garbage in our Province.
Mr. Speaker, as good as this piece of legislation is I am
surprised that the Premier introduced it because he is the one who has total
control as to whether or not garbage comes into this Province from the Eastern
Seaboard States. This legislation, as good as it might be, is useless unless we
can enforce it.
Thank you.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John's North.
DR. WARREN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I will be very, very brief. I want to ensure the House that I
enthusiastically support this Bill. I very enthusiastically support what the
Premier said about the preservation and enhancement of our environment,
particularly what he said about environmental education. I assure members
opposite that most of us on this side of the House believe this is just the
first of many initiatives in this area, some before the election and many thers
after the next election, that we will bring in.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to use a quotation here, and I would
commend this to members of the House and perhaps recommend that all citizens of
this Province consider a quotation that I read some years ago. I hope I have it
right, and I am going to conclude my speech with this. Mr. Speaker, the
quotation reads as follows: We don't inherit the land from our ancestors, we
borrow it from our children. Mr. Speaker, that says a great deal about the
importance of this Bill and others of similar nature. Thank you.
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Eagle River.
MR. DUMARESQUE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to spend a few minutes talking about this piece of
legislation, because I believe it is flawed. I do believe there are things that
need to be done with this piece of legislation on three fronts: On the fact, Mr.
Speaker, that the disposal sites are not identified, and we need to clear up the
ambiguity that is there right now. I know in our small communities along the
coast of Labrador, we have had some sites that have been turned down to receive
some particular types of garbage. Certainly, car wrecks have, in the past, been
refused entry to some of the disposal sites by Environment, Mr. Speaker. I think
that that issue has to be dealt with, and it has to be dealt with to the
satisfaction of the small municipalities out there.
Apart from the specifications