December

6, 1993

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLII No. 29

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Dicks): Order, please!

Statements by Ministers

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

Lands.

MS. COWAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am speaking today, making a Ministerial Statement, in my

role as minister responsible for the status of women. Today marks the

anniversary of the massacre of fourteen women at Montreal's cole Polytechnique

Engineering School.

In commemoration of this extreme example of violence against

women, and in memory of those fourteen women, December 6 has been recognized as

the national day of remembrance and action on violence against women. This date

serves as a stark reminder of the many women who are beaten, sexually assaulted,

or who live with the threat of violence every day of their lives.

We need only look to the findings of the recent Statistics

Canada survey, or the National Panel Report on Violence Against Women released

this summer, to see just how pervasive violence against women really is in our

society. The Statistics Canada survey found out that the incidence of violence

against women in this country is alarmingly high. In our Province, 33 per cent

of women have experienced at least one incident of violence since the age of

sixteen. Almost one-half of Canadian women reported violence by men known to

them, and one-quarter reported violence by a stranger, and more than one in

every ten women in Canada who reported violence in a current marriage has, at

some point, felt her life was in danger.

Last week my colleague, the hon. Roger Grimes, urged other

male colleagues in this House to wear a white ribbon as a symbol of their

opposition to men's violence against women. I am wearing a purple ribbon to show

my concern, and have given purple ribbons to the other two women who sit in the

House. This is to show my concern as a woman. Of course, wearing one of these

ribbons, white or purple, is just one way of showing your friends, your family,

and your co-workers, that violence against women is unacceptable. There are many

other things each of us can do as well to show others that we will not tolerate

or accept violence against women.

You will notice in front of you today, a bookmark. I have

more of them, if you would like some to distribute. This bookmark is also

available in bookstores and libraries across the Province, as well as to women's

groups and other interested individuals. It is titled, `Take Action. Work to End

Violence Against Women.' The bookmark asks us to examine our own values, the

life choices we make and our behaviour to achieve equality for women and to stop

violence. To help us do that it offers tips for both men and women taken from

the National Panel Report on Violence Against Women. For instance, men are

encouraged to ask women about their experiences, their fears and to listen, to

share responsibility for child care and home maintenance without being asked, to

challenge violence or sexist behaviour whenever they see it and to challenge

other men to become part of the solution.

There are also things we can do in our lives as both women

and men to show that we are a part of the solution. We can boycott movies and

other media that glorify violence, we can commit to not blaming women for the

violence in their lives, we can practice cooperation instead of competition, we

can challenge stereotypes about male and female roles and about cultures that

are different from our own. We can commit to act on what we learn and we can

speak up. You may wonder how some of these ideas will help in our struggle to

end violence against women but take a few minutes to review them and think about

how each one reflects the inequality that exists for women in our society. I

urge you to not only read this bookmark but to start acting on it today.

I should also take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to update

you on the progress of our provincial strategy on violence. As you may know, in

April we published a consultation paper on building a provincial strategy to

address violence against women, children and elderly and dependent adults. In

June we began a series of five consultations across the Province to receive

input on that paper and to look at ways government and the community can work

together to address the issues of violence. We are now preparing a report on

those consultations and will soon begin work on a long-term strategy against

violence in our Province.

This is one way government is showing its commitment to

eliminating violence against women. I urge each of you to use the suggestions in

this bookmark to be part of the solution as well. While we are not responsible

for the actions of men who commit violent acts against women, we are responsible

for what we say and do every day that hinders equality and encourages violence.

As we remember those fourteen women today, let us also

remember the many other women who are victims of violence every day of the year.

Let us continue to work towards a society where it is safe for women to walk

alone in their own neighbourhoods, where women can feel safe with their male

partners, where violence against women is not tolerated. Let us work towards a

society that is truly equal.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise to join with the minister on behalf of our party and

our caucus on this side of the House in recognizing and remembering the events

of four years ago that shocked hundreds of thousands of people across Canada out

of their complacency towards the violence that women in this country face every

day. It was four years ago, today, on December 6, 1989 at about 5:30 in the

afternoon that a man armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife

walked into that institute, the cole Polytechnique, an engineering school

associated with the University of Montreal, where he stalked the halls, declared

his hatred for feminists and shot and killed fourteen women and wounded perhaps

a dozen more. Regrettably, just about everyone remembers the name of the person,

the man responsible for this extremely violent act. Regrettably, most people do

not remember the names of the fourteen women who were massacred, fourteen young

engineering students who are not alive today because of the actions of that one

man, and we have to ask, why don't we remember and place more emphasis on

remembering people like Genevive Bergeron, Anne-Marie Edward, Maryse Leclair,

Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michele Richard, and all of the others. Why

don't we? Here in our own Province, I guess, there was reaction, shock, just a

few weeks ago when we heard the results of a recent survey, which the minister

referred to in her statement, which showed that 33 per cent of women in this

Province have experienced at least one incident of violence since the age of

sixteen - and I wouldn't be surprised if that study were inaccurate. I wouldn't

be surprised at all if it were even higher. Thirty-three per cent, Mr. Speaker.

How can we possibly remain complacent knowing the extent to which violence

against women is still present and tolerated right here in our own communities?

I am pleased to hear the minister say that they are working,

as a government, on a long-term strategy against violence in our Province and I

am pleased to hear that a report is now being prepared on the consultations that

took place last June, but what I wanted to hear, and I think what the people of

this Province want to hear, from the minister, is that after nearly five years

in office now as a government, there would be more concrete policies and

programs to be announced.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time has elapsed.

MR. SIMMS: If I could just have a minute or so to

conclude.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank members

opposite.

Things have changed over the last twenty years; they have

changed a small bit, I guess, but those changes have come about in a large part

because of the work of women's organizations, which have forced people and

forced governments, really, to recognize the nature and the extent to which this

problem exists. It is not tolerable to laugh and joke about violence against

women; at one time it was tolerated, it is no longer tolerable. But simply

taking away the jokes and the humour that used to be associated with that will

not correct the fundamental problem. So I say to the minister, yes, I agree,

there must be more education, there has to be more education, and maybe a

suggestion that I will repeat, which was made by my colleague, the Member for

Humber East, I think, in one of her responses to a similar statement a while

back:

Maybe the minister could arrange to have some kind of a

special workshop put together dealing with the issue of violence against women

for Cabinet ministers, for MHAs and for other people who have to make policies

from time to time to ensure that they have this particular issue, front and

centre in their minds, at all times, when they are making decisions dealing with

women and issues of this nature.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. HARRIS: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. HARRIS: I would like to ask the leave of the House to

speak to this Ministerial Statement and, in doing so, I would like to remind

hon. members that what I am seeking here, is what has -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed, agreed!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. -

MR. HARRIS: May I finish my point of order, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

First of all, if the hon. member's point of order is to the

question of leave to speak, I believe the hon. member has leave of the House.

MR. HARRIS: I wanted to point out, Mr. Speaker, that what

I am seeking by seeking leave, is the same courtesy that has been granted to the

Leader of the Liberal Party in the Province of Saskatchewan.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Speaker, if I am to speak to my point of

order -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: He is speaking to his point of order, still.

MR. SPEAKER: I can't hear the hon. member or anybody else

in the House. As I said to the hon. member, if your point of order is that you

wish leave to speak on the issue, you have leave.

MR. HARRIS: I wish to make my point of order, Mr.

Speaker.

First, there may be somebody who wants to deny leave, I don't

know, but I want to make my point of order, if I may.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

Is the hon. member's point of order something other than

having leave to speak to the House?

MR. HARRIS: My point of order was, in requesting leave to

speak to the House, to remind hon. members -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

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

If the hon. ministers wish to be recognized, I will recognize

them after the hon. member speaks, but I'm having difficulty in determining what

the hon. - if you could tell me what the point of order was, first of all.

MR. HARRIS: My point of order is to ask leave to speak to

the Ministerial Statement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Leave granted!

MR. SPEAKER: The leave is granted so there is no need to

continue with the point of order, was my point.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To this statement, I want to join with the minister and with

the Leader of the Opposition in recognizing today as an important day to

remember the Montreal massacre, but also to remind ourselves that it wasn't very

long before that incident four years ago, that when Margaret Mitchell, M.P.,

raised the issue of wife-battering in the House of Commons, she was met with

laughter from the other side of the House.

We have come a long way since that time, as the Leader of the

Opposition has mentioned, but we still have women who feel hunted, we still have

the necessity in some places for patrols at night. I know in McGill University

they have patrols at night to protect women. We still have a situation in this

Province where women's centres are struggling to survive financially, and

transition houses and shelters are also desperately in need of funds to

continue. It is a time for us to redouble our own efforts, to recognize that

there has been a fairly massive consciousness-raising at certain levels of

society, and that we have to commit ourselves to redoubling our efforts to make

sure that women, all women, are safe from violence. That requires far more work

on the part of all of us and perhaps, as the Leader of the Opposition has

suggested, an attempt to involve both men and women in that effort by some sort

of massive symposium involving all sorts of groups - women's groups,

individuals, service groups, and anybody who can contribute to this effort.

So, in doing that, Mr. Speaker -

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member's time has elapsed.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: - we recognize this tragic event, and I think

it is important that we do that in a non-partisan way. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Oral Questions

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

MR. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker, the Premier is out of the

Province and the Minister of Finance, I notice now, is out of the Province. I

wasn't aware of that. So I will direct my questions, I think, to the Minister of

Employment and Labour Relations. I think it applies to him more than, perhaps,

others. Maybe he is the lead minister, anyway.

Last Thursday, I watched a television news program on CBC and

the Here and Now program carried a report that the provincial Cabinet

here had submitted to the federal Cabinet, a plan for a new income support

program. That plan, presumably, as I understood it, would replace unemployment

insurance, social assistance, fisheries compensation and other similar federal

transfers to individuals.

Can I ask the minister, first of all: Has such a plan, in

fact, been approved by the provincial Cabinet? Has it been submitted to the

federal Cabinet? What were the dates of those actions taken, if that is true,

and when would such a plan take effect if it were, in fact, approved?

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

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the hon.

the Leader of the Opposition for the question.

It is a fact, and I think publicly known for some time, that

Dr. House and the Economic Recovery Commission, at the request of the provincial

government, had spent some time over the past year and some-odd - a little

longer than that - working toward the basic concepts of a proposal that would

look at income security for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

The proposal was presented to the Cabinet some time during

the summer, and agreement in principle was given at that time with the concepts

contained in that proposal. As well Premier Wells, upon his visit to Ottawa,

presented a copy of Dr. House's proposals that had been endorsed in principle by

the Cabinet to Prime Minister Chrtien shortly after Mr. Chrtien was sworn in

as Prime Minister, and there will be a follow-up meeting. Minister Axworthy is

visiting Newfoundland, tentatively next week, I believe, a week from today, at

which point in time there will be further discussion of that matter and others

with the federal minister.

We are also seeking further meetings relating to the matters

contained in that report with the federal ministers, because any or all of the

proposals contained in that document would need and would depend upon the great

co-operation of the federal government for any of it to go forward.

The plan then, upon meeting with Minister Axworthy next week,

is for the Premier to make the details of the proposal that has been presented

to the Prime Minister and to the federal minister public some time later next

week.

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

Opposition.

MR. SIMMS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So the details of the proposal will be made public next week;

I think that is what the minister indicated.

I want to ask him this question: A year ago - I guess it was

at least a year ago - the Premier struck an advisory panel to draft a Strategic

Social Plan. I am sure the minister remembers it. We all remember the

announcement. Now one of its key tasks was to put together an income support

program, but it was going to be done after extensive public consultation to

receive submissions and to have discussion. Can I ask the minister: Has that

panel been struck? Who is on the panel, and has it met at all in the last twelve

months?

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

Labour Relations.

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

Yes, there is a planning and co-ordinating group that has

been meeting regularly with respect to the Province's Strategic Social Plan,

which will be the companion document to the Strategic Economic Plan, recognizing

that both developments are required and are necessary in the Province, that if

the economic basis is stabilized then certainly we should be paying more

attention to the kinds of social programming that the government could then

properly provide with the monies that would flow to government from a proper

economic base.

That work has been ongoing, and one of the things that group

has been made aware of - not the total details, to my knowledge - but certainly

they are aware of the work that the Economic Recovery Commission, under Dr.

House's guidance, has done with respect to income security, and they are looking

at a broad range of other social issues, including some aspects of income

security that, at a point in time, when they are prepared, when they bring

forward a report to Cabinet, there is again intended to be a public consultation

process that will flow out of that.

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SIMMS: I wonder if the minister could tell us who is

on this panel?

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

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

At this point in time I will have to go and seek out the

actual names of the group, but it is a working group of senior bureaucrats, at

this point in time, combined with others from outside of government, who are

putting together the details of the kind of thing that would be taken forward

for a public consultation.

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

MR. SIMMS: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

I hope maybe the minister could sort of get quick access to

that and table it before the day is out, or tomorrow, or as soon as he possibly

could. I am anxious to see that.

I would like to ask the minister: In view of the fact that a

broad income support program such as the one that we hear being advocated - or

at least we hear about being advocated by the government - could have a major

impact on, I suppose, nearly half of the people in this Province - certainly

well over 200,000 people in this Province - who rely in some way on UI, or

fisheries compensation, or social assistance, or some other fixed income like

the Canadian Pension Plan or whatever, for all or part of their income.

I wonder can the minister give a commitment to this House,

that in order to give the people who would most directly be affected by any

changes in this program, that the government would be willing to, in fact,

fulfil the commitment that the Premier made when he talked about this panel to

discuss the Strategic Social Plan? Could the minister tell the House if the

government intends to carry out the announced public hearing process, to take

this whole issue to the people of the Province so that people can have some

input, discussion and all the rest that the Premier alluded to a year ago?

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

Labour Relations.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we will certainly have that

looked into. I will attempt as well to get the names, the actual names of the

people who are involved in this planning process at this time. Again, as I

indicated in an answer to a previous question, the planning is being done to my

knowledge, with the full intent that the outcome of it would be a full round of

public consultation and part and parcel of any strategic social planning that

would occur, would in all likelihood as well, include reference to the details

that are about to be released next week of the proposals for income security

that were hinted at in the News a week ago on Thursday.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Friday I

raised some questions to the Minister of Social Services about the methods used

by the new welfare investigators. I want to come back to the issue of whether

the investigators are uncovering fraud or overpayment resulting from inaccurate

or incomplete assistance made by overworked welfare officers. The former

minister, Mr. Gullage, said that investigators hired in the Western Region, as a

pilot project, recovered over $1 million from that region in one year. Mr.

Speaker, that is a lot of money and I would like to ask the minister, how much

of that $1 million was obtained by fraud and what, if any, charges were laid?

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

MR. LUSH: The investigators have been on the job since

September, that is the official list of investigators. The investigators to

which the hon. member refers was part of a pilot project. I cannot, with any

decree of certainty at the moment - I can undertake to find it out for the

member whether or not - or what amount of the activities of wrongdoing were

related to fraudulent activities. I can ascertain to get that for the member but

as of this moment I cannot put a number on that for him.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. FITZGERALD: I would like to ask the minister, Mr.

Speaker, if the people who are told that they have to pay back this money have

any recourse to challenge the findings of those investigators? Many of those

people are very poor and perhaps not very well versed on the recourse that they

can take. Do you provide assistance, Mr. Minister, to those people so that they

can verify whether the amounts that they must pay back are valid or not?

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

MR. LUSH: The member seems rather concerned that people

who owe money to the Department of Social Services should not be required to pay

it back. Doesn't the hon. member realize that when people owe money to the

Department of Social Services that they ought to pay it back? As far as they can

appeal, they can appeal the decision, they can appeal any decision - yes any

decision can be appealed to an appeal board - so they would have the normal

recourse, there is an appeal to the regional director. The regional director in

each area is the person to whom these people should appeal.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

A final supplementary, the hon. the Member for Bonavista

South.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Speaker, that is something new to me.

Maybe the minister could clarify that when he gets up to answer this question. I

was not aware that there was an appeal board in place where those people could

take their appeal to, once the investigators were finished with the case.

However, I want to raise the matter of confidentiality with the minister. A

social assistance client called us to complain that an investigator had

disclosed confidential, financial and personal information about another person

who was also a social assistance client. He had no idea why unless it was an

attempt to draw information out of him.

Has the minister received complaints of that kind? Do the

investigative procedures approved by the department permit the use of

confidential information to elicit information from potential informants? I

would like to ask the minister also if he would table the rules of conduct for

those social service investigators in the House, please.

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

MR. LUSH: Mr. Speaker, first of all, with respect to

appeals, all members know that there is an appeal board and all matters relating

to Social Services can be appealed through that appeal board. All matters can be

appealed. There is also another level of appeal at the regional level, before it

reaches that appeal.

With respect to the -

MR. TOBIN: You cannot appeal overpayments!

MR. LUSH: I tell the member you can appeal anything.

There is nothing written down as to what can be appealed. You can appeal

anything.

With respect to confidentiality, I tell the hon. member, if

he knows of something, a specific case, the proper place is to report it to the

officials, not to bring it up here in the House. If he knows of something

special, report it to the department and we will act upon it immediately. With

respect to a code of behaviour, I don't know if we have one, but if we have one

we will bring it in. It is pretty difficult to legislate behaviour but if we

have something down we will bring it in.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

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

the Minister of Education. When will the government fulfil the 1989 Liberal

campaign promise of expanding Grenfell College? People remember that the promise

wasn't to expand the Corner Brook university campus facilities at some

unspecified later date. The promise was to expand Grenfell College facilities

immediately. Will the minister tell us today how much longer Grenfell College

students will have to put up with inadequate science labs and overcrowded

library facilities? How much longer will Grenfell College students have to sit

on the floor in crowded corridors to study between classes?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, it won't be long now. In due

course we will do all these things.

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

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We heard that phrase

once before. It was Frank Moores' campaign slogan. I think the members on this

side will reactivate that slogan, and it is true. It won't be long now. It won't

be long before members opposite will be defeated and a competent group which

will expand Grenfell College facilities is substituted. Mr. Speaker, plans had

been prepared for new Grenfell College facilities. When will those plans be

implemented?

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

MR. DECKER: The voice of one crying in the wilderness.

She wants another election. We only had one, what, not a year ago. Six months

ago, whenever it was.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not at liberty to divulge anything which is

in the Budget, even if I knew what was in the Budget. Hopefully in due course we

will be able to do all these fine things for Grenfell College, and the people of

Corner Brook will be so happy to see their college expanded. Hopefully in due

course it will be a full degree granting university.

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

Humber East.

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

which I will put to either the Minister of Education or the Minister of Health.

It has to do with nursing education. Last week in answer to my questions the

Minister of Health said that he and his officials are currently reviewing

nursing education in the Province in a comprehensive way, and I appreciate that.

Can one of the responsible ministers ensure people that whatever changes result

from the current review will include equivalent nursing education opportunities

in Corner Brook for students in the western region as will be available in St.

John's?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member

that this government will continue the practice that we have been continuing now

for the last five years, which is known as fairness and balance. Everything we

do will be fair to all of our people, will be balanced for all of our people,

and that will include Corner Brook, that will include Croque, that will include

Goose Bay. That will include all of the Province and all of our people, Mr.

Speaker. That is what Liberalism is all about in this House.

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

Extern.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to

also address my questions to the Minister of Education. The Department of

Education and the educational agencies it regulates require students to reveal

their social insurance and/or MCP numbers. These numbers along with other

student identification information, are on computers at the university and other

post-secondary institutions and, in some instances, the Department of Education,

itself. Are there any regulations or guidelines applying to all these agencies

to control access to this information, its use and distribution?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure of the details of

just specifically what is there to protect the use of this information. The

reason it is there, of course, is simply to assist in giving out student loans

and so on but, as a general rule, I know that it is just impossible to access

confidential information legally; I won't say it hasn't been done illegally but,

as a general rule, people's privacy is protected, and I am quite certain that

that is the case with the colleges and the student loans and all that sort of

thing. However, just to be absolutely certain, I will take a look at that. If

the hon. member has some specific reason to suspect that somehow people's

privacy is being invaded, I would certainly appreciate it if he would bring it

to my attention so that I could check this special case. I wouldn't doubt, but

as a general rule, no one is supposed to have his privacy invaded in this area,

but if there is a specific case, by all means, bring it to my attention.

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

John's East Extern.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, I am about to bring it to your attention.

My question has a purpose. I have a list of students, right

here, accepted for a certain program at Memorial University that shows

addresses, telephone numbers, and MUN registration numbers, as well as Social

Insurance numbers and MCP numbers. This list is available from the responsible

department to anyone who asks for it. I ask the minister, who is responsible in

this Legislature for MUN to determine how free the university is in spreading

around this kind of information, and what procedures it has, if any, to protect

the student information?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, until I see what the hon. member

has, I really am at somewhat of a disadvantage in even commenting on it. He

might simply have a page out of a telephone book with some social insurance

numbers attached to it, so if he would bring -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is making a

statement. I am at a clear disadvantage; I have not seen what he is quoting

from, I have no idea under the sun where he got it, but I would certainly

appreciate it if the hon. member would bring the matter to my attention, and if

someone has done something which is illegal, then we will put it through the

legal process and deal with it as it should be dealt with, Mr. Speaker.

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

for St. John's East Extern.

MR. J. BYRNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, basically the information that I have here, Mr.

Minister, was attained by an individual walking into the university requesting

names and addresses, and all this information was given to him.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. J. BYRNE: At Memorial University. The information on

the sheet I have, could be used by anyone to access academic, personal and

financial and medical information about a student, as well as for many other

purposes. Will the minister consider bringing in legislation to limit the access

and to control the use of this kind of information on education students in this

Province? Mr. Minister, this person walked in, did not show any identification

whatsoever, asked for the information and was handed it outright. And I would

certainly make it available to the minister, but I won't make it public, to

protect the names on the list.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will know that

the university is bound by the Privacy Act just as every other institution and

every other legacy of government. I will certainly take this matter under

advisement, and see if someone has acted illegally, and if that is the case,

then whoever acted contrary to and in contravention of the Privacy Act, will

bear the consequences whatever they are. I have to qualify my answer by saying,

I have not yet seen what the hon. member has there, it could be something which

is quite innocent, but after seeing it, I will certainly pursue it further if,

in my judgement, it has to be pursued further.

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

Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the government's Strategic Economic Plan, it is stated

that public consultation and participation will be sought for decisions on the

management of forest ecosystem.

I want to ask the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture, if

there has been any public consultation and participation in the decision to

allow the use of mechanical harvesters in the logging operations of the three

paper mills in the Province.

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, we have a

twenty-year plan, and that plan is administered by way of increments every five

years. And, yes, that twenty-year plan was submitted to public hearings all

across the Province.

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

Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: I would like to ask the minister, on what

basis has he allowed the use of mechanical harvesters in the logging operations,

was there an environmental impact study, did he have any significant evidence

that the use of this technology would have a negative impact on the ecology, and

would he table those in the House?

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware that the use of

feller bunchers or mechanical harvesters, as he is talking about, was submitted

for a specific environmental assessment, but I am aware that groups from all

over Newfoundland have had input and have indicated their concern, or their

support, for the use of mechanical harvesters. The hon. member talks about the

mechanical harvesters and our forests being over-cut and going the way of the

fishery. Doesn't the hon. member know that in this Province we operate on the

basis of an annual allowable cut? It doesn't matter if you cut the trees with

axes or saws, chain-saws, or feller bunchers, you only cut the same amount of

wood, so it has no bearing on the annual allowable cut.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: Whether you cut it with axes or with feller

bunchers there may be - and the only concern that has been expressed so far

about feller bunchers, apart from the fact that they displace workers, which is

obviously a major concern of all of us, is the potential for doing some

environmental damage that other types of harvesting wouldn't do, and that is

being looked at now both by the government and by the companies.

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

for Baie Verte - White Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I can tell the minister that I am sure every member in here

has heard about all the studies that have been done. It was also done for the

big trawlers in the fishery. We didn't listen to them years ago and the same is

happening here in forestry unless we get smartened up in this House of Assembly.

The minister keeps referring to this management plan that will bring about the

management of the forests on a sustainable basis. The federal fisheries minister

used to make the same claim about the management of the fisheries but the

fishermen knew it wasn't working the same as now, the loggers say this is not

working. Environmentalists and loggers have similar concerns about the

minister's so-called forest management plan. Has the plan, or any part of it,

been subject to a full environmental impact study and are there any studies to

verify the minister's claim that the forest has been managed according to the

principles of sustainable development?

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows, coming

from the Baie Vert Peninsula, that a great many of his constituents depend for

their livelihood on the forests. Now, would the member have me shut down the

forest industry in Newfoundland today pending an environmental assessment?

Because the hon. member will know that most environmental assessments carried to

the extreme take a year or two? Now, I ask the hon. member, does he want me to

close down the forest industry on the Baie Verte Peninsula starting now while we

do an environmental assessment?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Waterford - Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to

the Minister of Education. In the Royal Commission report called, Our

Children, Our Future , Recommendations 63 and 64 deal with the changing face

of teaching. The teaching profession has changed dramatically in the past few

years and recommendation 64 reads, in part, that the Department of Education's

consultation with parents and the Newfoundland Teachers' Association calls upon

them to convene jointly a provincial symposium on student discipline and

attendance with a view to (

a) creating a public awareness of the issues, (

b) generating a public debate on the issues, (

c) seeking ways and means to improve

discipline and increase attendance, and (

d) sponsoring research designed to

identify the magnitude of the problems. Mr. Speaker, could the minister outline

the department's initiatives in addressing Recommendations 63 and 64?

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, I am beginning to wonder if that

hon. member is not following me around in the daytime to see exactly what I am

doing and where I am going, because just today we had a second meeting with

representation from the NTA. We had dinner today at the Stone House, by the way,

and before hon. members start accusing me of wasting government money, I would

quickly add that the NTA paid for lunch.

We met to discuss specifically these two recommendations, but

in addition to the recommendations in the Royal Commission, last spring when the

government and teachers were meeting to discuss ways to find savings in our

budget, and that sort of thing, we agreed at that time that we would put in

place a special committee to deal with the problems of discipline, and so on, in

the schools.

So, what is happening now - Dr. Crocker, acting to implement

the Royal Commission Report, has some people working on these two specific

recommendations but, in addition to that, we have agreed to broaden even

Crocker's committee to bring in the NTA and other groups. As a matter of fact,

we even discussed some of the people - well, I won't say any names in the House

on this particular issue since we haven't yet approached the people we talked

about today, Mr. Speaker.

So we are thinking about broadening it. But the issue is well

in hand, we are getting excellent co-operation from the various stakeholders

that we have asked for assistance, and I would like to pay a special tribute to

the NTA, who are making a tremendous contribution to this particular issue, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Waterford -

Kenmount.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, many parents, teachers and

school board officials are asking the minister to take a new approach to the

problems of student discipline and the associated loss of valuable instructional

time. Teachers are afraid to chastise students in this Province in some

classrooms; students are intimidated by disruptive behaviour of their peers in

some classrooms; parents are demanding a more appropriate and positive learning

environment, and there must be a solution. If not, all the talk we have had in

the last few weeks about restructuring the educational system would be nothing

more than smoke and mirrors.

So, Mr. Speaker, I ask the minister: Will he take decisive

action? I am happy to know that he met today with the Newfoundland Teachers'

Association. I implore him to address this very important issue because, in some

classrooms, we could extend the valuable instructional time by as much as 50 per

cent by trying to address the issues of disruptive behaviour and what that means

for the learning environment of far too many students.

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

MR. DECKER: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is raising

some very important issues, and the department is very much aware of these

issues.

If I could continue just a little on the line he was talking,

there are discipline problems, and then there are discipline problems. I don't

think the hon. member is talking about the little boy who pulls on some girl's

hair or something - that is not what we are talking about here.

Within this city, there are probably close to twenty extreme

discipline problems, Mr. Speaker. Social policy has been made aware of it; the

department has been made aware of it. In the old days, where corporal punishment

was accepted, children used to be beaten up for these things. Right now we

recognize that there is a social problem there which is extremely difficult to

tackle, but we are not going to shy away from it, by any means.

We are attempting, as a Department of Education, as a

government, in co-operation with anyone who has anything to offer to this, to

make sure that this is dealt with in the interest of the child because, as the

hon. member points out, the children who are in the classroom where there is a

disruptive student, 89 per cent or 90 per cent of the children have a problem,

but also don't forget, the children who are causing the problem also have a

problem. So we have to try to strike a balance so that we can address the needs

of both the child who has a discipline problem as well as the children who are

suffering because of that discipline problem, Mr. Speaker.

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

MR. SPEAKER: Presenting Reports by Standing and Special

Committees.

The hon. the Minister -

MR. FLIGHT: I'm not sure I have the right heading to

present a report.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you (inaudible) for fifteen years?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Agriculture.

MR. FLIGHT: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I expect to be here

fifteen more of them!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Presenting Reports by

Standing and Special Committees

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

Agriculture.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, as required by the statutes, I

want to table the annual report 1991-1992, 1992-1993, of the Newfoundland Farm

Products Corporation. Based on the interest, Mr. Speaker, I'm sure every member

will read it.

Notices of Motion

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. Mary's - The

Capes.

MR. MANNING: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on

tomorrow introduce the following private member's resolution:

WHEREAS the five-year federal-provincial rural co-operation

agreement expires on March 31, 1994;

AND

WHEREAS funding under this agreement supports, among

other programs, rural development associations, co-operatives, and local

development organizations, to plan and implement economic development programs

in rural Newfoundland and Labrador;

BE IT RESOLVED that this House of Assembly supports the

negotiation of a new rural co-operation agreement that will continue to fund

rural development associations.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, if I may give two notices of

motion. I would say to the Pages, I don't have the written notices here.

I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce

a bill, entitled "An Act To Amend The Automobile Insurance Act".

On behalf of my friend, the Minister of Employment and Labour

Relations, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill,

entitled "An Act To Amend The Occupational Health And Safety Act".

Orders of the Day

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, if the House would wish, I

would be happy to outline what I have discussed with my colleagues opposite. I

may say, I don't present this as an agreed plan, but let me say what I hope we

will do.

I will first ask Your Honour to call Order 24, which is Bill

27. That is the adjourned debate on the Forestry Act bill. I believe my friend

for St. John's East had adjourned that debate. I will then ask that we go into

Committee, Sir, to deal with Motions 1 through 4. Those are all finance bills

which would, of course, go through to be debated at Committee stage and then

receive their third readings after that.

MR. WINDSOR: Is the Minister of Finance here?

MR. ROBERTS: No, my friend, the Minister of Health, will

speak for the government, and I will be here. The Minister of Finance will be

away until Thursday.

Mr. Speaker, we will then, if time permits, go into Order 28,

Bill 51, which is a very small piece of legislation, to amend the City of St.

John's Act. Then again, time permitting, we will go into Order 29, Bill 47,

which is the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Amendment Act. Members may be

interested in that.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, the plan is to go - and I will

refer to the orders on today's Order Paper so members can refer to these: Orders

18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 25. Wednesday will be Private Members' Day and we will

see how we get along then.

I think, Mr. Speaker, with today's notices, we probably have

all of the notices on the Order Paper but I won't - that is not a warranty in

the legal sense, but it is my understanding the bills that have been approved by

the Ministry for introduction have now been given notice. With that said, Sir, I

move the House do not adjourn at 5:00 p.m. today, and when that motion is dealt

with, would ask you to call the Forestry Act bill, which is Bill 27, Order 24.

Thank you, Sir.

MR. SPEAKER: There is a motion on the floor that we do

not now adjourn. Before putting the vote, I recognize the Member for Burin -

Placentia West, on a point of order.

MR. TOBIN: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to make one

thing clear. When the minister gets up and dictates in this Legislature about

the House not going to adjourn at 5:00 p.m. and so on, the question still begs

the answer, as to why the minister and the government didn't see fit to open the

House prior to the latter part of November. What were they doing all of

September, October and the earlier part of November that they couldn't open the

House? Instead of bringing the House together for a couple of weeks, getting us

all in here, Mr. Speaker, trying to push through legislation at the last hour -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TOBIN: - trying to cover it up and hope that -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SIMMS: We had a week on the Throne Speech - nothing

ready.

MR. TOBIN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that is the another thing,

we had a week on the Throne Speech because they had no legislation ready to

bring before the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member, as he knows, is not raising a point of

order. The government leader doesn't dictate to the House on these issues. It

brings to the House a motion and it is up to the House to decide its own

procedure. So I rule there is no point of order, and unless there are further

matters -

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Mr. Speaker, our Standing Orders are very

clear on adjournment. I refer to Standing Order No. 7, of our own Standing

Orders which says, `if at the hour of 5:00 p.m., except on Wednesday and

Thursday, the business of the House is not concluded, Mr. Speaker shall leave

the Chair until 8:00 p.m.' What the minister is proposing now is to change the

Standing Orders. There is a procedure for changing the Standing Orders. It is

not something that can be done on the whim of the minister opposite. Our

Standing Orders govern. The House can be master of its own rule but can't change

Standing Orders except by going through the motion of changing a Standing Order,

which requires Notice of Motion and all the rest that is very clearly laid down

in our rules and in Beauchesne.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes. I believe I addressed - I don't need to

hear from the Government House Leader. The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl

raised the same issue last spring, I believe, essentially, the departure from

the Standing Orders, and checking precedent at the time, as I indicated, I

believe the hon. member is probably correct in terms of the original intent of

the rules; although I did come across a reference to the supper break - the hon.

member suggested it was for the benefit of members, apparently it was not, it

was for the benefit of Speakers and was known as the Speaker's Chop, because the

speaker used to, of course, eat lamb in those days, and I guess it is certainly

going to get the chop in a lot of legislatures but certainly the government by

virtue of precedence, if nothing else, has a right to propose a motion to the

House and if the House passes it, to depart from the procedure in that fashion.

So I don't think it is a point of order that I could hold as being valid under

the circumstances.

The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Not to question Your Honour, but I would

submit to Your Honour that I think you - if I read what you have said correctly,

you have admitted that the mistake has been made in the past and therefore that

is a precedent. I would submit that a precedent that was made by way of a

mistake is not a precedent that this House should follow. If the government

wanted to change the Standing Orders to allow the procedure they are now

proposing, they have had ample time to change the Standing Orders and the

precedent that was an error should not be followed as a precedent but we should

stand by the rules of the House, as clearly laid down in the Standing Orders,

until they are properly changed.

MR. SPEAKER: With respect to the hon. member's position,

the other part of our procedure is not only what is written in the rules but the

precedence that has been followed and certainly, as I will point out, goes back

to at least 1950 or 1949. Our rules are in variance with our practice and

substantial variance particularly on our meeting times and so on, but

notwithstanding that, I share some sympathy for the member's view. I really

believe that, in the nature of the sort of rulings I have to make, that the

precedent is clear and binding and I should follow it.

MR. WINDSOR: Why are the Standing Orders around here if

we are not going to follow them?

MR. SPEAKER: Well on that point, we are not following

many of our Standing Orders at times but certainly the government has a right to

put the motion to the House. In the absence of further points of order I will

put the motion.

All those in favour of not adjourning at the regular time of

5:00 p.m., `aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: Those against, 'nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: The `ayes' have it.

Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader.

MR. ROBERTS: If that matter has been disposed of by the

House, could we have the Forestry Act - Order 24, Bill 27, and my recollection

is that the gentleman for St. John's East had the floor.

MR. SPEAKER: Order 24, the bill to amend the Forestry

Act.

The hon. the Member for St. John's East.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Friday, I was

engaged in this debate concerning Bill 27, "An Act To Amend The Forestry Act,"

and in doing so, I know some hon. members are asking, `What does the Member for

St. John's East know about the forests?' Well, I want to tell hon. members that

I know as much about the foresst as I do about anything else, as the member

says. I am not a forestry expert or a forestry scientist but I can read, Mr.

Speaker, and having heard what the minister said in the House today about the

forestry being managed properly, I can only quote him back his own words which

he said on December 8, 1992, when he tabled this report in the House, in which

he said that although the forests are being managed better now than ever the

analysis clearly shows that on the Island we are presently harvesting more

timber than we should. So we are not, Mr. Speaker, managing the forests in a

proper way and, in fact, not only that, the plan for the next twenty years is to

over-cut the forests by 25 per cent over-cut on a yearly basis, based on the

management strategy set forth on page 90, of his own report. the report says, in

dealing with the years 1990 to 2009, that the management strategy reveals first

of all, that there is a deficit of 17 per cent per year above the available wood

supply, projected to increase to nearly 600,000 cubic metres per year or 25 per

cent over-cut during the period 1994 to 2009, so for the next fifteen years, Mr.

Speaker, the plan is to over-cut the timber supply by 25 per cent.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the other part of the strategy is to

somehow or other increase the yield by 30 per cent from the existing forests and

there are a few pie-in-the-sky projections placed there, which I would put in

the same category as the optimism shown by the fisheries scientists for the last

ten years about the availability of fish in the sea. I put it in the same

category, because we are on the same brink with respect to our forests as we

have been with respect to the fisheries for the last ten or fifteen years and

most people, except the fisherman didn't seem to be prepared to admit it.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am not satisfied with what the minister

had to say here this afternoon in answer to the question by the Member for Baie

Verte - White Bay. I am not satisfied at all, because what he said was this -

when he was asked whether or not this report had been subjected to environmental

review, he misled the House. He said this report had been out for public

hearings for the last twelve months. Well, Mr. Speaker, let me tell you what

this report says about environmental issues, and in this 135-page report, it

only spends two little paragraphs on the top of page 27 on environmental

assessment, only two paragraphs, and what does it say, Mr. Speaker?

It says: It wasn't acknowledged that the Environmental

Assessment Act has never been applied so far to the forestry issue because it

has been exempted. What it says, is that the five-year forest management plans

for each forest manager are to be submitted for registration with the Department

of Environment and a

schedule has been agreed to which details when the plans

will be registered. It lists a number that have been registered and it says, in

the interim, one-year exemptions have been provided. Other resource users had

provided guidelines for forestry to follow when operating during the exempted

years. So the plan, Mr. Speaker, is to exempt forestry for the next four or five

or six years until all these plans had been assessed. So, Mr. Speaker, when the

minister tries to suggest to the public and to this House, that this twenty-year

forestry plan has been for the last year, subject to public hearings, and has

all been approved and environment have looked at it, then he is misleading this

House, Mr. Speaker. I am not saying he is doing it deliberately, I am saying he

is doing it because he doesn't seem to understand what his own reports had to

say.

Now, let us go back to the issue of harvesters. I raised it

on Friday, the Member for Baie Verte - White Bay raised it again today; and

again, I don't come here as an expert in all issues of forest management, they

are all issues of forestry biology, but I can tell you this, Mr. Speaker, in

terms of common sense, when you have - there are two kinds of harvesters, and I

will tell the Member for St. John's South, who would be very interested in these

issues. I know he is very interested in areas outside the urban area because he

is the Premier's Executive Assistant and has to inform himself on issues all

over the Province, and he would be very interested in knowing there are two

kinds of harvesters operating in the Province, two kinds, one being used by

Abitibi - Price, which operates within the woods and it cuts down the trees,

limbs them on the spot, lays them down and someone carts them away.

There is a second kind that is being used by Kruger, Corner

Brook Pulp and Paper, called the whole tree harvester, which chops down the

tree, the whole tree, limbs and all - limbs, branches, needles, everything that

goes with it, buds, regeneration, everything that is taken with the tree is

taken out to the road, taken out to one spot and at that place, Mr. Speaker,

there they are limbed and all of the biological materials, all the rest of the

tree, except the stem, that is being cut up and used for pulp or, perhaps

hopefully some are for saw logs, but all the rest of that tree goes out to the

road and the debris from those trees, all the biological material, the nutrient

that would be put back into the soil in the area where the tree was growing,

doesn't go back. It stays out on the road, in one place like some big, overgrown

compost heap. The nutrients that were in the soil where the tree was growing for

the last forty, fifty or sixty years, those nutrients are now nowhere near where

they were, and these mechanical harvesters, which are huge machines, which are

going into the forests already disturbing and destroying a very thin soil, are

also taking the nutrients - not just the trees, but all the other nutrients -

out of the forest, as well.

I don't have to be a forestry biologist, or a tree harvester,

or a forester, to know that can't be good for the forest soil that is left.

Someone has to replace those nutrients that are being taken out of the forest

unnecessarily.

Mr. Speaker, that hasn't been dealt with by the minister. I

haven't heard the minister say one word about it - not one - and those

harvesters are brought into this Province without any environmental review being

done, without being subject to the Environmental Assessment Act, without being

subject to the kind of review that every little factory or plant, or anybody

else who wants to set up a business in this Province, has to go through.

It deserves scrutiny, Mr. Speaker. We have individuals in

this Province who are travelling all the way to British Columbia to protest

about the forests of British Columbia, and here in our own Province we are

allowing this kind of stuff to go on without proper environmental review, not

just of the five-year plan - we are seeing the five-year plan now, finally, at

long last, being subject, over time, to some sort of review - but we are not

seeing the forestry techniques being submitted to review, and we are not seeing

the minister's own regulations being submitted for review. We are not seeing the

proper kind of environmental assessment that is needed.

So I think, Mr. Speaker, we have an emerging crisis in our

forestry industry - an emerging crisis recognized by reading between the lines

of this report here. When we say for the next fifteen years there will be a 25

per cent over-cut during the years 1994-2009, I am very worried, Mr. Speaker.

We have, down at the bottom, a projection or a hope - and I

will just call it a hope, Mr. Speaker - a planning hope, a hope to increase the

available wood supply by 30 per cent by the following approaches, and there is

just a sort of list of them. It is the forestry manager's wish list, Mr.

Speaker, on which they are risking the entire future of our forest industry in a

forest management wish list.

They want to increase the rate of growth by silviculture, and

the resulting annual allowable cut increase - the resulting AC - could increase

the supply by 10 per cent to 15 per cent - `could increase'. That is what it

says.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture shakes

his head. Every time I hear the minister speak, I shake my head.

This is a hope, a wish list. Then they say: Improving or at

least maintaining the effectiveness of the insect and fire protection programs.

That is going to, somehow or other, increase the utilization of the forests -

again, a wish list, a hope, without any projections related to it, or any

explanations as to why or how that might happen.

Increasing the level of utilization in harvesting operations,

recover more softwood fibre per hectare. This could produce an additional 10 per

cent over time.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: That is not accurate, the minister says.

Well, if it is not accurate, Mr. Speaker, why is the minister relying on it in

projecting a 25 per cent over-cut? That is what I would like to know. And why

are we having a situation now where these $500,000 harvesters are coming in,

each of them replacing ten loggers.

The minister laughs. The minister thinks it is funny that

there are ten loggers unemployed each time a harvester comes in. He laughs but,

Mr. Speaker, that is reflected every year in our unemployment rate, in the

obligations of the Minister of Social Services to look after people in this

Province, when more and more the number of loggers are going down year after

year. We see that happening over time, Mr. Speaker. We see greater mechanization

in the forest, and I have no doubt there have been changes. I am not suggesting,

as the former leader of the Liberal Party suggested, that we should dig tunnels

from the Strait of Bell Isle with soup spoons or picks and shovels to create

employment. I am not suggesting we go back to harvesting trees with a hacksaw,

Mr. Speaker. I am not suggesting we go back and cut down trees with an axe or a

saw, Mr. Speaker. The chain-saw is here and that is obviously the tool that is

used by loggers. The mechanical harvesters are not appropriate to our forests,

they are not appropriate to our soil conditions, they are not appropriate to our

environmental conditions, they are not appropriate to our landscape. I think

they have not been properly subjected to the right environmental tests and when

they do I would be very surprised if they come out showing they can effectively

harvest wood without damaging the environment. If the minister believed they

could he would have ensured that that process was undertaken to make sure that

the proper consideration was given, and in order to make sure that the

environmental concerns were dealt with before these harvesters were put in

place.

I want to talk about another issue in terms of utilization of

our forest resources. The Forestry Development Plan recognizes that there has

been a poor history of harvesting on Crown lands, for example. In fact one of

the reasons given for the timber supply deficit - I know the minister has his

back turned to me and I know he does not want to hear more about this because he

seems to want to live in the dark on these issues. The timber supply deficit is

a product of two decades of attack by the spruce budworm and the hemlock looper

and an even longer history of unregulated timber harvesting on Crown lands, so

we have a serious problem, and I want to know what the minister himself is doing

about it, as the man responsible for the department that oversees the timber use

in our areas?

Perhaps when the minister gets up to speak he can tell us,

and maybe if he does not tell us I will put it on the Order Paper, how many

sawmill permits has the minister issued in the last five years? Perhaps he could

tell us that on a year by year basis? Perhaps I will have to put it on the Order

Paper to get the proper answer. I will do that because that is a very

interesting question, Mr. Speaker. We have a large number of sawmill permits out

there and many of them are inactive, some of them are issued to satisfy the

political needs of the minister or the minister's colleagues on the Liberal

benches, and what is happening is that some land that has been properly

harvested is being passed over to the unregulated harvest by sawmill operators

who are not doing a proper job.

In many cases, having great difficulty operating, but

nevertheless are able to make a few dollars themselves but not necessarily pay

the people they employ very well. I would like the minister to tell us what his

plans are for the sawmill harvesters. I think what is happening to the forestry

industry is the kind of thing that happened in a way to the fishing industry

over the last while - the minister laughs. He thinks it is funny. The fishing

industry in this Province has been made the industry of last resort, where if

somebody does not have a job he will go in a boat, and now the Minister of

Forestry says, well, if you do not have a job you should go in the woods and cut

a few sticks, go in the woods and cut a few pulp sticks, go in the woods and cut

a few pieces of timber.

What is going to happen to the timber industry with this kind

of use of the timber resource for the short-term political purposes of the

minister and the minister's colleagues on the Liberal side of the House is the

same thing that happened to the fishery. Everybody is at it, everybody is trying

to make a living from it, and the resource cannot handle it so there has to be

some greater regulation of the industry, Mr. Speaker. In the last year or so we

have seen very angry people from the Bonavista Peninsula because they have been

cut out of any participation in decision making over the use of the forest

resources. I am very sympathetic to them, Mr. Speaker. I have had a number of

discussions and meetings with the people from that area who are concerned about

the use of forests. They are concerned for themselves, for their communities,

for their children and for their children's children. The long-term use of that

resource has to have - the communities which depend on them being involved in

making decisions, in planning the use of that forest.

Mr. Speaker, when we look at the use of resources in our

Province, natural resources, renewable resources, it is very clear that the

people who live in those areas, the areas around those forests, are the ones who

are going to - whose communities, and the existence of whose communities, are

going to depend on the use of that resource. While we have to have management

and regulations that control these things there must be a method by which the

communities in those areas can participate in decisions about the use of that

forest.

I know even the twenty-year forestry development plan

recognizes that clear cutting is not the way to go in the utilization of much of

our forest resources. We see that our timber stands are not the same kind of

timber stands that have been subject to clear cutting in other countries and

other areas. They don't have the same fast growth replacement. They don't have

the same size of timber that responds to clear cutting and grows fast to replace

it. We have a lot of marginal forest. The economics of clear cutting is based on

taking out everything. You must take out everything, and the devastation that is

left behind takes many years to recover and may not even recover at all.

Even the areas where clear cutting was introduced, it is now

being discovered that when you clear cut and you replace that with a single

culture tree, a single type of tree - it is called a monoculture - that that

might get you a second cut in thirty or forty or sixty years time, but you are

very unlikely to get a third cut out of it because of the amount of nutrients

you are taking out of the soil.

That is something that farmers recognize. I know the Member

for Exploits is very familiar with farming. We know that you can't put the same

crop in the same ground year after year and continue to get results. The

minister remembers that from Grade IV geography. It is called crop rotation,

invented many thousands of years ago. The same problem exists.

MR. GRIMES: I learned it better in my second year

(inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: In the minister's second year in Grade IV he

learned it even better than in the first year, he says. We all know, Mr.

Speaker, that if you plant the same crop year after year in the same soil the

nutrients are going to be gone and you won't get that crop to go. So what is

done is crop rotation.

In clear cutting a whole forest is taken away. A monoculture,

a single tree, is put back to grow because that is what the forest companies

want. That might work once, it might even work twice, but I think we know that

it is not going to work forever. Management techniques have to be developed that

are going to be sustainable themselves and ensure not only that you have the

forest but you also have the multiple use environment that can still exist in

that forest. Because a forest is not just wood fibre growing in the ground. The

forest is the animals that live there, the birds that live there and fly through

there and sing there and create an environment. All of that makes up the forest

that gets used for recreational purposes, it gets used for industrial purposes,

it gets used for tourist purposes and everything else.

All of that has to take place in the same area of ground, and

all of the users of that forest have to be able to play a role in determining

what the forest is going to be used for. I don't see the kind of vision and

determination that is required to enforce such a regime on the paper companies

of this Province to allow them to operate, of course, but at the same time

ensure that we have maximum utilization of the forest.

I mentioned Friday that one of the persistent problems in our

construction industry in Newfoundland is the lack of available local lumber for

construction purposes. We still import fully two-thirds, I believe it is, of the

wood. Two-thirds of the lumber that we use in this Province is imported from

outside the Province, and that is a consistent year in, year out -

AN HON. MEMBER: More than that.

MR. HARRIS: More than that, the Member for Humber Valley

says, and I would challenge the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture to give us

the proper information if we are wrong in saying that the minister's department

has not done anything to significantly increase the output of lumber from our

own forests.

I notice he made a Ministerial Statement last year where he

was so proud of the fact that there was some lumber being exported to Europe

from the Roddickton area, and I think that is a very positive thing - obviously

a very specialized product, hopefully a very great deal of value added, and a

return to this Province, but we are not able, Mr. Speaker, to maximize our use

of lumber. We still see an incredibly large amount of birch hardwood going into

firewood that could be turned into furniture. It could be turned into birch

hardwood flooring. It could be turned into other products instead of being

burned in fires, burned to heat homes, and would thereby have a tremendous

amount of value added. If that birch could be turned into an industrial product,

it would certainly increase the value and offset the alternative energy costs

that might be associated with heating your home in a different fashion.

We do not see the kind of vision that would be required to

develop that industry in this Province from this government and from this

ministry, and I ask the minister to deal with these problems. I ask the minister

to deal with these problems, because they are significant problems, and there

are ways in which we can increase our economic output, where we can return value

added to our people, where we can give entrepreneurs a chance to develop new

products, and new products line, but we must have a management plan that aims

not just to sustain the forest, but to make sure that the utilization of the

forest is maximized for the benefit of the people of this Province and not just

for the shareholders of Abitibi-Price or the shareholders of Corner Brook Pulp

and Paper.

I know that the government is very interested in

shareholders. We have had a lot of talk about it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time has expired.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I note that my time is up and I hope, when the minister rises

to speak to this, he will address some of these problems that are very

significant problems in our forestry industry today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. minister now speaks, he will

close debate.

The hon. the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I cannot quite hear the hon. minister.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, in as far as the bill is

concerned, proposing the amendments to the act, obviously neither the official

spokesman for the Official Opposition nor the Member for St. John's East had any

real problems because they never referred, in either of their speeches, to the

amendment. As a matter of fact, they acknowledged that it was indeed

housekeeping and they had no problem with it. Of course they went on and took

advantage of the amendment to talk about other things - some people knowing what

they were talking about, and others not knowing what they were talking about,

Mr. Speaker.

Now there is no question that the Member for Baie Verte lives

in that area. He is somewhat familiar with forestry. He knows that a lot of his

constituents depend on the forestry for their livelihood, and he should know -

or he had better get to know quickly - that some of the things inherent in the

comments he was making would not augur well for the future of that industry on

the Baie Verte Peninsula. So the member wants to be careful.

Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns that the hon. member has

always had is my comment that 'trees don't swim', so I will take a minute now to

try to clarify it. I said it. It was a flight of wit, I thought, and the next

day the hon. member went out and pumped out a press release saying how

irresponsible it was for the Minister of Forestry and Agriculture to make these

kind of statements, and he had a couple of minutes on the radio. I understand

that, because I did it, too, when I was sitting over there, Mr. Speaker, but he

should get to understand something.

It is a fact that the Department of Forestry and Agriculture

in this Province today has an inventory of existing wood, and wood that will

grow, and the various age classes, and they operate on an annual allowable cut

with sustainable development - and it does not matter whether that wood is cut

by feller bunchers; it does not matter if it is cut with chain-saws; it does not

matter if it is cut with axes and saws. You are still only going to cut the same

amount of wood.

Now there may be some concern, and it is being looked at now.

I am not saying there is some concern. I am saying that people are expressing

concern about the potential for environmental damage, the loss of nutrients with

feller bunchers. Now people express concerns with skidders, they talk about the

damage with skidders, they talk about the damage with forwarders, they talk

about the damages with every piece of equipment in the forests. Well, Mr.

Speaker, to use another line that the member might call irresponsible, there is

an old saying that you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs; well you

cannot go in and move the kind of wood that we have to move to maintain the

production of those three paper mills and the saw log industry in this Province

without making what some people would call a mess in the forest, it cannot be

done and the member should not be hypocritical about it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh. oh!

MR. FLIGHT: The member should talk to the Member for

Humber Valley so, Mr. Speaker -

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

MR. FLIGHT: The member should remember. Let me tell the

hon. member that there has not been one new sawmill permit issued in this

Province for the last three years. There has not been one new cutting permit

issued. Every cutter in this Province has had his permit reduced in an effort to

stay within an annual allowable cut. There are very few members of this House

who have not come to me and pleaded to increase cutting permits, to issue new

cutting permits, so, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member representing the Opposition

would have to be responsible. The hon. Member for St. John's East has nothing to

be responsible about; he does not have to be responsible to anybody, but the

hon. member should be.

Firewood, he raised the question of firewood. It has been an

historical and traditional right in this Province for 400 years for

Newfoundlanders to cut enough firewood to heat their homes. Now, would the hon.

member have me stop that? Would the member have me discontinue this right?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FLIGHT: Is that right? Now the member is either blind

or arguing for arguments sake. I have just finished telling the member that, now

are you questioning the ability of the officials in the Department of Forestry

and Agriculture or Abitibi-Price or Kruger to determine the amount of wood

inventory in this Province?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: You don't believe that.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) accommodation.

MR. FLIGHT: Accommodation? well I am telling the member

that we are operating on a sustainable basis; that the -

AN HON. MEMBER: What (inaudible).

MR. FLIGHT: That's it. The member discounts it; 100 per

cent utilization. He discounted the effect that thinning will have and we are

spending millions of dollars per year on thinning; he discounted the fact that

we can import and have imported wood from Labrador, and let me ask the hon.

member this: Is the hon. member for or against, bringing in wood from PEI and

Nova Scotia?

AN HON. MEMBER: Against.

MR. FLIGHT: Against. He is against bringing in wood from

PEI and Nova Scotia and he is against cutting it, so does the member want the

people who are making a living in forestry today to stay or does he want to

close it all down?

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

Bay.

MR. SHELLEY: I am not sure where the minister is coming

from. I did not realize that I had turned to the government's side and suddenly,

now, I am on Question Period, but if the minister wants to ask me some

questions, as long as I can get up and respond to him, I will do that, but I

have not been here for fifteen years. The minister made a mistake a little while

ago when he got up in the House, I am not too sure about it, I will admit that,

but he is questioning me and if I can get up and answer the questions that is

fine-

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. SHELLEY: - he can ask me but right now I do not know

where he is coming from.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order. I was tempted to interrupt

earlier because the minister and the member were talking across the House,

posing questions and answers, and it is not proper and I don't think either

party should be questioning or answering the other as far as that goes in

debate, so I would ask the hon. minister to continue.

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member might as well

accept it, he cannot have it both ways. He cannot maintain the level of jobs

that the forest industry in this Province has supported this past twenty-five or

thirty years, and they supported them on the basis of these past ten years of an

annual allowable cut that is based on sustainable development. Now he cannot

have it both ways. He cannot have the jobs in his area or all the jobs in

Newfoundland supported by the forest industry and then not permit the paper

companies or the sawmillers-

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FLIGHT: - to harvest. He cannot have it both ways. He

might as well accept the facts, Mr. Speaker. If I'm going to maintain the level

of forest activity we have in this Province that supports three mills, supports

the sawmilling industry, then we have to cut the trees to do it and we have to

use the technology that is available. We are doing it in an environmentally

sensitive manner. It is being done in an environmentally acceptable manner. The

hon. member should be careful. The hon. member can't hold with the hares and run

with the hounds, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, let me point out to the hon.

member something about domestic firewood cutters. Almost every person who lives

in rural Newfoundland cuts firewood to heat their homes. Those domestic cutters,

firewood cutters, require a cutting permit. These past two or three years they

have been directed to cut in low volume stands, insect kill stands, the hardwood

stands, birch, asp, juniper. It is against the law in this Province today to cut

prime pulpwood or prime saw log material for firewood.

The member knows that but he won't acknowledge it. He gets up

and says: the forestry is going to go the way the fishery is going to go. Mr.

Speaker, I will make sure of something now. I will make sure that the sawmillers

and the pulpwood producers on the Baie Verte Peninsula, for instance - because I

know that he is very concerned and I know that he is well aware - I will make

sure if we have to get into environmental assessments, I have been on the

Bonavista Peninsula. There are no feller bunchers that I'm aware of operating

mechanical harvesters by the paper companies on the Baie Verte Peninsula. I may

be wrong. Is there...?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. FLIGHT: Pardon me?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. FLIGHT: Mr. Speaker, the member should appreciate the

jobs that are provided on the Baie Verte Peninsula by the forest industry. He

should appreciate the jobs that are created in the district of the Leader of the

Opposition from the forestry industry. Or the Member for Humber Valley. Most of

the members in this House, Mr. Speaker.

For the first time in the history of forestry in Newfoundland

we are implementing rules and regulations that will guarantee the established

industries the level of cut in this Province can be maintained forever.

MR. SHELLEY: That is a guarantee.

MR. FLIGHT: That is a guarantee.

MR. SHELLEY: I will remember that.

MR. FLIGHT: Fine, remember it. Let me tell the hon.

member, a lot of things have to happen. We have to make sure we stop burning

pulpwood and prime saw logs for firewood. We have to get 100 per cent

utilization. We have to look at the mix of bringing wood in from Labrador. We

have to make sure that the paper companies harvest what up till now was

considered uneconomical wood. Build more access, longer access. We have to do

all that. If we do all that - and we are doing it now - then there will be no

question about the forest industry in Newfoundland being able to sustain the

level of development and jobs that we have now. We probably will never be able

to exceed the number that we have now, depending again on what might happen in

Labrador when the various issues up there are resolved, Mr. Speaker.

So the hon. member should take a good look at what is

happening in forestry. He should be more complementary to the people who are

designing forestry products in this Province because they too are aware. Their

biggest commitment to their jobs is to make sure that ten, twenty or twenty-five

years from now the forest industry in Newfoundland can sustain at least the

number of jobs that it is providing for now.

I move second reading, Mr. Speaker.

On motion, a Bill, "An Act To Amend The Forestry Act," read a

second time, ordered referred to a Committee of the Whole House on tomorrow.

(Bill No. 27)

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, could we now go on to the

motions, perhaps taking first Motion No. 2, where there will be a message from

His Honour, of course, and then thereafter would the Committee deal with Motions

1 through 4?

MR. SPEAKER: Motion No. 2, Bill No. 53. That we resolve

ourselves into a Committee of the Whole to consider Certain Resolutions for the

Granting of Supplementary Supply to Her Majesty.

The hon. the Minister of Health.

DR. KITCHEN: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleague the

Minister of Finance I wish to say that I have received a message from His

Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

To the hon. the Minister of Finance:

I, the Administrator of the Province of Newfoundland,

transmit supplementary Estimates of sums required for the Public Service of the

Province for the year ending March 31, 1993. By way of supplementary supply and

in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution Act, 1867, I recommend

these estimates to the House of Assembly.

Sgd.:___________________________________

Noel Goodridge, Chief Justice as Administrator.

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of new members

(inaudible)

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

MR. ROBERTS: The Constitution Act, formerly known as the

British North America Act requires that the House may not deal with estimates of

expenditure without the approval of the Crown, in this case the

Lieutenant-Governor, that approval comes in the form of a message signed by the

Lieutenant-Governor, or in this case the administrator, the hon. Noel Goodridge

the Chief Justice of Newfoundland. The tradition is that when a message from the

Governor is read by His Honour we all stand, so I say for the benefit of new

members it was not simply a seventh inning stretch.

Your Honour, if we could perhaps go into Committee now and

deal with these motions?

On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of

the Whole, Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

Committee of the Whole

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Motion No. 2.

The hon. the Minister of Health.

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Bill 53 which is basically the Supplementary Supply Bill for

$42,360,000 and as the

schedule indicates the Department of Finance requires

$4.56 million, Employment and Labour Relations, $7.5 million, Municipal and

Provincial Affairs, $1 million, and Social Services, $29.3 million. A little bit

more detail, Mr. Speaker. On the finance requirement this is basically money

which is required for the abolition of the school tax, the department had to

incur some additional expenses in order to wind up the school tax authorities,

having to do with some severance pay involved there, some refunds, tax

collection costs, and so on. The net amount was $4.56 million. The Employment

and Labour Relations amount of $7.5 million consists of $5 million to cover

expenditures for job creation initiatives associated with the Emergency Response

Program, and $2.5 million for additional funds for employment generation

strategy. The $1 million for Municipal and Provincial Affairs was for a special

warrant to provide additional funds for job creation activities, and the amount

of $29.3 million for Social Services was $5 million for job creation

initiatives, and $21.8 million for additional funds for the continuing programs

in Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: First of all before addressing this bill I

guess I should address questions to the Government House Leader as to why we are

bringing these four finance bills before the House today in the absence of the

Minister of Finance who should be here to defend these bills. I know there is

nothing stopping government from having another minister, a former minister, or

whoever, the House Leader himself could introduce the bills, but it is somewhat

irregular not to have the Minister of Finance in his place. These bills could be

done tomorrow or the next day, whenever the minister gets back.

I yield to the minister.

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

MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Chairman, we are in committee, of

course, and members may speak more than once. My hon. friend acknowledges that

there is nothing irregular or unusual about it. It is simply that my friend, the

Minister of Finance, has a long-standing commitment that will take him out of

the Province until - he may be here by the end of this week; we expect that he

will be - but he has a long-standing commitment, and given two things, we

decided to go ahead. One is the fact that the House is anxious to move on with

its matters and, number two, there is nothing in these four bills that is, in

any way, unusual or represents a new departure in policy.

The supplementary supply is for the 1992-'93 year. The Income

Tax Act implements amendments announced last year in the statement in December,

and the two loan and guarantee bills are simply the routine annual

authorizations of money that have been spent. So in that light the decision was

taken that we would go ahead. The ministry are here to answer, and we shall

gladly answer.

The Minister of Finance will be here for the Tobacco Tax Act,

which is one of our major substantive changes. That will not be called until he

is back in the House.

Now that is what I can say by way of answer. It may or may

not satisfy my hon. friend, but that is what I would say to him by way of

answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the Government House Leader for that; however, it

does not change anything. The Minister of Finance should be here. There may well

be many questions. These are generally routine pieces of business, as the

minister says. I do not disagree with that, but there are still lots of

questions, and the Minister of Health, when he was Minister of Finance, answered

no questions. We hardly expect him to answer any now when he is Minister of

Health. He is a very unacceptable substitute for the Minister of Finance who

normally is quite co-operative and gives us the kind of information that we

need.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: All we ever got from the Minister of Health,

when he was Minister of Finance, was `yes', `no'. Even in Question Period his

answer was `yes' and `no'.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, we are stuck with him today, but I

think it should be pointed out to the House that there is no reason, I say to

the House Leader, that these bills could not have been called on Friday, or on

Thursday. They have all been here on the Order Paper. We could have had them,

and could have done them on Thursday or Friday, if they are so routine, when the

minister was here, so there is no excuse at all for this.

Now let us just look at some of the items in this particular

bill. Under finance, $4.56 million, the minister tells us, to abolish school

tax, to deal with that. Obviously the government's estimates of revenue from

abolishing the school tax, or the costs involved therewith, were way off base,

as most of their estimates have been. They have found that they had severance to

pay. I guess they forgot that when they decided to take over the school tax

system - that there would be severance involved in eliminating many positions

that were eliminated. They tried to tell us that there would not be a great job

loss associated with eliminating the school tax. We found out afterwards that

indeed there was and, in fact, part of this $4.5 million results from the

payment of severance pay.

Other parts of it, the minister tells us, deal with refunds

and collection costs. Not only refunds - I wonder how many bad debts were there.

I wonder how far off the government was in their estimate of how much they

expected to collect from the school tax authorities, that was left there on the

books as owing, or was it indeed owing. Maybe it was not owing. Maybe it was

simply something that was being disputed by those who had taxes levied against

them.

We had many problems, of course, with the School Tax

Authority, people arguing that they had been taxed unfairly and unjustly, and it

took some time to straighten that out. I suspect what the Minister of Finance

has found now is that many of those people who disputed those matters were quite

correct in disputing them, and that indeed the amounts that were there as owing

were not really owing.

Mr. Chairman, $7.5 million job creation - the Emergency

Response Program - there is a misnomer if one ever saw one. Every year since

this government has been in power we have told them: You do not have enough

money in your budget. You will need to create some short-term employment for

those who are not in a position to support themselves for the balance of the

year.

They continually tried to convince the people of this

Province that they were going to create long-term employment - jobs by the

thousands - so we will not need the short make-work projects. Well we know that

this government's record is a dismal failure in creating employment in this

Province - a dismal failure. Jobs today, or unemployment is higher today than it

has ever been. What is the - no, I won't say what I was going to say - the hon.

gentleman for Fogo, what is he nattering about down there now? Why doesn't he go

back over to Social Services and face what he ran away from over there - go over

and face up to the mess that he created when he was jammed into Social Services?

on his qualifications no doubt. The great Premier that talked so much about

putting people into positions based on their qualifications. I would like to see

what the hon. gentleman's qualifications were to be Assistant Deputy Minister of

Social Services - none except that he had been a Liberal member in the House of

Assembly, that is all - the only qualification he had. He did nothing when he

was there. He was totally ignored by everybody over there, by his staff and

everybody else who came in.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, I am not here to waste my time on the

Member for Fogo. He is of no consequence. We will get back to this job creation

program, this emergency response program, I say to the House, Mr. Chairman, that

it is not an emergency job creation program at all, it was an absolute necessity

that government very deliberately did not put in their estimates at budget time.

We told them that they would not get through the year, that they were cooking

the books by refusing to put a job creation program in there. There was nothing

in their budgets for job creation, knowing that they would come in at the end of

the year with a Special Warrant and here we are, $7.5 million - and we will have

another this year. The minister has already spent $6 million or $7 million this

year in an emergency response program.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: There is a good one, Mr. Chairman: we all

got letters from the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations - as members,

we all got letters saying, `We have this program, here are the terms and

conditions, get your applications in to us right away.' We got that on a

Wednesday, I believe, and the applications were to be in on Thursday and

approved by Friday. Now, that gave us twenty-four hours as I recall, from the

time I got the letter - it may have been mailed a couple of days earlier, but it

gave us about twenty-four hours to get groups from our district to put together

something. Now, the key point, before I get on to the rest of it, is that you

have groups now that have twenty-four hours to put together a project. If

government had had in their Budget the $6 million that was spent this year or

the $7.5 million that was spent last year, if they had said there will be a

program and received applications properly, gave the groups and organizations

time to properly prepare projects, to properly research them and plan them, to

have proper things in place so that the money is not being wasted, we would have

accomplished a great deal more from this program, but again, it wasn't done. An

emergency response program - the only emergency associated with it was an

emergency that has been going on ever since this government took office, that of

the gross unemployment rate that we are faced with and an emergency to which you

had twenty-four hours to respond with projects. Now, Mr. Chairman, some groups

and organizations had them there. I would be very interested if the Minister of

Employment and Labour Relations would give us a list of all of the funds

approved under that emergency program, district by district this year. Would the

minister undertake to do that so that we can see where the funds were approved,

Mr. Chairman? I think you will find it very interesting.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I got none in my riding. I will correct

that, the city council, I think, in conjunction with Rotary, did get some but it

is for the Waterford Valley (inaudible) Park, and it goes for two or three

ridings and that's about it. That one slipped through, I suspect.

Mr. Chairman, when constituents call to find out how they

would get employed, what were they told? `Call your MHA. The MHAs have all of

the information, they will tell you how to get hired.' Now, when constituents

were being told that, MHAs knew nothing about the program. The only information

that I had on my desk when I started getting calls from my constituents was what

I read in The Evening Telegram . The next day I got a copy of the Press

release and the day after that I got a note from the minister's office saying:

required in order to apply, and here are application forms, and all the rest of

it.

But I had two or three dozen phone calls prior to that from

constituents who were asking me: How do I get a job? All that I could say to

them, Mr. Chairman, was: First of all, we don't have the jobs. The funds will be

provided to community groups and organizations that apply. We don't know who is

going to apply yet, but they haven't got much time to do it. We don't know which

ones will be approved, but as soon as they are approved we will phone you. As

soon as we know what jobs are approved, and who the contact person is for that

organization that is doing the hiring, we will call you back.

So I kept in touch with the minister's office, and I will

give credit where credit is due - there was a lady in his office, I won't name

her, but she was very co-operative and she did give me whatever information was

available to her. She was very patient with me, because I called her I would say

thirty times, waiting for this information. Because it was supposed to be

approved on Friday. I believe it was the 6th or the 7th of the month, the

minister said in his letter. I can get the letter for the minister. But was it

approved on the 6th or the 7th of the month? No. It was about two weeks after

that, before the projects were approved. Then, hardly any of those that were

submitted, were approved in the area - let alone in my district itself, but even

in the area.

So all the minister did was cause hundreds of people to call

their MHAs looking for work, knowing full well that the MHAs couldn't hire them

anyway, that it was the groups and organizations that were eventually going to

do the hiring. Yet he referred them to us before we even had any information on

what was entailed in the program. When I heard that finally some approvals had

been made, and I called his office to find out which projects had been approved,

do you know what I was told? `We will let you know when the other groups and

organizations are notified.' So he liked to use the MHAs as a buffer so that

whenever an individual who was desperate for work wanted a job called his

office, they said: `You have to call your MHA,' but when the approvals were

given, we were the last to know.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: They were announced publicly, always

announced publicly. We never ever told anybody to call their MHA. Hundreds and

hundreds of phone calls came into MHAs' offices. It is just a political game by

the minister and by the government, to try to deflect the fact that they had

this $6 million program and all calls were to go all of the MHAs, yet he gave us

absolutely no information, and when he finally got about to approving it, Mr.

Chairman, we were the last to be given the information. I was told by his

office: I can't release it to you until we notify all the groups. So all our

groups who, in the first instance, were told: `Call your MHA,' now they are not

going to give the information.

It is the biggest sham you have ever seen to call that an

Emergency Response Program. The $5 million job creation under social assistance?

Same thing. This hon. crowd opposite, tried to convince us that they didn't need

these types of programs - no need of it whatsoever. Cooking the books is all it

is. They should have known - they did know, I submit. I submit they did know

they were going to need that $10 or $12 million for these make-work programs in

this Province, at a time when we have record unemployment, we are into a

recession. The economy is falling to pieces thanks to their lack of action on

the economy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave!

MR. WINDSOR: I will have another shot at it, Mr.

Chairman, no problem.

Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. ROBERTS: No, somebody has to speak in between, I

think.

MR. WINDSOR: No, they do not. We have been ruled on many

times before, Mr. Chairman. If hon. members fail to exercise their right and

their responsibility to stand up in this House and speak to a bill, then I have

every right to stand up and be recognized as often as I want to.

Let the record show that nobody over there has anything to

say about this $42 million that the minister wants approved retroactively. It is

already spent. There is nothing we can do about it. They are going to ram it

through the House one of these days.

MR. EFFORD: Sit down, then.

MR. WINDSOR: I did sit down, and the minister missed his

chance to stand up. It would be nice to get Minister Gulliver there, who travels

all over the world, to stand in his place and speak for a change.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Well, I hate to tell the hon. the Minister

of Industry, Trade and Technology, Mr. Chairman, the garbage we are getting on

with is our right and responsibility in the people's House. Maybe if he spent a

little more time participating in the democratic exercise here, he would have a

greater appreciation for it.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible). Ran away from the House for

a whole year.

MR. WINDSOR: Ran away from absolutely nothing, Mr.

Chairman. The House was open more when we were in power than it will ever be

here. Maybe the minister would like to tell us why we didn't open until the end

of November - the latest time that we have opened since 1979.

In 1979 - the first year that Premier Peckford became Premier

- that was when we adopted the policy of having two sessions a year. Prior to

that, there was only the one session. In 1979 we brought in the two sessions, or

it might have been 1980.

AN HON. MEMBER: You are wrong, `Neil'.

MR. WINDSOR: No, I'm not.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Well, why did we not open until November?

All of this pressing stuff, all of this legislation which the government finds

so urgent - the 22nd of November. Last year we opened on the 2nd of November.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: Our election was back in May.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, the (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The federal election has nothing to do with

the business of the people in this House of Assembly - nothing to do with it.

November 2nd, we opened last year, and about that time or earlier, the year

before, but this year it was November 22nd before we were called into this

House. And now, the minister, the Government House Leader, has to stand in his

place today and pass a motion that is totally undemocratic, unparliamentary,

dictatorial, to change the rules of the House of Assembly without using proper

procedures, because a former Speaker made a gross error of judgement in

approving something, and now you call it a precedence.

Well, if it is so urgent that we now have to sit nights -

now, I don't mind sitting nights; I will stay here all night - but if it is so

urgent now that we have to, all of a sudden, start sitting nights, why was the

House not opened a month ago? What was the government afraid of, trying to

negotiate a deal with Hydro behind our backs - behind the backs of the people -

afraid to come before the House of Assembly and answer for what they were doing

with Newfoundland Hydro. Perhaps that is the issue, Mr. Chairman. What was the

issue, I wonder? Maybe it was that one.

Maybe it was the negotiation that they didn't have with the

churches on the educational issue. Maybe that was the one they were afraid to

bring before the House of Assembly - any number of things.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: I beg your pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: We are debating a money bill now. I can

assure this House that this House will hear where I am on that in due time, but

I doubt very much if the minister will stand in his place, because I haven't

heard him speak on any more than two or three bills since he has been in the

House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. WINDSOR: It is not hard to know when you are hitting

the core. They try to divert you away to something else. I have been around too

long. I have been around long before the minister, and I will be here when he is

long gone, I can assure you of that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. WINDSOR: As John Diefenbaker said, "I will not be

diverted by rabbits when I am chasing elephants" - not a chance.

MR. SIMMS: The only difference is that he is going to be

richer, I think.

MR. WINDSOR: He is richer; there is no question about

that. I bought lottery tickets last night, and out of six numbers I had one

number right. I thought I would try it, what a waste of time; maybe the minister

will pick numbers for me and tell me his secret.

So, Mr. Speaker, $29 million for the Department of Social

Services. I dealt with $5 million, dealing with job creation which is a sham,

the balance of it, $24.3 million or whatever it is, again, Mr. Speaker, all this

government had to do is, look at the state of the economy and the unemployment

rate. They were telling us and we told them, you looked at the Budget, it was

contradictory. The Budget was hypocritical, Mr. Speaker, it said we were going

to have a terrible time, transfer payments were going to be down, tax revenues

are going to be down because of the state of the economy but we are going to

spend less on social assistance. What kind of a dreamland is that?

It does not take anybody very smart to know when you have

such a state of the economy as we have in this Province, when unemployment is

going through the roof, that your social assistance cost is going to increase,

drastically, and this government could have been forgiven if they had come into

this House with a Budget that showed an estimate of $10 or $15 million more

needed for social assistance this year than was here last year on the basis of

their economic projections, which they had in their Budget and we could have

forgiven them, Mr. Speaker, if they had said: we are going to need $15 million

more.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did you do.

MR. WINDSOR: No, Mr. Speaker, we brought in a good,

honest Budget that told it the way it was. We didn't cook the books as this so

clearly proves that this government did. You cooked the books, you tried to keep

your deficit down and you have done it every year, tried to keep the deficit

down. You are only fooling yourself, whom do you think you are kidding, Mr.

Speaker, by coming in here with a Budget that says: oh, we are going to get a

small deficit for one year.

I will never forget the former Minister of Finance, the

Minister of Health, who is defending this bill now. I can see him standing, I

think it was in the former House or it might have been this House, but I can see

him standing there with his chest out, I am going to have a $10 million surplus;

a $10 million surplus. The first time in years that we are going to have a

surplus, what a minister I am! Well we saw what a minister he was, at the end of

the year he had a $110 million deficit, that is what kind of a minister he was.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) believe you.

MR. WINDSOR: You are only kidding yourself if you come

into this House with a Budget that is not factual; you are only kidding yourself

and in the end in the analysis you will have to come back with a $42 million

Supplementary Supply Bill.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if Confederation Building burnt down and

you had to build a new building, or had ten schools burnt down or we had a great

disaster, something that could not be predicted, then you could be forgiven for

coming into this House, nobody would question it, nobody would question the fact

that you needed an extra 10 or 20 or $50 million for an emergency, for something

that is unforeseen -

AN HON. MEMBER: It was an emergency.

MR. WINDSOR: Nothing emergency about this.

AN HON. MEMBER: An emergency to cover up the Tory federal

government (inaudible).

MR. WINDSOR: The only emergency here is to cover up your

incompetence in creating jobs and employment and economic activity in this

Province and you have been a dismal failure and you are afraid to bring the

House together to admit to it, Mr. Speaker. Now, Mr. Speaker, what is this

Municipal and Provincial Affairs, a million dollars, I did not hear what the

minister said. Would the minister tell me again what that item was for, that

million dollars for municipal and provincial affairs?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you.

Well maybe the minister will stand up and tell me what that

is.

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

DR. KITCHEN: The $1 million for Municipal Affairs was a

special warrant to provide additional funds for job creation activities which

was part of the same job creation initiatives. I think some went through

Employment and Labour Relations, some went through Municipal Affairs, and some

went through Social Services.

Resolution

"That it is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for

the granting to Her Majesty for defraying certain additional expenses of the

public service for the financial year ending March 31, 1993 the sum of

$42,360,000."

Motion, that the Committee report having passed a resolution

and a bill consequent thereto, carried.

MR. ROBERTS: Could we now call Motion 1 which is the

amendments to the Income Tax Act, Bill No. 39, and of course there is a

resolution to go with it, Sir.

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

DR. KITCHEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This Bill, "An Act To Amend The Income Tax Act, is to

implement an announcement basically which was made by the Minister of Finance in

December last year when he proposed three things, basically, one of which was

bad news for some people and the rest of which was good news. The bad news

portion first was that the personal income tax rate would be raised from 66 to

69 per cent, and the good news was that the corporate income tax rate, the

general rate, would be reduced from 17 to 16 per cent, and the small business

rate from 10 to 5 per cent with appropriate adjustments down to 7.5 per cent for

manufacturing and processing companies.

Mr. Chairman, this is a very interesting Bill and one which

is part of the government's initiative to encourage corporations to expand in

the Province. I believe I heard an announcement or a suggestion made by the

Premier down in Newfoundland Hotel the other day that we were considering

certain further down reductions in these taxes so that we could encourage

businesses to expand, particularly small businesses where the rate would be down

from 10 to 5 per cent in manufacturing and processing and also for the general

corporate tax rate.

Mr. Chairman, I think that should be enough for now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the Member for Mount Pearl.

MR. WINDSOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The only good thing in this Bill, I suppose you could say it

is good, is the reduction from 17 to 16 per cent to the general corporate income

tax rate. On the surface that sounds like pretty good stuff if the minister who

has just sat down had not been the minister who increased it from 16 to 17 per

cent a few years before. We told him then he was making a mistake and he finally

admitted it, and it is only fitting, I suppose, that he is the minister who is

here today to introduce the Bill to undo the harm that he did a few years ago

because he was the minister who raised it from 16 to 17 per cent. The real

problem though with this Bill is the personal income tax rate going from 66 to

69 per cent. The Minister of Finance announced that in his December mini-Budget

last year and we are only now getting around to bringing in the increase even

though it has been in effect from last January, 66 to 69 per cent. That is quite

an increase in one year. Three per cent on the provincial component. I believe

that makes us the highest of any province in Canada. Sixty-nine per cent of the

federal tax rate.

There is no wonder -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) surtax.

MR. WINDSOR: No, we don't have a surtax. There is one

province of Canada that has a surtax. Qubec. Maybe a couple now, alright. Most

provinces are resisting that as well.

Mr. Chairman, what a time to increase taxes on the people,

when the economy is so weak. When is this government going to realize - if what

the minister just said is true, then we wait, and we will welcome any decrease

in the taxation on the people of this Province, I would encourage government to

really examine that. If you are ever going to use the private sector as the

engine of the economy, as the Premier likes to put it, if you are ever going to

do that then you are only going to do it if you leave some funding in the hands

of the private sector. Something disposable for them to re-invest. How can they

kick start the economy if they have nothing left to re-invest.

The people of this Province are taxed to death. You only have

to look at the amount of taxes on almost every commodity, particularly alcohol,

liquor, tobacco. The sales tax of course is the worst of all. Coupled with the

GST. You walk into a store today and buy an item for $50, it costs you $60. Ten

dollars on a $50 item. Direct taxation at the source. Just incredible how much

we pay today. When you sit down and look at what the average family is paying in

income taxes, in municipal taxes, in sales taxes, any other taxes that will be

applied generally to individuals, sit down and analyze all of that, you will

find that a great percentage of a wage earner's dollar is going out in taxes of

one form or another.

It is not unusual for the average family today, particularly

with two wage earners in the family, as many are in order to survive today, you

have two wage earners, it is not unusual for that family to be in an income tax

bracket where they are paying 30 per cent, 35 per cent, of their income by way

of income tax. Thirty-five per cent. Not unusual today. That leaves you with 65

per cent. If you spend that 65 per cent, and you are paying 20 per cent on

virtually everything, except for food and clothing perhaps - some clothing -

virtually most of what you spend you are paying 20 per cent on it. So that is

another 10 or 12 per cent. You are not far off a 50 per cent tax rate just right

there, before you pay municipal taxes, which I don't put in the same class as

taxes. Because they are fees for service, basically.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. WINDSOR: The net money. Oh no. So you are paying well

over 50 per cent of what you earn in taxes. What is left by way of disposable

income after you put shelter over your heads, put food on the table, clothing on

your children's backs, send them to school, and provide transportation. An

automobile is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity in today's world. It is a

necessity. You can drive a small car and you can use regular gasoline but you

still have a significant cost just to transport yourself and your family around

in a city the size of even St. John's. Very difficult today, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) social dollars.

MR. WINDSOR: About a social cost? Oh, social dollars. No

question about it. The point is that we have fewer and fewer wage earners who

are supporting more and more. It is leaving us with less and less. We are the

only ones who can stimulate the economy. Those who are depending on the social

safety net, through no fault of their own or whatever, they are buying the basic

necessities of life. Food, clothing, shelter, basically. Heat and light. The

basic necessities of life, but it is those wage earners who would hope, at the

end of the day, to have some disposable income to spend on the sorts of things

that stimulate the economy. When you tax them to the level that they do not have

any disposable income, or similarly when you tax corporations to the level where

they do not have any money left over to invest, or to reinvest, that is when you

get past the point of diminishing returns.

I think it was former President Reagan, when he was Governor

of California, brought in this great new reform to reduce taxes. He was a little

bit radical in the approach that he took, but the concept was not totally

without merit. There is some merit into looking at the concept of reducing the

level of taxation on those that stimulate the economy.

What this Bill has done is increase the tax on the

individual, the personal income tax rate, by 3 per cent, the provincial

component, and the same Bill is reducing the tax rate on businesses, so you have

taken in one hand and given in the other. It would be interesting to see what

the net impact of this measure, or these measures contained in this Bill, would

be. I have not worked o