Volume XL Tuesday PROPERTY OF NE\VFOU'!\~AND LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY Province of Newfoundland FORTIETH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NEWFOUNDLAND Third Session VERBATIM REPORT (Hansard) Speaker: Honourable Patrick McNicholas Number 57 9 June .1987

The House met at 3:00p.m . MR. SPEAKER (McNicholas): Order, please! Statements by Ministers . MR .. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: The han . the Leader. MR. OTTENHEIMER: Government House I wish to make a statement with respect to government policy on the subject of the recently reported issuance of exploration permits by the French Government to French companies. The way I will do it will be by reading two brief communications, one from the han. ·the Premier to the Prime Minister of Canada, -copied to . the Right Han. Joe Clark and the Han. · John C. Crosbie, and the second one, a letter to the Han.

Marcel Masse over my signature and copied to the Han. Mr. Crosbie. The Premier 1 s letter to the Prime Minister reads: 11 We view with utmost concern today 1 s report of the awarding by France of petroleum exploration permits in the disputed waters around St. PierrE!/Miquelon. If these reports are indeed true, I would urge Canada to express its objections to the Government of France that this action is inconsistent with current efforts to resolve the Canada/France Maritime Boundary dispute in this area.

Canada must take every step necessary to protect our national interest in this important matter. 11 I would appreciate being advised L3024- June 9, 1987 Vol XL of the status of this matter and Canada 1 s intended course of action as soon as possible. 11 Then a letter to Han. Marcel Masse, Minister of Energy Mines and Resources, signed by myself: 11 Dear 1'-1 r .

Mas s e : 11 The Provincial Government understands that an Agence France press report states that the French Journal Officie1 11 - that '.is like our Gazette - 11 of last Saturday 1 s date '.indicates that exploration permits have been issued to two French companies by the French Government in the disputed maritime area off St.

Pierre et Miquelon. 11 The Provincial Government is of the opinion that there exists an understanding between the Government of Canada and the Government of Fr~nce that nei thE!r c o u n try would i s s u e ex p 1 or at ion permits until jurisdi~tional matters in dispute have been satisfactorily negotiated. 11 I would appreciate learning whether this understanding is still in effect. The Provincial Government views with apprehension this unilatera-l action by thE!

Government of France and urges the Government of Canada to take immediate diplomatic action to protest this issuance of exploration permits . 11 Please advise me as action the Government has taken or '.intends to what of Canada to take in this matter. 11 We have copies of this for distribution to all hon . members. MR. SIMMONS : Mr. Speaker . No. 57 R3024-

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition . MR. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for making available, . a few minutes ago, copies o·:- letters to which he has just referred. I say to . the minister that in the letter from him to Mr. Masse the phrase occurs 11 have be!en issued 11 and I wonder if we can read into that that it is a first issuance from his perspective as opposed to a renewal or an extension of a permit which, according to some sources, was now reissued because it had run out. Again I am not alleging that to be the case, but I understand it may well be the case.

It does raise the question of what government's earlier involvement was in this rna t t e r , if it did go back a year or so ago, but that is a question that we will come to later. What I would like to do, Mr.

Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues in the official Opposition is, first of all, say to the minister and through him to the Premier, that we endorse whole-heartedly the initiative that has been taken here by the government and the initiative which, according to press reports, has been undertaken by the Government of Canada, if it is indeed true, as we understand, that there was an issuance for one year, last year, to these same companies and that yesterday's action as notified in the Journal Officiel de la France was a extension for a five year period of those.

We also understand that last year the diplomatic route was taken and that it worked, in that there was no activity out there, L3025 June 9, 1987 Vol XL no exercise of the permit by Total, and Elf Aquatai ne. We believe firmly that the diplomatic route is the appropriate one to take. If at some point it becomes exhausted, obviously the appropriate authority, the Government of Canada, External Affairs in particular, would have to look at what other options are availablE! . But that is another situation altogether.

The point we want to E!fnphasize is that from our understanding the diplomatic initiative worked last year and we have no reason why it will not work this y•9ar. At thE! very least it ought to be testE:~d. and that is indeed the case. Mr. Speaker, let me say also on behalf of my colleagues that we are delighted to see that the Premier, if I may judgE! from the tone of his correspondenCE! to l:he Prime Minister, is not using thE! ranting and roaring approach here and for that we commend hirn.

Perhaps at long last he has gotten the message that there is some merit in the logical approach in dealings between governments . Perhaps he learnt it after the way he has gotten- so te!rribly burnt over the FFT issue where, despite all the ranting and roaring, he did not get his way at a 11 , o u e r transfer payments, l'"lr. Speaker, his ranting and roar ing stand on the railway and on the Canada/France agreement of some months ago.

So, we do hope that this letter sends the signal that I interpret, that the Premie!r has come to the conclusion that the fight for the sake of fight approach is not necessarily the one that is going to serve this Province best. No. 57 R3025

Mr. Speaker, I believe this incident, the gazetting of the issuance of those licenses, underscores once again the absolute urgency of getting the negotiations and, indeed, the arbitration procedure in high gear to resolve the outstanding issues between Canada and France insofar as the offshore is concerned. One other comment that needs to be made in this context, Mr. Speaker, is that we have not seen or heard a lot about the much touted Atlantic ~ccord in recent times. It was an issue of some import in the last session, it died on the Order Paper, and we have not seen or heard much of it since. AN HON.

MEMBER : Your time is up. MR. SIMMONS: J suggest the Speaker will know when the time is up. Mr. Speaker, in concluding we do hope that we will get before this session ends ·some indication of when the government will be proceeding on the Atlantic Accord legislation. Directly to the point that the minister has raised in his statement, and with this I conclude, I would hope that the minister will undertake to keep the House informed as to what response he gets from Mr. Masse and, in turn, the Premier gets from Mr. Mulroney on this important issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker . SOME HON . MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR.

FENWICK : Mr . Speaker . MR. SPEAKER : L3026 June 9, 1987 Vol XL The han. the member for Menihek . MR. FENWICK: Thank you, very much, Mr. Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: It is quite a curious situation we have here, where we end up hearing from the news media, and actually fr .om a member of Parliament, in Ottawa, that we are in a situation where permits have been given to two French companies to start drilling in disputed waters.

It raises, I think. the question of how cordial, to use . a semi-French word, the re1ationship between Canada and France must be at this time if, indeed, this action is taken yet our own federal government seems to know virtually nothing about it and, if it does know anything about it, it has not informed our own government about it, all of which is a very curious situation. I am assuming that the temperate language of the two letters is a temporary phenomena awaiting the revelation of what the exact circumstances are.

If, as rnay be the case, the federal government did know about this prior to this time, I would suggest that I, for one, would ·have no qualms whatsoever to hElar the Premier go off on his usual energetic diatribe against these kinds of actions, since this obviously is a major escalation of what is now, I think, a long-term water border dispute.

From our perspective as a party, both federally and provincially, we would be very much concerned if this is the kind of consideration we are getting from France now after, hopefully, the relations between the two countries had ·advanced to a point where we are No. 57 R3026

on better grounds. So, Mr. Speaker, I would, I think, say that we are very concerned about the situation and we await further information to find out whether our government federally did know about what was going on. If it did not , I wo u 1 d anticipate th~t their response would be quite vigorous in terms of protecting our own interests, and hopefully we will not -see oil rigs from France moving into the disputed area in order to start drilling. I'-1R. SIMMS: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Forest Resources and Lands. MR. SIMMS: Mr.

Speaker, today I wish to announce that 1,250 jobs will be created this Summer as a result of projects being carried QUt &y my department under the Canada Newfoundland Fore~t Resources Development Agreement. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. SIMMS: These jobs, Mr. Speaker, involve activities in all parts of the Province, mostly in OIJr expanding silviculture programme and in the building and reconstruction of some 100 kilometers of resource roads.

We will be spending at least $12.5 million under the cost-shared agreement on a number of forestry projects and programmes, including more than $7 million on silviculture. The silviculture programme clearly illustrates the dramatic progress we are making in forestry in this Province. For L3027 June 9, 1987 Vol XL example, this year alone, we will plant some 12 million tree seedlings, more than half of the 23 million that we planted in the last ten years in total. In addition, Mr.

Speaker, this year's planting will also bE! more than double our best year to date - that was in 1985 when we planted 5.8 million seedlings. So I believe we are making exCE!ptional. headway. Most of ·the planting t hi s year wi 11 be carried out i n twenty-five separate projects this Summer, with another five or six projects being carried ou:t in our Fall planting programmE!. The silviculture programme also includes preparation of sites for later planting and thinning of overstocked young stands. In total, over 16,000 hectares will be silviculturally treated, in some form or another.

I might just add as an aside here, Mr. Speaker, that I haue heard in the last couple of days some comments about the amount of planting we have been doing, and some membe!r opposite referring to 13 per cent. What he failed to realize is that Newfoundland has if not the highest, certainly one of the highest in naturally regenerated tre-e processes in all of Canada. He forgot to takE! that into account when he made his comments, which he read, of course from, a report. To be pointed out, Mr. Speaker, also, is that the 1,250 jobs that I mentioned are not the cornplE!te total.

As I announced earlier, another 200 jobs are being ere a ted by my department as part of the Provincial Employment prograrnl'ne tn co-op&ration with the Department of Career Development and Advanced Studies. No. 57 R3027

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the number of people working this Summer, as a result of our forestry silviculture and other programmes, should reach a total of at 1, ~SO and in fact, depending on project schedules adopted by various contractors, there may well be some more. All of this activity, Mr. Speaker, creates jobs that would not exist . if this government was not committed to carrying out improved forest management in a way that creates productive employment. MR. FLIGHT : Mr . Speaker. MR . SPEAKER: The han. the member for Windsor - Buchans . MR. FLIGHT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for the courtesy of providing me with a copy of his statement earlier. We welcome the announcement. I want to tell the minister, speaking for this side of the Legislature, that we welcome any announcement from any minister that indicates that 1,400 jobs will be created in this Province. In support of the minister, I have heard, both inside and outside of this Legislature, criticism of the fact that jobs created in silviculture are part-time jobs when we are talking about full-time jobs. Everybody wants full-time jobs, but, of course, anyone who understands forestry, Mr.

Speaker, will know by the very nature of the industry and by the very nature of a silviculture programme it must be, by and large, short-term jobs. So, again, I would say to the L3028 June 9, 1987 Vol XL - - . minister we welcome the announcement.

I am glad I also, particularly in light of happenings, events this past few days, to know that the majority of the jobs created will be with Abitibi-Price, Kruger, or private contractors and, therefore, one would feel confident that the kind of political patronage that we have seen practiced in other government sponsored jobs this year wi 11 not be practiced in employing people for these jobs announced by the minister today. I wo u 1 d s u g g E! s t to him , and I do not understand why it is not so, that any jobs which are the responsibility of a line department, such as the!

DE!partment of Forestry, I can think of no reason why those jobs cannot go through the Public Service Commission, thereby avoiding criticism if, indeed, there is the pas sibili ty that it would be SE!en as being used for political patronage. Mr. Speaker, when the minister wound up his statement he was obviously still smarting OVE!r the fact that he got an 1 F 1 from t:he environmental r·eport card relative to the Province 1 s performance in silviculture and forest enhancement.

I would think that he is hoping now, and I hope with him and we hope with him I that l:he announcement today of the increased activity in S:ilviculture and forest enhancement will reduce his 1 F 1 to a 1 0 1 , and let us work it all the way down to an 1 A 1 • With that, again, Mr. Speaker, speaking for the Opposition, we welcome the 1,400 jobs and . we commend the minister on the announcement. No . 57 R3028

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. FENWICK: Mr. Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Menihek. MR. FENWICK-: Just two small points, Mr. Speaker: The first one, I think, refers to the minister • s comments about the amount of land needing replanting. He indicated that even though we only replaced 13 per cent of the cut, I think that is what he was saying, the rest is reseeded naturally.

What the minister, of course, failed to say in his explanation is that it reseeds even more naturally and better than we possibly could want and, quite frankly, we end up with very thick stands of very small trees which have to be thinned . and, as a rE;!sul t, we require more work in the thinning area than we do in replanting. I just thought I would point that out to the minister, although I think he is quite aware of it, it is just that he should have indicated that that is one of our major problems.

On job creation, which is, it seems to me, the other theme of this particular Ministerial Statement, he talks quite highly about the 1450 jobs that are created, 1250 I believe with contractors primarily, and another 200 on the job creation kind of projects. I find that it is nice to see that many people working, Mr. Speaker.

It is certainly pleasant to know that we do have some primarily federal money coming into the Province in order to create at least a major portion of those 1250 jobs, but I think we should still remember that in terms of job creation the report L3029 June 9, 1987 Vol XL card for this government as a whole was a solid 'F' - I think that is probably the only grade it got on that - when our unemployment rate still hangs up on the 20 per cent range despitE! the fact that the Canadian rate has dropped and ours usually tracks the Canadian rate.

The other thing, of course, is that despite that fact, 1000 people in this last year have actually left the Province going down the road looking for employment. So, on that basis I think the employment record of this government is an 'F if that is possible, despite the fact that SOITitE! of theSE! federal/provincial agreements are crE!ating a few jobs, evEm if thE!Y be only of a temporary nature during the Summer. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker . Oral Questions MR. EFFORD : Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon . the member for Port de Grave. SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr . Speaker . Mr.

Speaker, the absence of the Minister of Social Services (Mr. Brett), and the answers giVE!n by the Premier yesterday and his statement made on t.v . last night, seem to indicate that the Minister of Social Services is trying to evade his responsibility of appearing in this House and answering questions put by the Opposition. No. 57 R3029

Let me say to the Acting Premier, and all members on the other side, that it is not going to work, that we are not going to - MR. J. CARTER : A point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: Or_d.er, please! A point of privilege, the han. the member for St. John 1 s North. MR. J. CARTER: I think that this has probably gone far enough. I was not in the House last Wednesday, but I have a copy of the Hansard of last Wednesday and a reasonable reading of the minister 1 s statements would indicate that he did not intend to say the kind of things that the Opposition is accusing him of.

Since the new Leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Wells), a uery honourable gentleman, is in the Chamber and in earshot of my uoice, I would ask one of the Pages to giue him a copy of last Wednesday 1 s Hansard so that he may read it and perhaps influence his caucus to show some manners and decency. Any charitable reading of this Hansard would show that the hon. gentleman was trying to develop the argument, and was interrupted in the course of it, of course, that abandonment of children is one of the worse things that can happen to them.

I think all han. members realize and would accept the notion that our most precious resource is our children. To try and pervert and twist what the hon. gentleman said is an abuse of the privileges of this House. MR. SPEAKER: To that point han. member has ·facie case. of privilege, the not made a prima L3030 June 9, 1987 Vol XL The han. the member for Port de Graue. MR. EFFORD: I would like to ask the Acting Premier, Mr.

Speaker, in light of the statements made yesterday concerning the amount of money that is put into day care by this Province - it ranks number ten in all of Canada: $4 per capita in Newfoundland; $21 per capita in NE!W Brunswick; and $31 i.n P[rinCE!

Edward Isla11d; and Noua Scotia - would the Acting Premier tE!ll us if he agrees with the statements that the Premier made yesterday and does he think that the Minister of Social Services must haue given the wrong information, which again shows further dereliction in his duties as Minister of Social Services, to the Premier when he gave the Premier figures saying that we are spending an equal amount of money with any other province in Atlantic Canada? MR. SPEAKER: The han . the Leader. MR. OTTENHEIMER : Government House Mr. Speaker, first I should point out that the hon.

Minister of Social Services is attending a conference of Ministers of Social Services. That is the! reason he is not here. As a rnatt:er of fact, I believe it is a meeting on day care. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. OTTENHEIMER: It shows how committed the hon . minister is to day care. MR. SIMMONS : Let us hope he learns something . No . '57 R3030

MR. OTTENHEIMER: I am sure the han. minister has an open mind. I am sure he will learn something, and I am sure others may well learn from him as well. I am sure these are all learning experiences. However, with respect to the han. gentleman's more specific aspect of · the question, the han. the Premier yesterday, in answer to a. question on the same subject, I think, pointed out that

whereas in 1979 day care expenditures were $150,000, they are today $650,000. That is quite a considerable increase. Support for family services, and obviously that is very related, went from $31,000 in 1979, the first year of his administration, when he became Premier - not of the Tory Administration but the first year that he was Premier - to $482,000, and that there were no transition houses in 1979 and today there is $381,000 spent in that area.

Obviously everybody will agree that there should be more spent for day care, more spent for social services of various kinds, for family services, for transition houses, in all of those social areas there should be more money spent, but obviously the Province has to have more money in order to spend it . MR. EFFORD: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the han. the member for Port de Graue. MR.

EFFORD: Let me cite a quote from what the Premier said yesterday, when he said that the present government takes a back seat to nobody in this country on day care services, which statistics very clearly show L3031 June 9, 1987 Vol XL that we ranked of Canada in care . number ten money spent in all on day Mr.

Speaker, I would like to ask the minister how can he justify the Minister of Social Services, representing social services and day care in this Province, up speaking in Nova Scotia, in light of the statements that he made in this House last week, and over and over again in public., and in light of the fact that every woman's association, the Nurses Union and everybody in this Province have called for the minister's resignation? MR. SPEAKER: The han. the Leader. MR. OTTENHEIMER: Government House Mr.

Speaker, the government • s position, the government's policy with respect to day care services, was articulated clearly, unequivocally, forcefully yesterday by the PrE!mier, by thE! Minister of Justice (Ms . Verge) and by the Minister of Career Development and Advanced Studies (Mr. Power), and that is .thereforE ! the record and I cannot articulate it any better than they did . Han. members might say I perhaps could articulate it less well.

They articulated very clear·ly what the policy of the government is l.IJith respect to day care, and that is from the Premier and from other ministers, so that is quite clear . With respect to the amount of money, I think wha t the han. gentleman probably is getting at there is that there is not enough money, there should be more money, or that other provinces spend more money on day care - I prE!SUme he means per capita - than Newfoundland does. I mean it is No . 57 R3031

.. l. unfort -unately true that in many areas of social endeavour, as in other areas, Newfoundland, because of its financial position, cannot spend the money it wishes to. I wi 11 not argue with P E I , be c au s e there is a question of maybe

interpretation. But our per capita incomes are lower, and this is . historically since Confederation . This is not a Tory phenomenon, it is not a Liberal phenomenon, it is largely due to historic and geographic circumstances. One can argue politically, sure the Tories would do a lot better or the Liberals would do a lot better. Only the Socialists would say that by the abolishion of private enterprise and a total revolution of the masses and the dictatorship of the proletariat, only they would argue that there is a total panacea.

The Liberals might argue that they have policies which would help alleviate it and we would argue that our policies are excellent, but nobody sees a panacea there. The fact is, when one makes comparisons, and everything has to be seen in context, and sees what was spent in 1979 and what is spent now, the government 1 s dedi cation . to day care and other social programmes is evident. And I remind the hon. gentlemen it is 1 By your actions ye shall know them. 1 SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. EFFORD: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary . MR.

EFFORD: In light of Minister of the fact that the Social Services is L3032 June 9, 1987 Uol XL representing the government and a the Province on social services, and the minister just very clearly stated that he does not agree, thE!

Minister of Career Development and Advanced Studies does not agree, the Minister of Justice does not agree with the statements made by the Minister of Social Services, is he now saying, as a Cabinet representative, that he does not agree and that the Minister of Social Services must resign because he cannot represent the Province on his own views when the government has a totally .different view than he has already stated? MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER : The hon . the Leader. MR. OTTENHEIMER: Government House Mr.

Speaker, very much the same question was put by the hon ·. the Leader of ·the Opposition (Mr. Simmons) to the hon. the Premier yesterday, and the Premier 1 s position and the government 1 s position as articulated by him was very clear. He pointed out concretely, through its expenditures and making comparison back to 19'79, - the dedication of the government to day care and stated exactly what the government 1 s policy is. And the government 1 s policy is as so stated. MR. EFFORD : Resignation! MR. OTTENHEIMER: I do not intend to resign, no. SOME HON . MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. BARRY: No. 57 R3032

Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Mount Scio - Bell Island. MR. BARRY : Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Government House Leader (Mr. Ot~enheimer), the Minister of Energy, when did the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador first become aware that permits were being issued by the Government of France in the disputed area off St. Pierre and Miquelon for oil exploration, and what was known by government at that time? In other words, what did you know, before this last developement, and when did you know it? MR. OTTENHEIMER : Mr . Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader. MR.

OTTENHEIMER: Government ·House Mr. Speaker, the Government of Newfoundland was not aware that the Government of France had issued these licences. Apparently it became public when it was printed in what corresponds to the Gazette in France, I think of last Saturday 1 s date, and we became aware of it or some of us became aware of it last evening. We were not aware of it before, ancl indeed we cannot get a copy of Le Journal Offici e 1 here , but no doubt it is in it.

But that is my understanding of when it became public and, to the best of my knowledge, the federal government knew nothing about it either - to the best of my knowledge. MR. BARRY : Mr. Speaker . L3033 June 9, 1987 Vol XL MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Mount Scio - Bell Island. MR. BARRY: A supplementary, Mr. SpE!aker. There are indications that there was a permit or permits issued last year and what we are Sl=>.eing now are renewals.

So the minister, I understand, is saying he and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador knows nothing about that, nor does he believe the Government of Canada knows anything about.that. WelJ., what about thE! rE!ferenCE! tn the minister 1 s letter, Mr.

Speaker, to thE! fact that he believes, he is 1 oi=- the opinion 1 - I think 1 impression 1 would be a better word; of the impression - 1 that there exists an understanding between the Government of Canada and the Government of France that neither country would issue ~xploration permits · until jurisdictional matters in dispute have been satisfactorily negotiated 1 ? Would the· minister tell us what dOE!S hE! know with respect to this understanding? Is it containE!d in a formal document? Has the minister seen anything expressing this understand-ing?

Where or how did he arrive at the opinion that there is such an understanding between the two National Governments? MR. SPEAKER : The hon. the Leader. MR. OTTENHEIMER : Gov er·nmE!nt HOUSE! Mr. Speaker, to refer to thE! earlier part of the ques t.ion, there is, in my communication to Mr. Masse, and the Premier 1 s to the Prime Minister, a1s well as a protest a request that we get all No. 57 R3033

the details and that they ·inform us exactly what the position is. I do not mind saying, as I already said, we knew nothing about this before last night, some of us - MR. BARRY: About any permits? MR. OTTENHEIMER: - ~bout permits which were issued, whose issuance was made public in the French Gazette ~f last Saturday's d~te. Now, since then, in endeavouring to get to the bot tom of it, we ·have heard opinions - but we still do not have the facts - that, number one, about whether it is exploratory and not drilling or drilling as well, and, number two, whether it is a renewal or something new.

With respect to the renewal aspect - again, all of this unfounded; we do not know y e t , it is not fact , just different opinions we have heard - whether there w~re permits gi0en last year by France and 'then an agreement that they would not be implemented or acted upon, not that they were necessarily cancelled, we do not know. I quite frankly say, until we hear back from Masse or from the people in Ottawa with the full details, we do not know and it is not fruitful to speculate.

With respect to understanding, let me refer to my letter to him: 'The Provincial Government is of the opinion that there exists an understanding between the Government of Canada and the Government of France that neither country would issue exploration permits until these jurisdictional matters ... have been satisfactorily resolved. ' Again, it is only rny opinion, that this understanding is probably an oral one and that it is not a L3034 June 9, 1987 Vol XL written one.

Again, I do not know, that is what I want to find out, if it is written or oral and what its specific terms are, if there are more terms to it that we both agree not to explore, and what its date is and whether it is regarded by one of the p~rties, say, Canada, as still continuing or whether they regard it as no longer being valid. We do not know and that is the reason why we want to get this information from Ottawa. From the contacts that we have had there only this morning, to the best of my knowledgE! this came as a total surprise to Ottawa as well.

To the best . of my knowledge it was a unilateral action by France and that Ottawa was not informed. MR. BARRY : A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary. MR.

BARRY: In light of the fact that there is in excess of 20,000 square kilometres of disputed territory involved here, some of that territory coming within thirty miles of the Newfoundland coast, which would clearly fall within the area claime-d as Newfoundland 1 s Continental Shelf, and in light of the fact that there is an overlapping with permits already issued by Canada, we understand, and presumably Newfoundland has been involved in these, to Texaco, Gulf, Mobil and Petro-Canada, would the minister tell us what action has he taken? Has he spoken with the Minister of External Affairs?

Has he spoken with the Deputy Minister of External Affairs? Has he spoken with the Minister's Executive Assistant, if the minister was not available? Has he spoken with No. 57 R3034

anybody in authority? I repeat the minister•s own words, 11 By their actions ye shall know them. 11 Is there any action from that side of the House to protect Newfoundland•s territory and Newfoundland•s right to the Continental Shelf or is this merely an exercise in futility? Is .the minister just going through the motions by sending off these letters? Has he at least sent them by priority post? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader. Government MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Speaker, but by simultaneous. seconds after MR. BARRY: not by priority FACTS which It arrives it leaves here. Who did you write to? MR.

OTTENHEIMER: House post is ten I will answer the question in my own due time, in my own due way, and will not have it dictated to me. When it comes to priority post, it was not priority post or homing pigeon, it was by a simultaneous means of transmission whereby it goes out and ten seconds later one was in the Prime Minister•s office, and the other went out and ten minutes later was in Mr. Masse•s office. AN HON. MEMBER: Ten seconds. MR. OTTENHEIMER : Ten seconds, that is correct.

So, with respect to the hon. gentleman•s overall contention or concern, let us call it a concern, that probably the provincial government is remiss and cannot be counted upon, cannot be relied upon to protect the Province 1 s L3035 June 9, 1987 Vol XL interests in matters concerning the Continental Shelf, I do not think that there is much evidence of any such laxity on the part of this government. Certainly this government has been very diligent in that whole area with respect to both to fishing right~ and with respect to the offshore as well . SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR.

BARRY: Answer the question, Gerry. did you speak to? Who MR. OTTENHEIMER: Yes, I will answer If the hon. member e as y I wi 11 get to his question . t~he question. will take it all parts of There is only one other part that I recall, when he was speculating, Oh, probably they did not speak to anybody and they are just sending off letters to make it look good. No. I was speaking this morning with Mr. eros bie. I could not speak to Mr. Clark, he is in Iceland; the Premier could not speak with the Prime Minister, he is Venice.

I was speaking with officials, but I am not sure just which ones because up there thE!re are so many ~ither deputies or associate deputies in the various departments, Energy and External Affairs. So I can assurE! t.hE! hon. gentleman and the hon. House that this is being pursued with diligence. MR. SIMMONS: Mr . Speaker . MR. SPEAKER : The hon. the Leader of the Opposition. MR. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, just to foJ.low up on No. 57 R3035

the matter that my colleague from Mount Scio - Bell Island was just. pursuing, the minister tells us that the message took ten seconds from here to Ottawa. That is not the problem, Mr. Speaker. The problem is the time it takes to get the messages back from Ottawa, and it seems in this case it took a year or more. Will the minister indicate to the House whether the provincial government had any knowledge about the issuance of permits or the possible issuance of permits to Total and Elf A qui taine a year ago? .

Is he telling the House that the information, which he admitted came to his knowledgE! in the last twenty-four hours, was the first indication that he, as Minister of Energy, has had of this whole question of the issuance of permits in the disputed area to French companies for the purpose of drilling and/or exploration? MR. SPEAKER: The han. the Government House Leader. MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr.

Speaker, with reference to the issuance of these specific permits, which was made public by the French journals on Saturday, the first time the Government of Newfoundland learned of it was last night, and to the best of my knowledge the first time the Government of Canada learned of it was last night or today - to the best of my knowledge.

Now with reference to the other, I cannot say what specific date, but I can recall the question of permits being is sued by France to French companies, objections from the federal government and the provincial government, and then an agreement that they would not be operative or that they would be L3036 June 9, 1987 Uol XL cancelled, or they would not be operative or whatever. I think it is in relation to that that there was an understanding between France and Canada that no permits would be issued. That is as I recall it.

With reference to these specific permits, thE! first we 1 earned was 1 as t night , and I am quite sure the first the federal government learned was at the same time and lE!arned through what was published in the French thing corresponding to the Gazette. I believe, as well, that there have already been diplomatic representations made by ·canada to France. I cannot say that as a fact, but I believe that already diplomatic representation has be!en made by Canada to France on this question of issuance. MR. SIMMONS: Mr . Speaker. MR . SPEAKER: The han. the Leader of the Opposition . MR. SIMMONS : Mr.

Speaker, I watched thE! minister over an extended period of time and one can tell when thE! minister is skating, and he was skating at len~th, Mr. Speaker, in the sequence of questions bE!tween my friend and colleague from Mount Scio - Bell Island and the minister. Mr. Speaker, the minister now is beginning to come clean on this. His memory is bouncing back, so let us give him time, because now he remembE!rs something that he did not admit t.o at all in the first line of questioning.

The impression given earlier by the minister was that this was the first thing yesterday, no item of information before yesterday and No. 57 R3036

today' s letter. Now, Mr. Speaker, he tells us something else . Will he tell us just a little more, now, about last year's events? Will he tell us - this was the first question put to him on this subject today - when he became aware? He might not be able to nail it down to the minute or the day but roughly when did he become aware? Was 'it a month ago or was it twelve months ago? To help him, will he indicate whether it was before the blowup over the Canada - France fish deal back in January or February? Was he aware before that incident about the issuance of permits last year?

Was he aware before that time, and can he nail it down to an approximate time frame as to vJhen he became aware of that? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader. MR. OTTENHEIMER: Government House Mr. Speaker, I could not say what time because for years the question has been there with respect to this, let us call it, disputed area as to licenses issuing from Canada, licenses issuing from France. There was a period of time, I think, when both had some licenses issued. Then it is my understanding there was an agreement that no licenses would be issued by either.

That has been something that has been a situation for some years, but I cannot say how many without looking it up or having somebody look it up. This situation, the dispute, has been there for years, and then there was an agreement, at the least an understanding, that neither country would issue any further licenses, and that, I think, has been operative for a number of years, but I would have L3037 June 9, 1987 Vol XL to check to see the date of that understanding, and that this is the first instance of a breach of that understanding.

That is ulhy I have asked him, num ber one, to confirm whether there is such an understanding, and I believe there is, and, number two, uJhether it -.is still operative. I assume we will have this information by the tomorrow. But it is not fruitful for me to speculate until I get the actual facts. MR. SIMMONS : Mr. Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary . MR. SIMMONS : Mr. Speaker, this gets rnor£~ interesting by the moment .

ThE! minister's letter talks about the government being 'of the opinion. ' Now he alleges there was a breach ~f understanding, which I suggest to him is much different, much more pointed than an opinion on the part of hims E! 1 f or the government. Mr. Speaker, will the minister now tell us what exactly he knew on this earlier subject of a year ago? When he knew it? And, Mr . Speaker, since this is my final, why did the government not make thi s information public at the time? Was there some particular reason why this was not made public at the time?

I understand hE! cannot undo the past, but will he now undertake to table, to make public any information. I have in mind in particular any protest that the government of this Province launched at the time it first became aware of this possible breach of understan ding, as he phrases it? MR. OTTENHEIMER : Mr. Speaker . No. 57 R3037

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government Leader. House MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Speaker, the only breach of this understanding is the one which was referred to in Saturday's Gazette. That is the only breach of the understanding. The understanding was that neither country would issue permits. Neither country did is sue permits then, and any that had been issued were no longer operative. The first breach of the understanding that I am aware of is the one referred to by the . French Government's Gazette of last Saturday's date. MR. FENWICK: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Menihek . MR. FENWICK: Mr.

Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Rural, Agricultural and Northern Development (Mr. R. Aylward) and it has to do with the joint project between the Provincial Government and the Sprung greenhouse interests. I would like to ask the minister if at present, or in the future, government is contemplating or has given to this joint venture, exemption from municipal taxation for the operation itself? MR. R. AYLWARD: Mr . Speaker . MR. SPEAKER : The hon. the Agricultural Development. MR. R. AYLWARD: Minister and of Rural Northern Mr. Speaker. I give the hon .

L3038 June 9, 1987 Uol XL member more credit to know the tax structure in this Province at least a little better than he does. The provincial government does not have the power to give municipal tax exemptions. They would be given, if they are to be given, by a municipality, Mr. Speaker. MR. FENWICK: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the member for Menihek. MR.

FENWICK: hon. the I am quite surprised that the minister does not realize that he has powers under his act to giVE! exemptions for agricultural producers from municipal taxation. and in fact he has already given a number of greenhouse producers that exemption. My question to the minister - I wish. he would stop prevaricating is: Have you now or wi lJ. you in the future give the Sprung joint project exemption from municipal taxation before the operation is put in place? MR . SPEAKER: The hon. the Agricultural Development. MR. R. AYLWARD: -Minister and of Rural, Northern Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the hon. member.

I did not understand his first question. Yes, my department can recommend to Municipal Affairs. which is a little different than what the hon. member has said, property tax exemptions for land use for agricultural purposes, Mr. Speaker. We have not considered the Sprung project for this recommendation yet because the No. 57 R3038

farmer themselves apply, the agricultural user would apply to my department for such an exemption and it would be considered at the time of application. MR. FENWICK : Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER : A final supplementary . MR. FENWICK: My final supplementary is this: Given that there are a number of producers who have already received exemptions when they have asked, I am asking the minister now, knowing exactly what this operation is since he has been deeply involved in it, will this operation receive exemption from municipal taxation when it applies for its application? MR.

SPEAKER: The hon. the Agricultural Development. MR. R. AYLWARD: · l'llinister and of Rural, Northern Mr. Speaker, first of all I do not know if they are going to apply. Another little different twist to this is the greenhouse operations now that get exemptions get exemptions on their production facilities, not on their business or their storefront operations, I guess, where they sell their flowers. Mr. Speaker, when the application comes in for this greenhouse operation it will be considered the same as everyone else - if it comes in, Mr . Speaker. MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker. MR.

SPEAKER: The hon. the member for· Stephenville . L3039 June 9, 1987 Vol XL MR. K. AYLWARD : Thank you, Mr . Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a short question to the minister, since the Premier is not here, on the youth unemployment situation. I would just like the Acting Premier to indicate what are government•s plans to deal with the situation that has seen the youth unemployment rate go from 25 per cent in 1979 up to 37 per cent now, and continuously seems to be going in an upward direction?

Is there a specific plan that the government is going to bring in and deal with over the next one or two or three or four years? Is there a specific plan instead of rhetoric? Are the re specific programmes, such as other provincial governments are doing? Are they going to be bringing in specific programmes to deal with this catastrophe that presently goes on? .MR. SPEAKER : The han . the Leader . MR. OTTENHEIMER : Gover·nment HOUSE! Mr. Speaker, there t.uill be a number of programmes which the government has in operation which the hon. gerrtleman should be familiar with.

There is a salary subsidy programme which is of assistance to young people, whereby 50 per cent of the salary is made available. Then, of course, there is the provincial employment programme in which 40 per cent of the applicants have to be under twenty-five years of age. There is a youth entrepreneur programme, whose details have been announced in the House, which is specifically designed for young people. Then, of course, there are certain federal - provincial 50/50 No. 57 R3039

"" cost-shared programmes. I would have thought the hon. gentleman would have been familiar with them, but I will ask the minister responsible to send a brochure or a description of all of these programmes to the hon. gentleman so that he can communicate it to the young people in · his district, who, I am sure, would like to know that information. MR. SPEAKER : Order, please! The time for Oral Ques~ions has elapsed. Petitions MR. K. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Stephenville. MR. K. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker . Mr.

Speaker, I rise to present a petition today on behalf of eighty people in the Stephenville - Bay St . George area concerning the cutback in Social Services of thirty-five positions. rhese are petitions that have been circulated all around the area of the West Coast and are continually corning into the office 1 streaming in. They are giving indications that they are against the government•s action to cut back the services in the Social Service Department and the responsibility the government is evading. Mr . Speaker I I saw the Deputy Premier responding to questions on L3040 June 9, 1987 Uol XL youth unemployment.

I can see why we are going to need a lot more petitions, Mr. Speaker, because obviously they think that on the youth unemployment situation, the status quo is fine and we do not have to deal with that problem. The programmes they have are fine. There is no sweat. There is no problem. The young people out there are fine and there is no problem whatsoever. We have ev_erything there folks. There is no problem, we will have it all solved.

Well, that is the same attitude that prevails in the area of Social Services and it is obviously the same attitude that prevails when it comes to day care and child care as the Minister of Social Services (Mr. Brett) has already indicated to this House of Assembly in this last week.

It is unfortunate that we see this government undertaking such a scheme and a pragramme to cutback services to· people who, at the very le -ast, cannot afford it, and who have to suffer the consequences of a government that is running out of steam and has decided that the only way to save money is to take it out of people, and services away from the people who can least -afford it and who deserve it and who need it most, especially senior citizens and people who are disabled. These are the people that are being hit, these are the people that need more help instead of less.

This government has decided in their wisdom they do not want ·to bother to improve the programmes or provide the adequate capability to service the programmE!S that they bring in. If you read the Social Services Report, Mr . Speaker, you will find a number of new programmes -that this No. 57 R3040

goverriment has supposedly brought in since 1979. Well, if you look at the money figures that are on the other side, Mr. Speaker, you find the same amount of money. That $25,000 figure that was in 1979 is the same as it is now. The same types of figures have been occurring all along. Organizations around this Province that are trying to help disabled people, that are trying to help the mentally handicapped, are continuously seeking to get status and to help get improvements in financing and so on. What does this government decide to do? It decides to take away thirty-five positions and to cut back its budget.

People who in this Province need it most are suffering and we see the government deciding to cut back. Mr. Speaker, we _are going to keep presenting these petitions as they come in becau·se this is an issue that wi 11 no t go away . · It i s an important issue for the people of the Province. It is time that this government responded not only to the cutbacks in Social Services, where they should be making improvements, Mr. Speaker, it is also time the!y responded to the youth unemployment situation which is a catastrophe in this Province and which should be responded to with immediate action, programmes and plans.

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad case indeed when we see thirty-five positions in Social Services being cut back where day care is being affected, child care ~nd so on. These children are going to grow up and they are going to face the youth unemployment situation in this Province. If it continues, with this government letting it continue, we will see a drastic L3041 June 9, 1987 Uol XL situation. They are not even getting a chance to get a job. Thank you, Mr. Speaker . MR. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition. MR. SIMMONS: Before the opportunity passes, Mr.

Speaker , I wan t to r is e in support of the petition so ably pre!sented by my friend and colleague from StephenviJ.le (Mr. K. Aylward) . It is one of a number of petitions that he has been bringing to the attention of t:hts House on behalf of petitioners who fE.!el aggrieVE!d about a very important issue. The issue is well known to this Chamber, the is sue of layoffs at a time when there is an increasing need for the very services that are being dispensed with by the minister. That alone, Mr.

Sp~~aker, is a comment on the judgement of the minister, on the kind of advice he is getting and on the kind of advice he is bringing to the Cabinet table . Mr. SpeakE!r', this is the same mhtister who has been much in the news in the last few days with his rather, I suppose, colourful is a term that would too much dignify the nature of his remarks, but colourful in a very despicable way, colourful remarks about day care and about working mothers. Mr.

Speaker, I do not know how long it is going to take the government to get the message on this particular issue. _ The Premier yesterday gave the most encouraging signal to date! to the rnother·s of this. Province. to the No. 57 R3041

offspr .ing who were implicitly insulted at the same time and to the spouses of those working mothers who we .re insulted at the same time. The Premier gave the most encouraging signal yesterday when he said we will wait and see. Knqwing his kind of politics, Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that when he says wait and see, he means wait and see what is the extent of the public reaction, the public furor, and then he will take what he thinks is the appropriate political course of action.

It is encouraging that he would send that signal but it is also the despicable that he is going to make his decision on that basis alone. Because, you see, Mr. Speaker, the heart of the matter is this: Here and now we have a minister who has clearly lost the confidence of those .whose advocate he is supposed to be at the Cabinet table. How can those people, Mr. Speaker, those members of women's groups, people who generally believe in the so-called women's issues, which I submit are societal issues of particular import to women in many cases, how can he now, Mr.

Speaker, be seen to be the convincing advoca·te of their cause at the Cabinet table, given the way he so despicably burned the bridge last week? DR. COLLINS: A point or order, Mr. Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! A point of order, the Minister of Finance. DR. COLLINS : Mr. Speaker, when L3042 June 9, 1987 han. the presenting Vol XL petitions one has to refer to the number of petitioners, the subject of the petition and comments thereto. As far as I have heard, this petition had nothing to do with the minister and day care. It had to do with the employment of social . workers in the Stephenville area. MR.

SPEAKER: To that point of order, it is very difficult to assess just exactly when a member is speaking directly to the subject. The han. the member for Fortune - Hermitage. MR. SIMMONS: I understand, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance (Dr . Collins) has been uncomfortable on this issue because I know something of the gentleman that he is and I know that he does not subscribe to the views.

What must rankle him and every other member in that administration is that they have to sit and bite the:ir tongue on this particular issue, an issue that is so insulting to them that anybody in his right mind would suggest for a moment that working mothers ought to have some guilt complex for so doing. Mr . Speaker, my friend and colleague for Bonavista North (Mr. Lush) yesterday talked about collectiVE! responsibility. I just want to come to that for a moment in concluding. The ministE!r must, Mr. Speaker, to subscribe to the government•s objectives and decisions or he has got to withdraw from that minis try.

He cannot have it both ways. This suggestion that somehow he can go around and peddle his own Neanderthal views, his views from the way distant past, which, No. 57 R3042

according to the Premier, are in conflict with the objectives and decisions of the government and the aims of the government, this suggestion, Mr . Speaker, has no place in our system of government. It has no place here at all. He . has got to support the government 1 s stance on an issue or he has got to withdraw from that ministry. SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR. SIMMONS : That is the second reason, Mr . Speaker, why he cannot continue in that Cabinet. · In any event, he has lost the confidence of the people whose advocate he is supposed to be.

I just do not know why the respectable woman and men in that Cabinet just sit by, Mr. Speaker, and let their political fortunes be dissipated, ·but morE! to the point, let their political integrity be chipped away at by the insidious statements of the minister. I do not understand it for a minute. It tells us volumes, Mr. Speaker, about the backbone or lack thereof of other people in that particular administration. SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR. OTTENHEIMER : Very briefly, Mr. Speaker. MR . SPEAKER : The han . the Leader. MR. OTTENHEIMER: Government House Mr.

Speaker, the government 1 s position and programme with respect to social services and with respect to child care has L3043 June 9, 1987 Vol XL been articulated by the Premier and by other ministers. It is clear and unequivocal. The policies and programme, as articulated by the Premier and other rni nt s ters yes ter·day, and the programmes as delivered, are quite clear to . all. We are proud of the programmes and policies put into effect by this administration. MR. SPEAKER : Are there any further petitions? MR. LONG: Yes, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The han . the member for St. John 1 s East. MR.

LONG : Thank you, Mr . Speaker . I have a petition to present on the same issue on be half of sixty persons from the West Coast. The petition reads as follows: 11 We, the undersigned, would like this petition ·to be presentE!d to the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador. ThE ! prayer of our petition is as follows: 11 The Department· of Social ServicE!S has recently cut back thirty-five positions around the Province within its department. The Bay St.

George Foster Parents Association is very concerned about the layoffs as it wiJ.J. critically affect the services that are needed for our childre !n and all those whose lives are enriched by the services of social workers. 11 Children who usually come to live in our homes are children who have either been abused mentalJ.y, physically, or sex ually. The No. 57 R3043

social worker is the link between the child and the system. Their services to the children are vital to the well-being of the child. As a Province, we must have increases of services by approximately 150 new workers. As citizens we feel that we cannot permit this reduction of services. 11 We ask that the petition be presented to the House of Assembly and that the Minister of Social Services act upon our concerns. 11 This petition was signed by res ide n t s of Corner B roo k and was presented to myself when I was out there this weekend for a regional conference of the New Democratic Party.

As we have seen, these concerns are being brought forward from people in the Port au Port, Stephenville - Bay St. George area, there are people in Corner Brook who are also circulating petitions and are quite alarmed about the implications of the cutbacks in· social workers to their region. Also, the people that I met with and spoke with in Corner Brook on the weekend were quite clear in their own minds on how the cutbacks of social workers related to what have now become the infamous remarks by the Minister of Social Services as it related to the issue of day care.

Indeed, as the cutback of social war k ers is related to the whole attitude of this government in terms of providing services for people in this Province who are suffering from the ills of unemployment, economic difficulty, people who through no fault of their own find themselves on social assistance, and are suffering from the social ills that are produced by economic difficulties, alcoholism and family violence. L3044 June 9, 1987 Vol XL These people were really clear in the presentation that they were making.

The cutback of social workers represents only the thin edge of the wedge, we might say, of what is happening consistently across the Province and what is being demonstrated by this government, and that is a complete lack of respect for its own workers, its own government employees, and certainly a complete disrespect for the difficulties that ordinary people who are hurting as a result of economic difficulty, the situation that ordinar~ people in this Province find themselves in. It is difficult to listen to the ministers the last couple of days who have been here defending thE! Minister of Social Services (Mr .

Brett) on this issue and also defending the Minister of Social Services when questioned about his remarks and insisting that they are proud of the record of this government when it comes to the issue of chiJ.d care. The Premier was here yesterday insisting that the only response that could be given to these questions was to say that we neE!d more. In fact, Mr.

Speaker, what I would submit, as others in this Chamber have been submitting and indeed many others across the Province is that what is needed in the midst of this controversy and this debate that is raging across the Province is only one thing, and that is the resignation of the Minister of Social Services . I think the petition I am presenting today and bringing forward to the Legislature is simply more evidence of the lack of faith that the pE!Ople of this Province have in the Minister of Social Services. I would suggE!St that being told today by the House No. 57 R3044

Leader that the Minister of Social Services is away in Ottawa representing this Province at a meeting of Ministers responsible for child care, it is an absolutely shameful situation and indeed gives more weight to the argument that it is a matter of some urgency that the Premier call upon this minister to submit his reiignation. - I certainly felt when I heard the House Leader (Mr.

Ottenheimer) say that this is what the minister is doing when he is not in the House the 1 as t two day s , that the immediate thing that is needed is to call this minister home and stop the embarrassment that I am sure this Province is being subjected to when we have national news reports playing it across pages of newspapers elsewhere in the country, playing it on national T.U. that our own Provincial Minister of Social Services I. responsible for child care, is now sitting around the table with other ministers who have that responsibility for child care, engaged in a very difficult and complexed debate on how to introduce a comprehensive programme to provide child care services across the country.

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please! The han. member • s time has elapsed. MR. LONG: Thank you, Mr. Speaker . MR. EFFORD: Mr . Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: The han . the member for Port de Graue. MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker . L3045 June 9, 1987 Uol XL Mr. Speaker, I find it necessary to rise in my place today as the critic for Social Services to support the petition sent in by the sixty people I think it was from the Corner Brook area.

I do that for two particular reasons: One of the reasons is the questions that the official Opposition have been asking the different Ministers- of Career Development, the Department of Justice, yesterday the Premier of the Province, and today thE ! Acting Premier. The type of answers that we have been getting back from those ministers, and ministers of the Cabinet that thE! MinistE!r of Social Services sits in is eVE!ry indication in every answer they give, they give it 'in a roundabout way, but they are trying to say and trying to put the impresston forth, Mr.

Speaker, that they do not agree with the Minister of Social Services. Now that goes back to the very issue and the very statement that we are talking about in those petitions when the people of this Province, the hundreds and hundreds of people who continuously send in petitions around the Province because of the recent cutbacks in the Social Services Departments, regional and the district offices around the Province.

All around Newfoundland this is taking place, not only on the Western part of Newfoundland but on the Eastern part and Central as well, and it has caused a great impact, not only on the people who are dependent on social assistance, but on the social workers themselves. There is no way that a social worker can cope with the number of case loads that she has in one day or a week or a month with the emphasis that has been placed on social services caused by the lack of No. 57 R3045

a creation of jobs by this present administration. The reason why we have the same number or. as the minister has indicated, even more people in 1987 depending on social assistance th~n in 1986 is because of the problem that this administration is having creating an~thing other than a ten week syndrome for all the people of this Province. The pride is lost that the people used to have in years gone by where they could at least go out and get a seasonal job or at least go to the fishing boat and catch some fish and earn at least a decent living.

That has been taken away From them by this government over the last ten or fifteen years, even more so since 1979 because these people have lost all touch with reality. For that reason, we have more people year after year depending on social services. ~f that is to take place, then we must have more people working in our Social Services Department. We have been continually this week, and for the last two or three days, been given false information. I gather now the reason for it being that the Minister of Social Services (Mr.

Brett) is passing along the wrong information to the members of Cabinet and to the Premier because he does not know what is taking place in his department. The statements that this minister has made in the last three or four days, and last week, further goes to prove how incompetent the minister is in performing his duties. Today in Question Period we could not get the facts and figures out because of the heckling from the backbenchers and the ministers on the ol::her side. I want to point out very clearly, L3046 June 9, 1987 Vol XL Mr.

Speaker, how this minister is falling behind the rest of Canada in performing his duties as Social Services Minister. In Newfoundland we put in an average of $4. 66 per capita into day care. The next nearest province to us is New Brunswick with $21, Prince Edward Island with $31 and Nova Scotia with $36. How can any Minister of Social Services stand in his place in Cabinet, in the House of Assembly, in front of the news media, and tell the people of this Province that he is performing his duties and he is increasing day care with the need for day care around the Province of Newfoundland?

They will carne back and say the Transition House in St. John's they have spent $300 million on. They will give us different figures for urban areas, but the main problem, Mr. Speaker, the main problem is out around rural Newfoundland. There is not enough in· the urban areas, but it. is even worse out in rural Newfoundland than even it is in the urban areas. Mr. Speaker, there is only one way to resolve this problem. I think if you look at the face of the Premier today and you would look at the expression on the Premier's face last night when he answered the questions on TV I think he already knows the answer.

Why he does not come out and demand and tell the Minister of Social Services that his resignation must come immediately, the people and we on this side cannot understand. We know, thE! PremiE!r knows, every Cabinet Minister has admitted in a round about way, Mr. Speaker, there is only one way to service the people of this Province, to give them the social sector that they need, to provide No. 57 R3 0'~6

better working conditions for all the people in the social services sector, in the district offices and the regional offices around this Province, to give better day care, is to demand the resignation of the Minister of Social Services and put. somebody there at least who has the competence to fulfill the. job. Thank you, Mr. Speaker . SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. FENWICK: Mr Speaker . MR. SPEAKER: The han. the member for Menihek . MR. FENWICK: Mr. Speaker, I will go by the rules laid down by the Minister of Finance (Dr. Collins), this is a petition signed by forty-one individuals.

It is also from the West Coast, from. Stephenville and Corner Brook, Benoit 1 s Cove and a few other places, looking at the signatures. It also has my signature on it, Mr. Speaker, so it is in order. It also has my wife's signature on it, which I am quite pleased to see. It is virtually the same prayer so I arn not going ·to repeat the prayer of the petition of the previous one. I would just like to enter into the record an anecdote that was relayed to me by a social worker working on the West Coast which I thought i llu s tra tes in a way that I cannot pas sibly do better, the problem that now exists.

This individual, whom I will not name and will not tell you the town because I do not want any repercussions on this individual, but the person is a child welfare officer who is now working in this L3047 June 9, 1987 Vol XL community alone but was, prior to these cuts, working with another child welfare officer. At that time they were handling a case load of 300 individuals. Mr. Speaker, I ask you to think of that, 300 individual cas.::~s of young chil~ren who were either abused sexually or physically, who need the help of these particular officers.

Now that the other welfare officer is gone this individual is just totally Frustrated - · MR. TOBIN: A social worker . MR. FENWICK: Yes, this social worker is totally frustrated by having a job of such dimensions that this individual cannot possibly cope with the number of situations that arise.

She told me one case where she was investigating a particular case where an individual she suspect:ed of being abused or nE!glected, .she was talking to the chi.ld and asking the child, 'In this circumst~nce, what happens when your mother goes away to do the shopping? 1 She thought that she might be just left at home with no baby sitter or no care. What she found out was ·that she was being sexually abused by her father. MR. TOBIN : Did she discuss a case like 'l:hat with you? MR. FENWICK: She did not discuss any particulars whatsoever.

What she was trying to express to me - and that is why I did not release any name - is the incredible degree of frustration being experienced by the social workers who are forced to have to cope with a load that. is just much, much, much too heavy No. 57 R3047

,. for them to be able to possibly service properly. Mr. Speaker, it speaks a lot about this government opposite that they have cut thirty-five positions here and have seen fit to give themselves brownie points on job creation by putting in place a $5 mi~lion private job creation programme. Mr. Speaker, I see nothing wrong in creating jobs in the privat~ sector, but surely a government has an obligation to do the services that . the government is set up for. It has an obligation to protect the young people of our Province from abuse, both sexual and physical, and it should do that job first.

When we have adequate physical facilities set up like that, if there is a surplus left over, if there are other things that we can do with it, maybe we can move into other areas. Quite frankly, · I would consider it irresponsible in the extreme this government should have made these cuts knowing the kind of impact that it has on the social workers there but, even worse, knowing the impact it has on the clients of these individuals who looked on them as one of their only refuges in the times of need. Mr.

Speaker, I take great pride in presenting this petition to the Page to bring it to the Minister of Social Services and tell him it is time now to respond to those needs that are out there, bring these people back on and let us get back to a first class social welfare system for the foreseeable future. MR . KELLAND : Mr. Speaker . L3048 June 9, 1987 Vol XL MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Naskaupi. MR. KELLAND: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of the petition presented by the member for Menihek (Mr. Fenwick) and I guess it goes without saying, Mr .

Speaker, in support of all of the other similar petitions presented in this . House with respect to the subject matter. I made references a few days earlier on this particular topic about the case load ratios which was also touched on by the membE!r for Menihek. When I as ked for the information on what the case load ratios were, client~. to worker, the information was not forthcoming and none of the government members who spoke or took the time to speak or had the interest to speak on the. subject provided any ·sort of information along these lines.

I guess it is statistically available anyway, but I would suggest, if the true facts were known, the case load on the social workers is staggering. The work load is staggering on them and in effect, what that does is lessen the service to each individual client and I t·hink that is quite obvious. If, as the peti t:ions are saying, the thirty-five layoffs in the Department of Social Services will actually take place and have taken place, then that would on1y lessen the serviCE! to the! individuals and the community generally. I find it more than j us t a 1 itt 1 e strange, Mr.

Speaker, that the Minister of Social Services is now attending a conference of Social Services ministers at which child care has to be a major topic, that he can be sent forth by the No. 57 R304-8

Premier and the government to represent the views of government when he does not share the views of government, nor do government members share his views, if we can believe what they have said in this House and what they have said through the public media.

I find it just a little hypocritical on the part of the Social Services Minister to say, on the one hand, 1 Yes, I support the idea of more money going into child care and more attention being paid ta that form of social services 1 but, at the same time, saying we need to put more- money into chi1d care, while, at the same time, he is saying more mothers should stay home. To me that is a contradictory position for the Minister ~of Social Services to have.

He suggests, in saying that, that mothers, because they love their children and want to provide for them well, lack in conscientiousness when they go to work and do not stay home.

Every group that I have spoken to, and every group that I have heard, and every individual that I have heard, are just appalled that the minister would not only hold that particular view, but express it publicly, and when criticized in this House and elsewhere for holding that particular view, he rose in his place again and reiterated the fact that he was not apologizing; that he holds that view; that it is a correct view, despite the fact that at least two of his colleagues in Cabinet have publicly condemned him For holding and expressing that particular view.

I do not think there is any choice, in the structure of our democracy and for the fairness to L3049 June 9, 1987 Vol XL the people we all represent, on the Premier 1 s part but to - if the Minister of Social Services is not willing to come forward on his own initiative and tender his resignation on the basis of his expressed beliefs, his expressed personal philosophy and his expressed philosophy as the minister, as any decent member of the House of Assembly would do under similar circumstances, then it· is incumbent upon the Premier to demand that the minister tender his resignation.

I do not think there is any other choice in this matter, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much . SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! 0 0 0 MR. HEARN: Mr. Speaker, MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education . MR. HEARN : Just before we get into thE! regular Orders of the Day, I wonder if the· House would join with me. On behalf of my colleague, the Minister of Culture, Recreation and Youth (Mr. Matthews), I tAJould like to inform the House tha ·t a prestigious awa1nd has been won by a local book publishing company.

Breakwater Books has just been informe!d that it has been singled out over a number of other entries for an award by the Canadian Historical Association for its Fo1klore Folklife Series, which consists of thirteen volumes of cultural work. The award was made at the annual No . 57 R3049

meeting of the Learned Societies of Canada which took place at McMaster University on June 6. The thirteen volumes of work were done by distinguished writers, most of whom ar·e of Newfoundland origin. I request that the hon. House send a message of congratulations to Breakwater and the writers for the contribution they have made to the cultural enrichment of our Province and the nation. Thank you. MR. BAKER: Mr . Speaker. MR . SPEAKER: The hon. the member for Gander . MR. BAKER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker . SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR.

BAKER:· We are, of course, pleased to be part of this message of congratulation$. We are very proud of Breakwater Books and of the local authors that have contributed to this particular series. Perhaps the Minister of Education would agree with me that there is a need for more support for local publishing companies and local authors if we hope to continue with the same level of activity and perhaps increase the level of activity in this regard in the Province.

I know that there are a lot of publishing companies that we, in Newfoundland, are very proud of, that need help to stay in existence and to keep publishing Newfoundland works. It is our duty to do that . I wo u 1 d 1 i k e to suggest to the minister, and he L3050 June 9, 1987 Uol XL could pass it along to the Minister of Culture, Recreation and Youth, · that there are perhaps special programmes needed and special concerns. For instance, a lot of our older people feel a desire to write about their experiences in Newfoundland in the early years of this Century.

This is a tremendous source of Newfoundland history and folklore that is, as yet, largely untapped. Perhaps there should be a special programme · in existence to encourage local publishing companies to publish this kind of very interesting local history.

I would finish off by also pointing out to the Minister of Education that he, in his capacity as Minister of Education, can greatly influence the direction of this marvellous work by making special allocations ·within his department to ensure that school libraries across this Province are enlarged and built on by being provided with local Newfoundland works that are published by Newfoundland publishing companies.

In the past number of years there have been cutbacks on the amount of monies going into school libraries and this would be a tremendous contribution, not only to the young people of the Province who are going to school, but would be a tremendous contribution to the publishing industry and to local authors as well . SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! Orders of the Day MR. SPEAKER: No. 57 R3050

The han. the member for St. John 1 s East. MR. LONG: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to have a few words to add our ~arty's message of congratulations to Mr. Clyde Rose anq Breakwater Books on the fine accomplishment that his enterprise has received - national recognition far the Folklore/Folklife Series. I would also like to second the comments made by the han. member for Gander (Mr . Baker), in particular, as he spoke to the need for libraries in this Province to have some subsidy with which they can purchase locally published books.

The cutbacks which have been happening in school libraries and public libraries are in large part as a result of the expense of importing American books and text books. When 'you speak to any publisher. in this Province they will tell you of the amount of progress that could be made in Newfoundland culture and in the appreciation of Newfoundland literary culture, in particular, from having some system whereby public libraries and school libraries would be guaranteed to purchase local books when they are published, which would go a long way to help not only the publishers but also the writers.

I would like to commend the efforts of the government in bringing in the Publishers Assistance Programme in the last couple of years, but say that there is still more that needs to be done, both in providing funds to the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council and also to provide some direct funds to writers in L3051 June 9, 1987 Uol XL this Province. We have a long way to go before writers in this Province are going to be in the position of being able to survive financially and continue to practice their craft.

We wouJ.d hope that the message from the minister today would be a signal that this government will extend the commitment in the coming years to providing more support for the literary community in this Province. Thank you, Mr . Speaker . On motion, the fol J.owing bilJ.s · were read a third time, ordered passed and their titles be as on the Order Paper: A bill, 11

An Act To Amend fhc::~ HousE:~ Of Assembly Act 11 • (Bill No. 24). A bill, 11

An Act . To Amend The Department Of Development And Tourism Act 11 • ( B 1:11 No . 4) . A bill, 11 An · Act To Rehabilitation Act 11 • 15) ' AITIE:1 nd (Btll The No. On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on Bill No. 34, Mr. Speaker left the Chair. Committee of the Whole MR. CHAIRMAN (Mitchell) : Order, please! The han. the member fo r Menihek . MR. FENWICK: This is an opportunity to get back i n wi t h the s 1 i d i n g r u J. e s of Committee debate here: We have gone from ten minutes to thirty minutes to ten minutes, not"J we are back to thirty minutE~s, and then No. 57 R3051

we will be back to ten minutes again. It is a very interesting way to do it. This, as I understand, Mr. Chairman, is the opportunity to have my last twenty minutes of general comments on the particular legislation. MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes .. MR. FENWICK : I am quite pleased to be able to speak to it now because after listening to the member for Bonavista South (Mr.Morgan), I think we have confirmation from a former Minister of Fisheries that virtually all of the fears that we foresaw when this ludicrous scheme of selling FPI was first envisaged back at the beginning of the year have indeed come to pass .

If I recall correctly, the former minister had a number of comments to make about the fact tha~ he cannot · even .get a call returned now from Fisheries Products International, that indeed it is very difficult to get any kind of co-operation out of them. I would suggest to hon. members of the House that this is typical of a corporation which feels no social responsibility anymore towards the circumstances in which it previously found itself, in other words, it is now acting in its own best interests .

And for the membr for Bonavista South to be appalled because he was not getting replies to his calls and that nothing was being done, I think shows a naivete on his part, that he did not realize that once you set a corporation loose, you do privatize it, that you are in a position where it starts to act in its own best interests, and I think that is exactly tJJhat happened . By the way, it is not an isolated L3052 June 9, 1987 Vol XL incident .

I attended on April 13 or 14-, I forget the exact date, a seminar, which was later run on cable, in which we had a discussion of the whole question of the privatization of FPI.

In talking to the organizers of thE! conference it turned out that the people of FPI, when it was a Crown corporation, were very co-operative in doing whatever they could in order to give information to the people planning the seminar, to provide speakers for the seminar and so on, but once FPI was at the brink of being privatized, this co-operation dropped remarkably and after that time period it was virtually impossible to get even a phone calls answered. So, I think the member for Bonavista South is suffering from the same syndrome as everybody else is.

The fact of the mat t e r is , this is now a private company and it will behave as a private company, it will act in its own best interests. And those best interests may, in some instanCE!S, coincide with the best interests of us as a Province and th E! individual communities in which it operates, and in many other instances, as a matter of fact probably in greater instances, it will act in the best interests of its own corporate self. So I think, probably a lot better ·than anything I could have said, that the remarks from thE! member for Bonavista South reinforced this change in FPI.

It is now a private corporation and it is on its own. Mr. Chairman, going back to the kinds of complaints that we brought up when th e plans were initially announced to privatize FPI, if we go back and look at No. 57 R3052

them we will see that a lot of them have come true and that perhaps in the future a lot of the other serious concerns we have about it will, and as we get into detailed debate on each clause, we will be able indicate the kinds of concerns we feel that arise from each one of the clauses there. But getting back a bit, since we have a bit of general latitude For th~ next fifteen minutes or so, why was FPI privatized? This is one of the great riddles that have to be answered by this particular government, by the way, and which I think tJJill have to be answered by this particular government for a long time to come.

Because I foresee, in years to come, that there will be a lot to be held accountable for while FPI continues to go on its merry way. What were the reasons given by the minister when he starte9? Well, it turns out that he gave only a very small number of reasons, the most important one being that we could get a good buck for it. In other words, we could sell FPI and we could get a lot of money for it for a number of reasons.

When you examine the number of reasons, it becomes quite interesting to see why FPI as a company went on the stock exchange for $12.50 a share and quickly moved up to $16.00 or $18.00, where it is flucuating at this time. One of the reasons was that there was an increased demand for fish in the United States. Now this, I think, is a very interesting reason for the value of the company to rise, because it implies that Fishery Products International, or our own fishing industry, has done something to promote fish in ·the United States L3053 June 9, 1987 Uol XL and, therefore, broaden the market.

But when we look at the actual circumstances, Mr. Chairman, we will find that the Eskimos in Greenland or the Inuit in Greenland - I assume they are called the same thin~~ - probably had more to do with the increase in the price of fish and, therefore, the succrass of the privatization of FPI, than did the Chairman of the Board. the Chief Executive Officer, or any of the other board members or the administration of the company itself.

Because, as all members of the House probably know by now, a number of studies were conducted on the Inuit of Gree nJ.and to · indicate that they had a very low incidence of heart disease, VE!ry few heart attacks, and generally were quite free of this kind of disease. When it was examined, when they tried to figure out why this occurred, they actually found that the high level consumption of fish by the Inuit of Greenland had contributed to the fact that they had a low incident of heart disease. One very excellent

article was done in The Evening Telegra•, I think, several- months ago by a member of a scientific fraternity in which it was pointed out that actually the oilier the fish is, probably the better it is at preventing heart disease. So these studies on the Inuit in Greenland have been widely disseminated in the United States and have led Americans to the conclusion that it is appropriate for us to eat more fish in order to protect ourselves from heart attack. It is probably that sort of a reason which has led to the increase in the consumption of fish 'in the American market, No. 57 R3053

since, of course, we are heavily dependent on marketing our fish in the United· States as we have been at least since Confederation, since 1949 or so, although prior to that we were more of an interna ·tional trading nation in terms of salt fish and so on. The point, Mr. Chairman, is not that the amazing amount of promotion that was done by FPI, is not that the federal government's promotion programme, which was cut back a number of years ago, WE!re successful.

It is not anything we did in terms of being extremely aggressive marketers and so on, it is an external factor which was one of the major reasons for the increase in the demand for fish, and then eventually the increase in the price. With an increase in price, of course, came an increase in profits for FPI. Now, there are a numoer of other reasons, too, for FPI's successfully being · sold. One of them·was, of course, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

It seems that even though that 1.uas a major disaster for the people of Western Europe and Easter Europe, it turned out to be, remarkably, a situation which increased the demand for North American fish, if we can even imagine it. What happened, of course, was that people in Europe were suspicious that the fish that was being caught close to the European shores was contaminated by nuclear contaminants and that they would suffer as a result of eating that. Given that, as a result there has been an increased demand for North American fish, which was quite quite fortunate for us.

Perhaps we should have saved that disaster for another year, because we already had the Eskimos in Greenland promoting our fish quite L3054 June 9, 1987 Vol XL adequately. · If we had waited maybe a year or two, we would have used them a little bit further down the line. Fortunately, we are not into planning nuclear disasters, nor would I suggest we should be. The point I am making, Mr.

Chairman, is that these combinations of events coming together have created an unprecedented demand for fish and have driven the price up substantially, even to the fishermen, Fortunately, and in the process made FPI an attractive entity to be marketed early this year. However, the basic problems that FPI and, indeed, the entire of ·fshore industry was beset with, are those problems settled? I would suggest they are not.

Before I suggest that they are not, I am not trying to denigrate the real substantial efforts by the management of FPI, nor am I trying to denigrate the efforts of the employees of FPI, nor the fishermen in terms of increasing the quality of fish. Because I realize, from my contacts in the industry, and especially through the union, that a lot was accomplished there. Essentially, the economics of it are not much different than they were! back in 1982 or 1983 when WE! had major · problems.

Indeed we are a bit more efficient, but we are not that much more efficient as to account for the industry turning itself completely around. We still have, if you listen to some experts, many too many fish plants, although FPI, of course, has reduced the number of fish plants it owns by a considerable number, turned them over to other No.· 57 R30S4

en~repreneurs. But we still do have . in this Province a large number of fish plants. There are economists who look at it and argue that the economies of scale are not being achieved in a lot of these small plants, and they would argue, then, that the price of processing the fish is therefore too high and somebody, either · the fishermen on one end or the price on the other end, has to be adjusted as a result of it.

None of these economists have suggested what we would do if we . were to close down these smaller, less effici1:!nt plants, and, unless they do, I would suggest that their advice in terms of closing these plants would be rejected. But we still do have problems, as the Fisheries Minister will readily admit, in our industry. Our industry has .not become highly efficient. It has not become tremendously productive.

We have . had some increases in the quality of the fish being produced and being processed, but not to the level that the Fisheries Minister would find acceptable, nor would we find acceptable, nor, quite frankly, anyone. We still have a bit of a way to go, although some companies are obviously better than others. Mr. Chairman, what I am suggesting is that we still have major structural problems in our industry. We have not gotten over the hump.

What has happened is there has been a tremendous increase in the demand for fish which has risen the price up, which means that marginal fish plants are now able to do a lot better. Because they have such a high pr·ice at the end, they can, therefore, afford to pay morE! for the fish at the wharf, they can L3055 June 9, 1987 Uol XL therefore afford to pay a bit more in terms of salaries, and they can then get away with l1:Jss effici(~nt production techniques.

I wo u 1 d suggest , however , that if fish farming increases at the rate that we expect it to increase, and I think the minister himself would be the first to admit that it is a mushrooming market, if that were to occur, if we were to see a lot more farm fish on the market, WE! would eventually, I would suggest, get to the point where we may actually have to compete the farm fish with the fish that we catch ourselves and, in that circumstance, we may start see!ing a surplus of fish on the market and a downward pressure on the price. Hopefully, this will not occur precipitously. MR. R.

AYLWARD: We will have to start farming. MR. FENWICK: Exactly. The Minist(~r of Rural, Agricultural and Northern Development (Mr. R. Aylward) says we will have to start farming . He is quite right. I think everybody in this Chamber would agrE!E! that. fish farming is not a nice liti:le industry to develop to provide additional employment, it is a matter of life or death for us as a people now to b~ involved in it, because we have to compete with fish farmers in Scandinavian countries and, I would suggest, in the rest of the Atlantic Province, and so on. What I am trying to suggest, Mr.

Chairman, by these general comments on it is that we have these problems and these problems continue to exist. In a SE!nSE!, the offshore industry's problems are masked by this tremE!ndous demand for fish so that the No. 57 R3055

decision to sell the plant at this time, which is essentially the argument my colleagues from the Liberal Party are making, is still a de cent argument, and if we did not have more basic intrinsic objections to selling it, we 11.1ould support their opposition to it on the basis that the timing is much toq premature, given the unsteady nature of the industry . As my colleague from Twillingate (Mr. W. Carter) says, 11 0ne swallow does not a Summer make. 11 I think that is the actual comment he uses. MR. SIMMS : One thrush. MR. FENWICK: One thrush, or whatever.

But the point is quite adequately made that a successful year does not mean that the industry itself it out of the woods, so to speak, or on solid ground. The point about it is, Mr. Chairman, that we have a · s'i tuation here where it was privatized very early and·, in my opinion, that was a mistake, even apart from the basic mistake of not selling it at all.

Getting back to· our original objections to the selling of it, which are primarily of a practical nature although they are certainly reflective of the ideology of our party, and that is we do not believe that if the fishing industry is the industr·y that will eventually provide the massive amount of employment we need to cure our unemployment problems, and if it is the industry that we must be best at in the world in order to be competitive everywhere, and if this is to occur in such a way as to give the best, the greatest possible return to us as a Province and to our communi ties that rely on it, then it is critical that we have some L3056 June 9, 1987 Vol XL control over the industry other than the small amount of regulation of the processing of it, which is our lot in terms of the jurisdiction on fisheries.

So, it is a little bit more than strange that we have two major thrusts occurring in the fishery _ over this last six month period, one, the selling of our largest company, or our

section of it, which is 26 - whatever it is - per cent of it, and the other is IJJhat the Premier considers to be a major accomplishment in getting fisheries roles and responsibilities on the agenda with thE! other First Ministers.

I think anyone objectively looking at the industry would be quite amazed to see a government that stands up and in one breath says, 1 We need more responsibility and more jurisdiction over these things that are going on 1 - in other word.s, the licencing of fisherm~n. the seasons, the total allowable catch, who can catch it, and so on, all of which are objectives that we should be moving towards. It is remarkable that that would be one thrust of this government and, at the same time, they take the 26 per cent share we had in the largest fishing company in the Province and we divest ourselves of it.

I think anybody could be quite legitimately accused of being somewhat confused to see these totally divergent actions on the part of this one government, and it is difficult, in my mind, to see why we, as a Province, are trying to go off in two separate directions at the same timr:~ . It would seem to me quite logical and consistent that we would say no if we want more control of it. Obviously, having at least a reasonable share in the largest company makes a lot of SE!nse, it makes sense in terms of the kinds No. 57 R3056

of ability to see into the industry, to know what is going on within the industry, to be able to exert a little bit of leadership in it, as well, and do a number of things like that. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we wanted to see FPI do, Fishery Products International, was take a lead position in terms of expanding our ability to market fish products throughout the world.

I think this was one of major failings in the past, that we have not developed a marketing arm to the same extent that we have · developed our ability to catch fish, and because of that we have in previous years been in the unfortunate position of being able to catch all the fish we want but were not able to market it, and, therefore, the price was driven down and our fishermen were thereby impoverished .

Many of our critics of the fishery, going back to some of the best critics that I have ever seen, people like David Alexander, who is an economic historian at Memorial University who did an excellent critique of the development of our salt fish industry, post second world war, many of these critics said that it was our bilateral trade relationship with the United States, which we started to rely on in the 1950s and 1960s. that in essence locked us into a fisheries market we had very little control over, and we had very little to fall back on if that market went sour on us, as, indeed, it has when a number of down·turns in the American economy has occurred.

From my perspective and from the perspective of rny party. we would -prefer to see a situation where Fishery Products International L30S7 June 9, 1987 Vol XL would have had a highly strengthened marketing arm that would have gone into marketing agreements with smaller operations throughout the Province and acted like the great trad ing firms of Japan which have, maybe, several thousand companies which they deal with, to which they take their products and they market the!m on an international basis.

I would suggest cutting FPI free to allow it to be a predator among the other fish companies will destroy any ability for this to occur on a meaningful basis for a long period of time. It is one of the things that we would certainly like to SE!e reinstated. When th~:! day occurs that we form the government, on that sidE!, we will go back in the marketplace and we will buy back the shares of FPI that were so foolishly sold by this government, we will get the wi.ndow on the thing that we want. and we . will establish the marketing arm that we are talking about so that we can stabilize the fishing industry. MR.

CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The hon. member 1 s time has elapsed. MR. RIDEOUT : Mr . Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN : The hon. the Minister of Fisheries . MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Chairman, what a ludicrous presentation for the third or· fourth time by the Socialist Party in this House. Some day, in thE! year 3000 or the year 4000, the people of Newfoundland may lose their marbles and this hon. crowd, or this party, may form a government. What is the first No. 57 R30S7

thing · they are going to do, Mr. Chairman? Go back into the marketplace and buy out the shares of Fishery Products International, and buy out the shares, I suppose, of National Sea, and buy out the shares of Dorset Sea Products, which went on the Vancouver stock exchange just a few days ago, and buy out the shares of a privatized Air Canada, and buy out the shares of Canadair. Mr. Chairman, what kind of silly, nonsense is this? The problem with the Socialists, Mr. Chairman, as I said when I closed debate on this Bill, is tneir dogmatic, philosophical approach to profit as a dirty word. That is their problem, Mr.

Chairman. That is not a problem for those of us who form the government of this Province. It is· not a problem for the official Opposition. The official Opposition has had some substantive questions and reservations to raise on the privatization of FP.I and we have tried to debate them and answer them intelligently, but the problem over here is a philosophical, dogmatic solution, that the public must own it or it will not work. MR. FENWICK: A point of order Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! A point of order, the hon. the member for Menihek. MR.

FENWICK: It is my unde!rstanding that after we had the initial debate in Committee the rule of relevance would have to apply. Now, I am not entirely sure what the Minister of Fisheries is saying here, but I am darn sure it is not relevant to Clause 6, which we are L3058 June 9, 1987 UoJ. XL on right now. Is it Clause 6? MR. CHAIRMAN: We are debating Clause 6 . MR. FENWICK: If the Minister of Fisheries can tell ;me what it has to do with Clause 6, then I will at least believe that he is relevant. But I think you should rule him out of order for the intemperate comments he is making. MR.

OTTENHEIMER: To that point Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: of order, Mr. To the point of order, the hon. the Government House Leader . MR. OTTENHEIMER: Mr. Speaker, I suppoSE! part . of the consideration there would be,· and I do not wish to get into a big procedural harangue on it, but if the hon. minister wa.s referring to matters that the hon. member brought up in debate, well, one would assume he could refer to that. If an hon. member is debating something and he makes reference to another person, then, when that person gets up, it would appE!ar that he could refer back.

It is usually what Beauchesne would call sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. MR. FUREY : ·ro that point Chairman. of order, Mr. MR. CHAIRMAN: To the point of order, the hon . the member for St. Barbe. MR. FUREY: I think the Leader makes he says that, Leader of the No. 57 hon. Government House a lot of sense when because the hon. the New Democratic Party R3058

spoke and was not interrupted once, not by any member in this legislature, not by any heckling, not by any spurious points of order, not by any silliness. Now, if he cannot handle other speakers from other parties taking issue with his very far left socialism, well, this is not the place for him to be, Mr. Chairman. MR. FENWICK : Mr. Chairman, order. to the point of MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. the member for Menihek . SOME HON. MEMBERS : No. No. You spoke already. MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Are you speaking to the point of order? MR. FENWICK: Yes, I am speaking to the point of order. MR.

CHAIRMAN: You already spoke once to that point of order. SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR. FENWICK : Yes, and I will ciose debate on it at this point. MR. LONG : You can speak again, according to tradition. MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The hon. member for Menihek has already spoken once to the point of order. The Chair has heard all arguments and I think we are now L3059 June 9, 1987 Vol XL in a position to make a ruling.

Clause 6 does deal with far-ranging aspects of the sale of Fishery Products International, and I believe the hon. the Minister of Fisheries in speaking now is referring to some of the ..illegations that were rnade by the hon. member for Menihek, and I think it is agreed that he answer those allegations. The hon. the Minister of Fisheries . MR. RIDEOUT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, they can dish it out but they cannot take it. Well, that is not the way it works in debate in this House.

The hon . gentleman ge!tS up and says basically what he pleases, but everybody in this House . does not have to agree with him. Therefore, when you give it back, Mr. Chairman, let him keep his p 1 a c e and 1 e t .him obey the r u 1 e s · and be quiet. Because the hon. gentlemen, the hon. Socialists down here in the corner, Mr. Chairman, are marching to a different tune on the FPI privatization than anybody else in Newfoundland and Labrador . The official Opposition has some subs tant iv e con-e erns and we debate them and we answer them.

Some community leaders and some union leaders have some substantive concerns and we debate them and we answer them. But the hon. gentleman and . his party, Mr. Chairman, have got a dogmatic, philosophical concern and that is the big difference that separates them from everybody else in this Province. I have not heard of any revolution in the streets, led by that great Christian Socialist, Father Desmond McGrath, who has ac cepte!d No . 57 R3059

a position on the Board of Directors of this company representing the workers, the toiling masses of Newfoundland and Labrador. I have not heard of any revolution in the streets led by that gentleman. I have not heard of any revolution in the streets led by that great unionist, Richard Cashin, who represents 8400 FPI employees and so many thousand fishermen in this Province. I have not he!ard of a revolution by the union movement. I have not heard of a revolution by the great unionist, the leader of the Federation of Labour. No, Mr.

Chairman, the only people out of touch and out of march and out of tune in this Province are the Socialists, because they are against returning anything to the private sector. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! . MR . RIDEOUT ; Now, Mr. Chairman, this company has worked and, because this company has worked, that is another reason why the Socialists have to be against it. They are against anything that creates stability, they are against anything that creates jobs, whether it is a NATO base in Goose Bay or whatever. Mr. Chairman, FPI was a success because of scientific studies done on the Inuit in Northern Canada!

F PI was a s u c c e s s because of the Chernobyl disaster! Mr. Chairman, what a ridiculous, convoluted piece of logic! Mr. Chairman, we have known for decades - AN HON. MEMBER: He thought that would catch the press. MR. RIDEOUT: L3060 June 9, 1987 VoJ. XL Yes, that is right, catch the press. We have known for decades, Mr. Chairman, that the consumption of fish is healthy. The Americans are smart enough, Mr. Chairman, that in their advertising they promote that kind of stuff.

They promote the very fact that because there is an excessive amount of Omega- 3 in fish it is healthy, it contributes to the health and well-being of a person. But the han. gentleman did not say that the best source of Omega - 3 - and see when the Americans start eating it, Mr. Chairman - known to mank~nd today is in seals. How has that gone over in the U.S., Mr. Chairman? SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR. RIDEOUT : How has that gone over in that great American private enterprise market, Mr. Chairman? I suppose the hon. gentleman will want to destroy that, also. Well, ·Mr.

Chai~man, we are for private enterprise. We help out where we have to help out. This company - MR. LONG : Dogmatic! MR. RIDEOUT : No! Dogmatic, Mr. Chairman? SomE! dogmatic! Public money into Hopebrook, public money into BaiE! Verte, public money into Fishery Products InternationaJ., public money into Abitibi-Price. We are for marriages, Mr . Chairman, which will create the best from the private enterprise side and the best from the public side, and working together we can achieve something for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

We have done it despite the objections of the hon. gentlemen, and that is why they are agin it. No. 57 R3060

They are agin it, Mr. because it is working. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! MR. FENWICK: Mr. Chairman . MR. CHAIRMAN: Chairman, The han. the member for Menihek. MR. FENWICK: Just a point before I start, Mr. Chairman. The district is Menihek, Menihek. I know there a number of members in the House who tend to mispronounce it, but it is Menihek and I would appreciate if it was pronounced properly, as with every other district. MR. LONG: Menihek. Say it. Menihek . MR. FENWICK: Also, Mr. Chairman, I was quite pl~ased to hear your ruling.

Because, as I understand it, if he can then attack the comments I made, I can do exactly the same thing with him. That, of course, makes a mockery of any rules of relevancy, but if that is what you wish to do, that is fine. Anyway, to get back to the Minister of Fisheries and his comments: What the Minister of Fisheries has done, Mr. Chairman, is involve himself in a tremendous adhominem argument. In other words, he will stand there and he will call us socialists, he will call us dogmatic - MR. TULK: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. MR.

CHAIRMAN: A point of order, the han. member for Fogo. l3061 June 9, 1987 Vol XL MR. TULK : The han. gentleman, want to rave on and of this bill, and technique he can - MR. LONG: while he may block passage will use any You are going to facilitate it? The bill? MR. TULK: Will the han. gentleman bE! quiet until I am finished? He cannot question a ruling of the Chair. He has just questioned Your Honour 1 s ruling, and in so doing he has done through the backdoor what he cannot do through the front door, by saying that Your Honour made a mistake in his ruling during thE! MinistE!r of · Fisheries 1 speech.

I would suggest to Your Honour that the han. gentleman, if he continues in that vein, should be brought to task for what he is up to down there. MR. FENWICK: To the point Chairman. MR. FUREY : of order, Mr . You just spoke on a point of order . MR. CHAIRMAN: The han. the member for Menihek. MR. FENWICK: Thank you. Thank you. That was very good! I did not question your ruling, Your Honour. What I said was that I was interpreting the rules prior to this tirne obviously in error, that it was strictly according to the actual clause itself.

Your ruling said that there is a more wide latitude because of the general nature of the clause and because of the ability to respond l:o previous comments. I think that is an No. 57 R3061

excellent ruling, Mr. Chairman, and I am quite happy to abide by it. MR. CHAIRMAN: To that point of order, Clause 6 does deal with the sale of Fishery Products International and it does deal with the privatization and making it Canadian . Therefore, there is some broad argument that can be used . But I would like for the relevancy clause, as stated under our Standing Order 44 (b), to be enforced when we speak. The hon. the member·for Menihek . SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR. FENWICK : So what do we have here, Mr. Chairman?

First of all we nave more excitement from the Minister of Fisheries than I have heard in a long time, and that is at least agreeable to hear because it means MR. MORGAN : It is more (inaudible). MR. FENWICK: There is the member for Bonavista South, the man who said exactly the same things as us yesterday in the House. The member · for Bonavista South stood here and said he cannot get any information out of FPI. That is what we told him would happen. FPI is only responsible only to . itself now. You asked, 1 Who do you go to for information? 1 You do not go to anybody. You have lost it.

You have blown it, buddy, do you not know that? There is no way at all that you can get information out of that company, because it is its own soul now. SOME HON. MEMBERS: L3062 June 9, 1987 VoJ. XL Go away, boy! Sit down . MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please! MR. SIMMS: You are beginning to sound like Gene Long. MR. FENWICK: Yes, I must say I am having a little bit of trouble with it here . If I remember correctly, the Minister of Fisheries 1 arguments against the arguments that I brought forward on this particular clause amounted to, we arE! dogmatic socalists. By the way, Mr.

Chairman, we are socialists. I admit that. I arn a socialist. He is a socialist. There are two of us in the House. We never said we were not. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh! MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! AN HON. MEMBER : Yes, right out of Moscow. MR. FENWICK: We also say there are thirty socialists in- the House of Commons, as well. They are New Democrats, as weJ.l, but they arr:~ socialists. Socialism involves a broad spectrum of attitudes towards society, generally featuring concern for individuaJ.s first over profits of corporations. On that basis we are socialists. I admit that.

As a rna t t e r of fact , I think it is quite complimentary to be called that. MR. CHAIRMAN : Order, please! No. 57 R3062

MR. J. CARTER: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. MR. MORGAN: Let's us be socialists, next to communism. MR. FENWICK: I am sorry, could you - MR. CHAIRAMN: Order, please! We have a point of order and the Chair cannot hear what is being said. MR. J. CARTER : (Inaudible) I· am is certainly not bill. not sure which, relevant to the MR. CHAIRMAN : There is no point of order. The hon. the member for Menihek . MR.

FENWICK: Now that we have the strong endorsement of· the member for · Bonavista South for our socialist ideas, because that is exactly what he said yesterday, I would appreciate it if he would keep quiet and at least lis ten as we expand the argument he was making yesterday . MR. MORGAN: I will never be a socialist. I might be a Liberal, but never a socialist. MR. LONG : But will he be quiet . MR. FENWICK: I would suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that perhaps a little bit of recruiting here is in order. In sounds like you may actually be able to pick up Bonavista South. SOME HON.

MEMBERS : L3063 June 9, 1987 Vol XL Oh, oh! MR . TOBIN: Well, do you want it? MR. MORGAN: (Inaudible) You before I do . SOME HON. MEMBERS : Hear, hear! MR. FENWICK : wi ll be gone Mr. Chairman, let us get back to the substantive arguments the Minister of Fisheries was bringing forward. He said, • We do not believe in socialism. We do not belieue in owing companies. We do not believe in putting TnOnE!Y into them, except in partnership wi l:h them.' Well, what doE!S thE! partnership involved when you start thinking about it? We got Hopebrook Gold down there? What is the ·partners hip?

Do we ha1,1e an equity position in Hopebrook? No, we have $30 million that we pumped into it. We rnay get. a few jobs out of it, but equity, no, none whatsoever. Let us look at what it means in terms of the Sprung Greenhouse joint project, the famous baby of the Minister for Rur~l. Agricultural and Northern Development (Mr. R. Aylward) . When we talk about it - MR. R. AYLWARD : We have equity in that . MR. FENWICK: We have equity in it, yes . MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! MR. FENWICK: We have SO per cent e!qui ty in it, sure!. If it fails, we have about three-quarters of the liability on No. 57 R3063

it. MR. CHAIRMAN : Order, please! The hon. member is not being relevant at all in debating clause 6. MR .. FENWICK : Yes, but we are also answering the arguments put forward by the Minister of Fisheries with regard to ownership and equity in companies. I think that is entirely relevant . MR. CHAIRMAN : I would ask Menihek to debate . MR. FENWICK: the be hon. member relevant in We are, Mr. Chairman. for his So what do we have here?

We have a ~ituation, if we look at the Sprung greenhouse one, where we take .all the liabilities, we take all the risks, and if it works, there is an option on the part of the partner to buy out all the interests that we have, to put us in a position where we have zero. We do not have a single piece of equity left if it works, we do not have any of the patons, we have nothing. Mr. Chairman, I suggest to you that is the kind of private enterprise that the Minister of Fisheries is talking about . MR. KELLAND : A point of order, Mr . Chairman . MR. CHAIRMAN: A point of order, the hon. the member for Naskaupi. MR.

KELLAND: The hon. member for Meni hek is L3064 June 9, 1987 Vol XL totally ignoring your specific instructions to him just a few seconds ago . I would like to see it enforced so that we all have to abide by the same rules. If you are going to rule him out of order on relevancy and so on and he continues ·to press his irrelevance, I think you should do something about it, Mr. Chairman. MR. FENWICK : To the . point Chairman. ' MR . CHAIRMAN: of order, Mr . To the point the member for of order, Menihek. the hon . MR .

FENWICK : In the ruling that you made on ~elevancy, you indicated you do have the option of responding to the previous speaker. I was responding to the arguments the previous speaker made about the private enterprise kind of support that this government is giving. I thought that was en~irely relevant to the debate that occurr'ed up to that point. MR. OTTENHEIMER : To that point Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN : of order, Mr . To that point of order, the hon. the President of the Council. MR. LONG : You made a mess of it, another mess of it. 1nake MR. OTTENHEIMER: Talki ng about messes, the hon . gentleman from St.

John 1 s East is interferring with my flow of thought. Mr . Chairman, when the point was made about the Minister of Fisheries responding to No. 57 R3064

allegations made by the member for Menihek. it is the general principle. it is not like an algebraic formula. It is a general principle really. I suppose rules of Parliament are supposed to be rules of common sense and fairness and balance. The general principle is, what has be~n sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. So the han. gentleman made some allegations and he replied to them and that has been done. Then. I think, as the Chair has said, one must be relevant to the clause.

Now, clause 6, as I read it, is a quite limited clause and therefore debate being on that clause has to be within pretty defined limits, the limited defined by the clause. If the han. gentleman reads the clause. it is only about four lines long. 11 Nei ther F PI Limited nor Fishery Products International Limited may .apply to the appropriate official of a public body of another jurisdiction requesting continuance under the laws of that jurisdiction ... That is a pretty specific clause. It is a very specific clause. The han. gentleman has been required to be relevant and has to speak on that clause.

The time for irrelevancies. except by leave, is over . MR. FENWICK: To that point of order, Chairman, that was raised by House Leader. MR. CHAIRMAN: The han. the member for Menihek. MR. FENWICK: Mr. the If I recall, in your ruling you said that that was a broad law, a L3065 June 9, 1987 Uol XL broad clause, which would allow for a wider latitude of debate. I am going by your ruling, Mr. Chairman, because despite what the House Leader may think. he does not dictate what goes on in this House. It is Your Honour who does that. DR. COLLINS : To that point Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: of order, Mr .

To that point of order the han. the Minister of Finance. DR. COLLINS: I wo u 1 d 1 i k e to support thE! h on . the member for Menihek (Mr. Fenwick) because he got a real problem. He cannot deal with anything other than irrelevancies so tAle are as king an awful lot of the man to speak relevantly to this issue. I thin k we should have some sympathy. He is incapable of relevancy and we should allow him to have a few more irrelevancies. MR. CHAIRMAN: To that point of order, the debatE! can go on all day.

The han. member can get up and he can makE! allegations, members from the other side can- get up and answer them, so we would never have order in this han. House if we have to follow the argument of the han. member for Menihek. Now the Chair has made a ruling and the ruling is that we want the debate to be relevant and somewhere along the line that had to be established. I established it and I wo u 1 d as k the r E! spec t of all members in the House ·to abide by that ruling, otherwiSE! I wtll have to ask permission to leave the Chair and have thE! House deal with the han. member. No. 57 R3065

The hdn. the member for Menihek. MR. BUTT: Sit down and stop making a fool of yourself. MR. FENWICK: Mr. Chairman, that is real ly the original ruling we thought we had a while back. It is just the meanderings of the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Rideout) there that caused us, I think, to loose sight of what is going on. Let us look at clause 6, then. I know this is a shocking thing to do in a