May 25, 1998 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

PROCEEDINGS Vol. XLIII No. 31

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Snow): Order, please!

Before we begin routine proceedings the Chair would like to rule on a

couple of points that were raised last Thursday on May 21.

The hon. Member for Topsail rose to present a petition on behalf of the

Topsail Catholic Women's League. When the hon. member had finished speaking, the hon.

Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi raised a point of order, while speaking to the

petition, questioning whether the petition was in order.

The hon. the Government House Leader then raised a point of privilege

concerning the use of the words "deliberately distorted" by the hon. the Member

for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi in connection with the presentation of the petition by the

hon. the Member for Topsail.

To start with the point of order of the hon. the Member for Signal Hill

- Quidi Vidi...having examined the petition of the hon. the Member for Topsail, the Chair

finds that there were two documents presented, one bearing the names of three petitioners,

under a prayer which is in the proper form but which differs from the prayer on the second

document, which is signed by seventeen petitioners but which is not in proper form for

presentation to the House.

It appears to the Chair that there were two separate petitions

presented. The petition bearing three signatures contains a discrepancy as the signatories

are not members of the group petitioning. Neither can it be considered a page of the

petition from the Catholic Women's League since the prayer is different. The discrepancy

is such that the petition in out of order on the basis of its substance. The other

document, bearing seventeen signatures of members of the Catholic Women's League, is out

of order because of a defect in its form. It is not addressed to the House of Assembly.

The hon. member could have asked leave of the House to present the

petition from the residents of his district. In such cases, leave is usually given. To

reiterate, then, the Chair must rule that both petitions are out of order.

On the second point, that of the hon. the Government House Leader, the

Chair finds that the hon. Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi was out of order in uttering

the unparliamentary words "deliberately distorted". The hon. the Member for

Topsail has said that he did not intend to change the petition but simply to make

it conform to the requirements for presentation in the House. The House must accept the

word of the member about his intentions. There was therefore a valid point of order

raised by the hon. the Government House Leader but not a point of privilege. The chair

must ask the hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi to withdraw his claim that the

hon. the Member for Topsail "has deliberately distorted" the petition.

I ask the hon. the Member if he would withdraw.

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi.

MR. HARRIS: Your honour, I wish to withdraw the remark that the

Member for Topsail "deliberately distorted" the petition by naming himself and

two other members as members of the Catholic Women's League of Topsail.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The chair is asking the hon. member to withdraw the remarks without any

qualification.

MR. HARRIS: I withdraw any suggestion that it was deliberate on his

part, Mr. Speaker. I would say that if he had asked for leave to present the petition

(inaudible), it would have been accepted.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the member to withdraw his remarks without

qualifications.

MR. HARRIS: Your Honour, I have withdrawn the remarks twice. But I

wanted to add, as a point of order, that if he had requested to present the petition -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. the Member to withdraw his remarks without

qualifications.

MR. HARRIS: I do, Your Honour, and I wish to rise on a point of

order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair is ruling on a point of order. I ask the hon. member to take

his seat.

Perhaps this would be an opportune time for me to remind hon. members

about the requirements for petitions and to suggest that they re-read the relevant

Standing Orders: 90-97 but particularly Orders 90-92. Petitions must be addressed to the

House of Assembly and be signed by the presenter. Because questions are sometimes raised

about the form of petitions, the Chair is of the view that members must consult the

clerks-at-the-table before offering petitions. The Speaker is sometimes asked to rule on a

petition which has not been seen and after it has been presented. From now on, in order to

ensure that petitions are in order before time has been wasted in the presentation of a

petition, which is not in order, petitions will not be heard unless they have been

certified by the clerks-at-the-table. If a petition is found to be out of order, hon.

members always have the option of asking for leave of the House.

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

order.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think it is only appropriate at this time that the official

Opposition, during petitions, give leave, on behalf of the people who petitioned, to be

heard here. We will give leave to the Catholic Women's League of Topsail District to have

their petition presented later today. We will certainly give leave to that, of course

knowing that it is not directly addressed to the House of Assembly. I think it is only

fair as they took the time and effort and should have an opportunity to have that

presented in an unaltered fashion, Mr. Speaker.

MR. TULK: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader, to the point of

order.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, let me say to the hon. gentleman that I was

going to ask about the appropriate time we would do that. I want to say to him that I

think it is the right move to allow that to be presented even though it is not in the

right order, even though a mistake had been made in its presentation, so that the - we

have an altercation here; the Premier almost drowned.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say to the hon. gentleman that I think that is

the right thing for us to do, and by all means leave should be granted to him.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, to

the point of order.

MR. HARRIS: To that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In fact, it is the

same point of order that I was attempting to address to Your Honour. If the Member for

Topsail had asked for leave to have the petition of the Catholic Women's League presented,

leave would have been granted instead of having to distort the facts by presenting them

from the Catholic Women's League. So if the Catholic Women's League would like to have

their petition presented in a proper and appropriate fashion, I would certainly be willing

to give leave and indeed would like to speak to that petition, in support of it.

Statements by

Ministers

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Human Resources and

Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: Mr. Speaker, the National Child Benefit Program is a

bold social initiative designed to ensure that all of our children have the best possible

start in life. It represents the collective priority of our federal and provincial

governments to reduce child poverty, and is an important first step in improving the life

chances of hundreds of thousands of Canadian children.

The federal government has committed $1.7 billion over the next three

years to increase the support benefits for low income families with children. This has

enabled provinces such as ours to make strategic, long-term investments in services and

benefits for children in low income families. The prevention and early intervention

programs, as well as the work incentives we are putting in place this year, are essential

to addressing child poverty and the social problems associated with it.

From the very beginning, Mr. Speaker, all governments have agreed that

the best way to improve the living standards of children across the country is to have a

national children's benefit sufficient to remove them from the welfare system. This would

create a more secure and uniform level of basic income support for children in low income

families that does not depend on receiving social assistance. It would also provide

provinces the financial means to establish or improve programs targeted at improving work

incentives, benefits and services for children and their families.

By design therefore, the National Child Benefit frees up provincial

income support money for reinvestment in programs and services. Without this infusion of

federal funding we would not, today, be planning a $4.6 million enhancement to the

licensed child care services in this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: We would not be preparing to spend $1.5 million to

extend the network of family resource centres which have provided such valuable supports

and services to needy families and their children throughout forty-five sites across the

Province today. We would not be developing a $2.8 million network of critical supports to

youth who are at risk of not making a successful transition from school to adulthood and

independence. We would not have the opportunity to start exciting, new employment

initiatives such as the wage supplement for single parents and extension to the drug card

benefits valued at $1.6 million. Mr. Speaker, with all of the competing social needs we

have in this Province today, and our constrained financial resources, we simply could not

have taken on such a major new initiative.

So I felt very proud of our government, when we were finally able to

make the start that social advocates who work on the front lines of poverty in this

Province, have so long awaited. We assured members of this House, the advocacy groups, and

the people of the Province at the time, that the present financial commitments were just a

start and that government would make every effort to find more resources to devote to the

NCB as our financial resources improved.

This fiscal year our government acted immediately by increasing social

assistance rates by 7 per cent over the next three years, providing a $150 monthly cost of

living allowance to families on the Coast of Labrador, increasing the earnings exemptions

for families on social assistance, and also raising the rates of child care subsidies and

exemptions. In addition to this, we gave a $1 million grant to the Provincial Children's

Food Foundation to help them increase their programs across the Province. In total, Mr.

Speaker, an incremental investment of more than $7 million to low income families in

Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: Mr. Speaker, the public has responded very positively

to the National Child Benefit Program and to these additional measures. I am particularly

impressed and indeed touched by the support we have received from advocacy groups such as

the members of the Community Alliance for Better Solutions, especially knowing their

concerns for the financial circumstances of families receiving social assistance. They

recognize, probably better than most, what a little extra income means to these families.

Yet they also understand that the cycle of poverty will only be broken when we eliminate

its root causes, and this we can only begin to do through the kinds of early intervention

and prevention programs planned for the National Child Benefit Program. I want to thank

them for their continued understanding and support.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: But for all that, Mr. Speaker, there was not one of us

who did not struggle with the need to recover the benefit from social assistance families.

To a person, we all knew the individual cases of parents and often single parents on

social assistance who struggle every day just to provide the very basic necessities for

their children. They are people who either because of lack of work, lack of necessary

skills and abilities, or in some cases the sheer combination of life circumstances, are

unable to support themselves at this point, but they so desperately want something better

for their children.

As members of this House, I know we all share a deep concern about the

current situation which sees one in every four children in our Province living in families

which receive social assistance. Compounding this problem is the fact that we have one of

the lowest social assistance rates in the country. While poverty level comparisons between

provinces are difficult to measure accurately, it is still troubling to see the statistics

such as those published a few weeks ago by the National Council on Welfare. They show that

in 1996, 72 per cent of single parent families in this Province lived below the poverty

line - the highest rate of all the provinces. In the face of such concerns, we felt

compelled to respond.

So the announcement I am about to make today has great significance for

all of us. It is a decision that we have reached not after any great ground swell of

public pressure but rather after much soul searching collectively as a caucus and as a

Cabinet. It is a decision that reaches to the very core of our Liberal values. It says

that even though our financial resources remain constrained, and will continue to be for

the next few years, we are confident enough about the future that we are prepared to make

a dramatic investment today in some of the poorest children in this Province.

I am pleased to hereby announce that government has decided to permit

families who receive social assistance to keep the full National Child Benefit supplement

this year.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: This amounts to the equivalent of a 13 per cent to 14

per cent increase in the basic rate that most social assistance families currently

receive. In fact, it represents the single largest increase in income that social

assistance families have received in close to twenty-five years.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: This increase will provide the over 13,000 families who

receive social assistance, greater financial capacity to respond to their children's basic

needs. In real dollar terms, families with two children will see an increase of $84 per

month in their income on July 20. When combined with their existing child benefit, this

amounts to a separate cheque each month of $250 to help them care for their children.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very substantial improvement in the financial

circumstances of social assistance families and their children. With this decision, our

government has taken another major step toward reducing child poverty in this Province.

Combined with the $10 million annual program investment targeted at improving work

incentives, benefits and services for low income families with children, I am confident

that we can greatly improve the life chances for all poor children in this Province.

But we know there is still much that we have to do. It is essential

that the federal government continue to increase its investment in the National Child

Benefit until we reach the goal of having an adequate and secure level of basic income

support for all children in low income families across the country. Here in our Province

we must continue to change our income support system so that people who can work are

always better off working. Government's singular thrust in this regard remains to knock

down the welfare wall that traps people in dependency and actively support them to become

as self-reliant as possible.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS BETTNEY: This means that we have to remove the barriers and

disincentives that currently exist in our system that keep people from work. But most of

all, we must continue to increase employment so that parents everywhere in this Province

can find and keep work. This will in turn enable them to build a better future for

themselves and their children.

Mr. Speaker, the federal government will this year provide more than

$23 million in National Child Benefit payments to over 41,000 children of low income and

social assistance families in Newfoundland and Labrador. In addition, the Province will

provide a $10 million annual investment fund for early intervention and prevention

programs and services, as announced in the Budget, as well as $7 million to fund the other

initiatives aimed at low income families and their children.

Mr. Speaker, with the magnitude of these investments I feel confident

in saying that we have arrived at a major turning point in securing better lives and a

brighter future for all of the children in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS S. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank the minister for providing me with a copy of her

statement. It feels though, somehow, that the statements that I have been making in the

House since the National Child Benefit was announced have been plagiarized.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS S. OSBORNE: We have loudly applauded the initiatives that were

to be introduced with the National Child Benefit, but we have always argued that the

National Child Benefit was intended to provide direct help for children and it should

provide direct help for children in families on social assistance as well. Yes, money for

programs for poor families and children should not be taken from poor children.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS S. OSBORNE: I have presented this petition to this House of

Assembly numerous times, and I have to say that the statement the minister made today

seems to be an about-face from the statement that was made on April 6, 1998. Make no

mistake about it, this announcement today would not have come without the public pressure

and pressure from this Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS S. OSBORNE: I notice that the Premier is shaking his head, but I

also recall the look on his face when I stood in this House not long ago and reminded this

government that 72 per cent of single parent families in this Province live below the

poverty line, and the minister refers to that today in her statement.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: You had presented a private member's resolution.

MS S. OSBORNE: I had presented a private member's resolution on

this very thing.

So while you say that it is not public pressure, and that it is a lot

of soul searching, I would like to think that the soul searching was prodded by private

member resolutions, petitions, and statements made by the Opposition in this House of

Assembly. We are pleased to be able to impose on this hard-hearted Liberal program, sound

Progressive Conservative values.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, does he have leave?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement. The

fundamental flaw in the Canadian Child Tax Benefit has been the claw-back with which the

provinces have followed this. In fact, we were told it was part of the deal.

I am pleased to see a reversal of the government's position, but I

think it is important to point out to members of the House and to the public that we are

talking here about a six-month program. For this year, the government intends to give back

about $500 per child to social assistance recipients and I could not but welcome that, Mr.

Speaker. That is very clear, what the minister says; this year they are going to allow

them to keep the full Child Tax Benefit. There is another year coming up in January, and

we do not have any assurance whatsoever that the social assistance recipients are going to

be able to keep this money.

Very clearly, Mr. Speaker, this is a short-term relief for people who

are suffering from a long-term problem. Obviously any increase has to be welcomed. The

people who are required to live on that amount of money have a very difficult time with

it, as everybody knows.

Mr. Speaker, this government has shown, in the last three years, a

decrease in the public debt of $900 million. There is plenty of room in government fiscal

resources to look after people who are poor, not just on a two- or three-month basis but

on a long-term basis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, the hon. the Opposition House

Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise on a point of order under ' 348 of

Beauchesne , which indicates that a Ministerial Statement be a short, factual

announcement or statement of government policy. It goes on to say in ' 350

that the issue be brief and factual.

Mr. Speaker, ministers -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SULLIVAN: We support it. We have been calling for it for the

past month.

Mr. Speaker, this statement is two pages of history, of federal

contributions - others - a very brief reference to the statement. So I am going to call it

to the Speaker's attention, several minutes here in the House. I think they should be to

the point, they should be very factual and brief. I will keep my notice of this point of

order fairly brief in line with it, because we are only wasting the particular time of the

House by regurgitating what is given in a package on Budget Day to each particular member

of this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader, to the point of

order.

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, let me read to the hon. gentleman the rest

of that statement to which he just referred. There is a last line in that: The Speaker may

limit the time for reply as seems fit.

Let me say to the hon. gentleman -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: Or statement.

Let me say to the hon. gentleman that I know that when he hears good

news he gets terribly upset and rises on a point of order. The truth of the matter is that

this is good news.

PREMIER TOBIN: The most important public policy statement in many a

year.

MR. TULK: The Premier just made the statement that it is the most

important public policy statement in many a year. It shows an increase for social

assistance recipients like we have not seen - in how many years was it?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. TULK: Twenty-five years. It shows that this government is

concerned about the welfare of young people in this Province, the children in this

Province, and the best that he can do is to stand up and try to tell the Speaker how to do

his job.

The truth of the matter is, the Speaker has it in his hands to say:

Yes, this Ministerial Statement is too long. But of course, Mr. Speaker, you will your own

self judge what the merit of the statement is. In this particular case, the statement has

great merit in that it does more for young people in this Province, and more for people on

social assistance, than has been done in a long, long time.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. TULK: If the hon. gentleman cannot accept that then he should

leave the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The Chair will just take the point the hon. member raised and have a

look at it and report back at another time.

The hon. the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. More good news.

The diversification of the fishery has been the focus of many research

and development efforts undertaken by both the provincial and federal governments for some

time. This is especially important for Labrador, where a shortage of raw material for fish

plants has long been a chronic problem.

I am happy to inform the House today that for the first time in seven

years the fish plant in Red Bay will be back in operation on June 1, and that seventy

direct and indirect jobs will be created in the harvesting and processing of sea urchins.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. EFFORD: This is a partnership between the Labrador Fishermen's

Union Shrimp Company and Labrador Gem Seafoods.

It is encouraging, Mr. Speaker, to know that the majority of the

workers are young Labradorians who are determined to stay and make a living in their home

region. Both divers and plant workers have received special training for the harvesting

and processing of sea urchins.

This is also a good example of encouraging results of development work

that has been undertaken by both government and industry.

Markets for sea urchin roe from the Red Bay operation have been

confirmed with the assistance of Bell Island Ventures, one of the leading producers of sea

urchin roe on the Island. Labrador Gem Seafoods anticipates that it will produce quality

sea urchin roe for up to six months each year.

This will also lead to further opportunities for Labradorians. The

Shrimp Company and Gem Seafoods also plan to extend the business into Mary's Harbour and

Cartwright in September. At that time, about 200 new jobs will be created in this emerging

fishery.

I am proud of the accomplishments in the sea urchin sector of our

fishery. Six years ago, we had virtually no sea urchin fishery. This year, we have upwards

of 200 harvesters, with approximately another 200 employed processing roe at Winterton,

Glovertown, Bell Island, Wareham and Grand Bank. As I have already indicated, the Red Bay

operation coming will bring additional employment benefits. Furthermore, this activity in

Labrador will complement Island operations by extending the overall harvesting and

processing season for sea urchins in the Province.

Mr. Speaker, the Province is committed to further development of our

fishery as a multi-species industry that is not reliant on two or three species. We are

also working to further develop markets in key areas such as Japan where around 450

species of fish and seafood are available at daily auctions. Complemented by our quality

assurance initiatives, our diversification efforts will pay big dividends for the

long-term benefit of our fishery. This is critical in rural areas that have traditionally

relied on our marine resources for their livelihoods.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank the minister for sending a copy of his statement

here on good news. Any time a fish plant can open with sustainable employment, I say to

the minister, good news, and particularly in many parts of our Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SULLIVAN: In Southern Labrador, everybody knows too well, like

other parts of the Province, the fishery failed in that area before it failed in other

areas of the Province. The fish plant has been closed for seven years. Out-migration has

been devastating not only to this area but other areas in the Province. To see new species

like sea urchins and others creating new employment, and hopefully long, sustainable

employment here, is very important.

To make sure too, I say to the minister, that in any other avenues

where there is an opportunity for the development of new species there it has to be

encouraged and promoted. We have to be very cognizant, too, when we are dealing with the

fishery here in our Province. We are dealing with a renewable resource, but any renewable

resource can get to the point where it becomes non-renewable, as we are almost seeing with

certain species.

We have to use the utmost caution, not only in our responsibility as a

provincial government but in dealing with the federal government that controls the

harvesting of these particular species here, to ensure that it is sustainable there, and

it will employ people not only in Red Bay and Cartwright and other areas, but many other

areas of our Province in the future.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill - Quidi Vidi, does

he have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: By leave.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the

minister for an advance copy of his statement.

I am very much pleased to see the diversification efforts in Red Bay.

It is very important that throughout that whole Labrador Straits area there be

opportunities, and this is a further example of the work of the Labrador Fishermen's Union

Shrimp Company.

In this case, Mr. Speaker, I only wonder, I suppose, why we need a

Texas company with an investment, a small investment, I guess, really of $4 million or $5

million at the most. It seems to me there is plenty of expertise in this Province to

develop this kind of fishery with the expertise in the shrimp industry and in marketing

and elsewhere. That is something, I suppose, the details of which I do not know much

about, but I was certainly delighted to see this kind of development in the Labrador

Straits area.

Oral Questions

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

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

Last week, in the House of Assembly, or I believe the latter part of

the week before, I asked the Premier about a particular piece of legislation that was

going before the House of Commons with respect to the Millennium Fund, Bill C-36.

Publicly, after the Question Period, the Premier indicated that: Look,

there are at least 1,000 files the Premier deals with each and every day. This one, he did

not have particular or specific knowledge on, but he would ask for a briefing from

officials within government.

I would like to ask the Premier today: Has he received that briefing

yet?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Had the Leader of the Opposition been in the House on Friday morning,

he also would have received a version of the briefing that was given here in the House.

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

supplementary.

MR. E. BYRNE: The Leader of the Opposition was in the House on

Friday morning, and the Speaker will notice that reference to any member being or not

being in the House is unparliamentary.

Whatever the case may be, I would like to ask the minister: What

conversations or representations has his department or government made to the federal

government with respect to this issue, and particularly the changes that are about to be

made with respect to bankruptcies as they affect students?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again I apologize to the hon. member if there was any inappropriate

reference to attendance or lack thereof on Friday, but if he would check with the Table

and Hansard, he will find out exactly what was said about this issue on Friday morning and

the fact that we have made a statement to the federal government. It is in Hansard for

Friday.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Well, Mr. Speaker, I will ask the minister this: Has

he received any response from his representations to the federal government and what have

the federal government officials told the Minister of Education with respect to the

bankruptcy laws as they are about to be changed in Canada, for all students?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

No response yet but the full context of the approach that we did take

to the federal government is in Hansard for Friday.

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

supplementary.

MR. E. BYRNE: I would like to ask the Minister of Education this

then: Is he aware that this particular piece of legislation is about to go to third

reading in the House of Commons, and if so, does he not think that it is about time that

some response comes back from the federal government?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I think the point has been well made. Any

one individual provincial government in Canada in the federation we work in cannot control

and dictate what happens in the Parliament of Canada.

The Parliament of Canada, if the hon. member would read Hansard, knows

that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador thinks that this legislation is

unnecessary. That is the point of view taken by this government, However: Can we control

the Parliament of Canada? The answer is no. Have we gotten a response, Mr. Speaker, to the

letter we wrote last week? The answer is no. Will it pass in the Parliament of Canada

despite the representations of this government? I do not know, Mr. Speaker. But I will

gladly answer any other questions that are raised.

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

supplementary.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the point that is well-taken is that, up

until a week ago, this government knew nothing about this particular piece of legislation

until it was announced, even though it was announced in February when the Budget came

down.

Minister, let me ask you this question: In view of the fact that this

particular piece of legislation highlights a bigger problem and a more severe problem,

what measures is government going to take, outside of the ones that have already been

announced in the Budget, to address opportunities for young people, to address loan

remission and to tie loan remission to job creation? Is government going to move forward

in that direction?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, this year, we will have the biggest job creation program since

Confederation for students in Newfoundland and Labrador to help them.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: We are one of only two provinces in the country, Mr.

Speaker, that have a remission program that puts a cap on the amount of debt that a

student can have, after a successful completion of a full degree program at the

university.

Mr. Speaker, there is no limit to the range of initiatives that are

being explored by both ourselves and the federal government to try to bring some real

reason and to alleviate some of the indebtedness for students. It will take some time, Mr.

Speaker, for the initiatives that were announced by the federal government to work their

way through the system in the next few months. It will take some, Mr. Speaker. As a matter

of fact, the committee that has three student representatives on it from Newfoundland and

Labrador, to develop the final criteria for the $4 million fund that is available here

provincially, is starting to meet this week. It will take some time for them to announce

exactly how that will apply, take place and take effect beginning in September.

So, there are a whole range of initiatives, Mr. Speaker, all pointed in

the direction of trying to reduce student indebtedness, and to alleviate the whole issue

for students who must, and want to, continue with their post-secondary options. They know

and recognize, Mr. Speaker - and I will conclude here - and have given credit, actually,

to the Premier of our Province who has brought this issue front and foremost to the head

of the national agenda in the country.

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

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, what is startling is the Minister of

Education is beginning to believe some of the policies of his own rhetoric. Because the

reality is that of 1200 bankruptcies in Newfoundland and Labrador last year, Premier, 600

of them were students. The reality is that the initiatives announced by the federal

government will impact on about 1,000 students, out of many more in the Province, Mr.

Speaker. The reality it that the initiatives brought forward by this government are in no

way addressing the concerns of young people in this Province.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member is on a supplementary. I ask him to get to his

question.

MR. E. BYRNE: That is the reality, I say to the Minister of

Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. E. BYRNE: I would like to ask him a final question: Surely he

does not believe that the initiatives, in terms of student employment, are impacting on

the opportunities that this government has been able to provide for young people? When

will your government, Minister, and your department take a more proactive approach to do

two things: One, to offer opportunities to students in this Province where there are none

today; and secondly, Mr. Speaker, to curb the serious out-migration problem escalating to

about 45 per cent amongst our students who are between eighteen and twenty-eight, Mr.

Speaker?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

All l can say, I guess, is that the Leader of the Opposition would know

that no one particular group in any few months or year creates all of the problems of the

world, nor to they have to solve them all instantly.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that the initiatives undertaken

by this government in just over twenty-four months have led us to a circumstance where we

have the best economic prospects in Newfoundland and Labrador in decades. In fact, Mr.

Speaker, contrary to the so-called facts that the Leader of the Opposition would espouse

and throw out and state as if they were actually true - I am not suggesting they are false

- but as if he knew something, and that he is there as a definitive authority in espousing

these particular statements.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that opportunities are better

in Newfoundland and Labrador today then they have been for a long time and the initiatives

of this government, Mr. Speaker, are aimed particularly at the unemployed young people

between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. I am sorry if we do not solve all of the

problems in a few weeks or a few months, but, Mr. Speaker, the impetus and the direction

is targeted more so at that group then any other group in our population.

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

supplementary.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education stands and

says and apologies. He is sorry that he has been unable to solve all the problems of young

people in a few months or a few weeks. I would like to remind him that he has been in

government since 1989. That is nine years, I say to the Minister of Education, not a few

weeks or a few months.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. E. BYRNE: Let me ask him this: Is his department contemplating

looking at student loan repayment and tying it directly to income. That is, if a student

or a graduate finds a job, that the amount that particular student pays back will be

directly related to the amount that they are making. So that if someone is making $19,000

a year their loan payment would be lower, if someone is making $40,000 or $50,000 a year,

it would be higher? Can he confirm or would he contemplate his department looking at some

sort of scaled model whereby many students in this Province will be able to avoid

bankruptcy?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, maybe to put the answer in context: The Leader of the Opposition

raises the issue of the changes to the Bankruptcy Act In Canada; part of an overall plan.

Again I would invite him to please read Hansard from Friday and get the whole issue laid

out in context.

Mr. Speaker, there are a range of initiatives that are in place with

respect to that. The bankruptcy issue, while a concern, is of least concern in

Newfoundland and Labrador because in our Province the history and record shows that our

students make a greater effort to repay their loans than in any other part of the country,

despite a difficult economic circumstance. It is an issue but it is not nearly as big an

issue in this Province as it is in other parts of the country.

Mr. Speaker, the issue with respect to income contingency repayments -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to get to his answer.

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, the issue with respect to income

contingency repayments; when we are in a position to have that as part of the

Canada-Newfoundland Student Loan Program, it is an initiative, part of one that this

government proposed that was not fully adopted in the last round of changes in the federal

budget. Any time they are willing to do that, along with the three or four other

initiatives, that again are laid out in Hansard as a reminder for the Leader of the

Opposition with respect to the statement that I made on Friday in answering his question

from a week or so ago, Mr. Speaker, this government will gladly participate in that kind

of a program as well. But he knows that we are not in a position to unilaterally -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude his answer.

MR. GRIMES: - make that kind of a decision with respect to student

loan repayments.

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

Opposition.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the provincial government is in fact in

a position to act unilaterally when it comes to this program.

Let me remind the minister that it is under Liberal administration for

the past ten years that student tuition has risen 300 per cent. Student debt has gone, on

average -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary and I ask him to get to his

question.

MR. E. BYRNE: - from about $17,000 to $40,000. It is this

government that has stripped grants from students and the minister can act unilaterally if

he chooses to see fit.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to get to his question, please.

MR. E. BYRNE: A particular spin that he likes to put on it is that

this is a joint provincial-federal program and that he can't, but he can minister and he

knows it.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary, I ask him to get to his

question.

MR. E. BYRNE: Mr. Speaker, the idea of a scaled model or matching

income to loan repayments is a concept that the time has come.

I would like to ask the minister directly: Will he move in that

direction? Will he move on behalf of the students of the Province, who by the way,

minister, are the highest per capita bankruptcies in the country, not the lowest as the

minister would like to elude. But will he move in the direction of looking at tying income

and student loan replacements and move on it today?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Maybe if a point in time comes somewhere in the far distant future

where the member opposite is the government, forms a government, makes the decisions, he

might want - maybe he is suggesting to us today, Mr. Speaker, that the position that will

be taken by the official Opposition is that we would act unilaterally without the

Mr. Speaker, he might know - maybe he does not know - that the bulk of

because otherwise none of them would have the amount of money they need to continue their

post-secondary education. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we have committed to - as

had, by the way, Conservative governments in a province like Ontario, Conservative

governments in a province like Prince Edward Island - is that we are all trying to

harmonize how we deal with the student loans so that there is consistent treatment in the

provinces and that we don't have a very different student loan system in Newfoundland and

Labrador than we do in Ontario, than we do in Prince Edward Island, than we do in Western

Canada and Alberta.

Mr. Speaker, maybe he should check with his leaders at the small table

that they meet with, as to how provincial Conservative leaders feel about the idea of

harmonizing -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude his answer.

MR. GRIMES: - the Canada Student Loan Program so that we all deal

with it consistently across the country.

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

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My questions are for the Minister of Education. The (inaudible) School

Board, School District No. 8, decided earlier this year to continue its program of school

restructuring by consolidating schools in Sunnyside, Arnold's Cove and Southern Harbour.

The current schools in these communities are small and rural in nature and the proposed

consolidation would save teaching units and preserve the integrity of the school programs.

Can the minister advise the House as to the reasons why this particular

consolidation will not occur in time for the September opening of the school year next

year and why the school board has postponed that decision?

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

MR. GRIMES: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question and again, from

time to time, the group opposite suggests that there are certain things that I should do,

even though it is not my jurisdiction to do them. Other times they question why we don't

do things when it is somebody else's role to perform them and so on.

In this particular instance, Mr. Speaker, I don't know why the hon.

member, as the Education critic, would stand in the House of Assembly and ask me to defend

what decision making process a school board went through on an issue that is 100 per cent

in their jurisdiction. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, in December of 1997 the hon. member

opposite and his colleagues stood in this Legislature and voted unanimously to support a

schools act of which a

section says that which schools remain open and operating in any

one school board jurisdiction is within the authority of the board to make the decision,

not for the Minister of Education.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Valley.

MR. H. HODDER: The truth is, Mr. Speaker, that the school board did

make the decision. The truth as well is that there was interference from the Premier's

Office through his parliamentary assistant with the school board to alter that decision.

What we have is changing from a church-run system to a provincial MHA-run system. If this

is the new order of things, I want to ask the minister -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. member is on a supplementary. I ask him to get to his

question.

MR. H. HODDER: - will the minister today assure the Newfoundland

and Labrador Investment Corporation becomes much more than a rubber stamp for the Premier

and for his Liberal caucus?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Maybe I should set the record straight, first and foremost. As I

understand it, I am not even sure the school board has yet made a final decision as to

what they are going to do about the Arnold's Cove-Southern Harbour-Sunnyside area at this

point in time. The last time I discussed matters with the chair of the board and the

director of education, who were exploring different options for that region of their

board, to my knowledge they had not convened the board to actually finalize a decision.

Again, it is typical that the hon. member, as the Opposition Education

critic, stands and states as if it is fact - and this is problematic in dealing with

issues in the House - he stated as if it was a fact that the board had made a certain

decision with respect to schools in that area. They made no decision, and we can table

from the board if he wants in the House exactly what they circulated in the area.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude his answer.

MR. GRIMES: They circulated a notice to the parents saying: We are

contemplating doing the following. This is your public notice so you can come and talk to

us in public meetings as to whether or not you think it is a good or bad idea. This is

what we are thinking about doing. So, Mr. Speaker, they did the prudent thing -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to finish his answer quickly.

MR. GRIMES: They put out a statement, they made no decision. They

have been reviewing all the information since, including, Mr. Speaker - I understand that

the MHA, as an interested member, has even probably called the board and given his views

on the matter. which they have at their disposal. I have also spoken to the board -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: - because they have asked me about the issue.

MR. SPEAKER: I ask the hon. minister to take his seat.

MR. GRIMES: As far as I know, Mr. Speaker, I can stand here today

and tell you they have not made a decision with respect to this issue.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to take his seat.

A supplementary, the hon. the Member for Waterford Valley.

MR. H. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, the school board informed me they have

made a decision. In fact, they have reversed their previous decision, and the schools will

now stay open for the next year.

I say to the minister: Will the minister today take steps to assure

that the elected schools boards of this Province, when they make recommendations on the

expenditure of the $50 million allocated in the provincial Budget to the Newfoundland and

Labrador Investment Corporation, that it will not be used as a political slush fund for

the Liberals in the next election, and he will take steps to assure that no member of this

House will individually be able to exercise veto power over the schools boards' decisions?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It hardly warrants an answer. However, it was mentioned by a previous

questioner that I personally have been here for nine years, it is true. Every time I have

heard those kinds of accusations from members opposite I can understand them, because that

is the way they used to operate for seventeen years when they were here. We will not do

it, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

Valley.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Will the minister confirm that the proposal that the school board put

forward would have saved 6.8 teaching units next year? I ask him: Can he also confirm that

the money to keep those units in place will indeed come from the school board's assigned

money for construction? Or he can perhaps tell the House: Where will the money come from

to keep those 6.8 units in place that would have been saved to the teacher allocation if

the school board's proposal for restructuring had been accepted?

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

MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the hon. member would not mind, I might take a minute to answer the

question. It is very important. It will show the difference between what this government

is willing to do and willing to accommodate, if the board wants to do it, versus what he

just suggested.

He just suggested, as the Education critic for the Official Opposition,

that the most important thing is, at all cost, take 6.8 teachers out of the system.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. GRIMES: Do not consider any other options, Mr. Speaker; do not

consider any other options. He said, Mr. Speaker, take the teachers out of the system.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. H. HODDER: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The hon. the Member for Waterford Valley, on a point of order.

MR. H. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, at no point did I say that I disagree

with keeping those units in place. I am merely asking where the funding is going to come

from.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

There is no point of order.

I ask the hon. minister to get to his answer quickly.

MR. GRIMES: Yes, very quickly, Mr. Speaker, because it can be a

short answer.

AN HON. MEMBER: Don't (inaudible).

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. GRIMES: The fact of the matter is that the board is considering

a couple of options, and still considering them as far as I know, because I will repeat

for the record that to my knowledge the board has not convened and passed any motions to

what they are finally going to do.

The options that they were exploring, Mr. Speaker, were to close a

school, which would then not require 6.8 teaching units, get five additional buses, at the

cost of $125,000, do $400,000 worth of renovations to two other schools - so the cost is

now almost $600,000 in total - and that in fact they are looking at exploring other

options whereby we may in fact find a mechanism to let them leave the teachers in the

school while they are awaiting other things to develop in the area.

The member opposite is suggesting: Don't explore any other options with

the school board; take the teachers at all cost.

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

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just have one question, and it is for the President of Treasury

Board. It is with respect to Mr. Thomas Eagan, who has been protesting outside this

Chamber and has been doing so for a number of days.

It is my understanding, Mr. Minister, that there has been an

arbitration award. That arbitration team consisted of three experienced lawyers, the

decision was unanimous, yet Mr. Eagan still awaits reinstatement of his position. So my

question to the minister is simply: Why has he not been reinstated? And when can he tell

Mr. Eagan when he expects to have his job back?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board.

MR. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The matter is under appeal to the court. It is under the jurisdiction

now not of Treasury Board but of the Community Health Board, I believe, on the Burin

Peninsula, if that is the correct area. All I can say at this point, as the matter is

before the court, is that the Department of Health and Community Services and the

community board do not wish to take action on reinstatement of the individual until the

matter is reviewed by court.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are to the

Minister of Health and Community Services.

Recently, a number of hospital boards in the Province received

permission from your department to engage in training medical laboratory technologists to

do basic, diagnostic X-ray procedures. That is a service that is now provided by medical

radiation technologists who are trained to a Canadian standard and are members of the

CAMRT. This cross-training is considerably shorter than that required to be a radiation

technologist and it provides minimal clinical training.

I ask the minister: Is she concerned that certain parts of this

Province are now going to have X-ray departments without fully trained and CAMRT

accredited technologists?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community

Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Whatever resources we place in our system, whether it be from the

physician to the nursing resources to the medical technologists or the lab technologists,

they would have to meet the approval whereby they are able to provide the types of

services that they have been hired to provide.

I think the hon. member opposite knows that in our health care system

we have a number of ways of transferring function. Anyone under the proper auspices who

have received the proper training can have a function transferred provided it is an

acceptably transferable function. In this particular case, and I would say that in many

places in our Province, Mr. Speaker, we have many specialists, whom I do believe fear

sometimes for the loss of their skills.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, over the years we have seen a cardiac

paediatrician, for example, moved to do his services in another province because of the

lack of cases and the inability to maintain one's skills in this level. So, if you are

asking me: Should a person be without any service because they live in rural Newfoundland,

or should they have an approved course so they can have access to the types of services to

which they are allowed to provide, then I would certainly say that is an acceptable

option, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That is not what I am talking about at all, I say to the minister. You

stated in a letter on January 7, 1998 - I have a copy here - that technologists completing

this course will not be qualified to work in major centres.

Why, Minister, are you subjecting rural Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians to a lower level of service than provided to those in urban areas? Why the

two-tier level of service, I say to the minister?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community

Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I think it is about a level of understanding. Just to give an

example, we do not do brain surgery out in Bonavista hospital. We do it in St. John's

because we have the type of skills and services and expertise that is required.

In this particular case, obviously, I would imagine it would be very

similar. I will use the nurse practitioner regulations as an example. Nurse practitioners

are able to provide a set of skills within a set of regulations and a set of guidelines.

Another health professional, for example, in a personal care home or in a person's own

home, can do tracheotomy suctioning under a transfer function. There are so many examples.

So, Mr. Speaker, while this is not specifically related to transfer

function, nobody will ever be required to practice outside of their scope of practice.

That is how we operate in a Province like Newfoundland, in a country like Canada. We have

our regulations and guidelines, and people work towards their expertise within the realm

of acceptability and within the realm of regulation and policy.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: That is the answer, Mr. Speaker. It is the answer,

if you choose to listen.

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It might be an answer, but

not to the question I asked.

In 1995, the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists

accepted that in the future, educational preparation should be at the baccalaureate level

for anyone coming out and starting practice in the year 2005. Even the president

representing the radiologists of this Province, the specialists in the field, I say to the

minister, have said they felt that technologists working in remote locations -

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member is on a supplementary; I ask him to

get to his question.

MR. SULLIVAN: - would probably require additional training than is

offered now, than qualified members of the CAMRT have right now. Why, in view of what the

experts are saying, are you allowing people to be trained to a lower level than is

currently the practice, and sacrificing the health of patients in an effort to cut costs?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community

Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the word `pathetic'

is unparliamentary, but quite frankly, -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: - this is not in any way an attempt to undermine

the services that we provide to rural Newfoundland. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it is the

opposite. It is an intention to provide the types of services that are needed in rural

areas of the Province where we do not have major tertiary care centres. In fact, Mr.

Speaker, I think it is insulting to those people who have gone through the courses, I

think it is insulting to the people of Newfoundland that he would make that sort of

services that people in rural areas need and do not have to travel to tertiary care

centres or major centres to get. We did this in the past and we are doing it in the

future. Because while the real issue might be job security here behind the question, the

most important issue is the type of services that we are able to provide to rural

residents as well urban residents of this Province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary, the hon. the Opposition House Leader.

MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A poorly trained X-ray worker would not have the knowledge or expertise

to spot abnormalities on a radiograph that they could bring to the attention of a

physician. It could be misdiagnosis and it could have serious repercussions for the

patient and for the worker, I say to the minister, because they only have four months of

clinical training compared to fourteen months -

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. member to get to his question.

MR. SULLIVAN: I ask the minister: What is your motivation in doing

it? Are you buckling under to the health care corporations and boards that want to cut

corners, I say, and save money, rather than hire more qualified people to fill a few

unique job descriptions that are there now.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Health and Community

Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are finally getting down to the point again, criticizing the boards

for their decisions. Because quite frankly, this process is in an effort to provide the

types of services that people in rural communities have a right to access. I will say it

again. If he is going to talk about misdiagnosis, as long as we have a system that is run

by human beings there will always be an element of human error. I will stand by that

statement, because we are all, to the best of my knowledge, in that category.

I will say that I believe in the work that is being done in the

hospitals, in the clinics, by our nurses and doctors and lab technicians, and by our

boards. I still have to say that people practice within the scope of practice and within

the regulations set out.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I ask the hon. minister to conclude her answer quickly.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: No, Mr. Speaker, I am not going to talk about two

tiers of health care and buckle under to the types of insinuations that have been made

here today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

The time for Oral Questions has elapsed.

Orders of the Day

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

MR. TULK: Mr. Speaker, before I move Orders of the Day, I would

like to inform hon. members that there is quite a bit of work that needs to be done yet

this spring, Budget Estimates and so on. In order to see that gets done, we intend to sit

Tuesday and Thursday nights of this week, so if there is something in people's schedules

that they might want to get off, they could have an opportunity to do that. To be frank, I

think I should tell hon. members that we will sit Tuesday and Thursday nights maybe for

the rest of the session until we get the work done.

I call Order No. 2, and move that the House resolve itself into a

Committee of the Whole on Supply.

On motion, that the House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole,

Mr. Speaker left the Chair.

Committee of the

Whole

CHAIR (Penney): Order, please!

The hon. the Government House Leader has called Order No. 2.

The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

MR. SHELLEY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am glad to get up and start debate again today where I left off from

last week, and some points raised by my colleagues on this side of the House. I thought we

would be waiting a little while longer. I thought there would be more petitions on behalf

of the Catholic Women's League today to be presented in the House, and done right this

time, but I guess we will look forward to that coming back in the next little while,

maybe, from the Member for Topsail. I am sure they will have it on the Table any time at

all now.

I want to make a few comments with respect to Executive Council, and

the way that all government funding is being spent these days in this Province. A lot of

people in this Province are starting to ask the questions: Where, how much, and what

policies government is putting in place now to redress and address problems, especially in

rural parts of the Province but indeed the entire Province, of how money is spent, where

the money is going, and what policies are putting us in the right direction.

I had a couple of points I was going to address today from where I left

off the last time I spoke in this debate. That is back again to rural renewal, and what

policies are affecting rural parts of this Province this year. A little while ago I

started to mention a topic I want to bring up here again today and make a couple of more

points on, some place where the Executive Council and government in general can put more

money and more dollars, that will be better spent by people in this Province.

Mr. Chairman, that group of people are the young people in this

Province; not necessarily students, because at this date, Mr. Speaker, they are in

transition from high school, trying to get into secondary education, and I guess they are

en route to hopefully becoming employed in the Province. That is what they hope for, Mr.

Chairman. But now we have to deal with the reality, I guess, not the hopefulness.

The truth is, Mr. Chairman, that the young people in this Province, who

are either trying to get into post-secondary institutions or trying to get employed in

this Province, have a very big problem when it comes to their attitude towards staying in

this Province. That is what is starting to bother a lot of people. Even today, Mr.

Chairman, I spoke to another parent who talked about her son who has just finished a

Degree in this Province. When they sat down to discuss whether he was going to leave and

where he was going to go, there was no consideration that he was going to stay in this

Province to work.

While the minister stood and spoke today about how the Newfoundland

students are the best group of people in the country for attempting to pay off their

loans, he forgot to mention something that is connected to that. They may, in fact, be

trying to pay off their student loans, but they are doing it from Alberta, Toronto,

Vancouver, Fort McMurray and all over the country. They are not doing it because they are

staying at home working in Newfoundland and Labrador; they are doing it from far away.

That is the statistic, Mr. Chairman, that we seem to miss a lot in this Province.

The truth is, students in this Province have given up, in large part

due to the spiralling debt that they encounter as soon as they leave these institutions

and the fact that the job market is just not there for them. That is the shame of it all,

that they are heading in that direction.

So the point I raised the last day - and I will make a couple of

comments, Mr. Chairman - is, what Executive Council or any part of government can look

more strongly towards is how we can get the students to get hope back in their Province,

to stay in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mr. Chairman, I believe, and a lot of students have said to me on many

occasions, that if they had some kind of insurance, some kind of security, if they knew

that once they finished their three, four, or five year program - it doesn't have to be a

university degree, it can be a two or three program - if they have some kind of insurance,

some kind of security whereby they knew that they could go from an institution, whether it

be the College of the North Atlantic or the Baie Verte Community College or anywhere in

this Province, Mr. Chairman, and could move on into the workforce, they would feel more

secure about this Province and would probably be talking to their parents about another

alternative, instead of going to Alberta, Toronto or out West, anywhere. They might

consider setting up in this Province.

Mr. Chairman, we can speak about our mega projects as much as we want.

There is nothing more crucial to the recovery of this Province than a young person

deciding, yes, I will give it a shot here, and yes, I am going to stay in Newfoundland and

Labrador, and yes, I going to try and set up a business here. Everyday, Mr. Chairman, in

this legislature, some member, either on this side or on the other side, receives a call

from a young person or has a visit from a young person in this Province who is finishing a

degree or some kind of post-secondary education in this Province and considering starting

up a business.

Mr. Chairman, the first thing they will say to you - they will come in

with a good business plan. They have learned how to put together a good business plan,

they have a good concept, they have a good idea, because that is where the fresh, good

ideas come from; our young people in the Province who are enthusiastic and have the

vigour, I guess, to get out there and try to perform, be an entrepreneur and start their

own business. Mr. Chairman, that is an attitude that we all should be trying to

facilitate.

What happens, Mr. Chairman, is that when they look at their debt load,

and then they look at the job prospects and then when they try to set up a business in

this Province, it is the same story over and over again. I have had them in my office and

I am sure the other members have had them here also. A young person comes in with a good

solid business idea, a good concept, has done his homework, gets his research together,

lays the business document on the table, Mr. Chairman, but after that the trouble starts.

That is when the trouble starts.

How many young people in this Province have come forward with good

business ideas, their homework done to start up a business and find the rhetoric and the

bureaucracy that they run into. Mr. Chairman, within days or weeks those young people who

have good ideas and have lots of enthusiasm about what is going on decide it is too much

trouble: I would rather give it all up. They lay their business plan on the table and they

are on a plane to Fort McMurray or out to Vancouver or they are lining up at Port aux

Basques ferry to leave this Province. They have given up hope. That is what they have

done, Mr. Chairman.

First of all they are looking at a $30,000 debt, maybe $40,000 for some

at Memorial University. Look at some of the private colleges now, the debts that students

are coming out with when they leave there.

Mr. Chairman, a suggestion from some of these students who I have

spoken to many times, and one of the debates that I had at the Community College in Baie

Verte with about forty students one day and their instructors, was: What they would really

like to see that would improve their chances is an Entrepreneurship Program, Mr. Chairman,

that would take them from doing the courses, spending their money at these colleges and

universities so that they know they have a link into the workforce, so that they know that

when they finish their three or four years, when they have a $30,000 or $40,000 debt, they

have a link to get into the workforce.

Mr. Chairman, there is nothing more disheartening for a young person in

this Province with a degree or some kind of program from any institution, to walk into an

employer, lay his cards on the table and say, this is what I trained for, this is what

I've done, this is what I'm good at, and the first response they get back from the

employer, in a lot of cases is: Do you have any experience? That experience, Mr. Chairman,

is simply just not there because they have to start somewhere. Most young people find that

very frustrating, after years of school, years of studying, to go to an employer and for

an employer to turn to them and say: Sorry, we are looking for people with experience.

Well, Mr. Chairman, that is one program that the Minister of Education

and the government should look into very seriously. As a matter of fact, the Government

House Leader one day did respond to me by saying that they were looking into some kind of

program on that but I have not heard anything about it since.

AN HON. MEMBER: What?

MR. SHELLEY: The Entrepreneurship Program, where you go from an

institution into a job; and that the government would do something in that vein, Mr.

Chairman. I think it would be an excellent policy move, for the government to do something

where a young person who finishes three or four years - either that or university or some

type of college - that they have a program they can look to where the government will

assist them in getting into the workforce; so that when they walk into Hibernia or any

industry in this Province the employer will not look at them and say: I am sorry, we need

somebody with experience. That is the most disheartening thing to a young person who,

after years of training and mountains of debt under his belt, looks to an employer and

they say: I am sorry, you need experience.

So what we really need in a policy is something that is proactive, Mr.

Chairman. The government should look into that stepping stone where the student goes from

a college or university into an entrepreneurship program and finally into the workforce.

Because there is not a more important factor in the economic recovery of this Province

than trying to keep some people here. Imagine next year if we could turn and say - what is

it, 11,000 who left this year? - if we could turn next year and say only 5,000 left or

only 4,000 left.

Remember now back in 1989, the first slogan of the previous Premier. We

will go back a few steps. Now his first slogan was: We are going to bring them all home.

Then we went to this Premier where we are going to try to keep what we have here. Now, Mr.

Chairman, we have 11,000 a year leaving. I think that is negative impact. There is nothing

positive about that.

You can talk about Voisey's Bay and Hibernia all you want, there is

nothing more important in this Province than if we can keep our young educated people in

this Province. It is a morale boost more than anything else.

How many parents in this House of Assembly today, Mr. Chairman, would

like to look at their daughter or their son and be able to say next year: There is

something for you here? There is something so that you can stay in this Province. If you

have a good business idea we are going to help you get to the next level.

Those are the two most important things that this Province needs to

address in the short term, Mr. Chairman, when it comes to the young people of this

Province. Number one, the entrepreneurship program that gives them that linkage between

school and a job and, Mr. Chairman, also to address their mountain of debt that they

acquire when they come out of these institutions; some type of relief that can help them

get through that burden, Mr. Chairman.

The Leader, today, brought up questions about bankruptcy in this

Province. That is not something that anybody wants to talk about. It is not something that

a student is very proud of, Mr. Chairman. As a matter of fact, I have dealt with two

people who have gone bankrupt, in the last two weeks who have claimed for bankruptcy, Mr.

Chairman. One was a student and one was an adult who had been in the workforce but who had

been laid off. One was a student, Mr. Chairman. I am going to tell you that the last

resort - well I thought it was the last resort - was to go to bankruptcy. He was not very

proud of doing this, Mr. Chairman. It was something that he was forced into doing. As a

matter of fact, he was so down about it that he did not even want to talk to me about it.

He did finally, on the advice of his parents, come to talk to me about getting some advice

for him on personal bankruptcy. I said: This is a shame when it is the last resort for a

student in this Province to claim personal bankruptcy. He looked at me and said: Mr.

Shelley, it is not my last resort, it is my second last resort. My last resort is that I

go to welfare. After three years in an institution to better myself in education, after

$30,000 in the hole, because I was trying to get an education, I have to go to bankruptcy.

Now, Mr. Chairman, if anybody in the House did not understand what we

were talking about today in Question Period, they should look into it. The truth is, up to

June of this year - if this change goes through in Ottawa - a student in this Province,

once he realizes that he is finished university and $30,000 in debt, could not get a job,

had all of these bills backing up, in some cases married with children, Mr. Chairman, he

had the option, after two years of leaving an institution, of going to any association or

firm in this Province and applying for bankruptcy. Basically what that does is give you

another start. It is not something you would like to do but it is a reality in a lot of

cases.

So a student in this Province, up to June of this year, after two years

could go and file for personal bankruptcy. With this change that is coming here, Mr.

Chairman, by the federal cousins in Ottawa, they will now have to wait ten years. They

cannot even claim personal bankruptcy. It is not like they wanted to do it in the first

place, Mr. Chairman, but they cannot even claim for personal bankruptcy until a ten year

period is up.

So, can you imagine a student of this Province who has to demoralize

himself to come and even apply for a personal bankruptcy, being told now that he can't

apply for personal bankruptcy: No, I'm sorry, that is bad enough for you but your only

resort now, as I said - it is not the last resort, it's the second last resort; personal

bankruptcy. The last resort is that a student with a degree - and this has happened, I've

been told, by the people at the agency that handled this bankruptcy. People with degrees

in this Province have gone in to see this gentleman. They have one or two children.

There is one case in particular - I certainly won't use any names in

the House - but there is one couple in particular, both of them have degrees. One of them

is substitute teaching, the other one hasn't any work at all, is not in teaching but is in

engineering. They have two children. Now, Mr. Chairman, he had to file for personal

bankruptcy. Luckily he got in before this new rule change. He had to apply for personal

bankruptcy, because that was what was left to him, that was the reality of it. You take

the same couple after June 2, if this legislation goes through in Ottawa, in the situation

this man found himself in, which was demoralizing to him, he was dejected about the whole

situation, now he won't even be able to do that. So that couple that just applied for

personal bankruptcy last week, after June, if we get a similar situation, and I'm sure

there are going to be similar situations, do you know what his resort is? His resort is to

go to welfare; a family with two degrees.

Actually, there won't be that resort, because with her substitute

teaching it's just enough to keep them from the welfare rolls. As far as the debt they

have piled up with Visa and CIBC cards and anything else that piles up as a student, or

expenses... You sit down and deal with these individual situations, sit down with some of

these students. I've sat with some of these students. They don't have the parents'

support, because it's just not there financially. They aren't all coming from rich

families. When the debt they encounter goes over - now a lot of students remember, while

they are students don't have these cards, but once they finish school and hopefully are

going into something that they are hoping is supportive, they end up with credit cards,

they end up with any type of credit. Anybody does, when you have a family and you are

trying to support the family, because your outlook is good. This particular couple had a

good outlook. They thought both of them would be working within a two-year period. It's

not a situation they expected to find themselves in. As a matter of fact, the lady had a

full-time teaching job in the beginning, but of course with the lay-off of teachers she

lost her job, ended up substitute teaching, and the husband was just getting a spot of

work here and there.

When they got that spot of work when they came from university is when

their debt started. They had their debt under control as far as the student loans go, when

they finished their degrees. It's afterwards, when they thought they were going to be

getting jobs, they bought their home, and they figured they would be working in two years.

The lady who was teaching thought she had a permanent job. Of course, with the seniority

and everything she got bumped out of that position. Like any other couple when they have

children, they started to believe their jobs were going to give them enough money to

survive on, and they started to go into a way of life.

They readily admit, by the way - and this is only one example. Everyone

is particular, every example specific to that couple, or maybe it's an individual or

whatever. In this particular case I was just explaining that up to June of this year this

gentleman could do that. It's the last thing he wanted to do. The reality is that now he

has to claim bankruptcy. He plans to leave the Province and leave his wife and children

here until he gets situated in Alberta. I guess at the end of the day they will have to

move there.

Mr. Chairman, I suppose the point of it all is that there is a build-up

of debt. There is nobody who can deny that. There is a 300 per cent difference in tuition

in the last five or six years. I'm not sure of the statistic exactly. The provincial

grants have gone. I'm one person in this House of Assembly - and I think my colleague for

Kilbride is still paying his student debt. I finished mine a couple of years ago, but the

Leader is still paying some of his student debt.

I was one of the students in here who attended Memorial University for

some five years. The provincial grant money we got, it wasn't a lot of money, but for a

person in my situation, when it came to the end of my loan - and we aren't all that

responsible when we are in school. I know I could have been more responsible with my money

when I was a twenty-year-old in here in St. John's for the first time. I knew I could have

been more responsible with it, but when you are a young person in school, you are not.

That provincial grant, when my loan ran out, when I could go down to

the Thompson Student Centre and get that $1,200 or $1,400 at the end of a term, that was

the make or break for my term. That's what pushed me over the top, when you went down and

got that provincial grant. Even if it was $500, it was something from the provincial

government in the Province that said: Here, we know these are tough times, we know that

tuition is high, we know you can do something with that? We know it is something you can

work on.

That was a commitment, no matter how small or how large, it was

something you could work on. It was some kind of incentive from the provincial level that

showed you that the government was caring about you again, showed you that they were

interested that you were doing your education. It was not a lot of money.

I am trying to remember exactly the amounts. Maybe when the Member for

Kilbride comes back he can refresh my memory. It was a few years back for me. I graduated

in 1987, some eleven years ago now, but when I received that provincial grant money, as

little as it was, it meant a lot to me. I know people who lived with me in my residence,

and apartments here in St. John's, who even got less, depending on their income and their

families and so on. I think they used to get like $400 and $500 of provincial grant money.

But it is not the amount of money; it is just knowing that the provincial government was

throwing in that little bit to get you over the hump for the next part of the semester. I

know it because I lived it. With all due respect, I did not have the support of my family

because they just did not have the money, so I put myself through university through

summer jobs and so on.

What I am saying is, that little bit of provincial grant money, whether

it was a kicker from the provincial government, it was just a little incentive, it was a

little sign, that the provincial government was committed to the student. I am going to

tell you, whether it was $400 or $1,200, at the end of the term when you saw no groceries

left and you knew you had to buy one more book and you had this other expense that came up

in your classroom while you were in your studies, or you had to buy something else - there

was always something else to buy - $300 or $400 or $500 can make a big difference to a

person in need, Mr. Chairman, when you are a student.

A student's life, if we all think back for a little while and remember,

small amounts of money - it was a funny thing in those days, Mr. Chairman. It seemed like

when you were a student you were very careful over your money. Although you had little

money back then, you always managed to get through and you managed to get the extra books

you had to get. You managed to do the extra things you had to do in order to finish your

courses, whatever it took. If you had to travel a little bit, you did that. But as a

student, Mr. Chairman, you always remember that little thing of when you went to the TSC,

the Thompson Student Centre, upstairs to that office, knowing that you were dry when it

came to your resources for loans and so on, but you knew that little bit of money was

there for a provincial grant. Also, I guess, knowing that you did not have to pay that

back was even a little bit of a boost, Mr. Chairman, a spiritual boost for you as you did

your courses throughout university.

So, Mr. Chairman, it is something that I guess a lot of students in

this Province look at now and say: You had a provincial grant a few years ago. I think it

was 1993, if I am not mistaken. Was it in 1993 that the student provincial grants were

changed? I think it was somewhere in the area of 1993-1994, though, that was changed.

Maybe it was even in 1992. It might have been a bit earlier. I am not sure what year that

was, but I know it was taken out.

I do not remember either the statistic overall of how much that was

costing government on an annual basis. Maybe some of the other members or the Finance

Minister can refresh our memory; I cannot remember exactly how much it was costing the

government. I suppose the whole thing behind it is that now when you look at students, the

statistics we have show that over 400 of the just over 1,200 bankruptcies in Newfoundland

last year - 400 to 500, somewhere in that area - were students who had decided to go for

personal bankruptcy.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the couple of people I have dealt with who filed for

these in the last few weeks certainly never thought they would have to turn to personal

bankruptcy to get back on track. Like you said, a last resort. Then again, others say it

was a second-last resort; they would have to go to welfare. To be making a little bit of

money - of course, all members know here that the amount of money you make, even though it

is a small amount, even welfare is not a last resort because you cannot get there, Mr.

Chairman.

There are people in this Province going around with trades and degrees

and so on who are not working anywhere. A lot of them have left, but I guess the whole

point of the debate is that a key component of any policy of any government in the next

couple years leading up to the millennium change has to be what you do to address the

problem of students leaving the Province, student debts, and student transition into the

workforce. That was my key point that I want to raise today, the transition from student

to workforce. There is a gap there.

The Government House Leader stood, I think it was about three weeks ago

now, and addressed it when I spoke about it, that there was something being worked on by

government. I don't know exactly, he was not very specific. He said he would speak to me

about it, but we have not talked about it since. There was something in the works,

something that government was looking for, where you get that transition so that you are

not demoralized as a student, after doing your degree and you have a debt, that you go to

an employer like Hibernia, or some major industry like that, and they look at you and say:

Yes, your resume looks good, your educational background looks good, but we cannot hire

you because we need experienced people.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is something that would enhance students

ability to be able to stay in this Province if the government had some kind of program, an

entrepreneurship program that basically linked the student from their institution into the

workforce and they could go on from there. That is one aspect of it, Mr. Chairman.

The out-migration in general I want to talk about, besides the fact

that I tied it to the students, was: Yes, there were 9,000 so-called new -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: Do you want to go?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SHELLEY: I will go again after. He wants me?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Chairman, I will yield and let the Member for

Terra Nova have a few words. I will speak again later.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Terra Nova.

MR. LUSH: The hon. member has motivated me to speak.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When I heard the beginning part of the hon. member's speech I was just

hoping that he wasn't speaking at many school graduations in the past little while.

Because the speech was so full of gloom and doom, so manifestly uninspiring, without any

kind of an optimistic philosophy for the future. I don't know how a person could talk in

such demoralizing terms, when we realize today that we live in a world with a population

of in excess of 4 billion people. With all of the needs which it takes to cater to the

needs of these 4 billion people, to say that here in little Newfoundland we have students

who have given up hope? What a demoralizing statement to make, to say we have students who

have given up hope in a world that has so many needs, in a world -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) Newfoundland.

MR. LUSH: Newfoundland is not separate from the world. Newfoundland

is a part of the world, Newfoundland is a part of Canada, and this world has so many

problems!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: I am inviting our young people to take on the challenge

to help with the solution to these problems throughout the world.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: With the technology we have today, the starving people,

the environmental problems, right throughout the world, and to look at young people and

say they have lost all hope. I would like to challenge these young people to stand and

take advantage of the challenges in Canada.

The hon. gentleman mentioned that they were in Alberta, that they were

in Ontario paying off their student loans, as if there was some great sin to that. Thank

God we have Alberta, thank God we have Ontario!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. LUSH: I have two sons, both of whom worked in other parts of

Canada, because I was glad to see them there, because that is what Canada is about. That

is why we are a part of Canada, Mr. Chairman. I challenge any student who has a student

loan to pay off, and that student can get a job in Alberta, that student can get a job in

Ontario: Take the first plane tomorrow and go there.

Mr. Chairman, that is not to say -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. LUSH: That is the kind of unmitigated twaddle, Mr. Chairman,

that is the kind of humbug, that is the kind of flim-flam that (inaudible) preach to

Newfoundland today. We want optimism spoken to our people. We want to let them know the

challenge that is out there.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

I ask that the hon. member be given the right to debate in silence, as

the other hon. members have been.

MR. LUSH: Mr. Chairman, the truth of the matter is this. Nobody

wants to see our students leave the Province unwillingly. Nobody wants to see our students

leave because -

AN HON. MEMBER: You just told them to get the first flight

tomorrow!

MR. LUSH: That is exactly... If they cannot find a job here to

fulfil themselves, if they cannot find a job here in Newfoundland that meets their needs,

if they can fulfil themselves to the maximum by finding that job, if they can develop

themselves to a maximum by finding the job in Alberta, go there, Mr. Chairman.

It is that kind of nonsense, that insular, parochial nonsense, that

tells people there is a job for them here in Newfoundland, that nobody ever should have to

leave because a government cannot find a job for every student who graduates today,

because the government cannot find a job for every person who is eligible for the

workforce, that somehow the government is failing? What unmitigated nonsense. That is why

we are a part of Canada, and Canada wants to solve the problems of the world. Canada wants

to be a part of the world, and we as Newfoundland want to be a part of that.

Mr. Chairman, that is the kind of comprehensive philosophy, that is the

kind of optimistic philosophy, that is the kind of challenging philosophy, we should be

giving our students today. That is what we should be preaching to our students today, not

that narrow, parochial, insular, uninspiring (inaudible) that young people have lost hope,

young people have given up hope. I expect they do, Mr. Chairman, if that is the kind of

philosophy that has been espoused to the graduating program throughout Newfoundland.

Mr. Chairman, there is nobody more concerned about the student debt

load than this hon. member; nobody. Nobody has put more work in it, in trying to reduce

the student debt load, but we are not going to solve the problem by giving these speeches

of gloom and doom that the hon. member specializes in. No, Mr. Chairman, what we need is

to place before our young people the challenge and the opportunity that Canada provides to

them today for their development, to fulfil themselves, to develop as productive citizens

of Newfoundland - the opportunity. We have never had more opportunity in Canada today than

what we now have, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: In Canada?

MR. LUSH: Yes, in Canada. The hon. gentleman, in his narrow

buttoned-down mind, forgets that Newfoundland is a part of Canada.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LUSH: Mr. Chairman, when I talk to young people, I like to tell

them of the opportunity that is available in Canada today. That is what I tell young

people, and to make sure they train and educate themselves so that they position

themselves so they can get the jobs that are available throughout Canada today, and indeed

throughout Newfoundland.

Now, Mr. Chairman, with respect -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: Order, please!

MR. LUSH: I just want to make a concluding remark, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The Chair is trying to hear the hon. Member for Terra Nova.

MR. LUSH: Okay, Mr. Chairman.

I expect the thing that has the hon. gentlemen all excited in the last

couple of days is that they saw the initiative being taken by Mr. Charest in Quebec. Mr.

Charest has recommended, or has told his flock of people, that when he becomes government

they are going to adopt the income contingency payback plan. I think that is where the

hon. gentlemen got their extra energy in the last couple of days, to come after the

government on its initiatives with respect to student loan.

Mr. Chairman, there is no question, that is a good model. I have been

espousing it for some time, the income contingency payback. It is the fairest way that I

have been able to see. We, on this side, are committed to ensuring that the students of

Newfoundland are not denied access to education, that they are not denied an education,

that they are not denied the opportunity to train for all of the opportunities that are

made available in Canada today. Mr. Chairman, I am sure, I am certain, that when the

economic times are sufficiently turned around so that we have the money to spend, and when

we can sufficiently get the federal government to see eye to eye with us on these student

loan programs, that we are going to see the income contingency plan in this Province. I am

going to be working until such time as we do have it.

Mr. Chairman, with respect to the student debt load -

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. LUSH: I just want to finish by saying, Mr. Chairman, that it is

the greatest problem in Canada today. There is no question about it, the student debt. We

have to put our heads together -

CHAIR: Does the hon. member have leave?

MR. LUSH: We have to put our heads together to ensure that our

students are not loaded with that financial burden that pulls the rug out from under them

before they begin their lives, Mr. Chairman. I want to be with the government that is

going to change that, and I believe I am with the government that is going to change it.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for Baie Verte.

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Chairman, I will say this, I will give the member

a comment to start with, as opposed to the Member for Humber Valley. At least he has the

guts to stand and make a few comments every now and then.

Most times you can stop the heckler in the back. Most times the Member

for Terra Nova gets up and I listen to him on some very good points. I have a lot of

respect for the Member for Terra Nova, I will say. I will say this to the Member for Terra

Nova at the very outset, before I go on with my remarks. He should have had his earphones

in, because obviously the worst thing that can happen - and he is very experienced at this

- with the media, or even debates in this House, if you don't get the whole story you

don't hear it all.

Obviously the Member for Terra Nova never had his earphones in when I

started the conversation about hope and students. I will go back and say again, I will do

another thing. I will commend you again for talking about what Mr. Charest talked about, a

good policy that should be brought in place to protect students. Then I will make this

other point: A 300 per cent increase in tuition in Newfoundland and Labrador today; your

government is not doing a good job, I will simply say to the Member for Terra Nova.

The other one I said, which you did not even mention, was the

provincial grant. I do not need the Member for Terra Nova telling me about getting an

education, because I got it on my own because of circumstances that were there. Like a lot

of members there, and I commend them for doing that. I have no problems with any of that.

What I have a problem with is that the reality is this. If I could use

their names today I would, but I would not certainly in this House without permission. In

the last two weeks I have gone to a bankruptcy firm in this city to deal with two

bankruptcies, one from a student and one from an individual. The student told me - so this

is where you got your remarks wrong - they had given up hope. I just repeated what the

people had said to me. That is all I did. The member should have listened better and he

would not have lost his cool and jumped up and said things he should not be saying in the

House.

By the way, I speak at many graduations. I spoke at one this weekend. I

will give it to you word for word, if you want it. I always talk positive at graduations,

and I try to make sure they have hope in it, I say to the hon. member. I do not need him

to lecture me on being positive to students. As a matter of fact, when I finished teaching

I was given a diploma and a shirt that said positive attitude. I do not need the Member

for Terra Nova telling me about a positive attitude.

I just told him of a circumstance where a couple in this Province with

two degrees in the family looked at me and said they had given up hope and went to

personal bankruptcy in this Province. That is a reality. He can jump up and down all he

likes in this House about the government and what they are doing, and his solution. If you

want a solution, address what Mr. Charest said there. Address the student debt load,

address the entrepreneurship you said you were going to talk about later on. Address all

of those things; then you will be talking about students.

I will go with this member or any member or this government any day in

front of 5,000 students and talk about what I think about students in this Province. You

do not need to tell me about it, about lecturing students, and hope. I give them all the

hope they want, but I give them something else, reality. Don't go giving them

pie-in-the-sky, that Voisey's Bay is going to put you all to work, or Hibernia is going to

put you all to work, and everything else.

What the people in this Province respect, and I found out in my short

time - the member has all the experience - but I found in my short time in this Province,

what works is reality. I believe the Newfoundlander and Labradorian is having a hard time

in this Province, when you sit down at his kitchen table with him and say: There is no

work coming; no, welfare is not going to take care of you any more; no, you can't get

another student loan. I think that when you deal with reality with Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians they accept it, then they make their move.

Don't tell me about going away to all parts of this Province. I have

seven brothers and sisters stretched from Vancouver to Fort McMurray to Labrador. I do not

need the member telling me about people going all over. I will send my son and daughter

away - I hope I do not have to do it - and wish them well and pay for their fare and

everything else if they have to go to Alberta. All I am saying is, I hope they do not have

to go. But I am not willing to give up as quick as that, that we are going to put them on

the plane tomorrow if they can go there.

The other couple, by the way, who had the bankruptcy, had their son and

daughter who were about to leave to go to Alberta. So don't go lecturing me about giving

up on hope.

The member sits down for three or four months, and jumps up because he

heard just one word and did not listen to the rest of it. He should have listened to the

whole thing, I say.

AN HON. MEMBER: Isn't that the same speech that he gave last year?

MR. SHELLEY: The same speech that he gave last year.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: I did not give up hope, but you have to look at

reality too. That is part of the combination to the solution, to explain the reality of it

and try to address the student loan, Mr. Chairman.

Now, the two points I made on it, I believe, were good, Mr. Chairman.

One was the program that the hon. member brought up as Mr. Charest was saying. The second

one is that personal bankruptcy-

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SHELLEY: This is the point I was making. I do not know why you

got on this hope thing. You just picked hope, Mr. Chairman, from one sentence and jumped

on it. I certainly do not go out through the Province, to the gradates, telling them that

there is no hope. I was telling you that the students themselves told me that there was no

hope for them and they had to leave.

It is pretty bad when you are sitting in a personal bankruptcy office,

Mr. Chairman, when a fellow who has a degree and he says he has to go away. Maybe the

member should have come and sat down with me and told that fellow that he had lots of

hope, and that going on the Alberta flight was alright. That is what I was speaking about,

Mr. Chairman, and it bothers me.

I respect the member for saying that nobody cares more about students

or tries to do as much as he can. I have no argument with him there. He probably does, and

he has probably done a lot over the years, especially as he served as a Cabinet minister

and did a good job of it.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: Mr. Chairman, are you hearing any of that? That is

okay, is it?

CHAIR: Order, please! Order, please!

MR. SHELLEY: Can he use that in the House? We were called to order

on it.

Mr. Chairman, I was talking about students and the fact that I had sat

down with two within the past two weeks, which is a fact, and worked with personal

bankruptcy. Because of the change that is coming to the House of Commons by June 10 -

right now a student can go after two years, when they realize that they are going

bankrupt, and declare personal bankruptcy. They do not want to do it, but they have to do

it.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the change is there, as of June 10, if a person

finds himself in that situation he has to wait for ten years before he can declare

personal bankruptcy. That was the only point I was making. That is the change that is

going to be there, whether we like it or not. What I am saying, and what the Leader of the

Opposition was asking the Premier and the Minister of Education, was, under those

circumstances whether they agree that people should be allowed to file for personal

bankruptcy, and what the circumstances are. That is all that I was asking, Mr. Chairman.

Students in this Province - there is going to be a revival of young

people staying here, not going to Alberta because they have to go there, Mr. Chairman.

Now, on the other hand you must be contradicting the Minister of Fisheries because he

stood in this House the other day - and it is in Hansard. You should read that one. Maybe

the member would have jumped up that day.

The Minister of Fisheries jumped up in this House and said that the

11,000 who left last year had an option, they could have stayed here. Now you tell him to

pick ten people out of that 11,000, find their telephone numbers and telephone them in

Fort McMurray and Vancouver, pick up the phone and say: Excuse me. Why did you leave? You

had an option, you could have stayed home. You tell me what kind of response he is going

to get. So, one of you is wrong. Find out who it is.

The Minister of Fisheries said that they had an option. He had an

option, he said. Yes, I did too. I was lucky, I had another option. I was a substitute

teacher. That is what my option was. I had a job offered to me in Oshawa, Ontario, a job

ready to go to, but I decided to stay and try substitute teaching, finally got into a full

position and then ended up in this, for some reason. That is still the thing that I cannot

figure out. I had the perfect job, Mr. Chairman, across the street from my house, phys ed

and music -

AN HON. MEMBER: You can go back to it.

MR. SHELLEY: I might save it for you.

Mr. Chairman, I want to stick to the point here. It is not always an

option. So, which one of you are right? I mean one day one of you got up and blasted over

there, the Minister of Fisheries-

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. SHELLEY: I cannot say that. I should not have to get up and

blow up about this anyway. It is a very sensitive issue for anybody in this Province and

for the member and for my parents when they saw their sons and daughters leaving this

Province. I was not (inaudible): Yes, go to Alberta, boy, good for you. I was saying: Too

bad you have to go. That is what I was saying to them, Mr, Chairman. There should be an

alternative.

I will tell the member, since he has me going on this, another little

story. Maybe he will disagree with this one. I just spoke to a gentleman last week from

Placentia, who just came back to the Placentia area for the third time, because he heard

two years ago that the smelter was announced. This is his third trip back. The first time

that he came back, he pretty well sold off everything that he had. They had smelter

parties all over Argentia. That is what they called them, smelter parties. They are all

coming back: Come back. Bring back your sons, your daughters and your wife. Sell your home

and come back to Argentia. This is his third time back, Mr. Chairman. He has gotten

himself so far in the hole now - his job is not secure where he was before because he quit

to come home, home to Argentia for all the jobs. This is his third time. He said: I am

coming back now, boy, because I have nothing left. I hope that something is going to

happen. He said: What is going to happen with the smelter? I said: I do not know? Nobody

seems to know where it is going.

You talk about pie in the sky announcements, Mr. Chairman, and false

hopes for people! Deal with a Newfoundlander and Labradorian up straight and he will deal

with you; not to give them false hopes and go on and on about the great dreams.

MR. TULK: (Inaudible).

MR. SHELLEY: The Government House Leader is big enough to carry

around false hope. That is for sure. The only false hope here is the Government House

Leader.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

CHAIR: The hon. the Member for St. John's South.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, just a few comments on the Executive Council portion of

the Budget.

Just in looking through the Budget and through our committee meetings

and so on, we have had a number of questions. We have to question parts of the Executive

Council area as well. There are many questions that this side of the House have, many

questions on the Budget, which is why we are going to use up all the time that we are

allotted in the House to debate the Budget itself.

Mr. Chairman, one of the questions that I have to ask - and while it is

not directly related to Executive Council it is to a certain degree, because it is money

that is coming out of the provincial budget, Mr. Chairman, and that is money that we have

put into companies under the EDGE program.

You look at one example, the Call Centre, that we heard just a week and

a half ago was closing its doors. Mr. Chairman, it is ridiculous! The employees of the

Call Centre were doing a fantastic job, and that was admitted by members of this House on

both sides, admitted by the Premier, admitted by the Minister of Industry, Trade and

Technology; that the employees themselves were doing a fantastic job. Yet, as of this

morning, on a call-in radio show, one of the employees said: They still have no idea when

they are going to receive the two weeks and two days pay they are owed.

Mr. Chairman, this raises a lot of alarms and raises a lot of

questions. These employees were dedicated. Some of those employees left good jobs because

they thought the job at the Call Centre was a better job, a long standing job. They were

guaranteed this job for five years, they were led to believe, and now they are stuck eight

months later not knowing where their last cheque is.

These people have mortgages to pay, they have bills to pay, they have

children to feed, they have families and they cannot afford to go without this money.

Moreover, they cannot afford to go without their employment.

This money that we are putting into these EDGE companies, this new call

centre - the government now is looking at putting $1,000,000 into a new call centre, a

call centre that is being operated by one of the partners in the original call centre that

just closed its doors. Government saw fit to put $1,000,000 into this new call centre.

Yet, Mr. Chairman, HRDC, Human Resources and Development Canada, are

holding back their funding for this new call centre pending the review, the audit. Yet

government sees fit to pass out this money, pass it out, Mr. Chairman, because they feel

it is a good project. Yet they are not sure what the outcome of this audit by HRDC is.

Mr. Chairman, it is probably a good project, it is probably a safe

investment, it might be secure, and that raises another question: Why the money put into

the first call centre was just given as a forgivable loan. There was no security taken on

the equipment, the machinery that was purchased, Mr. Chairman, no guarantees to the people

of this Province, the stakeholders, the people who owned the money that was invested; no

guarantees at all, no security on the machinery. Is there security on the machinery in the

second call centre where we are investing money? That is a question that has yet to be

answered, Mr. Chairman.

What we are wondering here really is: After the money is put into the

second call centre, if HRDC find reason not put their investment into the second call

centre, where does that leave the investors, the people of the Province, the taxpayers?

Mr. Chairman, this very same government thought that investing money in

Bre-X was safe and we all saw what happened to the money that they invested in Bre-X. It

was not a safe investment at all. The taxpayers of this Province trusted this government

with their money and they invested it in Bre-X. So we can see the planning and forethought

that is put into investing the people's money, of this Province.

Mr. Chairman, there are companies in this Province with a long-standing

tradition of service, of creating employment, of creating economies in small communities,

even in larger urban centres, that would love to have government funding. In fact, some of

them apply for government funding but are turned down. Now these companies have provided

employment and a base for our economy for decades and decades, yet when they go to

government for funding, government turn these companies down. Yet we are willing to invest

money in a company where we do not know a lot about the company's background. Some of the

companies are, in fact, brand new companies.

Take Abbacom, as an example. We are willing to invest the people's

money in new companies, foreign companies coming into this Province to set up and we do

not know what their track record is like. We have no idea, with some of them, what their

track record is like. Yet our very own companies who are asking for help, who are asking

for government assistance, are turned down.

I had a call from a company representative in Central Newfoundland, Mr.

Chairman, just this morning, and he was talking about the call centre getting $800,000 and

then one of the partners of that very same call centre getting $1 million to start a

second call centre. He went to government only a couple of years ago to start up a brand

new company in Central Newfoundland where there is no other such company in that area, to

create employment in that area. He went to two or three departments throughout the

provincial government, he even went to ACOA and was turned down for funding. That is a

local company, Mr. Chairman, a company that is in business but wanted to expand into a new

business, with a new idea to create employment. He was turned down and he was wondering

why our government is willing to give foreign companies, foreigners coming in to start up

a new business in this Province, money, when he could not access money and he lives in

Newfoundland and has lived here all his life, is creating employment here and wanted to

expand. He has an existing company here, a company that feeds our economy.

I could not tell him why he was turned down. I told him I would look

into it for him. But now, while it has not yet been confirmed, he finds out that a

competitor of his, in St. John's, is being given funding for the exact, same purpose for

which he was turned down just a couple of years ago on his application for funding. So

this was even of greater concern to him because he had applied for funding and now, only a

couple of years later, government is willing to put the funding for which he was turned

down, into a competitor's operation that will create competition for him; a company

already creating employment in this Province.

Mr. Chairman, we have to look at: Are there any other areas where

government can benefit these companies, companies with a long-standing tradition of solid

service, solid employment and a solid base for our economy here in this Province? What can

we do to help these companies? The answer is fairly clear: It is something that our Party

has advocated strongly since the payroll tax was brought in, and that is to eliminate the

payroll tax or at least make strong cuts to the payroll tax. Now we saw some small cuts to

the payroll tax in this year's Budget, but it is not enough.

You look at the money that is invested into EDGE companies, you look at

the success rate, the employment that is generated as a result of EDGE companies, and you

look at the long-standing companies that have kept this economy in our Province going for

years, decades, some of them in excess of a century, and what can we do to reward these

companies? Remove the payroll tax or at least make strong cuts to the payroll tax, Mr.

Chairman.

If you look at the money that we are investing in EDGE companies and

the employment that is created there, if you work it out and eliminate the payroll tax and

look at the employment that would be generated as a result of eliminating the payroll tax,

for our own local companies as opposed to just eliminating it for foreign companies coming

in to set up, Mr. Chairman, I am sure that we would create a heck of a lot of employment.

Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, over and above the benefits of creating

employment by eliminating the payroll tax, if you look at the equalization payments and

the claw-backs to the equalization payments based on the fact that we are collecting a

payroll tax because it does affect our equalization payments as well - if we were to

eliminate the payroll tax, not only would we create employment, Mr. Chairman, but we would

eliminate some of the claw back due to equalization payments because of the fact that we

are collecting payroll tax.

CHAIR: Order, please!

The hon. member's time is up.

MR. T. OSBORNE: By leave. Just a couple of minutes, Mr. Chairman,

to clue up.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

CHAIR: By leave.

MR. T. OSBORNE: Just a couple of minutes, thank you.

So, Mr. Chairman, if we were to eliminate the payroll tax the benefits

are two-fold; we would create employment here and we reward the companies with a long

standing tradition of service and employment; the companies that are driving the economy

in this Province. An added bonus, we will save on the claw back on our equalization

payments because every dollar we collect on payroll tax, Mr. Chairman, affects the

equalization payments. We are clawed back on equalization payments based on the taxes that

we collect, the revenue that we collect in this Province.

So, Mr. Chairman, maybe we can look at eliminating or making further

deductions to the payroll tax. The Canadian Independent Business Association are

advocating the same thing, Mr. Chairman. The Board of Trade are advocating the same thing.

If you look at