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March 11, 2026 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS Vol. LI No. 7

The House met at 10 a.m.

SPEAKER (Lane): Order, please!

Admit strangers.

Government Business

SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

L. PARROTT: Thank you, Speaker.

Order 5, second reading of Bill 5.

SPEAKER: Order 5, second reading of Bill 5.

The hon. the Member for Virginia Waters - Pleasantville.

B. DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m honoured to stand here today even if the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay don’t want me to. Listening to him yesterday, I found it really funny that he said, because we’re all supportive of the bill, we should just not say anything. I think that’s counterintuitive to what we all believe in. I think people in our district elected us to have a say. I know the hon. Speaker used to stand in the House of Assembly every day in his space, every piece of legislation, and say I’m just going to go on for a minute to put my name on the record, I think was his line, and not without question, went 20 minutes, almost every time.

So I do want to take the opportunity to put my two cents’ worth in for the seven-cent reduction that we’re talking about here today. It’s not a reduction – I want to be very clear to the people of this province, because Members opposite have said it’s a reduction. It’s not actually a reduction. It’s maintaining the status quo.

Over the past number of years, probably since 2022, we on this side of the House, when we were on the other side of the House, thought it was important, for the people of this province, to reduce the gas tax. We did that and this was a lever we had to do that, with this piece of legislation that we’re talking about.

Almost a year ago to the day, we were debating this very topic in this House of Assembly. Although we were on the other side, we were doing the exact same thing that these Members are doing today, almost exactly the same, the thing that they’re doing here today, which we agree with on this side, and many of my colleagues have said it, that we’re going to make it permanent. We would have made it permanent as well, had the federal government allowed that to be the case, to not force us to have the backstop which was existing at the time.

A year ago –

L. PADDOCK: (Inaudible.)

SPEAKER: Order, please!

B. DAVIS: I thank the hon. Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay for reminding me, because last year around this time, there was a change in leadership at the federal government. Almost to the day, this week, I think, Prime Minister Carney was elected leader of the Liberal Party federally, and then came into an election in April. This legislation was passed, I think, on March 10 last year. Prime Minister Carney didn’t even take office until after that point. The carbon tax was not paused until April – or stopped in April, so we could not do it.

Facts do matter in this House of Assembly, and it’s very clear that facts do matter –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

B. DAVIS: – but I am standing here very happy to be speaking to gas tax Bill 5,

An Act to Amend the Revenue Administration Act No. 2. I thank all hon. Members that had the opportunity to get up and talk about the cost of living that we’ve all been seeing from our constituents, the concerns that come forward with this. One of the things that is very interesting about this piece of legislation and the fact that we’re holding fast on maintaining the reduction that was put in place in 2022, is that it’s going to help. There’s no doubt.

There is no doubt that the people in this province, had this legislation not been done, gas would have gone up. There’s no doubt about that. We had done it since 2022, and we were going to do it again this year and next year and the year after. It’s like this, maybe this year we would have had the ability to do it permanent, just like we’re doing here and we’re having the ability to stand up and support.

We agree that anything we can do to make certainty – and one of the comments that I think the Member for Harbour Main mentioned was certainty. In one of her speaking opportunities yesterday, she talked about certainty, and I agree. It’s always nice when you can have businesses or individuals have certainty in what is going to be coming at them in the future.

We all know that the world changes on a daily basis internationally when the gentleman south of the border decides to invade a country or bomb a country or try to add stability or instability to the world. Gas prices are no different than that. They go up and down significantly. We’ve seen massive increases that we haven’t seen since the early ’80s. We understand that. We think that’s important. We also think there’s an opportunity for us to do things for all of us. We hear that term in this House an awful lot, for all of us across this province.

I am happy to stand representing Virginia Waters and I’ll take a page out of what the MHA for Cape St. Francis says, it’s a beautiful district that I happen to represent, great people, but they have concerns too. They bring them forward on a regular basis like they do to all, I would venture to guess, 40 Members in this House of Assembly. They bring them forward. It’s our job to ask those questions and hopefully get answers. We haven’t seen a lot of that lately, but hopefully that will get better. We’re all learning our roles.

But one of the things that I think is interesting when individuals get to ask a question is they said, I’ve got calls from my constituents saying okay, this piece of legislation is coming forward that you’re talking about in the House of Assembly – because some people watch the House of Assembly, which is great. They’re not all from Bonavista that watch the House of Assembly, but there is some from Virginia Waters as well, and I would venture to guess some in Cape St. Francis.

One of the things that they’re asking me is, well, what’s changing in this? I said nothing. Virtually your life will be no different today than it will be tomorrow when this legislation passes. There will be no difference. The only change is that a piece of legislation that we have brought in place since 2022 will be permanent, meaning that it won’t change at all.

But when we say permanent in the House of Assembly, I’d like everyone to be reminded that the House of Assembly is like a time machine. It’s like a time machine. You can change anything at any time, as long as 40 Members bring forward a piece of legislation, vote on it, and they can retroactively change things. They can go back and fix this next week. If you wanted to change it, you could. That’s what the House of Assembly is. So to say something is permanent, it’s as permanent as it can be, which is a good thing.

So when they ask the question: Is my gas going to be seven cents cheaper tomorrow when this legislation passes? I said, no, because it’s not going to be. Had we done nothing, the legislation would have went away on March 31, and then gas would have gone up by seven cents, no doubt – well, 8.5 cents. It would have went up, there’s no doubt about that.

What we’re doing is we’re doing a status quo piece of legislation. It’s not going to hurt the people of this province, absolutely not, but it’s not going to make their lives any more affordable than it is today. I just want that to be clear and on the record.

We all know that the upward pressure that we’re facing on fuel and all cost-of-living items, whether it be groceries or items that we’re purchasing, that the hon. Member for St. John’s East - Quidi Vidi has mentioned, on a regular basis, clothing for children, essentials. We all know that we live on an island and a very big piece of property called the Big Land. It’s very expensive to move things around this province. So any time fuel is increasing, the cost of everything is going to go up. It may take a little bit of time.

I heard the president of Akita Equipment talking on the radio yesterday, and he said that his business is going to go up significantly. His costs are going to go up significantly because gas has gone through the roof, and diesel in particular for him. He said that trickle-down effect will happen very quickly to the goods and services that we all have to buy in the supermarkets or the grocery stores or the Avalon Mall or the Riff’s store in your local community.

I think it’s very important on all of us to understand that we, as a House of Assembly, should look to do as much as we possibly can with legislation when we have it before us.

A couple of weeks ago, when the upheaval in the Middle East was occurring, and continues to occur right now, oil tends to move very quickly when those actions happen. I think currently oil is at $91.87 US per barrel, and I think the Finance Minister – I see him nodding over there, because he always listens intently, as the Member for Cape La Hune always says.

E. LOVELESS: Fortune Bay - Cape La Hune.

B. DAVIS: Fortune Bay - Cape La Hune, sorry. My apologies.

I do think that the Finance Minister would be pleasantly surprised at the change in oil prices for the financials of the province; obviously not for the people that we represent, but the financials of the province.

That could mean somewhere in the tune of about a half a billion dollars to the Treasury of this province, if it was maintained for the full year. I’m going to be clear, because I’m not going to stand up here and say something that’s not factual, it needs to be maintained for the year.

We all know that that’s not going to be the way it is – well, we hope it’s not – but that money should be utilized and there should be a way, and I’ve seen the Facebook posts from the then Leader of the Opposition, now Premier of the province, talking about that the premier of the day has the ability to move gas prices more effectively based on what’s happening in the marketplace.

So I would hope that, based on the windfall that’s occurring right now for the provincial Treasury, they would consider some of those things that would be in place. I’m not suggesting by no stretch that that windfall is going to be sustained, I just think that when gas prices move in the way they have moved, we, as province, should consider all options on the table on how we can help mitigate some of those moves with fuel prices for the people that we all represent.

Those are the concerns that I get calls on. Those are the concerns that I’m sure every one of my colleagues are receiving right now when any one of our constituents go to the pumps, whether it be a spike of 12 cents or 14 cents or 16 cents, whatever it is, it’s challenging for people during a challenging time for everyone. We’ve all heard that.

I go could on. I know there are more people that want to speak today and we do want to get to the debate on that. I haven’t seen the Speaker move his hands to gesture me to finish up yet, but I’m very excited that we all get the opportunity to speak to this piece of legislation.

All of us, and I’ve heard many conversations from my colleagues, both new and returning Members to the House of Assembly, but I get the opportunity to hear some pretty cool things that are happening in their district when we get the opportunity to debate or have conversations. So I will always say to the individuals that, when a piece of legislation comes forward, I think we can all stand to learn from each other about the concerns that our constituents are facing, the things that are happening within our districts.

Whether it be a fantastic piece of legislation about an advocate or whether it’s a piece of legislation that we’re talking about here today, about gas tax and the effects that it has on each and everyone of us, although the effects maybe felt differently in each district, they are felt.

On this side of the House, I know we support the idea of what we’re doing here today. I think, we could do more. Hopefully we’ll see how that translates over the coming days and weeks as we lead into a budget process, but I do say, Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this today. I look forward to hearing from other Members.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Government Services and Labour.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

M. GOOSNEY: Thank you, Speaker.

I just want to take a second here, it’s my first chance to speak to a bill.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

M. GOOSNEY: It’s an honour to stand here, but just bear with me for a few seconds, Colleagues, please because I really have to take this in. It wasn’t long ago that I was wearing coveralls when I worked in oil and gas as a tradesperson. I pumped a lot of gas as a teenager.

To stand here to speak about this and to speak about the tax of who removed and who didn’t remove, I think the greatest story here is that it is removed and the fact that people are hurting. We hear it all the time. We talk about grocery prices. We talk about the effect of the realities of where we are in economic times.

I, myself, personally have no issue saying this, but when I go into a grocery store, I come out angry, and that’s wrong. The size of this province, our demographics, our geography, especially in my district and the larger districts, you can’t just hop over to a Superstore. Like, I noticed here in St. John’s, everything seems to be a reach away but it impacts every part of our daily lives.

On a good note, Mr. Speaker, we’re very fortunate with the oil and gas in our province. The projects that we have announced that are coming forward have already created hype. I can remember growing up, getting into trades, Hibernia, all the projects that were here. I think sometimes we have to take a moment to look around us and see how fortunate we are to have the resources that we do.

Hibernia, Terra Nova, Hebron, White Rose, I get to hear a lot of those names where I’m in lodging at the hotel, and its mostly offshore workers. I had the opportunity to go offshore years ago and I didn’t take it, Mr. Speaker, because I was too scared. That’s because it’s extremely dangerous work, and I don’t think every time that we go to fill up our gas, even with the price and the expense to us all, that we really understand the importance of and the respect that we need to pay to offshore oil workers and oil workers general.

It’s an extremely, extremely dangerous industry. I just want to say hats off and thank you to those fine folks for what they do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

M. GOOSNEY: Opposition has heard it, when our Premier says we’re back in the oil business, that’s a fact, folks. That’s a fact. Because the reality is, since 2015 – and I watch federal politics, geoglobal politics all over – and a former prime minister came talking juice boxes or paper and all these things, the oil and gas conversation went away. It really did. I could get into paper straws and all those things.

But the reality is the prosperity of speaking of oil and gas, which creates our existence – because we don’t exist without it. I would challenge anyone, as I have with friends in environment, to look 360 degrees and I can show you every

part is a by-product of fossil fuel. It really hit me in the hospital when my late father was there, and his oxygen machine was going and the tubes were running to keep his oxygen going, and I’m thinking, you’re not going to do that without oil and gas.

I think we really need to take a pause to see the benefit of this resource in our province. For our government to be able to keep the gas tax off, this isn’t about who did it or who didn’t or the fact as the Member opposite said, you know, I get it. It looks as if this government comes in and we’re taking all the hype and the goodness out of what work might have been done before, and what was not done, but we’re focused, as in our platform, on making things affordable for all of us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

M. GOOSNEY: I’m not an economist, but I’ve watched a lot of debate in this House, and the reality of to maintain balance when the price of oil goes up and the barrel goes up, the coffers get better. Does the price hurt you at the pump? Absolutely. But it’s initiatives like this that can continue to give people some hope. Because why? Hearing other people’s experience. The more we can do, and the more I know we look forward to doing to help people, happens here.

This is where the change is made. Just as the Member opposite said with legislation, it’s revolving evolution. This is what we’re here for, to improve the lives of others.

Mr. Speaker, I could stand here probably way too long to speak about keeping taxes lower for citizens as much as possible. I think it’s fair to say we’re all open to ideas on how you balance the Treasury and how you have a prosperous society that allows us to have funds for education, health care, roads, infrastructure.

At a municipal level, it’s a much smaller budget – much smaller – but similar. It’s how you balance it. A benefit for taxpayers on a municipal level – some could say it’s a benefit, some could say it’s a harm – is that you have to have a balanced budget. I can honestly say with the team surrounded here with me, we’re going to work towards that and, as the Premier has stated numerous times, it won’t be on the backs of the citizens.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

M. GOOSNEY: Mr. Speaker, something is happening. I’ve asked former leaders around provincially that I know – like I said, I’ve been involved in politics – reaching out, interested in solutions and how do we do better. It always comes back to oil and gas. There’s no way around it. Land, sea, air, everything that you see, everything comes around it and it’s a very important start and a very important step that this is now removed permanently. It’s in the best interest of all taxpayers and all citizens that we maintain this.

Mr. Speaker, I’m going to sit down now but before I do, I just want to say it might take me a little while to settle in here because this still feels surreal to know that I sit here, I stand here and I get to speak here and work with my team and all these colleagues in this province for all of us.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Placentia - St. Mary’s.

S. GAMBIN-WALSH: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, I think I’m going to take over your role now and just get on the record here today and speak about this very, very important topic. We’re debating Bill 5,

An Act to Amend the Revenue Administration Act No. 2, today in the House of Assembly. It’s a very important act and, in fact, as one of my colleagues alluded to it was exactly, I believe, just a year ago we were standing in this House introducing a very similar bill. This is the concept in relationship to what we introduced a year ago, Speaker.

It’s very important for the District of Placentia - St. Mary’s and for any rural district in this province, this particular bill. It doesn’t change things today, but it does make things more permanent. But as one of my colleagues alluded to here also, there are 40 of us here in the House of Assembly and at any point in time we can introduce legislation and change a bill or introduce a new bill.

But the fact that this seven cents is going to stay off, given the climate of today’s environment and especially now that we are going into the spring of the year when harvesters will be getting ready to go fishing again, and the price of fuel definitely impacts their bottom line, Speaker.

Keeping this off the gasoline, people are not going to see a difference. There’s going to be no difference in today, but if this was to go back on, I can assure you, they will see a difference. The difference they are seeing right now is the fact that affordability is a major, major issue.

Just in relationship to some of the government Members when we stand up over here as Opposition, and Speaker, this is relevant. There’s a poem that’s called “First They Came”, and the last stanza says “Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.” Well, I can assure the general public that the 18 of us over here on this side are definitely here in an Opposition role to speak for the public, and we will stand and we will talk on everything that the government brings in, Mr. Speaker. We will represent the people –

AN HON. MEMBER: It’s our job.

S. GAMBIN-WALSH: Yes, it’s our job. It’s definitely our job.

When fuel goes up, groceries go up, construction costs go up, the cost of doing business goes up, everything goes up except your pay, except that cheque that you receive every two weeks or once a month for seniors, the pensions. That doesn’t go up. That seldom goes up, but the government coffers do go up when the price of oil goes up, so they do have more money.

There is an expectation on this side of the House that with that money, they will in fact stay true to the Blue Book, Speaker, and they will impact people’s lives with the affordability issue, that they will do more, that they’ll make life more affordable. Some ideas, some things that they could do, Mr. Speaker, are index income support rates. That’s something that could be done, indexing income support rates. Another thing that could be done is making food more affordable.

So, Speaker, in rural Newfoundland, access to public transportation, in my particular district, is just about nil. I think there’s one program in Placentia that a housing and homelessness organization there runs that provides some transportation, but other than that, throughout the district, there’s some taxis that run packages back and forth to St. John’s, but otherwise 99 per cent of people have to rely on their own personal transportation, going to the gas tank, putting that money, paying it out for the gas, and just seeing the money being drained out of their pockets as gas goes up.

The distance to travel is a huge issue. People have to go for medical. It’s not a luxury. Travel is not just a luxury in the District of Placentia - St. Mary’s, it is mandatory. It is a necessity. A lot of people go back and forth to St. John’s for work and, you know, you’ve got to pay. You’re constantly going to the fuel pumps paying for your gas.

Like I said, groceries are going up and we really can’t afford for groceries to go much higher, Mr. Speaker. We really can’t.

Another colleague here said we shouldn’t be talking about Muskrat Falls. Well, we do need to talk about Muskrat Falls because we do need to talk about facts and Muskrat Falls is a fact. It’s a reality. It’s a cost and 2030 is not that far away – four years away – and we’re going to have to deal with the rate mitigation again. A lot of people forget about that because we’re dealing with it and we’re addressing it, but in 2030 that’s going to be an issue.

As we continue to debate Bill 5 here today, it’s a good thing, there’s no doubt. The government putting this in permanently is a good thing, but it’s not going to change people’s lives. It is absolutely not going to change their lives. It would change their lives if it went back on, it would make them a lot worse, but it’s not going to make them better.

Like I said, the money that they’re going to receive from the price of oil going up will allow them to make people’s lives a bit better and we will be looking for that in the new provincial budget. We will be expecting it and we’ll be looking for measures that line up with the Blue Book.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Arts.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

A. BARBOUR: Good morning, Speaker.

This is my first time getting up, standing and talking on a bill, so it’s very exciting.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

A. BARBOUR: Let’s talk about the rural reality of the Northern Peninsula, my district.

The travel to the Northern Peninsula is long, it’s a long road and this is where high prices on gas do affect the Northern Peninsula, the people in the district. Lowering the tax on gas and diesel is going to be a big impact for the communities, the families and seniors up there.

I know, for example, I have friends and family up there that recently had a baby and living in St. Anthony on the Northern Peninsula. Okay, you have a baby. It’s not like you live in a city. You need a stroller, you need a playpen, you need diapers, you need a lot of essentials. What happens is you have to travel; you have to travel to Corner Brook. You can buy some things on the Northern Peninsula, but there are not a lot of options. When you do, it does cost more and the reason being is because of fuel. This gas tax is going to bring down the cost on the fuel.

I know from experience, I’ve worked at a gas station. I was actually the first female gas attendant on the Northern Peninsula.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

A. BARBOUR: So I know personally that gas goes up and down and up and down, daily and weekly. So you can’t predict where the gas prices are going to be because it’s based on the economy and everything that’s going on globally. But there is one thing that we can do, as our new government, is to reduce that gas tax permanently, being the lowest in Canada for gas and the second for diesel.

I also want to mention, too, when I was going around knocking on doors, I was talking to a lot of seniors. There are a lot of seniors on the Northern Peninsula and there was one family that stuck out to me a lot. It was a couple, I’d say they were in their late 70s and they were living cheque to cheque. They needed their bridge fixed and they needed their roof fixed but they never had the money to do it.

Everything comes back to gas because everything up there is affected by gas and this is going to be a big impact on the cost of things that are available because the cost of living up on the Northern Peninsula – the fuel prices, the prices affect everything from groceries to construction material, tourism, transportation, small business operators and when gas goes up, the cost of living goes up. This gas tax is going to change that for a lot of people on the Northern Peninsula.

Being the Minister of Tourism, Culture, Arts; and Recreation, and coming from a district that relies on the tourism industry, I’ve been involved in the tourism industry ever since I was a teenager and I worked at the Grenfell Historical Society, as a tour guide. I’ve met thousands and tens of thousands of tourists, visitors coming here and a lot of them come off the cruise ships. A lot of people coming off cruise ships don’t spend a lot of money, but there is money that comes in from the ports and it’s advertising because a lot of people who come to the Island on the cruise ship, return. So when they do return, they face the cost of fuel.

I think a lot of people, they plan their trip to the province and they don’t realize how big the province is. I know people that come here for a week. They want to go from St. Anthony to the top of Labrador, to St. John's and everywhere, and they’re like, I can’t do it in a week. You can’t do it. So they plan their trip and then they come back again.

So fuel does play a big role here because I know there are people who are like: the Northern Peninsula, it’s pretty far up there, right? What do we have? Well, we have L’Anse aux Meadows, the Viking settlement – people loves it. They come up and they dress up with their hats on and they’re dancing around. They come up for the feasts at the Lightkeeper’s Café and then they discover other things while they’re there. We have the Northland Discovery Boat Tour, there are outfitters in the summer and the winter and the restaurants – there is a new restaurant that opened in Port Saunders there just a few days ago. There was a church that was redone and turned into a little suite so you can go up.

Right now, in Port Saunders, all the seals came in there last week. The seals came in the bay and they all had their baby pups. There are whitecoats everywhere up there and people are coming from all over just to go to the Northern Peninsula. They’re not really thinking about the gas. They’re thinking about the baby seals, and they loves it.

But it all comes back to gas. Like I said, when I was at the gas station years ago, it was going up and down then; it’s going up and down now. I had people coming up, they wanted $5 worth of gas because that’s all they could afford, because they wanted to get to work.

Then you talk about work. Well, St. Anthony has a lot of industry and that on the Northern Peninsula, so there are people that drive an hour, drive two hours to get to St. Anthony to work.

So, again, the gas tax is going to help the people there, the workers. It’s helping new families. It’s helping seniors. It’s helping workers. It’s helping with people that have tourism industries, truck drivers, fishing vessels. Delivery services are all impacted. Small businesses already operate on a tight margin. So I see this as a positive change. The fuel tax increases their costs and it can slow economic growth in rural regions.

In all fairness, rural Canadians should not be penalized by their geography, so bringing this in is going to be huge. It’s going to be huge for the Northern Peninsula. It’s going to help. The Progressive Conservative government here, we’re all about making things more affordable, lowering taxes and this is where it all plays in.

We know that the Newfoundland and Labrador tourism industry is one of the most valuable assets contributing right now to our economy – $1.4 billion to the economy annually and employing over 20,000 people. You have 20,000 people in the province that are involved in tourism, that’s 10 per cent of the working class. They’re all affected by the gas tax.

I just think this is a positive change to make this permanent and I am for this 100 per cent. I loves it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Grand Bank.

P. PIKE: Thank you, Speaker.

It’s great to be able to stand here today in this hon. House representing the wonderful people of the District of Burin - Grand Bank.

Yes, there’s a lot of talk in my district, as in all of our districts, about the high cost of fuel at the pumps. I guess the other part of that is, in talking to people in my district, the cost of buying an electric vehicle is still very high. There are not enough charger stations on the Island, especially in my district and the whole of the Burin Peninsula to sustain that kind of buying by our residents. So when you look at it, it’s something that we’re going to be stuck with for a long time.

We have to look at as well, I mean, out on the Burin Peninsula I get a lot of feedback on the cost of living. Of course, what we’re doing here in the House, with this bill, is certainly going to put a lot of people at ease. As my colleagues have already spoken to in this House, they won’t see any difference tomorrow or the next day in the cost of fuel, but there will be a sense of relief when it becomes permanent. That was something that this government had planned to do anyways, but it’s still good to have it done

We’ve got to look at the affordability as well, and a lot of people today have mentioned seniors. I speak to seniors a lot. I go to all the seniors’ events in my district. I’ve gone to the 50+ Federation meetings and annual conferences and so on and I speak to a lot of seniors. Cost of living is certainly something that they feel is very, very important and, you know, they are impacted.

As I’ve talked about in the House the last time, I think, I stood, I talked about a family that needs house repairs. Because of the regulations around how much funding you can get if you need to do a house repair and you qualify, you look at $500 and then you have to wait seven years to get more funding, and that’s wrong. That’s something that we intended to look at, and I hope it’s going to be looked at in this year’s budget, is that we look at increasing thresholds for our seniors.

When I think back to my days at CSSD, I think about the Opposition at that time and the way we talked about trying to help people who are less fortunate in our community. We talked about families and we talked about increasing the income for families. We brought in the school food programs, which certainly was a big help. Changes to the Child Benefit rates, certainly something that we were very proud of. Persons with disabilities, what a great thing that was. Like, $400 per month for persons with disabilities. Another $100 for the disability tax credit. Absolutely wonderful and very well received.

We have to make a difference in everybody’s lives, but especially those who are homeless. We did a lot of work there. We created a lot more spaces there for our homeless people and we’re seeing a difference now. We didn’t see any encampments this year, and that was due to the fact that we put a lot of time and energy and funding into making sure that wouldn’t happen.

We increased the benefits for those on income support. For example, if you’re living with someone and that person was receiving social supports, then there would be no clawbacks and so on. We increased the actual rates for those people that were single and living with other people, paying rent and so on. We did a lot of work there, and it’s something that this government is very proud of, and we should be.

The whole idea around child care, just think about it. I know families that have three children in child care – $30 a day, $150 a week, it’s phenomenal. It’s making such a difference in the lives of people in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is. It allows people to go to work.

The problem is, as I see it, I live in rural Newfoundland and we don’t have enough of those seats in rural Newfoundland. I know people, for example, that work in the fish plant, husband-and-wife teams working in fish plants. When the plant opens, when they have to get child care, they have to go to a home environment or get somebody to come in to look after their child. We don’t help them, but they have to go to work. A large portion of their salaries go back to help child care. That cycle has to stop somehow. We need more child care spaces in rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

Oil to Electric, you know, great program – I know a lot of people in my district have switched from oil to electric, and they love it. In most cases, the $22,000 covers it, covers the cost, but for our seniors and people with older homes, the first thing that has to happen is they have to upgrade their electrical, which adds another $6,000 to $8,000, on average, to the cost.

So even though this program is a great program, and us, with the federal government, are doing wonderful things for people who need it, but it’s not helping those people who don’t have that $6,000 to $8,000 to put into it. We still have people that rely on oil only, and would love to switch. Thinks there would be nothing better than being able to switch, but they can’t. We need to take care of those people.

Keeping our seniors at home, so important – so important. I know we all know people that say, listen, I’m not going into a home. I’m staying in my own home. This is where my husband and I or my wife and I lived, and this is where I want to stay. This is where I feel most comfortable. I can have my family in to visit. This is what they want. And that’s what we want. We want that for everyone.

But the cost of that is hurting our seniors to no end – the cost. Because if you get home care, there’s a contribution that has to be made. I know people that have 30 hours of home care a week, that are paying upwards of $800 a month. We need to intervene there. I know people that have loved ones in long-term care units, long-term care facilities in my district – actually, I read a letter from one this morning – that are being charged $800 to $900 a month.

Now, just think about it. You and your partner are living together. You have an annual income, both of you, and that takes care of you, of your bills, of your heat bills, of your gas bills, it takes care of all of that. But all of a sudden one of you have got to go into a home. When you go into the home, to a long-term care facility, you have to pay upwards to $800, $900 per month to have your loved one there. So all of a sudden your ability to stay in your own house is undermined. It’s something you can’t afford to do. You can’t afford to stay there.

Plus, these long-term care facilities that exist in rural Newfoundland, they’re probably an hour’s drive or longer from your home to that facility. You can’t afford to get there with the price of gas today. Instead of going to see your loved one every second day or every day, you’ve got to cut it back to twice a week. That’s not right. It’s not right.

With this windfall that we are now receiving, government is receiving because of the high price of gas, we should put that directly back into helping these people, right away, today.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. PIKE: Not wait for the budget, today.

We also know and talk about tourism in our great province. It’s going to have a big impact and we have so many not-for-profits and actual businesses that rely on the tourism industry. We have so many. We need to bring the price of fuel to a level that people will be able to travel around our province.

Our province is vast. For me, for example, I have 21 communities in my district. It takes me a day to go around to these communities. It takes me a day. If our parks are going to be full this summer, then we’re going to need to look at fuel prices, because you won’t be able to afford to tow a trailer behind your vehicle, for sure.

In St. Lawrence where I live, we have a mine. The mine has been working and it’s hiring people from not only St. Lawrence and the Burin Peninsula, but all over the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador and through the rest of Canada. They are feeling the pinch of the fuel increases. They budgeted for this year on a certain level of gas, the same as everybody else, even in your own household, but they’ve budgeted for fuel. What is going to happen now? Will they have to do layoffs at that mine in order to pay the high cost of fuel? Will the actual production be affected, so they are going to lose profits?

We have to consider all of those. It is not only mining, it’s all of industry, but we’re going to have to take a look at that as well.

Our towns, we’re going to have to look at probably increasing our MOGs. Why not increase the MOG if costs are going up for towns? A lot of our towns right now are struggling with the cost of living, but maybe we might have to look at the MOGs to adjust them with the fuel increases. I’m sure the minister is already thinking about that.

I think this bill is a good bill and I will certainly be supporting it. I thank you for the opportunity to go on record as well today to speak to this very important issue.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Labrador West.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. POWER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It’s a pleasure here to stand up and represent the fine folks of Labrador West again.

Speaker, with every tax reduction measure like gas tax, personal income tax that our government is going to offer, it will be quite welcome in Labrador West.

Everybody has been here the last couple of days talking about the cost of living, the price of gas and that. There’s a quote that says it’s a little more in Labrador. That quote is no good anymore; it’s a lot more in Labrador now than what it used to be, an awful lot more.

I’ll just give you some examples. I don’t know what a piece of two by four costs here in St. John’s, but in Labrador West it’s $7. A piece of two by six by eight is $13.52. I goes over to the gas station – I’ll reverse that. I go to the grocery store to get a steak, it’s $30. I go over and fill up my 20-pound propane tank at the gas station, it’s $44 for 20 pounds. Out here, you can go to Costco and get it for $14. It’s crazy, the cost of everything.

I was putting down an ice rink a couple of weeks ago in my front yard. I went over to RONA, looking at a tarp, a 50-by-30 tarp. I looked on the website and it said $66. When I went up to the checkout I said, you’re punching in $129; it says $66 on the website. The attendant looked at me, she said, Sir, you’re on the Halifax website. I felt (inaudible) for a minute, a little bit stunned. Again, $66 in Halifax and $129 in Lab West, that’s what the price of fuel is doing for everything to come in over the highway from either Quebec to come into Lab West or even Goose Bay. The prices are outrageous in Lab West.

As I said the other day, people are coming out for medical appointments, out of Lab West, and it costs them $1,700 for airline tickets. It’s really no cheaper to drive, when you look at it. The price of gas this morning in Lab West is $1.75. In Port Hope Simpson, it’s probably over $2 today. I just tried to look it up but I couldn’t find it. It’s usually 30 to 40 cents higher than Lab West. If we’re driving out through Quebec, we get out to Gabriel, it’s $2.10 out there this morning. So it’s really expensive, driving or flying, it don’t matter. The price of everything in Lab West is outrageous.

Recreation – the cheapest recreation activity you can do now in Lab West is skiing. You don’t have to put no gas in skis. So that’s the cheapest thing. Like my colleague from Lake Melville said the other day, we’re all out skidooing. We don’t have one Ski-Doo. Everybody in your family has a Ski-Doo. I got four Ski-Doos. The MHA from Lake Melville probably got three or four. It’s not just one Ski-Doo you’re driving, your whole family is driving a Ski-Doo. Two weeks ago, when I was back in Labrador West, I filled up a five-litre gas can for $33.

If I was to go to the gas station this morning to fill up that same can, it would cost me $47. Big difference in the last two weeks where the price of fuel has gone.

Every Thursday in Lab West, it’s like we’ve got a forest fire. Everybody’s over at the gas station waiting to see what the price of gas is going to be, see if it’s going up or down, whether they’re going to fill up. It’s really crazy. The cost of rent in Labrador West has gone extremely high in the last three or four years. It’s gone from $1,500 – there are people now paying $3,500, just for a month’s rent, one- and two-bedroom apartments. So like I said, the cost of living is a lot more in Labrador than it is on the Island. People just can’t afford to live in Labrador West, unless we do get tax relief that our government is willing to offer.

I won’t take up much more time, Speaker. I just sat back here the last couple days listening to everybody talking about the cost of living around the Island. I know Minister Barbour said it’s expensive to get to the Northern Peninsula, which it is. Our colleague across the floor, it’s expensive to get out to Burgeo and that.

We get all that in Labrador. But still, when it comes to Labrador when you’re trying to travel, either flying or driving, it doesn’t matter, it’s really expensive at the end of the day. So I just wanted to throw that out there to let everybody in this House know what actually the cost of living is in Labrador and how much more it is than here on the Island.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright - L’Anse au Clair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. DEMPSTER: Thank you, Speaker.

What a tremendous privilege it always is for me to stand and speak on behalf of all of the fabulous residents, my constituents, who just put me back to work for them for the fifth time, since I ran the first time in 2013, the people of Cartwright - L’Anse au Clair. I always try to do my best to be a voice for them.

As we continue on in second reading, Speaker, of Bill 5,

An Act to Amend the Revenue Administration Act No. 2, the whole focus is on amending the Revenue Administration Act to maintain – to maintain, not new, not bring in something that wasn’t there, but something we’re going to maintain that’s been around since budget ’22, but there’s so much discussion and debate in the House around the cost of going to and from.

I just had the honour really of being in Labrador, in the heart of the Big Land again for a few days. We’ve got the Labrador Winter Games happening there; it happens every three years. We’re not without our challenges in Labrador, but I’ll tell you the Winter Games brings Labrador together like no other event that I have ever, ever seen.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. DEMPSTER: So there’s so much spirit, there’s so much comradery, but it comes with a cost. In order to participate, some of these little, tiny communities – we had communities walk into the arena on Sunday evening that had like three and four people on their team. When you’re coming up against larger communities like Labrador West, like Lab City or Wabush or Goose Bay, then you see little communities like West St. Modeste in the Straits and some of them, like the little, tiny Town of Pinware, bringing home a medal just a couple of days ago, there’s a lot of pride in that.

However, Speaker, there’s also a cost, as we’ve heard, to living in Labrador. I was thinking last summer when the fires were on and we were out in Central and somebody said to me – it might have been our leader. It was pretty late at night and he said, I think we’ll drive back to Gander for the night; are you good to go another hour? I said: Go another hour? Where I live, I drive three hours to get my hair cut. That really is the reality. That wasn’t a joke, Speaker. Like I live in Charlottetown, it’s about three hours to the Straits where I go for that.

But it’s a huge cost to living there. So if you live in Red Bay and you have an appointment in Forteau, if you have an X-ray in Forteau, you’re driving about 65 kilometres each way to go for that appointment. If you are living in Southeast now – and we’re very thankful for the road, it’s allowing a lot of people to go toward Goose Bay for their chemo and their radiation and things like that, but you’re looking at 800, 900 kilometres, Speaker, on the road of driving to get there for that and back.

We heard a lot about the cost of gas at the pumps. The Member for St. Barbe - L’Anse aux Meadows talked about it’s going up and down; it’s going up and down; it’s having impact. Well, as my colleagues, and my colleague from the North Coast in particular would know, where we live, once the last supply of fuel comes in in the fall, our prices are suspended. The locals would call it frozen, and we’re frozen for the winter.

Recently, that was a break when prices went up on the Island and we were locked in; however, we’ve gone through some really, really difficult times when that price is locked in and then all winter, you’re seeing the price drop on the Island. Week over week over week, you’re seeing the price drop, and we’re still paying the same. We’re pretty much down to one supplier.

On the Island, places like St. Barbe - L’Anse aux Meadows, they would come under the new harbour pricing market. Literally, the PUB, the regulator, follows what happens with that pricing, but we don’t have that where we live. So that’s always been a bone of contention. I think it happened – there were folks that went to John Hickey at the time, as I recall that bit of history, and lobbied to say we want the prices locked in. In all honesty, the supplier is carrying huge inventory, so there’s a risk. If you’re carrying a monumental amount of inventory, and you buy for this much money, you can’t sell and stay in business if you’re going to sell it at a loss. So that is different for us.

Another thing that’s different, my colleague talked about the benefit of the heat pumps. Because all of the communities that I represent are on diesel-generated stations – in the Labrador Straits, we are linked into Robinson Lake, we get a little bit from Quebec, but with the really dry, hot weather that we’ve had lately, we are mostly on diesel, so we don’t qualify.

So that’s really difficult when you have, in particular, seniors reaching out all the time, regular basis, every other day; but that money as I understand it, comes from the federal government and the criteria is attached. I have met with the past MP for Labrador on multiple occasions, and I’ve already met with this MP on probably three different occasions already, continuing to try and lobby, advocate, be that voice, keep this file top of mind to say there has to be a way that the people in coastal communities in Labrador can be eligible for those heat pumps.

Speaker, I mentioned in budget ’22 we did this. I was reflecting back to my time in CSSD when poverty reduction was under me, and I remember that I asked someone to tally. We recognized the cost of living to people, we recognized that we needed to do more with affordability measures and I asked staff one day, tabulate for me the total of what we’re doing right now with affordability measures. At that time, we were investing $286 million in affordability measures. I had been told by staff in the department at that time that that was the biggest investment ever in history, is where we were.

I don’t know where we are today if we were to tabulate the affordability measures, but that’s what it was then, Speaker.

So I’m happy to see that this is being maintained. It is a good first step. We agree with that, it’s a good first step. But where we disagree is that we believe there’s more that can be done. We believe that the government can go further and, in a little while, we’re going to suggest how we believe that they can go further, Speaker.

Folks on my team at least have heard me for years and years talk about Aunt Nellie and Uncle Joe. My grandparents were well into their senior years when they took me in at four years old and I joined that large family and I was raised by my grandparents. So not just as a minister for almost 10 years, but even from my day when I got elected, every single thing that we did, I tried to look through the lens of how will this impact Aunt Nellie and Uncle Joe.

That’s the people, the people who blazed the trail for us, before us, who made life a little bit better in Labrador because of their work, because of their fight, because of their advocacy, fighting to be heard, to educate the people of the province that life is different here. We live in a beautiful land, but it’s very spread out and when you have a small population and a large land mass, there can be challenges governing and providing services.

So it’s important that people like us that are elected to represent that area, that we explain to those around us some of those challenges. When I think about Aunt Nellie and Uncle Joe, it’s important that we are where we are. But whether they gassed up yesterday or whether they gassed up today, they’re not seeing any change. So just to be clear that we are maintaining.

Speaker, I think that’s all I’m going to have to say right now. This reduction is not new, but I am really happy to see us continue with this. With that, I’ll take my place right now.

Thank you for the opportunity.

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. EVANS: Thank you, Speaker.

I always say I’m going to be brief and then I run out of time.

I feel I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by to talk about the price of fuel and I guess the taking off the tax and making it permanent and what that can do for our community, Speaker. But for me is, historically, in Labrador, Labradorians always paid a higher price for gas and that’s always been a sore point with people in Labrador.

In actual fact, Speaker, the most southern part of Labrador there, in the Straits, when you, cross from Labrador into the Northern Peninsula, even though I know the price can be high in the Northern Peninsula, it’s always been significantly higher. Labradorians always pay a higher price, and that’s a big gap, Speaker.

When you look at the distance, the distance doesn’t warrant the cost and, in my district, it’s all brought in by ship as a bulk-fuel transfer into bulk tanks. So, Speaker, the way the fuel is moved, for my communities, is probably the cheapest, most efficient way. We don’t understand why our costs are so expensive. It’s always been 30 to 50 cents more a litre than other regions, especially on the Island. So, for us, it causes a barrier to transportation.

More importantly, what’s transportation? What’s the value of transportation? Because the value of transportation, in my communities in Northern Labrador, is significant. It impacts people’s lives because when you gas up your Ski-Doo, as the Member of Lab West talked about – I, Speaker, have a Polaris. I’m not a proud Polaris owner. It’s not like cheering for the Montreal Canadiens, you know, where you put a lot of value.

At the end of the day, in my district, a snowmobile is not a luxury item. It’s not a toy. It’s not something used for sports. A snowmobile is the way we get around for a large percentage of the year; it’s how we travel. When we get on our snowmobile, we could be going down to the store or we can be going out into the wilderness to access food from another store – natural environment, hunting and fishing.

For us, being able to gas up our snowmobile or, in the summer, gas up the speed boat is a way for us to access food. We need actually to be able to travel to access food because the cost of food in the stores is very, very expensive. People can’t afford to live off store-bought food. As my mother would say, even if we could live off it, even if we could afford to buy it, we don’t want to live off of store-bought food. We want to be able to access fish, salmon, things from the marine environment, also partridges, rabbits – and one of the biggest things we relied on was caribou.

Our communities were much healthier and had better food security when we could access caribou. We did that by snowmobile. So why is that important? For us, it’s about food security but also if you’re not food secure, it creates stress in the household. So being able to afford that gas, being able to afford the gas to put in your snowmobile or put in your speedboat in Northern Labrador has a different meaning than most places in our province.

It’s about being able to access food, especially healthy food from the natural environment, improves your physical health. But being stressed about not being able to afford to access the natural food impacts mental health. Also, it impacts families. It impacts the Elders in the house, it impacts the children in the house and it impacts the adults in the House, Speaker. So it’s very, very important, the cost of food.

The cost of food is impacted by the cost of gasoline. So, for us, any reduction in gas prices is greatly welcomed. For us looking forward, to have this tax permanently taken off is going to mean a lot to people in my district. We’re very pleased to have the security of knowing that it’s been removed.

Speaker, also I just need to talk a little bit about the social determinants of health as being the Minister of Health. We talk a lot about the social determinants of health. In order for people and families and communities and regions to be healthy, we have to make sure they have access to healthy food. That’s a huge important part, but also there are other factors.

The Health Accord talks about social determinants of health because Indigenous people – and my communities in my district the people are all Indigenous. I’ve got an Innu community and then I’ve got five Inuit communities. Indigenous people are impacted when it comes to all the factors that actually determine their quality of health. That’s right there in the Health Accord. That’s why we always advocate for the social determinants of health.

Speaker, also, there are social factors that impact their health: being able to see relatives, being able to actually have social connections. Actually, the price of gasoline impacts the social connections in my community. A lot of families and friends live in different communities and we would like a road so we could drive to the other communities, but we don’t have a road that connects us. We’re not connected to the Trans-Labrador Highway, Speaker.

It’s so important for people to be able to gas up their snowmobile, be able to gas up their speedboat, so they can actually communicate to the different communities and actually have that social connections with their friends and their relatives. That impacts mental health, Speaker.

Being able to go off to your cabin is a thing that everybody in Newfoundland and Labrador can relate to. A lot of times going off is not just going to your cabin or going off and putting up a tent and being out in the wilderness for social benefit. For us, a lot of times it’s food gathering. Also, the benefits of that, Speaker, that involves social determinants of health, is being able to have the ability to do that.

We were raised with going off – normally, it would be me and my four siblings, it would be my cousin and it would be some of my other relatives and a few other friends. When we used to go off, we’d go off for probably two weeks or three weeks and we’d go off and we’d live in this great, big tent. First, we had a couple of smaller tents. My father secured a great, big tent and there’d be like 14, maybe 17 of us, in a great, big tent – many ages, three up to probably somebody in their 80s, living in the tent.

Other people would come visiting us because they would be out as well. We would actually be going in the fall – actually it wasn’t in the fall; it would be like in August. We would be getting all our char, our brook trout, our salmon, the seals – because certain seals are in different regions and the rivers was where we’d like to get ranger seal because that was the better meat and it was actually a more tastier meat.

Speaker, we’d also probably get a few jumpers, some porpoises, the marine mammals, but that’s what we did. We didn’t call it hunting when we were going off, when we were going ‘southard’, as we’d call it, we go south; we would call it bakeapple picking. In our family, we’d call it bakeapple picking time, but we wouldn’t have those memories if we couldn’t afford to go. The only way we could afford to go is if you could afford to put the gas in your speedboat. It’s very, very important.

So that was not only about accessing nutritious food for health; it was about the social gathering, the social sharing and building of communities and families. Because those relatives that went off with me, they were just the same as my siblings. I got cousins, now, that I think of as brothers and sisters because of that sharing. It wasn’t just coastal Labrador; some of those relatives came from Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The memories we have last a lifetime.

At the end of the day, when you talk about gasoline, it’s not just about the convenience of putting it in your car and going to the store or going on a trip. The convenience of being able to afford the gas is about being able to live your life, being able to travel, being able to pick up your kids at school. Speaker, for us, in different parts of the province, like rural Newfoundland and Labrador, it’s about the ability to do the fishing and the hunting that we don’t just want to do, we need to do, to be able to have quality of life. In actual fact, I can say that taking this tax off is improving the quality of life of most of the people in this province, Speaker. That’s very important.

Another thing I just wanted to bring up is, for us, there’s another layer. Like I said, I could go on all day, there are so many layers, living in Northern Labrador. The cost of electricity, right now, I think is 21.1 cents a kilowatt hour. I used to bring up the price of electricity. When I fist got elected, it was 18.5 cents a kilowatt hour and on the Island it was 12.2 cents a kilowatt hour. Everybody on the Island really was shocked when I say 18.5 cents. Then we saw it go up to nineteen-point-something and now it’s up to 21.1 cents a kilowatt hour.

Speaker, how can you heat your home at 21.1 cents a kilowatt hour? Now, what happens if that home is up in Northern Labrador where the winters can get down to minus 30, especially with the wind chill? And we’re seeing that. Some of the benefits that we struggle with, when it comes to climate change, is when the winters are not as cold.

Speaker, do you know something? Heating your house when it’s minus 20 and heating your house when it’s minus 30, not much of a difference. You still need to have the thermostat cranked up if you’re burning electricity in your heaters, or if you’re lucky enough to have a mini-split, but most families in Northern Labrador can't rely on electricity to heat their house because it’s so expensive.

So what do you do? You’ve got to put the gasoline in the Ski-Doo. You’ve got to put the gasoline in the chainsaw. Then you’ve got to go off into the woods and cut the wood. Cut it up, bring it back to the community, chop it up and bring into the house.

Speaker, I have to tell you now, being able to do that is so important, but the price of gasoline has drove up the cost of wood, the cost of going off and getting wood. There are a lot of people in my communities, when I complain about the price of electricity, who don’t have the physical ability, first off, to go off and get the wood. They don’t have the physical ability to chop it up. They don’t have the physical ability even to bring it in the house, and I’m talking about a lot of seniors. A lot of seniors in my district live alone.

That’s a barrier. So they have to pay somebody in the community, or they have to rely on their family members to be able to put the gas in the Ski-Doo to go off and to gather the wood so that they can live in a house that’s not too cold. For me, when I look at the price of gasoline, I’m also looking at the fact that this helping people to be able to heat their houses – quality of life, Speaker.

When they can heat their house and it doesn’t cost so much, they have a little bit more money to spend on other things, like food. Sometimes I just think I’m going to start laughing and not stop, and it’s not funny. It’s kind of like a little bit of hysterical laugh, because I don’t know how people are making ends meet, when we look at that, when we look the price of food.

It’s all related and this government here, just newly elected, said one of the things were going to do is we’re going to make life more affordable for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. This is a big thing. This is sending a signal to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that we want to make life more affordable for the people in the province.

Also, it can’t be just about certain regions. We can’t cater to urban. We can’t. We saw what happens when a government or a party caters to urban. We have to make sure that rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are being able to access services. We have to make sure that rural parts of Newfoundland and Labrador are treated fairly. The least that we can do is make sure that they can afford to have access to food and that they can afford to keep their houses.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. EVANS: Speaker, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about hauling wood. Because when I used to talk about the cost of electricity and I’d talk about hauling wood, a group of the population seriously impacted are women. Now, we have a lot of women in Northen Labrador who can actually go off and haul wood, cut wood. Sometimes they do it in partnership with a male, whether it’s their husband or their boyfriend or some relative, but there are a lot of women out there that can actually haul wood.

At the end of the day, Speaker, it’s not every woman who can actually be able to go out and haul wood, so they have to be able to purchase wood. This reduction in tax is helping them. It’s helping everybody who can’t actually haul wood in Northern Labrador.

Speaker, when I talk about hauling wood, like in my communities of Hopedale and Nain, to go off and get wood, it would take about four hours. The wood is far away and they got to put gas in the snowmobile and drive out, cut the wood and haul it back. So we’re looking at probably four hours. That’s not going around cutting the wood. If the wood is scarce in certain regions, they have to go to multiple places, Speaker, to drive off.

I remember a conversation I had with a woman who’s not that much older than me. Her partner, her husband, she was worried about him and she was kind of whispering to me and she was saying, Lela, I’m really starting to get worried about him now because he’s having problems with his eyesight. It’s not necessarily that he can’t see; it’s the night blindness. As people get older, sometimes they develop what they call night blindness.

The problem is he is up in Northern Labrador and there’s such a small window in the middle of the winter for daylight. He’d get up 4 in the morning to get ready so that he could go out at a certain time so he’d have the darkness when he was going out with an empty komatik. The most important thing for him is so he could chop the wood, cut the wood while it was daylight, and be able to haul it back while it was still daylight. Because if he ran into a problem, driving, with his night blindness, he could have a serious accident or injury. Also, just being able to navigate if he broke down, with the darkness, just being able to fix his machine or if he had to walk back.

Speaker, there are many things that impact the life of people in Newfoundland and Labrador. One of the things we talk about is the huge geography and the beautiful land, and the fact that there is so much diversity in Newfoundland and Labrador. Do you know something, Speaker? Diversity is one thing, but we have to make sure that we’re addressing the needs of people in Newfoundland and Labrador and that we’re doing what we can. The gas tax impacts everybody. It’s not just people who have an automobile. It’s not just people who can drive a Ski-Doo. It’s basically for the services. If you have to buy a load of wood, it’s going to be more expensive if the gas tax is put on it.

The thing about it is I’m really, really grateful for this but, more importantly, it sends a strong message that we’re serious about making life more affordable for every Newfoundlander and Labradorian in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

I’m actually going to take the last minute and a half and talk a little bit about offshore. Growing up, David Suzuki was a huge hero of mine, and I’d always wonder what he thought about me driving around in a pickup truck. At the end of the day, for me, and just looking at our debt and looking at the health needs across the province, looking at physical health needs, mental health needs, looking at air ambulance, ground ambulance, looking at access to family doctors, access to family care teams, access to health care, the thing about it is the burden of cost to this province is great.

For me, I will never apologize with having an offshore industry that can make health care affordable for people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. EVANS: If we don’t have access to that revenue, we are in great peril. So, for me, I will always defend investment for something that can generate so much revenue, not just in terms of taxes, but in terms of jobs, employment and security for not just individuals, but for families and communities.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay East - Bell Island.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

F. HUTTON: Thank you, Speaker.

I would be remiss if I didn’t begin my remarks to this House today without referencing an incident that happened in the community of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s yesterday – and there is relevance to the bill – and I talking about the fire that destroyed a business and put almost two dozen people out of work. I want to give a shout-out to the volunteer fire department from Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

F. HUTTON: I would also like to extend a special thanks, as well, to the volunteer fire department from Pouch Cove and from Torbay who showed up on the scene, as well from St. John’s Regional Fire Department.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

F. HUTTON: Speaker, it was a very tense situation there. I arrived shortly after the fire was noticed and spent most of the morning there and I watched these firefighters, as I did, as a former member of media, do what they do best. They tried to save the building. Unfortunately, they were unable to.

As I watched the fire yesterday, from this standpoint, as an MHA representing the people, most of whom work at the building, who live in the community that I represent, I thought about the fact that they are now going to wake up and be unemployed, that they don’t have a job. They have to go on Employment Insurance or try to find another job at reduced pay on Employment Insurance and how an impact like the price of gas or buying food or anything would impact them directly.

It’s funny because I was texting with some of my colleagues who were watching some of the threads going back and forth and we were also talking about what we would be doing in the House of Assembly yesterday and it would be talking about the gas bill. I thought about that when I looked around and I saw all these volunteer fire departments there, with their very expensive equipment and generators and all these vehicles, about 30 of them, not including the Town of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s and their vehicles there, the RNC with their vehicles and the price of gas to go in all those vehicles and what it would cost.

That was just that one little snapshot, and to think about the people now who are unemployed today because that business is no longer standing because of the fire and how that will impact them and the price of gas.

I just wanted to put that on the record. I know that the people who owned that business, that building, and separate from the restaurant that burned, there was a food processing facility about to open downstairs which would have employed more people. These folks have put their heart and soul into this for the last four or five years and, of course, there will be talks with the insurance companies now to find out whether or not they can rebuild. I hope they will because it was a focal point of our community and it’s a great loss to Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s and Conception Bay East - Bell Island.

Again, thank you first of all to all the firefighters who showed up from the stations that I referenced.

It was interesting, Mr. Speaker, to hear over the last couple of days – and I didn’t intend originally to speak on this bill, but I do like to hear and I try to listen as much as possible. Some of us get a little bit of other work done while we’re here, but I listened as much as I can. It is a learning experience to hear the experiences of people from other parts of our province and what they have to go through.

It makes us, as decision-makers, in here and how you vote and how you can sometimes, if you will, in a court case, listen to a jury and evidence and, from one minute to the next, you might change how you think about a certain thing. In this case it would be a bill, on whether or not to permanently reduce the price of gas.

I do want to say on the record – and I’m not trying to be overly political on this, but this is something that was done four years ago. Our government did this four years ago. Because we understood, coming out of COVID, the exorbitant cost increases in everything. I think the Finance Minister referenced yesterday the cost in terms of the revenue is about $80 million. Now, that fluctuates obviously because of the price of gas and you can’t put a number on it every day; it would be a different number. But it’s tens of millions of dollars in lost potential revenue, taxation.

It’s also why our government eliminated the tax on home insurance, understanding that people were struggling. It’s also why we reduced the cost of registering your vehicle from $160 to $80. This was all done back in 2022.

Again, not to be political, but the fact remains that every year in our province, the Finance Minister has to write a cheque for almost $500 million to mitigate rates on electricity to pay for Muskrat Falls. Without that money, whatever government is paying it and whoever is responsible for building it, we still have to pay that money. Otherwise, a person’s electricity bill would have gone from $300, if that was their average bill, to about $527.

We have to continue to do that until rate mitigation ends in 2030 and then we have to figure out where we’re going to get the money so that each and every resident, represented by the folks here, across Newfoundland and Labrador don’t see an almost doubling of their electricity rate.

The costs and the pressures on people – and I say this, and my wife and I talk about this so often, and we’re privileged to be able to go to the supermarket and buy food. How do people who do not make a lot of money survive? How do they do it on a weekly basis if they have two or three children? As my colleague mentioned this morning, three children in daycare, $30 a day, which was the $10-a-day daycare which was adopted by the previous government. Again, recognizing the need for people, if they have to make a choice whether or not it’s worth their while to go back to work, a mother or a father. Would one parent have to stay home because they couldn’t afford daycare for three children?

Now to see the price of food has just skyrocketed over the last four or five years. I mean, we all heard, oh, it’s because of COVID; it’s because of supply chain. Well, COVID is long gone and the prices of food and other materials are through the roof.

The colleagues across the aisle here now, as ministers, will know, especially perhaps in Transportation and Infrastructure, the cost of building anything, the cost of paving a road, the costs are exorbitant and they keep going up. I thought about this again yesterday. As the ferry was coming across from Bell Island and docking at Portugal Cove last night, I was down there at about 7:30. Again, I thought about this, the price of gas. People waiting in a lineup to get on the ferry, the cost of fuelling up the ferry, the cost of replacing ferries. It is so expensive to operate.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

F. HUTTON: Right. It’s just continually going up and up for people.

I also want to talk about the fact that what we’re doing here today – and I do support the bill, make it permanent, sure, but it’s not going to actually provide any relief to anyone. So we need to be clear on that. The price does not change tomorrow because we pass a bill today. The price stays the same unless there is an interruption from the PUB, but the price of fuel will stay the same. It’s not going down seven or eight centre a litre; it stays the same. We need to be clear on that.

So to say that people will see relief tomorrow is not accurate. The price will stay the same. As a matter of fact, the price could go up. Because if the PUB interrupts it or whatever happens geopolitically and the price of oil goes up, we’ll be paying more. This is to make what we already did permanent and, again, I say we support it.

When I think about oil and gas – and I’m going to back up a little bit here – I go back to 1992. I started my career in media in the late ’80s and, in 1992, you see things that you thought you would never see in your career. When they closed the fishery and 30,000 people were out of work overnight and you wonder, okay, how are those people going to get up the next morning and face the day? We weren’t even thinking about fuel prices back then. I’d say gas prices were in the 30 or 40 cents a litre range. I don’t know the exact price.

Fast-forward five years – and I was in the room, by the way, when John Crobie announced that the fishery would be closed. Five years later, I’m standing in a parking lot outside the same hotel in the office tower next door where they gave out little barrels of oil – first oil for Hibernia. I think back to that day and I think about all the benefits this province has had because of oil and gas over the last three decades.

Hibernia, Terra Nova, White Rose, Hebron, West White Rose and now, hopefully Bay du Nord, and the money that we get, the tens of billions of dollars in revenue from oil and gas and what it means to this province, in our ability to pave a road or to build a hospital or to pay teachers, to pay police officers, to pay everybody who works in government and to provide service to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and the benefits that oil and gas has brought to this province.

Now, as another Member has mentioned here today, from Burin - Grand Bank, we have oil at over $100 a barrel. It will fluctuate, but is there a scale that we can do more than just keep it the same and give people an actual benefit?

I would support it right now. I’ll tell you right now if you’re going to maintain and continue with the reduction that’s there, the eight cents a litre, the bill that we’re debating but you want to drop it more, I’m pretty sure you’d have full agreement with everybody in this House because people need to feel some relief. They actually do need it. I know that every person in this House during the election campaign went around Newfoundland and Labrador, whatever district you’re representing, and heard from people – the majority of people – that it’s tough.

I don’t know how young people are going to do it. I mean, we have four children and it’s one of the things we always talk about. How are they going to be able to buy a house? How are they going to be able to have kids and afford to do this when the cost of living is so high? We heard it as well, which is why we took these steps to have rate mitigation, to take $500 million. I mean, imagine what you could do with $500 million a year. The Finance Minister probably thinks about it every day.

As a reporter, through the late ’90s and from, say, 2000 to 2020, in that area, every Finance minister I ever talked to and interviewed, one of the first things they ever did in the morning was to check the price of oil to see how that would impact the bottom line. It’s a quick thing you can do on your phone right now. Back in 1997, it wasn’t quite as easy but you did get information.

This is so important to us, but now that we have this windfall of prices, maybe there is an opportunity to explore where if the price drops again because it is a volatile commodity, bring it down again. It’s something that people watch for. I mean, it’s a news item all the time where they do interviews to say the price of gas is going to go up tomorrow, you’d better fill up tonight. Rush out and fill up your tank tonight so you’ll save – well, last week it was 22 cents it went up over the last couple of weeks.

That’s a big deal for a lot of people who can’t afford it and they’ve got to make a choice between not going for a Sunday drive, whether or not they’re going to go to work, or if they’ve got to bum a ride from somebody else to get to work or carpool. Maybe not such a bad idea for the environment but in Newfoundland and Labrador, as many of the MHAs here know, you’re not going to jump on the subway and there are many districts here with no mass transit in this region. In my own community in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, there’s no transit.

So, again, that could alleviate some housing issues because if you’re a university student, you’re not going to live in Portugal Cove if you don’t have a car; or if you’re somebody who’s new to Canada, you can’t live out there because you work in downtown St. John’s and you don’t have a ride. That is why we explored the opportunity of trying to get Metrobus to go through the Cove a couple of times a day, back out Thorburn Road to the mall, get to these major points where people could get on and off.

So there are a couple of issues that you could solve there and housing could be one of them, open up more housing opportunities. Similarly, for my colleague from Cape St. Francis, we talked about this before, having busing service to communities outside there, where folks could open up housing options for people, for students or for people who just don’t own a car, because it’s expensive.

People, I’m sure, are making choices on whether or not they’re going to continue to own a car. I know in my own district, I’ve heard from people who say they just can’t do it and, oftentimes, are looking for ways to get around the community or to get to town to get their prescription picked up or do whatever it is they have to do, go about their daily business and getting to work.

Mr. Speaker, these are just some of my thoughts, and I do appreciate the input from other colleagues from around Newfoundland and Labrador who talk about the experiences that they encounter or hear by email or by telephone, or by going door to door and listening to people, and that’s what we need to do. I think what we need to do is listen to them and go beyond what we’re going to do here today, which is just to keep the tax where it is already. Again, not to be political about it, it’s already where it is and we’re just going to solidify it.

But can we do something more to actually help people today now that we have more money because of this windfall, if you will? It’s unfortunate that the price of gas goes up, the government benefits, but people don’t.

I will finish my comments today, Speaker, by saying that I do support this bill and I hope that the Members opposite will maybe look to see if there’s something more we can do to help the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. DINN: Thank you, Speaker.

I’ve sat here listening quite intently on what’s been said over the last couple of days on this bill. The Opposition has impressed me; there’s no doubt about it, they really have, and I don’t say this in jest.

I almost wondered when we moved over from here if we left our speaking notes over there, because a lot of it is the same, but that’s a good thing. It validates what we’ve been saying, but it also validates what we’re hearing from the public. It validates that. So I’m happy to know that we’re all on the same page, not that I had any doubt, but we’re all on the same page when it comes to helping Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

One thing that I noticed we all seem to be having a problem with is temporary versus permanent. Temporary is a short-term solution with a defined endpoint; permanent is long-term solution with an endpoint that could occur at any time. I understand that, too.

But what’s important here, in what we’re doing today, is that April 1, we’ll see no change and individuals will not see that tax go back on. That’s essentially what’s happening. That’s what is happening and that does mean something. That means a lot to our residents out there, and we’ll probably talk about a lot of it when we talk about our private Member’s resolution later today.

Seniors, those on fixed incomes who know for certain they’re not going to have anymore money tomorrow or the next day – so anything we can do, as a government, to help ease that burden is a positive thing. They know that come April 1, they’re not paying more for gas.

This is one step. This has been said. This is one step in many steps that we’re going to have to take to make life more affordable and especially for those who are most vulnerable. That is our seniors, in many cases. We’re approaching a province where almost one-third of our population are considered senior.

This gas tax or the price of gas, in general, affects everything. It affects everything: our cost of groceries, our cost of lumber to build houses, our cost of transportation. That’s tacked on to everything. I guarantee the delivery drivers, whatever they pay in gas, gets tacked on to what they deliver.

We’ve heard the stories of seniors who have the heat on or have a plug-in mobile heater in one room because they can't afford to heat the rest of the house and they move that heater from room to room. That’s a given. That actually happens. We know of seniors out there on prescriptions and drug plans, splitting and diluting their prescriptions because they can’t afford them. The price of gas affects all that.

Single parents who have to try and keep their children in school, in activities, trying to keep up with the neighbours next door, that all costs money and the gas tax, the price of gas affects that immensely. We need to do everything and anything we can to make life more affordable for those – well, for all of us, no doubt, but for those most vulnerable. They’re the ones who need it.

We’ve taken steps – raising the personal exemption reduces the amount of tax you pay out; eliminating the sugar tax is another step; and what we’re doing today is another step. In our Blue Book, we’re going to review all taxes and fees. We have to look at those fees. We know 10 years ago, when government changed, we came in with 300 new taxes and levies, and we need to look at every one of those and see if they are truly needed or if there’s a better alternative. Again, the price of gas affects the poverty line for a lot of us.

Now, a number of years ago, a previous Progressive Conservative government had a poverty reduction plan that was touted as the best in the country, and internationally, others recognized it. You actually saw, in a relatively quick time, the poverty line dropping. You actually saw that; reports indicated that. I know times change, but I guarantee you we are going to do everything and anything to replicate that agreement, but also to do better.

I think every one of us in this House, no matter what we do, we all need to do better. We all need to do better, and I’m sure we will.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. DINN: But when you’re elected, you see people in your district, you talk to them, you hear from them, you see first-hand what’s happening in your district and no two districts are alike. If the gas price goes up, I can drive up to the pump and I can tell you, do I know the gas went up? Yes. But does that stop me from filling my tank up? No , because we are privileged. We have the money in our bank. But if someone is there going in and putting $5 in a tank, then you know they’re struggling and they have to look at other ways of where they need to put their money.

Imagine, having to prioritize your necessitates. I’m not talking about prioritizing the nice to have, but when people are out there prioritizing their necessitates and figuring out, okay, what do I have today? Can I afford the heat? Can I afford my prescriptions? Can I afford to eat? Can I afford to drive? Well, first of all, many of them probably don’t have a car, but can I afford to take transit?

These little steps may be minute to some, but are big to others. But it is a step. It’s a step of many that we need to take. I think we’re going to work with everyone in this House because I know we’re all on the same wavelength. It’s been said the last couple of days. Yes, there are some things we want and some things we don’t.

I’d be quite honest with you, I know people want to take credit – we all do; we all like to have credit for what we did or didn’t do, but my credit is in doing the right thing for the people. If it’s making their lives better, that’s all the recognition I need. I mean, with a good Opposition, we need it, but also good governance we need it. We’re going to disagree and I’m glad we all agree on this, on continuing on with this tax cut, we’ll say.

When April 1 comes, people will know that we’re not seeing an increase anymore. Some people use status quo or whatever, but right now there’s no change. There’s no change happening April 1, because we’ve agreed – and I know when the vote happens, I can say we all agreed that this is a good thing. This is something we need to do.

As we move forward, with other bills and we have discussion and debate, I know, in the back of our heads, those decisions have to be made to make a difference for those who need us to make a difference for them.

I mentioned the other day when I stood, talking about having to work during a strike with Income Support. You don’t know until you work in that. Again, I applaud our social workers for what they do on a regular basis. I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know how they can go home every night with a clear head, because there are some real people out there who are in desperate need of our support. It’s just unfathomable when you think about it, these individuals out there.

I mean, we saw the Tent City. That didn’t just happen. That was happening. It’s just they all came out and it became more visible. When you see these instances, then you become aware. But they’re there all the time. We just don’t recognize it, like we should.

We talk about the cost of fuel and my colleague here talked about the price of filling a propane tank. I know during that Tent City, actually my brother and I, we’d bring down propane tanks to them, something they never had. Because when you think about it, they were in the middle of the winter out there. Like, they can’t afford any of that, $11 or $12 tank of propane from Costco. They can’t afford that.

Those are the people that we got to think about, and our seniors – our seniors who started this province, who gave so much to this province. I think one of the Members across also spoke about home care. These are all things we need to be looking at, the cost of fuel, living on an Island affects everything. Like I said, we may not recognize it, but I guarantee you those who are on lower incomes, those who are struggling daily, they see the difference.

I remember last year getting up to speak on the cost of living and, on the way home, one of my daughters texted me and said, Dad, pick me up a salad for my lunch tomorrow. I said: Okay, what do you want? I try to eat salad but it doesn’t work so often. But anyway, I went into the supermarket. I won’t say because all supermarkets are the same. I’m looking at this single-serve salad. This was last year. This salad was mainly lettuce with a couple of cherry tomatoes in there. I guess you’d call it a garden salad; I don’t know what it’s called.

Then you had a little pouch full of toast, croutons, and you might have picked up a ranch dressing packet. On the lettuce and tomato, $14-and-something-cents. I couldn’t believe it. But the point is that to produce that, to package that, to ship that, the price of gas and fuel is part of that.

We want to try and eat healthy, and it’s costing you that? We talked about the sugar tax; I’ve said it, you know it hasn’t changed the consumption of a two-litre of Pepsi, or any soft drink for that matter. What we needed to do was reduce the cost of healthy food. I mean, the cost of a two-litre of milk is huge in comparison to a two-litre of soda. Those are some of the steps we need to take. I’m sure as we work through our poverty reduction plan, and work on that as we move forward, I’m certain that we’ll include many of those in that.

I know it’s approaching noon, so that’s all I’m going to say today. I will speak more on our seniors PMR later.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Government House Leader.

L. PARROTT: Thank you, Speaker.

I move, seconded by the Member for St. Barbe - L’Anse aux Meadows, that debate be now adjourned.

SPEAKER: It has been moved and seconded that the debate be now adjourned.

All those in favour, ‘aye.’

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay.’

Carried.

The hon. the Government House Leader.

L. PARROTT: Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans, that the House do now recess.

SPEAKER: It has been moved and seconded that this House do now recess.

All those in favour, ‘aye.’

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

SPEAKER: All those against, ‘nay.’

The House now stands in recess until 2 p.m.

Recess

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

SPEAKER (Lane): Order, please!

Before I admit strangers, I just wanted to remind all Members that we have a scent-free policy here in the Chamber. We do have individuals in the Chamber with allergies and chemical sensitivities and so on, so I would ask for all Members’ co-operation as it relates to that policy.

Thank you.

Are all House Leaders ready?

Admit strangers.

Today, in the public gallery, I would like to welcome individuals from Stella’s Circle, which will be the subject of a Member’s statement today. Welcome to Laura Winters, Sarah Mills and Jessica Lee-Middleman.

Welcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

Statements by Members

SPEAKER: Today we have Member statements by the hon. Members for the Districts of Burgeo - La Poile, Burin - Grand Bank, Carbonear - Trinity - Bay de Verde, Cartwright - L’Anse au Clair and Corner Brook.

The hon. the Member for Burgeo - La Poile.

M. KING: Speaker, today I rise to recognize the exceptional work of the Gateway Status of Women Council in Port aux Basques, an organization that has been a steadfast source of support, advocacy and empowerment for women and gender-diverse individuals across the Southwest Coast for 40-plus years.

Their work is grounded in compassion and community, offering guidance, counselling and a safe, judgment-free space for those facing difficult circumstances. Much of the support happens quietly and without recognition, yet its impact is profound.

This past weekend I was honoured to attend the Council’s annual Bread and Roses Dinner, a gathering that brings the community together to celebrate International Women’s Day and to honour the strength, resilience and leadership of women throughout the region.

Events like Bread and Roses come to life because dedicated staff, volunteers and supporters give their time and energy to create a space where women feel valued and uplifted. From crisis intervention to violence prevention programming and outreach across rural communities, the Gateway Status of Women Council continues to change lives every day.

Speaker, I ask all Members of this House to join me in thanking the Gateway Status of Women Council for their unwavering commitment to equality, dignity and community strength.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Grand Bank.

P. PIKE: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, for several decades, Robert Parsons has been researching, writing and publishing the Maritime history and heritage of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Based in his hometown of Grand Bank, one of the most viable communities once engaged in the bank fishery, Robert has documented the rise and fall of the wooden schooner era. Robert’s research included archival newspapers, shipping lists, gravestones and interviews which provided details of ships lost and survivors. These hundreds of personal interviews provided the details he brought to achieve.

Robert has been called a prolific writer on the subject of Atlantic Canada’s analysis in ship disasters. He has been an award winner of the annual Arts and Letter competition as well as the Polaris Award. One of his books, Courting Disaster ,is a Globe and Mail Bestseller.

Since 1991, Robert has published 34 books with documents that range from sea stories, crime, the Newfoundland dog, community history, World War I and Cape Race. Robert has since retired from researching and writing but still receives information requests from all across Atlantic Canada. He answers those, by the way, immediately.

I ask you today to join me in congratulating a great Newfoundlander and Labradorian, a senior of distinction, Robert Parsons.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Carbonear - Trinity - Bay de Verde.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

R. BALSOM: Speaker, I rise today to recognize two individuals from Heart’s Content who are committed to preserving Newfoundland and Labrador heritage.

In 2023, Hank and Valerie Whalen moved to Heart’s Content after purchasing the former Anglo-American Staff Houses. They saw great potential in this rural outport community and have since made it their home.

Their efforts did not stop there; they also purchased The Superintendent’s House with renovations starting this summer, as well as the long-standing local business now known as The Cable House Market.

This business has operated in the town for more than 100 years. Following major renovations, including the removal of modern materials, the building has been restored to a heritage aesthetic featuring traditional clapboard and rustic-style shelving throughout the interior. In their words: This town is on the cusp of something beneficial to the entire region, and we consider it a privilege to revive these structures to their former grandeur.

Through their dedication they have created several local jobs while pursuing their vision of preserving the architecture and heritage of the region. I ask all Members of this House to join me in recognizing Hank and Valerie Whalen for their commitment to preserving our province’s rich history and heritage.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright - L’Anse au Clair.

L. DEMPSTER: Thank you, Speaker.

Today I rise to congratulate the beautiful Town of Red Bay on receiving the 2026 Cruise Vision Award.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. DEMPSTER: As both the National Historic Site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Red Bay stands as one of the most remarkable places in our region and across the country. Steeped in rich history and vibrant maritime culture, this small but might community continues to share its story with the world.

Tourism in Red Bay continues to grow each year. Visitors arrive by road, by air and increasingly by sea – 12 cruise ships last year, and at least 12 booked so far for this year – drawn by its unique heritage, breathtaking coastal beauty and the warm hospitality that defines this special place. In recent years, the number of cruise ship visits has steadily increased – an impressive achievement for a town of just 140 residents.

This award is a testament to the dedication, vision and hard work of community leaders, tourism operators, volunteers and residents who proudly showcase Red Bay and all it has to offer.

My hon. colleagues, please join me in congratulating everyone who helped make this recognition possible. Their efforts are ensuring Red Bay’s remarkable story continues to be shared with visitors from around the world, and should be commended. As we prepare for the arrival of the nao San Juan from Pasaia, Spain in 2027, the future is only going to get much brighter for Red Bay.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Corner Brook.

J. PARSONS: Thank you, Speaker.

I rise today to recognize an event that has nurtured generations of musical talent in Western Newfoundland: the Corner Brook Rotary Music Festival.

For decades, this festival has provided young musicians, singers and performers with the opportunity to step onto the stage, share their abilities and grow in confidence. Students from Corner Brook and communities throughout the region spend months – I know this because of my children – preparing for this moment, guided by dedicated teachers, families and mentors who believe in the power of music and the arts.

What makes this festival special is not just the performances, but the encouragement. Professional adjudicators offer thoughtful feedback, helping participants improve their craft while reminding them that their voices and talents matter.

Speaker, this festival is made possible through the leadership and service of the Corner Brook Rotary Club and an incredible network of volunteers who work behind the scenes to organize venues, schedules and events. Their commitment has created a tradition that continues to inspire young people year after year.

I ask all Members of this House to join me in congratulating everyone involved in another successful Corner Brook Rotary Music Festival.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. DINN: Speaker, I rise today to celebrate an outstanding local organization that helps adults facing barriers to fully participate in their community.

Stella’s Circle is the most recent recipient of the Council of the Federation Literacy Award for Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. DINN: I am pleased to have them with us in the gallery today.

This award is presented to learners, educators, volunteers, community organizations and businesses in each province and territory that celebrates adult learners who undertake literacy training and the contributions made by Canadians in the field of literacy.

Speaker, Stella’s Circle was chosen for their commitment to adult literacy and enhancing programming to give more people the opportunity to participate in literacy initiatives.

In 2025, Stella’s Circle launched a new foundational literacy and numeracy program to support learners facing additional barriers. These new services are specific to newcomers, and the program is designed for learners who may not yet qualify for traditional Adult Basic Education pathways.

Congratulations to Stella’s Circle on being honoured for its dedication and efforts, to provide literacy education, employment services, mental health programming and affordable housing.

Speaker, let us celebrate the dedication of Stella’s Circle and their efforts to further literacy for all of us.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Burin - Grand Bank.

P. PIKE: Speaker, I join in recognizing the important work of Stella’s Circle and their well-deserved recognition as this year’s recipient of the Council of the Federation Literacy Award for Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

P. PIKE: Adult literacy is a cornerstone of strong and healthy communities. The ability to read, write and develop essential life skills opens up doors to employment, education and fuller participation in society. Organizations like Stella’s Circle play a critical role in ensuring that adults who face barriers can build those skills and move forward with confidence at no cost to the participants.

Speaker, the work of community organizations and the education and dedication of educators and volunteers make a profound difference in people’s lives. Through programs like this, Stella’s Circle helps newcomers strengthen their independence and confidence as they build lives in our province for the long term.

On behalf of the Official Opposition, I congratulate Stella’s Circle on this honour and thank everyone involved for their commitment to supporting adult learners in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Third Party.

J. DINN: Thank you, Speaker.

I thank the minister for the advance copy of the statement.

On behalf of the New Democratic Party, I join in congratulating Stella’s Circle for receiving the Council of the Federation Literacy Award for Newfoundland and Labrador and for their commitment to adult literacy, employment services, mental health programming and affordable housing. The award is well received.

However, if government is truly interested in tackling literacy, it could start by addressing long-standing issues of class size, of composition, in our K-to-12 system that will allow teachers to spend more time helping those students who need it.

Thank you.

SPEAKER: Further statements by ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. TIBBS: Thank you very much.

Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the critical importance of local governance training in strengthening our municipal sector.

Our department is building a solid foundation for effective and accountable local governance by providing cities and towns throughout Newfoundland and Labrador with practical guidance and targeted support on key governance issues.

Through our mandatory orientation training program, mayors, councillors and municipal staff receive essential training in professional standards and core responsibilities to successfully serve their residents. This includes: roles and responsibilities of councillors and chief administrative officers; council meetings and procedures; conflict of interest; council budgets and financial management; and access to information and privacy protection.

This winter alone, 89 training sessions are being delivered around the province. Participation has been strong, reflecting a clear commitment by municipal leaders and staff to serve our cities and towns with integrity and professionalism.

Speaker, we remain committed to working alongside our municipal leaders through governance training and ongoing support to strengthen our municipalities and improve outcomes for residents around our province.

As minister, Speaker, I want to thank every municipal leader who has stepped into their roles and I look forward to working with them over the next coming years.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Corner Brook.

J. PARSONS: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the minister for his statement.

Speaker, municipal governments operate in complex environments. They face financial pressures, high community expectations and difficult decisions about programs and services. Training is important, and not just for new councillors, but for all councillors.

Being on a municipal council requires more than just managing budgets and policies; it involves strategic vision, ethical governance and understanding the role of council and that of staff. A well-trained council can engage, address and build consensus, fostering transparency and accountability, which are critical for public confidence and effective service delivery.

Training, of course, is important, but there are other things our government needs to do to help our cities, towns and the Local Service Districts. We need to encourage more participation in municipal government. It’s a difficult job but it’s very rewarding. We need to find ways for communities to access consistent, predictable infrastructure funding and we need to find funding to build permanent solutions to water and wastewater.

Speaker, municipal council training is a critical investment in our in cities and towns. Without it, councils risk conflict, legal exposure and diminish public trust, undermining the very purpose of local government.

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for St. John’s East - Quidi Vidi.

S. O’LEARY: While I thank the minister for the advance copy of this statement, I have to acknowledge the hard work of elected officials in the smaller towns and LSDs across our province, most of whom are volunteers.

My many years of experience on both the Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador and FCM boards taught me huge respect for our municipal leaders across this province. They usually work without the same supports their colleagues in larger centres have, with nowhere to turn when actively navigating conflicts of interest or other important statutory duties.

That is why I call on the government to make sure that they continue to fund these sessions and they provide more permanent resources for councillors in smaller towns and LSDs.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

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

J. HOGAN: Thank you, Speaker.

Speaker, the government claims to be transparent, yet everything we and the public learn about staff in the Premier’s office comes through the media and Opposition asking for documents and asking questions.

The Premier recently claimed that a staff member was never on the Conservative transition team, then turned around and claimed he was on the transition team. When the contradiction was pointed out, the Premier then claimed that the staffer was on some, apparently, secret, secondary transition team.

Why wasn’t the Premier transparent in the first place, and why does he keep changing his story?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WAKEHAM: Speaker, nothing has changed, but while I have an opportunity to stand up and talk about issues, let me talk about health care. Let me talk about an issue in health care. We’ve been criticized for turning around and saying we’re not going to continue with the development of this billions of dollars new hospital on Kenmount Crossing.

Speaker, if you really want to know the truth, the problem in health care is not the lack of acute-care beds; it’s the lack of long-term care beds. Right now in our province, on any given week, on any given day there are between 300 and 400 people who are medically discharged, alternate levels of care, occupying acute-care beds. That’s the challenge that we face. We need more long-term care beds.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

J. HOGAN: Speaker, I do agree with the Premier, we do want to know the truth, and I’m not going to get it by asking the Premier questions, that’s for sure.

In just two short weeks, we’ve seen the disdain that him and his government have for this House and our democratic institutions. One minister was saying there’s no need for debate in the House of Assembly. Another minister, just yesterday, saying let’s not waste time by having Members get up to speak about bills. Clearly, we have a Premier who refuses to answer any question in this House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

J. HOGAN: Yesterday, though, the Attorney General – I thank her for her words – acknowledged the role that the Opposition plays in a strong democratic institution.

So will the Premier and his ministers listen to their Attorney General, or is this what Newfoundlanders and Labradorians can expect during the rest of this Premier’s mandate?

SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WAKEHAM: Thank you, Speaker.

We were elected by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador on the promises of –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: Order, please!

PREMIER WAKEHAM: – better health care, lower taxes and safer communities. And that is exactly what we will deliver on. In our upcoming budget, you will see measures taken that will actually make improvements to health care, make lower taxes for people and have our communities safer.

That’s a commitment that we made to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. That’s a commitment we intend to make, and we will continue to stand up here and talk about the things that we are going to do. That is exactly what we are going to continue to do.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

J. HOGAN: Thank you, Speaker.

Those promises were made, and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians expect them to be kept. They’re not on a good track record so far, but I think implicit in those promises because Newfoundlanders and Labradorians expect honesty, truthfulness and transparency, and they’re zero for three on all of those, Speaker.

The Premier might think these questions will go away if he doesn’t answer them in the House of Assembly, but they won’t. So I will give him another chance, as I’ve been doing for days.

Why did he overrule the warning from the public service? Why did he tell people the staffer was only working on health care when he clearly was working on other things? Where does it say that MCP can be used for political purposes, and why does the Premier continue to keep changing his story?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WAKEHAM: Speaker, I’m going to continue to stand up here and talk about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and the challenges they face with access to health care, the challenges they face with the cost of living and the challenges they face with safety in their own communities. That’s what I’m going to continue to talk about every time I stand in the House of Assembly.

I’m going to talk about the fact that people who come in by air ambulance, to be treated at our tertiary care centre and when they’re discharged, they’re told they have to find their own way home. We’re going to change that, Speaker. That’s why we’re going to make sure that nobody gets left behind. If we bring you in, we will bring you home. That’s the commitment that we’re making to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Cartwright - L’Anse au Clair.

L. DEMPSTER: Speaker, since the Premier still won’t answer, I ask the Minister of Health: Were you consulted on this use of MCP funds for partisan political staff? How will you address the shortfall of $275,000 every year from your MCP budget that is no longer being used on patient care or health care administration but, instead, on partisan political advice?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

L. EVANS: Speaker, the staffer that the Opposition is referring to is somebody that we have to rely on to help clean up the mess that was basically left behind after 10 years of Liberal government.

Speaker, right now, in Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services, throughout the province, we have over 300 seniors or people who are needing long-term care or alternative level of care, that are taking up beds in the province. At least 25 per cent of the beds in acute care are being taken up by these patients who don’t actually have access to the proper resources, so we are going to find solutions, Speaker, and we will use the monies that we knew we were saving from that –

SPEAKER: The minister’s time has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

J. HOGAN: Thank you, Speaker.

And, on the gas tax, of course, this Liberal Opposition supports keeping the Liberal tax cut low, which we have done for the past three years; but can the Minister of Finance confirm that the amount of gas tax and therefore the amount that people pay at the pump won’t be changing from where it is now once the bill is passed?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, yesterday, in a scrum had mentioned the fact that it appears that we don’t realize that we are in government and there was some lack of decisions or lack of movement and actions done. I would say to the leader that he’s not really paying attention, that we’ve done a lot in the short time that we’ve been in (inaudible) –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: I would say that the permanent gas tax reduction, without the bill that we’ve introduced into the House, Bill 5, it would increase by over eight cents next month. We made sure that the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador will not see a further increase (inaudible) –

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

J. HOGAN: My mistake, Speaker. I do agree with the Minister of Finance. They have done a lot. They’ve done a lot of cancellations. That’s what we’ve seen in the last number of days.

So we are on the same page. The gas tax will not affect the price at the pumps once this bill is passed.

W ask the government and the Minister of Finance: Will they support an amendment, that we plan to make, to reduce the gas tax even further to put more money in the pockets of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, I think he read our platform numerous times. I get the feel because he’s well up on the things that we have promised the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador; indeed we do.

The only thing I would say was that

part in our Blue Book is that we would plan efficiently. We wouldn’t be making knee-jerk reactions on the spur of the moment that may have ill effects on the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: Speaker, $948-million deficit and Leader of the Opposition wants us to make decisions on the spur of the moment as to what we do. I would say, we want to plan efficiently.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

J. HOGAN: Thank you, Speaker.

Since the minister doesn’t think a tax cut is necessary for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians but he talks about not making knee-jerk reactions, so I’ll give him the opportunity to take me up on my suggestion that we will make an amendment to give him the power and his Cabinet the power to lower the gas tax at the government’s discretion when the price of oil goes up rather than requiring legislation each time.

Will the Minister of Finance accept my offer and agree to that proposal when we make it during the course of the debate on the gas tax?

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: Speaker, the official leader of the deficit – I mean, the Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

C. PARDY: Speaker, I withdraw that. That was a slip, and I do apologize.

I would say to the leader, pre-war in the Gulf, oil spiked to 69 per cent of what it was pre-war. That was at the start of this month. Today is March 11. It has dropped back down by 29 per cent, and I’m sure the leader referenced in scrum yesterday the price of oil is very volatile.

SPEAKER: Order, please!

The minister’s time has expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

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

J. HOGAN: That’s unfortunate, Speaker. Those were good back-and-forth debates, but true colours always come through. You can’t keep debate where it should be. It’s always got to go a little bit lower, unfortunately.

So I’ll move on, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

SPEAKER: Order, please!

J. HOGAN: When our Liberal government extended this tax cut, at the time, the now Minister of Education said, we need to take it a step forward; we need to, say, get rid of the tax.

Why is the Premier ignoring his caucus? Why is the Minister of Finance ignoring his caucus?

I’ll spoil the answer. As usual, they say things before they got elected and do things differently once they are elected.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

PREMIER WAKEHAM: Speaker, I will give Members opposite the credit they deserve. They introduced that reduction in the gas tax. It was scheduled to expire on March 31. We’ve not brought in leg