VOL. 4 PRELIMINARY UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY FOR THE PERIOD: 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1979 NO. 14

April 2, 1979 The House met at 3:CO P.M. Mr. Speaker in the Chair. MR. SPEAKER: (Mr. Ottenheimer) Tape 633 EC - 1 Order, please! I would like to welcome to the galleries this afternoon a delegation from the Glovertown Town Council. The delegation is made up of the Mayor, Mrs. Irene McGinn, two councillors, Mr. John Gardner and Mr. Gerald Hounsell,and the Town Manager, Mr. Avalon Sparkes. I know hon. members join me in welcoming this delegation. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! NOTICES OF MOTION MR. SPEAKER: MR. HICKMAN: The hon. the Minister of Justice. Mr.

Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce the following bills: a bill, "An Act To Amend The Maintenance Orders Enforcement Act" (Bill No. ); a bill, "An Act To Amend The Provincial Court Act" (Bill No. ); a bill, "An Act To Remove Anomalies In Provincial Legislation That May Be Construed As Discrimination" (Bill No. ) . AN HON. MEMBER: MR. SPEAKER: DR. J. COLLINS: Hear, hear! The hon. the Minister of Finance. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow introduce a motion for "An Act Respecting The Garnishment Against Remuneration Of Public Officials Act" (Bill No. 22). MR.

SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Labour and Manpower. MR. DINN : Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act Respecting Amusement Rides." MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Consumer Affairs and the Environment. 1601.

April 2, 1979 Tape 633 EC - 2 MR. H. COLLINS: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act Respecting The Drilling Of Water Wells And The Conservation And Use Of Ground-Water" (Bill No. ) . MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Recreation and Culture. liB.. POWER.: Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act To Provide For Natural Areas In The Province To Be Set Aside For The Benefit, Education And Enjoyment Of Present And Future Generations In The Province" (Bill No. 16). MR. SPEAKER: (Mr. Ottenheimer) MR.

YOUNG: The hon. the Minister of Public Works and Services. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that I will on tomorrow ask leave to introduce a bill, "An Act Respecting Government Printing" (Bill No. ) . MR. SPEAKER: Opposition. MR. W. N. ROWE: hon. the Premier. ORAL QUESTIONS The hon. the Leader of the Mr. Speaker, a question to the During the Premier's leadership campaign there were certain statements made regarding Petrocan and its involvement in this Province.

I have seen various published reports on what is going on there, what Petrocan is going to do, what the government policy seems to be, but it is not altogether clear. Would the hon. 1602

April Z, 1979 Tape 634 SD - 1 MR. W.N. ROWE: the Premier tell us exactly what is the situation with regard to Petrocan's involvement in the Province.- I understand that in 19SO they will be taking over Total Eastcan's position,for example - and what the Government's role was in Petrocan's coming into the Province has been? What Government policy generally is on Petrocan coming into the Province for exploration and perhaps operational purposes? MR., SPEAKER: (Mr. Ottenheilller) PREMIER PECKFORD: Hon, Premier, Mr.

Speaker, in the last three or four months the Total Company of France 1which has a subsidiary in Canada,had indicated its agreement with somebody else moving into the consortium, the Eastcan consortium, to take over the operatorship - twenty-five, thirty per cent interest in the consortium. Gulf Oil Canada and Petro-Canada both made a bid to buy the majority of shares, After consideration by the Board of the consortium,a11 the companies involved in the consortium agreed and passed a motion, minute, whatever,to accept the Petrocan proposal.

Under the oil and gas regulations• of Newfoundland there is a stipulation there that says that the Province,through the Minister of Mines and Energy~would have to agree to a change in operatorship of a consortium that was doing work off our shores before it could become law from where we sit. And after considering the matter with all the facts before me , it was clear to us that,number one; Petro-Canada agreed to abide by all the stipulations and regulations and more,and agreed to provide an exploration program next year as large as this year.

And in reviewing the Gulf proposal for operatorship,which was turned down by the Board,we found,and in consultation with Gulf,that they had some problems with some of the regulations if they got into an operatorship situation and were not all together specific on whether they could handle or abide by all the regulations and they could not guarantee any exploration activity next year. Given those 1.603

April 2 , 1979 Tape 634 so - 2 E'REHI&R PECKFORD: ,eQi!jpmij,ea iall:olV!ed ou the llo'ld:'ci aill agreed wl~ ~4!- !-~~o~~ ~J!JPU:qa!dli$'; ~. ~t thq b~, ~'~IIIMJ!:a ll.llili <~u4 ® al:iiicie ·b¥ :aU. tl'ie regl:llati6U 1 tl'u:M. t4!at thee'! :wou.l.:i ~1:! • th6lliSeLvu to. a upl~fitou ptbgram 11\IIX1: year 1604

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 635 DW - 1 PREHIER PECKFORD: as their share of the amount of money that would be allocated

whereas - and all the other companies agreed to their share for next year,too-and Gulf did not 1 we accepted and agreed to the takeover and in the operator position of Petro­ Canada in their application to the Board of the Consortium. That is our involvement, that is what has happened. !1R • W • N. ROWE: HR. SPEAKER: Opposition. MB.. lv .N. ROWE: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. A supplementary, the han.

Leader of the So it would be fair _ the Premier could indicate by a simple yes or no to this because it is just a preliminary to my main question - so it is fair to say that the government here~ and reasonably so, .welcomes Petrocan,which is owned by the Canadian Government~welcomes Petrocan's operations in this Province. The han. Premier welcomes the operation of Petrocan in the Province; I mean that would be true and reasonable enough. Now the han.

Premier's colleague in Ottawa in the same party takes a position that Petrocan, and the party generally, federally,takes a position that Petrocan ought to be done away with or that Petrocan ought to be sold and become·a private enterprise MR. S. NEARY: Province, by the way. }!R. W .N. ROWE: The only one to support him in the - right - the Petrocan operations should become either defunct, go out of operation and existance and let Exxon and other private operations assume the field occupied by Petrocan, or they take the position that it should be sold and become a private enterprise.

It is very unclear what the federal party to which ~~e hon. P~emier belongs wants to do with Petrocan. Petrocan is being welcomed into this Province by the han. Premier and the government and reasonably so. \•1hat difficulties does the Premier see if, for example~ it should happen- heaven- Heaven forbid! - that his colleague in Ottawa Mr. Clarklshould take over the Government of Canada? Does he see a 1605

.-1.9ril 2, 1979 Tape No. 635 Dtol - 2 difficulty in policy positions with his own colleague 1nth respect to Petrocan? Exactly what is the situation there? Would the Premier elucidate on that? ~!R . SPEAKER: ~on . Premier. P~~IER PErKFORP: ~rr. Speaker, I am not involved i n establishing policy for any party federally.! am concern ed about this Province in t:.~e first instance 9 and I have welcomed Petro-canada . in to the Province under the terms and conditions of an operation in a given consortium that are doing ·of f- shore exploration .

My position vis-a -vis the federal parcy,if and wh.en they fonn the Government of Canada,is one that I will deal with as I find out that the party does become the government and f ind out t~hat their policy is as it relates to !?etro-Canada. I am not going to pre-judge the iss ue or pre- judge what position the party when i t becomes the government will take. So it is an academic , hypothetical question to me to which I am not all concerned about addressing myself at the present moment. 1.606

April 2,1979 HR. SPEAKER: (Mr.Ottenheimer) MR.W.ROWE: Tape No. 636 AH-1 A supplementary. The Premier may characterize it as academic but to the people of Canada and to the people of Newfoundland it is far from academic. We have a party, one of the major parties in Canada which could become the government, saying that Petrocan should be abolished. We ha~e a Premier of our Province in the same party who welcomes Petrocan,and reasonbly so, rightly so, welcomes Petrocan into this Province with open arms.

Now if the government is formed and consists of the PC Party in Canada in the next election,we could find ourselves in a very difficult situation with regard to Petrocan. So the public should know now, Mr. Speaker, if the Premier of this Province supports the Federal position of Mr. Clarke or not with regard to Petrocan. I put the question directly. Does the Premier support the position of Mr. Clarke to abolish, do away with in one form or another~Petro-canada as a publicly owned corporatior? MR. SPEAKER: The bon. Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr.

Speaker, I am going to deal with whatever company does the best for this Province under the terms and conditions. I am not taking any position as it relates to Petro-Canada. Petro-Canada has applied to a consortium that is doing work in this Province and I have reacted in the way that I think is in the best interest of the Province. The Petro­ Canada National Oil Company,or the national this or the nationl that,is not going to get in my way philosophically or practically in providing and seeing that we get the best deal possible for the Province.

So it is one that does not concern me all that much and I think the Leader of the Opposition agrees with the approach that the government has taken on this. I will wait and see just exactly what the policy is of the new government in Ottawa after May 22nd. After I am clear on what the policy is of whatever the government is in Ottawa as it relates to Petro-Canada,then I will take a position on it. I am not going to prejudge or conjecture 1607

April 2,1979 Tape No. 636 AH-2 PREMIER PECXFORD: on what might or may happen. MR.loi.ROWE: Mr. Speaker, a further supplementary - YR.SPE-~R:(~I.Ottenheimer) A supplementary.Leader of the Opposition. ~.W.ROWE: - final supplementary arising out off the Premier's answer. By way of preliminary, Sir, I think the Premier should be very concerned about the policy enunciated by his colleague,Mr.

Clarke,in Ottawa since Wl' may say,,rlth a fifty­ fifty chance or better or less depending on one's point of view, that it is something that is going to have to be dealt with and I would submit, Sir - I ask this by way of a question .. -does the Premier not feel that he owes it to the people of this Province as Premier, as PC leader, as a man whom I ~uld assume hopes to work along with a PC government in Ottawa should it be elected, "the man who apparently supported the Premier in his leadership aspirations much to the chagrin of some other han. gentlemen,and I mean that very sincerely - _MR.

NEARY: He was probably returning the compliment because the hon. gentleman was the only one in the Province to support Mr. Clarke. MR. W.ROWE: The han. gentleman supported Mr. Clarke when Mr. Clarke ran for the leadership. So ,Hr. s.peaker, the question is far from academic, the question is of u'most importance to the people of this Province. We have divergent views by the Premier of this Province and his Federal leader or his Federal colleague. He is not a leader, he is his Federal 1608

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 637 NM - 1 MR. W. ROWE: colleague in the party and I would ask the Premier once more - MR. NEARY: . He is idle. MR. W. ROWE: - if the Premier is willing to indicate to the public of this Province whether he supports the policies of the man he supported to become leader and the man who apparently supported him behind the scenes to become leader of his party and subsequently Premier of this Province. Do they agree on the policies enunciated by Mr. Clarke or do they disagree? The public of this Province have an absolute right to know that, Mr. Speaker. MR. NEARY: Hear, hear! MR. SPEAKER (MR.

OTTENHEIMER: The han. Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr. Speaker, I will deal with changes in federal policy as it relates to Petro Canada when those changes in federal policy are known to me,and not before. MR. STRACHAN: MR. SPEAKER: a supplementary. MR. STRACHAN: A supplementary. The hon. member for Eagle River A question to the Premier.

We understand that the oil and gas-or oil is in the future­ and around the corner there may be an economic boom in this Province,could the Premier not explain to us why Total 1 who have the largest share holding, twenty--eight and a half per cent,as I understand it 1in Eastcan, have agreed to give up their share holdings, also agreed therefore to allow their acreage now to be turned,over over a period of time as I understand it, to another company when they expended most money in the drilling operation and have therefore the biggest stake and we are lead to believe on one hand that oil and gas is around the corner and yet 1609

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 637 MR. STRACHAN: here on the other hand the company,which has been involved for the last five or six years has now decided to pull out and allow · its acreage, most importantly its acreage rather than its share holding, its acreage to be turned over to a federal corporation? MR. SPEAKER (MR. OTTENBEIMER): The hon. Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr. Speaker, the company NM - 2 referred to I think is still going to maintain an interest. It is not going to have the major single interest in the consortium.

So it is not fair to say, as the hon. member has put it so simplistically, that one day they are in,the next day they are out; it is not as simple as that, they are still involved in the consortium. They are not involved as the single, major, the highest percentage of any individual company in the consortium. That is the position. That is the point. Secondly, the reasons why Total decided upon reducing their interest in the consortium was one that you will have to ask Total.

All I know is that they were willing to sell out to a number of other companies who were eager to get into the single most important company in the consortium. And the reasons are known best 1 I guess 1 to Total. They have not released them to me or to anybody in this Province to my knowledge. All I know is that the~e were a couple of other companies lined up by the door to move into that position when it became clear that Total wanted to move out.

I also know of course,as perhaps the hon. member knows, that Total has got a fairly major interest in a number of oil fields around the world in which trouble has occurred over the last couple of years, not the least of which is the Frig­ field in the North Sea on which the overrun on both 1610

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 637 NM - 3 P~IER PECKFORO: construction and getting into production has been a couple of hundred per cent 1 as I understand it, and that they have had real problems there, I do not know if that is one of the reasons, but I am simpl y conjecturing ,that is all. I do not know any 1611

April 2, 1979 Tape 638 PK - 1 Premier Peckford: specific reasons and have not been given any by Total or anybody else in the consortium. MR. STRACHAN: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (MR. OTTENEHIMER): A final supplementary, and then the hon. member for LaPoile. MR.

STRACHAN: Could the Premier then, as he indicates I must ask Total the answer, could the Premier indicate exactly why Petrocan, a federal corporation, which is essentially set up to explore in peripheral areas, i·n areas which are largerly regarded as being non-economic or very difficult to operate and high operating costs to the exploration company, why Petrocan was,in essence must have been,the largest bidder in this compared to all of the other companies who are lining up behind?

I am very interested in the relationship as to why, if there was something there,as we are led to believe,around the corner, why some of the other companies would not be therefore be in a position to out bid a corporation which is essentially set up to explore in peripheral areas in Canada? MR. SPEAKER: The han. the Premier. PREMIER PECKFORO: Mr. Speaker, I cannot answer that question at all. It is just totally impossible for me to.~answer a question like that.

I mean,I have always considered the East Coast to be­ l do not know if one could classify it in the terminology that the han. member has,'peripheral: but at least highly expensive, both at the exploration stage and its production stage. And if one accepts the mandate of Petrocan to go out and look for frontier areas surely this is a frontier area. So on those grounds I can say Petrocan is justified under its mandate given to it by the House of Commons and so doing moving into it. Why some of the other countries did not move in as aggressively as Petrocan I cannot answer .

If Petrocan sees it as a better opportunity, it had the greater cash flow at the time, wanted to get a stake off the 1612

April 2, 1979 Tape 638 PK - 2 Premier Peckford: East Coast, there are a whole bunch of reasons, in the same way as they do in the Mackenize Delta or in Arctic Islands or wherever. The only thing I know is that there were two substantial bids at the time, one by Gulf,who was already involved in the consortium,by the way,and who wanted to move its interest higher, and Petrocan. And of the two that were offered at the time Petrocan's was better from where we sat as Newfoundlanders and as a government representing Newfoundland. MR. SPEAKER (MR.

OTTENHEIMER): The hon. member for LaPoile,followed by the hon. gentleman for Port au Port. MR. NEARY: Mr. Speaker, a couple of questions for the Minister of Fisheries, Sir, in connection with the Fishery Loan Board. gave the minister five or ten minutes advance notice that I was going to ask the question,so I hope the hon. gentleman has the answer. I would like to know from the hon. gentleman, Sir, how many applications are outstanding now before the Fishery Loan Board?

How many applications are on hand, either processed and the fishermen have not been notified, and the total number of applications on hand that have not been processed? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Minister of Fisheries. MR. W. CARTER: I do not have that information now, I can tell the hon. member~by the way,that in the fiscal year just ended we did process something like 1,479 applications from fishermen which was an 84 per cent 1613

A:;>ril 2, 1979 Tape ~To . 639 nw - 1 _i!R. W. CARTER: approval rate.As to how many applications are on hand now,! cannot answer but I shall tomorrow when I get the information. XR. S.NEARY: ~nt. SPEAKER: ~'R. S. NEARY: A supplementary, Sir. A supplementary. ~lr. Speaker, in view of the fact that there is great concern on the part of the fishermen,and indeed frustration on the part of a good many fishermen who are waiting to have their applications processed, would the minister indicate if they are still processing applications before the Fishery Loan Board or is there a freeze on applications? MR.

SPEAKER: The hon. Minister of Fisheries . ~!R. W. CARTER: There is no freeze on it, they are still processing applications. In fact, I think there was a meeting held in the St. Barbe area last Thursday, ~eetings are being held regularly, applications are being approved,! do know there is a backlog as usually happens this time of the year 9but as to exactly what extent I cannot answer that question right now. MR. s. NEARY: A supplementary. ~- SPEAKER: MR. S. NEARY: A supplementary, original Q.uestioner. Mr.

Speaker, I was wondering if the hon. gentleman could tell ue out of the 1,479 that 'lere processed in the last fiscal year if all the fishermen have been notified or is there also a backlog ~ apart from the backlog of applications that have not come before the board at all yet 1 is there a backlog of applications that have been processed but fishermen not notified yet, is there a backlog in that area? :-m.. SPEAKER: Hon. minister. MR. lv. CARTER : I do not think so, }~r.

Speaker, the applications last year were approved, 474 for new vessels-! am sure they have all been notified- $2P..6 million; 404 applications were approved for the. purchase of used vessels,$6.1 million; 601 applications for miscellaneous 1614

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 639 nw - 2 ~!R.W. CARTER: equipment for a total of $3.1 million for a grand total of $37,900,000 for the year. And that is close to a 400 per cent increase over the previous year. So all of these people have been advised and as soon as the loans are approved the fishermen are advised accordingly. ~!R. S. NEARY: HR. SPEAKER: MR. S. NEARY: Final supplementary, Sir. Final supplementary.

Well, the hon. gentleman told us a year or so ago that the han. gentleman was going to beef up the Fishery Loan Hoard but we seem to be getting just as many complaints andcritcisms of the Fishery Loan Board as ever,e.en more so, the number of complaints that are reaching my desk and my colleagues' desks about applications that are outstanding for a year, going on two years.

But I would like to find out from the hon. gentleman,and I do not wish to open up the area of licensing,but does the hon. gentleman's department, the Fishery Loan Board,hold prior consultation with the Federal Fisheries Department in connection with any of these applications regarding licensing before the application is approved?

Is there any liaison, any communications between the hon. gentleman's department and the federal Department of Fisheries?And if there is,I would like the hon. gentleman also to tell me if licenses that,for instance,are withdrawn or cancelled in a certain part of the Province,and I will use my own district as an example,on the Southwest corner , say there is a license recalled or r.ancelled in Burnt Islands or Isle au Mort or Rose Blanche, does the han. gentleman see to it that the licenses will remain in that area because if the hon: 1615

April 2, 1979 Tape 640 PK - 1 Mr. Neary: gentleman does not there is going to be a reduction in the catching capability, in the number of boats in that particular area, that the licence will stay' in that area rather than be put in another region of the Province? MR. SPEAKER (MR. OTTENHEIMER): The hon. Minister of Fisheries. MR. W. CARTER: Mr. Speaker, naturally there has got to be some communication between our department and the Federal Department of Fisheries concerning licencing.

We do not normally give loans to fishermen to built expensive longliners without an assurance from that fisherman and from the Federal Department of Fisheries that a licence will be forthcoming. As to what happens to a licence, this is handled by the Federal Department of Fisheries. At least do not believe licences are transferable. And as to what happens to a 1 i cen ce - AN HON. MEMBER: In a family. MR. W. CARTER: Within a family, yes. What happens to a licence that is being, for one reason or another, cancelled, as to where it goes is not my decision.

Naturally I would want to see the licence stay in the area where it was being usee, but again it is up to the Federal Department of Fisheries to make that decision. MR. SPEAKER: The han. member for Port au Port. MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, a question for the han. the Premier. Is the Grade XII programme still on schedule? And does he intend to start the phasing in of that programme in September, 1980, as was previously indicated in the Throne Speech? MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: The answer to that question is, yes, Mr.

Speaker, and I defer it to the Minister of Education if he has additional information to provide. We have just finished, completed a meeting today,as a matter of fact?with the Newfoundland Teachers' Association when this matter was broached, and we will be consulting with other interested people around the Province. But it is in line with the announcements that have been made to date on it. 1616

April 2, 1979 Tape 640 MR. HODDER: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER (MR. OTTENHEIMER): A supplementary. MR. HODDER: Would the Premier let us know what form, PK - 2 has the government or has the Department of Education decided what form the Grade XII programme will take? MR. SPEAKER: The han. the Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr. Speaker, I will have to take notice of that question and defer to the Minister of Education if he wants to elaborate at the present moment on it. MR. HODDER: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: A supplementary. MR.

HODDER: A note in the Throne Speech of December 4 said that the details would be provided to the House of Assembly in due course on the Grade XII programme. My question to the Premier is~ are these details ready? And at what point will the public of the Province and special interest groups have some input into the type of Grade XII that we will be experiencing this year? MR. SPEAKER: The han. the Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: The· 'deta i 1 is being prepared and as soon as it is ready it will be provided to the House and to all interest groups around the Province. MR. HODDER: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. MR.

SPEAKER: A final supplementary, followed by the han. members for the Strai:ts of Belle Isle and Burgeo-Bay d'Espoir. MR. HODDER: Mr. Speaker, I understand from the Premier's comments that the details will be prepared and provided to special interest groups around the Province. Wi·ll special interest groups and the general public have an input into what type of programme will be implemented as a Grade XII? MR. SPEAKER: The han. the Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Of course, Mr. Speaker, they will. 1617

April 2,1979 Tape No. 641 ~. SPEAKER: (Mr.Ottenheimer) of Belle Isle. li!R.. ROBERTS: AH-1 Hon. member for the Straits Mr. Speaker, a question for the Minister of Trans~ortation and C~nications, the gentleman from Trinity North. If I may prefix it by a very brief statem~nt; The minister and I, I believe, have both had representations from people in Southern Labrador today to the effect that either because of delays here in St.

John's,and because of the admittedly bad mail service,people in that area have not received their ~enewals a~plications for their motor vehicles in sufficient time to enable them to get their 1979-1980 stickers by the deadline which of course was a day or so aga. Could the minister perhaps tell the House whether any steps have been taken,or whether he is prepared to give consideration to perha~s asking the RCM Police in the area not to ~uforce the rules until a reasonable time, say a week or so has elapsed,so the people could get their stickers and get them on their cars?

I gather the problem is quite widespread Sir. MR. SP'EAXER: and Communications. MR. BRETT: Ron. Minister of Transportation Mr. Speaker, I did have a call from a gentleman in Southern Labrador this morning indicating what the hon. member just said. I was in touch with the Director of Motor Registration and I asked him to get a report back to me. Re had not up to this moment.

I have not made any decision to extend the deadline nor to get in touch with the RCMP but I can assure the hon. member that I am looking into the matter and if he would like to cantact me probably tomorrow morning we could possibly discuss the matter further. If I were sure that•the fault was on the part of the registrar or the department then I could probably take some more definitive action. But I am not,so I would like to lock into it a little bit further before making any further decisions. 1618

April 2,1979 Tape No. 641 AH-2 MR. ROBERTS: A brief supplementary. "R.SPEAKER: A supplementary. MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's position and I shall be in touch with him. Would he be willing to extend his beneficence even lf it is no fault on the part of the Motor Registration Division?

And I would not want to say there is fault on the part of the post office 1 but Southern Labrador's mail service,for reasons whith I do not want to go into now,is even worse than that available in most parts of the rural areas of thia Province, WOuld he be willing to extend it on the assumption th~t there is no fault on the part of the }~tor Registration Division? I suspect it has treated Southern Labrador as anywhere else in this Province,but it has not taken into account the realities of the incredibly bad postal service. ~!ght he consider that a reason to allow a week or ten days, a fortnight's extension? MR.

SPEAKER: MR. BRETT: The hon. minister. Mr. Speaker, after I discuss the matter again with the Motor Registration Division I will make a definite decision. MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member for Burgee- Bay d'Espoir followed by the hon. member for Eagle River. MR. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, a question for the hon. the Premier. It relates to public statements made by the President of Newfoundland and Labradro Hydro last week, ~r. Young. I wonder would the Premier indicate to the House whether he agrees with a statement made by Mr. Young that the 161.9

April 2, 1979 Tape 642 EC - 1 MR. SIMMONS: main reason Gull Island has not been developed to date is because of the difficulty in obtaining the appropriate financing. MR. SPEAKER: (Mr. Cross) PREMIER PECKFORD: The han. the Premier. Mr.

Speaker, there are many difficulties associated with development of hydro power in Labrador, 0ne of them has to do with dollars, one of them has to do with access to markets~and one has to do with the whole industrial development strategy of the Province, an~ there are many, many factors which go to contribute towards trying to bring on stream in a reasonable period of time some development of hydro power in Labrador. One of the factors undoubtedly has to do with dollars. MR. SIMMONS: MR. SPEAKER: (Mr. Ottenheimer) MR. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary. A supplementary. Mr.

Speaker, we are certainly aware of the factors that the Premier has enumerated once again. The point of my question - I will rephrase it and ask it again - Mr. Young was quite specific?if he is quoted correctly in the press,that the main reason was the difficulty in obtaining financing. Indeed, he went so far as to say that if other hydro corporations in Canada had the hydro potential within their jurisdictions,the facility would long since have been developed. He is quite specific, Mr. Speaker, in saying that the main reason is financing.

And I am certainly aware of the other reasons, the other factors that the Premier has mentioned, but can we gather from Mr. Young's statement or is he correct in telling the public that the main reason, that in essence the pivotal reason why the development is not ongoing right now is a financial one? MR. SPEAKER: The hen. the Premier. 1620

Ap r il 2, 1 979 Tap e 642 EC - 2 PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr. Speaker, I have indicated that th.ere are numerous reasons for the slowness in getting the hydro develop·ment of Labrador underway and one of them has to do with the financial reasons. The amount of importance you attach to the various factors will vary, I guess, from person to person, but I see it as being many, many factors involved and one of them happens to be dollars. Whether it is a pivotal reason,as the hon. member suggests that Mr. Young mentioned~or n?t I am not prepared to say at the present moment.

I would have to look at all the factors and try to gi•e weight to each one, but that dollars is one is unquestionable. MR. SIMMONS: MR. SPEAKER: MR. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary. A supplementary. Mr. Speaker, obviously the Premier is not prepared to answer this particular question. It is an important one. Let me try it another way. Mr. Young alsti states quite specifically that the reason we have not been able to get the financing for the Lower Churchill Development is because of our credit rating. He goes on to point out it is the lowest in Ca.nada and so on. 162.1

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 643 NM - 1 MR. SIMMONS: Could the Premier indicate to the House whether the government is having difficulty getting the financing - I am sure it has not gone looking directly on this point-but has it had any indication that the problem in obtaining the financing is because of our present credit rating? MR. SPEAKER (MR. OTTENHEIMER) : The hon. Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: No, I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that we have attempted to go to the marketplace as it relates to the power development in Labrador until we have all the pieces put together on a full package.

The federal government and Quebec have effectively stymied us on a number of occasions and until we can put in place a developmental strategy which sees all the power being utilized at competitive rates,then of course there would be no point in going to the marketplace. There is no indication from anybody that I know, or any indication to this government that we would have any difficulty in raising the funds. The problem is with the project itself and ensuring that we have a proper and reasonable 1viable · markets for the power. MR. SIMMONS: A supplementary. MR. SPEAKER: A final supplementary. MR. SIMMONS: Mr.

Speaker, the Premier has indicated to us now that his position on the subject is quite different that Mr. Young's. Indeed,Mr. Young is telling us publicly that he knows that there has been difficulty and the Premier is saying that to his knowledge there has not been difficulty. I wonder in view of these divergent views or divergent experiences on the subject, could the Premier indicate whether he is concerned about the practice of the head of a corporation, essentially a public servant, making statements like this about the 1622

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 643 NM - 2 MR. SIMMONS: credit rating of a province when in fact,if we are to accept the Premier's word of a moment ago, when in fact these statements are not based on any experience on the subject in that the approach has not been made to the money markets, according to what the Premier has told us a moment ago. Is the Premier concerned about this matter, the matter of public servants making statements like this,without foundation it would seem, and if he is concerned what does he propose doing about it? MR. SPEAKER (MR. OTTENHEIMER): Mr.

Speaker, the hon. member makes some very brilliant deductions and he is quite at liberty to put whatever opinion he would like on various statements that he hears from me or from members of the government or agencies of the government and I applaud him on his opinion and his deduction that he makes from various statements that are made by various people and I hope that in the future that he continues to make such deductions. ORDERS OF THE DAY: MR. MARSHALL: Order 8, Bill No. 18.

Motion, second reading of a bill, "An Act To Provide For Additional Representation For Labrador In The House Of Assembly." (Bill No. 18) MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Premier. PREMIER PECKFORD: Mr.

Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure today to be able to stand here and move second reading of a bill, "An Act To Provide For Additional Representation For Labrador In The House Of Assembly." As most hon. gentlemen know, over the last number of years, during Private Members' Days, during other debates on the Address-in­ Reply, and the Budget Speech, and on particular legislation that has been brought before this House,many, many members have mentioned the importance of Labrador to our Province, 1623

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 643 NM - 3 PREMIER PECKFORD: the importance to ensure that the Labrador people feel more a part of the mainstream of Newfoundland society and on it goes. Well, Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to be able to indicate that through this Bill 18 the government is proposing to increase a number of seats in Labrador to four from what is now three and a half, to give some concrete evidence of this government's concern for Labrador and increasing the representation there. The new district to be created, Mr.

Speaker, is going to be called Torngat Mountains Dis~rict, which of course reflects the mountains in that part of Labrador. Up to now the hen. member for Eagle River (Mr. Strachan) covers a very large, wide expanse of Labrador, all the way from Nain now, which I think is the Northe~st community that is inhabited, all the way down to the Southernmost community in Eagle River is - MR. STRACHAN: Henley Harbour in the South.

PREMIER PECKFORD: Henley Harbour which in the Summertime .-that is where most of the Stones used to live and now they are all moved o~t - Henley Harbour in the South,which is a Summer fishing village now, which covers hundreds of miles of coastline, Not only do we have the problem with the amount of coastline it covers,but it is the diversity of the peoples that is covered there as well. By now restricting the district to 1624

April 2, 1979 Tape 644 SD - 1 P~~ER PECKFORD: only include from Nain to Rigolet 1 I think essentially is what the district will cover, ~~u are dealing with all the Northern communities in one district. And then you have Naskaupi,which is represented by the han. Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Goudie) 1 Happy Valley-Goose Bay-Northwest River area, and then you have another district South of there to take care of the Straits, Labrador

section or the Southern Labrador

section of Labrador. So here we have now a bill which will give tangible evidence of this House as a hopefully, if we give unanimous consent, agreement that additional representation is needed in Labrador, not because of the number of people there, I suppose. the total population of Labrador and all the districts would be somewhere between 30 and 40 thousand people,but the population does not tell the story, It is the broad expanse one has to cover in order to get in and out of the bays and in and out of the communit~es even in the middle of the ' Summer.

So now we will have Menihek District, Naskaupi District, Torngat Mountains District and the Southern coast of Labrador will be called Eagle River where, of course, Eagle River is. So we have four new districts being created, There has been some discussion in the last week or so,as a result of the indication by Government that • I this kind of bill would be coming before the House, to review or look at many other districts in the Province.

There has been-I think the former Premier has even gotten into the act, one of the former Premiers has gotten into the act as it relates to the business of boundaries,and I know of a number of districts around the Province, both represented by people opposite and people on this side,where there are some inequities and strange occurrences as it relates to boundaries. Well we are going to, Mr.

Speaker, in this Act, not address ourselves to those problems because once you o~en the door to one or two districts there are going to be many and the whole point of this Act, of this Bill, is to increase representation in Labrador, Under the Act passed some years ago, three years from now there will be an opportunity for review of the present distribution 1625

April 2, 1979 Tape 644 SD - 2 PREMIER PECKFORD: of districts and it is at that time that the whole question of inequities and various boundaries as it relates to various districts· around the Province will be addressed. It will not be done in this Bill; this Bill is essentially to create an additional district in Labrador to give the people of Labrador more representation then they now have.

I think it is fair to say that when one looks at the new district now,the Torngat Mountains District,that we are dealing with1ome cammunity of interest, there is some similarities, llain and Makkovic, for example and Hopedale have a l~t of similar problems,whereas if you were dealing~as the present member does, with problems in Henley Harbour,if you will,or Port Hope Simpson or Mary's Harbour or Cape Charles or Lodge Bay or George's Cove or William's Harbour and Cartwright,that you are dealing with a different kind of problem very often.~ud here it is all in Northern Labrador 1 all the more Northern communities and they do have some community of interest.

You have the Inuit Association and you have some of the Indian Associations and you can really spend a lot of time on the many, many problems that they have rather than have the diversity of community interest that they now have in the large,expansive district of Eagle River. So I think it is important to reflect that. Now, there might be other problems in Labrador; this is not going to suddenly solve, Mr. Speaker, all the problems we have in Labrador. It will give another voice in this House solely on Labrador. There will be now four voices speaking for Labrador in this hon.

House after the next election.because this Bill will take effect when this House is dissolved and an election called and will not take effect until that time 0 So there is no problem with a vacant seat suddenly coming up.[hat seat will not become vacant really,an~the district really does not exist until this House is dissolved and an election is underway 1 which might be tomorrow, which might be next week, which might be six or eight mouths from now or twelve months from now. I am under great pressure, Mr. Speaker, to 1.626

April 2, 1979 Tape 644 SD-3 PREMIER PECKFORD: call an election immediately, great, great pressure by many people around the Province and my phone is, I suppose, ~~. Speaker, if I had to bring the number of phone calls and letters right here in this file folder demanding an election immediately so that we could have forty seats rather than thirty seats it would be unbelievable, but I am going to resist that temptation, SOME H.ON. MEMBERS: !RpfiER PECKFORD: !lear, bear. I am going to resist this tempation, Mr.

Speaker, and I am going to try - the hon. gentleman sitting in the front benches and in the backbenchea are going to try and demonstrate over the next couple of months the reforms that this administration would like to bring in, the approaches that we would like to take so that the people of the Province will be able to see just how reform minded, how progressive, how socially conscious we are as a Government so that instead of taking forty seats, Mr. Speaker, then we will take fifty seats. So I am not content with forty seats now I would rather see fifty seats down the road further.

But in any case,this is the first piece 1.627

April 2, 1979 Tape 645 EC - 1 PREMIER PECKFORD: legislation, Mr. Speaker, to demonstrate the desire of this government to make changes not only to political boundaries, but other major reform measures which will be brought in over the next several weeks as it relates to this government's priorities and the aims and objectives which we have - of course, additionally to that, our financial priorities as well, as will be demonstrated in the Budget if and when it is brought down in the next month or two months.

So here we have it, the Torngat Mountains district, a new district for Labrador, which will give them more representation and hopefully make them feel,because of the speed with which we have acted in the last number of weeks on this measure,to demonstrate to them some concern for Labrador and the people of Labrador and to recognize the diversity of peoples in Labrador, the diversity of the problems economically, socially and culturally in Labrador. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. N.

Windsor) when he was in Labrador about a week ago also indicated that we are about to establish a regional office for the Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing in Labrador to give more concrete indication of our concern for Labrador - not just talk but positive action by way of a bill, by way of a regional office in Labrador. Right now, as I understand it, the Department of Municipal Affairs operates out of Corner Brook to cover all of Labrador. Well, we are going to change that now and have a regional office in Labrador. AN HON. MEMBER: AN HON. MEMBER: PREMIER PECKFORD: Hear, hear!

And an Appeal Board as well. And an Appeal Board as well in 1628

April 2, 1979 Tape 645 EC - 2 PREMIER PECKFORD: Happy Valley-Goose Bay . So we are getting there and we have to continue to do that with another member who can lobby, if you will, in this House, around this building, in the government offices, can get even more changes made in Labrador. Last year, Mr. Speaker, I travelled to Labrador and I was in most of the Northern communities that I had not been in before. I had been in most of them before. I was in the hon . member's community for a while last Summer, I think it was, and all the Northern communities.

I had, of course, lived in Southern Labrador for two or three Summers back in the early 1960s, so I was familiar with Henley Harbour and Lodge Bay and Cape Charles and Port Hope Simpson, Mary's Harbour, Fox Harbour area, but I had not been that familiar with the area North of Rigolet into the Hopedale/Davis Inlet area, Makkovik, Postville and Nain area. In any case, this bill now, Bill No. 18, gives that additional representation for Labrador. It could be argued, I suppose, Mr.

Speaker, that here we are again, here is this government or here is this House adding more seats, more money going out of the public chest - the number of the seats now in the House is going up to fifty-two - that this is a scandal because there are too many members in the House at the present moment. And I have seen that in print on a number of occasions and I have heard people say to me personally, 'You have too many people in the House.' Well, I reject that, Mr.

Speaker, right out of han~ In the period that I have been in this House representing the district of Green Bay under the redistribution a number of years ago, as the hon. the member for Baie Verte - White Bay (Mr. Rideout) could 1629

April 2, 1979 Tape 645 EC - 3 PREMIER PECKFORD: attest, they changed the boundaries of Green Bay district and the community of interest business in Burlington, Smith's Harbour, Middle Arm area, Nipper's Harbour, Round Harbour, Snook's Arm, Tilt Cove, Shoe Cove were put into the Baie Verte - White Bay district and taken out of Green Bay district.

And you know, there is no question about it that as a member, just as a member for Green Bay district, that I have been able to see more people and to respond to more problems in a more effective manner,because the district now has a community of interest," far better than I could in that larger, larger district. And whilst we are spending additional money for an additional person to be in this House, I think it is money well spent. I think that we must recognize the geographical factors, the community interest factors which give rise to the larger numbers.

And I do not apologize at all as a member of the House) and now as Leader of the Government,for the number of members that are in this House. I think that they are absolutely necessary to really give voice to concerns and a community of interest that we have in many of the districts in the Province right now. It is still not perfect. There are districts which are widespread which have many, many communities, but there is some improvement, I think, because of the redistribution a number of years ago, and hopefully improvement in Labrador now as it relates to this additional district.

I will not hold up the House any longer, Mr. Speaker, only to say that I am extremely pleased and honoured to introduce this bill which makes four seats in Labrador and hopefully,in a small way, reflects this government's interest and concern for the 1630

April 2, 1979 Tape 645 EC - 4 PREMIER PECKFORD: people of Labrador and the fact that they need an additional voice in this House to give voice to many of the problems that they continue to have in that very great part of our Province. I move second reading. SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear! 1631.

April 2, 1979 Tape 646 PK-1 MR. SPEAKER (Mr. Cross): The han. member for the Strait of Belle Isle. MR. ROBERTS: Mr. Speaker, thank you. Mr. Speaker, I was going to say the former Premier, but perhaps in the interest of accuracy I should say the original former Premier of this Province, the han. Mr. Smallwood, used often to preface his public addresses or in the course of his speeches to use a phrase which I believe is from an old Methodist hymn, and perhaps Your Honour having grown up and lived on the North side of Bonavista Bay, one of the strongholds of Methodism in this Province, would be familiar with it.

I confess I am not. I think it is in the Sankey songbook. The gentleman for Grand Bank (Mr. Hickman) would have cut his teeth on the Sankey songbook. But the phrase I think it is well known to many members of this House and that is, "While the light holds out to burn, the vilest sinners may return." And in a very real sense this bill I think is an example of the government heeding that adminition. We, Sir, on this side intend to support the bill. And now that we are reunited and are one great Liberal family again with the return to our ranks of the gentleman for the district of Port de Grave (Mr.

Dawe), who was temporarily among the separated brethern and is now returned to his first love, I can assure the Premier that this bill will be given unanimous support of everyone of the fifty-one members in this House.

We on this side have caucused and have agreed to support it and I am sure the Premier speaks for all of the members sitting to Your Honour's left when he says that the bill is a government bill and has the support of all, not just all of the government, but all of those who support the government, including my friend for Bay of Islands (Mr. l~oodrow) who is once again of the government but not in it. But I am told he does support it and I welcome that. Mr. Speaker, this is a wise measure.

It is one which we on this side have advocated right from the start, if we refer back to the debates of 1974 when the most recent amendment to the House 1632

April 2, 1979 Tape 646 PK - 2 Mr. Roberts: of Assembly Act was enacted, when the present fifty- one seats were created by the great gerrymandering of 1974. AN HON. MEMBER: A shameful Act. MR. ROBERTS: Yes,it was a shameful Act. And thank heavens today the new Premier is correcting it, and I think full measure, full credit should be given to the new Premier and to the new administration for doing that. Basically, Mr. Speaker, this bill I would submit accomplishes two purposes, the Premier has touched upon them; it creates a fourth seat entirely within the boundaries of the Labrador portion of this Province.

And I am sure that each of us who sits today in this House representing a district which is wholly or partially within the boundaries of the Labrador portion of this Province will welcome that. I see ~ friend for Menihek (Mr. Rousseau) with us, am sure that if he speaks, as I hope he will, he will support this measure, and support it not simply as a government measure but because he believes it is riqht. My friend for the present district of Eagle River (Mr.

Strachan) will speak, and I know too that he will support this measure, not simply because the Opposition have decided as a body to support it but because he believes it is right and proper so to do. The gentleman for Naskaupi (Mr. Goudie), a member of the present administration, I know will support it, indeed I would hope he had, and I believe he did have,a hand in bringing this about.

And I have said that I will support it, Indeed I suppose I am the only member of the House of Assembly ever to campaign on a promise to abolish his seat if elected because in 1975, in the general election,! campaigned in the present Strait of Belle Isle district and one of the undertakings I gave to those whom I asked to vote for me,and those who subsequently became my constituents,was that I would do what I could to have their seat abolished and to have a scheme brought in exactly the same as the scheme embodied in the bill now before the House. The bill, Mr.

Speaker, as well as creating a fourth seat in Labrador also divides the Coast of Labrador, that long 1633

April 2, 1979 Tape 646 PK - 3 Mr. Roberts: stretch of coastline between L'Anse-au-Clair, which is just over the Quebec Border in the South, and the community of Nain which,as the Premi•er .says, is the most Northernly settled settlement in this Province to the North1 it divides that coast into two constituencies 1634

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 647 01-1- 1 ~. E. ROBERTS: and into two seats. In so doing ,of course,it creates a fifty-second·. seat for this Chamber,Wbich I believe will make us the largest Chamber, The members to be elected in the election very shortly, in this 38~h. General Assembly there will be fifty-two men and women returned and that will be the largest number I believe ever returned in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador 7not just for the Province of course but of the Dominion and the Colony which preceeded our present state. Mr.

Speaker, the present Strait of Belle Isle seat in many ways is an unnatural seat. 0f course,that is why I opposed its creation in the House in 1974. If memory serves me, that was one of the times when I got ~self the Royal Order of the Flick for having opposed it.MY friend for LaPoile (Mr.

Neary), again no stranger to the Royal Order o~the Flick,has apparently got out the Hansard debates,and I was suspended ,I fo1rget the particular offence but the particular offence did not matter .The thrust of what I did was oppose as vigorously as I could,even to the point of being suspended from the House,the creation of not just the Strait of Belle Isle seat as we now know it,but the gerrymandering which went on.And the Premier adverted to this today when he spoke of the fact that there are many seats throughout this Province where there are inequities and where the present scheme of legislative distribution is unfair and unreasonable.

But that is another story and I am not here today to condemn the Premier and his administration;in fact~as unlikely as it may sound,I am here to give him a measure of praise because I believe what they are doing is the right thing. I would say to the Premier that is not coming events casting their shadow 1but where praise is ~eserved I would be the very first to give praise and I believe praise is merited here, Sir. This is a step forward. 1.635

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 647 DW - 2 ~. E. ROBERTS: To speak solely the Strait of Belle Isle seat, ~!r. Speaker, it is an unnatural seat, It is one of the largest seats in population in the Province,! do not have the figures for all of the seats here but according to the 1976 census, which I would suggest is both reliable and certainly the most recent evidence which we have- I wonder if the gentleman who are having a discussion outside the Chamoer could probably keep it do'Nn a littler I have an excellent voice and I think I know how to use it, but I do not think it helps anybody to it.

The Strait of Belle Isle seat, Mr. Speaker, according to the 1976 census figures has 12,908 people living in it in forty-eight separate identifiable communities. I do not kno~ what the other seats were,but if you divide 51 into 570,000~which is approximately the population of this Province today . you have about a little over 11,000 as being the numerical mean, being the average, the numerical average, the mathematical average of the seat. So by that standard alone the Strait of Belle Isle seat is much on the larger side with roughly 13,000 people in it as opposed to 11,000 on a numerical average.

Some seats have about 8,000 or 9,000. ' t~e district of Grand Falls has about 9,000 peonle in it, The district of St. Mary's - The Capes,represented so admirably by the gentleman who is the Minister of Fisheries,has about 8,200 or 8,300 people in it,as I recall. I have always thought it was unfa±r to have such a large seat, so many people in an area so spread out when you have much smaller numbers of people taken into a seat in a much more compact area, an area with far fewer of the problems that are arought to members.And let us be clear what happens in a gerrymanderin~ •.

It I does not affect election results; what it does affect is the quality of service which people get.The people who suffer are not the politicians; the people who suffer are the constituents whose needs cannot be met no matter how hard a man works or how much of his time and effort he devotes to serving the needs of his constitutents. In any event,the Strait of Belle 1636

April 2, 1979 Tape No . 647 :w - 3 ~~. E. ROBERTS : Isle seat now. as it now stands and as having been created in 1974,will soon be but a figment of history. And I guess for whatever it is worth there is a very small 1637

April 2,1979 Tape No. 648 AH-1 MR. ROBERTS: footnote that I would have been the only man elected to this House to represent both sides of the Straits of Belle Isle, the Labrador portion of this Province and the Newfoundland portion. I never really found out MR. NEARY: At the same time. MR. ROBERTS: -at the same time.

I am not sure anybody has ever been elected for both sides - of course the han. doctor Fred Rowe sat for Labrador and subsequently sat for White Bay South.JL~d my friend the member for Fogo (Capt.Winsor) sat for Labrador North with great distinction and now with equally great _distinction has represented Fogo. But I thank my friend from ~o.ile(Mr.Neary), the only man ever to represent a seat that embraced both parts of this Province or portions-of both parts of this Province,to be quite precise.

I never quite found out why the former Premier, that is the second former Premier, not the original former Premier, the present gentleman from Humber West district(Mr.Moores), why he insisted upon a seat that was partially on the Island and partially in Labrador. He doubtless had his own reasons for it and I do not think malice was among them. I think it was probably just a mistake on his part. He would not listen in this House, or outside,! might add,to either argument or reason.

Representations were made by people in Labrador,representations were made by any number of us to:· the effect that the seat should not be created. He insisted upon it in the 1973 Delimitation of Boundries Act, a seat one half in Labrador and one half on the Island,and then when the Higgins Commission, the commission under the late Mr. Justice Higgins brought in its report and reported on a seat half in Labrador and half on the Island, and a seat much like the former White Bay North seat,the gentleman from Humber West(Mr.

Moores) and his administration insisted upon throwing out that report and creating the present Strait of Belle Isle seat which essentially embodied both the two seats recommended and replaced them with one. They were partially of course after some partisan advantage and 1.638

April 2,1979 Tape No. 648 AH-2 MR. ROBERTS: they got their answer because the Liberals held all the Northeast Ceast seats,but partially it was a-move to take one seat from the Northeast Coast of his Province which is what was done by the 1974 Redistribution Bill, !he amendment to the House of Assembly Act. It is

chapter 112 of the 1974 Statute. In any event,whatever the former Premier's reasons he carried the day.As the present Premier will agree, Premiers do have the ability to get their way. The House did vcte it through and the people were asked to elect their members and in their wisdom they elected members. Be that as it may,the right steps are now being taken and I think the government should be congratulated for that. I will touch very briefly, Mr. Speaker, and I should not need very long to outline our thinking on this, on some of the reasons why we think this is a wise move.

The Premier has touched on some but he has not really gone into it in as much detail as I think the House should know. First of all,this bill will make the Strait of Belle Isle seat, the new Strait of Belle Isle seat,a much more logical and rational constituency. The seat will run from Blue Cove around to Conche.· AN RON. MEMBER: ~. ROBERTS: I left it to you. Well my hon. friend left it to me . If he leaves other things to me he will be in better hands than he is in right now with some of his colleagues, I can assure him. P~t I want to thank him. P:U:}!IER PECKFORD: MR. ROBERTS: Come on over,'Ed'.

Mr.Speaker, I will be coming over but I do not expect the Premier to be there at the time I come over. SOME RON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear: AN HON. MEMBER: Two thousand and thirteen. M1l. ROBERTS: Two thousand and - oh, the year. Well~that is more than 33l,I would say. Mr. Speaker, it does make 1639

April 2 ,1979 Tape No. 648 AH-3 '!'R. ROBERTS: the Strait of Belle Isle seat a much more logical and rational constituency. It removes from it communities that - and the figure values are all from the 1976 census-were inhabited by 2,141 people and that will bring the number of people living in the new Strait of Belle seat to about 10,800 and that is not too far off the provincial average. If you divide 570,000 by fifty-twol unless my arithmetic has completely escaped me,that is almost dead on 11,000 people. Not necessarily electors but 11,000 citizens , old and young alike.in each of the fifty-two seats.

I think there is a community of interest between the people who live along the St. Barbe Coast, the people who live in the St. Anthony area, North to Cape Bauld and Cook's Rarbour~and then the people who live in Main Brook and in Conche. I am not so sure about Main Brook and Conche. If this were a thorough redistribution I think their community of interest lies elsewhere,but there is a greater community of interest by far in this new seat than in the old seat because there are very real differences of opinion between the people who live on different sides of the Strait of Belle Isle.

Now that is not to condemn anybody,it is simply to know their reality. There is a long history of tradition, a lon.g history of 1640

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 649 NM - 1 MR. ROBERTS: solidarity on each side but not community of links across the Straits. And I think that is true. The former Minister of Education I know will have had experience of the school board which crosses the Straits and I think that has had some difficulties. In fact there are two, the Vinland School Board and the Straits of Belle Isle School Board, both integrated; each crosses the Straits and I think each has had problems arising out of that quite unnatural division, quite unnatural arrangement.

The minister of course first drew breath, as I understand it, in Bellburns and he is therefore nearly blessed with the wisdom of having been born in the Straits and I think he would concur from his own knowledge, in addition to that which he learned in his professional capacity. More importantly, Mr. Speaker, this new seat recognizes the geographic and social realities of Labrador. The Premier has spoken of this. I will endorse what he said. We have a realtively small population spread out over 800 miles of coastline from L'Anse-au-Clair to Nain.

I do not have the precise figures but my guess is there are not 7,500 people living today between L'Anse-au-Clair and Nain. The House may be surprised to realize there are so few but by my guess there are about 5,000 in the new proposed Eagle River seat, the 2,141 between L'Anse-au-Clair and Red Bay, and then if you begin at Mary's Harbour, the most Southerly Winter or year round community, and go all the way to Rigolet- is Rigolet in the new Torngat or the new Eagle River? PREMIER PECKFORD: Torngat. 1641

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 649 NM - 2 MR. ROBERTS: Torngat. You go all the way then to Cartwright and Paradise River, the most Northerly communities on the Southern side of Lake Melville, the Southern side of Groswater Bay, you may have another 2,500 or 2,600 people. So it is about 5,000 people in that proposed Eagle River seat and I would think if there are 2,500 people from Rigolet to Nain that is all there are. Those are round figures but they are - And I see my friend from Naskaupi (Mr. Goudie) who knows the area very well, shakes his head in acquiesence.

It does not particularly bother me that so few people will elect a member because I think their needs are such, both in a social sense and in a geographic sense, that we in this House are warranted in taking special note and I think the way to take that special note is by a measure of the sort we have before us now. Mr. Speaker, even more importantly that that, I think the Premier's measure, the government's measure recognizes not simply the social and geographic needs,which are real, but the cultural and political realities which are equally real and even more, to my way of thinking, Sir, of even more weight.

Now I have spoken often in this House of the feelings of Labradorians and by Labradorians , let me hasten to say,I mean anybody whose home is in Labrador. To me it is utterly irrelevant where one's mother happened to be at the moment when birth carne. That does not make a person a Labradorian or not, anymore than if a cow has calves in a china shop that does not make them soup plates. It is where one makes one's horne. My friend from Eagle River (Mr. Strachan~ who was born,I believe 1 in Aberdeen, somewhere in the Northeastern 1642

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 649 NM - 3 MR. ROBERTS: part of Scotland, is as much a Labradorian as somebody who was born in L'Anse-au-Clair or in Rexons Cove or any other community on the Labrador. People who have gone there and made it their home are Labradorians. I have spoken often of their feelings and I think with a great deal of sympathy and I hope with a great measure of understanding. If I were living in Labrador, Sir, I think I would share those feelings in full measure and I might be even more outspoken than many of the people who have voiced their feelings to me or voiced them publicly in other ways.

I do not know if there is one common feeling in Labrador. There are really three or four Labradors. People who live on the Northern Coast have little in common with the people who live in Western Labrador in the district of Menihek. The people who live in Cartwright do not have a great deal in common with the people who live in Happy Valley. They are all Labradorians and that fact in their minds underlies everything else.

So whatever differences there may be between Churchill or Wabush or Labrador City on the one hand 1 or L'Anse-au-Clair, Red Bay or L'Anse-Amour, or Postville on the other, but underlying it all is that common strata, "We are Labradorians" and that is seen I think by anybody who goes to the Labrador, Sir, by the Labrador flag which,by the way,is infinitely more attractive than any design I have ever seen proposed for a flag for this Province. The Labrador flag I think is a work of true beauty. My friend from Naskaupi (Mr. Goudie) points to my Labrador twig.

The badge 1 which I wear quite proudl~was given to me by constituents of mine in Labrador and I wear it. It is the twig of a spruce tree, if my knowledge 1643

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 649 NM - 4 MR. ROBERTS: of forestry has not deserted me, and it is part of the Labrador flag which is white, blue and green in solid horizontal bands. The white for the snow, and the 1644

April 2, 1979, Tape 650, Page 1 -- apb MR. ROBERTS: blue for the sea and the green for the forest, with the spruce twig with five separate branches upon it representing the five peoples who together make up the people who now live on the Labrado~ and I think it is a very real symbol of that part of this Province. If we ever do adopt a provincial flag other than the Union Jack, and I put adopting a provincial flag as rather low on any list of priorities, but if we do we could do a lot worse than adopt the Labrador flag,though I am not sure the people in Labrador would like that.

They might say, "You have taken everything we have and now, by blank, you are going to take our flag as well." It is a very attractive symbol, it is seen everywhere. It is worn on jackets, it is flown from longliners, you see it on the dash- boards of cars. The pin is widely worn. There is a very real feeling of a Labradorian identity. There is a feeling equally of a Newfoundland identity. I guess we all read the Weekend Mas:azine, a very eloquent piece by Al Pittman 1 who is a first-class poet.

If only the government could be persuaded to buy some of the works published by Breakwater Press and distribute them around! Maybe the new Culture Minister will do better than the old Education Minister did in that. Mr. Pittman wrote in last Saturday's magazine of the new nationalism - maybe not the new nationalism; the nationalism which is arising in this Province which I am not sure we ever had before. What we had before was probably a defensive mechanism, a sort of an internal poor mouth.

Now, by heavens, we are coming to realize that we can be proud of what we are, what we have, what we have been, and what we can be in this Province, and 1645

April 2, 1979, Tape 650, Page 2 -- apb MR. ROBERTS: that feeling, Sir, is particularly strong in the Labrador. It is not a separatist feeling. It makes me very angry when I hear people who ought to know better speak of the separatist feelings in Labrador. They are not separatists. They want to be part of a united province, Sir, but they want to be part of a province in which they get their fair share.

There is a very real feeling today throughout Labrador, and the view is widespread, it is not a few isolated hotheads, it is not a few this or a few that, it is almost everybody of whatever age or whatever background or whatever they do in life or whatever their political philosophy or their anything, a very wide­ spread feeling, and it runs deep, it is not a surface feeling, Mr. Speaker, it is a very deeply held, a very sincerely held feeling that Labrador is not getting its fair share, that Labrador is being treated as a colony by the rest of this Province. How often have we heard it?

"They took our power, they took our iron ore, now they are taking our fish" I just made mention of the flag, but I have had people say that to me, "I suppose next you people will be taking our flag." The feeling is that Labrador is not just being developed, it is being exploited, exploited against the interests of the Labrador people and for the benefit of the people of the Island. And that is an unfortunate feeling. There is too much evidence to support it. I cannot say that it is an unwarranted feeling, but I will say that one of the tests of statesmanship in the new Premier, in his administration, 1646

April 2, 1979, Tape 650, Page 3 -- apb MR. ROBERTS: Sir, seem to be marching along this road, and if they are they will be doing a great service to this Province, a service which should be recognized for what it is. If they can help to bring into being measures which will lead the people of Labrador to conclude that they are getting their fair share, and that their resources are being developed, not exclusively for their benefit, nobody has ever said that, but for their reasonable and their fair benefit and not as they now perceive, and as too often is now the case,to their detriment.

I think that that feeling, Sir, underlies much of the discontent which runs throughout the Labrador part of this Province today. And I think that if we in this Island, we who are concerned about the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador can put together and put into practice measures to make sure that every part of this Province has reasonable return from what we in this Province build, then, Sir, not only will we have served this Province well, but we will alleviate and in due course remove that feeling. The feeling is there simply because there is a need for it.

The New Labrador Party, to take one of its political expressions, came into being because there was a vacumm. Neither of the old line parties, we on this side or the Tories opposite, expressed the feelings of the people of Labrador. The New Labrador Party disappeared because, I think, a number of us on both sides were more responsive. But, Sir, that feeling could arise again should both parties not express,in the eyes of the people of Labrador, express their legitimate interests. In that sense a very . heavy burden lies on the gentleman from Naskaupi (Mr.Goudie) 1647

April 2 , 197 9, Tape 650 , Page 4 -- apb MR. ROBERTS: who .is in the Cabinet; the gentleman from Menihek (Mr. Rousseau) who,I understand, unfortunately will not run again, he decided his career lies elsewhere, but is his period yet to be in this House, and on the gentleman from Eagle River (Mr. Strachan) and, I suppose, until the election the burden will continue in part to be shouldered by me because, of course, the people who live in the area between L'Anse-au-clair and Red Bay are still my constituents and will be lintil the dissolution, whenever that comes. Mr.

Spealter, I could talk at some length but I will not about the legitimacy of the feelings of the people of Labrador that they are not being treated properly. You do not have to travel widely in Labrador - some of us have had that opportunity - but you do not have to travel widely to know the sorts of problems that are there. 1648

April 2, 1979 Tape 651 EC - 1 MR. ROBERTS: I have had an opportunity over the years to travel in most parts of Labrador, but I have never been to Nain. I will get there yet. I once got as far as Otter Creek for four days in an aircraft, the old DMR, the old Twin Otter, but the fog held me. I have never been to Nain, I have never been to Postville, but I have been to every other community in Labrador, most of them many times . But the lack of roads! Do you know there is not an inch of paved road on the Labrador side of the Strait of Belle Isle, not one inch?

There is not an adequate water system in the eight communities between L'Anse au Clair and Red Bay. There are very few in the North, and what has been done in the North, I think it is fair to say, comes from the Government of Canada under the various federal/provincial agreements. What has been done in Western Labrador was done by the iron o re companies,and not from any charitable motives but from their own viewpoint they had to have the communities. The same with Churchill.

They built the communities so that the people who worked for them could live and would live there and so that they could attract and then hopefully retain people to stay in these communities. Happy Valley - Goose Bay is a community that grew in too many ways despite the government, or it was confronted with government indifference. The social and infrastructure,to use that terrible word for which we have no adequate substitute, those needs, Sir, are incredibly large.

And I think that having four members in the House to speak for them, four men or women as the case may be, to devote themselves to remedying them will be a large step in the right direction. Mr. Speaker, a couple of very brief comments in closing. First of all,I do want to make 1649

April 2, 1979 Tape 651 EC - 2 MR. ROBERTS: the point on behalf of all of us on this side that we do feel that fifty-two seats are too many. I am not suggesting the answer now is to reduce to fifty-one - we will go along with fifty-two until the election- but I do think the next redistribution should not be on the basis of fifty-two, maybe forty-two, I, for one, Sir, feel that forty-one or forty-two or forty-three seats,if we need an uneven number - and I am not sure we do, but some people sometimes say we do - but I think that forty-one or forty-two MHAs could adequately serve this Province.

And I would raise their salary. I would make it a real,full-time job. There is no reason why a member of the House, for example, should not be paid,say,what a school superintendent gets. What is that? - $25,000/$28,000 now? We have fifty-odd school superintendents in this Province. AN RON. MEMBER: Thirty-seven. MR. ROBERTS: - thirty-seven, all of them, of course, properly paid from the public war chest, the Public Treasury. You know, is not an MHA worth as much as a school superintendent? I think so.

And I think if we want to attract the right calibre of people into public life we will have to be prepared to pay them adequately. This is not a debate about members' salaries but it is relevant. I know many men on this side,and I am sure there are men on the other,who have taken considerable financial sacrifices to serve in the House of Assembly. I am not saying a man or a woman should get wealthy from being in the House, but I am not so sure he should be asked to make his family suffer or to do without. I could look at some, and I will not name them, to whom even the 1650

April 2, 1979 Tape 651 EC - 3 MR. ROBERTS: $20,000 MHAs get is unheard of wealth, but the fact remains today in this Province that is not a lot of money. I do not think you have to be a very highly qualified teacher to qualify for that sort of money, given the salaries. I know that lawyers and doctors and dentists and professional people of that sort, you know, $20 , 000 a year is hardly their income. In fact, I think Medicare - Who is Minister of Health? The hon. gentleman from Humber Valley (Mr . W.

House) would confirm that Medicare does not count as working full time any doctor whose earnings from Medicare are less than $20,000 in a year, unless they h~ve changed that stand. That was seven or eight years ago when I was minister, in the deep, distant past when Medicare worked. But, Mr. Speaker, fifty-two seats are too many. I do not want to belabour the point. I do feel that when we have the next redistribution we should ask the independent commission to divide the Province into substantially fewer than fifty-two seats.

I also think we should have an independent commission, but that is another story, another debate. There will be an opportunity for that. I would, Mr. Speaker, ask the Premier to consider another point. The Premier spoke eloquently, and I know from his heart,both on the 27th, last Tuesday on opening day and earlier today when he spoke to introduce this bill for Second Reading, about retaining in this Province our cultural values. And I think that strikes a very responsive chord in many members, I know it strikes one on me. I feel very strongly that we should be proud to stand here.

I have always been one of those who thinks that touches like hanging our Speakers, 1651

April 2, 1979 Tape 652 PK - 1 Mr. Roberts: and in due course, Mr. Speaker, you too will hang, hopefully by your own choice, but in any event you ~~ill be hung, Sir, in this Chamber,as has each of your predecessors, or putting the heads of Premiers, and the Premier's head in due course will adorn the lobby downstairs. Many Premiers lose their heads, I would say to the gentleman for Green Bay (Premier Peckford),and in due course he will lose his. But it is good to be surrounded by our history, it is good to remind ourselves of it. It is part of realizing the value of what we have and what we are.

And in that light I would suggest to the Premier that perhaps we should not create a seat to be known as Eagle River. Eagle River has no history. Eagle River,! am told- ':lell~it is on the map-was known really only because there is a fishing camp on it. The name I would suggest is a historic one, the Coast of Labrador, which is the name by which both the people of Labrador and the people of the Island always referred to all _of the coast right to Nain; but,you know, including in particular that Southern coast. And it is not an important point but I think it will be a nice touch.

The Coast of Labrador is the historic name. People now still talk of the coast, going down to the coast, or going out to the coast. Eagle River means nothing to anybody, nothing to anybody that I have ever heard. And I never knew first or last why that name was put on the seat three or four years ago.

I think the name of the Torngat Mountains does mean something because to the people of Nain, the people North of Makkovik1 it is a prominent part of their physical surroundings, I understand we are to have a national park called Torngat Mountain National Park. do not whether that means that we should or should not have a seat by the same name, but I do feel that Eagle River is not a particularly historic or attractive name. It is not a prominent - the Premier knows the coast - it is not a prominent geographical feature. PREMIER PECKFORD: No. 1652

April 2, 1979 MR. ROBERTS: MR. STRACHAN: MR. ROBERTS: MR. STRACHAN: MR. ROBERTS: Tape 652 It is nothing. It was to the last Premier. I am sorry? It was to the last Premier. Yes. My friend for Eagle River (Mr. Strachan) PK - 2 says that the attraction of the name may have been to the former Premier who,as we know,displayed piscatorial prowess on a number of rivers in this Province and the Eagle may doubtless have been blessed by his essays in the fine art of being the modern day Isaac Walton.

But, you know, it is something that if the Premi:er and the government feel should be done, can be done in the House, in Committee. And I think it would be a nice touch to have a seat known as the Coast of Labrador and a member sitting in this House representing the Coast of Labrador. My friend for Naskaupi (Mr. Goudie) has gone out for a moment. Either my oratory has overwhelmed him or repelled him but I suspect that he, as a Labradorian, would agree that that is the historic name. And I think that ~arne would be widely and readily acceptable to people who live in the Labrador part of this Province.

I would like to say a word of recognition and thanks to the Premier, I do not expect over the years to have too much opportunity to do so, but I do here, and I would certainly like to do it ouite openly and quite wholeheartedly, and I speak for all on this side, but in particular for my friend, my absent friend for Baie Verte­ White Bay (r~r. Rideout). As the Premier mentinned his original announcement, his ministerial statement Tuesday past,the 27th, spoke of joining Roddickton,Bide Arm, and Englee into the proposed new Strait of Belle Isle seat.

And I saw the Premier afterwards and said that, you know, I really thought that should be reconsidered and presented some evidence which I shall refer to in a moment. The Premier listened to that, he listened to my friend for Baie Verte-White Bay,who I believe saw him also, and I believe said essentially the same point. It has much to commend it, you know, bringing Roddickton, Bide Arm, and Englee back in 1653

April 2, 1979 Tape 652 PK - 3 Mr. Roberts: to the Strait of Belle Isle, joining them as they were for so many years as part of the seat, In fact, they have always been in the seat which began at Cook's Harbour or latterly Raliegh and came South up along to White Bay, originally it was called White Bay, and then in 1956 it was divided into White Bay North and White Bay South. There is a community of interest. There is a long tradition.

In l974,for the reasons which I have adverted to, the previous administration, and we now have two previous adminstrations, you know, in this Province, the previous administration, the Moores Administration,ended that tradition quite arbitrarily. And I would think that when redistribution comes the independent committee may well recommend, as did the Higgins Commission,that the old White Bay North seat stay perhaps by another name, but the seat which began from Harbour Deep and ran down the coast to St. Anthony, down to Cape Bauld and around to Raleigh, the bottom of Pistolet Bay.

PREMIER PECKFORD: it was called then. MR. ROBERTS: The French Shore seat or something like that Well,whatever name. I mean, you know, the French Shore seat might not be inappropriate. But, Mr. Speaker, it would have been I think a mistake to do it now for two reasons. First of all, the Premier has spoken that if he opens Pandora's Box of changing boundaries of seats,forgetting the han. Mr. Smallwood's legitimate and, you know, well-aired grievances; in fact, I think if the truth is known, Mr. Smallwood 1654

April 2, 1979 Tape 653 SD-1 MR. E. ROBERTS has been voting openly and honestly in the wrong district for twenty years. He always used to tell me that he lived in Port de Grave District·And I would bring out the Act " and I would say 1 ·You do not, Sir, with respect •The line is the Roache's Line and you live on the Eastern or Southern side of Roache's Line. And " he would say, Who is going to challellge me?" And I guess he had a good point, obviously nobody did~and I do not think it makes any difference because each man casts one vote. Mr.

Smallwood, I am sure, cast only one vote, I can take a guess for whom he voted, I would hazzard that. But, you know, that was one example there would be many, mally more and once Pandora's box was open we would be here from now to Doomsday.We would be doing the redistribution >. on the floor of the House and that is not what should be done. That is one reason against it. Another is that the proposed seat would be very, verY large.There are about 2,600 people living in these three communities of Bide Arm, Englee and Roddickton. If you add that, Mr.

Speaker, to the 10,800 people who will be in the Strait of Bell Isle seat as ammended,you have got about 13,400 people,which would make it one of the largest seats in the whole Province, forty-eight communities spread out over about two hundred miles of coastline, a very unmanageable seat.

The people who would suffer would not be the member who tries to get himself elected there,or the man or woman who is elected,but the people whom that member is trying to serve, Baie Verte-White Bay by that would be reduced to 9,500 people,so you would have one seat of 13,500 and next door to it a ·seat of 9,500,cheek bY. fowl, and that would not really achieve very much, if anything.

And when_ those points were put to the Premier he was good enough to recognize them and the bill before the House . today is a different one in that it does not propose any change in the boundary between the Strait of Bell Isle seat and the Bay Verte- White Bay seat; it proposes simply an alternation to diminish the Strait of Belle Isle seat and to increase the House by adding a 1655

April 2, 1979 Tape 653 SD - 2 MR. E. ROBERTS: fourth seat entirely within Labrador, one of them from the border to Groswater Bay and the second from Groswater Bay to Nain or Cape Chidley. The third the ijappy Valley-Goose Bay-­ Northwest River-Mud Lake area and the fourth Western Labrador. There are great inequities in those seats, people in Western Labrador? There must be 30,000 MR. ROUSSEAU: people. MR. E. ROBERTS: Are there 25,000? '111t· ROUSSEAU: people, MR. E. ROBERTS : No, cut there is a lot more than 11,000 Well, I agree a lot more than 11,000.

I would say 15,000 or 16,000 Well, my hon. friend would say 15,000 or 16,000, I would have put it higher than that. I bad occasion the other day to be looking at the number of telephones in the area and,you know if that is a judge, there are close on 20,000 people in Churchill, Wabush and Labrador City. MR.. ROUSSEAU: Churchill is in Naskaupi. MR. E. ROBERTS: Oh, I am sorry, Of course, Churchill, is in Naskaupi. Well, still 17,000 or 18,000 people in Wabush and Labrador City and there are ~ ,500 • .>n the coast in a new seat.

So there will be inequit~es but I think they are tolerable and I think that those inequities are less burdensome than the situation which we had before. So adding it together, Mr. Speaker, I think this is a good Bill 0 I would ask the Premier and Government to give consideration to changing the nama :o the Coast of Labrador;that is hardly affecting a principle but I think it would be a nice touch certainly it would restore some historicity to the name of that seat. I regret that we are apparently going to have a fifty-second seat forever.

I agree we have to have one in the next general election,in the Thirty-eighth General Assembly but I can argue that again, assuming that I am here afte' the election;if not those who are here can argue it. This House at fifty-two is too large. We do feel that way and we will certainly try to change it assuming, and 1 think it is reasonable to assume, 1656

April .!, 1~79 Tape &53 SD-3 MR. E. ROBERTS: that we will get the opportunity to do so after the next general election. But final.ly, Mr. Speaker, this is a measure that will benefit the people of the Island of NewfoundlaDd and the people of the Labrador part of this Province,a measure which will benefit all those peopie who live in the p.resent Strait of Belle Isle seat and the present Eagle River seat. 'nle two seats are goi.l).g to IIIUltiply and become three.

It is a measure which should have been brought up some years ago but that is his tory now because while the light did hold out to burn the violest siQDers have returned and that being so, Sir, we shall $Upport t.he measure and give it un,mimous support and hopefully make it law this day, Thank you, Sir. SOME HON. MEMBERS: !lear, hear. MR. SPEAKER: (Hr. Ottenheim.er) MR. J, ROUSSEAU: Hon, member for Menihek. I would like to m:ake a few observations on the Bill.

Certainly, I agJ"ee with the remarks made by my friend and colleague from the Strait's area of Labrador,aDcl the Premier, of course, in introduc:.in.g this Bill. I think an obvious mistake in distribution of the electorial seats in Labrador has been rectified as a result of this Bill. 1657

_-\nril 2, 1979 Tape No. n54 Dl-l - 1 'ffi. ~OTTSSEAU: I have thou~ht many times about the only possible benefit this bill could have been to the Province ~~d that might be in the concept of a span of a seat between the Island part of the Province and the mainland part of the Province~ere was no other reason that I could see where the seat was of any benefit to either of the Island part of the Province that 70 per cent or 80 per cent of the population who lived on the Northern Penninsula side of the seat,and the 20 per cent or 25 per cent who lived on the Labrador side of the seat.

So I concur with this concept,! would like to say a few words,if I may. The last words first·,the suggestion by the han. member for the Straits of Belle Isle (Mr. Roberts) that Labrador not lose its cultural heritage,that names are important,! certainlt would think that the concept of a seat for the ~cast of Labrador 1 ~•hich is a minor point as the hon. member suggests, but it is an area where many of our contemporaries and many of our forefathers fished for many years and~of course, you went down on the Coast of Labrador.

The name _has much more his tori cal signif:l.cance perhaps to the people on the Island part of the Province then would have the concept of the name of Eagle River. I might say one other thing, }1r. Speaker, in a few words· 'When the Premier in traduced the bill, suggest the moving of some offices to LabradorThat would be very welcome by the people of Labrador.

It has been spoken an many times by all members in this House for many years.I would like to say}and of course I have to speak as the people in my area feel~that we certainlv feel there should be at least a mix of _any offices that are governing Labrador between l-lestern Labrador and Eastern Labrador,that all offices should not be p~t in one area. There is a crying need now for a number of offices in 1-lestern Labrador; in the Motor Vehicle Registration offices they say the numbers are not there.,but it is one that creates a lot of frustration on the parts 1658

April 2, 1979 Tape ~o. 654 mv - 2 HR. ROt'SSEAU: of people in Labrador and many other things. And to remove this feeling-this bill is one small measure, as the Premier has indicated to remove the frustrations of these people you have to bring the services much closer to them,and I think that the concept of a fourth seat for Labrador,with a new administration and a new Premier~is one that I hope looms well for all of Labrador and for the feelings that this administration will have on behalf of Labrador.

I think it is not unwise to say that there are still four members in this House, my hon. friend for Naskaupi (}lr. Goudie)~who is a member of the government, the member for Eagle River (r1r. Strachan) and the member for the Straits of Belle Isle and,not withstanding the fact that he is in government,! am sure that the hon. member for Naskaupi along with the three others in the House ensure always that in our opinion the best efforts of this government will be directed towards Labrador and that our first concern has to be to our district and to the region as a whole and of course to the Province as well.

I might also suggest, Mr. Speaker, one very important point,and I cannot disagree with the hon. member for the Straits of Belle Isle (Mr. Roberts) nor with other hon. members in the House, nor with the press, nor with the people of this Province,that fifty two seats may ,.rell be too many seats. However ,Mr. Speaker, in the creating of a full fourth seat for Labrador,I have to mention the point about Western Labrador,the district which is now Menihek, Labrador City and 1-labush ,which in 1974 the census, I believe, was 11,061 residents.

I belc!.eve that number was not accurate.! must s.o.y that in speaking to the Premier of the time about it there was another hearing in Hestern Labrador and there were still not the required number to even look at a possibility of two seats there.

I believe strongly~ as do many people in Hestern Labrador believe~and maybe other people in Labrador hope that there are at least 15,000 people in Labrador \vest, that is Labrador City and Habush~that it is a growing town.I think I would not want to defeat the good feeling that the people of the coast of Labrador have now in attaining their fourth seat 1 their full seat 1659

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 654 DW- 3 ~IR.. ROUSSEAU: now in inland Labrador,but I would say that I hope that the next c~nsus evaluation that special emphasis be made on the Western part of Labrador to attempt to get a more concise reading of the total po~ulation 1660

April 2, 1979 Tape 655 EC - 1 :iR. ROUSSEAU: in Western Labrador so as to ascertain whether Labrador may not be worthy in numbers of five seats in the Legislature. Now that creates the problem the bon. the member for the Strait of Belle Isle (Mr . Roberts) brought up. and,as I say, other bon . members and other people across this Province agree with~that there are too many seats in the House of Assembly. But certainly one has to give that consideration based on the numbers.

If the average seat is going to be 8,000 or 9,000 or 10,000, a seat with 16,000 is at an obvious disadvantage, and I think certainly some consideration has to be given to that. I am sure that the people of Western Labrador, as the people of all of Labrador, rejoice at the fact that now there are four full-time seats in Labrador, but the hope is- of course, you do not stop - you keep trying to forge ahead and try to gain better representation in the area.

I think the numbers on the Coast of Labrador are irrelevant really, the small numbers that were mentioned, because the distance that has to be covered is quite large and weather conditions and other climatic conditions make it very difficult to travel the Coast. I think this is a very good move. I certainly welcome the move, support it fully, and,as I say, we will continue in the years ahead, especially before the next census evaluation,to insure that if we do not receive an extra seat, especially in that part of Western Labrador, then the numbers will not be there for it.

But I think that a real effort should be made to insure that the frustrations of the people of Labrador are lifted in these meaningful ways, small as they may be, but hopefully they will be followed by much bigger, much greater motivation on behalf of the people of Labrador so that they would much more feel a part of the whole Province. I think they want to, and I could not agree more with the bon. the member for 1661

April 2, 1979 Tape 655 EC - 2 MR. ROUSSEAU: the Strait of Belle Isle (~r. Roberts), they do not want to separate, but the frustration they feel at times leads them to various alternatives. That certainly is one, and I think by these meaningful gestures and other meaningful gestures on behalf of these people that we will see a decrease in the amount of ill-feeling and frustration that the people in Labrador feel. So I have no hesitation whatsoever, Mr. Speaker, in supporting this bill fully.

I am very happy for the people along the Southern Coast of Labrador,and also the rest of the people in the area,that better representation will be theirs and they certainly deserve it. Thank you very much. SOME HON. MEMBERS: MR. SPEAKER: (Mr. Ottenheimer) Hear, hear! The bon. the member for Eagle River. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, three and one-half years ago I rather naively and rather idealistically got involved in politics.

In the middle of a soccer game, the first time that we had ever managed to get together in Labrador and play · soccer, I decided to enter into politics and very belatedly jumped in and ran in the district of Eagle River. It has been an experience which has been as frustrating for me as it has been for my constituents. I, of course, had certain ideas before that of how government was run and what a member's functions were, but in the last three and one-half years many of these have changed, some for the good and some for the worst.

The district that this bill refers to, this splitting splits essentially my district of Eagle River in half. I welcome that change. I have indicated that almost immediately when the Premier announced his decision to change it,- a commitment,for whatever reason 1662

April 2, 1979 Tape 655 EC - 3 MR. STRACHAN: he may have made the decision that is immaterial, absolutely immaterial as far as I am concerned - the change was necessary; it was something that I had argued about, fought for and battled for, of course only in the last three years. People before me had done the same. In the first year of my representing the district as the member for the district, as MHA, I remember that in November I travelled part of the Coast. In January, 1976, I decided to travel all of the Coast.

I ended up not managing to cover all of the communities because of bad weather, being stuck in several of the communities a number of times, aircraft problems and so on. The trip, of which I paid the bill, cost me $6,500. I have since then made a number of smaller trips- generally to one place for one meeting and back again, that is all- and when I review my travel expenses over the last three and one-half years, I find that I have spent on the Labrador Coast - that does not include EPA - in the region of a little over $8,000. That does not include my present outstanding bill to Labrador Airways as of the 1663

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 656 GH-1 MR. STRACHAN: 31st of January of $2,899. I decided, rightly or wrongly, to take no free trips. I paid my way all the way and I decided that that was the only way that I could remain free enough to criticize Labrador Airways or E.P.A. or whatever group it was.

I felt that if I accepted free rides on their aircraft then pressure would be placed on me; and especially in a small area like that where transportation is so important, it is the direct key, so important, I felt that I could not therefore be in a position to fully take umbrage or argue with the companies who control the travel and transportation within Labrador. So as I agree with this bill, I agree its introduction. I commend the Government for bringing it in. It will come in place at the next election on dissolution of this House.

I think that there must be also another recognition of the fact that people who represent such remote areas must have additional funding and ability to travel. Since then I discussed it with Mike Martin,who once before represented part of the district that I represented, the southern part, and then prior to the last election the South and the North were put together into a district called Eagle River, a name which means absolutely nothing to the people on the Labrador coast.

On discussing it with Mike Martin I found that he also had gone in debt and his word of advice to me was never get into the business of dipping into your own pocket, your own savings,and start taking money out in order to maintain your travel. If you consider that to go from Nain, my home, to St. John's eight times a year, then the cost of a return ticket, not including time that can take you anywhere from two days to my longest one was twenty-one days, not including time, the cost of that is more than going from Gander to London and return or certainly down to Florida or Los Angeles.

So you find that the $4,000 which I obtained and argued for two years ago, the $4,000 virtually just covers the cost of 1664

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 656 GH-2 MR. STRACHAN: getting from Nain to Goose Bay, waiting overnight and getting E.P.A. to St. John's; and, of course, the reverse trip is the worst, from St. John's to Goose Bay and then sitting in Goose Bay for one day, three days, five days, ten days, fifteen days and, as I said on one occasion, twenty-one days before I could manage to make the trip horne to Nain. So, as you see, what I did at that time was I decided therefore that when my money was spent as a member of this House that that was it.

I felt that when my money comes through at the end of this session, then I will pay off the $2,899 to Labrador Airways and that will leave me square with them and that would be the end of my travel as far as that is concerned.

I believe also, as I said, that what should also be included or additionally considered, not for the benefit of the Opposition or Government or whatever it is but for the adequate representation of the Labrador M.H.A.'s of their constituents in Labrador, what should be considered and I am not too worried about the salary; I think the salary should be increased myself but that is not my biggest point or beef -what should be considered as well as this is adequate travelling funds so that no member in Labrador cannot get to a meeting, no member in Labrador cannot be able to travel.

And you need to remember that to travel by passenger plane in Labrador means that you get to one community one day and sit for three or four days awaitinga plane to take you 85 miles down the coast to the next community, get off the plane there and you sit maybe for three or four or five days waiting for another plane if the weather is good. If the weather is poor you can be sitting in one of the communities for seven days, ten days, eleven days, twelve days. So you can see that you could in essence, using the passenger flights only 1 which are only single-engine Otters, take anywhere up to -I counted 1665

April 2, 1979 Tape No. 656 GH-3 MR. STRACHAN: it one time -almost three months, three and a half months to travel the district. Therefore, it means that one has to go into the budiness of chartering. 1666

April 2, 1979, Tape 657, Page 1 -- apb MR. STRACHAN: Under the currect rates which are $800, for instance, from Goose to Nain, for a single engine Otter, about $300 - ~SO an hour for a Cessna, and even then you have problems with Cessnas,as we have all experienced. They are not a very safe aircraft for travelling the Labrador coast. .3ecause of the high winds, the ski problems and the float preble~ there are some real difficulties in travelling this district. I also found it very difficult to travel the district.

Again, I welcome the bill, I do not want to take away from this bill, but I also found it difficult in travelling the district. But I found that a civil servant from the Department ~ Rural Development could come into Goose Bay and hire a helicopter and go to the coast of Labrador. Hydro hire helicopters and fly up and down the Labrador coast. The Manpower and Immigration people fly the Labrador Coast by helicopter. The Unemployment Insurance man comes into Labrador by helicopter or chartered aircraft, something which I could never compete with.

It was an impossibility to try to compete with that kind of thing, and I mean by competition, to try to keep up. Because as they went along, problems were raised and, of course, we could never be there as an MHA. And you need to remember 1 representing something like Eagle River, a district like that, there are no offices handy as there are in the more urban centres so that you can drop into the Unemployment Insurance office and get your forms straightened out. There are often long waits on unemployment insurance, there are often long waits on other things. 1667

April 2, 1979, Tape 657, Page 2 -- apb MR. STRACHAN: So with the result that the demands on the MHA in the more rural district, there are more of the demands. He is similar in many, many ways to a welfare officer, he is similar in many, many ways to an ombudsman. It is not too often,in many cases in rural districts,that people are tremendously interested in the political views of the person or the philosophy he expounds or the policies that he holds.

He is generally regarded in many ways as a person who does things, who helps to cut the red tape, who gets through things with the result, of course, that the experience in this House and around the district has been extremely frustrating, especially in the last years.

Also, extremely frustrating in as much as what we call special interest groups in Labrador - what they are termed here, they are not special interest groups in Labrador - but with the term used, the special interest groups also ended up having very large travel budgets so that they were, in essence, receiving from Ottawa or other areas very large sums of money to travel. So, of course, they could spend $50,000 or $60,000 for transportation alone on meetings. Of course, I often could not get to the meetings, could not even travel to be present.

What I say is, as well as creating these districts, I would like to commend to the government to consider either creating offices, constituency offices and allowing the MHA to travel and to submit his travel claims exactly the same as any other civil servant does. Have them scrutinized, have them examined, have reasons given for them to be approved; then it removes the burden from the member that 1668

April 2, 1979, Tape 657, Page 3 -- apb MR. STRACHAN: should he be required to be in a place, or be of assistance to the place,he can be present, that he does not have to consder the fact that he cannot get an aircraft to get him there. And remember that there are no roads • And to turn around and say that in Summer one can travel, you need to remember that in Summer all the communities disperse.

So you might find, if you come in Summer to Nain, my home town which has a population of 900, you may meet 300 people; but all the key people in Nain will have gone, they will have dispersed from anywhere from Voisies Bay up to Hebron or Saglek Fiord with the result that it becomes extremely difficult in the Summer. Winter, of course, is the political time, the time for meetings, the time for getting together, when people have the time to discuss. And, of course, that becomes the expensive time to travel, when charter aircraft or helicopters are the only way. So I welcome the splitting of the district.

It is recognition, as I see it, by the government opposite that my district, the district that I represent,is too large. And there is recognition in the fact that it had to be split, a recognition, 1669

April 2, 1979 Tape 658 GH-1 MR. STRACHAN: which I may say,some of the special interest groups in Labrador do not also share. However, I feel that the change has been a good one, that being carried out so promptly is obviously a feather in the cap of the Premier. I have no argument with that whatsoever, but I would like to state again the same as my colleage that the name "Eagle River" as such is a name which is not familiar to people there. In the district in the North where I live, Rigolet to Nain and North to Chidley,is called Torngat Mountains. Torngat actually is an evil spirit who resides in the mountains.

Torngat is a person who the Inuit people were awfully afraid of coming down from the mountains and the mountain range, the northernmost mountain range of the Torngats took the name from him. There are a number of mountain ranges actually north of Nain. There are Kiglapait Mountains which are the first group three thousand, three and a half thousand feet high. Then there are the Kaumajet Mountains, the Bishops Mitre, Saddle Back, and so on north of that, and then there are the Torngat Mountains.

It may be interesting to state here that in the Torngat Mountains, and this is the name of it, there is a point,right at the moment,of argument which may be interesting for the Government to clear up, because in the Torngat Mountains is the highest mountain east of the Rockies. It has been climbed on two occasions and hopefully, if I am lucky, I will be able to climb it myself this year. It is called,as we call it or it has been named in turn by the climbers, is called L-1, Labrador for L, 1 for highest.

Quebec also claims it and callsit Mount d'Iberville after the French pirate of early days, although I do not think he was any more of a pirate than many of the other English pirates but we can call him a pirate. But the highest point, L-1, is definitely within Labrador, and I think that if we are going to name the district 1670

April 2, 1979 Tape 658 GH-2 MR. STRACHAN: Torngat Mountain then I think it should be an extremely good point, symbolic point for the Government to make sure that the name remains L-lor, if not that name, a name which is distinctive to Labrador and this Province and not a name which is distinctive with Quebec. I found that in representing the district, Mr. Speaker, of Eagle River that what I had in essence was two separate districts.

There was Rigolet North 1 which this recognizes,which had cultural, geographic and political differences; and there was the Eagle River district,as this one creates it, hopefully the coast of Labrador because that is a name which is used most often,which is another different culture, geographic and political distinction. In the North we have - Rigolet North - we have mainly native or native and settler people,

whereas in Cartwright South we have generally settler people of older extraction right down to Mary's Harbour and Port Hope Simpson. There were differences because the federal government and the provincial government recognize that people in the northern part, the district essentially is split in two, recognize that people in the northern half as native people and, therefore, put in large sums of money in the form of federal-provincial funding 1

whereas the people in the southern part of my district did not receive that kind of funding. So people in the North could obtain a horne for a mortgage rate of $40 a month

whereas the people in the southeren part of my district had to build their own homes, do their own work and so on, so with the result that there was a big distinction there. And this is only one of the distinctions; there are many, many distinctions. There is a time zone distinction. I imagine I was the only member who represented a district which had two different time zones. Part of my district was 167~

.~pril 2, 1979 Tape 658 GH- 3 MR. STRACHAN: on Newfoundland time . The other ?art of my district was on Labrador time, so I had two different time zones within it , which again augments the fact of this difference, the separation, the split in the district and similarities to it . There was that geographical difference inasmuch as I do not think you would find people in Nain who have ever been to Mary 's Harbour, and I doubt if you would find fiv e or ten people , no more than that, of Mary 's Harbour who have ever been to Nain, unless it has been in recent years . But, on the main, the North 1672

April 2, 1979 Tape 659 IB-1 MR. STRACHAN: did not know the South and the South did not know the North. They commuted like the spokes of a wheel into Goose Bay but there was never any reason for somebody from Nain or Davis Inlet or Hopedale to go into Goose Bay and then go from Goose Bay South again. So as a result there were two separate districts as far as the geography was concerned, as far as travel was concerned.

There was a political difference,and I found that in my case this was the one in which I had very great difficulty rationalizing in my mind in the last three and a half years,because the North has been dependant on government, because the North,for instance when I first went to the North you ate, worked and slept government. Government provided food. Government provided housing. Government provided boats. Government provided nets. Government provided the fish plants. Government provided hydro. Government provided every service possible.

In recent years,as I see the special interest groups become involved and as suspicion in private enterprise and private capital also increased,or with no knowledge of them at all whatsoever!the North has in some cases become,as far as I am concerned,in policy and viewpoints extremely socialist. The Southern part of the district was the very opposite in many cases. They were free enterprise people, people who worked individually in that kind of sense. They had had also their bad experiences with ooerators who often left them hanging in the air. But there was a great degree of difficulty.

People in the North had land claims which they wanted to settle. The people in the South felt that they were equally Labradorians but they did not understand and could not comprehend the idea of the land claims. The people in the North, through their associations and groups,had very strong socialist policies that they wanted to expound and expand and yet I found that the people in the South did not understand these socialist policies or it was in an entirely different viewpoint that they saw it. So that 1673

April 2, 1979 Tape 659 IB-2 MR. STRACHAN: the district from a political sense became very difficult to represent; culturally different, geographically different and politically different. Compounded on top of that with its problems of travel, finances and so on,it becomes an extremely difficult district, I found anyway, to represent. And this bill to great measure separates it and creates two separate districts, districts which are now separate~and districts which have a cultural, geographic, political community of interest, the North and the South.

I would also like to add one other point here quite clearly, for I have read through this boundary discription here and make another point to the government,or the government at present,that they should consider that in the establishment of the boundaries they should remember that we never, we do not have an established, surveyed boundary on the West of the coast that is the boundary between Labrador and Quebec. It is not surveyed.

I would suggest very strongly to government that one of the considerations is not just going by the height of land measurement which everybody takes,but that the government should spend - and I would imagine it would cost $1 million or $1.5 million - but the government should spend that kind of money because it is necessary now to establish and survey the border all the way down with survey markers or monuments so that the district then becomes definite and not just a mere descrintion in words with nothing on the land.

As I said,the argument with L-1 is an argument which shows the-case in point, in which it i~ claimed by one Province but it belongs to another province. So what I say here1 in this question here,is that there should be consideration. It would have to be done by helicopters, it would have to be done by ground crews, but the boundary all the way down on the Western side should be surveyed and has a great deal of political significance.

I think it is also symbolic and it may be interesting to involve people from Labrador on the Coast in the establishment or working on that boundary from a point of view of symbolism 1674

April 2, 1979 Tape 660 RT-1 ~R. I. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, we welcome this bill. I would say that we should not think that this bill will be the panacea. The district of the Coast of Labrador 1 if I can say that rather than Eagle River, the district of the Coast of Labrador from Cartwright down to L'Anse-au-Clair is still a very long district, make no mistake about that. When one reaches the bottom of my present boundary~Henley Harbour, Mary's Harbour, Lodge Bay, Henley Harbour area, there is still a gap to the Red Bay and down through the bottom straits there.

It is still a vast district in terms of travel and in terms of movement, and the member who represents that district is going to have a much more difficult job than the member who represents the North in which Rigolet to Nain is a considerably easier district to represent both in terms of travel and in terms of time that it woul~ ~ake. So that district still has its problems; it is still a large district and there are great problems associated with it.

There was mention earlier on about the salary for the members who represent these kinds of districts and all members in fact, and I have felt for some time that I agree with the fact that the MHA or a member representing us should be a full-time job. It is a very difficult job to do it part-time; the salary is not sufficient in many cases to be able to do it part-time. I know full well that I could not have travelled and done the amount of travel, even the small amount that I have done in the last year, without having some additional way of maintaining my family.

It is also a great expense on a menber who has to maintain a home in Labrador and, of course, has to give it up or maintain it there and own a home in St. John's and try to remain in St. John's because 1675

April 2, 1979 Tape 660 RT-2 MR. I STRACHAN: of the difficulty in getting back home. It becomes extremely expensive, an extremely expensive operation, and we need to remember that the public have very little sympathy for us. The cynicism towards politicians,which is at a fair high at the present, means that they have very little sympathy. I can go and sit in front of groups who receive large sums of money to travel and when I explain my travel funds they just do not believe me, they do not accept it, it is totally unacceptable.

So I say quite clearly that the salaries should be in line that if we are going to create a full-time job in this House, and not only the Rouse because this is not the main part of our work, then we have to be paid a substantial salary and,as I stated quite clearly 1 there should be a more equitable way of arranging travel funds for the members and especially for the member of this new district an the Labrador Coast, both the Coast of Labrador and the Torngat Mountains as it comes in. I want to discuss the idea, and fhere was some discussion,that Cartwright should be included in the North.

There was some discussion that North West River should also be included in the Torngat Mountains seat. I want to discuss that because I think essentially the split as it is made now is a good one, a reasonable one, and it will give hopefully in the future better representation to the people there. It should mean that the person representing the North can advocate the policies hopefully of the people of the ~orth without finding that he is in jeopardy of