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April 13, 2022

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. L No. 45

The

House met at 10 a.m.

SPEAKER (Bennett):

Order, please!

Government

Business

SPEAKER:

The hon. the Government House

Leader.

S. CROCKER:

Thank you, Speaker.

I call

from the Order Paper, Motion 6.

SPEAKER:

The hon. the Government House

Leader.

S. CROCKER:

Thank you, Speaker.

I move,

seconded by the Member for Baie Verte - Green Bay, that notwithstanding Standing

Order 63, this House shall not proceed with Private Members' Day on Wednesday,

April 13, 2022, which so happens to be today, but shall instead meet at 2 p.m.

today for Routine Proceedings to conduct government business.

SPEAKER:

Is it the pleasure of the

House to adopt the motion?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

SPEAKER:

All those against, 'nay.'

The

motion is carried.

The hon.

the Government House Leader.

S. CROCKER:

Mr. Speaker, I call from the

Order Paper, Motion 1.

SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for Lake

Melville.

P. TRIMPER:

Thank you very much, Speaker.

It is

always an honour to stand, as so many of my colleagues have said, whenever we do

get a chance to speak to represent our district. I am very proud to say I

represent the District of Lake Melville in Central Labrador. It is a great

honour and I look forward to continuing to represent those good people.

There

are so many issues to speak about when we're talking about a budget today. I

felt it most important, frankly, really to deal with life itself and the health

care system, some of the challenges that we're having, some of the hopes that we

have for the future. In particular, I wanted to focus on a couple aspects of it,

one of which is the Medical Transportation Assistance Program.

This is

one that I have spoken about several times, my colleagues standing here beside

me from Labrador, we've also spoken about it; we've asked questions. There have

been some improvements, but, frankly, Speaker, it has been and remains

incredibly challenging for our district to deal with.

When you

think about the provision of health care in any jurisdiction in our country,

we're very proud of the fact that we have universal health care and if someone

is sick, the state, the government, is there to support you and that you won't

be left out in the cold, you'll actually be supported. But when it comes to

living in the far-flung districts of our great province, such as in Lake

Melville, Labrador, I can tell you it is incredibly frustrating, though, to see

how this is actually implemented.

So the

Medical Transportation Assistance Program is designed to support those who need

to travel for medical services that they cannot procure, they cannot access in

their own home community. And for Labrador, which is a three-day drive away or

an extremely expensive airplane ticket, it is very frustrating to see the

situations that we encounter on a day-to-day basis.

I can

tell you, it is really a day-to-day basis. I need to again thank my constituency

assistant Bonnie Learning, a very experienced CA – I call her the SACA, the

super awesome CA – because she is, I would say, almost predominantly preoccupied

with trying to find ways to get residents who need services here to St. John's

or on occasion to Corner Brook or less frequently to St. Anthony.

What I

wanted to do was talk about some examples just by way of why this is such a

frustration and why, myself and my colleagues from Torngat Mountains and

Labrador West, we continue to get on our feet to speak to it. I'm just going to

give a few examples.

First of

all, I'm just going to outline some aspects of the program. So as a result of

some improvement last year, constituents now who need to travel – if it's their

first flight out, the first $1,000 is covered and then 50 per cent of the

expenses thereafter. If they choose to drive out, the first 500 kilometres now

are deductible and thereafter there is government support for all those

kilometres.

Remember, I said it's a three-day drive and/or an expensive airplane ticket and

that also includes, of course, the situations where you may need to have an

escort, depending on your medical condition and what kind of condition you're

going to be in when you return from whatever treatment you're procuring.

I'm

going to talk about a couple of examples just so I can underline what we are

dealing with. I had Bonnie sketch some of these out for me. So I am going to

read a little bit at verbatim.

Here's

an example. We had a constituent who had a specialist appointment earlier this

month. They did not have any private insurance so they had changed the

appointment – get this, they had an appointment last year, so they had to change

the appointment so they would have a 12-month gap since they last used the

program to when they could avail of it again, because government will only

provide you with your first trip out, that $1,000 plus the 50 per cent.

So for

them to be able to afford what it would cost them, they had to push their

appointment out. Unfortunately, they informed Bonnie yesterday, informed our

office yesterday, that even with the pushing this appointment out so that they

could avail of it now, they find themselves still unable to pay the difference.

Can you imagine?

So guess

what they have done? They've cancelled the appointment. They are not coming from

Lake Melville to St. John's for medical treatment because they can't even afford

the difference.

Now this

is where I could really get mad because – and I don't want any anger or sarcasm

or cynicism to be levelled at any of the people that we deal with. I can tell

you the folks in the Medical Transportation Assistance Program are fantastic.

They have gone above and beyond the call of duty so often.

For

example, some of the issues that we encounter sometimes when you're making an

application is you need 10 business days. Well, guess what? People often

encounter a medical condition that doesn't tell you 10 days from now you're

going to need to be seeking financial support. This particular situation is such

that they couldn't even avail of the trip so they have pushed this out and

they've had to cancel the specialist appointment. They just let us know that.

Another

senior constituent was medevaced to St. John's last year for cardiac care.

I've

learned so much about the health care system and I have often mentioned that I

feel all of us in this room, frankly, need to have a primer, probably as

important as any orientation in this Legislature, for how the health care system

works; how we make decisions; how things are keyed up; how the regional health

authorities all work together, by the way.

Because

as many of us know – and I bet I can look around the room now – if you have

represented anybody with a cardiac condition, with the exception of the urban

MHAs, but if you represented anyone with a cardiac condition, you know there is

a daily triage that involves – you might have had a heart attack, for example,

but guess what? You may not be in serious enough condition that you need to be

medevaced immediately down here to St. John's for that treatment. So you could

be stacked up, just much like coming into Heathrow, with a bunch of planes

circling around the end location, sitting in a bed in Happy Valley-Goose Bay at

the Labrador Health Centre for up to four weeks, I think, are some of the

records that I've encountered. Somebody with a cardiac condition waiting to get

up into the queue. It is a strange twist of fate when you often see a situation

where you're sick, but not sick enough to jump to the front of the queue. Talk

about frustrating.

So here

is an example; this person was a cardiac patient and they actually had a very

serious situation. They were medevaced here to St. John's. When they were

released they were actually in pretty good shape, but guess what? They did not

have the financial means to return back to Happy Valley-Goose Bay. So they find

themselves stranded.

Now, we

can still avail of the MTAP system, but this is where I was going with my

thought earlier. You require 10 business days to apply. So you wake up in the

morning and you're in a hospital bed. They great folks here at the Health

Sciences Centre say: Okay, you can be discharged today. You're good to go. Well,

guess what? We are not going to help them get back to Labrador. The MTAP is

there, but to apply for the financial support for them to go back they need to

wait 10 business days. It just defies the logic in some of the policy aspects.

We do

have air ambulances, when they're working, with a crew, a pilot and a plan that

is available that could go back. It is just some coordination here could save so

much heartache, so much financial struggle that so many of us deal with.

This is

another one that I'll speak about. A constituent who has myriad health issues

that requires visits with multiple specialists, including oncologists; no

private insurance; has used MTAP several times since 2021 to get to specialists

appointments; struggles to pay copay amounts at expense of going without other

necessary things, such a delaying bills. It is literally a matter of life or

death to get to the appointments.

I do not

know how this woman keeps a smile on her face. She is from Labrador. She is

trying to remain in Labrador. She requires attention here in St. John's. We are

constantly helping her with her expense claims, her applications. She is

literally scraping cash together, and she's fighting for her life. This is the

kind of stuff that pulls us down right into the personal connection with our

constituents. And while we feel we can help them, we can't solve these amazing

problems. Again, I know the minister well. I know he's doing his best, but I've

got to say there's just so much more that needs to be done.

Here's

another example of another senior constituent, medevaced out to St. John's for

cardiac care. He was able to get back on his own, but the fact that three of the

four constituents outlined here were left to essentially their own devices once

discharged speaks to this great flaw in the medical and MTAP system.

You

know, I'm going to point out, because I've heard the Leader of the Official

Opposition say this on many occasions and I've heard that party say on many

occasions – I've been tinkering and lobbying hard, can we get some additional

dollars for this, can we do some things like that – I've heard the Opposition

say this should be 100 per cent covered. And I'm with you. I am so with you now.

It is time –

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

P. TRIMPER:

What are we doing here? I get

it. I know that after I sit down, others will speak – and I watched the news

last night. We are dominated now with doctors, medical professionals leaving our

rural parts of our province. One way that we can solve this is, again, if we

can't get the services delivered in our districts, let's get the people who need

those services to where they are. We shouldn't have to pay for that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

P. TRIMPER:

We are paying for it.

One more

I want to mention, just to lay it on. And it's the emotional connection that we

feel. There's a woman and I've spoken about her in the past; it was on a

petition last year. She was fighting cancer. Because of her condition, it wasn't

appropriate for her to fly. It was better for her to drive. Her MTAP claim, when

she drove from Happy Valley-Goose Bay to Forteau, stayed in a hotel, crossed

with the ferry, drove again a good chunk of the day, another seven or eight

hours, stopped for a hotel before she and her husband got to St. John's – guess

what?

That

hotel room in Forteau was clawed back. The thinking is that somehow we are able

to drive from Happy Valley-Goose Bay – and I look to my colleague from Labrador

West, which is another day's drive, so it's the better part of a four-day trip

for constituents from his area. Somehow we're going to have people that are in a

very compromised health condition be able to drive such that they can stay in a

hotel one night and then get to St. John's.

Anyway,

I just found this such a slap in the face. She and her husband came to my

office. I know them both quite well. We inquired and, unfortunately, the claim

was denied for that other hotel room, that other hundred-and-a-few dollars. And

I'm just thinking how tragic it is.

Unfortunately, she died. She died just a few months ago. I know her husband very

well. I just watch him grieving. I see this guy a couple of times a week and

every time I do, I see that same response back, that we were not able to at

least cover that additional hotel room, that somehow they were going to drive

through the night to be able to make their appointment.

Air

ambulance ties closely to this. I see some reference to some announcements, some

moves on the air ambulance system. That's why I asked the question yesterday. I

think, according to the minister's response, he is still waiting to hear from

the Health Accord. So many of us are speaking about this Health Accord that

Sister Elizabeth and Dr. Pat Parfrey have been co-chairing. I think everyone in

this room remains hopeful that we will see a new and imagined health care

system.

One of

the items that myself and my colleagues have been speaking about, and we even

had a press release last December, was the need for a close examination of the

air ambulance system. Some of the aspects of it, I'm seeing reference to in the

budget. I look forward to Estimates when, hopefully, we'll learn more, and/or

more will roll out as a result of the Health Accord.

We came

up with four clear recommendations last year. I wanted to table them again here

on the floor to remind everybody what we are looking for in Labrador and rural

parts of Newfoundland. And that is to very much simplify this system. We've got

three government entities right now running the program.

The

first recommendation was to establish a single entity of government to oversee

and operate the entire organization, staff coordination and budget. Appoint a

single authority for air and ground ambulance within the same entity of

government. I see reference to that in the budget and I applaud the government

for listening on that. That's a great thing.

We have

a situation where the air ambulance is based in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. We

provide coverage but only for half of the day. So what happens is, if we have a

call-out – again, these medical emergencies are not scheduled, we don't know

when they're coming, but if they happen to occur late in the day of a shift, the

pilots are not able to respond because they will be duty timed out. So that

means that we then have to avail of the private sector – glad they're there.

However, we now have to bring – because we don't have the government run,

government operated response team, we are now availing of a third party to

respond. So we're paying for pilots, medical flight crew, planes that are on the

ground at Goose Bay and now we're also having to pay for a third party.

This is

why the budget, for example, just a year or so ago, was some $6 million for the

government run operation, but another, $4 million to avail of a third party. So

yours truly and others have been arguing: Lets get another crew, another plane

leased, we don't have to own it, established in Gosse Bay so we have 24-7

coverage from which we can respond back down.

I can

remember former MHA John Hickey, this was one of his pet peeves and he pushed

hard to actually get some presence on the ground in Labrador. Unfortunately,

what happened was he could only get it half done and what it has meant is

additional expense. I'm suggesting we could probably spend, I don't know, $1

million to save another $3 million. This is some of the orchestra conducting I'm

often speaking about.

Finally

– and I can tell you and I know my colleagues are going to speak to this as well

today – we have real-life experiences, one here this morning – and I'll let him

speak to it – he's been waiting for a medevac since Sunday. They've just gotten

on a plane this morning to come here to St. John's. The doctors have deemed it

urgent, that plane is only getting in – and I'm not confident as to what the

exact cause is, but I'm aware that the plane and the pilots have been sitting in

Happy Valley-Goose Bay, I can only surmise that, again, the medical flight team

from St. John's was not available until this morning.

I wish

this patient the best. But, again, I just see so many flaws in the system. I'm

hoping that we can find some way forward.

I want

to take my last two minutes to speak to another matter that is a little bit

beyond the control of government but I have heard reference to it and I feel we

all need to apply pressure.

I often

joke, but I am telling you I'm only joking sarcastically, when I fly down to St.

John's, I've got a one-out-of-three chance – I'm kind of keeping track because I

always like to talk to the taxi drivers – that driver is going to be an

engineering student, or an engineer, for example, from Libya, driving a taxi

because the professional association does not recognize his engineering

credentials.

Guess

what? I see the same thing in the medical system. There's a woman, she's a

nurse, she's got a nursing degree; she's worked in two other countries as a

professional nurse. The only work she can get now in Labrador is as a personal

care attendant. We do not recognize her nursing credentials.

Her only

option to become a nurse, as she is doing in her career, is she's been told to

go back to school. Well, as I sit and listen to so many of my colleagues talk

about the loss of medical professionals, I look at the complete frustration of

and lack of support from our professional organizations, I just have to ask you:

What are we thinking?

Ontario

has recently come up with a strategy to actually provide a mentoring program for

positions such as nurses and new Canadians. I've been asking government to see

if we can make some progress on that. I'd really like to see it. The solution is

before us, let's stand back and look. I can only say a little prayer that the

Health Accord is going to bring us some better direction. The unfortunate thing

is they're talking about 10 years from now they'll have it in place – we need it

now.

Thank

you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Labrador West.

J. BROWN:

Thank you, Speaker.

It's a

pleasure to speak today and to represent the people of Labrador West. It's very

interesting, my colleague behind me mentioning issues that are almost mirrored

to a lot of what we face in Labrador West. If you ever break down Labrador into

its four districts, all four districts are unique in their own individual way,

but for the most part, a lot of the stuff when it comes to health care and

medical travel and air ambulance are almost identical.

It's

interesting to talk to people from different parts of the province and we have

to explain to them, well, health care is not free in Labrador. It costs an arm

and a leg to fly out of Labrador and a lot of people don't have the money in

their back pocket to go out, especially if something is unexpected.

And it's

interesting that the Member from Lake Melville actually mentioned the exact

situation that happened to me when my first daughter was born. I was just

starting out as a tradesperson and we were expecting our first child. We were

only young. My wife goes to see her OB/GYN and she looked at her and said, oh,

there are issues. We're calling the air ambulance for you right now. Let your

family know. So I was at work and I got a call. I had to get on a plane. My wife

was on her way out to St. John's – future wife – because there were

complications with the pregnancy.

We'd

just bought a house and I didn't have two cents to rub together, and now we had

this unexpected bill. I had to get on a plane and spend $1,000 on a flight, a

last-minute flight out to St. John's. My wife was air ambulanced out. When we

got to St. John's they told us, yeah, we corrected it for now, but you're going

to have to spend the rest of your term in St. John's. We can't send you back to

Labrador, there's no one there to look after you.

We had

to spend two weeks – I didn't have two cents to rub together, I'd just bought a

house – to wait for the birth of our first child. There were no supports at the

time. MTAP was non-existent then. That was 2009-2010. It was basically a

non-existent program. All fine and dandy, so we had to find a place to stay.

Luckily enough I had an uncle that lived out here and we waited two weeks for

the birth of our daughter.

Then,

when we were discharged, there was nothing, they just said, well, good luck,

back to Labrador for you. Thankfully my parents looked after our flights back to

Labrador. Honestly, I think they did it for their granddaughter not for me. But

at the end of the day that's what happens to Labradorians when they're

discharged from a hospital here in St. John's. Good luck to you. All the best.

MTAP is

a failed program. There's no doubt about it. It only covers basically one trip.

If you have cancer, well, you know you get one trip from MTAP; everything else

is on you. If you're sent out on an air ambulance and you're discharged from the

hospital here, there's a waiting period for MTAP, 50 per cent recovery. You

could be discharged at any day, so you're stuck in St. John's even longer

waiting to get the money to pay for 50 per cent of your flight back to Labrador.

And with the increasing and increasing cost of flights because of inflation and

the cost of living, that's $600 or $700, it's 50 per cent of a flight right now,

potentially a last-minute flight.

So, in

reality, health care is not free, it's not universal and it's not equal or

equitable. It costs money and it comes out of the pockets of people in this

province right now. It's embarrassing. It's absolutely embarrassing how we are

being treated as Labradorians.

understand we're not going to get a PET machine or we're not going to get all

this gear that they have in St. John's. We understand that. We know that, in

Labrador, there's a limit to what we can have. We understand. There are only

30,000 of us. But, every year, less and less and less services are being

provided for Labrador and the stuff that we've had since Grenfell, we've lost.

And now we're being forced more to fly to St. John's to get health coverage.

And, in some cases, things are basic.

So more

and more people are required to fly and, therefore, more and more people are

having to pay out of their own pocket to receive what would normally be a drive

for most people in this province, a drive to their local health care centre. At

some point, it's going to drain people, and it has drained people. I have known

people who have mortgaged their house so their child can get cancer treatment.

I've known people who ate up their entire retirement savings because a loved one

had a heart attack.

Those

are the kind of realities that we're facing where we are. We talk about the

economic prosperity of mining and how much we've contributed to the province

that way, but we haven't gotten back anything in return. We're only asking to be

treated equally in this province; we're only asking for what everyone else has.

We're not asking for the moon; we're just asking to be treated equally. We

deserve the same type of health care that anyone else in this province receives

and that's all. That's all we're asking for, but we haven't received it. We

haven't even gotten close to it, especially in the last, I'd say, 10 years.

I'll

give you a good example. My sister, right now, is here in St. John's. She was

told to wait a month because of her child – because of complications with

pregnancy. So she has to take a month of her life. She had to find an apartment.

She's out here now waiting, going back and forth to the Health Sciences Centre.

She will not be reimbursed, other than her flight out here, through MTAP,

basically. If she can get through the paperwork, because that's another

embarrassing thing in itself. But now my brother-in-law is flying back and forth

between working in the mine in Labrador and out here to look after his wife.

This is embarrassing that this is what we've come to. We're just asking for fair

and equal treatment when it comes to being where we are.

I know

in the past some Members on the government side said, well, you choose where you

live. Well, I have the right to choose where I live and I live in my homeland,

which is Labrador. My family has been there. My daughter is the fourth

generation to live there now. On the other side of it, my wife's family has been

there forever and a day, as an Indigenous woman. But we're Labradorian, this is

where we live and we're not going anywhere. Most Labradorians have the same

sentiment. This is home; this is where we live. We're supposed to be a part of

this province. It is supposed to be Newfoundland and Labrador, so if we just

have that tad bit of respect to be equal in this union.

The

economic outlook for Labrador, on the other side of it, is great. We're one of

the only regions in Canada that was not affected economically by the pandemic.

We actually grew significantly during the pandemic. They did a census. Labrador

West, for the first time in many years, has actually grown its population. We're

actually cracking the 10,000 mark now. So we're growing, expanding but our

services are diminishing. We have less health care services, we have less other

government services, we can't keep teachers, we can't keep doctors and we can't

keep nurses. It is not keeping pace with the economic development.

We all

know we can never keep up with the wages in the trades and mining and all that

but at least try. At least try to accommodate, at least try to make it viable

for these people and these professionals to even bother to look at Labrador as a

place to come live. The biggest hurdle right now is housing. We don't have

enough houses to house anybody. We don't have enough opportunities for

developers to even put in a subdivision because they have no confidence in doing

so. At this day, the government does even seem to be interested in providing

that confidence to developers.

It is

funny that most people think mining, eventually this town is going to go. There

is 200 years of ore left in the ground to be mined – 200 hundred years. Iron is

the base metal for all construction right now. What more confidence do you need?

We've never waivered. We've been mining – we've been digging ore out of the

ground for 365 since 1954. The government should understand that we're not going

anywhere. We're not a temporary place. We exist, we'll always exist and without

the confidence Treasury of this province. And not one ounce of respect has been

ever given to the people of Labrador West and the seniors that live there – not

one bit of respect. And this is absolutely embarrassing.

It's

shocking and embarrassing that, right now, seniors are living in conditions that

they can no longer live in. They are living with no care – they can't get home

care, there's no personal care home and there's a wait-list for long-term care.

By the time they get to long-term care, it's too late. If they had the care

beforehand, they could have more meaningful lives, they could enjoy their golden

days and they could enjoy everything that they got. But they got nothing. And if

they want it, guess what? You're shipped 1,000 kilometres to the Island to a

community you don't know and you get to see your family once a year because it

costs a grand each for your family to fly out and see you. So it's absolutely

embarrassing where we're to right now.

And this

is not a new ask. MHAs before me have asked for this. MHAs after me will

probably, unfortunately, have to ask this but it shouldn't be this way. You can

correct it now and you should correct it now.

This is

not how we should be treating people. We should not be forcing them to go

through massive amounts of bureaucracy to get a couple of dollars back for

medical travel. We shouldn't have to beg for something for our seniors – the

people who have put billions and billions and billions of dollars into the

Treasury of this province. We shouldn't have to ask for it like this.

should be at least a gesture of goodwill for all the hard work that these people

have done. Trust me, people have paid with their lives to dig that ore out of

the ground. Many of these people who are widows now, looking for this care, the

majority of their spouses have died of industrial disease, from asbestosis, from

silicosis and from workplace accidents. These people – some of them – gave their

lives to put billions and billions of dollars into the coffers of this province

and the least you could do is have a place for their widows to actually live in

dignity and that's what it's (inaudible), Sir.

Now, the

Member for Lake Melville mentioned air ambulance. That's another gripe that

Labradorians have faced. We've actually had some recommendations; we actually

gave the government ideas on something to correct a lot of the situation.

The

first one is we need a third King Air. There needs to be a third plane for this

province that actually is ready and available when one is down.

P. TRIMPER:

With a crew.

J. BROWN:

With a crew, with a full

complement of everything it needs to go with it. That was a recommendation from

a report to government about our ambulances. This is not just something that

myself and my colleagues from Labrador pulled out of thin air. This is from a

government report that told them that this is what you need to do. That's the

thing.

And the

service out of Goose needs to be 24 hours. It's most logical to put it in Goose

Bay. It's an Air Force Base. It was purposely put there because of the weather

and the conditions to service over the North Atlantic.

Well,

guess what? Because of that, it's great for servicing the rest of Labrador and

the thing is if you're not going to actually put the services in Labrador to

treat people, at least have an air ambulance for us to get out when we need to

get out instead of waiting sometimes weeks to try to get out because there's no

crew available. There are no pilots available. The plane is down for

maintenance. The list goes on and on. This is an emergency service and it needs

to be available when called upon.

Now, I

understand there are times with beds and stuff like that, too, but, at the same

time, you shouldn't have to wait a week. That's embarrassing people; wait a week

for an air ambulance to come get somebody. Absolutely embarrassing to say the

least.

We don't

have the medical services in Labrador that the majority of the province actually

has. So there is only so much that these professionals in Labrador can do. They

need the backup of the Health Sciences Centre. That is unfortunately the

situation we're in, having them, for the most part, stuck for a week waiting.

And do

you know what? It is going to cost more down the road because the longer you're

waiting for specialty treatment – we all know – the longer you wait, the more

damage is done. This is the unfortunate part about it. The reason why we

actually have the air ambulance in Labrador is because someone died waiting for

the air ambulance – that needlessly died of an industrial accident. Labrador is

an industrial areas, it happens. These things happen and people shouldn't have

to pay with their lives. That's what's happening.

We could

do better, we should do better and we have the ability to do better, so do

better. At the end of the day, I shouldn't have to get up here and talk about

this stuff. This is just stuff that should be happening, should be in the minds

of all.

It's

about choices. We all have to make choices, we understand that, but the choices

that should come first are the choices about people. Everybody in this province

should live in safety and comfort because that is what a society does; we look

after each other. But at this point in time, with the cost of living and things

have just been absolutely spiraling out of control, people are worried. People

are not getting their medications. People are not going to the dentists. People

are not going to their regular appointments. What it is going to do is we're

going to create a system where there is going to be so much medical need that it

is just going to be like when the dam bursts, because we are putting way too

much stuff off.

Right

now, it's starting with the seniors. Those who actually can't afford their

drugs, can't afford to get dentures, can't afford to get their prescriptions for

their eyeglasses, things like that. These people are not living in comfort.

These people are not living in safety and security. These people can barely keep

a roof over their heads right now. They're all on fixed incomes. And this is the

problem. We need to be looking after people a lot better than what we are now.

You

know, it's great, the federal government is going to bring out working on

pharmacare, working on dental care and stuff like that. But where are we?

Shouldn't we be up in Ottawa right now saying we want to sign on to these

pilots, we want to be the first ones to do it? No, I don't see that. This House,

on our PMR, voted unanimously about a basic income or a pilot project that's

about reducing poverty.

PEI did

it after us. They saw what we did and they went after us. Well, guess what?

They're already up in Ottawa with a letter asking for a pilot to be done there.

They beat us to the punch. It was our idea, but they beat us to it. That's

another embarrassing moment for us right now. We should have been the ones up in

Ottawa right now negotiating a pilot to end poverty in this province.

Do you

know what the sad part about it is? Poverty is actually increasing. There's more

and more and more people falling behind right now.

SPEAKER:

Order, please!

The hon.

Member's time is expired.

J. BROWN:

Thank you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Torngat Mountains.

L. EVANS:

Thank you, Speaker.

One of

the things I just wanted to mention first that I wasn't going to speak about – I

always include things that I didn't plan to talk about – was the announcement

for the three schools. One of the communities that was identified as needing a

new school was Cartwright.

I grew

up going to sports tournaments, I've got relatives that live in Cartwright, and

I've got to say how tremendous that news was, not only to the people of

Cartwright but for people that know residents in Cartwright – badly needed.

The

school was built in the 1960s. I think that school is older than me, and I got

to tell you, Speaker, I'm ancient. I'm nearing 60. I actually think I'm 57, I'm

not quite sure; I may be turning 58 or I might be turning 57, I'm not sure. The

way I deal with it is I don't keep track. I rely on my brother because –

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Oh, oh!

L. EVANS:

– my brother gets more

alarmed about how old I am because he's older than I am.

But,

Speaker, built in the 1960s, I hate to say it, but it's shameful. It's shameful

that people in this day with all the needs being put on students, all the

demands being put on students that we actually have a community of Cartwright

that has a school that was built before a lot of us were even born.

Just

hearing people talk on the radio this morning about how excited they were

because of the safety issues. Can you imagine the wiring and the infrastructure

students and people being able to participate. A grandmother not being able to

go to her granddaughter's high school graduation because she doesn't have the

mobility to be able to get into the school.

So the

Cartwright school was badly needed. As pleased as everyone is about this, I

think it's time that we step back and say why did it take this long. Now the

concern is we hope this doesn't get dragged out for the next eight to 10 years.

We hope we can have our school built in a timely fashion. Why would residents be

thinking that?

Because

that it is the pattern. Things get announced and then there's delay after delay.

We just look at the $200,000 that was announced three budgets ago for the

prefeasibility study to have the North Coast be tied into the Trans-Labrador –

delay after delay. We look at the Health Accord; is this going to be another

delay? Are there going to be issues with that? It is very, very concerning.

When you

look at Labrador, one of the things – you talk to anyone who's been born and

raised in Labrador and they'll say we're out of sight, out of mind. It doesn't

matter if you're from Lab West, from Torngat Mountains, Lake Melville region, or

even the South Coast. When my fellow MHA from Lab West was speaking, and he was

talking about seniors needing nursing homes, seniors needing houses, he speaks

on those issues every chance he gets in this House of Assembly.

But if

you look at his district: iron ore, lifespan of another 200 years. When you look

at all the monies that Lab West has contributed to provincial revenue. When you

look at Voisey's Bay, in my district, the mining – nickel, cobalt, copper, all

in demand; it's going to be in demand for many years. What saved the province

financially when there was a downturn in oil? It was mining. Where are the

mines? Up in Labrador.

So why

should we have to actually draw attention to these problems that we face every

day, that impact our quality of life? My fellow MHAs talk about that. Talk about

the need for Labrador to have a voice. Most people who message me talk about

separation. Now, I'm trying to not engage on that level, but I have to say when

we've been treated as poorly as we've been treated.

The

North Coast, my district, we have the most children in care. Look at our

incarceration rates into prisons and the correctional facilities. When you look

at that, that's a product of intergenerational trauma. Our people weren't born

like that. Our people were born happy, little children. What happened? What

happened is cycle after cycle after cycle where we were harmed, initially, back

in the day and it was never addressed. And even now when people know the issues,

they don't want to hear about it because of the way our provincial government is

set up. It is set up to be self-serving.

Every

MHA here has a vested interest in getting elected. Every MHA here has a vested

interest of when they go into their communities, when they go into a store, they

want their residents to pat them on the back and say thank you for that. Thank

you for talking to Dr. Haggie, individually, in the House of Assembly and

bringing forth my medical issue. As MHAs, we should be looking at a bigger

picture. We should be looking at the greater good of the province and that's not

happening.

The way

we're set up is to be self-serving. You know that. Everybody knows that here and

that's a big problem. In Labrador – I keep saying we have three MHAs – we have

four MHAs out of 40. But when you look at our need for services, our need for

infrastructure, we don't get our fair share. On the North Coast, we don't get

anything. I can have the MP get on

Labrador Morning and say what I said was incorrect about the Internet and

they spent a couple of million of dollars, so I'm wrong. But you want to know

something? I'm not wrong. When you look at how much money was spent on the

Internet services and maintenance for the District of Torngat Mountains compared

to the rest of Labrador it is very, very small.

The

reason why this government is not set up properly is even for the region of

Labrador, there's a tendency to put MHA against MHA, and that's the failure. The

only way we can get ahead is if we unite and work together. Do you know

something? The way this is working out, that's not going to happen because there

are too many self-serving people getting elected and re-elected and elected and

elected and elected.

The joke

was, to me, oh, you got off on the eighth floor – I got off accidentally. The

joke was about all the media there. Why would there be a joke in the House of

Assembly about the eighth floor and media? Because this government governs by

controlling what people think. As long as people think they're doing a good job,

they're going to get re-elected. They're going to have the public support.

Social justice is gone out the window. It has not gone out the window; it was

never in the House. It was never here. I don't think it was from the Joey days

up to the Peckford days, continuing on government to government, I don't think

there has been any social justice here.

Why

should I take my budget time to talk about that? Because my people have been

harmed the most with this political system. That is why I have to agree with

most people that message me and say: You know something, Lela, is there any way

we could separate? I'm pretty interested in that, seriously.

Looking

at the Health Accord now, I am really, really concerned. I could stand up here

and complain about the process of the Health Accord and the lack of consultation

but, at the end of the day, if I want my district to benefit from improvements

in health, I cannot. What I have to do is I have to support what is in the

Health Accord. What I have to do is I have to fight to try and protect the unity

of the Health Accord, because the Health Accord is basically a plan, a program

and a system that calls for the components to be all implemented. Not to allow

this government to – and I use the word cherry-pick pieces that goes in line

with Moya Greene's recommendations. Because what will happen then is we're going

to have the same old, same old.

We're

going to have people dying in Labrador, waiting to be medevaced out. We're going

to have people on the North Coast dying, being diagnosed too late or being

incorrectly diagnosed. For us, as Labradorians – South Coast, how many crisis

did we have where people have actually been delayed? How many crisis did we have

in Labrador West where medical assistance was delayed? In Lake Melville? And on

the North Coast it happens practically all the time because on the North Coast

we are dependent on weather.

I have

to say that the road that would connect us to the Trans-Labrador Highway helps

us with access to medical care; helps us to access to quality of food,

reasonable prices for food; building materials; infrastructure – everything.

Right now – I was talking to the Minister of CSSD this summer about Newfoundland

and Labrador Housing units need to be repaired. The biggest burden we faced was

timelines. They never got the inspections done in time. They never got the

contracts in time, so they never got the building materials up there.

We have

a housing crisis but also we have, at the root of it all, a transportation

crisis. That is something that this government could be helping us with. And

they're not. In 2019, they took away the freight boat that actually came from

the Island that keep our prices reasonable for our communities. But no one

cares.

Actually, the person who is talking over me right now spent over $11 million in

transportation when he was minister in one year. And I can't get a

prefeasibility study done. I don't even know if they have the –

AN HON. MEMBER:

$200,000.

L. EVANS:

Right, $200,000. Correct me

because I get so mad, I get the numbers confused.

Talking

about the Health Accord now. This morning on the radio people were talking about

health care being in crisis. What was said, and I quote: What shocks one

community is normal to another. That was said regarding health care. One

community dealing in crisis out in rural Newfoundland, on the Island.

Talked

about the shortage of doctors. Where the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical

Association calls on the provincial government, and I am quoting, “… to

immediately implement a plan to rescue rural health care centres that are in

crisis.” That is the president talking. That is their press release I am quoting

from, “… rescue rural health care centres that are in crisis.”

I heard

my fellow MHA for Harbour Main on the radio this morning talking from a past

interview and she was very upset and concerned, not only for her district but

for all of rural Newfoundland and Labrador and I compliment her on that. She is

a very passionate MHA. I wrote down what she said: People are dying because they

are not getting a proper diagnosis. They are not being able to get diagnosed and

therefore the proper treatment is delayed. So do you know what happens? People

die.

We on

this side of the House know that. We understand the value of that Health Accord.

Saying that there is a delay in rollout of 10 years, but that doesn't give you

an excuse just to cherry-pick and save money at the expense of us all.

Looking

at access to timely medical care. I've been talking about that since I got

elected in 2019. Not only can we not see the doctors – actually, this winter,

during the election, my second election within two years, people in Makkovik,

the issue that they brought up is that there hadn't been a doctor to Makkovik,

to the community of Makkovik, in over two years. They hadn't seen a doctor. If I

talk about health care on the North Coast, people will talk about people who've

died. I've had people that died. I've had relatives, close personal friends that

died, and we can look and see that they weren't diagnosed quickly enough, the

treatment they had was too late.

Most

people on the North Coast is diagnosed with stage 4 cancer or glaucoma – blind,

partially blind. One of the greatest leaders out of the community of Makkovik

actually was blinded by glaucoma. And do you know something? The problem with

being diagnosed too late with glaucoma is the damage is permanent.

The

problem with me trying to get up and speak without having notes in front of me

is I go off on tangents, because I'm talking about glaucoma. Now, let's talk

about cataracts.

that's a big thing, cataracts. Well, do you know something? On the North Coast,

we didn't have to live with people being blinded from cataracts; we were living

with people who were blinded because of failure to deliver proper surgeries. My

grandmother was one of them. Luckily, she only had her cataract removed in one

eye in St. Anthony, and they blinded her.

Everybody knows Burt Winters in Makkovik. He passed away recently, he was in his

90s; he used to go out hunting and fishing. He was a very strong, physically fit

man. But everybody knew he had a damaged eye. Where did that happen? St.

Anthony. I could go around the community and find the people that were blinded.

I think what they knew is that doctor was incompetent and that's the reason the

surgery was only done in one eye. Because you'd only be blind in one eye.

There

was a lady there, a few months older than my grandmother, she wasn't blind in

one eye because her family actually paid for her to go to St. John's and get the

surgery.

The

thing about it is, in Canada, when we look at the provinces in Canada, we think

that everyone has equal access. We don't have equal access.

Now,

what about access to health care on the North Coast? If you can get an

appointment at the clinic, and if the clinic agrees that your condition is

serious enough to be sent out – and a lot of the time the delay happens there,

where you have a serious medical condition that could damage your organs, or

lead to your untimely death – there's a delay in getting you out. If you're

lucky enough to actually get that appointment in Goose Bay, you're still not

free and clear to actually have access to health care – adequate health care.

You have to get there.

Now,

even if the weather is good – we have no roads connecting us – so we have to

fly. Even if the weather is good and you can fly, there might not be room on the

flight. Seriously. I have had people now – so who gets bumped off? Eye

appointments, glaucoma, cataracts – early detection. Everybody talks about early

detection now for eye care and what happens if you loses your vision or your

vision is impacted? It affects your quality of life and especially of our elders

we see, they lose their independence.

Physiotherapy from a major surgery. You've got your hip replaced, your knee

replaced or you might have had a huge surgery and you need physio. You don't

actually get the physio after the surgery. You're basically sent home and then

they'll make an appointment for you. Then usually that appointment is

rescheduled, rescheduled, rescheduled so that people, when they actually access

physiotherapy, it's not to help them recover from the surgery, it's basically to

help them overcome the scar tissue and damage that's been done in the wait. A

lot of people don't actually even get that physiotherapy. So you look at our

elders going around and you even look at a lot of our young people, you can tell

that they have a disability and the disability is caused by the failure of them

to have access to physiotherapy.

Dental:

Don't get me started on dental. It's not about dentures. It's about people being

able to access good quality health care by actually being able to see a dentist

in a timely fashion. Right? That doesn't happen.

Access

to air ambulance: that's what we talk about in Labrador. We need to be able to –

if somebody's life depends on it – fly from Labrador to St. John's to be saved.

And what happens is – both my fellow MHAs here can attest – we usually find out

that the air ambulance is not available when somebody, who's an advocate for

somebody who's really sick and their life is at stake or they're overall health

care and their quality of life in the future is at stake and they can't actually

get transportation. We've witnessed that because we have access to the tracking

of the air ambulance flying all around the Island, flying back and forth the

Island, but not going to Labrador.

One of

my friends was over in Lab West, supposed to be medevaced out, ended up on

life-support. Why was he over in Lab West? There were no beds in Goose Bay and

none in St. Johns, originally, when they tried to transport him. So now he ends

up on life-support. He's in Lab West and they're trying to get him to St.

John's.

The MHA

got involved; that's me –

SPEAKER:

Order, please!

The hon.

Member's time is expired.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Official Opposition.

D. BRAZIL:

Thank you, Speaker.

It's an

honour to stand in this House again and speak to the budget. Ironically, I've

been reflecting on budget processes and I went back and found one from 1986 that

I still had, that I had some relevance and connection to. This is my 40th budget

as somebody either directly or indirectly connected. And I know somebody who

looks like they're in their 30s –

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Oh, oh!

D. BRAZIL:

– could have had 40 budgets

underneath their belt, but it is true. I had the privilege in my late teens to

work as part of a Crown corporation and one of the issues were to be cognizant

of budgets and be in this House – it wasn't even here at that time; it wasn't in

this design at the time – and every year to go through every budget.

And I've

seen them from every genre. I've seen them from every administration. I've seen

ones that we were in awe that there were so many good things coming out and it

hit the mark, and there were ones that you shook your head in disbelief to say

what's happened here, did they totally miss the mark, were they not listening,

as part of that process. I'm not going to label this one as either one of those.

What I will label it is $8 billion being spent – and I give credit; a budget is

never an easy thing to do. I don't care what administration, I don't care who's

the minister of Finance, I don't care who's in Cabinet, it's never an easy thing

to do. Because it's a balance.

But

normally, you have to prioritize. You have to prioritize what you think the

balance will meet the needs of the people and still be able to meet your fiscal

responsibilities. So I'm going to try in the next hour to be hopefully not

cynical. Hopefully, not even overly critical. But I do want to talk in fact, in

situation and impact on people. And the best way that I've learned from my days

as a civil servant, my days in not-for-profits, but particularly my days in

coaching, the better way you can find the best plan for it, and the best way to

be successful, is to listen to the people around you. Listen to what they're

saying; listen to the impact things have on them.

When we

do that, we have a better understanding of exactly what our priority should be.

Because five people say it, or 15 people say it, it may not be the priority that

everybody would need, or should be implemented. But if the masses keep saying

continuously these are the issues, these are the challenges, here are the things

that we need to improve on, I think that should become your start for your

priority list.

So I

want to talk to a few things relevant to the budget, and generally the economy

and the needs of people of this province, what I've heard and our caucus have

heard, and the discussions we've had with a multitude of agencies who represent

people from low-income earners to the business community to health professionals

to every industry out there. From the mining industry, the oil and gas industry,

the trades unions. So all have come with a specific view on how things will

affect them, how the economy affects them, how government spending affects them.

But to get a true understanding, if you start seeing consistent messages, then

that should be the continuum. You want to make the line go in a straight flow,

you connect the dots then and you realize that should be the approach that you

take.

commend the Premier and Cabinet for putting together a budget and trying to

identify the needs of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. And, no doubt, in

this budget there are things that address that. The issue around the civil

service still being intact and not massive layoffs obviously speaks volumes to

the programs and services that these valued people of this province provide to

people from all over Newfoundland and Labrador. Rural, remote areas in Labrador;

rural, remote areas in the Island part of it; to the urban centres: so it is

valuable on that.

Investments in other programs and services that have been continuums that we

have seen. The issue becomes – and the key labelling that I put here – about

priorities. Prioritizing how you're going to address the particular needs of

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. This was a unique budget. I'll acknowledge

that. It was unique because we're coming off very challenging times when it came

to COVID and the impact it had on our economy, the impact it had on changing how

people operate and the impact on businesses.

But

we're also coming at a time when factors beyond anybody's control,

unfortunately, are dictating that the cost of living is going to hit

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians more, in my opinion, than anybody else in this

country. So to realize that and to effectively address it, you must look at a

new, creative way to say that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians shouldn't be left

behind. That we should get our fair share and we would find a mechanism that

works after we prioritize what has to be done.

The days

of being able to do everything for everybody, they probably were never here. But

it is less an opportunity to do that now with the economy being what it is and

challenges outside of Newfoundland and Labrador that we have to face when you're

acknowledging what needs to be done and coming up with prioritizing.

So you

have to pick what your prioritized approach should be and who and how, you do

two things. I'll state something, and I have had disagreements with people on

that side, I have had them with people in the business community and I have had

them with my own colleagues. I don't live by the premise in Newfoundland and

Labrador that we have a spending problem. I live by the premise that we have so

much potential in the province that our spending is relevant to the fact that we

have so many needs here geographically, our age population, or demographics, the

fact that we're out in the middle of the North Atlantic, or the fact that we're

up North – part of our province in Labrador – that there are ultimate challenges

here.

So just

to say we're spending a lot of money is one thing. My challenge has been that

we're not spending it in the right areas, in a lot of cases, and that's not

everything. That's in a number of cases that we could be spending better. A way

to find that happy medium is listening to the people out there. Again, and I'll

reiterate as I go through my speech, this is about the consistent messages

coming from every sector of our society. My two colleagues here who represent

Labrador talked about the same things: health care – a consistent message. So

it's from Nain, Labrador to Conception Bay South to Burin Peninsula to the

Connaigre Peninsula to the Baie Verte Peninsula to the West Coast of this

province and the Northern Peninsula. It's everywhere.

It is an

issue that we face. I'm going to get in to talking about some of the challenges,

and I know we're all aware of them because we've heard them. But some of the

things that needed to be addressed or should be addressed and I would think

still can be addressed. There is money in departments here. It's a matter when

it's allocated, how it can be maneuvered in the right directions. I mean, people

forget, while budget allocations – if they're in salary areas or program areas,

those programs are based on policy or regulations so they can be adjusted very

easily to address specific needs.

So I

just want to talk about some of these things. I do want to acknowledge – I mean,

the Premier recognized a solid plan was needed when he became leader. That was

part of his platform and we all welcomed it. Whoever becomes the premier, we

know, is at the helm of moving Newfoundland and Labrador forward. We have a role

as the Official Opposition to ensure that government lives up to that

responsibility and we'll make suggestions. We may even criticize. We may even

chastise if we think they have gone beyond what their roles and responsibilities

would have been. But I will guarantee you the Official Opposition, and I would

say all Members on this side, have the same mindset to do things that improve

the lives of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and that's what we all aspire to

do here.

started by appointing the PERT report and the Greene report that came out to

give him a plan. And while the plan was very detailed and I will acknowledge it

went, I would suspect, much further than people would have thought in some of

its recommendations, I will say I'm not a big fan of the report for a number of

reasons. One, I think it took a line where it's easier to cut a lot of things or

get rid of things without really analyzing the benefits or the fallout or the

shortfalls in not doing certain things.

Now, are

there things in that report that could be implemented that could be a benefit

financially? Are there things that maybe another sector outside of government

might be better or more efficiently could operate that and still provide the

service for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador? Are there things that

conjure up a discussion that we need to have – a serious discussion in this

province – about how we provide services and the process we use and the

expectations?

colleague, my Finance critic, has noted many times, and has said, we need to

find a happy medium where we give people what they need, not necessarily what

they want. We all aspire to want more than probably, or (inaudible) what people

need. You give people what they need; they'll succeed. They'll be able to get

what they want, that will work. You set the environment.

So we've

looked at that. I think he's already committed, the last couple of days in

Question Period, talking about some of the challenges, that we need a better

plan. This province needs a better plan to address the shortfalls, economically;

to also address the issues we have around the challenges of health care; some of

the challenges in our education system; some of our challenges in

infrastructure; some of our challenges in immigration; and all the things that

are relevant to and are important to providing the services to Newfoundlanders

and Labradorians.

We're

always here. If nothing else, I should get credit for showing that this side of

the House wanted to be more collaborative. In the last year since the last

election, we've acknowledged that. We're open for discussion, we're open to give

some suggestions, we're even open for any Member on that side, or any member of

society to explain to us why what we're proposing isn't workable, or isn't in

the right direction that Newfoundland and Labrador should go.

You'll

find one thing over here, we're very open minded. We may actually overemphasize

sometimes from your perspective a certain particular issue. But, at the end of

the day, if any Member over there gets up and outlines why their perspective or

their approach or their program would be more beneficial to the people of this

province than what we suggested, it won't take very long for us to back off and

acknowledge it. And we've done that in the past, and we do acknowledge that.

We all

should listen. That's going to be one of the themes of what we do as an

Opposition. You need to listen to what the people are saying. I want to

overemphasize the fact: if the consistent message is coming from every sector of

our society, every part geographically, every demographic in this province, then

that should become our priorities. And that's what we have to aspire to, to meet

those particular needs.

I said I

wouldn't be cynical, and I tried not to be too critical, but I will be a little

more critical and cynical of one particular sector here, politically. It's not

the official party that's governing here in Newfoundland and Labrador. I'm

talking about the federal government. I, personally, and I think the people of

this province, feel we don't get our fair share and that's not because of the

Liberal relationship with the federal government, the provincial government,

it's gone back many administrations. We don't get our fair share.

How do

we get that fair share? I know every now and then we get some extra handouts,

some extra supports because we either pull in some political mileage, or we go

for a one-time shot. That shouldn't be how a confederation works. Keeping in

mind some of the formulas are based on the demographic of population, that's not

fair to a province that demographically is massive, geographically it's massive.

The demographic makeups are so dramatically different here from age categories

to some of the health concerns, to the infrastructure, the climate, all the

things there. It should be taken, if you're part of a confederation and you're

only going to be given support based on the number of citizens you have, without

taking into account all the other factors that need to be there to provide basic

services and quality services. In this country, we should be able to get equal

services across the board, if you're in Victoria, BC or you're in Victoria, CBN.

It should be the same across the board.

These

are some of the things that we think we all should champion. We've made that

offer to the Premier, that if there is championing that needs to be done, we do

it as collective House. We, in the Official Opposition, are willing to do that,

to make sure the federal government understands where we are, not because there

are only seven MPs here and if it's not a minority government than it's probably

not that significant of what they can do. We know where we are right now when it

comes to collaboration in Ottawa, between two particular parties, and that's not

a slight at them, but it's a reality for us here.

The

influence we may have may be minimized now by the fact that the prime minister

knows he has – at least for the next three or four years, what can we draw down

on as part of that. So we need to start looking at prioritizing what's important

here. Part of that may have to be looking at what's necessary here.

criticism of some of the things that have happened from this administration

recently is about spending money in the right areas and understanding the

benefits down the road. The Rothschild report, I'm still baffled, bewildered

that – I understand looking at the value of our asset. I was a minister

responsible for most of the infrastructure assets so I understood that, and I

know there are two or three reports that are there when I was there. I know what

the costing of certain things are. I know we have hundreds of very competent

people who have a background specifically in that area, if it's an MBA, if it's

somebody who does assessment as a consultant, hundreds of them in our own civil

service that we're already paying.

I know

there are dozens of reports that are already tabled somewhere, on a shelf in

some line department, that could be taken, assessed and looked at what it could

be. So the spending there caught me off guard. I didn't see the real value. I

see the value of the concept of what wanted to be done, but I thought that could

be done in-house or at minimum, somebody else in Newfoundland and Labrador,

could have taken it for a tenth of that and formulated all the information that

was necessary

Looking

at getting consultants, international and national consultants to look at our

health care system and how we make cuts there. We've got an extreme number of

health professionals who've helped bring programs from their infancy to some of

the best programs in the world. We're asking somebody else to look at ways that

we change and modify or can be more efficient at it. Again, I think that's

narrow minded in thinking. We're not giving credit to the people we have here,

and, in my case, spending money that wasn't necessary as part of that.

Also,

looking at how we invest money in areas here; I think it needs to be invested in

the right areas here. Invest in corporations that are going to generate

employment for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, who are going to give back to

Newfoundland and Labrador and who are going to ensure that we, the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador, are the major benefactors of what is happening here.

So there

are things like that, that have been my criticisms of this administration and

we've said that in Question Period, asking for clarification. Because, again –

and I'll reiterate – if there's a rational argument, or a rational approach that

has a long-term benefit that we don't see now, and it's explained, it won't take

long for us here to acknowledge that and say, okay, we see the rationale, we see

where you're going with it, and then we'll pivot to something else. We'll move

on to something else that we think the people of Newfoundland and Labrador would

want us to talk about.

So we

all know what the greatest need is right now in Newfoundland and Labrador, it's

the cost of living. The impact that that's going to have on the people of this

province. We know the dramatic effect, the mental health issues that are going

to be increased because of the stress on people. The quality of life, the

dignity of life, that is going be impacted by people if we don't find a way to

address it.

I'm not

blaming the Liberals – this is not something you created, but you have the

ability here to try and lessen the impact on people by identifying programs and

services and implementing things that would be beneficial to the people in the

immediate future, get them over this until we can change what's happening in

this province. A lot of that has to do with what's happening nationally and

internationally. So we need to focus solely, right now, on how we address the

needs of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and ensure they get through

this crisis that we're in.

And

that's what it is, it's a financial crisis; we talked about a health care

crisis, and that's one that I'll get into before my time is up. But we also have

a financial crisis, particularly for a number of people. Some may be able to

weather the storm, no doubt, but there are businesses, there are individuals

living on fixed incomes, there are middle-income people who are feeling the

crunch of what's happening right now with the increase of the cost of living,

fuel, all the other services that are connected to transportation and that here,

and even basic services, from getting something delivered here and then put in

by a professional. All those costs that they incur have to be passed on to the

consumer itself.

I want

to go back to the federal perspective, because I think there's a joint approach

here over the next number of years. We know we're here until the next provincial

and, now we know, federal election which is probably going to be three years

down the road, so let's collectively talk about where it is that we can get our

fair share when it comes to the federal supports for this province.

didn't get enough of the health care funding from Ottawa; we know that.

Twenty-seven million dollars out of a billion based on, again, per capita. I'm

going to give full credit that somebody did go up and argue that Newfoundlanders

and Labradorians have many other challenges around health care. Again, I keep

reiterating, the demographics of where we're located with our health facilities

and one tertiary care, our clinics and the remoteness and trying to travel

various areas to get these types of things; recruitment around our health

professionals, what that meant. To get $27 million, to me, was an insult,

knowing what we needed and knowing, like I said, the demographics of our age

categories in this province as part of that. So that's one that I thought we

were shortchanged on, and we all need collectively to fight for that.

We were

shortchanged billions of dollars. We should have been entitled to equalization

for the last number of years, based on a multitude of formula things. I know the

formula got changed and pushed out. But it hasn't gotten changed in the last

number of decades to benefit the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. So I'm not

just blaming one administration in Ottawa; I'm saying this is a reality. My

priority and our caucus priority is the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. No

doubt, we're all proud Canadians, but right now you can be a lot prouder when

you know your people are being taken care of and are getting a fair shake when

it comes to being part of this great country.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

D. BRAZIL:

We needed to implement the

Health Accord quicker. We need to get to it right away, around particularly

hiring doctors and nurses, scope of work for paramedics, pharmacists, all the

things that can do – the community health teams. We need to immediately start

moving those. The Health Accord, seven times we met with them, and every time I

was more enlightened about their vision and what was being proposed.

I know

there was an immediate proposed vision of what needed to be done. There's a

mid-term part of it and then there's a long-term strategy. But we need to get at

what the immediate thing is. They've admitted it – very diligent, very competent

individuals – that our immediate thing has to be around health care

professionals. Recruiting them, identifying them and then providing the process

to be able to let them use their expertise to get services to the people of this

province.

So we

commend that. We commend the Health Accord for being called. We commend exactly

the work they've done. Now the issue becomes putting it in play. Not five years

down the road, not five months down the road even – immediately. This budget

needs to reflect the needs of recruiting health professionals and putting the

mechanism in play that can actually make the Health Accord recommendations fall

in play as quick as possible.

Ottawa

forgot a couple of things here. It forgot its health funding promises, just like

they forgot equalization. The last two federal elections all parties made the

same commitments. They made the commitments around changing the equalization

formula to ensure that provinces with smaller populations would still get their

equal share so that it could address some of their particular issues. It also

forgot about its health-funding end. Just because your population is low doesn't

mean your needs are not at a higher level. So there are things there that it is

surprising that more noise hasn't been made by the provinces to say you didn't

live up – particularly the smaller provinces and part of that would be Atlantic

Canada about we're not getting our fair share as it comes to that.

Ottawa

has done very little, from my perspective and our perspective here, to help the

people of Newfoundland and Labrador from an average living wage and being able

to address the cost of living. I know, I applauded it, the rate mitigation. It

is great to see that we will have what we had proposed a number of years ago,

14.7 cents a kilowatt, which is affordable to the people. It is still an

increase but it is affordable, particularly as it will put us in one of the

lowest costing of hydroelectric power. It does our part, particularly for the

environment, and it also does our part to be the cornerstone for the Atlantic

Loop.

The one

thing I will say, it didn't get as much emphasis as I thought it should. The

federal government did put $250 million and part of that can be accessed for the

Atlantic Loop, so they did acknowledge it. I'm glad to see that because one

election it was one primary thing about hydroelectric power and the benefits

that were going to be here. This one they put some money into it but didn't make

a big hoopla about it as part of what it should be. So I see the economic

viability of that.

My issue

is that most of this money is our own money. It is our Hibernia money. It is a

loan guarantee. It is changing the payment scheme. So Ottawa might pat itself –

and I will give credit to the government; we needed this in play because it

needed to eliminate the apprehension people had about the soaring price of

hydroelectricity for people and their light bills. It needed to ensure the

business community would know that they could also have affordable expansion of

their business.

But when

I looked at it and while the amount meets the needs, it's really not a lot that

came from the federal government. There is nothing. They gave us part of our

money – they loaned us part of our money. They gave us a nod and a wink and say:

Well, you go to the banks and we'll get them to give you a good rate. By the

way, to get all of that, you now have got to push how long it's going to take

you to pay all the bills out a little bit longer.

that's a bit disappointing. But I will acknowledge, and I've done this publicly,

that at least this has got the right momentum to say we're at least addressing

that for the people. So we can hold off; I'm not worrying about our light bills

getting to a point where it's adding again to the challenges that we have here

in Newfoundland and Labrador.

We need

collectively to be telling the story to the Trudeau administration and to

Ottawa. Because we know what happened; we know the rumours – and these were not

rumours, the Bay du Nord. I know they weren't rumours because I had calls. I had

discussions with MPs and federal ministers about the dissension, the split and

the fear that the Bay du Nord Project would not happen.

You

know, we brought it to the forefront. Not because we wanted to fear monger; as a

matter of fact, we didn't even try to make it that big a political thing. We

wanted clarification in the House. This wasn't even an attack on the Liberal

administration here. This was about Newfoundlanders and Labradorians coming

together to ensure we got something that was valuable to the people here, and

valuable to the workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, and sent a message that

the oil and gas industry is still vibrant here, and that we're open for

business, as long as the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and the businesses

here and the communities are the benefactors.

I'm glad

to see it worked out; I'm glad to see that, and I give credit to the minister,

to the Premier and to everybody. I give credit to our people for keeping it

front and centre; I give credit to the industry people who wanted to ensure that

this needed to be out there. So this was one of those where collectively we all

did our part; we may not have come together probably the way we could have, that

might have made it a little better. But I understand everybody has got their

approaches to it, and the end result, it worked out.

But my

fear is, how close did we come in sending the wrong message to the world that

Newfoundland and Labrador is not open for business? We are saying to our oil and

gas industry that has helped us, sustained our quality of life, has helped us

put business in place to transition to other things – nobody is beyond the

concept of transitioning, when the transitioning is ready to happen, and when we

have the resources and the training and all the things in play to make that

happen.

So we

need to ensure we never get to the edge of the cliff again when it comes to the

federal government dictating to us in Newfoundland and Labrador what our

viability should be and what our economics should be. So if that means we

collaborate together, let's get to that point. Let's share that information with

everybody in this House, so that we can all collectively get together and find a

way to move things forward.

We did a

PMR last Wednesday – for those who don't know a private Member's resolution –

that talked about addressing the cost of living and finding ways to,

collectively, as a House, address those needs. I was so happy to see that all

Members supported it on both sides of the House. All Members supported it

because, again, I will say, I have no doubt that every Member in this House of

Assembly wants to do what's best for their constituents and for all in this

province and no doubt that was the plan.

Now, I

did hear a lot of acknowledgement that just wait the budget is coming tomorrow.

There was nobody more than us on this side who were waiting in anticipation for

a lot of good things to address the issues that we had talked about and that my

colleagues on the opposite side had talked about, also, that was important to

the people addressing those issues.

While

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I give credit for the effort in this

budget by the Liberal administration, it fell short in a lot of areas,

unfortunately. Now, am I critical of what was announced? Not at all. A lot of

the programs there, the cuts, some of the incentives and all that, will serve a

purpose and do help in its own right, but it didn't go far enough. It didn't go

in the right directions of what needed to be done, particularly for our most

vulnerable, middle class, benefits to businesses to ensure that they can hire

more people, keeping the cost of living down, food and fuel. There's a multitude

of things that could have been done.

I'm not

dismissing what was done, that's not – very few of the things that were

announced would I say we wouldn't do. My issue is we can't do everything right

now. What we would have done is prioritize what should have been the first ones

and that was directly about the cost of living.

We saw

that yesterday in Question Period here, when we talked about the graph that was

put out. The Premier admitted, and I think we all admitted it, and I'm not going

to emphasize it too much that it really doesn't reflect what people would say.

The reality is here, people are still going to struggle, even with what was

implemented because some of those may have been better used, not that they

wouldn't have been a benefit and not that they're not going to help some people,

but to prioritize what would have been an immediate response to helping those in

need.

We know

where that comes across the board with cost of fuel, which in turn keeps money

in everybody's pocket, because people need to be able to move, if it's mass

transportation, if it's the taxi industry – another one of the industries I

personally feel are being left out, are not getting the support that they need.

I know that they didn't get it during COVID, it wasn't there and that's not a

criticism of the provincial government. That's more of a criticism of the

federal government, but I know there wasn't enough lobbying for them to be able

to sustain their quality of life. Now we're in a quandary where they can't

recruit drivers and we're coming upon a Come Home Year.

This is

going to be devastating, particularly, in the Northeast Avalon. I know when you

get out – tourism in not just about that, but this is the point where most are

going to enter. You want to be able to make sure that their first experience,

when they land, is that they get transportation going and they're not waiting

hours. That's not counting the fact that our own residents who need cabs for all

kinds of reasons don't have it. So I say that around cuts or supports that were

needed across the board.

The cost

of fuel, which has an impact then on the freight, which means the cost of goods

and services, particularly food. What we could have done to help some of the

other people of this province keep the cost of food down. We already know in the

wintertime it's a struggle for us to be able to maintain good quality food, just

by the nature of geography, where we live and how far we are from stuff as part

of that.

One of

the things – and I did have a number of city councillors reach out to me – was

about the low-income bus passes. I thought – as a matter of fact, I even stood

here and complimented the government – that was a good process to implement.

As you

know, one of the biggest criticisms that we have had of this administration for

the last seven years has been getting rid of things that worked; things that had

been proven to be beneficial. It makes no difference who takes credit for it,

but we had a poverty reduction strategy that took us from here – down here where

we were scrambling to be able to keep people engaged; find out how we get people

to be able to be productive citizens; how we could make them employable; deal

with some of their social issues; make sure that the next generation wasn't

reliant on Income Support or government programs; and we elevated to here. We

were the envy, not only of this country but North America.

I had a

small

part in one of the segments of that and I know my colleague, the Member

for Topsail - Paradise, was directly involved, also. And we know what it meant

around immigration. We know what it meant around youth at risk. We know what it

meant around single parents. We know what it meant around seniors and middle age

for retraining. We know what it meant around businesses being able to recruit

people and training the supports we did.

So that

got dismissed, unfortunately. It got left by the wayside. It went away. There

was versions that it was going to be added to. I remember going to a briefing

one time and I thought they were revisiting and they were going to add something

to it. Anyway, it got lost. It's done and gone, but what I would have hoped in

this budget is they could have resurrected some parts of that that were very

successful, that were already documented. You didn't have to spend a lot of time

on it. You didn't have to spend a lot of consulting money on it, I guarantee

you. You didn't have to bring in people from outside of this Confederation

Building to actually look at how it works, or you could reach out to one of the

agencies who were the stewards of this or the architects of it and get that to

work.

So that

was a bit disappointing around not being able to go that route. We didn't have

to reinvent the wheel, all we had to do was pick the wheel up again because it

was there and we knew it was proven to work. So that was disappointing of where

we are right here.

When the

city took that down, I mean, we saw the difference here with low-income people

within the city. Again, this is not just about an urban issue. This is a bigger

picture about putting supports in play for people. The city themselves – when we

can get a municipality to partner with the provincial government in a program,

b'y we'd better keep that as close as possible. We should foster that.

You

know, we're talking about regionalization, I would hope what we're trying to do

here is take all municipalities, non-incorporated areas, Local Service

Districts, to come together to provide the best services possible in the most

equitable way possible and expand them with the monies that we can save by doing

joint projects.

So there

are some things here that I thought we missed and I know there are people from

the city who are upset. I know those who service low-income people who need this

access for public transportation and I know what this would mean to places like

Paradise and Conception Bay South and Portugal Cove-St. Philip's and Torbay, all

surrounding areas who would like to be able to access public transportation. We

thought this would be the next step to moving forward. It's a step backward,

unfortunately, to look at that.

I also

want to talk a little bit about what we identified or what was discussed in the

Health Accord. I say this tongue-in-cheek but I say it with pure sincerity. It

was good to have the Health Accord senior people admit that we're in a health

crisis. I say tongue-in-cheek because the one thing you don't want to be able to

say is you're not in crisis in Newfoundland and Labrador.

You're

never going to solve your issue, particularly if it's a crisis, if you don't

first admit that it exists. So having people at that level who do this on a

daily basis, who've been talking to thousands of people, citizens, health

professionals, about what the issues are in Newfoundland and Labrador, then you

can better address how you do that. So issues that were identified, that we're

all facing, we talk about it here in the House every day, the lack of family

doctors. One in five Newfoundlanders and Labradorians don't have access to a

family doctor.

I know,

Mr. Speaker, I spent five nights in emergency with a family member with a health

issue. I spoke to people who were sat there and they were almost apologetic

because they know they weren't coming in for a life-saving procedure. But there

was something that they needed, something that was detrimental to their health

that they couldn't wait until the next day, because they didn't have anywhere

else to go the next day either. The only opportunity they had was to go there.

And they

felt guilty because they saw somebody coming in who probably just had a heart

attack, or a stroke, or somebody who was bleeding extremely, or had a broken

bone, or some other major serious ailment that needed to be addressed and they

felt guilty that they were taking chairs up, that there were gurneys in the

hallway. They almost felt they shouldn't be there.

And they

shouldn't be, because we should have a system in play that they shouldn't have

to go for day-to-day issues or interventions that a family doctor can do.

So that

is one of the key things that we are missing here in this province is our

approach to really getting at the root of why our doctors are not staying, how

we get them to stay, how we get them to be committed to rural and remote

communities and how we work to meet their needs and not burn them out. How do we

use the scope of work when it comes to nurses and nurse practitioners and

registered nurses and LPNs? How do we make paramedics have a bigger role in the

delivery of health care? How do we get pharmacists and all the other health

professionals we have here? Our change should be around how we deliver health

care, not minimize it or segregate certain people from not having access to it.

That is not what this should be about.

needed to talk about –

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Oh, oh!

SPEAKER:

Order, please!

Thank

you.

D. BRAZIL:

There is a reality here;

there is a COVID backlog in surgeries. We need to know that. That is a reality

and that is not a blame on anybody; COVID did that. We need a plan to be able to

actually address that immediately. Not a long-term, 10-year plan, an immediate

plan that actually addresses it. If it means investing more money – we've said

this here before, if we saw dramatic increases in funding for health care and it

addressed the needs, I guarantee you our Opposition would be supporting that and

acknowledging the benefits here. Because we have heard it from our constituents

and we've heard it from constituents from our colleagues over there who also

reach out to us about challenges they have in their district.

So there

are some of the things that we felt should be a better priority in this budget

itself. Mental health funding, we all know there is nobody in this House not

supportive of understanding that there is a big gap in mental health. We've come

a long way, I know, from the infancy days of the All-Party Committee on Mental

Health and Addictions. I think that was the big cornerstone of everybody

understanding in this province, but particularly the elected officials, that we

do have a major challenge and a crisis in mental health and we needed to

implement a number of things.

Have we

done great work? Of course we have. I have seen it in my own district. I have

seen it with people I have talked to. I have seen what we have done. Are there a

number of other things just from that report that need to be implemented and

should be prioritized? Exactly. We need to go back to that report and start

picking out what needs to be prioritized and implementing those and putting our

money where our mouth is. If we're going to solve the issues of people, make

them more productive citizens, give them a quality of life, we need to find ways

to do that and invest the monies that need to go there.

If it

means we change where our priorities are, that has to be. Do we need, now, to be

more creative when it comes to mental health? Sure we do. Is it welcomed when

the federal government sends us some money for mental health? Without a doubt.

Do we like some of the issues around addictions investments? Of course we do.

But I want to make it clear: If you are prioritizing issues and they're relevant

to the people of the province, have no illusion, we're over here to support

those. We hear the same things. So we're here to do that.

So don't

think we're all in this House and we work in silos. That has been one of the

criticisms of some of the decisions being made around health care: working in

silos. Senior managers who are at the department's level work in silos. You need

to work collectively so people can find the best solutions.

Health

care professionals – I know when we got in to get the intervention that were

needed for my family member, health care was second to none. The compassion, the

skillset, the understanding, being at your beckon call for all the patients was

second to none. The issue becomes – I know and I saw it – some of these people

were overworked. They were burnt out. They were giving you still 110 per cent,

but you knew eventually it was going to break. We knew emergency is a pure mess.

That's not because of the people that work there; the system has to be improved.

There has to be an improvement for emergency.

One of

the systems that need to be improved is having more doctors in advance of that

in family practice so that they can address some of the issues that don't have

to be addressed at emergency at 3 in the morning, or at 7 the next morning.

These are things that have to be done and can be done.

I talked

to a number of physicians. I'm going to sit there 10 hours one day, 17 hours

another day, 14 another day, I'm going to talk to the health professionals. I'm

going to ask questions. Particularly when they know who I am, they're a little

bit more apt to open up and say what their concerns are. I found it a very good

process for me to understand what's happening, stuff I had no idea how to health

care system, simple things that could be improved upon.

We need

to find the mechanism for those people, not the Rothschilds, not some other

collaborative consultants from New York City or somebody else to do it. The

people who are front liners, the people who are middle management, they're the

ones who would know that. They then pass it on up the line to the senior

management who then can implement these programs and use their budget lines in

the right manner.

We need

to start looking at exactly what's happening. We know it's a reality. We've had

the Medical Association say they're not pleased with this budget. It doesn't go

where it needs to go to address their particular needs of recruitment,

enhancement, retention and preventing burnout for physicians of all levels here.

We know the Nurses' Union have said the same thing. This has to be about

recruitment. It has to be about offering more opportunities. It has to be about

changing the approach to health care.

I know

there has been a lot of talk about it, but unfortunately we didn't see a lot of

substance in this budget of how that was going to be done. We seen a fair bit

about consultants who, again, I'm not quite sure that they've sat in the

emergency room with people for 15 hours, or they've had a procedure in

Newfoundland and Labrador, or they live in a remote area where they're waiting

two days to get a medevac out of their community. That worries me there when the

solutions can be homegrown. We talked about the carbon tax here was to be

homegrown. We plotted that if you can get something here that works for the

people of Newfoundland and Labrador and is less burdening on them, or addresses

their particular needs, that's the route we should be going. But we didn't see

that in what's happening now in addressing our health care challenges here.

You

know, we wanted to look at things that show this province is standing up for

what's right for the people of this province. That means challenging how we

deliver programs and services. But particularly challenging the federal

government to be fair to the people of this province here. So we need a better

approach to what's being done here.

The

people in this province haven't seen the things that they were hoping for. They

haven't seen a decrease in the cost of food. They haven't seen a decrease at the

pumps. They haven't seen a reassurance that their quality of life has to

improve. Most have said to me now, if we can just sustain, if I don't go further

and further in debt, if I don't continually fall behind, if I don't continually

have to make decisions between heat, food, my medication – forget social things,

I mean there's a group of people now who've given up totally on that. We have

one lady yesterday said, on Open Line ,

who had noted you know what seniors need to do now? Is just sit in their chair

and not move, because that's all their going to be able to do – those on fixed

income.

that's pitiful when we should be acknowledging the rewards, what they've

contributed, that they're still very viable contributors to our society, and

have them engage in every part of our society and every facet of educating our

young people, of talking about our traditions, as part of what we're doing. We

talk about the industries here. We have so many viable industries. I said that

at the beginning here; I don't see it as much about a spending issue we have in

Newfoundland and Labrador.

I do

think we can be very much more effective and frugal on how we spend our money,

but I would think we could sustain $8-billion budgets if we had a better handle

on getting a return on our investments. Our investments being the resources we

have in Newfoundland and Labrador, our part of Confederation, getting our fair

share from Ottawa. And then finding the most effective way to spend that $8

billion to meet the needs. Sometimes the $8 billion might be more than $8

billion, because we're generating more revenue.

I'm a

real believer that government and this province need to set the environment for

businesses to flourish here and invest here. I mean, Verafin, what an example of

what Newfoundlanders and Labradorians can do with government support. I give

credit. Government supported this; I know the minister for a number of times

went down and supported them, spoke highly of them, showed that Newfoundland and

Labrador was open for business, showed that the expertise here is second to

none, and showed that Verafin was open to bring experts in from other provinces

to work here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I got to

meet a couple of them over the last number of years who have settled here. This

is their home now. They're contributing here.

Now,

we're hopeful that Verafin, since the sale, will only expand and take us to a

global market where other companies or other people in the same sector, would

say: let's check out this Newfoundland and Labrador. They've got some good

things happening down there. But to do that they need to know that we're open

for business, the environments is here. But we need to know, as citizens, that

the benefactors are going to be the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and

that's across the board when it comes to any industry in this province.

So there

are a number of things there that we could be doing better, that we need to put

upfront. This is who we are. This is who we represent. This is what we stand for

and this is what we want to do if you want to come to Newfoundland and Labrador

and do business.

That

would generate the revenues that we need in this province to be able to provide

the services. But we need to, also, say to the federal government: Look, we're

part of this Confederation, but you don't dictate whether or not Newfoundland

and Labrador thrives, economically. We'll work collaboratively. There's no

reason why the federal government should arbitrarily be controlling what is

happening in our fishing industry. No reason whatsoever. We've been at this a

lot longer than this Confederation has been a country in Newfoundland and

Labrador. So we should have input into what happens in the fishing industry.

Our

offshore oil and gas industry: no different, same way. When they can bring in

regulatory issues or there are some MPs from Quebec or Ontario or BC who dictate

that they don't like something that we're doing here or they heard something

about something in the oil industry here that might be detrimental somewhere

down the road. Yet, they get to dictate, potentially, what could happen in our

industries. That's not good enough, not good enough at all.

You

know, we're an equal partner here. We came in accepting Confederation and I

would hope we continue to be accepted in this Confederation, and you know where

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are in this country because we're everywhere.

We're succeeding everywhere and we're needed everywhere in this country and

that's why we need to show, again, that we get our fair share.

On the

many occasions that we've lobbied in the House of Assembly here – and I know the

colleagues across there and I know the Premier's done it and the ministers, they

have pulled in whatever political mileage they could to ensure that Newfoundland

and Labrador got theirs, but we shouldn't have to be doing that. We should be

able to go up and state our case and our case would be based on fact. Our case

would be based on the merits of who we are, what we have, what we contribute. We

know the hundreds of billions of dollars that we've contributed to this

federation in our 73 years. And I say hundreds of billions, I'd say even beyond

that if you look at the resources that have been taken from us without us really

getting any real benefit from the secondary processing now.

Now,

we're starting to get a bit better. You know, I give credit, the Inco plant is a

great example of where we're starting to get some of the secondary processing.

The

fishing industry, at times we do well and other times we get a sort of slap in

the face, not being able to control what we want to do. I get that.

Mining,

we've already set the example that we can do our own secondary processing here

in any industry. There is no reason why we couldn't.

The oil

and gas industry, the refineries trying to get back. I give credit, again, we

know that was teetering on whether or not that would survive. We have got it

back to at least it is now going to be still viable. It is going to create a

number of jobs for people, it is great for that region, but there is no reason

why we can't expand those things.

The oil

and gas industry and the reliance on fossil fuels is going to be here for

decades, and anybody who tells you that's not the fact, they're living in an

illusion that is not reality. Do we all want to protect the environment? One

hundred per cent. Do we all see a time and an effort for transitioning? That

time will come, as we all now are cognizant of it.

The

conversations around green energy and the environment: The last two decades has

been more than it has been since the world was created. So I suspect over the

next number of years it will ramp up even more and more. More people will be

cognizant of what we need to do. More industries will do whatever they can to

keep the environment clean.

I know

the oil and gas industry have done everything that is possible to make things

move in the right direction to show that they're environmentally friendly, that

they minimize the impact on the environment by the products that they produce.

So does it across factories in Ontario or out West or in Quebec or anywhere in

this country of ours. So we need to be cognizant of where we are as part of

that.

A couple

of the other things that I wanted to talk about here. People would say – and I

know it's been said here: Well, what would you do differently? Well, I'll tell

you what we would do.

One is

we would prioritize, and prioritize based on what we've heard across the board,

the common denominators in Newfoundland and Labrador. The common denominators in

Newfoundland and Labrador were about the economy, were about quality of life and

were about health care. Then it was about the other things that are important,

too. Infrastructure, we need those things. But these were the key things that

would do it.

How do

you do these things? Well, do you know what? Your income, the crisis people are

facing financially. One of the big income issues here is about taxation, the

impact on people. The cost of taxation on everything, from gasoline and home

heating fuel. That's one of the immediate things.

remember my mother used to tell me: David, the first priority you should have in

life is to pay off your home. Because if you own your home you won't have to

worry about much more after that. Because if you own your home you should be

able to – she knew me, I had no qualms in driving a $100 car, if I had to, if it

got me from A to B and I'd find a job doing something somewhere. It may not be a

lucrative job but you would do that. But if you own your home, you had that.

That's

no longer the issue because the issue is not only about owning your home; to

heat your home now is as costly as the mortgage on your home for a lot of

people. I know that, I filled up an oil tank at my house in Portugal Cove-St.

Philip's the other day and it was 32 per cent more than it was this time last

year – 32 per cent. Even that had an impact on me, and that might be fine for me

who has a decent income, but for those on fixed incomes, for those seniors.

I've had

one senior, God rest her soul, she passed away and her spouse is now – look at

the difference there. When you have two incomes coming in and now it's

dramatically down and now all these added increases.

I know

there are some incentives there and I know the government tried to do something

for the seniors and that, but it didn't go far enough. It becomes,

unfortunately, a small proportion of what they need and what the impact is. We

moved them up one step. Unfortunately, the cost moved up 10 steps, and how you

make that gap is not there. It's not there if you're 78 years old and you're

living by yourself and you don't have other supports from family members or if

you just lost your spouse or your house is 65 years old. I know we have programs

to help do that, but then there's a whole encompassing process. It's not as

simple as people think.

That's

one of things we would have talked about, charging the taxation on gasoline and

home heat.

One

thing – and I've asked for that, I know my colleagues have asked for and we're

still baffled at it, I get at the time why it was there – is the five cent

additional per litre costing that would offset the transition from the refinery

while it was down to keep it warm idling to ensure that it was still going to be

viable. I know the arguments have been the PUB. I've been asking for it. My

colleagues here have been asking for at least the last 14 months, 13 months to

do that. If it is a five or six month process with the PUB, that could have all

been done, put through and hearings could have been had and the review and the

whole process. That would have at least been another break at the pumps.

We do

know and our understanding is the companies that it was meant to be for. Fair

enough, but every other company is taking advantage of this, at the expense of

the consumer here. That's not fair. That would have been another five cents

there.

heating rebate: I mean we had a great program a number of years ago. The uptake

was dramatic, but it was necessary for people. It did its part there. It got

people through the hard months of the winter and that. So a home heat rebate

would have been an easy thing to implement, minimal administrative costs and it

would have actually addressed the needs, particularly for those most vulnerable.

The

sugar tax: I was so pleased to see the other day – I picked up a litre of milk

and it had on it 25 per cent less sugar. So that tells me the industry are doing

their part. We don't have to force things down people's throats, particularly

when we dispute that there's going to be any benefit whatsoever – any benefit

whatsoever in this world.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

D. BRAZIL:

So it is a taxation, call it

what you may. I know in principle at the beginning, because even we talked about

it, it sounded like it was something that would be really beneficial from a

health perspective. We've talked to people in the industry and, fair enough, if

we can minimize or eliminate sugar in people's diet and this type of thing,

particularly those who are more vulnerable to it, then that would be a benefit

health-wise.

But in

this case, we analyzed it from every angle, we talked to health professionals

and we talked to people who are advocates for it who now realize that it's

probably not going to achieve the goal that we wanted. We talked to the industry

and we said perhaps co-operating with the industry for them to find ways to

eliminate sugar in their products, as part of that, versus taxing, particularly

low-income people – because some of the consumers here are going to be those who

can't rely, can't afford, some of the more expensive drinks out there.

putting a tax on that is only going to take more money out of the people who are

most vulnerable, which means there's less opportunity they're going to have to

buy fruit or vegetables that they're going to need to keep them healthy. So

things like that were a bit baffling, and we had an argument and we thought we

had a discussion around what would work, and of course, obviously, it didn't go

anywhere. So I'm still hopeful that when it's thought about, you look at the

merits of doing that, it's not in the best interest, it doesn't serve what you

would think and it's going to probably do more damage than it would do good.

Is there

a plan, or should there be a plan that we would support, about working how we

reduce sugars in particular food items, drinks, whatever it may be? If we could

also find ways to reduce sugar in other areas, to educate people around it and

get people to understand that, that would be something that we would welcome and

we would 100 per cent support.

Commit

not to increase taxation. We saw in the Greene report some of the worrisome

recommendations there, about selling off our valuable assets, for one-time

shots. These are assets that continue to fund programs on a continuous basis. In

some cases, we know, will be much more lucrative particularly when the economy

increases again, and becomes more viable, and these products are what people are

going to have a demand for. So why would we get rid of something that's viable,

it's profitable? If you've got a multitude of private sector people wanting it,

that speaks volumes. That tells me that's the one you should hold onto.

Are

there assets that are no value to us right now, or not as valuable, or probably

costing us that maybe the private sector could take and run more efficiently and

make profitable? Sure there are. They are the ones I would sit down continuously

and have that discussion, and I think collectively as a House we could have a

discussion on some of those, once we know the logistics of what's there.

That's

where the Greene report fell short. It didn't have the analysis of what was

valuable, what wasn't, what would be an asset that the private sector could be

better fitted to operate or provide, what would be something that is a loss

leader for us now that we're losing on, that we could get rid of even if we

didn't gain anything financially from it, but in the long run that we would gain

money forever and a day.

So as I

get closer to concluding, I want to talk about some of the things that we talk

about, the positive things in this province. Let's talk about our ocean

technology. It's flourishing here; it's booming. There are a lot of good things

happening in this province. I mean, supports have come across the board here.

Industry people are coming here. The industries are looking at what's happening

here.

Offshore

oil: We dodged a bullet last week, but I'm very confident and the industry is

confident that this will continue to flourish in Newfoundland and Labrador.

There are a number of other projects there that should be sanctioned, that

should move forward. Be cognizant of what we're doing with our environment, and

there are ways that could be supported very easily, make it more efficient from

an environment point of view.

Our

mining industry, we know what's happening there. That is booming. You go out in

Central Newfoundland and you go up in Labrador, it is booming. Let's continue

that. Let's show we're open for business. Let's show we can be cognizant of our

environment, make sure that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are the benefactors

and that we understand these companies are here to make money. We have no

problem with that. Let's flourish that.

We had

the opportunity as a caucus to meet with a couple of these mining companies, and

they're enthused. They're not here to grab and run. They're here for the long

haul. They're here to do what's for the benefit of their shareholders, while

making sure that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are also benefactors.

Aquaculture and fisheries: We just talked about it. The thing is they're all

flourishing. But we need to make sure, Minister, that Ottawa doesn't dictate

what we do in Newfoundland and Labrador. That has to be the key thing. That has

to be the key thing here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

D. BRAZIL:

Our tourism industry, the

minister yesterday was under the misconception that I don't support the tourism

industry. We don't on this side. My first job in government, almost 40 years

ago, was in the tourism industry. I'm a bigger supporter and I'm on different

committees here – very supportive. But we need to prioritize when we can invest

in certain parts of the tourism industry and when we need to prioritize where we

spend some of our money.

Very

enthused about what's happening in the tourism industry. I come from Bell

Island. Right now, tourism is what's going to save Bell Island in the near

future. That's a reality. We came from a mining community; that's one part of

it. There's a big strategy to do that. Tourism is very important in this

province.

Agriculture again – the agricultural industry in Newfoundland, you can see it,

the last number of years, picking up. Younger people are getting into it. I got

to speak to a group of young farmers; very enthused about it. So very, very

cognizant of what's going to happen there.

The

forest industry again – the forest industry was on a downward swing for a period

of time, but it's stabilized now. We've got people into it. We've got companies

out there doing things. The mill is still working on the West Coast, and we know

there's stuff there that's starting to flourish. They weathered the storm when

every other mill across North America and in the world was shutting down. They

have a great future out there. We just need to be able to support it to move it

to the next level.

International education: People are coming flocking from all over the world to

come to Newfoundland and Labrador because what we offer them. The aerospace

industry, second to none here. The investments are happening here as we go.

We're attracting investments from all sectors.

We've

got the hedge funds want to come here. There are pension plans that want to come

here to invest in Newfoundland and Labrador, and there's a reason for that,

because they see we're open for business. They see that we have the environment.

They see we have the skill set to do what needs to be done for the people of

Newfoundland and Labrador.

What we

ask and we implore every Member of the House of Assembly to ensure that the

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are the benefactors of whatever industry

flourishes in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

SPEAKER:

The hon. the Minister of

Health and Community Services.

J. HAGGIE:

Thank you very much, Speaker.

In my

capacity as assistant deputy Deputy Government House Leader, I move, seconded by

the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, that this House do now recess.

SPEAKER:

Is it the pleasure of the

House to adopt the motion?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

SPEAKER:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

This

House stands recessed until 2 p.m.

Recess

The

House resumed at 2 p.m.

SPEAKER (Bennett):

Order, please!

Admit

strangers.

Before

we begin, I'd like to welcome a new Page; it's a face that we've seen here a

couple of times, who I'd like to officially introduce. His name is Yeshwin

Ayappa; he's from South India and studying economics and statistics at Memorial

University of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Welcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

SPEAKER:

In the public gallery today,

and I had the honour to meet these ladies, I would like to welcome members of

the Bonavista Mission Team: Lora Swyers, Sandra Durdle, Betty Lou Genge, Ivy

Harnett and Susan Heath. They will be joining us today for a Member's statement.

Welcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

SPEAKER:

Also in the public gallery, I

would like to recognize members of the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of

Public Planners: Julia Schwarz, President; Lindsay Lyghtle-Brushett,

Vice-President; Stephen Jewczyk, Legislation Committee; Christopher Hardy,

Treasurer; Ken O'Brien, member. They will be joining us for a Ministerial

Statement.

Welcome.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

Statements by

Members

SPEAKER:

Today we will hear Members'

statements from the hon. Members for the Districts of Placentia West - Bellevue,

Bonavista, Terra Nova, Conception Bay South and Burin - Grand Bank.

The hon.

the Member for Placentia West - Bellevue.

J. DWYER:

Thank you, Speaker.

I stand

in this hon. Chamber today to recognize and celebrate the life of the late Mr.

J. William (Bill) Kenway of Baine Harbour who passed away on March 25, 2022, at

the age of 74.

Bill was

the definition of a true gentleman. I had the pleasure of knowing Bill through

his time as mayor of Baine Harbour. His pride for his community and his

eagerness to help his neighbour was certainly on display in every conversation I

had with this gentleman.

Bill was

also a family man, leaving to mourn his wonderful wife Barbara, son Brad,

daughter Bonita, four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, five brothers and

sisters, along with a number of nieces, nephews and close friends.

I invite

all my hon. colleagues in joining myself and the beautiful District of Placentia

West - Bellevue in sending our sincere thoughts and condolences to the Kenway

family as they mourn the loss of such a great gentleman, Mr. Bill Kenway.

Thank

you, Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Bonavista.

C. PARDY:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Commencing in 2009, several residents of the Bonavista and area conducted

humanitarian trips to Uganda to help make a difference in the lives of many.

Cathy Harris, leader of the initial three missions, named then Prodigal

Ministries, Sandra Durdle, Eileen Faulkner, Joan Marsh, Pauline Fleming,

Courtney Street, Betty Lou Genge, Ivy Harnett, Lora Swyers and Eliza Swyers,

after a year's preparation work, travelled to Uganda to assist locals and

provide aid.

Referred

to as the Bonavista Mission Team, this group has helped build a schoolhouse,

churches, houses and assist financially when and where deemed worthy. In one

case, a motorcycle was arranged for a family to assist a business opportunity

for taxi services. The group provided food, clothes, footwear, solar lights and

treats for children and families.

This

dedicated group is active in the District of Bonavista as well, by helping to

build better lives and enhancing wellness. The mission group looks forward to

returning to Uganda in February 2023, and continuing to make a dif