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March 11, 2020

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLIX No. 32

The

House met at 10 a.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Reid):

Order, please!

Admit

strangers.

Orders of the Day

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Government House

Leader.

MS. COADY:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Good

morning, everyone. I move, seconded by the Minister of Health and Community

Services, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole on Supply

to consider a resolution and Bill 26 respecting the granting of Interim Supply

to Her Majesty.

MR. SPEAKER:

The motion is that the

message, along with the bill, be referred to the Committee of Supply and that I

do now leave the Chair.

Is it

the pleasure of the House to adopt this motion?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

MR. SPEAKER:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, that the House resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole, the Speaker

left the Chair.

Committee of the

Whole

CHAIR (Bennett):

Order, please!

We are

now considering the related resolution and Bill 26.

Resolution

it resolved by the House of Assembly in Legislative Session convened, as

follows:

“That it

is expedient to introduce a measure to provide for the granting to Her Majesty

for defraying certain expenses of the public service for the financial year

ending March 31, 2021 the sum of $4,602,859,900.”

CLERK (Barnes):

The amendment is: The

resolution be amended by striking out the amount “$4,602,859,900” and

substituting instead the amount “$2,301,429,950.”

The

proposed subamendment is: The amendment be amended by striking out the amount

“$2,301,429,950” and by substituting instead the amount “$2,631,157,300.”

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Member for Lake Melville.

MR. TRIMPER:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm very

pleased to stand and have an opportunity to speak. It's interesting, what I was

going to say on this first opportunity is quite different than what I'm going to

say in the next 10 minutes. I guess I would ask my colleagues if you've ever

been in a dentist chair and the dentist is in there, maybe you're getting a

cavity addressed or something like that, and every now and then he's in there

mucking around inside your mouth and he hits the nerve. Well, yesterday I had a

nerve hit, and I wasn't sitting a dentist chair, I was sitting here.

I get

along with pretty well everybody in this room, I'm very pleased to say, and I do

get along very well with the Member for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans, but

yesterday he hit a nerve with me. I have to tell you I said I have to get up and

speak to this. I will give him the benefit of the doubt because he did say were

we better off five years ago than we are today. He was suggesting that the

public at general was suggesting that the answer to that question is no.

I'd just

like to go back with a little bit of a history, if I may, of what it was like

here five years ago. I was very fortunate to be elected on the 30th of November

in 2015 and then, two weeks later, lo and behold, to go from a career in the

private sector working as a wildlife biologist to find myself sitting at the

Cabinet table. As I said with my colleagues at the time, it was an amazing

opportunity. It was a province with a whole new face, a whole new

administration, a whole new Premier and so much promise.

I've

mentioned this before on my feet in this House – and I'll only go so far because

I don't want to talk about Cabinet confidences. I will say that for that first

hour there was a great optimism as my Cabinet colleagues all introduced

ourselves and got to know each other.

Then I

do recall the Premier saying something very prophetic. He said: Well now, if I

could just interrupt this, I'd like to have some officials from the Department

of Finance come in. They need to explain to us something. Within the next few

minutes I realized that, wow, what timing to get into politics. What an

opportunity to serve when we're faced with what has to have been the most

amazing, oppressive, greatest surprise of all time that we were looking at a

$2.7-billion deficit. Not a $1.1 billion, not a $1.7 billion, a $2.7-billion

deficit.

So there

I am and there all we were and, frankly, everybody in the House was there at the

same time all thinking, wow, all those hopes, dreams, plans, promises,

opportunity to serve, to lead, to invest in the future were going to be

compromised severely. I enjoyed that one hour, that 60-minute honeymoon because

since then it has been a great challenge.

That

said, I'm very proud of the fact that we have made great accomplishments, both

in the previous Assembly, serving with my colleagues in this administration. I

also feel that we are continuing to make good progress, but wow, what a pressure

that's out there.

As we

see today in the world markets and the pressures that we're feeling with the

coronavirus, with slumping oil prices and everything that we've done

collectively, not just on this side of the House but on both sides of the House,

because we support budgets, we support ideas, we support improved legislation,

but boy oh boy, there are pressures beyond this room, beyond this province,

which come to bear down very hard on us, and that is when we really need to pull

together.

Yesterday I had a nerve hit, and I want to go back to a couple of other things

that were going on, those five years ago, just to put some perspective. I do

remember sitting right now where my colleague is, the minister responsible for

Children, Seniors and Social Development, when I sat there as minister of

Environment, and I remember that very faithful day – there's never been a budget

delivered like there was by the previous minister of Finance and President of

Treasury Board, which he stood and delivered that budget that day.

If you

recall, there was not a single clap – not one – that entire budget. It was

probably one of the saddest days we've ever had to face, short of some of the

huge tragedies that we faced; but I think, in terms of this Legislature,

realizing the financial nightmare that was before us and the very difficult

decisions that we were going to have to undertake, it was truly a traumatic day.

After

that budget was delivered, I took the direction very seriously, as did so many

of us. I walked out through here, walked out through the doors and went outside

and there were a lot of folks out there celebrating – well done; tough, tough,

but you made the right decisions; and a few backslaps. I remember some

handshakes. I was so not in a celebrating mood. I actually left and I went

across – and my colleague there, the Minister of Tourism, Culture, Industry and

Innovation, he knows; I followed what I call Trimper's trail. That's the last

time I'll use my name in the House, but I do have a little trail that I walk

back and forth between the two Confederation Buildings; I like to get some fresh

air.

I took

that trail back over and I knew what I was going to face. I walked up to the

fourth floor, four flights of stairs up, and walked in to a scene of my deputy

minister, an HR person, a suite of taxis, as they were going through the

layoffs. It was one after another going through my department and I watched

people walking out that door, not because they hadn't done a good job, not

because they hadn't served this province well, but because we could no longer

afford them.

I can

recall – I won't use his name – a former MHA in this House, who lives on the

West Coast of Newfoundland, fired away, a few days later, that we hadn't been

tough enough. We should be laying off 10,000 people in our civil service. How

gutless we were.

Well, I

can tell you when you've got a big problem, you can't go swinging it back the

other way. I can tell you, this guy and my colleagues, we have taken our share

of tough decisions. We had a seven-year plan. We are still working on it, I can

tell you. As I just said a few minutes ago, we are being challenged like no

other, but we will keep working on it. We hope to get there. There has been a

plan. It's been a very transparent plan. It was called the godawful budget of

2016, but that has set us on a course.

It has

been tough, it has been difficult but we have made progress. So were we better

off than we were five years ago? Well, naïveté, I looked up the word yesterday

and naïveté is an interesting word. It actually translates well in a bunch of

languages. It all means the same thing. It's kind of like a happy air of

ignorance or a bliss about a situation, not realizing really what's going on

around you. Well, walking into that Cabinet room, walking into government as we

did in 2015, the naïveté disappeared quickly.

Another

amazing thing that happened that first week that I served in the Cabinet – I

think it was on the second or third night and I look to some of my other

colleagues – we were called to a room. I wasn't quite sure what the topic was.

Walked in as a Cabinet minister representing a district in Labrador, and there

were some Finance officials there and there were also people there with the

pension plans. The Premier was there, some other officials and my colleague was

there from Labrador West.

We were

talking about the pension plan for Cleveland-Cliffs and the fact that it was

severely underfunded in the tens and tens of millions of dollars. It was

bleeding by the day. The situation at the time was, do we wind it up and

recognize that there will be no further contributions being made by a proponent

who long since disappeared, long since closed the mine and that the people were

facing a 24 per cent or 26 per cent reduction in their pensions? Did we make

that tough decision? Well, we had to, because the pensions were disappearing for

everybody else. Thousands and thousands of people were at stake, and not just in

that district but across the province and across the country.

So were

we better off, again, five years ago? Again, a lot of ignorance of what was

going on, and mercifully over the last administration we did manage to recover

most of that pension. Those people are back up; I think it's in the vicinity of

96 per cent. We have a mine going and, lo and behold, I'd say people are in a

much better place.

I'll

just give you one more example. I think I could talk here until sunset tonight

about accomplishments, but one more that really hits home to me – and I know it

means a lot to the Premier, and I'm looking at some of my other colleagues here

– and that's mental health. As a politician leaving, again, a world of science

and a career of science to walk into an MHA office and to see what goes on in

the areas of mental health is truly remarkable.

district had 322 people on a wait-list for mental health support and

counselling. We managed to, two summers ago, completely reorganize the way we do

things, the way we do business, the way we respond to people's needs and

eliminated that wait-list from 322 to zero.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. TRIMPER:

Again, my colleague, I do enjoy our friendship and so on, but I can tell you,

and I wouldn't mind giving you some more history lessons, I would suggest we

have made great progress in five years.

Are all

things fixed? Absolutely not. I look forward to working with you and everyone

else in this House to get there.

Thank

you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands.

MR. LANE:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm glad

to have another opportunity to speak in the House of Assembly this morning. I

will take every opportunity that's available because I do have a lot to say.

Whether people want to hear it or not is another question.

First of

all, on the actual subamendment itself, I do want to thank the Minister of

Finance for bringing forth the subamendment. I will be supporting the

subamendment. I do understand the rationale that simply cutting the amount that

was in the original motion, simply cutting it in half, may not work from an

operational point of view in terms of tenders that had to be let and things that

have to be done early in the year and expenditures that need to happen.

I feel

comfortable that this slight adjustment is just reflecting the realities of us

being able to operate for the next three months and not have to worry about

people not getting paid and work not getting done. So from that perspective, I

supported the amendment and I certainly support the subamendment now that

actually brings the numbers in line with where we need to be. So I will be

supporting that.

Listening to my colleague who just spoke before me, I guess just a few thoughts

on that. I was in the Liberal caucus at the time when all this went down. I

understand – I do, 100 per cent – the situation that we're in and the situation

we were in. I can't say I had the same knowledge as he would have had because I

wasn't a Member of the Cabinet and, quite frankly, that's part of the problem.

One of

the things that I keep raising here in the House of Assembly, and outside the

House of Assembly, around the need for democratic reform and so on, is that you

have a select group of individuals under our system who go into the Cabinet.

They have all the information and they're calling the shots. As Members who are

not in the Cabinet, there's simply an expectation that you're going to

rubber-stamp whatever they do. You're going to sort of say, I trust you. That's

what it comes down to. It comes down to trusting your colleagues in that role

that what they're telling you is credible, that they have analyzed everything.

They have all the information and they're making the right decision. That's how

it works.

Unfortunately, if we look at this document right here, and most Members – I

don't think anyone else has it up on their desk; most have it down under their

desk. I'm keeping this big pile right here in front of me at all times because I

don't want to forget what's contained in here and what happened. This was a

classic example as well of one of the problems with our system whereby if you're

not a Member of Cabinet, you're not given all this information.

If you

read this report – and I haven't read it all yet, I've read some of it – it's

questionable. Certainly, it seems like there was a lot of information that may

not even have been given to Cabinet, may not even have been given to the premier

at the time. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know what the former

premier knew. I don't know what the former minister of Natural Resources knew or

didn't know. I can certainly tell you what the caucus knew, Members who weren't

in Cabinet, we knew the same thing as the general public knew. That's the bottom

line.

The same

thing goes for the budget of 2016. You'd have to have your head buried in the

sand if you didn't realize that there was a serious situation. I don't think

anybody wanted to commit political hara-kiri, so to speak. Nobody really wanted

to do that. Think about it from a political point of view: Who wants to put down

the worst budget in history to be condemned by the general public? I get that.

So I absolutely believe they were in a terrible situation because we're still in

a terrible situation. The Auditor General has said we're still in a very, very

serious situation. The bond-rating agencies have said we are in a very, very

serious situation.

Now,

whether or not we were at risk of not making payroll, as the Minister of Finance

has said, I don't know. Again, I have to take him on his word for that, but I

don't know because that information never came out until a year later. The

current Minister of Finance told us the story last year – no, it wouldn't have

been last year, a couple of years back, whenever – about not being able to make

payroll, but the former minister of Finance in delivering her Budget Speech and

thereafter, she never told us anything about not being able to make payroll. She

never told anyone in the caucus about not being able to make payroll. This was

all new information that came out a year later.

I think

the point is that I do appreciate what the minister is saying. I don't doubt

that he is sincere. I don't doubt that the events that he's saying happened,

happened. But the fact of the matter is that because of the Cabinet system,

because of the fact that under our system Members of caucus don't receive the

same information, they don't have the opportunity for meaningful input on

anything – no more than the Opposition, unless it's changed since I left. Maybe

someone is going to stand up and say, yes, everything has changed now. Everybody

is briefed on every bill that's coming before this House way before it happens.

I doubt it.

I would

suspect that what's happened is that – I look at this bill here, Bill 28,

An Act

to Amend the Forestry Act. I went to briefing on this a couple of days ago and I

would suspect there are one or two Members on the government side now who raised

their hand and said, yes, I'll speak on that, and they were given a briefing.

One or

two of them attended a briefing the same as I did, the same as the Official

Opposition, and one or two of them will stand up and they're going to support

this bill. I would say the rest of the – I don't know about the Cabinet because

they probably would have been briefed, but the rest of the caucus, I'd say there

are Members of the caucus that don't even know what this bill is. I don't mean

that as an insult to the Members. I'm talking about the system. I'm not talking

about an individual. I'm talking about the system as someone who's been there,

done that, two administrations.

I can

guarantee you, there are probably Members over there that don't know if

An Act

to Amend the Forestry Act is fit to eat. We're talking about scaling. I bet if I

were to ask some Members, what is a scaling permit? What's that for? They

wouldn't be able to tell you. They don't even know what scaling is. I didn't

know what it was until I went to the briefing. I never heard of it before in my

life. Not a clue, and I bet you there will be people that will vote on this bill

that don't even have a clue of what the bill is about. Again, I don't mean that

in any disrespect to any Member. I'm talking about the system, not the

individual. I want to make that quite clear.

It's the

reality of the system that we have. It's the reality that Members on the

government side – whoever the government is, not just government side, the past

government and the one before that and the one before that and the one that

follows this. Under the system we have the Cabinet gets all the information, all

the briefings, all the details, understands all the rationale. They decide

what's coming before the House, and everybody else is expected to go along.

That's the bottom line. And if you don't go along, you find yourself stuck in

the corner. That's what happens, and that's what happened in

Budget 2016 . That's what happened.

Again, I

don't disagree with the Member that there were serious issues, and I still think

there are definitely still more serious issues. I said publicly, and I'll say

again, I understand. I wasn't totally offside with some of the stuff that had to

be done. I wasn't totally offside. We know we're spending more than we're taking

in. Things have to happen, and it was a serious situation.

What I

heard from my constituents, who I represent, at the time was too much, too fast.

It felt that the measures were just too severe. That will always be debatable:

Were they too severe or were they not? I know there are lots of Members who were

there at the time. Some of them are still there in caucus. Some of them are in

Cabinet – that totally agreed with me that it was too severe.

I'm not

going to get into it, but I'll just say that we were pretty much on the same

page, except for that day that I stood up and then got kicked across the floor.

Because they know what they were hearing from their constituents, the same as I

heard from mine. That's the bottom line, but at the end of the day we're in a

democracy, governments have to govern. There are things they have to do and

they've made their decisions. The people have decided this time and they will

decide again the next time.

Just to

end off, once again, I do support the subamendment.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Member for Topsail - Paradise.

MR. P. DINN:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a

great pleasure to stand up and speak to the Interim Supply amendment. I guess

what I'm going to say about that is going to be summed up in a couple of words

and then I'm going to go off on another tangent. I think we are going to support

the amendment, there's no doubt about that.

It's

funny how things change in the way of a couple of hours. We were presented with

this yesterday. I looked at it and I looked at the title and I said, misguided

project? Are we exaggerating that a bit? When I went home and tried to start

reading it, I could come up with other titles for it: misled, wrongly guided,

mistaken project. I think the Member for Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair mentioned

that it was turning her stomach. I have to say, I probably had pains in my chest

when I started reading it yesterday, or last night.

I don't

know what to say about this. It's just amazing. I know when I worked with

government as a senior bureaucrat, I worked as the director, and part of my job

was to provide advice or opinions to either your ADM, your deputy or your

minister. I remember getting in discussions with ministers and they would say:

Well, I don't really agree with that, what you're saying. I would say: Well, my

job is to provide an opinion, to provide whatever expertise I have and up to you

whether you take it.

That's

one thing, but when you have something like this, a massive project, where the

full picture, the full information is not being presented, again I have no words

for that. That's totally amazing. I guess the good thing that comes out of this

is like that song Shaggy used to say, “It Wasn't Me.” I can say I wasn't here;

it wasn't me.

But I

think when you look around this House, there are so many of us that are brand

new people to this House. I think the word yesterday talked about the baggage of

Muskrat Falls. We all have that baggage now. We all have the baggage of Muskrat

Falls on us and we're all elected to do the best we can for our districts and

the best we can for the province. We have to do it now with the baggage of

Muskrat Falls. In my time in this House, I intend to do my best. I intend to do

what I can for the residents of my district.

Although

we're going to have some discussion on this document I'm sure, but I firmly

believe – and we talked about blame game. The opposite of blame is praise.

Unfortunately, in this environment we don't lend ourselves to praising much. We

certainly do blame a lot, or pass criticism. That's part of our job, but I think

if something's working, I think we have to acknowledge that. We have to be able

to say, that works; let's keep doing it, rather than be so critical all the

time. We all want to make this province the best it can be.

I think

what we really need to focus on – a couple days ago we had a gentleman here in

the gallery very, very upset. I went out, along with a couple other Members

here, we went out and met with the gentleman. Although people are upset with

Muskrat– I know that; there are people out there. But for this particular

gentleman, Muskrat Falls wasn't on his agenda at all. He was concerned about

everyday things that affect him in his particular community.

He was

aggravated, he was upset and he was looking for some assistance. I'm hoping he

got that assistance. We certainly offered to help him there. I think that's

where we have to focus as well. Whether the issue is big or small, we all have

to focus on that.

The

Member for Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair talked about the poverty reduction

program, mentioned that the other day. I believe she alluded to the fact that

back in 2007, $91 million was put towards the poverty reduction plan and the

current government has put in – I stand to be corrected – I think $286 million,

somewhere in that ballpark.

That's

good. I have no issue with that and I know the Member is quite passionate about

what she does and a very good Member for her district. I think as we go forward,

when we're dealing with some fiscal constraints we have to be more effective in

what we do with our dollars and cents. Yes, we spent $91 million back in 2007

and, later years, on a poverty reduction program, but that program dropped the

poverty rate from about 20 per cent, almost in half, to about 11 per cent.

Now

we're spending more money on it. In the last five years, the poverty rate has

been steadily increasing again. It's not a matter of throwing resources; you

have to look at the outcomes. We have to look at the outcomes for the programs

we have. That's just one particular program that I wanted to note.

People

talk about cuts – oh, you have to cut this, cut that, but not necessarily. We

have to be more efficient and more effective in how we use our funds. Comparing

a $91-million project to a $286 million –

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible.)

MR. P. DINN:

Okay, there's some tweaking.

We have to be looking at something there. So outcomes are certainly an area we

have to look at. I think that's where our focus needs to be. Our focus needs to

be coming up with programs that generate and meet the targets that they're

designed to do.

I can go

on here and talk about – and some of this stuff is happening anyway, regardless

of what government is in place, but we have to start looking at ways to curb it.

We have a declining population, an aging population, increasing poverty,

increasing unemployment. Every district has issues with roads, health care,

school supports, successful transportation, affordable child care. We have to

look at these issues and we have to look at them with the baggage of Muskrat

Falls and with the baggage of anything else that's there, but we have to work

towards finding solutions and finding outcomes that make a difference.

I know

in my District of Topsail - Paradise, some of the everyday issues I get and I

hear about – and the Minister of Transportation and Works is well aware of this

– is Route 60. Route 60 is one of our key issues going through Topsail -

Paradise. Paradise themselves are looking at the federal regulations around

waste water treatment. That's a big expense that they have to take on.

The 1.6

busing, huge in the district and even bigger now with the winter months upon us;

safe school zones, huge. I'm in a district that has multiple K-to-6 or K-to-4

schools. The shortage of family doctors – and I know the Minister of Health

spoke to that and spoke to that issue yesterday through Oral Questions, and I'm

hopeful that will work itself out.

I think,

and I hope I don't insult anyone – maybe Jim; sorry, the Member for Mount Pearl.

You got to go with those blinders like you put on a horse. We have to be focused

forward. Yes, we learn from our past and yes, we can talk and haggle about our

past, but what are we learning from it? That's the key. That's the key in moving

forward. Do we take what we've learned from our past and positively use it to

make this place a better place and get the outcomes we want?

I just

want to end with a quote from Sparky Anderson. Sparky was a well-known coach of

the Cincinnati Reds and the Detroit Tigers and I think it's appropriate for us

here in the House. In his words, he said: “People who live in the past generally

are afraid to compete in the present. I've got my faults, but living in the past

is not one of them. There's no future in it.”

Thank

you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Minister of Health and Community Services.

MR. HAGGIE:

Good morning, Mr. Chair.

Always a

pleasure to stand. I think this is my fifth Interim Supply now. We enjoyed it so

much last time, we did it twice.

I'm

going to split my time a little bit and talk about my district, as well as the

department's work. I'm going to try and pick up the theme from the Opposition

yesterday: are we better off now than we were five years ago.

Looking

at the view from my district, which is, as a rural district goes, actually very

small and compact. I can drive on one road from one end of the district to the

other in less than an hour. There's only one community that's actually off the

highway as such. Again, fresh drinking water has been a topic, and my colleague

for Municipal Affairs and Environment has quite rightly introduced that as a

priority for all communities with long-standing boil-water advisories.

Gander's

problem was a little different in that it actually had two sewage plants: one of

which was working at 110 per cent capacity with obvious noticeable effect, and

one that was working at 60 per cent capacity because it was in an older area of

town. They kind of grasped that nettle some years ago. With a collaborative

between the provincial government, the municipality and the federal government

it brought a project to fruition, which should be complete within the next year

or so. It's quite the marvel with a waste water treatment plant of some

considerable size.

That was

done as a priority for that community. Their view is that they put other things

on one side because it was a priority, even before the emphasis placed on it by

the Minister for Environment. That was a perfect example of federal, provincial

and municipal collaboration and brought home basically a project of around $30

million.

If you

look at infrastructure within the community, through my colleague, the Minister

of Education and Early Childhood Development and the school district, Gander

Academy is being completely rebuilt around a very serviceable oversized gym. The

reason for that is the gymnasium will, as it is oversized, allow that facility

to be used for provincial competitions over the course of the year,

whereas

because of the nature of the school now being K to 3, the code for gymnasia for

that size of school would not have been the case. There's 30 years of life left

in that and it has saved $3 million on the project.

Recent

investments, as recently as Budget 2019 ,

in the College of the North Atlantic around this government's idea of having

regional centres of excellence, recognizing Gander's aviation history, both

locally and internationally, they have provided funding to double the number of

seats in the AME, the Aircraft Mechanical Engineers program, aircraft

maintenance. This is a job-ready skill set. People who qualify from this are in

great demand and they have no difficulty getting jobs.

We have

doubled the number of seats there and, indeed, with a further investment of just

shy of a million dollars, have started to convert the material that they train

on into not just adequate but state of the art. They partnered with the local

supplier for Garmin, manufacturers of what's called the glass cockpit, to

provide teaching material and support. These students, when they graduate, will

be able to go straight into the marketplace. Indeed, in partnership with local

industry, I think that is another example of how the people in my community are

better off than they were before.

We have

a thriving airport. We have a thriving aviation industry. NAV CANADA has been

there for many years. The largest, however, private employer in Gander is

Exploits Valley Air Services. They have become a hub for Air Canada's commuter

fleet which are flown in from as far away as Ontario and Manitoba to have their

heavy maintenance checks, their painting. They have a new painting technique

which will reduce the weight of the aircraft quite significantly. Now with the

new glass cockpit, which I think will be the first installed in a Beech in this

province, they will have an aircraft that is significantly lighter.

You may

say, what's the relevance of that? Well, for those who aren't familiar, this

will actually reduce significantly the carbon footprint of that aircraft to the

tune of reducing carbon emissions 320 tons per year. Again, an

environmentally-friendly initiative that saves money and expense.

I have a

lot more of the other things in my district, but I notice I've passed the

halfway mark. One of the challenges in health is that there is almost limitless

demand placed on the system. At regular intervals across the course of my tenure

here, Members opposite have stood up and asked me to do more. They said, why

can't you do this?

Well,

there are six volumes here that would present several reasons why that might be

the case. If you want a reason why our dental program for adults, for example,

is simply on a par with Canada's rather than excelling it, I will give you four

or five reasons: Danny Williams, Tom Marshall, Ed Martin, Gilbert Bennett, Paul

Harrington. Those are the reasons why there is money that we do not have for our

social programs. That is the tragedy of this misguided project, and there is no

way of escaping that.

I give

the Member for Topsail credit. He is the first Member on the opposite side of

the House to have stood up and, in any way, shape or form, condemned Muskrat

Falls. He is the first to have done it. You cannot distance yourself from the

heritage that party has brought to this House. Try as you might, you cannot. He

has admitted it and I give him credit for that. Well done.

The

Member opposite talks about being effective, more effective with the dollars

that we have and focusing on outcomes. I would argue, Mr. Chair, that is very

clearly what my department has focused on. We have seen minimal growth in the

health care budget over the last little while – 0.8 per cent, according to CHI

statistics, in the last financial year. That was at a time when the average

across Canada was 4.5 to 6 per cent per jurisdiction and the average rate of

inflation in Canada was 2.8 per cent. That's how you do it.

At the

same time, we have added, over the four years of my tenure, no less than 60 new,

cutting-edge, gold-standard medications. We have, as my colleague from Lake

Melville said, eradicated in certain areas the wait-list for counselling. We

have over 70 clinics where you can walk in if you have a mental health concern

without an appointment, without any difficulty and you are entered into the

system.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. HAGGIE:

You can use that facility as often as you want.

We have

a hub and spoke system for addiction services in this province and we have seen

a great uptake in those services. We have gone from 1,500 people in our ODT

program seeking treatment to 3,700 at the last count. That is an indicator of

people accessing the system.

Our

challenge has been around access; it is not around numbers of health care

providers. You look at CHI statistics for the last quarter, we do better than

the national average for family physicians, for specialists, for nurse

practitioners. For a whole raft of primary health care providers, we lead the

country in the numbers and the numbers per capita.

Our

challenge is around access, and I am arguing that with mental health and

addictions, we are working on solving that access problem. We are restructuring

primary health care in this province in conjunction with the Nurse Practitioner

Association, with the Medical Association to bring access nearer to the

community. It will take time to turn this ship. We have other practitioners here

which have not been seen in this province for a generation – and I'm referring

to midwives.

I notice

my time is running down, Mr. Chair. I will support this subamendment and I look

forward to an opportunity to continue contributing to this debate over the

amendment debate and the motion itself.

Thank

you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Member for Bonavista.

MR. PARDY:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yesterday when I started to speak I referenced Erik Weihenmayer. Everyone knows

about Erik Weihenmayer, and I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly. He's from

Princeton, New Jersey. But the main thing that I referenced him was that he

states that: “What's within you is stronger than what's in your way.” I thought

that was a very noble pursuit for all of us to look ahead.

I had 10

minutes yesterday and I never got to the crux of what it was that I wished to

discuss about the District of Bonavista, and in light of what we're discussing.

But I received a text message after I spoke from somebody of whom I had known

for close to 30 years within the District of Bonavista. The message went like

this – not all of it, but an excerpt from it would be: “Time to move beyond the

blame game and deal with the issue in front of it! We can't go back

unfortunately. Mistakes were made … we need to aggressively move ahead for the

sake of our province!”

That is

what I'm hearing in the House. We all work together, collaborate, we know where

we are and that is work together to the best of our ability with the hand that

we've been dealt and to move ahead.

The

Minister of Health and Community Services just stated that my colleague from

Topsail - Paradise said he was the first one to come on from the opposite side

of the House and to speak about the report, how concerning it is and alarming.

Well, he was the first speaker from our caucus, and allow me to be the second

one. We only received the report yesterday, so I would say the same thing that

we learned from what had happened in the past. It is bothersome, it does hurt,

but it's time for us now to collectively say what are we going to do going

forward. That is the gist of what I wish to raise today.

I'd like

to be able to throw some things out that would affect the District of Bonavista

that may be prevalent over the province and if it's something that we can adapt

in order to make ourselves more efficient, more productive, save money, then it

may be a thought. If it's new, great; if it's not, it might resurface an old

thought that somebody had in the past.

If you

would allow me, first of all, to where I ended yesterday, I talked about the

long-term care in the Golden Heights Manor in Bonavista. I had referenced the

MHA from Mount Pearl - Southlands presented the petition three or four times on

care in long-term homes. The Golden Heights Manor is one of those homes in

Bonavista.

I would

contend that when we look at measures of which we need to conserve or budget, we

always be cognizant of the most vulnerable people in our population – probably

ultra-cognizant as we go forward in the following years.

Golden

Heights Manor is a level 3 long-term care home. It has a little under 40

residents; none are ambulatory. I would think the vast majority of them would

need help with their meals. All of them would need help with personal hygiene.

What I

ended with yesterday in my 10-minute segment was the fact that when it was 3.8

hours that was allocated per resident, which is the standard or above the

standard, which I think the minister had stated 3.4, which I understand would be

the provincial standard and may be the national standard. At 3.8, the loved ones

of those residents in that home were concerned about the care. As I stated

yesterday, not medically, they were concerned about the personal care and the

meals. It was the PCAs that they were concerned about, that there weren't enough

of the PCAs, they thought, to provide the ample and appropriate care for their

loved ones.

When I

visit Golden Heights Manor, I often go in and visit Mrs. Annie Baker. Mrs. Annie

Baker is 93 years of age, a very healthy 93 until one year ago when she

contracted diabetes and ended up losing her foot. She's in for a rough time but

she is non-ambulatory at this point in time.

She has

four children who love her very much: one a retired police officer, Rupert; a

fisherman, Clifford; a retired correctional officer, Gerry; and a daughter,

Dallas, who went through the School for the Deaf. All four care for her a lot

but all four would state that they would be concerned about the level of care

provided by the PCAs – think the world of the staff but there are not enough of

the PCAs.

A few

little situations that I pass on just for some noteworthy – and I'll move

quickly because I know my time is getting short. I stated at the pre-budget

consultation a situation that I had one time where my wife and I were sitting in

the lobby of the retirement home in Bonavista. They were transporting one of the

residents of that home to Clarenville to get a report on the upper GI.

There

was a taxi that was bringing the gentleman up and there was a worker from the

home that would travel with the gentleman. It was only to get a report for an

hour and a half to Clarenville and an hour and a half back. I'm sure it's on the

government's agenda or the minister's agenda if we had the virtual medicine

firing, they could have quickly went across and tapped in to view or to connect

with the doctor, the specialist in Clarenville, to get the report. There could

be savings accrued from virtual medicine or telemedicine.

Also, in

that same home, Mr. Keith Rickman spoke to me. He's on warfarin. Many

Newfoundlanders are on warfarin. When they go to the doctor, the doctor will

often say there's warfarin or there's Xarelto or Eliquis, but you have to pay

$100 a month – a more preferred drug by the health practitioners.

The only

thing I would throw out there for a thought would be is it conceivable that

under warfarin they must have blood checks every couple of weeks. There is a

cost associated with that. I'm sure there must be a consult with the doctor on

the INR results. If, on the INR results, that may be another – it may be

strategic that we put them on the more preferred medication, being the Xarelto,

and there may be savings accrued as a result of that.

Finally,

to wrap up, the MUN school of medicine are putting out wonderful graduates. I

had the privilege, and I spoke to it before, of attending a rural medicine

symposium in Bonavista. Forty-five of our finest were there present, and when I

left I said phenomenal, the quality and the future of health care in our

province. It was exciting – exceptional.

The only

thing I would say is if we are retaining 7 per cent of them, if we are, if we do

retain in family medicine 7 per cent, if we do, then I would say the tuition for

a year on the website would be $12,250. International students it's $30,000. The

average in Canada is $20,000.

I would

say thought with the school of medicine was: keep the tuition where it is. If

it's $12,250 for our Newfoundland students, if they're going to practice in

rural Newfoundland or in Newfoundland, that is perfect, but if they're going to

leave to go elsewhere, to go out to another province that is offering something,

then on the entry to the school there should be a provision that the full cost

of that school to the Canadian average ought to be the onus of that medical

student. Just food for thought in the medicine.

I think

with seven seconds left I will sit down, even though there are a few other

things. I must be talking too slow.

Mr.

Chair, thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Member for Mount Scio.

MS. STOODLEY:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

haven't had an opportunity yet to speak about International Women's Day, so I'd

like to take this opportunity to speak about how budgets impact women in the

province and in Canada.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MS. STOODLEY:

Thank you.

The

first thing I just wanted to touch on is, I know that our government uses

gender-based analysis for examining policies. We have presentations on

gender-based analysis, and that's where they look at budgets and policies

looking at differences in women's and men's lives and how they might lead to

inequality for women and making sure the policies and programs of the government

ensure equal treatment. I think that's an important piece I'd like to touch on.

Gender-based analysis applies a systemic approach to policies and programs. It

aims to achieve equity rather than equal treatment, recognizing that treating

everyone the same may not produce equitable results. I think that's an important

part.

Now, one

initiative recently, which I think also benefits women of the province,

particularly on the Avalon Peninsula, is the free bus passes for people on

income support. I'm very proud of that. In Mount Scio, I know that initiative is

going to benefit a lot of families and a lot of women, for example.

I had

one constituent who was coming to visit me when the buses were free after

Snowmageddon and she said: Oh, yeah, I'll definitely come because the buses are

free. I had never thought the cost of the bus – now that I think about it, it

makes sense, but I had never thought that the $5 return, the cost of the bus

could have prevented a constituent from coming to visit me in my office here. So

I think the free bus passes for residents on income support will certainly be a

benefit to many of my constituents.

Mothers

often plan family activities, and I think the free bus passes will enable them

to plan around free swimming activities and stuff if they have to travel further

than they normally would. A lot of women do a lot of shopping for their families

and it allows them to travel further, potentially, to get greater discounts,

enabling them to increase the value of what they're able to buy in a given week

or month.

The

program costs $2.1 million, with 10,000 income support recipients in the metro

area benefiting. I'm very proud of that. I think it's a huge step forward for

transportation in the province.

The

other thing I'd like to talk about, which also particularly benefits women, are

all the child care investments. As of April 2019, $6.5 million in capital

renovation grants were allocated to 59 child care service providers. I'm sure

everything is not going perfectly, but I do think it's going in the right

direction.

Before I

ran, I didn't really have a good appreciation for how the subsidies worked in

terms of child care subsidies. So running and becoming more involved, I've been

learning a lot more about that.

If a

household net income – not your gross income, your net income after everything

has been taken out. If your household net income is $35,000 or less, your family

is eligible for full child care subsidies. That's amazing. That would equate to

a gross household family income of $46,000. I think that particularly helps

women get back to work because in many instances they would be staying home with

their children. And a partial subsidy for those with higher than $35,000 net

household income.

Just one

example I'd like to highlight. After your household net income is more than

$35,000, there's a sliding scale, Mr. Chair. A two-parent family with a net

family income of $65,000 needing child care for two preschool-aged children and

one infant, would be eligible for a child care subsidy of approximately $1,055 a

month. There's no catchy number we can say that there's this cost a day per

child care, but based on the programs and the sliding scale after a net income

of $35,000, I do think that the child care subsidy programs do benefit a lot of

families and do a lot of good work in the province.

Another

element I'd like to mention are the supports for individuals with autism, and I

know the Autism Action Plan is being rolled with 57 actions; 19 short-term

actions to be completed hopefully, shortly by the end of this month. They

include reduced wait times for ASD diagnosis, enhanced diagnosis supports,

expansion of JASPER treatment and improved access to cognitive behavioural

therapy. I know that's important for a lot of constituents in my district.

Then

changing a little bit, looking at a Canadian level. We have summer job

applications open now. I believe organizations are able to submit applications

for summer jobs. I found a Girl Guides of Canada study and they did that with

Ipsos Reid last year. They asked young women and men aged 12 to 18 in Canada

about their 2018 summer jobs, just thinking about equality and equity in Canada.

Girls

ages 12 to 18 earned $2.75 an hour less in their summer jobs than young men ages

12 to 18. So already while they're in high school, girls are already making

$2.75 less than their male counterparts. And informal work – so this is when

they might be babysitting, doing chores – girls earned $8.67 less an hour, while

boys earned $14.98 an hour. Again, this is across Canada, but I think it's

something to keep in mind when people are applying for jobs and when people are

– know people who hire people or students. I think it's important to think about

who you're hiring, what kind of job you're hiring them for, and are you actually

paying them equal pay for equal work.

Another

area that I think there's certainly room for legislation to step up around

helping women is the motherhood pay gap. When we look at legislation that helps

women and families, women's salaries are on average 5 per cent lower when they

have families, compared to those without families.

A CBC

article, Mr. Chair, recently said women aged 25 to 38 saw earnings drop 4 per

cent in the five years after having a child, and women “aged 25 to 29 losing an

additional 14 per cent earnings over this period.” And men's salaries, as we

know, go up when they have children.

So I

think there's certainly room for bold legislative changes in the future where we

try and tackle this. I know no one has really figured it out. These are really

complicated societal challenges.

We know

43 per cent of highly qualified women take a career break of one year or more at

some point during their working lives – that would be for maternity leave – and

they suffer an 18 per cent lifelong decrease in their earning power as a result

of their year-long break – 18 per cent lifelong decrease in their earning power.

It's just shocking, Mr. Chair.

Then,

when we go to women in Newfoundland and Labrador, I wasn't able to find a huge

amount of recent information, but 14 per cent of employment in Red Seal trades

in Newfoundland and Labrador are employed by women; however, they only earn

around 9 per cent of total hourly wages. So 14 per cent of people employed in

Red Seal trades are women, but they only earn 9 per cent of the total wages. We

clearly have some room to improve.

How do

we encourage women to move up the ladder in our organizations and our private

companies? There was a UN study released – “… companies with three or more women

in senior management functions score higher in all dimensions of organizational

performance.”

When we

look at artificial intelligence – we talked about that last week – of all people

who work in artificial intelligence, 22 per cent of those are women. Only 22 per

cent of people who design algorithms, who test them, who code them are women.

Think about all the biases built into those algorithms, Mr. Chair, in testing,

because they're built primarily, more than three-quarters, by men.

Then, of

249 publicly traded companies in Canada, Canadian executive women earn 68 per

cent of what their male counterparts do. That is, at publicly traded companies

in Canada, the women CEOs earn 68 per cent of what their male counterparts do.

At a Canadian level, we certainly have some challenges.

Then, we

look at women's unpaid work. If we assigned a monetary value to women's unpaid

work, the UN estimates that would constitute between 10 and 39 per cent of GDP.

Mr.

Chair, if we look at GDP in Newfoundland and Labrador, in 2018 it was about $33

billion. The IT sector was 2 per cent. Mining, oil and gas was 24 per cent;

finance and insurance, 3 per cent, Mr. Chair. Construction was 9.9 per cent GDP.

So if women's unpaid work constitutes between 10 and 39 per cent of GDP, that is

the difference between all of IT, mining, oil and gas, finance and insurance,

and construction put together, which is significant.

Overall,

budgets impact women. I think we're doing a good job, especially with the

low-income bus pass. I think our job is not done in helping women achieve

equality in Canada.

Thank

you, Mr. Chair.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Member for Conception Bay South.

MR. PETTEN:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a

pleasure, of course, to get up and speak on Interim Supply. We always say in

this House it's always a pleasure to stand in your place and give your opinion

on what you hear, I guess, and what have you.

I wasn't

going to get up and speak actually on this section, but the Minister of Health

and Community Services made a comment and I thought it was kind of – he referred

to my colleague from Topsail - Paradise when he made mention of the report and

he was the first person who spoke on it. In actual fact, I guess, there are not

many over on this side can really speak to that report with any knowledge. I

don't think, really, any of us can for that matter because it all pre-dated us.

We got

the report yesterday at 1 – 1:30 when we came in here, we heard it was coming

out at 1 with the news conference, so we didn't even know what was in the report

other than what we watched on television. None of us were privy to the – we

never had representation at the hearings or whatever, so we're just like the Joe

Q. Public.

There's

one thing that needs to be clear. Some commentary has gone around blaming,

pointing fingers at the PC Party or this group of people here. I respectfully

say that's a lot of misguided commentary, because we're not pleased. I'm not

pleased. I see what's in that report; I'm not pleased with what's in that

report.

I think

most any person in this province are not pleased, but to say that it was the PC

Party's fault. The full report outlines the mistakes that were made and what

happened here. It's more about there were mistakes made – obvious mistakes made.

It's in there; I read through the executive

summary. I haven't had a chance to

read 1,100 pages yet. I don't know if I'll ever get there, but there's stuff in

that report, yeah – we're not disputing that. No one in this House are disputing

any of that.

I think

sometimes we spend so much time trying to play politics and to try to hammer

down the Opposition. If you want to stay in government, you hammer down the PC

Party because they were the ones that were power when this decision was made, as

a political tool. I get that. I've been around politics all of my life. I know

some Members in this House have done the same thing. There's a game to be

played; I get that. I totally get it and we play it a lot of times ourselves,

but clarity needs to be provided too from this side of the House.

That's

not totally accurate, what you're hearing portrayed in the report and the

findings. You go back a few weeks back when the Premier announced the rate

mitigation plan or – we're not sure what that announcement was, but it was

something come out. There was a lot of theatrics again, but that's not my

commentary, that's a separate issue. He spent five or 10 minutes blasting the PC

Party. So much so, he did his circuit after on

Open Line and he got all his diatribe

on the PC Party, the host said to him: We got that out of the way. Now, Premier,

let's talk about the issue.

The

public sees through that stuff too. You got to be careful how much weight you

put into it. So to say we're angry. Yes, we're all angry, every one of us.

The

Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands who was an MHA when I was a staff person

with the former administration – this is my second term – he stood in his place

over and over and over and over again and said he was hoodwinked. He was

mislead. The Minister of Finance has said the same thing, because he voted for

it but he said since he didn't realize what he was voting for.

What

makes them different than a lot of the former people who sat in the former

administration?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. PETTEN:

Is that a rational response?

respect both of their intelligence. I'm not knocking either one of them. I've

known them a long time. The Minister of Finance, we can play political games,

but he's said to this House he did not know what he voted for. Do you know what?

I've never questioned him; I believe him. I have no reason not to believe the

man. I have no reason not to believe the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands.

But why,

then, when our leader who was totally not involved in the Muskrat Falls Project,

he'll stand in his place in this House and the Premier of this province got up

one time recently and asked him to apologize to the people of Newfoundland and

Labrador for the Muskrat Falls Project? Now, is that politics at its finest,

rawest, purest, probably the part that people don't like about politics – is

that not what we see when we see that?

I don't

mind saying it in the House again. I stood in my place and I told the Premier

that day, maybe you should get up and apologize for the Upper Churchill because

that's how unfounded, misguided that rationale is, Mr. Chair.

I heard

yesterday on the media somewhere the Leader of the Third Party: The PC Party

should be held responsible for that project. You can't share the blame because

you weren't there. It don't make any sense.

So the

NDP need to be responsible for every misguided thing that's happened in their

party over the years. If something happened 15 years ago when she wasn't there

but it was an NDP person who did it, you're responsible. I don't agree.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. PETTEN:

She may agree about that with us; I don't agree.

A lot of

mistakes made over the years with the Liberal Party; do I hold those Members

over there now responsible before they were ever elected? No, I don't.

If you

want to talk about talking real language, go out in a coffee shop. As the Member

for Harbour Grace - Port de Grave said yesterday, in all the coffee shops. I

spend a lot of time in coffee shops. That's my thing, in my district. My office

is down in the middle of a busy area. They agree with what I'm saying. No one

walks in there and points the finger at me, it's your fault – no.

Do you

know what they say? How are we going to move forward? How are we getting

solutions?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. PETTEN:

Barry, I can't afford to heat

my house. That's the stuff that hits me.

I don't

care what stripe I am, as long as I'm elected to represent the people that

elected me, they put their faith in me, I will speak for them. They're concerned

about the power rates. I think every Member in this House have constituents who

have the same concern. That's where it is.

We've

spent a lot of time and we've spent a lot of energy pointing the blame. Long

before Muskrat, this is five years – we're hearing it this past week is the

blame, blame, blame, but unless people are not reading the same newspapers or

talking to the same people as I am, people are sick of it. I can say I'm sick of

it because I'm sitting on this side of the House. Sometimes the barrage comes at

us because we get it from all sides for some reason. We're the Opposition, we're

the former government and everyone likes to blame you. I'm okay with that. I'm a

big boy. That doesn't bother me. That really doesn't bother me.

I'm

about making sense. If it makes sense, bring it on. No problem. If I do wrong, I

will apologize, make no mistake about it. I live in a house, I have a wife and I

have two daughters. Every pet in the house is non-male, I'll leave it at that. I

do not have any say in my house – trust me. I have a mother who lives by herself

and what they don't, she controls. So that's my life.

Then I

represent 16,000 people who give me grief everyday about every pothole. Even on

the town roads, I'm responsible for every pothole in CBS.

MR. CROCKER:

You are.

MR. PETTEN:

As the Minister of

Transportation and Works says, I am.

But it

bears repeating – again, I don't mind saying I'm wrong. Trust me, I apologize

everyday of my life. I do, but I have a problem when I sit and I listen to some

of the commentary, some of the stuff that's said. There's only so much of that

you can listen to without getting to your place, like I am here now. Like I

said, I wasn't even going to speak but I felt this feeling inside me. I didn't

want to get up, and it's not getting up and attacking people in this House. I

think we're all in this together. I think we have to move past that.

Whether

that report costs votes to this party or that party or whoever it costs votes

to, that's something you deal with at another time. Right now the seniors are

worried, people are worried, families are worried, and low-income and

middle-class people are worried. They're worried about how to pay their bills.

They're worried about the coronavirus. There's a lot of stress on the streets,

Mr. Chair.

We were

talking yesterday about probably coming out and making this comment, or going

this way or this strategy. I was asked my opinion, and my colleague for

Conception Bay East - Bell Island, we were asked our opinion. I said no. It was

probably a good strategy; but, no, there's enough fear on the street. People are

concerned enough. We can't be coming in here or making releases that are going

to put more fear into people. I don't think people need that. Our society

doesn't need that.

Our

province, our country or the world right now is on edge. Say what you want,

everyone is on edge. The last thing we need to do is put them further over that

edge. We need to stand up and be leaders. We're all elected to represent our

areas. We're all leaders in our communities. Be leaders and show the way.

Don't be

living in the past, Mr. Chair. There's enough of that; people are tired of that.

Move ahead and find solutions to solve the problems. Do what we're elected to

do, and that's what will keep you elected and that's what will make people happy

and that's what we should be concentrating on.

Thank

you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

MR. OSBORNE:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr.

Chair, a couple of comments. I understood we were going to go directly to the

vote, but I do have to respond. There are a couple of corrections that I will

make.

First of

all, I will say that if we want to talk about you can't blame people or parties

for stuff that didn't happen. It was just this week, I think, that we heard

Members opposite talk about the Poverty Reduction Strategy. I'll remind Members

that the only individual in this Legislature that was part of the Poverty

Reduction Strategy planning was me. I was a minister who sat on the Poverty

Reduction Strategy planning when that was announced; yet, the other side of the

House wanted to take credit for the Poverty Reduction Strategy when not one of

those Members sat on that, not one of those Members sat in Cabinet, but when it

comes to Muskrat Falls: don't blame us.

Now,

there were two Members over there that sat in caucus when that was –

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible.)

MR. OSBORNE:

It's not the time, I'm being

told by the previous speaker.

Anyway,

two Members of that caucus currently sat in the former caucus when Muskrat Falls

was sanctioned. One of the independents sat in that caucus when Muskrat Falls

was sanctioned. I didn't sit in the caucus, wasn't privy to the information. I

did vote on a private Member's resolution.

The

fallacy talked about in this House – and it's the first time I've ever corrected

on the Legislature floor, by the way. I didn't vote for Muskrat Falls. The two

bills that were brought before this Legislature, I didn't vote for those. I will

say, I did vote for the private Member's resolution that was in 2012 or '13. I

was an independent Member at the time. I did vote for that. That was prior to

sanctioning.

That was

based on the fact that I believe Muskrat Falls was supposed to cost just over $6

billion, not the $12 billion or not the number that it was when it was

sanctioned, but the promise of what Muskrat Falls was going to be. I think at

the time when the private Member's resolution happened, the public opinion polls

at the time showed there was about 70 per cent of the population of this

province supported Muskrat Falls.

MR. K. PARSONS:

(Inaudible.)

MR. OSBORNE:

Sixty-four per cent, the

Member for Cape St. Francis is saying.

The

public opinion polls said that 64 per cent of the population supported Muskrat

Falls. I would suggest that's the reason, during the private Member's

resolution, the people who voted for it voted in favour, but it was based on the

fact that it was $6.4 million, I believe, at the time, not the $12.7 million –

AN HON. MEMBER:

Billion.

MR. OSBORNE:

– or billion. Not the $12.7

billion that it turned out to be.

The

biggest challenge, Mr. Chair, this province faces today still remains Muskrat

Falls. Every time I speak with the bond-rating agencies, it's the main topic.

We've borrowed $3 billion as a government, that in 2016 when we put in place our

return to surplus plan, we did not realize we were going to need to borrow.

That's the facts, that's the reality.

AN HON. MEMBER:

How much?

MR. OSBORNE:

Three billion dollars we've

borrowed as a province. That's on top of the money that Nalcor has borrowed. In

fact, the three bond-rating agencies have said that it's the largest contingent

liability on our province today. It's the largest downward pressure on our bond

ratings. But you know something? Our bond ratings today are better than they

were in the mid-2000s, and that's a reality as well.

Despite

the fact that we've gone through the most difficult challenge fiscally in our

province, really since the collapse of the ground fishery in 1993, or prior to

that, the 1930s, our bond ratings are better than they were in the mid-2000s

when we were at the early stages of the biggest fiscal boom our province has

ever faced. I will stand and defend that.

The

reason I wanted to get up, Mr. Chair, and speak today is that we do hear people

stand in the House and take credit for things they weren't part of. When it

comes to taking credit for things they were: Don't blame us for that, you guys

are the government. Again, the Poverty Reduction Strategy is a prime example of

that. I was one of the architects of that strategy and I'm not looking at any of

the other architects as I look across the floor. That's the reality.

I heard

the Leader of the Opposition from a scrum yesterday saying that the biggest

finger pointers are on this side of the House. I challenge that as well, Mr.

Chair. I challenge that as well because I would say that the reason I see the

Leader of the Opposition coming is I see him finger first. He's fast and furious

with the finger when he's talking about this side of the Legislature.

He talks

about tenuous at best, Mr. Chair, and some involvement of Muskrat Falls from

that side of the House. Tenuous at best is what he calls for resignations on

this side of the House. If we're going to be fair, we have to be fair. That was

the point I wanted to stand and talk about today.

Thank

you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR:

Seeing no other speakers,

we're going to now take a vote on the subamendment.

Shall

the subamendment carry?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, subamendment carried.

CHAIR:

Seeing no other speakers, we

are now going to vote on the amendment, as amended.

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, amendment, as amended, carried.

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.

We're

now debating the main resolution, as amended.

MR. WARR:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's

certainly a pleasure to rise in my place today and speak to the resolution, as

amended. It's an opportunity for me to speak a little bit about my district, a

little bit about the department that I'm proud to be the minister of.

I think

before I get into that, Mr. Chair, there's been a lot of banter back and forth

with regard to Muskrat Falls over the last day or so. We did receive a report

yesterday, Muskrat Falls: A Misguided

Project . We received Judge LeBlanc's report.

I think

probably I'm going to take a piece from my colleague for Happy Valley-Goose Bay

on – our friend or our colleague for Grand Falls-Windsor - Buchans. I think he

probably made a statement yesterday that hit home with me as well and that is

that we have to – quote – look beyond Muskrat Falls – unquote. That can't

happen. We just got this report yesterday, we will live this report for the

foreseeable future and we will live Muskrat Falls; we cannot forget it. I think

I understand where you were coming from with that, but it certainly is something

that we can't forget.

I made a

few notes. Before I get into the gist of what I want to say, the hon. Member for

Mount Pearl - Southlands mentioned today about the

Forestry Act . Well, let me tell you, Sir, I was a scaler. That's

what I did when I came out of university. I was a scaler. So anything that you

need to know about scaling, I'd be more than happy to share it with you.

Anyway,

thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'm pleased to stand here again today. It's an

opportunity to outline the many important and progressive initiatives happening

under the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development for children,

youth and young families across the province.

It's an

honour for me to serve the people of Newfoundland and Labrador as Minister of

Education and Early Childhood Development. I think, Mr. Chair, going from the

MHA for Baie Verte - Green Bay to continuing that role and taking on the

Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, I owe a lot of credit to

my CA and her name is Kathleen Hynes. She works out of the office in Springdale

representing the full District of Baie Verte - Green Bay, and I have to tip my

hat to her today because she's –

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. WARR:

Thank you.

She's

done an absolutely fabulous job and she has stepped up to the plate when I have

not been there. I owe her a great deal of gratitude and I hope she's hearing

this today.

Mr.

Chair, a lot of good things are happening in the department. I want to thank the

employees for their dedication and commitment to support and enhance the K-to-12

and early childhood education systems in our province.

Mr.

Chair, I want to say I have always had a great relationship – and I go back to

my own school years, always had a great admiration and relationship and

friendship and it continues today with the educators who I was so privileged to

have during my own school years. My colleagues would kindly remind me that that

wasn't yesterday, but I've never forgotten them. Just being the Minister of

Education since May of 2019, I sometimes now, even though I went down the role

of police work and private business, I think I probably would have enjoyed being

an educator as well.

I had my

opportunities to speak with the hon. Member for Bonavista and, certainly, the

hon. Member for St. John's Centre, who are both my critics, and we've shared

many conversations. I've really grown to respect the educators in our province

through my role here. It's an exciting department to work in, to see everybody,

most days, with a smile on their face and busily going along with their

day-to-day chores and work. They are really there for the right reasons, and

that's the children of our province.

Mr.

Chair, I want to talk about the implementation of the Education Action Plan.

It's on target with 65 per cent of the actions completely or substantially

underway. Since the launch of the plan, we've been adding teaching resources,

new reading specialists, a new position called teaching and learning assistants

and we have increased learning resource teachers. These resources, as I spoke

yesterday, will add an additional 350 – will certainly be fully implemented in

September.

In the

classrooms this year, Mr. Chair, we have allocated 48 new reading specialists.

It's going to be increasing to 104 in September. We've added 100 teaching and

learning assistants, which will increase to 200 in September and 26 additional

teacher librarians, increasing to 39 for September. Last year, we increased the

budget for the Education Action Plan to $13 million, which was an increase of $6

million from the previous year.

There's

no doubt that education is, and continues to be, a priority for our government

and it should be a priority for all 40 Members in this House of Assembly.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. WARR:

Mr. Chair, we have stated quite clearly that there are no plans to increase

class sizes. Again, I was on my feet yesterday speaking to that as well. It's

also important to note that class size caps in this province are comparable to

other provinces. We always talk about doing jurisdictional scans, and we've done

our work here as well. Some may suggest that there shouldn't be soft caps;

however, other provinces also have provisions in place to allow some

flexibility, depending on certain circumstances.

While

the class cap for Grade 4 is 28 – Mr. Chair, I'm going to share those numbers

again – only 19 out of 226 classrooms have 28 students. For Grade 7, only eight

classes out of 228 are at the cap. In Grade 9, only eight out of 218 are at the

cap.

understand and appreciate composition is a factor when considering class sizes.

Again, my two hon. critics have made me certainly aware of that as well, and

their concerns around that. That's why we've been creating these new positions

and adding teaching resources through the Education Action Plan.

There is

also no doubt that the actions are improving the ability of our schools – in

fact, the entire school community – to better meet the needs and supports of the

inclusion of all students with exceptionalities. We are hearing this directly

from educators across the province. We have received very positive feedback from

the Phase 1 and Phase 2 schools, Mr. Chair. I hear it when I visit schools and

speak with teachers and principals who say the changes are truly transforming

the experiences for students.

The

additional resources and the new responsive teaching and learning model is

helping to ensure all students, regardless of ability, Mr. Chair, are getting

the supports they need. Are we fully there? No, we're not, but we're working

towards that.

A simple

scroll through Twitter also reveals the exciting things happening in classrooms

throughout the province, from the daily activities in the new learning library

commons to the workshops and activities on coding.

Mr.

Chair, I don't have a whole lot of time left, so I think probably what I'll do

is I'll stand in my place again to continue on.

Mr.

Chair, I just want to highlight; yesterday, I was down and spoke to 350

administrators on a two-day professional development seminar here in the city.

We had the opportunity to hear from Leary's Brook academy and a bunch of young

students here singing to the group yesterday. I'm so amazed at some of the

children that we have in our schools today.

I know

the hon. Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands spoke yesterday about

The Wedding Singer . I had the

opportunity, actually, to go the Arts and Culture Centre – that's the students

from O'Donel High – and watched that program, Mr. Chair, an absolutely fabulous

program. They did a great job.

Last but

not least, I want to highlight Woodland Elementary in Dildo. I had the

opportunity to go out there during education – sorry, not Education Week. I just

can't remember the reason, but anyway, went out to Woodland Elementary. Mr.

Chair, I was amazed to see the students. The musical talent in that school was

absolutely amazing and I certainly wanted to highlight that again here today.

Mr.

Chair, I know my time has ended. I'll take the opportunity to rise again in my

place at another time, but I will be supporting the resolution, as amended.

Thank

you.

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Member for Cape St. Francis.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Chair.

This is

a difficult speech for me to make here today because I look back – I heard the

Member for Cartwright - L'Anse au Clair yesterday evening get up and say that

she was mad. I heard people across the way say they were mad and I heard my

colleagues on this side of the House also say they were mad.

Well,

I'm very mad also. I'm really upset. I sat in this Chamber now for the last 12

years and I've done my best. I stood here, I voted for things that I voted for

because I felt in my heart it was the right thing to do. Anybody that knows me,

knows that's the way I am no matter what.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. K. PARSONS:

I always try to show respect,

whether it was in government or whether here in Opposition, to the Members

across the way, or to my colleagues on the side of me. That's the number one

thing I'll always do. I have a decision to make in the next few months whether

I'll be running again or not, and I will walk out of this House with the same

integrity that I walked in with.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. K. PARSONS:

But to say I'm upset, I'm so

upset over this report because it's going to affect my children, my

grandchildren and my neighbours. It's going to affect people that I live with

and people all over this province.

I sat in

the Chambers and I sat in a lot of meetings. I sat with the minister of Finance,

I sat with the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands, I sat with the Member for

Conception Bay East - Bell Island and I had lots of questions when it came to

Muskrat Falls. As anybody who knows me, and my colleagues here know that when I

sit around a table I'm not afraid to ask questions or give my opinion, and I

did. On lots of occasions, I gave my opinion.

When we

came in to the Muskrat Falls, the biggest problem, the biggest issue we had in

the province at the time was that we needed power. We needed the power. We were

told that, there was a DarkNL, if we didn't do something – we needed the power.

We were

also told that Holyrood at the time would cost $1.6 billion to – now I don't

even know what they are, precipitators and brushes needed to be replaced out in

Holyrood in order to put that back on. We were also told at the time that is

burning oil out there, the same thing as putting 800,000 cars on the road a year

and letting it go up to affect our environment. So we needed to get rid of

Holyrood, that's what I was told.

I was

also told there were all kinds of different options that were available to us.

There was wind, there was solar, there were other different routes that we could

do. There was, they called it, inland options where we could upgrade our inland

ones in Bay d'Espoir and at Star Lake and those things, but they weren't the

cost. What we were told, the least-cost option for the province – this is what I

was told by experts – was Muskrat Falls.

Now, I

sat around a table, like I do now with my caucus Members, and we have people

come in and they give us advice. They tell us what's on the go and whatnot.

I'll

give you a little example now. I knocked on a door during the last election, and

the guy was a retired teacher – and I told my colleagues the story before. He

was a retired teacher, I've known him for years. He said, Kevin, I can't vote

for you because you voted for Muskrat Falls. I said, okay, I can understand

that. I said, can I give you a little bit of what Muskrat Falls was for me.

I don't

want Muskrat Falls at $12 billion. I was assured that Muskrat Falls was going to

be around $6.2 billion. I said, you're a schoolteacher. You sit in a classroom

and the students listen to you because you're the expert in that classroom. Now,

if you tell them that Christopher Columbus discovered Newfoundland, they will

write that on their exam and say the teacher told me, because he's the expert in

that room, that Christopher Columbus discovered Newfoundland.

I sat in

a room with experts every day there was a briefing. Anytime there was a briefing

on Muskrat Falls, I did not miss one. I sat there, I wanted to know about it. I

read about it. They gave us report after report. There was Manitoba Hydro, there

was Navigant, all these reports. I sat in the nighttime at home reading about

it, because I'm not an engineer. I'm not an expert when it comes to hydro

projects. I'm not an expert when it comes to what we need for electricity, but I

have to listen to the people that have the expertise. That's what we do.

If I

have an issue today, I would walk across and speak to a doctor and ask if this

is what I do. If there was something with education, I would talk to an

educator. That's what this was. We had expertise in that room that sold me on

Muskrat Falls.

Now,

will I apologize for it? No, I'm not going to apologize, because I know in my

heart and soul I voted for the right reasons. The reasons why I voted for

Muskrat Falls were because we needed the power, it was going to be great for the

future of Newfoundland and Labrador, and it was going to be great for my

children, my grandchildren and the constituents I represent. Anytime I'm in this

House of Assembly, I'll continue to do that in my own heart and soul.

Now,

afterwards, after I read some of this report yesterday, yes, I am mad. I am

very, very upset. Now, am I upset with myself? Yes, there are some things in

this report I look at that probably could've been done differently. I think the

PUB part was something that should have done an investigation into. But again, I

listened and, at that time, when they talked about the PUB, they were going to

use Manitoba Hydro as their expertise. What I was told at the time was that

Manitoba Hydro was after doing basically the same thing over again, so we were

only repeating the process. Again, I listened to what I was told by the people

that were the experts at the time.

I'll sit

in this House and I'll stay in this House and I'll always represent the people

that elected me to the best of my ability. When I voted for Muskrat Falls, I

voted for Muskrat Falls because I was doing that. I was doing it because I felt

it was the right thing to do.

The

Minister of Finance, he also voted for Muskrat Falls. You have to remember that

– I'm sure he did it for the same reasons I did, but we also had a board from

Nalcor. There were a couple of members on that. The former Finance Minister, she

voted for it, everyone – I don't know if we were all hoodwinked like the Member

for Mount Pearl - Southlands said, but we did listen to the people that we paid

a lot of money for.

The

expertise on the front of that table are making a whole lot more money than I

was making, and they were a whole lot better with the numbers and names behind

their names that should have known a lot more than what I did. But I'll always

get up in this House and I will tell the people of Cape St. Francis that I voted

for Muskrat Falls, yes, I did. Information that was given to me at the time –

I'm not sure what I'd do today, whether I'd vote for it again. But at the time,

the information that was given to me, the best project that this province could

do was Muskrat Falls. It met the needs of the people. One time – and I don't

know if the Member for Mount Pearl - Southlands can remember – I asked a

question about cost. I was told at the table that this could even come under

$6.2 billion cost. That was from an expert that was sat at the head of the

table.

We did

ask questions. Every time, if you listen to

Open Line or you listen to the

Opposition, like I used to listen to everybody, and they'd come up with an

issue, whatever the issue was, the questions used to be asked, but we were

always reassured that we know what we're doing, we know what's going to happen

and we know what the results are going to be.

To come

here today and tell you that I'm mad and I'm upset, yes, I am because this is

going to affect a lot of people. I also agree with what's been said here today:

We need to move on. We need to make sure – listen, we live in a beautiful

province, as far as I'm concerned we live in a beautiful country and I would not

want to live anywhere else but Newfoundland and Labrador, but I also want to see

Newfoundland and Labrador prosper. I don't want to see our seniors or people on

fixed incomes, or even myself or anybody in this province, worry about their

light bills. I think we have to get on with what we were elected to do, to

represent the people and I can honestly say to do the best job that we can for

the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, just like I've been doing for the last

12 years.

When I

finish politics, I'll be able to look in the mirror and know that I did the best

I could for the people of Cape St. Francis.

Thank

you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Leader of the Third Party.

MS. COFFIN:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am

quite pleased to see that our subamendment and our amendment have passed and now

we can get back to the very important discussion of Interim Supply.

Certainly, I think the coffee-shop people that we all talk to are going to be

feeling very reassured once we pass an Interim Supply because that, of course,

will provide us with greater stability and greater certainty upon when we might

have someone dealing with our rate mitigation issues or negotiating with the

federal government on a financial restructuring. So these things are very

important and it will enable us to get on with the work of the House.

Certainly, we know that the folks in the coffee shops are very concerned about

the potential for another election, so I think that by passing a three-month

Interim Supply bill we provide certainty that we will have our public servants

paid, Crown corporations will have their funding, not-for-profits will have

their core funding and they will be able to continue providing the very valuable

services that they do to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, at a time when

we have a great deal of uncertainty and instability and a lot of volatility.

That

goes well beyond what's happening in the House of Assembly. We certainly have a

great deal of instability as a result of COVID-19. We have a great deal of

instability as a result of fluctuation in oil prices. All of these things have a

major impact on how people feel about living and working in our society and, as

government, part of our responsibility lies with providing at least some

certainty in times of uncertainty.

Now, why

do I think that we are going to provide slightly more certainty? Well, with this

three-month Interim Supply bill what we've done is we have thwarted what could

potentially have been a general election call with a six-month Supply bill and

then being in a position where either the Official Opposition or the Third Party

or some of the independent Members would have been blamed for calling that

election. So I think that's a good place to be.

I also

think that it was rather inappropriate to have a $4.6-billion knee-jerk reaction

to what amounts to nothing more than rumour. Certainly, any threat of a

coalition government would require co-operation by at least some of what we now

know as a solid Liberal caucus. If that was the case, according to news

releases, then that ought not to have been an issue for a coalition government

because it was not possible to even form one. What we're seeing there was a

knee-jerk reaction.

I would

also like to point out that no one thought to come and ask my caucus or myself

about what a coalition government might look like. If we are going to work

together in a minority government situation, then the first thing we need to do

is talk about how will we engage all of the parties here. That's not come to me

and tell me exactly how a minority government will work or a coalition

government will work, it's coming to all parties involved and asking them how

they would like to be engaged in the process. Then, in the method of engagement

we go ahead and deal with the issues at hand.

Instead

of, say, perhaps – and this was an experience – sending lackeys to come

interrogate me during social situations, will not get any definitive answers on

the formation of a coalition government or anything else. I would also like to

point out that if there was to be movement on rumours or speculation of a

coalition government, then perhaps in the spring of the year we may have

actually had a true coalition government with a confidence-and-supply agreement,

or later on we could have had a minority government secretariat. None of these

things have come to fruition so I would suspect that a $4.6-billion six-month

Interim Supply, in response to rumour, was perhaps a little bit overambitious,

we'll say.

Now that

we have established that everyone agrees a three-month Interim Supply bill is a

reasonable place to be, then I think we do not have to worry as much about the

Financial Administration Act kicking

in as a safety net in the event that an election is called abruptly or the House

has to shut down or is prorogued. We also need to be very, very cognizant of the

fact that COVID-19 offers a very real possibility that our House may close. If

our House closes and we do not have an Interim Supply bill passed, then we will

be in a much more egregious and shameful situation, I might add, if we continue

to debate issues that are not immediately relevant to our Interim Supply bill.

There

are many, many more things I want to talk about here. Since we're talking about

Interim Supply, I note that we have some new numbers passed along to us here.

Looking at the revised Interim Supply schedule, I do have a couple of questions

about that, and I do look forward to going through this in a fair bit of detail.

Just as an introduction to some of the concerns, I know that we've adjusted some

of the numbers slightly to allow for tenders to be released and work to be done

on capital works projects. This is absolutely vital.

I do

note that I'm not quite sure where a potential election might fit in this. So I

certainly would be interested in finding out where the, I do believe, $4.5

million for an election would be tucked into something like this.

As I was

going through the numbers, I point that Natural Resources has lost $54 million

out of their, I guess, a quarter of a budget at this point. So I'd be very

curious to find out what's happening to the Equinor project and how, or if and

when that will actually be sanctioned.

Now that

we have 3½ minutes left, let's talk about some things that are actually in the

budget. I'm going through the Public Accounts here now – yes, the Public

Accounts; reports on the programs and expenditures. So as I flip through this,

one of the first concerns that I have right off the hop is as we walk into the

office of the Executive Council, I notice that the Communications Branch – one

of the communication branches – have $2 million accounted to that. That office

of the Executive Council has $2 million assigned to communications, but I would

like to point out that there is a bit of an incongruence in what we're doing

here, because I've heard rumours that maybe our legislative agenda is rather

light.

The last

time I checked, I found there was only one legislative drafter. You can tell me

if there are more. There's only one legislative drafter and our role is to pass

legislation, I see a little bit of an incongruence, our job is to write and pass

legislation and not necessarily our primary job is to communicate that. So I

think our allocation of resources perhaps is a little distorted.

Going

on, what I also find is that our public engagement – I'm very curious as we get

into our budget discussion. I look forward to having Interim Supply passed so we

can get into some tangible and substantial discussions on our budget. During

that time, I would like to look a little bit about our Public Engagement office.

I note that it has a million dollars, as compared to the Communications Branch,

which has $2 million. So this says that we are half as interested in getting the

information back from the public as we are telling them what we think of it all.

That

might be an interesting discussion to have in Estimates. I'd like to save some

of our time for Estimates, and I would like to see our Interim Supply bill

passed sooner rather than later.

Let's go

on to Policy and Planning. I'd like to see what under the Communications and

Public Engagement have to say about Policy and Planning. They're spending $7

million on that. So I'd like to see what some of those activities might be along

the way.

Moving

on, Intergovernmental and Indigenous Affairs, Cabinet Secretariat. Indigenous

Affairs has $3 million assigned to it. I'd like to see how that budget is going

to be adjusted now that we've closed the office in Labrador West. We are very

concerned about that. I would look forward to passing Interim Supply and moving

on to a true discussion of what is in our budget.

Carrying

on, Labrador Affairs office. Again, the office has been closed.

Women's

Policy Office. Yes, we have our own stand-alone minister, but she does not have

a department to do the work of women. As I pointed out in Question Period time

and time again, we are sadly lacking in a number of areas, so perhaps we need to

put more money into the Women's Policy department as opposed to an office with a

figurehead.

Carrying

on, Employment and Labour Relations, we are in the Human Resources Secretariat

there now. We have $1.5 million assigned to that. Perhaps we can talk a little

bit about how attrition will affect that.

I see,

Mr. Chair, I have 20 seconds left. I'll stop there. That is just a preview of

what we will do in the budget, or if we hear that Interim Supply is going to

carry on into perpetuity, I have a giant stack of material to work from.

Thank

you very much, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR:

The Chair recognizes the

Government House Leader.

MS. COADY:

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I move

the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

CHAIR:

The motion is that the

Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Is it

the pleasure of the Committee to adopt the motion?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

CHAIR:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

motion, that the Committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, the

Speaker returned to the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER (Reid):

Order, please!

The hon.

Member for Lewisporte - Twillingate.

MR. BENNETT:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The

Committee of Supply have considered the matters to them referred and have

directed me to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER:

The Chair of the Committee of

Supply reports that the Committee have considered the matters to them referred

and directed him to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

When

shall the Committee have leave to sit again?

MS. COADY:

Tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER:

Tomorrow.

motion, report received and adopted. Committee ordered to sit again on tomorrow.

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Government House

Leader.

MS. COADY:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

Considering the hour, I move, seconded by the Minister of Transportation and

Works, that we recess until 2 o'clock.

Thank

you.

MR. SPEAKER:

It has been moved and

seconded that we should now recess until 2 o'clock.

Is it

the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

MR. SPEAKER:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

The

House now stands recessed until 2 o'clock.

Recess

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Reid): Admit strangers.

Order, please!

In the Speaker's gallery, I would like to welcome Ms. Nora Normore, who

is the subject of a Member's statement today. Ms. Normore is joined by Renee

Houlihan, Recreation Director at Alderwood Estates, and Joan O'Driscoll.

Also in the Speaker's gallery, I would like to welcome Quinn

Schmiedendorf, who will be recognized in a Member's statement this afternoon.

Quinn is here with her mom, Kim Schmiedendorf; her grandfather, Louis

Schmiedendorf; and family friend and cousin, JoAnne Kavanagh and Barbara

Cadigan.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

Statements by Members

MR. SPEAKER:

Today, we will hear

Members' statements by the hon. Members for the Districts of Bonavista, Terra

Nova, Harbour Grace - Port de Grave, Ferryland and Cape St. Francis.

The hon. the Member for Bonavista.

MR. PARDY:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In June of this year, Betty Fitzgerald will have 61 years of volunteer

service in Bonavista – a remarkable feat since her arrival there in 1959. Mayor

Betty, as she is often referred as, completed a 20-year tenure as mayor of

Bonavista from 1997 to 2017 – one of the longest serving female mayors in the

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

In total, Betty dedicated 28 years to the town council of Bonavista,

serving on the MNL Board and the Urban Municipalities Committee; a tireless

volunteer committed to fostering community partnerships.

Since her retirement, she continues to be involved in numerous community

causes and organizations: Matthew Legacy, the Bonavista Historic Townscape

Foundation, T.K. Kelloway 50+ Club and the Sea and Sky committee. She's also the

CEO of SaltWater Community Association, which seeks to improve the lives of

those living in communities from Clarenville to Bonavista. This group supports

seniors in the area and is raising funds for scholarships for high school

graduates.

She continues to champion causes and innovations to develop the region.

I'm privileged to work with her when the opportunity presents itself and was

delighted to deliver 100 pies to seniors in our region recently. I remain in awe

of her stamina and unwavering desire to improve the plight of others.

Thank you, Mayor Betty.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Terra Nova.

MR. PARROTT:

Mr. Speaker, I rise

today with heartfelt sympathy to honour a distinguished volunteer in my district

who recently passed away. Every community boasts of their volunteers but few can

be as proud of someone who is the calibre of Sam Saunders.

Through the years, he was Mr. Volunteer in Glovertown and the region. The

Saunders family moved to the region in the '50s. Sam was involved in many local

organizations such as St. Edward's Anglican Church, the fire department,

Glovertown Recreation Committee, Alexander Bay 50+ Club, Glovertown and area

Crime Stoppers, the seniors' complex, CNIB, Glovertown Academy Breakfast

Program, a Glovertown town councillor for 12 years, the Central Regional Health

Board and many, many others.

Sam was a proud member of the Alexander Bay Lions Club for 60-plus years.

He held the positon of District Governor and is in receipt of the Lions

International Humanitarian Award.

Sam was awarded both the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, and a

lifetime appreciation award for outstanding contributions to his community in

2011. There are very few organizations that didn't benefit from Sam's

leadership, dedication, hard work, energy and time.

Samuel Saunders made a lasting impression on his community and the

province and he will certainly be missed by all who knew him. He was a friend of

mine and I'm a better person for having known him.

I ask all hon. Members to extend their deepest sympathy to the Saunders

family, his wife Marie, two sons Jeffrey and Tracy and their extended family.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Harbour Grace - Port de Grave.

MS. P. PARSONS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to recognize the many, many strong women who came out to

celebrate International Women's Day in the region of Conception Bay North this

past Sunday.

In spite of the weather, more than 200 women came to All Hallows School

in North River to participate in the annual luncheon organized by Mayor Joanne

Morrissey.

We came together to celebrate the progress made since the early 1900s,

for equal rights for women. But, more importantly, there to discuss the work

that has to be done to ensure that women will be treated equally in every way

and every industry. It was refreshing to see the local community leaders who are

women, town councillors, teachers, nurses, the skilled trades workers and

business leaders from across the region, including the District of Harbour Grace

- Port de Grave.

An amazing musical performance was given by the Celeste Choir, directed

by Sonya Gosse of Bay Roberts, and accompanied by pianist Deanne Delahunty of

Harbour Grace.

The keynote speech was given by our province's first female

Lieutenant-Governor, the Right Honourable Judy Foote, which concluded with a

call of action: Support women, not because of their gender but because we are

capable.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Ferryland.

MR. O'DRISCOLL:

I rise today in this

hon. House to wish a happy 100th birthday to Ms. Nora Normore who celebrated on

February 17.

During her celebrations, in front of over 100 people she sang, “A

Mother's Love is a Blessing,” and finished with a round of Baileys for

everybody.

Enthusiasm and vitality has been Nora's trademark. Nora's mom passed away

tragically when she was eight months old. She resided with her grandmother until

the age of seven, then moved to Belvedere Orphanage. She received a stellar

education there provided by the Sisters of Mercy. She skipped ahead grades

because of her keen mind and love of learning. Belvedere is where she also

discovered her passion for music.

She worked for a printing shop in Toronto, where she did an assignment on

the famed Dionne quintuplets. Nora also lived on Bell Island where she ran the

local pharmacy. Finally, she moved to Tors Cove, worked in the grocery store and

taught piano lessons to youth.

Her volunteer work is incredible. She is involved in many different

groups and activities at Alderwood Estates where she now resides. Nora believes

it is better to wear out than rust out.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all Members of this House to join me in wishing Ms.

Nora Normore a happy 100th birthday.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Cape St. Francis.

MR. K. PARSONS: Thank you very much,

Mr. Speaker.

I rise today to recognize Quinn Schmiedendorf of Logy Bay-Middle

Cove-Outer Cove on being named the 2020 Janeway Children's Miracle Network

Champion Child.

Mr. Speaker, Quinn was born with spina bifida and a tethered spinal cord.

At just 12 years of age, Quinn has undergone many hospital stays and surgeries,

beginning when she was just seven weeks old.

Throughout her medical issues, Quinn has always maintained a positive

attitude. I have attended many school concerts over the years, Mr. Speaker, and

can easily picture Quinn's big smile beaming out from the front row.

Quinn is a source of positive energy to everyone around her, both at home

and at the Janeway hospital, where she is known for sharing her laughter and

making others smile. I know Quinn's spirit and her incredible courage gives

great support to her mom, Kim, who is Quinn's biggest cheerleader. She also has

her pop and her good friend with her today who are also two big cheerleaders.

Mr. Speaker, I ask all hon. Members to join me in congratulating Quinn

Schmiedendorf on being chosen as this year's Janeway Children's Miracle Network

Champion Child.

Quinn, you have earned the title and you are a true champion.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

Statements by Ministers.

Statements by Ministers

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Minister of

Children, Seniors and Social Development.

MS. DEMPSTER: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this hon. House today to share an update on our

preparations for the 2025 Canada Summer Games.

I was proud to join the Premier on February 25 as the Canada Games

Council launched the bid process here at Confederation Building, and I'm excited

to hear that the City of St. John's bid preparation team has hit the ground

running.

Mr. Speaker, the 2025 games will be a tremendous opportunity for our

athletes to shine on the national stage and gain valuable experience in

competing against their peers across the country.

We are committed to supporting athletes in reaching their goals and

providing funding to help them get ready for the 2025 games.

I am pleased to report that we have formed a Sport Excellence Committee

to advise us on the best ways to enhance athlete performance with that funding.

The Sport Excellence Committee will be co-chaired by Mr. Frank Humber and

a representative from my department, and will include members from SportNL, the

Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Centre, the Aboriginal Sport and Recreation

Circle of Newfoundland and Labrador and other sport leaders throughout our

province.

I want to thank Mr. Humber and all the members of the committee for their

commitment to sport excellence and I look forward to working with them.

Mr. Speaker, we know that the City of St. John's, with the support of

federal and provincial governments, will deliver an incredible Canada Games

experience that people will be talking about for many years to come.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Placentia West - Bellevue.

MR. DWYER:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker,

and I'd like to thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement.

It's good to see the 2025 Canada Games coming back to our beautiful

Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Through the years, our athletes have gone

to the podium in national and international events after competing at the Canada

Games. I am certain our athletes, coaches, managers and support team, along with

our dedicated volunteers, will once again rise to the occasion.

We are pleased to see a Sport Excellence Committee under the leadership

of Mr. Frank Humber to guide athlete performance leading up to the 2025 Canada

Games.

Mr. Speaker, 2025 will be here quickly and we, the Opposition, are

anxious to see the infrastructure plan and details of facilities that need

upgrades and those that need construction. These infrastructure upgrades will

only occur through the contributions of all levels of government.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

St. John's Centre.

MR. J. DINN:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement.

Hosting the 2025 Canada Summer Games could be a great opportunity for

athletes, coaches, organizers and volunteers. We're glad that government has

taken a collaborative approach with the Sport Excellence Committee, but advisory

committees are only as good as government's willingness to listen to their

ideas.

Let's hope that this committee will meet with better success than did the

Wilderness and Ecological Reserves Advisory Council, which saw the resignation

of two of its members.

Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER:

Further statements by

ministers?

The hon. the Minister of Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation.

MR. DAVIS:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House today to promote, celebrate and highlight our

provincial parks.

Since the creation of Sir Richard Squires Memorial Provincial Park in

1954, provincial parks have featured the natural beauty of Newfoundland and

Labrador. Recently, photographers were invited to help showcase this natural

beauty by submitting their favourite images of our parks for an opportunity to

win seven nights of camping during the 2020 season.

Mr. Speaker, the department was thrilled to receive the great response to

this contest, with nearly 300 entries. Today, I am pleased to announce Mr.

Bailey Parsons of Stephenville as the grand prize winner of the 2020 Provincial

Parks Photo Contest. Mr. Parsons submitted an absolutely breathtaking aerial

view of the rolling sand dunes and beaches of Sandbanks Provincial Park in

Burgeo. To view Mr. Parson's photograph, along with other winning entries, I

encourage all to visit our new website,

www.parksnl.ca . While this site is still under development, the winning photographs

will be featured there publicly today.

I also want to take this opportunity to announce that the Provincial

Parks Campsite Reservation Service will begin accepting reservations for the

2020 camping season at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, April 22. Of the 13 provincial parks

campgrounds in the province, seven are scheduled to open on Victoria Day

weekend, with the remaining scheduled to open later in May.

Mr. Speaker, Newfoundland and Labrador's 32 provincial parks are

something to be discovered, and I encourage everyone to explore the natural

beauty of our beautiful province.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Terra Nova.

MR. PARROTT:

Mr. Speaker, I thank the

minister for an advance copy of his statement.

On behalf of the Official Opposition, I would like to thank and offer my

congratulations to Mr. Bailey Parsons for winning the 2020 Provincial Parks

Photo Contest. Having 300 entries into this contest is certainly a testament to

the impressive nature of our landscapes and natural areas.

Mr. Speaker, as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, we often take our

outdoor attractions for granted. We are fortunate to have a unique complement of

provincial parks and natural areas which provide a variety of breathtaking

experiences and activities to all who visit.

As the minister mentioned, the online reservation system for provincial

parks will open Wednesday, April 22. With this in mind, I encourage residents of

this province to spend some of their vacation time and money at home this year,

as there's no better place.

Our province has a lot to offer. From hiking the East Coast Trail to

exploring the historic Bonavista and Eastport Peninsulas or learning about the

heritage of the Port au Port Peninsula, our province offers something for

everyone to enjoy.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Labrador West.

MR. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I, too, thank the minister for an advance copy of his statement.

Congratulations to Mr. Parsons for winning the grand prize in the contest.

In the 1950s, Newfoundland and Labrador had one of the best provincial

park systems in Canada, but many have been since sold off. Labrador is down to

one provincial park, currently, and one that has yet to see the light of day.

Now is the time to bring more parks into the provincial public system and

protect more sensitive areas for all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

Further statements by

ministers?

Oral Questions.

Oral Questions

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of

the Official Opposition.

MR. CROSBIE: Mr. Speaker, the

Minister of Natural Resources has been oddly non-committal about implementing

all the recommendations of the LeBlanc inquiry report, despite having the report

for five days before anyone else saw it.

Mr. Speaker, I commit, should I form a government and become premier, to

fully implement Justice LeBlanc's report.

I ask the minister: Will she commit to do the same?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What the Minister of Natural Resources said yesterday was that we would

take a period of days and maybe a few weeks to do the due diligence on the

recommendations of this inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, let's not forget that it's the PC family that got this

province in the mess that it's in, as a result of this project because proper

due diligence wasn't done in the beginning. We've accepted the report. We

appreciate it and thank the commissioner and his staff for the work that was

done. We thank those that prepared it.

Mr. Speaker, ironically, today, the Leader of the Opposition is standing

here and accepting the recommendations and he did not even bother, during the

inquiry, to even write a letter or even ask to appear in front of the inquiry.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of

the Official Opposition.

MR. CROSBIE: Well, there are some

irrelevancies in that answer, Mr. Speaker, so they're going to take more time,

despite having the report for five days before everyone else.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier and the minister were also evasive yesterday on

whether anyone in Nalcor or in the public service would be held accountable for

their actions. Stan Marshall offered a full endorsement to the team at Nalcor

and indicated he would not be making any changes. A government I lead would hold

individuals to account.

Does the minister share this view?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker,

for this opportunity once again.

I will say to the Member opposite that he is now accepting the findings

of the report. Here we are nearly six, seven years into this project and we

haven't heard a peep out of the Leader of the Opposition.

Even to this day, he has not even said if this project was a mistake, Mr.

Speaker, yet people that were the authors and people who have actually developed

and were key pieces in this project continue to actually work with him. He's

accepting their donations. He's accepting their support in his leadership bid,

Mr. Speaker, yet his PC family, today he seems that he wants to distance himself

from the very people who he has asked for their support.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of

the Official Opposition.

MR. CROSBIE:

Well, Mr. Speaker, I am

certainly on the record as early 2012 as being in favour of a much fuller Public

Utilities Board process to evaluate the business case for Muskrat Falls.

In light of the shocking and potentially illegal activities at Nalcor,

will the senior staff named in the report be receiving their bonuses again this

year, and will the minister table the amounts?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Mr. Speaker, when you

look at Nalcor and the bonuses, I will tell you one thing right now, taking

those bonuses back is something that I think we should do. Mr. Speaker, now is

providing the mechanism to allow that to happen. Nobody should be being paid

performance bonuses on work to get us in a situation like this.

It's pretty easy for the Leader of the Opposition to stand up here after

the fact, after it was his party that established Nalcor, Mr. Speaker, and the

Energy Plan that we're currently dealing with right here.

Let's not forget, he can try all he might, but it's his family, the PC

family, people that he's asked to support him even to this day that got this

province in this situation. It is not people here. We have been fixing it. The

report says that clearly after 2015 there was better oversight that went in

place. We replaced the CEO, Mr. Speaker, and we are fixing the wrong of the PC

government that he is (inaudible) –

MR. SPEAKER:

The Member's time has

elapsed.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of

the Official Opposition.

MR. CROSBIE:

Well, Mr. Speaker, the

people of the province – and I've travelled all over the province in the last

several weeks – are much more interested in how the problems are going to be

fixed than they are in political sandbox game playing.

We understand the Premier will be travelling to a First Ministers'

meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau on Friday. Given the collapse of oil prices

and the resulting shock to our economy, coupled with fears about rising power

rates, will the Premier seek a firm commitment from the prime minister on an

equity investment in Muskrat Falls?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Mr. Speaker, I would say

that denial from the Leader of the Opposition should not be a solution to the

problem (inaudible). All we've heard is denial and trying to disconnect himself

from the poor decisions that got us into this mess.

Mr. Speaker, yes, I'm going to meet with the prime minister and other

premiers in Ottawa tomorrow and on Friday. We'll be having this discussion. I

wish we didn't have to have this discussion because the problem around Muskrat

Falls has nothing to do with COVID-19 or the declining oil prices; it has all to

do with the poor decision that was made by the PC family back in 2012.

He had an opportunity in 2012 to stand up for this province and the

Leader of the Opposition did not do it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of

the Official Opposition.

MR. CROSBIE:

More sandbox games, Mr.

Speaker. Again, the people are interested in action, not rhetoric.

I sent a letter to the prime minister seeking a firm commitment on real

rate mitigation through a direct equity investment.

If the federal government can spend billions on a pipeline in Alberta,

why is the Premier hesitating to join me in asking for the same consideration

for this province?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Mr. Speaker, there's one

parade I will not join and that's the PC parade that has been just mentioned

here a few minutes ago. This is the Leader of the Opposition that put out a rate

mitigation plan last year that didn't even add up. He missed it by $150 million.

The advice that we're taking, Mr. Speaker, we are working with a group of

officials that are doing a great job for the Province of Newfoundland and

Labrador, with some officials at the federal government. The rate mitigation

plan that we announced and that plan is now being executed and being

implemented, Mr. Speaker, will require support from the federal government in

probably a number of ways.

Right now, Mr. Speaker, we're still working through that. The Leader of

the Opposition seems to have all the solutions to today, but why don't he get

his plan to add up. Why not just start with that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Opposition

House Leader.

MR. BRAZIL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Only a few hours ago, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19

a pandemic.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister and his officials for providing a

briefing on COVID-19 preparations yesterday. In that briefing, we were advised

that three people were quarantined.

I ask the minister: Can he pr