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November 16, 2016

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY PROCEEDINGS

Vol. XLVIII No. 43

The

House met at 2 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER (Osborne):

Order, please!

Admit

strangers.

We would

like to welcome to the public gallery Mr. Harry Cooze. Mr. Cooze will be the

subject of a Member's statement today.

Statements by

Members

Today

for Members' statements we have the Members for the District of Lewisporte

Twillingate, Fogo Island Cape Freels, Conception Bay East Bell Island,

Placentia West Bellevue, Virginia Waters Pleasantville and Topsail

Paradise.

The hon.

Member for the District of Lewisporte Twillingate.

MR. D. BENNETT:

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this

hon. House today to recognize an outstanding citizen from the District of

Lewisporte Twillingate, Mr. Norman Austin.

Last

month, Mr. Austin was the recipient of the Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers,

presented to him by the Governor General of Canada, David Johnston. The

Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers recognizes the exceptional volunteer

achievements of Canadians from across the country. Mr. Austin is certainly

deserving of this honour.

For over

a decade, Mr. Austin has dedicated himself to the region as a snowshoeing and

athletic coach with the Special Olympics Newfoundland and Labrador and the

Gander Wings club. In this role he has helped local athletes train and build

confidence and reach their fullest potential.

Mr.

Austin has no plans to stop volunteering, and no doubt will continue to

contribute to the community of Lewisporte and to Special Olympics Newfoundland

and Labrador in a very meaningful way.

I ask

all hon. Members to join me and please congratulate Mr. Norman Austin on this

prestigious award and thank him for his many years of volunteer service.

Thank

you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. Member for Fogo

Island Cape Freels.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. BRAGG:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise in this hon. House to recognize and celebrate the efforts of two

communities in my district that have held their first-ever Remembrance Day

service. I had the privilege of attending the inaugural service in both Dover

and Lumsden. Through the efforts of their volunteers and generosity of the

donors, these communities built monuments that bear the names of those fallen in

past world conflicts.

The memorial in Dover is located right in the middle of town. It will

serve as a sombre focal point for residents of that community. The memorial in

Lumsden has been built in the old Lumsden North Cemetery, right next to the

grave of Pierce Parsons, a young man from the town who was one of the brave

individuals who gave their lives on July 1 at Beaumont-Hamel. I was very proud

to be able to take

part in these services, and each was supported by a very

large turnout.

I ask all Members of this hon. House to join me in celebrating the

efforts of these two communities.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Conception Bay East Bell Island.

MR. BRAZIL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr.

Speaker, I stand today to recognize a very active organization in my district. I

speak of the Portugal Cove-St. Philip's Lions Club who, for the past 40 years,

has supported the residents of Portugal Cove-St. Philip's through a multitude of

special projects and unique events. I had the privilege of speaking at the Lions

Club 40th anniversary banquet this past Saturday and saw first-hand the

impressive work they do to engage and improve the lives of residents.

They

partnered with a multitude of groups to offer seniors programs, to supply

equipment for disabled youth, special health equipment for citizens to improve

their quality of life and the list of supports they offer goes on and on.

I would

be remiss if I didn't note an international project the club was involved with

this past year. The club took on a special project and sent their president, Mr.

Bradley Moss , to Haiti in a

partnership with the project Broken Earth to help provide free eye screening to

over 650 patients and supplying eyeglasses from the Lions Club to 423 men, women

and children.

I ask

all Members to join me in congratulating and thanking president Moss and all

members of the Portugal Cove-St. Philip's Lions Club.

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Placentia West Bellevue.

MR. BROWNE:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to

recognize a man whose name has become synonymous with helping others, giving

back to the community and putting the needs of those around him ahead of his

own. His name is Harry Cooze and is in the gallery today.

As a

long-time member of the Marystown Lions Club, he has served the sick, fundraised

for the downtrodden and still serves as chair for the Lions Junior Speakout

Competition. For this and his many years of service he was awarded in 2014 the

Melvin Jones Fellowship Award, the highest honour for a Lion.

His

second passion has always been physical fitness. He ran his first road race in

1957 while attending university and has run more Tely 10 races than we can

count. He was a founding member of the Mariner's Athletic Club and I can safely

say he is responsible for many, many people taking a healthier lifestyle more

seriously including me.

In 2006,

he was recognized as the recipient of the Dr. John Williams Award from the Tely

10 road race.

I ask

all hon. Members to join with me in congratulating Harry on his successes and

for the many successes that he has encouraged others to attain.

Thank

you, Harry.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Virginia Waters Pleasantville.

MR. B. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I rise

in this hon. House today to wish one of my constituents a very happy 100th

birthday. Rita Symonds, who lives in Pleasantville, celebrated a century of life

on Remembrance Day, surrounded by her friends and family. I had the honour of

attending Ms. Symonds's birthday party and presented her with a certificate on

behalf of myself and the hon. Premier.

It was a

privilege to be able to meet someone who has lived through so many changes in

our world. There was a great turnout for Ms. Symonds's party. I would estimate

well over 50 people in attendance. This is a tremendous testament to how much

she has affected the lives of people in a positive way.

I would

also like to congratulate all of those who received the Duke of Edinburg

International Award at the bronze level last Tuesday, including six members of

my district. The Duke of Edinburg Award encourages youth to develop their

leadership skills with a mixture of service, skill development, physical

activity and adventurous journeys.

I ask

all hon. Members in this House to join me in congratulating the Duke of Edinburg

International Award recipients, all of them, for their hard work and wishing Ms.

Rita Symonds a happy birthday.

Thank

you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Topsail Paradise.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you.

Mr.

Speaker, I rise in this hon. House today to congratulate the Town of Paradise

and the St. John's Regional Fire Service on the opening of the brand new

Paradise Fire Station No. 8 which celebrated its grand opening just recently,

Friday, October 28.

To start

the ceremony, the St. John's Regional Fire Service Honour Guard completed a

parade of flags from the Paradise Town Hall to the brand new fire station.

Thomas Tippett, a grade six student from Paradise, was the Honour Guard

commander for a day, and was part of the flag march that led the opening

ceremonies. He was selected during a contest as part of town's 2016 Municipal

Awareness Days.

The St.

John's Regional Fire Service is responsible for providing the region with an

acceptable level of fire and emergency protection in the most economical manner,

with a backup of emergency services being provided to a number of surrounding

towns in the Northeast Avalon region. Fire Station No. 8 is equipped with Engine

8 and Tanker 8, a staff complement of 17 firefighters. I can tell you, Mr.

Speaker, it is a state-of-the-art facility.

I ask

all Members to join me in congratulating the Town of Paradise and St. John's

Regional Fire Service for their enhanced service to the region.

Thank

you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

Statements by Ministers.

Statements by

Ministers

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Minister of

Service NL.

MR. JOYCE:

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this

hon. House today to recognize the National Day of Remembrance for Road Crash

Victims. This year's theme is Moments Matter and moments do matter, Mr.

Speaker, because it only takes a moment to lose everything that's important in

someone's life.

Mr.

Speaker, more than 1,800 people are killed in road crashes every year in Canada

and another 150,000 are injured; road safety is a shared responsibility and each

of us can take action to make our roads safer.

This

afternoon I attended an event at the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary

Headquarters where I met with many people who are dedicated to raising awareness

of the importance of road safety in our province. Service NL's Motor

Registration Division, the RNC and the RCMP are doing valuable work in this

regard.

Service

NL highway enforcement officers promote safety on public highways by monitoring

vehicle traffic to ensure the Highway

Traffic Act is respected.

Also,

Mr. Speaker, our government is committee to brush clearing and public education.

To date, a total of 14 tenders valued at $1.95 million have been identified for

brush cutting across the province. We are fortunate to be able to work with

groups including Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Stand for Hannah, the Save our

People Action Committee and Safety Services Newfoundland and Labrador, who help

spread the message about road safety. These groups participated in today's

event.

Mr.

Speaker, I call on all my colleagues here in this hon. House to join me in

thanking everyone who supports and promotes road safety in Newfoundland and

Labrador.

Thank

you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for Cape

St. Francis.

MR. K. PARSONS:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. K. PARSONS:

I'd like to thank the

minister for the advance copy of his statement. We, as Opposition, also join

with government in recognizing the National Day of Remembrance for Road Crash

Victims.

Today

our thoughts are with those families and individuals who have been devastated by

road crashes. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank those who keep

our roads safer including the RNC, the RCMP and the staff at Service NL; also,

the many non-profit organizations that do such a diligent job to care for the

cause of road safety.

I would

also like to take a moment to encourage everyone in the province to be mindful

of things we can do, the small little things that we can do to make sure our

roads are safer, reduce speed, watch for weather conditions, non-distractive

driving. There are so many different things we can do to make our roads safer.

When you

look at 1,800 fatalities in Canada over a year, it's way too many. So anything

we can do to reduce road hazards and different tragedies on roads, we want to

encourage it also.

Thank

you.

MR. SPEAKER:

Order, please!

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for St.

John's East Quidi Vidi.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

I, too,

thank the minister for the advance copy of his statement. Because so many

crashes have to do with moose on the highways, it is good to see the

continuation of brush clearing and public education to address the many serious

moose-vehicle collisions that continue to occur in the province.

I would

encourage the minister to review the positive evaluation of fencing found in his

government's own report of 2014, not just brush clearing.

Thank

you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER:

Further statements by

ministers?

The hon.

the Minister of Fisheries, Forestry and Agrifoods.

MR. CROCKER:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr.

Speaker, I rise to highlight the provincial government's participation in the

2016 China Fisheries and Seafood Expo, which took place in Qingdao, China, from

November 2 to 4.

This

important seafood expo allows us to promote our quality seafood products to

interested Chinese companies and help our producers build relationships in this

important market. China is our second-largest export destination for seafood

products. More than $200 million or 20 per cent of our seafood exports went

to China last year. Our key seafood exports to China include shrimp, snow crab,

capelin, seal and turbot. As we transition to groundfish, China will continue to

be an important market for us.

Mr.

Speaker, I was also pleased to join federal and provincial counterparts in

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Ministerial Trade Mission events in Qingdao and

Beijing. These meetings and events give us the opportunity to discuss market

access and trade development issues for Canada's seafood and agricultural

products with federal/provincial colleagues and government officials in China.

Mr.

Speaker, in 2015 our seafood industry was valued at over $1.2 billion.

Participating in such events as the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo has the

potential to open up additional business and opportunities for producers and we

are proud to continue valuable support for the seafood industry.

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

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 thank

the minister for an advance copy of his statement. As I've said numerous times

in this House, markets of our seafood are very important for our fishery and our

future in this province. I've heard from fishermen on a daily basis of having

trouble selling their catch. Right now, we're looking at the groundfish

returning and it's so important that our government be focused on the new

markets that we need.

We talk

about diversifying our economy. Well, our groundfish and our cod fishery coming

back is one way in which we can save a lot of parts of rural Newfoundland and

Labrador. It's so important that this government do due diligence to make sure

that we have the markets in place.

Government promised a little while ago, and in their budget plan, that they were

going to have a seafood marketing council put in place. I've heard nothing to

date about that. I think it's going to be too late if government doesn't do

action right away on marketing in our province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. Member for St.

John's East Quidi Vidi.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

I, too,

thank the minister for the advance copy of his statement. This is good news and

I hope we open up new markets and new business possibilities.

The

minister notes China is the second-largest export destination for our seafood

products to the tune of $200 million, but Newfoundland and Labrador is facing a

serious job crisis. The fishery is one of our main employers, so I hope the

minister is focused on creating more harvesting and value-added processing

sector jobs for the people of this province.

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

Further statements by

ministers?

Oral

Questions.

Oral Questions

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My first

question today is for the Premier.

I ask

the Premier: Why did the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have to hear from

the Quebec minister of Natural Resources that you are having discussions with

the premier of Quebec on Labrador hydro assets?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What has

been known for quite some time now, if you look at what has been going on in our

province right now in the mandate letter that was given to the minister back in

December of 2015, just after the election, part of the development around Gull

Island is that the minister would seek out opportunities.

To the

former premier, I would say, Mr. Speaker, there has been no discussion with

Quebec about the opening of the Upper Churchill contract or the Muskrat Falls

Project or Gull Island. This came out in media reports out of Quebec yesterday.

I reached out to the premier's office in Quebec last night, and he is out of the

country, to get clarification on where this is coming from.

I have

talked to the premier about the agreement on internal trade, which has nothing

to do with those contracts. There are no negotiations ongoing with Premier

Couillard in Quebec right now on the sale of assets of hydro or the Churchill

Falls contract.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The

Premier probably should have called the Quebec minister of Natural Resources

because he's the one who's publicly said that discussions have been ongoing for

some time, Mr. Speaker. We're heard from the Quebec minister of Natural

Resources.

Premier,

when are we going to hear from your own Minister of Natural Resources about the

Liberal's secret talks that are happening with Hydro-Qubec?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well,

the former premier mentioned in the media that came out yesterday that the

minister of Natural Resources in Quebec mentioned about two premiers talking.

Those discussions are not ongoing, so we reached out to the appropriate people,

I would say, Mr. Speaker.

What was

real interesting last night in that conversation, talking about secret

conversations, the conversation that occurred before the former premier in 2015

is what came up during our conversation, I say, Mr. Speaker.

It was

the former premier back in July of 2015, so we were told, that he had meetings.

We have not had any.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I

did have discussions with the premier of Quebec and the premier of Quebec said

to me: You end the legal action against Quebec and we'll have discussions.

So I ask

the Premier: Will you abandon the legal action against Quebec to have

discussions with the premier of Quebec?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So it's

obvious now that the former premier has had secret meetings with the Quebec

administration about the sale of assets. Maybe he will explain what happened in

those secret meetings.

The last

conversation I've had with Premier Couillard in Quebec was to notify him of

this, is that we would be filing a notice of appeal in the last ruling against

court action. The last conversation I had was to let him know that we would be

filing a notice of appeal.

So we're

not about relieving these court actions. We put the notice of appeal in. I've

notified the premier of that, and no discussion since.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So the

Premier is quite clear and I'll make it quite clear for the Premier; there was

no secret meeting with the premier of Quebec. He asked me to abandon the legal

action and I refused, Premier. I would not it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

I wouldn't do it to

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Mr.

Speaker, the Minister of Natural Resources said in September that there were no

discussions happening with Quebec, so I ask the Minister of Natural Resources:

Do you stand by that statement?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Minister of

Natural Resources.

MS. COADY:

Yes.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

August 1, we asked the Minister of Natural Resources if the government is

exploring options to selling assets or excess energy through Hydro-Qubec, and

if any negotiations have commenced with Hydro-Qubec and the minister

responded just this Monday, three-and-a-half months later; 12 minutes before the

House opened, the minister finally responded and she said neither the Government

of Newfoundland and Labrador nor Nalcor are involved in discussions.

So I ask

the Premier: Do you stand by that statement as well?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There

were no discussions occurring with the Province of Quebec or Hydro-Qubec that

we were involved in, none whatsoever. However, I will say this: When you have an

opportunity to pursue something that will benefit Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians, our job is explore the opportunities, whether they are with some

other province

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Whether

they be with some other province, be it Quebec, Nova Scotia, or someone else,

the responsible thing to do is to explore the options that we would have

available to us; not to be slamming doors against other provinces that are

prepared to work with our province to improve the economic health in our

province for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

I am

prepared to have discussions as long as it is a right deal and Newfoundlanders

and Labradorians benefit from that. I would say, Mr. Speaker, the threshold of

good deals is very low based on the work of the previous administration.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

And here

we go with mixed messages from Members opposite again. Here we go.

The CEO

of Nalcor has said he's having discussions with Quebec. He said he is. He

represents the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Minister of Natural

Resources says they're not having discussions with Quebec, Mr. Speaker. The

Premier says they're not having discussions with Quebec And now the minister of

Natural Resources in Quebec stood before the media saying that discussions have

been ongoing for some time.

How do

you square that, Premier?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

How I

square that is simply, it wasn't Premier Ball that was mentioned in that media

outlet last night. It was former premiers. It was premiers. When officials from

the Government of Quebec made reference to me, they said they've had discussions

with the former premier. That is how this evolved.

I have

not had any discussions with Premier Couillard, the minister of Natural

Resources, accept to notify them that the notice of appeal would be going in;

however, if there's a deal to be had that will benefit Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians, I am prepared to have those discussions. Not on any conditions

around court challenges and so on. If there's a deal to be had that will benefit

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, the responsible thing to do is not get past

we learned from our history, but not to let our past inhibit and restrict where

we could be in the future, working with, not only the Province of Quebec, but

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well,

media reports from Quebec indicate otherwise, because media reports from Quebec

specifically say that the Premier of Newfoundland names him, I won't name him,

Mr. Speaker, but names the Premier of Newfoundland has had discussions with

the premier of Quebec, Premier Couillard, for several months.

So is

the Premier saying that information that the minister is saying is wrong?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm

enjoying Question Period today, I would have to say.

First of

all, the first call ever made with Premier Couillard was to congratulate us on

taking government in our province. The second time was in Vancouver, when I met

him there. We talked about climate change. We talked about the economy at the

Council of the Federation. We met again in the Yukon, in Whitehorse, that was

about the Agreement on Internal Trade and how we would have free flow of

electricity through Quebec. There was one other call that was made after that

about the Agreement on Internal Trade. The last call I had with Premier

Couillard was to let him know we would be filing the notice of appeal. That is

the extent of the conversations I've had with Premier Couillard of Quebec this

year.

Not

related to anything, the fear mongering, the thing the former premier is talking

about today, that has not been the topic of our conversation; however, if

there's a deal to be had for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that could benefit

our future, I'm willing to have that discussion.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I asked

the Premier a few moments ago, the CEO of Nalcor is on the record as saying he's

having discussions with Quebec. Are those discussions being done with your

blessing or without your knowledge?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The

discussions that the CEO of Nalcor would have with Quebec are related to a

one-third ownership in CF(L)Co with the operation of Churchill Falls. There's no

discussion between the CEO of Nalcor and Hydro-Qubec or officials in Quebec

right now related to the Upper Churchill contract, Gull Island and so on. This

has been clarified this morning, I understand, in the media.

Mr.

Speaker, right now, the former premier is making suggestions and allegations

that things are going on that are simply not going on. I would argue to say that

the only discussions that have been had are the ones that occurred when he was

the former premier back in 2015.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So, Premier: Are you saying

the discussions that the CEO of Nalcor had with Hydro-Qubec at Muskrat Falls

were actually about the Upper Churchill? Is that what you're trying to say, it

had nothing to do with Muskrat Falls?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

They

were in town, as far as I understand, to deal with the CF(L)Co, and the first

time that they were there. I would also ask the former premier, what is wrong

with putting in place relationships where you can work with other provinces,

where you can I know they're not used to working with federal governments, or

not used to working with other provinces for that matter. What is wrong with

exploring options that we have available to us?

The CEO

of Nalcor right now as a matter of fact, it was a former CEO of Nalcor that I

would say said this, that if we were to explore and develop Gull Island the best

possible route would be through Quebec. These were his words under that

administration, I would say, Mr. Speaker.

So on

behalf of the people of our province, the responsible thing to do, if there's a

deal to be had, we will explore the options, but I will guarantee you one thing.

We will not sell out the future of our province. We will not impact rate payers,

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Premier,

I'll tell you what's wrong with having discussions with Quebec. I'll tell you

what's wrong with that. For 40 years Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have been

at the short end of the stick at the hands of Quebec.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

Premier, that's what the

problem is. For 40 years while Quebec received $20 billion, Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians received $1 billion. That's what's wrong with Quebec.

I'll

tell you what else is wrong, Premier. After effort after effort by previous

governments from all stripes to try and resolve the differences between Quebec,

they held us at our knees, Mr. Speaker, that's what happened. They held us to

our knees. They held us at ransom, because we never had any control. That's

what's wrong with talking to Quebec. And now they want us to give up legal

action so they can entertain discussions.

So I'll

ask you again, Premier: Will you commit here today to the people of Newfoundland

and Labrador not to abandon those legal actions just so you can have discussions

with Quebec?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Interestingly enough, we just heard a mouthful of rhetoric from the former

premier of our province. What he didn't say, Mr. Speaker, was this. The former

CEO of Nalcor, under his administration, they were having discussions with

Hydro-Qubec; they were having that. What he didn't say is that in July of 2015

he had had discussions with Hydro-Qubec. Interestingly enough, he doesn't want

to talk about those details.

The last

conversation I had with Premier Couillard was to let him know that notice of

appeal, appealing the court decision, that we were putting that in place. We're

obviously not abandoning that appeal, Mr. Speaker, or would not have made that

call. That's what I did.

Right

now if the conditions are right for a discussion that will benefit

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, I would say what would be wrong with actually

putting in place a program that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians finally would

get some benefit. It didn't happen under their administration I would say, Mr.

Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I've

provided the Premier with the details of the discussion I had with the premier

of Quebec. Just in case he didn't hear it, I'll provide it again. The premier of

Quebec wanted us to drop legal action so we could have a discussion. The only

way to have a discussion he said, drop the legal action, and I refused Premier.

That's what I did, I refused.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

That's the details of the

discussion we had.

Now I

just asked the Premier, Mr. Speaker, and I'll ask him again: Will you commit to

not ending the legal action against Quebec in order to have discussions with the

Province of Quebec?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well,

first and foremost, I haven't committed to even having a discussion when it

comes to any of the details. I don't know what the details or conditions would

be. But is he suggesting, is the former premier suggesting that we should not

talk to, not put options in place for the future of our province? Is that really

what he's talking about?

There

have been no conditions put on me. They haven't asked me, Mr. Speaker, what the

conditions would be. We're not even there yet.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Mr. Speaker, we should be

very concerned right now. We should be very concerned.

AN HON. MEMBER:

(Inaudible.)

MR. P. DAVIS:

The Member opposite doesn't

want to listen, but that's fine.

should be very concerned and the province should be very concerned, because

twice now I've asked the Premier a very straightforward question. Will he commit

not to end the legal action against Quebec, not to end the legal action that are

before the courts before having discussions with Quebec, and the Premier won't

answer it.

Now,

that's telling me that he's not committed to that. So I'll give him another

chance: Will the Premier commit to not ending that legal action? Will he commit

to not ending that legal action before having discussions with Quebec?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

Order, please!

Before I

recognize the Premier, I would remind all hon. Members I know this topic is

very important to the people of the province, but the only individual that I

wish to hear is the individual that has been recognized to speak.

The hon.

the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well,

it's obvious the former premier they were much further along in discussions

than we are as a government to actually lay that condition on the table. We're

nowhere close to that. We are nowhere near that, Mr. Speaker.

notified the premier about putting in a notice of appeal. I told him the notice

of appeal was going in. He didn't ask to take it off the table. Obviously, with

the notice of appeal that was going there, he saw that really as something that

would be more court work that would be required on his behalf, I would say, Mr.

Speaker.

Interesting enough, we are not that far along. I found out about this yesterday

in media reports, Mr. Speaker. The last conversation I had with the premier of

Quebec was to let him know that the notice of appeal was in. There are no

conditions on any of this. There have been no conditions on any discussion

papers because we do not have one.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

sounds like there's a real difference now coming from the CEO of Nalcor, the

minister of Natural Resources for Quebec and the Premier of our province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

And we're left with now

having to try and decipher where the most accurate information is coming from.

To be honest with you, Mr. Speaker, we're not sure at this point in time. We're

really not sure at this point in time.

August

31 was a significant day in the history of the Upper Churchill when the 25-year

renewal kicked in.

I ask

the Premier: Did you have any discussions with the premier of Quebec prior to

that date?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The only

discussion I had prior to that was about the Agreement on Internal Trade. The

next discussion that I had was about the notice of appeal.

Interesting enough, though, I want to go back to the previous question that the

former premier asked when he said: Before you start negotiations with the

Province of Quebec, would you remove that condition? Why would I do that, take

an option off the table, Mr. Speaker?

We would

negotiate much better than that. We're not taking any options off the table that

we have on the future of our province. If there's a deal to be had I couldn't

even go there if there's even a deal to be had. But if there is a deal to be

had, it will be the right one. And I will guarantee you this, Mr. Speaker, it

will be much better than the deal that we have in place related to the Muskrat

Falls Project.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

If the

Premier is having discussions with the premier of Quebec about internal trade or

having discussions about matters of mutual interest such as their very

important, very valuable Labrador hydro assets, I ask the Premier: Why wouldn't

you raise the August 31 renewal? Why wouldn't you raise that with the premier of

Quebec if you're having those discussions?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just

told the former premier that we were not having those discussions. We are not

having them even today. Put in the notice of appeal, Mr. Speaker; it was the

right thing to do to let them know that we were putting in that notice of

appeal.

I will

tell you this, Mr. Speaker, any deal that is struck in Newfoundland and Labrador

related to any hydro project or any project that will require a partnership

the right one. Not just for the people of Newfoundland as the Island portion,

but it will also be for the Aboriginal indigenous people in Labrador. Something

they had glaringly left out in the last deal, I say.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I ask

the Premier: What discussions have you had with your federal cousins regarding

Labrador hydro assets?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm glad

to answer that question because we've had a number of discussions with our

federal colleagues. That's obviously a foreign discussion to the former

administration and the former premier. They were not used to having those types

of discussions.

But just

recently I guess it was in the news; I'm assuming that he noticed this there

was a $2.9 billion enhancement to the federal loan Guarantee and other relief on

the loan guarantee that was put in place. These were the only discussions that

we were having with the federal government related to hydro projects in

Labrador.

And I

would suggest, Mr. Speaker, these have been very successful negotiations and

discussions that we've had with our federal colleagues. And if in fact there's a

deal to be made where the federal government can come in and support

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in other projects, then that's a discussion

that we're willing to have too, I say, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I asked

the Premier a little earlier and I never got a clear answer, so I'm going to ask

this again: Is the new head of Nalcor operating with the full knowledge and

blessing of the Premier as he talks to Hydro-Qubec about Muskrat Falls, the

Upper Churchill, and maybe they're talking about Gull Island as well is that

with the full blessing of you, Premier?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We work

very closely with the CEO of Nalcor and with the team at Nalcor for that matter,

Mr. Speaker. We talk on a regular basis. Right now, I'm guessing and I'm sure

that with any discussions that would be had related to the future of

Newfoundland and Labrador, that we would work closely on those.

If we

ever get to the point, which we're not we're not at that point, Mr. Speaker

where we're having those discussions about the contract renewal of the Upper

Churchill or Muskrat Falls or Gull Island Projects and so on, Mr. Speaker, yes,

we would expect the CEO, we would expect Nalcor and this government and, as a

matter of fact, with many people in Newfoundland and Labrador to be engaged with

those discussions.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

So Mr. Speaker, we know that

Mr. Marshall, Stan Marshall, is running Nalcor. We know that the Premier has

regular briefings from Judy Foote who really appears in many ways, by many

people's eyes, to be actually running the province.

So I ask

the Premier: Who is making the decisions about these talks with Quebec? Who is

making the decisions about the talks with Hydro-Qubec and with the Quebec

government? Is it you making the decisions, the minister, or is it somebody

else?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, I

notice the former premier just did a fair amount of back tracking because when

he closed off his question he really wanted to say: or is somebody else. What he

was referring to, somebody else, would have been a regional minister, Minister

Judy Foote, who I would say and is doing a very good job (inaudible).

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

PREMIER BALL:

And I do sense in the tone of

his voice when he mentions Minister Foote there's a little bit of jealousy or

almost animosity. Is he suggesting that Minister Foote and I, as Premier of this

province, should not be working closely together? Is that what the former

premier is saying, that I should not be working with Minister Foote to get the

Marine Rescue Sub-Centre opened up, to get $100 million for the core science

building and the other federal programs that we brought, the loan guarantee, as

an example?

Are you

suggesting that Minister Foote and I should not be working together to benefit

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians? Is that your suggestion?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I can

assure the Premier and Members opposite, there's no jealousy when it comes to

having good relations with either the federal government or with other

provincial governments.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

It's a good thing for

Newfoundland and Labrador to have good relations and I fully support having

those good relations.

If you

have relations with the Province of Quebec, which it appears the government

opposite is, in some kind of way, and working towards a deal and he says he

wants to have a deal. I ask the Premier: Will you commit, right here in the

House of Assembly today that if you are to reach any kind of an agreement with

Quebec, with you or your government or Nalcor, if you reach that with Quebec or

Hydro-Qubec, will you first disclose the full deal to the people of the

province and bring that to our Legislature here in the House of Assembly for a

debate and ratification before it becomes binding with the Province of Quebec?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First of

all, I just want to remind the former premier that on a Friday evening when he

came out of Prime Minister Harper's office, some of the words he sent home as

his message and his trip to Ottawa was: B'y, you can't trust that guy. It took

him a long time you can't trust Prime Minister Harper was his comments, Mr.

Speaker.

Mr.

Speaker, we are a long ways from having any deal, any project, with Quebec or

with Nova Scotia or anywhere, but I can guarantee you what we will put in place

is a very open and transparent negotiation if we ever get there, and I premise

that by saying, we are not having discussions on the Upper Churchill contract or

Gull Island or Muskrat Falls for that matter or any other projects.

Mr.

Speaker, I hope for the benefit of our province and for the future of our

province that we can get in place productive deals that would benefit

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, but we're not there yet.

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Leader of the

Opposition.

MR. P. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I did go

to Ottawa and I met with the prime minister. What I did when I left his office

in his office and when I left the office I stood for Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians. That's what I did, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

I put Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians ahead of anybody else, especially the wishes of the prime minister

of the day. I have no regret for doing that, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. P. DAVIS:

The Premier has not answered

my question. My question is very simple: If he reaches a deal with Quebec, if

Nalcor or the government reaches a deal with

Quebec or with Hydro-Qubec, will he disclose that deal to the people of

the province and bring that here to the Legislature for a full debate before it

becomes binding?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, I

can guarantee you now to the former premier I would say this, that I stand for

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians too. I stand for

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

PREMIER BALL:

I will guarantee you this,

that I will always stand for what's in the best interest of Newfoundlanders and

Labradorians of all particular groups. Standing outside of some doorway in

Ottawa and saying you can't trust the Prime Minister Mr. Speaker, these are

words that we all remember. Mr. Speaker, they had no results, though. Let's not

forget, no results by those kinds of activities.

Mr.

Speaker, we will be open and transparent, if we ever get to the point where

there is something to discuss with our province. Mr. Speaker, we're not here

today to outline what that process would look like but if we ever get there, I

will guarantee you it will be very open and transparent.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for St.

John's East Quidi Vidi.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

Well,

the CEO of Nalcor said he wants to normalize relationships with Hydro-Qubec

over the Upper Churchill contract and the Quebec premier has since signalled a

conciliatory approach to relationships with our province in connection with

Churchill Falls power.

I ask

the Premier, Mr. Speaker: Who's driving the discussions that Quebec has

reported, the government or Nalcor? That is if he knows who's really in control.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I

mentioned so many times during Question Period, there are no discussions being

had. I ask the Leader of the Third Party, what's wrong with normalizing

discussions or relationships with anyone? Is there something wrong with having a

normal relationship with any particular province, I say to the Leader of the

Third Party? Does she think everything must be abnormal to be successful? Is

that your definition of successful, be abnormal?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for St.

John's East Quidi Vidi.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

I want

good relationships with Quebec. I want things for this province, but I'm asking

the Premier: Will he tell the people of the province what exactly it is that

they want in speaking to Quebec?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When we

have discussions with Quebec or with Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or Ontario or

if it's PEI, we enter into discussions in a very professional, very respectful

way, Mr. Speaker. That is the way we work.

As I

said, Mr. Speaker, we are not having discussions with Quebec. I've said this

over and over. The CEO of Nalcor or this government right now, at some point

if we ever get to the point where there are discussions that are ongoing with

any province, if it's Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, Quebec or with the

federal government, Mr. Speaker, we hope that we can bring back benefits to

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. We're not there yet, but there's nothing wrong

with pursuing opportunities for our province. Unless the Leader of the Third

Party thinks if she's willing to stand here today and say that these should

not happen, that we should not normalize relationships with any provinces. Is,

indeed, that where you are?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. Member for St.

John's East Quidi Vidi.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

Whether

the discussions are formal or informal, I'm asking the Premier to tell the

people of this province: What's the connection with what's happening right now

with Quebec and Muskrat Falls?

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Premier.

PREMIER BALL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

None at

all; there are no discussions with Quebec, either the province or Hydro-Qubec,

related to Muskrat Falls. The last discussion that we had with Premier

Couillard, as I just mentioned, was about notice of appeal. I've said that quite

a few times. That is the last call that I've had with Premier Couillard. The

next opportunity that we will be getting together will be at the Council of the

Federation which will be occurring sometime early December of this year.

There's

no agenda set. There's no meeting set. When he gets back from where he is he's

travelling right now, but when he gets back I would imagine we'll reach out

again. There's no urgency here by us. There's no template, there's no schedule,

there's no agenda; nothing wrong with having relationships with any province.

There's no discussion on any deal.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. Member for St.

John's Centre.

MS. ROGERS:

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the

Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Labour mused about indexing the

province's minimum wage, currently the lowest in Canada. The starting point for

indexing is critical. Since 2010, the cost of living, especially for food,

housing and other essentials, has gone up significantly.

Mr.

Speaker, I ask the minister: Will he commit to recovering this lost ground for

low-income workers as a starting point for indexing?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. Minister of Advanced

Education, Skills and Labour.

MR. BYRNE:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

This

government is the first government to have reached out, to have received a

mandate from the people not only to continue minimum wage as a universal labour

standard, but as well this government received, for the first time was the

first government to actually ask for and receive a mandate to index minimum

wage. That implies an increase.

Mr.

Speaker, I've been able to reach out already to labour groups, to social

advocacy groups and to others to have a very broad, general discussion about

certain parameters about this, get their input. That's part of this discussion

of what the hon. Member has referred to on the floor of the House.

We'll be

making announcements based on those discussions, the discussions that we've had

internally, but most importantly, on the basis of a mandate we've already

received from the province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. Member for St.

John's Centre for a very quick question.

MS. ROGERS:

Mr. Speaker, I ask the

minister: Will he hold a true review of minimum wage with real public

consultations and a public report, and when?

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. Minister of Advanced

Education, Skills and Labour for a quick response.

MR. BYRNE:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

We have

already received a strong mandate not only to maintain the minimum wage as a

universal labour standard but as well to index. That was a mandate that was

received by the people. It was the first time any government in Newfoundland and

Labrador has sought and received that mandate. We shall fulfill that mandate.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The time for Question Period

has expired.

Presenting Reports by Standing and Select Committees.

Tabling

of Documents.

Notices

of Motion.

Notices of Motion

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Government House

Leader.

MR. A. PARSONS:

Mr. Speaker, I give notice

and ask leave of the House to confirm the Member for Bonavista as a Member of

the Public Accounts Committee. This motion is seconded by the Minister of

Children, Seniors and Social Development.

MR. SPEAKER:

Order, please!

Does the

hon. Government House Leader have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER:

Leave.

MR. SPEAKER:

Okay. The motion is that the

Member for Bonavista be confirmed as a Member for the Public Accounts Committee.

All

those in favour, 'aye.'

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Aye.

MR. SPEAKER:

All those against, 'nay.'

Carried.

Further

notices of motion?

Petitions.

Petitions

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for St.

John's East Quidi Vidi.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

To the

hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for St.

John's East Quidi Vidi.

MS. MICHAEL:

Thank you very much, Mr.

Speaker.

What I'm

bringing forward is the requests of people of this province and I think we do

need respect for their words.

To the

hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in

Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS

Newfoundland and Labrador has the greatest percentage of the workforce earning

the provincial minimum wage in Canada with women, youth and those from rural

areas making up a disproportionate number of these workers; and

WHEREAS

the minimum wage does not provide enough money for the necessities of life

because a person earning minimum wage working 40 hours a week made between

$21,320 and $21,840 in 2015 which is barely above the low-income cut off of

$20,065 for St. John's and a working couple on minimum wage with two children

will also make close to low income; and

WHEREAS

nine provinces and territories will have a higher minimum wage than Newfoundland

and Labrador by May 2016;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House

of Assembly to urge government to legislate an immediate increase in the minimum

wage to restore the loss of purchasing power since 2010 and an annual adjustment

to the minimum wage beginning in 2016 to reflect the consumer price index.

And as

in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr.

Speaker, I bring forth this petition which people continue to send in to us here

in our offices. This one comes from people in St. John's and

I'd like to point out from an

area of the city where I think there a lot of people who are working for low

wages and minimum wage. People who are affected themselves.

Since

they sent this petition in to us, we now know that we are totally behind

everybody else in the country when it comes to what our minimum wage is since

October this petition was signed prior to May of 2016. We now know that we are

behind everybody else in this country and this is not acceptable. There was a

point at which we were up there at the top.

As I was

saying yesterday when I presented the petition from another group of people, Mr.

Speaker, there are those who oppose minimum wage saying that it's bad for the

economy. As I was pointing out yesterday, we have now on record many economists,

both in the US and in Canada hundreds of them, literally hundreds of

economists from all stripes. They aren't from political parties. They're from

all various stripes of economists when it comes to doing their analysis, so many

of them are saying that a higher minimum wage is good for the economy.

The one

I would like to quote, Mr. Speaker, is Joseph Stiglitz, who himself is a Nobel

Prize winner of economics who says, the weight of evidence now showing that

increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the

employment of minimum-wage workers .

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Conception Bay East Bell Island.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. BRAZIL:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To the

hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in

Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents of Newfoundland

and Labrador humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS

school-age children are walking to school in areas with no sidewalks, no traffic

lights, and through areas without crosswalks; and

WHEREAS

this puts the safety of these children at risk;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House

of Assembly to urge government to ensure the safety of all children by removing

the 1.6-kilometre busing policy where safety is a concern.

And as

in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr.

Speaker, as we all know, we do great amounts of work to ensure schools are safe.

We have to do equal amounts of work to ensure kids get to school safely. As we

know, particularly in some of the suburban and fast-growing communities here,

that were normally rural-oriented for the last 20 or 30 years, but in the last

decade have seen some substantial growth, yet still have areas where there's

very little shoulder, if any, there's a ditching area where the sightlines are

of question. These children, these students, need to be able to get to school in

a safe manner.

We have

a lot of infill over the last number of years with houses being built in

particular areas that obviously add to the demographics, the number of students

who are now walking, because they don't fit within that 1.6-kilometre busing

route.

realize, as the former minister of Transportation and Works, it would be tens of

millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars to be able to go fill in these

ditches, put culverts in, put sidewalks to ensure that our children are walking

in a safe manner and that the sightlines in those are improved. I understand

that's a work in progress.

It was

started through our administration. There's no doubt this administration will

continue to do what it can. But the immediate safety factor here and we hear

it from school councils, we hear it from parents, from kids themselves. We hear

about multitudes of close near misses, where children were at a safety factor

because a truck and a bus came where kids were on the shoulder and there was no

space for them.

In the

wintertime, with the ability of moving snow and having no areas to put it, kids

are walking in the middle of the roads. So what we're asking here is that there

has to be an investment in ensuring safety around the children that we put so

much of an investment in to ensure that their education is not second rate and

we've moved that to that level. Let's ensure their safety, in getting to that

institution, is not second rate.

So we're

asking through this petition and there's no doubt we'll continue this. I know

my colleagues will from both parties on this side of the House. I suspect it's

no doubt an issue with the Members on the government side also about safety,

about the 1.6 kilometres. It's not only in the urban and suburban areas; it's

also in the rural areas.

Kids

have to walk a certain distance, particularly in adverse weather conditions,

particularly around our drain areas and some of the other storm areas we run

into with shoulders and these types of things. So it's very easily alleviated by

changing the 1.6-kilometre bus policy and ensuring that we invest properly so

that we have a safe mechanism for children to be able to get to our school

system.

Thank

you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. Member for St.

John's Centre.

MS. ROGERS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To the

hon. House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador in

Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned residents humbly sheweth:

WHEREAS

government has once again cut the libraries budget threatening the closure of 54

libraries; and

WHEREAS

libraries are often the backbone of their communities, especially for those with

little access to government services, where they offer learning opportunities

and computer access; and

WHEREAS

libraries and librarians are critical in efforts to improve the province's

literacy levels which are among the lowest in Canada; and

WHEREAS

already strapped municipalities are not in a position to take over the operation

and cost of libraries;

WHEREUPON the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call upon the House

of Assembly to urge government to keep those libraries open and work on a

long-term plan to strengthen the library system.

And as

in duty bound, your petitioners will ever pray.

Mr.

Speaker, we have incredibly well-educated, well-informed, committed, passionate

and compassionate librarians right across our province. They know the needs of

the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. They have served their libraries well.

They know whether their libraries are working or not and they are in the employ

already of the government, of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, of the

department.

Yet,

this Department of Education has commissioned an accounting firm to check out

whether or not we need our libraries. And we know that the budget for that, the

bill for doing that is going to be over $200,000. But the people of the

communities intimately know whether or not their libraries are working. They

intimately what are the needs of their communities. They intimately know is the

literacy levels in their communities. They intimately know how their libraries

can best respond to the needs of their communities.

Yet,

what has this government done? Instead of engaging the expertise of the people

already hired and already serving the communities, they get an accounting firm

to figure out whether or not we need our libraries and how they should be

responding to the needs of our people.

Mr.

Speaker, that makes no sense at all. I'd like to say it's an absolute waste of

taxpayers' dollars. In fact, what should have been happening is that the people

again who are the experts on the ground, they were the ones who should be able

to assess what it is their libraries need to do in their communities, what are

the needs of their particular communities.

Does

this government not have any confidence in those who have the expertise, in

those who are on the ground, in those who are already well serving the people of

our communities? Does this government not trust them, not have any confidence in

what they're doing? Instead, they hire an accounting firm.

Mr.

Speaker, I don't know what else there is to be said about that.

Thank

you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

Orders of the Day

Private Members'

Day

MR. SPEAKER:

It being Private Members'

Day, I call on the Member for Virginia Waters Pleasantville to present your

private Member' motion.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. B. DAVIS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm very

pleased to rise in this hon. House to bring forward the private Member's

resolution here today.

WHEREAS

the upgrading and development of road infrastructure is of paramount importance

to the economic future of Newfoundland and Labrador; and

WHEREAS

the traditional approach to road construction has led to momentous traffic

backups, delays and frustration for citizens, tourists and businesses alike; and

WHEREAS

it can be shown that nighttime paving will significantly reduce the negative

impacts of road construction through traffic slowdowns and travel delays:

THEREFORE

BE IT RESOLVED that this hon. House supports the Government of

Newfoundland and Labrador initiative to implement a pilot project early in 2017

which uses nighttime paving as its primary method for completing the work.

This is

moved by the Member for Virginia Waters Pleasantville and seconded by the

Member for Harbour Grace Port de Grave.

The

Way Forward document, Mr. Speaker,

there were specific items addressing the possibility of introducing nighttime

paving programs in this province. The action plan outlines in broad themes,

which stated categorically that we will improve the provincial road networks. I

quote: Our Government will take several measures to enhance planning and

decision making for road projects and to improve information sharing with the

public and other stakeholders.

It also

affords us the chance to look at things in a different way. Good governance

means innovatively delivering services to the public by trying new things and

figuring out whether or not these new things will work. By taking a different

perspective on the issue, we give ourselves a benefit of choice. I think that is

important to note as we begin debate on this resolution.

I'm

particularly excited to speak to this resolution as a former city councillor in

the City of St. John's, as those of us who worked in municipal councils and

municipal politics there are many of us around the table here today

understand the concerns that are expressed by constituents that disruptions of

roadwork and paving can present.

The big

issue for constituents in the major centres, not just in major centres but in

rural Newfoundland as well or rural parts of our province is huge testing ways

that our current paving schedules could be improved is vital if we're expecting

to deliver services to the people of the province in a better way.

The

Way Forward indicates this: In the

first six months, we will: Adopt multi-year planning and early tendering of

roadwork. In fact, we intend to release a full list of road projects for the

coming year in January 2017. This has never been done before. Call of Action

1.22 calls for the release of tender for a nighttime road construction project

in January 2017. This, too, has never been done before.

The

Way Forward document addresses

the need for innovation in all sectors of our economy. This is just one example

of the province looking not only to diversify the way we do things, but to

better the economy and have better

outcomes in the operations of

this service. If we can come up with an innovative way to invest in road

infrastructure, while also reducing some of the irritants of constructions like

travel delays and lost time, why would we not engage in this activity or this

pilot project?

For

years we have heard the complaints, people complaining about the times of delays

and time tie-ups associated with seasonal roadwork and upgrading. It has long

been an accepted fact in our communities that in order to get this major

roadwork done, we have to suffer through delays and the frustration associated

with these delays.

No one

will forget the long delays with the upgrading that took place outside Gander

this year the hon. Member for Gander in front of me know it all too well or

trying to navigate through Terra Nova National Park this summer. I can recall

one day last summer when people were delayed well over two hours and took these

the public and government all were well aware of the issues they were facing

there.

These

delays at the height of our construction and tourism seasons have a major

impact. We often don't think about these impacts and how they affect the lives

of people, but think about it today when we're making this decision here to try

this pilot project.

There

are not very many ways to get around our province in every area. Not everyone

has the ability to charter flights or hire a ship, although I'm sure we could

try to ask the hon. Member for Conception Bay East Bell Island to see if he

can find us a couple of ships.

Most

folks, whether they're travelling to visit friends or relatives, or travelling

across for work or delivering of goods or for medical care, they have to take

the roads through our beautiful, scenic province. That effectively means that

the flow of people around this place, from place to place around our province is

affected by construction bottlenecks. In places like Terra Nova National Park,

where there is only one way through, those bottlenecks can back up traffic for

miles and, in turn, hours.

AN HON. MEMBER:

The good District of Terra

Nova.

MR. B. DAVIS:

The great District of Terra

Nova.

Tourism

operators find this very challenging as well because their clients that are

trying to attend their particular areas get stuck in these tie-ups and miss

their appointments, or don't get to experience the full value of their areas

that they're planning on attending. It's not really fair to these individuals.

Tourism

is one of our greatest economic success stories of the last two decades. Our

communities have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps that have been

devastated by the cod fishery closure and created a billion-dollar industry.

That's the best of what Newfoundland and Labrador spirit is. It's a declaration

that when we're faced with adversity, we'll find ways to get around that. We can

innovate. We find the creative solutions.

The

tourism industry has absolutely transformed rural Newfoundland and our province,

but the operators of these tourist operations need roads for their clients and

customers to travel over in order to reach these beautiful tourist sites. Now as

our clients have to travel through bottlenecks caused by road construction

delays, it can harm the operator's reputation or the feelings these tourist have

when they come visit our province.

I think

our role as government is to create the ideal conditions for business to operate

in. That, more than anything else, is what a government is supposed to be doing

to help industry succeed. So if we've tried out this innovative approach to road

paving and we found out that it had merit and it helped ease some congestions on

the roads and some of the problems our residents are facing, that's an example

of good governance. Improving on the existing way of doing things is exactly

what our role as a government should be.

We don't

have it within our power to haul tourists and show them a great time, that's

what the very skilled operators in our province do. But one thing we do have the

power to do is the ability to make it easier for tourists to traverse our

province and get around. This initiative we're debating here today, if it's

successful, will do exactly that.

For this

reason, I'm very happy to speak in favour of this resolution. This sort of

innovative solution, oriented approach to the challenges we are facing in

Newfoundland and Labrador has been and will be a key strength for our

administration. Newfoundland and Labrador needs innovative thinking and

outside-the-box approaches now more than ever.

People

with doctor's appointments and emergency cases all slow down because of delays

caused by road construction. That's an obvious health and safety issue. It is

one that causes concern for many people who live in rural Newfoundland that

might be travelling longer distances for medical appointments. The measures

needed to fix ailing infrastructure can result in traffic congestions and delays

and cost people to miss appointments or make it difficult for someone in need of

emergency care.

So if we

can implement a way of doing things that cuts down on the amount of time that

people have to traverse over our roads and be tied up in construction areas, I

think we should at least try to see if it can work.

Forcing

people to sit in their cars idling away while waiting for construction equipment

to clear the roads is frustrating for business operators trying to meet

deadlines, and citizens who are trying to make their appointments. I think we're

going to have a perfect opportunity to have others here talk today about this

initiative, and hopefully we can have a cross-aisle appeal. This is a very good

initiative that I think at least we could look at the options of trying to make

it work.

Thank

you very much, Mr. Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER:

The hon. the Member for

Conception Bay South.

MR. PETTEN:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr.

Speaker, following up to this private member's motion by the hon. Member for

Virginia Waters Pleasantville, I note they're bringing it in as a pilot

project for 2017.

Night

construction was a talked about issue when my colleague from Conception Bay East

Bell Island was Minister of Transportation and Works. I know there were a lot

of issues being in CBS, it was a huge issue. It became a big issue in my

district because construction was happening on Pitts Memorial Drive and there

was huge traffic congestion. As anyone who knows in CBS, the routes, that's the

main artery out of the town. There was a lot of pushback at the time, and the

media, the open line shows were pretty busy. A lot of people were frustrated,

which I can understand. Everyone has places to go and lead busy lives.

Anyway,

my colleague had spoken about this issue on numerous occasions. As the former

administration there, there was no opposition to doing this but there were a lot

of concerns. I assumed that by proposing this private member's motion of a pilot

project, I guess that's probably a good way to go forward to see what issues may

arise from doing something like this.

There

are things that I think need to be considered, even as we move forward. I think

we'll bring it to light, some of the issues that we feel are important, and we

had discussed ourselves. The number one concern that jumps out at me is safety.

Night

construction; I've witnessed night construction in other down in the US it's

quite common, and other places throughout Canada, as far as I know. Safety is a

huge you can't stress the importance of safety. As we know, we had a couple of

fatalities within the Department of Transportation and Works, which were quite

tragic; one on the Outer Ring Road and one on the West Coast, which was affected

by a flag person. Those happened in daylight, Madam Speaker.

We're

talking about nighttime construction. So you can go down safety is an issue,

you can go down with a lot of angles on that. You bring out lighting, so are you

going to have flags people? Will there be flags people? What's the lighting like

there? Will you have activated traffic lights during the nighttime? Personally,

I think it's a big safety feature with having a flag person, a man stood up with

Artificial lighting, there are problems with that, especially when you're on the

highways doing this type of work. There are a lot of benefits to it, obviously.

You're doing it at a lower as proponents of nighttime construction will tell

you, you're doing it with less traffic congestion. Obviously, it's nighttime,

you're not going to have the same issue of congestion. Depending on how close

residential homes are, of course, you're going to run into the case of noise.

Noise is always a factor that people have concerns about.

Another

thing, too, it's a different dynamic when you're looking at those road projects.

Contractors operate their asphalt plants usually during a 12-hour day. They

probably fire it up at 5 o'clock in the morning, which is a two-hour affair from

my knowledge of it. They run it until dark pretty much. A lot of those asphalt

plants now would be probably running around the clock. That's a cost which

actually will go on to the contract. So I guess value for money. Will you get

the same bang for your buck, so to speak, Madam Speaker?

believe, if I'm not mistaken, when my colleague was minister that was something

that was discussed about a lot, was the cost. Roughly, there could be a 20 per

cent increase in costs associated with that because you have your own staff

people, too. You're doing nighttime construction; it's outside of their hours.

So you have staffing issues within the department, to have inspectors, engineers

out there to oversee these projects, whether that be overtime or hiring

additional staff.

It's

like everything, there's an increased cost. Probably the number one thing for

me, safety has to be the number one issue. I know in the department there has

been a lot of work put into creating a safer environment based on a couple of

tragedies. In that department, TW in general, throughout that department it's

more I used to say when I was there, you didn't feel like you were in a

government department. You felt like you were in an engineering firm. There were

project management teams everywhere. There were more going around with work

boots than suits. It was interesting that way.

The only

fear and I say this pretty well from my own personal experience. When I heard,

a couple of years back, when people started pushing about nighttime

construction, based on what was happening, construction was in my district.

Safety, and I don't know how you I suppose during the daytime, a bright sunny

day, I suppose you can never make everything 100 per cent safe, but I do believe

that has to be the driving force with nighttime construction. Make it as safe as

possible.

Artificial lights are only so good. I have seen construction projects where

they've used the lighting, but most of the ones I've seen, the roads were

actually closed off. There was no moving traffic through those areas. Traffic

was diverted. So they just had a workspace that was lit. Around here, we don't

have that luxury. If you're getting on the Outer Ring Road, or any of our busy

roads and you're putting artificial lights up to do paving that, to me, is a

concern.

Another

issue too, anyone who is familiar with asphalt, is temperatures. You've got an

ideal temperature. If I'm not mistaken, dry and above 12 degrees Celsius is

meant to be anything above that is good for when you lay asphalt for tack

coats, the technicalities of it, for joins, cold joins and whatever. You got to

have appropriate temperatures to get a good coating of asphalt down, one that is

going to last.

I have

some information, but a lot of studies have shown that nighttime, obviously, the

temperatures drop even during the summertime. Above 12 degrees is optimal. We

know that a lot of our summer nights you're hoping you're above that, but you

are running that risk.

There

was one area where it was in the study there they based it on from three to

30 months after nighttime construction of asphalt compared to daytime, and the

quality of asphalt deteriorated much quicker. There were several studies done

proving this from nighttime to daytime. So a lot of that, no doubt, had to do

with the difference in temperatures from day to night.

Again,

as I say, I think it's a great concept. I think it's a great idea to do this, to

run this pilot project, but there are a lot of issues that I think need to

brought to light, which is what I'm trying to do now.

Another

issue, Madam Speaker, is your workforce. These are things you all think about,

but on the flip side of it, I guess the department needing extra staff, you're

looking at the contractors that are working on these jobs supplying the asphalt.

I mean, you can't control the hours that those people work because contractors

are out to optimize whatever dollars they can from a contract.

That's

something I guess within the department, they have their pre-start-up meetings

and whatnot with contractors. It's very important that staff get the proper rest

periods because not all there are a lot of great contractors out there and I

know a lot of them actually. I have several big companies that live in my

district so I won't be on record as criticizing them.

understand that they have to make a living too. Staffing is always an issue,

truck drivers and equipment operators and that. So you may have put an added

cost on them. And if the added cost can't be absorbed, you may get people

working excessive hours in order to do this nighttime work in addition to what

they'll be doing during the daytime, because from my knowledge daytime

construction, paving won't stop. I'm sure big projects you might try to convert

it to nighttime to get it done quicker; that's something I think will work. I

think you'll have both of it with the nighttime picking it up and getting it

done twice as fast.

I guess

another problem and it brings us to we're only a population of a half a

million people. I realize that a quarter million and probably more live on the

Avalon Peninsula. It's always an interesting point that I find how impatient

society has become. You get road construction on one of your main arteries and

the Twitter world and VOCM Back Talk

and Open Line are full of people

complaining about the contractors. Yet, if they're driving through roads that

are full of ruts and potholes, they're on about that too. In actual fact, within

a week or 10 days most of these jobs are done and over with and they're gone.

I do

understand that people get frustrated and that's the lives we all live, but I

always find that kind of curious to me. It's different if this is going to be

tore up for six months, but most times this might be a week or two and you go

with your patch and grind work.

So in

keeping with today's society and the fast-moving, busy lives people live, it's

an interesting approach. It's one that, like I say, me and my colleague did

discuss. He spoke publicly on it numerous times and it was a lot of

consideration being given within the department. But there were a lot of, I

suppose, concerns that we probably never ever really got to because it was kind

of talked about and the concept was being debated as for trying to implement it,

like we're doing now, for a pilot project for next year, obviously it takes a

couple of years to kind of rationalize. You have to talk to your construction

associations and whatnot and get buy-in from all of them because that is another

issue too.

Another

question too is: Will contractors do this? That's the question. They don't have

to. If they do it, they're going to do it at a premium. So when I get back the

value for money you have a $10 million job that if you do it in the daytime,

you're going to get $10 million of the work. If you do it in the nighttime, you

might only get $8 million. Is that the best value for money because you don't

want to frustrate drivers during the daytime? They're going to be late getting

home from work or they're going to be delayed getting somewhere or it causes a

lot of congestion and frustration. What is it?

I know

the Minister of Transportation pointed out, during the last sitting, if he had a

billion dollars he'd get every road done in the province. Well, I guess that's

the question you toss in your mind now. In the meantime, we're not going save a

billion dollars at this or save a billion, but are you getting the best bang for

your buck? As we all know, bad roads are a lightning rod and getting them paved

is usually very important to people. Many commuters on our busy roads want a

decent road to drive one.

So are

you getting the best value for money with this nighttime construction if you

have to pay an extra 20 per cent? That's $200,000 on $1 million worth of

asphalt. In today's economy and today's construction world, you're not getting

very far on $1 million worth of asphalt. It's a sad statement. At one time that

used to do a lot of pavement, but it does not anymore.

support this pilot project, obviously. We thought it was a good idea, but there

are a lot of areas of concern that I hope, before it's implemented, the minister

and his staff work out.

I can't

overemphasize the importance of safety. Safety has to be paramount with this

because I have a lot of concerns. At one time in my previous life, a long, long

time ago, I worked in construction. There was a gentleman who was the flag

person on the job and we worked after dark. It was dusk actually. It was just

coming on dark. It's kind of a sad story actually. The foreman gave me the

cheques. He said can you give Johnny his cheque. I turned around to give him his

cheque, I got about five feet away from him and his hard hat hit me in the back

of the leg. He got ran over by a tandem dump truck and died two days later.

On a

very personal note, that's the equivalent of a nighttime construction. Obviously

not in the same environments of which you have artificial light, but there are a

lot of dangers working in construction in the daytime, let alone nighttime.

That's

my only message: caution and concern. I want to be on record as saying that I

really believe, and I have no doubt, that the department will take before they

implement something like this, that it will be their guiding principle.

Other

than that, like I said, we do generally support it. If it means getting more

roads paved and getting it done in a hassle-free manner, we're all for it.

Thank

you, Madam Speaker.

MADAM SPEAKER:

The Speaker recognizes the

hon. Member for Harbour Grace Port de Grave.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MS. P. PARSONS:

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I'm just

waiting for my light to come on so you guys can hear and of course our listeners

at home. Here we are.

Thank

you, Madam Speaker.

Well,

it's certainly a pleasure to stand here and to second this motion or our pilot

project. But to respond, actually, to my hon. colleague across the House there,

the Member for CBS, he made mention would contractors be on board with this.

They have the option of not doing it. We happen to know for a fact that the

Heavy Civil Association that represents companies and their suppliers, who have

built infrastructure throughout our province, supports this initiative. So there

we are.

I'll put

the question out there. How many of us have travelled across the province,

whether it be this summer or in years past, or on our Trans-Canada Highway here

just on the Avalon Peninsula and we've been delayed. I've been delayed many

times, actually, going back and forth from my great District of Harbour Grace

Port de Grave to the Confederation Building here in St. John's. We've had to

spend a lot of time just sitting there in traffic.

Sometimes, if you're not anticipating this, we're not always aware that there

are traffic delays on the road. I was held up for I was over an hour late,

actually, for an appointment. So I'll put that question to us. How many of us

have experienced the frustration of traffic delays during daytime, especially

during the summer hours in our summer season when this construction is carried

out.

I also

took the initiative to consult with some constituents on their opinion on this

in the strong District of Harbour Grace Port de Grave which I represent, of

course. Nighttime operations are certainly not a new idea. We know it's done in

other jurisdictions and it has been for some time, though it certainly would be

a first for my District of Harbour Grace Port de Grave and throughout our

province.

We've

seen it in other areas in the execution of the construction activity performed

after regular business hours, after the evening commute, when many people are

trying to make their way home after a long day and after the daylight hours. We

know for a fact that there certainly will be less traffic on the road, which

could definitely increase the safety of these workers.

There

have been incidents where fatalities have resulted. We know this happened just

recently here in the St. John's area. So as a result and this is due to

speeding motorists looking to get home after their day at work and not adhering

to posted reduced speed limits and other warnings.

This

also provides a benefit to the public as a whole where construction activity

would not delay commuters getting home after work. Summertime, as we know, can

be hot. It has been rare in our province, but lately we've been experiencing

some good, hot weather in our province. We have had some high temperatures over

the past few years. Extreme heat can also have an impact on the health and

well-being of our construction workers, whether it's a flag person standing with

little activity or an operator performing physical demanding tasks.

Nighttime operations can address these potential health risks. Construction

traffic itself will have increased flexibility and mobility at work sites and

improve logistics in moving materials. Cost-saving results from efficiency

improvements due to the reduction of logistic issues, public traffic, et cetera

should also be noted here.

today's economy, in the attempt to address maintenance issues for all our

constituents, savings and costs and execution time is second only to

above-mentioned safety. Of course, this should come only to the above-mentioned

safety concerns. Safety is first, as our colleagues mentioned. That is obviously

my concern as an MHA and I would safely say it's everybody's concern here, every

MHA.

Should

an accident occur requiring medical assistance to be mobilized at the site, the

reduced traffic at nighttime would allow an easy path for medics to reach the

injured person.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MS. P. PARSONS:

Hear, hear!

Also,

after doing some research in going through this, nighttime temperatures, as I

mentioned, are better for construction workers to work and to be even more

productive. Night work helps our local businesses.

We have

an active cruise ship industry here in our province in our great Port of St.

John's. Due to the heavy construction carried out in our summer season,

businesses are shut down and this is a loss of revenue. It also doesn't really

put up the welcome mat when we have visitors from across the world visiting our

port here in St. John's, for example, when those cruise ships come in. Nighttime

would certainly help our local businesses.

When

construction work is being completed near a business, nighttime is best.

Construction work can block off an entire

section of a road and parking lots

affecting business profit. Nighttime work is certainly better when most

businesses are closed.

Fewer

cars on the road mean less traffic for the work zones. As well, a well-lit area

is easier for drivers to see. It has been proven in other jurisdictions that it

works. It works in Nova Scotia; it's worked in Prince Edward Island, Ontario

and, of course, around North America.

closing I will say, according to Bill Rieken, a paving application specialist:

In the equipment world, nighttime paving has been in practice in various parts

of North America for over 30 years now. My colleague for Fogo Island Cape

Freels is excited about this topic, I can see. Nighttime paving has been in

practice in part of North America for over 30 years now, so, many decades. It is

established, continually expanding and certainly not going away.

I want

to applaud our Department of Transportation and Works for introducing this pilot

project in our province so we can first see the measure and measure the

outcomes. Our pilot project will allow for some real evidence gathering as to

whether or not this will work for a long-term basis here in our jurisdiction of

Newfoundland and Labrador.

We all

know the Trans-Labrador Highway could certainly benefit from this.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MS. P. PARSONS:

I'll also speak for Harvey

Street in the Town of Harbour Grace which is the Conception Bay Highway and is

the jurisdiction of the province. Anybody who has taken a drive through Harbour

Grace in the past number of years, it's clear to see that Harvey Street has been

neglected for many, many years throughout the Town of Harbour Grace.

I'll

compare it to Mario Kart. Is anybody here familiar with Mario Kart, the Nintendo

64 game? A child of the '80s, of course Nintendo, I'm a big fan. Driving on

Harvey Street in Harbour Grace is like playing Mario Kart because there are so

many obstacles to avoid, from potholes and broken infrastructure in the road.

Maybe nighttime paving would allow us to get these jobs done and to get them

done faster.

As I

mentioned, it will give us the real opportunity to gather the evidence, whether

or not this will work. Here are some things that we have to determine. Will

nighttime paving mean safer paving? A well-lit, timed construction area will

easily be identified from further away by out coming drivers. Will that slow

quicker and make the work area safer? There will be a lot less traffic at night

so the number of stops and starts for construction teams should improve

productivity. They will not have to stop everything every few minutes to allow

the flow of traffic. We can all attest to that.

The

children are going back to school in September which is the height of the

construction season. It can be pretty frustrating. If you have to be some place

for 9 o'clock, in some areas you should leave by 7:30 o'clock in order to get

there on time. We've all been held up.

It's

constituents who call me with these concerns. It's also said to increase road

rage. Has anyone ever experienced road rage? Our viewers at home, my colleagues

here on either side of the House, it gets frustrating. It's said that drivers

are different behind the wheel as they would be if you meet somebody in person.

That is a major concern.

Will

nighttime paving result in more paving being carried out? Well, I sure hope so.

I sure hope to see that carried out in the District of Harbour Grace Port de

Grave, throughout our Conception Bay Highway, and I will say again on Harvey

Street in Harbour Grace. Or will it take longer to do because of limited

lighting? Well, we do know that we will have the lighting.

Again,

pollution, we have idling cars to consider when you're stuck there in that

traffic for sometimes as long as 40 minutes. Anybody travelling through the

great Terra Nova Park district, every year construction is ongoing there and

you're held up; look no further than the Trans-Canada Highway here on the Avalon

Peninsula just this past summer, the Outer Ring Road. This affects constituents,

residents from all across the Avalon and all across the province.

I have a

number of commuters in the District of Harbour Grace Port de Grave who leave

every morning to drive in from Bay Roberts or Harbour Grace or Upper Island Cove

or Spaniard's Bay to make their way to St. John's. It will affect people getting

home to their family at nighttime sitting there. It will contribute to the air

pollution.

So I

certainly would agree to this pilot project, and I hope all of our hon.

colleagues will certainly agree to it as well and vote in favour of this motion.

It's done in other jurisdictions. Excuse the pun, but we are behind the ball on

this one with regard to our nighttime construction. We're on the ground. Let's

try it, let's see if this works.

I would

encourage all hon. colleagues here to certainly vote in favour of this motion.

Indeed, it is a pleasure to second this motion. So let's see it happening and

we'll see, and we'll wish those professionals, of course, who carry out this

work a safe workplace. We wish them all the best and we look forward to this

now, this coming spring this year.

Thank

you, Madam Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER:

The Speaker recognizes the

hon. Member for Conception Bay East Bell Island.

MR. BRAZIL:

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

It's

indeed a privilege to stand and speak to this private Member's resolution today.

I'll start the same way I'm going to end, by thanking the Member for Virginia

Waters Pleasantville for presenting this and telling him that I will

wholeheartedly be supporting this. That's the way I will end it at the end also,

but I'll also outline as to why.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MR. BRAZIL:

I will outline exactly why.

There's no doubt the conversations here have been totally and will continue to

be around mitigating some of the concerns that everybody would have regarding

doing nighttime paving or nighttime construction of any level, particularly as a

pilot.

There's

no doubt, I have the full confidence in the department and the minister that

they'll carve out a project that they can test all the potential scenarios they

may run into so that they're cognizant of being able to say if this is going to

be on a go-forward basis, how we address safety, how we address the additional

costing, how we address the impact it may have if it's in a closer residential

area from a noise perspective, how we're going to be able to address the

additional piece of equipment that the contractors and that may have.

I like

the concept that it's coming as a pilot. When I served as minister of

Transportation and Works, one of the key things that I realized, and perhaps the

one thing that I got the most adverse pushback from the general public, was

around construction, but particularly around paving in the middle of the summer

or particularly early to mid-September when people for some reason traffic;

people think it's the summer. We found traffic seems to increase in that

separate September to 1st of October months. The minister can attest. His data

would show the same thing.

What I

did realize at the end of the day, people no doubt I guess our attention spans

and our patience are limited than they would have been before because we're

always in a hurry. There are so many things that are happening for a family

having to be somewhere, for medical appointments, for your doctors'

appointments, for contractors moving whatever product they have wherever they're

going. When we only have so many arteries coming into major centres, it has an

impact.

Unfortunate for me at the time, but fortunate for the travellers afterwards,

there was some major work that had to be done on the Outer Ring Road

particularly, and the CBS Bypass road. What I inherited when I took over as

minister was two major bridge projects. When you get into bridges, everything

comes to a stop. It's not even about routing one lane around. At times, you

actually literally have to stop and back up.

When

you've got 10,000 to 15,000 to 20,000 cars coming from CBS and 10,000, or 15,000

or 20,000 coming from Mount Pearl or 20,000, or 30,000 or 40,000 coming out of

the city at any given time, you get congestion, you get backups and you get

people very irritable, people late for scheduling and that. So that adds to the

confusion. Then you get the contractors who are on edge because there are cars

coming on particularly a lane that's set for one inside lane, are taking the

outside lane. Then you have the RNC that has to step up patrol. So it does have

a major impact when you do it in heavy traffic volume areas, no doubt.

So I'm

happy to see there's a pilot going to be put in play. Hopefully it will be

around no doubt I have confidence it will be somewhere where it has that

collaborative approach and that medium between where we have some heavy

congestion, but where we also have an ability to moderate and modify exactly

what we're doing as we go through it.

The

previous speaker had mentioned the Heavy Civil. I remember meeting with the

Heavy Civil. At the time, it was a big blow-up. It was September, we were 80 per

cent into our contracts and the general public and that became a big issue

about nighttime paving.

We met,

and no doubt, everybody agreed we'd love to be able to get to it. Mid-season you

weren't able to do it. We did talk about some of the restrictions and we

obviously had to get on and defend why we couldn't just change midstream what we

were doing. We talked about the concerns. The concerns are still there, but in a

pilot they can be addressed in a modified process so that you ensure safety is

the key component there, and you ensure you get your best bang for your dollar.

I was

fortunate enough to be able to travel to other jurisdictions to have a look at

this. Had we formed government, and had I been asked to be the minister of

Transportation, it's one of the things that I wanted to move forward because it

does have an impact on our tourism. It has an impact on our business community.

It has an impact on people's day-to-day lives. But you wanted to ensure you had

that balance of safety, the equitable investment and the quality of the job that

is being done.

There is

a process. Other jurisdictions have found ways to do it. It's not as simple as

people think just because you come in and do it. They do it in downtown

Montreal. I remember going and looking at it and getting a reality check that,

well, 95 per cent of downtown Montreal is not there in the nighttime. From a

lighting point of view, all you could see, it's like daytime down there because

of the natural buildings. I said I can't compare that to what we would do in

Newfoundland and Labrador, so you have to find other places.

Nova

Scotia and New Brunswick had found ways where they're doing nighttime paving on

the arteries outside of the cities so that they could still have an area where

it wasn't disruptive to residential areas. You're bringing in generators for

artificial lighting; you're also bringing in equipment at all different times of

the night as part of that process.

So they

did it and I followed up on some of the information. The data looked like this

could be workable. I'm glad to see that the minister and his department have

taken it, and that the Member for Virginia Waters is putting this forward,

because there are merits in what we're doing here for the betterment of people.

There's no doubt a whole collaborative approach on how we do these things and

how we make them work. I do remember sitting with the officials in the

department and having a full dialogue about what are the best ways that we move

forward.

The best

way to move forward and I know the minister has done this is engage the

industry because the industry has to be prepared for it. Sometimes they can

modify their workforce. There's specialized training that they may have to do

with them. There's giving their own employees an opportunity to say, look,

unfortunately I can't work nighttime, I have responsibilities for my family in

other ways. So you want to make the industry family friendly also.

So doing

it as a pilot and getting it out there, you give the industry an opportunity to

adjust accordingly their schedules and the way they do things. It gives them an

opportunity now to look at other jurisdictions who may have modified a piece of

equipment that can make this more efficient, make it safer, make it be more

beneficial and make it show that at the end of the day, the real data would

clearly tell us whether or not this can be the way we go forward on 10 or 20 or

50 or 800 or 90 per cent of the contracts that we put out there.

You

know, I do want to outline that people say nighttime; we'll do this if we're in

some small community where there are 10 cars a day. That wouldn't be the intent.

I'm confident that the Member who put this forward, we weren't talking about

that level, that you would spend 20 or 30 per cent more just to give that

privilege that people wouldn't have to wait two or three minutes when they're

putting a culvert in and digging before they pave the road, these type of

things. So there's a balance there.

The

balance is around in heavy congested areas or in areas where there's going to be

a big tear up and it's going to be a big inconvenience for people or have a

disruption around businesses, particularly businesses that operate in the

daytime. It's very important to be able to do that.

I know

the City of St. John's is grappling with how they're going to deal with some of

the things when they get into construction in the city itself. They have a

unique situation. They have as much business in the daytime as they do in the

nighttime, so there may be a medium there that they are going to have to come up

with.

I do

remember and I say this tongue-in-cheek, but it was funny. Anybody who's a

minister would know you don't make it as a minister until Kevin Tobin gives you

a cartoon and he puts it in The

Telegram. Well, my first cartoon was

all about the nighttime paving issue. He had a beautiful caricature of me. He

called it NyQuil and it was all about how you get rid of the congestion, wake

up, all these type of things. It sort of said Brazil will drink this, it would

make all of his problems go away when it came to nighttime paving. So it was a

good tongue-in-cheek process, but the issue was still there.

We could

say we were going to add additional contractors to try to speed the process up,

but for the period of time that the contractors were in play, it had a major

impact on people's ability to travel, meet their scheduling needs. It did have

an impact on certain businesses. We heard that.

We had a

couple of businesses at times threaten they were going to sue us for lost

revenues. I understood their frustration. You would try to go back and explain

this is the process we have, this is how it's played out for the last 70 or 80

years that we've been doing paving in this province. But we are open to looking

at new ways of doing it and we had to have dialogue with the industry and we had

looked at other jurisdictions.

Again,

the fact that we're moving to this level, no doubt, us on this side will be

supporting that. We see this as a great next step, the next step in improving

how we do things in Newfoundland and Labrador. You'll find on this side that

we're very open to trying new innovative ways.

Sometimes you have to try something and realize, oh, we have to modify it, and

maybe we have to take another approach to it. But this is a good first step, and

no doubt I would think it would be welcomed by the construction industry

themselves, it would be welcomed by the municipalities that are going to have to

deal with it. It also would be welcomed by other jurisdictions because there are

businesses in other areas that may want to come in here and be able to offer

their expertise to help out. So there's an ability here to develop some good

partnerships between existing businesses here.

And this

may become a niche where local companies because don't forget, the terrain in

Newfoundland and Labrador and some of the environmental challenges that they

face, would make us better to do a multitude of things anywhere else in this

world. Because once we manage to modify how we do that and our workforce is

second to none when it comes to skill set then who knows. Maybe then, this

becomes a spinoff business because we've now been able to compete in

jurisdictions where paving is done in the nighttime.

So there

are other types of times when in our jurisdiction here maybe it's too late in

the season or too early in the season for us to get started. These trained

people can go work for other contractors for a period of time and then come on

back when we're ready to do it. So there are all kinds of benefits here that can

be done. Before it couldn't be done because our workers weren't familiar with

nighttime paving, didn't have the understanding of how you operate a piece of

equipment in pure darkness on the side of a road or in the middle of a street on

one of our main thoroughfares. So there are some other positive things that can

come out of this, there's no doubt about it.

The

thing I like again about this is that it's a new innovative approach to things.

It's sort of think outside of the box because if you said it before, there are

times and I don't mind saying that I had to try to justify why we couldn't do

it. We use all of our standard things; it's about safety and cost overrun and

noise congestion and all these things around those types of things. But, at the

end of the day, there's nothing in this province that can't be done. It's just

having the will to do it, making sure you do due diligence when you put it in

play and making sure, more importantly, that you collaborate with all those who

have the expertise to do it.

Hats off

to the department and hats off to the Member for putting this forward; I'm going

to be looking forward to hearing a little bit more about the dialogue between

the industry and what they're talking about and how they're engaged into it. I'm

looking forward to hear new innovative ways that they're going to approach this.

There's

no doubt I suspect some of their engineers, some of their key foremen, some of

their owners and some of their workers are thinking about if we're going to bid

on something like that, here's what we need to do to modify our existing backhoe

now to have better lighting or a better backup signal. Here's how we better give

visibility to our flag people. How do you get that sign to stand out more 400

feet on a highway on a dark highway? So there are all kinds of things like that.

Some of

the companies here may start modifying the vests that they make for people, the

stop signs and the yield signs that they make. The lighting pylons now, while

they're all visible, may necessarily have to be done a different way. So there

could be another industry that can spin from what we've started here. It's a

great opportunity.

I think

we all have a responsibility here to promote that we're moving this forward. So

any business that has an innovative way that they think might improve safety or

improve the quality of the work that's being done and it could be the paving

companies because the reality is here, and my colleague had mentioned it,

nighttime in Newfoundland and Labrador, as we know, beautiful summers, the night

is when we get our cold periods of time. So maybe how they wrap the asphalt when

they travel, maybe how the plants mixed it at the time, there may be all kinds

of innovative ways that may open up other industries for us in this province.

So it's

a great start to what I'm hoping will be a way of addressing some of the

challenges we have in particular areas. That may be modified because some years

maybe we're doing 90 per cent of our stuff in heavy congested traffic areas.

Other times, it may be in isolated, smaller areas that we're paving a road that

was a dirt road for the last 70 years and now we're paving that. You may not

have to get into that. That will be your standard daytime.

So the

industry has to know that there's a mixture there. I'm glad there's no pushback

from the industry, because a few years ago when we talked about using polymer,

which was a mixture because of the ruts in heavy traffic areas, some companies

weren't adverse to it, but they were adverse to it because they weren't ready

for it. There's a certain thing that you have to have as part of your plant to

be able to do the mixture of it. So people weren't ready for it.

Since we

started announcing it, other companies have invested. So it's a new investment

for them. They found a new way of using technology. They've even become

innovative enough to be able to use it in a manner that we're hopeful the

quality of the pavement we get now will even be beyond what we expected when we

were adding the polymer at an additional cost.

So when

you start a process, while there might be a little pushback or a little

misunderstanding of exactly what you're trying to achieve, I think the end

results prove themselves. That was seen with the polymer process. We're

confident now that we'll get more years out of our main thoroughfares before we

have to replace the ruts. We've used it on the Trans-Labrador Highway to ensure

that highway lasts as long as possible before we have to do any repairs to it.

again, this is another creative way, another engaging way and it's another way

that our industry can take the lead and moves things forward. So I do applaud

the department, applaud the government. I applaud my hon. Member over there for

bringing this forward. I do look forward to hearing from other Members, and I do

look forward to being able to say aye in putting this forward and look forward

to the pilot as we get into this early in our spring.

Thank

you, Madam Speaker.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:

Hear, hear!

MADAM SPEAKER:

The Speaker recognizes the

hon. the Minister of Transportation and Works.

MR. HAWKINS:

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is

certainly my pleasure to stand today and support this resolution. I'd just like

to thank my hon. Members for making the motion, seconding the motion and putting

this forward.

I'd also

like to say a big thank you to the former minister of Transportation and Works

when he talked about the caricature and getting a cartoon made in his image. I

would like to thank him for the opportunity of just one month in office, I got

mine done. And it was with the Veteran .

So it was certainly interesting because it gave my department and gave some of

my staff an opportunity, when I celebrated my birthday a few months after, that

they used that cartoon as the front of the cake. So I reaped some benefits from

actually having that there. So I thank the former minister for that.

Madam

Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure for me today to stand and support this

resolution and to just talk for a few minutes about what we are actually doing

with this pilot project. One of the key areas for us as a government is to make

sure that we engage and we collaborate with industry. One of the things that we

decided to do early on as we were looking at the possibility of doing a pilot

project for nighttime paving was to consult with the Heavy Civil Association and

I must say that the president, Mr. Jim Organ, and the entire board as well as

the contractors were very receptive and certainly were very supportive of us

moving forward on this initiative.

I might

add too, Madam Speaker, that I'm excited. This is just another example of this

government being proactive and actually looking at I know for years and years

and years and I know the former minister must have been bombarded with people

that were calling in and complaining about the fact that they had to wait for

hours sometimes in the summer when it was hot.

However,

Madam Speaker, this government, we have reacted and we have reacted in a

positive way. We can forever sit back and make excuses and say why this can't be

done and why that can't be done, but in the end it shows leadership, it shows

understanding when we're able to take that and now change it into doing a pilot

project so we can determine whether nighttime paving works for the province.

I just

want to really thank all of my colleagues. When we discussed this and when we

talked about this in The

Way Forward , I got the support. I got

the support from the Premier. I got the support from Cabinet. I got the support

from my government that this is the way we want to do things. These are new ways

in which we can work to make sure that what we're doing as a government will

benefit the people that are actually having to face these challenges.

Madam

Speaker, I know my colleagues have talked about the fact that sometimes in the

summer we have to wait for these long lines when it's construction.

Geographically, we may be a large province; however, there is not a lot of

flexibility when it comes to alternate routes. We do not have the luxury of

having alternate routes whereby we can go around construction areas, so that has

created problems over the years. I know when we look at the Trans-Canada Highway

in particular where most of the traffic happens and created some of the

problems this past summer we do not have that luxury of being able to go

around these construction areas.

Madam

Speaker, I was actually sitting in my office this summer and I had a call from

one of my constituents who I know very, very well who was sitting in a car for

over two hours with her children and grandchildren in the car. I can only

imagine the frustration that must have been. We all know, as adults, trying to

sit for two hours in a car waiting for someone to flag us through; that in

itself is frustrating enough. Imagine compounding that issue and that problem

when you have children that are exposed to that as well.

So,

Madam Speaker, I thought it was important for me, as minister, to take the lead

to ask my government, our government, to support me in looking at an opportunity

whereby we can go out and have a pilot project. Part of the reason for a pilot

project is to give us the information we need. What we're going to do is

simultaneously, when we do this pilot project, we're not going to do the pilot

project on the Outer Ring Road and compare it to the Trans-Canada Highway that

could be between Badger and Grand Falls-Windsor.

When we

do the pilot project, Madam Speaker, it will be simultaneously in an area that

the volumes of traffic are the same; conditions are the same so that we can

actually do a comparison. That's part of what the hon. Member opposite talked

about when he was making his points; some very, very good points because we have

to compare apples to apples. It's important for us, when we make a decision we

need to know whether the cost is going to be 10 per cent more or 20 per cent

more. You can't really do that if you're not looking at comparable areas in

which you're doing this pilot.

So that

was part of the strategy we used, to make sure that when we do the pilot we will

have enough information, there will be enough data that will come from what

we're looking at so we can actually compare that with the traditional,

conventional way of paving during the day. I think it's important for us to do

that because we can gather that information and in the end, Madam Speaker, it

will determine whether this is something we want to move forward in subsequent

years if it's going to cost us 30 per cent more. Then, we're going to have to

make a decision. So we want to do 30 per cent and cost more than was 30 per cent

less in paving. So these are decisions that we can make once we have all of that

information.

So I

think it's important for us when we're doing this pilot project that we do it

right, that we know what we're doing, that it makes sense. And that we're able

to, at the end, be able to take all of that information and then make a decision

as we move forward on how we want to proceed with nighttime paving.

Madam

Speaker, one of the things that we really want to emphasize is safety. When I

became minister back in December and my first meeting that I had with staff when

we talked about through our briefings, I wanted to make sure that everyone in my

department every single person in my department was fully aware that safety

is going to be number one in my department.

I think

it's important that we recognize that and we realize that. Safety is the most

important thing that we can talk about, and make sure that all of our employees

who leave in the morning to go to work can expect that they are in a safe

working environment, and that every family and person who is leaving can be

expected to return in the afternoon safe. I think it's important for us because

when we look at Transportation and Works, we are dealing with a lot of heavy

equipment; we're dealing with adverse weather conditions in the winter. Some of

the conditions that we are dealing with on a daily basis are sometimes

challenging. When we look at that, we must realize that safety has to be number

one.

So when

we look at this pilot project we understand that it's going to be nighttime

paving and there will be some challenges that will be associated with that;

however, we are making sure that we've taken all the measures necessary. When we

implement this nighttime paving, all of the boxes have been checked when it

comes to safety because that is the most important thing that we have to deal

with.

I can

assure my Members opposite, as well as my colleagues, that safety is going to be

number one. That will be certainly something that we will be making sure that

all of our employees are fully aware of the fact that we will be adhering to

that.

Madam

Speaker, again, as I said, this is exciting. It's exciting for me as a minister;

it's exciting for us as a government. I'm just hoping and the indication is

that the Members opposite will be supporting the resolution today. I think

that's an important step for us because we can put aside politics and we can

realize that this is an initiative that is for the benefit of those people that

are actually going t